#so yeah prepare for future analysis to take longer to come out

[minthe-lover]

Chapter 221 Anaylsis

I'd admit that most of my problems with this chapter are art related, so I'm gonna just skip over like 80% of my critics of that so It doesn't get repetitive. It's mainly just creepy hades faces, and awkward proportions that make him look like a lego figure in stop motion. Like look at this guy... he looks so awkward and... god his ass is really tiny.

Now the big art thing that I am going to talk about is how the simplified one colour and one note backgrounds has caused rs to basically shoot herself in the foot. Cause in the first few chapters the backgrounds where detailed enough that we could really visuals all the important areas. Artemis's house, Hades house and the underworld corp while we aren't given like maps of them but we have a good idea of the layout and space...

with persephone new apartment.. we don't get that. It's all this dark blue, we get one shot of the outside and then a few undetailed shots of the inside. How many rooms does this have, is it big or small? hades says it looks rundown... but why aren't we shown that? They leave the apartment to eat on the roof almost immediately, is that cause persephone doesn't have a dining space in her apartment.. it just reallys annoy me.

Then the next shot in what I thought was the apartment... was actually hades, I think this chapter would really really benefit from a few shot focusing on persephones apartment. If needed remove the whole 'joke' of the billboard and instead show up persephone apartment and have them eat inside to better show Persephones kitchen. Side note with how last chapter went... how is she gonna treat her neighbors...

Now I've said this before that I'll say it again I do like persephone getting her own apartment. It's a good idea not to have hades and persephone immediately be a married couple.. but I really wish rs did more with this. Persephone has missed out on far more then just owning her own apartment.. she only did at most a month of collage it would really help to show more that persephone is trying to be independent.

Now I just want to draw attention to this line.. and just the massive amount of disrespect it levels at hecate, while yes she was not technically queen.. but like come on hades. She's been helping you since you stared at king, she did most of the research and work in the last few chapters. She may not have shared the title but it's clear she was doing a fuck ton of work.

Lets talk about the most annoying line in this whole chapter! Just to make one thing clear persephone you where not coddled, you where a CHILD. Demeter was making sure you had an education and a safe place to grow up first before making you work! that is a completely understandable thing.. and the moment you were over 18 demeter let you go... she was worried for your safety in a world that has repeatedly abuse her and you've proven yourself in the past that you put your trust in the wrong individualizes.

You then had one conversation in ten years where demter outwardly praised out about how great you were doing… You didn't even talk about what you could do in the mortal realm. Before then you didn't have any experience and again were a collage student .. not exactly someone fit to step up to a important job like that… Like from the few flashback to the punishment.. it's clear you were struggling.

Also this line and how much it annoys me in relationship to demeter, because it's constantly brought up terrible demeter is for hiding stuff like the fertility goddess power from persephone as how she is bad and irredeemable... and when I was first read it I thought that is what it was referring to. I read it as people hid stuff from persephone to protect her... but persephone admiting that she understands it's a struggle, and that hades isn't a bad guy for hiding shit from her but you know her own mother doing stuff to protect her is a terrible person.

Now I want to get these analysis out before the next chapter does... so yeah this isn't as detailed or longer but.. eh.

[tobiasdrake]

love your db analysis posts! i'd love to hear your thoughts on ultimate gohan, if you have any. between him having little to no reaction to finding out everyone on earth is dead, and randomly letting gotenks fight buu instead of himself, he did not seem to be the same character at all to me, and iirc even piccolo says so, i just... find it hard to believe a non-rage-triggered power-up would do that to him.

Much like Android 16, I do wonder if there were more plans for Ultimate Gohan that wound up being scrapped by the shift in narrative direction.

We're first introduced to the concept of Ultimate Gohan as the Elder Kaioshin is explaining his abilities.

Gohan's dormant power has long been a recurring attribute of his character. In fact, this isn't the first time he's had an elderly sage draw out his dormant power.

Teaching him to draw out and control his dormant abilities was (stealthily) part of Goku's training with him. That Gohan was finally starting to make it his own and tap into his true ki is the reason for why he was repeatedly unimpressed by Goku's abilities.

Gohan didn't even realize it, but through his mastery of the Super Saiyan, he'd also begun to take control of and internalize the tremendous ki he'd always had stored away in him. And as he came into his own ki, what he could sense of Goku's ki proportional to his own didn't make sense to him.

Super Saiyan 2 was, then, the culmination of Gohan's development. His full power, channeled through the Super Saiyan and its amplifying effects - both for better and, uh, for worse.

But it's been seven years and Gohan's been indulging in his true love of academia, in accordance with the agreement Goku and Chi-Chi made about his future.

Goku may have successfully escaped having to get a job by conveniently dying at the last possible second, but Gohan's future is set on a course. He's going to be an academic. It's what Chi-Chi wants for him, and it's what Gohan wants for himself; Even Goku acknowledges that.

Seven years of rigorous study and zero martial arts practice later, Gohan isn't the guy anymore. In fact, examining just how much Gohan isn't the guy anymore is the whole point of his fight with Dabra.

Goku eyeballs Dabra as being roughly around Cell's power. This allows Dabra to serve as a yardstick for Gohan, so we understand what it means for him when he fails to measure up.

Gohan that was a Zanzoken/Afterimage. Nobody even does those anymore. They became obsolete after ki-sensing was normalized, because everyone can now easily sense which "image" is the real one. The one other time we saw a Zanzoken return post-23rd Tenkaichi Budokai, it was against Frieza, who can't sense ki.

Dabra is mocking you right now. He legit thinks you're so shitty at martial arts that you'll fall for this amateur-hour guff. And he's right.

I kinda feel Geets here. If I had to watch my last chance to ever fight my rival get wasted on this, I'd be losing my mind too. He fucking fell for a Zanzoken; Can I just take over already?

So. Yeah. Full Power Gohan isn't a thing anymore. He can still tap into the form - and for some inexplicable reason so can Goku and Vegeta - but this is no longer Peak Potential. Which is where the Elder Kaioshin comes in.

This is a classic formula of Dragon Ball. We've seen it in the RRA, Piccolo, Saiyan, Namek (twice!), and Android arcs. First, Goku gets the shit kicked out of him - sometimes even to the point of being presumed dead.

While the surviving cast members scurry about trying to find a way to face the bad guy, Goku - sometimes unbeknownst to them, sometimes not - is recovering and preparing to come back stronger than ever. This typically takes the form of some sort of godly trial or ordeal guaranteed to make him stronger than ever.

Then, at the 11th hour when all else has failed and all hope is lost, Goku makes his return to have one last epic battle for the fate of the world/universe/cosmos.

This is the Dragon Ball formula. Has been since the day the Four-Star Dragon Ball saved Goku's life from a lethal Dodonpa. Of course, getting Gohan back up to speed isn't going to be enough, since Majin Buu in his weakest form was able to do this to our Cell-adjacent yardstick.

I wonder what Dabra Cookie tastes like? I imagine it's like the wafer part of a Keebler cookie. Sugary and nice on its own but better with fudge.

So. Yeah. If Gohan's going to throw hands with Buu, he's going to need more than the power he fought Cell with. Fortunately, that's the Elder's specialty, and what makes this different than that other time Gohan had his dormant power drawn out.

That's right, we're limit-breaking again. Not the limits of human ability, the limits of Saiyan ability, or even the limits of Super Saiyan ability; We're limit-breaking Gohan specifically. Elder Kaioshin's abilities can not only draw out Gohan's full dormant ability but push it beyond Gohan's natural limits.

Full Power Gohan? Nah. This is Limit-Breaker Gohan. Not his full potential; Beyond his potential. Something entirely different from the Super Saiyan, but similar enough that he doesn't require much alternative instruction.

Kinda feels like a thing that shouldn't be able to exist, to be honest. After all the time that's been put into things like the strain of the Kaio-ken on a body, the effects of Frieza having power beyond his limits, or even what trying to use Super Saiyan 3 in a mortal body does to Goku in this very arc.

The idea of Gohan channeling ki beyond his limits seems like it should have some drawbacks, doesn't it? We do get some hints that something's weird about Gohan's new power. Piccolo can't even recognize his ki signature in this state.

This form is doing some weird shit to his ki. And, as Piccolo notes, Gohan's harder now. Gohan is here to take care of business, and nothing is going to get in his way.

But. Then. The switch happens. Suddenly, Gohan is no longer the protagonist and we need a way for Majin Buu to suddenly be too much for Gohan to handle. So we go from this:

To this:

In the span of two chapters. All so that Buu can ass-pull a brand new ability that's never once been mentioned before even though Kaioshin will later cop to having seen him do it twice, that will instantly make Ultimate Gohan stop being a solution to this problem two chapters after his debut.

A plan that, in fact, he began putting into place one chapter after Ultimate Gohan's debut. Never in the history of Dragon Ball has a brand new form or ability been obsoleted this quickly.

And then Gohan was basically thrown in the dumpster and this was never spoken of again, with Ultimate Gohan just becoming his new Strongest Transformation in follow-up products. You can feel the climactic final act being aggressively aborted around him, in favor of Goku and Vegeta's third act.

Hell, at one point, Goku even suggests bringing in Gohan to fight Pure Buu. Y'know. Since Ultimate Gohan is the strongest in the universe and all that. But Vegeta nopes it.

No explanation offered. He's just like, "That's not the plot anymore; Try to keep up, Kakarot." To be fair, Goku had a chance to bring Gohan into this too. They're both aggressively elbowing Gohan out of the spotlight here.

Mad disrespect.

[thewhitefluffyhat]

State of the Blog 8.1.2022

It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

The good news is that after months of feeling burned out and uninspired, I finally feel like posting and writing again.

The bad(?) news is that it probably won’t be much about either Magia Record or When They Cry.

That’s right, it’s time for this blog to take another sudden and random swerve in direction! But first, consider this post a farewell and postmortem to my feelings on the aforementioned fandoms, and an update on what to look forward to from this space in the near future.

tl;dr: friendship ended with MagiReco and WTC. now The Locked Tomb is my best friend. This is your warning to follow/unfollow accordingly!

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As is probably evident from my half-year+ disappearance, I’m extremely not in the mood to engage with When They Cry stuff. Last year’s new mangas taking any queer SatoRika interpretations out back and shooting them dead (ow, right in the headcanon!) was the end. And that turned out to be the final nail in what was already a well-built coffin.

After the disappointment and frustrations of Higurashi SotsuGou being capped off with my worst queerbaiting fears coming true, I just… I just couldn’t any more. I saw the rest of the fandom engaging with the new material, and I wanted no part in it. I realized that thinking about WTC was making me miserable, and I have so many better things to do than rain on other people’s parades. Seriously, if you’re still enjoying the fandom, more power to you! But I don’t see myself coming back for a long, long time. If ever.

Without love, it cannot be seen. And I no longer have that love, so there is no point in my looking.

My only regret is not finishing my fic, Cat Got Her Tongue. I was quite close to finishing Chapter 7, and I might still try to do that one day. I also still have the very extensive plot outline, which I might polish up and post here at some point, just for the sake of closure.

But as much as it sucks to say it: consider CGHT officially abandoned.

I’m also not particularly enthused to post about MagiReco either, sorry. I eventually did watch the last four episodes of the anime, and I’ve put up my thoughts on them in this post. But while the anime sure was Something, that something wasn’t enough to grab me back. I’ve even stopped playing the game itself. My feelings on MagiReco aren’t quite as bitter as Higurashi, but, well, I’d already been disappointed in it for a very long while. Now I’ve finally run out of patience and impossible hopes.

So what will this tumblr be moving forward?

Well... few months ago, my procrastination and avoidance of anything WTC or MagiReco-related morphed into aimless wandering through an assortment of many different things - cosplaying Rozen Maiden in FFXIV, playing lots of Touhou-inspired D&D, and catching up on a few books with Actual Queer Characters that I’d had recommended to me - wondering if perhaps something might stand out and plant the seeds of a new obsession.

As it turned out, The Locked Tomb series struck just the right nerve! The whole “lesbian necromancers in space” tagline already had my Attention, but somehow no one had told me they were also mystery/psychological thriller novels! Like hi, hello, yes, that is precisely my jam.

I hope you all like the disaster lesbians as much as I do, because I will not be shutting up about them any time soon.

So yeah, to reiterate: this blog will be shifting gears again, and if you’re only here for WTC and/or MagiReco analysis, this is your warning to unfollow.

And you choose to stick around, prepare for skeletons!

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Now, the existing TLT books technically came out two years ago, but as everyone knows, time is an illusion during the pandemic and therefore doesn’t count. As such, I’ve decided to dig through the entire Locked Tomb tags on both AO3 and tumblr in chronological order, a thing that is both reasonable to want and possible to achieve.

In fact, I was initially planning to finish all of that before posting any of my own analysis or fics (because I do so hate the feeling of failing to do my fandom homework), but at my current progress rate, it will be months and months before I’m fully caught up. And Nona the Ninth is coming out in September, oh my!

So, for the time being, I’ll still be fairly quiet while in the process of devouring and incorporating a new fandom into my brain, and I probably won’t have much to say about all the Nona spoilers and hype while they’re relevant. 

But I won’t be completely on hiatus either. I’ll be putting up giant reblog queues occasionally, and maybe sprinkling in some of my own posts that I feel most confident about. I apologize in advance if they’re things that have been discussed before! As far my adventures in time travel are concerned, I’m living in December 2020 right now~

[teddylacroix]

I just had a horrifying dream where my best friend, her boyfriend, her sister and SIL, her mom, and temporarily I had moved into a 2-bedroom house together and were settling in. After finishing up the big unpacking, her mom had started irritating her, so I was sitting on a bed and listening to her ramble disjointedly so bff could focus on tidying the kitchen, because the bed was just in a corner next to the kitchen lol. She started swaying, so I asked if she'd eaten recently, and she shrugged it off, and I looked at bff. She thought about it for a moment, then realized no, it had been a while, actually, so she shooed her off to eat. She went to do so, heading to Sister's room because that's where she was staying, and said the a/c wasn't working. I asked about the a/c situation as she wandered off, and bff said there had been a good a/c with water, but a part had broken, so it was in storage, but she would set up the other a/c. I was like, okay, and went back to organizing. Then it suddenly got cooler, so I was like ooh a/c! And I went into the kitchen to check it out, and THEIR CAT'S—WHO USED TO BE MY CAT—FUCKING HEAD WAS IN A CONTAINER ATTACHED TO THE A/C ADKFHFLALLF I was like, did you behead our cat?!! And she said yeah, since it needed fluids and she'd found out that blood worked better than water, and I was like howwww did you find that out and also WTF EPY OMIGOD.

And then it gets worse. Because The Boyfriend starts petting the head, and it almost groggily responds, like it shifts into his touch, and I'm going D: is the machine keeping her alive D: and bff went no she's definitely dead, it's just like with chickens, do it fast enough and her brain doesn't realize her heart is gone. I have to look away for a bit because I'm so upset about her, and I ask what about their other cat Wing, and she says hopefully the other a/c gets fixed soon so it doesn't come to it. D: then I look back and thE HEAD IS DECAYING but also MORE ANIMATED, like her fur had gone all black and slimy and her skull is a little lopsided but she keeps trying to open one eye and her mouth like she's trying to meow as she leans into The Boyfriend's petting. The Boyfriend says this way it's like she's around a little longer since she's still responsive, like a pet, and I say SHE WAS LIKE A PET WHEN SHE WAS ALIVE AND OUR PET T.T And then I leave the room to trade sleeping locations with her mom T.T

This was right after the horrifying dream where my mom and I had driven like two hours to get me some specialized therapy. When we got to the doctor's house in Salem-but-not-really, he wasn't there, but he'd left a note on his porch that if we were there for x, take the key and go on in, but if we were there for the companion treatment, use the passcode on the safe to get the supplies. I'm about to leave, but my mom stops me and says no, look, you have the passcode, and I go, oh, so I do. So I use it on the safe and pull out an absolutely unfortunate-looking old porcelain doll that looks like it's been through a few estate sales now. I tell my mom I don't like it, but she tells me that I should at least try, so I take the doll and we begin heading home. After just a few minutes, my mom pulls over saying she got too hot and feels dizzy and nauseous, so I offer to drive us the rest of the way. We trade places in the car, and I drive us home as the doll watches from the backseat. When we get home, I begin preparing the doll by talking to it, and it explains that it will be with me 24/7 to monitor my unconscious behaviors and speech for future analysis by the doctor. Then the dream goes into a montage of me trying to exist, but the doll keeps showing up watching me from shadows, down the corridor, under a table, etc. Even when I lock it in my room and go for a walk to get some privacy, she appears following me and telling me ominously that she is to stay with me at all times until the procedure is complete, and I'm like D: What D:

[midsummerevening]

Long time no see… I’ve been pretty busy lately and even if I had written some of the analysis, I just wasn’t feeling it. But here it is! Hope y’all are pretty great.

Episode 3: Battle of the Bands

The end of 1x02 leaves us with a confused Victor and at the beginning of 1x03 we find him searching on the internet, discovering that yes, sexuality is a spectrum. What was my first reaction? Probably excitement at seeing that bisexuality was mentioned (along with pansexuality) on the show. I was very glad to see it displayed even if it was brief and, just like Victor, I wondered, is he bisexual?

He confesses to Simon that he likes Mia a lot and feels super connected to her, so what if? As he points out, there is a chance that he might like her more in the future… I can’t deny that he really seems fond of her.

As Victor likes Mia, naturally, he invites her on a date at the Battle of the Bands, and when he tells Felix, he seems genuinely excited. A little apprehensive and nervous, but that’s normal isn’t it? From what we gather later on, Victor’s never been on a date. Doesn’t know what to expect. So his seemingly nervousness is completely understandable.

However there is something in his behaviour (and it might only be him being stressed and all) that makes me wonder if excitement is all there is – I think he also feels relieved in some way, and maybe it’s just me but it comes off as a bit forced? It reminds me of when he had to chat with Mrs Albright in 1x01, his too enthusiastic congrats or yeah, the luckiest in 1x06. Might just be an impression I got, because other than that, he seems really excited to hang out with her!

The Call Me Maybe scene, as I will call it, is important on so many levels. Besides showcasing the obvious chemistry between Victor and Benji, this scene proves one thing and that is that Victor does not want to be distracted from Mia. Past the surprise and enthusiasm at learning that Benji is in a band, Victor slowly realizes how hard it’d for him to focus on Mia if Benji was there.

Accepting to go to the Battle of the Bands for their first date would compromise that indeed. It would remind Victor of his attraction to Benji, how he likes him, and ultimately, that would keep him away from denying this. Can’t really avoid the unavoidable when it’s right in front of you, right?

