#he has that power in the comics and he needs a replacement one anyway bc...everyone can see ghosts

[non-plutonian-druid]

[ID: two drawings vaguely imitating the style of the webcomic Paranatural. In the first, Luther, Diego, Allison, and Klaus are drawn as children, while Five is drawn as an adult. They are all hanging out in a classroom, being supervised by Five, their teacher. Diego is drawing on the chalkboard, Klaus is lounging behind a desk, Luther is sitting on the floor reading, and Allison is talking to Five. Five is holding a coffee mug that says "World's Okayest Teacher". Behind them, the chalkboard reads "Club Rules: 1. Be nice. 2. Use the buddy system. 3. Stop biting (Diego)."

In the second image, Allison is snarking at Five, who is texting someone on his phone. She says "You're married?", emphasis on you're. Five replies "Uh.... yeah?" End ID.]

More paranatural au: the original club hanging out, before Viktor (the new kid) joins. I still haven't decided what to call the club; using the name from the webcomic feels lazy, but it's hard to top "The [paranatural] Activity Club". Also: Allison's main goal in life is to snark at Five. Color her shocked that he could get any woman to marry him.

Anyway, the fun part of this au is that since ghosts and spirits are real, and they possess objects, Five can both be married to a mannequin AND Delores can be real. Best of both worlds! Stay tuned to get to see her 👀

[necrotic-nephilim]

in the tags of that one fab five poly post you mentioned that you are a core four enthusiast and I’d love to hear if you have any Kon headcanons or just any yj headcanons in general, I love those little guys

!!! i love Kon so much, he's one of my fave guys. i actually got into the 90s era of comics to read his solo run, YJ(98), and then i just spiralled from there. i've got lots of headcanons about both Kon and YJ

for Kon specifically, i'm really attached to the headcanon of him and Power Girl being friends. i think the idea of them bonding over imposter syndrome over feeling like Kryptonians who don't neatly fit into the Superfam would be very crunchy. it's my Kara Zor-L stan showing, but i've got a lot of fic ideas where they end up close. similarly: i also think a friendship between Kon and Bizarro could be fun, both being clones of Superman made by Lex.

for a YJ headcanon: i hold FIRMLY to the belief that Bart knew TIm's secret identity before YJ even formed he just. never mentioned it bc no one asked him. the way they meet in Robin Plus Impulse, i see no world where Bart doesn't figure it out. i think it makes for a hilarious concept that Tim's identity real is a big deal and he uses the whole fake name Alvin Draper and Bart just blurts out that he's Tim Drake. i know we all love TimKon, but I'm a bit of a TimBart truther and i think it could be a fun little moment for them.

back to Kon: this is less of a headcanon and more of just a thought: but i wish we had more content about the Ravers, Kon's team before YJ. i won't everytime i think about Superboy & the Ravers i have to look it up to convince myself i didn't hallucinate that entire comic. but it was so fun. there was a road trip arc. a canon queer character who's arc was handled shockingly well for the 90s. (and the homophobic character was the one who got the unhappy ending while the gay man got to be happy with a bf?? revolutionary.) i personally believe Hero Cruz was Kon's gay awakening. i won't elaborate on this. anyway i wish we saw more of Kon thinking about this team after YJ formed and maybe missing some of his old party friend losers.

also on the note of Kon, i love any exploration of his canon experiences with being groomed by just about every woman he "dated" in the 90s. i'm such a fan of when a character becomes hypersexual to cope with their trauma that they haven't realized even is trauma. and i think Kon fits that bar perfectly. the first real attention he got outside of being attached to Superman's legacy was sexual attention from women, so of course he would lean into that and not realize how fucked up it was until years later. i love when it shapes his relationships in fanfiction, especially if he doesn't realize it. whether it's Tana Moon or Knockout or just about any other woman, there's a lot of material to explore.

Kon is one of the few characters i will venture out of pre-Flashpoint for because i think his complex over Jon Kent has the potential to be really complex and fun. i think everyone misunderstands Kon and Clark's relationship (i blame the Young Justice cartoon. i've had arguments you wouldn't believe over Kon on TikTok-) as father/son and that Clark is constantly pushing Kon away in favor of Jon, and that's just not true. the issue is that Kon was *forgotten* by the timeline shifting without him bc he was off on Gemworld. and to me, that's more interesting than making Clark some kind of absent father to him. it's an issue of the world he remembers not existing anymore and most of the world not remembering him either, and now there's a new Superboy replacing him. idk man that's fun. i have a lot of thoughts about the feelings Kon would have about Jon, wondering if the timeline shift was meant to "correct" Superboy to make a version of Superboy that was meant to exist and Kon wasn't. this very much ties into my thoughts on how he and Power Girl would have a lot to bond over, feeling displaced in a world that doesn't need them. that's where Kon's identity issues stem from. that said, i always prefer a Kon who actually gets along pretty well with the Superfam, including Clark and Jon. most of his conflict is internal, not external. it's what makes him crunchy.

more YJ headcanon: i think the shift from the Teen Titans to YJ from the perspective of the mentors is fascinating. YJ got a lot more freedom and less supervision, it's like how parents don't try as hard when they have more kids. so i love the headcanon that half the time the League has no damn clue what YJ is up to. they played baseball to save the universe? yeah they never mentioned it to their mentors. no one asked. the lack of supervision, sans a robot, makes them incredibly creative with how they solve problems. they don't approach anything traditionally because no one is properly guiding them. since they're a new generation of sidekicks, most of them holding a mantle that was passed down to them (or at the very least they're a new generation of a superhero family) it holds a bit of imposter syndrome. all of them are internally panicking 90% of the time while trying to appear collected around each other. they're actively a collective disaster because of it.

personally, i view the Core Four as more of a queerplatonic polycule than a romantic one? like i think it's fun to explore polycule dynamics where it's not actually everyone dating everyone, but far more complex of some people dating, some people are familial, some people are fucking, and we don't even know what those two have going on. it's complicated, you know? messy and codependent. i don't see them as a neat polycule whatsoever. it's like an on and off again relationship but with four people that also occasionally includes others. i'm personally a fan of the potential of the Young Justice (2019) team being a polycule except none of them have any clue who's dating who. every single one of them *will* give you a different answer. half of them aren't even aware of the other's sexualities. Jinny has come out as a lesbian like four times to her own polycule. i'm a big fan of this team and i wish there was more fan content for it.

random smaller headcanon: i do think Kon can cook and i think no one believes him when he tells them. bc the issue isn't he can't cook, it's that he never has food in his fridge or pantry to cook with. that boy was raised with Ma and Pa Kent, he can make a *mean* hotdish with whatever he finds. just don't expect him to ever repeat a recipe bc he will never have that exact combination of ingredients in his kitchen again. he is however, horrible at baking bc cooking is an art and baking is a science and you will never catch him following a recipe in his life.

i think Kon regularly uses his TTK to save his teammates during fights and just. never mentions it. like in small ways, such as slightly moving flying debris that's about to hit them, making a villain's punch have more resistance so it doesn't hit as hard, slightly pulling them out of the way. no one knows for like. *years*. i'm very obsessed with pushing TTK to the limits and exploring how it makes Kon hyperaware of his surroundings. it's a literal sixth sense and i think he's passively always aware of everything, even when he's relaxing. no one realizes just how much control he exerts over a fight. which means he's holding himself back most of the time, and in my opinion for the reasons of being afraid of himself, and afraid of the Luthor parts of him. so he just. balances a fight in little, unnoticeable ways.

it's one of my headcanons that if Kon started openly dating Tim Drake, Lex would immediately try to get closer to Kon bc not only would he approve of Kon dating someone from high society, but he'd want to try to use Tim's power within his family's company and Bruce's company as leverage. of course it wouldn't work, but it'd be a fun mind game if Lex vs Tim with Kon just stuck in the middle. i have a vague fanfic idea for this I'll probably never write.

this is a cursed headcanon: but i believe Kon has an incest kink. the number of times he's canonically expressed incestual feelings (both on purpose and on accident) is not on purpose in the text, but the fact it keeps happening means i'm personally just going to run with it. i think KonJayTim is fun bc even if Tim and Jason don't see each other as siblings, Kon would make it a kink anyway. i will leave you on that cursed note.

[e-milieeee]

golden (like daylight)—wings au

Notes: inspired by @celerydays ‘s comic! 

this is for @thechatsmeow and @justaferal-bastard ’s wing au... bc i have become way too invested. no regrets :D and everyone who has contributed to the wing au content.... ily

altho warning: there is description of blood but its not in detail at all!! 

Summary: Who knew getting shot in the side and then thrown off a building would've been the way Ladybug discovered Chat Noir's identity?

Marinette certainly wouldn't have guessed.

Click here to read on AO3! 

golden (like daylight) 

Chat Noir is not present when Ladybug is hit.

It’s a mistake that she’s never made before; somehow, she’d always been able to summon her Lucky Charms in the nick of time, without the akuma’s interference. But this time is different. Chat had been missing the whole fight, not there to watch her back, so when Ladybug throws her yo-yo into the air she is met with blinding pain instead of a magical object.

It pieces into her side, with enough force to puncture through her suit and send her slamming into the wall a couple of paces away.

For a moment, shock is the only emotion Ladybug feels. She understands the pain in a disjointed manner, the sort that promises agony but does not yet register as much—and then it finally hits her.  

A bullet. She’s been shot by a bullet. Her vision is obscured by tears, too blurry for her to see anything more than a meter away from her. The world stops spinning until all Ladybug can focus on is the fact that her side feels like it’s burning, as if the wound is boring deeper and deeper into her body until it steals her breath and her heartbeat. And on top of that, her earrings have started to beep.

Ladybug can hear the sharp cackling of the akuma—Sharpshooter—who flits over to her, inky black wings beating behind him, his gun cocked in her direction still. Her wings drag weakly at her back, trembling from effort yet uselessly, and Sharpshooter reaches down to grab a handful of her suit. She is hauled to her feet.

The triumphal smile on his face does not belong to the akuma so much as it belongs to Hawkmoth. “Ladybug,” he sneers. “Look at you. Nothing without Chat Noir, aren’t you?”

“Put her down.”  

Both she and Sharpshooter turn to follow the voice. Hovering a couple of paces behind them, black wings beating furiously, is Chat Noir. He’s too far for Ladybug to make out anything more than the vague shape of his figure, but the relief that floods through her is almost strong enough to combat the pain. Chat levels the akuma down with a glare, baton in one hand, his cataclysm burning in the other. When Sharpshooter doesn’t move, Chat raises the baton. “Put. Her. Down.”  

For a moment, Ladybug thinks that the akuma just might follow the command. There’s something terrifying in Chat’s voice that chills her, even though his words aren’t directed to her. Perhaps it’s her failing vision, but his eyes seem darker than they usually are, canines elongated.

Then Sharpshooter throws his head back and laughs. “You want me to put her down?” he snarls back at Chat. “Then go get her.”

The next thing Ladybug knows is glass shattering like rainfall all around her. The pain tearing through her wings barely register, because before she can focus on them, the wind is taking its turn to rip them apart, feather by feather, like tiny needles jamming into muscle.

As Ladybug plummets down, she’s lucid enough to understand that she needs to fly. Except the pain in her side is now spreading throughout all her body, turning her movements sluggish. Her wings tremble uselessly behind her, a deadweight. She falls, faster and faster, the ground approaching, terror and pain and helplessness clawing into her throat and choking her with cold fingers.

This isn’t supposed to be how I die, Ladybug thinks, and with some wild, last minute desperation, she forces her wings open.

For a split second it works: her fall slows slightly. But it’s not enough to combat the sheer speed she has been tumbling at, and she can only watch as the ground grows closer and closer and—

A streak of black shadow barrels into her. The air is knocked clean out of Ladybug’s lungs.

She can feel Chat straining to slow their dive. His wings flap fiercely for a couple of short seconds before they envelope her and the impact hits.

A hard, brutal collision greets them—no, not them, him —as the punishment is absorbed by Chat Noir’s wings and body. He cries out when they hit the ground, rolling to a stop.

Ladybug lays there, winded and out of breath, nestled safely from the worst of the fall between the giant, dark wings that still shield her. The wound in her side has stopped its incessant agony, instead turning into a sharp ache that she has learned to ignore in favor of worse things. Her wings feel like they’ve been ripped clean from her back from the sheer force of trying to stop the plunge. Before her eyes, her vision flickers and blackens, and Ladybug struggles to keep her eyes open. Sharpshooter’s dark silhouette imprints against the blue of the sky, his weapon pointed at them, but the warning that rises is interrupted when Chat Noir pushes himself to his knees. With trembling effort, he slips a careful arm under her neck and lifts her head up.

“Ladybug, I’m so sorry,” he breathes. His voice chokes, and Ladybug’s own throat closes at how terrified he sounds. “I was late because I couldn’t get out of the house when I saw the akuma attack and I’m so, so sorry I couldn’t come sooner. I—”

He is cut off by the shrill beeping of her earrings. Without wasting a beat, Chat Noir’s wings rise around them like a slow, laboured breath, until the blue sky is blotted out by inky black and she is cocooned safely inside a sea of feathers.

Her transformation slips when the first bullet hits Chat’s wings.

He doesn’t make a noise of pain; the only sign is the slight flinch of his body. But Marinette can see it: the stain of blood from where the bullet pierces through his wing, then another, then another.

