#and hal is a heart player. probably. so

[moldsporr]

*checks calendar* yea we can have a valentines day lookin pfp sure

[sapwine-and-starcharts]

19, 20, 28, 31, and 32 (and freebie if you want!!) for the ask game i NEED to know more about mylo heehee

!!!! TYSM for sending an ask!

So 19 was already asked in [THIS] ask but as for the rest of them

20. What is your Hatchling’s favorite planet?

Okay so. Obvious answer is the Interloper because that was literally their obsession since they were a wee hatchling, but TECHNICALLY that's a comet and not a planet so...

If Mylo had to pick a favourite planet it would probably be Giant's deep! It's where Gabbro is and the only planet that is mildly unstressful.

Sure the Ember Twin has Chert on it but it's also where they experienced one of the worst deaths they've been through. Brittle hollow's got the black hole, dark bramble is SCARY, and timber hearth is too bitter sweet.

Giant's deep, while filled with tornadoes, atleast has a hammock they can curl up in and their Time Buddy who always welcomes them with open arms.

28. Is your Hatchling a decent pilot? Were they always that way?

Oh stars no. Even after a solid YEAR or so of looping they still bonk their landing gear on rocks or set their auto pilot too soon leaving Timber Hearth and get slingshotted into the ground by the atmosphere. (Totally not because I, the player who controls them, am terrible at flying lmaoooo)

31. Is your Hatchling flirtatious?

NO LMAO. I feel like they try to be a little bit but they are so silly and dorky that they just can't pull it off. Plus they crumble into dust whenever anyone flirts with them, cannot dish AND cannot take.

32. Is your Hatchling dating anyone? If so, who?

OH BOY. AN EXCUSE TO GO OFF ABOUT STARTNERS??? YIPPEEE!!

You have no idea what you've just unleashed.

Okay, so simple answer is that Mylo is dating Chert and are ???ing Gabbro.

(Gonna put the long version as well as the freebie under the cut cause its getting LONG already)

Chert and Mylo were hatchlinghood friends, often spending hours just studying and reading together in the Observatory library before it got converted into the museum.

Mylo spent ALOT of the loops comforting them until eventually they realised their true feelings for them (Sapwine and Starcharts).

And like, falling in love with someone that would never remember HURTS so they also spent a good chunk of time both in the loops and post loops where they ignored their Star Pal until they get confronted about it and eventually end up spilling the beans (Starfilled Hearts / the retconned slowburn version i'm working on)

Here's where things get COMPLICATED tho. Cause during their time avoiding Chert they spent more and more time with Gabbro until they start to wonder if there's deeper feelings there.

They quickly realise there isn't, but it also doesn't feel the same as their friendship with Hal who was their best friend in the whole world.

Their feelings for Gabbro were way more intense but they they were different from the way they felt about Chert. Mylo can't for the life of them figure out what to call it. (But i can <3 They're Platonic Soulmates. Maybe in a QPR but i haven't done enough research on it to label it that yet)

The line of friendship is so blurry for the Time Buddies already and it only gets blurrier when Gabbro start's coming around Chert and Mylo's place post loops + post Ember Twin because they've been having nightmares and Mylo is the only one who Gets It. And since its late at night, Mylo just lets Gabbro into bed with them for comfort cuddles.

Chert's initially confused by this but eventually comes around to having Gabbro being over so often until it just becomes routine and Chert and Mylo's place becomes Chert, Mylo, and Gabbro's place.

In short, Mylo's weird as hell relationship with Chert and Gabbro can be summed up with two memes:

'Ah yes. Me, my partner, and their 6'2" Time Buddy'

and

2. 'Polycule but it’s just two people in a romantic relationship with each other and their third who’s pretty obviously aroace but also somehow so deeply intertwined in their lives that it’d just be wrong to not count them as involved. Is this anything.'

(Ace for Ace for Aro ChertMyloGabbro is another big part of their relationship. I will DIE on the aromantic Gabbro / Platonic Soulmate!Time Buddies hill okay?)

Anyways, they make me actually insane. Like my brain is about to explode thinking about them. The time buddies, the star pals, the startners...

I REALLY hope all of that made sense lmao

50. Freebie

I know this is supposed to be like headcanon stuff but for this post i kinda wanna use it to show off my favourite pieces of them :}

Thank you so much again for asking me about Mylo, all of these questions make me so happy :'}

[badlydrawnbabydirk]

theory time because someone else sent one and I've been holding this between my teeth since I saw that one gif. from this post.

Dirk is a Heart player and Heart is about souls. Dirk is a baby and also has not played the game yet so obviously cannot really control is powers, but as evidenced by Hal in canon— and maybe/probably even Brobot, who he sent to Jake— he can clearly still USE them, even if it's not really a conscious thing.

so like. with robro here. he wasn't built to be a person, we all know that. most of us are probably quite glad that he is !! I sure am. but it wasn't in his design parameters. he was supposed to be a nannybot to keep Dirk alive until he could take care of himself, basically. but what I'm thinking here is that baby Dirk has everything to do with his sapience and having A!Dave's memories. to Dirk, this is his Bro. he's a baby and doesn't understand things like Being Alive yet.

but on some unconscious, soul deep level, the baby has poured his love for robro into making him Real. it's giving me extreme Velveteen Rabbit vibes and I'm dying.

most of my internal thoughts on this are just incoherent wailing so I hope I've presented this in a way that makes sense because Words Are Hard, to quote these youtubers I like named Evan and Katelyn. but like. I've been absolutely freaking out and losing it over this idea since that post dropped. you get it right like do you get it

I feel bad for robro, that he has to know that he's sort of a cosmic accident, or however else you want to look at it. but I'm also glad that he gets to love Dirk fully, and that little baby Dirk gets a real guardian after all. (and I am pointedly ignoring how hard I want to cry at that other asker's theory about an 8 year old Dirk's tragic lack of mechanical engineering skills. nope. no thank you <3)

// DING DING DING YOU FUCKING GOT ITTTTT

[ilona2nerrie]

Ghost!Bruce au: chapter 6 – realities

Tagged:

@cheffebear

@kittensniker-meh

@animatedmess

@hngryazn

@thequeenluffy

@lilibean96

@super-cold

@gothamizhome

@beanscreations

@kyistell

@s-ourbuns

@confissoesliricas

@itsmeairix

Ghost!Bruce Au before this chapter:

Ghost!Bruce: Chapter one, heart.

Ghost!Bruce: Chapter two, heat.

Ghost!Bruce: Chapter Three, touch.

Ghost!Bruce: Chapter Four, feelings.

Ghost!Bruce: Chapter Five, emotions.

Ghost!Bruce: Chapter Six, realities.

Hey guys!! I’m back with another chapter, and guess what?!? I’m on AO3 now!!! You can access my acc here and if you make it over there, please leave a comment if you make it over so I can check if the links working. Thanks for being a reader, enjoy!

————————————————————————————————————————

The two stayed wrapped up in each other’s arms for a long time that afternoon, and too soon the justice pads went off with an emergency alert. Bruce sighed and looked over at Clark.

“c’mon,” he said, grabbing Clark’s hand and unbuttoning his shirt.

“I have the suit on under this, cowls in my bag. I assume you have a suit?”

Clark nodded at that and scooped Bruce up in his arms once the two were done talking, smiling at him with a soft look as they took off.

When they got to the scene, Bruce was definitely surprised. Instead of what he assumed he was going to see, which was a usual villain and maybe something disturbing, instead he saw everyone just being still, Clark took a few steps for, freezing when he heard shouts from everyone else. Clark froze a little too late, a pink square lighting up under him, a text appearing above saying:

‘You have joined the game.’

Bruce surveyed the scene with a critical eye.

Diana looked over at him.

“it’s a new villain, game master. We have to complete the game to reach her, we cannot leave this illusion square unless it is our turn when the dice comes.”

Bruce nodded, an impassive look on his face.

“And none of you have moved because?”

“Because, bats,” Hal started sarcastically. “You can’t move a piece, or us, without a player. And no one has challenged her yet, because civilians tend to run away.”

