#this is actually a really interesting spin on James' backstory

[rollercoasterwords]

WHAT did james DO that he's so sexy and a wanted criminal since he was a child and can do wandless magic what did you put in him omg! loved the ch it was amazing and i. i knew itttt :))))) this is a convo i'd be. Interested to hear more about..... will s continue to be a sad wet kitten... what will he do..... do they think reg is dead because they found a way to take off the dark mark and voldy thinks it means he's dead.... will dorcas be okay..... who is the mcd.. so many questions!! can't wait for the next one :0) the flow of your writing is one of the best i've read & the distinct voice you give to each character is really beautiful. we're lucky you put your stuff out there for us to read :-) if i dare ask.... what's your favorite line you've written in this ch.... because "he was a knife in the hand of justice" is soooo good it really brings me into his mind but alas. curious about yours 👀

everybody loves a rebel....a bad boy.....

as for what he did to get put on a watchlist. well that will all be revealed. eventually. at some point. probably. i have his whole backstory in my head but i cannot emphasize enough how much of my writing for this is just me rawdogging it...absolutely just making shit up as i go along having fun spinning a tale at the campfire etc...for example did not know i was gonna put sirius's whole backstory into this ch until i was writing it lmao

s is indeed king of pity parties. guy who imprisons + tortures + kills people NOT enjoying the taste of his own medicine!! honestly surprised @ how many people have commented abt james + remus being too mean to him in this one lol trust me from their povs they are being wayyyyyy nicer than they could be....they of course do not know his little sob story the way we all do but. even if they did idk if they'd feel very sorry for him atp in the fic tbh. and of course i cannot answer any of ur other questions rn....

anyway tysm for the kind words!! i actually have. a lot of lines i was really proud of in this ch!! forgot how much i liked it bc i kind of hate the next one lmfao but my faves r probably

They are two strangers. Two strangers in a white room with no doors.

and

He was a man, and he was a ghost, and he was seventeen and haunting his own body and watching himself grow older from someplace very far away.

also quite fond of the ghosts haunting different graveyards line but fear that including it will tip everyone off to how often i reuse the same metaphors xx

[darthlenaplant]

Watching Spectre right now.

Jesus Christ on a disco stick, I absolutely can't take Max seriously. That's just a Moriaty. (No, I never watched BBC Sherlock, I only saw hbomberguy's video essay. It told me all I needed to know.)

Also, poor Q. Your taste in men is... uh...

ALSO also, Bond's "No. Stay." Actually STALLING the fucking security has cracking me up.

Also also ALSO. Q. WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU OPEN A LAPTOP ON A FUCKING SKILIFT? I KNOW YOU ARE NOT AN OPERATIVE IN THE FIELD BUT JESUS CHRIST, TRYING TO BLEND IN IS NOT THAT COMPLICATED. (I kinda would have liked them leaving the kidnapping him scene like in the original script, if only to keep it consistent?)

Also, the bald dude opposite of him lost his hat quite quickly. LMAO

And of course.

THE FUCKING MOUSE. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

I hope this Moriaty dude gets killed by Bond (or any other double-0) later. M should have just decked him right there.

Can I also say something. The lipstick colour on Madeleine looks fucking stupid af on her. Srsly. Why does she look so weird? Is that just the combination of her dress and lighting in that train car?

Also, yeah, the "~LoVe~" between her and James is LITERALLY "just because the director said so". It's exactly as fake and put-on as that stupid fugly lipstick.

Hahahahaha, Madeleine's face when Bond says that thing about Q. She be like "he can't be gay if he fucks women left and right, but I guess a bisexual just fucks people of any gender left and right?"

And yes, they should have just let them say good-bye to eachother forever at that point. Honestly. Let that woman live in peace.

Lol @ the James Bond graffiti.

LMAO. I WOULD ACTUALLY HAVE EXPECTED M TO SAY "CUNT" THERE, NGL 😂😂😂😂😂

Okay, Bond getting the girl is okay too. In the movie.

The fics where he goes back to Q for good are still better. 😋😋😋😋😋

No srsly. It would have been a way funnier (and cooler) if it was Q sitting next to him. Well.

[mccoyyy]

moving this to my new blog so I can pin it again lol

@stregoni-benefici you are completely correct but I just wanted to expand on this a little bit - also i’m putting this under a read more cause this got a lot longer than i originally thought it would be

sexism: smeyers treatment of female characters throughout the entire series is extremely problematic. like you don’t even need to read deep into the books to see that. the backstories of all her female characters all involve some form of trauma and are significantly more violent than the male vampires (Rosalie and Esme enduring physical/sexual assault meanwhile Edward dies of the flu and Emmett gets vibe checked by a bear).

she also creates the idea that a woman isn’t complete without children/being a mother. every female vampire in the series is desperate for children yet can’t, its mentioned in pretty much every book and extreme emphasis is placed on how tragic this is. a female character wanting children isn’t wrong or sexist at all but the way its written in twilight makes it seem like its something a woman has to do in order to be happy and smeyer pretty much cements this idea by making Bella suddenly desperate to have Renesmee despite showing no interest in children/audibly voicing her thoughts against having children in eclipse and the start of breaking dawn (i’m pretty sure Bella has a line of dialogue in the books where she says something like she didn’t realise it was something she wanted/needed until it happened bit I’m not sure I try not to read/think about breaking dawn)

there’s also the way she writes female characters, specifically Rosalie. its mentioned throughout the series that Rosalie has extreme mechanical skills and multiple degrees in STEM fields but its barely ever shown, and instead her characterisation focuses on being obsessed with her looks (first couple pages of this, written by smeyer for new moon), and being a ‘stereotypical bitch’. for the first three books most of her character/dialogue is based on being cold and rude to Bella. She is unnecessarily painted as the villain for having different views on Bella (quite literally) giving up her life and future to be with a man (which is a whole other can of worms). the same is done to the character of Leah in eclipse/breaking dawn. Leah is a woman in the Quileute Tribe, she has been severely affected by the Cullen’s presence in the area and is painted as a character that the reader is supposed to dislike simply because she doesn’t like Bella/the Cullen’s despite having extremely valid reasons not to

anti-Native - smeyers treatment of native tribes is horrendous. she has profited fr years off of of native american culture for years and has done so without any acknowledgements. furthermore, she also demonises native american teens (especially in new moon) by calling them wild, violent, dangerous and out of control and then uses these stereotypes to create a contrast between the self control and patience of the Cullen’s and make them seem more like the good guys, and the wolf pack being lesser. She does this again with the treatment of Jacobs character in new moon and especially eclipse.

Jacob starts off in new moon as Bella’s best friend. he helps Bella come out of a severe depression caused when Edward left at the start of the book. however in eclipse his character makes a complete flip and he becomes moody, temperamental, argumentative and disrespectful of Bella’s boundaries. his character becomes unrecognisable and despite smeyers claims of a love triangle, it is obvious what the outcome will be. I have seen countless instances of people on this site claiming they hate Jacob because he is a dick/disrespectful/just as unhealthy as Edward. this was done on purpose by smeyer as she uses Jacob to make Edward seem like the obvious and correct choice for Bella. if you need more proof of this, take the scene where Jacob kisses Bella without her consent and she breaks her hand when punching him, Edward swoops in and almost gets into a fight with Jacob for touching Bella without her consent. this is an obvious attempt to make Jacob seem like the villain and Edward the white saviour

there’s also the treatment of the native characters by the white characters in the books. multiple times in the series, the native characters are called/compared to dogs/brutes and have a distinct unpleasant smell. I don’t think I need to explain how this is racist. the pack also helps the Cullen’s/saves Bella’s lives and never receive any acknowledgement/are treated any better by the Cullen’s/anyone really. the pack are only ever used as a way to make the Cullen’s look better.

there’s also some pretty obvious similarities to colonisation with the Cullen’s entering Quiluete lands which then forces them to start phasing into wolves (and I’m pretty sure none of the pack actually want to start phasing). also, remember Leah? the only female member of the wolf pack? because of the change she effectively can’t have children? that has implications.

and to top it all off, after doing all that, smeyer has never once addressed this or even acknowledged the Quileute Tribe.

pedophilic - I mean even without mentioning breaking dawn its pretty awful. first of all you’ve got the blatant sexualisation of minors throughout the entire series. Edward is 17 throughout the series and smeyer is writing literal paragraphs about his chiselled abs. Jacob is 16/17 when she has him running about forks topless with a 6 pack. this is way more apparent in the movies but its still a huge issue in the books and lead to Taylor Lautner being confronted by adult fans trying to get him to sign their underwear, and being forced into being shirtless for most of the movies which made him extremely uncomfortable (Elizabeth Reaser (Esme) briefly talks about this in the ID10T podcast on spotify). and just as a reminder, Taylor was 16 when the first one was filmed and 17 for the second.

Breaking Dawn is a whole other can of worms. the glaringly obvious issue is Jacob imprinting on a literal newborn baby. now the concept of imprinting itself has racist elements to it, but its heavily implied in the series that imprinting will inevitably lead to a romantic relationship. Jacob imprinting on Renesmee and waiting until she is old enough to enter into a romantic relationship (never mind the fact that shes ‘old enough’ she will still technically be 5) is pretty much grooming. The same happens with Quil and his imprint, Claire (a two year old) where I’m pretty sure there’s a scene in breaking dawn where Jacob and Leah are watching Quil play with Claire and talking about how Quil isn’t going to date anyone because he and Claire are ‘pretty much inevitable’ (i might be wrong though, like I said I try not to read/think about breaking dawn)

smeyer has also written a spin off book (its like 250 odd pages) called the short second life of Bree Tanner (Bree is that newborn vampire killed after the battle in eclipse by the Volturi btw). In this book, Bree is 15 almost 16, and another character Diego is 18 which is definitely pushing the boundaries of ok. (also as a side note, funny how Bree and Jacob are literally the same age and smeyer states multiple times how Bree deserved better and is only a child (who straight up kills people), yet when it comes to Jacob he has to be a responsible adult and is vilified for every mistake he makes)

racist - smeyer refused to let Catherine Hardwicke (director of the first twilight) have a diverse cast because she ‘imagined them a certain way’ (white) and it was a fight to get Edi Gathegi cast as Laurent and had to compromise with smeyer to make Bella’s friend group more diverse. this woman straight up refused to hire more diverse actors and only agreed to when they were side characters/villains.

Also in the official companion book/guide to twilight, smeyer literally writes that vampire venom makes you white

‘the venom leeches all pigmentation from the skin into a more indestructable vampire form…regardless of original ethnicity a vampires skin will be exceptionally pale’ (official illustrated guide pg.69)

this is a whole lot of bullshit cause she is literally whitewashing characters, but when you pair this with the idea that vampires possess inhuman levels of beauty it becomes extremely problematic and implies that being pale/white is more beautiful than darker skin tones.

also, if we go back to Laurent’s character for a second. so Laurent is one of the only characters who isn’t described as white (in the books he is described as having a pale olive skin tone) and in the first book he comes across as pretty reasonable (warning carlisle about James/Victoria, travels up to Denali and tries out the veggie lifestyle) but in new moon, his characterisation pulls a 180° (sensing a theme here) and is suddenly trying to kill Bella as a favour to Victoria and is Evil™ despite in the first book he literally says to Carlisle he didn’t particularly like travelling with James/Victoria and was only really doing it for convenience. where did this undying loyalty come from? yet again, smeyer is completely disregarding established characterisation in POC characters specifically to villainise them.

and finally, we have Jasper. for some reason (that reason being that she is racist) smeyer decides to make Jasper a confederate soldier in his human life. if you don’t have a lot of knowledge on the american civil war, the confederacy were the side of the US that seceded from the union in order to keep their slaves. Jasper was a confederate soldier, and not just any soldier, but a major. Jasper was a major in an army that fought for 4 years to keep the existence of slavery (and don’t even try to say that slavery wasn’t the root cause of the civil war. states rights aye? states rights to do what). now there’s an argument out there made by certain fans that a lot of people joined the confederate army out of pride/were forced into it cause of conscription to try and head canon the racism away but like that doesn’t matter. there was literally no need to make jasper a confederate in the first place. if she was so desperate to have a civil war vampire then she could have made him a member of the union. its been common knowledge that the confederacy was racist for a long time now, smeyer has absolutely no excuses here.

a lot of these issues overlap and I have probably missed heaps of issues (so feel free to add on) but hope this helps explain why smeyer can *ahem* get tae absolute fuck

[longitudinalwaveme]

The CW Rogues: My Biggest Gripe With the 2014 Flash Show

In many ways, the CW Flash show is what got me into comics. While I had watched (and loved) Justice League and Justice League Unlimited and read loads of DC guidebooks as a kid, it wasn’t until I saw a clip from the 2014 CW Flash show that I really got invested in the DC Universe. While I had already started watching B:TAS (and loving it), Batman wasn’t what got me into comics. No, that was the Flash...or rather, it was Captain Cold. While watching a clip from the Justice League episode Flash and Substance on YouTube, I saw a link to a clip from “Family of Rogues” (from Season 2 of CW’s Flash). Intrigued by the premise, I found the show on Netflix, watched the entire episode, and was hooked. Not only was the Flash just as nice as he had been on Justice League, but two of his Rogues were siblings, and they actually cared about one another. I wanted to know more, so I looked Captain Cold and the Golden Glider up. My research into Cold and Glider led me to the other Rogues, and soon I became a Flash fan. I watched the show, I re-watched “Flash and Substance”, I read articles about the characters from the comics...and eventually, I started reading the comics themselves. I loved the characters and the lore, and I enjoyed the generally lighthearted tone of the books even into the modern era. Unfortunately, as I learned more about the comics, I grew less and less interested in the 2014 TV show. It made too many alterations to character I liked in the comics...and eventually, I basically stopped watching the show out of frustration. Ironically enough, by getting me into comics, the show alienated me from itself....and a big reason for that was the way it handled the Rogues. Here’s a rundown of the CW Rogues, and why I was frustrated with most of them. 

1. Captain Cold. I actually enjoy Captain Cold on the CW show; he’s recognizable as Len Snart and his sarcasm game is on point. (It doesn’t hurt that Wentworth Miller is really attractive, either). His relationships with Lisa, Mick, and Barry are fantastic, and it’s a relief to have him be treated as a competent threat. That being said...he’s a bit too suave for Captain Cold, isn’t he? Silver Age Cold thought he was suave, but he wasn’t; and modern Captain Cold is middle-aged, grouchy, and very rough around the edges. His smooth, suave nature reminds me more of classic Sam (the original Mirror Master) than Captain Cold. 

2. Heat Wave. Dominic Purcell did a great job with the role he was given, and physically he’s an excellent match for Mick. That being said, CW Mick is very different from the Mick in the classic comics, who was a bit dim-witted and rather gentle and sweet for a supervillain. CW Mick, by contrast, is, as I think @gorogues put it, “Hothead McAngryman”, which wouldn’t be so bad if it didn’t seem to have bled back into the comics themselves. Villains with fire powers being hotheads is a bit overdone, so I’m not thrilled to see comic Mick being put into that role. 

3. Golden Glider. Hands down, Lisa is my favorite of the CW Rogues. Despite the fact that her costume and power set are completely different than they were in the comics, they managed to get her personality down pretty well; making her just as dangerous and competent as the boys. Flirtatious, crafty, devious, and yet still at least somewhat sympathetic, the CW version of Lisa Snart takes home the gold for the best adaptation of a Rogue. If only they hadn’t completely forgotten that she existed. 

4. Pied Piper. Note that I have not seen his Season 6 appearance, so I’m just judging this based on his appearances in Seasons 1 and 2. Piper is disappointing; in his first appearance he wasn’t as fun as Silver/Bronze Age Piper or as sympathetic as modern Piper, and I’m not crazy about the idea of him being motivated primarily by revenge on Wells/Thawne, since that wasn’t his motivation in the comics at all. I also don’t remember him being able to puppet or hypnotize people with his music, which is too bad, since that’s his main schtick in the comics. What’s more, if you want to reform a character, don’t do it offscreen via reality warping and then forget about him for four seasons. It sounds like his Season 6 appearance was better, but I haven’t seen it so I can’t comment on it. Also, “the Pied Piper” is kind of a nonindicative name if he doesn’t play a pipe/flute. 

5. Trickster II (Axel Walker). Axel was actually decent in the CW show. I still like comic Axel better, but they got the gist of his character down and even made him a bit sympathetic. In fact, he’s probably in the top three best Rogue adaptations that the CW did. 

6. Trickster I (James Jesse). I love watching Mark Hamill play CW’s Trickster...but man, he is not playing Giovanni Giuseppi on the CW show. He’s playing the Joker with a different name. It’s especially weird since we know from JLU and that one short where Mark Hamill plays himself, the Joker, the Trickster, and Swamp Thing that Hamill can do a non-Joker Trickster and do it well, so my suspicion is that it was just because Trickster was also the Joker in the 1990s Flash show (where he was also played by Mark Hamill). Regardless, murdering random people and threatening to blow up small children during Christmas is not something the Trickster should be doing. 

Although this does prove Mark Hamill could do a live-action Joker. I’d pay money to see that. Mark Hamill is a great Joker. 

7. Weather Wizard. CW Weather Wizard isn’t egregiously bad. He’s not out-of-character like Trickster, and he’s not boring to watch, but at the same time it feels like there’s something missing. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t quote Twain. Maybe it’s because there’s not the sense that he was a loser before he got his powers. Maybe it’s because they changed his origin completely (and also made him older than Clyde for some reason). It could even be because he’s not wearing a green leotard with a huge collar, puffy sleeves, and ridiculous elf boots. Whatever it is, though, he’s just missing that spark that makes me like comic book Wizard so much. 

8. Mirror Master I (Sam Scudder). I don’t know how you make Sam Scudder more boring than New 52/Rebirth did, but somehow the CW version of the character pulled it off. Granted, Cold had already stolen some of Sam’s characterization, so that didn’t help, but they could’ve leaned into his skills as an inventor or his love of showmanship or something. Instead, we got a generic thug with what was basically Evan McCulloch’s power set. Boo! Boo I say! 

9. Top (Roscoe/Rosa Dillon). The Brave and the Bold Top is more interesting than the CW version, and he doesn’t even have spoken lines! That’s how boring this Top is. Also, the gender swap was pretty pointless. I wouldn’t have minded a female Top if she’d been intelligent and creepy and snobbish in the way that Roscoe is, but why even bother changing the gender if the character is going to have such a minor role? They also substantially depowered the CW Top, since Rosa can’t spin at super speed and isn’t telekinetic. A massive missed opportunity. 

10. Mirror Master II (Evan/Eva McCulloch). I can’t comment on how good of a character Eva is, since I haven’t watched any of the episodes with her in them, but I will say I am disappointed that the character does not seem to be Scottish, does not have Evan’s weird sense of humor, and lacks his tooth gap. 

11. Captain Boomerang (George “Digger” Harkness). Not only did he not actually appear on the Flash, but he was also boring and didn’t even seem to have an Australian accent. I was very disappointed with his role in the CW. 

And now for characters who aren’t Rogues: 

-CW Eobard is really good. I have no real complaints about him. 

-CW Grodd is also really good, though I do wish he was from Gorilla City as per the comics rather than a lab experiment. 

-CW Magenta got most of the important character beats down but felt a bit out of place with Barry as the Flash. 

-CW Shade was possibly even more boring than CW Sam, which is saying something. 

-CW Zoom didn’t really feel like Zoom at all. Not only was it weird to see him fighting Barry and not Wally, but he was just a generic serial killer and didn’t have Zolomon’s unique outlook on the world. The loss of his time manipulation powers was likewise disappointing.

-CW Jay is really good. I love him. 

-CW Jesse Quick has very little in common with her comic book counterpart; I like the comic version better but don’t actually mind the CW version all that much.

