#what is the world coming to that a guy sticking to his ethics is seen as a moral failing lmao

[padfootastic]

I have read through your posts and I know you like the dark! Sirius Black trope, but what do you think about dark! James? Yesterday I was scrolling through tik tok and I found this snippet where sirius was killed and dark lord Potter was unleashed and unhinged. Do you think sunshine James could destroy everyone and everything if Sirius was killed?

hello, friend! my sincerest apologies for the delay but—i am here now and let’s tackle this.

so. dark!james. very, very fascinating idea because it’s just so…incongruous to what we usually see him as? like, at least in our circles, it’s accepted he can be a bully & can be insensitive but to be truly dark? capable of say, premeditated murder? well.

i personally cant imagine it very well, i’m not gonna lie. i think sirius is very much the ‘i’ll burn the world down for u’ part of their dynamic and james’ just has. too much of a rigid moral code to very cross that line ykno? that’s not really a bad thing, of course.

however, i do see him as the kind who would destroy a person say, politically or financially or socially. like, he has a lot of privilege, yeah? usually doesn’t do anything with it but if sirius is killed? he’ll do everything in his considerable power to ensure those responsible are suffering as much as possible. he’ll get their businesses blacklisted, their families ostracised, run a public smear campaign etc etc. he would be able to justify it to himself as ‘just revenge’ ykno?

and i’ve mentioned this before in that ask ab sirius dying on halloween instead of sirius but as equal as i believe j/s is, i do think they occupied different spaces in each other’s life. where sirius clung more desperately, more possessively to james; i think james was much more secure & grounded and wouldn’t be as…dependent? on sirius. so if the roles were reversed, i can see s going a bit unhinged (as he did) but not james, exactly.

i do think he’ll spend the rest of his life fighting for sirius’ memory to be alive & honoured tho. do the things s wanted but wasn’t able to. keep a lifelong vigil for him.

[nori-the-cat]

☆ RIIZE Anton Lee’s Green and Red Flags // Tarot Reading (Requested) ☆

Remember, take tarot readings with a grain of salt!

☆ Green Flags

He seems like the kind of person who values deep, meaningful relationships. He’s great at building connections that are balanced and fulfilling for everyone involved.

He’s got a solid work ethic and can handle big responsibilities. He’s ready to put in the hard work needed to reach his goals, even if it means taking on a lot.

He has a real knack for reading people and situations. He trusts his gut and has a way of handling tricky emotional or intellectual stuff with ease.

He is open to new opportunities, especially when it comes to practical things like work or money. He tends to dive into new projects and investments with a positive attitude, setting himself up for future success.

He believes in fairness and sticking to his principles. He values honesty and equality, and he always tries to make decisions that are balanced and just, treating everyone with respect.

Card(s) pulled: The Lovers, 10 of Wands, The High Priestess, Ace of Pentacles, and Justice

☆ Red Flags

He has super high expectations for himself and others, which can sometimes lead to frustration if things don’t go as planned. For instance, he might expect everything to be perfect in his projects or relationships, which can create a lot of stress and disappointment.

He focuses a lot on financial stability or material success, sometimes at the expense of his emotional or personal needs. For example, he could put work before relationships, which might throw off his life balance.

He might come off as determined, but it could sometimes seem like stubbornness or even aggression. For instance, he might be pretty set on his own opinions during discussions and not take others' views into account, which can spark some conflicts.

He might go through some pretty intense emotions that can be tough to handle. He could experience ups and downs that impact his relationships or how he makes decisions.

He might tend to ditch situations or relationships when things get tough or they no longer benefit him. For instance, he might quit a job or end a relationship instead of dealing with the problems, which can lead to a lot of instability or things left unresolved.

Card(s) pulled: The World, Queen of Pentacles, The Chariot, Ace of Cups, and 8 of Cups

Note: So, when I did this tarot card reading something clicked about Anton. This is just my take, but I feel like Anton puts way too much importance on money, social status, and wealth. It's like he's all about how he's seen, who he's seen with, and what benefits he can get. He's a good guy, no doubt, caring and loyal, but he's always looking out for himself. He won't show his cards until he knows what you've got. If you want to get to know him, you've gotta lay your cards out first. He's not always upfront, but he's not a flat-out liar either. He's sly and calculating. And there's still a bit of immaturity there, maybe he's trying to grow out of it.

[warningsine]

But nobody had more secrets–or prowled those gray areas better– than KALINDA SHARMA, the firm’s tough, savvy, leather-wrapped private investigator. For my money, she was not just the most interesting character on the show–over her six year run on the show she was arguably most entertaining and consistently intriguing private eye on American television.

In fact, despite the numerous modern touches (data banks, computer hacking, cellphone taps and the oh-so-modern nods to her ambiguous sexuality), Kalinda is in many ways a throwback to the genre’s roots.

As played by Archie (Bend It like Beckham) Panjabi, she presented a tightly wound professionalism rarely seen in the genre these days, never mind on mainstream television. The leather she sported was not the skin-clinging stuff of adolescent centerfold fantasy (although she certainly wore it well). Rather, she wore it like armor; a thick shell to keep the world at bay.

Her antecedents weren’t nice guys like Jim Rockford or Thomas Magnum. Nope, her roots went back much further, back to a time when private eyes weren’t automatically expected to be warm and cuddly.

Professionally she wasn’t just cold–she was Hammett-cold. Hard and brassy when she had to be. Hell, the way she dispassionately worked her cases, facing down her enemies without flinching,  and standing up to violence and staring it straight in the eye, she could be The Continental Op‘s illegitimate daughter.

But she wasn’t a one-note character, either.

A shrewd and clever investigator, she’d do whatever and go wherever it took (from dumpster diving to infiltrating high school locker rooms to, yes, sleeping with someone to pry information from them) to get what she wanted. She was a breath of fresh air and surprising complexity and moral ambiguity in a television genre that too often treats even major characters as shallow stick figures whose entire essence is delineated by the first commercial break.

The more we’re told about Kalinda, it turns out, the less we actually know.

Like much of the show, it’s not just her loyalty, ethics, allegiances and motives that are ultimately shaded in ambivalence–her personal life is also somewhere in the “don’t ask, don’t tell” area.

Is she a dispassionate hard ass who only lives for the job? Or an anything-goes party girl? Is she a lesbian? Bisexual? Straight as a crooked arrow? Non-binary? Asexual?

During her six years on the show, it was always hard to tell to pin down Kalinda. How much was really her and how much was simply a convenient persona to slip into?

But it was that frostiness, coupled with the murkiness of her background and her hard-boiled professionalism that kept me coming back. In  the first season, it was revealed that she used to work for Peter, but she seemed willing to sell him out to his political enemies. Or was she?

In the second season, however, Kalinda really came into her own, even as the veneer of her personal life oh-so-slowly started to slip. A merger brought Blake (Scott Porter), a professional rival, into the firm, but it was instantly obvious these two were not going to get along, either personally or professionally. And matters were exacerbated when Blake began to taunt Kalinda, dropping hints that he knew all about her past. Lucky him. We sure didn’t.

Suffice it to say she didn’t take it well. Given her buttoned-down aloofness, Kalinda’s hands-on attack on Blake’s unprotected car with a aluminium baseball bat is shocking and unsettling. But even giving into rage she’s still enough of a hard-ass to challenge a witness who stumbles her impulsive act of vandalism in the deserted parking garage. “What the hell are you looking at?” she demands of the awestruck citizen. “Call the police!”

And then, as the citizen scurries off to alert the authorites, she continues to destroy the car.

Now that’s cold.

Later on that season an old lover, Donna (brilliantly played by Lili Tyler), also shows up, with an unspecified axe to grind, although it has something to do with Kalinda not being “domestic” enough–whatever that means.

Alas, in the last few years of her run on the show, Kalinda’s screen time was severely reduced (she below), and she became just another great character in a show full of them.

Those last few years were particularly disappointing, but even then, Kalinda was always absolutely riveting to watch, the held-in-check ambivalence and ambiguity a facet of her evolving character; not a cookie cutter substitute for actual depth.

Imagine! An old fashioned gumshoe, actually working cases on behalf of a client. No ghostly visitors providing convenient clues, no psychic baloney, no CSI voodoo, no burned spies, no OC cases, no human lie detectors, no personal agendas on every single case – just a hard-boiled dick who gets hired to investigate and actually works cases.

How long has it been since we’ve seen THAT?

Her much trumpeted farewell, with Kalinda betraying a violent drug dealer in an attempt to protect her friends, ends with her facing off against the dealer’s slimy toad of a lawyer, who realizes what a ruthless piece of work she is. He asks her, almost in desperation–his own days may be numbered– if she’s consider teaming up with him.

“No, I’m good,” she says, her last lines of a six-year run.

No, she was great.

(x)

[andiwriteordie]

Yooo Lucas + his water ending + bloodbending was so interesting like dang okay. I really enjoyed the ethics of it like yeah it has this whole morally gray area bc it takes away others control but I could Help combat super bad ppl and also help save someone's life but also. Rough.

I also really liked how Jason is not just an evil crazy psycho like. Personally? I loved when Jason was just like. A kinda asshole dude but he was also not That bad like clearly he was just some generic white jock of a bully that would probably grow out of it when he was an adult (and after his girlfriend break ups with him) but he genuinely liked her gf ??? And he just went a little crazy after she was. Yk. Brutally (and super brutally) murdered. I liked the idea of one of the minor "antagonists" to just be some dude who didn't know the truth but kinda jumped to conclusions so he's a pain in their sides but also not. A murderer himself? And then he reallyyyyy went into the deep end with kinda suck so I felt nothing when he died but he could've been so good as a very morally gray character like wow

Anyways. Kinda like how in the atla au he's not a good guy + still a bit assholery but also not the Bad Guy so like yes 👌👏👏

part 1 | part 2

i love love LOVE lucas sinclair, ok? like he's just such a good character, and i also (obviously lmao) love the bloodbending ethics arc that lucas gets to go through as he also reconciles his feelings towards his waterbending being used for healing more so than combat and then bringing in the added layer of bloodbending into it!

JASON YEAH OKAY so jason annoyed me in the show because he took up too much time in my opinion, but i like the concept of him. i like the idea of a character who just doesn't understand and doesn't quite have the full picture, so he makes decisions in the show's canon that are really, really shitty. but also like? lowkey can't blame him for losing his shit after chrissy was murdered. he definitely should not have gone on some holy moral mission and hunted down eddie, but jason always interested me in how he was just a portrayal what the combination of ignorance and grief could do to a person. and then how he's so charismatic and able to rally people together through their fear? TERRIFYING. THE SMALL TOWN/SMALL MINDED KIND OF MENTALITY. SO GOOD.

in stranger things/atla world, i love thinking about where jason fits into lucas's arc after lucas saves max's life with his bloodbending. jason doesn't die in that battle (tbh i'll kill him off eventually, homie doesn't need to stick around), mostly to be a challenger of lucas's moral compass. because now, we have lucas sitting in the aftermath of this battle with the spirits, where max nearly died, and he has learned about the awful things that happened to el and will in their time away from hawkins. and lucas just... wants to cry. he feels awful. he never wants to be put in that situation again, because he's scared. he's scared that he's taken the first step down a slippery slope into something that will make him into a person he doesn't want to be.

it's one day, maybe a week or a couple weeks after the battle, that jason comes into max's hospital room and has a talk with lucas. they don't beat around the bush, and jason states the obvious: that lucas used bloodbending to save max's life. and lucas can't lie. jason was there. he saw it. so lucas just nods.

and that's when jason asks him how it felt—if he felt the power the moon had blessed him with that night. if he could feel the ocean in his veins and in max's veins. if he felt closer to his waterbending and to his healing that he'd ever felt before. and if it felt good.

the answer to all those questions is yes. the answer is yes, and lucas hates it, so he doesn't say anything.

but his silence speaks volumes.

jason begins to tell him that maybe this is a good thing. lucas is a great waterbender, and jason has seen that potential in him for a while now. and jason doesn't believe in all that spiritual mumbo jumbo—especially since the spirits are literally trying to kill all of them—but maybe lucas was given a natural inclination to healing for a reason. it's difficult to bloodbend, after all, but lucas was able to do it with ease—like a natural extension of his healing gift. so maybe, this is a good thing.

and the thing is, lucas has wondered the same thing. he has. he's stared at max's body—unconscious but alive—and has wondered what else he could do with his bending. if he could study this more, if he could learn it, could he save other lives? could he heal? is that even something that he wants? it shouldn't be, right?

and... and sometimes it's not. sometimes it's not, when lucas notices el doesn't use her waterbending as much anymore, the way that she used to shy away from it when they first met. sometimes it's not, when lucas notices that will gets tense around any waterbenders except lucas... because el and will... they don't know what lucas did to save max's life.

there are too many questions for lucas to deal with, so he just doesn't answer jason. and jason gets it, so he tells lucas just to think about it and to let him know.

and so, lucas is just left with all those questions and all those thoughts—none more prominent than one.

if bloodbending can be used to save a life—if he used bloodbending to save max's life—it can't inherently be wrong, can it?

[dynal]

Can I cheat and tell you to answer ALL OF THEM... i love hearing about altai.

this is DEFINITELY a big cheat but you know what i love you and any opportunity to talk about my ffxiv guys i will take. so as a bonus you'll also get gaius.

HERE COME THE BOYS! i'm putting it below a readmore since it will probably. get long.

🪷 what gives this character inner peace?

For Altai, prayer, definitely. At least at the beginning. As the story continues he feels he can't connect with his god as well and thinks he's losing his mind. That's when sticking around the Scions helps him feel a little better.

For Gaius, staying close to his personal hero (Altai). And reminiscing on the few happy memories he has. But reminiscing on those memories can also bring melancholy or could send him spiraling so it's a difficult balance.

🪰 what is the worst thing this character has witnessed but not experienced?

For Altai: Ugh. Look at the MSQ. Every time one of his allies dies he grieves. Even when strangers die he grieves, whether they're meant to be the "good guys" or the "bad guys" because he's not really sure where they "go" when they die. In his religion they would at least find some semblance of peace, but what about here, in this world he's hardly known?

For Gaius: Basically anything he may have heard/seen while he was trapped in the stone. Without the power to physically influence the outside world he was helpless.

🐁 how are this characters ethics?

You know Altai, he's a pretty typical "good guy" but there's a lot of extra quirks that separate him from a typical hero. Being an older man and being a follower of religion will do that to you. He deeply dislikes prejudice and reductive thinking, and believes in the freedom of all, regardless of who they follow. So whenever some kind of subjugation is happening, his brow furrows a little further and his speech gets a little more sharp--a little more old world one could say.

Gaius will just start eating people if someone doesn't stop him. He's seen the horrors of the world, witnessed the uprising of Garlemald. He's done with the bullshit and done with being trapped and unable to help.

