#not the point of this post but as someone who used to transcribe it's bugging me

[kittyoverlord]

Mary ann I would die for you.

(also she says "Fuck you!" Not "Fuck no!" RIP the dropout corrections discord channel - they made it a support form now with makes it a lot harder to submit corrections lowering accessibility. Yay!)

[mybg3notebook]

Gale: Manipulation, Lies, and Trust

Disclaimer Game Version: All these analyses were written up to the game version v4.1.104.3536 (Early access). As long as new content is added, and as long as I have free time for that, I will try to keep updating this information. Written in June 2021.

Additional disclaimers about meta-knowledge and interpretations in this (post) while disclaimers about Context in this (one).

Before anything I strongly suggest reading this post about "Context, persuasion, and manipulation" to understand in a simplified way the meaning of the words we use, so despite not being related to bg3, it's related to communication and social issues. Since fandom loves to misuse them, I think it requires a proper explanation so we all know in which frame we are analysing these scenes. 

Due to the fact that this post ended up turning into a much longer one than I wanted to, I split it into four posts, each of them showing how many sides Gale has in those scenes, how much his actions are "manipulative", how many details related to lore he shares, and possible interpretations of his behaviour, since it's rather easy to lose his scenes because they have the lowest priority. In this post I will only make a summary and a compilation of the broad details explained in those posts, so pick what you want to read since all these posts may have overlap of information and repetitive concepts (they were written to be self-contained as much as possible).

'Stew'Scene

"Loss Scene"

"Party Scene" (with Revelation scene)

"Extra Scenes": Death Protocol and Comments on Dreams

I'm analysing these scenes in detail because I noticed that many players incorrectly paraphrase Gale's words, putting in his mouth words he never said, so for the sake of transparency, I transcribed many fragments of his dialogues, making these posts more lengthy than they should be.

The stew scene

The details are shown in the post of the "'Stew'Scene". In this scene, Gale shares a friendly introduction with the stew and with a list of good deeds done by Tav. This shows that he has begun to trust Tav so he can talk about this issue earlier than he wanted to (he will wait much longer in the neutral version). As a gesture of honesty, Gale sets an explicit boundary by telling Tav to refrain their curiosity and do not ask about the 'why' of the issue he is about to talk about (under no circumstance he is forcing Tav to agree with the delivery of artefacts before telling them 'what' he needs). He acknowledges that it may be unfair not to give the whole context, but he still can't speak in detail about this very personal issue. As an interesting detail, his trust in Tav at this moment of the conversation is so honest that he has not shielded his mind, so Tav can intrude with the tadpole without Gale knowing it—if Tav succeeds— . If Gale doesn't trust Tav even successful intrusions of the tadpole can be perceived by Gale's trained and cautious mind. For more detail read the post of "The Tadpole".

I personally interpret the stew scene as one of those moments in which one is developing a friendship with a stranger, and at some point, someone has to trust first. It's a rare occasion in which the act of trust is shared in equal measure by both members in a new relationship. Usually, one of them offers a bigger portion of trust, testing the other, seeing if it was not misplaced or if it will be honoured later. It's a normal asymmetry, and in this case, Gale is only explicitly asking for that asymmetry in his favour. 

Considering how Gale opens up later, Tav passed the test in his eyes. Helping him during his direst moment and accepting that temporal trust asymmetry made Tav “earn the respect of years” despite being a stranger he met a couple of days or weeks ago. But Gale will not be blind to that gesture. He will progressively honour that trust in the Weave, the Loss, and the Revelation scenes. And by the end of EA, if it is not bugged as usual, Gale's approval status can change to “best friend” (an information given as meta-knowledge, therefore very unlikely to be "a trap set by Gale". For more details read the post about "meta-knowledge").

It's pretty common for manipulative characters (whose trait of manipulation belongs to their personality, not characters who may have circumstantial manipulative actions) to expose their pain too soon with strangers as a tool to force empathy on the listener and "catch" them. Gale does exactly the opposite: he won't open up until having a solid ground where to place his trust. Nobody wants to share their pain in unsafe places, after all. 

Helping him with artefacts is deeply appreciated by him and a great boost of his approval for obvious reasons: people tend to place their trust on persons who helped them in their most desperate situations or in their survival. It has to do with the unique connection that often happens between survivors of extreme situations (war-like) who helped each other in surviving. The shared link is deep. One could expect this link to be built with any of Tav's companions since the Tadpole experience is traumatising and extreme. I think this has higher chances of happening with neutral and good aligned companions, since evil ones may have little scruples to not honour the trust received. 

Gale could have avoided Tav's questions and mistrust for this secrecy by just lying. However, Gale opts for an explicit enunciation of his limits and boundaries. And Tav is completely free to agree or not since Gale won't abandon the party if not. We know that, in that case, he will try to find another solution that he may find in Raphael's deal. Some players consider this situation of mutual agreement in the terms and conditions that the conversation will happen as a coercive one. What I see is diplomacy and negotiation rather than manipulation.

Gale's need for secrecy is related to two factors: 

Survival: He needs to be sure that Tav won't kill him out of fear (which we saw during the scene with Nettie; it's a common procedure in Faerûn: exterminate what's dangerous). Gale's case is even worse because killing him will only activate the devastation he is desperate to avoid: Gale wants to survive but also wants to avoid the massacre that the “orb” can cause.

Personal reasons: Which is the main reason at this point: Gale is unable to speak about the "why" of this condition because it's originated in Mystra's abandonment and the horror of the “orb”: such traumatising experience that turns the Tadpole experience into an inconvenience (this is why his attitude with the tadpole is more relaxed too, he has already passed through a much worse, terrifying situation). 

The Loss scene reinforces this concept when we see Gale—usually so verbose and impossible to shut up— can't speak or find the words to say what he lost and why. And only by the end of the scene, if Tav insisted with many checks, he managed to say something. It's worth noting that these checks tend to be strangely low for a character who is struggling with a personal secret. This is usually understood in DM-code as Gale wanting to share this info (setting a lower DC than the average). Gale is not finding the way to do it, and a Tav gently pushing him will do the trick. 

It is for this reason I personally think that Gale's secretive attitude is more like a series of obvious clues he purposely leaves in his conversations for Tav to draw their own conclusions before he could finally open up. If all Gale's scenes are triggered (which at this moment is very hard to do with his priority being always the lowest) and Tav pushes him to speak more than he is willing to, the player obtains a decent amount of information to conclude that Mystra and Gale had a deeper relationship, and that the “orb” is something dangerous not only for Gale. To be honest, the death protocol is a gigantic red flag pointing out that Gale's primary condition is not to be taken lightly and “many innocents” can die because of it. 

With a neutral or lower approval, Gale will not ask Tav to trust in him. He doesn't trust Tav either, and there is no promise to speak and disclose his condition later. Gale clearly is more mindful and caring with a medium or higher approval Tav who he is starting to see as a good companion/friend, while with a neutral or lower approval Tav he cares little about keeping the contact beyond what diplomacy demands.

It's not by chance that this Stew scene is meant to happen before the Weave scene. From a narrative, contextual point of view, the trust that Tav gave Gale during the Stew scene is afterwards paid with the Weave and the Loss scene. Let's remember that Gale would only ask for that trust if Tav is of medium or higher approval, so the Weave scene comes naturally (when not bugged). The neutral and low approval Tav is never asked for that trust and therefore the Weave scene never happens (if their approval keeps going down). In fact, Gale can leave permanently without any chance of convincing him to stay if he reaches very low approval. What I mean is that, from a narrative point of view, the Weave and the Loss scenes are Gale's way to return that trust that Tav gave him first during the stew scene and the first artefact consumption.

The Weave was not a premeditated scene. It happened by surprise, triggered by Gale's deep loneliness: Tav startled him when he was longing for Mystra while seeing her image in his incantation. He shares in that moment how important and vital magic is in his life, and only then, the previous actions done by Tav encourage him to share this experience. It's important to highlight that this is too personal for Gale, too important, and a bit painful too, since we know later (second dream) that every time he connects with the Weave, he meets with Mystra's disappointment: "What magic I can still weave is met only with undercurrents of disappointing silence." 

After a moment of rambling, Gale invites Tav to share this experience. Here is where all the branches about explicitly displaying Tav's romantic interests can be developed; a neutral option for a friendship path, or very aggressive and violent reactions can be picked as well. More details about this scene can be read in the post of "Gale Hypotheses- Part 2", section: "Proposition to Cheat". And again, for a char so guarded of his own privacy and personal issues, sharing the Weave can be clearly seen as the repayment of the trust that Gale received from Tav during the stew scene.

The Loss scene 

The Loss is a scene that starts with a mystery about Gale's incapacity to cast a spell. He keeps pushing Tav away, claiming that night to be of personal regrets. Tav knows already that something is dangerous in Gale's consumption of artefacts that can cause a catastrophe, so in this scene some links can be made between the two conditions.

If Tav gently pushes Gale to speak, we will notice that most DCs are rather low, meaning that Gale is not putting a strong resistance for the pushing: a friendly Tav pushing him can be interpreted as Gale wanting extra help to open up and speak (in the end he approves the caring despite his reserved persona). Gale gives many hints in this scene that suggest he was a Chosen of Mystra. The most relevant one is the Silver Fire reference. For more details about the Chosen's powers read the post about "Mystra and her Chosen ones".

We also see a reinforcement of Gale's pattern behaviour: He prefers to speak in this poetic way when he has to talk about painful topics (we see it after killing the druids that triggers “the barren oak” scene or during the goblin party scene). Talking in third person puts distance, but also the embellishment of his narration makes it easier for him to speak, after all he is a poet/storyteller as well. 

What's clear is that the verbose companion, who always has a lot to talk about, is basically speechless in this scene, stuck in his "loss" (literally, metaphorically, and psychologically speaking). Part of this behaviour can be understood a bit more in the post about "Gale Hypotheses- Part 1", section: "Grooming". Besides being a private person, Gale also has a perspective that talking about things that can't be changed is useless. He is so stuck in the loss, that talking about it means nothing to him, "the outcome" is always the same. 

After pushing Gale to share his burden, the presence of Mystra in Gale's life is undeniable for Tav. Gale sounds like a strong devotee that somehow lost Mystra. We know in this short description that he “did something” to impress his Goddess and earn her favour back, and in doing it, he failed, invoking death upon him. If Tav is sharp enough, knowing that Gale's consumption of artefacts is related to a “catastrophe” and a certain death of himself... maybe they can start connecting some dots and suspect that Gale's primary condition may be related to the loss of Mystra. My point is, even Tav has been informed quite a lot about Gale's “truth”. As we can see, the “Revelation” scene should not be such a shocking “revelation” as it was written, but more a “detailed description” of the situation.

The context seems clear so far: Gale knows he hides the details of his condition (which are not so hidden anymore), and knows that it's information that can cause a second abandonment (whether as a friend or a lover). Gale is at this point in his life very tired and lonely of struggling with the “orb” inside him too. He could use some emotional support, and this is why I believe he has less tough DCs that one should expect from a character who is actively holding information he doesn't want to share. We need to remember that Gale lives in a permanent anxiety mind-state, too focused on Artefacts and the disaster he can cause, increased with the dreadful, hungry feelings that the “orb” inspires with each passing day. He is getting fond of Tav at this point, and their abandonment would mean too much, even though he knows that he may deserve it. 

We know that Mystra abandoned him, but did not ban him from using the Weave. I personally speculate that maybe Gale's point of view of the situation of the “orb” and the following abandonment of Mystra is partial: Mystra may have abandoned him not on purpose but as a consequence of having that Weave-sucking power in his chest. As it was explained in the post of "Mystra and her Chosen ones", Chosen ones have a deeper connection with her, and they are able to use raw magic in the form of Silver Fire. This means that Chosen are part of Mystra herself (in Dead Masks, it's stated that Mystra leaves a bit of her own divinity in each of her Chosen), so Chosen ones are also part of the Weave, always connected to Mystra who is the Weave. If the “orb” inside Gale consumes Weave, and we all know that Weave IS Mystra, it's not too far to conclude that Mystra may have abandoned him as a safety measure since, if Gale remained as Chosen, his contact with her would be deeper and would expose her to the “orb”, destroying her eventually. But this, again, it's a mere personal speculation.

The party scene

Gale has finally reached a degree of trust in Tav that gives him enough courage to finally speak about the details of the "orb" (and I emphasise details because in broad aspects, he already shared what's most important: the “orb” in his chest is a dangerous thing. If Tav assisted in his death protocol, this is undeniable by now, unless Tav did not pushed him and respected his privacy).

If he is romanced, he promises much more: confessions in the art of conversation, pleasures in the art of the body, and, hopefully, acceptance. For Gale, acceptance is a big deal: I personally believe he shows a fair level of naivety on this matter. It seems (especially later, with his arguments in the morning) he thought he needed this level of intimacy to reach acceptance first (a process that this book guarantees to happen), so he could speak openly. He wants to have this night before any confession because he wants to acquire acceptance which, in his mind, would prevent the abandonment he viscerally fears.

Gale is so eager to spend the night with Tav first and confess later that the only way of not doing it is not romancing him at all or telling him that Tav is not in the mood. It's not clear in EA if this ends the romance; I think it doesn't since the disapproval is not big (there is no change in the approval status).

 Gale wants to be with Tav intimately so badly that he doesn't mind Tav having casual sex with other companions first as long as the "commitment" part would be established with him. This is reinforced by the fact that, if Tav never shared the Weave with Gale, there is no way to sleep with him: Gale is not a character for one-stand nights. He craves for deep connection, for commitment, in whatever fashion he can get it. Mystra taught him not to ask about exclusivity after all, and because of the ephemeral nature of his relationship with her, he craves for something meaningful and more committed.

Mystra was his first love. After her abandonment, he made the mistake of the “orb” that dragged all his energy into studying Netherese magic and possible solutions. I consider it fair to think that maybe Gale never had a relationship beyond the Goddess, and all what he learnt about romantic relationships was through books like the one he mentions or, as a poet, through novels or romantic poetry. He must have an idealisation of love (also proper of a poet) that made him believe that through sex “intimacy” there is a guarantee of acceptance. 

His pattern, in my opinion, says that he tends to make mistakes in his emotional state, which is mostly triggered by the “orb” and the potential of “abandonment”. Not so much with Mystra herself. He seems to be nostalgic, but more aware of what loving a God causes (his regret is explicit during the conversation about Karsus). He seems to be quite done with "her romantic love", but that doesn't mean he doesn't want to be forgiven nor he doesn't love her as the essence of Magic itself. More details in the post of "Mystra and her Chosen ones". 

Some players see the “Revelation” scene as manipulative. Although that's personal interpretation, if we analyse the kind of information withheld by Gale we found little new: the dangerous nature of the “orb” had been indirectly disclosed in all the previous scenes. Tav being surprised about the “orb” seems strange. And Gale sleeping with Mystra has little relevance: in a game for adults, why are past partners such a big deal? The scene is so confusingly written to make it sound as if Gale is still in love with Mystra, but previous scenes showed he has been working on getting over it. Despite loving Mystra as the embodiment of Magic herself, Gale showed to be very aware that all that love belonged to the past (second dream), to a younger self, and even though he is not certain if he loves her still, he is clear that nothing good comes from relationships between mortals and gods (comments on Karsus). He is very explicit about desiring her forgiveness (second dream). So, there is little withholding information at this point for a Tav who pushed him to speak. Now, Gale's attitude certainly has been tactless. Not the best decision to disclose a past lover with such a degree of fascination just after sharing a night with Tav. But it's understandable since in order to “disclose” the “orb”, Gale needed to provide the context of his young love for the Goddess.

The whole scene of the Revelation seems very, very unpolished, mixing tones and confusing information that was given before and presenting it as if it were a revelation when it's not the case. It jumps from one drama concept to another, and never sticks to one, and Tav's options tend to be extreme: or the player calls this disclosure a “great betrayal”, or makes it seem as if nothing has happened, giving little options of what Tav already knows, or if they want to show a moderate annoyance since most of the information has been disclosed already, but still Gale's timing is annoying. Part of this can also be written on purpose to show what a disaster Gale is when it comes to the potential of “another abandonment” in his life. Hard to tell in EA.

