#fuck even the current flash story has off shoot comics

[oifaaa]

black cat is written terribly in the current run though. like absolutely horrendous.

You are completely right there tbf I don't think the current spidy arc has been that great overall like I'm not a big fan or the set up to the big mystery that takes ages to even start to explain

[obey-me-rot]

You're Mine

A/N: I guess as a writing blog I should be doing some writing right? Honestly this has just been the biggest headcanon I've had in a while since I started playing Obey Me of the brothers just...like Devildom culture must be so different! And then the whole pact thing with human masters must be so different as well! I just view them as big animals just wanting to get your attention u wu. Warnings: Jealous boys, public shows of dominance and a lot of biting.

It's almost painful being in the Devildom sometimes.

A cultural exchange program amped up to 100 %.

As much as you loved the brothers, you also were meeting some pretty cool demons in RAD. Surely you were the human student everyone was so excited to meet, but none of them really talked to you, you know? But there were some that were brave enough to overlook your pact marks and dive into a conversation.

Even some were bold enough to talk to you out of school!

Making so many friends was so exciting, especially since you still thought of yourself as new! Wait till the brothers see how many new demons you have met!

Problem is you forgot how weird demon culture is, especially when it has to do with a demon and their master.

"MC?"

Lucifer blinks as he notices the demon approaching the two of you, pausing your daily walk with him as confusion turns to familiarity and you run up to greet your friend.

The first thing he notices is how they are a low ranking demon, so there’s no need to be hyper aware of any sort of threat. In this instance he doesn’t need to look to make sure his pact mark is visible to the demon.

His mark was embedded right in your iris, so anyone could see whose protection you were under.

He smiles politely as you turn around to introduce them, the demon waving at him shyly as if remembering that, yes, this human made a pact with Lucifer and therefore should not be messed with in any way. Yet there was no sort of violent tendencies coming from this demon, which put him at somewhat of an ease.

That is, until the demon takes a hold of your hand.

It’s a simple touch, one that a human would mistaken for a sign of friendship and camaraderie. The demon was speaking excitedly about a new flower they had seen over at the Botanical gardens and how much they wanted to show it off to you.They tighten their hold and Lucifer has to dig his fingernails into his palm from ripping their hand off.

You had no idea what it meant and the action would most likely scare you.

And Lucifer wanted you to trust him as much as possible.

“Would it be okay if Lucifer comes along?”

“...y--yeah! I don’t mind!”

Hesitation mixed with fake happiness, this demon really thought that he would get some time alone with you, didn’t they? They probably planned this whole thing out and whatever excitement they were showing you was just a front to hide their true intentions. Besides, look how they are hanging off of you, they want to make a pact with you so badly it’s almost disgusting.

Might as well get rid of the pest now.

“Come on MC, I want to show you the huge petals--!”

“OW!”

You and the demon look back to see Lucifer biting down on one of your fingers, your ring finger to be exact, while making eye contact with the pest. His teeth are not necessarily breaking skin but the pain of the bite made all your attention go back on him, turning around to tug your finger away and cradle it close. “Lucifer what the hell!”

He smiles and tells you not to worry about it, your retort falling on deaf ears as Lucifer’s eyes fall on the demon one more time. Their eyes are wide and they have immediately taken two steps back, their back as straight as a needle as Lucifer sends them one last look that lets them know of his intentions.

Leave now or I will gut you in front of my human.

You turn to apologize to your friend for putting them in such a weird situation but the demon is already long gone, no sign of them ever being in your presence as you look around aimlessly.

“They left...” you frown and look at Lucifer, “Next time at least warn me.”

“If I did then you would have probably forbidden me from doing so.”

The Avatar of Pride smiles as he takes your hand, interlacing his fingers with yours as you kept talking about how you would apologize the next day. But Lucifer wasn’t listening, he just kept staring at you as you talked, happy that his master wasn’t particularly mad.

That demon would have to learn to get his own, this human was already his.

He had finally gotten you all to himself.

Mammon had a photoshoot today, making you tag along so he could finally show off his modeling skills. And it would help him out as well. The product they were trying to sell did not appeal to him one bit and he just really needed you as inspiration.

And inspiration did you give.

“Oh gorgeous Mammon gorgeous! Lean back and close your eyes.”

The cameraman was giving him compliment after compliment, excellent after excellent, it was as if all eyes were on him at that exact moment. He smiled as he thought about how you must be looking at him. His shirt was open, letting the cloth hang off the side of the couch as the camera focused primarily on the low riding jeans that showed off the boxers he was promoting.

“Perfect! Perfect!! Now turn around and stare into the camera!”

His eyes opened and his head turned expertly, Mammon smiling as he tried to make eye contact with you--

Only to see that you were gone.

Camera flashes stop as he bolts up, turning to look for you before his eyes focused on your form.

There you were...talking with someone else.

“Mammon?”

He doesn’t stare at the cameraman, only gets up and stalks towards you and the demon currently holding up the lights. Both of you turn to face him, a voice speaking loudly about a five minute break as Mammon stands behind you and hugs you from behind, placing his chin right on your shoulder as he looks at the interloper.

“Are you taking a break?”

Mammon smiles as he buries his face in your shoulder, hugging you tight as the demon tells him he did a wonderful job. Without raising his head, Mammon speaks up.

“MC, who is this?”

“Oh right! Haven’t introduced you. He is a friend from RAD! We sit together in Pactology 101.”

“Well we used to sit together...”

“We talked way too much in class, didn’t we?”

It’s like nails on a chalkboard when he laughs, Mammon feeling glad that he was closer to you so he could hear the sound of your laughter instead of the ugly screeching of the intruder taking up your attention. Did this guy think he was stupid? That he couldn’t notice all the goddamn pheromones he was releasing? Mammon shakes his head back and forth, breathing in your scent heavily as he tries to leave his own behind.

This guy was embarrassing himself with how badly he wanted to form a pact with you.

“MC.”

“Oh oh, remember when the teacher caught us texting in class?”

“I think he might want to just put us back together cause we are still causing trouble!”

The Avatar of Greed frowns, did you not hear him?

“MC…”

“Well the teacher knows we are a good match, doesn’t he?”

“A match made in hell, I would say.”

Why was this guy still talking? Why were you still listening to him?

“MC….”

“Hey after this...would you want to go get some coffee, MC? If you’re not busy.”

“Nah, I only have this toda---FUCK!”

A pair of teeth tug at your earlobe, Mammon growling in your ear as he makes eye contact with the annoyance in front of him. He should be counting his lucky stars that you were still in the room, if Mammon found him anywhere else this demon would be nothing more than a meal for his familiars.

“MC, you have to stare at me or else I’m going to take longer.”

You rub at your ear as Mammon lets go of you, breaking eye contact with the other demon as he gives you his signature pout. He didn’t want you to see him be all scary, Mammon wanted you to see him like the number one demon he always tried to be for you.

“And you had to bite me because of that!?”

“Because you weren’t paying attention! You have to keep your eyes on me or else I’m not going to sell this stupid product. In fact--”

He drags you back to the couch, yelling at the cameraman that he would be posing with you so he could actually get through this photoshoot instead of doing a solo shoot. The man sighs but calls makeup to get you ready, Mammon smiling as he sits down right next to you.

The farther you were from that guy the better, all of his master’s attention needed to be on him after all.

Of course something like this would happen. Bad luck seemed to follow Leviathan wherever he went.

"Did you see the finale of it live?"

"I did!!! My movie theatre put it on the big screen and everything!"

Levi was glad that you were a nerd just like him. It was refreshing and probably one of the biggest reasons he had decided to make a pact with you.

Well, he had tried to kill you first and then make a pact with you but it was still a special story! Who would have thought that he would land himself a human master with his own interests!

Though he guessed that was a bad thing now.

He couldn't keep his thoughts in check as the clerk of the comic store kept talking to you, Levi annoyed that he couldn't keep up with the conversation you two had. It was about some comic cinematic universe that had been adapted in the human world and he honestly didn’t want to put anymore thought into it because of how close the clerk was getting.

Dammit he should have bought the new manga volume in Akuzon...but you had been so cute irl asking him to get the manga in this comic store you found,and if his master was begging him so cutely then what else could he do?

“I actually got the limited edition of this one movie--”

Nobody cared.

“It was up for a lot in Akuzon but I’m glad I got my hands on it--”

Stop talking!

“And I have a pretty cool viewing set up in the back--!”

Stop talking, stop talking, stop talking, stop talking to MC!

Levi frowns as you gush about the movie some more, glaring down at you for letting your attention stray from him. But why should he be surprised, of course your attention would stray. Him being the yucky otaku that he is, of course you would go with the demon who took his interest and actually turned it into a profit--

No.

No! It wasn’t your fault! It wasn’t even his fault! It was this demon’s fault!

Thinking they looked so cool with their most basic of interests. If Levi could expose them for the fraud that they were, MC would be able to see the absolute fool that this demon was making themselves out to be. Smiling a lot more, inching closer as they talked, even offering to take you to the back of the store--!

People may say what they want about Levi but at least he wasn’t this desperate to get on the good side of a human...at least the first time he met you.

His eyes fall on the back of your neck, hair conveniently placed out of the way as he remembered something Lucifer had discussed with him and Mammon after they had made their pact.

You will not think rationally when you are with them, make sure to monitor your actions so you don’t embarrass yourself.

That’s what he said but…

Surely Levi wasn’t going to embarrass himself more than this demon already has.

“This is the one with the symbiote creature, right? And you got the bonus deleted scenes! Honestly I would be so down with watching it right--EEP!”

Levi made sure to let his tongue lick the back of your neck first before biting down, wanting to make the bite as painless as possible. Although he guessed that not making you feel pain was out of the question as he felt you tense up, his tongue swiping against your nape one last time as he pulled back and tugged on the back of your shirt.

“MC let’s go. They don’t have it.”

You turn to look at Levi, hand on the back of your neck as you tell him that he could have gotten your attention in any other way, but he knew for a fact that he had made his point across with the demon in front of him.

Summoning Lotan in his own home was one thing, summoning Lotan in a store would probably cost a lot…

Even if he knew brothers wouldn’t blame him with how nauseatingly this demon was trying to approach their master.

“MC, here.”

Satan breaks his pencil, but it seems the two other people don’t seem to notice.

“And it's the first edition too, but I took it out just for you.”

You smile and mention about how you didn’t need anything fancy for the assignment, just a simple book that talked about Devildom history. Which Satan agreed, this bug was acting like he owned the entire Royal Library. A pass to get a first edition title wasn’t that rare of a fucking find--if he wanted, Satan could call up any of his connections and get about 16 copies of different first edition titles that spoke not just about the Devildom history but about whatever the hell topic he could get his hands on.

This guy wasn’t that special yet he was acting like he had just given you the world on a silver platter.

The demon sat down at the table you and Satan were studying at, looking at you the entire time he explained how to open the book and how to make sure it stays in its pristine condition.

Which made Satan break another pencil.

From what you had mentioned, this guy was just someone you knew from RAD. You labeled him as the ‘smartest person in the class’. Which was a bit of an insult on his part but he guessed that as long as he wasn’t the one in your class it didn’t count as an insult towards his person.

He, of course, being the smartest demon you know.

But Satan didn’t have to be the smartest demon in RAD to know what this nuisance was doing.

If he were to read you any book on Devildom demonology, certain demons needed a human master. This insect in front of you would count as one of them. Lower demons usually tend to be without guidance and need a soul to feed from. In comes a human master, being able to fulfill that need with a pure soul of their own. The demon feeds and in return, develops a sort of ‘affection’ towards their master since they are now the hand that feeds them.

The same couldn’t be applied to Satan or his brothers, however. As the seven demon lords, they are able to gain the sustenance they need from the feed of other lower demons under the sin they were made in.

They are free to form pacts, but it’s not like they need it.

A good metaphor would be that they are essentially ‘picking off the plate’ of the lower demons, making the lower demons only cause minimal casualties up in the human world as they feed and keeping the seven lords from going feral with hunger.

Of course, things were different now. Satan had you now, a human all of his own.

Essentially, someone was trying to ‘take a bite’ of his favourite food, and Satan hated sharing.

Friends be damned, politeness be damned, he needed to show this demon his place.

“Isn’t it fascinating? The cover was made with a demon’s skin.”

“....really?”

“Yes. I believe it was from recently dead demon’s during the first Celestial War. Do you want to feel?”

You nod, curious about the black and shiny cover as the demon holds out his hand for you to take--

Only for you to yelp as Satan takes it first, dragging your hand back so it would be close to his lips as the Avatar of Wrath’s teeth bite at the skin near your wrist. You hiss in pain at the sudden sharpness, quickly pulling your hand back and staring at your demon as he gives the annoyance one last pointed stare.

“That is how demons started their pacts before we arrived in the Devildom, wasn’t it?”

The demon nodded slowly, his eyes darting to the mark on your wrist and then back at Satan. He opened his mouth to try and speak up but seemed to decide better against it, giving you one last smile as he stood up. “...I’ll...I’ll go get you the second volume. That one might include more accurate and updated information on pact markings.”

Satan smiles and nods as he scoots his chair close to you, looking back at you tracing the mark on your wrist with a frown before putting all your attention back on him.

“Did demons really used to form pact marks like this?”

The Avatar of Wrath shrugs.

“I was only guessing, he was the one who left thinking it was the truth. Here, let’s go look for a book on our own.”

Asmo would like to think that he had perfected the fake smile to the point he could keep it up for an indeterminate amount of time.

“MC! Try this!”

Yet the corners of his mouth twitched as he watched one of your friends, who happened to be a store clerk at Majolish, open the door to your dressing room to hand you another outfit they had picked out. And it wasn’t a bad outfit--!

Just...did they have to keep opening the door every single time?

Granted, he shouldn’t be in your dressing room in the first place but he insisted he would stay since you were only trying some shirts on! It wasn’t like he was seeing anything inappropriate and your pants were staying on the entire time.

This sight was okay for him because he was your demon and you were his master.

So it wasn’t right that some random nobody kept coming in to hand you shirts that they thought looked cute on you! That’s what you had Asmo for!

Yet here he was, secluded to sit down on the little chairs that someone would usually toss the unwanted clothes they wouldn’t buy. Which was already doing horrible things for his self-esteem.

“I learned a couple of things by working here. See? The color really matches your hair.”

The Avatar of Lust scoffs when he hears that. What exactly did the demon learn? How to match colors? Oh look, someone learned the basics of the color wheel, someone give them a medal.

“And since you are wearing something long at the bottom, it’s only fair that you go with something short on top.”

This demon is going to win an award for making basic observations, Asmo could already see it. What a future they had ahead of them.

“These colors are summery too so...it goes great with the weather!”

Oh he wants to gag, Asmo’s heard enough.

“You don’t think it’s too revealing? I do like the color though…”

Before the demon can answer, Asmo grabs your shoulders and pulls you back to him with a smile as he makes you look in the mirror.

“I think it’s revealing enough for the summer look you are going for...except can you maybe get it in a light pastel? Any color would do it just needs to be a pastel color if we want it to go with the light color of your bottoms.”

The demon deflates at the sudden lack of contact with you but nods as they step out, waving goodbye and stating once again how ‘gorgeous’ you looked. Which Asmo guessed was the only compliment they had in their arsenal.

Gorgeous didn’t even begin to describe you.

“I did like this color, Asmo. Does it not look good?”

“No it looks perfect on you! But--”

He tugs on the floral print top and smiles as he wraps his arms around your shoulders.

“Floral prints are extremely last season and I want you to be on a more neutral type of clothing. Just simple colors. This way we can add some jewelry--some of my own creation of course.”

Asmo smiles when you giggle, fixing your top and looking at yourself in the mirror a couple more times as you mumble to yourself about how Devildom summers seem rather temperate compared to the ones you were used to and how you wouldn’t need anything sleeveless.

Damn the Devildom summers, if they could even be called that at all.

His ears twitch as he hears the pest start to make their way back, Asmo’s smile dropping slowly as he looks down at your neck. This was the spot they kept staring at, wasn’t it? Shame it wasn’t decorated--

But he could fix that~ “I found some other colors that would go well with you MC, do you want to--”

“OW OW OW!”

Asmo’s teeth are right on your neck, turning to look back at the clerk with a smile and a little wave as he hums at the way you clench and unclench your fingers while looking at him through the mirror, wanting to ask just why he was doing this but the pain keeping you quiet. It was cute how much you were hurting but how you were doing absolutely nothing to stop him. This could technically mean that you approved of what he was doing, correct?

He lets go as the clerk immediately closes the door, you calling out for your friend but Asmo brings you back and makes you look at the mirror one more time.

“There we go. That’s a pretty mark, right MC? An Asmodeus Limited Edition item, just for you~”

If this kept happening, Beel was going to eat this demon.

“You need to try some Devildom food, MC! I promise it's good!”

Beel stomach growls again as you laugh, ignoring the parfait in front of you. He gives you a tap on the shoulder and your attention is right back to him. “Oh sorry, Beel. Here!” You scoop up the delicious frozen treat and feed it to him, Beel smiling as he takes another two bites of his hamburger and watches you and your friend talk. He actually had no idea that you had any friends in RAD and was happy to see that at least some demons were treating you nicely, compared to theo ones who had teased you when you first arrived.

Well he said teased, more like threatened to eat you.

He figured you would make friends fast though, you were nice and all the demons here were already attracted to human souls so it was bound to happen that one of them would have the courage to talk to you.

Yet this one seemed rather...eager.

“How about this. Hell’s Kitchen serves good food but I know this awesome corner in the wall place we can get some grilled bat sandwiches. Guts and everything.”

His stomach growls again, he knew of the place this demon was talking about and would most likely want to take you there himself if you ever asked.

Beel takes another two bites before waiting for you to feed him the parfait.

Nothing.

He frowns and stares at you again, the demon keeping your attention all to himself as you spoke about how you didn’t necessarily want to eat anything with guts in it. His eyes went to the parfait, watching some of the perfectly placed scoops slowly melt and droop down on the plate.

MC, pay attention to him!

This was his time with you! He didn’t mind if someone else stepped in and he was glad you were making friends but this demon was interrupting his mealtime!

He ate his burger, you fed him ice-cream, this is how it had always worked!

People could say what they wanted but Beel was a creature of habit, and he was in the habit of having you feed him.

Not just that, he was in the habit of having your attention all on him when it was his time to hang out with you.

Wasn’t this demon just being a bother? Didn’t you also want them gone?

They kept talking about all the stuff that clearly grossed you out, seemingly delighted with your reactions as they kept trying to egg you on to say yes to an outing. If it wasn’t for the fact that you were smiling the entire time, Beel would have already made the move to unhinging his jaw and--

“I promise I’ll treat you to the best ghost pepper pizza you’ve ever had. You’re free after this, right?”

Beel’s stomach growls, whether in hunger or anger Beel wouldn’t be able to say. All he knows is that this demon is bad news for both him and you.

So what would be the quickest way to make him back off?

“I’m not but I can take a raincheck--!”

You drop the spoon you were holding as Beel bites your cheek, throwing the demon one quick glimpse before letting out a few sounds that seemed to make up your name. The demon stares at you and Beel as the Avatar of Gluttony pulls away from you, licking his lips as you slowly put a hand on your cheek and turn to look at him.

“The parfait is gonna melt. I want another bite.”

“Beel…”

Eyes turn to the demon once again, Beel frowning as he takes a hold of your hand underneath the table.

“Please leave. If MC is going to eat Devildom food then they’ll eat it with me. The only thing you are going to do is gross them out.”

“So what did you want to talk about?”

Belphie frowned as your fingers gently played with his hair. That is not what he had asked for when he asked to lay on your lap. Belphegor wanted the usual way you would comb through his hair, both of you gently whispering to each other as the planetarium ambience lulled him to sleep.

“Well...uhm...I wanted to ask something important.”

And who the hell was this person? He peeked up to look at you smiling at the screen, frowning that you still didn’t seem to notice you were doing a shit job at giving him the attention he needed. Whoever this was had been on the line with you for a good solid ten minutes, talking about useless subjects such as their day and what they had for lunch. If anything, Belphegor had no idea how this thing was taking your attention. You were doing most of the talking anyway, they should just hang up and leave you alone to pay attention to your demon.

“We’ve known each other for a while.”

Belphegor most likely knew MC for longer...maybe.

