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river-bottom-nightmare · 3 years

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Nightwing 83 Review

guess who isn't weeks late this time. my opinion of the series is going up a little bit. it's still not great, but i'm not actively put off by it anymore the way i was after 81. not going to tag as spoilers, but be warned that they are under the cut

i’m sure you all are well aware of this but now, but dear god i love bruno redondo’s art. like, an unhealthy amount. the pink and blue is getting to be a theme with either him or just this run, but i am definitely enjoying it. the movement in this cover is clearly obvious, but well done. you recoznize right off the bat that the cover was drawn to drag your eyes down the page until you get to the bottom, but you enjoy the whole ride there.

also, redondo’s way of drawing a character in stages of action so we can see just how much they’re doing in a split second of movement is quickly becoming something i like to see drawn with dick, and any other character that has that sort of ease of movement and body sense, like cass or sin or maybe a super.

and he’s in action the entire time! there’s shot drawn just to show off a shirtless comic book character, the way nightwing is so often subjected to. he’s shirtless because he’s changing his clothes, and that’s all we see, no more and no less. very practical, very well done. i like it.

he looks so cute right here oh my god. the little squint, the hair curls. it’s adorable.

but also like. unless melinda has specifically outfitted the door spyhole so that the person on the other side can’t see dick looking through it (and in all honesty she might have) then everyone on the other side can see dick looking through that door.

bringing your attention back to the “i can’t see melinda’s fbi file oh no!! it’s redacted!! whatever can we do!!” stupidity. redacted files are child’s play for oracle, and definitely doable for both dick and bruce. so that’s bullshit.

now, melinda apparently grew up with the maroni family, then took down part of the family from the inside. the maroni family is a large and notable presence in gotham, one that bruce pays a respectable amount of attention to. he definitely would have grown suspicious when two members of the maroni family were taken down, and with some investigation, he would have discovered melinda’s plan. and it should go without saying that the majority of things you see batman doing? dick can do it too.

it’s not so much that i don’t like how clever the villains/antiheroes are getting. i don’t like how dc heroes are increasingly written as less intelligent. they seem to be relying on pure fighting skills or luck, which may be the case for a couple heroes, but has never been the case for most of dc’s big name heroes, the bat family included. it’s irritating to me to see this sort of stuff pop up as a major plot point when i know that, if dick or bruce had been written with the amount of skill and power that they canonically possess, this entire mess would have been sorted out years ago.

unrelated but dick and melinda have the same hair

this may just be me, but i was always under the impression that dick doesn’t really have a “double life???”

yes, he’s talented enough to create enough differences between robin/nightwing and dick grayson’s mannerisms, way of movement, voices, and speech patterns so that it’s very difficult to put the two together.

but nightwing has never been separate from dick grayson, not the way bruce and batman is. he’s always leaned more towards clark in that aspect: his hero persona is an exaggerated, stately, larger-than-life version of who he really is. there’s no second persona, no real “dick grayson identity” and “nightwing identity.” they’re the same person with the same goals, ideas, and skills. one just pretends to abide by the law, and one gives up pretense of that.

oh good thank god. if he’d trusted her right off the bat (hehe. bat.) i would have slapped him upside the head. at least he’s still got instincts.

gosh the colouring on this is cool. the red has enough purple and pink tones to it that it doesn’t abruptly ruin the tone of the artwork. but it’s definitely glaring enough to take the reader outside of this personal moment they had slipped into between dick and melinda, to put them back in the present where they’re reminded that oh yea there are people hunting dick down.

the next panel keeps this up too, in a less severe way. melinda’s bodyguard shows up (i forgot her name sorry :[ ) and subtly places us in the middle of an action scene rather than a private, personal scene.

laughing so fucking hard have our little vigilantes grown so accustomed to breaking into places that it doesn’t even register as a crime anymore??? tim coming in through the fire escape to pick bernard up for their date and being very much confused as to why bernard is freaking out.

i really like melinda’s shirt and now despite all the work i have to do and the fucking conference i have to host on monday i want to spend hours scrolling through clothing shops online trying to find this shirt. the mock neck/neckline is so cool i want it

so roland just assumes that a very dangerous vigilante who is highly talented in combat and a very dangerous bodyguard who is also highly talented in combat had a fight that ended with this very dangerous bodyguard being tied up and she looks completely fine? roland just assumes that her having no visible wounds or bruises means that they got into a fight and she lost that easily? uh. aight then

dick what are you doing. legitimately what the fuck are you doing. why are you posing oh my god. you are injured and tired and in absolutely no position to go hand to hand with one of main enemies. jesus christ run away or head to lower ground or something. don’t just stand around letting the floodlights show exactly where you are.

i don’t understand what he’s trying to do here??? blockbuster fully bought the story that dick fought them both, won, tried to get info out of them and failed, then hightailed it out of there. he didn’t have to draw roland out for a fight.

but it does look cool. the way the light just highlights his silhouette and the blue parts of his costume does look badass. he does get style points in my book for this.

w h a t d i d i f u c k i n g t e l l y o u , d i c k ?

very classic superhero line and it does sound like something dick would say in a fit of righteous rage but also it makes me laugh so hard because all vigilantes think they’re so powerful that the law doesn’t apply to them. dick vigilantism is illegal. you’re acting above the law and pretending it doesn’t apply to you. hypocritical much?

it happens so often in superhero movies, tv shows, comics, whatever and it makes me giggle every damn time.

pretty decent comeback but before i start seeing people writing blockbuster as a thug i’m going to remind you that he made a deal with a demon for genius level intellect. if this turns into another bane situation i’m going to be a little miffed. he’s a smart man, which makes him a dangerous and infinitely more interesting enemy for nightwing.

this is so horribly in character i want to scream. (or. at least. it lines up with one of the versions of nightwing i have in my head.) he’s running right towards the bullets, miraculously doesn’t get shot, while making a sort-of pun. i hate this so much. i love him.

this is cool. this art is really really cool.

he leaped from a building right towards a helicopter that’s actively shooting at him, but none of the bullets are touching him. none of the corruption of the city can touch him no matter how hard it tries, because he’s too good to be corrupted. Comic Book Logic Can Be Good Sometimes Actually.

batman’s belt what??? swiss army knife who?? sorry, i only know nightwing’s bright blue escrima.

this is one of my favourite things about heroes with exceptional abilities, even more so if the hero is human. the things they can do are so far beyond the realm of normal human abilities that it’s equal parts terrifying and awe-inspiring every time they act.

he just used modified grappling wires to hook to the door of a moving helicopter, swung around the helicopter safely without hitting the blades, gained exactly the right momentum to swing upward again right through the opening of helicopter, then fought and tied up the men before they had any idea what was happening. that’s near impossible to do.

it’s stuff like this where i just sort of sigh in contentment. no matter how many times they leave out dick’s detective skills or conveniently forget that he’s actually a master planner and team leader and make him out to be this forgetful dude who makes everything up on the fly because of his “circus roots,” at least they won’t ever take away dick’s sheer physical ability honed to perfection.

the art, too! in a few panels, dick’s drawn a little lightened or blurred. he’s moving so quickly and fighting so efficiently that he can barely be seen by the enemy. he’s got perfect form all the way through.

and THIS!

there was a helicopter that had five men shooting at him with what looks like machine guns. most people would be dead. some would run away, and be nimble enough to survive without fatal hits. there are very few people, even in fucking comic books, who can look at that hopeless situation and turn it around so quickly and thoroughly that he benefits from it instead.

i just. love nightwing.

it was funny the first time as a comic reader aware of the meme. it’s really not anymore. why the hell would you, in universe, be wearing a shirt that has a picture of your boyfriend being hit in the face by his father.

okay that was funny.

look at lil bitewing, so concerned for her human!!! love her sm.

also a question as to the timeline of things. is nightwing happening before or after urban legends?

i was so distracted by dick wearing a robe and briefs and nothing else that i didn’t register the second part until later. he slept for two days?? babs, baby, he recently had a very traumatic brain injury. why do you sound so nonchalant?

@TIM X COFFEE SHIPPERS GET FUCCCCKKKKEEDDDDD

ngl i totally forgot about that dude oops

this comic is giving so many reaction pictures. you know how you always use the worst possible picture of your friend for your friend’s contact picture? i’m just getting so many of these.

leslie!!! the titans!!! lucius!!! dick going to go see old friends!!!! the titans!!! this part made me so irrationally happy it really did. gar being the one to just. offer dick solutions with open arms. this was the best

i wish i could just copy and paste this entire scene, but that would take up way too much space, so i’m just going to talk about it instead.

you gave me my name, nightwing, and you gave me some of the best advice i’ve received in my life: beautiful little throwback to nightwing’s origin. you’d be surprised at the amount of people who don’t know where the name came from, or who don’t know how much clark means to dick. and the fact that dick still looks up to clark as a hero, recognizes that clark isn’t always perfect and yet continues to hold him in such high esteem, and still looks back on advice that clark gave him fondly just warmed my heart so much.

for a man who has fearlessly stood up to darkseid, bruce will do a lot to avoid a conversation: “grrr. i’m the BATMAN. i’m so DARK and MYSTERIOUS. nobody knows the true me. no one ever will. i will be LONELY for the rest of my CURSED LIFE. such is the price of a hero. ignore my farmer himbo husband in the background”

but i don’t think there’s anything heroic about being a billionaire: another nod to how much dick follows clark’s example rather than bruce. yes, this was a very poignant and important criticism, and i think it’s wonderful that this was published in a pretty popular comic book. but the thing is, there is a way to be a heroic billionaire, but only in fictional universes. the way bruce, ollie, t’challa only ever use their wealth to help people. they donate massive amounts of money to charities that they themselves create so they know exactly how the money is being used. they hire people who aren’t likely to get jobs anywhere else and pay them much more than what a base living wage is. they use their power to help push progressive laws and social change. they are helping.

dick doesn’t fully see it that way. he spent more than half his childhood the son of a billionaire, but still believes that one could be more heroic when one doesn’t have obscene amounts of wealth. whose example do you think he followed to come to that conclusion?

superman looked up to alfred pennyworth?: i mean yea alfred may have been a wildly irresponsible guardian and one hell of an enabler but goddamn if he didn’t love his kid.

you don’t need my input. you’ve thought it all through: ooooooh this line made me grin. for so long, dick’s treated clark as a mentor and a guiding figure. he’s still seen as a kid, an up and coming, snot-nosed titan with dreams of a better world. clark still thinks of him as a kid, despite watching him grow up. but this little line was something i think dick needed sorely to hear. he doesn’t need anyone’s guiding hand on his shoulder, he doesn’t need to ask for permission. he doesn’t need clark to support him the way he did when he was a teenager. he’s all grown up now, and he doesn’t need clark’s help. i imagine it was a bit of a surprise for dick to hear that.

honestly, i couldn’t think of a better role model: ohhh but it doesn’t stop there. clark just straight up turns the tables on dick. imagine you’re dick, and you’ve looked up to this one hero your entire life, and then one day he turns to you and says that he thinks you’re so kind and smart and worthy of a person that he wants you to mentor his son!? goes to show just how much clark trusts dick.

i swear to god dick probably cries every time he hears clark compliment him because bruce is so rare and sparing with his praise that clark giving him the slightest hint of approval is just a dopamine rush.

also, now deathstroke and superman have both asked nightwing to mentor their kids. the juxtaposition is fuckin hysterical. imagine either of their reactions when they realize what kind of company they’re with

lets talk colours for a second, because i absolutely adore how classic colour tropes have been subverted in this comic, and in this general run really.

warm tones have usually (usually, not always) been associated with light and comfort and friendship and,,,,,well,,,warmth. whereas cool tones are usually used to unsettle, or make a scene seem colder and put the reader on edge. this varies if a comic only uses cool tones, or only uses warm tones, but if a comic uses both, this is generally well-used.

that isn’t the case in this run.

dark red, orange, and other warm tones have been used to symbolize danger, action, attacks. hot pink isn’t usually included in this colour group, but it’s definitely part of it in this case. in contrast, scenes that have cool colours give us the impression of slipping into a comfortable, calm scene with babs, tim, the titans, and other allies. even the beginning scene with superman has this blue, but then it transitions into something more golden coloured. dawn broke over dick, as his new idea came to light, and that was reflected in the art (and the sunrise setting.)

have there ever been times when dick’s longed for the comfort of his mask because he didn’t feel confident as dick grayson? i can’t think of any. i may be wrong, but this struck me as pretty ooc.

am i just??? gay and reading this all wrong??

cause i was under the impression that when someone says they are grateful for your friendship you don’t immediately kiss them.

or is this like. normal straight mating rituals.

i mean he’s smiling afterward but still babs aren’t you supposed to at least make sure it’s okay first? you guys broke up a while back after you said something along the lines of “i want to be coworkers with you and nothing more because i don’t trust you or feel comfortable around you as a civilian anymore.” like lmao after you say something like that to someone i would assume that you don’t have the permission to just kiss them whenever you want.

show of hands who else got real sad when they realized dick was talking about himself in this.

sure, he could be referencing the things he’s seen blockbuster pull, and the children on the streets. but “i’ve seen money used for enforcement,” sounds a little too close to dick’s entire life being destroyed by one man threatening the circus to pay protection money for me to completely ignore. and “i’ve seen the poorest and most vulnerable blamed and punished rather than assisted” becomes a lot worse when you remember dick was thrown in juvie for a couple months until bruce was able to obtain legal guardianship, and in there, not a authority figure believed him when he told them his parents were murdered.

he’s lived this before.

a. mother. fucking. typo.

fucking why

i mean i’ve stated my distaste for the batfamily groupchat before but like. this is reaching new levels of ridiculousness. jason sounds like he was written by a fanfic writer. tim sounds like he was written by a fanfic writer. steph sounds like she was written by someone who doesn’t know the first thing about steph and wanted to include her for “family points!!!!!” damian’s supposed to be completely off the grid, and everyone’s searching for him. i do love the way cass texts tho.

well god fuck now i’m crying

dick got a phone call, a sorry, and a thank you out of bruce. i feel so much secondhand happiness for him, if that’s a thing. we’ll just ignore the way bruce looks ugly af and focus on the good parts okay?

and again with the colour symbolism here!

i’m either going to love this or hate this. who knows, we’ll see.

something something hearts something something pink is an evil colour something something. i need to know more about this guy but there’s definitely symbolism there.

is it just me or does this dude look like the backstabbing traitorous absolutely motherfucking piece of shit villain that killed tadashi hamada in big hero 6?

taggggg list: @woahjaybird @birdy-bat-writes @anothertimdrakestan @subtleappreciation @screennamealreadyused @bikoncon @pricetagofficial @catxsnow @maplumebleue-blog-blog @sundownridge @thatsthewhump @xatanna-troy @red-hood-redemption @capricorn-stark @batshit-birds @comics-observer @buticaaba

#river thinks too hard #nightwing #dick grayson #nightwing 83 #dc #nightwing review #nightwing meta #dick grayson review #dick grayson meta #nightwing 83 review #nightwing 83 meta #dc review #dc meta

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inevitably-johnlocked · 4 years

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hey do you know any johnlock fanfictions, that are very slow burn and at first it's just sherlock being sad that him and john are never going to get together (maybe after the wedding or something) but have a happy ending? (possibly with 100k+ words)

Hey Nonny!

Ahhhh I like to argue that ALL my slow burn recs are especially painful, LOL LOL!! I didn’t have a lot of over 100 K ouchie-burn fics, so I’ve decided to quickly go through all my fics tagged “slow burn” and give you all the fics I KNEW gave me too many feels when I read them because of the burn!! So I hope that’s okay!!

And as always, Lovelies, I’ve certainly missed a lot of fics because of improper tagging or just too many sleepy nights skimming my bookmarks, so feel free to add your faves!

BURN SO SLOW IT HURTS

See also:

Love Confessions / Slow Burn / Dev. Rel. (Fluff Version)

Falling In Love / Slow Burn / Dev. Rel. || [MOBILE POST] (April 2019)

Slow Burn / Dev. Rel. / Falling in Love Pt. 3 (Nov. 2019)

Slow Burn / Dev Rel. Pt. 4 (Apr 2020)

Mutual Pining

Pining Sherlock || [MOBILE FRIENDLY VERSION]

Pining John

A Lifetime Together by LondonGypsy (M, 8,886 w., 1 Ch. || Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Falling in Love, Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn, Pining Idiots, Alternating POVs, Domestics, Retirement) – John and Sherlock falling in love.

You fit me, Sherlock Holmes by orphan_account (G, 10,077 w., 1 Ch. || It’s An Experiment, Bed Sharing, Slow Burn, Fluff and Angst, Idiots in Love, Mutual Pining, Questionable Science) – An unfortunate series of events leads to John accepting being a part of Sherlock's study in physical intimacy. As the days pass by, John realizes he might be in for more than he bargained for. He doesn't entirely mind.

Down with this Ship by FrostedFlame (PinkOrchid) (M, 10,862 w., 10 Ch. || For a Case, Gay Bar, Pining, Coming Out, Slow Burn) – Sherlock drags John undercover to a gay bar - for a case, of course - looking forward to seeing John flustered by their surroundings (since you know, he's NOT GAY). John decides that he has hidden both his orientation and his feelings for his daft flatmate for far too long. He is done hiding, time to be honest with his bloody best friend in the world. He just hopes it won't change anything between them. And then it does.

The Slow Burn by CaitlinFairchild (E, 12,097 w., 4 Ch. || Romance, Emotional Infidelity, Friends to Lovers, Sherlock POV, First Kiss/Time, Fix-It) – John smiles, something small and private and for him alone, and Sherlock just...he knows. With a heart-stopping certainty, Sherlock suddenly knows. It feels like falling off the edge of a cliff. It feels like falling off the edge of the world. It feels like flying.

Merlot by Itsallfine (E, 14,844 w., 17 Ch. || Christmas, Pining Sherlock, Wine, Slow Burn, First Kiss / Time, Love Confessions, Wine, Holmes Family) – Sherlock and John work toward becoming something more as they prepare to host the Holmes parents at 221B for the holidays. Part of 25 Days of Fic-Mas 2015.

Pleasure to Burn by scullyseviltwin (E, 17,863 w., 1 Ch. || Firefighter AU, Firefighter John / Arson Investigator Sherlock, Slow Burn, Pining, Case Fic-ish) – “If you’d kindly stop knocking about in there and destroying all of my evidence, it would be most appreciated!” John groaned and for a moment rested his head against the side of the truck. Of course he was the only captain left on the scene, which meant he would have to be the one to deal with the arson investigator.

Permanent Fixture by vitruvianwatson (E, 18,836 w., 9 Ch || Post-S4, Parentlock, Slow Build, Friends to Lovers, They’re Good Parents, Blushing Sherlock, First Kiss/Time, Explicit Consent, Sexual Content, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, Big Feelings, Crying, First Kiss, Fluff, Anxious Sherlock, Inexperienced Sherlock, Emotional Communication, Love Confessions) – Now, as Rosie sat curled up against Sherlock’s side, John watched and wondered exactly how he had ended up here. Domesticity had never suited him before, not at any point in his life. His disastrous marriage had been proof of that. But somehow, here in the warmth and safety of 221B Baker Street, here with Sherlock Holmes reading medical jargon to his daughter, Sherlock’s bony feet nudging against his leg, John couldn’t imagine anyplace that would make him happier.

Out of the Woods by SilentAuror (E, 20,471 w., 1 Ch. || Post S4, Romance, Slow Burn, Flirting, Drunk Sex, Practical Jokes, POV Sherlock, Bottomlock, Possessive John, Pining Sherlock, Frustrated Wanking, Frottage, Hand Jobs, Blow Jobs, First Kiss/Time, Virgin Sherlock, Love Confessions, Soft Sherlock, Dancing, Bum Appreciation, Hanging out with the Yard) – Sherlock is fairly certain that John has taken to flirting with him of late, but can't be entirely certain of it. At least, not until a case takes them into a forest, along with Lestrade's team and something happens that will change everything about their lives...

whiskies neat by Ellipsical (E, 20,660 w., 15 Ch. || Alternate First Meeting, POV Second Person Sherlock, Slow Burn, One Night Stand, Rimming, Blow Jobs, Anal, Soldier John, Crying, Emotional Lovemaking, Switchlock) – Home and hearth and whiskies neat, or, alternatively, Sherlock Holmes falls in love.