Bruce nodded and walked over. Stopping at the line and looking across the metaphorical board over to the game master.

“So, you’re the one I have to challenge?”

Her gaze fell onto Bruce, and she looked at him with a bemused expression.

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Shri drawled, a small grin gracing her face as she spoke. “no one ethos challenged me has lived to tell the tale.”

Barry snorted to himself somewhere in the distance. Hal, who was on the same tile as him, hit him over the head. Although he was smiling covertly as well. Barry had probably told him about Bruce being kind of dead over pillow talk one night. Clark just glanced over at his boyfriend out the corner of his eye.

“I don’t think that will be a very big problem for me, Game master.”

She just laughed, deciding to indulge him. She officially made him the challenger, and the game started. Learning to play was a little tricky for Bruce. He almost got his teammates killed on multiple moves; it was confusing when you weren’t told the rules. Or how to play. But he got the hang of it quick, fighting back with just as much ferocity.

It was mostly going well, till Bruce won. He had tried to run over to Clark once the game was complete, but he found he couldn’t walk any further. He pressed a palm to the invisible barrier and looked back at the game master. Who smiled. “small problem,” she said, “people have challenged me and won. They just haven’t survived. You really should learn to read the thing you agreed to.”

Clark picked up on the last but of that conversation and looked over to see Bruce staring at the Game master. He tried to rush to Bruce but felt himself be stopped in his tracks by a physical light wall. He banged on it, just looking inside.

Bruce looked at her, blinking.

“Yeah, uh, you’re not going to be able to kill me. Its just not really possible.”

“Oh yeah? You sure, pretty? You look like a human in a fur-suit.”

“One, this isn’t a fur suit. There is no fur at all. Two, I think I’m human?”

“Huh? Wha- never mind.”

She scoffed and walked word; Bruce took a step back.

“Hey, no touching. I don’t like people touching me.”

She raised and eyebrow, pausing. She took a second to think, looking him up and down before nodding.

“Ok, that’s fair. Ill just kill you with no contact.” She said then held out her hand and just shot him with some kind light that just went through his skull. Clark winced, Diana yelled, Arthur stared, barry just sighed, Hal looked at barry to get his reaction and Bruce just fell, till his head exploded into a shadow before re-forming.

There was a… visceral reaction.

And Bruce just sat up, rubbing his head.

“That was quite rude of you.” He muttered annoyed, as the villain stared.

“What- I- I don’t understand, how-“

“I told you it wouldn’t work. I’m not exactly, well, alive. Stupid.”

She gaped at him, and he hooked cuffs off his belt and hooked it around her hands, then pulling her by the chains to the authorities. After he just dusted his hands off as he felt Clark hug him from behind.

“I hate that,” he murmured in Bruce’s ear, huffing. “don’t just let that happen, its freaky.”

(doesn’t know in this au, roll with it.)

Bruce didn’t give Clark a response, just patting his head softly. They had no idea the whole thing was filmed, from Bruce’s ‘death’ to the nuzzling….

God jimmy was gonna get paaaaid for this.

[ominus-potato]

I made a tier list based on which SMG4 characters I think would survive Alice in Borderland!

Survives-

Mario: plot armour is the only reason he makes it through this thing. Otherwise, he’d be dead first game.

Meggy: she’s sporty, smart, cunning and good with weapons. She survives.

Saiko: again, strong, smart, good with weapons, good with violence, etc. she clears these games.

Karen: if she’s fighting to see her kids again then absolutely nothing will deter this woman. She will kill and fight whoever she has to in order to live. Karen lives.

Niles: I can see him having a similar approach to these games that Chishiya did in the actual show. Sits back and watches the others and then learns from their experiences. Cunning with every move he makes and being chill throughout the whole thing. Even if he gets injured he’d be good. I reckon he’d easily clear Heart games.

Wren: incredibly good shot and is probably the one to take down the King of Spades. I can see him having a similar role to Aguni in the actual show. His skills with weapons and fighting is what carries him through these games.

Dies during face card games-

Bob: definitely tried to take on the King of Spades alone and died instantly.

Kaizo: probably was a casualty in the final fight against the King of Spades. A lot of these guys are probably going to be killed by him tbh.

Chris: sacrificed himself like Tatta did in the King of Clubs game. He managed to grab 10,000 points for his team but died as a result.

Belle: She lost to the Queen of Spades. She was the person on her team who was unable to switch sides and as things grew dire, her team betrayed her in order to save their own asses.

Desti: Would have survived but she died to protect Meggy. Probably when fighting off the King of Spades.

Lasts a while but dies before face cards-

SMG3: He got a little cocky that he had managed to survive for so long and as a result, his guard dropped and he died in a game that he chose to play before his Visa was even up.

Tari+Clench: managed to survive out of pure luck for many games (mostly thanks to Saiko) but in the end, she was in a similar situation to the Hide and Seek game and died so that Saiko could live. Similar to Chota I reckon.

Melony: doesn’t take the games too seriously and assumes it’s all just a dream. Her relaxed attitude to the games means that she’s lasts a while but unfortunately she’s not invincible.

Shroomy: his survival instincts and weapons knowledge make it so he lasts a long time and has potential to survive all of the games. Unfortunately, he is too trusting and ends up being stabbed in the back by a random player.

Swag: Chris carries him through their previous games but Swag thinks that he’s be better off without him. They fight, Swag joins a game alone to prove he can do just fine without Chris, he dies.

Hal: skills and knowledge carry him far but he eventually also fails. It’s likely he was trying to help other people survive and as a result got killed.

Lasts 2-3 games-

SMG4: Stumbles through his first game, barely surviving and dies in the second. He doesn’t last long in this world.

Axol: dies in his third game trying to protect Melony. Even then, she doesn’t think he’s ACTUALLY dead. She’s a little lonely after his death but just assumes she’ll see him again after the games.

SMG1: short, stubby legs. He gets put in a Spades game and dies.

SMG2: same as SMG1. Neither of them are equipped for Spades games.

SMG0: somehow made it through his first game (Niles probably carried him) but Niles ditched him in the second, realising that he probably wouldn’t survive very long with him around.

Mr Puzzles: barely survived his first game and ended up being killed in his second. Someone probably used him as a sacrifice to save their own ass.

Beeg: SMG4 helped him out in the first game but one Four was dead, he didn’t stand much of a chance alone. His Visa ran out.

I don’t think the rest need explaining. They were either betrayed, ran out of a game, did something stupid or didn’t take it seriously.

Anyway, yeah! Just a fun little cross-fandom thing in case there are any SMG4 fans who also watch Alice in Borderland!

[davekat-sucks]

I always thought Equius fans were so forced and fake. Ohh yeahh sexy muscle horseman only loved for being...That

Other Equius fans would also be ones that self insert as him to be with someone like Aradia for obvious reasons. But I like to think there are probably people out that that do wish his character is explored that is not just about him as Nepeta's moirail. Like explore his side of racism. He made an exception to respect Karkat as a leader, but still treats Aradia as his lover because she still needed the robot body. How does he approach to other people like Tavros or Sollux? Does he treat Tavros slightly better because he's kind to Nepeta? Does Equius treat Sollux the same way as Eridan does? Also explore him being the outsider of Lord English's plan when he sees Gamzee and Dirk committing these atrocious crimes. Could he have stopped it from happen? Has it happened before but failed? Or was he pushed over the edge as well just like them and because of him being a Void player, his crimes were undetected by the meta narrative and Paradox Space? As ARquius, did a part of Equius have any objections to Lil Hal's plans. Or was the AI's mind that strong, being part of the Prince of Heart, that it overrides Equius' Void powers. There's a lot to think about for Equius. Andrew Hussie may pass him as a joke character and another part of himself, but he accidentally created another character with great potential too.

