#the point i'm trying to make here is that you can really see how willie feels in the way he desses and the really is just so hhdhdhssj

[orange-demons-deactivated2024]

we all love avatar/bosch, but i offer you avatar/ed as a concept, because i'm deep in the ship trenches

Ohh! Avatar/Ed is such an interesting ship. and srry for the wait! I didn't forget about you I swear! I honestly thought he would have more fics on tumblr because of how popular he is. And here I thought Bosch was the underappreciated one. Dude barely has 5 fics to his name. Also I didn’t know if this was a statement or a request, so I present you with some headcanons. Enjoy!

Ed doesn't want civilians getting caught in his fight to free people from Shadaloo's experiments. So he tells you that if you stay with him you may regret it.

He’s quite distant and cocky when he talks to people, so expect some push back when you try to get close to him.

That’s kind of expected when he tells you to get lost after you reached your full mastery with him.

He doesn't care about who you used to be or if you have regrets about the past, he only cares about the version of you in front of him. The You now.

His friends are important to him, they're like his family, so he would want you to be on good terms with them before he continues the relationship.

He hides most of his feelings behind a wall, but when he finds people he cares about Ed will develop a soft spot for them.

He's one of those people who can take a punch better than he can take a hug.

But that doesn't mean he'll push you away if you decide to be affectionate with him. He'll tense up at first, then he'll relax once he realizes you aren’t a threat.

Ed would want you to meet Balrog someday, and meet the man that shaped him to be who he is. Well...he'll bring you to him whenever Ed decides to reach out to him.

Every person who wields Psycho Power uses it in a way to enhance their own individual skill. So he'll work with you to help you find your unique style to the best of his ability.

As your master and potentially your future bf, he wants to make sure you're not using Psycho Power all willy-nilly. It's dangerous and he doesn't want you to get seriously hurt, despite you telling him you can handle yourself.

His observation skills are sharp so he can pick up small things about you that you probably haven't noticed about yourself. Like habits or certain mannerisms.

So he can tell when you really want something when your eyes linger on it for a split second longer. Which he ends up getting for you because he likes to see you smile.

Ed can also see when you want to be affectionate with him in public. He saw you catching glances at his hands when walking beside him. But you tucked your hands in your pockets after a while of contemplating. He reluctantly offered his hand to you, because as much as he hates PDA he likes you more.

He still has nightmares every so often that makes him wake up in a cold sweat, so please hug him and tell him everything's fine.

In SF6 there are hints of corruption in his KO win pose where he laughs manically. He snaps out of it fairly quickly when you point it out and gets ashamed for letting his emotions get the best of him.

As much as a hard ass he is, he appreciates it if you check up on him just like he does with you.

Like that fortune teller said, Ed is scared of losing himself and turning into something else. Would you even recognize him?

He does get concerned if he hasn’t heard from you in a while, which prompts him to go on a full-blown search. Even if you don’t think it isn’t a big deal, he does. So he wants to make sure you’re okay.

If you’re not feeling well mentally, he’ll lend his ear to you. He has his fair share of rough days, but if there’s anything he can do to relieve some of your stress he’ll do it.

On the flip side, he doesn’t want to pick fights with you but it sometimes happens when he gets frustrated. Ed has a lot of burden on his shoulders and it doesn’t help if you’re always sticking your nose in dangerous situations all the time.

He cares, he really does. It’s just that he doesn’t want anything bad to happen to you.

Falke would knock some sense into him if he ever goes too far and forces him to apologize to you. Makes him get on his knees and everything.

Balrog was his unofficial official father figure so Ed picked up on some of his habits later on in life. Good and bad. And his inability to show his emotions without it turning into frustration is one of them.

He’ll try to tone it down for you in the future, but it is something he’s going to have a hard time with, especially since he’s already having an internal conflict with himself on a daily basis.

There are 2 types of kisses I can see him giving: short and abrupt or long and passionate. It depends on his mood and if he’s in public. He would hate to be seen as that couple who can’t stop locking lips at the train station. He’ll get embarrassed.

He would also want to spar against you and help you fix your form when you’re off balance. As mean as it sounds, he’ll make you fall on your ass and tell you to do it again. In his head, he’s teaching you how to be a better fighter. But if it gets too much, tell him. And he’ll adjust his demeanor towards you.

Like those cheesy romcoms. Ed would give you his oversized jacket when it got too cold outside. But don’t tease him too much about it because he’ll threaten to take it back. He won’t.

Ed roams freely at night, so most of your dates will consist of street food and fighting. He also likes to go to the movies with you and watch those shitty horror movies whenever he has downtime.

But ultimately, he’s never in one place for too long. And if you want to keep in contact with him, you better like long-distance relationships.

Because of the distance, he’ll call you at least once a day no matter where he is, because he wants to hear your voice. How’s it been? Are you doing okay? Any assholes giving you shit? Etc.

But similar to his father, if things get too dangerous on his end, he’ll contemplate cutting you off from his life.

He's the type of lover who genuinely wants the best for you, with or without him.

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

IOTA Reviews: Action

So, this is a interesting one to talk about. Not only is this the first episode in all five seasons to not be written or directed by Thomas Astruc in any capacity (though the other three writers on his team, Melanie Duval, Fred Lenoir, and Sebastien Thibaudeau still wrote this one), not only is it not connected to the ongoing plotlines of Season 5 in any way, but this episode was made with the help of the Breteau Foundation.

For those who don't know, the Breteau Foundation is an organization that works together with schools by giving children access to technology for their lessons, helping them with their psychological needs, and teaching them about ways to protect our environment. This episode was even made available on the Breteau Foundation's website for free in addition to educational materials meant to teach kids about recycling.

Yeah, when we were kids, we got excited whenever the teacher played an old episode of The Magic School Bus or Bill Nye the Science Guy in class, but nowadays, TV shows are producing episodes of their shows specifically so they can be shown in class. And I'm not talking about those half-assed science lab worksheets with pictures of SpongeBob on them either.

The point I'm trying to make is that there was clearly a lot put into this episode, and it's all for a good cause to help teach children about how to protect the environment in order to ensure a better future... and of course, I'm still going to make jokes about it, because I'm just some schmuck on the internet who isn't backed by a major educational foundation.

Let's get into the 27th episode of Miraculous Ladybug's fifth season: Action

We start off with Marinette and Adrien heading over to the Liberty so they could be told about the pollution in the Seine River by their class' resident environmental activist, Myl—Nino, I mean, Nino. No joke, Nino gets more lines in this episode than Mylene does, even though ever since Season 2, Mylene has been established as the one to protest polluting the environment. I get that she already had a lot of screentime in an earlier environmental episode (Mega Leech), but why would you have Nino be the one to help spearhead this protest instead of Mylene? Hell, the plot of another episode started from him trying to get him and his friends out of helping Mylene plant trees for the environment (Party Crasher), so this makes even less sense.

I should also get this out of the way by pointing out a few continuity errors in the episode. For one thing, Marinette is stuttering around Adrien when she had mostly gotten over that issue after “Derision”, Kagami is now one of the avatars for the Alliance rings, something that had been established in “Revelation”, and the episode mentions that the Alliance rings are made of plastic when the season finale shows that they're actually made of metal. I don't want to harp on this too much, as this episode obviously wasn't meant to really tie into the main plotline so it would be easier for kids who aren't familiar with the show watching this episode, seeing how this was meant to be viewed as a standalone story. Besides, compared to other plotholes in the show like the ones I'll cover next time, these are fairly minor.

Nino tells Marinette and Adrien, and by extension, the audience, that the Seine River is full of pollution, and the Liberty has recently been converted into a makeshift water treatment plant. The problem is that with a recent increase of plastic in the Seine, it's becoming harder for the Liberty to filter out all of it. Hey, here's an idea: Maybe don't set up your homemade water treatment plant in the longest river in Paris.

The reason for all the new plastic comes from a recent ad campaign promoting some vending machines that sell these paper fans that were designed by Gabriel and are sold by a man named Bertrand King, who looks like a cross between Willy Wonka and Colonel Sanders, down to having a southern accent in the English dub.

Nino suggests that Adrien talk to Gabriel himself, but as usual, Adrien doesn't think he'll listen, so the kids decide to go to Bertrand King's company while picking up an order for plastic containers for the Dupain-Chang bakery... even though I'm pretty sure most bakeries store pastries in paper instead of just plastic.

Nino has the others dress up in disguises, but like most of his plans this season, it fails miserably, so Marinette comes up with a little story about Adrien meeting up with Bertrand. The kids make an impassioned presentation to Bertrand, asking him to help change the way he operated his business like making his fans out of more biodegradable materials. Surprisingly, the man whose entire livelihood revolves around selling plastic doesn't want to listen to the people saying everything his company is doing is wrong.

Bertrand: This is all intentional. It's the wonderful cycle of throwing away and buying again that makes my fortune. If people didn't throw away and buy new items again then I, Bertrand King, would no longer be the King of Plastic! So, there is no way any of this is changing.

Wow, a rich person in Miraculous Ladybug turning out to be a total jerk? What an unexpected turn of events.

Bertrand points out how much plastic is used in everyday society, using pens and the Alliance rings as an example, and seeing how we cut to the next scene afterwards, we can assume he had them thrown out. Oh, come on, you couldn't even parody The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air like you did during “Migration”? The kids then try to go to Andre and Gabriel for help protesting the fans, but because one's a corrupt politician and another helped make them, they won't do a thing. Marinette tries to ask Nadja, the local news anchor, but because the ad revenue from Bertrand's company funds the channel she works for, she can't do a thing or else she'll be out of a job.

This leads to the kids deciding to do the sane thing and HACK THE NEWS BROADCAST SO THEY CAN MAKE A SPEECH ABOUT POLLUTION.

Because it's not like Marinette and the others could have just gone to another news network with this story or uploaded it to the internet instead, right? And sure, scowl at the camera while you're giving this presentation too. That won't make you look like a bunch of eco-terrorists at all. The kids give a presentation about how dangerous plastic is, and how people can use fans made of more biodegradable materials like bamboo instead. Also, we get cameos from Jess, Aeon, and Fei, but they're pretty much there just to remind viewers that the New York and Shanghai specials happened.

Of course, the episode's following RWBY Volume 8 logic, so rather than view them as a bunch of lunatics who hijacked a news broadcast, the public immediately turns on Bertrand's company, arguably faster than what happened with Andre in “Mega Leech”. Speaking of, Andre and Gabriel change their opinions to make themselves look like they were always against Bertrand, and seeing how this episode aired after Season 5 ended, didn't really sit too well with viewers.

Bertrand calls out Gabriel for lying, but Gabriel doesn't care, secretly using this as an opportunity to akumatize Bertrand into King of Plastic through his pen.

King of Plastic has a pretty underwhelming design. It's clear that the intent was to make him look like plastic, and there is a noticeable reflection on his body, but other than that, it doesn't really fit the anti-plastic moral. I think maybe if they did more to make his movements seem more stiff like a living doll, or at least make him look less like he's made of candy, it could work more. The Miraculous power this time is the Bee Miraculous' Venom, which he can use through one side of his lance to stun any victims so he can use the other side to turn them into plastic statues. It's sort of like the dollmaker episode of Arrow, only we don't get to hear the sound of anyone's esophagus hardening.

King of Plastic makes short work of Andre and the local police squad, and Adrien is forced to put teaching Marinette Mandarin on hold so he can transform into Cat Noir, while Marinette transforms into Ladybug as soon as she's alone. After he transforms Adrien's bodyguard into a plastic statue, King of Plastic fights Ladybug and Cat Noir, eventually transforming Cat Noir's staff into plastic too. Even though he was originally akumatized to get revenge on Gabriel, King of Plastic leaves the Agreste Manor and heads to the Liberty to get revenge on Marinette and Adrien's friends instead... for some reason. Even the episode points out how weird this is.

Cat Noir: Didn't you want to take revenge on Gabriel Agreste?

Ladybug: He probably has more than one enemy.

After following King of Plastic there with Cat Noir, Ladybug summons her Lucky Charm, getting a plastic bag. Because it's already made of plastic, it can't be transformed, which gives Ladybug an idea. She tells Alya to activate the Liberty's water treatment function, intentionally overloading it before Cat Noir Cataclysms the engine. This jettisons the collected plastic and overfills the deck of the Liberty, trapping King of Plastic so Ladybug can break his lance. So in an episode meant to teach kids about how dangerous plastic is, the day was ultimately saved by plastic. I'm sure that won't confuse any kids watching this in class.

Ladybug de-evilizes the Akuma, tells Bertrand about how dangerous plastic is, and he immediately vows to change his company's ways before Ladybug gives him a Magical Charm as useless as a plastic toy before she uses Miraculous Ladybug to fix the damage.

The episode ends with Bertrand funding the repair of the Liberty before vowing to change the way his company operates, as do Tom and Sabine, who now sell their products in eco-friendly containers. Unfortunately, with all the renovations being made to his company that come with moving away from plastic, Bertrand had to stop funding this groundbreaking cancer research institution in America in order to prevent his company from going bankrupt.

Anyway, this episode was pretty good. I honestly didn't have a lot of problems here. The plot was pretty straightforward, the themes of how easy it is to perpetuate companies that damage the environment were handled pretty well, and the main characters were pretty active.

Even the greedy corporate asshole meant to be a stand-in for real life executives was handled pretty well, having some quirks that make him stand out while showing how ignorant he is to the situation without making him completely insufferable. This episode could have easily gone the Captain Planet route with Bertrand, but they showed he wasn't intentionally endangering the environment because he felt like it, but rather, because he cared more about his company making money, even showing him ultimately realizing the error of his ways.

If there's one problem I had, it's with the way the Akuma fight was resolved. I get that any other Lucky Charm wouldn't have been immune to King of Plastic's plastic powers, but I feel like weaponizing the plastic the heroes spent most of the episode fighting against in order to stop the Akuma sort of muddles the message the episode is going for. It's not the worst way to resolve an Akuma fight, but it just bugs me personally.

While I still think “Mega Leech” did a better job with the environmental message, overall, this episode did a pretty good job teaching the moral it set out to teach.

THE BIGGEST IDIOT OF THE EPISODE IS... ANDRE (THE OTHER ONE)

Shockingly, nobody really acted that stupid this episode. Yeah, the kids were pretty naive thinking they could make Bertrand change his company's way of production, but still took action when that didn't work. Andre, on the other hand...

While Gabriel and Nadja had their own reasons to support Bertrand (Gabriel for Monarch reasons and Nadja for financial reasons), the only reason Andre went along with the fans polluting the environment was because they happened to have his image as one of the designs, and when the public started to turn on Bertrand, Andre acted like he always opposed him, and when confronted with an akumatized Bertrand, begged for his life like a coward and said he would reinstall the fan vending machines. While I guess it's better than having Chloe be the primary supporter of Bertrand's company, I need to reiterate that this aired after the last few episodes of Season 5 tried to place Andre in a more sympathetic light.

[isa-loves-you]

Telling People, You're a couple. | The Group Chat Head canons | Pt.2

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Soft willy- you and nick have been dating for almost 2 months now. It's still crazy to you that you have this man, I mean come one look at him he is the definition of what everyone wants to be or be with. respectful, good height, nice built, the funniest person you have ever met, sweet and caring nick was all these things; which is why you were kinda scared of telling people you were a couple.

It's not like you were the most horrible person to look at but you in your mind you just thought you were okay nothing special just your average joe, but to nick you were the most beautiful person he'd ever met so of course he wanted to show everyone how special he is to have you in his life. Ever since you guys started dating he's been trying to get your approval to tell his fans but you still felt a little anxious on the idea so nicked eventually stopped asking to respect your decision. 

One day you and nick were at a burger place eating lunch talking about his new album. “I don't know what I really want for the cover but I was kinda thinking if you would be able to pose for it?” Nick said looking hopeful at you “Nick I don't know, what if people connect the dots? I'm already on most of the tracks. It would be weird if I am also on the cover.”. He had to admit it would be kinda obvious but that was the whole point, he was happy that you were there to help accomplish the album and it would just be even more awesome if he got to see your face on the front of it all

“Here your refill sir” the waitress interrupted yours and nick conversation with a smile “oh thanks” “if you need anything, and i mean anything else just let me know” the waitress was basically eye fucking nick while saying her little beg of attention from nick. This mad you fucking livid like who  does she think she is talking to a random man like this and in front of his girlfriend out of all people.

“Thanks but i'm good” Nick let out an uncomfortable laugh while trying not to look at her anymore. You had to admit this girl was pretty but you were definitely better looking than her and that's all you needed in the moment to make a decision that went against your words. “You know what?I will pose for the cover "what do i have to hide” for the rest of the day. Nick couldn't stop thanking you and asking if you were sure about this but you already agreed and can't go back on it now.

