#// JUST BECAUSE YOU WANNA SHOW HOW 'AWESOME AND BETTER' THEY ARE THAN EVERY OTHER ROGUE

[brokentoys]

"it's possible riddler turned to drugs after harley outriddle him"

shut up

"batman solved riddler's riddle and it upset him so much that it sent him to arkham asylum"

shut up!!!!

[deviliciousdev]

appreciation post for the types✨

from your local intp🖤

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

✨The Sensors✨

estj (the executive)

Oh the executive, the most organized and loud boss bitch to ever exist. You cut through the bullshit and do not let anything stand in your way. And yet, like you're intuitive counter part (entj) you are quite sensitive if and when something hurts your feelings. Even though you're an expert at being all business during business hours, you still know how to have fun. and omg you have such a dorky sense of humor and love random facts, we love that. you are/can/will be a great leader/parent. All in all you are THEE boss and everyone knows it. keeping leading and kicking ass. 👏🏼

estp (the entrepreneur)

i absolutely adore estp's. you are the epitome of one of my fav character arcs. which is the charismatic rogue, who possibly drinks a lil more than they should, but can handle their liquor like a sailor (amazingly). you never back down from a challenge. you are so fun and wild in a han solo type of way, that just makes everyone want to be around you. but the best thing about you, is the way (deep down & to those you let close know) you are actually such a sweetheart. you would get hit by a bus trying to rush to make sure a friend is ok. you would take a bullet for any of your loved ones and let them cry on your shoulder. you're secretly the white knight but you're happy to let everyone think you're just the brash rogue. you're one of my best friends and someone i will adore with all my heart till the end of time.💕

p.s if you don't have an estp in your life, get one ASAP. they are a necessity for a complete friend group.

istj (the logistician)

oof, yes istj's. so sublet in their charm, and ready to die for what they believe in. i love the istj because you have two of an intp's fav qualities at your core. badassery & humility. you're like this pillar of certainty. even if you are uncertain about something, no one would ever be able to tell. you have a way of decision making that's not loud or overwhelming. which is why intp's love when you plan things.  you're also quiet at first, but if you're challenged, you would never let someone walk all over you or something/someone that matters to you. i also love that you're one of the types (alongside infp & entj) that is sooo funny and goofy when you're drunk. like a lil toddler. #adorable

istp (the engineer)

ahhhh, the intp's sensing counter part. istp's fucking rule. truly. you believe in many of the same principles intps do. the main one being, keeping an open mind without fore fitting you're own beliefs. your exterior calm and collected nature makes you cool af. AND you also have such a FANTASTIC sense of sarcastic humor. like yes bitch. i love the way intps are the idealists and istps are the doers. if an istp and intp got together, ooof the world better beware the chaos that would ensue. also you guys have thee COOLEST fictional characters. the first one that always comes to mind is Arya Stark from Game of Thrones. like suchhhhhhh a badass who also roasts literally EVERY single person in that show no matter if it's the fucking leader of the house you're at war with. out of all the types i think you would be the best assassin. to sum up i think the word i always relate to you is... cool. 😎 like plain and simple. 💀🤘🏼

p.s let's be partners in crime. 😁🚨🚓

esfj (the consul)

ok, ok, so first things first, because you are so opposite of the intp, i know we can butt heads sometimes. the main reason this happens is because nt's will see you're want to make others happy as a negative. HOWEVER, as i have gotten to know and respect an esfj as they are a part of my family (irl). i can say that the perceived notion of esfj's wanting to please everyone to get them to like them is a bit misguided. while esfjs DO want everyone to be happy, it's not always about being the popular kid. it's actually because they care about others. AND not just others but like situations. they really care if a party or a dinner is going smoothly. because they want events and people to have an enjoyable time and be happy. so esfj's I SEE YOU. and i genuinely appreciate how much you care about even the smmmmallest things. you are very dependable and high key you've taught me a lot. like how/why it's important to always say please and thank you. and you showed me that having emotions (like being nervous) isn't a weakness and it actually shows us what's important. esfj's are HIGHLY underrated, and much more wise than anyone gives you credit for.

p.s you are so much fun to prank and you always give as good as you get. 🤘🏼

esfp (the entertainer)

holy shit. that's all i can think when i think of the memories we share. we somehow bring out the worst/best in one another. you and infp are the ones i tell first when i get good news because i know you'll hype me the fuck up. we have sooooooooooo much fun together. you are so absolutely awesome and one of my best friends in the whole wide world. if i have a passing random idea, YOU WILL DO IT. i can be like "wouldn't it be funny if someone got on the hood of the car and twerked" and you're hilarious crazy ass will literally jump out of the car and do it. just because it's funny. you can party soooo hard, like rockstar level. you 100% need you're own reality show. your presence makes my introverted self feel more confident even when i'm at my lowest. with all that chaotic-ness said, you are actually a REALLY good parent/s.o?? such a crazy bitch, but also wife material?? like are you real?? anywayyyyy, just wanna say esfp's are the bad bitches of the types (no gender intended, bitches is gender neutral). and i can't wait for our next adventure. 🤩💜

isfj (the defender)

ok so even though you're a feeling type, i would have to say you're the most logical out of ALL the feeling types. i think it comes from you're mama bear (no specific gender intended) core. you don't put up with anyone's shit when it comes to those you care about. and dayummm will you fuck someone up (metaphorically and literally) if they come for your loved ones. you are VERY intelligent and people often underestimate you. the word that comes to mind when i think about isfjs is... resolve. your resolve in the face of hardship is so inspiring and something to be feared. i really love the way you seem so chill and even sweet and gracious and then it's like... oh fuck mamas here... but you don't even have to raise your voice to get your point across. like the istj, you've got a certainty and loyalty that intp's lovvveee. we never have to guess where you're loyalties are, because you don't just say, you show, through real actions. and we love that. 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼🐻

isfp (the adventurer)

oh the isfp, no one and i mean no one can match the intp's weird out of the box thinking like you. can. you view the world in SUCH a unique way. you not only see things in deep meaningful aesthetics, but you make them a reality. you love to push the envelope of what are perceived social normals. and we lovvvvvvve that shit. you're life can be so out there, but you still respect and can make friends with just about anyone. you're so sweet and creative. and you always show me something sooooo interesting. a hidden gem, a beautiful view spot, a hole in the wall place to eat. you've got that thing that xntp's sort of fall head over heels for, but in a subtle way to where we don't even realize it. and you can make time the illusion it actually is, not even noticing that we've been hanging out for like 12 hours, because it felt like 30 minutes. and omg talk about talented! anything that requires creativity you are always so good at, like wtf?? 😂👏🏼 i will end this by saying; you're simultaneously the most tranquil yet exciting person i've ever met. and truly one of a kind. keep doing exactly what you're doing and i can't wait to see what you come up with next.

p.s you are my top choice, to go to Bali & Tulum with✨🤍☯️

[moonlit-imagines]

Headcanons for being Natasha Romanoff’s child

Natasha Romanoff x child!reader

warnings:

a/n:

prompt: anonymous: “Hi! Can I request a HC for being Natasha's daughter? I think you haven't done it ^^ In love with your work btw ;)”

natasha saved you from a terribly cruel family that worked alongside HYDRA, they didn’t care much for you

she decided to take you in since she knew you couldn’t have a normal life after all that you’d already been through at such a young age

“think it’d be okay if you came home with me, sweetheart?”

you were happy to have a nice person in your life

she took off work for a while to help you settle in

natasha wished that she had a loving family growing up, or just anyone to support her

so this was how she was going to make it up

“do you want to talk about anything?”

“when dad was alive he hurt people. i didn’t like the sound of it”

her heart broke hearing such a young child have to be affected by something like that

she made sure you knew how much she loved you

you called her “miss nat” for a while

take your child to work day!!!!

she took you to SHIELD HQ

you LOVED IT you wandered off and watched other ppl work

“agent romanoff, why is your child on agent coulson’s shoulders” -fury

“my child loves to feel like their flying”

“alright, you make a fair point”

nick called you “litte agent” which sparked your inspiration to become a spy like natasha

“miss nat, i wanna be a spy when i grow up!”

“you do? well, you can do that if it’s what you really want”

you suddenly switched from “miss nat” to “momma nat” and she had to backtrack for a minute

“what did you call me?” she was BEAMING omg

“...momma”

she gave u momma bear kisses

over the years, you taught yourself the ways of an agent and a spy, asking momma nat for a few pointers here and there

also uncle clint offered to give you some help

“yeah, kid, just point and shoot”

“clint, i said ‘self defense’ classes, not ‘the most effective ways to murder someone’ classes”

“they go hand in hand, nat, you know this”

“what if i was wanting to teach them myself?”

“well, do you?”

*pulls him aside* “as a birthday present”

you really did well during any sort of training

guess you just take after your mom

when you were old enough, you applied to SHIELD (under y/n l/n instead of y/n romanoff) and passed every test that was thrown your way

“you’re a natural, l/n”

“thanks, i learned from the best”

you wanted to earn respect on your own, so you didn’t tell anyone your relationship with nat

and anyone who did know you before knew not to say anything about it

it was also a good move bc it put a target on your backs if any of your enemies discovered you were family, you’d rather not share bad guys

✨the avengers thought you were awesome✨

“y/n, you are so much cooler than your mom”

“say it again and i’ll dislocate your shoulder!” :)

clint is so entertained by you

tony just loves messing w you

“baby spider in the house!”

“spider? where? shall i kill it?” -thor

“no, thor, we’re just teasing y/n”

“do not joke about spiders, stark. one day, i may not answer your cries because i’ll figure you’re just joking”

“that got serious fast”

nat forgets youre grown sometimes

so she gets all protective of you and then goes 😳 when you kick someones ass for yourself

that’s her kiddo!!

getting thrown into the midst of a few avenger battles

but handling yourself pretty well if i do say so myself

nat hugged you a lot when you were a kid and she still does now

only longer bc she doesn’t like letting go often

“mom? you okay?”

“i just wanted a hug is all”

“oh, okay”

when u hug her back she remembers exactly why she chose to become a mother

she wanted to show you that love still exists in this world, even if you’re not shown it immediately

become sort of a role model/mentor to newer, younger avengers

i mean, wanda was about your age, so she asked you often what it was like to be so young and work as an avenger

you told her that when you’re given a life like this, your age doesn’t matter out in the field. it’s your choices that matter. once you begin to learn the ways of a team like this and you gain each other’s respect, that’s all there is to it

“your mother is the black widow?”

“that she is, mom first, widow second”

PETER PETER PETER

he fanboyed over you so hard when he met you and he had so many questions it never ended

“okay, so first: how do you do it? be so cool as a kid?”

“you take a deep breath and kick some ass”

“better advice than anything mr. stark has ever said to me—don’t tell him i said that please!”

you swore to secrecy

mother/daughter spy missions bc that’s AWESOME

choosing steve’s side in CW and honestly making her very proud of you

going on the run w her and team cap

which made for some very interesting memories

“mom, sam hid the tv remote from me”

“take the widow’s bite and give him a little shock so that he’ll budge”

“thanks! love you!”

big runaway family <3

“i like the new look, mom”

“yeah, i thought blonde might be pushing it but i guess it all worked out in the end”

rogue avengers -> avengers once more

well, those of you who were left

after most of your friends passed in the snap, you and your mom were more attached than ever, she felt like she would die if the two of you separated

sooner or later, it was time to fix past mistakes and go back in time

“i’ll see you in a minute, y/n, be careful” *forehead kiss*

“i will.”

and that was the last time you ever saw her

you ran into clints arms and sobbed

“i’m so sorry, y/n. i tried to stop her. she told me to tell you she loved you and she’s so proud of you”

if that wasn’t bad enough, you were attacked by another thanos and you fought with all your might

“is y/n okay?”

“just let them fight, they need this”

finally, the fighting was over and the avengers were triumphant, but at what cost?

tony’s funeral was held before nat’s

but natasha’s was bittersweet

and every week you bring flowers to her memorial site

the world wont forget her name

taglist: @alwaysananglophile // @rorybutnotgilmore // @locke-writes // @sweetheartliz07 // @queen-destenie // @natasha-danvers // @lokihiddles // @frostedgiant // @emygirl // @lotsoffandomrecs // @johnmurphyisbisexual // @teenwaywardasgardian // @pappydaddy // @captainshazamerica // @freya-xo // @ravenmoore14 // @purpleskiesstorm //

[theriverpersonshadow]

Lamia Drama: Side Session (2)

Like I said, this got suuuuuper long. Also, I have no idea if I can even live up to the potential chaos I’ve set up XD

All the species belong to @vex-bittys

Previous | Next(?)

           Nikolai had been rather thorough in his consideration for the troublemaker of the night. It sounded like the entire gimmick was to be around pygmy’s natural playfulness, so might as well play it up. Their games might have had some darker tones and general swearing, but they could tone it down for one night; a child would be best. But not too young. They needed to at least be old enough to comprehend that they were playing a game of make believe and hadn’t actually become a dragon or whatever silliness was going to happen.    

           So Piper was perfect. One of the older children, but still very much a child by both human and lamia standards. Really there were many candidates, Piper just caught his eye first, possibly because he was easy to pick out. He’d developed a mostly harmless condition where he had patches of scales on some of his bones, most notable on the forehead and back of his skull. It tended to itch a bit, but a little bit of extra hygiene and some topical creams fixed that right up. The little one wasn’t quite old enough to start looking for a home yet – socialization with other younglings was important for development after all – but he would be fine spending a few hours away from the others.  

           Piper was curled around Nikolai’s left forearm, little hands clinging to the fabric and tail coiled tight as he stubbornly hung upside down, giggling and chirping as the world went by. He was still small enough that falling wouldn’t actually hurt him even if he hit the floor.

           Nikolai stopped in front of the door, looking down at Piper, “Remember how the game goes?”

           Piper nodded, “I the boss!”

           Keith had decided that Piper would be a sort of Co-DM. It was going to be an interesting session…

           “Keith – the Chain – is also the boss. And remember, it’s all pretend, but pretend how you want.”

           “I knoooowwsss! Not a hatchling!” Piper huffed, pouting and glaring at Nikolai.

           Nikolai chuckled, “No, no you’re not.” He mentally added, but you’re not much older. “Tell me if it gets to be too much, okay?” He’d be keeping an eye out anyways – overstimulating a pygmy was harder than it might be with other breeds, but not impossible.

           “It won’t!” Piper chirped. “Go in now!” He was pawing at the underside of Nikolai’s arm, wiggling restlessly.        

           “Alright, alright,” Nikolai said, opening the door to the break room. Everyone else had already taken their seats, snacks and drinks at the ready. It looked like someone had already set out a cup of Chai tea for him. “Why thank you,” he said has he settled into his spot, setting Piper down to wander the table.

           Piper immediately went for Nikolai’s mug, curling around it and peaking inside. Before Nikolai could stop him, Piper stuck his tongue into it and hissed, darting away.

           “BIT ME!” Piper cried, glaring at the offending mug from behind his hiding place… which was ironically Alex’s cup of tea – green and hibiscus instead of chai.

           Nikolai sighed, reaching out to give Piper a few little pets, “It’s chai tea. I could’ve told you you might not like it. It’s spicy, bitter, and still hot.”

           “Why?” Piper said.

           “Um… because it has spices?” Nikolai said.

           “Why drink?”

           “Because I like it,” Nikolai said.

           “No,” Piper said, crossing his arms. He was now holding Alex’s drink hostage instead, but had the good sense to not dunk his tongue in immediately. “Lady’s smarter. Smells good!”

           “Aaaaw, thanks. That’d be the hibiscus. Gives it kinda a fruity flavor. Not sure if you’d want this either though. I don’t put sugar in it… And you might be a little young for caffeine at all, honestly?” Alex said. “Geez… and I though Trousle was small! You’re so little!”

           “Mm hmm. I’m cute,” Piper said, rolling over to show the softer scales of his underbelly. Alex squeaked at the cuteness, gently stroking the softer tissue as Piper purred.

           Oozy huffed and leaned over, gently headbutting Alex’s other hand. Alex chuckled and started petting him too… And then Trousle looked over, and Keith was trying to pretend he wasn’t, but Nikolai could see his tail trying to sneakily capture Alex in a snuggle.  

           “… I don’t have enough hands for all these lamia,” Alex said. “Who designed humans? I have some questions for them.”

           “Me too! You need more hands! For more cuddles! But you’re very warm, I like it!” Trousle said, slithering over to lay beside her arm.

           “You guys are so desperate,” Hux said with a deadpan expression. “It’s fu…” He looked over at Nikolai, who was giving him a death glare, hood fully spread and tail coiled, “…uuuuuuppernuttering embarrassing.”

           Piper laughed and, as children do, immediately chirped, “Fuppernutter!”

           “Fuppernutter,” Alex echoed.

           “What is a fuppernutter?” Trousle said, head tilted in honest confusion.  

Oozy said, “Is it related to peanut butter?”

           “Maybe it’s cousins with flutters or shutters,” Keith said.

           “Does it give nuts to fuppers?” Alex said.

           “I think I’m having a stroke,” Hux said, looking desperately to Nikolai.

           Nikolai smirked, leaning with his elbows against the table. “You brought this on yourself, now deal with it, you fuppernutter.”

           Hux let out a loud grown. “Whyyyyy… Ugh. Aren’t we here to, like, game? Let’s do that. Please.”

           Keith nodded, “Yeah, guess we are. Alright, let’s see the insanity! And remember, keep it clean.” He gestured to the kid. “Let’s start with… hmm… Nikolai?”

           Nikolai straightened up and pulled out the character sheet, “A level 10 sorcerer who believes magic isn’t real. I’ve named him… Steve.”

           “Steve?” Keith said, clearly trying to hold back a laugh. “Oh boy- heh… Why the heck is that funny? Oh my gosh.” He snickered into his hand as Nikolai rolled his eyes. It wasn’t that funny.

           “Alright. So we’ve got Steve. Hux?”

           “Eh… I figured I’d go rogue and go Rogue this time. Level 20 changeling thief!”

           “Branching out a little, eh? Sounds like fun!” Keith said, apparently not caring about the lack of name or any background info.

           Hux was going to steal absolutely everything from everyone, wasn’t he?

           “Alright, Trousle?”

           Trousle grinned and quickly sent something to Keith, notified by a little ring. Keith’s eyes scanned it, nodding along, then grew wider, then he started laughing, “Dude. I know it’s dungeons and dragons, but… Oh man. I love it.”

           “What?” Hux said. “C’mon, tell us!”

           Trousle had a proud grin as he typed, “I’m a level 14 half dragon, dragonborn weredragon monk taking path of the ascendant dragon.”

           “That is so much dragon,” Alex said. “I think he wins. He’s the dragon in Dungeons and Dragons. It’s him. He’s all the dragons.”

           “I don’t know if that’s legal, but I kind of hope it is,” Nikolai said.

           “The monk subclass is in playtesting still, and weredragons are from 2e. So very much no, but it’s a one shot and I do not care.” Trousle had his little arms on his hips as the voice app finished speaking for him.

           “Oh man. This is, oh boy,” Keith said.

           Piper was looking at Trousle in awe, “You’re dragon?!”

           Trousle shook his head, typing, “Not really. But my character is!”

           Piper nodded. “I pretend dragon too! RAAAAWR!!!!” He slithered over to Trousle and play-tackled him, chirping and giggling as Trousle snaked around the table in a little game of chase.

           While that was going on, Keith continued, “Alex? What about you?”

           “I’ve been meaning to try cleric, but, well… Personal issues, I guess. But hey, tricksters are awesome, so I’mma trickster cleric! Sounds like some fun little bit of chaos chaos,” she said. “Maybe I should’ve gone higher level… I’m only level 10.”