So Victor decides to change their plans, no matter how gutted he seems to be to to decline Benji’s offer. He sighs in disappointment after having done so.

Mia and Victor go to this museum. They have a fun time. They eventually kiss and Victor feels happy. Relieved that he even got the butterflies in the stomach that everyone talks about. Keep in mind that Victor hasn’t been with anyone, he hasn’t experienced love that way and doesn’t know how it’s supposed to feel like. The butterflies, though? He has heard of it. And he feels them with Mia.

Then comes Simon’s message and that throws him off.

I think this is when Victor realized that what he was feeling for Mia was different from what he felt for Benji. In short, that how he felt wasn’t it. It was less… intense, less passionate. With Mia, it’s great. When it comes to Benji however, Victor lacks words to convey what he feels. When he sees him singing that song to him (can’t convince me of otherwise) all the while looking at him in the eyes, that the crowd suddenly disappears just like the first time he ever saw him in that corridor at Creekwood, it feels surreal.

Fireworks exploding. Jet-fires flying. It’s everything. It’s more than butterflies. It’s nothing Victor had expected. Surprising and overwhelming. He’s speechless as they take each other in.

There. This is the moment. Victor knows what Simon is talking about. Without even kissing Benji he is enraptured and transfixed and the list of adjectives could go on and on but you get what I mean. Victor knows. Then, he’s left crushed, heart-broken, at the sight of Benji and Derek kissing. Benji, who he thought was coming towards him. And Victor was stepping closer too.

That was before Derek stepped in and made Victor aware of the full picture. Benji, the guy he’s crushing on without even admitting so, is taken. As he leaves the coffee shop, he turns back one last time to see him, them, heart-broken. In front of him the picture of what he couldn’t have.

Off to  Episode 4: The Truth Hurts.

Very beginning of this episode, Victor stresses on how great this is that Benji isn’t free. That he is fine. He makes it sound like he’s not upset about it, though his face expressions do not fail to show his real feelings (as they always do).

Remember the reaction Victor got after that phone call? Well I think it’s the same reason that Victor said that it was better that Benji was off the table. That way, he wouldn’t think about it any more. Instead he could go on on pretending. He could push his feelings away, pretend they do not even exist in the first place. Even if he has never felt like this around anyone before.

I relate to Victor a lot on this. I understand why he would push his identity further when he saw that Benji was unavailable. Benji would have push Victor to come out, because he wanted/wants him. But seeing that Benji has a boyfriend… now, it feels… worthless to even say something.  Their relationship would be impossible anyway, and there’s Mia. So it really does not come as a surprise to me that he would say that it’s better in the end. That allows him to delay the inevitable, something he’s not prepared to, not ready to admit to himself and the rest of the world. It’s almost a relief. And I’m saying ‘almost’ because even though he convinces himself it’s for the best, deep down he must be very upset and sad at the news.

A part of me thinks that if Benji had been single, Victor would have tried. Because in that marvellous moment at Brasstown, when that wave of realization hit him, he knew. He knew right then and there, he liked Benji. He may have know that he wanted him. But with Derek… it’s no longer a choice he can make. This choice was ripped from his hands, and forced him into denying that part of himself he tried so hard to hide, deep deep deep.

So from then on, logically, he relies on Mia. “I can focus on Mia.” without thinking that he shouldn’t try this hard to focus on her. He should just do. Like he does with Benji, even unconsciously. His feelings for Benji do not vanish, obviously, but he acts like they did. It’d hurt even more to acknowledge them, because he couldn’t act on it. Whether it is because he’s not ready to be out yet, or because Benji can’t be with him. Which sucks, like Simon says.

That talk around Zayn and Gigi Hadid? Simon used the term ‘crush’. Victor didn’t, but it’s obvious he’s crushing on Benji. Hard. He’s falling for him, undoubtedly.

Knowing Benji has a boyfriend does not disturb their dynamic or their chemistry for that matter, as the opening scene of 1x04 shows. 

With everything going on, it’s needless to say that Victor has a lot on his plate during this episode: he learns that Benji has a boyfriend, that his mom (of all people) cheated on his dad and Mia talks to him about her mom. So seeing that Simon had an amazing week just confronts him to his own bad week. 

[imaginewithmgk]

Can I request a story where the reader is trying to do coursework (maybe because she came along on tour) and Colson trying to distract her? (I've just finished writing all my end of term essays and I wish I had someone to distract me)

DISTRACTIONS

request thirteen

summary: y/n is trying to work on stuff for school and colson won’t stop trying to distract her

word count: 1,024

warnings: swearing, lil smut

Reader’s P.O.V.

You rub your forehead for what feels like the hundredth time today. You’ve been working on multiple papers for multiple classes all-day in a noisy tour bus because for some reason you agreed to join Colson on a tour while in the midst of exam season. You had somehow convinced all your teachers to let you submit your work online due to a “personal emergency” that involved travelling to the other side of the world. God knows how they let you. You finally decide to pick up your multiple textbooks, laptop and other miscellaneous writing tools, shove them in a bag and take them outside to find a quiet place to get some work done. You walk for a few minutes and find a beautiful park that has benches scattered in random spots. You pick a suitable bench, one that’s clean and is under a tree in case it rains. You place your things in all their necessary places, plug your headphones into your phone and begin to play all your favourite songs that help you concentrate. 

Who knows how much time has passed since you began working, hopefully, an hour or so, before you notice another presence opposite you. You look up to see Colson staring at you with his hands placed under his chin and an adorable, yet cheeky, grin plastered on his face.“How did you find me?” You roll your eyes but smile, this man is your weakness. “You will never find out my secrets Y/N,” He teases.“Whatever,” You chuckle. “Go away I need to finish all these papers,” You point to various pieces of work. “Come on,” He groans. “Take a break for a little bit,”“I can’t. You and I both know that will lead to me never finishing this work,” I laugh.“Okay,” He pouts. You furrow your eyebrows at him knowing that he never gives up this easy but let it go, you really need to finish this work. 

It had only been a few minutes before Colson started his antics, first one is playing music off his phone out loud and jamming to it. You look up to see him sitting on the bench, feet on the seat, drumming the beat on his knees in a very extreme manner. You try your best to ignore him but you draw the line when he stands up on the table and starts playing air guitar to his own song. He jumps up and down, almost landing on your laptop a few times and knocking your pencils all over the ground. “Colson!” You yell. A few people jogging look over at the two of your and shake their heads in annoyance. “Fuck off!” You whisper yell.“What?” He pouts once again and sits across from you. “I really need to finish this stuff and you’re distracting me. Look you knocked all my stuff on the ground!” You complain and cross your arms over your chest. “I’m sorry,” He says before picking up all of your stuff and putting it back where it was. “Thank you,” You grumble and get back to work. 

You expected him to leave when you went off at him, but he didn’t. He sat there in silence, not for long, but the time he did you appreciated greatly. It wasn’t long until he was on the same side of the bench as you, poking your shoulder and saying your name over and over. “Y/N,” Poke. “Y/N,” Poke. “Y/N,” Poke. “Y/N,” Poke. “What!?” You whisper yell, not wanting more unnecessary attention from onlookers. “Pay attention to meeeee,” “Colson, seriously?”“Yes seriously,” He smirks. “Ugh,” You shake your head and focus back onto your current paper. “What are you writing about?” He looks over your shoulder at your computer.“I’m doing a song analysis,” You mumble. “Ooh! What song?” “Glass House,” You whisper under your breath. You didn’t intend for him to know that you were analysing one of his songs for a class, knowing that it would either inflate his ego or upset him. “Huh?”“Glass House,” You say louder. “My song?” He asks in disbelief. You look up at him, mentally preparing yourself for the argument that was surely going to begin. “That’s so cool! You can even ask me about what some of the lyrics mean!”“It’s more about what I interpret but yes, your help would be amazing,” You admit. He smiles and you notice a blush tinting his cheeks but choose not to mention it. 

“Y/N,” “What?” Half an hour or so had passed since you told Colson you were analysing his song. He helped you with a few of the lyrics but mostly let you work which you were extremely grateful for, yet you knew it wasn’t going to last much longer. He was getting antsy. “When will you be done? It’s going to be dark soon,” He’s not wrong, the sun was beginning to set. “I’m not sure. I’ll get this paper done and then head back,” You pause. “Maybe.”“I can give you a reason to head back now,” He smirks. “Oh yeah?” You question, dumbfounded. He chuckles and goes back to looking at his phone. You furrow your eyebrows at him but don’t question it. As you begin on a conclusion for an essay, you feel a hand on your thigh, just above your knee. You look over at Colson to see him still scrolling through twitter. You roll your eyes and focus back onto your work. His hand slowly begins to move up your thigh, slowly and he begins to trace circles on the inside of it. “Colson?” You look at him.“Hm?” “What are you doing?”“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” He smirks. He continues looking at his phone as his hand moves higher up your thigh. He rests it right next to your “private part”, still tracing circles on the inside of your thigh. You slap your textbook closed and look at him. He raises an eyebrow at you. “What?” He grins. “Let’s go back to the bus,” You smirk. 

-

wrote this in like 15 mins don’t judge

stay safe, self-isolate if you can and wash your hands!!

tagged: @2dead2function @s-j-g-x @bakerkells @mayaslifeinabox @onlybadthingz @PumpkinQueenest19 @mrsambroserollinsacklesmgk @Feeding-into-darkness @xxkellsvixen19xx @lovemythsworld @xwhitewalkerx @deanwinchesterswife121 @jindongdongie​ @itjustkindahappenedreally​ @machine-gun-colson​

link to be tagged in future posts

[silver-wield]

I’m curious as to what you think about the friendship between Tifa & Aerith with the remake & if you have any (possibly in-depth) analysis of their friendship? Watching them interact during the remake really made me think about how much Tifa cares for Aerith & vise versa. I love how their friendship progresses over the game. I hope we get to see more of it in future games. I’m all about Cloti but I also love whatever Tifa & Aerith got going on for themselves, just the ladies lol

I gotchu, nonny!

About time we show everyone these girls can get along and hopefully people will stop trying to erase one of them!

Ok, spoiler warning for ppl who haven't played – do I still need to do this? Eh ok, (I tag FF7R spoilers as final fantasy 7 remake spoilers) and it's gonna be a VERY long one so prepare to scroll.

Also, this is one person's interpretation of the scene, so if you disagree that's cool and we'll agree to disagree.

You're also gonna have to excuse the janky quality on some of the screens, I'm grabbing them from Youtube and it's frustrating af trying to get the exact moment I want.

Other analyses if anyone's interested.

Shinra HQ vision scene (Cloti/plot analysis) 

Chapter 3 (Cloti reblog) 

Tifa character analysis 

Aerith Resolution (plot analysis/theory – I should probably update this since I've had other ideas since then) 

Train graveyard (not really an analysis, but I got some sweet screenshots of Cloti) 

Clotiscrew tunnel analysis 

Cloti reunion analysis 

The Promise Analysis 

Andrea's approval (Cloti ask response) 

Cloti action touching

Now, strap in and enjoy the ride.

Before the recap I'm just gonna say the vid I'm taking this from is over 20m of them being friends and they didn't even meet until late in chapter 9 and they weren't even together after chapter 12 and only reunited in chapter 17, so if they can manage to become bffs in such a short amount of time then yall warships can calm your chill too.

Oh and I'm also throwing in some Cloti asides since Cloud is in all of this too and I wanna lol. Maybe next disc we'll get more of the girls without the leading man.

Quick recap for anyone who's forgotten the series of events.

Tifa's gone to get info out of Don Corneo at Wall Market and asked Cloud to go back to Sector 7: “You've seen how much ass I can kick”

Aerith's decided that's a bad idea, so they head in and jump through a series of side quest hoops to get them inside Corneo's place.

After the goons knock them out and take them to the basement, Cloud wakes up and sees Tifa, who asks if he's ok. After his embarrassing moment where he remembers he's wearing a dress in front of his crush, Aerith wakes up.

Eugh, I've mentioned the utterly janky quality on some of my screenshots right? There's a split second after this where Aerith is beaming at Tifa that I'm trying to capture but it’s just not happening.

Okay, so Aerith has literally just woken up and the first thing she does is bounce over to Tifa and introduce herself, all smiles and cheer. Tifa for her part is confused but polite because who is this girl? This is pretty simple from Tifa's pov. She is just confused, but polite. There's no signs of “rawr that's my man over there you can't touch”.

Aerith is like that one kid who's always first to greet new people. She's very much the extrovert, compared to Tifa's introvert.

(Bonus: Grumpy Cloud is grumpy. It's like he expects Tifa to be more responsible when he hears her insane plan lol)

So, after hearing Tifa's story and hearing the obvious concern in her voice, Aerith jumps in to reassure her. You'll notice she's leaning forward with open arms. This is simplistic body language, she's being open and earnest. Tifa has her full attention on Aerith, so she's listening without any signs of dismissing her – even though they've literally just met and she has no idea what Aerith is like or what she might say.

(Bonus: Cloud rolling his eyes. He thinks they're both crazy lol)

Responsible Tifa makes a return here! After Aerith's done enthusiastically throwing all of them to the wolves, Tifa shows concern. She knows Cloud and she can fight, but she's worried Aerith will get hurt because of her. This is a girl she's just met and we've seen how she is with strangers (shinra middle manager), so going along with Aerith's idea with no reservations wouldn't be her. Both girls have semi-relaxed body language. Their poses are mirrored, so there's no one is better than the other here. They're meeting as equals.

(Bonus: Cloud appears to be looking at Tifa's butt in this screen lol)

So, we're out of the basement and dealing with rapists. Fuuuun. FF7 really went there back in the day huh? Tifa and Aerith are on the same page, you'll see. They're both disgusted. Aerith probably more so than Tifa, who I expect is a little more used to dealing with scumbags who don't take no for an answer. Semi mirrored body language – Aerith has her hands protectively in front of her while Tifa's are by her sides so that she can better strike a fighting pose.

(Bonus: Cloud at this moment in time is calling Corneo a depraved bastard lol)

Aerith's little eyebrow raise and knowing look here. Now, she doesn't actually know how much ass Tifa can kick, but it looks like she suspects anyone who knows Cloud has skills. Not to mention he told Aerith that Tifa can handle herself. (Or maybe it's meta!Aerith, who knows?) She's expectant, anyway and Tifa delivers. Not to mention the teasing dialogue the goons mistake for being sexy. But that's what douchebags get.

Vicious Aerith is vicious lol I just wanted to add this one because it's a great expression for her and actually shows a different emotion from her besides her typical mask of cheer. She actually looks convincingly dangerous here, unlike most of the time when she's about as threatening as a cupcake lol

So Aerith kicks the douchebag and Tifa follows up in a seamless display of co-op that showcases her fighting skills. She takes Aerith's lead and goes for it.

Then comes the fight scene. Massive co-op between the girls. Tifa protects Aerith at one point, who uses the opportunity to grab a makeshift weapon.

Tifa is the disciplined fighter using her Zangan martial arts and Aerith...uses a chair lol

I have to admit that's one of my favourite moments with her in the entire game. It also fits with the expression she pulled at the start of the fight – that vicious look showed just how far she'll go when she wants to win.

Both girls, all smiles, complimenting each other for a job well done! What else is there to say about this? Oh, yeah, neither of them needs a lesson in how to high five lol

Remember, they've just met like an hour ago, if that. They're already high fiving and getting along.

Ok, so we've moved on from Corneo's place and now we're in the sewers. Here's where we hit a change in behaviour from Aerith. She's no longer the bouncy puppy jollying everyone along to be cheerful and optimistic. She's now become very serious and grave. She could choose to reassure Tifa that the slums are safe, but instead she urges them to hurry. This is likely another instance of meta!Aerith knowing things before they happen.

Tifa is very in her own space during this section of the game; she's worried about her friends and her home, so there's a sense of urgency in all her dialogue. Worry is clear in her tone and Aerith empathises with that and reinforces the need to get back.

You'll notice in most of these moments between them that we're looking over Tifa's shoulder. That's her perspective we're getting, as opposed to when we get scenes with Cloud when we're standing in a third party location watching both. This is deliberate framing so that we relate to Tifa in this situation. We’re looking at Aerith with some distance, but a human perspective rather than an omniscient one.

(Bonus: Cloud still takes the time to flirt with Tifa by reminding her of their little “sayings” interaction from chapter 3)

About halfway through the sewers and the gang has to cross a manky water way. Cloud goes first, leaving Tifa and Aerith behind. Tifa is still worrying about what Corneo said. Her body language, expression and voice all convey a deep fear of what will happen.

Aerith, though probably meta!Aerith, again doesn't act how she did when they first met, which is to reassure her things will be ok. She's become very serious and quiet, unlike how she was in the beginning. Her face here clearly says she knows they won't stop the plate from falling, but I think she knows if she says anything it would just make things worse. She and Tifa are only just sort of friends at this point, so she probably believes it isn't right to confide in her when she's already worried about so many people.

You'll see again the perspective is Tifa's and she notices that something is wrong with Aerith. Despite having so many other concerns, she notices that Aerith looks down. Her question is that of someone wanting to have all the information about the worst case scenario, but before she can find out anything Cloud tells them to keep moving (nice timing)

And now we're at the crossing bit. Tifa's made her way over and waits with Cloud for Aerith. Tifa's very encouraging at this point, reassuring Aerith that she's almost across. Once the platform topples into the muck, she reaches out a hand and pulls her to safety. This is another example of Tifa being the protector.

(Bonus: Cloud grabs Tifa when she staggers.)

“Then it's a date.”

It's likely that by this point Aerith has realised Tifa is spiralling with worry. She offers words of comfort and says to think of something fun. They agree to go shopping, and Tifa suggests bringing Cloud along to carry their stuff (lol bf role)

What's interesting is their contrasting body language here. When Tifa lowers her guard she puts both hands behind her back, opening herself up. It's a vulnerable position for a fighter to be in.

Aerith does the opposite. She's put her hands in front of herself in a protective gesture. This makes me think that even though she's being genuine with Tifa, she's holding something back from her as well. This is likely another meta!Aerith moment because she's aware of her approaching death and doesn't want to make too deep a bond with any of the group.

(Bonus: flirty little lean forward and “nothing” from Tifa when Cloud asks what they said about him)

“I saved her, she saved me”

I know that's a line from Cloud, but it applies to Tifa and Aerith too. Tifa saved Aerith from the sludge and now Aerith grabs Tifa's hand to pull her to safety from the collapsing walkway.

Aerith knows she can rely on Tifa to help her and now Tifa knows the same.

