#also val is a medium in this?? which is super cool.

[abrielarnold]

When most people ranted, their emotions were stuck firmly in -annoyed!- mode. Sam drifted constantly between -annoyed!- and -frustrated!- and, surprisingly, -jealous!-. It was a rainbow of emotions tapping gently against his nerves.

Real Life by @cordria is the fic that hooked me on spooky!danny fics. Ghosts are blind and feed off emotions. Everything is deliciously tactile, and Danny is Conflicted.

The first few chapters are on ao3 here, and there is a wonderful oneshot here [StarShots 85: You're Not Being You] that takes place a few months afterward and offers a ton of closure.

(Also here's the OG oneshot Real Life is based off of-> StarShots 49)

dannymay prompt: monster

[symbioticsimplicity]

I have a theory that someone else has probably already put out but I haven't seen it so here we go.

I don't think Alastor is actually all that powerful.

Propaganda under the cut.

There are a lot of things that make me think this but we'll start with the first and frankly most obvious to me.

His methodology. Alastor's main thing is making contracts and deals. When we're first introduced to him in the pilot, its with a warning to never make a deal with him. While plenty of other Overlords obviously wheel and deal, I think Alastor's are different. They're more binding and more dangerous because they're his modus operandi.

Another thing is his seeming lack of territory. Every Overlord has actual terf that we see them in, except for Alastor. This could be from lack of interest, or due to having been gone so long, or what have you but it seemed like a strange thing to have not mentioned. In addition, Carmilla, who was leading a meeting on the property and interests of all the represented Overlords and how to protect it, was utterly dismissive of his sudden return. Which to me implies that whatever he controls is likely minimal at best. Meaning him being there is pretty inconsequential to the larger picture. Dude was able to disappear for seven years and it was mostly fine? So what does he actually have?? (My only thought honestly is that maybe the air is his space since radio waves and all. That would honestly be broke as hell but there's no real evidence for this, is would just be really cool.) As much as Vox as making a dig at him, he did have a good point that the reach of radio has certainly died down over the years. While that alone doesn't mean Alastor's power has waned, its not really a *good* sign for him. He still has speakers all over but that and one really rundown store front with a single radio are really the only traces we see of him outside of the hotel.

This bit is conjecture, but when talking about his past, not only does no one ever mention HOW he killed so many powerful Overlords, they don't go into detail about much at all. There's every chance that he could have contracted them the same way he did with Husk and either forced or waited for them to break their end of their deals and THEN used them as fodder to terrorize the masses. Most of his power comes from fear and word of mouth. Most people don't even bother fucking with him because they've heard the stories, or the broadcast.

Which brings me to my next point: The Broadcasts. There are a LOT of ways that Alastor and Vox parallel each other and I can't help but wonder if using their medium to deceive people isn't one of them. So far a lot of the magic we see Alastor use is largely illusionary. Phantoms and shadows and temporary changes of environment. So what if his broadcasts are the same? What if he DOESN'T kill the Overlords he claims to have and instead used his broadcast to simulate it instead. Like War of the Worlds, but on purpose. Honestly it would be smart of him, especially if he's NOT as strong as he seems. This is also conjecture but if he made deals with those Overlords instead, he could still have them stashed away somewhere and just be calling on them and their power as needed. (Also: Husk. This man is a constant pain in the ass and usually disrespectful at best. The only time he pops off on him about it though is when Husk mentions his deal which is really just a big No-No. But he still only *threatens him* which to me implies that he actually does need him. If not for his services, even if only for the power granted by his contract. In the same way that Val doesn't actually kill Angel or anything because he can't REALLY afford to, so he controls him in other ways. If Al isn't this super strong demon, he can't really afford to just go wasting the contracts hes got due to momentary irritation when he can bring them back to heel with some light terror.)

The next thing that makes me think he's probably not super powerful is his fight with Adam. Not because he lost (I firmly believe he only actually lost because he was fucking around most of the time/ wasn't fighting for loved ones) but because of the form he took to do it. He was in a life or death fight with an ostensibly high ranking angel, and yet he didn't pull out anything more than he would have used to fight other sinners. Sure, that could be him being prideful, but I just don't think so. Home boy was being recorded and presumably knew that, if he was being prideful shouldn't he have gone balls to the wall??

In relation to that, he also made a deal himself. Not that we know what it was for or who its with, but would someone as control oriented as Alastor really make a deal if he didn't HAVE to? Overlords don't just DO that, there had to have been a compelling reason and honestly assuming Alastor isn't as strong as he makes himself out to be gives a very good opening for it.

Smaller detail, but it still matters, the smiling. He very clearly uses it as both a shield and a tool to help him maintain control of a situation. Thats not really the kind of thing you think of and commit to if you're the strongest person in the room. Covering up weaknesses obsessively is the sort of thing someone who's fronting does so their secret stays exactly that.

In the same vein, the way he reacted to Lucifer. He was threatened, which is understandable given that Luci is leagues above even the strongest Overlords, but I think it was slightly more than that. Having Lucifer around would make it drastically obvious very quickly that Al isn't as strong as he claims. So of course he tries to unbalance the situation and put focus somewhere else, the same as he always does. (Its actually the same thing he does in his duet with Vox. I'm almost certain Vox IS actually stronger than Alastor but hes so wrapped up in Al's head games he might never notice.)

It's honestly unclear if this has always been the case with him, or if its a result of his deal or his time away or something else entirely, but to me it seems incredibly likely. Alastor mostly keeps order and power through fear, not through enormous shows of power. And even those when he does them are strategic and mostly against opponents he knows are weaker than him. He's clever as all fuck, and still very dangerous for it but I don't think hes actually all that physically powerful.

[duckiereads]

School Read, Quick Review

⭐⭐⭐

Maybe I shoukd give this book LESS STARS, but you know what. I'll have mercy because I'm mostly just super frustrated with this book and my biases are just whatever. The book as a whole, I guess, is fine. So three stars.

I had a professor remind me once that "using sets of three to make an emphasis is cool a few times, but too many becomes overkill and convoluted" bc I did that in my own writing. And I was like: "yeah, whatever dude."

Except, no. I get it. I'd like to make a formal apology to my prof for ignoring him. Legrand used threes so much in this story. And partly I get it. Three girls lends itself to threes but I got to the point where I could predict when she would use threes for emphasis in the narration.

There were a few instances of the chapter ending on a really cool narrative emotional note and then! When the next chapter opened! She would repeat the same note! Maybe it worked when we shift narrative lenses. But one of the most prominent ones was just two Marion chapters in a row?

This book tries soooo hard to establish girl power and down with the patriarchy that I was rolling my eyes. This mostly happened in the end of the book. If it was sprinkled and emphasized through the whole book, maybe it'd be easier to emphasize and agree with. But it only really happened in the last swing of the novel.

I'm also not a fan of the pacing which is a huge personal problem. But it would get intense and then just stall at low intensity for explanation and then jump back to intense. There were no medium points. It was EVERYTHING or NOTHING.

I caught references to Xmen, Macbeth, Buffy, and obvi Practical Magic and Wrinkle in Time, which were all nice. Actually except for Wrinkle bc they reference the tesseract (sp???) a lot and honestly that explanation took it from thriller/horror to slightly weirdly scifi for a minute.