[nocompromise-noregrets]

💖🍖🌈🍩❌ dealers choice please? <3

oooh thank you! and I'm sorry it's taken me a couple of days...now, let's see. Which ones haven't I done so far? *ponders* y'know what, I'm going to do Two of a Kind, because I deserve a treat. :D I know hardly anyone cares about my disastrous boys but I do and I'm going to make that everyone's problem. XDDDDD

💖 [Heart] What is your favorite moment in this WIP? It's hard to say but I think it's probably the moment in chapter 15 of Hal Peacock's Life Is Perfectly Fine As It Is, Thank You when Jack, at the absolute end of his tether, accidentally-on-purpose spills Hal's second-most closely-guarded secret in front of the people he's keeping it secret from, and in the process completely accidentally spills his own second-most closely-guarded secret in front of the person he's keeping it secret from (Hal, in other words). The chapter summary is In which Jack lobs a grenade into Hal’s personal life, but manages to get himself caught in the blast. and it really really is exactly that dramatic. Idiots. :D

🍖 [Meat] How many fictional people were harmed in the making of this WIP? Three, I think - Hal, Jack, and Lawrie (Hal's partner in guitar-related crime who spends the first few chapters in rehab and then the next few not getting on spectacularly well with his boyfriend as a result).

🌈 [Rainbow] If at the beginning of your WIP the characters knew about the end, would they kill you to stop you from writing it? Oh, absolutely. Jack has made many, many attempts on my life over the years. :D He's more or less resigned to it at this point but that's only because we've managed to get him to a much better place as a result of the story.

🍩 [Donut] What's the weirdest thing someone eats in your WIP? What's the best thing? Food doesn't get mentioned very much, probably because it's not all that important to me and I'd rather just get on with the story, I can't be bothered with wasting time describing what everyone's eating, but Jack has a very entertaining voyage of discovery with relation to mulled wine towards the end of part 3. There's a barbecue in the current final chapter of that part, which I haven't got to yet, but nothing particularly weird gets eaten there either. Jack does, however, absolutely pull Christmas dinner out of the bag, despite never having actually done Christmas before.

❌ [Cross] What would your WIP get cancelled on Twitter for? ahahahahahahAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA oh my god, literally everything about it. Hal and Jack spent their teenage years on the street earning their living from sex work, Jack is a CSA survivor, there is drug use and irresponsible, (possibly unprotected, I can't remember) sex and a lot of swearing and both of them existing in close proximity to a kid (Hal has a daughter) and Jack is utterly obnoxious, antisocial and very poorly adjusted; neither of them are dealing with their trauma very well at all; there's a drag queen and mention of kink at Pride in some of the later ficlets, a lot of antisocial punk rock n' roll, almost everyone is queer (Hal's band is described more than once as 'the gayest band in the North'), Hal is bi/pan, Jack's demi/ace and has no idea until one of the later ficlets, Hal's bass player is a lesbian Black woman in a rock band, there's an aroace character, Hal's ex (the kid's mother) is biracial although it hasn't actually come up yet (her father is Ugandan Asian, I think, although I haven't quite figured it all out yet, and her mother's parents were of the Windrush generation), it's originally loosely inspired by real people, I could genuinely go on all day. Twitter would hate it. On the other hand, if that sounds like something anyone here might be interested in, the whole series is here. :D :D :D

wheeee thank you for asking! anyone else want to ask me any questions about any of my WIPs? (especially more questions about Two of a Kind actually, because I really enjoyed this :D :D :D )

[criticalrolo]

🤥🌋🌌❤️ for hal!

thank youuuU

🤥 LYING - are they good liars? do they have tells to show they’re lying?

Yup, it's that 20 charisma at work! (Stats wise idk if they're proficient in Deception but it's definitely an idea I'm tossing around!) I think his tells are really subtle but once you catch on they're easy to pick up -- something like he tends rub his fingers togethers when he's being deceptive.

🌋 VOLCANO - how bad is their temper? is it a slow boil, or a instant explosion?

I feel like if Hal is angry you're gonna know about it lmao he's got that FIGHT response going babey!! Anger isn't one of the emotions he tends to stew on (he marinates in guilt instead!) so it shows up in a flash more often. He got muzzled in the Kennels for a reason (biting)!

🌌 MILKY WAY - what was the inspiration behind your oc? what was the first thing you decided about them?

I read through the Dread Metrol player's guide, saw the section about Lots of Human Experimentation Going On in the Metrol Kennels, got heart eyes and instantly wanted to make a fucked up little experiment of a man. I'm also recycling some ideas from characters like Thalia and Remus with a more explicit focus on "wouldn't it be fucked up to be a guy permanently altered because he's full of angels??" because I Love Aasimar So Much. I'm also a known surgery in dnd fan so. Here We ARE

I think the very first thing I decided on for them was that Hal Is Going To Be An Idealist trapped in a city that has crushed the idealism out of pretty much everyone after four years of a siege. I was trying to picture "what kind of person gets selected for Angel Experimentation?" and landed on: the one guy who still thinks the world can be a better place after ALL THAT. I think it's fun to turn an idea like "he loves Life and Being Alive" on its head into something that's actually quite fucked for the guy in question (loves life so much that he'll do anything to Stay Alive).

❤️ RED HEART - their love language(s)?

it feels too mean to say physical touch after everything ive put this dude through, although if he got to the point of being calm enough around someone to let them like, hold his hand or play with his hair I think that would fix him a solid 30%

in the MEANTIME I think -- quality time? someone Voluntarily deciding to spend their free time in his vicinity doing Whatever would probably go a LONG way for him

[trembling-amber]

I'm only doing my player characters cause otherwise it would get very long haha

Halley Branson, known as the Capricious Fabulist or the Wistful Correspondent, depending on the circles you frequent. Sometimes they're called Hal or Bran by those close to them. An artist, a true bohemian, a very good storyteller and a big liar with fickle moods. Most people do not know anything about their life on the surface because they keep on lying about it. Might or might have been married and had a kid back then. Also he's playing in the Marvellous, to win to their heart's desire (although they still do not know what that is. They might never know what they want.)

(dr.) Pierce Wilson, the Pertinacious Researcher. Came here for mysterious reason(some say he is avenging the death of a person close to him, perhaps a late wife?) Remained for even more mysterious reasons (and to hunt the vake!). Dabbles in all kinds of sciences, kind of a polymath, a true genius. Is close to the Great Game, though he's growing disdain for it. Weirdly close to the Capricious Fabulist (<- is the husband Branson had on the surface that he keeps lying about. Also the father to their daughter, Lucy)

Lord Flaviu Constantinov, the Nonchalant Romantic (athough his title will probably change in the future). A shadowy dandy, a jaded socialate, a thief and an uncharacteristically romantic mourner, he is secretly avenging the murder of his late wife Edith, and is a (well meaning but not very invested) father to their child, Vy, for whom he has hired a guverness. (is the older brother by 5 years to Branson) Kind of a scandal magnet with his tendencies to bed a lot of people. Very popular at parties.

Cinder 'Cindy' Corbin, the Combustible Bandit. A well-meaning thief, but with a tendecy to get easily annoyed and argue and fight, far more dangerous and watchful rather than shadowy, which does make her a little bad at stealing sometimes. They say that she's an orphan, that she worked for a doctor on the surface, stealing corpses for him so he could do medical research. They say that she never takes off her mask. On the trail to steal a diamond the size of a cow.

#0

What is your character's name? Do they have any epithets? Nicknames? In the most basic sense, who are they? Give us a general overview of their character, as quickly as you can.

[moldsporr]

not a Dirkhal thing specifically, but if Hal had a classpect, do you think it'd be the same as Dirks?

My gut instinct is that he'd be a heart player.

I usually keep Hal as a prince of heart cuz he's still Dirk, just on a different path- like how Bro still shows prince of heart-stuff despite being different from Dirk. Plus I loooove the prince outfit it's so cute. Though, he does treat the other splinters differently than Dirk does, probably on account of being a splinter himself. So I can totally see him having a different classpect

If I were to pick a different classpect, there's been a handful I've seen that I really like !! Heart-wise I really like Witch and Mage Hal... i think they both fit really well and I love the outfits. If I were to pick one, I'd pick Witch.

Mind is also a super popular aspect for him, I've seen Sylph and Prince. I don't like having him as Dirk's complete opposite, but I think it'd be fun having him be a prince of the opposite aspect!!