Now, I've seen a theory floating that whenever Aerith touches someone she shows them a vision of OG canon. I'm taking this moment to point out that even though she grabs Tifa's hand, you can see she never touches her skin. Idk if this theory is right – I've not examined every time she touches someone – but it's an interesting idea.

(Bonus: Cloud pulling his “oh shit, Tifa in trouble I must rescue” face as the walkway caves in)

YAAS TEAMWORK!! They're more in sync than in the Don's place as they automatically work together to save Cloud, who looks annoyed that he didn't make it on his own lol

After that it's further into the sewers until we get to the waterpump minigame (I hated this).

Cloud is about to suggest he goes, but Tifa cuts him off, so she and Aerith head over to do it. Now, I was expecting some kind of chat between them or some kind of war hint, but it was literally just the minigame and nothing else. I guess the absence of something is something too?

And this is probably the only shipwar image in the entire game, so take it in, people.

I don't like it. I didn't like how it made me not like Aerith after everything she and the others have gone through until this point. Her dialogue towards Tifa is meaner than any other time and I feel like this is OG Aerith – the one yall expected. She mentions Cloud is “her” bodyguard – something Tifa wasn't even aware of since it's never been mentioned until this point and Tifa looks hurt by the way Aerith is talking to her. That's not jealousy on her face. She's dismayed this person she thought was a friend is acting not like a friend. The fact Cloud notices this and backs up Tifa's side by saying “Ghosts aren't my thing” is evidence he supports her and won't let anyone hurt her.

This is not a nice image. Hope the OG fans enjoyed it though and I hope it's the only shipwar reference Square makes. Tifa's worried/scared, which has more to do with the ghosts. Cloud is ambivalent; he's being SOLDIER Cloud. Aerith is enjoying the chaos she’s caused.

And the nasty shipwar moment is over and they're back to being friends again. Tifa's fear through this section of the game makes her cling to Aerith when the lights go out. Aerith, for her part, calls Tifa to her, so that she can look after her. It's a nice moment to rebalance their friendship after that earlier bullshit.

Tifa looks worried – although I've said before her default expression is pensive, which makes sense considering her personality.

Aerith doesn't look afraid at all. She looks curious. One of them wants to be there and the other very much doesn't lol

(Bonus: Cloud grabbing Tifa and protecting her is everything)

And we're past the bit with the ghosts stealing Aerith away and Cloud and Tifa rescue her.

Tifa crouches down and comforts Aerith. She's kind and sympathetic and you'll also notice that this is the first time we're seeing Tifa from Aerith's pov. This is what Aerith sees when she looks at Tifa. Someone kind who came to help her. A friend. Tifa smiles and offers her hand, reinforcing their friendship and that she'll be there to support Aerith.

(Bonus: Cloud and Tifa's complementary body language here towards Aerith really highlights how much in sync they are. They both touch the same shoulder and have similar poses. They really look like a couple whose goal is protecting their friend.)

And now in a reversal we have Aerith comforting Tifa. This is hollow comfort, however, since Aerith knows what's about to happen and they can't stop it. This is evidenced by the fact we can’t see Aerith’s eyes. Her expression is concealed. This doesn't stop her from reaching for Tifa because she sympathises with her struggle.

Tifa saves Aerith again, this time from falling pipes. Their friendship is growing, although at times it feels one sided. Tifa is the protector, looking after Aerith, while Aerith is the one who relies on Tifa. It goes towards Tifa's maturity, compared to Aerith's free-spirit. Tifa is the responsible protector, while Aerith doesn't have to be because she's got people who look after her.

This could be another instance of meta!Aerith, since she's very calm when she says this and doesn't try to stop Tifa. She might know that Tifa will be ok if she goes. Her word choice is....odd. It's not really her heart Tifa's following, it's her principles. She can't stand by and let people get hurt when she can do something about it. But the way Aerith says this line is pretty telling. There's actually a big difference when meta!Aerith is on the scene compared to OG Aerith – who is annoying af.

It's the mark of a fast friendship that Aerith can tell this about Tifa, that she needs to go help, but then again, it's also not that hard to figure Tifa out when she's so open. I can't think of a single instance in the game when Tifa isn't straight as an arrow.

So, we've had very few moments when we're looking at Tifa through Aerith's pov. And now we're back looking at Aerith through Tifa's pov. The look on Aerith's face is very serene and reminds me of the one in the bar when she saw the flower. That definitely suggests to me that this is meta!Aerith and that's who has been building friendships this time around and not OG Aerith – who is still annoying af.

I'm further convinced of this when Aerith mentions Marlene and the look on Tifa's face is all “What?” while Aerith's suggests she knows exactly where to find Marlene, what she looks like, how old she is, when her birthday is and what she had for breakfast.

An unspoken communication passes between them. Lots of micro expressions here and some quiet hums and nods. I mean, if we're at telepathy then they're definitely friends.

Despite being reserved, Tifa grabs Aerith's hands in gratitude. For someone who doesn't display physical affection a lot, this is meaningful for Tifa. She trusts Aerith and she's relying on her to save Marlene. She's grateful and doesn't have the words to express it. She just nods, once, and her eyes are damp like she's trying not to cry.

And one last teamwork shot because look, neither of these girls needed lessons how to high ten...Cloud lol

Ok, the last one is the most important – typical.

Tifa's asked Aerith if she's ok a lot over the course of the game – which is a lot a lot when you think how little time they had together. This is the first time Aerith asks after Tifa's wellbeing. It's probably one of the few times anyone asks how Tifa's doing and they don't mean physical condition. Sure, Cloud asks, but we know why. Everyone else assumes Tifa can handle it. Tifa says she can, so it must be true. Even when she's shaking from repressing her urge to cry. Even when she can't sleep at night.

I noticed this my first playthrough because it stood out, and it's meant to stand out. This concern from Aerith to Tifa and Tifa to Aerith is mirrored through their interactions. It's supposed to make you think better of the girl who isn't part of your ship. It's supposed to make you draw a line under OG Aerith and Tifa's jealous rivalry and start thinking of them as friends. Because they are friends.

Conclusion:

The devs tried to end the ship war by making the girls more friendly towards each other in hopes that yall would stop bashing the one you don't like. These girls clearly have little rivalry going on. They're supportive, kind, open and understanding towards each other. Their friendship is one of my favourite things in the game and did actually go a long way to making me like Aerith – did I mention I hate OG Aerith?

Instead of arguing who Cloud loves more, why not try appreciating each girl for the qualities she brings to the overall game and to each other's life? 

Aerith likes Tifa. Tifa likes Aerith.

[thisiswhereibloom]

Today Is My Liberation

As our first year wedding anniversary creeps its head around the night, I can’t help it but wonder why? - Why did things have to take such a turn? Why couldn't we work out the differences? When did you start seeing me with that black lens that turned every single one of my actions into something you hate? - Why did I become this “miserable piece of shit ball of depression” to you? - When did I become disposable to you? 

It has taken countless of psychologist hours, self-analysis, mentoring support, reading and learning about the subject to accept that regardless of what I did, would have or could have ever done, the outcome was always going to be the same. It would’ve always been ME. - Today, 12 July 2020, a day before what was supposed to be our first year wedding anniversary, I sit in front of my new home-office desk and start to accept that it wasn’t me, it was NOT me. I am not broken! Despite your and your family’s attempt to convince me that there was something wrong with me because I missed home, the home I left behind to come to the other side of world and build a family with you; or because I cried when you showered me in insults, as your sister said: “you shouldn't be affected the way you are by the words he calls you. They are jokes”; or because a car didn't provide me with the emotional and human affection I was in such a deep need of and in an attempt to ask for help I made a public comment instead of “brushing things under the carpet” as your dad said I should do. Despite the countless times I was called selfish, psychotic, miserable, a disgrace, ball of depression, monster, cunt. Despite your attempt to convince me to go on meds, as in your eyes it was the only way I could be “normal”. Despite the threats to leave me alone in this country I had yet to know and the times you packed up a bag and walked out disappearing for hours only to come back home and force me to apologize for your version of reality. Despite the way you painted me out to be God knows what to everyone in this country because as you told me multiple times, I am the new one here and everyone who knows you so whatever I say, no one would ever believe me. Despite my 4 unsuccessful attempts to reach out and ask for help from 4 of your friend’s partners as they all ignored me. Today, I stand up strong with my head held high as fuck and am proud to say that I am Domestic Violence Survivor. I escaped the cycle of violence from a narcissistic abuser with an incredible group of flying monkeys who not only enabled his behavior but were experts in the game. 

If you care to know, I am not mad at you. I feel sorry for the person I got to know these past year and the person that will continue to evolve and possibly only improve the manipulation tactics I was blinded to. I feel sorry for the possible future victims and pray that life has provided them such a strong foundation like mine, to help them get out of the cycle sooner than later. Although, you did not get a criminal conviction as you played it safe as expected, working out for both of our advantages. I am satisfied knowing that you won't be able to lure another girl overseas and bring her to an unknown country to dispatch her as she no longer serves your needs.

However, I am upset at the flying monkeys that not only enabled your destructive behavior towards me, but played your game by joining into the shaming of my emotions and shutting down my cries of help by diminishing and disregarding the pain I was living in. I was once again, by the other 3 people who were supposed to be the closest to me in my new home, told I was broken. 

When I asked for space to clear my head, to swim to the surface and catch my breath, I was told I could not be left alone as I was “too emotional”. But how could I not be when I found myself sitting at a round table with you and your 3 flying monkeys telling me I was broken. Telling me to brush off your insults under the carpet, that it was not OK for me to be sad because you never kissed or hug me, or because you called me a disgrace, a monster, a selfish bitch, you told me I ruined your life and that you wished you could ship me back.  It was then, I knew I had to join your game while I got ready to leave. So I did. 

You know, the last 2 months I saw you is when you were the calmer and “best” version of yourself. It was not because I wasn't emotional or psychotic. Instead, it was because outside our little love nest of hell, I was building my support system, I was being prepared by a professional, I was building escape routes, all while smiling and keeping the tears away from you. I was accepting your commands while staying within my new boundaries. I know you saw me slipping away though. Your second last attempt was the same as always, to buy me with a trip. You tried rushing into a vacation within weeks when we were not even living together. Then, you put on your show by coming back just for my birthday and making me pay for the brunch you took me to because “it’s all our money” but it never was, you asked me to leave my job. Yeah, for the second time in 10 months you asked me to leave my job as you would take care of us. But the truth is, you never gave a single cent. In fact, I had to become strict to obtain financial help from you as the fancy place you decided to live in was being all paid by me with the excuse that you were paying off “our properties”. Little do your people know that, right? - They all thought I was a gold digger. When you bought “me” the car you couldn't afford, just to show off and fought with me to post the beautiful video your sister recorded as I saw the car. Then you complained about me not being surprised enough for it and how I was selfish because of the same. Well, I was not surprised because I already knew you bought it. And I was not ecstatic about it because you did it in a desperate attempt to buy me and keep me by your side after I said you’re losing with all the insults and abuse. You became desperate as I became wiser. I started to predict your next move and by the time you exploded, I was ready to fly and never look back. 

You know, all the weakness you saw and fed me is slowly turning into this unstoppable stream of self-empowerment. I am not going to lie, it has been tough, more than anyone who has not lived through it could imagine. In a way, I guess you would say you won because I started taking medication. I did it about 2-3 weeks before our final separation because getting ready for it in silence was eating me alive and causing unstoppable anxiety attacks. Remember how I can’t ever throw up? - Well I was throwing up every day multiple times at work. So by the time it was time to fly, the pills had started kicking in giving a little boost to get the fuck out. So I did! 

Today, 4 months since our separation I am starting to see all the pieces of the girl I was, coming back together. I am letting the anger go little by little, I am loving myself again, I am loving life and smiling at strangers down the street again. Who knows, I may be healing enough to open up to love again. Yeah, you heard it right. While you ditched your broken trophy wife aside, there was a line of real men wanting to jump in and hold my hand. Even though one of your last words were, “you’re dying alone” because you tried convincing me that no one would ever want to be with me. Well no, as soon as you let me go my eyes started to shine again, my smile became real and it felt like I was floating in this magical world. I was free. This is your opportunity to judge, so go ahead. Tell people I cheated, since I probably am. You know, since we’re still legally married, although we never really were. But as he says, you were never ready to have a strong woman like me by your side. You needed a follower and submissive person that is OK with you feeding your ego with her soul. 

Today is not our wedding anniversary, today is my liberation. 

Today I acknowledge I am in deep pain, I have open wounds that will take years to heal and that I will carry with me beautiful scars from the battle you and I fought. Today I proudly acknowledge that I am an Emotional, Mental, Physical and Narcissistic Abuse Survivor. I acknowledge that abuse does not discriminate against race, social or economical boundaries. 

Today I can say I accept that you weren’t ready for marriage. I accept that you, just as most people, have underlying issues that need to be worked out before you are ready to give yourself as a supporting husband or even partner to someone else. I also accept that maybe you will never accept that is the case as under your eyes, it would destroy your ego. Today I accept that blood is in fact thicker than water, and that your family had a duty to provide you their unconditional support. Although I accept all these, I am also aware that the damage was not only caused by you, but also by your flying monkeys as they supported and joined in your game.

Today I understand I was brought through this path in my life for a reason bigger than me. That although I don't fully understand what my duty will be, I know there is something waiting ahead that requires me to have experienced what I did with you. I understand that life and God have their ways of testing us, and that even though this past year may seem like hell, I will at some point look back proudly and see how much I have grown and overcome.

Today I decide to let myself free from you. 

To be continued… 

[intothestarkerverse]

Welcome to My Dark Side (2)

Sequel to ‘Time of Our Lives’

Tony Stark has done his best to fit into the 21st century by embracing his new role, new family, and even his new nicknames.  Determined to become a hero worthy of calling Peter Parker his life partner, everything seems to be going better than he could have hoped…until Tony’s efforts to help Peter uncover the truth behind his parents’ death put everything he knows and loves in terrible danger.  In the face of absolute darkness, how can love and life survive?

(STORY CONTAINS ENDGAME SPOILERS)

Read on AO3

“You have breakfast yet?”  Tony eyed the six year old perched on a stool at his breakfast counter.  Her responding expression was beyond her sparse years, little mouth drawn into a serious frown, brows furrowed, dark eyes humorless with their intensity.  “Guess I should ask if you had anything good for breakfast, instead, right?”  Without waiting for a response, he turned back to his cupboards, plucking two bowls, two spoons, a carton of milk and a box of cereal out before precariously balancing his bounty back across the kitchen to the counter.

Morgan immediately perked up at the sight of the sugary breakfast treat that Pepper tried very hard to keep away from her growing daughter.  The fact that she had dumped Morgan on him this morning because she had an early morning conference call with someone in Japan just meant that Tony had a chance to spoil her, and spoil her he would.  Tony couldn’t bring himself to look on her as a daughter no matter what genetics said about the matter, but he’d always wanted a little sister and Morgan Stark was special in every single sense of the word.  He loved that kid and he’d happily murder anyone who even breathed on her wrong.

Morgan examined the box of cereal carefully as Tony prepared their meal, amused by the sugar-covered pieces of processed grain in the shape of tiny arc reactors and corresponding red and gold iron man helmet-shaped marshmallows.  “Let’s not tell your mom about this, huh?”

Morgan cocked her head at him, providing him with a half smirk as she chewed.

“Yeah, okay, don’t know what that means.  Kid, you’re the most cryptic six-year-old I’ve ever met.”  He enjoyed a few spoonfuls of his own bowl before he thought to ask, “Happy’s taking you to school in a bit, right?”  Pepper hadn’t said anything about Tony playing chauffeur, but he also hadn’t been paying much attention when the mother and daughter had arrived early that morning either.  Pepper could count her lucky stars that he didn’t require a lot of sleep and that he was still almost obsessively focused on the puzzle that Fury had presented to him after the fundraiser or he’d likely have been down for the count like most of the civilized folk in Manhattan at that hour.  As it was, he’d been deeply ensconced in his workshop with something that was going to benefit his future plans with Peter...a project he’d had to artfully hide from Pepper before she connected the dots and realized something he’d rather she not know.  

“Mhm,” Morgan barely afforded him a grunted response around her heaping mouthful of cereal.  It really was a shame how Pepper fed this kid.  Cutting sugar out of her breakfast food regimen was un-American.  School plans settled, the two fell into a companionable silence, eating their cereal and glancing over the graphics of the Old Man on the box from time to time.  Some kind of idle statistics about his do-gooding and IQ adorned the back.  The IQ was off by twenty points.  He was going to have to make them fix that.  

Tony didn’t realize Morgan had finished her cereal until he looked up from the box to find her staring at him with that same intense expression.  “You okay, Maguna?”

“How come you and daddy are the same?”

Tony almost spit his cereal out.  Somehow, he managed to swallow it in a gulp and stall for time with a little coffee as he coughed and sputtered on the soggy grain and milk.  “Uh, well, it’s just genetics kid.  You and the Old Man are a lot alike, too.”

“Um...no.  You and daddy are just alike, TJ.”

“Okay...well...there’s an explanation for that...”

Morgan pursed her lips and raised both brows at him, moving to a kneeling position on the stool so she could lay across the counter and reach out to place her hands on his face.  “You look just the same.  And sound just the same.  And your fingers are the same.  You’re the same as my daddy.”

Yeah, okay, so she was a Stark and he really should have seen this coming.  He could almost pity Howard in this moment if this gave him any clue about what he’d been like as a six year old.  Christ.  Tony cleared his throat, searching for something to say to explain it all away.  Instead, all he could do was stall for time.  “How did you figure this out, Kid?”

“Miss Friday helped me.”

“Seriously? What do you have to sat for yourself, Fri?”

“You told me to assist in Morgan’s education whenever possible, Boss.”  Tony let out a long sigh, that had not been what he meant.  “She asked me about your fingerprints and voice analysis and how they corresponded to Mr. Stark’s so I provided her with detailed comparisons of both.”

Tony tapped the back of the little girl’s hand on his cheek with his finger.  “You think you’re pretty smart, don’t you?”

“Cause I am.”

“Mhm, and what made you think to compare my fingerprints and voice with your father’s?”

“My teacher said everybody has a voice that is just their own and not like anybody else in the whole wide world but you and daddy sound just alike.  Sometimes when you put me to bed I close my eyes and pretend you’re him.”