“What are you doing?” she grinds out. “Chat, please, you’re getting hurt!”

“What does it look like?” Somehow, he manages a smile. “Protecting you, M’lady.”

He knows who I am. But her identity isn’t the most important thing, not when Chat’s taking all of the fire, his wings straining to keep her shielded. “Chat,” she repeats. “You have to let me help.”

“Don’t worry.” He winces, one hand moving, and it takes Marinette a moment to realize that he’s reaching for her ears. “I have a plan. I just—I just need to get you somewhere safe, and I need your Miraculous for now. Is that okay?”

“I can help—”

“No, you can’t,” he interrupts. “Can I take your Miraculous for this, Marinette?”

It’s the insistent way Chat says her name that makes her yield. They’ve met plenty of times as Marinette and Chat Noir, but never with this knowledge between them. But the bond between them is still the same; unspoken but strong, full of unconditional trust. And Marinette trusts him with her life.

“Alright,” she whispers.

Chat doesn’t waste a heartbeat. He takes them from her carefully, then, without removing his own Miraculous, slips the earrings on.

“Tikki, spots on.”

The color that rises from the combination of their Miraculous is one that Marinette cannot explain: it’s not Chat’s green nor her pink, but instead, a kaleidoscope of a spectrum much beyond known words. The color streaks from the Miraculous to his wings, which unfurl as black, white and gold interspersed together. Marinette can still see the bullet wounds of angry crimson, but Chat pays them no heed. Instead, still shielding her from sight, he picks her up gingerly. The claws on his fingers are gone, replaced by spiralling patterns of red and black that dance around each other. They share one look of mutual understanding.

Then, with one strong wingbeat, he takes off.

Marinette knows flying and speed. She and Chat have raced, have dived from sky-high, but this— this is another step of intensity altogether. Despite the wounds both of them sport, Chat moves with the same feline grace, even faster than usual. Marinette can practically feel the power of the combined Miraculous thrumming underneath and through his suit, diffusing into her veins as well.

They lose Sharpshooter in the matter of seconds. He dives through narrow alleys, over and around rooftops, until finally, they land on a highrise. Chat sets her down behind a large billboard.

“Stay here, and I’ll come find you after I’ve purified the akuma,” Chat tells her, squeezing her hand lightly.

He turns to leave. Despite her condition, Marinette manages to grab hold of his tail, pulling him to a halt.

“Chat,” she manages out.

His gaze is steady. “I’ll be back.” It’s a statement and a promise at the same time.

“You better,” Marinette tells him. It hurts to smile, but she does it anyway. “I still have to kick your ass for doing something so stupid.”  

He grins, wounded wings stretching open again. “I wouldn’t miss that for the world, M’lady.”

He dives off the building in a streak of brilliant, dying color, and Marinette can only wait.

***

Marinette knows the akuma has been defeated when the bullet wound on her side disappears, the pain in her wings fading until she is able to straighten them fully again.

But she still can’t help but worry when Chat Noir still doesn’t return. She waits, counting the seconds—thirty, sixty, one minute, two, five—but he’s nowhere in sight. He had promised he would come back, but he hadn’t, and given the state she had last seen him in…

The soft fluttering of wings interrupts her thoughts. Marinette scrambles towards the sound, at the edge of the building, having worked herself into a fever of nervous anticipation.

The first thing she sees are the wings.

Bright, golden wings.

It’s not the stygian black of Chat Noir, nor the palette of colors he had sported with both their Miraculous, yet it’s familiar all the same.

Adrien Agreste lands in front of her.

She doesn’t need an explanation. Marinette sees it, as clear as daylight. She understands through unspoken words—she knows , has known deep down, and it’s right. Painfully, wonderfully, right. Adrien Agreste is Chat Noir. Adrien Agreste is her partner.

Of course.  

The nervousness on Adrien’s face melts into shock when Marinette tackles him with a hug.

His wings, healed, brush against her hands softly. Marinette grips the feathers tightly, burying her face into his shoulder. Slowly, hesitantly, Adrien’s hands creep around her to rest on her back as well.

“It’s you,” she mumbles into his shoulder. “It’s you.”  

His body shakes when he laughs. “Does this mean you’re not mad at me? For finding out your identity? And for revealing mine? I thought it wouldn’t be fair if I knew but you didn’t know who I was and it was you so I thought I might as well—” He lets go of her to gesture grandly. “All of this. You’re not mad?”

“Oh, I’m mad at you.” Marinette pulls back as well. “For being a stupid, noble, self-sacrificing idiot.”  

“You can kick my ass for that,” Arien promises, albeit a little nervously. “But everything else…?”

“Getting shot hurt,” she replies. “But maybe ‘everything else’ made it worth it.”

The smile that spreads over his face is bright like the sun, golden like his wings. “Here,” Adrien said, opening her hand and placing her earrings into them. Then, he adds quietly, “I’m glad it’s you, Marinette.”

How can she not smile back, seeing that earnest, open look on his face? Marinette reaches up, carefully and softly, pressing her fingers against his cheeks. He leans into her touch.

“Me too,” she echoes.

Notes: Click here for my fics masterlist! 

[cherryblossomshadow]

Wonder Woman 1984 review

Long, rambly, and spoilery. You’ve been warned. 

I saw WW84. I had thoughts. Let's talk about it. 

I want to preface with the fact that it's amazing that we have another female-led superhero film! I loved Patti Jenkins' work with the first Wonder Woman (and this one too) and I'm so glad she's back for this one. There's obviously a lot to pick through, but first, a couple reminders.

No film will ever be "perfect."

Not every film is made specifically for you. 

It is okay to vibe or disvibe with something. But that does not make it trash. 

Also, please, keep in mind, what I'm expressing are my opinions. I'm entitled to mine as you are entitled to yours. I hope you have a lovely time on the internet, and I hope you wish the same for everyone you interact with. 

Oh, and spoilers obviously. 

Okay, with all that out of the way, let's dig in. 

My overall experience with the film is positive! I had a great time watching it, it got me emotional, and I definitely want to watch it again. That said, I don't think it's better than the first one (although that would have been quite a feat), and that's ok. It's a continuation of a story we've already started, and it doesn't need to outshine the first. 

Okay, after all the hyping up and disclaiming I've done, let's dig into what I didn't like about the film. 

Number one is pacing. The storyline felt very erratic to me? Part of that, I feel, is because we have three (four?) main characters, and we jump between them pretty abruptly. 

Number two is the themes. Now I do like the themes of WW84 (truth and sacrifice), I just don't think they were worked into the film as cohesively as I would have liked? 

Number three is perceived character changes to Diana. And really, some of this is kinda circumstantial, I just thought it deserved its own bullet point. You'll see what I mean. 

So, on Pacing.

We jump between Diana (and Steve), Barbara, and Maxwell pretty frequently. And before I talk about that, I have to talk about my view on the characters. 

a. Now, I love the Mandalorian, but I was not personally invested in Maxwell's arc at all. Again, this is my take, and I know people disagree. Many people feel like Pedro Pascal carried the film on his shoulders. That's cool. He's a great actor. I'm glad he was in it. I just kinda checked out of every scene he was in (when he wasn't with his kid) because I wasn't invested in him. He played a sleazeball on purpose, and it worked. I was sleazed. So the movie kinda dragged for me whenever the camera panned to him. 

b. I loved the focus on Barbara. I don't know Cheetah from the comics, so this is from a movie-only perspective. But I know one of the criticisms of the first film was that Diana didn't really talk to women after she left Themyscira (even though there was a perfectly good villainess sitting right there for her to converse with and have morality debates/fights with! Even Steve Trevor got to talk to Dr Poison!), so I thought it was great that 1) they set up a villainess for her to fight and 2) it was a villainess that she knew, she had talked to, she had formed a relationship with. It honestly surprised me that Barbara was helpful for so long (bc I had seen the trailer and got spoiled that she would become a villain), but I love that she genuinely did want to help Diana, up until she hit her hard limit (giving up her powers). Now, that being said, the Nerd Girl Makeover has been done a thousand times. I knew what her vague trajectory would be from the second she appeared on screen with frizzy hair. I did like that her motivation was not solely "pretty people are mean to me, and I want revenge and/or for this hot guy to like me," but specifically, "I want to be like this really cool girl" and then "I don’t want to be like anyone else; I want to be the best/number one" for myself." But I felt like the absolute inattention that she was shown at the beginning and the absolute worship Diana and later Barbara would get was ... highly exaggerated? And I know this was another criticism of the first film, that yeah "Diana did so well in the real world because SHE'S HOT and that's actually not empowering to women" or something. But like. Watching that part made me uncomfortable instead of seen. Pandered to, instead of impacted. Showing how looks change how society treats you is important, but not to this caricaturized degree. 

c. (and d?) And lastly, Diana and Steve. Or more accurately, Diana and Steve's soul or memories or ??? that has been transplanted into some random man's body with absolutely no one's consent (I don't believe that Diana "consented" when making the wish, because she didn't know 1. That it would even work or 2. HOW it would work.). So ... Yeah. The first problem with this (chronologically, not by importance) is that it's really unclear what's going on? Some rando is reciting Steve's lines from the first film, then all of a sudden he turns into Chris Pine? (Fun fact: my aunt actually recognized the actor from Hallmark 😂 Could you imagine being the guy who gets replaced by Chris Pine for half the movie? Like "yeah, I played Steve Trevor, but they had Chris Pine do all the important parts" 😂😂😂). So, Diana and Steve finally figure out that he's inhabiting some engineer's body because of the wish she made. And then they bang. Or do they bang before they figure it out? Either way, yikes 😬. Not a good look. 

To be clear, the yikes part is that Steve is inhabiting Engineer Dude's body without their consent (without his own either tho so that part's not really his fault), but then he chooses to do things sexually with that body that Engineer Dude didn't consent to (because he's like, literally not home. Whether he's been subsumed into Chris Pine or taken out or dormant or whatever). Oh, and then like, probably doing death-defying stunts with his body is also yikes. I'm not really sure what the rules around body possession are. Cuz you know. 

Anyway, that is a huge issue that is literally not addressed. At all. 

Again, I think they may have been trying to address some criticisms from the first film about Diana "getting rid of the dreaded V-card so quickly in Wonder Woman and then pining after Chris Pine (lol) for the rest of her long life" and how that sets back female sexuality and stuff. Which I get. They actually lampshaded it in WW84, how Chris Pine wants her to move on because "the world deserves her." Which I know what they were going for in the scene, but I feel like they didn't flesh out the journey from Hippolyta's "the world doesn't deserve you Diana" to Steve's "the world deserves you (to date them)" enough. But I digress. 

I'm gonna talk a little bit more about the possession and that "the world deserves/doesn't deserve you" line in my Themes section, but honestly? From the previews, I assumed that Chris Pine was revived from the dead via time travel or something. Body possession was NOT in the the trailers. I think the Dreamstone could have created a body for him out of nothing. Or like "time-traveled" him into the future. So like. Why didn't they? Why introduce body possession at all? So they could make fun of the dude's clothes? 

Okay, back to the pacing part of the pacing section. These three (four?) characters have completely different things going on in their lives (I actually forgot to talk about Maxwell, but he wants to "be the best," and he's gonna do it by giving people what they think they want (maybe) and then taking from them whatever he wants. Yeah idk). And all three do interact at the beginning (brownie points) even if the attempted seduction of Barbara by Maxwell makes me want to throw up. But the themes aren't worked in as cohesively as I would have liked, and the tone changes were jarring, as the film switched between them all. 

Another facet of the movie is that the Dreamstone is kind of a mystery. And that was a deliberate Choice™, not a mistake. We're guessing at what the rock is doing and how and why and by who and all that stuff, and that's on purpose, but that makes for a confusing experience. Their approach is to throw something confusing at you and then explain it later. Which is great for worldbuilding. But not always for the Movie-Watching Experience™. So to recap, we're switching tracks and characters with their own separate stories while also setting up several confusing plot points that take a while to unravel. This all contributes to the Experience™, good or bad. 

Honestly, I wonder how much Covid affected this movie? My dad felt like a lot of scenes probably got cut for various reasons, and it probably affected the flow of the movie. If so, it could have affected thematic coherence, too. Speaking of... 

So, Themes. 

The themes that I got out of this film were Truth and Sacrifice. Maybe I missed some; I'm not an experienced Media Critic™. But these are the ones I noticed. 

And actually, these themes are really strong. Universally applicable, and used in all three character arcs. It's just tied in a bit ... erratically?

So working backward, knowing that the Dreamstone is giving you a lie, you need to renounce your wish and accept the Truth™. This is echoed in Diana's flashback, where she needed to accept that she didn't win. 

Working backward again, Sacrifice was a big part of the story for all three characters because Diana was willing to sacrifice her power to keep Steve, but he wanted her to sacrifice him so she could save the world. Barbara was willing to sacrifice her "humanity" or "empathy" or whatever she lost for the power and influence she got by emulating Diana, and she was unwilling to sacrifice that to save the world. Maxwell was willing to sacrifice time with his son to "become the best," but he did sacrifice that to save his son's life. 

And then, full circle, he confessed to his son that he wasn't the best, he's actually a filthy liar. Which, yes, kudos for the themes, be honest with your children, but you can still sanitize it a bit. That speech alone would have traumatized the kid. 

