#look. i think people overlook a lot just how lethal these guys are when TRYING to be gentle

[thy-valhallen]

Batfam by How Likely They Are to Break the No-Killing Rule

Jason Todd. obviously, this is his bit, the man is okay with murder so long as he perceives due cause, pew pew babygirl, rubber bullets still can kill you but now, Bruce can't yell at him if they die later

Barbara Gordon. you cannot tell me this woman isn't bloodthirsty. she follows the rules because she plays nice and respects the justice system (mostly), but i fully believe she can and will fly a drone with a mounted gun and snipe someone from six blocks away one day if the other Bats are busy, and she might not feel inclined to call an ambulance

Stephanie Brown. a Narrows girl, she knows how shit can happen, and if someone's after one of the Batfam, you better believe she's got a knife at the ready. Steph follows the rule well! for now. but look, if she's in mortal peril, she's not about to put her attacker's life above her own

Tim Drake. Tim is the true neutral here to me-- he follows the Code because of the effect it would have on Bruce and the rest of the family. he fully understands this and avoids it. ... there are no less than six different timelines in which he has pretty freely murdered people, and the jokes about him being the Most Likely to be a Supervillain jokes are based in something, guys. i feel like it would be more of a problem if he weren't so exhausted and busy 24/7-- so let's keep him very busy so he doesn't catch a charge

Damian al Ghul-Wayne. he's had a lot of growth from his days of being a child assassin and puts a lot of value on following their Code now-- but look me dead in the eyes and say he wouldn't kill for most of his family in a heartbeat. lie to me.

Dick Grayson. he and Damian are tied for me in how it's fairly situational and both would suffer tremendous emotional backlash for the action-- but Dick has a lot of rage and a lot of people who have hurt him and his loved ones. there's a tipping point, and he's reached it before. he blames himself for so much, if he ever got caught up in his own wrath and actually game-ended someone, I think the man would never wear a mask again

Duke Thomas. Duke may be under-credited for his absolutely feral behavior, but murder is definitively not on that list. he is so down to throw down, but Duke has never (to my knowledge) had a close call with murdering someone like many of the others in this family. putting this mostly on his powers giving him a leg-up there, but powers or not, no body count and never expect that to change for him

Bruce Wayne. the epitome of the No-Killing Code except for all those times he's nearly killed someone in intensely stressful situations. is strict about it because he knows how easy a line it is to cross and how it would devastate him emotionally and holds that standard. no killing is probably a kitschy poster in the Batcave at this point, Jason got it lovingly printed on a metal sign next to the Batcomputer

Cassandra Cain. has killed and will never kill again-- Bruce has close calls and has to be stopped, Cass has close calls and reins herself in. the blood on her hands is red enough without more-- she's an obsidian blade, sharp enough to cut molecules but so very fragile. one bad move would break her, and being the strongest in the family, it would be so very easy to make that move and it would be easy to live in fear of herself. but she doesn't-- there's shit to do and crime to be carefully nerve-pinched, after all

Bonus:

Alfred Pennyworth. i couldn't rank him with the others, do you know how this would look if I started the list with Alfred??? this is an ex-MI6 agent. this is a man who responds to home invasions of any threat level from "Burglar" to "Darkseid" with a sawed-off shotgun and fresh pair of gloves in his pocket for after he's disposed of the body. he's killed and will kill again, just step within range, kind sir, and you'll find out

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed, Episode 32 part two

(Masterpost) (Pinboard)

Warning! Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Showtime

Now that someone has tried to kill Wei Wuxian -- and died, in a rapid demonstration of logical consequences -- it’s time for the flute portion of Wei Wuxian’s balance beam routine.

The assembled cultivators rush forward to take up battle positions on the stairs,  while literally every single clan leader just stands there looking upset. These guys clearly did not avail themselves of leadership training when it was offered in sect leader school.

Wei Wuxian, who is still like 50 yards away from the nearest opponent since they’ve all forgotten they can fly up to get him, laughs at them and starts playing Chenqing. 

He seems cheerful and confident here; not like a guy who has lost nearly everything, but that’s just how despair looks on him. Always a smiling face.

(more behind the cut!)

The lack of gruesomeness in most of this fight makes it look like nobody is dying, but Wei Wuxian freely admits, much later in the story, to killing a lot of people here. So I think we should read this black smoke as lethal to most of the cultivators it touches.

The resentment smoke attacks everyone at once, making no distinction between righteous warriors...

...and douchebags.

But the smoke blobs carefully avoid harming any of the Jiangs, even having a nice little Abyss-water-tentacle moment with Jiang Cheng.  

Note that the Jiangs are the only ones in the battle who get into a formation when they’re attacked, rather than running around wildly. Well done, Jiang Cheng. 

The whole time this is happening Wei Wuxian is just chilling, playing his flute, not having any trouble with it, not getting tired, and nobody is coming for him at all. They need to put up a tank like Nie Mingjue to draw his attacks and then send a couple of high DPS (damage-per-second) fighters in after Wie Wuxian, but they have zero tactics, so they don't.

Boss Fight

Did I say high DPS? Here comes Hanguang-Jun, the only one of these fuckers with the stones to take on Wei Wuxian directly. [OP is speaking of metaphorical stones; don’t feel insulted if you lack literal gonads. OP’s ovaries were surgically sent back to hell where they came from, 9 happy years ago]

Lan Wangji floats in from the sky and lands on the roof, guqin primed and ready. Wei Wuxian gives him a look so sexy that a weaker man would drop dead on the spot. 

Wei Wuxian tells Lan Wangji that his little tunes aren’t going to work on him, so Lan Wangji pissily puts away his guqin. While it’s true that “Rest” won’t work on Wei Wuxian, chord assassination sure would, Lan Wangji. Maybe don’t put your weapon away so quickly next time. 

There’s an interesting thread of antagonism in their relationship that is part of their bond; they each crave a strong opponent and enjoy wielding power. Presumably once they get together this will get sublimated into, you know, fucking. But right now it’s fully unsublimated, at least on Wei Wuxian’s side, and he tells Lan Wangji it’s time for them to have a real fight. 

Wei Wuxian starts fluting and Lan Wangji draws Bichen and comes after him. 

This fight is full of strong emotion and intensity, which makes it easy to overlook a surprising thing about it, which is that Hanguang-Jun is getting his ass kicked.  Bichen can’t get through the shield of resentful energy that Wei Wuxian puts up,  and pretty quickly Lan Wangji is driven all the way back across the roof.

We know, of course, that Wei Wuxian can’t keep this up for too long without fainting, and Lan Wangji knows it too, but until that happens, he’s at a disadvantage, with the attacks coming as fast as he can handle. Chord assassination would probably work better in this situation, but without a pause button he can’t switch weapons mid-skirmish. 

What he does have, though, is Wei Wuxian’s trust. Even if it feels to Wei Wuxian like they’re enemies now, he knows Lan Wangji isn’t going to lie to him or try to trick him. So when Lan Wangji asks him to stop so they can talk, he stops. Lan Wangji is about to explain things--explain about A-Yuan, presumably--when Jiang Yanli arrives on the battlefield. 

*deep breath* ...How far away is Lanling from Qishan? Who is feeding the baby? Did her veil seriously stay on all the way here, only to fall off as soon as she arrived? How did the Jin guards and servants etc let her leave? Why didn’t some of them come with her? Why aren’t some of them guarding her now? 

Invisible Sister

What follows is an extremely irritating sequence in which Wei Wuxian, Jiang Yanli, and Jiang Cheng run around the exact same part of the plaza looking for each other. The only reason they don’t meet up instantly is that they are not being filmed at the same time. 

Episode 22 gave us this birds-eye view of the set, so we can see how everything is laid out. See how there is only one flight of stairs? Only one?  Here’s Jiang Yanli running up the center of the plaza toward the stairs, looking for Wei Wuxian.

Wei Wuxian flies down, lands at the bottom of the same stairs, and looks around yelling for her, unable to see her even when he moves forward into the plaza. 

Here’s Jiang Cheng, standing in the plaza with the stairs behind him, in basically the exact same spot as his siblings, unable to see either of them.

The rest of the sequence goes like this, with the background and camera direction changing whenever it feels like it, with no regard for the actual positions of the characters, and the Yunmeng trio yelling for each other about 100 times. 

While this is going on, Su She boots up his own flute and takes control of the resentment tentacles.  Su She is surprisingly talented for someone who got his sword eaten by rag mops back in episode 5. 

Su She starts turning cultivators into zombies (”kuilei” 傀儡, officially), which is meaner than just killing them with smoke tentacles like Wei Wuxian was doing. 

Wei Wuxian looks around while standing in the exact same spot as his sister and realizes that he’s not in control any more. 

Fortunately, when the zombies and/or live cultivators come to attack Wei Wuxian, they are knocked back by a sword-energy-blast from Bichen, and Lan Wangji flies in to defend him. 

Lan Wangji, so switchy. In battle, I mean. Switching sides. That kind of switchy. 

Eventually Jiang Yanli gets slashed in the back by a zombie dude, moments after she becomes clearly visible to her brothers. Here she is in the middle of the fucking plaza right in front of the fucking stairs.  

The thing is, when you’re looking at a film your mind is registering everything in the frame, whether you’re consciously paying attention to those details or not. So when those details are inconsistent, when camera direction changes arbitrarily, when characters switch positions on set, it all has the effect of breaking your immersion in the scene. This entire sequence is, for me, robbed of its emotional impact, because every time those stairs appear it reminds me that everyone is just pretending to be far away from each other.  

Anyhoo. Lan Wangji has come to Wei Wuxian’s side to try to make him stop the madness; they have a quick, very toothy, interaction and then Wei Wuxian throws Lan Wangji off so he can go to his sister. 

Now we have a whole other kind of questionable camera work, as this very emotional scene alternates between beautifully shot, heartfelt closeups...

and this weird-as-hell wide-angle shot of the trio with the battle comped in behind them. This has so much lens distortion, Jiang Yanli’s hand in the foreground is bigger than Jiang Cheng’s head. What. The. Fuck.

Jiang Cheng yells at Wei Wuxian for losing control, and Wei Wuxian freaks out because he doesn’t understand how this is happening. 

Jiang Yanli came all this way to talk to Wei Wuxian, and even though she’s injured and freshly widowed and in the middle of a battlefield, she still just wants to check in with him and make sure he’s ok and stuff. Girl, we need to talk about your priorities.

Unfortunately, since this battlefield is populated almost entirely with people who want to kill Wei Wuxian, one of them tries to kill Wei Wuxian.

Jiang Yanli pushes him out of the way and gets stabbed in the heart, and falls dead in Jiang Cheng’s arms. 

The voice actor for Wei Wuxian is terrific, but is not nearly as good at screaming as Xiao Zhan is. And they have him scream a long extended scream that sort of cracks in the middle. And they break the amazing closeup shot of Wei Wuxian screaming right at the apex of his scream and splice a chunk of the terrible distorted wide-angle shot into the middle of it. 

I’m so mad at the editing choices for this moment. If you’re going to sacrifice a female character to further the emotional journey of the male protagonist, at least make sure you don’t edit the emotional impact out of the scene. Let us feel what the characters are feeling, without creating weird artificial distance like this. It’s the least you can do to honor her sacrifice. 

To ease my frustration I swapped out the audio on the closeup clips for Xiao Zhan’s own voice, from the Tencent BTS video of the scene. Video here if you want to feel extra upset. 

Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng are both extra upset. Jiang Cheng is so shocked and sorrowful that he isn’t even angry...yet.

Wei Wuxian, on the other hand, is extra super duper angry.

Killer-guy tries to justify himself by saying he was trying to avenge his brother. Is that supposed to stop Wei Wuxian from avenging his sister, dumbass?

Wei Wuxian uses a Wen Ruohan-style move to jerk Yanli’s killer through the air into his hand, then chokes him to death, then flings him away, where he lands on the ground and spits up a bunch of blood. 

This actor just ejected liquid from his mouth directly into his nostrils and then did NOT ruin the shot by jumping up and yelling “oh gross ew my nose ew ew ew!” Amazing. 

[dobsmoneylake]

Prudence. Corazon. First actual date. (Or, it doesn't have to be a DATE-date...but the two of them as a pair for the first time.)

AN: I am so sorry that this took so long (Corazón wasn’t talking to me until I insulted him), I hope it was with the wait! Thanks for the prompt!! <3 I own nothing. Also thanks to the Historian for beta-ing for me.

At the sound of footsteps, Prudence looked up from where she was laid out in a sunchair on the deck of the Joyful Damnation, attempting to enjoy some of the sun. “I see you’re alive,” she called out to the owner of the footsteps, causing the sound of them to stop before starting to head toward her purposefully.

“Alive?” their owner proclaimed. “Of course I’m alive! It takes more than a few drinks to keep this pirate down!” A head popped into her view. “Honestly, Prudence, who do you think you’re dealing with here?”

Glaring at Corazón, Prudence took one hand and shoved against his shoulder, “Get out of my sun,” she warned.

Stumbling back at the force of her hand, Corazón straightened up and put his hands on his hips, looking around. Instead of the busy sight of their remaining companions that he expected, he instead saw a deck that was empty of everyone but Prudence. “Where is everyone?” he huffed. “We were supposed to set sail first thing this morning!”

“Well, you probably should have thought about that before sleeping the morning away,” Prudence said, smirking. “Now, I need to go into the town myself; are you going to sit around and sulk all day, or will you be accompanying me?” She stood up and stretched before reaching over to grab the robe that she usually wore, casually shrugging it on.

Corazón felt his cheeks heat up and he quickly looked away. “I don’t know, I have some things to do around here to make sure we’re ready to go as soon as you all get back,” he told her. “It takes a lot to get a ship as incredible as The Damnation ready to go, you know.”

“Yes, but how often do we get to spend time in public without having to talk Egbert out of blowing something up or making sure Dob doesn’t run off with all the gold?” she asked.

When he looked up, she was smiling. “You may have a point,” he conceded, “And I do deserve a vacation after all the work I do for you guys.”

“Exactly,” she said, brushing by him as she walked off the ship and looking over her shoulder at him. “Why don’t you say we have some fun?”

‘Fun’ led them to the market, which was in a little bit of a disarray when they arrived. Prudence immediately took off towards the most lethal looking stall, which was full of various sharp and pointy objects. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Corazón disappear, presumably to make use of the last bits of chaos from whatever had happened before they had arrived.

Letting all thoughts of her partner for the day leave her brain, Prudence started looking over at what this stall had to offer. There were a few bigger weapons that she looked at with some interest (they would be such a great benefit to her rage), but they weren’t elegant enough to really fit her aesthetic. In the middle of the table were a collection of sharp knives and daggers that her eyes kept getting drawn back to.

Idly casting detect magic (and how good it felt to be able to do that again), her eye was immediately drawn to a stiletto dagger in the middle of the table, which was just pulsating with energy.

“Are you going to, like, buy something or what?” the bored voice of the shopkeeper asked her.

“Can I try out that dagger in the middle?” She asked.

“Huh? Yeah, whatever. Just don’t steal it or anything.”