Tav's romantic options react as if Gale confessed to have cheated on them, while what he explains has a different degree of conflict: he confesses he is not sure he still loves Mystra, but his lines in previous scenes show he wants to get over it, without losing his magic/relationship with Mystra, because magic is too important in Gale's life. At times, Tav's options are meant for them to react with jealousy, other times as if this were a big betrayal, or as if Gale's romantic past should have been disclosed before the night, and in the last part of the scene, Larian remembered that the “orb” could be considered a conflict too, so Tav has some occasional options to react to the “orb” as if it were a big revelation (when it's not, because we had 3 scenes, four if we include the death protocol, stating its dangerous nature). So, I personally understand why every person has a completely radical interpretation of the situation: it has been written in a rush, and I see it as very inconsistent in tone and context. This all makes sense when one remembers Kevin VanOrd stream where he explained that Gale was meant to be in the second wave of companions, and not in EA. Gale's writing was rushed and it shows in the last of his scenes and his meeting scene. 

Some people may argue that talking about a previous lover right after sharing the first night is, at the least, a very bad taste. However, the player (not Tav) can understand the reason behind it: Gale started the story in order to explain in detail the "why" that has been left up in the air since the stew scene. That "why" can only be explained if Gale discloses Mystra's relationship as the origin of his mistake. So... on one hand, this disclosure right after the shared night is unfortunate for Tav (especially by picking the long version of the explanation in which Gale shares too much unnecessary detail). On the other hand, if he omits this relationship, it's harder to explain the context of why he got the “orb” in his chest. 

In general I think this scene has been handled poorly. The whole “conflict” portrayed here implies two aspects: He slept with Mystra, and he has an explosive “orb” in his chest. Neither of them are truly big arguments for the drama degree that this scene seemed to have been written because we already know, to a certain degree, about them. 

The “orb” is not truly “such a revelation” at this point. The stew scene alone gave Tav and the player a clear idea that something in Gale could cause a catastrophe without consuming artefacts. After the death protocol that certainty is clearer. So, these “revelations” are more like “extra details” of problems we already know about. Which is what he exactly says when introducing this scene: “Those are but the broad strokes. The time has come to paint you the true picture”. 

Having past lovers seems also a strange concept for a “betrayal”. Adults carry pasts. It's true that maybe speaking of a past lover in the same moment he awoke with a recent one is in a pretty bad taste; it's a bit more understandable when you finish the scene: the origin of the “orb” problem was Gale's love for Mystra, so it makes sense to start from her. However, I see the conflict of the conversation switching constantly in three directions: the fact that Gale had a lover that didn’t talk about the previous day, that “Gale is still in love with Mystra”, and that he has an “orb” that Tav “never” knew about it. A very inconsistent conversation.

It's true that Mystra is not a standard lover—she is a goddess—but she is quite known to have these affairs (at least for the player), especially during her past when her direct contact with any human was not banned. It should be more surprising that Mystra seemed to have broken that ban for Gale's case (since she only kept in direct contact with her chosen ones: Ao's decree). And it's also clear the scene tries to show that Gale is still “in love” with her, which is very confusing with what he spoke during the Loss and mainly, during the second dream. Again, I personally feel the scenes of the party and the romance are a mess from a cohesive narrative point of view, and they are the result, alongside Gale's first meeting, of his rushed introduction into EA.

This post was written in June 2021. → For more Gale: Analysis Series Index

[crabbbage]

hi! how r u? i hope u r hving a good rest of ur day.

im sky i dont think we hv ever actually interacted before.

so i had a question and its completely okay if u dont wanna answer it and im sorry if its offensive in anyway thats really not my intentions.

but im working on a bunch of videos and i was planning on puting subtitles for them in the videos themselves so its always there and easier to access and ive been doing research about whats the best font, color, size, etc. for subtitles. but since you hv said before that u usually use subtitles i thought its best to ask for some firsthand advice on the matter.

could u plz if u can give me some advice o the best ways to do subtitles or direct me ithe direction of posts/articles that u agree on? its okay if u dont wanna since its not ur job to educate ppl about this or anything so no pressure.

thank u for reading!

i don’t mind, but note i’m actually hearing, i just have pretty bad processing issues, and i read very fast. so i’m pretty good at accepting all subtitles; it’s pretty hard to go wrong for me personally, therefore i might not be the best person to ask

the best things i can think of are

1) font legibility (any standard font should be legible enough, you don’t need basic ariel all the time but don’t do anything too fancy)- also, most subtitles i’ve seen are bolded

2) color legibility

subtitles will (presumably) be over a changing background so they have to contrast properly with everything.

the most commonly accepted way to do this is either white subtitles with black bubble outline, which a lot of youtubers (mark included) use, or white text on a black bar, which most professional fully captioned services use like tv (youtube and netflix the bar is slightly transparent)

3) block size- try not to chop up sentences too much. if you’re doing custom captioning, cutting the text on screen along natural pauses in the audio (i.e. ‘hello everyone | welcome to class today!’ over ‘hello everyone welcome | to class today!’) this is the main advantage of custom timed captions over stuff like auto captioning. jokes tend to be split before the punchline

4) content- the biggest thing that annoys me is content spoken not matching content captioned. that’s the whole point!

again, i am hearing, so usually i notice when this happens and i don’t exactly know why it pisses me off so much? like, they’re there to tell me what the audio says. don’t put other information in the captions. don’t take out mistakes. i don’t know if this bugs people who don’t follow audio/captions at the same time as much, but it completely throws me off. ways you can avoid this:

swearing: youtube’s being stupid and won’t let you transcribe swears exactly; i know this is a problem on tiktok too. ‘f___k’ or ‘f[__]k’ seems to be the ‘professional’ way to do this, and is fine with enough context. but on tiktok ive seen stuff like le3b1@n and on youtube people spell things phonetically like ‘phuking’ and while the situation in general isn’t great, i’m personally fine with any of those.

mistakes: you don’t always need to transcribe stutters and fillers like ‘uh’, i prefer them but it’s not a big deal when they’re not there and i know preference varies among people, but mistakes like accidentally repeating half a sentence or saying the wrong word you should include. again, it’s information about the audio, not what you would LIKE the audio to be.

extra information: i have no problem with more information on the screen, i’m one of those people that WILL scrub frames if something passes too fast to read it, just don’t put it in the subtitles, put it in the corner or middle of the screen or something. people on tiktok do this all the time it annoys me so much

in-jokes: if you’re captioning your own videos i doubt this is an issue but the little ‘(uwu theyre so cute)’ that appears in youtube captions is annoying as fuck

other: uhh if there’s something that can’t be captioned, like mumbling you cant make out or some sound that’s not speech, the professional way is [unintelligible] [motorcycle passes by] or [loud noise] but stuff like [‘speaker’ noises] [angry mumbling] [excited sounds] [horrific screeching noise] can be much more descriptive and give actual information.

brackets are used to show that what is being written isnt being said, but a description of the audio. these ARE actual information that’s important (to your discretion, if a chair speaks it doesn’t need to be captioned but if a chair squeaks extremely loudly or someone on screen reacts than it does. use your best judgement to what sounds hearing viewers are actually noticing)

that’s about it! i’m sure tv guides for captioning on their channels exist if you want professional sizing advice and things, but don’t sweat it, almost any captions are better than no captions! people will appreciate your effort regardless

[warrioreowynofrohan]

Okay, this is probably going to offend people, but I need to get it off my chest because I feel like my brain is going in circles.

I’ve seen a lot of posts and statements and articles saying “It’s not the job of black people to educate white people about racism; educate yourself.”

And when it comes to people who are basically saying, “Prove to me that racism exists,” I get why that is a problem. In the interview transcribed in my previous post, my pastor talked about something absolutely horrific that happened to him. And he talks about it fairly frequently, and calmly and collectedly, in public fora, because it can take that kind of testimony to convince some non-black Canadians that racism is a serious problem in Canada. And that’s a terrible burden that he shouldn’t have to bear.

But I do not get the “educate yourself” narrative when if comes to discussions about how to confront and deconstruct systemic and structural racism. When you’e discussing policy - and when you’re discussing the even more complicated issues of forms of racism that can’t be addressed by government action and need to be dealt with in private sector, interpersonal, psychological, and other terms (i.e., it’s not like we can ban microaggressions) - I don’t see how we can get there without white people being allowed to ask black people questions and rely on their expertise and lived experience. There is only so far that articles, and books, and podcasts can take you, because pretty early on - after you’ve consumed a few of them - you are goung to come to issues where 1) there isn’t consensus and 2) there aren’t easy answers.

Ta-Nehisi Coates has talked about the problems of media and white people wanting “black spokespeople” to relay the views of the “black community”, when the black community contains as many viewpoints as it has people. (The media, ironically and I’m sure very frustratingly for TNC, responded to this by trying to treat him as a “black spokesperson”.)

But the only way to do this is to engage with multiple different black people with different viewpoints and, crucially, this means forming your own opinions. We cannot simply echo a generalized black consensus on social/policy solutions if that consensus does not exist and the assumption of such a consensus is, in itself, racist. And that means white people who want to get involved cannot simply listen, absorb, and accept - it means we ultimately need to make choices, I agree more with the perspective and policies of this person than that person, even if I first come across a few of the different perspectives by reading, podcasts, etc.

And that means that we need to be able to get in discussions, online and in person, with black activists and black friends, and we need to be able to ask questions and ask for elaboration and even disagree and debate in order to form thoughtful, meaningful opinions about how to go forward. Because anyone can spam their representatives with form emails, but if we really want to try to convince other people - friends, family, business leaders, politicians - we need to know what we’re talking about, have a strong understanding of our views and the arguments behind them. Trying to convince people by parroting standard talking points does nor work, and leaves them with less respect for your opinion. I know - I’ve tried. (On First Nations issues. The fact that there are several hundred First Nations groups, all with their own differing views and priorities, makes it very hard to say “We should do X because the First Nations want it” without looking like a moron.)

And I feel like I’m being told that if I try to have these conversations with black friends - and make them real, two-way conversations - I am making things worse. But without those conversations I am completely incapable of making things better.

One of the articles I read (thanks, @tolkienillustrations!) compared white people asking black people to explain racism to interrupting a professional baseball game to ask a player the difference between a ball and a strike. Fair enough. But to continue the metaphor, the goal isn’t for white people to watch the ‘baseball game’, it’s for us to participate. I see three options: 1) white people are supposed to learn everything for themselves, comparable to someone who has never played baseball trying to learn it solo from books and videos; 2) white people can learn from other white people, comparable to a whole team of people who have never played baseball trying to learn it by practising together; or 3) white people can learn from conversations with black people, conversations that are two-way and involve some give and take, even though white people will sometimes be clueless and inadvertently offensive; this is analagous to people who don’t know how to play baseball practicing with people who do know how to play baseball.

Option 3 is the only one that gets you a functioning baseball team. And I feel like everything I’m reading is telling me Don’t even bother showing up to the baseball game until you’re a good baseball player and that frustrates me deeply because I can’t do that without practice and I’m also being told that I’m a bad person if I’m not in the baseball game.

I don’t know how to do this without being able to ask questions. I don’t know how to do this without having the opportunity to ask, to try, and to form my own opinions, not solely echoing someone else’s. don’t know how to do this without black people being willing to tell me if I’m being clueless about something without regarding me as the enemy (or for that matter, overenthusiastic white people treating me as the enemy). I need to be able to disagree, challenge and raise counterarguments, because if I am going to try to convince other white people of policy solutions, I need to feel solidly convinced of the effectiveness of those policies and be able to answer the counterarguments other people will make. I can’t do any of this in isolation. I can’t learn all of this from books.

So no, I can’t do this - none of us can do this - without black people being willing to educate us.

(Did I say something clueless in this post? Or this one? I don’t know! I can’t know if nobody tells me!)

(Also, the crying thing bugs me and feels like it’s repurposing old sexist tropes about women deliberately crying to be manipulative. I can’t tell you how many instances of serious criticism from a teacher, supervisor, or other authority figure I’ve got through without crying, but it’s definitely less than 50%. Telling someone they’re a shitty person for having emotions will not, amazingly, cause them to stop feeling those emotions. And yes, I do recognize that people do that all the time to black people who get angry.)

I feel like being sincere and honest is more productive than sticking to talking points and is the only way to really move forward in a meaningful way, so I’m putting this out there even if it is offensive.

(Wow, it feels good to get that out. I feel like I’ve repeated the gist of this post at least 10 times in my head, except all of those contained a lot more CAPSLOCK. I’m like 90% calmer for just having organized this and written it down.)

[swaps55]

what’s your favorite type of thing to write? dialogue, action, gettin’ down, exposition, a very specific thing not listed here?

Edit: I think you’d enjoy knowing that when I asked @n7zachammer what he thought my answer would be, before I even finished the question he said, “Longform pain fic.”

(he’s…not wrong? But.)

D-I-A-L-O-G-U-E 

(I had to check the spelling of that 3 times.) 

There are lots of things I love to write, but dialogue is still my bread and butter. I like to think I have a good rhythm and cadence for it. One of the exercises my creative writing mentor always made us do was go out and record actual conversations, then transcribe them. You know what it taught me? People are messy, and barely intelligible. Of course we can’t write the way people speak, because we’d have NO idea what characters were talking about. Ever. 

But it is important for that dialogue to feel like something real people would say. Dialogue tells you so much about a character, from their cadence to their word choices and so on. Do your characters sound different enough that a reader can pick out who’s speaking without a tag? (Brian Jacques has always been my favorite example of this.) When it comes to fanfic, do your readers hear your dialogue in the character’s voice? 

Even more fun is overlaying actual dialogue with inner dialogue. What’s happening externally and internally can be gloriously different and fun to play with, and it can do all kinds of things for threading, plot, etc. 

I still think the best dialogue I have ever written is for an unfinished wedding!fic that is not on Ao3, because I don’t like putting unfinished stuff there. I have always sworn I would finish it, because it’s genuinely some of the best writing I have ever done. I’m in a headspace now that maybe I *could*, so if someone wants to bug me to finish it, PLEASE. BUG ME. 

Anyway, here’s that dialogue: [Edit, wow, the formatting on this post exploded. I have fixed it now]

For someone who hates water, Garrus is really fucking good at skipping rocks. Obnoxiously good. To the point where Shepard cheats and uses a flick of dark energy to send his own stone sailing out past the fading ripples from the turian’s last throw.  

“You’re still not over that shot on the Citadel, are you?” he asks.  

Shepard shrugs, and hefts another stone. “I like to win.” 

Garrus chuckles. “Which is why I had my money on you when it came to who would propose, and most everyone else had money on Kaidan.” 

“Really?” Shepard asks before reaching back and letting it fly. Without the biotic assistance, he manages two skips before the plop.  

“They all figured Kaidan for the ‘make it official’ type,” Garrus says, rolling a stone in his talons. “But I know you. If Kaidan asks you first, in your screwed up head it means he loves you more.” 

Shepard could deny it. But with Garrus there isn’t much point. “I have a weird head, don’t I?” 

The turian flicks the stone. “Not to mention the fact I’m pretty sure you want to make it illegal for anyone else to get their hands on the person you saved the galaxy for.” 

Six fucking jumps, how the fuck did he do that?   

“C’mon, Garrus. I saved the galaxy for you. You know that.”  

“Well, of course I know that. But I figured you wanted to keep that just between us.”  

“Ha.” 

Shepard’s turn. 

“Though I have to say,” Garrus muses as Shepard winds up for another throw, blue sparks erupting around his fingers, “I like to think I’m largely responsible for keeping you alive long enough to save that galaxy.”   

Shepard looses the stone. This one makes seven jumps before squelching beneath the surface, and he smirks with satisfaction. It’s all in the wrist. 

“Speaking of that.” 

“Oh, boy.”  

The corner of Shepard’s lip quirks in a grin. “Relax, big guy. Look, I don’t know how turians do it, but humans like to make a big production out of marriage ceremonies. You have to find people to take on certain duties.” 

Garrus holds up another stone. Shepard bets he’s using his damn visor to scan it somehow. That must be his secret. Bastard. No chance he’s going to feel bad about using the biotics now.  