🚬 smoking/drinking habits? signature brand or drink?

For all the jokes I've made about Altai rolling cigars I'm not sure if he genuinely smokes. It may be a more spiritual, every-once-in-a-while-for-a-ritual thing. He did often imbibe in the Utter Poison that was the centuries-aged liquor in the temple's cellar.

Gaius doesn't really get any bodily effects from drinking or smoking, but he does enjoy a good ale with friends. It's a social thing.

🌫️ how does this character feel about lying?

Altai doesn't like to lie. He'd rather be honest about a situation than have to keep up a lie. He's not the kind to think some topics are "off-limits" (like talking to a child about death) because everyone has to learn at some point (and perhaps subconsciously, knowing that he was essentially orphaned and was relentlessly bullied by his peers probably makes him think "hatred can be taught at any age, so can any other topic").

Gaius will skirt around the truth or keep quiet about something. He doesn't like to reveal his own cards (especially regarding his whole shapeshifter "I dunno if I can actually die" situation).

🐦‍⬛ fursona?

Altai is a Takin, a sort of goat-like creature that is more closely related to sheep.

Saying Gaius would be a wolf would be a copout, and he's a shapeshifter, so I guess he could be whatever. Maybe a wolverine.

♟️describe how they would play chess, if they would.

Altai would know how to play chess, but it may be a regional variant. Gaius would know too many regional variants, and would know a variant that would make a historian go "hang on a second, nobody's used this variant for over 500 years".

🎲 are they lucky?

Neither of them really believe in luck.

🐌 do they carry their home with them or is it a place?

they carry their homes with them(they carry it in their hearts)they are never without it(anywhere they go,home goes,they fear;and whatever is done by them is their home's doing,such tragedy)

🦤 are they particularly smart in any way? how so, or not?

Altai is a religious scholar--at least for his religion! He's pretty logical though so he figures out situations well.

Gaius was a scholar of astrology when he was alive, and learned a lot of stuff while he was stuck in the stone. He ends up using a lot of historical evidence to navigate situations.

🪽does this character believe in a higher power?

Altai: Yes, he follows the god Lupus (and by extension, his three blood-bound consorts).

Gaius: Can't remember that which he worshiped in the past but I've been toying with the idea of him following Thanatos. Something about following the embodiment of death but being unable to die.

🦪 how would this character describe their gender, if asked?

Altai: I suppose I'm a man. Have I experimented beyond that? Hmm, well, my god, Lupus Therion Alsaab Kekkuon, praise his name--he had invented himself into the form of man and was punished for it, but lived out his future immortal life as a man. So I suppose it would take some self-invention to make myself a man... But in a way, I've done that... Hmm... Though there was that one time I was transformed into a female succubus. It was interesting.

Gaius: When my body erupted into this world, it may have been deemed of another sex, but I am all man! After all, that's what I've carved this body into. I have the scars to prove it. I don't believe I was disgraced for this choice in my mortal life. At the very least, the people who mattered most to me, they knew I was a man. Well, that doesn't mean I can't shapeshift into something else if I feel the urge. I've been known to turn into women--actually, let's end the conversation here.

🫁 yuri or yaoi?

Altai has the big-hands-big-guy nature of yaoi but Gaius has the inherent tragedy of yuri.

👛 what is always with this character?

Altai: Basically always seen with his satchel (tome, inks, pigments, brushes, pens). Gaius also hangs around with him often enough to count. Also keeps wearing the stone as a memento.

Gaius: After the woman he fell in love with disappears, he keeps her bandana with him, always.

🦇 biggest material fear (ie heights, bugs etc)

Altai doesn't like it when things pop up out of nowhere and scare him. He's got a bit of a weak heart for that. Gaius has a dual fear/attraction to long, golden hair. It makes him think of his old best friend, who he loves, but he also misses dearly. Fear and desire are intertwined you know.

🪱 would this character move a worm off the pavement or save it?

Yes. Altai would feel bad for it if it was drying up, and would try to saturate it with some of his water before finding a suitable mud patch for it to burrow in. Gaius would briefly consider eating it but then would choose to save it.

🐞 does this character have any notable accent or dialect? what about other languages?

Altai: He's from the Isle of Raum in the New World. He has a deep accent that isn't really similar to any found in the other continents (I'd equate it to a Slavic accent). He knows an ancient language that was used in his tomes and can speak it fluently. This also means he can understand old-speak characters like Urianger very well.

Gaius: He's from an unknown place. His accent is a bit of a neutral mish-mash of all the places he's been (ending up with a vague, rough-American equivalent).

🦑 any pets?

Altai has Edme, his personal Chocobo. He makes good friends with all sorts of critters and is sometimes secretly spotted taking care of strays.

Gaius doesn't have any pets. He is the pet.

🛡️how does this character protect themself and others?

Altai is mainly a tank. You already know how this goes.

Gaius will sacrifice his own mutated flesh for others. He can't die.

🪓 would they make it to the end in a horror movie?

Altai would hopefully survive. If not, he'd die protecting others. Gaius would be genre-aware and become a bigger threat.

⚖️ how do they seek justice?

Altai will try his best to go the reasonable route. Gaius is the one who takes Altai's true heart and will forcibly rend justice from the hands of the oppressors if he has to.

[whump-a-la-mode]

Hi! First of all, your writing is ASTOUNDING. I adore how you characterize. Secondly, I have a prompt idea:

A Villain who is falling in love with a Hero, but won’t admit it to themself. They stop being able to effectively fight Hero because they don’t want to hurt them. But Supervillain notices, so they capture Hero and use them to lure Villain in.

-Wicky

🥺🥺🥺 Thank you so very much! You just made my day. I thank you for the compliment and the prompt! I sure hope I did it justice, and I hope you enjoy!

CW//Injuries, threats, implied torture

Villain’s world spun as their skull cracked against the rough concrete of the roof. Opening their eyes, their field of vision was filled with only an array of stars.

Everything hurt.

They were convinced, in that moment, that there was not an inch of their flesh that was left unbruised, not a rib left unfractured. Breathing on its own was an ordeal, an ordeal that they endured only out of pure necessity.

Pain rippled through the stocks of jelly they had once called limbs as the villain scrambled first to hands and knees, and finally to their feet, even as unsteady as they were. They could do nothing but gasp as they faced down their opponent.

There was something in Hero’s eyes. Something that even their nemesis, their sworn, life-long foe could not quite name. It was not quite sympathy, no, but it was not quite pity, either. Something inbetween, perhaps, with only the slightest garnishing of regret.

“Come on, Villain.” It was with a pleading tone that the hero spoke, as though attempting to coax a frightened cat down from the top branches of a Redwood tree. “Just stand down! You can’t win this. We have you surrounded. No harm will come to you- No more harm.”

Yet, the villain only shook their head.

For any outsider, the matchup would have looked more like a massacre, waiting to happen. Villain themself was perhaps not the picture of musculature, but what villain was? No, they may not have been the strongest. But everyone knew what power they held in their palms, the lightning they could unleash at will. Enough to topple the building upon which they stood. Enough to topple the whole city, perhaps. The city had yet to so much as see their full potential.

But it was their potential that the villain now refused to use.

Hero, on the other hand, was... well, they weren’t much. As strong as they were, as clever, as smart, superstrength could only do one so much good. Villain could have destroyed them in passing, with the snap of a finger!

Why wasn’t the hero in the nearest emergency room? Even Villain themself wasn’t entirely sure.

“I’m not giving up, asshole!” They snarled, balling their hands to fists. It would be so easy. So very simple to send a torrent of lightning forth, to shock Hero within an inch of their life. Hell, Villain used their powers to make popcorn on the weekends!

But, they couldn’t. They couldn’t imagine Hero, the poor thing, the pitiful little fool, fallen to the ground. The very thought of using their powers against their opponent made them feel sick.

“I don’t want to hurt you.” Hero spoke, eyes wide and glimmering with that same mix of sympathy and regret.

“Too bad.”

And, with that, the rooftop once more became a battleground. Villain surged forward, met in the center by their nemesis. A blow to the side of their head sent them stumbling.

They couldn’t go on like this, they knew as their vision clouded once more with stars. Another hit and they would be unconscious, in the custody of the so-called good guys. They couldn’t do that.

They had two choices.

Three. Three choices.

The first? To take the hit. To bite the bullet, to find themself behind bars.

The second? To hurt Hero. To wipe that oh-so-innocent quiver from their lips. To destroy-

No. They had two options. That wasn’t even on the table. Villain could be beaten, or they could flee.

It was with a shivering gasp that they chose the second.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 

Sidekick placed down their fork with a resounding clack. In the silent room, the sound resembled the ring of a gong.

“Are you absolutely certain you’re alright?” They asked with a quirked brow. With the day turning to evening, they had left their sidekick’s uniform behind, replaced now with a casual set of garments. After all, the restaurant at which they were eating was far from fancy. That wasn’t the type of villain that their mentor was.

“Of course I’m alright. Do I look like some kind of ailing senior citizen?” Villain muttered under their breath as they looked over in displeasure at their sidekick. For someone so young, they certainly had a mouth.

“Not now. But on the battlefield last night-”

“I’m fine. I’m up and walking, aren’t I?”

“It’s not about that.” Sidekick shook their head. “It was in the battle. You could’ve taken out Hero easy-”

“Keep your voice down, we’re in public.”

“Sorry.” They lowered their tone. “But, I’ve seen you take Hero out dozens of times. Recently, though, you’ve been all over the place. You can’t even land a single hit! I’m worried. You’ve lost your edge. Up on that rooftop, it was like you were somewhere else entirely.”

Villain had been somewhere else entirely, not that they would ever dare to admit it. They had been lost, hopelessly lost- Lost in the eyes of their damn nemesis.

“I just wasn’t on the ball. Everyone has off days.” They grumbled, turning their embarrassed gaze away.

“Everyone has off days. But you’ve been having an off month! Don’t think I haven’t noticed that it’s just them. Just Hero.”

“They’re getting better.”

“So are you.”

“Really, I’m fine.”

Sidekick reached across the table, placing their palm upon the back of their mentor’s hand, which had unconsciously been balled into a fist.

“You nearly got captured, last night. I don’t know what I’d do without you, Villain. If you’re sick, if something’s wrong, anything at all, you need to tell me.”

Villain suddenly spotted something very interesting on their shoes, and kept their gaze fixed there.

“It’s stupid.”

“Are you sick? Everyone gets sick sometimes, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Not sick.”

“Then what?”

Villain gritted their teeth.

“Lovesick.”

Sidekick withdrew their hand in shock.

“What?”

“Look, it’s stupid! I don’t know. I shouldn’t be feeling that way about a hero, but- They’re a good person, I swear it. They want to help, and they’re kind, and I just can’t bear the thought of hurting them. What if I changed them? What if I hurt them, and that was what made them lose hope, lose faith? Then that’d be on my shoulders!”

“You’re saying...” Sidekick’s jaw was still ajar in shock. “You’re saying that you can’t fight Hero, because you’re in love with them?”

Villain looked up with a sigh.

“To put it shortly, I suppose.”

The both of them were shocked as a figure appeared next to their table. A sharply-dressed figure with a notepad.

“Are you two ready to order?”

“Yes, my apologies.” Villain cleared their throat. They and their sidekick presented their orders, which the waiter scrawled down with a series of understanding nods.

It was not until that particular waiter disappeared from the dining room that they slipped out of their disguise, and dialed a number into their phone.

“Hey, Boss? You might wanna hear about this.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━��━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

To say Villain was in a bad mood would have been an understatement.

The injuries covering every last inch of their body, too, ached with every step they took. Bruises and beatings rippled, forcing them nearly to limp. Yet, they forced their gait to remain normal, even if it meant pain.

They couldn’t call attention to themself. Not when they were in civilian clothes like this, and not when they were on the streets. Still, they kept their head low and their sweatshirt hoodie up as they went along. No need to stick out in the crowd.

This was the only solace they ever got, after all. When some got frustrated, they would go for a drive in the night. But their vehicle was distinctive enough that that wasn’t an option for the villain.

Instead? They walked, moving along with the crowd as though they were a single fish in a school. Usually, this helped them calm down. Now, however, every step they took only made their thoughts spin more wildly.

First, it was Hero. Hero and their stupid eyes. Then it was Sidekick. It wasn’t that Sidekick had confronted them that made them so worried, it was that they’d noticed at all.

That meant that other people out there might spot their weakness. Might use it as an advantage. Who would it be, though? Hero themself? Or, even-

A gasp rippled through the crowd around them in a wave. Voices shouted and fingers pointed, all in the same direction. Villain wiggled their way out of the crowd in order to see what had caused such fuss.

A billboard. An electronic billboard.

An electronic billboard that no longer housed an advertisement for the latest cellphone or insurance scam. No. Upon the massive thing, multiple stories in height, surely, was broadcasted a video.

“Good evening, and I do apologize for interrupting. But I just had to get my friend’s attention.”

Villain’s breath caught in their throat. They would know that voice even if they had to pick it out of a crowd of thousands.

Most would have expected that two people so similar as Villain and Supervillain would get along, but the reality was just the opposite. Villain couldn’t call themself a good guy, no, but they had ethics. Morals. Real aims to work towards, rather than burning the city down and laughing among the flames.

Supervillain, on the other hand? There was a reason that they were so feared. Their goals were far grander than Villain’s.

To say that they had never been very good friends would be an understatement.

And, now? Now they were enemies. The video projected upon that billboard made that fact certain.

Supervillain themself was not visible in frame-- Perhaps that was lucky for Villain. Seeing that stupid face would have certainly goaded them into destroying the projection outright. Instead, the video displayed a room.

A concrete room, with a chair in the center. A chair that was far from empty.

It was always Hero’s eyes that they could not help but get lost in. Now, that wasn’t a factor. Not when the hero was so tightly blindfolded. Their soothing, calming voice, too, had been eliminated-- the cloth gag in their mouth was already soaked-through with spittle.

Tied to the chair, bound, gagged, and blinded, sat Hero.

“Now, I don’t want a ransom. No, no. I only want to see a dear friend of mine. And it has been oh, so hard to track them down.

So, Villain, dear?”

They shivered at the sound of their name. Their name.

“How about you come to my base, and pick up your little friend, here. Or else, I might just have to do something drastic.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 

For six hours, Villain did not move.

As soon as the broadcast had left the billboard, it had repeated itself upon every news channel that gave half a crap about the metropolis. National news, even international, with subtitles in two dozen languages telling of Supervillain’s threat.

They’d found out. Of course they’d found out.

Villain knew they  should have been furious. They should have strangled Supervillain, strangled Hero, strangled themself! After all, this was all their fault. Falling for a hero, how could they have possibly been so stupid?

Now, they stared. Hands balled to fists in their lap as yet another newscaster explained the same events, over and over again.

