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danwhobrowses · 3 years

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WWE Wrestlemania 37 Day 1 - Review

Big Card, Not so big build

But it is that time of the year, we Stood, we Delivered, and now we shall Showcase for the Grandest Stage of them All

I got hyped for it by watching Bret vs Owen so I do have expectations, I haven't been spoiled too much save for the Main Event and the fact that there was storms that delayed the event, I dunno if they cut that content but we shall see Note: I am gonna bold who I predicted to win per match as well just to show how right/wrong I was

Spoilers for Wrestlemania Night 1, You Have Been Warned

Pre-Show The opening panel was not so great; Booker (with a captain Hook moustache), JBL, Lawler and Rosenberg, bunch of contrarian drivel really and trying to make Braun/Shane out like it deserves on the card just doesn't sit with me, that match robbed a potential Father/Son Tag Title Victory for the Mysterios (I know the Dirty Dawgs won on SD but I feel like they wouldn't have retained if it were Mania). Most of the promo packages were good at the least since they can cut out all the shoddy booking decisions and act like some stars were underbooked over the past year. I will say though, selling BelAir and Banks as 'the first time a women's singles match has main evented Wrestlemania' is a bit of a slight on the triple threat - which would've been 1v1 if Vinny didn't want to be adamant in adding more feathers to Charlotte's peahen plumage - it was still a singles match, sometimes WWE's desire for 'first time evers' are a bit insufferable. Also this is not 'the most important match of Cesaro's career', that is a terrible thing to say about a non-title match revolving around Rollins feeling embarrassed. The Hall of Fame recap was a mixed bag as well, mainly because I disagreed with some of the inductions and the way they tried to sell them bigger than what they are, but I was glad for some - Liger, Bulldog, Molly Holly, Kane...still waiting on Lillian and Andy Kaufman to get inducted though. Sonya also popped up to promote the tag turmoil and retreading the main event, she was super natural and should've been on the whole panel, or in the ring. Sonya's talents are wasted right now.

No Match though! An Hour of Recap lacked any entertainment seeing as we'd see all these promo packages again on the main card. So overall this was entirely skippable.

Main Card...Delayed Vince opened the event to address the crowd, which was kinda nice actually. It was a much more inclusive introduction than just having someone singing America the Beautifu-oh they're still doing tha-boooooooobs! It's also kinda weird looking at the roster not even on the card on the stage, like this is their only contribution for the entire year...

The intro package was a big obnoxious too, dude does an okay Jack Sparrow accent but it kinda went on a bit long, 10 minutes into the main show and there's no wrestling y'know?

Byron out with a super white suit as well, looking like Liberace as weather warnings echoed the arena, with news that it'll be worse tomorrow I hope that arena has a roof. With the delay WWE pulled with interviews, Big E even showed up to join his New Day buddies. Cole's 'Wrestlerainia' did not land and Braun saying 'I'm fighting for everyone whose been bullied' doesn't land either, we had this story with Nia and Alexa years ago. I also hate 'Herstory', like the literal word I hate it, History has adapted well beyond gender. Sure, it evolved from the Greek Histor which means 'wise' or 'a learned man' but the His is not the agent noun, the Tor is, and it's a gender neutral noun, if it were a Latin root then it'd be masculine but its root is Ancient Greek - there's your Etymology lesson for tonight.

The irony though, the moment fans get back in the arena they have to come back out because of rain.

Main Card - This Time Around Titus and Hulk came out as hosts to ramp up the crowd, it was kinda uncomfortable in context really, plus we don't need a third rundown of the card. Reminder that those in bold was who I earlier predicted to win.

WWE Championship - Bobby Lashley [w/MVP] (c) def. Drew McIntyre (Ref Stoppage Submission via Hurt Lock) Starting hot with the World title match again, bit odd to see Lashley do his point pose on the ramp and no pyro, but both men fixed their eyes on each other and barely looked away. Their history goes beyond WWE after all, not that the commentary would tell you. The did come out with a ton of falsities though, I know the WWE Championship was at several times the most prestigious belt in wrestling but not all the time in that 60 years, Big Gold Belt, IWGP and 10 Pounds of Gold had times too, AEW also can tout that, but Cole's most baffling claim was that you'd need to win it to be a Hall of Famer - on the same year Bulldog who never won a world title was inducted. No quick draw like last year, the match started with some meat slapping, Drew even gesturing a fuck you with the Bras d'honneur to Lashley after knocking him down. Both men would trade blows and advantage, Drew almost locking an armbreaker but Lashley clubbing free - very weird camera cutting there. Lashley hit 2 throws and a neckbreaker to regain the advantage, he didn't get the Futureshock but he hit a nice Northern Lights Suplex. Lashley hit his newer version of the Dominator and an Uranage but both only kept Drew down for 2, he almost got the Hurt Lock as Drew fought back with some blows and a front-facing Alabama Slam, he tried a superplex but Lashley fought out, tried a kimura but got knocked down, so he went for the Tree of Woe throw he does. Lashley gets him with another Uranage but Drew kips up, belly to belly, Futureshock, Futureshock, Futureshock! 1, 2, No! Drew calls for the Claymore but Lashley rolls out, MVP coming late, Drew then does a Tope onto both. He goes up top but almost gets caught with the Hurt Lock, an Exploder and a Flatliner puts Lashley in the driver's seat, he tries for the Hurt Lock again but is driven into the Turnbuckle, Drew then locks in the Kimura but Lashley gets to the ropes. After trading shots Lashley lands into a boot and a headbutt, Drew looks for the Claymore but MVP shouts to distract him, allowing Lashley to dodge and get the Hurt Lock in, Drew tried to fight back, tried to roll out of it by kicking the turnbuckle but Lashley cinched it in tight, fading, fading, and the ref calls the bell.

A very good opener this one, big men slapping meat can hardly go wrong. Not too many false finishes either and MVP only psyches Drew out rather than got fully involved. It was right for Drew to fade rather than tap too. First prediction wins, I did think it was a risk but I expected it because WWE had sold the idea that they wanted Drew to win in front of a crowd, but he had held the title for most of the year, so I anticipated the swerve. Still, we didn't have to break up the Hurt Business for this, hopefully Lashley gets more time to shine.

As Lashley celebrated with some strange camera switching we moved to Titus, the NWO and a Bayley segment. Bayley trying to sell her Ding Dong Hello and being denied some Two Sweets, a huge waste of Bayley's talents especially with the year she has had.

Tag Team Turmoil for a shot at the WWE Women's Tag Championship on Night 2 - Natalya & Tamina def. Naomi & Lana, the Riott Squad [Liv Morgan & Ruby Riott], Billie Kay & Carmella and Dana Brooke & Mandy Rose (pinfall by Tamina on Ruby Riott via Superfly Splash) Props to Billie Kay selling the lack of cohesion in her and Carmella's entrance as they started the match against Lana & Naomi. Naomi started with the advantage but it was traded to Carmella when Lana was tagged in, then to Billie, then back to Naomi. A double facebuster flattens Billie but Carmella breaks the pin, after Carmella throws Lana out Billie rolls up Naomi - who is also strengthened by Carmella lying on the floor but using her feet to keep Billie up right - for 3, eliminating that team. Naomi is not happy, as she should be that was a huge waste, as the Riott Squad come in. Sporting Suicide Squad Joker (Ruby) & Harley (Liv) outfits, the Riott Squad start hot but are foiled by Carmella's tag. Liv is the feeder to Carmella and Billie's combos, they try the same rollup trick but they are caught by the ref, Carmella's dumped allowing Liv to hit a codebreaker and hold Billie down for Ruby's senton for the 3, the two embrace but Carmella superkicks Liv as Dana & Manda arrive in pink, Mandy humorously slipping on the ramp did not go unmissed. With Liv taken out Ruby tried to fight alone, Dana hits a top rope blockbuster but Liv comes back to break the pin. Dana hits a spinning neckbreaker and tags Mandy in, a pin for 2 by Ruby opens the door for Liv to be tagged in, a Codebreaker/Riott Kick combo lands but the pin is broken by Dana. Cole accidentally calls Mandy 'Dana' as she rallies, Dana comes back to dump Ruby out as they land the Superplex/Swanton combo on Liv, Mandy pulls Ruby from making the save but Liv reverses the pin for 3. The announcer then wrongly says that the Riott Squad were eliminated and has to be corrected, making you think this wasn't the plan. Natalya and Tamina pick up the scraps, Natalya tries a Sharpshooter but gets rolled up for 2, she drops Liv onto the ropes and tags Tamina in. Natalya hits a powerbomb but Ruby breaks the pin before being dumped out by Tamina again. Liv fights both women enough for Ruby to tag in, an assisted spear on Tamina leads to the Codebreaker/Senton combo but it hits for 2. They set up the Codebreaker/Riott Kick but Tamina yanks Riott away and superkicks Liv. Natalya returns to hit the Hart Attack on Ruby, looks to set up the Sharpshooter but instead tells Tamina to take point, Superfly Splash gets the win. The champions look on on a monitor at their opponents.

A bit of a mixed bag this one, the wrestling was clean but I think external botching brought it down, as well as questionable booking decisions. Naomi is a multi-time champion she should not be pinned so quickly. I did again correctly predict Nattie and Tamina, but I personally wanted the Riott Squad to win, it was the Heyman dressing down that motivated me to pick the Daughter Combo - also weird that they acknowledge Tamina's heritage given what Superfly did. The Riotts at least got a great showing, the finish took a bit of a long time considering that all Liv took from them was a superkick and was out for 2 minutes, hopefully this'll inspire booking to push them which is well overdue. As for Tamina and Natalya, heel vs heel is a tough one, they didn't look like babyfaces here and while I do have them to win the titles this was not a good look for their chances.

Cesaro def. Seth Rollins (pinfall via Neutralizer) Seth entered the ring with a homage to the Andre OBEY print on his tights, followed by his Cesaro smear ad, then Cesaro in a weird choice of just a black jacket as well as black and yellow tights similar to his Wrestlemania XXX attire.

Cesaro starts with a huge uppercut and setting up the Swing, but Seth wriggles out, tries a big boot but Cesaro hits the Dragon Screw and tries for the swing again, but fails again. Cesaro gets a corkscrew springboard uppercut but Seth hurts his arm on the ropes, he gets an uppercut as Seth climbs on the turnbuckle but he kinda didn't get all of it. Going for an Avalanche Gutwrench Suplex, Seth rolls out into a Buckle Bomb for 2, Seth then preys on the arm, Cesaro's arm prevents a rally as Seth hits the Superplex/Falcon Arrow combo for 2. Cesaro flurries with uppercuts, he tries the swing but Rollins keeps countering, first a rollup then going to ropes followed by an Enzugiri, when he tries the Stomp though Cesaro gets the swing, 9 spins causes the arm to give way but he locks in the Sharpshooter (probably why Natalya couldn't/wouldn't do it last match), Rollins gets to the ropes and powers out of the Neutralizer, knee strike and a sling blade sets up for a Corkscrew Frog Splash for 2. Seth sets up the Ripcord Knee but gets lifted into a Neutralizer! 1, 2, No! (Commentary saying again 'and now Cesaro begins to doubt himself), Cesaro tries it again but lands into a Pedigree! 1, 2, No!

Seth gloats surviving both of Cesaro's big moves, clubbing the back of Cesaro's head with his hand and then his leg as he prepares a stomp, Cesaro then hits the uppercut, UFO! Gestures for the Swing and gets it! 23 Rotations, Neutralizer, 3!

That's what I'm talking about! Indy Darling match with some great spots, good crowd involvement and a proper babyface win. Cesaro thanks the crowd as they cheer him on, Seth did show some great creativity which I kinda hoped Cesaro would but it was a small thing in otherwise a great match. I guessed with my heart on this one unlike the Tag Team Turmoil, because of my Universal Title plans really, Cesaro has been given the chance to earn the push we all know he deserves and he's took it, now we can push him further.

Post-match they recapped the AMBR and 4-Way, bit off to say 'Veteran Experience pays off' when Rey was the most experienced of them all, also the 4-Way should've been on the mania card and the tag turmoil on SD. They interviewed the Dirty Dawgs to talk the Raw Tag titles, which was a bit rough to see, it's clear what the pecking order is in Vince's mind.

Raw Tag Championships - AJ Styles & Omos def. New Day [Xavier Woods & Kofi Kingston] (c) (pinfall by Omos on Kofi via Double-Handed Chokeslam TITLE CHANGE) Annoyingly the Champions came out first, but they were introduced by Big E, a Fusion Dance hologram graphic paired with their entrance as they came out in Red to rep the Tampa Bay Bucs in what would've been their 2020 attire, cheekily the 2020's last 0 was scribbled out and a 1 added. Blue trumpet though, couldn't recolour that. AJ and Omos came together too but no matching attire, Omos looked like he was going for dinner. AJ also looked like he stumbled a bit at the start.