“Shepard, are you asking me to work at your wedding? That hurts.”  

Shepard raises an eyebrow. “Do you want to stand there and complain or let me finish?”  

“What I’d like it to get this rock to that post out there. I don’t know what the post is supposed to be for, but I’m using it to set life goals.” 

“No chance.” 

“Watch me.”  

Garrus steps back, squints, then lets it fly.  

Motherfucker. Shepard scours the ground for a new stone.  

“I’m sorry, what were you saying, Shepard?” 

“I’m going to rip that visor off your head and throw it in the lake, that’s what I was saying.” 

Garrus’ subharmonics thrum with laughter. Two lackluster throws later, Shepard checks his amp settings.  

“Okay, so human weddings,” Garrus continues. “Assuming your inability to throw rocks hasn’t changed your mind about whatever you were asking.” 

[theabominableblogger]

Rewatching “Gotham” S3E14

On this blog, we stan one kickass butler.  And how much he loves his boy

As said before, the rest of these reaction posts I’ll be uploading are not chronological order.  They’re like that because A) college and B) more college.

My sister watched it with me (as well as the other episodes left in my epic “Gotham” reaction series) so my comments will be in bold, and hers will be in regular font.  Author’s notes courtesy of me will be bolded and italicized.

AN:   I managed to record our reactions to this episode and hopefully I can transcribe what I said into this post. 

*gasps as a grenade gets thrown into the precinct*

Jesus God!

Ohhhhh my gosh!

*both freak out over the opening titles*

Molotov cocktails- bet you can’t have just one.

Meanwhile Jeremiah’s like “Eh.  Bazooka.”  *chuckles*

You are walking straight into a trap, Oswald.

*Ed walks in*  I bet you’re wondering why I’ve brought you all here today...

Oswald has like freaking umbrella cufflinks, did you notice that?

*chuckles*

“Oh, you [Ed] escaped.”  Nooo....

*jaw drops as Ed shoots Oswald’s men*

*shook*

“Just wondering if I [Ed] was gonna have to reload.”  Jesus God.

“...what’s happening...”  ‘What’s happening?’  He’s been playing you for a sap!

...Like the cheap kazoo you are.

*starts pretending to play “Amazing Grace” on the kazoo*

*claps hands for each word*  JUSTICE FOR ISABELLA, I swear!

*claps hands*  Yes!

“Isabella was my everything, and you [Oswald] took her from me.”  [Ed] YOU MET HER [Isabella] LIKE A DAY AGO!

*laughs*  You met her in like a span of a day!

*claps hands*  She still deserves better!

I know!  I still think she’s a useless character though.

I don’t care!  She deserved better!

“You [Oswald] still have your life.  But that ends tonight!”  *starts singing “Tonight” from “West Side Story” without trying to giggle*

*chuckles*  You weren’t kidding about the random songs.

Seriously, I do it all the time!

Court of Owls!

The only thing I will never find plausible about the Court of Owls is this idea of “Oh, they’ve been ruling over Gotham from the shadows this whole time,” bullshit.

*both do rising spooky hands*

OK though, I don’t know her name, they don’t give her a name, but she’s like the best.  You see her in previous episodes, she’s like the secretary.  Girl, you rule!

 *puts hands together*  Well, I’m gonna give her a name.  Because in the 66 series, Gordon’s secretary is named Bonnie.

Bonnie!  Ooh, I like that name.

You never actually see Bonnie, you just hear her on the intercom.

“Meanwhile, Cobblepot’s MIA.  You call down to City Hall, and literally no one’s in charge.  Although that might actually be good news.”  *both laugh*

*giggles*  They capitalized “dumpster” on the [close captioning on Netflix]

*waves hands in air in imaginary rainbow*  DUMPster!

“He’s [Jerome] not one to miss out on the fun, so what does he want?”  “A puppy?!?”  *laughs*

“[Oswald] You saw a man that I [Ed] met in Indian Hill that does killer impersonations [Clayface].”  *both end up nodding in agreement*

That’s one way to put it.

I mean, yeah...

“GHOSTS AREN’T REAL!”  Pfft!

“But my father’s remains... you stole them from his grave?”  WHAT NAH WHAT?!?

When did that happen?

I don’t know....

“I [Ed] gently placed his [Elijahs’] remains inside a dumpster behind a Chinese restaurant.”  Oh that’s just mean!

That’s awfuuulll!

That’s meeeaannn!

“You were angry.  I [Oswald] understand.  I even forgive you.”  I love how Ed’s like “Son of a bitch...” and he adjusts his glasses before he turns back.

“So you [Oswald] admit you killed Isabella?”  “Fine.  Is that what you want?”  “Yes.”  *groans in frustration*

“You [Ed] should thank me [Oswald] because we both know what would have happened if I hadn’t!”  *bug eyes in alarm*

WHAAAATTT?!?

“I [Ed] could have lived a life with the woman I loved!”  *both clap hands and aggressively point fingers at screen in agreement*

See see see see?!?  Yes!  God!  Thank you!

“No, Ed.  You would have killed her!”  *leans back*  NOOOOOOOOO!!!

“Just like you did the other one!”  NOOOOOO!!!

Justice for Kristen Kringle too because I’m still pissed about that.

Yeah, I know, I know!  Yeah, I hated what happened to her.

“I did it for love.”  “What?!?”  What?

“I did it because I love you.”  *laughs in frustration*

“Love is about sacrifice!  It’s about putting someone else’s needs before your own!”  *splays hand towards screen in agreement*

“'Cause the truth is, Oswald, you would sacrifice anyone to save your own neck.”  *silently nods in agreement*

“Even me.”  Uh Ed, you’d do it too.  *laughs*

I was gonna say, how does the guy who literally strangled his last girlfriend to death know more about love than [Oswald]?!?

“Now, if you'll look above us, you will see a cauldron of highly corrosive acid, which is currently being held in place by this chain.  When the ice melts, the chain comes loose, the vat of acid tips... you get the idea.”  This is such a Batman 66 trap.

I was gonna say Professor Ratigan but that works too.

*in unison*  Snap!  Boom!  Twang!  Thunk!  Splat!

I mean, if you look really closely at the 66 Riddler, dude was like freaking Jigsaw.

He wasn’t in a wheelchair though.

*in best Jigsaw voice*  Hello, Oswald.

Suck a dick, Oswald,  Though not his dick- you might get mange.

*buries face in elbow*  OH MY GODDDDDD!!

I’m surprised too.

OH MY GOODDDDDDD!!

“I mentioned that you [Jim] killed my husband on our wedding night,and he [Jerome] thought that was hilarious, so that’s something the two of you can bond over when you find him.”  Lee’s just amazing.

LEEEEEEE!!!

Lee deserves better.

Though later, Lee’s like “Mmm, I’m still like extremely angry about this.  Tetch Virus!”  and I’m like “WHY?!?!?!?”

Tetch Virus AKA Dumb Plot Device.

Dull!

“I’ll’’ [Alfred] nip downstairs and see if there’s any life left in that old generator.”  Does he have like no other- did the Waynes have any other staff besides Alfred?

I don’t know...

I’ve always wondered that.

I don’t know.  They never really bring it up.

“Alfred....”  Don’t do it!

*both freak out when Alfred gets jumped by cult followers*

Ohhhh shit!

*Jerome walks in, pretending to be a ghost*  Pfffttt...

Seriously like, where did he get that outfit?

It’s a straitjacket!  He nicked it out of Arkham, I’m sure.

Or it’s like “Oh I’m sorry, gotta find my old friend Bruce.  Oh SYKE!  Outfit change!”

He’s extra enough to do that.

The Valeska twins are just extra to the core.  They’re from the circus, they’re judgy.

*chuckles*  It comes with the territory.

“Teenagers, am I [Jerome] right?”  You are one!

If I recall, he’s like a couple years older than Bruce.

*shakes head*

I would say he’s about [my sister’s] age.

Ohhh OK.

*The owl statue doesn’t break when Jerome drops it*  It stuck!

*groans in frustration when Jerome ends up breaking the owl statue*

“Right.  Sorry.  The old noodle’s still a little al dente post-thaw.”  *laughs*  Al dente?  Is that a pasta?

Don’t know....  I mean, I imagine, waking up from the dead, your brain would feel a little bit like spaghetti.

AN:  Yeah, al dente describes pasta or rice that’s supposed to firm when you eat it. 

“It’s been nagging at me since I [Jerome] woke up.  The idea of slitting that pretty, pink throat of yours...”  Don’t ever refer to Bruce as pretty pink anything.

*imitates the way Jerome twirls his knife in the air before pointing it at Bruce*

“And you’re [Jerome] just going to kill me here?  That’s kinda disappointing.”  You have got balls of steel, Bruce.

*mouths along with Jerome as he says “Flair?  Hmmm?  Style?  Panache?!?”*

He’s like Alex from “A Clockwork Orange”

“I’m Bruce Wayne.”  “I’m aware.”  *both wheeze in laughter*

“My [Bruce’s] company is the machine that keeps the cogs of Gotham running.”  OH MY GOD, you badass!

“You’re saying I [Jerome] need an audience?”  Took you long enough to get it!

*tries not to laugh when Jerome suddenly dips into a British accent in front of Alfred*

“I [Bruce] will see you [Alfred] again.”  *pats chest*  God, I love their relationship in this shoooow!

That was like straight out of “Arkham Origins,” I swear...

I know....

*Oswald still tries to get out of Ed’s trap*  Couldn’t you just like slide up though?  Just shimmy up?

He can’t go far...

“I happen to be the mayor of Gotham...”  *ends up cracking up at the delivery of that line*

“What did you do?”  *scoffs in hilarity*

*Oswald gets out of the trap just in time*  SHIIIT!!

OH IT ATE STRAIGHT THROUGH THE CAR.

*Jerome’s followers trash the manor in front of Alfred*  Damn!

“And how ‘bout you, Mr. Machete?  Come on in, sunshine. Don’t be shy. Your mother wasn’t. Chop-chop.”  *BOTH JAWS DROP IN SHOCK*

*ends up wheezing*

DAAAAAMMMNNNN!!

GOOOO ALFRED!!!

YEESSSSSS!!!

WHERE THE HELL DID YOU [Jim] COME FROM?!?

He snuck in!  That’s why Alfred was saying all that stuff.  He was letting Jim know where everybody was.

Ohhhhhhh.... OK.

*on verge of losing voice*  HE [Alfred] JUST STABBED HIM [the follower] WITH A MACHETE!

HOLY SHIT!

*reels back*  OH ALFRED, YOU BADASS!

Holy shit!

OH MY GOD!

That was awesome!

Oh my God!

*Bruce arrives at the cult circus*  Amusement Mile... I swear this is Amusement Mile..

I think so.  It’s one of the few permanent landmarks Gotham has across incarnations.

*ends up wincing at half of the games the cult plays*

This is like a mix between “The Purge” and “Hell Fest”

Oh God.

That’s literally what this is.

“What do you say, Bruce?  Wanna have some fun before the main event?”  That’s a cool shot [of Jerome].

Hooo hooo...

*dives across room to put on hat for rest of episode*

Alfred’s like “I don’t care, I’m not police, I’m goin’ in!”

Oh my God...

Yess!  Like the badass you are, Alfred!

*winces when Jerome stabs a follower beside him*

*both groan in horror when Jerome uses the blood to paint a frown on Bruce’s face*

*freezes when Tabitha snags her whip around Oswald’s neck*

Oh shit!

“Now, where’s Nygma?”  “I [Oswald] don’t know.”  If he’d knew, he’d murder his ass.

“[Butch] Stop pretending that you are anything but muscle!  Yes, you used to be someone in Gotham, but those days are in the past!”  You stop pretending that you have any pull in this situation, Oswald.  You’re the one who has a whip around your neck!

“Remember when I [Tabitha] put a knife in your mom’s back?”  Oh yeah, she’s the one that killed the mom.  And it SUCKED!

“You [Oswald] never did anything about it.”  *cups hands with mouth*  S4 finale!

*proceeds to smack laptop with hat*

*bug eyes when Butch knocks out Oswald*

“You [Butch] realize you have to carry him now.”  *both chuckle*

C’mon, he weighs like 120 pounds tops.

Soaking wet.

“A few dozen brainwashed maniacs can’t keep the city hostage forever.”  “Well, duh...”  Pffttt...

“The point is that all these people out here, looting, robbing, killing, they're the people who wash your car, who pour your coffee, who take out your trash.  And what happened the moment the lights went out?  They showed their true faces.  They showed how quickly they want to open up your rich boy veins and bathe in your blue blood.”  *very softly*  Oooh, that’s a good line.

“There are good people in Gotham.”  This is the Killing Joke.  ‘All it takes is one bad day.’

“Face it, kid:  Gotham has no heroes.”  Yeah, but the people who crawl under their beds and lock their doors are the ones that are biding their time.

*Bruce pushes Jerome so that he messes up his shot*  Ooohhh!

“Foul!  He pushed me!  Did you see that?!?”  Genesis of Batman and Joker’s relationship:  a shove!

*softly*  Jesus Christ....

*The “punk” ends up being dropped anyway*  Oh my God...

*both yell in disgust when Jerome has to re-staple part of his face*

“Did that hurt?”  *z-snaps in shock*

*Jerome puts a staple in Bruce’s arm*  Did he [Bruce] just No-Sell-

Ohhh!  Ohhh!  YES!  YES HE DID!  Yes he did!

*both yell when Jerome does it again*

Aaahhh!  Aahh, that was on the wrist too!

“Stop!”  He took two!  He took two of those!

Over the wrist too!  God, that’s a major vein!

Did you see Jerome there?!?  He’s like “Well, wait a minute...”

*imitates the dramatic way Jerome puts his hat back on*

“Where the hell is our back up?”  Still two minutes out.”  Alfred is your back up!

*chuckles*  All you need is Alfred!

“All right, so we [Jim, Harvey, and Alfred] go in, find Bruce, get him to safety, then we go after Jerome.  Ready?”  “Not really.”  *chuckles*

*Jerome comes out in his ringmaster costume* AAAAHHHH THE SUIT!!

Oh, that’s so cool.

YESS!!

*Jerome slaps his butt*  Did he-

Yes he did.

“The show is about toooo...begin!”  He [Jerome] was doing a Mark Hamill voice there for a second!

I know!  He does the Mark Hamill laugh sometimes.

Ohhh that’s badass!

Yeah.

*both try to laugh at the stock crowd gasp when Jerome shoots a rowdy audience member*

Y’know what, he [Jerome] would be the guy that would carry around canned sound effects like that.

“So, how to thank the best darn cult of fanatics a messiah like myself [Jerome] could ask for?”  *chuckles*  Oh my God...

“I give you-”  *does small verbal keyboard smash when the ta-da fanfare stock sound goes off*

“QUEUE!”  *laughs*

*Bruce gets carted out*  Oh my God.

*mouths along with Jerome saying “Or better yet.... a boom?,” dramatic hand gesture included*

*The cannon gets rolled out*  They’re gonna shoot his ass out of a cannon?!?

*laughs*  Yeah, like Jerome’s gonna fly out of a cannon!

NO, Y’KNOW WHAT?!?  I would pay good money to see that though!

*legitimately trying not to cry laughing*  I can just see Cameron Monaghan going *makes flying sound effect*

No, like they’re gonna bada bing bada boom [shoot Bruce with the cannon]

Oh OK.

*laughs*

OK, y’know what, I would have bought it either way!

*keels over laughing*  I’m just imagining Cameron Monaghan.... WHHHEEEEEUUUU!!!

AN:  Please God someone draw this, I’m begging you.

“NAILED IT” AS HE [Jerome] POURS IN NAILS!

*both yell in horror at Jerome pouring various kitchen knifes into the cannon*

“Whatever you do, please, definitely try this at home.  Preferably on a family member.”  *wheezes*

“WHOOO!  DOGGIE!”  Somebody saw “Dr. Strangelove.”

Cameron’s like “Yes, I’m getting PAID!”

“Ready, partner?”  *hits desk with hat*

*Alfred starts beating up cult members*  Go Alfred!

Go Alfred!