           “Nooooob,” Hux said, tail end twitching.

           “Nooooooooom!!!” Piper said. He’d managed to capture Trousle, getting a sort of impromptu piggy back ride on the other lamia. Trousle seemed more confused than distressed about this occurrence.

           “And… Oh boy. Do I even wanna know, Oozy?” Keith said.

           Oozy got a shit-eating grin as he passed a paper forward. “Memelord.”

           “A what?”

           “Found it online.”

           “… Oh thor have mercy…” Keith said.

           “Level 20.”

           “Why did I let you just make whatever.”

           “Because it’s hilarious.”

           “You’re never playing this again.”

           “That’s fine.”

           “You can pickpocket Anubis mid-combat.”

           “Yeeeep,” Oozy said. “It’s great, ain’t it?

           “You’re proficient in all the saving throws.”

           “You should know better than to tell me to go nuts.”

           “Whyyyyyy” Keith hissed, rubbing away an anatomically impossible headache.

           “Because it’s hiss-terical.” Oozy laughed out loud, and Kieth was trying to hide it, but he was joining in.

           “I’m never doing this again,” Keith said, blatantly lying as he did every single time he more or less told them to be as ridiculous as possible for a noncanon oneshot.

           “Yeah you are,” Hux said. “’cause you looooove us or something. Ya dork.”

           “Heh, could say the same about you.”

           “Nope. My soul’s just ice.”

           “Ice soul?” Piper said, looking up from the captive Trousle. “Doctor’s here! Tha’s bad! Gotta get you warmed! Get the fire!”

           “No. No fire,” Nikolai said. “He’s just being himself.”

           “Hmm… okay! We play now? I’m the highest! Level 40!” Piper chirped. “I win all the things! ‘Cause I’m the dragon! Or the dungeon!” He was lightly bouncing in place, hands outstretched.

           “Heh, there’s not really a win to this game… It’s just about having fun and playing pretend,” Keith said. “C’mon, I’ll let you on my side of the screen.” He gently scooped up Piper and draped him around his neck.

           “I have the tall!” Piper yelled. “FEAR ME!”

           “Oh nooooo!”

           “Alright here we go…”

Memelord is a joke class I found online.

I’m actually using Path of the Ascendant Dragon in a campaign! Or I’m planning to, haven’t started yet.

[ask-jokeboi]

The Party

Hope everyone's having a great holiday season so far! This time of year isn't always easy but thankfully friends and a good distraction can make things easier. 

I drew these pic’s to pair with a moderately long fic I wrote to follow up the aforementioned party from earlier, it’s below the the cut! Read it if you want! Either way, Happy Holidays! 💜💚💛

Words: 4,142    Relationships: Harlivy /Harley & Joker friendship / Batjokes (mentioned)     Universe: Mine / Lego Batman

A/N: sorry for any typos or weird grammatical stuff, I'm good at art, not writing

Summary: Joker’s felt a little down since Batman’s been out of town, will his best friend Harley be able to cheer him up?

Warnings: Alcohol use, implied depression

_____________________

"C'mon Jay it'll be be fun!" Cheered Harley, mustering all the enthusiasm she could in an attempt to persuade Gotham's former clown prince of crime to pull himself together 

"I don't care!…. Go bother your girlfriend or something. Leave me alone…" He was currently piled under several layers of blankets, sunk deep into the ball pit he called a bed

"Nuh uh, I'm not haulin' my butt outta this room 'till you haul yours. You can stay in that pit and cry all ya like, but it won't fix nothin', you gott-"

"I don't GOTTA do anything!" Jay snapped. Throwing his blanket aside and revealing his less than kempt appearance, his face twisted into a frustrated glare

Harley, already familiar with Jay's usual harmless outbursts only sighed as she looked her long time friend up and down, taking in his surroundings with a curious eye

It'd been a month or two since Batman left the scene and his absence was definitely beginning to take a toll on the poor clown.

She could tell it'd been a while since he'd done anything to care for himself…. His hair, which was usually swept back into a flawless green pomp, lazily draped his face. The dull forest black of his roots beginning to seep back into the rest of it. Same could be said for the state his room which, due to his erratic nature, was always a bit untidy  but had recently fallen into a state of near disrepair. Bags of half eaten junk food and empty bottles of all sorts of things lay strewn across the floor, particularly around his half deflated bed.

Despite the mess, he still seemed a little...thin… more so than usual to be honest… his ribs visible beneath the loose shirt he wore, arms comparable to sticks despite the muscle.

most of all though, he just seemed... tired. Jay always looked tired out of makeup. It was one of the first things she'd managed to take note of when he'd first entered her office years ago…. But right now the purple rings beneath his eyes that never seemed to go away were deepened to a point that made it clear he wasn't getting much sleep or doing much for himself in general...

Seeing her best friend in a state like this was hard to witness… and although her partner, Ivy, didn't have much but mild disdain for Jay, Harley couldn't find it in herself to leave him like this… which is why she thought a party might lift his spirits a little 

"C'mooon! You love parties!! It'll just be a small one anyway!" It was actually much bigger than she was implying but Jay liked big and she didn't wanna scare him off too soon… 

"Yeah, like that'll make things any better… who did you even invite?? A good half of the rogues don't even like me…"

"Sure they do!"

Jay only looked at her, bereft and unimpressed. 

"I mean ok you and Riddler don't always get along and it took a lot a beggin' ta get ya un-banned from the iceberg lounge but still!!"

"Uhg whatever! It doesn't matter! I don't need those bozos seein' me like this anyway..."

"Like what?" 

"I don't know!  I'm just…... I'm not in the right… mood for something like that right now.... You know how this works… they'd see right through me. "

Back when Jay was still her patient they'd end up talking a lot about masks…Batman's would come up more often than not but every now and then he'd end up discussing his own…. Or more specifically, the metaphorical one he'd put on every time he picked up a brush and painted himself a new face…..

"Jay, sweetie…  you don't have to pretend to be okay… they won't think you're weak or nothin', you know that right?..."

Jay gave her an incredibly tired look before turning away.

"What happened to the Jay that wasn't afraid to let people know how he's feelin' huh? The one that turned every emotion into a show….?"

He kept his head down, shoulders stiff, before speaking...

"....Cause I'm not just sad this time…. " As he looked up slowly an emotion that was rarely seen on the mans face showed itself, flooding his eyes. 

"W- when I'd talked to Robin and Batgirl that last time and asked about Batman they gave each other this look and…. Something's wrong… he's in trouble or something I… I can feel it…..  W-what if he doesn't come back and he leaves me here all alone an-" 

Harley put a polished nail up to Jay's lips and smiled warmly.

"Shhhh…. You're worryin' too much puds… ur big dumb brain is just an overdramatic liar… don't listen to it okay?" 

Jay sniffled, giving her an understanding nod.

"You still got me an' your crew an' Bud and all the other little silly things that make ya days good doncha?"

He smiles halfheartedly. "Y-yeah…. But still… he was..."

"I know… he's special….but do you seriously think anything out there could actually kill Batman? THE Batman? C'mon now….  He's luckier than any bastard out there and you know it…"

"Yeah…. Yeah I guess ur right"

"Of COURSE I'm right!… now come on…" she offers her hand and helps her friend stand up. "Let's get that hair done and those nails shined up  so you're brain can take a break from making all those nasty thoughts" 

Jay smiled a little wider this time, forever grateful he had a friend as great as Harley around… he really didn't know what he'd do without her sometimes...

"Right…. Also… uh…. Harley?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for….uh…. Bein'... around… I guess…" Jay practically mumbled...

Harley smiled knowingly, amused with his poor attempt of gratitude

"No problem, Pud's….." she gave him a peck on the forehead leaving a black smudge behind 

"now enough mush...Let's clean this mess and get ya fabbed up"

________________

A few hours later, Jay stood outside the titular iceberg lounge in his best winter fit, a long boa around his shoulders and a pair of unnecessary sunglasses obscuring the mascara he'd only half ruined on the way there…. 

He truly, honestly, did not feel like socializing with anyone at the moment, but who was he to refuse a doctor's orders?....

Taking a deep breath of the cold winter air, Jay stiffened up, smoothed the wrinkles from his vintage memphis style sweater and entered the lounge, heels high and head high as he could manage 

____________

When the doors swung open with a swirl of winter snow, Jay was greeted by a surprisingly full and stunningly silent room. Christmas music cut through the tension like a knife as everyone stopped what they were doing and turned their attention to Joker's fashionably late arrival.

He didn't know if it was because of his natural ability to demand attention or the fact that he hadn't been seen in nearly 3 weeks, but for some reason the room seemed slightly on edge. worried he'd come with another Joker brand surprise perhaps. Thankfully, Harley, who'd left his place a little earlier to get everything ready, noticed who'd finally arrived.

"JJ!! YOU MADE IT!!" she leaped off her stool and came running to grab him, The rest of the room taking it as a cue to un-tense and to go back to their festivities, the lounge lighting up  with warm greetings and laughter.

" Hey…" said Jay as Harley put an arm around his shoulder and escorted him to the booth she was sitting at….  

"So… is all of this for me or…?"

"No, did she tell you that?" Ivy who was sitting at the booth with his other less than fond acquaintance, Catwoman and someone else he didn't seem to recognize, gave a snide smile, Jay suddenly felt he should probably sit someplace else

"IVY!! SHHH" Harley shushed

"What? He was gonna find out out eventually…. It was supposed to be Penguin's annual winter ball" 

"Uh,It still is tho…?" said Kat, mouth full of shrimp 

"Well, yah…. Difference is we had to 'finesse' Penguin into letting HIM in" Ivy explained, disdain in her voice

"And you... helped with that?..." asked Jay, surprised. Ivy sighed

"for Harley's sake, yes. not yours" 

Jay smiled, amused. "well how charitable of you, here's to hoping you won't regret it"

Ivy rolled her eyes. "As if I don't already" she said, taking a short sip from her drink, Harley sitting down next to her give her thank u peck on the cheek.

"Hey, why'd you get banned from this dump anyway?" Asked Kat, eyes squinting curiously 

"I have no idea…." Jay shrugged 

"He put a coke and mento bomb in the fountain!" Harley interrupted 

"Oh yeah…." He'd totally forgot

"Ha! Awesome…" 

"Right uh, anyway, who the hell are you?" Jays attention suddenly turned to the woman sitting opposite of kat. She had light blue skin, bright white eyes and hair that made her look like a human lighting rod.

"Name's Livewire." She said, voice sharp as her appearance 

"She's from Metropolis" explained Ivy. Jay rose a brow.

"Metropolis huh?? How'dya like dealin' with boy scout full time over there?" He quizzed 

"Sweet!…" she exclaimed enthusiastically "Big blue aint got a thing on me! 'sides, dweeb's been outta town for months now! metropolis might as well be my personal playground"

The mentioning of Superman's absence made something in Jay's chest twist. He'd known their neighbor hero had been MIA for even longer than Batman, Supergirl taking over the workload just like Batgirl had in Gotham. but still… the reminder was enough to worry him. I mean… if superman was taking so much time up there, what chance did Batman have against whatever it was they were so busy with??

Trying his best to shake off the uneasiness building in his stomach Jay took a breath and snapped back to reality, offering Livewire his hand

"Well, uh... Livewire, i'm this city's head honcho while the bat's gone so welcome to Gotham and try not to wear it out" 

Harley and Ivy exchanged looks as Jay smiled slyly and took Livewires hand…

...Only for his usual gesture of hospitality to be met with an equally shocking grip that sent blue sparks flying in every direction.

"DAMN, what the- !! " Jay yanked his hand back and held it in pain, hot needles running up his arm.The new addition to Harley's crew laughed crudely and smiled

 "why do you think they call me 'LIVEWIRE' genius?" 

Jay stayed silent with defeat as the table went up in hysterics "Yeah fine, okay, I shoulda saw that one coming" he sighed and smoothed out his hair which had sprung up to stand on end, his face ever so slightly red "anyway, you ladies have a nice time… i'll set up shop somewhere else and let you guys… idk… flirt with each other or whatever..." without much fanfare he slunk off to sit someplace else.

After the table had settled down completely though, Harley noticed Jay making his way to the bar looking somewhat dejected.

"Aw Jay…." 

The rest curiously turned their attention to the direction of Harley's gaze.

"You're not going after him are you?" Asked Ivy after a beat.

"Well… yeah…?" Harley shrugged.

"Uhm, why?" Asked kat, dipping more shrimp into her cocktail "like if he's not in the mood for a joke that's kinda his problem…?"

"Yeah, but still…. I've never seen 'im like this for so long…. He's usually so funny and animated, it's like somethin' drained all the life out of 'im…." The concern on Harley's face was very apparent. Ivy brushed back a few strands of her hair and tried her best to reassure her.

"Look i'm sure he'll get his second wind when Batman comes back at some point… but ‘til then it's not your job to take care of him…" 

Harley sighed silently. "I know but… he's still my best friend… and if I hadn't met him, I wouldn'ta met you!" She squished close to her spouse with a smile, Ivy suddenly unable to hold back a small one herself.

"He helped me outta my slump all those years ago, least I can do is help 'im outta his..."

Ivy gave her a soft look before reluctantly caving "Kindness has always been your best and worst trait, silly bee…" she said with a smirk "fine, go ahead and do your thing, I've got plenty of company over here in the meantime…"

Harley smiled happily and gave her one last kiss before running off to join Jay at the bar.

____________

Jay sat alone at the bar in silence until he was suddenly startled by Harley's arrival.

 "What's shakin' grumpy gills?" She asked pulling up a stool.

Jay didn't answer as the bartender slid over a funfetti martini topped with the works, Jay lazily catching it and drinking deeply.

"Those guys didn't get ta ya did they? I know they seem mean bu- "

"Ah… I don't care about them…" said Jay dismissively  "we're all villains here right? I'm sure they got their reasons… sides, Livewire's pretty fun even if she did fry my Joy buzzer" He said regretfully…

"So what's up then…?" Asked Harley, head tilted 

Jay looked down at the table with a frown, fingers anxiously scraping the side of the glass in his hand….

"What she'd said about metropolis…. And… superman…."

"Oh…"  Harley nodded "well…. I'm sure they're together wherever they are…. Right? Him and Batman? And I mean, with Superman around, he's bound to be okay….." 

Jay had a hard time matching her enthusiasm but that logic did comfort him some. "Yeah… yeah I guess so"

"C'mon Jay, you gotta get that stuff off your mind for a minute! Go mingle! Go dance!… look at everyone who came this time! Turn-out's never been so big!"

As Jay's looked around the room, Harley did have a point, usually these get-togethers only managed to scrounge up about half the gang, but it looked like almost all the rogues in town had come this time. Even D-listers like Polkadot man, Killer Moth, Crazy Quilt ect. Had managed to show up, plus people he didn't seem to recognize…

For example at the bar sat Scarecrow and a… Oddly scruffy looking man he looked to be sharing a drink with. He'd heard from Riddler over the phone some time ago that crow had found himself a friend and that the two were "in cahoots".  whatever that was supposed to mean. He supposed that must've been the "friend" in question…

A few tables down sat another unfamiliar  in a polkadot shirt and a pair of cracked thick lensed glasses. He had a peculiar looking puppet sitting on his lap which made J raise a brow, but he didn't judge. Looking at his woefully nervous face he guessed it must it must've been a security thing anyway… 

Despite the big crowd though, Jay did notice one person missing of whom he hadn't seen in quite a while...

"Yeah I guess everyone is here...  except uh, Lex I guess…?" Jay considered himself friends with metropolises king of corruption, even if the feeling wasn't always mutual. Seeing so many crooks he knew in one place made him realize how rare it was to see the mal hearted mogul at these things.

Unfortunately, Harley could only shrug with defeat. "Ah I tried to get Lex but you know how he is… nobody's seen that shut in for ages".

Jay's eyes narrowed at that "How long is ages…. ?" He pressed

"I dunno… a few months guess???  Livewire said he's been quiet lately, probably off in one of his labs making some over convoluted instrument of destruction I guess"

The growing list of missing big shots was beginning to piece something together in Jay's head… what on earth was Lex up to? Where was superman?? Why did the league need Batman's help? How did it all connect?? After a moment Harley noticed Jay slipping into his thoughts again and shook his shoulder lightly to pull him out of it.

"Hey, don't worry about that egghead. he'd only kill the mood if he were here anyway" 

Jay couldn't disagree, the billionaire was kind of notorious for being a giant stick in the mud.

"If you're really worried about what's goin' on with those guys, you can come up with a plan Tomorrow…. right now we got a' open dance floor, unlimited drinks and a Karaoke competition that's about ta kick off in ten"

The word 'Karaoke' was enough to snap Jay back to reality. "Did you say Karaoke?" 

"Yes, I did."

"Do they hav-"

"Yes, they have Queen" 

Jay nearly looked as if someone had told him the best news of his life. "Oh thank god" maybe Harley was right. Worrying would have to wait. 

_____________

The rest of the night went on with few hang ups. Drinks poured, music played and poorly screeched lyrics kept the mood upbeat.

The Karaoke stage hosted performance after performance, some more enthusiastic than others. Some painful, others surprisingly pleasant. Jay's teetered off the edge of both categories, but when "somebody to love" burst through those speakers, he'd sung it with his whole chest. The best performance by a long shot though had to be Ivy's who's affinity for 50's ballads lent to her beautifully rich voice and her's was closely followed by the Dent's who'd decided to attempt a duet with no chorus which everyone found somewhat impressive.

Emotions did flare up once or twice though, as they tend to do when it comes to villain gatherings. Ed and Jay got into a fight about something stupid and unimportant, both obviously enjoying themselves, Bane and Croc engaged in an arm wrestle that woefully ended in a tie, and Jay inevitably got worked up about Batman again, this time with a crowd of eager listeners somewhat entertained by his rambling, giving questionable advice here and there.

At the get-together's height, the dance floor had filled to the point where Penguin was just about ready to call the whole event off until Riddler dragged him on to the floor himself.

After another hour or so the party wound down some more and the night devolved into quiet discussions between friends, everyone either ready to leave or half asleep. Eventually Jay and Two-face of all people were left alone. Once Ed, Crow, Hatter and the rest had gone home.

Jay always liked Harv, for someone known for his temper he seemed to have a lot of patience and Jay found both of his selves uniquely interesting in their own ways. Harvey the "handsome" one was always very nice, easily flustered, and had a sadness in his eyes that was hard to ignore. "Dent", the one famous for all those 2 themed crimes, was a bold individual and one of the most brutally honest people he knew. That night though, even he seemed a little sad. He admitted later that it was because it'd been a while since he'd gotten to talk to his old pal Bruce, someone Jay was mildly familiar with of course, and they spent the rest of the night discussing Batman and wayne and how they seemed so similar until it really was time to head home. 

 sometime after midnight, long after everyone had either left or found someplace to pass out, Harley broke up with her girl gang again to come get Jay who'd fallen asleep in an empty booth.

"Wake up clown" she said loudly, nudging him a bit. Jay giggled quietly in response, turning over after a moment and opening his eyes.

"Oohh what's up??"

"Time to go." 

"Aw…" Jay huffed disappointedly, then did his best to sit up straight, his head slowly spinning as he did so "ah jeeze…"

"Don't worry I called one of your guys, he's waiting outside." She explained "I dragged you here, might as well drag you home" 

"You did that for me?" Jay smiled "That's so nice…."

"Mhm" carefully, she took his hand got him to his feet, doing her best to keep him up straight. As they headed out they met up with Ivy at the door

"Taking pennywise home?" She asked 

"It'll only take a minute" Harley assured 

"Alright… don't take too long…" she turned to leave but before she could, Jay suddenly spoke up.

