#and currently they are attempting to murder each other with really big bombs you see

[softdedue]

Ahdhfjdj my blog is so funny rn it’s like cat photo bunny photo FREE PALESTINE cat photo I HAVE A COMPLEX RELATIONSHIP WITH MY JUDAISM AT THIS TIME goofy meme cat photo

[sineala]

A Few Thoughts About Hurt/Comfort

I have been asked this month to make a post about hurt/comfort in Avengers comics. And I love h/c -- I actually have a massive number of WIPs right now that are h/c -- so I am very happy to talk about it! Anyway, this is not really all that planned out and this mostly turned into an excursus on Tony Stark's pain. I'm sure you're all surprised.

Like pretty much everyone else, I'm sure, I have found that everything lately has been... pretty tough. And the coping mechanism that really got me through last year and this year was reading and writing a lot of h/c, on the theory that, however lousy a day I'm having, I can absolutely make sure that Tony Stark has a worse one. And then I can make sure he gets hugs. Wish fulfillment? Why, yes. (Once at Hallmark I was trying to find a "get well soon" card, forgot what it was called, and described it to my wife as "a hurt/comfort card.") I think Marvel Comics -- the Avengers side, in particular -- is an interesting canon for h/c for a lot of reasons. Though, honestly, if you asked me to recommend you, a hurt/comfort fan, a new fandom, I would probably just hand you some Starsky & Hutch DVDs. Go watch "The Fix" and get back to me later. If you like that, there's way more where that came from. But there's still lots to love in Marvel! Superhero comics are really a goldmine as far as the hurt side of h/c. Because superheroes, and you probably have noticed this, get hurt a lot. They get hurt repeatedly, in fantastical ways that are probably impossible in real life both physically and emotionally (at least, I don't think anyone's invented mind control yet), and even the heroes without superhuman healing powers tend to get physically hurt a whole lot worse than actual people can take. Currently in Iron Man comics, Tony has a broken back and is dealing with this by locking himself into the armor as a backboard and injecting himself with massive doses of painkillers. He's busy! He's got stuff to do! He doesn't have time to lie around and heal! So, basically, if you name a kind of pain that you would like to see happen to a character, it's probably happened to superheroes. Multiple times. The downside, though, is that comics do not really deliver that well when it comes to the comfort part of h/c. They could. It's not inherent to the medium that they don't. But because of the serial nature of comics and also the fact the primary audience is dudes who want to read about people in spandex punching each other, a lot of the time they don't really feel the need to provide closure and write about people dealing with any of the hurt. (Raise your hand if you're still annoyed with the end of Hickman's Avengers run.) But at the same time, I think that's a quality that makes Avengers ripe for h/c fanfic. Because, generally speaking, fandom likes to provide the things that canon doesn't, and fandom is more than happy to provide the comfort. If you enjoy canonical h/c in comics, I think you really can't go wrong with Iron Man. One of the big innovations of modern Marvel Comics was the concept that heroes would also suffer from relatable human problems, and in practice what this means is that a lot of heroes start with a fully-loaded angst-ridden backstory and origin story, ripe for h/c. So Tony starts out by incurring a heart injury that he fully expects is going to kill him, which he responds to by vowing he won't get close to anyone so they won't be sad when he dies, and throughout the early Silver Age is constantly on the brink of death as his heart nearly gives out on him practically every issue. And then even after his heart gets (mostly) better, there are various plots involving his armor being detrimental to his health and him choosing to fight on anyway. It's hard for me to think of another superhero hitting that particular variety of h/c in exactly the same way. Sure, superheroes risk their lives constantly, because this is how superhero comics work, but Tony is the only one I can think of who is this constantly this badly off, physically. Like, think of all the other heroes who have had a continual solo presence as fan favorites across Marvel history -- Captain America, Thor, Spider-Man, Wolverine, maybe even Deadpool. You know what those guys all have? Healing factors! For the most part, they are not running around continually on the verge of death, and while there are certainly memorable arcs involving several of them being severely injured and/or dead, you really have to work at it. It's not their constant state of affairs, whereas Tony is the kind of superhero who shows up to a fight already bleeding out under his armor. Yeah, I know Extremis gave him a healing factor. But he didn't have it very long, and also he did some extremely dangerous things while he did have it; I'm pretty sure I've never seen Wolverine saying that he'll just solve a problem by cutting off his own foot. So, anyway, yeah, there are a bunch of good arcs involving h/c for Tony. If you're looking for physical injury, he has a whole bunch of heart problems over the years, gets several new hearts, then ruins his brain, et cetera. That level of hurt is basically the background pain of Tony's life; every so often, his heart will get damaged or he'll have to live in the armor or the armor will be killing him, et cetera. If you're looking for more unusual trauma, I am, as always, going to rec Manhunt, a relatively obscure arc in late v3 (IM v3 #65-69) in which Tony has an extremely bad week. His tech is stolen and used to bomb a building. Then he gets shot in the chest. Then while he's at the hospital a nurse tries and fails to poison him, and she then tries to beat him to death. Then he checks himself out of the hospital and a helicopter shoots missiles at him. Then he becomes a fugitive from justice. And then, oh, yeah, he has to fight the Mandarin. It is... a lot. (Volume 3 of Iron Man is pretty good as far as h/c possibilities. You've got a lot of physical pain, Carol's drinking arc, the Sentient Armor, both DreamVision arcs, and Manhunt. Manhunt is finally supposed to be out in trade this month, by the way.) There are of course the drinking arcs, which probably count as their own type of hurt. But if you haven't read the second drinking arc (IM #160-200), please do. Marvel likes to up the stakes on events (Fear Itself, Secret Empire) by making Tony drink, and it does work, I think. I feel like I've spoken at length about Tony's drinking elsewhere so I don't really want to rehash it all here. And then there's the emotional pain. Angst and drama is something that happens to a whole bunch of characters, yes, especially in comics, but somehow Tony seems to end up with possibly more than his fair share of it. Fandom likes to make a lot of Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, so much so that you might think, if you didn't know canon, that this was just fandom running with a throwaway mention of Tony's terrible childhood and making it worse. But, no, canon really does go there with a reasonable amount of frequency. Howard's actual first appearance is in a flashback where he's ordering teenage Tony to break up with his girlfriend because she's the daughter of one of Howard's business rivals. And then we get into the verbal abuse, and the physical abuse, and the time Howard made Tony take his first drink, and the part where Howard was a demon in hell who Tony fought while he insulted him. And more! Currently, in canon, Howard is alive again and is in league with Mephisto for the express purpose of ruining Tony's life. Also when Tony was a baby, Howard tried to trade him to Dracula. I think you can make an argument that fandom is actually showing restraint when compared to canon. Tony also has a whole lot of Terrible Exes whose presence and/or former presence in Tony's life can be used for a lot of hurt. If you've read any amount of fanfic, you probably know that the exes who get the most play in fandom are Sunset Bain and Tiberius Stone -- not that Tony and Ty were ever canonically a couple, of course, but fandom is definitely enamored of this idea. Ty and Sunset both have relatively similar interactions with Tony in canon, in that they are both liars and emotional abusers, heavy on the gaslighting, with the purpose of becoming more successful than Tony. They both also attempt to murder Tony, although this is after he figures out they're evil, at least. (Yes, I know, this is not how either of them usually appear in AUs.) Tony also has a bunch of exes who also have just straight-up tried to murder or otherwise hurt him, sometimes while they are dating, and sometimes before Tony dates them: Whitney Frost, Indries Moomji, Kathy Dare, and Maya Hansen come to mind. There are probably more I'm not thinking of! But, yes, if you want to write about a guy in a series of terrible relationships, please consider Iron Man comics. If mind control is one of your favorite flavors of hurt, Tony's pretty good for that too. We all know about The Crossing. I suppose when I say "mind control" I mostly mean "armor control" because there are an awful lot of plots where someone else makes Tony's armor do whatever they want it to do and Tony is along for the ride -- Demon in a Bottle, Sentient Armor, and Execute Program are the first things that come to mind. There is also a fairly obscure What If that is What If Iron Man Lost The Armor Wars in which Justin Hammer apparently really wants Tony in a mind control collar to take off all his clothes and lounge around in his underwear. No, really. I think a lot of pain for Tony often revolves around his issues with control, generally -- his alcoholism comes into play here again. The entire aftermath of Civil War is also notable for its propensity to hurt Tony over and over and over. Is he stoically soldiering on through his grief after Steve dies? Hell, no! He cries, like, six separate times. He 100% blames himself for Steve's death. It's great. Everybody loves The Confession and the funeral in Fallen Son, but one of my personal favorites is Avengers/Invaders, in which Tony is confronted with a time-traveling Steve from WWII and in order not to screw up the timeline, he can't tell Steve he knows him. He is clearly not coping well. He shuts himself in a room with a giant wall of pictures of Steve! Also there's a part where he has to try to convince Steve he can trust him and he ends up having to tie Steve to a chair to talk to him, and Steve looks at him and asks, "Who did you kill to get where you are?" and I feel like that is probably one of the worst moments in Tony's life. No wonder he gave himself amnesia. So now we might want to ask, okay, but why is hurting Tony in fanfiction so much fun? I mean, I can tell you why I think it's fun. I can't speak for anyone else. One reason is that he is very emotional and very affected by everything he does. Sometimes you will see people complaining that the heroes of m/m fanfic cry too much and this is not realistic. This is not a problem if you're writing Tony! He can cry as much as you want and it's perfectly in character. I don't think it would be as fun to hurt him if he didn't express so much of his pain. But he does. He also feels guilty, and for me that's a very satisfying character element. If he were well-adjusted and didn't blame himself for so many things, it wouldn't be nearly as fun as watching him blame himself for everyone whose death he thinks he is responsible for, whether or not he is. And then he just keeps going, and it's, y'know, nice to watch him be resilient, too. So, I guess, I think hurting him is interesting because it's easy to hurt him, his weak points are pretty obvious, and he reacts a lot. Steve doesn't hurt quite as much as Tony does, in canon. It's certainly possible to hurt him -- I mean, they did actually kill him after Civil War, after all -- but I don't think the canonical patterns of hurting him are as numerous. Obviously deseruming Steve is a fairly popular go-to in terms of physical hurt; he's been deserumed at least three times that I know of. I think's easy to see the appeal there of taking a character who is fairly physically resilient and making him... much less so. Certainly Marvel seems to see the appeal. But other than that I don't think he has any other really common way to get physically injured. Unlike Tony, whose origin story is basically "oh no, I've acquired a disability," Steve's origin story is "I drank a serum that cured all my disabilities." Which, I mean, great wish fulfillment but there's not really as much there to poke at. Pretty much all of Steve's pain is emotional, but, unlike Tony, his pain isn't often specifically in response to someone directly, purposefully hurting him. Hickman's Avengers run is a big exception, yes. His pain seems to come up most often as a kind of situational angst. He feels like a man out of time. He feels out of touch with the modern era, with people his own age. He feels guilt because he feels responsible for Bucky's death. He feels like he can't trust the government and therefore he can't be Captain America. He worries that he doesn't know how to have a normal life. And, yes, these are deep and important worries but it's different than, like, Indries Moomji dumping Tony with the intent to make him sad enough to start drinking. Very few of Steve's villains want to personally ruin Steve's entire life the way Tony's villains do; mostly they just want to do things like bring back the Nazis. In terms of Steve's potential for h/c, I think Steve is harder to hurt than Tony is. Physically, he is definitely harder to hurt. You can deserum him, sure, but unless you want everything you write to be a deseruming fic you're probably not going to want to do that more than a couple of times. And if you want to hurt him physically while he has the serum, you have to hurt him hard. Usually past the point where a regular human would ever survive it. He's also harder to break, emotionally, than Tony is -- which means it's very satisfying when you can get him to break, but this is a guy who's only cried twice (that I remember) in canon. So if you want to get him to cry, you really, really have to wreck him, and he doesn't have as many obvious weak spots. He also doesn't generally sit around blaming himself for things that aren't his fault, and the whole "stewing in guilt" genre of plots for him basically came down to "he was sad that he thought Bucky's death was his fault," and that's really the biggest regret he seems to have, and also Bucky's not dead anymore. The Steve/Tony relationship itself, I would think, is also appealing to h/c fans because canon provides a lot of ways for them to hurt each other. Some people only ship pairings who would never, y'know, take turns beating each other half to death in major event comics. (And for a lot of Marvel Comics history, that was also Steve & Tony, so if you want them to be BFFs who have never fought, you can just set your fic earlier.) They have definitely hurt each other both physically and emotionally, so if you're looking for something easy and satisfying as a h/c fan, you can just read or write something where they... make up. What about Marvel characters other than Steve and Tony? Surely some of them are angsty, yes? Well, yes, but also it depends on the particular flavor of angst that you like. If you like the way Tony hurts, you may very well enjoy Doctor Strange comics, because they have a very similar attitude towards life -- they are both former alcoholics whose origin stories involve physical disabilities, who routinely make tactical decisions that negatively affect their continued existence and/or happiness a whole lot. It's very much an "I must suffer alone in the dark and no one will ever know what I am doing to save the world but it's the right thing to do" sort of vibe. Like, you can read comics where Strange is lying in hell with two broken legs, hallucinating that Clea has finally come to save him. Strange's biggest fear, akin to Tony's control issues, is basically that one day he's going to be an asshole again, so he's out there trying as hard as he can to do good. Also, if you like tentacles, he has all of them. I mean that. Carol also occasionally hits similar angst spots, and her drinking arc is great. A lot of people like Natasha, too; I have read zero Black Widow comics but I get the impression many people enjoy her brand of angst. The mutant metaphor is a little different in terms of overall vibe, but some people really like it as a source of angst -- the whole "protecting a world who hates and fears them" thing. It may not work for you, but if you like your hurt to include things like systemic oppression, go pick up some X-Men comics. Start with something like God Loves Man Kills. I feel like I liked this sort of thing a lot more as a teenager but that I kind of aged out of liking the mutants quite so much. It's also worth mentioning that not everything that hits the spot in one universe will be the same in the others, and I'm mentioning this because I feel like I have to say something about MCU Bucky. MCU fandom seems to get a lot of mileage out of Bucky's guilt about being the Winter Soldier, everything he was forced to do, et cetera. I have definitely read my share of those fics, and FATWS sure went right for that angst too. But as far as I can tell, he doesn't hit the same way at all in 616. And I like him a lot in 616; I'm always pleased when he shows up on a team. (He was so good in Strikeforce. Everyone was so good in Strikeforce.) But the thing is, 616 Bucky is, basically, phenomenally well-adjusted, given everything he's gone through, and I'm including the time he wrestled a bear in a gulag. He gets over having been the Winter Soldier, and now he's just, y'know, a guy with a cool arm who likes to bring guns to every fight to horrify his teammates, and he snarks at Clint. If you're looking for that angst, that is really not him these days. He's all better. So pretty much all that is canon. So what do we do in fandom for h/c? Well, as far as I can tell, a decent amount of it is canon-based or very canon-close -- there are a whole lot of stories exploring the angst of Civil War or Hickman's Avengers run. Tony's drinking comes up a fair amount, and if one of Tony's Evil Exes comes back to haunt him, it's pretty much only Tiberius Stone. I don't think I've read a lot of fic with Steve getting deserumed; it doesn't seem as popular in fandom as in canon. When Steve gets hurt, he tends to just get physically whumped pretty hard, and there's a fair amount of that for Tony too, but of course Steve can take more. There's also a thriving, uh, subgenre of pain involving Hydra Steve doing terrible things to Tony, presumably the terrible things he would have wanted to do to Tony in canon if Tony had had a flesh body. There's the usual kinds of h/c setups that appear in basically every fandom as well -- sickfic, whump, dub-con/non-con. You get the idea. But since fandom in general likes to take specific inspiration from canon, there's a lot of fic where the hurt tends to resemble things that happen more in canon. Like, I feel like comics fic probably has more tentacle fic and more mind control than canons that don't come pre-stocked with those. Probably everybody has a whole lot of "tied up by bad guys," though. And then, of course, fandom brings the comfort that canon does not. This is true in pretty much every fandom -- I mean, you aren't going to find a lot of actual canons where Character A saves Character B from mortal peril and then there's gay sex -- but, like I was saying, comics don't provide a lot of closure before it's onto the next thing. Usually with a different creative team, who has no interest in wrapping up anything from the last team. Steve and Tony talked about the incursions exactly once after Secret Wars and nobody mentioned the part where Steve spent several months trying to hunt Tony down and kill him. Tony is never going to remember the events of Civil War. Hydra Steve died ignominiously in a fire and no one has ever talked about him again. Honestly, if you're looking for a way to get some comfort in your fanfic, picking an event, any event, and just having the characters talk about it will be way more than any of them get in canon. I feel like honestly that can often be a pretty satisfying to read. And even though comics canon physically hurts characters pretty often and pretty badly, they also often skip right past the recovery. Maybe you'll get one page of a character in a hospital bed at the end of the story arc. Maybe you won't. Demon in a Bottle has one splash page of Tony going through alcohol withdrawal and then he's all better. I think Manhunt skips to Tony getting out of the hospital at the end. That's just not a story that they want to tell very often. The second drinking arc is notable in that it devotes almost as many issues to Tony's recovery as it does to getting him to rock-bottom. Similarly, Steve is done with his Nomad angst way way faster than you probably think he is (though The Captain does go in for a fair number of issues). So one of the things we often want to do in fandom is focus on all the bits that canon skips over, both in the "why did no one ever mention this story arc ever again" way and the "wow, so how long are they in the hospital after that" way. That's really all I can think of about h/c! I'm off to write some more of it!

[shuxjodie]

Let's talk GOSHO AOYAMA'S POV For Movie 18' Promise (Canon or Not)!!!

What this post will cover-

The Explanation of Movie18 promise

Why Jodie is different from other agents? Answered with the reference taken from this promise.

Shuichi's current feelings for Jodie as a conclusion

The explanation that why there are High possibilities that the promise is Canon by what Gosho said about this movie in his interview.

NOTE: It's going to be a long post! Because I'm going to explain every single thing in detail. Well there is a treat awaiting for Redstarling fans too 😉

So first let's take a look at the scene of Promise. This is the scene of the Detective Conan Movie: Dimensional Sniper👇

They say this scene is not canon. But really?? If this is canon, then why? What are its possibilities that it is Canon? Let's keep in mind that this Movie is different from the movies that were previously made (It is explained later). And rather than going with the general idea of "movies are not canon" let's see what Gosho said himself regarding this movie!

Before that, let's break down what Shuichi promised Jodie and what he exactly meant.

Explanation of The Promise

The promise is made in a technical manner. So we need to understand the promise using technical knowledge. It's not what it looks like.

So what Shuichi said there?

"Don't worry. As long as I'm around, you will NEVER have to do something like that. I PROMISE."

First of all, I thought the same as many think that Shuichi said that because Jodie is unable to shoot a shot like that. But the promise is more than that.

To understand the whole situation, let's have a look at Jodie's shooting skills.

Jodie's skills as a shooter

If we compare what kind of shooter she is, it turns out to be that she is an extremely high skilled shooter! (And I will be using reference from specifically Manga not anime)

Jodie threw Vermouth's gun by shooting at it, faster than her. She is good at aiming by taking decisions within a fraction of seconds. This is a sign of a very well-trained agent.

Jodie threw the gun away without harming Vermouth, at that sudden moment. Although she was interrogating her, she grasped the situation quickly and reacted accordingly.

Jodie was able to shoot at her even when she was injured, and almost got killed ( Conan said that while talking to Vermouth and explaining why he changed his plans). Still, she had the confidence to give the warning that her next target will be Vermouth's head. Jodie would have shot at her head to save her life and other people's life involved in that case, because there was no other way around. But she stopped because her attention went towards the footsteps approaching her and she thought it's over but that footstep turned out to be Shuichi's.

Jodie shot at Vermouth's shoulder only to threaten her even when she was heavily panting, not in the condition to move either but used most of her strength to hide in the blind spot and still she shot her in that worse condition. She didn't miss the shot by harming Vermouth more. The bullet could have penetrated through her shoulder or any other part of her body, maybe hitting the vitals but it just passed aside. It was certainly a good shot to threaten. And she could have missed the shot by aiming in the wrong direction. But she made that shot successfully.

In the Kir arc, she shot very well at the sprinklers using the silencer. And she moved silently so no one noticed. Kir only noticed the sound of the sprinkler, not her moves.

Conan was caught by Kir when he was trying to retrieve the transmitter. So, Jodie was ready to shoot at Kir, to save Conan. In manga many people were around Kir, running here and there to get away from the rain. And it started to rain for real. But still, she was prepared to save Conan. It was a risky shot as people are around, running here and there.

In fact, her debut was made as she is a great shooter. Gosho can't show us actual shooting but video games and if you remember she was able to use her left hand to shoot.

And she never made a mistake while shooting.

Now one needs to complete their bachelor's degree to enroll into the FBI. Jodie must be atleast 22y by then. They need the experience of 3years. Then they have to give physical and written test followed by a background check. And after passing it they go through an intense training of more than 800 hours in Quantico. After spending 20weeks there, they get into the FBI. So she must be 25-26 years at that time. After joining it, they have a probationary period of around 2 years where they practically do nothing but observe and learn under under their assigned training agents. So she completed all these by 27-28years. And now she is 28y/o. So with less than a year of experience she did a great job!

CONCLUSION:

Jodie is extremely good at short-range shooting.

She can take decisions in less than a second and make a clear shot.

She can pull a headshot even when she is gravely injured, to the point of unable to move.

With less than a year of experience, she did a great job!

So let's keep all these points in mind as I will be using them many times.

Shuichi's promise and breaking it into fragments-

Now why Shuichi said that Jodie will NEVER have to do something dangerous like pulling a headshot, unless he is around while making the promise? She doesn't need him in the short-range shooting. She can handle things as she did at the port. She is a pro! Then why?

What did he mean with that slight smiling reaction he gave? So, let's break down his body language.

Shuichi's promise can be interpreted in these 5 ways-

1. He is a better agent and sniper. He is more confident and experienced. But-

Jodie is a highly skilled short-ranged shooter, who can pull a head shot when gravely injured. So basically she doesn't need his help in short-range shooting including dangerous things.

She doesn't like to do things without making efforts on her own either, which means she trusts herself and is very confident. That means she gives her best too!

But still, Shuichi promised her. That means he doesn't want her to get tensed about these dangerous things. He will take care of long-range, short-range or any dangerous things on his own. He promised her and this shows a sign that she can rely on him every time.

2. She won't have to kill someone facing the killer/target putting herself in dangerous situations.

There is a very high possibility that the opposition can have weapons too. Her chances of getting killed will always be there. That's why it's a dangerous job!

"Face the target HEAD-ON and aim for the tip of their nose"

That is advised by the best shooter/sniper of the DC world.

Well, it's the same strategy used in real life. Imagine the T shape between the head and nose and aim at the horizontal line of the letter. It's a perfect kill that the target won't get a microsecond to think or act! So it's very dangerous for the one who is aiming to. Because it gives a chance of killing and getting killed. This T strategy is shared by an ex infantryman of the army 👇

So her life will be at risk.