I also saw page of life, which really interesting... page Hal is a really fun concept especially when you think about his relationship with Jake lol. U guys are more similar than you think... also life yaaaay Janey!!!!!

I think it'd be interesting for Dirk to see Hal with a different classpect. The narrative kinda treats classpects as the end-all-be-all with very little wiggle room, so seeing a You with a different one would be Odd for a lot of them

[that-one-enby-ranger]

My Fictional Crushes

So like a lot of people I, of course, have quite a lot of fictional crushes. And by quite a lot I mean 106. I made a list yesterday and felt like sharing it because why the actual fuck not. I'm not gonna put any tags though because it's gonna take too long and I honestly don't care if people see this or not it's more just for fun. There are a few questionable ones on here (serial killers) that might need a bit of an explanation so I shall try and provide. These aren't in any particular order they just got put on when I remembered them.

Halt O'Carrick - Rangers Apprentice (Number 1 boy)

Gilan Davidson - Rangers Apprentice

Will Treaty - Rangers Apprentice

Horace Altman - Rangers Apprentice

Crowley Meratyn - Rangers Apprentice

Rayla - The Dragon Prince

Callum - The Dragon Prince

Amaya - The Dragon Prince

Runaan - The Dragon Prince

Ethari - The Dragon Prince

Sweeney Todd (He's too amazing for me not to be in love with him. He had motives people.)

Edward Scissorhands (Just look at that adorable confused little bean.)

Adam Maitland - Beetlejuice

Lydia Deetz - Beetlejuice

Antony J. Crowley - Good Omens

Aziraphale - Good Omens

Newton Pulsifier - Good Omens

Victor Van Dort - Corpse Bride

Jack Skellington - Nightmare Before Christmas

Thorn Hammerhand - Brotherband Chronicles

Yondu Udonta - MARVEL

Hank Pym - MARVEL

Tony Stark - MARVEL

Bucky Barnes - MARVEL

Dr. Stephen Strange - MARVEL

Natasha Romanoff - MARVEL

Will Turner - Pirates of the Carribean

Minho - Maze Runner

Newt - Maze Runner

Thomas - Maze Runner

Morgarath - Rangers Apprentice (I know he's horrible but too be fair, he's a tall, pale, black dressed evil villain who sits gayly. He's cool.)

Vaggie - Hazbin Hotel

Millie - Helluva Boss

Blitzo (The O is silent) - Helluva Boss

Stolas - Helluva Boss

Jedediah - Night at the Museum

Ahkmenrah - Night at the Museum

Shrek (He's a fucking legend)

Barnabas Collins - Dark Shadows

Victoria Winters - Dark Shadows

Arthur Kirkland (England) - Axis Powers Hetalia

Francis Bonnefoy (France) - Axis Power Hetalia (I probably spelt his name wrong sorry)

Jareth - Labyrinth

Karl Heisenberg - Resident Evil: Village

Lady Dimetrescu - Resident Evil: Village (I may also have spelt her name wrong. Tall vampire lady)

Stig Olafson - Brotherband Chronicles

Hal Mikkelson - Brotherband Chronicles

Sodapop Curtis - The Outsiders

Dallas Winston - The Outsiders

Darry Curtis - The Outsiders

Steve Randell - The Outsiders

Two-Bit Matthews - The Outsiders

Johnny Cade - The Outsiders

Bill Fucking Cipher - Gravity Falls (He's cool. Everyone loves him.)

Egon Spengler - Ghostbusters

Peter Venkman - Ghostbusters

Austin Powers (I know he's pretty much a sex machine but he's also really kind and caring)

Kenickie Murdoch - Grease

Danny Zuko - Grease

Frenchie - Grease

Betty Rizzo - Grease

Jenny Dalby - Rangers Apprentice

Haymitch - Hunger Games

Lucifer Morningstar - The Netflix show Lucifer

Beelzebub - Good Omens

Mikkel - Brotherband Chronicles (I know he wasn't even really in it but he seemed cool and really nice)

Karina - Brotherband Chronicles (Sweetest mother ever)

The Other Mother - Coraline (Shut the fuck up I like her)

Sir Keren - Rangers Apprentice (He was actually a really cool and interesting villain with actual morals and he did regret his actions.)

Cruella de Vil - 101 Dalmations but I like her more in the movie Cruella

Jafar - Aladdin

Captin Hook - Literally any of the versions of him

Hades - Hercules but just him in general

Dionysus - He's a cool god.

Yzma - Emperors New Groove

Dr Facilier - Princess and the Frog

Queen of Hearts - Alice in Wonderland

Monolo Sanchez - Book of Life

Hector - Coco

Jasper - Cruella

Arty - Cruella

Artemis - Ready Player One

Robin Hood - Any of them apart from the fucking fox. I like Men in Tights version.

Wezley - Princess Bride

Inigo Montoya - Princess Bride

Sheriff Woody - Toy Story (I know its weird and a little bit fucked up but I like him.)

Elsa - Frozen

Merida - Brave

Bo Peep - Toy Story

Kuzco - Emperors New Groove (He's funny)

Flynn Rider - Tangled

Willy Wonka - Johnny Depp's version

Ruv - Friday Night Funkin' Midfight Masses

Sam - Assasins Blade

Michael Afton - FNaF

John - FNaF Novel Trilogy

Barbarossa - Ned's Circus of Marvels (Yes he is a villain. Yes he ia pirate butcher. Yes he is horrible. But he's cool and a pirate and a butcher and I like villains like that.)

Bennissimo - Ned's Circus of Marvels

Loki - MARVEL

Jacob Coote - Looking For Alibrandi

Ryder Dagon - He's a character I made up for a book series I was going to write but gave up on. He's my character. No one else knows him apart from my sibling.

Chloe Decker - Lucifer

Arnold J. Rimmer - Red Dwarf

Alexander Lemtov - Eurovision: The Story of Fire Saga

Rosalina - Mario

Four - Divergent

There are a lot more I just can't think of any at the moment. If you want to y'all can show me a list of your fictional crushes. I won't judge.

[karkatenjoyer]

what your favorite homestuck character says about you

egbert: wow… ur trans gener??? thats so cool. you have a steel-trap mental reservoir of memes and inside jokes, many of which are so niche that only you understand them. shitty movies are your greatest comfort in this world and you kind of know they’re shitty but why must a movie be “good”

dave: you kin dave. you’re kind of embarrassed about liking popular things (homestuck and dave himself included) so you pretend you like them ironically. you have adhd and struggle to do basic household chores. when you see animals you make their animal noise back at them

davesprite: same as dave but your desire to root for the underdog is stronger. you may have grown up in the shadow of an older sibling. or you understand that big-ass wings and sword through the chest is just good character design

jade: you are probably a furry. you are also probably autistic. you went through a phase in the early or mid 2010s where you only wore floral and botanical prints. you genuinely enjoy reading nonfiction reference books. you’re an optimistic sweetheart

rose: you constantly feel like you’re afflicted with divine madness. you like to take things apart to see what makes them work, metaphorically or literally. you are a lesbian. you have mommy issues but you’ve kind of forgiven your mother for causing them

jane: you read nancy drew, junie b. jones, and/or geronimo stilton as a kid. you like cooking and/or baking. you genuinely enjoy logic puzzles like sudoku, crosswords, cryptograms, etc. you’ve either been a camp counselor or would have been a great camp counselor

dirk: you’re an intj. you want to be intimidating but you’re actually extremely awkward and earnest. you read theory. you are very self-critical. you vivdly remember tumblr eras that others strive to forget

hal: same as dirk but significantly more of a rascal plus you have a deep attachment to 2001: a space odyssey (or just sentient bot characters in general)

jake: the hope aspect means a lot to you. you daydreamed throughout all of your classes as a kid (bonus points if this was a symptom of undiagnosed neurodivergence). you probably were/are an adventure time or jojo’s fan

roxy: you play dnd. you have a plethora of blorbos. spell check is turned off on your phone and it shows. there’s way too much on your plate but you would never dream of taking care of yourself before your friends (i love you but c’mon!!). 

