#people want to talk to be about bisexual superman all the time too

[spoi1er-a1ert]

are we coming up on a year of Jon Kent being out as bisexual? yes

do i still have to bite my tongue about how much i hate current (aged up) jon kent because it makes me seem biphobic when in reality it’s just because i miss super sons and ship damijon? yes

[devine-fem]

i know ive said before in the past that i don’t particularly want jondami/damijon to become canon because i feel like the writers would ruin it but how would YOU guys want jondami to be handled if it were up to you how they become canon?

ill go first.

First thing, we would have to have young jon question his sexuality in a authentic, nice way. be able to get into his head and him display like “i think girls are cute but… guys as well… is this normal?” just HAVE him be pathetically bisexual, i know that in a comic book that i cant remember a girl touched his hand and he accidentally used his super strength and broke the thing he was sitting on due to his hand clenching in reaction, basically i want there to be some sort of build up. THAT would be super nice bisexual representation. i wouldnt want their relationship to be rushed or spontaneous at all. maybe have it be mostly about jon and him trying to keep his feelings to himself because he doesn’t want to weird out damian, not wanna ruin their friendship etc etc. kind of sad but also itd be nice representation of the queer experience, since the supers are normal people, jon having a cliche and simple story would make sense for him. perhaps as jon is growing up as a hero, he experiences some thing that maybe will go into his feelings, like i know one time where he thought damian had died and he freaked out and rushed to find him, it could be like that, like having jon have moments in his heroism that makes him feel like “maybe i should confront this before its too late” - having jon think about how human damian is scare him in a way to the point he wants to be protective and his agency of needing to protect him be the thing that makes him confront and deconstruct his feelings… between jon and damion - jon would confess first, and for their confession, don’t let it be on a bloody battlefield, let it be in a safe controlled environment. im tired of the adrenaline pumping and passionate kiss trope, let the characters just talk it out so it feels genuine.

on damians side thats where itd be a little harder because i feel like damian would have to go through some stories and be in a place where hes fleshed out enough to start feeling normal human emotions, yknow? since he was raised as a weapon. he could just see jon as one of the few genuine friends that hes had and thats stuck with him. damian could also have a nice moment where he starts feeling simple emotions for jon like, comfort, adoration, missing him or jealousy but he doesn’t understand them so he acts out in a way that makes more sense to him, like the violence and rebellion pent up inside him. in my confession - if there would be a confession though, itd have to be in a safe setting for the both of then where they are just talking like i said. i feel like itd make sense for damian to even reject him at first, thinking his responsibility to the mantle is more important/ he doesnt have time for something like that. and he feels like he couldnt give jon emotionally what he deserves. then they could grow up (and in most people’s opinions i actually dont want jon or damian to become superman or batman, i want them to be their own thing. its the most boring part of their character and would be the biggest reason for the writers to not allow them to be in a relationship because that would mean superman and batman dated at one point or somethting) then after they grow up (it doesnt even need to be a long time after the confession, can be like months or so) and damian confronts himself he can go back and damian could be like “im not good at this type of thing, but i want to try” and then they could be together happily. because out of everything their mantles is the thing that pults them together but at the same time rips them apart. i ship them because they are polar opposites that have the same destiny but their paths are what damages the both of them the most and what holds together their relationship. theyd have to be friends or lovers more on normal terms, hang out outside of robin and superboy which we havent seen yet… at least not in comics where theyre hanging out JUST to hang out. then after they get together they can just be jon and damian, doing normal civilian things, perhaps they could also find different titles to bear as heroes like how dick became nightwing or something.

i also don’t want damian to lose his general, teasing and snide remarks to jon or anyone, keeping their dynamic the way it was as they were friends would be more fun but yeah thats me.

[chainsawcorazon]

#deadass forreal forreal#one thing i hate about ppl who sensationalize chris but then turn around and shit on jon is this right here#like cousin be real#chris ALSO got shafted by the narrative and they did it to pitch some ultra epic romance and keep clark form raising him#age-ups are common for a reason#i am deadass terrified they're gonna age up otho and split her from osul so clark won't have to raise her either#truly terrified#clark's children suffer on account of being his kids#it's sad and i hate it and neither chris nor jon are at fault for being editorial's playthings 😭😭😭#real talk#dc comics

OP I am vigorously shaking your hand, THANK YOU.

I have been screaming about how Jon got the literal SAME treatment as Chris for AGES but people can't seem to get over the fact DC decided for the UMPTEENTH time that you know what couples need? Biological kids over adopted ones we have always been screwing over anyway! Chris isn't the first adopted kid to get fucked over by DC! Stop concentrating your anger on the fictional characters and start getting angry at the writers and editors! I want THEIR asses on a platter, not Jon's!

Oh, let's not forget the fact Chris was always going back to the Phantom Zone at the end of his debut run— but because Last Son's artist had to take a nearly year-long break due to health issues, the other writers took that as an opportunity to develop Chris and his relations with the Superfamily.

Superkids are disposable for Clark angst, whether one accepts it or not. Chris isn't the first to get the shaft (that would be Cir-El, who was even retconned as not being RELATED to Clois because people hated her guts as a Supergirl-replacement so much) and as you can see, he certainly isn't and won't be the last (see: Jon). I'm sure those twins won't last long either.

(I have beef with Kennedy so I tend to ignore the twins' existence unless someone forces me to acknowledge them. He is on my shit list though— at least Jon wasn't created as a (blatant) replacement for Chris, unlike those two! I can't believe he even admitted that! In an interview!

You could have found a way to deage Jon and solidify yourself as a legend regardless of how the rest of your run goes, but noooo, you had to cram in your own OCs instead! You don't even get to own their IP, idiot!

Oh, and I read somewhere (or was it in the same interview?) that the girl was gonna die at the end of the Warworld saga too! As if the boy twin wasn't enough of an obvious replacement (who I might add even has some similarities with Chris too)! And you had to screw over the New Gods for them too! They are barely recovering from King's Mister Miracle, dude!)

see anon, one thing i've realized about BOTH dc fandumb and dc editorial after being off dc comics for nearly ten years is that......... they not reading 😂😂😂 that's literally it, and im tired of pretending like that's not a problem on BOTH sides. it's so funny bc yeah, chris was never meant to last, but he DID have an impact, but you would think that after the nuking of the universe, the failure that was the new 52, and then the rebirth initiative to bamboozle hoes back into buying overpriced singles.............. they would, like, make a genuine effort not to be stupid with their own heritage properties, but the clowns keep clowning!!!

as for the children of clark kent.... i mean, yeah. they're destined to suffer. i don't know kennedy johnson that well but i enjoyed warworld, and tbh, i love ALL of superman's kids. call me clown too, it's ok. i know there's no hope for any of them to lead any kind of meaningful life on account of being his children, adopted or not, but i do love how their characters fit into the broader narrative. unfortunately, i did not know he was using otho and osul to substitute for what would have been OG chris, but tbh, that does not surprise me.

just like it doesn't surprise me how a lot of fandumb is quick to blame pink capitalism as to why jon was revealed as bisexual and not, like, the fact that bendis didn't DO anything with jon after aging him up. homie was just floating in the 31st century macking on a telepath and looking like tom welling circa 2005 😂😂😂 listen, the gays are being fed for the time being. tomorrow they might decide we're not worth the hassle, but for now, we get to see cute pride specials with superman and his pinkette since no one's bold enough to write a series of elgibbityqueue elseworlds where clark gets to mack on john henry irons and jimmy olsen.

but i digress! i love those superkids! i love chris and jon! i hope bendis comes back and destroys the rest of this continuity so we can finally force editorial to commit to character bibles, and hire editors who aren't writing books that might be easy to adapt into shitty tv shows and movies. i also hope the next wave of dc blockbusters flop. plus i want kon el to kiss bart allen. i am a woman of multitudes.

[your-krazy-uncle-bob]

DC Comics cancels woke, bisexual Superman that nobody had heard of

JAZZ SHAW 12:01 PM on October 14, 2022

Hey, have you been following the adventures of the new DC Comics hero, Superman: Son of Kal-El that was launched last year? If you have no idea what I’m talking about, don’t feel bad. You’re not alone. It sounds as if almost nobody was buying the new offering and the series will end in December after just 18 editions. It was certainly something different than the old Superman many of us grew up with, though. The secret identity of the new Man of Steel was Jonathan Kent, the son of Clark Kent and Lois Lane. And rather than fighting for truth, justice, and the American way, Jonathan had a very different agenda. Instead of fighting Lex Luthor, Jonathan was battling climate change and rescuing “undocumented immigrants” from evil immigration officers. Oh, and he was also bisexual. For some strange reason, the new character didn’t seem to resonate with the fans. (National Review)

DC Comics is canceling Superman: Son of Kal-El, a book series it launched last year about a bisexual Superman, amid poor sales. The series’ 18th issue, due out in December, will be its final installment, the publisher announced at New York Comic Con, according to reports. The series saw a 17-year-old Jonathan Kent, the son of Clark Kent and Lois Lane, take on a number of social issues including climate change, school shootings, and the rescue of “undocumented migrants.” The series even featured face coverings in an effort to help mitigate the spread of Covid-19 in fiction. The teen hero of the series begins a relationship with a male friend named Jay Nakamura in the fifth issue.

As noted in the excerpt above, Jonathan supported facemasks to battle the threat of a virus. As far as making the caped crusader bisexual, the author of the series said that “replacing Clark Kent with another straight white savior felt like a missed opportunity.”

You probably recall the superhero’s motto that I mentioned above, right? Truth, justice, and the American way. Well, that slogan had to be modified to fit in with Son of Kal-El also. It was changed to “Truth, justice, and a better tomorrow.” After all, you wouldn’t want the word “American” to show up in any sort of description of something desirable or aspirational, would you? America is bad, after all.

So why didn’t this offering catch on with the public? The easy answer for those on the left is that all of the straight, white, male, probably-MAGA homophobes out there refused to purchase it. It’s all about the homophobia all the time. That’s almost as endemic as institutional racism and toxic masculinity, am I right?

But I’m fairly confident the failure to launch didn’t have anything to do with that. It’s not that Superman was portrayed as being bisexual. Who really cares at this point? But why did Superman even have to be sexualized at all? Was he ever shown kissing Lois Lane in the original comics? (Well, actually they did kiss all the way back in issue number five, but it was never a very sexualized, hot and steamy relationship.)

In reality, I’d be willing to wager that this series was just too much of the wrong thing at the wrong time and in the wrong venue. The country is overdosing on wokeness as it is and people are starting to push back. The left pushes the theme of toxic masculinity like they get paid to do it (and many certainly do) and Superman is the ultimate model of traditional masculinity. Those looking for entertainment that sterilizes the concept of gender were likely not shopping for Superman fare, and those with an affinity for Superman almost certainly weren’t looking for this.

But in a way, it’s almost sad that we didn’t get to see where the series might have gone next. Would Jonathan Kent have begun flying around and hurling Pfizer syringes at the unvaccinated? (He could check for their vax passports in their wallets or purses with his x-ray vision.) Might he have smashed oil refineries to pieces by swinging the tower of a wind turbine like a giant baseball bat? Would Greta Thunberg have shown up as a temporary sidekick for a brief story arc? Who knows what sort of victories he might have racked up in his battle for Truth, Justice, and the American… er… “a better tomorrow.”

(via: hotair.com)

[will80sbyers]

I used to think Mike was bi too, but S3 made me look at Mike and Eleven's relationship very differently. Outside of him calling her pretty one time in the first season, there aren't any moments where he seems genuinely attracted to her. He keeps his hands to himself when he kisses her and removes her hands from him in S3. There were also the two times (S1 and S2) where El leaned in to kiss him and he just froze up.

Now, just because I don't think Mike is/was attracted to Eleven and was misjudging his feelings or trying to be normal, doesn't mean he still can't be bi. However, I don't recall him ever finding another girl attractive.

Meanwhile, there are posters of muscular men in his room, Mike going to the wrestling club as a first pick when looking for a sub, him referring to El as Superman instead of a female hero, the focus on him when opening the sauna, the parallels to characters in other movies/shows that turned out to be gay, etc.

If he ends up being bisexual, that's totally okay. I don't think that takes away from him being Will's soulmate at all and yes, internalized homophobia isn't exclusive to gays. However, if people analyze evidence that supports him being gay and are confident and passionate about it, I think they should be allowed to feel that way. There are hostile truthers on both sides and people that claim ___ erasure. I don't think we should make one side out to be worse than the other. Let's just be supportive of the fact that the boy isn't straight.

That being said, it's been a while since I read up on bi Mike evidence and I'd be interested to hear more about it. I'm always interested in trying to understand him in different ways.

so because you said that you were interested in hearing more about it:

about the pretty thing that's not exactly true, Mike calls Eleven pretty a few times and tells her she's beautiful too during the snowball dance, he looks interested in her romantically to me, he's just awkward because they are kids and it's embarrassing to approach first relationships... I think Eleven leans in because she watched something romantic on TV (I could be wrong about this I have to rewatch to be sure) and Mike had just called her pretty again before that if my memory is correct (?)

then he kisses her first and then the second almost kiss is after they had already kissed but it's when she had just come back and I think he was just a bit awkward about the whole thing (I also think that him and Will spending so much time together in s2 made him a bit confused)

so to me it looks like he is interested in girls too... he meets Eleven in s1 and he has a crush on her so it's consistent that he wouldn't find other girls, like Max, interesting because he is stuck on her...

Mike was also kind of in a limbo of grieving her and hoping she would come back... he thought he had lost her for one year and that's pretty impacful imo... ( also bisexual ppl don't like every person they meet lol )

the other boys seem more interested but it could be because they did not meet a girl they liked in s1 so they talked more about girls bc of that

or Mike could be demisexual and fixated on her because he had an emotional bond with her but in the first seasons it's just a crush between little kids anyway so it's just sweet

for other hints that he is in fact interested in girls I think he tries to make Will dance with the girl because he thinks that Will could like her - because Mike likes girls too

he has a poster of an half naked girl too in his room but to me all these little hints about the posters are about him liking guys too... because for the girl part he literally already has a girlfriend lmao

I think they made Mike interrupt the kissing singing and all that because they just needed to stop that scene because having kids on screen kissing for that long is already tedious to watch

but I think they made them kiss because they wanted to show that all that El and Mike have in common is the fact that they liked each other a bit and liked kissing... it was basically puberty starting..

they made them codependent to make it clear that there is something wrong in the relationship and make Mike realize after that he actually couldn't say I love you to her because he doesn't love her like that, he cares for her but he is not in love with her, she makes him feel insecure and inferior and they are just incompatible and toxic in a relationship

also I think that in the fight he has with Will in s3 he was telling the truth, he says "It's not my fault that you don't like girls" meaning -> it's not my fault that you don't like girls... yet, I do... one day you will too because we are growing up!

the thing about supermen etc is because he likes boys too, the parallels and the movies associated with Mike could be about Will too but they could also be pointing to being queer in general... also the main parallels in the show like the Vickie and Robin one associated him to bisexuality because Vickie is bi

the sauna thing where he doesn't comment like Will could be because he's bi so he feels awkward about men too like he does for the lingerie for women because they are starting puberty in that season

about the s3 finale kiss I've answered here

I also believe he doesn't have internalized homophobia, he was just conditioned by heteronormativity and he's just clueless about his feelings for Will and doesn't understand yet, he's just starting now in s4 to notice Will in a more than friendly way and he's low key panicking about it lol but he also thinks that Will is straight and if he stays with Eleven he can ignore that part of himself... he now has to find out about the painting to understand his real feelings for Will!

again the thing about the wrestling club could simply be there because he is bi so he likes men too

I don't think and never said that people should not be passionate and talk about gay mike theories, I still read all of those theories when I find them, I've watched the tiktoks about it too and some are good theories that could be true!

I'm happy with every hc for Mike I just think it's more probable that he will be bi or demi because of how they constructed the story + how I see the story when I rewatch the show and also because I don't think they can make the audience have sympathy for him if it turns out that he never even liked Eleven a bit...

I know that it's completely normal irl and no one should feel guilty for dating while being confused but I don't know if they can pull it off in a good way in the show, it would be very complicated because the audience loves Eleven and it would feel like a betrayal because Mike and El are two main characters... but if they did like each other and just growing up their feelings changed it would be easier to relate to that because they probably had that experience in their life...

but they could still do it and I would be really happy to see it on screen if they did it well..

I just think they never planned for it because I interpret the scenes in a different way, to me it seems like they wanted the Mitskivan scenes to be a young romance, they like each other but they are young and growing up they find out that they are not compatible and Mike realizes that he always had feelings for Will too and his feelings for Will are so strong that he in the end chooses to be with Will because he realizes that he is in love with him!

of course with Eleven's blessing because she will realize too that they are not compatible (and I think she did in s4)

or they could make El break up with him and he realizes he loves Will after the time jump, after having mourned his relationship with Eleven and then when they talk it's like in little women where Laurie says to Jo that he loves her but the love he feels for Amy is different 💞

If you want to read more about this theory there is also my fixed post in the blog 😊

one thing for sure... that boy is not straight and the only proof we need is that his favorite holiday is Halloween 👻

[ambivalent-anarchy]

Defending Peter Parker (Round 2: Tom Holland)

Here <- Andrew Garfield

Soooooo I'm doing this cuz I'm bored to show y'all how dumb some of your arguments and criticisms of the live action spidermen are. I did Garfield already. I'll do Maguire if someone shows me where people have hated on his spidey cuz all I ever see for him is people treating him like he's the most perfect Peter Parker to ever exist. I'd never tell anyone how they're "supposed" to feel about a situation so I won't do that and also don't take this seriously I'm just a dumb teenager. I'm just taking the dumb opinions y'all like to pass as fact and rebutting them with actual facts.

"hE's OnLy So PoPuLaR bEcAuSe He'S hOt"

😐If this is your main critique of Tom Holland's spiderman, pls go find another one. This is so overused. The "they're only famous cuz they're hot" excuse has been used for every hot actor/actress ever. At this point, it isn't even real criticism, you just come off as lame. And yeah, alot of people like him because he's hot, but that's definitely not the only reason.

