#I feel like being a Red Hood fan can be more accurately described as being a Red Hood's unrealised potential as a character fan

[outoftheframework]

characterization cheat sheet: the batfamily boys

Hey everyone! I had the idea to compile a comprehensive list of different traits and attributes for each member of the batfamily based off of both canon and fanon interpretations. I think this could be useful for new members to the fandom, or those looking to write and/or draw for these characters. Remember that these will have a slight bias considering I, a fanon creator, am creating the lists. But I’ll try to make them as accurate as possible.

Appearances vary from artist to artist, so I’ll try to stray away from general details and add more little things you can consider in your art.

Bruce Wayne:

Age: 35-45

Appearance: Extremely physically fit, but signs of aging and prolonged exertion can slip through. Has a collection of scattered scars varying from fresh to fully healed. Strong, dark features. Conventionally attractive, but can easily switch to be foreboding/intimidating. Well kept in public appearances, but can look like death incarnate when in private.

Personality: Dual personas: “Bruce” (at home, but not as batman) and “Brucie” (public appearances like galas, news interviews). Bruce is stoic, well-read and educated, well-mannered, and occasionally can be witty and laid-back. Smirks rather than smiles. Brucie is loud, spontaneous, charming, and sometimes oblivious. He is the womanizer and scandal-maker. Often the actions of Brucie are motivated by Batman’s interests.

Speech: Bruce was mainly raised by as English butler, so his speech patterns are proper and smooth. Rarely uses speech fillers such as “uh” and “um,” except when interrupted while concentrating. Despite living in Gotham his entire life, he has not picked up the accent. His voice is newscaster American, almost impossible to pinpoint to a certain region. His speech as Brucie changes to relate more to the audience he is addressing. Speeches to Gotham high society will sound different than those aimed to the general public.

Additional Attributes: Bruce Wayne in all of his personalities is fiercely protective, and can easily slip into a deeper voice to intimidate. Bruce can be extremely empathetic and slightly impulsive when it comes to children who have lost their parents. As learned through his training to become Batman, Bruce is disciplined and can work for hours straight.

Dick Grayson:

Age: 23-29

Appearance: Dick Grayson mirrors a young Bruce Wayne despite their not being blood related. This could be a subconscious action by Dick to absorb traits of his father figure. His lean acrobatic body starts to set him apart from Bruce’s image. Dick manages to be well-built but still limber and flexible. His feet and hands are rough and calloused. His hair can get long but usually stays at a length in between Bruce’s and Tim’s. His eyes are bright blue without even a hint of green or brown. 

Personality: In one comic I believe it was Superman who said that Dick Grayson is a universal constant, meaning that on every alternate earth or timeline, you can always rely on him to be good and pure. I think this really sums up who Dick should be. He is kind to a fault, and can sometimes be naive and not think things through. He loves to love, be that in his family, in his romantic relationships, in his friendships, and even in strangers. He is a chronic hero who only wants to see the world as a better place. But it’s important to note that Dick can get angry when pushed, and holds grudges.

Speech: Dick is an extremely interesting study in speech patterns. As a child he traveled with the circus, until he lived with clear-spoken Bruce Wayne and a proper English butler. So influences to his speech and accent come both internationally and locally to Gotham and Bludhaven. As a child living at Wayne Manor, Dick picks up a slight Gotham tinge to his accent with some British flourish in his vowel sounds. He regularly speaks in slang. As Nightwing he is able to suppress his unique speech to sound more evenly American.

Additional Attributes: Dick acts differently around each of his family members as to be what they need in a big brother. For example, he is more fatherly to Damian while to Tim he is more an equal. Dick can fidget and has less of an attention span than Bruce. He can use jokes as a coping mechanism.

Jason Todd: 

Age: 22-26

Appearance: Hair is often long on top and shorter on the sides, sometimes with a white streak as a side effect from the Lazarus Pit. Tallest and heaviest of all the kids, very physically intimidating. Has a lot of scars and burns, and in some fan works he has a “Y” shaped scar the length of his chest from his autopsy. Never skips leg day. Green/blue eyes.

Personality: Jason goes through a lot of character development, but for this list I’m going off a timeline of post-Under the Red Hood, where Jason is on okay, yet still a little shaky, terms with the rest of the family. Jason has a hard time separating vigilante life and civilian life; his death as Robin ended his life as Jason Todd, blurring the lines between the two. Jason is legally dead, so he is basically building an identity back up. He holds some attributes from childhood: brave, impulsive, loud-mouthed, and street-smart. But his experiences post-Robin have made him a hardened loner. He lives modestly and with some semblance of order. He’s hard to foster a relationship with, but can be a passionate friend/family member when he opens up.

Speech: Jason probably has the least influence from Bruce and Alfred’s speech patterns, seeing as though he spent a lot more time with his biological family/on the streets than he did as a preteen in the manor. He is the definition of Gotham vernacular, with a rough edge. So much so that as a child, the high society gala attenders sometimes had a hard time understanding him. Often talks in curt, short sentences.

Additional Attributes: He has trouble expressing his emotions, more specifically anger and/or grief. Can both love or hate furiously. Inherently good, but sometimes does “bad” things. Protective over children, especially those living on the street. Very much a believer in “the ends justify the means.”

Tim Drake:

Age: 17-20

Appearance: Pale skin, dark hair. Sharp cheek bones and jawline, mostly from how skinny he is. His body isn’t technically “built” to be extremely athletic, but he’s forced a nice lean build from stringently working out. Easily loses and gains weight as a direct result of his work, causing fluctuations in his build. Five foot something, will eventually be out-grown by Damian. Long hair that can still be styled to look professional.

Personality: Tim Drake is very passionate in pretty much everything he sets his mind to. He feels as though he imposed himself onto Batman to become Robin, so he works twice as hard to prove his worth. He can be self conscious and deprecating. Tim as Robin or Red Robin is very different than civilian Tim; his hero personas can be bolder and more confident. Despite dropping out of high school, he values education.

Speech: Tim grew up rich, and his speech reflects an intelligence gained from private tutors. Despite this, he knows how to interact with those his age in using less formal language and slang. Often quotes books and movies. Can be awkward and stumble over his words when teased by his friends/family. He can manipulate people easily in business settings by talking fast and confidently while explaining complex topics.

Additional Attributes: Tim’s demeanor is directly tied to his varying levels of confidence and anxiety. Tim is has above-average intelligence and is diligent in detective work, but can still act like a teenager. He can be stubborn to extremes and will patiently play the long con. He does not cope well with loss.

Duke Thomas:

Age: 17-19

Appearance: Short dark hair, shaved on the sides and/or the back. Often wears the colors yellow and black. Around the same height as Tim, but a little taller. Stronger and heavier build more alike to Jason than Dick, but he’s still light on his feet. Expressive face that can give away his feelings easily. Still a bit of a baby face, but he’s still well-proportioned and conventionally handsome.

Personality: In my works, I’ve often described Duke as having a “sun-shiny” personality. He is one to not even think twice about putting others before himself. Duke uses his own personal experiences to guide him as a hero rather than suppress his emotions. Duke went from being an only child to having a large family, so he can sometimes feel overwhelmed. He is on friendly terms with every member of the batfamily, as well as many other heroes. Duke is self-sacrificial and is still learning how to effectively work as a detective.

Speech: Duke grew up in a middle class Gotham family, so his speech is influenced by his parents as well as his city environment. Duke has a mild Gotham accent and speaks a lot in modern slang. He hasn’t had much influence from Bruce and Alfred, considering he hasn’t lived with them for long. It’s possible that as he grows he will pick up some influences from Bruce and Tim’s way of speaking, but will most likely hold onto the accent of his childhood.

Additional Attributes: Duke is a metahuman vigilante in a city where Batman typically bans them, which causes a bit of an insecurity and a perfectionist drive. These are exasperated by the long line of history preceding him, as well as the fact that he involved himself in the Robin movement rather than being handpicked by Batman. He and Tim can relate in that way. Duke is an ardent student of Batman and is dedicated to the cause.

Damian Wayne:

Age: 10-14

Appearance: Looks similar to Bruce when he was the same age, yet stronger and with tanner skin. His hair is expertly cut and styled, but still age-appropriate. He is the shortest of the batkids, but still has a lot of time and potential to grow. He pretty much won the genetics lottery with Bruce and Talia as his biological parents, and is made for athletics. He has some scars that stand out with their pale coloring against his tan skin. 

Personality: Damian is slowly becoming less of a brat, to put it bluntly. He admires his family and tries to mimic them, but will never confess it. Damian is quick to judge and will voice his opinion no matter how scathing it may be, both as civilian and hero. Damian is slowly realizing he may not want the Batman mantle as quickly as he planned. Jon is a perfect foil to Damian, and often makes him a better person when they’re together. 

Speech: His speech is proper and formal. Prefers formal titles: ex. “father” over “dad” and last names over first. Damian is at least bilingual (Arabic and English), and can switch between languages easily. Most of his speech patterns developed from his tutors in the League, and more recently, Alfred. Influences like Jon and Dick have introduced him to a more modern, laid-back way of speaking, which he sometimes utilizes when relaxed.

Additional Attributes: Damian has problems with authority, especially those that he doesn’t respect like his teachers at school. He can be arrogant and childish ever though he often acts like he knows everything. Damian is still a child and has much to learn from batman and family as well as unlearn from his time at the League. Dami was forged to be a ruthless warrior, but now has to find a balance between the hero Robin and the child Damian Wayne.

Hope this helps someone! Feel free to add on if you think I missed anything. Just please remember to be civil and respect different interpretations of these characters. Let me know if you want another one of these posts outlining the girls or other characters.

[thattimdrakeguy]

Weirdly enough Red Robin is the series I’d be most scared to review, because for obvious reasons I imagine more than any other character it’s the Tim fan base (I won’t say fandom, because I feel like that gives a different connotation nowadays. and it’s a bunch of chill, un-interactive but very passionate, chaps) that follow me.

And I’d just get sooo many people giving me nit-picks, and telling me stuff I already know.

Cause I can say anything against Teen Titans 2003, New 52, Rebirth, and Wonder Comics stuff cause that’s the generally agreed upon stuff that you can complain against for Tim. Cause like, to not play dumb to it, this whole Bat-Family fandom acts like there’s freaking laws to abide by if you don’t want a bunch of batty (not a pun, not even saying not a pun in sarcasm lol) fans and stans down your neck. Normally involving certain characterizations or comics that, honestly, aren’t even usually the more accurate ones, but the contradicting ones that don’t make a lick of sense, and that’s not even talking about the straight up fanon ones.