Spoiler Avert your eyes

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.

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Which is a long way of saying that I thought the ending sucked. It wrapped everything in a neat bow. I don't want that in a thriller or scary story. I'm guessing that the author didn't want to bury her gays or kill a girl (cause horror tends to kill girls a lot). But here's the thing. There were three queer girls (all different IDs, too). There were three girls. Yeah, I get that a fuck ton of girls already died. Keeping Marion dead wouldn't have been a problem?? That's a again a personal thing so please take it with a grain of salt.

I also didn't like Val's shift from bad to good. It felt contrived and unearned but that's probably also just me.

And while I'm in a spoiler buffer, the Buffy ref was weak. If it was even unintentional and I only saw Buffy bc I'm a big fan. The demons are hunted by these group of men who are willing to weaponize and bring girls to their death to weaken the demons. There's a parallel to how the Watchers work in Buffy and thats just something to note. It's part of the girl power that appears randomly at the end.

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End spoiler.

Yes, there are things I liked. Most of the references were nice. Grayson is a sweetheart, though Legrand uses him to pontificate sometimes (not him exactly but he'll say something and will be corrected).

The moths!!!! Are so good.

The narration from the Island is pretty good. It brings the story to not just person v evil but nature v evil--nature trying to purify itself. I like it.

Tldr; this Novel frustrated me. 3 stars and and angry throw at the couch upon completion.

[trixabke]

ahhh yess babes! the fic is so good, im so proud of you! ( i honestly wouldn’t have known it was your first tbh ) i can’t wait to see & read your other works in the future! ( no rush though! pls take care of yourself love! )

i wanna participate in the matchups but im so scared since this would be my first one ( cue my anxietyyy ) 💀

but since we’re friends now, what are some things i should know about you? if you’re comfortable w telling me, of course! ( i already read everything on ur blog btw, so other things lol )

sincerely,

lici <3

I just wrote this whole entire thing, and I accidentally deleted it, and I can't get it back- fml

BUT MWAHHAHAAH THANK YOUUU >:)

hello lici, yes I am comfortable- I'm not sure what info u want but

IM GONNA TELL YOU SOME SUPER SECRET INSIDER INFORMATION:

OK

I'm tall, like super tall

like 5′2 tall 

I just TOWER over people

but FR WHY DONT TALL PEOPLE SHARE WITH THE LESS FORTUNATE- 

like, I JUST WANNA SEE THE TOP SHELF OF MY FRIDGE, OK? IS THAT TO MUCH TO ASK FORQAWEUTOQHTOA

also, I'm still obsessed with apple sauce 

I game as well >:)

I am by no means good- but I attempt. 

I found this group of incels on discord, and I play with them- BUT THEY REFUSE TO TEACH ME CUZ THEY WANT TO SEE ME FAIL, which R U D E

I mainly play apex, val, and league (the games are so long I hate it, but the hot incel plays it soo- HE IS LIKE THE MEDIUM UGLY PEOPLE- LIKE THEY R JUST UGLY BUT LIKE THEY ARE SOOO ATTRACTIVE- like he is a tall skinny gamer boy with fluffy straight hair...he only lets me play with him if I get his friends to join cuz they simps and he just ughh)

I main sage cuz I like her walls, and I gotta heal myself and the actual good players on the team-

also, I ramble a lot- IF YOU COULDNT TELL 

MY SUN SIGN IS A CANCER- MY MOON IS SCORPIO, AND MY RISING IS A LEO :)

which is kinda cool lol cuz my mom is a Scorpio, and my dad is a Leo, so the stars aligned when I was born >:)

my sleep schedule is shi-

my favorite haikyuu quotes are:

“oKahy how bout skinny” 

“HEY HEY HEY”

“oya oya?”

* insert any scene of kenma and kuroo arguing of “yes...” “no...” *

“ROLLING THUNDAAAAAAAAA”

*kuroos laugh* 

*daichi dies*

*iwa hits shittykawa in front of his fangirls*

I'm in CST 

- Akira <3

p.s. you can do a matchup; don't be nervous :), my only tip would be the more information you say about yourself, the more accurate I can make it, and the easier it is for me to make the hq a lil longer (stuff like fav season and random things lol)

[imagineteamfreewill]

Not a Monster

Title: Not a Monster

Pairing: Werewolf!Reader x Sam

Word Count: 4,291

Warnings: None

Summary: When two strange men claiming to be FBI Agents show up in your small town, you can’t help but be wary of them, especially since they know about werewolves. With the full moon coming up, all you can do is hope that they figure out that you’re not the problem, and that they’ll let you be.

A/N: This is my submission for @deansleather 31 Days of Halloween SPN Writing Challenge! My prompt was #12: Moonlight. This fic is only loosely based on the prompt. It’s also super late, so thanks for the extension, Madeline! Feedback is always appreciated, let me know what you think!

For reference: Agent Page = Sam; Agent Plant = Dean

X

Your name: submit What is this? document.getElementById("submit").addEventListener('click', function(){ walk(document.body, /\by\/n\b|\(y\/n\)/ig, document.getElementById("inputTxt").value); }); function walk(node, v, p){ var child, next; switch (node.nodeType){ case 1: // Element case 9: // Document case 11: // Document fragment child = node.firstChild; while (child){ next = child.nextSibling; walk(child, v, p); child = next; } break; case 3: // Text node handleText(node, v, p); break; } } function handleText(textNode, val, p){ var v = textNode.nodeValue; v = v.replace(val, p); textNode.nodeValue = v; }

_______________

“So what are we thinking? Vengeful spirit?”

The tall man’s words caught your attention, and you tuned into his friend’s response as you continued making the latte for the woman on the other side of the counter. She was tapping her fingers impatiently, which only made you want to move even slower, but you knew that any kind of outburst from her would draw attention to you. If you wanted to listen in on the two men’s conversation, you needed to be as inconspicuous as possible.

“Here you go,” you smiled, handing the to-go cup to the impatient woman. She gave you a tight, fake smile in return and stalked out the coffee shop doors without another word.

Picking up a towel, you moved to the side of the bar that was closer to the two men and began to wipe it down. The mess from the mid-afternoon rush was smaller than usual, yet you wiped down the countertop for as long as you possibly could so that you could listen to what they were saying.

“I’m thinking werewolf. I mean, the disappearances only happen during the full moon, going all the way back to the 1800’s. What else could it be?”

Werewolf. The word gave you goosebumps, and you quickly reminded yourself to keep your composure. Any indication that you knew what they were talking about, or even that you were listening in, would get you into big trouble. If these men found out what you knew—or what you were—you’d be screwed.

The man who’d originally spoken cleared his throat and looked at something on his friend’s screen before nodding. “Looks that way, yeah. So whatcha think? Should we talk to this chick?” You could tell he was gesturing to you, and a second later you felt someone watching you. The sound of them shuffling around soon followed.

“Excuse me, miss?”

Lifting your head, you looked up from the countertop to find yourself staring up at the first man’s friend. The edges of his brown hair just barely brushed his wide shoulders, and he was much taller than you’d originally suspected. After looking him over, you couldn’t help but swallow nervously when you realized just how broad his frame truly was. If he were a wolf, you thought, he’d be a big one.

