#Technically everyone counts as a meta or alien

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 191

So. Apparently immortality does in fact exist. And is apparently very easily accidentally achieved, if the fact an entire city has it now. 

The GIW will be waiting a very long time to be able to drop that ghost shield, because the city doesn’t seem to be dying out anytime soon. Or at all actually. It’s been several generations now. 

They might need to request assistance. Maybe before others start to investigate now that vigilantes are becoming a semi-common thing.

[chongoblog]

Brawl Tier List (Based On The Relevance of What They Were Doing When We Meet Them In Subspace Emissary)

I'll explain some of my choices under the cut

So a lot of these choices are pretty obvious, although some are a bit iffy or require explanation of the Subspace story which can be found in trophy descriptions & The Dojo.

The first category was for characters who were engaged in the Subspace plot from the get-go and were the "good guys". In case you didn't know, King Dedede is the hero of Subspace, and if it weren't for him, Tabuu would have won, since he made the "reset badges", and his initial plan was to hold onto some people and give them the reset badges in case Tabuu used his Off Waves. Meta Knight is considered to be a good guy, even though he mostly just wanted to get the Halberd back. Fox I put into this category as well since he's first seen giving chase to the Halberd in his Arwing, so I consider that pretty engaged, even if we don't know the exact reasoning.

The second category is open and shut. They're the Bad Guys. Ganon, Bowser, and everyone's favorite winner, Wario. Technically Wario kinda defected from Tabuu and wanted to just steal all the trophies, but I'm counting him here.

Next was the "Used by Tabuu" tier. According to the lore, the entire Subspace Army is made from the power of Game and Watch (although it says the Game & Watch are unaware of this). Pikachu's electricity was being used to power a lot of the operations (most notably the Subspace Bomb Factory iirc). And it's implied that R.O.B was coerced into helping Tabuu, feeling so ashamed that he put on the Ancient Minister garb to hide himself out of shame.

The "Was Doing What You Expect" Tier is a tricky one, since some characters like Mario & Kirby weren't doing what you'd expect in their normal games, but they were fighting, which is something you'd expect in Smash, but I was kinda lenient. Pit was watching from Skyworld, which is in character. It's shown that Pokemon Trainer was looking for Ivysaur and Charizard, so we can assume he was on that journey when we found him in the Ruined Zoo. ZSS's motivations are kind of unclear about whether she knew about the Subspace Bombs and tried to stop them or if she just knew her Power Suit was there and wanted to get to it. I always figured it was the latter, so I'm putting it in this tier. Marth was defending a castle, which sounds right (I haven't played Fire Emblem). Ice Climbers were climbing ice. Monkeys were getting their bananas. Link was getting Master Sword. Yoshi was sleeping (which only gets him out of "Just Standing There" tier because he is Yoshi).

Next are the ones who just kinda showed up. And it so happens that all five of them make a pretty grand entrance. Sonic is the obvious example here. Ness also counts since there's no implication that either he or Lucas actually live in or even near the Ruined Zoo, but then again in the dialogue-less cutscenes tying together over 30 characters, I don't think that detail was important. Falco makes a grand entrance, although you could argue that he was meant to be Fox's backup. Ike makes a grand entrance with this Great Aether. Captain Falcon literally shows up to jump out of his car, punch a robot and kill approximately 50 aliens in one fell swoop, so either there was an F-Zero track around the Island of the Ancients that we don't see and he quit in the middle of his race to do that, or he just did that. Either way there's something wrong with him.

And then finally we have the characters who were Just Standing There. Luigi obviously was minding his own business when he got got by Dedede. Peach and Zelda I almost put in the "Doing What You Expect Tier" (or at LEAST Peach since she knew Mario at least), but honestly? They were just standing there. No hate, obviously. Sometimes you just gotta Stand There. Olimar was minding his own business letting his Pikmin eat a robot before they were murdered. Lucario was vibing on top of a mountain (as you do). Lucas was just being sad. And Snake? We don't see any sign that he's on a mission. We just see that he's been on the Halberd for an undisclosed period of time before dramatically revealing himself way way later. I like to imagine he accidentally fell asleep.

And then the last tier are for the 3 characters that are unlocked after Subspace, so I don't really count them.

Anyway in case you can't tell I am back on my ADHD meds! Hope you enjoyed this. See you all for the Nuzlocke stream later.

[writingithink]

Improbable Multiversal Transcending Temporal Spacetime Event Pairing: Metacrisis Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler Rated: T Word Count: 7,101 Summary: The best way to show someone you care is to blow up their job ... right? Notes: I'm back! And it's not a Tangled Timelines update (sorry!) But it is something? I've had this in my WIPs for awHILE now, and when I was cleaning my studio the other night I found a planning page for it in a random tote bag and was like ... oh yeah. And the ending just came to me and I love it when that happens. Hopefully there will be another chapter up for Tangled Timelines soon, though!

As always, infinite thanks to my wonderful beta, @hey-there-juliet​ who is fine with me randomly sending her fics at all hours and with no warning XP

All mistakes are mine, as always.

<<READ IT ON AO3>>

If the other him in the other universe had taken the time to imagine their human life together in a parallel universe, the Doctor doubted he would have pictured this. His imagination, when it came to Rose Tyler, was always quite whimsical. Happiness had made him impractical, really. Because despite all of the drawbacks, all of the reasons he currently loathed himself, the Doctor knew every single reason why the other truly felt like this was the best possible option.

But maybe it wasn’t.

Sometimes, despite it not occurring too often, he was wrong.

They had spent five and a half hours on the beach at Bad Wolf Bay.

(I create myself.)

She had been so upset; said that after everything they’d went through, everything she did to get back, the other him owed her a proper goodbye. She had stopped speaking to him when he told her that, actually, he would never give her a proper goodbye.

And she didn’t let him explain why. Now that he finally could.

Now it had been 57 days since she’d last spoken to him. Since he’d gotten more than a brief glimpse of her with his own eyes. That he’d spent piecing together a picture of what her life had been like here, without him. Such a short time, really, now that it was over (almost over), but yet also some of the worst moments of his entire existence.

It seemed fair that the multiverse would demand just that extra sequence of pain, considering everything he could potentially get in return. What another version of himself could only hope for, bitterly gambling eternities, following their timeline through all of it’s complicated swirls and turns, names weaving around each other, stamping themselves on the structure of creation.

Forever isn’t something that ends.

(How long are you going to stay with me?)

Quite the opposite, actually. And he knew, eventually, she would remember that. Knew it, but didn’t feel it.

The Doctor finally understood what all of the human writers meant about falling in love. Not just the terrifying sensation of the unstoppable freefall, but also the immense pain of crashing into the immovable object at the end of the journey.

They had sat on opposite ends of a Zeppelin. He had gone back to the Tyler Manor with Jackie, and Rose had gone back to her flat. Hoping to see her, talk to her, he had immediately joined Torchwood (once they agreed to his very detailed, highly specific, entirely ironclad contract). Their paths rarely crossed, and when they did it was just tiny, insubstantial moments.

A flash of her at the far end of a hall. Her name in a report (a lot of reports). Snatches of her voice, there one moment and gone the next.

It all made everything hurt so much more, somehow, having her so close but yet further than he could have possibly imagined.

But yet …

His imagination, when it came to Rose Tyler, was still quite whimsical. So when he tried to think of the bigger picture, waxing poetic, alone on his office couch, the Doctor tried to look at the last few years as the impact, and this as the aftershock. Still, philosophical jaunts weren’t exactly a solution to his problem. A temporary solution was moving his office even further away, so that’s what he did. 

Plus, he found it kind of fitting, commandeering the inside of Big Ben. UNIT may have it in the prime universe, but in this universe he had the fancy landmark office. Well, office-slash-home (without Rose Tyler, a proper house with doors and things was absolutely unthinkable). Not that it was just about having a private laugh. The gears soothed him, the sound of ticking helped the gnawing emptiness that had filled his mind ever since the TARDIS dematerialized without him in it. The Doctor had thought it was kind of fitting - the closest he could possibly be right now to time.

Not that he wasn’t spending every possible spare moment working on the baby TARDIS, just a tiny piece of coral still, currently sitting in the extended electro-percussive environment chamber. He wondered if, in three years (his best-possible projected timetable), when the new TARDIS would be ready for flight, she would still not be speaking to him.

Incidentally, the emergence of that thought and the start of his supposed ‘self-isolation’ coincided to an alarming degree for how coincidental the two really were. The fact of the matter was, he was busy. Tons of experiments to run, alien equipment to identify, classify (and more often than not remove from Torchwood entirely), a baby TARDIS to tend to, and a backlog of Rose’s mission reports to hack into made spending slightly over three weeks in his tower easy.

The problem was the fact that during that time the Doctor avoided sleeping, barely remembered to eat, and existed on overly sugared tea alone. Not sleeping didn’t put the demons at bay, but at least when he was awake he wasn’t forced to confront the man he never wanted to remember being.

It had been 57 days since Rose Tyler had last spoken to him, and the Doctor detonated a bomb in the abandoned annex Torchwood had scheduled to be demolished and rebuilt.

Then the counter reset to zero.

“What do you think you’re doing?!” she yelled, barging into the top floor lab where he had been checking the readings on the EEPEC.

Everything that he wanted to say to her, and the Doctor was struck mute.

“Whatever plans you think you have, however good of an idea it is, for the good of the planet or, or the galaxy or what, you don’t just go blowing up buildings without a word to anyone! Do you know that everyone else was too scared to come up here and have a word with you, because that highly confidential ridiculous contract you drew up made its way through the gossips and isn’t so classified anymore. Now no one wants to go toe to toe with the man who ‘speaks for the planet’,” Rose growled through the air quotes. “So tell me, Doctor, what genius reason you’ve got for blowing up the Records Annex?”

A slow smile spread across his face.

“It worked.”

“What?”

“Remember ‘run’?” he asked, bouncing away from the baby TARDIS and circling her, picking up his new sonic screwdriver as he did and deadlock sealing the only door off the floor.

“Run?” she frowned as he circled back.

“Run,” he whispered in her ear as he passed, running up a small set of stairs to flip a giant switch that activated the clock-lights outside of their automated timer. Likely no one noticed outside with the sun still out, but it lit up the lab. “Henrik’s basement, Nestene Consciousness, shop window dummies, you and me. How did that night end?” he asked, with a manic grin as he skidded to a stop in front of her.

“Oh, that ‘run’,” Rose breathed, trying to fight back a smile. “You blew up my job.”

“I blew up your job.”

She huffed, blowing her bangs out of her eyes, and crossed her arms. His shoulders fell, exhaustion pressing down onto each and every bone of his new, much more fragile body.

“I just want to talk,” he told her, only a moment away from begging.

“Alright then. Talk.”

Everything he wanted to say to her, and all of it felt disjointed in his overtired mind. Yet she was here now, and if she left he didn’t have a new idea for getting her back again. So he talked.

“I’m sorry. That I made this choice for you, even if it was technically a different me who did it. I’m sorry that this is the best option, the safest option. I’m sorry I never got the chance to explain everything to you before. But I am never going to say goodbye to you, Rose. Never. And I know that the power of words doesn’t translate as well for you, the science of psycho-kinetic-telepathic influence on the elements of creation. But there are some things I can never risk saying aloud. There are some beings that exist, at least in our original universe, that could easily- … still, no matter what universe we’re in, I’m never going to say it. Forever, Rose Tyler. It’s longer than you can comprehend. An eternal silence stretching infinitely ahead, timelines swirling in every direction. This one is ours, if you’ll- if you could just- if you could see in twenty-odd dimensions and focused on individual temporal waveforms, the quantum reality of specific-”

“Doctor!” she shouted when his legs gave out, immediately grabbing hold of him, joining him on the floor.

“I’m fine,” he insisted, but when he moved to get back up she easily held him down. Rose gently manipulated his face, giving him a basic medical check. He couldn’t help but smile a little at how much she had learned while they were away, only to then frown at how hard he imagined it all must have been for her. Floundering, he tried to make a joke. “So, I’m still the Doctor?”

Which went ignored.

“You look like a wreck,” she told him, and it wasn’t new information. The Doctor now made much more frequent trips to the restroom and was well aware of how pale he was, of the dark circles under his bloodshot eyes. He had at least been making a disjointed effort to shave, which was another activity that had increased with his meta crisis, and admittedly it had slipped his mind for a couple days.

“It’s not easy, doing this without you,” he admitted. “But if you need more time, I want you to take it. I really am alright. There’s just so much I need to tell you, now that I can.”

“What do you mean, ‘now that you can’?”

“Different universe, firm walls in between. I don’t have to worry about using the wrong words at the wrong time and having cosmic consequences … for a lot of things, not all things. With our timeline in a different dimension and reality back as it should be, at least for the moment, I can tell you all sorts of things. Though the most important one, the one I’m never going to miss an opportunity to say, is that I love you, Rose Tyler. Forever.”

“I love you, too,” she sighed, caressing his cheek for a moment before helping him up. “But I’m still mad at you. Now you need sleep.”

“But I’m not done talking,” the Doctor complained, dragging his feet as she led him over to the sofa in the corner.

“We’ll talk more after you’ve gotten some rest, okay? I promise.”

“Thank you,” he sighed, more horizontal than he remembered being just a moment ago. Something soft and warm ensconced his body. He hadn’t realized how cold he had been until just then.

Another breath and black oblivion overtook him. Peaceful until it suddenly very much wasn’t. 

A shockwave. A rift in time and space. A breached void. A crack in reality. A big red button. No more. Howling, howling, howling.

“Wake up!”

His eyes snapped open.

He didn’t know where he was. Nothing felt right; not the air, not time, not even his own body. The Doctor tried to do a quick systems check, and the results were all wrong. His hand flew to his chest, where only one heart was beating.

A choking scream echoed through the space, which seemed to be tick tick ticking, and he didn’t realize that it was him who shouted until soothing hands were brushing through his hair. Vision focusing, he saw Rose Tyler kneeling next to him, or at least it was something that looked like Rose Tyler. She felt too cool. Or maybe he was too warm.

“Are you real?” he asked, hoping that she wouldn’t lie to him.

Just one heart working, and it was beating too fast, refusing to slow down. The air was too thick, he couldn’t breathe.

“Yeah.” A sad smile. “I’m real.”

The Doctor didn’t know if he believed her, closing his eyes so that he wouldn’t have to see the moment she inevitably vanished. “I’m dying,” he told the being-who-might-be-Rose as he shuddered and collapsed back onto some sort of sofa.

“You’re fine,” she lied, but it was a lie she seemed to believe.

“Only got one heart beating,” he admitted, trying to get his breathing under control as his malfunctioning body began to sweat. The room ticked away, and he wondered if all of this was about to explode, if he should be running, if he even could run. His legs felt like lead. So did his arms. The air was too thick, dragging him down.

“That’s-”

The Doctor shut his eyes tighter, tears escaping that he hadn’t even realized were there. She must have vanished, just like he knew she would. And if she was never real to begin with, why did it have to hurt so much for her to go?

A weight rested on top of him, and he would never forget the feel of her. He vaguely wondered what it meant for him, to be having tactile hallucinations. Olfactory hallucinations. Even the buzz of time that had never left her skin after she took in the vortex was present.

“You’ve still got two beating,” Rose whispered as his arms wrapped around her in a tight hold that didn’t feel nearly strong enough to keep her. He wasn’t strong enough to keep her.

Her heart beat steadily over where his right heart had failed.

“I’m scared,” the Doctor admitted, eyes still closed though it was oddly easier to breathe.

“I’ve got you.”

“Please be real,” he whimpered, even as his mind grew foggier.

She said something, but he didn’t know what. Everything was fading away, darkness becoming darker, becoming void.

Nothing.

The Doctor awoke alone on the couch in his office. According to his time sense, he had slept for eighteen hours and twenty-one minutes. He felt better than he had in weeks, but also so much worse. He grabbed his pillow and screamed into it.

“What’s wrong now?”

The pillow dropped from his hands and his eyes locked with Rose’s as she raced up the slight stair onto the platform that separated his primary workspace from the rest of the top floor.

“What?” His voice cracked.

Rose Tyler sat next to him on the couch, hand immediately resting on his forehead, primitively gauging his temperature. The Doctor cleared his throat before trying again.

“Rose, what are you doing here? Not that I’m not glad, I’m so very, very glad you’ve come.” Her hand dropped away and he was able to get a good look at her, dressed in a pair of his boxers and one of his shirts (Jackie had bought him a ridiculous amount of clothes before he left the manor, all of which he sent out to be cleaned). He swallowed audibly. “W-why are you wearing my clothes?”

“‘M locked in here. Door’s deadlock sealed.”

Flashes of memories began to speed through him. Attaching a re-calibrated Tziklian implosion grenade to a newly-repaired retroreflective Clishtahrr drone. Obsessively trying to circumvent his vision in order to peer at his own timeline, making himself sick. A contained rift event in the lower levels of the tower that made him feel like he had looked into the untempered schism again.

(Run, run, run!)

“I’m sorry. I don’t … I’ll just …”

He pushed himself up onto unsteady legs, found his sonic screwdriver and unsealed the door. And he wished he hadn’t trapped her with him, even if he was starting to remember why (inky black terror crawling up his spine, wrong universe, wrong universe, wrong universe).

“Do you remember what happened yesterday?” she asked, following him as he went to check the TARDIS on autopilot, looking as if she was worried he would collapse (again).