aradia: either you want a goth gf or you are a goth gf. you have an interest in witchcraft and/or esoterica. you’ve been through periods of deep depression but you’re ultimately a cheerful and outgoing person

tavros: there is approximately a 90% you’re transmasc. you’ve always used fantasy as an escapist coping mechanism. you’re shy at first but buckwild and super fun once people get to know you

sollux: your sense of humor is very dry. you like bees. you had internet access from too young an age. you’re an extremely reluctant pseudo-babysitter to your friends. you wanna take a nap so bad

karkat: you have numerous and wildly contradictory karkat headcanons. you love to consume media, and you also love to eviscerate the media you consume. you deal with a constant sense of crushing guilt by ceaselessly trying to better your understanding of things, sometimes at the expense of self-compassion. (also you’re soooo epic…. karkat hivemind rise up)

nepeta: you are an autistic catgirl who lives in a cave or you want to be an autistic catgirl who lives in a cave. you definitely read warriors as a kid. you have a kind heart but a very strong stomach (metaphorically speaking). you say :3 and “nya.” you are the backbone of society

kanaya: you generally have excellent taste but your spotify is a fucking mess. you’re a fan of horror movies. you drank coffee in middle school because it made you feel grown up even though you didn’t like the taste. you’re almost certainly autistic (that could be true for a lot of characters tbf but space players are especially autism coded)

terezi: you’re going through a moral or existential crisis at all times but you’re probably laughing about it. as a child you were definitely either a weird girl or weird-girl adjacent. you listen to hyperpop. there’s a good chance you had a life-altering Girl Friendship with your vriska-coded crush

vriska: there’s a good chance you had a life-altering Girl Friendship with your terezi-coded crush. you feel like the villain in your own life, whether or not you actually are. you crave attention, and it troubles you that you do. you feel kinship with pathetic women (affectionate) who cause problems for fun. or, alternately, you are a close personal friend of andrew hussie’s, and you bully minors on twitter

equius: you think he’s funny. or, you started out thinking he was funny, and then became genuinely emotional about how warped his psyche was at such a young age and how much he cared for nepeta. 50/50 chance you’re passionate about some form of dirkquius

gamzee: you think clowns are neat. you remember when gamzee was a sweet little fella who just wanted to share miracles with his friends and you feel genuine (and warranted) disgust at his treatment in the latter part of canon. you might have religious trauma. you really just wanna have a fun time

eridan: you listen to mcr. you used to be a harry potter fan but now you’re non-binary. you feel a connection to the ocean because it is tempestuous and unknowable. you feel a connection with robert pattinson for the same reason

feferi: you tend to be an idealist. empress!fef fascinates you, and you probably prefer to conceptualize her as morally gray despite her good intentions. you’re into eldritch horrors and also cute little knickknacks. you probably had a steven universe phase

i might come back and do the dancestors too because you dancestors fans are very distinct!! 

[simstraffikcone]

okay, so here's mine, I followed your format <3

I did add some explanation for mine mainly when it differs

Summerdreams

Titania - Good with a side of caution (views the Montys and Capps like fun little toys, if she gets bored she might shake things up)

Oberon - Neutral (he's just there to watch the soap opera, observe them like a science experiment, but he'll intervene on the side of good for his wife's sake)

Puck - Good (He is actively trying to be good, but suffers a little from selfishness winning out, it's his fae nature)

Bottom - Versatile (I Think I'll Cause Problems on Purpose/Agent of Chaos/What is the funniest option at the Time)

Capps

Contessa - Versatile/Villain (Side antagonist) (I know she's not innocent, she just gets a free pass because she's dead)

Consort - Villain (He's the acting villain, could still have a redemption arc left in him but suffers from lack of openness)

Goneril - Villain

Albany - Good/Neutral (Follows Goneril's example but not actively villain, he's a villain in the way he's permissive)

Regan - Neutral/Good (like her father, suffers from lack of openness but willing to step up for her family. Really needs a kick to be actively good)

Cornwall - Versatile/Villain (for Kent) (Couldn't care less about the feud if he's honest, follows his wife's example, self serving but not actively hostile unless it's Kent)

Kent - Good

Cordelia - Good (excellent mother, still checking up on her kids even when dead)

Caliban - Versatile (he liked his wife? deadbeat dad in death, never visits)

Tybalt - Versatile/Ultimately Good When It Comes Down to It (antagonist run but if faced with an ultimate choice would end up picking the right one. probably a self-sacrificial one)

Miranda - Versatile (Here for the drama)

Juliette - Versatile/Good (Quite sure this girl would be a big player in the feud if she was not involved with Romeo, hell hath fury)

Hermia - Neutral/Good (if she really has to be but would prefer to stay out of it, urgh fine I'll be good)

Hal - Neutral/Good (a little rough around the edges, but a diamond is still a diamond in the end)

Desdemona - Neutral/Versatile (girl has teeth, just have to wait to see how she uses them)

Ariel - Good

Montys

Patrizio - Versatile/Villain (he's good to his family and his llama)

Isabella - Good (Don't Mess with Her Family Though)

Bianca - Good

Antonio - Good

Hero - Good (but a little bit shifty) (Girl What Did You Do?)

Claudio - Good

Olivia - Good

Mercutio - Versatile/Good (Comes off as the Sunshine Child but If You Dig A Little Deeper/Just Waiting To Be Pushed Into His Villain Arc)

Viola - Ǝ̵̦͓͖̻̣̓̔͂́̑l̵̡̥̺̲͙̇̊̌̚͝b̴̹͚͈̭̟̆̾́̔̚ɿ̵̳͕̘͚̿̋̋̚͜͝i̷̠̻̜͇̋̈́͌͆̇͜Ɉ̶̡͉̼̗͖̿̌̾̅̅ɔ̷͎̰͓̙̀̿͆́͘ͅʜ̴̝̱̙̫̻̊̍̒̌̚ ̷̖̱͚̹͔̒̇̈́̽͝H̵̢̭͚̰̪͐̀͐̍̚o̸̮̙̙͖͋̄̋́̈ͅɿ̶͇̝̯̣̯͌̄̀͒̅ɿ̶̢̩̠̙̫̀̓̀̓́õ̵̡̢͍̪̟̽̔̈́̕ɿ̸̧̗̹̠̮̂̆̍̚͘

Romeo - Good (Questionable/Impulsive choices can spell bad things to happen but ultimately good at heart)

Benedick - Good

Beatrice - Versatile/Good ((Could go either way it depends what happens (Excellent right hook))

I can divide Veronaville into good, villains, neutral and versatile according to my headcanons but I think many might think the opposite of me... 🤣

I divide them quickly without giving explanations, I want to see if you can understand my points of view (and I would be curious to know yours)

Summerdreams

Titania - Good

Oberon - Good BUT he could be dangerous with his magic if angry.

Puck - Good BUT as a goblin he may lose control from time to time due to his nature.

Bottom - Villain (She's a lil brat)

Capps

Contessa - Good

Consort - Versatile but most Good

Goneril - Villain

Albany - Good/Neutral

Regan - Villain

Cornwall - Villain

Kent - Good

Cordelia - Good

Caliban - Villain

Tybalt - Versatile

Miranda - Versatile

Juliette - Good

Hermia - Good

Hal - Neutral

Desdemona - Neutral

Ariel - Good

Montys

Patrizio - Versatile but most Villain

Isabella - Good

Bianca - Good

Antonio - Good

Hero - Good

Claudio - Good

Olivia - Good

Mercutio - Good

Viola - Good

Romeo - Good

Benedick - Good

Beatrice - Good

[so-writing]

Sugar, Honey, Ice and Tea - Matthew Tkachuk (17)

all parts here

-

“Please take these as a gift, from a Flames player, to a very appreciated, supported and loved Flames staffer, my fucking ass,” you said to yourself but brought the bottles into your apartment anyway. 

If Matthew didn’t want to drink the wine and was going to gift it to you with some cheesy note, you were definitely going to help yourself, without thanking him though, because fuck him. 

