#I see an obscure villain from as far back as the first volume and I lose my gosh dang gourd

[age-of-moonknight]

“Hearts on Fire,” Moon Knight: City of the Dead (Vol. 1/2023), #2.

Writer: David Pepose; Penciler: Marcelo Ferreira; Inker: Jay Leisten; Colorer: Rachelle Rosenberg; Letterer: Cory Petit

[cptn-m]

One Piece chapter 1095 review

So are we all just getting comfortable in the assumption it's going to be two weeks on, one week off from now on? It's rough, but that's life. I was around for all the venting and complaining when it first went to three on, one off during Dressrosa, and I think if we can survive that, we can adapt to this as well.

The shock and reverence the Marines have for Saturn's appearance is interesting to watch here. While the World Government has always been technically theocratic, literally deifying its rulers, we've never seen much in the way of worship for the Celestial Dragon pantheon, or at least their allegedly world-creating ancestors. My read was always that they didn't really care if their subjects truly believed the myths or revered them, so long as the taxes were paid and a healthy fear of their power - whether divine or military - was maintained. But the opening pages show a more genuine-feeling awe among the Marine rank and file. It'll be interesting to see if Oda goes any deeper into this.

I've mentioned the Vice Admiral with the streak in his beard as a character design that stands out in the past. In the middle panel of the second page you can see him seemingly preparing to pull the crescent-shaped blade thing out of his skull to use as a weapon. What kind of power does this guy have?

And speaking of weird powers, Saturn has healing, vision-based force blasts, and a wider-range pressure field strong enough to keep even Sanji and Franky from standing up. On top of the whole summoning circle thing. Fascinated to see what this Devil Fruit ends up being, and how many liberties have been taken with whatever obscure folklore inspired it.

I expected Borsalino to be dazed but far from out of the running yet, but the official translation makes it seem like he'll be taking more of a breather. I still think we'll see him fighting again before the arc is done. A little more surprising is instead going for a 'you have failed me for the last time' Saturn is pretty understanding that it's "Nika" he was up against, and makes a very hardcore villainous move to stamp out Luffy without any capture or monologue or messing around. At least as a first reaction. He gets himself chatting on the next page, but going for the kill first still makes a statement. As does asking outright for the cruellest order to start the killing, that's a sick bad guy line. Great to see Franky get a moment to save the day. With all the hopes of Egghead being more his arc, it's nice that he at least to gets be on ground level for this pivotal confrontation.

Bonney tells us outright that it was Saturn specifically who ordered her father's destruction, wrapping up one part of the mystery, and it looks like we're about to find out the rest. While going into a Kuma flashback redoubles my confidence that his arrival is going to be what saves the day, I'm once again finding myself wondering how this arc fits together structurally. Wano's darkest hour was the destruction of the ships and apparent loss of the samurai army, which was used as a springboard for Oden's flashback, reiterating the stakes before the Strawhats showed up for the rescue and restored hope. It came up only when absolutely everything was against the heroes. But is this that? Maybe if Borsalino got back on his feet first. Maybe if Lucci was holding the upper hand in the dome instead of fighting Zoro. Kind of like when we went into last volume's cutaway sequence, it feels like things are too in-swing to call this a natural break point.

I don't want to say outright that I think this is something wrong with the arc. The frequent breaks and the new schedule we're all not quite used to yet warp perspectives on longterm storytelling until a reread is done. I could be missing the forest for the trees. But it just feels off somehow in the moment.

On the topic of comparing this flashback to the cutaway though, volume 107 was made extra long to accommodate the whole cutaway in a single book, so maybe the same can be expected of this sequence. We're in the seventh chapter of volume 108 currently, allowing room for 3 to 5 flashback chapters. Oda's able to make that kind of pagecount decently meaty, and any more might turn into a lot of time to spend away from the main cast again, however compelling the lore and history of God Valley ends up being.

But yeah how about this flashback? God Valley? The Figarlands? Holy Knights present? Five Elders present? Stories of Nika being shared? The possible origin of the Revolutionaries? An event Roger, Garp and Rocks were all present for? All at once? This sounds like Christmas. A lore dump on par with the original Reverie Arc.

But I don't want to get my hopes too high just yet, Kaido's flashback showed that Oda's still more than willing to hold some details and bigger-picture ideas back for later, even in the story's endgame.

Anyway, Oda's setting this one up to hurt. The cruelty of the Celestial Dragons is taken to new heights here, especially represented in the death of Kuma's dad, that's so casual, so incidental, so unfeeling that it's happened before you even realise what you're reading. None of the usual build up and huge response, a father is just gone in a couple of panels, and slaves have no time to grieve. And a mean play by Oda that the killing gunshot has the same sound effect of the drumbeat from the song.

The way Kuma's dad delivers the myth of Nika, complete with the drumbeat, before his death though, that makes me feel a little disappointed we couldn't have seen this kind of thing sooner. It's perfect on its own, just give a version of it to some background Impel Down prisoners, or slaves at the Sabaody markets. One little moment like this would have made the Nika reveal at Wano read so much more smoothly. If you put me in the live action writers' room, or in any kind of creative role for a hypothetical anime remake, that might be the biggest thing I'd push for.

God Valley's actual origin was quite a surprise after all the speculation surrounding it, to have not been some longterm sacred site to the World Government. The Buccaneer race is another interesting twist in the story, but have also been left pretty vague for the moment. Is their only distinguishing feature their improved strength and maybe their large size? I'm not sold, considering that characters identified as regular human have been shown growing bigger and stronger. But maybe they don't need to be anything special in terms of abilities. The World Government has shown itself to care pretty deeply about preventing "criminal" bloodlines from continuing, as shown by their rhetoric surrounding Ace's execution. The situation only gets more dystopian when we learn here about seemingly-mandatory at-birth blood tests and hospitals for undesirable blood groups. Pretty rough world to live in.

Although, nearly 50 years ago is a long time for such precise blood testing to exist. Weren't we told that Bloodline Elements were first discovered by MADS? At the time of this flashback, Vegapunk would be 18, and Judge just 9. I don't think they'd be unlocking the mysteries of genetics together yet, let alone passing that info onto the Government. So what other method is the Government using to test for these outlawed races?

Ginny is a cute character design. It's a shame she's about as doomed as One Piece characters get. On the assumption that she's Bonney's mother, she's at least getting through this Most Dangerous Game hunting trip to be old enough to have kids, but it already feels inevitable that her premature end is going to be the emotional heart of this flashback. Conspiracy theories about her surviving and being Ivankov'd into any modern day adult man are fun, but I'm not holding my breath for a second. And if she is Bonney's mum, and that's still an if, it probably rules out the theory that Bonney is chronologically still a kid, just to make the timeline work.

Hopefully the next chapter has enough info to lay out the trajectory of this flashback. The (presumed) need for Ginny to grow up means it can't totally be centred on God Valley, but maybe we get a feel for how long we'll be sticking around there and how much of the main event we'll actually get to witness. See you all in two weeks!

Read this review and past chapter reviews on my Wordpress!

[marithlizard]

First Impressions of RWBY v8e13, “Worthy”

"Worthy",  huh.    From Watts' impassioned rant.  So will this be Cinder's ultimate attack,  and fall?  

The tagline certainly suggests the plan is going to fail horribly; I just hope it doesn't  take the population with it...

Oh, we're skipping back in time a bit!  JNRE grappling with the problem of how to tell people to enter the portals.

Portal-space certainly looks cool.   It reminds me of jewelry,  the disks of the portals linked by golden strands, strewn across space.  Specifically, it reminds me  of the chain-jewelry that Ambrosius wears.  

Most of them going ahead to warn Vacuo, smart.    They're convinced the Academy there is "armed to the teeth" (how do they know, though?) ,  which helps explain why they chose it as a destination. And I'd thought about the major problem of feeding and housing X thousand refugees, but not the big honking wave of Grimm that will be coming their way with all the feelings.