God, she was actually trying to kill him, now.  Tony felt his throat constrict as he plucked her hands off of his face and gave them a tight squeeze.  “I’m not your daddy, Morgan.  I wish I was because you’re so damn smart and beautiful and amazing, but I’m not.  You’re right, though, I’m not you’re brother either.  I just....I really need your mom and everyone else to believe that I am so can this be our little secret and I promise that sometime real soon I’ll sit down and tell you everything, okay?  For now...believe me when I tell you that your daddy is out there watching everything you do and he’s so freaking proud of you kid.  Whenever you see a rainbow or a shooting star or something crazy good happens to you out of the blue, that’s your dad telling you how much he loves you.”

“3000.”

Tony blinked away the tears in his eyes, clearing his throat and abandoning the counter to tidy up.  “Exactly.”

“Boss, Happy is here to pick up Morgan for school...” Saved by the AI.

“You hear that, Maguna?  Get a move on or you’ll be late.  Wait...I want a hug first.  Yep, that’s the stuff right there.”  He buried his nose in the little girl’s hair for a moment and gave it a good ruffle with his fingers before he let go.    “Be good and kick butt in school, okay?  Love you, kid.”

“I love you too, TJ.”

“3000?”

A pause.  “2005.”

“Ouch.”

~~~~~

“I’m still not sure about this.”

“What’s not to be sure about, Beautiful?  I’ve thought of everything.”

Peter turned back to the holographic read outs with a long sigh.  They were blueprints of the old Oscorp labs, or at least what little information Tony had been able to hack his way into at Shield, along with a few other reports that looked like weather and topographic readouts of the area.  Peter knew that this was their best bet, but he didn’t like it.  He didn’t think he could attribute it to his Spidey Sense, or Peter Tingle as the rest of the Avengers had taken to calling it (thanks to May).  No, it didn’t feel quite the same.  There was no sense of impending danger, just a heavy blanket of foreboding that was threatening to choke off his air supply.  Tony obviously didn’t feel the same, so maybe he was just being silly.  Or maybe he wasn’t.

Peter was supposed to tell May that he was going on a spring break trip with Tony, MJ, and Ned.  While MJ and Ned were actually going to go to Florida to live it up, he and Tony were heading to upstate New York to infiltrate Osborn’s lab.  Ned would be armed with a special Stark Phone that Tony had outfitted with the tech to provide realistic synthetic substitutes of Tony and Peter.  If May or Pepper sent texts, they were going to get varied and believable responses meant to replicate the young men’s actual speech and text patterns.  If they called or video chatted, a variant of the BARF technology was going to provide a realistic computerized response that would again fool the older women into thinking they were both in Florida living the good life by utilizing actual noise pollution and visuals from Ned and MJ’s vacation.  The guilt of leaving May at the airport thinking they were taking Tony’s private jet to Florida when they were instead flying headfirst into danger...it was almost suffocating and he couldn’t ignore the worry any longer.  “What happens if we’re not back in a week, Tony?”

“If we’re not back by the time that MJ and Ned have gotten back, than Friday is going to reveal our true destination to May, Pepper, and Fury so arrangements can be made.”

Funeral arrangements or just rescue mission arrangements?  Peter wanted to ask, but he knew better than to say any of that out loud.  He and Tony rarely fought, but Peter knew that nothing made Tony angrier than mentioning their own mortality.  “Are you sure this is a good idea?”  Because Peter wasn’t sure at all.  He’d heard Tony’s argument a hundred times but part of him still felt sick at what they were planning to do.

“Your parents are out there.  They’re alive.  We don’t leave men behind.  Besides, if there is something big and nasty coming than we need to know what it is and how to stop it.  I refuse to do what the Avengers did and just sit around waiting for the Big Bad to come knocking down our door.  We’re not going to be surprised again, Peter.  Whatever this bad thing is...we’re going to identify it and even after we close that gateway...we’re going to be ready for it because there’s no guarantee that closing the gateway will end the danger.  None.”

Peter could only nod slowly.  “Yeah, okay.  No, you’re right.  Of course you are.  I’m just...I’m nervous about getting my hopes up and visiting another world and just...everything.”

Tony laughed, reaching out to tug Peter across the room and into his arms.  His lips ghosting against the younger man’s, breath hot against Peter’s mouth as he embraced him, “We had sex in two different times, Baby, now we get to consummate parallel earths.  Tell me that’s not hot as fuck.”

“Depends on the parallel earths.”

Tony snorted a laugh as he nuzzled into Peter’s neck and nipped at his ear, “You need to stop worrying.  We’re superheroes, Baby.  Arguably the two best superheroes on the planet.”

“Only because Thor is off world with the Guardians...”

“Honestly, you and Thor.  If I didn’t know better, I’d be jealous.”

Their conversation died off as the Quinjet came to a quiet landing.  Peter held onto Tony for several more seconds, eyes closed, breathing in the scent of the older man in an attempt to calm the frenzied beating of his heart.  Finally, though, he gently pushed himself away and tapped his watch to engage the Ironspider suit.

Several things became apparent to Peter as the two descended the ramp from the cloaked jet plane.  This was clearly going to be even more difficult than Peter had thought.  Fury hadn’t been lying when he said that Shield had sealed the lab in an attempt to prevent anything from the Gateway from breaching the outside world.  From outward appearances, it looked like the entire building had been encased in a giant block of cement.  “Uh, so...” 

“Don’t worry, I had the Iron Legion working on our way in for the last twenty-four hours.  Believe it or not, inside this cement, there’s another layer of titanium.  Anyway, it took six suits, but we have a way in.  Follow me.”  Iron Man circled the building with Spidey close on his heals.  The moment they turned the corner, Peter could see the suits.  It appeared that they’d concentrated their repulsers into a succession of laser-like beams that had sliced a rectangular chunk of cement and metal to reveal one of the doors on the blueprints.  “I’m leaving them on guard duty while we’re gone.  Friday will make sure that nothing comes out of this facility until we get back...and if by some miracle something gets by, she’ll radio the New Avengers.  You don’t have to worry, Pete.”

“Famous last words.”  It was in times like this that Peter found himself missing Mr. Stark.  Tony just hadn’t experienced the level of failure and defeat that Mr. Stark, or even Peter, had.  He didn’t know to expect the worst, but Peter did.  He cast a wary glance at the Iron Legion, biting his tongue as Tony moved for the door.

It came open with a pop, the musty smell of stale air, dust and mildew washed out around them.  Peter only got the smallest whiff before he felt the filtration system in the suit come online. 

The interior looked like nothing but darkness.  No light could penetrate from the concrete and titanium covered walls, so there was nothing visible beyond a few feet into the entry.  It wasn’t as if Mr. Stark hadn’t thought of those concerns a long time ago.  Something as mundane as darkness was hardly any match for Iron Man.  Lighting and night vision had been built into the earliest models of the suit, after all.  As Iron Man stepped into the abyss beyond, that tech came online to illuminate the area around him and several feet in front of him.  A similar array of artificial illumination ignited on the Ironspider suit as well.  Gulping back his fear, Peter reached out to close the door behind them and they were bathed in black.

The entire facility was filthy, awash with dust, debris, and cobwebs.  Out of the corner of his eye, Peter caught sight of what he could only assume was the corpse of a fallen Shield Agent, but he did his best to avoid looking at it for too long.  Still, the momentary glimpse of the skeleton was burned onto is retinas.  “Tony...”

There was something wrong with that sight.  The body.  As much as he wanted to avoid looking, he couldn’t help but glance back towards it.  “Tony, if the building is sealed...how is that body not mummified...”

Tony was already bending over it to examine the bones as the oddity of the body struck him as wrong at almost the same time.  “I think these are tooth marks...”. He held up an ulna, running an armored finger over the grooves on the bone.  “These are definitely toothmarks.  Friday says they appear...humanoid.”

Peter certainly hoped that Tony couldn’t hear him gulping in fear behind his own mask....but with the sensitive comms, he probably could.  “Tony...what are we locked in here with?”

“I don’t know.  Let’s just...be careful, and hope that Peter Tingle of yours is on point tonight.”

“Spidey sense.”

“Hmm,” Tony reverently replaced the bone and stood, brushing off his gauntlets.  

“I prefer the term ‘Spidey Sense.’ “

“Give me one good reason why I should call it Spidey Sense, Baby, because that name isn’t nearly as funny...”

“Because you’re the only thing that makes my peter tingle.”

Tony had to brace himself against the wall to support himself as he laughed.   “God, Beautiful, every time I don’t think I could love you more...you go and drop one of those gems on me.  Damn.”

Peter’s response was lost on his lips.  He felt the telltale warning of danger shiver down his spine as he caught sight of movement just at the periphery of their location.  There wasn’t time to warn him, there was really only time for Peter to fire a quick line of webbing at his lover and tug him back as something dark and terrifying lunged from the shadows.  Peter could swear he could hear it moaning the word ‘meat.’  

“What the fuck...” A repulser blast bit into the wall inches from the creature, scorching its arm and the tatters of what appeared to be clothing and once more driving it back into the shadows before either hero could get a good look at it.  “Well, at least we know what ate the bodies...”

“Yeah, Tony, that’s not nearly as comforting as you think it is.”  Even worse, perhaps, were the observations from both Karen and Friday that the creature had no heat signature and wouldn’t be visible on infrared.  Now their trek through the building was much more careful and calculated.  There were signs of the creatures everywhere.  Claw marks on the walls, ransacked rooms, shattered furniture, the little skeletons of rats and mice and anything else unfortunate enough to have been sealed into the lab with them.  It was only the knowledge of the Parkers’ distress call that kept Peter moving through the corpse of the once thriving laboratory.  His parents were alive.  They’d escaped this place, and so would he and Tony.  They just had to.

At least Tony seemed to know where he was going.  He’d studied the blueprints much longer than Peter and had no doubt pinpointed precisely where a lab with a dimensional gateway would be located.  Neither man mentioned the occasional sound of shuffling footsteps, the soft grunts and moans, the momentary glimpses of shifting shadows.  There were clearly more than one of those things in there with them, but for the moment, they were hanging back.  Maybe Tony had scared them with the repulser.  Or, maybe as with many of the hunters in the animal kingdom, they were stalking their prey and waiting for exactly the right moment to strike.

The Gateway didn’t look anything like Peter had imagined it would.  Shows like Stargate had always made them out to be large and imposing, a shifting, whirling mass of colors housed within an intricate metal or stone structure that provided it shape.  This portal was anything but. 

Peter could barely make it out without one of the specialized lenses of his suit.  To the naked eye, it appeared as little more than the somewhat fluid appearance of very hot air on a humid July day.  It was in that subtle wavering of the light that the slightest glimpse of a world beyond their own could be captured...but never long enough to make anything out.  A quick sweep of the area showed that the portal was being maintained by a strip of metal along the ground that was joined to a large and imposing computer.  While Peter had been examining the Portal, Tony had been taking stock of the technology.

“They cut off power to the lab in the hopes that it would cause the Gateway to close.  It didn’t, which means that whatever is powering this portal isn’t coming from our dimension anymore.”

“That’s comforting.”  Peter reached out to touch the shimmering air.  As his finger hit the air, the tip of it vanished.  He felt nothing.  No pain, no tingling, no disconnection.  Nothing to suggest it was a portal to another world besides the fact that the tip of his finger had vanished before his very eyes.

“Peter, stop poking the portal.  It has a radiation signature...”

The young man withdrew his hand quickly, glad that Tony couldn’t see what he was certain was a guilty look on his face.  Neither of the men had withdrawn their suits since entering the laboratory.  The air inside the lab was breathable, if their read outs were any suggestion, but also so stale that it would likely not be pleasant for either one of them.  Besides, with those monsters running around, it seemed smart to have some kind of protection on hand.  Now, with what looked like a radiation signature emanating from the portal...the suits were staying on for the foreseeable future.

Tony was busy patching one of the main computer terminals into a handheld arc reactor to allow him to reboot and access the information they both hoped was still accessible on the hard drives while Peter was pacing the lab like a nervous animal in a zoo.  Just like a nervous animal in a zoo, he could feel what was an indeterminate amount of eyes trained on his every movement and his inability to know where they were or what they were planning was making his every instinct scream warnings in his head.

Desperate for some distraction, Peter started to look more closely at the room itself.   It looked as if the place had just been abandoned in the middle of a shift.  There as a mug of coffee by one terminal with what appeared to be dried contents of a cup still housed within it.  A stack of granola bars and food from what must have been a break room vending machine  sat next to a swath of complicated equations that Peter picked up and shuffled through silently.  Not everything was immaculate, however.  A few desks had been upturned.  Chairs broken.  There were bullet holes in the wall near the door and the door itself had clearly been forced open from the outside by organic means.

“I think...I think after they sealed them in here, my mom and dad must have gathered some supplies and tried to stick it out in here.  But um...whatever’s out there...it must have wanted them pretty bad.”

Tony glanced up from the computer, the expressionless mask of his armor giving Peter no hint as to what was going on in the mind beneath.  

Peter’s foot met with something on the floor and it skittered forward.  Upon closer inspection, he recognized an old school camcorder with a tape still housed inside.  “You um...you think you can make this work?”

Tony had already Jerry-rigged a thumb drive to the computers’ memory to download any and all information he could.  Waving Peter over, he took the camcorder and in a matter of minutes had it once more powered up, tape rewound.

For several seconds it appeared to be a tape recording the team’s initial attempt to establish the Gateway.  Then, the scene cut out and a familiar face came into frame.

She was a little older and much less put-together than she had been the last time that Tony and Peter had seen her, but there was no mistaking Mary Parker for all that she and Peter resembled one another.  She was dirty, sweating, tired, but still very much alive as she addressed the camera.

“If you’re seeing this, than that means you came back for us...which...all due respect, Fury, but that was stupid.  I told you we’d be okay if you sealed us in here, that we’d figure something out...and we did.  I think.  I hope.  No, I’m sure that we did.”

A loud sound shook the frame and with wide eyes Mary glanced off camera where Richard was shouting “Hurry up, Mary, we don’t have a lot of time here.”

“Right.  Right.  We can’t stay here, Fury.  The anomalies are...they’re not like we thought.  They appear to have higher brain function, an ability to communicate.  They’ve displayed a remarkable ability to reason and hunt and now that they know they’re trapped in here with us...that we’re the only food supply left...they’re pretty determined to eat us.  So uh....it’s time to go.  And since we can’t get out of here through the door....we’re going to use the Gateway.”

“I’ve had a little bit of time to work on the math.  I think I understand how this thing works at least as well as the men who built it...which arguably isn’t very well.”  She held up the swath of complicated equations that Peter had seen on the desk nearby.  “It’s all here.  I’ll...leave if for you.  Hopefully...hopefully it‘ll still be here for you.”

Another loud sound, a curse from Richard, and Mary paled considerably.  “I’m sorry...I’m sorry I’ve got to cut this short.  I...I can’t shut the Gateway down because it’s not being powered by our dimension anymore.  Unless or until we find the power source, this thing is open for good...but I can change the world it opens up to.  We’re not going to the world where these things originated...but beyond that.  I don’t know.  I’m going to try to make it home, Fury.  But if we don’t...you keep your promise and you make sure my baby boy is taken care of, you hear me.  You owe us that.”

The sound of wood splintering, of those creatures hissing and screaming and moaning.  The camcorder dropped, still recording and slid against a desk, catching the image of Richard and Mary Parker as they ran through the Gateway to the screams of the monsters they left behind.

Peter closed the camcorder, hands trembling slightly.  “Tony...if those things are as smart as she says...why aren’t they coming after us?”

Tony hazarded a glance towards the broken door and rubbed the back of his neck with a gauntlet.  “I don’t know, Beautiful, but I don’t like it.”

Peter considered it for a moment.  “Maybe they’re trying to get out again...”

“I don’t care how scary they are, Peter, there’s no way they’re getting past the Iron Legion.”

“So...when they can’t get out the door and they realize that we’re the only food source...”

Tony cursed, “Yeah.  I think the ones we can hear are sentries...”

“They’re watching to make sure we can’t get away.”

“‘Fraid so.  Or hoping that when we get done here we’ll leave them an opening to get out.”

Peter was already gathering the papers his mother had left behind, stuffing them into a briefcase he’d found discarded beneath a desk.  He threw the camcorder in with it and after a moment’s hesitation grabbed the handful of granola bars as well.  They probably didn’t go bad, right?  And he might get hungry later.  “What I don’t get...is why they didn’t go through the portal, too.  If they’re smart and they’re hungry and they’ve been surviving in here for over a decade....why not try that other world out?”

“Because your mother was smart enough to leave it open to a location they wouldn’t be able to utilize, Pete.  Radiation signature.  Whatever is on the other side of that portal is deadly for them...at least as deadly as it would be for us.”

“But my parents...”

“They didn’t go through to that world, Pete.”  Tony gestured to a read out near the floor where a long alphanumeric sequence could be seen.  “You can see most of the readout on the video.  It’s not the same.  After your parents went through...they must have found a way to redial the Gateway and make sure it emptied to someplace...innocuous.”

Peter didn’t know if this new made him feel better or worse.  “Okay...so...what’s our next move...” His words died on his lips, replaced by an anguished cry brought on by what felt like the pain of being set on fire.  His Spidey-Sense had never felt like that before.  It had never been so strong that it was excruciating, but as his gaze moved from Tony to the doorway and he caught sight of what had triggered the tingle...Peter completely understood.

His Spidey Sense was right.  

They were so totally and completely fucked.

[yermlix]

levanter korean and english version lyric analysis and comparison by me:)

(my own opinion don’t take this too seriously)

even though both versions have a strong metaphor of compering a person and a relationship with them to chasing one’s dreams the english version takes a bit more literal sense and focuses on the “person” and what they made skz feel and how they’re moving on.

(kor ver)

i thought i could reach if i kept chasing

i’ve never even doubted

even though i held you as i imagined

even though i held you tight with two hands

(eng ver)

never wanted anything as much as you

never crossed my mind that i could ever lose

i had this picture in my head

of all the promises you made

the korean version is talking about how they thought they kept on going chasing on their dreams, and how they “held you tight with two hands”. “you” as in the dream. they were reaching of their dream. in comparison, the english version is focused more about a person. having pictures in their head of promises like we all hear in day to day from everyone around us.

(kor ver)

in my arms only the emptiness remains

by wandering around

i finally realized

that i have to let go of you

(eng ver)

but you turned ‘em into dust

empty handed now i’m lost

i know i gotta let go

with no regrets you’re already gone