“Boss?” Sidekick’s voice was soft, nothing like their usual, nosy self. They sat in a chair behind their mentor, who was seated criss-cross on the floor.

There was no answer.

“Boss... What are you going to do?”

“I can’t leave them.”

“Leave who?”

“Leave Hero. You know what Supervillain is like! They’ll destroy them. Destroy the last good hero in the city.”

“You didn’t want to hurt them.”

“And I don’t want to see them hurt, either.”

“I know you don’t. But it’s all Supervillain has over you. You can just... Leave them, right? It’s not like Hero has any real power over you.”

“No.”

“No?”

“I have to.”

“You don’t!”

Villain stood.

“Yes, I do.” They spun around, stalking towards the room that held their costume. “And I need to wipe that damn smile off Supervillain’s face.”

[wonderful-wells-writing]

Fanclub; Chapter 1

EoWells x Reader

Some of the STAR Labs employees have a secret fanclub where they discuss Harrison Wells and share pictures they take when they think he isn't looking. Problem is it's not quite as secret as they think it is. The man himself seems to have taken an interest in the the little group, finding it to be the perfect place to find willing partners to satisfy his needs. And you're his next pick.

Work is dying down for the evening at STAR Labs. Chemists are checking that all the storage units are set to the proper temperatures. Engineers are making sure that everything that needs to be powered down is. Lab techs are cleaning up their stations. But nearly everybody is discussing their plans for the weekend.

There is one worker who is not engaging in such conversations. You are currently crammed between two sections of machinery, determined to get this wiring finished before leaving for the day. That way, Monday, bright and early your team can start doing test runs.

You are not engaging in conversation with others but rather are talking to yourself as you work. “Some red over here, blue wire over there.” Your grin would light up the room if anybody could see it. “I just love when a color-coded array comes together.” There’s a buzz on your right butt-cheek, and you squeal in surprise.

“Everything alright in there?” One of the other scientists looks up from the desk.

“Yeah, Bri,” you extract yourself from the machine parts. “My phone just went off, and I thought something shocked me.”

“Girl, I can not tell you how often that happens to me,” Bri takes her purse from a drawer and a jacket off the chair. “So, what are your plans for the weekend. More number crunching?”

You pull your phone from your back pocket. “Actually my college roommate is having a bachelorette party tonight. So I said I would swing by the bar for a bit.”

“Sounds fun,” Bri gives a wave before heading to the door. “Don’t party too hard.”

She returns the wave before opening a group chat app on her phone to see what the notification is about.

KittyCat42; O.M.G did you see Dr. Wells today? a shirt THAT tight can not be workplace appropriate!!!

Attached is a photo taken from a smartphone at an angle in which the subject does not seem to be aware their picture is being taken. Dr. Harrison Wells is leaning over a desk, examining something on a monitor. Kitty is right; his shirt is very tight, his biceps bulge through the long black sleeves.

You grin, considering sending a reply, but another message comes in first.

YummyBitch73; Think he’s got plans? Looking that good, he’s got to be going out tonight.

Your thumbs move across the screen to type a quick response.

BabyDoll14; Maybe he has a date tonight?

KittyCat42; wonder who the lucky girl is?

You lean against a nearby workbench, smirking at the screen.

---

On the other side of the lab, somebody picks up their phone to check the barrage of notifications coming in. They chuckle before adding their own two cents.

Speedy22: Hey, who knows, it could be a lucky guy.

YummyBitch73: Oh you wish, he is a lady killer through and through

BabyDoll14: I mean, who are we to judge if it’s a lucky lady or gent. Maybe he swings one way, maybe he swings both ways. Who cares, we’re just here to talk about his ass behind his back.

“Speedy’ nods, almost respecting the woman on the other side of the screen for staying objective about objectifying her boss.

Speedy22: Speaking of ass, I got this one yesterday

He opens his gallery and scrolls until an ‘appropriate picture is found. A nice shot of Dr. Wells from behind; the quality is incredible for a smartphone shot. The man’s shirt is riding up, showing a nice strip of the skin of his back, even a bit of where his boxers rise above the waistband of his hands.

YummyBitch73: Damn Speedy, you always get the good ones. You’ll have to teach me some photography lessons sometime.

KittyCat42: what kind of camera are you using? The quality is so gooooood.

“Hey,” a woman’s voice draws his attention away from his device. “Are you staying late again tonight?”

Harrison Wells takes a breath to look her up and down, mentally running through his mind all the employees to try and remember who it is at his office door. “I’ll be headed out soon; I just have to wrap some things up.”

He recalls who she is when he sees the look she’s giving him. Brianna Masters, a specialist working down in Lab C. She would have had to go out of her way to get to his office before leaving. Self-proclaimed president of the Dr. Wells Fanclub, he had just been interacting with the group chat of; after the former president left with a job offer at Mercury Labs. She had been making goo-goo eyes at him since her interview three months ago.

“Well,” Bri twirls a curl of her hair, fluttering her eyelashes. “Harrison, you know I was wondering if you might like to take me out to get some drinks tonight?”

Dr. Wells tries to hide his displeasure at the thought. She wasn’t his type, physically, mentally, emotionally, “I have plans in the morning that require a clear head. Miss. Masters. Now is there anything of importance that you need?” The man was not adverse to flights of fancy to pass the time; he wouldn’t be keeping an eye on the little Fanclub of his if he wasn’t willing to look for ‘interested parties,’ but this particular woman has been of no real interest to him.

For reasons such as how she pouts at his response, “Well, having fun is important.” She mutters before wandering off down the hall, turning her attention to her phone.

YummyBitch73; holy Shit! He just asked me out for drinks. It sucks so much that I have to drive out to Coast City; I”d have taken him up in a heartbeat otherwise.

----

Back in Lab C, you finally finish with the maintenance on the machine. You check your phone once more while heading over to the desk and nearly cackle at what you’re reading. Everybody knows that Bri is full of shit, but there’s no point in calling it out and causing discourse.

You mute the phone to focus on your computer. While humming a quiet tune, you work on moving files to the USB stick plugged into the monitor.

“Fuck,” you whisper, seeing the download time in comparison to the clock on the screen. Of course, you could just leave it be, take the weekend off. It’s not like you get paid extra to run calculations at home.

17 minutes later

“Nonononono, wait, please!” You’re half running to the street as the bus pulls away, leaving you in the illuminated circle of a streetlamp, cursing yourself. That was going to be the last bus coming this way for the night. If you walk home, you’ll never make it in time to change for the party. You might not even make the event at all. You pace up and down the sidewalk, contemplating your options.

A car pulls up beside you, tinted window rolling down, “Need a lift?”

You stop, shocked, “Oh, no I…” you pause, looking through the window, “Dr. Wells, hi...hey.” You swallow your pride. “I would really love to get a ride on-with, with you.” Internally you cringe at how that came out, but figure he probably wouldn’t have heard such a minor slip.

The lock clicks open, and you reach for the door.

“Maple Apartments on South 11th street, right?” Harrison glances at you as you get in the car.

You pause before shutting the door, “do I want to know how you know that?”

He laughs, and you jump a bit at it, “I can see how that would sound a little suspicious.” His smile is reassuring, and his blue eyes are kind behind his glasses. “It was on your registration forms when you started. I enter new employee data myself. Total recall can be useful even for small matters.”

You breathe a sigh of relief, shutting the door and buckling in. “I really appreciate this Dr. Wells, I would have been so late tonight if I didn’t get home to change soon.”

“Bit plans tonight?” Harrison asks as he starts driving. Truth is he had suspected you’d be missing her bus. He had seen you running after the last bus or driven past you walking home numerous times out his way out. You had quite the habit of working until the absolute last moment.

You smile, twiddling your thumbs to keep your hands occupied. “Yeah, I’m meeting a friend at the new bar that opened down the street from my place. She’s getting married soon, and since I can’t make the wedding, I promised I would spend at least a couple hours at her bachelorette party.” You aren’t exactly sure why you’re volunteering this information to your boss. It would be inappropriate to be so casual with him; then again, it’s also inappropriate to be part of a Fanclub that secretly takes pictures of him and talks about how great his ass looks.

Harrison ‘hmms’ in thought. “Why can’t you make it to the wedding?” He glances at you out of the corner of his eye, taking a moment to take in the way you sit, act, look, before returning his eyes to the road.

“Oh, they scheduled it for a Wednesday, so,” you look towards him just moments after he looks away. The first thing you notice is his hair; whenever you’ve seen him in the morning, it’s perfectly combed and straight, but it seems like as the day went on, it began to take on a life of its own. While the back is still nice and neat, the front is sticking out in all kinds of directions.

“You could have asked for the day off,” Dr. Wells offers, “Am I such a terrible boss that you think I”d deny you some vacation after all your hard work?”

You feel a heat rise to your cheeks at what seems to be a compliment to her work ethic, “Oh no, I don’t think that at all. It’s just that, well, we have so much work to do. Every day we get a little closer to your dreams of the particle accelerator, and I want to contribute absolutely everything I can to that dream.” You smile. “You’re going to do such incredible things for the world of science Dr. Wells, and I don’t want to waste any time that could be spent helping you.”

The man is somewhat stunned by this. He’d attributed her long hours and determination to personal ambition. “What about you? Do you want history to remember you for your achievements?”

You bite your lower lip in thought at the question, “I mean sure, it would be nice to be recognized for my contribution, but,” she takes a deep breath, “I’m more concerned about how my work will impact the world, not so much if I’m remembered for it. Anyways you’re the true genius. I can tell that STAR Labs will make big changes and put humanity on a path towards the future. As long as I get to be a part of that, it’s all I really need.”

Harrison does a low chuckle at your sentiment, amused by the naivety. You speak with such hope and wonder and admiration. If you knew the truth, how horrified would you be? The realization of the end goal of the particle accelerator, the effects across history that your determination would wreak.

He grins, “Well, I am glad to have such a dedicated employee, but I do believe that one off day is not going to hurt our progress.”

You purse your lips, “You don’t come down to Lab C very often; you’d be surprised how off the rails things can go when I’m not there. Anyways I would rather work than go to a wedding. It’s not my kind of scene.”

He can sense that you are holding something back but doesn’t press the issue any further. He’s reached your apartment building anyways.

“If you change your mind, I’ll be more than happy to give you the time off,” he says as he parks.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” you reach for the door handle, “oh, and thank you so much for the ride. I really owe you one.”

Dr. Wells makes a mental note about cashing in that favor later. “You just stay safe and enjoy yourself tonight.” He smiles warmly at you as you wave goodbye, but when the door shuts, his grin turns a bit darker. He watches you walk away, eyes tracing the curve of your figure, resting on the beautiful shape of your rear, right up until you disappear into your building.

As he begins to drive away, he catches sight of himself in the rearview mirror. There is something about this form of his that seems to drive the ladies crazy, and he wasn’t opposed to taking advantage of that. While pulling back into the street and driving away, he thinks on his situation.

For 13 years now, Eobard Thawne has been trapped in this god-forsaken time period. For a while, he had focused solely on his mission, rarely interacting with others unless it served a greater purpose. But he was still a man, subject to desire. At first, it was almost enough to make him regret allowing Harrison Well’s wife to die, she could have filled his needs easily. But that woman had been intelligent; she’d have discovered his identity eventually, so allowing her to die had been for the best.

Still, after a few years of isolation, Thawne had found the need unbearable and began seeing ways to fill the hole that was forming in his chest. Little flings, one-off nights where he indulged his carnal side, allowed himself the pleasure of another’s body before quickly parting ways with them, when he discovered that a fanclub devoted to him had been formed amongst his employees, that made the whole thing easier.

Joining the group chat under a false name was easy enough. It inflated his ego every time he read them discussing how great they thought he looked, and he was more than happy to provide material for them to gush over. And with that, it was like he had been given a list of women who would fuck him with no questions asked. All he had to do was choose. Of course, he has to be wary of those who might get too clingy or go off telling other people. But it’s not that hard to week those types out of the pack.

Thawne notices magenta neon as he’s driving. A club with a grand opening sign out front. He smiles, knowing that now not only does he have a new prey lure in, but the perfect hunting ground as well.

[wrenhyperfixates]

The Raven Haired Rebel

Chapter 1

Pairing: Loki x reader Series Summary: After invading New York, it was decided that, as a punishment, Loki would work for SHIELD. Yeah, right. After escaping from their custody and stranded on Midgard, the God of Mischief decides to prove he’s the one thing no one ever thought he was: the good guy. Now a vigilante, Loki attempts to make amends for his past wrongdoings while also evading the Avengers, including their newest member. You. Brought in specially for the case, you notice more and more details about the prince’s story don’t add up. When you get the chance to turn him in, will you listen to your employers or your heart that believes Loki’s done nothing wrong? Chapter Summary: In which you plead Loki’s case. Chapter Warnings: none A/N: Besides this being a miniseries, all the chapters are pretty short too! Hope you enjoy all the same :)

Permanent Tag List: @lucywrites02 @frostedgiant @lunarmoon8 @twhiddlestonsstuff @lokistan @lowkeyorlokificrecs @gaitwae @whatafuckingdumbass @castiels-majestic-wings @kozkaboi @cozy-the-overlord @birdgirl90 @myraiswack @mythicalgarlicknot @what-a-flammable-heart @marvelouslovely @laurenandloki @fallinallinmendes @sophlubbwriting @mooncat163

RHR Tag List: @happygalaxymilkshake @electroma89 @stardust-walker @i-would-kneel-for-loki​

Masterlist

Disclaimer: Gif not mine

Swiping into Avengers Tower made you feel important, more so than swiping into a SHIELD base. You weren’t exactly sure why, though. Perhaps it was because SHIELD was a secret, and no one knew. Here, the passerby on the street looked on in awe. Or maybe it was because the Tower was so elite. Because so select few got to enter. But really, it probably wasn’t that you got to enter so much as why you got to enter.

True, since your first day on the job, word got around that you were the best in your field. Fast as lightning, you’d risen through the ranks to be Fury’s top tracker, a position all but secured when he brought you on for this case. A case, you knew, that intrigued you far more than it should have.

Just like everyone else had on that day a little over three months ago, you watched the TV with rapt attention as gods and superheroes made themselves known to the world. And, you supposed, supervillains too. Not that you’d told anyone, but something didn’t quite sit right with you in the weeks after when news anchors and colleagues alike were referring to the raven haired god as such.

For the next three days, you’d pored over books of Norse Mythology and a number of studies. Most of the latter coming from one Dr. Jane Foster, who you soon came to link with Thor. But even there you found a disconnect between the god of legends and the bloodied man on your screen. He never really did have malicious intent before. He was a trickster, yes, but he’d not even come close to doing something this drastic before! Ok, yes, there was his involvement in Ragnarök in the myths, but even for that you’d found multiple sources that could debunk it. Besides, it certainly didn’t seem like Asgard had even faced the end times yet.