But she is willing to take risks-

Jodie faced Vermouth. The FBI didn't have much idea about her as Shuichi never saw her before but he confirmed on the port. And they were attacking each other face to face.

In the clash of Red and Black, Jodie decided to dispose of the bomb, on her will. James initially asked Shuichi to dispose of the bomb in a vacant area because he wasn't confident either, but Jodie came forward and took the job.

Jodie is willing to risk her life for Shuichi. In the mall, she knew BO men were waiting to kill Shuichi but she didn't waste a single second and ran to save him.

But still, Shuichi promised her. When he used "Never", he meant both long-range and short-range. That means he is not willing to risk her life at any cost. He doesn't want to lose her.

He will do anything and everything to save her life. Even with the endless and enormous amount of several uncertainties, he is not willing to risk her life at any cost, since it's a promise!

3.She won't have to do a dirty job and take responsibility.

Before I proceed, let me point out, Jodie can take responsibilities-

Vermouth asked her whether she has permission to use the gun in Japan. And she said she was going to accept all the charges anyways and was prepared to face them.

It's very hard to accept that this woman won't take any responsibility.

If you would look at it, killing a culprit is not as simple as it sounds. It comes with loads of responsibilities along with so many rules. If not justified, then they will face punishments and charges, even worse, it can cost their job. They can be called murderers.

Unlike soldiers who are prepared to kill men in masses, FBI agents are also prepared but not like them. They have to think before shooting and in worst case- kill, but soldiers shoot to kill. Hence, cannot be compared.

The first attempt of an FBI agent is to stop the culprit. So they shoot to stop the target from escaping. The killing comes afterwards in the worst-case scenario when they have no way around it.

FBI agents are strictly prohibited to kill until the situation demands or/and they get an order. Even when they work undercover, they are forced to obey the rules.

Killing a culprit without orders comes with a huge responsibility. If the action couldn't be justified by rules, the agent might cost their job along with mandatory punishments and charges.

If one is saving their colleague, there are two chances- to kill the opponent or to injure them so that they won't attack any further. It gets really complicated, in situations when all they get are a few seconds to decide. Because by harming, the culprit can be caught and the partner's life will be saved.

So it's a very big responsibility and commitment on a professional level and even on a personal level.

So when Shuichi committed Jodie, that he is willing to kill for her-

He is also willing to take the very huge responsibility at a professional level that will come all along.

The situation becomes worse when they get stuck in a situation when they can't or won't get any further orders.

Even when his top priority is his job because of his personal reasons, he is willing to take responsibility for her.

It's very very less likely that he'll fail but nothing can be taken for granted. He gave his commitment to Jodie when future circumstances are not known to anyone. There are uncountable uncertainties. And this can affect his job.

This proves that Jodie is a very very important person for him so he won't let her compromise her job at any cost because he is willing to take responsibility for her. As he mentioned that he won't let Jodie do anything ever if he is around, so it's a lifetime promise!

Even Gosho never made Shuichi kill anyone. Vermouth as the serial killer escaped him, Kusuda Rikumichi and Scotch committed suicide. Even in M18, he didn't kill the culprit. So to think about it from manga pov it's a very strong and big commitment, which he will fulfil in anyways and by any means.

4. Shuichi is willing to protect and defend Jodie at an emotional level.

As I mentioned before she is highly professional at the short-range shooting. Then why did she hesitate?

This is a very risky job and it's humans' natural tendency to think before acting when their life will be at stake. But that doesn't mean that an FBI agent should back off. They should learn to cope up with fear and do the job. Initially, everyone fears. But with time they learn. Jodie hesitated a little showing the "natural reaction" of any human being to save their life. But she prepared herself when the time came to eliminate the sniper. She remembered what Shuichi said and thought-" I have to do it!" So even if she hesitated, that doesn't mean that she'll never try to do attempt anything dangerous. In Manga, she prepared herself to shoot at Kir even there were people running around her.

Maybe Jodie's past is related somehow. To think about Jodie, she gets sentimental when it comes to killing someone, especially while smiling. But her past was very tragic since her father was burned by a mysterious woman. And at that time she was only 7-8years old so we can't blame her. It must be so traumatic. But now she has a strong and cheerful personality irrespective of the trauma she has faced.

Irrespective of her past, she is very professional and keeps her emotions away from her working space. Even though she has a personal hatred towards Vermouth, the FBI let her carry out the mission on foreign land, without permission. This shows her professionalism and the trust that the FBI put in her.

People get emotional when they face harsh and critical time. It was her worst time when we realised her past, before catching vermouth and about her relationship with Shuichi.

Even after Shuichi's death, she didn't have a mental breakdown. She strongly implied to Camel that the FBI wasn't scared of BO either. This shows she is a very confident woman, who doesn't rely on anyone, is aware of practical things and can deal with things on her own.

And maybe she was hesitant regarding killing someone, like that. Doing a dirty job. Generally speaking, not every FBI officer kills the criminal and they try to avoid killing criminals as much as possible because of rules and regulations and some avoid that for personal reasons but they have to do it when ordered. And along with killing someone, this thought comes along-" If I'll kill them, will I take the CHANCE away from them of having a new and different life? And what if they want to start a new life by accepting the punishment?" This is a very complicated decision and morals and values are the core of our life. That's why it is a very tough decision. Moreover, this is detective Conan in which Gosho never makes any good character to kill ever.

It's very unlikely that the FBI have the mindset of soldiers in war who are trained that way to kill thousands. It can be up to some extent the training of FBI agents is different from soldiers. Soldiers are trained to kill without thinking but FBI agents have to think before killing someone. Here another confession by an ex- infantryman 👇

Killing is not the same for everyone. Some might feel bad and some may not. It varies because of personal reasons, past, the surrounding they grew up etc.

And Shuichi knows Jodie very well without a doubt. He knows how capable she is and only he knows how worse her driving skills are. So, he doesn't want her to kill someone if he is around her. Shuichi is more experienced although he never killed someone, as far as we know.

So he asked her directly and without giving her a second to think, the next moment he promised her.

It's not like he is stopping her to do her job because a mindset to face difficulties is necessary for FBI agents. That's why he said until he is around and situations in which he won't be able to make it. But according to him, it's not that necessary either to let her kill someone if he is around or if he can do whatever he can to help her out.

Let me clear something-

Shuichi doesn't enjoy killing, like Korn and Chianti. They asked gin to let them kill because they carve killing( FBI vs BO part-1,2). Especially Chianti loves to kill.

Shuichi feels proud when he saves the people and threatens or eliminates the opponent, to serve his Nation. Even the best sniper of the (real) world said in his interview that he doesn't hesitate to kill as the opposite side are about to kill his brothers( his teammates, his friends). According to him, it's better to kill the people who can harm his side than to see his people die and their family suffer. That's what an ex infantryman stated-

So Shuichi is very different from BO men.

And by offering Jodie, to the extent of promising, that he'll kill for her, it gotta be really serious. So he is ready to kill on behalf of her which is protecting her physically and mentally.

5. He is willing to protect her life, putting his own life in danger.

With uncountable and enormous uncertainties, no one knows who can fire at him, at what time, from which direction and so on.

It's never just one culprit they will be facing, like the M18 climax. There can be more in number, increasing the level of danger.

He won't get the chance to use sniper always. Using a sniper needs a good place to aim and to find it the place it requires time and he should reach there in time. Jodie can get into trouble in any situation which may or may not be favourable for using a sniper. So he might need to shoot from any range, like short-range, which should be suitable for the situation. After all, he is going to protect her.

There can be a good sniper, that he might be facing as an opponent. So there is this uncertainty of not knowing the capabilities of the opponent too.

The bullet won't spare anyone, not even him or the culprit will not spare him at any cost. If he is aiming from a long-range then not necessarily the bullet won't reach him. And if the opposition is the men of b.o they'll definitely not!

So Shuichi is not willing to lose Jodie at any cost! Even he is ready to sacrifice himself for her life. For her, is willing to face anyone to save Jodie.

So in the trailer, what he said-

Don't make that kind of face. I'll protect you even if I have to give my life.

it turns out to be the same!

For "don't make that kind of face", he used the phrase "Don't worry / Just relax" which he usually uses when he is with Jodie.

So Shuichi is willing to risk/ give up on his own life to save Jodie's life. She is so important to him that he can't imagine risking life at all! Isn't it the reason he promised her?

Some other important points, while Shuichi made this promise-

By promising Jodie, he doesn't mean that he doesn't trust her. While working with agents, one has to trust each other on their skills because it's teamwork. He is well aware of her skills. If he had doubts about her skills, he wouldn't have let her take Haibara to the port. So he trusts her. The promise is all because he worries about her.

The promise is a lifetime promise. Using "never", means shows till he stays alive. Never letting her do anything dangerous is until he retires or if ever needed to do after the job and protection is for a lifetime.

Shuichi promised Jodie as soon as he asked her, just after the moment she hesitated, for like a second. That means he had made his mind way before to protect her no matter what and he'll do dangerous things for her. Because this promise is not some daily chores that he'll promise out of nowhere. The promise just described his feelings in words in front of Jodie during that time.

In the promise, he didn't mention specifically about headshot but he said "something like that" which implies she doesn't have to do anything dangerous like pulling a headshot. So he will do any dangerous activities in which Jodie's life will be at stake or if she will hesitate.

While promising her he said, "until he is around". That means it's not only for the mission but anytime he is around and anything and everything he can do to help her out. He is willing to go out of his way for her.

Just because Jodie hesitated doesn't mean that she will never try to do any dangerous activities. It's a human's natural tendency to think before acting when it comes to risking their own life. FBI agents need to learn things, cope up with pressure and have to act accordingly. Here, it's Shuichi who doesn't want Jodie to get involved in any dangerous activity. This shows his care and the fear of risking her life, which he doesn't want to do at all. Rather he will give up on his own life.

He is a practical and serious-minded person. So if he promised this for a lifetime, he gotta be damn serious. He is willing to anything and everything for her and he will go to the lengths of giving up on his life for her.

Body language. They play a very important role.

A. During that conversation, he looked straight into her eyes twice, even while driving-

While asking if she can do the dangerous things

While making the promise.

This shows his how much he wants to protect her. People look into eyes while saying truth and emphasising it even more. This also shows seriousness. Here Shuichi not only made a promise but made her at ease. She doesn't need to take stress for that.

B. While giving the promise he smiled. Facial expressions are a very important part of body language. And the promise is the most important part because he is talking about something really serious. And while smiling like that he clearly indicates how much important and precious Jodie is to him. He can give his life without a second thought. Well to keep an important person safe, the willingness to give up on his own life shows exactly how important they are- more than one's own life.

And Gosho makes it a very big deal when he smiles. It's rare. It is such a warm side of him to witness from a person who doesn't have a bright personality, considering his personality what James said ( FBI vs BO P-1,2 ch-504,505) and Masumi still believes that he never smiled at. Maybe he never did in those types etc but he does smile at her but she is unaware. So it's a biggie if he smiles at someone. Moreover, he smiled at the promise of risking his own life.

C. While promising, he performed a drastic activity. He pointed his fingers forming a gun at her. Why did he do that?

Showing drastic activity or any different activity from what usually one does in certain situations shows a different state of energy. Here he showed his eagerness and willingness. He didn't need to explain it by pointing at her nose. Generally, anyone can understand where to point if explained well. But he surprised her by showing how difficult the work is and the next second promised her. This shows his unhesitating mindset of sacrificing himself for Jodie.

Surprising Jodie like that had a purpose. Shuichi didn't want her to do anything like that all from the beginning. Understanding where to point, that is at the nose, is no rocket science that is difficult to understand. So he surprised her, showing the level of risk while shooting a headshot, on purpose. She got surprised at the moment which made her hesitate and the next second followed his promise. So surprising her which followed by the promise was on purpose.

This shows their closeness to each other. Shuichi or anyone ( in general) won't point his fingers like that at one who ain't close to him. But he did because it's Jodie after all. One gets more expressive and free to do things with closed ones.

10. The scene is after Vermouth arc, Japan.

Thanks @geissbock ! you can spot important things like Shinichi does! The numberplate used in the scene is Japanese.

It's matches with the time line too- 10 years ago, he was 21-22 as now he is 31-32. There is uncertainty in the age gap by consecutive numbers because we don't know anyone's birthday. So 10 years ago he informed his family in Japan that after 3 years of experience and written tests he can join the FBI. So he must have joined the FBI at the age of around 24-25 years. And Gosho said that he dated Jodie soon after he joined the FBI. Now 5 years ago when he broke up with her, he was around 26-27 since he is 31-32 now and had long hair back then. Now it would be impossible that his hair grew so long, covering his back within a span of a year. Imagine this situation- he promised when he was 25-26( his hair were short)and at 26-27(his hair covered his back) he broke up. And since he used the word "sacrifice" he should have dated for some time to the point of loving her that deeply. So it's impossible that he promised her in NY but he did in Japan.

This proves that Jodie is a very close and important person in Shuichi's life and he cannot afford to lose her even at the cost of his life. Even that, so much has happened between them.

That past wasn't in their favour and nor the present is.

Past involving that he used a very kind-hearted woman for his mission + that woman played all along with him for God knows how long, which must be so terrible even just to think + she risked her own life + did a huge favour for Shuichi's mission when this mission was his personal goal+and she died. Then Shuichi failed his promise which he gave to Shiho back then + Shiho lost her only family. And most importantly Akemi's life purpose didn't fulfil- to take her sister out of BO. Moreover, almost every FBI agents know that he was affected by Akemi's death. This is so complicated!

This means Jodie holds a very important place in his heart and she plays a very important role in his life. His feelings are really at a deeper level for her that he didn't hesitate to promise something so big! Hence the past is not interfering between them up to the extent of him to admit on his own that how much she still means to him! To add more to it, he smiled! Gosho makes a huge deal when he smiles. And it's a promise for a lifetime!

He won't do this for everyone, because he promised only to Jodie.

There will be many agents who are trained and willing and inclined to carry out difficult operations and might hesitate a little. Not necessarily he will always take the charges. Hesitation is a natural tendency, not a sign of never trying to attempt. Everything is done for the first time in the beginning and sure they would have felt nervous. But that doesn't mean they won't do things. It's just a part of learning.

He will take charges when the job comes to the best sniper in the world. He can't take away other's jobs and chances.

He won't go out of his way, that is besides missions to save every FBI agent. He is not everyone's saviour.

In fact, it's impractical to save every FBI agent every time. It's a very risky job to do that can cost lives. He knows the reality very well.

That's why in the clash of Red and Black he suggested not to focus on Esuke's life that much, although he was the one who saved him at the end.

In the recent chapter of the FBI serial murder case, he didn't go to shoot before, while they were trying to capture BO members. He went after, was required to, that is as the best sniper who can shoot for more than 1300yards and saved Camel's life by shooting at the torch while he was literally running.

Now for Jodie, according to his promise-

He won't let her do something dangerous like pulling a headshot, either on a mission or not, in any condition except it's impossible for him to be with her.

He'll protect her no matter what! By physically and mentally.

He is willing to give up in his own life.

So he is willing to stay with her after all, for a lifetime!! By promising this, he gave her the exact picture of how much she is important to him and what she means in his life.

And let me point out very clearly - He is not a jerk who is maintaining this relationship just to work with her. He can work without getting closer and she is highly professional. If he can work with Bourbon who hates him to death( Asaka case and now he is even willing to work with him since he and Yusaku proposed to him something, the Tea party ), he can work with an ex without faking anything. So he ain't faking anything with her and that's not his personality either. So they have to stay in contact and have to work together in future and maybe they will possibly hang out too.

Now, how Jodie should perceive this? What should she think about this promise considering their current relationship and future? His lifetime protection, the friendship, his act of care. How long should she take this and how long she can? Is he implying that he is stuck with his past but doesn't want to leave her either BUT with the condition of being friends? Did they ever decide this?

WHEN?

When did they agree by exchanging words to stay ONLY friends forever? Did Shuichi ever tell her if he has feeling for another woman? Did he ever ask her to stop hoping if they can get back together? DID THEY HAVE THIS IMPORTANT TALK EVER?

NEVER!!!!

If we look at the panel of clash of Red and Black, Jodie assumes that he still thinks about her. And they knew this because of the expression he gave after Akemi died. That means he never told Jodie anything about his exact feelings for Akemi.

"And when she died, you could tell from Akai-Kun's expression that..."

"Probably Shuu, still thinks about her."

So after coming back he never said anything about it.

Jodie started to work on this mission when Sharon died. It was around or less than a year before Akemi's death. And at one point in time, they agreed to work together. And sure it must be uncomfortable in the beginning. So in those months, he didn't have time to have this important conversation with her especially IF he never wanted a relationship in the first place? It would be foolish to assume by anyone, that an ex who hasn't moved on yet for god sake 5 years, won't seek anything in future. And it's even stupid if the ex would just want to be a friend forever without any talk or any clarification.

So we can clearly say that it's just their mutual understanding that they didn't speak about it, moreover a common sense at the moment because-

He was on a run, and it was the time when he should avoid getting close to her so that enemies won't have a clue. Imagine if he would visit his family at that time. No, he won't, so he stayed away from her for her safety.

They both, especially Jodie, were mostly focused on the mission. The mission was connected to their life's purpose!

It wasn't the right time to talk about their relationship when the time was about life and death.

So basically, they never talked. But that doesn't mean denial. Just because one can't be in a relationship in the present time, doesn't imply that they don't have feelings of love. There wasn't a little hint ever if Shuichi ever told her that they can't be in a relationship ever or neither he showed any hint like he tried to avoid her INSTEAD here, he showed her that she means to him more than his own life.

In Jodie's flashback, all she recalls is the breakup and straight after that, she thinks that she was happy to work with him anyway. This doesn't show any refusal for the future. It just shows that they broke up but she was happy to stay with him again while working with him.

Feelings and context don't give the slightest hint if he ever denied their future. Honestly, refusal becomes a very important thing in these kinds of situations especially when people want different things from each other. And people get uncomfortable n this type of situation so they talk, clarify or give hints by body language like maintaining distance etc. But there is no slight hint if he ever denied or had that important talk ever instead it shows other things way around. Rather he has never shown a little discomfort around her, the way she behaves and how he promised her something really important.

And Jodie can actually tell things from people's expressions.

In the Kir arc, she saw Conan's scarred face and she continued to investigate( ch-500).

In the Scarlett investigation, she noticed Conan's expression and went to Raiha Pass.

In the clash of red and black (Ch-599) it was Jodie who caught Shuichi's reaction that he looked excited. Even James had to confirm what she implied before-"about what?"/"what can I say?").

So if Shuichi would have shown a little hesitation, Jodie would have known. But we have never seen anything from Jodie's side if he is keeping a distance because of the relationship. And if he would have done that, Jodie wouldn't have hoped anything ever and would have kept her distance by herself. She never said anything from her side and focused on the mission. She knew this is no time to speak about their personal matter. So from the flashback, it's clear he never denied anything for their future.

And Shuichi knows how much he means to her. He knew how much she would suffer when he was about to fake his death. He knew from the beginning that she still loves him. So why is he showing two different emotions? But is he? We can say that he won't want to be in a relationship at that time for various reasons like-

It's not the right time to get back together when they both are on this important mission which is their life's purpose.

There is this uncertainty of if he'll live at the end or not. So giving her hope and taking it away when things aren't in his hand can make it very hard in future. He surely hates to hurt her.

They both don't have time right now to date each other.

Shuichi got many things to do, before personally getting involved with her again. He has to repay the debt by saving Haibara.

But that doesn't mean that he doesn't have feelings for Jodie. They are working together, are in contact with each other so it's satisfactory according to the critical circumstances they are facing now.

So without any CLARIFICATIONS, this can be complicated way too much in many ways-

If he doesn't want a relationship at all so she should move on according to him when he deeply cares for her feelings.

He can lose his friendship with Jodie, which he has right now. Which he surely won't like as she is very important for him in his life.

But if she didn't move on when he wasn't around her how will she if he is promising such a big thing!? She never stopped loving him, even after knowing that he broke up with her because of the mission and he had to date another woman. But still, she loved him then and still loves him unconditionally for more than 5 years.

Now, how Jodie should perceive this promise as? An ex, who gave her this promise in which he doesn't want to lose her, to the point of willingness to lose his own life, but probably thinks of another woman, maybe mainly because of guilt, but don't want to lose her either at any cost?

The feeling of being so important to him, even more than his life, without any important talk can become so complex that it is way out of imagination.

It becomes so hurtful to stay with someone you love on the terms of friendship. And this becomes worse with time. And by promising her, Shuichi clearly stated to her, that how much she still means to him, in his life, his willingness to stay by her side, especially after they broke up.

Jodie's feelings are her responsibility but Shuichi has his responsibility too. He should not make things harder for her. And he will never make it worse or even hard since he hates to hurt her.

Honestly, it can become really hard for Jodie in future and the present can leave her in a dilemma. And these things contradict so much when he gates to hurt her. It's clear from this post that he doesn't want to her at any cost 👇

And Shuichi is well aware of everything. He doesn't take part in any complex things if he has no interest in them.

Denying to act as a father figure, wasn't easy, especially after knowing that there is a little kid, who will never receive fatherly love at such a tender age. She will not only miss her father but also her big brother.

Leaving his whole family wasn't easy.

Reducing his communication, even cutting the communication completely, with his family, especially his little sister, wasn't easy. In ch-1035-38 it's clear that he loves his little sister so much!

He was well aware of the fact that his decision will shock and hurt Mary so much. As a mother, letting her child investigate something so dangerous, the decision was no easy at all.

But he wanted to catch them and give them the punishment they deserve because they made his family suffer. His sister never saw their father, his mother suffered as she lost her husband and he and his little brother lost their father. So he denied it straightforwardly to Mary. And Mary, with time, wanted the bad guys to get punished too, so she agreed and let Shuichi do what he desired.

So, if he is offering from his side something like that, he must have thought about everything in his mind from the beginning! Because the promise he made is no child's play. It's serious as fuck! Well, he doesn't like it when she gets hurt emotionally. He felt so bad and disappointed when she didn't take him seriously and was worried for her in the clash of Red and Black. And he never showed that worried of face ever (till now) in the manga. He was worried for her because she will get hurt because of his stunt.

So if he doesn't want anything except friendship terms then he should have told Jodie sometime or at least, should have implied indirectly. If she agrees, stay friends and if not then maintain a healthy distance. Instead, he told her he is willing to give his life for her.

Idk what kind of ex who doesn't seek things himself but will never clarify directly or indirectly especially when they don't want to hurt their ex-partner and doesn't participate in complicated things when they don't have interest at all. That means they have to be on same the page regarding these feelings considering he never denied their possible relationship especially if he never intended to have it in future. That should be taken care of first when promising something so big like that.

Some Important things to be noted-

He broke up for his job, not because his feelings changed. Since he replied just after she asked that he has to crush this organization by any means, it's clear that he did for his mission. Well, that's what Gosho said in SDB.