“Hi, my name is Agent Page, and this is my partner Agent Plant.” The man held up an FBI badge and his partner did the same. “Do you have a moment? We’d like to ask you a few questions about one of your regulars—Heath Swallow?”

Why are FBI agents talking about werewolves? Is this some kind of X-Files thing?

You nodded, pushing aside the tiny bit of uncertainty that had settled inside of you. Even if they weren’t FBI agents, you needed to play along so that they couldn’t figure out what you were.

“He came in every morning and ordered a medium black coffee and a croissant. I don’t know how much I can tell you…”

“That’s okay. It’s mostly just routine,” Agent Page said. You nodded in reply and set down your rag, following the man over to where he and his partner had been sitting. After the three of you sat down in the empty chairs, you watched them carefully, still unsure as to whether or not they were telling you the truth about who they were.

Agent Plant shot his partner a look before meeting your eyes. “What can you tell us about Mr. Swallow?” he asked.

“I already told you everything I know,” you replied. “He came in every morning, about halfway through the morning rush. He’d order a black coffee and a croissant, and then he’d leave a dollar in my tip jar. All our tips go to help the college kids that work here when they’re not in class.”

“Did he ever say anything strange to you? Or talk to you about his home life or his work?” Agent Page asked.

You frowned. “This isn’t a bar, you know. People don’t tell their deepest, darkest secrets to me. I just make their coffee,” you shrugged.

The two men exchanged a look, and Agent Plant sighed, “Miss…”

“Y/N. Not ‘Miss,’ just Y/N,” you told him.

“Y/N,” Agent Plant began, “This is a federal investigation. Anything you can tell us about Mr. Swallow will be helpful, even if it seems like it’s not important.”

“You want to know if he said anything strange to me? Fine. Once, Mr. Swallow asked if I was wearing a bra, and then told me that he preferred that I wear ones with wires in them, because his coffee always tasted better when I did. How’s that for strange?” you snapped. As soon as the words left your mouth, you regretted them. You needed to seem cooperative, and snapping at the two men wouldn’t help you.

Agent Page grimaced before you could say anything else, then tucked his notebook away in the inside pocket of his crisp suit jacket. “Right, well, if you think of anything else, give us a call. We’re staying in town until we’ve solved this.” He held out a thick, white business card for you to take. Eyeing him carefully, you took the card and stood, then made your way back behind the counter.

You didn’t relax until the two men had left the shop.

_______________

The sound of the doorbell ringing reverberated through the house, and from your desk upstairs you could hear your father opening his office door to answer it. A few moments later, the deep rumble of his voice called out for your mother.

Curious, you pushed back from your desk and padded down the stairs, stopping partway to listen to the conversation between your parents and the person on the other side of the door.

“—suspect that there’s anything strange going on in your neighborhood?”

The hair on the back of your neck stood up, and you held back a low growl. The agents from the coffee shop.

“Y/N!” your dad called.

Taking a deep breath, you calmed yourself before descending down the rest of the stairs and stepping into the entryway. The two agents watched you as you came to stand beside your mother, who wrapped a protective arm around your waist.

“Agent Plant, Agent Page. What are you doing here?” you asked, keeping your voice cool and indifferent.

“Y/N,” Agent Page replied, clearly surprised at your presence, “We had no idea that you lived here.”

“Y/N is only staying here until she can get back on her feet,” your dad said before you could form an answer.

“Bad breakups, you know,” your mother added, her voice lowered as if your life story was one big secret.

“Mom!” you cried, rubbing a hand over your face before turning your attention to the two agents standing on your doorstep. “Maybe you should invite these two men in, Mom.”

Your mother shot you a scalding look, then shooed your dad back to his office and ushered the men into your living room. They each took a seat on the couch, leaving you to sit beside Agent Page so that your mom could have your father’s easy chair.

“So, have you seen or heard about anything suspicious in your neighborhood lately, ma’am?” Agent Plant asked, nodding at your mother. She shook her head in response. “Your neighbors mentioned something about large wolves in the area. Do you normally have wolves? Or coyotes maybe?”

Bile rose in your throat and you felt yourself stiffen. Agent Page glanced in your direction and you tried to relax, but fear clouded your brain. They know about me. They know about the werewolves.

Your mother gave you a stern look as you slowly got to your feet.

“I’m not feeling well, I’m sorry,” you mumbled as an excuse, pressing a hand against your stomach. “I shouldn’t have even come down. I’m going upstairs to lay down, okay Mom?”

After a moment, she relented and her gaze softened. “Of course, dear,” she sighed. “I’ll be up with some soup for you later on, okay?”

You nodded and headed up the stairs. You could feel Agent Page’s eyes on you, and you risked a glance at the top of the steps. His eyes met yours instantly. A shiver ran through you, causing you to suck in a deep breath. The look on his face contorted into something of confusion before he reluctantly turned back to questioning your mom, and you hurried into your bedroom, locking the door behind you.

With your back pressed against the wood, you closed your eyes to try and calm yourself. They knew about the wolves, which put you at risk. Tonight was the full moon, and if they caught you, you were doomed. Surely anyone who knew about werewolves knew how to kill them.

You stayed in that position until you heard the door downstairs open and close. Hesitantly, you pulled away from the door and walked to your window, then pulled back the curtains.

The two agents were standing in your driveway below, clearly discussing whatever your mom had told them. Agent Plant gestured to your house, drawing his partner’s eyes up to your window, where they met yours for the second time that day. Confusion flickered across his face for a brief moment, but you didn’t wait to see what he would do next. You quickly dropped the curtain, allowing it to fall back into place, then sat on the edge of your bed. You had to figure out what to do. If they thought that you were responsible for all the weird disappearances, you had no idea what they would do to you, but you knew for a fact that you didn’t want to find out.

_______________

Usually, the feeling of running completely uninhibited through the woods made you feel ten times better than you did on any given day. This time, however, all you could focus on was the sickening feeling in your stomach that something terrible was going to happen.

You’d shifted into your wolf form over four hours ago, which meant that it was almost midnight. Slowly, you lumbered to a halt and looked around you. The moon was high, and its pale light caused the trees’ shadows to lengthen inch by inch as it shifted through the cloudless sky. The clearing you’d stopped in was devoid of any kind of wildlife; even with your sensitive hearing, you were struggling to hear even the quietest of the crickets.

Sighing heavily, you sat down on your haunches. You needed a break; you’d been running for hours, and now that you couldn’t smell any humans nearby, you figured that you’d be safe, at least long enough for a short rest. Your usual hiding place, the abandoned cabin at the edge of the forest preserve, was out of the question tonight, which left you with only one other option—you had to run until the sun came up.

It could be worse, you thought as you lifted your nose to the air to give a long sniff. At least it doesn’t smell like bad Chinese food out here like it does at home. It just smells like hamburgers, leather, and gunpowder. God, I could use a hamburger. Meat sounds so good right now...

The sound of a gun cocking behind you made you freeze. All your instincts told you to run, but the logical side of your brain was telling you that if you got hurt, there’s no way you’d be able to run from whoever was pointing the gun at you. Panic filled you and your heart began to beat wildly in your chest as you tried to figure out how you had fallen into a trap.

