#‘holy unhealthy dynamics Batman!!!’

[benbamboozled]

Always important to remember that Alfred Pennyworth is NOT the Designated Sane One of the Batfam.

(And poor Tim has to apologize to him lol.)

Source is Detective Comics #664

[comediakaidanovsky]

me: i'm not loyal to any promotion or show i am too old for that kinda discourse

also me: if someone instigated an actual real life street fight between colliders and dynamiters i would travel across the world just to spill their blood

[unabashedrebel]

Dragonflight plans?

Oddly enough I was thinking about this last night as I was trying to fall asleep. Basically my main characters are going to follow the tragic-tory they started on years ago. Anyways here’s my scribbled notes for 5 years later.

Kirollis: He’s finally going to therapy. Holy shit it’s actually working. Why did he avoid this for so long? Was this the unhealthy coping they all meant? My boy finally getting the help he needs from someone other then a relative? Who knew all the healthy decisions played out off screen.

Now reinstated into the military he’s enjoying a pseudo retirement. He continues to train spies for the Thalassian government and still retains his active duty rank. Basically he’s in the mentor stage of his journey, he’s content to stop playing the hero and let the younger folks do it, his role is now just to crack jokes and give unsolicited advice. He may have also taken a shine to a protege that is surprisingly not his daughter.

The Alfred to Soriyas Batman, see more on that below.

Korrinth: She’s chilled out a ton, which was sort of happening already. I guess not having a purpose for like 7 years with no real direction just wallowing in self pity. Don’t get it twisted; the self pity is certainly still there, she’s just less vocal and less prickly about it. Also, don’t get that twisted, she will still bitch out people who get on her nerves. But all and all? Generally more stable and ready to find where she fits into a world with debatably less demonic activity.

Not to say she isn’t still slaying spoopy stuff, just you know, maybe doesn’t turn her nose up to jobs outside of that. Ready to embrace all the facets that make her wonderful self, not just the ones tied to tragedy.

To be fair to her she had been making plenty of progress on this front organically. 5 years is just going to speed things up.

Soriya: Maybe a vigilante I don’t know. Nobody knows.

Nah, but she’s more prepared to put herself in harms way for the good of… well you know greater good. She had a lot of time to reflect on what happened in the Vale a few years back and that’s only strengthened her resolve to follow her fathers footsteps a little more closely. Still the goofy surfer chick, but maybe there’s a bit of a budding hero in her.

After all she finally convinced Kirollis to give her some of that good ol’ Duskhaven training. It took a lot of convincing; to expand on the family dynamic Kirollis was content to let their line die out. Soriya pitched that now he’s the head of house, and she’s technically his successor, they could use that for something better then what it was intended for. He reluctantly agreed and here we are 5 years into that. Kunai anyone? (I really like the idea that they spent 5 years training and she just learned how to throw knives. That seems on brand).

Thanks @newsnerd-ooc I know you asked for dragon flight plans but I know nothing about this expansion but Dracarys and time jump.

[javaelemental]

Batwoman (S1, Ep2): The Rabbit Hole

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Supergirl (S5, Ep2): Stranger Beside Me

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[drivingsideways]

for the fandom meme questions, if you're still taking them: F, G, W, and Y. (you don't have to do all of them, just whichever ones you wanna answer)

I answered most of those here, so gonna do the remaining one

W - 5 favorite ships and 5 kinks you like best for said ships

OH NO WHERE TO START HOW TO PICK THIS IS TERRIBLE 

I am such a multi-shipper at heart, i ship everyone/everything so picking a few is AGONIZING. 

under the cut ‘cause uh, i got carried away. No particular order of fave, and mostly restricted to ships from the last few years

Miranda Barlow/James Flint/Thomas Hamilton (Black Sails) - OT3 of PAIN omg, the fact that they barely had a chance to be together, and so much of their story  as a trio is basically one or the other NOT BEING THERE AND THE REMAINING TWO BEING DEVASTATED AND WANDERING AROUND THE WORLD LOST WITHOUT THEIR MISSING THIRD. UGHHHH. I yell a lot about James/Miranda here but internally I yell a lot about Thomas/Miranda pre and post James and James/Thomas without Miranda and basically every time I see their faces I’m *crying *, and honestly, my only kink for them is to literally be in the same room and the same time, like, my needs here are very basic. 