*mutters*  You magnificent boss, you...

*both laugh when Jerome’s hat gets shot off*

*Jerome sets off the cannon fuse*  Oooooooooohhhhhhh!!

*yells*

*Bruce starts to pick the handcuffs off*  C’mon, Bruuuuuuucceee.... c’mon, Bruuuuucccceee...

C’mon, last handcuff.  You got this.

*Bruce loses one of the staples*  Oooohhhhhhh!!!

Knock the thing [the stand that Bruce is on] over!  Knock the thing over!  Knock it over so at least you’re out of range!

Well he has one more [staple] though in his wrist.  Or does he?  Yeah, he has one more!

*in unison*  C’mon, c’mon c’mon c’mon c’mon c’mon c’mon!

*jaws drop when Jim and Alfred discover the remnants of the staff that Bruce barely escaped from*

HOLY CRAP!

He broke it?!?

I guess...

Oh no, we gotta back to this [Ed and Oswald drama]!  *hits leg with hat*  Nooooo!!

“I [Oswald] I underestimated you, Barbara.”  *sarcastically*  NAAAHHH, really?!?

I hate that dress [the striped one Barbara wears].  I hate that dress so much.

Holy crap,  ooooohhhh... that’s from Tabitha’s whip [the mark on Oswald’s neck]!

Ooooohhhh... euugghhh...

“So I [Oswald] help you [Barbara] find Ed... things go better for me... I don’t know, you kill me?  That about it?”  That’s just about the sound of it.

“Yeah.”  Yeah.

*Bruce runs into the Mirror Maze*  Oohhhhhhhhh...

Oooohhhhh here we go.

“Bruce, darling.”  *points excitedly at screen*

This is the scene!

This is the one “Dark Knight Returns” homage I will ever accept.

*Jerome in front of the mirrors*  OH MY GOOOOSSSHHH!  Look at that!

That’s awesome.

That is amazing!

That is the coolest damn thing.

Ooooooooooooohhhhh!!

*Bruce comes into the frame*  Whooooo hoo hooo hooooo!!

*shocked*  Oh shit!

“You’re [Jerome] going to pay for what you’ve done.”  *snaps fingers excitedly*

Daaamn, son!

“What’s going on?  [Oswald] You have a weird look on your face.   Like, weirder than normal.”  *scoffs in hilarity*

“Oswald, you loved him, and he [Ed] betrayed you.”  Kill him!  Kill the love you feel!  Prove that death is stronger than love!  And you can have your own life again!

Yes, I quoted “Once on This Island,“ what of it?

“But I killed Isabella... because I wouldn’t share him.”  Yeah, no shit, eh?

“Ed said love is sacrifice.”  *buries face in hat*

“I shoudl have been able to sacrifice my happiness for his.”  It took you this long?!?

*both shook when Ed walks in*

[Oswald] You are so dead now...

“You’re [Ed and Barbara] in this together.”  Yeah, no shit, eh?

“I [Ed] wanted you [Oswald] to die knowing that you were incapable of loving another person.”  “But I can.  I just proved that, right?!?”  No, you didn’t.

You notice that Bruce is like right beside him [Jerome]!

Yep.

“Let’s do this mano y mano.... my little conquistador [Bruce].”  Ahhhhh, don’t call him that.

*gasps when Bruce tackles Jerome from behind*

Shit!

“What kind of hero tackles someone from behind?!?”  *chuckles in shock*

*gasps when Bruce beats Jerome to the ground and starts the beatdown*

Keep going!

*Bruce picks up a piece of glass to stab Jerome with*  Oh shit!

*both too much in the moment to say anything when Bruce decides not to kill Jerome*

*out of breath*  Go Alfred...

C’mon, Alfred!

*both raise our hands and cheer when Bruce runs to hug Alfred*

*Jerome stumbles out toward Bruce and Alfred*  OoOOhhhhh!!  Ohhhh boy...

Take his ass out!  He’s not gonna last much longer!

*yells in shock when Jim runs up and punches Jerome*

*both yell and reel back in horror/disgust when Jerome’s face gets punched off*

*trying not to laugh*  His face is back off!

His face...

*in unison, with fancy hand gesture*  Off!

*giggles*  Had to lighten the mood somehow.

HE [Jim] JUST PUNCHED A DUDE’S FACE OFF!

*laughs*  How often can you literally say that?

I KNOW!

“[Harvey] You wish I [Jim] would’ve shot him [Jerome]?”  “Eh, he’d probably just come back from the dead again.”  “Probably.”  *both stifle a laugh*

“At least you [Jim] get to say you punched a man’s face off.”  Exactly!

EEeeyyyyyyyy!

*grumbles and hits desk with hat*  But Jeremiah dies in the next season.

Jeremiah?

*keels over*  SON OF A-

*evil laugh*

There’s twins!  Shut up!

“Well, got to say the clown makeup was way more terrifying than the damage underneath, Master Bruce.”  Pfft.

“Did I [Alfred] ever tell you that I don’t like clowns?”  *bug eyes in horror*

*whispers*  You’re not gonna like Jeremiah then.

He’s less clownish than [Jerome]

True.

I love this orange lighting

“Shall I [Alfred] tell you [Bruce] what I thought?  I thought how proud I was of you.”  *puts hands to chest*

“Of the man you’ve become.”  *smiles*

“I almost killed him, Alfred.”  But you didn’t.

“But if you [Bruce] keep going, you’re gonna need rules.”  Vengeance blackens the soul, Master Bruce.  You walk the edge of that abyss every night, but you haven’t fallen over, and I thank heaven for that.

*softly*  This is that scene!

“I will not kill.”  *both raise our hands in anticipation*

SAY IT!

“Say it again.”  Say it, c’mon...

C’mon!

“I will not kill.”  *both clap hands toward screen*

YAAAASSSSS!!

My sweet badass bab!

*in dramatic Batman voice*  Sad Boy... is now... Vengeful Boy!

*laughs*

*about falls out of chair reeling back*  OH SNAP THE CLONE!

*bug eyes*

*throws hat at screen*

“I [Five] still don’t understand how I can help save Gotham.”  His voice is different!

Yeah.

That’s the doppleganger theme!

Oh shit, son!

OOOOO-OOOOHHHH!!

*Someone knocks on Jim’s door.”  Have a drink first.  No wait, you’re gonna need that.

*softly*  God damn, this freaking pier...

“Ed...I love you.”  *both so done*

“I... don’t... love you.”  *snaps fingers in agreement*

“You need me, Edward Nygma!”  No he doesn’t!

“When I [Oswald] met you [Ed], you were a nervous, jittery, loser!”  :[

“I created Edward Nygma!”  You’re full of shit

AN:  Oswald kinda has a point though.  Just sayin’...

You see him [Oswald] spitting up foam?!?

“You can’t do this...”  Yes he damn well can.

“Ed, are you listening to me?”  “...I’m listening...“  NO!  Don’t listen to him!

*both raise our eyebrows in shock when Ed shoots Oswald*

*laughs*  AND WE NEVER SEE HIM AGAIN!

Push him in!  Push him in!

*Ed pushes Oswald into the river*  YEEEEEEESSSS...

*sings*  IF YOU LOVE ME, LET ME GOOOO-OOOO-OOOOO!!

*slow jams to Penguin’s theme playing as Oswald sinks to the bottom*

Go to hell, Oswald.  I know he lives but let me have this.

*jams the crap out to the ending theme*

[8147]

reading hamlet for the first time (act 5: the finale)

masterlist

none of you told me it was going to be this painful . none of you.

a5s1

“Ophelia’s dead.” “Enter CLOWNS!”

Like im sure this has a different meaning in EMA but im gonna make fun of it because it’s fucking hilarious. (future (present? (now past once more (?))) antares coming back to say i did look at nfs and yeah theyre gravediggers)

“First Clown: What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter? Second Clown: The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a thousand tenants.” damn not even just this one quote but these are some depressing clowns

hamlet and horatio!

okay there’s something about all of hamlet’s skull talk that makes me uneasy. like, not even the topic, just something in the words and how earnestly and (pardon my pun) gravely hamlet’s speaking about this. and it’s almost a mournful tune, too. it’s a huge difference from his “we’ll all be eaten by the same worms” speech to the point that it’s almost haunting.

“HAMLET: I will speak to this fellow.” C O N F R O N T

“HAMLET: I think it be thine, indeed; for thou liest in't.” (incomprehensible scribbling)

HAMLET, NOT IN ENGLAND: oh yeah lol he was sent to england huh u know why lmao

wait. did the. did the pirate situation get resolved. before act V.

I mean i think hamlet mentioned something about three years but the pirates are so fucking glossed over like what the fuck

“First Clown: 'Twill, a not be seen in him there; there the men are as mad as he.” HOLY SHIT ROAST THEM JFC

“HAMLET: Let me see. (Takes the skull)” THIS IS THE SKULL SCENE! I fucking KNEW it was bullshit that holding the skull was in the to be/not to be speech. I saw it being presented as such like once or twice while reading and I KNEW IT

hm okay so hamlet picks up this guys skull, of someone he used to know, and sure maybe i could ignore the “those lips i have kissed” but then he goes on to mention alexander the great and i mean come on

but jesus like i feel like im not doing justice to the stuff hamlet’s saying. just, the gravity of it all. Its kinda hitting home a bit hard bc like ive had a crippling fear of what happens after death and being forgotten etc since i was like in fourth grade and this is @ing that phobia

like, with that julius ceasar thing. “O that that earth which kept the world in awe / should patch a wall to expel the winter flaw,” it’s so strange. like, every fucking human who has lived, whether they be emperors, murderers, inventors, peasants, or philanthropists- as long as they weren’t blind, they’ve all looked at the same sky. like. It doesnt matter what the fuck you did or didn’t. It’s wild.

“First Priest: No more be done: We should profane the service of the dead To sing a requiem and such rest to her As to peace-parted souls.” hey i get that there are cultural taboos around suicide but like this guy’s a dick it isnt even clear if it was suicide, like, she was so fucking crazy she might not have even known she was, y’know, in a lake or w/e

laertes, dude, my guy. maybe jumping into a grave is cosmic foreshadowing for something you don’t want to happen to you. js.

“HAMLET: [Advancing] What is he whose grief Bears such an emphasis? whose phrase of sorrow Conjures the wandering stars, and makes them stand Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I, Hamlet the Dane. (Leaps into the grave)” hamlet is NOT one to be out-extra’d (posting-antares here to say, wait, ‘whose phrase of sorrow conjures the stars? is this my aesthetic-speeches-summon-ghosts theory? probably not, but i havent mentioned it for a while)

“LAERTES: The devil take thy soul! (Grappling with him)” IN A FUCKING GRAVE. THEY ARE FIGHTING. IN A GRAVE.

all because hamlet doesn’t want to be out-extra’d. my god.

“QUEEN GERTRUDE: This is mere madness: And thus awhile the fit will work on him; Anon, as patient as the female dove, When that her golden couplets are disclosed, His silence will sit drooping.” Ah yes gertie just talk about the distraught and angry madman as if he isn’t there. that’ll diffuse the situation.

You know what? We still haven’t discussed the pirates.

a5s2

“HAMLET: So much for this, sir: now shall you see the other; You do remember all the circumstance?” If this isn’t gonna be about the pirates im gonna. scream.

“HAMLET: My fears forgetting manners, to unseal Their grand commission; where I found, Horatio,-- O royal knavery!--an exact command, Larded with many several sorts of reasons Importing Denmark's health and England's too, With, ho! such bugs and goblins in my life, That, on the supervise, no leisure bated, No, not to stay the grinding of the axe, My head should be struck off.” god, though. imagine that. being exiled to another country by the person who killed your father, only to find out that they were going to have you killed, anyways. that’s fucking terrifying. jesus christ.

Damn this idea that pretty handwriting is ~beneath~ nobles confuses me so fucking much. I got called haughty once just because my main handwriting is cursive. I mean, they were right, but their evidence was circumstantial at best.

“HAMLET: That, on the view and knowing of these contents, Without debatement further, more or less, He should the bearers put to sudden death, Not shriving-time allow'd.” Hamlet’s Revenge. 

but also, what the fuck, dude. two wrongs dont make a right.

damn i kinda lost myself while reading but it really doesn’t sound like hamlet’s insane anymore. Like he’s… tempered himself. he doesn’t feel insane, just solemn.

“OSRIC: Your lordship is right welcome back to Denmark. HAMLET: I humbly thank you, sir. Dost know this water-fly?” goddamn ROAST HIM HAMLET (also what a fucking mood)

Osric put on your fucking ha--

The wind is

The wind is northerly

“HAMLET: No, believe me, 'tis very cold; the wind is northerly.” I remember someone saying that this is important

Okay here: “HAMLET: I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.”

oh no

Osric just wear ur fucking hat u doof

“OSRIC: Exceedingly, my lord; it is very sultry,--as 'twere,--I cannot tell how. But, my lord, his majesty bade me signify to you that he has laid a great wager on your head: sir, this is the matter,-- HAMLET: I beseech you, remember-- (HAMLET moves him to put on his hat)” excuse me a WAGER

but alas all hamlet cares about is osric’s fucking hat

“HAMLET: What's his weapon? OSRIC: Rapier and dagger. HAMLET: That's two of his weapons: but, well.” hamlet u sarcastic little shit i love you

I mean so is horatio. I love him too.

This stuff with the competition is. not gonna end well. not at well.

“HAMLET: I do not think so: since he went into France, I have been in continual practise: I shall win at the odds. But thou wouldst not think how ill all's here about my heart: but it is no matter.”

hamlet no. listen to your heart or whatever. jesus christ don’t do it.

“HORATIO: Nay, good my lord,--” HAMLET LISTEN TO HORATIO

Ohhh hamlet

okay reading what laertes said, you know what? i’m giving laertes one last chance. please do not prove me a fool, laertes. 

everything is giving me mad anxiety. e v e r y t h i n g.

claud’s speech is insanely sketchy

“KING CLAUDIUS: [Aside] It is the poison'd cup: it is too late.” One, so that’s why it was sketchy. Two, the POISONED CUP?

IT’S TOO LATE?

Gertie’s. Dead.

Shit, shit, shit

“LAERTES: [Aside] And yet 'tis almost 'gainst my conscience.” YES! SO PLEASE! STOP FIGHTING!

“LAERTES wounds HAMLET; then in scuffling, they change rapiers, and HAMLET wounds LAERTES.” Oh no oh no oh jeez eheu they’re hurting each other, shit, fuck,

“LAERTES: ...woodcock…”

“KING CLAUDIUS: She swounds to see them bleed. QUEEN GERTRUDE: No, no, the drink, the drink,--O my dear Hamlet,-- The drink, the drink! I am poison'd. (Dies)” one, i love how claud is desperatley trying to stick to the plan, its almost adorable in a childish sort of way. two, oh god. ohhh god. gertie. 

Oh no. 

this is the bloodbath. THIS IS THE BLOODBATH.

BODY COUNT: 1

“HAMLET: The point!--envenom'd too! Then, venom, to thy work. (Stabs KING CLAUDIUS)” ...

BODY COUNT: 2

wait and hamlet’s on death row, as with laertes. Oh no.

“LAERTES: He is justly served; It is a poison temper'd by himself. Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet: Mine and my father's death come not upon thee, Nor thine on me. (Dies)’ oh my god already??? I haven’t even really accepted king claud’s death?? jesus christ??

My friend just sorta nudged me and asked if i was alright and i. I’m not. i’m in shock. goddamn. what?

BODY COUNT: 3

goodness thats three in like less than thirty seconds JESUS CHRIST

“HAMLET: Heaven make thee free of it! I follow thee.I am dead, Horatio.” that’s chilling. just, the poignancy. that’s so fucking spectral. i’m not okay.

“HORATIO: Never believe it: I am more an antique Roman than a Dane: Here's yet some liquor left.” No no no on no nononon NO NO oh my god are you going to-

“HAMLET: As thou'rt a man, Give me the cup: let go; by heaven, I'll have't. … If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart Absent thee from felicity awhile, And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain, To tell my story.” hey i’m crying in study hall. i’m actually crying. what the fuck. I don’t cry unless i’m thinking about that one pair of 18th century shoes with the really good photo quality (transcribing-antares here. I fucking love those shoes. I’m looking at them right now and they’re so fucking beautiful. they look how velvet feels, which is odd, bc they're apparently silk. I don’t care they’re just so fucking lovely)

F O R T I N B R A S?