Ren looks so proud of Nora there.   And yeah, she and Jaune are the right  choices to persuade crowds of people to walk into mysterious portals.

Emerald: oh my god,  it's like a mandatory corporate morale-boosting meeting with you people EVERY FIVE MINUTES.   Oscar:  Yes and you signed up for it, so look perky.

That was a very bossy little silent display for someone half Emerald's height,  Oscar.   Like a headmaster to a student.

Question that will probably never be answered;  how do they know where each of all those portals goes?  They aren't labeled or even color coded.

Atlesian prairie  dogs.  

Whoa,  and we're in Vacuo already! That was quick.  

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh crap.   I'll take "Obvious-in-hindsight things I did not see coming" for 200, Alex.

Can't they just have them wait inside portal space?  That's horribly dangerous, with the risk of falling off the edge, but probably better than a sandstorm.

OH NO.  No, no they can't.     When Ambrosius said "Do. Not. Fall."  I didn't think it was foreshadowing random civilians!

They left Penny alone with the staff????

"Your little friend Oscar was right" about what?   She's taunting them about having bugged all their scroll discussion,  presumably.    Which means she knows just about everything.  

I don't know what I'm more surprised by - the prospect of the lamp question being  used, or a sincere-sounding apology from Cinder.

Roman would've been tickled to know what his hat was being used for, I bet.

Watts looks more stunned by Jinn than anything else so far.

Jinn has to answer, but she doesn't seem at all happy about it.  No small talk from  her this time.

Cinder looks momentarily distressed at the sight of Emerald, but it's only a flicker.  

....Uh.  That's dark. I hope Bill called in sick today.

A happy Watts is not a good thing.  And I'm impressed by how Cinder has bounced back and changed her tactics to be more diplomatic.  Is any of it sincere?  Doubtful, but it does the job.

oh my god,  is Watts eating an apple as a deliberate reference to Death Note?   That's hilarious.   (Okay, it's not a potato chip. But  I can't be the only one who instantly made the connection, and eating apples *was* a thing in that anime...)

ohhh no, this is bad.  Shades of Beacon.

Kamikazebot. Elegant.

Annd Elm and Vine make a flying exit.  They're going to be surprised by the state of the world outside.

Oh, shut up Jacques.  Even Ironwood doesn't -  well, maybe he does deserve to be stuck with you, but what a punishment.

Watts really is clever.  I don't know what Ironwood will do, but it's reasonable to assume it'll be something awful.    Will he really sabotage the evacuation out of spite?  I know every time I've asked "but would he REALLY"  the answer has been "Yup!",  but this time.... this time I think we're approaching a classic Star Wars style atone-for-my-sins-with-my-heroic-death scene.  Will the writers roll with the cliche or surprise me again?

They just left his guns on the floor outside his cell?   I suppose they were in a tearing hurry and it seemed safe, but geez-

uh.  what.

what

I'm certainly surprised, writers. But not in a good way.   *cough* Moving on for now -

That's a very fetching disguise, Neo.  And a nice fire tornado.

ohshitohshitohshitohshit

YANG!!

You can't do that.  I mean, they can't do that.  Can they? No.

So volume 9 will be the rescue mission?

Penny, you're not staying on task. That's bad.   Get the effing relic to effing Vacuo.

Where *is* the staff?  She must've done something with it.

Harriet is as crazy as her boss.   Please don't let them join forces again.

Annnd all Watts has to do is autopilot the ship to the most damaging place possible. Which will be...I dunno.  The Mantle crater, with lots of people still in it?  

Winter, out of the loop.  That must be so terrifying.

...oh.  Now that's a showdown I hadn't expected.  I don't know that she can solo him.

What  on earth is the point of getting the staff now,  Ironwo-  oh nevermind.  Completely insane villains are boring. I liked him so much more when he had a logical but diametrically opposed perspective.

"Oh dear"?   I suppose Oz has been through too many catastrophes not to stay calm, but that seems excessive.  (Also Ozpin never actually volunteers any plans or ideas anymore.  He must’ve vowed to stay quiet and let Oscar handle everything, but also I suspect he’s lost all confidence in himself.  And possibly was never all that good at crisis plans in this incarnation.)

They did clearly say one-way.  I don't think this can be blamed on Ambrosius.

And here come the Grimm.     Flying monkeys, your moment has arrived at last!

Er.  ...Housing the refugees won't be nearly as big a problem if most of them are dead?  I'm still totally unclear on how many people were in Atlas and Mantle, never  mind how many have come through the portal vs. are in gatespace vs. are still back in the frozen north.   The sandstorm conveniently obscures everything, so we could be looking at  hundreds or thousands of casualties.   Not much of a survival rate unless the Vacuo cavalry is right around the corner.

Oh duh,  Watts is sending the bomb to the Vault.  Which no longer strategically matters with the staff gone, but Ironwood is there,  and who could resist the ultimate fuck-you of blowing him up with his own bomb?

Yep.  That there was some penultimate-episode doom.  It's going to take a bit for all this to sink in.

[dandiesunzipped]

A Series of Unfortunate Debaggings, Chapter the First: The Wretched Reunion

If you are looking for happy-go-lucky Tumblr posts, dear reader, then exit out of this browser tab this instant. Then open your search engine of choice and enter “octogenarian makes friends with a hummingbird.” Or, better yet, destroy your electronic device in a fire and never open an internet browser again, sparing yourself from the cruelty and misfortunes of the world.

You see, dear reader, it is a sad truth in life that order continually diminishes. A cracked egg may never uncrack, yet clean, white eggs everywhere continue to fall off refrigerator shelves, adding to the world’s misfortune and chaos. A secret organization, however brilliant, talented, and kind its members were, may never truly heal after a devastating schism. And the corpse of a cherished loved one will never, ever unburn, no matter how grievously an author weeps over the pitiful tale. 

In the story I am about to tell, I am sorry to report on a panoply of augmenting disorganization, a phrase which here means “not what you want to read.” Orphans grow two years older, and with those years develop styles and interests ever more macabre and meterless--which is to say, one orphan does that. Mystery and intrigue each grow heavier and more complex, like how the derelicts that fill your recycling bin grow heavier and more complex with each passing day. And finally, all the young men in this tale (with the exception of one) are eventually separated from their clean-pressed trousers, left for the remainder of the tale with their scandalously mid-twentieth century underpants exposed.

This story begins like many before it: Violet, Klaus, Sunny, and Beatrice Baudelaire were charming, resourceful children, each with pleasant facial features and each with certain precocious gifts in the arts or sciences, such as memorizing and reciting passages of British Modernist poetry.

“We shall not cease from exploration,” recited Klaus, expertly steering the Beatrice onward. The outrigger bobbed in the gentle waves as it approached a safe gap in the line of ominous jagged rocks on the horizon that Violet had identified.

“And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.”

As the four Baudelaires walked across the sand and then through the waterfall of foliage on the hill separating the halves of their island, Violet recited the next stanza:

“Through the unknown, unremembered gate,” When the last of earth left to discover Is that which was the beginning; At the source of the longest river The voice of the hidden waterfall.”

All at once, fond and wretched memories swarmed together. At last, the Baudelaires were back at the tree. The tree where their parents had lived and ruled. The tree that held secrets below the root. The tree that had saved them from a sad, painful death.

“And the children in the apple-tree” finished Sunny.

“I’ve always found T.S. Eliot opaque,” noted Klaus, “but that poem of his is clearly relevant to our situation today, don’t you think? Who would have thought we’d return to this apple tree?” 

“Before you wax too romantic,” Violet said warmly but firmly, “Don’t forget our purpose here: to collect supplies and leave this evening. If we leave too late, we may be living on this island another year thanks to the tides.”