Kofi goaded AJ into starting the match rather than Omos, leading to some liquid sequences from both former WWE Champions, each respectively rolling out of an SOS and Calf Crusher. After a back body drop Kofi stared down an unimpressed Omos, then twerked which hurt my soul. Kinda heelishly, Xavier tripped up AJ when a throat chop gave him a reprieve, leading to them keeping AJ in the corner, including the Unicorn Stomp as Omos continued to look unimpressed. Against Xavier AJ tried to drag him to his corner, but cannot get to Omos' halfhearted reaching. A team bulldog only gets 1 though. Kofi then continues to block the corner so AJ goes out of the ring to run around, only to be intercepted by Xavier. AJ continues to try and get to Omos, even being flattened by a splash by Kofi, when setting up their finisher though AJ elbows Kofi away, a visual exchange between the now free AJ and the top-turnbuckle Xavier preludes AJ finally tagging in Omos, Xavier frightened as Omos finally has a smile on his face. The 7'3 giant no sells Xavier's and Kofi's offense, charging into both on either turnbuckle, then a backbreaker to both. AJ then jumped over Omos to hit the Phenomenal Forearm to deal with Woods, Omos hit a two-handed chokeslam then pinned Kofi with one foot for the titles.

I didn't like this match's narrative, the wrestling was fine but the story wasn't done so well. For one, New Day acted more like the heels by bullying AJ and keeping him cornered, for second, Omos didn't really 'wrestle' he just no sold and did 3 safe moves and third, New Day are 11 time tag champions, Kofi a former world champion and they pinned him like that. Disrespect. The fact that the SD Tag Titles are second fiddle to a match where it's just AJ Styles plus the Great Khali, and that's Raw's Division right now, Two Thirds of New Day and this mismatch. This only highlights the severe lack of depth and WWE's booking hypocrisy. Next time you read about a 5 foot something wrestler not getting a title or a push because they're 'too green' or 'can't talk' remember that Omos won the tag titles on his debut match after doing a backbreaker, a turnbuckle tackle and a double handed chokeslam.

Humorous though is that WWE cut to a cringy Corbin ad break just as AJ was falling off of Omos' shoulders, I saw that WWE. We also cut to Sasha preparing for the match as the cage began to lower.

Steel Cage Match - Braun Strowman def. Shane McMahon (pinfall via Running Powerslam) The apathy for this match remains high considering that Shane showed up a couple months ago to steal a card slot from someone who could've been wrestling all year. Shane enters in his usual way, Braun with blinding fog and a train sound effect, cringy commentary as well as Shane keeps the door shut. Elias and Ryker soften Braun with chairs, attacking the legs and gifting Shane a chair who unloads on his grounded opponent. Once he feels he's done enough he tries to leave by the door, but Braun pulls him away, he tries to climb over the cage but gets pulled away, Braun declaring that he won't escape. Shane does his tacky jabs dodging Braun's wide swings, he tries to climb out again but Braun grabs him, but there's a planted piece of sheet metal that he uses as a weapon. After a 1 count Shane tried to escape through the door but fails, Braun decides to throw Shane into the cage walls, opening Shane to be struck by his blows and sandwiched between the cage walls, the leg gives out before the powerslam allowing Shane to ram Braun into the cage wall and DDT him, Coast to Coast gets 2 and Elias and Ryker climb the cage, hoping to pull Shane over, but Braun tackles the cage wall to knock everyone off. Shane makes the climb again but Braun is gripping onto him, bags are planted on the corners of the cage as Shane cracks Braun with a toolbox, as Shane celebrates he gets his leg over, he waves his hand through the cage at Braun but he grabs it, peeling off the cage wall to pull Shane back inside. Braun considers leaving but pulls Shane to the top of the cage, throwing Shane to the ring floor. Braun shouts at Shane, hits the running powerslam for 3.

It's good to be wrong here, though when I predicted Shane to win it was more a Pyrrhic win like being sent through a cage wall - because the build had Braun foolishly act like cage matches never have interference. This was a match, Shane planting weapons and using Elias and Ryker to prove himself 'smart' and Braun just powers out of it, the ripping the cage wall to drag Shane back in was a good spot - if not overly convenient since Shane could've dropped and gloated after - but it didn't need to be Wrestlemania.

Bayley comes back this time to the announcers table, bullying Cole out of his seat, but she's made to look stupid since Byron of all people tell her that they're waiting for the Hall of Famers, the HOF package happens again and the inductees able to attend appear on the stage, graphics of those who couldn't on the screen, NWO get their own entrance though with the NWO-painted Big Gold belt, bit unnecessary really they have enough spotlight.

Stone Cold announces the next mania in Texas in the AT&T Stadium, Booker then joins the announcer's table.

Bad Bunny & Damian Priest def. Miz and John Morrison (Pinfall by Bad Bunny on Miz via Crossbody/Electric Chair combo) A bunch of men dressed as bunnies hop into the ring before Miz and Morrison lipsync their diss track entrance. After the promo package Damian Priest makes his entrance, wearing the HBK Bondage shirt and sporting the purple, Bad Bunny appears atop of a Monster Truck in a pre-recorded segment with a lot of camera cuts, leading into the live version, looking like Rufus from Bill and Ted.

Miz and Morrison goad Bad Bunny to start the match so Priest tags him in, Miz mocks Bunny for a free shot and gets floored with a blow, waistlock and another punch, after a brief flurry Miz slows Bunny down but then gets caught with an arm drag, a toehold and a roll up for 2. Morrison attempts to snap Miz out of his frustration, but every offense he gets Bad Bunny comes back, this time with a spinning headscissors. Morrison's tagged in but gets headbutted, a 'bunny hop' jumping elbow, Miz's cheap shot leads to some heat feeding as Miz does some mocking bunny hops. He rolls over Miz for 2 but gets flattened with a boot, Morrison punishes Bunny on the announcer's table who then does a Spinaroonie while they continue to punish Bunny and incite Priest. Bunny gets a tornado DDT to open up the Hot Tag who cleans up house with strikes - more annoying camera cuts though. Chokeslam only gets 2 because Morrison breaks the count, Bunny comes in and both men hit stereo Falcon Arrows, both for 2, Priest does a tope, Bunny crossbodies from the top corner. Priest sets up his finish but gets caught with a Skull Crushing Finale, 1, 2, Bunny breaks the pin. Back into his corner Morrison tries to keep Bunny from being tagged, but Bunny hits a Canadian Destroyer onto Morrison on the outside of the ring, Miz and Priest awestruck. Priest sets up the Electric Chair, Bunny crossbodies and that's 3.

I may not know who Bad Bunny is, or particularly like his music, but he definitely meets the standards of the work celebrity guests should put in if they wanna be booked for a match. Bad Bunny did far much more spots than Omos, granted his punches flooring Miz was a bit unbelievable but overall he shone in an entertaining match, I feel bad for Miz and Morrison really, Miz was WWE champion about a month ago for a week and Morrison left at the top of Impact and AAA to come back for this? Maybe if he pairs up with his wife he'll get the booking he deserves. Also don't really know why Booker needed to be there on the announcer's table, aside from one mock spot and a GI Bro mention he didn't influence the match at all

SD Women's Championship - Bianca BelAir def. Sasha Banks (c) (Pinfall via KOD TITLE CHANGE!) And so comes the Main Event, the Royal Rumble winner comes out a sparkly EST outfit with tassels, Sasha with a black and neon green attire that definitely stood out. More shoddy camera cutting though kinda upset the flow of the entrance.

On Pre-Show - 'These two are in the Main Event regardless of Race, Regardless of Gender' On Main Event - 'For the first time two black women are having a title match on the main event at Wrestlemania' ...poor form WWE. Especially since you followed this with a Snickers plug.

The Bell rings as there are close ups on an emotional Bianca, duelling chants from the crowd as Sasha overpowers BelAir, leading her to kip up and get her own advantage, almost landing the KOD early. BelAir's power catches most of Banks' assault so she opts for counter-wrestling, she looks to count BelAir out but then decides for a Suicide Dive, but BelAir catches her and presses her back up the stairs and into the ring. Dropkick by Sasha gets 2, Bianca hits a powerslam but her handspring moonsault is blocked by Sasha yanking at the hair, using it as leverage to drive her knee into BelAir's head, Shining Wizard only gets 2. When Banks tries the knees in the corner she's planted with an Uranage, she tries to yank Bianca's hair into the corner post but Bianca powers her into it instead, a barricade crossbody also misses but the count is up to 6, both women roll in, BelAir uses an inside cradle to momentum herself up to a Vertical Suplex position, she slingshots 2 of the sides but Banks struggles, Bianca powers her back up but Sasha struggles again, BelAir powers again and lands the suplex but it takes a lot out of her. After clotheslining Sasha who was pulling on her hair, BelAir flurries with strikes and a running shooting star, Glam Slam hits but Sasha gets the knees up for the 450. The two trade pins and BelAir hits the Powerbomb for 2, she tries again but Sasha goes for a facebuster, Double Rotation Tornado DDT gets 2 for Sasha, a clunky Frog Splash which might've been a Meteora that Bianca was out of position for hits BelAir but only has 2, Sasha starts getting frustrated and goes for the arm, snaps it against the ropes then throws BelAir into the steps, she goes for the Bank Statement, wrapping Bianca's hair around her arm for added leverage, she tries to rebound off the ropes but Bianca rolls back to rope break, Sasha yanks the hair between the rope and stomps on her hair in frustration but this gets Bianca angry, she sets up a Superplex but is thrown off, she tries what looks like a Stratusfaction but gets locked into a Tree of Woe double stomp, Bianca avoids it and the running knee strike, landing the 450! 1, 2, No! Bianca freaks out, she was so sure that was it, but now the anger sets in, KOD set up but Sasha pulls the hair to right herself, Bianca cracks Sasha with her hair and tries again, but Sasha wriggles to try a Backstabber, Bianca escapes that, spins her around and lands the KOD, 1, 2, E.S.T.

A really good match from both women, met with a great ovation for Bianca. The match liked to prey on Bianca's hair a lot which may've been a little overdone, I would've liked to have seen it get a bit more than 18 minutes too. I predicted Sasha because I think Rhea's winning hers (I still do) and Sasha has once again yet to have a major Wrestlemania win, but I'm certainly not unhappy with BelAir - she put on a great performance here, especially with the fact that she fumbled her NXT Women's Title match against Baszler earlier, showing a lot more maturity and a strong face character to get behind. WWE should not have overdid the booking on this in the build but for the night, it is Bianca's night to close day one of WrESTlemania.

Conclusion NXT Stand and Deliver set a high bar for Wrestlemania to pull off, and for Night 1 at least I believe they definitely met it. There were a few downs, shoddy camerawork, non-wrestling botching and heavy mistreatment for Naomi, Bayley and the New Day but on the other hand we had great matches out of Cesaro, Bad Bunny and the other title matches including the main event, aside from the tag turmoil I'm not upset with the winners. Becky teased us with appearing before the show but it seems like it was a fakeout, was kinda hoping she'd be back but maybe it'll be Night 2

We will only find out on the night though, and there's a lot more to look forward to.

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stillness-in-green · 4 years

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Changeling: The League (1/3)

Being some errant nerdery combining two things I love very much into one thing that is exponentially more nerdy than either thing on its own: My Hero Academia villains as Changeling: the Lost characters!

This will(/should) be a series of three posts containing some mid-length write-ups on the League of Villains, the Metahuman Liberation Army, and some odds-and-ends on other characters/alternate takes.

Some prelude: The most prominent question that kept coming up as I was brainstorming the write-ups below was, “Is this retelling the story of My Hero Academia using Changeling: The Lost’s mechanics and world, or is this exploring Changeling: The Lost’s themes using the My Hero Academia cast?” Would these versions of the characters be NPC villains in Izuku’s story, opponents (or possibly eventual allies) in some grand, epic clash between Heroes and Villains as begun with All Might and All for One? Would it be the story of a corrupt system, pulled down by the PC group that was Shigaraki and his motley? I had ideas for both, but in the end, I decided that, rather than oblige myself to the MHA canon, I was ultimately more interested in just letting the implied “story” focus on the League and their histories of loss, trauma and recovery, so that’s the spirit in which these are written. (Though things do get a bit plottier when their story intersects with the MLA’s.)

Lastly, these are, of course, completely AU, but if you don’t know who the Liberation Army is, you’re probably still going to trip over manga spoilers, so be mindful.