Speaking of speeches, Antiope's speech confused me in a similar way? Like, she stops Diana from "winning" the tournament after cheating, and goes on this weird rambly rant which goes from "accept that you're not a winner" to "cheating is bad and so is lying." Which yes, cheating is bad, but it's weird that she wouldn't have been disqualified at this point for not shooting that last target? Like, did she need to be tackled? Idk, I felt like they came up with the line they wanted Antiope to say first, and then just made her say it. (And also, in other stories, Diana would have been praised for being "clever" and "never giving up without a fight." So like, I needed a bit more preparation for which take they were going for, because the anti-cheating spiel felt jarring to me.) 

And again, I wonder if this is a response to a criticism of this first film. (Warning: WW17 rant gearing up) 

When Diana has her big motivational flashback during her fight with Ares, she thinks about Steve, this dude she just met a week ago, saying he loved her. When she could have been thinking about literally any of the women who had raised her. I personally think it would have been cool to hear some of Antiope's words at that point. Since they set up Hippolyta and Antiope to have conflicting ideas over whether Diana should fulfill her humanity-saving destiny, it might have been cool to see her saying something about humans and how they need her or how she should help them or something. They could even have done the whole thing with not being able to hear Steve's last words, but with Antiope since she dies earlier in the film and doesn't finish speaking. I also think it would have been cool for them to expand Hippolyta's earlier line about "They don't deserve you, Diana," here to like "They need you, Diana," or something. And then Steve's line in WW84 could have been something like "They're with you, Diana," or "They could get to know you, Diana," and her character arc could have been about actually living among society and maybe getting to know these humans that she's saved so many times (which they kind of alluded to when she and Barbara had their little date at the beginning of the film). But I digress. 

So, yeah, I found both of these speeches to be ... Not great? Like I can tell what they're going for and how they tie into the themes, but they're so heavy-handed and they don't actually fit in too well to the moment they happen in. Like as soon as the speech starts, you realize that they started going meta on you. The character isn't really speaking to the other character, they're speaking to us, and they're telling us how this scene ties into the greater themes of the film. 

Oh and they have this great quote from Antiope "greatness is not what you think" and then Maxwell's son wishes for him to be "great." And they do nothing with it :(

As promised, I want to talk about the body possession a little bit more. So again, one of the recurring themes is Truth™. Which is a great choice for Wonder Woman, what with her Lasso of Truth. 

But it's tied in a bit haphazardly. They force it into a conversation about cheating in a flashback at the beginning of the film. And then they talk about how you need to accept the Truth™ in order to defeat the Dreamstone. I already talked about the cheating, and how the "accept that you're not a winner" was kind of a weird path to take to get your point across to a ten year old girl. 

But the Dreamstone. Oh, the Dreamstone. I said before that the movie is a mystery. It shows you things but doesn't explain them. Well, this is a bit of a problem. Because they never actually explain that the Dreamstone is giving you lies. To my eyes, the Dreamstone is changing reality. Steve is back, Barbara is powerful, and Maxwell is doing whatever he wants with the powers of the Dreamstone. THIS DOES NOT LOOK LIKE A LIE TO ME. THERE IS NO "TRUTH" TO ACCEPT, JUST YOUR NEW REALITY. And that made the film less thematically strong (to my eyes, anyway. Other people probably picked up on stuff I didn't). But I feel like this might have been an easy fix? Like you already have Chris Pine in someone else's body (oh! So that's why they chose body possession! Because he's a Lie™! ... Still don't like it) I still think he should have manifested his own body or something but whatever. Barbara's appearance hardly changed at first. If they had people reacting to her as if she was hot when she really looked the same as she always does, then I would have bought your "but the Dreamstone only gives you lies." Instead, Barbara gained the power to walk in heels and then hotness and then the literal power of a God™ (a la Diana) which makes me think the Dreamstone is changing reality. Not bringing lies. 

Oh, also, they could have had Diana's Lasso of Truth stop working for her. I thought that's what they were going for at first, but it turns out that Diana is just losing her powers. They also started with "the Dreamstone will give you what you want most," but then Maxwell started using it to clear traffic? Which by the way, is NOT an illusion. That is reality-bending. 

There were just so many ways to make it obvious that "the Dreamstone is giving you lies," but they didn't use them. Or at the very least, they didn't commit. I felt like they used a little bit of "be careful what you wish for" (mostly on randos that Maxwell is duping), a little bit of "what are you willing to sacrifice," and a little of "you can have what you want, but it won't be real." All of which are valid ways to take a Dreamstone kind of story, but if they wanted to rely so heavily on Truth™ as the main theme, then I feel like more of the wishes should have been showcasing that. Instead, it felt like a jumble of all the kinds of messages we're used to seeing with Wish-Granting Objects, with no emphasis on specifically the "it's all a lie" part. 

Ugh, I'm actually mad now, because I'm trying to think of a story I've heard where this magical thing is granting wishes but they're Explicitly Not Real. Like all the money gets turned back to leaves or whatever (kinda like Cinderella's pumpkin lol). Oh, Aladdin does this, too, because yeah Genie is granting wishes and changing reality, but not permanently? Like, almost all of the stuff he uses magic to do dissolves as soon as we're looking away from it or gets fixed by the end of the movie? And the film is very very clear on the fact that Aladdin is not factually a Prince. 

But this film doesn't do that. They make it seem like the Dreamstone can change reality, then berate the characters for not Accepting the Truth™ about themselves. Maybe if they had made a bigger deal out of Steve coming back in someone else's body, it would have been 1) less confusing, 2) less icky (provided they don't do the sex in Engineer Dude's body), and 3) more thematically coherent. 

Lastly, Diana's perceived character changes. 

This one is probably the most subjective. Diana, as a character, in the first film was very morally grounded and motivated. The Diana in this film felt ... different. Again. Subjective. And also circumstantial. 

Diana is still morally grounded in this film. But she's also willing to sacrifice the world to keep Steve Trevor around. Which feels like a jarring change from her characterization in the first film. She was so idealistic and optimistic in that first film, I couldn't imagine her making that choice. It just felt like such a tone change for her character. How did we go from "Who will I be if I stay?" to "Why, for once, can't I just have this one thing, Steve? ... I can't give you up. I can't. So I won't."

Also, her motivation in this film seemed to center around her loss of Steve Trevor and wanting him, and less around "save the world." Which, to be fair, I'm all for women being selfish in film. Give me women of all motivations and desires. I don't want Diana to be Perfect™. I just want her to be consistent. And I didn't think this characterization was as consistent as I expected. Was her life so terrible without Steve (even though they only knew each other for a short time)? Not to say this couldn't be a valid take on Diana (reminder: I haven't read any comics, so maybe it's not in character at all 🤷‍♀️), but if that's what they were going for, they should have developed the journey from naive idealist to jaded romantic more in order to justify this character change. 

Also, the body possession thing. She's really okay with her boyfriend possessing somebody else's body. I did like the "All I See Is You" line, since it's romantic, but up until that point, we as viewers aren't really sure why Chris Pine and Hallmark Dude are both playing this guy. Then we find out in a romantic line that Chris Pine is just Wonder Woman's view of him. He still looks like Engineer Dude because he is Engineer Dude. At first, I thought that they used a different guy for the first meeting because Diana didn't recognize him. That this was her perception of him until she realized who it was. (I thought this was supported by Chris Pine's more rugged look in this film. But actually they were probably matching him to the body he was inhabiting, since the character really didn't look like himself). Leverage does a similar thing in the Rashomon Job. All the characters saw each other at the same event, but they didn't know each other back then, so they had different actors play their parts until it's slowly revealed that actually the random people at the event were the characters we know and love. It's great. Anyway, that's not what they're going for here, and the ambiguous framing along with Diana and Steve's chemistry is supposed to make you forget that he is possessing someone else’s body! Against their will! (Again, Steve and Diana didn't consent to the initial possession either, but they absolutely consented to what they did together. Engineer Dude did not.) 

Yikes  😬

I will say, she didn't kill innocents this time. One of my critiques of the first movie was that she was so willing to kill Germans. And I get it, Nazis are usually an "acceptable" target in American media. But as a character, she believed that they were innocents who had been manipulated by Ares. And yet, she was slaughtering them en masse. But, in this movie, they're really careful to make sure that she's nonlethal. 

And yeah, that's it.

Asteria was of course awesome. That bonus credit scene was 👌

I'm glad they got Linda Hemming back for costuming after the disaster of Justice League. Unfortunately, being set in the 80's, the outfits are not quite so modest as the first movie. But the important thing was the lack of male gaze in those shots.

The movie definitely hit me in my emotions. I cried three times: first during the tournament, watching the Amazon's being awesome. Then during Diana and Steve's fight, and when Steve convinced Diana to let him go. 😭

As I said, I definitely plan on rewatching. It makes me sad to see how much negative press that the movie is getting when it's one of so few female-led blockbusters. A lot of people are comparing it to the original or to the comics or TV show, when those are just not valuable comparisons. Comic books and TV shows are completely different mediums. And a successful sequel CONTINUES a story, instead of rehashing it. And also, not all films are created specifically for YOU. A lot of the 80's references went over my head, but that's ok. They weren't for me. I don't begrudge their existence just because I don't vibe with them. 

Again, no film is perfect! I think I talked through a lot of its weaknesses pretty thoroughly, but I still think it's a strong film, and I want it to succeed. 

Anyhoo, I hope you had fun watching the movie (even though it's not perfect) and I hope you had fun reading my commentary. 

(Fun fact: I actually ran out of space in my notes app and had to stretch it across two notes)

[inumaqi]

top ten tagged by @linkspooky 🍊 explanations under the cut! sorry for rambling xo → rules: name your top ten favourite characters from ten different fandoms, and then tag ten people - @osomanga @kara-suno @anonimarevolts @zeninmaki @wildbishonen @shysheeperz @tkmewthyou @kaldurlenn @joxterism @marshmallowdonutsprinkles

snufkin okay so he’s the only one not from an anime or manga but i had to put him on bc he’s the most important fictional character to me, ever. i grew up watching the moomin cartoons in the 90s and thinking about it instantly calms me down - they used to air the episodes early in the morning when it would still be dark outside: the landscapes were moody and cosy, the characters were so softly spoken and articulate... it’s just peak nostalgia. anyway, snufkin is moomin’s best friend; he returns to moominvalley every year to be with his friends during the spring and says his goodbyes to go adventure again come winter. it upsets moomin when he leaves but snufkin is adamant that quiet and solitude are important and healthy, and it’s not fair to expect him to compromise on his independence - that made a really big impact on me as a kid, especially as someone who never really had their ‘own’ space (twinsies). relationships aren’t weakened by physical distance or time, they’re about communication and understanding. that was important too. i don’t think i realised just how influential it had been until i was an adult but snufkin is an anarchist. he first shows up in the comics when moomin and sniff are talking about opening a bank - he tells them they should plant fruit trees instead. he destroys private property and rescues orphans, he refuses to participate in things that don’t bring him joy. when he’s asked where home is, he replies, “nowhere. or everywhere! it depends how you look at it” - the whole world belongs to him, and the whole world belongs to everyone else too.

yomo renji in general, i like characters that trudge along in the background and do the nitty-gritty work that supports the main story. i like people like that irl too. more than anything else, yomo is desperate to form human connections, even though he’s shackled by self-doubt and self-loathing. he just wants to positively contribute to a community, thinking he’s most useful keeping a quiet eye on people who might need protection/guidance (while still giving them space to grow and act themselves) or foraging for human corpses so that others aren’t in danger or moral anguish doing it for themselves.

bird boy is a total weapon - “the perfect ghoul” - and you’re reminded over and over again but a lot of his growth is about rejecting violence and repurposing his power as something productive that he can use to help the people around him instead of hurting people (the yang to uta’s yin). in the first few chapters, he says he kills humans (he’s a ghoul, humans are food, it’s natural) and yet he’s consistently framed as a scavenger who seeks out ‘roadkill’ [suicide victims] for sustenance, even before coming to anteiku, and implements a system so other people can do the same.

suguru getou i was originally gonna say meg bc i love him but, having just finished The Flashback Arc, i can’t stop thinking about getou and i’m beyond impressed with how akutami has managed to ground him so well, so sympathetically. getou is the sick, warped darkness to the hopeful light that gojou commands but... in an uncomfortable twist, the reverse is true, kind of.

actually, gojou is arrogant and confrontational and hyper individualistic. he’s a dissident. getou is obedient, compassionate, self-aware... he has a sense of social responsibility and passionately believes that his skills should be used to protect those who can’t protect themselves - non-jujutsu sorcerers - and all of the suffering he endures as a result is worth that. idk if others are reading his downfall differently but, from where i’m standing, that overwhelming responsibility never goes away, he doesn’t give up on it - he just starts to view the social landscape differently and begins to see how jujutsu sorcerers are vilified and mistreated in spite of all the good that they do. the ‘weak’ aren’t really weak when they’re able to organise and assert collective power over a minority, and so his sympathies shift.

the nail in the coffin for getou is learning that the hurt and pain could be eradicted from the world by cutting the head of the proverbial snake: non-jujutsu users generate cursed energy, so get rid of non-jujutsu users and cursed energy won’t be generated. it’s all horribly, weirdly rooted in good intentions that weigh him down and misdirect him.  shinazugawa genya i feel like the bond that slowly starts to develop betwen tanjirou, and zenitsu and inosuke (in particular) is nicely foiled by genya’s lonely journey towards becoming a pillar. after losing almost all of his family and having sanemi walk away, genya is angry, antisocial, rude, violent, evasive...