It must be so heartbreaking for himself as he was really sad while saying that, to leave a person he was so serious. The word "Sacrifice" is way beyond to explain. This word is used when people have to give up on something which is very precious to them, close to their heart that they personally don't want to lose but have no other choice.

He wasn't able to look at her until he admitted his inability to date, two women.

He closed his eyes while saying he has to break up with her, like his heart was resisting to say that but he did for his family and for her safety. He looked so unhappy there. It's tough to lose first love after all whom he dated for real.

Let's make this clear, he won't date unless he won't be really serious and will never waste a single second in the first place when he joined the FBI to catch the people who are responsible for his father's disappearance. So he was really serious with her while dating.

That means his feelings never changed for her in the very first place because he won't fall again for anyone after suffering through that horrible incident. He loved her back then and he still loves her to the point he won't lose her.

Conclusion:

Shuichi still loves Jodie, more than his own life!

Now that we understand the promise which helped us to know about Shuichi's current feelings for Jodie, it's time to decide whether it's non-Canon or not.

Let's see what Gosho Aoyama has to offer!

Before that let's see first how much Gosho is involved in the process of making movies. This will show Gosho's dedication to movies in general- ( it's from Gosho Aoyama interview 2014, for Movie 18 . You can find it just after the Lupin III interview on detectiveconanworld website.)

Actually, Gosho showed Shuichi's feelings for Jodie on a larger scale! Since the trailer mostly focused on Shuichi and Jodie, especially his promise, it's obvious that that the promise scene was the most important scene of the movie!

Even though Monkey Punch's motto is to let them do everything, he still gets involved! There is no chance that he will change an important and famous character's feeling like Shuichi just because it's a movie!

Even if the staff tries to add anything they want, they end up changing everything. And after completing it, Gosho checks and reviews it👇

He checks the storyboard and scripts and he even ends up changing god knows how many things if it doesn't get matches with the Manga!!! Since he said all scripts that mean he does that for almost every movie! Then surely for this dialogue, he would have agreed before they can animate anything. Gooood how much work you do so that we can enjoy Sensei!!!!! Seriously people need to stop criticising him!!!

Now the question arises: What does Gosho think about this MOVIE in particular?

Well, he mentioned that IT'S THE FIRST TIME, THE MOVIE HAS THE SAME STORY AS MANGA!!

There is nothing new in the story that hasn't been shown in MANGA !!!!

So no question arises if he changed Shuichi's feelings for the sake of fans and he altered them because this is particularly a movie! Well, the spoiler was there anyways. So we can safely say from his statement that this story is the SAME as the ORIGINAL story. And by the same, I am saying some particular scenes, the feelings of the character, not all the events that occurred in the movie like destruction etc. It's up to Gosho if he wants to make the whole movie canon or not. And we can also conclude that the warning Shuichi gave was nothing like a friend, although they are on terms for NOW.

It's the first time and the story is the same as Manga!!! ( Read the last line. It's the interview taken from 2014 interview that was taken before the movie release) So this movie is different from other movies that were released before!

He said that it can't be done in manga. That means it cannot be drawn in Manga as art. He didn't say that it can't be in Manga. He said it can't be done as Manga but only in anime! Here he meant by action scenes. It's very difficult to draw in manga each and every move." And since it'll be done as an anime they added tons of action scenes to it. " Many action scenes like Ran beating the culprit so that he can get caught alive, Jodie firing the car of the culprit while saving Conan and Masumi and so that the culprit can run away, Conan chasing the culprit and Masumi picking him up on the road are important for the story to proceed! And since it's an anime, they added more like bike stunts and blasts etc. Actions scenes are something that can only be shown in anime, mentioned by Gosho. Well, he told the same for Movie20, where he wanted to show Shuichi and Amuro fighting. Imagine how difficult it is to draw every single move to show the fluency of the fight. And he said in movies he likes to blow cars which gives his assistant a hard time! ( His assistant starts crying - that's what he said to be specific. I wish I could upload that SS but 10 pictures are the limit on Tumblr) He also said the same when he was questioned about yaiba and about the action scenes involved in the series. ( The interview was published around 2014-16 and can be found on detectiveconanworld website as well)

And he said there are a lot of ties with the original story! Now, what can be the ties? Whatever that can coincide or fit in Manga. If we consider Manga, Shuichi always followed Jodie when her life could be at risk. And he saved her 3 times in manga.

Vermouth arc. It was unplanned that Shuichi will go. Jodie didn't know he would come. She was surprised as he came. She thought that she would die but he came and saved the day. And he went there because he got worried as he didn't get any updates.

In the bus hijack, he went there. In the end, he said the target didn't appear, it was for Sherry. If Jodie was going anyway, why did he go there? It was because this time she was going outside of the school premises where Vermouth can easily harm her. Shuichi and Jodie had no idea that Vermouth was well aware of the fact that FBI agents sneaked into her house. Vermouth thought the FBI can help her find out Sherry, so she decided to act like she didn't notice anyone sneaked into her apartment. Similarly, if she would have found Sherry and if she would have got a way to kill her at that time, she might have done that. But he went there instead of letting any other FBI agent follow her, who came to help Jodie. The fact that he was working with Jodie should be hidden at all cost but for Jodie's safety, he took the gamble. Well, it's clear from this post that he did his best to hide himself from Vermouth while he was working with Jodie.👇And he did his best, especially for Jodie!

3. In Red T-Shirt omen, Shuichi said he saw someone familiar on TV. But in Scarlett's prologue, he explained why he visited the Mall. He was referring to Jodie there. ( In Manga it's only Jodie in the background) So what did he do? He saw scar Akai but followed Jodie to know the whereabouts of scar Akai. He knew that Jodie would be BO's first target. And after Jodie and Conan asked the saleswoman, he asked about what Jodie asked her too, to grasp the situation. Then he spotted scar Akai. And after the case was solved he was waiting near the exit because he knew Jodie is highly willing to follow scar Akai. So he saved her life again.

4. In the car chase, he said that Bourbon would try to capture ONE of his close colleagues. And they knew that Jodie would definitely come once she started to doubt the death. So they wanted to catch her there. And Shuichi was well aware of the fact that she will definitely go to investigate. So he followed there too and since Camel went all along so he saved both.

Saving Jodie has always been canon no matter what the situation arises as written in point 1,2,4 and the promise is related to her safety. And since it is so connected with the original story and that scene is one of the most important scenes of the movie, this is one of the things that have ties with the original story! Well, don't expect he'll tell this directly. He is a mystery writer after all. He only gives clues and makes us deduce.

Conclusion:

From what Gosho said, it is clear that this promise can be categorised as CANON or has TIES with the original story! Especially when at the end he said the movie lots of ties with the original story, considering it's a promise made by an important, serious and famous character like Shuichi!

Gosho drew Shuichi there. He was the one who came up with the scene and even he wasn't, then he 100℅ agreed with the scene as he checks and changes the script before it gets passed as a storyboard. Because they needed the vision to animate before, Gosho gave them a perfect picture of how Shuichi should talk and smile. Now Gosho made him smile that much( look at the one above the snap of the animated one) given that he rarely smiles, and he makes a big deal when he smiles so it's a biggie!

Here is the treat ;) Gosho actually loved that scene! He was so much excited to see the scene of Jodie and Shuichi and he loved it! Here is the article 👇

I believe it was said by Monkey Punch, the one who draws for the movies. Here is the translation- again thank you @geissbock ❤️❤️

"Gosho loves the scene of Akai and Jodie most. He was really excited. He is some kind of weird person that loves that scene right?(laugh). When I write something different from him he's not that excited. I think he feels good when he sees something new and fresh"

Mark Gosho's love for the scene and his excitement! Now that scene is iconic for Shuichi himself! It's very important for Shuichi considering his dark past with both the women especially when the scene is after Akemi's death. Then Gosho must be really careful about doing something like that. But he even included that scene on his own, we can say that from the translation part, drew Shuichi himself and checked the script and what not, to pass on the storyboard to animate it. He could have simply added something while they were dating but...he didn't. So? Yep, it's very very safe to say that Shuichi still loves Jodie, from Gosho's POV and his works( isn't that how we perceive the ultimate truth of the DC universe?).

Fan services

Fan service is a broad term. After collecting information is from various sites like Wikipedia, Medium daily, qoura and every other sites that appeared after googling it, here is what I analysed and here it is summarised-

Fan services are the scenes in Anime as well as Manga, which are done to please the audience which has no relevance with the actual story whatsoever. Example- Zero's tea time. It has no connection with the Manga as it doesn't contribute to the original story. Similarly, the plot of movies is considered non-canon because they are for fans to enjoy, a type of fan service and doesn't contribute to the original story. Fan services are also there in anime, as well as manga which may or may not contribute nothing to the main story. For example, bikini shots of female characters etc. These kind of racy sexual scenes are fan servises. Conan blushing at Ran's cleavage, his nose starts to bleed etc are fan services but it is 100% Canon. It was purely done for fans to enjoy the chapter. If we take out this scene, the case of Masumi is from Akai family, Conan noticing child form of Mary on Masumi's phone and the murder case would have proceeded without any disturbance. Masumi getting impressed by Momiji's bust size is fan service too. Actually Momiji's bust size doesn't even contribute to the BO investigation XD. Now take an important note that fan services aren't negative thing what usually comes in our mind and not necessary that it's not canon. In manga, it's canon but only for the sake of viewers to enjoy, presented in a flow with the story.

But for this movie, specifically it was mentioned by Gosho that there are a lot of ties with the original story. There is nothing new shown in this movie that hasn't been shown in the manga. And the story is similar to the original story. Okay, I'm not saying the whole movie is considered as canon but from what Gosho said that this movie has lots of ties with the original story. Saving Jodie has always been an important part of the original story and has been contributed to the investigation of BO. She appears only when BO chapters continues. A serious character like Shuichi promising something is not a joke! Also it has been 100% Canon that she does hold an important place in Shuichi's heart. She is an important part of his life, in his past, in the preset and now that I have already proven that how much she is important to him so also in future. Its undeniable that she is different from other agents. So Jodie's safety has always been canon, important for the main plot of BO, and her importance in Shuichi's life. It's not only canon but it contributes to the main story, that is BO. HENCE IT'S NOT A FAN SERVICE! So it's certain that this scene is one of the things that has ties with the original story which is not done just for the viewer to enjoy but will contribute to the original story. But the whole movie, blasts, accidents Jodie meeting Masumi, these are non-canon.

Summary-

It has been proven that, Shuichi still loves Jodie, more than his own life. He is willing to go to any lengths to save her life. His terrible past didn't make him hesitate a little to practically admit in front of Jodie, that how important she is to him. This means his feelings for Jodie never changed! That's what his CURRENT feelings for Jodie. Finally, and most importantly this particular scene from the movie, is Canon! Said and hinted so many times by Gosho himself!

And now, here is a short clip of all scenes of Restarling from the M18 trailer! 😉❤

And really really, thank you for your patience.

❤R❤E❤D❤❤S❤T❤A❤R❤L❤I❤N❤G❤

[stereksecretsanta]

Merry Christmas, greenleaf1316!

For @greenleaf1316. I hope you like it!!!!! I tried to go for fluff but it got a teensy bit angsty at the end :D

Read On AO3

*****

Hiding In Plain Sight

1.

‘Shit.’ Stiles sat up abruptly and waved his hands frantically in Derek’s face. ‘Put your clothes back on.’

‘Huh?’ Derek frowned and under normal circumstances, Stiles would have been completely smitten with that little wrinkle between the Murder Brows ™ but he knew the sound of that car and he also knew that if Lydia caught them in flagrante delicto, he would never hear the end of it.

‘I mean it.’ He scrambled off the bed and peered out his window. ‘Fuck, she’s almost at the front door.’

‘Lydia?’ Derek, bless his heart, was actually up and fishing around for his henley, grabbing it off the floor and yanking it over his head. ‘Why are you worried?’

‘Because…well.’ Stiles wrung his hands. ‘Okay, so it’s literally only been a couple of months since we broke up and when we did break up, do you know what she said?’

‘That you were hung up on me?’ Derek grinned, all teeth. He had heard this story, in fact it was one of the reasons he’d finally made a move.

‘And do you know what I replied?’ Stiles narrowed his eyes at him.

‘That she was crazy and that you were in no way interested?’ Derek was smirking, amusement in every line of his face. It was a good look on him and Stiles was torn between wanting to wrestle him to the bed and carry on with what they’d started and shove him in the closet. That mental image made him snicker before the doorbell rang and he grabbed Derek and hustled him towards the window.

‘Stiles!’ Derek protested, but he let himself be steered. ‘You know you’re going to have to tell her eventually.’

‘Ha!’ Stiles wrinkled his nose at him. ‘I’ll tell Lydia that she was right when hell freezes over. She thinks she knows me so well.’

‘She does.’ Derek pointed out and Stiles gasped in betrayal and used both hands to bundle him outside.

‘Give it twenty minutes and then come back in.’ he ordered and left Derek muttering about not even having a chance to put his shoes on before he retreated onto the roof and out of sight. His head popped back in a moment later. ‘It’s all iced over up here and I’m freezing my ass off!’

‘You’ll live!’ Stiles slammed the window shut, barely missing Derek’s fingers, and hurtled out his bedroom and down the stairs, stopping briefly to untangle himself from his own shirt that he was attempting to put on upside down, and then skidded along the wooden floor of the hall until he slammed into the front door.

‘Dammit.’ he muttered, wincing as he pulled it open and found Lydia looking at him with a very smug expression.

‘I win.’ she announced and Stiles glared at her.

‘You absolutely do not.’ he hissed and she arched an eyebrow at him. Neither of them backed down until there was a sound like a cat being strangled from the roof and Lydia’s eyebrow climbed to Everestian heights.

‘No?’ She smiled sweetly but Stiles was wise to her cunning ways. Any show of weakness would result in his imminent destruction.

‘No.’ He folded his arms and then realised that his fly was undone. He turned around and jerked it up, squeaking when he nearly got his dick caught. He could hear snickering behind him and wheeled back around to find Lydia’s eyes sparkling with mirth.

‘It’s hard to do up your pants when you still have a hard on.’ she pointed out and he went red.

‘I was jerking off.’ he protested and that was of course the time when Derek’s usual grace decided to desert him and he fell off the roof, making a very un-wolflike noise as he crashed into the bushes that flanked the front of the house. He sat up, blinking blearily and shaking his head like a wet puppy.

‘Hmmmm.’ Lydia shoved Stiles aside and swanned into the house past him. ‘So I see.’

2.

‘It’s a bit of a situation.’ Stiles was slumped so low in his seat that his ass was hanging off the chair. On the other side, the Sheriff heaved a sigh.

‘I don’t get why you don’t just tell them.’ he said and next to him, Derek made an I told you so face.

‘Shut up.’ Stiles gave him a look that he hoped was clear in it’s dissent to that particular idea. Derek snorted and went back to eating Stiles’ popcorn that he’d abandoned when Erica and Boyd had walked into the cinema.

‘Son.’ The Sheriff sounded like he’d rather be chasing down a multitude of bad guys than talking Stiles down from his self-imposed ledge. ‘You’re all adults. I’m sure nobody is going to have a problem with that fact that you and Derek finally pulled your heads out of your asses and got together.’

‘It’s not as simple as you make it out to be.’ Stiles grumbled. ‘I mean they all made such a big deal about the fact that me and Lydia had finally gotten together.’

‘You mean Scott made such a big deal about you and Lydia getting together.’ The Sheriff chuckled and Stiles wanted to strangle him. ‘Look, Scott’s just got to put on his big boy pants and realise that just because he still has a stick up his ass about Derek coming back an alpha and taking back his pack, it’s no reason for you not to be happy.’

‘Fuck.’ Stiles’ entire face creased up. ‘I hate it when you’re reasonable.’

‘It’s a gift.’ His father sounded unbelievably fond. ‘No go back to watching your movie and make out with your boyfriend and stop trying to convince me to call in a bomb scare to the movie house.’

‘Thanks for nothing.’ Stiles pulled a face when he got hung up on, his father still chortling and then screeched like a small child when he found two pairs of glowing golden eyes looking at him from the row of seats in front.

‘You know we can hear you.’ Boyd said. His normally taciturn expression was bordering on gleeful and Stiles decided that made him look more evil than all the villains the pack had faced altogether, and that included Deucalion’s multiple iterations.

‘And smell you.’ Erica reached over and snagged a handful of popcorn. ‘Why are you two hiding back here and why is Stiles trying to cause a terrorist incident.’

Stiles gaped at them both and then looked at Derek accusingly.

‘You told them?’ He batted at Derek’s arm and his boyfriend fended him off easily, still managing to cram another mouthful in.

‘He didn’t need to.’ Boyd rested his chin on his arm. ‘We could smell it all over you the first time you fucked.’

‘’You’re just lucky that Scott is the ultimate failwolf and can’t use his nose for shit.’ Erica grinned, her fangs just showing. ‘Besides, it’s not like we have a problem with it. We won the pool.’

‘Cora’s still pissed about that.’ Derek smirked and Stiles felt he had no choice but to hit him.

3.

Stiles stretched luxuriously and turned to lean on one elbow, admitting Derek’s sleeping face. Even the fact that his wolf was on his back, mouth open and snoring like a band of happy lumberjacks let loose at a pine forest, couldn’t dim his ardour and he contemplated dipping under the covers and blowing him back to readiness.

Derek’s breathing hitched and he turned over onto his stomach, mumbling something about rabbis as he buried his face in the pillow and Stiles sniggered into his own pillow and then decided he needed something to drink. Sex with Derek was always athletic and enthusiastic and involved a hell of a lot of licking so feeling dehydrated was nothing new.

He sat up, using his toes to grab his discarded boxers and got up. He was still hitching them up when he cracked the door open and peered into the corridor. The new Hale house was a long white wood-cladded affair near the lake with Derek’s bedroom at the end of the corridor. Between him and the stairs was Peter’s room and Cora’s room, both of which were currently occupied. Thankfully, industrial strength soundproofing had been installed so he and Derek could be as loud as they wanted without anyone catching on. Boyd and Erica had been sworn to secrecy, as had Cora. She hadn’t even been allowed to tell Isaac, who she skyped daily.

He stumbled down the corridor, making his way downstairs and into the kitchen. It was all gleaming surfaces and had two enormous fridge freezers at the end. Stiles opened one, taking out a bottle of gatorade and cracking it. He downed half noisily and was just about to get started on the other half when the lights went on and he found himself face to face with a half naked Isaac.

‘Dude!’ He blinked in surprise. ‘Why aren’t you in France?’

‘Um…’ Isaac looked like a deer in the headlights. He had a series of huge bruises dotted all the way down his chest and it took all of a minute to put two and two together because clearly Cora and Her brother shared a marking kink.

‘Oh my God!’ Stiles hissed in excitement. ‘You two?’

‘Well, yeah.’ Isaac gave him a shy smile, one hand rubbing the back of his neck. ‘And I’m assuming that Derek did that.’ He gave Stiles’ neck a pointed look.

‘It’s new.’ Stiles opened the fridge again and grabbed a second bottle, chucking it over to him. ‘So are you back for good?’

‘I think so.’ Isaac’s eyes flitted towards the ceiling. ‘I’d like to be. I just got in this evening and things kind of got out of hand but this already feels more like home than any other place I’ve been.’

‘I’m glad.’ Stiles beamed at him. ‘And I know Derek will be really pleased to have you back.’

They drank the rest of their gatorade in silence, both of them catching each other’s eye and laughing.

‘This has got to be one of the most awkward things ever.’ Stiles grinned. ‘But if you’re back then what happened Chris?’ He stopped when that very person stumbled into the kitchen. He was also in nothing but boxers, his greying hair sticking up in every direction possible. He squinted at Stiles and Isaac and then looked sheepish as hell, especially when Stiles clocked the massive bite mark on the slope of his shoulder.

‘Huh.’ He nodded at Chris’ mark. ‘Guess it runs in the family.’

4.

Derek woke with a start. He shot up, fangs and claws out and eyes flashing and then settled when he saw who it was that had interrupted his sleep.

‘Jesus, Kira.’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘What the hell?’

‘Just visiting.’ Kira had her wicked smile on. Since she’d joined her sisters in the desert, her propensity for mischief in keeping with her kitsune nature had become even more pronounced. ‘I wanted to say hi.’ She was balanced on her toes on the iron foot rail of his bed, her katana on her back and her black hair floating around her face, eyes burning orange.

‘Did you drive?’ Derek asked, swinging his legs over the side of the bed.

‘No, I flew.’ Kira floated up into the air and landed soundlessly. ‘Isn’t it cool?’

‘Very.’ Derek couldn’t help smiling at her. ‘What time is it?’

‘Around three.’ Kira tilted her head, frowning at the bed he’d just vacated. ‘What are those?’

Derek looked behind him and felt his face heat up. He grabbed the black lace panties and shoved them under the pillow.

‘Nothing.’ he replied but Kira’s smile was now bordering on demonic.

‘You’re getting laid?’ she squealed in excitement. ‘Finally! Who’s the lucky girl?’

‘Oh...er..it’s…’ Derek floundered, not quite sure how to lay things out in a way that she wouldn’t be able to pick up on him lying. ‘It’s not so much a girl as it is a guy.’

Kira’s shriek of delight was enough to have him wincing at the assault on his eardrums.

‘Is it Stiles?’ She practically had heart eyes. ‘Oh God, please tell me it’s Stiles. You’ve had the biggest crush on him for about forever.’

That was when the toilet flushed and the ensuite door opened to reveal Stiles looking like the cat that ate the canary and possibly the entire aviary while he was about it.

‘A crush?’ He was beaming as brightly as Kira was. ‘On me?’

‘Shut up, Stiles.’ Derek ducked his head, knowing he’d been completely and utterly rumbled. Kira had been the only one he’d confessed to.

‘No, wait a second.’ Stiles’ grin turned smug. ‘All this time, I thought I was about the luckiest person on earth that you would even look at me and it turns out that you were pining for me?’

‘I wasn’t pining.’ Derek muttered, folding his arms and trying to get back some of his dignity. ‘I admired from afar.’

‘He pined.’ Kira giggled. ‘He pined so hard that I think we ate the entire grocery store stock of Ben and Jerry’s that first month you were dating Lydia. He made me go on a road trip to Vegas where all he did was mope and play the slots.’

‘I hate you.’ Derek growled at her but she completely ignored him and went over to throw her arms around Stiles, the two of them bouncing around like kindergarteners.

‘This is so great.’ Kira dragged Stiles back to the bed and hauled him onto it with her, all three of them getting tangled up. ‘It’s like my brother and my other brother getting together.’

‘That would be incest, Kira.’ Derek felt he was obligated to point this out. Kira crinkled her nose adorably and then shrugged.

‘Meh.’ She wriggled so she was between them, getting comfortable on the pillows. ‘Geez, I’m bushed after all that. Can I stay and nap for a bit?’