First, let me lay down some backstory! Specifically, the story of All for One, One for All, and the lives they drew into their story...

THE PROLOGUE

There is a realm in Faerie inhabited by a pair of binary-matched Fae, All for One and One for All, styling themselves as warring brothers. They’ve been fighting for many long generations, each in their own fashion. All for One has tended to keep his power mostly within himself, employing many underlings, but sharing his power with very few of them. One for All, conversely, has shared most of himself with a succession of users, and in each generation, the pair clashes, with OFA not very "present" for the battles (and thus at less risk), while AFO is able to bring more of himself to the fights. Before each battle, each user of OFA would be "freed" for a period to find and designate a successor (who would inevitably go missing a few weeks later), before returning for the battle. They often did this with deeply tormented feelings, but saw little escape from the pattern. Each one hoped that they might be the one strong enough to break the cycle, as OFA told them each time was a possibility--patterns grow stronger for being repeated, after all--but none of them was able to do so until recently. Toshinori Yagi refused to designate a successor, and finally, for his stubbornness, was recalled to do battle without one--without having passed even a fragment of OFA's power on, he was finally able to defeat AFO.

In his defeat, AFO was cast out from Faerie. He had little memory of who and what he was, but retained a sense for fae matters and a limited grasp on his powers. He spent the next several years setting up shop in the local freehold, dabbling with Spring and Autumn Court matters as his fancy took him, and racking up a fair amount of renown with the latter in particular when the former found him too ruthless, and not only with humans. One day, though, he stumbled across what would eventually become his way home--a little boy who felt startlingly familiar, black-haired with a mole on his chin. AFO struck up a friendship, and when he eventually met the boy's father, things began to click into place--he knew this family because he once fought their matriarch, and that connection was the key to his return. As he was once defeated by this bloodline bearing his brother's power, for his rise, he had to defeat someone of the bloodline--but he couldn’t just do it straight out. With his brother, there were pacts in play, old bargains and arrangements. He couldn’t just waltz in and kill Shimura Kotaro.

One of them needed to ask.

THE LEAGUE

Here are the League roughly as we might find them when they’ve been out long enough to build a motley, solidify their bonds somewhat, and start taking on bigger, toothier problems. All have 7 dots of Contracts except Shigaraki, who has a modest leader bump. Just assume he’s been out doing some level-grinding the others haven’t.

Shigaraki Tomura

Quote: “There’s always a win condition.”

Type: Gameplayer Wizened. A trophy/souvenir of AFO’s time on Earth, Tomura survived a durance filled with little but tests in the guise of games. Survival, combat, endurance, manual dexterity, reaction time, strategy, academics, even odd trivia--he learned them all under his Keeper’s tutelage, in preparation for the next battle with his brother's champion (AFO having seen that his brother's way of doing things has its merits). Tomura grew up believing himself responsible for his family's deaths (though he's blocked most of the specifics, he knows in his gut that he's responsible somehow) and watching the realm celebrate the champion who'd defeated Tomura’s Keeper, but who hadn't done a thorough enough job to prevent the cycle from resetting after all.

Toshinori, for his part, initially had no idea that AFO had returned with a child, a new champion. But he did know that AFO had returned (the realms are connected enough that you can't really miss it), and so waited for the next battle with some impatience. He thought that he, perhaps, just hadn't done well enough, that he'd be more careful, more thorough next time. After all, patterns become stronger when they repeat. He doesn't truly understand that All for One can't be killed--not in Faerie, at least--and so there will be no end to the cycle as it stands. Eventually, he got tired of waiting and sought out AFO on his own--and was shocked to find a kid, just a kid, where he expected to find AFO. AFO did not think Shigaraki was ready for this yet, and was not prepared to watch several years' worth of effort and his cute keepsake get slaughtered (and he probably would have been; Shigaraki could have all the lives he wanted in training, but an official battle against the sanctioned bearer of OFA would have been different), so he ejected Shigaraki from Faerie and fought the battle himself. As to what happened afterwards, Shigaraki has no way to know, but the gradual return of various other servants of AFO may eventually begin to shed some light on the subject…

Shigaraki is, when his story truly begins, still figuring out his current game--outside of Arcadia, second chances are harder to come by--but he’s a sore loser and a quick learner, so he never stays down for long, and he’s already made a friend in Toga, who he met in his escape from the Hedge. He still has very ambivalent feelings about his Keeper, which makes him something of an outlier amongst changelings, who typically feel only terror and loathing for the Others that upended their lives and scarred them in ways that will never--can never--fully heal. No one, including Shigaraki, has quite realized his connection to the Emperor of Darkness who caused so much havoc in the freehold when he escaped back to Faerie five years ago. Likewise, Tomura’s fetch, only ten years old, is still in a mental care unit in juvie for the murders of the Shimura family, but dealing with that mess will have to wait until Shigaraki can stomach the idea of even looking at that version of himself.

Tomura looks much as he does in canon, thin and covered with scratching and scarring. Behind his tousled white hair, though, his red eyes gleam and flicker as if they’re forever reflecting the dancing lights of a screen. His masked form has black hair rather than white, and eyes the color of dark, old rust.

Court/Mantle: Autumn, the season of fear. Shigaraki’s entire durance threatened him always with the fear of failure (and the fear of the consequences of failure), and he himself would rather intimidate than charm, but he also shares the Leaden Mirror’s inquisitiveness and discerning eye. As such, even when he first emerged from the Hedge, it was with a strong Autumn mantle, and it’s only grown stronger over time. He’s often trailed by dead, desiccated brown leaves, and Hedge foliage that’s in his presence for any length of time visibly begins to wither--but his mantle flares up even more when he’s being actively combative. Chilly, dry bursts of air can wring involuntary chills from those on the receiving end of his wide grins and dire promises. When he’s feeling more playful, one can sometimes see small flickers of light in the shape of unknown words or hear odd little strains of music from unrecognizable (albeit somewhat tinny) instruments.

Contracts:

Fleeting Autumn I. He’s not so concerned with becoming some kind of symbol of fear that he’s pursued this Contract very much, but it never hurts to get an idea of what your opponent’s afraid of.

Eternal Autumn I-III. It takes time, glamour expenditure, and good dice rolls, but he can kill people this way, withering them down to nothing. Conversely, he can also make plants bear fruit. It’s occasionally useful.

Hours I. He’s figured out how to consciously botch the activation of this clause so as to decay the targeted object instead of restoring it. It usually works, but sometimes randomly backlashes onto him instead, causing him injury--the bigger the object, the worse the damage. The Wyrd doesn’t like being toyed with.

Lucidity I-IV. Clarity is a fluid, malleable thing for Shigaraki, which can make him extremely frightening--he can thank his Keeper’s lessons in control. With this series of Contracts, Shigaraki can and does laugh off the kinds of deeds that would make other changelings quail back in fear of what their own minds would do to them in the aftermath. He can also be shockingly perceptive for someone who by rights should have terrible trouble distinguishing the boundaries between Real and Unreal, Self and Other. However, his use of these powers does make him somewhat mercurial and difficult to predict, even to his motley, as derangements come and go with the artificial inflation or drain of his Clarity. It’s a downward slope, but one he’s taking more slowly than would otherwise be the case.

(Hypothetical Powered-Up Shigaraki: Adds two 5-dot Goblin Contracts, Blood-Binding and The Fatal Transformation. Be it the power of glamour or the breath of life itself, if Shigaraki wants an enemy drained and is willing to pay his pound of flesh, Goblin magic will provide. It’s a good thing he’s got friends to back him up, as both of these powers leave him in a pretty vulnerable state.)

Toga Himiko

Quote: “I met someone cute today. Don’t wait up!”

Type: Mirrorskin/Leechfinger dual kith Darkling. Toga served her durance in the chrome-tinted underbelly of a glass-and-brass dystopia full of mirrors, learning to steal life as easily as she stole food, and to slip from one form to another to keep ahead of everyone who’d chase her down for doing it. More free than she’d been in her old life, to be sure, but still not free to truly do as she pleased, she dreamed of being able to hunt people down the way she’d been hunted down, with no one to answer to for it. In time, she managed her escape and, on her path back through the Hedge, crossed paths with Tomura--distraught, lost, but still with plenty of fight left in him. Each decided that the other was dangerous but sympathetic enough to be a better ally than an enemy, and they teamed up to find their way back to the real world.

Back in that real world, Toga is learning to put herself back together. Getting back home only to find something waiting there wearing her face was a shock to her system, but after some agonizing (and a bloodbath in her parents’ kitchen), she’s decided it’s for the best. If going back to being that girl means giving up the amazing psychic buffet the world now presents her, it’s not even a debate.

Toga in her masked form is dark of hair and eye, a school girl with a wide smile and swift, excitable hands. In her true form, everything bleeds paler--she’s china white, even her hair turning paler than flaxen fiber, most of her features seeming somehow insubstantial except for the long points of her teeth and the gas lamp yellow of her eyes.

Court/Mantle: Spring, the season of desire. Toga, more than anyone in the motley, has embraced the fact that she wants things now that she never would have before, that she has desires that no human would ever understand. And why not? She doesn’t kill people, after all; she just likes to taste. The air around her is always infused with heady floral scents, and when she walks, phantom flowers trail up behind her. Hemlock and cypress vine, spider lilies and nightshade--all lovely, to be sure, but the language of flowers does give her away.

Contracts: Everything about Toga’s Contracts heightens her skills as a predator, and she’s unquestionably the best in the group at it.

Mirror I-II. Allows her to shape her form with more specificity and finesse.

Darkness I-II. Makes her targets more suggestible.

Fleeting Spring I-III. Lets her pinpoint what her targets want so that she can shape those wants or her reflection of them as needed.

Bubaigawara Jin

Quote: “Nothing’s too much for my friends!”

Type: Truefriend Beast. Jin’s human life didn’t differ much from his canonical backstory, minus the super power, but went drastically off course when he was hunted down--even on a motorcycle, hunted down!--by a monster on horseback and the various other monsters tumbling before it. His changeling life consisted of one cage, one chase after another, and while most of the people around him were shaping themselves into being better vessels for coursing, baying, sharp-toothed menace, what Jin most wanted was the pack solidarity. His Keeper thought this was funny but not a very useful trait in a hunting hound, so they started taking him to dog fights instead, hoping to scour the excess sweetness off of him. Lacking a pack to stay for, he escaped, but the wanting for one never left him.

Toga basically tripped over him his first night out, and her kindness then meant he was more than happy to follow her home. He later made the acquaintance of Mr. Compress and Magne on a bar crawl and, wanting all of his friends to be friends together, introduced them to Shigaraki and Toga. He’s also trying to make friends with his fetch, who is finding the whole experience of having a clone pop up at him at unexpected times to be unbelievably disorienting and nerve-wracking. Which one of them is the real one, anyway…?

His mask looks much as Jin does in canon, though his scars are in different places. In mien, he always looks a bit rumpled, with short, sandy brown fur and bright, emotive eyes. He’s dog-eared (literally), one alert, the other floppy, and his hands have stubby, darkened nails. Unbelievably expressive and more overtly doggish body language--he didn’t keep a tail in his flight back through the Hedge, but people tend to remember him as having one anyway.

Court/Mantle: Courtless. Jin’s too mixed up in his own emotions to pick just one to focus on. He likes the idea of Spring, but he’s also skeptical that just wanting is enough to keep people safe, and that fear is rooted deep. He’s also not without his old sorrows. Of the High Court emotions, wrath is his rarest visitor.

Contracts:

Fang & Talon (Dogs) I-III. Jin’s got an undeniable rapport with dogs. He loves them and they love him. There’s practically no mutt he can’t get some words out of if he asks nice. He’s also still got a hunting hound’s nose, when he needs it.

Hearth I-II. Deeply dedicated to his friends, the Contracts of Hearth make advancing the goals of the motley (or hurting the chances of their enemies) even easier.

Eternal Spring I. Easier to be a people-pleaser when you know what pleases people! Toga taught him this one.

Moon I. It’s good to know what people want, but it’s also good to know what kind of crazy people (fetches especially) might be sitting on. This one also helps the group nail down where Shigaraki’s head is at on any given day.

Spinner

Quote: “What a mess. Where are we even going with this?”

Type: Steepscrambler Beast. Spinner spent, by his best reckoning, four years in a Faerie jungle. It was always sweltering, sickbed heat with air so wet you could choke on it, and after a few close calls with the serpentine river dragons and over-large birds of prey that prowled the place, he’d all but given up trying to search for a way out--the sea of trees just went on forever anyway. A long-tongued madman named Stain convinced him otherwise, with talk of hidden trods and clues found in the bellies of gutted fish. When Stain went missing, Spinner resolved to try again, and though he can no longer remember the method of it, whatever he did seems to have worked. He got back to his shitty hometown, but found it just as bad as ever, if not worse, with a fetch still cooped up in his old bedroom, spiralling ever further into depression. And so, fed up with the state of his life and the apathy his fetch reflected back at him, he did something that very few changelings are capable of doing--he left home.