"hE's NoT sPiDeRmAn. He'S iRoNbOy!"

UUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHHH okay let's get to it. (If you can't tell, I really hate this argument)

1) Let's be real. The fandom pushed irondad wayyyy more than the actual movies did.

2) If you still use this argument after Far From Home, you missed the whole point of what FFH was supposed to be.

I was scrolling through tumblr and I saw a great point that someone made.

That entire movie was about him coming into his own as a hero, facing his problems head-on, and dealing with the threat by himself. That was the point of the whole movie. Yes, he had the Stark tech to help him make a suit, but he designed it himself, and then he went up against a threat that had incredibly powerful Stark tech at their disposal and still won. By himself. Everyone was asking who the next Iron Man would be and Happy even flat out said "You're not Iron Man." Because he isn't. He came into his own. He is established now.

Peter started the movie a bit lost without Tony and just wanting to deny his responsibilities and get away for a while.

He ended the movie finally accepting himself for who he was and even having to fight against Stark technology. He had to rely on himself and instead of worrying about this title that's been put on him, he has to just go with his own instincts (all the way down to his web shooters running out and having to literally just rely on his mind and his body) and look his responsibilities in the face. Idk a better way for him to have broken out of being "ironboy".

3) Plus, they needed some way to bring Spiderman into the MCU. And Tony is practically the MCU's Bruce Wayne when it comes to "adopting" children. Of course he was gonna be the one to bring him in.

"He HaS tOo MaNy MeNtOrS! tHeY nEeD tO sToP hOlDiNg HiM bAcK aNd LeT hIm GrOw Up AnD bE aLoNe!"

Hahaha no.

Tony- okie dokie that's only one

Happy- Happy Hogan is not Peter's mentor. He literally helped him out in ONE scene. That is not enough to be a mentor.

Mysterio- He is also not a mentor. Storywise, he was Peter's scapegoat to caste his responsibilities onto because he didn't want them/feel he was worthy of them. And then later he was a villain. Just because the two have one small pep talk, doesn't mean he's a mentor.

I think most ppl that say this stuff really just don't want Peter to have any help. What you guys fail to realize is that getting help does not make you any less of a hero. You can still be a solo hero and get a peptalk every now and then. Batman, Superman, Ironman. They all get help from people in their movies and I don't see anyone complaining about it or saying they need to be alone.

Also, grow up? This dude is literally a sophmore/junior in high school. They talk so much about how he's literally a kid. Alot of the spiderman comics take place with him still being in high school. He doesn't have to be an adult. And as far as maturity goes, it's not like he's a dumb kid. He's just a teen doing what teens do.

"nO uNcLe BeN!"

Come on guys. How many times have we seen this origin story? We all know it.

The story takes place when he's ALREADY spiderman so Uncle Ben is ALREADY dead. (They even have his suitcase in FFH). Just because they don't really mention it doesn't mean it didn't happen. We don't need to see the same origin story again. I mean, does every Batman movie mention Bruce's parents dying in the alley? No. Cuz we all already know it does. Origin stories are integral but the MCU wasn't erasing his, they were simply just starting after it.

And in every spidey story Uncle Ben always teaches him "with great power comes great responsibility". Well if you watch the movies, MCU Peter learns his lessons in responsibilities sooooo we're covered there.

"When you can do the things that can, but you don't, and then the bad things happen, they happen because of you."

Yeah yeah we all love Uncle Ben but him already passing doesn't mean the story's bad. That's just where they wanted to start lol.

"ThErE's No ReAl CoNsEqUeNcEs WhEn If LoSeS!"

Homecoming: If Vulture would've won, there would've been more easily accessible alien weapons available for criminals like the Shocker, the Tinkerer, etc. Also Vulture would have been a criminal loose on the streets. Regardless of his intentions, he was a guy willing to kill for what he wanted.

FFH: What Mysterio was doing, even though it was an illusion, was actually causing casualties. His workers talked about it to him over and over again. Especially if the last attack in London (i think?) would have worked, alot of people would have died. Also the world would have been tricked into depending on someone that actually couldn't really keep them safe.

Lol but regardless, Peter doesn't have to be dealing with a gigantic threat. The whole thing about being a superhero is doing what's right, regardless of how big or small the situation is. He's literally fought with the Avengers. I think he's proven himself.

All in all Tom Holland is the best (for me personally). I never have an issue when he's on screen and he's really just so awesome😊

Tagging great ppl: @allegra-writes , @yumings , @spideyyeet , @sunkissedspidey , @tommyunderoos , @chaoticpete , @sovereignparker , @thesherlockianavenger , @bubblebucky , @eridanuswave , @ithoughtthiswastwitterbutfr , @kidney9-9 , @gwenvrse , @the-weird-bisexual , @kelieah

[thevindicativevordan]

Got any thoughts on Joelle Jones' Wonder Girl book getting cancelled? Personally I think it's weird that of the FS trinity the one with the most disliked status quo (Jon) seems to be the one doing the best.

Time to talk about Yara Flor, a character whom I really like and whom DC seems to be botching the handling of at every turn. Wanted to wait to talk about her until she had more issues fleshing her out, but I guess with her ongoing being cancelled now is the time.

Of the three Future State Trinity members Yara was indisputably the most popular initially. Her reveal got a ton of attention and buzz, her sales were the strongest I believe, followed by Jace, her appearance and costume design were immensely popular, and her solo story was the best of the three, being an entertaining but emotional journey to the Underworld to rescue a friend. Personality-wise Yara is brave, powerful, confident, but also impulsive, cocky, and short-tempered. In many ways she was built to be the Wonder Woman who acts the way the general public thinks Wonder Woman does, spoiling for a fight and swinging a sword around. Unlike Diana it's not "out of character" for Yara to act like that, and I think Yara as the Wonder Woman who is strong but lacking in restraint, the Damian of the Wonderfamily, works as her niche. I really liked her and enjoyed her stories, she's my third favorite Wonderfamily character already behind Diana and Artemis.

Now some people will claim that what is hurting Yara is Joelle's lack of insight into what life for an indigenous Brazilian woman is like. Making Yara an American made some people upset I understand. While I acknowledge that having a consultant on hand to help flesh Yara out would have helped, especially since then they could have made her a Brazilian native instead of an American expatriate, that's not what really hurt her. Despite the complaints the debut sales of Wonder Girl were strong and I believe could have carried Yara to at least 20 issues. What screwed her over were the constant issue delays caused by Joelle's inability to write and draw the book, as well as the planned Wonder Girl CW show not getting made. Whichever editor approved Joelle writing and drawing was out of their mind, she was never going to be able to keep up with a monthly. She couldn't do it with her creator owned book Lady Killer, she couldn't do it on Catwoman, and she was not able to do it here. Trying to do so merely lead to constant delays that caused steep sales drop offs between issues, and multiple fill in artists having to be brought in to help finish the art. Now the book is cancelled presumably because of all the delays. Her show getting passed over also didn't help, that would've introduced her to a wider audience, not mentioning the fact that I'm positive Yara being "Wonder Girl" instead of Wonder Woman like Jon and Jace are Superman and Batman, is because DC planned on synergizing with the show. Jon, as you mentioned, had the deck stacked against him starting off, but he's ended up doing better both because of the reveal of his bisexuality helping attract a new fanbase, as well as Taylor being a fan favorite who is able to get the scripts submitted on time and help sustain interest. Jon is also showing up in outside media already, takes on him are in Superman & Lois, Young Justice, and a Super Sons animated movie is coming this year too. Jace is a character I'm watching with interest, but whether he lives or dies really depends on if they adapt him outside of comics.

Sucks Wonder Girl is cancelled but she will be part of Trial of the Amazons, and I don't think this is the end for Yara. I believe we will get a Yara Flor: Wonder Woman book in the same vein as Jon and Jace's Superman and Batman books. If DC is lacking confidence in Yara's ability to sustain a solo however you know what they should do? Relaunch Superman/Wonder Woman as a Jon/Yara team up book.

Jon and Yara as the new World's Finest was a lot of fun to read during Future State, and Yara being paired with Jon should help sustain interest in her until she can get a new solo. Get Watters to write it, he had a good handle on both of the characters, and the duo have loads of potential in terms of character dynamics. Both are cocky and headstrong which means clashes are inevitable due to how similar they are, but Jon is a pro at super heroics, the natural heir to his father as Superman, and is fully aware of the weight of assuming his dad's mantle. Meanwhile Yara is a newcomer to the superhero community, someone who came from nowhere to assume the Wonder Woman mantle, and she doesn't seem as intimidated at the expectations that come from taking up the title. Flesh her out by having her bounce off of Jon for a bit until DC feels she's ready for another solo book, if they don't think she's ready now. Yara is too cool a character to be tossed aside, I really hope the heads at DC recognize that.

[imagineaworlds]

I Love You (Part Forty-Eight) -- Aaron Hotchner

Written By: @desperately-bisexual

Request: None.

Warnings: Cursing. Mentions of Dom/sub relationship. I think that’s it? Let me know if I missed something.

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x Greenaway!Reader

Word Count: 10,833

Timeline: A week after part forty-seven.

I drove us home that night when Hotch and Prentiss came home. Hotch was in the passenger’s seat, still holding baby Emily, staring down at her with a bright smile and cooing at her every so often. She kicked around and grabbed at the air in a futile attempt to reach him until he gave in and moved her up his chest so that she could grab at his beard. Lucky. I wanted to be the one to do that. The thought only made me chuckle, though, and move one of my hands towards him so that I could brush my fingers through his hair.

I think that during that drive, I somewhat came to terms with the fact that Prentiss was still alive. I mean… I was trying to be understanding, but at least my mind had wrapped around it, and now all that there was left to do was to move on from the slight anger and betrayal I felt coursing through me. Actually, the first thing we had to sort out were the names. It was too complicated to have Emily and Emily. Prentiss and baby Emily. Especially in the future, I could foresee it becoming a problem and leading to a handful of instances of miscommunication.

So, as we were pulling into the driveway, parking the car just next to Jessica’s, I asked Hotch how he felt about us addressing our daughter by her middle name, Scarlet. At least that way she was still named after Emily, whom we both adored and Hotch risked everything for—including betraying my trust, which was ballsy of him.

Hotch gave her an Eskimo kiss. “Scarlet…” She giggled. “It sounds like a good plan.”

When we headed inside, we saw Jack playing a videogame on his tablet while Jessica was reading a book. They acknowledged our entrance—Jack hardly looked up to even see that his dad was home, so I snuck up behind him and stole the game away from him playfully, holding it above my head so that he had to turn to face us while reaching for it. Jack did as I expected. Once he was sitting on his knees on the couch, making a move for the tablet, he saw his dad. Jack hesitated for a moment. Then, when reality set in, he forgot about the game altogether, and he scrambled to his feet and ran over to Hotch while cheering. Hotch leaned down to catch his son in a hug, careful not to squish Scarlet.

“I missed you so much, buddy.”

I set Jack’s tablet down so that I could sneak Scarlet out of Hotch’s arms. Once she was resting against me, Hotch immediately wrapped his arms around Jack and lifted him up off the ground, squeezing him as tightly as he could. Jack returned the favor. I missed seeing them hug like that—I mean, a real, true, solid Superman hug where both of them were straining and wanted nothing more than to just hold each other until the end of time.

“Are you back for real, for real?” Jack asking warily.

Hotch nodded against him while letting out a choked back sob with a laugh. “Yeah, buddy. I’m back for real.”

“Good,” Jack responded quickly. Hotch kissed Jack’s cheek as hard as he could. “Ew— Dad, your beard!” He wiggled out of Hotch’s arms to escape the scratch feel of his father’s facial hair. “I don’t like it!” Jack rubbed his cheeks clean with his palms.

Hotch laughed again. “I know, I know.”

“Are you thinking about shaving it?” Jessica asked playfully from the couch.

“In a few days.”

“Or longer,” I said. He looked at me and winked.

“Thank you for everything, Jess.” Hotch leaned forward to hug her after she stood. “I know I already owe you a thousand times over, but we can just add this to the long list.”

Jessica shook her head. “There’s no list; and you don’t owe me. Promise.” She leaned in to kiss Jack’s head. “I’ll see you guys soon.”

As she headed to the door, Hotch and I whispered, “See ya.” She collected her things and opened the door. “Thanks again,” we jinxed. She smiled politely at us and headed out.

Jack jumped on the couch and grabbed his tablet again, already bored with the idea of having his dad back. I rolled my eyes. Hotch didn’t seem to mind, though, because at least it felt normal, and it meant that Jack had no clue what drama was brewing between his parents, and that was really all that mattered. We tried to shelter him as much as possible. Some would say it wasn’t good to coddle him as much as we did, but then again, considering everything he had been through, and he was only seven, it was fair of us to want to protect him from everything—including ourselves.

Hotch made a gesture, asking if he could hold Scarlet again, so I gave in, gently handing her back, making sure that she wouldn’t wake up. His smile brightened. As she yawned and stretched, he giggled quietly and sat down next to Jack, who rested his head against his dad’s side. I sighed and sat, too. Hotch, without thinking, kissed my cheek. For a second, I forgot that I was mad at him at all, and I melted, letting my eyes flutter shut, and I relaxed into his touch. I could feel him smiling.

Then, hours seemed to pass. By the time it turned nine, Jack’s tablet slipped out of his hands as he fell asleep against his dad’s side, and Scarlet was already long gone on his chest. She was so tiny compared to him. She wasn’t even curled up, and yet she still only took up about half of his stomach. And then she would squirm to curl up and suck on her thumb while she was sleeping. I couldn’t believe how freaking small and adorable she was, and how she felt so relaxed when she was with him over everyone else. She was always a menace when Morgan, Jessica, or I would try to hold her. But with Hotch, she was just so… adorable… The perfect baby.

Eventually, Hotch ended up asking if we could talk about it—Not Scarlet’s name, but the fact that he left us in the first place. I didn’t understand why he wanted to rush this. We were in a good mood now, and I had actually managed to forget about some of the pain he caused just because I was watching him hold our kids and I was so relieved to be with him again. Why did he want to do this?

But then he said something that gave me cause for pause. “I was scared.” It made me look at him and hold him tighter. “When we found out that you were pregnant, I was- I was so excited. We always talked about having kids, and when it was finally happening, I was so relieved. It felt like all the pieces of our life were coming together, and I kind of just wanted to fast forward to the part where I would get to hold our little girl in my arms…” He looked down at Scarlet and wiped his large thumb over her tiny cheek. “But then she came, and I was holding her in my arms, and I suddenly realized just how scared I was.”

“Why were you scared?”

I didn’t understand how it was that Aaron Christopher Hotchner, of all people, could have been scared of a baby—especially considering the fact that it wasn’t even his first kid. He had experience. He knew what he was doing. But I didn’t know, which should have made me the scared one; yet I never was because I knew that I had him, and that we would navigate it together. What could have possibly scared him?

“The last time I started a family with someone, it fell apart.” Oh. “And I lost everything.” Oh… “I was terrified of losing you, Jack, and Scarlet because of decisions I made. I lost Haley and Jack because of work because it was important to her that I was always around and always available to cater to her needs, but I just couldn’t be; so she left. Honesty is so important to you, Y/N. You value that more than anything in the world. In our relationship, you’ve begged me a thousand times to be honest with you, and with most things, I’ve tried, but I couldn’t tell you the truth about Prentiss, and it was killing me to keep that from you. So, I was suddenly terrified of losing this,” he gestured to the way we were all laying on him, “because I couldn’t tell you the truth. So, instead of actively lying to you, I decided to leave. I ran like a coward, and I stayed away until I was sure that I couldn’t keep the lie from you anymore.” He kissed my forehead again, but this time, he didn’t pull away, “I’m so sorry, Y/N.”

I reached up to cup my palm around his cheek. “It’s okay.”

“No. It’s not. And I swear that I’m going to spend the rest of my life making it up to you.”

I looked up at him, gently maneuvering my head so that I didn’t hurt him as he pulled away from me. I swiped my thumb over his mole on his cheek. “We’re going to be okay. It’ll take time, but we’re going to be okay.”

“I can see it in your face, you know.”

I paused. “What?”

“The anger. The hate. The disappointment. I know that I fucked up, Y/N— and you can tell me a thousand and one times that you forgive me, or that we’ll move past it, or that if we just ignore it long enough we can pretend it never happened… But I see it in your face, Y/N. You’ve made me promise to always tell you the truth, and I just… I keep fucking up, and there aren’t enough ways for me to say that I’m sorry. I’m going to spend the rest of my life praying that you don’t leave me like Haley did because of this. The unfortunate truth, though, is that as long as I can see it in your face, I’ll never be sure…”

“Aaron Christopher Hotchner, you listen to me right now. I don’t forgive you.” I shook my head insistently. “I don’t.” I stopped to stare into his eyes again. “And I don’t know if I ever will. But here’s the difference between me and Haley. She couldn’t forgive you, and she wasn’t mature enough to just… talk it out and fix it. But I’m not going to let that happen to us. I’m not. I told you a long time ago that I would always fight for you, and I still mean that. It’s going to take me a long time to get over this, to not feel the sting of betrayal every time I look at you or think about Prentiss or hold our daughter in my arms—but the thing about time, Hotch, is that it heals wounds. Eventually, this’ll pass, and I won’t be so disappointed. Until then, though, you’re just going to have to trust that I’m not going anywhere, and you’re going to have to be ready when I want to talk about this and talk about all the lies when I’m ready. There’s going to be a day when I’ve come to terms with this, and I’m going to ask you to just lay out the rest of the lies and the secrets so that we can just get them out of the way and move on, so that we can go back to who we were. Don’t you miss that, Aaron? Being us? Traveling the country together, working random cases, looking into each other’s eyes and just falling in love over and over again. I know I do. So, the best thing we can do is just work towards being those people again. It’s going to take everything we have individually and together, but I know in my heart that we can do it if we just try. Agreed?” He nodded silently. “Then, stop worrying about me leaving, and worry about making it up to me and helping us move on.”