-CW Wally is decent enough, though I don’t see why they couldn’t have kept him as Iris’ nephew rather than making him her brother. Also, they didn’t use him nearly as much as they should have. 

-CW Barry I generally like a lot; Grant Gustin is a good fit for the character. That being said, I do wish they hadn’t given him the dead mom origin, which was a retcon I am not fond of. 

-CW Iris is quite good (in the first three seasons, at least); she’s intelligent, loyal to Barry, dedicated to her job, and quite independent. The fact that she and Barry were foster siblings in the CW universe is kind of weird, though, since it makes their romance kind of awkward. 

-Joe West is not Ira West (Iris’s father in the comics), but I actually don’t care. Joe West is made of awesome. (I like Ira too, but I like Joe enough that I don’t mind having him replace Ira.)

-The Fiddler on the CW had very little to do with the comic Fiddler. 

-I’ve never been particularly invested in the Thinker (comic or show), but I will say that the CW’s version of the character was very different from his comics counterpart. 

-CW Ragdoll was just as creepy and unsettling as comic book Ragdoll, though he had a very different backstory. 

-I never expected Baby Josh to make it into the CW, let alone as a gender-swapped teenager named Joss who wanted to kill Weather Wizard. It felt like they never knew where to go with her character, though, so it was a wasted opportunity. At least she didn’t die like poor Baby Josh, though. 

-Big Sir in the CW show is a MASSIVE improvement over the comic version. This is probably the only character I will say this about. Though I will say that I kind of wish he’d gotten his stupidly ugly comic book costume even though it would’ve made no sense. 

-Peek-a-Boo is a pretty solid adaptation of her comic book counterpart. 

-Rainbow Raider (Prism) is much better in the comics than on the CW show, where he only existed to be a boring plot device. 

-Linda Park dating Barry was weird, but they actually did a good job with her character before she vanished.

This is not intended as a criticism of anyone who likes the show or its characters; it’s just me musing about my personal problems with it. 

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

Top 10 favorite things about TFS?

Bold of you to assume I can narrow it down to just 10 things, but I’ll try my best. 

Here’s a list of things I LOVE about The Final Season of TWDG, starting from #10 and working my way down to #1.

10. Rosie is best girl and doesn’t die 

Listen, okay? If you give me a game with a doggo companion that I bond with only to have said doggo die for dramatic effect... you automatically lose 2 outta 5 stars on your rating. Case in point: Season 2.

However, tfs knew not to kill Rosie off for dramatic effect, knew it’d be cheap. Plus, Rosie is a sweetheart and I love that she helps Clementine come to terms with her past trauma with dogs and genuinely bonds with her. Rosie is best girl. 

9. Over the shoulder camera/controls 

They’re the best of the series, having come a LONG way since S1. Like, look... Don’t get me wrong. S1 isn’t unplayable or anything, far from it, but they’re not the greatest either. They’re pretty wonky at times, the fixed camera can get annoying when you’re moving around, and sometimes button presses don’t register. It’s definitely something I have to get used to whenever I go back and replay the entire series, and like I said, it’s not the worst controls in the world... but oh man, compared to TFS?

Have you ever played S1 and then jumped straight into TFS just to get a direct comparison of the two? Because I have and it’s jarring how much smoother, accurate, and overall better everything is in TFS.

Just... props, guys. Thank you for the over-the-shoulder, movable camera, thank you for the polished button prompts, and thank you for a run button that has Clementine go into a nice jog rather than a comical run or, eh... does nothing [lookin’ at you ANF... Javi slow].

It’s just so effortless to play. The most trouble I ever have is with doors but that’s a given- Doors make no goddamn sense in this series and I’ve given up trying to learn their secrets. Oh, and speaking of more improvements! 

The shooting mechanic in this game is leaps better than in S1. Y’all remember the Motor-Inn shootout? The one that was such a frustrating pain in the ass?? So much death and anger...

I still die sometimes when shooting the walkers with the bow, especially the ones that are on fire, but it’s nothing compared to the shooting mechanic in S1, so the biggest THANK YOU for that one. It’s actually enjoyable to shoot stuff this time around.

8. Collectibles 

You as Clementine get to pick up various collectibles to decorate her and AJ’s dorm with and it’s great. One of my favorite bits about this game is seeing Clementine wake up in this empty, lifeless room, and see it get brighter and brighter with every collectible you place throughout the game until you reach the final scene with AJ where the room is just FULL of life and personality. Like... it’s officially theirs. It’s such a good feeling! 

And the devs totally didn’t have to add the collectible system in, but I’m so thankful they did. I’m one of those people who gets every single collectible every single time I play. 

7. Ericson’s Boarding School for Troubled Youth

Y’know, I honestly can’t think of a better place for Clementine and AJ to end up than Ericson’s Boarding School for Troubled Youth. It’s awesome, I love it, what a great idea. I also love the sense of wonder when we step outside for the first time and see the inside of Ericson, as well as the others, walking around. Like even Clementine is taken back by it.

Because of course it makes sense for Clementine to end up in a school surrounded by people closer to her age rather than with a group of dumbass adults like in the past three games.

Here it feels like they’re all about on the same level. There’s no older person here belittling Clementine because “she’s just a child and doesn’t get it,” they’re just people, y’know? Hell, if anything, Clementine’s now the most experienced one!

The school’s great! I wouldn’t change a thing about TFS taking place here. The environments are beautiful and I love exploring the world. 

6. Marlon as an antagonistic character/final confrontation 

I have an entire Marlon character discussion/study so I won’t put too much time into this one, but I will say that I love Marlon’s part in tfs. I love him as a surprise antagonistic character, I love how chill he is in the beginning, I love the final confrontation at the end of ep1... I just really like Marlon, y’know?

Ray Chase gives a damn near perfect performance as Marlon, so much so that I wish he survived past ep1 just so that I could hear more of his acting. Marlon himself in an interesting look at a leader character hiding his shame and guilt while trying to maintain control over everyone [including himself] around him, only to be broken down when he’s found out. 

5. James 

I know people tend to be pretty split on James, but I personally really like his role in tfs. I love that they included a character who was apart of the Whisperers, and hell, if anything I’d like to know MORE about James’ past with them. 

I just find him and his whole “walkers are sort of people? kinda?” beliefs. Again, I know some people get annoyed with him because of his beliefs but I think he adds an interesting spin on the whole thing, y’know? Though I do love what a bitch he is if you don’t agree with him hahaha

James is a bitch and I love him, okay? I love his dumb walker mask, I love his dumb boyband hair, I love his whispery voice, and I love his backstory with the Whisperers and Charlie. I love this he’s trying so hard to be this pacifist that he ends up doing the literal thing he said he doesn’t want to do-- hurt people. Y’know... like attempting to kidnap AJ and threatening to break Clementine’s leg in the caves if he’s alive. 

Which, by the way, that whole cave scene is a thing. It’s wild and I love it but not for the reasons the devs probably wanted. Like... it’s a little hilarious? I know it’s not supposed to be! But I can’t take James seriously when he’s walkin’ around his hands on his hips all huffy and puffy, okay? It’s just wild. 

Anyway, I love James and wouldn’t get rid of him. Hell, I’m still waiting for my James with the Whisperers mini-series, Skybound. 

4. Ericson Crew

There isn’t a single character from Ericson that I don’t like, or that I’d get rid of, which is rare with these games. Thinking back to the previous games, there’s always at least one person I could do without or that I didn’t like. I adore all of them!

The Ericson crew just feels closer than previous groups. For starters, they’re way more likable than most in our previous groups. Even when there’s tension [and boy is there tension at points] you still get the sense that they don’t hate each other, unlike in our previous groups. They do in fact love each other as a family and will do what they can to protect one another.

Plus, they’re all interesting. They’re troubled youth and I love all of them! 

Aasim keeps a daily journal where he chronicles everything in hopes of learning from past mistakes to prevent future ones, he’s damn good with a bow, and he’s got a neat little soul patch on his chin.  

Ruby is the tiny yet fiery medic of the group who adamantly believes in manners yet used to chase teachers around with pitchforks. 

Brody is caught up in the twin mess with Marlon but she’s also shown to want an escape, a road trip where she and her friends can go see the beach, but she also suffers with anxiety and panic attacks and isn’t afraid to knock Marlon on his ass or swear at Clementine. 

Mitch is a grumpy, tall boy who looks after Willy like a brother, knows how to make bombs out of manure and propane, and used to fight his neighbors because they didn’t like his face. 

Omar is a sassy chef who has to have every ingredient just right otherwise he’s salty for a week and he can take a bullet to the leg like a champ. 

Willy’s a goober who can climb trees like you wouldn’t believe and he made a bomb of his own in Mitch’s honor that completely wrecked the delta’s ship. 

Tenn is a soft, naïve boy who draws and reads but isn’t afraid to stab a walker bitch if he has to. 

Violet was sent to the school after witnessing her grandmother’s dead, she used to date Minerva who is now “dead,” has abandonment issues,  tries to give off the appearance of a grumpy grump but like once she’s comfortable with you she’ll tell you her life story and do romantic shit like dancing and painting you a pin. 

Louis was sent to Ericson because he was a rich brat who broke up his parents marriage because they wouldn’t let him take singing lessons and has felt like garbage ever since, using humor to cope and push people away, and keeps the façade on until someone’s willing to see past it in which he’ll finally bare his soul to you, name a song he wrote after you, and do everything in his power to keep you and everyone else safe over himself. 

I just... Love ‘em all. 

3. Clementine and AJ’s dynamic 

To think that they almost killed AJ off, or kept him a minor character. That would’ve been a shame and an absolute waste because Clementine and AJ’s dynamic is super fucking good in tfs. 

It’s actually a little baffling that AJ’s as good as he is, from his writing to his voice acting, he’s just great. And his relationship with Clementine is definitely one of my favorites to come from this game. It’s not perfect, but I don’t want perfect. 

I love that AJ looks to Clem for guidance and I love the way our choices affect him, even when it’s a case of the bridge scene. Hate the bridge scene knowing that I gotta sacrifice a character I care about for another I love, but I can’t deny that I love how that choice is made. After everything, do you trust AJ or not? 

Plus, their conversations are so well done, their chemistry is through the roof, and I wouldn’t change it. 

Oh, and the barn scene? Gets me every time, even though I already know everything’s fine and gonna work out. Still gets me. 

2. Clementine is Bisexual

I’ve talked about this in the past, but lemme just say that I love the fact that Clementine is canonically bisexual. 

Doesn’t matter if you’re dating Louis, Violet, or no one, Clementine is still bisexual. The game confirms it through it’s text/subtext and Clementine’s actions that we don’t have control over, and the devs confirmed it. She ain’t straight, she ain’t a lesbian, she is bisexual. 

I can’t express how happy that makes me. Just... ���💜💙

And with her being bisexual comes her two great love interests: Louis and Violet. They’re amazing, and such an improvement over the previous game’s attempt at love interests... ahem, y’know... Kate.

1. Louis as a character/his relationship with Clementine 

I mean... c’mon. Y’all knew what #1 was gonna be. Do I even need to explain? This entire blog is just me gushing about Louis/clouis. 

Look, Louis is my favorite non-playable character across the entire series. Hell, even when you factor in playable characters, he’s STILL my absolute favorite. Like, even outside of his relationship with Clementine, I find him to be such a compelling character by himself. 

Like I mentioned above, he came from a stupid rich family who gave him everything he ever wanted, but when his father wouldn’t let him take singing lessons, he literally worked for over a year to break up his parents marriage because “you get to be happy or you get to be rich, can’t be both.” 

He gets sent to Ericson where the apocalypse happens, he never gets to make up with his parents, and he ends up using jokes and piano as a coping mechanism to deal with everything, falls into a cycle of being unreliable and the butt of the joke, and lives one day at a time without much thought for the future. 

He puts on the happy jokester persona to push people away from knowing the real him and rarely shares much about himself. Hell, when Clementine does hunting and decides to take care of the walker with him, he actually does let down the wall for a minute to share his view on “this moment” before looking away like “Oof, shared too much-- HEY, GO CHECK ON AASIM :D I’LL BE OVER HERE :D FIXING THE TRAP :D and adjusting the wall ahem--” 

It’s so interesting because you’d think that he’d be more open about his past with Marlon or the twins or whatever [like Violet is] but no, he doesn’t tell you shit about his past until EPISODE 3 and you have to work to get that story. 

I just... I just love him. Could talk about and analyze his character for hours. And I love his relationship with Clementine. It’s just so good. The piano scene where they finally admit their feelings for one another?? That shit has my entire heart. Their entire relationship is my favorite. What else is there to say? 

[halothenthehorns]

WEASLEYS' WIZARD WHEEZES

The moment Harry sat back down he passed the baby along to Sirius, while Remus got started with a genuine smile still in place, and sadly having to hope it would last.

Harry spun through the Floo channel until he started to feel sick and closed his eyes.

"Let's just hope you end up in the right grate this time," Lily muttered to herself, still sore she even had to think back on a time this had happened, couldn't her boy ever go through one thing normally?

Then he came to such a jarring halt that he fell forward right into the Weasleys' kitchen. The moment Harry's ears caught up to him, he distinguished Fred's voice asking if his treat had been eaten, while offering Harry a hand up.

"Have I mentioned how much I love those twins?" Sirius demanded with the widest of smirks still in place, "because I don't think I mention it enough."

"Couldn't be prouder," James agreed with a serious nod.

  Harry agreed he had, then asked what it was? Fred happily explained that it was called a Ton-Tongue Toffee, that he and his twin had invented them.

"Invented them?" Remus repeated, double checking he'd read that right.

"You mean the twins have actually started creating their own products to prank people?" Sirius demanded, looking faint from happiness.

"That's brilliant," James breathed, his eyes lighting with more new possibilities he'd never even thought of. "What's more is, they clearly work! Can you imagine if they keep going with this?"

"They'd put Zonko's out of business in a heartbeat," Remus agreed at once.

Harry was watching all of them with a very delighted settling feeling indeed, surprised that for once his first instinct was to agree with them, and he was actually happy for it. He had quite a lot of faith indeed that Fred and George were only just getting started.

Lily only let the boys prattle on with a few more hopes, and groans they wished they'd come up with this themselves, before she inserted, "Alright you lot, enough. We'll be here all day if you keep this up."

James still had his arm happily around her as he teased, "You just don't want to admit you like the idea."

She grinned right back as she said, "I'll readily admit it's an interesting idea, from what we've heard they've certainly got the skill and ideas, but I want to see how far they think they'll take it." After all, there was a difference between concocting fake sweets in your free time and handing them out as pranks, and going full blown like these boys were thinking and possibly over exaggerating. She flicked her fingers at Remus for him to keep going, which he happily obliged.

They'd been wanting to try those on someone all summer.

"What with their brother's knowledge of said twins, those two were probably lacking in the guinea pig department," Remus snickered.

The rest of the kitchen exploded with laughter, and Harry looked around in surprise to see not just George and Ron, but also two other red head's he'd never met, but knew they must be Bill and Charlie, the eldest siblings.

"Oh cool," Sirius somehow still managed to get even more excited, he'd been really wanting to meet at least Charlie, find out what kind of insanity that one must house to be working with dragons of his own free will.

The closer of the two got to his feet first and offered his hand, which housed old burn marks. He was on the stockier side like Fred and George, and Harry knew this must be Charlie, who worked with dragons in Romania. His face was so tan you could hardly make out the freckles, with thick burly arms, but red hair short and shaggy.

Harry shook his hand then turned to the last one, who came as a bit of a surprise. All Harry had ever heard about Bill was an older version of Percy, Prefect and Head Boy at Hogwarts, and thought he'd probably be just as fond of the rules.

"I guess I can see why you'd think that," James gave a slight pout. "After all, you'd yet to meet a fun Prefect or Head Boy as far as you knew."

"But this sounds like it's about to get interesting," Sirius chirped, having noted that 'surprising' part most of all.

The man in person though, looked like he was plenty of fun. He had his hair in a ponytail down his back, and a fang hook earring in his left ear. His clothes looked more like something you'd see at a rock concert, with dragon hide boots.

"There's the older brother I always wanted," James chuckled.

"Now that hurt," Sirius mock pouted this time. "You've got me haven't you?"

"Sirius," James groaned in a long suffering voice, "you are 145 days older than me, let it go!"

"I doubt he ever will," Remus muttered, knowing full well Sirius had to keep something over their heads, and though he rarely acted it, being the oldest was one he loved.

Lily was just happy to see her boys joking around again at all. She'd been so worried after the travesty of the last book that they'd truly lost a part of themselves, but if they decided to keep themselves going with old jokes she'd heard a thousand times, she'd take it in a heartbeat.

Further introductions were stalled by the arrival of Mr. Weasley, who appeared with a pop next to George.

Harry couldn't help but give a startled little blink. He'd heard of apparition of course, he could even do it himself if he didn't think about it, but the idea still gave his fourteen year old mind a bit of a spin. What stopped him from appearing right where George was and hurting them both? Was there a distance limit? He was positive he learned all of those answers in another time though, so for now he decided not to pester the others with them.

He was looking angrier than Harry had ever seen him.

"It's sad that he didn't appreciate that as much as we did," Remus sighed.

"He didn't have all the backstory," Sirius snorted, giving Harry a sideways look as he continued. "I'm sure if Harry would tell him and Molly what all's been going on in that house, Arthur would have done the opposite of stopping his sons."

Harry just gave him a half blank, half curious look, which none of them bought for a second.

He began shouting at the twins at once, demanding to know what they'd given him. Fred shot back, with a smirk still in place, that he hadn't given him anything, he'd just dropped it.

"The details make it," James praised, nearly bouncing in his seat all over again, forcing this happy feeling to linger as he thought back on all the times he'd done this to McGonagall or any number of teachers, still forcefully ignoring one certain person who would often be in there with him.

Arthur snapped back that he had dropped it on purpose, he'd known he was on a diet! George eagerly cut in by asking how big his tongue had gotten?

"Now was not the time to ask that," Remus couldn't help but correct with an indulgent smile.

"Really, there isn't a good time," Sirius shrugged. "May as well get it in now, see if they could find out from him by surprise."

Their dad snapped back that it had been four feet before he'd managed to shrink it back!

Causing all five of them to burst out laughing again.

Harry and the rest of the Weasleys started laughing all over again, causing Mr. Weasley to shout all the louder that it wasn't funny!

"Oh but it is," James disagreed, eagerness still his dominant feature as he looked like he still wanted to go watch all of that in person all over again, "you're just not in on the full joke."

"Bill and Charlie might not even be, and they're clearly laughing along," Lily giggled.

He was clearly getting more angry as he kept going, reminding his boys that his life's work was trying to build better Wizard Muggle relations, and here his own sons were baiting that boy!

"Ouch," Lily winced.

"Okay, yeah, I can understand where he'd get that from," Remus frowned.

"It's not like Arthur knows better," James sighed.

"Well to be fair, I can see the twins pulling this on anyone, not just a Muggle who deserved it." Sirius offered, "not that Arthur knows he deserves it," he amended with a mutter at the end.

Fred shot back that he hadn't done it because he was a Muggle, while George added on they'd done it because he was a git that deserved it, turning to Harry and asking him to back them up. Harry quickly agreed Dudley shouldn't be pitied, and Mr. Weasley snapped back that wasn't the point.

"Then what was the point?" James couldn't help but ask with a small smile.

"That they did it, and they shouldn't have," Lily shrugged, still seeing the parent's side of it better than the boys it seemed.

He began to threaten that he was going to tell their mother and then they'd be in for it, when she stepped into the kitchen herself. She asked what she needed to be told, and Arthur deflated at once. Clearly however angry he'd been, he hadn't really been planning on telling Molly.