in the korean ver the dream takes more a literal sense here as well, the dream that was once in their hands is no longer there, they have yet to get there, not as ready as they once thought they were. in the eng ver they focused on how the leaving of the “person” left them lost “but you turned ‘em into dust // empty handed now i’m lost” the “person” that was once their help left, and the dream is now “lost”. the real people that are lost are skz that are not sure how they can just deal with what the experienced. both versions “reach” a conclusion that they need to move on and leave the person/dream behind and focus on themselves. “that i have to let go of you” “i know i gotta let go”.

(kor ver)

(oh) i’ve been deceiving myself

(oh) the moment i wake up from the dream i’ve endured

(oh) i feel the light flooding in

(eng ver)

(oh) i let my dreams tie me down

(oh) is it too late? can i break out?

(oh) they say it’s darkest before the dawn

in the korean ver skz are facing the fact they have been lying to themselves and the dream they’ve been going after was not only what they wanted to do but what what they lived by and the moment they realized that they can start to actually get their dream and not only dream of it. the eng ver talks about dreams as well and how their dream tied them down and their worry they wouldn’t be able to leave it (the dream) because once you put so much effort into something (or someone) and it turns out bad, sometimes you can feel like it’s too late. here we get to what has to be one of my favorite lyrics on levanter. “they say it’s darkest before the dawn” when you have bad experiences you can see things in a very negative light, therefore may not see the bright future that is waiting for you. i find this lyric so beautiful from how many meanings you can give it. to get to the good things in life, we have to go through the bad as well, and skz realize that here.

(kor ver)

i wanna be myself (i don’t care)

even if it’s still strange (just don’t care)

as soon as i broke away from you, i can see myself

everything, all before my eyes

now i know (now i know)

the one i needed has been me

i walk as my feet take me

i feel the light, i feel the light

(eng ver)

i wanna be myself (i don’t care)

yeah, i gotta be myself (just don’t care)

and now that your weight’s come off my shoulders

i realize that i can fly

i needed to find me (now i know)

the key was inside of me all along

i’m listening to my heart, let it guide me

i feel the light, i feel the light

in the korean ver stray kids break out of their dream to realize that in order to get them they need to be them. “as soon as i broke away from you, i can see myself“ once they stoped lying to themselves and found their true self they realized that “the one i needed has been me” they are all they need. although the english version talks about the same thing, it deals with it in a different way. “and now that your weight’s come off my shoulders // i realize that i can fly” these two lines can particularly show that. once they let go of the past and the “person” is no longer burdening them, they can move in and fly. go high and get what they want. “the key was inside of me all along” they don’t anyone else but themselves, the key (clè) to getting what they want is them, and they only gotta be themselves in order to get their dreams. both chorus we get “i see the light, i see the light” in contrast to the dark we had before in the song.

(kor ver)

i was constantly running to you

then i realized

that my everything was towards you

the more i got close to you

the more i lost myself

(eng ver)

i never stopped

to find my way

i always thought it was a race

to win it all and that you were the prize

in the kor ver skz go back to the past befor the realized that they need to be themselves. they were constantly going after their dream only to get to nowhere. they were so focused on what they wanted to achieve they lost themselves in the process. in the eng ver they go back to the past as well. here i find something interesting with the last line. “to win it all and that you were the prize” in life we often try to eat the cake and keep it whole. trying to get your dreams and to keep a person that is weighing on you at the same time is very difficult yet at that time, skz did not see it.

(kor ver)

like the fallen leaves under the tree

even if i eventually get stamped on in the snow

now i rise above you looking for the spring

the remaining feelings are blown away by the wind

(eng ver)

the closer i got the more i lost

my soul, it was slowly fading

it’s like autumn leaves, don’t know which way i’m blowing

but it don’t matter if it’s raining or it’s snowing

all of my problems growing smaller when i’m way up here

any illusions i had left about you disappeared

both versions use weather and leaves specifically in order to show the lost and confusion skz feel. “it’s like autumn leaves, don’t know which way i’m blowing” they don’t know where they’re going. but the way they handle it from this point is interesting, they may be a leaf but they can survive through everything. “even if i eventually get stamped on in the snow // now i rise above you looking for the spring” “but it don’t matter if it’s raining or it’s snowing” as well as both of the versions going once again about how they are moving on from the past.

(kor ver)

(oh) the tunnel that locked me up in the dream

(oh) the moment i get out of it

(oh) i feel the light flooding in

(eng ver)

(oh) this is the end of the road

(oh) i’m holding out for a new hope

(oh) ‘cause it’s the darkest of all before the dawn

korean once more goes into the moving on from the dream and realizing what they need. the eng ver talks about hope and how the reached a breaking point when they holding out for a new hope. unlike the korean version the last lyric changes a bit from last time, this time even putting more power on “the darkest of all” it was really hard but it needs to be hard in order to get to the light. as well as it’s “‘cause” and now “they say” skz know things are going to get better.

[chorus was already discussed]

(kor ver)

i was afraid of letting go of you

but i had to let go of you

it’s all good now

(eng ver)

afraid to let you go, but in my heart i know

got to move on

i think it’s time

it’s all good now

both talk about letting go and how “it’s all good now” because after you did you can finally be yourself. but i feel like the eng ver handled it better. they are afraid of letting go, but in their hearts they know it’s the right decision. the have to move on, when it’s time. in real life moving on takes time and i think that’s why i prefer the eng bridge.

(kor ver)

i wanna be myself (i don’t care)

even if it’s still strange (just don’t care)

after breaking away from you i can see

everything, all before my eyes

(eng ver)

i wanna be myself (i don’t care)

yeah, i gotta be myself (just don’t care)

and now that i left it all behind me

i’m flying high, i’m flying high

by the end skz have broken out and ether are now prepared to take over what they want or are already moved past what happened and are now “flying high”

i think levanter is an incredibly smart song. it talks about things stray kids have talked about in the past but in a different new way. i hope that make more tracks like this in the future. also when the japanese version comes out i’m not sure if i’ll update this but maybe if i’ll have some things to say:) if you’re reading this thank you i definitely don’t expect anyone to though.. sorry if i made no sense i tried.

[skruttet]

Gay Analysis of the Opening Scene of Moominvalley

Buckle up, lads.

Let’s start off with what Marika Makaroff and Steve Box had to say about this scene in the Creators’ Comments video:

Steve: The first thing you see feels a little bit sugary and...

Marika: Pinky clouds, just pinky clouds and everything

Steve: Yeah, saturated and Disney-like or something, for younger children, and straight to the cliché of- ‘cause I think the cloud flight is quite well-known and, you know, very cutesy.

[...]

Marika: And I think that, the whole theme, that first you think that “well, this is a... this might be a kind of nice animation drama”, but then you understand that there are deeper meanings in there.

I personally think that they intentionally made the opening scene fairytale-like and cutesy as an almost parody of what some viewers may expect the series to be like; they’re showing us what we expect from the series (especially if we expect it to be like the 90s series), then they’re subverting that expectation by revealing it to be a dream that Moomintroll is rudely and abruptly awoken from.

At this point early point (the earliest point, even) in the series, Moomintroll has not gone through any character development yet, and we know the series is about him growing up; therefore, in this scene, he is in many ways still a child. The pink clouds are reminiscent of the 90s anime in which he is quite literally a child; in his dream, he is living in the innocent, happy-go-lucky world of his childhood; a fantasy that does not truly reflect the reality in which he lives and must face throughout the series after he wakes up.

Here’s where the queer part of this analysis comes in: in this fairytale-like dream world, one of the aforementioned expectations would be that Moomintroll is in a romantic relationship with his female friend Snorkmaiden - and, ah yes, right on queue, she appears, casting a shadow on him in the process (I’ll let you decide if there’s something in that). 

The episode then sets up how their relationship will play out in a lot of the future episodes, with Snorkmaiden being the one to usually initiate any romantic advances, as she seductively encourages him to join her on the cloud (to tip this to the “moomintroll is bi” side of things, you could say that the fact that this is happening in his dream shows that he is to some extent attracted to girls and to Snorkmaiden, but if you’re on the “moomintroll is gay” camp, you could argue that this is just how she presents herself to him in real life and so his mind is just replicating that).

Our hero is hesitant and reluctant to her advances, pointing at himself in question as if to stall, then when he prepares himself to jump, he looks scared to death.

Despite this, he takes the leap of faith and lands rather clumsily onto the cloud, Snorkmaiden once again being the initiator in clinging onto his arm. As a more positive look at their relationship, this could be a reflection of how she pushes Moomintroll throughout the series to tackle dangerous situations head-on, therefore helping him in his process of growing up.

...However, a lot of the times when she does that, it isn’t quite what he needs. Whenever she pushes him, or he attempts to lead the way/protect her, they are just desperately trying to fit into the heteronormative roles of Hero and His Damsel, and it usually leads to Snorkmaiden ironically having to save Moomintroll. In the Hattifattener episode, she tells him that he must go rescue Little My alone; because he is afraid of doing so, he stalls, so much so that Little My returns to them on her own and saves him the trip. They would’ve had a much better chance at finding her sooner if they had both gone out together, but because they stubbornly stuck to fulfilling their traditional gender roles, they only succeeded in annoying each other. In the Park Keeper episode, Moomintroll grabs Snorkmaiden’s hand and leads her into the woods to look for Little My, saying he knows the forest like the back of his paw. He does not, and causes them to get lost. He tries to ask some forest people if they saw My, but this proves futile and it is Snrokmaiden who suggests that they build a bonfire; this plan goes more smoothly yet she gives him the credit, calling him “my clever Moomintroll”. In Ghost Story, Moomintroll plays the role of the brave hero yet again, but ends up just scaring and then angering Snorkmaiden, who puts the ghost on the windowsill, inadvertently sending her love to his doom, and she ends up saving him. (In contrast, Snufkin helps Moomintroll get through a scary unfamiliar situation in the Groke episode by guiding him through it and being there with him to save and support him when needed, yet still letting him get the hang of it on his own, and the two have fun together in the process).

You could argue the same negative consequence happens in this dream, where Snorkmaiden encourages him to ride the cloud which eventually disappears from beneath him, though I don’t think it’s quite the same. Regardless, Moomintroll initially does not look happy, but rather worried as Snorkmaiden whisks him away:

Luckily, he’s cheered up in the next shot, enjoying the view seemingly more than he is enjoying Snorkmaiden; the two glance at each other, though whilst Snorkmaiden holds the gaze, Moomintroll quickly looks away and at his parents on the ground, pointing them out so that she stops looking at him. I personally see this as another little shred of evidence that Snrokmaiden is much more invested in their relationship than he is, and he may not in fact return her romantic feelings for him (or at least those that she thinks she has for him).

Snorkmaiden waves at mamma and pappa and Moomintroll follows suit, which I’m honestly not quite sure what to make of. I don’t know why he doesn’t just immediately wave back to his parents and instead only does so when he sees Snorkmaiden doing it. Maybe he’s just enjoying the moment.

Moomintroll then looks quite joyful to be on the cloud, until a hole appears in it and then Snorkmaiden turns into clouds herself, waving goodbye to him before poofing out of existence. The cloud he’s riding quickly does the same and he falls before waking up. This is quite literally a wake-up call: Moomintroll needs to wake up from the sugar-coated fantasy of his past & what’s expected of him and face the real world. The fact that Snorkmaiden is a part of this world shows to me that she is no longer what’s best for him, at least not as a romantic partner, and he needs to move on; much like how he needs to become less dependent upon his parents, who are also a part of this dream.

This ties into the larger theme of his struggle between family & freedom, or childhood & adulthood, or dependency & independency, with Snorkmaiden being a representation (or a part) of the former, and Snufkin of the latter.

My bi ass of course believes he should leave the safety and comfort of a heteronormative life to pursue the true desires of his heart - and, yes, it’ll be scary, but one must sometimes face their fears head-on in their pursuit of lasting happiness; interestingly, Moomintroll has already faced the Groke once, and we know that she’ll be returning in the future. Who knows what he’ll learn about himself.

[pinkandgreenarepurpleandyellow]

Rose

Pairing: Kanoh Agito x Reader

Trigger warnings for: gore in first scene, implied violence, swearing

——————————————————————————————-

Come on, come out already, you’re tired, and hiding in the ceiling beams seemed like a good idea an hour ago, but now between the scattered corpses and the lack of your target, there really isn’t anything interesting enough for you to stay up here.

The door stars opening, and you snap out of complaining. It’s him, it has to be. As the man steps out, you realize quite how large and tall he is, especially compared to the guys you’ve already run into. If that isn’t the Fang of Metsudo, you'd eat your own poison capsules.

You’ve done this for years. The only sound he could possibly hear, if even that, would be a quiet swish of the air as you drop.

Your kick lands just between the cervical and thoracic vertebrae, but your boots don’t appear to leave any actual marks, and his grabbing your ankle is not what you expected mid-flip. Most people would have died between the spikes on the soles of your shoes and your landing spot. Lighting reflexes then. Too bad for him, you’re prepared, so you’re not exactly surprised when the hand retracts almost the second it latches on to you. You know the thorns wrapped on your boots are painful as all hell, that’s precisely why you wear them.

He’d been pulling you forward, and you’ve got the momentum for it anyways, so you finish the flip to land in front of him, face-to-face. He’s tall to be the same height as you in the boots. Black hair, experienced fighter, strong eyes, will kill, handsome, your analysis is complete before you fully register it’s implications.

“You’re not dead yet,” my aren’t you a sharp one today, talking to your target, “I’m afraid I need you dead, so hold still please,” and you know he’s thrown off because he doesn’t see the fist aimed right at his nose until the last second.

He’s not all that bright if he missed the spikes on your gloves, but it’s all the better for you, and you launch into the standard barrage of blows to take down someone this size.

To your surprise he’s falling after only a few seconds, and you definitely didn’t expect that from someone with quite this fearsome of a reputation. You can’t help but sneer a little, even though you know it’ll be hidden behind the mask.

“Alright, Masamichi, what’s the deal? I know I’m tough as steel, but you should be able to block my blows.” He blinks up at you and his reply makes him sound like the most and least knowledgable being on the planet.

“I am Kanoh Agito,” You tilt your head in confusion. This is... not who you were told was the Fang when you were offered the job.

“Are you quite sure?”

“Considering that I beat him years ago for the position of the Fang, positive,” and the light snark makes you feel less guilty about getting the wrong person. He’ll live your analysis concludes as you give him a hand up. You still figure you should apologize.

“My apologies then. I have no reason to be here now, so I’ll be on my way. Do you happen to know where he is?”

When he shrugs you nod and walk away, your boots pleasantly not slipping on the floor

“Two questions, if you don’t mind,” he calls out “Why did you think I was him and who the hell are you?”

This isn’t something you’re going to pause for so you call out just before you exit “I’m just an assassin, and all my boss told me was that Masamichi’s the Fang of Metsudo. Never did get informed of his resignation. See you around, Agito.”

-----

A week later you’re breaking into the almost-palace once again, this time to apologize to Metsudo Katahra for killing all of his security team. Your client tried to weasel out of paying you even after you completed the job, so you’re kinda freelancing at the moment, and this place seems fun to work at for a bit. To your surprise, however, Katahara is not only anticipating your return, he’s downright friendly about it.

“Nothing to worry about, if they fell they were weak anyways, young lady! You just did me a favor, but you might want to apologize to the custodian and poor Agito. From what he looked like on Monday you roughed him up just a bit. But since he’s here now, we’ll begin.” Sure enough, in comes Agito, looking just as confused as you.

“Begin what, exactly?”

“Why your training, of course! Since you said yourself that you want work for us, you’ll have to learn the ropes, and as your job is to be my left-hand woman, my right-hand man can teach you everything. I’ll leave the two of you to figure out the rest,” and on that terrifying note, Metsudo leaves the two of you alone.

You can’t help but look at him again, noting more about him. He’s actually a little taller than you, and his eyes look both ice cold and so warm, like he’s ready to kill anything anytime, but he’s making an exception for the moment. 

“Well, Mister Right-Hand Man? Where do we begin?” His softness sinks down beneath the surface again at your question.

“You need a proper uniform, a suit” he motions to a door you presume leads to the tailor “so the costume has to go.”

Damn shame. You love your costume, from the beautiful rose patterned lace to the all-black pants and jacket under it.

Oh well. New job, new outfit. 

One torturous hour later Agito finally comes back, and even though this is exactly your second encounter with him you practically leap into his arms.

“Oh thankyouthankyouthankyou let’s get out of here i’m three seconds away from murdering your tailor thankyouthankyou,” and thank whoever the fuck that Agito understands and pulls you outside. You look incredible, you know, but you still feel a little pang of happiness when you see him carefully looking over your suit in silent approval. The one downside is that now you’re wearing flats, so you’re just tall enough for his shoulder to be at your eye-level.

You realize the two of you have talked for a good ten minutes now while walking, and then the question comes.

“What is your real name?” dammit.

“(Y/n),”

“And the rest of it?”

“That’s something only my future spouse’ll know, so unless you wanna get married, not telling.” You’re not exactly joking, and your hand is halfway to your hidden knife when Agito nods and keeps moving.

“Training for today is fairly simple, and then after tomorrow you’re good to go,”

You can’t help but wonder why he’s helping you out on this. It’s not like you ever stay at a job for longer than a week.

------

Two. Damn. Years. It’s not until even Raian congratulates you on sticking around this long that you realize it’s really been a whole two years since you got hired, just a little over two years since you met Agito.

The two of you worked together often enough that you’d almost call him your soulmate at this point. Katahara really wasn’t kidding when he said that the two of you were like his hands, inseparable and needed to help one another.

That evening, when you’re officially free from the job, you go back to that hallway. The house is a twisting maze, but you know it like the back of your hand by now, and the hallway lies in front of you within the minute. You look up until you see the beams with the smallest nick present, and then vault up to there.

This is the only place you can really feel alone without feeling lonely now. It’s familiar, but it’s quiet. Sadly, someone else’s footsteps echo down, and just a few seconds later Agito passes under you, holding a small package.

“(y/n)? (y/n)? Are you he-oh there you are,” he looks up mid-sentence. “Come down, let’s celebrate,”

Why not? You jump down, making a point to land right next to him without actually brushing him even slightly.

“What’s up?”

“This” he holds up the box in the bag. “Here.”

You open the box. Oh. OH. That goddamn-