Dean/Castiel (SPN): I know, I know. Everybody and their grandmom ships these two, AS THEY SHOULD. I gave up on the show a long time ago, but every now and then a gifset crosses my dash and I’M UNDONE BY THEIR FACES WHEN THEY LOOK AT EACH OTHER WHEN THE OTHER IS NOT WATCHING (THERE’S A REASON SEASON 6 IS WHEN I REALLY STARTED SHIPPING THEM) AND I’M LIKE IT’S BEEN 15 YEARS AND SEVERAL RESURRECTIONS PLEASE KISS NOW. Hmm, kinks for this ship- lbr, fandom has written Every Possible Kink for this ship, and I’m happy to roll with most of it, but anything with true-form/eldritch horror Cas and a very human, very mortal Dean is probably THE BEST. Well, that and OMG ARE THEY HOLDING HANDS OMG OMG OMG (I can’t help it, I’m a marshmallow)

Superbat (DCEU) : I’ll be honest, I didn’t give a fuck about Batman until Ben Affleck ran onto the screen with with his fucking three piece suits and Emotional Trauma and Weird Psychosexual Dreams and I couldn’t believe the pit of shame I’d let myself fall into, but BvS was Something (yes, amidst a whole lot of Objectively Bad Somethings, yes I’m looking at you Jesse Eisenberg) anyways, i closed the tab where the movie had been playing, opened another tab for AO3 and fell straight into one of @susiecarter‘s fics, specifically THIS AMAZING FAKE DATING POST BvS ONE and it was basically over for me. This subset of Superbat fandom has some amazing writers and artists so honestly it wasn’t really even my fault, i just wallowed in all the hard work being done by someone else. PINING! CONTROL ISSUES! Emotionally Traumatized Man with a Death Wish meets literal Ray of Sunshine who can ALSO actually kill him with his little finger and has FEELINGS HE CAN”T IDENTIFY MUCH LESS TALK ABOUT. I love pining (is that a kink?) and like this is the otp where one half is/was literally dead while the other is dead inside AND IT WAS ALL TOO MUCH FOR ME. I REGRET NOTHING. Seriously, this version of an older, weary Batman meeting a young(ish) Superman who’s still trying to figure out how to be Superman, with both of them having control issues while being absolute rubbish at communication is perfect for a lot of d/s stuff but like my bulletproof kink in this ship is probably them...talking about their feelings? YEAH.

Joan/Sherlock (Elementary) : OH NO MY SUPER HAPPY CANON PLATONIC SOULMATES THEY ARE EVERYTHING I’VE EVER WANTED AND NEVER IMAGINED I’D GET TO SEE ON AN ACTUAL SHOW AND THEY’RE SUPER GREAT AND I LOVE HOW THEY ARE LIKE RIDE OR DIE FOR EACH OTHER AND THE WAY SHERLOCK ADORES HER AND THE WAY SHE’LL LOOK OUT FOR HIM AND TELL HIM COLD HARD TRUTHS BUT ALWAYS WITH KINDNESS WHY ARE THEY SO PERFECT WHY IS THIS SHOW ENDING AND HOLY HELL UNDYING KINK IS SHERLOCK SAYING ‘I’D MAKE ADJUSTMENTS FOR YOU’ AND JOAN’S FACE WHEN HE SAYS THAT THIS SHOW HAD BETTER END WITH JOAN ADOPTING A BABY AND LIVING IN THEIR BROWNSTONE WITH CLYDE AND THEIR BEES AND DOING DETECTIVE THINGS

*deep breath *

and current fave

Ning Yi/ Xin Zi Yan (The Rise of Phoenixes) : Ok, look, I basically ship Ning Yi/everyone and mostly Ning Yi/ happiness, homicidal woobie that he is, BUT the show just like WENT THERE with these two. Xin Zi Yan is Ning Yi’s mentor/friend/ally in the fight for his life within his batshit insane royal family and he is a cold, ruthless fuck who can hold grudges FOREVER and they flirt with each other (the show is particularly unsubtle about the flirting) and lie to each other and protect each other and STICK THE KNIFE INTO EACH OTHER AT THE SOFTEST POINTS BECAUSE THEY KNOW HOW TO. Like their fights are EPIC, blood on the floor everywhere and I’m like YES YES but also NOW FUCK. Like, canon just gave me this intense, competitive, kinda unhealthy dynamic and I’m like they’d be so bad for each other, BECAUSE LOL WHAT ARE BOUNDARIES XIN ZI YAN YOU CONTROL FREAK AND  NING YI YOU ARE ONE ABYSS OF NEED THAT YOU TRY TO HIDE BEHIND YOUR NONCHALANCE AND MURDER BUT YOU CAN’T HIDE FOREVER OMG I LOVE THEM A LOT LET ME WRITE 100K ABOUT THEM BEING THE ABSOLUTE WORST FOR EACH OTHER AND THE WORLD, SO I DID. Did someone say rarepair hell? I’m literally writing the only fic there is for them that’s how much i love them (its such a rarepair that the tag isn’t even searchable on AO3 yet). Uh, as for kinks for these two I CAN’T BECAUSE I’M NOT READY FOR THE MORTIFICATION OF BEING KNOWN. 