"H-hey, Wait!" 

Ivy turned around, brow raised "You have something to say to me?"

"Uh… yeah? I mean… sort of? I just, uh… wanted to say i'm sorry for…  messing up your garden all those times…." 

Ivy blinked "Why are you telling me this now?"

"I just thought you shud kno….  And that um…. Maybe you'd hate me…. A little less... if I said sorry for once..." the frown on Jays face was absolutely pitiful, Ivy could only roll her eyes.

"I don't hate you… Joker"

"Oh?"

"I just think you're annoying…."

"Oh…." Jay couldn't really tell if that was any better but at the moment he was too drunk to care. "Okay…"

With that ivy turned around to join Kat and Livewire

"Thanks for the apology though I suppose…Take care of yourself…. And, Harley don't take too long… it's only 1:00am we still have plans."

"Don't worry Ive's  i'll catch up." 

after one last look, Ivy went back on her way and Harley continued walking J to his car.

As they went Jay hummed to himself, swaying slightly, until a certain thought made him go quiet again.

"....Harley….?" He asked suddenly.

"Yeah, J?"

"Am I a bad friend?" The question just as out of the blue as his apology to Ivy…. 

Harley looked at him, concerned "Why do ya ask?"

"I just…. Please?" He pleaded. Harley hesitated for a long moment but decided being honest was probably best.

" not exactly but… maybe sometimes"

"Hm…" Jay decided he'd have to work on that

"But I also know ya don't really wanna hurt anybody…. That you try your best everyday ta make people happy and that you've been through just as much any of us….  A few mean comments an' dumb pranks ain't gonna make anybody think you're the devil or somethin'….not me or any of the other guys... "

Jay had to smile at that, Harley always had something smart or nice to say no matter what. still, her answer only made him feel worse about how he'd been earlier when she was just trying to help… he really, honestly, didn't deserve her…. But the least he could do was let her know he was glad to have her...

"Harley…?"

"Yeah, J…"

"Thanks for being really, really great all the time… and… y'know… around… " Harley smiled as she secured his arm around her shoulders. 

"Thanks J..." 

"also sorry for sucking sometimes..."

She sighed. "It's fine Jay…."

carefully, she hauled his ragdolling body a few more feet and shoved him into the back seat of his car. J grunting as his head hit the leather seat.

"Now go home an' try not to get lost on your way to the door" She said sternly. Jay gave her a lazy wink and a pair of wobbly finger guns.

"Gotcha." 

with that,Harley slammed the door shut and the J-Mobile's engine roared to life. One his lackeys sitting in the driver's seat.

"Where to boss? HQ?"

"Yup… ah, sorry t' call ya out so late…"

"S'alright boss…. Don't worry about it"

As the car lurched forward, street lights shining in through the windows as snow fell ever so lightly over Gotham like a dusting of fresh powdered sugar, Jay did inevitably start thinking about Batman again, wondering when he'd come back, desperately wishing he knew anything about where he was right now….

The thoughts were hard to ignore and when he got home he knew he'd be surrounded by the same walls he'd spent the last month trapped with them in….  even so, the world felt a little less washed out than it had before he left, and it wasn't just because of the alcohol swirling in his blood. 

He may not have had Batman... But today reminded him he wasn't alone.

He had friends… real friends… In a way he'd always considered them such… but deep down there was always doubt. I mean sure he got along better with some than others, but after knowing people so long he shouldn't have been so dumb to think they hated him as much as he thought they did. 

When you're a villain in Gotham sometimes all you have are other weirdos in the same boat as you to help keep you and everyone else afloat. People need people in more ways than one…  and as Jay drifted off to sleep in the back of his gaudy getaway vehicle, laying in a position that was just barely comfortable, he pushed his worries aside and made sure that was something he'd never let himself forget.

~ End ~

[foreverwayward]

I Know You Part 1

Dean x Unnamed Female x Sam (no Wincest)

Word Count: 3331

Warnings: downright smutty, fluff, oral, Winchester humor, language, mild dominance

Summary: After two years together, the three had grown more than comfortable with each other. But, it isn’t until an unexpected moment of intimacy that desires are finally spoken. Once the door to honesty is open, there’s no holding back. 

Sam and Dean walked into the motel room, deep laughter coming from them both. They were still buzzed from the whiskey they had consumed at the bar only a block over.

“I’m telling you, Sam,” Dean somewhat slurred. “The girl was into you. You totally could have hit that tonight.”

Sam chuckled. “Eh. Guess I wasn’t too interested.”

“Not interested?” Dean asked taken aback with an expression that matched. “Sam, she was gorgeous and all over you.”

“Just didn’t do it for me,” he shrugged.

Dean dropped his jacket off his shoulders before tossing it over the bed with a shake of his head. “Ya know, sometimes I don’t get you, man.”

“Well, what about you? You telling me you couldn’t have left with that blonde?”

“Maybe. Guess it’s like you said—just didn’t do it for me.” He turned back to his brother with a laugh of disbelief. “What the fuck is wrong with us?”

Sam laid his own coat over a nearby chair. His hands were resting on top of it as he leaned his weight into it. “I wish I knew.”

Looking around the room, Dean asked “hey…where is she? Didn’t she say she’d be here when we got back?”

“Uh—yeah. I don’t know.”

The sound of water splashing caught their attention as they looked towards the bathroom door. It was cracked open, soft light gleaming through the slit. They shared a curious look with raised brows before walking over to investigate.

As Sam gently pushed at the door, it slowly opened to a dark, candlelit bathroom. She was in the bathtub, her hair up in a messy bun, heat rising from the water and off her skin. Her head was rested back, earbuds in her ears with her eyes shut in relaxation.

The brothers froze at the sight with wide eyes. They both knew they should leave, but it was as if their feet were planted in place, their bodies stiff with building energy.

Her wet skin glistened in the dancing candlelight. She was utter perfection.

Both Sam and Dean had imagined her that way a million times before, but the real thing was like a glimpse into heaven.

As her eyes fluttered open, she caught the two large men practically gaping at her. She immediately went to cover her almost exposed chest as the Winchesters snapped out of their trance.

“Uh, guys…?”

“Oh—“ Dean muttered, embarrassed.

“S—sorry…” Sam barely could utter.

The two clumsily bumped into each other as they tried to get out as fast as they could and Dean quickly shut the door behind them. They stood there in silence both looking like they had been caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

“Shit…” Sam mumbled.

Dean ran a palm down his face. “Yeah. That, uh—I did not see that coming.”

Letting out an anxious chuckle, Sam nodded. “No kidding.”

Immediately realizing the situation in his jeans, Dean cleared his throat and tried to discreetly cover himself.

“Are you—“ Sam started to ask but stopped feeling uncomfortable.

Trying to not seem bothered by the situation, Dean snarked back, “oh, what? And you’re not?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“So…do we just act like this didn’t happen?”

Sam let out a breathy laugh. “I don’t think I can.”

“Glad it’s not just me,” Dean conceded.

“I mean—god, I’ve imagined her a thousand times but…” he sighed. “Nothing compared to the real thing.”

“I know what you mean.” Dean’s neck snapped in his brother’s direction. “Wait. Are you into her?”

“…are you?”

“Dude—from day one. The first hunt we went on together, the first time she made me laugh, the first time I saw her bend down in front of me…” his voice trailed off as he bit his lip at the thought.

Sam’s knuckles practically went white as he tried to control himself and the urges that threatened to bubble over. “So, what do we do? Because, that woman in there is the woman of my dreams, Dean.”

“Pfft,” Dean replied sarcastically. “No way, dude. If anyone’s getting her…it’s me. We’re perfect for each other.”

“Oh, really?”

“Uh—yeah,” he mocked. “We like the same music, we have the same sense of humor, we both love cars…I could name a million things that we have in common.”

“Interesting. So could I,” Sam replied in a cocky tone.

Dean scrunched his face with a bitchy expression. “Like what?”

“We both love to read, she’s a runner like me, we watch the same shows, we make each other laugh…”

Rolling his eyes, Dean let out an annoyed breath. “Fine.” He put out his hand with his other posed as a fist hovering over it.

“Wait,” Sam chuckled. “You can’t be serious. You wanna rock-paper-scissors this situation?”

“It’s how we solve any other issue. Let’s go.”

“No way.”

“Afraid you’ll lose?”

“What? No. I always beat you anyways.”

Dean dropped his hands. “Well, I don’t see you coming up with any bright ideas.”

A soft and muffled voice pierced through the bathroom door. “You know I can hear you guys, right?”

Again, Sam and Dean’s eyes went wide.

“Fuck…” Dean mouthed before turning to the door and opening it just enough for her to hear him. “Uh—we’re sorry for just walking in on you. I swear, total accident.”

“Definitely an accident,” Sam reiterated.

She scoffed with a small laugh before biting her lip in thought. “…come in.”

“…are—are you sure?”

“Yes. Just get in here.”

The brothers shared a shocked look before they mouthed and muttered a brief argument between them about who would go in first with them both nervous to. Dean finally gave in and took his time taking steps in. Sam was directly in tow, his eyes immediately resting on her. The small motel bathroom felt even smaller with the two large Winchesters taking up most of the space.

They swallowed hard as their eyes couldn’t help but trace over her wet body. She shifted in the tub causing her breasts to emerge from the water, her perky nipples making the tension in their pants only more painful.

“You guys were staring at me, weren’t you?”

“Well, I, uh—“ Dean stammered. “We—“

Realizing he needed to take over the conversation, Sam added, “we just got back and didn’t hear anything but—but there were lights on in here so…”

“So, you came to investigate,” she concluded.

Dean nodded enthusiastically, wondering if he was beginning to sweat. “Yep. Came…to…investigate…”

“Guys…we’ve been on the road together for how long now? Two years?”

“Two years…” Dean agreed as he studied the beads of water on her shoulders, neck, and chest. “Two awesome years.”

She giggled. “Alright, so I guess that means we can speak plainly, right?”

Sam cleared his throat nervously. “Absolutely.”

“Look, I know you both probably better than I’ve ever known anyone, and you know me just the same. I know neither of you are naturally this nervous with women. In fact,” taking her time, she stood up. The water trickled down her wet skin as her naked body was finally fully exposed. “I know that neither of you are timid at all.”

The two stared at her in awe. Every curve of her body was perfection, every small scar, rogue freckle—she was a masterpiece.

Stepping out of the tub, her wet feet met the cold linoleum. She took slow, seductive steps towards the brothers. Both Sam and Dean’s breaths hitched in their chests.

“How well do you know us exactly?” Dean could barely choke out.

She peered up into Sam’s eyes from under her eyelashes. “Well, for one—Sam, I know you’re a pleaser. You get off making a woman feel good, dominating her just enough to make her come undone underneath you. You like it soft and intense until it builds and builds until finally…” her voice went softer. “…you let yourself go and show her no mercy until she screams your name.”

The gulp that Sam tried to swallow was almost audible and she snickered to herself, happily.

As she sidestepped, she looked up at Dean. “And Dean. You know, it took me a while to figure you out. But I did…” Her sly smile made him shiver.

“And…what did you figure out exactly?” he asked.

Her finger traced over his chest, feeling the soft fabric covering him. “You like to take charge. I think you don’t just like to make a woman lose her mind, you like to watch. You, Dean…like to play.”

He smirked as his tongue shot out over his lips. Suddenly, Dean was feeling more confident, more sure of himself. She really did know him and it drove him wild. “Hey, Sammy…” he started, his eyes never moving from her. “She get it right?”

“Oh, yeah,” he chuckled. “She’s got us pinned.”

“Oh…” Dean playfully laughed. “We won’t be the ones getting pinned. So, waddya say, Sam? Should we show her how well we know her?”

Sam couldn’t help the small rumble that came from his chest. “You better fuckin’ believe it.”

“You wanna see what you’ve been missing?” Dean asked her as his large hand went to her jawline, his fingers rubbing against her throat. “Because, I guarantee you, sweetheart…we’ve still got a few surprises left in us.”

Moving behind her, Sam gently removed the tie that held up her hair. He watched it fall, shaking it out with his fingers before they ran down her bare shoulders. Her skin was still wet and calling to his lips.

Sam dipped down, placing a gentle kiss on her shoulder. The wet droplets from her bath touched his lips and his tongue couldn’t help but creep out. He continued to kiss her until he brushed her hair to the opposite side, exposing her neck.

Dean took his time studying her. His hands landed on the sides of her ribcage, slowly moving down to her waist and hips as if he was sculpting her himself.

He looked down at her and caught her gaze as she began to breathe heavily. Dean took her chin in his hand and leaned in to ghost his lips over hers. The sensation made her gasp softly and he took his time enjoying her reaction before giving in to the kiss. It started out soft, meaningful and filling the deep desire in them both that had been building for quite some time.

She fell into it, losing herself in Dean’s lips and tongue as Sam placed wet and hungry kisses over her tingling skin.

“Dean,” Sam mumbled, his lips vibrating and awakening her nerves. “Can we take her to the bedroom now?”

As Dean pulled away from their kiss, he licked his lips, still reveling in her taste. “Yeah, I think we should.”

Without another word, Sam effortlessly scooped her up into his arms. His face was focused and serious as he carried her, following his brother out of the bathroom.

Dean sat in the middle of the bed, his legs spread slightly open. He pat the space between them. “Right here, Sammy.”

Once at the side of the bed, Sam gently laid her down where Dean had wanted her. Her knees bent at the base of the bed with her feet dangling. His eyes still were still obsessing over every inch of her.

She tilted her head back, ever so slightly, to look up at Dean who was hovering above her. His smile was mischievous, as if he was already sure of his plans.

Dean brushed her hair away from her face on both sides. “Wanna make sure I get a good look at ya.”

The growing erection in his jeans throbbed against her head and created an ache in her belly. Knowing that he was enjoying her so deeply made her only want him more.

Sam sat at the edge of the bed, his hands running down her smooth legs. He reached up to finally kiss her, humming into her mouth. Two years of lusting for her and finally paid off. It was perfect—she was perfect.

He took his time pulling away from her before eyeing his brother. “So, Dean…she said I was a pleaser. Should I show her how right she is?”

“Absolutely,” he answered.

The smirk that grew on Sam’s face made a shiver run up her spine. He slowly went to his knees and took his time spreading her legs as he planted kisses on her thighs. Sam smiled against her skin as she trembled.

Keeping eye contact with her, Sam hovered over her sex. She was already glistening wet and it made him lick his lips. He took hot breaths over her, teasing her and leaving her breathless until he finally placed his lips against her. As his tongue delved between her soaking lips, her head fell back with a gasp of pleasure.

While Sam began to tease her clit, Dean ran his fingers through her hair and across her face and lips. “How’s she taste, Sam?”

Sam moaned lightly. “Even better than I imagined.” He chuckled to himself as her peered up at her again. “I’m gonna make you mine.” He immediately began to devour her. She moaned in ecstasy as he ate her like a man starved. Sam was lapping her up, sucking on her clit, running teasing circles with his finger around her pussy.

“I think she likes it,” Dean added as he took his time cupping her breasts. He fondled them, seething through his teeth as he watched her wiggle at their touch. “Keep going, Sam.” Looking down at her, very plainly, he told her, “don’t cum yet. Let Sam have his fun.”

His words were like electricity through her body, only driving her further into insanity. Her back arched and she began to mindlessly grind into Sam’s face. He was so skilled with his tongue and his warm mouth was like heaven.

As the intensity grew and the knot in her stomach began to build, she started to fidget while her legs grew tense. She moaned loudly and Dean put a firm hand on her sternum, holding her in place.

“That’s it. Keep letting it build.”

“I--“ she panted. “Oh, god…Sam…”

Sam stopped to look up at his brother with a wet smile. “Fuck, I love when she says my name like that.” He slowly pushed in a single digit, feeling how tense and tight she was. Sam couldn’t have been more pleased as she squeezed around him. “I’m gonna ruin you,” he told her.

When her hands reached down to rifle in Sam’s hair, Dean grabbed them and held them at her sides. “Don’t distract him.”

It only took a few more seconds before her jaw dropped, profanities dripping from her lips as she climbed an unspeakable high. “Sam, I—I’m almost there.”

“Hold it,” he told her firmly while releasing her clit only momentarily.

“I can’t…” she whimpered. “Please…”

Holding onto her hands with a tighter grasp, Dean reiterated, “he said to hold it.”

She squealed softly and bit her lip as she began to shake, her body ready to explode. “Sam!!” With a deep laugh to himself, Sam stopped, leaving her on the edge. “No…” she whined.

Sam stood to his feet, watching her fight against Dean’s hold as he undressed. His was quick to remove his flannel and his chest was heaving with anticipation. He kicked off his boots and made short work of getting his jeans off. As Sam dropped his boxers, his perfect erection sprang free. It made her moan at the sight and her legs collapsed to the sides, opening herself for him.

“Dean…” Sam started. “Cover her mouth.”

With a bite of his lip, Dean placed his large hand over her mouth. She exhaled sharply through her nose and her chest rose and fell rapidly as her heart raced. She watched as Sam took her legs in his hands and lined himself up with her entrance.

“Look at me,” Sam commanded. And just as she did, he pushed his cock inside of her. He was patient, letting her stretch around him as her eyes rolled back in ecstasy. “Fuck…” he growled as his head fell back. “God, you’re so fucking perfect.”

She cried out in pleasure, the sounds muffled by Dean’s hold.

“You ready?”

With an eager nod, she consented and Sam smiled.

Taking her wrists in one of his hands and keeping his other over her mouth, Dean noticed to Sam. “Do it.”

Sam began to thrust into her, deep until he bottomed out. The sounds coming from her were a mix of cries and moans, whimpers of her body desperate for more.

“Hold on.”

With his teeth gritted, Sam began to fuck her into oblivion. Her once loud moans turned to silent shakes as she began to come undone. She could feel the edge of her first teased orgasm bringing her closer and closer, spasms filling her legs, toes, and hands.

Nearing his own crash, Sam motioned to Dean and his brother removed his hand from her mouth just as it dropped open.

“Fuck…” she whimpered.

Dean leaned down to whisper gruffly in her ear. “Sammy worked hard on you, sweetheart. Now, show him how grateful you are and cum.”

At his words, she lost her mind. Her body was no longer her own and she could have sworn she was going to pass out. She began to contract around him as her orgasm spilled out of her and dripped down his balls.

“Say my name,” Sam demanded as she twisted and contorted underneath him.

With a gasp, she yelled out, “S—Sam!”

That was all he needed to send him over the edge as he spilled deep into her. She could feel him twitching inside of her, his cum filling her and dragging out her own orgasm. Sam groaned at his release.

As the two steadied their breathing, Sam slowly pulled out. The sopping wet space between her legs evidence of Sam’s skilled movements.

Dean let go of his hold to bring her wrists to his lips, kissing where he had been holding her down as Sam went into the bathroom. “You did so good.”

She was still heaving her breaths and was completely spent.

Sam came back with a warm, wet cloth and began to clean her as gently as she could. Though with her nerves so on edge, she seethed and writhed at the slightest touch.

He dropped it to the floor and crashed down on the bed beside her as Dean lovingly touched her. Sam beamed. “You…are…incredible.” Again, he kissed her. “More than worth the wait.”

“I—I’m sorry, Dean…” she uttered out of exhaustion. “I’m so…so tired.”

Dean chuckled, still playing with her soft locks. “That’s okay, sweetheart. I had a feeling. Don’t worry. I can be patient.” He kissed her, holding her chin in place. “But, tomorrow, you’re mine.” Dean took his time getting up, careful not to disturb her. He went to the bathroom and began to snuff out the candles and tend to the mess.