“It’s coming back to me,” the Doctor admitted. Still had a good four hours to go before the shatterfry process would be complete. He straightened his shoulders, trying to stand tall as he turned to face her. “Things got a little, uhm, unpleasant. I’ll do better.”

“Unpleasant,” Rose scoffed. “I’m pretty sure you had a bleedin’ breakdown!”

“It’s been a difficult regeneration,” he deflected, turning away, leaving the platform and making a beeline to the tiny kitchenette tucked off to the side. Tea. He just needed more tea.

“So, this how it’s gonna be, then? All that stuff about wanting to talk, but now you’re just done?”

He nearly spilled the kettle with the speed of his turn, brows furrowed and mouth falling open. “What? Of course I want to talk!” the Doctor exclaimed. “Just, er, what did I say? Before?”

Memory was still a bit of a blur. Successful energy funnel for the TARDIS’ growth tank. Vodka tasting different in a universe without potatoes. Reports saying: Correct universe. Wrong time - past. No contact.

“You don’t remember?”

“I said it was coming back to me, it’s just not coming in the right order.” he sighed, refocusing on the tea.

“Well, what’s the last thing that you vividly remember?” Rose asked, moving around him, easily finding mugs and sugar and milk.

“Thirteen days ago, creating a temporal disruption chrono-field manipulator. Needed to siphon rift energy for our TARDIS. She needs a very specific growth environment.”

“Thirteen days?! Wait, siphoning the-” She leaned against the tiny countertop and covered her face with her hands. The only sound for a few moments was of the electric kettle quickly boiling the water. “Our TARDIS?”

“If you want,” the Doctor muttered, lifting a hand, wanting to touch her, but then thinking better of it. He clenched his fist as it dropped to his side.

Rose groaned as she turned back to him. “Of course I want that, you daft alien git! But you don’t exactly make things easy, do ya? I spent years getting back to you, and then suddenly there’s two of you and one of you abandons me just like I was always afraid of, but one of you stays and I’m expected to be able to process any of it? And then for weeks it’s an effort just to give myself space, knowing that wherever I go you’re so close, part of me wondering why I’m even trying to stay away when all I wanted for ages was to be back with you. Then suddenly you’re gone! I still know where you are, but there isn’t a chance that I’d actually run into you. And I still don’t know what to feel, but coming here yesterday, seeing you … I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look so broken.” There were tears in her eyes. His nails dug into his palms with the effort it took not to wrap his arms around her, to wipe them away. “I can’t help but feel like it’s my fault.”

“It’s not. It’s my own fault. You haven’t done a single thing wrong,” he assured her.

“That’s not true and you know it,” she tried to laugh, but it came out watery. “I’ve been an absolute cow. And I still haven’t answered your question. You’d said some things about words being a type of science, and that you could say things here that you couldn’t in the other universe. Like you were paranoid, under surveillance or something? I think you tried to describe how your time sense stuff works, but you almost fainted.”

“Fifty-seven days without you and that’s what I was talking about?” The Doctor grimaced.

The kettle clicked off.

“If it makes you feel better, it was kinda romantic. The stuff about not saying goodbye and forever and blowing up my job.”

“Blowing up your what?!”

“That’s why I had to come here. You blew up the old Records Annex.”

“Riiiiight. That explains the drone bomb. It’s not like they weren’t going to blow it up anyway. Didn’t I help?”

Rose rolled her eyes before moving to fix both their teas. “We’ll get into that later. Right now I don’t even want to talk about us. I wanna know about you, what you’ve been doing these past two months. Because I didn’t even stop to think what this all must be like for you.”

Cuppa in hand, the Doctor led her back to the couch as he tried to think of how best to explain something that he barely understood himself.

“I was created in a two-way human-Time Lord instant biological meta crisis. Hundreds of years as one being, then suddenly two. Exact same mind, almost the exact same body, but different enough that I can barely comprehend existing in it. If you remember, the first forty-eight hours of the regeneration cycle are complicated and dangerous. Barely a few hours into mine I was dropped outside of the prime universe that all Gallifreyans are meant to exist in, cut off from all telepathic contact as the walls of reality continued to sway, slowly falling back into place. It’s been … an adjustment. Sometimes things don’t feel real, even when they are. Sometimes things feel incredibly real, even when they aren’t.”

“You had a nightmare,” Rose told him, placing a hand on his shoulder, thumb rubbing soothing circles through his layers. “I woke you up, tried to help. You didn’t think I was real. You thought you were dying, because you only had one heart.”

He tried to smile, and the action felt painful. “Sounds about right.”

“I’m sorry. If I hadn’t been so selfish-”

“There’s nothing for you to apologize for. I want you to put yourself first.”

“But I can’t stand seeing you in pain like this. What can I do to help?” she asked, a desperation in her eyes that he couldn’t bear.

“You’re already helping,” the Doctor sighed, finally giving in and leaning into her touch, lying his head on her shoulder. It was the closest he’d felt to time since they’d been left on that bloody beach.

Memories were still racing through his head. Energy coils radiating artron energy into a centrifuge. The smell of burnt flesh against the remains of a Bverni navigational system. Reports saying: Correct universe. Wrong time - future. No contact.

“The other Doctor said that you needed me.”

He laughed, but there was no humor in it.

“Yes, because he needs you. He also said that I was dangerous. I am. He is. We are. But you already knew that. It’s easy, you know, to yell at yourself. Not often that there’s actually a separate you there to yell at. I destroyed the Daleks, but we’d already done that before we met. In fact, so did you. The other me was lashing out, knowing what he would have to do but not wanting to do it.”

“That’s another thing,” Rose said, moving to face him, dislodging his head, “you said that us being here, in this universe, was the best, safest option. What was that about?”

“Something’s coming. Has come. Ended and began. There’s a massive paradox surrounding me in the other universe. Incredibly dangerous, potentially catastrophic. All I know is that it has something to do with a woman named River Song who claims to be my wife.”

“Your wife?!”

“I said claims. And she did seem to be telling the truth, besides the fact that what she was saying was entirely preposterous. My soul is entirely bound to yours.” The Doctor took her hand and squeezed it. “So I think I have an idea of the kind of man I’ll have to become in order to keep the universe intact.”

“What’s that?”

“A liar. If she is going to believe that I could possibly join myself to someone else, someone who isn’t you, I’m going to have to lie. I’m going to have to forget. I’m going to have to lie so well and for so long that even I believe the fiction I’ve created for myself.”

He wondered what the other him in the other universe would think, then, whenever he caught a rare glimpse at their timeline surrounded in gold, bound with Rose’s for all eternity. What kind of explanation he would craft. The Doctor shuddered.

“But that sounds horrible!” she cried.

“It’s the sacrifice he’s making for the sake of the universe. My timeline is dangerous and someone, something is tampering with it. You and I made one tiny little paradox and it almost destroyed everything. This one is circular, might be able to be maintained, but the scale of it, Rose. And who knows if it will even work. River seems great and all, at least I hope so, but I don’t think she has much of a handle on time travel. That, or she’s a manipulative psychopath. Suppose that’s a surprise for the other me to find out.”

Rose sniffled and he pulled her into a hug.

“He’s going to be all alone.” The words were muffled into his shoulder, his shirt growing damp with her tears. He cringed and tried to think rationally, that of course she would feel this way, that it had nothing to do with how she felt about him him. But then again, maybe it did.

“He won’t be alone. He’ll find someone. I always do, eventually.”

“B-but I-”

“We’ll figure it out. How to get you back there, once it’s safe,” he whispered into the top of her head. Maybe that would be it- what she needed this him for. And if so, it would be enough. It would have to be enough.

“Really?”

The Doctor nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

“So it’s not- you really weren’t abandoning me here?” Rose lifted her head, eyes brimming with a hope that had been missing before.

“Never.” The word felt as if it was torn out of his very being.

She cupped his cheek, stubble beginning to smooth out into the beginnings of a beard. He really needed to shave.

“I thought you said to never say never ever?”

“That was before.”

It occurred to him that he had tea, so he took a sip - it had gone cold.

“Oh, right, all the, uhm, psychic-kinetic-telepathy science stuff.”

He opened his mouth to correct her - she was very close, though - but was interrupted by the ringing of the giant clock. It was heavily muffled by the sound proofing adjustments he had made while setting up the office, but still audible enough.

“It’s eight now, yeah?” Rose asked, even as she moved away.

“Yes.”

She walked over to his desk, where the Doctor now noticed a pile of her folded clothes sat. He frowned when she brought them over to him.

“Do you think you could sonic these clean for me? I’m gonna quick hop into your decontamination shower.”

“Th- there’s a proper shower, it’s two floors down. First left, third right, door marked ‘Security Level Alpha’.”

“What, really?”

“Didn’t want random lab techs using it. Has a retina scan. It’ll let you in.”

Rose laughed, ruffled his hair, and gave him a kiss on the cheek before disappearing to get ready for work. The whole thing left him confused. He went through his list again, checking and double checking to make sure that this all was real . It was, just as it had been all morning.

More memories. Recalibrating the tower’s new sub-basement weapon’s vault. Burnt toast and no more jam left. Reports saying: Correct universe. Wrong time - future. Contact made.

It wasn’t fair that she had spent almost an entire day with him yet he had missed most of it. Still, he sonicked her clothes, as well as his tea. Finished his cuppa, and then had a second before Rose came back from her shower.

“Why’s there no one around?”

“Dangerous radiation leak,” the Doctor shrugged. “I fixed it almost as soon as it happened, but apparently there’s ‘procedures’. How’d you get in?”

She bit her lip, fighting a smile. “Mighta shot a few of your doors,” Rose admitted, picking up an electro-pulse blaster off of a nearby cart. Non-lethal on organic matter. Very effective on fancy doors. “Nobody told me anything about a radiation leak, though.”

“Classified radiation leak.”

“And why’s that?” she scowled, hands on her hips.

“Everything to do with time travel is classified to this office. Bethany is not being very cooperative about putting you down as a liaison-whatever. Please believe me, I wasn’t trying to keep anything a secret.”

“Oh.” Rose glanced over at the EEPEC, absently biting her thumbnail.

The Doctor didn’t know what she was thinking, didn’t know if he should ask. After a moment she disappeared into the loo to change, promising to be back in a tick.

It was a funny multiverse, really, that his reunion with Rose Tyler would be such a stilted thing. That it would be about him and her, but not this him. Acknowledged with a few questions after his health, sure, but that was just polite. She’d always been compassionate, caring for others. Rose didn’t see him as the Doctor. Not the proper one. Sure, she used his name, but it would be easier for her to do that this time around.

He looked just like him.

He was him.

But he wasn’t.

Memories were still coming. Adjustments to Torchwood’s alien tech retrieval protocols. Nutrition shots. Reports reading: Correct universe. Wrong time - past. Contact made.

He went through the list again. Still real.

Unless it wasn’t.

Unless he wasn’t.

What would have stopped the other Doctor from knocking him out and uploading him into a matrix? Giving him a half-life with a programmed Rose Tyler?

The air here felt wrong.

(Wrong universe. Wrong universe. Wrong universe.)

“Doctor!”

(Daleks exploding. “What have you done?!”)

Pressure against his hands. Why was it so dark?

The Doctor opened his eyes to see Rose in front of him, pulling his fingers away from his palms. Oh. He was bleeding. Hadn’t even noticed.

“Sorry, sorry.” He spun away from her in order to grab the first aid kit from his desk.

“What happened?” she asked, vibrating with barely contained panic.

“Nothing, nothing. Things just got jumbled for a second,” he assured her, efficiently cleaning his palms and wrapping them in gauze in a practiced motion.

“How often do you-”

“Hard to say. I’ve been graphing them. Seems to be stress contingent, but generally decreasing. My senses are gradually acclimating to this universe, so I have to hope that once they do, I’ll be fine. Perfect. Molto bene. No inconvenient lapses.”

“Stress? What h- oh.”

He didn’t like the sound of that ‘oh’. The Doctor clenched his jaw before facing her.

“We still haven’t talked about us,” Rose pointed out, approaching him slowly. Like he was a wild animal. Like he would hurt her. “And you … you don’t really remember yesterday still, do you?”

“Not really.”

His hands hurt. His body ached. One heart, and it was beating so quickly that he was sure it would give out.

Rose wrapped her arms around him and he automatically returned the embrace.

“Maybe I should just call in,” she suggested as she pulled away. “We can just take the day?”

“Or don’t and stay anyway,” the Doctor couldn’t help pointing out. “Some bits have come back, and didn’t they send you here?”

She burst into laughter. “Oh my god, they did!”

And it was beyond words, how great it was to hear her laughing again. To see her smiling.

But …

That was wrong.

Rose was upset with him.

Time didn’t feel right.

The air tasted off.

Wrong Universe. Wrong Universe. Wrong Universe.

The Doctor staggered backwards.

His respiratory bypass was malfunctioning. It was like it wasn’t even there. He couldn’t get air into his lungs.

Everything went black.

There was a shot of gold, and then a different kind of black.

“Doctor,” said a whisper in the dark. “The timer went off for the TARDIS. ‘M I supposed to take her out of that thing?”

A TARDIS timer?

TARDIS … timer …

The timer for the extended electro-percussive environment chamber!!!

The Doctor shot up from where he had apparently been lying on the couch and ran over to the EEPEC, swiftly shut it off, removed the tank housing their baby TARDIS, and then poured in the pre-prepared aqueous nutrient solution before inserting the tank into the quasi-dimensional artron chamber (currently set to it’s highest opacity setting). 

“Hah!” he exclaimed, punching his fist in the air and itching to switch the chamber’s outside view settings to transparent. He turned to Rose, opened his mouth to ask her, and then paused.

It all came back to him, all of it, not just the jumbled recollections he had been getting earlier. Apparently he had fallen into a healing coma, and it seems to have been just what he needed … but it all truly hadn’t been fair to Rose. Though, to be fair, she was currently smiling like it was Christmas, so-

Christmas. Healing comas. 

Huh.

“Shall we switch it to transparent?” the Doctor asked, unable to reign himself in any longer. “It was clear when Benny - quite the coincidence, right? - helped me set it up. This is a quasi-dimensional artron chamber. It’s funnelling in rift energy and centrifuging artron particles, and the end result in that chamber is the specific environment needed to properly grow a TARDIS. Well, along with the chrono-nutritio aqueous habitat. Benny describes looking into it as being similar to taking DMT, which, by the way, is completely inaccurate. It’s exactly like looking into an Eye of Harmony. If it’s malfunctioning, it’s like looking into the untempered schism, which I don’t recommend. But everything’s stable now, we could-”

“I thought I wasn’t supposed to look into the vortex?” Rose interrupted, and …

“Right … erm, well ,” he hedged, scratching the back of his neck, “I mean, it isn’t actually the vortex, but you’re probably not completely wrong. Best not risk it.”

Excitement abating, the Doctor slumped against the chamber and at that moment realized that he had been changed into jim jams.

Jim jams. Healing comas.

Huh.

At least these were his own pajamas, and not some ‘friend’ of Jackie’s, though how strange was it that he owned his own pajamas in the first place?

“C’mere,” Rose said, beckoning him back toward the couch, which she was sitting next to, but not on. Not your typical decision, but he had likely taken up all of the space earlier. “I made you some tea.”

It really wasn’t worth it, cataloguing the similarities between this and when he had first regenerated into this body … even though the list did seem to be growing.

“Perfect! Just what I need!” the Doctor smiled as he walked over, taking a seat next to Rose on the floor.

Silence fell as he sipped his tea, and he found himself unsure of what to do or say next. There was too much to say, and he’d certainly done a piss poor job of organizing his thoughts earlier. 

“Feeling better?” she asked, after another moment. 

Small talk. He could definitely do small talk.

“Mmm yes, very much so.”

“Better enough to talk?”

The Doctor coughed, having swallowed his tea incorrectly (bloody hybrid body, still acting up), before nodding. Rose moved onto the couch and he scrambled to join her. 

“So,” she began and paused, face scrunching up in concentration (it was nice to know that he wasn’t the only one who found this whole business incredibly awkward), “I guess … what is it that you actually want? Aside from a working TARDIS, that is.”

His brows furrowed.

Sure, there were plenty of ways he could answer that question and have all of them be true, but he had a feeling that she was looking for a specific type of ‘want’. 

Problem was, the Doctor wasn’t quite sure what that was .

“What?” he asked, in lieu of any better things to say (as the runner up response was to ask for some jam, or maybe a banana, or some of the takeaway from the shop down the corner and blimey, he was hungry). 

“This whole time, all of it, since you c- since you were- since you stopped just bein’ a hand- ” the Doctor had a list of complaints and corrections that he barely held in “- nobody’s asked what you wanted. The D- the other Doctor chose for both of us, really, and I hadn’t really looked at it that way before. An’ I wanna know. What do you want?”

Removed from the actual experience itself (and therefore not feeling incredibly, deathly ill), visions of the slight peek he’d gotten four days ago of his own timeline played in his head.

The Doctor grabbed Rose’s hand, weaving their fingers together.

“I want this.”

She smiled and gave his hand a squeeze.

“Care to elaborate?” she asked with a slight laugh.

“Nope,” he replied, popping the ‘p’. “Because as long as you’re happy, everything else is just- just semantics. I mean, obviously it’s going to be a bit dull until the TARDIS has grown enough for proper travel, but I think we can make do?” At least, he really hoped so. It hadn’t been going swimmingly so far, but the Doctor sincerely hoped that he could chalk all that up to the initial side effects of the meta crisis, compounded by all of the, er … technical difficulties he had run into while constructing the TARDIS’ growth tank. Also, his new hybrid body needed much more maintenance than he was used to, including sleep. Really was rubbish without regular sleep. Such a waste of time.

