#my procreate adventure continues! can’t stop drawing

[an-established-butt-dent]

What always intrigued me about the storyline with a romanced Solas is that Lavellan was so close to finding out the truth.

She must have had some suspicions before, but she never pushed him for the truth. She gave him time to open up on his own terms, to share when he was ready, which we know he almost did in Crestwood.

I wonder about the demons he fought in his head, the times duty came before love, while at the same time she made him question everything.

Such a tragic lovestory and no I’m still not over it it. :(

[epiphany-of-a-madwoman]

Daylight | Edward Cullen x Stark!OC

Chapter 1 | Hard Time Adjusting

"You gotta step into the daylight and let it go"

Summary: Delphina Stark, to be frank, is tired. After the events of the Accords are done and half of the Avengers are now considered fugitives, she moves from bustling New York to live with her mom in Forks, Washington. Wielding a sarcastic attitude and crippling self-deprecating humor, she somehow gets wrapped up in the supernatural world.

Word Count: ~4k

Note: Click here for the Masterlist for this series ♡ || Link for my tag list in my Bio ♡

Cold and rain, something so typical of this place, yet Delphina can’t help but scowl as she stares out the car window. The lush green trees from the forest that surround them zip past them, becoming nothing but blurs in shades of green and brown. Her forehead rests against the cool glass, the window fogging up wherever her warm breath hits. If she was seven years old, she’d excitedly draw little pictures on the window, writing witty things that only she laughed at, but she’s not seven anymore. Instead of bouncing in her seat, talking animatedly about everything to anyone who listens, she just sits in the car, barely moving an inch, as silent as a statue. Quiet music pours from the sterosystem of the car, an acoustic guitar and a smooth male voice easing the silence. Occasionally her mom sings along, tapping her fingers against the steering wheel to the beat of the song. 

Delphina looks over at her, taking in her brown hair that’s been cut to her shoulders. Her eyes trace over her mom’s pale complection, a stark contrast to Delphina’s sunkissed skin. Her brown eyes focus on the road in front of them, a small smile resting on her lips. Her gaze moves back to the window, a small sigh leaving her mouth, creating a large cloud of fog on the glass.

Forks, Washington; easily one of the dreariest places Delphina has had the privilege of visiting. Rain always pours from the sky, threatening to drown the town and sweep it away until it’s nothing more than Atlantis. On the off chance the rain ceases, a thick overcast covers the sky, blocking out any chance of sunlight shining down on the city, bathing everything in it’s warm glow. And on the especially rare days where there is no rain but only clear skies, blue is tinged with grey and the sun is dim, not as bright as the summer days in New York. The town is small, with a population of only around 3,000 people, which means the high school can only have one hundred students, two hundred tops.

“School starts tomorrow. Are you excited?” her mom, Anna asks from the driver’s side of the car. It’s been two hours since the plane hit Seattle, an hour of that time spent in the car. They didn’t exchange anything more than small talk and pleasantries in the airport, Delphina too lost in her own little world, dreaming of grand adventures far from here.

“About as excited as I’ll ever be,” she mutters, taking a sip of her soda. It’s awkward and tense, Delphina not having anything to say and her mom not knowing what to say. It feels like a lifetime since Delphina last visited, wearing two pigtails and bright summer dresses she’d inevitably ruin, only ten and causing a storm. But she doesn’t wear pigtails anymore, nor overly bright summer dresses she’d ruin, but still causes a storm everywhere she goes.

“What classes are you excited for?” she continues to prod, either not realizing how disconnected her daughter is or maybe she did and doesn’t care. 

“The one with the books and the paper. Don’t even get me started on the ones involving pens and pencils. I’m getting giddy just thinking about it,” she says. A sardonic smile forms on Delphina’s face as her eyes continue to trace random shapes in the green-blue sky. Her mom reaches across the dash and smacks her arm lightly, the sound off beat with the music playing. 

“Don’t get smart with me, young lady.”

“Can’t help it, have you met my dad?” Delphina replies. 

“Unfortunately.” her mom replies while rolling her eyes. Delphina simply snorts but says nothing else. 

“You were the one that procreated with him,” she mutters, glancing at her mom from the corner of her eyes. 

“Yeah and now I’ve got to deal with you,” Anna says, a smile creeping onto her lips that are painted a soft pink.

“Lucky you.”

The silence surrounds them for a few moments, the sound of rain pattering against the car piercing through it. Delphina slips her hand into the pocket of her sweatshirt, feeling the smooth surface of the flip phone. She runs her finger over its smooth surface, feeling the indent from glass to plastic. And it’s comforting, knowing Nat is only a phone call away, ready to swoop in if Delphina needs her. But more than that, it’s a piece of her home as she’s being thrown into the wolf den.