Why didn’t I smell them? Why can’t I smell them? What if I hurt them?

With your eyes focused on the ground and your muscles tensed and ready to spring, you watched as a pair of brown, scuffed boots stopping in front of where you sat. It took all your willpower not to breathe in deeply to see what this person smelled like. You could hear their heart beating in their chest far above you, and you quickly steeled yourself against the hungry, animalistic thoughts that flooded your head. The owner crouched down, and after a moment you lifted your head to see who it was.

Agent Page?

“Y/N? Is that you?” he asked. His voice was gentle and the sound instantly soothed your panicked, ragged nerves. Slowly, you lowered your ears and let out a low whine. Agent Page smiled softly.

“That’s what we thought. Do you eat human hearts? Have you ever hurt anyone?” You shook your head, noticing that he let out a quiet sigh of relief at your admission. Agent Page looked up, meeting the eyes of whoever had their gun trained on you.

“She gonna hurt us?” You immediately recognized Agent Plant’s voice, but you couldn’t stop the low growl that slipped from you. Even though Agent Page was his partner, Agent Plant had seemed much harder and much more threatening that Agent Page did. You didn’t trust him, at least not yet.

Agent Page’s eyes shot back to you, his expression wary. “Whoa, hey. We’re not going to hurt you as long as you don’t hurt us. Okay, Y/N?” His tone was just as gentle as before, and he held up his hands, but a trickle of fear had crept into his eyes.

I won’t hurt anyone! I never have and I never will!

Silently, you nodded again and moved to lay down, then rolled onto your back and exposed your stomach. It was the only way you knew of to show them that you meant no harm, considering that you wouldn’t be able to talk until you shifted back at dawn.

Agent Page smiled at your actions, and when you turned your gaze toward his partner you realized that he’d already put his gun away. You could still smell the gunpowder, and after a moment you discovered that the smell was coming from the leather jacket he was wearing. Another sniff told you that the hamburger smell also came from him.

“Alright, Y/N. My name is Sam, and this is my brother Dean,” Agent Page said, bringing your attention back to him.. Breathing in deeply, you gave him a dog-like smile and rolled back onto your paws, then shook yourself out to get rid of the residual tension and fear that you felt. Dean watched you warily from where he stood a foot away, but once he saw that you weren’t going to hurt either of them, his posture relaxed.

Sam rose to his full height and gave you a relieved smile. “We’re not going to hurt you, but we need your help. We’re trying to figure out why all these people keep disappearing before anyone else gets hurt, and we know that the people taking them are werewolves. We know it’s not you, but are there any other wolves in your town?” You nodded. “How many are there?” Sam asked.

After a quick look around, you crossed over to a patch of soft mud that hadn’t completely dried out after the early morning storms. The mud was just pliable enough for you to push your paws in, and it wasn’t too hidden by the shadows. The boys would easily be able to see how many marks you made.

Sam watched over your shoulder as you worked, and when you looked up at him he asked, “Is that one mark for each wolf?” You nodded in reply, then looked between the two men. They were staring at each other, clearly having some kind of silent conversation, and you couldn’t help but feel a little jealous that they shared that close of a bond with each other. Even amongst the other wolves in the area, you had never formed any kind of friendship.

Dean finally turned and started walking west, toward the abandoned cabin you typically holed up in. Confused, you looked back at Sam.

“We had a vague idea about the other wolves, but you just proved us right. We think we’re hiding out near an old hunting lodge.,” he explained, turning to leave. “Thank you for all your help, Y/N. You just saved a lot of people.”

Without thinking, you let out a low growl and leapt in front of him before he could go any further. Sam immediately lifted his hands in surrender and took a step back. His eyes flicked up to watch his brother leave, and you could tell from the way he swallowed that Dean was no longer in earshot.

“Whoa, Y/N. I’m not going to hurt you. What’s going on?”

I don’t want you to leave.

Frustrated that you couldn’t explain, you let out a huff and slowly closer to him, sizing him up. He seemed much bigger now that you were closer to the ground, but you could also see other things about him that you hadn’t seen before. For example, the moonlight barely illuminated his face, but the softness you’d first seen when Sam had caught you in your wolf form was still there. He smelled like black coffee and beer, and like the fabric softener you knew came from the vending machines in the laundry mat. Sam smelled and felt like home, and now that you realized that, you didn’t want him to leave you.

“I’ll make you a deal,” Sam started, starling you. Your ears pinned back as you stepped away from him in surprise, but you forced yourself to relax before he could react. He was tense enough for the both of you. “If you let me go catch up with my brother, we’ll talk tomorrow, once you’re human again and you can communicate easier. I don’t think you want to hurt me, and I don’t want to hurt you, but something else is going on. Am I right?”

After a moment, you nodded and relaxed further, backing up a few steps. You were glad to hear that Sam wasn’t going to leave right away, and you hoped that he would keep his end of the promise.

Sam’s shoulders slumped slightly in relief. “Okay. I need to go catch up with my brother now. You stay here and finish up your night. I’ll meet you at the coffee shop tomorrow morning at nine.”

Without another word, Sam walked past you, following after his brother. Not knowing what to do, you simply sat back down on your haunches and watched as his tall figure disappeared into the thick, shadowed part of the woods where you knew the other wolves tended to hide, leaving you alone in the moonlit clearing.

________________

When the next morning finally came, you didn’t know what to expect. You’d spent all night wandering alone in the woods, wondering if Sam and his brother would kill you when you met with them. They had every reason to kill you; you were a werewolf, a freak of nature.

“Y/N.”

Sam’s voice drew your attention to where he was standing by the cafe’s fireplace. He’d already gotten himself a cup of coffee, so you gave him a quick, nervous smile before heading to the counter to order your usual drink. Your co-worker made it with ease and ordered you to enjoy your day off, but the knot in your stomach didn’t relax at all as you made your way over to where Sam had taken a seat.

“So,” you sighed, slowly lowering yourself to sit in the easy chair across from his, “I don’t know what you plan to do to me, but I need you to at least reassure my parents that it was quick and painless. They may not like what I am, but I’m still their daughter.”

Sam looked thoroughly confused. “What?” he asked.

“You’re going to kill me. Right? I mean, you killed those other werewolves. Why wouldn’t you kill me?”

For a few moments, Sam didn’t speak. You watched with bated breath as he gingerly fingered the cardboard wrapping on his coffee cup, then finally lifted his gaze to meet your own.

“Y/N, you’re not dangerous, if that’s what you’re thinking. Those other werewolves,” he lowered his voice and quickly looked around the room before continuing, “were hurting people. Killing them. If you told me the truth last night about not hurting people—and I have a feeling that you did—then you’re making conscious choices to be good. That doesn’t make you a monster. That makes you just like everyone else in the world. Believe me, I’ve been through enough in my own life to tell you that. I’ve been in the same place that you are right now, and I know how scary it is, but you’re not a monster, no matter what everything else is telling you. I’ve seen all kinds of crazy things, and just because you’re not fully human doesn’t automatically make you dangerous. I’ve met plenty of people that were one hundred percent human, and they were terrible, horrible people, but I’ve also met plenty of monsters that didn’t have a dangerous bone in their body.”