He removed his hold on Scarlet, letting her just rest against his chest so that he could reach for my face and hold me between his palms. “How did I get so lucky?” I didn’t say anything. “How did I manage to convince the one person in the world that I love most to love me and not run away from me?”

“You didn’t have to convince me, Aaron. You never have. I fell in love with you because I see who you are and who you can be, and I am… astonished. I fell in love with you because the feel of your touch makes my knees weak and my heart race. Why would I give all of this up just because you were an idiot?”

He chuckled. “I deserved that.”

“Yeah. You did. And you’re going to keep hearing it for a while, so get used to it.”

He leaned in and kissed me gently. “I will.”

----

After that night, Hotch took off a few days to be with the family. We ended up falling asleep on the couch or in the nursery every night while holding Scarlet and Jack. It was… a process getting used to calling her Scarlet and not Emily, but it almost felt necessary now that Prentiss was back. We weren’t going to change Scarlet’s legal name or anything because I still stood by my decision to name our daughter after Prentiss, but we also knew that it would get too confusing to keep calling both of them Emily all the time. Besides, Scarlet was still a beautiful name, and I thought it fit our daughter perfectly. It didn’t matter what her name or nickname was because she was still ours and she was still perfect in every single way.

Hotch seemed to catch onto the habit faster than I did, though, probably because he had been away for so long that the name Emily hadn’t stuck in his mind yet in relation to our daughter. When we called while he was away, we’d talk about her, but he’d mostly dance around her name. At the time, I didn’t think anything of it, but knowing what I knew now, I realized that it was because he also felt awkward calling her Emily when he knew that Emily Prentiss was still out there, waiting to come home.

Explaining it to Jack was somewhat complicated. We weren’t going to force him to call her Scarlet, of course. Emily was still his sister, and that was what he knew. But we didn’t want him to get confused when we would start calling her Scarlet all the time. He said he understood, and he was going to try, but, as expected, he kept forgetting, and we really didn’t blame him. It was going to be a one step at a time kind of thing with him, and we were fine taking it at his pace. He was still young, and the decision was his, honestly. Mostly, tough, I think he was simply happy to have his dad back. He couldn’t care less about Emily or Scarlet or whatever. He had never been away from his dad that long, even with Foyet.

Three months was a long time to be away from our family. A lot had changed at work— especially my temporary promotion— more had changed around the house. Jack was doing really well in school and in soccer, he hardly even needed my help with homework anymore. And Scarlet was trying to walk. She could get up on her feet, and I was absolutely terrified that Hotch was going to miss that first step, but by some miracle, she had held out until he walked through that door for the first time in months. He lifted her out of her crib, held and kissed her while she giggled and kicked at him, and he refused to let her go for the longest time. Eventually, she started getting fussy, so we sat down with her on the floor while she played with her toys. That was when she stood up, grabbed her stuffed animal elephant, then slowly waddled over to Hotch before dropping it in his lap and falling over. He caught her and the two of us were entirely shell shocked. It was like she knew we were waiting for us to be together again to see that little miracle together. Somehow, she made sure to save that special moment for the time when the two of us could witness it side by side.

Besides that, though, there was still so much he missed. I mean, the little things that never seemed important out of context or before the fact, but when they happened… I wished that Hotch was there for all of them. Hell, I even wished that he were there for the nights when Scarlet was sick that Hotch was there just to help out or have those little moments. It sounded stupid, but it was a part of watching and helping Scarlet grow up. He had already missed out on that, and I wasn’t sure when, or if, he could ever make up for it.

On Thursday afternoon, though, he finally had a chance to make that first step towards getting back into the mindset of being the hands on, caring parent he always was. We had a parent/teacher conference set up with Jack’s school to check in on how he was doing. Thursday was the only available day that we could manage to fit into all of the teachers’ schedules. Hotch had been hoping to get back to work by Thursday, to talk with Strauss about getting back into the field and transitioning the unit chief power back over to himself because I really didn’t want to keep it. It was nice while I had it, but it wasn’t my place. Hotch was the real leader of our team, and everyone knew it, even Strauss. But we had to postpone his return just by a few hours so that we could go handle this first.

Really, we just had to meet with Jack’s home room teacher the most. She was the central part of Jack’s education, and she knew the most about how he was doing in school. That being said, there was still his gym teacher, art teacher, and music teacher to meet with, though, of course, those meetings weren’t necessarily going to be that long. Actually, they only took about ten minutes each— if that. But the meeting with his home room teacher, Mrs. McKee, was a little longer than just that, which was expected.

She handed both me and Hotch copies of Jack’s current report card and some of his best homework assignments (all of which I helped with, but I wasn’t about to admit that). “Jack’s doing really well, I’m pleased to say.” She smiled at us as we looked everything over. “He’s reading a lot, writing more than expected, he’s drawing. He’s incredibly good at drawing. Sometimes he’ll get distracted and start doodling during class, but he’ll always stop when I ask him to. He’s extremely creative.”

That was good. Truth be told, I was always worried about Jack. Especially since Haley, I wasn’t sure how Jack was going to turn out. I was terrified that he’d get quiet, shy, mundane, and stagnant. Despite how hard he worked on homework at home, and he went above and beyond at soccer, I never knew how things were going at school, which was where he spent most of his time. Hearing from his teacher that things were actually alright was a huge relief. The fact that he was drawing and was excited about learning, I was so happy. It honestly meant that I hadn’t fucked anything up while Hotch was gone. That might have been extremely selfish of me to think, but I couldn’t help myself. It petrified me to think that I fucked up our son… But I didn’t. At least, not yet. There was still a lifetime to make mistakes— though I prayed I never would.

“As for socially, Jack gets along with the other kids, he doesn’t argue with his teachers, and he participates in class as much as possible. Truthfully, Jack’s one of my best students, but don’t tell the other parents,” Mrs. McKee laughed. We chuckled with her, too. “I’m impressed by Jack, but I’m also worried.” Our smiles fell. I grabbed Hotch’s hand. “Jack’s been getting picked on by another kid named Paul—”

“Paul Cain?” I questioned, my brow raising. Mrs. McKee nodded. “I don’t understand.” I shook my head in confusion, looking to the side at Hotch. “Paul’s been coming over for playdates over the past few weeks. Jack said that they were friends.”

“How long has this been going on?” Hotch inquired.

“About a month,” the teacher replied.

“I don’t…” I hesitated.

I had no clue. Jack seemed so happy when Paul was around, and it seemed like Paul was interested in being Jack’s friend. Why would Paul be picking on Jack this whole time and they’d keep acting like they were friends while around me? Why would Jack want to hang out with his bully? This made no sense. Not to mention, how did I not see it and profile it? I mean, that was my fucking job, right, and I couldn’t see what was right in front of me.

“The good news is,” Mrs. McKee continued, “I’ve separated them, and I’ve talked to Paul’s parents, too. It seems like keeping them apart has helped, and I’m keeping a close eye on it. I’m just worried that Jack might be letting Paul bully him outside of school. Why? I’m… I’m not sure. I was sort of hoping you guys would be able to find out.”

I nodded. “Yeah. Of course.”

Hotch agreed. “We’ll have to talk with him. Will you let us know if anything changes?”

Mrs. McKee nodded. “As soon as there’s any kind of update—good or bad—I’ll be sure to call you two.”

“Thank you so much.”

Hotch and I stood. As we collected all of Jack’s papers up, Hotch asked if we could keep them to look over and hang up on the fridge, to which Mrs. McKee agreed to with a bright smile, and then Hotch took my hand. We thanked her again and then headed out so that we could finally drive to work. Though, I stopped when we stepped outside of the school.

I sighed and took a slow seat onto the bench nearby. Hotch hesitated a moment before sitting next to me. On one hand, Jack was doing really well in school. He clearly had an interest in learning, and he was creative, and the reading that Hotch had been doing with him at home since getting back was making a difference already. On the other hand, someone was bullying my son. After everything we had been through, I didn’t need to add bullying to the list of things wrong with Jack’s childhood. Maybe it was time to put him back into therapy? We thought that after about three years since Haley’s death, Jack had moved on enough that he didn’t need consistent counseling. In fact, it seemed like receiving therapy for that fateful day was only causing Jack to relive it over and over again, whereas he had forgotten most of the bad since leaving therapy. But if he was getting bullied… Maybe he just needed someone to talk to. I thought that I could be that person for him, but maybe he was just too scared to come forward about it.

Did I really fail that much as a mother? Did my son feel like he couldn’t come to me about something going wrong in his life? Was there more going on than just the bullying? How about the good news? How much had I missed out on because Jack just didn’t know how to communicate with me? But I should have known, anyhow. We were profilers. The whole time Hotch was gone, I never once noticed any changes in Jack’s behavior. We would notice if something were bothering our son, right; so how the hell did we miss this?

“He’s doing the superhero thing,” Hotch finally whispered while nudging my shoulder with his playfully. I cocked a brow as I looked at him. “He’s trying to be the bigger person by making friends with the bad guy.”

“Doesn’t the superhero usually kill the bad guy?”

“Well, okay… We’ll call him Peter Parker and Paul Cain can be Harry Osborn.”

I chuckled. “Sure.”

“He’ll be fine. I’ll talk to him tonight, see if I can pry anything out of him, and then we’ll go from there.”

“Is it bad that I want to hurt a seven year old just because he hurt our son?”

This time, Hotch chuckled. “As long as you don’t actually do it.”

I sighed and rested my head on his shoulder. We interlocked our fingers again as I snuggled against him as close as I could. It probably wasn’t the time to reminisce, but I truly did miss just sitting with him, feeling how warm his body was, listening to his steady breathing and his constant heartbeat in his chest. It felt like home. And then, like usual, his phone started ringing. I rolled my eyes and sat up.

“JJ, what is it?” he asked after answering it. “Shit…” He sighed. “Okay. Thanks for the heads up. We’ll be in soon.” He hung up. After a moment of sitting in his own thoughts, he draped his arm around my shoulders and pulled me close again. “Strauss is looking for us. She wants to talk about the Senate’s meeting.”

I hid my face against him to keep my worry from him. Since Doyle, I had been taking a lot of heat from a Senate council that had been investigating our unit because of me. Because of the decisions that I made while appointed as Unit Chief, the entire team was taking a hit, and they all had to come up with answers and excuses on my behalf. When we first got word about the investigation, I offered to quit. I was the one who knew the risks involved with my decisions, I knew that I would have to answer for what happened, but I never thought in a million years that the team would be questioned, too. I wanted to make it easy. I knew that if I just left quietly, the Senate council would leave us alone, and things for the BAU could return to normal. I just wanted normalcy again. Or at least some reminiscence of it since we technically never had any kind of normalcy in our lives.

“We’ll face this and Jack the same way we face everything… together.” He kissed the top of my head.

I was so scared that I was going to get fired. Back when I offered to quit, Hotch begged me not to, just as he always did, and so he helped me deal with taking the heat from the aftermath of the Doyle case. But now it was out of my hands. Someone telling me that I was going to lose the BAU vs leaving it of my own volition was absolutely terrifying.

“You think the CIA will take me?” I joked. Hotch didn’t laugh. “Sorry…” I just thought that the parallel between us and my parents would be funny to him, but it turned out that it wasn’t. “That was in bad taste.”

When his phone buzzed again in his pocket, this time with a text, Hotch gently shimmied me off of him so that he could stand up. He spun on his heels so that he was facing me. “Let’s do it.” He held his hand out, and I took it, letting him pull me to my feet. “And I’d rather you go to the NSA.” He smiled.

I hit his arm playfully. “I’d rather die.”

“Don’t be hyperbolic, Agent Hotchner,” he whispered while leaning in.

“Yes, Sir…” I hardly got the words out before kissing him desperately.

----

Everyone watched us as we walked by their desks to head towards Strauss’s office, yet no one said anything. Even Rossi came out of his office on the balcony to eye us. Hotch and I kept moving, though, our heads held high, a fair distance between us so that we were still somewhat obeying our office rules about our relationship—not that anybody would’ve cared by this point. The rules were initially created when we first started dating, but now we were four months into being together… No one would’ve cared if we held hands casually while walking through the bullpen. Still, there was some amount of professionalism that Hotch liked to keep while we were in Quantico, and that was to maintain respect and ensure that everyone’s focus stayed on the cases instead of gossiping about us. Maybe one day that would change, though.

When we arrived at Strauss’s office, I knocked on her door and waited for her invitation to enter. After hearing it, I pushed the door open and stepped in. Strauss was sitting at her desk, removing her reading glasses so that she could look up at me, and she was sitting back in her chair to get more comfortable. She asked me where Hotch was, and I told her that he was waiting just outside in the hallway. She then said she wanted to speak with us at the same time.

I beckoned Hotch in, to which he looked shocked, which I didn’t blame him for. Usually, Strauss liked to meet with us one-on-one because it was a scare tactic, and it was easier for her to gain the upper hand in the conversation, but not this time. I felt like I should have been more wary than I was.

Hotch and I stood directly in front of her, the door closed behind us, a few feet of distance between us, our hands at our sides, our gazes glued to her. I hadn’t been much of a rebel back in high school, but Hotch sure was, so I wondered if this was what it felt like to be sent to the principal’s office. Not that I would ever ask him that. He hated talking about his past and the shitty decision he made back then when he was just acting out because his father was abusive, and his mother was absent. Honestly, I couldn’t blame him. At least he was raising Jack and Scarlet the exact opposite to ensure that they had the best childhoods and lives imaginable. It was just another thing I loved about him and his maturity.

“The Senate Committee concluded their investigation today,” Strauss began.

I felt my stomach churn. More than anything, I just wanted to reach for Hotch and hold on for dear life, praying that he wouldn’t let me fall over if I passed out or threw up everywhere. But I couldn’t. At least not in front of Strauss, the one person who tried to ruin our careers after she found out that we were dating. Even though she had come around since then, and she was deterred by the fact that Cody loved us and told her that our relationship wasn’t enough reason to fire us—especially since we got married— Despite all of that, Strauss and I still didn’t get along. I doubt that we ever would.

“They’ve decided that the BAU will remain intact and untouched.”

I let out a sigh of relief.

“But they want Agent Greenaway demoted and Agent Hotchner reinstated as the Unit Chief.”

“I’m not fired?” I questioned.

“Not yet.”

I looked at Hotch, both of us smiling, reassured by how the situation turned out.

“However, I’m quietly suspending the two of you for another three days—at least.”

My smile dropped and I immediately turned to glare at her. “What? Why? I thought they cleared us—”

“They did.” She threw her hands up defensively. “But this is the only way I can make sure that you stay home and just spend time with your family, and not think about work.” My jaw dropped. “After everything, I think the longer you guys have to get your house in order, the better agents you’ll be out in the field.” My jaw dropped even further. “But if I find out that you’re still working during the three days, I’m going to keep adding time off. Understood?”

For once in her life, Section Chief Erin Strauss was actually trying to be helpful. She was looking out for us. For once in my life, I felt myself actually relax around her and smile in her direction.

She ignored my politeness by turning back to her work—faking that she didn’t actually appreciate our gratefulness. “I’ll see you two in three days. Get out of here.”

We knew that she meant it playfully, yet we still weren’t going to stick around long enough to argue it. She had been incredibly kind giving us this offer, and there was really no point in fighting it, so Hotch opened her office door for me, and we both hurried out into the hall.

“What the hell just happened?” I inquired, baffled.

“I don’t… I don’t know…”

I smiled. “Three days.”

He was still in shock. “Three days.”

I cupped his chin with my fingers to make him look at me and snap him out of his trance. “Let’s go home.”

He smiled. “I love you.” He tried to lean in for a kiss, but I playfully dodged him and started shuffling down the hallway to head back towards the BAU. “Brat,” I heard him mumble under his breath before following me.

As we headed through the bullpen, leaving the way we came, no one was watching us this time around. Rossi had JJ in his office, the two of them chatting behind closed doors, and Morgan was gone to probably gossip with Garcia in her office. So, Hotch and I kept walking.

“Hey. Where are you guys headed?” Prentiss questioned, hurrying over before we could push past the glass doors.

We stopped and turned to face her. I smiled. “Strauss suspended us for three days.”

Her face fell. “What? Why? I thought everything was squared away with the—”

“She’s giving us time to be with our family.”

“Oh,” she said with a smile. “Good. I’m glad.” We both nodded at her. “So, then, what’s wrong with Jack?” I cocked a brow at her. “I mean, you guys were at his parent/teacher conference this morning, and now you don’t look too excited to get back to him. So, what gives?”

Hotch licked his lips to hide a smirk. We didn’t like to be profiled, but when it happened by accident, it was always impressive. Aaron Hotchner wasn’t easy to profile—I knew that better than anyone—but Prentiss caught it almost immediately. Nine months away couldn’t change her. She knew us like the back of her hand because we were family. Family knows when something was wrong. That was how I knew something was first wrong with the Doyle case and her leaving. That was why she was our family.

“There’s a kid in his class who’s being mean to him,” Hotch answered. “And Jack’s solution is to befriend him.”

Prentiss laughed, “Aw.” I smiled and chuckled with her. I missed her laugh. It wasn’t often that she cracked a smile, the same way Hotch hardly ever did either, but when they smiled, it was like the whole world lit up. “That’s the cutest… and saddest thing I’ve ever heard. What are you going to do?”

“We, um, haven’t figured that part out yet,” I said.

Hotch nodded an agreement. “He didn’t come to us about it, and we don’t want to pressure him into fessing up to keeping secrets from us—”

“He didn’t tell you this was happening?” Prentiss asked with furrowed brows. We both shook our heads. “He wants to solve it himself…”

“Yeah, but isn’t that our job?” I asked. “Aren’t we supposed to protect him?”

“Of course. But sometimes you can’t. Sometimes the best thing you can do is show him that he doesn’t have to face it alone.”

Emily Prentiss, giving us parenting advice? I never saw it coming. Not that it was a bad thing, though. In fact, it was actually pretty nice, especially considering that she hadn’t been around long enough to give any kind of advice with Scarlet before. So, I would take it with Jack. For now. Maybe if I just encouraged her to keep at it, she wouldn’t leave again, and I’d have her around forever to give us sound advice with the kids.

