#He's insanely good in analysing battle as it goes

[enjomo-arch]

I love how the novel really nicely references Ace's leadership. It's not only charisma or his heroism that pulls people closer to him but something above it. He very easily manages to catch people following his steps and finding a strange interest in him. Instant fondness or even respect -

[iridescentscarecrow]

hi i'm the op of that post (stackslip) PLEASE elaborate on chainsaw man's metanarrative

hi! um. you've given me free reign, i hope you know what you're doing. anyway: fair warning in advance that this is based entirely on how i like to interpret and think of the csm story and doesn't necessarily hold true, partly because of the level of abstraction that i'm operating at here. i'm normal and i like metanarratives a normal amount. this might be a little long. but.

um. thinking about how protagonism in CSM is inflicted on denji by the author insert that is makima. i've brought up the Icon of chainsaw man before in my part 2 analyses but basically:

the Chainsaw Man is the role that denji occupies in the story, right? it's the title of the manga. it's what the public Sees him as. it's what makima quite literally produces. the relationship between denji and the chainsaw man in both aspiration and idealisation forms a major stem of both part 1 and part 2's narrative.

this production occurs on two levels: (1) what Chainsaw Man is, and should be, and (2) how denji is developed as a protagonist by makima.

"you don't get him at all." chainsaw man is her blorbie (i think i'm funny). the point is that the Presentation of chainsaw man, the one that the audience is initially set up to expect, is almost entirely synonymous with makima's version of the CSM that we get later. i think a lot about how part one borrows from, amplifies, and later subverts shounen tropes. the CSM as an idea persists in how it's discordant from denji's normality in part 2 but part 1's direction in how denji voluntarily inhabits the chainsaw is what i'm pointing at here. (there's a lot to be said about how denji's idealisation as tied to the icon of the CSM is intertwined with his wants but that's not relevant in this meta except in the minutiae of his adherence / resistance to this role.)

the thing is that makima is instrumental in pushing this role onto denji. she sees chainsaw man, he is chainsaw man. it's (and i sound insane here but please hold on, i beg) like writing.

i think her addressing him in the last battle scene, the "i'll kill you personally" is indicative of her finally divorcing denji from the chainsaw; forming The Chainsaw Man in full, while still obviously curating the denji that would support this formation throughout the story.

a small side here but: "but she never even saw me once, even from the start." // fujimoto's writing actively utilises characters towards the end goal of shaping the protagonist. this struggle here is one between a character and an author.

now continuing; the way that makima provides for and then systematically removes these initial connections simulates traditional story structures with its setup, its confrontation and resolution. her excellence as an antagonist rests upon her identity as a narrative device which develops the protagonist and pushes him through this structure. the conflicts and the loss that a protagonist usually naturally (at least in-world) goes through in a story are instead all artificially created by makima.

"how could i make you so hurt that you'd no longer be capable of living a normal life?" // her molding of denji isn't just passive emotional manipulation, it's active writing. she herself is aware of the tropes and the character relationships that are being built up, that are being subverted. she herself embodies, espouses and resolves the themes of multiple arcs (thinking of the end of the bomb devil and the darkness devil arc here / thinking of how she draws the shutters on ignorance and on wanting).

there's a lot i try to extrapolate from her commentary on movies during her date with denji especially in context with the story simulation that she herself is doing throughout the manga. i find it interesting how the ending to the movie date or the "good" movie founds itself on shared feeling: denji sees makima cry at the same movie as he does.

"the drinks yesterday were delicious." // you talked about her goals already in your post but makima's search for real intimacy (and equality in a relationship) coincides with denji's one. to me, it comes off as a writer trying to find a mirror of understanding in their own creation. the way she visualises the CSM (as "chaos" to her order) reveals a relationship quite like the flawed connection that one has with characters one makes: and this relationship is what denji (the 'stage' of this process) responds to so emphatically: "she wasn't looking at me this whoole time."

so, yeah; CSM to me operates at two levels: the one with the deeply human character relationships that construct the story and another layer where fiction and ideation mesh. it's important to note that this is something fjmt quite likes doing in his other work: using characters to specifically engage with the telling of his stories or exploring his characters' nuanced reactions to fiction and its weight.

thinking of makima as the 'Author' is misleading, though, and it ignores the fact that makima is both a device deployed by the actual author and in-world by the structure that are the higher ups. she is the control devil; she controls the scaffoldings of the story but she in herself is an agent of the author, of the narrative, of the aforementioned higher ups.

i don't know. is an artist ever truly original in their art? do they not operate within a greater structure, borrowing from and being regulated by it and its interpretation of their work? are makima's plans not ultimately upset by her creation?

denji materialises as a character from multiple active sources instead of the unitary source that makima believes herself to be. he's a passive character and yet he refuses to be a stable creation (psst. it's that universal tussle between the living art and the artist -- something fjmt's already tackled in his oneshots).

i don't know (2). this interpretation's been simmering in my head for a while, but i wasn't very Sure about it. but hm. this writeup primarily bases itself off part one (since it's well. complete) but image and image production specifically coming into fruition as a theme in part two makes me feel increasingly confident in this interpretation. it's strange how it somehow all ties back into storytelling.

[twinkinspector]

present mic / yamada hizashi ❥ astrology masterlist

❥ birth date: july 7, 2111

❥ birth time: 6pm

❥ birth place: tokyo

❥ pop astrology analysis:

cancer sun, cancer moon, capricorn rising. on the surface, i would say his big three doesn't fit him. but that's in the pop astrology sense – just looking at the surface of his behaviors and at these three placements. i would have expected much more air and much more fire. but his big three consists of earth and water! weird to me for sure. [insert no bitches meme here] no leo? ALL THAT SAID........ it does make sense when you look deeper.

❥ in-depth below the cut ❥

❥ cancer sun: emotional. strong survival instinct. nurturing. sensitive. compassionate. seeks and offers security. loyal. protective. highly intuitive. associated with psychic abilities. charismatic. mommy issues.

our boy mic isn't what i'd call a textbook cancer. his analysis is going to be more of me dissecting the motivations behind his actions – he's much older than other characters, so he's likely "masking" his placements more than other analyses i've done. his motivations are almost always personal. they're often to protect his friends, which is very cancer. cancers take relationships really seriously, which is obviously the case with mic. because of the emotional and nurturing aspects of cancers, they can be very focused on the past. i think this manifests in the way he reacts when finding out about shirakumo. (i'm not going to say anything more than that bc spoilers.) ALSO i think his intuition comes into play with his choice of friends. though aizawa acted aloof and distant, mic knew he could crack him. and he did.

❥ cancer moon: loyal. nurturing. family is super important to him. goes out of his way to make others feel loved. naturally supports and protects others. very emotional. i've noticed this placement can have mood swings really easily based on the moon's current transits.

mic's personal motivations are super important to him. when shirakumo is killed in battle, he and aizawa are frozen in place to mourn him for hours. though his passing truly affected mic (and he still carries it with him), he was able to navigate his initial grief (showing a mastery and understanding of emotion) and more or less move forward. his friendship with aizawa is really indicative of how he goes out of his way to make others feel loved. he really had to go out of his way to be friends with someone so guarded. although he's loyal to his friends, mic is able to team up with pretty much anyone. in the manga, there was a point in his high school career when he had to team up in a two-vs.-two battle with someone he really didn't like against aizawa and shirakumo. while mic's team didn't win, he did a surprisingly good job of cooperating. this often shows a lot of empathy and emotional intelligence.

❥ capricorn rising: biiiiig bizzy-business energy. work-oriented. no-nonsense. stoic. poised. quick-witted. bright. emphasis on family. mastery of the material. organized.

it might seem like mic isn't high-achieving and work-oriented, but i think that's just something he's cultivated over the years. he's honestly much more hardworking than he seems on the surface. he has three jobs!!!!! he's also able to compartmentalize his strong emotions to do what needs to be done when it comes to work. this placement is super persistent. he wore a seemingly aloof aizawa down until he became a lifelong friend. i think this placement is HUGELY colored by his leo mercury.

❥ leo mercury: excels at public speaking, performance, and winning the hearts of others. proud. bold. authoritative. enthusiastic. well-liked. enjoys the spotlight.

mic is the poster child for the surface manifestations of a leo mercury. his entire persona was created around his special brand of communication – insanely loud and bold. this is the way his actions manifest – BIG and BOLD.

❥ leo venus: loves grand gestures. bold love. confident. playful. dramatic. energetic. can be emotionally unstable. loyal. warm. aesthetics are important to him. loves the effect he has on society.

i think this placement colors his others too. he's so bold in the way he expresses himself – even aesthetically. venus represents aesthetics as well as all its other domains. so his hair??????? v leo venus. this placement does speaks to his strong emotions even though it's not a water sign or a traditionally ~emotional~ sign to most people. he also thinks (rightfully) that society is a better place with him in it.

❥ cancer mars: indirect. passive-aggressive. inclined to control their feelings but can seem moody. can later erupt. protects himself. driven to action based upon emotion. mars is in its fall here.

this really drives home how much his emotions influence his actions. mars is the planet of action and how we deal with conflict. it's not always about how we react to conflict – sometimes it's about why things are causing conflict in our minds in the first place.

❥ virgo jupiter: intelligent. problem-solver. great technical and analytical skills. loves to learn. many interests. perfectionist. realistic. optimistic outlook on mundane things. gravitates toward extremes. jupiter is in detriment here.

this is another good representation of how mic expresses himself. he takes the smaller details and more mundane things and turns them into something bigger and more expansive (jupiterian). this is a perfect example of why he always volunteers to commentate – he's taking something mundane and turning it into an opportunity / something more interesting.

❥ pisces saturn: compassionate. philosophical. introspective. aloof. hopeful. idealistic.

this is interesting. some people with saturn in pisces tend to overcompensate for these traits by trying to control things. and i think mic does this. he doesn't necessarily control situations – but people. his whole ~thing~ is crowd control and inspiring others. to me, this placement is about turning the greater good and your ideals into a career – which is exactly what mic has done. he's not only a hero but he does it in a way that's really in-your-face and brings his ideals to the forefront.

the rest of these planets are GENERATIONAL. i'll make this into its own page after i have more than one character with these same placements!

❥ gemini uranus: intelligent. perceptive. flexible. resourceful. values freedom and independence.

people with this placement are usually really good at learning new skills – and quickly. they're often able to focus on multiple things. and they have a lot of interests! that's one reason they value freedom – they want the freedom to follow their interests.

❥ libra neptune: idealistic. creative. has an eye for beauty. receptive. compassionate. tolerant. seeks harmony and balance. love of beauty and art.

people with this placement are usually really charming. these people love to be idealistic, but they're able to balance that with realism. mic does the best he can within his means and tries to inspire others to be as idealistic as he is.

❥ taurus pluto: a knack for making something out of nothing. persistent. enjoys comfort and beauty.

these people may obsess over money and material things. this could be why mic works so many jobs instead of just making his interests into hobbies!

❥ overall

as i said in the beginning, it's interesting to analyze someone so much older than the characters i've been analyzing. the older you get, the more your learned behaviors affect you and color the way things manifest. so it's important to take that into account too! that's why i really tried to focus on his internal motivations – which actually checks out as far as the amount of cancer placements he has. his internal world is intense. i didn't analyze his cancer stellium specifically because it seems like he's learned to mask his emotions pretty well with grandiose behavior (given to him by his leo placements). i do think this chart fits him, but i'll admit that this was a tough one! i also want to note that every time i reference "family" here, i'm referring to his found family. mic really sees his friends as family. again..... very cancer.

❥ chart

[class1akids]

There's been some awful takes this chapter espeically regarding Shouto like calling him an Endeavour stan or completely missing that he did in fact emphasise with Touya because he didn't blame the trauma for everything. So I'm so happy to have your takes on what happened in the chapter and diving into Shouto's mind and character. So thank you for very good views.

I'm still not ready to analyse what Shouto is saying down to the level of nuance, because I feel like the Scanlation may be not giving the most accurate interpretation. With wordy chapters, it's always better to wait for the official.

But I think the gist of it is consistent:

Touya unleashes on Shouto, dissing him for how he had everything Touya ever wanted and wasted it by not living up to his masterpiece potential - and it's new, because it's a very real frustration Touya has with Shouto - that's not fully about Endeavor, but about Shouto's actions.

Shouto acknowledges some of this (though I think his words are not translated fully correctly here), but in any case, he realizes that he was lost and foolish/half-hearted (let's see how the official will translate hanpa 半端)

I'm also curious how the "watch me" line will be translated, but then explains he made a move just for Touya

He pretty bluntly says that Endeavor was insane and none of it was good and then something like "it was your choice to burn people who had nothing to do with it" and "you have to stop dragging outsiders into it, so take it out on us instead". I mean all of this is just facts.

I simply have no idea how anyone can see the slightest Endeavor-stanning in this.

I guess, maybe they refer to the phone call, which once again, I wanna see how EXACTLY it goes in the official, but even as it's here, I think, the important part is:

Endeavor reaching out after the battle plan discussion, because indeed he does feel terrible about leaving it to Shouto (like I know he's been a piece of shit and also that he was pussyfooting after the war, but I'd expect this from current Endeavor that win or lose, this fight is just emotionally a terrible burden for Shouto and the most likely outcome is losing one or both sons. So yeah. Tough shit.)

Shouto saying that Endeavor has to fight AFO I don't think is any way hyping him. He's still the most experienced and highest damage pro they have. Deku is on Shigaraki, he needs Bakugou there, so yeah - they are stretched thin and Shouto cares about his friends

Shouto says that "his power is the right one for his brother" and "he wants to be the right person for this fight". He wants to do it.

And I think what he says about doing the fight together - he means it in the way Class A has been saying the whole time - that they all fight, they all do the part they are best suited for.