Ghost Stories by SwissMiss (M, 22,256 w., 1 Ch. || Pining, Holmes Family, Christmas, Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn, Bed Sharing, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, First Time) – Sherlock's parents think he and John are a couple. They might be onto something.

The Sexual Awakening of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson by suitesamba (M, 24,579 w., 10 Ch. || Post-TRF, Case Fic, H/C, First Kiss/Time) – Sherlock owes Mycroft a favour. Mycroft calls in that favor by offering Sherlock's consulting services in a charity auction. Sherlock and John soon find themselves at the country manor of Mrs. Ives-Patton Smarmington III - not very coincidentally a long-time friend of Sherlock's mother - where they are reluctant participants in her Murder Mystery Weekend. It's a play within a play for Sherlock and John, and their roles for the weekend event bleed over into their real lives, waking the sleeping dragons within.

Tomorrow's Song by agirlsname (M, 24,645 w., 5 Ch. || Post-TRF, POV Sherlock, Angst with a Happy Ending, Virgin / Repressed Sherlock, Love Confessions, Slow Burn, Pining, Jealous Sherlock) – How can he think a relationship with me would be a good idea? I am the sort of person to take a break from my life and when I come back after two years, I expect to find it exactly as I left it. In reality I find it shattered to pieces. (I actually equate you with my life. When did I start doing that?)

State of Flux by Atiki (E, 24,655 w., 4 Ch. || S3 Fix It, Sherlock POV, Slow Burn, First Kiss/Time, Friends to Lovers, Frottage, Cuddles and Snuggles, Awkwardness, Insecure/Virgin Sherlock, Romance, Humour, Masturbation, Love Declarations, Bottomlock, Brief Suicidal Ideations) – John’s marriage is over and he is finally back home (i.e. at Baker Street, where he belongs). Sherlock is awfully insecure and John is awfully hesitant, and they’re both awkward idiots, of course, but they figure it out. Many First Times happen.

Hitting the Water at Sixty Miles an Hour by what_alchemy (E, 30,568 w., 5 Ch. || Fake Rel., Roadtrips, Slow Burn, Mummy Holmes) – “You love your mother, Sherlock?” John watched the muscles in Sherlock’s jaw jump. He nodded in one sharp jerk. “Then we’re going to her party and making her happy.” John let out a resigned sigh. “As a ruddy couple, you bastard.”

The Kissing Disease by cottonballz_of_death (E, 30,856 w., 15 Ch. || Sickfic, Angst with Happy Ending, Case Fic, Self-Harm, Slow Burn, Jealous Sherlock, Body Image Issues, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional H/C, POV Sherlock, Oral / Anal, Thong, Frottage) – John brings home a boyfriend, shocking Sherlock, who long ago gave up hope that his straight flatmate would ever take a romantic interest in him. In a bid to reconnect with John, he tries to infect himself with a "harmless" virus. Neither of them is prepared for the emotional fallout that results.

An Acquired Taste by kinklock (E, 31,059 w., 4 Ch. || Vampires AU || Vampire Sherlock, Misunderstandings, Bat!Sherlock, Pining Sherlock, Humour, Magical Realism, Fluff and Angst, Blood Drinking, Holmes Family, Slow Burn) – At Montague Street when Sherlock was forced to sate his body’s needs, he was at least able to wander about the flat as much as he pleased. At Baker Street, it was mini-bags in a mini-fridge and bedroom confinement.

The Winter Garden by Callie4180 (T, 31,213 w., 13 Ch. || Post-S4, Retirement, Christmas, Slow Burn, Grown-Up Rosie, Parenthood, Rosie’s Cat, Angst with Happy Ending, Holidays, Beekeeping, Magical Realism, Sherlock POV, Sherlock’s Violin, Future Fic, Sussex, Honey, Magical Healing Honey, Love Confessions, Sherlock’s Scar, First Kiss, Touching, Mycroft is Dying) – As Sherlock nears the end of his career, he's given the gift of a cottage in Sussex. The honey from the beehives out back is amazing. Almost...magical.

Love or What You Will by miss_frankenstein (T, 31,987 w., 11 Ch. || College/Uni AU || Professor John, Ph.D Student Sherlock, Pining John, Poetry, Falling in Love / Slow Burn, Light Angst, Happy Ending) – John is an English professor who specializes in War and Post-War Literature and Sherlock is the brilliant yet impossible Ph.D. student assigned to be his TA because no one in the Chemistry Department is willing to put up with him. And - somewhere between Waugh and Plath, e-mails and takeaway, novels and villanelles - they fall in love.

Five Times They Kissed for a Case, and One Time They Kissed for Real by fleetwood_mouse (M, 32,406 w., 6 Ch. || 5+1, Slow Burn, Fluff / Angst, Mutual Pining, Friends to Lovers) – A stolen ring! An artful blogger! And many more adventures for your enjoyment.

carrying up his morning tea by darcylindbergh (E, 34,504 w., 5 Ch. || Post S3, Minor Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Wakes/Funerals, Estranged John, Pining Sherlock, Depression/Insecurity, Slow Burn, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Chronic Pain/Injury, Reconciliation, Awkwardness, Loneliness, Scars, Angst With Happy Ending) – His fingers tremble as he dials and he can’t force them steady. Familiar number, even though he hasn’t used it in two years. He isn’t even sure he should be calling it now, but she’d asked. She’d made him promise.

LHR-HNL by scullyseviltwin (E, 35,066 w., 7 Ch. || Hawaiian Vacation, Post-TRF, Friends To Lovers, Slow Burn, Just Talk Already, Drinking, Mutual Pining) – In need of an endangered flora sample, Sherlock and John must make a trip to an unexpected destination.

The Boy Who Drank Stars by kinklock (E, 36,157 w., 4 Ch. || Howl’s Moving Castle AU || Witches and Wizards, Slow Burn, Magic, Jealous John, Happy Ending, Bed Sharing) – “I’m looking for a castle,” John informed the scarecrow. “A moving one.”Except that, as it turned out, it was not a moving one at all.

A Promise Made to Be Broken by PlantsAreNeat (E, 37,018 w., 7 Ch. || Fake Relationship, Pining, Slow Burn, RST, Eventual Relationship, POV Sherlock) – A young John makes an ‘if we’re still single at 40, we’ll get together’ pledge to a woman who ends up all wrong for him. She keeps reminding him of the promise, and won’t let go of it. John asks Sherlock to pose as his boyfriend at a family wedding, so as to dash her hopes permanently. Sherlock, who has at last acknowledged his feelings for John, reluctantly agrees despite knowing how painful it will be to ‘have’ John, but not keep him.

Right Hand Man by SilentAuror (E, 42,031 w., 4 Ch. || H/C, Injury, Slow Burn) – When John's left arm becomes paralysed after a car accident, Mary asks Sherlock to take him back to Baker Street to recuperate, as she's about to give birth. Despite the fact that the search for Moriarty is ongoing, Sherlock takes John in and takes responsibility for overseeing his rehabilitation as he adjusts to the loss of his arm.

Left by lifeonmars (M, 45,153 w., 9 Ch. || Magical Realism, BAMF!John, Slow Burn) – John Watson is left-handed. He’s tried not to let it affect his life, but as any Lefty knows, that’s almost impossible.

The Real Great Perfumers by shelleysprometheus (E, 45,355 w., 68 Ch. || Case Fic, Alternating POV, Gay Sherlock / Bi John, Canon Compliant with Divergence at TRF, Friends to Lovers, Oral / Anal, Pining, First Kiss / Time, Dev. Rel., Drugging, Body Worship, Bathing, Love Confessions, Travelling, Bottomlock, Cranky Sherlock, BJ’s, Alternating POV, Jealous John) – The case, this case. This extraordinary, fascinating, scintillating case. A house. Designed entirely by its eccentric owner, built by no less than five hundred expert tradesmen in the heart of Marrakesh. A house that had, seemingly not only driven its owner out, but also to his quite unpleasant death. And a perfumer, a chemist no less, the very thought of the secrets that house could reveal, would reveal was irresistible. Sherlock had to have this case ... and it seems, he also had to have John! Part 1 of the Forethought and Fire series

Corpus Hominis by mycapeisplaid (E, 47,709 w., 12 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Case Fic, Fluff, Romance, Frottage, Angst, Anal, Blow Jobs, Rimming, Spas / Massages, Shampoo, Jealousy, Fake Relationship) - John knows the human body intimately. He’s had plenty of opportunity for study as a doctor, soldier, and lover. There’s one particular body, however, he knows very little about. When Sherlock launches himself head-first into a new obsession and they get sent on a case in an unlikely location, the pair discovers each other’s bodies with confusing yet delightful (and sometimes hilarious) results.

The Norwood Love Builders by flawedamythyst (T, 47,798 w., 9 Ch. || Fake Relationship, Case Fic, Slow Burn, Post TRF Angst) – Sherlock and John go undercover to solve the murder of Joanna Oldacre, but things are complicated by the many feelings John has been repressing in the wake of Sherlock's faked death and return.

The Pieces That Fall to Earth by Itsallfine (M, 49,513 w., 84 Ch. || S4 Fix-It, Epistolary, Love Confessions, Slow Burn, Parentlock, Past Abuse, Coming Out, Internalized Homophobia, Questioning Sexuality, Mental Health Issues / Therapy, Angst, Happy Ending) – John and Sherlock have hit rock bottom, but with all their armor stripped away, they can finally speak honestly, seek healing, and find the truths that matter most. An epistolary post-s4 fix-it fic. Now complete. (This fic is rated T except for one very clearly marked and easily skippable chapter, which is rated M.) Part 1 of The Pieces that Fall to Earth

Anchor Point by trickybonmot (E, 49,856 w., 80 Ch. || Truman Show AU || Psychological Drama, Suspense, Slow Burn, Dark Characters / Fic, Alternating First/Third Person, Protective John, Anxious/Worried Sherlock, Tender Moments, Love Confessions, Hand/Blow Jobs, Cuddling, Jealous John, First Kiss/Time) – The world tunes in nightly for Sherlock, the ultimate in reality TV: Sherlock Holmes, a real person with a legendary name, unknowingly lives out his life in a staged setting contrived by his brother. Things get complicated when a retired army doctor joins the show to play the part of Sherlock's closest friend. This fic borrows its concept from the 1998 film, the Truman Show. However, you don't need to have any knowledge of the movie to enjoy this story.

Triage by scullyseviltwin (E, 51,612 w., 14 Ch. || Character Injury, Introspection, Pining Sherlock, Falling in Love, Slow Burn, Sherlock POV, Toplock) – Sherlock’s mind goes exceedingly, devastatingly quiet and gray-blank. When he speaks it’s through a thick haze, it’s through molasses, he’s so disconnected from the words that it may as well be the unconscious shooter speaking.

In the Dark Hours by hubblegleeflower (E, 51,639 w., 12 Ch. || Friends to Lovers, Unreliable Narrator, Closeted Bi John, Angst, Miscommunications, Slow Burn, First Time, John’s Blog / Epistolary, Selective Mutism) – John, wounded and silent, drifts back to Baker Street for healing...and then goes home again. He visits, gets more upbeat, chattier, smiles, jokes... and still goes home again. Sherlock wants him to move back in - it just makes sense - but John shows no signs of doing so. This is the story of how John and Sherlock learn to say what needs to be said when they're both so very, very rubbish at talking.

Spare Change by Ermerness (E, 51,966 w., 14 Ch. || Rich Holmeses AU || First Kiss / Time, Holmes Family, Virgin Sherlock, Anal, First Meetings, Bossy Bottomlock) – The Holmes family is one of the richest and most powerful in England. Sherlock spends his time flying around the world on the family's private jet drinking a lot and shopping at expensive boutiques as a way of trying to alleviate his endless boredom. His mother decides it's time he settles down with someone powerful, wealthy and well connected. John Watson happens to be none of those things.

Coventry by standbygo (E, 52,020 w., 26 Ch. || Dollhouse AU || Case Fic, Slow Burn, Sci-Fi / Fantasy, First Kiss / Time, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, BAMF John, Falling in Love) – “Let me get this straight,” John said, wondering when his life had become a science fiction film. “Some guy orders up a personality, a person, to his specifications, and they program this into a real live person, who has consented to do this, and she goes to this person and acts as his wife, or lawyer, or Royal Marine, or Navy Seal or what have you, and she has all the skills, all the knowledge, everything? Then you say the magic words, and she follows you back to The House, and they erase it all until her next appointment?”

Points by lifeonmars (E, 53,791 w., 42 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || HLV Rewrite / Canon Divergence, Married Life, Pregnancy / Baby Watson, Drinking to Cope, Boxing / Fisticuffs, Clueless John, Angst, Minor Medical Drama, Tattoos, Christmas, First Kiss/Time, Eventual Happy Ending, Love Confessions, Doctor John, Sexuality Crisis, Slow Burn, Case Fic, Drugging, Blow/Hand Job, Emotional Love Making, Parenthood, Passage of Time) – What if His Last Vow never happened? This fic picks up a few months after John and Mary's wedding, in an alternate universe where Magnussen doesn't exist, but Mary is still pregnant. Life continues -- just in a different direction. And slowly, Sherlock and John find their way to each other.

Wars We Fought, Things We're Not by blueink3 (M, 55,204 w., 10 Ch. || Post S3 / Post TAB, Parentlock, Fluff & Angst, Kidnapping, Whump, Post-TAB, UST/URT, 3G, Mild Peril, Slow Burn, Couple for a Case, Protective Mycroft, Infant Death Pre-Story, Friends to Lovers) – Five months after John's world has fallen apart, Mycroft sends the consulting detective and his doctor on a case that neither is prepared for.

A Hundred Crimson Sols by elldotsee (E, 55,536 w., 16 Ch. || Astronauts AU || Mars Exploration / Space Travel, Slow Burn, Shy Sherlock, Scientist Sherlock / Biomed Engineer John, Alternating POV, Mutual Pining, UST, Angst with Happy Ending, Domestic Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Injuries, Suicidal Ideation, Zero-G Sex) – Will Holmes is a chemical researcher recognized widely for his contributions to the new Mars exploration program. Thanks to his ground-breaking developments, the IMMC (International Mars Mission Corporation) is one step closer to Martian colonization. Will and his team of scientists are headed out on the first of three manned missions before the first group of settlers arrive. Three days before launch, one of the crew has to be replaced. Will panics because...new people. The replacement is of course one John Watson, biomedical engineer and space hottie who was pretty sure he had retired from actual space exploration and was now content to work in the nice, quiet research lab. Can the crew survive this TOTALLY ROUTINE trip? Will they be able to endure each other for the looooooong trip in close quarters? Gonna be a wild ride... prepare for blast off. Part 1 of SpaceBois go to Space

The Book of Silence by SilentAuror (E, 60,056 w., 2 Ch. || S4 Fix It / Post S4, Virgin Sherlock, Rosie / Parentlock, Domesticity, Fluff, Praise Kink, Sex Toys, First Person POV) – As spring blooms in London, John and Sherlock begin to take new cases and cautiously negotiate this new phase of life with John living at Baker Street again. Despite how well it's all going, John struggles to forgive himself for the way he treated Sherlock following Mary’s death as well as trying to figure out how to finally put his long-time feelings for Sherlock into words. Part 1 of The Book of Silence/Rosa Felicia

The Progress of Sherlock Holmes by ivyblossom (E, 62,006 w., 25 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || First Person Sherlock POV, Pining, Angst, Slow Burn, Infidelity, Sherlock Learns About Himself, Happy Ending) – Sherlock struggles with his feelings for John, makes a mistake, and learns just how important he and John are to each other. Non-BBC Mary / John, but it’s a *complicated* relationship.

Hell Sent, Heaven Bound by ConsultingHound (M, 64,381 w, 16 Ch. || Angels / Demons AU || Fallen Angel Sherlock / Angel Cop John, Alternate First Meeting, Slow Burn, Case Fic, John & Lestrade are Friends Before Sherlock, BAMF John, Mind Palace John, Friends to Lovers, John in Denial, Sherlock Picks Out John’s Clothing, Clubbing / Dancing, Mildly Jealous John, Awkwardness, Kidnapping, Sherlock’s Mind Palace, Sacrifice, Worried / Anxious Sherlock, Angst with Happy Ending, Immortal to Mortal) – Ex-War healer and current angelic guard John Watson is not having the best day. He overslept, he’s underpaid, and now there’s someone tagging the Council’s building walls. However things may be about to get interesting: there’s an unusual stranger hanging around (the definition of tall, dark, and handsome), a literal underground cult is brewing, and rumblings are coming from hell. Can he keep his neighbourhood safe, how and why is he being connected to all this, and who the hell is Sherlock Holmes?

You Have Drawn Red From My Hands by J_Baillier (T, 67,085 w., 17 Ch. || Three Garridebs, Heavy John Whump, Hurt / Comfort, Pining, Heavy Angst, Case Fic/Adventure, Slow Burn, Sick Fic, Injury, Guilt & Depression, Just Talk Already Please, Medical Realism, PTSD) – John getting injured leads Sherlock on a path of guilt and revelations.

Being John Watson-ish by elwinglyre (E, 69,902 w., 17 Ch. || Bodysnatcher AU || Author John, Cranky Sherlock, Angst, Sexual Tension, First Kiss / Time, Falling in Love, BAMF John, Past Soldier John, Feelings, Inside Someone’s Brain, Shy Sherlock, Sherlock Loves John, POV Sherlock, Switchlock, Slow Burn, Internal Dialogue, Mental Turmoil) – When consulting detective Sherlock Holmes steps on one toe too many at a crime scene, he's consigned to a desk job in an archaic office on the seventh-and-a-half floor of the New Scotland Yard. It’s in this bleak office that Sherlock discovers a portal into the mind of renowned author John Watson. Grander than his mind palace, this new wonderland affords Sherlock new vistas of experimentation. To learn more about the mystery behind the portal, Sherlock seeks out and befriends Watson. But then it all goes wrong when others find the secret portal door—including the man whose brain he visits.

Just To Hold You Close by sussexbound (E, 70,841 w., 18 Ch. || Alternate First Meeting, Sherlock POV, ASD Sherlock, PTSD John, Demisexual Sherlock, Bisexual John, Cuddling/Snuggling, Platonic Cuddling, Enthusiastic Consent, Bed Sharing, Love Confessions, First Kiss/Time, Sexual Tension, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Cuddle Negotiations, For a Case Until It Isn’t, Hair Petting, Sexual Negotiation, Anxiety, Trust Issues, Slow Burn, Panic Attacks, Frottage, Hand/Blow Jobs, Referenced Self Harm / Abuse / Suicidal Ideation, First Kiss/Time, Anal, Autistic Sherlock) – When a woman is murdered and the last person to see her alive is recently invalided army vet turned reluctant (and prickly) professional cuddler, John Watson, Sherlock Holmes is pulled into a world of intimacy and intrigue he never could have imagined. John is a conundrum and mystery: frank yet reserved, tender yet angry, open yet afraid. Sherlock is instantly drawn into his orbit, and begins to feel and desire things he never has before.

The Vapor Variant by 88thParallel (CanadaHolm) (M, 72,684 w., 18 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Post-THoB, John Whump, Protective Sherlock, Guilty Sherlock, Anxious/Worried Sherlock, Virgin Sherlock, Angst with Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, PTSD John, Slow Burn, Mutual Pining, Suspense, Virus, Sickfic, Big Brother Mycroft) – They stood face to face in the middle of a clearing. The dim light of the moon barely allowed Sherlock to see the glassy terror in John’s eyes and the sweat that glistened off his forehead. His nose was bleeding again, blood dripping in a slow stream from his right nostril. They were both gasping for air, John’s eyes locked on Sherlock’s. There was no recognition there, just wild animal fear. Time stood still for an eternal few seconds, and Sherlock took a shaky breath. “John—”Spell broken, John spun and bolted back into the woods. Still heaving for air, Sherlock took off after him.