“Yeah, I’ll be in the library” said Klaus vacantly rushing away, past the old elephant skeleton and into the open arboretum. Violet shook her head, knowing exactly what silly trinket Klaus would be fruitlessly searching for all day.

As afternoon rudely pushed into evening, desperation rudely pushed Klaus to the ground, as he kicked and tossed flotsam around near his feet. The most interesting artifact he had found today was his old concierge shirt, which he now wore to complement his sandy trousers. “I know it’s here...” he murmured to himself. “Father--what would you have done?” That’s when a new idea struck the middle Baudelaire, a bit like the moment when Violet’s hero Sir Isaac Newton was struck by his big idea.

“Last year,” he asked Violet breathlessly as they rushed past each other in the arboretum, “Did you ever look behind the book case in Ishmael’s upper room?”

“No... but remember, Klaus: no matter what, we’re leaving this wasteland tonight at the violet hour. If the tide recedes too far, the Beatrice will scrape the rocky atoll and may sink!

But Klaus was already gone. Up the stairs of the massive apple tree Klaus ran. In Ishmael’s upper chamber, bookcases had been carved into the tree itself, with centuries of histories of the island filling the space. Klaus spent several minutes finding the volume that about the first arrival of “Ish” to the island. Reaching deep into the carved space behind this volume, Klaus finally touched what he was looking for. Greedily grabbing the long, mahogany object, he blew, long and steadily, even though it was Decision Day and not Rosh Hashanah.

Satisfied, Klaus joined his family. They took Beatrice on a visit to her mother’s grave to place flowers and recite to the young girl their precious few memories of her mother. After Sunny and Beatrice went off to finish dinner preparation, Violet and Klaus stood pensively over Olaf’s grave. Then Violet spoke, flatly:

“We learned so much from him.”

Klaus stared. “I mean, he was a horrible villain,” Violet clarified, “but if it hadn’t been for the pressure he placed on us, I never would have thought of so many inventions, and you never would have learned about nuptial law, for example.”

Klaus nodded. “And I doubt he’s responsible for our parents’ deaths, anyway.”

“Oh, don’t bring that up again, Klaus,” said Violet shaking her head and walking away. “Of course it was him!”

“But he didn’t confess, even when we finally pressed him!” Klaus called after her. “Even on his deathbed! Even after he saved Kit!”

Later, over a parting supper of smoked oysters, seaweed wraps, and coconut smoothies, the cook confronted her brother about his wasted hours during the others’ laborious day: “What’s in the box?” Sunny asked perkily. After a day of labor, all Klaus had to offer the boating party was a light, tightly wrapped package shaped like a question mark.

“Oh, it’s just an old artifact I was researching. You know, once we have our fortune, I think that’s what I think I’d like to do with my life: collect artifacts, become a successful archaeologist. I think VFD has prepared me well for decrypting ancient languages.” 

“Maybe we’ll find more artifacts on the next island we come by,” Violet replied, passing the seaweed to Beatrice. “Sunny and I made sure our supplies will last another year if need be.”

“Excellent work,” Klaus congratulated them. “And what method of propulsion will we be using this time? How can I help with that?”

“Generally, the sail should be sufficient. The tide is receding, so we don’t need any additional thrust: the water pressure on the single opening in this atoll will generate a current swift enough to propel the Beatrice outward to sea.” Violet took a sip of unfermented coconut smoothie. “Swimmingly. This day has gone swimmingly.”

As you may know, “swimmingly” is a word which here means “well” or “splendidly” or “lacking a villain to inflict unfortunate events upon you.” But anyone who, while swimming, has gazed into the murky depths beneath their vulnerable, dangling legs, or who has been subjected to a physical education class in a swimming pool will know just how ridiculous this definition of “swimmingly” is. Too often, swimming is an involuntary, unnecessary, and downright cruel activity. For instance, my day once went “swimmingly” because I was pursued through a fire pond by a pulchritudinous platypus. I’m sorry to report that the Baudelaires’ day was about to become worse than that one.

The Baudelaire’s evening continued to go swimmingly, or perhaps sailingly. Just as Violet predicted, the Beatrice was pulled by the receding tide toward the gap in the atoll, which would free them into the open sea. Out of the blue, Sunny asked, “What’s that?” happily pointing. Out of the blue sea, exactly behind the gap in the atoll, a sharp, scaly plate covered in seaweed was emerging. Then came another, and another, until The Great Unknown had fully reared its ugly, pointed head. Enormous and slippery, desperate and hungry, it hung its jaw agape, ready to let in any driftwood, sea water, or passing sting rays past its six shiny rows of very sharp teeth. Even if the Baudelaires had abandoned ship right then, the current would undoubtedly have swallowed all who traveled--whether swimmingly or sailingly--into the jaws of The Great Unknown.

Beatrice screamed as the bombinating beast obscured the setting sun. Violet wept profusely, thinking of the promise she made to keep her siblings safe. Klaus stared fixedly into an eye of the beast, as though hypnotized. Sunny simply smiled.

“Come, sweet death!” she cried as the jaws of the bombinating beast crashed down, enveloping all four Baudelaires, Beatrice and all.

***

“Baudelaires!” As soon as the children came to, they found themselves inside what could have been the Curdled Cave but warm and oddly lit. “Oh, Baudelaires! I’ve been so afraid! I’ve been absolutely panic-stricken on your behalf! But you’ve returned to my care!”

“Josephine?” asked Klaus, astonished. Indeed, the Baudelaires’ second cousin’s sister-in-law whom they knew as Aunt Josephine stood on a ledge, glowing in a white robe over the confused, distraught Baudelaires.

“Don’t be afraid! I would come down to hug each one of you if I wasn’t afraid of the germs and leeches that may have washed in along with all that kelp and sea water.”

“Ike?” asked Sunny, suddenly recalling the image of Josephine’s late husband the cave explorer resting in a warm place in the afterlife. Then, with wide eyes, Sunny asked more softly, “Parents?”

Josephine looked at Sunny confused for a moment. Then she cocked her head to one side, smiling poignantly at the young girl. “I don’t know where your parents are. I’m sorry, honey. And you really must learn to speak in complete sentences someday, Sunny,” she added with disappointment.

“But look on the bright side:” yelled a figure, emerging on crutches from the dark. “You’re alive!”

“Phil!” cried Violet, rushing in to hug the optimist. 

“We’re alive?” mirrored Sunny with confusion.

“‘Baudelaire orphans found alive!’ That’s the headline I would submit to The Daily Punctilio if nefarious villains intent on hunting us all down weren’t lurking around every street corner.”

“Duncan!” shouted Violet running further into the cave to hug yet another friend from her past. “And Quigley?”

For a brief moment, Duncan’s face dropped. The thrill in Violet’s voice, the distance in her eyes, the emphasis she placed on his brother’s name--all of it indicated to Duncan that he was her second favorite. But just as quickly, Duncan returned to grinning and stepped aside for his triplet brother to hug the eldest Baudelaire. 

“Words:“ began Isadora in the tone of a slam poet, everything about her style now black and bleak as she leaned against a wall obscured in shadow. “Why torment me? Why needle and prod me as you do with meaning? If I repeat you, words, over and over, meaningless you become. When our Selves defy measure and lilt and vowels--even grammar!--who dares, dares to confine this Ether reality, this cryptic vivacity, this Great Unknown! inside of--words.” She and Klaus smiled shyly at each other while others sounded their approval.

“But how did you find us here?” Violet questioned after a few pitying snaps. “What brought you to this island?”

“Do you have food?” Sunny demanded. “Can I help?”

“What even is this place?” Violet enquired. “A camouflaged submarine?”

“Why are you alive?” Sunny asked Josephine.

“Selmo!” shouted Beatrice.

“Calm yourselves, Baudelaires! For once, all that is mysterious to you shall soon be revealed--I promise.” proclaimed Josephine, still perched authoritatively from her ledge.