Finding his way to the nearest big city with a proper freehold, Spinner gravitated to the Summer Court and got set up with an apartment in a small complex the freehold maintains for newbies to stay in while they get their feet under them. Not too long after, Shigaraki and Toga wandered into a Summer recruitment drive, with Shigaraki immediately managing to get on Spinner’s nerves--which made it all the more exasperating when Spinner went home and found the both of them moving into the apartment next door to his! Spinner’s still trying to figure out what he thinks of the mercurial and difficult Shigaraki, but they have been bonding over video games of late.

Spinner’s mask is a sun-darkened young man with a prominent nose and a thin, terse mouth. He’s straight-backed but with a certain nerviness in his eyes, a stance that suggests he’s ready to throw the first punch. He has a street punk look--pointy fingernails and pink hair--that people without the sight to know better assume is achieved with a nail file and hair dye. His mask looks exactly like canon!Spinner with one exception--changeling!Spinner has ears. They’re pointy, green and finely-scaled, but otherwise normal humanoid ears and they make his face look just a little wider and more humanoid than canon!Spinner’s lizard profile.

Court/Mantle: Summer, the season of wrath. Spinner’s angry about a lot of things--the state of the world, the injustices served to his motley and the wrongs of his life in particular--but he’s also wrestling with a lot of self-loathing. It’s easy for him to slip into fatalistic thoughts and get mired down in apathy, and every time he thinks he’s gotten past it, someone or something comes along that throws him off, and then before he knows it he’s back on the ground wondering how he’s ever going to get past this. Leaning into Summer’s hot anger helps keep him focused. His mantle is relatively weak, tending to manifest as a warm, dry wind only when he’s particularly fired up or activating Court contracts.

Contracts: Spinner’s well-rounded, but that’s because he has a hard time settling on anything. His ridiculous spread of Contracts illustrates this.

Den I-II. Not interested in leaning into his animal instincts and learning to talk to lizards, Spinner has instead leaned into possessive territorialism. Unfortunately, he still feels like a small fish, so it’s hard to muster up the swagger that would allow him to progress this Contract further.

Fleeting Summer I. Need to pick a fight and score some quick glamour? This is the clause for you! Just make sure Dabi’s not around; that guy’s angrier than the whole rest of the motley put together and it skews the readings.

Eternal Summer I. Makes Spinner a walking thermostat. Yes, sometimes Toga and Mr. Compress take advantage.

Oath & Punishment I. There’s a certain capital-R romance to this Contract that Spinner likes, but he’d need to find something (or someone) to whole-heartedly devote himself to first. At least he can do sick parkour jumps in the meantime.

Artifice I. Temporary repair magic. Handy around the house and when you fight with cheap knives.

Dream I. Useful facts about the local Hedge and he’s generally content to leave it at that--he doesn’t have a lot of use for dream-spinning, not when Magne’s so good at it.

Dabi

Quote: “You’re mad, huh? So what are you gonna do about it?”

Type: Gravewight Darkling. Once upon a time, there was a barren couple who wished desperately for children. For many years, it was only a wish, until Todoroki Enji finally found someone who offered him a solution. Nine months later, Todoroki Touya was born, to be followed by a string of children, each haler and heartier than the last. Seven years later, the firstborn child was taken away in the night. No fetch was left behind--after all, the Other was only claiming the price they’d been promised. Fifteen years after that, a changeling calling himself Dabi dragged himself out of the Hedge, having spent most of his life lighting funeral pyres and digging graves in Faerie until he dug his way out.

Dabi fell in with the rest of the League motley after being found by Magne after a fight went sideways. She patched him up and offered him a group to run around with for a while rather than doing the solo act. He accepted, but his pledges with the rest of the group are a bit different--more paranoid, less supportive. Dabi is distant from the motley, and only time will tell if he eventually lets them in or not.

In mask, Dabi’s a beanpole, wild black hair and bright blue eyes with a caustic grin, skulking about in a succession of black coats and heavy, workmanlike boots. In mien, he’s even taller, a too-thin gaunt with great swatches of skin burned away by restless soul-fires, which still cling and flicker blue around his hands. His skin fits him a bit too loose, and he wears staples to keep it all in place.

Court/Mantle: Summer, the season of wrath. Could it ever be anything else? Rather stronger than Spinner’s mantle, Dabi’s manifests as heat distortions in the air around him and, when he’s particularly riled up, blasts of hot air like you’d get opening up a hot oven. He has some trouble advancing in the Court proper, though, as he prefers to only fight battles he knows he can win. He feels, all the time, sick with rage, but until he proves willing to make stands even when the odds are against him, the Iron Spear’s time for him will be limited.

Contracts:

Shade & Spirit I. If he’s going to see ghosts around all the time anyway, he might as well be able to talk to them. They’re only sporadically helpful, but as a skeleton in the closet himself, he has some fellow feeling for them.

Elements (Fire) I-III. He brought fire with him out of Faerie, but it’s a difficult thing for him to master, foreign to his seeming despite sometimes feeling as if it’s nestled in his very bones.

Fleeting Summer I-II. Dabi’s much at home with wrath, and very willing to shape it to his own ends. Whether or not he sticks around for them, he likes starting fights.

Punishing Summer I. An odd branch of Summer magic, but one that he feels has some promise for him. Compared to the more straightforwardly righteous Contract of Eternal Summer, this feels harsher, longer-burning, and that sings to him in ways he finds very appealing.

Mr. Compress

Quote: “If we’re going to break the law, why shouldn’t we do it in style?”

Type: Larcenist Fairest. A simple stage magician of modest fame once upon a time, right up until he was offered a promising and lucrative gig by a stranger who thought he deserved a better stage for his talents. The stage in this case turned out to be--well, you can guess. His client (Keeper) wanted things stolen--they seemed to enjoy the taste of things ill-gotten--and there was always some new diamond or painting or antique. Sako’s time in Faerie (which he came to share with Magne) was like a string of heist films: glamorous and bubbly and thrilling, but the underside was rife with lurid, impossible violence waiting on the slightest error, the stakes always seemed to be climbing, and of course you could never say no… But one thing you can say for heist films is that they always allot a proper amount of time for planning, and so over time Sako and the others planned their last heist--the one to steal themselves into freedom. If asked, Sako will tell a dozen different stories about how it went, but the truth is his memories are fuzzy, and the only thing he knows for sure is that he and Magne emerged from the Hedge alone.

Sako’s a bit disjunctioned in time--many more years have passed in the real world than he spent in Faerie, and he spent a good many years in Faerie. His fetch washed up in a nursing home in the meantime, riddled with palsy and Alzheimer’s, and though Sako is not by habit or preference a violent man, the sight of it filled him with a primal loathing. And it’s so easy, in an overcrowded environment, to make a mistake with a dosage… Sako still has a piece of the detritus left over, just to remind himself of how his story could have ended, and how determined he is to not let such a future come to pass.

In his mask, Mr. Compress (well, he needed a new stage name) is a handsome, auburn-haired man in his forties who gestures constantly, frequently toying with a short white cane, and speaks in refined if somewhat dated language in a rich, theatrical voice. He always dresses a bit more nicely than he needs to, preferring clothes with hidden pockets and long sleeves, and is rarely without a hat to flourish. His mien mostly serves to heighten all of that--he becomes impossibly graceful and compelling, his voice catching the ear like a song, and his clothes are revealed to be Hedgespun, the feather in his hat belonging to no bird an ornithologist could name, the buttons on his coat and the stone accentuating his bolo tie shifting slowly in pattern and shade the longer you watch, and the cane almost certainly a low-level token of some kind. The most eye-catching thing, though, is the mask--he wears a white mask that always seems to have a different pattern on it, though it never moves while you’re looking directly at it. He doesn’t seem able to actually remove it all the way, though he can slide it around enough to eat or theatrically squint or blink his eyes (dark and bewitchingly expressive). If it’s forcefully pulled off, it’s only to reveal another one beneath it--though he’ll complain that it stings and ask you to refrain.

Court/Mantle: Autumn, the season of fear magic! Mr. Compress didn’t come out of the Hedge with a particular Court affinity, but he was drawn towards Autumn like a compass needle finding true north. He’s only a limited interest in fear (though his response to his fetch shows that he has his share of it), but he’s endlessly fascinated by the ins-and-outs of faerie magic. Trinkets, tokens, pledge-craft--if it’s a clever trick, he’s interested. His mantle shows as pops and starbursts of light, and frequently as a cool, trailing mist about his feet.

Contracts: The only person in the group more focused than Toga.

Separation I-IV. Escape magic fit for Houdini himself. If it looks like Compress is locked up or restrained, it’s almost only certainly because he’s allowing himself to be.

Forge I-III. Sleight of hand is even more impressive when you’re using magic! Extremely convenient for those times when he needs a passable ID or a house key he does not in fact own.

Magne

Quote: “Take it easy, honey. I’ll handle it.”

Type: Metalflesh Elemental. Magne was a criminal before she was a changeling, and it was in that capacity that she--like Mr. Compress--fell prey to an offer that should have been too good to be true. The heist team needed a bit more muscle, is the thing; they were getting caught too often without a good combatant. And so came Magne, given a sturdier body (that could, incidentally, meld through safe walls when necessary) through processes she only remembers in her nightmares. An odd thing happened with her, though--what Magne felt the pull of in Faerie was less the element she became and more the stuff of Arcadia itself. Where her Keeper expected her to become hard as steel, instead she embraced dream conjury; where she was instructed to protect the rest of her band, that protection took the form of healing as often as it did squaring up for a fight. It’s hard to argue with the results, though--Magne is a fierce and stubborn defender of any group that wins her loyalty.

Currently in a live-and-let live relationship with her fetch--she feels a bit sorry for the poor creature, and would rather see her find a way to break free of the image she was forged in and make her own path than kill her. It’s painful to be around her, though, so while Magne’s willing to extend some help from a distance, she would rather the fetch keep her distance. Time will tell if her fetch--who has her own desires and very much shares Magne’s willingness to bust some heads over them--is prepared to abide by this.

Magne in mask looks much as she does in canon, though she can afford nicer clothes. Her preference for butch presentation is unchanged, but the jeans are designer and the shirts elaborate silk prints. She has a collection of fetching sunglasses for any occasion. Her mien is a gleaming ochre bronze, flesh hard and smooth, her hair (a bit darker in color than the rest of her) always a bit stiff but, on the other hand, difficult to muss. Her body is in all ways a more chiselled, more perfected version of the body she went into Arcadia with, which Magne has mixed but overall relieved feelings about. The flesh-to-metal transition her Keeper forced on her was bad enough; whyever would she trust the Others with gender affirmation?

Court/Mantle: Spring, season of desire growth. Magne’s desire is to never be held down by any sort of repression or expectation forced on her by others (the Others in particular), and this pride drew her strongly to the Antler Crown. While she doesn’t exhibit the flowing, graceful beauty so prized in women of the Emerald Court, her passion for self-expression and her unstinting support of those fumbling their way towards the same has certainly won her her share of admirers. Magne’s mantle takes the form of fresh-scented air and pleasant breezes. She doesn’t leave flowers where she walks, but you can sometimes find ivy where her hands have been.

Contracts:

Dream I-III. By leaps and bounds the most talented dream-weaver in the motley, Magne’s oneiromancy is light-hearted and nonjudgmental while her oneiromachy is formidable. Everyone in the motley can soothe one another’s nightmares, but Magne is the best at it. She usually has at least one or two dream-task pledges active with mortals, too, so she rarely struggles to keep her glamour reserves--or her wallet--full.

Elements (Metal) I. Magne’s retained only the minimum level of connection with the metal she was forged from; in truth, her body is less important to her than what she does with it.

Eternal Spring I-III. Easing fatigue, curing wounds, and even bringing in a gentle rain--Magne’s deeply in touch with the rejuvenative aspects of her Court.

BONUS TIDBITS:

Shigaraki experienced more deaths in Faerie than any other member of his motley. After all, you might know the cheat code for unlimited lives, but that doesn’t mean you never die. And it did feel like death, every time. Of course, sometimes failure just meant Sensei shaking his head and Being Disappointed. That still felt a bit like dying too, though.