[lookatthisdork]

Case Study: Cassandra, Damian, and Tim

I read Batman: Gates of Gotham just now because my library happened to have it and it actually includes Cassandra (!). It might also be the last substantial appearance of Cassandra/Black Bat in the Post-Crisis canon (!!!). Naturally, I have to wax poetic about it with panels and long diatribes concerning batsibling relationships.

Context: Gates of Gotham (GoG) is a five-issue limited series published in May 2011, making it a very late addition to canon before the New 52 launched around September. At least, I’m pretty sure this is a canon story. Scott Snyder got first billing on the cover, so I wouldn’t be surprised if this story was prototyping some of the stuff for the Court of Owls.

But who cares about canonicity when we get Cass, Damian and Tim all interacting in the same book?!

(Quick shout out to renaroo who did a breakdown of Cass and Damian in GoG back in 2016. Go look at it! I’ll be reblogging it before this post as well.)

(TL;DR at the bottom.)

For clarity, our main cast is Dick as Batman, Damian as Robin, Tim as Red Robin, and Cassandra as Black Bat. Stephanie, Jason, and Barbara do not appear; Bruce puts in a very brief cameo at the end.

GoG immediately establishes that Batman and Red Robin are working on an explosives smuggling case together, and within a few pages elaborates Red Robin’s also in close contact with Black Bat. Dick admits he didn’t even know Cassandra was in town until she pops up at home base, which makes sense; Cass at this point in canon operates out of Hong Kong, so Dick has no immediate reason to know what’s she’s up to. Tim, on the other hand, is completely unsurprised; apparently he’s been working the case with Cass before he brought it to Dick’s attention.

So in the very beginning of GoG, we have a three-way team-up that started as Black Bat reaching out to Red Robin, who then contacted Batman. Which, honestly, I think is cool? Cassandra went to Tim first when the smuggling left her territory - I’m already getting warm fuzzies about the implied working relationship.

In the same page as Cassandra’s entrance, we get Damian and this super telling panel:

Now, I’m pretty sure that the way Dick is saying “I’d recommend minding Damian” is implying that this is Cassandra’s first real encounter with the kid. We are seeing history in the making here, folks. Or we would be if Cass hadn’t been reset in the New 52.

Then we get the next page:

Notice all that visual distance between Damian and his siblings in the first panel as well as the way he’s rendered creepily in shadow in the second. It’s a rather isolating composition choice, portraying Damian as the outsider while his siblings are comfortably close together, enjoying a dynamic that existed before he joined the family. No one told Damian to stay back, but no one’s encouraging him to come forward either, so the distance kind of settles in.

I would also like to point out that when one of his siblings does look back towards him, it’s Cassandra, not Dick.

Skipping forward through plot and stuff, we next get Black Bat and Robin watching over the Iceberg Lounge. Whoo, team-up! There’s a lot to parse here.

Robin makes it clear he’s not thrilled with being on the Penguin Protection Detail (makes sense in context) before we get all of this:

Wow, okay, Damian, calm your jets.

Let’s break this down. Damian starts with saying he’s heard about Cass specifically as “Black Bat” and as the one “destined to lead the League of Assassins to glory.” I find it super interesting that Damian focused on Cass’s League connections rather than her career as Batgirl here; is Damian still using the League as a marker of quality and ability like he would have before he was Robin? Or is Damian making an indirect link between himself, the other League kid, and Cass? Could be both...personally I’d say both.

There’s a beat panel of Cass after Damian says that first bit - I included it here because the timing seems intentional. I doubt Cass is super proud of her reputation in the League, so I think the beat is a bit of hesitation, a bit of her wanting to avoid this becoming a proper conversation.

Then we have “I have to admit -- I’m not impressed.” And Cass specifically looks over at Damian rather than ignore him (contrast the beat panel).

The thing where Damian says Cass should stop giving him condescending looks...oh boy. I’m 98% sure Damian is barking up the wrong tree here. Actually, 99.9% sure. He’s reading condescension and hostility where there really isn’t any to be found, and the ensuing defensiveness is causing him to lash out with his own condescending remarks. “I’m not the one Father relegated to Hong Kong. Maybe there’s a reason.” This is both super rude and greatly undersells Cassandra’s skills, but it’s more a reflection on Damian’s own insecurity with his position that this is the insult he throws at a fellow Batsibling.

Cass, for her part, does not engage with the insult. She turns the other cheek, reminding Damian without explicitly reminding him that they’re on a job. That said, her stoic reaction doesn’t necessarily mean that Damian’s dig doesn’t bother her. In fact, I think her next conversation with Tim indicates that it does bother her.