Not to say I wouldn’t get why it’s the Red Robin series that’d get people to give me crap out of all the Tim stuff, because I do. It’s a lot of peoples entry to Tim, and it’s pretty heavy implications of suicidal ideation, and more so obvious mental breakdown journey across continents means a lot to people. I can get why, and if it wasn’t those characters in it, I’d think it was great too.

Also I know for a fact people would act like I’m just bias for 90s Tim, and point out Timmy’s in a teddy bear hoodie in my header. Cause it’s the most weakest defense someone could possibly make cause they’re lacking an actual point. Like they know everything a fucking ‘bout me, when they don’t, I’m just allowed to think my own stuff, and I’m allowed my dang comfort art, so blah blah blah. I’ve proved myself enough. I don’t need some random dismissive guys random approval or not, but man can it be annoying when someone thinks they’re smart about it.

Like basically put, it would be very exhausting to go through the many different series and years of comic book content to explain why I think the way I do, when all the other person has to say is “I like this series a lot, and it means a lot to me, it’s story about depression, and plus it’s Tim being at the button of his sanity so-- And I think this person is stuck on 90s Tim” cause like I freaking get it, and acting like cause I prefer a different Tim comic means my opinion isn’t valid, is the most childish thing ya can really do. Like I love 90s Tim the most for a reason, and I started reading Tim as Red Robin first, ya ninny.

But to just be honest, it is an incredibly flawed series that has overall, in the long game, soiled the character of Tim Drake, and directly influenced the New 52 and beyond depiction of him. Not to give Lobdell an excuse, I just find it really odd that people getting praising it as the peak of Tim content when it’s even caused some really freaking toxic fandom beliefs.

When some of the most important scenes in the series are so botched that it has genuinely made people despise other characters when I don’t even think they were portrayed well for that to make sense. The messy inconsistent writing as it went between two different writers causing some absolutely terrible characterization for Tim that isn’t even always consistent within the series itself because FabNic is just awful, and how forgettable most stuff after the first story is.

That first story I can understand the love for it. But people treating the whole series as a whole like it’s a great journey of long-term story development just feels like a real bad describer for it. Because to me by the end of it’s run it caused Tim to be put in the terrible spot that he’s only now escaping from little under a decade later. As well as only really starting cause people in the company didn’t like Tim and the characters around them as much as you’d hope.

In total, I honestly feel like if it wasn’t released during a time were the common tastes were very edgy and emo-esque, as well as around the time the online fandom spaces were only really then being formed in a way that was practical for casual interaction and discussion, and being the only series titled “Red Robin” therefore people seem to think it’s Tim’s variation of “Nightwing”, when it’s honestly not, it wouldn’t be a series that highly regarded.

I’m not saying the whole thing is a pile of shit, cause it’s also frankly not. There’s some powerful stuff in there, and some moments that really do hit super hard in ways that don’t feel superficial. Cause another thing people don’t seem to understand that when I say his characterization isn’t good in it, does not equal me saying “He is not the same exact character he was 15 years before the series came out”, it legitimately just means I feel they took the character to places that felt more forced than genuine, or just had him stuff that goes against what he’d do for the sake of just being edgy as if it’s deep, even during his circumstances and it created people having a false understanding of who Tim is at his heart, that made it incredibly difficult for Tim to get a good story for basically a freaking decade.

It’s a series I want to review because I have genuine things to say about it, but when ever I do say anything about it I feel like I see several sub-posts that are almost undeniably about me (hasn’t happened for a while cause I don’t really bother talking about stuff I don’t like anymore, cause life's hard enough, and I’ve seen the worst end of a lot of people from it) trying to downplay me, because they got defensive about it, rather than actually trying to process what I meant by things instead of just assuming it cause it’s touchy for them.

Like I’ve openly shit on Damian’s most popular series’, and accepted fandom malarkey, because I legitimately think they’re overhyped as could be, not that great, and only have the popularity they do through bandwagoning and going along with things. And I did that while knowing how defensive the Damian fandom is, and how quick they are to just leak out nasty assumptions or outright suicide bait you (yes I remember someone tried to defend me by suicide baiting someone else, but fuck them too, I never defended them or asked them to. idgaf which fandom does it. i’m clearly not on anyone's team. this isn’t a fucking sports game).

I’ve even straight up shit on pretty much every single Jason story except Under the Red Hood, while defending some Robin Jason stories, and I haven’t even got crap on me for that, which is honestly strange. Surprisingly just got told “Ya know what. Fair point. I can accept that. I don’t agree, but I can accept it.”. Which given what I have been shown of the Jason fandom I expected much worse, but they’ve honestly been really chill with me. Me and the Jason fandom has been actually some of the most pleasant interactions I’ve had outside my own bubble.

The majority of Steph’s existence as a character I’ve criticized and gotten crap on it, but honestly I found the response of countless anons going “YEAH MAN I AGREE WITH YOU” and going way harder on her than I ever did to be pretty dang annoying, and even more annoying cause people kept thinking I said stuff I freaking didn’t out of it. So every now and again people will just straight up lie about me to my face. Like you try to talk to someone that’s been preparing to talk to you by fighting an imaginary version of yourself. It’s pretty difficult if I had to be honest. Talking ‘bout bias’s like I didn’t write TimSteph fan fictions before I realized they weren’t that great and didn’t work, while realizing that I honestly didn’t think Tim was into girls in-general.

But, to get back on topic, with the Tim fandom it’s less like, open faced attempts to make you feel like a garbage human being, and more just straight up rudely dismissive as quite often the ones I’ve seen do it try to portray themselves as some calm knowledgeable unbias source of Tim knowledge.

And there’s a different sensation of annoyance at that.

Like what is the point of trying to pretend to be some source of knowledge and for a few comradery, while also being a dismissive person that first has to make others seem lesser.

And there’s some that I’ve seen do it that I don’t even think are dicks honestly, and have no problem with it, cause it’s just so innocently “I just really like the series and still think it’s good”. That I’d be confused why people would think I have a vendetta against everyone else. I’ve never been like, straight up offended more than once over the specific topic of Red Robin. But it is a thing that makes me like “I’ll get so many people giving me crap over having a different opinion for this won’t I”. And get some people trying to validate just being a bit of a fucker to me for no good reason.

So like, may or may not write a Red Robin review, but I might not cause despite quite a few people in the Tim fandom being quite chill about it, there’s quite a lot of people that are low-key toxic about it, and a lot of bad fandom things came out of it as well.

[ourownsideimagines]

Hit Me With Your Car, Then Hit Me With Some Feelings (Crowley x Fem!Device!Reader)

Characters: Anathema, Crowley, Aziraphale, fem!Device!Reader

Requested: Yes 

Requested by: Anon

Point of View: Second Person

Summary: (Name) Device wasn’t always a fan of her ancestor’s prophecies, but when they bring her together with a certain demon she has no complaints. 

Warnings: I might have cursed?

Words: 2595

A/N: I’ve been playing Blush Blush all day and almost didn’t finish this I’m so sorry- I was up to 11:30 writing this lol

---

You had never had the best relationship with your family. You were the younger of two children, and your older sister Anathema always got the largest bit of your parents attention. 

And it was all because of that damn book.

You had been raised on The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, a book that spoke about the future, though it wasn’t always legible. It told of the impending apocalypse, which, if it was true (and sometimes even you doubted), it would be happening Saturday evening, in the village of Tadfield in the United Kingdom. It also spoke of how your sister would help try to stop it. How she would end up with a well endowed man - not that you exactly wanted to think about that. It was disturbing the kinds of things Agnes wrote about, in your opinion. Your mother seemed none too bothered by it, and after years of studying the prophecies, Anathema didn’t either. At least, not on the outside.

“She’s never lead us wrong before,” She had told you. “I’m not going to pay her back with doubt.”

You knew hundreds and hundreds of the prophecies by heart. Your mother had forced you into memorising them, like one would memorize a play script. You would practice until you could not get it wrong. Anathema always seemed one step ahead of you, though. Always knew the mistakes you made, pointed out when your words were wrong. There was a part of you that envied her, a part of you that hated her, and a part of you that wanted to keep her safe because as much of a pain as she was you cared about her. You cared about all your family.

The prophecies that spoke of you said nothing much about your help in the stopping apocalypse - one spoke of a tall, red haired man who would become important to you. Another spoke of a car, and an accident, and your... 

You didn’t particularly want to think about it.

 All you knew was, despite the fact you didn’t actually know your part in stopping the end of the world, you were flying with Anathema to the UK, where you would stay at Jazmine cottage in Tadfield.

That was how you ended up in a field, late in the night, with the book, using your tools to look for the Anti Christ. Anathema had taken the day search this time, which you would no doubt have to do tomorrow despite how tired you would be when you wake up. And the cycle would continue until you found the Anti Christ, or the world ended. Whichever came first.

“Darksome Night,/ And Shining Moon,” You leaned down towards your telescope, and tried to adjust it, only to get a view of some trees. “Damn it.” You hissed. Then, you looked skyward. “I understand you want us to stop the apocalypse,” You spoke sharply, the way you always did when speaking to Agnes. “But you could have given us more to work with.”

You spent another 15 minutes  in the empty field, the only light coming from the moon above and the IPad in your lap. It all felt hopeless - you couldn’t get any kind of accurate fix. Anathema would be upset, no doubt, but you knew she wouldn’t be upset with you. At least, you hoped she wouldn’t be.

You gather up the item you had brought - the book, your IPad, your journal, the small telescope, and your blanket. You dropped them carefully into the basket attached to the old bike Anathema had brought with you guys from home, and began your journey back to Jasmine cottage.

Every time you got on the bike, you worried the accident Agnes predicted would occur. That you would be covered in “Heavenly light” as Agnes put it, which most of the family had guessed to mean death. You didn’t particularly want to die. But tonight you decide you weren’t going to let fear control you - you were going to enjoy your late night ride back to the village, the cool wind blowing through your hair as you biked down the path.

And that’s when it happened. You’d closed your eyes to take in a deep breath of air when, from out of nowhere, a big black car appeared on the dirt road you were crossing. You let out a scream as your bike slammed into the side, sending it and yourself flipping over the hood and into the grass on the other side. You let out a pained gasp as you hit your head on the hard dirt, followed by the snapping of your wrist. Your vision danced with stars that you weren’t sure were the ones in the sky or the ones in your head. You could faintly hear the opening and closing of car doors, followed by two men speaking in hushed tones. Then, one of them called out;

“Let there be light!” And snapped. You were suddenly engulfed in what you could only describe as an ethereal glow, you cautiously hold your good hand up to block your eyes.