I mean sure, Shouto is not calling Endeavor names, or telling him he screwed up - because Endeavor knows that. And even if the instinct would be to dig into him, the heroes - not just Shouto - but everyone needs Endeavor on the top of his game, because frankly even then, he's weaker than AFO. So Shouto is being reassuring - and I don't take this as sucking up to his dad or forgiving him or any of that - but just being the type of hero, the type of person he wanted to be.

[goldenkamuyhunting]

Hello hello! I LOVE your summaries and chapter & character analyses! I just wanted to ask...what is the significance of the bottom panel with little Ogata and his mom plus that text? Maybe I'm reading his expression wrong, but little Ogata seems to be looking lovingly at his mom (looks like a slight smile on his face)? It's interesting that this was shown near the final battle...

Sorry, I placed these three asks together because they deal with a similar topic.

Now, as I mentioned more than once I'm in the group that believes that Ogata is indeed feeling emotions like any human being but he's used to suppress them so that not only he often doesn't show them but he manages to keep his conscious side not even aware of them.

I've a by now ancient meta dealing with how characters in the story cope with guilt trying to suppress it, as this is a recurring theme through GK.

Noda seems to remark on how Ogata is so good at ignoring his guilt yet he's feeling it by giving to said guilt a manifestation in form of Ogata hallucinating Yuusaku.

Basically, unless we assume Yuusaku is a real wandering ghost tormenting Ogata, the fact Ogata keeps on hallucinating Yuusaku tells us he feels guilty, that murdering Yuusaku wasn't like stepping on a leaf for him, an act he did without thinking about it and forgot short after.

The memory of Yuusaku torments Ogata each time his psychological defences are at their weakest point, we see it happening when he was lying in a hospital after having been injuried by Sugimoto but also when in Karafuto he get feverish and, in this case, Yuusaku's image superimpose with Asirpa, creating in his mind a subconscious connection.

Later, in fact Yuusaku's hallucination will 'stop' him each time he'll try to shoot Asirpa.

We see something similar happening to Asirpa as well, as, when she consider killing Ostrog, she can't because she's reminded of when her arrow hit Ogata.

In Asirpa the whole thing is more natural as, although she too is prone to suppress negative emotions, she's not really doing it as much as Ogata, who's a lot more psychologically damaged than Asirpa will ever be.

Ogata has likely felt affection for his mother.

He remembers her, he dreams her as she sung him a lullaby, he used to love the anglerfish nabe she made, when he realized she was going insane, he tried to 'heal' her by providing her other things to cook.

When he lies about Sugimoto's last words in his mind he basically imagines Sugimoto's last minutes were what he wanted his father's last minutes to be, him thinking at his mother, him wanting to provide to her, him wanting to eat her anglerfish nabe again.

He had genuine attachment for his mother.

I don't know how he came up with the idea that, if she were to die, his father would finally come for her.

I know back then insane people weren't entrusted to a mental asylum but left in the family's 'care' the family either keeping trapped in a room that would work as a cell or disposing of them as discreetly as possible (a common way was to bring them to a trip on the mountains and 'forget' them there).

This social background could have influenced him but I don't know if we'll ever know why he came up with such an idea.

But that act likely impacted deeply on his psyche because Hanazawa never came and he lost his mother.

Possibly it's from that act Ogata learnt to bury guilt. So as not to feel pain for his own actions, for his own loss, he learnt to bury it, to disconnect from it and grew up with the idea he felt none when instead he continued to repress it... which is encouraged because Ogata becomes a soldier when he's really young and soldiers are actively encouraged and brainwashed into not feeling guilt for killing people.

And so Ogata ends up on meeting Yuusaku who latches on him like a lost puppy, without any care for how Ogata, as politely as he could, told him to let him be.

As far as Ogata knows, Yuusaku is the reason due to why Hanazawa stopped visiting his mother.

Ogata doesn't want to play the role of the 'Ani-sama' (兄様 "older brother") to the guy who, according to what he knows, caused his mother's abandonment... and Tsurumi feeds this feeling by suggesting if Yuusaku were out of the picture Hanazawa would love Ogata.

All this eventually leads to Yuusaku's demise, which, again, gives Ogata nothing. Hanazawa doesn't care for Ogata all the same. When Ogata goes and talk with him there's the implication his mother was already starting to lose her mind and that's why Hanazawa rejected her.

My speculation is Tome was a bit like Usami, obsessed with Hanazawa, thinking he would eventually dump his wife and marry her.

She, as far as we know, differently from Usami didn't get to the point she murdered someone to get Hanazawa, but he probably saw her obsession as insanity, he likely never planned to leave his wife, which is from the upper class, and marry a geisha and this is possibly why he left her, because she wouldn't content herself with being just his lover but had the 'insane' fantasy she could become more.

Anyway, while Ogata probably managed to bury deep enough the guilt for his mother's death, he just can't work out in the same way the guilt for Yuusaku's death, which haunts him even though he tries to deny it even to this day.

It's meaningful how in chap 253, when he tries to aim at Asirpa, he senses Yuusaku in the same way as he has sensed it in chap 246, when he was trying to aim at her again but, despite Ogata being usually intelligent, he doesn't manage to make the connection between those two happenings.

Actually in chap 253 the fact he got distracted by Yuusaku's presence even saved his life, yet he interprets it as Yuusaku's ghost trying to get in his way.

He lives in denial, his father, with his dying breath, cursed him so of course Yuusaku would be there to get in his way.

Either there's really a ghost in this story or Ogata is just not ready to accept he feels guilty.

And in all this mess he stumbles into Asirpa who we can see presents parallels with both his mother (she feeds him but she also loves someone who loves another) and Yuusaku.

And so at this point we've to wonder where Noda is going to lead him.

Since there was all this big build up between him and Asirpa, we can wonder if he'll face her again and this will force him to face the emotions he repressed for such a long time.

Will this cause him to be more open with his emotions and not suprress them? Will this cause him to accept he feels guilty? Will it make him cry? Will it make him show affection for someone again?

It's hard to say.

Unless Noda radically changed his plans, as I've said many times, I don't think he plans to kill Ogata... but this doesn't necessarily mean he'll make a 180° turn from how he is.

We've seen how Tsukishima tried to face what he kept inside... only to go back on square 1 and return on being a loyal Tsurumi follower.

We've seen Koito trying to be different... but then he let doubt catch him and he didn't dare to confront Tsurumi when he understood the latter knew they were there.

Changing is difficult.

We saw Shiraishi... slowly growing attached to Sugimoto and Asirpa to the point he went into the brewery despite the fire to save Sugimoto (and we've heard Boutarou saying through his whole permanence into the group how Shiraishi changed from how he was even though Shiraishi himself denied it).

Changing is possible... but it requires time... and, often, it requires help, a reason to do so. Shiraishi changed because he formed an emotional bond with Sugimoto and Asirpa due to the GOOD time they spent together. They had bad times as well, but the good ones just won.

So, back to Ogata... even if he finally were to face what he keeps inside... how much this would change him?

Hard to say but this is not a shonen so I doubt we'll have a drastical change in a short amount of time.

The story is ending, my guess, according to what Noda did, is Ogata isn't going to die but, all the bets are open on how he's going to live.

Tears when he were to face his buried feelings would be a good release of bottled up emotions but again, it depends on how he faces them. If he does it the bare minimum to realize he actually can feel guilt, we might not get them.

There's no time for him to develop emotional attachment/affection. Either he already has it, and he is in denial for it, or this is something that will require time. So it's a bit like a videogame. Will Noda unlock this event or not?

As Noda showed a flashback with his mother of whome we hadn't seen the face yet, I expect we'll get more about her... and possibly about his grandparents.

So yeah, we could get to see a more emotional Ogata, but it can also be this won't be the case... or Noda will save the best scenes for the volume version because sometimes Noda is like that.

Long story short, I've no idea what will be of Ogata beyond that I think that Noda won't kill him and that he has been building him up to have him face 'the ghosts of his pasts' and it's possible he's meant to do it while facing Asirpa but I think we should prepare ourselves for an interesting ride because Noda so far still seems to have plans for him.

We'll see... thank you all for your asks and sorry if I put them together!

[fancy-delusion-stuffs]

Avengers at the cinema P1

Tony

Buys tons of food

Refuses to bring own because a bag would ruin his outfit

Any food he does bring in is McDonalds and only because Peter asked or the avengers wore him down

Will buy the rest of the lines food too

If the foods crap he will bring portable food makers into the cinema like a waffle iron

Prechecks trigger warnings and discreetly sends individual messages

Steve

Buys tickets at the desk and only the desk

Gets the worst seats because he paid late

Might buy a small popcorn for peak cinema experience but nothing more because he still thinks everything is too expensive

Will scold people to be quiet , even strangers

"Hey , quiet down "

"Don't talk like that to your elder punk" - mainly directed to Clint's giggling fits

*Sighs*

Tango ice blast almost sent him back to 1942

Natasha

Has feet on back of chairs

Cannot sit in a chair normally

Once the film was late and she vaulted up to where the projector is and knocked on the window to get the fuck on with it

Nap during films but swears she didn't

Will yell boo during suspense scene

Analyses fight patterns

Despises the male gaze *as she should*

Clint

Rustles as he walks with all of his snacks

Wears a coat in July full of food, it's so heavy he kind of waddles along

"Hey , psst you want some "

"No its OK, "

" I have 7 more bags , here you go "

If there's an archer in the film , he has a new nickname for a week curtesy of his teammates

Always yells "hide in the vents" when a character is in trouble

Lets Natasha nap on his shoulder

Everyone tries to get films with subtitles but they didn't have many so Tony created an automatic software to generate them for any film

Thor

The avengers used to make him sit away from them , he can have a booming voice and loudly munching food.

He did eventually learn Midgardian customs and his etiquette is improved

Has lots of questions ,

"Can I ride those animals?"

"How can I do that damage in my next battle?"

Places Mjønir in his seat when he gets up so doesn't worry about his seat flicking up.

Loki

Sits quietly , like deathly quietly

Will make snakes crawl over peoples feet in the darkness to make them scream

Natasha threw a snake at him last time so he no longer does that

He will make an odd gust of air or a creak noise to scare them

Learned to behave a lot quicker than Thor

Honestly films made him question Midgardians even more than usual

Scott

Brings sandwiches in little bags with sweets

Only enjoys kids films , adult ones are boring. Also the soundtracks are *mwah*

Will listen to the soundtrack on repeat for 3 weeks , it drives everyone insane … until they start to hum it in meetings then they realise he actually has quite good taste

Will turn up in cosplay to his and Cassie's favourite films

Sits cross-legged on the end of his seat

Has fallen off those seats with the flip bottom

Wanda

Loves Rom Coms

Holds Vision's hand all through out and lays her head on his shoulder

She loves the serenity especially in the private cinema in Avengers Compound

It's a good place for her to escape the outside world , where time seems endless .

She complied a home made movie for all the avengers for Christmas and they were all weeping by the end

Peter

Makes video edits of avenger fuck ups to show in private cinema

He thinks it's an ideal date and goes often with MJ

It's expensive so he really tries to make the best out of it by booking the best seats and arriving with plenty of time

Brings deli food or snacks with him

Tony once saw this and bought him extra large of everything , with his quick metabolism he eats most of it .

MJ tries to get him to sneak in through the back but it makes him very guilty but he loves spending time with her

Him and Ned have Star War traditions to watch the film at the very first showing , being tech geniuses is quite helpful when tickets first show up online

Stephan Strange

Will roll his eyes and point out any incorrect medical stuff

"Actually , the neurons are ...."

Gets pissed when people use defibrillators instead of CPR

Doesn't go cinema often , he doesn't think it's a particularly productive use of his time

Prefers subtitles on the films so he can follow the plot better

Doesn't fall asleep but looks like he does

Hold up the food line because he doesn't know what to get ,

"Umm what goes with nachos . Never mind I'll get popcorn "

Find the best songs and puts them on a playlist for Wong

[anntoldst0ries]

Diagnosis

I just want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart to all of you who read my previous fic and left such kind comments. You can’t imagine how much I appreciate this!

Pairing: Ethan Ramsey x f!MC (Vicky Valentine)

Word Count: 2,911

Summary: Dr Ramsey attempts to diagnose the most difficult case in his career...his own.

Warnings: None! A lot of introspection again and hints of angst :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ethan Ramsey considered himself a brave man.

He always had the courage to say whatever he wanted to say or what had to be said - be that a terminal diagnosis, savaging someone’s speech at a medical conference (only if the speaker was talking nonsense, that is), scolding an intern - you name it. 

With years of experience under his belt, Dr Ramsey excelled at the “art” of saying the most horrible, unpleasant and inconvenient things. It was a process he took to pieces and mastered every tiniest part.

He knew exactly what they were whispering behind his back in the hospital corridors. Dr Ramsey is a bully. A ruthless cynic. No one survived more than 3 minutes of his tirades without bursting into tears. Or, as some of the interns so lovingly put it, he was “the only survivor of a heart transplant”. The last remark had been conveyed to him by Baz, who found it hilarious…and so did Naveen. It took one deadly look to silence Baz forever, however Naveen used every occasion to remind his protégé of hospital’s favourite joke:

‘How’s your heart, Ethan?’

‘Good, why are you as—‘ Ethan didn’t have a chance to finish answering the question, interrupted by Dr Banerji who was in convulsions.

‘God, Naveen, for such a bright mind and one of the best doctors in the world, I still find it hard to believe that you have a sense of humour of a 5 year old’

‘There is nothing wrong with some joy, Ethan. You should try it sometimes, it may do you good.’

Similar conversations took place on a regular basis, but they always ended with Ethan rolling his eyes and Naveen sighing. Younger doctor would never, ever tell his mentor off, he respected him too much. So Ethan let Dr Banerji have some fun at his expense from time to time.

But, truth be told, he kept his emotions at a leash and he was good at it, because there wasn’t a thing in Ethan’s life that he wasn’t good at. Regardless of what it was - saving people’s lives or emotional self-deprivation.