he’s characterised as competitive, as if he hates his peers and wants to leave them in the dust as an act of self-satisfaction, a power fantasy or whenever, but this is a deliberate misdirection to cover for the fact that he’s scrambling to be a pillar so that he can reconnect with his brother and prove to him that he can protect himself; that sanemi doesn’t need to shoulder everything alone like he used to. his entire goal is an act of apology.

and in a story where so many characters are able to hone these exceptional skills, genya is uniquely disadvantaged as the only one who can’t master breathing techniques. rather than having a hero moment and powering up, his need to reconnect with sanemi is so strong that he essentially decides to compromise his humanity and become a kind of monster by ingesting the demons he’s pledged to annihilate. amajiki tamaki i wish i had a a longer explanation for this one but it’s actually super simple: tamaki is a really, really, really good portrayal of a person burdened with severe anxiety. the way he physically carries himself, the way he hides his face, his manner of speaking, his dependency on his mirio, how he interprets compliments as trickery, how he needs to be pushed and pushed and pushed before he’s finally able to release his potential... every single scene with tamaki felt deeply personal when i was reading bnha and i knew exactly what he was supposed to be feeling. shinmon benimaru sometimes good, nice people don’t fit a little friendly mould and i like that benimaru is hostile and rough and antisocial, even with people he cares about. he doesn’t expect anything of people, he doesn’t want them interfering with him, and he wants to help and support them all the same because he believes in community. he’s completely oppositional to the special fire force because he thinks it’s a tool to pursue an ideology rather than to protect people, which is why it’s so important when the eighth are finally able to win his approval - they become the only company the seventh consider allies, and it’s proof that their objectives are righteous. despite his reputation as... kind of a nuisance, his skill is acknowledged by everyone and he’s universally regarded as the strongest fire soldier there is. in spite of his antisocial attitude, he agrees that it’s important to share that with younger fire soldiers - he’s incredibly patient and understanding with them, helps them to individually adapt. the way he (and others in company seven) operate in contrast to the other companies when fighting infernals is really cool to me for two reasons: (1) it provides a commentary on how cultures and traditions often struggle to survive when they’re systematically (forcefully) replaced through power and wealth - although the subtext is a little troubling because it’s unclear whether ōkubo is conflating multiculturalism with globalisation which, uh, big nope; and (2) philosophically speaking, the approach to death is interesting. where the other companies essentially perform last rites and offer absolution to the deceased, benimaru personally takes responsibility - at the request of the people in his district - for sending them off in huge public display, kind of like a festival intending to celebrate their life. i think it speaks to how profoundly he values life. akihiko kaji i liked akihiko from the beginning because he’s stoic and introspective and also excitable and dumb. he’s a people watcher and waits for opportunities to softly guide uenoyama and mafuyu when they’re quietly crying out for help but doesn’t interfere any more than he thinks is necessary because he knows they can make their own way to where they need to go. i liked akihiko even more when he got really fucking messy. his relationship with ugetsu is sweet and it’s incredibly ugly and unhealthy because they both fail utterly to communicate with one another - they’re both to blame for avoiding and hurting each other, and i think that’s a really normal issue that people find difficult to overcome. i’m super interested (and really nervous) to see how his relationship with haruki develops. he’s done some horrible things to haruki and i want him to be accountable for those things and have them affect their relationship in a realistic way.

tanigaki genjirou one thing i really, really love about golden kamuy is the way noda satoru incorporates the importance of minority cultures into the story, and tanigaki’s apparent abandonment of his matagi heritage is really beautifully written. matagi hunting traditions shaped his life as a young man, it’s how he was able to really assimilate to the people around him and form relationships and - without getting too spoilery - he divorces himself from it all when he’s overcome by grief and hatches a plan for revenge against the person responsible. so, by allowing himself to surrender to negative feelings and thoughts instead of seeking support and learning to heal from what happened, he becomes a total shadow of himself. 

makimura takeshi i know i’ve gushed about it before but i can’t properly explain just how incredible it felt seeing an asexual character in manga dialogue about being asexual, and devils’ line does it twice. the reason i’m so attached to makimura in particular is because he doesn’t seem to have fully figured it out - and he’s kinda... comfortable with that. he wants to be with someone and he wants to be monogamous but he can’t understand why he doesn’t feel sexual desire towards her; he knows his feelings aren’t platonic but doesn’t know whether they can really be called romantic either.

not to go dark mode but i very vividly remember just how lonely and horrifying it was battling with those uncertainties when i was a teenager, thinking i was broken because i didn’t have Normal Human Feelings and needed to be fixed. i was so worried about it that i thought about all the boys i knew, picked the one i thought was the nicest and actively tried to develop a crush on him. it was dumb as fuck but, ten years later, i realise it was really desperate and sad too. i forced myself to have ~my first kiss~ (it was horrible) because i felt like i was getting left behind and i think i would’ve put myself in worse situations as i got older if i hadn’t suffered with such bad social anxiety.

i hadn’t really thought too much about a lot of this stuff for yeaaars but it all came flooding back when i was reading devils’ line. it was bittersweet bc i was remembering all of those shitty feelings but also watching this character grapple with those same questions and go: i don’t know yet and that’s not weird, let’s just grow with it. i still don’t totally know whether i’m ace or aro or bi, or whatever, but i’m trying to be okay with just... not knowing.

misora shuuji anyway, devils’ line isn’t actually a manga with a specific focus on sexuality and gender but shimanami tasogare is and all of the characters are written beautifully. if you haven’t read it yet... then why haven’t you read it yet? misora is only about twelve years old and watching them battle with their growing pains is really compelling - they’re closeted but, through the lounge, they have somewhere to explore their gender and all the questions they have about it. they’re amab and present as traditionally feminine wrt clothes, wigs, makeup, etc. but can’t quite tell if they see themselves as a girl, a boy or non-binary.

with the onset of puberty and anxieties about physical changes to their body, misora’s story puts a lot of emphasis on the pressure they face to just ‘make up their mind’ about something that’s actually incredibly complex and doesn’t have any easy answers. they snap and shout and get upset, especially when tasuku (the protag) tries to push them into a corner because he wants a concrete label or identity he can attach to misora, even though space is exactly what misora needs.

[polyvirnl]

In Memoriam

Petals In Ambivalence prologue

Inspired by Link Start - Lies Stopped! by DawnWave on ao3

So I found a couple DawnWave Sword Art meets Miraculous books and decided I needed more, so heres a short one while I write the actual story.

This Au is the Black Lotus AU ((and while I realize that makes it sound like Marinette is in a Red Player guild, or taking Kiritio's place in SAO, its not, its literally just bc her handle is Lotus ingame, and i wanted a some cool alias's for it.))

Also,,, its gonna be maribat of some sort probably

The somber grey sky cried as Marinette stumbled to school, something that was fitting on that day. Adorned with black button up and slacks, grey shoes and ribbons, and a single freying bracelet on her wrist, Marinette concentrated on her breathing, feeling the cold sink into her bones while her umbrella lay unused in her hand.

She sighed as she tucked it away in her bag, the school growing closer with it’s perilous stone staircases and manipulative foxes lying in wait.

Since Lila had joined the school again a month ago, she had been steadily gaining support in the school, swaying everyone with a wag of her tongue, despite the outrageous lies she boasted. Normally, Marinette was nearly late and Lila was in the classroom before her arrival-that is to say, everyone was present before her arrival.

But not today.

Today she framed her bruised eyes like battle scars, the more readily pronounced bags a testament to how she slept that night; not a wink.

She knew she wouldn't have slept well, knew the likelihood of waking up with an aching throat and haggard voice- so she simply worked and worked, schoolwork, designs, scrolling through monotonous posts online, anything to keep her mind and memories quiet, if not silent.

Marinette fiddled with her bracelet as she walked up the stairs and through the hallway, not surprised when the door she opened displayed a distinct lack of person in the room, something unheard of since she had caught up with school and rejoined.

Her things were placed in an orderly manner on her desk in the back, her notes from last night queued on her tablet, waiting for power to be turned on to be used. Her arms were crossed on the wooden surface, head turned to stare out the window with glassy, unseeing orbs.

She didn't know how early she was, or how long she waited there, alone, before her classmates started piling in, first the early birds, like Sabrina and Max, then the giggling pairs like Rose and Juleka. No one mentioned Marinette’s lackluster presence, and she had a distant thought about if they thought she was someone else, or if they didn't care anymore. Not that she was like this today for attention. She was like this in attention, in a walking memorial of those who were lost for years, a survivor who had been lost but had finally come home three years ago.

Lila and a small portion of her posse came in. Marinette didn't stirr, not moving her eyes from the dusty window pane with the sky's tears trickling down and pelting it as if to break through and steal her away, to leave a changeling in her place with none the wiser but herself.

In the reflection of the glass, she noticed faintly as Kim walked up to his desk, that Max beside him wore the same ensemble as her, black as the night except for his dark grey glasses.

Lila’s shrill voice was breaking her shield of inattention, forcing her to listen even as she subtly pressed her hands over sensitive ears until they burned. That is, until she heard a familiar name, and a pool of dread dripped over her heart with an unflinching fist.

“Of course- that was before he and Alice got together, I was the one who got them together by the way!”

Maybe I misheard, maybe she can be a decent person for once-

Adrien stumbled in, funeral clothes like two others, grey faced and tired. He greeted them all with a small, scratchy voice.

“ The game was honestly a blast, I don't know why so many people died ! It was soo easy, but maybe I'm just that good?”

Adrien stopped where he was placing his things, face growing more pale by the second, turning slowly to stare at her.

Lila flashed a devious smirk at the ground at his attention.

“What the hell are you talking about.” He almost whispered, and the class froze. Marinette raised her head and made to stand.

“Sword Art Online of course! I was telling them all about my adventures with Kirito and Alice and the other front liners, I was stuck in that death game for years you know. I'm pretty sure its been coming back up in the media recently too~”

Marinette’s fists trembled, and Adrien eyes went glassy as he lurched out of the room.

“Lila Rossi.”

Everyone whipped around to see Marinette standing with feirce eyes.

“What.”

“Are you aware of the reason SAO has been resurfacing in the media.”

Lila sputtered.

“Of course I do, Its to celebrate the newer games being released!”

A pencil snapped, and the class glanced at an ashen faced Max, his eyes widening.

“No Lila. It's for the memorial of the dead players on the third year marker of the trap being beaten and the living players released.” She took a breath, and addressed the class as they whispered to themselves. “If you would have paid attention. Three of your classmates, are wearing funeral colors, Max, would you like to tell them why?”

“Of course, Marinette. I would assume, from how Adrien ran out, and Marinette looks, that they either played the game, knew someone who was trapped in the game, knew someone who died in the game, were a beta tester but didn't play the game, had family in the game, or had family or otherwise close contact with someone that helped in the original manufacturing before Akihiko Kayaba's dangerous tampering. Therefore, they are in mourning colors to respect the 3,853 fallen players, as well as those 6,147 living, and may be attending the memorial service that will be conducted later this afternoon.”

“Thank you Max.”

Lila sneered, out of view from those under her control before widening her eyes and crying,” I ju-just didnt want t-to think about al-all my friends that died…”

“How could you two bring that up?” Alya snapped, hugging the ‘forlorn’ girl.

“What exactly is going on in here?” Ms. Mendeliev stood in the doorway, surveying the chaos.

“Marinette and Max brought up Lila’s friends from that game, and she got sad.”

“From that game?”

“Yeah from when she was stuck in SAO!” Rose helpfully explained with a reassuring squeeze of Lila's shoulder.

Ms. Mendeleiev’s eyebrow rose comically.

“Miss Rossi, you are aware that it is on record who was and was not in Sword Art, specifically so that we teachers and staff know to be careful of PTSD among other things?”

“...No.”

“Miss Dupain-Chèng, with your consent?”

“Why do you need Marinette’s permission?” Juleka murmered, confused.

“Its alright, go right ahead madame.”

“Class, and specifically you, Miss Rossi, this school hosts exactly two international players from the virtual death game MMO, Sword Art Online. These players include one male, and one female, also known as One Marinette Dupain-Chèng-.”

A still pale Adrien returned with a furious Chloe.

“Ah, Mr. Agreste, perfect timing, are you willing for me to tell your classmates about what we discussed in the hall?”

“Sure…”

“Very well. As I was saying, the two players in this school, are one Miss Marinette Dupain-Chèng, and one Mr. Adrien Agreste.”

The two stared at each other, looking over each other. Marinette stood strong under the class's bewildered gaze, nodding in acknowledgment to Adrien.

Tikki patted her from inside her purse as Lila started up again, clearly scrambling for excuses.

“M-My mother! My mother didnt write my name on the record because she thought that I would get bullied for it!”

“While that may have been possible in other cases, the players of Sword Art are public record, seperate from their alias ingame so as to not promote grudges lasting to the outside.”

Mendeleiev sighed, almost bored, and brushed the topic away as if the students were not edging away from Lila and shooting looks of disapointment, shock, and disbelief at her.

“Anyway, carrying on, as Caline has called in sick, I will be filling in for her. Open your books to page 208, and start annotating. Adrien, Marinette, and Max, if you need to step outside for a moment to calm down, do so.