Think about the context - what Cass would have said first - that Tim’s response was “Trust me -- I’ve wanted to kill him more times than I can count.” Granted, Tim is taking his dislike of Damian to it’s logical extreme here, but it sounds like he’s commiserating with a Cass that is more than a little put out by an unwarranted attack on her person. 

Which, leads us right into Tim and Cass in this arc. I’ve only read a little bit of Tim, but I’m getting the impression that he’s the type of person that shit-talks about people he or someone else is angry with (eg Damian) in the company of people he trusts (eg Cassandra). Since Cass is kind of pissed at Damian, Tim shit-talks about him on her behalf - like when one sibling has a bad breakup and the other sibling goes off on a “why I never liked that person” rant. Not the best coping mechanism since it can easily turn into nasty gossip (and that’s still your little brother, Tim), but that’s what he’s doing in this panel. 

And rather than correct him and dismiss Tim’s own very real frustration OR agree with him and feed into the unhealthy dynamic, Cassandra listens without passing a final judgement. Maybe I’m reading too much into her “hm” here, but I’m translating it as “I see what you mean, thanks for sharing” - not a “yes”, not a “no”. Good older sibling middle-ground, basically.

Right after that, we have Cassandra complimenting Tim’s problem-solving skills.

Which? This is so sweet? “It’s what you do. You’ll figure it out.” “It’s part of your niche. And they all know it.” Cassandra has this easy faith in Tim to figure shit out, and Tim’s not quite grasping how deep her faith goes. I will never get over my positive Cass-Tim relationship, okay? More fanworks need to capitalize on this. 

After this there’s some bombs. While Batman deals with his own elsewhere in the city, Robin tries to disarm the bomb in the Iceberg Lounge while Black Bat evacuates. 

He doesn’t succeed, which leads to this:

(Middle panel is Batman - ignore that one)

Two things here: 1) Robin does not want to give up, even when it’s very clear that he’s completely out of time. 2) Black Bat gave him as much time as she possibly could (there’s one second on that clock, guys) before picking up her little brother and bodily removing him.

Aftermath:

This might be my favorite scene with these two. Damian is angry, frustrated, and he feels like Black Bat forced him (allowed him) to fail. Meanwhile, Cassandra reminds him that she doesn’t care about failure because what matters is Damian is still alive. Here’s Damian who had a chance to prove himself, apparently blew it, and is now getting huffy with his rescuer. And here’s Cassandra pinning him to the roof, making him listen as she reminds him that he doesn’t have to prove himself, she loves him and just wants him to live.

Cass is best big sis, is all I’m saying.

And when Damian is at a loss, his default MO is to take parting shots at whoever’s around.

And hey, having Dickbats in this last panel, let’s mention a few things about him.

Here’s his thoughts about the whole bomb situation:

“When I was Robin, I always thought I could be as good as Bruce was. But now...I’m standing in the debris of his tower and I can’t help but thing -- he would never have let it get this far.”

(Dick has a problem with holding himself to impossible standards and building Bruce up in his head.)

And Dick’s thoughts on Tim:

“Even as Tim explains what he found, I can’t stop thinking about how much I rely on him. He’s a better Robin that I ever was. He’ll probably end up being a better Batman, too.”

(Dick’s still putting himself down, but at least we get Dick also having a lot of faith in Tim. Lonely Place of Living disagrees with the Tim-Batman assessment, though.)

Next up, Tim-Damian team-up! They both sound super excited about it [/sarcasm].

Yikes.

In defense of Tim, Damian is in full Undeserved Insult Mode here. We start with Tim’s refute of Damian calling Cass useless, then Damian calls her “spineless, naive and fragile”, and finally we have him calling Tim’s “eagerness to trust” a weakness. That’s three insults in as many sentences, two of which were aimed at a shared sister who Tim trusts and admires. Not to mention Cass saved Damian’s butt not very long ago while reassuring him that his “failure” to disarm the bomb was not his fault.

Damian is a kid, yes, but he’s also mature enough to run around Gotham and exercise judgement about how to balance lives as a vigilante. He really should be held accountable for the stuff that comes out of his mouth, and I can’t blame Tim for losing his cool.

That said, Tim is savage as fuck, holy shit.

“Well, deny it all you want -- but I think we both know the only real reason you don’t like her...is that she’s just one more person your father picked over you.”

Tim has a talent for discerning weakness in a person and exploiting the shit out of it to maximum effect. With Damian, this means using well-placed words to emphasize his feelings of insecurity and inadequacy next to his adopted siblings. It’s fucked up and not constructive at all - pointing out flaws like this doesn’t encourage Damian to change. But Tim doesn’t want Damian to change - he wants him to shut up.