That’s why reminiscing past 2 years was so hard for accomplished diagnostician. He couldn’t help but think that he’s lived more during this time than he’s lived during his whole life. His existence wasn’t a boring one, he loved his job and the cases that the team had to crack were mostly complex and thus exciting. There was also a sense of fulfilment and servitude to a greater cause.

As a kid, Ethan wanted to be a detective. It all started with Alan buying his son one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s books. There was no hidden intention in this choice - Alan simply ran out of book ideas, Ethan was literally gobbling up the books at his disposal and was thirsty for more. Therefore, Mr Ramsey picked picked one of the thickest positions available in the book shop, with hopes it will keep Ethan occupied for at least a couple of weeks. Oh, how wrong he was - 5 days later his son was already begging for more.

Sherlock Holmes and Hercules Poirot quickly took the top spot on the list of Ethan’s childhood heroes. He was obsessed with their investigative methods, their sharp minds that captured even the tiniest of details and how missing those nuances would make solving a mystery a lot harder, if not impossible. 

That’s why he became obsessed with details. He analysed, compared, observed and noted down everything around him with deliberation. After a while, Ethan realised that these skills come handy in various areas of life. He could read people and to a degree foresee what their next move was going to be. If he wanted to, he could probably try and influence their decisions too. If it wasn’t for Alan’s upbringing, this particular skill might have taken his life onto a dark track, but fortunately he utilised it for greater good.

Having this sort of insight made him very self-conscious and he never turned away from reliving his own decisions and behaviours, which helped him become a better doctor, every single day. But he never wallowed in the mud of emotions, instead always operating on facts.

But for the past couple of months, this process became a pure torture. 

You know what they say, the devil is in the detail. And the devil it was indeed. 

The devil that would be the death of Ethan was 5’4, had raven hair, plumped lips, mesmerising eyes and a captivating laugh. 

Suddenly, he heard the devil’s voice in his head.

‘Are you pinching the bridge of your nose right now?’ 

He was.

‘God dammit!’ - shouted Ethan, so loud that he startled poor Jenner, who resigned from occupying the sofa and ran straight to his bed. Even the retriever, in his doggy wisdom, knew that when his master was upset, it was best to stay out of his sight and wait for the storm to pass.

Whenever Dr Ramsey had a serious dilemma, he would subtly join his thumb and index finger to pinch the gentle skin between eyes. She knew of this somewhat subconscious habit and teased him about it countless times. 

With most people, the whole observing and reading process was a one-sided game. For majority of mortals, Ethan was a closed book and they had no idea how to open, let alone read it. But not Rookie. She saw right through him. Ethan considered himself a riveting mystery thriller before, if we’re talking comparisons, but right now he was probably a cheap Harlequin. How did he sink so low in practically no time?

The answer came before he was even able to finish the question.

He was hopelessly, utterly and irreversibly in love with Dr Vicky Valentine.

“Victoria….” he whispered. He knew her full name, he’s read her bloody application and her employee file many, many times. More than he’d ever care to admit. Neither him nor anyone else addressed her by her full name. She always introduced herself as Vicky and even mentioned to him, June & Baz one time that she considered herself too young to be a bearer of such gracious name. But when the name fell out of his lips, it made perfect sense. Victoria. Victory. After a long, tough and heartbreaking battle, she’s won all of him. And man, wasn’t she fighting fiercely. 

She was so much like him, and yet so different. Patients loved her, and for a good reason - not only was she amazing at her job, but also so genuinely caring about every patient she met. Somehow, she was able to see past people weary of their conditions, instead she always noticed the human beings with their unique stories. Thanks to her, patients never felt like sickness became their identity, but merely a stage in their life that shall soon pass. 

Hospital staff adored her as well, she had time and a huge smile for everyone; her bright aura lit up every room she walked into and was a pleasure to be around. 

Those who knew Ethan a bit better or worked with him were aware of the insanely high standards he was holding himself to. And it would have been fine if they only applied to him, but he held everyone else to the same standard too. It was his buffer. Most gave up without even trying, it was humanly impossible to live up to such expectations. And that was the goal. Dr Ramsey wanted no distractions and if anyone wanted so much as approach him, they had a giant wall to jump over first.

But the young intern wasn’t bothered in the slightest. Dozens of people before her stood in front of the wall and tried to figure out how to get in. And she… she just found a tiny gap and squeezed right through. Before Ethan realised what’s going on, it was already too late. And she wasn’t even fully aware of what she’s done.

Like air, she’s entered his life imperceptibly, filling every space until there was nothing else. She was in every reflection he saw, every smile, every freaking thing a reminder of her, one way or another.

He was completely under her spell, enchanted, drunk in the thought of her.

The most ironic part was that if he went by his unreasonable standards, she’d never stand a chance.

She was messy, she was a klutz, she laughed too loud and rounded her eyes like a child when something seriously excited her.

And yet, something about her made him break all of his rules, lower his guard and re-think everything he’s ever thought he knew and believed in. 

Obviously, he wouldn’t be himself if the occupational quirk did not kick in at some point. Whatever the cause, Dr Ramsey had to get to the bottom of it, no matter how many tests did he have to run on his mind and heart. He needed the diagnosis so he could start the treatment. But his sharp diagnostic skills which made him a famous man, suddenly decided to go on unplanned vacation and it looks like they were not coming back anytime soon.

Ambivalence became Ethan’s newest companion. Some days, he thought he was going to blow his brains out, the others he was strangely content and did not want to analyse anything, things were good just as they were.

For the first time in his life, he felt truly lost. He felt like Jon Snow, he knew nothing. It wasn’t a result of one event, rather a chain reaction. Starting with Naveen getting sick, the inability to figure out what was wrong with his mentor made Ethan seriously doubt his capabilities as a doctor. Then, Louise Ramsey made a surprise reappearance after having walked out on him and his dad 25 years earlier. When he was little, his dad use to say that wherever Louise goes, trouble follows and it wasn’t any different this time. She brought company - insecurity, sorrow, resentment - to name just a few. Ethan felt like someone ripped a band aid from his heart and painfully reminded him that all the wounds are still alive and never really healed. 

And finally, Edenbrook. The place that others saw as walls, glass, beds, people in white coats, sickness, illness, death. To him, it was much, much more. The hospital had almost a transcendental dimension. It was here that Ethan’s transition had been completed. He shed his old skin and became Dr Ramsey, the person he was always meant to be.

That’s why Edenbrook closing hit him so hard - a part of him was about to die and be buried beneath years of sweat, tears and effort. It was probably the hardest thing to come to terms with in the 37 years that he’s been walking on the surface of the Earth.

And throughout all these events, she was with him.

She never gave up on Naveen and Ethan knew that there was more to it than just saving Edenbrook’s most prominent doctor. He believed, he wanted to believe that she did this for him too. 

The memory brought shame that drained off him like unpleasant wave of cold water. Ethan never really forgave himself for just laying in his bed like a drunk bag of potatoes, whilst she was busting her gut to solve the case, even though she had ethics hearing to prepare for. A hearing that could make or break her whole career, before she even had a chance to start.

Dr Ramsey would like to think they were alike. But as a matter of fact, she was a much better person than him.

Then, with his mother in the picture, she never told him what to do. Even though he asked, many times. He hoped someone can actually make the decision for him, because it hurt so much to even think about this, let alone decide what to do next. But she never did. She was just there and by simply being, she empowered him to make his own, informed decision. 

She was there, like no one else was in his entire life. Not to take anything from Naveen, who had tremendous effect on Ethan’s life - but this was completely different.

She penetrated his soul.

She made him feel.

Love.

It was the first time he used this word in a long, long time. 

And maybe, quite possibly, for the first time in his life he used it with intention. 

He thought he felt it once before. 

When he was a student at Johns Hopkins, Ethan met Camille. She was a year older than him, with angelic voice and looks, the cascade of blond locks surrounding her gentle facial features like a halo. 

What impressed him was that she kept hitting up on him, not the other way round. He’s had his mind set on graduating as a top student in his class and then getting the best residency there was - in Edenbrook hospital in Boston. It was either him or someone else. University romances were of no interest to him, or so he thought. After all, he’s just gone past his teenage years and was relatively new to the world of intimate human desires. As much as he tried to push them away, he had needs and his hormones were still a giant part of his decision-making process, doesn’t matter how hard he tried denying it.

Also, there was something motherly about her and she reminded him of the woman who left him when he was just a boy. It was completely fucked-up, he hated his mother and yet a memory of her and how he’d once do anything for her was tattooed in the insides of his brain.

Ethan and Camille shared a passion for medicine, music and opera. A few times, he was close to bringing her down to Providence, to introduce her to Alan, his father. But there was this weird voice in his head stopping him. 

Maybe that’s why he wasn’t overly surprised when one day he walked on Camille. In his bed. Screaming and making other explicit sounds…except, he wasn’t the igniter. It was none other than his best friend at the time, Tobias. Ethan would never forget the jealous glance he shot him with when he first brought Camille to one of the student parties. And then things got worse. Ethan and Tobias always competed and for a long time it was a fuel that kept them both going. But when someone wins, someone has to lose. Neither of them was good at losing or accepting the failure. 

Ethan was doing better than his best friend. Not significantly better, the difference between them had usually been slight, but it was there. Tobias couldn’t swallow this. Not only was Ethan doing better than him, he also had one of the most beautiful students at Hopkins by his side. Jealousy started to spread inside him like a wildfire and since his attempts to beat Ethan at school were futile, he decided to make use of his other skills. Tobias was a born flirter and charmer. He often used to say that no woman can resist his spell and that “where there’s a woman - there’s a way.”

Dr Ramsey never told anyone, but having found out that his girlfriend cheated on him with his best friend was sort of relief. Call it sixth sense, an intuition… subconsciously he sort of felt that she wasn’t a girl for him. As for Tobias, he was tired of the fight….of Tobias fighting with him, that is. Ethan wasn’t fighting, he was just a better student and was going to be a better doctor. He was tired of petty competition and how the toxin poisoned their relationship.

So they actually made him a favour and helped him killed 2 birds with 1 stone - he was saved from having an awkward break-up conversation that he’s never went through before and he now had every right to hate Tobias. He didn’t really, as such feelings were a waste of energy, but a week later Tobias moved out of their shared apartment and they never really spoke again.

After Camille, he was only in a brief relationship once. With Harper. He deeply admired and respected her, but when things started getting too serious (from her side), he distanced himself. And so, for a couple of years to follow, they were on the off and on again terms. They went through countless friends with benefits stages, but he genuinely enjoyed her company. They just never wanted the same things, which became more and more evident as she was getting older. And he respected her too much to mess her around.

Ethan’s career was everything to him and he accepted the fact that falling in love and having a family is just not in the cards for him.

Or so he thought.  

Dr Valentine entered his life one September morning and hasn’t left ever since. And, hell, hasn’t he tried to erase her. To make her hate him. To draw a line between work and personal life. He could honestly say that he tried everything.

For the love of God, he ran to fucking Amazon! He tried to hide from all things Dr Valentine, like a fool who forgot one of the most basic rules of life: there is no running away from yourself. 

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[makeste]

I just took that Bakugou introspection as Horikoshi's way of telling the audience that yes Bakugou can keep up with OP Deku because there has been so much muttering across the fanbase that Bakugou won't be able to. I don't see the melodrama of Bakugou only seeing his strength as a means to keep up with Deku or that his pride is problematic. I think him having an idea for his hero names means he knows what his strength is for. He's always been strong as a person (when Deku was not) (pt1)

Losing his quirk doesn't need to be the gateway to force him to develop the kindness and consideration he's already been showing, nor would it be karmatic balance between him and Deku- especially when any scenario that takes his quirk benches him from the story or cheapens the stakes by him getting it back relatively fast. Deku's 15 years of quirklessness can't be balanced. Additionally, Bakugou only lost in the story when he was too close minded to learn, once open minded he started to (pt2)

grow. It doesn't send out a good message, if after all that growth he still gets punished. His declaration of spirit to not lose, be it to Shigaraki or Deku is not a bad thing, he is the underdog with an indominable will and he is declaring his spirit as the symbol of victory. Bakugou may lose his quirk, I don't know, but your reasons I disagree with because we interpret those panels differently. They give the audience a point of reference to guage Bakugou's ability.

you make some excellent points, anon! and you see, it’s strange, because up until this chapter and his monologue, I was in full agreement with most of what you’re saying -- that he’s already figured out all of that hero biz, that he’s already in the process of sorting his shit out on his own, and that Horikoshi is simply waiting for the right moment to finally show it.

but after reading his internal dialogue in this chapter, I’m just not so sure anymore.

in the past I’ve done a lot of guesswork on Kacchan’s thought processes based on his subtle little actions and microexpressions, and on what we’ve already been told about his character thus far. I call it “guesswork”, though, because it very much is that, because we so rarely get an actual glimpse into his head to see what he is really thinking. so when Horikoshi actually does give us one of those rare glimpses, I’m inclined to pay very close attention, and prepared to make any necessary adjustments to my current understanding of his character if need be. he is very, very complicated, and despite my spending an absurd percentage of my free time analyzing him up and down and front to back, that absolutely doesn’t mean that any of those analyses are actually right, lols. I’m constantly updating my internal databank of Kacchan knowledge both from interactions with the rest of the fandom, and -- when Horikoshi actually deigns to give us some new information -- from the canon itself.

anyway! so when I read this chapter and saw Kacchan yet again comparing his progress to Deku’s in his head, and thinking -- even now, even in the moments right before an intense battle!! -- only about his rivalry and about keeping up, that immediately set me to updating my mental bakuwiki in regards to his current character growth status. so he definitely has his hero name picked out already, we know that much. and so presumably has thus already figured out what kind of hero he wants to be. right? right.

and yet he still apparently has not revealed the new name to anyone. even after three months. like yeah, we get it, you made a promise to tell Jeanist first, etc. fair enough, but still! it’s an interesting bit of hesitation to take note of. and then there’s also the matter of Horikoshi’s interview from back in December (which I’ll link in a comment once this is posted), where he talked a lot about Bakugou and made a point of saying that his character growth wasn’t done yet, and that he still needs to apologize to Deku. which is as good a confirmation as any that such an apology is indeed forthcoming.

so why, then, does it seem like we’re still no closer to that moment, even after Kacchan seemingly had a mysterious epiphany at the end of the internship arc, and even after we subsequently went through a three month time jump? Kacchan isn’t one to be slow about it when he decides to make progress. his growth in all other aspects has come by leaps and bounds. and yet when it comes to his relationship with Deku -- his friendship with Deku, except that he still can’t bring himself to acknowledge that’s what it is, and insists on thinking of it as only a rivalry -- it seems like he reached a certain point, and then just... stalled. like he’s not willing to go any further past this. and there are many reasons for why that may be the case. but at the root of all of them is pride.

and I’m not saying he needs to give up that pride, because that’s a huge and very important part of who he is. you said his declaration of spirit not to lose isn’t a bad thing, and I agree. but that doesn’t always make it a good thing either, and I don’t want to get so swept up in my love of the character that I start refusing to acknowledge the downsides of that trademark pride as well. pride, like anything else, is nuanced. it can be both good and bad. it’s good when it motivates you and pushes you to do your best and to achieve your goals. but it’s bad when it makes you inflexible, and when it prevents you from taking actions which would benefit you and others, just because doing so would mean humbling yourself in a way that is scary and which feels like it runs counter to your ultimate goals. because you want to be someone who always wins. and so any time you do experience a loss, you go through an entire mini-crisis, because it feels like your very purpose in life is being threatened.