As Hotch and her finished discussing Jack while I zoned out, I snapped out of my thoughts to interrupt and say, “Em, do you want to come over for dinner tonight?”

They both paused, and she looked incredibly taken aback. For a moment, she exchanged a glance with Hotch, trying to gauge if he had been a part of this deal or not, and if he hadn’t been, then what did he think of her coming over for dinner? She had never been over before. At least, not on her own. But now that she was back since Doyle was gone, I wanted to make up for all of the lost time. I told her just before I lost her that I felt like I underappreciated her. I wasn’t going to let that continue. No matter what it would take, I would value Emily Prentiss, and I would never, ever take her for granted again—not when I knew what it was like to not have her in my life at all.

“Yeah.” She nodded. “Okay.”

“Seven?”

“Sure.”

I smiled and took Hotch’s hand—a relieving feeling. “We’ll see you then.”

“Yeah…”

I started tugging at Hotch’s hand, eager to just get back home with him and to utilize the next few days that Strauss had given us to just spend time with our daughter. Our little bug—as I started calling her. My little man and my lil’ bug. I could live with the idea of just spending another few days with them and not having to think about work. That wasn’t to say that I didn’t want to go back. I still did. I think that going back to work would actually help Hotch and I get over the tension that was brewing between us ever since he came back from the Middle East.

But I kept tugging because it was nice to have him back at home. I liked that it could just be us again, and I could focus on forgiving him a little bit at a time. Someday soon, this whole thing would be a memory lost in the back of my brain, but it would always be there, lingering and waiting for its chance to work its way back to the front of my thoughts as ammunition against Hotch in whatever argument we could possibly be having. But right now, it was all I thought about. 24/7. Prentiss this, Prentiss that. You betrayed me, asshole, and I hate you for it. But I also love you more than anything in the world, and I can’t lose you. Which only makes me hate you more.

I kept pulling him towards the elevator as we waved goodbye to Emily.

I wasn’t going to let us turn into him and Haley. I wasn’t going to let us fail the way she let their relationship fail. I loved my husband, my son, and my daughter too much to just call it quits—even though this should have been the last time he lied to me and pissed me off. If I knew better, I should have called it quits with him the second Emily came sauntering back into the roundtable room. I should have taken the kids and left. But then I wouldn’t’ve been any different than Haley, and as shitty as it was to think—especially since she wasn’t around anymore to defend her memory—I didn’t want to turn into her. That was perhaps my worst fear. So, maybe staying with Hotch through all of this was less about us, but I supposed some kind of point to a dead woman…

I pulled Hotch into the elevator before I could keep thinking about it.

When we got home, without hesitating, I ran upstairs to the nursery while Hotch paid the babysitter to leave early. We thought that we were officially getting back to work, and Jessica wasn’t free to watch the kids, so we hired a nanny ahead of time to start watching the kids—just like Hotch and I always said we would. Only, now we were home… and we were asking her to leave early and not come back for a few days… We would’ve been lucky if she came back at all.

I gasped playfully when I saw Scarlet in her crib, kicking her legs up and out in response to seeing me and hearing my voice. “Hi, my baby.” I giggled and cooed to her as I gently picked her up. “Did you miss me?” I kissed her cheek. She grabbed onto my hair and started pulling at it, something she was obsessed with now that her hands had more movement to them.

Hotch came running in, too, just as breathless as I had been because he was so excited to see her. We only left a couple of hours ago, yet being away from her during that time felt like a thousand years. I just wanted to hold her always. But then again, so did Hotch, and he hadn’t been able to hold her as long as I had, so I had to give her up to him when he approached and outstretched his arms for her. She immediately started laughing and grabbing at his face. She loved doing that, even though his beard was gone again and there was nothing to hold onto.

Hotch slowly sat down on the ground. When he was settled, he gently let Scarlet settle on his lap so that he could accept her pacifier and toys from me as I handed them to him. She cooed as she started sucking on her pacifier. As I grabbed the koala stuffed animal that Prentiss left for her before… well… leaving, I supposed… I sat down beside Hotch, holding onto his shoulder for balance. I groaned as I relaxed.

“You good?” he questioned while taking the koala from me.

I nodded. “Long day.”

“Yeah, well, things seem to be looking up now.”

“I’m… I’m actually grateful this time around for Strauss suspending us.”

Hotch chuckled again. “I thought I wanted to get right back into the field, but after spending those three days at home with you, Scar, and Jack…” He chuckled lightly again. “I’m grateful, too.” He rested his head on my shoulder, making my heart melt in my chest. “I love you.”

I kissed his hair. “I love you, too.”

Hotch lifted Scarlet off his lap when she got too squirmy, giving her space to try to crawl around on her own. She wasn’t very good at it, but she tried her best. At least she was still too young to start walking yet so I never had to worry about Hotch missing that, or her first words. All we had to worry about right now was helping her crawl around and not fall on her face when her arms slipped under her. So, while we were sitting there, Hotch started working on getting her to crawl towards him by holding the koala up as an enticing prize.

She giggled and moved to him a little bit before slipping, just like I assumed she would. I caught her. When she was up on her hands again, she made another attempt, but then she tried reaching out for the toy, forgetting that her arms were the only things holding her up, so she slipped again. I laughed and caught her again.

“She’ll get good at it eventually,” Hotch said. “She’ll be a track star or something one day, I’m calling it now.”

“Our son, the soccer star; Our daughter, the track star. And where do academics fit into that?”

“As long as they get good grades, work their hardest, and come to us when they need help, I don’t care…” He handed the koala to her. “We’ll worry about getting them into the Academy later.”

I laughed loudly. “Come on, Hotch. The Academy?”

“I mean, your parents work for the government, we work for the government, what are the odds that they don’t?”

“What are the odds you don’t force Jack into joining the Academy?”

Hotch squinted at me. “I would do no such thing.”

“Mhm,” I answered sarcastically.

I was just giving him a hard time, to be fair. Scarlet was just too young for us to be planning out her future because we didn’t even know what she liked. We could joke all day that she would be a track star or that she would follow in our footsteps at the Academy, but until she was older, and we would get to know her, we couldn’t actually know that for sure. As for Jack, however, I would have been shocked if he didn’t think about joining the FBI. He always looked up to his father like he was a superhero. I mean, growing up, he literally said we were superheroes, he said that our job was saving the world, and he even went as far to choose dressing up as his father over fucking Spiderman for Halloween! There was no way Jack wasn’t going to consider it. I knew that I wanted him to focus on school right now and being a kid, but come college, it was entirely possible that the conversation was going to come up. Three generations of Greenaway/Hotchners in the FBI? We would be fucking legendary.

“Oh—She’s got it!” Hotch cheered while watching Scarlet crawl around the room towards the beanbag chair across from us. “Future track star, baby,” he said to me as he flung his arm around my shoulders, “what did I tell you?”

I shook my head sarcastically at him. “You’re lucky I love you.”

“I am… so lucky…” He turned and cupped my chin with his free hand, making me look up at him as he pressed into me for a gentle, loving kiss. “I’m the luckiest man in the world.”

“Mhm.” I pressed into him a little more.

“I love you,” he mumbled against my lips.

“I love you, too—”

We parted when Scarlet threw her koala as a tantrum for not getting attention anymore, and then she started to cry.

“Well, now we know where she gets her neediness from,” he joked while standing to pick her up and set her down in her crib again.

I laid down on the floor. “Yeah. You.”

“Uh huh. Whatever you say, Agent Hotchner.”

“I thought I’m always right, Agent Hotchner.”

“You are.” He knelt beside me, then straddled my waist. “You always are.” He kissed me again. “And you always will be.”

I could forget that I was mad at him for just another hour or so… So, I tangled my fingers in his hair before pulling him close.

----

The doorbell rang while Hotch and I were trading places in front of the stove in the kitchen. I sighed as I wiped my hands clean on his apron, then turned to run for the front door,

Prentiss perked up when she saw me. “Hey!” And then she started giggling. “You’ve got a lil’ something’…” She pointed at her own nose, referencing that I must have had food there from when I was running around in the kitchen.

I quickly wiped my face with my sleeves. “Better?”

“Better.”

I widened the doorway, ushering her inside. As she stepped in, Emily handed me the bottle of wine that she brought for us as a polite thank you gift for having her over. I accepted it and showed her to the kitchen. Hotch was pulling the food out of the oven, setting it on hotplates, and stressing over trying not to burn himself in the process when we entered.

As he and Emily exchanged welcomes, I grabbed a corkscrew, and I asked Hotch if he could grab three glasses for us. He set his hot pads down before reaching into the cupboard for the glasses. Emily passed them to me.

“Where are the kids?” she asked.

I handed her the first full glass. “Scarlet’s passed out upstairs, and Jack’s eating dinner at a friend’s house.”

“Ryan Locke’s?”

“How did you know?”

“I kept my tabs on you guys while I was gone. Jack likes going to Ryan’s house after soccer practices.” She nudged my shoulder playfully before taking a sip of her wine, then heading to the dining room to sit down.

I exchanged a quick glance with Hotch, my eyes squinting into a short, accusing glare. He raised his hands in innocence. I shook my head at him, then grabbed our wine glasses and took them to the dining room as Hotch plated dinner for us. When he was ready, he juggled all of the plates in his hands and on his arms, slowly making his way out to the dining room, holding everything out for me so that I could help him before he could drop everything. He quietly thanked me.

He sat down beside me after giving Prentiss her food, too.

“How is it being back?” I asked.

She shrugged. “It’s… different. I’m adjusting well, but Reid and Morgan are still really mad at me.”

I shook my head. “Morgan isn’t mad. I think he’s confused, and he’s trying to deal with the fact that he mourned something that wasn’t real, but he’ll come around—They both will. It’ll just take some time.”

“I know, but I just wish things could go back to normal.”

“Maybe it’s a good thing that they aren’t. Means you can start over.”

“When did you get all wise with advice?” Emily laughed.

“I think we all changed a lot while you were gone. Don’t you think?” No one said anything. “You gave us parenting advice earlier,” I said behind my forkful of salad. “Did you realize?”

Prentiss’s face fell. “I’m so sorry—”

“No. Don’t be. It was nice.”

She smiled at me before looking down at her plate. “Have you talked to Jack about it yet?”

“Not yet,” Hotch answered. “I will, though, tonight.”

“What are you going to say?”

“I’ve got a trick up my sleeve.”

The three of us snickered.

Suddenly, we could hear Scarlet crying bloody murder on the baby monitor next to my left wrist. I quickly turned it down. I sighed as I started moving my seat back so that I could head upstairs to calm her down, but Hotch pushed his hand out flat, ordering me to stay and offering that he could handle it. I smiled shortly at him. As he continued on his way up to Scarlet’s bedroom, I settled back in my seat and picked up my glass of wine. Emily eyed me as she finished her dinner. She pushed the plate further up on the table so that she could lean forward. I watched her carefully.

“I missed you,” she whispered.

“I missed you, too.”

She shook her head. “No. I mean, I really missed you, Y/N. It killed me every day to know that you didn’t know the truth, and that you named your little girl after me because you thought that I was—”

“I don’t regret it, Em.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re still one of my best friends.”

“Even after everything I did?”

I nodded. “Of course.”

Hotch’s footsteps echoed through the house as he came back downstairs—a lot slower than the way he had gone up. I turned to see him coming into the living room, carrying Scarlet who was quietly fussing in his arms. He stepped to sit down, but Emily stopped him in his tracks with a question we hadn’t anticipated.

“Can I hold her?”

Hotch hesitated for a second, watching me, trying to gauge if I was at all opposed to the idea. I, of course, didn’t have any qualms with it. So, Hotch carefully handed Scarlet over.

“She’s going to be hard to chase around when she’s older,” Emily said while playing with Scarlet’s kicking feet. “She loves to squirm now… Imagine what she’ll be like when she’s on her feet.”

Hotch let out an exhausted chuckle. “Yeah. We were joking earlier that she’ll be a track star.”

Emily nodded.

Hotch threw his arm around the back of my seat as I leaned forward to keep eating. “Morgan’ll get to chase her around when she’s little, though. He’s always insisted, so we’re going to indulge him.”

“I’ll chip in on that.”

“Yeah?” I questioned.

She nodded. “Of course.”

I leaned back in my seat and put a comforting, innocent hand on Hotch’s thigh. He moved his hand from holding the back of my chair to resting on my far shoulder so that he could pull me close, tucking me under his arm and against his chest.

“You know,” I began slowly and carefully, trying to change the conversation as smoothly as possible, “she technically doesn’t have a godmother.”

Emily cocked a brow at us. “What?”

“Well, when she was born, we knew that we wanted Morgan to be her godfather, but her godmother… Well, she was gone before we got to ask if she wanted to be Scarlet’s godmother. So, we left the spot officially open, but, technically, I suppose, Jessica was her godmother.”

“’Was’?”

“You’re back now, so…”

Her jaw dropped somewhat. “You’re kidding.” I shook my head, then waited as she looked down at Scarlet. “Me?” She looked back up at me. “Are you… Are you sure?”

I nodded. “It was the original plan, so we might as well make it official now.”

Scarlet yawned and stretched in her sleep. Emily laughed down at her, making sure that she wasn’t loud enough to wake her. When she started snoring, however, Hotch slid his arm off of me, stood, and went to take Scarlet back so that he could take her back upstairs.

Since dinner was done, Emily helped me collect the dishes and take them to the kitchen, but at that point, I decided to kick her out. There was no way in hell she was going to help me clean up when she was a guest in our own home. Besides, Hotch and I had the next few days off, which meant we could afford to stay up late and sleep in tomorrow; but Emily, on the other hand, still had to be up bright and early in the morning in order to get to work on time. So, it was time for her to leave. Hotch and I ushered her to the door, insisting that if she ever needed anything, she could come to us, and she returned the favor with a bright smile while slipping into her coat.

“Good luck with Jack,” she said.

We smiled and thanked her, then Hotch opened the door for her. As she stepped outside and started towards her car, Hotch snaked his arm around my waist, and we both waved goodbye to her until she was in her car and driving around the corner. Hotch kissed my cheek and closed the door.

“Leave the dishes,” he pleaded against my skin.

I tucked into his side even more, a physical reaction to how desperate I suddenly felt for him. “You have to talk to Jack, baby…”

He turned and his hands started wandering up and down my sides, slowly feeling me up. “I know,” he pouted, “but afterwards—”

“You have three days ahead of you to do whatever you want with me.” I escaped his arms before things could progress out of control. “Go talk to your son.”

He squinted at me. “I’m counting this.”

“Counting?”

“As a bratty act.”

My eyes widened. “No, wait, that’s not—”

“Fair?” He smirked and towered over me. “Too bad.” He kissed my nose before turning to head upstairs.

I waited a few moments, staring at the kitchen, debating if I should go and do them now or leave them and regret not doing them in the morning. But we didn’t have work. I could do them whenever… I could afford to just let them sit there overnight… Besides, I was curious as to what was going on with Jack, so parent instincts took over, and I decided to head upstairs to listen in on what Hotch had to say to him.

I tip-toed down the hallway, creeping around the floorboards that I learned had a tendency to squeak. Jack and Hotch were whispering in his bedroom, and the closer I got, the better I could hear them. Hotch was talking about something new he wanted to try out with Jack in order to connect with Haley. I peeked my head in to see what they were talking about, that was when I saw Hotch lighting a candle before handing it to Jack.

“This candle represents Mom…” Hotch explained, keeping a careful eye on the flame. “Whenever you feel like you want to talk to her— whatever it might be about, I want you to tell me so that I can come light this for you and you can talk to her through this candle.”

“Why, though?” Jack asked.

“Because I know how much you miss her. I miss her, too. Every day. And I know that I wish I could still talk to her sometimes, so I think that it would be good for us to do this.”

“But won’t it make you sad?”

Hotch’s shoulders fell. “Buddy, you could never make me sad. Every day, I wake up and I see you, and I’m reminded of the great job Mom did with you, and I’m very proud of you both. I just think that if we start doing this every now and again, Mom can help us.”

“Like with what?”

“Well,” Hotch shrugged, “you know, like, if you’re having a bad day, or something.”

“But I have Y/N.”

“I know you do, buddy; but sometimes it’s just nice to get some advice from your mom, right?” Hotch hesitated for a second while he sucked in a deep breath. “Mrs. McKee told me and Y/N today that Paul’s been mean to you. And we know that you didn’t want to tell us because you don’t want us to worry about you and you want to try to handle it on your own, but sometimes it’s good to talk about these things with someone— especially someone you love. Sometimes there are things that you don’t want to tell me or Y/N, and that’s fine, but you should tell someone, so maybe that someone should be your mom through this candle. Does that make sense?” Jack nodded. “Good…” Hotch brushed Jack’s hair back slightly. “Try something like this.” He leaned forward towards the candle in Jack’s hands and said, “Mom, look over Jack. Be there when he needs it. I love you.” He leaned away from the candle, “Why don’t you give it a shot?”

Jack wiggled under his blankets as he tried to find a comfortable position to sit in again. When he was settled, Jack leaned towards the flame, just like his dad did, and he whispered, “Mom, look over Dad, Y/N, and Emily for me.” He was using his grown-up voice to sound more like his dad. “And don’t forget to tell Dad that I want that new Lego set for my birthday.”

I chuckled quietly from the doorway, but not loud enough for them to hear.

“Of course,” Hotch nodded, also chuckling. “Is that all?”

“And I love you.”

“Good job, buddy,” Hotch complimented after taking the candle from Jack. He blew the flame out and set it on Jack’s bedside table so that it would always be with him, no matter what. With one hand, Hotch blindly turned off the lamp beside him while kissing Jack’s forehead.

“Night, Dad.”

Hotch pushed himself to his feet, “Good night and don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

“Can you ask Y/N to come tuck me in, too?”

“Yeah. Of course, I can.”