Two weeks later you and Nick were drinking and  trying to think of all the different types of ways to take pictures. Since the songs on the album were based off of video games more specifically the games you could only play on the Nintendo DS you came up with  the idea of taking them on a DS. After three hours  later you and Nick finally captured the right picture to put on the album.

A couple of days passed, and Nick had posted the cover as a promotion which was the picture of you on a DS with a bold light blue font that read “Digital Dreams”. 

(This is sorta what I was going for. obvious if you don't like it you can totally imagine something else. Also credit to whoever these beautiful people are , I am jealous.)

In the caption of the post Nick had credited all the people who worked on the album including you but did it a completely different way. “I also want to thank my amazing partner for helping me throughout the process and even being on the album front and in the song @ ur username  i love you.”

You were surprised at the amount of people who were so supportive of you guys, of course there were some people who weren't, but you couldn't care. You were just happy that Nick was happy.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Larry-  you were getting some food for you and Larry because he said he hasn't eaten all day. You and Larry have been dating for almost a month and it was the best thing that has happened to you in a while. Everyday with him was so much fun and the group was accepting of you for dating their friend.

You had gotten him and you something small because Nick and Tanner wanted you and Larry to go with them to dinner later but since Larry didn't eat you just grabbed something while you were out so he wouldn't be so hungry later. You had stepped into the house looking for Larry but he was in his room doing the podcast with the others.

You knocked on his door which he called out for you to open “dude you didn't have to do that thank you so much” “no problem it wasn't a bother to me”. You walked up to his desk to set the food down “hi everyone” you waved to all of the boys in the call which they waved back. 

You stood there for a couple more minutes talking to them before you left to go be on your phone and leave them back with their work. Almost 45 minutes later Nick, Larry, and Tanner came out so you guys could go to dinner and have a fun night out. 

You woke up the next morning in Larry's bed since you didn't want to drive home  last night. You see Larry at his desk looking at the podcast comments, you walk up to him and put a hand on his shoulder “so do they love me” you let out a small laugh. “They love you alright, it seems like they love you more than me” “well in that case switch me jobs, i would love to make dumb jokes all day “. you guys shared a laugh and a few more while looking at the comments. You were glad that the people who loved him were happy that he was with you.

[blair-the-juggalho]

Hello!! I absolutely love your TWDG writing. And I have been having a bad day bc my tooth broke and I'm stressed -_-

Could you possibly make a "TWDG S4 characters when a bubbly Y/N is upset/sad"? ^_^

Hey yeah ofc! And I’m so sorry I hope your day gets better lovely :(

Also I did this as platonic lmk if ya want me to redo it idm! 😭

Another sorry if there’s any spelling mistakes it’s half three am and I’m tired

Also side note, sorry I’ve been like gone a lot of stuff happened and I lost intrest in the game but it’s kinda coming back I’m just getting use to writing again so if this sucks I’m SO SORRY 😭😭😭💖💖💖

TWDG S4 characters when a bubbly Y/N is sad

Violet

She’d find you a bit strange and would tease you but in honesty she loves how bubbly you are

Whenever life gets her down all she has to do is spend some time around you and she feels better

She notices instantly when you’re upset tho and will give it a few minutes before coming up to you

“Hey. What’s up? Why are you all depressed?”

But fr tho that’s her job 😞 LMAO SORRY

But you’ll open up to her and she silently nods along

Whatever it is she gets it

“Yeah…it sucks sometimes…”

She won’t say much but she offers to go somewhere more private so you two can chill and just complain to each other

She’s not all that good at comfort but she’d really try

When your back to normal she’d have a small smile on her face

“Ya happy again now?”

She’d be a bit upset if you’d want to go right back to being around everyone else but she’d join you anyway cuz she’s just happy to see you smile again

Mitch

He doesn’t really get it I mean how can anyone be happy living like this? I mean sure it’s manageable at times but it still sucks

He’d never on his life say it but he does secretly enjoy how happy you are even if he’d tease you for it

When he sees you upset tho I’m so sorry but this man is useless here

He doesn’t notice at first but after Willy or someone points it out he picks up on it and worries a bit

However he just hopes you cheer up on your own and doesn’t say anything

But he does watch out for you in the corner of his eye

He just assumes if it’s really bad you’ll come to him

Cuz he won’t come to you unless your both alone

When you do tell him what’s up he’s still not very helpful

“Damn…that sucks..”

He does care he’s just rubbish at showing it

He will let you stay with him but be warned you’ll both be sat in silence if you’re not in a talking mood

But when you do cheer up he’s relived

again, not that he’d voice it

“Happy again huh?”

Marlon

Marlon finds you to be a breath of fresh air, he always has a gentle smile on his face when your around

He’s happy that you can bring the others up too cuz a happy group is a good group yk

Plus you keep him calm too

So when he sees his usual happy friend down in the dumps he’s very confused

What happened to you?

He watches you for a bit then walks over to you and asks if you’re ok and if ya wanna talk

Hell take you up to the office and will listen to you explain why your upset

He listens and offers some advice and comfort

He’ll let you stay with him for a bit and if you like dogs yk he’ll get rosy to give you some comfort hugs and all

He just has normal conversations with you and will say that he hopes you cheer up soon cuz what would they all do without your positive ways

When you cheer up he’ll have a big smile and if your ok with it he’ll pull you in for a hug and definitely does that back pat and rub (yk the that you do to a friend or family to either be like heyy! Or ok that’s enough now)

Louis

HELLO YOUR BASICALLY THE ONLY OTHER PERSON THEIR WHO CAN MATCH HIS ENERGY

Like he needs to see you all happy and lively because that makes him more happy and lively too!

And this mf he instantly knows when you’re down and he will come up to you and just say “aww what’s wrong (name)? You gotta turn that frown upside down!” He might even pull an over the top sad face too

Depending on what kinda person you are this either kind of works or makes it so much worse

If he does realise that he’s not helping he panics a bit like

“Oh no- they really are sad…what do I doooooo?? This is badddd…”

He’s not all that good in serious situations and will try healing you with comedy and laughter

He’ll tell jokes, tease the others at Ericsson’s

Anything to cheer you up

Heaven forbid the moment you actually do cuz this mans energy is amplified by 100

“is that a smile I see?? So mx grumpy finally cheered up? Ha well it seems I’m just the best at curing sadness.” He acts all cocky but he’s just joking

He’s very pleased to see ya back to your regular self again

Aasim

Aasim always found it curious how someone so happy could exist in a world like this

But he’d be lying if he said he didn’t like it

He can’t match your energy but he does support your cheerful ways

He won’t voice it but you do cheer him up when he’s having a bad day

he notices when you’re upset very quickly n all it’s very obvious lmao

He’ll give it a few minutes but after a while he’ll cave and awkwardly walk over to you

“So…you ok? You seem upset…”

You tell him what’s up and he listens

He either gives you advice or will empathise with you saying he gets it

He just kinda silently sits next to you cuz he doesn’t really know what to say

You both just kinda sit around for a while

he won’t really offer it out loud but he doesn’t mind giving you a hug if it will cheer you up

He just waits for you to feel better and is thankful when you do

(Sorry but damn this man I just can’t imagine he’d be much help here that sounds horrible Ik ik 😞)

Omar

This man is grateful that you’re the way you are even if he doesn’t voice it a lot

He’s also a silent observer so when he saw you where upset he just quietly watched you

I think he either doubts how good he is at comforting or he’s too preoccupied but he’ll still watch you for you

He’s kinda hoping it’s just a off day and you’ll perk up again in a while

He waits to see if anyone else will check up on you or if you’ll come to him

But if enough time has passed and both of those didn’t happen he’ll slowly make his way over to you

He doesn’t say much but he listens to you

The few times he does speak it’s either reassurance or advice

He will stay with you for as long as he can and if he had to start cooking again he’d let you stand next to him while he does so

When you cheer up again he wont say much but he has a smile on his face

Ruby

Ruby fully appreciates your bubbly ways and she will usually match your energy when she can

She really thinks you totally brighten up Ericssons!

But today you were acting totally different and she could just sense it

Like there was a shift in the air she just picked up on before she even saw you

Since she gives me like mother friend vibes she totally instantly goes over to ya

Are you ok hun? Ya seem down? What’s happened? Do ya need some space?

She’s there and she will listen to ya 100%

She does whatever she can to be supportive and she might tell a few rubbish puns to make you smile again

She’ll get all protective of ya too like if anyone tries to annoy ya (which I doubt anyone would but yk just incase) she will get so mad at them she’s shout at them and scold them so much

She’ll either stay by you till you cheer up or will give you the space if you need it but the moment she sees that smile she loves so much and that cheery personality she adores she’s matching that happy face

Brody

This girl loves how bubbly you are it’s such a nice change of pace from the usually rubbish day to day apocalypse life

You don’t know how much you can cheer her up and make her feel more relaxed

So she was super quick to notice that you where sad

Huh that’s (name), why arn’t they all happy?? Where’s that lovely smile gone??

I don’t think she’d straight away ask if you where ok cuz maybe you needed some space? I mean it’s normal to get upset now a days but this isn’t like you

She’d ask the others like Marlon if they noticed that you’ve done a total 180

She’d still stay put but keeps a close eye on you and after a few minutes of watching you mope around she’d walk up to you and ask if you where ok

After you tell her what’s got ya so bummed out she’d do anything to get that smile back

She’d listen to you, give you advice if you wanted it, she’d give you a hug literally anything!

She’d also try to distract you by planning some made up road trip (a beach trip if I remember correctly??)

She needs to see her friend go back to their bubbly self 😞

Once you do cheer up she just sighs in relief man she’s happy you’re back to normal lmao

[gigai-translations]

Mahoutsukai no Hako ft. Mahoyo Characters ENG Translation

Illustrated by CHANxCO, this is a gag script from the Mahoutsukai no Hako TYPE-MOON official mobile site. I liked this segment particularly because it features Mahoyo characters and I love Mahoyo.

Images and transcript under the cut.

PAGE 1

Aoko: Hmm, this cafe ain't bad, huh? 

Alice: Right. When you said you'd be entering, I was concerned about what we'd get ourselves into.  

Aoko: With a place like this, wouldn't you look forward to the tea here? 

Alice: Hm, how so? It's not like you can assess the quality of tea based on the interior of the place. 

Aoko: You just don't trust my intuition. Anyways, excuse me, waitress! 

Chikage: uuu… Decided on an order? What's it gonna be? 

Alice: That doesn't sound hospitable.

Aoko: Ugh–

Chikage: Huh? I didn't say anything rude. 

Keitai: No matter how you look at it, you were being rude!!! At this point, the foliage would be more reliable for taking orders! 

Aoko: Eh??

Chikage: Waa—!? Don't just come out willy-nilly!! 

Alice: …….

PAGE 2

*Alice steps on Keitai* 

Keitai: bururbuur *makes pain noises* 

Aoko: Hey, hey!! Alice, what are you doing?! 

Alice: Nothing, just felt a strong sense of *familiarity* with this one. 

Hibiki: Chika-chan! Chika-chan! It sounds kinda loud here, did something happen? I wanna join in! 

Chikage: Don't worry about it. Just the usual business. 

Hibiki: Oh, Keitai's being stepped on. 

Aoko: Is this y'all's toy? Here, sorry about the violent assault we've inflicted on it. 

Hibiki: Ahahaha! Thanks! 

Keitai: Oi!! Why would you call me a toy?! You see a smartphone, call it a smartphone–burhusnunw 

Chikage: All your chatter is pointless. Just shut up. 

Alice: It sounded like that small, blue object spoke. 

Hibiki: There's nothing odd about it! After all, it's just a regular smartphone! See see, it can take photos! 

Keitai: *Ching!!*

Aoko: A smart….phone? 

Hibiki: Yup yup! A smartphone!! 

Aoko: No way, this is different from anything I know. Also, photos?! Where does the film go?!? On top of that, why would you need to use a phone to take photos?!

Alice: To begin with, isn't the notion of a portable phone pure nonsense? 

Chikage: wha- what's with those reactions? Did you two just come out of the mountains today? 

Aoko: Guh—!

Aoko: Alice, I can't believe it. Was I just stooped to Soujurou's level right now?

Alice: Stay strong, Aoko. I, too, just felt the same way. 

Hibiki: Huh? They seem to be really shocked. 

Keitai: uhyo!! Uhyohyohyo!! Miss Blue is from an era virtually similar to prehistoric times, ei? Are you realizing now how great it must be to witness the signs of the 21st century's height of technology?!

Aoko: I don't get it but are you trying to pick a fight?! You're picking a fight with me aren't you?! I got nothing on you now but cuz of that, I'm gonna go to the 30th century and swipe the latest K-TAI!! 

Chikage: Don't you start a fight!! And you! Stop getting so heated about it!! 

Soujurou: That's right. Fighting isn't good, Aozaki.

Aoko: …wha–

Hibiki: Oh, Soujurou-san! 

PAGE 3 

Chikage: Eh? You guys know each other? 

Alice: Shizuku-kun, what are you doing here? 

Soujurou: You ask but it's what it looks like, this is my part-time job. 

Aoko: You've increased your number of jobs again. Why you–! 

Soujurou: I was told my way of brewing black tea was poor and that really struck me. And so, I was allowed to work here to study more about tea brewing. 

Alice: This tea… it's Darjeeling. Is this Shizuki's brew? 

Soujurou: Drinking this is meant to relax you. You're coming into a cafe with a nice atmosphere so it's fruitless to be on edge all the time. 

**

Keitai: Ah, this young monk! What will he come up with afte—burbdjbd

Chikage: That's enough. You should shut up. 

**

Aoko: Well, if you say so, then I'll leave it at that. Alice seems to like it. How is it? 

Alice: I'm not partial to it but I don't feel anything terrible from the tea either. 

Aoko: Hehe, sounds great! In that case, I'll dig in! 

Alice: …

Aoko: Soujurou…

Soujurou: Yes, what is it? I'd like to hear any impressions you have. 

*Aoko slaps Soujurou* 

Aoko: It's like you haven't improved at all!! 

Soujurou: Guaaa!! 

Aoko: It's tepid!! It's bitter!! On top of that, it  fucking smells!! Drop that shit-eating self-satisfied smile off your face!! 

Alice: So, what does he do in this cafe? 

Hibiki: He washes the dishes! 

Soujurou: Yeah! That's the errand boy from the front gate! 

Aoko: Apologize!! Apologize to the kid! Until you can be a top-notch tea-server, you're training your ass off here 'til the very end!! I'll even rent out the cafe's kitchen!! 

Hibiki: eeehhh… we might have a bit of trouble with that… 

Alice: May I order the high class wagyu beef stew? He'll pay for it. 

Hibiki: You're just gonna heartlessly take advantage of him while he's getting beaten??

Keitai: Haa, I just knew when those people came, it was gonna be nothing but chaos, ei!

Chikage: This is mainly your fault!! 