Once they were alone, Sam gently turned her face towards him. He ran a sweet hand across her cheeks, soaking her in again. “God...you’re so beautiful.”

She was enamored with him, with both of them. Whether it was her feelings for the brothers that had been so long denied or the incredible sex she had just had, she wasn’t sure. “You’re amazing…”

“Well, if I was amazing it’s only because I had an amazing partner.” The two smiled happily at each other. “You know, you were right—what you said earlier.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“We should say what we mean. And after tonight, I don’t think we have anything to hide from each other,” he laughed. As his face went more serious, he brushed away her hair. “I love you. I have for I don’t even know how long.”

Leaning in to kiss him, she hummed against his lips. “I love you too.”

“Alright,” Dean said as he emerged from the bathroom. “I’m starved. Who’s up for pizza?”

------

[currentlybeltingbohemianrhapsody]

I don’t know why no one has jumped on this yet but PLEASE consider the AU possibilities of a Venom/Into the Spider-Verse crossover where each spider has a slightly different Venom. Here are my versions:

MILES’ UNIVERSE

• I’ve heard people say that Miles could have the 2018 movie Venom but I really like the idea of Miles being a host before Eddie because how awesome would that be?

• Basically he learns about Venom from the other spider people before actually meeting them so when he becomes bonded to the symbiote he just goes straight to Eddie.

• Even though the symbiote isn’t THRILLED to hear that Miles doesn’t want to stay bonded them, they are very pleased to hear that Miles apparently knows their ideal match.

• Eddie is pretty similar to the movie version. His mother is still alive and he doesn’t talk to his dad but he’s still in his twenties and still works for the Daily Bugle.

• Eddie actually has done a few articles on Spider-Man so he isn’t a complete stranger but it’s a little weird to have anyone come up to you and be like “hey you wanna superhero with me? Take this alien and absorb them into your mind and body.”

• Despite the weird circumstances, the symbiote and Eddie actually get on really well when they decide to move to San Fran together they become a kind of West Coast extension of the spider gang.

PETER B.’S UNIVERSE

• Basically comics Venom. But like, EARLY comics Venom. Villain venom.

• Almost comically villainous.

• Full on dumbass blonde thot Eddie who “pumps iron” and challenges everyone to arm wrestle him + a symbiote who has NO problem biting the heads off of criminals like gummy bears.

• Their list of criminals inclues Spider-Man.

• But honestly Venom’s reasons for hating Peter are kind of valid.

• He was pretty shitty to the symbiote and still treats them like they’re an object that Eddie is using just to get back at him for ruining his career

• Eddie could almost forgive him for ruining his career but treating his other the way he does crosses the line.

• So basically Peter FREAKS when he sees Gwen and Miles just chilling with their Eddie’s and they have to tell him that he’s actually a pretty nice guy and maybe it’s kinda sorta Peter’s fault that his Venom part of his rogues gallery.

GWEN’S UNIVERSE

• Gwen and her Eddie are actually really good friends (yeah I know this one doesn’t at all fit with the comics but hear me out).

• (This is probably the longest and most convoluted story idea I’ve ever had)

• They meet through ballet classes and start out as acquaintances. You know, they’re classmates and get along but they’re not bffs.

• Then Gwen’s hanging out with Peter and he’s like “oh yeah meet this guy from my journalism club” and she’s like “Eddie??”

• So it turns out that Eddie and Peter are pretty good friends but no one knows that Eddie is a ballet dancer and he doesn’t want anyone to find out because his dad is an abusive piece of shit and they’re still teenagers so he’s at risk of getting kicked out of the house.

• Gwen and him get to know each other better cause they’re both are close to Peter and the three of them hang out and watch movies and do teenager stuff.

• Somehow his dad finds out about his double life and Eddie ends up homeless. He gets pretty pissed at Gwen and Peter because they’re the only ones who he told and he stops talking to them.

• Then Peter dies and Eddie feels like shit because Peter was a nice guy and didn’t deserve that and he and Gwen kind of form a tense truce because she’s doing the keeping people at arms length thing now.

• So they see each other in class but don’t really talk and he never tells her that he’s still living on the streets and she doesn’t ask.

• After the whole universe hopping adventure and opening her heart up to friendship she reaches out to him again and finds out he doesn’t have a place to stay and HELL if she’s going to let that happen because her family has a guest bedroom.

• So he stays with her for until he can get his own place and the whole time Gwen is superheroing it up in the background and one day she finds this mysterious black goo on an alien ship. I wonder what it is!

• Que the comics Gwenom. They get along but she struggles with the bloodlust and doesn’t know if they’re manipulating her and blah blah blah.

• But in MY VERSION Kingpin somehow figures out that he can use sound to weaken her. The symbiote is separated and Gwen is captured and unconscious, so symby finds Eddie and bonds with him and together they help Gwen escape and in the process the symbiote finds their perfect match and Venom becomes a fellow hero.

• They do try to eat heads as little as possible, but the occasional rapist is oh so tasty and Gwen never has to know.

• I may have come up with this whole ridiculous plot line because I love the idea of ballerino Eddie performing a surreal but beautiful dance with the alien lover who lives inside him.

• (Hint: they’re dancing to Movement by Hozier)

• Sorry that was so long let’s move on now.

SPIDER-MAN NOIR’S UNIVERSE

• An investigative reporter with a dark secret meets a mysterious alien with vague intentions. What will happen happen next? Now showing at a theater near you.

• I mean any Eddie would fit so perfectly into the film noir genre. This one is basically the same as the movie version but wears a fedora and a trench coat instead of an unwashed grey sweatshirt and likes to hide in dark corners and smoke.

• The symbiote is a perfect mix between a classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers style alien and a femme fatale. They find Eddie in a dark church and tell them they need help from a good, strong host in the sexiest way possible but they also are also very goey.

• I think this Venom isn’t really a hero or a villain but, you know, kind of morally grey. Peter and them are both morally grey in their own ways so they have a mutual understanding of “you stay out of my business, I’ll stay out of yours” and occasionally reluctantly team up to punch Nazis.

SPIDER-HAM’S UNIVERSE

• Also has a comically villainous Venom like Peter B., but this one is a PIG.

• Just a stupidly buff pig.

• The symbiote has adorable boar teeth.

• Peter “I mean he’s technically my nemesis but we still meet up for margaritas every Friday” Porker

PENI’S UNIVERSE

• Pretty similar to the comics. Addy is a fellow mech pilot and classmate but I refuse to let them have the same storyline because the mechs seem much more intelligent in the movie than from the small bit I know about the comics and I just can’t see Venom as a mindless, malfunctioning robot.

• The problem instead is that VEN#m has a higher level of sentience than Ben realizes but they have no way to communicate with Addy during battle so they freak out and force a fusion.

• This overwhelms Addy at first and everyone thinks that the suit has gone rogue but when Addy explains that VEN#m just needed a way to talk to her Peni is able to disconnect Addy from the suit while keeping the telepathic link.

• Addy has a very different relationship with her mech than Peni, as VEN#m has a much more human personality than SP//dr, who’s really more like a pet.

• I just want to imagine a high school romance with a girl and a non-binary robot okay?

• It also seems like the symbiote is a little more on the feminine side when they have a female host so still technically non-binary but it’s totally a robot lesbian high school romance if you squint.

That is all thank you for reading. If you want to write more about any of these of have your own ideas then please tell me because lord knows I want to read it.

[stranger-who-writes-fiction]

Everything Awesome about COIE Hour 3

MANY THINGS OCCURRED!

This one is Long, guys.

Also a more accurate title would be Everything Awesome and some Less So about COIE Hour 3

But I wanted the posts to match, so.

So I never watched Birds of Prey because I never knew it EXISTED when it was on, but as a fan of the Birds of Prey team in general, and the characters Huntress and Oracle...not gonna lie, t’was sad to hear Helena desperately calling out to Barbara before they were destroyed by the anti-matter wave. So I give that cameo a thumbs up.

How is it only just NOW occurring to me that the Waverider (Wave Rider?) is serving the same function as the Monitor’s Satellite from the comics????

J’onn!!!! I’m so glad he’s here! Bearing news about the supporting cast of Supergirl! And the entirety of Earth-38!

So glad that they’re alive! And safe! And not dead! And that they are sure to remain that way, for the rest of the crossover! XD

And then J’ONN IS THE PARAGON OF HONOR! 

It’s what he deserves.

And then like four different subplots are set up in short order: They gotta to to Purgatory to get Oliver’s soul; they gotta get Ryan Choi; they gotta go to the cave where the Anti-Monitor was hanging out until fairly recently; Kara’s gotta be talked out of using the Book of Destiny.

It’s...a lot.

Also Vibe is back!

“Maybe you didn’t hear me under those voluminous mutton chops of yours--!”

Another nice Iris/Barry scene, BUT, for my money, it’s the second one, later in the episode, that really tugs at them there heartstrings.

All the Pariah stuff is as accurate as the Arrowverse could possibly MAKE a Pariah. Good, solid, good.

Then the British Fellows Ham it Up for a few minutes, before The Soul Searching group goes to Lian Yu, because of COURSE it’s Lian Yu, as if Oliver would allow his soul to languish anywhere else. 

Then we’re back in the Anti-Monitor’s room domain and COSMIC TREADMILL! AW YIISSSSSS

All of the good treadmill jokes have been made already so I’ll just move on.

This is very comic-y! The Anti-Monitor used Barry to power his Anti-Matter ray in the comic, and he ultimately destroyed it as well, dying in the process.

HERE, we discover that when Earth-90 Barry vanished last year, he was captured by the Anti-Monitor, and then CONDEMNED TO A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH; HE WAS TO RUN, FOREVER, ON A TREADMILL.

(...Pretty sure that joke was made on the after show, but I couldn’t help it. IT WAS RIGHT THERE.)

So they bust Earth-90 Barry out with the help of Jefferson!!!! 

I love that he’s got his line in there, the, ‘whose life is this’ line. Good, yes, good.

(Listen: there is no greater proof that the Arrowverse will go back to some version of the multiverse model, than Jefferson’s inclusion here.)

I’m getting a little ahead of myself...BACK TO THE OTHER SUBPLOTS!

Ryan Choi is great! I don’t keep up with Legends, but it’d be cool if he stuck around, since Ray is leaving.

ALSO GREAT???? Routh Supes’ explanation of the black shield. ‘Hope cuts through the darkness.’

(And the Superman theeeeeeeme I never tire of hearing it)

There’s some Kate and Kara stuff here but I wanna cover that later so FIRST...

The Oliver reunion on Lian Yu happened way too fast! But then, many things happened way too fast! But this one REALLY FELT WAY TOO FAST.

Like: He’s ready to kill us! But no? YAY, OLIVER IS COMING BACK! But No? Wait, he’s Spectre now????

But also...SPECTRE!!!!!!

Spectre is the deus ex machina of the Crisis comic, so it’s fitting that he’s just. A sudden thing that pops up out of LITERAL NOWHERE and is apparently vital.

So I guess Oliver’s final form ISN’T Team Dad, it’s Mysictal Green Hooded Guy.

(Man we should have seen this coming.)

(I like that Oliver is Spectre, just to be clear.)

Iris’ pep talk with Ryan was lovely.

(And then there’s the moment I mentioned earlier, where Barry’s like, ‘I might die’ and Iris is like, ‘I don’t want to go, I want to be with you.’)

(I will admit...that part got me a little.)

HEY FLASH FANS, HOW DO WE FEEL ABOUT THE FACT THAT LITERAL YEARS OF TEASING LED UP TO A BAIT AND SWITCH, HUH????

I honestly don’t know if I’m impressed or annoyed by this cop-out.

I will give them props for the inclusion of the original Flash show footage, that was very nice.

(And I say that as someone who has but a passing familiarity with the original TV show.)

The disintegration effect, as well as the Flash emblem being the only thing left, are really great direct homages to art from the comic.

I’m gonna talk more about this part LATER so let’s jump back toooooo....

Oh! The Barry and Jefferson scene!

It was so niiiiiice.

Very emotional, and a nice bonding moment, and this bit:

“I don’t think Henry and Alvin raised quitters, so we should rage against the dying of the light.”

FEEEEEEEEELIIINNNGSSSSS

Another Kate and Kara bit, which again, I wanna get into in a minute, BUT, before we do, I will say that: this buddy dynamic is very nice, but it takes the place of the Kara and Alex stuff from crossovers past, which I might have been okay with...if not for the severe LACK of Danvers Sisters content in the SG season proper.

Here’s hoping 5B gives us...something.

(Also I know it’s very much because Kate is like, the lead of one of the five main shows being crossed over so obviously they’re teaming up instead of Alex and Kara hanging out but I just. Love the Danvers Sisters, okay?)

(Related side note: Really glad this crossover isn’t so focused on romantic pairings! It’s a nice change of pace! I mean we’ve got Iris and Barry obviously, as well as Lois and Clark but I’m just recalling the Double Wedding nonsense of Earth-X and...*shudder*)

(This is an improvement, IMO.)

OKAY OKAY HARBINGER’S BACK HERE WE GOOOOOOOOO

MIND CONTROL! BETRAYAL! DEATH! THE DESTRUCTION OF THE ENTIRE MULTIVERSE!

And crashing on this Vanishing Point because technically we’re HooOOooOOomeless!

Aw man I was so sad to see Routh Supes go...and be replaced by LEX, ugh. 

(But it’s very Lex, so.)

And Kara’s desperate, ‘Kal, Kal! What do I do?’

:C

OKAY so I kinda wanna talk about the Kara stuff, the Barry stuff, and the Kate and Kara stuff.

This crossover does some interesting things, re-contextualizing the two ‘Big Deaths’ from Crisis. 

In the comic, both Kara and Barry die, and their deaths are kind of like...thesis statements, on their brand of heroism.

They’re willing to give up everything--even their very LIFE--to ensure the safety and survival of others.

And both are treated as kind of remarkable things, even among their peers, who are other, selfless superheroes.

Which is WHY...the Barry thing is kind of...a massive let down. 

In the after show, Marc Guggenheim talked about how they could have their cake, and eat it too, because Barry was ready to give up his life, but was denied the opportunity.

And...I get that logic, but man, they spent all of season 6A dragging out that ol Barry-Dies-Angst.

And last season too! The WHOLE SEASON LONG PLOT with Nora was centered on Barry’s disappearance during Crisis and thus, her growing up without him and now...

That’s all just out the door? Because a different Barry decided to take his place? AN ELEVENTH HOUR LOOPHOLE?

It’s so audacious...that’s why I’m also kind of impressed, as well as annoyed.

And they don’t quite do the same thing with Kara, since they haven’t so much as TEASED anything resembling her comic death--I kind of assumed they might with the Book of Destiny stuff, but she didn’t even open the thing.

(And ultimately this is GOOD because if they’d done something similar to Barry--a last minute bait and switch--HOO BOY. There would have been...WORDS. OF STERN DISAPPOINTMENT.)

Instead, the crossover frames living as the more heroic option, because these heroes are Paragons, and thus are needed for some...other purpose, put in motion by the Monitor.

So if they die, they’re actually DOOMING the multiverse.

As mentioned! It’s kind of an interesting inversion, and until we know being a Paragon fully entails--it is difficult to say if it’s a positive or negative change!

(Still love that Kara and J’onn are Paragons, tho, cause they’re my Favs.)

OKAY so that’s the Kara and the Barry stuff. NOW, for the Kate and Kara stuff!

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE KRYPTONITE, MY DUDES.

Yeah, you thought we were DONE talking about Supergirl-specific plot lines...BUT THINK AGAIN!

LET’S TALK ABOUT HOOOOOWWWWW Kate was gonna use that Kryptonite...BUT DECIDED NOT TO, AND THEN WILLINGLY HANDED IT OVER TO KARA because she knew that 1.) SHE WOULDN’T NEED IT and 2.) Kara deserved to have the deadly poison THAT IS ONLY POISONOUS TO HER AND HER SINGLE SURVIVING BLOOD RELATIVE to decide how to dispose of it.

AND THEN...Kara tells Kate to keep it, and I thought, for one HORRIFYING MOMENT, that Kara would insist that she might someday NEED it, should Kara ever go rogue, thus VINDICATING every stupid pro-Kryptonite debate ever BUT...

NO! Instead she’s like, ‘I know you won’t use it!’

And folks.

Folks.

If nothing else. If nothing else. Please. PLEASE. Let this fun week of death and destruction be a learning moment for Kara, that she both HAS and DESERVES better friends, than a woman who casually subjected her to Kryptonite to further her own ends.

PLEASE, SHOW, PLEASE. 

Anyway! That’s hour three! And now we have to wait an ENTIRE MONTH to see how this plays out! XD

[flying-elliska]

Hii Ellie. This is kind of a personal question and it’s totally okay if you don’t answer it. How did you come to terms with your sexuality? How or when did you know you were bi? I know that it’s not about putting tags on people or anything like that, it’s just that I’ve kind of been struggling with it and it’d be nice to read your experience if you want to share it

Ooooh anon do you have three hours ? lol. Of course I want to talk about it if it can help anyone even a little. 

The tl;dr is : in stages, I struggled a lot, and bi characters were super important to me. 

So I think as a kid/teen I always had this vague notion that ladies were very pretty, but I was not a lesbian bc I liked boys too much, and besides I had these horrible ideas in my mind about queerness being immature and yucky, it was bad. I think I pretty much did have crushes on several of my girl friends but I just didn’t understand that’s what it was, just super intense friendship and being jealous when they got boyfriends hmmmm. Also my ‘fashion folder’ was full of pics of Keira Knightley in a tank top, cause that’s the height of fashion, am I right. I also wrote a letter to a girl I met at camp telling her her voice was so soft and eyes were beautiful and full of stars...do you wanna be friends ? Lol I was so obvious I swear, but it’s funnier in hindsight. 

Then when I was 18 I met this older girl in my circle of friends who was bisexual and I thought it was really cool, but I didn’t really connect the dots. I am ashamed to say, I thought she was saying that to give herself a vibe. 

Then when I was 19 i bingewatched the series Torchwood  ( a Doctor Who spinoff) and it felt like an absolute revelation. Jack Harkness, the MC, is this incredible badass rogue time travelling adventurer from the future who charms women and men left and right without any issue about it. (I think he’s...omnisexual or something ?) But this is the first time I saw the possibility of being attracted to multiple genders as something that’s actually valid. Seems silly now but this was almost 10 yrs ago, lol. It was the dark ages in terms of queer rep back then. And it’s such an integral part of Jack’s character, and he’s just so cool and it really struck a chord with me, this idea that in the future anyone can love whoever they want. There was the idea of a society that is founded on those principles, and well, I am very political in nature I guess, and i was like. yes. i can see it now. but it remained theorethical. 

Then the year after that, Erasmus exchange and I meet this girl. Like, it was bam! in your face, I fell head over heels. Now, tbh, I don’t get attracted to people all that often, but when it came to her it was absolutely indeniable. Now, she was already with someone else, so we remained just friends and it did suck a little, but I’m not sad, because it taught me a lot about myself (and she was just such a cool person in general I’m glad I met her). I just couldn’t get past it, yeah she was cool and stuff but I didn’t just want to be her friend, I was attracted to her, I daydreamed about being in a couple with her, doing romantic stuff, etc. And it was super validating to learn she was also bi a little later down the line (she was such goals in general, god.) So then after that I was like...um am I a lesbian ? Like I do have a lot of issues with men. And so I spent a lot of time having this wishy washy thing in my head.  Also that year, I was in Amsterdam taking all those gender studies classes. And it opened up my mind in a radical way - learning about queer history, the fact that sexualities are socially constructed, feminism, activism, etc etc....it allowed me to let go of a lot of my crappy internalized prejudices. I also wrote an essay on burlesque with in field research because i ‘liked the costumes’ yeahhhh right okay. The levels of denial oh my god. ANyway. 