Summit Fever by J_Baillier (M, 78,802 w., 18 Ch. || Mountain Climber AU || POV John, Angst, Tragedy, Suicidal Ideation, The Himalayas, Mountain Guide / Doctor John, Mount Climber Sherlock, Loneliness, Drama, Suspense, Slow Burn, Injured Sherlock / Sherlock Whump, Pining John) – After graduating from medical school, John Watson followed his heart to the Himalayas. Ten years later, he's a haunted cynic working for his ex-lover's trekking and mountaineering company. Will leading an expedition to Annapurna I—the most lethal of all the world's highest mountains—shake John out of his reverie, and who is the mystery client added to the group at the last minute?

Thermocline by J_Baillier (M, 83,557 w., 14 Ch. || Scuba Diving AU || Adventure, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Marine Archaeology, Asexual Sherlock, Horny John, Relationship Drama, Technical/Scuba/Wreck Diving, Slow Burn, Underwater / Medical Peril, Doctor John, Hurt Sherlock, Anxious Sherlock, John POV, Protective John, Body Appreciation) – John "Five Oceans" Watson — technical dive instructor, dive accident analyst and weapon of mass seduction — meets recluse professor of maritime archaeology Holmes. As they head out to a remote archipelago off the coast of Guatemala to study and film its shipwrecks for a documentary, will sparks fly or fizzle out?

The Summer Boy by khorazir (T, 94,706 w., 6 Ch. || Post S3/Post TAB/Alternate S4, Friends to Lovers, Flashbacks, Sussex, Bullying, 1980′s Kid Sherlock, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Inexperienced Sherlock, Grief/Mourning, Pining Sherlock, Background Case Fic) – About half a year after the fateful events at Appledore, Sherlock and John embark on a private case in Sussex. For Sherlock, it’s a journey into his past, bringing up memories both happy and sad that he has locked away for almost thirty years. For John, it means coming to terms with the present – and a potential future with Sherlock. Part 1 of the The Summer Boy series

Given In Evidence by verityburns (M, 97,884 w., 19 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Post-TRF, Angst, Drama, Case Fic, Romance, BAMF!John, Submissive Sherlock, First Kiss, Humour) – Coming back from the dead can be a complicated business. With a new case on the horizon, rebuilding a life is one thing... rebuilding a friendship quite another. For Sherlock and John, things may never be just the same...

The Cost of a Wish by slashscribe (E, 102,493 w., 12 Ch. || xxxHolic Fusion || Spirits / Ghosts and Magic, Love Confessions, Slow Burn, Soul Mates / Fated Lovers, Adventure, Immortal Sherlock, Powerful John, POV John, Frottage, Wish Granting, Angst with Happy Ending, Nightmares) – John has been plagued by a secret his entire life that has made him feel hopeless until he meets a mysterious, seemingly omniscient man named Sherlock Holmes who owns a wish-granting shop. Their meeting sets off a series of inevitable events that will change the course of both of their lives forever.

The Wedding Garments by cwb (E, 105,390 w., 36 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Alternate Future AU || Alternate First Meeting, Dating / Arranged Marriages, Romance, First Kiss/Time, Heavy Petting, Cuddles, POV Sherlock, Virgin Sherlock, Idiots in Love, Slow Burn / Falling in Love / Dev. Rel., Nervous/Anxious Sherlock, Jealous/Cranky, Hiking, Vacation Homes / Honeymoon, Sherlock’s Family, Horny John/Sherlock, Patient John, Massages, Hand Jobs, Assassination Plots, Hand Jobs / Oral Sex, Case Fic, Emotional Love Making, Bath Time Fun) – This is the story of a young consulting detective who wants nothing to do with marriage and an army doctor who wants to find true love. It's 2020 post-Brexit England and the British government is encouraging arranged marriages. Candidates meet through state-run agencies and date in hopes of finding love (and tax benefits). Sherlock doesn't need or want a spouse, at least not until John Watson shows up. Hesitant to give in to his more carnal urges because of the way they derail his mind, how will Sherlock progress toward the more intimate aspects of a relationship? The answer lies in a very special wedding gift.

Maintenance and Repair by patternofdefiance (E, 106,650 w., 71 Ch. || Future AU, Augmentation || Augmented John, Depression, Body Modification, Slow Burn, Worldbuilding, Sci-Fi, Self-Care, Body Dysmorphia) – John wants to explain the rush of sensation and data, which is just another form of sensation (or is it the other way around?). John wants to say:Augmentation circuits report temperature, pressure, various forms of quantitative input. Sudden changes are reported as pain, since sudden changes are dangerous, and pain is the quickest way to encourage reflexive extraction. But all John can manage is, “Nng.” Because this sudden touch is not reporting as pain. Part 2 of STATIC

Eyes Up, Heels Down by CodenameMeretricious (E, 107,845 w., 43 Ch. || Sports Equestrian AU || Fluff, Angst, Humour, Rider!Sherlock, Groomer!John, Show Jumping, Slow Burn, Happy Ending) – Sherlock is a top eventing rider currently training at Baker Farms. John is the new groom who's been told to steer clear of the surly rider and his horses. Part 1 of Baker Farms

between each beat are words unsaid by darcylindbergh, hudders-and-hiddles (T, 107,998 w., 215 Ch. || Epistolary, Slow Burn, Friends to Lovers, Angst, Happy Ending) – On their wedding night, John and Sherlock gift each other with the things they each said when the other could not hear, the things they each put down where the other could not see: a collection of writings that illustrate the way their love for one another has grown over the years. Part 1 of between each beat

A Further Sea by i_ship_an_armada & ShinySherlock (E, 125,492 w., 23 Ch. || Historical Pirates AU || Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Doctor John / Pirate Captain Sherlock, Sailing, UST / RST, Masturbation, Action / Adventure, Mild Angst & Peril, Romance, Shaving, Molly/Janine, Bottomlock, Hand / Blow Jobs, Past Drug Use, Slow Burn, Mild Violence, Facial Shaving, Happy Ending) – Here be a tale of adventure for both body and soul, but beware if ye be not of stout heart, for this be piratelock, ya savvy? Luckless ship's surgeon John Watson takes a chance, and finds himself eye to eye with The Ghost, the scourge of the seven seas and a definite thorn in the side of the blaggard, James Moriarty. But when John finds there's more to this most cunning pirate than be meetin' the eye, he has to choose... is it a pirate's life for him?

The Bang and the Clatter by earlgreytea68 (M, 137,049 w., 37 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Baseball AU || Slow Burn / Dev. Rel., Possessive/Obsessive Sherlock, Jealous Sherlock, Mutual Pining, Body Appreciation, Depression, Closeted Sexuality, Family, Sherlock’s Mind Palace, Ogling Each Other, Anxious Sherlock, Panic Attack, Drunkenness, Talk of Forever, Big Feelings™) – Sherlock Holmes is a pitcher and John Watson is a catcher. No, no, no, it's a baseball AU. Part 1 of Baseball

Colors by Quesarasara (E, 140,537 w., 17 Ch. || Pleasantville-Inspired AU || Soulmates, Colour Bonds, Alternating POV, Angst, Fluff, Pining, Case Fic, Medical Procedures) – Everyone on earth is born with eyes that see in black, white, and an endless series of greys. When you meet your soulmate, you finally see the world in color. We're all searching for the person who brings color to our lives. John and Sherlock are no exception. Part 1 of The Colors 'Verse

The Adventure of the Silver Scars by tangledblue (NR [M], 142,458 w., 41 Ch. || S3 Fix-It, Post-HLV/ Post-TAB / Canon Compliant, Case Fic, No Baby, Angst, Humour, UST, Slow Burn, Angry John, Reconciliation, Not Nice Mary / Leaving Mary, Dependent Sherlock, Pining Sherlock, Caretaker John, Fist Fights, It’s An Experiment, Virgin Sherlock, Dancing, Drugging, John Whump, Pet Names, Sherlock’s Mind Palace, Scars) – It’s been thirteen months since Mary shot Sherlock and John finds he’s still pissed off about it. Sherlock had thought everything was settled: John and Mary, domestic bliss. But when John turns up at Baker Street with suitcases, the world’s only consulting detective might not be prepared for the consequences. A new case. Some old scores to settle. Certain danger. Concertos, waltzes, and whisky.

How to Build a Heart out of Ashes by Teumessian (E, 144,931 w., 31 Ch. || Changeling AU || Slow Burn, Drug Use, Mentions of Child Abuse / Bullying, Mentions of Student/Teacher Relations, Uni-Age) – In an AU where a small number of the population become Changelings at a young age, at 17 John Watson believes he's destined for Normal life but then the Change takes him and he is sent to the Baker Institute. There he meets Sherlock Holmes.

Performance In a Leading Role by Mad_Lori (E, 156,714 w., 21 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Hollywood / Actor AU, Secret Relationship, Falling in Love, Slow Burn, Romance, Coming Out, Fluff and Angst, Pining) – Sherlock Holmes is an Oscar winner in the midst of a career slump. John Watson is an Everyman actor trapped in the rom-com ghetto. When they are cast as a gay couple in a new independent drama, will they surprise each other? Will their on-screen romance make its way into the real world? Part 1 of Performance in a Leading Role

Mise en Place by azriona (M, 161,004 w., 28 Ch. || Restaurant (Kitchen Nightmares) AU || Sherlock is Gordon Ramsay / Celebrity Sherlock, Restauranteur John, Harry Plays Prominent Role, Alternating POV, Mutual Pining, Cranky Sherlock, Bed Sharing, Slow Burn) – John Watson had no intentions of taking over the family business, but when he returns from Afghanistan, battered and bruised, and discovers that his sister Harry has run their restaurant into the ground, he doesn't have much choice. There's only one thing that can save the Empire from closing for good – the celebrity star of the BBC series Restaurant Reconstructed, Chef Sherlock Holmes. Part 1 of Mise en Place

Sketchy by serpentynka (E, 184,053 w., 83 Ch. || Post-TRF, Post-Mary, John Whump, Slow Burn Love Story, Case Fic, Art, Porn With Feelings, Switchlock, Travelling, Career Change, Family Secrets, Illness / Health) – What (and who) will be left when nobody cares about your Work? A slow-burn fic with cases, places, mistaken identities, unfair choices, essential changes, violent feels, blatant lies, fearless portraiture, family secrets, high-risk bespoke gifts, durable friendships, bedtime stories, foreign travel and tongues, sickness (and health), and the significance of things which are slow to unfurl -- but cannot be ignored. Oh, and...porn. Part 1: Sherlock takes on an obvious case (barely a 4) and meets someone who will force him to re-examine what it means to see. Part 1 of Sketchy

Proving A Point by elldotsee & J_Baillier (E, 186,270 w., 28 Ch. || Me Before You Fusion || Medical Realism, Insecure John, Depression, Romance, Angst, POV John, Sherlock Whump, Serious Illness, Doctor John, Injury Recovery, Assisted Suicide, Sherlock’s Violin, Awkward Sexual Situations, Alcoholism, Drugs, Idiots in Love, Slow Burn, Body Image, Friends to Lovers, Hurt / Comfort, Pain, Big Brother Mycroft, Intimacy, Anxiety, PTSD, Family Issues, Psychological Trauma, John Whump, Case Fics, Loneliness, Pain) – Invalided home from Afghanistan, running out of funds and convinced that his surgical career is over, John Watson accepts a mysterious job offer to provide care and companionship for a disabled person. Little does he know how much hangs in the balance of his performance as he settles into his new life at Musgrave Court.

#steph replies #johnlock fic recs #slow burn #pining sherlock #Anonymous #long post #my fic recs #fic rec sunday

368 notes · View notes

kanene-yaaay · 4 years

Text

No Moving

Kanene’s note: One year ago I threw a surprise party (very small and cozy) in my house and, after some hours, one of mah friends suggested we played some old games from our childhood and I remember my first thought was “Hey, no. We’re not children anymore.” but I said nothing because that sounded a lot like what society would want me to say. We played. And that was one of the best days I’ve ever had. Good enough to give me inspiration for this fanfic. With a lot of chaos and dorky sides and chaos and tickles!!! So I'm giving this to myself as a gift, because, ya know... S e r o t o n i n! Soooo, the lesson? Idk. Be feral, do chaos, play and f**k the society, I guess. Happy day for us all!!! :DD

Warnings, fun facts, random things and stuff:

* This characters don’t belongs to me! They all belong to Thomas Sanders and his series Sanders Sides!

* This is a SFW tickle fanfic, so, if you don’t appreciate this kind of content, please, look for another blog. There are a plenty of fabulous arts in this site!! ^w^)b

* This is Ler!Roman and Ler!Virgil with Lee!Logan and Lee!Patton. Around 3.700 words.

* Sorry for any spelling, pontuation and grammar mistakes! Any and every advice is very very welcome! \(-w-)/

* Eu vou traduzir ainda ;w;. Thank you so so so much for being with me through all this crazy and difficult year. It’s been a bless to have all of you in my notes, my askys, and my notifications! Take care of yourself, lollipop, you deserve. <33

[~*~]

It was a sunny day. The heat from the biggest star of our solar system being placated by a relaxing wind incessantly throwing the napkins from the so careful, yet messy – as if this wasn’t a tradition the quartet repeated affectionately every single year – decorated table. The friends positioned themselves around it. The surprise party’s rush being already over after all their screaming, singing, eating and bickering, leaving the four to lazily chat or stare the breeze carrying lonely flowers around Virgil’s – the one who offered his house as a sacrifice to the chaos - yard, making them float in the air for some seconds before forgetting them on the dirt again.

Virgil snored softly from the spot he conquered on the tabletop, taking a peaceful nap. Patton was saying, in the fastest pattern he could muster, all the dad jokes his brain managed to think only to see how much time Logan would continue to give him the silent treatment before finally – and figuratively, the owner of the only brain cell of their group would say if he heard this narrative, - exploded and Roman?

Well, Roman was bored.

“I HAVE AN IDEA!!”

Then he slammed his hands on the top of the wooden object, successfully scaring Virgil out of it and of his sleeping – leading the poor adult to fall. Not before kicking a cup in Roman’s direction, his moves being weakened enough by his fogged brain so he missed it and hit Roman’s carefully manicured hands, instead, – at the same Patton, by reflex, slapped the two poor persons who had the bad luck of sitting next to him. He gathered the perfect timing to interrupt Logan’s scared jump by his confused ‘Why did- why- Why did you hit ME?’ sputtering.

“Ow.” The one in red shirt held protectively his arm and hand next to his chest, protesting with his usual offended noises as analyzed the light red spots on them and purposely ignored the ‘What the FUCK, Princey??’ shouted by the host. “Ow. O-w. Are you guys seriously going to hit me every time I try to make your poor lifes better, your barbarians? You know what? I am offended. Your peasants. I am going to get my dear Amanda the katana and then I am- I am out.”

Logan deadpanned in his direction, lifting one of his eyebrows in his disbelief expression as the other didn’t give a single step to the exit. He did his best to maintain the façade as Patton fuzzed over him, hugging and apologizing and hugging and softly petting his head and offering cake before gasping and turning around to fuzz now over Roman. “… Okay. I am taking Patton with me.”

“Over my dead, haunted body.” Virgil quickly proclaimed before his tune got slurred, very much likely still sleepy. “I saw…” He balanced his hands in front of him, eyes wide and hair spiked, very much reminding of a scared cat. “I saw the angel of death, in all his tall dark, cold aura. In front of me. He was right before me, full of-” He moved his hands more, as if that compensated for his lack of words. “Emo.”

“…Thanatos?” Logan pointed.

“Yeah, yeah. That guy.” Virgil came back to his initial position laying down on the cold surface, yawing. “Totally emo.”

“Actually, when he was created-”

“Excuse me. Focus, focus!” The one who initiated the commotion snapped his fingers until all the eyes were fixated on him, glares traveling from interested to unimpressed. “My brilliant idea? That will light up this party and hearts? Drum the drums!” Silence. He turned to Patton, who was staring at a cute butterfly mindless flying around. “Patton! The drums!” The one wearing black rims seemed to come back to reality, drumming his fingers on the table. “Very well!” Roman spun, extending the suspense. Logan came back to scrolling on his phone, Virgil getting closer to take a look, both hiding a smirk when heard the pout in Roman’s tune. “You’re all jerks and boring. Let’s play S.T.O.P!”

That caught their attention.

“Roman, you are…” Logan talked slowly, as if trying to make his words as clear as possible, “aware that we’re adults now, right?”

“Aw, come on, guys!” Patton jolted upright. “Sounds fun! And I think Virgil’s yard is bigger enough to make it even better than when we played in middle school!”

“Exactly! And it was one of your favorites games when you were younger, remember, Specs? I think it’s a good way to celebrate that special date which is your birthday!” Logan scoffed at that, albeit his mind was somewhere else.

Roman wasn’t wrong, he really used to love this game, especially because he was good at it. His love for sports was often ignored by most of his classmates because of his good grades – Logan never understood why one thing would exclude other – therefore he was constantly forgotten in the team or even underestimated. Two things extremely crucial in a game like this. Roman noticed his contemplating face. “I mean, except you are afraid of losing. Again.”

“I did not lose! Kyle fell on me and he was the only one supposed to be out and not both of us and you. Know. It!”

“No, no, no! Claire said you were the one who tripped on your way and then YOU fell on Kyle-”

“That is nonsense! If Claire had stopped just one second her Dance of Victory, she would be able to see that, by the angle we both were on the ground there was no way I would be able to-”

“Oh, plu-e-ase. You are just a sore los-”

“What is this game?” Virgil questioned Patton, both letting the bickering fall on the background, who smiled widely, his gaze unfocusing a bit, probably watching some old memories of his childhood.

“It is a very simple but fun game!! One person stays next to a wall and, oh! We call him the Looker by the way! Or even some large thing and the others players stay the most away from him as possible. The person next to the wall has to count until a certain number of his choice and while he is counting everyone is free to wander around the place until he turns around, then every player has to freeze on the same spot and position they were. If you move and the Looker catches you, you’re out. You win if you touch the wall where he was. You can do everything you want as long the Looker is not staring at you.

“There was that one kid who managed to win the game by climbing a tree until he was close enough to jump from it and run to the wall before the Looker shouted he was out.” The one wearing two party hats as ‘cat hears’ stopped to breath. “Ah! Ah! Also! If you’re out you can choose to just watch the game or become the Looker’s partner and try to help him. Roman and Logan used to be the worst ever when together.” He giggled, sounding a bit hysteric.

“Hm. I think they used to call this ‘10 Seconds’ in my school, since you could count only further than 10 seconds.” Virgil then frowned. “Wait, why were they the worst?”

“Uhh, so, you see, the Lookers can use some… attics to try to make you move. Logan and Roman usually choose to-”

“I do NOT wish to participate.” Logan stated, crossing his arms stubbornly. Roman sighed.

“Well, you do you.” Roman then traveled his glare to the others two. “Are you guys coming? I’m the Looker.”

“I’m in!!” Patton excitedly got up, joggling his way to the yard, casting a slightly worried look at Logan, who was adjusting his chair in order to have a better view of the game. Virgil shrugged, taking off his hoodie and following them, quickly throwing a ‘You ok?’ as he passed next to the most professional of the group.

“Yes.” He deeply breathed, sounding calmer. “Yes, I am.” And then give him a bite of a smile.

Roman positioned himself before the colorful three foot tall concrete tunnel forgotten there by the last owner, barely catching with the corner of his field view his two friends whispering something to each other, the one wearing two party hats snickering behind his hand, bouncing as also choose a good position far away from him, who tried to not think much about what he just presented. A suspicious feeling crawled the back of his neck.

“Go.” Logan pronounced.

“Oneeeee, twooo, three, fourfivesixseveneight,” Roman turned away from them, counting in a tune just above a whisper. Patton and Virgil exchanged glances.

When he got at twenty, he turned.

Only to find Virgil laid on the grass, his arm extended to point something in the sky, Patton crouched by his side, his face firm in a puzzled expression staring in the same direction, hand above his eyes to block the Sun. Roman frowned in confusion, the curiosity tickling the back of his brain until he succumbed to it, also looking at the sky to - surprise, surprise! – find absolutely nothing!

By the time he stared at them again Patton now was in front of Virgil, both making what seemed like a very horrible parody of The Creation of Adam painting. Roman got closer, managing to clearly see the smug smile on Virgil’s face and Patton wobbly lips, very much likely holding laughter. He crossed his arms, staying stubbornly for some seconds before giving up, seeing that none of them moved a single millimeter.