“You’re hair’s blonde,” her mom says, glancing at her briefly before returning her gaze to the winding road. Delphina touches the tips of her bleached hair, a light silver that she decided on after the abysmal mess Season 8 of Game of Thrones ended up being. 

“Yeah, thought it’d look better,” Delphina says, dropping the strands of hair, watching as they limply fell, lying past her shoulders. She remembers lounging out in the main room, watching Game of Thrones with the TV on full blast, if only for the stern reprimanding she knew Steve would give her. And whenever he was on Earth, Thor would sit on one of the couches, enthusiastically watching it with her, despite not knowing what was happening. He’d cheer when Delphina did and get mad with her, even if he didn’t know why he should be upset when Daenerys burned King’s Landing. 

The rest of the car ride is spent in silence, the minutes dragging on until they reach the house, her new house. When they stop in the driveway, her mom turns off the car and the two of them get out and begin the slow process of unloading the things Delphina brought onto the plane. Her furniture and boxes already arrived two days prior, courtesy of her dad and expedited shipping. The process of unpacking is tedious and annoying, Delphina growing unreasonably frustrated with each passing moment. Her room here is much smaller than her room at the Compound so it’s like playing Tetris trying to fit her furniture. Delphina never liked Tetris. Eventually, she gives up, hearing the sounds of the front door opening and shutting, the old house shaking from the force, a second later unfamiliar voices filtering through the house. 

Quietly, Delphina walks downstairs, the soft sound of feet touching the carpet the only sound she makes. It sounds like two voices - a man and a woman. Upon reaching the landing of the stairs, she sees  two people standing in the living room with her mom. The girl looks around Delphina’s age, with mousy brown hair and a pale complexion that makes her mom look like a middle aged woman who fell asleep in a tanning bed. The man next to her is much older, probably her dad. He’s wearing a police officer uniform with short brown hair and a mustache that looks like something straight out of an 80s boy band. 

“Delphina! I was just about to call you. Come in come in, I want you to meet some people.” her mom exclaims, the smile on her face a touch too wide. The two people look over at Delphina as she apprehensively walks further into the room until she stands next to her mom, directly across from the girl.  

“This is Charlie Swan and his daughter Bella,” both of them smile at Delphina, the girl nodding when her mom says her name.

“Hey,” Delphina says, feeling the gaze of her mom that oozes with sugary sweetness, hiding daggers in them, silently demanding that Delphina play nice, if only for the next few minutes. 

“Hey,” the girl, Bella, mimics. “You’re going to Fork High, right?”

“Not like there's any other high school,” Delphina says. Her mom digs her elbow into

Delphina’s side, subtle enough their guests don't notice, but firm enough to get her point across. Bella’s expression falls the tiniest bit, glancing at her dad and Delphina’s mom before moving her gaze back to her, and Delphina feels a small amount of guilt set in.

‘Must be Capsicle’s influence finally rubbing off on me.’

“Sorry, yes, I’ll be at Forks,” Delphina says, painting the most charming smile she can force on her lips. And Bella’s smile returns, nodding her head again as she opens her hand, pointing it towards Delphina.

“Me too, I can pick you up tomorrow, if you’d like?” she continued. Delphina opens her mouth to decline, not wanting to interact with anyone more than necessary--.

“She’d love to.” her mom interjects smiling at Delphina, her voice too chirper to be normal. Delphina gifts her with a scathing glare, not enjoying her mom strong-arming her into making friends. “It might be good for you to have some friends your own age.” her mom says in a defensive tone. This elicited an eye roll from Delphina but she didn’t argue and a laugh from Charlie that he quickly covers up with a cough when she looks over at him. 

“Yeah, Bella could introduce you to her friends at school, they’re… interesting.” Charlie says. At the end of his sentence, he starts scratching the back of his neck, clearly uncomfortable. The tension in the room between Delphina and her mom is palpable, so thick you could taste it.

“That’s a great idea! Now, I do believe Bella was kind enough to bake us some brownies, so let’s go eat dinner and devour those,” her mom exclaims, bustling towards the kitchen area.

Internally, Delphina groans as she drags her feet towards the dining room. She would give her left foot away if it meant she could be back at the Compound, locked away in her dad’s lab as she tinkers with anything and everything. Instead she has to endure as her mom plays host, pretending to not notice the wary looks both Bella and Charlie give her, like she’s a ticking bomb seconds away from exploding if either of them say or do the wrong thing.

                                                   o0o0o0o

After the most awkward dinner ever, Charlie and Bella leave their house, Bella telling Delphina she’ll be back at 7:30 am to pick her up. After helping her mom clean up, placing dishes in the sink and quickly wiping down the table, Delphina rushes up to her room, ready to go to sleep. She gets undressed and throws on some cotton pajamas, running through her skincare routine before eventually settling in bed, scrolling through her IPad mindlessly, doing anything and everything to avoid any headlines that involve the Avengers. A few moments later, her mom knocks on her doorway, standing in the hallway. She’s out of her clothes and in a sleep shirt and old leggings, wet hair dripping on the carpet with a bare face. 