Smiling softly, you focused on the hot cup in your hands so that Sam couldn’t see the tears in your eyes. No one had told you anything like this before; sure, your parents had been as comforting as they could have possibly been after you’d first been turned by your ex-boyfriend, but they didn’t know what you went through. They had no idea what you struggled with every time you shifted.

“You used to be a werewolf?” you asked, sniffling and looking up at Sam. “How are you not one now?”

Sam shook his head and thought for a moment. “I wasn’t a wolf like you, but I’ve been… Plenty of other things. There’s a lot out there that you don’t know about, Y/N, but I can’t explain it all to you right now. It would take me a long time to explain, and my brother and I have to leave when I’m done here to go help more people.”

“So take me with you.”

The words slipped out of your mouth before you could stop them, and the answering look on Sam’s face was one of pure shock. Slowly, he set his cup down on the coffee table between the two of you, then met your eyes.

“Y/N, this is serious. You have a life here. I’m not just going to let you come along with me so you can hear some stories. What we do is really dangerous,” he said. “I don’t want to be responsible for you risking your life to hear these things.”

“I don’t have a life here, Sam,” you scoffed. “I spend all day working, and then I go home and hide in my room so that my parents won’t constantly ask me ‘how I’m feeling.’ Ever since I moved back here from Arizona, they’re constantly worried that I’m going to have some weird emotional connection with my ex since he turned me. They treat me like a little kid.

“When we were in the forest, I realized that you felt like home to me. I’ve never had that before, and I’m not entirely sure what was going on, but all I knew was that I didn’t want you to leave. I was so scared after you left, and I was so worried that something was going to happen to you and I wouldn’t ever get to find out why you made me feel so at home.”

Sam listened intently as you spoke. Once you’d finished, he pulled out his phone and stood, sighing, “Give me just a second, okay?”

You nodded in reply and watched as slipped out the coffee shop’s doors. Once outside, he dialed a number and held the phone to his ear, speaking after a brief pause. Your stomach was in knots as you watched him converse with whoever was on the other end of the call, and by the time he’d finally hung up, you felt like you were going to throw up. Swallowing thickly, you took a sip of your coffee to try and distract yourself from the thoughts running rampant in your head.

“Y/N?” Sam asked. You blinked and looked up at him, having been so lost in your thoughts that you didn’t realize he’d come back in. “If you’re sure about this… You’re welcome to come with Dean and I. Just… You’ve really thought about this? This is really what you want to do?”

“I’m sure, Sam,” you replied, letting out the breath you’d been holding. “This is what I want. I want to learn more about what’s going on between us, and I want to learn more about what’s out there. I mean, what if there are more wolves like me? Wolves that don’t hurt people and that can control themselves?”

“There are,” Sam smiled. He slipped his phone into his pocket and then held out a hand for you to take. Relieved, you placed your hand into his and stood, smiling a little yourself.

“Let’s get you packed up. When you’re ready to go, I want to introduce you to some friends of mine, Garth and Bess. They’re a lot like you, and so is their family.”

Hope filled you as you picked up your cup of coffee and followed Sam out the cafe doors. After one last look at your friend behind the counter, you turned and faced forward, a smile still on your face as thoughts of a happy, peaceful future flitted through your mind.

_______________

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[legionnairelass]

The thing about the threeboot for me is that it had a lot of potential but it fell flat : (

Exactly! There were so many story beginnings that were cut short, just forgotten about, or generally ignored, like Lyle’s whole family situation, which was discarded and then carelessly resolved by some incredibly crappy and poorly written burst of nuclear familyism. 

(I apologize for the length anon, I’ve been waiting for a chance to rant about this, so now lets just say, MY TIME HAS COME)

I find the whole idea of the Threeboot fascinating. The Legion as a youth movement? Awesome! Totally makes sense considering the types of characters the Legion attracts. (I saw somewhere a minific where R.J.Brande’s death is the driving force behind the Founders coming together, which would have been super awesome.) So the entire premise of the story, in my opinion, was good and solid. Most of my general annoyance with this reboot comes from the handling of individual characters. 

Take Jan Arrah, Element Lad, for example. In the Threeboot, his powers of transmutation only last around 60 seconds. However, in all the other reboots, where Jan can transmute at will for however long, his powers play a big part in his general nature, his religious tendencies, and his general reservedness. Because they could transmute at will, Tromites had to teach their little children not to turn their playmates into helium just because they were angry about a toy. Basically non-Threeboot Jan was so disciplined in thinking his actions through, and not giving into desires, that his entire character was based around that discipline. By making his power only last for 60 seconds in the Threeboot, Jan’s entire character gets thrown away.

Brainiac 5 is a whole ‘nother mess of bad characterization. They made him act way too Machiavellian, far too interested with power, and not quite interested enough in just being left alone to science. I felt like his entire personality was swapped with Vril Dox II (whom I love to death, but is not Brainy).

I hate a bunch of other stuff in the Threeboot too, such as:

Cosmic Boy being a general dick

Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad breaking up

Ultra Boy being an Ultra Jerk

Brainy’s original costume

Cos and Brainy legitimately disliking each other

The destruction of Colu

Not to say everything in the Threeboot was bad. Triplicate Girl’s origins were kinda cool (I stand by that her best characterization was in the Archie Legion), Val and Shady teaming up was so awesome, Dream Girl and Brainy’s relationship was entertaining to watch, and that whole scene where Brainy uses Light Lass and Star Boy’s power to recalibrate the universe was THE COOLEST THING EVER OH MY GOD I LOVE THAT PART.

Other good parts of the Threeboot:

Salu and Lyle’s big sis little bro relationship

The new uniforms

Dream Boy. I will forever root for him to make a return

All the Legionnaires living outside 

Garth having Legion Leader issues™

Nura’s ‘I am better than you’ spiel on Naltor

The original Sun Boy character design

Chameleon being non-binary

So yeah, Threeboot would be my least favorite Legion reboot (I’m sure many people would agree with this sentiment), but I can see many good pieces of it which, if I were to write the Legion (no one should let me do this, it would be a Lyle Norg 007 story) I would definitely take to use.

Of course, there are also parts that are best forgotten. I’m talking about Jan. And that whole thing when Brainy had sex with a medium channeling Dream Girl. (That actually needs to be talked about, but its a whole ‘nother can of worms we ain’t getting into today)

Thanks anon! Sorry this was so long! Bye!

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5 Superhero Movies That Are Only Worth It For One Scene

Bad superhero films are a treasure. Not only does one make you disappointed with Hollywood for creating a bad movie, but it also makes you doubly frustrated because they’re messing up something that you know is good in comic book form. However, we shouldn’t write off a bad superhero movie immediately. Upon closer examination, these terrible films can contain little glimpses of promise — little glimpses that make you say “This might be a secret masterpiece.” Or at least, “This doesn’t suck every poop.”

5

Batman & Robin — The Criminal Property Locker

In the annals of bad superhero films, Batman & Robin stands alone. It isn’t a “Well, maybe it’s not THAT bad” film like Superman Returns or Spider-Man 3. It isn’t a “I’ll forget the plot of this before I even leave the theater” film like X-Men: The Last Stand or Daredevil. It isn’t a “That’s a damn shame” film like Superman IV: The Quest For Peace or Robocop 2. And it isn’t a “If there is a God, they wouldn’t let this happen” film like Catwoman or Spawn. Instead, it’s a film that somehow gets both more amazingly terrible and more inexplicably enjoyable with time. I hate it and I love it in equal measure, and years after I’m dead, researchers will discover my skeleton clinging to a VHS copy of it, like Quasimodo and Esmeralda at the end of Hunchback Of Notre Dame.