“How the hell did you…” A wave of pain washed through you, and it felt like your skull had split in half. “Fuck, my head.” You groaned. There was another snap and the light extinguished itself. There was a moment before someone was at your side, and in the darkness you could just make out their silhouette - it was a man, from what you could tell, in a tan coat.

“There we are, no broken bones.” He murmured, and the pain you’d been feeling in your wrist vanished. You gently lifted your head so that you could get a better look at him. He looked like a kind man with blond hair so light it was almost white. He helped you to your feet, and you groaned through the ache of your bones. When he began guiding you towards the road, you protested softly.

“My bike.” You said.

“Oh!” The man turned, and before you could follow he was beside you with the bike - but it didn’t quite look like your bike. “Amazingly resilient, these old machines.” He said, but you couldn’t take your eyes off the bike. “Where did you need to get to?”

“No!” Protested another man who stood by the car you had hit. You noticed the shock of red hair atop his head, and how he seemed to blend into the night. “No, we are not giving her a lift.” He argued. You nodded quickly.

“It’s alright, really. I don’t need a ride.” You said.

“Oh, my dear, after what just happened I believe it’s the least we could do.” The blond man reassured you with a smile. There was a part of you that felt safe, but another part of you felt like you were forgetting something.

“Out of the question, we don’t have anywhere to put the bike.” The red head argued.

“Except for the bike rack.” Said the blond man, turning back to the car. “Do get in, my dear.” He told you. You watched as the blond man took your bike to the back of the car, where there was in fact a bike rack, and secured your bike. You stumbled gently to the car, where the red headed man held open the door, though from what you could tell he was doing so unwillingly.

“I’m so sorry for hitting your car.” You told him. You brought your hand up to your head, and felt something wet slick your fingers. “I’m usually much more,” You winced. “Much more careful.” There was a silence as you brought your hand out to see what was on your fingers, but the red headed man tore your gaze up with a cough. When you look back down, your fingers were clean, like nothing had been on them at all. You looked back up, and the man looked a little more relaxed, but still obviously upset.

“Where are we taking you?” He asked.

“Oh, just, um, back to the village, if that’s no trouble. I can give you directions.” You said softly. The man nodded, and offered you a hand to help you inside the car. You settled down, trying to make sense of whatever it was that just happened. The men slid into the front of the car, the red head in the driver's seat. The blond man turned to you with a kind smile and passed you all the items that must have fallen out of your basket when you hit the car. You thanked him, and the car seemed to come to life without any sort of key being turned.

The radio began to blare the familiar tune of Queen’s “Bicycle Race”, which made you turn your head curiously to look back at your own bike.

What about it was so… off?

You looked forward again. You gave directions. A turn here. A turn there. Then, it hit you.

“Turn left-” You stopped. “Gears.”

“Pardon?” Said the blond man.

“Gears.” You said again. “I don’t… I don’t think my bike has gears but…” You looked back again. “How hard did I hit my head?”

“Oh lord, heal this bike.” The red head man sang beneath his breath, so low you almost didn’t hear it over the music.

“I got carried away.” His companion grumbled. You saw the roof of the cottage and let out a sigh.

“It’s just up here - the cottage with the lights on.” Anathema must have been awake, you assumed. You gathered everything up in your arms. The car came to a stop, and the blond man got out. He helped you out of the car and brought you around the front, where you discovered that your bike had already been removed from the rack, and was propped against the brick wall.

The gears you’d seen before were gone.

“See, no gears.” The man said. “Just a perfectly normal velocipede.”

“Bicycle.” The other man corrected him, having popped out of the car.

“Thank you, uh, for the ride.” You said. “I’m so sorry again for, uh, hitting your car. I hope I didn’t cause any damage.”

“None.” The red headed man said. “All’s well that ends well. Let’s get on, Angel. Get in.” He slipped back into the car, and you quietly moved your bike inside the wall, watching as the drove off. You secured the bike with a chain, and entered the cottage.

“How did it go?” Anathema asked. You let out a deep sigh as you set everything down.

“I’ve got nothing new. No leads. The signal got totally swamped.” You told her. “Though I did had a strange encounter on the way back.”

“Strange how?”

“Well, I was on the bike, and then,” As you explained it to her, Anathema looked more and more interested, and perked up when you mentioned the red headed man and the crash.

“It must be the accident Agnes warned about.”

“I guess, but-” You began, but Anathema cut you off.

“Wait. (Name), where’s the book?” She asked.

“What do you mean it’s right-” You stopped dead when you realised that the book was not among the thing you’d brought back into the cottage.

It was still in the car. And those men were long gone.

That was almost a month ago, before you’d learned Crowley and Aziraphale’s names, before you’d decided to move to London, and days before the two supernatural beings, along with your sister, her new boyfriend Newt, the Antichrist and his three friends ended Armageddon. You had felt rather useless through the whole affair, but had gained one good thing out of it - friendship. Specifically, a friendship with Crowley the demon.

He hadn’t been to keen on friendship at first, the lingering memory of you crashing into his beloved car with your bike still there. But he had warmed up to you, had even assisted in getting you properly moved into your own cottage, away from your sister and Newt.

Today, you were sitting with him, having tea when your sister arrived. Crowley, who had been basking in the sunlight coming in through your windows, sat up and put his sunglasses back on.

“Hello, Anathema.” You said. “I wasn’t expecting you until three.” You told her as you stood to give her a hug.

“I decided to come over a bit early. Hello, Crowley.” She said.

“Afternoon.” Crowley nodded to her.

“I brought the herbs you said you needed, along with the tarot cards you left at Jasmine.”

“You’re a saint, sis.” You said as she handed them over. “So, what are you and lover boy up to today?”

“Oh, nothing much. Probably going to take a walk. Maybe drive out to a field and have lunch.”

“You’ve gone soft,” You joked. “The Anathema I knew would have never gone on such a romantic outing.”

“Well, now that the prophecies are all played out, I figured it was time to start making my own decisions.”

“You told me,” You sat back down in your arm chair. “Staying long?”

“Probably not.” She looked over at Crowley, not with distaste, but also not happily. “I can see you’re already preoccupied.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t wanna hang out with my sister.” You reminded her. Anathema shook her head lightly with a laugh.

“No, no, I really should be going now.” Then, she paused. “(Name).” You hummed gently, and then she began speaking to you in spanish. Your mother had taught you to speak both at a young age, and for a moment you didn’t understand why. Then, when she finished, you felt your cheeks heat up, becoming a blushing mess as Anathema bid you farewell and quickly exited the cottage,

“What was that?” Crowley asked, taking his glasses off again and setting them aside.

“It’s, uh, nothing.” You rushed out. “I’m gonna, uh, I’m gonna go get some, uh, some food. Cheese.” You turned quickly, retreating into the kitchen. You couldn’t believe her sometimes. 

You rummaged through your fridge, hoping to buy yourself enough time to calm down. You grabbed the cheese you had stored in the fridge and all but slammed the door shut. You let out a deep sigh, and reentered your living room. Crowley had gotten up, and was currently amusing himself with your lamp. When he saw you enter, he cleared his throat.

“Hey, (name),” He took some steps closer to you, and you could feel your cheeks heating up even worse than before. You cursed yourself, and Anathema, internally.

“Yeah, Crowley?”

“Do you know how long I’ve been alive?” He asked. You stopped to ponder this before realize that, no, you had never actually asked. You shook your head. “Six thousand years.” He told you.

“Wow, didn’t realize you were such an old fart.” You attempted to joke, laughing nervously to yourself.

“Do you know what I’ve learned to do in six thousand years?” He asked innocently.

“What?”

“To speak Spanish.” This caused your blood to run cold. If he wasn’t lying, and you were certain he wasn’t, then he understood what Anathema had said. You wanted to scream with every bone in your body, but you didn’t. “And she wasn’t wrong.”

“W-what?”

“I said she wasn’t wrong.” He repeated himself. “She’s actually very… nice and accurate.” He joked. 

“So you…”

“Yes.” Crowley’s eyes never left yours. You gulped.

“Well, uh, in case you were wondering, I, uh, I-” He cut you off, pressing his lips gently to your own.

You made a mental note to thank Anathema later.

[timeagainreviews]

Shock and Awe with Tesla

Within the previous week, I have had three people tell me that they were not aware that Hyp3n from "Orphan 55," was a furry. It wasn’t so much that they disagreed, they simply hadn’t reached the same conclusion as me. They thought she was just another naff Doctor Who alien. Compare her to the Menoptra or the fish people from "The Underwater Menace," and I can see your point. But I’m doubling down on it, I still think she’s a furry. Her tail had an elastic band keeping it on. And also, the Doctor comments on it like it’s something she’s wearing. You know what I am not doubling down on? That baddie from this week’s Doctor Who was not a Racnoss! I was so sure too!

Why did I want to see a Racnoss? Because the one we met in "The Runaway Bride," is a scenery-chewing Villain with a capital V. Instead, we get a scorpion alien called Skithra. Thankfully, she’s just as ridiculous. There’s a Palpatine level of fiendishness with both Skithra and the Racnoss. There’s a lot of moustache-twirling and hand wringing for a couple of creatures who possess neither. I kept waiting for the Doctor to say "They’re distant cousins of the Racnoss." There’s a precedent for such things, like the Silurians and the Sea Devils, or the Ood and the Sensorites, or even the Nimon and the Minotaur from "The God Complex." You know what? I’m doubling down. They’re distant cousins!

So enough about the creature, let’s get to the feature. Unlike previous episodes, I was fully aware that Nikola Tesla was going to be in this episode. My wife is a bit of a geek for Nikola Tesla. His portrait hangs in our living room next to My Little Pony and Doctor Who. If you were to ask my wife how she feels about Thomas Edison, you will hear great ire from her. Knowing this, I prefaced the episode by asking her not to "go there," if the episode starts praising Thomas Edison. She’s likely to yell at the screen. She gave no promises. Evidently, my wife has some sort of soul bond with writer Nina Metivier, as much of the narrative of tonight's episode framed Edison as a bit of an antagonist. Which was not far from the truth. Even in his more heroic moments, Edison is a true capitalist.

Much of the opening montage of this episode paints an accurate depiction of Tesla’s career. We open with Niagra Falls dominating the horizon as the inventor describes hydroelectricity to a group of potential investors. Tesla’s brilliant inventions dazzle as sparks of CGI electricity crackle above his head like a mad Walt Disney.  His hope is to secure the funds to complete his Wardenclyffe Tower, a device meant to transfer electricity wirelessly. Despite Nikola’s best efforts, no one is interested. They’ve been reading the papers, buying into Edison’s smear campaign. Tesla’s alternating current electricity has been demonised in favour of Edison’s direct current electricity. Things are further soured when Tesla admits to the investors that he believes in men from Mars.