----END----

If you'd like to view the transcript along with my TL notes, you can do so here:

[sergeifyodorov]

Hi cody which of the big names (or lesser known guys that are your blorbos) do u think will play for their team for their entire career and who do u think will leave? Tampa bay is on my hit list for dropping stamkos like that

ohoho this one is FUN... everyone is my blorbo im gonna go through every team and See...

the biggest difficulty in making this list is that like inevitably b/c of the Inevitable Passage Of Time the babies grow up and sometimes they grow up into like. diff ppl... like i imagine rn the sharks and hawks respectively want mack and bedsy to be with them for life... but is that Happening? it's too early to say ... bedsy seems like he might though. he's goodcanadianboy enough.

boston bruins: marchand and pasta are 100% lifers... mcavoy seems like they want him to be a lifer but he hasn't made up his mind yet.

buffalo sabres: if they make the playoffs within the next five years (BIG IF) then i can see one of power or dahlin sticking it out. but at this point i'm pretty sure the only thing that can save the sabres is a serious exorcism and i mean a SERIOUS one so i doubt this'll happen in truth

detroit red wings: larkin. duh.

florida panthers: barkov

montreal canadiens: n/a. see buffalo sabres but replace "power" with "caufield" and "dahlin" with "slafkovsky" . i mean i guess you can put arber on that list but mostly because his career isn't gonna be that long probably

ottawa senators: the one and only THOMAS CHABOT

tampa bay lightning: i WOULD have said stamkos until this offseason... fucking crasy... ok anyway here's my juice: vasy's back injury/surgery have meant he is no longer the goalie he was and i doubt he'll command much after this contract is over. i say 50-50 he leaves vs stays as a reasonable backup/tandem guy. kucherov Wants 2 Win and has a much lower tolerance for Bullshit than stamkos, which means if a competitive price is not being paid for him he will Just Leave. victor hedman is going to be a lifer though

toronto maple leafs: morgan rielly is the only one i know in my heart is a lifer, but only because a) jt was already an islander and b) willy and auston will probably play most of their reasonable careers as leafs and then have like 1-3 seasons somewhere else as ancient old men to Cup Chase One Last Time. don't ask about the other guy you know how i feel about jinxes

carolina hurricanes: n/a

columbus blue jackets: n/a

new jersey devils: n/a... they will try to keep at least 1 hughes but i think we have seen so little of the current devils era (hischier/hughes) that it's hard to say anything about their future atm. can you believe nico was only drafted the year after auston like they haven't gotten off the ground at ALL.

new york islanders: [squints in trying to name islanders]... actually a bunch of lifers looking at it. sorokin. anders lee. barzal if you're nasty. brock nelson. etc

new york rangers: chris kreider FER SURE, igor shesterkin FER MAYBE

philadelphia flyers: see devils re: brink of something new. they're going to try and keep tk forever though

pittsburgh penguins: do i REALLY have to say anything here

washington capitals: Do I Really Have To Say Anything Here

chicago blackhawks: was about to make another bad seth jones contract joke here before remembering he's already played on a different team. no further comment

colorado avalanche: natemac has made it pretty damn clear he wants to stay an av forever, because sidcros stayed a penguin forever. do what you will with that information

dallas stars: jamie benn definitely, but everyone else is too young to say something about or has been on other teams already. good luck with your jrob21 contract negotiations stars front office You Will Need It

minnesota wild: ...jared spurgeon...?

nashville predators: did you guys know puckpedia has the preds abbreviated as NAS and they're ahead of the devils. crazy. anyway roman josi and juuse saros are gonna be preds for life, and probably filip forsberg too

st louis blues: vlad tarasenko IN MY HEART...

winnipeg jets: hellebuyck and schiefele fer sure

anaheim ducks: because they've been trying to trade him for a decade and have been unsuccessful yet: john gibson

calgary flames: n/a

edmonton oilers: nuge + mcdrai also

la kings: doughty + kopi

seattle kraken: n/a

san jose sharks: logan couture

vancouver canucks: my hot take is nobody because quinn hughes is going to pull a mark giordano or jason spezza or perhaps even a chris tanev and play the last couple years of his career as a leaf. petey is gonna slut it up somewhere else later, brock is straight up going to leave as a ufa OR sign a short bridge and then leave as a ufa, and jt miller was a ranger

vegas golden knights: n/a

[3416]

hey emma! do u mind expanding on mitch’s utilisation this post season and how theyre not maximising him at what hes best at so he can contribute elsewhere where the team is lacking like you mentioned in your post? fairly new to hockey so im a bit behind :( thank you!!

i'm not an expert on this but lfksdj i can rant. jonas siegel dropped an article today about mitch's playoff impacts, so i'll drop some screenshots you can read here if you don't have an athletic sub.

and there is also this video from yesterday that essentially breaks down the way mitch adjusts his game to the playoffs vs the regular season and the way mitch adjusts to play more conservatively (which, despite the 'best playoff performer' narrative, still makes him better than most players on our team. by not a small amount lol)

but mitch has been put on the second line this postseason to essentially shut down the bruins biggest offensive threat in david pastrnak and they've done that extremely effectively. his line has taken a vast majority of their shifts starting in their own dzone, meaning they aren't immediately set up for success bc they have to win the puck back away from david & co and are tasked with making their way back down to their own ozone and trying to make an offensive impact that way .. which has allowed auston's line to already start their shifts set up in their ozone 80% of the time apparently. in that way, i don't think the first line's been very effective bc they're sitting at a net neutral rn despite scoring 'the most' goals for us.. meaning they're getting scored on as much as they're scoring, lol. (auston himself is actually at a +2 but bert and domi are getting caught out and prayed on so they're at 0 +/- wise lol)

leafs have a real problem creating offense in the post season, and instead of being able to load up and let mitch do the elite playmaking he can do by being a little LESS defensively responsible and more quick w his hands and thinking on his feet on the rush, they've been forced to play mitch in a more defensive position bc other forwards can't take that spot on the second line and effectively shut pasta/bruins down. essentially, mitch doesn't get room to do what he's best at (help draw attention and make room for the best shooters on this team and then pass to them) bc he has to worry abt making the smart and safe plays to keep the puck away from the bruins scary offensive threats and it's making him look like he's been neutralized... when REALLY.. he's being used in a position that is not favorable to the best offensive parts of his game but rather relied upon for his ability to be responsible. even if he WERE putting up points with auston, people would say they don't matter since they're not at Clutch moments so lol. this team is just built weirdly and domi and bertuzzi are liabilities defensively so they've been put with our most responsible forward on the top, but so far they're not making a huge difference. it is what it is, and willy coming back will certainly help with some off the rush offense probably, but willy is also a defensive liability but he's being played with holmberg and calle who are both way more solid in that way.... luckily the bruins 3rd line isn't as dangerous as the top 2 so maybe he and the swedes will be able to feast on them 🤞🤞🤞

we will see what game 4 holds tonight... i think this team could be so much better with some actual upgrades on d, but we will have to SEE what treliving does this summer. it is very annoying to watch magical mitch marner with real creative vision have to take on a more under appreciated role as a defensive bedrock of this team, but idk what i expected considering we were LITERALLY playing him as a defenseman this season, lol. i have way more fun watching him play globetrotter and put up points but he is basically an elite jack of all trades. siegel's article talks abt the key to that line's offense being him shooting more, so we'll see if that's something he personally incorporates, but a lot of the critique of him this year in the postseason has been so unfair in comparison to the position he's being put in.

[theemporium]

ok so i started this ask earlier this morning and am just now getting aroundn to finish it so apologies if it's all over the place

vegas has been a lestappen weekend and I am thinking THOTs like honestly so much happened this race weekend and i am reeling

1. no1 vegas hater max verstappen saying that he's excited to go back i love him 😭😭😭 i'm so glad he had fun lmaoo. like i can just imagine him in the hotel with charles and reader the night before the race all huffy and upset because this whole weekend is a farce and he is NOT going to have a good time. and charles is just like "it's gonna be fine mon amour, i think at this point you're just determined to have a bad weekend and spoiling it all for yourself" and maybe yeah he is but in max's opinion that is NOT the point. anyways after the thrill of Racing™️ he's like "hmm okay yeah u weren't wrong, i had a good time" and charles is jsut liek "SAY IT WAS YOUR WHOLE CHEST PLZ !!!! I WAS RIGHT !!!!"

2. obsessed with carlos being all kinds of protective big brother vibes to werewolf!reader. like he sees max and charles crowding her and is just like 🤨🤨 "alright alright we get it, you love her, but let her work pls. if you keep crowding her i'm gonna call this sabotage" but he's also the one who goes "i pretend i do not see it" when he catches max trying to wiggle his way into the ferarri turf

3. there are mould your own dildo kits called clone a willy (don't ask me how i know) but i can see max getting one as like a gag gift or something and he's just like haha ok whatev. but the days go on and really the more he thinks about it the more appealing it is to have a custom dildo bc then he can fuck his two loves with his cock at the same time. and also he needs to know what his dick feels like, you know for scientific purposes. so anyways he gets charles and reader to help him and it is SO messy, positioning is important, and the amount of effort it takes to stay hard is ASTRONOMICAL. his dick is stuck in a tube of goo, it's not sexy. but now if someone tells him to go fuck himself he can. so he stays winning 😘😘🤩

4. i also really hope lando gots a nice long sleep after the race. like he sounded horrible on the radio. he needs a nice cuddle stat. i feel like we don't talk about werewolf lando a lot but

-🌠

GAHSJSJAKAJSJBSSKJA OH GOD

1. there’s something so funny about max suddenly changing his tune😭he was probably just happy to do some actual racing and know that the whole weekend was over after it, but it’s still hilarious. and I could see charles and reader giving him such shit over it, teasing him that the elvis race suit put him in a good mood and maybe they should keep it all year round (no, they should not. it’s a cursed wee thing. I want it gone)

2. CARLOS BEING AN OVERPROTECTIVE BROTHER PLEASE😭even the idea that she’s upset with them over something, it’s carlos who she goes to and his driver’s room that she stays in🥲but he would be so supportive of their relationship and definitely help hiding it when he can

3. I have seen the clone-a-willy sets in stores here, it’s so😭😭😭I know it’s this hot concept or whatever but it genuinely makes me cackle at the idea of these boys trying to follow the instructions. like charles is confused and max is convinced he doesn’t need instructions and it’s just such a mess. it would be so fucking funny

4. baby lando deserves all the hugs and cuddles and kisses after that crash :( but we do not talk about werewolf!lando near enough!!!

[queen-of-writing-bad-things]

Henry Danger Reader Insert | Captain Man x Reader: SEASON 2

Episode 19: I Know Your Secret

~The Man Cave~

It was safe to say that for Henry, shit was going down. It had been a normal school day: lessons, copious amounts of homework, Jasper being strange and a note in his locker. Not a cute, love letter from a girl in his class, nope, it was some creepy note saying that someone in school "knew Henry's secret and what he did on Wednesday night". Spooky.

Henry and Charlotte had rushed out of school and raced to the Man Cave, where they hoped that Ray, (y/n) and Schwoz would know what to do. He only had one secret and that was his secret alias as Kid Danger, meaning that someone had figured it out and now his job working for Captain Man was in danger. 

"And your one hundred percent sure you didn't tell anyone?" Ray asked his sidekick as he paced around the room and Henry sat on the couch. He was freaking out, if someone knew about Henry then that meant the kid was at risk and so was he. Schwoz was busy scanning the letter to see if he could ascertain who created it, but the beeping of the machine just made Ray more nervous.

"I told nobody!" Henry swore, knowing that he took his oath to Ray very seriously. He'd never divulge his secret willy-nilly because that was one way of a bad guy coming and killing him and his family.

"Have you sent any emails or texts messages where you mentioned that you were Kid Danger?" Ray pressed further, making (y/n) roll her eyes. If Henry said he'd told no one, then he meant no one and that extended to electronic communication.

"Oh wait, yeah, last week, I did stand on my roof naked and yelled "Hey, everybody! Look at me! I'm Henry Hart and I'm Kid Danger!" The boy shouted sarcastically, causing (y/n) to giggle as the joke went over Ray's head.

"You did that naked?" He exclaimed in confusion, taking Henry's words literally. 

"I think he was being sarcastic, Ray." (y/n) pointed out, hitting his arm as she rolled her eyes again. Her best friend was looking extra dashing today, with a white, palm tree-print shirt that stood out against his tanned skin. God, he was hot and it made her pouty knowing that she couldn't kiss him like she wanted to.

"Oh, he's joking. This is joke time for you? I'm sorry, are you Jimmy Fallon? Hey, later on, are you gonna get some tacos with Questlove?" Ray snapped at his sidekick, which made the young woman stand in front of him so he'd back off.

"Okay, calm down and stop being a dick." She told him sternly and seeing her grumpy with him made him calm down a bit. He didn't want to fall out with her, not when things had been going so great between them in the past few weeks. 

"I don't see why you're mad at me," Henry commented, not realising that he was poking the bear. Geez, he really knew how to undo all of (y/n)'s hard work of calming Ray down.

"Dude, if anyone knows you're Kid Danger, they can follow you here, they can come down here and figure out I'm Captain Man and (y/n)'s Miss Danger." The large man stressed, sitting down on the opposite side of the couch. Just the thought of some evil psycho coming into his home and threatening his girl set him on edge. What if she was alone when she was attacked? He'd never get over losing her, especially if he hadn't been around to protect her like he was supposed to.

"Oh, so this is all about you?" Henry asked indignantly, giving his boss a cold, knowing look. His gaze briefly flicked to (y/n), who was trying to keep everything from erupting, but it was no use. Ray knew Henry was taking a jibe at him for worrying about (y/n) and not him, which didn't go down very well with the man or the boy.

"No!... It's mostly about (y/n)." Ray confessed, making his sidekick groan. Henry chuckled bitterly as the young woman frowned. Why was she getting dragged into this?

"Me? Why me?" She questioned, sitting on the back of the sofa as she gave her best friend a puzzled look. 

"Because, I'm indestructible and if someone was to come down here, you'd be at risk." He explained, confusing her even further. She looked at Henry for an answer, but he had been sworn to silence. He desperately wanted to tell her that Ray was unbelievably protective over her, more than she could ever see, but if he did, he'd break his promise. 

"Uh, hello? Super regeneration? I'm a superhero too...sort of." (y/n) argued, folding her arms as she challenged Ray. He didn't want to argue about this though, he'd never tell her, but she was too precious to put in harm's way and he wasn't certain that her power could protect her as well as he could.

"Ahhhh! I got it! I got something!" Schwoz suddenly shouted, making the three on the couch drop their quarrelling instantly. This was more like it, answers, not secrets.

"What'd you find?" Henry asked as they sat up, but Ray and all of his hyperactivity were already leaping up off the sofa and sprinting towards the genius.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah! What'd you find? What'd you find?" He rambled, his muscles twitching with anticipation. It was funny to see such a huge man filled with so much energy, but that was Ray all over.

"You're so hyper, calm down." (y/n) teased him as she and Henry came over to Schwoz's equipment too. You wouldn't think that they were in the thick of an argument only seconds earlier, especially when Ray chuckled and put his arm around her waist.

"I scanned the note with this biometric particle scanner--" Schwoz started to explain, waving his crazy science stick scanner thing around.

"Right." The superhero duo nodded, watching with curiosity. They had no idea how the science worked, but if listening made Schwoz go faster, they'd do it.

"And now, you see, on this note, I found some DNA--" The small man carried on, but once again, his foreign accent was thick and indecipherable for Henry and Ray to understand.

"DN-eish?" The kid repeated as he tried to work it out in his head. In his view, Schwoz should've come with subtitles sometimes, especially when it came to important stuff like this.

"DNA. You know, the molecular acid that makes up our biochemistry?" (y/n) clarified. He wasn't that hard to understand, but maybe she had the unfair advantage of working with Schwoz on numerous engineering projects over the years. 

"And the person who created this note is...Henry Hart?!" Schwoz gasped in horror as the database found a match and Ray snapped his head to the boy. Was this all some big prank?

"What?" Ray breathed out and guided (y/n) away from the boy, thinking he could've turned evil or something. That idea was ridiculous and the young woman smacked the hands pulling her by the hips. 

"You, idiots! Henry isn't some evil mastermind!" She snapped and the boy was glad that someone intelligent was on his side.

"Dude, of course, my DNA is on the note, I brought it here! It was in my hands!" Henry hissed, making Schwoz gulp. Oops, a small mistake on his part.

"Oh, yeah..." He said nervously, realising that he'd made a slight error and then accused Henry of being a liar.

"Oh yeah! At least (y/n) knows I wouldn't fake it!" He snapped and patted the woman on the shoulder as the men sheepishly looked off to the side. Oh well, at least they knew now, no harm, no foul, right?

~Later that evening, Henry's room~

So, Piper was running an illegal tanning salon from the living room of Henry's house. Only Piper would think of something so crazy. Poor Henry had been forced to retreat to the sanctity of his room to get away from all the bright orange weirdos running around the house, but now, he had peace at last. 

Turning on the light, he took a sip of his soda and turned around to see Jasper, holding a sign. It read "I know your secret". Oh shit, maybe peace was the wrong word, panic was looking better. 

"That's right, Henry, I know," Jasper smirked, making Henry spit out all the soda in his mouth and then drop the glass bottle. Oh, dear God, how was he going to get out of this?

"Uh...uh--I..." Henry couldn't move his tongue or anything for that matter. His entire body was numb with shock and probably a good amount of fear as he stared at his best friend. This was bad, very, very bad.

"You know, you're not saying actual words," Jasper told him as he stood up and stepped down the stairs on Henry's ledge. He sounded so cocky and confident and it made Henry's knees wobble.

"So, you left the note in my locker?" Henry question, his mind racing at what he was going to do about Jasper knowing his greatest secret. What would Ray say?

"Uh-huh. 'Cause I know your secret." The curly-haired boy pointed to each word on his sign.

"Oh, man." Henry breathed out, feeling all the blood in his face drain away. He felt like he was gonna pass out at some point as he was feeling remarkably lightheaded. 