“Goodnight,” she says. 

“Night mom,” Delphina says, not looking up from her screen. 

“Del, I’m glad you’re here.” her mom says after a moment of silence. 

“Yeah, I missed you,” she mutters, briefly meeting her mom’s gaze before her eyes flit back to the bright screen, enraptured by the cat video playing. She sighs and then another moment of silence passes before once again, it’s broken by her mom. 

“Look,  I understand this must be difficult with everything that’s happened in the past month --” her mom begins. Delphina’s mind snaps to the present upon hearing the words, already where the conversation is heading and not liking it.

“I’m gonna make like Kanye, and cut you off. I don’t want to talk about it,” she says, holding up one perfectly manicured hand.

“I’m serious Delphina, I know you were close with all of them, and now most of them are wanted criminals --” her mom pushes through like a charging boar going headfirst, seemingly unbothered by Delphina’s attempt at shutting down the conversation. 

“And I’m serious when I say I don’t want to talk about it.” Her voice grows louder, completely smothering the words her mom said. She presses down on the lock button, her IPad turning off with a quiet click. She haphazardly tosses it to the other side of the bed, bouncing a few times before it settles in its spot. 

“Ignoring it isn’t going to solve anything,” Anna continues to argue, looking at her daughter with wide, pleading eyes. 

“And neither is this conversation,” Delphina says, throwing the plush duvet over herself, cocooning herself in it’s warm embrace, willing her mom and her prying question away.

“I don’t want to start this right now Del. Just know I love you.” and with that, her mom closes the door behind her, her footsteps slowly disappearing. 

Delphina lays motionless for hours, staring at the same spot in the wall, her mind a chaotic storm, sweeping away any sense and logic. Eventually sleep overcomes her, lulling her into it’s warm embrace, the memories fading away until all she dreams about is happier times. 

                                                    o0o0o0o

FORKS HIGH Home of the Spartans.

The wood sign in the grass displaying the high school name, like everything else in this town, is old and worn, the words nearly too faded to read. The school building itself is no exception. The brick building is larger than Delphina anticipated, different than the pictures she painted in her mind. The design is similar to the stereotypical school, the kind in all the kids cartoons. Bella’s orange truck pulls into a parking spot, near a white van with a group of people surrounding it. Her eyes scan over them, watching the three boys rambunctiously talk to each, pushing one another around, feeding into the small town stereotypes Delphina built up. The group turn to face the truck once Bella cuts the engine, the truck spitting loudly before finally shutting down. And Delphina has to force the scowl that’s forming on her face away, unwilling to further the rich girl stereotype, even if she perfectly fits into it most days. 

“Hey, Bella! Who’s that with you?” a blonde guy in a letterman jacket and jeans says to Bella as she opens the car door, Delphina following suit. 

“Hey Mike, this is Delphina, she’s new here,” Bella replied, gesturing towards Delphina’s general direction with her hand. The group immediately turn their attention to Delphina, watching her like scavenger birds about to feast upon a freshly rotted corpse. 

Gross.  

“Delphina eh? Interesting name, I’m Mike,” the guy - Mike - says, walking towards her with his hand outstretched. 

“Don’t touch me,” she says, effortlessly side stepping him and turning towards Bella. “I’ll see you later, I’ve got to get my schedule.”

“Wait aren’t you Tony Stark’s daughter!?” a girl in the group exclaims, her voice grating against Delphina’s eardrums. 

She doesn’t give them a response or any indication she hears the question, quickly walking away from the group. She adjusts her backpack and messes with the bracelet on her wrist, the metal is cold and smooth to the touch, bringing her out of her thoughts momentarily. 

Left foot, right foot. Left foot, right foot. 

She wills herself to keep moving forward rather than fleeing like she wanted to, especially since everyone’s gaze is on her. She can see in their faces, the tilt of confusion, eyes alight as they recognize the daughter of Iron Man himself. The closer she gets to the steps that lead up to the school, the more people notice her. And despite the airs of arrogance she puts on, Delphina hates people looking at her, especially when they look at her like a tiny new toy to play with.  And for a brief moment, she considers convincing her mom to let her do online school rather than deal with any people. Or maybe she could run off into the woods surrounding the school, never to be seen again as she lives in solitude for the rest of her days.

Eventually she reaches the top of the steps, moving in the school building that brings a much-needed warmth to her chilled body. Her eyes scan the entrance, trying to see past all the people moving around, chatting loudly with one another. More students are inside, near lockers and other spots, seemingly enjoying the cold as much as Delphina did. She darts towards the wooden door to her left, the sign hanging over it reading OFFICE.