I don’t know if “problematic” is the word I would use for this aspect of him. I feel like that word is fairly overused, especially in fandom, and now has certain connotations of “this is objectively bad behavior which should be called out and shunned.” and I don’t think that’s the case at all when it comes to Kacchan’s pride. he’s already learned how to put it aside in order to work with others and save others. and that’s great! he already is a great hero by this point, imo. if Horikoshi decided to just end his character arc here and not take it any further, I would actually be just fine with that.

but I think that there is still the potential for more. I think that we are still not done here yet. because this manga consistently surprises and amazes me with the way it goes the extra mile when it comes to character development. Kacchan and Deku didn’t have to reconcile their differences and learn to respect one another after only 120 chapters (I say “only” in a very sincere and not sarcastic sense here, because that really is an insanely short timeframe compared to most other manga). but they did. Endeavor didn’t have to see the error of his ways and decide that he wanted to become a better person, and he definitely didn’t have to be shown apologizing and admitting his wrongdoings and even going so far as to back out of his family’s lives for their sakes and even build them a house so they could move on apart from him. but he did! and that’s insane, you guys. name me another series that goes that hard in trying to redeem a guy whom virtually every single member of this fandom would have once described as ultimately devoid of any redeeming qualities. I can’t think of any.

but BnHA is just like that. it goes hard. it doesn’t back off. nothing about its character arcs is remotely half-assed. and so if a character is showing signs that they are still angling for more growth? that there are still things they need to learn? then I’m inclined to think we are going to roll up our sleeves and get that growth, one way or another.

this story consistently amazes me because whenever I look at a certain aspect of a character’s development and say to myself, “oh hey, that’s pretty awesome, even if it’s still not ideal,” Horikoshi goes and nudges it down another notch towards being ideal. like, the dude just doesn’t settle. and so that’s one of the reasons why I’m convinced this is a very real and even likely possibility. because this kind of development, to me, would be very, very, very close to my ideal. is it strictly necessary? absolutely not. would it fucking blow my mind as a development, however? I kinda think it would, ngl.

-- that is, with the one addendum that since I do love my son very dearly, I wouldn’t want it to actually be permanent. so in order to be truly ideal, such an arc would also have to include a way for him to climb back up again after experiencing that fall. which some might find contrived or “cheap”, as you put it. but that’s a risk I’m very selfishly and biasedly game for all the same, lol. I am more than willing to occasionally suspend my sense of disbelief in the name of character development, and honestly, I don’t actually think it would cheapen the stakes in any way, because just because Kacchan’s main character status gives him cool perks like a one-time get-out-of-losing-your-quirk-for-free card doesn’t mean the same would apply towards anybody else. and for that matter, it wouldn’t detract from whatever soul searching Kacchan does during that period while he fully believes that he will be quirkless for the rest of his life, either. it doesn’t have to be permanent in order to have a permanent impact.

lastly, in regards to it balancing things out between him and Deku, I don’t mean that Kacchan becoming quirkless would (a) be some sort of necessary and deserved punishment for him, or (b) be even remotely equivalent in any kind of way to what Deku experienced while growing up. that is very obviously not the case, and I can’t stand that kind of thinking, that redemption is only about punishment. maybe “karmic” isn’t the word I should have used then; I meant it as a way of signifying something spiritual in the push-pull balance between the two of them, not in the “what goes around comes around you were a jerk and now you’ll finally understand what it feels like” sense of the word. that’s a big yikes, lol. so yeah, just to clarify that part of it!

what I mean by balance is that it would serve as a catalyst to Kacchan finally being able to understand Deku’s side of it. finally being able to see things from the point of view of his rival-friend who’s had the exact opposite arc as him in terms of what he had to do and go through and learn and unlearn to get this far. it would serve as a means of finally bridging that one last gap of understanding between them. it would bring things back into balance because it would bring them back into balance, by giving them the push to finally mend that one last broken part of their former friendship. the part that’s still untouched by both of them, because they’re both afraid of disrupting the current semi-stable truce that they have now in their relationship. even if it’s not perfect. not, if you’ll pardon my use of the word yet again, ideal.

tl;dr I see Bakugou’s introspection as being a lead-in to something potentially game-changing both because I want it to be, and because, as strange as it may seem, the manga has conditioned me to think this way now. to have expectations. to anticipate more depth, more growth. so it may be the case that in this instance I’ve taken those expectations too far and I need to temper them back down and swing them in a less angsty, more traditionally shounen direction. and like I said, if that does wind up being the case, I won’t be upset.

but maybe, just maybe though, this manga will in fact go there once again. if for no other reason than that it can. “Horikoshi really went and did that” is a sentence I’ve gotten very used to typing since I started reading this manga. and so, well, let’s just wait and see.

[taiblogcomics]

Absolutely Thera-Pissed

Hey there, visas and green cards. It's our ninth blogaversary! Wow, we've been going for quite a long time. Long enough to completely change platforms at least once. Considering we just finished our whole backlog, I think we should try something new in honour of the amazing coincidence of these two events synching up. Before we start on another backlog of terrible comics (trust me, I have something in mind), let's do something we've never done before on this blog. We've only ever really covered comics issue by issue. How would you feel, dear readers, if we instead did an entire storyline all at once?

And oh boy, do I have just the storyline in mind. Here's the cover:

Oh yeah. We're doing this. This story has kind of hung over this blog, mostly due to its connections to Red Hood and the Outlaws. It also prominitely features Harley Quinn, who also appeared in Suicide Squad (which ended before this story took place). And personally, I am a fan of Harley, Booster, and the Titans. And oh boy, does this comic shit all over them, in some of the most truly appalling ways possible. This is Heroes in Crisis. All nine issues. Let's jump right in~

I won’t be going over the covers of the individual issues, or even this one so much, but I do like that quote at the top. It is actually some good superhero artwork! It is an extremely awful story, but the artwork is fine~

So the first issue starts like this: Booster Gold's in one of those tiny middle-American diners. The host's loving it, since she says superheroes never show up and eat here. And oh look, here comes another one! Booster replies that that's no hero, as Harley Quinn walks in. Clearly he hasn't been reading her solo series. Harley orders some pie, and she and Booster eat in terse silence. Until suddenly Harley grabs a knife, and the two begin a real knock-down, drag-out fight. And lemme tell ya something, Harley keeps up with a guy who can fly and project forcefields pretty well. Eventually the pair are exhausted, and Booster says he's gotta bring Harley in, after what he saw her do. Harley protests, because she didn't kill all those people. She saw Booster do it.

All this is intercut with two different scenes. One is sort of a confession-cam style thing, a bunch of heroes (including Harley, Blue Jay, Booster, and Hotspot) all admitting they're here for therapy. And the second is Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman talking with each other as they land in a particular site. This place is called Sanctuary. It is currently full of dead heroes. Among the deceased here are Hotspot, Lagoon Boy, Wally West, and Roy Harper. And this is my first major complaint. Do you know what all these characters have in common? Hey, DC: Stop using the Titans as your cannon fodder. Stop treating them as a joke. Every iteration of the team deserves more respect than this.

So Harley and Booster are going to be our POV characters for this story. I like both of these characters a lot, so this is probably going to be pretty painful seeing them written horribly. Harley goes off to the Penguin for protection, and we actually get to see her in her old costume. It is a breath of fresh air, honestly. Booster, meanwhile, mostly just tries to rationalise his actions with Skeets, his robot buddy. Booster suffered kind of a psychotic break back in the Batman storyline "The Gift", which is why he was in Sanctuary to begin with. This story is basically a follow-up to that one, and has the same sort of tone.

Harley confronts the trinity in Gotham, revealing she set the whole thing up with Penguin just so she could get close to them on her terms. She uses the Lasso of Truth to confess she saw Booster Gold do it, then uses the Kryptonite in Batman's belt to skip town. The next time we see her, she's at the docks, giving a eulogy to Poison Ivy, another victim of Sanctuary. Booster Gold, meanwhile, has rationalised that Batman would solve the crime himself rather than turn himself in, and goes to Barry Allen to check in. Of course, the trinity are the only ones who know about the accident yet, so when Booster tells Barry that Wally's dead, he gets super pissed. Just like the readers are!

Issue 3 is a flashback issue, showing Booster's first day at Sanctuary. Sanctuary works like this: everyone gets their own private quarters, and if they want to visit the common areas, they wear a mask and cloak to preserve anonymity. Here's the first really big problem with Sanctuary: while therapy for superheroes is a good (possibly necessary) concept, Sanctuary is only one kind of therapy. It essentially assumes everyone responds the same to the same sort of therapy. The kind here is that Sanctuary gives you a private room that simulates your traumas (with a holodeck) and has you physically confront them. Lagoon Boy, for example, is shown to be facing the laser that killed him over and over again. Wally sets up superhero battles that still have his kids with him. And while this sort of therapy might help some people, it's definitely not universal.

Booster starts his first session, which ends up just being a hologram of himself, talking to him. Before he can get much further, though, alarms go off and everyone is urged to emergency evacuate. Lagoon Boy is killed--in a deliberate callback to his previous death, no less--and we see a few other victims, including Red Devil, Commander Steel, and Gunfire. Wally clutches Roy's body as he dies in his arms, and Harley smacks Wally in the face with her hammer. She greets Booster cheerfully, and he admits he's having a hell of a first day.

After a brief scene of Aqualad (Garth, in this case) drinking in a bar--and who can blame him for wanting to drink after experiencing this story?--Batman and Barry meet, thus showing they're still unsure who did it. Booster is being interrogated under the Lasso of Truth, and he relays the previous issue to us. In his mind, Harley did it. Harley, meanwhile, has tracked down Batgirl (Barbara Gordon) and surprisingly... they hug. Babs promises to help stick by Harley and prove her innocence. After all, Babs has been through trauma, too. The comic reminds us of this with another confession-cam video, showing Babs display the scars she received from “The Killing Joke".

So, about these confession cams... They've been interspersed between scenes, showing everyone from Batman down to guys like Gunfire or the Protector relaying their problems by confession. Again, this sort of therapy isn't for everyone, but it's the only one Sanctuary's got. Superman tells Batman that Lois has been receiving these videos anonymously. Batman responds that there are no videos. Sanctuary does not keep records, to preserve patient confidentiality. Supes replies that there are videos, he's seen them, and now the media has them. The issue ends with a breaking story about "What is the secret superhero Sanctuary?" exposé airing on television...

Speaking of breaking, Blue Beetle (Ted Kord, who I'm as surprised as anybody to find out is alive again post-Rebirth) breaks Booster out of the Hall of Justice where he's being held. The pair watch the breaking news report on television while they try to come up with a plan. Booster's idea is to confess to Barry again, figuring they won't expect the stupidest possible move, making it actually the smartest possible move. Booster has not really recovered from his insanity, I see. He and Beetle do exactly that, surprising Barry at work, which is apparently all the advantage they need. This is because Barry, as a forensic scientist, has access to the data on the autopsies.

While Superman makes a public statement to the press regarding Sanctuary, Batman passes Skeets into Batgirl's care, and she immediately violates that trust by in turn passing Skeets to Harley. It's implied Harley tortures the information regarding Booster's whereabouts out of Skeets, but it's okay because he's just a robot. Babs and Harley turn up at Booster's place as he's analysing the data he obtained from Barry. Here's where it all starts to fall into place: the data on Wally West says his body is five days older than the rest of them.

Issue 6 is kind of a triple piece, but one that can be summed up fairly quickly. It focuses on three specific characters who were all at Sanctuary. The parts regarding Gnaark the caveman (another Titans alumnus) are ultimately pointless, since the issue ends with his death. The parts with Harley focus on Joker's abuse of her and Posion Ivy's care towards her. This also ends badly. Wally's parts focus on the DC Rebirth story where he essentially willed himself back into the universe. And while that story is really good and it was a joy to see Wally again, it ultimately ended with the knowledge that Wally's family did not reappear with him. His kids are gone, his wife is with someone else and does not remember him, and until he forced his way back into everyone's memories, no one else recalled him either. This would traumatise anybody. But it may have really traumatised Wally.