“So, if I were to suggest you moving into the flat?”

He opened his mouth, intending to immediately agree, but then frowned. The TARDIS was here, after all. And he absolutely could not move her. Not at this stage. Not until she could connect to other dimensions on her own. The Doctor looked over at the quasi-dimensional artron chamber, once again wishing that he could switch it to transparent and watch the process unfold.

“How moved in is moved in?” he asked once he forced himself to turn back toward Rose.

“You’d sleep there, shower there, eat some of your meals. Most of your clothes an’ stuff would be there. Y’know. It’d be where you live. With me. If you want.”

“And that’s what you want?” he double checked, trying not to telegraph his surprise - he must have missed a lot while in a coma, as last he knew they were teetering on the edge of a row.

Rose rolled her eyes, and that was much more in line with where he thought they were at, er, relationship-wise.

“Well, I don’t fancy living in a clocktower office. When I’m done working, I’d like to not still be at work, ta.”

She did make some excellent points … but still, it all implied that they would be staying together. And that was what he wanted, of course it was, but the Doctor still couldn’t help but feel he had missed something crucial despite the fact that he could now remember everything clearly.

“You blew up my job. ”

“I love you, too. But I’m still mad at you.”

“You’ve still got two beating.”

Maybe there wasn’t something to have missed. Human emotions were relatively complex, after all, and there was no rule requiring them to happen in isolation.

“Are you still mad at me?” he asked, realizing as he did that to Rose it was coming from seemingly out of nowhere.

This was confirmed as she blinked, brows furrowing.

“I don’t know. Maybe a little, but …”

“But?” the Doctor repeated, unable to stand the suspense.

“It’s hardly the first time we’ve had a fight, yeah?”

He nodded, unsure of where she was planning on going with this and hoping that he wouldn’t need to begin apologizing for every insensitive thing he’d said or done since they first met. It would take ages.

“Well, we always end up workin’ it out. And we did live together, travelin’ on the TARDIS, whether we had a row or not, so …” Rose shrugged, now examining her fingernails.

Speaking of the TARDIS, though …

“First things first,” the Doctor began, rubbing the back of his neck as he stood up and began pacing, “I want it on record that I would absolutely love to live in a flat with you, with carpets and doors and things. Assuming we’d spend much of our time traveling about, that is.” He turned back toward her, having paced his way back over to the TARDIS’ QDA chamber. “The thing is, it’s … I don’t want you to think that- the TARDIS. She needs me here. This is a critical development period. For the next three to six months, the TARDIS will be growing in the chamber, learning how to connect to and create dimensions. Until she can manage it, I can’t move her and she requires near-constant monitoring. Every hour or two.” 

“She’s like a newborn baby,” Rose commented, getting up and joining him at the chamber, where she stroked the side.

“Exactly.”

“Well, I suppose this’ll have to do then,” she reluctantly … agreed? “As long as we’re living in the flat as soon as she’s moveable, mind. The bathroom here is two floors away.”

“It’s a clocktower, Rose! There’s only so much space.” The Doctor scrunched up his face as he said the word. 

“Then why’d you pick this place? I know because of the Rift, but doesn’t it stretch further than just the tower?”

“Nope,” he shrugged.

It’s not as though he hadn’t checked. 

“Really?”

“Small rift.”

“Yeah,” Rose laughed, “a small rift right under Big Ben.”

The Doctor laughed with her, amazed that he finally could.

Then he frowned.

It was all a little too good to be true.

Was this real?

“Hey.”

He refocused. Rose was right in front of him, their eyes locked.

“You were getting that look in your eyes,” she informed him.

“Look? What look?” the Doctor asked, though he was pretty sure he already knew. Some sort of dazed tell, some sort of glaringly obvious indicator that his grasp on reality was failing him.

“This look you get when you start thinkin’ you’re in the wrong universe.”

Wrong universe, wrong universe, wrong universe.

“Well, I am in the wrong universe,” he couldn’t help but point out.

“Yeah, I know. Me too. But y’know what?”

Rose wrapped her arms around him, and it was almost as if she were his tether, grounding him to this new reality they’d found themselves in.

“It’s better with two.”

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

Toughts on this deviantart post?

Found this https://www.deviantart.com/hotwar696/art/Who-is-the-real-Gary-Stu-835695208 it’s pretty bad i think. Or at least misleading. Toughts?

Let’s throw up the image and text for full context

A lot of Conway/Romita fans think that Venom is an awful Gary Stu. Ironically they like the post clone saga Norman Osborn who is not even the same character as the one back the in Conway/Romita days. Despising Harry Osborn when back in the days he simply did not have enough time for him. Also despite what post clone saga stories might have told you he only became a villain because an accident gave him brain damage. Yes, that’s right with the exception of the animated Spider-Man series from 1994 the pre clone saga Norman Osborn was not some inhuman monster who became insane. He was a tragic bussinessman who lost his wife and got brain damage after an explosion to his face. Becoming a villain after an explosion to the face by the way is also the villain origin for Dr. Octopus so yeah Norman Osborn was not a very original villain even before becoming the Gary Stu version of Lex Luthor.Image size

I am going to address every point here, but let me get the most important thing out of the way first.

This is not a valid point to make for two big reasons.

1) The first is that antagonists* do not count as Gary/Marty Stus/Mary Sues.

The function of an antagonists within fiction is to oppose and challenge the protagonists. By having them be extremely powerful, hyper capable, have immense accomplishments and so on, you build them up as a challenge to over come, as someone the protagonist is the underdog in comparison to.

A classic example from manga and anime is Freeza from Dragon Ball. As originally portrayed he can reduce whole planets to dust with a single finger and the true limits of his power are beyond imagining. Had the protagonists all attacked him at once along with all of Freeza’s subordinates they still would’ve lost because he is more powerful and all of them combined. He withstands the most powerful version of the most powerful technique in the series up until that point. 

Were this character the protagonist he’d almost certainly a Marty Stu. But as the antagonist he is a supremely effective challenge for the heroes to over come precisely because he does outstrip them so throughly. 

2) It’s very obvious the OP is reacting against arguments he’s heard from one specific or several specific people on an incredibly narrow topic. That’s fine. But he’s broadbrushing it as though it’s a widely held opinion when it’s at best widely held within a niche within a niche within another niche. 

Like, this is obviously a discussion he’s had at Toonzone or some other similar forum because he references BTAS, Spec Spidey and has drawn both Norman and Venom in their 1994 designs. 

But let’s talk about the broader points made.

- None of that symbiote crap. I don’t disagree that it’s myopic and disingenuous to dismiss symbiotes on principle. Putting aside how they’ve been a staple for over 30 years now (and their recent stories have been very good in fact), it smacks of failing to look beyond your own preferences. There are bad symbiote stories and characters. There are even things that inherently suck on principle within Spider-Man. But the symbiotes are not among them. They are exceptions to the rule and proven that over and over. The person the OP is referncing is entitled to not like them but not to dismiss them on principle. I hate Screwball but I don’t think her concept is inherently shit. I liked her in he Fake Red manga!

- Joker in BTAS was a wuss, Spec cartoon Norman was better. I mean, maybe that’s true. there can be extenuating circumstances applying to both. But the Joke screaming doesn’t make him a wuss. if he was a wuss he wouldn’t have taken on Superman or Batman repeatedly. Norman might have been scared but so full of spite that he wasn’t going to give Vulture the satisfaction.

- He technically killed Spider-Man because he killed Ben Reilly. Well, first of all he was trying to kill Peter. Second of all ben didn’t look stupid. he looked identical to Peter but with blonde hair; how is that stupid? Third of all killing a clone of Spider-Man isn’t technically killing him, if it was Norman would’ve routinely been murdering Spidey clone. Fourth of all the OP is framing this as a grand win for Norman because he got to kill Spidey technically. it is a win for him but not for that reason. Ben sacrificed  himself to save Peter who Norman was really aiming at

- Killing off baby May, apart from being debatable at all due to the presentation of that story, didn’t prevent Peter from maturing. it prevented him from maturing a specific way but it didn’t stop him from maturing period. Dealing with a miscarriage is  an experience that can age a person. Peter went back to ESU to complete his education immediately after that and some years later he became a teacher under JMS’ run. That’s also a totally meta-textual point to make and therefore doesn’t apply to Norman being a Gary Stu. Successfully preventing character development is something you attribute to writers not the characters. 

- I don’t get rh point about Nathanial Gray or Von Strucker

- Yes he was the Kingpin of Europe. How does that make him a Gary Stu? Wison Fisk was the Kingpin of America as were many other characters.

- Yes he was President of the USA but only in an out of continuity story, Earth X (and maybe other ones too). The argumentation of the OP is broken because he is conflating multiple different versions as the same thing. pre-OMD, post-OMD, Spec cartoon, Earth X etc. By this logic Venom would also be a Gary Stu and so would countless other characters. Superman would be a Gary Stu because he is DC’s Jesus but also DC’s Hitler. 

- The next point is a total strawman. Putting aside how in my experience people throw more shade at Norman than is deserved, even Norman fans like myself do not deny BAD stories with the character exist. What’s ironic is that he has chosen the more obvious targets like the Gathering of Five or the Final Chapter. 

Both of those stories are in most respects much worse than Sins Past and the element that makes Sins past bad isn’t even the fact that Norman slept with Gwen. It’s the simple fact that a woman who was clearly not pregnant in the Romita years apparently was and neither she nor MJ seemed to give a shit about the children after they were born. The further irony of his referencing this story is that he’s framed his argument as Silver Age stans are ignoring stuff like Sins Past. the reality is it is Silver/Bronze Age stans who HATE Sins Past more than anyone else in the Spider-Fandom precisely because  it messes with the stuff they stan

His referencing of the Clone Saga is also divorced from context. Everyone worth their salt is aware Norman was never originally intended as the villain of the Clone Saga. That was a late addition, and noticeably a late addition at a time when the Clone Saga stories being told were on the whole actually good!  Norman’s return story was on balance good!  It got a trade paperback in the 1990s when only the most popular stories got such treatment. It is utterly disingenuous to hold the worst of the Clone Saga up as a Norman Osborn story because those were never written with him in mind as the villain. 

Additionally I do not know why he is referencing Maximum Carnage or Superior Spider-Man. Okay, maybe he means the former is a symbiote story as opposed to a Carnage story specifically. But if he’s trying to prove Norman is a gary Stu but Venom is not why would you treat Maximum Carnage as a general symbiote story rather than cite a Venom specific story? And it still wouldn’t explain citing Superior Spider-Man. This is about contrasting Norman and Venom, what did Doc Ock have to do with any of this?

- Citing Morlun is equally confusing. The point the OP is trying to make is that silver/bronze age fans put Norman on a pedestal and look down on Venom. Putting aside how that really misrepresents the situation, why would you cite a villain who is not only NOT a silver/bronze age character but appeared long after Venom and if anything gets more  disdain than Venom does. Old school fans who dislike Venom or symbiotes on principle do not generally like Morlun, if anything they dislike him more  than Venom as they regard mysticism even more inappropriate for Spider-Man than aliens.

- The OP finally cites the Final Chapter but failed to do it at the appropriate point in his rant and also misrepresents it. He’s conflated the bomb implanted into Aunt May’s head in that story with the revelation that she was impersonated by an actress in ASm #400. He’s combined both characters and events. How do you fuck up that badly? The actress died of natural causes and then much later we got the implanted bomb. Norman never  killed the actress, the actress agreed to work with him specifically because she was already dying. Also the guy’s grammar is messed up. I’m pretty sure ‘operated into her’ isn’t a real phrase.

- ‘A chad lady killer’…um…what? Isn’t that term intended to be slang for a kind of James Bond figure? A ‘man’s man’ who has lots of sex with women? It doesn’t mean a man who kills women is a manly. Whether people use the term chad ironically or sincerely the overwhelming majority aren’t going around proclaiming Jack the Ripper as the ultimate real life Chad. 

- The framing of Norman’s relationship with Gwen is misrepresentative of what happened. It pretends like Norman had se with Gwen specifically to get one over on Peter. He didn’t. He wasn’t even aware he was the Goblin at that time, that Peter was Spider-Man and very likely didn’t know Peter had feelings for Gwen as they weren’t dating at that time. Norman had sex with Gwen because they were both vulnerable and had a moment of passion. 

I’d also question his designating Gwen as Peter’s second love interest. I guess that’d be accurate if you are speaking strictly in terms of Peter’s regular girlfriends. But normally love interest means someone the readers are aware is being framed as potential romantic partner for the protagonist. In this sense Liz was the first love interest, Betty was the second and Gwen was the third. 

- WTF does shit was so cash even mean?

Now for the text.

-A lot of Conway/Romita fans think that Venom is an awful Gary Stu. Ironically they like the post clone saga Norman Osborn who is not even the same character as the one back the in Conway/Romita days.

Yeah, there isn’t a lot. The vast majority of Conway/Romita stans do not like post-Clone Saga Norman.

And is he not the same character s he was before.

From a certain POV that’s true. But that’s chiefly because silver Age Norman was usually an amnesic who wasn’t his true self. His Goblin persona in the Silver Age is actually fairly similar to his post-Clone Saga self. The reason for the different presentation is simply a passage of time. Doc Ock in the 1990s wasn’t presented identically to how he was in the silver age just because times had changed. The Joker wasn’t presented the same way in the post-Killing Joke or Death in the Family eras of Batman as he was back in the 1940s.

The core of the character, that this guy was a real nasty, egotistical, sadistic and power hungry monster? No, that was all the same it was just ramped up. Norman’s ‘ghost’ had evolved in the interim between his death and his return too. In a sense his place and framing within the mythos had always evolved with the times. It’s just that when he came back suddenly that wasn’t a metaphorical ghost but a flesh and blood character.

But the same can be said of any successful character over time as I outlined above. Shit Absolute Carnage depicted Carnage in a way that is not identical to how he was initially presented. But it was most definitily an evolution of that.

- “Despising Harry Osborn when back in the days he simply did not have enough time for him.”

Not true. The first time Norman began to remember he was the Goblin he got passive aggressive towards Harry. When he got his powers he was downright mean to him as depicted in ASM #40. But he also never despised Harry either. Norman always loved Harry in a toxic manner, through neglect or abuse. That was true post-Clone Saga. 

In fact the entire reason Norman initiated the Clone Saga was specifically because he wanted revenge for Harry’s death.

And again, the OP is treating this as a wholesale invention of the post-clone saga era when it wasn’t. Norman being an abusive father was introduced long before anyone was thinking about the Clone Saga. It was established in the Child Within circa 1991 IIRC. Later (when the Clone Saga was being planned I think) it was further explored in Spec annual 1994, but that just added to what we already knew from the forrmer story. Shit, this depiction of Harry and Norman’s relationship was showcased in Untold Tales of Spider-Man. That was both set long before the Clone Saga, IIRC written before Norman’s return was decided upon and written by someone who definitely didn’t agree with his return.

Norman never despised Harry, but he was a shitty Dad. He was a shitty Dad in ASm #40. He didn’t just have no time for Harry, he neglected him specifically because he wanted to gain money and thereby gain power.

Even if you do argue that Norman didn’t despise Harry in the silver age but did post-clone saga, so long as that change was organically introduced that makes it fine. better than fine as that’s simply more dramatically enriching than him being a nice guy who happens to not have time for his son.

- “Also despite what post clone saga stories might have told you he only became a villain because an accident gave him brain damage.”

LOL nope.

a) As I just said, even if this was a retcon of the post-Clone Saga era (which it wasn’t) it made Norman a better  character. A man being bad because he got brain damage is a cliche, lazy, over simplistic explanation for his villainy. It’s also arguably less realistic and actually makes the characetr a lesser villain as some surgery and thereby might be able to fix them. In fact you could argue they are in effect a victim of their brain damage and thereby not accountable for their actions. That’s so much less substantive than someone’s life experiences shaping them into a horrible human being. By this author’s wn logic Doc Ock’s origin (pre-Clone Saga I might add) makes him a LESSER villain because it established that he was actually evil because of his life before his accident. that was just the straw that broke the camel’s back, he didn’t just get a knock to the noggin and wound up evil

b) If Norman’s evilness stems from brain damage how come when he was a nice guy in the silver age neither he nor Harry suggested surgery or medication to help heal that damage? That would’ve meant he’d never have been evil again

c) ASm #40 makes it clear he was a piece of shit BEFORE his accident. He was neglecting his son, railroading his partner, stealing his inventions and power hungry before getting brain damage.

d) You could easily argue Norman was always brain damaged the doctors just mistakenly believed his injuries stemmed from the accident

e) Child Within and Spec Annual 1994 established Norman as a psychopath before he got his powers. Both were written before the Clone Saga. Post-Clone Saga stories like Revenge of the Green Goblin merely built upon this, they didn’t wholesale invent it

“Yes, that’s right with the exception of the animated Spider-Man series from 1994 the pre clone saga Norman Osborn was not some inhuman monster who became insane.”

LOL nope again.

First of all, 1994-cartoon Norman WAS fairly sympathetic before becoming the Goblin. In the show he got a loan from Kingpin and was forced to pay off the debt by targeting Spider-Man. Even if he didn’t initially realise Fisk was a criminal when he got the loan, by the time he did realise going to the police would’ve resulted in him losing his son and/or his life. He wouldn’t be the first man to get in deep with the mob after all.