Then i got really, really into Supernatural for a while (sigh...it was better back then, I have to say). This was s8 and the high moment of the ‘let’s prove Dean Winchester is bi’ meta palooza on tumblr. And spending so much time hunting for clues and reading so much about people explaining their own experiences of being bisexual and not realizing it until later I was like....wait a minute....That’s just so me. Dean probs will never come out of the closet, because they’re cowards, but I certainly did, so yay, I guess. I looked over my past and I was finally able to understand. I wrote the meta of my own life. Lmao. And I was able to come out to one of my friends on the phone. I felt so fucking powerful afterwards. Then to a few other friends. And it felt good. 

Then I came back to Amsterdam and I was like, alright, time to stop being a coward and actually get involved in some real life LGBT stuff. So I joined a student association and man. It was so fucking scary. I remember, they had this meet up at a bar every month, and I actually went twice, and every time I just was too nervous to actually go inside, i stood in front of it, and I went home. So in the end I actually signed up to be a member and for the integration day, so I just forced myself to show up. And I did. It was so incredibly nervewracking. I met up with a group of students holding up a rainbow flag in front of the central station and we had these series of challenges to do - take a pic with a rainbow flag in front of one of those bible thumpers, stage a harry potter duel in public, order a starbucks drink with the name ‘Vagina Jensens’, mimick the titanic scene where they’re on the edge of the boat...it was so silly and fun and everyone was so nervous in the end, it was awesome. I ended up on the newsletter committee of that association and I had a blast, interviewing people, writing book reviews, etc...I did have complexes though, that everyone was more cool and gay aware than me lol. But it still did a lot for me and helped me come out to my family. (at a restaurant for my 25th birthday because i am a drama queen lol.). At the same time it was very...mainstream gay frat house lol. Focused on partying and drinking and being sociable in a way that can be exhausting to me, and a little light on the politics, which has always been important to me. After that I volunteered for the Eurobicon as I spoke about earlier and it was so important to me, that being bisexual is such a worthy identity to have in itself and important to me beyond being just queer, it was really cool. 

I’m not totally there yet I guess, because I find relationships in general difficult, it’s been a while, I often feel like i don’t have enough experience to call myself bi, I’m nerdy and awkward, I don’t fit the cliché of the seductive bisexual, etc etc. i sometimes think that i’m a little bit on the ace spectrum too or at least demisexual because i don’t seem to be into people as often as most of my friends, and even then it’s very emotionally-focused. I also feel very weird about gender in general so that’s also a whole other thing. And my brain is wonky and i feel it interacts with all that.  I still have moments of ‘oh what if i’m actually a lesbian ! straight ! ace !’ looool.

But less now. I’m learning to let myself just...Be. ahahahahaah. And also I have more and more bi friends and that helps a lot, to just randomly swoon over multigendered celebrities and learn to be very casual about it. 

Anyway my point is. I included all those messy (kinda embarassing) details because : getting to terms with your sexuality is fucking hard. The wow i figured it out young and then came out and it was great thing ? still not for everyone. I think a key part is, we grow up with these ideals of the perfect life, of what it means to be the protagonist of your life - and most of the time still it involves hetero couple, marriage, babies - and to look beyond that, for a while, it feels like you’re going off track, disqualifying yourself. So it’s hard. Sometimes you actually need several moments of revelation, of it sinking in. It’s fine, it’s all fine. You’ll get there. No pressure. Don’t try to fit your story into a certain pattern. It’s yours, so it’s valid. 

[fly-pow-bye]

Powerpuff Girls 2016 - “Total Eclipse of the Kart”

Written by: Haley Mancini, Jake Goldman

Written & Storyboarded by: Kyle Neswald, Jaydeep Hasrajani, Leticia Abreu Silva, John Martinez

Directed by: Nick Jennings, Bob Boyle

Needs a pit stop. Or three.

The episode begins with the Mayor announcing the beginning of the Annual Townsville Eclipse Grand Prix. Whoever can get through the Cursed Canyon, Rampage Ridge, and ominous stone spires, again, the Mayor happens to know they're ominous but doesn't seem to care, gets a box he happened to dig up while excavating his new hot tub. Probably a step down from the key to the city.

Let’s meet our contestants, as it’s pretty much a who’s-who of the reboot's rogue's gallery. It seems like whenever Townsville has contests of any sort, the only constestants seem to be either criminals or the Powerpuff Girls, and this Grand Prix appears to be no different at first. Despite that nobody really knows what's inside, everyone seems to know it must be something really good!

Princess Morbucks: She wants the box because it's the only thing in Townsville she doesn't have! Princess is by far the most used villain in the entire show, which probably has something to do with being voiced by one of the head writers.

Man-Boy: He wants the box because it's manly! I would say more, but that pretty much sums him up. He's a man man man man man man. Man. Man.

Pack Rat: Speaking of one-note characters, this villain wants the box because it's shiiiny! This villain didn’t even make a single appearance in Season 2, even though his last episode involved him holding a super-cast with ominous music playing in the background. He’s very fitting here, especially due to that Rat Fink-like mini-monster truck he has.

The Fashionistas: They want the box because, to quote them, "ha ha ha ha ha". Yeah, they kind of just gave up after Pack Rat. They didn't even bother saying how fashionable the box was.

Unpictured, but surely just as important, is Jemmica, who makes a generic quip that there's no way she can't have that box. Also unpictured is Him, but that's because he decided not to show up in this episode at all. But I would be remiss if I didn't mention those unforgettable group of misfits...

...those four random cars on the left side of this shot, and no other shot in the entire episode! Finally, some proof that not everyone that participates in Townsville's events is a criminal aside from lovable superheroes.

Sadly, we didn't get those. Instead, the Reboot Puffs join in this race, too, knowing that there must be something sinister in that box to justify all of these villains showing up for it. If you're expecting any explanation to how 6 year olds can participate in something involving driving a car, that's because this is supposed to be a go-kart race. We know this, even though every car in this looks like a real car, because that's what the title says. I don't believe anything in the episode itself indicates this.

He did have some restraint, though. Right from the beginning, Buttercup wants to drive the car, but the Professor, seen via holographic projection, tells her she's too aggressive. The Mayor starts the race, and we see a few more of the rogue's gallery show up beyond who I've already talked about, including a set of returning villains who I'm sure were very welcomed to be in the reboot.

Yes, Fuzzy Lumpkins and his trustworthy banjo! He’s in what looks like a lawnmower. It is a way to keep your proper-tay clean! Sadly, we don't even get a line from Fuzzy, not even one of his famous ones. He gets immediately flattened, Wile E Coyote style, by Manboy running on a giant, manly log. In fact, I don't believe Fuzzy said a line in this entire reboot that didn't involve him cross-dressing.

Manboy does get a bit of just desserts for that, as he gets interrupted by the Gnat badly singing Ride of the Valkyries. This guy is essentially the replacement for the Ameoba Boys, except he's more of a troll than incompetent. Honestly, the more he appears, the more I'm ashamed that I ever said he was cool. The Gnat flings an overgrown termite at his log, which eats it and burps. It takes quite a bit for this joke to finish, no shock here.

Having seen this carnage, Blossom and Buttercup argue about whether destroying the other contestant's cars is awesome or not. Buttercup is of the former opinion, of course; it's that aggression the Professor keeps talking about. Bubbles wants to stop this argument by playing some hot tunes! She reaches into her dashboard and presses a bunch of buttons.

This leads to one of the running gags with the first half of the episode: a Reboot Puff randomly pushing buttons in the most ridiculous ways imaginable. All she’s doing is turning on the radio, and at no point does she accidentally fire missiles at someone.

With the help of that running gag, she manages to successfully play some music. After a few seconds of the music, they stop arguing and start singing along with it. Why wouldn’t they, it’s a parody of “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” by Whitney Houston, except it’s “I Wanna Have Lunch With Somebody”. The joke is that it involves food.

Discount Jojo, having been left in the dust, reveals that he's the Dick Dastardly of this race. He brought his own invention: the Deceleray, a ray gun that causes anything it hits to slow down to a crawl, and aims it right for the Reboot Puffs.

He even takes the time to tell the viewers that it's solar powered, or "solar power" as they didn't account for the CN logo covering half the text up. This seems like a completely random joke, and the sun that pops up to say "yeah, that's me" seems to hint at that, but this actually becomes important later. Misdirection, or just plain silliness? You decide!

The Powerpuff Girls are too busy listening to the song to notice that a ray is being fired right at them, which is a far better excuse than most of the "the Powerpuff Girls just sit still and take the punishment" scenes. As soon as they're hit by the ray, the car slows down slower than a tortoise that happened to be passing by.

It doesn't seem to slow down the Powerpuff Girls themselves, because the plot wouldn't work if it did, and they wonder why their song is now a vaporwave remix. Okay, Buttercup just calls it a "remix", but I couldn't resist. Discount Jojo then throws a giant spiked bomb right in front of them. I would have tried aiming right for the really, really slow moving targets, but again, that would have ruined the plot.

Buttercup unbuckles herself, and jumps into Blossom's cockpit for another wacky button pressing scene. Unlike the last scene, this does cause warning bells to go off, and she accuses Blossom of doing something wrong. Bubbles was just lucky, apparently.

Buttercup manages to press a button that splits the car into three different vehicles, each with their own name. You know how utterly blatant this scene is? They even have a song that says "cool toys, cool toys", and it ends with a random stock photo of a bunch of kids jumping in the air. They might as well have cut to a fake commercial of a bunch of kids playing with action figures, but that might have been too self-aware.

But wait, if the slow ray hit the entire car, even affecting Professor Utonium and the car's radio, shouldn't these vehicles also be slowed down? At least they explain why the Professor is now okay with Buttercup driving: he knew that Buttercup would rebel against him, and planned accordingly. That's actually a good Professor moment; using the knowledge of his children in his planning.

Now that they’re all split up, does this mean we have to see Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup start competing against each other? Bubbles decides to take a shortcut away from the entire race, basically taking her out of the episode. We do get to cut back to what she’s doing while Blossom and Buttercup are dealing with the rest of the villains, including a few surprise cameo appearances.

The very first of these cameos happens to be Donny the Hellhorn. I would complain, but he's reintroduced by us by Bubbles accidently running him over. Sadly, he survives, but the good news is that this episode is going to make his bad luck a running gag. It's almost like they know he's one of the most hated characters in the show, and this is their way of acknowledging that. I'm not a fan of unnecessary cruelty, even in the original, but it's Donny, so I would say it is necessary.

They get out of the Cursed Canyon, we never find out why it’s “cursed”, and the surviving racers go into the Rampage Ridge. Most of the race portion after this can be summed up with “Buttercup takes out most of the other racers with various traps.” Pack Rat gets distracted by shiny spike traps, The Fashionistas get oil slicked, and the unseen-in-this-episode-until-now Pug-Faced Paulie and his gang get distracted by a dog bone. Each of these ends with our villains falling off a cliff, and their car exploding.

Don’t worry, Buttercup is not intentionally killing all of these villains: she’s just pressing random buttons just to get the turbo buttons to work. I guess I can give them some creativity points for not just reusing the same wacky animation for every one of these scenes in this running gag, but all I can really think about is which one of these is the worst. I'm going with that Bubbles one in the beginning. Those eyes, ugh.

Blossom never gets the same treatment, most likely because an off-model button punching gag would be out of character for her. In fact, she barely gets to do anything other than drive and bicker with Buttercup. Oh yeah, Blossom ends up competing against Buttercup after they all split up, but nothing really comes of it.

After the Ridge, which was definitely reckless thanks to Buttercup, the final stretch leaves the two remaining Reboot Puffs, Discount Jojo, the Gnat, Princess, and Jemmica. The Gnat and Princess essentially go out just like the rest of the villains, with the Gnat splatting on Princess's windshield, and Princess gets taken out by her car running out of gas. One of the posse members exclaims that at least the car didn't explode, and then the car explodes. Wah, wah, waaah.

The episode isn't even halfway over, and the race appears to be nearly over. Clearly, something must be going on with that box. I honestly thought they were going to stretch this wacky race into a whole half hour, but they decide to take it in a completely different direction. Probably for the best.

While the Powerpuff Girls are still bickering on who's going to win, even Blossom forgetting that she wanted to win together with Buttercup, Discount Jojo swats them away, taking them out of the race. In a shocking turn of events, Jemmica uses a jar full of snakes to distract Discount Jojo, taking the lead. Well, so much for her being a female Indiana Jones. She manages to win, much to everyone's surprise! So what was in that all-important box?

A stick. No, really, a stick. I think even a pickle, which a lot of people expected, would have been at least something that tied into the Mayor’s character. However, Jemmica seems to know that it’s a little more than a stick, as she talks about how she’s been waiting for this moment for centuries. How amazing that Jemmica manages to win an item that was specifically for her and her alone.

Suddenly, Jemmica uses the stick, combined with an orb she happened to bring with her, and turns it into a staff. This staff turns her into Cleopatra Thanos! Okay, her real name is Jemoire, and the Professor is about to reveal everything he knows about her, with Jemoire giving some visuals using her Stick of Omens.

To make a long story short, an ancestor to the Mayor banished Jemoire, took her powers, and turned her into Jemmica. She walked the Earth, her immortal body never aging past elementary school age, as various people across time, though we only ever see her in a Greek outfit and a knight outfit before leading to the outfit we knew and, um, loved? I like how this gives a little bit of worldbuilding about Townsville, but there was something that bothered me about this.

This is not possession by an evil item, nor, as I implied before, is this some sort of Him plot. Jemmica was really this demon goddess this entire time. We should have known from all the clues they subtly put into her past episodes, like that one thing! And that other thing! And...actually I have no idea.

No, really, I have no reason to believe this was their intended purpose for this character when they were writing Frenemy or even The Buttercup Job. Well, there may be one thing: she did seem to have a knack for items that would fit a demonic sorceress than an Indiana Jones style adventurer, such as those BFF necklaces from Frenemy and the Doom Cube from The Buttercup Job. But really, this just comes out of nowhere. It's as if they couldn’t think of any more ideas for this character, so they decided to write her off in a way that attempts to make this reboot seem more “twisty” than it is.

Jemoire's first step is to take over Townsville just like she did in the ancient days. The Mayor shows up to tell her that she must be democratically elected in order to take over Townsville, and Jemoire decides to give her rebuttal: by turning the Mayor into sand. Hmm, just like that certain movie that was probably not out when this episode was in production.

Buttercup tries to give her something involving an aura power, but not even the aura powers can stop her! She even tears them apart just by slamming that magic stick again. I would wonder why she couldn’t just use that staff to turn Buttercup into sand too, but plot. All nitpicking aside, I wanted to see those aura powers torn apart at some point to show that they're not an invincible barrier, and this is one way to do it.

Blossom tries to attack, only for her to get knocked into a bunch of rocks. Well, that shouldn't be too bad, the Powerpuff Girls often went through walls in their fights. It's not like they're going to have an extended scene where Buttercup picks up Blossom's seemingly lifeless body from the rubble and cries that she could have saved her, and that it's all her fault.

Sure enough, we get an extended scene where Buttercup picks up Blossom’s seemingly lifeless body from the rubble and cries that she could have saved her, and that it’s all her fault. Yeah, I really believe that these superheroes, who can lift buildings full of people, could really die from getting knocked into a bunch of rocks. Sadly, I really do; if they can get their bones broken from getting tail whipped into a wall, this isn't too far off!

They’re trying to do this emotional moment, but they apparently have no time for that. Out of nowhere, Buttercup wonders where Bubbles is.

We smash cut to a happy scene where Bubbles manages to get Poseidon to join her Party Cat Car! Remember Poseidon's appearance in The Buttercup Job? A previous scene also gave them a bear, who just swims off after Poseidon joins. One can assume he joined a polar bear and a panda and made a far better cartoon.

Oh yeah, bonus points for the implication that Donny was holding his breath for an exorbitantly long period of time. While no Donny would have been better than any Donny, a Donny in constant pain is something I can definitely appreciate.

Cutting back to the now far less dramatic scene, thanks Bubbles, of course Blossom didn’t get killed by a bunch of rocks falling on her. She doesn’t even get a broken arm! Bubbles must be that weak. Buttercup confirms that she learned absolutely nothing as Buttercup starts bickering with Blossom again. With Bubbles still partying with the fake Whitney Houston song, who could stop them from getting into another fight?

Discount Jojo, of course. Actually, I joke about calling him Discount Jojo because his character is often a downgrade from what I remember from the original, but this is one of his better appearances. Discount Jojo ends up teaming up with the Powerpuff Girls because he had dibs on taking over Townsville, and this "Jem-Moo-Moo" lady is getting in the way. It's a case of Forced Kin, and that's not a complaint at all.

We do get a scene where they plan a huge strategy against them with tiny little rocks. I think they could have thrown a joke or two in here, but I guess having a piece of cactus represent Jojo was good enough.

Jemoire summons a bunch of rock minions, and the Powerpuff Girls end up being in a big fight scene against them. I honestly don't have a lot of bad things to say about this scene. One can tell this is one of those scenes where they put a little more money into it than usual. There’s even a nice use of CGI, which I thought was a little beyond this show’s budget! It helps that, since these minions are made of rock, they have no problem showing the Powerpuff Girls punching their arms, legs, and heads off with no hit flashes whatsoever. That's an anomaly in this reboot; sometimes you can't even show a soccer ball getting kicked!

This was all going to end with Discount Jojo firing his Deceleray at Jemoire. Unfortunately, due to all the clouds and the solar eclipse, he only has one shot. Even worse, the episode still has quite a few minutes to go before it ends, and they sure weren't going to end this with a four minute dance party to that fake Whitney Houston song!

One of the rock minions is a giant robot, and Discount Jojo decides that this was too scary for him to keep aiming at the sorceress. He decides to press a giant bail button to launch himself out of his car, causing the car to drop the Deceleray. The Deceleray then shoots its only shot at a random bird. I said it was one of his better appearances; I did not say it was a good appearance.

Then again, maybe he had a reason to be scared, as the Reboot Puffs struggle to face off against it, too. Can anyone stop them, especially if it ends up to a payoff to a not-that-great running joke that ruined a previous scene?

In comes the party train! Choo choo! Somehow, they fly from the sky and ram right into the giant rock monster that Jojo was so terrified by. The robot even pukes out of its eyes, or at least that's the first thought that popped into my mind when I watched it.

But, predictably, beating up a bunch of minions doesn't mean anything. As the previous season has shown, they can have scenes where some random nobodies, and immediately lead to the Monster Punch Girls Down as soon as anything potentially story-changing could happen.

We got Poseidon, the Greek god of the seas and apparently a really good actor! With all of his might, he offers Jemoire some of his world-famous undersea creamed corn! That was a running gag with him in this episode. I don't believe you can grow corn under the sea, but I guess you can't prove Poseidon can't!

Needless to say, Jemoire does not accept the offer, and manages to take him down with a lightning strike from a storm she summoned earlier in the scene. I wouldn't take this victory against a god too far; electric is super effective against water.

I don’t even need to have a screenshot of Donny doing whatever he was going to do, because it’s a foregone conclusion that he can’t do much against this, either. The only time he’s ever in direct combat in the series was to run into a control board in a drunken-esque stupor.

They sure let this electrocution joke go for a long time, and this is something I usually complain about. However, considering how bad two of his previous episodes were, and the fact that the third episode was only okay despite him, this is a well deserved punishment for the Hell-Horn. He doesn't even deserve a consistent spelling of that.