Which gave all of them a collective snort of amusement. Clearly Arthur wasn't that mad then, but was just telling the boys off, while probably holding back some laughter with this response. Molly on the other hand, from what they'd seen of her, would probably do a lot worse than just shouting at them. The Dursley's deserved it, that wasn't being questioned in this room, but how much the two Weasley parents understood this they had no clue, and Harry probably wasn't going to enlighten them.

There was a long dragged out silence while Arthur eyed his wife, but was thankfully saved for a few moments more by Hermione and Ginny entering as well, both smiling at the sight of Harry, and when he smiled back, causing Ginny to blush as red as her hair, having always had a bit of a crush on Harry.

Harry couldn't help but give a soft smile, still looking back and finding that crush adorable, though he wasn't sure of why. He hoped Ginny grew out of this shyness phase soon, he'd really like to remember he talked to her at some point.

Mrs. Weasley wouldn't be distracted long, repeating that Arthur needed to tell her something, her voice getting a dangerous edge.

"I get the feeling they've all heard the tone at one point or another," Sirius muttered.

Arthur tried to brush it off, saying Fred and George had done, something, but he'd spoken to them about it.

"Hmm," Lily uttered softly to herself, a slight smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. She didn't really think what Arthur had yelled at them was really akin to 'had words with them' more a mild telling off that probably didn't even phase the trouble making twins, but as she didn't really think Fred and George deserved a telling off for what they'd done, she wasn't going to argue the point either.

Molly got exasperated at once, demanding if this had anything to do with Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes?

"Now what's this?" Remus perked up, his mind automatically flashing back to their earlier discussion.

"Sound like the name of a store to anyone else?" James yelped eagerly.

Sirius was practically wiggling around in pleasure. From what he'd heard about these twins, he figured they'd be brilliant if they really set their mind to that sort of thing!

Hermione cut in from the doorway that perhaps Ron should show Harry where he was sleeping.

"Subtle," Lily snickered.

Ron frowned back at her that there was no reason, he was sleeping in the same place as last time.

"And Ron still has no clue," Sirius cackled.

Hermione just repeated that it was best that they show him anyways, and just as Ron agreed it would be better to get out of there, George agreed he'd better come along as well.

"I think it's a good idea the lot of them go," Remus agreed, not even bothering to hide his smile.

Molly snapped that those two weren't going anywhere though, as Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Ginny quickly exited the kitchen and went for the stairs. The moment they were out of sight, Harry asked what Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes were, causing Ron and Ginny to laugh, while Hermione just rolled her eyes.

"Please don't tell me Hermione got that stick back up her butt," James pouted, "I think this sounds like a brilliant idea."

"Just because she didn't laugh doesn't mean she doesn't approve," Lily reproached, while giving a slight frown as well, she didn't see why Hermione would dislike the idea.

Ron happily explained that their mum had found some order forms the twins had created in their room, with price lists for items they'd been inventing, all prank items.

"Oh Merlin they are," Sirius crowed, bouncing the baby around so much he was giggling up a storm, still managing to make the lot of them laugh even harder. Not one of them could come up with a reason why this wasn't a brilliant idea.

Ginny admitted her surprise at the idea, saying how they'd heard explosions from their room for ages, but they hadn't known they'd been doing anything. They thought the twins just liked the noise.

"Perfectly understandable," Remus nodded, his eyes still alight with all the possibilities this could lead to.

Ron did add on though that most of the stuff was kind of dangerous.

"Dangerous?" Lily frowned in confusion. "How so? Whatever they used on Dudley seemed to work fine, and if Arthur figured out how to fix it without even fully understanding what they'd done, I doubt it's that bad."

They all remained silent, not really having an answer.

Plus, they were planning on selling it at Hogwarts to make some money.

Until Sirius heard that, then he offered, "Maybe because not all of it's tested," he gave a careless shrug like he wasn't sure that this should still be classified. "But they need to find guinea pigs somewhere, so they're choosing Hogwarts. Not a bad idea, since Madam Pomfrey could fix anything major."

Lily chose to roll her eyes at him, but agreed with his logic none the less.

Mrs. Weasley had lost it at them, forbidding them from making anything else, burning up all their forms.

"Harsh," Remus winced, thinking that she could have taken them away until they were more proofed or something.

She had already been angry with them, since they hadn't gotten as many O.W.L.s as she thought they'd get.

Lily couldn't help a little sigh of pity for the twins. She of course understood the want of a mother to see her kids do well in school, but going from previous experiences, she had the feeling Molly was expecting Percy like results from those two, and that wasn't exactly fair of her.

O.W.L.s were Ordinary Wizarding Levels, the examinations Hogwarts students took at the age of fifteen.

"I still don't understand those random inserts," James muttered. "We know."

Remus just ignored him.

Then Ginny went on to say that their mother and the twins had a big fight about their after Hogwarts life, as they wanted to open a joke shop, but their mother expected them to join the Ministry.

"Molly's starting to depress me," Sirius pouted. "Have we seen any indication that those two could cope behind a desk?"

"I can see her point," Lily sighed. "She thinks that would be better for them, and what they're wanting is really expensive and risky if it doesn't work, but I do wish she'd give them a shot at it."

"Yes well, hopefully she'll calm down and see reason when they blow up a school corridor or something," Remus muttered, hoping that the thousandth time those two got into trouble would make her see they had a knack for it.

As they continued climbing the stairs, a door opened when they hit the second landing, Percy's agitated face on the other side. Harry politely greeted him, and Percy only gave half as warm a reply, telling them off for making so much noise.

"You live in a house of how many people?" James shot back with a raised brow. "I hardly think it would ever be quiet there."

He was in here trying to work, and it was hard to concentrate with so many people tromping up and down the stairs all day.

"I am positive you've been living with that your whole life," Sirius muttered, "and you've learned to get over it before."

Ron snapped back they weren't being that loud, they were walking! Harry still asked what Percy was working on?

All three boys groaned, not even remotely curious to hear about this, but Lily gave her son an appreciative smile, always loving how her son tried to keep up with Percy, even when his siblings discouraged otherwise.

He told them, a bit too smugly, that it was a report for the Department of International Magical Cooperation.

"Does he have to be so pompous, about everything?" James muttered, noting that was 90% of his description.

His report would make it so that they would have a standardized cauldron bottom thickness, as leakages had been increasing in recent years. Ron's face was deadpan as he said back that this was definitely a life altering report.

Which at least gave the three Marauders a good laugh.

Percy flushed slightly as he said back that what he was doing was very important, if this wasn't checked they could be getting shoddy work and it could seriously endanger-

"Oh don't go dragging me into this conversation," Sirius groaned, his proud smirk saying otherwise at any opportunity to use that joke, even if Harry was the only one that laughed along.

Ron just brushed him off and tried to usher them up the stairs.

Lily couldn't help a little sigh of pity for Percy now. She completely understood the importance of what Percy was doing, and it was good to take you work seriously, but the fact that all four boy's eyes were glazing over as this conversation continued probably wasn't boding well for Percy's siblings on the stairwell either. It must be difficult for the poor thing not to have anyone to talk to about this.

Percy slammed the door shut behind them as they kept going upstairs, and could now hear shouting from the kitchen below, which meant Arthur had finally told Molly about the toffees.

Which didn't help anyone's mood, as the more they heard about this, the more they'd like to defend Fred and George for every shot Molly would take at them. Here they'd thought coming to the Burrow would make them feel better! Oh well, at least this was still better than hearing about the Dursleys.

Ron's room looked almost exactly the same as the last time Harry had been here, most of the space covered in the bright orange color of his favorite Quidditch team, the Chudley Cannons, and a fish tank that now housed a frog.

"Bet if he didn't have that owl, he'd take that as his pet," James said with forced cheerfulness, who knew talking about Ron's pets would ever cause him a sore spot. "Then he'd really have to take back that comment he made about Trevor first year."

Ron's old rat, Scabbers,

Even getting out that fake name for the rat came with a cold bite to Remus' tone, but he kept going forcefully so that no one had to linger on it long.

was long gone, and in his place was the tiny gray owl that Ron had got last year, hopping happily on the spot and twittering. Ron told Pig to shut up as he walked past,

"Well, Ron's owl is officially named Pig," Lily said with a touch too much chipper, like the others shaking off any mention of that old rat. "Can't wait to hear the explanation for that!"

edging his way between two of the four beds that had been squeezed into the room.

James let out a surprised whistle as he tried to imagine that, Ron's room had sounded cramped before!

He explained to Harry that the twins were up here with them, as Bill and Charlie were using their room. Percy got to keep his room to himself since he was working.

Lily couldn't help but purse her lips as she once again saw both sides to that coin. The other two boys were on holiday, but Percy wasn't, so he would need his work space, but that didn't mean he shouldn't have to put up with at least one of his brothers, it could have been spaced out a little more evenly. It did bring up the interesting question of how room assignments had gone before the oldest two had moved out, who had shared rooms then? She didn't bring it up though, as she didn't really find it her place to criticize the Weasley's as to where they had their kids sleep.

Harry asked why Ron had named his owl Pig, and Ginny put in that was because Ron was being stupid, his proper name was Pigwidgeon.

"Ah, yes, because that makes much more sense," Sirius snorted in delight.

"I guess Pig isn't a bad second then," Remus agreed with a light chuckle.

"I really want to know if there's a backstory to that name as well," James smirked.

Ron rolled his eyes at his sister as he said that he tried to change it, but now his owl wouldn't answer to anything else,

"I wasn't really aware owls 'answered' to anything." Harry said in surprise. "It's not as if they come when they're called, if Hedwig's not on her perch I can't tell her to come."

"I think Ron just didn't change it because he's being nice to Ginny," Lily shrugged. "That name is a mouthful though, so he just shortens it to Pig."

so now he was Pig. He was told to keep him up in his room, because he annoyed the other two owls Errol and Hermes. Then again, he annoyed his owner to.

"I am just so glad Ron liked his present." Sirius beamed, looking all the more pleased the owl he'd chosen was getting the added bonus of randomly agitating Ron, something he'd do to any of his friends in a heartbeat just for a good laugh.

"Did Molly and Arthur say anything?" Remus asked, thinking he'd certainly question a kid who came home with a pet they hadn't left with.

"They asked where he got it from," Harry nodded in agreement, "and Ron said a friend got tired of owning him so passed him on to Ron."

Pigwidgeon zoomed happily around his cage, hooting shrilly. Harry knew Ron too well to take him seriously.

"Well that's good, because I'm Sirius," Sirius happily shot in as well, while Harry snickered and Remus still stoutly ignored him.

He had moaned continually about his old rat, Scabbers,

Remus now regretted not having let Sirius bask in his joke at least a few moments longer, because his face switched back to narrow eyed hate in seconds, but again Remus chose not to pause as it wouldn't do anyone any good.

but had been most upset when Hermione's cat, Crookshanks, appeared to have eaten him.

"If only," James hissed under his breath.

Harry then asked where Crookshanks was, and Hermione said he was probably out in the garden chasing the gnomes, he liked doing that. Harry then switched topics to asking about Percy, if he enjoyed his work? Ron repeated back that he more than enjoyed it with a dark tone.

"That's a bit intense," James frowned thoughtfully at the description. "Is Percy really acting that bad?"

"Picture how he was described acting about his school work, Prefect, and Head Boy duties, and double it," Harry sighed, going more on instinct than actual memory for that answer, but from the few moments he'd had of Percy's work life, he was positive he wasn't wrong, and somehow still knew it would only get worse.

Ron was quite sure that he wouldn't even come home if their dad didn't force him to. Then he begged Harry not to ask Percy about his boss, as he was obsessed with the man. He'd go on for ages about Mr. Crouch's

"Crouch?" Lily repeated in surprise.

"He's the head of Magical Cooperation?" Sirius also couldn't help a shocked tone as well.

Harry was frowning at the mention of this name, it held some significance to him he couldn't place, so he asked, "How do you guys know him?"

"He's slated to be the next minister," James shrugged. "He's the most anti-Death Eater on the Wizengamot right now, been fighting fire with fire if you will."

Harry's frown only managed to deepen, as this only managed to raise more questions, like what a Death Eater was, then he got a sinking feeling deep inside saying he didn't want to know that answer for as long as possible, so didn't press the point.

"I think the guys a bit of a nut," Remus snorted. "Getting a bit too intense with his job really, but no one's denying he's getting results either."

Harry vaguely remembered them mentioning something about this back during his first year talk with Hagrid when Fudge had been mentioned as the minister, and he had an inkling that this may connect to his own feelings towards the name, but they were all vague and he had no way to string them together, so he just nodded his content as Lily added, "Guess when Fudge got the job Crouch got shunted elsewhere. I'm sure he's bitter about it."

The boys shrugged, but mostly with disinterest now. The surprise had worn off, and they didn't really care about him one way or the other, it was just interesting that this was how it had played out. They wouldn't deny they'd like to hear the reason Crouch didn't get the position of Minister, but it wasn't a top priority to them either.

opinion on this, and what they'd been discussing about that, Ron even made the quip they'd be announcing an engagement any time now.

Which gave Harry a good laugh at least, much like he had when Ron had said this the first time.

Hermione then turned the conversation back on Harry, asking if he'd liked the food they'd sent? Harry agreed those cakes had saved his life.

"Probably literally," Lily sniffed with distaste, hoping Molly would serve dinner soon.

Ron began to ask if he'd heard from- but was cut off by a pointed look from Hermione, and he didn't finish the question.

"Aw, I think Ron was about to ask about me," Sirius gave a slight smile.

"Good that he didn't get it out though," Lily sighed. "Hadn't you said Ginny was up there?"

"Yep," Harry nodded, smiling as well as he knew his friends were just as worried about his godfather as he'd been.

Harry didn't need him to, he knew Hermione and Ron were wanting to ask about Sirius, they'd been so involved in his escape last year they were as worried about him as Harry was. It wasn't a good idea though, to be discussing this in front of Ginny, who had no idea about any of this. The only people that did know where the three of them, and Professor Dumbledore.

Remus once again felt a swift kick in the gut that he hadn't been mentioned, which somehow kept hurting more rather than less as this carried on, and sadly his reading it seemed to have made the others realize this as well as he felt more than just lingering eyes on him as he read that, but he didn't acknowledge them and instead kept going loudly.

Ginny was watching all of them fidget in the awkward following silence, until Hermione offered that the shouting downstairs seemed to have stopped.

"Well she does know we get into some interesting stuff at school," Harry offered, doing the same thing now as his dad looked about ready to say something to Remus. "It was probably better Hermione didn't give her the chance to ask."

Sirius threw Harry a curious look as well, looking between him and Remus with a calculating look, but no one said anything else and Remus didn't look likely to give them the chance.

She suggested they all head back downstairs, and the other three agreed.

"Least they got to avoid that fight," Lily muttered, now watching the boys expectantly like she expected a fight to crop up now.

They went back to the kitchen to find Mrs. Weasley, clearly still in a temper, announcing to them they'd be eating out in the garden, there wasn't enough room in the kitchen. She directed the girls to carry plates outside, which they quickly did, then asked the boys to take out the cutlery, while pointing her wand at some potatoes, which shot out of their skins and crashed into the wall.

"I can see why you love her cooking so much," Sirius gave a soft laugh.

She gave an exasperated sigh as she used her wand to direct a dustpan to clean that up while she started pulling more pans out of the cupboards, before bursting into speech about 'those two!' Harry didn't need to ask to know she was talking about the twins as she continued that they had no ambition, unless you counted making as much trouble as possible!

"I consider that plenty of ambition," Remus said sagely, happy to see Sirius and James smirk along, so at least he seemed to have convinced them to silently let the matter go for now.

Mrs. Weasley slammed a large copper saucepan down on the kitchen table and began to wave her wand around inside it. A creamy sauce poured from the wand tip as she stirred,

"Where's that coming from?" Harry asked in surprise.

"She probably has it stored somewhere, perhaps they have a cellar or something, and she's summoning it from there," Lily shrugged.

still half shouting her diatribe about how she knew her boys had brains, but they were wasting away while they pursued these troublesome wants. She'd had more owls about them then the rest of her kids put together!

"A genuine accomplishment," Sirius said brightly.

If they carried on like this, they'd wind up in front of the Improper Use of Magic Office!

"That shouldn't be a real issue until they come of age," James shrugged, after all he'd never heard those two get up to anything as bad as that.

She then gave a sharp jab towards the silverware drawer, which sprang open and sent a dozen knives shooting through the air to cut up the potatoes that had just been cleaned. She placed her wand down to pull out more pans, still demanding of nothing where she'd gone wrong with those two, but as she turned back to grab her wand again, it gave a squeak and turned into a rubber mouse.

Causing all five of them to release surprised snorts of laughter. Another Fred and George invention most likely, and yet another fairly clever idea. The more they heard, the more confident they all were they'd be amazing at a joke shop.

She began shouting at nothing how she'd told them to stop leaving those fake wands around! She grabbed her real wand and bustled back to the stove, and Ron quickly whispered to Harry they'd best get out of there while she was distracted, grabbing up some cutlery, while Harry did the same. They left Mrs. Weasley to her mutterings and edged out the back door.

"A fair idea," Lily sighed, "she's probably going to be that way until she gets it all out of her system, and you don't need that directed at someone who doesn't deserve it," she finished with a maternal eye on her son.

They didn't get far before they almost went tripping over Crookshanks, who shot by chasing what looked like a muddy potato on legs.

James gave a burst of laughter, recognizing it as a gnome of course, but the description was to priceless to pass up.

They kept walking towards the garden area, where they could hear some loud crashing noises.

Remus blinked in surprise as he read that, wondering what they were out there breaking now.

They found the source to be Bill and Charlie, who had decided to levitate two tables and were bashing them into each other several feet in the air, each trying to knock the others to the ground.

Causing all five of them to crack up laughing all over again. It seemed they'd found a clear indication of where Fred and George had found their role models, Ron's eldest two brothers seemed to find more than enough trouble with this small and brilliant display. Who knew what had started the fight, but fighting tables like that was brilliant! Molly was clearly over exaggerating that Bill and Charlie never caused trouble if this was what they were doing with their free time!

Fred and George were cheering, Ginny was laughing, and Hermione was hovering near the hedge, apparently torn between amusement and anxiety.

"Oh come on Hermione," Sirius groaned, not able to get to a full pout because he was still chuckling. "Laugh at least a little, come on at least tell me she was giggling! That's hilarious!"

Harry was too busy laughing himself to answer.

Bill's table caught a leg of Charlie's and with a huge wrench, pulled it clean off. Then there was a thunk from above them, and Percy's head shot out of his window, yelling at all of them to keep it down!

"Killjoy," Remus pouted.

"Surprised he'd call them out like that," James rolled his eyes. "They can't be that distracting."

"I think he just likes yelling at people," Sirius said innocently.

Bill called back an apology, asking how his report was going? Percy shot back terribly, before slamming his window shut. Bill and Charlie were still chuckling as they set their tables back down.

"Liking them more and more," James said affectionately, already smiling at finally having an idea of all of the Weasley's after just one chapter, rather than his growing agitation at Percy who he'd heard about for three books now.

With a flick of his wand, the broken leg flew back to the table, and before they knew it, both were groaning under the mountains of food Mrs. Weasley had prepared. To Harry, who'd been living off of stale cake all summer, this was paradies!

"I can imagine," Lily nodded seriously, finally letting go of the lingering tension the Dursleys caused her as she now knew her boy was going to be properly taken care of.

He chose to listen in rather than join the conversations around him as he dug into the meal.

"Harry," Sirius groaned pitifully, eyeing Lily hopefully to get his point across.

"Yes, alright," she smiled back. "I'll scrounge up something for lunch after this."

At the far end of the table, Percy was telling his father all about his report on cauldron bottoms.

"Not this again," Remus sighed. "Three times in one chapter, I didn't want to hear about this the first time!"