It was almost noon and you were starving but entirely unwilling to cook yourself something at home so you got dressed and headed out for your favorite little diner. The place was called ‘The Crispy Biscuit’ and you’d been frequenting it since you moved to Calgary. Thirty people in the dining room was pushing capacity but the food was excellent and you never minded waiting to be seated. 

“Good afternoon, dear, haven’t seen you in a little bit,” one of your favorite servers, an older woman with a kind smile named Anna, greeted you warmly, “that hockey team must be keeping you busy!” 

“Hey Anna, they’re doing their best but I’ll always find time to get here.” 

The two of you exchanged pleasant small talk as she lead you to your table. Lucky for you, it wasn’t busy and you were able to be seated immediately. 

“Unsweet tea with two lemons?” 

“I can’t tell if it’s a good or bad thing that I come here so often you know my drink order.” 

“Maybe a little of both,” she gave you a quick wink and smile, “be right back with that.” 

You knew what you were going to order, the grilled cheese sandwich and fry combo, but you looked over the menu anyway. It distracted you enough that you didn’t hear the door open and see the red mass of curls enter the restaurant. 

“Hey, kiddo, how many for you today?” 

“Just me.” 

“First time here?” 

“Yep, how’d you know?” 

“I’d remember a head of hair as good as yours.” 

*

Matthew had never been to ‘The Crispy Biscuit’ but he’d just completed an eight mile run and he was fucking hungry. The place seemed innocent enough, and he planned to treat himself to something outside his meal plan after that run, so he headed inside. 

“Hey kiddo,” a kind older woman greeted him with a big smile, “how many for you today?” 

“Just me.”

“First time here?” 

How could she have known that? Matthew was skeptical but she was incredibly nice and he needed to eat as soon as he could.

“Yep, how’d you know?”

“I’d remember a head of hair as good as yours.”

He blushed at her comment and followed her to a booth against the wall. The restaurant wasn’t very busy and as soon as he was seated, his eyes were glued to the menu. 

“Here, honey, water with lemon. Do you need a minute with the menu?”

He looked up for the first time and he froze when he saw her sitting in the next booth.

“Yes, if you don’t mind?”

“Not at all, I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“Thank you.”

What the fuck was she doing there? Of all places in Calgary, why was she there? He couldn’t catch a fucking break.

*

Anna set your iced tea in front of you and took your order.

“Ol’ reliable, yeah? I’ll put it in now dear."

Anna took your order to the kitchen and you passed the time by allowing yourself to swim in your thoughts until a voice you knew all too well pulled you to the surface. 

“Thank you.”

Matthew fucking Tkachuk was sitting in the booth next to yours. Of course he fucking was, but what had you done to deserve it? As far as you knew, this was your place and your place alone. Matthew didn’t get to just come in and take over, especially after everything that had gone down between the two of you.

You kept your eyes down but felt his gaze on you and you knew he had seen you, just as you had seen him. 

“Ready to order, dear?” 

You heard Anna asking Matthew if he was ready but you couldn’t look up at either of them. 

“I actually need another minute, but my friend is sitting at that booth, do you mind if I join her?” 

“Are you one of those hockey players keeping her busy?”

“Yeah,” you didn’t see his soft smile, “guilty as charged.”

“Go on over and join her, this is her day off though, so be gentle.”

Your heart swelled at Anna’s words. She knew nothing about you other than the information you had divulged while sitting at one of her tables, information she didn’t have to remember or even care about but she did anyway. 

The happiness you felt dissipated as soon as you heard Matthew slide into the booth across from you and set his water glass on the table.

“Hey.” 

*

It was a risk and he knew it, but there she was.

The stars had aligned and he had to fucking go for it, because when would be a better time than now? 

“My friend is sitting at that booth, do you mind if I join her?” 

“Are you one of those hockey players keeping her busy?” 

“Yeah,” shit, she talked about the team to this woman, “guilty as charged.” 

“Go on over and join her, this is her day off though, so be gentle.” 

Matthew quietly slid into the booth across from her and kept his eyes on her while she kept her own on her fingernails that she was picking at. 

“She told me to be gentle, which I intend to be, but we’ve gotta talk.” 

“There’s nothing to talk about, Matthew. I was clear in my email.”

She still wasn’t willing to meet his eyes but at least she was responding, he was going to take that as a small victory. 

“I know, I understand. You just want to be coworkers, and I want us to be together, so why don’t we compromise on something between? Friends?” 

Another big risk, and a conclusion that he wasn’t entirely sure he had completely accepted, but it was all or nothing in that moment. She didn’t respond, but Anna saved them from the awkwardness by bringing two plates full of fries and grilled cheese sandwiches with ranch on the side. 

“I figured I’d just double her order, since it’s your first time here and she’s a veteran, she knows what’s good. Is that okay?”

“That’s perfect, thank you.” 

*

“That’s perfect, thank you.”

Fuck Matthew and his manners and his kindness and his shitty hockey play and his stupid feelings.

Fuck, did he really just say that?

“You want us to be together?”

You spat the question at him as you dipped a fry in the ranch and popped it into your mouth, “you really want that?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t fucking believe you, Tkachuk. Now, after that, I’m never going to believe a single thing you say.” 

“Why not?”

This had to be an elaborate joke that the entire team, hell, maybe the entire Flames organization was in on. 

“Why not?! Matthew, I don’t think you’re as stupid as I wish you were, so you can probably figure it out.”

The two of you sat in silence, eating together in the same booth while being a thousand miles apart mentally. 

“This is why I’m offering to be friends. You’re pissed at me, I’ve been shitty to you for a long time and I know it and I’m sorry.”

“I don’t accept any of it. Not your apology and definitely not your feelings.”

*

“I don’t accept any of it. Not your apology and definitely not your feelings.” 

He expected it, he was going to have to work for her and he was willing to, but that didn’t mean her initial rejection of him didn’t hurt. 

“How is your grilled cheese? Hal uses garlic butter, garlic makes everything taste better.”

“It’s good, and I agree, garlic is the shit.” 

“That’s one thing we can agree on, Matthew. Garlic is, indeed, the shit.” 

She finished her food, excused herself from the table and left the restaurant twenty minutes before Matthew finished eating. He was aware of her departure this time, because he wasn’t going to make that mistake again, and he let her go without saying a word. 

As soon as Matthew cleaned his plate, he took a photo and sent it.

*

It was reminiscent of your ‘date’ and you were so pissed off you had a hard time thinking straight. 

It was a song you’d sang in the past, fuck him, fuck him, fuck. him. Matthew didn’t deserve you or anything to do with you. 

You were perched on your couch as Onyx purred on your shoulder when he sent the message. It was a photo of his empty plate from the diner.

“Did they pump these sandwiches full of drugs? They’re fucking incredible! I hope you don’t mind me becoming a regular.”

Of course you minded, but you didn’t want anything to do with Matthew fucking Tkachuk.

You didn’t respond to his message, because as much as you hated him and wanted nothing to do with him, you just couldn’t commit to letting him go. 

-

Study questions at the end the chapter (lol school): (1) Is she better off with Matt? (2) Is she better off alone? (3) Should she end up with Brady? (4) How do you want this to end? -- send all answers to ask

[davidmann95]

How about those JL storyboards?

In case you haven’t heard, Zack Snyder is putting on display the ‘storyboards’ - i.e. a rough plot summary accompanied by some Jim Lee sketches - for what would have been Justice League 2 and 3, or as this puts it 2 and ‘2A’. You can see them here (I imagine better-quality versions will soon be released), and read a transcript here. This is evidently a very early version: this was apparently pitched prior to the release of BvS and Justice League being rewritten in the wake of it, with numerous plot details that now don’t line up with what we know about the Snyder Cut, plus it outright mentions it builds on the originally planned versions of the Batman and Flash movies. But it’s a broad outline of what was gonna go down, and while I initially thought it was Snyder throwing in the towel, the timing - paired with the ambiguity left by the necessity for changes, including that this doesn’t factor whatever that “massive cliffhanger” at the end of the Cut is - says to me he’s hoping this’ll be a force multiplier behind efforts to will sequel/s into existence. He’s probably right.