Max shook his head, replacing his broken pencil with another, as Marinette and Adrien stepped mechanically towards the door.

Outside, it was quiet for a moment.

“Do you plan to go to the memorial today?”

“Father is still unsure If he will allow it. It will probably be crowded, and it does seem like it's going to be a pretty public event…”

“I could send you the e-vite to the online one, or videochat you from the one at the tower?”

“I would like that, please send me the evite, in case he doesn't allow me to go.”

“...What was your handle?”

“Luciole, yours?”

“Rōtasu.”

Notes:

*Luciole means firefly, *Rōtasu means Lotus

[xfirechickx]

Arrow Rewrite

So I’ve (finally) caught up with the latest seasons of all the DCTV shows on Netflix, and to the utter surprise of no one, including myself, Arrow has definitely not gotten any better since the first two seasons, and the only good thing that’s come out of this train wreck of a show since killing off the Black Canary, is bringing Katie Cassidy back as the Black Siren. But still, to say that this show is a huge disappointment is a gross understatement, so much so, that the only reason I still watch is for Katie and for the annual crossovers. But, to actually make keeping up with the show tolerable, I had to pretty much mentally rewrite most of the show and headcanon the shit out of it, and make my way through with all the denial I can manage. So, this is how I like to pretend that the show actually went. And even though I doubt anyone will read this - this is more for my getting my thoughts down -  bear in mind, this is super anti F*licity with all the nolicity feelings I have. Also, after reading a whole bunch of posts with the same feelings as me, this became a sort of mashed clusterfuck of ideas that came together from everywhere.

SO first of all, Laurel is a metahuman, you know, like she should have been. What the fuck was the idea behind not giving her actual powers? That’s just stupid. So yeah, either Laurel was in Central City when the particle accelerator exploded, or some other freak accident gave her the canary cry. I don’t care how it happened, it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that Laurel is the team’s meta, and it caused her to want to don a mask even before Sara was killed.

Next, I’d like to think that she got the hang of street fighting a lot faster. Like, I appreciate that it took her awhile to be able to handle herself on the streets, but this “Oliver is the best fighter” mindset is absolute bullshit. Ik we’ve all been thinking of the Arrow as a bargain-bin Batman (and the horrendous bullet we dodged that was the mere suggestion that F*licity could ever be anything close to Oracle didn’t help), but I am so sick of Oliver’s fighting abilities being thought of as if he was the freaking Batman. Bullshit. I’ll admit, Oliver can fight and hold his own; he’d have to to be a vigilante facing down supervillains on a constant basis, that’s fine. But the Black Canary is one of the best fighters in the DC universe, and I will be damned if that was never acknowledged here. 

So the way I see it, Laurel not only kept up with Oliver and Roy while on patrol, but after he came back from his new life in Ivy Town, Oliver comes to realize that she’s actually better than him. Like, I want them to be out on the field, and she’s literally outdoing him at every turn. And at first, he’s all, “Damn, I must be a bit rusty,” but it becomes clear after a couple more episodes, when he no longer has that excuse, that she’s actually running circles around him, whether it’s on patrol or while they’re sparring. In fact, I want an entire scene of them sparring in the bunker, and as distracted as everyone else is doing their own thing, everyone can clearly see that she’s holding back, and Oliver thinks that her head’s just not in it.

Oliver: Come on, I know you can do better than that!

Laurel: Nah, it’s okay. This is a good pace.

Oliver: Come on, you’ll never get better if you don’t give it your all. Let me have it!

And then she brutally knocks him on his ass.

“Lucky shot,” he grumbles as he gets up and gets ready for another round, and Laurel has a look on her face that’s almost annoyed, but honestly, she’s been waiting for forever to knock him down a peg. Diggle, Thea, and Roy are trying not to laugh in the background.

And speaking of Thea and Roy, holy shit, Roy doesn’t leave! Whoever came up with that idea needs a good smack. Team Arrow comes up with literally any other plan and Roy fucking stays! Thea, is instead given the mantle Artemis with her own outfit. Yeah, ik it still wouldn’t give us the Artemis Crock storyline, but it’s still better than the Evelyn Sharp bullshit that we ended up with. We currently have two tech geniuses on the team, what’s wrong with three archers? They could continue having their relationship ups and downs as subplots as the show goes on. I would even like that at some point, they decide to get their own place together, and Thea decides to sell her old apartment (you know, the one she was brutally stabbed in) to afford a nice one with Roy. And I would like F*licity try in vain to hide how much of an asshole she is by getting all indignant about it. Like, Thea offers to sell it to F*licity first, but she tries to spin it like, “You didn’t want it anymore, so I took it, so it’s mine now?” And everyone’s like, “What? No, that’s literally her apartment, which she bought with her father’s money? Idk how the hell it came to be thought of as yours anyway?” And she eventually has to break down and either buy it or move out because Thea and Roy have their hearts set on getting their own place.

As far as nolicity goes, I always thought that they would at some point have a brief relationship (a ship that I originally didn’t care for, but quickly became my ultimate notp) which would be doomed from the start due to having little to no romantic chemistry, and even though F*licity definitely had a strong sexual attraction to Oliver, she mostly seemed to view him as an older brother; or at least, Oliver viewed her as a slightly annoying younger sister.

But because of Guggenheim’s constant interference, the will-they-won’t-they crap just kept dragging on and on and on until holy fuck I have negative five care points to spend on these two assholes, just give me more BC! Their relationship has to be the most boring aspect of the show, something that’s definitely not helped by the fact that F*licity is an emotionally abusive and manipulative piece of shit Mary Sue. Seriously, for the amount of times that she’s been really vocal about how hypocritical and controlling she is, it just boggles the mind how few times anyone has called her out for it. I say few, because it has happened before, twice I believe, once by Oliver, who calmly insisted, “Enough,” and once by Ray Palmer after she threw his dead fiance in his face. Classy lady, isn’t she? But the farther this show goes on, the more she gets away with and the more infuriating it is that Oliver becomes the bad guy in her place. And holy shit the fact that literally everyone needs to assure Oliver - and the audience - that they are, in Guggenheim’s world, the perfect couple. I honestly can’t tell anymore if he actually believes this, and is just trying to shove his own weird obsession with EBR down everyone else’s throats, or if he’s just trying to get those of us who don’t like the ship to come to the dark side. Either way, I’m not buying any of this shit. SO, for every time that there’s a character to remind everyone how “good” Oliver and F*licity are together, take a shot, and then block out their words and then replace them with various observances and reassurances on Oliver’s behalf. I’d like to think that those closest to him, like Diggle, Laurel, and Thea were totally ready to call F*licity out on her shit whenever she started taking things out on Oliver, but he would subtly shake his head and calmly assure them later on that “F*licity’s right, I’m wrong. But no really guys, we’re totally happy together, I’d just appreciate it if you guys not confront her because she’s the queen of right on every subject ever and I’m just lucky to be with her.” 

And the rest of Team Arrow just reluctantly agrees not to say anything unless Oliver is the one to bring up that he has a problem with her, but are totally ready to throw down at moment’s notice. Even people outside of Team Arrow notice it and tend to comment, with characters like Mick and Constantine on the crass side of the spectrum with phrases like “Does she occasionally let you take your balls out of her purse?” and more sensitive words from people like Barry and Sara, who actually try to get it through his head that, despite what F*licity says, not everything is his fault, and he does not deserve to be kicked around by her over situations that he had little to no control over (Samantha and William, anyone?)

And then there’s Damien Darhk. Hoo boy, my hate towards him killing Laurel burns with the fury of a thousand suns. There was literally no reason for it, you know, besides eliminating her as a threat to Nolicity. Except, she wasn’t even a threat?? It was pretty clear that Laurel and Oliver weren’t even considering a romantic relationship, and even I, as a hardcore GA/BC shipper, didn’t even want them to get back together at this point. Despite the unintentional victimization of Oliver, Laurel absolutely did not deserve any of his shit. So, as much as I wished that F*licity was the one who died, Laurel was still targeted by Darhk in order to get back at Lance, but she doesn’t just die and that’s it! She gets to be critically injured - getting intentionally stabbed by a former member of the League of Assassins tends to be pretty life-threatening - but she does get to heal while in the hospital and make it back out onto the field to continue as BC.

Hell, I’d even be okay with her actually dying that night if, and only if, they brought her back. For a universe based on superhero comic books, Guggenheim and company seemed to have totally forgotten (or just outright ignored) how often characters get brought back from the dead, at times in pretty nonsensical ways. But here, there was a way to conceivably bring her back; there were three in fact: In Arrow, the Lazarus pits would have been available; Flash could have brought her back with the introduction of Flashpoint, or you know, Sara, who happens to captain a fucking timeship could have brought her back, either by manipulating the timeline, or by pulling a Kingsmen II and had just shown up right after Darhk stabbed Laurel to revive her. I would’ve happily gone along with Team Arrow believing that Laurel was dead if the plot twist was that the Legends brought her aboard the Waverider so that Gideon could heal her.

Sidenote: ik that this would have never have happened simply because all of the Arrowverse shows have to check in with each other to some degree so that they’re all on the same page, but wouldn’t it have been absolutely fan-fucking-tastic if, after Arrow had confirmed that BC was for sure dead and wasn’t coming back, that Flash and LoT just totally undermined it. Like, if Laurel was brought back with either Flashpoint or the Waverider, and KC’s just hanging out on a different set while Arrow just tries its damnedest to discredit them?

Arrow: She’s dead.

Flash/LoT: Well she was, but she got better.

Arrow: She’s def not coming back.

Flash/LoT: Not until you learn to be nice to her anyway.

Arrow: She’s not the real Laurel. Our Laurel is D E A D

Flash/LoT: Nope, this is definitely her, and she’s going on cool adventures with us because SHE’S A DAMN GOOD CHARACTER AND YOU DICKBAGS NEVER DESERVED HER

All the while more of Arrow’s fans flock to every show except Arrow until the assholes in charge of the decision to kill Laurel finally have to (publicly) beg to have her back because literally no one will watch their shitty show anymore without BC, and then they’re forced to respect her character and give her a fair amount of screen time. That would just be poetic justice in my book.

So as season 5 kicks off, Oliver, Roy, AND Laurel take in and train the new recruits to join Team Arrow. I don’t have much to change about this season except that since Laurel isn’t dead, and as much as I like Juliana Harkavy, there’s literally no reason to bring in Dinah Drake. Also the shared hallucination in the Invasion! crossover partially rekindles the romance between Laurel and Oliver, which actually feels pretty heartfelt and like it could possibly lead to them getting back together for real. 

And then F*licity ruins it because that’s what she does.

F*licity and Oliver get back together and things progress normally, with the rest of Team Arrow quietly building up a resentment towards the abusiveness of their relationship. I’d also like to think that since Curtis had progressed as a team member, that there’s a slight undertone of “what is she even here for anymore?” among them. Like, whenever she butts in with her hypocritical opinions, someone else will actually step in like, “Hey, you’ve had a long day, so why don’t you go ahead and go home. Don’t worry, Curtis knows what he’s doing, so we’ve got this. Yes, we’ll call you if we need something, but don’t worry. You’ve worked hard today! You deserve a break!” Meanwhile, the rest of the team is literally patching themselves back together with bandages and whatnot, blood and sweat everywhere, all giving each other The Look™ when she nods like, “Yeah, you’re right, I could use a hot meal and a shower. Plus, this tracking system is so simple an idiot could use it, just try not to fuck it up while I’m gone.” Still, no one says anything because Oliver is back to trying to make it work between them, and she occasionally helps William with his homework, so he can’t complain.

William btw, while appreciating the fact that F*licity brings intelligent conversation with her, has not forgotten how much of a bitch she was when trying to save him. Sure, he wasn’t present while all the shit-talking was going down, but there was no way that Samantha didn’t mention it at least in passing later on. “I’m amazed at how much Oliver has grown as a person. He was a real jackass when I knew him before, but he was genuinely worried about you and how we’d get you back. I just wish that the blonde chick he was working with wasn’t being such a pain about it. Like she had any right to any of our business, or any right to be a bitch about the rescue mission.” At this point, nolicity’s domestic life is pretty much out of some crappy fanfiction, and I will be damned if William doesn’t get to bring up F*licity’s pettiness at least once.

And since F*licity apparently feels threatened when Oliver’s past love life gets brought up, William tends to go to his Aunt Thea whenever he feels the need to talk about his mom without having to feel as if he’s the one bringing up a touchy subject. She’s also the one to get him out of the house whenever Nolicity gets especially nauseating at home, and he ends up growing a bond with the rest of Team Arrow in the process. While he still doesn’t want Oliver to be the Arrow anymore, he grows to respect the rest of the team, and ends up with all of their numbers in case he needs any of them to kidnap him for the day. He gets to spend some time in the bunker while they’re out on missions (with Diggle under the hood, of course). Funnily enough, after one mission without F*licity or Oliver, he asks Thea, “So what exactly do you need F*licity for anyway?” And Thea explains that she’s usually down in the bunker handling all the tech stuff while they’re all out in the field, but then he says, “Yeah, but Curtis was handling all that and working in the field??” And Thea and Roy exchange The Look™ again and change the subject.