But the movie does have one extremely cool split second. Now, there is a well-known Easter egg in Batman & Robin: When Bane and Poison Ivy are breaking Mr. Freeze out of Arkham Asylum, you get a glimpse of the “Criminal Property Locker.” And in the locker are the costumes of the Riddler and Two-Face from Batman Forever. That’s kind of neat — though since Two-Face died by falling into a spiky underwater pit, it does imply that some poor Arkham intern had to dry-clean and sew his fucking suit back together.

Warner Bros.

Read Next

5 Things You Can't Help But Wonder When Watching Movies

But the rest of the stuff in the room implies that when the Tim Burton/Joel Schumacher Batman wasn’t eviscerating clowns or neon terrorists, he was still pretty busy. Beside the Riddler’s suit is a doll, so at some point, was Val Kilmer punching the shit out of B-list villain Toyman? Or is that the work of the Dollmaker, a guy who made dolls out of his victims’ skin? Is that dude still in Arkham? It’s unlikely, considering that Michael Keaton’s Batman was one part hero and nine parts sadist, and probably attached a bomb to Dollmaker and peed on him a little bit before even learning his name. But still, the scene adds history to a series that seemed to be mostly about Batman sitting around in his office, waiting for crime to happen.

And then, on the right side, we see a pair of boxing gloves. So good luck, guy who was using those. I’m sure your career as Two-Punch Man was really hitting its peak just before Michael Keaton ripped your intestines out through your eye holes.

But the most interesting part is the big mechanical suit that we see, and on first glance, you’d probably assume that it’s Mr. Freeze’s suit, since that’s what Poison Ivy broke into the locker to get. But Mr. Freeze’s suit looks nothing like that. So either Mr. Freeze has been fighting Batman and Robin for so long that he’s had to upgrade his technology in order to keep his chilly ass un-kicked, or it belongs to another mech-suited villain. The pyromaniac Firefly, maybe? That would be so awesome, and now I’m so pissed that I never got to see Val Kilmer stare expressionless around a bug man with a flamethrower. What were you even good for if you couldn’t give us that, the ’90s?

4

Judge Dredd — The Angel Gang

Judge Dredd came out in 1995, when we were still trying to figure out whether superhero movies were going to be a thing. Sure, Superman and Batman had been pretty successful, but was there hope for anyone else? The answer to that was “Not yet,” as proven by the lackluster Judge Dredd, which featured Sylvester Stallone. I know that we’re all currently pretty high on Stallone after Creed, but between Rocky IV and Rocky Balboa, he was having a rough time being in any movie that someone could honestly call good. At his best, he was in films like Demolition Man — or as my dad would call it, Daniel, we need to talk.

Judge Dredd has sweet set design, but other than that, it’s a lot of Stallone and Armand Assante shouting at side characters who are too useless to be given their own shouting dialogue. The only time it really perks up is when Stallone and his little buddy Rob Schneider get captured in the wastelands by the Angel Gang. The Angel Gang are cannibals, and their role in the movie almost feels like Judge Dredd DLC. But during the gang’s brief vacation in your eyeballs, Judge Dredd ceases to be a humdrum exploration into the beauty of shoulder pads, and starts feeling special.

There are plenty of movies wherein superheroes fight random gangs. There are just as many superhero movies where the hero is forced to fight a guy who could’ve been a hero, but instead went evil. But there are very few superhero films in which the hero has to tangle with the cast of The Hills Have Eyes. The Angel Gang is a bunch of wild cards. They don’t want to build a city-sinking torpedo or open up a portal to release an ancient evil whatever; they just want to snack on you a little bit. They won’t say any clever lines or reveal any master plans. At most, they’ll maybe give you a recipe for you, medium-rare.

Sadly, their stay is brief, because Stallone soon escapes and jams an electrical wire into the head of most monosyllabic among them. Of course, the mutant does get to say, “You killed my Pa,” so it’s not a total waste.

3

Blade: Trinity — The Human Farm

Throughout the Blade series, characters are constantly mentioning the fact that the vampire universe is bigger than you know. Sure, you think we live in a world of humans and puppy dogs and hit singles from Evanescence, but underneath it all, there’s a society of vampires. And when that society decides to rule the world, Blade will … take them out pretty easily, actually. For a race that’s apparently thiiiiis close to dominating the world, they sure seem to be divided into easily spin-kicked pockets.

Blade: Trinity is the worst Blade film. The best thing about Blade and Blade 2 is that they feel inventive and fresh. You’re getting things from them that you wouldn’t get from a Spider-Man or X-Men film — namely, Wesley Snipes cursing and reducing screeching henchmen to ashes. It’s why they’re two of my favorite superhero films. On the other hand, Blade: Trinity features boring-ass Dracula and his something or another quest to vaguely rule the world. After years of tackling rave mutants and goth Nosferatus, Blade’s final fight is with a bad Witcher cosplayer.

Luckily, we do get one scene that feels like it came out of the earlier films. Blade finds a human farm, where a bunch of comatose people are vacuum-sealed into big Ziploc bags and used as a constant source of vampire food. It’s super creepy, and when Blade gets told that they’re all brain-dead, he shuts the whole thing down with barely a second thought or a quietly growled “motherfucker.”

New Line Cinema

It also gives the movie (and the series) a sense of grand scale that it had been lacking. Oh, THIS is what the vampires were hyping up when they were jabbering on about their big vampire plans. Well, I apologize for not paying more attention, emo ghouls. My bad. My bad.

2

X-Men: Apocalypse — Wolverine’s Introduction

Before Logan, we only got tastes of Wolverine’s full potential as a fighter. One taste was in X2, when he has to defend Xavier’s School for Kool Kidz and Cyclops from William Stryker’s men. But the best pre-Logan scene of Wolverine grinding his way through bad guys in order to level up for the final boss was in X-Men: Apocalypse. Wolverine appears for only a few minutes in this movie, and he looks like an absolute monster.

Imagine you’re a security guard for some mutant research project. You don’t really worry about those mutants escaping, because why would you? They’re usually sedated and subdued, and if they did start waking up, there’s a whole room full of guys with heavy firearms who would blow them away. Then one day, you’re eatin’ a microwavable chicken pot pie and thinking about your novel when you hear “Weapon X is loose.” You know, the most dangerous experiment in a whole building full of dangerous experiments. Will the gun they’ve given you work against someone with adamantium claws and, if the rumors you heard are true, healing powers? Maybe.

That’s the feeling you get during the scene in which Wolverine escapes: pure, pee-your-pants, “Oh my god, I was not properly trained for this” terror. Sure, Logan has a lot of scenes where he cuts his way through dudes, but that movie frames it as action, while this turns Wolverine into a slasher villain. It doesn’t hurt that the scene ends with a splash of blood coming from offscreen, which is slasher movie code for “Daaaammmnnn.”

