#like the whole plot point of going back to earth is generally really silly

[icypolargirl78]

can't reply to your comment to me, but yeah, i agree.

gonna be entirely honest. it's been a while since i last touched that part of idw (though i'm slowly working my way through a re read of it) so i completely forgot that the issue is call "all hail optimus" lmao. but yeah that does make it a little better in retrospect.

i actually find a lot of post phase 1 optimus to be really interesting because he slowly kind of spirals into become exactly like phase 1 megatron. at least in some ways. he treats his soldiers terribly, colonizes a planet that he was originally on decently good terms with (or as decent terms as one can be considering all that happens in phase 1), and his blackmailing of soundwave is probably one of my favourite plot points.

i really enjoy idw1 optimus because he struggles through the hero worship that zeta prime set him up for. the parts of the story where he realises that the title that he holds, the title of prime, is one rife with corruption and that he's carrying on a legacy of murders and other colonisers.

i really liked that he went back to being just orion pax after phase 1 ended and all the times that characters called him optimus and he corrected them was nice. it really did feel like he was trying to distance himself from the primacy.

of course dark cybertron took a hard left turn considering how orion chooses to go back to the title of prime after his battle with nova but i do appreciate that barber took the time to actually write optimus as someone with issues. he's a war time leader and in peace, even peace with violence, he struggles and does a really shitty job of actually trying to be the good guy that he claims to be to everyone around him.

part of me is just kind of salty that optimus dies a hero in idw1. because as much as barber does a good job of making optimus just the worst, he still gets to have that self sacrifice scene at the end and the knowledge of that kind of taints any negativity that the story views op through before. because i know on re-reads that optimus is just going to have the scene where he sacrifices himself to save the universe and everyone else is going to go back to worshiping him as a hero, which i think undermines the whole point of showing that he's a terrible leader in peace time.

of course that whole situation really only happens because of the rampant crossovers that happen in the series so who knows if that's what the writers originally intended for him to go through.

Don't make a post about how IDW Optimus is the Optimus the fandom always asks for, don't make a compilation of all the times he fits the exact personality traits/themes that people write about in fanon, don't talk about how most of the things the fandom wants from a complex Optimus are canon with IDW Optimus, don't make a list of all the ways IDW OP's story addresses the fandom's most common complaints about OP being boring or over-idolized, don't try to convince people that instead of daydreaming and making AUs and headcanons of a more problematic/deep Optimus they could read IDW and have a canon, in the flesh version of Optimus that's literally CANON with art and shit telling a story of what they thought was just headcanon/theories/alternate interpretations, don't--

[biomic]

Hi! I see a lot of screenshots and such from your blog for things like (I believe) Kamen Rider(?) I might be wrong please forgive me if so. I have always had a sort of vague interest in sentai media but never knew good hopping on points, do you have any personal recommendations for where an absolute beginner might jump in to watch shows like that?

if you're interested in tokusatsu, you can really start anywhere that looks cool or interesting to you! most seasons, aside from some anniversaries and the very rare sequel show, are pretty self-contained for the most part. diehard fans will make a big deal out of "good and bad starting points" but the truth is every show has been someone's first and hooked them on the genre, even the "bad" seasons (the poor quality of which is often exaggerated by fandom anyway) or the experimental entries not indicative of the wider franchise they're part of

but! if you want some real beginner friendly, you'll-probably-have-fun-with-this toku, my go-to recs for The Big Three™:

if you want to follow a team of heroes grow together as they fight evil in increasingly silly scenarios, super sentai's probably the series for you (and my favorite ^_^)

watch kiramager if you want a straightforward throwback to classic sentai. it's a back-to-basics season that gives you a good baseline of what sentai as a whole can be, while elevated enough by its stellar cast and infectious energy so as to never feel generic

shinkenger takes a more dramatic approach to the usual sentai formula, following a team of samurai recruited to serve under a lord who isn't telling them everything he knows. an incredibly stylish show that's almost sure to leave an impression

kamen rider began as a tragic hero, kidnapped by the villainous organization shocker and turned into a cyborg against his will, ultimately escaping and using his newfound abilities to put an end to their evil. since the original story, kamen rider has gone through a whole host of various different tones and storylines, arguably becoming the most versatile of the big franchises, though certain elements remain consistent like the near ever-present bug motif or our heroes using powers derived from evil for the sake of good

created in the wake of the 2011 tohoku earthquake disaster, kamen rider fourze was made with the goal to make children smile again, and that desire led to something really special. arguably The Power of Friendship™ show to end all others, and while its upbeat tone might not exactly be in line with Classic Kamen Rider™, it stands as a great entry point thanks to the passion behind it and its clear love for the genre

probably best experienced as blind as possible, kamen rider build is a rollercoaster of a series full of high stakes, mystery, intrigue, and Heated Drama Between Men™. if you want something more serialized that'll keep you on the edge of your seat throughout, build's one of the very best

i also wanna mention kamen rider gotchard, the currently airing series! we're only 8 episodes in at the time of this post, so you could catch up quick while still going through the backlog. very much a back-to-basics season, introducing pokemon-style creatures for our protagonists to catch in addition to the usual superheroics. it's been pretty cute so far :)

ultraman is a sci-fi series that typically follows a defense team created to defend the earth from aliens and kaiju, aided by the giant of light, ultraman. as opposed to the other two franchises where there's often a serial plot to follow and a centralized villain faction, ultra typically thrives with telling standalone sci-fi stories, usually aligning with a show's overarching theme and often compared to shows like star trek or the twilight zone, though recent seasons have been more willing to switch up the format

ultraman x is for anyone who's ever asked, "but... what if we could be friends with godzilla?" young XiO scientist daichi becomes bonded with the alien ultraman x and work together to protect the earth and fight for a future where humans, aliens, and kaiju can coexist. to me this is like, the platonic ideal of what ultraman is, and a perfect starting point because of it. also features several crossover episodes with past ultra seasons throughout the show, but it's all still very new-viewer friendly and could even entice you to check out some of those shows yourself!

ultraman orb, the 50th anniversary of the series, changes course by making the defense team a background component in favor of following amateur investigators and the mysterious, lone wanderer who's suddenly entered their lives (hint: he's ultraman). another iconic entry in the Heated Drama Between Men Cinematic Universe and a nice balance between ultra's classic status quo and a more modern ongoing narrative

i'd also be remiss not to mention the currently airing ultraman blazar, which i unfortunately have not been able to keep up with due to outside circumstances but have heard NOTHING but glowing praise for. it's simulcast on youtube every week with english subtitles AND an optional english dub!

pretty much all of these can be snagged over at nyaa(.)si, and x and orb can be watched legally over on tubitv(.)com!

[stitching-in-time]

Voyager rewatch s7 ep6: Inside Man

I really dislike this episode. It's not the worst, but everything about it bothers me, and there's no real redeeming features.

While one or two episodes about Barclay and Troi were fun, I feel like three is overkill, especially in the final season, when we have so little time left with our Voyager crew. While I love seeing my Next Gen fam, I feel like two episodes were plenty enough to feel as though we've checked in and caught up with them, and both of those previous episodes had much better storylines, which actually made a difference in the lives of our Voyager crew. This one doesn't do that, so there's really no reason for it to exist, since it wasn't any fun, and didn't even have any good character moments.

I didn't remember the plot of this ep, even though I know I've seen it several times before, so I should have been able to experience some modicum of suspense in this story, but alas, no. The script shoots itself in the foot from the get go by having it open with a hologram version of Barclay, sent to Voyager with a miraculous way to get home in a few days. Whenever they have an easy wasy to get home brought to them on a silver platter, it always turns out to be a nefarious plot, so as a viewer, I'm automatically suspicious of the Barclay hologram. And then, we have Tom actually call it out, recounting several examples of times that they were offered too good to be true scenarios that turned out badly, and proclaiming his skepticism to a somehow still credulous Harry. While I get that Harry is the character who wants to get home most of all, after Janeway, I really do think that at this point, the whole crew would be at least a little bit skeptical after all the times they've been offered false hope and then let down over the years.

I just didn't buy for a second that everybody would embrace this Barclay hologram so easily, not only out of caution, but also because he's annoying. He's doing Barclay's holodeck persona, where he's all swaggering and brash, and it's deeply unpleasant when it's not confined to Barclay's imagination. They have the whole crew hanging on his every word- they're all gathered in the mess hall while he's basically holding court, doing impressions of Janeway and Tuvok, and they're all laughing themselves silly, but it's not even that funny?? I get that the Voyager crew is so bored and constantly in search of novelty, but this hologram Barclay is basically pretty similar in personality to the Doctor, so idk why they all think he's so interesting and funny. I just didn't buy it, especially from Tom, who already said he thinks something is amiss from the start.

We learn pretty early in the episode that the Barclay program isn't what he appears to be, which comes as no surprise. We go back to Earth with the real Barclay, who has been trying to send the hologram and failing, which leads him to investigate what happened, as an excuse for more scenes with him and Deanna. While I love them, I don't feel like this ep gave them anything new or interesting to do, though the beach scenes looked nice. (But I just like when they film things outside in general.)

They eventually uncover that a Ferengi ship had stolen and modified Barclay's hologram, in an attempt to kidnap Seven of Nine and sell her nanoprobes. At the very least, they explain that the type of anomaly they were going to use to get back would have killed them if they'd have gone through it, but it seems too convenient to have them find a way to bring a whole ship to the Alpha Quadrant so easily, even without the crew. It also seems really unlikely some random Ferengi would have been able to hatch and pull off such a complicated plan, especially when the real Baraclay had tried and failed to send the hologram himself last month- we're really supposed to believe some Ferengi con artists who run a gambling ship were able to succeed where a Starfleet engineer failed?? And how did they even know about Starfleet's pathfinder project?? Sure, they sent their dabo girl to honeypot Barclay to find out details from him, but how did they even know to send her in the first place?? How do random aliens know which Starfleet officers work on which projects, or what those projects do?? It makes Starfleet seem dumb, and not very secure, if it was that easy to infiltrate them and steal their technology. Idk how they won the Dominion War if that's how Starfleet HQ operates! I also really hate when the writers use Ferengi as an excuse to be gross- that whole 'I bet she gives good oomax' comment about Seven was totally gross and unnecessary. And no, I'm not going to buy the tired old 'oh but we're just making the Ferengi be sexist to show how bad they are!' nonsense. We know the Ferengi are bad, we've established they're sexist, we don't need constant gratuitous sexist remarks thrown out in every single episode. I'm not giving any of these writers a pass for what's clearly their own sexism.

Once again, we have a story that gave away the bad guy too early, and made the Voyager crew seem stupid for not realizing what was going on earlier, especially when they should know better after seven years. Even when the Barclay hologram was outright hostile to the Doctor, he still forgave him and accepted his cover story again after one little diagnostic said he was functioning properly, and it's just like, really?? And then they had the gall to throw in a scene where Tom and B'Elanna make fun of Harry for being gullible, but like, every single one of them in this whole episode was!! If you're going to make the whole crew that stupid and gullible, the scene should have been something wholesome like Tom and B'Elanna consoling Harry because they're his friends, and everybody wants to get home, and telling him it's not naive to have hope, or something actually nice and heartwarming. Having characters who are supposed to be friends being mean to each other, and ragging on each other for being gullible, when this script went out of it's way to make them all more gullible than they would be by now, just feels like a lack of understanding or care for the characters on the part of the writer.

The Voyager characters were pointedly ignored this whole episode, in fact. An episode about potentially getting home should be focused on the crews feelings and plans, but we get none of that here. If they really thought this was legit, don't you think they'd all be talking about what they planned to do when they get back?? At the beggining of the episode, they have Tom being upset that they didn't get any mail from Earth last month- that's huge change from a few years ago, when he didn't even want to think about going home, or reading the letter from his dad. Obviously his dad changed his tune and missed him and wants to make up with him now- are Tom and his dad cool now?? Do they regularly exchange letters?? Are they looking forward to seeing each other?? We don't know! This episode glosses right over it! These kinds of character developments are so much juicier and more interesting than any of the contrived nonsense in this episode, but for some reason they prioritized filming scripts that give us bad oomax jokes instead of actually delving into the characters lives and relationships.

Tl;dr: A plot that's been done too many times before for it to be believeable that the crew would fall for it again. There was too much focus on other characters and not enough on the Voyager crew, but all of the Voyager crew felt out of character in the scenes they did have. A waste of an episode tbh.

[teriwrites]

Hell™ Hath Frozen Over: 2012 Wrap-Up

Reading back through this for the first time since I wrote it well over a decade ago was such a wild ride. It truly defied just about every expectation that I had for the story, from its quality to the content itself.

This shit was funny! The entire story read a bit like a cartoon - visuals like Lucifer opening a door to have grievances burst out and fill the hall, God lounging on a couch as he turns on American football, so many demons and angels driving taxis. The humor either largely held up or got funnier with time, with the inherent goofiness of reading old, melodramatic writing. But even moreso, it was coherent! The entire novella follows along a naturally unfolding storyline, with plot points remaining largely consistent throughout. At the end, it unravels a bit, but with more prep time and attention, even that could probably have been made to work.

I've always looked back on this story as one that I got so frustrated with writing that I gave up halfway through the month on writing it. But now that I read it, it reads more as a project that I realized was going to be significantly shorter than 50K, so I wrapped it up and moved on. With 30K, I really think this WIP could be written out in a full, satisfying way.

Strengths

Humor: As I mentioned, this book is just so silly. It somehow managed to take the piss out of Satan, God, CEOs, humanity as a whole, overly holier-than-thou Evangelicals, and the general concepts of Heaven and Hell. For a devout Catholic kid, it was surprisingly irreverent at points (at least for a very sheltered, devoutly Catholic kid lol). But it was really fun to chuckle at something knowing that I'd intentionally written it out as a joke!