Alas, you figured Thor knew his brother, and you had your own case to work on, so you let be the mystery that was Loki.

And then you were called into Fury’s office a week ago and asked to begin tracking the god. A bit too eagerly, you’d agreed to take the case. You’d dealt with villains before, truly evil people, and your search only further proved what deep down you already knew; Loki was not one. Everywhere you followed his trail, a mysterious savior was stopping bank robberies and saving people from burning buildings and runaway trains. Not to mention there were multiple descriptions of said savior using green magic. It seemed a wonder that the tracker in the case before you hadn’t noticed. Then again, people tend to only see what they want to.

Regardless, you made your way to the elevators, heading toward the conference room on one of the upper floors. You tapped your foot as it ascended, impatient to share your findings. As the lift stopped and you got out, you tugged on your leather jacket. It was ever so slightly too big, but it was on sale. Plus, you felt like it looked pretty cool, considering your job and all. Subconsciously, you puffed up your chest a bit too. Regardless of actual size, you felt like a petite little thing, stepping into a room of now renowned heroes. Strange, you thought, how so much could change in just three months.

“You know, I got to get me one of those,” said the man suddenly keeping pace next to you. You quickly identified him as Tony Stark.

“I... Pardon?” you replied, slightly startled.

“Your jacket,” he said, pointing at it. “I feel like the leather will match the whole rugged good-guy, vibe. Besides, I think Capsicle’s got one.”

You chuckled at that. “Maybe we should just make it the team uniform then.”

“Team, huh? So you must be that new tracker kid we’re working with.”

“I’d hardly call myself a kid,” you scoffed.

“When you get to be as rich as I am, you get to call everyone a kid,” Tony shrugged.

“I’m not exactly sure that’s how it works, but whatever you say, I guess,” you chuckled again.

“See, now if everyone would just adopt that mindset, we’d get stuff done a lot faster around here.” He quickly signed something that was brought up to him on a clipboard, never stopping. You wondered how long he could keep up like this before collapsing. “Besides, take it as a compliment. That last tracker was some fuddy-duddy old guy.”

“Fuddy-duddy?” you guffawed. “Maybe you’re the old one, after all.”

Tony feigned like he’d been struck in the heart. But before you could keep up the banter, you reached the conference room, and Steve was waving you inside.

“Stark,” he said with a nod. “Are you ready to begin or are you going to keep distracting our new teammate?”

“Aye aye, Captain,” he said with a little salute. “Reporting for duty.”

You mouthed a sorry as you followed Stark into the room. Even if the rest of them turned out to be hard-asses, at least Tony was fun. And having one ally was better than none, you figured. As you took your seat across from your new friend, you flipped through the file that had been left for you. It wasn’t really anything new, so you glanced at your teammates again. Nat and Clint both nodded at you, recognizing you from a couple other missions you’d interacted during. There wasn’t really any time to talk, however, before Captain Rogers was walking to the head of the long table.

“Alright, team. Before we get started, I think it’s worth mentioning we have a new member on the team,” Steve said, before welcoming you by name. “I think we’re all caught up on the situation here, so let’s dive right in. A new trend has shown up in the Tower’s data mining.”

“Data analysis,” Tony butt in. “It sounds more ethical that way.”

“Whatever you want to call it, the program showed that wherever Loki goes, there’s a spike in activity of an organization calling themselves AIM. At first glance they seem innocent, but after some digging, we’ve found they’re anything but. We’ve determined Loki is working with them, perhaps even masterminding some of their more underground projects. Agent? Can we assume you found the same things?”

“Uh, yeah, no. Actually, my data shows the opposite,” you cleared your throat. Standing, you slid the information from your tablet onto the room’s TV screen. “See, it seems that he’s actually doing good deeds. There are multiple accounts of a man fitting Loki’s description performing heroic works.”

“Ok, I’ll bite,” Tony said, leaning forward. “What about AIM then? You think it’s a coincidence.”

You bit your lip. “I’ll admit, I haven’t found anything about them yet. But... maybe, just maybe, Loki’s showing up where they are because he’s trying to stop them.”

“I am so sorry to interrupt, but that does not sound like the Loki I know at all,” Thor laughed. “A wonderful joke, though.”

Now you were getting mad. You shouldn’t be, but you saw something worth defending in Loki. A lot, actually. There was something about that look in his eye that you couldn’t quite read, but it was telling you something was wrong all the same.

“That’s not fair! Maybe you don’t know him as well as you thought. Look at this,” you said, swiping to show a side by side of Loki during and after the fight. “You can see it by the look on his face; something was seriously wrong during the battle. Plus, I’ve seen videos of him when he first came; he was not alright. Afflicted with severe anxiety and what looks like burn marks, I’d say. He needed help.”

“With all due respect,” Clint chimed in, “aren’t your a tracker, not a psychologist?”

“Yes, but as such I’ve been trained to look at all the details. Not just what’s convenient.”

“Listen,” Steve sighed before things got any more heated. “It’s a great theory and all, but you read Thor’s account of everything that happened before this. So, until we get some solid evidence proving otherwise, we’re going to have to stick with what we already know. We’ll put a pin in the AIM thing until you can take a look, though. Ok?”

“Ok,” you agreed, defeatedly taking your seat again.

You looked around the table. Natasha and Bruce, the only two who hadn’t said anything, both looked kind of pensive. Alright, maybe bewildered was the better word for Bruce. He was smart, no doubt about it, but you got the impression he wasn’t very good in social settings. Then there was Clint and Thor, both who seemed a little skeptical of you. At least Thor seemed to be considering his brother’s innocence at least a little. Steve was a bit more unreadable as he continued to prattle on about what you already “knew” for the case. And then there was Tony, who seemed more impressed than anything else. He, at least, had seemed to genuinely consider what you said. Perhaps he still was.

“The best way to solve this,” Steve closed his spiel, “is to bring him in. Agent, have you located him yet?”

You sighed. Deeply. It shouldn’t be this much of a struggle to present your findings. You’d had no trouble speaking on his behalf. Yet a part of you—an alarmingly large part, you realized—didn’t want to turn him in. But who were you to ignore direct orders?

“Yup,” you conceded, pulling up a map with a blinking red dot, marking Loki’s location.

“Well then, team,” Steve said to the group. “Let’s roll out.”

[bunni-teeth81]

Slender bros rewritten by me

Cause I want character development

(This is mostly Offender, trender, and Splendor. Also if you like Slendey/slender dad you might not wanna read this cause I do not make him a good guy in the slightest)

Possible tw for mention sexual assault, pedolophilia, necrophilia, and zoophilia!

To start off, Offender is not a rapist, he isn’t a pedo, and he doesn’t fuck animals

He doesn’t do anything without consent, plain and simple. Him being all those things was a rumor started by someone he fucked in the past who got caught cheating. They said Offender forced them and the rumors have escalated since with his legend.

He actively avoids children cause he doesn’t like them. So he literally couldn’t be a pedo.

He doesn’t hate kids, he just prefers to not be around them.

He won’t fuck someone with kids unless the kids are out of the house and somewhere safe.

He’s wary about fucking 18 and 19 year olds and usually doesn’t

Occasionally if he sees a kid sad while he’s on a walk or whatever he’ll give them some daisies or something. Though they kinda just appear near the kid. He doesn’t actually go near them.

Though he will fuck old people. He has no problem with that. But he will go gentler cause they’re frail

He likes animals, but not like that. Like.. ew

He has a kind of respect for the dead, even people he’s killed to eat, so he’d never do that. Also it goes back to the consent thing. They can’t consent so he ain’t gonna fuck them.

He’s pansexual.

He’s very kinky, obviously. He’s willing to do pretty much anything in bed

He prefers to top but he has no problem being pegged-

Has tried every drug there is.

Usually just sticks to weed, alcohol, crack, shrooms, and the occasional LSD

Bath salts fucked him up majorly and he will never do them again.

He works for trender, who has a whole ass company (will be touched on later)

He helps trender make clothes for more alt styles (punk, grunge, goth, emo, all that good stuff) and he helps with lingerie (masc and fem. trender makes both. Offender tests it out and gives feedback on what could be added or changed)

He also finds models for Trender (there’s really no qualifications to be a model, you kinda just have to want to be one. Trender, his assistants, and other models will help fill new models in. And they never have to wear something they don’t want or pose a way that makes them uncomfortable. also theres do discrimination when it comes to models, any one of any race, body type, gender (or lack there of), sexuality, and age to an extent (depending on the clothes being modeled and (if parent permission is needed if they get it)) are welcome)

He also does side jobs like art (he does realistic art) plays piano or violin for songs, every so often he’ll join a strip club. Definitely has an OF.

He learned piano from his dad. Their dad made them all learn piano. His dad was very against him learning violin but his mother let him learn it (she knew how to play)

Their parents kept them pretty reserved from the rest of the world (particularly humans) for safety reasons. The brothers didn’t find out they were the only ones of their kind till they were like teens and went hunting for the first time.

Their parents suddenly disappeared when they were teens. They still haven’t found them and have no idea what happened to them.

Zalgo killed them cause the dad was constantly fighting him, so was the mom but less so.

There were originally 5 brothers, but one got murdered (It was Tenderman. Who wouldve been the oldest, then slender, offender and trender are twins, then splendor)

They don’t know how tender was murdered. All they know is they can be murdered. They still haven’t figured out how tho.

They do know that they can regenerate any part of their body (teeth and nails grow back almost instantly, limbs take longer, they can just put their head where it should be and the bone, muscle, skin, tissue and all that will pull back together, skin can either regenerate in about an hour or two or a couple days depending on the size of the wound. Their organs can regenerate but it takes like a month.)

Drugs don’t effect them the same way they do us. Our massive hangovers that put us out of commission is what happens after they do LSD. A regular hangover for us is what happens when they do coke or a drink shit ton of alcohol.

Offender has the highest tolerance, then it’s trender, splendor, and Slender has the lowest cause he hasn’t done drugs.

Splendor has tried them but doesn’t like doing them. He doesn’t drink much either.

Trender will do them every so often, usually with Offender. He either drinks or smokes a blunt usually. Shrooms are for special occasions, and LSD gives him major anxiety so he doesn’t do it.

Trender and Offender were the only ones to try bath salts. They don’t know what happened. Splendor says they disappeared for a month and murdered a shit ton of people. They almost got caught. And at some point Offender ate a whole ass headstone and took a chunk out of a mausoleum

Slender hunts whenever the hell he wants, he doesn’t care about being caught

Offender hunts every couple of months or so

Trender hunts about 2 times a year. He spreads out his food pretty evenly

Splendor hates hunting and usually Offender or Trender will do it for them. They’ll maybe hunt once a year.

Human food to them is like sweets to us. They can’t live off it but it’ll keep them from starving. If they don’t eat human for about 3-4 years they’ll start to starve, but the process is slow and would probably take a while to actually kill them

Trender, Splendor, and Offender try not to get caught or make suspicions rise. They just wanna live their lives.

The amount of people they consume and how long they stay in their human form determines their power levels.

Slender is the most powerful, then Splendor, Offender, and Trender is the least powerful (but they’re all still mega powerful)

Slender is never in his human form and consumes humans whenever he wants so he has nothing holding back his power

Splendor may not eat human much but they’re rarely ever in his human form. And if they are it’s not for more than an hour usually

Offender is in his human form about 50% of the time. He’s in his normal form at home or hunting and any other time he’s human so-

Trender is in his human form like 90% of the time since he spends most of his time at work (he’s a workaholic to the highest extent. When it becomes really bad is when Offender will step in and be like “hey let’s grab a drink and chill out”)

Offender and Slender’s relationship is like Raph and Leo’s from tmnt if their relationship was genuine hatred and violent

Splendor tries to med their relationship and makes times where they all hang out and have dinner together but to no avail

This is the only time Slender can be seen in his human form. He doesn’t want to go but for some reason he does

Slender is stuck in his ways

Their dad hated humans with a passion, and Slender looked up to their father and wanted to be exactly like him so the hatred rubbed off

Slender blames humans for his parents disappearing and Tender’s death. Tender was the brother he bonded with the most

Splendor used to be a really emotional kid and their father hated that so now they bottle up everything

Their mother tried to help as best she could

V support

Trender’s company is a fashion company that produces just about everything

And the sizes go up to 4 or 5 x

And the prices are reasonable and don’t go up with the size

Trender really doesn’t give to shits about money. If he could he’d just give everything he makes away but unfortunately he needs some money to produce what he makes.

He makes kids clothing, teens clothing, adults clothing in every aesthetic you can think of. Rarely will you see basic shit from him

He makes jewelry (real and fake (for the kiddies) and specifies very obviously which is which so someone doesn’t accidentally buy the wrong one)

He makes shoes!

His prices are usually around 10-25 dollars for clothing, sometimes 30 if it’s a specific brand (like Gorillaz or something. He doesn’t work with brands like Victoria secret, brands that have sweat shops, things like that. He doesn’t support them whatsoever)

His business is huge but he always listens to the people and tries to improve. And all his products are made ethically. He tries in every way possible to produce good products without polluting the earth more

Splendor usually only hangs around babies-young adults. They help them through rough home lives, trauma, and helps them find joy. They do everything they can to make them feel better

Splendor is the one who takes care of Sally. And they feels incredibly guilty for not being able to stop what happened to her, or punish her uncle himself.

Animals and mystical creatures are drawn to them and their home. They go to it for shelter and safety, as well as some food. But because Splendor isn’t always there they have a nymph friend there to look after everything.

Slenderman is the only one with proxies

Splendor is demisexual and bi, leaning towards men

Trender is queer and demisexual/demiromantic

Slender doesn’t love anything. Ever.

Trender gets annoyed easily but rarely ever gets pissed pissed (like original face altering pissed) if he does it’s either cause someone did something to his brothers or his models. And the unfortunate soul who did such will never be seen again afterwards

Offender doesn’t really get pissed pissed cause he usually either bottles it up or makes a joke out of it. It’s really only if something happens to his brothers that he gets pissed pissed.

Splendor has a list of people they wish they could rip to shreds. All of them parents. But they don’t want to do that to the children. They only intervenes and gets pissed pissed when the abuse gets physical or sexual. When it’s physically they’ll give the parent one change to never do that again. They’ll scare the shit outta them but won’t hurt them. If it’s sexual they kill them. Plain and simple.

Splendor started wearing pokadots to make the kids happy. Trender hates the suit but doesn’t comment usually

Splendor’s black hands are a skin disease their species can have. The skin is black and kinda ridged.

Splendor wears gloves because of their skin disease. the blood stains and they can’t get it out. Also they’re very insecure about their disease

Splendor put the bells on their tendrils so their movements didn’t scare the kids. They would always know when he was moving and where he was moving to so they’d be more comfortable. It was painful but it was worth it

Slender was in the woods when he was younger and almost got attacked by humans, but his mother came and saved him. (Her tendrils could be used as a shield)

Eden is not related to the brothers.