When his inital effort to kill Spider-Man failed he was forced to give Kingpin his company and attempted to get out from this by assasinating Fisk. This backfired hard endangering his son, but Norman risked his life to save Harry. 

His whole character until season 3 was basically defined by being a morally grey character. he loved his son, he was maybe egotistical and a ruthless businessman but the worst things he did were either on Kingpin’s orders or attempts to free himself of a very powerful and very dangerous controlling force in his life. 

Not a nice man, but a far cry from an inhuman monster or an insane person, at least until he was exposed to the Goblin gas.

SECOND of all if you are an inhumane monster how exactly do you then ‘go insane’? Aren’t they functionally the same thing within the context of the dicussion?

It’s also not representative of canonical Norman. Canonical Norman was a psychopath because of his life experiences and possibly hereditary mental illnesses within the family. The Goblin formula by empowering him sent him on an ego trip.

The OP isn’t even using the commonly held misconceptions about Norman Osborn, he’s just using his own very specific ones. Most people mistakenly believe the Goblin formula drove Norman nuts when ASM #40 just claims the accident gave him brain damage. Over time creators decided the formula itself makes the user nuts. 

“He was a tragic bussinessman who lost his wife and got brain damage after an explosion to his face“

a) Unless I am mistaken there was little word paid to Norman’s wife in the Silver Age. And what little we got never presented Norman as being affected by her passing. That was an invention of the 1990s and 2000s; and a very good one at that. 

b) Yes how tragic a businessman he was to have neglected his son, sought power, rail roaded his partner and stolen his inventions. Obviously none of that is bad. he only became bad after an explosion gave him brain damage.

c) Even if he really was a tragic businessman blah blah blah, that is a LESS EFFECTIVE villain and a LESS complex character than the post-clone saga guy we got

“Becoming a villain after an explosion to the face by the way is also the villain origin for Dr. Octopus so yeah Norman Osborn was not a very original villain even before becoming the Gary Stu version of Lex Luthor.”

I’ve already addressed the idiotic criticism that Norman became a Luthor knock off.

The OP is disingenuous on several levels with his other point as well though.

For starters brain damage was never the sum totality of Norman’s origin as a character. Doc Ock was just a guy who was at best maybe a little odd looking due to his arms then had an accident and became evil. that was it.

Not only was Ott far from the first villain with such an origin, but to sit there and say Norman was unoriginal merely because he also took a boom to the face is moronic. Norman’s life before  his accident made him incredibly different to Otto. It made him comparatively more layered and complex next to the likes of Otto or the other rogues because he wasn’t nice initially, he had this strained relationship with his son and above all else he had this internal denial over his failings as a father. THAT shit doesn’t count as part of his origin? ALL that matters is explosion+brain damage=evil?

That’s obviously moving the goal posts to win.

And it’s a self-defeating argument. Silver Age Norman is bad because he is unoriginal (even though functionally he actually was). Okay, in the 1990s and beyond he got a revised origin that was more original. But that’s bad because changed him from his Silver Age self.

Goal posts. They a movin!

Not to mention as I already said DOC OCK’s origin was also changed so his villainy didn’t just stem from a random accident that knocked his noggin.

So Doc Ock sucks too right?

Finally, I say this as someone who likes Norman AND Venom.

I would never call Venom a Gary Stu. I’ve never even SEEN anyone claim Venom was a Gary Stu. BOTH Norman and Venom get under appreciated.

Fuck i wrote like over 10 essays DEFENDING Venom. 

You can pass my comments onto this idiot if you wish.

*Not necesarilly villains as you can have a villain protagonist, see Superior Spider-Man

[gryphons-of-aentha]

The Approximate Plotline of the Gryphonverse (pt. 3)

This is the part where everything gets very weird, jarringly fast. I suspect there must be a way to rework some of this to make it cohesive enough with the first two parts to compile it into one story, but for now I’m afraid we’re stuck with massive, strangely meta genre whiplash.

it also becomes more apparent that the reason all this coincides with Earth dates in real time is that I’ve been making a lot of this up as I go for over ten years now.

So Kyran, and shortly thereafter Iadra, who chased him through the portal, suddenly find themselves on Earth circa 2008. Or rather an alternate timeline Earth that was created when some human teenagers with a basement laboratory, and an interdimensional being badly disguised as a talking dog, accidentally tore a hole in reality, which is what Kyran’s hastily-made portal led through. The humans (and space dog) quickly become entangled in the gryphons’ conflicts as it becomes apparent that the connection between their worlds isn’t going away on its own and none of them know how to close it. A couple years and several shenanigans later (during which Talon and Iadra have reunited and befriended the humans and dog-alien, and Kyran has made enemies of them), Aentha and Earth remain strangely linked and everyone starts to notice signs of something strange at work.

(it’s here that I should mention that the humans, in the original series of short stories I wrote documenting this when I was fifteen, were pretty much self inserts of me and my brother for shits and giggles/stand-ins. Due to conflicts with certain potential subplots that have cropped up that I want to use, this is no longer canon, but it means the Wielder is currently not much more than an empty character slot because I haven’t figured out how I actually want to approach him as a character, aka I am trapped in Jonathan Sims purgatory and don’t know how to get out. So aside from things he definitely does because it’s required to progress the plot, there’s basically a conspicuous void there right now. also the sword was originally called the Ancient Katana™ [the ™ is somehow pronounced but nobody can figure out why or how, and speaking the full name causes the lights to flicker even while outdoors] because I was making fun of all the stupid and sometimes kind of racist tropes that crop up with chosen one narratives, but these days I’m not sure where that falls on the line between “making fun of a dumb racist trope” and “just being racist” so I’m shelving that until I get some second opinions on that one)

Unbeknownst to anyone, larger forces are at play in this pseudo-Earth: an entity similar in nature to the Powers of Darkness, but that feeds on narrative tropes rather than suffering and is substantially more powerful, was drawn by the first Rift created by the humans, and has been manipulating events on Earth in order to trap everyone in a repeating narrative that provides it with a consistent energy source. This comes to a head when one of the humans accidentally becomes some kind of Chosen One known as the Wielder (according to the space dog, who is the only one versed in this stuff) by finding a magic sword that can manipulate both interdimensional energy and narrative tropes (among other things). Kyran, meanwhile, has been looking for this sword, because during some events that tore the Fourth Wall (an actual thing in this story) he realized that he’s been cast as the villain in whatever story they’re all stuck in and therefore can never actually win, which he’s becoming increasingly desperate to do since he’s now back in debt with the Powers of Darkness and needs to resolve this situation and focus his attention back on Aentha and overthrowing Shale. The sword can potentially solve both of these problems, and also make him immensely powerful. With the Entity still manipulating everything, this leads to him inadvertently becoming the Wielder’s arch nemesis but gets him no closer to actually claiming the sword.

Eventually Kyran manages to break reality enough to force a confrontation with the Wielder on neutral ground where the Entity’s narrative won’t prevent him from winning, but due to some unforeseen external factors fails again, and gets his soul bound to the sword. This essentially traps him in a pocket dimension unless summoned by the Wielder and renders him physically unable to cause any actual harm to the Wielder or his allies. On the plus side, the Powers of Darkness can no longer reach Kyran, so as long as he’s bound to the sword and by extension the Entity, he’s safe from any consequences he’s racked up. Incidentally, it also cuts off the by-then-considerable hold the Powers of Darkness had over his mind. No longer clouded by the influence of a malevolent multiconsciousness and with not much to do while trapped in the void, he engages in some actual self reflection for the first time in his life and isn’t thrilled with the conclusion (this by no means makes him instantly a better person, but it does gradually lessen the degree to which he’s an abject asshole). He also discovers that due to his gryphonic heritage, he has a limited amount of control and mobility in interdimensional space (though the sword prevents him from going to any physical dimension) and he finds his way to a gryphonic ruin that seems to have once been part of either a temple or a library, and discovers more about gryphonic history than any Aenthian gryphon ever has. The Wielder mainly leaves him to his own devices in there, since they’re still enemies but at this point there’s not much either of them can really do to the other, and while the sword’s power to bind some beings is intended as a kind of familiar mechanic, Kyran is really not the kind of bound creature to be anything but a belligerent hindrance if summoned. Also every time they interact it tends to end with someone getting stabbed.

The destruction Kyran caused in his bid for the sword, meanwhile, created a schism that broke all known gateways between Earth and Aentha, trapping Talon and Iadra back in their own world. Not knowing what happened to the humans or Kyran, and with no way to find out, they mainly just go back to their lives, now living almost entirely on the outskirts, since things between Andolia and the neighboring gryphons are still getting worse. After a year or two they have a son, who they name Iadros (gryphonic tradition is to name the firstborn cub after the mother regardless of the cub’s gender) and mainly stay occupied with that until the political situation gets dangerous enough for the gryphons that they start to consider ways to access Earth again, with the idea that maybe the Wielder’s Chosen One status would help them solve the whole mess, but at the very least to get Iadros out of harm’s way while he grows up.

About five years after the schism was created, circa 2017, they finally find a way back, unknowingly thanks again to gryphons being powerful interdimensional beings who created a number of their own pathways and pocket dimensions between worlds. As it turns out, things have been developing on the Earth side as well. Kyran and the Wielder have, if not become friends, at least reached a kind of truce, since it turns out when rendered unable to be an evil warlock Kyran’s default state is “Genealogy Aunt but make it goth,” and he’s trying to track down the lost origin world of gryphons, partly for something to do while he’s been trapped in a pocket dimension for five years and partly out of the newfound desire to do something non-destructive for once. It’s almost less of a redemption arc than a quarter-life crisis that happens to lead in a positive direction. Anyway, he needed the Wielder and the sword in order to travel to other worlds on the trail of this lost dimension, and has at least agreed to not stab anyone with letter openers in exchange. Probably helps that they’ve all gone from a gaggle of cosmically-overpowered teenagers to slightly more emotionally mature cosmically-overpowered twenty-somethings.

After some time of this, during which more monster-of-the-week things happen in the course of this ultimately fruitless search for the lost world, it becomes apparent that Kyran probably isn’t interested in killing them all anymore and the Wielder offers to free him from the sword (this will not reattach his soul to his body; his soul currently resides in a crystal from which it can’t be unbound, but giving the crystal to him will separate his will from the sword and the Wielder and he’ll be able to travel around physical reality on his own again). He refuses, knowing that both the Powers of Darkness are probably looking for him at this point and the Entity has a vested interest in him remaining the villain, and he’s very certain that he doesn’t have the willpower or actual power to fight them off and they’d end up back at square one. Especially since the whole soul-trapped-in-a-crystal thing makes him vulnerable to specifically that kind of danger. As long as he remains bound to the sword, the Powers of Darkness can’t get to him to call in his significant debt, and the Entity can’t do anything because technically he’s still the villain of the story and is being forced by the sword’s power to not fight the Wielder. Technically. This was the point where I awkwardly realized I’d accidentally set up a perfect gay enemies-to-lovers plot and had to completely rethink the Wielder as a character because I love that trope too much to just not use it.

Anyway, Talon and Iadra aren’t thrilled to learn that Kyran and the humans are on more or less amicable terms now, since their last few interactions with Kyran have done nothing to indicate that having him around will be conducive to safely raising a child and Iadra in particular has still not forgiven him for what he did to Talon, and without five years of context, the fact that the three (four counting the talking space dog) of them are kind of working together now feels like a bit of a betrayal.

There’s no time for this to really come to a head, because their attempt at magic-sword-based rules-lawyering has actually not fooled or appeased the Entity at all, and it’s very set on returning equilibrium. It tries a couple tactics to get Kyran to turn on everyone or vice versa, including but not limited to sending a double of him to Earth to cause problems (it doesn’t work because the sword renders that impossible and they all know that) and trying to provoke the talking dog who still doesn’t really like him into acting on it (he doesn’t because he has a moral compass and better things to do), but the arrival of Talon, Iadra, and Iadros provides exactly the opportunity it thinks it needs, and it finds a way to hijack Iadros. And unfortunately there’s going to be yet another part to this.

[robininthelabyrinth]

Heatwave for President

Fic: Heatwave for President (ao3 link)

Fandom: Flash, DC's Legends of Tomorrow Pairing: Mick Rory/Leonard Snart

Summary: Mick Rory will go down in history for being the first person to start his campaign for President of the United States by saying, "I really don't want to do this, but seriously, look at my opponent."

A/N: Birthday present for @oneiriad! Happy birthday!

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"Do you have any regrets about the process?" the reporter asks as they all stare at the giant television showing the projected results as the exit polls start trickling in from the states. "Anything you would change?"

"What kind of question is that?" Iris mutters under her breath.

Mick - to whom the question had been directed - hums for a moment. "I think - the time travel," he says. "That bit. Wouldn't do it."

The reporter frowns. "But wasn't it your association with the, quote, 'Legends of Tomorrow' that originally propelled you on your current path towards politics and, eventually, your present run for President?"

"Yeah," Mick says glumly. "Exactly."

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Technically, it's a bit more complicated than that.

First, of course, there was the Flash. Everything always starts there - oh, shut up with your stupid 'Green Arrow was first' bullcrap, no one cares that he was first because he was just some weird serial killing vigilante to start off with, and anyway barely anyone outside of Starling (Star City, whatever) knew about it - because it was by watching the Flash's epic battles with what have come, retrospectively, to be known as his "Rogues" that Mick first became famous. He even had his own action figure, which most people running for president could only imagine happening in relation to political satire.

Of course, back then they called him Heatwave.

Then Snart - that's Captain Cold to you, reporter - had the bright idea of hooking up with some time travelers for a lark. Mick hadn't thought much of the idea at the time, even tried to quit a few times - quit with prejudice, one might say, and there'd been that whole Kronos business that you're not finding out any more about, the news media already knows more than Mick would like on the subject - and it hadn't taken.

And then Snart died.

Yes, Mick is perfectly aware that Snart's back now, but for a while there he'd been absolutely and totally convinced that he was gone for good (he was dead - how was Mick supposed to know that it hadn't fully taken?!) and it'd been pretty shattering.

That was the period with the Legends. Saving history, fucking up history, all of that.

Yes, that's when he met Georgie Washington. Stop asking about it. Mick's already told you all he knows.

No, he refuses to go get him for the Inauguration, should it happen! The guy didn't even like politics towards the end of it! Leave Georgie alone!

Okay, maybe a dinosaur. Mick makes no promises.

Well, yeah. He guesses it would be pretty cool to ride to the White House on a dinosaur. You might have a point there.

Anyway, where was he? Oh, right, the Legends. Anyway, when the first alien attack came - the Dominators - Mick was there with the Legends. It was a state secret and all that at the time; that's when he got a pardon for everything he'd previously been involved with. Very hush-hush, though how the pres was planning on keeping the details of how a nation- or world-wide invasion was defeated a secret is anyone's guess. Sure, keep it a secret from the American media, that's one thing, but those British tabloids are vicious weasels that will stop at nothing.

Okay, yeah, Mick taking a selfie with a downed Dominator and posting it to Instagram - instantly making it one of the only good pictures anyone had of the damn things, which were resistant to being recorded on any type of media unless you did some special adjustments to the settings, like, say, the sort Gideon did automatically when upgrading their camera phones, and by sheer scarcity thereby became famous worldwide as the definitive Dominator photo - probably didn't help with the whole secrecy thing.

Hell yeah Mick's going to put a copy of that in the White House if he wins, you kidding? That picture won photo of the year, and that was the year of the solar eclipse, so it had some pretty stiff competition.

Anyway, yeah, that's how Mick's rep started shifting from supervillain to - you know what, let's just avoid any use of the terms 'superhero' (Mick is not) or 'hero' (also not).

Good guy?

Ugh. Fine. Out of lack of better options.

Anyhoo, that's when the buzz started, y'know? A couple of pranksters - whose names shall remain nameless but who know exactly who they are, Barry Allen and Cisco Ramon - uh, that last part's off the record - anyway, these fucking assholes decided to start up a fake Super PAC called 'Heatwave for President'.

Yeah, Mick knows it was just meant as a contrast to the current incumbent. Sort of a "if this idiot can become president, why not Heatwave the famous supervillain" sort of deal. Mick's cool with that. It was a funny joke and, yeah, the incumbent was worse than useless. You'd think getting the job when your predecessor was shot by aliens would give them the sympathy vote, at least for a bit, but wow did they blow it. Who the fuck tries to kill health care for kids as their first official push in action? Seriously, who?

Yeah, you can definitely write that down. “Mick Rory still ticked off about asshole move”. Honestly, just keep that handy for copy-paste purposes, it’s probably going to be relevant a lot in the future.

What? No, Mick hadn’t thought about running for office as far back as the whole joke Super PAC thing. Mick was traveling through space and time at that time. Keep your chronology straight. If Mick can do it – and, again, not to over-emphasize this, but do you know how hard it is to keep track of time on a time-traveling spaceship? – then you can do it when you've got your feet firmly set down on planet earth in a consistent timeline.

So yeah, things were going along that way, Mick with the Legends, going around, doing shit, messing shit up, fighting with people. The whole thing wasn't exactly all sunshine and roses, but they did well enough. Well, they managed to keep the timeline more or less intact, at least.

No, you wouldn’t know it if they’d failed. Time doesn’t work that way.