‘Sure.’ Stiles grinned badly at Derek over her head. ‘Although you do realise we’re both still naked, right?’

Kira mumbled something indistinct, already half asleep. Derek regarded her and brushed her hair out of her face.

‘She’s fucking nuts.’ he said, voice full of affection.

‘I know.’ Stiles replied. ‘But then again, who isn’t?’

5.

Melissa hummed to herself as she wandered the aisles of the grocery store. It was nice having this time to herself between shifts and she stopped to peruse a selection of sandwiches, tapping her fingers against her mouth as she contemplated lunch.

A familiar voice broke through her reverie and she frowned and walked to the end of the aisle, peeking around the corner and grinning as she took in the scene in front of her.

Canoodling. There was no other word for it. What was even more amusing was who exactly was doing the canoodling.

She’d always known how affectionate and tactile Stiles was. When he’d been in elementary school and she and Claudia had got together for coffee while he and Scott tore around the playground at the park, she’d always loved how free he’d been with his affection. He’d always come back to Claudia for a hug or a kiss on the head before galloping off again, something Melissa had envied. Scott had become withdrawn after Rafael had left, not as accepting of Melissa’s overtures as he had been and she had missed it.

Then Claudia had gotten sick and Stiles’ sunny nature had clouded over and he’d turned from tactile to clingy in his desperation. Melissa knew that whenever she’d visit she would find him on Claudia’s bead, tucked under her arm or snuggled into her side. Then Claudia’s dementia had gotten worse and she’d stopped recognising her son and that warm physical affection had dried up. Noah had tried to be a substitute but Melissa knew that nothing could ever take the place of Claudia’s touch. She had died and Stiles had grown up far too quickly, and that reservedness had persisted. He’d taken to pulling himself back, putting himself out there with words and manic energy instead and that sunny happy child she had known was hardly to be seen.

This though, this was like getting hit in the face with the past and it made her heart soar to see it.

Stiles had Derek trapped against one of the milk fridges, hands on his hips and their noses almost touching they were so close. It startled Melissa a little to realise that there was barely an inch difference between them and how broad Stiles had gotten in the shoulders. He and Derek now faced off as equals rather than antagonists and Melissa was equally surprised to see the look of exasperated love on Derek’s face as he looked into Stiles’ eyes, his own arms resting on Stiles’ shoulders.

‘I have to get milk.’ he said and Stiles snorted happily and nuzzled at him.

‘Well, I have to get kisses.’ he replied.

‘We’re in the middle of the store.’ Derek protested but his eyes were crinkled up and he was smiling in a way that Melissa could never recall seeing him smile. He looked utterly besotted and it was a very good look on him.

‘Stop being a worry wolf.’ Stiles laughed. ‘The pack shops on the other side of town. Nobody will see us here.’ He peppered Derek’s face with kisses and Derek started honest-to-God giggling, trying not very hard to fight him off until Stiles got him good and pinned and kissed him properly, Derek’s arms looped around his neck and their bodies pressed up tight against each other.

Melissa watched until it got a little too heated and then turned and left, a smile on her face all the way back to the hospital.

+ 1

‘Derek! Wake the fuck up!’ Stiles sounded panicked, more panicked than Scott had ever heard him. He was already moving to the door of the examination room when he was moved aside by Deaton. Boyd had laid Derek out on the stainless steel examination table, his shirt slashed by the harpy’s claws and deep rents in the skin underneath that bled freely. Stiles was in a state, his own clothes smeared with grime and his hair matted with what smelled like blood. Boyd wasn’t much better himself, battered and bruised, as was Erica. She was holding onto Derek’s hand tightly, not letting go even when Stiles shoved her aside to get to him.

Not for the first time, Scott realised he was out of the loop. He hadn’t even known that there was something up or that they were going hunting.

‘This is bad.’ Deaton’s usually calm was rattled. He disappeared and came back with a jar of oily looking green liquid. ‘Can someone hold his head?’

‘Why isn’t he healing?’ Cora asked, her dark eyes huge and full of tears.

‘Harpy venom is usually lethal to werewolves.’ Deaton nodded at Isaac, who lifted Derek’s head gently. Scott watched Deaton pry his mouth open and tipped the contents of the jar into it, Isaac steadying Derek so he wouldn’t choke. ‘Stiles. If ever you needed to use your spark, now is the time.’

‘Okay.’ Stiles wiped at his face, tears leaving clean streaks through the blood and dirt. He laid his hands on Derek’s chest and closed his eyes. ‘Come on, asshole. You don’t get to check out on me.’

Across the table, Cora took her brother’s other hand and Isaac laid Derek’s head down and moved to wrap his arms around her. Boyd came to stand alongside Erica, his arm around her waist.

‘Call him back.’ Deaton was looking at Stiles intently. ‘You know what he needs to hear.’

Stiles nodded, sniffling loudly when Derek’s wounds started to smoke as the potion kicked in.

‘Come on.’ He leaned down so his forehead was resting against Derek’s. ‘Please Derek, don’t leave me here without you. You know I can’t be alone anymore, not now I’ve got you with me.’

Scott frowned, his brain racing to catch up.

‘It’s not working.’ Erica was crying freely, her mascara streaked all down her face.

‘It will work.’ Stiles tightened his grip on Derek’s hands. ‘Come on, you stubborn son of a bitch. I need you and if you think I’m letting you go without a fight, well you can take that and stick it up your ass.’

As if on cue, Derek shuddered and took on a deep breath. He started coughing, eyes flying open to glow red as he convulsed on the table. All the other wolves ran to hold him down but it was horrible to watch, even as his wounds slowly sealed up and his breathing eased.

‘That’s it.’ Stiles was smiling through his tears. ‘Another deep breath, just like that baby.’

Derek’s head fell back to the table with a thump and he made a face that would have been comical if it hadn’t been for the circumstances.

‘I feel like I got chewed up and spat out.’ he croaked and everyone sagged in relief.

‘You almost did, man.’ Boyd laughed, but it was choked. ‘Fuck, we thought we’d lost you.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Derek looked up at Stiles, one hand coming up to cup his cheek. ‘I’m fine, okay.’

‘You’re not, but I’ll take it.’ Stiles replied, still crying and kissing Derek’s forehead. ‘You stupid self-sacrificing dick. If I didn’t love you so damn much, I’d kill you myself.’

Scott looked at Deaton, who shrugged, cryptic smile back in place.

Derek smiled, exhausted but soft.

‘I love you too.’ he replied, pulling Stiles down into an upside down kiss that went on and on and didn’t stop even when the back door slammed open and a wild-eyed Peter charged in, claws and fangs out and his eyes electric blue.

‘Harpies?’ He waved his hands at them, looking for all the world like Stiles when he flailed. ‘What the fucking fuck?’

Stiles and Derek broke apart, holding onto each other tightly.

‘Your pack.’ Stiles murmured, nosing at Derek’s hair.

‘Our pack.’ Derek replied and pulled him back down to kiss again.

[snowdice]

Road Trips and Missing Persons (Part 10)

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Relationships: Patton & Virgil, Virgil & Deceit, Logan & Patton, Emile & Remy, Roman & Remus & Janus

Characters: Patton, Virgil, Deceit, Remus, Roman, Logan, Emile, Remy

Summary: Patton was just getting groceries. The next thing he knew, there was a knife at his throat and he was an unwilling uber driver. Virgil’s on the run after the murder of his dad, and it’s not just his paranoia that’s telling him he’s being chased down. He has to get somewhere safe, somewhere he can trust, and all he has is a couple of stories from his dad and a name: “Green Bellow Foods and Dispensary.”

Notes: Secret Agents AU, knives, carjacking, kidnapping, murder mentioned, guns mentioned, pepper spray, blood mentioned, drugs mentioned, explosions (more to be added)

This is a fic I’ve been writing on study breaks that you have probably all already seen at this point. I’ve affectionately named it the Goblin Brain Fic because it’s helping my brain actually get motivated for studying. I’ve slightly edited it for wording and grammar, but not for content from my previous posts. Feel free to send in asks to direct it because I’m not 100% sure where this is going and you can help decide if you feel so inclined! You can see the process I went through to build this at this link.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 My Master Post

Janus could feel his heartbeat speed up at he looked at his phone, but he didn’t dare let that show on his face even though she couldn’t see him. He calmly clicked the talk button on his phone. “Hello, mother. How can I help you?” he asked.

“I’d like an update on the situation with the Gates boy,” she said.

“I’m currently on his trail,” Janus informed her. “He had an unfortunate head start because of Kinsley, but I have managed to figure out he went to the nearby grocery store and saw him on security footage. I should be making more progress soon.”

“I see,” she replied. “The boy used his phone.”

Janus took a half second to pause at that. “Well, that’s good for our aims,” Janus replied levelly. “I assume you were able to track the call.”

“Yes,” she said. “He was attempting to call his uncle. He has managed to get impressively far. I will send you the details of his location.” She paused. “Wait, it seems he’s currently attempting another call to an unknown number. Strange, there doesn’t seem to be a record of it in any database. You wouldn’t possibly know the number 499-555-0721.” Fuck. That was his other phone number… the phone number of the phone he broke earlier.

“No, I don’t,” Janus lied. God dammit. Why did he break that phone?

She hummed, seeming to accept that. “I see you are still at the grocery store. I’m sending people to meet up with you at that location.”

Oh fuck.

“Is that really necessary?” Janus asked, sounding bored. “Surely I can handle it myself.”

“It will be more efficient to have multiple people working together especially with a drive that far,” she said. He could tell by her tone that there was no room for argument.

“Of course,” Janus replied.

“Good. I have already sent them your location.” She hung up without another word.

Janus looked down at his phone. “Well,” he said. “I’m dead.”

“That bad, huh?” Remus asked.

“She’s sending people to ‘help’ me.”

“Shit.”

“You said the security cameras upload straight to the cloud, right?” Janus asked.

“Yep,” Remus confirmed.

“Well. No way out of it then.” His phone beeped with details about Virgil’s location. Calmly, Janus walked around the car and opened the door to get the atlas Remy had gotten him when he’d turned 16. He’d scoffed at it because of GPS, but he’d kept it even when he’d gotten rid of the car mother had given him for the same occasion. He opened the map of the state and circled the location Virgil was at on the map.

Just as he finished that, he was also forwarded the names and locations of the two goons coming for him. “Convenient,” he said glancing at their current positions. “Remus, remember all the times you’ve talked about wanting to blow this car to hell?”

“Yes!!” he said excitedly. “To be fair it’s any car, but yes!!!”

“Wait!” Roman said. “Why are we blowing up the car?”

“Distraction,” Janus replied. “The path they’re on should take them over Washington Bridge, so if we blow it up on that, it should delay them by quite a bit. Plus, mom can track the car and they’ll probably loop back trying to find me.”

“Isn’t there, like, a better idea, maybe?” Roman asked.

Remus reached over and put his hand over Roman’s mouth. “Shh, Roman, let me have this.” Roman shoved him away.

“We’ll go get one of your cars, drive mine to the bridge, and Remus can do his,” he waved his hand at him, “thing.”

“…I still don’t think.”

“Trust us, Ro-Ro.” Remus threw an arm around his shoulder.

“See, that makes me think this is even worse of an idea.”

“Look,” Janus bit out. “I know my mother and as soon as she figures out I’m fucking her over, they’ll be literally gunning for us. Blowing up the car will delay them as well as destroy the tracker and any information they can get from the car.

“Okay,” Roman agreed, though he still didn’t seem comfortable with it. Apparently, he’d gotten all of the responsibility in the womb.

Speaking of… Remus had already taken the laptop and packed it back up before throwing it none to gently into the trunk. Roman winced, but Janus shrugged. It was going to get destroyed anyway. In fact, Janus tossed his phone into the trunk with it.

Janus couldn’t resist smiling at the excitement in Remus’s eyes as he slammed the trunk closed and made his way to the passenger seat.

“We’re taking my car though,” Roman insisted. “I’m not getting in his death trap.”

Having seen the car for himself, Janus nodded. “Agreed.”

 They drove back to get Roman’s car and then Remus requested grabbing something from his own car.

“Why do you even have that in your car?!” Roman shouted from his car’s window as Remus unpacked explosives from his trunk.

“In case of emergencies!”

“What type of emergen-”

“This type!”

Janus just shook his head, and Remus packed the explosives into the trunk of Janus’s car and then himself into the passenger seat. Then they drove off towards the bridge only about 10 minutes away. Remus wiggled in excitement in his seat.

“Calm down,” Janus attempted to snap, but it just came out fond. Disgusting.

Remus just gave him a dopey smile.

Janus turned back to the road. “I hope you know this means your cover is blown as well.”

“Yeah, ah well, it was only a matter of time anyway,” he said, shrugging. “I will have to move though. That’s going to suck.”

Janus hummed noncommittally.

“Ooo, we should go in on an apartment together!”

Janus glanced over at him in surprise. “What?”

“And we can get a cat!” Remus said instead of answering him. “I love cats, but my current apartment won’t let me have one. That’ll be on the list of things to look for: an apartment that allows pets.”

“Why would we be moving in with each other?” Janus asked.

“Well, you’re not going to be living with mommy dearest after today and we’re best friends.”

“We’re partners,” Janus replied blankly.

“And best friends!”

“I… you… we’ll discuss this later. I have too much to think about right now.”

Remus shrugged and startled rambling about how ‘big the bomb is going to be.’ Meanwhile, Janus did his best to firmly shoved the words “best friends” as far down into his subconscious as possible.

They arrived at the bridge quickly and Janus parked his car in the middle of it; Roman parked at the other end of the bridge.

 “Well, don’t leave anything in the car,” Janus said. Remus nodded, back to bouncing up and down in his seat at the prospect of the imminent explosion.

Janus trusted Remus to know what he was doing with the explosives and simply walked away from his car towards Roman’s. There was a loud explosion when they were about 200 feet away from the car. Janus suppressed a flinch.

“You could have waited until we were completely off the bridge,” Janus commented mildly.

“But we look cooler like this,” Remus argued with a manic grin. “Plus, I saw a car coming towards the bridge on the other side and didn’t want them to get on the bridge before the explosion.”

Roman had his window rolled down when they approached. “Remus is in back.”

Remus put a hand over his heart like he’d been wounded. “I’m your brother. I should get shot-gun.”

“I am not allowing you access to the radio. I’ve been on too many road trips with you.”

“Dad’s the one who insists on playing a mix of geek rock and explicit rap music which he completely doesn’t understanding the lyrics of,” Remus pointed out with a pout.

“And I should have disowned the both of you years ago. Get in the back seat.”

“But…”

Janus ended the sibling dispute by getting in the passenger seat himself.

Remus grumbled as he got in the back seat. Janus opened the atlas and found their current location on the map. “Get on the interstate heading East,” he instructed Roman.

The question of how on Earth they were going to find Virgil when he was moving rather quickly crossed Janus’s mind, but he smothered it. They’d stop and do some investigation once they were closer to his current location. It would be fine.

Roman glanced over at him as he started to drive and sighed. “You may have control of the radio as passenger,” he offered. “Just, please do not betray me.”

Janus sent him a wry smile and let himself get distracted messing with the radio. He flipped through a few stations before landing on one that seemed to be devoted mostly to Latin pop.

“Yes,” Roman said. “A great decision.”

“No,” Remus whined when he stopped on that station and leaned back. “You’re supposed to find the one that annoys Roman the most. It’s in the spirit of the road trip.”

“That seems ridiculous,” Janus commented.

“It is,” Roman agreed.

“Noooo. Embrace the spirit of the road trip.”

“Well finding a station that Roman likes seems to annoy you the most. So, I guess I am ‘embracing the spirit of the road trip.’”

Remus made a mournful sound and Roman chortled. “You’re my new favorite person,” Roman said.

Janus found himself smiling despite himself.

“Just for that, I get naming rights for our cat,” Remus informed him seriously.

“What cat?” Roman asked.

“Janus and I are going to get an apartment together since his mom’s going to try to murder us both, and we’re going to get a cat.”

“Ah,” Roman said as though that made total sense to him. Janus guessed growing up with Remus made it easy to accept such statements. “Don’t let him name it. He’ll name it something stupid.”

“I will not!”

“You tried to name our hamster Sexy Dorito!” Roman exclaimed and then looked at Janus. “Who names a hamster… who names anything Sexy Dorito??” he asked.

“The same person who accidently died his hair neon pink on a covert mission,” Janus answered.

“Hey!” Remus said, leaning forward to insert his face between the driver and passenger seats. “No!”

“Put your seatbelt on, Remus,” Janus ordered.

“Oh, you’ve got to tell me about that one,” Roman said.

“No! Don’t betray me, Janus!”

Janus did, in fact, betray him.

Want to read more? Click below!

AO3 Part 11

[thanksjro]

More Than Meets the Eye #19- Ambulon and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

We got a major reveal at the end of last issue, and now it’s time to put the rest of the pieces together so we can finally understand the mystery that is the Ultra Magnus situation.

So back when Magnus’ seemingly lifeless body stole a shuttle, fucked off into space and landed on the moon, Tyrest was there to greet him.

And by “greet him”, I mean punch through the windshield and carry him bridal style, as if he weighed no more than a baby bird, into his moon base.

Pharma did his thing with his crazy new hands, Magnus was saved, and he woke up shortly after his lifesaving operation. Then Tyrest punched Magnus in the face, because fuck the healing process. He’s an engineer, not a doctor, he doesn’t deal with the SOUL and FEELINGS or anything like that.

In the here and now, Rodimus is still trying to comprehend the fact that his SIC isn’t dead, and is also actually another, much smaller guy with a mustache. Minimus Ambus attempts to explain just what the hell is going on, and we get back to our flashback.

After some good old-fashioned face violence, Tyrest showed Magnus around the place, specifically the terminal he’d set up for his on-the-fly, real-time law amending. With how many war crimes the Cybertronian race has committed in the last several million years, I’m sure it was needed.

Dang, wonder who pissed off Big Brother.

Magnus is more concerned about how it is exactly he isn’t dead right now, and also why his boss looks like a swiss cheese party platter.

Turns out that Tyrest isn’t actually mad at Magnus, just disappointed. He went and read his diary while the operation was happening, and in the 18 months that the Knight Quest has been running, Tyrest has deemed the work done to be unsatisfactory. Instead of arresting criminals, Magnus had been handling infractions so minor, most people wouldn’t have even noticed them. Tyrest doesn’t know where he went wrong.

Well, Tyrest, it was probably the anxiety that manifested itself as OCD, because you picked someone without factoring what the end of the war might do to them. Magnus needs structure to flourish, and if he cannot find it, he will make it himself. I mean, look at all this:

No wonder he was struggling on the chaos engine that is the Lost Light.

Still, Tyrest wants nothing to do with someone who’s cracked under the pressure (lack of pressure?) and the deal was that Magnus only got to be Magnus if he did what Tyrest wanted. Tyrest divests him with the literal push of a button.

Good grief, he’s naked!

As Minimus Ambus mourns over the loss of his stature, both literal and position-wise, we get back to the present, in a double-page spread no less, as Minimus tells everyone about the storied history of the Magnus Armor. Ultra Magnus was originally an actual person, but then he died, and Tyrest was kind of bummed out about that, so he decided to make up a lie (lying, while perhaps morally dubious is not illegal, so he’s allowed to do that) that Magnus faked his death, and then built the armor. There were at least a few wearers of the armor prior to Minimus, some of who were even known by the other crew members. Whenever someone got offed, their hand would spasm and press a recall button in their palm, which would bring the Magnus Armor, and the dead body inside, back to Tyrest.

You can tell he’s still real shaken up about losing the Magnus Armor, because he’s truncating his words. Poor guy.

Minimus asks what exactly happened after he got stabbed, seeing as he was too busy dying to really pay attention to the Overlord plot. Rodimus tells him it’s been handled. Brainstorm jumps in, wanting to know about the other things on Minimus’ resume, which leads into Minimus revealing the fact that he is a Point One Percenter, and something known as a Load Bearer. Load Bearers circumvent that niggling little issue that we saw presented in the “Shadowplay” arc, where spark strain due to not being able to handle a different frame type would outright kill you. Minimus doesn’t have that problem.

Tailgate wants to know how exactly it is that Minimus isn’t dead, seeing as he was clearly on his way out prior to his grand theft auto. Tailgate may have a personal interest in that sort of information, what with still being terminal and all.

Everyone’s real handsy this issue.

Minimus lets Tailgate know that Tyrest’s medical equipment is off the hook, and we get a reminder that Tailgate’s got basically a day left to live. Harsh, Roberts.

Back in Minimus’ flashback, Tyrest sort-of apologizes for punching him in the face, and laments on the loss of one of his greatest Enforcers of the Tyrest Accord.

Oh, so you DID know that this was a possibility, and instead of ordering your subordinate to go make that follow-up appointment with the only therapist on Cybertron- which, while being borderline sectioning, would have at least kept Minimus from sending emails to Rodimus about how he was spiraling- you just let it happen. The Vector Sigma pulse wave went all over the galaxy, there’s zero possibility you didn’t hear about the end of the war before Magnus loaded up on the Lost Light and didn’t call for a year and a half.

Anyway, so Tyrest’s got a new Enforcer lined up, seeing as he’s going to retire the Magnus Armor after all the shenanigans Minimus got dragged through while wearing it. Let’s see what we’re working with.

I thought we were supposed to have separation of church and state, what the hell?

In the present, Rodimus has questions, mainly about why there are so many people in this prison cell. Minimus admits that he asked to be put in here, to try and prove Rodimus and friends’ innocence on the charge of harboring a criminal, by recording their conversation and proving that they had no idea what SKIDS deal was.

Yep, Skids did a bad, and Tyrest wants him in jail.

Minimus also drops the bomb that everyone else in this cell is going to get he death penalty for that whole “crimes against creation” thing. I mean, all Tyrest has to do is wait for a little while and Tailgate will be dealt with, no sweat.

Minimus pulls a device out of his hip compartment, uses it to disrupt the electro-bars of the cell (it’s cool, he was an undercover cop for this whole thing and can therefore break out of prison without it being a crime), and goes to have a chat with his boss about all the weird new stuff he’s shoved into the Autobot Code in the last year and a half. Rodimus doesn’t really want him to leave, but there’s no time for that, because the cell just got a little more full.

Uh oh, Swerve’s badge has gone missing again. Rung, why don’t you slap yours on his crotch, that way Minimus won’t try to murder him when he gets back?

While this is happening, Whirl and Cyclonus are standing on the rim of a smelting pool, absolutely not having a dick measuring contest.

Luna 1 said Bi Rights.

There’s a structure built over the pool that looks an awful lot like living quarters, but is probably actually a prison that violates the Geneva convention. Whirl suggests they find some weapons and go hog-wild, but Cyclonus is more concerned about finding something. When Whirl asks what in the hell he could possibly be looking for in this sort of crisis, Cyclonus turns into a moody teenager.

Well, at least he’s respecting Tailgate’s wish to keep his looming demise under wraps. Not that Cyclonus tells anyone anything anyway.