The next issue starts really well, honestly. Booster and Harley are fighting it out--again--while Babs and Beetle just watch. Like, they aren't even stressed, they're both familiar with their respective charges, and this is really no surprise. In any other comic, this would be a great scene. Shame that it's in this one, and it's not nearly enough to save even a lick of it. Eventually Babs works out that Booster's forcefields are only currently working because of some jury-rigged tech that's powered by Blue Beetle's consciousness. So she knocks him out with one hit. Harley prepares a killing blow, but ultimately cannot go through with it, proving she's a good person. She and Booster just collapse on the floor, and bond over the fact that they both kind of suck as superheroes (from their own perspectives, at least).

With Booster, Beetle, Babs, and Harley (Barley?) all on the same side now, the group decide to get to the bottom of everything together. Meanwhile, the rose Harley dropped off the docks is picked up by Wally. See, while the body they found of Wally is five days older than the rest, this means he time-traveled and is still at present alive. Wally channels his Speed Force into the rose, causing it to grow rapidly--and Poison Ivy blooms from it, restored to life. I don't get it either, but if it means Ivy didn't die in this stupid story, I'll take it. Wally then apologises, since Ivy just returned to life and now she has to see death so soon. Those five days are up, and a second Wally appears, ready to literally kill himself.

So here's what really fucking happened.

Wally had been at Sanctuary three weeks already. He's frustrated because the therapy's not helping as fast as he thought it would. He does a jump into the Speed Force and basically exists everywhere at once. Spread across the time stream, he witnesses everybody's confession cams all at once. He sees "the trauma of a thousand heroes in crisis" (hey, we have a title, ladies and gentlemen). And... it's too much. Realising everybody's personal pain breaks him. He unleashes the burst of pent-up energy he'd stored to do the time jaunt thing and kills everyone at Sanctuary.

Lagoon Boy. Protector. Hotspot. Red Devil. Arsenal. Gnaark. Solstice. Tattooed Man. Gunfire. Blue Jay. Commander Steel. Nemesis. I want you to remember these names. These were all pre-existing characters. Half of them were members of the Titans at one point or another. Wally West, the Flash, killed them in a stupid, stupid storyline that not only assassinates his character, but also literally assassinates all these other characters.

Wally uses his super speed to set up the bodies, rig the crime scenes so it looks like Harley or Booster could be responsible for their deaths. He then travels forward in time to the present moment, where he has just confessed all this to Poison Ivy. He kills that version of himself and travels back in time with it to fake his own death. He then uses the VR tech of Sanctuary to trick Booster and Harley into believing they saw the other commit the deeds. Neither of them even knew they'd never left their respective therapy simulations. This leaves Wally with a five day window to figure out something good he can do to make up for killing everyone.

So the final issue wraps it up like this: Booster time-travels the group back to where Barry is about to kill his own paradox clone. Harley and Ivy reunite, which is nice. So here's the plan: this doesn't have to end with any more death. In the end, what Barry did was all an accident. So Booster travels into the future to make a clone of the paradox-Wally. This gives them a five-day-old body they can leave at the massacre, in order to close the timeloop. The present Wally turns himself in and is arrested, while the five-days-ago paradox Wally merges back into the Speed Force, still running to try and find his family.

And the "good" thing Wally did to make up for killing everyone? He was the one that leaked Sanctuary's existence to the media. In his mind, the idea that heroes are seen as constant paragons was too much pressure. By letting the public know that even superheroes need therapy, even superheroes suffer trauma just like everyone else, he he could let people know that heroes are just that: people. People like everyone else. And that it is okay for anyone to seek help if you need it. This seems like a nice sentiment, until you remember the reason Wally killed everyone is because he was impatient about how his therapy was going.  What an awful story.

-----

Like, legitimately, this story is just awful. The basic premise--that heroes could probably do with therapy--is not a bad one. The execution is just really completely mismanaged, though. Start with the beginning. Why are Harley Quinn and Booster Gold chosen as the focus characters? Because they're the ones you could believe would orchestrate a mass murder, right? Except no. You would never believe that. Booster is not that much of a screw-up, and Harley is not that much of a villain. Neither of them have been those things for many years. The readers know that, but it feels like the writer didn't.

And that's the worst part of it all. The superficiality of the story. In the end, why was this story written? To explore the concept of therapy for superheroes? Well, then, it went about it in the worst way possible. Not everyone experiences trauma in the same way. And therefore, not everyone responds to therapy in the same way. The way therapy is depicted in this story is just wrong. Frankly, Sanctuary looks like one of the worst places to get treatment, right alongside Arkham Asylum. Do you think anybody's really going to take away from this story "It's okay to talk about your traumas if you need to"? In or out of universe?

I didn't really talk about the confession cams, but they seemed highly unnecessary. They were always the same, a 3x3 of panels featuring a superhero talking about their traumas. Most of them didn't factor into the story, and at most they felt like a common scene transition. They tried to give them some weight by revealing that the contents of all these possibly got leaked? But then they just kinda dropped that subplot. Which was really kind of serious, because the traumas range from the Protector (a character created for drug PSAs) confessing that he has done drugs to Superman talking about the burden of keeping his identity secret. How much of these did the public actually get? And if it was none, what was even the point of it being a subplot~? Like, leak that Sanctuary existed, sure, but why did Lois Lane get sent all the videos that shouldn't have existed~?

What this story has done to Wally is awful. They have completely tarnished this likeable, amazing hero by having him kill twelve people (thirteen, if you include Poison Ivy), several of them colleagues and friends. All because he's trying to fake his way through therapy when it isn't helping him as fast as he wants. Know what would have been a good story? How about he learns to cope with his trauma? How about he actually gets his family back? It's unrealistic as hell, but it's a fictional story. It's escapism. It's okay to have a happy ending. I ''want'' my stories to end in happy endings, because it's so hard to get them in real life. I want something better than this.

DC Rebirth was a breath of fresh air. Wally's return to the DC universe felt like the clouds were lifitng. The stories following Rebirth felt like a return to form after the darkening of the New 52. It felt like the stories were getting good again, like the comics were getting fun and hopeful again. It couldn't last, though, could it? This story is only three years after the Rebirth initiative. Three years? That's all the hope we get in the universe? I sincerely hope this story ends up an abberation, and not a return to form of the darker, more dour universe we put up with in the New 52. Especially given current events, you can understand why a brighter, optimistic fictional world is appealing. I sincerely hope that when comics resume publication after the pandemic, a more positive outlook continues, and stories like this are left in the garbage where they belong.

This book is fucking awful, and I am done with it. Next week, we'll start reviewing an all-new series for the Taiblog. Let's just say I'm not done ranting about injustices against the Teen Titans~

[awkwardplantwrites]

I haven’t written yet, but I do have a lot of ideas to go off now. unfortunately, a lot of involves re-writing stuff. on the one hand, I don’t want to be stuck on the same chapters, but on the other hand, I just Won’t be able to continue unless I add it in. I know a lot of people say “just write, don’t edit” but those aren’t the rules bc there is none and I can do what I want. (pls fix? no being stuck!!! only edit!)

here’s a long post about things I’m planning on adding, as well as headcanons about my own damn story because I’m stuck in fanfic mode forever.

lots of spoilers ahead! 

a horse motif for Renato: I remember when namme-e made the posters, one had a horse on it, which I reckon is a common association with knights. so far there have been 2 horses (well, one is a Kelpie, but it’s a water horse shh. I also found out Northumbrian folk/where Llantry is based call them Brags!) and there will be more horses later in the story. they’re recurring anyway, so why not use it. 

and upon looking at it’s symbolism, I realised that horses are very duty bound creatures, like Renato is to the people of Llantry, they symbolise war/battles - which can bring in memories of his dad, and in comparison to the first horse (which dies in chapter 5... some unintentional symbolism there) Isbeil the Kelpie is much more free and independant and they’re at the Fun part of the road trip, and the Nukelavee (even more dangerous than kelpies) later on will be wild/untamed right about when Renato’s emotions will be in turmoil... you see where I’m going with this :D :D other contenders for motifs include: hands, mirrors/reflections, his shield/armour, dragons. swords are more of a precision tool for magic than a weapon in this universe so that wouldn’t work as a motif.

a candy motif for Pepi: you thought I made him a candy merchant intentionally? no. not at all. except now it is. candy represents good memories, childhood, rewards, pleasure, reminds him of his dad’s business, responsibility in maintaining the business, his family, his lack of magic/inability to make candy, having to do Tammy’s chores for her, and just Tammy in general I guess. 

in the beginning I remember him being enthusiastic about it (if he’s not I’ll add it in lol), singing about it and complaining about being “a candy delivery boy turned overworked squire” and even from that you can tell he already has a complicated relationship with candy. he can’t make it but he sells it and hates selling it but when he talks/sings about it it attracts people, especially children.. perhaps engaging his own inner child too... in chapter 3 Pepi mentioned he was down to two bags, which means he held onto them despite selling out the rest... representing that he’s still holding onto his past even though it’s in the past and gone... and one day he’ll run out and it won’t be in his control and he won’t be able to get any more unless he goes home... which means FACING HIS PAST. so I’m thinking, if he becomes more neutral to it that’ll show how he views his past more healthily? then eat fruit instead?? idk.

magic based on senses: kind of ATLA inspired, but with the 5 physical senses (and a spooky 6th). as I started writing this I realised I probably based their powers depending on which god chose them, for example Lidion is the god of protection, so Renato gets protection based powers. but y’know, I had another idea as I wrote this lmao, what if the regular civillians/people born with magic have sense based magic? not sure if it’s a little ambitious to have 2 entirely different sets of magic. maybe the god powers can be based on senses too. initially the magic was based entirely off of DND classes (Renato’s a paladin and Pepi’s a wild magic sorcerer) but I think I’ve found something more original haha. or perhaps I accidentally moved onto Greek god/Percy Jackson-esque powers. crap. research says scottish mythology is kinda like Greek myths anyway: that’s a win in my book. 

changing Finlay from a floating crystal ball to a bird: introduced in chapter 2, and EVERYTIME I WRITE I FORGET ABOUT FINLAY. it’s like a personal meme at this point. so anyway I took a “what core type are you quiz” a while back and Pepi got adventurecore after I chose bird as his inner animal. making this change will make sense because a) Pepi can talk to animals and this will foreshadow it, b) he likes music and this might be his magic type..? c) Disney needs a mascot character if they’re going to make FM a movie

I just read some bird symbolism and GOD I want to make Finlay a chicken, since it symbolises finding inner power, getting over fear and also it’s very funny to me. or a duck since that symbolises decisiveness and leaving the past in the past. see there’s a lot of things I can do here. but is there such a thing as having too many motifs? I just read that you CAN have more than one, so yes, Finlay will now become a duck. 15 year old/duck obsessed me would be very happy.

empahsizing the illness: plural illnesses actually. Llantry’s illness is actually depression - which they didn’t know bc this is set around the 15th century and the gods forgot to tell them about it or something - caused by overusing their magic, the death of Renato’s dad (public morale figure), poverty, and y’know the middle ages in general. I feel like Renato’s way too upbeat, especially in chapter 4 when they’re running away from the Wakefield Knights. before now I was trying to weave in mood swings which would affect his behaviour and therefore the story. admittedly it’s very difficult, as what they’re doing generally requires a lot of energy and the tone is usually light. someone suggested having his depression be worse when the situation is worse, which I probably will do, but I still feel he could be more low-key. I really, really didn’t want to use the “happy and sad duo” trope, I wanted them to be more or less equal in demeanour. though if I want to portray his depression and distinguish them both it’ll have to be exaggerated I suppose. 

the second illness, Pepi’s anxiety. or well, it was initially anxiety but it’s starting to look more like OCD (that’s self projection for ya). some of my readers already figured out he can do magic, however it’s not that he doesn’t realise it. he casts spells in his sleep and thinks it’s his “evil self” (that idea is still TBC), and he sneaks off in the morning because he remembers sleepwalking and cleans up his mess. and to avoid making it look like schizophrenia, I’m planning to write it so it’s obvious he’s just very in denial about being able to do magic, because later it’s revealed he’s scared to use magic, because he doesn’t want to end up like his sister who became possessed by an evil being and abused magic, which for him is both a rational and irrational fear. avoiding magic could be considered a compulsion since he has intrusive thoughts about becoming evil. 

so I did already plan for him to gradually get more restless and uneasy, he’s supposed to be seem energetic bc he runs solely on anxiety. in my head I was thinking of quirks, and realized him hoarding stuff in his pockets “in case he needs it later” and his insane amount of GUILT, and all that felt pretty OCD. so why not: he’s got OCD. possibly PTSD too.

the idea for Finding Magic began as “magic takes part of your soul, 2 wizards search for help as their magic stops working”. I still have the exact post it note I wrote the first idea on. for this story I have 2 countries, 13 semi-developed towns, over 30 characters. (yes, not Tolkien numbers, but I’m not Writers George) and the reason I wasn’t able to write about ANY of them for the past 2 months is because my brain spirals and ruminates over miniscule details that readers will never know. also because I lost passion, was too tired to develop characters I needed to develop the story to finish the first draft... but now that the passion is back: I’m writing this at 5am, which is reminiscent of the first day I came up with FM, back then called Journey to Magic, where I couldn’t sleep since I was bursting with ideas. 

I guess this is what I find fun, analysing and improving and brainstorming. so while I might not have chapters written down, they’re pretty damn clear in my head and as you can see, I can talk up a storm about my story despite it not existing :D

[alloverthegaf]

If you're still taking prompts, I'd like to send in again "Jarvis finds a secret OP in a certain mountain, while scanning for irregularities in the military dealings with STARK industries." Aka. Tony finds the Stargate. I'm still interested in reading that ^^

You are insanely patient and kind for how long you waited for me to write this my dude, thank you, and thanks for sending it again and reminding me of it because I was so in love with the idea. Hopefully this makes it up to you because this is definitely the longest thing I’ve written in a while, especially in one sitting. I had SO much fun developing the universe for this one too, and have a couple of vague ideas to maybe add to it in the future.

FYI we’re pretending the Marvel and Stargate timelines match up, don’t question it.

“Sir.”

Tony looks up from his welding torch, shoving the goggles away from his eyes. “What have you got, J?”