Just look at his responses: a simple denial that Cass isn’t useless, a dismissal of Damian’s mistrust, and a piercing comment on his daddy-sibling issues. The first two responses are not necessarily rude - a sign that Tim’s not actively picking a fight - but they’re not invitations to talk or well-meaning corrections. When Damian says rude shit, Tim shuts him down and isn’t afraid to get nasty back. He has no interest in playing the part of the patient older sibling.

(Cue arguments about whether the onus is on Tim to give a damn, Damian to chill the fuck out, or Dick/Cass/Bruce/an actual adult to sit these two down and reach some understanding. Personally, I think these two need a proper adult.)

That said, both Tim and Damian look out for each other while fighting, so their relationship could definitely be worse.

Coming up to the final issue of this miniseries, Cass and Damian work together to deal with a bigger version of the bomb from last time. The plan involves moving the bomb instead of disarming it. Importantly, Cass asks Damian to trust her and he does, without dissent or hesitation. I see progress!

Finally, Cass visits Tim, who was out of the climax due to a concussion. They have a short heart-to-heart thing, during which Tim kind of blames Damian for blowing up the Batboat while Cass defends that “we kind of did that together.” I don’t feel like posting panels of this scene, but it’s nice enough.

TL;DR: GoG features a rocky but promising start to Cassandra and Damian’s relationship before the New 52 erased it. Damian makes a bit of an ass of himself, but Cassandra has sufficient chill that they end this arc on a good note. I would be looking forward to more if not for the Orphan reboot, I will never not be salty about this.

Cassandra and Tim continue to have a strong relationship, trusting each other both professionally and personally. More people should explore this dynamic, and I’m looking forward to catching up on the canon between GoG and early Batgirl (aka where I actually am in my comic reading).

Tim and Damian continue to bring out the worst in each other. Swear to god, someone needs to just shove them in a closet with a counselor or something.

Generally, GoG was a fun read. Cass is mostly in-character, and I’m a sucker for self-contained Gotham stories with no crossovers and no weird magic/alien shenanigans. I’d recommend it.

[ripplestitchskein]

1/ So one of the thoughts I'm having after that amazing chapter is how excited I am to see what killian is like, how he grows. Thus is kinda incoherent but like, he finally fir the first time has his base Maslow hierarchy of needs met. He's warm, he has a safe place to sleep, he has enough food, and he's not afraid of physical or emotional violence. For the first time. And he's learning to trust someone. Learning that it's safe to have feelings and share himself instead of just being sweet/

2/ and cowering because that’s the only way he got any food and fewer beatings. But now, he can actually have a safe place to explore more if his personality, things he likes and dislikes. And I think they’ll both be surprised by that development… she cares about him and she is attracted to him and she wants to take care of him… and mold him, with his consent, into her tool and companion and toy (in a nice way). But still using him, not presently respecting his boundaries (see re /3/ dream catcher and ps fuck you very much on that front it felt like I was there)… but she sort of… respects what he’s been through but doesn’t quite think of him having his own opinions yet. Because he doesn’t because he’s never had the luxury or safety of having opinions. She doesn’t want to hurt him or embarrass him, she wants to care for him… but she doesn’t see him as ever disagreeing with her. She likes that he never had disagreed. And part of that is that he’s agreeable and /4/grateful for his rescue from torture and servitude but also because his opinion never was relevant to anyone before, most especially to himself. So I am really, really eager to see how this plays out… him finding out about the dream catcher invasion of privacy, him developing his own opinions and feeling safe enough to disagree or get mad or frustrated with her, and him eventually realizing that the sub is actually the one in control, that he can say no and trust that she will respect it/5/ which she sure as hell didn’t when he said no about his memories. It will be really interesting to see how she reacts to her toy/companion finding a bit of a spine and how the darkness reacts to that weakness in her regard for him. She clearly cares but also clearly is having a hard time remembering how to show care, hence the apology for him hearing people tortured via bj (beautifully done, btw). So I’m expecting some drama in C4 as killian finds his way back to himself with his basic/6/ needs finally met and him finally safe and watching how he reacts and she reacts when he learns about what those circle things are for and sees his feather and shells in one. This is just such a great fic with so much depth and complexity and yet also has hot smut. I am enjoying it immensely. Thank you!

Okay. Let me first start by saying. I love you. This is gonna get long and I’ll try not to be spoilery but I absolutely love this discussion.

There is nothing more gratifying to me than someone picking up EXACTLY what I’m putting down, be that the underlying themes, little snippets of detail, or just general symbols and everything you’ve described here is exactly what I was trying to convey and why I structured the story in this manner AND why I had to extend it.

I had a lot of scenes for developing both of them that I thought could be quick and dirty (not like sex dirty but you know, well not ONLY like sex dirty…) but then when I wrote them all out in a list I realized I needed a lot more room.