Things finally come to a head during the Crisis on Earth-X crossover. Oliver, totally taken by the magic that is WestAllen still proposes during the rehearsal dinner, and F*licity, still very publicly says no. Classy. Naz*s invade and everything goes to shit, and Oliver and F*licity still try to make things about them while shit is literally falling apart around them, and to the people whose wedding actually got ruined for some reason. To her credit, Iris doesn’t outright tell F*licity that she’s being a self-obsessed drama queen at what is literally the worst possible time, but she does put out a few comments that both remind F*licity that it was in fact Iris’s day that was ruined, and gets her to shut the fuck up.

F*licity: Oh, wah! Oliver and I had a fight and then naz*s ruined any chance of makeup sex! Wah!

Iris: They literally ruined my wedding and abducted my groom.

F*licity: *internally* oh fuck I forgot about that

Meanwhile on Earth-X:

Oliver: Oh, wah! F*licity said she wouldn’t marry me after I proposed at your rehearsal dinner! Wah!

Barry: Yeah, what the fuck was that about anyway?

Oliver: Ikr? She wouldn’t say yes even after all the beautiful things that were said during the speech! If that doesn’t scream romance, idk what will!

Barry: I actually meant, why the fuck would you propose at the rehearsal when you can do it at literally any other time that isn’t supposed to be about Iris and I getting married?

Oliver: There was magic in the air!

Barry: *facepalm*

No, but the conversation between Barry and Oliver would go on to a touching, if not repetitive explanation about how Oliver was so taken, not just with Barry and Iris’s union, but the idea that Barry has been able to balance his life as a hero and his personal life. Oliver had once told him, “Guys like us don’t get the girl,” but Barry actually did it. And Oliver was envious, because his own life was one clusterfuck after another, with an on-again-off-again relationship that he’s only sort of making it work, and after the Dominator’s simulator, he realized how much he wanted his life as Oliver Queen to be fulfilling and filled with love, and how much he wants a partner in both halves of his life, like Barry and what he has with Iris. And throughout all this, Barry listens and quickly notices that throughout his whole explanation, Oliver never once uses F*licity’s name; he doesn’t even bring her up specifically. Barry probably means to point this out, but Oliver brushes him off thinking that he’s just going to tell him off some more, because that’s what he’s come to expect from having F*licity around all the time, and that’s what people who love you do, right?

It’s actually Snart’s doppelganger who points this out (after eavesdropping on their entire conversation) and suggests that maybe Oliver just hasn’t found the right person to be his partner the way he wants. “Just look at Barry and Iris, or me and Ray.” Oliver shrugs him off too, and just resigns himself to the loneliness of either being without F*licity, or being with her in all the wrong ways.

They get back to Earth-1, Supergirl is saved, yadda yadda yadda. I would like to change Stein’s death into him also making a miraculous recovery and leaving the show still intact. Just, using naz*s to kill off a Jewish character? REALLY?? Fuck all of that. Anyway, Barry and Iris still decide on an impromptu wedding right after *insert literally any event that doesn’t involve killing off Martin so disrespectfully* and Barry still brings Diggle to perform the ceremony, and Joe, Cecile and Wally are present because of course they fucking are. You could even argue for Cisco and Caitlin, but it doesn’t matter to me as much if they’re there. So Barry and Iris exchange vows, say their I do’s, and-

Fucking F*licity interrupts. Because of course she fucking does. “Would you marry us, too? Would you marry me?” A moment of silence and then everyone just explodes.

Barry: Seriously, though? After waiting my entire life for this, two more seconds is literally all I could have asked for

Wally: I’m a speedster, and I could have waited a couple more seconds

Iris: Really? Can I not just have one (1) wedding go uninterrupted?

Joe: In retrospect, we probably should have waited until these assholes left and done this at STAR Labs or something

And F*licity just gets overwhelmed because she’s literally never had so many people tell her she was wrong in her entire fucking life and Diggle tries to mediate (no matter how much he agrees with the rest of Team Flash).

Diggle: F*licity, you don’t even have a marriage license.

F*licity: Oh, no, it’s okay, John! We could just share the moment with Barry and Iris, and then go get a marriage license when we get back to Star City and have our own wedding there.

And then everyone explodes again because, seriously what the FUCK? “So I have to share my second interrupted wedding, and you’re just going home to have another one of your own?” And literally everyone is so fucking frustrated and angry, even more so because they all knew they should have been celebrating at that very moment but F*licity seems to think her awkwardness is still cute when it might just be the most infuriating thing ever. Finally she turns back to Oliver, who hasn’t said anything since she proposed like, “Hey?! A little help here?!” And Oliver is busy with finally seeing her without the rose-colored glasses and seeing her as the selfish and problematic person she is and it’s fucking glorious because he’s just so calm but everyone hears him when he just says, “No.”

F*licity: What? NO? What do you mean, NO?

Oliver: No, F*licity, as in, no, I’m not gonna help you ruin their second wedding, no I’m not going to defend you after fucking this up, and NO I won’t marry you. Not here and definitely not now.

Everyone else is pretty taken aback because up until now, no one’s ever told Queen Fefe off and they’re all doing an internal happy dance at how, for once, Oliver isn’t backing her up. Oliver and F*licity have a staring contest, F*licity waiting for him to back down, and Oliver holding his ground, until F*licity, finally realizing that she’s been unanimously outvoted, just storms off without saying anything, probably expecting Oliver to come running after her to apologize. But he doesn’t. He actually just quietly apologizes to Barry and Iris, and stays in his place as a groomsman (best man, my ass) and stands and waits for Cecile to take up her new place as matron of honor (how the fuck Fefe got that position is beyond me) all the while having this look on his face that says “It had to be done, but I’m gonna catch serious hell when I get home.” Diggle repeats himself in pronouncing Barry and Iris as husband and wife, they kiss, and the crossover ends with an UNBLOCKED shot of them two while their remaining wedding party claps it out.

I would keep everything in the gift scene in next episode of The Flash exactly the same except for Iris’s line is changed to, “Okay, not on the registry, but I guess trying to get married during our wedding wasn’t on the registry either. I’m not bitter.”

The whole wedding reception scene in Arrow is also completely done away with, and replaced with a long-awaited breakup scene, the one to end all breakup scenes (between nolicity anyway). Down in the bunker, it starts off with (what else?) F*licity trying to blame everything on Oliver. “Shit like this is why I didn’t wanna marry you. And then I put MYSELF out there and what do I get? Rejected, that’s what! I get rejected and humiliated in front of everyone!” And then she rambles on and throws in a couple references of the island and how he hasn’t changed since his frat boy days for good measure. Some guilt tripping and a few hypocritical statements later, and then she ends it. Or, at least, that’s what it’s supposed to be, but it really comes off as more of a threat to end it. Her closing statement sounds a lot like “You better straighten up because you’re damn lucky to have me.”

And Oliver just kind of silently stews until she finishes and he immediately jumps into how far he’d obviously come since his five years on the island, and how unfair it was for her to throw that in his face, and even worse how she tried so hard to justify butting her way into Barry and Iris’s special moment to further put herself in the spotlight. She tries to butt in a couple times (like she does) but gets immediately shut down because hell to the fucking no that was not okay. It ends with them trying to yell over each other, and F*licity yelling, “Well maybe I shouldn’t even be on this team anymore since you’ve made it pretty clear that you don’t need me!” right as the rest of the team walk in. They immediately try to backtrack, but F*licity, being her usual dramatic self yells, “No! No, you stay! I’ll go! He obviously doesn’t need me anyway!” and just leaves.

The rest of the team is just so shell shocked and embarrassed at having walked in at that exact moment (they’d all secretly been hoping to be there at that exact moment because that’d mean they’d officially have permission to drag F*licity the way she should have been several seasons ago) but the moment turned out to be more awkward than anyone could have hoped, so no one really knows what to do. “You alright, Hoss?” Oliver pretends that the past minute never happened and redirects everyone’s attention to the latest update on Cayden James. Meanwhile, Laurel, recognizing that Oliver is going to opt out of dealing with the problem, quietly excuses herself and leaves the bunker after F*licity. And Laurel finds her just outside the bunker, pacing because was she was actually expecting Oliver to run up after her after causing that big scene.

Laurel: That was some fight you guys just had.

F*licity: What, oh that? Nah, Oliver’s just being a jerk. Don’t worry about me, we’ll be-

Laurel: Where the hell do you get off talking to him like that?

F*licity: Wait, what?

Laurel then unleashes the mother of all lectures, bringing up every single problematic thing F*licity has ever said or done, which is pretty much anything and everything anyone has ever had to complain about the Mary Sue-ish nature of her character, every time she’s been an asshole, every time that she and the rest of the team has wanted nothing more than to tell her to shut the fuck up but how Oliver had asked them not to because of how much he wanted their shitty relationship to work, whether they were together or broken up at the time. F*licity tries to keep a stoic facial expression, but it’s pretty clear that she’s embarrassed and angry and incredibly surprised because damn, first Oliver and Team Flash, and now Laurel is calling her out on her shit and she was so far from expecting it. Laurel, to her credit, never even raises her voice, because she doesn’t want the rest of the team to hear and get involved, and she makes it clear that no one is kicking her off the team (if she wanted to leave, then that was her own prerogative) but she’s just so glad that she finally gets to unload everything she’d been holding back since Oliver and F*licity had gotten together and the bitch was not going to worm her way out of it this time. Her rant ends with the sentence, “Don’t think for even a second that you’re in the right about any of this,” and she turns on her heel and heads back down to the bunker while F*licity stays frozen where she stands, still trying to absorb that she’d just been told off, and how no one was going to apologize for it.

In the upcoming days, it seems like F*licity is gone for good; she hasn’t come back down to the bunker or contacted anyone on the team, and the team slowly adjusts to not having her around (and encouraging Oliver in that he did the right thing by breaking it off). Curtis pretty much takes over her role on the team (he’s the third smartest person in the DC universe, dammit! Why in the fuck has he been reduced to Fefe’s sidekick?!) and makes time to go out on patrol with the others and besides not having anyone back in the bunker, the team dynamic really doesn’t change. But just as things escalate with Cayden James, F*licity comes back; she shows up unannounced at the bunker after the team comes back from the field, and insists that she’s ready to resume her role as Overwatch. The rest of the team is pretty iffy considering all the drama that she’d left in her wake, but they agree to take her back because they’d probably need all the help they could get against Cayden. So the show goes on, with some tension still between Oliver and F*licity, but Laurel quickly shuts her up with a look every time it looks like she’s about to start some shit.

Team Arrow obtains the list of people on Diaz’s payroll, and after some celebrating on taking down the bad guy, F*licity announces that she was officially leaving the team. There’s a lot of confusion, since she made such a big deal about wanting to come back, but she explains how she only wanted to finish what she started with Cayden James, and now that the mission is over, she’s ready to go back to a normal life, like what she had originally planned when joining the team back in the first season. This scene is actually a bittersweet one; no matter any of our opinions on how badly this character was fucked up, she was a part of the original team, and her departure from it should be treated like the end of an era. She leaves, but not before assuring them that she would help out if they ever need it.

Idk what the future holds for the plot, but as far as GA/BC being endgame (because they were, dammit) I actually wouldn’t want it to happen in the next season. Now with F*licity gone, Oliver got bumped up from the second to the biggest asshole in the Arrowverse, and like I said before, Laurel absolutely does not deserve his shit. So I don’t want there to be any romantic relationship between them at all, for at least one whole season. Hell, I want them to date other people during this season. At this point, I’d just really like to see their friendship to become more solid. I want them both to come to terms with what happened between them in the past, and decide to extend their partnership. I want Oliver (and the rest of the team) to see Laurel as his equal, not as his potential love interest, and definitely not his sidekick. I want Oliver to start resembling his comic book counterpart at this point. I want him to more frequently crack jokes and become less like a Batman wannabe. It felt like that’s the Oliver we were supposed to get when this show started, after he’d had a chance to deal with some of his trauma.

The eighth season is when Oliver and Laurel start showing romantic interest in each other again. They maybe start flirting while on the field, and eventually they go out on dates without the masks. And at first it’s weird, because of all the history they share, and a running gag where every time they sit down, they’re immediately summoned on a mission (original, ik). But they not only find the time to be together, but they actually realize that the life actually works for them, because there are no more secrets between them anymore. I want them to start calling each other Pretty Bird and Robin Hood and pretty much all the fluffy (and probably smutty) scenes that it would take for their relationship to better resemble their comic book counterparts. And their chemistry is just as good as it was in the first season, when you could just look at Oliver and see just how in love he was with Laurel, only better now that they both share the vigilante lifestyle.

This all eventually leads to them getting married; it doesn’t matter if it happens in the eighth season or the ninth, but the proposal is similar to the 2010 Green Arrow short, where he proposes while in full costume after completing a mission together.

Their wedding could be the premise for the annual crossover, but I wouldn’t mind if it was purely an episode of Arrow. If it’s not a crossover, then I would at least like a brief cameo of Barry and Iris, probably calling or video chatting them before the wedding, wishing them luck because they sadly can’t make it due to having to deal with this season’s villain. But Sara has to be there, for sure; with or without the rest of her team, she needs to be present as the maid of honor.