Picking it up, Prudence couldn’t help but let a grin spread over her face. The dagger was perfectly balanced in every way-- in fact it was perfect in every way. “How much for this, then?” she asked.

“That? 500 gold pieces.” The shopkeeper was still looking at her nails.

Prudence deflated. There was no way the party would be okay with her spending that much. She put the knife back on the table, but kept eyeing it, debating how much work it would be to just take it.

“Prudence!” Corazón said joyfully, walking up to her with his arms full. “Would you like any of these delicious artisan meats?”

“Sure,” she said, absentmindedly taking one.

“What do we have here, anything good?” he asked her.

“Nope,” she said.

“Really?” he asked skeptically. “Because you’ve been standing here for quite a while, and usually you would have left in disgust at this point.”

She glared at him. “Honestly, it’s all rubbish,” she said, “waste of my time.”

“Okay, if you say so,” he said. “Although if you really wanted something, I’m sure that we could afford it.”

“I said IT’S FINE,” she hissed at him before storming off towards the tavern. She needed a drink.

********

Corazón met up with Prudence just outside the tavern, which she was staring at for some reason. That reason became clear when the noises from inside the tavern drifted out as someone else entered-- specifically the sound of two familiar voices and the even more familiar sound of chaos.

“Oh, great,” Corazón said. “There goes our relaxing day.”

“Hm.”

“Hm? What do you mean ‘hm’?” he asked, pointing dramatically at the tavern. “That doesn’t exactly sound relaxing.”

“Yes, but this isn’t the only place to get drinks,” she reminded him.

He thought for a moment before sighing. “You want to go to the nice restaurant.” When she nodded, he threw up his hands. “But Prudence! It will be expensive! They’ll expect us to actually pay! Please, think this through!!!”

“I have thought this through,” she told him. “I’ve thought that I don’t want to go in there.” She pointed at the tavern for illustration, where a conveniently timed crash happened for emphasis.

Corazón sighed. “Pirates don’t do fancy establishments,” he told her.

She took off walking. “Okay, I’ll go by myself then,” she said. “There might be someone I meet along the way who would want to get a nice dinner with me.”

He jogged up to her. “I never said I didn’t want to get dinner with you!” he said.

“Oh good,” she took his arm. “Then you can buy me something nice.”

Looking down at the top of her head, he smiled. “Don’t push your luck too far, I never agreed to pay.”

*******

Dinner went well. Appetizers had been served, main dishes had been critiqued, and dinner was on its way out when music started and other people in the restaurant got up and made their way to the dance floor.

Corazón watched as they started to dance and scoffed. “Honestly, look at those idiots,” he said, never taking his eyes off the couples as he started moving his finger to the beat of the music.

“Why, because they’re dancing?” Prudence asked.

“Because they’re dancing horribly!” He said. “Honestly, look at that form! Dob could do better than that-- and I definitely could do better than that!”

Prudence took a sip of her wine, hiding a smile. “You’re sure about that, are you?”

“Am I sure about that?” He rolled his eyes. “Believe me, Prudence, I could dance circles around anyone in this restaurant-- no, around anyone in this town!” He sat back in his seat. “Honestly, ‘am I sure about that.’”

“Well then,” she said, setting her wine down, “You’ll just have to prove it to me.”

His eyes went wide. “Pro-- prove it to you!” he let out a shaky laugh. “I don’t need to prove it to you-- if anything, you should prove your dance skills to me!” He nodded decisively. “Yeah, Prudence, why don’t you prove your dance skills to me?” He raised an eyebrow at her.

“Okay,” she told him simply.

“What?” His eyes went wide. “What do you mean ‘okay’?”

“Okay, I’ll prove it to you,” she said. “Let’s dance.”

“You’re joking,” he told her.

“Well, unless you can’t dance after all,” she told him.

He stood up suddenly. “I am going to dance with you so hard you see stars!” he told her, holding out her hand.

“I’m sure you will.”

Still holding onto her hand, he led her out onto the dance floor as a tango started, pulling her into a picture perfect position and desperately trying to remember the steps of the tango-- for some reason, it was hard to focus when she was so close. He was so busy running through the steps in his head that he didn’t notice how quiet they were.

“You know, you’re right,” she said, breaking the silence. “You are a very good dancer.”

He smirked confidently down at her. “I told you so,” he said.

“But I think you’re overlooking some of the benefits of being not so perfect,” she continued.

He raised a confused eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“I mean this,” she said with a smile, allowing herself to drift even closer so they were pressed together.

Corazón’s steps stuttered as she pressed closer to him, and he started moving with less confidence. “Prudence,” he said softly so only she could hear. “What are we doing?”

“Do you trust me?” she asked him.

Corazón didn’t even have to think about it. “More than anyone.”

“Then just keep doing that,” she told him, pressing her face to his chest.

*******

As they walked down the path back to the ship (Corazón had ended up paying), Corazón grabbed Prudence’s hand. “Wait,” he told her, bringing her to a stop.

“What is it?” she asked, turning to face him.

“I know you said you didn’t want anything, but here,” he said, slipping out the dagger from earlier and shoving it into her hands. “You were obviously into it.”

She looked down at the dagger. “Please tell me you didn’t pay full price for this.”

“What?” he scoffed. “No. I nicked it. The shopkeeper was absolutely oblivious.”

“I don’t know what to say,” she told him.

“Don’t say anything.” When she went to open her mouth, he continued. “Really, don’t say anything. Let’s just agree to never bring it up again.”

“If you say so,” they made their way up to the ship. “Well, thank you so much for the lovely date,” Prudence told him.

Corazón stopped in his tracks. “Date?” he asked, his voice rising. “What do you mean, ‘date’?”

“Oh Corazón, you really are an idiot sometimes,” she said, shaking her head and grinning.

“What?” He sputtered, “I am the smartest member of the--”

He was cut off by her lips.

“You kissed me,” he said when she had pulled back.

“Well,” she smirked, “I certainly didn’t kiss myself.”

With that, she pressed her lips against his again. Corazón froze for a moment before slowly lifting his definitely not shaking hands to brush against her cheeks. When she didn’t pull back, he relaxed down into her, giving her the angle she needed to wrap her arms around his back.

After a few moments, Prudence pulled back and smiled almost shyly at him. “Have a good night, Corazón,” she said before walking into her room.

Corazón watched her go with his mouth half open before he closed it into a smile, reaching up to rest his hand on the back of his head. Suddenly, there came a rustle from above and the cat form of Merilwen jumped down to sit in front of him. If a cat could smirk, she was definitely making the facial impression.

“Oh, you shut up,” he told her irritably, turning around and walking into his captains’ quarters. He let the door shut behind him before leaning against it with a grin on his face.

[jeeperso]

D&D Quotes Without context

Miscellaneous Edition, for those quotable lines from between sessions

"All I wanna do, is fork a giant woman! A giant woman!" "Jonni, I'm pretty sure she is some type of undead, probably a vampire. Are you sure that is a good idea?" "If I don’t get turned into a blueberry it won’t be my worst date." "Okay, but if you have to defend yourself just don't burn the place down for once." "Oh, Nyx. Sweet summer child. I never make promises we both know I won’t even try to keep." "Jonni, if I wake up to my bed surrounded in flames again I'm short-sheeting your next bed every night for at least a month." "I know you're trying to score here, but Lady Dimitrescu's daughters are literally vampires AND bugs. I can overlook one, but as a Paladin, it is my sacred duty to burn this place to the ground and stir the ashes."

"We don't let Marshall make breakfast anymore." "Those waffles are well-fortified." "I'm going to be charitable and call it hardtack." "We can use these waffles as melee weapons." "Well if we need to deflect siege engines they'll be good to have." "This is still carbon based and digestible by human systems without any poisons." "I can't serve this. It'll cause ... death." "Marshal we've been over this. This Pizza has 10% less of a lethal amount of grease." "Plus they signed the waivers when they bought a ticket. It's fine." "And don't forget to push the Cakeon." "Cakeon being slices of cake wrapped in bacon." "The special sauce is a mixture of mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard, ranch, horseradish, cheddar cheese, sour cream, and anything unfortunate enough to fall into the mixing vat."

"You do have a copy of the legal code I requested in my letter? As landed gentry you should actually have legal avenues to... I'm sorry did you say Burning child?"

"First I'm going to nail a crossbow bolt through your heart. Then I'm going to mount your balls to walls on opposite sides of this chamber." "I need Three Barrels of Butter" "Are you serious? Those Claws could crush an elephant in full plate!" "You're Right!" *Turns to first person* "We might need more than three barrels of butter."

"So Ioun is the patron of poor college kids. that scans "

"its hardtack or a mug of molten cheese-fried... something in a woven mug of bacon. your choice."

"Welp, all this coke ain't gonna snort itself..."

"Right hand me that dress and the bail money. I'll get Jonni." OOC: Well I mean they allow men in the city. Its just no men live in the city. "I stand by my statement. I'm allowed to look pretty every now and then." OOC: And dragons are the most unprejudiced lovers of anyone after bards.

OOC: Well I mean come on, its Ravenloft: saying a place is of death and madness is like making the observation the day ends in y. "Going out. Getting laid." "Jonni, she’s a werewolf." "Going out, forking a werewolf." OOC: Well Lycanthropy isn't usually sexually transmitted. Its just that Mercedes is a biter. OOC: ...I don't have an appropriate response to that.

"You seriously think I’d turn on my friends for a pile of gold?!?" "sigh I’ll show you my tits. "Hot damn, let’s get these murders done!" "No, Jonni, stay good. Besides, there are plenty of other girls who will do that without asking you to murder us." "Hmmmm… this is the moral quandary of my life…" "I’ll give you five bucks." "Scales tipped!" "Phew, I thought I was going to have to cover her next trip to the topless bar." "No, no, I have the bail money right here."

Nyx: So what’s the inside of Jonni’s head like? Edmund (with thousand yard stare): Imagine every ladies only smut magazine you’ve ever heard of going on forever into infinity while everything is on fire. Food was good though.

"It’s cool. They stole it." "And you know this how?" "Magic." “90% of Ravenloft deaths are mysterious vanishings.” "Why does everything come out covered in glitter and … is that …" "Lube. I’ve got a few theories." "Please don’t share them."

OOC: This is a plan that ends with Strahd having fewer brides, his castle is in flames, and he’s lost his cape.

OOC: Our team consists of a horny pyromancer, a gnome who can fillete you in five seconds, an HP lovecraft protagonist with actual magic backing them up, a literal slab of iron with a face, and a guy with a "I went to the eternal city of Ryleth and all I got was PTSD and this lousy T shirt". Gorbash smashing his shield into their face: "Have! You! Considered! Therapy!" OOC: Good news is you guys will no longer be the most conspicuous guys at the masquerade now. Jonni: Challenge accepted! "Nyx, the bounty on stealing his fake mustache is still on."

"Vanilla is the king of flavors. What does it say about society where vanilla is considered just 'regular'?" "That they have a lot of vanilla." Lash: "Don’t you want wishes?" Jonni: "Do I need wishes to get to see you naked?" Lash: "No?" Jonni: "Fuck ‘em." Vesh: "Oh dammit its my arranged fiance." Pit Fiend: "Milady." Vesh: "An extra wish to whoever punches this douchecanoe in the nards." Jonni: "I wish…for Bigby’s clenched fist of nard punching."

Soth: "Oh, gods, why am I on fire and why is Immigrant Song playing?" Jonni: "Take a guess." Hazlik: "Okay, so its a partridge, stuffed inside a chicken, stuffed inside a duck, stuffed inside a turkey, and the whole thing is fried on a stick. Congratulations, that's the most horrible thing I have ever seen, and I once crossbred an elephant and an owl." "I give him the 'itis, and we run like we stole something." OOC: ...weirdly Curse of Strahd has stats for Strahd zombies but not Strahd Skeletons. Or Strahd's skeletal Steed. Strahd once went to a branding seminar hosted by Bane and it changed his life.

"Are we on a high enough floor that if I throw him through the window he'll be killed by the fall?" "Oh, but when I say stuff like that it’s all 'Jonni, murder is wrong.'" "When they say pick your battles they don't mean to pick all of them. That's too many battles Jonni. Put some back." OOC: He's technically already got a symbiote. OOC: They can get married. Gorbash: "I'm increasing the rent." Venom: "Can I keep the pool table?" Gorbash: "I'm not a monster." Giant Brain: "Jonni… I have summoned you here for… WHY AM I ALREADY ON FIRE! PUT ME OUT! PUT ME OUT!"

"Hello We're the party-crashers. This is Jonni, she's here to steal your women and burn your shit down. That's Nyx, she's going to repatriate certain items from the premise. Marshal over there, is here to studiously ignore our shenanigans. This is the New Guy. He seems pretty chill. I'm Gorbash... and I have been distracting you."

"Will you walk into my parlour?" said a spider to a fly. Jonni: "Hold up. Trying to sex a spider." Nyx: (throws her hands up) And then Jonni wakes up with a spider venom hangover webbed to a wall waiting to be eaten. Jonni: "Eh, I’ve had worse one night stands. I’m not a fucking blueberry." OOC 1: Hey, where does your weed elf grow [her] crops? OOC 2: She probably just grows them in the room she hasn’t paid rent on. OOC 3: Because I was also considering a circle of spores druid tortle. OOC 2: We could be partners! We could turn this into road to el dorado staring Cheech and Chong. OOC: Wait, I just realized five people are hanging out in a pirate bar, and none of us are rogues. We are gonna need someone to get thieves tools. OOC: We have a barbarian with a big stick.

"Are we Foxhound now? Blunderbuss Octopus." OOC1: You want to put the stoner in charge of food. OOC2: Eyup. OOC1: I see no way this can go wrong! OOC3: We need the four basic food groups. Beans, Bacon, Whisky, and Lard. “We pray to Almighty Darkseid! Give us a sign! Thumbs up, for the triumph of the human spirit! Thumbs down to begin the everlasting reign of darkness!” “Where did you find this guy?” “Me? I thought you hired him.” OOC: Yup, nature, arcana, history, investigation and religon at +6. MJ got baked and watched the Discovery Orb a lot. Tordek: "But we have a cleric, Jozan, over there." Strahd: *sigh* Snaps fingers, and suddenly one of Strahd's brides sucks Jozan out the window, cue screaming. "Oh look, you suddenly have an opening, how fortunate." Tordek: "We also have a druid...." Vadania: "SHUT UP, TORDEK!" Edmund: "I think the first order of business may be to discuss your Human Resources strategy..." Strahd: "I have a guy for that too."

"When someone as smart as him talks with himself, it's not crazy...They call it monologing." "I thought it was soliloquy?" "No, soliloquy is when you're talk at someone else when your talking to yourself." "Most people would run from a demon, you run towards it to study it." Professor: "THIS IS ABSOLUTELY FASCINATING! A FROGHEMOTH, AND RIGHT UP CLOSE, IT WILL BE AMAZING TO SEE THIS PERFECT KILLING MACHINE IN ACTION." OOC: Also note the Professor is Lawful Good, Archie is Chaotic Good, so collectively they balance out to Neutral good. OOC: That's good. "The incinerations will continue until morale improves!" “You never incinerate the women!” “Because I’m fucking them!” “I… was not expecting you to be so honest about that…”

"You got what you wanted....but you lost what you had...." "Yes, I'm familiar with how capitalism works."