I wanted to see how Deckhand Hook would be in an environment where he basically has everything he wanted. Where Dark Swan has a person who didn’t want her to be anything but herself and who didn’t want to use her, and how they individually adjust to those vastly different environments. At the same time the reason it’s lite sub/dom is that there is an aspect of needed control that DS has, and a life of regimented order and being controlled that DH Hook has that taking them out of those dynamics would be pretty ruinous for them, but that worked perfectly for the characters together.

I also wanted to explore anxiety in its different manifestations. That’s something that is incredibly important and central to my life, and this fic kind of let’s me highlight the different coping mechanisms that come into play, and the different ways that they don’t necessarily help, and that just reassurance alone doesn’t even help, it’s a deeper issue than that. Emma manages hers with emotional unavailability, unhealthy outlets, and control of her environment and the people in it. Killian in contrast pretends these problems don’t exist, fills his world with mindless activity, and requires someone else to help him make decisions to prevent himself from spiraling and really focusing on what he wants. So seeing if they can work back to center will be fun.

I also really love the sexual healing aspect on both sides. Emma learning to respect someone else’s needs, work around her own desires to just take and get it out of her system, having to slow down by necessity, and healing some of Killian’s insecurities through an outlet that had been out of reach to him in the environments he had been in before but how that in turn, as is the nature of anxiety, brings up totally new fears he didn’t have to deal with before this was a part of his life.

I also wanted to kind of bring the CS dynamic from the show into it. Killian and Emma developed emotionally in regards to relationships at vastly different rates due to their underlying personalities and it took some drastic things for them to come together as a unit. I still think the show fails on allowing us to see Killian’s side of things, and that Emma doesn’t necessarily respect his emotions/boundaries/needs to the degree she should even 6 seasons in, but from a character aspect that works really well for DS. And of course this Dark Swan is based a lot of what we saw in S5, she was still very vulnerable and sweet and gentle in her interactions especially with Henry and Hook, but could be cold and terrifying like with the dwarves/Rumple/Regina when she wanted something.

And of course there is the self preservation aspect of the darkness, since it is its own cognitive being in a sense, to work with as well that colors some of Emma’s interactions. Even DH Hook’s moral ambiguity is pretty central just because of how he was brought up, and his struggles with that and learning how he wants to feel about it now that he has a choice in how he feels.

And to a degree, the audience’s own inherent moral compass, the fact that you don’t really sympathize with the “villains” at all, or feel sorry for them, and can kind of feel free to root for Emma despite how ehhh her actions are.

And those things are A LOT of fun to explore.

I hope the pacing is okay with the remaining two chapters, I didn’t want to rush their development, that was really critical to me since this is a character driven rather than a plot driven adventure story, but I also didn’t want to drag on with little interactions that weren’t necessarily meaningful (as fun as little head canon scenes can be) so I chose scenes that were both critical for them and for the plot overall. Ch4 is furthering them and their relationship and how they react to actually being in one, and Ch5 kind of brings everything together if that makes sense.

Ch3 and Ch4 are really one central theme split into two parts because holy chapter length batman. So I hope people aren’t put off by the lack of adventurey plotty plot, that has been my fear from the beginning, since this is more subtle emotional and relationship development through interactions type story and any drama is based more on their character flaws and internal darknesses rather than outside events.

I just really love that you and others have kind of just gotten what I wanted to say immediately. It’s a really different fic for me to write in that they aren’t going off on some adventure and learning each other through external strife, and I love it and I’m so happy it seems to be working like I intended and will always hope it doesn’t come across as boring or dragging.

Your support it for has seriously just made me so very happy, and the recent weeks have been some of the best I’ve had in fandom.

[allofbeercom]

5 Recent Movies (You Never Realized Were Completely Insane)

Nobody expects every movie to be great. For every Steven Spielberg, there’s a Tommy Wiseau. For every Ridley Scott, there’s, uh, well, another Ridley Scott. No self-respecting person has the time or inclination to watch everything Hollywood craps out, so it’s quite possible that you don’t know how bad some recent movies turned out to be. Luckily for you, we have no self-respect, so let us satiate your morbid curiosity by telling you all about this year’s most baffling cinematic turds (so far). SPOILERS AHEAD!

5

Folks, Tom Cruise Was The Real Mummy ALL ALONG

Tom Cruise played Jerry Maguire in Jerry Maguire, Jack Reacher in Jack Reacher, and someone who was born on the 4th of July in Born On The Fourth Of July. Guess who he plays in The Mummy. Go on, guess.

At first, Cruise’s character is your average U.S. Army sergeant in Iraq who seduces archaeologists to steal their maps and search for treasure. Early on, he gets into a fight with some alleged insurgents he happened to run into and orders a goddamn air strike on them — the military equivalent of asking your brother to finish the level for you.