Expanding Boundaries: This story is truly unlike anything I'd ever written when I wrote it, and I think it would eventually open up my interest in tackling unserious, witty short stories - some gems including a guy with a serial killer roommate/best friend, a coffee mafia, and a group of immortals led by the likes of Jeff Goldblum and Tommy Wiseau. So somehow, despite not being aware of it, this story helped lay the groundwork for how I'd approach handling humor in my writing.

Weaknesses

I want to make it clear that when I'm looking at stuff like this, I'm not actually trying to shame my younger self for making mistakes or having flaws in her writing. I'm twice the age of the girl who started participating in this challenge, and I still have plenty of weaknesses in my writing! But part of the reason I'm doing this is to see if I can find some of my own blindspots in areas I've gotten lazy with or simply never put in the effort to work on.

Inconsistency: This is something I think can be found in just about any first draft I've ever written, tbf, because that's partially what a first draft is for! Dropping plotlines, shifting character motivations, reworking the story as you're writing it. And this WIP definitely had that in spades. Wormwood and Yetarel initially didn't know each other at all, then had a very long, grounded history and general dislike towards each other. Wormwood needed to get out of Hell and be sent to Earth to get out of Lucifer's hair, then at the same time never could really leave Hell safely because of his role. The role itself made very little sense. There's plenty of examples, but I definitely changed my mind a lot mid-writing on where this story was going and who the characters really were.

The Ending: The ending is pretty insane. After hearing a little about this void-space beyond Hell called the 'Shadow Lands', apparently inhabited by a Beast that supposedly destroys souls and threatens to destroy Hell yet somehow needs to ensure its wellbeing, Lucifer and some of his demon minions' solution is to essentially send the entirety of Hell into this void-space to let the Beast starve, essentially?? Hell is destroyed, our characters basically die in the weirdest sacrificial way I've ever read, and I still can't really wrap my head around it. It's not even that I couldn't see myself finding a way to make an ending involving the destruction of Hell work, I'm sure with enough time and space I could manage it, but this definitely felt like a very November spur-of-the-moment choice.

Final Line

'All was well.'

Live Reactions

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

November 2012: Hell™ Hath Frozen Over

Wordcount | 25,002 Genre | Satirical?? Humor?? POV | ??? Setting | Hell :) Status | 'Complete' Draft, Retired

The Synopsis As I Remember It

Lucifer has gotten more than a little fed up with his day job running Hell™, one of the two companies in charge of the afterlife. Firstly, his office is literally overflowing with complaints from all of his residents - all 'the A.C. is busted!!' and 'this place is torture!!'. Whatever. It's not his fault Heaven™ has such stringent entrance requirements. When a Revival spanning the Globe causes the currently-living to all start working harder to fall in line with those requirements, however, Lucifer finds himself, and his business, facing a crisis. Rather than take the news lying down (there's literally no space to do so, even his house is starting to fill up with written grievances), he sets two of his personal aides - Yetarel and Wormwood - out into the world of the living to bring humanity back under his purview.

First Line

Lucifer sat at his desk, grasping the corners of it.

Characters

Lucifer - ageless, CEO of Hell™, so tired Yetarel - ageless, an employee, acts like he's smart but is actually a dumbass Wormwood - they're all ageless here, acts dumb and is dumb, I remember he had a dad for some reason who was also a demon who I think is dead??? somehow???

Pre-Reading Thoughts

Entirely based on the vibes I remember (which is truly all I can remember, I could not tell you two things that actually occur in this story), this story was somehow simultaneously hilariously irreverent and infuriatingly 'holier-than-thou'. "Teri," you ask, "how did a devoutly Catholic 14-year-old come up with such a concept?" Easy. I didn't. I stole this story idea from someone else participating in NaNoWriMo in 2012. Not 'was inspired by'. Not 'fanfiction of someone else's story'. Like, 'borderline plagiarized their summary from the project page'. If this story concept sounds like a piss-poor replica of something you wrote, and you were on the forums that year, it probably is. And honestly?? I feel 0 shame over that. Maybe this is a hot take, but I think that, in regards to writing for yourself, truly anything goes. Including ideas that aren't only unoriginal, but involve pilfering other people's story concepts. Now, I wasn't using this writing for any sort of gain - I knew I was never going to try publishing it, I wasn't sharing it on or offline for clout or attention or anything, I didn’t even really speak with my closest friends about it. Once you're looking into those sorts of things, yeah, maybe don't lift every-other-word of your summary from someone else's original work. But as writing exercise that’ll only ever exist on your little flashdrive? Go for it dude. AKA if anyone wants to directly lift a WIP intro from my blog and write that exact story with those exact characters and emphasize the exact themes?? Consider this your permission to do so. Just keep it to yourself lol (I do realize that I'm now technically sharing details about the story online, but I wasn't gonna skip over the project entirely. So, yk, maybe I'm a bit of a hypocrite here)

[myloveforhergoeson]

man at this point idc what the btr boys are doing lmaoo im so invested in how roxy & dak are gonna go. do we ever see roxy's pool date with jo & camille? i wanna know what they think about this whole roxy dak mess he's putting her through....

hello! i wanted to respond to this rq bc i've literally been thinking about it all day

thank you for being interested in dak and roxy i was so scared people would stop reading after i introduced that little plot line! all i've gotta say is... roxy writes based off life experience or scenarios she creates in her head... so... yeah... hahahaha

i did not originally intend to show roxy's pool date with jo and camille but i will write it tomorrow after i get off work and post it asap! i've been writing the season one finale for literal weeks at this point and i'm starting to go crazy over it so itll be nice to get into a different little one shot for a bit. i'll post it in a reblog of this question so we can all find it :)

more under the cut !!!!

right now i will give you a little sneak peek about how EVERYONE feels about the roxy-dak mess because i'm generous like that, and i don't really get to show everyones feelings on it in the story bc we only get inside her head... there's a bit in chapter 13 where we see a little bit of how the guys feel about it, but i didn't want to make it a whole thing and then it kinda turned into a whole thing 🤷‍♀️

anyway: how my characters view love and roxy's relationship through some cannon events and my own personal beliefs

jo: takes absolutely no shit when it comes to love, we see this when kendall has his thing with lucy... she grew up listening to boy bands and has a standard for how men should treat her <3 plus i think she's been in one non-serious "we went on a few dates so i guess he's my boyfriend" relationship from back home so she has a little experience. she thinks dak isn't worth any more of her time after he stood her up but she is afraid to voice this to her bestie...

camille: is a hopeless romantic and would go nearly to the ends of the earth for the ones she loves. she's a "if it's meant to be, it's meant to be" kinda gal and at age 16 fully believes logan is the love of her life. i think he's her first partner! she wants roxy to be as in love as she is and thinks that, while shitty, the whole standing her up thing is just a bump in the road on their way to everlasting love

carlos: pre-established to have never been in a relationship but he's like a silly jock so i'm sure he's been on at least a few dates! he has older sisters in my story (because he feels like he was written by a woman (me. i'm that woman.)) so you know he knows the proper way to show a date a good time! he thought roxy looked so pretty on her first date and he just wants her to have a good time and be happy. if dak makes her happy, he's happy! and he was actually kind of okay with the stand up thing because they got to hang out and dance together <3

kendall: captain (?? i don't think i made this up... this is in the show right?) of the hockey team in a midwestern high school. he's had a few partners and i know his mother whooped his ass (metaphorically) into shape after she found out he goofed around too hard and hurt someone he went out with on accident... as for the roxy and dak affair, he may or may not have picked up on the fact one of his good buddies may or may not like her... he's not a fan but will not say anything bc he isn't in the business of telling her what to do (she will hit him with her songbook very hard)

logan: while a believer in his love science, he's yet to find a way to quantify how he feels about camille after the party in chapter 10 :) he dated a bit his first few years in high school (mostly double dates with james? i also think is a fact from the show), and has had a few non-serious partners but he's never felt this way about anyone else! in his love science-y world, he can tell that dak does not feel the same way about roxy as she feels about him. if he did, he would've come to the party. simple love science!

james: good lord! he has dated anyone who is someone at mountain aire high school and it's always been to elevate or retain his own social status. so when he's normally a flirt for fun, or because it makes his boring little small town feel less boring, it's always been a game to him. except somewhere along the way of flirting out of habit with his new friend, he might have started to actually mean some of the things he's said. he thinks dak's a douche for standing her up and he's trying to make that clear to her the only way he knows how: vague hints and comments here and there. another established james fact is he's never been dumped, so i imagine this brings up a little bit of fear of rejection in him as well. he has trouble voicing his own feelings as well, since he's always trying to come across as perfect.

whoo boy that was way more than i though it was gonna be lol. if you make it this far, you deserve a medal. thanks for the suggestion! i'm excited to write the pool date... we haven't had enough roxy/jo/camille in the fic lately

[evilisk]

I Need To Talk About Lostword Yuyuko

What started off as a rant about the recent LostWord Easter event has basically become a rant about LW’s portrayal of Yuyuko. [WARNING: This post will have spoilers for the ending of the Touhou manga, Silent Sinner in Blue]

= = =

The recent Easter-themed Sword Festival event has only cemented LostWord Yuyuko as one of my least favorite portrayals of Yuyuko. While gluttonous portrayals of the Ghost Mistress are common, few border on the character assassination that is LostWord’s portrayal. Let me put it this way; if this version of Yuyuko was in Silent Sinner in Blue, she would have fucked up Yukari’s plan, probably for a food related reason.

I’ve had problems with LW Yuyuko, even before this event. In the prologue, they flanderize her hungry personality so much that she comes across as stupid. She even straight up says that her first thoughts after encountering the Crystal McGuffins were to wonder “what’s the best way to cook these? Boiling, steaming or frying them?” 

(This is basically how Yuyuko is introduced in LostWord)

I continued to have my doubts when I got to Chapter 3. Now, admittedly, the version of Yuyuko in Chapter 3 is not the “main” Yuyuko. But I still had my reservations about her because 1) Alter Yuyuko feels more like a plot device, used to develop Alter Youmu, rather than a character in her own right and 2) so far the only difference between main Yuyuko and alter Yuyuko (besides alter Yuyuko’s physical appearance) is their relationship to food. 

While I’ll get more in-depth about point 1 when I fully review Chaper 3, I am not even kidding when I say that alter Yuyuko’s job is to... cook food for the other characters. Imagine coming up with a premise that lets you do any sort of Touhou AU, and this is what you come up with. “She’s a Yuyuko that cooks food instead of eating it!” It’s especially disappointing because I know the writers of LostWord can do better.

This Easter event has only cemented my dislike of LW Yuyuko. Let’s go over the climax of the event:

Toyohime reveals that the Egg McGuffin was originally hers and it’s basically capable of generating Infinite Egg dishes (don’t ask why Toyohime would do such a thing. This isn’t even the first time one of Toyohime’s inventions ended up loose in Gensokyo in LostWord. The LW Lunar Capital is VERY sanitized)

Yuyuko refuses to give the invention back. She has no real justification, only “finders keepers” bullshit. Yuyuko refusing to return the invention is just straight up character assassination. While the Lunarians of LW are much chummier than the canon versions, this is still a Lunar Capital that’s supposed to have threatened Earth, specifically Gensokyo, during incidents like SSiB and Touhou 15. Yuyuko is basically putting the Earth in danger... because she REALLY wants to eat eggs. 

Even the story thinks Yuyuko doesn’t have the moral high ground here. Marisa thinks her excuse doesn’t hold up (because that rule “only applies to the Outside World, not to Gensokyo”) while Youmu thinks Yuyuko is just going too far. 

Despite Yuyuko’s iffy justification, she duels Toyohime, Toyohime loses, probably because the MC wasn’t on her side, and then Toyohime relents because...? I don’t know, she was really embarrassed? The whole idea of Toyohime accepting those terms at all is silly. The Lunarians could easily invade Gensokyo if they really needed the McGuffin back, but whatever, this isn’t a story about Yuyuko’s actions having consequences

Yuyuko finally has the McGuffin to herself. Remember how Toyohime just explained that the device can make infinite egg dishes? Well despite what Toyohime has just said, Yuyuko has decided she is just going to eat everything for herself.  

(This was my exact reaction to Yuyuko’s bullshit)

At this point in the story, I was in denial. I thought “Marisa and Youmu objected to Yuyuko’s selfish actions. Does this mean... that maybe... this whole event is supposed to be character development for Yuyuko, and that final battle is going to be about slapping some sense into Yuyuko?”

Yeah... no. Instead of forcing Yuyuko to realize how stupid she’s being, we instead side with Yuyuko to beat up all the other characters that want to eat too. It’d be one thing if the others wanted ownership of the egg but everyone was more than willing to share. Rumia word for word says “You can share some of it”. Yuyuko won’t even do that, and the other characters are forced to duel her for it.

At some point, the writers realize that “wait, isn’t Yuyuko basically the villain here?” so the scene right after has Marisa point out “it’s literally infinite egg dishes”. What is Yuyuko’s response? “I forgot lol”. It’s an obvious attempt to remove the blame from Yuyuko, they even have the characters respond by going “oh we thought you were just being really selfish”. But this is a weak excuse. She forgot? There was a span of, like, five minutes between Toyohime carefully explaining the infinite dishes and Yuyuko “forgetting”. Even if you were to accept Yuyuko “forgetting that she can create more dishes”, this still does not reflect well on Yuyuko, because now she seems like she doesn’t pay attention.

Summed up, LostWord Yuyuko:

Seemingly has no attention span

Is childishly stubborn about things she feels she’s owed, even when other characters point out that she’s wrong

Is unwilling to share, even if it’s for characters who deserve it (like Sakuya and Tenshi, who basically rescued the egg earlier in the event)

Is more than willing to put everyone in danger for her appetite

Like I said, if LostWord Yuyuko was inserted into Silent Sinner in Blue, she’d have fucked up Yukari’s plan. Now I keep bringing this up, but what do I mean by this? Despite what fan works (and even some official works) would have you believe, Yuyuko is actually fairly intelligent. 