Over the course of her durance, Toga had more than one knife fight with a cyber hero adventurer hunting through the city’s underbelly looking for a power core. Also, changeling!Toga is much less murderous than canon!Toga because if she were as murderous as canon!Toga, Clarity loss would rapidly render her unplayable.

Spinner was pulled into the motley over a planned playdate heist to see how well Shigaraki and Toga could work as a unit with Mr. Compress and Magne. Being very familiar with heist stories by that time, Sako and Magne decided the group needed one more guy to provide muscle, and as it happened, Shigaraki and Toga lived next door to just such a one.

I have not decided on whether the Todoroki family are a mundane equivalent of the way we see them in canon, all deeply damaged by Endeavor’s ceaseless drive to fulfill his goals by way of his children, or whether they’re actually pretty normal and well-adjusted with the exception of Enji’s one dark secret. Either way, Natsuo is the only one who has any inkling that there was anything “off” about Touya’s death/disappearance. He has no inkling of the truth, obviously, but he always felt that Enji didn't react quite the right way to Touya's death, or thought Enji was behaving suspiciously on the night Touya vanished.

The League’s basic motley pact includes the dreaming pledge, so they frequently take mental voyages into one another’s dreamscapes to clear out the nightmares and indulge in silly, impossible-in-reality lucid dreaming adventures. The exception is Dabi, who would rather have nightmares than people in his head.

Mr. Compress doesn’t jokingly call himself an old man anymore because he’s too traumatized by finding out what he’d actually be like in old age.

Shigaraki, while beginning the story in a fairly ambivalent, uncertain place, eventually finds his way towards a goal of helping to free loyalists--from their hopeless circumstances, from their learned helplessness, from their starstruck adoration. He finds this goal over the course of his late-game encounters with Kurogiri, Gigantomachia, and Re-Destro, and it is through helping them that he’s finally able to begin to process his own feelings of attachment and affection towards his Keeper. It may well be that the fetch of Shimura Tenko is Shigaraki’s final boss.

#bnha #shigaraki tomura #toga himiko #bubaigawara jin #iguchi shuuichi #dabi #sako atsuhiro #bnha magne #bnha spinner #mr. compress #league of villains #changeling: the league #changeling: the lost #my writing

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hazyheel · 5 years

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WWE Monday Night Raw 8/12/19 Review

Seth Rollins Promo: He came out in normal clothes, which immediately worried me. He talked about how he wasn’t sure if he would win at summerslam, and he put Lesnar over a bit. He talked about how the crowd fueled him through the match. He only won with the love from the crowd, which sounds corny but it was a pretty good line in my opinion. AJ Styles then came out to interrupt, with the OC in tow. They congratulated Rollins on winning his match, and threw his hat in the ring for title contention. He challenged Rollins to a match tonight, to prove that he is a better champion. Rollins told him that all his respect for Styles is gone. He then accepted the challenge. Styles then extended a hand for a shake. Rollins refused, and Styles called him scared as he let the ring. Tensions were high.

Grade: C+. Started out pretty good, but I felt that Styles didn’t really make sense to throw his hat in the ring. He has his own thing in the midcard. If you want him to go in the main event, then give him a real reason. He should be allowed to compete in the midcard. If you want him to move up, then he can win a multi man match for #1 contendership while still being the champion, and then lose the belt. There are better ways to emphasize your top stars that to screw over the midcard.

Street Profits Backstage: They put the show over, but Dawkins was tired and dehydrated. Sami Zayn then came up to give advice. He told them that the crowd will suck the soul right out of them. He said that everyone flames out, and the fans don’t care anymore. He started to talk about Samoa Joe as an example, but Joe was behind him. Joe then challenged him to a match, and I think Joe turned face. He shoved Zayn into the crates and walked away.

Before we came back, they talked about how the King of the Ring is back for 2019. That’s actually pretty exciting, but I don’t know what the stakes are. I will make a separate post for predictions and my thoughts on the tournament at large, so watch out for that.

Sami Zayn vs. Samoa Joe: I am pretty confused about Joe’s character at the moment, but maybe this match will help me with that. Zayn attacked before the bell, and Joe totally destroyed him after that. He put him on the mat with some power moves and strikes before choking him out for the win.

Then he got on the mic. He talked about how he was still pissed about how people accused him of attacking Roman. He said that he won’t forgive anyone in the crowd for all the hate.

Grade: B-. Inoffensive squash, and they clarified that he is still a heel. Double wammy.

Dolph Ziggler vs. the Miz: Miz was wearing a new shirt, saying Toronto is Awesome, which is a nice babyface touch. Ziggler came out in normal clothes. I think he had a Kabuki Warriors shirt on, but I don’t really know. Ziggler then got on the mic and called Miz a coward. He complained about how wasn’t cleared to compete. He said that Miz screwed Miz. After saying that it was too bad that he wouldn’t have the match, he beat the crap out of him. He beat him down as they cut to commercial.

When we came back, they were in the middle of the match. Ziggler was competing in jeans, so there was that. Right when we came back, Miz started to take the advantage. As Miz was delivering Yes Kicks to Ziggler, Graves compared him to a man who can walk away from a horrific car accident, which was so weird. Ziggler then nailed a Zig Zag, but Miz somehow kicked out. It seems like they are moving that down to a signature rather than a finisher. Ziggler then went for a superkick, but Miz caught his leg and put Ziggler in the figure four and won the match.

Afterwards, Ziggler got on the mic and said that he was a coward. He told Miz to finish him off, and as he was talking, Miz nailed a Skull Crushing Finale.

Grade: C+. A watered down and less awesome version of what happened at Summerslam with Goldberg. Ziggler’s new “I have more pride than is good for me” gimmick is going to get old, unless it was legends kicking his ass on pay per view. But the match was okay, although I know they can do much better.

Becky Lynch Interview: Becky immediately grabbed the mic and talked about how she wanted her next challenger. She said that she just beat Nattie, but she isn’t going to rest. She wants to kick the next person’s ass.

Elias Concert: He talked about how he knows someone will interrupt him, and he wants them to come out right now. That way it is right out of the way. He counted down a couple times, but no one came out. “I’m begging you, please don’t change the channel,”- Corey Graves. Nice call. Then Ricochet came out with a mic right as he was about to start. They both called each other lame, and Elias challenged Ricochet to a match.

We went right from that into Ricochet vs. Elias, where they started out with a quick pace. They delivered a lot of high impact moves right away, but then they went back into rest holds. At one point, the two botched some sort of move, and the crowd seemed to turn against it quick. Ricochet then threw Elias out of the ring, but when he went for a suicide dive, Elias dodged and Ricochet landed right on his back. The two then battled in the ring, and Ricochet won with a sunset flip into a pinning predicament. Elias had his shoulder up, but the ref called for the bell anyway.

Grade: D+. Jeez this was rough. Two botches and a horrific bump. This was a very unpolished match that did not showcase the strengths of either guy. They are much better than this.

Andrade vs. Rey Mysterio, 2 out of 3 falls: the match started right away, with a stiff shot from Andrade. He went for a powerbomb, but Mysterio countered to set up the 619, but Zelina Vega tripped him up on the outside. Andrade then rolled him up, and Vega held his feet on the ropes to win the first fall.

They started the second fall, and Mysterio quickly gave Andrade a rana to the outside, which looked pretty rough. Mysterio then continued the offense, hitting a slingshot powerbomb which looked like he planted Andrade on his head. Once again when Mysterio went for a 619, Vega distracted him and he didn’t get it. But after a third set up, he nailed the 619. Still, Andrade got his knees up and hit the hammerlock DDT for the win.

Grade: C+. Another fine match. I liked that Andrade got a 2-0 victory, way to put over new talent. I don’t know what they will do with that, but it was a huge victory. Good on them, but not their best match.

Steve Austin interview: Austin talked about how Rollins had a whole bunch of heart to get his win at Summerslam. He put Rollins over. Then he put over his own show. Shameless plug here.

Rey Mysterio Interview: He talked about how frustrated he was losing two falls in a row. He seemed like he was about to cry, and muttered about his family. Interesting, not sure where this is going at all.

Street Profits Backstage Again: Montez Ford told Mysterio to keep his head up, and gave him some encouragement. Ford then woke Dawkins up, and hyped up the Women’s Tag Team Championship match, and Cedric Alexander vs. Drew McIntyre. But Dawkins was too thirsty to help him, so Ford walked away. Funny, but they need to do something soon.

Drew McIntyre interview: he talked about how he was going to end Alexander, and their rivalry in the match. He called Alexander’s run a fairytale. He said that he was going to cave his skull in and end the rivalry once and for all.

Cedric Alexander vs. Drew McIntyre: the two started right away with some nice striking, and Alexander flying right away. He nailed McIntyre with a tope con hilo, but McIntyre fought back into it. While Alexander was up on the top rope, McIntyre grabbed him in a crucifix, and then gave him a high angle buckle bomb that looked hard to take. McIntyre took control from there, absolutely tossing Cedric all around the ring. At one point, the two were on the top rope, and McIntyre nailed Alexander with a sidewalk slam off the top for a near fall. The two started to fight on the outside, where Alexander pushed Mcintyre into the post, and then hit the lumbar check on the outside. The two were nearly counted out, but Alexander slid back in and attempted a suicide dive. But McIntyre caught him out of the dive and gave him a rough belly to belly onto the ring steps. The two then fought back into the ring, again on the top rope, but this time Alexander delivered a top rope spanish fly for a near fall. That brought the crowd alive, Mcintyre went for the inverted Alabama Slam, but Cedric countered into a rollup. McIntyre kicked out, and the two ran the ropes, only for McIntyre to decimate Alexander with a Claymore for the win.

Grade: B+. Really good stuff between these two. They showcased a great clash of styles match, as well as showing McIntyre’s agility as they did so. Cedric sold just as well as he always does, and was a really good underdog here. He was smart enough to get the advantage several times, and he knew what he had to do to win. Any of those rollups could have been it, and Cedric knew that. McIntyre was a great bully here, and actually seemed to respect Alexander a bit. Really good stuff between these guys, I knew that they could put something like this together. Match of the night.

The OC Backstage: the group were talking about how Rollins beat the odds when he beat Brock Lesnar at Summerslam. Gallows and Anderson then said that not even Styles could do that, to which Styles responded that he only had one chance to beat him. Then he just talked about how he would win the champion vs. champion match later on.

No Way Jose vs. Robert Roode: a bit of an odd match. I’m not really sure why they are having it. The two started with a lock up, before Roode pushed Jose back into the corner and wailed on him with strikes and kicks. Jose was being beaten for most of the match, before Roode won with a Glorious DDT.

Grade: B-. Inoffensive squash. Cool to see some underutilized stars get TV time.

Paul Heyman Interview: Heyman talked about how Lesnar is not allowed any rematches against Rollins. He was so pissed off that he couldn’t even get the words out. Then he walked back into Lesnar’s locker room. Interesting.

The Lucha House Party vs. The Revival: This was an incredibly fast paced match right from the start. The Revival gained the advantage after forcing Lince Durado to the mat, but as they were fighting, R-Truth and the 24/7 guys ran down to the ring. The bell rang, and the Lucha House Party started to dive onto everyone around ringside. The Revival hit Truth with a Hart Attack, and pinned him together to become co-champions. However, Kalisto then ran in and hit a Salida del Sol on Dawson, only for Wilder to break it up. Carmella then pulled a half conscious Truth onto Dawson to win the belt back, and the two ran away. Backstage, Carmella and Truth were celebrating when Elias walked up and smashed Truth in the back with his guitar, and stole the championship in the process.

Grade: C+. I was actually into having co-champions for a while, but it is clear that Truth is their guy for this belt. Anyway, this was fine. Nothing too exciting.

Natalya promo: Nattie came out with her arm in a sling, which was a nice touch. Still selling a beating from a night ago is pretty smart. The crowd was chanting “you tapped out.” She said that although she lost, she won’t take back anything that she said. She wants to fight Becky Lynch again, but she will earn it before she does. Then she talked about her dad, Jim Neidhart, but as she started to talk, Sasha fucking Banks returned to interrupt. She seemed pretty genuinely happy to be back, and she gave Nattie a hug, but then sucker punched her and tore off a purple wig that she had on. She started to beat the crap out of Natalya, even tearing off her sling. The crowd was absolutely loving it, and everyone remembered how great of a heel Banks is. She even grabbed a chair, but as she was about to use it, Becky Lynch ran out for the save. The two brawled in the middle of the ring, with Banks coming out on top. She wailed on Lynch with the chair, and it looked incredibly painful. Eventually, some refs came by and broke everything up, but the damage was done. Looks like we have a challenger for the Raw Women’s Championship, and someone who can actually win it at that.