OOC: Dragons are like, “That’s Krandor the shiney. He only fucks other dragons. Weirdo.”

Gorbash: "D'awww, so tiny... perfect size... FOR PUNTING!" *boots tiny mind-flayer into the horizon*

"Dracula hasn't been spotted in almost recently. Whats he gonna do, destroy all we know and love like he definitely can?" "... my god you people are too stupid to live." "What are you doing in my house?" Gorbash: "...well Edmund has been reading your books, I've been sorting through your armory, Nyx and Irost has been going through your other shinies, Marshal has been cleaving anything monstrous that gets too close, and Jonni has been lighting things on fire to stave off boredom." Gorbash: "Okay Marshal, Jonni. Rock, paper, scissors over who gets [to kill] the bishop."

Jonni: "Did you really think this would make up for what you did?" Nima: "I… killed everyone you grew up with." Jonni: "Yeah, and I’m still not forgiving you for what you did to Eddie." Nima: "I am missing some key context here…" Nima: "Also I committed identity theft on you by having my new undead army tell everyone you are running the show." Jonni: "Oh, no. You’ve fooled the boar tribe. Who still haven’t figured out shitting in a hole." Nima: "Yeah I noticed that. I ruined two pairs of shoes attacking their camps."

[h3l10tr0p3]

BNHA MANGA 278 SPOILERS

Villains are coming. Chaos prevails. Any Hero on the frontlines is wondering right now- How the hell do I stop this?

And at first the option of putting everyone to sleep seems like a swell idea. Humane, even.

So Why is Sedating A Villain Illegal?

Isn't that exactly what Midnight does with her quirk? Maybe you can’t sedate people with things Other than quirks. But Yaoyaorozu is also using her quirk to make the sedating agent. So it didn’t make much sense to me at first.

• One possibility is that Heroes are not allowed to handle weapons other than the support gear required to reduce the kickback of their own quirk. Hero Commission looks over every costume upgrade and supervises this process very minutely so that the Heroes cannot have lethal weapons on their person. Even Snipe might not be allowed to use actual bullets, although he is allowed to use a gun- maybe he has to resort to rubber bullets. In this case Yaoyaorozu will be handing out these jars of incredibly strong anaesthetic agent to other Hero students whose quirk has nothing to do with sedation. In their hands, it becomes a potentially harmful weapon. For comparison think of cops using tear gas. Provided they are facing the enemy, it should probably be overlooked...(probably)

• The Concentration of Sedative Agent. In all probability every Hero has to conform to certain quirk regulations. Like Midnight her quirk, somnambulist, which uses inhalational sedative agent, can use it only under a certain concentration limit. Anaesthetic agents at high concentrations can cause death, if there were any by-stander around it could reach them and kill them easily. So it makes sense to limit how much of this potentially lethal gas she can produce.

• Gigantomachia is HUGE. Taller than Mt. Lady. And the body-weight of a person is directly proportional to the amount of anaesthetic agent needed to produce sedation. If Yaoyaorozu makes an inhalation agent (like Midnight’s quirk) strong enough to stop this guy, you can bet it will easily kill by-stander heroes/villains. One way to avoid spread is to put it via intravenous route (I dont think syringes are gonna work on that rock-hide) or throw them in his mouth (Midnight got smacked trying to reach his face, so I’m dubious about this one.) Inhalation route will be effective, and will save many heroes if Yaoyaorozu also provides facemasks. But you can say goodbye to the villains.

• Another reason why using it is illegal is related to the Villain Mustard, who was captured at the Summer Camp after the Vanguard kidnapped Bakugou. It seems laughably easy for people gifted with quirks like his to produce gases of chemical warfare and kill anyone around them. Just imagine your annoying next door neighbour oozing napalm, VX nerve gas or Agent Orange in a fit. This probably led to the prejudice against emitter types like Mustard and started them down the villain path.

So considering all these things, yeah, it makes sense to make this illegal. And kind of a no-brainer. But what are the implications of this?

Some of them maybe like so-

Yaoyaorozu might be forced to produced a lethal dose to just put down Gigantomachia unless she has an ingenious way to contain fall out.

All the students in the back-lines would be forced to commit involuntary manslaughter for the sake of self-defense. I do not say for it is ‘their duty as Heroes’ because killing people, civilian or Villain is against the law, whether they did it consciously or not. (I shiver to think of the horror and psychological trauma they would experience when they realize what they’ve done)

The only reasons why Endeavour got away from murdering a High End is because (1) Noumus are not legally seen as human beings (Tell Shirakumo that) and (2) Endeavour has a hell of a legal team, plus the HC backing him as the No.1 Hero. He cannot be accused of something illegal because the society is depending on him to be the Next No.1.

The children will not have such defense. If there is a public litigation against them (like imagine if Re-destro got captured and asked for a lawyer) for using excessive force and chemical agents, then the teachers will have to take responsibility for their actions because they are minors and cannot be tried for the decisions taken by the teacher (Midnight).

Therefore, Midnight isnt just sanctioning a very dangerous attack and throwing kids in the line but also taking the risk of potentially losing her job and Hero license (if not her life on the battlefield). She is doing it for the greater good, and she wants to stop the Villains from causing more life and property damage, no matter the cost. It takes guts and a lot of confidence in the kids to be able to do that. She trusts Yaoyaorozu That Much.

All things considered, even if Yaoyaorozu had decided to tuck tail and run, I wouldn’t think any less of her, because this is a Tall Fucking order for a goddamn teenager. But like the fucking Queen she is, she has a plan and is ready to kick ass. (Please let her pull this off flawlessly!!!)

Other far-off, possible implications (and some personal HCs) can be-

If this incident is taken to court and Midnight is found guilty:

No doubt the U.A. faculty would stand beside her decision and support her. This may lead to a public unrest. First off, the Lodge Attack was poorly executed despite having lots of time to prepare for the event. The Heroes will be under severe scrutiny for the unprecedented, and perhaps unnecessary loss of life for this mission. Secondly, a U.A. teacher apparently pushed Heroes-in-training in the line of fire. Why were the children there at all? Why bring them to a place where the supervisors couldn’t guarantee their safety?

The Hero Commission will be under fire, it might look for a scapegoat to escape their poor decisions- this is where they might shift the blame onto Midnight and the U.A. faculty for not professional misconduct. Thus forcing Nedzu to make changes in U.A., which I doubt he’ll budge on because U.A. has done nothing wrong. The friction between the HC and UA might therefore force HC’s hand and remove Nedzu, and bring about a complete makeover of the school system and administration (Shiketsu comes to mind in this scenario). Imagine an Umbridge now taking reigns of UA and making it more militaristic and oppressive.

Imagine if that was the objective of figureheads in the HC all along? What if the ‘Traitor’ isn’t with LoV but a simple information broker whose job is to simply expose the flaws and cracks in U.A.’s education system and turn public opinion against it, so that the HC could replace it’s current adminstration? What if this Traitor had access to all this information, knew who wanted it, and decided to let U.A. butt heads with LoV whilst advancing their own agenda?

What if the HC was the villain all along?

Just shower thoughts. (it got really out if hand in the end there...)

[thepanicoffice]

Brush with Death

[...]

Through plague, famine, financial crisis, and bourgeois summer music festival season, the Panic Office has always been there for its dedicated, maladjusted, slightly simple readership.

We have long prided ourselves on providing a faintly nourishing mental gruel of content – a sort of intellectual starvation rations – to keep your grey matter from wasting away entirely. This has never been more important than now, when you remain confined indoors reflecting on the senselessness of your own existence and the cruel accident of your birth.

But we also like to keep things light and cheerful.

So, let’s talk about DEATH.

I don’t regularly check the Office’s post-box but I would assume we have been inundated with glowing feedback on my semi-regular jaunts through art history. Having graduated primary education, I consider myself to meet all the criteria to be classed as a fine art scholar and well-equipped to take you on a brief tour of death in the visual imagination of the West.

It’s as well to remind ourselves that the darkness that dwells beyond the precipice of the mortal coil has occupied the thoughts of our ancestors since the first time some unwashed maniac picked up a wet clot of pigments and, for reasons best known only to them, decided to draw something they could only see in their head.

Let us go, and don’t fear the reaper. But don’t make eye contact with him either, for God’s sake. That’s just asking for trouble.

[...]

Unknown, Renaissance

Death has not always been a figure of fear – here we see his unmistakable skeletal form strutting and jiving along, barely clad in an entirely superfluous toga, like a slightly-less creepy John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. Actually, it is probably that self-same fever that has claimed the life of this chubby-wristed infant. However, as I assume was probably the case for most people alive in the Middle Ages, he doesn’t look very sad to be going. If I’d have been born only to discover that I had no access to warm towels and was forced to empty my bowels out of a window like a common Welshman, I’d have embraced death as a friend too.

Death and Life, Gustav Klimt, 1915

This gaudily garbed grim cuts a sinister figure. He brandishes, with menace, the distinct gnarly form of a Nice ’n’ Spicy Nik Nak – its seemingly harmless, even comical, appearance at odds with the often-lethal sodium content contained within. The spectre leers at this writhing tissue of existence, threatening it with, presumably, heart disease and morbid obes– Ooh , is that a nipple? It is! Great painting. Though it is distractingly close to that child. That sort of spoils my enjoyment.

What were we talking about? Oh yes, Death. In summary, it’s hard to be too fearful when it’s stalking around in vibrant patchwork robes that Elton John would consider unforgivably tasteless and showy.

Death and the miser, Hieronymus Bosch, 1490

This irritatingly long and hard-to-crop image (it’s clear little if any thought was given to future generations of facetious technophobe bloggers by Mr Bosch) requires quite a lot of unpacking. Its dense and layered symbolism is obscure but, when one has assumed one can easily decipher art for as long as I have, its meaning becomes clear: bribe the ugly devils that crowd your life with a bulging sack of jealously-hoarded gold and perhaps Death will overlook you when your time comes. Most importantly, shun Christ and his shiny promises even when your demise looks inevitable – that’s exactly what he wants you to do, clever bastard.

Bosch, never one to know when to just put the brush down and step away from a canvas, has included all manner of largely meaningless additional detail. One feature, though, stands out: the hideous, stunted rat-gremlin carries a letter, waving it aloft, unnoticed by all. We will never know what it says. It’s almost a perfect metaphor for the Panic Office itself.

Unknown, 17th Century

Ye Gods! I don’t even know where to look. Someone get this man some damned trousers! And who thought it would be a good idea to equip a blindfolded man with a scythe? Absurd.

Der beste Arzt (The Best Doctor), Alfred Kubin, 1901

I can relate to this one. Death, mysterious and even slightly sexy, carelessly smothers this excessively long man with one hand. This is basically what my hangovers feel like when I’ve been trying to match Ann Widdecombe drink for drink at our monthly cribbage night. Like me, the slender victim clasps his hands in supplication, praying to the mercy of his nameless tormentor that his suffering might end. However, unlike me, this man doesn’t seem inclined drink a vial of baboon’s tears which I have found, after years of trial and error, is really the only effective remedy.

Unknown, Medieval

This is a fascinating depiction of Death as a sort of recognisable breed of pub bore, droning on, hectoring, sharing his conspiracy theories about how the dinosaurs really went extinct, deathsplaining to the living. Look at it, wagging its skeletal figure at this clearly disinterested person. It’s like, we get it: death comes for us all. But there’s no need to be such a dullard about it.

Danse Macabre, Thomas Rowlandson, 1815-6

This is the first work that makes me empathise with Death. All that power and yet every day the same tedium: more double pneumonias, more malarial fevers, more shower slippages. Yawn. Many of the best deaths – bubonic plague, the bloody flux, leprosy – have been all but eradicated (thanks a lot, modern medicine!) So what is left to look forward to? The odd atrocity or elephant goring, sadly few and far between. You think you’re having a boring lockdown? Take a moment to put yourself in Death’s shoes (black crocs I reckon; practical but essentially evil).

Graphic illustration of Lubeck mural, after 1463

We’ve all been to parties like this, cajoled into dancing by others regardless of whether your outfit really allows for it. Now imagine those other partygoers are the dead themselves. Terrible evening.

The Hypochondriac, Richard Dagley, 1827

Speaking as someone who’s died of hypochondria twice before, I know this scene only too well. One sits at home, trying to quietly contemplates one’s… eery painting of a prancing clown… only to spy, from the corner of your eye, Death’s chittering mandibles lurch from the gloom. Meanwhile, your pet cat (or monkey; the quality here is rather poor) offers you no comfort as you descend into a clammy-browed panic. Jesus, I need to get my blood pressure checked. Some days I can’t sleep for the hammering arrhythmia of my backfiring heart, I can feel it behind my eyes, and my sight fades until I am left to face…

La Jeune Fille et la Mort, Marianne Stokes, 1900

…Oh Christ, this guy. This morose tosser. This gloomy dullard. This Sisters of Mercy album cover reject, come to bore you with his self-indulgent monologues about the ‘black lips of encroaching night’ or whatever GCSE poetry he’s most recently written after his parents have sent him to bed for failing to use a drinks coaster on the good table. I don’t know where he got that robe from but the big lads in his form are going to give him hell for that come Monday. But that’s fine, he doesn’t care, he’s used to being misunderstood, as he thinks no one apart from him has ever worn pale makeup and been really into the ‘complex, violence artistry’ of 80s slasher films. Tedious prick. Just get over yourself and end me! No, I’m not impressed by your lamp. Arse.

[nitrateglow]

For the ranking ask: Alan Arkin, Gene Kelly, Claude Rains, Katharine Hepburn

ALAN ARKIN

5. Deadhead Miles - There are so many subtle details and touches in Arkin’s characterization that elevate what looks like a drugged up manchild into a rather lonely, sad figure. You get the sense he’s lost anything that anchors him (a family, religion, etc.) and he’s just coasting through life, conning people for kicks more than anything, though he still has a soul and can feel badly for people worse off than himself.

4. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Totally heartbreaking performance, yet without an iota of self-pity or bathos. Also, his use of ASL looks very convincing. It makes me sad Arkin didn’t really do more dramatic work of this caliber in the 70s and 80s.

3. The In-Laws - In terms of his pure comedies, this is Arkin’s best that I’ve seen. He plays a straight-laced guy thrown into chaos and his reactions are not mugging, but sheer, void-staring horror and that is hilarious.

2. Catch-22 - Probably Arkin’s technical “best” role or the one that seems most representative of his penchant for the strange, dark comedies where he seems to be most at home. Having read the book first and pictured Yossarian differently, I wondered if he would fit the part. Ultimately, he was perfect at capturing the essence of this classic character.

1. Wait Until Dark - I mean, was there ever any doubt this is my favorite? I can’t resist a bad guy and Roat is one of the best “for the evulz” bad guys ever.

Arkin could have easily just played this character as a boilerplate psycho, but he instead emphasizes the “actor” element of the character, not just in how seriously he takes the roleplaying in the con, but even when he’s being “himself.” He feels like a demon masquerading at being human and the effect is uncanny.