"Harry, stop listening in on him already," Sirius pouted.

"I'll try," Harry shot back with an eye roll, it's not like he could go back and plug his ears from this.

Going on about how he'd have his report ready for Mr. Crouch by Tuesday, how it hadn't been expected until much later but their department was so busy he was proud he could help by getting his job done early. These arrangements for the World Cup were really hampering them, and they weren't getting any support from the Department of Magical Games and Sports.

Harry was really tempted to ask what that Department would, or in this case wouldn't, be doing to help, but the boys already looked so bored from Percy's talking he decided he wouldn't bother them more.

Mentioning Ludo Bagman,

"The Beater for the Wimbourne Wasps!" Sirius practically shouted in excitement, startling the baby in his arms. "You mean to tell me he's now head of the Department for Magical Games and Sports!?"

"It's not that surprising," Lily shrugged. "That field is often run by retired Quidditch players."

"We're just learning all kinds of things today," James shrugged, some interest gleaming in his eyes as well, telling Harry that maybe he could have gotten away with his question, but then Remus kept going and he decided it wasn't worth it.

but Arthur quickly cut in that Bagman was a good friend of his, he'd been the one to get them their tickets to the Cup.

"Arthur is friends with a Beater from the Wimbourne Wasps," Sirius practically drooled, all but wriggling in place all over again. "Can you imagine, that means he must be able to get tickets to practically any game he wants! And he got, eleven of them to the Cup!"

"Breathe Sirius," Remus reminded. "It hasn't happened yet, don't go hounding on him for another few years."

Sirius didn't deflate by much, he did consider it a good thing these things hadn't happened yet otherwise he'd probably be in Azkaban, but it was nice to finally hear something about the future that was encouraging!

Explaining that he'd done Bagman's brother, Otto, a favor once, something about a lawnmower with some supernatural powers, but Arthur had managed to smooth everything out.

"Would actually really love to hear the story behind that," Lily said mildly.

Percy gave a dismissive wave back, saying the man was likeable enough, but a terrible Department Head. He wasn't comparable to Mr. Crouch, who would never lose a member of his department and not go looking for her.

They all felt an odd prickling at the base of their neck at this throwaway line. People disappeared, it was a sad fact of life, but they couldn't help but flash back to Harry's odd dream of Voldemort claiming to have murdered someone. They were obviously just being paranoid though, it most likely wasn't connected...

Bertha Jorkins

Well there went that hope!

One glance at Harry showed him frowning in agitation at that name all over again, which meant none of them could even pretend that they were over thinking this.

"Wait," Remus frowned, thinking aloud now. "Bertha's working for Magical Games and Sports? How on earth does that help Voldemort in any way?"

"I still want to know why she had a memory charm placed on her that helped so much," Lily sighed. "She doesn't exactly work in a secretive department."

Harry gave a funny little twitch that only Sirius noticed, and he frowned in confusion and concern at him, but when Harry clearly was trying to repress any further reactions from their questions, Sirius instead offered, "Well, I'm still hoping that we don't find any of this out, because I'd rather not hear about Harry finding this out. Still feel bad for the poor thing, but can we move this along?"

Remus gave Sirius a look of mild surprise, unclear why Sirius was acting so concerned about the topic, but heeded it and kept reading.

had been missing for over a month now, and no one seemed to notice. Someone had said she'd gone to Albania and never come back.

'Albania,' Harry couldn't help but mentally repeat to himself in confusion. Something about their tickled something in his memory, but it was so tiny he wasn't even sure he had a real feeling about it. Just another missing piece to this ever growing puzzle.

Mr. Weasley agreed he'd spoken to Ludo about her, but he'd just laughed it off saying that Bertha had gotten lost plenty of times.

It was somehow even more sad to hear about this, knowing that she would never be found, a terrible ache returning the longer this dragged on because the person who did lead her to her death was someone they'd all like to see hung sometime soon!

Percy quickly agreed she was a hopeless thing, she'd been shunted between the departments for years,

It was somehow worse that James may have laughed and agreed with that before he knew she was dead, but now that he did know he wanted to smack Percy for speaking ill of her. That wasn't fair of course, Percy didn't know better, it just wasn't getting better to keep hearing about this.

but it was still sad of Bagman not to be doing anything about it. Mr. Crouch had even taken an interest in her, she'd worked in his department a while back and Mr. Crouch had been soft on her.

"Wonder why," Lily said in mild confusion, as she sounded a bit like a bother to a professional like Crouch.

Harry felt bile beginning to pile up on his tongue, there it was right there, something genuinely important he should remember at this insert, but whatever it was building up was gone the moment Remus kept going after he agreed with Lily at how odd it was.

Bagman though just kept laughing everyone off, saying she'd wound up in Australia instead of Albania, and she'd turn up in no time. Then Percy gave a great sigh of exhaustion, now raising his voice as he continued that his department had more than enough work to keep them busy rather than looking for random employees, they had another big event to organize after the World Cup.

"Oh yeah," Sirius muttered with disinterest, fidgeting with baby Harry's fingers to keep himself distracted. "Please don't tell me he's going to start going on about some world assembly I also don't care about."

Percy cleared his throat loudly when no one looked around and kept speaking to his father, about that top secret project.

James gave a forced snort, happy to be able to rag on Percy again for clearly trying to over shoot something that probably was about as important as his cauldron bottom report.

Ron caught Harry's eye and rolled his own, telling him that Percy had been hinting at this since he'd joined his department, had been trying to get them to ask for ages, but Ron just thought it had something to do with more thick-bottomed cauldrons.

"So glad Ron agrees," Remus gave a forced snicker, right in line with James on that one.

In the middle of the table, Mrs. Weasley was having an argument with Bill about his fang earring, which seemed to be new. She was asking what his bosses at the bank thought of it?

"Where did you get it?" Sirius asked innocently.

Bill just told her that nobody at the bank cared, so long as he brought home the treasure. Mrs. Weasley then switched tactics that she really wanted to give Bill's hair a trim, it was just getting silly how long it was. Ginny backed her brother up on that one though, saying that Dumbledore's was much longer and he liked it just like that.

Finally kicking the tension out of the room again with another laugh, as Ginny had a really good point on that one.

Next to Mrs. Weasley, Fred, George, and Charlie were all talking spiritedly about the World Cup.

"A proper conversation that," James nodded seriously, wishing Harry had just been listening in on this the whole time.

Charlie was saying how it would be Ireland who won the Cup, they had the best players. Fred shot back that Bulgaria had Viktor Krum, the best Seeker there was! Charlie didn't disagree, but pointed out that was one best to seven very good, Ireland still had the upper hand. Then he sighed that it was still sad England hadn't made it in, how embarrassing that defeat had been. Harry eagerly asked about that match, and Charlie unhappily supplied the results of the game were Transylvania three hundred, England ten.

"Ye-ouch," Sirius winced horribly, still not wiping the smile off his face at such a lighthearted conversation topic he hoped would never end.

Then he told of a few other locals that had lost to other countries, which Harry listened to with fascination. Harry was on the Seeker position for his house team Gryffindor,

"One of your proudest school achievements," James nodded with a proud smirk, still not regretting it when Lily gave him a light swat for that.

and owned one of the best racing brooms in the world, a Firebolt.

"One of?" Sirius reproved with a challenging brow at him.

"The best," Harry happily corrected himself.

Flying came more naturally to Harry than anything else in the magical world.

"These books can repeat that as often as they like," Remus chuckled happily as he flipped the page, always enjoying watching his friends light up at that reminder no matter how often it was mentioned, or what consequences came of the game.

Dusk was beginning to settle, and Mrs. Weasley conjured up some candles as she went to fetch desert. Harry was feeling happy and sleepy now with a full belly, as Ron leaned over, checked to make sure no one was listening, and finally asked if Harry had heard from Sirius? Hermione listened in as Harry agreed he'd gotten two letters from him, and he'd said he was doing fine. Harry did consider for a moment telling them what he'd recently written to Sirius about, but decided against it. He didn't want to see them worry when he was feeling so content right now.

"Can't really blame you," Lily shrugged. "Most of the reason you didn't want to write to Ron was because you didn't want his whole family knowing about it, if you start telling them now they'd definitely hear."

Then Mrs. Weasley caught sight of the time, and demanded they all get to bed, they'd have to get up at the crack of dawn to make it to the Cup.

"Ouch," Remus winced at such a terrible time, but as this was involving the World Cup, James and Sirius didn't even flinch and just grinned more broadly.

As everyone was getting up from the table, Mrs. Weasley asked Harry to leave his school list out and she'd pick up whatever he needed in Diagon Alley for him, she was going to get her kids' stuff as well, and there might not be time to do it after the Cup was over, it had lasted for five days last time.

James was practically bouncing in his seat again, so much so that Lily decided to kick him off the couch again so that he could go annoy her son and Sirius, as she knew this was only going to get worse as they got closer to the game. James gave her a slight pout, claiming that she should love him enough to put up with all of his quirks, but didn't pursue the point as he gave her a quick kiss and flopped down on Harry's other side, still bouncing like a loon and causing Harry to laugh like crazy.

Harry said that he hoped that happened again, and Percy gave an indignant sniff that he hoped the opposite, he couldn't be away from the office that long!

"You don't have to stay the whole time," Remus rolled his eyes.

"Here's hoping he doesn't," Sirius agreed with a scoff, not understanding how anyone could wish Quidditch would end sooner!

Fred agreed how bad it could get, someone might give him more dragon dung.

Lily raised a brow in surprise, wondering what that was about.

Percy went beet red as he snapped back that had been a fertilizer sample from Norway!

"Okay," James said with a slight smirk, drawing the word out a bit as he imagined how that had come up.

Then as he stomped away, Fred whispered to Harry that no it hadn't been, it had been from the twins.

Causing all of the boys to crack up laughing merrily one last time.

"Have I mentioned how much I love those twins?" Sirius said a little breathily. "I don't think I quite mention that enough."

"Chapter's over," Remus said as he got up to hand the book to Lily, and then plopped down beside her since he felt bad she was sitting by herself. She took the book but gave him a wary eye, not entirely sure he'd restrain himself any better than the other boys when it came to the Quidditch game, but not going to protest the company for now.

[erictmason]

The Road To “Godzilla VS. Kong”, Day Four

(Sorry for the delay on this one, Life proved just a bit too busy the other day to finish it; my “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” review is gonna be pushed back as a result too.  But!  No worries, on we go. ^_^)

KONG: SKULL ISLAND (2017

Director: Jordan Vogt-Roberts

Writers: Dan Gilroy, Max Borenstein, Derek Connolly, John Gatins

Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, John Goodman, John C. Reilly

Technically speaking, Gareth Edwards’ “Godzila” from 2014 was the first entry in what is now generally referred to as “The Monsterverse”, an attempt by Warner Bros. Studios and Legendary Pictures to do a Marvel Studios-style series of various interconnected movies (and which, like most such attempts to cash in on that particular trend, hasn’t really panned out; “Godzilla VS. Kong” seems likely to be its grand finale as far as movies are concerned, the only two “names” it had going for it are Godzilla and Kong themselves, and even at its most successful it was never exactly a Powerhouse Franchise).  But the thing is, when that movie was made, the idea of a “Monsterverse” did not yet exist; it was only well after the fact that Legendary and Warner Bros. got the idea to turn a new “Kong” project into the building block of a Shared Universe of their own that they could connect with the 2014 “Godzilla”, with a clear eye on getting to remake one of the most singularly iconic (and profitable) Giant Monster Movies of all time.  As you might guess from that description, however, said “Kong” project also had not originally been intended for such a purpose; it would not be until 2016 that it would be retooled from its original purpose (a prequel to the original “King Kong” titled simply “Skull Island”) into its present form, which goes out of its way to reference Monarch, the monster-tracking Science organization seen over in 2014’s “Godzilla” and which includes a very obviously Marvel-inspired post-credits stinger explicitly tying Kong and Godzilla’s existences together.  

The resulting film is fun enough, all things told, but that graft is also really, distractingly obvious.

Honestly, I wish I knew why I’m not, generally, fonder of “Skull Island” than I am.  It’s not as if, taken as a whole, it does anything especially bad; indeed it does a great deal that is actively good.  Consider, for example, the rather unique choice to make it a Period Piece; that’s decently rare for a Monster Movie as it is (indeed one of the only other examples that springs to mind for me is Peter Jackson’s 2005 remake of “King Kong”, which chose to retain the original’s 1933 setting), and it’s rarer still that the era it chooses to inhabit is an immediately-post-Vietnam 1970’s.  Aesthetically speaking, the movie takes a decent amount of fairly-obvious influence from that most classic of Vietnam-era films, “Apocalypse Now” (a fact that director Jordan Vogt-Roberts was always fairly open about), and it results in some of the movie’s strongest overall imagery (in particular a shot of Kong, cast in stark silhouette, standing against the burning sun on the horizon with a fleet of helicopters approaching him, one of a surprisingly small number of times the movie plays with visual scale to quite the same degree or with quite the same success as “Godzilla” 2014).  It also means the movie is decked out in warm, lush colors that really do bring out all the personality of its Jungle setting in the most compelling way and, given how important the setting is to the film as a whole, that proves key; Skull Island maybe doesn’t become a character in its own right the way the best settings should (too much of our time is spent in fairly indistinct forests especially), but it does manage to feel exciting and unusual in the right ways more often than not.  The “Apocalypse Now” influence also extends to our human cast,  which is sizeable enough here (in terms of major characters we need  to pay attention to played by notable actors, “Skull Island” dwarfs “Godzilla” 2014 by a significant margin) that the framework it provides-a mismatched group defined by various interpersonal/intergenerational tensions trying to make their way through an inhospitable wilderness, ostensibly in search of a lost comrade-is decently necessary.  Though here we already run into one of those aspects of “Skull Island” that doesn’t quite land for me.  Taken as a whole, it sure feels like the human characters here should be decently interesting; certainly, our leads are all much better defined and more engagingly performed than Ford Brody, to draw the most immediately obvious point of comparison.  Brie Larson (as journalistic Anti-War photographer Mason Weaver), Tom Hiddleston (as former British Army officer turned Gun For Hire James Conrad), and John C. Reilly (as Hank Marlow, a World War II soldier stranded on Skull Island years ago) definitely turn in decently strong performances; I wouldn’t call it Career Best work for any of them (Hiddleston especially feels like he’s on auto-pilot half the time, while Larson has to struggle mightily against how little the script actually gives her to work with when you stop and look at it) but they at least prove decently enjoyable to watch (Reilly especially does a solid job of making his character funny without quite pushing him over the edge into Total Cartoon Territory).  I likewise feel like Samuel L. Jackson’s Preston Packard has the potential to be a genuinely-great character; his lingering resentment at the way the Vietnam War played out and the way that feeds into his determination to find and defeat Kong is, again, a clever and compelling use of the 70’s period setting, it gives us a good, believable motivation with a clear and strong Arc to it, and Jackson does a really solid job of playing his Anger as genuine and poignant rather than simply petulant or crazed.  But there’s just too much chaff amongst the wheat, too much time and energy devoted to characters and ideas that don’t have any real pay-off.  This feels especially true of John Goodman’s Bill Randa, the Monarch scientist who arranges the whole expedition; the Monarch stuff in general mostly feels out of place, but Randa in particular gets all of these little notes and beats that seem meant to go somewhere and then just kind of don’t.  Which is kind of what happens with most of the characters in the movie, is the thing; we spend a lot of screen-time dwelling on certain aspects of their backstories or personalities, and then those things effectively stop mattering at all after a certain point, even Packard’s motivations.  A Weak Human Element was one of the problems in “Godzilla” 2014 as well, though, and you’ll recall I quite liked that movie.  There, though, the human stuff was honestly only ever important for how it fed into the monster stuff; it was the connective tissue meant to get us from sequence to sequence and not much more.  Here, though, it forms the heart and soul of the story, and that means its deficiencies feel a lot more harmful to the whole.

Still, those deficiencies really aren’t that severe, and moreover, like I was saying before, there’s a lot about “Skull Island” to actively enjoy.  The Monsters themselves do remain the central draw, after all, and for the most part the movie does a solid job with that aspect of things.  It does not, perhaps, recreate “Godzilla” 2014’s attempt to make believable animals out of them (even as it does design most of them with even more obvious, overt Real World Animal elements), but there is a certain playful energy that informs them at a conceptual level that I appreciate.  Buffalos with horns that look like giant logs with huge strands of moss and grass hanging off their edges, spiders whose legs are adapted to look like tree trunks, stick bugs so big that their camouflage makes them look like fallen trees…the designs feel physically plausible (especially thanks to some strong effects work that makes them feel well inserted into the real environments), but there’s a slightly-humorous tilt to a lot of them that I appreciate, especially since it never outright winks at the audience in a way that would undercut the stakes of the story. Kong too is very well done; rather than the heavily realistic approach taken by the Peter Jackson version from 2005, this Kong is instead very much ape-like but also very clearly his own creature (in particular he stands fully erect most of the time), with a strong sense of Personality to him as well; some of the best parts of the movie are those times where we simply peek in on Kong simply living his life, even when that life is one that is, by nature, violent and dangerous.  Less successful, sadly, are his nemeses, the Skullcrawlers; very much like “Godzilla” 2014, Kong is here envisioned as a Natural Protection against a potentially-dangerous species that threatens humanity (or in this case the Iwi Tribe who live on Skull Island, but we’ll talk more about them later), and while they’re hardly bad designs (the way their snake-like lower bodies give them a lot of neat tricks to play against their enemies in battle are genuinely fun in the right sort of Scary Way), they’re also pretty bland and forgettable, even compared to the MUTOS.  That said, they serve their purpose well enough, and their big Action Scene showdowns with Kong are genuinely solid.  Indeed, the movie’s big climactic brawl between Kong and the biggest of the Skullcrawlers has a lot of good pulpy energy to it (particularly with how Kong winds up using various tools picked up from all around the battlefield to give himself an edge), likewise there’s a certain Wild Fun to the sequence where our hapless humans have to try and survive a trek through the Crawlers’ home-turf.

Where things get a bit tricky again is when the movie attempts to put its own spin on “Godzilla”’s conception of its monsters as part of their own kind of unique ancient eco-system. The sense of Grandeur that gave a lot of that aspect such weight there is mostly absent here, especially; there are instances where some of that feeling comes through (Kong’s interactions with some of the non-Crawler species, for example, do a good job giving us an endearing sense of how Kong fits into this world), but far more often it treats the monsters as Big Set-Piece Attractions.  Which is fine as far as it goes, it just also means a lot of them aren’t as memorable or impactful as I might like.  Meanwhile, the way the Iwis have built their home to accommodate, interact with, and protect themselves from the island’s bestiary feels like a well-designed concept that manages to suggest a lot of History without having to spell it out for us in a way that I appreciated (I would also be inclined to apply this to the very neat multi-layered stone-art used to portray Kong and the Crawlers except that the sequence where we see them is the most overt “let’s stop and do some world-building” exposition dump in the whole movie).  But the Iwis in general are one of the more difficult elements of the movie to process, too; it seems really clear there was a deliberate effort here to avoid the most grossly racist stuff that has been present in prior attempts to portray the Natives of Skull Island, and as far as it goes I do think those efforts bear some fruit; we are, at the very least, very far away from the Scary Ooga-Booga tone of, say, “King Kong VS. Godzilla”, and that feels like it counts for something.  I just also feel like there’s some dehumanizing touches to their portrayal (in particular they never speak; I don’t mean to imply that Not Speaking equals Inhuman, but the fact that we are not made privy to how exactly they do communicate means we’re very much kept at arm’s length from them in a way that seems at least somewhat meant to alienate us from them), especially given their role in the story as a whole is relatively minor.  