“You two are so funny.” Roman rolled his eyes, sarcasm dropping from each word. Logan snorted.

This time the Looker counted at only fifteen seconds.

This time Patton was in Virgil’s arms when he turned, one leg suspended dramatically in the air. The third time Roman growled loudly as Virgil was on one knee, pretending to propose to Patton who was frozen in the middle of his faint. In the fourth he didn’t even have the chance to turn before two hands tased his sides, making his knees buckle but being held in the same place when a pair of arms that hugged him from behind, capturing the poor adult in a flow of high-pitched squeaks and surprised laughter at each squeeze and spidering deposited just above his hips.

Some minutes later soft snorts followed him to the ground when he was finally freed, flames running on his face and his arms firmly pressed at his sides, the ghost tickles leading to a sea of giggles dancing in the air.

“Enough.” Logan cut the moment, all the eyes on him when he got up, stretching and loosening his party tie. The Looker recomposed himself in order to sneak pokes and squeezes on the other two, who quickly dashed their way back to the yard. “You both clearly aren’t taking this seriously enough.” A dangerous gleam took over his eyes, staring intently to Roman, who instantly got the same kind of shine in his own glare, nodding in his direction. Both too much preoccupied to notice Virgil and Patton silently high fiving in the distance.

The game started again, now a very different electricity dancing in the air. Logan sensed an old feeling of nostalgia resting on his back as he analyzed the place and his opponents as things went by. Roman turned for at least three times – the perfect number for things to get really interesting, - before he decided to finally move from his place.

Silent steps, he went right to Patton. Logan breathed in relief, taking the opportunity to adjust his strategic position half behind the tree. Patton kept a pattern of switching from moving too fast in a round and then barely taking a step in the other, however, as Roman stopped before him, and for the way he soundless snickered as The Looker changed his target to Virgil, his weakness was still holding his laughter when stared for long periods of time.

Virgil was sitting on the grass. Again. A very good tactic when you tend to fidget or tremble a lot. He would stay in the same position for some rounds until in an explosion of energy dash forward when Roman wasn’t paying attention. The Looker crouched in front of him, his index finger pointing and almost touching his nose.

“You. I don’t trust you.”

And then there was Logan.

“You,” Roman stared in distance – not because of fear pffff of course not - Logan’s form half hidden by the foliage and trunk of the medium tree, his glass making his eyes gleam in a light even more enhanced due the shadow provided by the plant, the rest of his face being partially hidden because of his bangs falling on his features. “are fucking creepy. Stop.”

In the next round Patton gave everyone a heart attack when he screamed since he didn’t heard/saw Logan approaching his spot. Two more rounds. Virgil sneezed and lost his balance in a not very ideal mid-run position. Out.

“Oh, thank gracious, great goodness!! Come here, Knight Mare!! I have an idea!!” Virgil barely had time to stop swearing for losing before being recruited by Roman, who immediately began to whisper in his ear.

“What do you think they’re talking about?” Patton asked, both being close enough for the question doesn’t need to be spoken above a murmur.

“Not a good thing for us both, I am sure.” In that moment The Lookers turned and a cold shiver ran Logan who, for the way Patton trembled, wasn’t the only one. Adrenaline started pulsing on his veins when they approached, although the birthday person had no idea of why. His old memories too much buried under newer ones for him to catch them.

“Nooohoho.” The cat lover whined and the fact Roman clearly saw that but did nothing to point it, his only reaction being to expand his grin, worsened Logan fears, a ray of recognition finally shining on his mind. That should be how karma feels.

“Look at you both, just standing right there, not being allowed to move an only single inch. What a sad fate, don’t you think, Princey?”

“Oh, absolutely, emo. A horrible, wondrous thing, indeed. But you know what that would be perfect for?” Roman now was just a few centimeters away, the infinitesimal distance being cut when he inclined forward, his breath tickling Patton’s – Poor Patton – ear. “Revenge. You know, Pattycake, Hot Topic here told me the previous attack on my amazing person was your idea. And now that I stop to think, what a wonderful idea, don’t you think, Pat-pat?”

Virgil pulled lightly Roman’s shoulder, sensing the other about to crack but yet having too much fun to end this all so early. “But not now. No touching, right?”

“Oh, right, right. Of course, no touching!” He wiggled his fingers, barely away from the poor target’s ribs, his cheeks already beginning to get pink from blush. “No touching, no touching, no touching, but, most important than anything else: no. moving.”

“Oh, yeah.” Virgil took the opportunity to walk around, stopping right behind Patton, who firmly closed his eyes, the smile he carried getting bigger. “Because the exact, very moment when you can’t take the teases anymore so you break and move?” He tsked. “Then all your protection will be over and you will be all helpless and vulnerable for us to tickle,” He almost purred the words, in the slowest way possible. “tickle, tickle, tickle for hours and hours. Can you imagine that, Popstar? Our fingers prodding and squeezing and tickling every single ticklish spot they find?”

“Ohoho.” Roman evil laughed. “Tickle spots? My Dear Imbalanced Romance, our pipsqueak here doesn’t have any tickle spots. He IS a tickle spot. Ah! I can almost hear his hysteric high-pitched squeaks and giggles! Such an adorable, beautiful, cute melody to my ears. Actually, I don’t know if I will ever be able to stop, Virgil. It’s just all too beautiful and intoxicating, you know?”

“Mm hm,” The other seemed to stop to think. Patton felt like he was going to melt at any moment. “Well, we could always just keep going forever.”

“Of course!” Roman again ignored the slight trembling of the cat lover’s chest, probably due all the giggles trapped there. “Don’t you think it will be wonderful and oh, so, so fun, cutiepants? Receiving all the tickles and nuzzles and raspberries and tickle hugs and tickly butterfly kisses forever and ever and ever? ~” He sing-song the last part.

“But,” Logan almost jumped in the same place, not even realizing how much keyed up he was before Virgil’s breath attacked the back of his defenseless neck. Suddenly all his nerves were hype-aware that he couldn’t turn around or run or even rub away the tingles. Goosebumps ran freely across his spine. “Let’s not forget about our so sensitive nerd here too, right?”

“Sure. Sensitive.” If he didn’t know Roman for all these years, Logan would almost swear he was the Cheshire cat, his smirk almost blocking Patton who hugged himself behind him, giggling quietly. “Because the serious, smart, professional Logan would never be ticklish, right? That is such a childish thing and he definitely, definitely outgrow it for now.”

“Yup. I am sure that, if we slowly and thoroughly spider our fingers all the way up from his sides to his armpits, being sure to give each and every rib a special attention since we don’t want to let anyone feeling left out, there will be no reaction.”

“Absolutely! No reaction at all! Not even if we squeeze the hollows of his hips, or scribble on his already quivering tummy, or massage his shoulder blades or lightly, almost not touching, scratch his armpits… It will be all in vain since our birthday boy is not ticklish.”

��Which means: No wheezy, frantic laughter.”

“Or sputtering among his squeals.”

“Or cute snorts. Don’t forget the snorts.”

“And what about when the snorts get mixed with his belly laughter?”

“Ohh, that is some good shit you have there.”

Logan was dying. He was fucking dying and the only thin line keeping him alive was his stubborn nature. He could already feel his barrier cracking and crumbling right before him. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes, only to find both Lookers walking away back to the tunnels, not taking long before starting to count, this time out loud. The one with the, now freaking out, braincell began to snap his fingers non stop, trying to get away some of the built excited energy, some titters escaping from his lips during his happy stimming.

Roman and Virgil looked at each other and then the adorable scene right in front of them, deciding to have mercy and wait patiently for Logan and Patton – who yet didn’t stop giggling and hugging himself – to calm down.

(…)

One. Move.

And in the next second, they both were tackled on the ground.

“No, no, no!!! No!!” Patton was already giggling, trying to run from Roman’s firm hug, attacking with squeezes and scribbles in every spot he succeeded to research on the Looker as he also tried to escape from his friends’ hands attempting to hold him in the same place. “Wait, wait!” He cried, barely catching a glimpse of Logan’s trashing before an idea popped in his mind. “If we all gang up on Logan, I will tell about his secret tickle spot!!”

“Patton!!” Logan’s protest came out difficulty between his tight grin due his constant effort in trying to buckle Virgil from him, both struggling to immobilize the other and playfully rolling in the grass. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

“Pffft.” Roman said, a happy cry following his sentence when he finally managed to hold one of Patton’s hands, intertwining their fingers so the cat lover wouldn’t try to pry it away. “Nonsense, I know his tickle spots.”

“Not all of them. ~”

“Patton, I am to going not figuratively end you. Get OFF, Virgil-”

“In your dreams.” He crackled. “Also, Patton, I’m listening.”

“Virgil! Don’t align with the enemy! And, of course I know all of them!”

“Even the one…”

“Patton, no! Stop!” Roman even if concentrated in tickling Patton’s knee so he could sit on his legs, got the slight tremble in Logan's voice, his curiosity one more time starting to take over his brain.

“Sorrey, sorrey, Lo! You know I love you but-”

“Patton, please.” Logan almost smiled as he fought his way to hug and trap Virgil from behind, but losing his balance as the other quickly turned and delivered a raspberry on his neck and quick squeezes on his left thigh. “dON’T!! I-I am going to bakeEEK - Fuck! - you a whole batch of cookies if you don’t tell them!”

Roman caught in the offer, his curiosity immediately perking up, answering in a bat:

“I’m going to tickle you both to pieces if you don’t tell us now.”

“Sorrey, Logan,” Patton tried to sound apologetic, but his excited smile made this task more difficult. “it’s you or me.”

“I’m going to tell them about your calves!” Logan threatened at the same time Patton said “It’s his lower back!”

“TRAITOR!” Both also shouted in synchrony. In a blink of eye Roman let Patton go and helped Virgil to make the most serious one of the group lay down on his stomach.

“I despise you all.” The aforementioned pronounced.

“Aww. Come on.” Virgil lowered, searching the other’s eyes, grinning. “Aren’t you enjoying the view?”

“400.000 years of evolution for humanity to become this. You all should be ashamed of yourselves.”

“You know, talking like this makes me think you don’t want us to give you your so dearly craved birthday tickles, Pocket Protector!”

The three of them stared at the other, looking carefully for any slight indication that Logan was truly uncomfortable with the situation, receiving as response only a scoff, the blush painting his face as a whispered mumble flew from his mouth.

“You’re so cute!” Patton squealed, giving a light tickly kiss on the back of his neck, leading the attacked to suppress a small giggle which progressively got louder as the cat lover tickled his armpits, Roman and Virgil seeing unfazed by Logan’s squirming. “Okay, okay. You have to tickle his lower back but starting with reeeeeally slow scratches at his sides before speeding it to the fastest scribbling you can muster as you move to his spine!”

Logan hid his hot face behind his hands, the yelps and snorts already escaping between his fingers. He was, objectively, going to love every single second of this.

#Ler!Roman #Ler!Virgil #Lee!Logan #Lee!Patton #brief Lee!Roman & Ler!Virgil/Patton #Teases #Teasy cute nicknames #playful tickles #Sanders Sides tickles #Happy stimming #Sanders Sides tickling #tickle fic #Logan playing is inspirated in one friend of mine who is adorable until he starts to play then he becomes a fucking thing #out of a fucking horror movie #If he got too much close of me I would scream and I'm not kidding. He was terrifying and he loved this xD #Ohhh so that is how writing a self indulgent fic feels like-#My first plan was to make a LAMP series with all their birthdays but life said 'no' and then I just worked with what I had and #being pretty honest??? I am so so so much proud of it.#Especially looking at my first tickle fic ever which I wrote around this same time last year #Btw when I used to play this at school light tickles and teases were allowed xDDD #EXTREMELY RARE but allowed xDD #Self care is writing ur self idulgent fic while listenning your fav nostalgic playlist

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popculturebuffet · 4 years

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New X-Men Xtrospective Part 1: E is For Extinction “They Will Need Us”

I am SO fucking excited for this one. As might not be obvious to ALL of my readers but should be obvious to some, I fucking love the X-Men. They are one of my favorite superhero teams period as are several of their spinoffs such as X-Factor (All versions), New Mutants, and Marauders. I love the wide cast, the hugely vast universe within the already vast and wonderful marvel universe, and the sheer amount of GREAT stories. I own all 11 movies, have several action figures, and two posters from Jonathan Hickman’s current and utterly dynamite run right above me right now as I work, as well as a marvel 80′s themed poster behind me that’s at least half x-men for good reason. I love this gang of mutants and I have not talked about them enough.

I”ve done some X-Men stuff sure: I’ve talked about hickman’s time as head writer of the books a year in earlier this year, I did a few scattered reviews back when I did single issues of comics, and then we get to the one I beefed big time: covering ALL of X-Men evolution. While it’s a noble endeavor I freely admit to overexerting myself: I recapped the episodes way too closely, gave myself no real schedule and did so while I was already covering two shows a week at the time. My point is it was a good idea, but the timing was REALLY fucking bad and if I do it again, I intend to do it right and iwth a proper place in my now properly paced schedule. I also planned to do the movies which, unlike evolution, I have solid plans to do once I clear out some of my projects. Point is I burned bright and then exploded and took a whole projecet with me phoenix style.

I had until this moment yet to do a really big x-men project, something digging into the comics, something that could help fans both of the comics and not get familiar with something really good, and help me dig into both the good and bad of something. I jsut needed the right start.

Then Christmas gave me that spark, that project that gave me the idea for a butload more x-men content on here and was the perfect starting point for some. See my friend Marco lives in Honduras, and so since i couldn’t afford to send him anything for christmas in the mail, as i’m not exactly rich, I instead offered him three reviews of anything.l He still hasn’t taken up two of them, nor one I gave him for graduating college, but the first one was a doozy, something he hadn’t read due to not liking the art, which is fine as I have some art in comics I don’t like everyone has diffrent tastes, at least for the first arc, and something VITALLY important to x-men as a whole and that’s the backbone of hickman’s current run: the first arc of new x-men, e is for extinction. And given New X-Men is one of my faviorite comics of all time I not only lept on it.. but decided fuck it I’m covering the whole thing. So every so often on here from now until I finish, i’m going to be covering Grant Morrisons ground breaking, mind shattering, status quo destroying run on the children of the atom. This.. is going to be fucking awesome. Buckle up.

New X-Men came about in 2001. Stop me if you heard this one: The X-Men, once marvel’s best selling title and one of i’ts most beloved, had been set adrift in a seal of editorial bullshit, bad writing, bad storylines and a stale continuity where not much could change or grow and things always reset to about the same place it was last week. If this sounds familiar it’s because it somehow happened AGAIN thanks to Ike Perlmutter’s bullshit, hence the current hickman run, but we’ll get into all of tha tsome other time. Point is as it was in 2018, so it was in 2001: The x-men were in bad straits and marvel reached out to a host of various creators to swing for the fences and find a new direction, something to bring sales and life back to the book. To my shock they actually took a LOT of diffrent pitches in before Morrisons won and from huge names: Geoff Johns, who had not yet returned to DC never to leave, Alex Ross, Keith Giffen.. all huge creative types. but in the end the best man won.

For those unfamiliar with him, Grant Morrison is a gloriously batshit scotsman with a long, storied and delightfully insane history in comics, mostly at DC before and after this comic. This is for good reason: DC scouted Morrison specifically because of his early work at 2000ad. See at the time Alan Moore had hit it really big with Swamp Thing, taking a d list, so so book and making it into an utter masterpiece and giving it thoroughly interesting mythology. Given it was a blockbuster hit that’s still widely loved and discussed, as it should be today, DC decided to repeat the strategy of asking British indie comics creators to come do the same to another property. This same experiment is why Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman exists, so.. yeah it was actually a great strategy and naturally Grant had their first big hit with Animal Man, a metafictional take on a b-list hero that made him a loveable family man, while also putting him through hell and playing with the medium and dc’s vast history, the last two being Morrison’s trademark from then on out.

They’d next go on to reinvent one of my other faviorite teams: THE DOOM PATROL! The patrol are a bunch of victims of strange accidents who got powers out of them that are basically curses... and Morrison solidified that concept, taking over after a weak run that ironically enough was trying to imitate the x-men’s success at the time. Instead Morrison just went all out with his weird shit for the first time and made them a team of broken but likeable people with weird powers fighting just the weirdest most incomprehensible shit, a run i’ll likely be digging into eventually along with the team as a whole. It’s also, along with Gerard Way’s recent run, the bedroock for the current and utterly masterful doom patrol series I need to catch up on. They also apparently once wrote a satrical comic starring and lik mocking hitler... a fact I somehow JUST learned but naturally doesn’t surprise me at all.

Morrison’s career at dc, after doing some creator owned stuff there when Vertigo opened up, hit it’s peak in the late 90′s as they were given the go ahead to reinvent the Justice League, with the wildly successful and awesome JLA, another book I probably need to take a look at that put the big 7 back into the team. And by now your probably getting the point of me covering his career pattern.. besides giving morrison the praise they deserve, and they’d have some really great runs after this.. and some terrible ones but no one’s perfect. My point is that at this point in their career Morrison’s greatest skill was taking something that had grown stagnant or been forgotten, blowing it up and reworking it into something glorious and new. Taking what worked, scraping away what didn’t and on the whole making something fucking glorious out of it. So here we are. The X-Men needed a new coat of paint and uncle grant had their lcd laced psycadelic paint bucket and brush shaped like a pidgeon at the ready. And for better, way better and admitely sometimes here and there worse,they changed the x-men for good. Some changes were rolled back out of spite, others finally got their chance after said rollback recently, and some were just outright thrown on the grown and smashed with a hammer. But for the most part Grant left a huge impact on the x-men and i’m here to show you why, warts and all. To me my x-men, this is new x-men. Now naturally there’s even more exposition but i’ts more in what COULD’VE been. Originally while Wolverine, Cyclops, Jean Grey and Professor X were all part of the team the other two members of the slim roster for this run, Beast and Emma Frost.. weren’t. Originally Morrison was going to have Colossus and Moira Mactaggert, long time team ally, token human until very recently, and now thanks to hickman one of the most important x characters peirod and long before that a fan favorite of mine, on the team, with Moira taking over for beast.

This.. didn’t pan out since Marvel apparently either didn’t give a shit about their plans or already had things in motion as the climax of the longtime legacy virus storyline killed both off. Colossus until Joss Whedon, bastard he may be, brought him back for his terrific Astonishing X-Men, and Moira SOMEHOW stayed dead until House/Powers of X. See this speaks to one of the big roadblocks morrison faced: Jonathan HIckman currently has absolute power and all his writers working in concert, a new way of doing things comic companies shold honestly copy en masse as it’s really working wonders. Grant.. was just one of many writers and one of three main x books the others being Chris Claremont’s XTREME X-MEN, basically “let the legend do what he wants since he can’t get freedom on the main book” and another writer on uncanny... before eventually chuck austen took over and I will tackle that horrible mess some other time. Point is while Morrison was setting the tone, costume style and making the big waves, they still didn’t have full power and thus had to play nice with eveyrone else. So their next idea was Rogue, making mer more like her x-men evolution version.. except Chris wanted her, so that was out, though being a decent enough guy he willingly gave up Beast since the moira thing meant Morrison needed a science person. As for Colossus replacement, as it turned out a fan had suggested Grant do something with Emma Frost since Gen X was canceled and while Morrison had zero intention for it clearly Emma clicked with hthem and she was soon both a main part of the cast and one of their biggest contributions to X-Men as a whole.

As for what I think of the needed changes.. they ended up being for the best. I do like Moira... but Hank ended up being a much better fit for the team dynamic wise and power set wise, while Emma was the same. While Colossus, Rogue and Moira are all fantastic characters, I think what we ended up with was just a better mix overall. I DO think the team is incredibly white, but that’s a general x-men problem, even with having an assload of diverse and intresting characters, so it’s not entirely his fault. All in all it’s a fantastic roster: four of the x-men’s best, their leader in the field for the first time in forever, and a new and intresting wild card. IT’s a nice ballance of characters and we’ll get more into it as we go. Now all the expositions done, we can finally dive head first into new x-men. I hope you survivie the experince under the cut.