I’ll be discussing spoilers below, but in short: with this Zack Snyder has finally lived up to Alan Moore, in that like Twilight of the Superheroes I wouldn’t believe this was real as opposed to a shockingly on-point parody if not for direct, irrefutable evidence.

Doing some rapid-fire bullet points for this baby to kick us off:

* Folks who know the subject say a lot of this is a yet further continuation of Snyder doing Arthuriana fanfic with the League reskinned over those major players, and I’ll take their word for it.

* I don’t know whether I love or hate that in Justice League 2 the Justice League are only an extant thing for the first scene, and then it’s Snyder giving everybody their own mini-movies. It’s compressing the entire MCU “loosely interconnected solo stories leading to a single big movie later” strategy into a single movie!

*  Funniest line in the whole thing: "Even Lantern has heard of the Kryptonian, worried that he's under the control of Darkseid. He heard his spirit was unbreakable." Hal what fuckin' Superman movie did YOU watch? Second funniest being “IT WILL GIVE HIM POWER OVER ALL LIVING LIFE”

* 90% of the plot I have nothing to say about, it’s generic stage-setting crap. That to be clear is the ‘shocked it’s Snyder’ element, it feels so crassly commercial in a way I can’t believe is coming from the BvS guy.

* Most of what I have to say is unsurprisingly gonna be about a handful of characters but Cyborg’s happy ending being “he isn’t visibly disabled anymore!” is not great!

* The Goddess of War battle with Superman...never pays off? No clue why it’s there.

* What I’d originally heard was that the Codex in Superman’s blood was the last key to the Anti-Life Equation and that’s why Darkseid was coming to Earth. It’s not like all of this wouldn’t have already been averted by Kal-El’s pod smacking into an asteroid on the way to Earth so it’s not as if this makes it any more Superman’s fault, and it would have at least tied all this back to the beginning of the movies, but I suppose that was either fake or from a later draft.

* I have NO idea how this was reimagined without the ‘love triangle’, it’s the central character thing and the entire climax flows directly out of it!

* Darkseid’s kinda a chump in this, huh

Anonymous said: So: Does Zack Snyder hate Superman?

Look: the hilarity of this when Cuck Kent has been a go-to Snyder cult insult towards ‘inferior’ takes on Superman for years cannot be understated, yet at the same time I can almost wrap my brain around where Snyder’s coming from with that as the end for his take on the character. He talked in that Variety piece on how his interest in Superman is informed by having adopted children himself, and Deborah Snyder is the stepmother to his kids by previous relationships, so I can see where he’d be coming from, and I can even imagine how he’d see this as ‘rhyming’ in the sense of “the series begins with Kal-El being adopted by Earth, it ends with him adopting a child of Earth!” In the same way as MARTHA, I can envision how he would put these pieces together in his head thematically without registering or caring what the end result would actually look like. In this case, Superman raising the kid of the man who beat the shit out of him who Batman had with Clark’s wife, who earlier told Bruce she was staying with Clark because he ‘needed her’, suggesting if inadvertently that this really honest to god was a “she’s only staying with Superman out of pity, she really loved Batman more” thing.

But Clark is nothing in this. He’s sad and existential because of coming back from the dead I guess, then he’s corrupted, then time’s undone and he woo-rah rallies the collective armies of the world (interesting angle for the ‘anti-military/anti-establishment’ Superman he’s talked up as) as his big heroic moment in the finale, and then he stops being sad because he’s adopting a kid. So his big much-ballyhooed, extremely necessary five-movie character arc towards truly becoming Superman was:

Sad weird kid -> sad weird kid learns he’s an alien, is still weird and sad, maybe he shouldn’t save people because things could go really wrong? -> his dad is so convinced it could go wrong he lets himself die -> ????? -> Clark is saving people anyway -> learns his origin, gets an inspiring speech about being a bridge between worlds and a costume -> becomes superman (not Superman, that’s later) to save the world, albeit a very property-damagey version, rejects his heritage he just learned about and space dad’s bridge idea -> folks hate him being superman and that sucks though at least he’s got a girlfriend now -> things go so wrong he considers not being superman but his ghost dad reminds him shit always goes wrong so he should be good anyway, which sorta feels like it contradicts his previous advice -> immediate renewed goodness is out the window as he’s blackmailed into having to try and kill a dude but the dude happens to coincidentally have some things in common so they don’t kill each other after all -> big monster now but superman keeps supermaning at it because he loves his girlfriend and he dies -> he’s brought back, wears black which apparently means now he likes Krypton again? -> he has work friends now but he’s still sad because he was dead -> evil now! -> wait nevermind time travel -> rallies the troops -> his wife’s having a kid so he’s not sad anymore -> Superman! Who gives way to more Batman.

Do I think Zack Snyder is lying when he says he likes Superman? No. I think he sincerely finds much of the basic conceits and imagery engaging. But I don’t think he meaningfully gives shit about Clark as a character, just a vessel for Big Iconic Beats he wants to hit. Whereas while for instance he’s critical of Batman as an idea (at least up to a point), he’s much more passionately, directly enamored with him as a presence and personality. So while Superman may be the character whose ostensible myth cycle or arc or however it’s spun might be propelling a lot of events here, it’s a distant appreciation - of course the other guy takes over and subsumes him into his own narrative. Of course Batman is the savior, the past and the future (though if he’s supposed to be Batman’s kid raised by Superman there’s no excuse for him not to be Nightwing), the tragic martyr to our potential. Admittedly the implication here is also that Batman can apparently only REALLY with his whole heart be willing to sacrifice his life to save an innocent, for that matter apparently his great love, once said innocent is a receptacle for his Bat-brood, but he and Clark are both already irredeemable pieces of shit by the end of BvS so it’s not like this even registers by comparison.

Anonymous said: That “plan” Snyder had was utter dogshit. Picture proof that DC & WB hate Superman. Also I love how you’re like Jor-El: Every single idealistic take you had about Snyder, his fandom, and BvS was wrong. Snyder’s an edgy hack, his fanbase just wants to jerk off to their edgy self-insert Batgod as he screams FUCK while mowing people down with machine guns, and the idea that BvS said Superman was better than Bats was completely wrong. You know what comes next SuperMann: Either you die or I do.

In the final analysis, beyond that mother of god is there sure no conceivable excuse for the treatment of Lois in this? The temptation is to join that anon and say as I originally tweeted that these were “built entirely to disabuse every single redemptive reading of the previous work and any notion of these movies as nuanced, artistic, self-reflective, or meaningful”.

...

...

...yeah, okay, that’s mostly right. Zack Snyder’s vision really was the vision of an edgelord idiot with bad ideas who was never going to build up to anything that would reframe it all as a sensible whole. He’s a sincere edgelord genuinely trying really hard with his bad ideas who put some of them together quite cleverly! But they’re fucking bad and the endgame was never anything more than ramping up into smashing the action figures together as big as he could, the political overtones and moral sketchiness of BvS while trying to say something in that movie reverberated through the grand scheme of his pentalogy in no way beyond giving his boys a big sad pit to rise out of so when they kicked ass later it’d rule harder, and all the gods among men questions and horror and trappings were only that: trappings. Apparently he’s really pleasant and well-meaning in person, but at his core his art as embodied in a couple weeks in his 4-hour R-rated Justice League movie meant to be seen in black-and-white all comes down to that time he yelled at someone on Twitter that he couldn’t appreciate Snyder’s work because it’s for grown-ups. He made half-clever, occasionally exciting shit cape movies for a bunch of corny pseudo-intellectual douchebags, folks latching onto and justifying blockbusters that at least acknowledge how horrifying the world is right now even if the superheroes are basically useless in the face of it if not outright part of the problem until a convenient alien invasion shows up to justify them, and a handful of non-asshole smart people who vibe with it but...well. ‘Suckered’ is a harsh word, and definitely doesn’t apply to all of them re: what they’ve gotten out of it up to this point and would (somehow) get out of this. But it doesn’t apply to none of them, either.