Grade: B+. What a return! I have wanted heel Sasha for years, although I always wanted her to turn on Bayley. This is perfect though. A brutal assault to bring back one of the best heels in the women’s division. Welcome back Banks, thank you for saving the women’s division and keeping things interesting.

Viking Raiders Squash: before the match, the Viking Raiders cut a promo about how they will destroy anyone in their way, and the tag division will kneel before them. Naturally, the Raiders messed up the poor jobbers. At one point, Erik gave one jobber a huge uranagi onto the back of the other. The two were about to win at one point, but Erik pulled his shoulders off the mat, and they gave him the Viking Experience for the win.

Grade: B-. Always entertaining squash.

Nikki Cross and Alexa Bliss Interview: The two talked about their upcoming title defense against The Kabuki Warriors. They were actually being really nice to each other, so I guess Bliss has turned face. I don’t know where this is going, but they better hate each other eventually.

Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross vs. the Kabuki Warriors for the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships: So, then during this match, Corey Graves was talking about how much he loves Bliss and Cross now, so I have no idea if they are face or heel. The Kabuki warriors had the advantage early on, running roughshod over the champions and completely annihilating them. The heels didn’t really get the advantage back until Bliss got a blind tag on Cross. At one point, Nikki was about to be hit by the Insane Elbow, but Cross rolled to the outside. Sane nailed her with a crossbody to the outside. Sane then rolled her back in for the Insane elbow, but Bliss broke it up. Asuka then tried to take out Bliss, but Bliss ducked a kick that landed on the ringpost, taking Asuka out. In the finish, Cross nailed Sane with a swinging neckbreaker and then Bliss finished it off with Twisted Bliss.

Grade: B-. This was a fine match, nothing too special. I hope that the Kabuki Warriors actually get some TV time, because they are a great team that deserve some more time. Bliss and Cross look strong, so that is good. These titles will need a lot of help to be built back up to the level they were once at, but they can do it with some time and patience.

AJ Styles vs. Seth Rollins: Rollins still had heavily taped ribs, but Rollins actually assaulted Styles’ ribs to start the match off. Early on in the match, Rollins opted to take out the rest of the OC on the outside, but that distraction only allowed Styles to attack the ribs more. At one point, Styles even went for the Styles clash on the apron, but Rollins slipped out and swept Style’s leg out from under him. When the two got back in the ring, they started to transition into heavy hitting strikes. At one point, Rollins tried for a reverse superplex, but AJ pushed him off. He then tried for a phenomenal forearm, but Rollins ducked it and nailed a superkick. He then went for the frog splash, but Anderson distracted the ref while Gallows pushed Rollins off the top rope. The two were then banned from ringside, but they just ran in and caused a disqualification instead. Ricochet then ran out to Rollins’ aid, but it didn’t help him much. The OC was about to give Rollins a Styles Clash from the middle rope when Braun Strowman ran out and decimated all of the heels, giving Styles a spinning powerslam, followed by a running powerslam. After the OC retreated, Strowman grabbed Rollins’ Universal Championship and handed it to him, but not before eyeing it a bit. The faces then stood tall together to close out the show.

Grade: B. A pretty good match with a fun brawl to close everything out, plus Braun Strowman looked pretty strong in the process. This was a good look at what the top of the card on Raw should be. Get the US championship out of the mix, and these four guys could easily carry the show a bit. Give some lower down guys the US Championship, like maybe Cedric Alexander. Throw Bray Wyatt and Drew McIntyre in towards the top, and you have yourself a strong main event scene. This final stretch gives me some hope that maybe we will have some improvements on WWE going forward. Things seem to be looking up.

Overall Grade: B-

Pros: Alexander vs. McIntyre; banks return; main event

Cons: ricochet vs. elias

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junker-town · 6 years

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The NCAA wants to be actual cops, for the same reason it wants anything

The NCAA wants rule-breakers to be punished like law-breakers. The goal, as ever, is to stop players from getting paid.

As part of the fallout from the FBI’s ongoing investigation into college basketball corruption, the NCAA unveiled a handful of rule changes on August 8. Some of them — particularly around basketball recruiting and the NBA Draft — are good, even if they’re too limited. They largely track with what a Condoleeza Rice-led commission suggested in April 2018.

As is usually true when the NCAA does something good for athletes, those changes come with strings attached.

The NCAA is also changing its enforcement model to make punishments more severe for anyone who helps a college athlete get paid for being good at sports.

A door had already been cracked open for people who break NCAA rules to face serious legal consequences. With its new rules, the NCAA has kicked that door down.

For years, there have been two key truths about NCAA rules.

They’re meant to prevent players from getting paid.

They’re not laws. Breaking an NCAA rule could always bring punishments, like a postseason ban, coach suspension, or player becoming ineligible. But it wouldn’t get anyone prosecuted, and it wouldn’t usually get rule-breakers sued by their schools.

The FBI probe has already chipped away at that second truth. New NCAA policies are only going to link the law and the rulebook more closely.

The new rules include building a “responsibility to cooperate” with NCAA investigations into the contracts for school presidents and all athletic department staff:

As a term of employment, school presidents and athletics staff must commit contractually to full cooperation in the investigations and infractions process.

Full cooperation means reporting violations in a timely manner; sharing all knowledge and documents requested in a timely manner; providing access to all electronic devices, social media and other technology; and maintaining confidentiality.

The chair of the Division I Committee on Infractions or the Independent College Sports Adjudication Panel can impose immediate penalties when schools or individuals do not cooperate (including loss of revenue or postseason opportunities).

These bodies can consider lack of cooperation as admission of a violation.

Many athletic department contracts already have language that requires coaches and staffers to follow the NCAA’s rules.

The Justice Department has seized on that expectation, charging three coaches (and four others) with “honest services fraud,” by which the coaches allegedly wronged their universities with the help of businessmen. The feds have also charged those coaches as “agents of federally funded organizations,” elevating alleged bribery that might just break NCAA rules into a federal crime.

By making it a condition of employment that athletic department staff agree to “share all knowledge and documents” the NCAA asks for, the organization is trying to establish its own version of subpoena power, the lack of which has made for botched investigations and embarrassing situations before.

The NCAA now explicitly allows the use of “outside facts” to settle infractions cases. It’s easy to see how that rule could be abused.

The NCAA says:

People charged with investigating and resolving NCAA cases can accept information established by another administrative body, including a court of law, government agency, accrediting body or a commission authorized by a school. This will save time and resources previously used to confirm information already adjudicated by another group.

NCAA investigators, who do not exactly have the resources to personally investigate lots of entire universities all across the country at the same time, have done this before. The NCAA drew on publicly commissioned information from former FBI director Louis Freeh when it punished Penn State after the Jerry Sandusky scandal, for example.

To recap:

The NCAA now mandates an already-common practice: that every athletic department contract includes a “responsibility to cooperate” with NCAA investigation.

Also, the NCAA can now accept findings by “a commission authorized by a school” when deciding whether someone is guilty of an NCAA violation.

The NCAA is schools, and a system like this could create all sorts of messes. It could add a new layer to an investigations process that’s already a total mess: schools and the NCAA arguing for ages over which outside sources are credible, and different institutions with their own interests trying to inject their own “findings” into the infractions process. It might raise questions over which school-authorized commissions are acceptable and which aren’t. But maybe the NCAA would use great, levelheaded judgment and avoid pitfalls.

The NCAA’s hope seems to be that it streamlines the process. It also now says schools and NCAA investigators can work together when they agree on the facts of a case, to “minimize drawn-out adversarial situations.”

So, one reality of NCAA rules is changing. Another isn’t.

The federal government already made clear that it thinks breaking NCAA rules can mean breaking the law, and it’s chosen to prosecute people it thinks broke both.

With these changes, the NCAA is leaning into that new reality. It wants people who violate the rulebook to have as much legal exposure as possible, whether in civil or criminal court.

But one thing hasn’t changed and might never: The NCAA’s north star, the only thing it really cares about, is that money stays in schools’ hands and out of athletes’.

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teeky185 · 4 years

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BRUNSWICK, Ga. -- When the Glynn County Police Department arrived at the scene of a fatal shooting in February in southeastern Georgia, officers encountered a former colleague with the victim's blood on his hands.They took down his version of events and let him and his adult son, who had fired the shots, go home.Later that day, Wanda Cooper, the mother of the 25-year-old victim, Ahmaud Arbery, received a call from a police investigator. She recounted later that the investigator said her son had been involved in a burglary and was killed by "the homeowner," an inaccurate version of what had happened.More than two months after that fatal confrontation, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which took over the case this week, arrested the former officer, Gregory McMichael, and his son, Travis McMichael, on charges of murder and aggravated assault.The charges -- which came after the release of a graphic video showing the killing as the two white men confront Arbery, who was African American -- made clear the depths of the local department's bungling of the case, which was just the latest in a series of troubling episodes involving its officers.And it was one element of the broader potential breakdown of the justice system in South Georgia. Attorney General Chris Carr, through a spokeswoman, said Friday that he planned to start a review of all of the relevant players in that system.Carr's office has already determined that George E. Barnhill, a district attorney who was assigned the case in February but recused himself late last month, should have never taken it on. Among his many conflicts: His son once worked alongside one of the suspects at the local prosecutor's office.S. Lee Merritt, a lawyer representing Arbery's family, has called for a federal civil rights investigation focused not only on the men who pursued Arbery but also the broader justice system."It's small-town America," Merritt said in an interview Thursday. "Those counties, the law enforcement community there, they know each other well; they recycle officers in between themselves -- it's a very tight-knit community."Over the years, Glynn County police officers have been accused of covering up allegations of misconduct, tampering with a crime scene, interfering in an investigation of a police shooting and retaliating against fellow officers who cooperated with outside investigators.The police chief was indicted days after Arbery's killing on charges related to an alleged cover-up of an officer's sexual relationship with an informant. The chief, John Powell, had been hired to clean up the department, which the Glynn County manager described last fall as suffering from poor training, outdated policies and "a culture of cronyism."The Glynn County force was the sort of department where disciplinary records went missing and where evidence room standards were not maintained, leading the state to strip it of its accreditation.Arbery was killed after the McMichaels confronted him while he was running in the Satilla Shores neighborhood just outside of Brunswick, the Glynn County seat. But neither of the McMichaels was arrested immediately after the slaying, which occurred Feb. 23 about 1 p.m.According to a police report, Gregory McMichael said that he saw Arbery running through his neighborhood and thought that he looked like the suspect in a rash of recent break-ins. McMichael, 64, told authorities that he and his son, Travis McMichael, 34, armed themselves and began chasing him in a truck.Gregory McMichael had been a Glynn County police officer from 1982 to 1989 and later worked as an investigator in the local prosecutor's office, before retiring last year.Darren W. Penn, a lawyer and a department critic, said the Ahmaud Arbery case was "another symptom or sign of a police department that appears willing to protect those that they know."Penn is representing a woman who is suing the department over claims that it failed to intervene with her estranged son-in-law, a Glynn County officer, who killed her daughter, a friend and himself in 2018.County officials and a police spokesman could not be reached Friday for comment.From the start, McMichael's connections to the police department and the prosecutor's office presented other challenges.The first district attorney assigned to the case, Jackie Johnson, recused herself because she had worked with McMichael. The second prosecutor, Barnhill, advised Glynn County police that there was "insufficient probable cause" to issue arrest warrants, according to an internal document.Finally, the case moved to Tom Durden, the district attorney in Georgia's Atlantic Judicial Circuit in Hinesville, who this week formally asked the state bureau of investigation to get involved, according to a GBI statement. A Justice Department spokesperson said this week that the FBI was assisting in the investigation.Bob Coleman, a county commissioner at large, was critical of Johnson, saying she should have given the case to the state attorney general, not Barnhill. After the Georgia Bureau of Investigation made arrests this week, Coleman said, "That's what should have happened a long time ago before the sun went down. They killed a person in the bright sunlight."Glynn County is a marshy coastal corner of Georgia about 300 miles southeast of Atlanta with about 85,000 residents, and is known mostly for its mellow barrier islands and its rich African American coastal culture.Like many Southern communities, its history is studded with racial violence, including three late 19th-century lynchings. Today, the county is about 70% white and 27% black, according to census figures.On Friday, hundreds gathered under the moss-draped trees outside the Glynn County courthouse to protest, arguing that the handling of the case had been botched as months went by without charges."I will never call the Glynn County police to my house!" one of Arbery's aunts said.Mario Baggs, a lifelong resident of Brunswick, said he believed that race was a factor in Arbery's killing, given the unfair treatment black men have long received."The black man is an endangered species," Baggs, 46, said. "We need justice; we need relief; we need the world to pay attention."Yet he also believed that Arbery's case fit into a larger pattern of dysfunction.Over the last decade, the Glynn County Police Department, which has 122 officers, has faced at least 17 lawsuits, including allegations of illegal search and seizure.One suit accused the department of wrongfully killing an unarmed white woman after officers fired through her car windshield. An investigation into that shooting found that Glynn County officers had tried to interfere with the inquiry to protect the officers involved.One of the officers in that shooting later killed his estranged wife and a friend. The wife's mother accused police of ignoring several alarming encounters in the months before the killings.Powell, the police chief, was arrested this year along with three other department officials after an investigation into a disbanded narcotics task force. The inquiry found that Powell had actively tried to shield wrongdoing by the task force. That led to his indictment on charges including violating the oath of office, criminal attempt to commit a felony and influencing a witness.As details of Arbery's death slowly emerged and were reported in The Brunswick News, Arbery's mother, increasingly distraught, called the department. She said that she had been told one thing but that the newspaper had reported something else entirely.Cooper's faith was shaken. "It's hard when you can't really believe what authority tells you, you know?" she said. "When you just cannot believe the people that's supposed to look out for all people. And when you question that, it's not a good feeling."Attempts to reach Gregory McMichael late last month were unsuccessful. In a brief phone conversation late last month, Travis McMichael, who runs a company that gives custom boat tours, declined to comment, citing the continuing investigation.The two men made a brief appearance in Glynn County Magistrate Court on Friday afternoon, but court officials said they did not enter a plea. No information about their lawyers was immediately available.Questions about the handling of Arbery's case extend beyond the police department and to Barnhill, the prosecutor who told police that there was insufficient probable cause to arrest the McMichaels.In an email Barnhill wrote to the state attorney general's office April 7, he asked to be taken off the case, stating that his son, an assistant district attorney in the Brunswick prosecutor's office, had handled a felony probation revocation case involving Arbery. He also said Gregory McMichael had helped with "a previous prosecution of Arbery."Court records show that Arbery was convicted of shoplifting and of violating probation in 2018; according to local news reports, he was indicted five years earlier for taking a handgun to a basketball game.Barnhill's office most recently drew attention beyond south Georgia for its prosecution of a black woman in rural Coffee County who had helped a first-time voter use a voting machine in the 2012 election. In 2018, a jury found the woman not guilty of multiple felonies. Her lawyers called the case "a racially motivated targeted prosecution."J. Peter Murphy, a Glynn County commissioner, on Friday defended the Police Department's decision to make no arrests in the shooting of Arbery. Murphy said the agency had been advised not to make arrests by both Barnhill and officials at the office of Johnson, the district attorney in Brunswick who formally asked to be taken off the case four days after the shooting. Neither prosecutor could be reached for comment."Tell me what the agency did wrong when its men and women were told several times not to arrest anyone?" Murphy said, referring to police. "What were they supposed to do? Cuff these guys and walk them into the jail and have no one prosecute them?"This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company