Over in the Luna 1 medibay, Ratchet is being subjected to having his very fucking soul threatened with a paring knife. Pharma’s having what probably an inappropriate amount of fun, especially since he’s realized that Ratchet took his goddamn hands after the shitshow that was Delphi.

It turns out that every single piece of tech that Ultra Magnus ever repossessed is floating around on Luna 1, even the stuff that really ought to have been destroyed. This is why they were able to save Magnus from certain death at the start of the issue. Somehow I’m not surprised that Tyrest kept all those toys for himself. Corruption of an authority figure? In my Cybertronian Justice System? It’s more likely than you think.

Some of the little art quirks in MTMTE are added in by Milne- see Brainstorm holding any handgun ever if you’d like an example- but I know for a FACT that Pharma humping Ratchet’s headless body was specified by Roberts.

Ratchet, unimpressed and likely mildly queasy by the display going on before him, proposes that Pharma’s afraid of failure, which is why he hasn’t taken his hands back. Pharma disagrees, and a wager is set to see who the better doctor is- winner gets to keep the hands.

Over with the fly boys, alarms are going off in a deserted building, as Whirl struggles to open a door with his claws. Cyclonus takes over on door duty, and asks why Whirl hasn’t gotten his shit fixed yet.

Whirl’s worried that if he gets help for his trauma, he’s going to lose a huge part of himself as a person, and then where will he be? Of course, he says it in a much more Whirly fashion, full of vitriolic self-blame, but reading between the lines is fun. Whirl fires the “let’s get into each other’s personal issues even though both of us hate talking about ourselves and also each other” missile right back at Cyclonus. He wants to know about Cyclonus’ facial situation.

Cyclonus doesn’t like this question.

Then he gets stabbed with a sword.

Back with the docs, it’s apparently much later, as Ratchet’s just woken up from surgery and has a body again. He gets up from the operating table and finds that Pharma’s gone ahead with setting up their gentleman’s wager.

First Aid seems less than pleased with the current situation. Ambulon’s arms are long as hell in this panel, and he doesn’t seem entirely present in the moment. Maybe he’s practicing Rungian Re-Experience Therapy.

Pharma wants to cut both of the boys in half to see who can put the pieces together back the fastest. Ratchet tries to deescalate the situation, because he’s usually pretty good at it, but Pharma’s set on using his chainsaw attachment on someone today.

Ratchet attempts to console his coworkers, saying that their Springer-on-Pova treatment be over soon, and they’ll get a nice lollipop at the end for being such brave little robots.

Then Pharma cuts Ambulon in half, in a way that Ratchet hadn’t accounted for.

We’re gonna need a little more than some bandaids and a kiss to make it feel better for this one. It’s amazing what censorship laws will let you get away with when the blood isn’t red.

Speaking of blood, Cyclonus is more or less okay with being stabbed, because Whirl did him a solid and chopped his assailant in half- lengthways- with a super sweet sword he found in the armory they just opened up. Cyclonus pulls the blade out of his midriff and we finally find out what happened to the Circle of Light.

Back in the prison cell, Perceptor’s been given the job of doctor, even though Rung, Swerve, and Chromedome are all here and at least somewhat closer to being general practice doctors than our science sniper.

Seems like Swerve filled everyone in on the situation on the Lost Light off-panel, which is good, because they’ve been in the dark up to this point.

Chromedome hypothesizes that the reason Skids is a wanted man has to do with that mysterious gun he was holding when he fell out of the sky all the way back in issue #2. This is the point where Skids wakes up from his stabbing and admits that this is probably what happened, even though he still has no recollection of ever stealing the gun or even it existing up until he entered the story, but he apologizes for the trouble anyway.

Shh.  Someone’s coming down the corridor. It’s Star Saber, and he’s brought yet another prisoner to stuff in this cell.

And there’s something else. Can you hear it?

Is… is that music?

Are those the beginning synth riffs of “Tainted Love" by Soft Cell?

Over with Minimus, we’re treated to a taste of Tyrest’s personal brand of disinterest, then get a quick run-down of the birds and the bees. The forging process is a little more convoluted than originally implied, needing Primus to send out a pulse wave through Vector Sigma in order for the Hot Spots to be ignited.

Then the pulse waves started to slow down, Nova Prime had a little freak out, and cold construction was invented to prevent the Cybertronian race from becoming an endangered species.

Minimus of course knows all of this, because he, like basically half of the cast of MTMTE, is old as shit. What he DOESN’T know is that cold construction isn’t managed the way that anyone thought that it was, because there was a government coverup going on about the whole thing. You don’t splice sparks to make a new one, you use the Matrix to create new life.

I know, it’s crazy.

Tyrest was on the team that fiddled around with the Matrix until it started spitting out robot zygotes, and he’s now convinced that they bled the Matrix dry. Nobody tell him what happened to the thing after the war ended.

Wait. If the pulse waves have stopped, and the Matrix is busted beyond repair, doesn’t that mean they can’t make any more Transformers? Once they finish up on their stockpile of sparks, that’s it. No more. The Transformers are a protected species now, we’ve got to treat them like giant pandas.

One of his team members stole the Matrix and hid it in the black market, so its strange, mystical baby powers could never be used again. Except someone obviously found it later on, because we have half of it on the Lost Light. Minimus isn’t sure why any of this is actually relevant to the current situation, or why Tyrest feels guilty about pulling a Eugenesis Fulcrum and finding out where babies come from.

Tyrest is convinced that by draining the Matrix, his team somehow corrupted it, and all the sparks made by this corrupted Matrix are straying further and further from Primus. This is why Rodimus and friends have been charged with crimes against creation- some of their party were created in a way that predisposes them to crime. Or so Tyrest thinks.

I thought we were supposed to have separation of church and state, what the hell? This is still the same guy who was appointed as Chief Justice by the space pope because of his levelheadedness, right?

Yes, actually, but this sudden flip in priorities and personality has been induced by the guilt he felt during the Aequitas trials. Tyrest turned to self harm to deal with the weight of it all, and one day tried to go for what in most species would have been a suicide, by drilling with his drill fingers into the spot between his eyes. Instead, he most likely gave himself a lobotomy and became a religious zealot, fully believing that the gods are real, and he can go visit them by using his super-cool space portal.

Outside the moon base, Whirl and Cyclonus have freed the Circle of Light, and everyone’s ready to kick some ass. Both the fly boys have found themselves a Great Sword to play with, further cementing Cyclonus as our replacement Drift. Rodimus will be so thrilled.

Dai Atlas, the leader of the Circle of Light, tells our boys that there used to be a lot more of his group, but a lot of folks ended up being used to build Legislators.

Hm. I’m sure that’ll never be brought up again, and won’t paint future events in a much darker light. Nope. Absolutely not.

Cyclonus thinks that they need to get a move on, because if that sort of horrific shit can happen to the Circle of Light, it can also happen to Tailgate and the others. He does specifically name Tailgate in his dialogue, but it’s not like he actually cares about the guy, right? Feelings are for nerds.

Then the Legislators show up and it’s party time.

Wonder how that’s going to work out for you, Whirl.

Back with Tyrest, it’s revealed that Tyrest’s plan has a small snag- only people completely absolved of their guilt can go to Cyberutopia to hang out with Primus and the gang, and Tyrest is feeling awful guilty. Not about his weird space-eugenics thing, but about inventing cold construction. Now, how in the world is he going to handle this?

By committing a genocide.

Minimus is, understandably, not a fan of this plan. Tyrest had anticipated that the Universal Killswitch wouldn’t be universally appreciated, and has some of the new law come into play.

And that’s a series wrap on Minimus Ambus! Let’s give him a hand, folks!

[tayerroos]

Patchwork Tales: Book 1

A “9" roleplay compendium.  Read on AO3 Chapter: 7 [First] [Back] [You Are Here] [Next] Warnings for this chapter: Panic Attack

[coll2mitts]

#65 Beauty and the Beast (2017)

I’m burning through my Disney+ subscription, and instead of this forever cursing my drafts section until I work my way through the other lower movies on this list, you’re getting this one now.

Beauty and the Beast was my favorite Disney movie as a child.  Belle was smart, she read a lot, and she was a bit of an outcast, which were my only identifiers as a wee lass (other than being obnoxious and constantly having tangled hair).  I'm going to bet that this movie is the reason so many girls my age went through a Paris phase in their tween years.  I did take 3 years of high school French that I have almost no memory of.  

The original's animation is gorgeous, the songs by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman are iconic, and the romance between two people who learn how to trust and support each other... it's probably the reason why I've stayed in terrible relationships for way too long.  My father took me to see this movie in theaters when I was 6, and it is the first movie I remember crying during out of sadness.  There I was, while the Beast was dying, trying to hide the fact tears were streaming down my face because I didn't want my dad to see I was crying and not take me to see another movie again.  When they adapted it for Broadway, I listened to that soundtrack over and over...  "Home" was my favorite song, and the end still makes me cry like a 6-year-old.  It's perfect.

I had attempted to watch this remake once before.  I hated it so much I started drinking, and then peaced out so hard when Lumiere started moving that I had to watch Moana to normalize myself.  Visually, this movie is what happens when the Uncanny Valley turns into the fucking Grand Canyon.  Little did I know that this movie gets worse... much worse... as it goes on, and that Stephen Chbosky, the author and director of The Perks of Being a Wallflower made it this way.  A man who wrote one of my most beloved novels and movie adaptations helped in creating this narrative monstrosity, and that, out of all of this, was the deepest cut of all.

I'm not rehashing the plot, because I have too much to say about why this remake shouldn't exist, and I’m going to guess you’ve either seen the movie or are familiar with this almost 300-year-old story.  It took the source material and just murdered it in its attempts to update it.  I'm going to start positive and work toward the biggest issue I had with it, because I'm currently writing angry and that never turns out well for me.

Things I liked:

This may be controversial, but I did like Josh Gad's performance as LeFou.  I'm not saying what LeFou did made any sense (he suddenly was upset Gaston was making things up again?), but as an actor, Josh Gad was working with what he had, and I think he owned it.

Chip's introduction to Maurice - I actually paused the movie because I was laughing so hard.

The piano playing the funeral march when it tackled LeFou.

When Mrs. Potts said Chip smelled good when he turned back into a little boy.  It was a cute little detail.

The guillotine joke in "Be Our Guest" and the Les Miserables barricade reference.

I actually thought Cogsworth was adorable for being a CGI nightmare.  I don't know how much of my opinion of this was influenced by the voice of Ian McKellan.

I really liked the costumes, except for Belle's gown, which was definitely a downgrade.  Micarah articulated the issues with it perfectly.

Celine Dion singing the credits song was a nice homage to her cover of "Beauty and the Beast", although it sucks she's associated with this nightmare of a remake.

Little quibbles:

Whatever they did to Emma Watson’s voice made her sound like a robot.

Almost all the CGI, especially the Beast, was completely unsettling.  The wardrobe was the worst of it, holy shit.

They went out of their way to explain plot holes like "Why don't the villagers remember the castle?" or “Why is it snowing when it looks like the middle of summer in the village?” or "How did Belle get the Beast up on that horse?" when none of that really matters to the overall narrative.

The reaction to Belle teaching a little girl how to read was unbelievably eye-roll inducing.  Lindsay Ellis' video on this is so fucking good, watch it now - You don't have to read the rest of my ramblings if you do. #beastforshe

Ariana Grande slurring her way through "Beauty and the Beast".

It was nice to see Maurice updated from a manic inventor to a level-headed, sweet, competent, reserved man who treats his daughter like an equal.  Clock-maker Maurice that actually takes care of Belle reads better to me, and I like how they had him wander into the garden to get a rose for her - it's a nice callback to the original story.  The problem with doing this, however, is it negates the "crazy old Maurice" narrative that plays heavily into why the villagers don't believe his tale of the Beast in the first place.  If Kevin Kline, a put-together man (up until this point), wandered into the tavern looking disheveled and conveying a story about his daughter being kidnapped, I'd be like, "Shit, Maurice, what did you see?!".  But instead, the story goes out of its way to put him at the mercy of Gaston, and shoehorn in an attempted murder plot to really turn everyone against him - it's bizarre.

Medium quibbles:

Gaston went from being a well-liked, athletically inclined dude to a literal predator and murderer.  Belle was a beautiful status symbol in the original movie, but she becomes literal game to Gaston in the remake, as he refers to her as prey, or something to be hunted.  When Maurice gets in-between him and Belle, Gaston punches him in the face and leaves him out in the forest to be eaten by wolves?!  What does this add to the story?!  Gaston wasn't right for Belle because he wasn't kind and didn't intellectually stimulate her, but that nuance is wasted on the remake, turning him into a full-blown vengeful villain that will literally kill Belle's family to get what he wants.

The first time Belle is brought to her room, there is this long panning shot showing off how nice it is, and she comments, in wonder, how she thinks its beautiful.  They had the fucking nerve to play “Home” in the background of this scene, completely ignoring the original context of the song is sadness and despair.  But go off, I guess...

The Big Enchilada:

This is where my notes went from eh????? to WHAT THE FUCK, so be prepared.  How someone with enough emotional maturity to write Perks can make the Beast into such an abusive asshole is so fucking beyond me, I'm still trying to process it.

Beauty and the Beast is a romance at heart, which you would never know by watching this movie, as Belle and the Beast have so little chemistry it's painful.  This might be because the Beast is abusive to Belle at every turn in the beginning, making the pivot from enemies to lovers so completely unbelievable it's shocking.  The remake is already at a deficit as the CGI Beast is terrifying, in contrast with the cartoon, which has the ability to make the Beast cuddly with big eyes and an expressive face.  But they still decide to take all of the Beast's inner conflict out of the remake, remove his agency completely out of the relationship with Belle, and make him supremely unlikable in every interaction they have together.

There are a few scenes that illustrate this, starting with the dinner invitation scene:

In the original, the Beast sees the pain he's inflicted by pulling Belle away from her father, and offers her a tour of the castle and a bedroom instead of a prison cell.  He also invites her to dine with him, although he could have gone about it wayyyy better.  He confides in his staff that she is beautiful, and he realizes she can break the spell, but he doesn't know how to appeal to her.  His staff give him tips on how to be charming and not so intimidating.  He is receptive, but overwhelmed, because he hasn't had to interact with any other human in years.  When he discovers she doesn't plan on eating with him, his anger takes over because she refused his hospitality, and he's a king, so how dare she?  The staff try to help him appear genteel, cause again, HE expressed interest in being appealing to her.  When this doesn't immediately work, he throws a massive tantrum and tells them not to feed her.  When he looks at Belle later in the mirror, he hears the direct result of his actions as Belle is ranting to the wardrobe.  He laments she'll never see him as a human because his actions have pushed her away.

In the remake, it's not the Beast’s idea to give Belle a room, or to invite her to dinner - it is his staff's intervening that puts him in that situation in the first place.  He doesn't even want to get to know her because she's a daughter of a thief, and that's somehow below his current social status of recluse animal/human hybrid.  His staff persuade him to give Belle a chance as they're all invested in breaking the spell because they'll turn into furniture if they don't!  They give him tips to manipulate her into opening the door, he tries it, it fails spectacularly, he gets angry and he leaves - but not before calling his staff idiots...  I appreciate he's not as physically violent in this version, but he just acts like he couldn’t be bothered with Belle.  He does spy on her from the mirror, but she looks bewildered.  He doesn't know if she's lonely, or missing her father, or what...  There's no indication that how he treated her in that moment has pushed her further away.  Then he just stares at the rose like, "Well, shit, this ticking time bomb is still ticking!".  It's completely self-focused.

Oh, and then Mrs. Potts tries to handwave the Beast’s behavior away with, "People say a lot of things in anger.  It is our choice whether or not to listen," which, excuse me, WHAT THE EVERLOVING FUCK DOES THAT MEAN?!  You are in charge of how to interpret someone's actions, and you could just choose to ignore when they are being abusive??  I CAN'T.  She also tries to gaslight Belle into seeing how great the Beast is when Belle has had zero positive interactions with the dude since she's been there.  The wardrobe brings it up in the original, but this is after he's offered Belle a room and invited her to dinner himself, not by his staff...

The west wing scene and the Beast turning into less of a dick:

In the original, the Beast himself tells Belle not to go to the west wing.  Her curiosity brings her there, because she wants to understand more about him and what he is hiding.  She's invading his space knowing full well that she is invading his space.  When she is discovered, she's about to fuck around with something that is literally tied with the Beast's livelihood.  His anger is disproportionate, but justified, and you see that he immediately regrets his reaction after she runs away from him.  That’s why he goes after her.  Belle watches him risk his life to save her even though she broke a promise to him, so she decides to repay the favor by bringing him back.  They fight while she's trying to clean his wound, and they're both right in their perspectives, but the Beast acknowledges that yes, his temper got the best of him - he realized that the moment she bolted.  Belle then rewards his selfless act by thanking him, which sets his entire transformation in motion.  

He gives her the library because he expresses interest in doing something to make her happy, and he vocalizes he's falling in love with her.  He's delighted by her reaction.  During the ballroom scene, the way he looks at her, you can see he absolutely adores her.  He asks, "Are you happy here with me?" because he loves her, and her well-being is the most important thing.

In the remake, the staff tell Belle not to got to the west wing because it's a storage area.  She wanders over there anyway, for whatever fucking reason, and takes a glance at the rose behind the glass.  The Beast finds her looking at it and gets mad at her, even though he never told her not to visit him in the west wing, and she didn't fuck around with the rose.  When she runs away, he doesn't even look like he cares.  There is no reason for him to go after her, and there is no reason for her to help him back to the castle other than the plot told them to do it.  She doesn't help him with his wounds, and the staff are the ones to thank her for returning him.  She even asks the staff why the fuck they care about him, because he's such an asshole.  They justify his behavior because he had a cruel father, and damn themselves to his fate because they didn't stop a literal monarch from raising his son.  Belle continues to take care of him because she pities him?  He repays her kindness by insulting her taste in literature.

He doesn't even show her the library because he knows she likes books, he does it because he wants her to read "better" books.  Then he makes one joke about not reading Greek and THAT IS WHAT MAKES BELLE SWOON.  THE FUCKING GREEK BOOK JOKE.  I mean, I sort of get it, I fell in love with my ex because he made a bread pun, but he hadn't been continually abusive to me up until that point.  Belle starts to read out loud to him, and that's supposed to be the event that incentives the Beast to be better?  Even while Belle is singing about how much he's changed (he hasn't), he throws a boulder of snow in her face. The cherry on top of this sundae is his stoic question after they dance, "It's foolish, I suppose, for a creature like me to hope that one day he might earn your affection?" which not only sounds like complement fishing, it is primarily motivated by breaking the curse!  Only after she gives an indifferent answer does he ask if she'd be happy at the castle.

Oh god, and the death scene is cut off in the middle because we have to watch 2 minutes of the staff members permanently turning into furniture, which, like, I wouldn't think they'd want to castrate the emotional climax of the movie, but this whole thing is an exercise on how to fuck something already good up.

This movie fails so spectacularly at this basic love story, I can't begin to justify its existence.  I wouldn't recommend this to anybody.  If you want to watch new Alan Menkin content, watch Galavant, because this movie just pissed me off.

It was bold of Disney to end it with a beastiality joke, though.

[meatclowntv]

Fallout 4 OC BIO

Desmond

Tw: Mentions Animal violence, a bit of gore, blood, mentions of bulling, mentions of abuse, Mentions of suicide,

Basic Info:

Birth Name: Desmond

Gender: Male

Age(Before the war): 27

Race: Caucasian Human

Sexuality: Pansexual

Religion: N/A

Appearance:

Hair: Originally Pale White due to him being albino, however sometimes(especially when he was younger) dyes his hair black to fit in with a crowd.

Skin Tone: Pale White, this is also due to him being albino...

Eye Color: Red

Scars: Has had a lot of physical scars but most of them have already healed or aren’t than notable but, he does like to stitch his neck for cosmetic reasons to I guess that could count

Height: 5’5

Weight: 119 Ibs

(Current)SPECIAL:

Strength: 4

Perception: 2

Endurance: 9

Charisma: 10

Agility: 6

Luck: 2

Top 5 Favorite Perks:

Cannibal

Big Leagues

Sneak

Intimidation

Bloody Mess

Likes:

His (dead) wife(He doesn’t just like his wife but his wife is one and probably is his favorite person in the whole world and was the only reason he lived for awhile..) Melee Weapons, Meat(sense it’s one of the only things he like to eat), Dogs, The Institute mostly because of his son.

Dislikes:

The BOS, The Railroad, Anything that tastes too sweet, Guns(He just doesn’t like using them in a fight), The Sun due to his skin being sensitive to the sun, Not feeling in control, Showing “unwanted emotions”.

Combat Style:

Style 1:

He Likes to sneak from behind while they aren’t looking and stab them with a knife(preferably the Sacrificial Blade or Pickmans Blade) while they aren’t looking

Style 2:

If Style 1 doesn’t work, he’ll attempt to kill them with absolute brute force and a knife by slicing them or bashing them in the head with a Swatter as much as they can. He doesn’t mind this option though.

Style 3:

If all else fails he’ll basically take a hit of psycho and beat the ever loving life out of the opponent in any way they can, if that means using a Fat Man, so be it. This isn’t his favorite way of fighting, but this will have to do for him.

Strengths:

Creative, Decisive, Determined, Passionate, Slow to Anger, Subtle, Skillful, Sociable

Flaws:

Extremely Private, Perfectionist, Always needs to have a cause, Can burn out easily, Somewhat sensitive, Manipulative, Cryptic, Ruthless, Slightly has a lack of emotions

Backstory:

Сhildhood:

Desmond’s Child hood was absolute hell to be completely honest with you, that’s how he viewed it at least, one overly sensitive and abusive father who always had a gun when he slept, a mother who neglected him every moment unless he was in trouble, his Older brother named Michael, who Desmond viewed as a coward, a pathetic coward that never helped him, and lastly Michael’s dog Rex. He looked so much different from the rest of his family due to him being albino and everyone else being blonde or brunette.. He was bullied somewhat but not a lot. No one really payed any attention to him and viewed him as that one kid who doesn’t like to talk, and that was the case. But he started to grow violent because of the constant neglect and abuse he’d endure when he was at home, this led to taking his violent needs out on small animals like squirrels and insects. One day however, when he was on the swing set of his elementary schools playground, crying, a girl sat next to him and asked him if he was okay. Desmond has never met such a beautiful person before. That’s when their relationship started to flourish. He found out her name was Nora, a blind girl who lived in the rich house down the street. She loved to listen to music. Desmond would alway help her if she needed any help getting around the elementary school or if she needed anything. This would continue onward and even their adult years.