Entering the room, it’s relatively small with a few chairs pushed up against the wall. They face towards the counter that the front desk woman is sitting behind. And further behind her is another door that most likely leads to the office of the principal and the assistant principal. The woman behind the desk looks to be in her late 40s, with fine blonde hair, nearly as pale as her skin, that’s cropped short. She wears a pair of stereotypical receptionist glasses set on the bridge of her nose as she eyes Delphina with a look of interest. Thick red lipstick coats her thin, wrinkly lips, some of it smudging onto her face. 

“How can I help you today sweetie?” she asks, lowering her gaze slightly to get a better look. Her eyes burned through Delphina for a few moments, trying to determine if she knows her from somewhere. Delphina moves forward until she stands close enough to the counter that she can touch it and smell the strong floral perfume the woman wears.

“Hi, I’m Delphina Stark. I’m here to pick up my schedule,” she says. With those magical words, Delphina watches the woman’s eyes widen a fraction in surprise before she manages to semi collect herself. But she’s sitting up a bit straighter, her lips stretching into a grin that is a hair wider than a few minutes before.

It looks like the notoriety of her last name has reached everyone in little old Forks. 

“Oh of course! I’ll get that right for you, Ms. Stark,” the woman says, rolling her chair away and opening a filing cabinet. She rummages around for a few moments, before finding her target. She rolls back to where Delphina is waiting and places the sheet of paper on the counter, her long acrylic nails tapping against the countertop. Bright red, a bold color, yet so stereotypical for a secretary. “Here you go, dear.” 

“Thanks,” she mutters, turning to leave the room as soon as possible. Looking down at the paper, she reads her first class of the day, Biology. Glancing down at the map in her hands, Delphina begins following the vague directions, hoping to get there before class starts.

‘God knows I don’t need the attention.’

                                                     o0o0o0o

The bell rings loudly in the hall, piercing through any ambient noises and causes any lingering students to rush off. With a slur of curse words, Delphina rushes towards the door, that if the map is correct, should lead to her Biology class. Her footsteps pound against the glossy linoleum floors as she closes the distance between her and the door. She stops in front of the door, smoothing down her sweater and jeans, adjusting her backpack, and smooths her hair. With a final deep breath, Delphina opens the door, entering the classroom. 

The chattering that previously filled the room ceases once Delphina enters the room. The teacher, Mr. Molina is standing near his desk and currently faces Delphina, some papers in hand along with a pen. He smiles widely at her, in an attempt to ease her anxiety, the corner of his eyes crinkling as he does. Each of her steps in the room is magnified 100x, the students watching her like a hawk. 

“Hello, Delphina I assume?” he asks, meeting her halfway, clicking his pen on.

“Yeah, that’s me,” she says, handing him the paper the front desk lady gave her. He quickly scribbles his signature and hands the paper back to Delphina. He turns towards his desk and grabs a book before turning back to her.

“Alright Delphina Stark, welcome to Biology! Here’s this book for you --” he says as he hands her the Biology textbook. “I’ve got a seat for you, right over there,” he continues, pointing to the only empty seat in the room. 

“Thanks,” she mutters, making her way down the rows of seats towards her new lab partner. 

When her eyes land on him, Delphina nearly forgets how to breathe properly, needing to make an effort to inhale and exhale. He looks perfect, like a sculpture from Ancient Greece with a beauty that could put actual gods to shame. His skin is porcelain pale, nearly glowing in the dingy classroom lighting. His copper hair is messy, like he runs his hands through it a million times a day, framing golden eyes that look like glittering gold. He’s boyish in appearance with a blank expression resting on his perfect face, clearly already bored with the class. An unopened notebook along with a pen is the only possession he seems to have with him. 

 His gaze moves up to Delphina, gold meeting blue for only a second, but it’s enough to electrify her, as he moves his eyes back to his desk, fist clenching at his sides ever so slightly. And despite Delphina’s best interest, her heart stutters for a moment, her mouth getting drier the longer she looks at him.

Like in a trance, she moved towards the table, her eyes moving from her mysterious lab partner, to the back wall, back to him, then back to the wall. She finally arrives at the table, pulling out the chair and sitting in it. The chair scrapes against the floor, pulling attention back to Delphina, but they quickly lose interest as the Mr. Molino starts to speak, droning on about onions or something. 

“Hey,” she says, not expecting a reply, if his sullen expression is anything to go by.

And she doesn’t receive one. The entire class passes by and he manages to not utter a single word to Delphina, doesn’t even breathe in her direction. 

As soon as the bell rings, signifying that class is over, the guy shoots out the classroom, disappearing from view before Delphina could even blink, leaving her mildly disgruntled, confusion clouding her thoughts.

“Hey, New York!” the voice of Mike breaks her out of her thoughts. “Why don’t you let me walk you to class?” 

And as she grabs her books and bag, she groans, doing everything in her power to dodge Mike while inflicting minimal injuries to him, not wanting to be sent home on her first day of school.