"Come on, Hen. How long did you think you could keep that kind of secret from your best friend?" Jasper asked him, making Henry stumble and stutter. The kid wasn't known for his amazing detective skills, so Henry was certain that he would never find out. That wasn't the case.

"Charlotte knows," Henry said nonchalantly, not thinking about the fact that he had two best friends.

"I meant me!" Jasper snapped.

"Ohhh, right, right, eight, I didn't mean--" He tried to excuse, but his friend was already offended.

"--Wait, wait, Charlotte knows?" He yelled, making Henry concerned about whoever could be listening. His house was full of strangers, any of which could walk in and hear them and then, the whole of Swellview would know. Henry slammed his bedroom door shut before turning back to his friend with a deadly serious expression.

"Look...you can't tell anyone about this, ever. As my friend, you gotta promise never to tell anyone." He told him, looking into his eyes so his message would carry more weight. This was the ultimate test of their friendship and Henry had to be sure that Jasper was trustworthy.

"If we're such "good friends", how come I had to find out the truth about you in the street?" Jasper asked harshly, which confused the blond boy greatly. Were they on the same page here?

"'Cause...I--I--" He stuttered, irritating Jasper again.

"Still not words!" The teen yelled, but it broke Henry out of his word-paralysis, so it wasn't all bad.

"Gah! If only he knew that he wasn't in danger at all, but he was about to be.

~Downstairs~

"Hey, what's that?" Piper asked Charlotte as the dark-haired girl walked past her. 

"Oh, just lemonade." Charlotte smiled at her, but her pleasant face soon dropped into a frown when Piper smiled and took it off her. Tanning the entire neighbourhood was thirsty work and the little girl was below taking other people's drinks.

"So, don't you love how busted Henry is?" Piper asked after gulping the lemonade. It was news to Charlotte and it made her forget about her stolen drink.

"What-What do you mean?" The older girl asked, suddenly feeling very uneasy. She didn't like where this was going.

"Jasper found out! You know! Henry's secret!" Piper squealed, but Charlotte wasn't excited by the "juicy" gossip, she was terrified. 

"Wait, you know. about it?" She asked in a fearful tone, but Piper just carried on smiling. Oh god, this thing was getting more and more complicated by the minute.

"Sure!" The girl confirmed in a happy tone, loving that Henry was gonna be in so much shit over this, especially since Jasper was Swellview's biggest drama queen.

"How?!" Charlotte gasped, thinking that this was now becoming a much bigger problem than the Man Cave team had first anticipated.

"Jasper told me. Henry should've waited for Jasper to go see that movie." Piper shrugged her shoulders and took another sip of her or Charlotte's lemonade. Wait a second...

"Whoa, wait, wait, wait. What movie?" Charlotte asked and a new, darker fear gripped her. 

"Henry promised Jasper that he'd go see Galaxy Wars 10 with him on Saturday night." Piper sighed and rolled her eyes. All she ever did was explain the latest gossip to people and repeating the same story over and over again was getting pretty boring for her.

"Yeah..." Charlotte winced, not liking where this was going.

"But my mom was dying to see it on opening night, so she took Henry with her to see it on Wednesday and then Jasper found out," Piper explained, but Charlotte felt like she was gonna throw up.

"And Jasper thinks that's Henry's secret? That he saw Galaxy Wars 10 without him?" She asked incredulously. Of course, Jasper would have the wrong end of the stick and now, Henry was in deep danger of telling him the wrong thing. Sweet cheese.

"Yeah. What? What other secret does Henry have?" Piper frowned, not knowing that her brother had so much to hide. If only she knew...

"I don't know, none...nothing. I don't know--what?" Charlotte panicked as the situation dawned on her. She needed to tell Henry right now before he made the biggest error of judgement ever.

~Henry's room~

"I would've told you but--" Henry tried to argue, but Jasper was firmly set in the idea that it was just a movie, nothing major. 

"I don't need to hear a bunch of excuses." He sighed, not seeing that Henry was going on about something much bigger than some dumb movie.

"I just need you to understand I--" Henry was cut off as his whiz watch began to flash and beep, but he didn't think that he needed to hide it from Jasper anymore. Oh god.

"Well, I guess I don't need to hide this from you anymore." He sighed and flipped the cover of the watch open and Jasper shrieked at the sight of Captain Man's and Miss Danger's hologram over his wrist.

"Hey, it's me." He greeted as Jasper freaked out. What was going on?

"Hey, kid. We have a little emergency." Ray announced, but he couldn't see how Jasper was gasping and hyperventilating just out of shot.

"Yeah, no kidding." Henry nodded, confused as to why Jasper was so affected by the sight of Captain Man and Miss Danger if he already knew about everything. Maybe it was just the excitement.

"Looks like the Malachi Brothers broke out of jail and they're headed for the demolition derby." (y/n) explained, also not realising what was going down. She just thought it was gonna be another normal night of kicking ass with her not-boyfriend and honourary little brother. 

"Okay, meet you in the Man Cave." Henry smacked away Jasper's hand as he tried to touch the hologram. He needed to listen to his boss's instructions, didn't he understand that?

"Nah, we'll hop in the Mancopter and we'll pick you up on the way to the derby," Ray explained as Jasper carried on freaking out. Holy cow, it was the actual Captain Man and his latest sidekick and they were talking to his best friend!

"Copy that." Henry closed the watch cooly, but Jasper was anything but calm. He was shaking with adrenaline and excitement from what he had just witnessed.

"That was Captain Man and Miss Danger! As a hologram! Calling you!" He yelled, punching out each statement like he was trying to overcome his rushing emotions just so he could speak.

"Yeah," Henry confirmed nonchalantly, wondering why this was a big shock to him. He knew he was Kid Danger, why was he so taken by Ray calling him?

~Downstairs~

"So Jasper left the note in Henry's locker." Charlotte seethed, feeling so annoyed with him and his stupid dramatic ways of riling up his friends. Any normal person would just send a text or something, but not Jasper, he sent an ominous letter.

"Mm-hmm." Piper nodded, sipping more of the lemonade. 

"Oh, man! I gotta go tell Henry!" Charlotte exclaimed, rushing to climb the stairs, but a hand on her arm pulled her back. 

"Wait!" Piper interjected, and she whipped around, thinking that there was another piece to the puzzle.

"I'm done with this glass." She smiled, making Charlotte accept it with a disgruntled face. She discarded it on the coffee table and sprinted to the stairs. She only prayed that she wasn't too late.

~Henry's room~

Fumbling behind one of the canvas prints on his wall, Henry pulled out his hidden gumball tube and held it in his hand as Jasper rambled in confusion.

"But I still don't understand how you were talking to a hologram of Captain Man and Miss Danger on your own watch!" Jasper freaked out. This was all too much for him and Henry didn't know that he had made a colossal mistake. Or how he was about to make another one.

"Yeah, I don't know how it works. Schwoz does and (y/n), you can ask them." The boy told his friend as he opened the gum tube and moved into the middle of the room

"What's a Schwoz?" Jasper asked, more taken by the odd name than by the mention of one of Henry's bosses at Junk-N-Stuff. 

"Wait, what's that?" Jasper asked again as Henry chewed his gum. Oh shit, things were about to get crazy.

"I'm gonna blow a bubble," Henry smirked, thinking that he was doing the right thing.

"You're gonna blow a bubble?" Jasper repeated in confusion. 

"I'm gonna blow your mind." Henry quipped, remembering that those were the exact words that Ray had spoken to him before he revealed himself to be Captain Man. Geez, that felt like a lifetime ago. 

Henry blew the bubble and it popped, transforming him into Kid Danger and blowing Jasper's mind. Well, the secret was out. 

"How do I look?" He smiled at his speechless friend. This was the biggest thing that had ever happened to him. Henry was Kid Danger? What the actual fuck?

"Jasper left the note!" Charlotte screamed and burst into the room and her eyes widened at what she saw. Henry in his. uniform and Jasper looking pasty and mil-bottle white. Oh god.

"I know," Henry said cooly, thinking Charlotte was just being. slow.

"But--hi, Jasper. Why's Jasper's mouth hanging open? And why are you dressed like that in front of Jasper?!" Charlotte screamed, letting out her fear at what had obviously taken place. Ray and (y/n) were not gonna like this. 

"YOU'RE KID DANGER!" Jasper screamed at the top of his lungs, making Henry look at him weirdly. Hadn't they. already established that?

"Yeah. You knew that---ooh! Jasper fell asleep." Henry trailed off as Jasper collapsed on the floor unconscious. Poor kid, he'd just found ut his best friend was the sidekick of Swellview's best crimefighter, there was no wonder why he fainted.

"No, he fainted!" Charlotte corrected, feeling so irritated with Henry that she felt like screaming. Why did he always have to go overboard? If only he had waited a few more minutes, this mess would never have taken place.

"Why?" Henry scoffed, thinking that his friend was being dumb again. He wasn't the dumb one though, he was. 

"Because he didn't know you're Kid Danger. He thought that your secret was that you saw Galaxy Wars 10 without him." She explained, leaving Henry as pale as Jasper and with his mouth hanging open. Yeah, that was his second colossal mistake.

"Well, how'd he find that out?!" Henry recovered and focused on the wrong bit. The whole Kid Danger part was his main priority.

"WHO CARES? You showed Jasper that you're Kid Danger!" Charlotte snapped and Henry looked down at his costume, then at Jasper, then at himself again and then back to Charlotte. 

"AW, GEEZ!" He whimpered as his heart began to pound in his ears. This was his worst nightmare. Jasper was a terrible secret keeper and Ray had been firm about. him keeping his oath.

"What are we gonna do?" Charlotte shrieked, fearing for Captain Man's safety and the security of her job. She was gonna be screwed for this. 

"I--gah!" Henry gasped as his larger holo-caller began to buzz.

"It's Ray and (y/n)!" Charlotte told him, although he had already guessed that.

"I know it's Ray and (y/n)!" He hissed and put the hologram device down on the ledge so he could talk to the couple face to face. He answered the call and they appeared in the room and the kids hoped they didn't look too nervous.

"Heyyyy!" Well, that wasn't a convincing greeting and Henry's fidgeting didn't help either. 

"Hey, it's us, Ray and (y/n)." He replied, even though it was clear who they were.

"I know it's you guys!" The boy snapped, but the adults brushed off his prickly behaviour.

"The cops captured the Malachi Brothers so there's no more emergency." (y/n) smiled, failing to see how clammy Henry had gone through the fuzziness of the hologram. 

"Uhhhh, maybe there is," Henry told them, bracing himself for the biggest ass-whooping of his life. Maybe he'd lose his job.

"What-what does that mean?" Ray asked, sensing. that something was off.

"Henry, are you all right? You look a bit peaky." (y/n) squinted at the boy's little face and on a closer inspection, she could just about make out how he was shuffling and sweating as he talked to them.

"Uh, just you better come over here." Henry groaned, feeling like he was about to have an aneurysm or a heart attack.

"And bring the memory wiper!" Charlotte added, making (y/n) and Ray gawp at the teenagers.

"Guys, what's happ--" Henry ended the call before he had to explain himself. It was rude, but at least this way he'd have five minutes to come up with a story. Or, you know, book a flight to Argentina so he could live out the rest of his days in hiding. 

Jasper stirred on the carpet and Charlotte nudged Henry when she heard his groaning. Not taking any chances, the kid whipped out his laser control and shot a green laser at his friend. If he was unconscious, he couldn't do any harm.

~10 minutes later~

As soon as the couple had arrived, the room had descended into chaos, adults versus kids.

"You took an oath!"

"It's not my fault!"

"It was your job to make sure nobody else found out!" 

"SHUT IT!" (y/n) piercing scream echoed through the room and the bickering ceased. The silence was smothering and tangible, like Ray's fury was embedded into it. He was pissed off, disappointed, gutted, all the emotions expected of a man who felt betrayed. He had trusted Henry and now, he was standing in the kid's bedroom, having just learnt that he "accidentally" told a teenager, notorious for being a blabber-mouth, that he was Kid Danger. Give him strength.

"Bucket boy is waking up." The young woman pointed to Jasper, who was mumbling himself into consciousness, probably affected by all the shouting. (y/n) had to admit, she was a little disappointed too with how the kids had handled everything, but the past was the past and now, they had to deal with the problem at hand. 

Well, they would deal with it in a bit. Ray and Henry both shot another green laser at Jasper, sending him back to dreamland. It made sense to come up with a plan first, this was a particularly sensitive issue after all. Henry turned his back on Ray and looked guiltily at the door and floor as he thought about what to say. 

"Look...it's just too dangerous to let anyone else know who we are or where the Man Cave is," Ray spoke for him, his voice low and serious. He knew it wasn't fair for the boy, he deserved a normal life, so did Charlotte and (y/n), but this was their life, fighting bad guys in complete secrecy. If too many people knew who he was, his life and everyone he loved would be in danger and he couldn't risk that, he wouldn't. 

"He's right. It's not fair or kind and it sucks, but we have to keep Captain Man's secret safe. All of us, no matter what." (y/n) told Henry, her eyes sad and understanding, since she knew what he was going through. It wasn't the first time they'd erased someone's memory, there'd been friends, family, so many who figured out the secret and just had to forget. She knew it was cruel but his life was her life and she'd resigned herself to dealing the bad in exchange for all the wonder he brought with all the difficulty. 

"And that means...we have to erase Jasper's memory." Ray picked up the memory wiper and the sight of the machine turned Henry's mouth dry. It was less of a machine or a cool gadget, more of a weapon now, something that was going to take his best friend away from him.

"But when you zap someone's brain with that thing, doesn't it erase all their memories?" Charlotte asked, eyeing the invention with a pained expression.

"Well, not all. He'll still remember how to breathe and eat and...that's about it." Ray's words weren't much comfort, they made the teens feel worse. Lose Jasper? He was annoying and sweaty and way too whiny sometimes, but he was also loveable and selfless and most importantly, their friend. And he was waking up, the time was near.

"It's not an exact science, we can't pick and choose what we erase. We just have to get rid of everything to ensure our survival because secrecy is how we survive. I'm sorry, guys." (y/n) gulped, wrapping her arms around herself at the thought of what they were about to do. Losing a friend was hard but like this? It was cruel and cold-hearted and something she hated about her job and the life she had chosen.

"Hey...can I at least have a few minutes alone with him before you...y'know, wipe his brain? I mean, we've been friends ever since we were five. Wouldn't you want to say goodbye to (y/n) if she had to forget?" Henry asked, hoping he could appeal to Ray's kindness and it worked. Ray couldn't imagine the pain of saying goodbye to his best friend and making her forget how special she was to him, so he agreed immediately.

"Sure thing, kid." Ray nodded solemnly as (y/n) blinked back tears and put her hand on his arm. 

"Where do you want us to go?" Charlotte asked softly, understanding that Henry needed one last time to goof around and bond with his best friend. 

"Closet?" They all looked at him with apprehension at the prospect of all three of them being squished into the tight space.

"Come on. There you go." He pointed to the room and they all begrudgingly stepped in. Hey, at least Ray had an excuse to get all close with (y/n) in there, even if Charlotte would be gagging the entire time.

Jasper moaned loudly and slowly got to his feet as his head pounded.

"Ugh, what happened?" He asked and turned to see Henry still dressed like Kid Danger.

"I, uh, I zapped you, accidentally." Henry lied, but at seeing Jasper's confused face, his resolve broke. His heart was breaking at the notion of losing his oldest friend and he peeled his mask from his face so he could look him in the eye and see the recognition on his face. What would it be like to see Jasper looking at him like he was a stranger?

"Wow! I can't believe this...my best friend is Kid Danger!" Jasper gasped happily, but his excitement just made Henry tear up more.

"Dude...listen, I wanted to tell you...a long time ago, but I took an oath." Henry told him, feeling guilty that he had been lying to Jasper for over a year.

"I totally get it." The curly-haired boy smiled, letting go of any hurt that he felt about the big lie. He understood that Henry had to keep himself safe and he'd rather be unknowing than have his best friend hurt.

"Thanks. And you know, it's--" Henry breathed out, not expecting him to take it so well, but he had to quickly shut the closet door as Ray peeked out with the memory wiper ready to fire. 

"Give me a minute!" He snapped to the man as he stuck his face through the gap, shoving Ray away from the door.

"Hurry up!" Ray hissed, getting antsy at how he was not only letting a boy walk around with his secrets but also at how he had (y/n) pressed against him with her back to his chest. God, her ass felt sinfully delicious pressed against his lower half and it was a real struggle for him to keep himself calm.

"Raymond, shut up!" The young woman threw her elbow back so it caught him in the gut. She wanted Henry to say his goodbyes properly since she never got to say hers to the friends and family she'd lost.