Finally, we get the Reboot Puffs, given a job that would be easier for them than the corn salesman and the Worst Friend Forever. They could fly in and punch that sorceress right in the face while she's busy electrocuting those two.

Or, they can just get electrocuted, too. Funny how they don’t give anyone else any silly faces, but they’re not afraid to do this to our beloved classic characters. I will say that there is some comedic timing with this; the lightning strikes come up just as soon as they fly up. It's a rare good use of timing in this reboot, but way to make your super powerful characters that should inspire all those mothers and daughters look weaker than a wimpy unicorn.

All hope appears to be lost. Discount Jojo’s still around, but the Deceleray can’t get any power because of all the clouds and the moon covering up the sun. See, take that, you solar power loving hippies! Jojo clearly should have used something bad for the environment!

Discount Jojo tries to do something else, but he gets twisted up by Jemoire's magic. Thankfully for everyone else, she decides to keep all of her attention on Discount Jojo to do this one thing. Lightning spells and/or spells to keep everyone else paralyzed are apparently far less taxing than telekinesis. Unfortunately for Jemoire, it was about time for the solar eclipse to end, causing the sun to shine on the Deceleray again. The Powerpuff Girls get the Deceleray, and zap her until she’s completely stationary. What happened to Donny and Poseidon? I don't know.

We cut to The Mayor finishing the story about how he managed to come back from being turned into sand, which is sadly one of the more clever bits of the reboot. We also find out that everyone managed to survive their explosions, as we get a shot of all the villains that participated…except for Fuzzy and a few other characters. This is pretty much proof that they didn’t put a lot of thought in the classic villains’ appearance in this earlier in the episode.

Discount Jojo shows up to attempt to take over Townsville now that Jemoire is nowhere to be seen, but considering he still has injuries from being bent out of shape, his low chances of actually taking over Townsville are even lower here. The Reboot Puffs don’t even have to punch him; he just falls over just by himself. Again, this is something I could see the real Mojo doing. The trying to take over Townsville after getting injured part, not the falling over. The episode ends with the Powerpuff Girls going out for ice cream. No, that isn't my usual "eat ice cream" gag, that's actually what they did.

And right after that quip, we see Jemoire still making the same stance she had when she was frozen by the Deceleray, as ominous music plays and the shot slowly fades out. We still have a half a season left before we can assume this is yet another cliffhanger that will never be resolved.

Does the title fit?

An eclipse does factor into the plot. As mentioned before, they never really call it a "go-kart race" or anything of the sort; all of the vehicles seem like regular cars or just weird gimmicky stuff like that log.

How does it stack up?

The first half of the episode is a pretty mediocre Wacky Races parody. It's cool to see all the villains together, and unlike the last time this has happened in Tiara Trouble, you at least get to see some personality beyond "let's just put them in a dress!"

The episode gets a lot better once we get into the second part of the episode, though I'm still not convinced the twist wasn't something pulled out of thin air. However, there were some good ideas here, and the fight scene against the rock minions is surprisingly good by reboot standards. All in all, it's an upper-tier Neutral that still shows some potential.

Next, we take the long skate home. Take the long skate home.

← Ragnarock and Roll ☆ The Long Skate Home →

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What? I didn’t forget anything! That’s it, I’m done for this week. If I didn't get a cold a few days before this review was posted, I might have had some time to review The Long Skate Home and had a double feature to make up for my absence last week, but when it comes to sickness, sleep is better.

Wait, that's not what you want me to talk about?

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Alright, fine, I'll talk about that cameo that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever and didn't need to happen.

Almost as soon as the race begins, the Powerpuff Girls notice these three boys that look so much like them. They recognize them as the Rowdyruff Boys, as they say their names in unison. These boys were incredibly popular villains in the original, but they haven't made a single appearance in the reboot beyond false rumors of them returning with Vine superstars voicing them.

They had fansites, and even to this day, there’s tons of fanfiction and fanart depicting them as being lovey-dovey with the Powerpuff Girls. So how does the reboot reintroduce these beloved characters from the original? Clearly, they must have put some thought into that; look at those cute little helmets they gave them! It would be perfect for more cool toys! Cool beans!

Well, as soon as the Reboot Puffs say their name, the Reboot Ruff's kart immediately gets rocketed and we never see them again. They don't even get a line, it's just rocket boom, boys down, womp womp. To be honest, considering this reboot's general track record with characters returning from the original, I am a little relieved that this is their only appearance in the reboot.

Their appearance was completely inconsequential to the plot, and would only lead to confusion to people who are not familiar with them. In fact, I question why they even bothered to include them. Sure, this is a battle royale with a bunch of villains from previous episodes, but it's not like they included absolutely everyone. Is it a tribute? Is it a jab? Or maybe this is just a tease for a future appearance by them in Season 4. Ha, ha, ha.

← Ragnarock and Roll ☆ The Long Skate Home →

[positivelyamazonian]

10 Favorite Game/Anime/Movie Characters

Tagged by: @a-super-evil-cat-who-murders (thanks!!! It was fun!)

The Rules: Name your top 10 favorite characters from 10 different fandoms, then tag 10 different people.

Well I’ve already done a tag for FEMALE CHARACTERS so I’ll leave this in case you wanna check it. For not repeating myself, I’ll do this time just male characters.

I’ll tag: @luluvonv @luthienamell @adayka @hydraballista @anyathebloodshell @anentireamazon @jar-cup @kim-v-croft  @autumn-star93 @lady-trent

Of course don’t feel obliged to do this. And yes my characters come in not a particular order!

1. Haplo the Patryn - The Death Gate Cycle (book series)

Posting an amazing fanart by Melusaaste because there’s not an official art that shows him so close-up, and honestly, this is the most accurate depiction of him I’ve ever seen. 

Haplo is the anti-hero and main character of The Death Gate Cycle series written by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. Personal childhood hero (despite being an antihero himself), husbando and whatnot, until today he’s one of my fav characters ever, because through him I learnt the most perfect character development, from a cruel, merciless and amoral villain, to... well, not a hero if you think so, but to redeemed human being. 

“A 'why' is a dangerous thing... It challenges old, comfortable ways, forces people to think about that they do instead of just mindlessly doing it.” - Haplo in Dragon Wing, the first volume of the series.

2. Johan Liebheart - Monster

You don’t know what’s a villain until you meet this bastard. I am not an otaku or very enthusiastic of anime series, but Monster by Naoki Urasawa are probably the best manga/anime series ever written. And his villain, Johan Liberheart, one of the most twisted fucks ever written by an author.

Tortured, mentally ill, twisted, cruel, amoral, there’s no way to explain Johan. He experiences no character development and he has not a single redeeming quality, yet you just can’t let him go. An unforgettable character, not recommended for the weak and vulnerable.

There's nothing special about being born. Not a thing. Most of the universe is just death, nothing more. In this universe of ours, the birth of a new life on some corner of our planet is nothing but a tiny, insignificant flash. Death is a normal thing. So why live?

3. Geralt of Rivia - The Witcher (book/videogame series)

I’m so sorry I met this amazing character through The Witcher videogame series, because he existed already in the book series of the same name written by  Andrzej Sapkowski, and I really feel like posting this video because it perfectly sums up the spirit of the character.

Geralt is a witcher, a mutant specialist in killing demons and monsters for coin. He’s shaped like an anti-hero and despised by his society because of his nature and his mercenary job, but despite having everything for being just a rogue scoundrel, he manages to become a very rich character. Full of redeeming qualities despite his grey morals, Geralt struggles in a cruel Middle-Ages world to keep something human for himself, when everyone surrounding him tries to turn him in the heartless freak he was trained to be.

“People," Geralt turned his head, "like to invent monsters and monstrosities. Then they seem less monstrous themselves. When they get blind-drunk, cheat, steal, beat their wives, starve an old woman, when they kill a trapped fox with an axe or riddle the last existing unicorn with arrows, they like to think that the Bane entering cottages at daybreak is more monstrous than they are. They feel better then. They find it easier to live.” ― Andrzej Sapkowski, The Last Wish

4. Raistlin Majere - The Dragonlace (book series)

Again, I’ve to go back to a character created by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman (man, this people CAN write characters I tell you), this time for the Dragonlance series. These books are less original and brilliant than The Death Gate Cycle, but more popular and beloved because they are easier to read. And Raistlin Majere is probably the best character written for these series, being saved among them because of being, probably, the less cliché and the more complex of them all.

And again, anti-hero at times, redeemed hero at other times, tortured, twisted, cynic and cruel, but also able to show kindness and a human heart at times. Raistlin was born weak and sick and sacrificed everything (including his own health) for one sake: magic. And power. His only life desire is what will lead him to his own destruction.

"Of course this means a lot to me, Caramon. It means everything! I have worked and studied almost my entire life for this chance. What would you have me do - cast it aside because it is dangerous? Life is dangerous, Caramon. Just stepping out that door is dangerous! You cannot hide me from danger. Death floats in the air, creeps through the window, comes in with the hand-shake of a stranger. If we stop living because we fear death we have already died."

5. Tyrion Lannister (A Song of Ice and Ice/Game of Thrones series)

This little amazing piece of awesomeness needs no presentation. I am again sorry I met through the Game Of Thrones TV series and not A Song Of Ice And Fire books, but it was totally worth it because it’s one of the most well-written characters I’ve had the pleasure to meet, and I must say Peter Dinklage was born to play him.

What can I say? Tyrion is one of those characters who are worth living. A dwarf, deformed, ugly, with no physical or war skills, relying only in his extreme intelligence and wisdom and his political talent to survive, he’s one of the most strong inspirations one can find. Definitely go check him.

6. Kurtis Trent (Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness videogame)

I included Lara Croft in my female characters list, it would be absolutely unfair to forget Kurtis as he’s the other character that got my heart in TR series. Not gonna rant long about him here, because you already know my opinion. He was amazing. He deserved better. Ex-legionnaire, demon hunter and Lux Veritatis warrior, I’ve devoted all my fanfics to develop him as there was no chance for Core Design to do it so.

Fitting more in the role of a hero, I think he was also the perfect partner for Lara. His background is very well written and he had a lot of potential. The fact I will never see it doesn’t change anything. He deserves his place here.

"And I thought this would be one of my easy days." - Kurtis, The Sanitarium.

7. L Lawliet - Death Note (manga/anime series)

Again, I reinforce the statement that I’m not a fan of manga/anime series, but definitely Death Note is, together with Monster, one of those you should watch. And yes for everyone who loves Death Note, I’m a L fan. You always choose between L or Kira sides, and despite I’ve to recognize that Kira is a very complex, well written character, it’s L who gets my heart.

Supertalented, amoral, brilliant, extremely unpredictable and surprising, L is the first one of the agents that will try to catch Kira, the murderer who uses a Death Note to implant his particular justice world. L deserves your attention more than Kira, I presume. Or at least, it’s what I think.

“There are... many types of monsters in this world: Monsters who will not show themselves and who cause trouble; monsters who abduct children; monsters who devour dreams; monsters who suck blood, and... monsters who always tell lies. Lying monsters are a real nuisance. They are much more cunning than other monsters. They pose as humans even though they have no understanding of the human heart. They eat even though they've never experienced hunger. They study even though they have no interest in academics. They seek friendship even though they do not know how to love. If I were to encounter such a monster, I would likely be eaten by it. Because in truth, I am that monster.”

8. V - V for Vendetta (graphic novel/movie)

I know, easy to love him, right? Again I’m sad that I met this character through the movie and not the original graphic novel, though you can’t say a thing against Hugo Weaving’s magnificent delivery. I wish I could get my hands on the graphic novel, so I can know him better.

Anarchist, terrorist, idealist, V is the incarnation of the protest against dictatorship and opression in a dystopian England that has supressed all the rights and human freedom. If you don’tknow him, I strongly recommend at least the movie, for the inspiration this character delivers goes beyond that the mask that has trascended the movie itself to become a symbol of citizen fight.

9. Roger - American Dad (TV series)

Well technically he’s not a he, he’s rather an it, but whatever. Also he’s it’s a different trend in this post since I love him particularly because he’s funny and incarnates all the non-political correct you can expect from someone.

He also gives me, kinda, TR vibes. Roger is an alien who landed in Earth during Cold War and was rescued and sheltered at his home by Stan, a CIA agent who’s the main character of the series. Honestly I think Roger is the best of American Dad - a TV show which basically and mercilessly mocks every American value - because despite being an alien is absolutely, indecently human. I prefer him and this show much more than the overrated Family Guy.

10.  Dwight Schrute - The Office (TV series)

Last but not the least, the efficient, clever and adorable bastard hillbilly from The Office. I loved him from the very first moment he appeared. Yeah I know many people hate him or prefer the goofy boss of the handsome Jim but Dwight is really my spirit animal and speaks to me in so many levels. No more comment needed. He’s the best of the show to me.

Well this took forever, right? Sorry for the length of this post but now I’m free I wanted to give it some thought. I see again that I’ve a soft spot for grey morals, redeeming qualities, bad boys and complex characters. This is how it goes! ;)

[enchantment1385]

Three Fandoms

I was tagged by the wonderful @queen-of-the-crows I am VERY late... I’m so sorry! Okay here we go! 

Rules: Choose any three fandoms (in random order) and answer the questions, then tag people you wanna know better.

Three Fandoms: Dragon age / TES (I’ll stick to skyrim for this) / Mass Effect 

The first character you loved:  Dragon age ~ Alistair, and it was awkward. I had NO clue what I was doing, I kept giving him the wrong gifts, saying the wrong thing... Meanwhile I had Zev and Leliana telling me how great I was. When it finally happened i was thrilled... And then I died anyway... SIGH. 

Skyrim ~ Farkas. The man is a literal beast, can rip men apart or cleave them in two, and writes notes to his brother asking him to remove a spider from his room, because he’s scared of them... There is just something endearing about that.

Mass Effect ~ Wrex. He’s a cranky, older, krogan merc with a short fuse... But holy shit I love him!!! I can’t explain this, he’s just... Awesome. He made the team on every mission.

The character you relate to the most:  Dragon age ~ Hawke. without a doubt! I wasn’t blessed with superhuman powers, I just keep being put in totally unbelievable situations with only my humor and sarcasm to save me. Someday I’ll end up in the fade with a giant spider demon... Bugger.

Skyrim ~ This is tricky because TES games not known for their ‘Deep character writing’. Uhh... Sheogorath, daedric prince of madness.  The Isles, the Isles. A wonderful place! Except when it's horrible. Then it's horribly wonderful. Good for a visit. Or for an eternity. 

Mass Effect ~ Jack, although I am in no way as cool, i’m probably equally as damaged, and most definitely as foul mouthed. 

The character you’d slap:

Dragon age ~ Bianca... The real one. Okay, firstly, Varric and FemHawke SHOULD be together, at least in my bloody playthrough they damn well should be! Secondly, she shows up after CREATING the damn situation and then has the nerve to threaten you?! Nuh uh. Nope, sorry. Bitch slap into the abyss. 

Skyrim ~ Luckily, you get to brawl some assholes in the game, but they left a few people off the list, namely Nazeem and Maven Black-Briar... And those sisters in solitude... And Elenwen...  Actually, Pretty much 90% of people in the game could use a slap to be fair. 

Mass Effect ~ Miranda. Oooh boy and how. Stuck up snooty bitch.

Three favourite characters (in order of preference):

Dragon age ~ Alistair / Varric / Dorian 

Skyrim ~ Brynjolf /  Sheogorath / Barbus 

Mass Effect ~ Garrus / Thane / Wrex

A character you didn’t like at first but do now:

Dragon age ~ Isabela. My first Hawke was a duel wielding rogue, as such (and because I adore Varric), I never took her on any missions, so she took the book and pissed off for good. However, even though I still think her taking the book in the first place was SO DUMB, I do love her dialog, and her as a character.  

Skyrim ~ Brynjolf. So, I show up in Riften for the first time, try and get swindled by the guards, get threatened, witness a stable hand get threatened, so I offer to go into the inn and sort shit out. After a ‘to the point’ conversation with Sapphire, I turn to get a well earned room for the evening when, ‘Never earned a honest coin in your life, have you lass?’ WTF? A, who the fuck are you? B, what the hell has it got to do with you?! But honestly, Bryn is a sweetheart! 

Mass Effect ~ Miranda. Although over time I have come to appreciate her a LOT more, first playthrough I despised her...Like a whole bunch, as in, on my first mission, I just took Jacob, luckily we picked up Zaeed along the way. But to be fair to her, she’s more screwed up than most people in the game, despite seemingly having it all. 

Three OTPs:

Dragon age ~ FemHawke~Varric / Dorian ~ Lavellan / My OC’s ~ Anyone 

Skyrim ~ Just get skyrim romance. As apart from Farkas and Vilkas, all the other people you’ll love are un-romanceable... 

Mass Effect ~ Garrus ~ Shepard / Thane ~ Shepard / Joker ~ Shepard 

@heraldofwho (you done this?) @dreadhobo @sassylavellen @inquisitorsmabari 

[roguekriger]

Tag Time!

TAGGED BY: @the-shifty-cow ! Thank you kindly! (I meant to do this earlier but I just started another Mass Effect playthrough and I is distracted)

RULES: Answer 30 questions and tag ██ blogs you are contractually obligated to know.

TAGGING: @thxchampagne @cauldronfalls @spacejampire @haaska @rareastrees plus anyone else who wants to do it! (I’m sorry I have so many other people I’d like to tag but can’t think of at the top of my head!)

Nicknames: Rogue is the main one since it’s my alias on LITERALLY EVERYTHING. I also get called N7 a lot. My actual name isn’t the easiest to make nicknames for soooooooo

Gender/Pronouns: Male - he/him

Star Sign: Aries

Height: 6′2″ some people will say I’m 6′1″ or 6′1.5″ and those people are LIARS

Time: 11:32 PM (Eastern Standard Time)

Birthday: March 22

Favorite Bands:  Lord off the top of my head Linkin Park (RIP Chester), Two Steps from Hell (technically Orchestra but close enough) Smallpools, Starset, Disturbed (video is kinda dark), Stuck in the Sound, and AC/DC. For things that aren’t technically bands (which I listen to more often tbh) there’s Drunk Girl (one of my all time favorites!), Hermitude, Hollywood Principle, Daft Punk, Destroid, Niklas Ahlström, C2C, and Shirk. There’s definitely more but good lord can I not remember them rn

//Imma put each name as a link to their best song (imo) in case ya wanna listen

Favorite Solo Artist: Literally the ONLY solo artist I follow and listen to on my own accord is James Durbin. Sure I listen to all the mainstream artists but he’s the only one where I actually buy his music and listen to him regularly.

Song Stuck in your head: I’m almost always “rapping” the first verse of Survival by Eminem (that song has picked me up out of some bad times more than once) but currently and almost always I Don’t Want To Set The World On Fire by The Ink Spots is stuck in my head.

Last movie you watched: Pitch Perfect 3 which I may add was awesome and better than the second one

Last Show: My dude I have to many shows but the last one was 9-1-1

Why did you create you blog?: Buddy if I had an answer for you I’d be ecstatic but considering the clusterfuck of content I post ranging from mass effect to the stupidest shit posts in existence I would technically say that when I created this 4 years ago was simply for the spicy memes and funny ass text posts but then it more became a blog to keep with my fandoms and yada yada yada.