                                                    o0o0o0o

Tags: 

@stuckupstucky​ 

[anneapocalypse]

[RvB 16.10] Tucker and the Post-Protagonist Problem

So I want to talk about Tucker’s characterization in seasons 15 and 16 (henceforth “Joe’s Tucker” for brevity’s sake), and how it relates to Tucker’s characterization prior.

I uh, realize this is a divisive issue, and you might not agree with my take on this and that’s fine—I am not here trying to ruin something for you that you like, or to force you to like something that you don’t. How characterization lands for us is subjective in a lot of ways. I just want to talk about where it lands for me, and I have some thoughts both positive and critical about characterization both past and present. And as I have a lot of ground to cover, this is going to be a long one.

A lot of the takes I’ve seen center around the idea that Tucker’s season 16 characterization—in fact, much of the tone and style of season 16 generally—is a return to the tone and style of the Blood Gulch Chronicles. I have seen this raised both as a positive and as a negative.

So let’s talk about Blood Gulch.

Tucker’s Character Arc

Let’s talk about how Blood Gulch sets Tucker on the path he will follow for the next decade.

Tucker’s hypersexualization, as the first and one of very few canonically black characters on this show, is not a problem that started with Joe. It’s a problem that’s been there, has always been there, and it’s kind of too late to retroactively fix it at this point.

You can’t go back and unwrite Tucker’s personality. What you can do is make Tucker a more complex character by developing other aspects of his personality, and that, I would argue, has been going on as far back as season 3, when he finds the sword and embarks on the Great Journey. Is Tucker’s arc in Blood Gulch goofy and weird? Yeah, absolutely, but he does have one.

Blood Gulch is a story about failure and yet Tucker is the exception that proves the rule—he ends up being the only person in Blood Gulch who actually succeeds. Church fails to protect Tex, Tex fails to kill Omega and fails to complete her final mission, York fails to help Tex complete her mission and then dies, Wyoming fails his mission and also dies, O’Malley fails to take over the universe, Doc fails at being a medic on every conceivable level, Caboose (if season 6 is any indication) fails to make Church his best friend, Simmons fails to gain Sarge’s respect, Sarge fails to kill even a single dirty Blue, Donut’s teammates more or less shut him down every time he speaks, Sister isn’t really there long enough to have a goal, Grif… well, to say that Grif fails would imply that he is trying to accomplish something in the first place, so we’ll let that one go. (I guess if you really wanted to, you could say Andy succeeds at exploding, so… that’s a freebie, you can have that one.)

But Tucker succeeds in multiple ways. He finds a special object and goes on a quest and gives birth to Alien Jesus. (Despite the apparent failure of the Great Journey, its true purpose ends up being fulfilled.) I think Tucker is in fact the only Blood Gulch character to actually defeat an enemy, when he permakills Wyoming!

And Tucker continues to grow in the Recollections arc. The ambassador gig might’ve started out simply as an explanation for his absence in season 6, and his desert predicament a way to bring him back to the story while moving the rest of the characters to a new map. But it also had the effect of adding a whole lot to Tucker’s character: new responsibilities, his relationship with his son, his ability to think on his feet and hold his own against a whole team of enemies trying to kill him. Fulfilling the Great Prophecy was not something Tucker chose. But in Recollections we see an increasingly proactive Tucker.

I want to stress two things here: first, that all of these things happen long before Chorus, and second, that none of this undermines Tucker’s established personality in any way. He’s still a lighthearted character who likes to crack jokes and make innuendos and flirt with girls, and generally doesn’t take his situation too seriously, including his “dumb job.” But that attitude also doesn’t undermine his capability, nor does it stop him from coming out on top.

In present-day season 10, while Carolina drags the Reds and Blues around the map, she gets pushback from pretty much all of them—for very good reasons. But it’s Tucker and Epsilon who take the lead in trying to get more information from Carolina—eavesdropping, prodding her for the details of her mission directly, and finally sending Epsilon to go undercover and try to figure her out. I don’t think it’s by chance that at the end, when the Reds and Blues finally turn on Carolina, it’s Tucker she pulls a gun on, rather than Grif or even Sarge. Tucker’s not the first or the only one to stand up to her, but his persistence combined with his capability does make him the most obvious threat to her control.

Tucker’s character progression has been a strong, consistent arc from Blood Gulch to Recollections to present-day season 10 to the Chorus Trilogy. The person Tucker becomes on Chorus is the culmination of a ten-year character arc, and the change Tucker undergoes on Chorus is not that he becomes capable. He was always capable. Wash sees that in him in season 11, and says so very clearly.

“You're a capable soldier, Tucker. At least compared to your usual acquaintances. You just need to try.”