After an utterly gorgeous and striking cover, the one used up top, we get one solid page to introduce us to Morrison’s mission statment, how they feel and how good Frank Quitely’s art looks

I cropped it best i could for tumblr but this one image immidetly says a lot. Our heroes are just.. easily taking down this sentinel, an old model... the same one we’ve seen a dozen times. What were once the grim, possible destroyers of an entire race of beings in days of future past and devistating killing machines in the present.. had become stale easily defeated murder bots There had been noble attempts to really make the sentiinels work again like the horrifying omega sentinels, humans forcibly converted into sleeper agent killing machines, during operation: zero tolerance, but otherwise they were mostly just a prop for the x-men to knock down. And that.. really is morrison’s whole point. Lampshading and mocking the fact the x-men had grown stale, things hadn’t really progressed.. and that it was time to move on. But to Uncle Grant’s credit, they not only uses this as a mission statment but it’s plot relevant: this mission will both be explained soon and explains why Logan and Scott are out and about enough to end up where the plot will soon need them. It also helps, via the sight of the syndey opera house establish something Morrison made a staple of their run: the X-Men going global. While the x-men were never really NOT global post claremont, Morrisons run has them handling rescue missions and what not worldwide far more often than most runs before it sans Claremont, and really made it feel like they weren’t just another super team but a global force of good with a specific goal and mission. More on the global aspect next time, as that’s where it really comes in but I felt it was important to show it was there for minute one.

So yeah before we move onto the first full scene of the run, let’s talk about the costumes.

We’ll talk about Emma’s later since she’s not introduced to the story for a while but yeah. There’s a sharp, obvious and immediate change just in the outfits, which take after the movie’s more military look, having the x-men not only look more like a unit but more like a professional orginization. Someone to come and help when needed. While this would take on more siginifigance in a bit, we’ll get to it, it also fits Morrisions own views that the x-men were less of a traditional superhero team and more something different on the edges that fought things out there, sorta what like he did with doom patrol. And it’s honestly a valid interpretation as the x-men are often seen as outlaws and misfits by society for beingn well.. mutants. Not as trusted as the avengers. So having them adopt this look played into that: Having them look more professional and focused as The X-Men have a less blanket mission statement than the avenger.. but also mildly threatning. Something to alarm the humans. It’s an utterly brilliant look thrown best together by the big yellow x’s, still giving it a nice flash of color to show off and show this is still a comic and this is still damn colorful.. this just isn’t your AVERAGE supherhero comic or the x-men your used to. IT’s a real shame the only fox x-men movie to use it was fucking dark phoenix.. a film where it didn’t even fit as xavier was getting flashier and more reckless so why wouldn’t he have more garish and colorful and more traditional superhero outfits. They did look good in their variants in first class though. Props there. Point is this is a classic, utterly stunning look, and tha’ts coming from someone whose fine with goofy superhero outfits and perpetually bitter hawkeye is almost never allowed to wear his actual comic outift and is instead stuck with shades instead of you know.. a mask. Or anything resembling an actual good looking costume. This though this is how you do a less superheroy costume: practical and realistic, but still cool looking and comic book friendly.

We cut to a mysterious lady, we’ll come to know her as Cassandra Nova and while I know her origin... i’m saving it for later as the comics themselves explain it eventually, and a simpering dolt she brought with her, Donald Trask, a distant relative of the creators of the sentinels who, via holograms she’s showing cro magnons slaughtring the neanderthal. Her point is that Mutants are going to do this and she’s clearly fearmongering him and trying to talk him into genocide: to wipe them out before they wipe out humanity. And it’s here we get one of hte most important plot points of Morrisons run and one of the most intresting: according to cassandra’s research Humanity will be no more in 4 generations. Mutankind is on it’s way to overtaking them at last.. i’ts still a few decades off.. but it’s coming. It’s sometihing that the whole decimation nonsense sadly snuffed.. and John Hickman has thankfully brought back. I’ll get to his run once i’ts complete in a few years, but point is it’s an utterly marvelous plot hook: Humanity, whose already attempted genocide a few times, is now in real danger of what their petty, racist, fearful attacks have been about: being replaced. It’s one of the central themes of the work the other two being “Just what IS mutantkind and what will it be”. WHat are they as a people? We’ll dig into these as we go but the threat of exctincion is the backbone of this arc... and will lead to something truly ghastly.

It’s then we get our title page.. which nothing really to add it just looks really good and helps show off who are cast is and what they can do with striking simple art.

And since we’re already talking the art of the book, let’s take a moment to discuss an intresting detail of this run: despite it’s short length there’s quite a few diffrent artist, who we’ll talk about of course as we get to each one. The most common and notable though is Frank Quitely. Frank Quitely is one of Morrison’s closest and best creative partners, having a unique, squishy art style.. i.e. the one my friend didn’t like which is why i’m covering this. And while I like the art style quite a bit, I do get why it’s not everyone’s cup of tea: His art is squashed, weird, and admitely some faces can be good god no incaranate. But it’s also why I like it: his characters feel unique, each body and figure feels like it was custom made and thus feels.. real. Like this is a person before you. And given comics can often surrender to having everybody look the damn same, this is nice. His faces may sometimes look similar but his bodies are where the action is. But while having a realistic feel his work also has a weird alien quality that perfectly fits Morrison, and thus his run on x-men. I will say while I love All-Star Superman, his art fits less there in the more hopeful silver agey story, so he’s not an artist for EVERY STORY OF EVERY TYPE.. but when it comes to sci fi weridness, he fits it like a glove so i’ts unsuprising he and morrison are practicaley soul mates, nor that his art sets the tone perfectly for the run: this is something new, diffrent and strange.. and what says x-men at it’s best more than that?

So after our opening titles we cut to the mansion where Hank is showing off his latest and greatest invention: Cerebra. Cerbebra is a massively upgraded version of Cerebro, aka Professor Xavier’s iconic helmet that allows him to track mutants to help them out.. and covertly backup their conconousness for his long game plan, but shhhh, don’t tell anyone yet that’s not going to be retconned in for a few decades. Though i’m damn certain if Morrison has heard about the current era of x-men and how it both builds on what he built, shatters the status quo and is incredibly weird, he’d be damn proud. As for how it’s diffrent Cerebra not only has a large dome around it but said dome allows the machine to amply Charles powers to a global reach. He can now see mutants all over the world anywhere in the world, something I didn’t realize wasn’t ALWAYS a thing because it seems so simple. It’s also likely to bring it more in line with the movies. And while marvel has done TERRIBLE with bringing things in from the movies or in line with them in recent years, i.e. making star lord more like his movie self while forgetting that’s how he already used to be in canon before later writers thankfully did hte better step of merging the two, Hawkeye’s outfit, Cap’s outfit or Nick Fury Jr. But for every mistep there’s also been tons of times it’s worked out really well such as here, as well as bringing hulk into the avengers for the first time since the founding, making tony stark more like the mcu version and less like a nightmarish self righetous dicktator who rightfully gets beat up and called out a lot, making Scott Lang prominent since he became prominent in the MCU, Wakanda being a major force in the marvel universe as it always should have been and various titles that have popped up to tie into movies, often bringing back a team or property that hadn’t had a book in some time like Ant-Man, Black Panther, and Shang Chi just to name a few. It’s not always hawkeye looking all jeremy renner is what i’m saying.. though thankfully comics clint isn’t that uninteresting. Hopefully the series will change that.

So yeah along with a bigger shinier cerebro we’re also introduced to a big change in Hank whose taken on his lion form rather than his classic gorilla with a weird haircut or his return to that except bald. Here he’s more like aslan in a human body and I.. love it. It looks great, helps sell hanks delima of being brilliant while looking like a beast and makes sense: he kickstarted what was likely his own secondary evolution by drinking the potion that made him bestial, so it only makes sense his body wouldn’t be all that stable even if it took years to change again. And even that makes sense as hank was breifly turned back to his original hairless ape mutation during x-factor, easily one of the books.. worse decisions honestly and one that louise simonson thankfully later undid. That probably bought him some time hence why it’s only mutating further now. It also adds an intresting wrinkle which the run will explore further: how far does this go? Will he regress? and how much hank will be left? And how will society treat his new form?

For now he’s actually extatic. While he’s going through hormonal changes, and giving out some excellent banter with Jean

Which also includes one of the greatest lines in comic book history, one that’s been in my head for decades and made me absolutely love henry mccoy.

He’s just great is what i’m saying. As you can tell it’s stuff like this why i’m glad Moira fell through. While I love her.. Morrison’s hank is just a delight and one really questionable subplot aside, we’ll get to that, he’s one of the highlights of this run with an intresting internal struggle, and great chemistry with EVERYONE. And that is the main reason i’m glad Moira fell through as his history with everyone but Emma, who he still has a great raport with, means each interaction has weight. He’s close friends with both scott and jean and thus serves as their needed confidant, while still being able to buddy and banter iwth good old weapon x, and speak with his mentor charles as an equal. While I love moira... Beast just fits into the cast too perfectly and I 100% suspect Morrison was only using her because, while she’s awesome, Claremont wanted her and thus gladly snapped her up when he no longer had a science person. I’ll get into his Jean soon enough but she’s likewise fantastic and easily my faviorite version of the character.. not that until very recently there was much honest competition.

So Cerebra fires up showing a massive cloud of mutants, showing just how much of a huge spike theirs been with Xavier wondering what it all means.. and Hank seeing a weird flare on the mointor for just a second with his special eyes. But since Xavier isn’t stupid and isn’t the kind of idiot who just dismisses it as a fulke, and since Scott and Logan are in the field, he decides to confrence call them in to see if they can go take a look.

And naturally we get to see what their up to and get context for what the hell happened in the first page. Our heroes were on a rescue mission to save Ugly John, tha’ts what people called him, a three faced mutant who ends up passing out as they head out of the atmosphere for a second. Wolverine is regenerating and smoking out of his neck becaue he could still smoke back then before marvel decided “he’s setting a bad example”.. in a comic meant for teens and adults.

I mean I get it on some level as the x-men cartoon was a huge thing in the 90′s and Ben Grimm is basically a giant children’s toy with the mind of a surly 40 year old jewish man from yancy street, but stilll it’s just.. why. I may not like smoking but it’s not like it was SPIDER-MAN saying

It’s a grown man.. whose not a sterling roll model and who Claremont went out of his way to have Logan point out his healing factor means it really dosen’t hurt him in the long run and when Kitty, an actual teenager, tried one of his cigars she choked. I know it’s a weird thing to get hung up on but while i’m all for keeping kids from smoking, this was a really clumsy way to try and hehlp that that made no sense and will never make any sense.

One tangent later we find out that Cassandra was showing Trask a simulation on a flight to, unsuprisingly, south america, to a sentinel blacksite. Between covertly funding civil wars as they do, the US Goverment naturally founded an experimental sentinal project, and a second master mold during the production of the first line... when larry trask asks where it could possibly be well...

Subtly was not the trasks strong point.. or common sense... or.. not realizing their creations would dominate humanity too or not dying.

Anyways we then cut back to the x-men, as their having a psychic zoom meeting with Charlie giving one of his patnted big speeches.. and like a lot of this comic it’s too damn good not to use

The reason I couldn’t should be obvious: This one speech sums up the x-men, why their great and why their necessary in a nutshell: in a world full of prejucided morons.. there’s plenty of scared kids who NEED the x-men to protect and guide them, and with a surge in the mutant population, their needed now more than ever. We also get a good explanation in universe for the uniform change: Charles had them in the superhero outfits hoping humanity would accept them if they were packaged as something they know. Since that clearly hasn’t worked he’s trying new ways to reach out and thus going with a diffrent more rescue team approach to the uniforms. He assigns Wolvie and Cyke to go check out the flair as you’d expect and the meetings over. On the blackbird we get our first hint at a subplot as Logan noticed Cyclops couldn’t wait to get out of there, and is being a tad distant to his wife. He actually has reasons for being kind of cold for once instead of just bad writing as he just came back from being possed by apocalypse. Yeah that happened. So the experience has rattled our boy some what. More on that as we go. But Jean ducks the subject with hank but does breach the fact that Charles has been going kind of crazy with the spending, new uniforms and ambition lately. Hank explains it perfectly: After all the death, suffering and misery the x-men have endured lately, the aforementioned deaths I talked about that took Colossus and Moira off the roster, have lionzed Charles to make sure it was all worth something and look towards the future.

But enough hope time for horror as Cassandra makes her first direct move, trying to take over Charles brain , make his body her own and use cerebra to kill lots and lots of mutants. We then get one of the best moments of Morrisons run with Charles response to a horrifying monster trying to take his brain

While it is shocking to find out Charles has a gun..it’s a grim but kind of understandable precaution. The guy once got fully taken over by a brood, assembling the New Mutants in part because the brood wanted to create more of i’ts kind with more super powers. You’d be paranoid too if some of your beloved students were brought together partly due to your good intentions and partly because a space monster wanted to make more space montsters out of helpless teens, and even horribly gaslighted one of them. We’ll get to that some day. Point is Charles brain is one of the greatest weapons on earth and if the wrong person got a hold of it, it’d be the end of said earth. Thankfully Charles does not need plan gun, as Jean yanks Cerebra off him but the sheer HATE Charles felt from Cassandra, the sheer power has rattled him.. and also told him she’s in Ecuador and his X-Men need to be warned NOW. It’s a great way to set up just HOW powerful Cassandra is. Speaking of which as our first issue of the arc ends, we find out two things: Cass faked being int he government but really just used dead soldiers as prop.. and just what kind of sentinels are out there.. wild sentinels. Easily my faviorite variant of the old killing machines and one that’s barely used despite being really damn awesome. Their adaptive killing machines, designed to mutated just like their pray and take tech from around them, as a result they look like a jumble of guns and parts.. but not only does it give them a unique, cool look.. but it makes them ten times deadlier as instead of being big bricks of robots that while intimidating, the x-men know how to kill... their unpredictable variable killing machines. You can figure out how to kill one sure.. btu the next might be entirely diffrent. They are one of morrisons best creations and I hope someone uses the idea again.. aka hickman. Please use it jonathan I know your focused on nimrod but come on.

And we end on one of the best lines of the entiire run as we close out the issue

Yeah it goes without saying but i’ll say it anyway; Morrison is really damn good with dialouge and being damn quotable.

So we open with another great quote “When I got up today I didn’t expect to kill 20 million people”... and Cassandra being aware Wolverine and Cyclops are on their way and sending the Wild Sentinels to dispatch them. Also our heroes brought Ugly John along while while a dumb move, Wolvie does point out how dumb it was to divert to Ecuador with a civlian in tow.. after the plane crash of course. As for “wait what plane crash’, the sentinels attack and start picking it apart... and since letting them have such good tech is a terrible idea, Scotty blows up the damn plane. So to recap our heroes are stuck in ecuador, surrounded by murder machines, and oh look their there and knock off cyclops viser. Fantastic. So yeah our heroes are fucked. And naturally captured by the enemy.

The rest of the x-men are doing SLIGHTLY better. While beast makes a note for his girlfriend, more on that later on, Charles is in bed, half alive, explaning the rationale I gave for why he has the gun with Jean refusing to let him get back out of bed and you know.. put on the device that just nearly killed him. But when beast announces they lost contact with our boys.. yeah that ceased being an option.

Back in the Ecuadorian Genocide Factory, Cassandra does the obvious and kills donald trask as his real purpose..was to stick around and be stupid for a bit while she copied his dna so she could have full control of her new murder toys.She soon uses them, having a horrifying death chamber slaughter john.. or at least flash fry him. Wolverine takes it how you’d expect and since the sentinels need to “perserve trask dna”.. they can’t fire on him without killing her. Scott escapes.. and in a heart wrenching scene mercy kills john.. before getting badass.

To anyone who says Scott Summers is boring, unintersting, or a stupid asshole idiot head I present exhbit shut the fuck up. Morrison gets scott just right, deconstructing his emotional suppression, while showing him off as a dedicated, companionate man who gets the job done and who seconds after tearfully having to mercy kill an innocent mutant whose death was partially his fault, wastes no time making it painfully clear to the person responsible she WILL die if she tries that again. Logan however realizes she’s already won in some fashion as she’s grinning.. and yeah never a good sign when a genocidal madwoman is grinning like a loon.. and when we find out why.. it’s even less good> We cut to Genosha. A lot of you probably know what happned to Genosha but in case you don’t know what it is it was once a horribly racist country that genetically enslaved mutants and used them for slave labor. It was freed, but still struggled to truly move on.. till Magneto showed up, took the country for himself and made it a home for all mutants. When we last saw him he once again tried to take over the world leading to Logan seemingly killing him. Right now though Emma Frost finally enters the scene teaching some mutants.. when a young one named Negasonic Teenage Warhead.. yes that one and yes she was entirely chosen for deadpool for her name, reveals, via precognition, that their all going to die.. right as the sentinels attack.

Genosha.. is gone. In an eyeblink 16 million mutants are dead, a possible future gone, and one of their greatest leaders is no more. Yeah Magneto WAS alive.. but paralyzed so he could do nothing when his island was utterly slaughtered. Only a handful of mutants will be revealed to survive. Humanity had done a lot to mutants before .. but for once.. they’d succeeded in wiping a massive chunk out. What was an x-men location for DECADES at this point.. was now a smoldering crater. A what could of been that would hant the x-men ever after, even now into utopia it remains the darkest day in mutant history outside of hte decimation. It is a truly horrific moment.. and if the changes already hadn’t made it clear this is morrison saying “NO character is safe, nothing is safe, and nothing will be the same and I damn well mean that”. In one act of hate the world has changed. And it hasn’t finished changing yet.

Issue Three opens hammering in things, as Jean and Beast are in the ruins of genosha, with Xavier having found ONE surivor among the rubble, and our heroes sturggling to find even them, though Jean eventually picks them up and uses her TK to sift through the rubble.

They find Emma who emerges from a bunker in shock, clutching NTW... and not realizing she’s dead until later and revealing she now has diamond skin, her own secondary mutation. Secondary Mutation was a birlliant idea, new powers sprouting up within established mutants.. it’s just morrison barely used this great idea as did hardly anyone else. Only X-Men Blue ever really dug into it and those were artifical at that. IT’s a great idea..it’s just barely used and at most heavily implied to explain changes in powers like Jamie Madrox Multiple Personalities later on or Doug Ramsey’s vast increase in power. Disapointing.

While Charles takes in the tragedy and the fact his old frienmie is dead, the x-men wonder what the fuck Cassandra is and what to do with her.. why did she kill 16 million people, and what the fuck is she. I mean I know, but as I said i’ll explain that when the story does. IN the other room Beast tends to Emma who wants none of not fucking killing Cassandra.. and is utterly right. Bitchy, because i’ts Emma, but right: she killed 16 million people. Say what you want but while it may not be up to the x-men to kill her.. she shoudln’t be living much longer. She commited genocide. Emma decides fuck that and prepares to leave summoning a cab and making peace with being a glorious living fabrige egg. Emma did apparelty change in generation x.. but Morrison is responsible for returning her not only to being a bitch, but a gloriously delightful one And really I don’t think they reset her character entirely: she’s not the heartless monster she started out as: she has empathy, grace, and caring.. she just buries it under a lair of absolute bitch and after you know, surviving a fucking genocide who can blame her? And honestly.. I love their verison of her. She provides a nice contrast to the more idealistic, even logan, x-men and a nice contrarian voice in the room without being obnoxious and her style and sacrastic swagger makes her endlessly entertaning. Thanks to morrison she’s stuck around to this day and went from a pretty good character.. to a great one. And what makes her this way, or as jean puts it “such a bitch?”

With that settled, Hank explains what Cassandra is: a competing species. As he puts it sometimes evolution takes a quantum leap forward.. and Cassandra is the result. Thus she wants to wipe out the compettition and is so far above humanity, she dosen’t need them... especially since she knows what Hank now knows: humanity is at an end. As hank puts it we have an E Gene, one that basically shuts off a race.. and thus the x-men now know what we learned earlier and that cassandra wasn’t lying: in 4 generations there are no more humans and something has to repalce htem. And Cassandra wants it to be her.