The rest of the movie is pretty subpar. The X-Men’s most powerful villain, Apocalypse, is handled so poorly that you just wish Magneto could be the main bad guy for the fourth time. But I guess it’s to be expected that the best part of an X-Men film would include Hugh Jackman. Oh, Hugh. Was it something I said? Please come back.

1

Batman v. Superman — The Warehouse Fight

Batman v. Superman didn’t give us a lot of what I would call “iconic” Batman moments. At one point, he does ask Superman, “Do you bleed?” and that’s pretty cool. But then Superman flies off because he has more important things to do than to lightly argue with some billionaire manchild, leaving Batman just standing there. So what does Batman do? He says, “You will,” and TOTALLY WINS THAT CONVERSATION. You sure got him, dude helplessly standing in the wreckage of his super car. I’m sure the shower argument that you had by yourself later was full of similar zingers. “DO YOU BLEED? WELL, I BET YOU DO. AND THEN I’D FUCKING PUNCH HIM LIKE THIS, AND SUPERMAN WOULD BE ALL LIKE, ‘NO, PLEASE, STOP, BATMAN. I BET YOUR PENIS DOESN’T EVEN SLIGHTLY CURVE TO THE LEFT.’ AND I’D BE ALL LIKE BAM. POW. SHUT UP.”

On a more positive note, Batman v. Superman does have one awesome scene: the warehouse fight. Now, before I get into why this part is so great, I do have to say that a lot of it has to do with the critically acclaimed Batman: Arkham games, which make every other Batman fight scene in every other medium look like a slap fight among friends. In the Arkham games, you can sneak up behind a dude, choke him out, zip up to a gargoyle, fly over and drop-kick a man’s torso off his body, zip back up to another gargoyle, tie a guy up to said gargoyle, throw a smoke pellet, hit a thug with an electric shock gun, choke out another dude, and then run up to the last dude as he fills you with bullets and hope that your body armor holds up for long enough so that Batman can someday wear the man’s skull as a shoe.

That’s the kind of thing that we got in the Batman v. Superman warehouse scene, during which Batman goes back and forth, rearranging an entire gang’s internal organs using everything in his disposal. Here are a few highlights:

– A guy comes into the room brandishing a grenade, so Batman kicks a guy he already has hanging from the ceiling into the grenade man.

– Batman Rock Bottoms a dude into the floor — a technique most assuredly taught to him by Ra’s al Ghul when Batman trained with all of those ninjas. “You must learn to conquer your fear, Bruce,” I remember Ra’s saying in Batman Begins. “CONQUER IT WITH THE PEOPLE’S ELBOW.”

– Batman uses his grappling hook gun thing to sling a box into a guy, and the guy gets hit so hard that he flies into a wall and the back of his goddamn head apparently comes off.

There are a lot of people who have a problem with Batman committing murder, but since my favorite superhero film is Batman Returns, I don’t think it’s that big of a deal. At the very least, it gave us a chance to experience an Arkham City level on the big screen, narrated entirely by Ben Affleck’s grunts.

Daniel has a Twitter. Go to it. Enjoy yourself. Kick your boots off and stay for a while.

Live long enough to see yourself become the villain with your own Batman Utility Belt!

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5 Superhero Movies That Are Only Worth It For One Scene

Bad superhero films are a treasure. Not only does one make you disappointed with Hollywood for creating a bad movie, but it also makes you doubly frustrated because they’re messing up something that you know is good in comic book form. However, we shouldn’t write off a bad superhero movie immediately. Upon closer examination, these terrible films can contain little glimpses of promise — little glimpses that make you say “This might be a secret masterpiece.” Or at least, “This doesn’t suck every poop.”

5

Batman & Robin — The Criminal Property Locker

In the annals of bad superhero films, Batman & Robin stands alone. It isn’t a “Well, maybe it’s not THAT bad” film like Superman Returns or Spider-Man 3. It isn’t a “I’ll forget the plot of this before I even leave the theater” film like X-Men: The Last Stand or Daredevil. It isn’t a “That’s a damn shame” film like Superman IV: The Quest For Peace or Robocop 2. And it isn’t a “If there is a God, they wouldn’t let this happen” film like Catwoman or Spawn. Instead, it’s a film that somehow gets both more amazingly terrible and more inexplicably enjoyable with time. I hate it and I love it in equal measure, and years after I’m dead, researchers will discover my skeleton clinging to a VHS copy of it, like Quasimodo and Esmeralda at the end of Hunchback Of Notre Dame.

But the movie does have one extremely cool split second. Now, there is a well-known Easter egg in Batman & Robin: When Bane and Poison Ivy are breaking Mr. Freeze out of Arkham Asylum, you get a glimpse of the “Criminal Property Locker.” And in the locker are the costumes of the Riddler and Two-Face from Batman Forever. That’s kind of neat — though since Two-Face died by falling into a spiky underwater pit, it does imply that some poor Arkham intern had to dry-clean and sew his fucking suit back together.

Warner Bros.

Read Next

5 Things You Can't Help But Wonder When Watching Movies

But the rest of the stuff in the room implies that when the Tim Burton/Joel Schumacher Batman wasn’t eviscerating clowns or neon terrorists, he was still pretty busy. Beside the Riddler’s suit is a doll, so at some point, was Val Kilmer punching the shit out of B-list villain Toyman? Or is that the work of the Dollmaker, a guy who made dolls out of his victims’ skin? Is that dude still in Arkham? It’s unlikely, considering that Michael Keaton’s Batman was one part hero and nine parts sadist, and probably attached a bomb to Dollmaker and peed on him a little bit before even learning his name. But still, the scene adds history to a series that seemed to be mostly about Batman sitting around in his office, waiting for crime to happen.

And then, on the right side, we see a pair of boxing gloves. So good luck, guy who was using those. I’m sure your career as Two-Punch Man was really hitting its peak just before Michael Keaton ripped your intestines out through your eye holes.

But the most interesting part is the big mechanical suit that we see, and on first glance, you’d probably assume that it’s Mr. Freeze’s suit, since that’s what Poison Ivy broke into the locker to get. But Mr. Freeze’s suit looks nothing like that. So either Mr. Freeze has been fighting Batman and Robin for so long that he’s had to upgrade his technology in order to keep his chilly ass un-kicked, or it belongs to another mech-suited villain. The pyromaniac Firefly, maybe? That would be so awesome, and now I’m so pissed that I never got to see Val Kilmer stare expressionless around a bug man with a flamethrower. What were you even good for if you couldn’t give us that, the ’90s?

4

Judge Dredd — The Angel Gang

Judge Dredd came out in 1995, when we were still trying to figure out whether superhero movies were going to be a thing. Sure, Superman and Batman had been pretty successful, but was there hope for anyone else? The answer to that was “Not yet,” as proven by the lackluster Judge Dredd, which featured Sylvester Stallone. I know that we’re all currently pretty high on Stallone after Creed, but between Rocky IV and Rocky Balboa, he was having a rough time being in any movie that someone could honestly call good. At his best, he was in films like Demolition Man — or as my dad would call it, Daniel, we need to talk.