“HAMLET: O, I die, Horatio; The potent poison quite o'er-crows my spirit.” I’ve identified my emotion. Dread. pure, unadulterated Dread.

for all of you that’ve listened to the penumbra podcast: do you remember the concierge, right before final resting place, saying “you do realize you can just like, leave, and everything will be hunky dory and you won’t have to deal with the emotional consequences this episode will bring you” because i’m seriously considering doing that right now.

“HAMLET: The rest is silence. (Dies)” shit. (posting-antares here to say that i forgot to do the body count but honestly im crying while formating because of this goddamn fucking 400 year old play)

“HORATIO: Now cracks a noble heart. Good night sweet prince…” oh god. horatio.

“Good night sweet prince…”

(yet again tis transcribing-antares here to say that im fucking sobbing right now, the shoes are no match for this, and ‘goodnight sweet prince’ is actually never going to leave my head.) (editing-antares here to say im fucking crying again god fucking damn it) (posting-antares back again saying that this fucking line. this line. my god.)

“HORATIO: What is it ye would see? If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search.” oh, horatio. god. that isn’t something said without tears staining your skin and a bitter tone hard-won, not that its possession is a victory.

oh my god. this can’t. no. this can’t end like this. What. no. people must have rioted. No. no!!

i typically hate it but i would GLADLY accept a deus ex machina right about now!!

okay my friend just took my phone away from me and shut it off because i kept on trying to scroll past the end

jesus christ

okay so i’m not going to be okay for like, several eternities, so im going to play the sims until i. until i die, probably. my god.

masterlist

[vestedbeauty]

“What Day Is It?” and Other Questions Inside the Midlife Time Warp

New Post has been published on https://vestedbeauty.com/what-day-is-it-and-other-questions-inside-the-midlife-time-warp/

“What Day Is It?” and Other Questions Inside the Midlife Time Warp

It never fails. At least once a week during our morning coffee time on the porch, either hubby or I ask, “What day is it?” Sometimes, the answer takes a minute because the time warp blurs them all together.

Of course, it doesn’t help that life got really weird almost a year ago. Or was that just a few months ago?

Doesn’t matter.

Welcome to Blursday. While people of all ages report a sense of all the days blending together, it’s worse if you’re over 40 and you’ve entered the time warp of middle age.

If you’re over 40, you know what comes at the end of this bit of lyrics:

Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’

Into the future

Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’

Into the future

[Let’s hear it, “doo doo doo doo-doo”]

Where Did the Time Go?

Remember how, as a kid, time seemed to crawl. You’d go to bed after a special day like your birthday or Christmas and think about how long it would be until that day rolled around again. It took for-evvvvv-er. Summer break even felt long, though I now realize it was only about ten weeks. And looking at the future, it seemed like eons before we’d be grown-ups.

And then, suddenly, we were.

I don’t know exactly when someone pressed the fast-forward button, but now it feels like time is speeding up exponentially with every year.

My grandfather, who lived to 98 and only died after complications from breaking a hip while trying to kill a HUGE bug that got into his apartment (someone actually framed that bug – weird!), used to say…

The days are slow, but the decades are fast.

It’s Math, Yo

Here’s one explanation for this time warp phenomenon:

When we’re young, each day represents a significant portion of our entire lifetime. For a ten-year-old, each year is a whole tenth of their lifetime so far. That’s pretty significant.

But when you’ve been around 19,466 days, like I have, not all of those 2,780 weeks or nearly 640 months sticks out. They begin to blend or blur. 

That’s probably a good thing. Can you imagine how exhausting it would be if we consciously remembered everything that happened on every day we’ve lived? There’s a name for that – hyperthymesia, or highly superior autobiographical memory (HSAM).

Would you want to be able to remember every detail of every day from infancy onward? 

Ever wondered why you probably don’t have any memories from when you were younger than 4-5 years old? That’s called infantile amnesia, and it’s perfectly normal. 

But it’s not complete amnesia. During that phase, we learn to walk, talk, feed ourselves, use the potty, pet dogs, and hundreds of other skills. We remember what we learned. But we don’t remember what we said and did, or how we spent all those childhood hours. Also, that amnesia seems to take a while to hit. If you talk with a three-year-old and ask what they did yesterday, they can tell you. Memory is weird, right? 

Time Flies When You’re Having Fun

Everyone’s had that sensation of time dragging. I remember sitting in Mr. Spack’s (yup, really) seventh-grade math class feeling overwhelmed by times tables. We’d drill and drill and then test. It was stressful and for the first time in school, I felt stupid. 

I remember watching the clock on the wall, willing it to go faster so I could go to Language Arts class instead, somewhere I felt competent. But I swear to you… that clock moved backwards sometimes!

If you’ve ever had a boring job, you know the feeling. Early in my working days, I figured out that it was much, much better to be too busy than not busy enough. 

But on the other end of the spectrum, when you’re having fun, doesn’t it feel like a time warp? You look at your phone or watch at some point and do a double-take. How could it possibly be that hours and hours have passed already?

The Creator Time Warp Is Even Freakier

I write for a living. Hubby builds custom Volkswagens. We both own businesses, and people often ask how it works out for two entrepreneurial types to be married. (It actually works really well because entrepreneurs are kind of… weird. Our weirdness goes together nicely, cheering each other’s wins and supporting each other when we have setbacks.)

The stranger thing is the time warp that happens when either or both of us is in the zone. Even more, in the groove inside the zone.

In the zone, creating is easy and pleasurable. In the groove inside the zone, it’s like the creation plops, fully formed, into reality. Yeah, I know it’s weird. 

I first noticed this happening in freshman year of college during Expository Writing class. The professor would drop a stack of bluebooks on a desk in the front row for us. Then he’d give us 45 minutes to write whatever type of essay we’d just studied. 

I’d spend the first few minutes with my eyes looking up and to the left. Suddenly, the whole essay outline seemed to download into my brain. Then, it was just a matter of transcribing the words quickly enough that they didn’t evaporate. It worked well, and my grades reflected it… though it felt so easy to write that I thought everyone had the same experience!

It’s the same now.

I do all I can to get into the groove inside the zone. Once in, creation feels… inevitable. The time whizzes by and when I come up for air, it’s often shocking to discover how much time has passed.

The Sorrowful Sound of the Ticking Clock 

Time perception changed for me sometime after turning 50. I’d been aware of the sense of it all speeding up years before. But it’s like that milestone birthday sent the clock into overdrive. 

When I’m with my adult kids, it’s obvious that they’re all grown up. But I catch flashes of them as babies and little children, and my heart melts. What I’d give to hold each of them in my arms, rocking them in the middle of the night or singing silly songs to them. 

Those moments feel simultaneously like yesterday and a million lifetimes ago. 

I think of my grandparents, whom I knew, and my great-grandparents who lived mostly in stories I’d heard. Though their lives stretched from the 1800’s through the 2010’s, it feels like the entirety of their time here was over in the blink of an eye. Then, thinking of the generations that came before them… well, it’s mind-boggling to consider how many stories evaporated into dust as the years passed.

I look at the people I work with, and while there are a couple in their forties, most are in their twenties and thirties. Doing the math, they could easily be my children. Reflecting on past jobs, I remember that I was always the youngest one in the office. Many of my favorite coworkers got old and died – a few of them not much older than I am now. I wonder, all those years ago, did they wonder whether they’d have a memorable impact on me? Did they have any idea that decades later, I’d remember them so fondly? Will young people I’ve worked with over the years remember me? It’s weird to think about.

But The Time Warp Isn’t All Bad

It’s not all wistful thinking. There are times the time warp is a wonderful thing. 

Anytime I’m feeling impatient, eagerly awaiting some special day, I can relax a bit. 

For example, hubby and I are planning to go to England and Scotland this summer. (It’s a re-do from 2020’s planned trip.) As a kid, I would have counted the days, impatiently x’ing each one off on a calendar that never seemed to flip its pages. Now, as eager and excited as I am (and I REALLY am!), it’s different.

Now, anticipation is a huge part of the enjoyment. I’ll take tremendous pleasure in planning where we’ll stay, which trains we’ll take, and which roads we’ll meander on the NC500 route. I know our departure date will be here before we know it. And I know that on our return flight, it’ll feel like the whole trip whooshed by.

Knowing this is now how my brain processes time helps me be more present rather than wishing it away.

Maybe That’s the Whole Point

When we’re little, there’s so much life ahead for us. When we walk around on tiny feet, it’s impossible for our minds to even imagine what will become of us. There’s so much that’s new, so much we learn from scratch, that it takes time to absorb it all. Once we finish it, we forget we ever went through that learning curve.

And once we’re older, we become more of what we always were. Sometimes, that means working on ourselves to carve out the bits that were never meant to stick and twist us. It’s enormously helpful to be able to recall the old days – and often our memories are like treasures we can look at anytime we want. We’ve been around long enough to realize that good times or bad, the clock still keeps ticking. For better or worse, nothing lasts forever.

Perhaps that sense of our days becoming precious is the best gift of all in midlife. None of us knows how many days we still have. But we have today. 

[cuddlywritesthings]

Arcane Explosion

Genre: World of Warcraft

Characters: Taviast Duskwither, Elric Marlowe

Characters mentioned: Clayton Whatley, Jendrick Camden, Guntharius Plaguespitter, Shokhi Ebondraft

Timeline: The next morning after Declivity into Holy Fire takes place.

Trigger warnings: Heavy themes, racism of certain races, strong language, severe injury, interrogation and torture, character death.

-----

“So, you’ve come to have a nice little chat with me, too.”

Clayton Whatley strained against his bonds just so he could get a good view of the person who had just entered this sad, pathetic, craven little dungeon. His chains rattled as he moved, his slumped position against the wall causing his back to ache.

He had been left to his own devices, or so he had assumed. After the fuzzy bitch with the knives and the poisons had attempted to wheedle her way through his ironclad defense, he had been left for what he assumed would have been the rest of the following day. He knew the routine. This wasn’t the first time he had been captured. He was a pro at it by now. Had it all down.

After all, he had captured and taken care of many people during his time in the Cult of the Gaze of N’zoth.

First, the captured prisoner would be forced down in some enclosed space used as a dungeon. From there they would be tied up or, in this case, chained at the waist, bound at the wrists, and collared like some mangy mongrel. Second, the first interrogation. This would be to survey the prisoner and to scare them into talking. Torture techniques more than likely used, given by the proof of the various cuts and acidic burns on his own body. Third, the waiting period. Here the prisoner would stew in his cell, left alone to the dark and their thoughts until they went mad with apprehension. When would their next visitation be? Would they be fed? Would they starve? Would they be taken out, found to be useless?

It was only then, after a generous time left alone, would the prisoner finally have their second interrogation. This one, of course, would be the one to smooth things over, with the interrogator begging, pleading, cajoling for a deal. This is where he could easily have the upper hand, so long as he played his devilish cards right. He was a master at sleight of hand. It’s how he had escaped his past two imprisonments.

He had been looking forward to settling in among the dank stones and the skittering rats in the walls when he had heard the descending footsteps and the ghastly creaking of an unoiled door, opening.

“You just missed your friend. The furry bitch roughed me up good. I think she gave me some fleas, too. Is she a pet of yours? Didn’t see a collar or anything, so I wasn’t sure.”

It was an elf, judging by its ridiculous ears. Whatley had always hated elves. Arrogant, uppity things. They thought themselves better than the rest. They deserved to have their whole race wiped out. For Azeroth, they were the rats skittering in the walls. The Sin’dorei, the Ren’dorei, the Shal’dorei and even some Kaldorei. Looks like this order liked to house the scum from the asscrack of this world. Fucking degenerates, all of them.

This one was a fancy elf, too. Looked to be a mage. Or perhaps higher up on the make believe caste system those mages liked to come up with. This one was an old geezer, too. White hair stood out against the dim lighting of this foul place. And the elf walked with a slight limp. Robes did a pretty good job at hiding the limp, but not from his keen eye.

“Nice limp you’ve got going on there,” Whatley sneered. He lifted his arms a little, letting the heavy clinking of the chains echo across the cavernous room. There were other cells here, and other chained areas, like this one, but none of them were occupied. “Get that recently? Did one of my men do it? You’ll have to give me their name so I can promote them once I get out of here.”

The fancy mage silently moved through the room, over to a table strewn with papers. Probably notes on how to make ‘a pig squeal’. Whatley knew who owned this dungeon. He was well aware of The Circle and its members. Plaguespitter was a blight that had to be eliminated. More so a target of purging than the fucking elves in this rat hole.

The elf had golden eyes. A mark of purity, or some bullshit. Whatley had learned that the Sunwell had been purified through the typical grapevine. But that didn’t matter to him. Elves were elves, and whether they were purified or not, they were still filth that had to be scrubbed clean.

He may have been a servant to the void and a loyalist to N’zoth’s teachings, but even he knew what races were worthy enough to follow his master’s words. He begrudgingly dealt with them in the Cult but, otherwise, he didn’t care much for their existence outside of it.

“Not very talkative are you,” Whatley taunted. A trickle of blood snaked out from beneath his hairline, and he lounged against the hard, compact stone wall. Stretching his legs, he cocked his head lazily to the side. “Is most of this order as rude as the fuzz-bitch? I should have gotten my delicious meal of pig slop and rotten rinds by now. I’m a guest at your place. How about treating me like the royalty I am?”

The elf was spreading out something on the table, and he was reading it over. His face was cold and guarded, and he could barely make out the elf’s eyes moving as he scanned the page. Flashy bastard. The elf had a penchant for purples and blues. Probably just as egotistic and vain as the rest of his useless race. Probably gay, too. Like some gay-ass peacock, coming to be intimating. Pathetic.

“Hel-llllooo,” he called out, shaking his chains a little on purpose. The acid burns on his hands and arms stung with the motion, but he relished their sweet pain. “I am having a conversation with you!”

Quietly the elf looked his way. Finally! The insect was taking notice of him. Whatley flashed him a smug smile. He found himself clever for finally getting the inferior pest to acknowledge his presence.

“There we are,” the crazed cultist began in a sickeningly cordial tone. He figured it was perfect for this little get-together. Sound a little inviting, lure this elf into a trap. Not that he, himself, looked intimidating at this point. His robes were in tatters; slashed in a few areas, with burned flesh exposed. “Hello, there. What’s your name?”

The bug stared at him, a hint of a flame beneath that expressionless mask and those golden eyes. His hands were without gloves, but Whatley could tell there was something transcribed upon his skin. If he squinted just right and turned his head to the left a little, he’d probably come to the conclusion that they were runes of some sort. But he didn’t have time to study this inferior beast.

“I’m trying to be the civilized one here,” Whatley snapped. “I understand it’s hard for you elves to be civilized. You pretend that you are, but you really aren’t. You elves live in the woods and worship your little spirit friends. Or some elves do, at least. You worship the sun, right? Your kind enjoys sunburns and going blind in its bright light. You probably stared at it too long, and that’s why your eyes are like that. Probably too stupid to look away.” He scoffed as the elf turned his attention to two chairs in the room, grabbing their backs in order to pull them over. “Oooh, a chat? Are we going to have a bloody tea party? I’m sorry, I don’t speak your fancy speak, so I am afraid communication will be lost on your primitive brain.” Shrugged, he added in a snippy tone, “I could try, if you want me to. Doubt you’d listen.”

The elf had brought the chairs to him. With a surprising amount of rough strength, he grabbed Whatley by the arm, lifting him before shoving him down into the chair. The chains rattled like bones.

“Durr a thor-y-a moo-thil,” Whatley mocked him. “Or whatever the hell you’d say to me now.”

The elf had settled down into the chair across from him. Almost an arm’s length away. Pathetic. Rats getting so close to him, touching his arm. He’d have to wash that arm, once he was brought some water. Who knows the parasitic germs the cretin had.