Teen Years:

His Teen years we’re probably his worst yet best years of his life. Unlike his childhood years, his teen years had a lot of good in them to out way the bad parts. When he was in Middle school he was bullied quite more than in elementary school, he was beaten by his peers sometimes and locked in his very own locker, but to everyone’s surprise, he’d still keep that stupid yet creepy smile on his face even when he was bullied at school and harassed at home, this changed when his brother Michael and his “friends” (who are in high school) harassed Nora and pushed her around, but Desmond saw it all, and went to go help her as soon as he could. She told him about how they grab at her and called her horrible names that she didn’t want to say aloud, she stared to weep but Desmond held her tight and told her this wouldn’t happen again. This gave him a sickening plan... In the morning, two days after the incident, Michael woke up to see his dad was off to work as well as his mother, but Rex was no where to be found, he looked everywhere to find no trace of him, until he found his collar on the end of his bed side table, that’s when the stench began to grow from his old play toat that used to be filled toys. He hesitantly opens in, and to his absolute horror, the toat that was once filled with toys, was now filled with the rotting carcass of his beloved dog Rex.. He screamed in frightened horror and shock and that’s when Desmond walked in with that shit eating smile, Michael looked at him and the only thing that could come out of his lips we’re, “did..did you-?”. He pointed at his dog. Desmond responded with a yes and walked away. His parents soon found out and called the cops, but the cops didn’t have any evidence to point it to Desmond, this was because He already got rid of the evidence a long time ago. He got his revenge. This was, however, only one of many of his murders. In high school, Desmond started to dye his hair black to fit in with the others, this is also when Nora and him started getting in to a romantic relationship. This didn’t change the fact he still had his violent tendencies that grew in the passing days, he kept them under wrap sense he didn’t want the only person he truly cared about to leave him. He was liked at school and was some what respected by his peers for not being afraid to tell off a teacher or beat the snot some big jock who didn’t know when to shut up. He was the smartest person in the world and he would get in trouble from time to time, but besides that he was an average student to most of the teachers. In senior year he wanted to celebrate in the biggest way possible, he proposed to Nora when he was signing up to go to the military in which Nora started to cry happily as she nodded in pure excitement. They held each other for awhile. Now for his final step. He planned this for weeks, months and even years! And he finally got it set up, for the grand finale of his fathers life. It was late at night, his mother was out doing something with her gal pals, while her husband was tied to the bed by his most hated son. He successfully drugged his fathers alcohol. His father was stricken in fear, while Desmond started to laugh at him, reminding him in excruciating detail of how much he hurt Desmond, how much he suffered throughout his entire childhood and became “violent” in the process and telling him that this was all his fault he was in this position. His father yelled at him and told Desmond to shut up and to untie him before he’d kill Desmond, in turn, Desmond grabs the pistol from his dads side table in the room and shot him repeatedly in the head until he finally died. He got rid of the evidence, called the police and got the scene all set up. In the end, the police couldn’t blame Desmond for the crime, and blamed it on a drunken suicide attempt the ultimatly succeeded. His mother wept and cried saying it was all Desmond but the cops repeatedly said it couldn’t have been him. Desmond moved out shortly after to live with his future wife Nora in her house while he got ready to go join the military.

Adult Years:

In his adult years Desmond became married to Nora and a soldier in the war, while his wife was doing her job while pregnant with Shaun, his part took awhile to get done with and it got all of the violent feelings out of him, he went back home when he was aloud to and he was ecstatic to find out she was okay and Shaun was to. After Nora gave Birth two days after he felt so over joyed and cried happy tears for the first time in his life. He took really good care of them and did whatever he could to make them happy. He was finally just absolutely happy for the first time in his life with a family he can finally call his own. That all changed when the bombs fell.. He quickly grabbed Nora and Shaun and ran to the vault, not caring about anyone else but them. He couldn’t lose any of them. He just couldn’t. However they made it inside of the vault, he held Nora tightly in his arms like his life depended on it. Nora told him she was okay and told him not to worry, it wasn’t like she was going anywhere anytime soon. They soon grabbed their vault suits and headed to the cryochambers, he gave Shaun and Nora a goodbye hug and hoped that he would be able to see them soon once he was let out of his Cryo Chamber. He did, yes, but not in the way he wanted... As his Cryo Chamber thawed out, he witnessed this strange man start to take his son away, Desmond started banging on the Cryo Chamber he was stuck in, Nora struggled to let Shaun go, but in the end, the man put a bullet in her head. Desmond screamed in agony and started to punch the Cryo Chamber harder, and harder. But then he was frozen again. Once he was let out, not knowing or caring how long it’s been, he rushes to Noras Cryo Chamber and rapidly presses the button, she falls limp onto the floor. He immediately falls to the ground and hold her tightly not wanting to let go, not wanting to believe she was actually dead, the first and only person who gave him happiness who always longed for, gone, dead, he hesitantly let’s go of her, taking the ring off her finger, he kisses her goodbye and promises her he’ll find Shaun, he WILL find Shaun. He clutches the ring growing angry. Not looking back, he walks off to start his rampage across the Commonwealth, and no one will get in his way.

[doof-doofblog]

"I Want To Cash In!"

Tuesday 15th September 2020

Good evening folks! The majority of you will know I've already posted once today, this is going to be my second post of the day following up tonight's episode, so I'm completely up to date with you all! The previous episode (last night's) was a bit of devastating blow for Chantelle, Gray is just finding ways from stopping her leaving, it seems each time she's attempted to leave he's managed to take it one step further and stop her in her path.  

Let's jump right into it, oh my gosh how heartbreaking is the opening scene!!! Chantelle has gone off on a holiday with her family but she has devastatingly had to leave her children behind, she's in the seaside cafe all on her own, staring out the window. All you can hear is the sound of rain against the glass window and the sound of seagulls. She looks like she's lost everything in the world. At the holiday apartment, the rest of the Taylor family are playing games and having fun, Mitch is videoing them to remember the memories, but he is just as miserable, he claims it's the same and as much fun without Chantelle. He can't seem to understand what's bothering his daughter, he decides to leave the fun and goes off to find her.

Back on the Square, Ian is finding every opportunity he can to dodge Max! Pretending to be on the phone and then having to hide behind the door of his house! Sorry, but it's pathetic! Why doesn't Ian just be the bigger man and come clean and just apologise and be truthful about what he's done! He's digging a deeper and deeper hole for himself! Meanwhile, Ruby has gone to visit Martin in the hospital, fantastic news is that he's awake and he's up and out of bed! The main thing he wants to know is if the Police know who it was who attacked him, fortunately for Vinny, Martin didn't see anything! Ruby is completely over the moon to see Martin looking well, so much so that she drops the L-Bomb on him!! But before he gets a chance to reply, he is wheeled off in the other direction. Did Ruby mean to say the L word? Or has she come to realise her true feelings for him during recent events. Another big question is, does Martin feel the same way about her?!

Hmmm, so is Ian actually struggling financially? It's probably understandably that his businesses aren't coping at the moment, possibly due to the current pandemic? But also the fact that he now owes Max some money, will this meeting be the only opportunity he has of getting things under control?

In time, Mitch eventually finds Chantelle. He finds in her the seaside cafe and he comes in tow with a huge elephant teddy for her. It's clear she's been crying, he gently places it on the table in front of her and she scoops it up and holds it as if picking wanting to hold her children ever so tightly. Mitch pulls up a chair and joins his daughter, she is looking so heartbroken and lost. Mitch begins to apologise for not being there for her as much as he should've been, but little does he know that's not the thought that's on his daughter's mind right now. He promises that he'll always be there for her from now on, Chantelle stares at him with tears filling her eyes, he softly asks her the most important question "What's wrong?" ... she sighs and tells him that she's missing her children. Now, of course she is missing her children but she hasn't given her Dad the main reason as to why, she hasn't given him the full story. She claims she just wanted them all to be together, Mitch then takes it upon himself to go back to Walford to collect her kids! Much to Chantelle's shock, but deep down as he goes and promises he won't leave without them, part of me believes she actually has hope that her Dad will return with his Grandchildren. Once again, Chantelle's hopes are lifted at another chance of getting away from Gray, but this is EastEnders - we know what's going to happen, right?!

Meanwhile, in the Vic, Ian is having a meeting with Douglas on his potential chance of becoming a part on the Planning Committee. Sharon is chatting away with Tina about Frankie when Ian enter's the pub. I feel sorry for Sharon really, she is doing everything she can to make it up to Ian. Giving him compliments and speaking highly of him in front of the fellow businessman. Ian is just shutting her down over and over again, not even saying that they're even friends anymore. In all seriousness, Sharon has done nothing wrong! She can't force feelings that she doesn't feel. If there's anyone Ian should be angry with, it's Dotty, for serving him stories and making him believe something that wasn't true. Sharon is literally just wanting her old friend back, but Ian seems to be having none of it! In the cafe, Max is on his phone to someone, does he owe someone money? He make the odd one-liner joke about having to hold Ian upside down and turn his pockets inside out to make sure he gets his money back. I'm sure the longer Ian tries to dodge the bullet and hide from Max, the more suspicious and angry he's going to get! Only, Kathy seems to overhear Max's phone conversation, and says states that he shouldn't be pestering Ian for his money, but Max makes the perfect point and claims that they were businesses partners. Kathy suddenly let's slip "He doesn't need this right now!" ... Bang! Max is suspicious, what did she mean by that?! He moves in closer to her "What has he done with my money, Kathy?!" He knows something isn't right! Kathy stands her ground and doesn't give anything away, she just tells him he'll have to wait, just a little bit longer!

At the Mitchell household, it looks as if Ben has now dragged in Jay to help with getting hold of Danny. I'm quite surprised as Jay has never been one for trouble. He's always stayed clear of Ben and his dodgy deals and gangsters. Jay makes it perfectly clear to Ben that he's not happy about it, he even asks if Phil is aware of Ben's plan. Suddenly, Callum joins them in the room, he can sense that he's walked in on a conversation between them. He asks if everything is okay and Ben assures him that everything is and that Jay is helping him with something. As Jay leaves the room, Callum then also asks Ben if he and Phil are okay with starting a war against Danny? It's a difficult situation for them all to be in, no one wants to get anyone else hurt, but I think that they know that Ben needs to go through with this to clear his name, he really does not want to be going back to prison!

Back at the holiday venue, Chantelle is packing her children's toys in the suitcase. She finds the lucky poke chip that Kheerat gave her and she sighs deeply. Suddenly a knock is heard on her bedroom door and her mother, Karen, appears. Karen sees that Chantelle is already packed and ready to leave. She's shocked to see her daughter packed already before her children have even arrived. Chantelle asks desperately to her Mum whether Mitch has been in touch. Karen confirms to her that Mitch and Chantelle's children are on their way! Chantelle's face is in utter shock! Gray has let them go? Could it be possible that Mitch has persuaded him to let them come? Could this be the last chance she gets of making her escape with the children? There's the tiniest smiles that grows on her face as Karen tells them that they'll be able to enjoy their holiday as family and make some wonderful memories. Chantelle must feel so relieved, she decides to go and buy her children a treat for when they arrive!

On the Square, Ruby is back and giving Kush an update about Martin, everyone seems very relieved to hear that Martin is doing okay. Kat shouts from across the Square that she's managed to pay Kush's rent for his stall! Kush is over the moon and he declares his love for her, as he does so, Ruby looks slightly disappointed - Why didn't Martin say the L word back to her? Does she feel silly for telling him that she loves him? Suddenly Suki approaches her, asking her how Martin is, at first it all seems rather polite but then Suki drops the bomb to Ruby that she knows about the insurance fraud. Ruby is ready to state that it was her son who attacked Martin in the first place, of course Martin is unaware of what actually happened, and Ruby wants to keep it that way. She informs Suki that Vinny is safe, she won't be going to the police and she wont be claiming on the insurance. But what I want to know is, is this going to turn around and hit Ruby where it hurts? Is Martin going to become aware of her and Vinny's plan? Will he blame her for being attacked?!

In the restaurant, Ian is continuing his meeting with Douglas, he's trying to prove a point that he's able to cope in awkward situations. Unfortunately the main thing on the other fella's mind is Sharon. Ian then literally tells him about all her failed relationships, in an attempt to warn him off! Mentioning that she had an affair with her husband's brother, to then Dennis being murdered and then finally - i'm assuming he means, Phil - a gangster?! Or was that somebody else that i'm unaware of?! Anyway, Max finally catches up with Ian, he wants his money and he wants it now! He refuses to leave the building until Ian tells him exactly what's going on! He makes himself known by dragging out a chair and sitting with his arms folded, staring at Ian! I think he knows he can't escape Max now, it's time to tell him the truth!

Oh great! Just what Walford needs, Danny Hardcastle then decides to pull up in the Square. Is he looking for someone? Does he know that the police after him? What an Earth would bring him back to the Square? As he locks his car walks away into the distance, the camera angle moves as if someone is watching him from behind the wall. At first, I thought it was going to be Ben, only Jay appears and shows that he has a screwdriver in his inside coat pocket. Is he going to scratch his car? Or perhaps stab his tyres? I feel sad that Ben has dragged Jay into this, of course Jay would do anything to help his brother out, but surely not in this way?! Ahhh so Danny has come to meet with Ben? Or did he actually believe it was Phil he coming to see?! Danny makes a snide comment saying with Phil not being there, is that his way of apologising?! These two haven't seen each other since that job in Stratford, i'm quite surprised neither of them are putting their fists up. Ben claims that he and his Dad don't owe Danny anything! Ahhh I see, so while Ben and Danny have their little catch up - Jay is planting the stolen money in Danny's car. Danny informs Ben that the money they nicked is traceable, so the police will be all over it! Jay can be seen then trying to close the car boot frantically! At this moment when Danny is walking back to his car, his keys jingling in his hand, I am so worried for Jay as Danny gets closer and closer, Jay is pushing the boot repeatedly trying to get it shut! Luckily he manages to get it shut completely just a few seconds before Danny gets to his car. He quickly walks away and calls the police! Have they really gotten away with setting him up?! My heart was in my mouth when Jay was doing that! I hope to God nothing bad happens to Jay after this!

Back at the restaurant, Max is waiting for Ian to get his money. He appears to be on the phone to a lawyer, of course a fake lawyer! He comes up with a story about his lawyer chasing some thieves and apparently he was attacked on the head. Not realising, as Max points out - that its exactly the same of what happened to Martin! Ian can't play any more games, he knows he's been sussed out. The lies he's building is just getting worse and worse, Max just wants to the truth, he slams the kitchen units, he's had enough of Ian's lies! Ian then states that his money in a high-interest account and he can't get to it quickly because of penalties. Max can't believe what he's hearing, he's devastated that his business partner could do this to him! He gives Ian one last warning, he wants his money by the following week, otherwise Ian is going to be the one needing major surgery! Ian has once again lied his way out of another situation to by him some time to get some money for Max, but in all seriousness - how is he going to get it?!

The Taylor family are still on their holiday, Keegan announces that the children have finally arrived! But they didn't come by train, Mitch appears with luggage and asks where Chantelle, Bernadette informs him that she had gone to buy some doughnuts for the kids. A voice from the hall then echo's the word "Doughnuts!" - Gray has only gone and wormed his way in! Even though the family are all delighted to see him, we know Chantelle is going to be scared and worried and stuck yet again. Karen makes a comment "Chantelle is going to be so happy to see you!", he has a really smug grin on his face as he replies to her that he didn't want to miss out on the family fun! Ooooo Gray is just getting darker and darker, his anger at Chantelle is getting worse and worse and her fear of him is just growing and growing. It's still SO devastating that the Taylor family have no idea what's been going on behind closed doors, which I think is going to make Chantelle's death far more devastating and heart-wrenching to watch.

After his encounter with Max, Ian makes his way back to the Vic. He pulls Sharon to one side, she's asks him how the meeting went, trying to be the best supportive friend she can be. But it looks as if Ian is tired of feeling let down, because his heart has been broken, yet again, he's taking it out on his friend! He claims to her that if it wasn't for him she wouldn't have the pub! He decides to make it perfectly clear to her that the pub is his business alone, she is just his employee. Sharon knows that he is saying this out of spite, just because she doesn't feel the same way about him. He's angry, he's upset, he's embarrassed so he wants to have the upper hand! He's wanting to feel powerful! He warns her that he going to be setting her some targets, and if she doesn't meet them he will find someone else to run the pub! Sharon can barely believe her ears, she has always told Ian how grateful she has been to him over the past few months, he took her in when she had nowhere to go, he comforted her when Dennis died, of course we know it was out of guilt, but now saying he could potentially make her homeless is such a horrible curve-ball! Will she ever be able to find a way to make it up to him? Will Ian finally come to his senses and realise he's in the wrong?!

The last scene of tonight's episode, Chantelle is seen in the seaside cafe buying her children their treats. Its the first time we've seen her happy in a long time. She makes a phone call, it's Kheerat she calls, she's sounding so relieved and so happy. Its the first time we've seen her smile in a long time! She believes her children are on the way to her and she can finally find some happiness with Kheerat, she assures him that everything is fine and he has no reason to worry. She then says that she's ready, she's ready to cash in! Little does she know that Gray has been stood behind her, listening to her conversation. How is he going to know what "Cash in" means? This is going to be the thing that rages him more than anything! He believes his wife is having an affair, even though we know nothing has happened between Chantelle and Kheerat yet, it's going to be the first thing that jumps into his head! Is this what makes Gray lose his temper with Chantelle so much that it comes to the point he commits murder?!

As the episode gets closer of Chantelle's death, the more worried and scared I am of how it's going to happen. I truly believe it's going to be a devastating, harrowing episode. I do believe some viewers will find it incredibly hard to watch, the past few episodes I've been getting very nervous for Chantelle as I know what's coming, but seeing it all unfold - all the events leading up to her death and hearing the news of the aftermath of her death. It's going to be very hard viewing! I know I've said it once, but I can't praise Jessica Plummer and Toby-Alexander Smith high enough! Their performances have been phenomenal this week!

I hope you're all preparing yourself for what the next few episodes hold. It's going to be a tough few days that's for sure! I hope you've all enjoyed reading, thank you all for taking your time to read through my blog. It really does mean the world! Enjoy the rest of your week and i'll be back very soon! Love you all xXx

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 218: Purse Pilferage and Mouse Murder

Previously on BnHA: Kacchan and Deku sparred in an attempt to draw out Deku’s mysterious new power once again, but to no avail. In a brief flashback, the OFA Scooby Squad (now including Bakugou!) discussed Deku’s recent visions and his multiple quirks. Kacchan pointed out that it was very similar to All for One’s power, which seems to be weighing on Deku’s mind some. That evening at the fanfic dorms, Shouto approached Deku asking if he had been hiding a second quirk. Deku assured him that the new quirk surprised him as much as everyone else, and fibbed that it was probably derived from his original quirk. Meanwhile the U.A. faculty accepted Shinsou into the hero course, and Aizawa acted all weird and cagey about someone from his past named “Shirakumo.” Later, Monoma met with Aizawa, Mirio, Deku, and Eri at the teachers’ dorms and unsuccessfully attempted to copy Eri’s quirk. Eri apologized for being so troublesome, and the others assured her that she wasn’t and Deku told her that even seemingly dangerous quirks can be used for good. It wasn’t lost on him that this applied to his own powers as well, and he resolved to keep working to master OFA.

Today on BnHA: Early one December morn, the kids of 1-A gather in their common room to watch some TV while they wait to hear if Bakugou and Todoroki passed their provisional license retest. The news is reporting on a company called Detnerat which has recently entered the hero equipment business. Their CEO is some Joker-looking dude who’s apparently a big fan of AFO’s old nemesis Destro of Meta Liberation Army fame. Destro’s book has recently been republished and is making the discussion rounds. DetCEO discusses it with his cute lil mouse subordinate Miyashita, but Miyashita isn’t really a fan. This proves unfortunate for Miyashita, as DetCEO is all “that’s too bad, guess I’m just gonna have to snap your neck then.” Like, for real though. Anyway so then DetCEO heads to a secret meeting of like-minded individuals who are apparently Destro’s descendants and are seeking to make his goals a reality. We then segue to a group of purse-snatchers led by someone who I really thought was Shirakumo for a hot minute, ngl. He’s not, though. Anyway so they’re wreaking some havoc and stealing people’s shit -- that is, until two good boys who just earned their provisional licenses after three months of hard work show up to spoil their fun.

(As always, all comments not marked with an ETA are my mostly-unspoiled reactions from my first readthrough of this chapter. I’m caught up with the manga now at chapter 225, so any ETAs will reflect that.)

HOLY SHIT

BABY WE GOT OURSELVES SOME MOTHERFUCKING SNOW IN THE FANFIC DORMS!!!

holy shit. and it’s the weekend! ARE WE GONNA HAVE SOME ANTICSSSS YES PLEASE I REALLY NEED THIS SO BAD RIGHT NOW YOU HAVE NO IDEA

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

KIRISHIMA WHY ARE YOU TAKING YOUR CLOTHES OFF

I hope they get a ton! I WANT SNOWBALL FIGHTS AND SNOW FORTS AND TODOROKI TO LET IT GOOOOOO LET IT GOOOOOOO

ahh but apparently he and Bakugou are away right now

wow they even got that class on Sundays now, huh

also, who did Sero borrow the tankoubon from? because more likely than not it was Bakugou since I can’t even picture Shouto reading manga (unless he borrowed some volumes from Deku, maybe). so that means Bakugou is (a) a big ol’ manga-reading nerd who brought his manga to school with him, and (b) sharing with friends. both of which make me so, so happy

(ETA: Viz translated this as “I want to borrow the next volume of this manga from Todoroki,” but as far as I can tell, in the RAW version he doesn’t specify who he borrowed it from. I think Caleb Cook just doesn’t think Bakugou is capable of sharing. give him some credit, Caleb Cook.)

Deku says they should be back around six, and Iida says it’s apparently the last day of their provisional class!

OHMYGOSH. hold up. so that means that their re-test is in like a week, no? holy shit. oh my god I’m so hypppppped ahhhhhh

SDLFKHASLDFKJLK HOLY SHIT

IT’S TODAY!?!??

YOU CAN DO IT KIDS I BELIEVE IN YOU. YOU GOT THIS

KACCHAN ARE YOU READY TO OFFICIALLY BECOME KACCHAN THE HERO

(ETA: maybe we’ll actually get Kacchan’s hero name before I grow old. maybe.)

SDFKASLDHK AND LOOK AT THIS SETUP!? AHHHHHH PLEASE DON’T CUT AWAY FROM THIS. OH MY GOD

but snow antics though. oh my god I’m so torn lsdkjlk

anyways of fucking course we cut away, and I don’t really mind because I love cozy 1-A snow day dorm antics also. plus everyone is gossiping about Todo and Baku, and Satou is baking a cake like the Princess Peach he is

Kami is playfully lamenting the fact that he’s about to lose the one leg-up he had on those two, and flipping on the news

oh shit are we gonna get some Plot

I guess so. what is this

Detnerat?? is that a portmanteau of something? an acronym? or another Star Wars reference I failed to pick up on??