Before Logan can do what he does best, and asks why she looks like charles, Cassandra escapes, and Scott briliantly urges them to fight only on instict as she’s a telepath. A damn awesome fight insues including Cassandra donning Charles Psoonic battle armor, Scott being put in his black bug room and the general good looking chaos you’d expect from a superhero fight. While this goes on Emma has an ephinany and realizes she likes to teach, the x-men have a school.. and she shoudln’t give up on helping kids just because of what happened and turns around.

Cassandra is near victory, slipping her way to Cerebra.. and planning to kill only one mind before getting to the millions she wnats, a horrifying slug manifesting around her.. only...

So the x-men accept this and cassandra rises.. seemingly saying “I am charles” Huh... and then charles uncaracteristiacally shoots her saying things must change

We’ll get to what all of that means next time as we close on Jean and Scott in bed. Scott explains why he’s been so distant as what I said earlier: fighting off apocalypse stripped away a lot of illusions about himself and he’s having a hard time walking back from that but Jean is willing to help.. but before they can resolve their issues.. charles has an annoucnment to make and grant has one last whopper of a suprise to end his opening arc on, and just like genosha...it’s a game changer of titanic proportions

No longer is Xavier’s School hidden. Their walking into the light now and so is charles. Hope they surivive the experince. Obviously this move is brilliant: while it removes the veil of saftey the x-men had it also brings on tons of new possiblities and unlike secondary mutation, this one not only stuck but would impact the x-men for good: no longer would they hide and cower.. their mutant and proud.. and their here to stay. E For Extinction is one of the best x-men stories period. Blisteringly paced, full of great character, great concepts and utterly terrifying and terrific moments that would impact the x-men all the way to present day. It’s beautifully drawn, well paced, and a masterwork. I highly recommend it and it’s a great kickoff to a great run. Shame the run couldn’t of ended on this kind of high but.. we’ll get to that. For now this is a masterclass in how to start a run and if you haven’t read it do so NEXT TIME ON NEW X-MEN: A bunch of weirdos try to harvest mutant organs, the x-men get a brain in a jar and a new teamate, and Scott maybe cheats on his wife. Until then, goodbye goodbye goodbye.

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hpconsentfest · 6 years

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Weekly Roundup 3

It’s hard to believe we’re almost half way through the fest! Big thanks to everyone who’s been reading, commenting, kudosing, reblogging, liking, and otherwise hyping the submissions!

There’re many more wonderful submissions coming up in the second half--enjoy! <3

ART:

Title: Breaths Against Skin Artist: Anonymous Prompt: #20 Rating: Mature Warnings/Content Notes: Consensual sex, enthusiastic consent, romance, fluff, communication, partial nudity, implied sexual content, implied rimming, established relationship, Sectumsempra scars Summary: Harry has picked up a habit of breathing “May I?” against Draco’s skin. Medium: Digital Artist’s Notes: Thank you to J for the beta on the drabble! For the theme of consent I wanted to depict them almost, but not quite kissing to show Harry waiting for Draco to give his consent first. I also used hearts and dialogue to signify the communication between partners. The accompanying drabble draws more on the theme of consent shown in the art in order to show Harry’s habit of asking before doing each step of the way, to continuously check consent with his partner instead of assuming the first yes is a blanket yes.

Breaths Against Skin

FIC:

Title: Everything That Happens is From Now On Author: First-time Fest Participant ⚡️⚡️⚡️ Prompt: # 68 Rating: Explicit Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence; Rape/Non-con Summary: After surviving a brutal assault, Draco tries to navigate the tumultuous waters of his mind, and embrace a bit of love and trust in his life. After all, the smallest steps forward can begin to heal the most fractured of souls. Word count: 42695 Author’s notes: Although I have used archive warnings, I’d just like to reiterate my chosen tags for the story in this note. Trigger Warnings: sexual assault, depictions of violence and sexual assault, emotional/physical depictions and discussions concerning the aftermath of rape and rape trauma. In addition to these warnings, there are endnotes on chapters one, three, and five, as well. Please. Your mental health is important, so please do not read/stop reading if this may trigger you. This is very much Draco’s journey towards recovery, no one journey is the same as another, and recovery is never a straight line. I tried to write this story with that in mind while navigating an extremely difficult topic.

Everything That Happens is From Now On

Title: Tell Me How You Like It Author: First-time Fest Participant ⚡️⚡️⚡️ Prompt: # 29 Rating: Explicit Warnings/Content Notes: Explicit Summary: It’s a beautiful sunny day, and when Ron is laid up in the common room with a broken ankle, he gets more of a glimpse into his best friend’s private life than he ever might have wanted! Word Count: 3306 Author’s Notes: This fic was written for the HD Consent Fest. The rest of the fics from this fest can be found here. Huge thanks to s and w for the beta reads!! Usual disclaimer: I own none of this. I’m just playing in the sandbox. Please see the end notes for the prompt.

Tell Me How You Like It

Title: Show Me Author: Anonymous Prompt: #28 Rating: E Warnings/Content Notes: None Summary: On Harry and Draco’s anniversary, they decide to try something new, but Draco won’t do anything he isn’t 100% sure Harry wants. So Harry tells him, every step of the way. Word Count: 2.5k Author’s Notes: This was for Prompt #28 which was: “Character A makes character B beg for it before they do stuff.” This turned out differently than what I had originally planned, but I had a lot of fun writing it, and I learned a lot, too! Shout out to H for the alpha read, and @n for the beta! And of course to the wonderful mods for hosting this fest!

Show Me

Title: Purity Control Author: Anonymous Prompt: 83 Rating: T Warnings/Content Notes: PLEASE NOTE that this fic contains a very brief, non-explicit mention that Draco experienced sexualised assault during the war. Summary: In which Harry tries to ignore his trauma with fantasy Quidditch but Malfoy’s Thereness™ is distracting and all his classmates want to talk about is unicorns, virginity, and Muggle music. Word Count: 28500 Author’s Notes: Dear Prompter, Your inspired prompt demanded that I write it. It was a joy and a labour of love and I hope that you like it. This fic is rated T for profane language (my favourite) and discussions of “virginity” (hard air quotes). Thanks: A huge thank you to my betas, whose beatification I will be applying for now that this fic is finished and I have time again. Thanks also to 4G, who enriched this story. Final thank you to the mods for making this fest happen! Disclaimer: Harry Potter is the property of JK Rowling. No money is being made from this fic. This is purely for entertainment purposes (i.e., me giving myself jollies about unicorns).

Purity Control

Title: Come Inside Author: First-time Fest Participant ⚡️⚡️⚡️ Prompt: #90 Rating: NC-17 Warnings/Content Notes: None. Summary: “Can I come inside you?“ Harry asks, his voice a breathy whisper. And Draco nods, just once, ever so slightly, biting his plump bottom lip and looking deeply into Harry’s eyes.

At least, that’s how Harry imagined it going.

Word Count: 4766 Author’s Notes: During my two visits to Planned Parenthood, I was asked screening questions about Domestic Violence. I thought that was awesome, so I included similar questions during Harry’s visit to the clinic. Thanks to my betas A & S for all of your time, help, and encouragement. And thank you SO much to my prompter and the mods for allowing me explore this very, very hot kink and the issues of consent surrounding it.

Come Inside

Title: The Magic Cat Author: Anonymous Prompt: # 34 Rating: Explicit Warnings/Content Notes: No archive warnings apply Summary: When Harry sees Draco Malfoy with painted nails and wearing an oversized jumper covered in cat fur, his obsession from school comes back in full force. Featuring supportive friends, cute cats and lots of Harry figuring out what he wants. Word Count: 17,455 Author’s Notes: Thank you so much for the wonderful prompt, I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. A huge thank you to D and M for being quick and insightful betas. Any remaining mistakes are entirely my own. Lastly, thank you to the mods for putting this fest together (and thank you for the small extension)!

The Magic Cat

Title: In the Ways That Matter Author: Anonymous Prompt: #10 Rating: Mature Warnings/Content Notes: Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Mentions of Alcoholism Recovery Summary: Falling asleep with Harry Potter mid-argument, while completely pissed, was something Draco could never have predicted happening when he returned for his repeat seventh-year at Hogwarts. But it happened. And then it happened again. And again. At some point the alcohol was gone, and they were just falling asleep side by side night after night, escaping nightmares together. It isn’t anything more than that, even if sometimes it really feels like it is. Word Count: 9025 Author’s Notes: So I claimed the prompt ‘one of the two is asexual (but not sex-repulsed)’. I enjoyed writing for this prompt, as it’s something I’ve been wanting to write for a while. I hope that you enjoy it! Beta’d by E.

In the Ways That Matter

Title: just drink this and we can do whatever you want Author:First-time Fest Participant ⚡️⚡️⚡️ Prompt: 84 Rating: General Warnings/Content Notes: NA Summary: Harry was tired of people trying to dose him with love potions, so he decided to create a charm to counter it. Now he only need to test it, unfortunately (or not) it doesn’t work as he was expecting. Word Count: 23677 words Author’s Notes: Many thanks to G for being so patient with me, for listening to me all the times I got insecure over the plot, or the sub-plot, or the relationships, and for helping me think all the times I got stuck! Thank you so much to my wonderful beta T for understanding what I wanted to say and making sure other people would be able to understand, too. And for erasing all the wrong commas, Merlin only knows how many commas you erased! And the amazing mods that answered all my questions quickly and patiently, you deserve all the credits for this amazing fest!

*The names of the potions used in this fic were taken from the movies, and are considered by me one of the only good things the movies did.

just drink this and we can do whatever you want

#weekly roundup

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riboku · 6 years

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How do you feel about Voltron's new season?

christ why would you ask this lmao it’s not like i post my opinions on here on a regular basis??? anyway this gives me a good opportunity to rant tho so

1. HAHA okay let’s just get the big fucking issue out right here but i was absolutely mad with how they marketed this season based on lgbt rep! this has been said before (and probably better lmao) by other people, but what they did was in extremely poor taste and is pretty low tbh. they hyped up and marketed that voltron would have lgbt rep in this season, and hyped up adam as a character, then were so incredibly vague about it and didn’t confirm anything on screen and killed adam off lmao.

anywAY this ended up fucking long and i threw in some positives i enjoyed from the season at the end of this post, but this is 95% a big fucking long rant about the issues i have with this season so it’s going under a read more!!

and like, before i get into this more i’ve also seen people mad about people getting mad which is ??? but the most common things i’m seeing people saying are ‘stop being mad your ship didn’t happen!!!,’ ‘it doesn’t matter what happened shiro is still gay so there is still rep,’ ‘this is NOT queerbaiting guys! -insert screenshot of dictionary definition-,’ and 'they’re at WAR guys people die during a war’

okay. one lmao how tf did this get to a point where people think it is a ship issue because it’s not. idgaf about shipping or who ends up with who, i will likely be indifferent regardless! do not give a shit! not about shipping! nobody is talking about shipping??? also this could have LITERALLY been avoided mostly by the insertion of a few words. they could have gone with something as simple as 'if you do this, the wedding’s off. i won’t be here when you get back’ bam. insta confirmation! no vagueness there! and then like, not unecessarily kill a gay character off for no reason lol. what happened here is an issue with largely how this was marketed vs how they delivered. they marketed the fact they’d have lgbt rep pretty extensively. and adam! they talked about how we were going to meet adam this season. hyped him and him and shiro’s former relationship up in their promo materials and posters. like, this doesn’t happen on its own lmao. this was a conscious marketing decision that they went with beforehand knowing that they were not going to confirm anything on screen and knowing that they were going to kill adam off. and like, if you need an analogy to get this??? let’s say some fast food place does a whole campaign on how their burgers are made of REAL beef. maybe they don’t specifically say 100% beef, maybe they do, w/e, but they hype the fact that their burgers are real beef and not fake stuff like crazy and their consumers hop on that. then you get there and it’s like. 35% beef. people are mad! is it still made of beef? well, yeah. but they have misrepresented themselves a bit here and probably should have never said anything in the first place. bad business move. and as far as hyping up adam??? that’s like coming up with a new product line and deciding to axe it. BUT ADVERTISING IT ANYWAY. lol. and then people are upset with the company when they go to buy it. literally does not make sense. like, regardless of what you expected to go down with these characters or how you feel about them or literally anything, this was a conscious decision on their part and they should have not marketed it like this.

as far as shiro still being confirmed gay, yes that is true and great! but it still wasn’t confirmed on screen and not the issue at hand here! the issue is still how they marketed lgbt rep for this season without really delivering and killed off a gay character without reason. if your issue is the use of the word queerbaiting then lmao okay, whatever, maybe it’s not the most 100% accurate use of the word idc but that is a semantics issue and is deflecting the issue at hand here. like if you wanted to sum up the issue with all this in one fucking word that would be pretty accurate and the closest thing to describe what happened! like come on guys i work in advertising but this??? is not that hard of a concept to understand. they utilized lgbt rep in their marketing for this season. if you’re marketing something, that content has to be targeted towards a certain audience. if you are marketing lgbt rep, your target audience is likely going to be - shocker - the lgbt community lmao. AND FINALLY if you’re going with the 'people die in war’ thing like. okay. yup. that happens. from a marketing perspective though, it’s still dumb to advertise a character and then kill them off. like, if you’re using a cHARACTER in your ads you uh. generally expect people to feel something for that character lmao otherwise there is no point, and seeing as how many fanfics and fanart and shit popped up of adam before the season even aired??? def a lot of attachment there. so literally if they had done this with any other character it would have been stupid? but doing this to a gay character is a whole other mess of worms and is in very poor taste! fucking stop killing off gay characters for no good reason, it’s a gross trope with a long history behind it! also unless something is plot related and done well, there is literally no point for killing off your characters lmao. doesn’t matter if it’s war, it’s just shock value at that point. that scene was a couple of seconds at most, and literally nothing about the season would have changed without it. moot point. this is not a case of character death that has moved the plot significantly or significantly affected the story or the character.

like, as a queer person i’m mad and very disappointed. do i still like the show and its characters? yeah. did i enjoy the season? yeah. will i still watch it? yeah. but this whole thing was still a fucking mess lol. that being said, some positives:

2. lmao ok that gameshow episode gave me serious ergo proxy flashbacks to when they did the whole 'i’m suddenly and inexplicably on a magical gameshow hosted by a weird entity with my life on the line??’ deal

3. hunk development???? good and it’s about time, star of the season tbh. i really hope they continue with the diplomat angle for him!

4. pleasantly surprised by ezor and zethrid, now let’s hope they’re not fucking dead lmao

5. atlas was uh. weird? weird.

6. granted i stayed up all night to watch this so my perception by the point i got there was uhhhh but the finale was odd and kinda fell flat, especially in comparison to how much of an impact last season’s had. that being said, the season overall was pretty enjoyable?

7. sorry but during the whole time they were drifting through space in their lions i just kept thinking 'where is kaltenecker tho’ and then at first i thought acxa had went with them so then i was wondering where tf she was too and my sleep deprived brain’s beautiful answer to that question was 'wait what if acxa is with kaltenecker???’ yeah.

8. matt’s new design looks gr8 but it looked pretty familiar and again, sleep deprived brain was like 'oh my god he looks like discount space judeau’ so hope you know that

9. V E R O N I C A also i really super enjoyed the earth team!!! like idk how i feel about james yet because they went pretty hard on painting him as a jackass as a child lmao so i’m positive but also on the fence about him, but i adored the others and i hope we see more of all of them!! ALSO ROMELLE loved her to death too. and the cosmic wolf. yes.

10. okay so as soon as shiro got his new arm my first thought was 'i bet him and sendak are going to have a floaty arm showdown’ and i was very glad to be right

#dumb text post #voltron spoilers #i'm sorry if you have the voltron tag specifically blocked lol but i'm not putting this in the main tag #Anonymous

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starspatter · 6 years

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I think you should do ALL THE ASKS :D

WELL ALL RIGHT THENA - Ships that you currently like a lot. (They don’t have to be OTPs because not everyone has OTPs.) Friendships, pairings, threesomes, etc. are allowed.1) DCAU TimSteph2) ItsuHaru3) Logan x Diana Prince4) Itsuki Koizumi x Kyouya OotoriB - A pairing–platonic, romantic or sexual–that you initially didn’t consider, but someone changed your mind.*looks at WonderWolf and SuperBats*C - A ship you have never liked and probably never will.BatCat. Even back when I wasn’t a fan of Batman I remember I read one DCAU comic involving Catwoman, and her character just didn’t appeal to me.D - A pairing you wish you liked but just can’t.Any Kagepro ships tbh. Idk I’m just not really invested in the romance of the series. I prefer them all as friends/platonic.E - Have you added anything cracky/hilarious to your fandom? If so, what?Ahaha… I’ve contributed a fair bit of Kagecrack through vids/posts, though I think my favorite are these BTAS crossover edits.Also Kyorange and Skitzo!Kyon for TMoHS. (Plus the “genderbent cast is the previous generation” theory if that counts?)F - What’s the longest you’ve ever been in a fandom?Well I’ve been a Pokémon fan since elementary school. While I no longer watch the show/play the games, I still follow the new generations and RP on occasion.G - Have you ever had an OTP? If so, do you remember your first one? Who was in it?Eeyup. While I don’t ship too often, when I do I ship HARD. ItsuHaru was my first real “obsessive” OTP, but I think the honor for the *very* first ship I had goes to… Cody x Ken from Digimon S2, in a sense. *shot* ^^; Idk I was just really focused on the idea of them making up and becoming “friends”. XP Though I also shipped Ken with Kari too bc of the Dark Ocean stuff. (Also Gary Oak x Molly Hale from Pokémon but that’s a whole other story. >.>; )H - What is your favorite source text for fandom stuff (e.g., TV shows, movies, books, anime, Western animation, etc.)?I’m still mostly a weeb so animu is my go-to, but I’ve been branching out to more Western stuff lately. (Although when it comes to Kagepro the songs are still the best medium. =3=)I - Has Tumblr caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why?Steven Universe. While I still love the show, hearing about all the toxicity in the fandom really turned me off so I just try to avoid it.J - Name a fandom you didn’t think about until you saw it all over Tumblr. (You don’t have to care about it or follow it; it just has to be something that Tumblr made you aware of.)Again, Steven Universe. Also Over the Garden Wall and Bojack Horseman (the former of which I still really recommend you see).K - What character has your favorite development arc/the best development arc?I’m also gonna say Sunset Shimmer from Equestria Girls. She went from being a seemingly one-off villain to a fully redeemed good guy and leader in her own right. Though she still has her insecurities, it lets her relate to and help others in the same situation to not let those feelings of inadequacy or jealousy overcome them.Also Midna from Twilight Princess. Her change of heart from servicing her own needs to selfless sacrifice after observing how hard Link tried to save others mirrors my own feelings when I met Link in OoT/MM and watched him grow into a true hero, working to help both the people of Hyrule and Termina even when he had no obligation or was openly blamed for Ganon’s rise to power.L - Say something genuinely nice about a character who isn’t one of your faves. (Characters you’re neutral about are fair game, as are characters you merely dislike. Characters that you absolutely loathe with the fire of ten thousand suns are exempt, as there is no point in giving yourself an aneurysm over a character that you hate.)So I’m not a big fan of Dick Grayson in the DCAU (or any of his animated adaptations aside from Lego Batman; his YJ version being especially egregious) since I see him as rather childish and bad at dealing with conflict, but he’s admittedly a lot better in the tie-in comics, which give him some much needed development as Nightwing (whereas he barely got any screentime in TNBA). There he acts as a genuine big brother to Tim, and is shown to not be as nearly as bitter at Bruce as the Old Wounds ep would have one believe. I also like that they highlight Dick’s fondness for music, wherein his musical knowledge actually comes in handy to solve a couple cases.M - Name a character that you’d like to have for a friend.All of the Mekakushi Dan, SOS Brigade, or Host Club tbhN - Name three things you wish you saw more or in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice).1) More Kagepro content in general2) More DCAU TimSteph 3) More ItsuHaru

O - Choose a song at random. Which ship or character does it remind you of?Growing Up - Run River NorthDefinitely a Timmy Todd/TimSteph song now that I think about it. Especially the lines “I found my way without your help, with a broken family” and “monsters in my head”. ;(P - Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas).…Tbh I’m really liking the “Legion x Ouran” idea lately. XD *shot*Q - A fandom you’ve abandoned and why.Hm… I don’t think there are any I’ve really “abandoned”, per se. Most of them are still there, just not at the forefront anymore.R - Which friendship/platonic relationship is your favorite in fandom?All the relationships in Kagepro *shot*S - Show us an example of your personal headcanon (prompts optional but encouraged)Molly Hale from the third movie is the god of the Pokémon world. Just… don’t ask lol.T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending?Already answered, but I’ll add a few of my favorites for DCAU TimSteph:1) Tim cuts his own hair after RotJ (or rather just lets it grow long) since he doesn’t trust anyone else with sharp objects around him. Steph is the first person he allows to trim his hair for him (even though she has no experience with it either), since I imagine him feeling comfortable enough around her that he even falls asleep like Sousuke does with Chidori in Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid. (For context, he was raised as a soldier from an early age and this is what happened when they tried to take him to a salon. Played for laughs, but probably an accurate portrayal of people suffering from anxiety/PTSD having to deal with mundane tasks that trigger them.)