“And honestly I haven’t met a human like you before. You just...I just expected humans to be something and you aren’t that so it threw me off.”

The Avatar of Sloth yawns as he buries his head in your lap, smiling at the darkness he found in the small crook of your thighs. He yawns again and closes his eyes to try and fall asleep but the grating voice of the demon on the phone was sending nothing but warning signals to his brain.

“So I wanted to ask something I didn’t think I would ask a human before.”

He really wanted to yell ‘get to the point’ or ‘hang up the phone’ but he knew that you would most likely shush him and tell him to be patient, which would then result in you gently pushing him away so you could talk somewhere more private. And he wasn’t ready to lose his favourite pillow just yet.

So he continued listening, tracing random shapes on your thighs as he felt his eyelids start to droop.

“I know you have seven pacts already…”

Damn straight.

“But would an eight be too much for you?”

That wakes Belphegor right up, eyes wide open and head turned to face up at you to see your reaction. Of course you would be surprised, this demon really had the guts to ask the current master of the Seven deadliest demons in the Devildom for a pact?

You better be grateful that Belphegor found comfort in your lap and would prefer to stay here, rather than go break the neck of the demon insolent enough to try to take his master away.

So go ahead, reject him.

“A pact? With me?”

What were you doing?

Don’t give him such a hopeful answer! Belphegor had to share you with six other demons constantly and those demons were his siblings! He was okay sharing with Beel but he drew the line at anyone else! Adding an eighth demon to that would be like asking for a bloodbath, a bloodbath with only one target.

Belphegor frowned as the demon started talking again, stuttering and jumping over his words like he was a dog who asked to eat their masters table. Which essentially he was, not like there was room for him anyway.

“I know I’m not like those brothers--”

Damn straight.

“But making a pact with you would make me really happy...is what I am trying to say.”

He wants to gag.

A part of him couldn’t blame the demon, you were perhaps the best master a demon could ask for, but you were already t a k e n.

And you were to blame too, you know?

You weren’t rejecting him like you should. The face you were making was far too surprised and flattered at the proposition given to you. Were you that greedy? Had Mammon rubbed off on you? You had seven of the most powerful demons under your command, what more could you possibly want?

As a master, you were doing a bad job at rejecting this insect and an even more horrible job at not paying attention to the actual demon you were tied to.

He turns his head back to the darkness of your thighs, feeling you shift as you also struggle to find an answer. This was becoming too much, if Belphegor didn’t act fast you were most likely going to say yes, just because you didn’t know any better!

Fuck it, you could try to push him off but Belphegor would hold on tightly, he had to save you from your mistake.

“Uhm. Well that is honestly really flattering. And eight pacts wouldn’t be so bad--”

You slap a hand over your mouth, your teeth biting into your tongue as you look down at the demon nipping at the inside of your thigh. Belphie looks up innocently, batting his eyelashes at you as he bites down a little harder--

“I’ll-try-to-have-an-answer-for-you-later-got-to-go-bye!”

Fingers hurry to end the call as Belphegor quickly lets go, smiling as you gape down at him.

“I was in the middle of a call!”

“I know.”

“Then what was that about!?”

The Avatar of Sloth shrugs as he closes his eyes.

“You weren’t paying attention to me. It made me mad.”

You sigh and lean back, Belphegor waiting for a few moments before smiling as he feels your fingers combing through his hair.

“Next time,just talk to me, Belphegor.”

He would have answered, but that would make him promise something he most likely was not going to do.

[popculturebuffet]

Static Shock: Shock to the System and Aftershock Review

“You know what? 13 years ago, me and some friends sat in a restaurant all night and daydreamed about the kinds of stories we would tell if we had the chance. We wanted to expand the concept of superhero to include characters that kind of looked like us, who had some of the same background, experiences and dreams as we did. We wanted to create something fun that a new generation would respond to the same way we responded to our childhood heroes -and damn if we didn't succeed beyond my wildest dreams. Today, Static Shock is a household name with millions of fans of all ages (Is there stuff I'd do differently? Yeah, almost all of season four but why nitpick?) Static is the most successful thing I've ever helped create and I'm both proud and gratified that people have taken it into their hearts. “ 

Dwayne McDuffie, Co-Creator of Static and Writer for Static Shock

This review is dedicated to Dwayne McDuffie and Robert L. Washington III.                                                        Rest In Power Static Shock is awesome. I grew up with the show watching it both first run on the WB and second run on Cartoon Network and loved it as much as I did other large parts of my childhood courtsey of DC like Batman the Animated Series, Teen Titans and both Justice League Shows. What makes this unique among the DC Properties is that Static wasn’t really a big name when he got a show. He wasn’t even part of the DC Universe. 

See as I had no idea for probably a good decade, Static actually came from Milestone Comics, a company ran by and focused on african americans. The goal was understandable: While black heroes existed at the time, and there were some fantastic ones like Storm, Jim Rhodes and Steel... these guys weren’t the center of their universes. The big faces of the big  companies, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Hulk, Iron Man, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash.. were white. So milestone was a shakeup of that with the main teams and heroes all being black, from Icon, an alien who’d lived among man but rather than end up in kansas like say superman ended up imprinting on a slave woman centuries ago and has been with us since, who was encouraged by an energetic teenager named Rocket to put on a costume and do something with his powers and his community, Hardware, a tech genius who had his work stolen by a white asshole and wanted to fight back and BLood Syndicate, a group of gang members all caught in the “The Big Bang”, a huge fight between all of Dakota, the midwest city where the comics take place, that ended when the police released a bunch of experimental gas that gave them all super powers. 

As most of you who have watched the show already know, this is where Static comes from. Static was the company making their own Spider-Man, i.e. a nerdy teenager who suddenly gets super powers, in this case Virgil Hawkins who at the prodding of a friend took a gun to The Big Bang to get revenge on a bully. .but ultimately couldn’t go through with it, decided it wasn’t him and got rid of the gun and ran.. and still ended up in it, becoming Static, a young hero dedicated to using his powers to fight other “Bang Babies”.. a term that dosen’t really sound that great and they really should’ve thought through. But Phrasing aside the character was great and I look forward to reading more and only haven’t because I have to buy the issues gradually, but DC is currently re-releasing the individual issues of Static, Icon, and Hardware weekly in anticipation of a reboot of Milestone Coming in May digitally on Comixology at only 2 bucks a pop, and rereleased the original print collections that were long out of print for 10 bucks each, though i’m getting static on it’s own since i’ts really not that much less expensive as it only collects four issues while Icon and Hardware both collect 8, so I can wait a bit there on Hardware and already own Icon: A Hero’s Welcome.. and really need to review it at some point. 

While Milestone’s output was good, at least from the two books i’ve read, with Robert Washinton III, who sadly not only ahs also passed but was fucking homeless for a while  in the 2000′s.. what the actual hell, writing Static alongside Dwayne McDuffie, whose later moved onto animation writing tons of Static episodes all of them classics including the school shooting episode, the first three rubberbandman episodes and both Anasazi episodes. Point is it had good writers and artists and even had a distrbution deal with DC, so they had a leg up on the glut of other comic book companies.. but happened to start at the start of the comic book crash, a huge downturn in sales in the 90′s as the speculator boom, i.e. a bunch of people assuming every number one would be worth golden and silver age money, forgetting a character has to BUILD INTREST and this stuff takes time, and whose attempts to sell fast flooded the market with comics no one wanted,, caused the roof to cave in and with a bunch of assholes pegging milestone as a “Company for black people” rather than you know, a company trying to add fucking diversity and represntation to the comics industry, and that simply wanted a unvierse that was centered around people of color instead of white guys. The company eventually had to shut down, and was left to lisencing.  This is where the show comes in. Producers HAD been trying to make shows based on Milestone for a while, as far back as the mid-90s and the company was was all for it but the closest it got was an x-men style team series using various characters whose first draft was terrible and whose second draft by Alan Burnett, a producer on various DC Animated shows who’d go on to produce Static Shock, that McDuffie and others really liked but sadly did not get picked up. eventually though with presistance Static ended up getting a series and as I said McDuffie went on to write for it though he did not develop it. Some changes went into place naturally to make it work for an early 2000′s kids show and while i’ll probably miss so since again, only read one issue as we go. But due to Milestone coming back my intrest was peaking, hence finally reading the copy of Icon I had to buy from the library years ago due to keeping it overdue but am now EXTREMLEY glad I own as i’ts incredibly rare and really damn good, and wanting to read static, doing so lately since it’s finally on digtiial and again not too expensive. So join me as I give you a shock to the system and revisit this hell of a series to see if it holds up.. which just to cut that short it does and i’m only holding off binging MORE because I want the first two eps to be fresh enough in my head to review properly.. and also go over the various voice actors because that’s a thing with me now and charcter co-creator dwayne mcduffie because he’s awesome. 

As I like to do when covering a series first episodes, let’s run down the voice cast. 

First up is an UTTER LEGEND, and I use the term voice acting legend a lot, and mean it every time and have good reason to use it when I say it, and Phil LaMarr is a GOD in the buisness, having done a metric ton of voice acting roles, and being easily the most proflific black voice actor in animation. He’s also done some acting work, mostly in pulp fiction which I have not seen, but his true staying power and talent is in animation so here’s just the roles I feel are most notable or may not be very notable but i’m bringing up anyway because it’s my list. 

His roles besides Virgil include Lester Payton the Texas Ranger who showed up for one very good episode of king of the hill to be badass and show up the hickish, stupid and very punchable local Sheriff, Gearld’s obnoxious older brother Jamie O on Hey Arnold, Hermes Conrad from futurama, Carver from the Weekenders (PUT IT ON PLUS DISNEY), Axel Foley for exactly one bit in Clerks the Animated Series, but anyone whose seen it will know exactly which one, Micheal on the Proud Family, Black Vulcan on Harvey Birdman (In His Pants), Hector Con Carne and Dracula on Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy and Evil Con Carne, Jack on Samurai Jack something I didn’t know for decades (and I didn’t know about the carver thing till today though i’ts obvious in hindsight), John Motherfucking Stewart on Justice League and later Steel and Adult Static in the Unlimited seasons, Osmosis Jones on Ozzy and Drix, Bolbi Strogofski on Jimmy Neutron (And yes i’m just as shocked as you are.), Wilt on Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, Marcus on Life and Times of Juniper Lee, Bull Sharkowski on My Gym Partner is A Monkey and Also a Sociopath Please Help God My Life is a waking nightmare..... okay the rest of that title is implied but we all watched the same show, we all know in our hearts that was the title

Moving on, he was also, and yes there’s MORE: Maxie Zeus on The Batman, Philly Phil on Class of 3000, Both Robertsons AND Fancy Dan on the Spectacular Spider-Man, Jazz on Transformers Animated, Kit Fisto and Bail Organa on Star Wars the Clone Wars, Gambit and Bolivar Trask on Wolverine and the X-Men, Aquaman I, L-Ron and Green Beetle on Young Justice, J.A.R.V.I.S. and Wonder Man (Simon Williams) In Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, Gabe and Carny on Kaijudo: Rise of the Duel Masters (Really miss that game and have been snapping up what cards I can get lately), Baxter Stockman in the 2012 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (And there’s also an awesome photo of him with 2003 Baxter... the two best together in one place. I got chills), Dormammu (I’ve come to bargin) in various Marvel Shows, Noville in Mighty Magiswords, Zach’s dad Marcus in Milo Muprhy’s Law, Craig’s Douchey Brother Benard on Craig of the Creek, showing he’s clearly come full circle, And Mr. Scully on the Casagrndes. And given It took about two paragraphs to cover all of this, yeah, I MEANT legend. 

Next we have Kevin Micheal Richardson as Virgil’s Dad Robert, and it’s the first time since I started introducing Voice Actors on a show that i’ve overlapped. I already covered him during the second episode of legend of the three caballeros, but for the short version he’s also very acomplished, very damn good and I somehow missed he played the old blind guy in hey arnold> Needless to say the dude is awesome. 

Virgil’s Sister Sharon is played by Michele Morgan who was in the rap group BWP and did some smaller roles outside of this the one exception being Juicy on the PJ’s, which I have not watched much of but REALLY do not like, though i’ll at least give it credit for being a decently long lasted black claymation sitcom at at time when there were, and hoenstly still aren’t, many black animated shows. 

Back to long casting sheets, next up is Jason Marsden, who is one of my faviorites as i’ve realized recently as Ritchie. As I also found out only recently he started on the Sitcom Step By Step and while that show is .. ehhhhhhhhh, he is great in it because he’s great in everything. He also apparently has his own internet variety show which I have to watch now. His roles include Max Goof, ironically given I was just talking about that role a few days ago, Haku in the english dub of Spirted Away, Micheal, the kid being yelled at by a bunch of 80′s cartoons characters not to take drugs in Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue!, Nermal in the DTV Garfield movies and The Garfield Show, Tino on the Weekenders (SERIOUSLY DISNEY), Snapper Carr on Justice League, Rikochet on Mucha Lucha! for the last season (Why I do not knkow and while I love the guy he was not the right choice), Felix on Kim Possible, Chase Young on Xiaolin Showdown (WHich I did not realize was him and now I do easily his best role and I REALLY should’ve), Red Star and Billy Numerous on Teen Titans, Speedy on Batman Brave and the Bold, Impulse/Kid Flash II on Young Justice, and Fingers on Kaijudo. He hasn’t done as much lately which is a shame but hopefully i’tll pick up again. 

Next up is Hotstreak, Virgil’s brutal bully turned unhinted pyromancer played by DANIEL COOKSY, another actor i’m happy to talk about and another faviorite I haven’t seen much of lately. Daniel was an actor from childhood, playing Budnick on Salute Your Shorts, but he quickly gained a long and storied catalogue of VA Work: His first big roll was as Montana Max on Tiny Toon Adventures and if there is a god he’ll be back for the reboot, Stoop Kid on Hey Arnold, the incomprable Jack Spicer on Xiaolin Showdown, far and away his best role and part of why Chronicles sucked so bad was he was he didn’t get to reprise the role, The titular Dave the Barbarian, Django of the Dead on El Tigre (Had no idea), Kicks utterly insufferable big Brother Brad on Kick Buttowski and apparently he’s back at it again after laying low for a bit as he’s voicing Snag in Long Gone Gultch.. which I already really needed to watch but hot damn, I missed him. Sign me up. 

Frieda, Virgil’s crush and close friend who in the comics was his main confidante and love intrest but here is eventually pushed aside, is voiced by Danica Mckeller whose work didn’t seem all that familiar.. until I found out she was Ms. Martian on Young Justice. Hello, Megan. Very talented and she did get a major role in a dc show eventually so good for her. Can’t wait for season 4. 

So with our major players out of the way,  let’s talk about Dwayne. McDuffie is an AWESOME man and my respect has grown for him more and more with time. A writer and editor at Marvel, McDuffie has a decent resume doing smaller but awesome books, which I got most of for free last year when Marvel was giving out free digital collections due to the lock down, like Damage Control, a sitcom set in the marvel universe about the company that picks up after superhero battles and the logistics and antics that insue and Dethlok, about a pacfist trapped inside a cyborg zombie. He was as mentioned one of Milestone’s founders, and wrote Icon, Hardware and co-wrote the first few issues of Static. He’d go on to a pretty stacked career in animation, writing on this show and Justice League before becoming  story editor and show runner for Unlimited , even making a return to comics as a result writing the Marvel miniseries beyond and an arc of Fantastic Four in which Black Panther and Storm filled in for Reed and Sue while the two of them worked on their marriage after Reed did.. pretty much everything he did in Civil War. He also became head writer and show runner for Ben 10: Alien Force and Ultimate Alien, revamping the franchise a bit, and Alien Force, at least the first two seasons are awesome and I feel people overreacted on the changes. Ultimate Alien is okay, but has it’s problems but the finale was awesome and left the man’s legacy on a high note.. as he sadly passed in 2011 due to heart complications. He is truly missed and produced some utterly amazing stuff whlie he was alive. So on that melacholy note let’s see what happens when his creation hits the tv screen shall we?

Shock to the System:

This episode is written by Christopher Simmons, who is apparently a huge art designer guy.. but i’m not sure that’s the same chirsptoher simmons. Much more notable is the writer of the episode after this Stan Berkowitz, who was showrunner for season 1 and has done a LOT of DCAU work and is suprising talent, having written a lot of awesome Justice League episodes including Secret Society and The Royal Flush One. Point is we’re in first class hands.  Before the episode itself I want to talk about the intro and how it’s unique among DCAU shows. Like most Western Animation the intros for DCAU shows didn’t change much over the seasons with the most I can see is JLU changing up the footage to preview the current episode and later adding Hawkgirl to the intro after her return to the team. I THINK superman the animated series changed some of it’s footage too, but I can’t confrim it and may of just been imagining it. As i’ve talked about on my blog it’s normally a pet peeve of mine, mostly because shows you know, change after season 1, characters get added some one shot characters used for the intro never return, and after a while it can feel dated especially in more recent shows where the status quo is not at all set in stone and things change quite a bit. But sometimes it can be good enough that either the dated elements don’t matter or general enough that you don’t need to change it and i’ts just that good.. and given Batman the Animated Series has both in spades, you can see why i’ts probably my golden standard for intros and after superman the animated series DC mostly followed suit. But being part of the teen superhero boom of the 2000′s Static is unique in that it splits the diffrence: It’s intro gets the character across perfectly like a good intro should starting with Virgil getting out of bed and running a comb across his head before showing off to his sister to bug her and literally running into his dad who hand shim his bag and smiles, silently showing off his family. He then runs to school and runs into some trouble.. and said trouble changes for each intro, with Rubberband Man for season 1, Kanga (Whose name I only know because I happened to run across it) for season 2 and your guess is as good as mine for seasons 3 and 4, though Hotstreak is a constant. They still save some money for seasons 1 and 2 by recycling some animation.. but that’s alright with mea s it was good animation, and the improtant thing is cycling out old villians for new ones, while Season 3 is the only out and out redo to show off Richie taking on the Gear identity, adding about 10 seconds of intro to let him show off.  Seriously it’s an utterly great intro and like the other DCAU intros outside of superman, stuck in my brain. 

The other change that’s ENTIRELY diffrent from the rest of htem is that the music changes each time. The first two have the same formula just with a difrent vocalist and backing track: a superhero theme but with some hip hop beat boxing over it. The first intro is fine enough, not specattcular but stilll god. The second song.. is eh. Not really great and feels like a marked downgrade from season 1 and just dosen’t blend an ocrehstiral superhero theme with the beatbox elements NEARLY as well. The third song though is my faviorite.. even if I HATED Little Romeo as a  kid because I really did not like his nick show, it’s more a straight up rap song, but it has a faster beat that fits the intro better, and Romeo’s bragging fits Virgil’s character and penchant for Spidey quips perfectly. I also find it ironic that the theme that blends in with the dcau the most, the first season’s, is the one from BEFORE they decided to put it in the same universe. Still this season’s intro slaps, I just like the LIttle Romeo one a bit more.  The opening scene is picture perfect. Some masked crooks looting a warehouse are loading some stolen TV’s into a van when suddenly the lights come on one by one above one of the crooks before his tv switches to various channels before going haywire. Cue our heroes’ entrance. Let’s tak ea good look at him

Static’s Costume is awesome. While I prefer the season 3 redesign, and clearly DC agrees as the redeisgn was used for both pre and post new-52 when they used him, and while he’s getting a fresh design for the reboot, said design takes a lot of cures from said outfit. As for how the outfit differs from the comics itself  this is the design he had in the comics

It didn’t change much from the first issue, with the exception of his now iconic big puffy jacket which was added pretty early into the character’s history but I was unaware of that and just assumed he had the bodysuit the whole time. The more you know. But as you can see outside of the cool puffy jacket over a costume the two couldn’t be more diffrent. While the Dakotaverse outfit is more a standard superhero outfit, with some regular clothes touches on top the first cartoon outfit comes off more realistic, looking fantastic, but still coming off as something two teenagers could realistically have thrown together with what clothes they could buy, while still looking awesomely superheroy. IN short it’s perfect and only topped by the season 3 onward look...

But the slicker look, with an even cooler jakcet and the new colors all fitting the lighting ascetic better, but fits: not only has Virgil come along farther since he started, but with Richie now having a genius brain as Gear, he can provide a far slicker, far more professional superhero outfit on the budget the two have.  This show is just great  at costume design. 