No, the current incumbent isn’t a result of a horrific failure by time travelers to prevent an evil catastrophe from –

Huh. You know what, Mick’s not going to give a definitive answer on that one. Just assume that if the Legends had failed, things would be even worse.

No comment on North Korea. Just – no comment. Ever.

Yes, ever.

The Legends are on it, okay?!

Not the point Mick was trying to get at here. More what he was trying to get at is – Len. Snart. Captain Cold.

Fuck it, Mick's just calling him Len for the rest of this interview -

Yes, thank you Len, your commentary that you are “always the point” is incredibly helpful here.

Fucking drama queens.

Anyway.

That's about when it turns out (or rather, when they all discover) that Len didn’t, in fact, die – or maybe he did, and it got reversed, or something like that – and he ended up in a different universe. Fighting Nazis.

Listen, if there’s one thing that Mick’s going to take a permanent never-gonna-change-it-no-matter-what-new-evidence-appears-no-matter-what position on, it’s gonna be Nazis. Mick fucking hates Nazis.

Yes, neo-Nazis count.

Yes, they have a First Amendment right to free speech, meaning no government oppression.

Yes, Mick realizes that means he’ll have to stop punching them all the time if he gets elected President. It’s okay. He’s sure that some fine, upstanding people will take up the slack and keep on the good work for him.

Listen, if Super PACs are “sufficiently unrelated” to a presidential campaign to raise money on behalf of some asshole – and yes, Mick’s counting himself here – then the Nazi-Punching Party which endorsed Mick and which he may or may not go to regular meetings of is “sufficiently unrelated” for the purposes of government oppression of free speech. You get me?

Fine, Mick will probably stop attending meetings.

Probably.

Len can still go, though, right?

See, Lenny, you can still go. Bring a goddamn camera.

Fuck, being President is going to be no fun at all. Why is he doing this again?

Oh, right, because the World’s Worst Caricature is running for office and the Legends and Gideon have all agreed that letting that guy get elected would literally mean the end of the world. That’s it, kaput, no more history, everyone’s all back to using sticks to write in the dirt again – what weird mutated creatures are left over anyway.

Ugh.

Trust Mick, you don't want to see the things Mick has seen. It's bad.

Mick would like it known that he does not approve of things going in a political drama-slash-mutated creature sort of way. Sci-fi was always more Len’s things. Mick prefers ninjas.

Yeah, that meeting with Tokyo’s Prime Minister went awesomely, why do you ask?

Shut up, Len. There was some discussion of policy; it wasn’t all about what classic ninja movie was the best. Though the last five hours were definitely all movie marathon. Not gonna lie.

Where was he?

Right, Len. Fighting Nazis. Terrible nearly world-ending invasion of the present Earth by the Nazi forces of that Earth, including the superhero and meta equivalents, repelled only by the combined forces of basically everybody.

Len and Mick teamed up to save the day, just like old times.

Okay, old times, they teamed up to steal things. Basically the same thing.

Listen, Nazis from another dimension invaded. That trumps everything.

For anyone other than the current incumbent, anyway. Fuckhead.

Yes, that’s on the record.

What? What the fuck is “Presidential decorum”? Listen, you, unlike you, Mick’s actually met George Washington, and if you think that every three words he uttered wasn’t some variation of ‘fuck’, ‘shit’, or ‘damn’, then that’s just because you’re reading the cleaned up history version. He was a soldier. And before he was a soldier, he was a surveyor, which as far as Mick can tell means “walked out into the forest with a compass and came back out hating bears”, and if that doesn’t make a man swear, then nothing will.

No comment on whether or not Mick hooked up with him.

Just give up. You’re never going to get a comment.

So while everybody else was being scared shitless at how the Nazis from another dimension – and yeah, Mick’s perfectly aware that the usual term is “another Earth”, but fuck it, “another dimension” sounds like a crappy 1950s sci-fi “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes” and makes Len grin every time, so Mick’s sticking with it – were invading, especially when they got all the white supremacists on this Earth to join up with them, taking advantage of all those so-easy gun laws to arm up into an actual local army, the current incumbent decided to throw a temper tantrum because the attention wasn’t 100% focused on them for five fricking minutes.

Also, Mick’s pretty sure they’re actually not-so-secretly a Nazi supporter. All that talk of cooperating and seeing what they have to say and how they were “good people” – total fucking crap, obviously. That asshole was probably disappointed when Mick and Len had their Moment of Awesome sending them all back to where they came, right into the trap Len’d been setting up with the other resistance forces on that Earth.

Either way, as everyone knows, as soon as the Nazis were gone, the next thing the current incumbent decided to do was push a horrible law outlawing any metahumans – and they defined metahumans in the stupidest possible way, and all because they wanted it to cover people who actually didn’t have any powers like Len and Mick, which didn’t even make sense – and trying to make Earth-1 full on fascist.

Yeah, fascist. They put lots of fancy words and stuff – no, that’s not right, their speechwriters put fancy words and stuff around it, but that law was – is – fucking dystopia nightmare fuel right there, okay?

Listen, Mick literally has someone from 2042 going around and testifying to how awful that law makes literally everything. What more evidence do you fucking need?

So, yeah. Horrible future. World's Worst Caricature running for office, almost certain to pass it if they get in.

And that means -

Someone was gonna have to man up (woman up? non-gender up? human up? wait, is the last one specieist?) to stop it.

Now, you’d think the other party would do something about that, wouldn’t they? But noooo, they decide to shoot themselves in the foot by nominating some old geezer taking a hard line about how everything’s going to change now that everyone’s “together” – never mind the details, togetherness is what’s important, right guys? the movement's gonna fix everything! because it's a revolution! of feelings! Of all the dumbass hippie-dippie crap... – and coming up with increasingly more stupid ideas that wouldn't work. Doesn't matter, of course, Mick was all set to vote for the fucker anyway, along with everyone else, just to keep Worst Caricature outta office, but no. See, then, three fucking months before the election, the asshole gets found out to be corrupt as fuck! Except he won’t resign and let anyone else run! And his fanboys have made their way into the levers of power, so the party can’t kick him out, either! And all the goddamn ballots have already gone to the printers!

That’s how this whole thing really got started, you know. Three fucking months, and the only other person who’d been entered to run for President in all 50 states before the deadline passed is – you guessed – Heatwave for President.

Fucking hell.

At the time, the entire freaking organization was being run by the people who now make up Mick’s circle of advisors – Felicity Smoak, Oliver Queen, Barry Allen, Cisco Ramon, Caitlin Snow, and Iris West – because they’d all thought it was freaking funny or something, and everyone suddenly had to change gears real fast to try to make it into an actual thing.

Not that anyone thought it would work. You know, they just thought - might as well give it a try. Can't just roll over and give in; gotta go for the Hail Mary pass if that's all that's left to you.

No one actually thought it would work.

At least, no one thought it would work until the polls started changing. First time they polled it, Mick got, like, 5%.

Second time they polled it, he got 30%.

Now he’s somewhere near 50%.

Jesus.

If Mick wins, Mick’s taking a weekend to go sit quietly in a room and hyperventilate for, like, an hour.

Thanks for the hug, Len. Means a lot; Mick knows very well how much you hate public displays of affection. Or emotion. Or anything but drama, drama, drama.

Huh? Yeah, Len and Mick are partners. They’ve always been upfront and clear about that.

No – no – partners.

Yes, criminal partners. But also, you know, partner partners. If you get what Mick’s saying.

Oh, for fuck’s sake, they’re married. Len’s going to be the First Supervillain or whatever they call it when it’s a guy.

What do you mean, nobody…? It’s fucking legal and everything! Central City’s Hall of Records has a copy of the goddamn certificate!

…oh, okay, yeah. Fair point. Can’t even imagine the type of backlog you’d have to go through to get Central City bureaucracy to do anything, much less respond to a freaking FOIA request. They'll probably get around to responding to it sometime in the 2030s.

You mean people really didn’t know?

Huh.

Well, that’s gonna surprise a lot of people, then.

First ever non-straight resident of the White House? Don’t be ridiculous. Haven’t you met Lincoln?

Right. Not everyone time travels. Sorry, keep forgetting.

Yes, Mick’s met Lincoln.

No, Mick’s not going to comment on if he hooked up with him, either. Jesus. Stop asking.

Why hadn’t Mick mentioned meeting Lincoln before? Because it wasn’t important? It never came up!

It’s not like anyone asked for a listing of all the time eras he’s visited!

Of course the Legends never mentioned it; it wasn’t when Mick was with them. It was during his Kronos period. Listen, it’s a long story, okay? And they’re getting close to actually starting to yell out states, so maybe everyone should pay attention to that instead.

Yes, Mick is totally aware that he’s being weaselly. He’s a politician now. He’s allowed to be weaselly sometime.

What’s everyone got against weasels, anyway? Perfectly nice animals.

Mick has a pet rat, you know. If Mick wins – yes, he’s still using fucking “if”, nothing gets decided until we hit Ohio and Florida, Iris – does that make Ratigan the First Pet or something now?

Is there a First Pet position?

Wait, there is? Kickass.

Never been a rat before? So what? Mick’s got nothing against dogs, you know, but he doesn’t have a dog. He has a rat. People will just have to deal.

Heh. Not Mick’s fault you don’t know what part of this interview you should make the headline.

…thank you, Len, he’s not going to go with “Bisexual Rat-Owner Wins Presidency; Husband Approves”.

No, “President-Elect Uses ‘Fuck’ More Often In Last-Minute Interview Than Any Prior Candidate” isn’t a good choice either, Iris. Probably historically inaccurate, too; LBJ was real big on the whole swearing thing - no comment on the hook-ups! Jesus!

What? No, Ramon, no one is running a headline that goes “Time Traveler Confirms Academic Suspicions Regarding Lincoln’s Sexuality”. No one cares!

Fine, maybe the history journals care. But no one else. Not like it’s a big deal. People can sleep with whoever they want.

Oh, it’s still a big deal in some ways? That sucks. Okay, that’s going on the agenda of things to do to fix in the next four years.

Eight years?

No.

Yes, he means it! Why the hell would he run for office twice? How bad can the next option be?!

And Sara just ran into the room. Please say that you’re not here to tell everyone that some horrible thing has happened in the future that –

Actually, never mind. Please be here to tell everyone that some horrible thing has happened in the future and that you desperately need everyone here to go take care of it immediately.

No?

Damn.

Wait.

What do you mean, Mick won?

Oh fuck.

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“So, what are you planning on doing now, Mr. President-Elect?” the reporter asks, beaming like a maniac, as the giant television shows the explosive celebrations occurring immediately outside – literally explosive, since Mick had insisted on bonfires and fireworks and at least four different pyrotechnics teams. “What’s your first move?”

"What kind of question is that?" Iris laughs as Barry swings her around. “We can worry about that tomorrow! Tonight we party!”

“The world is saved!” Cisco cheers.

“I’m doomed,” Mick says, his head rolling back. “They’re never gonna let me quit.”

“Probably not,” Len, who is perched right next to him, says to him, not without sympathy. “But it’s okay. I’ll do the work for you.”

“You’re the best, boss,” Mick says, not without feeling. “Why couldn’t you have been Vice President?”

“Because they can’t be in the same building for too long,” Len explains. "Meteorite strikes."

"Oh," Mick says glumly. "Right."

Len pats Mick’s arm comfortingly. “Don’t worry. There’s a long, storied precedent of First – uh, First Spouses – running the joint for their husbands.”

“Damn right there is,” Mick says, rubbing his face. “Thank god for Woodrow Wilson, that's all I'm saying - don't you even ask," he warns the reporter.

“Besides,” Len continues, sounding quite practical. “Sara makes a great Vice President. After all, if you die, who would you want to avenge your murder if not Sara?”

Mick nods.

“Um,” the reporter says, blinking at the two of them. “That’s…not what a Vice President does?”

“Really? Are you sure?”

“…moderately sure. I’ve been reporting on political matters for a long time now.”

“If it makes you feel better, I’m pretty sure she’s gonna let Jax, Stein and Ray do most of her work,” Len offers. “Even after all that trouble we had to go to in order to get her declared alive again…”

“It…really doesn’t,” the reporter says. “But thanks for the update?”

“No problem,” Len says. “C’mon, Mick. Let’s go watch things burn.”

Mick brightens and climbs to his feet.

“Hey,” Len asks the reporter, “you’re the politico here. Do Presidential spouses get immunity from prosecution?”

The reporter frowns. “Why?”

“No stealing stuff, Snart,” Barry says.

“Oh, fine.”

“For four years.”

“Wait, what?!”

"You're a role model now!"

"No! I refuse!"

"Too late now," Iris cackles.

Mick starts laughing. “Well,” he says, looping an arm around Len’s waist and dragging him towards the flame, Len’s face still frozen in a rictus of horror. “At least I won’t be the only one suffering!”

“Look on the bright side!” the reporter shouts after them. “Politicians are basically just thieves on a much larger scale!”

[remedialaction]

So, the more I think about The Last Jedi, the more problems I have with it. I came out of the theater thinking I loved it but had a few quirk moments that really annoyed me, but as time has gone on I’ve reached this point where I simultaneously love it and hate it, and I’m just going to embrace that and both love and hate it in equal measure.

And because of this, I have a lot to say and I’m just gonna go ahead and post it. Obviously, under a read more cus I’m not gonna bother attempting to hide spoilers. This may ramble some too, but whatever. Time for Starcourse!

The first thing I have to make clear about The Last Jedi is, to me, it did not feel like a Star Wars movie. By this I mean that the way it was shot, the way it was written, the way it is placed inside the whole cinematic series just doesn’t feel like a Star Wars film. Some of this is on a meta level: it begins mere moments after the end of The Force Awakens, and that sets it apart from all the other films, which have massive gaps between them. 

The Last Jedi and The Force Awakened could be one movie, in many ways, and that’s not really a good thing, because regardless of anything else, it begins to break down the feel of what a Star Wars movie is. However, the issues that make me say this go on further. On a technical side, the scenes don’t FEEL like a Star Wars movie. There are many things to say about George Lucas but I feel the cinematography in his films was, at the least, distinct. And that distinctness left a clear impression.

But The Last Jedi doesn’t really have that. It’s shot radically different than other films in the series, I felt like. And so that contributes to the feel that it’s a movie using Star Wars props and settings and characters, but yet not feeling like a Star Wars Movie, if you catch my meaning.

Another issue is music. In prior Star Wars films, the music is as much a part of the scenes as any other element, and it stands out in my head. I can hear the music when imagining the scenes, the music is distinctive because of how the scenes are shot and scored. I don’t remember any of the music from The Last Jedi, and while I’m sure it’s actually fantastic it just... didn’t capture me the same way. I’m not sure why yet, and it’ll take multiple viewings to really grasp it probably.

Moving on, the way it’s written also doesn’t feel Star Wars. I mean this in two ways: it’s pacing is all over the place, it’s dialogue feels out of place, and the humor, while occasionally actually good, doesn’t feel like Star Wars humor. I want to be clear that for some of these, much like the above comments, these are not necessarily reasons why it’s a bad movie, but perhaps why it may be a bad Star Wars movie. Other cases, though, absolutely mark it out as just bad writing regardless, but I’ll touch on that in each case.

Firstly, the humor. There is a lot of attempted humor in this film, some which works better than others. I’ll admit, while I found the opening bit with Poe and Hux amusing, it felt utterly out of place. It’s basically an extended version of the scene from The Force Awakens, which itself felt out of place, particularly given the context. In that, we literally just saw a mass slaughter of a village and you’re now doing a comedy bit. Not only that, Star Wars doesn’t really do comedy bits. The humor in Star Wars is delivered in different ways, but the timing is also key. This is akin to Padme cracking wise after Anakin talk’s about how he killed all the Tusken Raiders.

In The Last Jedi, there is less of a poor timing, but the entire bit robs the film of momentum, and also serves to render Hux into a buffoonish character (which I’ll touch on later,) and it just doesn’t feel like Star Wars. It’s funny, but out of place. In a lot of ways, I include Luke’s flick of the saber (though I think that also works well enough) but even more so his dusting his shoulder off. The former at least serves well as a shocking sort of moment. The latter serves to break the drama and scale of it all. Included in this, though, are Poe’s ‘permission to jump in an X-Wing and blow stuff up’ line, which again, just feels... out of place given the situation. It robs the scene of seriousness.

Which is sort of the major issue; I don’t feel like The Last Jedi takes itself seriously. Or, at least, it doesn’t do so consistently. Lines like that, or then lines like Rey when Kylo shows up in the mind link shirtless, and so on just serve to make it feel... less serious. Some might say it grounds things, but that’s the big issue: Star Wars isn’t grounded. It’s a Space Opera, it’s epic fantasy in space, and The Last Jedi doesn’t feel epic. Indeed, the whole film seems... small.

This is as much an issue with The Force Awakens, though, in that it really fails to establish the sort of scope of the First Order, and the Resistance really comes off as minor as well. It continues in TLJ though in that it really just never feels like things are ‘a big deal.’ We’re told of things but it’s very mixed on actually showing, I guess? Or the showing just... falls flat.

Linked to the issue of it taking place right after The Force Awakens, the whole film takes place in, arguably, the course of, what, a day? A few days? It’s hard to tell. At first, I thought it was only literally about a day because they literally give hour counts on their fuel but Rey is with Luke for what seems like a few days. Yet the pacing is such that thing seem both too slow and too fast. There is no real sense of time in a lot of the scenes, and that really causes issues with the pacing. And also with things like Rose and Finn, because we’re talking about people who just met at most a few days ago, on less then stellar circumstances, and then things progress so very quickly, and it seems... out of place.