I heard Hotch walking out of the room, and before I could turn to dash down the hall to be less suspicious, he came out and caught me standing there. I giggled when his lips turned up into a smile. Before he could expose my eavesdropping, I grabbed his forearm, and I pulled him towards me and out of the doorway, pressing him against the wall so that Jack would never know we were still there.

“Were you snooping?” he whispered. I nodded and hid my face against his chest. “I think he’s going to be okay.”

“Me, too.” I hugged him tightly. “But now we have to get him that fucking Lego set.”

He let out a laugh that was a little too loud, forcing me to quickly cover his mouth and shush him. After a moment, he peeled my hand away. “You should go tuck him in.”

“You look up that Lego set, I’ll tuck him in.”

“Deal.” He kissed my lips before sneaking out of my arms and heading down the hallway to go get ready for bed in our room.

When he was out of sight, I purposefully stepped on one of the loud, creaking planks on the ground to let Jack know that I was approaching—and to trick him into thinking that I hadn’t been standing there the whole time. He was snuggled under his covers, watching the doorway eagerly for me. When he spotted me, he perked up, all excited to get a kiss and a hug goodnight. How did I get so damn lucky to have a kid like him?

“Oh, boy,” I groaned while sitting down on the edge of his mattress. I pouted and feigned exhaustion for him—not that it was hard to fake, to be honest. “What if I just…” I started falling forward until I crashed against his bed, purposefully taking up a lot of space compared to him. “I think I’ll just fall asleep here.” I rolled over somewhat and flailed my arms about to really get in his personal space.

“Mom!” he protested through a loud laugh. I started snoring loudly. “Dad! Help!” Still snoring and keeping my eyes screwed shut, I tapped my hand around aimlessly until I found his tickle spot and started going for it just to keep him quiet so that he wouldn’t wake up Scarlet in the next room. “Mom— please—” he begged through the giggles. I started snoring louder. Finally, the kid got smart by grabbing Red from his other side and started hitting me in the head with it.

“Ouch,” I said, stopping my attack on him just to rub my head. “Touché, Jack Hotchner. You win this round.” I pushed myself upright and moved back to the edge of the bed so that Jack could get settled again. “Yeah, I think this bed’s too small for me anyhow.” I smiled at the way he was still giggling while trying to catch his breath. “My little man,” I cooed, pulling the covers up to his chin, “I love you so much.”

He cuddled Red close to himself. “I love you, too, Mom.”

I leaned down to kiss his forehead. “My little superhero.” I sat up. “Should I be concerned about Paul? Do I need to go all Luke Skywalker on him?” I held my hands up like I was using a lightsaber to deflect a bunch of laser bullets. “’Cause I will.”

“That’s not how Luke—” Jack rolled his eyes. “I’m okay. I promise.”

“Pinkie promise or I won’t believe you.” We held out our pinkies simultaneously before interlocking them tightly. I squinted at him. “Okay. Fine.” I kissed his hand quickly. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“Night, little man.” I released him and started making my way out of his bedroom.

“Night, Mom.”

I turned off his lights then slowly closed the door.

------

criminal minds family: @peggy1999​ @gorgeousdarkangel​ @alex--awesome--22​  @oceaneblu​ @brithedemonspawn​​ @absolutemarveltrash​​ @bshelley322​​ @rousethemouse​ @sunshinepower17​ @weexinling​​ @pettttyyyc​@ Braty-angel

[captaincartervalues]

My Stubborn Alien (for the fic title thing)

“Jus truuusst me, Lena thi- thisis a greaaat idea!” Kara empathically waves her hands.

“Kara, you’re drunk and this is most definitely not a good idea.” Lena replies matter of factly.

“Imnot drunk. Yooou’re drunk.”

Lena shakes her head at her girlfriend in exasperation.

“N Ssure it is! S’its what the peeople want. ANd it’s gunna be gREAt for ma image! No more ‘Oh Supergirl’s sooo uptight’ or ‘Oh Supergirl is toooo muchofa goodie tooshoes’ or ‘out of touch with the people’!” Kara airquotes.

Lena raises her eyebrows and tries to conceal her smirk.

“Imma be hip! Imma be wit da people, LenAa!” Kara reaches out to boop Lena’s nose as she’s making her last point. “Supergirl is CoOl Ssupergurl is sFun! Thhiss is gonna show everyone that. Okay? Okay.”

“Does this have something to do with the article Andrea had William publish this week?” Lena asks gently.

“NooOoo.”

“So this has nothing to do with her saying Supergirl isn’t the kind of hero you wanna have a drink with?” Lena presses.

“Uhh noo.” Kara insists defiantly. “It’s about the gAys!” Kara comes up with.

“What?” Lena laughs out.

“Nia said Tiktok is on the rage and the gays love it! And I wannabe something the gays love toooo” Kara points out.

“Darling, I’m pretty sure the gays already love you...”

“Yeeaaaahh BUT do they knooow I love them back?! Isdunno... Isss why I need Tikstok!” Kara exclaims as if her reasoning is flawless.

Lena looks at the innocent face on her drunk girlfriend and knows they’re going to be in trouble tomorrow. “There’s no talking you out of this right now, is there?”

“NOpe!” Kara smiles triumphantly.

Lena sighs as she acquiesces “Fine.”

Kara jumps up and down with exuberance.

“But I’m not taking any of your complaints when you regret this tomorrow.”

———

Kara wakes up with a decent hangover, which wouldn’t be so bad, if she didn’t also wake up to an empty bed and no Lena to snuggle.

With a pouty face and her eyes half closed, Kara glacially shuffles out towards the kitchen and freshly made coffee. Although, she quickly realizes her and Lena aren’t alone this morning when she hears a whispered conversation.

“Alex? What are doing here so early?” Kara inquires as she excitedly spots the donuts her sister must have brought over.

“Oh you know just catching up with my future sister-in-law about how your night was.” Alex says sharply.

Kara brushes past the sister-in-law comment and looks skeptically at Alex as she eats her second donut. “It was fine. Pretty low key.” Kara says with her mouth full.

Alex scoffs “LOWkey?! Mmm and how much of it do you remember there, Kar?”

Kara looks to Lena with questioning eyes but Lena won’t quite look at her as she chuckles behind her coffee cup. “Most of it...I mean I don’t really remember going to bed once we got home but -”

Lena bursts out laughing at Kara’s unassuming admission.

“This isn’t funny, Lena.” Alex chastises.

“I mean it kind of is, Alex. Come on, it wasn’t that bad in the end” Lena argues.

Kara cuts Alex off before she can argue back “What wasn’t that bad?”

“Oh why don’t we just show you superstar!” Alex quips.

Lena takes pity on Kara’s still confused face and pats the seat on the couch next to her “You’re gonna want to sit down for this one, honey.”

Kara takes the offered seat as Lena hands her phone over to Kara after opening the Tiktok app. Kara’s mouth immediately drops when she sees herself in her Supergirl suit on the screen.

“Oh no!” Kara gasps.

“Oh YES.” Alex digs. “Go on, press play.”

Kara presses play and immediately regrets it as she watches herself stare back with ‘sexy’ eyes and lick her lips before lip syncing:

“I wanna put you in 7 positions for 70 minutes. You get it babe. You got a lot on your mind and I want to ease it up and lick it and slip it in. You do a light scream on the ice cream when I scoop it and dip it in.”

“Oh. My. Rao.” Kara groans as she presses pause to stop the video. “Why am I seducing the camera in my Supergirl suit?”

“That’s a great question, isn’t it Kara?” Alex jabs sarcastically. “Lena?”

“You said it was trendy and that the TikTok gays would appreciate it.” Lena offers.

“Why didn’t you stop me??” Kara whines.

“I tried!” Lena defends. “You told me it was homophobic and a hate crime not to post it!”

“I am never drinking Vahorian Rum again.” Kara says as she sinks into the couch.

“You said that last time.” Alex mocks.

Kara glares at her sister before attempting her patented optimism. “Okay, so I made a TikTok as Supergirl last night. At least it’s just this one video with only - um” Kara checks the phone “3.6 million views...”

Kara sighs, “It could be worse.”

Alex and Lena exchange a knowing look and Kara’s eyes go wide.

“I made MORE than one video?!?” Kara postures.

“Try like six.” Alex huffs disapprovingly.

“Oh Rao!”

“Weeelllll, she only posted six...” Lena adds.

“OH RAO!” Kara groans. “Show them all to me now.”

The three of them proceed to watch all of Kara’s drunkenly produced TikToks from the night before.

“Ayyyoooooo bisexual check!”

Kara doesn’t even know how she manages to roll the sleeves and pants of her supersuit but she watches herself do it before putting a beanie and chucks on, grabbing her ukele, and topping it off by replacing her cape with a bisexual flag.

“I don’t even have a bisexual flag!” Kara blurts.

“You do now.” Alex points to it draped over the dining table.

Kara looks at Lena baffled.

“You said it was ‘essential’, yelled ‘brb’, and came back with the flag and some candy before I could open my mouth.” Lena explains.

Kara sighs and scrolls to the next video.

“Ayyyoooooo everyone thinks my cousin is hot check!”

This video turns out to be just Kara rolling her eyes and shaking her head with embarrassment in front of a bunch of pictures of Kal in his Superman suit. Most of the comments on the video are either ‘well they ain’t wrong doe’ or ‘not as hot as you Supergirl’ and Kara isn’t sure which she hates more.

The next one starts with Kara and Lena standing next to and looking at each other with background music and the caption ‘whenever Lex tries to take over the world’ and ends with them not missing a beat as they turn towards the camera and lip sync:

“What kind of fuckery is this?”

“Okay this one is kind of funny.” Kara cautiously proclaims.

“Yeah I liked that one too.” Lena admits with a smile.

“Should have said ‘whenever Lex does anything’.” Alex corrects. They all burst out laughing at that.

With the mood slightly lightened, Kara scrolls to the next video.

“Ayyyoooooo jawline check!”

Kara is already cringing again as she anticipates watching herself show off her jawline but is surprised when the camera flips to Lena rolling her eyes as Kara’s hand turns her head to its profile to hype up her girlfriend’s impeccable jawline.

“I’m so sorry” Kara says sheepishly.

“It’s okay, babe.” Lena reassures her as she presses a quick kiss to Kara’s lips.

“I mean...Lena’s jawline was made for this trend sooo...” Alex concedes.

Lena rolls her eyes again as Kara shrugs, “She’s not wrong, babe.”

“Yeah, yeah. Just watch the last one you posted because it’s Alex’s and mine’s favorite.” Lena says as she and Alex laugh in anticipation.

“Oh no.” Kara sighs before scrolling.

Music plays as she watches stock images of Superman, the Flash, and the Arrow pop up before Kara appears and lip syncs the last line with a cocky grin:

“These boys ain’t shit.”

“Oh my - Lena! How could you let me post theeeese?” Kara tries again.

“Listen,” Lena starts “you’re very stubborn when you’re drunk and it took everything I had to keep you from posting the other videos!”

“Do I even want to know?” Kara questions.

“I do!” Alex says taking a little too much enjoyment in Kara’s suffering.

Lena pulls out another phone.

“At least you guys were smart enough to use one of Supergirl’s burner phones and not your personal phones.” Alex says.

Lena tosses Alex a side eye. “Do I look stupid to you?” Lena asks rhetorically. “I also added extra layers of encryption to the app and the phone just in case.”

“Well I don’t know! You were stupid enough to fall in love with this idiot.” Alex mumbles as she points toward Kara.

“Normally I would be offended, but after last night, you might have a point.” Kara says.

Lena pulls up the the drafts she refused to let Kara post.

The first one is Kara floating with Lena in her arms in a bridal carry and the caption ‘when you save Lena Luthor from an attack’. Kara is looking at Lena before she turns to the camera and lip syncs:

“I think. You know. Where this about to go.”

Drunk Kara added some eyebrow raises and a wink before kissing Lena at the end.

“Okay it’s probably a really good thing you didn’t let me post this.” Kara admits.

“You think?!” Alex chastises.

Kara clicks on another video in the drafts to avoid Alex’s judgmental gaze.

This video is Kara and Lena standing in from of the camera facing each other as Kara lip syncs to her:

“You say we’re just friends....”

Kara smiles and pans to the camera. “But friends don’t know the way you taste.”

Kara smirks as Lena’s mouth drops and she goes to stop the recording immediately.

“OHkay I did not need to see that last one, Lena!” Alex complains.

“You asked for it.” Lena shrugs.

“She’s right. You did.” Kara backs up her girlfriend.

Alex glares at them both. “You two are lucky no one pieced together where you were or who you are!” Alex scolds as she points at Kara.

“I think it helped that Supergirl and I have a known working friendship.” Lena admits. “No one questioned why she was drunk and with me.”

“What has been the overall reaction to these?” Kara inquires.

“Honestly, it’s been mostly positive with most fans loving the content and an inside look at playful Supergirl.” Lena explains.

“Though there have been some critics questioning why a hero would get drunk at all with the responsibilities you have.” Alex levels. “And some negative responses from parents about the appropriateness of some of the content.”

Kara sighs resigned to the damage she has done.

“But. On the positive side, you were right!” Lena adds with encouragement.

Kara tilts her head quizzically.

“The gays LOVED it and they loved that they now definitively have a shot because you like girls!” Lena teases.

“Oh Rao! I can not believe Supergirl came out as bisexual on TikTok! Kate got an incredibly well written and thoughtful article on what it means to her and the world that Batwoman is gay and I got thirst traps! THIRST TRAPS!” Kara groans.

Alex shakes her head and Lena tries to hold back her laughter.

“I can’t believe you let me do this, Lena!”

“Hey, I told you it’s not my fault! You’re one stubborn alien when drunk.”

“But I’m your stubborn alien and you’re responsible for me.” Kara counters with a whine.

Lena sighs as she takes Kara into her arms. “You are my stubborn alien...with a drunken propensity for thirst traps.”

———

Kara embraces her drunken mistakes and utilizes her newly created TikTok fame to connect with the people and kids of National City on a more human level. She does PSAs and educational material in her videos as well as more lighthearted fun ones that people love.

She also managed to convince her superfriends to be in videos with her. The most liked videos on her page are the ‘flip the switch’ videos she’s done with the other heroes where the light goes off and they swap costumes. It started with Dreamer when Nia told her about it and convinced her to do it. Then Kara got Barry to do one (pretty easily) and then Sara, Killer Frost, J’onn, Mia, Constantine, and even Kate (after a lot of convincing). She also roped Kal into doing one with her old suit so he ended up in a skirt. That one is definitely her fav.

Generally, Supergirl’s official account has veered aware from making any more thirst traps, but that doesn’t seem stop other creators from making raunchy thirst traps about Supergirl.

Though, after some time and much convincing from Lena, Kara releases the last video in her drafts from that first drunken night.

“They say drunk words are sober thoughts” a sober Supergirl says as she shrugs and the video cuts to the clip of her drunk sprawled out upside down on the couch “Women are just like...sooooo HOT”

A lot of women liked that post.

[wehavethoughts]

Zack Snyder's Justice League Review!

Zack Snyder's Justice League dir. Zack Snyder (2021) Warner Bros. Pictures, DC Films, Atlas Entertainment and The Stone Quarry Science Fiction, Action, Superhero Movie

Rating: 3.5 Waves

Summary: Tormented by visions of a dark future, Bruce Wayne aka The Batman attempts to gather a team of superheroes to defend the planet. When alien tyrant Steppenwolf arrives on Earth seeking a long forgotten technology, this group of heroes must do everything in their power to keep him from locating all three Mother Boxes and destroying the world.

Content warnings: Violence, Death, Body Horror, Gore

This review DOES NOT contain spoilers for Zack Snyder's Justice League

A bit of background for those of you thinking “Didn’t Justice League come out years ago?” You are exactly right! Justice League was released in theaters in 2017 and is the fifth movie in the DCEU (DC Extended Universe). The same company that produced Justice League then funded Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) which is a different version of the story that was released in 2017. Zack Snyder was actually the original director of Justice League (2017), but he stepped away from the project during post production and the film was handed over to director Joss Whedon. Whedon’s creative decisions led to rewrites, heavy editing and a notorious reshoot that required removal of Henry Cavill’s mustache via CGI. Therefore, Justice League as it premiered in theaters in 2017 was Joss Whedon’s vision of the story. As some of you might remember, Justice League (2017) was considered a “flop” as it lost the studio ~$60 million overall and was received by fans with mixed to negative reviews (6.2/10 IMDB, 40% Rotten Tomatoes). But since Zack Snyder had left so late in the project, there were rumors that his version of the film had been nearly finished and there was hope that the movie Snyder filmed was actually better than what Whedon had created. Fans took to social media to demand that Warner Bros release the “Snyder Cut'' of Justice League and in a move I personally find baffling, Warner Bros actually gave Zack Snyder another $70 million to finish his version. Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) which was released on HBO Max is the final product.

While understanding the context of how this movie came about is neat and honestly pretty hilarious, I never got around to see Justice League (2017) so I cannot give any commentary on whether this new film is any better. For those who are curious, my fiancée who has seen both says that the movies are extremely similar in plot, but there are significant changes to characterization and pacing. This review will solely be on the merits and shortfalls of Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) in a spoiler free context since the movie was released just over a week ago (if you want to talk spoilers DM me I have So Many Thoughts).

Honestly, I was surprised how much I enjoyed this movie. My expectations were quite low considering what I heard about the original 2017 version and the fact that I’m more of a Marvel fan. The most surprising thing for me was that I sat through the entire 4 hr and 2 min runtime (for reference the runtime for Justice League (2017) is 2 hrs). Aside from Lord of the Rings (Return of the King runtime 4 hr 11min), I usually don’t indulge in movies that require me to block off an entire day, but I was curious and I love bandwagons.

The highlight of this movie are the characters. Each of our main characters had a deep, solid backstory that drew me in and made me invested in what was happening in this world. One thing lacking in a lot of ensemble superhero movies is balanced screen time between the main cast, but Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) uses its time wisely to give each character depth and critical purpose in the narrative. Even the villain had compelling motivation as to why he is on earth doing dastardly deeds, and while I wasn’t rooting for him, I respected his motivations. I also appreciated that the writers of this movie made the characters intelligent. Sure, some decisions were driven more by emotion than logic, but the way defenses are set up and how our heroes use their unique powers left me incredibly impressed.