A second’s hesitation, which is enough by JARVIS’ standards to have Tony apprehensive. “A problem, Sir.”

Tony leans back in his chair, rolling slightly with the momentum. Well, that’s no surprise. He’s spent the past month and a half tracking down all organisations and branches of military connected to Stark Industries - or rather, he’s had JARVIS track them down - in his ongoing mission to right the wrongs of his war-mongering past. His main goal since the whole terrible clash with Obie has been to put the last scraps of his violent profiteering to rest, and that involves sifting through everyone who’s ever bought a single gun designed by his hands, evaluating their need for his weapons, analysing the actions made, the ambitions desired by his previous customers. In some cases, mostly private militant groups and a number of organisations Tony likes to think even the old him would never have dealt with if it hadn’t been Obie doing the deals and shaking the hands, it’s a simple enough decision; recall what was sold, reimburse them for their troubles, and sic the most well paid lawyers in America on them if they try to fight it.

In other areas, it’s a great deal more complicated, areas like the army where it’s not as simple as taking back what he made and leaving them to fend for themselves. Some few, like the Air Force where Rhodey not only has a great deal of influence but has spent half of his life fighting for, he leaves alone.

JARVIS has been going periodically through every customer on the extensive list and making evaluations of his own to triage the ones that Tony needs to go over. After some thought Tony had confirmed that he should go through all branches of the Air Force as well, because while Rhodey believes in them and he believes in Rhodey, he knows his best friend’s reach is not infinite.

“What kind of problem?”

“I have tracked a number of Personal Defence Weapons to a Top Secret Air Force facility in Colorado. It claims to be a Deep Space Radar Telemetry unit but all information regarding the outfit is classified.”

Tony raises an eyebrow. JARVIS isn’t one to let a little thing like ‘classified’ stop him. “So de-classify it.”

“I did, Sir.”

Another hesitation. Tony feels his curiosity piqued. “Do you want a drum roll?”

JARVIS doesn’t respond, simply throws up the very secret, very illegally obtained files on the nearest screen. Tony cocks his head towards it and rolls his chair closer. Five minutes of reading and Tony finds himself checking to make sure it’s not April 1st.

“Am I not giving you enough attention, JARVIS? You playing pranks on your old man now?”

“I assure you, Sir, this is all directly from the Air Force database.”

Tony goes back to the files. “Hmm.”

The klaxon is ringing in his ears, accompanied by a rhythmic ‘intruder alert’ as Daniel rushes through the grey corridors of Stargate Command. It’s a testament to just how long he’s spent in this facility that he no longer gets lost, so many levels and hallways all so eerily identical it’s as if they were specifically designed to spin you in circles.

Jack insists it’s simply because the Air Force “has a boner for boring”. Daniel had rolled his eyes at the comment, but secretly he’d agreed.

It’s not the more common alarm warning of an off-world activation, and that more than anything has Daniel on edge. Perhaps he should find some kind of relief in the fact that there isn’t a System Lord currently trying to bash their way through the Iris, but that situation at least is familiar. They’ve never had someone actually break into the mountain from the more Earthly side before. Their security’s too good for that. Which means whoever’s managed to push their way in must be better.

Daniel’s first suspicion is NID. He’s deeply hoping he’s wrong. He’s had about enough of them to last two lifetimes.

He turns the corner and finds a row of airmen stationed in front of the elevator doors, guns raised and at the ready. General Hammond stands behind them, Jack at his side.

It takes a moment for Daniel to register that whatever team has managed to find their way past the SGC’s defences - or blast their way through, and thinking of the friendly corporal who’d waved him through the front gate this morning he sincerely hopes it’s the former option - are now using the elevator. As he reaches Jack’s side and takes in the steady line of guns pointed at the doors, he wonders if he’s missing some kind of tactical psych out tactic the enemy has employed, or if they simply made it this far on sheer dumb luck.

Jack gives him the side-eye, his own gun held steady in his hands. “Daniel.”

Daniel gives him the side-eye right back. “Jack.”

“Any reason you’ve volunteered yourself for the first line of defence?”

Years of experience has Daniel recognising the reproach for what it is, and years of experience has him waving it off with ease. “We might be able to negotiate.”

Jack doesn’t even try to hide the full bodied sigh at that response. “You might get your head blown off.”

Daniel shrugs. “That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it?”

The elevator dings, the sound obnoxiously bright and cheery in the circumstances, and Jack’s eyes flit back, laser focused. The gun in his hands is raised and Daniel notices with a mix of appreciation and irritation that he steps forward and to the right slightly, putting himself in Daniel’s line of fire.

The room holds their breath, then the doors open, and -

“Iron Man?” one of the men in front whispers with something that sounds embarrassingly like awe. Jack’s eyes narrow and Daniel’s mouth drops open.

The red and gold suit steps forward once, twice, and raises its hands in a peaceful gesture. “Hey. I heard you were having a party.”

It certainly sounds like Stark’s voice, modulated as it is through the suit’s speakers. General Hammond recovers first, demanding “reveal yourself immediately.”

Surprisingly, he does. First the faceplate flips up, showing Tony Stark’s handsome face and iconic facial hair, before the rest of the suit opens. Daniel watches with wide eyes as the panels fold back on themselves and Stark steps out smoothly in a suit that even from this distance he can tell costs more than a month’s rent. “Mister Stark,” Hammond says warily. “This is a top secret facility and upon breaking in you have violated - “

“Yes, yes, I know, big trouble,” says Stark with a flippant wave of his hand. “Feel free to arrest me. I’m sure the media will just love to get my statement on why the Air Force are throwing me in a cell.”

“Is that a threat, Stark?” Jack asks, unamused. Unlike some of the greener men in the room, he’s clearly far from awestruck of the celebrity - and superhero - who’s just crashed his way into Cheyenne Mountain.

“I’m actually hoping we can avoid all the threatening and grand-standing,” he replies. “I’m not here to fight.” He grimaces, just a hint apologetic, and gestures to the suit standing behind him as he says “uh, despite appearances.”

“It’s generally considered polite to call ahead before dropping in,” Jack says, dry as the Sahara.

Tony throws a shiny white smile at him, all charm and boyish innocence. “Have I ever been known to be polite?”

“What is it exactly you want, Mr Stark?” asks Hammond with a deep wariness.

Tony turns his eyes to the General, and for the first time he looks serious as he responds, “to talk, General. How about we start there?”

Mr-Stark-Call-Me-Tony stands by the windows of the briefing room, looking out over the Stargate below with what Daniel assumes is intent fascination. SG-1 sit stiffly at the table with Hammond at the end, watching the billionaire closely. “How is it that you found out about our operation, Mr Stark?”

Tony replies without looking away from the giant ring, something like dry amusement in his tone. “I’m not just famous for my dashing good looks, General. Your firewalls are impressive, by Air Force standards, but they’d hardly a match against me. Don’t feel too bad, no one’s is.”

“So you thought you’d just drop by for a visit?” asks Jack. He’s clearly unimpressed with the man, from his confident swagger to his effortless charm and apparent arrogance. Daniel himself is hardly star-struck; logically he knows the man’s famous, and even he absorbs enough news to know about the violent battle between him and the other unknown pilot that occurred in New York about two months ago. But his job is to study people, and he’s been studying Stark since the moment the faceplate lifted. The confidence the man exudes covers the uncertainty in his eyes. The million dollar smile takes away from the slight tremble in his hands. The flippant jokes distract from the tight lines on his face.

So, Daniel’s reserving judgement. At least until he knows why Stark is here.

“Sure,” Stark responds, finally turning to face them. His hands move to his pockets and he rocks back slightly on his heels. “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but I’ve been shaking things up a little back at SI. Re-evaluating our priorities. I’ve been investigating everyone who’s ever bought so much as a bullet from me, and wasn’t I just full of questions when I came across you.”

Daniel sees Jack glance almost guiltily down at the handgun attached to his hip from the corner of his eye, and Sam doing the same across the table. He’s never personally paid much attention to the gun he uses, prefers to know as little about it as possible, in fact, but he’s seen the Stark logo around base enough times. More than that, he remembers the rant Jack had gone on after Stark had announced the complete retraction of weapons manufacturing. He’d stomped around Daniel’s office the whole time, gesticulating wildly and shouting about unreliability and leaving good men and women in the dust without a way to defend themselves. As if Daniel understood or sympathised at all about the importance of killing machines sold for a profit.

To be fair, Jack had ended his rant with a grudging admission of respect for the man’s apparent new values, and a wince of sympathy for what he must have gone through in those three months of absence. There had been an understanding in Jack’s eyes as he quietly admitted Stark had probably been tortured that Daniel hadn’t stopped seeing behind his eyelids for days afterwards.

“You could have gone through the proper channels,” Hammond reprimands. It’s that tone of disappointment that has managed to make even Jack shuffle guiltily in the past, and Daniel’s gratified to see that the great Tony Stark isn’t entirely immune, but the grimace is wiped from his face as quickly as it comes. “And would I have ever gotten clearance?”

“Probably not,” says Jack unapologetically. “Someone of your... status is a little too public for our liking.”

“Oh come on, Colonel,” says Tony with another of those ‘look how much I don’t care’ grins. “We both know it’s not my celebrity you disapprove of.”

Jack doesn’t argue the point.

“What is it exactly you want from us, Mr Stark?” asks Sam. She and Teal’c have remained silent up until now; Teal’c clearly doesn’t understand or care who this man is, and appears to be happy to leave this issue to his human friends. Sam has been quietly observing and absorbing the situation, but Daniel would bet money that he saw something like excitement show on her face when she first discovered just who had broken into the SGC with all the grace of a rhino. “Are you here to reclaim the weapons you sold to us?”

“I’ll admit, I wasn’t sure when I first found out,” says Tony. He regards Sam seriously, and, Daniel is gratified to see, with no small amount of respect. “I needed to see for myself, to understand what exactly it is you do here, what you’re... fighting against.”

“Our enemy is most malicious and powerful,” Teal’c speaks for the first time, his words heavy and serious. “They are a threat not only to us but to your entire world.”

“Yeah. I got that.” All amusement has dropped from Stark’s face, the carefree attitude gone to show the stance of someone serious and, perhaps, just a little bit scared. “I’ve read all about those alien slugs. I realise they’re no small threat.” The corner of his mouth ticks up, just a bit. “And I read all about you, Big Guy. I would love to pick your brain some time.”

Teal’c raises one unimpressed eyebrow. “I must decline such an unpleasant experience.” Stark’s face lights up at his deadpan response.

“Mr Stark,” says Hammond, attempting to get them back on track. If you’re not here to reclaim your weapons, why are you here?”

A moment longer of looking at Teal’c before he turns back to the General, serious again. “I’m here to learn, General. That’s my main goal here. I want to understand what exactly it is the world is up against. I want to study what you’ve already discovered.” He glances behind his shoulder, back into the Gate Room. “I would love to do some further study on how that works.”

“I could walk you through that,” Sam pipes up, then immediately looks at Hammond apologetically. “If, uh, you’re approved, that is.”

“It’s Carter, right?” Tony asks, looks at the pins on her shoulders, then at her. “Major Carter? I can tell you probably the only part of this whole thing that wasn’t a surprise was that you were involved. I’ve read your work on astrophysics, Major. You have a beautiful brain.” He says it with a salacious wink, but before Jack and Daniel can do so much as tense, he continues “honestly, if they hadn’t already recruited you I’d be making some phone calls right about now.”

Sam stares at him, clearly a little awe-struck and trying to hide it. “Th... thank you, Mr Stark. I’m familiar with your work as well. Your research articles on quantum mechanics has actually helped me a number of times while working on the Stargate program.

Tony grins, but it’s smaller and softer than the ones he’s thrown at them up until now. He actually looks a little proud when he says “glad I could be of assistance, Major.”

“So, that’s it?” asks Jack. He seems to have been slightly mollified by Stark’s genuine respect for Sam, but there’s still suspicion in his eyes and his voice. “You just want to learn? Do a book report?”

“Not just learn, Colonel,” is Tony’s quiet response. He looks at each of them in turn, putting the intended weight behind his words when he continues.

“I want to help.”