As much as I enjoyed Stacey Keach’s cocaine-fueled scenery-chewing in the 1982 TV adaptation of Wait, it made me appreciate Arkin’s chilling, low-key menace all the more. Like, I love how he never shouts at Susy when trying to intimidate her: he speaks softly, even amiably, which is a sign of his complete confidence-- much more terrifying than a screaming nut TRYING to scare you. In fact, he only shouts when he’s scared, which is just a brilliant choice.

Also, he manages to be quite hot despite having a terrible haircut. A++

GENE KELLY

5. Brigadoon - So, I’m putting this one here mainly because I don’t remember a lot of it, but I saw this movie at an impressionable age (probably eight or nine) and recall being spellbound by it. Kelly plays a man torn between two worlds-- pretty much literally-- and I recalled being very moved by his romance with Bonnie Jean.

4.  The Pirate - So, I’m not crazy about this movie, but Kelly is fun in it from what i recall. Also, he wears tons of ass-hugging, form-fitting 19th-century clothes that make the movie worth every minute.

3. Inherit the Wind - A pure dramatic role where Kelly plays a snarky journalist covering a thinly veiled version of the Monkey Scopes trial in the 1920s. While more of a supporting role, he makes a big impression and I love the way he calls the chimp “GRANDPA!”

2. The Three Musketeers - If Doug Fairbanks never made his version of The Three Musketeers, Kelly would be my favorite D’Artagnan. As it is, he’s second and just as perfect for the role as you would imagine.

1. Singin in the Rain - He’s most remembered for this movie for a reason. He got to be funny, glamorous, and romantic all in one. The “Singin’ in the Rain” number is now so iconic that I think Kelly’s acting gets overlooked a bit in it. He’s just so giddy there-- it’s so sweet and endearing that I can get why A Clockwork Orange recontextualizing that song upsets people lmao.

CLAUDE RAINS

5. The Adventures of Robin Hood - Basil Rathbone is more of the main bad guy in this movie, I guess, but Rains was my favorite of the villains. He’s so fey and deliciously wicked. And Rains really rocks that wig and tunic.

4. The Invisible Man - Only a voice for 99% of the runtime, but damn, he makes an impression.

3. Notorious - A sign of a great actor-- Rains made even a gross ass Nazi likable-- at least at first! 

2. The Phantom of the Opera - Rains really made just a great Phantom. He’s not the most lethal or openly menacing, but he is just so tragic and passionate. When he starts reacting very emotionally when he learns his music has been stolen-- oh man. I have not seen the movie in years but that scene plays in my mind with such vividness, especially Rains’ impassioned, enraged line reading.

Rains also benefits from a really nasty-looking makeup. My own skin tingles seeing it. (Take note, Gerard Butler and Julian Sands!)

1. Casablanca  - A typical choice? Okay yes. But I just love Captain Renault so much! His witticisms help make Casablanca the classic it is and I love his banter with Rick throughout the movie.

KATHARINE HEPBURN (I am shocked by realizing how little of her bonafide classics I have seen... and with the exception of The Philadelphia Story, I’ve actually only seen these others once and a while ago, so forgive the brevity)

5. Christopher Strong - I don’t really like this movie very much, but Hepburn is fabulous. She makes her strong-willed character so likable that when the “respectable” characters get their happy ending and she doesn’t, you’re just so angry.

4. The African Queen - I recall liking her performance when I saw the film years ago, but aside from her chemistry with Bogie, I can’t go into detail. Sorry.

3. The Lion in the Winter - Her sparring with O’Toole is so entertaining.

2. Suddenly, Last Summer - Among the Tennessee Williams adaptations, this one does not get much press and that’s a shame because Hepburn’s villainous southern aristocrat is chilling to the bone. You just absolutely hate her with relish.

1. The Philadelphia Story - Tracy Lord as a character-- abrasive, arrogant, sneering-- should annoy me. But she’s just so damned likable. Hepburn’s blend of fire and hidden vulnerability make this screwball heroine (or “goddess” if you will) so very appealing. The studio apparently wanted Norma Shearer in the role, but as much as I love her, I think Hepburn was the best choice and she gave a classic performance.

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 206: The Third Set Concludes

Previously on BnHA: Team TodoIidaShoujiRo battled Team TetsuHonePonySen TO THE DEATH, apparently. Shouto lost his fucking mind and went all out with his flames and set the whole fucking place on fire. But somehow Chintetsu was able to withstand it without fucking melting, and held his ground until Honenuki showed up and knocked Shouto unconscious with a falling streetlight pole. This was after he singlehandedly took out Ojiro and Shouji. It honestly looked like that was it for Team A, but then Iida zoomed back over and drop-kicked Honenuki in the face. He tried to carry Shouto to safety, but before they could make it to the clear, Honenuki (who conveniently stayed conscious just long enough to do this) melted the base of a big industrial chimney and told Tetsu to knock it down, which he did, right on top of Iida. So Iida is now dead, Todoroki is still unconscious and probably dying of hyperthermia, Honenuki is concussed, and congratulations Deku, I’ve finally gotten over that one fight where you systematically broke all your own fingers one by one, because this shit makes that look like a tickle fight.

Today on BnHA: With four students dead or dying before their eyes, the teachers opt to sit back and wait to see how the final moments of the battle will play out. Shouji, Ojiro, and Pony engage in a frantic struggle which results in Pony capturing Ojiro and tying up the score at 1-1. She then proceeds to wait out the clock, knowing that she can’t try to capture one of the other downed Team A kids without putting her own unconscious teammates at risk. So the deathmatch ends in a draw of all things, and the teachers generously decide to forego debriefing the kids for now in favor of getting them all some medical treatment before they actually do kick the bucket. Over in Recovery Girl’s office, Shouto, Iida, and Honenuki all bond over somehow feeling like they didn’t do enough, until RG kicks them all out, probably to call child protective services or something. The long-awaited fourth set then begins, and Team BakuJirouSatouSero gets ready to kick some ass. Bakugou is all “DEKU, JUST WATCH ME!” and I don’t know about Deku, but I’m all set for this. Get out there and show ‘em how it’s done, kiddo.

(As always, all comments not marked with an ETA are my mostly-unspoiled reactions from my first readthrough of this chapter. I’m caught up with the manga now at chapter 223, so any ETAs will reflect that.)

lol for fuck’s sake

your teachers love you, children. I think

wow Iida is still conscious

“ow,” he says. I really don’t think Horikoshi knows how crushing injuries work

so now poor Iida is apologizing to the unconscious Todoroki and wishing he had been just one step faster

on the plus side, at least you weren’t one step slower. that would have been real bad

Vlad is gleefully saying that because Sen put up so much resistance, he successfully delayed Iida long enough for this chain of events to take place

Aizawa is chiding Vlad for his biased reporting. yes, Aizawa. that’s what you should be getting upset about here. got those priorities down pat

Mina says that if the status quo remains the same, class A will hold onto its 1-0 lead and win, but that doesn’t match up with my recollection of events. Shouji and Ojiro were captured by Honenuki, presumably

or maybe not, because now we’re cutting back to Shouji who’s in the midst of battling things out with Pony

now we’re flashing back to see how this all came about, and I’m just gonna post it rather than try to sum it up

(ETA: in fairness to Shouto and Honenuki who have so far bore the brunt of my sarcastic ranting for taking things too far, let’s not overlook this scene where Ojiro is all “even if you stab me!!!” and Pony is like “okay!” and actually does stab him. hero training. fun times!)

holy shit, she took him out even when it was two against one. damn, Pony

so okay, apparently the score is tied now at 1-1

jesus christ Pony is quickly becoming the fourth-quarter MVP out here

by the way, I thought all the melted stuff was supposed to go back to normal after Honenuki passed out, so why does it still look the same? did it just harden again while still looking like that?

(ETA: I guess it must have. I have some questions now about how effective Honenuki would be in a situation where he actually had to try and keep property damage to a minimum. maybe tone it down just a bit in the future.)

but anyway, so if Pony can capture Todoroki and prevent A Team from nabbing Tetsu and Honenuki until the clock expires, they’ll win

but she’s worried she won’t be able to keep this up

I BELIEVE IN YOU PONY

I can’t believe Shouji is going to fucking blow it for the entire A Team. goddamn it Shouji

oh snap!

(ETA: whoops I originally had the wrong picture here. fixed!)

this is why Deku wants to be able to fly so badly. flying solves everything

aaand time is expiring!

wow I did not see this coming

I can’t believe all these kids nearly killed themselves over a stupid training match that ultimately ended in a fucking draw of all things

I hope Recovery Girl drops a big smokestack on Aizawa and Vlad to see how they like it. for fuck’s sake

Kaminari is griping about how it’s not fair, but Shishida’s pointing out that what Pony did was a logical course of action. “running away and awaiting rescue”

yep. and on top of that, she did capture two members of the other team as well; she just didn’t make it back to Rat Principal Jail within the time limit

oh snap a wild IidaRaka moment!

from this angle we can all agree he would have 100% been crushed to death, yes?

anyway, I love how Ochako is always so considerate of his feelings. he doesn’t have enough people looking out for his mental state like that. Ochako is such a good friend and the two of them are so adorable I swear

damn, I was kind of looking forward to that. Shouto and Tetsu need to be chewed out for being reckless idiots, Honenuki needs to get his props (and also be chewed out), and Aizawa needs to seriously question what the hell Ojiro and Shouji were even doing that entire time

Deku says Iida was really cool out there, and WASN’T HE, THOUGH? he also needs to get lots of props! I should have called it Team IidaRoki because he was the true leader as it turns out. same with Team HoneTetsu

LOL

oh hey there Shouto

you’re not you when you’re hungry

god can you imagine. turns out he went off the fucking tracks like that just because he didn’t have a big enough lunch. forgot to eat his Soba O’s this morning

and it looks like Tetsu is also on his way out, but before he leaves he’s magnanimously telling Shouto that they match may have been a draw, but as far as he’s concerned he lost

meanwhile as far as I’m concerned, you both lost and need psychological evaluations

“let’s do this again sometime” oh jesus. they have learned nothing

time for some IidaRoki bonding!

you’re like fucking lightspeed you maniac. once you learn to control this shit you’ll be the fucking Flash. you’re like the only guy in this fight who actually crushed it, don’t be so hard on yourself kid

Shouto says Iida saved him though. and that he’s the one who screwed up

he says he could have attacked with his fire to begin with, but he’s gotten into a bad habit of opening with an ice attack

should I even bother at this point with the whole pointing-out-that-lethal-attacks-are-bad-for-so-many-obvious-reasons-though thing? I feel like I have more than established my feelings about that by this point. so I’ll just leave it

anyway, he says that Iida was plenty fast and he was the one who was too slow

okay, I don’t know about “slow”, but I am always here for baby Shouto flashbacks, flashbacks of the kids as young children admiring All Might, and moments where the kids decide they want to become heroes who can put everyone at ease! there is so much goodness in this scene, oh my god

IIDA STOP

YOU NEED TO COOL IT WITH THE USUAL HAND GESTURES FOR NOW OMG

does this count as another Hand Crusher incident. Shouto. what say you

anyway so Iida’s looking all thoughtful and renewing his own hero vows

I said vows as a joke but the way he says it really does sound just that formal and rehearsed though, doesn’t it?

LMAO

so as a result of this fight we’ve established that the hierarchy here is Iida = Honenuki > Todoroki. who could have seen this coming

lmao this kid is waaaaaay too fucking modest

well it’s nice to see that everyone is becoming friends

awww

these are good boys. stupid, but good

and now Recovery Girl is kicking them all out

AND YESSSS, NOW IT’S FINALLY THE MOMENT WE’VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR

THE FOURTH SET!!!

YOU HEARD HIM SATOU SHUT YOUR TRAP!! IF HE SAYS IT’LL WORK IT’LL WORK!

lmao you guys. I don’t know if I’m gonna get much sleep tonight, because Bakugou is gonna have a fight. a real fight. that’s not against six-year-olds

Monoma is also excited!

okay but back-against-the-wall is exactly the type of situation that you never, ever, ever want to be up against Bakugou in

(ETA: he will shoot you in the fucking face.)

Monoma says he’s been looking forward to the 4th set, but unlike me he’s been looking forward to it because of Tokage! I don’t know who Tokage is, but hopefully they’re a good opponent! class B better be bringing that A game now! we don’t like to half-ass our wins!

OH NO

SUDDENLY I AM ALSO ROOTING FOR TOKAGE MAYBE LOL

EXCEPT NO! BECAUSE!!

EXCUSE ME WHAT. “DEKU, JUST WATCH ME”? LISTEN HERE MISTER, YOU CAN’T JUST GET ALL FIRED UP WITH YOUR EXCITED READY-FOR-BATTLE GRIN WHILE THINKING ABOUT DEKU WITHOUT ANY WARNING, YOUNG MAN. YOU WANT DEKU TO SEE HOW COOL YOU ARE, IS THAT IT. YOU CAN’T FUCKING WAIT

DO YOU EVEN CARE ABOUT ANYONE ELSE WHO’S WATCHING. FORGET SHOWING OFF IN FRONT OF YOUR CHILDHOOD HERO, ALL MIGHT, THE IMPORTANT THING IS THAT DEKU’S WATCHING. and you’ve gone from being annoyed by his constant attention to fucking loving it, haven’t you. who here is the real shithead, though

also, guess who’s also fucking loving this. YEAH, IT’S ME. THAT’S RIGHT

Kacchan’s smiles are fucking contagious. like, this cocky, determined grin of his makes me also somehow feel cocky and determined. that’s some fucking charisma. that’s the type of shit that gets you to the top, kid. omg. let’s do this

[thedreadgay]

a promise sealed with a kiss

word count: 2473 author’s notes: mhawke/varric commission for my buddy @punkdeaf !!! i had a lot of fun with this one, pls enjoy some gay losers reuniting after inquisition

—

The sky was dark with smoke and night around Adamant. The aftermath of battle began to seep into survivors' bones, the crash after the sweat and adrenaline of survival. Varric could feel it, heavier than stone.

He figured Hawke felt it, too. They sat side by side on a fallen block, tucked in a lonely corner of the now crumbling fortress. Armor clanked as Inquisition soldiers passed to and fro, just beyond the jut of the half-broken wall. Their voices washed over Varric: someone calling for the nearest healer, cries of victory, breathless exclamations and barking orders. Words, words, words, the words of a successful siege, the victorious in the face of an army of demons—all the stories of all those people, wrapped into one like threads of a rope. All those damn words. And yet, for once, Varric had none. He and Hawke sat in unusual silence.

“You’re really going then, huh?” Was the best Varric could manage. His voice was scratchy from desert air turned acrid with death and wicked magic. He watched a tower of pyre smoke roll high, high into the sky, sparks reaching up, as though freeing the fallen to become burning stars.

Hawke didn’t respond right away. Varric tore his gaze away from the massive pyre to Hawke. His broad shoulders were hunched, his robes covered in soot. The dark circles under his eyes persisted, as they had for years now. “You know me,” Hawke muttered then, scratching his beard; “Trouble finds me no matter what. May as well try to stay a step ahead and dive right into it.”