2) Similarly, Steph plays piano to help calm Tim down whenever he’s having a panic attack.3) After RotJ Tim refuses to wear red for a long time until Steph knits him a red scarf and tells him it “suits him” bc red is the color of heroes.

As an aside, I also recently like the idea that Logan was at Lex’s party in the DCEU and saw Bruce and Diana together, based on this playlist that I made. U - Three favorite characters from three different fandoms, and why they’re your favorites.Gonna talk about a few I don’t mention too often nowadays.

1) Link from The Legend of ZeldaLink will forever be my greatest true love. He’s the first real “hero” I believed in, and he honestly changed my life at one point to actually want to be a better person. While that faith has faded and I don’t think I can ever reach his example, I still wish I had that kind of courage and kindness - or at least be able to inspire others in the same way he did me.2) Meroko Yui from Full Moon wo SagashiteIf Link was the first (and only) person I ever truly fell in love with, Meroko was the one who taught me what “true love” was in the first place. I won’t say too much since I still sincerely hope you will check out the series someday, but suffice to say there’s a scene towards the end where she makes a choice that shows how much she has personally grown, and come to understand what it really means to “love” someone wholeheartedly.

3) Gary Oak from PokémonThis is a bit of an odd one, but Gary is a character I related to a lot when I was an adolescent since, of the main series cast, he was the first and one of few to really change his “status quo” by quitting training and deciding to become a researcher instead. In my eyes it seemed like a shockingly conscious choice to “grow up” in a world where you can ostensibly remain a “child” forever, and I both admired and deplored him for it (especially at that tender transitory age I was going through at the time, where it feels like you’re being forced to “become an adult” whether you want to or not).

V - Which character do you relate to most?Already answered.W - A trope which you are virtually certain to hate in any fandom.Romance in general is really not my thing, so I dislike when it’s the focus/the writers feel the need to pair every character. I’d rather leave things open-ended most of the time.X - A trope which you are almost certain to love in any fandom.Family/friendship stories + tragic adopted children wanting to be heroesY - What are your secondhand fandoms (i.e., fandoms you aren’t in personally but are tangentially familiar with because your friends/people on your dash are in them)?X-Men, Kingdom Hearts, Dangan Ronpa, Fate/Stay Night, Various Magical Girl series, Various RPG Horror games

Z - Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go! (Prompts optional but encouraged.)I feel like I’ve rambled enough already phew. OTL Thanks for asking though. =P

#cryptoriawebb #starspeaks

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nostalgic-blood · 6 years

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so i went to california a few weeks ago and...

No, I didn’t go ham. I had friends who were like “HERE HAVE THIS” and then I had this thing, and later went to a convention and THEN I went ham.

Also this was my first non-family trip so I sort of bought a souvenir anywhere I deemed important enough to do so... America, you took a lot of my money. Oh and Disneyland too.

...also I couldn’t fit some things and forgot others in that top pic.

this wall scroll my cat is trying to destroy

a backpack I bought solely so I was able to even bring all this back, and the posters/prints I STILL needed a friend to ship back anyway...

and this cute koishi i bought, all of three of which were from fanime, yes...

Disneyland souvenirs! A friend (Souless) bought the one of the left. You may have noticed Minnie Mouse ears on the first photo! I didn’t actually get them from Disneyland itself, t’was a gift from our Disneyland veteran who led us to many-a-ride and the least amount of waittime possible, Souless’ fiance Kat. :)

And yes Inside Out is my favourite Pixar movie. Watched Coco recently which was really good, but it’s only second to Inside Out. P:

Let’s start off with my ridiculous friends who decided I needed to own more merch:

All of this was bought by my friend Cannibalfood AKA Akira who went to cons and saw stuff I might like but never got around to actually shipping them to me.. and then, came with me to California and brought this stuff. This is why Negima is on there. It’s been that long.

Oh the non-weeb stuff is souvenirs I got with her while we were in San Fran, including Alcatraz touristy photos since we have few pictures together, a taxidermy place where we each got matching stingray barbs, how romantic. The rock was my very first souvenir. I wasn’t expecting on buying anything else in that shop, so it is the most boring thing here.

Here’s a look at the Touhou artbooks!

One of two CDs, this one with best 2hu on it. I recall from reading the back that one of these has some TAMUSIC on it, which has lovely classical pieces.

Here’s a semi-random page with some artwork. I recognize some of the artists!

The other one! I cannot read anything in these books, and yes there’s plenty of text as well as the art.

Some sample of the art! I’ll have to revisit these books later but from first glance I think I prefer the art of the first book? Idk.

Next is stuff given to me by various people. The gacha is from Magus, the guy who I stayed at for about half the trip and spent the entire trip WITH since he also went down to SLO and I also shared hotels with him for Fanime. Awesome host, will do again. 10/10. I have another button from someone else but I accidentally included it wit my fanime merch pile photos, so it’ll be along shortly.

The dreamcatcher was made by SlimeMush’s friend who I paid $10 for, and for some mysterious reason it kept being returned to him every time he tried to send it to me. I couldn’t get a good pic of it alone because my cat kept attacking the feathers. SlimeMush also gave me the Flareon button! Apparently all the Eeveelutions he had went to those whose favourite was so-and-so, and apparently there’s equal amounts of love for all of them except for the two he kept himself because he loved them the most. Yes. Flareon is my favourite. :D

The gacha is a ditto + a ditto version of Sableye.

This Monster Hunter blindbox was given to me by Wolfe, whom I’ve had a few MonHun merch exchanges with so far. I also gave him a MonHun figure from another line, which I’ll elaborate further (because I gave them all out similar to SlimeMush giving out the Eeveelution buttons) and kept whichever was left behind. This is Monoblos! I didn’t fight him all too often so I don’t have much impression of it as a monster, also I thought he was white but w/e, still very cool looking to add to my collection!

Now of all my loot THIS is the stuff I really could have done without in terms of when and where I spent my money. I bought that Incineroar evolution line figure sort of on a whim at a random city in the middle of nowhere, California while on the long drive down to SLO. The Touhou blindboxes, Digimon CD, and RWBY manga came from Kinokuniya in Japantown. Just wanted to buy them because. Even if the Tri series was mediocre in the end the nostalgia still has a strong grip on my heart, especially that music with Kouji Wada. ;_;

And the most touristy thing was buying this wind chime at a gift shop in a spa that I really didn’t need but it was pretty so w/e.

See? Pretty.

The results of the blindboxes. Not the luckiest result as I wanted other characters but you CANNOT SAY NO TO WEEB MERCH!

As much as I have been distancing myself from the show, RWBY’s manga has wondrous art. It also decided to focus on some random unknown side character named Ruby instead of the main characters, which I thought while was quite the bold move, was rather refreshing.

DELICIOUS WEISS BACKSTORY. I recall posting something about this particular chapter on here before. YEEEEE!

So yeah I went to the island prison in San Francisco where AAAAAALL the tourists go. In my defence I have a genuine interest in prisons. Just ask my 300k RWBY fanfiction in which the first quarter of it is set in a prison. It is also not my first prison fic. I put lots of research in that setting to write that kind of shit.

Also all the souvenirs were the most gimmicky things possible that I didn’t think I’d ever use or would just be paperweight. Except this bag! I may actually use this bag! I know!

And excluding the stuff that is too big or I forgot to take a pic of near the beginning of the post, THIS was the Fanime loot! Magus got me the Monokuma onesie which was extremely nice of him and now I am no longer perpetually cold. Ah yes the warmth of the hide of a psychotic bear. So good.

I could not believe the artist who made one of my favourite Aya pics EVER was at the artist alley. I COULD NOT BELIEVE IT. Obviously this was an instant purchase. This was my phone background for the longest of times. She had Touhou artbooks too but they sold in the first twenty minutes of the first day of the artist alley. Wow. My friend may try to snag me some at AX in July, so here’s hoping!

I didn’t see a lot of specifically Weiss prints there, and this was the best of the lot IMO. My only wish was that it was a brighter print, or that Weiss herself being so white would stand out more because it’s the least noticeable thing on my wall atm, which is a shame.

I say this when I saw precisely ONE Aya print (jackpot) and one of another coming up in this bombardment of pics.

THIS IS PERHAPS THE MOST PROVOCATIVE ONE HERE LOL. But it was the only Tenko, and DRV3 merch was the most difficult of everything I was looking for to find. Unlike 95% of Tenko art SHE ACTUALLY HAS VISIBLE ABS HERE, which according to the official artbooks she’s supposed to have, so bonus points for that. I had a brief discussion with the artist too and we both agreed Tenko was the best and Ouma was overrated. He has great taste.

Overwatch on the other hand was all over the place in this con, from merch to art, to cosplayers. There were so many cosplayers they didn’t even have enough time to run through half of the tanks and all the supports at the shoot! So sad, so sad. This piece of Widowmaker is beautiful though, so I had to have it.

I saw this online a while back and really loved this image of all the Overwatch ladies being formal. There was a suit-version too, but for whatever reason I preferred this one. Sadly this print is quite small, as it probably would have benefited the most in being larger what with the many characters and thus detail.

Out of all this mess the one thing I wanted the most and hunted for the most was charms. I found NO GOOD CHARMS that fitted my taste and interest, and the closest were these buttons. Oh, and I met my good friend Raphyninja at Fanime and he gave me EXCLUSIVE RAPHYNINA MERCH! Thus that button being here and not in the friendo pile. ANYWAY. There was a deal, 3 for 5, so aside from the obvious ones I grabbed Kork. I love Kork. I didn’t think I would for that type of character, but somehow DRV3 managed it. He will of course be very far away from Tenko and Himiko though. >_>

Here’s a page from one of the Touhou doujins I got, which in hindsight I maybe should not have got? Way too late I noticed that I recognized the seller who I think showed up on a Tumblr post warning of a creeper at the Touhou shoots. He’d try to take pics of cosplayers in a private hotel room at weird, uncomfortable angles as far as I remember, so uh, oops? I was just so excited at finding Touhou doujin for the first time ever that I paid zero attention to the person selling so hopefully I am wrong and they were just someone that resembled that person.

Also I recognized this artist for their cute Satori Koishi content, but could not find any of their Koishi doujins. Sadness.

I bought two Monster Hunter blindboxes at Fanime because CLEARLY I need more, right. I got a Nargacuga, including the box left remaining in the pile I gave away and the one I already have... I now have three Nargacugas. That’s quite a lot for something I never fought before...

I also got this tiny Zinogre. If we include my buttons I have FOUR Nargacugas now and FOUR Zinogres. The difference is I have fought Zinogre multiple times (I have no idea exactly because I have 600 hours in 4U >_>) and actually really like him! Sadly, in grand tradition like the last time I visited San Francisco (when I was five) I lost something, that being my favourite MonHun button, Zinogre. It is now in the wild with my teddy bear and my hat, forever gone in the California abyss. ):

I got this at the swap meet for 6 dollars. It may not have a stand and is rather dusty, but damn is that a bargain. My only regret is not having the GIGA DRILL BREAKAAAA model instead. I also got that Monokuma bag there too, but that was just because I went there and couldn’t find a single thing I wanted until I saw the bag, which I was on the fence on but wanted to buy SOMETHING from there and got it, thinking that was it ... but then this and the Touhou doujins showed up, soooooo...

Finally this other Nargacuga that was left behind became my monster in that line of figures, the rest in the hands of my friends. It’s actually cuter than I expected, and barely fit in this cheap crappy display case I bought at a Daiso. I moved my dresser a nudge and the Pokemon fell over, so yeah.

You may have noticed a drop in quality in the photos and that’s because I cannot be bothered to touch up such a gargantuan amount of images anymore, not with the time I have. Would be nice tho. SO, THAT IS THE GIANT POST OF SPOTTO’S MERCH, NOW WITH 100% MORE QUANTITY THAN BEFORE! I spent too much money so I might as well get something out of it by BRAGGING about it! Right?

Ye.

#spotto's merch #too much stuff to tag not even going to bother #not all of it can even fit in this one image too!#and I forgot stuff to include as well!

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swyllh · 7 years

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svt vocal team: radio host scenarios

radio host au – vocal team edition!

where you’re either a) called in as a temporary replacement, or b) are a permanent host for a late night show.

seungkwan:

buCKLE UP BUDDIES

ok so, the radio show is split into different shifts – day and night shifts, mainly

you take the night shift, because you’re an incorrigible night owl

and because you love chillhop, acoustics. it’s like a match made in heaven, you and night shifts.

you know there’s a radio host, a very popular radio host, for the morning shift – he’s your exact counterpart in that he’s perfect for the morning call: bubbly, loves singing, has a lovely cheerful voice… the list goes on

but because you’re always on the night shift, and you’re always sleeping in, you don’t get to meet this guy, much less listen to his shows.

so you’re like /shrug/

but inside you’re really curious, because… well, you’re always by yourself recording (since you know how to operate almost everything on your own, and all your friends are losers who need their 9 hours of rest)

this one time, however…

you find yourself stuck in the studio patching up some things way after your shift

there was an emotionally attached caller who took up one hour, the sound system went down a bit and you had to fix it while keeping the listeners entertained…

things dragged on until it was, like, five in the morning.

you’re ready to drag your ass off to bed, when the morning radio host enters with a steaming cup of coffee and a bright smile

he doesn’t expect to see you there – usually the studio just runs on autoplay between the hours of 3am – 5.30am

“hey…” “hey, sorry, but i’ve been here since 8pm last night and i need to sleep bye” is what you say before you just collapse on the sofa in the next room.

seungkwan is obviously at a loss but!! he’s also been curious about the night host

when you wake up, seungkwan’s in the recording room working his charm

in fact, you wake up to the sound of his singing. nice, non-belty singing.

there’s a cup of coffee on the table next to you, and it just says “for the overworked night host !! :D”

you thank your past life and good karma and everything and drink the coffee.

“hey, i’m seungkwan, the morning host. it’s nice to meet you for the first time!” he says when he leaves the studio on autoplay.

you laugh and introduce yourself too. but you have classes and you need to change, so the exchange is pretty short.

but! you do leave notes at the recording station for each other after that haha

one time you laugh out loud at the sight of what he’s left for you, and explain to the listeners the whole deal between you and seungkwan

someone demands a collab

a few, ten, maybe fifty people support the idea

so you and seungkwan end up doing an evening special and by the end of it it’s like the best idea ever because he’s so funny??? what???

the notes never stop coming, man

jeonghan:

i don’t think he listens much to radio shows, much less late night ones, but he does tune in this one time

and you’re in the middle of giving out some advice

it could be anything, literally, like how many seconds to politely laugh at a bad joke

but you’re saying it so gently and soothingly that he actually listens

“so yes, i would think that the bare minimum would be two or three ‘ha’s, just so you can make a quick transition. remember to keep smiling for a second or two after the other person stops speaking, and then you can move on from there! :)”

how do you even enunciate a smiley face

he doesn’t know

but you do :)

and he finds it kind of funny and calming so!! he continues tuning in!

m a y b e once he actually calls

“so, um what do you think about brainwashing people for their love?”

and you’re just O.o but you’re cool

not the weirdest question you’ve heard

(just before his call you got one asking you about how to deal with being robbed of your remote control)

so you talk about it with him on the radio, and he’s enamoured!

what a nice voice! what an understanding character!

“don’t you think we should make sure our loved ones know that they’re loved?” “yes, mr yoon, but brainwashing…”

calls regularly after that, if only to brainwash you into being his dearest radio host

“and whose radio host are you, [y/n]?” “… i’m not saying that on broadcast, buddy” “oHOhOHoho so you’ll say it off broadcast?”

literally you slam your head into the desk

“WHACK” “… [y/n], are you okay?”

your listeners are tired of your banter man (they love it though)

joshua:

ok so the thing is, you’ve just been called in to do this as a favour

you are in n o w a y a professional

p sure you flunked public speaking class one time because you were laughing too hard at your own joke

so when you’re doing this show, you’re just uttering disclaimers

“so let’s talk about the newly minted water cooler at the admin block… that is, if it’s a relevant topic. is it relevant? shit, i don’t know. shit, i’m not supposed to curse on the show. shit i did it. shit i did it again.”

it’s kind of a trainwreck

you’re kind of like, if comic sans could talk… yeah.

so when the show ends – you’re in the midst of talking about the conspiracy theory between the moon landing and that ‘that boi’ meme

the end-card (?) song plays and your mic is switched off mid-sentence

josh can’t believe he just sat there and listened through this trainwreck

but he did

(and maybe he’s partially convinced of your theory)

he tunes in the next time, same time, same day, but you’re not there

he’s not sure why he’s disappointed, but at least he’ll get his regularly scheduled content of actual campus news

surprisingly you get called in again – and he’s tuned in

“back by popular demand!” you end up yelling, and his eardrums haven’t been quite the same since.

“ok, no, but seriously, some of you guys wanted me back? haha”

so maaaaybe he might have actually called in to ask about you

and you know about that, so after that broadcast, you get his number from the regular host, and start exchanging conspiracy theories lol

jihoon: (happy birthday!)

ok so this one is a bit different.

because he’s a music producer, and he’s trying to get his work out there

testing the waters, yknow

and you’re part of the campus radio team, so he arranges to meet up with you

not before marathoning your podcasts so he can um strategically win you over to play his music? i mean, pssh, have you heard the stuff he mixes? he doesn’t need that, but it’s better to know who you’re working with anyway

so he listens, and you’ve got this inviting, friendly voice that really makes people feel like they’re having a conversation with you

SO he marathons, and finds that you’re a pretty chill person and open minded

nice

when you two meet, he’s just finishing up his remix in the café

you walk in, and see him hard at work! wow, what a man

“hey, it’s [y/n] from the campus connection. you must be jihoon?”

turns out, wow, who’d have expected it, you can tell he’s got talent. it’s good. like, really, really good

so you sell his deal to the overall producer of your radio team. works well, the show ratings are hitting an all-time high

and you guys decide to do a mini-interview

“think of the ratings,” your overall producer whispers, hunched over a plan to monetise this tiny radio show

“hello everyone! it’s [y/n] here, and guess who i have with me today? it’s lee jihoon, the producer behind the music you’ve been listening to!”