But eden looks a lot like their mother, so much so that Spendor legitimately mistakes her for their mother.

Slender’s human name is John (splendor had to come up with it on the spot leave them be)

Offender’s human name is Dimitri and I’ll die on this hill

Splendor’s human name is Faer

Trender’s human name is Quael

They can change their physical appearance to be fem or masc. like their body can change.

Slender doesn’t give two shits about pronouns

Offender doesn’t care but he/they/xem works

Trender goes by he/him

Splendor goes by they/them

(Im including Slenderwoman now so uh... 🤷)

Her hair is her tendrils.

She’s not part of the Slender bro family nor does she know they exist (though eventually she will. She’s way younger than them so)

✨Lesbian✨

Has met Slenderman tho. She hates him

Like genuinely hates his guts

She hates almost sharing a name with him.

Prefers to go by her human name; Eden

As long as you don’t use the pronouns he/him she doesn’t care.

She just kinda... appeared at the ripe age of 4? (She doesn’t remember anything past 4 so that’s what if feels like to her.)

Splendor is a switch and you can’t change my mind

Trender is also a switch

Slender doesn’t get any cause he’d kill them, purposely or not, being radioactive and all.

Eden is a top but can bottom is convinced

Offender, Splendor, Trender, and Eden can all control their radiation output so they can glitch tech when they chose and won’t hurt anyone

Slender could but doesn’t want to 🤷

They can be killed by their hearts getting impaled. The reason they don’t know that is because the skin will heal, but the heart can’t.

Offenderman’s real name isn’t Offenderman. That name was dubbed to him when people believed the rumors of him. But he kept it. He can’t really explain why but he did. And now he forgets it’s not his real name sometimes. Though he does prefer to go by Offender/Smexy.

Splendor calls him Offendy and he’s the only one allowed to do so

Trended has four arms, plus his tendrils. He can hide his second pair of arms like his tendrils but it takes energy

Getting their limbs/tendrils cut off only stings to them. They’re only in full on pain when their organs are involved

Eden’s blood has healing properties.

Someone can be turned immortal by being injected with one of the brother’s (or Eden’s) blood in large amounts. It’s extremely painful though.

Doing it slowly can ease the pain, so doing it over a week’s time nonstop will get the job done.

The injected person will be very weak after it for a couple days. A week. 2 weeks in worse cases.

The only one who’s done this is Splendor. They were dating a guy for a very long time and they told him about the procedure and he wanted it. After gaining back his strength he left Splendor. They’re not entirely over this even though it happened a long time ago.

They (mainly Offender and Trender) had to track him down and kill him. (Ya know, heart stuff)

That’s when they figured that’s probably how they could get murdered 

[feanorianethicsdepartment]

i ain’t done anything for @tolkienocweek yet, mostly because my covid-induced neet-dom has decoupled me from any association with sidereal time and thus there’s no way i could guarantee getting something out on its specific day. still, i do have one character that could potentially qualify for day 3 (background characters) or day 4 (self-inserts), sorta. i’d like to introduce you all to the proprietor of the fëanorian ethics department, the as-yet-nameless fed elf

fed elf is a... moderately idealised self-insert of mine, though she’s taking on a life of her own

she’s also a noldo. of course she is

her Noldorin Craft™ is, as i’ve said before, arguing. she has very strong opinions about almost everything and will debate them at length

she’s moderately infamous for it in tirion

she’s especially fond of philosophy, in the ancient-greek asking-a-million-rhetorical questions style. what should we do? why do we do the things we do? why do the valar get to tell us what to do?

... you can probably tell which side of the fëanor/fingolfin debate she landed on, if it wasn’t already obvious

she’s not particularly close to any of the future capital-H House, but she is in their rough orbit. one of the miscellaneous guild trolls that form the rank-and-file of their initial expeditionary force

idk if she’s ~devoted to the cause enough to go to formenos, but when the trees get eaten and fëanor rolls up into tirion with the solution to all their spider problems, she is all for it

she’s a passing acquaintance of maedhros from those times when he’d show up in her guild hall for debate night, so she probably ends up with his crew, at least initially

... there’s a very good chance her first attempts at crafting a new noldorin ethical system happen on that horrible night aboard the blood-stained swanships of alqualondë

in any case, she gets good enough at murder to not die before the brothers hellspawn are divvying up east beleriand, and the formerly reasonably undelineated fëanorian host is splitting up into its various garrisons

most people stay with whoever they’re already riding with, but there are exceptions. she is one of them, as soon as she hears about caranthir’s Plans she immediately switches allegiance to the future lord of thargelion

he’s deliberately trying to set up on the trade routes! they’re gonna make contact with the dwarves! there are apparently trails leading over the blue mountains, links to communities of elves unlike she’s ever seen!

so many new people to argue with!!!!!!

so she heads up to lake helevorn, and helps with setting up the city. she winds up filling some middling role in east beleriand’s military bureaucracy, when she’s not on orc-killing duty

but her true passion is *~ethics~*

there is actually a practical component to this. due to Certain Events the noldor (especially the fëanorians) aren’t as-well suited to their pre-darkening moral codes as they might have once been

they need a new one, with contingencies for, like, murder, and all the other new situations they’ll encounter in this new world! the questions of what’s right and wrong have been blown right open, and fed elf is possibly the happiest she’s been in her life. they’re building everything else from first principles, why not this?

and the fëanorian host in aggregate does actually care about morality, even though outsiders never believe that. it’s what separates them from the orcs (in their minds at least); they’re doing everything for a Cause, not for destruction’s sake alone. say what you want about the fëanorians, their problem was never a lack of ideals

she gets people coming in sometimes, wanting to know what the right thing to do in a situation is. either that, or they think she’s wrong about something and want to explain why in depth, which is almost as fun

soon enough, there’s a small shop just off the main streets of lake helevorn called the fëanorian ethics department

(she’s the only one with a shop, but she’s not the only member of the host with Opinions. the guy on the other side of the market district whose system is fairly similar in the broad strokes but completely different in the details is her personal archnemesis)

for most of the first age, fed elf has it pretty good. by her standards, at least, and she’ll happily exposit at length as to why they’re the only ones that matter

the work on the system of ethics never quite stops, but it does slow down. she’s less prescriptivist than most noldor, so she does a lot of observation and interviewing and stuff, and also new things keep happening for her to cover, but she does manage to nail down the basics!

she does consultation, in varying levels of official capacity, but she’ll also just. answer anyone who comes in with a question. or asks one within earshot

it’s mostly noldorin fëanorians she has debates with, the sindar and atani generally prefer to ask her whatever they want to know with minimum fuss, but whenever she gets a real fight going they all join the crowd. watching fed elf argue with people is one of lake helevorn’s municipal spectator sports

she also has conversations with travellers! these usually start when some newcomer is staring in befuddlement at the sign outside her shop and she takes the opportunity to pounce

she asks them detailed questions about their own ethical systems, which she files away for potential future incorporation/argument ammunition. they fairly frequently ask questions of their own, most often variations on ‘you guys seriously have morals?’

sometimes this even turns into a proper ethical debate! these aren’t usually as well-argued or intense as the ones she has with other fëanorians, particularly if she’s not talking to a noldo, but when she meets someone who’s a proper match for her it is the highlight of her year

running the shop does generate a fair bit of paperwork she tends to be too emotionally invested in to deal with properly, so she hires help now and then. one recurring underling is a clumsy perpetually-ill atan who is nevertheless really good with the filing and holds fierce opinions of their own, even if they hide under the table whenever anyone so much as raises their voice

(that atan is me. much less idealised self insert)

like every other elf in the host, fed elf is still under arms. she has a unit, she’s part of the orc patrol rotas, when caranthir needs to do a battle she pulls her broadsword out from under her desk and reports for the muster. east beleriand is just a pretty violent place in general, and her most impassioned arguments frequently shade into all-out duels. east beleriand, where even especially the philosophers will knife you

but just like fëanor promised on tirion upon túna so long ago, she’s built a place where she can be the best version of herself, and she couldn’t be happier (marketplace douche notwithstanding)

like so much of the host, she has big plans for when they topple angband and reclaim the silmarils. it’s just, well

i am not entirely sure what fed elf’s fate is after the fall of thargelion. most likely she died at some point, because so do most of her peers and also because she has an aversion to cutting her losses that’s definitely gonna backfire sooner or later

it’s either that, or she abandons everything she ever worked out to flee over the blue mountains, or she sticks with the host long enough to see all their ideals and dreams burn to ash. out of all of them death is probably her kindest fate

if she does die - she’s definitely a kinslayer at least one time over, she is staying in the halls for a While. the local maiar completely stonewall her every time she tries to argue her way out, she has plenty of time to sit around and think

because yeah, the host’s century-long self-immolation has given her a lot to think about. she was wrong, it turns out, in several important ways, and from the outside she can see how much the ethical system she put her heart and soul into was bent towards destruction

if she ever gets out, it’ll be after a lot of self-reflection, a massive dose of humility, and her accepting her own small-but-not-insignificant role in the nightmare they created

the fëanorians as get let out of the halls of mandos are without fail less violent, more self-aware, and just generally more conscious of their actions than they were when they went in. fed elf is no exception to this

she’s also no exception to the rule that their time in elf afterlife therapy generally fails to lower their volume at all. soon after her rebirth, after some time spent rethinking her personal moral code, fed elf puts out a thesis as to why elwing’s refusal to give up the silmaril was perfectly justifiable under fëanorian ethical mores

this pisses off a measurable proportion of aman’s sapient population. soon the furious letters of rebuke are pouring in nightly

exactly. as. planned

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Ash, can we get a little jake and kauri yearning today? Just a little??

CW: Alcohol use, p i n i n g, Kauri’s Poor Life Choices, Kauri’s low self-esteem

Jake sees him from across the bar, and it’s like he knew he’d be here, even though he didn’t - couldn’t have known. Kauri never tells them where he goes when he’s gone, just disappears for a few days, a week, a month, and then pops back up hungover and starving.

Tonight, though... here he is.

Jake, sitting at a table with a couple of friends with his whiskey-and-coke in his hand, looks out at the dance floor and catches sight of a head of black curls and his breath catches in his throat. 

It can’t be him, this city is huge, there’s no fucking way-

But there he is, wearing someone else’s shirt and dancing with his back to another man’s chest, arms up and around his neck. What they’re doing can only barely be called dancing at all, but that’s not the point, and Jake knows it.

“... literally never have a single day of fun,” He hears, and blinks, turning back to look at Jennifer from his ethics class, sipping through a teeny straw a drink that has entirely too many cherries in it. “It took us two and a half months to convince you to go to dinner with the group exactly one time and you’re already zoning out on me.”

“Yeah... yeah, sorry,” Jake says, shaking his head a little, trying to knock the image of Kauri out of it. “It’s just, you know-”

“I know, I know, you’re busy as fuck. I get it. Fighting the good fight for the homeless kids, right?” Jennifer’s girlfriend has her arms around her waist, Del’s chin resting on Jennifer’s shoulder. 

“Right,” Jake says, and shrugs. “You know how it is. You get into something and you just-... I mean, you and Del met at that DV shelter, right?”

“Right.” Jennifer turns, and she and Del smile at each other, before Del presses a kiss to the side of her head and gets up, heading to the bar for a refill of her own drink. “But Jake, there’s a difference between loving what you do and being fucking married to it, you know? You need to have fun with us!” Her eyes are huge and sad and pleading.

Chris makes eyes like that sometimes.

He should really be home with Chris, but Nat had more or less shoved him out the door and told him to take a night off, try and act his age for once.

Everyone else in their twenties is living it up, Nat had said, making herself coffee at 5 o’clock, both of them knowing she’d be up later than she wanted to be if Jake wasn’t there to run interference. And here you are, working yourself into an early grave at 25. 

Well, what were you doing at 25? Jake had challenged, and then realized too late the answer to that question. 

The weight of it hung in the air between them, until finally Nat had said quietly, I was working for WRU. I made my mistakes. Go have fun, Jake.

Now here he is, and he’d rather be home, sitting on his bed studying while Chris plays a game next to him, nudging him to read him the words when he needs to. That would feel better than being here, right now, alone in a crowd.

His eyes shift again, and Kauri hasn’t moved, but he’s turned around to face the man he’s dancing with. The song slows, and so do the dancers. Even from here, Jake can see the sweat shining on Kauri’s skin, sticking his shirt a little bit to his back along his shoulder blades. 

He tips his head back, laughing at something the guy says, but Jake knows Kauri’s fake smile, his fake laugh. He knows it even across a bar, even through music so loud he can barely hear himself think.

Jake wonders, idly, if Kauri will show up at the safehouse when the bars close tonight, if he’ll stumble in with that sweat dried to his skin and smile at Jake over leftovers he pulls from the fridge and tell him he was somewhere other than this. If Kauri lies.

“What’re you-... ooooh, you’re looking at that guy?” Jennifer leans over, craning her head, not even trying to be subtle. “You think he’s cute?”

“Jenn-”

“Jennifer, thanks.”

“Jennifer-... just... no, I, uh-” Should he say he knows Kauri? He can’t explain how, now can he? Jake just groans. “I think I should go home. I’m just not feeling it tonight.”

“I swear to God, Jakob Stanton, you are the least fun person on Earth.” Jennifer pouts, but Jake pushes himself to standing anyway. Somehow, because God hates him maybe, he manages to time it to exactly when Kauri pulls himself out of the guy’s arms and turns around to head for the bar or the bathroom maybe, and the two of them look right at each other. 

For a second, they only stare, blue eyes on blue. Kauri’s expression brightens, a burst of happiness at seeing Jake here, and his hand starts to raise before his eyes flicker to the others at the table, back to him, and the happiness fades.

Jake can’t read what he’s thinking, but he can see how Kauri’s thoughts fly, the certainty Kauri has in his own stupidity is ridiculous to anyone who has ever seen his mind work at lightning speed to protect himself.

There’s a look on Kauri’s face as he takes in Jake’s friends. It’s something like shame. He turns away and walks a different direction and Jake watches him disappear into the crowd, black curls fading into the darkness in the corners.

Jake swallows, jaw tightening.

He could follow Kauri. He could ask him what he was thinking, why he turned away. He should follow him, he should prove he wants to, to seek him out, to tell him... what?

But of course he knows what he should have said, only now, when Kauri is already gone.

I’m not embarrassed by you, I want you to meet my friends, I know you’ve been told you’re stupid and embarrassing and worse than that, but none of it’s true. Sit with us. Sit with me.

Dance with me.

Funny, how the words only come to his mind when it’s too late.