She’s not a scheming mastermind like Eirin or Yukari, but in canon she is consistently portrayed to be smarter than she lets on. Silent Sinner in Blue is the primary example of this: she acts as Yukari’s partner in crime, without needing any sort of instructions from Yukari. Not only does Yuyuko execute Yukari’s plan perfectly, she even manages to troll Yukari a little. Yukari expects her to steal a treasure: 

Yuyuko steals... sake.

(Who was it that was supposed to be left speechless...?)

While she could probably be described as being high Wisdom (rather than high Intelligence like Eirin or Yukari), the point is Yuyuko usually knows more than she lets on. I’d almost say the constant eating is meant to distract you from that... at least in canon. I’m certain most fan works think eating is all there is to her personality. This leads to my main point: the food obsession isn’t the main problem. While I don’t like it, it’s also not something that was invented by fans. You can’t be anti-foodie Yuyuko because it’s something the official works themselves have leaned into.

You can characterize Yuyuko in so many ways while still keeping her food obsession. The problem with LostWord is that’s Yuyuko’s characterization and relationship with food comes at the expense of her actual character. 

You’re telling me... that this Yuyuko... a Yuyuko who puts her hunger over Gensokyo’s safety... is supposed to be the same Yuyuko who took her own life because she realized how dangerous her powers were?  I’m supposed to believe that this Yuyuko, who forgot that her Egg McGuffin could create more dishes for everybody after only five minutes, was also able to carry out a month long Moon Heist for Yukari without the need for any instructions at all?

I don’t buy it. LostWord Yuyuko is not Yuyuko. This version of Yuyuko is a womanchild who has no thoughts, only images of food in her head. You know you’ve messed up the writing when noted dork, Youmu, comes off as the mature character out of the two.

[emblemxeno]

JP vs. Localization in Fire Emblem Fates: Revelation

(Okay, for real this time lol)

Again, here’s a link to my sources post.

Fortunately, this route follows suit in terms of good localization quality after Conquest. It’s the shortest out of all the posts, since I don’t really have a lot to talk about. Mostly subtle line changes, references and a few key points of information that were cut out. I also went through Hidden Truths and Heirs of Fate to see if I could add stuff from those on here, but there were no big problems that I found.

Once again, the main part of this post will all be put under the cut. If a chapter isn’t covered, it means I didn’t think there were any differences worth talking about.

I’ll use localized names for characters and locations, unless I feel the need to do otherwise.

I’ll be using she/her when referring to Corrin in this post. (I flipped a coin to decide the gender lol)

Also, note that after Chapter 14, the translation of this route on Fateswartable ends, so I mostly relied on the English patch done by Serenes at that point forward. (I also used PegasusKnight.com as a reference to fall back on if I needed it)

Chapter 7

-A minor gripe I have with localization. The JP version compares Touma (Valla) to hell constantly. To jump ahead a bit, I believe in the JP versions of the End of All Sky/Land/Below tracks are even called The End of All Roads Heaven/Earth/Hell. The Vallites are also often called demons in the JP version, and Anankos himself is known as the ‘Invisible Demon Dragon’.

Another cool thing I just thought of too, is a connection to a popular Japanese short story. Zelda fans might be familiar with the story, “The Spider’s Thread”, which inspired the Ancient Cistern dungeon in Skyward Sword.

The beginning of the story has Buddha walking through paradise (heaven), before coming across a pond. The pond is filled with crystal clear water, and covered with water lilies/lotuses. As Buddha gazes further into the pond, he begins to see the depths of hell.

Sound familiar? “Azura is walking through Hoshido, before coming across a lake. The lake is filled with crystal clear water, and when she gazes into the lake she sees the fallen kingdom of her birth. Valla, the kingdom associated with water lilies/lotuses in the game, has been turned into hell itself.”

This association loses its meaning a bit when the comparisons to hell are a bit toned down, as well as when the Buddhist inspirations were kind of supplanted in favor of Greek renames. It’s not supremely important to the plot as a whole, but it’s something interesting I wanted to bring up.

-In the JP version, while explaining what happened in Valla, Azura eventually says “Using the art of manipulating people’s souls, he (Hydra/Anankos) made the people kill each other.” This bit of the people killing each other was cut in localization.

Chapter 12

-In the JP version, when Corrin asks Flora if she knows anything about dragons, Flora says “Sorry, I don’t know…The ancestral dragon of the Ice Clan has already perished and isn’t part of the legend. I don’t know what role it plays, sorry…” Localization makes her response “I'm sorry, but I can't think of anything... They've been gone so long that we don't even have tales of dragons in the Ice Tribe. I'm sorry I couldn't be of more assistance...”

So, the JP version explicitly says the Ice Dragon is dead (I believe Fates’ second artbook mentioned this as well), whereas the localization only says the First Dragons have been gone for a long time.

Chapter 16

-There’s not really much of a problem that I have with what Ryoma says about Corrin “having leadership qualities at a young age” but I wanted to do comparisons regardless cuz the word choice might lead one to different conclusions. In localization, Ryoma says this:

Ryoma: Huh... So she told us the same thing... I don't think it's in Corrin's nature to lie. And there's a leadership quality about her that just attracts followers. I remember being jealous of her as a child, in fact. Even at such a young age, she displayed the characteristics of a ruler. Silly to be jealous of her, right?

In the JP version, Ryoma says this:

Ryoma: Oh... So, she told you the same thing. …Corrin isn’t one to tell lies. She’s been like that since childhood. She’s always genuine and honest... She has this mysterious appeal that draws people to her. Seeing my younger sister with the qualities of being a ruler... Honestly, it makes me feel envious. …What a ridiculous thing to say, right?

Again, I don’t necessarily have a problem with how it was localized, but some might. The localization version might have people think that Corrin somehow was a fantastic leader at such a young age, but JP is more clear that it was about the qualities she had at a young age that would be valuable as a leader.

Chapter 19

-A minor gripe. In the localization, Azura says that Anankos uses his magic to send Vallites to Nohr and Hoshido to stir up conflict. In the JP version, she says he uses magic, along with the help of a body of water. That’s why whenever you fight Vallites outside of Valla proper, there’s a body of water nearby; Hoshido’s lake (and the ponds shown in Hinoka’s CQ battle which are in the capital) for Chapter 5, the sea for BR chapter 11, the burning falls for BR chapter 21, and the city for Rev chapter 13. Similarly, the consequences of being a victim to the curse are described as “turning into sea foam” in the JP version. Localization as a whole kind of toned down how much water has an influence on the story.

Chapter 23

-Probably the pettiest gripe I have lol. As Arete is fading away from Azura’s arms, Azura has a different reaction in localization and Japanese. In localization, Azura says “Mother? Mother!” while a voice clip of her in-battle pain cries plays. In the JP, she says  “*Sob... Sob*…! Mother... Mother...!”, while a voice clip of her crying plays. Her crying voice clip I don’t recall hearing anywhere else.

This is one of the few times in the you get to see Azura express a heavy and heartfelt emotion, since her rough childhood caused her to remain guarded and stoic around everyone. The equivalents to this scene in other routes is her death scene in Birthright, and her crying with Corrin over Ryoma’s death in Conquest; a normally unflinching and aloof character breaking down is a rarity, and indicates that the cause of it is something to take note of for the character as a whole. Localization softened this aspect, and I take issue with it, despite it probably seeming trivial to most other people.

Chapter 24

-When Corrin is questioning the phantom Mikoto, an exchange happens. In localization, part of it goes like this:

Corrin: But this can't be... Are you truly my mother?

Mikoto: I am. Even as a puppet of Anankos, my spirit at least remains my own.

Corrin: I... I believe you.

In the JP version, it goes like this:

Corrin: It can’t be... …Are you really my mother?

Mikoto: Yes... I became an Invisible servant, controlled by the Invisible King... Even so, I am your mother.

Corrin:  …………

Again, a minor thing that I don’t personally have issue with, but replacing Corrin’s silence with an admittance of belief could make some believe she has “reverted” back to being too naïve.

Chapter 26

-While Gunter is relaying his past, an exchange happens. In localization, it goes like this:

Gunter: I ask myself that, every day. I cannot understand the minds of royals. To you all, we commoners are little more than pawns in your schemes... Or weeds to be killed on a whim.

Corrin: That's not true...

Xander: Is that how people view the royalty?

Ryoma: Such an impression would easily breed powerful resentment...

In the JP version, Corrin, Xander and Ryoma don’t say anything. They just remain silent.

Endgame

-Not a major problem so much as a general thing about the game, but I can think of like... at least three memes that Treehouse inserted into the localization. Now I like memes, but there is no better way to date your media nowadays. One of them was Kana’s “That’s dragon for I love you” which tbh, is kind of cute and isn’t the most well known meme so I guess I can let it slide. Another is Felicia saying “I had one job!” when she messes up in the dining hall, which isn’t that big of a deal since the dining hall is very optional.

The last one I can think of is why I put this specific grievance here, and it’s during Corrin’s speech before facing Anankos.

Corrin: We won't back down! This is my... This is our destiny! Ready your weapons! Fight for your friends! With the Seal of Flames... With the Fire Emblem on our side! We fight for our world!!

Yeah, she says “Fight for your friends” which is everyone’s favorite Ike line from Brawl. Now, this isn’t even a totally inaccurate translation either, but it kind of just... makes the moment funny for the player when it’s supposed to be commanding and serious I guess.

But yeah, not the most important issue by far, but something I’d thought to mention. Hell, it’s not even that bad compared to how they made Peri’s, Effie’s and Hisame’s quirks into exaggerated and tired jokes. And the Beruka-Saizo support. Never forget.

-When Azura and Corrin are by the lake and discuss the latter’s plans to rule, Corrin says this in localization:

Corrin: I'm going to make Valla a wonderful place! In honor of the true last king and for Queen Arete. And everyone who fought... I promise to make them all proud.

In the JP version, she says this:

Corrin: I’ll make the Invisible Kingdom (Valla) into a great land. For the previous monarch, Queen Shenmei (Arete)… And for all of my allies who fought beside me. I promise.

So, JP version only mentions Arete as the reigning monarch of Valla. Which makes sense, cuz unless there was some wild “keeping the bloodline pure” shenanigans in Valla, Arete being the Queen keeps in line with what we know about the rest of Valla’s history. Arete was royalty from birth, as was her sister Mikoto. Arete is the one who passed down Lost in Thoughts and the pendant to Azura.  

[expired-blueberries]

i can definitely see gwen forcing a reunion with his parents on him, even if he's against it. her jumping the gun and pressuring him into things is... well. you know. i think even if he learned about her little plot and had a serious conversation with her and told her he wasn't ready/didn't want to do it/wanted her to stop, she would do it anyways because she "knows" it's the right thing to do.

its actually kind of interesting to me, how many plumbers went "bad", so to speak. not just max's partners, so to speak (although there is a pretty common theme there, 2 out of 3 isnt great). phil and driscoll both go bad in their own ways (and both have to fight the same kid and are both interested in the omnitrix...) and victor, though not wholly his fault once controlled by the nanite queen, does, too. im pretty sure we also heard about one or two other plumbers that did? and if we want to get really silly we can count the vreedle bros, who in uaf seemed pretty committed to the plumbers in the end (even if their grades were tampered with to get them to that point) but then in ov are back to their bad ways, it's really a pretty interesting through line. is max still one of the "good ones", since he generally doesnt do anything horribly evil? i guess thats what were supposed to take away, but it doesnt leave a lot of trust in him for me either lol

honestly, knowing that ben knows that argit isnt above selling children, still seems to be purely bad and corrupt and whatnot... not only would he not allow argit to be around his own kids, but why would he even allow argit to be the president of earth? not even in a "ben would tamper with the votes" way, but in a "ben would do everything possible to finally expose argit for the bastard he is, because politicians all suck but there is no way in hell hes gonna let a child smuggler be the face of earth." like if argit was just a little corrupt it would probably be fine, but this.... and the thing that gets me is, if ben dislikes argit SO much... then why does he let argit and kenny see each other? surely he has the power to prevent that, both through physical force and through intimidation. it almost feels like kenny became acquainted with argit without his dad knowing, as if somebody introduced them. kevin is the only one im coming up with, but... i dont know. they dont seem that close in the future from what i remember. even if they are, i dont know... it feels weird if they are, since the whole child smuggling thing is, yknow, A Thing.

i am SO down for argit being a great politician. he has the charm, the charisma, the smarts, the attitude and ability to get things done, etc etc. especially knowing that argit rose to that position so FAST. it takes humans like forty years just to raise to us president, but heres argit raising to president of the entire planet in, like, 20? 30? clearly hes doing something right, and one can only hope he keeps that up lol

the funny thing about gwen even questioning how much of their relationship was real is that, like... shes *always* right, just about. frustratingly so. but her track record past the first few episodes of af is pretty damn good. so if shes feeling doubts about their relationship... well. maybe that should be something that should be looked into more. even though they wont :/

(yeah, 100%. thats actually the problem i have with people that dont like that kevin doesnt stay evil after os, too, is because he has PROVEN time and time again that he WANTS to be better, he WANTS to be a good person. he wants to be the level of good that he thinks gwen sees in him (ignoring my own feelings on gwevin and the attainability of that for him). he wants to be a hero, and if not a hero, he doesnt want to be a villain. so for him to go through all of this, a fucking gauntlet of tragedy with seemingly zero pay off, with him still going mad and going evil in the end... i dont know. like, what is even the fucking point at that point. like just kill him off at that point, it would be more kind. idc if ov didnt make the choice to redeem him since that was on uaf, but the least they could do was not try to get rid of it. who is it for at that point? who does it serve? does it make literally ANYBODY happy?)