"Who?" Jasper pointed at the closet in confusion as he wondered who his friend was talking to. He'd never imagine that it was Captain Man, Miss Danger and Charlotte waiting to wipe his brain of everything he knew.

"Hey...huh. Remember this?" Henry distracted him with a photo of him and Jasper as little kids. They looked so young and it was another reminder of how their friendship had stood the test of time.

"Sure. You and me at Camp Tomahawk." Jasper smiled fondly at the memory and accepted the picture from Henry. Good times.

"Yep. We were cute, huh?" Henry joked, feeling like he was losing a part of himself. Jasper had always been there for him, what would he do without him?

"Hey, remember that time at the archery range, when Billy Brody started beating me up and you jumped in to help me?" Jasper chuckled at how his scrawny best friend had come to his rescue, even though Bill Brody was twice his size.

"Yep and we both got beat up," Henry recalled and they both giggled at how dumb they were. 

"I'll never forget that," Jasper promised Henry, but the boy looked away to the closet door with a broken expression. Oh, the irony; in about five minutes, he would forget it and everything else they'd done together.

"Well..." Henry gulped, not knowing how to break it to him.

"You've always been a good friend to me...Kid Danger. I'm proud of you." Jasper told him with his hand on Henry's shoulder, making the boy freeze. His best friend put the picture back where it belonged and Henry knew that he couldn't lose a friend, especially if they were Jasper because he was the best friend a guy could ever have,

"That's it. Ray, Charlotte, (y/n), get out here!" Henry shouted and the three awkwardly stepped out of the closet, shocking Jasper as he saw his idols. 

"Captain Man! And Miss Danger! Wow, they're right here in your room!" He exclaimed, quaking with excitement as (y/n) gave him a small wave and a sad smile. Poor kid, ignorance is bliss.

"Uh, I'm here too," Charlotte added, but Jasper just shoved her out the way so he could get close to his favourite superhero and his new favourite superheroine. 

"We're not doing this," Henry told Ray firmly, refusing to let go of his best friend.

"We have to do it," Ray whispered to him sternly, which made Henry's emotions run wild as he looked between the man and (y/n), who seemed to be conflicted. 

"No! I'm not letting you erase Jasper's brain!" The teen stated, which made Jasper pause and think about what he said. They wanted to do what to his what now?

"Uh, what?" He asked, gulping at the thought of Captain Man messing with his brain or something.

"Don't worry about it." Charlotte brushed it off, thinking that he wouldn't have to worry about anything after they erased his memories.

"Henry, he could tell anyone and I know he's a sweet kid, but he might let it slip accidentally." (y/n) tried to explain to the boy, even though she knew that he realised that. Henry knew the risks and how Ray was trying his hardest to keep them to a minimum.

"I'll never tell anybody!" Jasper promised, knowing that this was Henry's biggest secret and his unyielding loyalty to his friend meant he'd never divulge it.

"Oh, really? What if some big, bad, evil criminal captures you and threatens to cut all your toes off if you don't tell him everything you know?" Ray asked him, making Jasper think about the scenario.

"I'd tell him everything I know." He said, not realising that he'd said the wrong answer and he was just proving himself to be untrustworthy in Ray's eyes.

"Dude!" Henry sighed, thinking that it would take a miracle to convince Ray otherwise now. 

"My toes! What am I without my toes?!" Jasper whined, making his situation worse. At this rate, he'd be sat on his doorstep with no memory whatsoever in the next twenty minutes.

"Henry, he's a security risk." Ray turned to his sidekick, who just shook his head. Even (y/n) didn't like calling Jasper that, he was a person and Henry's friend, they should at least be nice about him when he was in the room.

"No, we leave Jasper the way he is or else,...I can't be Kid Danger anymore." Henry swallowed, but stayed strong as he offered Ray the ultimatum.

"Henry..." Charlotte started, worried at how reckless her friend was being. She could understand why, but it seemed so drastic.

"You're not gonna quit being Kid Danger," Ray whispered to him, thinking he could call Henry's bluff, despite the sincerity in the boy's voice.

"I don't wanna quit, but...if you're gonna erase all the memories from my oldest friend's brain...then I don't want this anymore." Henry offered his gum tube to Ray, who looked at it and then at Jasper. 

"Henry, are you sure?" (y/n) asked him, tentatively taking a step forward so she could look the boy in the eye and gauge his honesty.

"Yeah...how long have you known Ray?" Henry asked her with a steady voice as the young woman took no time at all to answer him.

"Almost nine years." She whispered at the same time as Ray, making their eyes snap to look at each other. It didn't feel like that though; the time had gone by so quickly and they'd gone from strength to strength, strangers to the best of friends and now they were on the verge of becoming lovers if they already weren't. Nine years of falling in love and they'd hadn't even made a move.

"Would you forget him if you had to?" Henry looked her in the eye and he didn't need to hear the answer, he already knew. 

"I'd rather never see him again than lose our friendship." She murmured, staring at the floor so no one could see her tears. Just the thought of being no one to him, just another face on the street was heartbreaking to her, because she'd gotten so used to being the first face he saw in the morning and the one he told everything to. She never wanted to lose that privilege. 

"Ray, would you give up being Captain Man for (y/n)?" The boy asked his boss, not knowing the answer this time. He knew he loved her more than himself, but being a superhero was everything to Ray. It was his life's work, everything he'd trained for since he was a boy, could he give it up just for one person? (y/n) froze as she expected him to say that Captain man always came first, the mantra that had been drilled into her since the beginning, but...

"Yes. Yes, I would. She's my best friend." Ray swallowed, smiling gently at the woman as she stared at him in shock. Really? Her? He'd leave the superhero life behind just so they'd stay friends? 

Of course, he would. He'd follow her anywhere if she let him and he'd resigned himself to being like that nine years ago when she beat the ass of some lowlife criminal in a cafe. She did Captain Man's job for him and he'd fallen in love with a woman who taught him more and made him feel more than he'd ever imagined. Without her, he was loveless and merciless, he wasn't Captain Man.

"I'm not gonna watch my best friend forget me...you wouldn't, I can't either," Henry told Ray, who stared at the gum tube that was still being offered to him. He had a choice to make.

"Gahhh, put that back in your pants." Ray sighed, making everyone frown at him.

"Wait, does that mean you're saying that--" Charlotte started, but Ray didn't want to hear everything spelled out, he was already annoyed that he was accepting another child into his workplace.

"Yes, yes, yes! Jasper can keep his stupid brain the way it is." He gave in and wandered across the room to avoid the delighted smiles of his friends and the bucket boy.

"Really?" Jasper gasped, ecstatic at what Captain man was implying. (y/n) gazed at her best friend with a proud, loving smile and seeing her so happy almost made the pain of having Jasper around forever worth it. Almost. 

"Yes! I've said yes five times now." Ray rolled his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose as Jasper's excitement irritated him.

"Wow! This is amazing!" He squealed and grinned at Henry and Charlotte, who understood his excitement. Now, they'd all get to hang out together with no secrets. Life was good.

"Just take it easy," Ray told him but was taken by surprise as (y/n) tackled him in a hug, not caring about his tetchiness.

"Aw, Mr Grumpy, you're a big softie, really." She cooed into his ear, which made him sigh and nod.

"Whatever." He brushed it off as his cheeks turned pink, but his arms went around her waist anyway so he could have his girl close to him. She was happy and still here, which was good enough for Ray and maybe he'd get used to Jasper's overzealous exuberance after a while.

"Oooh, I can even help you fight bad guys and stuff." Or maybe not. 

"Uhhh, no, that's not a good idea." They all replied quickly, not enjoying the idea of Jasper Danger being let loose on the streets of Swellview. His first takedown would be himself, probably.

"Come on, it's my dream," Jasper begged Henry, hoping his pouting and stuck-out bottom lip would sway his mind.

"Some dreams are best left unachieved, kid." (y/n) smiled at him sweetly as she pulled back from the hug, knowing that it be better for everyone if Jasper left the fighting to Captain Man, Kid Danger and Miss Danger.

Jasper went to argue back, but suddenly, Henry's bedroom door open and the superheroes panicked as some bright orange, fat guy bumbled in. Ray pulled (y/n) back into his arms as he assessed whether this guy was a threat (both criminally and romantically), but he didn't need to be worried. He was wearing a shower cap, for god's sake, hardly the suavest thing in the world.

"Oh, sorry, I just got a tan downstairs and I was looking for the bathroom and I--" The guy looked across the room and nearly passed out when he saw Captain Man with Miss Danger in his arms and then Kid Danger without his mask.

"Whoa! Captain Man! Oh my god, Miss Danger! You're, like, seriously hot!" The man gasped at the couple standing on his right, making Ray straighten his posture.

"Thank you..." (y/n) replied awkwardly, not knowing how to handle such a comment. She had to admit, Swellview's male population all seemed to be entranced by her appearance as the latest hero in town and Ray did not like it one bit. All these stupid guys gawping at his friend and his displeasure showed in the half-assed smile that he gave the orange man, which then quickly dropped to a scowl once he looked at Henry.

"And Kid Danger without his mask! You're Piper's brother!" He gasped as he recognised Henry, who suddenly remembered his bare face 

"Uhhh, w-well..." Henry stumbled as Ray and (y/n) moved into the centre of the room. This is why you don't take your mask off when there were strangers around. 

"I gotta tell everyone I know!" The man squealed, making Henry slump when he saw the smirk on Ray's face.

"You gonna whine about this one?" He asked his sidekick, who didn't care. This guy was strange and he shouldn't have been poking around his house.

"Nah, do it." He shrugged and Ray gently pushed (y/n) to the side so she wouldn't get hit by the eraser before firing it at the man's brain. His thumbs stopped typing as his mind went blank and fuzzy and after a few seconds, his memories were gone.

"Hey, what's your name?" Charlotte asked the man in a loud, clear voice so she could check to see if the gadget had done its job.

"Muuurghhhh." The man slurred, having forgotten how to form words properly. Ray smirked inwardly, he wasn't calling his girl hot now.

"Nice to meet you, Muuurghhhh." (y/n) chuckled at her little joke, glad that she found herself funny even if no one else did.

"All right, Jasper, you really wanna help us out?" Ray turned to the boy as he put his arm around his giggling best friend. She was so cute sometimes, especially with her silly jokes.

"Sure!" Jasper nodded, ready and willing to do anything Captain Man asked him. 

"Good, take this guy out the window and leave him on the sidewalk," Ray instructed him, trying to ignore how much Jasper's enthusiasm irritated him.

"Aye, aye, Captain Man!" Jasper smiled and dashed off to dump the man outside. He attempted to get the man over his shoulder in a fireman's lift, but he was twice Jasper's weight and therefore impossible to carry. Still, it made for funny viewing for Ray, Henry, Charlotte and (y/n) as they watched him struggle.

"You know, I might start addressing you like that. It's got a nice ring to it." The young woman chuckled as she looked up at the man next to her.

"Don't even think about it, sweet girl." He gave her a warning look, but she just giggled and leaned her forehead into his chest as she hugged his waist. She was small next to him and he loved how her little frame fitted so well against his.

"Hey, man, thanks for saving Jasper." Henry butted into their cute moment and clapped his boss on the back. He really was grateful, having Jasper in the Man Cave would be tricky for Ray, but he'd overlook that if it meant Henry got to keep his best friend the way he got to keep his.

"Don't sweat it, kid. He's your best friend and you can't give them up. Not for anything." Ray told him and Charlotte looked at the two adults with a gentle smile. So blind.

"When you said that you'd stop being Captain Man for me, was that the truth? It wasn't just something you said in front of Jasper?" (y/n) asked as she lifted her head to look him in the eye. She had just written it off as a product of the pressure he'd felt to make a decision, surely, he didn't place her above the thing he'd been destined for since the age of eight.

"Yeah, it was the truth. I love being Captain Man and having all the attention and praise, but...I love having you as my best friend more." He told her and he loved seeing the way a soft smile crawled its way onto her beautiful face. He swallowed the words he actually wanted to say, thinking that he wanted nothing more than to tell her that he loved her more than his job or his fame. Not as a best friend, as his girl, the one he wanted to marry and have a life with away from the trials and tribulations of being a superhero.

"You're my best friend too." She grinned and put her cheek back against his chest before he could see her hesitation. Friend; it was a nice word, it meant that they had an affectionate bond that tied them together, but at the same time, it hurt and stung. They daren't tell each other that their bond was much deeper than either one realised and it left them in a stalemate as they wondered if they could ever feel the same.

Henry and Charlotte rolled their eyes at their incapacity to see what was right under their noses. A love, pure and innocent, but also peppered with desire and passion, that had been burning for so many years. 

And they were about to finally notice it for the first time.

[featherlumina]

8, 12 and 17 for the ask game 😁

Thank you so much @duttfisch! Apologies for the Genesis spam below, haha. XD

8. Common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about.

GENESIS BEING INCLUDED IN THE NIBELHEIM INCIDENT. People treat this like some unholy retcon, the greatest narrative sin Square Enix could've committed via the Compilation. And I for one think that's a complete over-reaction.

Seriously. Sure, Sephiroth's definitely not in a good mental headspace by now, but having Genesis water the freshly planted seeds in Seph's mind in the reactor only serves to drive him further down in a really believable way. I always found it a little odd how quickly Seph seemed to spiral in the OG (admittedly Rebirth handled it better), so I think the addition of Genesis makes the scene more fleshed out and raises even more questions for Sephiroth to investigate in the manor.

And a fun one for good measure that's been disproven by Nomura himself - the fact that everyone is like 'hurr durr Genesis can't come back cause Gackt says no / Square won't pay for his likeness'. Admittedly less people are using this as a 'ew no Genesis is icky he can't come back' now, but it was SUPER annoying for like a decade up till this point.

12. The unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them.

Feel like I should be putting my clown makeup on at this point because yep, my answer's Genesis! Again! XD Between the rest of the awesome peeps / moots on Tumblr who've argued for why Gen actually is or has the potential to be really interesting, I think it's fairly obvious why, but I'll summarise my view.

Basically, Genesis suffered from poor writing. Between that and the intense LOVELESS quoting making up the majority of his dialogue, I can see why it frustrated people. But if you look beyond that you'll discover some really neat stuff:

Having Genesis (and by extension, Angeal) as prototypes to Sephiroth actually makes boatloads of sense scientifically. You can't expect ShinRa to pop out Sephiroth on the first try, can you?

Genesis can basically go toe-to-toe with Sephiroth for an extended period of time, which is just... insane, when you think about it. Cloud and Zack have both reached similar heights but Sephiroth is just on a whole other level, so the fact there are a select few who can last against him is just really neat.

Bro had his world shattered and understandably lashed out at the company that shaped and controlled his entire existence. We're on Zack's side for Crisis Core, but it's pretty clear the real world-destroyers are ShinRa, and I think Crisis Core could've done a better job at helping us see Gen's perspective a bit more.

His aesthetic is just gorgeous, let's be honest here. That red coat is iconic and I want it. Superb character design (bless you Gackt for choosing red over black or white.)

Canonically he was well-liked and respected by the majority of SOLDIER, given that he convinced so many SOLDIERs to leave with him. People don't just follow you to the ends of the earth willy-nilly. Also, despite being an 'introvert' and averse to large people groups, he displayed kindness and gentleness with his younger comrades. Gillian called him 'such a good boy' for a reason, damn it!

...and I probably have more, but my hands are tired. XD

17. There should be more of this type of fic/art.

Honestly, I'm a sucker for hurt/injured/degrading Genesis and him both going through trauma and then being comforted and cared for by his loved ones. It's a major part of why I started Thing With Feathers after all. XD

I also love seeing how people explore Genesis' relationship with his changing body/his wing. I could read stuff about that for days.

Also would love to see more written redemption arcs for Genesis, whether it's through 'what-if' AUs or post DoC.

Lastly, I'm not hugely into overly sexual stuff, so any of the above fics without anything explicit is just *chef's kiss*. Of course I understand that many folks love the spicy stuff on its own or mixed into a plot, and that's okay! Just not my cup of tea is all.

[mrs-monaghan]

Ok, but like why does Yoongi do Jk dirty like that? Lol Yoongi doesn't LIKE Jimin like that (does he?) and it's obvious that Jk does and the members know it.

Like in the behind the scenes of the xylitol Christmas commercial where Yoongi touches Jimin's ear and Jimin looks at Jk, Yoongi also looks at Jk's reaction. And a lot of other times where Yoongi is just waiting for Jk to react and Jk does and Yoongi just stands there without anything to do anymore.