Jake shoves his hands in his pockets and heads for the exit, ignoring the beat of his own heart inside him trying to pull him back inside. Whatever Kauri was thinking, he didn’t want Jake to see him here, or to talk to him, and he can respect that. There’s boundaries - the world of the safehouse and the world Kauri lives in outside of it don’t meet. That’s always been true.

The whole drive home, all he can think about is that look on Kauri’s face before he walked away.

All he can think is that he should have followed him across the bar, and been the arms around him while they danced. 

[green-socks]

Hungry Eyes chapter 5

Pairing: Benny Miller x OFC (Dirty Dancing AU)

Summary: Dirty Dancing but Benny is Baby and the dance instructor is a female OC, Jolene. Benny goes to a holiday resort with his family and somehow ends up spending his time dancing and falling in love! This part is practicing the famous lift and like Eye of the Tiger training montage type moments.

Words: 2.1k

Warnings: None.

Notes: This fic is my own little world where I go when I need to. What you see on paper is only a bit of what happens inside my head, but it is what it is. I try. Inconsistent af about posting this bc my muse is a very "it's for me to know and you to to find out" type of gal, so I just follow her lead. Right now she's saying dance, Benny, dance, so he dances. Hope you enjoy!

Chapter 4 | MASTERLIST

The next few days continued with more dance lessons whenever they could.

Benny had experience with working out. A lot. He pretty much did that for a living, after all. So he knew he shouldn’t get frustrated when some new bit of information didn’t immediately stick to his mind. And yet it was hard to keep himself from stressing out, because there was a time limit, and he didn’t want to let Jolene and Patrick down.

They had the steps mostly down already, now it was about getting the routine to look like dancing- tying the steps together as fluid movement. Jolene kept saying that it was about the feeling, but Benny was having some trouble with that. It wasn’t easy to try and express feelings while all his brainpower went to focusing on remembering where to step and where to look and what to do with his hands at any given moment.

On the fourth day of practice Benny finally started letting loose, and he noticed he was actually having sort of fun with it. They had had a whole lesson on how to feel the music and let it guide you as much as your muscle memory. Apparently, the music told when there was room to breathe and where to be precise and hit the right accents. Jolene made him practice same bits over different songs to make him focus on the different beats. Once he got the feel of that down more, it became easier to make the whole choreography flow better.

Patrick also came in to help them practice and fine-tune the performance, since he knew the part better than Jolene did. Benny had some trouble with turns and keeping his form at first, but his fight training combined with Patrick’s tips helped with those. Some parts were truly starting to go well, and it was beginning to come together. They were extremely sweaty and exhausted all the time, but happy to be making progress. Benny’s legs were tired, arms tired, feet blistered - “dancer’s feet,” Jolene told him - but despite all that he was having a great time. He thrived on the challenge and physicality of it all, it made him feel alive.

He did still feel guilty about spending less time with his family, and instead spending late nights working on the choreography and occasionally popping into the entertainment crew’s parties. Most of the crew had really taken a liking to him, and even Patrick was slowly warming up to him. Only Jolene was still a closed off, not really volunteering anything personal about herself outside of the dancing they did. They still got along fairly well - they understood each other. They both had a strong work ethic and their teamwork got results.

But their teamwork wasn’t always smooth sailing, of course.

One of the parts Benny was struggling with was a serious and tender moment in the beginning of the choreography that required them to be very up close and personal. He couldn’t stop snickering and making jokes or just bursting out laughing and not doing it properly. Jo got annoyed at him for that, because she thought it was a stupid thing to be stuck on, and she had felt a little like he was somehow mocking the choreography, making it seem silly. But the truth of it was that Benny was a bit afraid of how intensely he would feel things if he let himself be completely serious and truly try to live the moment, be vulnerable. He didn’t know if he could keep his emotions in check.

-

There had also been a small argument on the fifth day when Benny had complained about a part he didn’t like in the choreo, and Jolene was having none of his sass. The frustration and stress had started getting to her, and she had snapped at him about not taking it seriously enough and not learning quickly enough.

And Benny had bit back, “Hey, I’m doin’ this just to help you and your friend! And we haven’t even tried to go through the whole thing yet, we haven’t practiced the lift at all, so how do you expect me to get it all if I can’t have the full picture?!”

Jo had seethed at him, breathing heavily for a moment, until she had said, “Fine. You have a car?”

--------

That’s how they had ended up borrowing Benny’s brother Will’s car to drive to a place where they could practice the troublesome lift.

Jo had most of the day off, so she decided now was a good time to go and work on the lift, since it would be best to practice it outside the resort. Benny made jokes and laughed at her when she had to adjust every setting on the seat and mirrors of the car to suit her much shorter frame. Jo was used to hearing jokes about her height but somehow, she didn’t mind them from Benny. She found herself surprised at how easy she felt in his company, the argument from before long forgotten already. With the radio playing and both of them joking around, she started driving toward a secluded beach nearby.

Jo noticed that it was much easier to talk with him now that they were alone together and removed from the context of training for a moment. She found herself opening up about her background in dance, how she had started and how her dream was to open her own dance studio someday. She also told him about her family, how she didn’t see them often because her younger brother was in college far from her and her parents had retired and moved to Australia. Benny was a surprisingly good listener, letting her talk and asking questions, seeming genuinely interested in her. Before she knew it, they reached the destination.

-

Under normal circumstances she would have started with some balancing and trust exercises, but they were past trust exercises, and Benny’s fight training meant he had great balance, so she decided to jump into the thing itself right away.

“Okay. We’ll just- go for it. I’ve shown you the video of what it’s supposed to look like, I’ve shown you where you’re supposed to put your hands and everything. We’re good to go, right? Or do you have any questions?”

“No.. I think I know what to do in theory, at least..” Benny says, rubbing his beard nervously.

She took a deep breath. Okay. There was nothing to it but to just try, it would be fine.

But after tumbling down to the grass a few times Jo realized it wouldn’t work, because they were both holding back for fear of falling. She was afraid of Benny not being able to lift her and then hurting him when he had to bear the brunt of the fallings. And Benny in his turn was scared of hurting her. There was also the added difficulty of their height difference - Benny would have to lift with his legs a lot more, and she would have to adjust a lot from what she was used to with Patrick, too.

So, they would have to make sure the fall was less scary..

“What if we get into the water? It’s safer to fall down there at least,” she suggested.

“What? You serious?”

“Yeah! What, you scared or something?”

Benny rolled his eyes at her childish taunting but shrugged and started taking his shoes and shirt off.

When she had first met him a few days ago, she had dismissed him as just some random dude crashing their party - a seemingly pleasant dude, sure, but nothing special. But now, given the opportunity to admire his back and arms without having to focus on being a dance instructor first, she couldn’t deny the view was very.. inspiring. She had seen him shirtless before because they did work up quite the sweat dancing in the summer heat, and the guy seemed very comfortable with his body. It was different, though, in this new environment and this new, more relaxed energy between them. It was a nice change of pace, truth be told.

Benny started opening his belt and Jo stopped in her tracks.

“What are you doing?”

“If you wanna deal with my brother when we return his car with the seats all wet, be my guest, but I learned to not get any fluids on his car seats when I was sixteen,” he said seriously, shaking his head while pulling his jeans off.

“…You know what, I’ll take that chance. I’m keeping my shorts on,” she said, thinking of the not-covering-much-at-all underwear she had on.

“It’s totally fine, I have a hoodie you can sit on. Plus, he wouldn’t even know how to be mad at you,” Benny smiled.

They got in the slightly chilly water, Jo determinedly not looking at Benny until they were deep enough.

-

“Alright, let’s try again!”

The added support of the water was a big help, and after a few tries they managed a perfect lift for a moment until Jo lost her balance and dived into the water.

“Yes, yes! You did it! That was so good!” Jo shouted after she resurfaced. “I lost my balance, but you did it!”

Benny’s eyes seemed to light up, and the next few times he tried even harder. Jo had noticed during practices that Benny was good at following orders when working out, and that he responded to her stricter coaching really well. But she had also noticed that when she praised him, he seemed to get an extra boost of energy, and usually performed even better after that. It was as if the hard training kept him focused and sharp, but a few compliments helped free his creativity more. She wanted to keep the compliments genuine though, and not overdo it.

They still ended up underwater more often than not, but they were starting to get the hang of it at least. They were both tired and had wet hair plastered to their faces as they stood there catching their breaths before a new try.

Benny brushed his hair back from his eyes in the way men do in commercials and Jo found herself staring. He looked unreasonably good like this when she was sure she was a total mess. His blue eyes were shining brighter than the water, and the droplets on his chest made her eyes follow their trajectory downward. Oh boy was she staring. How to stop, though?

“Hello?” Benny’s voice was trying to pull her out of her thoughts. “Jo?”

That was the first time he had called her that, and not her full name. She lifted her head to meet his gaze again, and she was sure her face greatly resembled a tomato.

She didn’t know what to do to save the situation when she was so obviously caught ogling. So she splashed him.

Benny spluttered. “Oh, really? That what you wanna do?” he asked with a big grin.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Jo said, and splashed him again.

“Sweetheart, you’re gonna regret that,” he laughed, and started swimming after her.

Then it was a mess of screaming, laughing, splashing, trashing, and wrestling in the water. Jo was breathless from laughing and the exertion, and she couldn’t remember having that much fun in weeks. She was no match for Benny’s strength, though. He caught her, lifting her up and threatening to throw her back in the water. (Which was essentially what they had done all evening, but this was a different situation entirely.)

“I surrender, you win!” Jo managed to shout out through her giggles.

“Hah, told ya!” Benny gloated as he lowered her back to stand on her own legs.

Suddenly it hit Jo how near each other they were standing, and how very little clothing each of them were wearing, especially Benny. And this was no training situation anymore.

She cleared her throat, avoiding his eyes. “One more go with the lift?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure.”

But the sun was already setting, and it was getting chilly, so they only tried a couple more times before calling it a day.

-

They drove back to the resort, Jo sitting on Benny’s hoodie to protect the car like he promised. The radio was playing again, both of them still making jokes and talking, but this time there was also a different kind of tension in the air. Tomorrow they would have time to practice a little during the day and then it would be time for the performance. But Jo wasn’t sure the tension she felt was just performance jitters.

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

tagsies: @writeforfandoms @starlightmornings @lorecraft @niki-xie@salome-c @ickleronniekinsemotionalrange @sgnjimmy @marvelousmermaid @velocibee @killyspinacoladas

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

we are our family, even if we don’t want to be.

Titans 3.07

a bit over halfway through the season, and we still don’t have all of our main characters on the board! i love this show.

as always, typing this up as i watch. live reaction, baby! *shadowboxes*

SPOILERS AHEAD

1. i don’t think i’ve mentioned this before, but i kinda miss the old ‘dc universe’ intro. it was cool! the whole idea of it was wild and waaaaay over-ambitious, but also very very on-brand because of it.

2. this is... the third time we’ve seen dick sleeping this season? that’s a record! checking another thing off my s3 wishlist...

2.5. i guess i rag on titans all the time for its wafer-thin plotting and bad pacing, but i have to admit that this season has been a step-up from the last one in this regard. titans has very reactive rather than proactive protagonists, and a lot of the last season seemed to be: x happened, the team reacted badly, then y happened, they reacted badly, etc. this time around, it’s not a huge leap up by any means, but at least they’re doing something about it. 

i do appreciate the focus on character arcs over everything else. and when i say everything else, i mean it: arcs that started two seasons ago with no big cathartic moments, intermittent payoff and multiple relapses. big bads have ranged from interdimensional demons to superpowered assassins to whatever in the world scarecrow is, but trigon’s big weapon against the titans was to... use their worst fears against them. slade’s was to... use their fears to break them up. crane’s is to... use red hood to use their fears to break them up. even the threat of gotham’s citizens being in danger doesn’t feel real: gotham is mythologised into an entity of its own, infecting our heroes like a parasite. like. this is not to say that most other superhero media aren’t big character arcs intertwined with the main plot, but titans doesn’t even make pretend that it’s anything but.

anyway. that’s my entry #2345 to ‘give a grand unifying theory for titans’. thanks. i’ll be back with more.

3. “anger is just fear in a little black dress.” god I HATE HIM

(what’s he doing with barbara’s likeness? oh... oh god. a terrible thought just occurred to me. what if they introduce hush at the very last minute for plastic surgery shenanigans? would you put it past this show?)

3.5. jason, nooooooooo

3.75. i mean, they’re making it very clear here that scarecrow is the one in control--the one who’s always been in control--and is manipulating jason and literally poisoning him, but i hope it doesn’t end up erasing nuance or jason’s autonomy. if jason’s to reckon with the issues that brought him here, then the lines of responsibility will need to be set somewhere. 

(this applies to dick as well but more on that later, i guess.)

4. just--the phrase “40% loss of income” is so funny to me. like, gotham is full of these larger-than-life characters who are idiosyncratic beyond belief, colourful and dramatic and creating chaos just for the sake of chaos, and then there’s the regular criminals and their henchmen who just want to make a quick buck sitting down with pie charts and graphs, griping about the joker reducing their returns or debating high risk investments in, i don’t know, two-face’s next scheme.

“yyyyeeeeeaaah, my financial advisor is telling me that going all-in with a guy who literally makes decisions on the flip of a coin is probably not the greatest idea.”

4.5. god i hate smug!smarmy!scarecrow so much

4.85. as big plans to “control” gotham go, it’s pretty bog-standard. clearly scarecrow has some bigger plan in mind but it really feels like we’ve got no clear insight into him and he’s this generic creepy mystery-man who knows more than he lets on and springs a twist/cliffhanger every now and then. i liked the scenes with him and dick in 3.04 where it seemed like he was genuinely on the backfoot and things weren’t going as he predicted. for all of his faults, dick is at least familiar with scarecrow’s bullshit and knows not to give what he wants.

5. i mean... i see where dick is coming from with the “he’s not jason anymore; he’s red hood” because his immediate glaring concern is scarecrow’s drug and the damage it could potentially cause gotham? i do not doubt that it’s something batman drilled into him, too, but when you’re expected to take point on a situation where the lives of an entire city weigh down on your shoulders, it’s better to simplify things and prioritise. i’m not saying it’s great or healthy! gar is absolutely right to consider this facet of the situation. it’s just dick can’t.

6. hmmmmmmm. HMMMMMMMMMMM. 

i don’t know that i’m super fond of this iteration of oracle???? it looks like a cross between cerebro from x-men and jarvis from iron man. it’s giving me second-hand embarrassment. somebody help me.

(at least they remembered dick’s middle name is actually “john”. i like to think bruce printed D in that contract because for a while he genuinely thought richard “dick” grayson was his full name. duck duck goose, dick dick grayson, i don’t know alfred, the kid was in a circus, maybe they thought it was funny. or maybe it was a test in anger control, who knows.)