What do you post?: Well going off of ^^^ mostly Mass Effect, humor (shitposts are humor right?), occasional news or PSAs, space stuff, anything sci-fi really, Gregor the Overlander even tho this fandom is pretty much dead lmao, and really most video games especially like Bioware and Bethesda

Last thing you googled?: Baikal Rift Valley distance from upper mantle            (I HAVE MY REASONS)

Other blogs: I have two other blogs on tumblr and no where else

AO3: Okay I didn’t even KNOW what AO3 was until like a few months ago and I’ve read like maybe two fanfictions in my life but I have written one piece for Mass Effect 3 (should be on here somewhere I think I posted it for N7 day) and a novel length one for The Underland Chronicles which I’m still writing.

Do you get asks?: Lol no

How did you get the idea for your URL?: Okay so...I’m honestly not sure. Ever since Spore came out I’ve loved the word Rogue. Don’t know why, I guess I liked the whole fight against the current lone wolf kinda thing and that’s pretty much what a “rogue” is. As for Kriger, well I also love mythology and history, specifically of Greek and Scandinavian/Norse origin and I believe if my memory serves me right Kriger translates to Warrior in Norwegian. I mean I’ve used this URL for years now so even if that’s wrong its whatever at this point

I follow: 449 blogs which honestly I’m pretty sure a good 80% are inactive if not more. Plus a few friends that...well...aren’t around anymore. For various reasons.

Followers: 419 but that numbers gonna drop because I just KNOW more than half of those are probably porn bots and when I finally gain the motivation imma block em

Average hours of sleep: When I don’t have class or many classes probably around 8 hours but if I have a lot of classes (like last spring) probably 5 to 6

Lucky number: 8, the vertical infinity sign

Instruments: I use to know a few songs on the guitar and piano but idk I never kept with it

What are you wearing?: Andromeda Initiative shirt and jeans! Plus my dog tag

Dream Job: Okay so it’s always been a cross between astronautical engineer for NASA (which is what I’m going to school for) and game developer. I’ve also played with the idea of founding my own engineering company but that’s like way off in the future

Dream Trip: I’ve always wanted to go to Scotland and/or Japan. But honestly a dream trip would be to some ancient ruins in some tropical location or one of those gorgeous nature trips like in the canyons in Zion. Or space, I REALLY wanna go to space. Yeah scratch the other stuff. I wanna go to space. Fuck yeah.

Favorite Food: Beef Carpaccio from Brio straight up. I fucking love it. I’d kill for it. I can’t get ENOUGH OF IT. Also sushi.

Significant Other?: HA. HAHA. HAHAHAHAHA. Oh man that’s funny. My dude my longest relationship was 3 months I would LOVE to have a name to put here but alas I am unlucky and not the most sociable.

Last book I read: Damn I wanna say it was The Underland Chronicles since I reread that at least like once every year but holy shit I can’t remember what was the last book I read. Fuck that’s depressing for some reason.

Top 3 fictional universes: Mass Effect, Fallout, The Underland Chronicles

[realchemistry]

Star Wars Review

There are things I have never seen in my life that everyone’s seen. Marvel movies were one of those once upon a time. So was Star Wars.

I never watched the so-called prequels when they were first out, I guess because of a mix of being taken to watch other movies instead (don’t even ask), and my being into other stuff. Also, I tend to save some things for rainy days (like the LOST epilogue, which I haven’t watched yet — can’t let go!), but I’m not sure why I kept pushing Star Wars back.

Somehow, it became a thing I’d watch once I graduated. And I did that in July. So, naturally, I waited till mid-November to get on with it.

What follows is a review of the entire saga and The Last Jedi, so there are spoilers after the cut.

The sequels

They were so much fun. I still can’t believe a mind can come up with all of that, to make up a world so rich and real, and to make it look the part.

Thinking that it was done 40 years ago only made it more magnificent, as the special effects and all of still looked pretty okay.

Of course I was spoiled for the big things, one cannot simply escape Star Wars, but to see it all play out was very much enjoyable.

Plus, let’s be real, all signs pointed at Lord Vader being Luke’s father, so...

Character-wise, I freaking loved Luke so much. It was distracting that he looked just like Seb, but such is life.

Leia and Han were close behind, truly. As was R2-D2, one of the cutest androids in the galaxy!

One minor issue to me was that I did wish we knew more about all of them — it felt like we knew them, but we didn’t know about them.

The prequels*

Anakin, oh, Anakin! He was such a cutie as a kid, why did he have to grow up?

Honestly, these were not as much fun, but I and III had stuff going for them. The first one because it was seeing this world from a different perspective, in a different time, meeting new people, learning more about how everything works and where it all started. The third one because it’s the conclusion, and though you knew how it’d end, it’s still powerful to see it all come together.

I wanna highlight that, interestingly enough, I believe the prequels were the first step towards answering some of those issues I had mentioned. It’s not that we learned about the characters specifically, but knowing where they were coming from definitely made a difference and added to their cause.

Cast-wise, I think they might have made a few mistakes there, but Ewan, I love with all my heart always.

*Prequel is not a proper word because the prefix “se-” is not a thing, and neither is the root “quel” and I hate it, I had to say that. I’m all for descriptivism, but this one bugs the hell outta me!

The Force Awakens

SO MUCH FUN. Sure, it was a repeat of A New Hope in more ways than one, but they managed to make it feel like a homage, and they added LOTS of cool things, and funny bits, and heart.

Poe. Dameron. I fucking love Oscar so fucking much and so I loved Poe and his fucking beautiful face was so pretty all the time. Best damn pilot, captain of my heart, I love him forever and ever.

REY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She’s so important, okay? Watching the sequels, it’s particularly jarring how there were men everywhere all the time, and Leia’s pretty much the only woman in the galaxy. They tried to make it better with the prequels, but it wasn’t all it should’ve. Here, they put a woman front and center, and Leia’s there too, as are others. Not enough, not quite, but getting there.

Finn, I had so many feels!!! Like, he defected, and there was Poe. And Poe gave him a name, and the jacket (it was coming, but fucking Oscar and his face made it a million times better), and they’re love. Finn’s trying to get out of a bad situation that he didn’t want in the first place, and ended up being a hero and just FINN!!! I think his name sums it up.

Seeing Chewie, Han and Leia back felt emotional even though it hadn’t been 40 years for me. The movie did so well by them, but I was so incredibly sad for Han and Leia and how their lives turned out.

And then I was sad because FUCKING KYLO REN killed Han. Like, there’s no going back. There was no going back before, because he tortured my baby Poe and Rey, but this was it. No coming back, no redemption, nothing. I’m not sure why, but I don’t care for Adam Driver at all, so that didn’t help the slightest bit.

In this sense, I gotta highlight that Vader, as scary as he was supposed to be, never really messed with our people in this way. So while he was the bad guy, killing planets and all, he hadn’t done anything to characters we cared about until he fought Luke... and we know how that one turned out.

Oh, and then there was LUKE, BACK and cloaked, AND I SCREAMED.

Rogue One

This movie hurt my feelings so much. I kept trying to place it within the Star Wars world, and the moment I figured when it was located... Not a good thing to figure out.

So many great characters, it’s honestly such a shame that we only got a little bit of time with them.

At the same time, it was amazing to see how the Rebellion started, the why and the who and all that.

Jyn and Cassian were so great together. I don’t even mean romantically, just, so good, and I can’t believe they were taken from us.

Bodhi is the second greatest pilot in the galaxy and I loved him.

I sorta wish there had been more female characters, it felt like a step back in that sense.

Learning that the bad guy, Ben Mendelsohn, was a Star Wars superfan was the most hilarious and awesome thing.

This time around, Darth Vader was truly scary as hell.

The end was both awfully sad and entirely... hopeful. *wink-wink*

The Last Jedi

Poe started the whole thing being his badass, awesome self, so I was immediately hooked. He continued being all of this and more. Give me a minute to ask: how is he so pretty, I don’t even understand anything. I’m just so glad he made it out alive cause I would’ve started shit right then and there if he hadn’t. He also grew as a person, and we got to know him a bit more. Not enough, but I’ll take what I can get.

Seeing Luke so isolated, blaming himself, that was really sad. I wish he and Rey had spent more time together. Much like Rey described it, Luke’s death wasn’t sad, and it looked peaceful... but I think part of it had to do with what had just happened with Finn.

Finn was back, and being lovely and clueless, and a smart hero. I swear to fucking god, I was about to burst into ugly crying when Rose saved the day.

So when Luke died, at first I was wondering if he really had, and then I was just... I don’t know. I guess I had panicked so much because Finn had a lot to do still, and it wasn’t fair for him to die. Whereas maybe Luke had served his purpose and lived his life well enough. Not to say that I’m happy about it, or that I don’t wanna see him, cause I expect to see Mark show up Kenobi-style in the next one!

One Skywalker twin standing. Every scene with Carrie was so hard to watch. I really need Mark there next movie, he has to be.

When Yoda showed up, everyone was in awe. It was a good thing.

Rose was awesome all throughout, but particularly so when she saved Finn, can we keep her?

I really wish Rey hadn’t been so removed from everything and everyone, but I get it, it needed to be like that for the plot to work. I’m glad her parents were not a person we know, after all, we already had a bit of incest, no need for everyone to know everyone. I didn’t enjoy Rey’s connection with Kylo at all, just ewww, no. I hope she learned her lesson there for good and I can’t wait to see her being the Jedi.

I was so mad when I thought the film wanted to redeem Kylo Ren (I say his full villain name cause I hate him and I’m two). Like NO, it wasn’t gonna happen, not ever. I was entirely relieved when they stopped that.

Kylo and Hux acted like children. I laughed.

Laura Dern!!!!!! I was so mad at her for going againt my most beautiful and precious pilot, but she did good at the end.

Chewie was like Steve from Stranger Things with all his adopted ~children, it’s law.

The action was all the time, all around, non-stop. It was crazy good! But also really bad cause the Resistance is barely a thing!

The parallels with our world were not even subtle, and I’m glad because the world is an awful place these day. If at least one person’s gonna come out thinking things through, then that’s a good thing we should all celebrate.

Like I said with Rey, I wish the characters hadn’t been so divided all the time, but the story needed that. However, it was insane that Poe and Rey only really met at the end of this one! (Was that a meet-cute? Cause, like... “I know”?) My guess is that the next one will have less of that and more of everyone together. Or maybe that’s just what I want.

I can’t wait for more!

[arkus-rhapsode]

Comparison: Haru Glory and Natsu Dragneel

Okay so if you forget, I did one of these before with Acnologia and Endless and I thought about it and I really wanna do Haru vs Natsu. Now this is a comparison of these two character, so this isn’t meant to feel like an attack on anyone who likes these two.

So many people have a lot of ill-feelings towards FT and one of those things is Natsu Dragneel. Natsu Dragneel is often critiqued as an standard hot-blooded shounen protagonist, gets away with too many awful things, is treated like the big damn hero who is infallible, boring to sit through in battles, never being affected by anything that happens to him, and not developing beyond who he is from chapter 1. Now I will definitely defend Natsu more than the average Joe, but at times, it is surprising to see how he ended up. Because like a lot of Fairy Tail, if you read Rave Master, there seems to be a lot of stuff done better, one of them being main protagonist, Haru Glory.

Haru seems to be a complete reversal of Natsu and a lot of that seems to be a detriment to Natsu. So let’s compare Haru to Natsu on a lot of these subjects that Natsu is often said to be a bad character for.

The first is the standard battle manga protagonist. Natsu is a character similar to Luffy or Naruto, he’s loud, brash, very eager for action, and when it comes down to pinch you see that they are people who stick up for what they believe in. Haru falls into a different category, the straight man like Yusuke or Ichigo, he’s more reactionary to the new world around him, he’ll think things out, and ultimately it’s their goal that pushes them to continue through the unfamiliar. There’s nothing wrong with a protagonist being like either of these options, the standard hot-blooded shounen protagonist is considered a trope because it is effective. With shounen being a demographic aimed at adolescent boys, so it would be easy for them to make a connection to this very boisterous character, the thing is that being a standard hot-blooded protagonist is easy to help have fun and quickly identify with them, but it’s harder to keep the readers interest if that’s all they are like throughout the series. We’ll get into this later, but characters like Naruto and Luffy overtime became more nuanced than just that standard character they were introduced as and became unique characters separate from other standard shounen characters like them. Natsu however, isn’t like that. There isn’t any layers to him throughout the series, the most I could identify that separates him from other manga characters like him, is he was raised by a dragon. Haru on the other hand, like other straight man characters, is able to more clearly cut out their identity. Haru and Yusuke are a bit different in that, while they can act very reactionary to the world around them they still are able to fit in goofy moments when the tone calls for it. (Unlike  Ichigo who ends up coming off as a stick in the mud most the time). An interesting about Natsu and Haru is that Natsu is introduced along with Lucy, so it had to balance out the time spent on each character, but Haru is unique in the sense it took 5 chapters before he was joined by another permanent cast member, so you really get a good grasp of who Haru is early on.

Now on to the next thing, Natsu gets away with too many awful things. Alright this is something I don’t want to entirely blame on Natsu as a character, but more a fault of the world created around them. In the world of Fairy Tail, this world is considered well govern to the point it has a multitude of legal guilds across, and that the villains are either treated as one man operations that act as rogues, such as bandits or swindlers, or the are more like terrorist organizations with large numbers of individuals trying to take over the world. The thing is, criminals and dark guilds are more like isolated incidents, those who wish to disrupt the already peaceful world, because wizards while capable of combat, are also tasked to do menial things. There’s no hint that guilds and mages are tasked to go out and fight other countries who are waging war, or have become corrupt, because Ishgar seems like it is secured. So when Natsu (or anybody in the series) does something like destroy public property, unless it’s a base of a villain (like the grimoire airship) or a tool in the possession of the villains (like Nirvana), there is no reason for characters like Natsu to escalate it as much as they do. So Natsu comes off as an inconsiderate jerk, because most situations he’s put in doesn’t justify destroying things. He breaks into Sabertooth’s lodgings in the GMG because of how they treated Yukino. While it’s admirable how cares about someone who isn’t part of his guild, he takes to an extreme by breaking in and not only brutalizing several innocent members of Sabertooth, but also endangering his guild of staying in the tournament. It’s not like Sabertooth was a guild from another country that had machinations to assassinate the king, at worse they were just a bunch of jerks. I mean instead of doing the sensible thing and showing how Natsu cares about how guilds treating their members by using Yukino’s excommunication as added motivation to beat Sting and Rogue, he looks like a bigger jackass taking iit to an extreme level. The worse thing is, he’s never punished. It be one thing if he kept up with these headstrong moments and learned from them after seeing it endangers others, but also he keeps getting punished, but nope, off scot-free.  Now the world of Rave is not a heavily organized world, while there is a world government, there are still individual kingdoms and areas that have their own ethics, and the villains he’s facing exploit that by setting up in areas of the world where they won’t be compromised by the world government. Lets compare, Haru breaks into the residence of Lance, a murder and commander of the Demon card organization. Lance like Jiemma is a dick (even more so because of how he murders and kidnaps people), but he lives in the Song continent’s punk street, an area where you can get your hands on tons of weapons and has little oversight by the government. It also doesn’t help that Lance had captured Elie and threatened to murder her. In this world, it’s a lot easier to justify why Haru would break in and why he should fight this guy. Due to the nature of the world, Haru is never a jackass for breaking rules in a lawful world like Natsu.

Next up is infallibility. Okay, I will say Natsu is not all that “hero worshiped” like some claim. It’s more Fairy Tail itself is consider great and inspirational, not just Natsu. In fact, if I had to rercall, sole Natsu worship only comes from his team when he’s talking about how awesome Fairy Tail is, Romeo who I can understand why he looks up to Natsu because of how he saved his dad, and Sting who alternates between how Natsu changed him to how Fairy Tail changed him. It’s less Natsu is infallible because of all his inspiration ad effect on others, but more he never gets in trouble like with the shit he does. Which as I cover above, is very annoying. Whereas Haru does have hero worship, like when the mermaid Celia bows and calls him “the sword of the world” and how he’s going to save the world The thing is this is not an often occurance like with the worship for Fairy Til and more related to the world created in Rave. Haru is considered the “sword of the world” because he’s the Rave Master, all that greatness came from the Rave Master before him, Shiba who saved the world 50 years ago and the the fact that Rave is the only thing that can destroy Dark Bring, which again makes it a lot more palatable when someone says he’s going to save world.

Now on to, boring to sit through in battles. Okay, Natsu’s power is fire. An ability that almost every battle shounen has a character who uses fire. Bleach-Yamamoto, Toriko-Starjun, JJBA-Abdoul, Black Clover-Magna, One Piece-Ace, MHA-Todoroki, FMA-Roy, ect. FIRE IS A STANDARD POWER! Now, there is nothing wrong with the main character using fire power, but with Natsu, there’s no growth in it. His fights often end with a giant flaming friendship punch. He doesn’t feel like he earned this win. Whereas Haru on the other hand, has a sword with 10 forms, but he does have access to all 10 at the start, he gradually unlocks his swords, only starting with 2: A standard large metal sword (Eisenmeteor) and a sword that makes explosions (Explosions). Haru wins a lot of his fights creatively, in his first big fight against Lance, he utilizes something as simple as the power to make explosions in creative ways, like using it to propel himself or make smokescreens. In his fight against the zombie Crush Cookie, Cookie has the power of Gildarts in the fact that what ever his body touches he can break apart and disassemble, so Haru uses the wind sword Mel Force that normally he uses to blow opponents backwards, paralyzing them shortly, but Cookie says it doesn’t matter if Haru tries to hit him his sword will be destroyed. But it turns out that by using the wind to push Cookie back, COokie hits the wall of the ship their on and he falls out of it, burning up because as a zombie he’s weak to sunlight. If you want another example, let’s compare Natsu vs Jellal, and Haru vs Sieg. Both fights occur at at about a fifth of the way through their series. Natsu takes a blind chance on eating Etherion to give him the power to defeat Jellal. It’s just raw power on how he beat Jellal. Whereas with Haru vs Sieg, Haru can’t match a master mage like Sieg because of Sieg’s magic, so Haru uses the magic sealing sword, Rune Save. However, this sword only cuts what can’t be cut, like magic, gases, or water, but it can’t cut people. So Haru has to get unique and and while destroying the magic, he alternates between his normal sword, Eisenmeteor, and uses that to damage Sieg. Haru also growing in strength, not just with new swords, but also the power of the Rave, so it feels like his combat style is growing with the progression of the series. But Natsu is just the same thing, Fire->friendship->bigger fire->win. As I said, fire can be interesting, like his fight with Yuka, where he used his power to ignite his elbow and push him further through the wave and it be cool to see Natsu grow from just fists coated in fire, but maybe focusing his flames on top of each other, kinda making a make-shift flame spear or drill. Or how about focusing on the heat of his fire and not just the flames, that way he could melt obstacles. Or he could use the fire to coat his body to act like armor. It’s not impossible to make fire an interesting power. So with this formulaic nature Natsu is seen as undeserving of a lot of his wins, whereas Haru we see effort go into it.