(the only time we ever see kevin consistently happy or at least at peace is when hes working on his car, so him working as a mechanic was great!! he had a job, he was actually upset about LOSING the job!! but then he... goes to the null void to work instead? even though he would have almost zero purpose for cars there? and he also burdens himself with dismantling the rooters, which, fair enough, i also wouldnt trust the plumbers with that shit, but like.. at what point is he allowed to relax? to just breathe? for the love of god, please set him on a ranch in the middle of a rural farming community and let him go buck wild, let him relax and have nothing to do that he doesnt want to do. he left the plumbers once and they pulled him back in... if he goes mad from overwork, i guess that would be one excuse to make him evil lmfao)

Annoying thing with the Rooters arc is that we never do find out what the fuck the Rooters had planned in the long run. Because the first-and-foremost matter is destroying Ben, yes, but Servantis may as well be holding up a big glowing neon sign saying "this is step three in a greater, larger plan". He grabs Kevin in the first episode of the arc and is talking about using him to make more amalgams, when discussing Kevin seemingly coming back into the fold he describes him as 'coming along nicely' like this is just a step in his training, when he sends the kids out after him in the flashback he refers to the Rooters 'subtle manipulations' and how Ben can't fuck them up, he's literally forming a group of hybrid child soldiers as if he couldn't just snipe the fucking 10-yo as he walks out of his elementary school, or fucking recruit him like the Plumbers already end up doing.

This is not shit you get from someone whose entire deal is 'this one child is too dangerous to live'! You don't see 'child has superweapon' and go 'well then I'll have to transform myself, my staff, and a host of children into hybrids through painful experiments and then train and damn near mindcontrol the children into going and killing the kid'. You don't talk about plans for making more, you don't talk like when the chips are down the big problem is the kid might get in your way, or like the kids you've sent out to kill him are still in training.

These fuckers had Intentions and Plots and they got completely dismantled before we could get an actual answer on what they were longterm.

[hangthehierophant]

So I watched the Pale Blue Eye on Netflix and like yeah… I’ll do sad gothic Christian Bale any day of the week. Poe as a character is far more interesting than who he was as a person. And the ‘raped and fridged daughter’ plotline could’ve been worse but

I’ve been feeling lately like too many movies are scared of their own themes. Like they’ll hint at transgressive ideas but won’t put their back into taking a stance.

Christian Bale is a sad cop who has concluded that West Point, and the military as a whole, destroys young men and turns them into monsters. The best line of the entire film is like

Army General: no! Don’t be silly! You can’t blame the institution of West Point for the actions of individual soldiers

Christian Bale: lol. But I do

General: “by your standard every crime committed by a Christian will be a stain on Christ”

Bale: “and so it is.”

That hit me right in the religious trauma! Many feels! The movie was worth it for that moment.

But like… the film fails to actually go in on any of this?

Something something, a woman with a chronic illness that cannot treated by the medicine of her time is experiencing hell on earth. Chronic illness and pain is hellish. Any efforts to relieve that pain are holy. (This isn’t explored in the film at all. This is my own belief)

The film would have the audience believe that the Horror, the Evil, is a family hiding in a basement covered in blood, communicating with the long dead. NO. The horror and the evil is when women suffer and receive no Justice, no Peace. The Horror is that institutions like West Point and the Vatican/Inquisition are continually churning out broken, violent men and refusing to take responsibility for the monsters they create. The horror is that we in the 21st century have so much evidence that nothing has changed and that this film could’ve easily taken place in 2023 with little changed but the costuming (and Poe).

The blood is not scary. The reasons people bleed can be scary.

Anyway. Personally I really dislike when a denouement (the final scene where the last mysteries/plot holes/lingering questions are answered) is a conversation with flashbacks. I don’t like it.

[babygirldennis]

This shit is fake bby!!!

Here she is.. My masterpost of all the dumb, illogical bits of info contained within these s15 “leaks” that make me fairly confident they are complete bullshit. It also includes my little tinhat theories that have absolutely no evidence.

I will be putting it all under a Readmore in case you don't want to risk it or if you simply Do Not Care

First up, I'd like to point out that these call sheets repeatedly give very detailed backstories to characters that have few lines which conveniently paints a picture of each episode's plot. And I'm not an expert so correct me if I'm wrong, but after looking at other similar casting calls, they only ever include the demographic and necessary skills.

Basically who in their right mind would write up casting calls that give away so many spoilers? Seems like that could cause and issue if they were leaked lol. But anyway that's my 1st point. But onto the actual content

So the conceit of this episode as a whole is that during the pandemic, the gang "gamed the system" and received three (3!) Loans to start businesses that went bankrupt. One of these businesses is implied to be the one started by dee and charlie who end up selling to Qanon shaman. Already this is so impossible baby.

1. We've already seen the gang try to get a loan and it didn't work. They don't have good ideas. Ur telling me, they managed to finagle 3 separate loans for 3 separate business ideas from an actual bank?

2. Maybe I just have bad reading comprehension but how does one have a business that is both fictitious and bankrupt?

3. If the customer is supposed to be Qanon shaman, an actual real life guy, why are the only descriptors white and male? They say he's shirtless so are they going to paint on all of the tattoos he has? And if so, doesn't that kind of ruin the dramatic reveal when charlie "throws in" the viking helmet? Why would he do that anyways? Sus.

Moving on

Alright this episode would fucking blow for obvious reasons but im going to refrain from looking at this through my gay dennis thruther lens because im biased.

Purely from a narrative standpoint, a woman hasn't been shown to be interested in dennis in nearly 5 years during the wade boggs episode. Ever since, every single woman he approaches has been actively creeped out by him. And now I'm supposed to believe that 3 "smart, passionate woman" (In Their Twenties!!!!!!) agreed to go on a date with him? And Anna even slept with him! Just because he what? Agreed with her? I'm not buyin it.

Plus the concept of this scenario lacks any potential for comedy. When iasip gets political, they always discuss a very specific topic using hyperbolic situations and flawed metaphors. If this is supposed to be a political episode, what ultimately lukewarm point would rob be trying to make here? So far we know they're ranting about

The patriarchy

Privilege

Socialism

No more personal responsibility(?)

The... nature of power in society(??)

How on earth would an episode like get approved? This shit sounds like a Ted talk. It sounds like it was written specifically to sound like a political episode so boring and pointless it would generate outrage and mile long essay posts from Tumblr users and reddit users alike. Almost like this one lol.

On a completely unrelated note, do not try and convince me that Frank "casual cock ring wearer" Reynolds is unable to perform.

Jeez this is getting out of hand fast. Let's move on

Ok now we're starting to getting into the Ireland of it all. Let me go on a bit of a tangent here about all this.. Now I thinq there are just 3 possibilities. Either this is all a publicity stunt and there is some truth to the Ireland rumors, the entire thing could be bogus from some weirdo fan (ps, if a fan did write this I want you to know I fucking hate you. You did this to me), or it is a publicity stunt but Ireland is just more bullshit.

I am going to assume it was a publicity stunt, otherwise I just wasted my entire evening and I can't have that kind of mentality rn. Additionally, I'm Going to tinhat here for a second and say that the Ireland rumors are true, but the details are different.

I say this because if they were going to do filming in Ireland, they probably figured that that information would be impossible to hide. In essence, my completely unfounded hypothesis is that this leak was their fucked up little way of controlling the situation while simultaneously messing with us.

Ok tangent is over, returning to the casting calls. From the looks of it, dee starts a "scam" acting class and has some very devoted students (Note that Tony was also the name of the porn shop owner. Seems weird!) Presumably after the gang replaces her with a monkey as the title suggests.

Honestly, there isn't too much here that's a red flag to me... seems like a nice little dee-centric episode that is the link to the Dublin angle. Assuming I am At All right, this could be a genuine plotline for Dee. However, the monkey could be a red herring and there could be a whole different side plot with the guys. who's to say. Next one!

Ah yes this is the dennis we all know and despise.. no red flags for me here really, I'm also running out of steam because idk if it shows, but I am majorly sleep deprived atm. Anyway I'm going to the next one

Okay this is where things start getting weird again ough a migraine just hit, anyway back to my earlier point about how casting calls would never contains major spoilers bc the people who see these wont be under any kind of NDA..

These ones reveal that bonnie dies. Again, that info wouldn't be in a casting call.

But also they suggest charlie has a irish penpal named Shelley who is his biological father. First off charlie is illiterate, although as pointed out by @undeadbreeze shelley could also be communicating in symbols. However, this scenario is still unbelievable to me for a couple reasons:

1. Bonnie's last name is Kelly obviously, and we know it's her maiden name because Jack's last name is also Kelly. But Shelley's last name is... also Kelly? In the context of this big ol hoax, it feels like it was written to show that look! his last name is the same as charlie's! That's how you know that's his dad! But It would be way too big of a coincidence if charlie's dad happened to have the same last name bonnie.

And 2. There's the whole mystery of charlie's long-lost sister from 'charlie got molested' but never any mention of a brother which according to this, shelley has been pretending to be his brother for years. And we all know how much rcg loves their continuity, it seems uncharacteristically lazy to just tack this on without any prior buildup.

And finally let me talk about mac for a second and specifically the line in gus's summary "both are gay men who are attracted to the priesthood for all the wrong reasons"

Iasip has commented on pedophilia in the priesthood many times in the past which leads me to believe that they are implying that mac is a pedophile? Please let me know if I completely misread the implications of that statement, but if not, then that is completely insane and one of the biggest indictators that this is fake. Mac is awful, just like everyone in the gang but he is definitely not a pedophile.

However even if i did completely misread that, it's still proof this is fake.. For all his faults, Rob put a surprising amount of care and effort into mac's coming-out. It hasn't been perfect, but Mfhp in particular firmly established that mac's faith is integral to his identity so Its unlikely that rob would throw all of that away for a cheap shot at priests.

Ok my brain is irradiated sludge at this point, but in conclusion. I hope that 1. I'm right, at least about it being fake (Otherwise damb that'll be so humiliating for me) And 2. This eases ur fears a bit. I don't want to lose all faith in future seasons bc I love iasip and miss the gang. If you read this far youre insane but I literally love you so goddamn much because I spent so so long tapping this out on my silly little phone

Please feel free to add on or message me your thoughts and opinions I need to know I'm not the only one who uhhh went a bit insane. And finally: whoever made these is a cunt. Mwah.

[listless-brainrot]

Hi! I know you love Haru and I'd love to hear your thoughts on what his personality is like? Not his bending or his ships, but just what kind of person he is. He was super undeveloped in ATLA and I'd love to understand him better and write about him!

hey, i'm glad you asked!! super flattering to have you come to me in regards to this question, and i've analyzed this guy to hell and back over the course of nearly a year now, so i'd be more than happy to give you my characterization of him

granted, it's pretty lengthy, and is heavily based on canon, hence why a lot of it ties to his bending, but i'll try my best to make it so that it's more about haru as a person, rather than his service to the plot

also makes me super happy to hear that people do want to understand and write about him!! that really does mean the world to me particularly, so thank you <3

with all of this in mind, here's a collection of my (pretty lengthy, sorry about that) thoughts:

haru being super undeveloped is actually one of the reasons why i find him so compelling- there’s so much you can do with a character of his caliber because there’s not much canon/supplementary material that can discredit your characterizations. canon, however, does actually supply a characterization of him that i’ve managed to compile and accrue over the course of finding nearly every single little detail i can find pertaining to him. this includes his canon episodes in both book 1 and 3, the videogame he appears in (which is straight up called avatar: the last airbender), and even the silly shorts.

(mild disclaimer, i know full well that the latter two i mentioned are considered non canon, but i like incorporating little bits and pieces of what they have to offer, as i don’t really have any other options. also, the videogames are the only supplementary material where he’s treated as a part of the gaang, so it’s the most personality you’ll ever get.)

i’ll start with main characteristics i try to keep in mind when writing him, and then talk about smaller, more innocuous details that i just find particularly fitting for him.

haru is:

emotionally driven. a lot of his decisions are more driven by emotion, rather than logic. this ties in with his impulsivity and morality. he’s aggravated by his position in the village as the only earthbender left, and this culminates into him still bending discreetly despite the inherent risk. he does this not only for himself, but to preserve the (possibly only) emotional connection he has to his arrested father. this is a similarity he shares with katara, who’s emotionally tied to her mother due to losing her, and haru is the one to understand what that loss really means in this interaction: “this necklace is all i have left of her.” “it’s not enough, is it?” by saying this instead of an apology or some other response, he shows that the feeling of loss she’s experiencing is mutually understood in a way that goes beyond just sympathy. there is nothing that will replace who you’ve lost other than the person themselves, and he understand that more than anyone. it’s also implied that haru doesn’t know if his father is still alive, as no one knows where the prisoners go, but it’s clear that he still holds a sort of hope that he’s somewhere out there, and that keeps him going. it just takes a little bit of outside influence for him to fully believe in that, as well as being reunited with his father again. in general, he’s also pretty receptive of other’s emotions, and is quick to come to their aid.

impulsive. not just impulsive, either- he’s got anger and resentment lying beneath his quiet composure. it’s not as bad as characters such as zuko’s, but it’s still worth mentioning. i’ll mention the impulse part first, though- generally speaking, haru reacts faster than he thinks. upon being spotted practicing his bending by katara, he runs away without pausing to consider the harmful repercussions of being found out (nor followed home). he not only runs away from danger as a first instinct, he also runs towards it in some cases, ironically enough- he’s the first one to notice and immediately run towards the mines once he hears/sees the explosion and suspects that someone’s in trouble. he does this without any prompting by katara, even if the act of actually saving the old man needed some egging on from her in order for him to accomplish. his impulsivity comes to a head in the form of his most dangerous act- him attacking the warden. i’ve already elaborated on that specific interaction here, though i will once again emphasize that haru had absolutely no plans past attacking the warden based on his body language, further fueling the idea that this was just a split second decision, one made on nothing but complete and utter impulse. to bring the anger aspect into this, he’s also unable to hold his tongue and insults the fire nation soldiers and even his town once the former leaves, and his instincts swing wildly between running and fighting on a dime with little in-between.