So getting back to the episode at hand, Static puts up a huge sign in elecrticy saying “Bad guys here”, PFFFT, and then hides away and narrates that a few days ago he’d be the last person anyone would’ve expected to be a hero. Cue Flashback. 

We meet Virgil Hawkins on an average day: rapping into his razor, getting into a petty argument with his older sister Sharon, as a younger brother myself I relate to this, and talking to his dad who tries to get them to cut that out. We find out his mom has passed via his sister making really terrible eggs and saying that’s how mom made them. Exposition! Though we do get a great bit through this as when his sister gets distracted by her boyfriend calling, he uses the opportunity of her leaving the room to dump the eggs.. after having earlier jokingly prayed to his mom for a way out of breakfast. “Thanks for looking out for me mom” That’s both very sweet and very hilarious. 

This is a change from the comics it turns out as I was utterly flored to find Virgil’s mom alive and well when reading the first issue of Static. Turns out this was a change made during development and one Dwane McDuffie admitted in the interview I got the tribute quote from to not liking as he had a good reason for having Virgil have a nuclear family, as most black families in media at the time were just one single parent and a kid or two with the other having either left or died. He wasn’t too bothered by it as while he preferred what he came up with in the first place, the show DID get some really good stories out of her being gone and didn’t just have her be absent because shut up. Virgil is still working over her death and the way HOW she died ends up playing an important role in this episode and gives Virgil a dislike of guns, as she died to gang violence. So the change wasn’t for stupid or racist reasons, but likely both to keep the character count down while giving them something to work with for storylines. Or it could’ve been for stupid reasons and the writers simpily made lemonade out of that very dumb lemon, either way it ended up working.  Virgil also plans to ask his friend Frieda out. Frieda was a bigger deal in the comics, being Virgil’s friend and confidante as well as his ocasional love intrest, but here while she was inteded to at least be his love intrest here, that sorta fizzled out. As for the best friend role we meet her replacement in Richie, which McDuffie conceded was the kind of change a studio would make swapping out a female character for a male one. That being said the crew made the best of it and Richie is awesome, a bit of an overcompensating dipstick at times, but a good sounding board and pal for virgil and funny as hell too. He was also gay, something only revealed post series by McDuffie.. but unlike say Dumbledore, it’s a bit easier to swallow here: The early 2000′s were an even worse time for gay characters in tv let alone cartoons, and if they couldn’t kiss or have sex scenes on regular tv, there was no way we were getting any representation in a children’s show. So it was largely just hinted at by Richie overcompensating in how “into girls” he was and i’m once again fine with this being word of god as it was literally the best they could do and his counterpart in the comics was also gay, if not as relevant.  Ritch encourages Virgil to work on his opening to ask her out as it’s awkward as heck, hits a bit close to home.. but I do appricate the show just .. having him try and ask her out from the first episode. They likely would’ve drug thigns out a bit granted had they used Frieda more, i’m not blind to the convetions of the time. .but as someone who got the very wrong idea from tv that just waiting around meant a girl would like you eventually, when no you need to actually try even if rejection happens, I honestly wish we had more of this in media than the other garbage morals at the time. 

So he prepares to , not helped by her mentioning guy after guy is asking her out.... but before he can F-Stop, the future hotstreak, shows up.  F-STOP

That being said...... it’s not as bad as the original gangster name for the comic’s version, Biz Money B. Yes BIZ MONEY B

So yeah while F-Stop is no more intimidating, it at least means I can stop laughing. Francis, because I can’t type F-Stop without laughing and this review is already behind, shoves Virgil out of the way and agressively hits on Frieda, even saying “you smell good”, the international sign your a douchebag and also to call the police. Virgil steps up to the guy and gets PAINFULLY slammed into the lockers, something I give the animation team a lot of credit for, as you can FEEL how fucking painful that was. Virgil is saved by Wade, another local gangbanger who in the comics was a close friend of Virgils but here saves him seemingly just because.. seemingly. 

On the way home though Virg’s problems don’t end as naturally, the giant sized asshole with nothing better to do has his goons corner virgil before VIOLENTLY beating him.. off screen but the noises, and the clear brusies including a black eye, on virgil afterwords.. just holy damn i’m suprsied they got away with this but it shows just how horrifing it was and that this is a step above regular bullying, which make no mistake is absoluttley terrible and the series would later do an episode on it and school shootings, into straight up gang violence. Wade shows up again and gets the bastards to flee.. but also makes it clear he can’t keep doing this.. and forces Virgil to meet him at his base under the bridge. And it’s a tense sequence, with Virgil KNOWING this is a bad idea but having no real choice and Wade making it abundantly clear that he wants Virgil to join his crew, and makes a chilling point: while Virgils dad RIGHTFULLY dosen’t want his son to join a gang as Virgil points out.. he can’t be there for him all the time and eventually one of those times, Francis will be around. And he may not surivive that. Virgil nods noncomittaly.  At home it gets even more grim as he dosen’t open up to his family, understandably as his dad would jsut say to call the police and well.. we’ve seen how the police treat black people. At best they’d just try and use Virgil as an informant and that likely wouldn’t end fucking well for Virgil. Ritchie points out he can’t join a gang, virgil’s mom died that way.. see told you it’d be important to the plot.. but I like how the story dosen’t offer an easy answer.. well okay he gets electric powers soon enough but without the fantastic element this is just an innocent kid caught between either joining the very thing his mom hated or hoping a system not built to protect him will keep him alive. It’s utterly saddening and chilling and holy shit is it amazing a cartoon in the early 2000′s was able to get away with.. ANY OF THIS, and they handle it great, paired down a bit from the comics but even then it’s still incredibly balsy they got THIS much in. 

Naturally Wade calls in his favor and our hero is forced to come running.. and soon finds out Wade’s brought him in for a massive gang war. Welcome to the big bang, baby. He hands Virgil a gun as things get started and Virgil.. drops the thing and tries to escape, in a harrowing sequence.. and runs into Francis because god apparently REALLY hates this kid today. As if to prove that the police show up and while that prevents a beating, they demand they disassemble. then release untested gas on them because of course they do. 

As a result the big bang truly begins, with the various gang members getting mutated.. and naturally so does virgil. Though he wakes up the next day seemingly fine. How’d he get home? Does his dad know where he was?

I don’t know and we’re not getting any answers, but Virgil soon finds weird stuff happening like his clock shorting out, change being attracted to him and his razor going wild. It’s only once he get sback to his room he gets an inkling of what’s going on and calls Ritchie to meet him at the Junk yard.. though it is a bit of a dick move as he dosen’t you know, tell him anything about Wade or Francis right away. He does at the yard though.. and that he has powers, having finally figured out how to use them to a point. And the series does provide a decent justification later as to why he’d get this so quickly: Virgil is a smart kid, gets great grades at school and apparnetly there’s even an episode later where he gets a scholarship to a fancy genius school. So him getting how elctromagntisim works or being a quick study on it makes perfect sense. 

Richie suggest the obvious.. to become a superhero. And the thought.. hadn’t occured to Virgil. It’s honestly a nice twist on the old trope. That he hadn’t thought of it, not because he’s selfish or any of that or needs to learn a hard lesson, those have been done.. simply because the rush of getting his powers, and implicitly of having a way out of his current predciament, a way to keep Francis off his back and keep Wade from pulling him in further. His own path. But once i’ts brought up.. he jumps on it. Part of it is being a nerd like you or I, of course he wants to.. and being a good intetioned one, he knows this is the right thing to do. It’s waht makes a superhero a hero: Anyone can get powers in a universe like this, esepcailly the dcau, but it takes true courage and heart to use them selflessly and knowing you’ll be in danger. It’s why I love surperheroes: they often didn’t ask for this but they do it anyway because somebody’s gotta. We also get an intresting wrinkle is superman is, at least I think in this episode I could’ve missed it or misremembered things, mentioned as a fictional character. That’s because originally like the comics this wasn’t part of the DCAU.. but eventually the crew decided it shared staff from it, shared a network, both first run and on reruns, why not just make it part of the DCAU proper. I fully support this decisionf: While i’m midly annoyed unlimited never really used anything from static shock outside of Static himself in the time travel episode, despite you know Static and Gear having BEEN to the tower and not being much younger than Kara and defintely older than Courtney, I chalk it up to weird rights issues or something like that. But having Batman, Batman Beyond, Superman, Green Lantern and the Justice League itself all guest star was a good idea, and expanded both static’s universe and gave the DCAU something differnt as most heroes in it were older and more experinced in contrast to the up and coming virgil. Again really would’ve been nice if he and gear could’ve been a part of the expanded league but production might of just been too far ahead or, given he had his own series, they might just have wanted to stick to toher characters. Also begs the question why Icon or Hardware wasn’t adapted for the expanded League but hey, questions for later and the tricky logisitics of the milestone rights might’ve been the issue. I don’t know I wasn’t in the room. 

So we get a costume montage, including Black Vulcan from Superfriends, who again ironically would be voiced by Lamarr not too long after this, though weirdly they DON’T use his outfit from the comics for this montage. I mean why not? It fits the gag and would’ve been a good second to last choice.But what could’ve been aside we get our winner and cut back to present day...

Thanks boys. Static finds out one of the things in the warehouse is a shipment of computers for the school and can’t help but show off, showing up to the school, where Frieda and Richie are setting up for the dance, and dropping off the computers, and even saying his catchphrase for the first time “I’ll put a shock to your system” (Which Richie chimes in with awesome line and I agree, great catcphrase), before helping set up and flirting with frieda. 

Though as Richtie says he’s a natural. He’s not wrong as he can work a crowd. .but back it up too as his first run out had him easily taking out the crooks, and as many teen superheros and fans of heroes of hte type, myself included will tell you, getting it right in one is not easy. Not even Miles MOrales was immune. All Static needs now is a villian. 

And the end of the episode provides one as we see, in horrifc and once again damn suprising detail most of hte new metas aren’t doing so good and are melting and other stuff and we catch up with Francis whose burning up.. and naturally given that hair, though given he named himself F-Stop it’s the least of his problems, he’s got fire powers and escapes to “Have me some fun”

So with that we end episode 1. And it’s excellent, a great way to introduce the hero and while the warehouse opening is a bit superflous, it is a decent addition, showing our heroes first outing in costume and giving us a bit of an action scene to get us through the very heavy rest of the episode. But the rest of the episode is no less grippping, telling the tale of a teen caught in an unwinnable scenario who suddenly finds a way out. And speaking of which waht of Wade? Will we see him again? Is he perhaps Ebon, the series big bad as I thought when I was a kid? What comes of the man who directly caused static’s origin?

Yeahhh that’s the one mistep I think the pilot makes. Frieda is understandable as that was likely a simple change in creative direction. This though? Why build this guy up if your not going to bring him back. I mean where he went was probably the grave, as he probably did due to his mutation, but it’s still VERY weird to spend a whole episode focusing on this guy, building him up as a big personal threat to our hero.. and NOT have him become the series big bad. And maybe he WAS supposed to be ebon and they just changed their mind. I don’t know but it bothers me it bothers me a lot. Otherwise though flawless. ONe more to go. 

Aftershock: We open outside an electronics store, as our heroes watch the news reacap what happened in the first episode, with the media dubbing it the Big Bang and revealing their could be hundreds of “Metahumans”, as Virgil dubs after deciding the media’s term “Mutant” dosen’t fit, a nice wink to the fact that that’s the term used in dc comics and I believe milestone but could be wrong there. Me I like the term, has a nice ring to it. 

At the store while Richie mulls over waht this means Static finds out he’s a human CD player.... this was before mp3 players and streaming on your phone made them horribly obsolete mind you and if you don’t know what one is congradualtions you live in some sort of bubble and you made me feel really old junior. 

Frieda happens to be there and Virgil quips “What’s the matter they run out of britney cds”. Dude she’s not bad. Also be careful what you wish for man. Nickeback returned the year after this. You have not truly suffered through bad music yet my young friend. They spot a kid looking feverish, and he soon turns into a purple werewolf, as you do. It’s a bang baby.. those are richie’s exact word and you may not want to start a panic there bud. Just saying your best friend is one. THeir not all like this. Our heroes book it only to run into Francis who naturally refuses to let them leave and only doesn’t try to beat up Virgil because Virgil points otu the werewolf and nonplussed, he goes to fight it, scarring it off by revealing his own powers. He’s now dubbed himself Hotstreak which points for getting an actually good name kid. No points for what happens next as unsuprisingly getting powers did NOT mak ehim a better person and he attacks Virgil who blocks with a garbage can lid and thankfully is blasted into an ally. Richie tries to guard frieda for damn obvious reasons but gets hsi shirt burnt up because shut up Thankfully Static shows up, and we get our firsdt full on superhuman fight as both fight each other with aplomb, and it’s a damn good fight.. and one that goes pear shaped for Virg as he’s caught off guard when he finds out Hotstreak can use his powers to fly, and tackles him and his previous trauma causes him to freeze up. Thankfully , as Frieda put in a call earlier, the fire department arrive and HOt streak has to retreat, though Virgil is bummed that he “Choked”. And I love this as it not only shows Virgil’s inepxerince, as this is his first time fighting a bad guy but that just because he HAS power now dosen’t mean trauma and his previous fear of Hotstreak goes away or you won’t freeze up from time to time. It dosen’t make him weak or anything like some assholes would call it .. it makes him human. Humans make mistakes, and it makes him all the more relatable that he’s not pefect and that he did freeze up as I know I certainly would at last once in the circumstances. 

Things don’t get better at dinner as Sharon and Pops argue over the bang babies with Pops calling them a meance and Sharon pointing out Static exists so they can’t all be bad. See assuming a group of superhumans are bad because a handful of them ar edick sis why the x-men had to get their own island nation. You can only save an ungreatful populous so many times before you say “fuck it i’m getting my own island, pay me for life saving drugs, save your damn selves and stop doing genocides on us. Kay thanks”. But he does bring up a valid point that rattles his son: We don’t know anything about the Bang Babies or their biological structures and it’s likely they might further mutate into monsters, Static included. 

Virgil, understandably, wants to check this and thus he and richie compare blood samples in science, to no real conclusion. She he checks out with his doctor who assumes he’s sexually active in a great getting crap past the radar bit and a bit of realisim, but he agrees to the test though if something came up he would have to tell Virgil’s dsad and is up front about this. Nice dose of realisim.

That night City Council has a meeting and the Mayor TRIES to deflect Papa Hawkins questions about the bang babies which again, while being a judgmental ass as not every person hit was a gang member (Virgil, and as we discover later some others), and not every gang member is there by choice, some by circumstnace some, like virgil almost was, because they HAD no other option. Again years of reading x-men may of just made me a bit touchy on assholes admitely assuming superpower people bad. But it’s clear the public is upset and while she says an investigation is underway... Virgil and Richie are not only not convinced, but figure she’s actively covering it up. And unlike everyone else there who probably suspects the same, they can do something about it and tail her.  It’s during this, and cleverly as I didn’t realie till writing this using similar skills to his human cd player act, Virgil listens in and discovers whose behind it: Edwin Alva, whose apparently richer than bill gates and a beloved phinarophist Alva, as it turns out, was actually the arch enemy of Hardware in the comics, taking advantage of the guy in his civiliian idtentiy and thus casuing him to launch a war on the asshole. He does transition into this series well though, being the one behind the gas that caused it and with the mayor agreeing to back off, planning to simply dump the info about the big bang on a disc then destroy everything for now till the heat dies down. Yup sounds like a corprate douchebag. 

Static tails him, finds the lab and infiltrates it, stealing the disc.. but getting caught by Alva’s goon, and trapped in a glass prison, forced to use ALL his power to escape and barely getting out alive, but not before bouncing off alva’s car. Still he now has the proof.. and meanwhile Hotstreak, who I was wrong did get captured, is forced to take pill sbut spits them out once the orderly is gone. Dude.. WHY DIDN’T YOU WATCH HIM. Make sure he swallows that shit especially since, as he has no powers right now and can’t harm you. 

Hotstreak escapes off screen and our heroes discuss the disc before he shows up, and we get a REALLY fucking amazing scene: Virgil ducks into an Alleway and ritchie is worried.. and Virgil disarms him with just one word responses Ritchie: Virg you can’t take him.  Virgil: Gotta. Ritchie: Well at least wait for the fire department Virgil: Can’t.  It’s simpile but it gets the point across: This is his fight, he can’t wait for help, and people need him. And this is what makes a true hero: It’s easy to be a hero when everythings going well.. but it’s the true ones who stick it out against the odds and fight anyway. And he’s going to.  So we get one hell of a fight, though naturally Hotstreak burns up the disc. And I do like this as it dosen’t feel contrived.. yes Static could’ve left it with ritchie.. but he wasn’t thinking in the moment and dind’t really have time to think abotu the disc, only that people were being hurt and he was all they had between them and Hotstreak. It was no choice at all. Still that pisses Virgil off that the last night’s work is now worthless, and he fully charges up and curbstomps francis who retreats into a clearing. Hostreak brags when static follows, as even he’s figured out Static needs to be around metal, as he’s usually on his disc or the street, and in the park there suppodsidly isn’t any. But he’s not THAT smart as Virgil points out two things: one, he hoped to do this on PURPOSE so they wouldn’t be around people and no on e would get hurt and 2).. this is a city, there’s metal everywhere.. and he awesomely and cleverly proves it by unlodging a sewage pipe with his powers and dousing his foe, winning and proving his stuff. I love this solution, it’s a clever spider-man type way to disarm him, using smarts and the einvroment instead of just brute forcing it. Though the sewage part wasn’t intetional our hero still won and gets praise from the people dumb enough to follow the fight. 

However at home Virgil points out it was  Pyrrhic Victory and shows off his smarts by telling the tale behind it, which I didn’t know,because tv tropes didn’t exist yet: king pyrhus fought the romans and WON.. but had so little armies left that he still lost overall. That’s what this feels like to Virgil: he beat hotstreak but any chance at a cure for Bang Babies and Alva going to jail for causing them is gone. His mood does get a boost though as the doctor calls and reveals he’s fine, he just has a bit too much elctrolytes and just needs to lay off teh salt. He celebrates, we get a quick gag and the episode ends

Aftershock is another stellar episoe, giving us Virgil’s first super foe and a personal one at that, while showing some growth. As richie tells him he’s not virgil anymore he’s static and he can’t let his past get to him.. and he does’nt going from cowering in fear to easily beating his foe with simple logic. It’s a good followup that answers questions you may have from the first ep, like what does this do to virgil’s body, who supplied the gas, and why has no one done anything about this, and sets up another villian for Static in Alva. Great stuff. I highly recommend these episodes and the show as a whole: it’s fast paced, grounded and enjoyable, having just enough levity to not be too dour but just enough tension and stakes to be intresting. A throughly fantastic superhero show and one that i’d certainly love to revisit on this blog If you have an episode of static or the dcau in general you’d want me to cover, my comissions are open and details are on a tab on my blog or can be gotten simply by asking me via ask or dm. Tommorow we’re going deeper underground, there’s too much damage in this town as the Lena Retrospective continues. So expect gay ducks, straight ducks and some terrfirmains. See you next rainbow. 

[jayonashelf]

Dream SMP Cartoon AU

Has everyone and their dog done some sort of show/actor au in this fandom? Yes. Is a big plot point everyone cares about literary happening tomorrow? Also yes.

So yeah, anyway, imagine TommyInnit as a pg cartoon character.

So the cartoon takes place in a world where the universe is divided into servers - small worlds people can inhabit. 

It’s basically minecraft, only you can’t create a million worlds for your own amusement, because you can’t create worlds at all! You can travel to them. Which means that there are no repeating seeds.

Things like speedrunning or manhunt happen in a designated server that’s kinda glitched to reset every time you kill the ender dragon.

There are no respawns but there is a lot of cartoon violence. The show is basically an action cartoon that slowly morphs into a political drama with multiple character arcs and a lot of angst.

Season 1 is the SMP before Tommy. Season 2 is a bit longer and contains the Disc War and the War for L’Manburg. Season 3 is the L’Manburg Election.

Season 1

The first season is calm and a bit slowpaced. It also doesn’t explore the world outside the Dream SMP, there are mentions of other worlds, of manhunts and speedruns, but we never get to actually see that. 

The main characters are the Dream Team, although Dream is like the Gumball of the show, in which he’s the main out of the main characters.

The first episode opens with them building the community house, so we never get to see how they found this world or where they were before they came here.