Yoongi knows he is ruffling Jk's feathers by touching Jimin lol but why does he do it!?!

Could be many reasons

1) He doesn't care. 😂 At the end of the day he's older than JK so this could be a hyung card at play here. Who knows? (RM too stopped caring. He used to pull away from Jimin in the past when JK got bothered but at some point he said "fuck it")

2) Suga respects the Jikook relationship. (This should be number one but his behaviour is the reason we're talking about this so...😂)

Contrary to popular stupid beliefs, BTS wouldn't be BTS if they were dating eo willy nilly. Some of the things I see under YT comments are insane! V used to date JK but then JK left him for Jimin and now he's trying to win JK back. Or When JK rejected Jimin, Jimin started dating Suga and then Jimin left Suga for JK and now bla bla bla I mean, i see this shit everyday and I'm like;

I think it has to do with fanfiction, but it also has to do with the kind of TV shows we watch where a group of friends date eo and break up with eo all inside the group and somehow they remain friends and life goes on?? That's not how real life works. At all.

If any of that fuckery 👆🏽 actually happened it would affect the dynamic of BTS as a whole, big time. They wouldn't have been together all these years as a group if this was the case. Especially considering how possessive JK is. How attached to Jimin (satellite Jeon) he is. You really think Jimin getting with Suga would not cause some bad blood???

When they were young BTS were given scenarios where they were asked what they would do if 2 members wanted the same girl. Jimin said he would find another girl while JK basically said he would fight for his girl till the death. (I'm paraphrasing 😂) but yeah, JK said he would never give her up. Then couple that with JK's "mine mine mine" thing he's got going on and you know that man ain't about sharing, loosing Jimin, or none of that shit.

Another time Jimin said he wants to fall in love with one person for the rest of his life.

So these are the men we are dealing with. Those are their personalities. So this fanfic drama, love triangles people make up are just that, fan fiction.

3) Jimin is the only member he's comfortable having skinship with. This is because Jimin is very attune to people's feelings and u can see the way he initiates skinship with Suga is not how he does it with JK or Jhope. With JK he will just throw himself at him and call it a day. With Suga he will take a beat and actually make sure Suga is okay with it. And I believe Suga appreciates that.

Idk why Suga does what he does, anon. But there is one important thing we have to remember. JK doesn't have an issue with ALL Yoonmin moments. He could have an issue with them on Monday then on Wednesday he won't care. A good example would be this episode.

During this game Suga spent a good chunk of it all over Jimin and JK did not bat an eye. Not even once.

He wasn't bothered even for a second. Which fascinated me honestly. So just coz we don't talk about Yoonmin often, doesn't mean it happens all the time.

Also JK trusts Jimin explicitly and knows nothing is ever gonna come off whatever Suga feels. So it is what it is.

Bonus

Proof that Jimin knows about JK and his anti Minimoni agenda.

RM pinches (or almost pinches?) Jimin's nipples (which is a Jikook thing btw; to randomly nipple play on official content 😂😂) and what does Jimin do? He looks at JK. And what was that face Jimin??? 👀

Seems to me like someone was relived another certain someone did not see what just happened. He he he hee!

Oh. If u didn't get what i meant by Jikook have a nipple thing here u go. Nipple Nipple Nipple (Jimin actually looks like he felt that one 😏) another Nipple. Like i said, its a Jikook thing. 🤭

[bugtransport]

Kamen Rider Stronger finished April 20, 2023

i forgot i finished this on 4/20. LONG POST WARNING!!

Okay, before I start this one, holy shit I’ve done so much since the last time I wrote one of these. Let me get back into the groove here. Stronger is in a weird spot where I feel like I have to recap a lot to talk about what I want to talk about so there’s going to be a lot of that. This one builds. Let me convince you that General Shadow is an interesting character.

AS ALWAYS: I’ll be dropping spoilers willy-nilly for like every series leading up to this + all of Stronger but there's an extra warning before the show ending spoilers. Thank you.

YIPPEE!

I know I've already owned up to it but at this point let's make it official... Showa Rider might be made for me? Every single time I try to think back about what I just watched to write about it I'm hit with the exact same thought: holy shit, that was SO fun. It is, it really is and always is. I had a blast, thanks. This is also the first time I've really felt like the way that I'm watching this (by starting at the very beginning and just blasting through season by season) has actually paid off! The past couple seasons have gotten interestingly experimental but Stronger feels like they were attempting to return to form while still using the knowledge they learned along the way. It's kind of adjacent to how V3 felt like '71 Rider refined; Jo Shigeru came in like "we are SO fucking back." 

The comparison between V3 and Stronger extends to the main characters too; I think that Kazami and Shigeru are more alike than not. We've been rotating protags (sans Hayato, sorry babe but you’re special in my eyes) in a pattern I've described as "sensory issues -> batshit -> wet" where for as much as I compared Hongo and Amazon to each other in the "the world is so loud and scary and I can't trust myself to not lash out and that scares me more" department I have to do the same for Kazami and Shigeru in the "hey boss, I'm gonna go fucking, I don't know, dig this bullet out of my shoulder with a knife I cleaned by spitting on it and then electrocute myself for funsies" department. Like okay, take a look at this list I whipped up here:

Both Kazami and Shigeru wanted to become borgs to avenge people who were dear to them and killed by the organizations in their respective series; Kazami for his family and Shigeru for his friend. Though Shigeru went straight to the source while Kazami tried to convince Hongo and Hayato to borg him first to no avail, you can’t tell me that Kazami didn’t jump into that beam and save the two of them and not think that might win him brownie points that he could then later use to convince the two of them that yes, this is the right thing to do and he would be a great addition to the team. 

Both of them have another Rider with them (I count Tackle!) who aren’t really… fully borged? Yuki isn’t for sure, he’s just got the arm; I’m not sure exactly whether or not Yuriko is a full borg because I don’t believe they straight up address that in the show but they sure didn’t address her like one and I’ve heard some things (...we’ll get into this later) that would lead me to believe that she was meant to be only partially there originally and get to full borgification by the end of the show. Both of them fought with the respective riders they were paired with. Also, both of their mouths are out in their suits! Very cute! 

Speaking of suits, both of them have very silly little suits that I don’t think anyone else in the series could pull off wearing. Imagine if Keisuke transformed into V3 or something. I think I’d cry looking at that. Hayato as Stronger? Man, he doesn’t have the sheer balls for that one. Sorry king…

Which of course leads me to: they’ve both got huge egos. I really don’t need to elaborate on this one, look at the shit the two of them pull… Kazami a little more in the physical department with the stunts he does and Shigeru socially with his cockiness, but you can see the comparison, right? 

And before we go on I think I need to clarify something: Shigeru jumping himself with his bike is very very real. That is actually a scene that happens. Anyway! I adore the way that the show started off and Shigeru and Yuriko had already been through their borg procedures and that the first time we meet them they're already fighting. It's a nice break from tradition! It feels fresh and new! I also think that it's one of the only ways that you could possibly sell how they borged Shigeru in a way that would make sense in a children's show. They gave him electric hands? Like, metal hands that he has to wear gloves over lest he fucking electrocute everyone? There had to have been an adjustment period there but by the time we meet him he's fine with things. I think this was probably the right call; while I love myself some good borg angst and it's interesting to see them adapt to their new lives and Ishinomori back me up here I think you would agree that exploring this idea is fun... for the way that Shigeru is borged specifically I think there's a little too much room for things to go south way too fast. Those two concepts can coexist in my mind. Can you imagine what it would have been like if he had tried to go swimming or something? 

After the first episode we do get a flashback in the second to exactly how Shigeru got borged which was basically:

Shigeru: [walks into Black Satan] hey I want to be on your side I love facism 

Scientists: ok what borgification u want

Shigeru: just fuck me up and make me stronger

Scientist: okay [electric hands]

Shigeru, Stronger: haha fuckin idiot I’m actually here for revenge! you killed my friend and I hate nazis. taste the powers you gave me [explodes them] 

And then he escapes, taking Yuriko (Tackle) with him. From the start he’s really cocky! My remark as I was watching the show was that he really feels like he can do anything because he just doesn’t give a shit about the social implications of anything that he does. Take him just walking into a lighthouse, getting stopped by the guard who works there, patting the guy down and being like “alright, well, you’re not a monster I guess,” and leaving. He’s silly and kind of rude to Tachibana (when he shows up) and has a “Who are you?” “What? Don’t you know who I am?” exchange with all the monsters he meets. He has a whole damn speech he does every time he transforms. It’s so good!

^ HE GOES :D

While this might have set Yuriko up to be the Female Straight Man (which she kind of is for him a little) she’ll rib Tachibana or the two of them will team up and slander a monster together. I love the way they interact… I think it helps them remain on pretty equal footing even though Shigeru is absolutely the primary fighter. He still leaves things to her and trusts her to do them. I don’t think she’s fully borged - she’s never referred to as such and instead gets the term… what’s it in English, electrowave human? So she can do special attacks and such. It kind of feels like a Taki type role but stronger? Not exactly; a lot of Taki’s importance in ‘71 Rider comes from the fact that he is fully human and able to keep up with them to contrast Hongo and Hayato, but Shigeru doesn’t have the same need to connect with his humanity as they do (being borged was his choice, after all) and as such I think Yuriko fits with him much better. If we let Tackle and Taki 1v1 I think Tackle would sweep. 

You see what I mean about Stronger seemingly learning from and refining the previous series? There’s not a way that I can talk about it without contrasting it – I think this is the point where I would stop and say that if you’re thinking about taking on the Grand Prix for yourself in full or in part and would like Stronger to be one of the series you watch to watch whichever of the series come chronologically before this that you are also interested in partaking before starting Stronger. I personally believe that there can be a lot of value in experiencing things in reverse order [<- guy who played the Layton series backwards and loved it] but also… I think that seeing things build up to Stronger as opposed to experiencing Stronger and then going behind the scenes to take a look at the building blocks is the way to go. Nowhere is that more apparently in my opinion than with: 

Hey man, what if the Generals fucked? 

^ he's calling the cops on me for that one

Maybe this was the part of the series I was most excited to talk about. Don’t worry about it. So far I’ve pitched Stronger like a continuation of ‘71 Rider to V3 which I’d say the main cast falls into; there’s not really a lot of the others in Shigeru… but if we’re talking villain generals? We’re talking X, baby. I think that meeting Apollo Geist first is absolutely essential if X is something you’re planning on watching (don’t watch X but like, watch X) so that you can see the fields from which Titan was grown. I have it on anecdotal evidence that doing things non-chrono and going back to watch X and therefore meeting Apollo Geist post Stronger feels a little underwhelming, but meeting Apollo Geist fresh off the heels of V3 feels correct and the ramp up in Stronger comes naturally. All of that to say: we’re back with the sexual tension, but it’s even more nuts this time. 

There’s one scene in X where civvie Apollo Geist shows up at Tachibana’s coffee shop and sits down at the counter to order. He asks where Keisuke is; Tachibana tells him that he’s out, and inquires as to how this man (who has not introduced himself) knows Keisuke. An old friend, perhaps? Apollo Geist shrugs – something like that. It feels like Titan took that scene and decided to build his entire goddamn character around it. 

^ man what the hell was this pick up line

Remember earlier when I mentioned that none of the monsters seem to know who Stronger is? That’s very much true, but Titan absolutely knows. He follows him around and smokes his stupid little cigarettes from his stupid little cigarette holder and just watches him. Titan’s obsessed with this man but whereas with Apollo Geist all the monsters were like “oh fuck yeah, let’s tie up X and drag him back, I’m sure that would make Apollo Geist happy,” it almost seems like Titan wants to keep Stronger for himself and just… doesn’t tell anyone about him. He’s possessive. He’s really intense about it. He is also using X-era techniques which didn’t even end up working against Keisuke to try and get Shigeru, of all people. It’s a fascinating strategy. The two of them follow each other to a concert and just stare at each other across the hall. Titan doesn’t really get his ass kicked, but he knows he’s not strong enough yet for Stronger. He upgrades himself. He fucking goes for it. And Titan… dies.

Well, let’s put a pin in that for a second. In any case, we need a new general, because that’s how these things go. Despite looking like a cross between an anatomical model, an astronaut, and the fucking Joker, Shadow is oddly compelling as a character to me in a way I have absolutely no idea how to describe or talk about? He’s not actually a part of Black Satan – he just kind of heard that Black Satan was fighting Stronger and was like “well shit, I want a piece of that, let me in,” and is just kind of here now. He proclaims so to Shigeru upon meeting him. Shadow really likes to play whatever game he thinks is going on by his own rules and he seems to have a blast doing so. He’s enigmatic, he’s fresh, he’s unlike any general that we’ve had before. His weird secretive nature almost makes him seem more like the leader type than the general type. Shigeru seems to understand that Shadow’s much more of a sinister threat than Titan, but doesn’t really seem to know what to do about it. 

Let me quickly detour you another time just to finish setting up this stage here: throughout my time watching Stronger I was also working on over easy, you know, that Donbros comic I made! Still really like that thing. I know I and others have joked about Tarou being Showa-coded and honestly if you were to pick him up and place him down in a 70’s Rider series I think he’d be right at home; I mentioned up top that Shigeru doesn’t seem to give a shit about societal expectations and while I think that Tarou gives a little more of a shit about the consequences (seems to have less of a grasp on how the implications actually work though) I’m fine putting them in a similar category. Did you know Inoue’s dad worked on Stronger? That’s a fun little fact for you. 

Okay, time to get back to the show. 

Titan gets one funeral (which Shigeru gets invited to in the funniest way, by just Being in a field while this was announced to him somehow) but it was kind of a flop and nobody showed up and they didn’t even manage to use it to capture Stronger, so they decide that he needs another one. It’s at this second funeral that Shigeru finds Titan laying in a casket on a bed of roses (yes, just like Shigeru has all over his outfit) and manages to prick his electric hand on one of them, bleeding like a human, directly onto Titan’s lips, who then revives, licks it, and becomes Hundred-Eyes Titan. Buildup’s over, this is where the mad yaoi really starts. 

You might now be understanding why I brought up Donbrothers earlier; yes, this scene shares really striking similarities with the time that Tarou got the juice sucked out of him at Sonoi’s funeral but even more homoerotic, because it’s actual blood?

Nevermind the actual Showa-era “how human are cyborgs, really” conversation that’s to be had both in the borg angst sense but also about the fact that he can bleed from his what-I’ve-been-presuming-to-be-metal hands. Again, calling back to X, it’s almost like that point after Apollo Geist got resurrected and was going to die unless he took one of X’s parts and put it in his heart, but this actually happened and wasn’t just theoretical. We’re going past where Apollo Geist got to. If first base is fighting the Rider and home base is actually killing them, I think Titan’s made it to second. Uh, but he’s got a problem getting to third. They’ve already brought in his replacement. There’s only one way to fix this one. 

Titan and Shadow Get Divorced 

Titan was kind of a flop in his first life. He’s been powered up a little more with Shigeru’s blood, but Shadow’s also been given Titan’s position pretty recently, and it would be a dick move to fire him. Look, usually the generals don’t come back unless the people they’re working for are the ones bringing them back, and they sure as shit weren’t doing that for Titan. Might as well just make them work it out together? For some reason the Black Satan leader seems to think this will work; really all it does is just instantly sets the two of them at each other's throats, and they begin to fight over Stronger.

They get exceptionally petty about it. Titan shows up, with a rose again, leading Stronger into a minefield, also strewn with roses, just to really rub in the whole “haha, your blood revived me” thing. Shadow at a couple points ends up straight up giving information to Shigeru so that he can get the upper hand on Titan. Shadow (who has a playing card theme, by the way, that’s his whole deal) shows Titan one of the cards that he just did a fortune reading with, and who else appears but Jo Shigeru, dripping wet, in the outline of the spade (cropped with the tail not showing) like he’s being framed in a heart. 

^ the way he looks at that card just takes me the fuck out every time

I feel like I’m losing my mind every time I think about the two of them. Titan staggers up a dune into the good ol’ Toku Desert, dragging himself to Shadow before Shadow kills Stronger so that he can have the pleasure of at least torturing him a little bit before he goes. Shadow pokes fun at Titan for being like “I’ll be the one to kill Stronger!” with a “are you sure you actually can?” and Titan, hand to my heart, blushes. 

Titan staggers up a dune into the good ol’ Toku Desert, dragging himself to Shadow before Shadow kills Stronger so that he can have the pleasure of at least torturing him a little bit before he goes. What the fuck?!