6.5 “maybe you two would like some time alone?” even AI can’t help hitting on dick grayson in this universe.

“oh mr grayson, if i only had another eye to see you better...”

6.8. on one hand, it’s a bit disconcerting that the title of ‘oracle’ has gone from barbara herself to this gigantic machine; from my impression of the comics-verse, barbara had an extensive computing and surveillance system, true, but she was very clearly the brains behind the operation. on the other hand, i’m kind of glad that the ethical boundaries that this kind of surveillance violates is a sticking point for barbara. (tho let’s be real, the nsa would kill to have this in their arsenal).

6.9. also it’s now obvious that scarecrow’s big plan is to take control of oracle itself. it’s why he had lady vic take that picture of her eyes, or why he’s meddling around with it on his computer.

6.95. if only i could ‘command sleep’ anybody overstepping their boundaries re: personal information...

7. “you can just sit back and watch as the titans destroy themselves.” i mean... he’s not wrong

8. “dick’s parents were killed by a criminal mob; he won’t work with them.” it’s wonderful that you have this insight into dick, kory, i just wish we could’ve watched some of these conversations actually happen on-screen.

8.5. i’m glad that kom’s being treated with such nuance and understanding, though it’s obvious that she definitely has a Plan of her own. (and did i entirely imagine her ability to mimic other people flawlessly at the end of s2? or is that going to come into play at some point?) i think her story has the potential to be genuinely poignant, and in a universe where being Different, either because of mental health or physical differences or whatever else, leads a straight line to Evil, it’s important to acknowledge and then emphasise that the mere fact of your existence as a Different Person doesn’t predispose you to evil. maybe your act of destroying a system that has destroyed you and not scrambling to “fit in” is only evil as defined by that system. 

8.8. “you’re trespassing, i should call the authorities, i feel unsafe.” now this is a villain lady who’s definitely aware of her privilege.

8.85. kom smirking knowingly at her sister is everything.

“oooh that’s the kory i remember”

9. conner and dick working together woo!

9.25. god i hate a villain who’s always just a step ahead, no matter what. so crane anticipated dick using oracle to track his personal communications and set him up? how did he know when exactly dick would get to do this? how long did he have that poor man tied up in that van?

(the “save me, grayson” is a nice touch, tho. send dick spiralling even further! because if there’s one thing dick will do, it’s take responsibility for every goddamn thing that goes wrong.)

9.5. ahem. i’m going to need a million gifs of conner yeeting dick across that yard, fandom, thankyouverymuch.

(i understand conner is invulnerable to explosions, but how do his clothes survive??)

9.8. oooh crane is already in oracle! i’m just sitting here laughing helplessly because they’re overpowering this goddamned guy so much. he can build a lab in arkham’s basement! he has access to lazarus puddles! he has minions working across gotham, including a fully functional chemical laboratory staffed by chemists who only answer to him! he has the crime families of gotham quailing in his very presence! he has assassins at his beck and call! he’s enough of a manipulative bastard to have red hood under his thumb! and now he has enough of a tech know-how to not only be aware of oracle, but know how to hack into it! i’m sick of exclamation marks! i’ll shut up now!

9.95. dick leaving behind that smouldering grave for a person he failed to save without taking a second to process how he feels about it and running towards his next plan to corner scarecrow: a microcosm of where his head’s at right now.

10. really hammering in the themes of this season, aren’t we. 

10.25. the interesting thing is the titans repeatedly call themselves a family this season (none more so than dick) and while that found family has helped encapsulate and put away their traumatic experiences with their ‘original’ families, it’s meant that they’ve not really dealt with those issues. and dick and gar and jason come from ‘found families’ of their own: they are twice removed, traumatised two times over. they still cling to this identity however, and because of it they’re losing each other. a family isn’t static. it’s an ever-evolving dynamic and you have to put in work constantly to keep it healthy.

10.5. anyway, that’s entry #2346. i’m here aaaalll night.

11. lookit gar the detective! half-transforming and using his powers to deduce things! what a hero! i’ve said this for a long time, but gar is the bedrock of this team, and an unsung one at that.

11.25. i’m confused about him calling this room jason’s though. it seems to me that this is dick’s room that jason later used, and one that dick’s using now. so the unmade bed isn’t really jason’s fault; dick was woken by barbara that morning, and in his hurry, he left without making his bed.

(it still confounds me that bruce didn’t find jason another bedroom in that gigantic mansion of his. you really didn’t give this kid a chance, did you?)

12. oh well. so much for the oracle.

13. ... sorry, wait. you didn’t think i wasn’t going to address the bit with dick right now, did you?

12.5. i honestly don’t think it’s very complicated: dick’s been reeling from one traumatic thing to the next, and just when it seemed like at the beginning of the season, he felt happy and secure with his team and his place in the world, bruce ups and leaves gotham to him, specifically naming him a successor and calling him a ‘better batman’. he’s lost garth and jericho and donna and jason and now hank and dawn. he’s not even sure where rachel is or what she’s doing. after being told that batman was a psychopath for moulding him into a weapon, he’s also been told that his failure to be a ‘better batman’ lead to further disaster. of course he’s going to get batman-goggles. of course he’s going to be a prick. 

12.8. i don’t know what to say. i feel his frustration acutely. i don’t think he should’ve said what he said to barbara (can people stop pushing her around this season????) but that pressure to step in where your parent fails? to clean up their messes and try to think like them? to fall into habits drilled into you when you developed them as coping mechanisms growing up? I FEEL THAT. 

every step he’s taking he’s putting 110% of himself in it and scarecrow’s still playing mindgames with all of them: i absolutely feel his desperation to take control of that game and turn it on scarecrow, no matter what it takes.

and he did apologise almost immediately, and finally--finally--actually works with barbara. 

12.9. again, not excusing him! but i get it. and i think that’s a sign of great character writing.

“did you know i just reminded emmram of all of her daddy issues? what the fuck????”

12.95. i love that dick&barbara, kory&kom, and gar are all approaching solving this mystery from different angles, each as valid as the other. also, conner is there as... emergency bomb defuser man?

13. it’s like all fancy rich people in fancy rich houses do is pour fancy rich alcohol into fancy rich glasses on pristine, untouched tabletops. i wonder what it’s like to live like that.

13.25. I KNEW IT! poor michael. it was nice knowing you.

13.5. man, kory is contending with a lot of issues that she’s successfully bottled up and compartmentalised until now. the cold reality that a child can seek out their parents as refuge and they can view the child as a piece to be moved in a greater game (never out of cruelty, though, never, and somehow that makes it worse), that truth of blackfire’s treatment on tamaran because she’s different, and her own culpability in what happened. she exchanged one family for another, after all, and left that family to die and her sister to suffer. like dick, like gar, kory’s being forced to reckon with what the titans are meant to be, the larger implications of creating their found family in their own space.

14. it’s probably because it’s one in the morning and i’ve had two glasses of wine but i did not follow that bit of exposition at all and victor freeze??? what? 

anyway. look at them solving things! together! go team!

“you made a deal with the mob?” oh the sense of betrayal on his face! fuck off, dick, your issues aren’t kory’s. 

15. conner is really sweet and a bit of an awestruck crush on kom is to be expected. especially after that power rangers-esque transformation (i say this as a former huge power rangers fangirl. i’ve seen every series until 2007 including the original japanese versions and written fanfic for all of them. so i love a cool costume transformation, is what i’m saying.)

also?

FUCK YEAH

16. i love the gotham crime families just chillin’ around eating ice cream. I LOVE THEM

16.5. that was a fun fight sequence, if marred slightly by that bit of awkward flirting between conner and kom. i wonder if she’s really planning to use him in a larger scheme to get kory back to tamaran, or maybe something else. 

16.75. so i’m assuming that scarecrow has jason either so paralysed by fear that he can barely move, or jason’s withdrawing from the drug that he’s been sucking in every few minutes. 

17. it’s nice to see them chill after a successful mission! and it can be awkward, but conner’s crush on kom and him striving to impress her is also, well, uh... cute.

17.5. i guess the dick/barbara scene was inevitable, especially given the... unresolved nature of their relationship in the flashbacks? and they’ve been through a rollercoaster together this episode, discovering and then destroying an incredible tool within a matter of hours, re-discovering just how well they work together as a team. dick’s swimming in the nostalgia. i don’t expect it to last as a long-term relationship, but i totally get why this is happening now. and hey, they’re cute!

i have a weeeirrrrd feeling that kory is going to leave to tamaran at the end of the season and that dick and kory will rekindle--or rather realise--their relationship just before that. it’s going to be devastating and beautiful and painful and i will be writing essays about it which would be me just wailing into the screen.

18. gar found molly!!!!!!! MOLLY’S BACK! \o/ gar is the BEST

19. that was a fun episode! i love this silly show, even if it does destroy me sometimes <3

[fancyfade]

I really like the way Hardware (1993) addresses the topic of superhero ethics.

Quick synopsis of the set-up: Curtis Metcalf, genius inventor, comes from a working class family and winds up from his perspective being set up to be the heir apparent to the inventor/businessman, Edwin Alva, who takes him under his wing and funds his schooling and, once he graduates, his projects. However Alva was actually just funding his schooling and appearing to encourage him in his endeavors so he could lock Curtis in a contract that gives him no rights to the royalties his inventions makes Alva (unclear if he has any like legal right as in copyright to his inventions as well I would assume not but it was not addressed yet). Curtis can’t work for a competitor either in the same field so he’s essentially stuck working for Alva if he wants to do what he’s dedicated his entire life to (inventing technology stuff).

Curtis initially tries to get some blackmail material on Alva so he can get out of his contract, but finds out Alva is involved in the criminal underworld via weapons and drugs dealing and smuggling.

also the character’s races are important to the story: i’m going to not comment a lot on this because I don’t want to be talking out my ass, so I’m going to just be like... relating things without commentary or sourcing what the original intent was from the creators: Curtis is a black man and likens what Alva did to him as slavery. Denys Cowan, one of the co-founders of Milestone comics and artist on hardware 1993 and the new series, who worked with the main author of hardware (1993) dwayne mcduffie, mentions that Hardware’s experiencse and the way he is treated (especially the glass ceiling) are part of how it felt to be a black creator in comics (link). (Back to the comic, not the interview) Curtis points out how many people perceive him as angry and bitter with a chip on his shoulder (Curtis describes himself as angry for good reasons). Alva is a white man who is too big and has his hands in too many pockets for the evidence curtis initially got on him to stick.

This is why Curtis created hardware: initially, his plan was to blackmail alva, when he finds out what Alva is up to he tries to send the evidence to the authorities because it goes beyond his personal problems with Alva. Then when that fails, he creates his armored suit (which he calls Hardware) to interfere with Alva’s operations and prevent him from doing more damage while getting revenge.

When he initially starts out as Hardware, Curtis has very little social life, he divides himself entirely between working his day job as cover for Alva, then working his night job as Hardware. he barely sleeps due to this. When he’s hardware, has a variety of lethal weaponry, the biggest of which is his omnicannon (which seems to like.. explode everything? he KOs a helicopter with it). He uses his weapons only on people working for Alva who are usually trying to kill him as far as I can tell. He’s also pretty unconcerned with killing them. He blows up a helicopter with someone still in it, shoots people, drops a guy he had pulled out from a helicopter from an unsurvivable fall, and cuts off a the arm of a construction worker who was holding a gun on him.

Curtis is more thinking on his end goal (getting revenge on Alva and stopping Alva’s criminal enterprises) than he is the means he takes to get there.

Pretty early in the run, Curtis is injured and found by his long term female friend Barraki. Since she finds him in his Hardware armor, he has no choice but to tell her what’s going on and she is disgusted. She views Curtis as extremely selfish -- she refers to it as him killing people “because his boss wouldn’t give him a raise” with no visible remorse. Curtis says he has no remorse period, not just no visible remorse. Barraki leaves and says doesn’t feel like she actually knows him.

Curtis obviously cares a lot about her opinion, because once she makes her stance on it clear he is kind of at a loss of what to do. When she asks him what he wants, he says he just wants her approval (also that she’s his only friend and he doesn’t want to lose her).

He winds up solving things as Hardware non-lethally for a while (replaces his omnicannon supershot with a neural net to paralyze people rather than blowing them up, tho he still has access to the omnicannon’s main shell for when he needs it), gives alva’s employees in the stuff he’s blowing up time to evacuate, etc

Then he has like I guess this... dream sequence? Guilt induced dream? Where he is seeing the people he harmed (the guy who’s arm he chopped off talking to him about his injury and losing his job, the dead bodies of the people he killed) and then Curtis talking to him as he is Hardware (like a his non-armored civilian version is berating his armored version for his life choices) and giving him a running commentary on his own life up to this point. People who are either personally important to him (Barraki) or socially important (a priest, Oprah) attack him for his decisions. Then when it comes to who speaks in his defense in his dream, it’s his employer, Alva, who created this situation from when Curtis was a kid to exploit him and benefit off Curtis’s talents and treats Curtis as no more than a cog in his machine (When Curtis initially approaches Alva for his profits, he does so with the assumption he’ll get them, because he had believed Alva to be like a father to him, Alva laughs at him and says he’s not respected, merely useful, and dehumanizes him by likening him to a dog).

Dream Alva’s defense of Hardware’s previous actions is that as Hardware, Curtis is doing what he was supposed to do -- treating other people as expendable resources in pursuit of his goals. So in Curtis’s guilt, he likens himself to Alva, the man who has been treating him like a tool.

I think this is kind of interesting because it’s something I’ve seen a lot in recent discussions of whether it’s okay for superheroes to kill people and one of them is that when you kill a person you’re not just killing that person. You’re killing whoever they were to the people who cared about them, if they’re looking out for anyone you’re affecting whoever they were providing for as well -- I think that’s why the initial person who appeared in Curtis’ guilt-dream was not someone he killed but the man who’s arm he cut off. There’s sort of this commentary on humanizing people I suppose with how the villain so clearly dehumanizes Curtis and treats him as a tool to his own ends, and then how we see Curtis imagining how the people he injured or killed while being Hardware might be affected not just in terms of “they got injured or killed” but also he imagines whatever their lives beyond working for Alva were. Curtis’s guilt is humanizing them in his head where earlier he said he had no remorse whatsoever.

Throughout the comic, there’s this metaphor for being trapped in a cage and then getting out but not actually being free (initially told through Curtis’s pet parakeet he had as a kid -- the parakeet flew out of his cage and tried to get out via the window, but only kept busting his head against the window, unable to understand he couldn’t go outside)

[image: 3 comic panels from hardware 1993 #1 showing young curtis metcalf standing in front of a window where a parakeet is laying down on his side with his  feathers ruffled. curtis grabs the parakeet gingerly in his hands and puts the bird back in the cage with a clang. his internal monologue reads “my bird made a common error. he mistook being out of his cage... for being free.” end image]

Curtis straight up says that his earlier actions as hardware were not letting him be free: he turned hardware into another cage.