The rest of the episodes are adventures of the Dream Team and Co. The most exciting episodes are when someone new joins, because new character! Also, the fandom is very desperate for lore - which sometimes gets brought up when someone comes through the portal. (Other worlds are not shown and the lore is very minimal at this time.)

The last person to join this season is Tommy. He joins in the last episode of the season and plays the role of the annoying antagonist. It’s the season finale and this is the first time Dream uses his admin powers in the series. 

It’s a very dramatic moment and I imagine that in a world where this is a real cartoon there is a shit ton of fanart. Dream bans Tommy but then he changes his mind and lets him back in. 

I want to imagine that Tommy had made a shitty gift that Dream n' Co find. Dream sighs, realizing that Tommy cares but is just complete shit at showing it and so he gives him a second chance. 

(Later Tommy getting exiled is played for laughs and the after-credits scene is him just sulking in a spruce forest.)

Eventually, Tommy learns his lesson (kinda) and the episode ends with everyone in relative peace.

Season 2

The first half of the second season is the Disc War saga. A lot more people join and we get way more hints about the outside world (still nothing is shown though). The POV frequently switches to Tommy and Tubbo and slowly but surely their storyline goes from a B plot to an A plot.

The Disc War is still pretty light in tone, but the episodes become more fast-paced and this is the first overarching plotline we’re introduced to.

There are a lot of filler episodes and one-off characters. (Some of them return later.)

The first time we’re shown a little bit of the outside world is in the episode when we’re introduced to two seemingly one-off characters: Wilbur Soot and Schlatt.

This episode is the second time Dream bans someone. This time he doesn’t retract that decision though.

But before he does this we do get a brief flashback of Tommy hearing stories about a world called SMP Live and although we don’t know it yet, a brief flash of SMP Earth.

The second half of the season starts relatively normally until Wilbur comes back and he and Tommy try to start a drug potion business. 

Then Tommy and Wilbur start L’Manburg. Eret, Tubbo, and Fundy join them, and Wilbur kind of adopts Fundy in a filler episode. (There’s a running gag that Wilbur doesn’t want Fundy to know he’s adopted so he makes up bullshit stories about how Fundy was born - AKA Wilbur fucked a fish.)

Then the War happens and even though there are jokes to lighten the mood, the story starts getting way more serious and angsty. 

Unlike the Disc War, the war for L’Manburg is way more story-based, and even though there is a lot of cool action the real heart of it is the emotional moments.

Tommy continues his character arc - he becomes more mature and in the end even sacrifices his Discs for L'Manburg. 

Tubbo gets more sure of himself.

Fundy starts wanting more and wishes to be respected. (His arc gets way more explored in the 3rd season.)

Eret starts doubting their chances of success and notices how seriously the Dream team is taking this war. We get an entire episode exploring his character and his thoughts on the chances of victory. The episode ends in an open-ended way, but still gives off the feeling of him staying loyal to L'Manburg. (Which makes his betrayal hurt more.)

Wilbur gets increasingly stressed about his role as the leader. There's no episode focused on him but there are episodes about his relationship with others. We get flashes of his old life in a slideshow-like sequence. (of Sky gods and moles, of whale facts and lava.)

The war goes as it did on stream. They are severely outmatched. Eret betrays them. L'Manburg is destroyed. Tommy and Dream duel and Dream shoots Tommy in the leg. 

The war ends with Tommy giving his discs for L'Manburg's independence.

The season ends with Wilbur writing the Declaration of Independence. 

There's a slideshow of what everyone is doing after the war instead of the usual credits. It shows the L'Manburgians rebuilding L'Manburg, Eret being crowned as king, the Dream team relaxing after the war. There are also some shots of future characters like Niki, Jack, Quackity, and Karl.

Season 3

The current, ongoing season. It starts with the fallout of the L’Manburg war. People are still tense. Jack and Niki join L’Manburg in their own separate episodes.

This season a lot more is shown of the outside world. There were hints of someone called Technoblade last seasons but now we find out that he’s the person who beat Dream in a duel.

In one filler episode, it is shown that people from inside the server can communicate with people outside it when Quackity and the Drug Cartel Potion Business side plot is introduced. (Later Quackity joins the sever for real.)

The pet war occurs and is a mini-arc with about four episodes. 

Wilbur and Tommy decide to hold an election. Quackity decides to run against them.

And well, the rest is history.

The show has become pretty dark by this point. 

Dream allows Schlatt a second chance of the server when Tommy begs him to let Schlatt endorse Pog2020. (Dream is starting to doubt that fighting L'manburg was a good idea and after he spends an entire filler episode (Church Prime) with Tommy he reminisces Tommys first time of the server and how he banned him. Maybe Schlatt also deserves a second chance?)

Then Schlatt wins and Wilbur and Tommy are exiled. 

That's when we are introduced to Technoblade. He's standing in a potato farm, crown on his head as he receives Tommy's message.

The episode ends with Techno joining the server.

This season has way more POV's and side plots.

For example, Dreamons are Tubbos and Fundys side plot. (Also Sapnaps now apparently?)

Eret has another episode dedicated to him as he opposes Schlatt and reminisces about L'manburg.

Quckity is seen doubting Schlatt. He is used as comic relief a lot, but there are a lot of serious moments, and emotions hidden behind jokes.

Fundy starts off as a secret spy but slowly becomes loyal to Schlatt.

Niki and her rebellion have a few episodes dedicated to them. We get a few flashbacks to her befriending Eret. The second pet war (with Henry) is also a Niki episode. There are a lot of parallels between Tommy and Fundy. The episode ends with Niki comforting Tommy.

The next episode opens with Wilbur being angry at Tommy for burning down Karls Eifel Tower. 

This season we finally get an episode focusing on Wilbur. It's also an episode that focuses on the world outside the SMP. It shows his encounters with sky gods when he had pushed his admin powers (which he has now lost) too far after SMP Earth. (His 100 player videos are him playing with his powers, his punishment is the lava and water rising videos and the randomizer skyblock.) 

This episode is also the one where Wilbur loses his mind.

The after-credits scene is Tommy telling Tubbo to be careful during the festival and giving away his disc. The music is somber and cuts off abruptly. 

[petri808]

Hauntober prompt Ghost (sort of lol)

Bakudeku requested by @nona-inc Angst w/happy ending, AU modern times. Longer than I’d planned to write but stories go where they wanna lol.

Got the idea here

A Second Chance

In his adulthood, Izuku Midoriya did quite well for himself career-wise. He had a nice home and lived comfortably even though it was alone. Relationships had never really crossed his mind, which he chalked up to the turmoil of his childhood. It wasn’t a terribly horrible one but coming from divorced parents is never easy on young child minds. Why get close to anyone if they’ll probably leave eventually? That was a lesson bolstered by the end of primary school when his best friend ditched him for the popular kids.

It was Halloween night, and Izuku’s simply followed his normal routine after work consisting of dinner while watching a bit of television. Trick or treaters were a rarity in his neighborhood, so there was no sense in celebrating the holiday. As he waits for the news, he lets the current show drone on in the background while he scrolled mindlessly through his social media. He didn’t pay a lot of attention to what acquaintances posted and mostly looked for interesting or funny posts instead.

“Deku...”

Izuku’s brow furrows slightly at that ancient nickname. He looks at the television characters on the screen, had one of them said it? But instead of the tv show, he finds a fuzzy, staticky screen. He grabs his remote assuming something had gone wrong with the channel or service when...

“Deku, I’m sorry...”

“What the?” Izuku starts clicking the buttons and getting no response. The screen stays stuck, yet that voice... it was a familiar voice from long ago...

“...I’ve watched you from afar for all these years, because I could never admit how much I loved you and now it’s too late. I’m so sorry Deku. You’ll always be my only true love.”

Silence. Dead silence for a flash of a second when the television loudly blares back to life and startles Izuku out of his seat into a standing position. “What the fuck is going on?!”

The show had ended, and the news is now on in its regular-timed slot.

‘Breaking news, a major four car accident on the I10 highway has left 3 people dead and one in a critical condition. The victim identified as 37-year old K. Bakugou had been transported to the hospital for treatment. Police have closed off the highway in both directions, so anyone traveling in that area should use alternative routes...’

As he watches the footage of the accident story, Izuku’s hand unconscious covers his mouth and tears gather in his eyes. “Oh my gosh....” That was the voice he’d just heard! Of course, Katsuki was the only one who ever called him Deku.

He quickly calls one of the nurses at his hospital and they confirm that the man had in fact been transported there 15 minutes ago.

“Oh! Dr. Midoriya! We were just about to call you! Yes, patient Bakugou was brought in unconscious, lacerations to his arms and chest, broken leg, possible punctured lung, internal bleeding, concussion, and brain swelling which is why I was just about to call you in.”

“I’ll be right there.”

The entire way there, Izuku struggles to rationalize the message. If Katsuki was unconscious, how could that have been his voice? Then again that’s if you believed his television had somehow sent the message in the first place! Oh, this was entirely crazy! Izuku didn’t even know why his logical mind was allowing him to believe it had happened if not for the coincidence of the news coverage.

But as a neurosurgeon, he had to put all those questions aside and focus on the task at hand. The description the nurse had given him already indicated major problems, but it wasn’t until his own physical examination that determined the true extent of the damage. Primary surgical nurse Uraraka already had set up the operating room by the time Izuku arrived.

“The patient was revived once by EMTs in the ambulance and a second time in the ER after his heart stopped. Right now, the patient is intubated and prepped for emergency surgery.”

“Thank you, nurse Uraraka.”

Along with a fellow doctor, Izuku switched into a hyper focused mode. He works to repair the damage to the patient’s brain while the other doctor simultaneously focuses on internal chest injuries. Time was of the essence to stem the blood loss and mitigate further damage if they had any hope of saving the man, because even if he made it through the surgery, only a miracle would bring him back at this point.

It was now a waiting game. They keep Katsuki in a medically induced coma for the first three weeks as his body worked hard to repair itself. Once he was brought out of the induced coma, he still didn’t wake up, was breathing with the assistance of a machine, but at least the man’s heart was functioning normally. Surprisingly, Katsuki’s parents remembered Izuku and were grateful their son was in familiar hands. They’d initially flew in after the accident, but the cost to stay for such a long length of time would be too steep. So, after they returned home, he kept them up to date.

Each day that passed by, Izuku would check in on Katsuki’s progress like a normal doctor would, but at night he’d go home and ponder the ghostly message that had come through the television. He’d told no one about it because who would believe something so crazy? It just didn’t sound like the man, or rather child he remembered. Never once was there any indication Katsuki had romantic feelings for him, especially considering it was him not Izuku that ended their friendship. They saw each other in passing though middle, then high school and still nothing. So why is he now being told this?

Some say that when you die, any regrets you have must be released or your soul cannot ascend to the next plane. Izuku wasn’t religious or spiritual and before that Halloween trick he would have said he didn’t believe in anything beyond what he couldn’t see, touch, feel, and analyze. Ugh! Maybe that’s why this was all driving him so crazy. He wanted answers but the one person who could give it to him was stuck in a coma.

“Everything okay doctor?” One of the LPN’s asks Izuku. “I just need to check on the patients vitals.”

“Do what you need to nurse, I’m just visiting before I go home for the night.”

“Yes, doctor.” The woman makes her chart notations and leaves them alone again.

Because of Izuku’s standing at the hospital, he’d gotten Katsuki a private room. The man was taken off the breathing machine a week earlier and this way he could monitor the man without being pestered. There were times he would spend a few hours just watching the man sleep, trying to study what had become of his childhood friend. Through research, Izuku learned Katsuki had moved here around the same time that he’d started his internship at the hospital. Before that the man lived in the same town as the medical school he attended. It appeared Katsuki really was keeping track of Izuku, never married, and just worked in the marketing field.

Izuku squeezes the man’s hand with his eyes closed in a silent conversation. The only sounds being the beeps and noises of the machines to break the stillness. Lost in his own thoughts, he didn’t know what to think, what to feel, just that this man was dredging up long buried emotions that part of him was afraid to open up. Hadn’t he built up a good life, albeit a lonely one, it was still by his own wit and merits whereas Katsuki always had it so easy. The man was a smart, handsome jock, popular, and had been on track to do great things. While he was the geeky kid with freckles and wild green hair who the popular kids teased.

They were so close as little kids, all through preschool and the first years of primary. Katsuki was the extroverted one pulling him along on make believe adventures to emulate a shared love of a comic book character. In fact, it was with Katsuki’s help that he’d weathered his parent’s divorce. He idolized the stronger boy and wished he was Katsuki, not a weak like little nerd... perhaps having his child’s heart broken, really was the reason he swore off ever caring about anyone else again.

Did he just?! Izuku’s eyes pop open when his hand squeeze is returned by a weak one. Katsuki’s eyes are still closed and nothing else seemed unchanged. Perhaps it was just a nervous tremor, they happen sometimes. But no there it is again! Izuku stares down as the weak squeeze slowly turns into a grasp of his hand.

“Katsuki?”

A third squeeze. That meant the man was alert enough to hear and understand! Friend or not, it was the kind of thing to get a neurologist excited! Izuku quickly moved into doctor mode again and starts checking all the stats as well as alerting the nurse on shift.

“Welcome back Mister Bakugou.”

The man squeezes his hand.

“I’m your doctor, Midoriya. You might remember me...”

The man squeezes again and tries to talk, but after being intubated for a long time the throat tends to be dry, sore, and the muscles weakened. All that comes through is so faint it’s barely audible.

“Mister Bakugou, you’ve been unconscious for almost two months now, please try not to talk just yet, everything will be fine.”

But that only makes the man angrier. Furious red eyes flashing, Katsuki grips harder to Izuku’s hand using what little strength he has to try and pull him closer. So, Izuku leans in. “Calm down, it’s gonna...”

“Ma—y...” angry growling noises. “Mar...”

Obviously, the man wasn’t going to stop until he gave in, so Izuku leans in even more until his ear is practically next to Katsuki’s mouth. “I’m sorry?”

“Marry me damnit!!”

Izuku shoots straight up. “What?!” Is the guy serious?! The first words out of his mouth is that?! Wow... Katsuki really hasn’t changed, feisty as ever even after almost dying.

“Pa-pa—per pen!”

“H-hold on, just try to calm down please! I don’t want you to strain your heart!”

Midoriya grabs the chart, flips the paper over to the blank backside, and puts a pen in Katsuki’s hand. He holds it steady as the man scribbled shakily. ‘No waste 2nd chance marry me Deku.’

“Mister Bakugou, this is...”

The man pounds his fist on the bed then scribbles more. ‘Stop call me that! nickname!’

Izuku sighs and squeezes his eyes closed for a second. He hadn’t used that name since primary just like he’d hadn’t heard Deku all these years. “Kacchan. Happy now? I-I can’t just say okay. You—y-you ditched me remember and now you suddenly pop up and expect me to marry you?! Kacchan you almost died, I get it, that’s a scary thing to deal with, but you just need time to process...”

Katsuki writes, ‘Nothin 2 think bout. No more regrets,’ Then he mouths out the rest in a whisper, “I love you Deku.”

Izuku sighs, “I’m not saying yes or no Kacchan. Just get well first okay, then we’ll talk about everything.”

“Fine.” The man closes his eyes again seemingly satisfied with the answer.

He squeezes Katsuki’s hand. “I’ll see you in the morning Kacchan.”

When Izuku leaves that evening, he couldn’t help but walk out with a flutter in his chest and a pang in his heart. There really was a lot he still needed to get off his chest, but... he felt the honesty from Katsuki. If his dying regrets had been strong enough to reach him via spiritual mail, and the first thing he wanted to talk about was love, then... ‘take the second chance Izuku.’ Not everyone gets one.

[temilyrights]

the case of us (chapter four)

Jack Sloane x Reader

Word Count: 3244

A/N: A fluff filled chapter, who’d of thought it was possible? It's canon that Jack likes reality TV but the only thing I watch is Queer Eye, hence the reference! Anyway hope you enjoy, and as always, feedback is always welcome :)

Read On AO3

Chapter Three  Chapter Five

It’s been just over 2 months now since Sam was killed. You haven’t spoken to Felicity since that day you went to visit her but you still speak to Robert. You try to meet up with him every couple of weeks for lunch and you’ve been slowly rebuilding the relationship you once had.

Work has been surprisingly quiet for the whole week, and everyone is taking full advantage of it. You’ve been out of the office by 7 pm every day and spirits were definitely high.

It was nearing 6 pm now, and you were just finishing up your final report of the day. “We should go for drinks!” Torres announces. Bishop quickly agrees but you hesitate, the idea of getting into bed and eating junk food sounding very appealing. “Come on Y/N! It’s Friday!” 

At your unconvinced look, Torres adds “What about if I buy you your first drink?” 

Your face spreads into a wide smirk. “Deal.” 

—

An hour later the whole team is sitting in the fancy new bar Torres had been raving about for the last couple of weeks. The drinks were overpriced, even for DC, and you’re grateful Torres is buying your first one. 

You’re sitting in between Kasie and Ellie. With Jack opposite you and Gibbs to her left. Torres ends up buying the whole team a round, and you wince in sympathy for his bank account. 

“Thank you” You grin, taking a sip of your drink as Torres takes his seat next to McGee. 

Everyone falls into easy conversation, laughing and joking. You chat with Kasie for a bit about the forensics convention she’d been to the previous week. Her eyes light up with enthusiasm as she tells you about the new technology that’d she’d been able to trail and how she was going to ask Vance to update the lab. 

“Yeah, good luck with that,” McGee quips, overhearing your conversation. “I’ve been trying to get the computers and wifi updated for a good year with no success.” Kasie’s smile dims slightly and McGee notices so he quickly back peddles. “But hey, maybe you’ll have more luck!” He goes on to ask about some technology he’d heard was being announced and Kasie barely can stay still in her seat as her excitement takes over.

You use the dull in conversation as an excuse to go get another drink and despite it being a Friday evening it doesn’t take long for you to be served. When you get back to the table, McGee has moved to your spot, still talking to Kasie,  you roll your eyes at him playfully and look for an empty space. The seat next to Torres is free but he’s chatting to Gibbs about something sport-related and you’d rather throw your head into a wall than listen to that conversation. Your eyes then find the free seat next to Jack and your face brightens. She’s currently talking to Ellie. Both blondes flash you a smile as you slip into the seat. 

“I was just telling Jack about that terrible date I went on last week.” Your face fills with sympathy, remembering the story. “How about you Jack, any dates recently?” Her voice lowers to a whisper as a smirk pulls at her lips. “Maybe with a certain grey-haired agent…” Her head signals to Gibbs, who’s thankfully still talking to Torres and is none the wiser of the conversation. 

Jack’s cheeks tinged pink and both you and Ellie start laughing. “Seriously guys there isn’t a ‘thing’.” Ellie just rolls her eyes but Jack’s face turns serious. “We’re just friends!” It comes out a lot louder than expected and the rest of the table turns to face them as Jack’s face flashes bright red. 

“Okay. Okay…” Ellie holds her hands up in mock surrender but you can tell she doesn’t believe Jack. Jack notices too as she just rolls her eyes, leaning back in her chair and huffing before finishing off the rest of her drink in one large swig. She looks serious, so you flash her a sympathetic smile, squeezing her hand slightly. Her lips tip up into a smile but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

A drink and a half later, and Torres is trying to convince everyone to get on the dance floor with him. Ellie and Kasie quickly jump up to join, dragging Jimmy along as well despite his protests. McGee ducked out a little under half an hour ago claiming tiredness. Gibbs mutters something about getting drinks and leaves the table, leaving just you and Jack. 

Jack subtly tries to hide a yawn, turning her head away from you and covering her mouth with her hand. You start laughing and the blonde turns back to you, rolling her eyes playfully. “Tired?” 

Jack sighs, slumping back into her chair. “I’m just thinking about how I could be at home, in my pyjamas, catching up on Queer Eye and not in a loud crowded bar.”

“No way!” You grin brightly, sitting up excitedly in your chair. “You watch Queer Eye?” 

A look of disbelief crosses Jack’s face as her own smile spreads across her lips. “Are you telling me I’ve worked with someone for the last year and didn’t know she watched one of my favourite shows!” 

“I can’t believe it!” You’re grinning. “Are you free this weekend?” 