The characters’ interactions with each other was also very enjoyable. Snyder took the time to include scenes centered around the team chilling with each other in ways that were refreshingly low stakes and mundane. The story was interspersed with scenes like Wonder Woman and Alfred making tea, Aquaman and Wonder Woman musing over cultural differences, and Cyborg and Flash digging up a body where you could really see the characters grow from strangers to teammates to friends. These scenes also peppered in some light humor that kept the movie from becoming too dark without distracting from the tone.

Since Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) is technically an action movie and it is rated R, I feel like I should touch on the action sequences. Overall, the action was incredibly fun to watch! It was made for the big screen so watching the epic battles for the first time on my TV at home was a bit underwhelming, but the well choreographed, high stakes fights were still visually pleasing. For a rated R movie there was not as much gore as there could have been, which I appreciated and the level of violence was pretty much what I expected from a comic book movie.

The action scenes also do a fantastic job with power escalation. By that I mean the action illustrates the limits of one character’s power clearly in relation to other characters’ powers. This way you are aware of exactly how impressive the characters and their powers are on their own and so when someone or something stronger shows up we have context for how big of a threat we are dealing with. The clean way the story shows us everyone’s respective powers and their limits makes it so the stakes feel more tangible and it's not just unfathomably strong characters beating the shit out of each other with the winner decided by chance.

There are a few reasons the movie didn’t get a full five waves from me. First was that the Amazon’s outfits were very clearly made by horny men based on how much skin they were showing. I, a bisexual, personally love to see superheroes in less then full coverage, but when the Amazon warriors have their entire stomachs and cleavage out of their armor for no reason it exhausts me. What happened to the tasteful and stylish armor from Wonder Woman (2017)? This feels like a step in the wrong direction.

The next concern I have that has kept me from recommending this movie to people is the overall pacing and length. While there were some great uses of the extended run time like the action sequences and team bonding I mention above, there were so many scenes that were way too slow for me to stay engaged. I found myself editing the movie in my head, like did we really need 2 full minutes of Bruce Wayne and his horse climbing a dreary mountain? I don’t think so. This was a narrative where I needed to pay attention lest I miss critical pieces of the story, but the random scenes that dragged on too long had me going to get snacks and checking my phone throughout. If I could rate the movie by halves the first half would get 2.5 Waves because of how it dragged and the second half would get closer to 4.5 Waves since the story really picks up and fun things start to happen.

The final part of this movie that kept it from getting a higher rating was how closely it was tied to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. In fact, the first scene of Zack Snyder's Justice League is the final scene of Batman v Superman. There were many plot critical tie-ins to previous movies that left me feeling confused until I googled my questions during the slow scenes. If you have never seen Batman v Superman or Man of Steel then you will miss a lot of this movie, which I thought was unfair because other DCEU movies came out before the first iteration of Justice League like Wonder Woman and Suicide Squad and while events in those movies are mentioned in passing they are not nearly as important as the Batman and Superman-centric films. If the DCEU is going to pick favorites, the least it can do is pick movies I actually like (Wonder Woman (2017) remains my favorite DCEU movie to date). In general, superhero movies seem to be trending toward sagas and I prefer movies that you can just watch and enjoy without needing to see a bunch of other movies first.

Overall, I did very much enjoy this movie, but based on the run time alone it is not going to be for everyone. Measuring movie success during the pandemic is trickier than looking at box office numbers and labeling it a success or a flop, but it does appear that Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) is doing well as far as critical reception and viewership. I hope that this success will allow the DCEU to explore all of the fun nooks and crannies of the universe Snyder pulled together. In fact, half of the epilogue of this movie felt like set up for future movies. I hope they come to fruition because there were some pretty compelling teasers at the end that I would love to see played out on the big screen.

As I mentioned before, I’ve never seen the original cut of Justice League, but Snyder’s version left me fulfilled and satisfied with the narrative, so I am happy to have seen this newest cut first. This is a movie for people who love DC, love superhero movies or are just really invested in the hype.

~TideMod

[purplesurveys]

1142

survey by tickticktmr

Do you have a digital camera? What color is it? No, haven’t held one in years. The last digital camera we had was a bit of a magenta shade; it actually belonged to my sister but I borrowed it occasionally.

Did you like the movie Juno? It was ok, though to be honest I’ve mostly forgotten what it’s about. I remember fairly liking it but it’s not the type of movie or genre I’d rewatch.

Name something you think is way over-rated: Big Macs, which I’ve never found tasty.

Do you remember your first friend? Yes, it was a girl named Kaye that I sat with in preschool. She didn’t stay too long in my school, so I haven’t been able to reconnect.

Would you rather live with your mom, dad, a friend or on your own? On my own.

Name something your pet(s) like: Walks.

Do you listen to country music? No, I don’t.

What does the color white remind you of? Peace, serenity, doves, minimalist homes.

What show/movie/song makes you cry every time? Show: From Brooklyn Nine-Nine - either the episode where Rosa Diaz comes out as bisexual or the episode where Terry gets racially profiled.

Movie: La vita e bella.

Song: There isn’t one song that makes me cry 100% of the time, but I suppose Why We Ever by Hayley Williams had this effect on me for a time.

What was your last fight about? I spilled a drop of our dinner’s soup on the dinner table last Thursday and my mom did a sufficient job making me feel incompetent and a dumbass about it, so I was hurt by it and didn’t speak a word for the rest of the evening. Not really a fight, but y’know.

Do you text a lot? I used to not but anymore. I usually get prepaid for LTE now, not to have credits for texts.

Have you ever been screamed at by a teacher? Many times. A number of them didn’t like me for whatever reason...

Do you smile or scowl more? I definitely try to smile more, but idk for sure if that’s what I do more frequently.

Obama or Bush? Idk, maybe Obama? Considering we were colonized by the US at one point and imperialism remains to linger in my country, I generally don’t take kindly to any US president, though.

Batman or Superman? I don’t like comic books.

Are you excited about Blink 182 getting back together? I don’t follow the band so I’m not sure how recent or relevant this news is, but  generally speaking I don’t remember ever being stoked for a Blink-182 comeback in particular.

Would you rather be a teacher, a stripper or a hairdresser? I’d go with teacher, and preferably of history, so that I at least can have an hour or so to talk about my passion with other people lol.

The last person you spoke to: how many times have they made you cry? Just once.

What's your favorite kind of gum? The classic bubblegum flavor is fine with me.

Have you ever failed a class in school? Just exams, but never altogether an entire class that required me to retake.

Are you even in school? No, not anymore.

Are you taller then your best friend? No haha, I’m slightly tinier than both of them.

Are you scared of spiders? I’d be scared probably of the larger kinds, but all we get here are the super small spiders so this isn’t an issue for me for the most part.

You can't eat anything ever again except for jello or apples: which one? Probably apples. I cannot stand the texture of jelly/Jell-O, and I guess I can move past my dislike of fruits for this situation since apple is kinda decent anyway.

Have you ever cheated on anyone? No, never man.

If you answered yes to the last question, do they know about it?

Do you paint your nails often? I never do and I never have them done either.

Mascara or lipgloss? Er lipgloss I guess, since I literally don’t care how my eyelashes look.

Who’s the last person you called? I think it had been Denise, a co-worker. 

Describe the last person who sent you a text: It was just the delivery guy who brought Ysa’s gift to my place, so I don’t know enough about him to be able to give a sufficient description.

Do you ever watch TV shows or movies on YouTube? No, because for the most part they would be high- or low-pitched, in a tiny screen, sped up, zoomed in, or altogether fake. I also don’t understand why buying movies individually on YouTube is still a thing when Netflix exists for literally cheaper.

Myspace or facebook? Uh Facebook, I guess.

How old were you when you lost your first tooth? I was around 5 or 6, I think.

Have you ever embarassed yourself in front of someone you like? Yeah. But when I started dating them, fucking up in front of them became less embarrassing, of course.

Describe your hair right now: Wet and slightly dripping since I just stepped out of the shower.

Do you like it when it rains? Yes, it’s my favorite weather.

Does anyone miss you right now? I hope my friends do...but I can’t say for sure.

How many funerals have you been to? None. Just wakes.

Where's your favorite place to hang out? Depends on the vibe I’m feeling for the day and the company I’ve got.

Have you ever laughed so hard you peed in your pants? Oh gee, never.

Do you like video games? What's your favorite one? I was raised around video games and so much of my childhood was watching my kuya, dad, and a number of my uncles completing games, so I definitely hold a big appreciation and fondness for them. I never inherited any skills of my own though lmao, so I mostly watch walkthroughs; and the only video games I’ve ever met considerable progress on are Nintendo games marketed for all audiences HAHAHA.

Have you ever worn something your parents wouldn't approve of? Yeah I’ve gotten chided by my mom a handful of times, telling me to cover up with a jacket or something. But her reasoning was always men, so I’m usually able to defend myself and say that that’s not my problem and that’s something fucking men have to deal with themselves. We both know I’m right so she ends up begrudgingly letting me go out with whatever outfit I choose on that given day.

Where are your sibling(s)? They are in their respective bedrooms.

When's the last time a friend got dumped/dumped someone? September. That friend was Gabie and the dumpee was me hahahah, does that count?

Do you celebrate Valentine's day? If I have a significant other, yeah. I like keeping our activities lowkey though because from all my past experiences, malls and restaurants tend to get fully booked on February 14 and it ends up being more of a (very crowded) hassle than a celebration.

Do you celebrate Christmas? Yep.

Does it snow where you live? Never.

Have you ever wanted a pet unicorn? I never did, actually.

Would you like to work to earn money, or simply have money given to you? The latter is obviously the ideal situation, but I recognize the importance of hard work too and constantly working on my skills.

If you could be on any game show, what one would it be? Jeopardy or Family Feud.

Do you know anyone whose famous? Yes, at least locally.

Do you read those gossip magazines? I used to, lol those were my guilty pleasures back then. I still keep up with celebrity updates, but I’ve moved to social media now. I also filter which publications I consume and avoid the tabloid-y ones like Daily Mail.

Summer or winter? I’d go with winter so that I can actually experience it for once.

What do you hear right now? I’m watching an archived Facebook livestream of a senior citizen who had held a virtual piano concert to raise funds to afford his maintenance medicine. The media ate it up like crazy and it’s since gone viral, so I was able to I read about him earlier tonight. He reminds me so much of my late grandpa so I quickly searched for the finished concert on Facebook and now I have it on :)

When's the last time you saw a cousin? Around two weeks ago.

Where were you the last time you left your house? I can’t remember exactly. I think I went to Feliz...OH OK I remember now - I originally went to the nearby SM to handle an LBC delivery for work, and to stay at Starbucks for a few hours also to work. After that I went to their vape stall to buy new pods but they didn’t have any for the vape brand I use, so I went to Feliz as well to try my chances there. They ended up having a few flavors but not what I usually get, so I decided to try a new one - grape lol.

Describe the room you are in: Dark, filled with the lovely sounds of piano music, and the faint smell coming from my scented candle. Overall, light and peaceful.

What shoes did you wear today? I wore my Onitsukas when I walked Cooper this morning.

[popculturebuffet]

Toons for Our Times: Ducktales: They Put a Moonlander on the Earth!

At Glomglast, Glomgold Glomturns! Flintheart Hero of Earth Glomgold continues riding his wave of good PR from helping save the earth in the manner you’d expect: With  a dangerous attention seeking pr stunt/ferris wheel/half-ased plan to murder scrooge. Naturally Dewey is first in line for it. Meanwhile Webby tries to convince a wound up Penumbra to stay and enjoy earth so she can get a new alien friend who she relates to and her brothers can get a new step mom, while Launchpad is awkward because his coffee with Pennumbra went worse than the one he had with the gas cloud. The Glom Knight Glomturns under the cut. 

This one is late for both good reason, I didn’t want to hog the wifi while my nieces were trying to remote school, and not so good I.e.... I entirely forgot an episode was today because I’m not used to the new schedule, as in the past the show’s either aired on saturday like usual for a disney show, or as a cluster of episodes throughout one week, so even if it wasn’t something I was used to, I was tuned to stay in. The new schedule is weird  and my brain is stupid is what i’m saying. Now i’ve covered my butt on with the review! This week focuses on Penumbra, and explains exactly what happened to the Moonlanders after Moonvasion. For Penny at least she’s apparently been living in the McDuck hangar, or somewhere near it, and working on rebuilding one of the bigger ships to get her people home. Della, while not missing the opprotunity to point out now Penny’s the one living in HER garage buliding a rocket home, pitches in and we see things have clearly changed. At least with Della, Penny’s let down her guard and now openly considers her her best friend.. and perhaps more because the romantic tension is so thick here you could cut it with a sword. Granted I may have swords on the brain because of this. 

Which if your not up to date on your x-men comics, is an event where our Uncanny X-Men, now having their own nation of krakoa where all mutants are welcome, which includes apocalypse so he’s on THEIR SIDE in that shot, must fight ten other mutants in a ritual sword duel with some of the strongest swords in the mighty marvel canon, and loosing means the other mutants, many of whom are the CHILDREN of apocalyspe from centuries ago he thought lost, get to invade earth with a demonic horde. And if NONE of that made you curious, let alone want to read that, I just.. don’t get you. 

Back to the gays, yeah the ten sword thick sexual tension is broken by the fact that Penumbra reveals she tried SOME earth culture and did get that coffee with Launchpad, with Della baffled.. I mean look at those abs. Though it’s probably less “Launchpad really?” and more “Why not me first? Is he sexier? Dammit he is. “ It went about as well as you’d expect.. with Penny storming out suddenly saying this is terrible and running off. Eh not the worst first date i’ve seen in animation this year. I’ve seen a woman go on a date with a man conjoined to his ex.. and not like their siblings it’s a medical procedure. Because close enough is pretty fucking insane and let’s keep it that way.

But yeah so Penumbra’s not sold on earth and Della’s attempts to get her to go with the kids, get to that in a minute, fall on deaf ears. But the thing is. her people are. When meeting with gibious and zenith, if you don’t remember the married moon couple we saw back in “The Golden Spear”, Penumbra finds out she’s the only one who wants to go home. Her people like it here...the happy couple even got adorable new outfits, a job with Glomgold in Gibbious’ case, and an adorable new dog named good boy. Look at them. 

I would die for either of them. I hope we see Good Boy again. And that the show introduces Bolivar, donald’s dog at some point. Or even his ostrich hortense. I just want the duck to have a pet dammit. 

Point is their happy here and while Penny wants to go back to the old routine of them all on the moon and her saving them.. their fine if she wants to go home but.. their staying here. And it’s easy to see WHY they want to: The moon was harsh, filled with monsters and much like us humans right now with earth, they only stayed in their clusterfuck of a home world because they had no way out. It’s probably why Lunaris sold hte invasion so easily: With his pitch they were just taking a nicer world from a bunch of mean asssholes who refused to share it and whose sole representative had seemingly betrayed them. Without any reason to hate the earthlings and, outside of once incident later in the episode, the earthlings accepting them with open arms and forgiveness, why wouldn’t they stay on a nice, sunny world, in a large city willing to house them and give them jobs, with delicious foods and all sorts of fun shit to distract you from the bad parts of living here that the moon lacked. 

Penny’s issue is while THEIR lives were miserable.. her’s wasn’t. She was a hero, a super hero really.. I mean she’s dressed like a kree sentry, she protects the helpless and she’s a fearless warrior whose now a fish out of water on a world she never could’ve expected but grows to love. Martian Manhunter, Captain Marvel, the Mar Vell one, Warlock, Adam Warlock and yes their separate characters, Supergirl, not superman because while he is an alien he grew up here.. all aliens who immigrated here and grew to love and protect it and see it as their home. Penny just hasn’t got to the “love and protect it” part yet and while the rest of her people have new purpose, new homes and new lives and still meet once a week to party she finds herself, theri greatest champion an outsider, desperately wanting her old life back but not accepting it’s gone. She can go home but she’d be the one person on a desolate moon clinging to the past.  Penny here honestly reminds me of jasper in steven unvierse future: Both are old soldiers who find their empire gone, their entire way of life uprooted and have no way to cope and desperately hoping things will collapse back to THEIR normal, not realizing the new one isn’t going anywhere and is better for their people. They need to move on but their too proud and too scared to try. 

However Penny refuses to admit defeat to her people and that she can’t have “earth fun”, and left with no other choices, decides to take the kids up on their offer after all. To explain that we quickly wrap to the top of the episode, where Webby, bored and having trouble finding anyone, finds Penny and after Penny dosen’t want to hang out finds Dewey and Louie. I assume since their absent this episode, Huey is introducing Violet to Gyro, Fenton and Boyd, Beakly is buying groceries, Donald is courting Daisy and Scrooge.. is trying to get fethry’s hands, feet and head out of pickle jars because he thought they’d preserve him and Donald is busy for once so he’s the only one left to do it.  Louie and Dewey plan on just laying around and biinging old ottoman empires, I can relate, but the news gives them a better option. A GLOMGOLD OPTION. Oh me mow how i’ve missed this big beautiful man. Seriously Glomgold is easily one of the best parts of the reboot and Keith Fergeuson brings an utterly delightful manic glee to the guy any time he shows up to eat the scenery whole. While I get holding back on him since he had an arc last season, it’s still nice to have him back in all his hammy glory.  And naturally being glomgold he has a scheme going: After gifting a rolelrcoaster previously, over water and with sharks because his brand’s nothing if not consistent, he’s now offering the flintferris glomwheel, which is shoddy, dangerous, secretly a plot to kill scrooge, and is very likely to kill a child.. so in other words it’s Glomgold himself roleld into a ferris wheel. Dewey is psyched to go because he let another kid go first for Glomgold’s last PR Stunt/Nightmare and that kid got all the glory and as such is now Dewey’s new nemisis. So after asking his mom “If we can go ride a death wheel so I can get famous’, which of course Della says yes to, our heroes end up taking Penny along.  Launchpad drives and gets his subplot for the episode, being awkard around Penny because the date went bad and not sure if this makes then enimies and avoiding her. He tries going to dewey for help, and while Dewey is out of his element, he does actually give good advice to just talk to her.. Launchpad just takes it while he’s driving because it’s launchpad. Thankfully webby can drive. He spends the rest of hte episode getting into shenanigans before, after helping her with the climax, phrasing, being honest and apologizing. And i’m also covering the plot to get her answer out of the way now: Penny admits he’s fine, thery can be fight buds, he’s a good warrior sh’es just “Not interested in an earth..male” her exact words. 