Right away this episode sends strong Hinchcliffe era vibes. Tesla being asked to investigate a dead body only to be chased through his laboratory by a man in period-appropriate clothing and glowing red eyes was pure Jago and Litefoot. I absolutely loved the tone they go for in the episode. It’s dark, it’s strange, and it’s a bit creepy. My only real problem with the scene was the music. Usually, Segun Akinola kills it with the score, but I found it’s minimalism failing to fit the atmosphere. A lot of tonight’s incidental music reminded me of a simplified version of Jeff Beal’s work on HBO’s "Carnivàle." While not bad, it was just a bit lacking.

Oddly enough, a lot of my biggest issues were with the production side of things. Some of the cinematography was odd for no reason. While it wasn’t as bad as the giant closeups of heads that dominated series eleven, there were some framing issues on occasion. One of the more egregious examples was aboard the Skithra’s ship. Unlike her distant cousins, the Racnoss (double down, baby), we never get a very good look at Skithra’s body. The one establishing shot we get of her is almost obscured. She’s either in extreme closeup or obfuscated from view, which is a shame because she looks awesome. Either the CGI or the prosthetic didn’t work, but her body did not look balanced at all.

During his laboratory chase, Tesla finds a floating orb. Small floating shapes are Doctor Who’s jam. The Toclafane, the cubes from "The Power of Three," the Time Lord hypercube, all classic examples. As soon as it appeared, I let out an audible laugh. It wasn’t that it was bad, I was delighted by how silly it looked. It was like something from Power Rangers. I’m not saying the CGI was bad, I’m just saying that if Christopher Eccleston had run by, I wouldn’t have batted an eye. Tesla decides to keep this orb to himself, to learn its secrets.  So when the Doctor comes booming in looking for "anything weird," he neglects to mention a floating orb.

The Doctor and her two new friends, Nikola and his assistant Dorothy give chase to a hooded, laser wielding assassin. This leads them to a train where we see Yaz, Graham and Ryan looking their best in their own period-appropriate clothing. I absolutely love how much this series has been playing with the companion’s clothing. It’s more of that Hinchcliffe era peeking in. We’re treated to a train car chase where the Doctor apprehends the assassin’s weapon- a Silurian gun. I really loved this bit as I’m a big fan of action scenes involving trains. Tosin Cole had said in an interview that they were going a lot bigger in series twelve, and I have to admit, yes, yes they have.

However, the train ride is soon spoiled by the Doctor discovering that she’s on a train with Nikola Tesla. I had said how I hoped they continue the trend of the Doctor meeting famous people throughout history. Tesla and Edison mark the fourth and fifth historical figures in series twelve, so far. My problem is the gooey way in which the Doctor talks about the achievements of these people. There’s a drippy sentimentality that feels fake to me. I keep going back and forth between whether it’s Jodie’s delivery or the hollowness of the edutainment style dialogue. I would say it’s Jodie, as she delivers the same speech about each famous person they meet, with the same level of wonderous enthusiasm that it makes me wish she would give it more depth. But then I think about how much more depth she’s given us this year, and I go back to thinking it’s the writing. Like I said last week- nobody talks like this.

I don’t know if it was a memo from the BBC that Doctor Who should also be educational, but I wish they could find a more natural way of disseminating information. "The Unquiet Dead," does a wonderful job of educating us about Charles Dickens without also beating us about the head with the information. It’s one of those quirks that we’ll look back on about Whittaker’s era as the Doctor as one of her eccentricities. Long monologues of idealistic hero worship. Honestly, I’d love to see her meet Aleister Crowley just to see them try and find something nice to say about him. "His words went on to inspire generations of sex magick perverts! People in countless worlds will continue to use his books… to um… roll joints on."

The Doctor and the crew look into the tech. Since it’s Edison’s men coming after them, it’s automatically assumed that he’s behind it. Ryan even gets a cool guy moment when he flashes the Silurian gun tucked in his jacket like a gangster with a Tommy gun. But Edison just wants to see the gun in case it’s something he can patent and sell. He’s not sent out any men after Tesla, in fact, he loses his entire lab team at the hands of these red-eyed assassins. It turns out, they aren’t after the technology, they want Tesla’s mind. I liked this moment as Tesla doesn’t immediately sacrifice himself for the greater good of humanity. He kind of chickens out a bit. 

Tesla and Yaz get transported aboard a ship hanging just above New York City, hidden by cloaking devices. The Queen Skithra stands vaguely behind things with a tail too heavy for what looks like her little kid body to balance. What looks like hundreds of scorpion soldiers writhe around on the ceiling as the Queen demands Tesla fix her ship and weapons system. I was a little confused at this point by the scorpion soldiers. I couldn’t tell if they were robots or creatures, or both. Either way, they were able to shapeshift, a fact which has very little bearing on the plot, which is fine. You’d just kind of think that if you’re going to introduce shapeshifters, one of them should pose as a good guy at some point. Oh well, at least we can’t accuse them of using a cliche.

The Doctor makes a little teleportation bracelet like something you would see Harry Sullivan, Sarah Jane, and the Fourth Doctor holding onto as they float through chromakey space. After discovering the green orb is a recording device, she’s able to trace it back to its source- the Queen’s ship. She beams her way up to the ship where she deduces that the Queen is a scavenger. The Silurian gun is just one of many pilfered objects littering the filthy ship. I loved the line “Nice place you’ve got here, probably. If you cleaned up a bit. I mean, I’m messy, but this?” It was some classic Fourth Doctor rudeness (Happy Birthday, Tom), and I’m there for it!  The Doctor teleports everyone to safety but the scorpions aren’t far behind. Aboard the TARDIS we’re given a really lovely little scene between Dorothy and Ryan as they both compare what it’s like to live in the shadow of a mad genius. It was a great bit of dialogue that was closer to what I was talking about when I said "a more natural way."

Yaz and Edison are tasked with clearing the street, which is good because the companions haven’t had a whole lot to do this episode. Which is fine, they’re free to take the backseat on occasion. Though I will say I love Graham’s ribbing Thomas Edison about his work practices. Graham got a few zingers throughout the episode. I wondered if Graham saying “This ain’t our first rodeo,” wasn’t a reference to Bradley Walsh’s real-life back injury at a rodeo. Probably not. Most of the focus in this story is on Tesla’s character arc. Edison manages to clear the streets and best his competition by telling everyone Tesla is going to fire up his Wardenclyffe Tower, so they’d better run for their lives! The plan is to use the tower to take out the Skithra ship before it can destroy the world. However, the Skithra have no plans of going down without a fight.

As the scorpion soldiers take to the streets of New York I was oddly reminded of my childhood neighbour Anne’s dog- Bud Light. Bud Light was a miniature pinscher that my sister and I used to chase around the garden. And no matter how hard we chased her, she was always too fast. This little dog was no bigger than a foot and a half long and yet we still couldn’t keep up with those four little legs. Now imagine you’re running from Bud Light, only she has more than four legs, and she’s a giant scorpion. Do you get where I am going with this? It’s movie car logic. In a movie, a character can sometimes outrun a car while being pursued by bad guys. The thrill of the chase outweighs the logic. Their way around how fast these scorpions would actually be was to make them incredibly clumsy. These things do more skidding into turns than the entire cast of "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift." My theory is that their feet are made of really slick plastic and there was oil on the pavement. They were doing better in human form. Regardless, they look pretty cool. At least we now know where the CGI budget of this episode went.

The Doctor and Tesla work to connect the tower to the TARDIS controls. Meanwhile, everyone else is tasked with fending off the scorps until they can take out the ship. Only when the scorpions come knocking, they seem almost tame. Queen Skithra has left the safety of her ship, much to the Doctor’s surprise. With her not there, they can’t flip the switch. It’s an interesting position as it shows the Doctor fully planning to kill someone, a bit of moral ambiguity we don’t often see with her. I’ve really been enjoying the darker side of Jodie we’ve been seeing lately. For me, it’s really rounding out her Doctor in a way I had hoped to see. Speaking of dark sides, how great was that shot of the Queen standing in front of her army? The drudgy murkiness of the lighting made her look like a demon.

The Doctor tricks the Queen into thinking she has a weapon behind her back, knowing she would confiscate whatever it was. Unfortunately for the queen, this weapon was actually a harmless teleportation bracelet. The Doctor is able to beam her back to her ship and take out the brain of the hive mind, thus taking the scorpion soldiers with her. So I guess they were like drones? I suppose that scans. The Doctor parts ways with Edison and Tesla. Yet unlike in Spyfall Part 2, she doesn’t wipe their minds, because why would she? Since when has the Doctor even taken to wiping the minds of historical figures? Sure, Ten wiped Donna’s mind, but with very good reason. You could make the argument that neither Edison nor Tesla saw their own future. Clearly, travelling in an alien’s spacecraft that’s bigger on the inside is small potatoes compared to knowing the word computer.

Tesla and Edison part ways how they began, as competitors. But now we’re given the idea that perhaps Edison admires him a little. He’s got that "You magnificent son of a bitch," look guys give each other in lieu of emotions. Edison would go on to explore these feelings in his bizarre relationship with Henry Ford. I don’t know much about a real-life Dorothy Skerrit or if she even existed. I feel like the romantic vibes between the two of them were possibly added on to counter Tesla’s even weirder relationship with his pet pigeon. I was really a bit disappointed they never once mentioned his pigeon.

That being said, my disappointments were few and far between. I didn’t know who this Nina Metivier was before tonight’s episode, but she can write some Doctor Who! Evidently, she served as script editor in series eleven, so she’s cut her teeth on it a bit already, but for a debut episode, I had a great time. Nikola Tesla is a figure I feel deserves a well-told episode full of strangeness and a bit of whimsy. They definitely do not waste Tesla on a weak script. Though for a story about electricity, the foley department could have given us some more visceral sounding crackles. The overall tone of the episode was a mixture of Hammer horror meets Power Rangers, which is something I didn’t think could work, but here we are. Regardless of whether you found Queen Skithra scary or campy, you can’t deny her effectiveness. Four episodes in, and we’ve had some solid baddies, which is an obvious improvement on series eleven. Once again, my biggest issue is the wooden edutainment dialogue that seems inserted to meet some sort of quota.