At the end of the day, though, all the movie’s elements, good and bad, don’t really feel like they add up together coherently enough to make an impact.  And I think if I had to try and guess why, even as I find it wholly enjoyable with a lot to genuinely recommend it by, I don’t find myself especially enamored by “Skull Island”.  It has a lot of different ideas of how to approach its story-70’s pastiche, worldbuilding exercise, Monster Mash-but doesn’t seem to quite succeed at realizing any of them fully, indeed often allowing them to get in each other’s ways.  It isn’t, again, a bad movie as a result of that; there really isn’t any stretch of it where I found myself bored or particularly unentertained.  But I did paradoxically find myself frequently wanting more, even as by rights the movie delivers on basically what I was looking for from it.   

[spectralscathath]

🍰

Fanfic Ask Game: 🍰 Name one of your fave comfort fics (doesn’t have to be your all time fave).

I'm gonna separate this into two categories: My own comfort fics that I wrote that make me smile and the fics that I go and reread constantly because they provide Serotonin (comfort =/= pure fluff for me)

My fics (I am big enough to admit that I reread my own works)

Everything's Grey 'Til it's Painted Blue: By far probably one of the softst things I've ever written, I wrote this for Owl of @ironpines as a Secret Santa gift and it owns my goddamn soul. Irontai is one of my all-time favourite ships and I adored playing with the common idea of the Soulmate AU to try and create something a little different. Featuring: long-distance pining over video calls, Qrow being a supportive wingman, recovering from trauma, and a metric butt-ton of fluff

Run Boy Run, This World is Not Made For You: A little less fluffy than the previous fic, this is a oneshot where Mercury sees the aftermath of Oscar getting beaten up and provides some compassion and first aid, in his own gruff way. More of a character study of Mercury than anything else, I love reading this fic and just pretending that vol8 ended with Mercury punting Hazel off the whale and stealing Oscar for a 'I'm gonna Give 10-year-old me everything he wants' roadtrip.

Drawing Silver From Stone: Another Secret Santa gift (and another Merc fic), this time for @invincibleweasel, this is a Modern AU 88 Days oneshot featuring Human Disaster Mercury Black and Hot Neighbour Sun Wukong. It's fluffy, it's cute, it has undertones of horrifically tragic backstory, it's got it all!

Comfort fics I read that were made by other people!! (mostly found by me trawling ao3 or other things and being like ooo interesting)

First on the list absolutely has to be Lies in the guise of truth by Jeanemon, this is a super soft Toshinko fic that features Baby Izuku, Toshinori taking the Clark Kent approach to All Might having a secret identity, and the best Hisashi Midoriya ever of all time, we stan 'Amicable Exes who stayed best friends after the divorce'. It's soft, it's sweet, Inko is Amazing TM (but we all know that), and the ensemble cast is fantastic too, this fic has ruined me for all Edgeshot characterisation forevermore.

Next is another bnha fic, The Chronicles of a Cuddlebug by Varmint. This fic is SO. FUCKING. CUTE. Shouji is my fucking son (he's the youngest! he is the youngest of the class!! child!!! babey!!!!) and this fic is basically just Shouji Appreciation. He gets lots of hugs and he deserves them all.

I've currently been on a bnha kick for fics so there's a lot but I'll keep this list down and add one last one: between the lines (it was there the whole time) by placesinfive which is just. Eri bonds with everyone in Class 1-A and it is adorable and she gets all the love, and affection, and friendship, and I will DIE for this fic, and especally this Sero, because I love Sero, and he's great in this. (and Mineta does not exist in it which is icing on the goddamn cake)

Now: there are some rwby fics that I also adore, I would like to give a huge shoutout to @jadekitty777 who has written just. So many good fics, but two of my absolute favourites have to be Spinning Sunshine Into Straw, a heartwrenching look at Taiyang in the aftermath of Summer's death, trying to raise Yang and Ruby, keep things together, and an introspective look at depression that has all of the nuance that the show lacks. The other is The Hero's Road, which is a fantastic lil exploration of Oscar, Ozpin, and Ozma, and god. I wish that this was canon. It is just. So much better than everything the show did to the Ozs, and Jade gives them all their own individual character POVs and it's great.

Then there is an absolutely hilarious fic by Tazii, the aptly named Out Of The Frying Pan Into The Fire, written for Nuts & Volts week and can be accurately summed up from it's simplistic summary: Arthur cooks an egg. I will say no more on the matter.

If we leave RWBY behind, we move to the absolute masterpiece that is Infinite Coffee and Protection Detail, a monster of an AU by owlet which is all about Bucky Barnes and it's funny, it's got angst, it's cute, Bucky's inner monologue is delightful, the tag 'Everyone has their sassy pants on' exists for a good reason, and I just love this fic.

Then finally, I will throw you all a wildcard with Lucky Number Thirteen, a fic written by Das Mervin of Das Sporking that is a Fifty Shades of Grey fix-it, almost, in which Mervin has through sheer fucking TALENT managed to not only make Ana's inner monologue bearable while staying in character, but also contains: Christian Grey being the abusive creep he is, discussion of actual BDSM and how E.L. James does not stack up, and a really fun OC that bounces off Ana really well. (this fic discusses nsfw topics so uh. take it how you will)

and those are some of my go-to comfort fics!!

[countessrivers]

For the meta asks: 3,4 and 8, please :)

3. What is that one scene that you’ve always wanted to write but can’t be arsed to write all of the set-up and context it would need? (consider this permission to write it and/or share it anyway)

So, for my vampire au aka Previously on the Gotham Diaries (for which there is still only one part published *shrug*) I have these big sprawling plans and ideas that I keep getting distracted from but other, equally good fic ideas. The rough plan for this au was/is one fic that explores the twin’s backstory and how they were turned, and another that’s kind of like an adaptation of season 2, where Galavan comes to town and he’s a vampire and you’ve got the Valeskas and Bruce and Oz and Hunter Jim and it all kind of plays out very similarly and still totally ends with Jim killing Galavan while Oz looks on a little bit in love and a little bit turned on. These are currently very, very fragmentary WIPs, so in the spirit of the ask, I’ll post a couple of excerpts (there’s also a Gobblepot coda that’s a bit more together, so that might come out at some point too)

From the Valeska twins backstory fic:

His hands are shaking as he lets go of the knife. Jerome stumbles back, bent over, hands wrapping around the hilt of the knife, replacing Jeremiah’s. Blood is already leaking out around the blade, spilling over Jerome’s hands and dripping onto the floor.

‘I’ve killed him,’ Jeremiah thinks, slightly hysterically.

He should be running. He should be using Jerome’s distraction to make an escape. He should be saving himself, but for some reason he’s frozen to the spot, starring in mute horror as his brother doubles over the knife Jeremiah stuck in him.

Jerome lets at a hacking cough that transforms into a grating laugh that burns Jeremiah’s ears to hear.

...

He sees Jerome’s arm move but he doesn’t feel the knife. He doesn’t feel it slice across his throat, but he does feel blood as it gushes from the wound. His hands scramble desperately at his neck, trying to stem the flow as he chokes, throat and airway quickly filling with blood. It’s useless, Jeremiah knows that, but the panic has taken over, and his body is reacting on instinct, clutching at the site of injury, trying to stop the bleeding.  

His legs give out beneath him, but before he hits the ground, Jerome catches him, pulling him into his chest. Jeremiah’s hands, still pressing futilely against his neck, end up trapped between them. Jerome - surprisingly, sickeningly - gently urges Jeremiah’s head down onto his shoulder as he convulses, and over the awful, wet sound of his desperate attempts at breath, Jeremiah hears Jerome shushing him softly.

“Shh, shh, shh,” he says, rubbing a hand almost tenderly down his back. “That’s it. Just relax. Give in. Let it happen.”

Jeremiah tries to pull away, but he’s so weak that he can’t even hold his hands up to his neck anymore. His fingers are still twitching, but he can’t help but let them drop

he wouldn’t have been able to get far even if Jerome had still been human. As it is, Jerome just squeezes him tighter, holding him up.

“Just close you eyes.”

Jeremiah does close his eyes. Not because he was told to, but because he can’t bear to look at Jerome as he dies.

From the sequel (basically this au’s version of Jim’s kidnapping and beating scene):

Goodbye, James. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

Galavan turns and walks away. He gets halfway across the warehouse before he stops and turns back.

“Ah, what the hell,” he says, walking back towards him. “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do, James. I’m going to leave you here, in the company of your esteemed colleagues, and I’m going to go. I’m going to go kill Bruce Wayne, ensure my rightful place in Gotham is reclaimed, all of that, and then I’m going to come back.”  

He reaches out and takes hold of Jim’s face, fingers digging in painfully. Jim tries to pull away, as futile as he knows the action is.

“I’m going to come back, and if you’re still alive when I do, I’ll keep you.”

Jim refuses to give Galavan the satisfaction of seeing him react to the threat, using every ounce of his remaining self-control to lock down his horror, the fear born of experience and understanding of exactly what kind of monster Theo Galavan is that has all manner of images flash through his head. If the smirk on the vampire’s face is anything to go by, he’s not entirely successful.  

“So, it’s your choice, Jim.” Galavan steps in closer, brushing a thumb across his cheek and dangerously close to his mouth. “You can give up, close your eyes, let that final darkness take you as these men beat you and hurt you and no doubt do all sorts of terrible and painful things to you. Or you can keep fighting, keep holding on, keep being stubborn, and spend the rest of your life as my toy. My pet. Right up until the moment I get bored. Then I’ll kill you. Or give you to my sister to play with.”

Galavan pats him on the cheek, then slaps him hard enough that it leaves Jim’s ears ringing. Eyes squeezed shut, head spinning, Jim doesn’t see Galavan actually leave. He does hear him though.

“Be creative as you want, gentlemen. Just don’t make it quick.”

4. Share a sentence or paragraph from your writing that you’re really proud of (explain why, if you like)

Jim doesn’t say anything else, and Bruce is glad. Jim could. He should, and Bruce would deserve it all. But he doesn’t. He just sits there quietly, stroking Bruce’s leg through the blankets, offering silent comfort. Maybe Jim just understands better than most that you can’t always help who you love.

This is from my post-Ace Chemicals fic One Hand on my Cheekbone, One Hand on the Rope (also can I ask, is it weird to cry over your own fic when rereading it? because I literally do with this one, every time. I’m just really emotional about Bruce Wayne I guess)

I just really like a lot of things about this section of the fic where Jim comes to check on Bruce. I’m all about Bruce and Jim’s relationship, and I think Jim is well placed to understand Bruce’s guilt and depression in a way no other character really can, which is why I ended on the two of them. This paragraph in particular comes on the heels of Bruce admitting, out loud, that he loved Jeremiah, and Jim acknowledging that he knew. The concept of loving someone even though they have done horrific things, even though they have done horrific things to you is applicable to Bruce in this case, but also to Jim, who can understand that particular kind of pain (I mean, pick your Jim/villain ship, but also, parts of Jim loved Barbara and Lee for long after their relationships ended, and even after they started hurting him and others)

Because it’s not even in the “despite the horror” sense. What Bruce is feeling, what Jim sympathises with is a particular grief that comes from a betrayal like that, from the loss of what could have been, from the love and the good memories that are still there. I think this paragraph encompasses this quite well.

8. Is what you like to write the same as what you like to read?

Partially. I write what I enjoy, what I want to see or read, what I think a fandom might be lacking (for want of a better term) in terms of content. For instance, I write predominately dark fic, or at least heavier or porny fic, because that’s the kind of fic I enjoy reading most (though I have a mostly fluffy - by my standards - fic in the works that involves Batgirl Babs, the Riddler getting his ass beat by teenagers, and some Gordon family hugs). But I will read other styles, other genres. There are certain tropes I just won’t read for various reasons, and some kinds of fics I have to be in the right mood to read, but as long as it’s decently written and it involves characters/ships/scenarios I’m interested in, I’ll usually give it a go (particularly if it’s a small fandom or ship and I’m desperate for more content)

[eponymous-rose]

Talks Machina Episode #100 Highlights!

That’s right: 100 EPISODES. That’s a lot of great questions, greater answers, questionable pronunciations of usernames, even more questionable uses of overlays, and a++++ excellent dogs. 

The entire cast is answering questions this week!

Max runs an (adorable) intro in the above puppet theater, and each cast member gets a title. Laura is The Heart, Sam is The “Funny Guy”, Travis is The Brawn, Liam is The Actor, Matt is The Brains, Marisha is The Face, Taliesin is The Pyramid, Brian is The Convict, and Ashley is The Favorite.

The cast’s entrance is majestic. There are balloons, sashes, tiaras, and champagne. Henry has a tiara too!

The Search for Grog will air this Friday, February 22 at 7 PM Pacific on twitch.tv/criticalrole. If you miss the stream, it’ll be available Saturday morning on CR’s YouTube channel!

Talks Machina and CR will air on CR’s official channels starting today! Starting next episode, TM will be available on CR’s YouTube channel on Thursday at 7 Pacific, and also in podcast form!

Stats: in 100 episodes of TM, there’s been 81 episodes of Brian’s glorious beard. There have been 9 Skype/FaceTime call-ins! There were 244 guest misnomers before that well ran dry. 93 episodes of pre-show hijinks (thanks to Max James!). 95 episodes of Arsequeef. 826 days of being on the internet!

Brian: "The concept of creating a talk show about a D&D campaign has always been absurd to me, so we wanted to embrace that terribleness.”

There’s now a Steve Cam (quietly reading, meal prepping, and ignoring the show), and a Zach Cam (staring at a monitor that’s all just Liam’s chest hair and the Fjord bust), and a Max Cam (dancing in a stripper cop outfit), Lockey Cam (practicing with a sword in front of a mirror and then charging at Daniel for filming it - Brian: “Hopefully Daniel’s non-union.”), Ed Cam (drinking scotch and counting down the days until football returns, and also lint rolling his new goatee), Chris Cam (rapping in the VO booth), Brittany Cam (dancing with a unicorn blanket, huffing compressed air - Brian: “You can’t show that on Twitch!”).

Matt is asked how his DMing style has evolved with campaign 2. “Well... I’ve been forced to embrace a little more of the tragedy in the characters’ backstories.” The internal and external conflict has been really interesting for him to watch and react to. “I’ve learned to be very proud of my players for mucking up my perception of where things are going to go.”

Coming to Xhorhas, Nott’s thrilled to no longer have to worry about the mask. Sam’s excited about the City of Beasts “to see what kind of fucked-up individuals we’re going to find and seeing how Nott will react to that.”

Yasha definitely sympathizes with Nott trying to save her spouse, but “there’s a lot going on with her going back to Xhorhas. It’s definitely triggering for her, but she understands the need to want to go back. I wish I could go to Xhorhas. We’ll see what happens.” Travis: “I’m pretty sure once we go to a place we can never go back.”

Favorite item on the Talks shelves? Taliesin mentions a magnetic Percy mini, Sam likes the tiny Sams (”It looks like my bedroom!”), Ashley and Brian are partial to the Sully painting, Laura loves the Pike painting, Marisha loves all the stuff the cast bought on a hungover voyage to the flea market when they were first building the set, Matt loves a very cool dice tower. Brian likes the Vecna with Marisha’s face. Matt: “I don’t know if I like that one.”

Laura doesn’t like the party using the derogatory term for the Krynn, because she wants people to be happy even if she doesn’t know them. Sam: “I haven’t been the best for that, but if Jester wants me to... I guess I’ll change.”

There are new wipe transitions featuring the Matt pillow and the Fjord bust. It’s glorious.

Gif of the week: Sam calling Travis “studly” for catching the candy. Laura: “...I like that I’ve been cut out of it completely.”

Arsequeef gets the Lifetime Achievement Award for Gif of the Week. He wins Max’s 2006 Honda Accord.

On Caleb taking off his bandages because there’s nothing to hide anymore: “Was that terrifying for him, or a relief?” Liam: “Yes!” He’s waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it feels good. He’s got f...r...iends?” Marisha: “I love that sitcom. (weakly) F...r...iends?”

Caduceus being a source of comfort, insight, and advice was built into the character. Taliesin looked at low INT high WIS, and Matt immediately started laughing and told Taliesin he’d do well with that. Taliesin: “There’s plenty of things that will eventually flap that, but we haven’t hit them yet.”

As a player, Travis doesn’t like to weigh things carefully all the time, so a lot of Fjord’s leardership has been a bit about pressing fast-forward. Marisha: “So what you’re saying is that your Grog’s poking through.” Matt points out that if both characters have a trait, it’s probably just Travis. 

Liam: “I’ve got a little Travis poking me from behind.” Marisha, musing: “So many conflicting beards...”

Beau’s prayer to Ioun mostly came from a “couldn’t hurt” perspective. “I’ll try it out. Give it a spin.” When Travis asks, Marisha clarifies that it was Ioun specifically because of the Cobalt Soul. Travis: “Oh yeah, I totally knew the relationship there. I just wanted to make sure the audience did.”

Bugbear friend or bugbear foe? Sam: “He speaks goblin, he seems cool, his name’s Gluzo. He has a hard-to-pin-down accent, but it’s amazing.” Taliesin: “You have a hard-to-pin-down accent, too. It’s something you have in common.” Taliesin gets asked if his insight check revealed that the bugbear is secretly pretending to be someone else. “Yes, he’s just pretending to be a bugbear. He’s actually Matt Mercer.” Laura: “I like him. ‘Cause he’s cute and he let me give him a tattoo.”

Sam: “Nott trusts her friends to be as strong as they can be, and at this point, I don’t know if she’s as concerned with one of them dying as just getting to her husband in time before he dies. If we lose one along the way, Nott will probably cry a little, but will move on.” What if it were Fjord? “Fjord’s expjendable.”

Matt: “I’ve reached a point where Travis controls Yasha in combat, but I don’t consider any of his roleplay canon.” Ashley: “I trust Travis. Barbarian respect.” Laura: “Don’t give him that.” Ashley: “Travis himself is like a Deck of Many things. This is risky, but it’s kind of fun!”

Sam: “That dunamancy shit is lit.” Liam: “And it’s tied up in everything that Caleb wants, so if he can get on the entropy shit and the gravity shit, you know he’s going to go back in time, motherfucker.” Sam is so excited to have these mystery spells because they’re so new, and they’re inherently something they don’t know how to counter or prepare for. Travis: “It’s almost like every time we play D&D.”

Fanart of the Week: a spectacular group shot.

Everyone freaks out over how good Travis looks with glasses. He takes them off and puts them back on sexily for a while. I was too slow grabbing a screencap, but don’t worry, the gifs will be everywhere.

Laura: “Jester hasn’t experienced a lot of emotions. She hasn’t experienced a lot of anything, really. She’s definitely dealt with sadness in her life, but I don’t think it’s been so in-your-face constantly, just the trauma of it all.” Liam: “Yeah, she’s with some very terrible people.” Laura: “While it is traumatic, it’s also been a great adventure, and she’s enjoying being out and doing things. Even if it might hurt her, it’s so much better than reading about it, drawing it, just imagining how it would be.”

Caleb’s still feeling out the shift in his relationship with Nott, but there’s no question that everything they’ve gone through can’t be forgotten or overlooked. “He sees her as an absolute ally no matter what, and will do anything for her. In a weird way, he feels like they’re even more alike than he thought they were, and he loves her and wants her to succeed in what she’s doing, and hopes that the things that he wants don’t fuck it up entirely.” Sam: “Are you talking about Liam and Sam right now?”

Caduceus’ thoughts on Xhorhas? “A new environment, certainly, and a new aspect of nature that he’s unfamiliar with. This is just more terrain to him at this point. He’s also very unaware of the political realities. He’s vaguely aware there is war. He’s still not sure why we can’t just go up and ask for directions from everyone.”

Brian: “That tiara is the most blessed image.”