“so, jihoon, tell us more about yourself!”

his first impression of you was right – is right – you’re really easy to talk to, and the session goes by quite comfortably

he doesn’t even realise time’s up until your overall producer is literally banging on the door and mouthing “out”

“that was really fun, jihoon, thank you!” “nah, it was really easy to talk to you”

do you guys hang out and he brings you more compositions to evaluate?

seokmin:

okay, this time seokmin is the one calling you in for help

one of his friends (this guy has a ton of friends, don’t even.) mans the radio show, and is in need of a replacement for the night shift

“why don’t you help him out, seokmin?” “have you heard me speak?” “uhuh” “it’s the night show, [y/n]. i’m going to wake people up” “…so you’re saying that i make people want to sleep?” “uhhhhhhhhhhhh no?”

but you help him out anyway – that guy is impossible to refuse

so! seokmin accompanies you to the studio, and he’s just there for moral support because it can be scary doing a radio show for two hours or so

“um, hi, everyone, this is [y/n] and i’m filling in for the regular host!” /muffled whispering in the background

everyone. can hear. seokmin. being encouraging. in the background.

at first, it’s kind of sweet?

but like, after the fiftieth thumbs up you’re just like

“ok seokmin, how about you join us in the recording”

“whaaaa- nooooooooooooo hi everyone, i’m seokmin hahaha”

he is a good night show host, despite what he says

he’s funny, and his sense of humour can be pretty chill when he wills it to. it takes a bit of effort, though, because at first he’s really loud

“so, seokmin, tell us more about that time with the-” “we dON’T SPEAK OF-” “shhhhh”

but yeah, night shift is so fun with him, you forget about the thermos of coffee you brought to keep you awake.

eventually the two of you do get into a somewhat philosophical discussion

“how did we get from cabbages to being happy?” “uh”

and even though he’s pretty happy-go-lucky and always sparkling with happiness, you guys exchange views and you find that it’s not always the case

i mean, duh, but still

“but i think it’s best to try and be happy, yknow” “…yeah, it is”

it’s a pretty meaningful conversation, and part of you is in shock that this didn’t happen in more private circumstances, but that there are at least fifty people listening in haha

you do get to know him a bit better after this, though

and he treats you to coffee the next day for your efforts, so it’s all worth it!

#svt scenarios #svt imagines #vocal team #vocal team imagines #vocal team scenarios #seventeen #seungkwan imagines #jeonghan imagines #jisoo imagines #joshua imagines #jihoon imagines #woozi imagines #seokmin imagines #dokyeom imagines #how ham do i go on these tags #radio host

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reneeacaseyfl · 5 years

Text

Trump Comes for Baltimore, Baltimore Claps Back: raceAhead

Over the weekend, President Donald Trump launched a now-familiar style of attack on Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings. Racist.

“Rep, Elijah Cummings has been a brutal bully, shouting and screaming at the great men & women of Border Patrol about conditions at the Southern Border, when actually his Baltimore district is FAR WORSE and more dangerous. His district is considered the Worst in the USA……” the president tweeted.

It continues: “Cumming District is a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.” And, “If racist Elijah Cummings would focus more of his energy on helping the good people of his district, and Baltimore itself, perhaps progress could be made in fixing the mess that he has helped to create over many years of incompetent leadership.” And more today: “If the Democrats are going to defend the Radical Left “Squad” and King Elijah’s Baltimore Fail, it will be a long road to 2020.”

CNN anchor and Baltimore native, Victor Blackwell, broke down Trump’s attacks on-air on Saturday’s “CNN Newsroom” program.

“Donald Trump has tweeted more than 43,000 times,” Blackwell said. “He’s insulted thousands of people, many different types of people. But when he tweets about infestation, it’s about black and brown people.” Pausing to collect himself, and with water in his eyes, he said, “You know who did [live there], Mr. President? I did. From the day I was brought home from the hospital to the day I left for college. And a lot of people I care about still do.”

It was a powerful reminder that “diversity” is personal in newsrooms and in public policy.

The Baltimore Sun editorial board also wasted little time responding to the president’s Twitter rant, part political analysis, part Maryland pride. It’s a clapback for the ages:

“[W]e would tell the most dishonest man to ever occupy the Oval Office, the mocker of war heroes, the gleeful grabber of women’s private parts, the serial bankrupter of businesses, the useful idiot of Vladimir Putin and the guy who insisted there are “good people” among murderous neo-Nazis that he’s still not fooling most Americans into believing he’s even slightly competent in his current post. Or that he possesses a scintilla of integrity. Better to have some vermin living in your neighborhood than to be one.”

There are many things at play here, mostly political. Cummings has earned the president’s ire by leading investigations into his administration as chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee. The tweets, and Baltimore’s grim crime statistics, have become partisan talking points. Turns out, Jared Kushner, the presidential son-in-law, owns more than a dozen Baltimore-area apartment complexes in low-income zip codes that have been cited for code violations. Baltimoreans and their supporters are defending their city and killing it in the hashtag game.

My best (and perhaps only) contribution might be a little context. It all starts with Jim Crow.

To have a serious discussion about what’s happening in Baltimore, it’s smart to start with the apartheid-style residential segregation ordinances that the city’s mayor put into place from 1910 to 1913. I’m not being hyperbolic: I’m summing up a 1982 paper published by law professor Garrett Power in the Maryland Law Review. In it, Power explains how a generally progressive administration purposefully segregated a reasonably integrated city—“to promote the general welfare of the city by providing, so far as practicable, for the use of separate blocks by white and colored people for residences, churches and schools.”

That decision helped ensure low-income black residents were isolated in slum-like conditions with substandard services, which eventually became codified in every kind of public policy. It led to, among other things, decades of housing equity failures.

Fast forward to 1995. Thompson v. HUD was a groundbreaking fair housing lawsuit that claimed the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) violated the Fair Housing Act of 1968 by concentrating African-American residents of public housing in the most impoverished and underserved neighborhoods of Baltimore. The suit was triggered by a plan to demolish a dangerous high-rise public housing development, which should have ben an opportunity to introduce affordable housing across the city. Instead, rampant white NIMBYism made sure that replacement units would be relegated to segregated neighborhoods. The suit was filed on behalf of 14,000 African American families living in public housing.

It was 10 years of legal grinding before the team behind the lawsuit earned a victory lap: In January 2005, a federal district court judge found that HUD “failed to achieve significant desegregation” and accused them of treating Baltimore City as “an island reservation for use as a container for all of the poor of a contiguous region.”

Not a long hop between 2005 and today, am I right?

The Thompson summary is an easy read and offers a helpful primer on how housing segregation created two separate and profoundly unequal Baltimores. And this analysis from the Poverty and Race Research Action Council helps put Thompson into a broader context of similar lawsuits around the country.

I recommend reading both before you gear up to fight your political opponents.

I’ll also leave the last policy word to Professor Power who warned 37 years ago that without real system change, Baltimore’s ugly past would persist. The history “cautions us to discount the righteous rhetoric of reform; it reminds us of the racist propensities of democratic rule; and it sets the stage for understanding the development of a covert conspiracy to enforce housing segregation, the vestiges of which persist in Baltimore yet today.”

On Point

Puerto Rico’s governor-in-waiting says thanks but no thanks Puerto Rico Justice Secretary Wanda Vázquez is next in line for the governor job, but the controversial figure and close ally of the recently ousted Gov. Ricardo Rosselló has turned down the job, most recently, via Twitter. “I reiterate, I have no interest in occupying the position of Governor,” she said. “I hope that the Governor identifies and submits a candidate for the position of Secretary of State before August 2 and I have told him so.” The secretary of state is the preferred candidate for the position. USA Today

Barack Obama endorses an op-ed critical of the Trump Administration The opinion piece was published Friday night in the Washington Post, with the title: “We are African Americans, we are patriots, and we refuse to sit idly by.” The piece was co-signed by 149 African Americans who worked in the Obama administration, and serves as a rallying cry. “Witnessing racism surge in our country, both during and after Obama’s service and ours, has been a shattering reality, to say the least,” they write. “But it has also provided jet-fuel for our activism, especially in moments such as these.” The former president rarely comments on politics. “I’ve always been proud of what this team accomplished during my administration. But more than what we did, I’m proud of how they’re continuing to fight for an America that’s better,” he said, tweeting a link to the post. It’s an impressive list of names, by the way. Washington Post

A content creator is under fire for a cartoon character that turns black when she ‘loses her beauty’ Dina and the Prince Story is a cartoon uploaded by My Pingu Tv, a YouTube channel that animates, and occasionally ruins, popular children’s fairy tales. Such is the case of Dina, who is an angel, whatever, and who has caught the eye of the prince but has been warned not to talk to him. When she does anyway, blah blah blah, a curse is fulfilled: The lovely young white angel is magically transformed into a human with dark brown skin and kinky dark hair. “Dina turns and we see she is not as beautiful; her glow is gone, and her face is scarred,” yadda yadda. I suppose it could have been worse if ugly Dina was wearing a Baltimore t-shirt, but not by much. “Fans” were not having it. Come for the story, stay for the comments. Shadow and Act

On Background

Blue Note Records turns 80 Fans of John Coltrane, Art Blakey, and Herbie Hancock already know and love the Blue Note story, a label born in the waning days of the Depression and responsible for finding and amplifying the bebop trailblazers. Co-owners Albert Lion and Francis Wolff even gave an 18-year-old Sonny Rollins an early shot. But they didn’t stop there. Everyone will enjoy this history from Giovanni Russonello, complete with short clips from some of the great artists. My Blue Note fandom began and ended with ‘Trane, so I was delighted to learn that they never stopped producing cutting-edge talent, from Bobby McFerrin in the ‘80s, James Hurt in the ‘90s, and Ambrose Akinmusire more recently. And Norah Jones! Who knew. New York Times

Today’s essay: On being, joy, and loitering Ross Gay is a writer, gardener, former college gridiron player, and an English professor at Indiana University Bloomington. But in this resplendent conversation with On Being host Krista Tippett, he’s also an expert in “adult joy.” Gay describes it as “[J]oy by which the labor that will make the life that I want, possible. It is not at all puzzling to me that joy is possible in the midst of difficulty.” Joy is always possible, a valuable framing for troubling times. The interview itself is a delight; Gay’s parents were a mixed-race couple in the wake of Loving vs. Virginia and he explains how his life experience has helped him understand joy. “I have really been thinking that joy is the moments—for me, the moments when my alienation from people—but not just people, from the whole thing—it goes away,” he says. Then he reads aloud his extraordinary essay, “Loitering.” Take a break, listen to the whole interview, and know joy. On being

How to cover immigration This resource, from Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy is designed for journalists, but it works for anyone who wants to publish anything from a memo to public remarks on the subject of immigration. The number one issue with immigration reporting is a lack of context. Is the event you are highlighting a single event or part of a broader history? “It’s really tempting, I think, at this moment for journalists to say the Trump administration is doing x, y, z. I think it’s really important for journalists to ask the question, ‘When did this program start?’ Or, ‘When did this issue start?’” says PRI’s Angilee Shah. Click through for more, including a public Google document with over 89 immigration data sources. Journalist’s Resource

Tamara El-Waylly helps produce raceAhead.

Quote

“wow man last year i was sleeping on my sisters floor, had no money, struggling to get plays on my music, suffering from daily headaches, now i’m gay.”

—Lil Nas X, via Twitter

Credit: Source link

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from WeeklyReviewer https://weeklyreviewer.com/trump-comes-for-baltimore-baltimore-claps-back-raceahead/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=trump-comes-for-baltimore-baltimore-claps-back-raceahead from WeeklyReviewer https://weeklyreviewer.tumblr.com/post/186635302737

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velmaemyers88 · 5 years

Text

Trump Comes for Baltimore, Baltimore Claps Back: raceAhead

Over the weekend, President Donald Trump launched a now-familiar style of attack on Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings. Racist.

CNN anchor and Baltimore native, Victor Blackwell, broke down Trump’s attacks on-air on Saturday’s “CNN Newsroom” program.

It was a powerful reminder that “diversity” is personal in newsrooms and in public policy.

The Baltimore Sun editorial board also wasted little time responding to the president’s Twitter rant, part political analysis, part Maryland pride. It’s a clapback for the ages:

My best (and perhaps only) contribution might be a little context. It all starts with Jim Crow.

Not a long hop between 2005 and today, am I right?

I recommend reading both before you gear up to fight your political opponents.

On Point

On Background

Tamara El-Waylly helps produce raceAhead.

Quote

“wow man last year i was sleeping on my sisters floor, had no money, struggling to get plays on my music, suffering from daily headaches, now i’m gay.”

—Lil Nas X, via Twitter

Credit: Source link

The post Trump Comes for Baltimore, Baltimore Claps Back: raceAhead appeared first on WeeklyReviewer.

0 notes

weeklyreviewer · 5 years

Text

Trump Comes for Baltimore, Baltimore Claps Back: raceAhead

Over the weekend, President Donald Trump launched a now-familiar style of attack on Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings. Racist.

CNN anchor and Baltimore native, Victor Blackwell, broke down Trump’s attacks on-air on Saturday’s “CNN Newsroom” program.

It was a powerful reminder that “diversity” is personal in newsrooms and in public policy.

The Baltimore Sun editorial board also wasted little time responding to the president’s Twitter rant, part political analysis, part Maryland pride. It’s a clapback for the ages:

My best (and perhaps only) contribution might be a little context. It all starts with Jim Crow.

Not a long hop between 2005 and today, am I right?

I recommend reading both before you gear up to fight your political opponents.

On Point

On Background

Tamara El-Waylly helps produce raceAhead.

Quote

“wow man last year i was sleeping on my sisters floor, had no money, struggling to get plays on my music, suffering from daily headaches, now i’m gay.”

—Lil Nas X, via Twitter

Credit: Source link

The post Trump Comes for Baltimore, Baltimore Claps Back: raceAhead appeared first on WeeklyReviewer.

0 notes

kgbinwanderland · 5 years

Text

I’ve been dreaming about visiting Quebec City since I watched the popular k-drama Goblin. Fans like me fell in love not only with the story and characters but also with the picturesque and quaint Old Quebec Town. There’s something very romantic in this predominantly French-speaking province in Canada. It is especially popular during Christmas time as a true-to-life Winter Wonderland.

We’ve thought about taking the train from Toronto and even considered booking a flight going to Quebec. Since there was six of us and about 9 pieces of luggage with us, we knew that driving was the cheapest and most convenient option. Flying would cost as much as our 2-week car rental and taking the train would take the same travel time.

One of the things that we like about our Richmond Hill Airbnb is that it is right by Hwy 407. From Hwy 407 E, take Hwy 404 S on to Ontario 401 Express (changes to Autoroute 20 E) which goes straight to Quebec Region. The drive is approximately 7.5 hours, without stops and traffic so if you are planning to take the drive to Quebec City, consider staying for at least a couple of nights to make it worth your while.

We left the house around 7:00 AM, had a couple of bathroom and food breaks, and finally settled on Mcdonald’s for a late lunch around 3:00 PM. It was mostly an uneventful drive but we did enjoy the scenery. Fall was on its peak colors and everywhere around us where shades of brown, red and orange, which was just lovely.

Finally, we arrived at our Airbnb by 4:30 PM so that’s about 9.5 hours of driving including rest stops.

Let me just say, that this Quebec City Airbnb right by the Chaudiere River is absolutely beautiful! It really felt like a vacation home and from the moment that we entered, we were instantly charmed.

I mean, look at this view!

A view from the Airbnb’s backyard, the Chaudiere River.

I had messaged the Airbnb host of our ETA and he prepared a little something when we arrived. We entered the home and was welcomed by the fragrance of essential oils while music was playing in the background. Talk about a 5-star experience! Everybody was impressed and pleased with our home for the next four nights. And because we already brought some food with us, there wasn’t even a need to go out anymore. Finally, we get some time to rest.

Actually, we still, went out that night for a sneak peek of the famed Chateau Frontenac and Old Town.

But first, let’s take a tour of the home.

From the entryway, the first area you’ll pass by is the kitchen. The kitchen is well-stocked with just about anything you need. The host had told us that we can use or eat anything that we see in the kitchen and pantry. We only used the basic condiments when we prepared our dinner but we still appreciated the kindness and generosity of our host.

The living area is probably my favorite space in the house. If it was summer, it probably would have been the backyard but it was too cold to stay out so we all just settled by the sofa and watched Netflix, all while enjoying the view of the Chaudiere River.

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Living Room

Kitchen

The master bedroom is located on the second floor and has its own toilet and shower. This was where my aunt had settled in.

Master’s Bedroom

My husband, daughter and I used the bedroom on the main floor, that’s right next to the second bathroom. It was small but enough for a short stay.

Main Floor Bedroom

My sisters used the basement bedroom which was well-lit and also nicely decorated. The laundry room is also in the basement.

Basement Bedroom

As I’ve mentioned, it was too cold to stay out so we didn’t really get to hang outside for long except when we used the grill for dinner and of course, to take pictures and enjoy the views of the Chaudiere River. It even snowed on our last day in Quebec City, right in the middle of Fall.

This Airbnb would have been a perfect vacation home in the summer. I’m pretty sure nobody would pass up a chance to chill and relax in the jacuzzi with the perfect view.

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MY RATING

Location: (4/5)

The house is located outside Quebec City, in a nice and quiet neighborhood, and it’s about a 30-minute drive to Old Quebec. Rush hour traffic is common but it’s tolerable. Despite the distance, we absolutely welcome the drive because of the scenic views. As it says on the Airbnb listing, it is right by the Chaudiere River but there’s no access to the river itself, for safety reasons.

I’m giving it 4 out of 5 just because it’s not exactly in Quebec City, it’s actually in Levis. But then again, it’s an easy drive to Quebec City’s top tourist spots so it’s really a matter of preference if you want to stay close to the main area or don’t mind the distance.

Cleanliness: (4/5)

The house is clean per se but not as sparkly clean as our stay in our Airbnb in Toronto.

I don’t know if it’s maybe because the house is by the river or if the room we occupied was not cleaned well enough but we couldn’t get rid of a slight musty smell inside the room. It’s not a big deal but it might bother you if you’re staying a bit longer.

To be fair, the host had set up an essential oil diffuser by the kitchen table, which was running when we first set foot in the house. So that’s certainly something you could use if the smell bothers you, which honestly isn’t a big deal.

Amenities: (5/5)

The house is equipped with all the necessary amenities and the host had also generously offered anything we could find in the pantry or refrigerator as free to eat/use. Everything you need for cooking is available in the kitchen, including an outdoor grill which we used despite the very cold weather. The loft bedroom has its own toilet and bath while the bedroom basement and the one on the main floor share a bathroom. The only issue we had with the bathroom was that we weren’t exactly sure how to take a shower without drenching the walls, the picture frame; basically the whole bathroom. And the door to the bathroom is opaque which could make some family members feel awkward when they do their business inside.

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Family-Friendly: (4/5)

The house has three bedrooms which means it could comfortably accommodate our group of 5 adults and 1 child. Design-wise, it is not a family home but more like a bachelor’s pad or romantic getaway home. To be fair with the host, he made it clear from the start that there are certain things we need to be aware of especially since we were traveling with a child. The main concern is the design of the staircase. It didn’t have any glass barrier, and a crawling toddler could easily fit and fall in the gap. We remedied this by blocking the gap using our luggage and of course, by making sure that someone watches over the child at all times.

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Airbnb Host: (5/5)

I have nothing but praise for Eric. He is a wonderful Airbnb host who responded to our inquiries and concerns promptly and had a welcome gift waiting for us when we checked in. There was an incident where he asked us (just in case we’re in the house) to wait for someone who needed to pick up something from the house. And although we couldn’t wait for that person because of our sightseeing schedule, Eric gave us a complimentary bottle of wine for the inconvenience even though we were not really inconvenienced in any way at all!

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I love this spot!

Value for Money: (5/5)

It is a little pricey compared to the other Airbnbs we’ve rented in the past but I honestly feel that the rates matched the expectations.

Overall Experience: (5/5)

It really is a beautiful home with stunning views of the Chaudiere River. The small issues we had were dissolved into nothing because of how much we enjoyed our stay and the hospitality of our Airbnb host. Personally, I think that this is the perfect Airbnb for couples looking for a romantic getaway while in Quebec City.

Have you ever used an Airbnb before? Get $25 off your first Airbnb rental by clicking here.

Like this post? Need it for later? Pin this!

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Check out my other posts about our Toronto, Quebec City, and Montreal Road Trip below:

Day 1: The Toronto Islands and CN Tower Experience Day 2: Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada and Must-See Sights in Downtown Toronto for First-Time Visitors Day 3: Niagara Falls, Canada: Hornblower Cruise, Table Rock Centre and Outlet Collection Day 4: Royal Ontario Museum and Toronto’s Graffiti Alley

Toronto Airbnb Review: Richmond Hill Townhouse Toronto, Quebec City and Montreal Itinerary

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Quebec City Airbnb Review: Beautiful House by the Chaudiere River I've been dreaming about visiting Quebec City since I watched the popular k-drama Goblin. Fans like me fell in love not only with the story and characters but also with the picturesque and quaint Old Quebec Town.

#Airbnb review #Quebec City

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