Varric gave a half-hearted chuckle. Hawke tried for a weak smile. Both looked about ready to fall apart.

Their gazes simply held, then. Words hung on the tip of Varric's tongue that felt too terrifying to breathe into fruition. He inched his hand closer to Hawke's; the other took it, entwined their fingers. It was the closest inkling of home Varric had felt in a while.

What could he say? All those words were so much that he couldn’t pick them out, like grains of sand sifting through his fingers.

“Just, uh,” he tried quietly, then sighed. “Just… come back. Okay?”

Hawke pursed his lips for a moment. “And what about you?”

Varric remembered their hushed conversation in front of the war room, just before marching from Skyhold to battle. He remembered leaning heavily against the wall, like without some tether he would be swept away in the chaos. “I think… I need to finish this out,” he had rasped.

Hawke had been a mirror before him then, and he was again now. A world of guilt carved lines around his eyes; Varric couldn’t know for sure—didn’t want to know for sure—but he could have sworn some whisper of the Fade still clung to Hawke, a smell like lightning in his clothes; and he could see, in the hunch of Hawke's back, where the demon's echo still slithered down his spine.

“Varric will die, just like your family.”

Not on my watch, Smiley, Varric thought.

“I’ll come back, too.”

Hawke released a sigh, deflating like the world had been lifted from his shoulders. He squeezed Varric's hand, and for just a moment, his eyes sparkled in that way that made Varric's heart skip. “Call it a date, then?”

It drew a laugh from Varric, a real laugh, that felt better than any sugar on his tongue. “It’s a date.”

Hawke's goofy smile was like a ray of damn sunlight in the gloom. He leaned in, and Varric followed. Their kiss tasted like smoke, love, and dare Varric think it—hope. A fine way to seal a promise.

—

Varric came back from the ruins of a prophet's temple, where he saw an ancient evil crumble to ash.

Varric came back from some of his least favourite places: the Deep Roads, yawning caverns with out-of-place carvings, now swallowed beneath water and lyrium. Places hidden behind mirrors, tucked in between the physical and the dreams that were foreign to him. The Winter Palace, a snake pit built upon greed and painted over with gold.

Varric returned home. But Kirkwall was emptier without Hawke.

He rebuilt, and watched, and waited. He trembled where he held their promise, close to his heart, so pure and lethal. Varric wasn't the kind of guy who did promises. Hawke wasn’t either, he knew.

Always an exception, huh? He thought, lying alone and unsleeping in bed. It became a habit of his.

Varric knew what hope and promises did. The risk of a broken heart was a terrifying thing to hold on your own.

Yet, he held.

—

There was a rapid little knock on the doorway of his suite. “Serah Viscount?” A voice squeaked. “I have your mail for you here.”

Varric sighed. Even in the Hanged Man, with the drunken clamour drifting up the stairs to him, he couldn’t escape. Bran must have told the carriers to deliver to him directly now.

“Alright, come on in,” he relented. “You can leave it on the table.”

Varric set aside his writing, not for any intent to actually read his letters, but so none could glimpse a work in progress. A scruffy young mail boy tip-toed in cautiously, setting the stack on the table as though it may bite him.

Varric did a double take as he did. Sitting precariously atop the pile, stark against the crisply folded papers, was a small roll of parchment, tied with red string.

He must have been staring at the scroll, because the carrier stuttered nervously, “S-Serah?”

Poor kid. Probably wasn’t paid nearly enough to see the Viscount have a damn heart attack.

Varric smiled reassuringly, and stood. “How much you being paid to deliver my mail, kid?”

The boy shifted on feet that looked too big for him. “Uh. Five sovereigns, Serah Viscount.”

Not nearly enough. Varric dug into his pocket, and tossed him a pouch; the boy fumbled, but caught it. “Here’s another fifteen. No matter what the Seneschal says, don’t deliver directly to me, unless—” Varric held up the roll of parchment— “I get another letter like this. Sound good?”

“Very good, Serah!” The boy was just about to run out in his glee, but hastily bowed first. “Fine day to you!”

Varric watched him scramble out with the pouch clutched tight to his chest. With no one to see him, Varric held the letter much the same.

The rest of the pile lay forgotten on the corner of the table as Varric retreated to the bed. He was of two minds: to simply hold the precious paper, untie the little red string with care, and carefully pour over the words; or unfurl and take them in voraciously, like a man starved.

He sat on the edge of the bed, and his hands were so torn in what to do that they froze. Varric stared at the letter, his heart pounding.

With shaky fingers, he slid the tie off the scroll, and gently rolled it open.

I'm okay, were the first words. He sighed like he hadn’t relaxed in years, and he traced the letters with his fingertips, as though reaching for Hawke's.

Varric felt full of mush as he read Hawke's quick account of Weisshaupt. Love, fear, and relief pushed and pulled at his insides until they ground him into pulp. The words carried him through his turmoil like a light in the dark. And isn’t that what Hawke always did? Varric chuckled to himself at the thought, fond and soft.

Don’t think I've forgotten our date. My memory may be shite, but never when it comes to you, love.

Varric guffawed, a full and happy sound that melded with the din outside his door. He fell back on the bed, staring up at the words and the sigil of a hawk signed beneath them. He laughed until those beautiful words and familiar sign became blurry through tears.

Giggling like a lovesick fool wasn’t on his list of things to do today, but he was always flexible.

—

“Well, finally he sends word,” Aveline huffed. Though she looked stern with her arms crossed, Varric knew from just the way she leaned on her desk that she was relieved; relaxed, even. The Guard-Captain still needed a hobby. “How Hawke manages to stay alive like this, I'll never know.”

Varric shrugged with a grin. “It’s part of his charm.”

Aveline rolled her eyes, but she was smiling now, too. “You’re downright chipper.”

“You think?” Varric scratched his stubble, and his grin turned wry. “I’m only acting as sappy as you did when you got married.”

She lightly smacked his arm, which wasn’t light at all considering she was built like brick, but Varric snickered nonetheless.

Despite his elation, Varric remained apprehensive as he left the Viscount's Keep, and looked into the cloudy sky. There was still a storm brewing, and he would have Hawke by his side when it hit.

Come home soon.

—

Some days, it hurt to walk past the ancestral seat of House Amell. Others, it brought Varric a fond sense of joy.

It had been ransacked more than once when it sat empty after the rebellion. If not for goods, then information; Cassandra and her Seekers had been among them. He tried not to think of being hauled and thrown into the place, once so full of life, turned harsh and cold. That house was a home, he reminded himself. Hawke's home—and Hawke's home was a home to them all.

That was the joy to it, the feeling he tried to call forth when he did his part to take care of the estate. It lingered beside the hearths, in the books he had carefully sorted back on the shelves, on the stairs where Isabela carved dirty things. It seemed to nurture the people who came in and out, those down on their luck who needed somewhere to stay. I'm sure the Champion wouldn’t mind, Varric would always say.

The Hawke Estate shouldn’t be a lonely place.

It didn’t have any occupants at the moment. The last resident gave Varric a loaf of bread they baked in the kitchen, with a warm smile kindled by the fire, and left with thanks and that joy. Varric couldn’t remember the last time he'd had home-baked bread.

He ate a piece as he wandered the estate, dusting here and there as he went. Pristine places didn’t have much character that Varric liked, but he didn’t want it to go overlooked. Unused. Unappreciated.

That was when he heard an unusual creak from Hawke's bedroom.

Bianca practically never left his side, and he slowly unholstered her then, carefully creeping forward. With his back pressed to the wall, the Amell crest hanging proud above him, Varric peered around the corner, past the open door.

A hooded figure slipped quietly through the window. They turned back and held up one finger, gesturing for silence, but Varric couldn’t see who—or what—lay beyond. The person looked broad, even beneath their fur-trimmed cloak, and they carried a staff in one hand… then, they pulled back their hood.

“Hawke?”

Hawke whirled around, just as shocked, and whatever was still outside scrabbled against the tiles in the garden. Bianca hung slack in Varric's arms, as through a sliver of the doorway, the two met eyes for the first time in years.

Hawke's beard was thicker, and his boots and hem of his cloak were dirtied. He looked as though he had maybe a few more scars and wrinkles, and Varric could say the same. But brown eyes met brown eyes, lighting up with the same joy that sang through the place—Varric understood deeply then, that it was created when a family was brought together—and it was Hawke.

Hawke's face split into a huge grin, and he spread his arms wide. “Honey, I'm home.”

Varric laughed. And laughed, and laughed more, as he remembered how to move again. He holstered Bianca as he rushed forward, and Hawke's staff clattered to the floor as he met Varric halfway. They collided in the middle of the bedroom, crushed together, and Hawke's laughter joined his own in the sweetest chorus Varric had ever heard. A bark sounded, and it was Hawke's mabari that leapt after her master, running in excited circles around the two of them.

It was Hawke. Varric's hands framed his face and brought him down; their noses bumped, Hawke's beard scratched his stubble, and their kiss didn’t taste like smoke. It was hope realized; it was a promise kept; and it was Hawke.

His scent surrounded Varric, and he had the most wonderful ache in his heart that thumped with love. They kissed again; Varric's knees felt weak with emotion, or maybe from Potato headbutting him affectionately. When they parted just so, there were tears heavy in Hawke's eyes. “I made our date,” he murmured thickly.

Varric's cheeks hurt from grinning. Tears sprung to his eyes now too as they sank to the floor together, face to face, wrapped in one another. “So did I.”

Potato nosed her way between them to give Varric her own slobbery kisses, but Varric didn’t mind; he and Hawke kept laughing as Varric scratched behind her ears. “I missed you too, girl.”

She seemed satisfied with the attention, resting her head on Varric’s shoulder. Hawke asked jokingly, “Am I permitted to keep kissing him now?”

Potato's response was a happy rumble. Varric chuckled. “You heard the lady.”

Hawke's kiss, with his thumb stroking the apple of Varric's cheek, felt like home completed.

—

They stoked a small fire in the hearth of Hawke's bedroom. Coats and boots shed, they sat together beneath a thick blanket, sharing the loaf of bread that Varric retrieved. Potato dozed across their laps, basking in warmth and idle pets.

They talked—about everything. Weisshaupt. The Exalted Council. Kirkwall. Tevinter. What was yet to come.

“You're collecting another loaf in your beard,” Varric interrupted, his lips quirking up at the mess of crumbs.

“Snacks for later,” Hawke said without missing a beat.

“You’re such a damn dreamboat.”

“Of course I am. Only the finest man about for me.”

“We ruggedly handsome do tend to flock together, don’t we?”

“Don’t forget gentlemanly.”

They grinned at each other. He could taste the earthy bread on Hawke's lips.

“So,” Hawke murmured, “ready to help save the world, love?”

Varric sighed. “It’s always us in the thick of it, huh?”

“Seems that way.” Hawke kissed a crumb from the corner of his mouth. “But we'll be in it together, hm?”

Varric held him like close wasn’t close enough. Against all the odds that kept him up at night, they were reunited in their home—and Varric knew he could take on anything. “You bet we will.”

[violetsmoak]

Pieces of April [8/?]

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21099044/chapters/50202530

Summary: On the anniversary of his death, Jason’s second life takes an abrupt new turn and he’s faced with a challenge that neither Batman nor the All-Caste prepared him for.

Rating: PG-13 (rating may change later)

Warning(s): Past Jason/Isabel, kidfic, minor canon character death (pretty sure you can guess who), I’ll add more warnings/tags as I think of them.

Canon-Compliance: Takes place in between the two RHATO series, so after Roy and Kori and before Artemis and Bizarro. Jason and Isabel Ardila

Author’s Note: Exactly what it says on the can. I’ve had this idea kicking around my head for a while, getting in the way of finishing the next chapter of Philtatos and I figured if I started jotting down the basics of it, I could stop thinking about it.

________________________________________________________________

Tim drives to one of Jason’s safehouses in the Bowery, about halfway between his apartment and the bar where he found Jason earlier. The place is a rundown, fire-damaged building with boarded-up windows and a sign out front advertising cheap studios.

“Do you need any help?” he asks as Jason gets out of the car.

“Just how much stuff do you think I need?” is the irate response before Jason vanishes into the dilapidated lobby.

Tim scowls at his back.

Someone remind me why I’m helping this jerk again?

The memory of the very tiny human still in the nursery at Gotham General makes his facial muscles relax.

Right.

Given the circumstances, Tim supposes he can overlook Jason’s inconsistent moods. He needs someone to lash out at right now while processing, and it’s not like Tim isn’t used to it. Better him than the criminals of Gotham; Jason’s pretty good these days about not using lethal force, but he might not care so much if he goes out without his head on straight.

Speaking of going out…

Tim surprised when Jason actually returns to the car ten minutes later instead of just vanishing. As he indicated earlier, he doesn’t have very much with him, just a worn duffel bag that he tosses in the backseat of Tim’s Porsche before having himself back into the passenger seat.

“Hope there aren’t any severed heads in there,” Tim remarks lightly as pulls away from the building. “I just had the seats redone.”

Jason rolls his eyes. “A guy makes one grand statement and they never let him forget it.”

“You don’t want people to forget it.”

“True,” he agrees with a sharp grin that is anything but humorous.

It’s a short journey back to Tim’s place, but he still drives around the block to use the secret entrance to his base of operations.

“What, I’m not good enough for your front door?”

“Be my guest. Say hi to Vicki Vale when you do, she’s usually lurking nearby.” When Jason shoots him a sharp, questioning look he elaborates, “An occupational hazard of being the face of WE is having paparazzi camped out around my place every now and then. I figure you don’t want your face showing up on the front of the Gotham Gazette.”

“Yeah, that might have been worth mentioning when you offered your guestroom.”

“Guess it’s a good thing like all responsible Bats, I have an underground secret hideout.”

He pulls into the back alley and flips the switch that activates the hidden ramp; the ground falls away and leads down toward the carpark. Tim won’t lie, he enjoys the way Jason’s eyebrows go higher the further in they get. The rest of the Family doesn’t come here—even during citywide emergencies, the agreed-upon convergence point tends to be the original Batcave—so Tim doesn’t have a lot of opportunities to show off.

And maybe showing off to his former childhood idol is something that doesn’t go away, no matter how many years or murder attempts.

That subbasement is nowhere near as large as any of the Caves, but there are two other cars and a half-dozen motorcycles in various states of modification parked in a circle. Tim eases into the only empty space and cuts the engine.

“Welcome to the Nest,” he says as he gets out of the car. “It goes three floors up not including this level. Outside it looks like just another apartment building behind my place, so no one would expect an actual secure installation inside.” He gestures as he speaks. “Ground floor’s got my crime lab and containment units, the second floor’s all training stuff, and the third’s the communication’s hub. There’s even aerial access, but I haven’t had to use it yet.”

Jason shakes his head. “Must be nice to be Dad’s favorite.”

“I wouldn’t know, you’d have to ask Dick.”

“Is that a popcorn machine?”

“No self-respecting hero’s lair should be without one,” Tim quips. “Come on, the living area’s this way.