“Even to those of you without any questions...” remarked Quigley, glancing askance at the middle Baudelaire. 

“Why so quiet, Klaus?” asked Isadora with a teasing smile.

The middle Baudelaire orphan had remained remarkably calm this whole time, as if non-plussed by the situation. He shrugged nonchalantly “After you’ve read the book that answers the questions that burn like a fire in the mind, the act of asking feels--hollow. There’s just one burning question I’d like an answer to: where’s Fiona?”

“Oh, Klaus! You mustn’t end an independent clause with a preposition,” Josephine chided with motherly concern. “My daughter is busy on the command deck with my husband. The two are co-captains now!”

“Actually, Aunt Josephine, I find that preposition rule antiquated nowadays. Plenty of authors simply ignore it.”

“Hmph, your grammatical proclivities may be on the, er, modern side, Klaus Baudelaire, but for as long as you’re under my submarine walls, I insist that yo--”

“Wait!” interrupted Violet. “Fiona is your daughter, Aunt Josephine?! Does that mean she’s our,” Violet gulped, “cousin?”

“All of your questions will be answered, dear Baudelaires! For example, ‘technically speaking, second cousins once removed,’ is the answer to your most recent of inquiries, Violet, darling.”

“First let me serve them tea, Josephine!” pleaded Phil angelically. “I want to try a special recipe: bitter as wormwood and sharp as a two-edged sword.”

Sunny yipped in agreement, following Phil down a shady corridor, deep into The Great Unknown.

“After you, Violet,” said Duncan with an unctuous smile and hand gesture. I needn’t tell you, dear reader, how eagerly the three Quagmires and four Baudelaires came together for tea, ready to reconnect after years of cruel wrenching apart. But one detail that may intrigue you remains. For in the interim, a word which here means, “the duration in which Phil offered the Baudelaires tea and Josephine offered the Baudelaires her tale of survival,” or “Chapter 2 of this narrative,” a mysterious figure reentered the anteroom to rearrange the kelp that had washed aboard The Great Unknown along with the Baudelaires. I regret to inform you, dear reader, that this rearranged kelp formed letters on the wall, and that those letters formed a cryptic couplet, and that cryptic couplet formed a threat to all aboard:

“Abandon ship or abandon pants./ Your fates are sealed; leave naught to chance.”

And so began, dear reader, a series of unfortunate debaggings along the eerie corridors of The Great Unknown.

[terramythos]

TerraMythos' 2020 Reading Challenge - Book 32 of 26

Title: The Siren Depths (2012) (The Books of the Raksura #3)

Author: Martha Wells

Genre/Tags: Fantasy, Adventure, LGBT Protagonist, Third-Person

Rating: 8/10

Date Began: 11/09/2020

Date Finished: 11/21/2020

Moon's past has always been obscure. A winged shapeshifter, he has spent most of his life as a solitary wanderer. He has few memories of his childhood, and only recently found others of his kind-- the Raksura. Now Moon has found a home as first consort to the queen Jade in the Raksuran court of Indigo Cloud.

However, when a neighboring queen recognizes his bloodline, Moon's new life is upended as he's forced to return to a family he doesn't even remember. Seemingly abandoned by Jade and overcome with doubt, Moon has to navigate the complex politics and grave secrets in the court of Opal Night alone. But an old enemy is about to return, threatening every Raksuran court in the Reaches.  

The one thing he hadn’t expected to do was miss Indigo Cloud so much. He had been leaving people all his life, to the point where all the turns seemed like an uninterrupted progression of departures, and there had been people he had missed terribly. But this was a never-ending ache in his chest... You’ll get over it, he told himself. You always get over it. 

But somehow, this time was different. 

Some major spoilers and content warning(s) under the cut.

Content warnings for the book:  As always, graphic violence and action. There is a disturbing scene that's... kind of forced cannibalism I guess (I'm not sure how else to describe it). Some sexual content is implied but not graphic. The r*pe plot point from The Cloud Roads is relevant, but is not depicted or described in detail. A romantic relationship with a significant age gap is briefly mentioned (both are consenting adults but it may make some readers uncomfortable).

For the most part, I enjoyed The Siren Depths more than the previous entries. I connected much more strongly to the central conflict, and was pleased to see some deeper character development than in the last two books. This entry also introduces fascinating new settings and characters while exploring some genuinely interesting ideas. It serves as a good parallel to The Cloud Roads, with similar plot beats explored in different ways. I did have one big problem which I will detail further in the review, but let's talk about the good parts first. Moon's conflict in this story, like the rest of the series, has to do with belonging. But The Siren Depths has the advantage of two books of development. From what we know of Moon's past, he sees any home as temporary, and when he's suddenly forced to leave Indigo Cloud (presumably for good), his new attachments and way of life come into question. To some degree, Moon sees this as an inevitable part of his life. Sooner or later, something out of his control will happen and he'll be abandoned. What I found relatable is there's several times Moon knows he is being irrational but still can't stop the negative downward spiral. Like... jeez, just call me out specifically next time! While a depressed protagonist can be a drag to read, I think it really works here because we've grown attached to Moon and know how far he's come. And sure enough, he does get his ass in gear when he realizes this ISN'T like before, and lots of people do care about him. The found vs biological family conflict is interesting as well. I think The Siren Depths does great here because you can see both points of view. Moon always assumed his biological family died, and they assumed the same thing about him. This should be a happy homecoming, but under the circumstances simply isn't. Moon resents being torn from Indigo Cloud because a group of people he barely remembers have a legal claim on him. Opal Night seems strangely hostile until you learn more about its politics and secrets. Even though they're early antagonists, they're not really villains; just a traumatized group of people who see Moon as a missing link from their past. When he's not what the others are expecting, obvious issues ensue, but Moon finds he does care about some of these people, even if it's not really his home. Outside of Moon, several other characters have arcs in this book. While the previous books feature a likeable enough cast, the characters are mostly one dimensional. Not so here; we explore the insecurities and struggles of some of the supporting cast. Jade isn't nearly as self-confident as she appears to be, and grapples with this throughout the book-- for example, wanting to prove to Moon that she is willing to do whatever it takes to get him back. Similarly, Chime's struggle with his involuntary transformation comes to a head here as his strange new powers become relevant again. We see just how bitter he is that he's cut off from his old magical gifts and still holds out hope that they'll return. We even get some indication that while this HAS happened before in Raksuran history, it's incredibly rare. There’s also an interesting hint on what the powers really are, which has some pretty big implications. This is potentially a future plot point, so I’m hoping it gets explored. (Also, I was totally right about Moon/Chime, do I get a prize?)  

There are several new characters I found really interesting, namely Malachite and Shade.  Malachite (spoiler: Moon's biological mother) is initially presented as the antagonist, and her behavior seems inscrutable. She's a powerful queen who commands respect, yet seems unpredictable and standoffish. All of this starts to make sense as one learns more about her. Turns out unbelievable, extended trauma really fucks with a person. The Fell destroyed her colony, killed her consort and most of her children, and she spent almost a year in full guerilla warfare against them. Yet she adopted the Fell/Raksura crossbreeds and raised them as her own children, demonstrating nothing but indulgent love and kindness towards them. I'm not sure I would be able to do that in her place. In general she's just a huge badass; totally decked out in scars and the first to leap into battle. At least we know where Moon gets it from.  Did I say Fell/Raksura crossbreeds? Yup, that plot point is back. Only, it's explored in a different way here. The crossbreeds in The Cloud Roads are terrifying weapons deployed by the Fell. The ones in The Siren Depths, raised in a loving home, are just kind of weirdly pale Raksura. I liked Shade in particular, who we learn is Moon's half brother and serves as an interesting foil. Moon would probably be much more like Shade if the Fell attack on Opal Night never happened. Shade is an earnest and kind (if naïve) man and behaves like none of the Fell we’ve met in the series. I hope we see more of him (and Lithe, the other crossbreed) in future volumes, because I think they're an interesting take on nature vs nurture with the "inherently" evil Fell.  Speaking of the Fell, while they themselves haven't changed much, I thought they were more effective villains than in The Cloud Roads. We see their manipulations and twisted views of the world in much more detail. There's a long sequence where much of the main cast is captured by The Fell, and their struggle to survive and potentially escape is harrowing. I also like that Moon isn't their main focus this time, which adds some nuance and perspective to their behavior. They’re also just... creepy as shit. While I do have some issues with the ending of the book, I think the Fell are handled pretty well beforehand.