[image: 3 comic panels from Hardware (1993) #4 showing barraki young and Curtis Metcalf standing and talking. Curtis is initially looking down regretfully at his hardware helmet. He says “I built the hardware armor to help me escape from the cage that alva put me in. Then I proceeded to turn hardware into yet another cage.” he looks at a parakeet that is flying around his house (his new pet) and says “see, Alva will make a mistake... eventually. And then I’ll put him away for good. That’s still very important to me. But it’s not going to be my whole life.” end image]

I don’t know whether the cage was supposed to only be in terms of how he conducted himself as Hardware or whether it also extended to work life balance (right after this he says that he was not going to make putting Alva away his whole life, he is letting Barraki in rather than pushing her away and he got the parakeet) and also his general view of the world (I already analyzed how he changes the way that he views the people working for alva). Either way I feel like the way that it was addressed was in a very satisfying manner that never wound up being preachy but did ask a lot of questions.

EDIT:

more commentary on the parakeet analogy from the writer of hardware: season one (the new relaunch)

The original Hardware #1 opened with a flashback of a young Curtis Metcalf remembering his pet parakeet escaping its cage only to be stopped by a barrier of glass, mistaking “being out of the cage for being free.” A brilliant meta-commentary, Thomas believes that it is “one of the greatest monologues in the history of comics,” and perfectly captures the entire story of being black in America.

[captain-barnes-writes]

Someone Like You [1/6]

Summary: In which Sebastian tries to win you back a year and a half after your relationship’s rupture, but only because there’s a new man in your life.

 (Mini-series)

Pairing: Sebastian Stan x Latina

Warning: Angst (lotssss), language, sexual content, 18+. NOT PROOFREAD.

Word Count: 1.1k

Sebastian missed the way his hands would perfectly wrap around your throat, constricting your breath but still bring a tingling and yearning sensation upon you. He loved your pink pouty lips, kissing, biting, sucking them but especially when they were wrapped around his cock.

And the way you let him fuck you senselessly? God, he missed the way your tightness squeezed him and took him so well; he loved being inside you. Leaving behind traces of bruises and love bites throughout your neck and back and the slight red marks for his spanks on your ass. He missed tracing his hands through your arched back, the unbelievably smooth skin coming alive with goosebumps, stopping at the small venus dimples that adorned your lower back which always prompted him to grab handfuls of your ass.

He was completely taken by you, your every aspect. Your dainty hands would grasp at the sheets or grab fistfuls of his short hair whenever he was too rough, but he knew you could take it. You always did anyway, he was always rough and you loved the loudness he brought out of you. You always gave him a feeling that was like no other, some out of body experience he had no words for.

He still vividly remembered your soft and desperate moans bounce off the walls of your bedroom. Most of your nights together were shared in your apartment to draw less attention to himself. He didn’t want his personal life out in the open like that, and maybe it was to protect you as well. But it was mostly because of his lack of commitment to you. Being away for months at a time made it hard for him to be monogamous. Not that you guys had been exclusive or even in a relationship for the year your little arrangement had lasted for, but it was what you yearned for the most. A place in his life, an ounce of commitment from his part. You didn’t want exclusivity so he could show you off or to become famous through him, you would do that through your own merit. You just wanted him.

At Sebastian’s vagueness, nonchalance and refusal to give you a place in his life, you quickly grew tired of the cycle he had you in. You grew tired of waiting for him, of simply being the girl he fucked whenever he was back in town. That’s all it seemed you were good enough for anyway. You felt inadequate and the feelings you harbored for the dark haired and steel-blue eyed man had to be obliterated. So you’d ended things through a simple text, proceeded to block his number and all of his social media.

Now a year and a half later, Sebastian sat with his good friend Anthony and other set mates having a few drinks after a long day of filming. It’d been a year and a half since he’d last seen you. Today was one of those days when you’d randomly cross his mind. His heart would constrict slightly at the thought of you, yesterday he’d thought of you as well and quite honestly the last few weeks too. Your career had catapulted to the top within the last few months with a critically acclaimed film. As the lead actress, you’d been praised for your talent. Your name was out there now, being uttered by much of the world. Your beautiful face was everywhere, etched on billboards, magazines and throughout social media. It’d been a shock to him to see your face everywhere, not that he’d doubted your immaculate talent, hard work ethic and he knew you’d make it big, but because it had been so long.

You were ruthless and stoic when it came to protecting yourself, so you’d blocked his number and all his social media within a minute. It’d come as a shock when you texted him a simple “don’t come looking for me anymore. It’s over” on a weekday that was the culminating day on set for his latest movie. It was as if you knew he was planning on visiting that coming weekend. You were really the only person he went to when it was time to go back to New York. Fooling around with girls on set wasn’t anywhere near as exciting as being with you and that was clear as day for him, but his commitment issues were a roadblock to your possible relationship.

He had not heard from you for over a year, but now you were everywhere. Maybe, Sebastian thought, this was how it’d been for you for so long: unable to avoid him even though you hadn’t seen him for so long. He appeared in ads, movies and magazines and just seeing his face, and hearing his voice through tv probably brought the same deep searing pain you’d felt all those months ago. Now it was his turn to see you, hear you and cope with the fact that he couldn’t avoid you.

“Man, isn’t this the chick you were seeing last year?” Anthony asked, his eyes glued to the large phone in his hand. As one of his closest friends, Anthony was one of the few people who knew about you. The first time he met you, he’d been left impressed and didn’t understand how Sebastian couldn't do such a simple thing like commit to you. He’d swore under his breath he’d commit to you within a second causing Sebastian to send a sneering glare at him. The dude had some serious problems, he thought.

“What?” Sebastian said, his blue eyes snapping towards his friend who even with his question wouldn’t take his eyes off the damn phone. Scooting his chair closer to him, he craned his neck down to see what he was referring to. Was he talking about you? He’d dated a few other girls throughout the last year and a half, unable to really stick with just one because nobody really compared. Though at the moment, he was currently exclusive with a nice girl without really meaning to. He hated his private life being out there for the world to see and judge, but it had just happened on a random outing of the pair and the photographs were out there now, meaning his personal life wasn’t really private anymore. But you’d been the only one Anthony ever came to have a liking to, always chastising him for letting you end things so easily like that.

“Ya know, the one who got away?” He smirked fashioning his trademark gap toothed smile.

“Stop quoting Kary Perry and give me your damn phone, Ant.” Sebastian snapped with a roll of his eyes. He snatched the grey iPhone out of his friend’s hand and brought it up to his face. And there you were in front of his face, separated by a phone screen. You were barely clothed in flimsy, delicate lingerie with your dainty hands wrapped around another man’s neck.

(To be continued)

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Let me know what you think :) 

[maxwell-grant]

Can we talk about the Black Bat both in general, and and how he may have been an influence on two superheroes (Dr. Mid-Nite and Daredevil) and a supervillain (Two-Face), but was proven in a court of law to have no connection with the superhero who immediately comes to mind (Batman).

Having finally read a couple of his original stories and runs, yeah I got some thoughts on him. 

While not the first bat-themed pulp character, nor the first fictional detective with a disability turned superpower (that would be Max Carrados, who actually was blind), Black Bat’s main claim to fame nowadays is his correlation to superheroes with the mixed traits he has that would all become massively popularized by characters who debuted afterwards. Regarding the Batman lawsuit, it wasn’t so much proven that they have no connection, as much as the publishers of both characters argued they did it first, and then agreed to stay out of each other’s territory, with Batman staying out of pulp magazines and The Black Bat staying out of comics (not that it would stop his publishers from rebranding him as “The Mask” and doing comics).

Black Bat actually couldn’t have inspired Batman, because Batman debuted 4 months prior. Plus, both were already ripping off the same guy, and both of them were far from the first bat-themed pulp characters at the time. And the idea that he inspired Daredevil I find too much of a reach. Dr Mid-Nite I can definitely see the resemblance, and while Two-Face doesn’t have much similarities to Tony Quinn past the origin and the anti-hero aspects, “handsome crusading District Attorney disfigured after getting splashed in the face by acid goes on a rampage” is not exactly vague enough of a concept to pass for coincidence. Two-Face debuted just 3 years after Black Bat, while Bat was still a pretty successful character (he managed to outlast nearly every other pulp hero), so it’s very possible that Kane and Finger had a look at Black Bat’s origin and used it as the basis for their Jekyll & Hyde-themed villain. 

Okay so, that’s that for Black Bat, but what’s the character actually like? What’s there to him other than historical oddities? Does he have what it takes to survive and thrive again in a modern landscape?

The thing that sticks out to me about Black Bat is that he is a pulp character who feels like he was designed specifically with the arrival of the superheroes in mind, as when comic book superheroes began to carve a space for themselves, one of the responses the pulps had was to put out new heroes intended to be a part of both worlds, hybrids of pulp heroes and superheroes who could try to capture success in either format, characters like Ka-Zar and Black Hood who started in one and then jumped to the other. 

Black Bat’s got a lot of the usual hallmarks of dark detective pulp heroes and his adventures are largely him battling ordinary criminal masterminds and gangsters, but he’s got an iconic costume, he’s got a super dramatic origin story that the stories keep coming back to (unlike most pulp heroes whose origin stories are not usually mentioned), and he’s got superpowers brought in the aftermath of a tragic accident. Not just skills anyone can have by training hard enough, actual superpowers, even if they don’t see as much usage as his pulp hero skillset. 

To the world that knew about him, Anthony Quinn, once a virile, upstanding representative of law forces whose name had held terror for evil doers, was now an impotent blind man whose sight had been permanently destroyed by acid thrown at him in a crowded courtroom, and whose face was horribly scarred about the eyes. For a long time he had seemed to live in a world apart.

Such actually had been the case during the long months when Tony Quinn had lived in a sea of blackness. But Nature had been as kind as possible, giving him something in return for what had been taken from him. As a result he had since realized that his senses of feel, smell, and hearing were far more acute than formerly. Under his sensitive fingers whatever he touched had begun to tell strange new stories. His sense of smell had sharpened. His ears had become the ears of a hound, picking up with ease and sifting multitudinous sounds that once had been inaudible.

More months had gone by until, in the darkness of a lonely night, a girl with golden hair and blue eyes hadcome in through an open window like an angel out of nowhere to offer him hope where eye specialists had said there was no hope. Through a delicate operation by an unknown small town surgeon the corneas of the eyes of Carol Baldwin's policeman father - dying from paralysis brought on by a gangster bullet - had been given to him. An extraordinary thing had occurred. When at last Tony Quinn had been allowed to remove the bandages, he had been astounded by the miracle that had happened. His were the eyes of darkness as well as the eyes of day!

Interestingly also, Black Bat actually became one of the most prolific of pulp heroes when brought over to Germany. When German publishers Pabel decided to reprint a couple of Black Bat novels for the KRIMINAL-ROMAN serial, they discovered “Die Schwarzen Fledermaus” was somehow so popular that in 1962, they retitled it Fledermaus (Bat) and ran with it, reprinting all the original 60+ stories and then, when those ran out, creating 900 more at least. In fact, it seems like they are still publishing Black Bat stories even today, and now that he’s public domain it’s something just about anyone could get into.

Problem with that is, it’s not easy to conceive of The Black Bat having any kind of substantial popularity again, when he’s doomed by design to always be compared to Batman, to always just be seen as first glance as “oh it’s earless Batman with Daredevil’s shtick and Two-Face’s backstory”, and of course he doesn’t have a chance in hell of playing catch-up to the popularity of those characters (well, at least outside of Germany). Whatever niche he could have as an alternative to Batman is also null by the fact that said niche of Not-Batmen is already filled out quite extensively. He doesn’t have an incredibly strong personality the way Batman and The Shadow do, nor is he, despite being ostensibly a serial killer, enough of a trigger-happy anti-hero to latch on to the appeal of characters like The Spider or Punisher. The latest Black Bat comic run by Dynamite played up his ruthlessness, outlaw status and drew him on the covers perpetually holding guns and often with a big creepy smile. But smiling murder pulp Batman is already a niche that Midnighter fills considerably better than Black Bat ever could. So what’s left for him?

If I had to find a unique niche for Black Bat, I’d play his unique traits in ways that separate him from the super characters that ran with those later. I’d ditch the whole “oh woe is me I’m poor and helpless because I’m blind” shtick that’s terribly condescending to actually blind people, and make him at least truly blind in some form. Maybe he’s blind by day and by night he sees too much, or maybe his vision has some terrible secrets that go beyond mere enhanced eyesight. Maybe his powers are growing and expanding in ways he doesn’t know where they will lead him. But alongside that, one take on the character could be based on the fact that he really has nothing to lose. He is not Batman, he is not The Shadow, he isn’t Daredevil, he’s got little reputation to speak of, and he’s never going to be any of those characters.

He’s lost the position he’s coveted his whole life, he’s lost the respect of his peers, his former professional ethics don’t mean shit now, he’s had a long and painful brush with darkness that scarred him for life in ways both literal and metaphorical, and in the aftermath he’s begun spontaneously developing abilities that would be incredibly painful and uncomfortable for an average person to just develop without years of growing up with them. And then, a mysterious woman walked through his window one day, gave him the eyes of a dead man, and now he sees things in ways no person was ever supposed to, and now he goes around at night terrorizing and killing criminals in an animal-themed costume. 

The most he has to lose currently is the life of his sidekicks who’ve worked very hard to help him heal and focus and find a new purpose, which only means that they are on the chopping block everytime you wanna give a gut punch to Tony Quinn. And no matter how famous, or even great, his adventures are, or how prolific and successful he is or even has been, he’s always going to be the Bat-themed superhero who couldn’t cut it. He’s Not-Batman, stripped of all the grand splendour and allmighty self righteousness and reputation and role as foundational figure of an entire genre and most popular bestest superhero of all time ever praise be thy Bat God, sharing more traits with one of Batman’s most personal and tragic villains than the titular character.

That’s not an indictment, that just means that Black Bat ultimately should have more narrative freedom, since he is unburdened by reputation and status. He is a public domain nobody best known by his association with characters who eclipse him in popularity, who’s always going to have that accursed Bat prefix and costume to damn him by association, so why not work with it? He could be the character you go into to tell stories that you couldn’t tell with Batman or other big name superheroes, the grimiest, sickest, even weirdest crime tales of all. What does the Black Bat have to lose?

Those who have nothing to lose stand everything to gain, after all.

Also, Masks 2 once presented an alternative version of the character called The Black Bats, who dresses like a baseball player and dual-wields baseball bats, which is nutty and I’d definitely prefer Black Bat to ditch the generic pulp hero guns and instead just go crazy batting everything in his way.

“I gotta tell ya, this is pretty terrific! Hahahahah, yeah!”