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7newx1 · 4 years

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cadladefed · 5 years

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Judgement Day Storyline Buildup

Judgement Day Match One

The Revival are backstage bragging about winning the Smackdown Tag Team Championships. They are dressed like to impress. Bullying some low level talent at catering. They mouth off to the room but don’t leave until knocking a coffee over Drake Maverick.

The Revival are watching the match.

#1 CONTENDERS MATCH to the SD! Tag Team Titles

THE CLUB vs DANIEL BRYAN & ERICK ROWAN – 22 minutes

Nice, long match to put over the strength of our tag division. Main Events show.

Underhanded play from The Eco Warriors in heat, fixating their attacks on Karl Anderson’s left knee.

Luke Gallows breaks up 3 double team manoeuvres on Karl Anderson. Gallows sacrifices himself to take out Rowan. Anderson gets a reversal small package, 2 count, Bryan hits his running knee… one, two thr-KICK OUT. Bryan sells shock for a movement before immediately applying a figure four… but before fully applied, the pressure is reversed onto Bryan. Rowan stops the ref for seeing Bryan tap to this.

Anderson breaks the hold. Turns ref. Bryan bumps ref.

Magic Killer. No ref. Chair shots from Rowan. KEVIN OWENS returns. Hits Rowan with chair. Hit’s Bryan with chair. Pulls Anderson on to Bryan. 1,2,3.

Owens walks up the ramp after the bell saying “That’s for Sami asshole”

Further bullying from The Revival to Drake Maverick.

Handicap Match

THE REVIVAL vs DRAKE MAVERICK

With an assist from The Club, Maverick somehow is able to steal a victory.

In ring promo and stand off.

WILDER vs GALLOWS

DW over

DAWSON vs ANDERSON

KA over.

JUDGEMENT DAY –

SMACKDOWN TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH:

THE CLUB vs THE REVIVAL (18)

Your winner and new tag team champions, The Club.

MATCH 2

Build:

W1 - Daniel Bryan comes back to TV by attacking a returning Sami Zayn. Bryan puts Zayn’s famously damaged arm in a chair and stomps down.

Since Daniel Bryan was beaten for his WWE Championship, he has become hell bent on earning back his respect. He is feeling belittled and undermined, something he cannot abide with given his belief that he is the WWE’s moral compass. He thinks it is unjust that because Kofi had to relinquish his title, that Bryan is no longer eligible to a rematch.

W2 –

#1 CONTENDERS MATCH to the SD! Tag Team Titles

THE CLUB vs DANIEL BRYAN & ERICK ROWAN – 22 minutes

Nice, long match to put over the strength of our tag division. Main Events show.

Underhanded play from The Eco Warriors in heat, fixating their attacks on Karl Anderson’s left knee.

Anderson breaks the hold. Turns ref. Bryan bumps ref.

Magic Killer. No ref. Chair shots from Rowan. KEVIN OWENS returns. Hits Rowan with chair. Hit’s Bryan with chair. Pulls Anderson on to Bryan. 1,2,3.

Owens walks up the ramp after the bell saying “That’s for Sami asshole”

W3 –

KEVIN OWENS vs DANIEL BRYAN

Kevin Owens beats Daniel Bryan after a botched interference from Erik Rowan. Post match Bryan and Rowan attack Owens. They take a chair and place it on his arm as they did the week prior with Zayn. Only they think better of it… and in turn place it around his neck! They force Owens’ neck into the ring post and Owens is carried out on a stretcher.

W4 - The week after Bryan is promoing in the ring about how fickle and hypercritical the WWE Universe are. He is very aware that he is not in a particularly rich vein of form, but assures all that he is not to blame. He turns to Rowan and presents him with a kendo stick. He puts all of his recent failings on Rowan and proceeds to punish him with a series of weapon shots. Backstage Rowan is in the doctor’s office having shards of wooden plucked from his back.

W5 - Bryan protests to Triple H for an opportunity at the vacant WWE championship. He makes it clear that every quality you seen in AJ are evident in him. He also alludes to suing for discrimination in the work place dating back to the days of the ‘Yes Movement’. AJ intervenes and happily accepts Bryan’s challenge.

Bryan bars Rowan from attending ringside.

AJ Styles beats Daniel Bryan when a heavily taped up Sami Zayn prevents Bryan from cheating. Sami’s intervention stops Bryan from using a weapon and Bryan turns immediately into a Styles Clash. Bryan has been beaten again.

Rowan storms to the ring and chases Sami away.

* AJ is alone in the ring when Brock storms and F5’s his opponent for Judgement Day

JUDGEMENT DAY –

DANIEL BRYAN vs SAMI ZAYN (16 MINUTES)

Bryan gets his first win since losing the WWE Championship despite a stellar effort from a badly injured Zayn. Another botched interference from Rowan leads to a very believable falsey for Sami shortly before being caught in the LeBell lock.

Post match Bryan and Rowan again beat Sami down. They once again set Zayn’s arm up in a chair as they did previously, only for Kevin Owens music to hit. Bryan and Rowan scarper. Owens extends his hand and helps Zayn to his feet.

An alliance has formed.

MATCH 3

Build:

Several contests between all competitors, over multiple weeks, all fighting for the spotlight on a new look Smackdown.

High action, Indy scramble.

Winner of the below six man, qualifies for a spot in the MITB match.

JUDGEMENT DAY –

MONEY IN THE BANK QUALIFYING SCRAMBLE:

REY MYSTERIO vs ANDRADE ALMAS vs ANTONIO CESARO vs

CEDRIC ALEXANDER vs DOLPH ZIGGLER vs DREW MCINTYRE

(10 MINUTES)

Rapid pace back-and-forth. Cesaro takes the fall from Cedric Alexander.

MATCH 4

Build:

W1 - The double champ Becky Lynch is ruling the roost. Her biggest foes have not been seen since she beat the pair at Wrestlemania.

Beth Phoenix has her first singles match on Smackdown since returning as a full time athlete. She beats Mickie James in a bout that reminds all of how good she was.

W2 – Fatal Fourway #1 Contenders match for SD Womens Championship

Becky makes her way to the ring. She promos saying why she will beat whoever is the victory of this bout:

“Bayley is a precious flower, who ultimately can’t step out of Sasha’s shadow.

Nikki Cross is a mental.

Renee Young has no business being in the ring with me… huh… oh Alexa Bliss, is it… same thing these days. Except one of them headed up the much praised Talking Smack... and the other is linked to the tragic Moment Of Bliss”

Beth Phoenix paved a way for The Man to be The Man, but that was then and this is now so maybe go back to playing Florence Nightingale for your husband because I’m not convinced you’ve got The Glamazon in you anymore.”

She remains ringside for the match.

Beth Phoenix wins beating Nikki Cross with the Glamslam.

Becky & Beth stand opposite one another.

W3 – BECKY LYNCH & BETH PHOENIX vs THE IICONICS – WWE Womens Tag Titles.

The Iiconics lose via DQ. Tensions raise between Lynch and Phoenix.

JUDGEMENT DAY –

SMACKDOWN WOMENS TITLE:

BECKY LYNCH vs BETH PHOENIX (12 MINUTES)

Beth gives it her all but unfortunately for her, the better man wins the day. They square up post match before Beth raises Becky’s arm. Beth leaves Becky to reap the adulation of the crowd. Becky is on the stage when suddenly CHARLOTTE FLAIR returns, jumping the barricade. Becky is thrown off the stage.

MATCH 5

Build:

Samoa Joe is showing more and more aggression after Wrestlemania. He is sick of being overlooked and is taking it out on Smackdown’s newest asset, Finn Balor.

FINN BALOR vs ANTONIO CESARO – 20 mins

Finn over in what is hopefully a worldy.

Backstage an exhausted Finn is making his way back to the locker room when he is jumped by Joe and throws him through a pain of glass.

Joe is promoing in the ring. Finn is not around because he’s recuperating from last week’s injuries. REY MYSTERIO returns and mocks Joe for losing his US title before Rey could even get his rematch. He also calls Joe a coward for his actions. “Interesting…would a coward do this?” Joe jumps Rey but Rey is able to counter the brawl into headscissors followed up by a dive.

After commercial we have REY MYSTERIO vs SAMOA JOE – 15 mins

JOE over clean.

JOE vs CEDRIC ALEXANDER – 10 mins

Joe over quite strong.

Post match Joe promos and says if Finn isn’t physically capable of defending his belt, the workhorse Intercontinental title, he should be a man and relinquish it.

The lights go down and a message appears on the title.

“The man may be hurt.

But when a man is weak

He can draw strength

From his demons.”

Lights come up and The DEMON FINN BALOR is in the ring.

John Woo shotgun dropkick. Cue-de-gra.

JD –

INTERCONTINENTAL TITLE:

DEMON FINN BALOR vs SAMOA JOE (16 MINUTES)

After a flourish of high risk offense, Samoa Joe dominates this physical strong style bout. Finn is clearly still hurt following his attack some weeks ago. After enduring a heavy hit ‘murder, death, kill’, Finn is able to roll up Joe.

SEGMENT

Build:

Series of hype videos build to the arrival of Matt Riddle. Video packages get across the history of Riddle’s lineage in UFC and clips of him in PWG, Progress, etc.

The Friday night prior to the show, on Instagram The Miz announces he will be hosting a very special version of Miz TV at Judgement Day when he promises to once again, give us all “must see TV…. Bro”

* Miz TV segment * (12 mins)

Miz interviews new Smackdown recruit Matt Riddle who hopefully feels like a big deal. He has not been called up with everyone else, he has been saved and amped up accordingly.

The fans begin a deafening “bro” chant at Riddle and The Miz shut’s it down.