And their wedding gets interrupted, because of course it does (probs by Orm leading the Atlanteans or some shit) so they break up the wedding party to suit up and join the fight. This is actually the first time we see F*licity since she left. They need her tech skills yet again because Curtis was either incapacitated during the fight, or he’s off on a trip somewhere with the hot police officer from this past season. Anyway, they’re at whatever office/genius bar she’s working at, hovering while she does her thing, and she’s rambling on as per usual until she says something like, “I expected to hear from you like everyday, tbh. I’m honestly surprised everything didn’t fall apart the moment I left.” And everyone just kinda rolls their eyes like, damn, what a bitch. And then she makes it more awkward when it comes out that Oliver and Laurel’s wedding was supposed to take place earlier that day, and it’s like, “Oh, so I guess you are willing to get married, just not to me!” And Oliver has to physically hold Laurel back from cussing her out because, “We need her, okay?”

The episode/crossover ends with the team (and William and F*licity because reasons) back in whatever location they’re using as the Arrow Cave at this point, everyone in full costume, patching up their injuries, and it overall looking like the shawarma scene from the first Avengers movie. And despite having just won the day, everyone’s still sorry that they couldn’t finish the wedding. So, just like how Barry and Iris should’ve had their second wedding in STAR Labs, they decide to hold their wedding in the Arrow Cave. So, everyone still tired and dirty from their recent fight, but it still makes for an interesting ceremony. But it’s mostly because I want Oliver to lift Laurel’s mask the way he would’ve lifted her veil. And not only do they actually have vows, they’re actually pretty fucking beautiful. Like, Oliver’s are about how he’s loved her for most of his life, but how this is the first time where he feels like he’s finally worthy of her, and how he sees her as an equal, and as his partner in both halves of his life. Laurel’s reflect on how they went from friends to lovers, to strained acquaintances, back to friends, to actual partners, and eventually back to lovers. And no matter how many times their paths lead away from each other, they were forever intertwined. And then Diggle pronounces them husband and wife and everyone cheers.

F*licity hangs back from the rest of the crowd that’s hugging and kissing and congratulating, because she really can’t stop herself from thinking “That should have been me,” but she manages to keep it (mostly) classy and only hints towards the thought twice in her rambling congratulations. In the end, she hugs the both of them, and makes her exit right after Oliver and Laurel stroll out to catch their plane to their honeymoon.

[koalas-koalas-everywhere]

Well, Assassin Nation Plot left me with mixed feelings.

On one hand, Peter’s finally doing something to move the plot along, something that’s been sorely lacking in his titles. I mean, really, except for this arc, Peter’s been more of a side character than a protagonist. Like, Nathan’s health problems, Kristy’s bulimia, Mary Jane’s career problems, Robbie’s conflict with Tombstone, Jonah being kidnapped and replaced by the Chameleon, Glory’s relationship with Eduardo, the gang war between the Lobo brothers and the Kingpin - Peter might be the thing that’s linking all of them and allows them to exist on the same book, but he’s sure as heck not in the middle of any of them, at least not out of anything other than responsability. (He might be meddling in the gang war, but he didn’t really change much - like, what, warning the Arranger when they would be attacked? Since they got past their defenses anyway, it didn’t do anything, except maybe giving the Kingpin time to escape, and that’s a big maybe, since he already didn’t trust the Arranger bc he thought he’d been keeping info from him, so he might have been gone for a while. Leading to Glory killing Eduardo? The Kingpin left bc he saw them fighting and figured they’d take care of each other, if Peter hadn’t been there, Fisk might have very well ended up fighting him instead, and we’re left at base one, except maybe Glory’s decision to shoot Eduardo’s oponent might not have been so frustrating if it had been a mob boss instead of a hero who had been advocating peace.) No, his arc has been about needing money to get a new place. So it’s a nice change of pace when he’s willingly involved with something, first to fix a mistake, then because of financial encouragement, you know, give it a personale stake. Also nice to see him having an impact when he fights - lately all of his battles have been futile, because his oponents get away, or they’re dealt with by someone else, or he sticks with the small fry while someone else gets the main course (this applies especially to his Annuals, except Web #5, and his involvement in Atlantis Attacks). In Assassin Nation Plot, he actually got Weil, who they thought would be their main lead to solving the problem, prevented the documents from getting blown up in an attempt to generate hostility towards Symkaria and got proof that the US hadn’t been the one to order the assassination of Symkaria’s king/queen-to-be/prime minister. While he couldn’t have done it without help, at the end of the day he was the hero of his own comic.

As I don’t read Captain America or whatever comic Solo appears in, I can’t comment much on them. They seemed to be there mostly as a token and, in Cap’s case, to move the theme of the arc. It was the same with Silver, she was there as a catalyst, mostly. Like, yeah, Cap was very patriotic, Solo was murderous, Silver... was patriotic as well,  all of them kicked ass, but I can’t for the life of me bring to mind something that makes me say “Aha! I understand this charactetr better now/ this is an important development” which, with the first two it’s okay, but Silver only appears on Spider-Man, so with her it’s frankly appalling. 

Also, I don’t know what was going on in the US back then, but the patriotism theme was kinda dumb. Literally the only worthwhile comment about that was that blind patriotism can be as bad as anarchism. (And since anarchism doesn’t necessarily include terrorism...) I mean, if I was Peter, this is how this conversation would have gone:

Silver: “Would you die for your country?”

Peter: “I risk my life everyday for everyone there, I do the same everytime I travel somewhere else, I literally did the same for you a few days ago when I wasn’t being paid, only because I understood the danger your country was in, what the heck makes it better if I do it for a flag than for the people living under it?”

Like, from Silver, I get it. She’s not a vigilante, she’s a mercenary for her country. While her actions themselves aren’t always heroic, the results (the pay she gets) are, because it goes to support Symkaria. That’s what her concept and target of heroism revolves around, providing well-being to her people. She’s actually denied a widow very needed compensation, so I’d actually say she struggles with one-on-one empathy or compassion. On the other hand, Peter tends to focus on the individuals rather than colectives. I mean, he has super-villains, and they’re an immediate threat to many, unlike a thief, but he still doesn’t look at the big picture of, like, the effects they have on anything other than the lives they’re endangering or might endanger if they’re let loose. So it’s weird that that remark left him uneasy. Like, “I’ve literally, knowingly and willingly left myself open to being shot, which I’d been trying to avoid, so I could save one (1) person, but would I do the same for thousands?”

And the Red Skull offered him money to let him go and his reason for not accepting was patriotism? As far as Peter knew, this was the guy who killed his parents. Even going at it rationally, money wouldn’t have been worth much with the US destroyed. And having spent multiple days working for Silver, getting a thousand for each, he wasn’t pressed, exactly. Of course, the money he already had would run out sooner than later, but he wasn’t desperate.

But beyond that! This is a guy who gave up every last cent he had to keep a woman he’d met once from being evicted. In the very first ASM issue, he says he won’t rob a bank because he’s not a criminal, and he’s just heard heard he and his Aunt are about to get evicted, just after Ben died, so he wasn’t only upset, none of them had any sort of income which would at least give him a reason to think they’ll be okay for a while. Heck, the one time he stole something, it wasn’t even all about need: the Beyonder had turned a whole building into gold and the government had ordered for it to be kept secret so that they could get rid of it and not flood the market. He was helping get some people out, because the gold was giving in under its own weight, and he’d been pondering about how a notepad that someone had thrown away to the trash bin could help him solve all of his and Aunt May’s problems, but he still wouldn’t take it, even though the government’s people had shot at him when he’d stayed to help. He only took it when he found out the Kingpin was being given all the typewriters, and he did it partly as a statement - he went and told the agent responsible that he was taking it because he was outraged at heir dealings with the Kingpin,  and then took, like, at least 30 issues to actually sell it, he considered giving it to charity, even though he really needed the money, because he felt so guilty. He went against his moral code to protest a corrupt power/piss off someone he didn’t like, you think he wouldn’t stick to them to stick it to Red Skull?

Why is his reason patriotism?

Also, it’s clear that patriotism was supposed to be the theme of the arc, so why didn’t they introduce the concept sooner than the 3rd out of six part?

[breeeliss]

Oh no, why was the season so bad in your opinion?

i mean, there were a lot of reasons, but if you want the short version a lot of this season felt very all over the place. and by that i mean a lot of what was set up in season 3 in terms of character development, character motivation, and allusions to future important plot points were pretty much abandoned during this latter half of the season in favor of focusing on the coalition and this big blow to the galra empire they dealt in the last two episodes (which, after the finale of season 2, this didn’t even compare). 

i’m probably gonna go episode by episode for this because there’s just so much that bothered me so if you want to read the rest of it just peek under the cut

tl;dr: this was by far the weakest season 

episode 1so admittedly the blade of marmora stuff was just aesthetically cool. i got really excited when it was keith on one of those missions. the get up looks great on him and he just does so well with their fighting style. seeing the brief fighting moments with him and how BOM functions in general was really cool and i liked that bit. 

the only problem is that it came out of nowhere

at no point in the entirety of season 3 did keith indicate that he was thinking of going to train with the blade. we learned that because shiro told us that. and like….keith training with them isn’t a bad thing. but it certainly becomes a huge thing when he’s pulling away from the team so much that shiro had to hop into the black lion and take control of the team again. and then once shiro is finally back in the black lion, keith straight up decides to leave team voltron because he wasn’t meant to be the leader anyway. 

there’s so much about this that’s weird and it has a lot to do with the character development keith was set up with in season 3. he was a reluctant leader. this wasn’t the job he wanted but it’s the job he has to do because there’s no other choice. he’s learning to listen to his teammates. he’s becoming more comfortable leading. he’s taking shiro’s direction and using the advice of a more seasoned leader to try and improve his own leadership. he actually did a really good fucking job of it and i was excited to see that improve. …..and then it all gets shot to hell because, oh well, keith can’t lead, shiro’s back in the lion, guess it’s time for me to peace out. 

there was not enough of a look into keith��s motivations so it all felt very sudden. and it’s also at this point that the lion switching that happened before feels even more useless than before. 

why bring shiro back and have him not be able to pilot his lion if you were going to give it back to him anyway once keith left the team? why give keith a character arc to develop his leadership if you were just going to have him leave the team? why make lance go through an emotional arc where he has to put aside his ego and trust in his skills in order to pilot the red lion and become a better supportive teammate for keith if literally none of that is going to be referenced in the new season? at this point, it feels like the only reason this lion switching happened was to give allura a lion and develop allura. 

anyway, the group hug at the end was cute i guess. 

episode 2perfect. so perfect. and not just because i love pidge. the flashbacks to her brother, her search for him, that fucking heart breaking moment with her at the rebel cemetery, their reunion, them fighting together, all of it was perfect. best episode in the season. no complaints. 

episode 3so, positives out the way first. the kaltenecker scene is still genius. pidge showing matt around the castle was precious. not super warmed up to matt yet but i like the relationship that he has with pidge and i love how much happier pidge is now that he’s here. that’s wonderful. 

zarkon is darth vader now i guess. also his return was the single most anti-climactic part of this season. i literally almost forgot he came back as i was typing this. he seems to be obsessed with finding lotor while his wife fucking does everything as usual. 

this episode was pretty tame although it starts to show why i’m annoyed with lotor this season. beforehand having his motivations and intentions kept secret was cool. he seemed to be going against his father’s methods while also trying to act in the interest of the empire – like a “i’m going to do this my way” kinda guy. that’s starting to fall apart this season in a way that’s not mysterious or appealing but in a way that’s just flat out confusing. 

he has so many different plans doing on. the trans reality comet to make those ships. trying to go through the rift. and later on in the season, actually trying to help the voltron coalition for reasons we’re not totally clued in on yet (but more on that later). i don’t know what lotor wants. i don’t know what’s driving him. i don’t know what he’s after. i don’t know why he hates his father so much. i don’t know……literally anything about him. and it’s been a whole season. i know what he’s doing, but i don’t know why and it’s making him a very confusing character. 

also….his generals ditched him very quickly. killing narti i actually kind of liked (even though, fuck, i liked her) since it seems he values his personal goals more than his generals. and based on how much his generals practically worshipped him before (especially acxa) i would’ve though they’d take that as a warning. except, the minute lotor became a fugitive they totally abandoned ship bc they wanted to save their own skins. that’s a…..huge 360. and of course lotor escapes anyway so their fates are in limbo and for now they’re not in the story anymore. that whole thing just seemed rushed and like it should’ve taken more episodes to accomplish. 

episode 4hated it. i can’t believe i sat through it. ignoring the fact that hunk got demoted down to fart jokes (except let’s not ignore that fact because what the fuck) it was a useless episode. the coalition stuff in general was an interesting detail to place in the first episode but after that it seemed heavy handed. to devote an entire comic relief episode to a heavy handed process of putting on performances to gain coalition support seemed really useless. it also didn’t help that….we didn’t see….anyone really join. we’re told they are. but there was no emotional speech. no shots of people signing up. like it was stripped of all emotionality and therefore became annoying. it was campy and childish and honestly really fucking annoying. 

episode 5 +6just gonna add these together since it’s essentially a two parter. 

matt’s role sort of really delved into the background in a way that i didn’t like. he’s kinda just there now – could’ve been easily replaced with literally any random rebel officer. i expected him to be a captain and i expected him to run shit. instead he spent days of his life just listening to radio frequencies and he answers to this mysterious captain of the resistance (olia? who are you? what’s your deal? we’re not told? okay cool?) and that’s p much it. sorta expected him to play a bigger role in things but whatever. 

it was a cool couple of episodes but so much of it was fighting. what made the end of season 2 so amazing was the emotional aspects of it brought in. the BOM agent sacrificing himself. the fight with zarkon where the stakes were incredibly high. voltron almost dying. shiro talking everyone up. everyone literally willing to die to take zarkon down. it was done really really well. 

this time for some reason the big “oh my god we might die” moment didn’t feel as dire. and i think it’s because everyone was so fucking calm with the reality that they were going to freaking die. there was no emotional impact in this part of the episode at all and it’s what makes these sorts of fights cool. when things get bad, that’s the time when we need to see people’s emotions and honestly the end of this season felt so effing stale. about the only really great part was the allura and lance bit at the end of the episode. and even though it kinda came totally out of left field, it somewhat saved what was an otherwise bland final battle. i mean come on they were on a fucking bomb that was going to blow up five solar systems you’re telling me they were just cool as a cucumber about that? bullshit. 

keith gave me a heart attack for half a second i’ll admit, although the power of his almost-sacrifice was lost because he was fucking gone this whole time. now had he done that as the black paladin/leader of voltron, hell yeah i would’ve started crying. instead i was anticipating his death and planning to be fucking livid about it later. but hey! no problem! because lotor came and saved the day. and…..is trying to cozy up to the coalition. 

which is the single most random thing that happened this entire season. it makes no sense. why is this happening? i know we’re not meant to know and i know he probably has his own plans as to why he’s doing this, but again. because his motivations are completely shrouded, lotor helping keith isn’t interesting. it’s just confusing. he’s a black sheep that just runs on his own agenda and we don’t know why and we don’t know what that agenda is. so that episode ended and i was just really really perplexed. 

final thoughts: all the interesting character arc set up from season 3 was scrapped, any further character development was also sidelines this season, idk what the fuck lotor is doing and it’s annoying now, why is zarkon back he’s literally so useless now, fuck the coalition i don’t care about it give me exposition instead, and i want keith back on team voltron….