Relaxing in the chair, and making a show of it, Whatley smugly smiled. “So, elf. I’ve been dying to ask someone. I mentioned his name to your pet you sicced on me, but I didn’t get so much as a lick of emotion out of her. That’s what you get for enlisting dumb animals.”

With a slow, barely noticeable lifting of his chin, the elf merely stared at him.

Getting bold and brazen, Whatley leaned forward a little, testing the limitations of his chained collar. The chain pulled taut, its post grinding against stone. “How’s Plaguespitter?”

Whatley didn’t have time to comprehend. All he felt was the disruption from movement and the blur of the chair coming towards him. The goddamn elf had stood up, and with a violent motion he had reached around, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, and slammed his head down on the chair before him. The chair, of course, had been strategic in its placement, so that the front edge of the wooden seat met his forehead. And the chain to his collar didn’t help him any. It snapped taut from the action, throwing his head back, nearly choking him.

After all, the Archmage had been crafty enough and calculated the chair’s placement, keeping it just close enough that when he slammed Whatley’s head down, the chain had enough slack give that it didn’t prevent the action from happening, nor the man from having his spine instantly snapped.

“FUCK YOU,” Whatley exploded, as a gush of red flowed freely over his left eye and down his nose. He had found himself slumped back in his own chair, a strong, runic emblazoned hand pushing him against the back, holding him there. “FUCK YOU AND YOUR ENTIRE RACE,” he screamed, losing control of his anger for that moment. “YOU CRAVEN BEAST, HOW DARE YOU--”

Again, Whatley filled the air with curses as the elf had repeated the same gesture. This time the gash that had split the skin so cleanly had deepened, and widened, nearly blinding him with red. He couldn’t help but reflect on it all.

This damn elf. This inferior beast, touching him!

His chair was kicked out from under him, and he fell back, sprawling, to the stone floor. He could hear the elf’s soft, light footsteps as he stared upwards, vision red, towards the ceiling.

“Good morning,” came the light, aristocratic tone of the elf. He spoke Common fluently, with hardly a hiss to his words betraying his elven accent. “My name, translated in your language, is Taviast Duskwither.”

“You fucking--- ahh-!”

The elf, this Taviast Duskwither, had stepped down, harshly, on his arm. Right where the arm set snugly into the socket of his shoulder. He dug his heel into the man’s bone, letting it grind out a wave of pain.

“Ah, ah, ah,” the elf darkly purred as he waggled a finger. “None of this ‘fucking elf’ business. I am a Sin’dorei. You will get this correct. Not merely an elf, by your baseless standards, but a child of shed blood and of the sun. And,” he ground his heel in a bit more, eliciting more curses from Whatley’s mouth, “you will be wise to hold your tongue in my presence, human. For I am an Archmage. And you will address me as such, for I have earned this title and you are nothing but scum beneath my boot.”

Whatley shot him a defiant glare through the curtain of his blood. This primitive beast was inflicting pain on him! How dare he! How dare he touch him!

Before Whatley could respond, he felt the chain connected to his collar yanked on, hard. His neck was jerked as he was pulled, hard, back towards the wall. The vertebrae in his spine popped, and he gasped out in agony.

The fuzz-bitch Pandaren had tortured him, but she had used more convenient methods of torture. Knives, poisons and acid. The typical shit. Whatley admitted he would have never expected a skinny-ass, wispy looking, limping motherfucker to do this to him.

Spitting out a wad of stringy blood, Whatley defiantly glared at the heathen before him. He wished his head would stop spinning. An explosion of pain throbbed in his head. Shit, being dazed was a bitch and a half to deal with.

“This isn’t how the next interrogation is supposed to go,” he snapped. Fucking elves, thinking them superior. Whatley bristled at the way he was being talked to. Like a damn child! It stoked the fires of his rebellious nature, and he sneered at the elf. “You’re supposed to try to coax me to talk. Make a deal, maybe. Get me to spill more of the beans by playing the ‘nice guy’ role. Where’s the duality? Is Rosecrown filled with the crust from Azeroth’s own asshole?”

“In a fairer world, perhaps,” Taviast coldly replied, his words cast about in an almost offhanded sort of way. “But in your world, things aren’t always fair, is it? Oh, and do pardon me of my prudence, but I don’t have any bloody tea to give to you.”

“That’s no way to treat a prisoner,” Whatley growled. “And you expect me to cooperate after that little stunt of yours? Consider my mouth shut.”

“Oh, I don’t expect you to speak,” the Archmage replied without missing a beat.

“Do you now?”

"You don’t seem like someone who would freely talk to us.”

“Then fucking make me, you piece of shit.”

“I am not interested in that. I only want silence, from here on out.”

“...What?”

“Forever.”

Whatley’s eyes began to widen in his sickening sense of realization. He had caught the distant, harsh look in the Sin’dorei’s eyes, and he saw that there was not a scrap of mercy behind the elf’s sun-bright eyes. Only a simmering flame of hatred, the only sparse bit of warmth to the elf’s being.

“W--Wait,” Whatley said, mentally scrambling for his figurative cards. “H--Hey, now. What do you mean by that?”

“If you thought I had personally come to bless you with my presence, consider this meeting more an omen of ill-fate. I have no further time to spare. You have clearly been exhausted of your resources, and you’re no longer a priority to us.”

Whatley’s heart began to slam against his ribs in a panicked frenzy.

“B--But--”

“It’s clear you won’t cooperate with us,” the elf cooed in an almost sinister tone. He was attempting to placate Whatley in the most mocking way possible, and it only added anxiety to the cultist’s mind. “Shokhi was exceptional in her technique, but what you’ve given us is useless. Fraught with red herrings and filled with lies.”

“You don’t know that,” Whatley blurted out, suddenly fearful. He attempted to stand up, but he was far too woozy from the hits to his head, and so he sank back down to his knees. “You fucking psycho! You don’t know that!”

“Oh, but I do. You are of no further use to us.”

This was going wrong. This was going all wrong. Whatley could see that the elf was approaching him, and the only thing that could go through his mind was of his failure. He had to get back to the cult. He had to get back to his fellow cultists.

And he had to get back to him.

His fearful heart lurched downwards and plummeted into the pit of his stomach at the thought of being unable to return to his leader. And not simply his leader. His leader, and his lover. He had made him feel complete. Made him feel whole. His ingenious nature had whiled away the pain from his life. He had helped lick at the wounds riddling his heart and soul, and had taken him in, teaching him the glory of N’zoth and the judgement day to be. It was because of him that he had grown strong against the injustices of this world. He had learned to have a voice. He had learned to hold himself up above the inferior beasts of this world.

Through his beloved leader, he had learned how powerful he truly was.

And now here he was, with an insane elf bearing down on him, realizing he had to act fast if he were to ever return to him alive.

“L--Let’s strike a deal,” Whatley all but sniveled. “P--Please, let’s talk this over!”

Taviast Duskwither had reached his side. Harshly he gripped his arm tight-- the very one he had stepped on earlier-- and twisted. It elicited an agonized cry from Whatley. “You couldn’t even tell us what your name actually is.”

“M--MARLOWE,” he gasped out, tears stinging his eyes. “Elric Marlowe! Marlowe! I’m our leader’s second-in-command! I--- his name! His name is Clayton Whatley!”

Another vicious wrench to his damaged arm, and Elric Marlowe shrieked out in misery. His vision popped as colors exploded in his head. He could feel his body begin to tremble. Too much had happened to him in such a little amount of time. He couldn’t get past the pain.

Marlowe was then thrown forward from a well timed backhanded strike. He slumped against the ground, a miserable pile of human pestilence. His body continued to quake as he coughed and sputtered, flecks of blood speckling the dirty stone flooring.

“Je--Jendrick! That’s who you want! Jendrick Camden is the Paladin you’re seeking!”

With a sickening wheeze, Marlowe felt the toe of the Archmage’s boot slam against his ribs. Instinctively he curled in on himself, tears beginning to flow freely, streaking down his grimy face.

“You w--want him, not me,” he groaned out, his stomach flopping as vomit threatened to push up his throat. “H-He’s the one who took out your fucking deader.” He paused, waiting for a reaction from the elf. Once he was sure the elf didn't move an inch, he continued on, pressing the matter. “That’s… that’s it. It’s Jendrick you truly want. H--He went and fucking killed your precious reanimated corpse! I--I mean,” he corrected himself, after hearing the elf shift a step closer towards him, “he hurt your friend. And now your entire order is seeking revenge. That is who you’re after. He’s the one you want. It’s true. This was a trap. We had wanted him dead.”

Taviast’s boot came down on the back of Marlowe’s shoulder, and he screamed into the stone. His vision swam and a slew of curses spilled forth from his rancid mouth.

He was going to die here. He was going to die, and never get a chance to return to his beloved, his life, his everything-- Clayton Whatley. He owed him so much, but he knew he had to try and offer up some tidbit offering to this manic elf in order to gain any sort of chance towards escaping Rosecrown alive.

“I do not have all night,” Taviast said, just a bit testily. “I have matters to attend to. Let’s make this quick.”

Rolled over by the elf’s foot, Marlowe could see the elf standing above him through the haze of pain and blood that clouded his vision. A wave of rebellion coursed through him, fueling him for one more act of rebellion in his lover’s name.

Aiming just right, Marlowe spat. The somewhat gooey wad landed right on the Archmage’s robes. A ripple of laughter coursed through him. The elf wasn’t wiping it away, which surprised him all the same, but no matter. Perhaps this worthless piece of shit wasn’t as vain as the rest of them.

With an almost bored sounding sigh, Taviast acknowledged the action with a toneless, “very well.” He moved over to the post in the wall that connected the chained collar to the stone. “I had wanted to make your demise a quick one, but your superfluous sense of pride chose this fate for you. You could have truly been someone of good in this world. But you chose this path.”

He had almost snapped out something arrogant in response but had, instead, stopped dead in his tracks. He had found that his throat had gone dry. He was witnessing something that had turned his stomach out of sheer panic.

The bastard elf had grabbed the chain, right at the lock that secured it to the post. The runes on his bare hand began to glow a sinister hue of purple. From his fingertips a glaze of frost began to creep down the chain and towards him. Almost instantly Marlowe was aware of the chain progressively getting colder the closer the chilly frost encroached.

“You fucker! You fucking madman!”

“I am not the one here who is mad,” Taviast replied calmly, as the chain froze ever closer to him. “You are the one who joined a cult worshiping an Old God. Not I. We are all mad to our own various degrees: this I have come to learn. But there can be no comparison between you and I.”

His panic full blown now, Marlowe twisted and turned, as if trying to wiggle free from the collar. The chain and his collar were getting cold now, as was the space around them. And the frost was already halfway, and the ice magic had already frozen solid up to that point.

“S--Stop--”

“When your collar freezes,” Taviast intoned in an almost bored voice, “the cold will make it hard for you to breathe. Essentially, given enough time and exposure to the cold, you might develop frostbite of your throat which, well... I don’t have to be the one to tell you how disadvantageous that might make breathing for you. I am sure you could have figured that out all on your own.”

“You piece of shit,” Marlowe hissed out, fear gripping at his heart. He stood to his feet, pulling back and away as much as the chain would allow him, as if to get away from his fate. His chilled breath escaped his lips, and he could see that the chain had frozen most of the way to him. “You honestly think this will work? That they won’t come for me? That they’re not looking for me, right now?”

The elf tilted his head to the side, the sun soaked glow to his eyes somehow colder than before. Ice had begun to spread out from underneath the Archmage’s feet and, like gnarled, searching fingers they had begun to spread out towards the cultist.

“I don’t know,” the elf replied, mockingly feigning innocence. “Tell me, Marlowe… are they coming for you? Truly? Are they?”

It was now a few inches from his collar. Marlowe was sucking in his breath, already finding the chill of his cell space to be too much.

“After all,” the elf pressured, “how would they know? How would they know you’re here, under our incredibly loving care?”

Marlowe opened his mouth to say something, but he quickly shut it and, instead, whimpered. No. He couldn’t say it. What if the eye was actually around? That damn eye. That goddamn eye of the Archmage’s!

The Eye of Arcanum. Where was it right now? Was it nearby? Was it eavesdropping? He couldn’t let that thing hear him. He couldn’t risk that!

The thought sent a new wave of panic to wash over him, and he began to beg almost hysterically. What if the eye had been somewhere? What if it had heard, and seen, his act of betrayal? His slip of names? His slip of their intentions?

It was now a few inches from his collar. Marlowe was sucking in his breath, already finding the chill of his cell space to be too much.

“W--We know where Rosecrown is. We know who you are. And we are ready to strike, at any time! They’ll be here! They’ll rescue me! So how about you just spare yourselves any more casualties and just let me go?” 

The collar had just begun freezing over when the elf ceased the flower of magic. The Archmage’s fingertips stopped glowing blue, and the runic markings on his hand lessened in their intense glow. Marlowe took a deep breath in order to steady himself. What a close call that had been.

“Perhaps it is true, what you’re saying. That they’re coming to rescue you. But, then again, you are the second-in-command, one of the head rats.”

Marlowe felt his throat close up out of dread.

“You, the head rat,” Taviast continued slowly, almost thoughtfully, “leading the filthy swarm towards us. And you quite possibly have a bug somewhere on you, quite likely somewhere we can’t detect.”

Elric Marlowe could hear his hope shattering in his ears.

“And this bug, this leak... is sending out your location to them,” Taviast continued. “Gnomish technology, perhaps. Maybe Goblin. I wouldn’t put it past your types to use that particular type of primitive technology.”

His plan had backfired. He saw it now. Saw it in how the elf’s body language tensed.

“N--No, wait, you’ve got it wrong!”

“I suppose this changes matters a little, seeing as how we can’t risk this lasting a moment longer than it already has.”

Moving towards the elf, Marlowe held out his shackled hands in a begging gesture. “I’ll work with you. I’ll tell you everything! J--Just let me live. Let me go! I promise I won’t--”

“I already know you won’t give me the locations of your encampment,” Taviast began, “and I already know what most of your intentions are. I am already aware that this was a trap and, based on what I have learned over the past few hours, and I know that our base of operations might been compromised this entire time. Quite possibly from you. So the less information is heard coming from your mouth, the better.”

Swallowing nervously, Marlowe watched as the Archmage began approaching him, once more. “Hey, now. I didn’t say a thing about your base being compromised or bugged!”

“I could see it in your eyes.”

Roughly, the elf grabbed him by the arm and yanked him to his feet. Marlowe wobbled for a bit, and his legs buckled for a second, but he remained upright.

“PLEASE! RECONSIDER! I’LL COOPERATE! I’LL DO ANYTHING! I JUST NEED TO GET BACK TO CLAY--”

With a cry, Marlowe found himself pinned back to the wall of his prison. He struggled and fought against the Archmage, but the elf was surprisingly strong for being so slight. And the elf’s hands, despite being so delicate, were incredibly harsh in their grip. Even with the cultist’s extra weight and muscle, he couldn’t quite throw the beast off of him, even as the elf pressed all his body weight up against him.

“H--HEY! WHAT ARE YOU--”

Marlowe’s words were muffled behind the elf’s hand. With wide, terrified eyes the cultist looked down his nose just in time to see that the runes on Taviast’s hands had begun to glow brilliantly.

Another pitiful fit of struggling, and the cultist had realized that he was slowing down. It must have been his previous injuries, or the bashes to his head. Or maybe the poisons from the first interrogation had finally taken effect, and something was, in fact, happening to his body to sap him of all strength.

Or perhaps the elf was truly that enraged. After all, the Archmage’s calm guise had warped with a sinister edge into that of a mask of malevolence.

“Band'or shorel'aran,” Taviast Duskwither snarled out.

The only thing Marlowe saw in those final, agonizing minutes before his eventual demise was the color purple. Electrifying, brilliant, intense. Crackling energy snapped through the air, popping off of the Archmage’s body, consuming his own in a fit of otherworldly hunger.

He opened his mouth wider to scream, but the channeled arcane flooded down his throat. It rampaged through his system, sizzling organs and frying his blood in a great cataclysmic affair. His skin began to change color as boils bubbled to its surface.

Elric Marlowe’s body jerked and spasmed as the Archmage continued to pour the ethereal energy into his weakening body. His muffled scream became ragged, uncontrollable in its volume and foreign to his own ears, up until his bloodied vomit began to fill his lungs.