“YOU GOT ME (favorite food)?!?!?!? AGITO, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!” and you temporarily throw your emotionless facade out the window to tackle Agito into a hug, knocking him off his feet. The two of you fall to the ground and you only realize the position you landed in when he makes an ahem sound and you roll off his chest. If I hadn’t caught myself in time I would have kissed him by accident, you think as you sit up. Neither of you are quite sure where to go from here, so you’re relieved that he speaks first.

“So,” he hands you one/a piece of the (favorite food) and grabs one for himself, “Two years.”

“Yeah,”

“Congratulations on surviving this long.” You’re so happy that you give up on your normal concealing of emotion and just let yourself enjoy the moment. It’s warm, there’s a slight breeze in the air, and the man you see as your best friend sitting next to you, letting you lean on his shoulder.

Agito’s hand finds yours, and you almost jump from how cold his hand is, but it’s worth the shock.

“Hey Agito,” you speak without thinking about it, “Can I ask you a question?”

You can feel him tense up immediately.

“Yes?”

“I think I like you,” you’re too happy about this moment to think about what you’re saying. Agito definitely isn’t, however.

“That’s not a question.”

“Do you like me?” You’re now slightly more aware of what is going on, but you need to know. Moment of truth.

Whatever you were expecting, it was in the form of a verbal answer. It was not a  gentle kiss to your lips. Agito draws away just in time for you to see he’s embarrassed too.

“Was that an acceptable answer?” You love how he almost looks shy when he asks you this, like he already knows what you'll say but wants to hear it from you.

“I’m not sure,” you smirk slightly up at him, “I think you might need to repeat it.”

Agito rolls his eyes at you, but you both know it’s just for show. Your hands are still intertwined. It’s a perfect night. You reach up by the three-ish inches needed to kiss him, and he meets you half-way. It’s even better the second time.

-

END

[sleptsin]

A Quick Analysis On Belphegor

     Alright time to go over my many screenshots and analyze what they gave us of Belphie’s character in the last two chapters. Not beating around any bushes. Shit is long. Like. “ I threw this into docs to check and it came out to 4 pages ” long.

His Attention

          First of all———  !! I’d just like to point out how  RIGHT  I was in saying that he’s super attentive of those he chooses to care about. Whenever they’re talking about his bros nothing seems like a surprise to him unless it’s a  TOTAL  change of who they were before as with Satan’s relationship with Lucifer. But when it comes to Levi he basically says, “ Knowing him, he was thinking this wasn’t he? That’s just how he is. ” Or when choosing an outfit with Asmo he says exactly, “ As if Asmo would ever be satisfied with an outfit like that. It’s not nearly bombastic enough for him. ” And shortly after, even  ASMO  says that he pays a lot of attention to the MC if you choose ‘ I owe it all to Belphie ’. ( I didn’t try the other option so idk if he says this regardless ). He pays attention and  OTHERS  pick up on it.

     While it can be excused because they’ve lived so long together, I’d like to say that there are still plenty of things you can  NEVER  catch onto even if you know someone for a lifetime. There’s also people like me who, while I love my friends so much, don’t always pick up on things. Some are just better than others and I feel like that  MORE  accurately applies to the brothers. They notice things sure, but not  EVERYTHING  like Belphie probably does. And there’s a plethora of things they can be familiar with only because it’s been a constant or a habit.

          It’s also worth pointing out that even despite being locked up in the attic for who knows how long, Bel still knew his brothers incredibly well and that attention to detail didn’t falter.

His Imprisonment

     I also want to take a moment and mention how the way Belphegor talks about being kept in the attic seems to imply that he’s been kept there for  QUITE  a while. The exchange program is supposed to last a year and we’re given no real timeline to keep track of things. Even if we sum it up to roughly a couple months, he speaks as if it’s been much longer— and when you take a moment you realize it actually  HAS  been. When he got into his fight with Lucifer, that was before the program even began. It might not have even been in the planning stages ! The proposal could’ve simply been thrown out there and then after gaining support it underwent all the preparations. How long could  THAT  itself have taken ??

          Even when you first meet him in the attic and have the option of asking how long he’s been there, he  ANGRILY  responds with, “ That’s a good question. How long has it been now, I wonder ? Well, one thing I can say for sure: I’ve been in here for a very, very long time. ” So yeah. Seems reasonable to say it’s been at the very least a year already.

     Belphie doesn’t seem like the dramatic type or one to necessarily over-exaggerate. He refers to himself as having been a  PRISONER  and I don’t count that as exaggeration either because he really  WAS  a prisoner in his own home and the effects of it are quite evident. He addresses it a couple times and one of his lines on the home screen refers to Levi. And it actually seems to counter a home screen line of Levi’s that says they’re more  ALIKE  when you think about it. ( Which they kind of are and I’ll get into a little of that later ). But it basically says that they’re different because Levi  CHOOSES  to be a recluse while he had no choice in being imprisoned and he legitimately says that in the regard, “ Levi has nothing on me. ”

          While the game has them make up in these chapters, I don’t believe Lucifer’s simple apology is really enough to make up for the damage. As I said, it  REALLY  affected Bel and extended for quite a while. Bel missed out on a  LOT  and is deeply saddened by it. He regrets not being involved even if he couldn’t help it. This is the same brother who already struggled with loneliness and is now a stranger to everything that happened for the last 1+ year. I think it’s more accurate to say that he accepted the apology but hasn’t  TRULY  forgiven him yet. And for the moment could be swept under the rug while he personally works on getting over it.

His Effort

     I have enjoyed the game immensely in showing us what Belphegor is capable of. When they work part-time in Hell’s Kitchen that  SINGULAR  time, it’s emphasized that the restaurant works its employees tirelessly. Despite this, he still held his own and was the only one not actually tired in the end. He’s even the one who made sure everything was flowing smoothly, properly, and implied to have  HOUNDED  Mammon and MC in doing so. This seems to suggest that Belphie actually has an incredible reserve of energy to tap into when he so chooses. A reserve that’s built up from all of the sleeping he does.

          In other words, although he’s the sin of Sloth and is  INDEED  a sleepy boy, there’s plenty of opportunity for him to apply himself. It’s just a matter of wanting to— and he usually doesn’t want to. Hence he chooses to  SLEEP  instead and immerse himself in his very attribute.

     However, the game also shows us that he’s pretty well-rounded and can also be deeply involved or helpful when it comes to his brothers and  THEIR  own interests.

i.e. he and Satan bond over their dislike of Lucifer and orchestrate pranks against him, he enjoys video games and manga alongside Levi  DESPITE  not wanting to let him know, and he has a great sense of fashion to the point he knows what would better / best suit Asmo

     And I really  ADORE  this about him because it continues to build him up as more than just the ‘ cat-napping seventh born ’ and actually gives him a place among his brothers as the one that can easily and probably best navigate among them  ALL.

His Personality

     Sadly, despite being able to fit in with any one of his brothers, it seems like apart from Beelzebub, the street doesn’t run  BOTH  ways. Yes, everyone makes up. But this doesn’t exactly change how things will actually be from that point on and it definitely doesn’t change the past. Levi himself remarks how Belphie has  ALWAYS  been difficult to approach even at the best of times. It’s noted that they’re both the socially awkward brothers and Bel doesn’t enjoy large gathering atmospheres and prefers to be alone than attend them. Compared to Levi who can at least  FORCE  himself to bear with it, he takes the first opportunity to find a space for himself away from it all. From this we know he’s good in small to medium sized groups but beyond that is overwhelming for him.  WAY  past his comfort zone.

          Additionally, we also now know just how disconnected from everyone he is if they always had difficulty going to him. This make you wonder if the strangeness and distance they treated him with in these chapters hasn’t actually happened a  NUMBER  of times thereby explaining why he was so unfazed by it all when it shouldn’t have been okay. I don’t believe he’s completely unaffected so much as he’s just  USED TO  the occasional cold shoulder.

     These brothers are the Avatars of Sin and clearly not immune to the very things they cause. In fact, I would almost go to say that they feel it to an  EXTREME  and merely have varying degrees of a handle on it. That is to say that Belphie potentially has a seriously hard time given the vastness of Sloth and just covers it decently well. ( See here or his bio for some insight. ) And the greatest sadness to this is how the brothers are all fully  AWARE  of things that aren’t typically okay. They’re aware of their own familial issues and just  CHOOSE  to not aid or ignore it. Excuse it if you will with ‘ they’re demons, they lack morals ’. This is their family that they claim to care deeply about and have to live with for several millennia and you’re gonna just not make it better ? Shame on them. And for added note——  this isn’t just how I feel about in regards to Belphie but  OTHERS  as well such as Mammon.

          Continuing on though, because this isn’t about that. It’s relieving that Belphegor still has so much personality beyond his hang ups. He looks at everyone for who  THEY  are as seen by how he is the first and only one so far to tell the MC he’s there for them and  NOT  because of their connection to Lilith. At the same time he’s an incredibly bratty boy in his texts. It’s almost like in story he behaves one way and in text it’s another. Like he’s carrying out a specific appearance in public and DMs are him  NO  holds barred. ( Which we know he’s aware and likely capable of picking out images to portray through outfit deciding with Asmo ). He can have an attitude and has no fear saying what he  REALLY  thinks / feels and especially doesn’t like anything that even remotely gives the assumption that someone views him as a child.

     He gets bored easily and can’t stand it, is most likely an insomniac due to feeling more awake the later it gets, and is  ALWAYS  looking out for Beel via combination of being so close to him and having a special twin connection. Nonetheless, it’s enough to assume that he’s highly considerate of the others as well and that Beel is just priority.

          THIS IS PROBABLY ENOUGH FOR NOW ;;;      Thanks to anyone who actually reads any of this !! I might have more to say in the future but I wanna hits the brakes on this before it drags out any longer.

[tracybirds]

Fluffember Day 3 - Care

Time to try another new thing, focusing in on an actual rescue. I am not a mountaineer or a canyoneer or a paraglider or anything extreme like that so all technical information comes from vague memories of my local rock climbing centre or Google xD

Thanks @gumnut-logic for the wonderful prompts as always!!!!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Hey there, what’s your name?”

“Alex,” called the small, frightened boy. “Please, my dad’s hurt.”

Virgil carefully craned his neck up at the ledge Alex was perched on.

“Are you together?”

“Yes!”

Virgil heard a faint moan from above him.

“I’m okay,” called a pained voice. “More worried about getting my son to safety first.”

“We’ll do that, sir,” said Virgil, already assessing the rockface’s stability. “Can you tell me more about your condition?”

“Get my son first.”

Virgil nodded, hearing the silent message behind those words. Alex didn’t need any more reason to be terrified. He could assess the man when he was in view.

“Okay, Alex?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m going to start climbing up to you. Can you take care of your dad while I focus on that?”

“I guess,” Alex said in a thin voice. Virgil waited until he could hear Alex talking to his dad in a low voice and then called up Scott who was waiting in Thunderbird One above them.

“Thunderbird One? You’re going to need to drop a line down. That rockface isn’t all that strong and I’m worried it might start shifting if we attempt to scale it directly with a Pod.”

“FAB, Thunderbird Two,” came Scott’s voice through the comm. “I’ll hold her as steady as we can manage.”

“FAB, Thunderbird One,” said Virgil. Two magnetic clamps found their mark on Thunderbird Two with an echoing clang and Virgil grabbed two extra harnesses.

“Gordon?” he called into the cockpit. “I’m going to climb up to them. Stay here for retrieval.”

“FAB, Virg,” said Gordon as Virgil turned away to begin scaling the ropes.

The twenty-metre climb felt much too long when there was a scared little boy and his hurt father waiting above them and Virgil focused in on the ascent. The burn in his muscles felt right, like the aching pain of a job well done that would be awaiting him in the future. He drew eye level, shoulder level, hip level with the little ledge, climbing until he was looking down on Alex and his father. He locked off his rappel device and sat in the harness as he rigged up the makeshift platform between the two cables.

He pulled himself up onto the platform and sucked in a breath at the sight of Alex, still hovering over his dad.

“Hey Alex, what’s black and white and red all over?”

Alex gave a long-suffering sigh and Virgil suppressed a smile.

“I don’t know, Dad,” he said.

“A newspaper.”

“Da-a-a-d,” Alex groaned as his father laughed wheezily.

“Sir, that’s a worse joke than my brother tells,” said Virgil, grinning over at them.

“He tells the worst jokes,” complained Alex.

“Always here for you, bud.” The man reached up a hand to slowly wave at Virgil. “I’m David. Good timing on your end…”

“Virgil,” he said cheerfully.

“Thanks for responding, Virgil,” said David.

Virgil turned his attention back to Alex.

“Ready to get going?” he asked.

“Yes please, Mr. Virgil!”

Virgil laughed and threw one of the harnesses down to Alex who caught it.

“Start getting into that,” he said. “I’ll be over to check your buckles in a moment. John, can you get me an analysis of the rockface above the ledge? My scans are showing it’s stable but I’d like to see if disturbing it will have a domino effect on the ledge itself.”

“Running simulations now,” said John’s voice. “They’re safe with a 95% confidence interval.”

“Can you do me any better?” asked Virgil, preparing his grapple. “A one in twenty chance of this going down isn’t exactly my idea of confidence.”

“You could always grapple the kid directly.”

Virgil shrugged. “Just might do that, Thunderbird Five.” He raised his voice slightly as he called out to Alex. “How’s it going over there?”

“Nearly there!”

“Your buckles are open, Alex,” said David patiently. “C for closed, remember.”

Alex scrambled to follow instructions as Virgil clipped himself to the makeshift platform. He carefully aimed the grapple at the rockface and fired. The metal claw buried itself in the rock and Virgil watched the ledge anxiously for any sign of movement under Alex’s oblivious feet.

“Good job, buddy,” Virgil assured him with a smile. The first rule of all their rescues was that keeping people calm saved lives above all else. Virgil knew what he was about to ask of this little boy would take all the nerve he had.

“You see that cable?”

Alex looked up and nodded. He turned towards Virgil, eyes wide and trusting.

“Okay, I’m going to send over this zipline attachment. I need you to attach the end to your harness and then sit on the seat. I’ll keep a hold of this secondary cable and reel you up to me. Sound good?”

Alex looked back fearfully at his dad.

“Go on, Alex,” said David, with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. Virgil hoped Alex didn’t quite see the way his dad was deteriorating the longer they deliberated. He didn’t need a hysterical seven-year-old on his hands, no matter how understandable.

Alex straightened his spine and nodded at Virgil, his hands ready to catch the cable as it swung down to him.

The seat was low and Alex crouched down on it. David reached out to unlock the carabiner and attach his son securely to the zipline.

“Love you son,” he whispered.

“Love you Dad,” said Alex, falling over himself to gently hug him.

David lifted his eyes to Virgil. “Take good care of my boy,” he ordered. “Get him in that big, green machine before you get me.”

Virgil nodded tightly. “You’ve got it, sir.”

He fed the cable through the pulley system and began pulling Alex upwards towards the platform.

Alex swallowed a shriek as the seat took his full weight and he swung a little over the edge of the rockface.

“Eyes on me, Alex,” called Virgil. “No different to paragliding, this.”

In every rescue came an instant where things suddenly moved very quickly. For all the time it took to survey the site, simulate potential plans and prep the party for evacuation, the actual action of rescue took very little time.

In mere moments, Alex was sitting next to Virgil, hugging him tight with eyes squeezed shut.

“You’re okay,” murmured Virgil, putting one arm around the boy. “You did great, your dad and I are so proud of you.”

Alex sniffed and clung to Virgil’s middle. “Can you get my dad now?”

“Not yet,” Virgil told him, heart aching at the way Alex’s shoulder slumped at the words. “I have to belay you down to Thunderbird Two.”

His hands were sure as he attached the rope to Alex’s harness and removed the zipline cable.

“I don’t want to be alone,” whispered Alex as he looked fearfully down towards Thunderbird Two.

“Thunderbird Two loves having visitors,” Virgil said with a smile. “I promise she’ll take care of you, and so will my brother who’s waiting below.

“I have a little brother,” said Alex, puffing up his little chest. “He’s three.”

“So, you’re the oldest?” asked Virgil, running through his last checks.

“Yes!” said Alex. “His name’s Alan, and Mummy is going to give us a little sister soon too!”

“My youngest brother is called Alan too,” said Virgil with a smile. “Okay, ready? Time to be brave!”

Alex nodded and stayed very still as Virgil carefully lowered him down to Thunderbird Two. He could see Gordon below, deft fingers helping Alex out of his harness and bundling him into the ship below.

He turned his attention back to David.

“Time for a status update, David,” he said, dark eyes looking worriedly over David’s prone form.

David grimaced. “Think I busted some ribs. I can’t put weight on my left leg. I’m afraid I’m going to be pretty useless with any attempts at mobility.”

Virgil nodded grimly. “I don’t think we can use the same zipline trick for you,” he said. “If I can get to you, I can tape your ribs and splint your leg for a temporary measure, but I’m afraid whatever we do will be quite painful. We’ll need to immobilise you before moving you to Thunderbird Two.”

“FAB,” said David, lips twitching at Virgil’s surprised stare. “I heard you talking to your brothers, was it?” He exhaled wheezily. “Mighty fine family business you have. Your parents must be proud.”

Virgil started, caught off guard. “I hope so, sir,” he said quietly. There was a lump in his throat and if David saw him blinking back tears, he said nothing.

“Right, Thunderbird One?” he said opening up a channel on his comm. “I need to transfer David to this platform, so I need you to decrease your altitude by two metres, no more, no less.”

“FAB,” said Scott and Virgil felt himself lowered down. He carefully climbed off the platform and quickly administered first aid with a practiced hand. He tilted David carefully onto his side, pulling the platform close and pulling it underneath him, then shuffling David all the way across.

“You’re going up to Thunderbird One,” he told David. “I’m sorry, but you need immediate attention and Thunderbird One is our fastest ship. I’ll be right behind you with Alex.”

David nodded and Virgil called Scott again.

“Reel him up, Scott, we’re all ready down here.”

On cue, the platform lifted off the ledge and Virgil waved up at David as he disappeared into the clouds.

He abseiled down the rockface back to Thunderbird Two only to be bowled over by a seven-year-old wrapped in a tin foil blanket.

“Did you get my dad?” he cried.

“Sure did, buddy,” said Virgil, ruffling Alex’s hair. “My big brother is gonna take him to hospital, and we’ll be right behind him.”

Gordon walked over and put his hand on Alex’s shoulder. “Let’s go take a look at the cockpit,” he told Alex. “Have you ever wanted to be a pilot?”

“Yes!” exclaimed Alex, bouncing up and down. “How did you know?”

“Just a hunch,” said Gordon, with a wink. “If you would, Virgil?”

“I’ll be there in a second,” said Virgil. “Let me put away this gear and then we’ll be in the sky.”

He smiled fondly at Alex and Gordon, watching as Gordon swung Alex up onto his shoulders. His own shoulders ached and he was looking forward to returning home.

A beep on his comm alerted him to a call, and John’s hologram popped up.

“You did good, Virg,” he said softly. “Scott’s got David to hospital and he’s stable.”

“Thanks, John. I’m just going to lie here for a minute.”

“Job’s not done, Virgil,” he said, but Virgil waved him off. The adrenaline was starting to wear off, and the crash that followed was rapidly approaching. Virgil could already feel the rawness of his fingers and a burn spreading down his arms. He sat down next to the collection of harnesses and cables and slowly lowered himself onto the cold metal floor.

John eyed his brother carefully, while typing out a message to Gordon who was settling Alex into his seat in the cockpit, ready for take-off.