[beacon-of-chaos]

Defenders of Aura 2 - A Battle Century G Sequel

Session 7

(I’m kinda behind here, the campaign is already complete, will post session 8 tomorrow and get to work on the rest later)

We finish sorting through Victor's files. There's some interesting stuff about the nature of dark space in there; worth noting is the fact that Aura was once considered part of dark space and in fact still is by the nomads; There are several gas giants in dark space that are decaying like the one we fought the cultists in; and nearly everyone who goes into dark space either vanishes or goes insane. Looks like we were the lucky ones (or were we? Spectre seems to be plotting something and Sinclair has a voice in his head). There are also mentions of the Ebon Order, the group tasked with exploring dark space and taking out cultists. They've been doing their job for over a thousand years and it seems that they are fitted with far greater technology than they should for their missions. Interesting. No wonder Victor was so eager to join. Ultimately though, this doesn't help us find him. What Spectre does find is some kind of advanced energy pistol keyed to his bio-signature and some kind of device that seems to have some kind of temporal effect, though he doesn't know what yet. We get a message telling us that Quentin Crisp wants to meet with us again. We head to one of his hideouts in another bar, this one apparantly abandoned. Inside is Mr. Crisp and his associate, the android from the boxing ring. Crisp has hatched a plan to get us some technology, take out a key member of the coup, and make a show of force to potentially attract more rebels to our cause. There's a technology exhibition going on in the upper city; a huge hall filled with the latest advances in both civilian and military hardware. We're going to get inside, steal one of their new mech protypes, destroy the others, and assassinate Adrian Jeminko, a general in the army and Jasmine Jeminko's father. In exchange for doing this Crisp will get us the parts we need and talk to his associates about getting us some extra muscle. None of us are eager to take part in an assassination, especially Fauna, but Crisp assures us that Jeminko is not a good person and has been involved in several war crimes. We decide to check this later. As the others plan the mission out, Sinclair is approached by the other android who has a personal mission for him. She introduces herself as Morgana and tells him that there will be a new android being unveiled at this exhibition; another of her line. She wants Sinclair to grab this android and bring it back to her. Sinclair asks why and she says that she wants to meet her "brother". Sinclair is willing to do this but asks what she offers in exchange as this may be difficult to do during the current mission. She says that she is programmed for statistics analysis and probability but has never really had a chance to use her abilities to their full potential. Analysing data from a war appeals to her, so she will join the Argo's crew as an assistant if we aid her. Sinclair agrees. We spend a long time planning the mission. Stealth is not an option here as we need to make a show of force to convince others to join us. As such we will drop into the convention hall in our mechs through the skylight. Spectre offers to make some of his knockout gas that we can use to stun some of the guards and civilians that will be there, making our job a little bit easier. Razorinth is still back at the enclave so Katari will drop down on foot and make his way to the security centre to take it over and close off the area and prevent reinforcements from arriving too quickly. Sinclair gets in touch with Ajihra who is able to do some digging and find the codes to get into the security room. Fauna will use her vines to slow down the reinforcements. Spectre and Sinclair will deal with the automated defences in their mechs. As Lucis is away, Juyon has agreed to fill in as an extra combatant. In preparation for the mission, Katari gets himself a new sword and some industrial sawblades (The GM insists that he won't be able to throw them hard enough to damage a mech but allows him to take them anyway). After planning we talk to the President about the plan and ask about Adrian Jeminko. DuClair agrees that Adrian is not the kind of person anyone will miss though he believes that Quentin Crisp likely has a grudge against this man. Fauna noted that Crisp had an unusual energy to him that felt like he had been exposed to some kind of biological weapon, the cause of his limp and why he wears a mask. The president suggests that this narrows things down and Crisp is likely Crispen Gallahad, previously a high ranking member of the Camelot army. He lost his son in an accident several years ago, an accident he blamed Adrian Jeminko for. Gallahad went public and attempted to prosecute Jeminko but never got anywhere so he took it upon himself to try and kill his enemy with a bio-weapon. The attempt backfired though, and Gallahad was presumed to have accidently killed himself. Clearly he wants to finish the job he started. Before we start the mission, Sinclair asks Fauna for some help with his magic training. Fauna doesn't really understand Sinclair's power, though neither does Sinclair so he assures her that he doesn't mind. The two do some practice meditation in which Sinclair reaches out with his mind to the world around him. Fauna's energy is noticable to him and while he doesn't really understand what he's looking at, he feels as though he has gained a measure of control over his own power. The GM states that Sinclair has learned the magic skill "Energy". Sinclair: What does it do? GM: You have no idea. (I had to pay 20 character points for it though so it had better be good!) The time comes and we put the plan into action. We manage to sneak out of the city in a drop ship provided by Crisp and we get to our mechs. We drop into the exhibition hall through the skylight as planned. What wasn't planned, however, was that we would immediately be surrounded by four enemy mechs. Sinclair engages the mech standing in between the group and the security room, allowing Katari to jump from his mech over it, but not without using his sword to slash at the mech's optics on the way. Fauna entangles two of the mechs in vines that travel from Wyrdwood's body, under the ground, and then back up and around the enemies' legs. Spectre blasts them with his bazooka, rolling well enough that he destroys a chunk of the wall behind them too, and even takes out one of the protype mechs we were meant to destroy. Juyon takes a shot at the fourth enemy and we take some fire from a security turret set up in the corner. The knockout gas canister made by Spectre drops into the hall and puts the remaining attendees and guards to sleep. Adrian Jeminko's bodyguards seem to have been prepared for this and they give him a gas mask and shuffle him away from the podium where he was giving a speech. Spectre uses his flamethrower to cut off the escape route. While those of us in the mechs fight, Katari uses some explosive charges to blast his way into the corridor where the secuirty room is. He immediately rushes in through the smoke and is able to get the drop on the the guards. He takes a few bullets but this is Katari we're talking about, so he just shrugs off the damage and moves on. Back in the exhibition hall, reinforcements have started to arrive. Adrian's bodyguards have gotten him to one of the mechs which is trying to make a break for it. Sinclair distracts the enemy mechs while moving to where the new android is being displayed. Juyon and Spectre continue to deal damage while Fauna moves to the prototype mechs so she can place a tracking beacon on one, which will allow our dropship to pick it up. Katari races down the hallway, gets to the security room, and punches in the code to open the doors. He is met by three guards and an officer of some kind, all of whom open fire on him. He's hit badly and knocked back. His super-strength helps him a little but he's now bleeding badly. He flings the saw blades he was carrying (with the covers still on as he doesn't want to kill them) and manages to knockout two of them before the others move in on him. Outside, further reinforcements have arrived, serious reinforcments this time. It's Jasmine Jeminko and her entourage. She rushes forwards and manages to pin both Spectre and Juyon in the same maneuver. Jeminko: Where's the dragon!? I want a rematch! Fauna: He's not here, you can go away now! By this point however Sinclair has managed to grab the android and Fauna has placed the tracker on the prototype. Adrian's mech is also down, so Fauna uses her vines to open up the cockpit and drag him out, alive, and place him in Wyrdwood's hold. The dropship arrives so we blast the remaining prototypes and begin our escape. We desperately try to raise Katari on the radio. No response. We reluctantly leave while Jasmine screams at us to give back her father. GM: You haven't been captured. Katari: I haven't? GM: And you're not dead either. I'll tell you what happened to you... later! End of session! Our GM loves a good cliffhanger. Bonus quotes: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/shows...&postcount=632

[fireandgloryrpg]

NAME: Cassidy “Cassie” Blackwell

AGE: 30

FACECLAIM: Dane Dehaan

HERITAGE: Legacy of Apollo, Legacy of Carmentis

AFFILIATION: Augur of the Twelfth Legion Fulminata

STATUS: Retired (previously played by Ted)

HEADCANONS:

All of Cassie’s card decks for cartomancy, tarot and otherwise, were hand-drawn by them, they’re fourteen different decks, each dedicated to a different Olympian God and another for the Camenae. There are many cards dedicated to specific deities and Cassie only uses those decks containing those Gods when in need to know directly from them or when dealing with their direct descendants. Like the Gods they are dedicated to, the decks have moods and cannot be used at any given time.

Cicero is an Eudaemon, a kind nature spirit, that takes the form of a crow that and took a liking to Caecilius when they were training under Lupa to make to New Rome. Since crows are one of Apollo’s sacred animals, they have a strong connection. They’re free to leave and have no obligation to Cassie but they have been companions ever since. He can be found on the Augur’s shoulder most days and is often responsible for helping Cassie to be on track of what’s real and what’s not, giving plenty of advice to the Legionnaires seeking the Augur. The crow is a kind, patient but sarcastic spirit if you’re polite to him but he’s a nature spirit nonetheless and will shit on anyone who messes with him or Caecilius.  (It’s also a type of Omen related to the fact that ‘Augurius’ is the original fortune telling by analysing the flight of birds.)

Cassie isn’t an Oracle since Oracles are mostly virgin women tied to Apollo, they’re an Augur, a fortune teller bound by a holy contract to serve the Legion. In order to keep their powers sort of “organized” in their head, Cassie made a deal with the Camenae (the group of Godesses consisting of his grandmother and her sisters), whom they’ve dedicated their services to. They can never openly tell anyone their future, if someone wants to know something, they need to be asked and asked the right questions. The rules of the agreement are loose and mostly involve never telling anyone their direct fate possibilities, when it comes to political outcomes, buildings and other specific things, it depends whether the vision or reading is directly tied to someone’s life.

Caecilius lives between the house that was their parents’ before they left New Rome, a small double-story located downtown New Rome, nearby the Senate house and their quarters in Camp Jupiter. Depending on the flurry of activity and other influences, being in the presence of so many demigods and legacies can be draining, downright maddening so they leave back to the city.  

Due to the fact both Carmentis and Apollo are major deities in Cassidy’s life, the legion and legacy tattoo markings of the two gods in their arms. On their right arm, they have Apollo’s lyre and the years counting serving the legion and on their left arm, they have Carmentis’ crane and the SPQR on it. The only other God marking on their body is Jupiter’s eagle on the back of their neck, since the Augur is first and foremost an envoy for the Gods and Jupiter their King.

BIOGRAPHY: 

!! tw: mental illness, misdiagnosis, drug abuse, car crash, death, blood, violence, suicide attempt !!

Past A daughter of Apollo wins the spear throwing contest in the Fides festival, she’s a legionnaire in her eleventh year, a First Cohort Centurion nonetheless and she’s being celebrated for her good years in the service of New Rome, now leaving the Legion ranks to become Praetor. Her close-shaved head wears a gold laurel and she’s well into too much beer when she catches the eye of one legion doctor named Jules. He’s bad at every single war game, terrible indeed but he’s kind and sweet and Laura thinks of him a funny man, he’s not a soldier at heart, he’s their good doctor. They end the last day bonfire sitting side by side, they can’t agree on a single thing. They’re similar in ways they can’t expect, such as medicine and having an ability to pry into the future but they’re fundamentally different on most everything and yet they don’t hate each other.Laura and Jules get married on a spring morning, five years after the Fides festival they first met and all of New Rome showed up to their wedding. Neither of them were from prominent, noble or wealthy families but she had been a popular Centurion that turned Praetor, he had been a popular upstanding doctor and they were loved by the people. Even Apollo and Carmentis showed up for their children’s wedding, a party that bled from Friday into the weekend to never be forgotten.

They live happily ever after. (Or so they wish.) A year after they’ve been married, Laura dreams a terrible dream, a dream of suffering, pain and a miserable death. She goes on to have that same nightmare for the rest of the week. On the following week, Jules is the one who receives those nightmares. They’re both confused and unsure of what it means, they let it be. A few weeks later, they discover Laura is two weeks along an unexpected but not unwelcome pregnancy, a week after that they realized what those dreams meant. It was not for them but for their yet unborn child who would eventually die a horrible and painful death right in the heart of New Rome, standing under the Twelfth Legion Fulminata’s banner.Neither of them are Seers but they understand something about future reading, they understand that it can be changed and nothing is set in stone, but they won’t take their chances. They know the stories, one way or another the Fates weave their thread and ruin people’s lives. So after Caecilius is born, healthy and sane for now, Laura and Jules one day disappear from New Rome, leaving everything and everyone behind in the hopes they’ll save their child from a most painful future. That they’ll live their happily ever after elsewhere.They never stay for too long in one place, a year at most, to not give fate a fighting chance. Laura tends to attract more monsters than Jules but in general they move to remote places, small towns out of great routes, often plagued by changing nightmares about their child’s future. The family’s happily ever after lasts entire three years before one night, driving down to their next town, a minotaur rams against the side of the car and sends them to the other side of the road, front first against a truck. Happily ever after.No one who’s mortal would ever know how on Earth the child was the only one to survive the crash but if there were any demigods present, they would know it was Carmentis’ deed. She could not interfere with anything else but the Goddess was not going to let her grandchild die like so in a road, so away from its rightful place.There’s no documents with the parents, for all matters and purposes, none of those people existed so Caecilius was dead and sent into the U.S. Foster Care in the state of Texas in the city of Dallas. Though they did say their name was Caecilius, they were adopted a year later by a really nice couple a bit on the elderly side whose children had all left home by then and wanted to help someone in the world. So of course, they found each other.The Blackwells were nice, both doctors and both very patient with their new ADHD child. They gave Cassie a new name, a new house and a brand-new future as far as they were concerned. Cassie also forgot about their biological parents and the car accident eventually, leaving it to the backburner of their mind. The first few years were happy and regular for any child, maybe Cassie was a little too odd, a little too scrappy and maybe Cassie had a little too many imaginary friends, too inventive of a child but they were happy. Nothing was wrong for a good time and then everything started going downhill.It started at age seven, at first no one thought anything of the drawings, it was just regular drawings of a seven-year-old who watched too much television, of course it was, how else could Cassie have drawn about accidents that were happening on the other side of the world? How could a child even be aware of the Rwandan massacre or tornadoes in Kansas? Too much television they were sure. 