adaptable. instead of completely shutting down in the face of such a negative situation (and over the course of five years, no less), he brings it upon himself to practice bending, accept his role as man of the house and work in both the shop and on the farm, and other responsibilities that go unmentioned, especially when taking into account that his father is apparently the leader of his village. this is where you could start paralleling him well to sokka, which i have done before, but i will make this more haru-oriented. there is definitely a lot more to be inferred with this particular aspect of him, but i will say that it takes someone of strong will to adapt to the situations presented in his episode, and learning to live with the grim reality of fire nation occupation. to run down what we see again- soldiers freely patrolling the villages, soldiers overtaxing the villagers, soldiers entering wherever they wish unannounced, soldiers stealing away people in the night without much resistance, soldiers forcing villagers to work in the coal mines to gather the coal needed for their ships, and soldiers forcing captured earthbenders to build fire nation ships. this is all off of the top of my head, so i could be missing a lot, but again, seeing haru still be as morally oriented and determined as he is after all of this, it’s pretty impressive and telling of his adaptive capabilities. to take this one step further, he’s also extremely adaptable when it comes to working with others, as in the games he fills his role as a necessary component of the gaang without conflicting sokka or other preexisting roles, and in book 3, he finds his place amongst teo and the duke, taking the most initiative amongst the three.

lonely. a snippet from his personality bio on avatarspirit.net calls him “lonely and brave”, and i think that’s especially fitting for his character. he only had his mom for five whole years after every other earthbender was taken away, and this is without mentioning the ostracization he faced simply being one, given how the fire nation constantly demoralizes his country’s benders and likens them to savages. the village he lives in also appears to be full of old folks, so it’s not very likely that he had friends his age that were even in town, especially if we consider the circumstances of following book 2 episodes with the earth army recruiters. (it’s also unlikely that his friends are alive if they did join the army- take a gander at this line from zuko alone: Gow: Just thought someone ought to tell you, your son's battalion got captured. You boys hear what the Fire Nation did with their last group of Earth Kingdom prisoners? Soldier: Dressed them up in Fire Nation uniforms and put them on the frontline unarmed, way I heard it.  Then they just watched.) furthermore, it’s not likely that haru could’ve left his little village prior to its occupation- the games imply he’d been to omashu previously, but the circumstances of the war make this unlikely, unless he was super young. given his not always pleasant attitude and sullen expression we sometimes see him with, it’s not hard to imagine that the effects of him being so alone without the connections he needs has affected him deeply.

some other things:

-he’s horrible at lying (”they’re crazy! i mean, just look at how they’re dressed” is that really the best excuse you could’ve come up with??). -he doesn’t like keeping his hands/arms still (arms are usually crossed, sometimes gestures as he talks, hands usually balled as if expecting a fight). -he’s pretty outwardly expressive (for someone who’s supposed to be hiding most of the time, he tends to wear his emotions/intentions on his sleeve). -he can’t bite his tongue (especially when it comes to something that goes against his personal beliefs). -he doesn’t know how to react to touch (katara hugging him takes him by surprise both times, and he doesn’t reciprocate often, if anything he reacts stiffly) -he’s particular about his appearance (notably in the games, he makes negative comments about people touching his hair, and there’s also. sokka’s comments in book 3. sigh.) -he’s considered dangerous/sensitive by others (note sokka’s comments in book 1, and katara’s comments in the school time shipping short) -he lives a busy personal life (works both in the family shop and on the family farm, and has probably had to work in the coal mines at some point, though this is speculative) -he’s not above poking/having fun (in the games, he’s not above making fun of sokka and his comments about benders, and jumps at the opportunity to ride the omashu mail chutes) -he’s family oriented (count how many times he talks about his parents, it is many times i assure you, it’s important to note that he’s one of the few atla characters to actually have both parents as well as a decent relationship with them) -he has a tendency to idealize. he talks about his father fighting against the fire nation even when horribly outnumbered. it wouldn’t be surprising if he idealized the ideal of rebellion (which would later bite him given that:) -he’s a part of the first successful earth kingdom rebellion. this is mentioned on the wiki, and is unfortunately not shown in the show. it should’ve been, though. -he’s dramatic. he has an entire cliff he brings katara up to just to be dramatic and spill his sad backstory. he needs to be encouraged to save the old man, but he does it in the most dramatic way possible- he really didn’t have to stop the entire avalanche AND push it back into the mines. drama king. -he is very lucky. this can apply to anyone who encounters the gaang, but honestly, given his personality and a few things i’ve mentioned above, it’s a miracle that he’d survived as long as he did without detection nor suspicion. -he’s creative. (this one is much more speculative, but he does create huge statues of katara and ty lee pretty quickly, maybe he’s done similar things before)

to summarize: he’s a lonely impulsive idealist who isn’t afraid to throw hands if necessary and is also very attached to his dad <3 his connection to his dad makes up at least 75% of his personality

[elencelebrindal]

If I'm not mistaken you've now read/watched the three mxtx works and WoH. How would you rank them following personal preference? Which main couple did you like the most? Favorite plot twists in all four?

Yep, I did. I still have to read Faraway Wanderers though. Can't wait to.

This came out to be quite a long post, so I'll put it under the read more thingy.

Now, how would I rank them?

I'll have Tian Guan Ci Fu at the top, no doubts. It's my absolute favorite among all these four, and will probably remain my favorite even after I finally get to read the huge thing that's 2ha. It's the perfect balance of a story with no characters left unexplained (except for the minor ones and RIP Hua Cheng's backstory, why did mxtx rob us so much), of characters being unique all in different ways, and of a romance that, while being absolutely the main focus of the novel, is not overwhelming. For me, an aro/ace person, the romance written in TGCF is so good that it made even me stupidly happy. I don't get such big smiles on my face while reading my own romantic content.

This is the ONLY novel I've ever read that doesn't have a single character I hate in it. Only one, maybe two at most, that I dislike. That's it. Everyone's good. Everyone.

Then I'll definitely have Word of Honor. Just like TGCF, it's a really good balance between an interesting story (I was literally squirming in my seat while impatiently waiting for things to be revealed, enjoying every second of it) and a subtle romance that was still obvious enough to make me wonder what the hell happened with censorship in this drama. Not that I'm complaining though.

Almost all the characters are incredibly good. They have depth to them, all the main ones have either a satisfying backstory or a beautifully crafted development.

And this is it for the ranking. I wrote way more than I should have, but oh well.

After that, it's a tie between Mo Dao Zu Shi and Scum Villain. I don't want to favor one over the other, because I genuinely like them the same. Scum Villain is really underrated, and while I understand it somewhat, it's really unfair.

MDZS (and The Untamed) has a story that draws you to it, especially if you (like me) have an obsession with all things dark and spooky and terrifying like the demonic cultivation in this, like the whole mystery they have to solve with body parts leading them to the solution. The drama, as good as it was, really didn't do justice to the spook factor of using dismembered parts of a corpse to move around.

SVSSS is straight up weird, literally an isekai but make it Chinese. I think the best part of it is Shen Yuan panicking and cussing everyone out every time something happens around him, though... I really loved the story and the way it played out. I especially liked how the novel kept mentioning Proud Immortal Demon Way and compared the events of that book to the events that were happening in that book's world.

But why do I prefer Word of Honor to them? Well, it's simple. There's some aspects of the romance that don't resonate well with me.

WangXian is a beautiful couple, and they deserve all the happiness in the world (they have a canonic son!!!!!!!!), but Wei WuXian's initial obliviousness made me really uncomfortable at times. Not because he didn't know Lan WangJi was in love with him (the fool! thank goodness for Guanyin Temple), but because he kept teasing Lan WangJi about it while the latter was drunk. I mean, I get it. If you don't know, you don't realize what you're doing. But as a person that easily suffers from people making fun of me behind my back... it kinds struck a nerve. I still love them to pieces, though, they're so good together.

BingQiu, well... this is a rollercoaster of a couple. Again, I absolutely love them together, but some parts come off almost as scenes where consent is thrown to the wind. As a reader you know Shen QingQiu is willing and in love (gods, they married each other, I'd be a fool to say the opposite), but there should be a limit to how many times a willing person should say "No" in such a novel. This is mostly me being my aro/ace self, though. I don't really understand what goes on in the world of intimacy between people because I (literally) don't give a fuck, so I'm probably reading too much where there's too little. Don't take this as me not liking BingQiu, I'm in love with them and I desperately need more content.

Favorite plot twists, eh? Okay, big SPOILER ALERT from here onwards. And I mean it. BIG. SPOILER. ALERT.

Now, which main couple did I like the most?

Hualian. I don't even need to think about it. Bonus point because they're both out of their minds and the extras show it.

I said it before, and I'll say it again. I never have smiles so big and goofy in front of anything else, not even my own stuff. Hualian genuinely makes me happy.

Stop reading if you haven't finished all four of these, please.

...

Okay, here I go.

WoH:

Wen KeXing faking his death and telling basically everyone but Zhou ZiShu.

The villain being Zhao Jing; I was actually fooled and thought the main bastard of the series was Gao Chong.

Episode 35, and I'm not saying anything else. Although, as soon as that son of a bitch put his hands on Cao Weining's face like that, I genuinely knew what was going to happen.

The hairpin being the key for the armory. That was so stunning I had to pause the episode for a second and take a walk around the house.

MDZS:

Jin GuangYao being the villain. And being an amazing villain, on top of that.

Nie Huaisang. Fuck's sake, that man fooled the entire fandom just like that. I don't think many people realized he was the one behind everything.

The golden core transplant reveal. I'm sure that more experienced readers and viewers (aka people that had read/watched a ton more cultivation world stuff) had hints of it, but when I watched The Untamed I never read/watched anything remotely close to this genre. It hit me like a brick and I sat in front of the screen in shock.

SVSSS:

Shang QingHua being Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky. It's such a silly thing, but it made me pause for a good five minutes. I wasn't expecting it in the slightest.

The whole thing with the Old Palace Master. The man belongs to the dumpster he never got thrown into.

Tianlang-Jun not actually being the villain. Poor demon, he just wanted to continue with the questionable hobby of reading porn and daydreaming about Shen QingQiu's relationships.

I think I had another one, but it's late and I'm probably forgetting it.

TGCF:

Oh boy, where do I belong? Ah yes, the entirety of book 4. Took me out on the spot.

Jun Wu being Bai WuXiang completely blew me away. That was probably the biggest plot twist in the history of plot twists.

Also, Ling Wen knowing, and her being the creator of the Brocade Immortal.

Fu Yao and Nan Feng being Feng Xin and Mu Qing. For some reason, even if it's kinda obvious when you take a good look at them, it never clicked before being revealed.

On the same note, Ming Yi being He Xuan, and the Earth Master being actually dead. What a ride that arc has been for me.

One of the most important details, however... I got it myself. The ring Hua Cheng gives to Xie Lian. I see so many people saying that they didn't expect the ring to be his ashes, but I did something I generally can't stop myself from doing. I guessed something tremendously important by accident, something I do with many many books so I can ruin the experience for myself. I was literally sitting down, taking a break from reading (I devoured TGCF in 3 days, I needed that break lol), and all of a sudden this goddamn revelation descend upon me like the holy spirit, completely out of the blue. I just sat up, looked at the screen, and went "the ring is is fucking ashes, isn't it?", and completely ruined the surprise for myself.

And this is it.

If there's more I forgot (probably) I don't know. For now, this is my answer. Way too long, as always.

[giorno-plays-piano]

Impersonator

Pairing: Loki x Reader

Warnings: yandere, obsession, stalking, death of minor character.

Words: 1953.

Summary: Meeting a cosplayer in Berlin isn’t a big deal, really. You don’t actually know why you are drawn to this guy in his stunning horned helmet, standing on the train with a seidr in his hand.

P.S. I own the plot of this story to amazing @caffiend-queen​ and my determination to write it to lovely @kinathewolf​ <3 Although I changed the story a little (this post made us discuss the idea), I hope you will like it!

_____________________

Waking up when it was barely six, you kept yawning and rubbing your eyes while sitting on the train. You worked for one of the thousands of start-ups in Berlin, and your boss always liked to start pretty early. Well, despite waking up when it was still dark, you didn’t mind, really – the U-Bahn was much less busy now than thirty minutes later, and you didn’t have to stand the whole way to your station.

Today was a bit different, though. Not that there were too many people, but that one guy with his horned helmet looked so fantastic you simply couldn’t take your eyes off him. He had entered on the Bismarckstraße station, and since then you had been staring at him shamelessly. He was the spitting image of Loki, that god from Asgard, the one who had been released by Avengers not so long ago for his aid in protection of Earth from an invading alien force. Now Loki had his own fan club, and this guy was probably one of the squad. Seeing him in a full suit wasn’t surprising either – tomorrow was the first day of Comic Con, so he was probably going for a cosplay catwalk rehearsal before the event.

No one was really paying attention to him as he stood silently near the door with his seidr, but you just couldn’t help yourself. Come on, he was probably the most handsome guy you had seen in years, not even mentioning his gorgeous costume. Although you had never been Loki’s fan – for God’s sake, you still remembered that day in Stuttgart – this guy’s passion for cosplay was admirable.

When you reached Wittenbergplatz, a group of cheerful tourists entered the train, and the guy had to move further, taking a place close to yours. Of course, you still stared at him in awe, and he quickly noticed you. His piercing gaze finally made you realize it was unacceptable to gawk at someone like this, and you averted your eyes, feeling your cheeks growing hot. The cosplayer chuckled at your reaction.

“I’m so sorry!” You muttered, clenching the fabric of your jacket. “I just- ugh, I mean, your cosplay is stunning!” Now that you said it, you were just too humiliated to add anything. Why couldn’t you be like all other people who didn’t harass the poor guy with them staring? Of course, no one would be comfortable with some creepy girl watching over them.

But the guy didn’t look worried or embarrassed even the slightest bit. When you saw his face, you realized he was amused as he looked at you with a grin on his face. Now you even felt a little scared because there was something animalistic in his gaze.

“Thank you. I was spending day and night crafting this costume.” He was smiling, and you realized he was probably playing the role of Loki now.

Oh damn, of course. Being a cosplayer meant not only wearing a costume of your character but being this character, behaving like them, speaking like them, sometimes even moving like them. This guy was doing exactly this, and, to be honest, he was really good at acting since for a minute you believed he wasn’t just a mere human.