Jack’s eyes light up as she realises where you’re going with this, she hadn’t had someone to chat with about reality tv since, well, Jessica. “Tomorrow evening?” 

“I’ll bring the take-out” You grin, nodding your head excitedly in agreement. Gibbs comes back to the table then, placing a drink each in front of you and Jack. You both nod your thanks, you were starting to feel the buzz. 

Ellie comes back to the table not long later, sweaty from dancing and starts gulping down her drink. Your eyes widen in shock, knowing she was very much going to regret that in the morning. She drops her now empty glass on the table before aiming a sly smirk at you. You shuffle in your chair, dread filling your stomach. 

“No! No!” You exclaim, as Ellie slowly moves around the table. You try to move further away and end with your back pushed against Jack's side as you squirm in your chair. Jack’s laughing lightly and you can feel the chuckle as it vibrates through your body. Ellie quickly grabs your hand pulling you from your chair and you’re surprised by her strength, your expression must reflect as much as now Jack’s laughing harder and even Gibbs chuckles from next to her. 

You keep shooting looks back at them mouthing ‘help’ as Ellie drags you to the dance floor. They just continue to laugh, Jack waves, smirking brightly and you roll your eyes Traitors. 

Once you’re on the dance floor you don’t fight it anymore. You dance, enjoying the freeing feeling as you bounce around the space. You freeze when you notice Jimmy’s comically bad ‘dad dancing’ and try to hide your laughter behind your hands. Jimmy notices, face brightening, he moves over to you and exaggerates his already embarrassing dancing. You break into laughter, joining in with Jimmy as he does the robot. 

--

When you wake up the next morning you feel surprisingly good. Only a dull headache which can easily be fixed with some paracetamol and food. You quickly shower, changing into black leggings and an oversized jumper before heading to the kitchen in search of food. 

You’re just sitting down to eat when your phone buzzes with a text from Jack. 

Hope you’re feeling alright this morning. We still on for tonight?

A wide smile spreads across your face as you read the text and you quickly type a response one-handed as you continue to eat with the other. 

Surprisingly good, thanks! Yes, if you’re still game. Pizza or Chinese?

You know both Ellie and Nick are going to be regretting their actions this morning and make a mental reminder to contact them later to see if they’re still alive. Your phone buzzes again, and you’re drawn from your thoughts. 

Awesome, 1700 at mine? And surprise me, I’m good with whatever!

You shoot back a quick text agreeing to the plans. Leaving your phone on the counter, you clean up your mess from breakfast and continue with your day. 

It’s early afternoon when you finally call Ellie. She answers the phone after only a couple of rings and proceeds to release a long whine. You start laughing, imagining her still in bed, hiding under the covers to protect herself from the harsh light of day. 

“So, you are feeling about as good as I expected then?” You tease. 

“What do you want?” Ellie grumbles, causing you to laugh again. 

“Oh, was just calling to see how you’re doing. I’m going to check in on Nick next.” 

“I’ll save you a phone call then,” Ellie shouts out Nick’s name and then proceeds to groan at the loud noise. You can distantly hear someone stumbling around, a loud crash followed by ‘fuck!’ and then a door opening. 

“What?” Nick groans, and you can hear the bed creak as he throws himself onto it. 

“Y/N called to bask in our pain.” 

“Bitch” Nick mutters. You just laugh again. 

Ellie brightens up when she gets to explain the story of how Nick had nearly thrown up in the taxi and the taxi driver had refused to continue driving them so he’d ended up crashing on Ellie’s couch (and also bathroom floor as he spent a lot of his time with his head down the toilet). Nick spent the whole time muttering under his breath and you laugh at them both. You finally finish the call an hour later with a final comment about drinking responsibly. Nick groans while Ellie just blows a raspberry at the phone and hangs up. You sit on your couch laughing for the next couple of minutes, wiping tears from your eyes, excited at the prospect of teasing them all come Monday morning. 

You decide on Chinese for dinner. You place an order, selecting your usual and as you aren’t aware of Jack’s regular order, choose a few extra dishes that you feel she might like. You don’t bother changing from your comfy clothes, just slipping on a pair of trainers and tying your hair out of your face. Before grabbing your keys and bag and heading to your car. You pick up the food on the way and pull up to Jack’s house at 5 pm on the dot. 

“Always on time,” Jack smirks when she opens the door to you, her face brightens even more when she notices the bag of Chinese food and you’re happy you made the right choice. Jack welcomes you into her house, taking the bag of food from you as you kick off your shoes and place your bag down. You look round the room, taking in the space, this was the first time you’d been to Jack’s home. 

“Wow, you have a beautiful home.” Jack’s lips tug into a proud smile as she enters the room again, now with plates. 

“Thanks.” She leads you to her living room and places the food and plates on her coffee table as you’d done a couple of months prior. She sits down on the couch, legs crossed. She’s dressed in yoga pants and an old t-shirt, her hair tied up in a ponytail and feet bare from any shoes. You grin, taking your own seat next to her and begin to unpack the food.

“I wasn’t sure what you liked so I went with a variety.” Jack’s face lights up when she sees the amount of food you’d ended up getting and you bite your lip self consciously. “If you don’t like any of it-” 

“You got a couple of my go-to dishes so we’re good.” Jack laughs and begins to fill her plate with food. You breathe a sigh of relief before doing the same. The TV is all set up, Queer Eye just waiting to be played, and once you’ve both filled your plates and are sitting comfortably she clicks start. 

You fall into an easy silence as you watch the show, only occasionally breaking it to make comments and laugh. However, you’d forgotten how emotional this particular episode was and feel your eyes begin to well up, you try to blink away the tears sighing at yourself. Jack notices and reaches her hand out to place on your own. You turn to look at her surprised to see watery eyes reflected back at you. You both release sad chuckles and you stop trying to hide your emotions, allowing the tears to fall down your face as you go back to watching the show. 

“Wow…” you chuckle, wiping the tears from your face as the episode ends. “I forgot how emotional this show is.” 

“Tell me about it.” Jack comments, huffing and rubbing the tears from her own face. “I’m going to make some tea, want some?” Jacks asks, standing from the couch. You nod, thanking her and she disappears to the kitchen. You pack up the food, there’s still a decent amount left. You separate the boxes into two piles, giving Jack all the food you’d noticed she’d enjoyed the most. 

She comes back a few minutes later, two mugs in hand. She passes one to you, which you accept with a smile, before sitting down closer to you than before. “I never asked how your day was.” You take a sip from your drink, revelling in the warm feeling that spreads through your body. 

“I had lunch with Izzy”

“Oh?” You have to bite your lip to stop from laughing, having heard stories of Izzy and Jack’s relationship. “How was that?” 

Jack sighs, rolling her eyes but a small smile pulls at her lips anyway. “Eventful.” She tilts her head in consideration. “Although, It is nice to have someone I knew from San Diego around.” Jack shakes her head as if to dispel memories. Her smile widening “How was your day?” 

“Uneventful.” You shrug. “Spent most of it doing chores I’ve neglected over the last couple of weeks…” You smirk, thinking back to your phone call with a certain duo. “Although, I did have a lovely conversation with our dear Ellie and Nick.” 

Jack laughs, moving slightly so she was sitting facing you, her legs crossed under her. “How hungover were they?” You explain the story, about Nick nearly throwing up in the taxi, their obvious pain and whining and how you didn’t even feel slightly bad for them. Jack offers sympathetic laughs. 

“Don’t feel sorry for them! I thought you’d enjoy their misery too, well Ellie’s at least after bringing up the whole Gibbs ‘thing’!” You laugh, not noticing how Jack’s own laughter has cut out and she’s no longer looking at you. Your smile falters when you finally notice. “Sorry I didn’t mean-”

Jack sighs, cutting you off. “No, it’s fine. I just-...There really isn’t a ‘thing’. We’re good friends but there’s nothing romantic there. We’ve both been through a lot and told each other some serious stuff...” Jack trails off. She hasn’t looked at you since she started talking so you reach out your hand placing it on her own. She finally meets your eyes. 

“I’ll get the others to lay off. And I’m sorry for teasing. You shouldn’t have to defend your friendship. It’s nice you have each other.” You squeeze her hand once more before letting go, the tension in the room dissolving.

Jack offers a smile. “Now, how about another episode?” You laugh, settling back into the sofa as Jack presses play. 

--

“Knock, Knock.” You speak, as you hold two fresh cups of coffee in your hand. Jack’s currently sitting at her desk looking at something on her computer, she’s chewing her lip and absentmindedly twirling the pen in her hand. The second she hears your voice, she places the pen down and turns to you with a large smile. 

“My lifesaver” Jack breathes, readily accepting the coffee cup. You laugh lightly, taking the seat in front of her desk and taking a sip from your own drink. 

“How are the profiles going? I heard Warrick’s team have a hard case this week.”

Jack sighs, head dropping into her hands.  “Yeah, a Navy officer and his 10-year-old daughter were found shot in their home.” 

“Oh god, that’s horrible. Suspects?” 

“There’s a couple.” She signals to the case files, taking a sip of her coffee. “I’m just narrowing down which one, if any, I think could’ve done it.” She looks at the clock noticing it’s already 7 pm and sighs. “It’s going to be a long night.” 

You offer a sympathetic smile. “Rain check on dinner tonight then?” 

“Oh! I completely forgot! I’m so sorry-” Jack sits up in her chair, as she rushes to apologise.

“Hey,” You cut her off, trying to calm her down. “It’s fine really, that’s the job.” You shrug and you see Jack begin to relax again.

“I’m still really sorry, I’ve been looking forward to finally tasting your cooking all week.” Jack’s shoulders slump and she smiles sadly. 

“Well then it’s probably good we have to rearrange, postpone the inevitability of me giving you food poisoning.” You quip and Jack laughs, rolling her eyes at you playfully, a warmth spreads across your chest and a small smile pulls at your lips. You say goodbye after that, leaving her to finish the profiles so she’ll hopefully be able to leave at a somewhat reasonable time tonight. 

McGee, Torres and Bishop had long since gone home, but Gibbs is sitting in the darkened bullpen typing away at his computer. You make your way to your desk, grabbing your bag. Gibbs shoots you a curious look. “Everyone else went home over an hour ago.” 

“I know.” You shrug. “I was meant to be having dinner with Jack and was waiting for her to finish. She’s still helping on Warrick’s case though so we’re rescheduling.” 

Gibbs is looking at you slightly weirdly now and you don’t really understand what’s happening. Was he smirking? “Right well...Night Gibbs.” You wave goodbye, sparing Gibbs one last look as he grumbles something along the lines of ‘have a good night’ and you head off to the elevator. 

The doors are just closing when your phone pings with a text notification. 

Now I can’t stop thinking about food.

You laugh, biting your lip lightly as you respond. 

I could get you something from that pizza shop around the corner?

Would you?

And then…

Get something for yourself too! We can eat and work.

The only paperwork you had to do you’d planned on doing tomorrow morning, so really you had no reason to stay and work. However, the idea of spending the evening eating pizza with Jack was appealing and to be honest you were slightly disappointed that you’d had to reschedule dinner.

When you reappear in the office 20 minutes later, Gibbs is still sitting at his desk. You pass him a pizza box before going to your desk and collecting the paperwork you needed. Gibbs’ eyebrows shoot up in surprise. He thanks you for the pizza, watching you walk upstairs and isn’t surprised when he sees you heading in the direction of Jack’s office. He smirks, shaking his head. 

You never did care much for his rules. 

[macoygreco]

@momojiroweek2020

Day 3: My Hero.

I decided to take a few liberties with this prompt and wrote up a DC AU. Not DCAU, but a DC Comics AU fanfiction. In this story Class 1-A are DC Heroes. Most importantly I’ve Cast Momo as Wonder Woman and Jirou as Black Canary. This one was fun to write I got to use two of my favorite franchises, DC and MHA. It took my forever to figure out the cities, because I couldn’t remember where Canary’s flower shop is in the comics. Also the Degaton in the story is the BtBatB version, because I didn’t want to make sense of his history in the comics. Also this might be a part one if I decide to write more of it. Feel free to take guesses on who MHA characters are as DC Heroes. Anyways, under these images of Momo and Jirou in their DC Forms, you’ll find the fan fiction. Also right when you read ‘sonic boom’ start playing the 70’s Wonder Woman theme. It’s so much fun.

MomoJirou DC AU

6:50 PM, Downtown Opal City

“Farewell Black Canary. May your siren’s cry delight the halls of Valhalla!” Per Degaton announces in his German accent, lowering his Spear of Destiny. A blast of pure white fires from the prongs, and shoots right toward our hero.

Mere seconds before the energy reaches her, Kyoka Jirou-Lance, the Black Canary leaps out of the way. In midair she turns levelling a sonic scream at Per Degaton, who is attempting to soar away on his hovering podium.

The scream makes contact with the spear, exploding it to bits, the energy backfire ages the podium to pieces, causing Degaton to crash to the ground.

Degaton crawls from the wreckage, defeated, or nearly there, as well as that he’s clearly been aged from the energy backfire. Black Canary triumphantly walks toward Per, but before she can reach him he pulls out a button.

“What’s your play, Degaton?” Canary asks.

“Reinforcements.” Degaton rasps, pressing his button. Black Canary wheels around, unsure what to expect. Suddenly six metal capsules fall from the sky. Canary balls her fists. The capsules unfold into robots, which advance upon the hero. Before any of them can reach her she lets loose a powerful canary cry which knocks the five of them into the buildings on the opposite side of the street.

Wait, five? Weren’t there six?

The sixth robot lunges at the Canary, who leaps and kicks it’s metal head off of its shoulders. The robot collapses to the floor.

“But that’s not all I have in store.” Degaton announces, letting out a laugh. Soon enough thunderous footsteps clamp down the street, and into view comes a giant robot. Before Degaton has any time to gloat, Black Canary starts jogging towards the robot. The bot rears back it’s humongous arm and attempts to bring it down upon Black Canary. In an attempt to stop it Canary lets loose a powerful cry. The arm is severely slowed, even shaking, but does not stop. It’s metal fingers close around Black Canary lifting her into the air.

Black Canary attempts to formulate a plan, but all seems hopeless. Then, from the sky a sonic boom sounds, a red streak blasts from the sky and straight through the robot’s chest. The streak clears up, a woman wearing a red, white, and blue outfit, adorned with gold. Her silver bracelets glint on her arms, and her lasso glows a pale gold. She turns around, in midair, and shoots through the robot’s head.

Meanwhile, Black Canary can feel the robot’s fingers loosen around her.

The streak notices the issue and soars towards the hand.

Black Canary plummets through the air, prepared to be a pavement splotch, but before that can occur she feels two strong arms catch her. They carry her over to a building and set her down. She’s finally able to get a proper look at her savior, who’s floating just off the edge of the building.

Canary’s mouth hangs just slightly agape, with ‘oh wow’ is being the most articulate thought she can currently form. Her savior is beautiful, probably the most beautiful woman she’s ever seen. Her black hair is pulled back in a spiky ponytail, but a piece of it swoops down over her golden tiara. Her outfit shows more skin than most supers Canary knows, except for maybe Aquaman’s that one time he lost his hand, but she had never found Aquaman even a tenth as attractive as the mystery woman who’d just saved her. The woman is wearing blue shorts that are covered in stars, and red boots, but nothing over the rest of her legs, which leaves Canary quite a bit to ogle. Though a hero probably shouldn’t be doing that kind of thing. Canary, having that same realization, jerks her head up, and right to eye level with the woman’s chest. Ignoring the urge to look at it, she looks into the woman’s sparkling eyes. The woman gives Canary a sweet smile, and Canary can feel her heart melt.

“I am Princess Momo, of Themyscira.” The woman, or Momo, stretches out her hand, which Canary shakes.

“Thanks for saving me.” Canary says looking away awkwardly.

“It was my pleasure.” Princess Momo says sweetly. “Well, I must be going. But I’ll likely see you again.” Momo soars off into the sky, looking down at Canary one last time.

Canary watches her go, awestruck. As soon as she comes to her senses, she presses her comm.

“Ow, fuck!” She says under her breath, it was the worst when those things glitched out. The jolt of feedback right in her ear was never pleasant. As the crackle fades out a voice on the other end starts talking.

“Canary! I copy.” The voice of Tenya Iida, the Justice Society’s Flash, sounds in her ear.

“Hey, Tenya.”

“I’ve told you before, call me Flash on official comms. Criminals lurk everywhere.” Tenya was the descendant of the original Flash, and as such placed a lot of importance on proper procedure, always making sure his teammates obeyed proper procedure.

“Sorry, Flash.” Jirou corrects before continuing to the actual reason she called. “Do we know a Princess Momo, of Themyscira?”

“Not officially, she’s just popped up, why do you ask?”

“We should recruit her. She’s about as strong as Captain Marvel, and just as fast too. Plus she saved my ass from Per Degato- shit. Flash, I’ll call you back.”

10:00 PM Jirou-Lance Family Flower Shop, Park City

Black Canary, steps into her apartment above the flower shop and pulls off her blonde wig, lazily tossing onto the mannequin head. She discards her hero costume, leaving it in a pile on the floor, now she’s only Kyoka Jirou-Lance. Tired, she collapses onto her couch, her naturally purple hair an absolute mess.

Disappointment is her primary emotion currently. Degaton got away. Her mom would never have let that happen. Jirou decides to put on some tv to distract herself. She ends up right on daily planet news. Of course, just her luck. It’s the Degaton fight from earlier.

“Black Canary was soon overwhelmed, but luckily for her a red streak appeared and defeated Degaton’s robot, saving her life. Unfortunately Per Degaton escaped.” The newscaster announced. Jirou sighs disappointed, she reaches for the remote to change the channel, but something keeps her from doing it. “Witnesses identified the streak as the new hero: Wonder Woman. Usually active in Gateway City, it is unknown what brought her to the other side of the country.” On the tv, the image of her hero, Princess Momo, is shown. The image certainly did not do her justice, Jirou thought. Though, even a blurry, out of focus, image of her hero was enough to make her blush.

“Wonder Woman, Huh?” Jirou pulls out her phone and searches up the name. Reading a few articles about her efforts. Each one grows her fascination with this new hero. She replays their encounter over and over in her head. Wonder Woman had said they’d likely meet again. Jirou hoped she was right.

[thanksjro]

Polyhex Wars, Book 1 Part 1: This Is Why We Take Roll, People

Boy oh boy, back with the solo writing! Before we begin, let’s take a look at what exactly we’ll be working with here.

Polyhex is a polity that’s been established in the Transformers franchise for ages, and it’s got a lot of history behind it. Perhaps if we have an understanding of the place, we’ll have a better insight to what’s going to happen in the story. Because god knows Roberts loves him some lore.

Here are some things that you can find within the city limits of Polyhex:

Darkmount

An unnamed Decepticon stronghold

The/A smelting pool

The Dead End

Decepticon fuel stores

Ratbat's offices

An Autobase

The original space bridge

The Polyhex Toll Plaza

So, a strong chance of Decepticon/Autobot action here. Ratbat might show up, which would be interesting. He was leader of the Decepticons for a little bit in the Marvel comics, and he did a pretty darn good job. Also, robotic homelessness. Outstanding.

On to the story!

Our tale opens with a problem- there’s a Decepticon with a sword and flaming eyes looming over an Autobot. A Decepticon whose face strips off, leaving only a skull. Then his robo-flesh flies off, leaving him just a skeleton. Then the robo-flesh goes and crushes the Autobot and melts his body down. Our Autobot feels his very fucking soul evaporate.

Oh hey, Prowl.

It would seem that Prowl is a favorite of Roberts, right alongside Nightbeat and Chromedome in terms of just how often he’s shown up in his writing. Hopefully things turn out better for him in this story than they did in Eugenesis.

Not that it would take much, mind you.

Turns out that nightmare we just witnessed was just that- a nightmare. Prowl wakes up on the floor, having passed out thanks to Involuntary Systems Shutdown. Guess he’s just been working himself too hard.

Roberts, you get those pores off of that robot, mister. Don’t you dare think I forgot about what you did to Soundwave and his pores.

This is actually potentially a holdover from the fanfic scene at the time. Fandom wasn’t quite as cohesive as it is nowadays, which meant that the concepts of things like fans, EM fields, and alternative terminology for robotic body parts weren’t universally accepted, so you got things like robots being able to sweat, and having much more organic terms for things. Roberts seemed to flip-flop between using mechanical and human-y language. We get terms like “optical shutters” sitting right next to someone getting the fear sweats. It’s a neat look at how things used to be.