AND WHAT THE FUCK IS PROJECT KURON? DID WE FORGET ABOUT THAT? WHAT IS SHIRO’S DEAL? WE TOTALLY FORGOT ABOUT THAT!

i’m……..going to rewatch season 3 and pretend none of this ever happened. 

[sweetwriting]

Kon has always been the mom

Category : Gen

Genre : Angst/Fluff

Fandoms : DC Comics, Teen Titans v3 (2003)

Prompt : Tim and Kon acting as Bart’s parents

Summary : Tim seems really down, Bart wants to cheer him up but it doesn't go as planned. As always, Kon is very perceptive and has actually started to mature enough to somewhat understand what's going on, kind of.

Author’s notes : I tag this as TimKon but you’ll only find it if you squint very hard. It’s more like pre-slash I guess. This happens right avec Stephanie Brown and Jack Drake’s deaths

Word Count : 1941

You can find it on AO3

_______________________________________________________________

 Bart was bored. Like really, really bored.

  He had finished both his and Superboy's homework and Conner hadn't even deigned do anything than stare at Cassie's....pretty eyes (yeah right, like Bart would believe that).   He had read a lot in the past couple of hours (which actually seemed like days to him, but hey, a speedster has to adapt his internal clock to the outside world) but he needed a change of pace....and human interactions. Sadly, because of the mission they had finished earlier, almost everyone had fallen asleep while he was busy reading a strangely interesting collection of Art History books (more specifically, animal deities and humans represented as animals (deities) between ~ 4000 BC and ~600 AD... There was some really weird stuff in there and there was an actual Scorpion King even if the Return of the Mummy didn't get anything other than the name right, on that note the anime watcher in him laughed endlessly -well for him- at the fact that Egypt also had had an actual Prince Baka).

  So there was nothing to do besides, maybe, bothering Tim…Who might actually need it. The other/new/girl (?) Robin had disappeared during the week and he's not an idiot (he also knows how Tim became Robin in the first place even if not in details), since Spoiler/Girl!Robin hasn't reappeared (he actually checked, he has spent a lot of time with Tim after all) and there's no new vigilante in Gotham so chances are she's either hurt or undercover somewhere (or dead but he'd rather not think about that)? In any case, Tim probably needs some cheering up (though if he's honest with himself, they all do. Tim's just a bigger case to work on).

  But what to do? The last time he tried to cheer up one of his teammates had been when Kon had lost his powers back in their Young Justice days. He couldn't do it yet these days had been a lot more happy (though when he thought about it back then Kon hadn't just lost his powers but also Tana and while thinking about how a newborn/16 years old Kon was in a relationship with a clearly adult woman now felt slightly creepy, there was no denying that she had been really important to him, just like Rob might have to deal with something having happened to his (ex?) girlfriend)...Ah…Considering how his cheering Kon up had turned out he was probably not gonna be able to get Tim's head out of his ass (also he might get killed). After all it had ended up pretty badly.

  Then again if there's someone who can cheer Tim up it's Bart! (Well, actually, it might be Conner but while he probably noticed Tim wasn't at his best, he's been trying to give Tim some space and not force him to talk too much. Bart knows because Conner had asked him to help in distracting him from confronting Rob…And Conner had little patience and there was Cassie and…Huh…now that he thinks about it maybe there's a link there…Anyway Conner may not be as intelligent as Tim or himself (well he kinda is…just…in a very different way) but that's because he's more of an intuition kind of person. But while he's getting better at using it efficiently, while he realizes something is wrong he doesn't always know what is.

  So…What to do? What to do? Get Tim mad at him? Probably not a good idea (even if there's like a 90% chance that's how it'll end up…That and a lecture…After all Conner has been a master at annoying Tim since their first meeting and he taught Bart well).

  Maybe ask him to work on something together?  But what ? After All, while Tim's widely more intelligent than he is, Bart 's still sufficiently intelligent (more than that to be honest) to not need help (or to have already asked if he did)…Plus while Tim might have understood his explanation building stuff's not really his thing (though he could have proposed ideas to make it better…maybe) so it probably wouldn't have worked anyway.

  So yeah…he's kinda stumped.

  Or maybe if he's …? Yep quick check and Conner's still ogling Cassie (Bart still thinks it's a little weird that, like, half of the time Conner gives his attention to Cassie it's (in)directly related to Tim but this thought has little chances of being well receive….by anyone so, like most of his thoughts on the matter of his friends' (sorta) relationships, he's gonna try to forget about it). So yeah, Conner's not gonna be of any help.

  Tim was starting to get a headache, a Bache, a Bart-Induced headache. They were a special kind that had developed after months of hanging out with Bart on a regular basis. And for the past five minutes Bart has been passing through the room while stopping behind the armchair Tim is slumped in for a second and then disappearing, only to come back every few second and doing the same again and again and again.

  And Tim, well, he can't say he was actually working on his laptop unless you count staring at it blankly working. Steph was dead and so was his dad.  He hadn't been able to help them, much less save them. Hell in his father's case he had been at least partially responsible. They were…. And Dana was…she was…not well and she hadn't adopted him anyway so it's not like he could have gone with her even if she hadn't…And he had until the end of the week-end to find a solution to his situation.  And why oh why does Bart keep on doing that? It's distracting and Tim doesn't have the time to deal with it! So if he wants Tim to know about something that badly he should just come out and say it :

"OH MY GOD BART! Just stay still and tell me why you're bothering me!" he said, raising his voice in annoyance.

  At which point he looked up, at Bart's face. Bart who was trying and failing to hide his crushed face (because while he had gotten better at hiding his emotions, he was still Bart and face it, anyone who had known Impulse!Bart couldn't be fooled by his newly acquired -and far from mastered- skills). And okay, maybe Bart had been right not to engage him.  Also Bart was gone now and if he tried to look for him on the feed from his laptop…and found him, intercepted by Conner, who's hugging him…and looks mad…Yeah he probably deserves what's coming.

"TIM!"

  Yep, there stands Superboy, in all his (furious) glory, hands on the hips. Shoulders bending his upper body slightly toward Tim, towering over him, his frowny face promising a big lecture. Kon really was the mom, he hadn't been joking when he had first said that…Well okay he kind of was joking but he was also partly serious.  It wasn't often that Conner had the moral high ground over him. It used to be because of his immaturity but since the last Bedlam debacle (and that awful war) -when Steph had been Robin and Harm hadn't killed Greta and Kon was an adorably puny nerd and Steph *was Robin* (to be fair he had also been puny but a lot less than Kon- it had been because they were on a more equal standing and actually communicated so there wasn't any high ground to have.   But Tim had obviously upset Bart and he should know better because if the roles had been reversed he'd be planning Conner's destruction (OK, maybe not, but he'd plan a very humiliating revenge plot…Maybe).

"Look. I don't know what's going on but it doesn't give you the right to treat others" Bart "Like they're nothing!" Kon yells.  Direct as always, he's actually going easy on Tim. Probably because they both know Conner has just kickstarted Tim's internal lecture system.

"Tim…" he started again, more gently this time, only to be interrupted:

"I know. I realized as soon as I said it, ok. I wanted to apologize immediately but between Bart's speed and yours I didn't have the time."

  Now he just needed to find Bart…and get out of the protective arms of the corner he had chosen to make his nest at.  He could feel Conner looking at him, frown still in place but anger replaced with worry. And damn he didn't want that. Conner was his best friend but he didn't want to burden him just because he had trouble dealing with death. He also couldn't hurt Bart because of it.   So he ignored Conner the best he could while trying to look for Bart (again) on the feed of his computer. Conner just sighed and went to find Bart who had luckily just come back from a run (where? Somewhere Max Mercury related probably and wasn't that a whole can of worms in itself?) and looked calmer, if still wary, when Conner escorted him protectively to the living room where Tim was still hiding.  He quickly got up and ran to Bart, stopping a few centimeters from him, hands hesitating before falling solidly on the younger boy's shoulders.

"I'm so sorry Bart, I just. I'm not…Some things happened and, well I took it on you and I shouldn't have. I'm really sorry."  This was the most heartfelt Tim had been in a while and he was almost proud of it.

  Whether Bart had decided to forgive him before his apology or his speedster brain weighed the pros and cons of accepting his apology right after (or Bart decided to forgive him on the spur of the moment), he ended up jumping into Tim's arms for less than a second (Tim barely felt the hug but he wanted more of it) and gave Tim a small smile. All was forgiven and they started moving toward the couch. Conner was still frowning slightly but he smiled back at them only a few moments later (as if to make sure there was no issue left between them) before joining them on the couch, on Bart.

"You are so the mom".

  Oops. Tim had apparently slipped up. Bart looked surprised and speechless (they had the "argument" because Bart had just sped off after all), but then a sly smile made its appearance on his face.

"Hey you're right! Conner's totally the mom!". He shouted excitedly.

  Conner, whose cheeks had started to redden and was glaring dagger at Tim, became redder and started glaring at Bart too so that Bart felt the need to defend himself:

"C'mon Conner you're like the nurturer and protector! That's totally what moms are!"

  Tim smiled slightly as he started to list the "nurturing" types of behaviors Conner had shown to corroborate Bart's statement while Bart looked at them, happy to have distracter Tim (even slightly) and he started falling asleep, listening to his best friends' bickering, smiling slightly more when he felt Conner lifting him up (with his famous TTK, luckily Tim must have glared at him because Conner stopped before he even began talking about it) and to his room where he deposited him on his bed, took off his boots and pulled the covers over his body while Tim joined them and they both messed with Bart's hair, patted him on the head and temples before turning his light off and closing the door, leaving him to a few hours of blissful sleep.

_______________________________________________________________

Author’s note part 2 : I hope I did Bart justice. Because of his Speed and unique growth he acts more like an hyperactive child than any other speedster has, but at the same time he has started gaining on maturity by that point in time (also I'm mad that they made him go darker instead of trying to simply keep on making him mature bit by bit), plus Bart is one of the most intelligent characters of this generation so I wanted to be able to show both. That's why I tried to write him in a way that shows a speed of thoughts where it can seem kinda jumbled because he makes a lot of connections.As for Tim, he's a special blender of PTSD and Depression (canonically), and most likely Anxiety, Boarding School Syndrom and, as of his father's death, survivor's guilt (granted it was viable until Kon's death) and all other secondary effect of having your parents leave you for unknown periods of times like lack of empathy and 0 Self-Esteem. (and probably Borderline Personality Disorder, but I'm not completely sure about that one...It'd fit though). So with this plus his recent grief and Tim usually being fairly prone to irritation and anger, I tried to make it realistic without being too aggressive.Finally Kon is a very nurturing person if an arrogant one *cough*over compensation because few people wanted him and those who did left/died*cough*. Kon is a very perceptive character but due to his relative youth he doesn't know how to interpret his perceptions, it's something I wish had been explored more, but anyway. Kon is a very loving and nurturing person and by the beginning of Teen Titans he had started really assuming this role especially toward Tim and Bart. And here he's worried about Bart of course, but he also knows how repressed Tim is and if he lashed out, especially at Bart then it means something's wrong (but he's willing to give Tim a bit of space for Tim to talk to him on his own...he doesn't have that big of a patience and Tim can be very stubborn though so he might want to ask him later ? But then canon catches up to them and Tim's forced to talk about his father (and not Steph because ? ).

Also the stuff on Egypt 100% true. There was an actual Prince Baka (that’s how I learned at least half of the Ancient Egypt Speciality of the Ecole du Louvre of the 2011-2012 years was made of weeaboos)