“I’m sure you will be the winner of the contest this year.” You smiled shyly at him, still embarrassed at your behaviour earlier, and the guy laughed at you a little. God, you felt so terribly awkward.

“Thank you. If my brother won’t show up, I’m sure I’ll have a chance.” For a second you thought there was something bittersweet in his eyes, but then it was gone, and the cosplay rose to his feet, shining in the electric light of the subway. “This is my stop. Have a good day, my lady.”

Of course, you barely nodded at him, felling like you’re gonna explode from the way he called you and how the guy bowed his head a bit at you as if you truly were some Asgardian goddess. Minutes later you would curse yourself for being so stupid to not even ask his cosplayer’s nickname – how on Earth were you going to find his profile on Facebook now? Since you were in the middle of a new marketing campaign, your boss would never let you leave tomorrow to visit Comic Con, and that was your only chance to ever see that amazing guy again.

Ugh, living with that useless brain of yours was quite a challenge.

You had already bid farewell to the cosplayer since you knew meeting him by chance again in a city as big as Berlin was impossible – especially if without his costume and wig and makeup the guy would be unrecognizable. The next evening you were sitting in the train just like all other evenings when you were coming late from work, a bag with a chicken sub in your hands along with an already cold cup of tea. You sighed, thinking of Comic Con and all the fun people were having there. Damn, next year you would definitely take a short vacation to finally visit the convention. Maybe you would have a chance to meet that mysterious guy again.

“It smells nice.”

You immediately raised your head, staring at the cold blue eyes of the guy you met yesterday’s morning. He was still wearing his horned helmet and shining golden armor, the Scepter in his hand. He sat close to you again, and you suddenly found the courage to smile at him widely. God, it was happening. He was really here, with you.

Was he coming back from Comic Con? You thought they finished way later, but maybe he was just tired to spend the whole day in this outfit – you could imagine how heavy it was – and left earlier. You couldn’t blame him, thinking of how many people probably wanted to take a photo of him during the day, too, and it was definitely tiresome as hell to pose in front of tons of people for hours.

“Would you like some?” You handed him your paper bag. “It’s a sub with chicken. I haven’t opened it yet.”

“Ah, it’s a very generous offer. It would be rude of me to decline it.” His smile sent chills down your spine, but you reminded yourself he was still playing his role. Anyway, what could he do? Follow you to your apartment in this outfit? Seriously? He would be stuck in the hallway with those horns of his.

You watched like the Loki-guy took a half of your sub and returned the other half to you, then taking a bite and chewing slowly. To your delight, he nodded, telling you he liked it without words, and you chuckled at him. Now he looked almost cute with his puffed cheeks as he kept biting more and more. Apparently, the sub wasn’t bad, and you dug in it enthusiastically, caring little for a few other passengers. No one was looking at you two, anyway.

Halfway through finishing his part, the guy stared questioningly at your paper cup of tea, and you smiled at him with confusion.

“You can have it, too, but it’s already cold, sorry.”

Now he was grinning like a Cheshire cat. Did he think it was funny? Was it because he thought real Loki would find it funny? You were too confused but decided not to ask. You looked silly enough yesterday when you were gaping at him with wide eyes. No more of this today! You couldn’t blow it if you wanted to ever see the guy again.

“It’s quite alright. Let me help you.” He carefully lowered his seidr so it touched your cup, and in the next moment you saw a soft blue glowing surrounding it. It was coming directly from the Scepter, and you literally opened your mouth while staring at it wide-eyed. Wait, did this guy put something inside the seidr? Like, a light bulb or something? God, it was beyond your imagination!

But before you started throwing questions at him, you suddenly saw a wisp of steam coming from your tea and felt how the cup grew hot in your hand. Oh shoot, it definitely wasn’t just some light bulb! His Scepter was a real machine!

You probably looked like a little kid, your eyes shining and jaw dropped at the sight of something that looked like a miracle to you, and Loki-guy chuckled softly. He was seemingly content with your reaction as you even sniffed your tea a little bit to feel it really was hot again. But when you brought the cup to him, thinking he wanted to drink, he gently refused it.

“Thank you, but you have already given me enough.” His smile was much softer, and your cheeks grew hot again at his kindness, though it was you who shared your food with him. Strangely, it was like this stranger had some effect on you, and you smiled back at him, lowering your head to have a sip of tea.

However, the next moment the guy furrowed his brows, looking somewhere behind you, and you saw him lifting his seidr again, pointing at something behind your back. You missed his concerned gaze, but not noticing the blinding light coming from the Scepter was absolutely impossible – for a second you almost lost your eyesight, squeezing your eyes shut and clenching the paper cup in your hand. What was that?! But before you got truly scared, the light had disappeared, and all you saw was that Loki-guy sitting close to you with a piece of chicken sub wrapped in a napkin in his hand. His Scepter looked the same as before, no blue glowing coming from it. Wait, you didn’t imagine this blinding light, did you? It was here just a second ago!

As you tried to turn back to see what was happening, the stranger suddenly stopped you, his warm hand on your shoulder as he leaned closer to you, smiling, “Your tea is going to be cold again.”

“Yes, b-but-“ You gawked at him and then stared at his seidr, unsure what to say. “I-I mean, have you seen that light? Did it come from this thing?”

You heard someone behind you letting out a sudden scream and smelled metal and plastic melting. It was disturbing enough as it was, but then you realized you smelled the burning flesh searing from someone’s bones.

The Scepter. The guy’s resemblance to the Asgardian God of mischief. Shit.

Before you tried turning again to see what was left of the seats behind you, Loki’s grip on your shoulder became painfully strong. You watched him leaning even closer to you in slow motion, the world around you slowing down as the man whispered to you in a dangerously low voice, “Don’t look back. You don’t want to see what is left of that creepy man who was staring at you all the time, do you, dear?”

Frozen on the spot, you barely nodded, your eyes not leaving Loki’s pale face as he smiled, letting go of your shoulder and touching your arm surprisingly gently instead. You heard the sounds of crying and whining, people around you scattering to the different part of the car to be as far as possible from a man in the horned helmet. But you just couldn’t move from your place, glued to your seat, an Asgardian God looming over you.

“I am grateful for you sharing your meal with me. I’d like to thank you properly,” he said softly, and you swallowed your tongue instead of letting out a loud scream. “Let’s leave on the next station. I know a few nice places in Mitte.”

___________________

Tags: @finleyjayne​ @alexakeyloveloki​  @helenaeisenhower​ @villanellevi​ @hurricanerin​ ​@void-hoechlin @abyssaint​ @heeeyitskay​ @chris-evans-indian-fanfic​ @rosalynshields​ @brattycherubwrites​ @sllooney​ @angrythingstarlight​

[twilightsagasworld]

Jasper Hale x (gen z) Reader One-shot

Requested by @writingwieny​

“Up, down, left, left , up-” “What on earth are you doing (y/n)?” I stopped in my tracks. Edward stood in my doorway, a puzzled look on his face. I shrugged, pointing to the smartphone that was on a shelf,  “I’m trying to work on this dance for TikTok, it’s really complicated and-” I stopped seeing that Edward was still  confused, “TikTok?” he shoved his hands into his jean pockets, walking further into the room, I nodded, “Yeah! It’s this new app that allows creators to post short videos of whatever they want” Edward nods, “and the popular thing right now are dances, so-” he cut me off, “So you’re trying to get in on it, right?” I nod with a smile, Edward pursed his lips seemingly satisfied and excused himself, I stared after him, “Edweirdo” I grinned at my nickname for him before I closed my door and started my routine again.

Or I tried to.

Not a moment later the door burst open again and in walked Alice, Jasper, Renesmee and Bella. “Did Edward snitch?” I put my hands on my hips, one eyebrow arched, Alice clasped her hands together, a radiant smile on her face, she wiggled her eyebrows at me, “Duh, of course he did silly! Why else would we be here”  Renesmee grinned beside Bella, and Jasper just came over and gave me a soft kiss on my cheek making me return it happily. Bella cleared her throat, eyes darting to my phone, “So, uhm...” “Do you guys want to join me?”  I might as well put the offer on the table, Renesmee and Alice reacted simultaneously, “Yeah!”, I grinned, “Awesome, Bella?”  Bella’s eyes went wide and she threw her hands up, “No thanks (y/n), dancing isn’t my thing”, Alice sighed, “Bella is good at a lot of things, but dancing is dangerous” Bella bit her lip, “Thanks Alice” , sarcasm was heavily noted. I shot a look at Jasper,  asking if he was interested, Jasper kindly declined, “I’ll supervise”, I knew better than to force Jasper into something so I ruffled his hair, making him nip my arm lightly, I laughed, “Alright Jas, whatever you say”.

I held out my phone, “Let’s get started grandma’s”, I motioned for them to stand on either side of me, the phone was back against the shelf, and a video started to play, “Okay, we just have to follow the girl’’s moves, easy-peasy”, Alice and Renesmee nodded, Bella made herself comfortable next to Jasper on the couch in the corner as we began.

A lot of starting over happened and jokes were made. Renesmee kept forgetting to move her hips and Alice didn’t really mess up, but I couldn’t help but bust out laughing each time I saw Bella’s and Jasper’s faces, Bella was focused on the video while subtly trying to copy the moves and Jasper, well, Jasper just had a permanent smile etched onto his face, while his feet tapped to the rythm of the music softly. It was sweet in a way.

But, we finally perfected the dance, and I posted it to TikTok. Alice and Renesmee were talking about downloading the app too and I encouraged it enthusiastically. I gave a thumbs up,“You guys will totally pass the vibe check!”, I received confused looks from everyone in the room and I sighed exasperated, “You mean to tell me, you guys” I gestured with a hand to everyone, “Don’t know what a vibe check is?”, Bella let out a “Nope”, popping the ‘P’. I stared at them in disbelief, before snapping my fingers in a zig-zag motion, “Looks like I’m going to have to give you a gen-Z rundown”. I started listing popular phrases and words and explained what they meant. By the end of it everyone was well educated on the ‘Gen-z vocabulary’. 

Renesmee and Alice thought it would be a great idea to gather the whole family in the living room to discuss what they had learned and Jasper and I followed behind, hand in hand down the stairs, taking our time, I leaned in towards Jasper and whispered softly that I kind of regretted telling them about everything and Jasper huffed out a quiet chuckle, “Too late now darlin’”, I groaned, “I suppose..Honestly, this is not a vibe”, we met the others in the living room and found a spot to sit, Emmett greeted Jasper with a fist pump as Alice and Renesmee started their speech. Carlisle and Esme nodded accordingly. I just rested my head on Jasper’s shoulder as he made small circles on my palm with his thumb. I planted a kiss to his shoulder which made him turn his head down to me with a toothy grin. I drowned out Alice and Renesmee’s voices and closed my gold coloured eyes. I made a mental note to plot against Edward for snitching on me. I peaked at him and caught his smirk, I glared at him, stupid shiny volvo owner, Edward glanced my way and I just stuck out my tongue. 

Carlisle’s voice drew my attention, “So, (y/n), I have a question, if you don’t mind”, I shook my head, “Yes?”, Carlisle nodded, “Well, what does ‘gen-z’ mean? I haven’t heard it before”, I sat up slowly, still holding Jasper’s hand as I explained, “Well, gen-z is short for generation-z, so take me for example, I was born in 2000, making me a gen-z, and every 10 or so years there’s a category for people born in those years, like, if someone was born between 1989 and 1999 they’re called Millennial’s, understand?” I hope I explained it well enough, but Carlisle seemed to get it, “Very well then, I think the family will be using you as a dictionary for a while” there was a chorus of agreement, “I don’t mind, I’ll teach you all about the hottest trends and celebrities!” Emmett let out a loud “Whoop!” and rubbed his hands together, “Master (y/n) in da house!” I laughed at Emmett’s antics. 

I just hoped I wasn’t going to regret anything too much. But knowing Emmett, I’ll probably regret it within the week. At least I had Jasper to keep me from ripping Emmett’s head off. 

I was not wrong. Within a week Emmett had blurted out every Tiktok Quote imaginable. One such case was when I was at the kitchen counter editing a recent TikTok of mine. Emmett snuck up from behind me and very, very loudly yelled, “SLEEP LIKE NO ONE’S WATCHING!”, I almost crushed my phone. I glared at him, “Emmett, what the hell dude?!”  I held a hand over my chest, “If I had a heartbeat I’d have had a heart attack you nunce” I punched his gut but it obviously did nothing. Emmett laughed. When I registered what he yelled I gave him a look, “And that doesn’t even make sense, what’d you use that TikTok quote for?”, Emmett shrugged, “Heck, I don’t know, but I saw it on a video Alice was watching” “Oh my- Emmett, you can’t just randomly blurt out Tiktok quotes, it has to have- Oh hey Rosalie” I waved as she walked into the kitchen, probably to come see where her husband was, “Hi, (y/n)” Emmett gave her a big kiss and when they broke away Rosalie smiled, but Emmett had to ruin the moment, “This was the moment where everyone knew that she was that bitch, and will always be that bitch”. Rosalie clearly didn’t understand so I jumped in, “He means to say that you’re the best and will always be the best, it’s a-” “TikTok thing, yeah I know, Renesmee and Alice keep watching those weird videos on their phones, I geuss my monkey man here joined them” she smirked up at Emmett, “You know me babe” I shook my head, they’re a strange couple, but it’s nice. Which got me thinking, “Hey, where’s Jasper? I haven’’t seen him since this morning” I missed my mate’s company, there isn’t a moment that goes by that I don’t want him near me. I think Rosalie wanted to answer but Carlisle and Esme joined us, “Jasper is hunting with Edward, they decided to go a bit further into the mountains for mountain lions” I thanked Carlisle, “Fire” I replied, but the present Cullen’s gave me concerned looks, Carlisle and Esme glanced at each other, I cuaght on and groaned, “It means cool, okay, thanks, it’s a TikTok- oh whatever” I excused myself and went to wait on the balcony for Jasper, “I need my unproblematic man!”. Bella probably rolled her eyes when she heard that, it’s one of the things she’s good at, rolling them eyes.