These last two episodes have acted as great follow-ups to Spyfall Parts one and two. We needed a bit of classic feeling Doctor Who to counterbalance the larger ideas like Gallifrey being destroyed, or the Master returning. A good old fashioned base in peril followed by an alien invasion is right where the show needs to be right now. That being said, I’ve yet to watch an episode so far this season that has left me truly ecstatic. You know me though, I like the weird ones. For all of its flashiness and big reveals, I’m still waiting for series twelve to show me something of substance. It will be nice when everything has aired to look at series twelve as a whole. With episodes like "Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror," thrown into the mix, we’re looking at what is shaping up to be a very enjoyable series.

Well friends, thank you for joining me once more. I wanted to take a quick bit to mention some things on the horizon. Those of you who are fans of "The Dark Crystal," will be interested to know that I will be attending the first ever Dark Crystal fan convention in February. It takes place in London at Elstree Studios, where the original movie was filmed. I plan to take lots of pictures and write an article about the convention. I've been so excited for this event, that all I can think of lately is Dark Crystal (sorry Doctor). Along with the convention, I also have a couple of guest writers working on pieces for the blog. I've never had guest writers, but I think you'll like what's coming! See you soon!

[typicalfictosexualfangirl]

Exchanged Whispers (BNHA Fan Fiction) - Chapter 1: Vernal

A/N: i’ve been seeing a couple of fanfictions where the reader is portrayed as a villain’s daughter aiming to become a hero or something of that sort, so i thought i’d change it up a little..

this is me trying my hand at writing fanfictions for the first time, so pardon me if chapters are short, the scenes aren’t entirely accurate as the actual anime/manga, and the characters if they aren’t exactly portrayed accurately. feel free to send in any constructive criticisms (not hate mail, pls know how to differentiate) and yeah, i’ll try to entertain and edit them as best as i can :)

just a heads up, it’s in the first person pov, which made it weird for me to read since I originally wrote the reader as ‘you’. and i’m not gonna go in depth on the characters in 1-C, since they don’t exactly play a main part in the story and also because i don’t wanna portray them wrongly, in case they do get portrayed in the manga in future, but i get to describe one or two of their appearances thanks to the sports festival arc 😚

p.s. [Y/F/N] means your full name

Chapter 1: Vernal

vernal (adj.) of, relating to, or occurring in the spring; fresh or new like the spring extracted from Dictionary by Merriam-Webster Inc.

I stood in front of the stairs and ruffled my hair in exasperation. I had rounded the building too many times to count and I’m back to square one where I started my futile search of my classroom.

I’m not one without a sense of direction, which just shows how huge the building was with their floors being at least 2 metres tall, identical walls painted white with a blue border framing the upper part, and floor-to-ceiling glass windows. It was like a maze, every turn I take looks exactly the same as the corridor I just passed, except for the different labels on the doors which are the only identification of my present location, and in my current case, the counters to how many times I have ran down a certain corridor.

I took a deep breath in and exhaled to calm my impatience and prepared for Search Attempt #7. Just as I rounded the corner for the *insert large number here* time that day, I bumped into something, or someone to be more specific, and fell back onto my hands, both in surprise and exhaustion. “Are you alright?” A hand appeared in my field of vision, offering to help me up on my feet.

My eyes travelled up to the face behind the hand. The boy standing in front of me had spiky red hair and sharp teeth, and if I looked closely, I could see a slight scar above his right eye.

I dusted my skirt and nodded, “Yup, thanks for the hand.”

“No problem, I was the one who caused your fall in the first place.”

I shook my head and hummed in disagreement, “I wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings, I was at fault too.”

“The name’s Kirishima Eijiro, it’s nice to meet you,” he offered me a hand again, this time for me to shake, which I gently took and did so.

I introduced myself as well, “It’s a pleasure to meet you too, Kirishima.”

“So, [Y/N],” the way he said my name sent a chill down my spine, “what are you doing wandering these halls alone when class is about to start-“ he paused to check the time on his phone- “in a minute?”

I rubbed the back of my neck awkwardly. “To be honest, I’m kind of lost,” I admitted sheepishly.

He chuckled at my response, “I’m not surprised. What class are you from?”

“1-C.”

General studies, huh? “I’ll take you there.”

It was only at that moment when I realised how late I was. “Holy crap, I am so dead, and I am going to drag you down with me!” I started to panic.

“No, it’s okay, my classroom’s near yours anyway,” he tried to calm me down and gave me a reassuring grin.

“Speaking of, you haven’t told me what class you’re from.”

“Me? I’m from 1-A,” he replied, the smile still plastered on his face. “Well, we’d better get going, otherwise we’ll be later than we already are.”

I thanked him for the trouble and proceeded to walk side-by-side with my benefactor as he led me down the winding halls to my classroom.

When I walked into my classroom, my classmates were already in their seats and the teacher was briefing the class on what our first activity in UA will be. Everyone turned to look at me in question, except a boy who was sat in the corner near the back door, his chin on his palm, and staring out the window. All I can make up of him was his crazy tuft of purple hair. When the teacher hurried me to take a seat, I briefly nodded and took a quick glance around the class before realising that the only seat left available was one beside him. I briskly walked to my seat and settled down, catching up with what I might have missed as the teacher repeated what he had said (for my sake).

When lunch break finally came around, I was immediately surrounded by my classmates. “Oh my god, your parents are MIND DUO right?” The very mention of my parents made me shudder, but I smiled at my classmates and nodded.

“Ooh, what are they like? How is it like to be the daughter of MIND DUO?” their incessant questioning caused my brain to stop functioning entirely. I was clearly struggling to answer all their questions but nobody seemed to notice.

Except for a certain someone I never would have thought of.

“Can’t you see she’s uncomfortable? Why don’t you all leave her alone?” a gruff voice suddenly came from my right.

Everyone turned to look at the source of the voice, including me, even though I already knew who it was. Finally able to get a good look at his face, I could see his messy hair framing the upper half of his face and bags under his hooded eyes of a matching colour. As soon as he said that, he stood up and sighed, leaving the classroom to remove himself from the situation.

“We’re sorry if we were bothering you,” my classmates apologised before introducing themselves one at a time.

“Having parents with such awesome quirks, what might your quirk be?” a male classmate with brown hair and dark skin asked.

“Amiability,” I responded rather quickly, as if it was my second nature. “It’s not as flashy as my parents’ quirks but basically, I get along with people really well, both heroes and villains alike.”

My classmates looked at me with tilted heads and confused faces, causing me to burst out laughing. “It means that I can dupe them into thinking I’m one of them, allowing me to lower their guards and get more information out of them,” I continued with a smile.

Scattered ‘oh’s reverberated through the air as my classmates slowly understood what I said.

I excused myself and left the classroom, in search of my tablemate (sort of) to thank him for what he did earlier, but my original plan was interrupted when I heard someone call out to me as I passed by 1-A classroom. I backed up and my head popped into the classroom, peeping inside to see a familiar red head waving at me and signalling for me to go in. He was standing at the table of a boy with ash blonde hair that was styled not so differently from his. The scowl on his face made me hesitate for a moment but I managed to gather the courage to step inside. I could feel everyone’s eyes on me as I walked towards Kirishima, but the overwhelming feeling of me being in a hero class overtook the out-of-place sensation.

“[Y/N]!” Kirishima welcomed me enthusiastically as soon as I reached his side and started rambling on about something to me, although I wasn’t really paying attention to what he was saying as I felt the seated boy burn holes through my head with his glaring red eyes.

Kirishima looked over at the frowning boy and realisation dawned upon him. “Ah, I forgot to introduce the two of you. [Y/N], this is Bakugo Katsuki. Bakugo, this is [Y/F/N].”

I awkwardly lifted a hand and mumbled a ‘hi’, a subtle side-grin forming on my face. The only response I received in return was a scoff, which I was taken aback by. Before I could ask Kirishima to hold me back to stop me from beating the crap out of this r00D boi, he took my arm and dragged me around the classroom, eyes glistening eagerly, “Let me introduce you to the rest of my classmates!”

“Sure…” I barely managed to respond as I tried to comprehend the current situation I was in.

“Ooh, who’s that beauty you’ve got with you, Kirishima?” a girl with horns, pink skin, and hair a shade darker came up to the both of us.

“Oh, Ashido, this is [Y/N]. She’s from class 1-C,” Kirishima halted in his tracks, letting go of my arm and pointed back at me, who was a step behind him, with his thumb. I pouted slightly at the loss of contact.

“You’re from the general studies? How’s the curriculum like there? What do you learn? Is it any different from the hero course? Why did you apply for general studies? What’s your quirk? Do you have a boyfriend?” she was like an assault rifle, attacking me relentlessly with her never-ending questions, but her last question definitely caught me off guard.

“Um…” I was trying to find the right words to answer when Kirishima stood between me and the overly-excited Ashido.

“Hey, hey, cool it. You’re gonna scare her away.”

She gave a coy grin, “Oops, sorry.”

As Kirishima picked up my arm again and pulled me past her, my free hand covered one side of my lips and I managed to whisper into her ear, “Actually, I applied to UA in hopes of finding a boyfriend.”

I winked at her as she gaped at my fading silhouette. “Call me Mina!” she yelled before I disappeared from her sight. Without looking back, I waved her off casually in acknowledgement.

Throughout the whole introductory journey, Kirishima was a really big help in overcoming my awkwardness and insecurity, but it was also partially thanks to my quirk that everyone was really easy to get along and communicate with. Except for that one gross and creepy perv that I really don’t want to have anything to do with (you already know who it is).

I took a quick look around the classroom and saw Jiro holding an opened bottle of ice water, trying to get past Mineta. I imagined the water emptying onto his small stature and blinked, a smirk forming on my lips as it became a reality.

“Well, lunch break’s almost over. Want to go and grab a quick bite before class starts?” Kirishima turned to me once he was done, taking a deep breath and exhaling from all the exhaustion.

I nodded at his suggestion, almost too quickly to be natural.

He smiled and led me out of the class, unaware that he was still holding on to my arm.

A/N: THAT’S IT for this chapter, it turned out longer than i expected, started with 300+ words and ended up being 1,300+ words, or more than that

i do hope you enjoyed reading this as much as i enjoyed writing it (minus the parts where i got frustrated with writer’s block, and putting what i imagine into words) get ready for the escalation in the story though, you’ll never see it coming ;)

Exchanged Whispers Chapter List

Chapter 2 // Chapter 3 // Chapter 4

[momorabu]

Ensemble Stars! Event Story - Raising Curtains! Dark Night Halloween / Dark Night Halloween

Since today’s Halloween and the new Halloween event has just started in Ensemble Stars~ I thought I’ll read the Halloween event story from last year’s event, which I actually enjoyed reading as it was the 2nd? event that I participated in as I just joined Ensemble Stars at that time. Below is a recap or say a brief summary of the event story ^^

Anyway as always, the summary of the story can be found below. Translation may not be 100% accurate due to my poor Japanese skills~

Prologue

The story starts off with the twins at 2wink giving out flyers and candies while advertising the Halloween Party Event that was coming soon. It was a very grand event at the school, with a live concert at an S1 level, which meant the school was open to the public for viewing all the idols perform.