^ DIVORCED BITCHES REALLLLLL

Titan has his own hell! Titan has made his own hell and takes Shadow there to show off his accomplishments in a scene that I can only call “two socialites who desperately need a divorce” in which Titan plays the tired husband who’s got eyes for his secretary (Shigeru) but has to bring his bitch of a wife Shadow with him to work to show off just how much he does for this family while his bitch wife Shadow looks on, unimpressed, and thinks about also fucking his husband’s secretary (still Shigeru) or maybe killing his husband and taking the life insurance money, because there’s no way this plan of his will do anything but collapse down around him, which it does, and Titan once again dies as Stronger throws him back down the crevasse to this pit he’s quite literally dug himself. 

Watching the two of them interact is absolutely fascinating. Titan’s passion for Shigeru seems renewed and completely focused now that he has a rival, Shadow’s ignited something in him, and Shadow seems like he’s having fun playing around messing with Titan while enacting his own plans. Shadow turns out to be superstitious, and bases most of his decisions off readings that he does with his deck of cards, which adds an even more fun element to his character. This is the part of the show where he seems the most… I don’t want to say happy, but how about “in his element.” These are all some really good episodes of television and they’re a blast to watch. 

Black Satan leader susses out that Shadow’s up to some shit (don’t know how that could have happened, it’s not like he’s been telling everyone he meets or anything) and decides to try and bring in another General instead of letting Shadow lead. Shigeru gets captured, defeats the leader, and Shigeru and Yuriko are the FIRST RIDERS IN HISTORY TO CRACK OPEN A COLD ONE WITH TACHIBANA!! 

LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL! THE END! 

LET’S GO TO DEMON WORLD! [SHOW END SPOILERS START HERE]

No, things aren’t actually over. This is where you can tell that things got rushed in production as (from what I’ve heard) ratings kind of tanked. Shadow brings in his friends from Demon World (where he lived before?) and decides to start a new army with them called the Delza Army, which he kind of leads. This is what he’s spent his time fighting with Titan and Shigeru and Black Satan secretly working towards - taking over the facilities that Black Satan already had and using them for his own new purpose. And sure, to do this, they need to kill Stronger, yeah. 

In much the same way that Titan and Shadow fought with each other, giving Stronger an edge, the Delza Army part of the show is mostly about these characters showing off their weaknesses through their bickering with each other, but there’s a whole fucking throng of them this time around. They each brought their own themed goons with them, and on multiple occasions the goons even begin fighting with each other while Stronger just kind of looks on in confusion and gets a clean path to the monster he’s actually looking to fight. This being backed by scenes of Shadow (somehow) drinking wine listening to one of his compatriots drone on and on makes it seem like he really misses being on the front lines?

^ look all i'm saying is that it looks like it's 2:55 and he's got another meeting with the guy this dude is bitching about at 3 to hear the other side of this story and he hasn't had lunch yet

The thing about the Delza Army is that it’s absolutely a “too many cooks in the kitchen” situation. Shadow’s brought in a bunch of people with conflicting views and outrageous personalities and different fighting styles who spend half the time using him as HR to work out their interpersonal issues and he just seems… tired. He doesn’t seem like a guy who was cut out for management! This is not a new character type by any means, I could name so many characters who get into a position in their job and realize like “nah, actually, I was way happier where I was,” fucking Jim from The Office does it, but it’s a completely new role for any General and like also, this was what he was working for from the beginning. To finally get here and realize that actually, he doesn’t want this, is kind of weirdly fucked and not at all what I was expecting from this show. All of the characters around him have so much personality and character that they’re completely forgettable because of the oversaturation . They went an oddly adult angle with his character and I can’t tell if it’s at all intentional or if it just happened to turn out this way. I don’t personally think that this part of the show is as good as the part with Titan and Shadow fighting, but I feel like that decrease even more helps support the change in Shadow’s character, so it ends up wrapping around to working.

This is also the part where Yuriko dies. 

There’s not really much that I can say about that one other than the fact that I’ve heard she was supposed to be brought back later as a full rider this time but, because the show had to be cut, isn’t. I have a story in my mind where the rest of the guys – because they all come back at the end, they have to put on one last big show, and they’ve got a lot of science guys there – manage to jump her back to life in much the same way Shigeru did himself and transform her into a full cyborg, like I said earlier, and that she’d fully join the ranks. I know that there was talk of possibly making Taki V3 or even Riderman, which is another reason I compared the two up top. They could have done that without all of the additional angst that it would have caused the '71 cast to borg Taki since Yuriko's already been modified. It would have been so good... I’ll mention this again I’m sure come Skyrider post, but I really liked his little spotted scarf, mostly because it reminds me of Tackle’s suit. It’s like she did get to be with us in a way! 

From there on you get your usual show beats: as mentioned previously, all the previous riders show up which is very fun, they defeat Shadow (who kind of seems relieved to be going out, to be honest) and the rest of the Delza army, and then it’s time to fight the Leader.

^ Tachibana's really silly in this one and but it's the sweetest thing seeing his boys come back to him

The leader this time around is like, I think the quarry come to life? No, but for real: some kind of rock monster that has been pulling the strings of all the different groups that all the different riders have fought. It’s all the same guy behind the scenes. I’ll say it, I kind of appreciated that one as a “no matter what name you put to it, facism is facism” type thing? I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch to interpret it that way. It feels kind of appropriate. The specifics of what they’re fighting change but the root cause and their aim is always the same; though there might be infighting between the groups, Kamen Rider is a show about punching Nazis at its core. 

^ and they all love Tachibana so much!

This is the last time (besides the little special) that we get to have Tachibana on the show. There’s a break between this one and Skyrider and you can absolutely feel it looming in the horizon as everyone rides off again. Despite that, Stronger’s a blast of a show! I think this is one where there are absolutely different ways you could watch it and I just managed to take the path where I ended up probably the most satisfied I could have been during the Delza part since I was just watching the degradation of a man in bureaucracy. Which is always, always fun. 

TO RECAP:

YES fuck yes I recommend Stronger, with the caveat I gave at the beginning that you should probably watch whichever shows chronologically come before this one that you’re interested in watching before you Tackle Stronger. 

Bu dum tss…

[pupkinpumpkin]

Bro I was rewatching the Tim Burton Willy Wonka movie (just to get it out here and now, Tim Burton's is my favorite Wonka movie cause I grew up with it, but Gene Wilder is the best Wonka in my eyes followed closely by Christian Borle) and I was thinking of how utterly disappointed I am going to be with the new Wonka movie

Now you may think I'm going to be disappointed because of Timothée Chalamet being Wonka and because it's a cheap cash grab, and you're sort of right about that

Timothée Chalamet is a good actor, but he's not insane enough to play the iconic role as other Tumblr users have put it, and it is most likely a story that has no heart in it, but that's not the main reason I'm upset with it

The original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory movie is about Charlie, while the 2005 remake Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is about Wonka, so I think it is incredibly insulting that they do not continue this joke and make the new Willy Wonka movie all about Charlie

You think I'm joking but I'm not

I mean, the movie probably has no heart whatsoever, so why not at least make it a shitty sequel and let us keep joking about the mix up? The movie could be about Charlie trying to live up to Willy Wonka's image, balancing work and home life, the stresses of OSHA violations, building a gigantic classist train for when the world freezes over and starting to use kids from the poorest and most overpopulated part of the train to keep it running after all the needed tools have been used throughout the years (go see the Snowpiercer theories on YouTube for that last one)

One could argue that Timothée Chalamet could make a much better older Charlie than a Wonka and he looks slightly like that kid in the Tim Burton version.

Kinda.

Im actually not all that good at recognizing facial features, so someone can correct me on that if they look literally nothing alike

But the point is, it's a better option, at least to me, than what they have now and will try and do after they (hopefully) give writers and actors what they deserve if they aren't that big of assholes

Literally all they need to do is strike it and reverse it

I'm not saying I want an older Charlie movie, but I at least want to keep the joke running, and the fact it's gonna get ruined for a movie that has a high possibility of being shit is really annoying to me

Anyway, night

[starseneyes]

Chenford REWIND - Lucy Chen / Tim Bradford - The Rookie - Season 4 Eps 10 & 11

Howdy! I had a request for 11, but since I've already done 9 (and didn't want 10 hanging out by its lonesome), I thought I'd pair them together.

SPOILER ALERT: If you're new here, please know that spoilers are part of the gig. Yes, it's an unpaid, voluntary, unsanctioned gig... but I take it seriously (well, seriously enough). So, there'll be spoilers of these episodes and all the episodes before. But I try to keep my foreknowledge out of these.

If you're ready (and I know I'm ready), it's time to dive in!

"Heart Beat" AKA Kojo Sniffs a Bitch

Peroxide Princess at Tim's

I can't tell you how hard I rolled my eyes when I saw her in his house in the first place. Like, okay, I get that they're adults, yada, yada... but the immature teenager in me wanted to throw bleach at the screen to try to sterilize Tim's house remotely of her gritty, sandy presence.

Like, I need to find a can of some cleaner that'll erase her... like a "Bitch BeGone" in a spray bottle.

Tim's making breakfast, and she feels like she has to remind him she doesn't like it. But, Tim's pretty good at taking note of those details. And it's not for you, Beach Bitch. It's for Kojo! The bestest puppers in the world.

And Kojo. doesn't. like. Bitch Barbie. at. all.

Good instincts, Kojo! Good boy!

"How long have you had him?" "Uh, a year. He was Lucy's but she couldn't keep him."

Because Daddy and Mommy have to deal with joint custody for a while. You, Side Piece, can see yourself out the door any time. All you'll ever be is a footnote at the bottom of one page of the book of Chenford's love.

Yes, I'm in a salty mood. But at least my ire's directed at a fictional character, right?

"So, how's it going with Ashley?" "Good. Although there was some weirdness this morning."

You mean the fact that you're dating her instead of Lucy? Yeah, we spotted that weirdness, too.

But aside from that, I want to mention the awesomeness that is Season 4 Tim talking "personal life" with Lucy in the Shop without hesitation. He's so comfortable with her, now, that this particular rule no longer exists.

Plus, if he's talking to Lucy about his placeholder girlfriend, he can further distance himself from any feelings for Lucy.

"I don't think she likes Kojo." "So you broke up with her? That's, that's too bad."

Boom!! Lucy knows how it should be. Now, all you've gotta do it dismiss Not-Lucy and get on the right track, Tim. Kojo's trying to guide you to the right path. Listen to the pup!

"I liked her." "Since when? Last time we talked about her you gave me grief because she's a lifeguard."

This from "He's a fireman" Tim Bradford!? REALLY!? And suddenly getting "rigorous training" at the Fire Academy is good enough for you? Wow, you really like to make excuses for this girl to justify why you're dating *checks notes* a lifeguard.

Also, not used to Lucy giving Tim grief. Like, I thought that was an interesting line the first time I heard it, because Lucy's usually a very open person. Unless there's some sub-conscious jealousy afoot. Hmmm.

"But you know what, it is a moot point because she does not like Kojo. First of his name. King of canines. Destroyer of chew toys. So, clearly, Ashley has got to go."

Lucy "the right one" Chen, everyone! Speaking for every member of the Chenford fandom in that moment.

The Temporary Inconvenience Calls the Wife for Help

Lucy's surprise at hearing Ashley's voice is evident, and I'd be wondering what hoops she went through to get that number, m'self. Sure, you can meet at a party anytime, but folks don't just give out phone numbers willy nilly. So, who gave it to her?

And I'm going to skip most of this conversation because we all know Plot Device isn't gonna last.

"Kojo is just like... well, I mean, he's kind of just like Tim."

I'm sorry. I have to pause and get into the psychology of this a little. Because Lucy. Picked. A. Dog. Like. Tim.

Like, she picked out someone she wanted to live with her, to be a part of her daily life, to possibly cuddle in bed with her... who reminds her of Tim.

Lucy, you're a psych major. You can figure this out!

"He's big, gruff, a whole lot of bark, but you know, underneath all of it, he's a, he's a sweetheart."

Lucy is allowing herself to think about Tim in all his facets, and as she does, she can't help but fall into the best parts of him. And as soon as she utters that last line, her brow furrows and she physically turns away from him.

Why? Perhaps because thinking of his softer side felt safe. But as soon as her mind started moving, it went places she (and he) avoid in Season 4.

One. Damn. Spark. in episode 1 and the two of them are running scared.

"You know, you should tell Tim how you feel."

So should you, Lucy Chen.

Lucy Meets Chris the CrabApple

Moment one and I want to put a hot stake through his heart and call it a night.

Like, we can stake him, right? That's okay because it's fictional and he technically won't feel it?

I mean, I've heard there were people who didn't absolutely hate Chris at the first moment. Like, I never hated Rachel. I liked her. I just didn't want her for Tim forever. He needed that transitional girl.

But Ashley and Chris just get under my skin in the worst way.

Some people might argue that Lucy and Tim "started at odds", but that was different. Tim was Lucy's training officer and took a hard-nosed approach. Chris is just an asshole.

James and Wesley Go Out

Look, I know this is a Chenford Meta, but I have to call it out because I love it. I love watching these characters slowly become a family.

"Why is my girlfriend calling you?"

"Because I'm dating her to get away from you. She's not supposed to close the loop!"

Like, seriously, the boy is delusional right now.

"And you're so concerned about my love life because..." "Because I don't wanna drive around on patrol with you while you are moping about screwing this up."

Lucy is being a good friend. She thinks that Tim isn't interested in her (because, obviously he wouldn't be dating someone else if he was, right? Oy, these two are idiots).

"Look, if you like this girl, you should listen to her."

But if he really liked this girl, it wouldn't take Lucy stepping in to help.

Think about it—she helped Tim with Rachel with the birthday present. She's helping Tim with Ashley with Kojo. Tim so would be dumped lickity split without Lucy's help.

Take the hint, Timmy.

"When have I ever moped? I don't even know how." "Mmhmm."

Why do we spell "moped" and "moped" the same way? Like, "he moped while riding his moped" is a real sentence. English is a dumb language.

Also, fans of 5x10 (and many other episodes) note that Tim does this eyeroll quite a bit and usually in relation to Lucy... good or bad.

"End Game" AKA A Safe Home

"... the clown from the DA's office..."

Yes, Tamara. Yes. Speak truth, little sister. That clown doesn't need to be anywhere near our girl Lucy.

"Tyler's lucky he has you looking out for him. I knew I was."

That's what Lucy does. That's who Lucy is. For all the times her family didn't look out for her, she's going to look out for others times a million.

"Everything okay?"

I love how he looks from Lucy to Chris, like, "Do you need me?" And when she shows she's fine, he hangs back and lets her do her thing. He knows Lucy can defend herself. But he's not going far in case she needs to tap him in.

"Can you believe the nerve of that guy, calling me dramatic?"

Tim tries to look like he has no idea what she's talking about... but c'mon. He knows his girl. And she does have a flare for the dramatic... especially when she's been up all night and is dosing caffeine like a drug.

"Um, do not start."

Married. They talk to each other like they're a couple all the time in Season 4, and they don't even realize it. They've spent so much time filing away that moment between them in his house that they've convinced themselves they're immune to it... the pull that's drawing them nearer one another.

"Exactly how many cups of coffee did you have this morning?" "I'm just going to apologize to you right now." *Tim eyeroll* "Um, it's gonna be a really long day for you, and, and I'm sorry."

Hey! The eye roll of "I don't know how to mope" is back already! But, seriously, Tim, when y'all eventually get your act together, you might want to invest in decaf.

"Alright, how do you want to handle this?"

He's letting her take the lead, and I love that. Tim knows how to do this, of course, but he understands the bond between Lucy and Tamara is strong.

It'd be easy for Tim to give instructions, even though he's no longer her TO. He doesn't even giver her an anecdote or experience—because he trusts Lucy.

"I know what to do as a cop, and I know how to do it as a roommate, but, you know, those are different approaches." "Just be a friend. And if you need a cop, tag me in." "Thank you."

I love her little head tilt to him. There's something so comfortable about it, so relaxed, so lived-in. It's so far beyond Sergeant/Officer relationships.

And, even in a moment of kindness, Tim's brain slips into a sports reference. I know I keep saying it, but someday you'll come to appreciate those, Lucy.

Plus, in a shallow moment, can I appreciate Tim being in her apartment, again? It's truly the little things.

"And if you were desperate enough, there was always Swiping."

The silent communication on this is beautiful. Tim furrows his brow and cocks his head. Lucy looks back to Tim, and he barely had to shake her head before they both know... they don't know.

And watch Tim in the background as he processes what it is. I've said it before, but Eric Winter is Tim Bradford when the camera is rolling, even when he's out of focus.

"You okay?"

He's getting so good at reading her. I mean, he clocked this one in seconds. And we all know how important it is for him to know that she's okay.