Tucker grows into his capability on Chorus because his environment drastically changes. He is thrown into a real war with real stakes. He must rise to the challenges before him because to fail means to see real people die—his old friends, his new acquaintances, and the de facto team leader he has begun to regard with a grudging respect. This is important: Tucker’s arc on Chorus and specifically his arc in season 12 is about coming to recognize the stakes of the conflict—understanding that a wrong decision in this context will get people killed. He learns this the hard way, but the lesson sinks in fast, and Felix takes full advantage of that to goad and manipulate Tucker. Even after successfully reuniting with Wash and the others captured by the Feds, Tucker continues to struggle with insecurities brought to the surface by his experiences with the New Republic.

(I say “brought to the surface,” not “created,” because Tucker’s insecurities also do not materialize fully formed for the first time on Chorus, but we’ll come back to that later.)

I am not saying that Tucker’s rise to protagonist status was always planned, but I am saying that Miles chose him for a reason. Tucker’s capability in the Chorus arc is not an eleventh-hour add-on to his character. It’s always been there. Always.

“Dude, I'm kind of a badass all the time. You guys just happened to notice it then.”

Joe’s Tucker

You know what else has been there the whole time? Tucker’s insecurity.

This is an aspect of Tucker’s characterization this season that I like: the desire for approval. I think that’s consistent characterization; I think that’s been there since Blood Gulch and it was definitely there on Chorus, both in Tucker’s conflicts with Epsilon and in his growing respect for Wash.

I’ve written before about how I think a lot of the tension between Epsilon and Tucker comes from the fact that Epsilon doesn’t respect Tucker and regularly insults and demeans him--which frankly reflects far more poorly on Epsilon than it does on Tucker, but that’s another post. Wash, on the other hand, challenges Tucker because he sees him as capable, and Tucker responds, not only by growing into his own capability, but by coming to trust Wash in turn (“Wash will know what to do”) and coming to him for advice when he’s feeling down about decisions he’s made.

“Sis and Tuc’s Sexcellent Adventures” more serves to highlight Tucker’s inexperience back in Blood Gulch than it reflects on present Tucker, and that really doesn’t bother me. I am absolutely down for fumbling and inexperienced Blood Gulch Tucker versus the fucking character assassination season 14 attempted on him--yeah, let’s not get into that. Point is, nothing about Tucker’s adventures with Kaikaina early in this season has bothered me. Given the choice to see Tucker as insecure and posturing versus actively sexually irresponsible or predatory, I will take the former every time.

However. I can’t bring that up without also bringing up the “You’ve been served” gag from season 15. The implications of the Tower of Procreation are a messy can of worms that I really don’t want to get into here, so let’s assume for the sake of the argument that Joe at least intended that to be a basically consensual situation. Making Tucker suddenly an absentee/irresponsible father still feels like kind of a kick in the teeth, invoking some hardly-benign racial stereotypes and kind of spitting on Tucker’s established love for Junior--a child who was, by the way, conceived in a completely non-consensual manner of which Tucker was the victim, and whom Tucker nevertheless loved and accepted as his own once Junior was born.

Tucker was arguably the best father in Red vs. Blue, so uh. Undermining that piece of characterization 15 years in? That sucks. I don’t know how else to say it. It’s not as bad as “Fifty Shades of Red” trying to make him a statutory rapist, but it’s not great.

But let’s talk about some of the other beats Tucker hits in these recent seasons.

I laid out most of my thoughts on season 15 in my big fat RvB15 post so I’m going to try not retread too much of that here. I’ve said there and elsewhere that I think “Previously On” and “Reacts” are among the strongest episodes of season 15. Joe’s character writing really shines there across the board. Setting aside the Temple of Procreation business, Tucker hits several familiar beats in these episodes, most notably his insistence that Epsilon is Church (Tucker never really seems to draw a hard distinction between Epsilon and Alpha and I’ve argued before that this contributes to some of their tension on Chorus) and his looking up to Wash.

These episodes also introduce a new beat for Tucker that returns in “Nightmare on Planet Evil” and pays off late in the season, and that’s Tucker’s protectiveness of Caboose. Tucker and Caboose have had a tense relationship more or less from day one, each of them clearly seeing the other as competition for Church’s attention (though Caboose certainly takes that to an extreme, and his bias against Tucker probably also contributes to the way Epsilon treats him). It actually makes a lot of sense that following Church’s death, their shared grief might bring them together, and a real friendship might develop at last. Tucker helping Caboose to understand that Church is really gone is good development for both characters and it’s planted and paid off very effectively throughout the season.

Tucker’s relationship with Carolina likewise gets some good development throughout season 15, from Carolina joining the band on the moon (and singing so good), to Tucker helping her to her feet in the end sequence.

There are some moments of weirdness in Tucker’s dialogue (“me and Carolina and the Blues” comes to mind), but overall, when it comes to his relationships, Tucker hits some strong beats in season 15, both carrying forward established relationships and building on them.