I mean.. there’s no real subtly here. Even if she’s not into Della, which all evidence suggests is the case, Penumbra is CLEARLY into women. I mean Frank is basically saying as loudly as his mousey overlords will allow “SHE’S GAY FOR DELLA”. Wether this goes anywhere, I dunno. While Lumity started ramping up this year, that property’s not based on Disney’s classic canon and STILL had to fight tooth and claw to make Luz bisexual and her love intrested a girl. Disney won’t even let this show use Mickey and almost didn’t let them use the rescue rangers, the odds are against them.. but I also never thoguht we’d see violet’s gay dads on screen, or so many previously  comics only characters, so frank’s said screw the impossible before. Now probably is no different. 

Back to the main plot, and to the return of Glomgold whose great as ever. Glomgold made the moonlanders and some of duckberg think he was soley responsible for saving the world.. how many people besides the non-penny moonlanders think he actually did it is up for debate but he DID genuinely help save the world. Also his scheme to get his company back somehow WORKED despite not being legally binding, as he’s now back in his tower, back to scheming and has an actual assitant instead of a professional career woman he treats like one in a bit that didn’t age all that well even a year later.  Gibious is now Glomgold’s sidekick and in a nice contrast to Owlson instead of being fed up with his crap Gibious, buying into Glomgold’s own ego, lavishes praise on his new boss, treats him like the god he thinks he is, and is genuinely sweet and helpful. It’s a nice dynamic giving Glomgold someone who ACTUALLY and genuinely likes him as a person and wants him to suceed and trusts in his insane schemes and leads to some great bits like Gib genuinely calling the safety inspector when Glomgold makes an airquotes remark about it and at the end Glomgold admitting “I can’t stay mad at you” to his new lackey/Best friend. Frankly Glomgold needed a 21 to his Monarch, and i’ts a delight to see it and Paulson and Ferguson have real chemistry.  Meanwhile in the A-Plot, Webby tries to get Penny to enjoy earth, first with a street performer she tosses in the water ,as you should, then with a shooting range which ends with her massacering a clownhead to the children minus webby’s horror and tears. We were one more frame away from this really. 

Also we get the ducks feeding.. ducks, a gag Frank’s apparently wanted to do for three seasons now, and with Penny being as confused as the audeince. but non of this, including roller skates really works.  So while Dewey goes off to get in line to one up his rival, Webby gets honest with Penny about why she’s so invested and this episode goes from good.. to truly fantastic. While webby fangirling over a mighty and gay space warrior makes sense, there’s a personal reason she wants to help here that really tugs at the heart strings: Webby was like her once. Like Penny she spent her whole life honing herself into a weapon, sealed in her own tiny world, For Penny it was her moon village for Webby it was the mansion. And being thrust out into it was .. frightening. We saw webby struggle to adjust in “Daytrip of Doom!” and part of her wanted to plunge back into the mansion and her saftey net at times. But she didn’t.. with the help of her family, and her friends, she found out just how wonderful the world is and how as scary as the world is.. it opened up new parts of her. Duckberg webby was just as great as mansion webby if not better. So Webby wants to do the same for penny and what really clinches the scene is how she does it: a Hamburger, the symbol from the pilot of what webby was deprived of all her life, given to a new friend as a symbol of what the world offers. And it works at first, even without cheese. But then Penny gets a brain freeze, and Glomgold, needing a distraction from the saftey inspector rames her as going beserk because he’s an asshat in every other way let’s add racisim to it. 

A chase insues, Penny’s determined to flee.. but she gets a second wind when Dewey, who rushed in to get the first ride and webby get trapped. Sadly dewey’s new enemy gets all the attention, and as we find out is aware he one upped Dewey and brags over it, but Penny has now gone from fish out of water to shark on the hunt, and with Launchpad’s help to get past Glom and Gib, and the roller skates from earlier finally has some earth fun by skating into the air, climbing the Ferris wheel and saving the kids. Penny FINALLY found something she likes about earth; That she can Still protect people, including her people and do what she loved there and the danger here is WAY more intresting.. I mean on hte moon itw as just the usual monsters she was used to. Here she had to rocket into the air, and climb an megalomainics cannon armed ferris wheel to save two adorable children. In short she’s become a super hero and like those I mentioned, has grown to care about earth. So basically this is like captain marvel was an episode of Steven Universe. I likes it. But it’s a nice character arc, as Penny realizes the outside world, and her new friends/future stepchildren, have b eauty and worth. And she will protect their kind, she will protect them. I mean duckberg already has about 4 other superheroes if you count lena, which with that outfit last time I dooo, but frankly with how much disaster it faces on a daily basis, and how much Fenton needed a goddamn break, and with Darkwing leaving for st canard soon, they could probably use her. 

So the day is saved, Glomgold is buired in fines but has a new minon, Dewey is dewfeated and Penny is happy again. We end on Penny recounting everything to Gibious and wife, and Good Boy obviously, along with Della who casually admits she really shoduln’t of let her child go but sooths him anyway over his loss. Penny is happy and deciding to stay, and her and her new best buddy laucnhpad are going to go tear the ship apart with her carrying della along. I swear when they finally do do it she’s just going to.. carry a willing della to her bedroom and throw her down on that thing.. everything after is up to you Id ont’ write porn here. Nothing wrong with it just not my bidness. So with a hopeful new future and a neat t-shirt, Penny finally finds her place in the world. 

Final Thoughts: A very good, very gay episode that’s just as good as last weeks and gives penumbra a hell of a character arc, while also being an utterly hilaroius episode, from penumbra’s destruction, to glomgold’s hilarious as always antics to dewey’s attention whoring reaching self endagering heights of stupidity and ego, this was a great one and keeps up Season 3′s quality streak. While the plot progression may be slow for now, everything else is at an alltime goddamn high. 

Next week, it’s the HALLOWEEN EPISODE BITCHES. Nuff Said. Until then you can check my blog for more reviews, as we have some halloween stuff coming up. Sadly with Loud House going silent, it seems this is our only weekly coverage but expect more reviews of various shows, and some very spooky ooky ones coming very soon including some brucie bonus episodes and until we meet again, go team venture! Play us out glomgold....

[queercreati]

Wonder Woman: A Feminine Icon

Have you guys ever thought about how Wonder Woman affects feminist culture in-universe? Because here’s what I think of it: 

Wonder Woman giving talks about what to do when cornered in an uncomfortable situation. “Make a scene. Scream, hit them, shout, I don’t care, but do not stay quiet. That’s what they want.” 

Photoshoot of her in her skirt, and at first you think oh it’s just a typical photoshoot, and then you see the little black stubs on her legs and you realize She hasn’t shaved her legs. Wonder Woman doesn’t shave her legs every day. I don’t have to shave my legs every damn day. 

Wonder Woman starts getting cat-called by criminals. In retaliation, she makes her main tactic against these people pulling their shirts off and throwing them in their faces, saying without fail, “Don’t undress me with your eyes and I won’t show you how it feels.”

Wonder Woman speaking at feminist rallies. 

Wonder Woman handing out Purple Hearts to female veterans whenever she can, and when she does, she takes off her bracelets and lets the whole damn world see the knotted skin all over her arms and back from years of training and battle. 

Wonder Woman identifying as a woman of color- she is Greek, after all.

 Whenever she appears on an interview or something, and someone gives her a sexualized comment, she smiles at the camera like she’s on the fucking Office and says, in the most passive-aggressive voice ever, “I don’t know Mr. blah blah, do you think I have time to get my eyebrows done once a week while I’m busy saving the world every other day?” 

Diana Prince publicly saying, “If I ever meet the real life Wonder Woman, I would probably ask her to take my place as spokeswoman of the White House.” 

Wonder Woman visiting schools and giving lessons on things like consent and taking advantage of someone intoxicated. 

Wonder Woman traveling to heavily sexist countries in the middle east and basically flipping off the authorities and letting women talk to her about the issues they have. 

Wonder Woman sponsoring/working with a program called “The Wonder Women” that works to help sexual abuse and harassment victims to move past their issues and help embrace who they are. 

Wonder Woman visiting Breast Cancer patients and giving them hugs to tell them that  it’s going to be alright, you will make it, Artemis bless you.

Wonder Woman punching seven shades of shit out of someone after she heard them tell a trans woman that they looked ‘ugly and too manly to be a woman, get the fuck out of that drag shit,’ and then telling said trans woman that she was absolutely gorgeous. 

Wonder Woman getting invited to a gay wedding and being asked to officiate the marriage, and is overjoyed to do so. By the time the grooms kiss, she’s in tears. 

Wonder Woman helping newest member of the Justice League Harley Quinn come out as Bisexual on national TV. 

Wonder Woman giving out mom hugs at Pride Parades to teenagers who have been disowned by their parents. 

Wonder Woman telling the whole damn world that her mother is Asexual and there is no shame in that, yes she was raised by an island full of lesbian warriors do we need to discuss this further?

AND OF COURSE, THE ALLIES

The Batfam taking special care to patrol in parts of the city with many young women and are known to help them get home after a night on the town. 

 Superman making dramatic entries so women will have time to escape. 

Aquaman and Mera patrolling beaches and whenever they see a rando picking on a girl for wearing a Bikini (Or not wearing a bikini) ,they either a) splash him, or b) summons a swarm of jellyfish to sting him when he gets in the water. Guess who does which. 

 Cyborg and the Teen Titans publicly supporting women in STEM. 

THE ENTIRE FUCKING JUSTICE LEAUGE PROTECTING PROTESTERS AT RALLIES AND PARADES 

[internal-ethics]

Oh boy yall  are in for an essay bc Garth needs more love. 

How I feel about this character

I love him. The Pre-Flashpoint Garth checks all the “favorite character’ boxes for me.

As a character himself:

- He’s had these paradoxes to him. The quietest yet strongest in the DCU. Most powerful, but awkward and mournfully un-confident. Never loudly sexy, but comfortable in his kinkwear. Sasses all his family and friends, yet would (HAVE) die(d) for them. The tempest of the sea, fought gods, yet has the name ‘garden”.

- Writers love to put inspirational quotes in Garth comics. And those are A+++++. Considering they dont like him much and how sidelined he was, the fact he alone got those quotes (that’s not his) in all his important milestones of development made me feel at the same time sad, touched and giddy.

- A Prince, not charming, and forever one at that. Never called himself King, or Leader, or anything indicating he wanted to work for power and title. Reminds me of Prince Vegeta, another i love with all my heart, that way - he is one just because everyone calls him one - and technically only in title since his culture is lost. And is able to be one when he needed to, as in spat some sense into you if youre too chicken to do the right thing. He’s regal and honorable. I have a weakness for the ideal of loyalties of old times, and born, lost, unwilling loyalties are even better.

- I also have a weakness for mermaids, and the Aquaman GoT setting. He’s both. While Arthur’s more a scholar and teacher, Garth is a warrior, and all things sea-borne. He’s literally a magical himbo mer prince, the child of gods, and kings, AND a 90 anime character in the world of comics. Your fav could never. 

- i identify with Arthur more often than not. I kinda want Garth to be my advisor and warrior. He has some rough spots to work on, but he’s trustworthy and dutiful and could ground you. 

As a DCU character:

- Garth’s a hero. And the kind of hero who chose and WORKED to be kind in a world that’s alien and unkind to him. That made him a PERPECT hero in the DCU and on par with the Trinity in his brand of herosim. Sometimes, characters and their portrayals fell into the trap of trying to be COOL, to be SUCCESSFUL, instead of to be GOOD, and I think the former made them weaker. Garth is a strong one, because of how powerful – he COULD kill you - but kind and humble he is. He literally had to learn to hold his temper back to not solve problems with violence, and get over his insecurity of being solved aside by friends and family. In this way, when Garth is written RIGHT, he’s as hopeful as Superman, as principled as Batman, and as altruistic as Wonder Woman, despite trauma and tragedies. And save for Dick Grayson, I don’t think I could find another like him right off the bat if I searched all the DCU. 

- While I hate that he’s so ignored and underused, I like that he’s incredibly understated throughout his existence. I don’t like when comics state a character is powerful or smart or something very cool and fails to deliver that logically in respect to other characters and satisfyingly. Takes understanding of history and a keen eye to notice characters like him *cough Dick cough* He’s like an old comics character that way, when you have writers SHOW the story and what made a character good and letting you decide what to do with them instead of  writers, some of whom only got iffy fourth or tenth handed understanding of characters, TELLING you who they are. Spoken up hype is good, but sometimes it’s a DANGEROUS trap of both continuity wise and creative wise. 

All the people I ship romantically with this character

I enjoy both GarthDol and LadGirl. Each women is important to him in a different way and formed different adorable dynamics with him. I like the innocence of Dolphin and adored the pureness and bittersweetness of young love in GarthTula. Garth cherished Dolphin, but Tula raised him, in a way. 

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Dick. Garth has so few friends and Dick is the only one who liked and accepted him for all he is with NO prejudice, just as Garth has loyalty to Dick like no one else’s business. I wouldn’t mind if they became romantic. If Dick and Donna are platonic soulmates, I ship them the same way I ship SuperBat : superhero soulmates. They kinda only have each other as a COMPLETE EQUAL counterpart in every way. 

My unpopular opinion about this character:

I actually have a few:

- I don’t think things like Princes and Princesses are boring, especially with Garth.

- I don’t like YJ Garth, both his personality and looks. And relating to the first question, i think Kaldur is a strong character, but a “weaker” hero character than canon Garth. 

- While I don’t like what happened in the Didio regime aka the way he died, I’ve accepted his death. It’s fitting for him.

- A lot of the things said to be Dick’s in modern times are kinda more suited to Garth, and HAS BEEN his canon. I hate that they tried to slap things that's not fit for a character into him in expense of one another. Overprotective Batdad and incredibly cute, happy and cuddly Robin? That’s Garth with Aquaman. Family actually respected and listened to him and gave a shit if he was lost ? Garth. Potent power that’s coveted by some big organization disguised as family? Garth. Secretly royalty that’s sought after ? Garth.

- I’d say this for all the Dick stans like me who see this, and this relates to the previous questions : Garth’s The OTHER Dick Grayson. The OTHER one who creates a mantle ENTIRELY just for himself, the OTHER Titan leader. The OTHER multiversal constant in his memories and loyalty. The OTHER sum of the Trinity.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

This is just one thing and I’ve learned to accept certain ugly things that have been done to him, so I’d say this: More of a relationship with Wonder Woman. They are Dick Grayson and Superman the WARRIOR-DIPLOMAT edition. Let her be his aunt and other mentor since Atlan is no longer a cheeky young handsome mage. He needs GODS to be his mentors. Let them discuss humanity and solve man’s problems together. Let them do silly things and discover ice cream flavors together while talking shit about Arthur together. Let them be royal bisexuals together. Just let her be his other mom.

[bittysvalentines]

A year with you

From: @hockeysometimes

To: @motoroilfanta 

Summary: 5 times holster and ransom kissed and the first time it meant something.

Rating: M [language, moderate drinking mention, vague reference to sex]

Hi!! i hope you enjoy reading this as much as i enjoyed writing it. i love these boys so much! happy valentines!!

December 31st 2015

The bass of some remix of The Weeknd  was way too loud in Holsters ears as he walks past the swish stereo system that the hotel had set up for the New Years party they were putting on. It was packed, not a single person was sitting down, everyone was up on the make-shift  dance floor in the ballroom . He was significantly more sober than he would like to be since he was still underage until later in the New Year and you can only pre game so much from the lousy bits of booze they had left over from the pre christmas break kegster.

 A hotel was not where Holster was expecting to be for New Years Eve but when the team made it into a new year’s day tournament he had to head back to Samwell early from christmas break on the 27th to get some practice in. For him it’s not as bad because at least he’s in the states but Ransom had to fly back from Toronto on Boxing Day and showed up to the Haus alone and turn the heat  back on for everyone else coming the next day.

 Rans who he was looking for in the sea of party goers, he had been wheeling some girl the last time he saw him but had left to try and swipe some more booze and now he has a full  plastic champagne glass that he’s trying to remember to not crush in his kind of clumsy hands. He’s trying to scrunch his glasses up his nose when he feels a hand on his back and a voice yelling in his ear. 

“Bro! There you are!” It was Ransom, Holster turned around and there were Rans, without the girl he was wheeling. 

“I was trying to find you and uh what was’er name? Alicia? Thought i was going to be booted from the room” He says and Rans starts shaking his head.

“Nah bro turns out she’s totally cuffed anyways, any luck finding that midnight kiss?” Ransom chides, eyebrows raised in a chirp. They had both been trying to find someone to kiss at midnight, because like how lame would it be to not have someone, but from their excellent wing men routine, everyone there was either hooking up with someone else there, part of SMH or married couples and then there was them.

Holster snorts a laugh and takes a sip of the champagne in his hands, feeling the bubbles burn down his throat. Ransom takes that as a no and they check their watches almost in sync. 11:55pm, no way either of them were going to find someone in under 5 minutes. Holster cant lie, he’s almost glad neither of them found someone, it pleases the part of his brain that he doesnt think about; the part that wants Ransom a little more than a guy should want his D-partner/ Co-Captain. 

He’s resolved himself to not kissing anyone at this point and he’s kind of lost in the sauce of it all when something Ransom says yanks him out of his head like he’s just been checked into the boards . 

“....kissed each other” is all holster hears over the ringing in his ears, completely sure he hadn’t heard him right. 