“Take care, Virgil,” he said with a sympathetic smile.

[alternativewinxcontinuity]

will the winx alt. con. keep with canon relationships? cuz sky and bloom could be a dope couple with good writing, and aISHA AND NABU OHMYGOD-

TLDR:

Yes and No?Stella/Brandon are basically the same, while Sky/Bloom and Aisha|Layla/Nabu|Ophir are getting a little bit of a more obvious over haul they will still be A Thing.

Tecna/Timmy, Flora/Helia and Musa/Riven are... less so, like, if they happen as a romance thing, it will be a long time coming, or less obvious.

Mirta/Lucy& Palladium/Avalon are also A Thing, but more background than any of the others.

So in terms of ships in the Canon show: they are a mess. On the surface they seem plausible, maybe even okay, but the longer you look at them, the worse the relationships get. I've tried to keep the basics, but change certain circumstances so things are less... bad foundation-wise

Bitching and Alt Con spoiler alerts below the cut.

Stella/BrandonBloom/Sky (feat. Diaspro)Aisha/Nabu|Layla/Ophir (feat. Roy (&Nex))Tecna/TimmyFlora/HeliaMusa/Riven (feat. Darcy)Mirta/LucyDaphne/ThorenPalladium/Avalon

Final heads up, I'm about to say a lot of sh*t, and none of you have to agree, we all interpret things differently, I'm the kind of person who pulls things apart and finds the smallest speck of 'rot' and grows it in a mental Petri dish to see how awful things could be... that is a terrible analogy, but long-and-short-of-it: my opinions may be based on worst case scenario analysis, rather than any analysis you may use, and I am not saying you should not ship things, by all means, ship all the things.

I apologise for the high levels of in-coherency and absolute aggro.

Stella/Brandon

On the surface, this ship is changing perhaps the least because they're a “pretty stable” couple, unfortunately, they also began their relationship with a lie and that was never fully addressed in Canon. I tried to combat that by having Brandon and Stella 'test the waters' so to speak, with Brandon asking early on if Stella thought she'd still like him even if he wasn't a prince, and Stella later mentioning to Bloom that yeah, she would.

I say “pretty stable” because they don't break up every other episode, but their relationship is kind of... on the opposite end of the problem spectrum, like: “I'd jump off a cliff with no knowledge of what was below and no safety harness or ability to fly for you,” they've displayed a concerning level of co-dependency.

I tempered that a bit in the Alt Con, mostly be removing the situation where that (jumping off the cliff) happened, because it was the result of characters being sudden!dumb! But I also feel like, whatever universe, they'd be the kind of couple who'd get through rocky points in their relationship because they'd try to make it work because they are connected.

Canon treats them a little weirdly, because they are (excuse my language) psychotically-in-love, despite both being established as generally flirty people, but it only once really put the jealousy thing into play, in season 4 when the writers tried to make us take Mitzy as a 'serious villain' by turning her into Stella&Brandon's 'Diaspro problem'.

Alt Con Stella&Brandon are more reasonable, but are still very much 'our eyes met and something clicked' kinds of in love, but they definitely put work into a stable foundation, and were able to weather the SkyBrandon reveal with only a small wobble and some breathing space.

-

Bloom/Sky (feat. Diaspro) aka: the Drama Llama ship.

I think this one is changing the most, of the three main ships that are 'staying'. Alt Con Bloom&Sky didn't actually start dating until late in season 2, and are being very cautious with their relationship.

Unlike Canon Sky, Alt Con Sky was hesitant to begin a relationship when he knew he would have to end it, and knowing it would be a douche-bag move. Likewise, Bloom's Canon displayed empathic ability came into play, warning her that Sky was hiding something from her, and making her hesitant to even try dating while that was looming between them.

The biggest change with the Bloom/Sky dynamic is that it didn't start under falsehoods, and Diaspro was treated with the respect she deserved, rather than an unwanted crazy ex (even before she was the ex).

Canon Sky was a cheater, pure and simple, we've (probably all) talked the matter to death over the years, and there's no interpretation where what he did and didn't do, was okay. But it also explains his later douchey behaviour: people who cheat are more likely to suspect others of cheating.

Canon Sky has always been quick to jealousy, see season 2's full on stalking bullshit, and of course the thing with the FrEaKinG unicorn.

And of course, since he did start his relationship with Bloom as a cheater, Bloom knows he has a history of cheating, and cheaters don't typically 'find the right person and change their ways forever'. Sorry, but they don't, which explains why Bloom is so ready to believe Diaspro is succeeding in stealing Sky back, whether she actually is or not.

Canon Bloom/Sky have no trust foundation, like zero, none, maybe even negative trust foundation.

Fixing that was simple: I didn't let them get together while there were lies to be had.

Now, love her, hate her, pity her, Diaspro is a huge part of the Canon relationship, so I do have to talk about her.

Canon treats her like an increasingly manic instant drama dispenser, and I think we're all sick to death of it, not just because Diaspro has become more and more difficult to sympathise with, but because we're sick of the Bloom/Sky (relationship-status: “Yoyo's would be dizzy by now”) continuity.

But she's a princess, which means she should be more politically aware than what she is in Canon, she's marrying in to The Royal Family of Eraklyon. Sky's already there, he's set, he is the 'scheduled in in pen' Future King of Eraklyon, he ain't got to do shit.

Diaspro does. She has to be liked by the current king and the people, even if not her future husband, her marriage is a job.

So Alt Con Diaspro gets to do 'diplomacy' first, she gets to make first contact with the Winx, rather than being randomly attacked by a crazy ass fairy and being humiliated in public.

But this also means that Bloom wasn't humiliated in public, because Alt Con Diaspro was tactful in revealing the truth about the SkyBrandon switch. (Because the switch wasn't actually life or death protection.)

That whole first meeting in Canon was disaster from the word go, and put such a taint on the relationship that it's season 8, and the writers are apparently still trying to beat that dead horse.

The main thing that stops Bloom/Sky from moving past their beginning in Canon, is that they just don't communicate. They run into the slightest problem and suddenly they're breaking up and they stop trusting each other and its the end of the world and boohoo, blah blah woof woof.

They get back together as a matter of course, like its on a freaking check list for the writers to tick off, but they never really deal with what happened. It's all: Inciting incident, zero to sixty in three point five break up, way too long stealing the B plot's screen time being pouty and childish, 'oh we were wrong and are back together now without dealing with the actual problem because there wasn't one we're just dumb.'

Starting them off with knowing that they have an attraction to one another, but listening to a combination of common sense/basic decency and intuition so they wait until they're at a place where they can be honest and upfront about what needs to be spoken about, rather than having them run head first into what is nothing more than a revolving door of relationship drama was important for the Alt Con, because ain't nobody got time for that shit anymore. (Have you seen the new time line, it's condensed AF.)

The Alt Con also does something else I always wanted to see: addresses the fact that Bloom is now in a position to marry into a Royal Family.

Alt Con Bloom/Sky is a lot more tentative than Canon, they started of on a better foot, without that lie and cheating between them, but they're going into the relationship knowing that if they work, and they feel like there's a good chance they will, Bloom will have to assume the role of Queen Consort of Eraklyon one day, she's not just dating Sky, she's dating his family and his Planet which means they have to take it slower and more seriously.

Spoiler alert for season 3 of the Alt Con: the love potion is still happening, the set up of the relationship though means there's less 'why doesn't he love me anymore' and more 'Diaspro was (not totally fine with it but) prepared to accept the change, this isn't like her,' and 'Sky and I were okay last time we talked, he wouldn't do this without telling me, something is wrong here.' (Diaspro is not a psycho b*tch/Mark of Valtor theory coming well into play here.)

-

Aisha/Nabu|Layla/Ophir (feat. Roy (& Nex))

So in Canon, Nabu and Aisha first met when Nabu just randomly up and stalked Aisha through Magix on her day off after their engagement was announced. And because apparently princesses can't date first boyfriends who don't lie about their identity, Nabu introduced himself as 'Ophir'.

Look, I get that he was shy and embarrassed or something? But what the genuine frick-frack?!

The writers have apparently never had romantic relationships before because that trend was really friggen messed up. Like... none of the relationships in Winx Club are what I'd call ideal and healthy, all of them have some aspect of 'oh god run!' to them, but Aisha got the short end of a ratty stick.

So Canon timeline (allegedly): Middle of third year, Aisha's home world is under attack and she can't do more than she's already done. Trying to take a mental health day with her girls, and this rando dude up and stalks her, then, because she's a decent person, she chooses stalker's life over the Magical Dimension (Agador Box), and it turns out, this random ass stalker has lied about his identity and stalked her because he's the fiance she never wanted.

And yes, they do eventually end up falling in love and choosing one another... right before he fricken dies less than a year later.

So you know, Aisha does her 'vengeance is me' spree, which was awesome but designed to put her in a bad light, let's be real.

And then: nothing, an extra heaping of man hate because Aisha is an angry-girl, but no one really addressed her grief after the fact, like you don't just wake up and get over the death of someone that close, and yes, I know that people do move on, but we never saw her moving on, she calmed down after an episode of revenge and then she was 'all good' bar the aggro-tude. She spent season 5 and 6 angry at everything male, then suddenly she was dating Nex and... I'm sorry, I do block a lot of the later seasons out, but I genuinely do not remember them getting together, they just suddenly were after a season of Nex being an asshole with an almost redemption scene when he saved Roy, who mysteriously vanished, despite sticking around post his job-arc in season 6, but I guess that was for drama.

I don't really care for Nex, but that's a complex and layered issue that is only partly about shipping, and only partly about the fact that he was an absolute asshole who almost killed Roy during training basically on purpose, even if I didn't particularly like Roy, I don't hate Nex either.

Aisha has had all the boys thrown at her, and it was annoying, because she never needed one, she sure as sh*t didn't need a second and a third who inexplicably 'won her hand' or whatever the hell happened there.

I would have been fine if Aisha had stayed single after Nabu, like, just because people do move on, doesn't mean she has to date again.

So, Alt Con, Nex and... urgh, 'Thoren' are persona non grata, because let's be honest, they were introduced for shipping purposes and Daphne/Thoren was the stupidest thing to ever be shipped in Magix, I apologise if you like the ship, I don't mean to start a war, but it felt like it was so forced and it came out of even less than nowhere than Aisha/Nex.

Also Daphne isn't returning to life in the Alt Con, sorry, spoiler.

But Nabu isn't dying either. (I thought about it, but it was a stupid drama grab, so it's been chucked and set on fire. I did have an idea of a plot line for the closure, involving Nex as the son of a Valkyne who'd left Waltevy, and him taking Aisha to say a proper goodbye to Nabu, and freaking waiting for her to be ready to date again and just being a decent friggen person... but, yeah, nah.)

Salvaging Roy, even in Canon is actually pretty easy: Roy volunteered for the duty of driving Aisha around because he was actually good friends with Nabu, they went to school together before Roy joined the royal guard (or whatever), and while they never got the chance to meet while Nabu was alive, Roy wanted to get the chance to meet the young woman who stole Nabu's heart, the young woman who loved Nabu like he did. (yes, Roy is gay now.)

Boom! Roy: kept, forced attempt at shipping: gone, call back to that one dead character everyone loved in a way that could lead to closure: available.

(So yeah, Roy is also gay for his bestie in the Alt Con, but also understands that Nabu will never feel the same, and puts their friendship above his romantic interest... he might get someone one day...)

With the Alt Con, there are places where I want to run parallels, and the Aisha/Nabu|Ophir meeting is one of them, but also not.

Again, season 3 spoilers apply: Aisha will be meeting Nabu under the name Ophir, but it's not for 'nefarious purposes of deception' like Canon, it's just a misunderstanding no one cleared up until too late. Part of (Alt Con) Androsian culture is something called a 'Sidhe name', something that an Active magic user takes on when they achieve a certain level or status. Nabu's Sidhe name is Ophir, which he uses for important or official situations, like during the siege of Andros.

Ophir and Roy are showing up early on to take part in the defence of Andros, and to fight along side the Winx, not as love interests, but just as two guys who were available, who are capable and who are helping out.

'Ophir' and Aisha get along pretty well during the events, and Aisha's parents, having been quietly worried about finding someone who would be a good match for their 'not as courtly as she could be' daughter, reach out to Nabu's folks to see if he's in a relationship, and all parents get a little ahead of themselves which leads to the surprise engagement, which leads to Nabu tracking Aisha down to apologise and see if it is something she'd like to pursue or if they need to sit their parents down for a talk, which leads to the reveal, 'Ophir isn't my birth name, sorry, surprise I'm your fiance' moment, which is no longer a 'surprise your chosen-for-you future-husband is a rando stalker' event.

And because the parents went off the pre-existing mutual attraction rather than just up and picking a dude, it's less stupid when they get together anyway.

(I'm sorry but, Canon Aisha did not want to get hitched to some random guy, but he ended up being her first love? Urgh, maybe I'm just too jaded, but it just always hit me as a 'if you stick it out long enough you'll learn to love him, settle now to be happy later' message. I am so happy they did find love and happiness together, as brief as it was, but... come on not all arranged relationships end well...)

(And yes, Aisha will be taking Layla as her Sidhe name, because it is such A Thing within the fandom, I had to find a place to throw it in.)

-

Tecna/Timmy

Look, this ship is not a bad ship, I think I just don't like it because I liked that there was a romantic relationship that wasn't... standard hallmark romance or whatever. People aren't all the same, friendships and romantic relationships look different on different people, and I enjoyed that Tecna and Timmy were a... “bromance” style romance, that they knew what they had, and it was enough even if it didn't look like the other couples' relationships. If we had to have their relationship take up screen time, I would have preferred it wasn't a forced dinner date.

They were so uncomfortable, but as that damn subliminal message likes to tell us: 'normal dating is correct dating, your love is wrong, so in the end, their friends forcing them to do something they didn't want to do, and meddling in their relationship was ���the right thing all along”'.

>:(

No, none of that in the Alt Con.

Tecna/Timmy is a lot slower in the Alt Con, because their friends are more respectful of their different emotional needs. Tecna is learning how to express herself in ways others can more easily see and recognise, but the Winx are also learning to read how Tecna expresses herself normally (for her).

Timmy is a capable leader, but also a bit introverted, while he can take charge, he's more of a team tactician, gathering the data and making it understandable.

Their relationship in the Alt Con is romantic, but it won't take up much 'screen' time, and it won't necessarily 'look' romantic.

Tecna and Timmy of the Alt Con are... shared spaces, quietly working on their own projects while in the same room, sharing tools as they work, they're technobabble too fast for anyone else to keep up, they're leaps in logic that only the other seems to follow in full, they're hooking pinky fingers together when they stand close.

They're slow and methodical and contented and they know where they are together, and they communicate well, even if they don't communicate like Brandon and Stella who do it loudly and with giant gestures and exaggerated facial expression, or Bloom and Sky who sit and hold hands and sometimes struggle to word things trying to make sure they're understood by the other because they're a little afraid.

Tecna and Timmy clicked quietly one piece of a puzzle at a time, and they know they don't do things like everyone else, but their way works for them, and that's what's important.

-

Flora/Helia

Look, I'mma be honest: this ship kinda irks me a little. It felt like Aisha showed up so Flora had to start the romantic process, because a maximum of 1 Winx may be single at a time. Again: this is not a bad ship, it just felt forced. (Like in Sailor Moon Crystal, how just because Serenity and Endymion were dating, their friendship group/generals/guards had to be exactly matched and dating each other too. This is not just my K/Z|M/Z shipper heart being bitter, it just always feels weird to me when this happens, like just because Juliet and Romeo had a thing, doesn't mean the Capulets and Montagues had to start dating one another... bad analogy let's move on.)

At this point, I have no plans for Flora and Helia to be A Thing in the Alt Con, but if it feels like there could be some natural development, I won't rule it out. Helia will still be around, he and Flora just won't be auto matched.

...I fell a little bad I don't have more to say about this ship... I guess... as 'blah' as I feel about them, even I think season 7 did them dirty?

-

Musa/Riven (feat. Darcy)

Ah yes, the other ship we probably all have strong 'fix it or end it forever' feelings for.

We as a fandom have talked this one over as well, we all know that no matter how passionate it was, the writers just could not let them get to a healthy place and stay there.

Any time it looked like these two dorks were going to be okay, and move past their rocky beginnings: NOPE! Misunderstanding because Riven is a 'Bad Boy' and Musa has abandonment issues which makes it hard for her to trust him... or something???

… honestly it's a little tricky to pin down exact reasoning with these two, because again, I don't think the writers have ever been anywhere near a healthy and supportive long term relationship, and they need to prolong the 'she can fix him if she just holds on' token relationship.

Because realistically that's what this one is, the ship that tells young girls that they can fix 'bad boys' if they just stick it out, that boys like that can be or want to be fixed and 'good boyfriends are prizes you get for fixing shitty ones'. It could have been so much more than that.

The problem is there was never any space where Musa wasn't 'in crush' with Riven or in a relationship with him, and there was only a few times when Riven got to not be an asshole, all of which were typically wipe away for status quo reasons within a few episodes.

So the starting point for these two (versus relationships) in the Alt Con, is Darcy. You all remember when Riven and Darcy dated in the first season, but it was so she could use him as a maybe spy? But she might have liked him for reals? But she totes dumped him like a sack of crap once he was no longer useful and once he did his redemption act, no one ever brought it up again?

I'm not the only one who remembers that right?

So Alt Con Darcy/Riven were actually in love, they met and clicked and it sizzled, and Darcy regretted having to choose between Riven and her sisters, to the point where she helped Riven escape, even though it ended up leading to her own downfall.

And Riven was genuinely in love with Darcy, even into season 2 and 3 he's still in love with her, but he's also trying to get over her, because she's a bad person who tried to rule/destroy the universe.

He had a shitty childhood, he has reasons (not excuses) for being the way he is, and being jealous of Sky's leadership position, but (and this is the important part) Riven knows he's kind of an asshole, and he knows he's not the nicest guy, and the one who wants to make Riven not an asshole, is Riven.

(Reasons: This is why I did the thing. | Excuses: This is why you should let me get way with it.)

Riven is relying on his friends, and yes on Musa too, to help him become a better person, but he's not leaving it all to them, they aren't forcibly shoving him down the road to redemption, Riven is taking responsibility and trying to be better for himself.

Fixing him is not Musa's job, she's just a friend who's supporting another friend on his road to self improvement.

That's not to say that Musa has only platonic friendship feels for Riven, oh no, she thirsts for that capable warrior man, but she also knows that he's kind of an asshole, and a pretty face is not enough to make a shitty attitude worth it.