And I think in a lot of ways, this remains true in season 16. Tucker and Kaikaina’s adventures have mostly surprised me in a good way. I like what they’ve added to canon both past and present. I love the serious moment the two of them share--ironically, a serious moment about how they both wish shit could be a little less serious, certainly an understandabl sentiment for both of them. It’s an important moment of continuity for Tucker after the mishaps of season 15, and it’s a nice further window into Kai’s entrepreneurial ventures.

The cyclops episode is absolutely goofy, but it’s goofy in a way that gives us some classic Tucker--both his capability and his sense of humor. That he defeats the cyclops by punching it in the ball, in a wacky action sequence complete with some well-placed innuendo, I’d say brings together those aspects of Tucker pretty damn well. If I had to pick an episode that embodies that whole callback to the Blood Gulch spirit, and Tucker in Blood Gulch specifically, I’d probably pick that one.

The thing to note about this episode is that its absurdity in no way undermines Tucker’s capability or the more complex understanding of the world he has grown into over time. I have no major complaints with this episode.

Let me say it again for those in the back row: the Blood Gulch tone is not itself a problem and does not, in and of itself, undermine anyone’s character growth.

However.

(You knew there was a however.)

There are a few specific instances where I think Tucker’s characterization weakens in these recent seasons--in ways that have nothing to do with tone.

Again, I don’t want to rehash too much discussion of season 15, but I know I was not the only one a bit discontented with Tucker’s role in the plot. Like I said, I think Tucker has plenty of great moments in 15. His role in the story, however, seems mostly to be to step aside to let the plot happen, and then to act as ineffectively as possible to make sure things are allowed to escalate. I wrote about this in my season 15 essay as well, how not allowing the Reds and Blues to be suspicious also weakens Temple as villain because it seems like sheer dumb luck rather than his own cleverness that no one catches onto him, how weird it is for Tucker to trust a stranger given his past experiences, etc. Most of this comes down to narrative issues, I think, and making Dylan the protagonist; it affects Tucker most noticeably but it’s not limited to him.

It’s Tucker going full LEEROY JENKINS that really feels like kind of an insult to his established characterization. It’s not just Chorus Tucker who is good at coming up with tactics on the fly and figuring a way out of a tight spot. He does that at the temple in Recollections. He figures out how to defeat a time-distorting Wyoming in Blood Gulch.

And as I’ve said before, you can come up with reasons why Tucker is off his game in season 15. Grief and the possibility of Church being alive is probably right at the top of that list.

But I do want to raise again the most important lesson Tucker learned on Chorus, and that’s the difficulty of making tough calls in a high-stakes situation. I don’t think Tucker making a bad call in the fight against the Blues and Reds would even be a problem if we saw Tucker consciously struggling to make that call, instead of just running out half-cocked. Instead, he acts impulsively and someone gets gravely hurt because of it, and then Tucker feels bad about it.

That’s not new character development, that’s Tucker’s season 12 arc, again. Kind of like how a villain from the past with a grudge against Carolina for the loss of someone they loved isn’t a new concept, it’s just Carolina’s season 13 arc, again. You can make it make sense in universe, but it still feels derivative. Callbacks to the tone, humor, and style of earlier seasons is fine. Cannibalizing past seasons for plot, and retreading character arcs instead of moving them forward, is not a good look.

It looks like you just didn’t know what to do with these characters, so you did something that had already been done.

And I can respect, in light of some of that criticism of season 16, that Joe is really trying to do something with The Shisno Paradox that hasn’t been done. Regardless of how this season ends, and how this new arc ends up landing for me as a whole, I can and will respect that.

Which brings us at last… to Camelto, and my take on why this episode in particular rubs me the wrong way when it comes to Tucker.

No one could call this scenario derivative of past seasons--and upon further consideration, I don’t even think I’d call it regressive--because this Tucker doesn’t really resemble Blood Gulch Tucker or any other Tucker. I mean, sure, the hypersexualization is there, as is the insecurity. But there’s a big difference between posturing and threatening to murder people who insult your sexual prowess.

And you can say I’m taking the King Arthur shenanigans too seriously, but I do find something kind of jarring about Tucker casually sending a whole army to their deaths when he’s had a major character arc based around taking the stakes of war and human lives seriously. Yeah, in a meta context, the time travel shenanigans are meant to be funny, and they’re mostly closed loops so it doesn’t really feel like anyone is actively killing anyone who wasn’t historically going to die anyway. But from an in-universe perspective, it’s kind of uncomfortably callous. (You know, the kind of callous disregard for human life that was played dead fucking straight last season when it was Carolina doing it anyway moving on.)