2wink’s idea of Treat or Trick! are very interesting, for Treat it’ll be fanservice like giving out signatures and handshakes, whereas Trick will be using an easily erasable pen to draw on (the person?) and hugging while twirling around~ +W+ (Somehow I kind of want the “Trick” version just because I’ll get to hug them XDD)

甘えん坊 / Spoiled Child: Chapter 1

Ritsu was sleeping in the terrace garden when Leo found him (when he lost his memory suddenly and find himself wandering here OwO) Ritsu was feeling really weak as he’s trying to stay awake in the day as it was only during the day that everyone will be around, and he wants to be up and with them too.

However, as Ritsu’s body is still a vampire, it’s very hard to him to change his sleep cycle as it might be due to genetics that it’s hard for him to stay awake in the day.  Leo noticed that Ritsu is not feeling well though Ritsu brushed it off himself.

(It was cute that Ritsu is close with Leo in a way that he can hug him and even use him as a “slave” to get some drinks for him XDD)

甘えん坊 / Spoiled Child: Chapter 2

UNDEAD, on the other hand, was hard at work preparing for the Halloween Party Event. Rei was on the phone with Leo in mid-practice as Leo probably informed him that he found Ritsu not being his usual self. Nevertheless, it was a good time to catch up with an old friend for Rei.

Kaoru actually came and tells Rei not to slack off and went for a phone chat instead XDD (It’s rare that he’s so hyped up!) Kaoru is putting effort in this event just because it was a huge event that will be open up to public, which means that’ll probably alot of girls coming which is what he is looking forward to ^^;

He’s definitely okay in giving fan service whether it’s “Treat!” or “Trick!”, but it’s only limited to girls XDD

This made Koga very angry as he thinks that Kaoru’s reasons are very “unpure” since he’s not exactly doing music because he likes it ^^;

They suddenly realised Adonis was not participating in the conversation and mulling in a corner instead. Koga thought he might not know what Halloween is and thus looked troubled about the Halloween Event. (Since Adonis didn’t seem to know Hanami or Tanabata)

He was all hyped up and ready to start explaining to him when Adonis replied that he did know what Halloween is about as his home country actually has it. That made Koga disappointed as he even actually went and researched about it just so he gets to show off his knowledge. (So sad for him that now he can’t TWT)

Adonis wondered why Koga got angry suddenly but Rei wanted Adonis to figure it out on his own. (I like how Rei described as “there’s no right or wrong answer when it comes human relationship” ^^)

Kaoru decided to lend a helping hand to poor confused Adonis, by hinting (or say that’s the full answer already XD) that perhaps it’ll be better if Adonis asked him on the knowledge on Halloween, as Koga was probably hoping that he’ll ask him about it.

And thus Adonis went to Koga to ask for his knowledge. Koga became very happy that Adonis is asking him for help and since it was requested by Adonis, he shall give the lecture~ (Koga seems to be easily pampered actually XDD)

The seniors looked on as Koga started teaching Adonis while Kaoru commented on how cute they are. Rei is glad that Kaoru is maturing (?) as he knows how Rei usually feels when he looks at the junior, to which Kaoru isn’t happy about and say he doesn’t want to grow old and has an old man’s taste yet =w=“

(This part was really cute when Adonis was worried that he might look too scary when he dressed up for the Halloween Party. And Koga dissed him that if he wants to be cheered by the girls (in the audience) and comment that he’s cute, he should transfer his unit to Ra*bits instead XDD) (That’s so harsh, Koga! >A<)

After practice though, Rei called on Koga to stay and asked for his help to keep an eye on his brother Ritsu, as he’s worried that Rei might not be able to sustain his strength if he kept trying to stay awake during the day and not rest at all.

Koga reluctantly agrees, though he specifically mentioned that he’s not doing it because he wants to help Rei and more of him being worried for his classmate - Ritsu’s welfare as well.

赤ずきん / Red Riding Hood: Chapter 1 - 3

Halloween soon arrived, and Koga went to find “me” in school among the crowd. He’s surprised that “I’m” dressed up as Little Red Riding Hood and he’s a wolfman, which somehow fits together perfectly like the story Little Red Riding Hood.

“I” started to play along with him by attempting to shoot him (perhaps with the hand signal and sound effect) Koga dissed “me” that “I’m” stealing the hunter’s role if I’m using the gun to fight the wolf, and suggested we should follow the original instead.

Back on topic after the idle chit-chat, Koga asked for “my” help and that “I” should follow him. “I” reminded him that it sounds like the original story of Little Red Riding Hood with the wolf asking little red riding hood for help too. Koga joked that maybe he should eat me too if I get too close (That… actually sounds abit… sexual? ><”)

Long story short, he explained about the “mission” given to him by Rei and mentioned that he will need “my” help to find Ritsu together and get him to rest as soon as possible. (Since in Koga’s words, if Ritsu died from over-exhaustion Koga said he’ll have a hard time sleeping because he’ll remember Ritsu’s dead face… OwO”) (That escalates quickly to scary stuff OAO”)

悪戯っ子 / Mischievous Kid: Chapter 1 - 3

We finally found Ritsu, who was on his way to delivering more sweets that he had made in the kitchen, as the booths kept running out due to the “Treat or Trick”-ing around the school.

Koga advised him to rest, and that made Ritsu abit pissed as he grumbled that when he was slacking/resting, everyone kept asking him to wake up and move, and now that he wanted to be more active, everyone is asking him to rest instead =w=“ (I like what he had said “I can’t take this down, why can’t everyone let me live my life like how I wanted?”)

In the end, in order to get Ritsu to obey and go to rest, Koga ended up being a sacrifice and have to be held down to eat Ritsu’s tasty but horribly looking candies. He even gets pulled around by Ritsu like he’s on a leash, sing to Ritsu, dance for Ritsu, and get sent to do delivery duties for Ritsu in the end TWT (Poor Koga TWT Even though Ritsu does feel abit guilty for doing it abit overboard later on…)

But after playing around, Ritsu finally decided to rest, and thus slept in a coffin prepared by Rei in the music room~

百鬼夜行 / Night Parade of One Hundred Demons: Chapter 1 - 3 + Epilogue

Evening came, and 2wink came to the band practice room to wake up Rei to prepare for the night concert, when they found out that “I” was there too, working on some last minute catch up on the outfit for Ritsu.

Yuta mentioned about understanding how Ritsu feels, about not being in a good relationship with the elder brother, which made Hinata feel both shocked and hurt since he thought they’re both always in a good relationship to the point of LOVE LOVE XD

2wink were being quite mischievous that when they put candies by the side of Rei’s sleeping coffin with him, they mentioned that they look like offerings (for the dead) for him OWO”

Rei woke up in the end, and “I” ended up feeling really sleepy due to all the rushing of work for the Halloween Party. Rei, being a gentleman suddenly, swept “me” off the floor and carry me to the performance area, with 2wink tagging along behind us.

Kaoru was worried but ultimately was relieved to find that Rei has arrived in time for UNDEAD’s performance (if not they’ll have to sing without him) Rei was initially confused why is Kaoru not dressing up as a monster, but Kaoru said he decided to be a priest, an evil priest in fact that cheats on the innocent girls when they fall into his trap that he’s a good guy…. (Omg, Kaoru sounds like a bad guy here seriously OWO” Don’t play with girls’ feelings Orz)

Kaoru was pissed when he found out that Rei was carrying “me” in hime style, and said he’s being sneaky and that should be his job instead XD

But when Rei’s arms were tired and he requested someone else to take over, Kaoru wanted to but was stopped by Adonis saying that “I” dislike Kaoru to hug “me” and that Adonis himself will take over instead.

Kaoru was shocked to hear that he’ll be disliked since he thought that he was confident that over time that “I’ll” like him and not be so turned off by him ^^; (Maybe Kaoru just… has too much confidence in himself? ^^;)

Anyway, he seems terrified by the thought that “I’ll” dislike him and pleaded with “me” not to feel scared or repulsed by him with a please~~

(Seriously I find it so funny that the confident Kaoru is actually afraid of making me unhappy XD He’s kind of cute for his reactions this way ^^)

Finally “I” managed to locate Ritsu at the performance area, where he was sleeping on Leo’s lap (ahh~ So cute >///<) With Leo’s help, we put on Ritsu’s performance outfit and tried persuading him to go on stage to perform with UNDEAD and 2wink, who was supporting part of the performance as well.

Ritsu initially didn’t want to go, he even tried to get Leo to go up on stage with him. (He whines that Leo should go together with him, he doesn’t want to go alone and it’ll be very lonely~ It sound so cute coming from Ritsu XD)

In the end, Ritsu did agree to go on stage and perform side by side with Rei. Rei finally gets some chance to talk alone with Ritsu on stage (since Ritsu normally avoids him in school), and said that whether or not Ritsu dislikes him or hates him, he has to take care of his own body. And if Ritsu really feels miserable sometimes, he can come to lean on Rei as his big brother.

I think this probably has touched Ritsu in the end, as he apologized to Rei for making him worry about him, and also “thank you, big brother”. The end.

This is still a great story now that I’ve re-read it again, I find myself quite enjoying UNDEAD’s members interactions so I’ll definitely be looking forward to reading any event stories that have them next time +W+ (Adonis and Kaoru are sooo cute <3) It was nice to understand abit more about the brotherly relationships between Rei and Ritsu, I like reading about family ties as much as friendships too, so I’m glad that Ensemble Stars is actually focusing on such relationships once in awhile and not just creating characters as brothers for convenience sake or some random trait just to add onto a character profile.

I’ll definitely be looking forward to this year’s event story as well~! Though it’ll be awhile before I unlock and have the time to read all of them during the event, I’ll probably wait until the event is over before I start reading as per usual~ +W+

PS: No cards because my teams are so weak at that time that I couldn’t make it to the 600K tier TWT TWT

[littlemisssquiggles]

RWBY Musings #5: I didn’t go into RWBY Volume 5 expecting to ship RoseGarden as much as I do now. I didn’t even know this ship existed in the first place...

...But then I saw the way Oscar practically gazed at Ruby in Episodes One and Three...and that was it, I got bit HARD by the RoseGarden shipping bug. This ship got me hook, line and sinker.