Prowl is trying to suss out just what the hell that dream could possibly mean- I guess he subscribes to the school of prophetic dreaming- when Optimus Prime walks in and wants a status report. He’s rather rude about it too, snapping at Prowl when he doesn’t get exactly to what he’s after; that is to say, the situation on Cybertron itself. Prowl, a little weirded out by Optimus’ sudden assholery, calls up Blaster. However, when he turns back to his leader, Optimus has collapsed against a table. Whatever the Prime’s funk was seems to have dissipated, and he’s much more pleasant suddenly. Blaster, not so much.

Things aren’t going great on Cybertron. The Decepticons are nearly done building nuclear-powered rocket thrusters. They’ll be completed within the week.

Man, Eugenesis really just ruins a person’s expectations, doesn’t it?

Jokes aside, it seems like there’s something ominous going on in Autobot City, and it’s making folks act like jackasses.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, Bumblebee’s being reckless and racing around, as Hound and Beachcomber follow towards a cargo transport. Bumblebee slips inside, then immediately falls back out, having been shot in the chest. Out come Thundercracker, Skywarp, and Ramjet, a welcoming party if there ever was one. No word on where the hell Starscream is in all this. The three shoot Beachcomber and Hound, who pass out.

Back with Optimus, the Prime’s addressing a group of Autobots, who are about to embark on a mission to protect the Celestial, a vessel in charge of monitoring Decepticon activity on Cybertron. Red Alert’s involved. He’s the only one named in the group. Optimus sends them out, and then it’s just him and Prowl. Prowl asks if he’s feeling alright, and Optimus admits to having been experiencing random blackouts and vivid nightmares. Prowl is all “OMG saaaaame” and they decide to go see Ratchet.

As they’re making their way to the medical bay, Kup catches up to them with the bad news.

You mean you didn’t CHECK before you came down here?

They all run for the medical bay to find Ratchet in the throws of a seizure. Unconscious or dead, huh? Way to go, Kup.

First Aid is there, but Optimus takes matters into his own hands.

Protip: don’t do this. Slapping a seizing person isn’t going to fix anything.

Ratchet wakes up, shaken, from his own hellish vision.

Back with Hound, who’s just woken up in a prison cell, there’s a problem: Blaster is also here, in the cell opposite his own. And he had been for over two months. Getaway and Bluestreak are there too, but that’s not as important. What is important is that someone’s been impersonating Blaster and feeding the Autobot forces false intel.

Back at Nightmare Central, our three dreamboats are comparing notes. They’re all having different visions, and entering them in different fashions. Prowl has his Decepticon skeleton flesh-vore dream that starts with a white-out, Optimus sees a golden disk spinning in a black hole, and blacks out before it starts, and Ratchet is faced with an irreparable patient and is haunted by guilt, preceded by a sudden loss of feeling and breakdown. Prowl labels Ratchet’s entry into the dreamscape as Involuntary Systems Shutdown, but First Aid disagrees.

Prowl, don’t argue with the doctor. He knows more about your body than you do.

…Okay, maybe argue with the doctor a little. Looks like he’s got a touch of the reefer madness.

No, Limbo’s a thing that was established in the comics. You can only get there if you’re a victim of mass-displacement time-travel shenanigans. You see, if someone time travels, there needs to be something of equal mass that’s removed from where they’re jumping to, otherwise rifts in space-time happen. When the mass-equivalent is removed, it can’t just flat-out disappear, so it gets taken to Limbo to wait it out until the time traveler heads back to their original time. Back in ’86, when Galvatron, Cyclonus, and Scourge were being time-menaces, Ratchet, Prowl, and Optimus got shunted off into Limbo. They were there for a while.

Why the hell does First Aid know this, though? Because he went to Limbo in ’87, when Death’s Head was jumping around.

It could very well be, Optimus theorizes, that when the Time Travel Trio got sucked back into the rift, there was a sort of cross-contamination that happened, since the rift and Limbo were both connected.

Back at Darkmount, the captured Autobots are discussing their current predicament, and how it may lead to more in the near future. Blaster’s really hoping that Optimus figures out what’s going on soon, before things get really bad.

They need to get out of these cells, obviously, but how? The only way to break the electro bars is with an ionic disrupter, and nobody here has one.

Just kidding. Bumblebee’s got one hard-wired into his body. Problem is, it’s pretty weak, and just isn’t going to cut it. There’s a moment of defeat, then some old geezer enters the conversation. He’s got something that’ll amplify the disrupter enough to get them out of there. The only catch is it’s wired deep enough into his body that using it will kill him.

This presents quite the quandary to our Autobots, as their moral code forbids killing under any circumstances. Hound’s still very much on board with said code, but everyone else seems to be thinking of the greater good. The old Autobot himself even admits that he wouldn’t survive an escape attempt, and really just wants to be done with it all.

This is a very different take than the ones we’ve been seeing so far- even in the softer takes, the Autobots have, at the very least, accepted that death was a part of war, even if they didn’t like it. A big part of it is that it’s Hound, whose personality at the time was one of a soft-hearted, benevolent human-wannabe.

Roberts is going to put him through hell in this, isn’t he?

Back over at Autobot City, those fifteen Autobots Optimus briefed earlier just left for the Celestial.

I’m sure it’ll be fine!

While this is happening, Prowl remembers that thing he was trying to tell Optimus about earlier- namely, the cargo run Bumblebee, Hound, and Beachcomber were on. They aren’t back yet. What’s up with that?

Optimus decides to call Blaster to see what’s up with that, but gets a little suspicious when Blaster suggests they send more folks down to the cargo transport. After a bit of delegating with Prowl, Optimus sets a sort of verbal trap, asking how Witterquick is settling in on the ship. There’s never been an Autobot by that name, but not-Blaster takes the bait as Red Alert and pals show up. With that, he hangs up.

Because Optimus now knows that not-Blaster is not Blaster, he thinks it’s about time they pay Cybertron a visit and save the day. Before they can do that though, their collective vision explodes with a white flash, and they all pass out.

Meanwhile, Hound’s gotten over his disapproval of killing a man, as he and his cellmates plunder his dead body and plug components into Bumblebee’s head to make the most powerful hat ever conceived. With a little effort and concentration, Bumblebee manages to disrupt the bars so they can get out of there. Everyone is very proud of Bumblebee for this. They release the rest of the Autobot prisoners and Hound is appointed impromptu leader of the whole shebang, all while he’s got that old dead robot slung over his shoulder. He intends to give him a proper burial. He’s going to be carrying this guy for the rest of the story.

Good luck with that, Hound.

An Autobot named Courier seems to know the layout of Darkmount pretty well, so they let him take point and take them to the armory. They don’t ask why he knows where the armory is, just let him lead them there. It’s almost too easy. I don’t trust Courier.

Yeah, this guy’s evil.

They burst into the throne room to find an ambush, and then quickly discover that their weapons are fakes. Goddammit, did nobody check the roster to make sure all their guys were actually their guys? At this point it’s all on y’all for not making sure everyone was on the up and up.

[artyloreviews]

Film Review - Polar (2019)

A thrilling and ultraviolent neo-noir film, that is guaranteed to get your adrenaline pumping, whilst also giving you a good laugh with it’s sheer ridiculousness .

As a fan of Mads Mikkelsen’s work, I was instantly drawn to this gritty neo-noir film, which cover depicted a drenched and snow-soaked Mads with gray hair and an eye-patch, looking suspiciously a lot like Big Boss from the Metal Gear series, which by now you should know is near and dear to my heart. Upon watching the trailer out of curiosity, I found that this was going to by one of those films over which the word ultraviolence was pasted in big bold and blood-red letters. I was instantly hooked and I anticipated the release with glee.

Upon viewing it however, I can’t help but wonder whether I think Jonas Åkerlund’s Polar is simply a lower budget attempt to emulate the success of the John Wick franchise, by melding it stylistically with the Dark Horse graphic novel Polar: Came from the Cold, or a great, straight to the point action film, that is enveloped in Tarantino-esque storytelling, gratuitous violence and beautiful cinematography. In the end, I believe it is a bit of both. The parallels that can be drawn between Polar and John Wick are clear as day, as both their plots revolve around a retired assassin being forced back into action; however, the difference is that in John Wick’s universe, there was some semblance of cleanliness and professionalism to assassination, a sort of class act per se. In Polar’s world, however, assassination is this act of gratuitous bloodshed, where everyone but the main character seems to believe killing the target to be secondary to killing each and every innocent bystander on the way to the target itself.

Mads Mikkelsen plays Duncan Vizla, referred to as The Black Kaiser throughout the film; a renowned and ruthless assassin, who I couldn’t help but see is a somewhat different manifestation of Mikkelsen’s other role as Hannibal Lecter, sharing the same sensibilities of professionalism and showmanship in murder. His persona is built as this scarred, yet carefree veteran in his field, who seems to inspire awe in all of his peers. The only somewhat sane character in the film – Vivian, repeatedly warns that people ought to “not fuck with him” (which, ironically, every second woman featured in the film seems to do or has done previously), shining a light on his dangerous nature, much like the stories about John Wick and his infamous pencil, that are constantly retold throughout that film’s dialogue. And yet he is this kooky old man, who inflates balloons and hangs cardboard “Happy Birthday!” letters above his fireplace, chops and sorts his neighbor Camilla’s firewood, has difficulty picking what brand of sweets to buy at the shop and accidentally shoots the dog after being woken from his PTSD-infested dreams, only to replace it with a goldfish, as well as going to a local school to show kids knife tricks and pictures of sun-dried corpses, and presents Camilla with a goddamn gun as a heartwarming gift. I’d go as far to say that he is bloody lovable in a twisted and endearing way.

On a side note, after he shot his dog after the first shown occurrence of said dreams, I had this expectation that as a man who always sleeps with a gun in his pocket, he’d continue to perform the same accidental ballistics after every subsequent dream. To my immediate shock, the next time he decided to doze off was in a bloody passenger plane. I was just bracing for that inevitable moment where some innocent bystander was about to bite the bullet, but for better or worse it never happened.

The overall visual presentation of the film is probably its strongest asset. I can’t speak to the accuracy of the recreation of scenes from the graphic novel, but there is a distinguishable picturesque quality to every frame in the film. Even throughout the marketing material, one can see the clear comic-book-esque symmetry. The color grading is a whole topic on its own. Scenes with Duncan are show in this very high-contrast low saturated gray, while most scenes featuring the supporting cast feature this very vivid neon saturation where the colors pop and sometimes bleed into each other, showing this clear contrast between the old and grizzled Kaiser and the newer younger blood out to get him. The only thing that has any color to it in Duncan’s life is perhaps those dreams he keeps having, which are bathed in saturated dark reds and a lot of glitchy, distorted visuals. Even the typography used throughout the film shared that iconic VHS displacement. The addition of Gothic lettering among the brief flashes of titling is very stylistic in referencing the Germanic origins of Duncan’s nickname – him being The Black Kaiser. The layers of effects however made it almost impossible to read the text in the split second it is shown on screen, which left me waiting for character’s names to appear in dialogue, so that I can confirm that what I read was right. The cinematography is usually amazing, each shot being framed and lighted in a way that only a graphic novel could entail. However, the film features a lot of fish-eyed lensed drone photography which clearly differs in quality to the cinema-grade cameras used for the rest of the film, leaving it looking amateurish at some of the key points in the plot.

Another aspect of the visuals, which some may find refreshing in the current politically safe age of cinema, while others can find it to be incredibly jarring and distracting, is the generous displays of gratuitous sex and/or T&A featured liberally throughout the run-time of the film. It seems that each and every character in Polar’s universe has slept with each other, or is yet to do so. The difference with other graphic novel adaptation, Sin City, which by any other mean can be cited as a direct influence on this film’s style, can be drawn in a sense that even in a city filled with vices, there was this tasteful approach to the sexual, often being purely implied. Polar on the other hand has no such restraint and appears to flaunt it at every opportune moment, which I found to be garish and unnecessary, as it provided nothing to the film’s substance.

One of the best aspects of Polar is dedmau5’s amazing soundtrack. With heavy lingering synth melodies and energetic electronic beats, it creates an amazing atmosphere of tension and serenity, especially in scenes of intense drama. The tracks that stood out the most on my first viewing were “somb”, which was used in the serene and calm opening to the film, followed by “cabin”; with its very nostalgically charged synth, rhythmic drums and haunting baseline, introducing us to Duncan. “chill” features a very tense and unnerving piano tune, signaling that not all is right as a sign of what is to come. On the more action-packed side however, the heavy hitters are “midas heel”, “main” and “nosedive”, each used in some of the most visually intense bloodbaths you will ever see, pumping with adrenaline and keeping you on edge with heavy electronic beats and whining synths. And none of that youth dub-step shit, that one could expect – dedmau5 provides an honest to god EDM soundtrack with his staple melodic progressions and no-nonsense sound, mixed to perfection.

The last point of contention I could think of is probably the ending. In the interest of avoiding spoilers, I would describe it as initially surprising, but well hinted at throughout the film on second inspection. One could see it as an attempt to generate a sequel, though I am not familiar enough with the original graphic novel to say what that could entail.

Overall, I believe that Polar is a fantastic film, that wears its inspirations on its sleeve and creates an ultraviolent romp of revenge and drama, filled with all the staples of a gritty Neo-noir setting, featuring larger than life humans, able to withstand a lot of punishment, but dish out a lot as well. Even though that some aspects of its plot seem unnecessary, along with the purely visual bloating, I’d say it is worth it to sit down and watch through, but probably not with your parents, especially if you are a fan of Mads Mikkelsen or films like Kill Bill, Sin City and John Wick. I’d go as far as to say that if you enjoy video games like Hotline Miami, this can definitely be a nice intro into that type of cinema.

8/10

[v4viola]

AHS: CULT Season 7, Episode 1 Election Night [unpublished review]

Tuesday, September 5th, 2017, just days before Stephen King’s IT hit theatres worldwide, the anticipated clown-centred new season of Ryan Murphy & Brad Falchuk’s anthology series, American Horror Story, premiered its seventh season, Cult, on FX.

The past six seasons of American Horror Story (AHS) have catapulted viewers into the depths of the horror genre; every season tells a different story at a different time with different characters and themes. The popular show features returning and seasoned actors like Angela Bassett, Sarah Paulson and Kathy Bates, as well as guest stars like Gabourey Sidibe, Lady Gaga and Cuba Gooding Jr.

Countless characters have left lasting impressions on AHS and every fan has their favourite: Lana Winters of Asylum (Season 2), Fiona Goode of Coven (Season 3), Elsa Mars or Twisty the Clown of Freakshow (Season 4), The Countess of Hotel (Season 5), or The Butcher of Roanoke (Season 6). The sinister list goes on and on.

American Horror Story may stand alone but it is no stranger to acclaim as it’s been nominated for an impressive 300+ awards. Jessica Lange and Lady Gaga both won Best Performance by an Actress in a TV Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television at the 2012 and 2016 Golden Globe Awards for Murder House and Hotel. The Primetime Emmy’s have awarded the show as well.

Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk have managed to garner a cult following. Pun intended. Together, they’ve created “Teen TV” juggernauts like Glee and Scream Queens, and are the executive producers of the critically acclaimed first season of American Crime Story: The People VS. O.J. Simpson, starring AHS alumni, Sarah Paulson and Cuba Gooding Jr. The series sweeped award shows and the second season (The Assassination of Gianni Versace, starring Penelope Cruz and Ricky Martin) is slated to air in the early months of 2018. Last but not least, who can forget the return of Jessica Lange (alongside Susan Sarandon) earlier this year in Ryan Murphy’s Feud: Bette & Joan. The debut season of another anthology series (also produced by Brad Pitt) reimagines the tensions between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford on the set of the movie What Ever Happened to Mary Jane? in 1962. Murphy and Falchuk are clear forces to be reckoned with when it comes genre television. When they hit, they hit big.

So when the countdown to Season 7’s premiere was over, fans erupted. Some loved it, some hated it, and some threatened to boycott it because of an irrational fear of tiny holes. Yes, tiny holes. The unique fear is called trypophobia: an intense fear, distress or anxiety caused by irregular patterns or clusters of small holes or bumps. The term is believed to have been coined in 2005 on an online forum and AHS has decided to showcase its abilities to make your skin crawl in a way we’ve never seen before. Hence the trigger warnings. Seriously, people are freaking out!

The title of this premiere episode is Election Night and the opening scene takes viewers back to the night of November 8, 2016, flashing some of the most viral and ludicrous presidential campaign snippets of Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump, one after the other.

“I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters,” an actual clip of Donald Trump flashes, reminding viewers how screwed the United States is with this clown in office. It’s clear that AHS is using the real-life 2016 election as the focus for this year’s horror tale, set in Michigan.

“FUCK YOU WORLD! USA! USA! USA!”

Kai Anderson (played by AHS heavy-weight, Evan Peters) shouts this as the 45th president of the United States of America is announced. Kai is a blue-haired loner celebrating Trump’s win in a dingy basement, dry-humping his big screen TV like a fanatic. “Freedom!” he yells, and his glee for Trump’s victory is a tough pill to swallow.

Evan Peters is a returning AHS all-star and his acting chops shine brighter from season to season. In the opening of this new season, Cult, Peters grips us from the get-go, and throughout the hour-long first episode, we begin to see why his character is so happy with Donald Trump’s victory.

Kai emulates the far-right narrative with precision. Scenes throughout the premiere (where he blatantly disrespects women and Mexicans) reveal a very real and twisted perception that men are superior to women and that “white is right.” Kai is indicative of what Trump spews to the public, and what makes it so uncomfortable to watch is that this series is a lot more than a just a scary TV show now. It’s about our social and political climate, today. This is art is imitating life, in real time.

Kai is maniacal from the opening scene where - in celebration of Trump’s victory - Kai makes a cheeto smoothie, rubbing the orange paste all over his face, mirroring Trump’s infamously orange glow. His mannerisms are reminiscent of the legendary comic villain, The Joker, with his creepy stare and smudged cheeto “face paint”. Perhaps the sub-theme of coulrophobia (fear of clowns) influenced a nod to the king of crime. After all, The Joker is one of the ultimate clown villains of the last century. It is rumoured that DC Comics is looking to solidify Leonardo DiCaprio as The Joker in an upcoming origin story set in the 1980’s. If that doesn't work out, Evan Peters would be perfect!

Across town, we see Ally Mayfair-Richards (Sarah Paulson), and her wife, Ivy (Alison Pill), in what reads as a parody of a wealthy, white, lesbian couple. They’re hosting a viewing party with their neighbours, a liberal heterosexual couple, Mr. and Mrs. Tom and Marylin Chang (Tim Kang and Nanrissa Lee). When Trump is announced president, Ally has the complete opposite reaction from Kai Anderson, and that familiar AHS Sarah Paulson shriek fans grew to love in Asylum and Roanoke tears through her living room, directed at the flatscreen television. She’s absolutely mortified, as many of us were that night, but the results trigger Ally in a way that leaves her out of breath and panicked. Soon afterwards, we understand why.

Ally suffers from multiple phobias, high anxiety, and hallucinations. “Ever since the election, it’s been getting worse,” she says to her therapist, Dr. Rudy Vincent (Cheyenne Jackson).

“The coulrophobia?” He asks.

“Yes. The clowns...” she trails off, “but also,” she continues, “confined spaces, and blood... Particles in the air, the dark, that coral thing that's been staring at me since I came in here!” Ally appears to be dizzy. Nauseas even.

“You have a fear of coral?” Dr. Vincent asks.

“No. I-I… Its the holes,” she takes a deep breath, “it’s repulsive!”

Ally tells Dr. Vincent that coping with the election results has triggered all of her old phobias. It’s almost as if AHS is mocking the right-winged notion that those on the left are automatically fragile and plagued with political correctness, but by bringing these unconventional yet very real phobias to the table, we see that this season’s theme isn’t just about the current events in American politics, clowns, or tiny holes. No, this season is about the fear in politics and what it can do to people on both ends of the political pendulum. Ally Mayfair-Richards’ character shows us how these conditions and phobias can provoke mental health breakdowns with a raw and in-your-face delivery.