(ETA: yeah so it’s the word “talented” spelled backwards. except with an r instead of an l.)

so the news is showing some people with mutant quirks, including a four-armed lady, a jello child, and a walrus with a bowler hat

and the narration is talking about how people like this used to be a minority but now “their era arrived”

interesting. I guess there’s pretty much no such thing as “one size fits all” anymore these days huh. so does that mean there’s been a shift back to custom-made tailored items?

this pointy nose guy is extremely theatrical

calm down buddy

so he says his company has come all this way while building products that meet the needs of each of their customers individually

this is cool and all but I’m trying to figure out why this new arc is opening with an infomercial

I’m expecting things all right, but I think it’s a little too early to say if they’ll be great

and now we’re cutting to this guy’s office, where his employee is concluding his presentation. apparently he was showing his boss the finished commercial

and now they’re discussing the thus-far lukewarm reception to their recent announcement

(ETA: holy shit. famous last words. fuckin’ jinxed it Miyashita.)

are you guys... good guys? bad guys? how is this related to the plot?? a new arc all about stock holdings and market shares. Iida did you write this arc

so pointy nose says that they’ve been doing this on a much larger scale for a long time already, so he’s confident they’ll be successful

oh shit

it only just occurred to me that he used the word “superpowers” instead of quirks

AND LOOK AT THIS SHIT

IT’S THAT BOOK. THE ONE THAT WAS PROBABLY WRITTEN BY DESTRO OMG

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

IT WAS DESTRO. CALLED IT WOOP WOOP

Mishiwhatsa says he read the book too but “it’s a load of crap if you ask me”

he says that what the army was doing was nothing but terrorism at the expense of innocent people, and yet Destro “had the gall” to act like he was in the right

hot damn this guy really was Magneto. are we going full-on X-Men in this arc. I want the works. I want fucking sentinels and everything oh god please

oh shit I’m starting to worry about ol’ Mishi here

MIYASHITA, RUN

OH SHIT

IS HE GOING TO SNAP HIS FUCKING NECK!?? HOLY SHIT!??

holy fucking shitballs oh christ

this dude is straight up murdering his best employee, Nezu’s cousin, all because he didn’t agree with his favorite book!?

...

holy shit

fuck. I’m speechless

okay. okay shit. well. uh. Detnerat, huh

you have my attention, plot

hooooooooooly shit

holy shit holy shit holy shit

okay. calm down, self. let’s jot down some thoughts real quick

okay so one, that one shot of that guy with his hand on his hat has a decided Ian McKellen vibe to it. I’m telling you guys. X-Men references all over the damn place in this arc

two, the word “supremacy” was used. meaning this wasn’t just a “quirk rights” group, this was a quirk supremacist group. or is a quirk supremacist group, I should say. these people believe themselves to be the future of humankind. they don’t want liberation, they want control. and assuming we continue to follow the X-Men parallels here, they also believe themselves to be superior to those without superpowers and they’re looking to assert their authority over them

they clearly believe the current laws restricting the usage of quirks are a form of oppression and persecution and are looking to eradicate them

this seems like exactly the type of philosophy the League of Villains would be eager to spread, and I wouldn’t be surprised if another team-up is in the works here

lastly, if these guys are now in the business of making hero equipment, whoever buys from them had better be really careful, as I can easily see some sort of Iron Man 2 plotline going down in which there’s a secret command built into the coding of the new equipment which will sabotage its users once activated. or if you’d rather think of it in Star Wars terms rather than MCU, call it an “order 66” ploy

(ETA: well I partly called this one. still up in the air honestly, who knows.)

also: friendly reminder that Bakugou’s gauntlets were recently destroyed and he’s gonna be needing new ones! (:

so having said all that, let’s see how this pans out!

and right away, the prediction about them teaming up with the League is panning out. waste no time, huh

so Hooknose is telling him to do so at once

oh shit hold up

WELL I SURE GOT THAT BACKWARDS NOW DIDN’T I

lol oh shit. I totally forgot that AFO was the one who bombed the Army’s HQ all those decades and possibly centuries ago. I can’t believe these guys still remember that and know how AFO was connected to boot

also, is there a Rorschach thing going on here? I wonder if it’s a reference to the psychologist or to the comic book character from Watchmen. I’m betting the latter given the way they’re using the inkblots as masks, and also because this is a manga based on superhero comics after all

(ETA: yeah, Rorschach, Joker, and Magneto... drawing on a lot of classic villains and anti-heroes in this arc.)

ah so now we’re getting details on their new bid to enter the hero market

HOLD UP

WHAT THE FUCK THIS GUY LOOKS AWFULLY FUCKING FAMILIAR

IS THIS SHIRAKUMO??? AIZAWA WERE YOU NOT CONTENT WITH THE STRIKING SIMILARITY YOU ALREADY BORE TO KAKASHI? HAD TO GO AND ADD THE OLD FRIEND TURNED EVIL BACKSTORY TOO?? OR WHAT

given that this guy seems to have some sort of cloud-based power (look at what he’s riding! and now the people he just harassed and stole from are describing it as “carbonated water”), and kumo means “cloud”...

(ETA: nope, this is just good ol’ Soda Sam. Carbonation Carl.)

okay and now we’re cutting to a conversation between two as-yet-unknown parties that seem to be witnessing this robbery from a distance, and deciding whether or not to intervene

for a moment I entertained the idea that this might be Kacchan and Shouto with their hot-off-the-presses licenses, possibly talking to All Might? but none of this dialogue seems to have that Kacchan flair, and it also doesn’t make much sense for them to have attended the lesson accompanied by All Might and no one else. Aizawa’s been pretty good about making sure there’s always at least one other fighting pro accompanying them

so now this group of merry bandits is celebrating their new haul

OH SHITTTTTTT

ODDS OF THIS BEING BAKUGOU AND SHOUTO JUST SHOT WAAAAAAAAAY WAY UP OH MY GOD?!

OH MY GOD IT WAS EXACTLY WHAT I THOUGHT?!

I SHOULD STOP DOUBTING MYSELF AND HORIKOSHI’S PROPENSITY FOR GIVING ME EXACTLY WHAT I WANT ALL OF THE TIME

motherfucker. you just know Kacchan spent that entire cab ride with his nose pressed to the window trying to sense danger and keeping his fingers crossed something like this would happen

(ETA: him and Shouto both, since the dialogue suggests it was Shouto that spotted it first! so basically one of them stationed at each window with All Might sandwiched in between wondering if he’s even going to survive this trip. the answer is yes, All Might, but not without it becoming Eventful.)

also, 30 minutes or 30 seconds, it hardly matters All Might. you know these two spent the last three months anticipating this moment every single minute of every day. they’re gonna go do reckless hero shit, All Might. THEY’RE JUST GONNA

oh my godddddddd

TodoBaku fighting against Aizawa’s possible friend-turned-villain in the snowwwwww having JUST EARNED THE SHIT OUT OF THEIR NEW LICENSES HELL YEAHHHHHHHHH

and it appears Kacchan does have a gauntlet. goddammit. make that propensity for giving me almost exactly what I want, most of the time

anyways, I don’t really care! life is good. life is fucking amazing, fam

[lithe-cloud]

Since someone requested a character map for my fic A Single Reason, I’ve gone ahead and created this little puppy. Hope this helps anyone who is/was interested. These are all the OC/borrowed characters who have actually any important impact in the story, as well as a few facts you might not know about them.

Epitaph - a mafia-like organization operating throughout the whole of Japan. Drug and illegal firearms trade. Human trafficking. Assassination. Information trade. You name it, Epitaph is probably doing it. Currently is run by the Big Four and was, at the start of the story, almost 10,000 members and associates strong. Has currently gone to ground after a tenth of personnel were apprehended by police following Izuku, Momo and Hitoshi’s desertion.

Big Four

Alkaid - Current leader of Epitaph

Real Name unknown. Quirk: “SUPERNOVA” (ability to ionize gases into hot plasma). Mysterious and secretive, little is fully understood about her other than she has a love of mythology and traditionally feminine appearances. Izuku once saw her snap a man’s spine over her knee a la Bane from Batman.

Senri - Second in command of Epitaph, as well as functional Head of Business

Real Name - “Senri ???”, wanted Momo to call him “Gin” for reasons unknown. Quirk: “HAIR STRINGS” (can manipulate his hair as a prehensile tool). Has a very survival-of-the-fittest mentality, with some (never explicitly shown) p*d*philic tendencies regarding young girls. Doesn’t actually sleep with anyone under the minimum age, though, because he’s trash, but he’s not fucking stupid. Is childhood best friends with Ken and is a former accountant. Also the only one of the Big Four who, arguably, can’t fight.

Blessed - Chief Enforcer

Real Name unknown. Quirk: UNKNOWN. Was a hero before taking a criminal apprehension too far, causing the death of purse snatcher. Is now a wanted criminal was a warrant out for her arrest. Brutal and militaristic, she was the Suzumebachi’s primary trainer before their defections/deaths, as well as a frequent tormentor of Izuku for his quirklessness. She is the one who executed Changeling for attempting to defect.

Ken - Human Resources Manager

Real Name unknown. Quirk: UNKNOWN. Former underground illegal quirk-fighting champion turned villain, Ken is mostly just a career criminal out to take care of his aging parents and keep Senri out of too much trouble. He still manages to operate inside Epitaph and with it’s members with no shred of remorse or shame, and is Senri’s best friend, so, really, how good can he be?

Executives (Aka, Bungo Stray Dog’s characters lol) - as a side note, all their quirks are their gifts in BSD.

Akutagawa Ryunosuke - Izuku’s former Handler and tormentor. Blessed assigned his charge when the boy was 11 and he has hated Izuku ever since. Cruel, temperamental and sickly.

Hirotsu Ryuro - Hitoshi’s former Handler, as well as Head of Torture, Interrogation and Assassination. Was training Hitoshi to be his apprentice and eventual successor when he “retires”.

Ozaki Koyo - Assassin and Momo’s former Handler. Looked after and genuinely cared for Momo in her own way, but only started really recognizing Momo after she voluntarily murdered Phantom’s killer. She and Alkaid also coached Izuku on how to hone his natural charisma with speech-craft.

Other Members

Sakura ??? - Wanted for trespassing, arson and cyber-terrorism, he was Momo’s programming and infiltration trainer. 

Hoshigaki - Expert Spy, Assassin and Infiltrator. Chageling’s former Handler before his defection and subsequent execution. Also is Alkaid’s older cousin. She and Blessed had a “thing” some years back.

Kurosaki - A smuggler who managed to get into the Big Four’s graces just enough to be assigned as Hecatoncheir’s Handler. He was murdered when she successfully managed to escape the organization. A member of the original squad sent to kidnap the kids.

Suzumebachi Program (The Squad of Precious/Dead Kidnapped Children lol)

Agent Gamayun - AKA ASR!Izuku

Agent Encantado - AKA ASR!Hitoshi

Agent Yakshini - AKA ASR!Momo

Agent Phantom - Real Name “Nijima Aya”. Quirk: “CHAMELEON” (mimic any color or texture visible to the human eye). She and Momo were closer than any of the other Suzumebachi agents. Dies to a villain raid days before her 10th birthday.

Agent Changeling - Real Name “Shouji Kaku”. Quirk: “STAND-IN” (place an optical illusion over anything he touches). Obsessed with stars and space and was a great story-teller. Shouji Mezo’s paternal cousin. Became suicidal towards the end of his life. Was executed after his fellow Suzumebachi aided him in a failed escape attempt 10 months before the story starts. He was 15.

Agent Hecatonchier - Real Name “Yosano Naomi”. Quirk: “REJECTION” (psycho-kinetically push objects withing a 10-foot radius away from her). The eldest Suzumebachi who became the group’s established leader, mother and older sister all in one. She loved and cared for her fellow Suzumebachi extensively. Successfully managed to escape Epitaph 4 months before the story starts and hasn’t been seen or heard from since. She is currently 16, approaching 17.

The Families - Aka, the people who are just happy to have their children back lol. 8 years is a long time without your babies, ya know...

The Yaoyorozu Family

Yaoyorozu Hisoka - Momo’s mother. Once wanted to be a hero, but became scared after her mother was involved in a car-bombing that left her permanently disabled, then transferred to the Business course. There, she met her future fiance and the father of her child, Tsuzuki Nagare, who would die in a car accident before their marriage. Founded the Yaoyorozu Corporation with Nagare to create premier heroics equipment, supplies and medical equipment. Became a secret underground hero a la Batman called “Lightscreen”, after Momo was taken. Her quirk, “Light Image”, allows her to generate solid light constructs. Her quirk combined with Nagare’s “Toxin Excretion” to make Momo’s “Creation” quirk.

Yaoyorozu Junpei - Momo’s maternal grandfather. A bit of a traditionalist, and a quirkless artist specializing in geometric patterns. He fought hard to gain every inch of his success throughout his life. Was in an artist’s slump before meeting Chidori. She rescued him from a villain attack, and he’s been inspired by her ever since.

Yaoyorozu Chidori - Momo’s maternal grandmother. A courageous and vivacious woman, she was the Shimmering Sorceress, the number 15th Ranked hero of her generation. She saved the isle of Shikoku from the echo terrorist, Chloroshield. In her 40′s, she convinced to retire after being involved in a car bombing that necessitated the amputation of her right leg. Her quirk is “Shimmer”, which grants her the ability to bend photons to her will.

The Shinsou Family

Shinsou Izuna - Hitoshi’s father. A free-lance graphics designer now employed by Hisoka and family man who wants to be supportive of his son, but is also intimidated by his large criminal record. Hitoshi and he share the same quirk, though Hitoshi’s is admittedly more powerful than Izuna’s. He likes working outside, which is part of the reason he’s so tan in the warmer months.

Shinsou Namani - Hitoshi’s mother. A former office worker turned Hisoka’s at-home secretary. Her family, the Seiwara, have a history of mental illnesses stemming from the fact that their family line has a gene that means their brains under-produce dopamine and serotonin. She loves her family very much, and thinks her son and husband are too much like each other despite not spending much time together. Her quirk allows her to sense the neural pathways in other people’s brains, giving her a very limited kind of general, multi-target telepathy.

Shinsou Noriko - Hitoshi’s bold and stead-fast younger sister. She grew up hearing stories of her missing older brother. Now that he’s back, she’s determined to get to know him and help him get back to normal life. Not being able to go to school and hang out with her friends bothers her more than she wants to admit. Her quirk is a mix of Nanami’s and Izuna’s, which allows her to implant powerful suggestions into people’s heads at will.

Other Characters (aka, the ones who have only appeared once or twice, or are recurring, yet don’t have a name)

Tanizaki Junichirou - A BSD character who, in this verse, is a budding politician. One of Alkaid’s information brokers wanted him taken out. Izuku killed him in chapter 2.

Chief Umeji - Tsukauchi’s boss and head of police in Musutafu. A hard-assed but fair man who trusts Tsukauchi’s judgement. His quirk gives him flowering plum-branch hair. His spouse is runs a flower shop painted with a blue rose. They have an adopted daughter. He appeared in chapter 7.

Kaiun Raiyo - Momo, Izuku and Hitoshi’s therapist. Her office is a huge swimming pool due to her aquatic-based mutation quirk causing her trouble on land. Got rejected from a hero course and took the time to try and figure her life out. Her quirk is based off the Abyssal Lagiacrus from Monster Hunter Tri/3U. Appears in chapter 12.

Probation Officer - Momo, Izuku and Hitoshi’s probation officer. He’s cold at first, but seeing the kids interact with their supervisors and hearing, week after week, of their good behavior, he’s starting to soften up. Appears in chapters 8, 9, 10 and 13. He might get a name. Maybe. Eventually.

Hope this helps anyone!!

[militant-holy-knight]

Islamophobia: A “Zionist Plot”?

In response to Hating Muslims, Loving Zionists: Israel a Far-Right Model, where Al Jazeera gets everything wrong

Al Jazeera penned an opinion piece trying to lump anti-Muslim terrorism, rational critics of Islamism with Zionism of all things. The “logic” goes that “x Israeli politician is a far-righter”, many leading political figures in far-right politics that criticize Islam have expressed affection and approval for Israel; Palestine is oppressed by Israel and as such all of these things are related to each other. They even used the censored picture of Brenton Tarrant to drive the point home that “See? if you hate Islam, you are also just like this guy and oh, you support Israel too”. 

I can’t even begin pointing out what is wrong with this “some x are y, some y are z, therefore x are y” fallacy, I am even more surprised that right-winged critics of Israel didn’t even try to debunk it. In one hand, it’s pretty observable that support for Israel is strong among mainstream conservatism than other movements across the political spectrum. On the other hand, there is one figure who is never discussed when the topic of alt-right and Zionism overlap, being very little-known outside of Israel.

This is Meir Kahane, a ultra-Orthodox Jewish rabbi from the USA who migrated from to Israel and was a co-founder of the Jewish Defense League and the Kach political party. Also known as “Israel’s Ayatollah”, he urged the establishment of a Jewish theocracy codified by Maimonides (a Reconquista-era Spanish Jew), the immigration of all American Jews to Israel before a “second Holocaust” could take place and was very vocal about advocating the annexation of the West Bank and Gaza, violence against Palestinians and those he deemed as “anti-semites”. He was extremely divisive: there were people who found his Jewish supremacist rhetoric intolerable and equated him to the Nazis, while in other camp you had those who supported him largely because of Arab aggression as The Los Angeles Times reported that “[he] is a reaction to the wanton murders of innocent men, women and children in Israel” (which you can find many parallels with modern day politicians supported by the alt-right). Kahane was arrested at least 62 times by Israeli authorities for inciting hatred.

While in prison, Kahane wrote a manifesto titled “They Must Go” where he advocates the complete exile of Palestinians and the necessary process how to do it arguing that if they didn’t they’d begin outbreeding the Jewish population and take over Israel in 20 years (he wrote it in the 80s). His manifesto reads a lot like the anxiety Europeans feel about Muslim migrants which isn’t alleviated in the slightest by them speaking out in the open how they will establish a European caliphate.

Kahane was popular enough with the Israelis that he was elected with one seat to the Knesset. However, he was never really popular with his fellow parliamentarians, whom he regarded as “Hellenists” (Jews who assimilated into Greek culture after being conquered by Alexander the Great), since Kahane thought they weren’t Jewish enough. Most of his proposed laws included: imposing compulsory religious education, stripping citizenship status of all non-Jewish citizens (including Christians) and demanding that relations with Germany and Austria being cut but monetary compensation for the Holocaust being kept.

In 1990, Kahane was assassinated by an al-Qaeda member (it’s believed he was one of the first victims of the terrorist group), who was initially cleared of the murder, but was arrested later for being implicated in the 1993 WWC bombing attempt, where he confessed his first crime and was jailed to life imprisonment. His death made him a martyr leading to Kach member Baruch Goldstein to swear revenge and in 1994, he walked into the Cave of the Patriarchs on the West Bank and shot up the place, killing 30 Muslims before being lynched by the survivors. Given the Cave of the Patriarch status as a important religious site to Islam, this atrocity would have provoked probably worse reactions than Christchurch.

While researching about these things, I couldn’t help but see so many parallels between that and the Christchurch mosque incident. Kahane’s manifesto reads a lot like Tarrant’s own. Even if they were not familiar with Kahane’s own views, it was probably not lost to those that really read into Tarrant’s manifesto that not once he denounces the State of Israel for the current state of Europe - instead he blames Angela Merkel, Reccep Erdogan and Sadiq Khan, straight up calling for their deaths. This seemed enough for many people to conclude Tarrant was an Mossad agent.

To those reading this you may be asking: you listed so many things in common with the alt-right, Islamophobia and Zionism, so what did Al Jazeera get wrong?

Ah, if you actually paid attention to the fringe discourse, you realize that nothing discredits you faster than declaring yourself far-right and voicing support for Israel. I sincerely doubt that white supremacists would have liked a Jewish supremacist like Kahane, specially his demands that Germany to continue paying reparations forever. The fringe right actually finds lots of solidarity with Palestinians and common ground with the liberal left than either side cares to admit. Sure many right-wing politicians happen to be Zionists, but those are the mainstream old guard. 

I also observed that they also are overwhelmingly in support of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in large part because he is an authoritarian model that stands up against Israel. Does it mean that all people who support Assad are also the same? No. Many support Assad because he is considered a bulwark against Islamism (even though he is a Muslim himself, albeit not considered one by terrorist extremists because he is Alawite). Despite his many flaws, normal people are willing to stand up for him because he represents stability in Syria.

I also take huge issue with Palestinians being referred to as exclusively Muslim because it erases their small and long-suffering Christian minority, which is never on anyone’s minds every time someone discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, despite the fact that Palestinian Christians played a huge role in resistance against Israel before the rise of Islamism ended up alienating them and Christians across the Middle-East aren’t necessarily thrilled about Israel either, not even Israeli Christians themselves.

It’s probably no coincidence that Al Jazeera, who denounces both Israel and the Assad regime who are antagonistic to each other, also happen to be big Islamist apologists which explains why they insist in portraying the Palestinian cause as a religious struggle rather than a nationalist one. It’s in their interest to denigrate critics of Islamism who run across the board in the political spectrum from atheists like Bill Maher and Sam Harris, Christians like David Wood, Brother Rachid and Zacharias Botros and Muslims like Majid Nawaz, Ed Hussein and Mohammed Tawid and many, many, many people worried about the dangers of Islamism, which they use so vociferously the term “Islamophobia” coined by the Muslim Brotherhood, a terrorist organization disguised as political party. This way they can lump all the opposition into one camp and paint them as Zionist Islamophobes.

With all that said, the rise of conservatism and nationalism across the world is co-related with the modern liberal left’s weakness to confront the Islamist Question. One of the key reasons that led to Donald Trump’s election were fears of Hillary Clinton increasing immigration as observed by the skyrocketing of sexual abuse cases in Western Europe. Even though he is a more despotic and authoritarian figure than Trump, Erdogan from Turkey is subjected to much less scrutiny from the Western media when he locks up more journalists anywhere in the world.

And this isn’t contained to the West either, the Bharatiya Janata Party characterized as Hindu nationalist and anti-Islamic continues being elected into power because of India’s spats with Pakistan and being formed in the first place because of Indian secularists appeasing to Muslims. And if the future is any indication, you can expect more persecutions of Muslims in Sri Lanka by Buddhists and Christians after the Easter bombings from this year. Those has less to do with Zionism and more with the fear of Islamism.

There is a good reason why I brought up Kahane into this editorial: much like modern day politicians, he was considered too radical by the status quo of the time yet gained the support of a silent majority like modern day because the current status quo proved intolerable. The same thing happened in my country with Jair Bolsonaro, who was already saying absurd things as early as the 90s and would never be considered as President of Brazil yet here we are, though Kahane was assassinated before he got the chance of being Prime Minister.

How many times are we going to deflect the problem like Al Jazeera before we confront it straight in the eye?