Universal Pictures Instead of bombs, they dropped copies of the script.

Fortunately, we don’t have much time to mull over the ethical implications of all this, because the strike accidentally uncovers an ancient tomb:

Universal Pictures And like all ancient tombs in movies, it’s shaped like Clint Eastwood’s scowling face.

Cruise, the guy from New Girl, and the woman whose map he stole with his penis are sent in to investigate. They discover an ancient mummy, but more importantly, the archaeologist lets us know that Cruise sucks in bed (and not in the good sense). As they’re flying the Mummy back to England, after long stretches of dialogue about sexual inadequacy, the plane crashes and Tom Cruise fucking dies.

Unfortunately, the movie doesn’t end there — Cruise soon wakes up in a body bag, either because of the Mummy’s magic or some kind of weird loophole in Dianetics.

Universal Pictures If you told us Tom Cruise sleeps inside a plastic bag at home every day, we’d fully believe it.

A moment later, Cruise’s friend and two doctors walk in, and everyone’s biggest concern is that they can see the dick of this guy who just cheated death itself. Anyway, the Mummy ends up getting captured midway through the movie, a plot development that probably feels familiar to anyone who wasn’t in a coma between 2008 and now:

At one point we also meet Russell Crowe, who plays Dr. Jekyll. As in the Dr. Jekyll, the one who turns into the villainous Mr. Hyde. Presumably Hyde is the one who smacks hotel clerks with phones and insists on singing in public.

The third act then finds an army of corpses rising and attacking the city — though taking into consideration how Tom Cruise is in his 50s but has jet-black hair, works out like crazy, and spends most of this movie talking about how he boned someone more than 20 years younger than him, the sight of him fleeing a sea of rotting bodies ravaged by time accidentally becomes a powerful metaphor.

Then in the very end, Tom Cruise basically lets the Mummy win and use him as the host body for the god of death — but then he uses his new powers to kill her. So yes, Cruise now has ancient mummy powers, and will possibly develop an affinity for wearing toilet paper all over his body in the next movie he shows up in.

4

Did You Know Harriet Tubman Knew The Transformers?

It’s no secret that the Transformers series is basically the cinematic equivalent of watching a Monster Energy Drink in a paint shaker. Hell, the last movie found Mark Wahlberg guzzling a flaming bottle of Bud Light like that’s a normal thing to do. Even with the bar so low (and presumably on fire), Transformers: The Last Knight is maddeningly awful.

For starters, the story is an obvious attempt to smoosh together a bunch of popular TV shows into a Transformers movie. It opens with a dragon Transformer helping King Arthur, who’s seemingly engaged in some kind of game, for some kind of throne …

After a jarring time jump, we meet a scrappy gang of kids seemingly played by the Stranger Things kids’ stunt doubles:

What was that other big TV show from last year? Oh yeah, Westworld. Cue Anthony Hopkins delivering a bunch of nonsensical exposition about robots, which is apparently his jam now.

Here’s where the wheels really come off before they can retract and turn into a dinosaur. Hopkins explains that he is the only remaining member of a secret society that protects the secret history of the Transformers on Earth. It turns out that these giant-ass talking vehicles were present for many famous historical milestones. We just … forgot about them? Didn’t notice?

Members of the Society of Transformer Pals included Einstein, da Vinci, Shakespeare, and Stephen Hawking (who, by the way, is still alive, movie). Also a member? Harriet Tubman. That’s right, this movie is implying that Transformers helped the Underground Railroad. Which people have pointed out is a) insane, and b) you’d think giant weaponized robots could have done a touch more to help the slaves. At least the movie doesn’t raise the question of why the Transformers didn’t stop the Holocaust or some-

3

There Was A Movie About The Guy From Avatar Hanging Out With God In A Shack

Sam Worthington stars in The Shack, a movie adaptation of the best-selling Christian inspirational novel. The movie starts in the past, where we see our main character, Mack, and his mother being abused by his alcoholic dad. So naturally, Mack pours strychnine in his dad’s booze, probably murdering him, though it’s hard to say because this is never mentioned again.

Flash-forward to Mack all grown up and Sam-Worthington-like. But his life is still beset by tragedy, as his youngest daughter is kidnapped and murdered by a serial killer (!!!) during a camping trip. They never find her body, but Mack is told she was killed in a remote shack (a place the B52s would never in their right minds sing about). That winter, a distraught Mack receives a mysterious note inviting him to the shack, signed “Papa” — which is his wife’s nickname for God, not an implication that Ernest Hemingway is penning creepy notes from beyond the grave.