Travis on the Captain Tusktooth tattoo: “Brand recognition is huge in Xhorhas.” Taliesin: “Viral marketing.” Laura confirms that it’s not likely to change apart from some small differences from tattoo to tattoo. “Each person gets a special google.”

Laura on fans actually getting this tattoo: “I am ALL ABOUT IT.”

Marisha: “Guys! How about instead of M9 tattoos...” Sam: “We let Laura tattoo us? I would legitimately be down with that!” Ashley: “I’m kind of into it.” Liam: “This is what splits us apart.” Laura: “Everybody gets a dick.” Travis: “How would we explain that to our kid? ‘What’s that?’ ‘Your mom did that.’”

Beau is holding back a bit since her impulsiveness started having negative repercussions. “I think it’s about accountability. She’s started to learn--- especially when she first joined M9, she didn’t have friends, really. I think you had to learn, oh, my actions do affect others around me. I think that’s something you can learn and you can grow in, but yeah, she is trying to not be a total fuckwad anymore. Trying. But old habits...”

Favorite TM moments? Travis: “Do you remember that episode where Brian wasn’t the host?” Brian remembers Travis throwing the card that almost took him out. Ashley fondly remembers PullOutKing. Laura remembers Taliesin saying the phrase “I love teenage assholes” (referring to Percy acting immature), and Taliesin is super glad someone brought that up again just when the tweets were finally starting to die down. 

Ashley talks about how proud she is about how far Brian’s come, and how great he’s doing at this. Everyone has an uncharacteristically sincere moment of applause for Brian. Liam: “Everyone take 30 seconds to drop the bit that we think you’re a total fucking weirdo. You’re so good at this, and you’re such a good friend, and we’re so glad you’re part of this family.”

Marisha pitches the idea of trying to sell TM syndicated on LifeTime now that they have 100 episodes.

Brian remembers having food poisoning that led to him running off-screen, throwing up in the middle of the show, and then having to come back. Marisha remembers Travis texting everyone that night with “lol, did Brian just yarf on TV?”

Matt talks about how proud he is of Brian for going from zero tabletop experience to co-running his own game.

Talks Machina After Dog ft. Sleepy Boi Henry

“This is the best dog-petting show ever.”

Liam was skeptical about TM initially, because he was worried it would take away from what would be shared in-game. Marisha: “I was stoked for it, not gonna lie. I was very misunderstood and people hated my character, so I was kind of stoked to just get to explain it.” Travis was sold once they picked the name.

Marisha: “It also set the precedent for really dumb, punny names.” Brian points out that, as a channel, they now can’t stick with serious names as their final choice.

Laura’s sister has been watching the show, and she texted Laura after the show to ask what the whisper was, so Laura’s going to tell her and no one else. Liam: “You’re gonna tell your real sibling?”

There’s a horrified discussion about giraffe fighting. Some segues happened in there.

What’s something their characters have done that’s made them proud? Liam: Caleb using the Wall of Fire. Marisha: the Plank King execution episode as a whole (everyone agrees). Travis: “I was proud of hooking up with an NPC when my wife wasn’t here to threaten me with death.” (he immediately turns to Taliesin: “Help.” Taliesin: “No god can help you now.”) Taliesin: “I sunk a boat.” Laura: Proud of not getting caught with Nott in the Platinum Dragon sanctuary. Sam: Taking the blow for Jester so she could escape. Liam: “Molly showing his dick covered in eggs.”

Matt: “I’m proud of you guys not entirely descending into evil madness. I’m proud of the character arcs of being broken, terrible people, and finding out that it’s okay to be broken; you’re not necessarily terrible.” Liam: “The entire cast went, ‘He’s talking about everyone but me’.” Matt thought it was going to be very hard to keep the group together, but the party turned it into character growth moments. “I’m proud of you.” Laura: “Thanks, Dad.”

Yasha loved the arm wrestling. “Oh man, it’s so fun to be the tank.”

Laura: “I’m really proud of us for saving Kiri!”

Everyone has Liam’s chest hair:

Wishes for the next 100 episodes? More Ashley. 

Brian: “I hate this coffee table more than anything in the whole, entire world.”

What’s something that should never change about the show? How ridiculous it is, the barrel, Dani. Also always have a dog. They fundamentally do the show for themselves, still, and that’s made it a really good environment for them to open up about the show and their characters.

Liam: “There’s a lot of beauty to what we do, but it’s also inherently silly. And to deny that is silly.”

Matt likes that it’s unpolished and imperfect. “Things are going to go wrong regardless, and you can either get angry and frustrated about the lack of control, or you can embrace it.” Sam: “None of this is real anyway.” 

Brian points out that this is not an excuse to stop paying him.

And that’s a wrap! This is the last After Dark for a while, but there are some big ideas in the works for the coming weeks!

[taramaclaywasaterf]

I love that youre a Spuffy shipper. People talk about how abusive their relationship was but a 240 year old stalking a 15 year old is totally romantic? And soul-having Angel is SO BORING although I hear he's characterized way better on Angel. But Spike is such a fun character and hes fucking hilarious. And the backstory with his mother in Lies My Parents Told Me OMG. So deliciously twisted. And James apparently is a sweatheart with fans. But in my gay heart the only one for Buffy is Faith.

Oh their (Spuffy’s) relationship was totally fucked up, but like...I’m weak, and I can’t help but ship them anyway lol

AND YESSS remember how the Whistler was like “wow she must be prettier than the last slayer” when Angel first saw Buffy and said he wanted to help her? It was clear from the start that his intentions were to hook up with her! AND HE WAS 26 YEARS OLD WHEN HE WAS SIRED. NOT GOOD.

I’m one of those people who sees vampires as their human age, not their demon age (which I know is controversial among vampire...enthusiasts? Is there a word for that?) because I see it as they’re frozen in that emotional maturity level/brain development stage. If you’re sired at 17, you essentially have the mind of a 17 year old for the next however many centuries it takes until you get a stake jabbed through your heart. You might be a very mature 17 year old with a lot (A LOT!) of life experience, but your brain still works like that of any other 17 year old.

The reason I’m saying all that is because HOLY FUCK is it gross that Angel was supposed to be ALMOST 30 when he was sired!!! That’s TWICE Buffy’s age when he first started to quite literally stalk her!!! Add over 200 years to that- over 200 years of being a 30 year old man!- and the grossness is amplified times, like, a thousand.

And omg yes, he’s extremely boring in Buffy. He’s got the personality of a doorknob. And he’s also just an all around self righteous asshole lol but he is a lot better in his spin-off. I actually love Angel the Series. It starts off a little slow but it gets really really good (minus some major issues in the middle, which I won’t spoil in case you ever wanna watch it) as it goes on. His personality really comes through, and he becomes more than just one-note Broody Forehead Guy. David Boreanaz’s acting actually improves a lot in AtS too, which is great because there’s a few times in BtVS that he kinda takes me out of the moment, especially early on when he’s still figuring out how to play Angel.

As for Spike, he is SO much more entertaining than Angel. Like, coming from a character/story telling perspective alone, his character in Buffy is just infinitely more interesting than Angel’s is. And his characterization is flawless (well, thanks to Joss that’s not true, but you get my point lol) in the sense of going from William to Spike. IT ALL JUST MAKES SENSE. IT FITS HIM PERFECTLY. Everything Spike *IS* is a reaction to who he was as William. Like what Angel says to Willow in Doppelgangland: becoming a vampire amplifies who you were as a person (*cough* hence Harmony being The Literal Best vampire in all creation *cough*). The demon inside Spike is essentially going against everything Spike was as a human, and I think that’s how Spike was able to love without having his soul...his ability to love was amplified by being sired, but the demon inside him violently rebelled against it, leading to this weird sort of relationship we see first with Dru, then with Buffy. It’s sorta parallel to Angel vs. Angelus, only it’s William vs. Spike, going on inside him all at the same time. Ugh. Anyway, I can go on for hours about this so I’ll stop here before it gets even longer lol

As for Fuffy, I have another ask coming about all about them!!!

(Oh, and yes, Spike is hilarious too. I quote “you made a bear! Undo it! Undo it!” And “Just An Old Pal Of Xan-derrr’s” literally every chance I can get lol)

[returnsandreturns]

Have one whole random chapter from the middle of the novel that I really want to start writing again but I don’t have TIME!!!! 

backstory: Andy’s writing the gay version of 50 Shades of Grey after stumbling into a dom/sub relationship. James and him are totally not in love at all. Laurel is my everything. I love them all so much, I wanna die.

“Are you watching porn at the dinner table?” Laurel asks.

“Well, it’s noon,” Andy says, not looking up from the screen, “so no. And it’s research.”

She bends down to look over his shoulder and whistles low.

“That’s quite a party,” she says.

“I knew sketchy sex clubs were a thing,” he says, pausing it and accepting the orange that she hands to him, “but this is the first time I’ve witnessed one. It’s—interesting.”

She sits across from him at the table and raises her eyebrows.

“You into it?” she asks.

“I think I would have a panic attack and die,” he says, shrugging, “but I can see the appeal.”

“Is your protagonist who definitely isn’t you at all into it?” she asks.

“He’s not,” he says, because he is not. Just because his main character, now generically named Tom, has certain similar characteristics and experiences doesn’t mean that it’s a memoir or something. He’s not writing a sex memoir.

“You might as well have named him Sandy,” Laurel says. Andy frowns at her.

“Anyway, I thought it would be an interesting thing to include, yeah,” he says. “I also thought about maybe—taking a field trip?”

She gasps.

“I wanna go!” she says.

“Seriously?” he asks.

“Strictly for tourism reasons,” she says, “but yes.”

“Okay, then,” Andy says, laughing. “You pull out the leather, I’ll keep talking to strangers on the internet about the best places to get weird in Queens.”

“You laugh but I have some cute leather pants,” she says. She’s been dutifully peeling her orange in one long peel and she sits it down on the table triumphantly. “I’m going to text Stef, we can double date.”

“Double date?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she says, like it’s obvious, splitting the orange in half. “Stef, me, you and your sexy lawyer friend.”

He could ask James. It wouldn’t actually be a date, obviously, because who goes on a date at a weird sex club, and he might like it. He marked that he was somewhat interested in exhibitionism on his checklist, at least—Andy wasn’t sure whether that meant screwing in Central Park after dark or just, like, holding hands on the sidewalk, but this might be somewhere in the middle of those two.

“Okay,” he says, digging his thumbnail into the skin of his orange. “I’ll text him.”

After two solid hours of research, he texts James the name of the nicest club he can find that you don’t need a special invitation for and three question marks. In reply, he gets a phone call, which he answers immediately with, “I’m allowed to remind you that you’re older than me if you actually call me on the phone.”

“I couldn’t possibly forget that you’re younger than me,” James says, dryly, but not unkind. Just five years, but James would probably be more notably mature even if they were the same age. “Are you asking me to go to a club with you?”

“For research, not recreation,” Andy says, then, almost hopefully, “Unless you—want to have some recreation.”

“Do you?”

“If you do.”

“Andy,” James says, with a little stern dominant sneaking into his voice.

“Okay, it’s a firm maybe,” Andy says. “I do want you to come with me, though.”

James hums softly.

“If you want it,” he says. “I’ll meet you there.”

“Laurel and Stef are also coming,” Andy says.

“Recreationally?” James asks.

“No, they’re just going to be creepy and watch,” Andy says. “How’s Saturday sound?”

“Saturday works,” he replies. “Your sister isn’t coming, is she? She’s amazing, but I don’t want to publicly spank you in front of her, if it comes to that.”

Andy suddenly has a vivid mental image of being naked and bent over the bar at the place he met James at, skin slick and a little sticky from spilled drinks, being spanked hard in front of a group of people who can talk but not touch. He’s not sure he’s into it.

He might be into it.

“Andy?”

“Sorry, my imagination just took a spin,” he says, weakly. “Sara headed back home to wait and hear about her interview, so it’ll be just us.”

“Okay,” James says. “Let’s do it.”

After he hangs up, Andy goes back to reading the message he got back from some guy on FetLife whose icon is just a mouth with a ballgag in it, going over the description of the place they’re going and realizes that it’s technically a dungeon. Cool.

He might have to buy something latex to wear.

*

Laurel’s leather pants are actually really cute, deep red and tight and kind of like something that Faith from Buffy would wear, which is a compliment that makes her really happy.

“That’s, like, my entire life goal,” she says.

They’re huddled up outside the club, all of them dressed slightly too scantily for how cold it is, waiting for James. Andy’s just wearing tight jeans and a black t-shirt because he doesn’t have enough clothing to have actual outfits and Stef is wearing a little black dress that’s killer.

“If I get drunk enough,” Laurel says, looking Stef up and down for the tenth time tonight, “I might engage in some of that exhibitionism we were talking about.”

“Oh, there’s a one drink maximum,” Andy says. He forgot to mention that. They give him identical looks of horror.

“What kind of place is this?” Stef asks.

“A dungeon,” he says. “Do you really want to be in a room full of drunk people with paddles?”

“I certainly don’t,” James says, and Andy jumps a little and turns around to smile at him.

“You’re here,” he says. “At the dungeon.”

“I’m here,” James repeats, grinning. “At the dungeon. You ready?”

Andy takes a second to look at him, because he looks nice. Dark blue collared shirt with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, a couple more buttons unbuttoned than is necessarily appropriate for polite society. Andy kind of wants to rip the rest of them off, too.

James raises his eyebrows when Andy makes it back to his eyes again.

“Yeah,” Andy says, nodding. “I’m ready.”

“I’m not sure I am,” Laurel whispers, to Stef, as they go inside and immediately head down a large flight of stairs.

“We can leave,” Stef says. “I’ll take you out for ice cream instead.”

“. . .let’s see what it’s like first,” Laurel says, a little more firmly.

At the door, they have to fill out forms about liability and privacy and leave their cellphones, carefully marked so they can give a ticket back and retrieve it. It’s accompanied with a lecture about safety and consent and confidentiality, which makes Andy significantly less nervous about what’s going to happen inside. It seems like an extremely civilized weird public bondage dungeon.

When they step inside, it’s dark but in a mood lighting way, and there’s definitely—a mood. It doesn’t exactly look like a dungeon classically, but there are shackles involved. It’s kind of like a lounge but with a lot of very specific furniture—more specifically, things to be tied to.

There is a bar to the side, and James immediately nods at it and leads them there while they take in the scene.

There’s a woman tied up spread-eagled on the far wall, dressed in pretty black lingerie. She looks like she might be forty or so, and she has her head thrown back laughing while another woman runs a feather across her stomach. Andy waits to see how she reacts when she’s not laughing, when the feather isn’t touching her—she’s grinning. They’re both having fun.

Everyone is milling around in various states of either costume or undress. A guy’s getting flogged over a bench that he’s tied to with pink rope, counting the hits and asking for more. There are a couple of people on leashes, which does something to Andy that he’s not willing to contemplate too much, because he’s not sure he wants to be the kind of person who likes wearing a collar anywhere but the privacy of his own home.

(They haven’t actually done that yet, officially. He might’ve underlined it on his checklist a few times.)

“Okay, I think maybe I’ve seen enough,” Laurel says. She’s blushing bright red when Andy glances back at her, and Stef automatically slips an arm through hers and kisses her cheek. “I’m sorry, we’ve been here two seconds. That’s so lame.”

“It’s not,” Andy says, smiling at her. “I’m a little freaked out, too, honestly.”

“Do you want to leave?” James asks, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“Absolutely not,” Andy says, turning to him quickly, and James laughs softly and tightens his fingers.

“We’re going to go get ice cream,” Stef says. “I would say we’ll see you later, but I assume you’ll be busy tonight.”

James’ fingers tighten even more and Andy’s eyes go wide.

“We’ll be busy tonight,” James says.

“Well, have fun!” Laurel says, voice going kind of squeaky, looking up at the ceiling so she doesn’t have to look around her.

“Just shut your eyes, sweetheart, I’ll guide you out,” Stef says, affectionately, wrapping an arm around her instead and leading her back towards the door. Andy suspects that this isn’t the firm time someone has walked in and immediately turned heel and left, and he has those suspicions confirmed by a tall, willowy blonde guy who approaches him with a sweet smile.

“First time?” he asks.

He can feel James go stiff behind him, hand sliding down to hold onto Andy’s elbow instead, and he glances back before he smiles and says, “Yeah. My friends decided it wasn’t for them.”

“Sometimes it’s hard to tell until you actually see it all happening at once,” the guys confirms, then extends a hand. “I’m Gabe.”

“Andy,” Andy says. “This is James.”

James openly ignores Gabe’s hand when it’s offered and Gabe smiles, dropping his arm.

“You two are cute together,” he says. “I’m guessing tall, dark and handsome here’s your dom?”

“Well, we’re just—” Andy starts, because they’re friends, because they haven’t phrased it in such clear terms. They really aren’t each other’s anything, if they’re being technical, and in the middle of a dungeon full of people who are two steps away from fucking each other just seems like the kind of time to be technical.

“Friends,” James offers, sounding pained.

Gabe looks between them for a moment before he hums softly.

“So, Andy, you wouldn’t mind if I steal you for a dance?” he asks.

“Oh, uhm—” Andy says, glancing back at James whose face has suddenly gotten tight.

“Go ahead,” he says, and Andy feels all of his internal organs sink for a moment—he knows they’re not dating, but he’s just going to let him go off with another guy? He doesn’t look happy about it but he’s willing to, like he doesn’t want Andy to himself enough to put aside the stupid unwritten rules of sex friends and just enjoy this weird sex dungeon together.

“Cool,” Andy says, keeping eye contact with him and smiling before offering a hand to Gabe, who looks amused as he takes it. Maybe not much hand-holding goes on in the weird sex dungeon.

Gabe pulls him over to a small dance floor on the other side of the room, with low jazz music and low lights so he feels like some type of ingenue or something when Gabe circles an arm around him and squeezes his hand.

They move in an unsteady rhythm—Gabe’s clearly good at leading and Andy, for all that he’s apparently extremely submissive, is terrible at being led—and Gabe moves in close to almost rest their cheeks together, practically crouching to do it because Andy’s like child-sized compared to him.

“Don’t look back,” Gabe says, softly, in his ear, “but I think your handsome friend might fight me later.”

“Are you into that?” Andy asks, almost serious.

“I’m strictly a lover,” Gabe says, laughing. “What’s the story here? What are we working with?”

Andy wonders if he should keep all of this to himself but he’s kind of mad and very sober and this guy seems confusingly wise, so he tells him basically everything, wraps his arms around his neck during a slow R&B song and spills all of his feelings—from the night they hooked up to right now, when he thought James would claim him.

“Let’s see if he’s—yep, death glare,” Gabe says, grinning down at Andy. “Want to make him jealous?”

“. . .tell me more,” Andy says.

This leads to Gabe leading him over to a dark corner with a couch and a few chairs, saying low, “I’m gonna sit down and you’re gonna get on your knees for me, okay?”

Andy hesitates for a moment before he murmurs, “Christ,” and sinks to his knees.

Gabe strokes his fingers through Andy’s hair before grinning down at him and saying, “Jackpot.”

“Can we talk?” James asks, from behind him, hands on his hips like a disapproving mother when Andy turns around to look at him.

“I’m kind of busy,” Andy says, raising his eyebrows.

“Andy.”

Gabe laughs and ruffles Andy’s hair, saying, “I think he means business, kid.”

Andy sighs and stands up, throwing a smile at Gabe over his shoulder as James leads him away, to a quiet corner where he surprises Andy by pushing him up against a wall and kissing him.

“What’s that for?” Andy asks, breathlessly.

“Did you want to go with that guy?”

“No, I wanted you to tell him to fuck off,” Andy says, laughing, “but I could. Isn’t that the arrangement? No rules, just right?”