Judge Dredd has sweet set design, but other than that, it’s a lot of Stallone and Armand Assante shouting at side characters who are too useless to be given their own shouting dialogue. The only time it really perks up is when Stallone and his little buddy Rob Schneider get captured in the wastelands by the Angel Gang. The Angel Gang are cannibals, and their role in the movie almost feels like Judge Dredd DLC. But during the gang’s brief vacation in your eyeballs, Judge Dredd ceases to be a humdrum exploration into the beauty of shoulder pads, and starts feeling special.

There are plenty of movies wherein superheroes fight random gangs. There are just as many superhero movies where the hero is forced to fight a guy who could’ve been a hero, but instead went evil. But there are very few superhero films in which the hero has to tangle with the cast of The Hills Have Eyes. The Angel Gang is a bunch of wild cards. They don’t want to build a city-sinking torpedo or open up a portal to release an ancient evil whatever; they just want to snack on you a little bit. They won’t say any clever lines or reveal any master plans. At most, they’ll maybe give you a recipe for you, medium-rare.

Sadly, their stay is brief, because Stallone soon escapes and jams an electrical wire into the head of most monosyllabic among them. Of course, the mutant does get to say, “You killed my Pa,” so it’s not a total waste.

3

Blade: Trinity — The Human Farm

Throughout the Blade series, characters are constantly mentioning the fact that the vampire universe is bigger than you know. Sure, you think we live in a world of humans and puppy dogs and hit singles from Evanescence, but underneath it all, there’s a society of vampires. And when that society decides to rule the world, Blade will … take them out pretty easily, actually. For a race that’s apparently thiiiiis close to dominating the world, they sure seem to be divided into easily spin-kicked pockets.

Blade: Trinity is the worst Blade film. The best thing about Blade and Blade 2 is that they feel inventive and fresh. You’re getting things from them that you wouldn’t get from a Spider-Man or X-Men film — namely, Wesley Snipes cursing and reducing screeching henchmen to ashes. It’s why they’re two of my favorite superhero films. On the other hand, Blade: Trinity features boring-ass Dracula and his something or another quest to vaguely rule the world. After years of tackling rave mutants and goth Nosferatus, Blade’s final fight is with a bad Witcher cosplayer.

Luckily, we do get one scene that feels like it came out of the earlier films. Blade finds a human farm, where a bunch of comatose people are vacuum-sealed into big Ziploc bags and used as a constant source of vampire food. It’s super creepy, and when Blade gets told that they’re all brain-dead, he shuts the whole thing down with barely a second thought or a quietly growled “motherfucker.”

New Line Cinema

It also gives the movie (and the series) a sense of grand scale that it had been lacking. Oh, THIS is what the vampires were hyping up when they were jabbering on about their big vampire plans. Well, I apologize for not paying more attention, emo ghouls. My bad. My bad.

2

X-Men: Apocalypse — Wolverine’s Introduction

Before Logan, we only got tastes of Wolverine’s full potential as a fighter. One taste was in X2, when he has to defend Xavier’s School for Kool Kidz and Cyclops from William Stryker’s men. But the best pre-Logan scene of Wolverine grinding his way through bad guys in order to level up for the final boss was in X-Men: Apocalypse. Wolverine appears for only a few minutes in this movie, and he looks like an absolute monster.

Imagine you’re a security guard for some mutant research project. You don’t really worry about those mutants escaping, because why would you? They’re usually sedated and subdued, and if they did start waking up, there’s a whole room full of guys with heavy firearms who would blow them away. Then one day, you’re eatin’ a microwavable chicken pot pie and thinking about your novel when you hear “Weapon X is loose.” You know, the most dangerous experiment in a whole building full of dangerous experiments. Will the gun they’ve given you work against someone with adamantium claws and, if the rumors you heard are true, healing powers? Maybe.

That’s the feeling you get during the scene in which Wolverine escapes: pure, pee-your-pants, “Oh my god, I was not properly trained for this” terror. Sure, Logan has a lot of scenes where he cuts his way through dudes, but that movie frames it as action, while this turns Wolverine into a slasher villain. It doesn’t hurt that the scene ends with a splash of blood coming from offscreen, which is slasher movie code for “Daaaammmnnn.”

The rest of the movie is pretty subpar. The X-Men’s most powerful villain, Apocalypse, is handled so poorly that you just wish Magneto could be the main bad guy for the fourth time. But I guess it’s to be expected that the best part of an X-Men film would include Hugh Jackman. Oh, Hugh. Was it something I said? Please come back.

1

Batman v. Superman — The Warehouse Fight

Batman v. Superman didn’t give us a lot of what I would call “iconic” Batman moments. At one point, he does ask Superman, “Do you bleed?” and that’s pretty cool. But then Superman flies off because he has more important things to do than to lightly argue with some billionaire manchild, leaving Batman just standing there. So what does Batman do? He says, “You will,” and TOTALLY WINS THAT CONVERSATION. You sure got him, dude helplessly standing in the wreckage of his super car. I’m sure the shower argument that you had by yourself later was full of similar zingers. “DO YOU BLEED? WELL, I BET YOU DO. AND THEN I’D FUCKING PUNCH HIM LIKE THIS, AND SUPERMAN WOULD BE ALL LIKE, ‘NO, PLEASE, STOP, BATMAN. I BET YOUR PENIS DOESN’T EVEN SLIGHTLY CURVE TO THE LEFT.’ AND I’D BE ALL LIKE BAM. POW. SHUT UP.”

On a more positive note, Batman v. Superman does have one awesome scene: the warehouse fight. Now, before I get into why this part is so great, I do have to say that a lot of it has to do with the critically acclaimed Batman: Arkham games, which make every other Batman fight scene in every other medium look like a slap fight among friends. In the Arkham games, you can sneak up behind a dude, choke him out, zip up to a gargoyle, fly over and drop-kick a man’s torso off his body, zip back up to another gargoyle, tie a guy up to said gargoyle, throw a smoke pellet, hit a thug with an electric shock gun, choke out another dude, and then run up to the last dude as he fills you with bullets and hope that your body armor holds up for long enough so that Batman can someday wear the man’s skull as a shoe.

That’s the kind of thing that we got in the Batman v. Superman warehouse scene, during which Batman goes back and forth, rearranging an entire gang’s internal organs using everything in his disposal. Here are a few highlights:

– A guy comes into the room brandishing a grenade, so Batman kicks a guy he already has hanging from the ceiling into the grenade man.

– Batman Rock Bottoms a dude into the floor — a technique most assuredly taught to him by Ra’s al Ghul when Batman trained with all of those ninjas. “You must learn to conquer your fear, Bruce,” I remember Ra’s saying in Batman Begins. “CONQUER IT WITH THE PEOPLE’S ELBOW.”

– Batman uses his grappling hook gun thing to sling a box into a guy, and the guy gets hit so hard that he flies into a wall and the back of his goddamn head apparently comes off.

There are a lot of people who have a problem with Batman committing murder, but since my favorite superhero film is Batman Returns, I don’t think it’s that big of a deal. At the very least, it gave us a chance to experience an Arkham City level on the big screen, narrated entirely by Ben Affleck’s grunts.

Daniel has a Twitter. Go to it. Enjoy yourself. Kick your boots off and stay for a while.

Live long enough to see yourself become the villain with your own Batman Utility Belt!

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