The premiere also marks the return of Freakshow’s Twisty the Clown, but only as an imagined character in “The Twisty Chronicles” comic book. Oz Mayfair-Richards (Cooper Dodson), Ally and Ivy’s son, secretly admires the clown’s comics and he is nothing more than a fictional character in Cult. So far, anyway. The gruesome Twisty scene unfolds, reminiscent of the clown’s murderous debut in Season 4, and we think we’ve seen the actual return of Twisty until Ally interrupts and it’s realized that this was just a scene in Oz’s comic book. Since Ally has an irrational fear of clowns, the cover illustration of the savage Twisty prompts her to have a full-on panic attack. If you have any inclination of what Twisty looks like, it's understandable for a coulrophobe to freak out. Twisty is what nightmares are made of and fans are patiently awaiting the mayhem Twisty might be getting up to this season. Another character that’s sparking intrigue is Winter Anderson (Billie Lourd), Kai Anderson’s younger sister. In the beginning of the episode, when Kai covers his face in the cheeto mask, he storms into his younger sister’s room and jumps on her bed, staring her down as CNN announces that Hillary Clinton will not be speaking after conceding to Donald Trump. She looks up from her laptop into her brother’s eyes, his orange face smudged with tension, and begins yelling at him to get out, hitting him repeatedly. He starts laughing at her screaming, uncovered by the blows. She's lost some sort of bet and now she has to follow through with some elaborate scheme after admitting that children are her worst fear. [Unfinished first rough draft]

[tessatechaitea]

DC House of Horror #1, Part Two (AKA A Review of Netflix’s The Mist)

It looks like Batman is fucking Flash while Flash fucks Green Lantern while Green Lantern, covered in semen, jerks off a candle.

Here, a woman smells her fingers for some mysterious and sexy reason.

I'm sorry for that previous caption! The only reason I said it was probably sexy was because she is a woman and I'm objectifying her. I smell my fingers for decidedly non-sexy reasons all the time! If anybody is interested in my life away from my blog, you can visit me intellectually debating the guys at the weird science comic book review blog on their review of Deadman #1. I'd forgotten that they were supposed to be my nemeses! But I remembered! Oh how I remembered! The woman smelling her fingers has been possessed by Wonder Woman because she took part in a Milton Bradly sponsored seance.

See?! You probably thought I was being facetious about the chewing testicles part! It's a known fact!

It's too bad I just scanned two images so closely together because the next page contains a nipple and a bare butt! The nipple is in shadow but you can still see the shape of it! I don't know why I'm using an exclamation point for that revelation. Back in the pre-Internet days, it would have been a glorious find for a young kid. But now, it's as tame as if the panel depicted a basket of kittens. The girl possessed by Wonder Woman kills all of her friends and everybody she meets before getting home and killing her abusive father. She also says a bunch of stuff in Greek. I bet she's saying things like, "I'm here to kick ass and chew testicles! Mmm! So good!" Nope. I was wrong. The first thing Wonder Woman says after possessing the girl is "Where am I, witches?" Then she kills the witches. Later after her killing the girl's dad, she says, "The world of man is Hell. It is going to be a glorious war." Man's World Rating: Are these stories horrific? I guess so. Imagine if Superman were a confused toddler scared out of his wits when he arrived on Earth? He probably would kill everybody by accident in his fits of terror. And Wonder Woman suddenly coming to man's world without any context except what she's been told about why the Amazons can't leave the island? She'd be ready for some serious clean up! And she only killed the women at the beginning because they were obviously witches. Some women, you just can't trust. So you get what we had here in this story. I don't like it any more than you women.

[meeedeee]

Shin Godzilla: Disasters, Tropes & Cultural Memory RSS FEED OF POST WRITTEN BY FOZMEADOWS

Warning: spoilers for Shin Godzilla.

I’ve been wanting to see Shin Godzilla since it came out last year, and now that it’s available on iTunes, I’ve finally had the chance. Aside from the obvious draw inherent to any Godzilla movie, I’d been keen to see a new Japanese interpretation of an originally Japanese concept, given the fact that every other recent take has been American. As I loaded up the film, I acknowledged the irony in watching a disaster flick as a break from dealing with real-world disasters, but even so, I didn’t expect the film itself to be quite so bitingly apropos.

While Shin Godzilla pokes some fun at the foibles of Japanese bureaucracy, it also reads as an unsubtle fuck you to American disaster films in general and their Godzilla films in particular. From the opening scenes where the creature appears, the contrast with American tropes is pronounced. In so many natural disaster films – 2012, The Day After Tomorrow, Deep Impact, Armageddon, San Andreas – the Western narrative style centres by default on a small, usually ragtag band of outsiders collaborating to survive and, on occasion, figure things out, all while being thwarted by or acting beyond the government. There’s frequently a capitalist element where rich survivors try to edge out the poor, sequestering themselves in their own elite shelters: chaos and looting are depicted up close, as are their consequences. While you’ll occasionally see a helpful local authority figure, like a random policeman, trying to do good (however misguidedly), it’s always at a remove from any higher, more coordinated relief effort, and particularly in more SFFnal films, a belligerent army command is shown to pose nearly as much of a threat as the danger itself.

To an extent, this latter trope appears in Shin Godzilla, but to a much more moderated effect. When Japanese command initially tries to use force, the strike is aborted because of a handful of civilians in range of the blast, and even when a new attempt is made, there’s still an emphasis on chain of command, on minimising collateral damage and keeping the public safe. At the same time, there’s almost no on-the-ground civilian elements to the story: we see the public in flashes, their online commentary and mass evacuations, a few glimpses of individual suffering, but otherwise, the story stays with the people in charge of managing the disaster. Yes, the team brought together to work out a solution – which is ultimately scientific rather than military – are described as “pains-in-the-bureaucracy,” but they’re never in the position of having to hammer, bloody-fisted, on the doors of power in order to rate an audience. Rather, their assemblage is expedited and authorised the minute the established experts are proven inadequate.

When the Japanese troops mobilise to attack, we view them largely at a distance: as a group being addressed and following orders, not as individuals liable to jump the chain of command on a whim. As such, the contrast with American films is stark: there’s no hotshot awesome commander and his crack marine team to save the day, no sneering at the red tape that gets in the way of shooting stuff, no casual acceptance of casualties as a necessary evil, no yahooing about how the Big Bad is going to get its ass kicked, no casual discussion of nuking from the army. There’s just a lot of people working tirelessly in difficult conditions to save as many people as possible – and, once America and the UN sign a resolution to drop a nuclear bomb on Godzilla, and therefore Tokyo, if the Japanese can’t defeat it within a set timeframe, a bleak and furious terror at their country once more being subject to the evils of radiation.

In real life, Japan is a nation with extensive and well-practised disaster protocols; America is not. In real life, Japan has a wrenchingly personal history with nuclear warfare; America, despite being the cause of that history, does not.

Perhaps my take on Shin Godzilla would be different if I’d managed to watch it last year, but in the immediate wake of Hurricane Harvey, with Hurricane Irma already wreaking unprecedented damage in the Caribbean, and huge tracts of Washington, Portland and Las Angeles now on fire, I find myself unable to detach my viewing from the current political context. Because what the film hit home to me – what I couldn’t help but notice by comparison – is the deep American conviction that, when disaster strikes, the people are on their own. The rich will be prioritised, local services will be overwhelmed, and even when there’s ample scientific evidence to support an imminent threat, the political right will try to suppress it as dangerous, partisan nonsense.

In The Day After Tomorrow, which came out in 2004, an early plea to announce what’s happening and evacuate those in danger is summarily waved off by the Vice President, who’s more concerned about what might happen to the economy, and who thinks the scientists are being unnecessarily alarmist. This week, in the real America of 2017, Republican Rush Limbaugh told reporters that the threat of Hurricane Irma, now the largest storm ever recorded over the Atlantic Ocean, was being exaggerated by the “corrupted and politicised” media so that they and other businesses could profit from the “panic”.

In my latest Foz Rants piece for the Geek Girl Riot podcast, which I recorded weeks ago, I talk about how we’re so acclimated to certain political threats and plotlines appearing in blockbuster movies that, when they start to happen in real life, we’re conditioned to think of them as being fictional first, which leads us to view the truth as hyperbolic. Now that I’ve watched Shin Godzilla, which flash-cuts to a famous black-and-white photo of the aftermath of Hiroshima when the spectre of a nuclear strike is raised, I’m more convinced than ever of the vital, two-way link between narrative on the one hand and our collective cultural, historical consciousness on the other. I can’t imagine any Japanese equivalent to the moment in Independence Day when cheering American soldiers nuke the alien ship over Las Angeles, the consequences never discussed again despite the strike’s failure, because the pain of that legacy is too fully, too personally understood to be taken lightly.

At a cultural level, Japan is a nation that knows how to prepare for and respond to natural disasters. Right now, a frightening number of Americans – and an even more frightening number of American politicians – are still convinced that climate change is a hoax, that scientists are biased, and that only God is responsible for the weather. How can a nation prepare for a threat it won’t admit exists? How can it rebuild from the aftermath if it doubts there’ll be a next time?

Watching Shin Godzilla, I was most strongly reminded, not of any of the recent American versions, but The Martian. While the science in Shin Godzilla is clearly more handwavium than hard, it’s nonetheless a film in which scientific collaboration, teamwork and international cooperation save the day. The last, despite a denouement that pits Japan against an internationally imposed deadline, is of particular importance, as global networking still takes place across scientific and diplomatic back-channels. It’s a rare American disaster movie that acknowledges the existence or utility of other countries, especially non-Western ones, beyond shots of collapsing monuments, and even then, it’s usually in the context of the US naturally taking the global lead once they figure out a plan. The fact that the US routinely receives international aid in the wake of its own disasters is seemingly little-known in the country itself; that Texas’s Secretary of State recently appeared to turn down Canadian aid in the wake of Harvey, while now being called a misunderstanding, is nonetheless suggestive of confusion over this point.

As a film, Shin Godzilla isn’t without its weaknesses: the monster design is a clear homage to the original Japanese films, which means it occasionally looks more stop-motion comical than is ideal; there’s a bit too much cutting dramatically between office scenes at times; and the few sections of English-language dialogue are hilariously awkward in the mouths of American actors, because the word-choice and use of idiom remains purely Japanese. Even so, these are ultimately small complaints: there’s a dry, understated sense of humour evident throughout, even during some of the heavier moments, and while it’s not an action film in the American sense, I still found it both engaging and satisfying.

But above all, at this point in time – as I spend each morning worriedly checking the safety of various friends endangered by hurricane and flood and fire; as my mother calls to worry about the lack of rain as our own useless government dithers on climate science – what I found most refreshing was a film in which the authorities, despite their faults and foibles, were assumed and proven competent, even in the throes of crisis, and in which scientists were trusted rather than dismissed. Earlier this year, in response to an article we both read, my mother bought me a newly-released collection of the works of children’s poet Misuzu Kaneko, whose poem “Are You An Echo?” was used to buoy the Japanese public in the aftermath of the 2011 tsunami . Watching Shin Godzilla, it came back to me, and so I feel moved to end with it here.

May we all build better futures; may we all write better stories.

Are You An Echo?

If I say, “Let’s play?” you say, “Let’s play!”

If I say, “Stupid!” you say, “Stupid!”

If I say, “I don’t want to play anymore,” you say, “I don’t want to play anymore.”

And then, after a while, becoming lonely

I say, “Sorry.” You say, “Sorry.”

Are you just an echo? No, you are everyone.

      from shattersnipe: malcontent & rainbows http://ift.tt/2wJXCVQ via IFTTT

[ooc-but-stylish]

liveblog. flash 3x23. spoilers.

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That one thing everyone was saying would happen, happened. Oh joy. At least they addressed that Iris wasn’t okay with it.

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H.R. sacrifices himself and leaves a few final words concerning Cisco. Instead of checking up on Cisco, Barry instead decides to check the future newspaper first to see that Iris is still alive to write that one story. What a friend. Fuckin’ Julian cared more about H.R.

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Cisco straight roasted Savitar. omg. Never change, Cisco. You’re still the best dude on this show.

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Soooooo... Barry’s operated on the idea that hating someone enough to kill them is A-OK, until now, conveniently when the big bad they’re facing is just himself, from the future? Talk about preferential treatment!

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Barry is giving second chances to Savitar for pulling shit he’d throw a geriatric Eobard down a flight of steps for. I can understand that, because it’s stupid, and I may not like it but it’s the story they’re clearly trying to tell. I can’t abide by Iris being written to sympathize with her now-almost-murderer and vow to help him, though! I mean, the acting is okay but what the fuck is this writing? Julian, Joe, Wally, even Tracy, are the only people appropriately hostile to Savitar right now. 

Also, Eobard disappeared within the minute of Eddie shooting himself. But Savitar got hours to live before the paradox caught up to him, even though he’s only years older than our current Barry and Eobard was over a century ahead of Eddie. Shouldn’t the paradox have taken longer to reach from Eddie to Eobard than it did from Barry to Savitar?

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You know this episode is weird as fuck when even Savitar is trying to get people to see reason about the fact that he murdered someone close to them and they’re trying to buddy-buddy him. They definitely didn’t try pulling this on Eobard or Hunter when they got all murdery!

---  

Savitar demonstrating exactly why you don’t trust a known murderer with a god complex to suddenly shake off all his neuroses just by people loving him hard enough was A++.

Iris was the last one taken out of there, though. What the fuck?

---

Let me reiterate. Cisco is still the best dude on this show.

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“I care about you, you piece of shit” -- Cindy in a nutshell

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So if Killer Frost could’ve put Black Flash on ice this whole time, shouldn’t Eobard have just gotten Captain Cold to do that in LoT? How much colder is Killer Frost than a gun firing off “absolute zero” temperature? Not to mention, Cisco deliberately built the cold gun to disable speedsters. Eobard would’ve known that. Did I miss the part where he at least thought of it?

---

I love how Savitar has so far: killed H.R., intended to kill Iris, kidnapped Cisco, almost blew everyone in the Labs up with the Philosopher’s Stone after they tried ( futilely ) to reach out for him, sicced Caitlin on Cisco, threatened Cisco with making him “die the same way twice”, and threatened the exact same thing that Eobard did in the end of Season 1 ( murdering everyone Barry ever cared for, and doing it out of spite ), and Barry just lays there and listens, then spares Savitar, and then Iris has to live with taking a life, because Barry’s too damn good for it, apparently. He needs to be free of all moral culpability even if it means his love interest is used as a scapegoat for troubling, less-than-clean acts.

Eddie remains the only one that had the good sense to Looper himself when a mass murderer threatened the lives of everyone around him, whereas Barry consistently finds loopholes out of self-sacrifice. It’s really stupid because I’m sitting here writing about characters doing something I wouldn’t condone in real life, but considering this show set the precedent of “suicide as a valid option to stop evil people” right in season fucking 1, I’m expecting them to stick with it.

---

So this guy who looked like a dead guy who was also a murderer impersonating another dead guy, this guy right here used a face changing tech so that he didn’t look like the murderous dead guy who impersonated a dead guy, but now he’s dead, and they bury him, and the gravestone has his name on it. His name that is almost the same name as the murderous guy before him and the dead guy before that. And I say ‘almost’ because we never heard Harrison’s middle initial ( which some assume is ‘G’ because of the Time Machine reference but it could potentially be ‘R’ ). The point is, how did anyone not question that? Did they bury him with Randolph’s face? Did he have an identity forged? What?

---

He wasn’t a genius, and he didn’t have super speed, but he saved Iris better than Barry did. Eyyyyyyyyyyy.

---

I can smell the Frozen jokes and crossovers.

---

... Iris deserves a lot better writing than “I just murdered the evil version of my fiance who I’d treated with compassion and regarded as the same as my actual fiance for the past day or so, but it’s okay, I’ll feel something about it at some point in the future, I have a marriage right now! :)”.

“I’ve always been yours.” Even when she was with Eddie? ... She needs magnitudes better writing than from people who think “OTP” legitimately makes every other pairing invalid or false or retroactively nonexistent. People that try that post-hoc bullshit in relationships are usually thought of as bad news.

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Speedforce storm! Knew Barry wouldn’t get away with this bullshit scot-free! :) Could this be a comics reference? I don’t see why they could pass up the chance for a Flash: Rebirth-style plot resulting in more speedsters (including Godspeed). We may not get a speedster big bad for Season 4, but we can get a shitload more speedster heroes, technically! If they.... either omit or rewrite Godspeed.

---

Oh, right, the Speedforce Prison needs an occupant since Savitar is gone and Jay was freed. Now the Speedforce is revolting and destroying everything to get what it needs, starting with the city and potentially capable of wiping the whole planet if left unchecked. Who was it they said created that thing again? Oh, right. Barry.

---

How can Barry not be going to Hell after the shit he’s been pulling? I’d like to have a good, nice, half-season without him in it just for that.

---

There should be a counter for how many times Joe’s called Barry his son and Barry’s called Joe his father. It’s got to be in the high double-digits or something.

---

Iris Cries About Not Having the Chance to Be a Mediocre White Dude’s Wife.mp4

again, the acting is okay, but what the fuck is this writing?

Also why can’t she just keep her last name and Barry hyphenate his to Allen-West? He was adopted by the Wests over a decade ago and is more or less their family. He’s been their family longer than Iris has been married, so first things first, and there’s actually a family to be acknowledged with the name change. What the hell is Iris going to marry into when the only Allen is the dude she’s with? Barry should’ve hyphenated. Marriage isn’t the only reason people have more than one last name, anyway. JFC. Get with the times, writers.

[jayfromriverside-blog]

Comics I read this week: 9/9-9/13

Hey all, here’s a smattering of some of the books I read this week. Some interesting issues out this week, but also some disappointments:

Saban’s Go Go Power Rangers #23

There were two driving forces behind my moral development as a child: Batman and the Power Rangers. It was more than a little disappointing to grow up and find out that you couldn’t just punch bad people and that solved things, but when Boom Studios started this Power Rangers comic, it reminded me of why I loved the Power Rangers in the first place.

I would definitely recommend this series to anyone who was a fan of the Rangers at any point, or who is looking for a good new Action book, but it comes with a caveat: This series is not easy to jump into, for 2 main reasons.

Though this is the better series, it’s not the first Power Rangers comic that Boom Studios currently has going, and unfortunately the first series goes further in depth on the larger Rangers Universe

The stories from each of the 2 Rangers books often reference or call back to elements from each other. This often means that keeping track of plot elements or continuity can get confusing between the 2 books if you’re not following along closely.

If you’re still interested in hopping into these comics, here would be the reading order I would suggest: start with this series (Go Go) for issues #1-20, as it covers the origins of the Rangers and their first year. Then start the mainline book, Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. After you’re all caught up there, you should be good to jump back into Go Go without any issues, and can even hop between series with toooooo much confusion. 

Into the actual meat of this week’s issue: while the mainline series is much more focused on a grander Sci-Fi narrative, this series has a lot of the “monster-of-the-week” feel of the show. That’s definitely on display in this issue, where action and monster bashing take center stage. But what this comic has over the show is character depth and long-term story telling. The characters in this comic feel fleshed out and are evolving like real people, and while it’s definitely still fun, it doesn’t skimp out on the drama either. 

If you’re looking for a fun throwback to childhood with a little more emotional oomph for your mature soul, definitely give this book a go.

Justice League Odyssey #13

I’m genuinely surprised every time a new edition of this book comes out, cause I’m half expecting it to be quietly cancelled every other week. But hey, I’m not gonna complain, cause as much as the changes in art have been less than great, I’m still excited to see the Justice League Z-Team struggle with cosmic cleanup duty out in the Ghost Sector.

For anyone who hasn’t read this book and doesn’t feel like starting from the beginning, you could get away with hopping on now. It would be safe to say that the first 12 issues were the first arc of this comic, and that #13 is setting the groundwork for the second big arc. With the destruction of the Source Wall way back in No Justice, the Ghost Sector has been left as almost a wild-West out in deep space. If you’re a fan of Dex-Starr, Jessica Cruz and some other cosmic outcast characters, I’d hop on now and see if this book is for you.

For anyone currently reading this book, some minor opinions and SPOILERS AHEAD:

So Jess stayed dead for way shorter than even I thought. But hey, revival at the hands of the Omega Radiation that killed her only to be imbued with Omega Beam shooting fists seems almost poetic. I’m interested to see what the new cast of outcasts has to bring to the table in terms of opposing Darkseid and assaulting the Ghost Sector, especially now that our original team has been almost entirely converted into NEW New Gods. But it’s a welcome evolution of Jessica’s character to see her taking charge and leading a team, and more Dex-Starr in my life is always appreciated. 