So, setting aside the attitude toward death, for me the whole tone of this episode with Tucker tips just over the line from “posturing and it’s funny” into “aggressively desperate to reaffirm his sexual prowess and it’s kind of pathetic and uncomfortable.” And that is not the feeling I’m used to getting from Tucker. It starts to feel a little bit mean-spirited, and coupled with the earlier episode about Tucker’s sexual missteps (which, on its own, I enjoyed), I start to feel like we’re more just dumping on Tucker, rather than giving him character development. It’s uncomfortable for me in the same way the back half of season 10 gleefully punishing and humiliating Carolina was uncomfortable for me.

And I did not feel that way last season. I felt like Tucker was kind of getting pushed around by the dictates of The Plot, and thus wasn’t allowed to be his best or most interesting self. But I didn’t feel like we were deliberately devoting entire episodes to making him look stupid.

And that’s what this feels like to me.

Taken as a whole, Joe’s Tucker has been… kind of all over the place. I can’t really characterize it one way, because it’s been a lot of things. At points I think it’s quite good, and at other points I’ve found it frustrating--in different ways.

We’re still mid-season, so I’m not ready to pass final judgment yet--this episode could end up being an outlier and if so I won’t lose sleep over it. I think I’ll forgive a lot if we just get a bit of Tucker being capable in a plot-relevant way--it doesn’t have to be a major way. He’s not the protagonist of this season, Grif is, and now that they’ve teamed up I think, and hope, that we’ll have a chance to see Tucker play a stronger supporting role.

The Post-Protagonist Problem

Lest I come down too hard on Joe, I want to point out that this fumble is not unique to either Joe or Tucker.

In what I’m going to call the “Post-Protagonist Problem,” Church, Wash, and Carolina all suffer from similar problems once their main arcs are over.

Alpha’s arc wraps up pretty effectively in season 6, but Epsilon has his own arc spanning seasons 8-10. Your mileage may vary but I find Epsilon utterly obnoxious in season 12, and I think there’s a reason for this beyond how needlessly mean he is to Tucker: he is still trying to be the main character two seasons after his main arc has ended, and thus he ends up actively fighting Tucker for the protagonist spot, and bogarting every scene he’s in.

Wash really has two main arcs that kind of fuse into one: his Recollections arc, bracketed by Freelancer and present-day season 10. You could argue that season 11 is really the culmination of Wash’s main arc, because it’s there that he truly settles into his place on Blue Team, ultimately sacrificing himself for them, even though he doesn’t die. From season 12 on, Wash doesn’t really have an arc—his interactions with Locus serve Locus’s development far more than they serve his own, and his role in the conclusion of the Chorus storyline is pretty secondary. In season 15, Wash has no active role in the plot except to get shot, and season 16—well, the verdict is still out, but his role so far has been fairly passive. (And the continuity of Wash’s characterization is fairly contentious in itself, but that’s another post. Oh boy, is that another post. We’ll get to you, Wash. We’ll get to you.)

Carolina’s main arc wraps up in season 10, she is hastily escorted offscreen for a season and half, and when she does return, it’s mostly to carry Epsilon around and say and do very little otherwise—she even gets nerfed immediately upon return. The only reason we got a Carolina mini-arc in season 13 is because fans expressed disappointment at her sidelining in 12, and Miles took note. It is also worth noting that:

Carolina’s season 13 arc has nothing to do with Chorus, does very little to advance the main plot, and does nothing to develop Carolina’s relationships with the main cast and in fact actively removes her from them for large chunks of the season.

Carolina’s role in season 15’s plot, though not an arc for her, is pretty much a retread of her season 13 arc with a different villain.

What this all adds up to is I think that Red vs. Blue in general, not just Joe Nicolosi, has trouble figuring out what to do with a character once their run as a protagonist has ended—and that’s kind of a shame, because it’s not like most of us wants these characters to go away. At least, I don’t.

There’s nothing wrong with a character taking a secondary role once their main arc is complete. But that secondary role shouldn’t discard established character development. A character’s shouldn’t have to regress simply because they’re not driving the plot. There are ways to offer follow-up to previous character development without placing a character back in the protagonist spot.

I’d argue that some of Wash’s strongest character beats post-season 10 are the ones that develop his mentor relationship to Tucker. I think both Carolina and Wash would benefit from developing their connection with each other post-Freelancer. It doesn’t have to be front and center or take up a lot of a screentime, it’s just a way to maintain emotional continuity for both characters in the background of the plot (and it can still be relevant to the plot--imagine if Carolina and Wash’s season 15 talk on the beach were about Epsilon instead of York).

Likewise, there are plenty of ways to explore both Tucker’s fun-loving flirt personality and his insecurities without feeling either regressive or mean-spirited.

I think you can have fun with a former protagonist as a secondary character while still offering up some emotional continuity through relationship development while letting plot development mostly take a backseat. I think Joe was almost there with Tucker and Kaikaina’s subplot this season--like, really close. Tucker can be silly. He can be insecure. Just don’t outright disregard the lessons he’s already learned so he can be made to learn them all over again. And do let him show his confidence and capability now and then.