Now on to the big one, never being affected by anything that happens to him. Natsu  has the basis for things in canon to effect him and develop him beyond what he was introduced as. This isn’t brand new stuff that’s made from whole cloth AU either, there are multiple instances in canon to develop him. Natsu is introduced as looking for his dad, but past chapter 1, we don’t see that effort ever again. Natsu in the tower talks about how Erza is the strongest person he knows, does that evolve into something new than their previous relationship? No. He admits defeat to Gildarts and learns to accept being scared. Only for that to be completely forgotten in his fight with Zancrow and then after that going to challenge Hades even though just a couple minutes ago he was getting his ass kicked by Bluenote. Natsu watches his dad die in front of him. Okay is this a motivator for him to kill Acnologia? Nope, he’s still same old natsu. Haru on the other hand, gets a lot of development. In the first few chapters we find out that his dad abandoned him and his sister and he resents him for that. But then when he remeets his father and finds out how Gale left due to circumstances beyond his control, we see Haru remorseful for hating his dad. His dad then dies protecting him and we see in the mermaid peril arc where the mermaids who use what little magic they have to save him from being turned to stone, and he gets flashbacks of his dad dying and starts to cry to stop sacrificing their lives to save his. Haru also is defeated by Doryu the first time they meet, then next time he actually has learned from his fight with Doryu just how strong the sinclair pieces are. Then there is also Haru’s stance on not killing people, he eventually has to make piece with that and bring himself to kill Lucia for the sake of the world. So Haru feels like he as a character is growing from all the things he’s gone through, but Natsu is still the same. Natsu motivation and arc don’t really amount to anything in the end. Now the thing about development isn’t, oh Natsu has to be a some saint who no longer picks fights with people in the later story, but there should be nuance in both his mannerism and demeanor, like with Haru. Development isn’t you becoming a brand new character, but rather a character growing from the events of the story.

Which all leads into the end, Natsu seems like the same person he was at the start of the story. The sad thing is, this is entirely true. Natsu is the same guy he was in chapter 1 as he was in 545. He’s happy, loud, gets into petty fights with Gray, and pays no mean to distrubing someone else’s living space. Only now he’s strong enough to take a 100 year quest. Nothing about that is different from how he entered the series. Haru on the other hand, went from a kid on an isolated island who when he finally set foot on the mainland got robbed and disliked his father, to a noble knight-like hero who admired hos father. If you see Haru in capter one you hear him say, “My sister taught me...” when jumping into help. He’s doing the right thing only because of his upbringing taught him that it was bad to hurt people or mistreat animals, but by the end of the series he’s telling Lucia about how he’s taking away everyone else’s life and how he loves this world and just because he was wronged doesn’t give him the right to call it a “fake world”. Haru is different from chapter 1 to 296, that’s the sign of development. Something Natsu didn’t do.

Oh boy, this post may seem like a giant shitting on Natsu, and while it kinda is, I wanted to bring attention to the fact Hiro can create a good protagonist. Despite his flaws Natsu holds a soft spot in my heart, but it’s very easy to understand in objective terms why Natsu fails as a protagonist. And I also wanted to point out there was opportunity for Natsu to be more, he wasn’t dead on arrival. Anyway that’s my Comparison of these two polar opposite characters.

[pokemaniacal]

Pokémon Moon, Epilogue: Responsibility

Beneath the crystal dome at the summit of Mount Lanakila, all is serene; all is peaceful.  The dome sparkles in the midday sun, the air is still, pure white clouds drift softly past the mountain below, and the inlaid Pokéball design on my throne pulses gently with a warm azure light. “…sweet Arceus, I’m SO BORED!”

Around one o’clock in the afternoon, my scheduled challenger shows up. “Finally,” I complain.  “What took you so long?”  Hau rubs the back of his neck in embarrassment. “Eheh… Gramps pulled some new move we hadn’t seen before.  Almost didn’t get past him this time.  Raichu came through for me, though.”  The electric mouse Pokémon hovering at his side crackles at him affectionately, and he pats it on the head. “And what did you learn?” I ask expectantly.  Hau sighs. “Even Kahunas are always learning and perfecting new techniques,” he replies in the sing-song voice of a bored child reciting the moral of a story. “Good.  Now… shall we?”  He grins. “I’ve made it this far and I’m not done yet!  After all, there’s still a trainer standing right in front of me that I’ve got to overcome!”  I grin back. “That’s the spirit!  Now hurry up and get me out of this mess!”

I suppose I didn’t really expect him to win this time.  Hau’s progress has been impressive, I have to admit, but I still don’t think he understands the gravity of what he’s asking for.  As if to symbolise the new level he achieved in defeating his grandfather, he’s added a Crabominable – Hala’s signature Pokémon – to his existing team of Raichu, Flareon, Komala and Primarina.  There is a nagging inelegance in his style, his Pokémon have not perfected all of their techniques, and there is still the barest hint of hesitation between his thoughts and their actions.  I could lecture him about all this, but the fact is, he’s already on the path; he and his Pokémon are going to keep advancing regardless of what I do.  Every time we battle, Hau comes a little closer.  For now, though, he’s still a long way off, and his Primarina’s valiant last stand against my Decidueye ends in defeat.

“Seriously!?” Hau blurts after we have recalled our Pokémon.  “This is really frustrating, you know?  I seriously tried my hardest!”  I smile at him. “I should hope so; I don’t want to be Champion of this backwater one day longer than I have to!  You are getting better; I promise I’m not just saying that.” “Yeah, yeah, I know.”  He returns my smile.  “And at least I had a blast going all out against you.” “Likewise!  Now…”  I wander to the edge of the arena platform and sit down, legs dangling over the edge, then pat the ground next to me.  “Come on; time for this week’s lesson.”  Hau obediently sits down alongside me.  A thought strikes him. “Say, d’you do this after all the challenges you get?” “No.  Just with you.”  He looks at me in surprise.  “Sooner or later, Hau… maybe sooner than either of us realises… that’s going to be your chair.  I want you to be ready.  I owe you that.”  Hau shakes his head. “This is so heavy, man…” “Being the Champion is.” “Sooo… what are this week’s words of wisdom?”  I stare out at the crystal dome in silence for a while. “We’ve tangled with some more Ultra Beasts since the last time I saw you.” “With that… international police guy, right?  Look-?” “Don’t say it!” I cut him off.  “Don’t you dare say that smug prick’s ridiculous code name; I refuse to dignify it by using it.  Also, I think he can hear whenever anyone in the world says it.”  I glance shiftily from side to side to stress my point. “Uh…” Hau hesitates, confused.  “What am I s’posed to call him?” “…I have a few suggestions, but I think I’d get in trouble with Hala if you ever repeated any of them.  Mr. L will do, I suppose.”  I frown thoughtfully.  “Watch out for that one.  He likes to treat Champions as his own unpaid interns.” “I’ll… remember that.” “See that you do.  Anyway, yes.  We went on several more missions for him and his superior, hunting more of the Beasts that appeared when Lusamine opened that wormhole at the Aether Paradise.”  Hau shudders. “Man, those things give me the creeps.” “That makes two of us.” “It wasn’t more of those scary floating mind-controlling ones, was it?  Just seeing one of them was enough for a lifetime!” “No… no, different species.  A humanoid insect faster than the eye… a bundle of raw nerve cords full of electricity… some kind of biomechanical rocket… and a huge, devouring mouth, consuming everything around it.”  Hau cocks his head, trying to picture them and clearly failing.  “I… could bring one for you to meet, but I’m not entirely certain that would be safe.” “Oh, no no no, that’s fine!” he replies hurriedly, then realises the significance of what I just said.  “Wait… you could bring one?” “That’s right.  My “assignment” was to capture all of the rogue Ultra Beasts in order to prevent them from causing any harm to Alola’s fragile environment.  So that’s what I did.” “Capture!?  Well- well, you’re gonna put them back, right?  Back… y’know.  Where they came from?” “That… may not be so straightforward.  The technology Lusamine used to open her Ultra Wormhole is useless without Nebby, and he seems… reluctant to open another one into Ultra Space.  I’m not sure I can return them to their own dimension.” “Wh- what are you gonna do with them, then?” “Funnily enough, Interpol had no specific plan for that stage of the operation.  What’s more, all the accounts of their previous responses to situations like this are supposedly classified… although, frankly, I doubt they would be much help.”  A thought occurs to me.  “What would you do, Hau?” I ask pointedly. “Me?  Why’s that matter?” “Because the next time this happens, it might be on your watch.”  His eyes widen in panic.  “Take your time.  Try to cover all the angles.  What choices can you think of?” “Um…” Hau hesitates.  “Well, we can’t let them go, can we?  That just puts us back where we started, with a bunch of Ultra Beasts running wild in Alola.” “Mmm.  Quite.” “But…” he continues, thinking out loud.  “Maybe… somewhere else?  Couldn’t there be some other region really far away… somewhere they could live in peace?” “Interesting idea.  I did ask Wicke about that – with Lusamine more or less out of commission, she’s the closest thing any of us have to an expert on the Ultra Beasts’ behaviour and physiology.  She’s looking into it, but she’s not optimistic.  Their metabolisms are wildly inefficient under typical Earth conditions, so they have to eat ravenously just to keep their powers from fading, which wreaks havoc on the local food chains, and the unfamiliar environment provokes a near-constant fight-or-flight response that places them under incredible metabolic strain…” “…huh?” Hau asks in befuddlement.  I remember I’m not supposed to be teaching him Pokémon ecology. “Uh… the point is… we haven’t found any good options.  Not on Earth, anyway – and at the moment, Earth is the only available planet.”  I shrug. “Could you build a habitat?  The Aether Foundation had that awesome indoor Pokémon preserve, yeah?  They could build another one for the Ultra Beasts, to be like their home!” “Mayyyyybe…” I say hesitantly.  “At the moment, Gladion is the acting President of the Aether Foundation, and his partner Pokémon was born to be a “Beast-Killer”… so… I’m not so sure how enthusiastic he’ll be about devoting most of the Foundation’s remaining manpower and resources to building a reservation for the Ultra Beasts.” “Aue, you’re right!  I wouldn’t wanna have that talk!” “I mean, I’m definitely going to talk to him about it!” I add quickly.  “It’s just… going to take some persuasive nuance.  That, and there’s still so much we don’t know about Ultra Space.  It’ll take time to gather data – but we have Professor Burnet, and we have Wicke and the Aether Foundation.  In the meantime, though…” I trail off and shrug again. “I… I guess you could put them in stasis, right?  Like all those Pokémon Ms. Lusamine had in her lab…?”  He shivers at the thought.  “You couldn’t leave them in there permanently… I don’t even like the thought of doing it at all.  But at least it would give you more time to find a new place for them to live, or a way to send them home.”  I nod. “Always be suspicious of “temporary” solutions to hard problems.  They have a tendency to become permanent when no-one’s looking.  But yes, that’s a decent idea.”  Hau nods, and thinks in silence for another minute. “You said you… captured them, yeah?  Like Pokémon, in Pokéballs?” he asks. “That’s right.  Using the Beast Balls that Lusamine developed to catch Nihilego.” “So the Ultra Beasts are Pokémon then?”  I pause. “Hmm.  What do you think?” “Uh… well… they sure aren’t human, right?  So… they must be?”  He thinks it’s a trick question.  Can’t blame him; I ask Hau a lot of trick questions. “Not every living thing that isn’t human is a Pokémon,” I remind him.  “Think of the plants, think of bacteria… the Pokérus, whatever that is…”  I reach into my backpack, pull out an empty Pokéball, and turn it over in my hands pensively.  “According to Wicke, ordinary Pokéballs have trouble recognising the Ultra Beasts as Pokémon.  Their physiology is too different.  That’s why Lusamine ordered the Foundation to create the Beast Balls.” “But you can catch them, right?  And they use Pokémon moves, and they have Pokémon types.” “Yeah, but should we define what is or isn’t a Pokémon based on the relationship it has with humans, and how it fights our battles?  That’s kinda self-centred of us, isn’t it?”  Hau hesitates, but then shakes his head decisively. “Pokémon training isn’t just about what Pokémon do for humans!  It’s about having fun, and being friends, and eating malasadas together on the beach!  You’ve gotta reach out to them, give ‘em a chance to make friends!  Maybe then this world won’t be so scary, and they can live here and be happy!”  I chuckle. “Ever the ray of sunshine, aren’t you?” I say drily.  “Friendship alone can’t overcome the hardships of living in an alien dimension, Hau.  But I suppose it could make it easier.  And much as I hate to admit it, if anyone’s going to try it, I probably have the best chance.” “What, because you’re such an epic trainer?” Hau asks, a hint of scepticism in his voice. “Heh.  I wish.  No, it’s… something else.  Because of our… unique experiences… Lillie, B, Guzma, Lusamine and I are something that Interpol calls “Fallers” – people who’ve spent time in Ultra Space and lived to tell the tale.  We have what you might call the “scent” of the Ultra Wormholes on us, something that the Beasts can sense.  They think we’re a way home.”  Hau looks baffled at first, but then I see a lightbulb go on in his head. “If you remind them of home, you can keep them calm!  You can help them adjust to living on Earth!” “Hypothetically, yes.  It’s worth a try, anyway.  I haven’t actually attempted to communicate with any of the Ultra Beasts in my… care… just yet.” “What’s the worst that could happen?” Hau asks, with the cavalier attitude of someone who has absolutely no idea what the worst that could happen is. “I’m not sure,” I admit.  “But… there was the matter of the Interpol task force’s leader.  The Hoennese woman.”  The change in subject makes his eyebrows go up in confusion. “Oh, right – you said you thought you knew her from somewhere?  Did you find out anything else?”  I shrug. “Well, it was her, all right.  Anabel, Salon Maiden of the Battle Tower, at one point the third most powerful trainer in Hoenn, and rumoured to be a gifted psychic.  Only she disappeared years ago, and as far as I know she’s still listed in her home region as a missing person.”  Hau wrinkles his nose. “Did she run away to join the International Police?  Fake her death or something?” “Not a bad guess, but no.  The truth is… stranger.  Apparently, she is also a Faller.  She disappeared when she ran afoul of an Ultra Wormhole, and was found by Interpol agents on Poni Island, suffering from amnesia.  They figured out what had happened to her when they detected the radiation signature of the Wormholes on her body… but they never told her that.  She has no idea what happened to her.” “That doesn’t sound right at all!  How can they keep that from her!?” “Well…” I begin hesitantly.  “I’d like to say it’s because her own Interpol superiors are concerned about bringing back her traumatic memories, or something… but to be honest, I think they just consider her more useful as an operative specialising in Ultra Beasts if she doesn’t know about her status as a Faller.  Easier to use her as bait.”  Noticing a look of horror on Hau’s face, I explain further.  “These are not nice people, Hau.  They’re on our side, and they’re miraculously competent, with… a certain notable exception.  But they are every bit as ruthless as Lusamine’s Aether Foundation, and they will use you if you let them.” “Aue… this is making my head spin,” he complains.  “And you still haven’t explained what Anabel has to do with you trying to train the Ultra Beasts.” “Oh!  Right.  Yes.  Well… The way the Ultra Beasts react to Anabel, as a Faller, makes me… more than a little nervous,” I admit.  “They were extremely aggressive towards her – as if they thought she was guarding or blocking their way home.”  Hau’s face falls. “So maybe they’ll blame you for them being stuck in Alola, eh?” “And react accordingly, yes.  And there’s something else, a sort of… mental fatigue that Anabel seems to suffer from being around them.  It could just be to do with the length of time she spent in Ultra Space, or even a result of her natural psychic potential, but considering the way Nihilego was able to influence Lusamine…” I realise that I’m speculating more wildly than usual, and shake my head clear.  “I don’t know, but like I said, the idea makes me… nervous about talking to them.” “So trying to train them like Pokémon isn’t a sure thing either…” he decides, summing up the last minute or so of conversation.  I let the silence linger for a while, hesitating to bring up my last point. “There’s another possibility you’re not suggesting.”  Hau just stares in confusion. “I give up, cousin; what’s the other option?”  I look away, close my eyes, and sigh. “Destroy them.”  He stifles a gasp. “What!?  No!  We can’t!” “And why is that?” “They’re still living things, right?  And they’re far away from home and prolly scared of us as we are of them!  It’s not fair!” “All true.  But they’re also dangerous, powerful entities that don’t belong in this world, have already done noticeable damage to every Alolan ecosystem they’ve touched, and could kill Arceus knows how many Pokémon and humans if they’re left to roam.  What if we can’t contain them?  What if we can’t teach them to live here in peace?” “Maybe we can’t, but we have to try!” he protests. “And if we’re wrong, or if we fail?  Who bears responsibility for what the Ultra Beasts do next? “I- I don’t know, but-!  But it’s not their fault either!  Lusamine brought them here; they didn’t ask for that!” “And the people and Pokémon of Alola didn’t ask to be put in the path of a confused and angry extradimensional monster with the powers of a god!  Are you ready to take responsibility for that happening?” “I- no, but- but we can’t kill them just for being lost in our world!” “And would you really stand by that, if your home were in their path!?” “I- I- I…”  He’s visibly upset; his eyes are starting to water a little, and he turns away and wipes his sleeve over his face.  I try to soften my expression, and gently rest a hand on his shoulder.  Hau blinks and looks back at me. “It’s that sort of thing, Hau,” I tell him softly, “that will make you a better Champion than me.”  He blinks, puzzled.  “I considered it.  Interpol considered it.  You wouldn’t.” “You wouldn’t… like… really do it though, would you?” Hau asks.  I pause. “…I might have.  If the other choices had all proven… infeasible.”  I shake my head.  “Do you understand now why I didn’t want this job?”  Hau looks out at the sky past the crystal dome. “…I think so.” “Do you still want this job?”  He says nothing for a long time. “Yeah.  Yeah, I do.  I wanna make a difference in people’s lives.  I wanna protect people and keep Alola safe and happy.  And… I wanna be strong.  Strong enough to do what’s right when it matters… and strong enough to admit when I’m weak.”  I close my eyes and smile.  I think he’s starting to get it.  It won’t be long now. “Responsibility,” I say, leaving the word hanging in the air for a few moments.  “When you have power, no choice is easy.  You can cross terrible lines to protect the people and places you love, or you can risk everything and everyone in the name of doing what’s right.  It’s not up to me to tell you what’s right, but either way, you have to own your choices, because it’s those choices that make you who you are.  When you hide from your responsibility, you hide from yourself.”  Hau frowns. “What does that make you?” he asks.  I laugh. “A coward.  Always have been.”  We sit together for a while, watching the clouds drift by.

“Anyway,” I say, breaking the silence.  “That’s enough about me.  How about what you’ve been doing?  You’re still helping Hala retrain the Team Skull grunts, aren’t you?  How are they?” “They’re all doing really well!  They’re taking to this whole rescue team deal way better than I ever woulda thought for such a bunch of troublemakers.  We ran a practice mission out on Ten Carat Hill the other day and they totally aced it!  Cool under pressure, and awesome team spirit!  I guess they just needed someone to give them a second chance!  One of them in particular.” “Oh?  Who’s that?” “Oh, you know, no one special.  Just your boyfriend,” Hau says teasingly. “He’s not my boyfriend,” I tell him crossly.  “I owe him a drink, that’s all.” “Really?  ‘A’ drink?” Hau asks sceptically. “Well… okay, maybe I owe him two or three drinks, after my coronation party…” “Try six or seven!” “I guess things got a little out of hand…” I concede. “A little?  You challenged Tapu Koko to a fistfight and broke every bone in your hand trying to punch out one of the old basalt idols!”  Hau laughs.  “That was the best part of our whole journey, hands down!” “Yeah, yeah…” I grumble. “And the way B fussed over you for days afterwards…” “Yeah, yeah, whatever.” “Did you know he even asked my gramps to teach him first aid?” “You are making that up.” “Trainer’s honour!” he declares, putting his hand on his heart.  “It was actually really cute.”  I roll my eyes, sigh in exasperation, and try to give him another surly grumble, but end up smiling in spite of myself. “Well, should I pencil you in for next week?  The usual time?” “You bet!” Hau replies.  “So watch out – me and me awesome team are definitely winning the next one!”  I smile at him, and offer my hand to shake. “You’re this region’s future, Hau – may the Tapu help us.”  He takes my hand. “I won’t let you down!” And the funny thing is… I believe him.