There was a time he'd bark at her to try to get her to focus up, but we’re so far past that.

"As close as we are, there's a lot she won't talk about." "Look, don't' take it personally. She might just have a hard time opening up to you."

Like her future adoptive dad, right Tim? Seriously, I have always seen a lot in common between the two, even though they are completely unique individuals.

But, I do think Tim's life experiences will help him be a better Dad to Tamara someday... if Chenford get their act together, of course.

"But I'm sure Tamara will share when she's ready to."

Ah, Tim Bradford, how I love you finishing sentences with prepositions. And I don't mean this in jest! It was drilled into my head in grade school to remove that happenstance from my work, right?

But if you're writing scripts... people don't speak in perfect English all the time unless that's the world you've created. If you're aiming to tell a story in our world with characters that ring true, their dialogue can't be perfect or it starts to come off as unbelievable.

Yes, I know there are writers like Sorkin and others who have their own dialogue style entirely, but I would argue that's creating a world separate from ours where everyone speaks in a certain manner.

So, I get a special warm-and-fuzzy feeling with the dialogue, especially Tim's, sometimes. He's so bloody real.

"Hey. How are you holding up?" "It's just a lot. Being back here."

Lucy knows psychology, but she also knows trauma, and poor Tamara had a lot. Yes, they are roommates, but they are so much more than that.

Lucy is the first adult Tamara trusted. The first one to really fulfill their promises. The first to give her a truly safe space.

We know Lucy had this place before Jackson moved in, so she could make the rent on her own. Taking on a roommate was more for Jackson than it was for her.

So, after his death, she likely took it all back on herself and didn't charge Tamara a thing to live there. Lucy really has taken on a motherly role with Tamara—giving her space to grow and heal.

And, oh, who knows more about that than Lucy Chen? With Tamara, Lucy has created an environment she wishes she'd had growing up—one filled with love and acceptance.

But that doesn't mean she won't check in. Good moms do, right?

"Are you okay here?" "Yeah. Yeah. I'm good." "Okay. Alright."

Melissa O'Neil nails the "mom tone" of not-quite-believing-you-but-letting-you-go-because-she-doesn't-have-enough-info-to-hold-you-back

"Hey. Are you okay?" "No."

Tamara hugs her mom—melting into her because it's too fucking much. And Lucy Chen is there to hold her adoptive daughter, to give her the support she needs, to never crowd, but always make herself available.

Whenever she gives Tamara a sibling, that's gonna be the cutest family ever, right!?

Chris is Full Squick

I've heard there were people who really liked him for her at some point. And more power to them. But, for me, he reminds me of some of my mom's exes and it's not a good comparison.

Like, there were guys who'd buddy up to us because they wanted to sleep with my Mom. That's what this whole scenario feels like, because I didn't see any real change indicated in Chris that makes this choice make sense.

It feels like Tim's helping this kid hoping to win favor with Lucy in a manipulative manner. And I could be reading way too much into it. But this scene made me mad uncomfortable the first time I watched it.

"Thank you." "For?" "Everything. For all your help. For this bed. For getting justice for Becca." "You did that." "And thanks for helping me leave it all behind. Because if it weren't for you, I probably would have ended up like Becca eventually."

"There but for the grace of God go I." I've thought this so often in my life—that if not for the kindness of others, we would have lost everything.

My husband was laid off the same day I had the preparatory internal ultrasound for our fourth IUI. We've been trying to get pregnant for several years with no success, but the doctors were optimistic.

We literally had 12 hours to decide if we were going through with the insemination, because I had to give myself an ovidrel shot that night. We talked about it, prayed on it, and went for it.

Twins. Twin baby boys who were the greatest gifts after years of heartache. But how could we provide for them on my income alone?

We worked through it during my maternity leave. Matthew's parents had sponsored him to return to school to get his teaching license. He was a few months away from graduation, and I was prepped to go back to work. We had a plan.

Until I almost died when the twins were 9 weeks old. A life-saving surgery and weeks of recovery later, we had twins on specialized formula we couldn't afford because I could no longer breastfeed.

My father took us in. I paid mortgage on an empty house for 10 months while we turned off the utilities so we could afford the boys' formula. So many people stepped in to help us, to give to get preemie clothes for the boys, to help with the medical bills.

The NICU completely forgave the $45,000 facility bill, leaving us only with the $77,000 doctors' bill, which was mostly covered by insurance. It took us 2 years to pay off our portion on monthly plans for my sweet Middle's 12-day stay.

But... imagine all that without my father, without our friends, without the doctor who saved my life, without the local twin organization that donated formula and toys to the kids, without the pediatricians' office that donated formula to us, without the stranger who saw us walking and handed me $50 when I couldn't afford groceries...

I've seen the other side. I've heard stories of people who tragically lacked the support we had. There but for the grace of God go I.

Tamara's situation is completely different, of course... except that someone who owed her nothing came alongside her to give the support only she could give.

Lucy saw a "girl in trouble" and became her lifeline. She became her family. She became her home.

"Well, you don't have to worry about that anymore. You're safe."

"Safe". Lucy and Tamara's whole relationship began because Tamara stole Lucy's safe place—her car. But as soon as Lucy saw someone needed "safe" more, she parted with her safe space.

Now, "safe" is a warm bed and a door that locks, and someone who cares about her. That's what Lucy wanted for Tamara from the very beginning, right?

She wanted this girl who had struggled not because of her own actions, but because of her parents' choices... to be safe.

"But at some point, you might wanna talk to someone before it sneaks up on you."

Lucy knows a lot about trauma, and Tamara knows it. I think that's part of what makes Lucy's statement here so powerful. It's not hollow, filled with the thoughts of someone who thinks they know better. Lucy is the voice of experience, here.

And she's trying to pass the wisdom down to her daughter without Tamara having to go through the pain Lucy did to learn it. Isn't that what we all try to do as parents?

We try to guide our kids to not make our same mistakes, but also give them the knowledge and wisdom we gained when we did.

Feeling a little sentimental on this one. Those of you who've been around know that while I thought Chenford was "cute" at first glance, I wasn't really hooked from moment one. But I was hooked on Tamara and Lucy's relationship.

I was so badly bullied in school. So lonely. So once I was a Senior, I found Sophomores to adopt. They were my girls, and nobody better mess with them, because I was a Senior, and I finally had some power. I was determined to use it for good.

I've stayed in touch with all three. One's married with three beautiful boys. One is married with two sweet, super smart kids. And the other is engaged to the love of her life, and gearing up to be a kickass stepmom. They've gone completely different directions in their careers and lives, and I'm so damn proud. They've all made their way.

Some of the greatest things we can give others are our time and attention—our compassion and empathy.

Watching Lucy give this girl the home she wishes she'd had, the security and safety to knows Tamara lacked, and the Found Family that often sticks closer than blood... it struck a nerve. A good one.

Thank you so much for reading this little Meta, and to the folks who requested 4x11. Can't wait to see you on the next!

[stealingyourbones]

Hi, I don't know if you'd even answer this ask but I've been loving all your prompts and been sucked into the dp/dc crossover content.

Im curious about trying to make some oneshots or fics myself but I'm not well versed in dc at all except very basic knowledge so I'm really nervous.

Do you have any advise for how to start or suggestions to help some one jump right in?

Ok I'm gonna be using this slightly as an excuse to give y'all a DC reading guide and also:

Personal Opinion 1: You really don't have to read any comics to learn DC. I'd highly recommend going on Youtube and watching some summarizing History of the Batfamily videos so you know the general lore. Reading a bunch of solely DC-related fics also helps greatly. It can get you immersed in the world and learn tidbits of backstory and characterization without having to touch a single comic. if you feel confident enough that you know the character? Go for it!! If you're still unsure and you want to write it anyways? Have a beta reader who's well versed in DC help point out moments that may be OOC or help fix characterization a bit. You never know how good you are at writing that character until you put your pen to paper! Personal opinion 2: go to your local library, go to the graphic novel section, and see if any comics catch your eye. Pick it up and give it a read. There truly isn’t a perfect place to jump in for comics. Continuity is all Willy Nilly and confusing. There’s no perfect spot to jump in but there are personal recommendations or preferences that people will tell you to start on.

I highly recommend listening to podcasts about characters that you’re intrigued with to see if you want to spend the time researching and reading about said characters.

Other tertiary opinion.

I really only have Batman comic recommendations but a friend of mine gave me a list in order for Batman comics to read so here it is:

Batman Year One.

Batman Venom.

Batman Long Halloween.

Batman Dark Victory.

Robin Year One.

Batgirl Year One.

Nightwing Year One.

Batman Cult

Batman Death In The Family

Knightfall

Batman No Man’s Land

Under the Red Hood

Batman Zero Year

That’s what I got. You don’t have to read every single comic to know everything but at least reading a summary of the comic so you’re caught up and not confused as you go into the next comic is something I’d recommend. Batman Knightfall and No Man’s Land are super long and really a drag to read through. Like genuinely they’re painful as hell to read through. I’d recommend reading a synopsis online or listen to a podcast about it.

Other comics in general I’d recommend that I've read that I think are good depictions of the characters:

Superman: Up In The Sky. by Tom King.

John Constantine Hellblazer: Dangerous Habits. #41-46. by Garth Ennis & Will Simpson.

The Spectre by John Austrander.

Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil. by Jeff Smith.

Blue And Gold. by Dan Jurgens

Victor & Nora: A Gotham Love Story. by Lauren Myracle

Batman Vol 1 & 2 (The Court of Owls & The City of Owls). By Scott Snyder.

Again, there are definitely some better comics out there and a lot of comic runs I didn't add on. That's simply because I haven't read the others. Some of these characters you might not care for, and that's completely fine! You don't have to read them then.

Podcasts I'd reccomend:

Character Corner. Their takes and reviews are wonderful. I adore this podcast and found out about many amazing comic runs from this show.

Geek History Lesson. It has a gimmick and it's fun. It's not as in-depth as Character Corner but it does have a far larger array of Characters to listen to and learn about. There's also is this ao3 post that has a batshit insane amount of info on how to navigate and learn about Batman and Gotham

[firedragon1321]

Missing Digidestined Theory

Hi and welcome to my humble abode. Tonight at 4 am, I'm going to (try) to make sense of some Digimon shit. Namely the number of Digidestined in Adventure's world, and how that correlates to a certain statement from the producers. This is entirely headcanon, possibly AU, and also made at 4-6 am. It also contains spoilers for the new 02 movie. There is a brief mention of child death. And it ends with complaints about the timeline and epilogue.

EDIT: This is no longer solid for several reasons, mainly conflicting information in 02 the Beginning, the presentation of clear AU as a theory, and the use of a ship blog as a source. On the first, I had not seen the movie yet (and now have doubts that Lui was really "the first", but that's a theory that basically ends in "Daigo/Maki's group were still first"). On the latter two points, I really should know better, and I apologize.

I have closed notifications due to some rude behavior, so I won't see any updates on this. However, I also deleted the original edit mentioning that since it itself was rude. There's really no reason to leave this up, except I like the idea generally and for archival purposes. If you still wish to read it, it is stored below. Just get ready for 40 year old Lui, lol.

I'll hook you with this- there weren't five Digidestined globally in Maki's time. There were eight.

This goes off a statement from one of the producers. You can read it all here.

Basically, the number of Digidestined worldwide would double. This ensures everyone would have a Digimon partner by 2027 (aka, the epilogue).

Doing the math- the number would exceed the global population (approximately 8 billion people) in 2020 (becoming 16,777,216 to be precise- 2019 cuts it close with 8,388,608, but the math is not wrong either way).

The exact statement says this "doubling" occurred from the Parrotmon incident forward. I personally believe that's BS because Willis exists. He receives Gummymon and Kokomon around the same time that the original Botamon spawns. There's also Meiko, Ken, and Ryo (depending on how you interpret the WonderSwan games). Meaning the number of Digidestined is higher than 8, and possibly already doubling.

Let's assume Lui is the first Digidestined. He seems to be around his early 20s (or ages really well- maybe it's Maybelline). Then Daigo and Maki's team came after him. Then Adventure team and so-on.

This all rides around this comment, as there are no official ages for Daigo, Maki, or Lui and we need them. User SharpeBB from With the Will points out the following, which I used as it's the only logical explanation I can find.

So based on this theory- assuming they were 11/12 when they were chosen, and Maki's age in the flashback is as SharpeBB claims, the original Digidestined would have set out on their mission in 1987 (using the age of 9 as a baseline for reasons I will explain later and computing in Maki's age of 21).

I assume for this theory that Maki was a Digidestined for at least two years prior to losing Tapirmon (referring to the flashback involving the Harmonious Ones). My tri. knowledge is a bit rusty. But since that flashback occurs in the Digital World, I'll have to assume she met Tapirmon in the real world, there was time fuckery similar to Adventure, adults were looking for the members of that team in the Real World, or any combination of the three.

So- 27 (Maki's age) minus 9 (assumed age when first she became a Digidestined) is 18. 18 years before tri. in 2005 was 1987.

There are five of these "original kids"- Daigo, Maki, and three unnamed ones. But you may notice that five is not an even number, nor a multiple of two. The lowest number of Digidestined that must exist globally at that time is eight. This doesn't mean for Maki's team specifically- they could be in another country, like the numerous American Digidestined.

So going backwards- there would be four Digidestined (globally) in 1986, two in 1985, and one (Lui) in 1984.

Incidentally, Lui was born on a leap year...which 1972 is. Using the baseline of 12 years (based on the above image), he would be 40 in 02 the Beginning. Let's just say he ages well.

So I bet you're tired of BS- let's get to the meat and potatoes. How many Digidestined really exist by the time of Adventure? Well, with 12 years between 1987 (original Digidestined) and 1999...the answer is 32,768.

Remember that not all Digidestined go to the Digital World. Some of this number might have died (we can't rule out "accidents" in the Digital World entirely, nor death via other means). Others might have stayed in the Real World and never went to the Digital World. Still others might have let their inner child- and partner- die (see Kizuna). But given the time gap between Daigo/Maki's team and 1999 alone, I don't think all 32,000+ of them were twiddling their thumbs.

There's more threats out there that we don't know about. There's more dead kids than we can fathom. And worse still, this only accelerates the amount of time until everyone has a Digimon. It would exceed the global population in 2009 with 16,777,216- that same number from the start- three years before 02 the Beginning.

Yet we can see that this is not the case. Ukkomon's MO is to give everyone a Digimon partner, which the world is not ready for. Recall that the production team claims the worldwide doubling occurred starting with Tai's team. Including those eight and the four outliers I mentioned, everyone would have a Digimon by 2019 (with an estimated 12,582,912 partnerships- this exceeds the global population). In 2012, this number is merely 98,304. Which makes sense for the Ukkomon plot.

So I wasted your time. Except...

I still feel this math doesn't account for things like Daigo/Maki's team and Lui. The producer's math states there are 64 Digidestined globally by 2002. But this cannot be the case as how do the Digidestined from before- or even kids like Willis- factor in? Like, they fit numerically, but how did they find their partners? Why were they chosen? Especially those before 1999, if it all connects to the Botamon in Japan? Also- assuming Lui is as young as he looks (i.e.- around Davis's age) makes Maki older than him...which makes no sense, given the average age someone becomes a Digidestined and her own assumed age.

It makes more sense for Lui to look really good for forty than the entire timeline does if we assume that the doubling began in 1999.

And this is because of two issues. One is "left hand not talking to right hand" throughout the Adventure timeline. There's simply no communication between departments (especially for the WonderSwan games, the canonicity of which is flaky even in my own personal timeline). This has resulted in other plot holes throughout Adventure canon.

Another is a hardcore determination to keep the epilogue canon, despite conflicting elements from tri. on forward. The link at the very beginning attempts to explain the epilogue, yet includes some absolutely bonkers explanations for things like why Matt became an astronaut (basically, there's extraterrestrial threats made in response to digivolution, and the Dark Masters are implied to be one of them, despite actually being linked to Apocalymon- is he also an alien???).

There was supposed to be a season 3 that would have evened out a lot of this (I'm afraid I forgot the link- if someone has it, let me know so I can add it). But we never got it, so the epilogue will never make logical sense. Almost all attempts to canonize it cause batshit lore to enter the chat, or it simply does not mesh with batshit lore from tri. onwards.

Both of these elements cause massive plot holes that make the 1999 doubling pace simply not work. So I'll play with this AU/headcanon some more. Besides, I personally find the idea of Digidestined hiding for decades interesting...

Thanks for surviving to the end!

Edit

Fixed a calculation to include Meiko (forgot her by accident.).