Though she still occasionally checks him out, (because she has eyes, she can look,) Musa has set aside romantic ideas for the time being, and after season 1 the two settled into a bumpy but solid friendship.

If Musa/Riven do become A Thing, it will be far down the road after a long term friendship, once Riven has gotten to a place where he feels both okay with who he is as a person, and that he has moved on from Darcy and can share his heart with a new person the way they deserve (rather than forever being second string to his first girlfriend) ((and because they grew together while they were growing as people, not her getting a reward for waiting it out)).

(Yes I do understand she wasn't some blameless victim in an abusive relationship as this rant may have seemed to indicate, these two were both to blame for their poor communication and hang ups, but mostly because the writers were ass hats. This show is designed for young girls, every message in it is first intended for young girls, though they can be shared with anyone, and because my brain: what's the scariest maessage that can be taken from this fiasco of a relationship? ^that shit^)

-

Mirta/Lucy

It was Canon, and I'll hear nothing to the contrary, but holy shit did Lucy keep running back to the Trix and treating Mirta like crap.

I am giving them a little more screen time, and an ongoing background arc, so I let them talk it out.

Alt Con Mirta and Lucy are in 'denial' (they just shy) about being 'together' as of the end of season 2, but they've moved past their fears of being abandoned by one another just because their lives and magics have taken them down different roads.

They'll finish figuring their shit out eventually.

-

Daphne/Thoren

… no, none of this. Just... just no, thank you. She's staying 'dead' and he doesn't exist.

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Palladium/Avalon

So in Canon, Palladium had a crush on who he thought was Avalon, but was actually a monster in disguise. This was never addressed, nor was any trauma Avalon may have suffered during his imprisonment, or the fact that people at Alfea would have acted like they knew him, when they didn't and that would have been confusing until he got to know them all.

This was a ship in it's infancy that never got to be, because it was based on even more of a lie than Bloom/Sky, Stella/Brandon, Aisha/Nabu in Canon.

The Canon of this ship was straight up (ha, pun) queer baiting, let's be real, so Alt Con switched a few key details.

1: Avalon was possessed by a demonic sleeper agent rather than an entire fake!Avalon, so the relationship actually happened, and didn't get retconned last minute.

2: The students ship it

3: Avalon feels like shit about being possessed, but he and Palladium are working through it together

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End Note:

I personally feel like the two biggest problems facing the relationships in the Winx Club was the absolute lack of communication between people allegedly in relationships, and the writer's need for Status Quo Drama.

(Status Quo Drama: things that happen to create drama and are never truly solved in a satisfactory manner despite being 'resolved' by the end of the arc in a way that leaves all characters right back where they started while pretending their was some kind of progression.)

[popculturebuffet]

Analysis of X: X-Men 2k19 #1: Little Scotty, Happy at Last

Dawn of X Begins with an average day for Grand Captain of Krakoa, Scott Summers: Racist Science Gorillas, sexual tension with his former arch enemy’s daughter, and family dinner where his former insane god emperor brother burns the steak while his dad’s space family drops in to his house on the moon. We’ve all been there. Join me under the cut, it’s bang zoom straight to the moon. 

I’ve been a huge X-Men fan since my teens, gobbling up various books, enjoying the hell out of them, and genuinely loving this team, the love only growing with each book I read. Some better than others, we’ll get there, but I have a huge amount of love for the team and i’ts offshoots, so marvel basically taking a bat to the franchise’s nuts for the last 5 years or so, the final embarrassment being the filler stories used to buy time for House and Powers of X. But said series have lifted the clouds: Writers are finally allowed to actually write again, the landscape has shifted and the x-men are truly interesting again. I waited feverishly for House of X #1 to come out. It did not disapoint and while i’ll certainly dive into that series at some point, i’d rather catch the dawn of x as it comes, and thus being a week behind, we come to X-Men # 1. For those of you who didn’t keep up with hosue and powers... Previously on... 

While humans slept, the world change. Professor Xavier and Magneto founded Krakoa, an island soley for mutants, though humans can visit it’s various embassys. in exchange for Nationhood and Amnesty for it’s less desirable members, mutantkind sells them flowers from Krakoa, the island that walked like a man and is fully sentient, that can cure all manner of diseases. The nationhood is approved by the end of the series and mutants at last have a safe paradise to enjoy life in. 

It turns out this power play was in part thanks to Moira Mactaggert, longtime X-Men ally.. and as the series reveals secret mutant who lives a new life every time she dies.. and after 9 failures decides to break the wheel, tell xavier and magneto they always loose and set up a long game. After setbacks due to charles optimism and Erik turning against her, she suceeds.  Said longgame turns out to not only be the nation but using 5 mutants in concert to cheat death. Just about every notable mutant that we’re aware of is alive and well. Death is no consequence for mutants.. as proven when an assault on anti-mutant groups Orichis, made up of agents from various secret agencies across Marvel past and present, big satiltie head results in the whole team dying but the mission being accomplished.. but at the cost of a ton of humans, and with a sacrifice from Erasamus, wife of top scientist Dr. Gregor

Good. With that in hand, let’s start the showwww. We open on...

Sadly, it’s not Garnet but Charles Xavier, urging a young Cyclops to open his eyes. As it will turn out he’s given Scott his first pair of ruby quartz sunglasses, the red peepers that allow Scotty to open his eyes without killing everything he sees, but Scott is scared to open them, afraid of hurting him. Charles gently tells Scott that he understands Scott not wanting to hurt someone, but keeping his eyes shut because of fear? That’s what they do. And he doesn’t have to go through life stumbling around afraid like humanity is of mutantkind. He can be better. So scott opens his eyes, opens his eyes. 

They work, and Charles closes out this great opener promising “Oh the things i’ll show you.”. You know god like aliens that look like your grandpa, far more aliens than you’d expect for a comic about mutants, whatever the fuck vanisher’s wearing, a weirdo calling himsel fthe living monolith that turns into a giant man, and whatever the hell a demi-man is. Seriously look at him. 

What IS that? I truly don’t know. And that’s just before you turn 18. With that and the title for our issue, “Pax Krakoa” and Hickman’s standard cast chart thing out of the way we get into the story proper. Our heroes have been busy since the rager at the end of House of X and once the island’s hangover wore off, set to work dismantling Orichis, something I like as sometimes the X-Men tend to sit on their hands a while with these genocidal assholes. Well it’s a new day and Cyclops and storm are tearing shit up, though Storm almost misses a sentinel because she’s tired.

Scott, at least it’s human sized. You’ve missed far bigger targets. 

I wonder if they knew it was Christmas Time at all? Or maybe simply having a wonderful Christmas Time for a sentinel is roasting mutants over an open fire. 

Regardless, Scott soon figures the fact their stupidly trying to hold the omega level mutant and experinced trained badass off means their hiding something and have Magneto literally tear the roof off this place, before he has his daughter Polaris clears the humans away. 

Cyke clears off the lock and Magneto gently tells him to step aside so he can finish it off, showing clear respect for Scott, something that makes perfect sense to me. He’s fought beside him in two teams, trained his time lost younger self whose memories scott has, and even fighting against him always respected Scott’s strength and conviction. It’s a subtle touch but it’s there and shows that, hickman really gets these two and why they’ve been one of the strongest parts of  his run. Some panicked Orichis Scientests decide the datacore, and whatever their guarding, is too important and decide to stab themselves with science.. and the result.. is sublimely ridiculous. 

I fucking love this book and Hickman’s wilingnesss to remind you “yeah the marvel universe is fucking weird and I love it that way. “ me too man, me too. And it somehow gets weirder. But Mags agrees to hold them off while Cyke goes after whatever they were guarding.. which turns out to be stasis tubes full of mutant children. Cyclopes and Lorna prepare to open them the fuck up while Storm makes a gateway back to Krakoa. only one of the tubes.. dosen’t contain a mutant but something diffrent...

A post-human who’s desyched with time and quickly vanishes, who storm hypotheises is from the Vault, which I don’t know enough about to go into at this time, and she soon vanishes. Magneto and daughter want to peruse her like a hunted animal but Scott, having some empathy, declares they have more important things to do and he’ll track her down if the Council asks. But for now...

This is what I love of HIckman’s Scott Summers: He’s a nice blend of past and future. He has the badass dedication of Claremont, the snark of Whedon and the leadership qualities he’s always had, without falling into being a massive dick as he would sometimes due to poor writing post decimation. He’s no longer the man who has to make the hard choices to survivie or fight against his own friends because they still blame him for a death he was hopped up on unstable emotinally enhancing space god during, he’s a man who wants to keep his people safe, enjoy his life, as we’ll see, and fight as hard as he has to for the innocent wether their his species or not. This is peak Scott Summers and after years of mistreatment i’m sure i’ll get to eventually, this is a GLORIOUS change. 

Our heroes return to Krakoa where Dr. Ceilia Reyes is looking after the rescued children. Since she’s kind of a minor character, Celia is a doctor that can create force fields and never really WANTED to be an X-Man but was essentially fired for being a mutant and had nowhere else to go. She was one of three additions to the X-Men at the time and the only one I really liked the other two being Maggot (who’s power is gross but throughly intresting but whose personality at the time is throughly obnoxious and stereotypical) and Marrow, who at least in her intial apperances is just gross, agressive and annoying. Ceilia was a victim of circumstance, engaging and i’m happy to see her back. Dr. Reyes assures, as seen above, that the kids are fine and that Krakoa is more than equiped to help them. IT’s part of what sells this as a mutant refuge: traumatized Mutants are no longer forced to stew in their trauma but have decent help and genetics to help with the worse aspects of their powers. We then get a nice character bit with storm as she decides to stay with two of the young mutants, a pair of silent blue and gold mutants radiating energy. 

Speaking of returns to form. Ororo is back from being a plot ping pong ball for various writers and is once again the soul of the X-Men and this is a reminder why: She will never stop fighting for her people but she’ll take equal time caring for them and was likely an excellent queen as rushed as that relationship is and as messy as her reconciliation with t’challa is likely to be now she’s living in a country opposed to his. Yet another of the 80 or so intriguing plot threads this era has set up for other books, X or Not , to pickup. We then get a sight that clearly unsettles Scott. 

No no nothing THAT bad. No what he gets... is this. 

Magneto, his old arch enemy, being treated like a celebrity and hero among the children. Their Tom Hanks if you will, another great character scene as Magneto, being seated as hero and savior of his kind as he always felt he should be. 

Naturally Scott is unnerved by this but for the sake of diplomacy keeps his mouth shut and instead makes time with Magneto’s daughter, inviting her back with him for family dinner. While he does mention her ex and his brother Alex will be there.. it’s subtly hinted there may be more here. And I like it and her refusal as she needs time for the past to be the past and for her to adjust, feels like Lorna when previously she’d been a rather out of character obdient daughter, something I hope Hickman explores and is not just a sudden change for the free spirited, strong willed, snarky daughter of the big M. Also as you can tell i’m not a huge fan of Scott’s brother alex who is barely in this. He’s just never been utilized well and she deserves better.  When asked his thoughts, Scott gives a nice speech about how scared he was having his son and the horrors his son would face.. and given his son was infected with a virus, shunted to the future, became mother fucking cable, and has died twice and has now been replaced by his teenage self who murdered him, yeah, he was right to be scared. but now his son is in a place of peace, and he feels he’s finally achived his dreams and all the fighting and bloodshed has been worth something.

But family dinner will have to wait and we get back to Orichis meeting their leader, Director Devo, who tells them to whip it .. whip it good. Okay obligatory joke aside, we do see a funeral for the soldiers that were killed during House of X. 

Devo and Karima talk over the disaster, how while their location around the sun, in the solar satlite thing reed richards and tony star built, and before you assume the worst they were both thought dead at the time it was stolen, is good for keeping humans from raiding them, it’s not really enough to stop MUTANTS, and Devo wishes he’d been there to stop the slaughter. Really nothing of HUGE consequence, just some plot movement and huminzation of the racist malitia.. which works. While their still not necearily good people: Karima took up with the very kind of people who turned her into what she is, and they kidnapped children just for being diffrent, they are still more than carboard cutout characteratures of racist. These are scared, frightned people wanting to halt what should be inevitible. However it also, like some of mutantkind’s shakier actions recently, dosen’t excuse it either: their still plotting genocide to save themselves instead of trying to find a peaceful solution, and while yes the X-Men strongarmed their way to peace, it was after a good decade and a half of racist  slaughter and trying to be a good example while mankind did hardly anything to help. The mutants, at least to me, end up coming off as more sympathetic simply because they’ve suffered while mankind, even the superhumans, did nothing. While Orichis is more understandable than most anti-mutant militia’s they are NOT heroes. While some of the krakoans may not qualify either and some are outright monsters, Orichis are trying to do a genocide out of fear instead of doing what the X-Men did for years: find peace even though it’s not the easy option. Show you DESERVE to live side by side instead of shunning them so much their forced to make their own home and keep you out this time. Their taking the easy  way out, as did so many other superheroes in turning away, as did so many civliains in giving into fear, and that’s why their the bad guys. Krakoa is far from perfect, but Orichis is not even close. 

One diatribe later, we find ourselves at Scott Summer’s house....

On the fucking moon! As scott says above, he figured why settle and always loving space as a kid, and having lived there in one of his two teen lives, he figured why not. It also explains how Krakoa can be there: while humans can’t live on Krakoa, they can visit the embassies, and given my rant above, you can see why maybe their being a bit paranoid. But yes scott’s pirate dad is visiting. Which is awkard given that his son who killed him is currently grilling steaks int he kitchen. 

Yeah for those of you only casually aware of X-Men, or even just recent fans who wisely skipped Deadly Genisis, he might take some explaning: This is Gabriel Summers. He was born from his dying mother and made a slave, got back to earth, and then charles foolishly used him as the dry run for the all new all diffrent x-men, who all got killed by Krakoa. Double awkard given he now lives in part of him. Two surivived, the other being Darwin who went on to great things in Peter David’s X-Factor and I hope comes back here, and Gabriel later came back pissed as hell, killed a lot of people and became emperor of the shiar then died saving the universe after going crazy town banana pants. Oh and he also killed empress lilandra, Xavier’s long time lady love and empress of the shiar. 

I shoudln’t of been able to make that joke twice, but the X-Men are insanely complicated and Gabe wasn’t a favorite of mine due to being a one dimensional psychopath and making Charles into kinda  huge dick for getting some people killed and then never telling the rest of the X-Men. But here.. he’s fucking hilarious, going on long rants about fire and generally coming off as an entertaining nutjob. Other family activities include kid cable, another character I wasn’t crazy about, trading guns with Corsair’s buddy Raza. Just treating him like a normal teen made him instantly more likable than he has been as a know it all dickhead what killed the original vastly more likable Cable, and giving him a chance at a happy child and adulthood instead of years of misery and war. In one issue Hickman actually made me like two characters I previously couldn't stand... props to him and his hard work. We also get a touching scene where Scott gives his dad a krakoan flower to plant on the Starjammer, his ship, so he can visit anytime, a really touching gesture and a really nice moment. Now that’s out of the way, as the summers have dinner and gabe presumibly rants about fire off screen... it’s time for the elephant in the room. 

If you look closely.. you’ll notice Scott, Jean and Logan all have interconnected rooms. No one has shut up about this since the comic was released and understandably so, as it means that their either both in a relationship with jean or, and I doubt this is true but I can hope, all three are dating each other. Me.. I like it especially if it’s the latter. After all the romantic bullshit i’ve had to deal with, it’s nice to have either possible polyamory, treated as safe and normal, or more likely an open relationship treated the same without it being a farce. Logan finally gets a shot with Jean, Scott still gets her but is free to explore other avenues given he’s been in only two relationships in his lifetime, but still be together and raise their son together. I like it a lot and i’m sure future X-Men issues will fill this out a bit. I also wouldn’t mind a Scott/Logan relationship, as it relay woudln’t hurt to have two of marvel’s biggest heroes be either bi or pansexual.  With dinner finished Corsair offers to help Scott with dishes, only for him to only turn him down because Krakoa uses goo to both wash and dry.. and this was a COMPROMISE over edible plates that just.. no. No thank you. Corsair takes this chance to have a heart to heart over his misgivings at mutantkind’s new mission, especially as a human, and we get one of the best scenes of the issue, if not the best. 

And we see how Hickman, rather than just paper over Scott’s shadier moments over the last decade, instead has Scott evolve past them. He’s done trying to just survive. He wants more than that. Without the terrifying brain computer that sometimes comes with that, but he wants to enjoy his life. He’ll never stop having to fight.. but instead of focusing on the fight every day.. he’s focusing on those he loves and cares about. And we see now WHY he belivies in Krakoa. he may have his doubts, his misgivings.. but after about 15 years of fighting just to make it out alive.. he gets to live. To have fun, to have somewhere where he can be safe, where he dosen’t have to worry about some psychotic jackass sending robots to blow up the kids in his care in the middle of the night. He’ll still give mutantkind every ounce of fight he has, but he can switch it off now... he’s letting himself be happy and it’s just wonderful to see. But of course, this wouldn’t make much of an ending that entices the reader to buy next issue would it... so we check back in on Orichis one last time. 

Devo checks in on Dr.Gregor, finding she wasn’t at the funeral and while he’s fine with rage fueling her work, he’s not so crazy about her using it to sublimate her grief. In truth she knows they didn't have enough to bury.. and more importantly... it may be moot for you see....

And just in case you missed it like I did, said crystal with his memory... looks just like Nimrod’s.. aka the badly named turbo sentinel that has always been key in snuffing out mutant kind. Ruh-Roh. 

Final Thoughts:  This issue kept the momentum and story from Powers and House going, but rooted it more in character, continuing Hickman’s cleanup job on Scott Summers, while doing some on his family, and creating a truly great start to the new era. My only complaint is sometimes Yu’s art looks a bit off when it comes to faces and as with his previous teamup with hickman on avengers, sometimes takes me out of the story.. but the story is so riviting and the better moments of art so stunning that it can’t bring this book down. The future continues to be bright for the x-men.  If you liked this review, reblog or follow, feel free to request an issue for me to review for 3 bucks a pop, or vote in the poll I have going for what dawn of x related issue i’m going to review that closes this friday. And until next time, farewell my x-people.