And then… silence.

As the cultist’s eyes sizzled in his skull, the Archmage tossed the limp body to the ground, hair and skin still sizzling from the intense heat of the electrifying magic.

With a look of a resigned sense of calm, Taviast looked over his robes and spotted, once more, the wad of spit that had clung to his robes and the spattering of blood particles from the cultist’s death rattle. Sighing to himself, he stepped over the prone, smoking body before heading towards the exit.

“Oh, dear. I suppose a change of clothes is in order...”

[spideychelle-romanogers]

Finale: You Make Me Feel Good

Making of Michelle Jones - Prologue, Chapter 13

Start from the beginning || Series Masterlist || Previous Chapter

After catching Michelle stealing jewels, the new mystery she brings into Peter's life defines his next adventure. There are new dangers coming to NYC and Michelle is playing a bigger part in Spider-Man's mission than Peter ever imagined.  

A/N: This is the last chapter of this prologue.

Chapter 13: Peter looked to Michelle, wanting nothing more than to brace her, prepare her for whatever was about to come. Instead, he froze. He knew he could never have been prepared. There was nothing he could say that would make this any easier. 

T/W: author chooses not to list  Beta: Splendid_Splendont  Tags: spideychelle, pan!Peter, demi!Michelle, slow burn

“I found your guy,” Tony announced as soon as Spider-Man popped up on the Stark Tower balcony. He said he wouldn’t get involved with Peter’s cases, but occasionally he did give some input. Once Michelle confirmed the man’s identity, Tony had been their first call. She knew exactly how to force him to hear them out. Meaning she wouldn’t stop calling and talking over him until he agreed to help. Peter was starting to follow her lead, now that he knew that it worked.

“Remember how I said his name sounded familiar?” the man asked, approaching with a file. Peter nodded. “Read this.” Immediately scanning through the files, Peter saw a photo of Whitman and his job history. Reading through, he saw an arrest record. “He laundered borrowed money from the federal reserve?”

“Are you done reading yet?” Tony asked. Peter shook his head. Tony tinkered away with a gadget at one of his desks as Peter finished reading. There were documents from Damage Control regarding the real charges: laundering money from the Department of Damage Control.

“What does this mean?”

“The arrest record is real, but the charges are fake,” Tony explained from his desk. He pulled up a picture of Whitman’s arrest record. “During a sting, we found a collective of bankers who were taking money provided by Damage Control.”

“Why would Damage Control give banks money?”

“During the New York attack, a lot of records regarding finances and people’s property were destroyed. In the chaos, a lot of people lost recent deposits or had to borrow money to restore their lives. Some banks were destroyed entirely and charged customer accounts to rebuild. The DDC found a way to pay low-income families back in order to prevent chaos.”

Peter nodded to indicate that he was following, but he couldn’t help considering how cold hearted someone had to be to take money from people who need it most.

“Whitman is one of many that told the public the help was minimal, keeping the money for himself while people went bankrupt. They arrested him, but they couldn’t allow word to get out about what he and the other bankers really did. So the DDC changed the charges. Somewhere along the line, their case tampering was exposed. In exchange for silence, they dropped the charges.”

“And this man got to go free?”

“Yes.”

“You own Damage Control,” Peter said, confused.

“I didn't know about this until it was too late,” Tony said in his usual tone. It was hard to get him to admit he was wrong. When he did, it usually ended up with his admittance being very casual. Peter did his best not to let that get to him. “I want them put away, but I need you to do me a favor.”

“What?”

“When you turn him in, don't mention Damage Control.”

“What?”

“I'm not asking you to lie. He was dismissed on the charges for DDC. There's no point in telling them. What matters is the robberies.” Peter was stunned at the request. He didn’t want to judge Tony, but this didn’t seem like something he could do. Tony’s demeanor gradually changed to something much more uncomfortable to watch.

“Is this the company you said you wanted to keep from going public?” Peter asked. As always, he didn’t answer.

“Business isn’t easy. I do everything to keep things like this from happening but I can’t be everywhere. People are selfish, Peter. That makes them dangerous. That’s part of why I do what I do now.” Tony took back the file. Peter nodded. Even if he didn’t agree, he knew Tony was only ever looking out for everybody.

“Mr. Stark says it’s important that we catch these guys,” he repeated to Michelle that same night when they met at the tunnel. Peter knew they didn't have the evidence yet to get Whitman and his crew on the robberies. They had found the Kerrig robbers’ lair after only a week of tracking them, but finding them wasn’t enough. They needed proof.

“That’s great, so what’s he going to do to help?” Michelle asked, expectantly. Spider-Man turned to her, hands down because he didn’t have a defense. “You’re joking.” He heard her mumble something under her breath about the rat before picking up the phone.

“Please Michelle, can we try to solve this one without him?” She looked at him curiously before putting the phone back.

“We could use the trackers,” she suggested after a quiet minute.

“How?”

“I’d have to adjust them, but there is something in the manual about using them for audio. It’s very temperamental though. We’d have to use a lot of them-”

“That’s perfect-”

“-And I’d have to go with you.”

“No.” He was ready to insist when he saw the brief flash of anger in her eyes that didn’t reach the rest of her face.

“I think it’s time we talk,” she said, in a mild tone that was probably the softest to ever strike fear in him. “Going dark on me like that was cruel. I understand what you thought you were doing but you need to start taking me seriously. I deserve more after making it this far, Spidey.”

Peter was going to argue, but he didn’t want to make her angry. In trying to find the right words, he realized he didn’t have a good enough reason that she’d actually listen to.

“I just want you to be safe, Michelle.”

“And I am just here to help. To put the bad guys away. I’m not here to be protected. I know I’ve let it go a lot, but I am not anybody’s girl, I’m not a sidekick.” And with that, Peter knew he didn’t have another choice. The police had no idea who these guys were yet, meaning there was nothing to trace to their identities. Getting them arrested now could just as easily mean they’d get released due to lack of evidence. They made it in and out of the tunnel without incident. Michelle was an expert at getting the trackers to work as audio bugs.

Yet again, Michelle was proving herself invaluable to him.

“I can understand why the Kerrig robbers went after Whitman’s company, but they were too unpredictable for things to be so clean,” Peter noted as the information poured in through the bugs that night. The computer was transcribing their conversations as he and Michelle watched.

“What always stuck with me is why they would change bank chains,” Michelle posed.

“You said they were targeting Kerrig safes. Tony says those combinations are given to the highest executives. Whitman would have had clearance.”

“He would have known his own chain’s combinations. What about the other four chains?” she posed. “Kerrig safes are only available to those who know the combinations.”

“Whitman had plenty of help.” For a minute, Michelle put up the volume and listened carefully, counting.

“There are five of them,” Michelle repeated, distracted.

“Yeah, there were five of them at the bank.” Michelle rushed to the other side of the tunnel by her books. “I told you that.”

“You said Tony said Whitman wasn’t the only executive who was arrested, right?” Peter only told Michelle half the story Tony told him. As far as Michelle was concerned, Whitman was an executive accused of stealing from the Federal Reserve.

“He was the only one in his chain.”

“What about other chains?” The realization finally sunk in. Five chains hit by five men.

Michelle began searching other executives arrested on charges of stealing from the reserve. Many results turned up, but only a few per bank. On a different screen, she searched for videos of each man, programming the bugs to isolate voices.

On Youtube, Michelle found videos of each executive making a speech. From there they narrowed down one man for all of the four other branches. By the end of it, Michelle finally stopped holding her breath and Peter cried out.

“We caught them,” she breathed out nervously.

“We caught them,” he repeated, excited for what was next.

The next day at school, Peter had to do his best to stifle his smile. Walking up to Michelle, he figured his best course of action was to apologize for ditching her at the dance. When he reached her, she was practically glowing from how happy she seemed. It was like every weight on her shoulders was gone.

“What’s going on?” he asked, feigning surprise.

“I had a good time at the dance last night.” Peter knew it was a lie, but he was flattered regardless. Leaning on the locker next to her, he smiled back, unable to hide his mood.

“I’m sorry for leaving.”

“I meant everything I said, Parker.” She shut her locker and hugged her notebook to her chest. “Walk me to class?” she suggested. Peter could feel the change. They were friends, real friends now. She was friends with him and Spider-Man.

“How is your dad?” Michelle’s smile faded for a second before returning.

“You know, it’s so funny, he got really bad for a while and then he just got better.”

“What?”

“Yeah, it was killing him to go without something to numb the little fits he’d get. Then, I think they stopped coming. He’s even had a lot of energy lately. He’s been all over the place.”

“That’s good, I guess.”

“I hope it is. I’m trying to stay optimistic.”

“That’s not your style,” he pointed out.

“It’s time for a change. Just don’t tell anyone. I have a reputation to protect,” she joked back. Peter never really thought he’d find this much relief at once. Everyone would be happy soon. Once the robbers were arrested, everything would be over. He had the damning feeling that maybe the arrest would go wrong but he was too happy to let paranoia get to him.

As they sat together, Peter didn’t even try to stop staring even when it made her blush. They laughed between themselves over nothing. When Ned gave them a weird look, Peter didn’t let it phase him. Things were going to be different.

After they bugged the lair, the Kerrig case seemed to solve itself. Once the police had the audio they gathered from their conversations, it was just a matter of Peter setting up the right trap. Spider web was never going to hold them for long. With the FBI calling in a SWAT team, the combined effort became enough. With the evidence on their side, Whitman and the others would be going away for a long time.

Michelle seemed perfectly content not looking into Spider-Man’s theory that they were not human. So long as the criminals were behind bars, she didn’t really seem to think there was much mystery to pursue. Peter knew as soon as the men were put away, Damage Control would do everything to hide their non-human identities.

Maybe it was just a trigger for him, but Peter couldn’t let it go. If Oscorp was causing any more trouble than it already had, he had to know about it. These robbers weren’t just strong, they were mutating. Something was off about their histories and he intended to find out what.

At school, everyone was talking about the news. There was a sign outside thanking Spider-Man for keeping the streets safe. The halls were loud and busy, everyone rushed as they hurried to discuss the Spider-Man’s latest feat.

Before anything else, Michelle had rushed to Peter’s side before first period. She surprised him with a hug. She had promised Spider-Man would catch these robbers, and he did. Peter didn’t let go for a long time, just happy that it was all over.

The dead man’s figure would always stay in the back of his mind, but maybe he could forgive himself now. They’d caught the robbers, they’d caught his killers. Peter vowed to get better at this job. Still, he knew he couldn’t keep the promise unless he kept digging. He had to expose Oscorp, he had to find a way to get the city safe from them.

It was time for Algebra, the one class he always ignored. Peter was prone to research when he thought no one was watching. Peter sat in the back of all of his classes for this reason. Ned was there, but this was the one class where he’d sit away from Peter. Unlike Peter, Ned loved being the best in the class, often sitting in the very front so that he could show off. It gave Peter the opportunity to research without being watched.

Peter was deep in his research on the company’s backers when he was startled as the class started.

“What are you looking at Oscorp for?” Michelle asked from behind him. This wasn’t her class. She took algebra with a completely different teacher. Besides-

“This is your free period,” he blurted out, loud enough for the row in front of them to turn around. Michelle just squinted at him.

“I have to make up a class,” she explained, pulling out the seat next to him. “So why are you looking at Oscorp?”

Peter turned back to his tablet, thinking up a good excuse to himself. There was a giant green box labeled Junior Internships: Apply Now! “I am thinking about switching internships,” he lied, already trying to come up with a reason why it wasn’t working with Tony Stark. “The Stark internship is getting really boring.” It was weak, but it would have to do. She hadn’t doubted his lies yet, he wasn’t sure she ever would anymore.

“Boring? Peter, you spend every minute of every day working there.”

“That’s why. It’s just time for a change.” Michelle watched him work for a minute. Peter clicked on the internship application just to seem convincing. When she finally spoke up, it was in a more supportive tone.

“Well, you know how I feel about Oscorp.” Peter turned, slightly worried. The only time she’d mentioned Oscorp to him was when he was Spider-Man as they investigated local institutes. Before he could ask what she meant, she shattered his mindset, clearly seeing the confusion on his face. “That’s the company that operated on my dad. Didn’t I tell you?”

It was as if Peter had entered a new world. He couldn’t warn her, but someone had to. Half an hour had passed and he was practically coming out of his skin with how badly he wanted to warn her. Staring at the clock, waiting for class to end, he tapped his foot nervously planning his escape. He’d have to get a phone call to her. She’d listen to Spider-Man.

As Peter schemed, he was distracted when he brought his eyes down to the door to the hallway. There was Aunt May, walking past the classroom door with the guidance counselor. Sure that he’d gotten himself into trouble, he was confused when he saw the principal also pass, seeming rushed.

He met Aunt May’s eyes, and she looked away quickly before passing the classroom. She didn’t look angry. She looked sad.

A principal, a counselor, Aunt May.

Considering Peter didn't have anyone left to lose except for her, he couldn’t imagine what they were going to tell him. He glanced at Ned, sitting in the front of the class, looked back to Michelle. They were all safe. Tony was probably safe or the entire school would know about it by now.

The teacher walked to the door for a moment, whispering with whoever was there. As Michelle unknowingly covered the noise by tapping her pen on the table, he could only make out the last words: ‘Yes, she’s right here. She’s making up a class.’

Peter recognized his mistake. He never considered the possibility that Aunt May could be anyone else's emergency contact. He looked to Michelle, wanting nothing more than to brace her, prepare her for whatever was about to come. Instead he froze. He knew he could never have been prepared. There was nothing he could say that would make this any easier.

“Michelle, could you please report to the principal’s office?”

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[theabominableblogger]

My Reaction to “Gotham” S4E16

ONLY TWO MORE OF THESE TO GO, KIDDIES!

The rest of these reaction posts I’ll be uploading are not chronological order.  They’re like that because A) college and B) more college.

My sister watched it with me (as well as the other episodes left in my epic “Gotham” reaction series) so my comments will be in bold, and hers will be in regular font.  Author’s notes courtesy of me will be bolded and italicized.

Also, quick warning (and probably obligated to say this), we don’t like Barbara’s storyline.

AN:   I managed to record our reactions to this episode and hopefully I can transcribe what I said into this post. 

*Lee shoots Sofia in the recap*  Oooooohhh!!

But she’s not dead though, apparently!

*sighs*  Nobody’s dead on this show...

And he’s [Jerome] alive!

*flatly*  Was there any doubt.

Meanwhile, at Arkham Asylum...

*The Arkham guard turns on her Walkman*  Oh, this is never a good idea...

*starts slow jamming out to "Fool For You” by Alice Smith*

Yeah headphones are required...

Ohhhh OK...

Because!  *points excitedly at screen when Jervis appears*

*scoffs in hilarity when Jervis tries to talk to the guard, who can’t hear him*

What.

*gasps when one of the guards pops up behind the main guard*

“Tortuga!  You almost gave me a heart attack!”  Tortuga?

*shrugs cluelessly*

*Tortuga slices the guard’s neck*  Ooooooohhhhhhh!!

Jesus God!

Jervis, I like your shorter hair much better.

Tortuga.... *claps hands*  THE MOCK TURTLE!

OH MY GOD!

YEAH!

Wha- oh my God...

*jaw drops in excitement when we see Scarecrow*

[Jervis] I LOVE YOUR NEWSPAPER HAT!

That’s a different actor [playing Scarecrow].  That’s not Charlie Tahan.

*chuckles*  He’s [Scarecrow] experimenting in his toilet.

Did he just put a whole bunch of that sodium stuff in his freaking toilet?

That thing is gonna get blown right off the wall in a matter of minutes.

I know!

*Scarecrow pours that crap on a lock*  Holy shit!

That’s all you were doing with that?!?

*Cue Jerome*  EEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYY!!!!!

Ohhh dear.

EEEEYYYYYY!!!