I saw Oscar’s face and now I’m a believer!

“...I’m sorry, it’s just that I’ve never met real huntsmen and huntresses before..” says the boy who literally just met a huntsmen 5 minutes ago at a bar and has the spirit of a huntsmen living in his body.

But, sure, I’ll accept you saying that totally-not-BS excuse to the girl you just tried to sneak a peak at, looking at Ruby the same way Scrat from Ice Age looks at his nuts.

I just don’t know how much more I can voice about my interest in this ship that I haven’t already said before. I know it’s something that certain shippers are against but I, for one, really would like to see this become something.

I truly want Oscar and Ruby to have a close friendship that could/would ultimately turn into something more.

As a matter of fact, let me tell ya’ll what I want for this ship:

-          I want, for this first Volume that they’re meeting each other for the first time, Oscar to be the one with the romantic interest; having a HUGE crush on Ruby that is obvious to everyone else but her. I can see Ruby genuinely liking Oscar too but not really seeing him in that light as yet...at least not for maybe another volume or two (possibly following a time skip so that the two characters can age up allowing perfect time for Oscar to fully mature into the sexy beast his fans know he’s going to become) C’mon! We all know that’s what is gonna happen. The cute cinnamon roll always becomes the smexilicous stud muffin in the end. It is the law of cartoon main male character evolution, people. That’s biology for yuh there!)

-          I want Ruby and Oscar to stand next to each other in the same frame just so that fans get a good idea of  exactly how small Oscar is to Ruby. We all know that Oscar is definitely the shortest of the males since he’s the youngest now. But what I want to know mostly is his full height when standing next to Ruby. There’s a part of me that estimates that he’s only shorter than her by a few centimetres. Still a smol gentle avocado but not too much of a short bean sprout. Although if he is inches shorter than our red-haired protagonist, I’ll laugh cause it’d be so cute. On another hand, I think Oscar and Ruby could be roughly around the same height, surprisingly. But...can’t really tell for now. Got to wait to see them stand next to each other to be more accurate.

-          I want Ruby and Oscar to share a room together and be roommates. I imagine that since Qrow will be out gathering huntsmen in Mistral, he’ll be gone for a while leaving Ruby all by herself to one room. Last time I checked there were two beds in her room and one of them was originally occupied by Qrow while he was recovering. So maybe before his departure, Qrow tells Oscar that he can have his side of the room while he’s out, neglecting to also mention the fact that his room was also Ruby’s. I can imagine an awkward moment with Oscar gleefully showing up to his new room only to meet Ruby standing there as she opened the door, instantly becoming all flustered and embarrassed at the idea of sharing the room with a girl. But while Oscar turns into a tomato over sharing a room with his crush, Ruby will be all hyper and super excited about having a roommate her age again since she hasn’t since her original team. Plus I’m sure Ruby would find Oscar to be a more pleasant roommate than Drunkle Qrow. I really want to see this cause I imagine it’d be cute and funny at the same time; just to see each character’s reactions. And before anyone comes to my comment section yelling at me that Ruby and Oscar staying in the same room together is inappropriate, allow me to gently direct your attention to Jaune, Nora and Ren. When Pyrrha was around, Team JNPR were (and still are) a unisex team who shared a room together and that was not a problem at all. I’m pretty sure that they still share a room together because of familiarity. We did get a glimpse of them all together in the same room looking at Pyrrha’s old weapon. So I wouldn’t be surprised if the group share the same room again while staying in Mistral.

 -          I want Ruby and Oscar to train together and bond through helping each other strengthen their weaknesses; similar to how Pyrrha and Jaune were. Imagine this...what if Ruby can help Oscar with his training to ‘strength his body and Aura’ as Ozpin put in and Oscar, in turn, could assist Ruby with her hand-to-hand combat training by being her main sparring partner because...as it turned out Oscar is actually good at that (might even be a natural cause y’know of his farmhand background so he’s used to using his hands and being on his feet and y’know *insert reference to how the techniques and disciplines for hand-to-hand combat are akin to performing basic daily chores and work...y’know like how it was in the Jack Chan/Jaden Smith Karate Kid movie and blah blah*.

 -          I want Ruby and Oscar, despite hints of deeper feelings, to grow really close as friends and become comfortable around each other to the point that they’re just REALLY cool being in each other’s company. For the longest while, I’ve had this cute fanart idea in my head of Oscar and Ruby on the same bed. Oscar is studiously reading one of the books he brought with him from his aunt’s farm while Ruby is either sprawled over his stomach or lying down with her head resting on his stomach, reading one of her comic books. Might even toss in a plate of homemade chocolate chip cookies (prepared by Ren or even Oscar) that the two are sharing together; all smiles. Oscar is still all flushed of being so close to his crush but overall the two are comfortable being that close in each other’s company.  

-          I want several hand holding moments between Oscar and Ruby. No explanation needed. Just want to see it cause it’d be cute.

-          I want Oscar to selflessly put his own life on the line to protect Ruby. Like maybe Tyrian, after getting a second chance from Salem, returns to capture Ruby. And since Tyrian doesn’t know him, Oscar does what I can only describe as a stupidly brave thing, to keep Ruby safe. Not only does he hide her away (catching her off guard and probably locking her in a room somewhere) but he also pilfers her red hood and maybe even Crescent Rose. All the tools he needs to make his disguise complete. Oscar then dresses himself as Ruby and uses himself a decoy to lure Tyrian away from the real Ruby. Since Ruby and Oscar are practically around the same height, Tyrian wouldn’t be able to tell the difference giving Oscar the advantage. Tyrian would either capture Oscar thinking its Ruby or be fooled long enough for Oscar to lure him straight outta Mistral. I can already see Ozpin practically screaming in Oscar’s mind how his actions, while commendably noble, were also foolish. It’s something that I can picture Oscar doing for Ruby and it would be a nice thing to see in the show, maybe.

-          I want Ruby and Oscar to fight together; utilizing everything they learned during their training. Ruby and Oscar vs Tyrian. Do I even need to justify why I want to see this happen? To quote Griff from RVB, “It’ll be totally badass”. And of course it’ll end with Oscar and Ruby defeating Tyrian. They won’t kill him (of course) but maybe they’ll capture him and use him for interrogation purposes into learning Salem’s plans.

-          I want a cheek kiss moment. Like maybe after they defeat Tyrian together, Ruby kisses Oscar on his big adorable freckly cheeks as thanks for trying to protect her (but not before giving him two good punches to the shoulder for locking her up, stealing her hood and weapon AND endangering himself and Ozpin; even if it was for her which...I believe Ruby would grow wary of at some point. Tired of seeing the people she cares about get hurt for her sake and Oscar would be no exception).

-          I want, if Ruby and Oscar fight together, can they please have a tag team attack named ‘Rose Garden’? The tag team attacks are something I miss from the show. That part in Season II where RWBY fought together and had all the cool tag team attack names was admittedly one of my favourite moments/fights of the season. Can we bring that back just for these two cuties kicking ass together.

 I think that’s it for things I want from this ship.

I didn’t choose the RosePine/ RoseGarden shipping life, it choose me or rather it twacked me over the head with the adorable awkwardness of a potential relationship between these two adorkable characters. I can’t with them. They are just too CUTE! I hope we get to see more Ruby and Oscar interactions in the next episode before we get to the big training montage. The main focus of the last episode was more exposition rather than getting to know each other and as much as I enjoyed that scene, I hope we get some lighthearted moments just for the characters to just talk to each other; y’know and not about war and impending doom. I guess we’ll see in the next episode. See you guys in Episode 4. Peace! 

~LittleMissSquiggles (2017)

[optimusphillip]

OptimusPhillip Reviews 28: Transformers Generations Rewind (Titans Return)

Happy Pride Month to all my LGBTQ+ followers. While I myself am cishet, I firmly support the rights of people to love whoever they want or to identify however they feel most comfortable. And in honor of Pride Month, I have decided to do something of a double feature this weekend to cover my favorite gay couple in Transformers. Today, I will be reviewing Titans Return Rewind, and tomorrow it will be Titans Return Chromedome.

Tank Mode

Starting with the mode that appears on the front of the package, Rewind transforms into what I can only describe as a super space tank. And as far as Titans Return versions of the G1 cassettes go, he comes out as a pretty solid little tank. The main body is cast in black, as one would expect from a Rewind, with the turret molded in gray to set it apart. The treads are fully molded on both the sides and the bottom, and they even molded a slight taper into the front of the tank, to give the illusion that it could get over terrain, though this effect is kind of ruined by the ridge across the bottom. Also, the front end itself is hollowed out for transformation, which is understandable, but at the same time I feel like it could’ve been done better.

In terms of deco, the wheels in the treads are picked out in a nice bright silver, which also appears on the corners of the tank’s “hood”. There’s also a red paint app picking out what I assume is the tank’s hatch, and the same red appears on the rear side panels, rounding out the visible paint apps on this mode. It’s not a lot of paint, but with how small the figure is and how well the colors play together, I think it works.

In terms of function, the tank mode is rather limited. He rolls around on three small wheels, and the main cannon can pivot up and down, but the turret itself can’t rotate due to how the figure converts. Again, however, I can forgive some shortcomings due to the small size. And of course, being a Titans Return figure means he can interact with Titan Masters. He has two pairs of pegs on his turret, so you can mount at least two Titan Masters, and up to four if you stand them just right. It’s a nice feature, though plastic tolerances may prevent some figures from mounting securely. In my case, Firedrive has no friction holding him in place, so he’s only really held on by gravity.

Overall, for a Legends Class toy, the tank mode is pretty decent. Nothing to write home about, but it's fairly robust and it looks alright. That said, I don’t see this as the figure’s main mode, so let’s move on.

Spy Tablet Mode

Removing the main cannon, rotating the turret halves to the side and then unfolding them gives what I consider this toy’s main alternate mode, the spy tablet. While less than half the size of a typical smartphone, he manages to look the part surprisingly well. The tank mode hatch now becomes the home button, and there’s an additional red paint app on the top, but most of the detail comes from the tablet screen itself. The wallpaper is obviously based on his G1 microcassette mode, but with a bit more techy detail and of course some phone icons overlaid. Across the top, he has four bars of cell service and Wi-Fi connectivity, 50-75% battery power remaining, and a running microphone. And across the bottom, he has a text editor, file manager, instant messenger, and e-mail app installed. Also, strangely enough, he has three Autobot symbols: one on top of the tablet, and two on the screen itself.