Thinking this might be his daughter’s killer, a gun-toting Mack accepts the invitation and heads up to the abandoned cabin, which sadly contains no chainsaws or Necronomicons. Instead, it magically (or I guess spiritually, since Christians don’t like magic) transforms into a cozy cottage straight out of a beer commercial. Even weirder, it’s now home to Octavia Spencer, who immediately says that she’s God. Also there are a flannel-clad Jesus and an Asian lady who’s apparently the Holy Spirit. Yeah, it’s the Holy Trinity, chilling out and enjoying their Carlsberg years.

Through a series of painfully long conversations, they convince Mack not to give up on his faith, embrace life, and maybe spruce up his living room with some Crate & Barrel chairs and assorted Martha Stewart bullshit. Jesus casually walks on water:

God listens to an iPod, for some reason:

And they show Mack a whole bunch of psychedelic ghosts out in a pasture, like Field Of Dreams mixed with Tron mixed with MDMA. Even more like Field Of Dreams, one of the ghosts is Mack’s dad. Who, if you’ll remember, was a real piece of shit. Mack hugs him, obviously.

In the end, God shows Mack where his daughter’s body was hidden, and they have a funeral for her. Which is nice and all, but maybe it would have been even nicer if, you know, his wife were there too? Or his kids? Hey, God, why is this one dude the only one who gets some damn closure?

2

iBoy: Netflix’s Weird-Ass Superhero Movie

While it sounds like a movie about Steve Jobs’ prepubescent years, iBoy is actually a Netflix production starring Arya Stark and … umm, some guy who knows Arya Stark. Its story of a teenage boy with an unrequited crush on his neighbor takes a sharp turn when he walks in on a gang of masked thugs sexually assaulting her (bullshit rape storylines seem to follow Game Of Thrones actors around). The kid flees, but as he’s calling the cops, he gets shot in the head.

Instead of, you know, immediately killing him, the pieces of exploded phone embed themselves in his brain …

… which give him superpowers. More specifically, he can psychically read and even control smartphones. And of course the human cellphone uses his powers to fight crime like a tween-friendly Dark Knight.

You may be wondering how he actually fights bad guys. After all, having Google Maps and Shazam coursing through your cerebral cortex doesn’t necessarily mean you can kick ass. It’s simple: When he’s cornered by a cadre of thugs, iBoy psychically causes all their phones to explode:

Say what you will about Batman, but even he hasn’t been able to figure out a way to set his adversaries’ balls on fire without lifting a finger.

1

Fuck You, The Book Of Henry

Judging by the box office results, a lot of you didn’t see Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow’s The Book Of Henry, either because it was savaged by critics or because the poster made it look like the world’s crappiest Choose Your Own Adventure book.

The film tells the story of Henry, a genius kid straight out of a script Wes Anderson started and then threw away. He spends his life making Rube Goldberg devices, playing the stock market, and generally being lauded for how brilliant he is. We never find out who his father was, though presumably his mom had a one-night stand with an anthropomorphic Screenwriting For Dummies book.

Oddly, his mom is content letting him run her entire life, which seems … unhealthy. She consults with him before financial decisions and sees him more as a sort of surrogate husband than a son. Even Marty McFly would find this dynamic unsettling.

Oddly, the precious, quirky, autumn-leaf-filled indie drama soon becomes very thriller-like when Henry notices that the girl who lives next door is being sexually abused by her stepdad — meaning some genius waltzed into a Hollywood studio and pitched “Rear Window, but with kids getting molested,” and it worked. Henry’s on the case, but no one will take him seriously because the stepdad is the police commissioner (and also played by Hank from Breaking Bad). So with the school principal and child services being total dicks, Henry formulates a plan … to murder the stepdad.

And by the way, we’re just getting started.

Before Henry can go through with his plan, in another twist, it turns out that he has a brain tumor. The titular character dies halfway through the movie. Henry’s little brother then tells the mom about Henry’s dying wish that she read his journal, which contains the elaborate murder plan. Henry is so annoyingly smart that he even anticipated what people would say out loud after he’s dead:

The mom rejects the plan at first, but eventually gets sucked in. She ends up buying a giant hunting rifle and luring her target into the woods during a school talent show:

She comes very close to pulling the trigger, but doesn’t go through with it, because she remembers that Henry was “a child.” Yeah, her arc is realizing she doesn’t have to do everything a young kid told her to. At the same time, the school principal finally decides to do something about the sex abuse. Why does she come to this conclusion? Because the girl’s dance at the talent show is just so pathos-filled.

What made The Book Of Henry a next-level debacle wasn’t simply its critical lambasting, paltry box office receipts, or “bloodstained Mad Libs you found at an abandoned bus station on Halloween” of a plot. No, it’s the fact that its utter craptitude might’ve catalyzed Trevorrow’s dismissal as the director of Star Wars Episode IX. This is why you never, ever pursue your passion projects, kids.

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from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/5-recent-movies-you-never-realized-were-completely-insane/