They head up the stairs to the main level, and Tim doesn’t miss the appreciative glances Jason casts his tech and gear. He opens his mouth to offer to hook Jason up—extend the olive branch, so to speak—but stops himself; he doesn’t know if, after this whole baby adventure is over, Jason’s even going to want to stay in Gotham.

He slides open the hidden door, revealing Tim’s apartment. It’s the same deliberately clean open-concept room as he left it, except for one change. Across from the aquarium that hides the entrance switch, Tam Fox is reclining on the divan in the living room, one hand holding a glass of wine and another flipping expertly across her tablet.

She startles at the sound of the secret door sliding open, and that movement makes Jason tense, fingers ready to grasp for a weapon if need be.

“Relax,” Tim tells him, unsurprised when Jason does the opposite. “She knows everything.”

“And that’s reassuring how?”

“I trust Tam with my life, and to put my interests above WE’s or Bruce’s,” he explains. “Since at the moment you and I are working together, that means she puts your interests above WE and Bruce’s too.”

“She can hear you and knows how to speak for herself,” Tam quips, putting down her glass and standing up. “Who’s this?”

“This is Jason, the friend I was telling you about.”

Tim can almost hear Jason scowling at that; he trusts new people about as much as Bruce does.

Funnily enough, they both make the exact same face.

“And since when is there wine in my apartment?”

“Since you sent me scrambling around Gotham running errands, you generously decided to buy me a bottle of this very nice Riesling,” she replies, studying Jason. “When you said you had a friend with an emergency that required diapers, I was expecting Batgirl. Or Wonder Girl. Or Pru. Or, heck, even that Lynx-woman.”  

“Lynx?” Jason repeats, shooting Tim a disbelieving look. “Ghost Dragons Lynx? There’s no way you have that much game.”

“Then he didn’t tell you about what almost happened in Paris,” Tam informs him.

“Anyway,” Tim interjects. That’s all he needs is for Jason to hear about his own near brush with fatherhood. “This is Tam. Officially she’s my personal assistant, but I think ‘friend and confidante’ covers the relationship a lot better. And Tam, this is—"

“Jason Todd,” she says immediately, her eyes fixed on the other man in disbelief. Tim is momentarily caught off-guard. “It took me a minute, but I recognize you anywhere.”

Okay. I didn’t expect that. Though I probably should have. The Foxes were invited to all the same benefits and events Mom and Dad were. She probably knew or knew of Jason.

“Tam,” Jason repeats, tilting his head to one side and frowning at her for a moment like he’s trying to place her. His expression clears. “Tam. Tamara. Fox, right? You knocked Ned Davenport into a potted plant during Bruce’s birthday party one year.”

For once this evening, Tim is the one to feel a little bit off balance. Jason never talks about his time at Wayne manor in anything but unpleasant terms. And yet, Tim knows from Alfred’s stories that there were happy times and that once, Jason was as much a part of life at the manor as Tim or Damian.

 “He deserved it for ‘accidentally’ grazing my boobs when he passed by. Three times. And—and that’s not the point! You died!”

“I got better,” he replies with a bitter twist of his mouth.

She gapes for a moment, then reaches for her glass and downs the remainder of it.

“I’m going to become an alcoholic before I’m 25,” she tells the empty glass in a resigned tone before turning back to Jason. “Okay. I don’t even question this stuff anymore,” she informs him. “He could show up tomorrow with the Devil himself and I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“Kid Devil, maybe. Lucifer doesn’t like Gotham. He's more of a beach-party kind of guy."

Tam stares, clearly unsure if Jason is being serious or not; Tim actually isn’t sure either and decides to change the subject.

“You want something to drink?” he asks as he heads for the kitchen. He doubts Jason will notice or care, but his mother raised him to be polite even to people that don’t like him. “I doubt you want anything alcoholic after everything today, but I think I’ve got Zesti—”

“Water,” Jason says absently, looking around the apartment. Now that Tam has been proven as a non-threat, he’s clearly more interested in assessing his surroundings.

He notices the large pile of boxes and bags by the stairs at the same time Tim does.

“What the hell’s this?”

“I called Tam and said it was an emergency and that we needed a few things.”

“This is not a few things.”

“Well, you don’t know how long you’re going to need them,” Tam replies. “Congratulations, by the way.” Tim can’t see Jason’s expression, but doubts it’s a good one from the way Tam quickly adds, "Or no congratulations? Where are we on the whole 'congratulations' thing?”

I don’t think either of us has the energy to get into what happened with Isabel just now. Redirection time.

“Did you have any trouble picking up the stuff?” Tim asks as he gets two glasses from the kitchen cupboard.

“Trouble?” she snorts, and her voice instantly goes from bemused to annoyed. “Do you know how hard it was to get all of this delivered without someone seeing me? Or seeing that it was baby stuff? That’s all I need now is Vicki Vale adding cradle-robbing and teen parenthood to her stories about us.”

“What’s Vicki doing this time?” Jason asks.

“She’s been trying to prove Tim’s Red Robin for the better part of a year,” Tam says. “She tried to get me to confirm that last year when all those ninjas tried to kill us, but I panicked and said we were engaged just to distract her.”

“Talk about taking one for the team,” Jason mutters.

Tim glares at him, and if he shoves the glass of water into his hands a little more forceful than he needs to, oh well. “She trots out that dead horse whenever Tam and I happen to be in the same room together.”

“Which is doing wonders for my career,” Tam deadpans. “People already scream nepotism because of who my father is, but now I’ve been reduced to either Tim Drake-Wayne’s assistant or Tim Drake-Wayne’s fiancée.”

“Hope he’s paying you overtime,” Jason says and wanders over to the intimidating tower of cardboard and plastic. He makes a face. “How much of this shit did you order? There’s like a lifetime supply of diapers here.”

“Trust me, that’ll last a month if you’re lucky,” Tam informs him. “My nieces and nephews did nothing but eat and poop for the first year of their lives.”

Jason appears vaguely horrified. His gaze rests on something else. “Is that a car seat?”

“How else were you expecting to bring home a baby? Carry her on a subway?”

Neither man has a response to this.

“Oh, this is going to go well,” she sighs. “Neither of you has any idea what you’re doing, do you?”

“That would be putting it lightly,” Tim acknowledges, and side-eyes Jason. “We should probably sit down and talk options, but that can wait until tomorrow if you want.”

“Tomorrow,” Jason agrees, and he sounds so exhausted and lost, that Jason takes pity on him.

“Come on, then. I’ll show you to the guestroom,” he offers and starts up the stairs. “It’s right next to the bathroom, if you want to shower. The water pressure here’s not great—” He shrugs, as if to say, ‘Park Row, what can you do?’ “—but it’s unlimited hot water.”

Surprisingly, Jason follows without comment.

“I’ll be here,” Tam says, and there’s an undertone to her words that suggest she’s not going anywhere until Tim explains the whole story.

And isn’t that going to be fun…

________________________________________________________________

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Next Chapter

[linzerj]

Golden Gate’s Heroes -c2

Yo so i finally finished part 2! Sorry it took so long but the dialogue really threw me off and i’m still not sure i’m happy with it. also I’m bad at writing and updating consistently so. uh. yeah please don’t get your hopes up for a speedy update i’m sorry. also sorry about the lack of venom i really just gotta rewatch the movies when i get the chance 

So after that first awkward babysitting thing where they discovered ‘oh hey you have a secret identity I have a secret identity too’, Eddie and Scott met up a grand total of three times. Two of those times were just Eddie babysitting Cassie again, because Cassie really liked him and Venom and they weren’t going to say no to that adorable kid. The first of those times was really just Eddie and Cassie hanging out again, this time at Eddie’s much-less-nice apartment. They did arts and crafts while Cassie asked Venom questions about themself, and throughout the evening Venom slowly acquired more and more glittery cut-out crowns and ribbons. They looked absolutely ridiculous, but it made Cassie happy and Eddie thought it was cute, and so they tolerated the decorations.

The second time, Scott actually invited Eddie out to dinner with him and Cassie after babysitting. It was a bit awkward, but as Eddie recalled stories from his time on The Eddie Brock Show and Scott told him stories about life before and after prison, they found more and more common ground. By the end of it, they weren’t best friends per say, but a lot of the awkwardness and tension had definitely faded down.

The third time they met up, Cassie was still there because she was great at keeping them from being too awkward and weird, but Eddie met them at Pier 39. It was just a casual time hanging out, really, but as they talked in hushed tones about Scott’s experiences as Ant-Man and how Eddie and Venom were still learning to be a functional ‘we’, Eddie figured he would definitely call Scott a friend.

Which was definitely a good thing, given his only other friends were Anne and Dan, and while they were great it was still weird to hang out with his ex-fiancée and her super nice doctor boyfriend sometimes.

Eddie figured he should introduce Scott and Cassie to Anne and Dan sometime. They’d be so proud that he had managed to make new friends, even if one of them was still only a kid who liked giving Venom flower crowns.

But first, he apparently had to meet Scott’s new girlfriend and her parents, the people who gave Scott the Ant-Man suit.

“Dude come on,” Scott was saying. This was now the fourth time they were talking face-to-face, once again after Eddie had babysat Cassie. “They’re super nice, I swear.”

“Man, I still…we still don’t know.” Eddie sighed, scrubbing his face.

“Cassie will be there if that helps, my dude.”

“I mean.” Eddie made a vague gesture. “I guess? But still.”

“Is this about not wanting to make a bad first impression, because believe me, they won’t care that much. I mean they still like me, so.”

Eddie just leveled an unimpressed look at Scott, to which Scott shrugged. “Alright so I may have also mentioned you once or twice to Hope and Hank and Jan and now they really want to meet you.”

“Dude you are the worst. Just give it a bit longer, okay?”

And the conversation effectively ended, at least for a while.

---

As much as Eddie was trying to avoid other superheroes or people who might want to tear them apart, neither he nor Venom were going to say no to Cassie’s birthday party.

We’re going to get cornered here you idiot, Venom was hissing into Eddie’s brain.

“Yeah but it’s Cassie you asshole. You really gonna say no to her?”

…no…

“So we’re sucking it up and finally doing this,” Eddie said, knocking on the door to Scott’s place. They were immediately greeted by their grinning friend.

“Hey, you made it! Cool cool, c’mon in!”

And it was normal, for a bit. Scott’s ex and her new boyfriend reminded Eddie of Anne and Dan a bit, but they didn’t pry about anything – either because they didn’t know or didn’t care. Eddie didn’t know which it was but was grateful either way.

He tried to distract himself with cake (lots of cake, chocolate cake, the best kind of cake, especially if you asked Vee), but was more than well aware of a man and two women watching with mixed looks of curiosity and anxiety from another corner of the room. They were distracted enough by Cassie too, but as the party began to wind down, guests left, and Cassie’s mom took her home, Eddie was left with Scott and the staring trio.

“Well,” Eddie said, directed mostly to Scott, “this was great, thanks for the invite, I’ll just get out of your hair now—“

“Actually, we’ve been waiting to talk to you,” the younger of the two women said, and Eddie groaned internally. He could feel Venom stirring beneath his skin, curious but also ready to protect them if needed.

“Uh, Eddie, that’s my girlfriend Hope, and her parents Hank and Janet,” Scott interjected, seeming as nervous as Eddie felt. “Guys, this is Eddie.”

“Brock, yeah,” Hank said. “Nice work taking down Drake. I knew there was something fishy going on with him but we were a bit distracted during that whole fiasco of yours.”

“Uh, thanks?” Eddie was fairly certain that was not the correct response, but it got a chuckle out of Janet, so that was fine, he supposed.

“But there is the issue of you having been – fused, or bonded, or whatever, with one of those alien symbiotes Drake was experimenting on,” Hope stated, and next to her Scott bit his lip. “The reports you gave after the incident state that you lost it, or it burned in the explosion, but there have been some reports of a large dark figure throughout the city since then – one that occasionally eats its targets. And then Scott told us about you starting to babysit for Cassie, and at the same time he started showing reluctance over tracking down the giant maneating creature. So, anything to add, Mr. Brock?”

“Hope I told you to go easy on him,” Scott muttered as Eddie blinked, and Janet rolled her eyes.

“She takes after her dad,” she said, and Hank looked affronted. But, still.

They know, Venom was hissing in his head, but their emotions were confused, unsure of if they should trust Scott’s friends, or if they should just eat them all.

Not really, Eddie thought back. From what she said, Scott never said anything specific, they all just put the pieces together on their own, and he’s trying to make everything better for us.

Hm. Cassie may like them, and Scott is okay, but still. Don’t know about what they want.

Yeah, well, let’s see, shall we? Out loud, he asked, “What if what I said isn’t true?”

“Well, legally speaking, you’d fall under the Sokovia Accords, like my daughter and this idiot here,” Hank said. Eddie was a bit offended on Scott’s behalf at the idiot comment. “If that alien is still bonded to you, you’d count as an enhanced individual, and if you were going out fighting crime and whatnot on your own, you’d be in direct violation of the Accords.”

“That’s fair. The Accords were put into place with the intention of protecting the general public, even if the first draft was rushed and had lots of loopholes that could be exploited. The current version is more sound and willing to work with the individuals who work under it. But it also requires that anyone who signs the Accords be drafted as an official Avengers member, which, y’know, some people might want to help, but they might not want to be in the spotlight like that, and just stick to what they’re doing.” This, Eddie could do. He was a reporter, after all; he’d covered the story of the original Accords, and the little ‘civil war’ that had followed it. He’d read the documents when they first came out, even if he’d had to have Anne explain the finer points and legalese to him back then. And then with Venom, he’d read the newest draft.

It wasn’t a bad thing, certainly, but they had agreed that they didn’t want to be part of the Avengers. They weren’t cut out for big-time heroics like that, and such a spotlight would make their occasional diet of humans even harder to hide, or justify.

But. Scott had proven he was willing to overlook that stuff after Eddie and Vee had explained that it was an essential part of their diet, their survival. And these people were still involved with ironing out the Accords, and could probably put in a good word on their behalf if they were nice and cooperated. But that was a risk they weren’t sure they were willing to take, at least not yet.

Janet interrupted their thoughts. “That’s why we’re working with Tony and the Accords Panel to add more amendments for people like that. We are also trying to include people who maybe go a bit too far with their vigilantism, who have killed to protect others. Right now the Accords Panel doesn’t think those types of people should be allowed unless they change completely, stop killing altogether, but even the original Avengers members had killed – look at the Black Widow and Hawkeye, for example. They both had impressive kill counts working for SHIELD, and the Widow, at least, has continued to use lethal force since joining the Avengers.”

“She’s an outlier though, Jan, we talked about that,” Hank cut in. “She’s a Russian assassin-“

“What does her being Russian have to do with anything, Hank, don’t let old grudges cloud your judgment we’ve talked about this-“

“Anyway,” Hope said, rolling her eyes at her parents, “The earlier you join, the more … uh, forgiving the Accords Panel will be about any … less than savory things you may or may not have done while trying to protect the planet, the town, your loved ones, or just yourself.”

“That’s still assuming I have the alien, though,” Eddie pointed out, trying not to laugh. Venom was snickering in the back of his mind, swirling around his body, and very much enjoying this game of cat and mouse.