While the detailing on the screen is nice, it’s all done as sticker detailing, which does come with its fair share of problems. In addition to the problem of lifting off the plastic, the stickers may not be cut and aligned correctly. In my case, the right-hand tape reel is not a perfect circle, and the tape window is a little wider. This also means that the bottom of the cassette doesn’t line up. Also, the printing on the stickers may fade overtime with wear and tear. So while I’m glad that there’s so much detail going on, the stickers could’ve been a lot better. 

It’s still a nice mode overall, however. There’s storage for his main cannon on the side, where you’ll also find a molded power button. You can even pretend that the gun is a stylus, though I doubt this is intentional. But my favorite feature in this mode is that, on the bottom left-hand side, there is a 3.5 mm hole which can accept an aux audio cable. So you can plug in a set of headphones and roleplay this as a real smart device, though it doesn’t connect as securely as the real thing. Mileage may vary on that front, however.

And of course, the big feature of this figure is that it can store in the chest of the Leader Class Blaster/Soundwave mold... which I do not own, so I cannot comment on the effectiveness of this feature. If I ever do obtain that figure, however, I will do a review of it where I follow up on this.

Conversion

Remember to remove the gun from the side of the tablet before turning into robot or tank modes! Otherwise you will bend or even break the barrel. With that little PSA out of the way, going to robot mode is more complex than going from tank to tablet, but that isn’t saying much. Simply unpeg the side panels and fold them back up like in tank mode. This will be very difficult out of the box, and comes with a real risk of breakage. This can be mitigated by filing down the corners, however. Next, split the front of the tank and unfold it to become the legs. Flip the rear wheels up to form the feet, then split the top of the tablet to form the shoulders. Rotate the biceps, then open the chest and flip out the head to complete the robot mode.

Robot Mode

Rewind’s robot mode is definitely based on his IDW appearance, with the red paint apps on his shoulders, and of course the head sculpt, complete with visor and camera unit. Some sacrifices are made for the sake of his alternate modes, but it’s very clear where the inspiration came from.

Very few new details are exposed here. The only new paint apps are the tampographs on his chest to give him his gold pecs as well as the Autobot symbol. Aside from the head sculpt, most of the new detail comes from the arms, which are actually molded somewhat asymmetrically. While his right arm looks normal, his left arm is hollowed out and has an additional piston molded in. While not a bad look once you get used to it, it’s definitely a bit weird, and seems to be purely due to plastic content restrictions, which is a bit unfortunate.

Articulation-wise, Rewind has full neck rotation, ball-jointed shoulders, bicep swivels and 90 degree elbows. No waist joint, but he does have ball-jointed hips and knees which give him a nice range of motion. Overall, the figure is very posable, though the bulky arms can clash in some poses.

For weapons, Rewind gets the main cannon from tank mode as his rifle. It has a standard 5mm handle, so he can hold it in either hand, or swap it for any other standard weapon, presumably even his G1 weapons. He also has a port on the side of his right arm. While this seems to just be an artifact of how he stores it in tablet mode, this does allow him to mount his rifle on his forearm, much like the G1 toy did. You can also partially unfold the arm and thread the gun through the same slot it stored in earlier, giving him something of an underslung cannon. Personally, however, I prefer the side mounted style.

Rewind stands about waist-high with Titans Return Deluxe Autobot cars. This does put him in comic accurate scale, which means that he will look nice alongside your other IDW figures, including, of course, Chromedome.

Final Thoughts

Titans Return Rewind is an alright figure. Nothing stellar, but very decent overall. His tank mode is surprisingly effective, his spy tablet mode is a lot of fun to just play around with, and weird arms aside, his robot mode looks and poses really well, If you can find him for around his original retail price of around US$10, I’d say you should pick him up, especially if you’re a fan of his IDW portrayal, and can also get your hands on the subject of tomorrow’s review.

[kierantc-blog]

DC Rebirth In Review - The Batman Family

With Doomsday Clock just around the corner and with the Rebirth branding ending too, i thought i would look back at how Rebirth has done for each and every on-going that has come out.

So here’s the next chapter in the series, the previous chapter on the Superman family can be read here, but in this chapter we will be talking about the Batman Family of comics.

Batman - I am a fan of Tom King, his work on Vision, Omega Men and Grayson are amazing, but i am not a fan of Tom King on Batman. His story telling feels muddled at times with what is going on on the page, take the I Am Suicide story for instance, was Bruce and Selina telling each other how they feel really the right back drop for a prison escape plot? It also feels like King likes to tell rather than show, which is the wrong attitude to have in a comic book. The War Of Jokes & Riddles was hit and miss at most when the potential it had was immense, and that seems to be the trap that King is falling into right now. Can’t fault the artwork on this book at all, Finch and Janin provide some of the best and most consistent work for a bi-monthly book, but it’s a shame the writing isn’t doing it justice. - 6/10

Detective Comics - For me, Detective Comics is the definitive Bat-family book of Rebirth, Tynion has managed to turn the long running series into a team book with relative ease. The first issue of the series sees Bruce reveal himself as Batman to his cousin Kate Kane AKA Batwoman, to which she laughs and says she always knew. Together they recruit Tim Drake (Red Robin), Stephanie Brown (Spoiler), Cassandra Cain (Orphan) and Clayface to form a team and set up a new base called The Belfry, which stands in the middle of Gotham. The premise alone is worth the buy but the characterisations are fantastic too, particularly with Clayface. Traditionally a villain, Basil Karlo joins the team with the promise from Bruce that he can get his life back, and its his ascendance from a villain to a hero in his own right that shows what this book is capable of doing. Tynion is onto something with this series and i hope he is on it for a long time to come. The only downside is that inconsistent art teams on the series, Eddy Barrows and  Alvaro Martinez provide artwork for the first dozen or so issues but on an inconsistent basis that makes it jarring if you read in trades. - 9/10

All-Star Batman - I really enjoy Scott Snyder’s work, he likes to tell big stories and isn’t afraid of rocking out in the process. The first story revolves around Bruce and Duke trying to transport Two-Face to a location for a cure to his mental illness but being stopped along the way by all manner of criminals looking to collect on a bounty put up by Harvey’s bad side. The back up story about Duke is rather interesting because it reveals for the first time that Duke is in fact a meta-human, the story ended but is going to be picked up in Metal at some stage i believe as well as the upcoming Batman: The Signal mini-series. The artwork of the series has been surprisingly experimental in places but it’s also been very good. A very good series, any time Snyder writes Batman you’re in for a treat but the series did feel like it had ran out of steam a little bit with the last arc. Still, a must-read for Batman fans, especially those who loved the New 52 series. - 8/10

Batgirl - A so-so series thus far, Hope Larson falls into the trap of having to serve up Barbara Gordon a love interest in each arc and it becomes predictable when a single young male turns up on the scene that Babs is going to have feelings for them. Was not a fan of Albuquerque on art, it felt very rushed, but Chris Wildgoose stepped up and brought a sense of the familiar when Batgirl returned to Burnside. There’s lot of work to do to get this series to be a must-read. - 5/10

Nightwing - The book picks up from the end of Grayson as well as Robin War with Dick Grayson returning to his classic blue Nightwing costume in order to go undercover at the Court of Owls, and later he returns to his pre-Flashpoint home of Bludhaven. Writer Tim Seeley takes on Dick Grayson minus his Grayson cohort Tom King and he brings a sense of stability to the series that some will find comforting if they’re moving over from Grayson to this book. Seeley hasn’t been afraid to take risks with Nightwing and it pays off with some really personal story telling later on in the series that will call back to the days of Grant Morrison’s Batman & Robin run. Coupled with the nice artwork from Javier Fernandez, Marcus To and Minkyu Jung, Nightwing has been one of the more consistently enjoyable books of Rebirth and is well worth checking out. - 8.5/10

Batgirl & The Birds Of Prey - In stark comparison to the other Batgirl title, this one is incredibly well written by the Benson sisters (who are also writers on the excellent TV show The 100) and while the artwork hasn’t been the best, it’s still perfectly serviceable and doesn’t spoil the book at all. The writing almost makes me feel like the Benson sisters are acting out the script of each issue because the conversations between Barbara, Helena and Dinah feel so natural and funny too. This book is easily one of the most underrated of Rebirth, it should just be Birds Of Prey though. The recent additions of Catwoman and Poison Ivy to the line up has been refreshing to the series too, so hopefully the Bensons are free to be a bit more liberal with the line up. - 9/10

Red Hood & The Outlaws - If someone told me in January 2016 that i would be recommending a Scott Lobdell series i would have laughed in their face, but here we are and i’m about to eat some serious humble pie. RHATO is not only one of the best written series in Rebirth but also one of the best looking ones too. Pairing Jason Todd with Artemis (not the one from Young Justice) and Bizarro was a stroke of genius. Artemis challenges Jason to be a more moral man and Bizarro brings out a side of Jason that can only be described really as fatherly. Their moniker of the “Dark Trinity” is not very accurate as there’s not much dark about them, except that they are willing to do things that the classic Trinity are not. Lobdell strikes a great serious tone with a funny one too but he doesn’t overdo it like he has with his other works. Perhaps the only complaint i would have is that he’s yet to have that big storyline just yet that makes you go “fuck yeah!” but i’m sure it’s coming. The artwork by Dexter Soy and colourist Veronica Gandini is so incredibly well done too, with fantastic detail and colour and an almost anime feel to it. Just like New Super-Man, this book flies under the radar for most people but it is well worth reading. - 9.5/10

Batman Beyond - My first big exposure to Batman Beyond was via the Futures End series so some of the references and characters are a little lost on me. The story telling beats are solid though and the art is very nice. Probably one for the die-hards though. - 7/10

Batwoman - This was one of the first Wave 2 books and is only a handful of issues in, but so far i really like it. I’m not sure how the writing duties work with Marguerite Bennett and James Tynion on the title but it’s clear the book is well plotted. Steve Epting on art duties provides a moody backdrop to the series that suits it well, but i wonder how it would translate to other locales. Solid so far, can’t wait to see where Kate Kane goes from here and teaming her up with Alfred’s daughter Julia is a big plus too. - 7/10

Conclusions

The Bat Family of books have always maintained a high level of quality and that continues into Rebirth. It’s strange but the only two books i have problems with are the ones that were very popular in the New 52 era, Batman and Batgirl. I don’t see changes happening any time soon though, Batman is still DC’s biggest selling comic and Batgirl is still popular in her Burnside guise too, but i would like to see a change in writer for each book to change things up a little bit.

Just like with the Superman Family of books, the big winners from Rebirth are the ones who were let down by the New 52 era such as Tim Drake and Jason Todd. A real sense of legacy is coming out of these books right now and it’s a great time to be a Batman fan.

Thanks for reading!

Next up: The Justice League!