Then came the nightmares but once again, Cassidy was an imaginative, overactive child, nightmares were just nightmares. As a podiatrist, Peter Blackwell prescribed natural calmatives to his own child, he knew they couldn’t harm. It was easier to believe Cassidy was just too easy to impress by television than to believe their adopted child could pry into the future.But as time would have, nothing improved as things got exponentially worse. The nightmares kept Cassidy up at night, triggering a kind of anxiety that let them irritated and moody during the day, then at age eleven the visions started, first seldom and full of static like a malfunctioning TV receptor but slowly and steadier they grew more vivid, for longer. Cassidy grew desperate to belong but the more they tried, the worse things got. They didn’t know how to shut out the seemingly nonsensical stream of information, after all normal people did NOT see the future. At age fourteen Cassidy’s personality was a mix of medications – for anxiety, insomnia, pain, for mood control, for the eating disorder that grew after everything – and self-hatred, self-doubt and second guessing. A long-lasting diagnosis of schizophrenia came with a bigger stigma, Cassidy begged to be homeschooled, seeking peace in isolation.At age sixteen, they decided it was a losing battle, tired of being called insane, crazy, stupid and an array of not so complimentary names, Cassidy took too many pills down with a bottle of Jack Daniels. It was a miserable, unsuccessful attempted that landed them for a month in a mental health facility, an in-patient homestay care called St.Jude’s in the outskirts of Dallas, by Grapevine Lake. It wasn’t exactly peace but with the equivalent of something short a horse’s dosage in drugs, total isolation from the outside world and a really potent set of phones, Cassie was able to mute away the noise in their head for the first time in years. The following five years they kept coming and going from St.Jude’s, a cycle of reaching the bottom and crawling back up again.  For a full year the world seemed to go radio silence then. Most things stopped happening and yet, Cassidy knew it was more a sign of impending doom than a good sign. Giving in, Cassidy finally accepted that either they were absolutely insane or gifted in rare way and if it was the latter rather than the first, they needed to do something about it. Taking the silence since they could finally think clearly for the first time in years without drugs to muddle their judgement, they did the sensible thing, that was looking for others with a gift for divination. If it was all bullshit, then they were already crazy and completely out of it anyway, what else could be lost? Running away from St.Jude’s without a single note, knowing their parents would come looking, Cassidy went on a quest for anyone who could teach them divination.Most people that Cassidy found were crooks, liars, charlatans or esoteric weirdos that knew nothing of what they spoke and offered little solace. But right before they gave up their search it was in a small, falling apart shop in Chicago that Cassidy finally found answers. The shop itself was esoteric in a way they’d never seen before, items made of gold and bronze and silver, alluring to Roman and Greek paraphernalia from the olden ages, dusty books written in ancient latin, things labelled like “the Minotaur Horn, 2000” and “Echidna’s Claw, 1976”, a very confusing but amusing shop, Cassidy walked in to ask if the owner did future readings and if so, how or why.The owner, a woman well into her eighties, looking with deep brown eyes over her glasses, took them to the back and Cassidy was finally treated like a sane, more or less rational person, not some crazy loony that was rambling into the winds. They talked and talked the afternoon and into the night and came the next day, they kept on talking. And as if Cassidy’s life couldn’t get any crazier, she told them about Gods and demigods, about a place where people like them belonged. Where Cassie would be believed and cherished by who they were. She said that for a year, she’d teach Cassidy everything she knew about foreseeing and they’d work in the shop for that time but after that, they’d have to part ways.The old lady, Fulvia, taught them much, even things she didn’t know herself but were in the books. She also told Cassidy she was a daughter of Apollo and she was way past a millennia, that she had followed the Goddess Diana for so long until she found her soulmate elsewhere and left the Huntresses to live her very own happily ever after. Cassidy didn’t know whether or not to believe but they decided they liked to entertain the thought of the grandmother and her husband being soulmates and all that. For that long year, while most everything was silent, Cassidy studied and learned about the Gods and their magical world beneath the thing called Mist, a world where even the crazy ones like them belonged.And then the silence was over, as if whatever antenna in their brain had been broken in their brain was repaired all of a sudden. It came in a dream, where Cassidy met a woman they had never seen before, who took them into her arms and introduced herself as Carmentis, their grandmother, Goddess of children, childbirth and prophecy. Sure thing. She told Cassidy the Gods had gone through a terrible ordeal that year, that other brave demigods had fought and won a Titan uprising, that Cassidy was needed back home, back in New Rome where they belonged with the other demigods and legacies, that they needed a real Seer.Egeria showed up in a dream and set a condition that if Cassidy could make to Lupa’s den of wolves, complete her training and reach New Rome alive, that the Camenae would try to help channel their powers, if they swore on the River Styx that they would never offer knowledge, only ever let people come to them, she and Apollo would help. No need to offer again, Cassidy was gone the very next day to find the wolf goddess.

Present Making through Lupa’s training was hard, difficult, almost impossible for Cassidy who was unable to concentrate or focus after a year of radio silence in their head only to go back to the usual noise, static and hard-to-control visions hitting out of nowhere, the amount of disgraces hadn’t changed as well. But they also had spent a whole year learning how to channel those powers, harness them into something productive – taking it all on stride, while not quite amazing Legionnaire material, Caecilius did survive the training.They made to Camp Jupiter and even before joining the Legion they claimed the name and blood where they came from, doing so they granted people to pay attention to them. Because of their poor mental condition, Cassie didn’t quite take a regular place in the Legion though they tried to make through the first year of probatio on the First Cohort, with others to vouch for them wanting to be in the good graces of the new Augur. They were decidedly more suitable to consultation, advice and paperwork, aiding the Centurions, Praetors, Consuls, Senators and the Pontifex, a position where they have remained for the past four years as the eccentric oddball Seer.

[regrettablemusicreviews]

Kid A - Radiohead

Does anyone remember when Kid A was released? I mean, I know I don’t, but looking at original reviews it’s easy to see how the band that “saved rock” had completely fallen in on themselves in a pile of self-indulging and ‘too experimental’ experimental rock. Mojo can be quoted as saying “upon first listen, Kid A is just awful”, and the Melody Maker called the album “tubby, ostentatious, self-congratulatory, look-ma-I-can-suck-my-own-cock whiny old rubbish”. While many other critics saw the merit of Kid A, the album was incredibly divisive for reviewers and listeners alike. Those listeners that did like what they heard would argue that dissenters “just didn’t get it”, and that “you just have to wait for it to click”, while those on the other side could easily just call these preachers “pretentious, pompous, and looking for something that just wasn’t there”. 

When it comes to my opinion, I don’t stop short of calling this album probably one of the best of all time. From those first few notes on “Everything In Its Right Place” to the dancing and luxurious piano sending off “Motion Picture Soundtrack”, Kid A is a showcase in excellence. Radiohead, firstly pioneers in alternative rock with the excellent OK Computer, had gone from guitars and melody to layers, textures and rhythms, while still retaining the same themes and conjuring similar emotions as their past three records. The band pick up new instruments, incorporating the Ondes Martenot, pedal organ, strings, and a brass section, along with the standard guitar, bass and drums. Kid A is still called one of the most influential albums of all time, with its effect felt everywhere in music today, and this distinction is utterly and completely well-deserved. 

Yorke, after suffering burnout as a result of OK Computer, held himself up in a cottage, fundamentally in the middle of nowhere, with nothing more than a few copies of Aphex Twin and Autechre, a grand piano, and the beautiful landscapes around him. What better way to introduce the listener of this record than with the song that Yorke first wrote after pushing for this extreme change of direction. It’s the first few notes of “Everything In Its Right Place” that set the tone for where this album is, or isn’t, going. They completely fill all the space available. The lyrics are abstract and repeated. Meaning can be derived from the way Radiohead were so affected after OK Computer and subsequent touring. 

Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon

is repeated four times, and what is implanted into the listener’s head is one of dread, as there are notions of waking up with a sour taste in your mouth. Always revert to this idea of burnout the band had suffered with. Other lyrics further expunge feelings that accompany this trepidation for every day that comes, with notions of being lost. 

What what is that you tried to say? What what was that you tried to say? Tried to say Tried to say Tried to say Tried to say

These lyrics are set against a backdrop of growing manipulated synthesisers and vocals, the latter of which are incoherent enough to be able to find it impossible to derive much meaning from. Ending the song, the noise drains out into silence. The synthesisers that once utterly filled the air are now gone, revealing a new world of Radiohead, leaving you rethinking what you thought you knew of their sound, and wondering what would come next. 

Secondly, we have the title track, “Kid A”. No sound begins the track, but from the distant comes a ticking and whirring. You can’t quite pinpoint what or where it is, but once it arrives, the calming piano keys and charmingly produced drums couch the listener in a place of comfort. The two instruments work over each other, but they keep time. Nearly incomprehensible vocals are too added to the mix, and without any indication as to what’s being said, one is not sure what to make of it. Once they are found out however, a different story emerges, and one can feel trapped in a soundscape that looks nice, but is actually terrifying. I’ll leave you to find out what Yorke is actually saying. It’s a much better experience finding out after those first few listens. Instrumentally, the drums ramp up. The lyrics are essentially nonsensical, but this lack of direction itself adds to the unease. “Kid A” starts off as an innocent fairytale, but alike to their original stories, turn into something disconcerting, making the track in my opinion, akin to a Brothers Grimm tale. The last half of “Kid A” reflects this, with an incredible use of bass and the incorporation of the snare in contrast to the calmer sounds. The soundscape begins with one of wonder. What happens next is up to the listener. For me, it becomes one of fear. 

While “Kid A” never ‘picks up’ in a way, “The National Anthem” is probably the inverse of such, starting with a bassline that goes down as one of my all-time favourites. It acts as the unrelenting groundwork from which we see build a soundscape that is akin to a jazz traffic jam. The bass opens the track, never straying, and never relenting. With just four notes on two strings, the rest of the sounds are free to do what they want. With the drums, this varies from the snare to the cymbals, again never straying from time. Surrounding the listener is a claustrophobic system of sounds from O’Brien, which he masterfully deploys. Halfway through begins the insanity. One lone trumpet follows the beat, but soon a riot of jazz follows, all playing against each other, all playing their own solos, and all having no regard for what is happening, bar that bassline. One quick lull is not enough to keep them at bay, as each time they come back stronger, and harder. Again, this bassline. It. Just. Doesn't. Stop. The listener is drawn all over the place, from bass, to drums, to all over the cacophony that is the jazz section. No one who listens to this song can stay in one place, and as the bass and drums finally stop, the jazz is left on its own, like a cartoon that’s just found it the platform it was standing on was just pushed out from under them. They give one last look at the camera, and then fall. 

“How To Disappear Completely” next, and this is probably the closest the listener is going to get to an OK Computer-esque track, but Jonny Greenwood’s weeping strings offer a new dimension to the “Exit Music (For A Film)” and “High and Dry”’s of Radiohead’s discography. Yorke’s vulnerable falsetto stands out alone among the wailing instrumentals. 

That there, that's not me I go where I please I walk through walls I float down the Liffey

I'm not here This isn't happening I'm not here I'm not here

This track is ethereal, lachrymose, and is like an out-of-body-experience for the listener. Near the end of the track, Yorke’s vocals get pulled under the tide of the instrumentation. The overbearing strings get the better of him, and he drowns in the ocean of chaos, self-loathing and depression. The instrumental “Treefingers” follows, offering a moment of reflection. O’Brien’s guitar is calming, again ethereal, as is a common trait of the record, and the listener can relax after the emotionally-draining first half. 

As the processed guitar drowns away, the punchy drums and classic electric guitars return for their first proper outing on “Optimistic”. Selway here provides a lovely opening drumbeat, akin to a stomping battle, and the guitars allow Yorke to sing a fantastic melody, with his vocals giving well to a glorious unleashing of their musical prowess near the end of the track. Yorke’s falsetto overshadowing it all, Selway massacres his cymbals and toms intermittently, as Jonny Greenwood and O’Brien’s guitar interlock. Lyrically, the song provides an upturn in emotions. Yorke has disdain for a society rife with social- and economic-Darwinism, whilst providing the listener with lines of assurances of their efforts in a world that is profoundly just unfair. 

Flies are buzzing around my head Vultures circling the dead Picking up every last crumb The big fish eat the little ones The big fish eat the little ones Not my problem give me some You can try the best you can You can try the best you can The best you can is good enough

“Optimistic” ends in a groovy instrumental that leads us into “In Limbo”, opening with less rumbling drums and a guitar that rings. This track’s instrumentation is floaty, rising us above a station we deserve to be at, in parallel with the lyrical themes. It feels directed at those blinded by their own ego, as they’re told

You're living in a fantasy world You're living in a fantasy world

The ending whirs out into silence, and the next track is probably Radiohead’s greatest departure from their previous sound yet. “Idioteque” opens with an electronic drum beat and background synths. The snare is as processed as it can get, lacking any real punch bar the electronic run-off. The four chord synth sample from Paul Lansky repeats throughout the track, and the beat created is utterly infectious and glorious. The kick bubbles way out of proportion and Yorke’s lyrics on this track could be analysed for days. One verse for example;

Ice Age coming, Ice Age coming Let me hear both sides, let me hear both sides, let me hear both Ice Age coming, Ice Age coming Throw it on the fire, throw it on the fire, throw it on the We're not scaremongering This is really happening, happening We're not scaremongering This is really happening, happening Mobiles skwerking, mobiles chirping Take the money and run, take the money and run Take the money!

There’s so much imagery and many metaphors hidden in here that it would take hours for me to comprehensively research and write about it. The messages are obviously apocalyptic, with references to an ice age, bunkers, and overbearing technology. The possibility of this being in reference to climate change seems possible, especially when coupled with the ‘scaremongerers’, a common critique from deniers, and Yorke’s outspoken stance. 

Next is “Morning Bell”, a song that takes advantage of the mundanity of life, opening with a repetitive and interesting 5/4 drum beat, Yorke’s lyrics seem almost nonsense, but their common theme is the monotonous nature of life. We’ve all heard these lines before. 

You can keep the furniture 

Where'd you park the car?

Clothes are all over the furniture

Now I might as well

There isn’t too much more that can be derived from this track, as the delicate guitars and careful bass operate under everything, this track is a theme of itself. We all want to escape the mundaneness of life, but it will always catch up with us eventually. 

Finally, we end Kid A with “Motion Picture Soundtrack”. Bittersweet and depressing, here Yorke muses over a lost lover, a lost soul mate, as the haunting organ underpins his voice. 

Red wine and sleeping pills Help me get back to your arms Cheap sex and sad films Help me get where I belong

Drugs and alcohol provides the solace after such heartbreak, and the idea of a beautiful suicide emerges in Yorke’s voice. This track is overpowering with emotion, but it is for the best. 

Stop sending letters Letters always get burned It's not like the movies They fed us on little white lies

And this is where we hit the end of the track, the end of the album, and the end of a paradox of tracks. Pitchfork said it best:

“It's cacophonous yet tranquil, experimental yet familiar, foreign yet womb-like, spacious yet visceral, textured yet vaporous, awakening yet dreamlike, infinite yet 48 minutes.”

And that’s exactly what it is. It’s everything I want from an album, and I’ll continue listening to it for the rest of my life. 

Finally, the last keys of the organ play, and Yorke’s final line is let out. 

I will see you in the next life 

I sincerely hope so Thom. I really do. 

Songs I Think You’ll Like: 1. Everything In Its Right Place 4. How To Disappear Completely 6. Optimistic

Personal Favourites: 3. The National Anthem 6. Optimistic 8. Idioteque

Score: 9.6 out of 10