[brightbeautifulthings]

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

"'What if sometimes there is no choice about what to love? What if the temple comes to Mohammed? What if you just love? without deciding? You just do: you see her and in that instant are lost to sober account-keeping and cannot choose but to love?'"

Year Read: 2014, 2020

Rating: 5/5

Context: It's hard to know where to begin writing a review for this book. I read it for the first time in graduate school in about five weeks (alongside everything else I had to do in grad school, so I don't recommend that), and it basically blew my mind. At the same time, it's hard to imagine tackling it any other way for the first time. Despite its difficulty, there are things obsessive and immersive and, appropriately, even addictive about it. Full immersion might be the only way to read it for the first time, and I obsessed about it for months afterward. Since I'm not on any deadlines, I took it more slowly this time (21 weeks) so I could enjoy the writing and the nuances without the pressure to finish. For my less coherent weekly updates in real time, see my blog posts. Trigger warnings: Everything, everything. Death (on-page), child death, animal death, suicide, suicidal ideation, rape, pedophilia, possible incest, child abuse/abusive households, graphic violence/gore, eye horror, severe injury, drug use, addiction, alcoholism, mental illness, depression, OCD, grief, racism, ableism, transphobia, sexism, inexplicable hostility toward Canadians.

About: If it's difficult to know how to write a review, it's equally hard to describe what Infinite Jest is about. It's about so many things, tennis, addiction, communication (failures), and entertainment among them, but I'll do my best. Beneath all the numerous characters, timelines, and subplots, the main plot is about a film so entertaining that it kills anyone who watches it, robs them of all desire to do anything but watch it until they die, and what a faction of Canadian assassins will do to possess it. The auteur is James Incandenza, a suicide whose son, Hal, is a prodigy at Enfield Tennis Academy. Next door to E.T.A. is Ennet House, a drug rehabilitation center where Don Gately, former thief and Demerol addict, is taking it day by day to stay sober. Though they don't know it, Hal and Gately are connected, and the deadly Entertainment and those who seek it draw their paths closer and closer together.

Thoughts: It's rare to find a book that is actually as smart as it claims to be, but IJ is--certainly much smarter than I am, despite all my attempts to make sense of it. It starts off strong and doesn't let up for several hundred pages, which is a huge achievement all by itself. Wallace excels at writing extremely polished sections that could almost function alone as short stories, and the first chapter is one of my favorites in all fiction. It's reassuring, I think, to start the book off on a strong note, in case we worried we were in for a thousand pages of tedious slog. It can be both, but it's often heartfelt, insightful, and funny as well, and the payoff is well worth the effort. I don’t know how Wallace manages to pack every page with so much meaning. Anybody can put tedious lists in their books or make reading purposely difficult (and I have attitude about writers who do this for no reason), but there’s nothing haphazard about this book, despite its size and varied focus. Everything seems utterly intentional. The conversations are really top-tier; Wallace has a great ear for how people talk, and it's a fascinating look at how communication works and doesn't work.

Thematically, I think the book succeeds on more than any other level, including plot or structure. If we could say this book is "about" anything, we would almost certainly start with the themes and not the plot, which is often secondary to whatever point Wallace is trying to make at the moment. It takes an in-depth looks at things like addiction, depression, loneliness, failed communication, sincerity v. irony, critiques of postmodernism and metafiction (while being very meta itself, at times), and the very specific selfishness of an American culture that insists on freedom even to the point of self-destruction. At times, it feels a little heavy-handed or like it was yanked right out of an intro to philosophy course, but I suppose something in a thousand pages has to be obvious if we're ever going to pick up on it. A lot of these themes resurface in his other work, from "This is Water" and "E Unibus Pluram" to Orin Incandenza's Brief Interview style Q and A (and he would be a perfectly fitting character in that book).

The characters are some of my favorites in literary fiction as well, particularly the Incandenza family and Don Gately, and to a lesser extent Joelle Van Dyne (although Wallace typically doesn’t write female characters very well, and she comes with some issues). Hal and Gately couldn't be more different; Hal excels at everything he's ever done, and Gately has a record that includes accidental homicide on it. Hal is the hero of non-action, since little that happens in the book is engineered by him, while Gately is closer to the more typical hero of action, who defends the undeserving at great cost to himself. Yet their struggles with addiction are similar, and they both manage to be incredibly sympathetic characters. In my opinion, the book is always at its best when we’re with Hal or Gately, but I’m strongly driven by good characters. Despite being dead, James Incandenza's presence is also felt all over the book, from the Entertainment he created to his haunting ETA and sticking beds to the ceiling (probably the weirdest ghost I've ever seen in fiction). He's a tragic character in a book full of tragic characters. The others are too numerous to name, from the other tennis players at ETA and recovering addicts at Enfield, to the various bystanders populating Boston. We get brief glimpses into almost all of them, and while they may not all feel relevant at the time, most are memorable or heart-wrenching or slapstick funny, or all three. It's a book that contains multitudes.

That's not to say it's always on point though, and it isn't. There are a number of very serious problems with representation in this novel, and they're as bad as its detractors claim. A lot of the 90s humor aged very poorly, but that's not an excuse for some of the unabashedly racist depictions of African Americans, the uncharitable descriptions of Steeply's and Poor Tony's cross-dressing, or--however much I love him as a character--the fact that Mario Incandenza’s descriptions are ableist in just about every possible way. Wallace thinks he's capturing "voice" when he's really encouraging harmful stereotypes. The humor of the novel often doesn’t depend at all on these stereotypes and would in fact, be a lot more funny if I wasn’t spending so much energy cringing at it. So many of the little racist and ableist asides could have easily been edited out of the entire novel to make it less offensive. There are also sections where he seems at pains to be as gross as possible for its own sake. There are plenty of things grim or uncomfortable or flat out distasteful about this book, but sometimes the graphic violence kind of jumps out and stabs you in the eye, say, with a railroad spike.

If there are times when I was totally absorbed in the little tragedies of the Incandenza family or Gately's struggles, there are plenty more where it's like pushing something heavy up a hill. No lie, some of it is slogging through tedious minutiae and various experimental writing styles (some more successful and less offensive than others). Wallace has a gift for purposeful tedium; it’s at its peak in The Pale King, but he gives it a nice warm-up round here. The novel is difficult and meant to be, since Wallace maintained that some of the best pleasures are the ones we have to work for, and he's not totally off base. There's something very satisfying about living, for a time, in a book that spans a thousand pages, that demands focus and perseverance, and manages to give back (almost) as much as it takes. The book is always structurally interesting, but it starts to get more complicated toward the end as various characters and plots begin to almost slide into one another. I forgot how frustrating it was to near the end and realize--again--that it wasn't going to wrap up with any kind of satisfaction; the various plots slide, but they don’t meet. I thought if I paid closer attention on a second read that I would pick up more of the plot things I’d missed on my first, but I think the problem is that those answers simply aren’t to be found in the actual text. Of course, they can point us toward various conclusions, and the novel certainly encourages us to speculate and make connections, but I don’t think the actual answers are there.

That brings me to some of my final thoughts, for now. There's no doubt that this is a hugely successful book, and I believe it accomplished exactly what Wallace meant it to do. He jokingly referred to it as a failed entertainment, much the way Jim considered his lethal Entertainment a failure, but I have the sense that Wallace, unlike Jim, failed on purpose. The book purposely pays more attention to structure and theme than it does to plot or character, yet the plot and characters are hugely compelling for what we see of them. Imagine the book it could have been if he had paid equal attention to all of them. Wallace attempted to create a book that people wouldn't want to stop reading. Reaching the end certainly encourages us to begin again, as the first chapter is actually the last in chronology, but that trick only works the first time. By my second read, I realized that starting over wouldn't help me fill in any of those blanks or answer any of my questions, and I was content to let it go. On the one hand, IJ depends upon its structure to tell the story it's telling. On the other, think of the book it could have been if it spent more time telling a story and developing its characters and less time belaboring a point. It's one of the best books I've ever read, and the tragedy is that I think it could have been even better.