And then we get things like the entire Casino subplot, which irks me on many levels. First, the intentional aping of the Cantina introduction with a reworking of the ‘scum and villainy’ line, the panning around of all these fantastic and weird aliens and all, and whatnot. Sort of clever, but it just gets hamfisted when Rose goes on to imply that the only way to get this rich is arms sales. I damn near groaned out loud at that moment, because this is a movie by Disney telling me the only way to get rich is arms sales. Eat my ass, Disney! You mean to tell me there are no Space Googles or Space Comcasts or Space Disneys? It doesn’t even make sense!

Particularly not when we just had a bunch of movies about the Trade Federation and the Banking groups and other members of the Confederacy that were rich, and thus had a lot of arms to defend their financial interests, rather than being rich BECAUSE of their arms. And then we have the whole stampede through the city, and how great it was to stick it to them... yet are you trying to imply EVERYONE in the city, all the stuff you broke only belonged to rich arms dealers who are assholes to kids and kick puppies or something? I get that Finn is new to this, impressionable, and so on, but he went from being amazed and loving it to literally being glad they smashed stuff up.

Also, the alien dude with the southern accent was terrible. Should have let it be an alien language and just let us UNDERSTAND through VISUAL STORYTELLING. You know, like we got with the Kubaz who ratted out Luke and Han and them in A New Hope. Indeed, not doing this makes the whole universe feel small. Aliens just aren’t used right.

And honestly, I’m just going go through a long string of ‘why’ questions that really irked me, in no particular order or organization. These aren’t all equal complaints, but they’re just things that got to me...

Why are the bombers literal bombers, when we had Y-Wings and B-Wings in the other movies that clearly were strike craft with heavy payloads for the sort of thing they were doing. Why would you ever have a literal ‘bomber’ in space, given there is no gravity for the bombs? That whole sequence also makes the Resistance feel very very small, because it doesn’t feel like a lot of ships get blown up but apparently that’s their WHOLE bomber wing?

On that subject too, Poe gets hemmed up for disregarding orders and taking out the dreadnought, abet at heavy losses, to the point that he gets demoted and the Vice Admiral (who, by the by, I really hate the design of. Leia looks at least paramilitary in outfit, but she is just straight up wearing a dress and it just feels... out of place) treats him pretty badly despite later saying she actually understood and likes him, but later, when they get caught due to their hyperspace tracking stuff, it becomes utterly apparent that it was absolutely a good thing that Poe did what he did cus had he not, the Dreadnought could have just blasted them from space. Instead, they manage to outpace them because Poe’s desperate gambit took out the ship that could have blasted them due to its superweapon guns.

On that subject, how the hell does ‘out of range’ in a vacuum work? Like, I guess the argument is the energy dissipates but how the hell can they maintain that speed that always keeps them at range yet never outpaces them? And why doesn’t the supermassive Snoke battleship have those same guns? (Also the way these ships are introduced is meh, not like how they did the like Super Star Destroyer in the original trilogy, but that gets back to how the movie is shot and not feeling right.) 

And how the hell does on person manage to fly that massive Mon Cal ship, anyway? How come the massive damage done by it ramming them going into hyperspace is played up yet apparently the ships are still mostly functional, at least enough to get folks down to the planet and all? That felt very odd...

And on that subject, the planet! The whole plan seems so very odd. How the hell did they manage to fly so far on sublight speed to get in range of this planet that just so HAPPENED to be an old rebel base (which only has one way in an out, for some reason,) and somehow no one saw these planets? Or, you know, the SUN it must be orbiting? And why not TELL people this plan, like what was the purpose of KEEPING IT SECRET? Particularly not when you have a hotheaded and brash guy who already is on notice for disobeying orders he thought was wrong, and you think your little stern talking to was gonna shut him down? Really?

And the irony is, Poe got hemmed up for his scheme to take out the dreadnought, which ended up being not merely good but necessary. But no one really talks about how his scheme to shut off the tracker, which led to the First Order becoming aware of the transports because the slicer (cus he’s a slicer, not a codebreaker, again, use the damn Star Wars-y terms, film!) ratted them out, and that leads to, what, like 90% of the Resistance dying? For that matter, how big IS the resistance, cus you seem to have enough folks to fill the trench yet apparently everyone fits on the Millennium Falcon in the end?

And why the hell is Finn piloting one of those speeders anyway? He’s not a pilot, we’ve literally been shown he was figuring out how to operate the guns on the TIE Fighter and Falcon but he explicitly NEEDED a pilot, that’s why he rescued Poe, after all, and that’s why Rey piloted their escape. If anything, he should be with the ground forces cus that’s his expertise. And speaking of expertise, how is it that this one guy who was a janitor apparently was a janitor for Starkiller base, and thus knows his way around that in a complex and technical way, and ALSO knows his way around Snoke’s superbattleship, in a complex and technical way? That seems... weird.

Like, I liked when Rey could navigate Starkiller base cus she was familiar with Imperial tech and designs from crawling around in them her whole life. Finn being that knowledgeable seems... sort of weird. 

On the earlier thing, why is Hux portrayed in an almost buffoonish way? It robs him of any menace. His other officers seem more competent, and he just seems... very very NOT competent, and it sort of messes things up. It robs some menace from the First Order when he’s the on in charge.

Why does everyone seem to get to where they’re going instantly? Travel time seems simultaneously a plot point and non-existent.

Why introduce Snoke as this strange character if you do basically almost nothing with him? Like, the Emperor at least had build up and then sort of mattered. And yeah, they could reveal more in the third film but that’s... really not helpful for THIS film feeling odd. And then the biggie: Rey and Kylo. And I don’t mean any sort of romantic overtones cus I actually like how they handled that, with Rey conclusively saying fuck no to Kylo and thus squashing that as a thing (though I know some folks refuse to see it that way,) 

What I mean is that Kylo’s ‘let the past die, kill it, and start over’ ideology is basically the exact same thing that Yoda is telling and what is happening with the Resistance and Jedi. Which, honestly, is itself fairly stupid and I object to this idea that somehow she already knows any of the good things in ‘old religious texts’ and whatnot, because of broader implications, but if you’re gonna have that message then why show that actually they saved the books and their on board the falcon at the end.

Honestly, there is probably more that I’m missing but this is the general thrust of things. I want to be clear, though, I actually liked a lot of it. Finn is still the best character, even if put in situations I don’t actually totally agree with. The humor was legitimately funny, and sometimes actually fit well. BB8′s constantly trying to pluck the ‘leaks’ and then using their head to do it felt both funny and very Star Wars-y; I can see R2 doing something like that. (though, as a note, that R2, C3P0, and Chewbacca all get basically no real place again sort of stands out. R2 and C3P0 being major aspects of the Star Wars franchise is sort of a big deal. They’re supposed to be there, and they’re really not in this.) 

But the fight sequences are pretty damn good, with a few minor hiccups, and like I really enjoyed the film while watching it. I’ll certainly watch it again, but there is so much that I feel also was just in JUST to tweak with people and Rian trying to play gotcha games, and it, at the core, just didn’t feel like a Star Wars movie. It’s a movie using Star Wars trappings in ostensibly the Star Wars universe, but it just...

Didn’t feel like Star Wars.

[oldkindandtheverylastofyourkind]

I am so overwhelmed by how many of my Game of Thrones ships are close to becoming canon. Let’s analyze each of them because I had a shit day at work (not helped whenever I thought of Jon calling D@ny “my queen”) and I need to feel good about something. 

Jonsa

The best ships are not ones you choose, but the ones that choose you. And Jonsa chose the hell out of me. I didn’t want to ship it. But by the Battle of the Bastards, I could no longer lie to myself. Everyone told me it was never going to happen. And in the beginning, I believed them. I started out my Jonsa journey thinking that, in all likelihood, this ship would never see the light of canon. I made my peace with that. I was prepared to enjoy shipping Jonsa as much as I could, for as long as I could, until Jonerys (ugh) ultimately happened. But I don’t feel that way anymore. I’m too far gone. I have read too many metas, both pro Jonsa and anti Jonerys. Pro Sansa and anti Daenerys. I now legitimately believe that Jonsa will be endgame with pages worth of evidence to back up this belief. Most of it is taken from the amazing metas that are written about Jonsa every single day. I won’t re-hash all of it out here because if you like Jonsa, you’ve read it all already. And if you don’t like Jonsa, you don’t care anyway.

Let me just say this- Jonsa will happen in season 8. The fact that Jon and D@ny are so close atm, only further convinces me of this. With an entire season left, there is plenty of time for Jon and D@ny to fall out, especially since they still don’t really know each other. Let’s think about the person that Jon Snow cares about the most (apart from his family). The person he trusts more than anyone, the one he’s been friends with the longest, the one he took care of and who took care of him in return. In short, the person who Jon is most loyal to. Samwell Tarly. And whose family was it that D@ny bathed in dragon fire two episodes ago? Sam’s? Wow, how utterly coincidental that they could have introduced anyone to be sacrificed to D@ny’s wrath, but they chose the family of Jon’s best friend. Suspicious. Sam and Jon WILL be having words about this next season. And don’t even get me started on how hard Sansa has been working to keep the North intact until Jon returns. By bending the knee, Jon has alienated the most important people in his life. This will cause a great strain on Jon’s personal and political life in season 8 that will get him to see the error of his ways where the Dragon Queen is concerned.

I would also like to point out that last night Jorah mentioned Jon’s future children. The scene then immediately switched to Winterfell and Sansa. It would’ve been easy to just transition into D@ny and Tyrion’s conversation about Jon being a hero. Particularly since they also discussed D@ny’s succession. If they had done that, I might have been worried. But they chose to change direction AND make it clear that D@ny cannot give Jon any children. By their directing choices this episode, the show has told me exactly who they plan to be the mother of Jon’s children.  

Rhaegar and Lyanna

Generally speaking, season five sucked ass. It had two saving graces:

Hardhome- need I say more?

R+L=J.

Since season 5 was my first season in the fandom, it was when I first became aware of R+L=J. I fell head over heels in love with this theory that to me was basically canon since the first time I heard it. I became obsessed with the idea of Lyanna and Rhaegar being in love and running away together. I’m a sucker for believing things are a certain way only to have everything you think you know get turned on its head. I love stories where the villains turn out to be heroes and vice versa, like Wicked and Once Upon a Time.  Hearing from Robert about how terrible Rhaegar was, only to learn from Ser Barristan how Rhaegar would play music on the streets of Flea’s Bottom and give the money to orphanages or other minstrels is like crack to me.

However, R+L=J technically only states that Lyanna and Rhaegar are Jon’s parents. Whether or not you think Rhaegar raped her, or they were genuinely in love is up to you. There is evidence and points to be made on both sides. Rhaegar Targaryen is a fascinating character because while his actions are crucial for the plot, we know very little about who he was as a person. Was he the kind of person that would kidnap and rape a young girl? Not according to Barristan Selmy, who probably knew him best. But would Barristan be biased after serving the Targaryens for so many years? It’s a fun debate and one that I have certainly enjoyed engaging in over the last few years. In a way, I’ll miss it. In my heart, I always chose to believe that Lyanna and Rhaegar were in love, but there has never been concrete evidence to support this.

Until now. According to the leaks, we are going to have the honor of seeing Lyanna and Rhaegar’s wedding on our screens and we will finally get an answer to the question as old as time: Were the Dragon Prince and the She-Wolf of Winterfell in love? Will their wedding resemble Sansa’s or Robb’s? Will Lyanna be forced into marriage or will she be there of her own volition? I desperately hope it’s the latter, but we’ll have to wait until Sunday to know for sure. But after years of asking myself these questions, to have only six more days until I will get a definitive answer is thrilling and I’m shaking just thinking about it. 

Jaime and Brienne

It’s the greatest road trip of all-time! It’s the gender-flipped Beauty and the Beast! It’s Jaime and Brienne! I’ve loved them since season three, but held little hope of it actually happening with Jaime being so in love with his sister (ugh). I had high hopes for Jaime at the end of season six with that look he was giving Mad Queen Cersei. So far, he has done nothing but disappoint me. However, if there’s anyone who can make him see the error of his ways, it ain’t Olenna. It’s Brienne. The woman who he gave his hear- I mean his sword to. The one who singlehandedly turned him into a character I actually cared about. The one who makes him go back to the best version of himself. The one who tells it to him straight, while giving him heart-eyes. I feel like, if only Brienne could come to King’s Landing and tell Jaime exactly what he’s doing wrong and how she expects so much more from him, then he might actually permanently switch sides. But that’s not gonna happen. OH WAIT

Gendarya

Talk about a ship that’s been in hibernation. I was starting to think Gendry would never stop rowing! Gendry boat memes aside, I love the way they’re setting up Gendry’s future in this show now that he’s back. Immediately aligning himself with Jon Snow in an honest way, despite the risks and knowing it’s the opposite of what Dadvos told him to do. Kind of like Gendry wants something from Jon in the future so he knows he has to kiss his ass now. Like, oh I don’t know, marry the sister that Jon isn’t in love with. At first, I was very puzzled on why Gendry didn’t mention Arya when he first met Jon. Surely it would be a way to get Jon to trust him. But now I think it makes more sense for Gendry to prove himself to Jon first before playing the Arya card. He has to establish a rapport and a- dare I say it?- bromance. This will make Jon’s answer when Gendry asks for Arya’s hand a done deal. I thought it was so cute last night when Gendry protested against going back to Eastwatch by telling Jon “I won’t leave you.” They’re spending time building Jon and Gendry’s relationship, along with the work they’re also doing with the relationship between their ladies (whether or not this is positive or negative relationship work is for another post). Regardless, the fact that Jonsa is endgame and Gendarya is more than possible makes me very excited for the future of Wintefell. 

-----

I, by no means, expect all of these relationships to unfold the way I want them to. I would count my blessings if two of these ships become canon. This is Game of Thrones after all. But the fact that all four of these ships are so close to potential canonicity AT THE SAME TIME gives me more hope for the future of this show than I have felt in a very, very long time.

[voltrongenminibang]

Frequently Asked Questions - 2017 edition, first run

About This Event

What is gen? Gen fics are, for the purposes of this Bang, stories in which there are no romantic pairings.  Not in the background, not in the focus: there are no non-canonical ships.  There is leeway allowed for canon relationships (ie Sam and Colleen Holt being married in the fic doesn’t prevent it from being gen), but there are no added relationships at all.  The focus instead is on platonic relationships, be that friendship, team, familial or otherwise.  

For the olds out there: No Romance On Screen. 

Are platonic ships allowed? Yes, as long as they’re strictly platonic and don’t become shippy. We understand that sometimes the story can change while you’re writing it; if in the process of the draft your pairing becomes shippy, you will not be allowed to use the story for your Mini Bang. Either you will need to drop out or you’ll need to write something else.

How does a Big Bang work? For a standard Big Bang like this one: fic first, then art. After a few weeks of work, the authors will submit a summary and excerpt of their fics to begin the Claims process. Artists pick their top favorites from this list and submit them to the mods. One of those choices is assigned to the artists, who then create content for that fic. [In a reverse Bang, then the artists would submit what they’re going to draw and the authors write with that in mind.]

Gen Mini-Bang Details + Participation Requirements

How many people can participate? 25 authors and 25 artists. upped to 40 each, after enthusiastic response!

What’s the timeline? The timeline can be found on the sidebar, and also here.

Who’s running this shindig? @bosstoaster, @butteredonions and @velkynkarma.

Minimum word count? 5,000 words is the minimum.

Can we have co-authors? You can have a co-author, but you will be responsible for working together and making sure your fic reaches completion.  In fairness to the limited number of slots, once you’ve signed up you will not be allowed to split up the pair: one or both of you will have to drop out.  Also, to make it fair, if you have two authors you will be responsible for a 10,000 word story (essentially 5k each).

Maximum word count? None!  Go wild.  Just remember that you have to be able to finish it in the scheduled time.

What are the requirements for artists? Artists will be asked to produce 1 piece of artwork for the fic they’re partnered with after claims. We’ll be asking for progress updates/sketches during the check-ins. The final piece should be completed and ready for turn-in by the July 16th final deadline.

There aren’t any restrictions on what media you use. Traditional and digital are both accepted, and if you have other ideas besides a splash page or comic, we’re open to that too! All we ask is that it’s a fully completed piece, no sketches or WIPs.

Sign-Ups

Can I sign up to both write and create art? Due to limited space, you can only be part of the initial sign-up for one or the other, unless we have trouble filling up (which is somewhat unlikely, but more possible for the artist side).  However, you can be on the wait-list for either side, even if you’re signed up for the other.  So if you’d prefer to be an artist, we advise you wait until the 25 slots are full and sign-up as a pitch hitter instead, and then sign-up as an artist in the first wave (or vice versa)

Can I sign up now and drop out later? Technically we can’t stop you, but please consider the limited number of spaces available for this mini-bang. If you sign up now without the intent of following through, you may be taking that slot away from someone else who wants to participate just as badly. Please check out the timeline and evaluate your own schedule before committing.

I already signed up through the poll Bosstoaster did! That was an interest poll, not sign-ups themselves. If you filled out this form: 1) thank you!, and 2) you’ll still need to actually sign-up when sign-ups are live.