On a less story focused note, the art in this new ark is good so far, but man, fuck whoever did the flashback sequence with Cyborg. On a page with his face popping up at least 5 or 6 times head on, you couldn’t remember or decide if his cybernetic side was on the left or the right? It flip flops every panel so that it’s facing away from the reader. It’s overall a minor thing, but c’mon, it’s not hard to keep that straight.

The Flash #78

I’m just tired at this point. 

The Flash’s mythos being re-written to have such an emphasis on the forces is just... really boring. The force users are pretty one-note characters and though Barry’s musings on life and trying to outrun Death are interesting, the rest of the chapter and this story arc haven’t been nearly as much. The art isn’t bad, but it’s not enough to save this title. If you’re gonna stick around for the Flash ride, have fun, let me know when it gets interesting again.

Young Justice #8

I think I mentioned it last week, but similar to Justice League Odyssey and the Terrifics, I think it’s a great idea for writers to take some of the smaller teams in the DCU out of the greater narrative and put them (effectively) in their own worlds. Better yet, Brian Michael Bendis seems to be having a ton of fun taking this young team on a multiverse-exploring adventure. 

While his work with Alias and Daredevil are some of my favorite books, I think Bendis does his best work when writing younger heroes. He seems to understand how to write entertaining young characters while making them believable, and most importantly not making them grating. 

If you need anymore convincing to get this series, and you maybe don’t fully trust Bendis after the pretty terrible years he’s had of late, then John Timms’ art should swing you. Timms has managed to strike a great balance between cartoonish modeling and dynamic action paneling which is difficult enough, but he’s also been switching up his art styles as the team goes from world to world. The guy is on top of his game right now and it’s perfectly complimenting Bendis’ universe-hopping story.

I don’t want to spoil this issue too much, but the team find themselves on Earth-3, the home of the Crime Syndicate, and face off against evil versions of themselves. While this issue was wall-to-wall action from the start, it managed to have some good character moments peppered throughout, and it looks like it might the start of the next micro-arc. This book has been great so far and only looks like it’s going to get better.

Batman Universe #3

I feel like I can’t judge this book fairly. 

I love pop-art, I’m a sucker for a good Batman story, and lighthearted superhero stories are exactly what I need to breakup the self-serious tones of a lot of the other superhero books I read. This book by Bendis and Nick Derington hits every single one of those beats. 

If you’re looking for a self-serious Batman book you’re looking in the wrong place; but if you’re looking for a book where Batman jokes with Green Lantern about how much he likes dinosaurs before being transported through time, then you’ve got a lot of fun ahead of you.

On a side note, DC put a huge amount of faith in Bendis giving him this series, Action Comics, Superman, Naomi and Young Justice. Aside from the main Superman book, which has been horrendous in every sense of the word, he’s been writing some of the best stuff he’s done in years. Not quite on par with his Daredevil or Ultimate Spider-Man runs, but still some really great stuff.

Detective Comics #1011

Last we left the Caped Crusader, he and a bunch of his billionaire friends were stranded on an island, with Bruce teamed up with a pair of crotchety WWII fighter pilots and his rich friends held captive by Deadshot. Basically we’re in a “Deadliest Game” scenario with Batman and Deadshot hunting each other on a remote island. It’s kind of like all the parts of “Arrow” that people have told me are actually good. I don’t know, I haven’t watched that show, it looks like hot garbage. 

Anyway, this 2-issue story was always just a stop-gap while Mr. Freeze (or the writers) figured out how to use the new technology boost from Lex Luthor. While I always appreciate a visit from Deadshot, as he’s one of Batman’s more under appreciated villains in my opinion, this story was pretty paint by numbers. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t fun, just that it was always the stuff coming next that felt more compelling. 

Event Leviathan #4

This book has been pretty interesting so far, but seems to have the fanbase pretty divided. I’ve seen a lot of comments on the latest issue claiming that nothing has actually happened in this story so far, and that we’re just watching Bendis spin his gears in search of a story. Maybe I’m a sucker for a good noir, but I would say that this story has had its share of action at the start, but unlike a lot of comics, it’s a slow burn story. I’m not nervous yet, as Bendis has experience with noir and has shown he can do it well.

I’m not saying that this book doesn’t have its problems: the art, while objectively impressive, is hard to parse out the details in some of the darker scenes with all of the texture filters thrown over it. Similarly, though I have faith that Bendis has an idea where this story is going, the last issue didn’t really make a ton of sense (until a little later in this issue, but at the time it wasn’t wholly believable).

Batman #78

It seems that so many people have soured on Tom King at this point that I’m in the minority saying that I’m still enjoying his run on Batman. I’m not saying it hasn’t been without its faults, I was gutted just like everyone else when issue 50 came out and tore a chance at tangible change in the Bat-universe out from under us fans. But King’s writing and storytelling, though self-indulgent at times, has been largely good and in clear pursuit of a single goal: to tell the story of Batman being broken, like he’s never been broken before. 

As fans we need to remember that the man was handed the reins to 100 issues of Batman and said he was going to tell 1 story. Not an event that would inform the rest of his run, but 1 singular story told over 100 issues. It was a herculean task and it was always going to be a slow burn, but we’re in the endgame now with City of Bane in full swing and Batman just beginning to look up from the pit he’s fallen in. He’s been physically and emotionally broken, shamed himself in front of his family and been discredited amongst his peers, and ultimately forced out of his own city. So let’s see the way back.

Ok, so this wasn’t a bad issue, but it wasn’t the right issue. I’m a huge fan of how Tom King has written Bat/Cat, and when combined with Clay Manpi’s art and paneling this issue feels like I’m watching a classic James Bond movie. But while watching Bat/Cat reconcile their issues that originally tore them apart was long overdue and felt great, this was not the right time for this issue. 

After being left on the cliffhanger of Damion being captured and ALFRED POTENTIALLY KILLED, seeing Bat and Cat talking at an island retreat was just too far removed and casual. This has probably been the biggest issue I’ve personally had with King’s run: timing. But it seems like it’s all kicking off in the next few issues, so let’s see where this all finally ends.

[flauntpage]

Brett Kavanaugh's Latest Defender: The Eminently Useless Chris Dudley

Yale alumnus and Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh: he’s terrible! In addition to his hideous record of jurisprudence, his extremely-bizarre-Washington-Nationals-ticket-buying-habits, and his work in a former life suggesting that Ken Starr ask the president if he jerked off into a trash can, he's also been accused of sexual assault, by increasingly more women. Kavanaugh’s emerging malfeasance is showing the asses of all kinds of people: The President, Republican leadership in the Senate, the entirety of the conservative media infrastructure. They are all doubling down on this motherfucker even though there are another dozen Heritage Foundation goons who could do the exact same shit Kavanaugh would do, sitting around waiting for a call.

But no one has been exposed right now like Yale University has. Say what you will about Harvard, but at least it isn’t Yale, a school whose only real function is churning out the horseshit secret society creeps who run our country into the ground. Look no further than the professional athletes each school has produced. Harvard has managed to primarily churn out weirdo cult heroes like Ryan Fitzpatrick, currently in the midst of a yardage bender for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, NBA Asian-American trailblazer Jeremy Lin, dignified senator and all-time NBA memoirist Bill Bradley (Correction: Bradley went to Princeton, but is still a very good memoirist. We regret Dudley-ing that up.). Yale, on the other hand? The most famous sporting figure to emerge from the school, bar none, is Chris Dudley.

Dudley apparently knew Kavanaugh back in his college days, and considers him a "great friend," recently helped run interference for him, telling the Washington Post that, actually most of the other people they interviewed for this article are wrong, and Kavanaugh WASN’T a "sloppy drunk" who was routinely spotted slumped over asleep at parties. and could have NEVER done some heinous shit under the influence of alcohol that he wouldn’t remember.

“I went out with him all the time. He never blacked out. Never even close to blacked out,” said Dudley, a 2010 Republican candidate for governor of Oregon. “There was drinking, and there was alcohol. Brett drank, and I drank. Did he get inebriated sometimes? Yes. Did I? Yes. Just like every other college kid in America.”

Dudley is the grandest failure who ever lived, a 6'11" heap of fuck ups at the highest level, a dude who has spent his life tripping face first into mud puddles while everyone points and laughs at him. Dudley’s emergent association with Kavanaugh is probably the best-so-far sign that he absolutely won’t get confirmed, simply because everything Dudley touches withers and dies. Take, for instance, his free throws:

I hate to be the kind of pedant who says a shitty free throw shooter should shoot underhanded, I really do, but Dudley was special. He managed a career 45 percent rate in the NBA, and his form somehow made it worse.

Watch him gather the ball, raise up, set it over his head and… and…. and… shoot the ball, flashing a hitch that feels like it’s ten seconds long. On his second attempt, Marv Albert takes a few seconds to roast his hideous form on television, right as the ball drifts in a massive arc and still only taps front iron. After a Knicks player commits a lane violation and makes him take another one, Albert twists the knife. “You know, I get the idea that Chris would rather not have this extra free throw.”

Weirdly, after getting every ounce of dignity drained out of his body on TV, the extra shot manages to go in, a mild success that was turned into a crowning moment in Dudley’s elite-level, Yale-Constructed mind palace, fortified by gold leaf paintings that say “YOU ARE DOING GREAT, CHRIS” and “YOU DESERVE ALL THE SUCCESS YOU’VE BEEN AFFORDED!”

But hey… Dudley wasn’t just a miserable failure on the court. Off the hardwood, he was the NBA Players Association treasurer during the 1998-99 lockout, a labor action that ended with the players getting absolutely dominated and set up a president that would lead to them getting wrecked AGAIN in subsequent CBA negotiations. Of course, maybe Dudley was just dogging it, steering the union into disaster because his heart and soul were just so deeply aligned with management.

“I’m ready to lead our comeback.” After his retirement from being a crappy basketball player, someone in the Oregon Republican Party approached Dudz about running for Governor, like so many mediocre Yale men who came before him. For a while, he didn’t do that bad: his opponent, John Kitzhaber, was a machine politician who was an easy target for an outsider candidate. But, in politics as in basketball, Dudley was a stiff who got heaps of terrible ideas in his head, like, airing ads that featured comically corrupt NBPA chief Billy Hunter.

Dudley’s failed run at governor would probably be the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to him, if they had never legalized dunking in basketball. Because, friends, this dude LIVED to get dunked on:

Here’s Shawn Kemp rising up over Duddles, arms in the air, just waiting to take a slam, bringing shame to Portlanders everywhere who live only to see Seattle defeated in sports.

Oh hey, here’s Glenn Robinson getting some, executing the platonic ideal of driving the lane and throwing it down on a grimacing, overmatched big man. Look at Dudley’s face as he walks away from this disaster. He knows this will live forever, a totem of his shame on display for everyone.

Even Dudley’s own dunks manage to seem like Dudley getting dunked on. Here he is kind of… angling over Bill Cartwright, who absolutely couldn't care less. Two hands, looping over the body of another player, just baaaaarely making it. He doesn’t even celebrate, probably because a Yale Man never shows emotion in public, only in private, with his friends, while they all jerk off into microwaves filled with dead squirrels.

Oh, but nobody—NOBODY—has been more destroyed by any one person's single act than Dudley was when he was on the receiving end of The Shove. It is poetry in motion: Prime Shaq, in shape and looking like a fucking tank made out of nightmares, catches the ball on Dudley. He posts up, and takes Duddles DEEP in just a few short motions. He then turns around, raises up, and dunks on Dudley while thrusting his entire crotch into Chris’s midsection.

As he lands, Dudley stumbles and Shaq, who is an IMMACULATE asshole, plants two hands right in Dudley’s chest and sends him flying into the hardwood. Dudley proceeds to scramble up, soaked in his own blue blood, pick up the ball and heave it at Shaq, coming about as close to hitting the biggest dude in the league as he did on those free throws earlier. No one comes to his defense. Shaq just jogs back on D, they both get techs, and Dudley is left to stare irritably at a dude who just defined his career and life on national television.

It is, in my mind, the greatest NBA dunk of all time, just a wild tangle of peak power and bad feelings, spilling out of the screen. It works as one little piece of something, a GIF of pure domination you can play in a loop forever. It works as a short story, a tale of one man turning another into an embarrassed pile of mush. And it works as a synecdoche of the two men’s careers and lives, Shaq having paraded through anyone and everyone who stood in his way night after night, while Dudley collected fat-ass checks to be totally unnecessary, both as an NBA big man and a shitty Republican lackey, and just getting fucking owned in public over and over. Hopefully, his streak will continue in the future, both near and long term.

Brett Kavanaugh's Latest Defender: The Eminently Useless Chris Dudley published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

[swipestream]

Star Wars Rip-Offs: The Good, the Bad, and the Weird

A more innocent time, when a Swedish actor playing an Asian villain bothered no one.

As a major, SJW-infested corporation trots out another installment of a beloved franchise, devoid of excitement and fresh ideas but pumped to the gills with Social Justice, it’s interesting to go back to an earlier, more innocent time, shortly after the first Star Wars (1977) came out.  Not only was it legitimately excellent, it also became an insane success that changed the very economics of the film industry from a system dominated by directors making serious art for adults (think Network (1976), Chinatown (1974), or even more action-oriented fare like The French Connection (1971)) to one focusing on special effects-laden blockbusters for teens.  Many, myself included, would argue this was ultimately for the worst, but that’s a topic for another column.

The point is that in the wake of Star Wars’ success (the second-highest grossing film of all time when factoring in inflation, after Gone with the Wind (1939)), there were a slew of imitators.  Ignoring obvious foreign crap like the infamous Turkish Star Wars (1982), let’s look at a few of these.

Flash Gordon (1980)

Sure, Flash Gordon started as a comic strip in 1934 and there were several film serials released in the late 30s and early 40s.  But would there possibly have been a big-screen adaptation 40 years later if not for the success of the Star Wars franchise at the time?  Not a chance.  And it was produced by none other than Dino de Laurentiis, the brilliant, incorrigible, and utterly insane Italian mogul.

The film is a mess in many ways.  It went through numerous directorial changes (at various points, Fellini, George Lucas, and Sergio Leone were all considered!) and according to script writer Lorenzo Semple Jr, they couldn’t figure out whether to make it more serious or comical, eventually settling on the “wrong” choice of a cartoonish approach.  The lead Sam Jones physically looks the part of a tall, well-built, handsome American hero.  Unfortunately, being a nude model with no acting experience, he lacks charisma and even basic personality.  A disagreement with De Laurentiis also led to much of his dialogue being overdubbed.  Beyond that, the movie is a series of one set piece after another, frequently mediocre, with little rhyme or reason for them, but full of Three Stooges style hijinx.

And yet, there is a definite charm to the picture.  While Jones fails to impress, future James Bond Timothy Dalton is a fine roguish prince, the great Max Von Sydow is a solid villain, and the wonderful British character actor Brian Blessed, with his booming voice, is a memorable leader of the Hawkmen.  It’s a loud, boisterous movie, with colorful costumes and a genuine energy to it, no matter how silly the set piece.

And of course, it features a genuinely great soundtrack by Queen.  When most people think of the film, the opening lines of the theme play in their heads, and many of its other flaws melt away.  The song being used for the final, climactic battle is genuinely thrilling.

Krull (1983)

Reminds me a little of the character select screen for Golden Axe!

As I’ve mentioned in the comments here, this is my absolute favorite of the Star Wars rip-offs, which is equal to or even superior to the original in many ways.  Directed by the great, now slightly forgotten English director Peter Yates, it was my favorite movie as a child.  I dreaded revisiting it as an adult, as my reaction to most of what I liked then was “How the hell did I ever like THAT?!  This is crap!  I must have been a dumb kid!”  However, watching it as a jaded adult, not only did I enjoy it, but at its best, it inspired the same feelings of awe and wonder I had felt as a child.

Krull is a sprawling epic, with a ragged band of adventurers going on a hero’s journey to rescue a princess in a beautiful, enchanting, and deadly world.  Unlike Flash Gordon mentioned above, the set pieces in this movie are incredible, and feature considerable ingenuity.  Even the mystical weapon in the movie, a multi-bladed mix between a shuriken and a boomerang called a glaive (not to be confused with the actual historical weapon of the same name) proved so popular it has been many used in many fantasy properties since.

The fights are thrilling, the heroes likable, and the villains, including their creepy, insane castle, are dark and menacing.  In fact, it succeeds at many of the same metrics that Star Wars did, if not to the same extent.

However, in one regard it is clearly better than Star Wars, and that is the soundtrack.  Yes, Star Wars is excellent there, but I consider James Horner’s work on Krull to be the best in all of film history.  Even better than Basil Poledouris’ work on Conan the Barbarian (1982) or Ennio Morricone’s numerous masterpieces.

The music is ever-present, a constant element throughout the picture, elevating each scene.  If the picture wasn’t fundamentally good, the soundtrack wouldn’t matter so much.  But in this case, it infuses with that additional drama, pathos, and heroism to go from good to great.  The main theme is outstanding and the Ride of the Firemares is thrilling, but my personal favorite is The Widow’s Lullaby.

If my enthusiasm didn’t make it obvious enough, I encourage every reader here to check out this simultaneously overlooked and underrated classic.

Wizards (1977)

“Dull, adventure-less fantasy of propaganda and Marxism” would be more accurate.

Okay okay, I’m cheating here, as this was actually released three months before the first Star Wars.  Still, I can’t resist highlighting this left-wing, scaremongering screed masquerading as a fantasy film, since it shows the pitfalls of political propaganda in movies and was made 40 years before the current year.   It’s similar to Star Wars in some ways, including an earlier use of plasma rifles.

The plot of this animated movie would make any fairy tale seem complex.  In a post-apocalyptic world, magic is everywhere, and a Good Wizard defeats an Evil Wizard but spares him.  The Evil Wizard then stumbles upon an old reel of Nazi propaganda (I wish I was kidding), which he displays on a projector to a bunch of monsters.  Instead of being confused at what the fuck they’re watching, the monsters become an unstoppable killing machine, routing elves and other good creatures in battle.  The Good Wizard, along with a few travel companions, go on a journey to stop the Evil Wizard.

I’m not simplifying this, either.  The Good Wizard is even named Avatar and the Evil Wizard Blackwolf.

The use of film as a weapon of propaganda is classic SJW projection, as Wizards is as heavy-handed as anything by Leni Riefenstahl.

The story is thoroughly idiotic, features no adventure and little in the way of excitement.  Instead, it is constantly cloying and preaching what would have been cutting-edge leftist sociopolitical orthodoxy back then.

Amusingly, as soon as the projector goes out, Blackwolf’s unbeatable Nazi army of hulking monsters gets easily slaughtered by a bunch of scrawny elven wimps.  I thought this was illogical and stupid when I saw it, but it makes perfect sense now, understanding the pathology of leftist thinking.  They always think it will be a piece of cake to defeat their enemies, contrary to all evidence.  (Admittedly, this is a trap certain right-wingers fall into as well, in the opposite direction)  And American leftists never appreciate what a force the Nazis truly were, which is also an insult to their victims.  Being a Russian Jew, with many ancestors who had fought in the war, the sober assessment I heard growing up was that the Germans were the best soldiers in the world then.  But in this film, Blackwolf’s army is actually weak, and their success is based around a single film projector.  Ergo, the menace of the villains is revealed as illusory, and there is nothing significant worth celebrating in the elvish victory.

Also, in a climactic scene, the hippy, non-violent good wizard Avatar, who had spared Blackwolf and preaches non-violence and mercy, shoots Blackwolf dead with a gun.  In cold blood.  There is nothing wrong with such a solution by a different protagonist in a different situation, but after all the preaching we’ve heard, it makes Avatar nothing more than a hypocrite, fraud, and very possibly evil himself.  It also renders the high-minded leftist themes that the movie had pushed so hard as nothing more than trite bullshit, to be disposed of whenever convenient.  (Gee, doesn’t that attitude sound familiar?)

Anywho, I hope you have enjoyed this look at some old movies similar to Star Wars.  Sadly, among major studio releases these days, one is far more likely to get a picture in the mold of Wizards than that of Krull!

Star Wars Rip-Offs: The Good, the Bad, and the Weird published first on http://ift.tt/2zdiasi