“When I [Jerome] say ‘three hairs past a freckle,’ gentlemen, I do not mean five hairs past.”  *both immediately smile*

“Boys, boys, let’s not squabble too early in our partnership.  There will be plenty of time to stab each other in the backs later!”  *both chuckle*

“That’s the spirit, boys.  Think big- and kinky.”  *done*

“And lose the weirdo.  She’s [Tortuga] giving me [Jerome] the heebie jeebies.”  *trying her absolute damndest not to laugh*

*laughs*  Stop calling us out!

*both yell in horror when Tortuga slices her own neck*

“Now, to free the rest of our cronies and blow this pop stand.”  WELL DANG!

It’s “Popsicle stand,” you cretin.

*laughs*  He don’t know that.

If you’re gonna insult me, do it properly.

WHO’S THE LOSER WITH THE DRUMS?!?

I KNOW, I LOVE THAT DUDE!!!

*both crack up at Jerome going down the aisle and making stupid faces at other inmates*

Ohhhhh, he’s great.

*jams out to opening theme*

“How many got out?”  “87.  The entire violent ward.”  *jaw drops in shock*

“Yeah, we’ve rounded up most of the serious nutjobs; they’re the guys that think they’re walruses or what not.”  *both immediately do finger guns at screen*

EEEEEEYYYYYYYY....

Any carpenters in there?

Please tell me there’s gonna be more Benedict Samuel.  Two minutes of that guy, and I already love him.

*chuckles*

Like he’s not the Jervis Tetch I know and love, but he’s entertaining as hell.

He’s very good!

Yeah, Benedict Samuel’s real voice sounds nothing like that.  It’s like stereotypically British.  But not Cockney, just British.

AN:  WHAT?!?!  HE’S ACTUALLY FROM AUSTRALIA?!?

*smiles*

“All right, listen up!  If I’d [Jim] have known I’d be seeing your ugly mugs tonight, I’d have stayed in the hospital.”  *both chuckle*

Ben McKenzie directed this episode, I forgot!

I take it that means we’re in for a good one.

AN:  Yes.

“Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim!”  *laughs*

JIM JIM JIM JIM JIM JIM JIM JIM JIM JIM JIM JIM JIM

“Do it, OR I’M [Jervis] GONNA KILL SOMEONE!  In case you have any doubts.”  *both crack the hell up*

I shouldn’t be... God, he’s good!

“Let’s go.”  Here we go go go go gooooo!

"You [Jim] said we had to have each other’s backs tonight, right?”  Yes!

“So what, we’re [Jim and Harvey] either idiots, or we’re hypnotized?  Good choices.”  *both laugh*

Oh please tell me this is the episode with Harvey being awesome.

Uh, that’s the next episode.

AAAAUUUUUGGGHHHH!!!

*Jervis meets Jim with a hypnotized couple*  SON OF A BITCH! 

Who the hell are they?!?

*so done*  A random married couple!  Because in the previous season, Jervis was all like “Oh, Jim, what are you worried about?  Your love life?!?” and I’m like “SHUT UP!”

“Lo and behold!  The bold Captain Jim Gordon, and his rusty caboose in tow.”  *chuckles*  ‘Rusty caboose in tow...’

*giggles*

Dude, look at that scarf [that Jervis wears]!

Do you recall when I [Jervis] first came to this fair city, Jim?  A bawling mess, wanting nothing more than to address the safety of my dear sister Alice?”  :/

“You gave me NO CHOICE!”  *tries not to laugh at the SUDDEN YELLING*

“I was willing to give you any life you wanted, just to keep you out of mine.”

*Jervis gives the command to drop the wrecking ball*  Ooohhh..

Oh shit-

*both yell and reel back in absolute horror when the couple gets squashed*

*both still in :O for a good minute or so*

He [Jervis] drives off!  *laughs*

I DON’T KNOW WHAT THE HELL I JUST SAW!

That just killed the moment, just him randomly driving off.

I don’t know what the hell I just saw!

I don’t know either.

That was kinda awesome!  I’m not gonna lie!

*Bruce and Selina enter the precinct*  Yaaay!

The dynamic duo.

Yaay!

*laughs*  She [Selina] just growled at him [Bruce]!

Ooooohhhh I like that [Barbara’s] office.

I like her hair.

Season 4:  the season of Booze ™ !

*chuckles*

There’s just so much booze in this season!

*sings*  Alcohol... my per-ma-nent accessory...

*mouths while aggressively pumping hand holding phone in air*  Shots shots shots shots!

[Barbara] Don’t mix pills with booze.  Don’t do that.

“He [Ra’s] brought me [Barbara] back to life.  We’d never even met.  Why choose me?”  Because he brought you back to life?!?

Are you two [Barbara and Tabitha] still going out or like what?  What’s the situation here?

*shrugs*  I guess...

What’s the situation here?

Friends with benefits?

I guess...

*chuckles*  I don’t know...

*gasps when we get a flashback of Barbara’s death in S3*

Oh shit!

WHY HER THOUGH?!?  That is my question!

That’s a great shot though [of Ra’s reviving Barbara], I have to say.

What the hell...

*Ra’s brings out the Lazarus water*  Oooo-oohhhhhhh...

Is that from the Lazarus pit?!?

I think that’s from the Lazarus pit!  Yeah, ‘cause it’s like a neon color in this show!

Oh my God!

*Ra’s revives Barbara*  There we go.  That explains it.

So you can drink in it rather than bathe in it in this continuity.

Yeah.  I mean, you can do both.

*Barbara is resurrected*  Ohhh!

Oh shit!

“Oh, what a vital, poisonous little mind you [Barbara] have.  And yet, everybody hates you for it, don’t they?”  I don’t think that’s why they hate you.

“You are just the one I’ve been looking for.”  :/

“You [Barbara] shall become the Demon’s Head.  The League of Shadows will be yours to command, an army of assassins.”  *rubs head in frustration*  Ohhhh, are we doing this again... ohhh....

They’re not talking “Oh, Dark Knight!”  That’s later.

[Ra’s] You’re gonna hand the League of Assassins over to her [Barbara]?!?

I know, I don’t like it either.

WHy?!?

I don’t know.

That sounds stupid.

“I’m [Barbara] OK.”  No you’re not.

*The remnants of the married couple*  Oh my God.. those are just dummy parts sticking out of the bottom!

I mean, it was effective.

Yeah.

It was hella effective!

It was very effective!

“Midnight, right?  That’s less than an hour.”  Midnight?  Why is it always midnight?  *chuckles*

*shrugs*

“’Fliers become die-rs.’”  It’s like in “Lovers and Madmen.”  He rigged all of those people to jump to their deaths.

Ohhhhhhhhh!!

*slaps knee*  And it’s like in “Mad as a Hatter” [in Batman:  The Animated Series], when he told those guys to jump in the river!

*gasps*  Yeaahhhhh!  Oh my gosh!

AN:  Also, I highly recommend the comic “Lovers and Madmen.”  Different interpretation of the Joker but still pretty solid and also quotable.

*wheezes when Bruce tries to give Detective Harper money to protect him*

*tries not to laugh when Bruce starts to fake cry*

*laughs when Bruce pulls a Stealth Hi-Bye on Harper*

Bruuucceee!

*gasps and claps hands*  His [Jervis’s] theme in the background!

*jaw drops when it’s revealed that a lot of rooftops are lined by people ready to jump*

Ohhhhhh shit.

“Your ego, Bruce.  It’s huge.”  *tries not to laugh*

“Get over yourself.  It’d make you a little easier to be around.”  *both try not to laugh*

Oh...

Oh shit!

Oh... oh-

*Bruce ends up opening the door for Selina instead*  Oh.

*groans in frustration*

That’s not a hug, I’m just getting the door for ya!  *laughs*

*both laugh at Selina’s little giggle*

That little giggle, oh my God!

“You don’t owe me [Bruce] anything, Selina.  You never did.”  You two are adorable!

They’re cute!

“Geez, there’s a lot of gum under here!”  *chuckles*

*whispers*  What?

Ew no no no-

Oh no no-

*both yell loudly in disgust when Jerome eats some ABC gum*

You are crazy!

*chuckles*

“Jim,  it’s happening all over the city.  Thousands are climbing up roofs!”  How many people are in this freaking city?!?

Probably at least a couple thousand, I’d say.

“He [Jervis] must’ve commanded them [the drivers] to change the station so that we couldn’t find him.”  How complicated are these commands?  It’s like explaining Kilgrave’s powers.  Did he tell them to do that or...

“Ugh, it’s that song I [Harvey] hate!”  *chuckles*

*jams out and sings along with “Foolish Pride” by LAB*

“Just right!”  Oooh, broccoli cheddar [soup] though.  Good choice.

“Mamma Mia!”  *both start singing “Mamma Mia”*

“What was the special ingredient again?  Ah, right.  It was my [Jerome’s] hand.  The one you [Uncle Zach] dipped in a boiling pot of chicken stock!”  *both bug eyes*

“That smell, it was ...mouthwatering....”  *shakes head in disgust*

You are disgusting, dude!

“I [Zach] set out three bowls of soup, nephew, so I’d have enough for all my guests.”  [Crap]

*small gasp when the strong man drags Jerome out of the booth*

Ooh shit!

“The ‘just right’ soup is for him.  The ‘cold’ is for me!  I always loved gazpacho!  The ‘too hot,’ that’s for you, nephew.”  Ohhh shit!

Oh he’s gonna heat it again!  Damn!

*jaw drops when the microwave starts shorting out*

Isn’t this the Iceberg?!?

No, it’s her [Barbara’s] lounge.

The Sirens, right?

Yeah.

*All the lights go out*   Ooooooohhhhh!

Shit!

“We’re [the League] here for the Demon’s Head.  Where is he?”  “She.... is right here.”  I call bullshit.

It’s a flashlight.  I could make a joke out of that but I’m not going to.

*gasps when Hypnotized!Harvey knocks out Jim*

“Hickory, dickory, dock.  The copper went up the clock.  The clock struck 12, he fell pell-mell, and that was it for the cop.”  *in unison*   Noooooooooooooo.....

Ohhh dear.

*Zachary takes out the boiling soup for Jerome*  Oh no.

*gasps when Zachary prepares to pour the boiling soup on Jerome*

“Here, nephew, have a taste of one of my three soups!”  *in shock*  Roll credits!

AN:  The name of the episode actually came from in the writers’ room.  Tze Chun came in having ordered 3 soups and Charlie Huston (the writer of this episode) said “I’m gonna put that in the script” and Tze Chun went “Yeah, right.”  Welp.

*both yell in horror when Zachary pours the soup down Jerome’s throat*

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

OOOOHHHHHHHHHHH!!!  [Jerome] You’re gonna have welts all over your face for a month, dude!

“No one deserves that.”  “You tell ‘em!”  *both have to stifle a laugh*

That is a very Joker moment, I have to say.

“Let him [Jerome] go... and get rid of the kid [Bruce].”  *bug eyes*

*Bruce throws a bunch of plates at the strong man*  Ohhhh shit!

Did he just No-Sell a porcelain plate to the face?!?

Yeah, he just did!

*both jaws drop in horror when Jerome finds the gallon of bleach meant for him*

He [Zach] was gonna poison his nephew!

“She’s [Barbara] got the Demon’s Head.  Ra’s chose her.”  “She doesn’t even know what it is.”  Fair point.

I don’t know what that haircut is.

Whose haircut?

That dude’s!

He doesn’t have any hair!

Exactly!

“Women serve in the League, but they do not lead.”  “That’s now a law, just a stupid tradition.  Ra’s chose her.  We need to honor his choice.”  Barbara’s like “Yes, random lady, I accept you!”

*gasps when Barbara takes out the male League member who tried killing her first*

“Anyone else want a shot at the title?”  Everybody does.

“Here comes the airplane!”  *tries not to laugh*

“Got it.  Lost it.  Write it down!”  Me in school.

*giggles when Jerome looks over at Bruce still fighting and does a quick second of fake shadow boxing*

*Jerome kills Zach*  :(

“Boy billionare Bruce Wayne, my [Jerome’s] savior!  Wow, I did not see that one coming.”  *both chuckle*

“Really makes a man wonder... what the hell is wrong with you?!?”  :[

*sighs*  Ohhh dear...

*claps hands when Jim finds Jervis at the radio station*  Let’s go!

How is he doing the whole hypnotizing thing?

It was over the radio.

Yeah, I know, but what does he use to do it?

He has a ticking mechanism.

Oh.  Does he always keep that on him or what?

He always has that [pocket watch] on him.  He goes “Look into my eyes and listen.”

Wait, if they can’t look into his eyes, then-

It’s the noise.

Oooohh kay.

It’s the stimuli.

*both yell and reel back in horror when Jim shoots Jervis’s hand*

What the hell was that for?!?

OK, here’s the thing:  he [Jervis] got shot in the freaking hand!

And it’s like nothing!

I will say though, the rhyming integrated in with the dialogue is done really well!

*in unison when Selina comes to save the day*  EEEEEYYYYYY!!!

*Bruce finally knocks out the strong man*  Oooohhh.

“Selina, huh?  Well isn’t that a nice name...”  Go to hell.

*Selina pulls a gun on Jerome*  Ohhh.

“Uh, uh, uh.  She’s not that kind of girl.”  Wanna bet?

“Oh, all right!  See you crazy kids later!  Ciao!”  *both crack up*

“Ra’s chose me [Barbara] for a reason, I know it.”  Looks like he was playing you for a stooge.

“You’re all so damn weak.  That’s it.  That is why Ra’s chose me.  Because he knew I would see how pitiful you all are.  Afraid of change.”  Yeah, that’s gonna endear you to them.

*bug eyes when the lights suddenly go out and gunfire ensues*

Shhiit!

Whaaaaaat?!?

What the hell is going on?

*The midnight bells go off*  Oooohhhh...

Noooo... nooooo....

Noooo.... we’re not doing this... noooo....

*both freak out in unison when the jumpers get ready*

*both freeze when there’s absolute radio silence*

“It worked!”  *both let out a huge sigh of relief*

That was good.  That was damn good!

*both giggle when the DJ gives Jim a thumbs up*

*Jim lets out a sigh of relief*  Same.

*Jim and Harvey enter the captain’s office*  That requires... some booze!  No, I’m kidding.

I’d want some booze after that.

OK, yeah.

“You [Jim] need a drink.”  *waves hand toward screen in agreement*

“Squirrels hide nuts for the winter.  I [Harvey] got this for whenever.“  EEEEYYYYYYYY!!!

The hell is that?

BOOOOOOZZEE!

*both giggle*

That looks like scotch.

No, that’s whiskey.  Like Fireball whiskey.  See, Harvey’s the hard drinker.

Yeah.  Gordon looks like he’s getting used to it.

He’s like “It’s dull.  Whatever.” *pretends to take a shot*  It’s like Steve Rogers. 

As long as it’s alcohol.

For glory, for justice-

*in unison*  -for sweet, sweet booze!

“[Jim] You know what I [Harvey] was thinking when I jumped in that car and I was flicking through those channels?  I was thinking ‘I can do this crazy thing.  ‘Cause if it goes sideways, Jim Gordon will save me.”  *both smile*

“Feet of clay are heavy to carry around.  That’s what the whiskey’s for.”  *softly chuckles*

“There are no heroes here.”  I will clink to that!

“Got the Wayne kid on line three.  Something about Valeska.”  Oh dear.

“I’ll see you at St. Ignatius, Jim.  You can yell at me [Bruce] there.”  *softly* Hoooooooo.... hoo hoo....

“Kid in trouble again?”  “More than he can handle.”  Summary of the show.

They put a mouthguard on him [Jervis]!

At least somebody’s gotta shut him up.

*Scarecrow douses a guard with fear toxin*  AAAAYYYYYYY!!!

Scarecrow!

*Jerome in his final costume*  EEEEEYYYYY!!

“How do you like the new threads?”  I like ‘em a lot!

Those are awesome!

*gasps and points excitedly at Scarecrow’s new costume*

“We have fish to fry.  And by fish, I mean faces... or feet... ah, something fun to fry!”  *laughs*

Man, he [Jerome] looks so good.  So does Scarecrow!

I know!  Everyone looks great!

Scarecrow looks amazing!

“ALL ABOOOOAAARRDD!”  Hey look, the Joker hijacks another truck!

And that’s the end of the episode!

Man, that was awesome!