Is it first-come first serve or an application? Slots will fill on a first-come, first-serve basis. Authors: Mark your calendars March 20th! 

How do I sign up, officially? Sign-ups are closed! All slots are currently full and we are running on a waitlist.

How much information will i need for sign-ups? Your tumblr handle (or other social media), as well as an active email address.

When exactly will sign-ups open? Author sign-ups opened at exactly 12:00am, March 20th, EST. Sign-ups remained open for one week. Artist sign-ups opened at exactly 12:00am, March 27th, EST. Sign-ups remained open for one week.

What if I miss the window? Mark your calendars!  If you miss it, you’ll have to wait for another time.

All the slots are full! Yes, they are! You can sign up on either waitlist in case of drop-outs. Author Waitlist Artist Waitlist

Are you going to add more slots? The current cap remains 25 authors and 25 artists. Please see this post for more information. ETA: Due to exceptional and enthusiastic interest, we have upped the cap to 40 authors and 40 artists, for a total of 80 participants.

Check-Ins and Claims

What are check-ins? Check-ins are when we look into the progress of authors and artists to make sure everything is coming along on schedule.  You will be responsible for showing how you’re progressed in your work at these times, usually by sending us your most current rough draft. More specific requirements may be posted as we draw closer to those dates.

The first check-in comes pretty quick! What do I need to have ready? Check-in 1 will be to make sure you still want to participate and that you’re working on your claims.  It’s there so if we have any early drop-outs, we catch them earlier so that we can give our back-ups time to make their summary before claims, rather than demanding one on the day of.

What are claims? Claims are named that because it’s when the artists decide which story they want to write for. Authors submit details to us such as a summary, rating, and an excerpt, along with the tags they’d plan on using for AO3. We’ll number those submissions and post them anonymously for artists to peruse; artists in turn give us a list of which of those submissions they want to draw. We then assign them and pair everyone up.

Can I be late to claims? No.  If you are late to claims you will be dropped and replaced. No exceptions.

What happens if I miss a check-in? Shiro never comes back from the astral plane.  

Content Queries

My work is ‘technically’ gen? but it might be kind of shippy if people want to read it that way. Ultimately, you know your content best. We recommend that if there’s any doubt if your content is gen you do not use it for this Bang. 

Can I have NSFW content? All NSFW content is acceptable (except if it involves a ship), but please remember to tag your fics appropriately for any NSFW content.

Are AUs allowed? Allowed, but please consider it may alienate artists if your niche is too specific (i.e. a Fantasy AU is one thing, a Dresden Files AU is another).

Can I continue a WIP? No. All material created for this mini-bang must be new material; the exception is a sequel to a previously-completed story. No posting new chapters of a WIP. The only exception is a WIP you’ve begun working on, but have not yet published anywhere yet.

Are sequels allowed? This is fine, as long as you are writing a sequel for a previously-completed story.  You cannot continue posting a currently half-published WIP.

Can I use an idea I’ve already loosely posted about on my blog? (i.e. I’ve talked about a basic plot, headcanon, meta, etc.) Yes. Previously posted ideas, snippets or hints are perfectly fine. If you’re considering making it your Bang Fic, please hold off on posting further details about your plot so that claims are as anonymous as possible. However, as long as the fic itself is not posted anywhere prior to claims, you’re good to go. 

Posting 

What are the multi-chapter posting rules? The entirety of your fic must be posted on your assigned day. If you have multiple chapters, all chapters must be posted on the same day. This is in fairness to everyone on the posting schedule.  It’s not fair if some people get a chapter posted every day for weeks while others get only the one post. If your fic exceeds 30k, please message us and we can consider exceptions on a case-by-case basis.

Can I post my work on my account? Do not post your work anywhere before your assigned posting date. You can post little snippets or previews, but the work as a whole should be a surprise until the posting date. 

The only exception is if you’ve already loosely posted about the idea on your blog prior to Sunday, March 12th, 2017. Loose posts include ideas such as a basic plot, snippets, meta, headcanons, etc., that you’re now planning to expand into your Mini-Bang fic. If this is the case please hold off on posting further details about your plot through claims so that the process is as anonymous as possible. 

Where will we post our fics for Posting Day? All fics will also be posted to your own AO3 or Tumblr.  After that, send a link to us and we’ll post it. More information will be provided as we draw closer to the deadline.

Will I need the story to be totally completed by the deadline? All fic and art must be completed by the final deadline of Sunday, July 16th.  Absolutely.  Period.  

Can fics be edited between the Final Deadline of July 16th and posting on August 1st? Yes. We just require that the story be finished.  If you need a final read-over for editing, we’d much rather you do that than leave in mistakes because you think you’re not supposed to touch it.  We absolutely encourage you use those extra couple of weeks of organization to polish. How do I post my artist’s images to my fic on AO3? Check out our tutorial post on this here.

Additional/Misc.

I have a question not covered on this post! Please swing by our askbox. Thanks!

[fire-fira]

If You Think My Truth Is A Lie, You Can Get Bent

This wonderful fic was born from a request I couldn’t turn down for a fic with Bart being trans. It took me a few days, but I’m proud of the result and I hope this hits the spot for the anon who requested this fic. I got you fam, and your gender is valid; anybody tries to invalidate anyone for being trans or non-binary and I’ll go full-on NB-battle-ax on them.

I hope everyone enjoys this fic and has as much fun with it as I had writing it. n.n

Oh yeah, and a couple minor warnings for mentioned transphobia and Bart’s justified swearing.

EDIT: Credit for the ‘bug fucker’ insult goes to @disregardcanon. Thanks a ton for thinking it up! I just had to use it. n.n

If You Think My Truth Is A Lie, You Can Get Bent (Ao3 version)

“Kid Flash. B-2-3.”

Before the computer had even finished announcing his arrival Bart was half-way across the zeta-tube chamber and on his way to storm through the passage between the living room area and kitchen of their current base and down the hall straight into his room. He was going far more slowly than he would have normally, closer to the rapid furious stalking of non-speedsters, but it was more out of an effort to not throw everything into disarray in his wake than out of any actual restraint. As soon as he was in his room (and damned if he wasn’t frustrated about not being able to slam the door) he snatched his pillow from his bed, covered his face with it, and screamed.

There were a lot of things that frustrated him about the past… this time… whatever, but for the most part he was of the opinion that it (justifiably) was better than his original time. However, one thing he had run into on a routine basis that never failed to make him want to tear his hair out was the complete and utter bullshit he got over being trans. In his original time it hadn’t even been that big a deal! ‘Oh, you’re a guy? Okay. No problem. Just try to avoid Reach attention. None of this “you don’t know what you’re getting into” or “it’s just a phase” or “you’re just confused” bullcrap!’ He threw the pillow across the room with another frustrated scream as he yelled, “That egotistical bug-fucker!”

Bart hadn’t been this pissed off in a long time; in fact, the last time he’d been this upset was after the Reach had been booted off of Earth and he’d realized that his supply of testosterone was running out. It had been hard enough to get his supply in his original time— especially considering the fact that he required much more than the average person thanks to his heightened metabolism. It had been a miracle that the other members of the resistance had felt that preventing him from developing in a way that felt wrong to him had been enough of a priority that they’d taken the risk to get and continuously create his supply in first place. When he’d realized that his supply had been about to run out (though he’d been trying to stretch how long it would last) and that he had been close to facing the onset of a female puberty, he’d flown into a panic. (And yeah, he knew that technically his body was a male body by virtue of the fact that he was a guy, but it didn’t change the fact that the idea of ever going through a period made him feel like he wanted to claw his way out of his own skin.) That brief period of half-doses had already had its effect and he was fortunate that he was still mostly flat-chested— certainly enough so that almost no one ever noticed that he wasn’t entirely flat-chested— but whether the small size was due to the fact that he’d still had half-doses of testosterone or because he was a speedster he wasn’t entirely sure. Honestly he didn’t really care.

Outing himself to the others had been weird (certainly a hell of a lot more awkward than he’d expected) but for the most part they’d gotten past it and just rolled with it. The League doctors had been more than willing to re-establish his supply and be his primary doctors on that count; it was far easier for them to give him the amount he needed outside of any official medical framework than for him to have to contend with insurance, counseling (which why it was needed made no damned sense to him), and likely not being able to afford as much as he needed. He didn’t even want to think about the run-around he probably would have had to deal with thanks to being meta and all the special medical requirements that entailed.

But now Bart had run into a situation the League doctors couldn’t help him with (they had expressed concerns that they weren’t equipped or knowledgeable enough to do what he wanted correctly), so with Barry and Iris’s help— and the promise of funding from Bruce to help cover it all— Bart had to go through official means. He wanted bottom surgery, and as far as he was concerned the sooner he could get it done, the better. He was 17 (going on 18), he knew exactly who he was and what he wanted, and damn it all he wanted to be completely comfortable with Jaime and Khaji Da! Bart was getting sick and tired of accidental moments of contact that made him flinch on reflex, though Jaime and Khaji Da both were absolutely fantastic about avoiding areas he didn’t like having touched. Honestly there were times where he just wanted to not care, where he just wanted to jump them and screw them senseless (or be screwed senseless by them as the case might be). He wanted to be able to curl up with them, make out with them, and be able to have them practically climbing the walls without having to stop and think about the ways his own body felt wrong to him. He wanted to be able feel like his body was right and that he could press close to Jaime and Khaji Da without constantly being reminded of what he physically lacked or had that he didn’t want. He just fucking wanted to be him without anyone telling him that he was something he wasn’t just because his body didn’t match up with their stupid understanding of what it ‘should be’ for him to be a ‘real man.’ And okay, yeah, he did want the ‘right’ anatomy for the sake of feeling like himself and being able to make love to his partners in a way that felt right. He had his priorities! ‘And hot alien-bug-sex without feeling dysphoric as hell is one of them,’ he thought bitterly.

But that doctor… that stupid bug-fucking, patronizing, piece-of-shit doctor had the gall to think that Bart was ‘confused.’ Bart picked up his alarm clock and threw it across the room, causing it to smash into pieces against the wall.

He’d known that going through official means was going to be more obnoxious and take longer than he’d prefer, but he had thought he’d been prepared for it. He had thought that he was more than ready to jump through any stupid hoops he needed to in order to get what he needed done. He hadn’t been prepared for how unbelievably condescending or transphobic some people could be. The idea that someone would ever look him in the eye and say the words, “What you’re asking for is irreversible and you’re still fairly young. It’s not the sort of choice you should make on a whim. And what if you decide you want to have children when you’re older?” had never even crossed his mind. The idea that anyone would ever suggest or dare to presume that he would ever want to be pregnant had been so far off his radar that he’d been struck completely speechless. As if that hadn’t been enough, the piece-of-shit doctor had misinterpreted his silence and then had dared to pat his knee and say, “You’re a beautiful young lady. I’m sure if you take the time to sort through some things you’ll understand that you shouldn’t have to feel like you need to do this to yourself.”

A lamp sailed across the room this time and collided with his mirror, which shattered on impact. Bart couldn’t remember precisely what he’d said to the doctor in his somewhat extensive tirade, but he knew there had been a rather blatant “Fuck you!” in there somewhere along with “egotistical Reach-fucking piece of shit” and a few other choice invectives before he’d stormed out. Bart was about ready to throw something else (although what, he had no idea) when he heard a quiet knock on the door.

“Bart?” Jaime called, “Hermoso, are you okay?”

Bart sagged. On one hand he didn’t want Jaime or Khaji Da seeing the fact that he’d been in the middle of destroying his room, but on the other hand he wanted to see them. One thing he absolutely adored about both of them was that neither of them had ever doubted that he knew himself; they had never seen him as anything but the guy he was, and even when he came out to them they had just accepted it and hadn’t let it impact how they saw him in the slightest. “Door’s not locked,” he finally mumbled as he flopped onto his bed.

Jaime cautiously tapped the controls to open the door and froze for a moment when he saw the wreck on one side of Bart’s room. He was in one of his usual hoodies and jeans, so clearly he’d been on base for a while rather than out running around preventing disasters— though considering the state of Bart’s room, he might as well have been walking into one. He stepped into the room and tapped the controls to close the door before making his way over to sit next to Bart. Side-eyeing the broken mirror, he said, “Was it the appointment?”

Bart gave an aggravated sigh as he raked a hand through his hair and said, “Yeah.”

“That bad?”

“That bad,” the speedster agreed.

They were silent for a moment or two as Jaime scooted closer and slid an arm around Bart’s shoulders. Finally Jaime asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”

Bart snorted, but let his head fall to Jaime’s shoulder. “Are you sure the two of you want to listen to my ranting?”

There was a subtle shift in physical tension, a clear indicator that Khaji Da had switched control with Jaime, and then Khaji Da said with that beautiful voice of his, full of calm poise, “We are both willing to listen to everything you have to say. If we were not used to listening to your rants by now, I doubt we would be so involved.”

Bart glanced up to meet Khaji Da’s warm golden gaze and couldn’t help the slight smile that was trying to creep onto his face. “You’re being a tease,” he playfully accused.

“Negative. I am being honest,” Khaji Da said with a smirk in a blatant tease.

“You’re both sure you want to listen to my whining?”

One of their golden eyes faded back to Jaime’s brown before the two of them deliberately said in their odd dual-voice, “We would never call that whining nuestro corazón. We love you. If it helps to get it out, we want to listen.”

“…I hope you two realize how unbelievably hot it is when you do that.” Bart could never get enough of hearing those two separate voices with their separate accents at once. It was the sort of thing that drove him to distraction with how incredibly sexy he thought it was.

They rolled their eyes in fond exasperation and said, “You’re dodging.”

Bart made a face, but didn’t disagree. “I hate his face.”

They blinked and then Jaime asked in a somewhat confused tone, “Who?”

“The doctor I had to deal with. Doctor ‘Rothram’— more like Doctor ‘Reach-fucking-piece-of-shit’,” Bart said, dropping into a sneer as he said the doctor’s name.

Jaime’s eyebrows shot up. “Do I even want to know what he said?”

It was like the flood-gates opened; Bart’s anger boiled over at recalling the encounter and all of it just came pouring out. “The stupid bastard wouldn’t refer to me by name as soon as he found out I was trans and what I wanted, while I was explaining myself he was giving me this condescending ‘oh you poor thing’ look the entire fucking time, and then when I stopped talking he did this whole damned roundabout reasoning bullshit to try to ‘talk me down’ from doing something ‘irreversible’ because that crusty over-glorified garbage-pile of a doctor thought that I’m motivated by ‘self-hate’ and that all I ‘needed’ was some therapy so that I would ‘stop hating myself’ and ‘accept’ that there’s ‘nothing wrong with being a girl’ and that if I just thought things through that I’d ‘realize’ that I’m a ‘beautiful young lady’ and I’d eventually ‘find a man who would make me happy’ and I just— I want to fucking wreck his FACE!” If Jaime and Khaji Da hadn’t been there Bart would have gone right back to throwing things. As it was, he had bounced to his feet and angrily paced back and forth while he was ranting. “I mean, I’ve dealt with a lot of shit— a lot of shit— but that asshole… If I was ever going to turn into a fucking supervillain it’d be his fault! Him and his condescending transphobic bullshit would be at fault for making me snap and turn into some sort of maniac hell-bent on killing off every last transphobic pile of Reach-sucking garbage! And I’d be laughing about it! LAUGHING!”

Jaime and Khaji Da watched him pace back and forth, just listening until he finally came to a stop with an aggravated huff. After a few moments of silence (broken only by Bart’s agitated breathing), Khaji Da shifted more solidly into control and arched an eyebrow. “Bart Allen,” he said in an even tone.

Bart’s eyes darted to them. “Yeah?”

A faint smirk tugged at Khaji Da’s lips before he calmly said, “Recommendation: allow me to resolve the situation.”

Ohhhh Bart had a good feeling about this, but he had to be sure. With a smile threatening to creep onto his face he asked, “What do you have in mind?”

Khaji Da’s smirk turned downright wicked. “Recommended tactic: annihilation. Drawn out. With fire.”

Jaime snapped into control with a mildly horrified look and protested, “We are not going to kill that doctor!”

Just as quickly Khaji Da slipped forward again and amended, “Maiming then. He does not need his legs to live.”

Bart couldn’t help it, he immediately started laughing. He was almost crying with laughter as he dropped to sit on the bed next to them again and said, “Oh my god I love you both.”

“We are not assaulting that doctor, no matter how satisfying it would be,” Jaime insisted with fond exasperation.

“Not even a little?” Bart snickered.

“Mis corazones, I love you both, but I’d rather not end up in jail needlessly. Okay?”

“…Burning in effigy then,” Khaji Da suggested a moment later, provoking another fit of laughter from Bart.

“Oh my god! Khaji Da! You’re just-” Bart couldn’t keep a straight face.

Jaime sighed, a long-suffering sound that did nothing to hide his affection for both of them. “Okay, fine. We can do that— but only if it’s out in the desert or somewhere where we won’t have to worry about things catching fire!”

Bart leaned up to press a quick kiss to Jaime’s lips before he grinned. “I love you, and thank you for putting up with us. Though… Can we use voodoo? Do you think Zatanna would help?”

“That is promising…,” Khaji Da said thoughtfully.

A moment later Jaime facepalmed. “We are not doing that. If I had a week I couldn’t explain all the reasons that would be a bad idea.”

Bart gave a mock-pout and asked, “No super-villain-ing? Not even a little?”