Scott was looking between everyone with nervous eyes. Hank was just staring at Eddie with a kind of blank expression of disbelief; Janet was smiling conspiratorially; and Hope rolled her eyes with a huff. “Yeah, of course.”

“When you assume you make an ass out of you and me,” Scott blurted, and that, at least, earned a chuckle from Hank.

“Scott,” Hope started, but Eddie cut her off.

“Well, look, I’d love to continue this chat, but I actually have stuff to do for my job, so…”

“Yeah, man, let me show you out,” Scott said, clapping Eddie on the back and steering him toward the door. “Sorry about them,” he said in a lower, quieter tone. “I didn’t say anything but they can put two and two together and they can also be super persistent.”

“It’s fine,” Eddie said, even though it didn’t really feel fine. “It was probably going to happen sooner or later anyway. Talk to you later, man.” And Eddie and Venom made their escape.

--

It was another few weeks until Eddie and Venom saw Hope van Dyne again. They hadn’t forgotten about the conversation with her and her family, per say, just… been sufficiently distracted to let it fall to the wayside.

But having Scott walk in with Hope at the end of a day of babysitting Cassie was, well. Unexpected, to say the least. Venom, who had been providing helpful commentary to Cassie as she colored and was wearing no less than 3 flower crowns, made an attempt to duck back into Eddie before being spotted, but it was too little too late.

Hope, for her part, just leveled an unimpressed and expectant stare at Eddie, who just grinned sheepishly back. Scott, bless his innocent self, took one look at both of them and then ignored them in favor of flopping onto the floor next to Cassie and admiring her drawings. Cassie just tossed one of the dropped flower crowns at Eddie and giggled when it landed on his shoulder.

“We, uh, I… can explain?” Eddie said. Scott just shook his head.

“No you can’t.”

“Yeah no I probably can’t.”

“To be fair, I knew from the minute Scott started slipping up that something was amiss,” Hope said, “but you acting a bit weird at Cassie’s party was what really gave it away.”

“So, uh, are you gonna arrest us or something, then? Cuz like, you probably… don’t wanna do that.”

“No, you’re fine,” Hope said. “Although you probably don’t believe that, and I can understand why. But, look, if Scott trusts you, I’m willing to give you a chance.”

Everyone else blinked. “Really?” Scott asked, lighting up like a Christmas tree. “Aw, Hope! You’re the best!”

“And you’re adorable, Scott. Anyway,” Hope continued, turning back to face Eddie, “you and your alien friend or whatever should very much consider reading and signing these.” And with a flash, a huge stack of papers materialized – no, grew – in front of them.

“The freaking Accords?” Eddie snorted. “Dude, I have read them-“

“I’m aware, it’s a legal thing, your ex is a lawyer so I’m sure you understand.”

Eddie made a disgruntled sound. “We really don’t want to be an Avenger,” he said finally.

“Aw, but you guys are a hero!” Cassie piped up, finally tuning back in to the adult conversation. Eddie flashed her a grateful smile, and because they adore Cassie, Venom poked a small head out from Eddie’s shoulder to give her a toothy grin.

Scott gave them an encouraging thumbs up from next to Cassie, and even Hope looked – bemused, perhaps, at all of this. But, still. “We have, uh. Y’know.”

“Eaten people? Yeah, you’re the new local cryptid,” Hope said. “But as has been said, plenty of the Avengers have killed for one reason or another. Whatever, people will deal with it. Also, if you do sign, it’s not like you’re going to be required to move back to NYC or anything – look at Scott and myself, we’re still here.”

“Yeah but they probably will make him go out for an orientation or initiation or whatever they called it,” Scott piped up.

Eddie, Vee said into Eddie’s brain, we know we are reluctant, but also… we should give it a try. We could be better than ever! And we can meet many other superheroes too, get more friends. Eat them if they try to hurt us.

Eddie sighed. “We’ll think about it and get back to you, okay? That’s all I can promise right now.”

---

It wasn’t even a week before Eddie was giving Hope and Scott their signed copy of the Accords.

[todisturbtheuniverse]

Hi. I noticed you sometimes post about Red Dead 2 and was wondering how you feel about Sadie Adler. I like how your brain works so I was hoping you had some thoughts about her.

Thank you, anon! That’s very kind. 

I have…lots of thoughts about Sadie, all pretty complicated, starting with: I both hate and love how she enters the story.

This got so excruciatingly long, and contains spoilers for the entire game, so please find my rambling below the cut:

So, Sadie enters: screaming in rage, in pain, in fear; throwing whatever she can get her hands on at Micah (thank you, I wish you’d murdered him during this throwing spree, you had the right idea from the start); rising from the ashes of a really sickening, awful event, that robbed her of her partner, her home, her life. There is something that always, always endears me to characters like her–characters who take the punch and spit out blood and teeth and still get up and keep fighting.

But there’s the other thing, which is–it seemed to me like it was heavily implied that she was raped, even though the Wiki is now trying to make me feel like I’ve gone crazy and says that she hid in the cellar to avoid her husband’s fate, making it sound like the O’Driscolls never knew she was in the house at all. No, Wiki, I played the game, and I heard the things, I saw the things. (”I was a married woman. You know what they did to me!” She targets one O’Driscoll specifically during the last mission to finish them off for good, too, and in a pretty brutal way; this seems like the clear assailant. He could have also been the one who tortured/killed her husband, I suppose.)

To be clear, I guess, it can be uplifting to see a survivor portrayed like Sadie: she survives. Not only that, but eventually, she goes after her revenge. There can be something really powerful about that, and it speaks to me, definitely, because of my personal history. 

But I also know that this narrative, that women only become powerful after great trauma–usually sexual trauma–is overdone. In fiction we often only get “strong women” after they’ve been violated somehow and are recovering from it. Even if it’s not explicit rape, it’s metaphorical rape (the origins of the slayer in Buffy, for example). I feel like this is especially egregious in Sadie’s case because so often, our POV character rides solely with the men on missions; there are a few other times that the women participate, but rarely in a combat role. So Sadie is our primary point of reference for what a woman who “breaks the mold” in this story looks like–and she has this backstory.

Like I said. There are aspects of this narrative that work for me, personally. But it is not for everyone, and the general narrative has been overused.

Anyway. Setting all that mess aside.

Sadie is angry, even during Chapter 1 and 2, when she’s still just confined to camp. She’s also grieving in a painful, raw, genuine way. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. She describes her new normal as “a nightmare I can’t wake up from” and doesn’t sugarcoat it when Arthur asks how she’s doing. I fucking love that about her. She lives loud; she’s not ashamed. I also love that, as far as I’ve seen, the rest of the gang doesn’t trivialize her pain; Abigail in particular goes out of her way to give Sadie a lot of comfort and understanding.

And she’s lethal, absolutely lethal, when she gets back out there. Ultimately this is a game about a group of people who do some really troubling things in the name of freedom, right? I’m glad she’s not excluded from that. I’m glad that when she chooses to be, she is one of them, full stop. Arthur and Pearson give her some shit before Arthur takes her out to Rhodes, but this is the only real hiccup in that transition that I remember. And this change makes sense for her; she talks about how she and her husband shared all the work, that she wasn’t relegated to women’s work and he wasn’t relegated to men’s work, so she’s not going to chop all these damn vegetables just because. She knows where her talents are, and she’s ready to use them.

But she isn’t just that. 

We so often see her losing her head–usually as it relates to the O’Driscolls–but after the robbery in Saint-Denis and all the big guys either dying or vanishing, she keeps the rest of the gang together. She leads. She helps these people get to safety, away from the Pinkertons, in the wake of Dutch’s incredible fuck-up. (I don’t want to overlook Charles here; the way it’s told, the two of them together keep the gang together, but I think it’s really interesting that these two relative newcomers are the ones who do that. Not any of the people left who have been with Dutch for longer, but Sadie and Charles, individuals who have each lost an awful lot before coming to the gang and clearly don’t want to lose more.)

She still forms these meaningful connections–with Abigail and Arthur, in particular, I think. I get the feeling that she’s only so eager to get John out of Jail because Abigail’s so broken up about it, because she doesn’t want Abigail to lose what she’s already lost; when Abigail approaches her and Arthur she doesn’t even hesitate. And she speaks for Arthur too, haha; “We will,” said immediately, behind Dutch’s back, no question, they’re going to get John whether Dutch thinks it’s the right time or not. She has this serious, fierce compassion for Abigail and Arthur. In Chapter 3 she tells Arthur that she’s not afraid to die, and I think she probably wants to go out fighting for a long while, but I also think these connections are the beginning of her thinking, hey, maybe I want to stick around. 

And that’s the greatest part, because we see that. We see that she mellows a bit by the epilogue–she is just as fierce as ever, but there are no more sudden shooting sprees when the plan didn’t call for one. She works hard. When revenge presents itself, when she can go after Micah in Arthur’s name, she does it. And she rides alone for a long time; just as I find her ability to still form connections after what happened to her really wonderful, I also find this, the fact that she’s now comfortable with being alone, really terrific. It’s not the life she planned and certainly not the one she wanted, but she finds an adventure in it, talks about going to South America and doing more incredible, interesting things. 

I don’t think she forgets those terrible months with Dutch’s gang, though. I mean, she’s someone who thrives on a grudge, on a vendetta. She never forgets what happened to Arthur. She bides her time. She waits for the moment she can have her revenge. She keeps her ear to the ground. And when she almost dies trying to accomplish it, she still won’t give up. She drags herself that last long way up the mountain to get to Micah, even while bleeding out, even when she could hardly stand. I could just bask in the glow of her fury, tbh.

And her love, too. She thrives with the gang, no question, but she shines brightest when she’s acting from that place of love, whichever kind of love it is: be it for her husband, or for Abigail, or for Arthur.

In short: I love Sadie, would die for her, please make a game where I can have her as the POV character and do all her amazing adventures in South America, thank you, Rockstar.

[doctorpariahdax]

Stick around Corvo fans-How Daud was thrown away and enlightened as a character in Dishonored series.

This is gonna be long so buckle up kiddos. There's a couple things that immediately come to mind for fans of the Dishonored universe and from what I've come across is that you either love Daud or you hate him. And I don't think that's directly a flaw with the character himself but how he was presented. There are a couple things I want to list that I'll further elaborate on that pertain to how Daud was thrown away as a character (ruined) and elaborated on. -dauds inital purpose -mercy or le death -yay classic redemption arc - except lol maybe not what did you do -true character nature -the marked and the outsider's approval -the purpose of doto -the end of daud Now to give you full disclosure I have not yet run through all of Dishonored 2 or doto. I am by no means a completionist, I don't feel pressured to explore every nook and cranny just for some obscure letter written by one of Delilah's witches that tells you something about someone somewhere about hlahblahblhab. Now because I'm a responsible impulse efficient and self controlled person roaming social media I spoiled the end of doto for myself and I am deeply saddened because Daud is my favorite character. I don't know if it's a kink of mine to like dangerous emotionally unavailable and unattainable men (cuz he's ded. Lel nah he's fictional) but Daud was genuinely more interesting to me than Corvo. This is not to say that the first Dishonored is bad, but the story was lacking for me - I'm very much a story seeker- and when the game first came out I played the intro and immediately set down the game thinking, "ehng...". When I decided to give Dishonored another try (*cough this summer cough six years later cough*) I kept going not because of my interest in Corvo or the outsider, or getting Emily back safely (don't get me wrong I like kids but Corvo is either best or worst parent and I can't decide which); I kept going because I wanted to know more about the "villain". He's an assassin, a merc for hire which to me meant his character is either going to be really deep or inexplicably shallow. I was upset at first, he wasn't in the game as much as I thought he would be but Dishonored has a tendency to shove information by into your face /after the fact/. I spared the villain hoping I would see him again. I didn't. ....until I found out there were dlc's. Staying with my rant? Digital cookie for you. Dishonored's story telling was on par and in many cases far better than the knife of dunwall, but the first dlc was very much a setup for the brigmore witches dlc, which in turn was what I think the best story telling in the whole Dishonored series.. Gonna go into my points listed above now because either don't want you to read through this thinking it was total anxiety induced stress writing (...which it definitely isn't....by the way....) There's a general healthy mindset that people inherently dislike villains, evil doers and all round moral miscreants, Daud being an assassin for hire and not much more in Dishonored as his initial purpose was already be placed in a rough position that a portion of players might find amiable but mostly for his badassery and not much in the character development isle. The way I see it is that you first are greeted with Daud's be character development in one of two ways(or a blend): you want Corvo to be moral and spare Daud, or upon hearing that Daud reports to you there's something by inside of him suffering you spare him to let him suffer more. Daud's intial purpose was to be a 'bad guy' and in either scenario he is still seen as being the bad guy or getting a cliche "this is worse than death and you deserve to suffer" sort of ending. When you come to knife of dunwall Daud is...tired. there's no simpler way for me to describe it. He's lived above and away from any higher power than himself (cuz we all know the outsider doesn't seem to give a hair on his left ball about Daud but he'd dress in drag and do the hula for Corvo...#dauddeservesbetterfriends) And we know or at least can vetire the thought that Daud has adjusted to his life as a killer, but he doesn't seem active enjoyment from it. I'm not exonerating Daud's tendency for murder, but think of it this way, he is a serial killer by death count but he's not a Ted Bundy or Hannibal Lecter. Killing doesn't give him satisfacyion, it is just a job and people are hard to become attached to when you have to look at them often as return receipts and cashiers. That's not to say that Daud doesn't feel love. I genuinely think he loved Billie as a sort of best friend and daughter. The death of empress kaldwin has hit daud hard too. He knew it was a bad idea but it was habit, it was just a contract, and jessamine meant nothing of compromise to Daud personally. When Daud is betrayed by Billie and given a death date from the outsider Daud has already submitted in some form to his own fleeting mortality and is pained after decades of his reputation getting ahead of himself to the point where he wouldn't say 'no' to a contract. I feel that Daud felt as though he was becoming more of a Lecter esque serial killer to the public, that who he was, his identity had been lost underneath the bodies he's left in his wake...and he regrets all of it, realizing its futility, pointlessness. People are just contracts to him, but he never actively sought to I'll with the purpose of hurting the very fiber of others' existence... When you spare Daud as Corvo his single line proclaiming how extraordinary your willingness to give him clemency is isn't a line to me that was ultimately thrown to the wind, it was something that genuinely sparked upset and fascination in Daud. Corvo did something Daud hadn't done since he had moved from serkonos, and without the incentive of pay - Corvo decided to spare a life. That ruptures something deeply in Daud, who had already endured his midlife crisis and brings me to the third bullet point "classic redemption arc" although it does matter what you do....that changes Daud's character to me...idk. All in all the only right way I saw to play brigmore witches was to go non-lethal stealth...and trick Delilah into her own spell. Daud is a master assassin. It made no sense for him to merely go jumping around murdering everyone who saw him (this is how I initially played Corvo because dayum I was bad at stealth games also pc controls, but then again Corvo isn't a master assassin when you first meet him...Daud is). After a struggle with Delilah, you hold onto the platform and read her citations and she flies off of you, into the painting, I wanted there to be a classic breathless hero who mutters calmly "gotta quit smoking" ( drum crash) and goes about his business. But! Something I feel a lot of fans of Dishonored overlook is that Daud had no need to further pursue Delilah. He could easily have faded into obscurity around the second mission when he realized that Delilah was after Emily and not him, but he ventures forward, accepting his fate - tired and downtrodden about his choices and the inevitable futility of his fate- in the efforts to save the life and hope that still exists in young Emily, the daughter of the empress he murdered right before her eyes. It's a move of an apology, a silent, self accepting apology with no further requirements for acknowledgement. Which brings me to the true nature of daud in addition to the nature and approval of the outsider to his marked ones. Daud in canon does not kill but traps Delilah. Daud is a mater assassin. He's quick he's quiet he is an efficient man with little room in his life or care for killing as a sport....he is to some extent evil, but he is not incapable of doing good to simply do good. The outsider is decribed furtively as a true neutral character who appeals to the benevolent options but is known to commit 'evil' by not intervening. He seems to be a strong advocate of free will but does extend the occasional helpful hint to his marked ones. Daud is told by the outsider that how he handles Delilah will be viewed with great curiosity which is another added caveat to Daud's evolution as a character and devolution as an identity. The outsider became bored with Daud, stopped willingly checking on him, but when Daud does the 'unusual' sparing Delilah but torturing her for (what was supposed to be eternal) ...he gains the outsider's favor, even if for juat a moment. He fades into obscurity for both Corvo and the outsider, even to his own men, abandoning the identity of 'daud' and presumably not going on a killing spree. The purpose of doto.....I'm not 100% sure of a 'purpose', but doto makes or breaks Daud for most people. For me it did both. But it didn't break Daud's character development for me because he saw the outsider specifically as an excuse for all the murder and the theiving and the murder and did I mention Daud murdered? He had to kill the outsider to prevent another 'daud'. The outsider was the omniscient condoner. 'daud' would not have ever easily existed to such fame or success without the aid and the passive/spontaneous condoning of the outsider and his abilities. Few be if any would have managed to be a 'daud' identity without being able to be so far above the confines of human abolity to cheat mortal instruments of death.... Corvo and his attempt to save Emily would have been a fly's breath shy of impossible without the outsider to tinker with the impossibilities. Daud's action to kill the outsider was selfish, I can see and agree with that, but he only wanted to destroy the exoneration of evil, not to simply forgive his transgressions by eradicating and blaming the one who allowed and corroborated with him to be such. How doto has presented Daud in doto and how many people have received and reacted to Daud's presented purpose in doto did misrepresent and destroy in some regards the development they took with Daud's character, but let me reiterate that his character development itself was not thrown out the window, it was how his character was presented in a plot and the narrative around doto. ...let me again remind you I said I haven't exactly finished doto....because I spoiled it for myself and I don't want Daud to die...again....finally? Maybe not the right words - oh look I've made myself sad, fancy that - but the point. Of this ramble which now I don't know how to end and I don't think I've ever spent so long on Tumblr in one sitting .... Daud is not a poorly constructed character. Doto poorly presented him and he deserved better. Doto also made Daud's character solidfied. He's not a gentle being. He's stern, violent, reserved and determined, but he's also deeply emotional and self loathing. He aspires to destroy the outsider because of what the outsider allowed in to do, he did not pursue or seek to blame the outsider into naively forgiving himself for the crimes he committed. It was a matter of settling his conscience. Probably with the abuse of his powers, a lot of stress, whiskey, cigars, and breaking a handful of bones repeatedly over his career and his guilt Daud was well aware he was on his deathbed long before Billie found him and he had been haunted by his blindness and decades of him /having forgiven and forgotten/ his crimes that it drove him to death. Daud is not a poorly constructed character. I would argue he was a character that the Dishonored series put the most time and effort into.