“. . .that’s the Outback Steakhouse motto,” James says, faintly, “but yes.”

“You’re jealous,” Andy says. He was kind of pissed off for a second, but James has this look on his face like he’s been caught in the act and it makes Andy so happy. He’s normally the flustered one. Finally, the upperhand. “You don’t want anybody else to touch me, do you?”

“Not where I can see them,” James mutters, rolling his eyes.

“You want me all to yourself,” Andy says, grinning up at him and stepping in close. “You basically just pissed on me to mark your territory.”

“We both marked no to that on the checklist,” James says, and Andy laughs and pushes up into a kiss, curling a hand around the back of his neck. James looks slightly dazed when he steps back again, and Andy feels something stirring inside of him that he doesn’t want to hide. He doesn’t want to hide.

“Why don’t you show everyone who I belong to?” he asks, dropping his voice but keeping his chin tipped up, watching James’ expression slip from shocked to something sweet and dark. He lets out a shuddering breath before he lifts his hand to run fingers through Andy’s hair.

“What did you have in mind?”

*

They awkwardly talk to one of the employees just to make sure of the rules here because they’re both the least cool people in the world, but now Andy’s standing next to the bench the guy was getting flogged on earlier and trying to get the nerve up to take off most of his clothes in this room full of people. He could do it dressed, but somehow this seems important—being vulnerable and bare. To be looked at but not touched by anyone but James.

It sounds nice.

James sits down on a chair next to it and looks at him, just a little bit out of his element.

“Light?” he asks, when Andy shifts on his feet and smiles at him.

“Green,” Andy says. “Light?”

Andy’s never asked for one before. James actually takes a second to think about it before he says, “Green. Strip.”

The order helps, makes Andy shiver as he immediately takes his t-shirt off. Only a few people are watching them, and Gabe is one of them, draped over a couch and smiling. He looks like he’d probably like to take Andy apart, and Andy probably wouldn’t hate that, but—for this moment, at least, he belongs to someone.

When he’s down to his boxer briefs—thankfully tight and black and not something embarrassing—he steps up so he’s standing in front of James, who looks like he’d either like to fuck him right now in front of everybody or re-dress him and kiss him and go hold hands somewhere where nobody else can see them. It’s a weird look. Andy likes it a lot.

They ask each other for lights again and they’re both still green.

Andy lies across the bench, built with two levels so his chest is pressed up against the higher one and his knees rest on the lower one, putting his ass clearly on display if you’re standing in the right place. There are cuffs for his hands and feet, softly padded, and James puts them on him carefully before he leans down and tips Andy’s chin up, pressing a soft kiss to his mouth.

“Count for me, okay?” he asks. “We’ll do ten.”

Andy nods. This is one of those speechless moments, but he’s pretty sure that he can manage numbers at least. He lifts his head enough to see that more people are watching and he feels himself blush, pretty sure that his whole body’s going a little pink at least.

“Tell me you want it,” James asks, standing behind of him, smoothing a hand over the curve of his ass. It’s loud enough that the people close to them can probably hear.

“Please,” Andy says, and his voice is—shattered, like he hasn’t spoken all day, loud and shaking apart when he continues, “Please, spank me.”

He means it. He wants it, wants to feel what he feels when they’re alone, see how it changes when they’re showing off.

“Good boy,” James says, softly, just for him, and then he pulls back and hits Andy hard.

Andy makes a completely unmanly yelping noise but manages to gasp out, “One!”

With every hit, harder every time, he has no control over what noises he makes and he’s constantly caught between two thoughts, between this is so fucking hot and this is so fucking weird. The first one seems to dominate, though; he’s hard, dick pressed up against the bench and rubbing painfully every time he jerks forward and pushes back to take more.  

Right before James hits him one last time, he looks up to see that people are watching them with undisguised interest and his breath catches, breaking off into a pained sob of, “Ten, ten, ten,” when James hits him again.

When James immediately moves to kneel in front of him and kiss him, when it’s obvious that they’re done, there’s a light scatter of applause which is—somewhere between the fucking hot and fucking weird spectrum, but closer to the weird. He’s got tears running down his face that he didn’t even notice and James asks, “Are you okay?” while he’s already quickly uncuffing him.

“Fine,” Andy says, standing up slowly, leaning all of his weight on James when he wraps his arms around him. “Great, actually, just—wow.”

“Good fodder for your novel?” James asks, wiping the tears off his face and pressing a kiss to his forehead that makes Andy ache faintly. He wants James to take him home and curl up around him so they can fall asleep together almost as much as he wants to grind against him right now until he ruins his underwear. There’s no actual sex allowed in the building, but does it even count if your clothes don’t come off?

“Yeah, really good,” he says, laughing wetly. “My readers will love it. Can we go?”

“Had enough?”

“I would let you fuck me right here if you wanted to,” Andy says, eyes wide and serious. “So let’s not get in trouble and go back to your—my place, actually, my place is closer, c’mon.”

“You have to wear clothes to leave,” James says, amused but gently, like he’s concerned about him. It’s not undeserved. The last time Andy felt this wired and intense, he was in the middle of a manic episode, but—it’s all overeager brain chemicals, in the end.

“Obviously,” he says, laughing breathlessly. He gets dressed quickly and James immediately wraps an arm around his shoulders and leads him toward the door.

“Hey, kid!” Gabe says, approaching them. “Good show.”

Andy’s in no state to talk to anyone right now, anyway, nevertheless someone who just watched him get spanked and clearly love it, so he just smiles at the way James holds him closer and says, “Thanks. We’re headed out.”

“I’m giving you my number,” Gabe says, holding out a receipt with a number scrawled out on it. “I was going to do it just to make your friend jealous because he’s cute when he looks like he’s about to kill someone but I also try to make friends with all the baby kinksters.”

“Friends?” James asks, raising his eyebrows.

“Friends,” Gabe repeats, seriously. “I’ve been around the block and I’m actually not a creep, so—hit me up if you have questions about the scene or whatever.”

“You don’t look that much older than me,” Andy says.

“Started young,” Gabe says, winking. “Have fun, boys.”

As soon as Gabe walks away, James says, “I don’t like him.”

Andy laughs and tugs him towards the door.

“Take me home, sailor.”

*

The next morning, Andy wakes up in his bed alone and immediately makes a sad noise before he hears noise from the living room. He puts on a clean pair of boxers and a t-shirt before he heads out to find Laurel and James sitting at the kitchen table together, talking over big cups of coffee.

“Oh, hi,” Laurel says, when she sees him. “We were just talking about you.”

“. . .why?” he asks, suspiciously, bypassing them to get his own coffee.

“I think I just got the shotgun speech,” James says, sounding like he’s actually uncomfortable, and Andy groans.

“You’re not my real dad,” he says, pointing at Laurel as he sits down with them.

“I thought it needed to be said,” Laurel says, simply, “that if he hurts you in any way that you don’t specifically ask for, then I will physically fight him to the death.”

Andy sighs, turning to smile at James and say, “I apologize for her. She’d probably win, though.”

“I don’t doubt it,” James says, smiling back weakly. “I should probably walk of shame my way back to my place, though.”

“I could make you breakfast,” Andy says, while he’s trying to figure out if they have any food to actually accomplish that. He thinks that they have one single egg left, which could work in a pinch.

“It’s okay,” James says, getting up and reaching over to ruffle his hair. “I’ll talk to you later. Last night was fun.”

“Yeah,” Andy says, lamely, as James immediately heads for the front door. “Later.”

As soon as the door shuts, he turns to Laurel.

“What the fuck?” he asks.

“Geez, calm down,” she says, looking genuinely angry. “That’s a prerequisite best friend speech.”

“For someone you’re dating,” Andy says.

“Oh my god, you might as well be,” she says. “You fell in love with him the first time you slept with him.”

“I didn’t fall—maybe I fell in love with his dick, but that’s it,” he says, firmly.

“Bullshit,” Laurel says. Her voice is flat, a little softer than it was. “You don’t have to lie to me. You know that.”

“I’m not lying. I like him a lot,” Andy says, “but I’m okay with what we are. I mean, shit, we can’t all U-Haul with the first girl we date freshman year like you did.”

Laurel’s lips, once set in a thin angry line, wobble just a little. Andy feels bad because that’s a sore spot between them—once, when he got in a tift with Stef, he said something about how Laurel settled for her and it fucked them all up for a week or two. He shouldn’t have brought it up again.

“You look at him like I look at her,” she says, after a long stretch of silence, “and I’m in love. I just don’t want you to get your heart broken because he’s too much of a dick to realize that you’re worth more than casual sex.”

“We both agreed that it was just—no, you know what, just stay out of it, Laurel,” Andy says, standing up and turning to go back to his room before turning back to grab his coffee. “I didn’t ask you to get involved.”

Laurel’s face gets distinctly more wobbly and he immediately feels terrible, but he’s also mad at her and worried that James is going to back out of this because it’s getting too serious and, also, he’s way hungrier than one egg could possibly satisfy.

“Sorry,” she says, softly, like it hurts to get out. She gets up and leaves her coffee behind, shutting her door behind her, leaving him there to think about how he’s the worst person in the entire world.

When he goes back to his room, he writes two thousand words about how amazing his protagonist’s best friend is. He might email it to her later. He also texts James to apologize and gets back: you’ve got great friends. you should thank her for watching out for you.

God, he’s mature. It’s infuriating.

Andy grabs his laptop and heads to Laurel’s room to read the best friend description aloud to her instead of emailing it.

After that, he might make her muffins or something.

*

They’re sitting on James’ bed, both of them on their laptops working—James on something legal and official and Andy on a scene where his two main characters talk about gangbangs for three pages but no gangbangs actually happen, because the mechanics would have to be difficult.

“How hard do you think it is to choreograph a gangbang?” he asks, without looking up.

“. . .uhm,” James says.

“I’m writing porn,” Andy reminds him, flicking his eyes up, and James huffs out a laugh.

“Oh, right,” he says. “Good. And—well, it depends on how many people are involved, but that’s—a lot of limbs.”

“Yeah,” Andy says, nodding aimlessly. “Too many tabs, too many slots.”

“It’s so hot when you talk about sex like it’s IKEA furniture,” James says. He finishes up what he’s doing and shuts his laptop, putting it on his bedside table before he sprawls out on his back. “Ready whenever you are.”

Andy snorts and finishes his sentence before he follows suit, crawling on top of James to straddle his hips. James smiles up at him.

“What do you want?” he asks.

“. . .uhm, do you think we could go shopping together sometime?” Andy asks.

“For. . .?”

“A collar,” Andy says.

He hasn’t been able to stop thinking about wearing a collar for him—a real one, one that they pick out together. And a leash. And nothing else.

“Oh, wow,” James says, softly. “That’s really hot, Andy.”

“. . .but?” He’s pretty sure there’s a but, because James’ face is doing a thing, kind of hesitant and nervous. James reaches up to brush hair away from his face before sits up with Andy in his lap, steadying them and then kissing him on the mouth.

“Is this about the other night?” he asks.

“. . .I mean, seeing people on leashes did increase my interest, yeah,” Andy says.

“No, I mean—when that guy flirted with you,” James says, then, carefully, “When you said you belonged to me.”

“Oh,” Andy says. “That.”

He’d been a little drunk on the situation at the time, but. He still kind of meant it. It’s not very casual, though. Can you casually belong to someone?

“I wanted to talk about that, too, actually,” he says. “Why were you so jealous?”

“. . .I wasn’t jealous, really,” James says. “I just didn’t want you to go off with somebody you didn’t know, when you’d never been somewhere like that before. It’s not safe.”

“You were just concerned for my safety,” Andy says, humming softly, “and you wouldn’t have been jealous at all if I’d let him take my clothes off and bend me over something and make me cry.”

“No,” James says, unconvincingly.

“You wouldn’t have been jealous,” Andy says, because he knows exactly what’s happening here—or at least half of what’s happening here, “if I’d left you there and took him home and let him do whatever he wanted to me?”

“Not at all,” James says, and Andy grins at him and pushes him down, bending to kiss him.

“I’ll just go do that then,” he says, starting to get up, and James basically growls and drags him back down to flip him over and get on top of him.

“Okay, I don’t like the idea of anybody else touching you,” he admits, “but I wouldn’t stop you.”

“Good to know,” Andy says, even though he really wants to tell him that he doesn’t want anyone else to touch him. That saying he belonged to James made something dark and pleased shoot through him and seeing the look on James’ face made it even stronger.

He wishes there was some way to ask him if they could be monogamous sex friends without actually using the phrase monogamous sex friends. Or sounding like he’s actually proposing.

“What if,” he says, slowly, “when we’re alone, though—we act like I belong to you? Casually?”

“Casually,” James repeats.

“You can own me just for fun,” Andy says, smiling. “Be my dom, not my boyfriend.”

“And we’d buy you a collar,” James says, brushing fingers over Andy’s throat before he circles it lightly, squeezing enough that Andy’s breath catches and he squirms underneath him.

“And a leash,” he agrees, breathlessly.

James leans down to press a kiss to his forehead.

“Want to go now?” he asks, softly, thumb pressed into Andy’s throat.

“After,” Andy says.

“After?”

“After,” Andy repeats, significantly, going for completely unsubtle and wrapping his legs around his waist.

[javaelemental]

Batwoman (S1, Ep2): The Rabbit Hole

Episode two was a huge improvement over one. Pacing was better, scene segues were better, characterizations took a big jump forward - it was overall a much stronger episode.

Looks like we get the red suit next week? Looking forward to that - the egg-shaped cowl on the current bat suit bugs me.

I’m liking the dynamic between Kate and Alice - can’t wait to see how all that shakes out.

Jacob Kane is kind of the worst, right? Like, that dude is not good at being a dad. Or a wannabe cop/paramilitary force.

Speaking of, super-duper not loving the idea of a private paramilitary force basically taking over for the cops. How on Earth was that even let to happen? What kind of power do they have? I could see them providing private security for people or at events, that makes sense. But they’re actually out there hunting down gang members, doing investigations, and shooting people dead. I could see how they might be able to round up the power to make an arrest - bounty hunters can do something like that. But shooting people dead, apparently legally? What?

Also, not liking the whole Kate/Sophia thing. The girl got married Kate, leave her the fuck alone. Being a woman doesn’t absolve you of being weird and pushy with your ex. Also, Sophia totally sold Kate out at school or wherever, why would you even still be chasing that? No part of this Kate/Sophia situation makes me happy. It’s creepy and unhealthy. Yuck. Stop it, Batwoman writers.

I am really liking Mary, Kate’s step-sister. (Half-sister?) I love that’s she’s out there running an illegal clinic to help people, love how she handled Alice’s boytoy breaking in on her, love how she straight called Kate out, she’s great.

Kate’s still kind of being a dick to Luke Fox. I could do without that. I’m totally on Luke’s side here. This crazy woman broke into his boss’ place and is now swanning around acting like she owns everything when, as far as I can tell, she does not. And she’s being mean about it to the guy who’s basically in the right. No argument he’s made has been a bad argument.

I’m a little confused about the 70′s-style giant box computers in the Bat Cave. I feel like Bruce would have upgraded that occasionally. They look cool, not gonna knock that. They just kinda don’t make a lot of sense.

Overall, good, solid episode. Good action, plot, fun. I’d like to see a few relationship things cleaned up, but we’ll give them a few episodes to get it sorted out.

🏆 Line of the Night Award: Bad guy: “Thought you were Batman.” Batwoman: “You wish."

Supergirl (S5, Ep2): Stranger Beside Me

Lena. Holy shit, woman. What the hell. “I’m not evil,” she says, as she proceeds to do all the evil things. “This woman screwed me over once so I’ll just reprogram her whole brain and stick my friendly AI henchman in there, that seems like a good idea that never, ever goes wrong in other stories. Also, I’ll figure out how to do something similar with all humans. 'Making humans better by force’ always works out well and is never evil.”

River Tam wants a word with you, Lena, JFC.

The rest of the plot was, y’know. Meh. I don’t care a lot about J’onn’s brother and whatever’s going on with that, yet.

I extra don’t care about Nia and Brainy’s issues. This is a prime example of CW’s penchant for forced relationship drama. Y’all are grownups, use your goddamn words.

I am slightly interested in what’s going on with who’s-his-face at Cat Co., the reporter dude from London with NSA contacts and the obviously fake backstory. Please do something more interesting with that than dating/relationship drama, Supergirl writers. Oh yeah, we saw what you were doing there with Kara’s snipping at who’s-his-face. You can’t fool us.

Also, for fucksake, will someone please tell Kara to get a lawyer? Rojas’ non-compete contract is in no way enforceable or realistic. Get you to a lawyer, stat. And take James Olsen’s dumb ass with you before we have to see him run for office.

Overall this was another weak episode. I hope they’re not stuck spinning their wheels until Crisis.

🏆 Line of the Night Award: No winners in this episode.

[djs-random-blog]

So, I was thinking about Civil War in class and went, “Yeah, but What If?” So here’s a kind of AU (I guess) where Tony has a daughter.

So, a bit of backstory, when Tony was young (if y’know what I mean). He had a one night stand and they went separate ways. Chick got pregnant, and had Ellison. When Ellison was thirteen, her mum died (or disappeared, I haven’t decided which yet) and Ellison decided she didn’t want to go into the foster care system or whatever. So she hunted down her real Dad (Tony) and convinced him to let her stay with him. Of course, even if she wasn’t his, Tony would have a hard time ditching her anyway (because he’s such a fucking Dad). Anywho, now she’s 20.

Maybe I shouldn’t have persuaded Dad to let me come with him to the Joint Counter Terrorist Centre after they had taken Steve, Sam, Bucky and Prince T’Challa into custody. I mean, sure, for a psychology undergrad, it’s hella interesting watching the showdown as the government tries to control the living daylights out of a bunch of superheroes, but on a personal level, it’s more painful. I’ve been hanging out with most of them since I was thirteen and came to live with Dad, and seeing them being split down the middle legitimately scares me. Watching Dad beg and plead with Steve is heart breaking. I’ve never seen him so powerless before. No one enjoys watching their parents being weak, it’s all wrong. Parents are supposed to be strong and steady. Dad was under a lot of pressure to begin with. Now, he seems to be living in a permanent state of stress. So there are a lot of reasons why I don’t want to be here.

But then there’s the Winter Soldier Quest. Dad coined the term first, about a year after I came to live with him, and it kind of stuck. I was fourteen when one of my teachers brought up the Winter Soldier in History class. After that it sort of became a bit of a passion project. I collected as much information as I could, and Jarvis helped me figure at whether it was real or just conspiracy. I had folders full of information on him. Steve had seen my research and asked if I could do a little bit on his old friend, Bucky. He never told me what he was looking for exactly, but I got the feeling he was wondering if I could find the body. I did a bit of research anyway, and came up with zilch in the corpse department. Which almost made sense. It was winter when Barnes fell of the train, and it would have snowed a lot. However, the snow would have quickly covered him and preserved the body. And since then, there had been a couple of searches for a body (courtesy of the Howling Commandos, Howard Stark and Agent Peggy Carter) but nothing came up. Which is odd, because if your last name is Stark, that usually means you’re the most stubborn bastard anyone has ever come across. Take that from someone who really knows. So then I made the connection that the Winter Soldier was James Buchanan Barnes. The Bucky Barnes that used to be best friends with Steve. Turns out Steve had already put two and two together, but I was still proud of my find. And Dad was pretty impressed when I told him about my work as well. So I guess when I asked if I might have a chance to meet Bucky Barnes, he wasn’t going to say no completely. There were ground rules, obviously. I might not actually get to talk to him, he was dangerous, and he needed to be interrogated first. Because, “Being the child genius of a genius isn’t enough to keep you from getting hurt, junior. Take it from someone who knows.” But Dad (knowingly or not) had left a bit of a loophole. He hadn’t banned wandering around the facility. I hadn’t intended to go wandering off, really, but after watching Dad work fruitlessly to talk Steve around, I needed a break.