I'd be remiss to ignore the always excellent worldbuilding in this series. Like in The Serpent Sea, we get to see more Raksuran courts, all of which feel distinct. It’s cool and impressive for a singular fantasy race to have multiple believable factions and societies. The settings in this book are also creative, including a giant half-dead mountain tree, a city carved into a giant statue, and what I can only describe as "Rapture, but make it a solarpunk prison". Wells goes into vivid, loving detail when it comes to the world. That being said, I would like to see more of the sea/sky realms, since this series has largely focused on the earth. The Three Worlds is kind of a misnomer if two of them don't really show up much. Oh well, maybe in future books/stories.  

My main complaint, and what drags down the rating, is the ending. It's... underwhelming, confusing, and seems pretty rushed. I'll go into more detail below. *major spoilers for the ending* So... one of the big plot points in both The Cloud Roads and The Siren Depths is that the Fell are crossbreeding with captured Raksura. In The Cloud Roads, this is explained as a ploy to strengthen the Fell with some unique Raksuran abilities; queens can prevent others from shifting, mentors can scry future events, and so on. In The Siren Depths, however, we learn it's not that simple. There's some third party manipulating the Fell and encouraging their actions. The goal is to produce a crossbreed that physically resembles the (unnamed) Fell/Raksura common ancestor for... reasons. We are led to believe the being orchestrating this is in fact an ancient ancestor, though its motives are unknown.

While this feels like a retcon, the discrepancy is acknowledged in the story, and it is explained that the Fell in The Cloud Roads were either lying or those specific ones decided to pursue their own agenda. Which... fine, makes sense based on what we know about them. I'll let it slide. Perhaps it was hinted at earlier and I just don’t remember. 

So Moon and the others follow the Fell to the mysterious source, a vast and abandoned underwater city. Soon they find the creature that's been imprisoned there. Turns out it's not the Fell/Raksura ancestor, but something different. I can only describe it as sort of eldritchy, with a vaguely creepy physical form, and the abilities to speak through dead/dying Fell and to create disturbingly realistic illusions. The Fell/Raksuran ancestors trapped it there eons ago, and the only way to free it is the physical presence of a member of the ancestor species (for some reason). Which explains why it has been encouraging the crossbreeding, since their common ancestor is presumably extinct. It's freed from its prison since Shade fits the "ancestor" criteria based on his physical appearance. Then,  in the span of literally one chapter, it attacks everyone, chases the characters through the underwater city, gets hit by some water, then promptly melts like the Wicked Witch of the West and dies.

I had a couple problems with this ending. First, the whole Fell crossbreeding conflict with the Raksura is a huge generational trauma thing. Moon has his own horrible experience with them, of course, but it's also a big issue with both Indigo Cloud and Opal Night. Hell, it's the whole reason Moon was separated from his family and lived thirty-some years in exile without knowing what he was. The series literally wouldn't have happened without this conflict. To have everything explained away by "an eldritch wizard did it" is very anticlimactic. I vastly prefer the original explanation.

Second, we know basically nothing about this creature. How was it able to communicate with the Fell (and Chime)? Why was it imprisoned other than being super evil and stuff? Who knows. And yeah, it's possible this will be expanded on later. Except I'm pretty sure that when this book came out, it was the last one planned for the series. The next two books follow a different storyline and came out four years later. So this was probably the only explanation we were ever going to get. 

I'm not totally against the concept, but it needed more time and a more interesting/memorable villain for it to work. Introducing all of this in the second to last chapter of (presumably) not only the book but the series, then defeating it with little effort, feels unsatisfying. Hell, there’s more time dedicated to discovering and exploring its prison than anything involving the creature itself! As it stands, the Fell were much creepier and more memorable bad guys in this book, yet narratively serve as bit players in the end. It just feels off.

Also, a nitpick, but the title of the book is weird. The Siren Depths is obviously referring to this imprisoned being. It's trapped underwater and is calling the Fell to it. But it's never referred to as a siren; I'm not sure that word is used at all in the book. It just seems like an odd choice of title that doesn't really fit the vernacular of the world. Siren has some very specific meanings/connotations in our world that don't translate to The Three Worlds. Not a huge deal, just something I noticed.

*ending spoilers end here*

Despite my issues with the ending, I really enjoyed everything else about the book. It does everything the other books do well while featuring serious improvements. I've heard mixed things about the next two books but plan to go in with an open mind.  

[rosesisupposes]

Dark Side of Hope

Part 9 of Another Goddamn Hero Story

read on ao3

Chapter Relationships: eventual LAMP, emphasis on Analogical, Royality, & Moxiety; Background OC pairing

Chapter Warnings: Graphic imagery, nightmares, hospitals, comas, self-hatred, discussion of the possibility of major character death, lashing out, injury of a sibling (past), 

Word Count:  5,887

Taglist: @residentanchor @royally-anxious@bewarethegrammarpolice   @jemthebookworm@arandompasserby  @sparkly-rainbow-salt @astral-eclipse@thelowlysatsuma @monsterinatophat @turtally-pawsome @um-yes-hi-hello @idkaurl @potestessemagishomosexualitatis@hawthornshadow

(huge, loving thank you to @potestessemagishomosexualitatis for beta-ing <3)

~~~~~~~~~~

Fire. All was fire. Bricks and mortar fell around him, debris scattered in every direction.

The building was collapsing, but he walked through untouched. He heard yells, screams, and terrible silences punctuated by the churn and roar of the inferno surrounding him. Crashes rang out, and the flame was replaced by clouds of dust. The grey mass swirled in close, a claustrophobic column surrounding him. One by one, faces began to appear, profiles carved in debris that stared at him as he moved through the wreckage. He wanted to stop, but knew he didn’t have time. He needed to get to the center.

Voices drifted around him, echoing off fallen, shattered walls.

“Save me!”

“Don’t leave us!”

“Why aren’t you helping?”

He began to run, his destination near. The dust suddenly fell to the ground, the devastation no longer obscured or hidden as he stumbled over piles of what he told himself were just stone and bricks, nothing more. He neared the center, the pull that had urged him on easing at last.

A face in the wreckage. A hand, bruised, reaching out to him. A clear voice, speaking through vocal chords that should have been scratched and rough.

“You let me die.”

Patton awoke in darkness. Once, these nightmares had left him breathless and gasping through choked sobs. Once, he’d suffered from insomnia from the mere thought of encountering those images once again. But he’d since learned he only dreamed once a night. He shifted position, trying to find a comfortable spot in his blankets to fall back asleep.

He gazed up into the night sky. It was late enough tonight and their home far away enough from downtown that he could even see a star or two, along with the brighter planets. The white-and-red lights of a plane blinked silently across the sky, too far away to hear.

Patton took a deep breath, absorbing the night sounds and sights. It seemed all so vivid tonight, more than most. When had he last seen the stars look like this?

When was the last time he had seen the stars at all?

Patton sat up suddenly, pushing his blanket off. He was on the hard ground itself, only stolen pillows and blankets where his bed normally lay. The concrete around him was littered with food in a sad heap, knick-knacks in haphazard piles, and the few electronics they owned. Their home was gone, vanished into air.

Patton grabbed his costume from where the foot of his bed should have been, and dug out the scanner from a small pile of belongings. There was only one thing this could mean. And only two people he could think of that could offer any real help.