[wingheadshellhead]

So I just read Jonathan Hickman's Avgers, Vol. 1: Avengers World which has that scene about how "it started with two men; one was life and one was death" in reference to Steve and Tony. What really confuses me and kind of makes me angry is why Tony is death? I don't really understand what it's referencing or what he's done to be Death. Like merchant of death and all that I get. But he's past his history now right? Even poetically in an avengers comic why is he still death? Wondering if you know?

i mean,,,,,,, i know fandom was briefly up in arms about this (not really but it was a Thing ppl were mildly salty about) but hickman never specifies who he’s referring to here. (the placement of the captions means nothing lmao, it’s literally just positioned in standard left-to-right reading order.) and actually, many ppl in fandom have taken that exact ambiguity and spun it on its head in edits and fics and especially re: mcu after ca: cw to cast steve as death, and tony as life as an interesting subversion of popular understanding of that quote where 616 tony = death, 616 steve = life. 

hickman’s writing style is very much about intense concept ideas and the big picture, he goes HARD on metaphors that make for great quotes and oneliners taken out of context but doesn’t often attempt to explain or further clarify what they mean. as someone who’s read most of his original comic east of west over at image, i can tell you it’s Classic Hickman to throw out that kind of dramatic ass statement and leave it up in the air as to who’s who just because it was memorable, it sounded fucking good, and it’s going to stick in people’s heads long after they’ve finished reading. and it definitely works bc this one ticks all three boxes.

personally, i don’t think hickman specifically intended one of them to be Life personified or Death personified; that’s hyperbolic even for hickman’s level of drama. and with steve and tony, at least, i think he knows full well that he’s dealing with Humans at the end of the day and not metaphorical embodiments of things. 

so what i think about the quote, specifically: 

1. it’s more useful as an axiomatic representation of tony and steve as polarising forces then as a literal statement where both correlate exactly to life or death; this is the unstoppable force meets immovable object facet of their relationship. 

hickman’s vol. 5 was very much about exploring and interrogating this part of steve and tony’s dynamic and driving it to its very limits. while i don’t know that i was totally satisfied with vol. 5 as an avengers comic bc i like seeing my kids get along and not constantly trying to murder each other, hickman definitely Gets steve and tony. he Gets their dynamic and the drama and tragedy that can come from such an important, intense and deeply profound relationship that’s grounded in so much history and personal stakes and emotions. tony and steve being best friends for over a decade and such important figures in each other’s lives will never negate the fact that they have very different ethical alignments and moral philosophies. and for two people who are absolutely compelled by those things in everything they do, going head to head with someone that happens to land at the polar opposite of them on the spectrum is always going to go down like… well… y’know. civil wars. universes dying. just bc that’s literally how much marvel has invested in them lol.

but i respect people / characters who respect themselves too much to bend just bc someone they love, or people they love, wants them to. i respect characters that will stand their ground and stick to their convictions even though it’d be easier not to, esp. when they’re risking someone they love. and conversely, just because steve and tony can’t agree on everything doesn’t mean their relationship suddenly becomes null and void. they’re too vastly similar but also different people who’d sooner die then stop fighting for the thing(s) they believe need to be fought for; this is something they know in their bones about each other, they know each other too well to expect anything less from the other person.

2. they can both be both. and this is Literal given that steve’s last act in the final moments of the 616 universe ‘as we knew it’ (bc there’s some debate – spoiler alert? – that the all-new all-different universe that marvel is currently set in is not 616 but a completely different universe and the 616 that existed before is legitimately just dead) was to take one of tony’s suits and try to murder him. granted, the ‘tony’ that was tony in the final moments of the 616 universe ‘as we knew it’ was also Not Really Tony, and i fully believe that the influences of Superior Tony were still lingering and tainting his overall Tonyness. in that instance, if you were going to be very simplistic and reductionist abt your interpretation of the quote, steve was definitely death. but Again, they are Both Both. tony spent (spends lbr) pretty much all his time in vol. 5 prophesizing death and destruction like 616′s very own cassandra; as Not Really Tony / still sorta superior iron man he pilots the godkiller to massacre an entire alien race from invading and destroying earth; building bombs, and being fully behind the plan to kill other planets to save earth-616.

you’re right that 616 doesn’t bring up his past as often as mcu does anymore because it’s considered literal ancient history (as in bronze age 60′s history that’s been written to death, although i’m of the opinion any good tony stark writer Can and Will find a way to write his past into modern relevance). tony’s narrative and the nature of his character, however, (sb driven by guilt and accountability and the knowledge that he’s alive bc of the sacrifice of a man who died to save him – i.e. yinsen) will always inevitably feature death, his history, and his subsequent transformation. talking about 616 and specfiically tony’s actions and choices in hickmanvengers doesn’t really help my point but to talk about tony + death in general, regardless of the universe, ‘death’ also doesn’t have to be the BadTM concept it’s usually thought of as. mcu tony canonically refers to himself as a phoenix, and the Afghanistan / Vietnamistan incident is metaphorically a ‘death’ for tony stark the charcter and his rebirth as Iron Man, the Golden Avenger. in any universe, tony’s hero narrative hinges on that rebirth and transformation as a symbol of his capacity for heroism and Goodness, of taking his ugly past and former ignorance and mistakes and transforming it into something wholly and purely driven by bravery and sacrifice. 

i mean, yes, sure, if ppl are going to sit there and only take the label at face-value: death = bad / awful / terrible / only referring to his past as a weapons manufacturer and merchant of death, then yes, that would be a shitty interpretation to swallow as a tony fan. but seeing as how comics is a medium that’s built on constantly evolving and changing characters / worlds / entire universes, death as ‘rebirth’ is a very justifiable and canonically valid reading of tony. 616 tony has died multiple times, literally and figuratively, and every time he’s rebuilt himself bigger and better and stronger. the connotations of death within hickman’s own narrative and world-building is heavily linked to metamorphosis and resurrection. the final act of his avengers run and the centrepiece of the secret war event ended with the revival of the 616 universe. not to get too philosophical and existential here but death isn’t even really an End in the comics medium bc nobody and nothing ever permanently ‘dies’; it’s not possible to associate the concept with a definitive ‘end’, which makes most of the negative imagery surrounding ‘one was death’ redundant. i’m all for intrepretations of ‘death’ that are closely interlinked, if not entirely hand-in-hand, with ideas of rebirth, rebuilding, evolution, etc.

anyway, avengers world is great and i fucking love it so even if i haven’t swayed your opinion, i wouldn’t let the quote override your enjoyment of the overall comic. which, i hope you do enjoy, bc the happiness doesn’t last in hickmanvengers. buckle in for the long haul my guy.

[snowdice]

Goblin Brain Study Session Fic 1 [Day 28]

Because I don’t want to just have walls of text for my Goblin Brain Study Session posts, I’m separating them by days. If you want to read the previous chapters, click the links below. I have chapter 10 done, but not edited and what I have done of chapter 11 under the cut.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9

See this post for more details and feel free to send me asks to keep me going! It’s been a lot of fun so far! I will reblog this post with the story as I write them today.

I have no idea if I’m going to get interrupted as there has been a surprise small child in my home the last couple of days, but I have a meeting tomorrow and really need to do stuff so I’m trying to sneak a bit of time in while small child is distracted.

Janus could feel his heartbeat speed up at his looked at his phone, but he didn’t dare let that show. He calmly clicked the talk button on his phone. “Hello, mother. How can I help you?” he asked.

“I’d like an update on the situation with the Gates boy,” she said.

“I’m currently on his trail,” Janus informed her. “He had an unfortunate head start because of Kinsley, but I have managed to figure out he went to the nearby grocery store and saw him on security footage. I should be making more progress soon.”

“I see,” she replied. “The boy used his phone.”

“Well that’s good for our aims,” Janus replied. “I assume you were able to track the call.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “He was attempting to call his uncle. He has managed to get impressively far. I will send you the details of his location.” She paused. “Wait, it seems he’s currently attempting another call to an unknown number. Strange, there doesn’t seem to be a record of it in any database. You wouldn’t possibly know the number 309-555-0721.” Fuck. That was his other phone number… the phone number of the phone he broke earlier.

“No, I don’t,” Janus lied. God dammit. Why did he break that phone?

She hummed, seeming to accept that. “I see you are still at the grocery store. I’m sending people to meet up with you at that location.”

Oh fuck.

“Is that really necessary?” Janus asked sounding bored. “Surely I can handle it myself.”

“It will be more efficient to have multiple people working together especially with a drive that far,” she said. He could tell by her tone that there was no room for argument.

“Of course,” Janus replied.

“Good. I have already sent them your location.” She hung up without another word.

Janus looked down at his phone. “Well,” he said. “I’m dead.”

“That bad, huh?” Remus asked.

“She’s sending people to ‘help’ me.”

“Shit.”

“You said the security cameras upload straight to the cloud, right?” Janus asked.

“Yep,” Remus confirmed.

“Well. No way out of it then.” His phone beeped with details about Virgil’s location. Calmly, Janus walked around the car and opened the door to get the atlas Remy had gotten him when he’d turned 16. He’d scoffed at it because of GPS, but he’d kept it even when he’d gotten rid of the car mother had given him for the same occasion. He opened the map of the state and circled the location Virgil was at on the map.

Just as he finished that, he was also forwarded the names and locations of the two goons coming for him. “Convenient,” he said glancing at their current positions. Then he raised his arm as high as he could and threw the phone onto the ground. “Remus,” Janus said. “Remember all the times you’ve talked about wanting to blow this car to hell?”

“Yes!!” he said excitedly. “To be fair it’s any car, but yes!!!”

“Wait!” Roman said. “Why are we blowing up the car?”

“Distraction,” Janus replied. “The path they’re on should take them over Washington Bridge, so if we blow it up on that, it should delay them by quite a bit. Plus, mom can track it and they’ll probably loop back trying to find me.”

“Isn’t there, like, a better idea maybe?” Roman asked.

Remus reached over and put his hand over Roman’s mouth. “Shh, Roman, let me have this.” Roman shoved him away.

“We’ll go get one of your cars, drive mine to the bridge, and Remus can do his,” he waved his hand at him, “thing.”

“…I still don’t think.”

“Trust us, Ro-Ro.” Remus threw an arm around his shoulder.

“See, that makes me think this is even worse of an idea.”

“Look,” Janus bit out. “I know my mother and as soon as she figures out I’m fucking her over, they’ll be literally gunning for us. Blowing up the car will delay them as well as destroy the tracker and any information they can get from the car.”

“Okay,” Roman agreed, though he still didn’t seem comfortable with it. Apparently, he gotten all of the responsibility in the womb.

Speaking of… Remus had already taken the laptop and packed it back up before throwing it none to gently into the trunk. Roman winced, but Janus shrugged. It was going to get destroyed anyway. Janus couldn’t resist smiling at the excitement in Remus’s eyes as he slammed the trunk closed and made his way to the passenger seat.

“We’re taking my car though,” Roman insisted. “I’m not getting in his death trap.”

Having seen the car for himself, Janus nodded. “Agreed.”

They drove back to get Roman’s car and then Remus requested grabbing something from his own car.

“Why do you even have that in your car?!” Roman shouted from his car’s window as Remus unpacked explosives from his trunk.

“In case of emergencies!”

“What type of emergen-”

“This type!”

Janus just shook his head, and Remus packed the explosives into the trunk of Janus’s car and then himself into the passenger seat. Then they drove off towards the bridge only about 10 minutes away. Remus wiggled in excitement in his seat.

“Calm down,” Janus attempted to snap, but it just came out fond. Disgusting.

Remus just gave him a dopey smile.

Janus turned back to the road. “I hope you know this means your cover is blown as well.”

“Yeah, ah well, it was only a matter of time anyway,” he said, shrugging. “I will have to move though. That’s going to suck.”

Janus hummed noncommittally.

“Ooo, we should go in on an apartment together!”

Janus glanced over at him in surprise. “What?”

“And we can get a cat!” Remus said instead of answering him. “I love cats, but my current apartment won’t let me have one. That’ll be on the list of things to look for: an apartment that allows pets.”

“Why would we even be moving in with each other?” Janus asked.

“Well, you’re not going to be living with mommy dearest after today and we’re best friends.”

“We’re partners,” Janus replied blankly.

“And best friends!”

“I… you… we’ll discuss this later. I have too much to think about right now.”

Remus shrugged and startled rambling about how ‘big the bomb is going to be.’ Meanwhile, Janus did his best to firmly shoved the word “best friends” as far down as possible.

The arrived at the bridge quickly and Janus parked it in the middle of it; Roman parked at the other end of the bridge.

“Well, don’t leave anything in the car,” Janus said. Remus nodded, back to bouncing up and down in his seat at the prospect of the explosives.

Janus trusted Remus to know what he was doing with the explosives and simply walked away from his car towards Roman’s. There was a loud explosion when they were about 200 feet away from the car. Janus suppressed a flinch.

“You could have waited until we were completely off the bridge,” Janus commented mildly.

“But we look cooler like this,” Remus argued with a manic grin. “Plus, I saw a car coming towards the bridge on the other side and didn’t want them to get on the bridge before the explosion.”

Roman had his window rolled down when they approached. “Remus is in back.”

Remus put a hand over his heart like he’d been wounded. “I’m your brother. I should get shot-gun.”

“I am not allowing you access to the radio. I’ve been on too many road trips with you.”

“Dad’s the one who insists on playing a mix of geek rock and explicit rap music which he completely doesn’t understanding the lyrics of,” Remus pointed out with a pout.

“And I should have disowned the both of you years ago. Get in the back seat.”

“But…”

Janus ended the sibling dispute by getting in the passenger seat himself.

Remus grumbled as he got in the back seat. Janus opened the atlas and found them on the map. “Get on the interstate heading East,” he instructed Roman.

The question on how on Earth they were going to find Virgil when he was moving rather quickly crossed Janus’s mind, but he smothered it. They’d stop and do some investigation once they were closer to his current location. It would be fine.

Roman glanced over at him as he started to drive and sighed. “You may have control of the radio as passenger,” he offered. “Just, please do not betray me.”

Janus sent him a wry smile and let himself get distracted messing with the radio. He flipped through a few stations before landing on one that seemed to be devoted mostly to Latin pop.

“Yes,” Roman said. “A great decision.”

“No,” Remus whined when he stopped on that station and leaned back. “You’re supposed to find the one that annoys Roman the most. It’s in the spirit of the road trip.”

“That seems ridiculous,” Janus commented.

“It is,” Roman agreed.

“Noooo. Embrace the spirit of the road trip.”

“Well finding a station that Roman likes seems to annoy you the most. So, I guess I am ‘embracing the spirit of the road trip.’”

Remus made a mournful sound and Roman chortled. “You’re my new favorite person,” Roman said.

Janus found himself smiling despite himself.

“Just for that, I get naming rights for our cat,” Remus informed him seriously.

“What cat?” Roman asked.

“Janus and I are going to get an apartment together since his mom’s going to try to murder us both and we’re going to get a cat.”

“Ah,” Roman said as though that made total sense to him. Janus guessed growing up with Remus made it easy to accept such statements. “Don’t let him name it. He’ll name it something stupid.”

“I will not!”

“You tried to name our hamster Sexy Dorito!” Roman exclaimed and then looked at Janus. “Who names a hamster… who names anything Sexy Dorito??” he asked.

“The same person who accidently died his hair neon pink on a covert mission,” Janus answered.

“Hey!” Remus said, leaning forward to insert his face between the driver and passenger seats. “No!”

“Put your seatbelt on, Remus,” Janus ordered.

“Oh, you’ve got to tell me about that one,” Roman said.

“No! Don’t betray me, Janus!”

Janus did, in fact, betray him.

  Chapter 11

Virgil smiled awkwardly at the cashier when he entered the gas station. He went straight to the coffee to get Patton one. He went ahead and got the largest size cup because they were probably going to be a while and started to fill it up at the machine.

He… didn’t quite understand why the man was still going to be driving him when he didn’t have a knife on him, but hopefully it wasn’t a trick. It was probably a trick. He should probably tell the cashier he’d been kidnapped.

But then the cashier would definitely call the cops and knowing his mother Virgil would definitely be screwed.

So, instead, Virgil put the lid on Patton’s coffee and found that there was one plain donut with chocolate frosting still in the case. He grabbed that and then searched around the candy aisle for a bit. He finally settled on a pack of Red Vines and grabbed a blue raspberry slushie. If he was going to get axe murdered by some guy that kept a stuffed bear named Barnaby in his car, he was going to do so with a blue tongue.

He handed over the 20-dollar bill to the cashier and then gathered up the snacks and drinks to take them to the car.

He caught Patton with his phone in his hands while he was pumping gas. “Hey, what are you doing?” Virgil asked.

“Just sending a text to my brother so he doesn’t worry too much,” Patton replied quickly. Virgil gave him a suspicious look. When it became clear that Virgil wasn’t going to willingly take a step closer to the car after that, Patton sighed and held out his phone. “You can see,” he said.

Virgil set the drinks and snacks down on the hood of the car and took the phone. The phone indeed was open to just a string of emojis sent to someone called “Lo-Lo” in Patton’s phone. The string of emojis read (insert emoji string)

“There is… no way he’d understand that,” Virgil said. “I barely understand it and I lived it.” He paused. “I am not a baby.”

Patton snatched the phone back. “I didn’t say you were.”

“You typed ‘knife baby’ in emoji!” Virgil said.

“Baby with a knife actually,” Patton said unrepentant. He grabbed his coffee and donut off the hood of the car and opened the driver’s door to put the drink in the cup holder and the donut on the seat. Then, he went to finish up pumping the gas.

[brokenmusicboxwolfe]

Quick  catch up, including tonight and motel viewing during the trip....

Kong: Skull Island- As the Vietnam war ends an organization ( focused on hunting giant creaturesafter some historical encounters) sets out to a storm shrouded unexplored island with the help of the US military. Bombs get dropped to aide in “mapping” but instead it stirs up trouble. A very familiar pissed off giant ape smashes all the helicopters leaving two groups trying to reach their escape point. One group, containing a mercenary with a heart of gold and an anti-war photo journalist among others, meet up with a fella that’s been stuck on the island since WWII living with mysterious locals. He clues them in that Kong is actually the protector of humans, protecting the world from giant lizard creatures that keep crawling out from beneath the earth. Meanwhile the other group, headed by a military officer with no eagerness for peacetime, are making it their mission to kill Kong. Maybe that’s not such a good idea....

It’s a good old fashioned silly B movie on a blockbuster CGI extravaganza budget, Apocalypse Now with lots of kaiju battles. It’s loads of fun, well if you have any affection for giant monster movies anyway. Or if while watching Platoon you every wanted a giant spider creature to show up.  It’s pretty clearly aiming to kick off a franchise with that kaiju hunting organization, but for once I don’t mind the obviousness of the money grubbing. I enjoyed it’s dumb ol’ self too much! 

Val Lewton: The Man in the Shadows- It’s a solid, straightforward documentary about the creator/creative force behind classic horror films released by RKO (Cat People, I Walked With a Zombie, etc). Since I like the films in question I found it interesting.

Nocturnal Animals- Your standard issue dissatisfied immaculate, cynical artist rich gal gets a manuscript from her ex just as her equally coldly “sophisticated” current hubby is having an affair. The manuscript is the story of a man whose wife and daughter are brutally raped and murdered when the family encounters those psychopathic hicks that upper scale urban folks think are just waitin’ to pounce the second you are out of cell phone range. He sets out to see that the evil crazies responsible pay. This story serves as a hook for the hipper than thou city gal to reflect in her former relationship and get a kind of pay back. Loathesome, unsympathetic people in a hermetically austere privileged world crossed with a nasty and bleak story within a story creating an artfully stylishly filmed and well acted peice of snob crap where I want to smack everyone involved with a really big stick!

An Affair to Remember- Another movie where I want to hit everyone! A couple of charming stars play a couple who fall in love when they meet on a trip, but their romances is complicated by both being engaged to others. Surprise, it turns out their soon to be exes are astoundingly understanding. So how get a problem for the love  birds to face? 

Well, for starters they decide to to see or speak to each other for six months to test their affections, and if they meet at the selected time and place it means twu wuv. She gets hit by a car crossing the street and looses the use of her legs, but idiot girl thinks it’s better her beloved think he was rejected by her rather than know of her condition. 

Apparently being unable to walk is a fate worse than death, or some crap. She was a singer, but apparently being unable to walk means you have to give up singing professionally and instead rely on the charity of a preist to get you a job teaching singing to young children who warble all cutsey at the poor audience. Yes, not being able to walk makes you a thing to be pitied, unable to go spend a night on the town after your still pals ex takes you out to the theater, because apparently you have to walk to eat out or something. Oh, and that nice guy ex is rich and doesn’t just keep encouraging you tell your hurt twu wuv, but also offers to pay for magic cure all surgery. But no, you won’t take the help. You will only get the surgery when you save out of your meager salary, and you will only tell your twu wuv once you can walk.

She is an idiot!!

Well acted, well filmed, and I REALLY got disgusted with this bullshit. It isn’t romantic, but insulting to people who do have ambulatory issues and demonstrates a kind of martyr delusion selfishness on the part of the so called heroine!

Ransom!- The son of a rich business man gets kidnapped. Rather than pay the ransom he declares on tv he will offer up that same amount of money for the kidnappers dead or alive if the child is not returned. Fair enough. 

But he also believes forcably sedating his distraught wife, keeping her locked up in her bedroom under constant supervision in a drugged up haze, refusing to tell her anything about what is happening, and not allowing her any say at all in her decisions about her son’s fate is fair too. So to do the people around him, complying with his manly right to do what the hell he likes about the hysterical wife, never mind the fact she might not be so damned hysterical if she were treated with a bit of respect!

We are not supposed to question this, probably no more than in that (also 1950s) remake of The Man Who Knew To Much when the bastard hero husband forcably drugs his wife before telling her about their son’s kidnapping. It’s just background, expected, a demonstration of how women are these naturally hysterical creatures that the paternalistic society needs to “take care of” by taking away their mental faculties through sedation. 

I sooooo do not want to time travel to the ‘50s!

Experiment in Terror- Ok, I did enjoy this one. I’d also seen it before.

A woman that works in a bank is ambushed by a man in her own home. She never sees his face as he threatens not only her life but the life of her teenage sister if she doesn’t cooperate with his robbery plan. Despite her valid fear she contacts the authorities. While the the FBI attempt to hunt the baddie down, he continues to haunt her. When he abducts the sister it looks like the heroins will be forced to actually do what he wants, despite being smart enough to realize he will probably kill them both anyway....

It really is an excellent thriller. The heroine’s fear never keeps her from being smart, the FBI agent is determined but knows he might fail to protect her, no romance is shoehorned in, and the villian is truly unnerving.  Now they gave the baddie asthma as creepy way to signal his presence, but since my father was asthmatic that wouldn’t be enough to find him disturbing. (Though there was that one time when I was 6 and Pop was coming down the stairs in the dark that for a few moments freaked me out Darth Vader was there...) No, he’s creepy because of the sick pleasure he takes in tormenting his target. This isn’t just about the money for him: he’s having fun. And golly, it’s Ross Martin who played the lovable Artie in one of my fave shows, The Wild Wild West, as the sicko! It’s a one of those movies that if you come across it late night you always remember it, but if you rewatch it years later you aren’t disappointed.