When Jasper and Edward returned I immediately tackled Jasper to the forest floor, his arms held me close, “Hey you, yeah you, I love you” I said muffled into his chest, Jasper chuckled sweetly, “Darlin’ I’ll love you for a thousand years...Also, did you succeed in not ripping Emmett’s head off?” Jasper helped me up and wrapped an arm around my waist as we went back inside, I smile goofily up at him, like a child who was busy being praised, “Yup, it was hard, but I only punched him!” Jasper planted a kiss on my head and I knew he could feel all my love and affections. 

“Yo, (y/n)! Don’t grow up, it’s a trap!” 

Jasper looked down at me but I just shrugged, “Hey, that’s your brother”, Jasper cringed, “He’s adopted”

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #233: The Annihilation Gambit!

July, 1983

“Up against... the BARRIER!”

Pretty cool cover!

So here’s the thing. This is a crossover with Fantastic Four. John Byrne even gets a credit for breakdowns and co-plotting.

I’m not going to completely cover the related FF issues but I’ll dip into the relevant parts of them.

For example, let’s discuss Fantastic Four #254 which coincided with the ending of Avengers #232. The thing with the fleeing crowd that didn’t know what they were fleeing and the invisible wall She-Hulk bonked off of? What’s the deal with that?

Allow me to summarize.

The Fantastic Four went off to explore the Negative Zone and had a series of weird and silly adventures. They left Alicia behind to babysit Franklin but Annihilus popped out of the portal and took them captive. This happened back in #251 so he’s had the run of the place for a while!

He’s been making modifications to the Negative Zone Access Portal and adapting the generators. For whatever reason, switching the machine on sends out potent fear waves which causes everyone to flee the area of the Baxter Building. There scene where She-Hulk and Wasp see the fleeing crowd and bonks off an invisible wall repeats.

And that’s all you need to know! Annihilus is messing around, potent fear waves, invisible wall, Avengers!

Now let’s get to the Avengers part of this crossover.

The Avengers issue of Avengers starts with Captain Marvel booking it over New York musing about what an eventful day she’s had as a full-fledged Avenger.

What with having to rescue President Reagan after he was taken hostage by soggy swamp men. Then Eros (Starfox) showed up and insisted on joining. Then Monica, Starfox, and Thor went off to catch Plantman who engineered the presidential hostage thing. All of that in only six hours!

Monica Marvel Rambeau is on her way to the mansion to give her report when she too bonks into something.

Captain Marvel: “It was as if I bounced off some sort of invisible wall! But that doesn’t make sense!”

Yeah, it really doesn’t!

As Monica herself points out, the wall is invisible ie light is going through it. So her light form should be able to go through it too!

Its a very selective invisible wall, apparently. And it gives her a weird ominous feel to touch.

But she’s not going to let sleeping walls lie and decides to try different energy forms to see if anything can get through.

Annnnnnd. Radios, cosmic rays, electricity, infrared, x-rays, and even gamma rays can’t get through. Although, Monica has the feeling that the wall gave a bit under the gamma, but not enough to matter.

Monica detours around the wall and heads back towards her original destination. AVENGERS MANSION!

When Monica arrives, cool team leader Janet the Wasp van Dyne is talking with the police. Obviously the police aren’t equipped to deal with an invisible dome.

At the least, though, Jan uses the NYPD data-link to figure out where the giant dome is centered.

Also, Wasp has another new outfit. This is the same day.

But its pretty snazzy black and purple so I won’t complain.

Monica tells Jan that Big Trouble is brewing and Jan is basically like ‘oh god now what’ but thankfully Monica and Jan are on the same case.

MEANWHILE, Steve Rogers’ modest Brooklyn Heights apartment. Where Steve Rogers is not having a conversation about his feelings with his girlfriend Bernie Rosenthal because his feelings are classified!

Steve Rogers: “In a way. It’s Avengers business!”

I’d mock this but what has Steve bummed and pacing like a caged bear is that Tony Stark, his good pal who he’ll never Civil War with, has quit the Avengers, gave Iron Man up to someone else, and is trying to drink himself to unconsciousness.

Which is very concerning! But also something you can’t really share the full details of without revealing a lot of secrets that aren’t yours to reveal! I feel like you could at least say ‘I think my friend is an alcoholic but won’t accept my help’ without spilling secrets but shrug.

At least Steve is open with Bernie. Yeah, she knows he’s Captain America!

Truly, the man is a role model. Not just as a superhero but also on dating.

Steve gets a BZZZT on his snazzy cool radio wristwatch, possibly the coolest thing to wear on one’s wrist ha ha don’t think about Avengers wearing Apple Watches.

Anyway, Jan updates Steve on the invisible - and expanding - dome. And that weirdly, there doesn’t seem to be anyone trapped inside because everyone ran away from it because its inexplicably spooky.

So Steve rushes off to Save The Day, stripping mid-run because that’s the kind of casualness and comfort you can have in a relationship where you’re open and honest.

See how Steve didn’t have to make up a half-assed excuse? Maybe think about that, Spider-Man. You’re not in this scene but maybe think about it.

Meanwhile again, the Baxter Building.

Where thankfully for people not reading Fantastic Four, we get an echoed scene where Annihilus motive rants at captive audience Alicia Masters.

Basically, Annihilus is feeling very bummed that Blastaar stole his Cosmic Control Rod in Marvel Two-in-One #75. For one thing, it really tied his whole outfit together. For another, without it, Annihilus isn’t immortal and he’s freaking out about dying. And not dying eventually, he’s apparently got Doom-level messed up face now from how he’s degrading.

So really the only real way to come to terms with mortality is to destroy two whole universes so you don’t die alone.

Annihilus broke Reed’s Negative Zone Access Portal and used its power core to power his own impenetrable NULL-FIELD. Which I guess is the invisible dome.

Annihilus: “How wonderfully ironic -- that a device which once produced a gateway between two universes should provide the power to utterly destroy them!”

I’m missing some middle steps here but basically invisible dome -> ??? -> destruction of the Negative Zone and the, uh, Positive Zone.

A MEEP MEEP from a computer which may be a roadrunner gets Annihilus’ attention and he sees to his shock that She-Hulk has planted her feet and is trying to bodily hold the dome back.

It’s not working but its slowing it almost imperceptibly and even that’s supposed to be impossible.

Annihilus: “What manner of creature is this?!”

I’d guess gamma-powered She-Hulk is having a tiny bit of luck against the dome for the same reason that Captain Marvel did when she tried gamma radiation.

Wasp, Captain America, and Captain Marvel show up to help She-Hulk.

She-Hulk tells the other Avengers that the invisible dome keeps “oozing over everything inanimate” but that she(-Hulk) can’t stop it.

Cap suggests using his shield despite the risk of losing it inside the dome.

Because, when Captain America uses his mighty shield, all who oppose his shield must yield. So maybe he’s onto something.

She-Hulk plants the shield in the ground in the path of the dome.

So good news/bad news.

The dome doesn’t swallow up the shield. But the dome just pushes the shield, carving a little furrow in the ground.

That cracks me up a little, I will not lie.

I don’t know why Cap’s super cool shield is exempt from getting schlorped up by the null-field but now they have a good idea where it is without having to bonk!

Speaking of bonk, Thor and Starfox come to join the party and Starfox runs right into the invisible wall.

Hee hee hee.

He also drops right into She-Hulk’s arms and they have a mutual banter moment.

She-Hulk: “Hmm! I’ve never had anyone fall for me like this before!”

Starfox: “I assure you it was totally unplanned... but rarely have I fallen into such open and inviting arms!”

If I recall correctly, they do hook up at one point and then years later She-Hulk beats seven kinds of shit out of him when the question arises of whether his powers influenced her into it.

At least Starfox is receptive and she’s not stalking Ben Grimm.

Anyway, Thor tries his hand at busting the null-field by shooting a bunch of lightning at it. Even though Captain Marvel tells him she already tried electricity.

Thor gotta Thor though.

And when the field stands firm against all the lightning, he gets pissed and hurls his hammer into it.

Mjolnir flies into the field, loses steam, and just pitches gently to Earth.

Bit confusing. I wonder why Cap’s shield can’t go through the dome but Mjolnir can.

BY THE WAY, THEY LEFT CAP’S SHIELD JAMMED AGAINST THE DOME.

They don’t comment on it but you can see it still gouging up the pavement. I guess they’re using it to mark where the dome is?

Amazing.

Anyway, Thor marvels at how Mjolnir left no mark on the invisible barrier and how its not returning to his hand like it should. Clearly there’s some weird property of the barrier interfering with Mjolnir.

Cap points out yeah thats interesting but isn’t there something that happens if you have Mjolnir out of hand for too long?

So Thor runs away and turns into Normal Doctor Donald Blake in an alleyway where nobody can see it happen.

Again: amazing.

Thor is basically out of the story because Normal Doctor Donald Blake can’t do anything to affect the barrier and he can’t get Mjolnir back while its up. So he’s just going to be twiddling his thumbs.

MEANWHILE, at Cross Technological Enterprises.

Hawkeye tries to cajole inventor Jorge to build some contraption for him but the man protests that he designed it in his spare time but if he builds a working model on staff, CTE will own the invention.

Unless someone approves a sub-contractor waiver that will let him keep the rights but who would do such a thing for him??

Hawkeye decides that as head of security he’ll do such a thing. I don’t know if head of security has any kind of sway like that but I imagine that won’t stop Hawkeye from insisting that he does.

Then Hawkeye hears about the Avengers dealing with the dome thing and gets sad that he can’t be out there with them.

Hawkeye: “Blast it, I oughta be out there with the rest of the Avengers! But, as long as my leg’s in a cast, I’m a liability to ‘em... until I prove otherwise!”

Maybe focus on letting your leg heal!

I don’t know what nonsense you’re brewing up and I know that months is forever in comic book time but maybe just take the time and let your leg heal up!

Back over at the Avengers, Cap and Wasp now justify to the others why Thor took off. Claiming that they sent him on a scouting mission. Captain Marvel objects that scouting is her specialty, what with the lightspeed dash, so Cap claims that brute force isn’t helping so its more important to have Captain Marvel’s versatility here.

Leading She-Hulk to snark that brute force not working doesn’t give her a lot to do.

Starfox has become instantly bored with the plot because he’s here for adventure dangit, so he wanders off to go flirt with an EMT.

Because Starfox.

A Quinjet arrives, because Wasp has put her true superpower to work.

The power of NETWORKING!

Aka, she placed a call to Vision and Scarlet Witch and they just showed up to help.

Wasp explains the situation and Vision decides he’s going to intangible through the field.

Vision: “Interesting. It does have an oddly unsettling ‘feel’ to it!”

Then he walks through and instantly collapses face first into the asphalt.

The Avengers’ bumbling attempts to deal with the null field are almost farcical really.

Scarlet Witch is alarmed by her robot husband faceplanting so tries to use her plot-resolving probability powers on the invisible barrier but to no avail.

OH NO HER DOES ANYTHING POWER DID NOTHING!

She bangs on the invisible wall yelling Vision’s name but Cap tells her “that won’t do any good!”

True but c’mon. Her robot husband just collapsed. Have some understanding.

Although I wonder what’s going on here.

The field goes over inanimate objects but doesn’t let Cap’s shield through. Mjolnir and Vision can go through it (although Vision does the intangible) but lose power shortly after entering.

Then again it is called a “null-field.” It probably does whatever it wants.

I’m just wondering whether Vision counts as an inanimate object or not. He’s very animate but he’s not strictly speaking biologically speaking alive.

Meanwhile, in the Baxter Building, Annihilus is laughing up a storm at the Avengers’ silly hijinxes. But mostly in the ‘they thought they could stop me’ sense.

Annihilus: “Lesser beings such as these are helpless before the genius of Annihilus! They do not deserve to live -- just as I do not deserve to die! I curse the fates which have robbed me of my rightful immortality! But even though life slowly ebbs from the dissipated body within my exo-skeletal armor, still shall I be Annihilus... still shall I be He-Who-Annihilates!”

And he pulls the Big Dramatic Lever.

Outside, Starfox is still flirting with the paramedic while she asks whether he should be helping the other Avengers?

Starfox: -squishes her face- “Alas, I am not a full Avenger. I am but a trainee, at the others’ beck and call! If they want me, they will call.”

And then he tries to make out but she’s distracted by the Baxter Building suddenly glowing with an awesome power.

And Starfox freaks out. He freaks out so much that he realizes that now is not the time for making out. That’s how alarming things suddenly are!

Paramedic: “Brighter than the moon... glowing like there’s no tomorrow...”

Starfox: “I fear your choice of words is most apt!”

And then he wanders back on over to the Avengers to tell them how messed up everything is.

Something occurs to me.

The Avengers don’t really have a Smart Guy TM currently. Tony left them in the lurch in that regard. And they tried to recruit Hulk again (apparently in Incredible Hulk #285).

Cap(tain America), Captain Marvel, Wasp, She-Hulk, and Thor are great. But they’re not people who can look at a thing and instantly jump to a correct conclusion about which technobabble will keep things from bad.

I think... Starfox may have become the Smart Guy TM of the team by default because he does have advanced space learning even though I’m pretty sure he napped through advanced space learning science class.

My god, the state of things.

Anyway, Starfox directs the Avengers’ attention over to the Baxter Building. Within the invisible field, there’s a second glowing field. And based on Starfox’s brains, the invisible field is a null-field (yes, that’s true) which cancels out all energy within, except at its focal point. Uh, sure. I think if all energy was cancelled out, we’d see way wilder effects but sure.

The glowing field is positive energy. And when the glow meets the invisible, it will cause the universe to merge with the Negative Zone AND THEN DESTROY THEM BOTH.

See, this is something that’s known on Titan. They just study ways to destroy everything apparently, nbd.

Starfox even mentions that his brother Thanos knows about this but “not even my brother Thanos was mad enough to test it!”