~~~~~~

Virgil was very, very tired of being jolted awake by the H.A.T.C.H. beacon. Particularly because he was a light sleeper and set his alarm accordingly at a reasonable volume. Logan, who was blinking but barely awake, could sleep through marching bands (and in fact had once back in school, in an incident involving a bet, the library, and a very well-executed surprise party). The nerd’s blaring alarm had Virgil’s heart racing from the split second it had started, and he woke up properly when his face made contact with the hard floor of Logan’s apartment.

“Lo, get up!” he snapped.

“Five more minutes,” his partner muttered sleepily.

“I’m drinking all the coffee,” Virgil threatened.

An arm shot out of the messed-up sheets, levering the short form up to sitting. “How dare-”

“Good, you’re up,” Virgil called from the closet, tossing Logan’s costume at his head. “It’s HATCH, so let’s get-” He stopped mid-sentence as he looked at his watch. “It’s- the villains calling, actually.”

Logan grabbed his goggles from the bedside table, suddenly much more alert. “That doesn’t bode well.”

“Let’s go.”

They’d barely made it out of the fire escape when the painfully-rushing air around them made it clear that Gale Force was approaching. The villain’s costume was wrinkled and askew, his red curls unevenly fluffy and matted around his head as he landed unceremoniously right between them.

“They got him. They got Ro,” he gasped out, eyes flashing.

“The Marauder? Who’s got him? How do you know?” Logan asked.

“Our home is gone. It’s his construct. His oldest one. Whatever happened, it’s bad, and I’m going to kill whatever piece of shit did this the minute you help me find them,” Patton snapped.

Virgil scowled. “If they killed him, I’ll help you do it.”

“No killing,” Logan interjected disapprovingly. He met the gazes of the two supers and amended, “Not yet. Let’s try to find the Marau- let’s find Roman first. When did they get him?”

Patton frowned, resenting the delay, and opened his mouth to snap at the speedster. Virgil caught his eye and jerked his head lightly. The air manipulator sighed and relented. “He was in a frenzy, flying off into the clouds, so I went home by myself and woke up to realize the house was gone. But it was there when I fell asleep so whatever happened was after dark.”

“A frenzy - was it a manic phase?” Logan said.

“Probably. He has highs and lows, but they don’t normally come on or fade this fast. But that means I have no idea when he would have come down again.”

“And the house missing - this has never happened before?” Virgil asked, his forehead knitting together in worry.

“Never. He’s been knocked out in fights or dead asleep for days at a time an it’s never wavered. Once his constructs are around long enough, they stay that way.”

“So this means that he’s…” Logan began, then stopped himself. “This means he needs our help. Let’s split up to search faster. Gale Force, you know your neighborhood best. Search all your hiding spots and meeting places, sticking to Sycamore Heights and southwest. Reflex, you take northwest. I’ll search the east. We’ll meet back at the statue in forty-five minutes if we don’t find anything, and send a message if we do. Gale, take this, for convenience.” He offered an extra HATCH band. Patton’s face was unreadable as he accepted it and strapped it to his wrist.

“We’ll find him,” Virgil said softly, and squeezed Patton’s shoulder firmly. Then he was off, soaring into the air.

“Forty-five minutes to rendezvous, or send us a ping,” Logan repeated, then he was off too, running to search half the city for a man he’d helped arrest just four days prior after fighting for weeks on end.

The small man was truly a blur today, zipping through the streets, noting oddities and things out of place. He looked for broken entrances, or remnants of crimson light, or anything indicating super activity. The civilians throughout the city seemed to be clips from a movie, slowed to a crawl. It was a strange pantomime of daily life in slow-motion, one that Logan hardly noticed as he ducked in and out of streets.

Zip.

He was in at the harbor, checking around the docks as seagulls moved like uncertain marionnettes through the air above him. A toddler, skipping along with her dad, would have run straight into him had she been moving at full speed.

Whoosh.

He was near the University, checking the labs, taking only a moment to watch his dad move glacially around his instruments. Ooh, is that two different methods of single-cell RNA sequencing being done in tandem? I wonder if he’s getting different results from PCR and IVT, he thought, intrigued, before pulling himself back to task. Roman was still missing. He could indulge in science later.

Fwip.

He was in a small park in the financial district, looking in the gazebo and bushes as he dodged around a dog-walker out with six charges whose floppy ears and tongues were caught in mid-bounce.

Zip.

He was running down streets, checking in and out of alleys and dumpsters. His adrenaline was pumping, far more than normal for this amount of exercise. He felt like he was about to strike a blow against a villain, or dodge an attack. He paused for just a moment, to catch his breath and let himself feel the normal progression of time. Leaning against a smokestack on a roof, his fingers started to tap unconsciously to the beat of the pulsing thoughts in his brain.

Where is he?

Is he okay?

Will we find him?

What do we do if we don’t?

Suddenly, his phone buzzed, and he picked up to Virgil’s low, familiar voice.

“Lo, I found him.”

“Where?”

“Sugarland.”

“Is he…?”

“He’s alive.”

Logan deflated, tension he hadn’t even realized he was carrying melting away, muscles loosening, the tide of thoughts receding back to their normal surf.

“What happened to him?”

“I don’t know, Lo. He’s… unconscious. Pat- Gale Force and I just got him to the hospital. He just went inside with Roman while I called you.”

Logan straightened, adjusting his goggles. “Roman is in a coma?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll be there in a second, Vee.”

And he was. Blurring through the city, Logan arrived at Virgil’s side in a moment. The tall man was still hanging up his phone and putting it in his pocket when Logan wrapped his arms around his partner’s waist and squeezed tight.

“Are you alright?”

“I have to be.”

“But are you?” Logan asked seriously. Virgil was about to respond, but paused, and took a deep breath.

“I’ll feel better once we talk to the doctors.”

“Let’s go then. I’ll follow you. And we should probably change out of our costumes.”

Virgil nodded. Both heroes stepped around in the alley and changed into civilian wear. Virgil walked back into the direct sun, firmly ensconced back in his familiar hoodie, and took another stabilizing breath. “I’ll be okay, Lo.”

“I’ll be here for you even if you’re not, Vee. I love you.”