“I don’t care about your history. I don’t care about what you’ve achieved in the minors. This is the big leagues Matthew and as far as I’m concerned you’re reputation is built on defeating those not worth my time. I don’t care how legit you are with your flowing hair and sandals, you’ll never be The Miz, you’ll never be must see and you’ll never...” Riddle pump knees Miz.

Miz feeds in for a second strike. Riddle gee’s up big. Powerbombs Miz through a table in the ring.

As Riddle is showing out his music starts. McGuiness describes Riddle as “an incredible specimen, with the world at his bare feet. Truly a legend in wait.”

RKO OUTTA NOWHERE!!!!

Orton stands over Riddle.

MATCH 6 - MAIN EVENT

Build:

TRIPLE H is in the ring and explains that Smackdown is sans a WWE champion. He says this state of flux looms not solely over the blue brand moreover, WWE as a whole. “For too long as a business, we have rested on our laurels. We have monopolised the industry and have taken our foot off the pedal. Whilst the talent on Smackdown is exceptionally high, we have been guilty of not nurturing that talent. Management is guilty of failing to build the stars the WWE Universe deserves and that the roster is capable of becoming. We need a revolution. But a revolution calls for leaders.”

Triple H invites AJ STYLES to the ring. “AJ you are a once in a generation talent. You have against the odds attained success where no one thought possible. You are the standard bearer.

I need you! We need you! To be our leader. To be the leader this show, this company, Hell this industry needs!

Do this not because I deserve better. Not because the McMahon’s deserve anything. But because they do.”

As Triple H extends his hand BROCK LESNAR’s music plays. He storms the ring and kicks seven colours out of AJ.

Paul Heyman is promoing in ring about Brock’s creditials.

“We are in no need for reinvention. This is the era of Brock Lesnar. The most dominant, legitimate competitor this industry has ever known. Yet, because of his superiority, you as a fanbase, aren’t entertained. Brock has no interest in being and entertainer because he is a fighter and you people, you who claim to be fans of combat sports and belittle sports entertainment are nothing but a collection of uneducated, opinionated hypocrites.

Triple H’s music plays and he storms down to the ring to correct Heyman.

“The fans haven’t turned their backs on Lesnar because of his performance. They’ve done so because of his work ethic. The man may be my father-in-law, but Vince McMahon made the biggest mistake he ever made, when he tied your client up to the contract he has. Lesnar may well be dominant but when your schedule is as relaxed as it is, is it any wonder? An industry leader and generation definer doesn’t show what he’s made of 10 times a year but does it every Tuesday on television, all week on house shows and every PPV he’s scheduled to compete in.”

Heyman and Trips continue to bite at each other. Heyman states he finds it ironic that the man complaining that Lesnar has forged an easy way to the top, is the same man who slept his way into a position of power! Heyman jabs at AJ for not being in the same league as Brock, and for not having the edge it takes to truly define a generation.

AJ sneaks into the ring and strikes Heyman with an unprotected Chair shot. Heyman is left a bloodied mess.

AJ Styles is promoing in the ring. He’s confronted by former Paul Heyman Guy – Antonio Cesaro.

AJ STYLES vs ANTONIO CESARO (18 mins)

AJ over. Cesaro goes to use a chair after AJ kicks out of his Neutraliser. AJ ducks, rolls through into the Calf Crusher and taps Cesaro out.

Post match AJ goes to use the chair again but is stopped by Triple H.

Triple H confronts him and says he cannot go around attacking staff with weapons. If he lets Cesaro go, he will get Brock at JUDGEMENT DAY and in a NO DQ match he can have Heyman next week. AJ smiles, throws the chair out of the ring, and hits Cesaro with a Styles Clashes.

Heyman has been protesting since the announcement that he is unfit to compete. Triple H forces him to do so.

PAUL HEYMAN vs AJ STYLES

AJ is toying with Heyman (who is in a neck brace). Until Cesaro gets involved. After receiving a few chair shots (conventional), AJ hits Cesaro with a Styles Clash through the announcers table. Heyman is begging in the ring when Brock slides in and hits AJ with an unprotected chair shot an F5.

Heyman pins AJ.

JUDGMENT DAY –

The vacant WWE CHAMPIONSHIP (28 mins)

BROCK LESNAR vs AJ STYLES.

The bell rings AJ runs at Brock, ducks his clothesline and immediately dives to the outside, crushing Paul Heyman.

Aggressive match to not only crown a champion, but tent peg a new era.

All the shenanigans: Heyman distracts the ref, ref bumps, chair shots, etc

AJ incredibly kicks out of multiple F5 efforts. Brock attempts to F5 AJ from the top to the outside only for AJ to counter with a second rope Styles Clash.

He crawls on top… “ SHOCK… THE SYSTEM”

O’Reilly, Fish and Strong appear on the stage, Triple H makes his way to the walk way only for Adam Cole to make his way through the crowd and land a Panama Sunrise on AJ. Lesnar hit a final F5, Cole throws in the referee.

Your winner and new WWE Champion… BROCK... LESNAR

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aion-rsa · 8 years

Text

Johnston & Perkins Prepare For Atomic Blonde’s Coldest Winter

Antony Johnston has written more than thirty comics-slash-graphic novels, including “Wasteland,” “The Fuse” and “Codename Baboushka.” He’s also written video games like “Dead Space” and “Shadow of Mordor,” and hosts the podcast Unjustly Maligned. Steven Perkins is the artist of many comics including “Se7en,” “Heresy” and various “CSI” projects. He also wrote and drew the graphic novel “Pacify,” which was published by Image Comics. Their latest project, out now from Oni Press, is “The Coldest Winter.”

Johnston and artist Sam Hart’s 2012 graphic novel “The Coldest City” was a realistic spy thriller set in Berlin. This year, the film adaptation – titled “Atomic Blonde” – will be released, starring Charlize Theron, James McAvoy, John Goodman and directed by David Leitch (“John Wick”). Before that, Oni Press is releasing a prequel to the book. “The Coldest Winter,” written by Johnston and illustrated by Steven Perkins, set in 1981 Berlin, during one of the most brutal winters on record and featuring one of the key characters from the first book.

Antony, could you talk about “The Coldest City” for people who are coming to it for the first time

Antony Johnston: Sure. “The Coldest City” is a Cold War spy thriller set in 1989, just two weeks before the Berlin Wall came down. A British spy is killed crossing from East to West Berlin, while carrying a list of spies in the city. Now the list is missing, and MI6 don’t know who they can trust — so they send in Lorraine Broughton, a veteran officer with no ties to Berlin, to find out the truth in the social powder keg of the divided city. Things get – messy.

I’m a big fan of classic Cold War spy fiction, especially the more realistic writers like John Le Carré, Len Deighton, and Ian Mackintosh. “The Coldest City” was my attempt to revitalize that area using the medium I know best — graphic novels.

So what is “The Coldest Winter?”

Johnston: “The Coldest Winter” is the second book in the “Coldest series,” but takes place eight years before the first and focuses on David Perceval — who in “The Coldest City” is the shadowy MI6 chief in Berlin, but here is a newly-arrived spy in the city. And he’s not making a very good job of it; in fact, he’s about to be sent back to England after one too many botched jobs.

But before he goes, there’s the small matter of a high-ranking Soviet scientist who wants to defect — during a winter so severe that travel in or out of the city is impossible. So now Perceval has to keep the scientist safe from the KGB, improvising a game of cat and mouse through a frozen city, all the while plotting revenge. With this book, I really wanted to give some context to Perceval’s character, and his personality in “The Coldest City.” Frankly, in that book he’s a fairly unpleasant man. “The Coldest Winter” helps explain why.

Steven at what stage of things did you come onto the project?

Steven Perkins: When Oni asked me if I would like to work on the book, the script was finished and the project was ready to go. I loved “The Coldest City” and the script for “The Coldest Winter” was fantastic, so I was really excited about the opportunity to work with Antony and with the fine folks at Oni. It’s a big book — 184 pages — and a period-specific story, so it seemed like a real challenge artistically which made it even more exciting to work on.

How much of the time and energy on a book like this is spent on research and getting the details right?

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Johnston: Quite a bit, because it’s both a mystery and historical fiction, and both of those things rely on verisimilitude and an attention to detail to keep the reader immersed, to not accidentally jolt them out of the story. What I try to do is use those historical details, and the interlocked nature of a mystery plot, to my advantage; probably the biggest example in “The Coldest Winter” is the entire setting for the book, the heavy blizzard-filled winter that descended on Europe at the end of 1981. That really happened, and it really did shut down roads, trains, and airlines. So I made it the foundation of the whole story. If you can make those details overt, deliberate parts of the story, and rely on people paying attention, it makes for a better book and a better experience for the reader.

Perkins: Getting the details right was very important to me, too. I was still in diapers in 1981, so I had to rely on a lot of research and reference to avoid any anachronisms – particularly with the cars, military uniforms, and technology. Also, “1980’s Cold War History” would definitely not be my strong suit on Jeopardy, but luckily right before I was invited to work on the project, I had been helping an artist friend with backgrounds for his book which also took place in 1980’s Berlin – so coincidentally, I had just finished doing tons of research on the exact time and place needed for “The Coldest Winter” right before I started.

Johnston: Ha! I didn’t know that. What a crazy stroke of good luck.

When working on a prequel like this, are you thinking that it has to look or feel like the original, that it should be separate and have its own identity. Steven you didn’t draw the first book so I’m sure you have a different sort of answer than Antony, but how did both of you approach the book?

Johnston: Well, “look” and “feel” are two separate things. Steven’s art is very different to Sam Hart’s, but they both have that lovely stark, noir-ish quality to them; and of course the story itself, the pacing and dialogue, definitely has the same kind of feel as “The Coldest City,” because that to me is the style of the series. But the stories are quite different, and each book retains its own identity; you don’t need to have read either of them to enjoy the other, and the same will be true of the third book.

Perkins: I think Sam Hart’s work on “The Coldest City” is outstanding, so I felt like I had a lot to live up to with “The Coldest Winter.” I’ve always wanted to do a full book in straight black and white — in the past, all of my black and white work had gray tones, which makes it much easier to render objects and people. Working with only black and white is a challenge, but it also serves to make an artist need to be more creative — it’s like having only two tools instead of a full tool set to accomplish the same result. You end up learning more and, in my opinion, doing better and more rewarding work. Plus, it opens the door to doing very minimal, graphic work which can achieve results, particularly with snow, that are much more striking than when rendered with tones or color. Also, some of my favorite comic book artists — Mike Mignola, Frank Miller, Alberto Breccia — are well known for their mastery of black and white minimalism, so I studied their work obsessively and learned a lot in the process.

Was it hard to get 1981-82 right?

Johnston: Not that hard for me, but I have the unfair advantage of growing up in 1970s Europe!

Perkins: I hope I did get it right! The internet is a Godsend for artistic and historical reference, and so it was very helpful to be able to watch footage from 1980’s Germany on YouTube, or find thousands of photos of the Berlin Wall with a Google search.

Antony, rereading “The Coldest City,” there was a line that jumped out at me when characters are discussing the end of the Cold War – “Russia will always be Russia.”

Johnston: And how prophetic that turned out to be!

I have to ask about the movie version of “The Coldest City,” which is coming out soon. Do you want to say anything about “Atomic Blonde,” Antony?

Johnston: “Atomic Blonde” is based on the first graphic novel in the series, starring Charlize Theron, James McAvoy, John Goodman, Sophia Boutella, Toby Jones and more. The screenplay was adapted by Kurt Johnstad, and for director we landed David Leitch, who co-directed “John Wick” and recently signed on to “Deadpool 2.” I mean, the talent list is kind of ridiculous, just packed with great people.

It opens July 28, and there’ll be a lot more news coming over the next few months. I can’t wait.

I recently finished a new novel, hopefully the first in a series, and I’ll have more to say about that soon; I’m halfway through scripting the next series of “Codename Baboushka” for Image; I’m planning a new fantasy project with an old friend; an indie videogame I worked on, “Blackwood Crossing,” is set to debut imminently; and there are more screen projects, both movies and TV, that are sort of bubbling under. I like to keep busy.

Perkins: I have a handful of creator-owned comic book projects of my own and with other writers that I am trying to get off the ground, so whichever one lifts off first will be my next project. In the meantime, I’ve been busy with motion comics and comic book work, but am not allowed to mention any specifics just yet. I’ve also been filling in gaps with some storyboard and visual effects work for film as well.

Antony, do you still have plans for a third book – or more – in the Coldest series?

Johnston: Absolutely, and I’ve already begun preliminary work. It’ll bring the focus back to Lorraine Broughton again, but beyond that my lips are sealed. Walls have ears, you know.

The post Johnston & Perkins Prepare For Atomic Blonde’s Coldest Winter appeared first on CBR.com.

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