I dunno. I feel like Thanos is exactly mad enough to do that. I also feel like Starfox doesn’t know his brother was well as he thinks. So, yeah.

Hence, they’re all doomed. I mean, unless there was some way to penetrate the null-field BUT WAIT, Starfox says, didn’t Captain Marvel feel the field give slightly under gamma radiation? THEN THERE STILL MAY BE HOPE!

Yeah... Yeah. Starfox is the Avengers’ Smart Guy now. God.

Its like a reverse-Beast. He came to be a smart guy but the Avengers’ had plenty of those so decided to be the fun guy.

Starfox came out just to have a good time and he has to use his space brains to save reality.

(Also, its because of Same Face but Starfox even looks like Reed while he’s transitioning from doomsaying to figuring out the whole thing just by panicking and explaining things)

So after the Avengers do some calculations and preparations, Captain Marvel blasts off into space!

Cap(tain America) estimates that they only have twenty minutes and that a lot can go wrong.

Then a giant shouty bug man appears in the sky to shout.

Annihilus: “PEOPLE OF EARTH -- HEAR NOW THE WORDS OF ANNIHILUS! YOU ARE HELPLESS BEFORE ME! I AM YOUR DEATH!”

“The destruction of all that lives has ever been my goal -- but never have I had the means to kill so many! The time of universal death is at hand! I see among you those who are known as the Avengers... those who you would call heroes! Hah! They cannot save you! They are as helpless as the accursed Fantastic Four!”

“There is no hope for anyone this day! This is the day that Annihilus dies! And as I die, I shall reach out and I shall shake the very foundations of two universes! AND ALL SHALL PERISH WITH ME!”

Not gonna lie.

That’s a damn good villain speech.

You’ve got the villain head in front of an apocalyptic pink sky. You’ve got evil gloating. You’ve even got some dunks thrown at the superheroes because you just know that average civilians will be like ‘the Avengers will save us!’

Pretty good rant, Annihilus.

“Meanwhile, in the vacuum of space, the lightform of Captain Marvel has already flashed beyond the orbit of the moon”

Amazing.

Simply amazing.

Captain Marvel nyooms past the moon and traverses 93-million miles to go to the sun.

Which, even at lightspeed, takes over eight minutes.

A helpful reminder that even the ability to go as fast as light doesn’t necessarily mean you can get everywhere instantly. Cosmic distances are vast.

Captain Marvel nyooms around the sun, so close that even in the form of a light, she can feel the Sun’s gravity.

This is all some great stuff.

Then, Captain Marvel melds with a coherent light beam fired from solar satellite Starcore-One and transforms it and herself into a gamma ray laser beam NYOOMING right at Earth.

Blasting through the null-field just in time to interrupt more of Annihilus’ villain ranting.

Annihilus: “Prepare to make your final accounting, mortals! These are your last wretched moments of... eh?”

And then with a SKRAKATA SKRAKATA BOOM, the null field and positive energy fields are neutralized.

She-Hulk who was casually leaning on an invisible wall FLUMPS to the ground.

Wasp assembles the Avengers still milling about and tells them to move on the Baxter Building since Annihilus might still have tricks up his sleeve.

With the null field gone, the terrified crowds of onlookers are now just confused onlookers and want to get back to what they were doing before they started panicking.

Normal Doctor Donald Blake has to reach through the crowd of legs to grab Mjolnir so he can become Thor and rejoin the Avengers.

Y’know, before someone starts pondering why they haven’t seen him in a while.

Scarlet Witch notices sudden Thor and since everyone else ran off without paying any mind to Vision (geez, what the hell, the Avengers? He’s your good pal chum!) she begs Thor to help.

Scarlet Witch: “Thank heavens, you’ve returned! The Vision was injured somehow by that null-field! I... I can’t find any vital signs! His synthetic body is too different for the paramedics to do anything! Help us! Please -- !”

Thor slings Vision over shoulder exactly like you’d expect a buff Norse god to do and reassures Wanda that they’ll find someone to revive Vision.

At the Baxter Building, the Avengers very courteously go in through the front door because there’s just a lot of defensive systems that may or may not be active. And anyway, Wasp has a key to the special elevator.

Apparently, Wasp is such good friends with Sue Storm that she was given one of those special lasers incorporated into her new costume that opens the elevator doors.

I’ll have to check with my friend who liveblogs Fantastic Four to see if Jan shows up much. Because Sue has shown up a couple times in Avengers to build the idea that she and Wasp are good friends after their cool brunch but I haven’t heard of the reverse.

When the Avengers get to the 34th floor to confront Annihilus, they find that it’s been taken care of off in Fantastic Four.

The caption tells me for the full story to see that issue #256 and for once, I will.

(Interestingly, while Byrne got a co-plotter credit on this Avengers issue, Stern doesn’t get the same in the corresponding FF issue which really suggests who the driving force of the story was.)

Over in FF #256, the FF are stranded in the Negative Zone for reasons but have also noticed the null-field and positive field thing going on. Reed works to limit the effects of the fields merging to only the Baxter Building instead of the whole universe, which will also help the FF return home. He also hopes that someone on the Earth side of things “an Avenger perhaps” is also taking action.

Which, yeah. Captain Marvel’s whole thing where she launched herself at the Baxter Building from the Sun.

While she’s doing that, the thing that Reed is doing starts shorting out the circuity that Annihilus is using.

Then, Captain Marvel’s appearance causes the console Annihilus is working at to explode in his face, destroying his life-support armor.

Annihilus tries to activate the ‘destroy the universe’ thing manually but because of Reed’s machinations, the Fantastic Four get pulled back into the universe and Annihilus gets booted into the Negative Zone.

Its implied that Annihilus dies here but ha ha ha no he’s going to show up again without explaining how he survived. What a dick.

The Fantastic Four pop back into the Baxter building with the colors in their outfits changed because of technobabble. Reed instantly accosts Captain Marvel for being someone he doesn’t recognize but Thing tells him who she is and defuses things.

Thing runs off to take Alicia to the hospital, Sue runs off to look for Franklin, and Reed and Human Torch put out all the fires.

And that’s where the books sync up so back over to Avengers.

The Avengers meet up with the FF and compare notes and Reed starts trying to technobabble explain the change in uniforms when Wanda interrupts and asks someone to help Vision.

Reed examines Vision and comes up with some good news.

Vision is, more or less, okay. When he entered the null-field it drained his energy and disrupted his synapses but there shouldn’t be any permanent damage. The robot coma is Vision basically fixing himself up but Reed could speed up the process and help him recover faster.

And then Sue comes in with an unconscious Franklin.

Everyone drops everything to immediately rush off to the hospital, leaving Wanda and coma-Vision alone.

I mean. Kinda rude. Its entirely fair for Reed and Sue to run off. Its their son. And Johnny flies ahead to alert the emergency ward. But does the situation really need Starfox, Captain America and She-Hulk?

(The FF issue actually shows that Captain Marvel stuck around. She barely knows Wanda and Vision and she’s actually being courteous to them. Geez.)

I’ll give Thor a pass because he can turn into a Perfectly Normal Doctor. But really? Everyone is just leaving Wanda alone? Just like they left Vision just passed out in the street?

The Avengers are being dicks to Vision and Wanda today!

Follow @essential-avengers​ and like and reblog perhaps. Because I wouldn’t leave Vision lying passed out in the street and I haven’t even been his friend for years. Just saying.

[lovelyirony]

Silly Goose

so fun fact: i don’t know anything about the plot of captain marvel but i have seen textposts about fury and goose the cat who is somehow not a cat. special thanks goes to @dr3belxd 

A lot of shit has happened. Captain Marvel gets reintroduced into earth, and brings Goose with her. 

Fury mildly tolerates Goose. 

(So this is a fucking lie. Fury gets Goose all of the treats in the world but still is scared of Goose because that little shit lost him an eye. Because of affection.) 

The thing is this: people just think Nick has a cat. He likes cats, he does, but he generally prefers that Goose stick around so that she can help him with some enemies. 

What he doesn’t like is when Goose decides that she is bored of Carol and would like some adventuring, please and thank you. 

This includes when she sneaks on the plane because Spider-Man decided to take a class trip and take the damn suit. 

And then there’s Mysterio. 

Fury knows it’s too good to be true. Doesn’t mean he can’t help, but he still doesn’t trust this fucker. 

“I’m from another dimension where the world ended,” Mysterio says tearfully. 

Fury knows for a damned fact that if you were choosing another dimension to go to, you sure as hell wouldn’t choose his. He also knows that Mysterio is not actually from another dimension most likely because he immediately knows small gestures, like a hi-five or a middle finger. 

(Fury knows that no one could catch on that fast.) 

So, Spider-Man. He’s in Europe taking a class trip and also acting like an idiot because he has a crush. He is also dealing with an identity crisis because he feels like he has to live up to his heroic name and he keeps seeing Iron Man everywhere he goes. 

It’s a lot. But Fury also knows something is up, because Maria Hill said she had a bad feeling. 

You always trust Maria Hill when she says she has a bad feeling, or else you basically get an end of the world situation. 

So, Peter Parker. They have to steal him from most likely the worst hotel in Italy, and Goose immediately zooms and starts purring and butting her head against him. 

“Hi kitty,” Peter says, smiling as he bends down to pet Goose. Fury stiffens. 

“Don’t get too close to her face. She’ll scratch you up.” 

No, instead Goose leaps into Peter’s arms and settles down. 

“You’re a nice kitty,” Peter says. 

“This is not the point of this meeting.” 

They meet Mysterio. Goose leaps out of Peter’s arms and starts hissing up a storm. She arches her back, and Mysterio just kind of takes one step back. Peter frowns. 

“Who are you?” 

- 

Peter doesn’t give Quentin Beck the EDITH glasses. He can’t, and he’s not sure why he put all his trust into a cat that probably shouldn’t be in Italy, but the one thing he’s learned from animals is that if they don’t like you from the get-go, you don’t get trusted by anyone else. 

He sees Beck’s eyes twitch a bit. 

“That’s fine,” he says, voice tight. “Maybe some other time, hm? Those glasses could help me out a lot, Pete...” 

Peter frowns. 

There’s something off. And maybe it’s because he’s finally thinking about this, and the glasses resting in their case aren’t reminding him of the legacy he has now, but something...something is off. 

About all of it. 

The bar he’s in, it’s shifting and people are looking at him carefully. 

“I, uh...I have to get back to my classmates, they’ll worry,” Peter says, lying very terribly. “I’ll see you later, Quentin!” 

And he rushes off. 

Tells Ned. And MJ by default, who was sick of hearing her roommates talk and decided to eavesdrop. 

“Not eavesdropping if you guys are too dumb to notice that I’m here,” MJ says with a shrug. 

“That is a lie but I don’t know how to prove it,” Ned says, squinting. “Hey Peter, what did you say his name was?” 

“Uh, Quentin Beck?” 

“No fucking way. He got past SHIELD and used his real name? Guy’s an idiot!” 

“What do you mean?” 

“SHIELD didn’t do their research. Beck got fired from Stark Industries because he was trying to sell an invention as a weapon device to the US government against strict orders. Tony Stark fired him, and...wow. Okay. Released BARF, which Binarily Augmented Retroframing. It’s really similar to Beck’s invention, so--” 

“Don’t have time,” MJ says. “Peter, he’s after those glasses. Probably because they can see through the holograms he’s using if it’s similar technology. Go tell whoever it is that followed us here. Now.” 

-

For the record, Maria had a bad feeling about Beck. It was too good to be true. Peter Parker rushes into their secret base of operations (which is not secret because at least four people have peeked into the windows, but whatever) and Goose is immediately attached to him. 

“What is it?” Maria asks. 

“It’s about Beck. He’s not actually from a different dimension, he just manipulates technology and holograms on a whole other level, and we need to stop him.” 

Goose purrs as Peter picks her up, absentmindedly petting her as Maria sighs. She gestures to Fury. 

“Go get your guns, Hill. We’ve got some shit to take care of.” 

Beck is not happy about any of this. At all. Especially not that there’s a fucking cat who apparently just changed the damned kid’s mind about giving him the glasses. He was so fucking close, and no. 

To make matters worse, his hotel room is facing a twenty-foot-tall mural of Iron Man. So life hates him a lot. 

(Which, of course it does.) 

And now he’s facing the stupid cat and the kid in the Spider-Man suit, and it’s just. Ugh. 

“I wanted to do this the easy way,” Beck says, getting his suit on. “And now? Well, Parker, your world is about to be so much bigger.” 

The illusions suck, by the way. For Peter, at least. He can’t tell what way is left or right, and if he could, it probably wouldn’t make much different. They’re all shooting blind. 

Except for Goose. 

Goose is unbothered by the green smoke and a guy with a damn fishbowl for a head, and decides that now is the time that she will be a show off. 

She absolutely rips the shit out of Beck’s costume. There’s a yell as Quentin Beck gets absolutely slammed into the ground, tentacles reaching for the helmet. He’s held up again into the air. 

Peter is suitably shocked. 

“Holy shit, what the fu--” 

“That’s just what she does when she’s hungry,” Fury says, tired. “Goose, drop it.” 

Quentin gets unceremoniously dropped from about ten feet up. 

“Oh god,” he groans, trying to roll himself over. “What in the hell...?” 

“That’s what happens when you try to pull one over the director of SHIELD,” Fury says. 

(Maria does not laugh but there was no “try” about it. Fury had been fooled.) 

Peter just. Cannot believe that a cat, who is technically not a cat but something called a Flerken, saved the day. Allowing him to actually enjoy a vacation. That’s...that’s new. 

It helps that Fury is still mad that Goose has given Peter no life-altering changes to his physical appearance, and it is very amusing to see a man who dresses exclusively in black and leather roll his eyes as he picks up Goose and hands her another treat. 

“Didn’t Carol say not to give her another treat?” 

“She took out one eye, I don’t want her to take another one out.” 

Goose settles in Fury’s lap, content (for now).