Virgil turned and cupped Logan’s face with one hand. He smiled into his partner’s eyes, affection and gratitude mixing with his palpable nervousness. Then he turned and walked through the hospital doors, still walking like Reflex in his intensity and speed. Logan paused and typed out a quick message on his phone before following.

~~~~~~

Virgil glanced at his phone, tapped his watch, and turned sharply towards the elevator bay. He strode through the halls, barely glancing at the signs, only checking his surroundings. Elevator. Button. Doors close. Wait. Doors open. Walk out. Left. Down two intersections. Right. Down to the windows. Turn.

He paused at the ward door until he saw movement beyond the door, familiar ginger curls pulling a second chair over to the bed. He knocked, gently, and Patton looked up and nodded.

He felt Patton’s eyes on him as he entered. His cheeks flared with heat. Of course - the villain had never seen him without his mask. Even though he knew he was far more covered in his long sleeves and loose jeans, he suddenly felt indecently exposed.

He cleared his throat. “Have the doctors seen him yet?”

Patton, dressed down in a polo and a cardigan, nodded. “They just went back to consult.”

“Has he …?”

“No,” the ginger man responded, eyes swiveling back to the man lying motionless beside him.

Virgil sat in the extra chair carefully. He hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath until he saw Roman’s chest rise and fall and felt his own respond in imitation. The villain appeared to be sleeping, except for a certain stiffness in his posture. That, and the lack of response to even Patton’s desperate shaking when Virgil had called him to the alley where he’d found the unconscious man. The sterile sheets, bluish-grey and stiff, were a stark contrast to Roman’s tan skin, but only managed to make him look washed out and fragile. Virgil couldn’t help but realize he also hadn’t seen the construct-maker unmasked before, either. His unobscured handsomeness was no surprise, and certainly not one of Virgil’s current priorities. Especially not when the mask had been replaced with a neck brace and cannula.

The doctor came in with Logan in tow, and Virgil was on his feet immediately.

“Hello, good morning, I’m his… the one who found him.”

The doctor nodded. “Good morning, I’m Dr. Ahmad. I’ll be Roman’s primary attendant until he’s out of this ward. I’ve already met Mr. Sanders,” she added with a nod to Patton. “Can I have your names as well?”

Logan and Virgil made eye contact, both assessing until Logan spoke. “I’m Logan Lancaster.”

“And I’m Virgil Skylar.”

“Skylar?” Dr. Ahmad asked with an eyebrow raised. “That sounds familiar. But let me tell you all how our patient is doing.”

The three supers moved together to Roman’s bedside, eyes glued to the doctor. Her teal hijab matched the scrubs under her labcoat perfectly, and as she tapped a finger on her clipboard, Virgil noticed her nails matched, too.

“Roman is currently in a state of unresponsiveness. We are not yet able to determine if he is fully in a comatose state. What that means is we’re not sure if he is aware of his surroundings, but he does not appear able to respond to any stimuli.”

“Do you know how he ended up like this?” Virgil asked. “Any trauma, any internal bleeding?”

“We’ve found no trauma, no bruising, no internal bleeding. From preliminary scans, there’s nothing inside the skull, either. Besides being underfed, he’s in remarkably good health. Except, of course, for the lack of consciousness. Do any of you know of his medical history?”

Logan scratched the back of his neck. “I believe he may have untreated and undiagnosed bipolar disorder. But I’m not a professional, and haven’t conducted an assessment regardless. As far as family history…” he looked over at Patton, who was rubbing small circles on Roman’s thigh.

“There’s no other family to contact,” the ginger-haired man replied shortly. “And he’s never been to a doctor before.”

Dr. Ahmad nodded. “Understood. Unfortunately, because we can’t tell what induced the current state, we can’t make a prognosis at the current time.”

“Does this hospital have specialists in recognizing and treating illness induced by enhanced abilities?” Logan asked.

The doctor turned to him, then looked over the other visitors. “Ah,” she said quietly. “You’re those four. Yes, we do. They’re not in yet today, but we’ll send for them as soon as possible. Hopefully they’ll get us some more definite answers. Until then, all we can do is make Roman comfortable and hope he wakes on his own.”

“We can stay with him, right?” Patton asked, not looking up from where his eyes were fixed on Roman’s unconscious face.

“Visiting hours end at eight pm…” she began, but Virgil made eye contact with an eyebrow raised. “Visiting hours officially end at eight,” she amended. “And in my official capacity, I must of course advise you to leave by then. But we do have a tendency to, ah, miss certain wards in the nightly rounds.”

Patton squeezed Roman’s hand, steadfastly refusing to look away from his partner’s face. “What does that mean? I can’t… I don’t have anywhere else I could possibly be, not now.”

Virgil placed a careful hand on the villain’s shoulder and squeezed gently. “It means you can stay, Patton. No one is going to make you leave him alone.”

“I’ll be back later for further tests and any updates,” the doctor said. “The call button is here, and there’s a nurse stand down the hall to the left if you need anyone or anything.” She scribbled a note on Roman’s chart, nodded to them all, and departed.

Patton scooted his chair closer and brushed Roman’s hair out of his face. “Rospberry, I’m so sorry,” he whispered to the unconscious man. “I should have stayed with you. I should have kept you safe.”

Logan stood at the foot of the bed, reading the chart, but looked up at Patton’s quiet remark. “You cannot blame yourself for this, Gale- Patton. Whoever put him in this state is the one who owns all of the responsibility. Roman’s a good fighter - to still be caught means he must have been taken entirely by surprise.”

Patton looked back at Logan, a strange expression on his face. “I- thank you, Doc. Logan, was it?”

“Yes. Logan Lancaster.”

“Sorry, what was that, I think your volume’s too low-”

“I said-”

“-gan!”

Logan inhaled sharply, closing his eyes. “God, not even my dad’s come up with that one yet, and he gave me that name.”

“What can I say, Doc, I really got that Pat-ernal spirit!”

“...I might scream.”

“Dr. Ahmad will yell at you if you do,” Virgil put in, watching the exchange with amusement.

“She cannot do anything further to hurt me, not when I’m subjected to these puns no matter where I go.”

“You don’t find them humorous?” Patton asked, eyes dancing. Virgil smirked, but didn’t stop Logan as he replied.

“No, I do not.”

“Well it’s a good thing we’re in the hospital, you’ve clearly lost your funny bone!”

Logan stood up straight and walked over to the wall, where he made a show of slowly beating his head against it.

Virgil snorted and sat by Roman’s side once more. He hesitated, then reached out to hold the unconscious man’s hand. It felt off, somehow. He glanced down, and his eyebrows shot up.

“Lo, c’mere for a sec.”

Logan came up behind Virgil, resting his hands on his partner’s shoulders. “What is it?”

“Look at this - doesn’t this look like a deliberate fist?”

“You’re right, it does. Do you think he did it on purpose as he was going unconscious?”

“Maybe- can you check the other hand?”

Logan crossed, and carefully moved the sheets to reveal Roman’s right hand. “It’s a three, look! Fist and three - was he attacked by three people at once?”

Virgil was on his feet, pacing. “What trios do we know who are operating right now? Probably need to look at both heroes and villains and maybe even neutrals, they all could have some objection to what the Crimson Marauder’s been doing. Or he could have been in civilian wear, which pushes slightly more to villain or neutral.”

“There’s the copycat Fang Patrol attempting to form in the Heights, they’d be a likely enemy, right?” Logan mused. “I think the records I’ve seen indicate Roman was involved in defeating the original Patrol. Or the Triceras might be back in town.”

“Boys,” Patton said.

“I think Orion is operating again too, all three of them. We should call Talyn, they’d be able to help us narrow this down-”

“Boys,” Patton repeated, interrupting the back-and-forth. “Roman already told us exactly who attacked him.”

Both heroes turned, Virgil surprised, Logan skeptical. “How so?”

“Look at his hands. This isn’t just a fist. It’s a fist with the thumb on the side. That with the three fingers? He’s spelling in ASL. It’s ‘A’ and ‘W.’”

“Oh,” Virgil said, both heroes blushing slightly.

“Agent Whisper again,” Logan muttered. “I’d suspected, but hoped not.”

“This is all our fault,” Virgil said in a low voice, sitting down heavily. “We left him unprotected, knowing this fucker was out there.”

“Virge-” Logan began, but Virgil just shook his head miserably and took Roman’s hand in his again. Patton shifted his chair so he could mirror Virgil’s position on the other side, rubbing the back of Roman’s motionless hand with his thumb. Virgil looked up at the movement, and met Patton’s gaze. Both sets of eyes burned with the fire of revenge tempered by a stormcloud of guilt. Logan paused, unsure of how to help, but settled with resting his hands on Virgil’s shoulders and giving what he hoped was a comforting squeeze.

~~~~~~

Doctors and nurses came in sporadically over the course of the day, taking Roman’s pulse, drawing blood for additional tests, and checking all indicators of responsiveness. The three supers shifted around the room to give them space, never straying too far. The clock’s almost-imperceptible ticking swelled into a cacophony as Patton got quieter and quieter, his mouth settling into a grim line.

“I can’t take this anymore!” he finally burst out. “Roman might be dying and there’s nothing I can do! I can’t stand to see this, I can’t bear to lose him!”