Jaime sighed and let his hand drop. “As much as the two of you would have fun with it, we really shouldn’t.” He paused for a second, his eyes dropping away from Bart’s as Khaji Da silently conferred with him, and then rolled his eyes to cover for the fact that he obviously was tempted to laugh. “Okay, maybe— and this is a big maybe— maybe if we have to save him at some point if something comes up we can make sure something happens to his car, like a busted light or something. But that’s it. No más. Okay?”

Bart gave an over-dramatic put upon sigh. “O-kayyyy…” Despite his joking complaint, he scooted closer to Jaime and Khaji Da and slid an arm around their waist while resting his cheek against their shoulder.

Jaime hugged Bart and kissed his temple, earning a pleasant hum in response. They comfortably sat in silence, just letting the seconds and minutes slip by.

For Bart it was nice to just sit and be for a while, to not have to think about the issues he had with his body, that lousy doctor, or the fact that his room was a wreck with glass from the lamp and mirror and the plastic and metal parts from his alarm clock strewn across the floor. It was nice to just be with Jaime and Khaji Da for a while, and to know that they loved him as him and even if nothing changed they always would. Yeah it wasn’t perfect, but it helped.

And then, out of nowhere, Khaji Da nudged his way into control and gave a thoughtful hum. Bart looked up in response, and at his questioning look the scarab said, “Bart Allen… there may be a way around having to deal with inept individuals for what you require.”

Bart blinked and sat a bit more upright. “What do you mean?”

Khaji Da hesitated for a moment before saying, “Human technology is… inferior to my capabilities; human medical technology can not match the quality of which I am capable.”

Bart’s eyes went wide. “Waitasecond, are you saying…?”

Khaji Da gently took hold of one of Bart’s hands, his thumb moving in soothing circles against Bart’s hand. He didn’t immediately answer, taking the time to consider how to convey what he wanted to say, but when he did it was in a tone that made it clear that he knew exactly how much weight his words would carry for Bart. “I monitor the body of Jaime Reyes and perform maintenance on a routine basis. Hormone regulation and production are well within my capabilities. Samples would be required, but it is feasible to produce a supply matched to your body’s own substance.”

Bart felt as if all the air had been sucked out of the room, but it was a feeling that left him giddy. “A-are you saying you can create my supply of testosterone? Based off of what I have in my body?”

“Affirmative.”

“That’s… Oh my god… I… Khaji Da, this is-”

“There is more,” Khaji Da admitted.

“What-?”

“It is possible, if I connected into your bodily systems and examined them in depth, that I may be able to make the alterations to your physiology that you wish. And base those alterations on how your DNA would naturally have them, so there would be no chance of rejection.”

Bart could hear the blood rushing in his ears. This was- there was no way that- there was just- He forced himself to breathe. He knew there was no ‘magic fix’ and it was a fact that he had resigned himself to. This though… this was the closest to a ‘magic fix’ that there could possibly be, and it was being offered by Khaji Da. “Y-you mean I’d…?” he breathed, unable to complete the thought.

“Affirmative.”

A moment later Jaime once again surged into control, his eyes wide in alarm as he snapped his head to the side to look over his shoulder in Khaji Da’s direction. “We’re not performing surgery on Bart! I’m no surgeon!”

For a moment it looked to Bart like they were having an internal argument, but finally Jaime faded back enough for Khaji Da to be in partial control— a deliberate choice so that Bart could hear both sides of their commentary. “My capabilities are far beyond current human medical technology. It is feasible.”

A hint of Jaime’s concerned frown flickered across their face. “I don’t want to hurt Bart.”

For a moment their eyes darted to Bart, warm gold swirling through both before settling back to one golden and the other brown and dropping away again. “I will not allow any harm to come to the Bart Allen. Fact: I am better able to ensure that no harm will come to Bart than any human doctor. And I will not attempt any alterations if I am uncertain of the outcome.”

Jaime rolled their lower lip between their teeth nervously before looking at Bart again. “What do you think mi corazón? It’s your body, your choice.”

One beat. Two… Three… Bart surged forward, tackling them to the bed with what had to be the most intense kiss he had given them in the entire time they had been together. Honestly it almost rivaled the level of intensity that Khaji Da poured into his kisses. When he cut it off he was breathing heavily and so were they (he had no idea if he’d pulled that reaction from Jaime, Khaji Da, or both, but he was happy with it regardless). “You both are the best boyfriends ever.”

Khaji Da gave a small huff, as close to a laugh as he was likely to get, before he said in a slight tease, “Technically I am not male.”

Bart rolled his eyes. “You’re still wonderful. Stop trying to get out of that fact.”

“Mmm… Because I am unwilling to allow idiots who can not recognize a man when they see one to tamper with your physiology?” Khaji Da said with a deliberate smirk.

“Keep that up and I’m locking the door,” Bart said bluntly.

A slight frown from Jaime made its way through and he said, “Not with the broken glass and metal on the floor. I’ve heard enough nightmare stories from mi madre about people getting carried away in the moment and getting hurt because they weren’t paying attention to what was around them. And Bart, hermoso, cariño, mi amor, mi corazón— I love you, I do, but I do not want to be pulling glass from your butt.”

Bart gave a mock-pout and said, “Party pooper,” before stealing a quick kiss and then letting them up.

Jaime didn’t waste any time getting to his feet and grabbing Bart’s trashcan to start picking up the mess, knowing that Bart wasn’t far behind. “It’s good for you,” he teased as the armor crept down his arms to cover his hands before he got to work.

“It’s good for me to be deprived?” Bart said over-dramatically as he dumped the largest portion of his lamp in the trashcan.

“It’s good for you to not have to worry about getting a piece of glass jammed into your foot, speed-healing around it, and then having to deal with having your foot cut open to get it out, you goober,” Jaime retorted.

“I dunno,” Bart said, “Sounds like an excuse to ‘gentleman’ me to death.”

Jaime sighed. “You two are never going to let me live that down.”

“Nope!” Bart cheerfully agreed as he scooped up chunks of his destroyed alarm clock.

Jaime gave a huff, but there was no real heat or annoyance to it (despite the fact that he could feel the waves of amusement spilling over from Khaji Da in his mind). Rather than let his own amusement at Bart and Khaji Da’s antics slip through, he decided to shift the conversation back to a more serious point. “Khaji Da, mind explaining some of the technicalities for what you’re suggesting? That way all three of us know what we’re getting into?”

Bart perked up. “I’mgonnasecondthat. I mean, yeah, I’m totally into having you tweak things rather than stupid doctors, ’cause I know you’re gonna do it right, but like… are you gonna have to detach yourself from Jaime or something like that and then attach yourself to me? Because that’d be really weird and probably insanely involved— and oh GOD I don’t wanna think about open holes in Jaime’s back!”

Jaime made a somewhat disgusted face at that thought, which was swiftly followed by an amused snort from Khaji Da. “Negative,” the scarab replied in a thoroughly entertained tone. “Detaching myself from the Jaime Reyes is unnecessary-”

“-Thank god-,” Jaime interjected.

“-and it would take far too much time to do so,” Khaji Da continued. “It is far more feasible for me to collect samples and then begin formulating a plan for approach to alterations from there.”

“Huh,” Bart said thoughtfully. It made sense, but it definitely called to mind his earlier thought that there was no ‘magic fix.’ “Sooo… the whole ‘connecting into my body’ thing…?”

“It will be a necessity; both to monitor your physical status and to regulate pain. The most practical approach in my current understanding is a gradual one, likely over several weeks or perhaps a month or two depending on circumstances, in order to minimize the chances of physical damage or excess pain. Of course your healing factor is something I will have to examine and adapt to in order to be effective, so it may be that there will be instances in such alterations where I am connected into your nervous system much as I am with Jaime— although not to the same extent,” Khaji Da explained.

Bart blinked. “…So in other words, you’re saying this is probably going to hurt sometimes and you’re probably going to be wired into my brain.”

“Affirmative.”

“…You know, I’ve heard about the concept of a mind-fuck before, but this-”

“Bart,” Jaime blurted out, “That’s just vulgar.”

Bart shrugged and replied, “Hey, I think about these things. And honestly? Three-way mind-sex sounds pretty freaking hot and like a great distraction for the pain I’ll be in. I mean, if Khaji Da is going to be tapped into my brain, why not take advantage of it?” (He hadn’t actually thought about having mental sex until Jaime interrupted him, but sometimes it was too much fun to poke at him when he had the chance.)

An amused chitter erupted from Jaime’s spine as Jaime shook his head. “Both of you are going to land me in jail one day, I swear.”

“It’s not like we’d be having mind-sex in public!” Bart protested before thoughtfully adding, “Though is public sex really illegal if it’s all mental?”

“Khaji Da is not performing surgery on you in public. And there’s not going to be any ‘mind sex’ involved. Especially not in public!” Jaime insisted, desperately trying not to laugh.

“…It could be a useful distraction,” Khaji Da said in a tone that was entirely too innocent.

Jaime facepalmed, and despite his best efforts a few snickers escaped. “Estoy muerto. Mis corazones are going to kill me.”

Bart grinned. “It’ll be fine. And besides, at least I’m not so off-the-wall that I’d send nudes to Doctor-Jackass after it’s all done just to gloat.”

“Oh my GOD.” Jaime dissolved into a fit of laughter, swiftly fading back so that no one would be able to hear his uproarious cackling.

For a moment an amused silence stretched between Khaji Da and Bart as they picked up the remainder of the mess. They exchanged a look, and then Khaji Da said with a smirk, “We should tag his car.”

“With what? Spray-painted rainbow-glitter dicks?” Bart asked.

“Affirmative,” was the smug response.

And with that Bart flopped over onto the floor and curled into a ball, laughing himself senseless. No question about it, this had officially gone from being one of the worst days Bart had ever had, to one of the best.

[plinys]

dear yuletide author (2017)

hello and welcome to my letter!

i am so happy to have you reading this letter and going to be writing a fic for me! why? because you dear writer are an amazing and wonderful person, deserving of all the kudos in the world!

please remember as you look at these prompts, that if something in my likes inspires you more than any of my specific prompts, totally feel free and run with that, and know that i will enjoy any fic that is gifted to me!!

ao3/lj handle: plinys

now lets get down to business:

the fandoms i’ve requested this year are: Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator,  Galavant (TV),   Legion (TV),  Powerless (TV 2017),  Star Trek: Discovery,  Young & Hungry

but before that, my likes/kinks/dislikes/triggers:

likes: alternate universes, characters that are in character, lady-centric fics, angst, fandom cliches, dysfunctional relationships, friendships, friends/enemies to lovers, soul mates, road trips,  hanukkah fics, jewish characters, bisexual characters, poly relationships, character studies, origin stories, ambiguous endings, meta fic, slow build, fics that incorporate social media, crack treated seriously, drunk confessions, miscommunication, 

kinks: threesomes, competence kink, phone sex, masturbation, crying during sex, hate sex, shower sex, praise kink, guys going down on girls, rough sex, first time, spanking, daddy kink, sex in front of mirrors, voyeurism, make up sex

dislikes: pwp, main character death (unless it really makes sense/happens in canon), character bashing, non-con, mpreg, a/b/o, 1st person.

my triggers (please no matter what do not include these): school shootings, cancer, terminal illness, riots, child abuse.

and now to the fun stuff -

Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator

requested characters:  mary christiansen, joseph christiansen, crish christiansen

where to find: it’s a video game on steam, you can purchase for about $15, otherwise there’s plenty of walkthroughs of people playing it on youtube. recommended routes: joseph, robert, and damien to get the full christiansen story family backstory. 

anyways first play through i did josephs route and he broke my heart, and i was like wow mary deserves better and then after playing robert and damien i was like no wow mary deserves the world, so as long as your gift doesn’t include mary bashing im happy

would love any backstory on this family (featuring robert in any way is totally welcome), whether its weird family stuff, crack fic, the cult stuff. like im pretty open on this one

specific prompts:

cult backstory, give me that hidden cult ending. give me them joining the cult together when they were young. give me them scheming together or scheming separately. or give me mary realizing she’s married a gay demon only after the fact and its too late to get out. like honestly give me anything cult

the mystery of crish? i can’t believe he’s in the character list and now i want someone to explain why we’ve never met him? does he really exist? this can (and probably should be total crack)

remember how i mentioned robert was an option, feel free to mix in his connections with the family, the affair that clearly happened. being part of their cult. mary just bonding with her best friend and being drunk together? joseph fucking robert while mary is aware of what is going on. how they even became friends with all that happened?

honestly, there’s just so much not explained about the christiansen family, so anything about them is 100% up my alley. 

Galavant (TV)

requested characters:  madalena (galavant), gareth (galavant)

where to find: both season are on netflix!

so im biased because i was convinced to watch this show because of my mallory jansen, so madalena is of course my favorite character. and then this ship hit me out of nowhere, so now here i am

im either looking for madalena centric fic, or shippy fic with the both of them

specific prompts:

the end of s2 left so many openings that weren’t explored because we never got a s3 but give me madalena learning to do the d’dew, and getting to finally be the evil queen that she deserves wow

also feel free to give me that shippy stuff with gareth going to save her, and then realizing how much they love each other (as they should have wow)

alternatively a fix-it for the finale where madalena chooses gareth over the d’dew and they figure out where they can go from there. rebuild that trust, just be happy together though still sorting things out because now they do’t have a kingdom

smut? this ship is built for smut? madalena literally has a body built for sin, give me that sin

alternatively, give me fluffy, them finally getting to be “happy” together, madalena learning to have emotions and to love

also for non shippy plot any future fic for madalena or character study set during season 2/post season 2 would be the dream

Legion (TV)

requested characters:  cary loudermilk, kerry loudermilk

where to find: honestly i have no clue? fx? pirating sites? i watched this one live when it was airing. 

this show hit me with so much backstory and explanation not given and like that’s the aesthetic of the show, but i was specifically drawn to these two and their unique set of powers and i just ?? need more??

while i’m mostly into gen for these two, if you want to do weird stuff, like, i’m curious and not opposed (does it count as incest if they’re technically the same person?)

specific prompts:

BACKSTORY, any thing with their backstory, build on what canon told us and give me more, like what is it like for cary to keep aging on while kerry stays younger, what are the limits of their powers, how much can they feel

that hurt comfort after the stuff that happened towards the end of the season, like these two need to bond and recover after all the trauma 

5 times they were overly protective of each other

just man their dynamic is so weird and i need that to be explored, feel free to ship them with any of the other characters or ?? with each other if youre into that?? just like give me more of these two

actually, does it count as incest if their the same person is now a prompt, like maybe someone asks that? idk man just discuss

Powerless (TV 2017)

requested characters:  beatriz da costa | green fury (powerless), emily locke

where to find: this is another i have no clue situation im sorry

this show got canceled because it was like bad dc sitcom airing the same night as arrow but before it did it gave me this hint of femslash potential and tbh this is why im most offended that it was canceled

specific prompts: 

so if the show had lasted longer i am convinced that beatriz and emily would have been gay together, so give these ladies the show they deserved and tell the story of them falling in love

the news already thinks their dating so what about super villains, how many times does emily get kidnapped for being the green fury’s girlfriend before they actually art (or before she realizes she actually is)

how does dating a superhero effect her work life

also just emily loves superheroes, so she’s probably so pumped to be dating one like “wow babe can you believe im dating a superhero” and beatriz like “we were just making out obviously youre dating a superhero”

give me cute gay girls honestly 

Star Trek: Discovery

requested characters:  michael burnham (star trek: discovery), saru (star trek: discovery)

where to find: cbs all access! its ongoing, as i write this letter on its second episode!

okay since this show is ongoing these prompts might get joss’d but it’s too late to go back because two episodes in got me interested in the dynamic between these two

this can be gen (and feature other ships if you want) or can be shippy for these two. im pretty open since this show is so new. 

specific prompts: 

so they were together on the shenzhou for 7 years according to canon so lets get some back story between these two, how did they get to where they were. was there rivalry between the two of them from the very beginning? how does saru feel about someone who has never been to the academy out ranking him? bridge disagreement shenanigans? their captain locking them in a room until their sort out their issues

like, do you want to write alien sex? because a part of me wants to receive alien sex so like? this is an option?

what about them now both on the discovery together, that distrust because of what happen on the shenzhou? building up into something  new? better than before? building into feeling that may have been hidden all along?

on the discovery, forced to work together to save the team and putting their issues asside for the good of everyone else

honestly i just feel like they were supposed to be the spock/bones dynamic of the shenzhou before things went bad and like ??? i want that ?? 

Young & Hungry

requested characters:  caroline huntington 

where to find: it’s all on netflix (though caroline only appears in season one)

yet another show i watched because of mallory jansen, and her character is only in the first season and really all i cared about on this show so guess who i want backstory for

specific prompts:

caroline character study? i mean, she’s written as the rich bitch girlfriend rival in the show but let’s just say she deserves better, flush her out and give her life for me

she definitely deserves better than josh, and i like femslash so pair her with one of the girls in the tag set if you want

just more on her and the horse from young & pregnant this is mostly crack but like also

consider for a second that instead of the plot being gabi sleeps with josh on the first day and starts all of the show drama. what if instead she sleeps with caroline, and we get the aftermath of “oh hey i slept with my new boss’s finace, this isnt awkward at all” rewrite of season 1 with 95% more femslash 

just give me more caroline

ANYWAYS, I HOPE YOU ENJOYED MY LETTER AND I’LL LOVE WHATEVER YOU DECIDE TO WRITE ME!