So, yeah. I hadn’t really needed the restroom, but I had needed a “rest”, so I wasn’t lying all that much. And when I found out that I’d managed to get lost on the return trip I figured Dad wouldn’t tell me off . . . too much. Besides, I did have a legitimate excuse. Being lost had it’s pros.

But then I heard the sound of someone shouting, pleading, begging. Shivers run up my spine. Sure, to a point, government facilities are supposed to be intimidating. But this seems a bit much. So, of course, I make my way towards the source of the sound. A door on my left, a little way down the hall. Suddenly the lights went out, and I’m plunged into darkness. For the first time I feel a stab of fear shooting through me. Ahead and behind me, I hear mechanisms sliding into place. An automated voice crackles over unseen speakers. “Block 7A is on lockdown to prevent the escape of the Winter Soldier.” I’m not sure, but something in the back of my mind tells me I’m in Block 7A.

In the dark, there’s only one door whose position I can be sure of, and that’s the one directly in front of me. The one with the screaming.

Taking a deep breath, I pull a bobby pin from my hair and as quickly as I can without seeing anything, I feel my way to the lock and pick it. Cracking the door open a little, I peek through. The eerie glow of the backup lighting lit the room, so I can see the psychiatrist who had been hired to interrogate Bucky. Doctor Theo Broussard. Bucky himself is in the containment cell in the centre and the pleas are coming from him. Broussard circles the box reading from a red book with a black star emblazoned on the cover. . . My blood turns to ice as I recognise the book and hear the words he’s saying. “Nine . . . Kind-hearted . . .” The Winter Soldier’s trigger words. Bucky is begging him to stop. Fighting for control of his own body.

Without even thinking, I charge into the room and fling myself at Broussard. The adrenaline and fear pounding in my ears prevents me from hearing anything, but I see everything in stark clarity. The book falls to the floor and Broussard pushes me away before grabbing the gun from the holster at his waist. I lunge forward, forcing the gun out of my face. There’s a loud bang that I feel rather than hear, and I hazily acknowledge the hole in my hand, before wrenching the gun away from Broussard with my good hand. Gripping it by the barrel, I slam the grip down on his temple and he slumps over.

I drop the gun and stumble to my feet. I suddenly feel the stabbing pain where the bullet meant for my head went through my hand, and I grimace. “Shit!” I grip my wrist as a sloppy substitute for a tourniquet and try to remember where I’d put my inhaler as my breathing starts to get ragged.

Then I realise that Bucky’s sobbing has stopped. In fact, I can’t hear a single sound from behind me.

I spin around as the lights flicker back on. The jamming signal must have died. In the corner of my eye, a red light blinks into existence on a camera. But I’m not looking at that. I’m staring at the figure standing just outside the containment cell, with the cell door itself broken and tossed over to one side.

It’s not Bucky any more, I can tell that immediately. This man screams danger from every pore. I can almost smell the gun-powder and blood emanating off him.

He turns slowly to look at me. Icy, cold eyes seeing me without seeing me.

My heart stops. Had Broussard given him any commands before he passed out? Is he going to kill me? Holy shit. I’ve only just found my dad. I’ve nearly finished my undergraduate degree in psychology. I’ve only just found my place in this world. I’m only twenty and I’m going to die.

He starts walking towards me.

But I know everything there is to know about the Winter Soldier. I just need to remember his commands. “Think, Stark! THINK!” My mind screams at me as he gets closer and closer and I’m slowly losing my ability to breathe.

The metal hand is nearly at my throat when I remember.

I draw myself up tall, mustering my strongest voice. “Override order, Lupis. Stand down, Soldier!” My wheezing snagged on the words as they escaped and my voice cracked on the last syllable, but I keep my shoulders back and my head held high. I summon all of my courage. If I’m going to die, I’m going to be brave. I won’t struggle, it’ll be quick. That way it won’t be messy. When Barnes comes back to himself, he won’t have to deal with too much pain. Steve won’t have to see the worst of what his best friend is capable of. Dad can tell himself I’m just sleeping . . .

Be brave for Dad. For Uncle Rhodey. For my new family. Be brave for myself.

He stops.

My eyes widen as I watch the emotions flashing across his face, and just that tells me he’s not the Winter Soldier any more. He’s James Buchanan Barnes. Gasping and shaking, he puts a hand on the containment cell to steady himself. He’s Bucky again.

Relief floods me.

I double over, still wheezing violently. My head is getting dizzy. So dizzy it’s starting to hurt. I feel the first inkling of panic. Oh, Jesus. I’m going to survive the deadliest assassin in history, only to die of an asthma attack. How could I lose my inhaler? I vaguely register a pain in my knees as my wobbly knees give up on me. Black creeps into the edges of my vision. I start to topple.

String hands grip my arms and keep me upright. Words are spoken to my ears and I have to fight to hear them. “Breathe deeply. All the way in, and slowly out.” The voice is kind, though a bit shaky, and I do try to do what he said, but my mind is in a panic. I know I need to control my breathing, but it’s like I’m not even in control of my own body any more. I feel the tears rolling down my face, but I can’t do anything to wipe them away. I feel myself hyperventilating, but I’m powerless to stop it. I let out a keening sound of terror, panic, and frustration as I struggle with myself. The voice mutters quietly what sounds like, “Oh, not asthma anymore,” and I feel firm arms pull me into a warm hug. “You’re okay.”

There’s a loud crash of a door opening and I hear Dad yelling. The nice voice quickly cuts him off. “Do you have her inhaler?” Dad pulls up short before answering. “Of course, I always carry a spare.” He almost sounds offended. Almost. I feel the plastic of the inhaler nudged against my mouth. “Here, breathe in.” There’s a hiss, and I feel the albuterol hit the back of my throat. Slowly my breathing relaxes.

Dad takes it as a cue to wrench me away from the nice voice and into a bone crushing hug. I move slowly to return the hug, scared to get blood on his expensive suit, but something tells me that’s the least of his worries.

I feel wet on my ear and realise he’s crying. I squeeze him harder when I notice he’s shaking.

(So, this might be a chapter one, I kind of like this universe and I’ve already started writing some more. So, whatever.)

[that-shamrock-vibe]

Point of Interest: Why the Legion of Super-Heroes Introduction is Important to the Arrowverse

So with Supergirl on a break as the CW has seen fit to alternate Mondays between Supergirl and Legends of Tomorrow in 2018, I thought I'd give my opinion on one of the show's major plot-points this season which is the introduction of the futuristic Legion of Superheroes and also validate why I feel this is one of the shared universe's greatest strengths at present.

Backstory:

So who are The Legion? Well in the comics they debuted in Adventure Comics #237 way back in April 1958 as a team based in the 30th Century who were founded by teenage Superman superfans Lightning Lad, Cosmic Boy and Saturn Girl in honour of their idol Kal-El aka Superman. As the decades have gone on and the fanbase has increased for the team they have become more of a mainstay in the comics and now serve almost as the futuristic version of the Titans or Young Justice team being a law enforcement organisation with its own rules and regulations for protecting the peace.

Throughout the years and several reboots the team has recruited many “Legionnaires” including Superman while he was still teenage Superboy, Brainiac 5, Supergirl, Mon-El and Superboy aka Kon-El. There are also many others however none have been introduced in any media outside the comics or as fan-service cameos when the Legion has appeared in the DC Animated Universe.

Arrowverse Version:

While this isn’t the team’s first appearance in live-action, it is the first major recurring appearance having only made minor appearances or cameos beforehand which I will discuss further down. Having said that, during the first half of the season they have pretty much been in the background as a team aside from episode 10 which was titled “Legion of Super-Heroes” so it makes sense they were in the foreground for that one but the three episodes that followed before the mid-season break did not really focus on them as a team and instead individuals, more specifically Mon-El and his arranged marriage to Imra despite his feelings for Kara and also Brainy being jealous of Winn. Also it does seem as if we are not going to see any more Legionnaires outside of these three and personally I feel that is a missed opportunity for the show and the Arrowverse at large.

Now of course as I stated before Mon-El has been a member of The Legion in the comics before however in the most recent incarnation as I think it has been through two reboots in the team’s tenure. However everyone did guess that when Mon-El went through that portal at the end of Season 2 that he was going to the future and would join The Legion. However I do not think anyone expected him to start up the team let alone lead it because again he’s never done that in the comics. Some fans have theorized that this version of the character is a composite of both Mon-El and Superboy from the comics which I find personally weird because that would effectively make him and Kara cousins but maybe that’s a thing on Daxam and Krypton and who are we to judge? But also it is stated that Mon-El formed the Legion of Super-Heroes in honor of Supergirl and I personally do not like that even though it’s her series because the team is supposed to be a Superman fan club and changing the foundation of a long-standing team such as this is just in service to the girl power theme the show constantly pushes.

For instance in Gotham recently they have made Barbara Kean the new Demon’s Head as she is now the leader of the League of Shadows...however from what was teased in the reveal it does seem it is going to be largely focused on the Sisters of the League which is a deviation from the comics but a different spin which I personally like. But if the Legion of Super-Heroes has no deviation from the source material and is supposedly the same team that it should have the same foundation, especially considering Superman has already been introduced into the series and we have seen a Legion Flight Ring in the Fortress of Solitude suggesting he has already met them...

Saturn Girl is the only founding member of the original team to be introduced into the Arrowverse and personally I am okay with that because of the three I find her the most interesting. I am not too keen thus far on Amy Jackson’s performance as she seems more robotic than Brainiac 5 and he is essentially a robot whereas Imra is supposed to be an alien woman from Saturn’s Moon of Titan, which on a side-note is another example of there being co-morbidity between DC and Marvel because of course Titan is the homeworld of Marvel supervillain Thanos which we will apparently visit in the upcoming Avengers: Infinity War. Irregardless I do like how they have depicted her telepathic powers so far, again they have not shown much but in terms of being an actual vigilante she is the one to get the most screen-time as she teamed up with Supergirl, Livewire and Psi on that mission to Fort Rozz. Again this does seem like Supergirl as a series pushing the female agenda given that the character’s introduction to the series was announced at the start of the season and Brainiac 5 who is male was only announced when he was introduced in Episode 10.

Speaking of Brainiac 5, I am a massive fan of all things Brainiac. I think in his original form he is a superb supervillain and a perfect nemesis for Superman. He has had many great incarnations in various media including TV Series’ both animated and live-action most recently Krypton which I am starting to watch along with everything else I am watching and my uni work, but also in video games most notably Injustice 2. In the comics Brainiac 5, also known formally as Querl Dox is originally thought to be the great-great-grandson of the original Brainiac who is ashamed of his ancestor’s villainous deeds and makes it his mission to atone for them by joining The Legion. However it is later revealed Brainiac is in fact an android and Querl Dox descends from Brainiac 2 but is apparently cloned from Brainiac 1. It’s all very confusing and to be fair Supergirl does nothing to even address Brainy’s origins so unless you want to know it’s not something you have to know. I am not overly keen on Brainy’s design, for a start he’s blue whereas in the comics he’s green and secondly he has hair that makes him look like Doc Brown from Back to the Future as opposed to the shorter more youthful blonde look he has in the comics. I do appreciate them using the three dots motif that the original Brainiac is known for and also that Season 1 villain Indigo aka Brainiac 8 also had despite that fact Brainiac 5 usually does not sport them in the comics and they do make the character look slightly cartoonish.

On the subject of Indigo, there is thus far no mention or reference to suggest that Brainy and Indigo are in any way related to each other despite the fact that one is called Brainiac 5 and one is called Brainiac 8 and they both come from the same planet just 10 centuries apart from each other. Also it is slightly puzzling that a modern day Brainiac is called 8 whereas a futuristic Brainiac is called 5 but I digress. I know I haven’t really reviewed Supergirl as I have done with Arrow and The Flash but again since starting uni I cannot fit in episodic reviews of shows I watch anymore because I barely have the time to do movie reviews these days, but just to get my thoughts out there I really disliked how Indigo looked. Firstly she looked more like Mystique than how she does in the comics, again if they had made her green it would have been more faithful. Also Laura Vandervoort tried god bless her but her superhero heyday was as Supergirl in Smallville.

Now the series has referenced another Legionnaire, I think Mon-El mentioned having a friend in the 31st century named Ayla who in the comics is the Legionnaire codenamed Lightning Lass who is the sister of founding member Lightning Lad. The team has stated there are at least three unidentified members other than themselves so both Lightning Lass and Lightning Lad could be members as well as Cosmic Boy because the latter two along with Saturn Girl have always been the founding members in all incarnations of the team. However again why there has been no mention of a Rokk or Garth even by Imra yet there has been mention of an Ayla is maddening to me because again it’s pushing the female members of the team more than the original and faithful members.

On a final note about this universe’s version of the team. I do not like the fact the team are uniformed identically, it really annoys me. As much as I love the X-Men film franchise it annoys me about them too because it almost strips them of their identity. Particularly when you consider Team Arrow, Team Flash, the Legends, every supervillain depicted and even Black Lightning all have costumes similar to the comics.

Previous Versions:

As I mentioned earlier this isn’t the first incarnation of The Legion outside of the comics, the first that came to my attention was on Smallville Season 8 which is also a CW DC series and in my opinion did more in 1 episode to establish the team than Supergirl has done in the series so far. For a start they introduced the team with the original founding members Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl, they established the team was founded on what they believed was Superman’s ideals, also they allowed the creation of Brainiac 5 and depicted the origin of said character in a more organic way than established here. Yes they went straight from Brainiac to Brainiac 5 by simply reprogramming the original which I guess brings in the clone angle from the comics but either way it was pretty straight forward and the recurring villain that James Marsters brilliantly portrayed for 5 seasons on and off transitioned into the reformed hero when he returned in Season 10. Also Supergirl is briefly a member during Season 10 as she goes to the future before going off to fight in the war on New Krypton.

Other than live-action the team has made multiple appearances in animation, firstly in the DC Animated Universe of the 90s-Early 00s and then in their own, albeit short-lived, series trying to capitalize on the success of the original Teen Titans series.

Benefits to the Arrowverse:

So now we’ve gone over who the Legion of Superheroes are, why do I believe the team are one of the stronger current installments to the Arrowverse?

Well the Legion’s primary base of operations is in the 31st Century, now yes while the Earth-38 (Supergirl’s reality) variant of the team is currently operating in present day, they could easily travel back to their own time and even take Supergirl with them to see what the future is like either if Reign remains victorious or after she is defeated.

However as has been stated numerous times, the Multiverse consists of 53 different realities including 16 numbered Earths, 5 unidentified Earths and the Nazi ruled Earth-X. Also it his widely known that there are various doppelgangers of most characters. Barry Allen of Earth-1 has an Earth-2 counterpart as well as Killer Frost, Cisco Ramon, Ronnie Raymond, Martin Stein, Iris West, Joe West, Nora Allen, Oliver Queen, Robert Queen, Floyd Lawton and David Singh as well as Earth-X counterparts of Kara Zor-El, Oliver Queen, Tommy Merlyn, James Olsen, Felicity Smoak, Winn Schott and Leonard Snart. Also seemingly a Harrison Wells on every Earth. So it does stand to reason that on at least a couple of Earths there are variants of the Legion of Superheroes.

Also because the team operates in the 31st Century, Barry Allen or the Legends could travel to the future and meet them in order for the team to ally them in a mission. This could also introduce new members including founders Cosmic Boy and Lightning Lad, that’s just on Earth-1. Also it is a public fan-theory that Smallville exists on one of the 53 Earths which already has its own Legion team so that is already another variant right there.

I do not believe the Legion can hold it’s own series for the pure and simple reason that Legends of Tomorrow is already a team series and the similarities are too close. However they could easily become recurring support for Supergirl, the Legends or Team Flash potentially in a future four-way crossover or a two-part story in one of the four series’ the universe comprises of.

So what do you guys think? Do you think the Legion of Superheroes has a place in the Arrowverse or do you think they’re just a plot-device on the current season of Supergirl. Post your comments and check out more DC TV posts as well as other posts.

[aceofthorns]

2017: Movies Of The Year

10 Alien Covenant

- Pretty much a retread of Alien. Not awful, but kinda frustrating. Was that REALLY all they could do with the franchise?

9 Shin Godzilla

- A one night only screening, but an opportunity I couldn’t miss. An interesting spin on the King Of Monsters, but it was still a bit like the recent US Godzilla, in that there simply wasn’t enough of The Big Guy.

8 Justice League 

- This worked. I feel that too many people are willing DC’s movies to fail, and just don’t sit back and let themselves enjoy the damn things. More Wonder Woman is always a good thing, Jason Mamoa’s Aquaman was a definite digression from the original character, but like the MCU has shown us, that’s often a good thing. Unengaging villian, but not a terminal flaw.

7 Spider-Man Homecoming 

- I admit to having been a bit wary about this one, but the MCU’s magic has been worked again. We now have our Spider-Man properly installed, and facing one of the better realised villains in Marvel Studio’s catalogue. It might have been good to allow Spidey to grow for a bit, but... well, that’s not exactly going to happen, is it...?

6 Logan

- The best of the solo Wolverine movies, without a doubt. Stellar performances from Hugh Jackman and Sir Patrick Stewart. Bleak, grim, but that’s how it had to be. If Hugh bows out now, he has definitely gone out on a high.

5 Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets

- I seem to have been one of the few who actually went to see this. And even fewer still who ACTUALLY GOT IT, ‘cause I knew the source material. Maybe not as Sixties/early Seventies in style as the French comics that this movie draws from, but recognisably Valerian and Laureline (almost panel for panel at times), whilst hitting the audience with the usual visuals and action they’ve come to expect from a big summer movie. Guess we’re not going to get a sequel, though... *frowns, and sighs*

4 Kong - Skull Island

- Another movie I was wary about, and another that actually exceeded expectations. NOT another retelling of the classic story, in that the (real) hero of the movie doesn’t end up in New York chasing a girl. On the island, he IS King, and we’re left in no doubt about it. Very enjoyable, and oh, the delicious set-up for what’s to come in the end credits...

3 Star Wars - The Last Jedi

- I was so glad this worked out. Yes, there was one element that left me a bit dissatisfied (that I won’t expand upon for fear of dropping spoilers), but other movies have sinned in that manner a whole bunch more (and therefore don’t make this list). More needs to be actually said here than can be conveyed by heaps of action and spaceships shooting other spaceships, and the screen-writers and director take the time to just go ahead and do that.

NOT an “Empire” retread, and it is SO GOOD to see Carrie Fisher play Leia as the leader we always knew she could be. Thank you.

2 Wonder Woman

- The saviour of the DC “Cinematic Universe”? I’d say so, if I didn’t already think more highly of previous movies in the still rather hurried series than many do. Gal Gadot continues to impress every time she straps on the armour, and the backstory laid out in this movie supports her character just fine, managing to inject some “fish out of water” funny moments with more skill and respect to what’s come before than other movies in the genre (you may know what I’m talking about..)

A movie that doesn’t have to struggle with fitting itself into the grand scheme that lies ahead, just like the Big Winner for this year...

1 Guardians Of The Galaxy Volume 2

- Okay, so maybe the soundtrack wasn’t as “immediate” as in the first movie, and now as much of a “character” as in “Volume 1″, but hey, this is still James Gunn’s excellent Guardians we’re talking about, and they do not disappoint. New characters - friends AND foes - some revelations, some great action and brilliant funnies, and all in a package that doesn’t NEED to be part of the run-up to AVENGERS - INFINITY WAR.

It does have the single most-heart-wrenching moment in the movies this year, but the joy-ride has to end somewhere. Now take a deep breath, and brace for what’s to come...