[kanralovesu]

In Defense of the Death Note Live Action Movie

This movie has a lot of bad moments, and a few of REALLY bad moments (namely the chase sequence and the ferris wheel plummet to death), but people seem to be overlooking all the good or even great moments. Hell, overall I’m going to come out and say I’d rate this a solid 7/10 stars. I’d like to explain why I like this so much so hopefully people don’t get blinded by criticisms. 

Spoilers ahead.

The first part of this movie I really liked was L. Light, Misa, and Ryuk are all fundamentally not the same characters as they are in the anime. Light went from being a sociopath try to build a new world to being more of an angry teenager and an audience stand-in. Misa went from being manipulated to doing the manipulating (She was actually more like the original Light than this Light was). Ryuk went from a bored passive bystander looking for something interesting to a god who loves to inflict death in fun ways. Making changes like this is perfectly ok. We call it “adapting” not “preserving” for a reason. 

While all these characters were changed to accommodate for the adaptation, L was not he, he was evolved. Here’s where I make probably my most heinous accusation: L was a better character in the live action movie. Before you tell me how you’ve written my name in the Death Note, let me explain. L in the animated series did not go through any noticeable character development. He was the wacky, cool, hyper-intelligent detective all the way to the end and I loved him for that. The L in the this movie, however, was all those things but more. He witnessed the death of his best friend and this CHANGED him. In his rage he attempted to straight up kill Light, something he said he would never do. In the end of the movie we’re left wondering where he gets corrupted by rage and kills Light using the Death Note or whether he goes through the proper means and arrests Light. This makes him a fundamentally more dynamic character than in the original anime. 

This ties in to my second favorite bit about this movie: the ending. Let me be clear I am only talking about everything after the ferris wheel scene. I also want to make it clear that the execution of this scene was bad, but the ideas where fantastic. What I love about this scene is how it played into L and Light’s father’s characters and the entire theme of the movie so well. This scene is all about the ambiguity of whether is actually ok to use the Death Note, a topic not really explored in the anime. Light’s father finally finds out his son is Kira but doesn’t immediately burst out in anger at him. This is because he understands the motivations for his son. After all, he was also happy when the mother’s killer died (which by the way was another small great moment of the film). He might have even done the same. This is yet another character who is done arguably better in the film.

This ending shows one of the major points of the film that differs significantly from the anime. In the anime Light was evil. There was no question of this. The Death Note was evil. It allowed for terrible crimes to be committed. This movie significantly westernizes this approach. America is a country where you can carry a gun and can even kill in self defense. Japan is a country that outlaws guns. Notice the difference in perspective? The Americanized version of Death Note decides to ask the question “At what point is using a weapon like the Death Note ok?” whereas the Japanese version straight up says its evil. The U.S. is naturally a place where this kind of conversation would actually be a discussion as opposed to a one-side agreement. 

Now, before you hang me for getting all political, I’d like to point out that there is a difference between preaching an opinion and opening a discussion. The western Death Note doesn’t actually preach any opinion on the matter. All it says is that you shouldn’t become a psychopath like Misa and start killing a bunch of innocents with it. I hope both cultures can agree this is bad. Hell, its not even a bad thing that the anime does paint Light as evil. Its all a matter of the story the author wants to tell. The western Death Note wants to ask a question on the nature of the use of weapons and lethal force. This is why I absolutely LOVE the ending to this movie. We don’t know which side L will take. This film asks a question and doesn’t answer it. While counter-intuitive I think this enhances the movie. If L had been shown to choose one option this option would have been portrayed as the fundamentally good choice considering L is seen as “the good guy”. Leaving his choice open lets the audience decide and therefore opens up discussion about the topic. 

There are a lot of other random things I liked about this movie like the role Ryuk and Misa take, but I hope I’ve made you see that this isn’t just another dumb cash grab. This is not a good movie, but saying its a bad movie doesn’t give it enough credit. Just saying “oh boy another shit anime adaptation” completely shuts down the potentially interesting discussion this film attempts to make. We can’t just shun anything that’s bad or worship anything that’s good. As Light’s dad would say, things aren’t that black and white. 

TL;DR:

Death Note’s Americanized adaptation is a solid 7/10 for me because while it does somethings really badly it also has a lot of great bits too. I love the portray of L. He is both faithful to the original and dare I say better because he actually undergoes serious character development. The ending is amazing in theory but unfortunately they screwed up the execution a little. I think its good because it tries to open a discussion on whether weapons like the Death Note should actually be used. This is a topic not explored in the anime due to the noticeable different cultures between the U.S. and Japan. Overall I think saying that this is just another shit anime movie completely shuts down any discussion that could possibly spring from this. 

[atlaswriting]

“You strangled her.” It isn’t a question and he doesn’t flinch at the words. I don’t hold them behind teeth, don’t swallow it down because the sharpness is too much for my throat. Instead he shifts in the chair, unbuttons his three-piece and leans back, elbows over the edge of leather. “It’s not something you’re denying either, is it?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be bias, Doc?” the smirk is lethal—much more deadly than the weapon strapped to his waist. Sergeant Jacobs leans his head to the side, licks his lips and straightens out his face, “I’m not going to deny it—I did. To be fair, she was going to tell my wife that we were sleeping together. She was going to show her the videos we made—the pictures, the gifts from Paris. That whore was going to ruin everything I’ve ever worked for, everything I’ve ever built.”

For the first time since we started our sessions three weeks ago I see a glimpse of the real Tom Jacobs. A man who jumped out of the pages of a fairytale: strong chiseled jaw, blond hair and a honeyed smile that would entrap even the strongest bees. For the first time I see the monster peaking out of his throat, rot-black and sulfuric, just itching to come out. I see a fallen God and the man who tried climbing his way back to Olympus.

“You mean,” I pause, shifting through the papers in my lap, “everything your father has ever handed you?” I wait beat, heart jumping into my throat—the man has at least eight inches on me, half my body weight and refused to leave his gun at home like I’ve asked. His fingers twitch and the lines on his face contort. “Frankie was an escort you met during a sting operation, right? She was—fifteen at the time? And you began your affair roughly six months later, which tells me that you don’t care about your wife or the law, you just don’t want to lose your title. So you thought you would—,”

“Is this an interrogation or is this—,”

“I’m not finished, Mr. Jacobs,” I sharpen my voice on a whetstone—sit up straight, uncross my legs at the ankle and try to appear bigger. I steady the thunder rolling through my veins, will my heart to slow and I continue, “You thought you would try to murder Miss Hargraves because you believe your pride to be more important than her life. Is this correct?”

He doesn’t answer, dark eyes not breaking their grip on me—intimidation of the most intimate kind. Tom unclenches his fist only to curl his fingers—he drops his hands by his waist and my eyes fall to the gun. A dare bubbles up my throat—I wish you would—sitting at the tip of my tongue.

“If you had the choice between your life or someone else’s which would you choose, Miss Keene?” He asks, “Frankie isn’t dead. If I wanted her dead, she would be and I wouldn’t be sitting here right now, I’d be on some Island in the middle of nowhere. I let her live because I wanted to—because I’m gracious. If she thinks she’s going to get a cent out of this lawsuit, she is going to make a lot bigger enemies than just me. That’s the thing about the police academy,” he explains, “us before them.”

My tongue moves wildly behind my teeth, hand gripping my pen so tight that my knuckles ache, “I think that’s all I need to hear, Mr. Jacobs,” I tell him through a clenched jaw, “I will enjoy seeing you in court next week.”

I mimic him standing, spine pulling me painfully straight as I walk him to the door. He stops just short of stepping out and takes my hand, “I really hope you tell our truth, Doc. I’d hate to see anything happen to you.”

♡ ♡ ♡

then.

Smoke sits thick in the air, mixing with the nauseating stench of thrown up whiskey and cheap perfume it takes a fifth shot of tequila to calm the storm in my stomach.

I’ve been coming to Sal’s in southie since my Freshman year. Sal—also known as Sally to her customer’s is a broad, short woman whose multi-colored hair is always pulled up into a bun at the top of her head. She’s been in her fifties for at least thirty years—but I’ve seen her force unruly truckers out of their stools and into the frozen streets of Boston with only one hand.

“You’ve been here since three.” Sal finally says, setting a glass of water down in front of me, “I haven’t seen you eat all day—just stare. I love ya, kid, but you’re kind of creeping me out a little.” When I don’t move, she forces the glass closer to me, “Now I ain’t gonna ask again.”

I pick it up and force down half with her eyes still on me, “I don’t know if I’m made for this, you know? Digging into people’s mind, hell, I don’t even want to go into my own.” She snorts at this, “I’m serious, you know! It’s messy. I’ve had enough mess. Maybe I should become a baker.”

“Can you bake?”

“I can—but it being edible, that’s a different story.”

Sal leans on her elbows, “Darlin’ now I’m not saying this to be an ass—but that’s bullshit. You’re scared and you’re being a little bitch because of it.”

“You’re an awful friend.”

“And an awful bartender—yet you guys keep coming back.”

She stops talking when someone sits next to me, “Sorry sweetie, but I’m not about that underage life. What’re you 15?”

He laughs—something throaty and deep, “Eighteen, but thank you I’m just here for—,”

“He a friend of yours?” Sal turns to me, ready to toss him out like a used toothpick, “brother?”

“Something like that.” I look over at Jude, “How did you even know I was here?” Everything slows—his laugh, my blinking, and the same old Fleetwood Mac songs that play on repeat. I feel the few peanuts that I ate when I first sat down start to climb back up my throat.

Jude doesn’t miss a beat; he leans down and picks up my bags, throws my arm around his shoulder and lifts me up. Tennis shoes offer little to close the height gap between us and as we walk toward the front door, I stumble even more than if I were talking alone, “You texted me, remember? Said you couldn’t drive home. Here I am, to save the day.”

♡ ♡ ♡

now.

I should have said no.

Should have told them that I knew him on a personal level, that it was a conflict on interest—should have told him that my heart was the conflict.

But I didn’t. Put my hand over

my mouth and swallowed the warnings like a shot.

“You’re nervous? You don’t get nervous—should I be nervous?” Kea sits behind her desk in front of my office, “this guy isn’t a serial killer is he? Oh my god—Geo, I told you, stop taking on killers. I don’t have my will drafted up.”

I roll my eyes, unclench my jaw and shake my shoulders, “He isn’t a serial killer, Kea. He isn’t violent.”

“Except on the ice.” She says, “listen those blades are sharp. Maybe he has a few bodies in his closet, you don’t know.”

The door opens and Kea’s mouth falls open with words she no longer wanted to say, “now I can tell why you’re nervous.” She whispers, “Hide the ring—or hell, don’t, he can kill me with his hockey stick any day.”

“Shut it.” I whisper back, nudging my elbow into her side. “Jude,” his name fits in my mouth like a glove—the familiarity of the letters never left my mouth, “Judah—Mr. Shepherd, please come in.”

We don’t say anything—the only noise punctuating the silence is the ticking of the clock on the wall. His stare never falters and I do everything in my power to look anywhere but at him: the papers in my lap, the window overlooking buildings with a straight view to the beach and to his hands which lay on top of his shaking leg.

“You’re feeling angry I see—I—uh,” words die in my throat before I get a chance to say them, lips moving too fast and tongue sitting too heavy. “How are you?” I finally ask, “I meant to call when he told me you were coming to LA. I meant to catch up with you.” We both know I’m lying. I’d never been good at closure, foot always on one side the door, a suitcase always packed. I think of all the dinners I’ve purposely missed, texts that have went unanswered and voicemails that were deleted.