“Bro, what? I couldnt hear you over the music” He says and he’s trying to sound chill but if he heard right, he heard,

“What if we just kissed each other?” Ransom says like it’s really no big deal, sure both of them have openly hooked up with dudes before and that’s not the problem, holster is secure in his bisexuality but outside of some cuddling and bed sharing at roadies,,, they’ve never actually kissed before.

Holster takes a second but the chants of the countdown to midnight had started and he’s sweating and kind of nervous and he’s not sure what to say except when the chants hit two he grabs Ransoms face and plants a kiss on him as everyone around them cheers for the New Year. It’s soft and fast and just long enough for Holster to taste the cherry schnapps that Ransom pregamed with still on his lips. It's too much and not enough as they part and Holster pours the champagne left in his glass down his throat.

                                     February 13th 2016

The NYE kiss gets swept under the rug and never talked about again. They went back to their room and Holster fully expected to have some heart moving conversation but Ransom got ready and went to bed like they usually would. Holster hasn’t thought about the kiss. Not at all, ever. He hasn’t thought about how badly he wants it to happen again and how much he liked the feeling of it. Never had he thought of that. If it was any other guy, he totally would of but,, this is Ransom. He can’t pine for him, it just, it doesn’t work. They’re bros, that’s it.

 And now, it’s the day before Valentines day and he had somehow been talked into the idea of dressing up like cupid by said bro. 

Holster adjusts the strap of his repurposed toga from their last greek party and turns in the mirror to check out the red angel wings. He was in the bathroom for a quiet moment, the music was way too sensual for someone who was as alone as him and he was having zero luck with the ladies that night, or really anyone for that matter. He totally fizzed out of a conversation with one of the soccer players who he’s hooked up with before and lost his chance there. 

He hasn’t actually hooked up in a Long Time; at least way before he kissed Rans. He tries to tell himself that he’s just off his game, and everyones settled up for Valentines anyways, [not that he’s in love with Ransom ,that’s ridiculous] 

He leaves the bathroom and heads back into the party, searching the crowd once again for his wingman. He swings by the kitchen for some cinnamon heart infused tub juice that was going down way easier than it should. 

He takes his solo cup and heads up the stairs to see if maybe Rans was hiding up there, he does that sometimes. He peeks his head into Chow’s room since the door was open and finds a group of people sitting on the floor- one toga’d Ransom included. Holster shrugs and steps in to, slipping around to the opposite of the circle than Ransom, who grins when he sees him. Holster takes in the empty beer bottle in the middle of the floor and everyone gathered around it and has high school flashbacks. 

“Are you guys seriously playing spin the bottle?” he manages to spit out before doubling over in laughter, nearly sloshing his drink out of the cup. 

“Holtzy! This is a serious game of nostaliga, shut up sit down and spin the motha fuckin bottle bro,” Ransom says and of course Holster sits down, carful of his toga skirt and with a grieving sigh, spins the bottle, praying it doesnt land on Chowder. In his blind panic of potentially kissing chow, it doesn't hit him that he could also kiss Ransom again but that’s a 1 in 9 chance, 11.1111% probability his econ brain manages to tell him. Probability is not in his favour as the bottle finishes it spin and lands, very definitely in front of Ransom. There’s an awkward pause in the room and Chowder speaks up.

“You guys don’t have to-” it's almost too little too late as Holster folds onto his hands and knees over the bottle and sloppily kisses Ransom, pushing his mouth against the  soft pouty lips he’s thought about everyday since the last time they kissed. It’s entirely too short for Holster, as they pull away and he sits back down, flattening his cupid costume out. 

“That’s how you do it folks,” 

March 26th 2016

“Alexei Fucking Mashkov is downstairs in Our Haus Holtzy.”  Ransom says, full fetal position on the floor, Holster is trying his damn best to be the comforting best friend he always is when Rans is going through it but,, his own feelings about the situation may be clouding over his want to help.

 It’s Easter or Keagster weekend on top of Ransoms 21st birthday the next day, but Haus rules say no parties on a holy sunday or some shit so they’re celebrating early, or they should be but instead, Holster is sat with his BLL on the floor trying to rub Ransoms back as he has a level 10 freak out about the fact that Jack brought along his ultimate man crush to the party. 

Holsters only a little jealous, he totally doesn't think about how he Knows that Rans has gotten off thinking about Tater before and has talked in detail about how he would totally go for it if it were available to him. Nope, Holster doesnt think about it.

“I know bro, i was in the kitchen when he got here. It’s like fine, he’s a really lowkey dude.” Holster tries to reason, trying his best to just be there and not be a total ass. He takes a sip of his drink, “Just come down stairs and we can play some pong and get you laid for your birthday,” He continues, his stomach twisting a little as he says the last part. 

Ransom sort of uncoils and stretches out, propping himself up on one hand, thinking, Holster can see he’s starting to come down a little bit. “Getting laid would be pretty nice,” Rans says, raising his eyebrows suggestively. Holster has to stop himself from rolling his eyes and instead snorts out some kind of laugh.

“Ch’eah exactly, but you aren’t going to catch anyone up in your room avoiding everyone.” Holster says, he stands up, taking his drink with him and offering Rans a hand up, which he takes. 

They’re face to face when he stands up and Holster grins, looking at the face he knows so well. Smooth skin and lines where dimples sit. 

“Not to get soft on you but, thanks Holtzy, don't know what i’d do without you.” Rans says and leans forwards presses the most confusing and gentle kiss on Holsters cheek before continuing out the room with a holler of “BIRTHDAY BOY INCOMING” down the attic stairs, leaving Holster frozen in his spot, clutching his beer and trying to understand what the fuck just happened 

 October 31st 2016

Once again in costume, this time too tight spandex of a Superman costume that was definitely in a size too small,Holster sighs as he watches Ransom try to pick up a guy dressed  likePoe from Star Wars. This halloween party at the bar in Boston they frequented since grad was both the best and worst thing to happen to Holster. 

The pros were he got to see Ransom dressed up as Batman and that shit is a sight. The black spandex hugs everywhere just so and it’s all Holster has to not… stare or look too long. Over the summer of graduating and moving in with Ransom, Holster may have come to  a realization with his feelings. 

The cons were, He was, without a doubt, in love with Rans and it kind of killed him. He knew they’d never really be more than bros, even when Rans would come into his room across the hall at night cause he couldn’t sleep without him or when Rans would take pieces of his clothes just to have. It was all too close to coupley for him, and then the matching costumes that Ransom had picked up for them for this party. And now he has to stand and watch him pull out all the stops for this gorgeous oscar isaac wannabe asshole stealing all of Ransoms attention. He stands  against the bar and kind of hangs out, just vibing to the music and finishes his drink and decides to see how Ransom was doing, they had moved a little further closer to the dance floor since he last looked.

“Oh! Bro, there you are” Ransom says upon catching sight of him, Holster nods and keeps a tight smile as he looks over Poe maybe a little more judgey than he wants to be. “This is Evan! He works for the Bruins, we’ve been talking about last years ‘yoffs,” He yells and Holster shakes his hand. They’ve been talking about.. Hockey? The guys been giving Ransom ‘Fuck Me’ eyes for the past twenty minutes, and theyve been talking about hockey

“Adam,nice to meet you!” Holster says, fully  fucking confused. The three of them talk for a bit just about the teams until Evan offers to get drink refills and heads back to the bar and the two of them are left alone. 

“So are you getting some of that galactic ass?” He chirps and Ransom rolls his eyes.

“That was a bad joke and you know it bro and oh no i'm pretty sure he’s straight, besides i'm not gonna pick up cause im with you? Be kind of a douche move.” Ransom explains and Holster snorts.

“Bro, he’s totally into you, trust me. You’re looking like a whole snack tonight.” He says and he’s teetering un bro like compliments but he’s a little drunk and doesn't care at this point. Shoot your shot 2k16.

“A whole snack!” Ransom laughs and then pauses. “You think so?” He kind of flexes and the spandex contracts in a kind of beautiful way and holsters brain has to fire on all cylinders to not say something stupid and horny. 

“Dude i know so,” He pauses and then grabs Ransoms face, half covered by a batman mask and gives him a peck of a kiss before stepping back. “I think i'm gonna uber home but, be safe and just let me know when you get in.” Holster says and Ransom is kind of unreadable but he nods and Holster disappears into the crowd without another word. 

Ransom doesn’t bring anyone home and crawls into Holsters bed at 3 am, way drunker than he was when Holster left him and mumbling something Holster couldn’t entirely make out .

December 22nd 2016

They were late to the Christmas get together for SMH  and for once it wasn’t Holsters fault. 

Following his exit on halloween and Ransom passing out, koaled around him when he got home, things were a little weird. They were still their normal dynamic but something had shifted, there was something un-said between them that Holster couldn’t place. Of course other than his own unrequited feelings which were boiling to a  fever pitch as they worked together and things got more and more awkward. Ransom hadn’t brought anyone home since that night either, and was climbing into Holsters bed more and more often

. Holster was kind of moody and didn’t want to parade around at the SMH party like everything was okay and Ransom could tell. They were a silent block out from the venue and Ransom stops. 

“Adam, I think we need to talk.” Ransom says and Holsters stomach feels like it drops out of his body. Adam? Adam? He hasn’t been real named by Ransom in, Years.

“Oh, okay, is uh everything okay?” Holster asks and he can feel his hands start to sweat in his pockets. 

Ransom won't look at him and it makes him feel, Horrible. “I don’t know, maybe i'm reading too far into things but are you angry at me?” He asks and Holster frowns but shakes his head  ‘no’. 

“Rans, why would you think i was mad at you?” He asks and Ransom continues to not look at him. 

“Things have been, so weird lately and it’s so hard to read you and-” Holster acts before the thinks and cuts him off, with the most bruising kiss. He kisses him and Ransom takes a minute but he kisses him back and they’re kissing under the garland decorating the streets and Ransoms hands are holding his face and they’re so close. 

“I love you Justin. I’ve been in love with you since last new years and it’s been so much for me to contain. I’m sorry for seeming like I was angry.” He says and the emotion is making tears run to his eyes. He’s always been more sensitive.

Ransom is quiet for a second and the smallest smile comes to his face, “Bro, only last new years? I’ve been in love with you since I  met you, it’s always been you.”

Holster wraps his arms all tight around Ransom and cant help the squeeze he gives him.

They carry on eventually and both decide that a very long conversation was due but the group chat blowing up about them delaying festivities was getting unbearable.

1

December 31st 2016

The bass of Closer by Halsey and The Chainsmokers pulses loud through the speaker of the New Years Party one of Holsters coworkers was throwing. Once again searching the crowd for Ransom, but this time with champagne flutes for both of them. The clock was nearly at midnight.

“Holtzy! Babe over here,” he hears and swings his head to the left, Ransom was standing by himself closer to the outskirts of the party. He had been talking to Holsters friend Jermey and his wife Lilly. 

He passes one of the flutes to Ransom and smiles, sneaking a peak at his watch. 11:59pm.  He gets closer to him, tucking themselves into the wall space as the crowd gets louder in chanting the countdown.

There was no need to search for that midnight kiss, it was standing in front of him, like it always had been. 

10...9...8..7… he leans in closer to Ransom, ghosting his lips over the jaw and cheeks and nose he’s gotten to love up front in the past two weeks...6...5...4...3...2...1 and they kiss and it’s like the first time again, cherry schnapps and all.

[m00nslippers]

Everyone Crushing On Jason AU

AKA Jason is absolutely oblivious to his own hotness AU, AKA the Batfam is being tortured by Jason’s admirers AU, AKA half the Justice League is in love with Jason AU.

God this thing got huge, lol, here’s the whole thing from the beginning.

*This post will be updated as more is added*

It started with this older post from a while ago: “All batkids, confused by their teammates crushes on Jason”

But then it got revived in a post by @whumpbby: “Damian just found out Jon has a crush on Jason”

This is where it jumped from just the batfam to the superfam: “So almost everyone has a crush on Jason, right?”

“Bashful Jason is the Best Jason” 

Then @wrongblacksun really fleshed it out with me and now it’s the whole dang JL: “Does Bruce know about the Crushes?”

“I can see Talia being smug about Jason's popularity.”

Jason admits to being bisexual, Dick doesn’t take it well: What if someone asks Jason what's is his sexuality?”

Kyle can’t catch a break: “What if Jason came back from a mission with the outlaws and he was meeting with Bruce at the watchtower”

Jason is a cat confirmed: “What if some of the heroes and the JL would talk to kori and Roy and ask how is sex with Jason“

Batfam shenanigans, Bruce is done: “Man i really want to know how catwoman asking Jason out went down“

Everyone crushing on Jay: “Can you imagine Jason being a total badass doing badass kicks and flips”

Roy shows his possessiveness: “What if Jason gets hurt badly on a mission?“

Hal Jordan takes things too far: “What does everyone think about Jason’s Tazer Titties?”

Ivy Puts her foot down “Poison Ivy protecting Jason’s virtue is literally everything.”

Jay is a nerd “Is everyone aware of what a big fucking nerd Jason is?”

Jason is the life of the JL party: “Can u imagine Jason giggling in the everyone has a crush on Jason au”

Jason reaches peak obliviousness: “So, Jason thinks that Hal and Guy are dating?“

Roy has a meltdown: “Oh so when he was just a hot mess with guns and a leather jacket you guys weren't interested...”

Jason misses out on a mission: “What if there's an undercover mission that Bruce sends Jason on?”

Kara fantasizes: “Ok but imagine Jason's admirers seeing his non-badass qualities”

Guy pulls a Hal: “Can u imagine someone chest bumping Jason and the they go flying across the room”

Roman has a bad day: Jason wraps his thighs around a thug to choke him and knock him out and now the thug won't stop bragging about it.

Kyle in denial: “I'm pretty sure in crushing au Jason thinks that Kyle still hate him “

Harper resists: “ Jason running at a thief, jumps at them right at their face wraps his thighs around their neck flipping them to the ground“

Roy is trying, you guys: “Tbh it's cute thinking about Roy going all Overprotective Mama Hen over Jason“

Clark weighs in: “What does superman think about the gossip in the watchtower about how hot Jason is?”

Tim hatches a plan: “Jason in booty shorts for the Jason’s thighs attract pretty much everyone AU?“

Kyle has outdone himself (Art): “Jason in booty shorts but! With a crop top on but still wearing his jacket “

Jason and magic: “What does every one think about Jason all blades swords?”

Jessica's fanfic 1: “Ok i must be going off the tangent now but hear me out, if Jaydick happened in your everyone has a crush on Jason Au“

Tim’s plan comes together: “Tim: hey Jason, you should patrol while dressed as Lara Croft“

Jason’s fluffy hair (Art): “Jason has the most fluffiness hair in all universe especially in the everyone has a crush on Jason au”

Jason and glasses (Art): “ Jason with glasses that makes his eyes so FREAKING beautiful in every one has a crush on Jason au”

Kon gets on Jason’s last nerve: “Bruce ask Jason to pick a hero to help him with his mission so he picks Duke and kon”

You don’t wanna fight Jason (Art): “Okay but like Jason wearing sweatpants while training is absolutely everything“

Jason is a bottom, revealed: “how do you think everyone would react once they found out jason’s a bottom“

Alfred is not having it: “Okay but like what does Alfred think about every one crushing on Jason?”

Jay's sexy bod (Art): "Jason Thunder thighs Todd u can look but can't touch or grope"

To Yeet or Not to Yeet: “I bet kon just goes bragging about the red hood just effortlessly yeeting him across the room.“

How to get a hook-up with Jason: “ What if Jason's obliviousness was too much that some people outright asked him out to get the message through “

The Mystery of the White Streak 1: “Does anybody like Jason's white floof in everyone has a crush on Jason au? Or nah”

Roman makes preparations, Li is done: “ Li: Don't you think you're getting a little too obsessed? Black Mask: I am NOT obsessed”

Jessica’s fanfic 2: “They find him under some stair and he's panting heavily with half closed eyes, a blush on his face and is very flustered“

The Mystery of the White Streak 2: “ Um the question? Why don't you just ask Jason about his white hair?”

Roy and Bizarro join forces: “Okay, listen, Roy is definitely mommy's cool boyfriend for Bizarro. He will adore him and try to spoil him whenever he can.”

The Mystery of the White Streak Revealed: “I think Jason with white hair is valid like he is just a sexy beautiful superb angel”

The Curse of the Watchtower Library: “how times did some one found Jason in the watchtower library asleep with books all around him?“

Rose makes Slade an offer: “Slade is in the mix of people who find Jason attractive and Rose is ABSOLUTELY HORRIFIED“

The Jason Todd Appreciation Society: Alright. Let's stop beating around the bush here. Who has actually managed to seal the deal in this au?

Tickle Attack: “ Is Jason ticklish in crushing au?“

Guy considers his options: “ What kind of courting gifts do you think Jason gets in ECoJ au?”

Scars (Art): “In crushing au does Jason have freckles or any scars visible on his face or body?”

Tickle Attack 2: “In the crushing au how would they react to Cass tickling Jason in front of them?”

Ma Gunn don’t play: “Since Ma gunn is Jasons biological grandmother, how does she react to everyone wanting to woo Jason in the ECoJ au?” 

Guy’s date is ruined: “ I actually found out that before the reboot, Guy Gardner owned and ran a bar on Oa. And we all know what happens when Jason goes to bars... "  

Jason and singing: “ how many did the members of JL and the batfamily caught Jason singing? Or does he sing or no”

Kara makes fashion suggestions: ”His helmet is cracked and u can see half of his face and a black eye forming and his jacket and some of his body armor is ripped off “

Bi-Pride Jason (Art): “Can u pls draw Jason holding up the bisexual flag on top a building as he watches a pride parade”

Jason gets unwanted attention: “ In crushing au Did any one in the universe saw how hot and adorable Jason is and try to steal him? “

Batfam and Bananas: “So wait both Dick and Jason eat bananas by deepthroating them?”

Unfortunate costume swap 1: “What if in ECoJ au Jason and Artemis switch uniforms because he lost a bet xD”

Unfortunate costume swap 2: “Now imagine that Jason has to go on his day still having to wear Artemis clothes“