He was halfway to the door where Virgil sped to stop him, hands braced against his shoulders and eyes blazing. “You can’t give up hope, Patton. You can’t leave him now, I know you can’t, because not knowing would be even worse than seeing him like this.” He talked low but quickly, trying to cram as many words as he could into Patton’s hearing before the villain stormed past him, literally. “I know this is painful, feeling helpless and guilty all at once. But Roman wouldn’t want you to be racing off, not when it means you could end up in your own bed next to him or worse. If you really need to get out of this room, at least take one of us with you, okay? Stay safe.” He saw Patton ready to spit out a biting response and preempted it. “Don’t do this for me. Do it for him.”

Patton looked ready to blast Virgil through a wall, blue eyes stony and cold. He stared hard at the tall hero for a long, tense moment, then finally deflated.

“I’m just so…” he trailed off.

“Worried? Scared?” Virgil suggested. “It’s okay. We’ll get through this. The doctors will help, and if Roman can hear us, even the tiniest bit, we’ll let him know we’re here for him, okay?”

Patton sagged further, and leaned forward into Virgil’s chest. Virgil’s eyes widened, but he moved automatically in response nonetheless, carefully wrapping his arms around the shorter man’s shoulders.

A knock on the door surprised them all, and Patton sprang out of Virgil’s grip. They all assumed it was another round of medical staff, and Logan was the first to call out, “Come in!”

In came two women, wearing neither scrubs nor lab coats. But their appearance caused Virgil to gasp in delight.

“Mum! Mama! What’re you doing here?!” Without waiting for an answer, he crossed the room and seized both women in a single tight hug, lifting them slightly off the ground as he did so.

“Lolo texted us,” the taller responded as Virgil put them both back on their feet. “He knew you’d need family.” She pushed back the red hairs that were falling out of her ponytail, smiling up at her son. They shared a similar build and jawline, but Virgil maintained he’d not inherited nearly the full level of dorkiness that either of his moms possessed. She waved at Logan at the back of the room, and turned to Patton. “Hello, I’m Celeste Skylar, Virgil’s Mum.”

“And I’m Tatiana, his Mama,” her wife said, extending a hand to shake. Patton took it carefully and shook it, seeming uncertain. Tatiana smiled wide, teeth flashing bright against her dark skin. “I’m sorry to have to meet a friend of Virgey’s in such a difficult context, but all I’m thinking right now is how much I love your curls!”

Patton hesitantly smiled back. “Hi, I’m Patton Sanders. I’m, uh. Virgil’s coworker?” he asked, glancing at the hero.

“Oh, we know about the whole thing,” Celeste said breezily, twiddling a hand to somehow indicate superpowers. “Are you one of the lovingly-frustrating villains?”

Virgil flushed. “Mum, that is not how I described them.”

“Yes, dear, but I can read between the lines. Or, listen, in this case. Logan, come here, it’s been too long.”

Logan obediently accepted enthusiastic hugs from both women, Tatiana planting a kiss on his cheek. “Thank you for texting me, sweetie. This is why we trust you with our boy. Now. How’s our patient?”

Virgil nodded to Patton, who led the moms over to the bed. “This is Roman. We found him early this morning, and think he’s been unconscious for over twelve hours now.”

Tatiana’s lips tightened for a moment as she gazed at Roman’s sleeping form. But she looked up again at Patton with a warmer expression. “And he’s your partner?”

“In all senses of the word, yes.” He looked down and smoothed Roman’s hair. “He’s my sunlight.”

“Then this is hard, like nothing you’ve done before,” Celeste said, her voice soft. “Because it’s nothing you can fight or fix, you just have to wait.”

Patton nodded, still on edge.

“That’s why we’re here. We’ll help get you set up to make the waiting easier,” Tatiana explained warmly. “I can’t tell you it won’t keep being hard, because I know it will. But the logistics don’t have to be what makes it hard. Now, let’s get you set up.”

Virgil and his moms immediately started moving. Virgil went to the waiting room around the corner and came back easily carrying two large, cushioned chairs. Celeste opened a nondescript cupboard to reveal a case of warm blankets. Tatiana sent Logan down to the nurse station to get extra pillows, while she produced bags and bags of snacks from her purse. Together they assembled a makeshift bed, right next to Roman’s.

Patton watched all this unfold, staring. He sat on the edge of the newly-formed bed and looked up at the wives. Tatiana was leaning against Celeste’s shoulder and their hands were interlocked as they both looked down at Roman.

“Why are you being so helpful?” he asked, brow furrowed. “You don’t know me, or Ro, and your son only stopped fighting us about four days ago…”

“Because we can,” Tatiana replied. “Because no matter who you are, you deserve to get the full mom treatment.”

Patton’s throat formed a lump, and he looked down at his lap. A hand lifted his chin until he was staring into Celeste’s bright blue eyes. She spread her arms. “You look like you could use a hug, honey.”

Patton stood and threw his arms around her waist as tears suddenly began to fall for the first time all day. He felt another set of arms circle behind him as he cried into Celeste’s pink denim jacket, and he felt Tatiana start stroking his hair.

“This okay, sweetie?”

All he could do was nod.

Eventually, his sobs subsided, and he sat back into his makeshift bed. Celeste sat with him, rubbing circles in his lower back. He felt the tears threatening to return as he remembered Miss Parsons doing the same, once upon a time. Tatiana brought him water and pushed a packet of fruit gummies into his hands.

“Thank you.”

“It’s the least we can do, sweetie. I don’t know if Virgil’s told you, but he has siblings about your age. 22 and 20 now, bless them.”

“Speaking of our other children, Tati, we do need to get home to them soon,” Celeste said regretfully.

“I-” Patton started, then hesitated.

“Hm?”

“How do I do this?” Patton whispered. “How do I just wait and watch and worry and not explode?”

Tatiana and Celeste both reached out at the same moment, their hands joining like puzzle pieces. Tati looked down, thinking, then met Patton’s gaze. “I won’t tell you it’s easy, because it’s not. Nothing about it is easy. It’s draining, emotionally and physically. But you keep going, you power through, because you love him. Because you want to be there the minute something changes. Because there’s a slight, slight chance that he can hear you and you want him to know that he’s never alone.”

“Be kind to yourself, dear,” Celeste added. “Remember to eat. Let yourself rest. Let yourself feel. And don’t be afraid to ask for help.”

Patton nodded in wordless thanks, unable to speak. The women stood and hugged both Virgil and Logan thoroughly before departing with a last wave.

~~~~~~

In the silence that followed, Virgil sat in one of the other chairs, near to Patton without crowding, and Logan sat down on his other side. All three supers paused to watch Roman’s chest rise and fall in time with the sounds of the oxygen machine and the blips of the heart rate machine as accompaniment.

“You had family here in the hospital,” Patton said to Virgil after a pause. It wasn’t a question.

“Yes. My little sister. Sandry.”

“...can I ask?”

Logan grimaced and reached over for Virgil’s hand, giving a comforting squeeze. Virgil smiled weakly at him before responding. “I mean, yeah, at this point, you might as well know.” He took a deep breath. “It’s not pretty, though.”

Patton chuckled humorlessly. “What about any of this is?” He took Roman’s hand in his and settled in to listen.

Virgil’s gaze remained fixed on the speckled floor tiles as he spoke.

“We knew I had powers early. Flight and strength are both pretty flashy. But they weren’t disruptive or anything. And Mum and Mama didn’t want to take me out of school, so I just stayed in my public school out in the suburbs. They hadn’t heard of any alternatives. And for the most part it was… normal, I guess. No one suspected that I hated gym because I’d be too good at it, they all just thought I was an awkward emo nightmare. Which, to be fair, was true. But in middle school, things started to change. I accidentally hovered sometimes, or sat too heavily and broke chairs, or slammed doors open and cracked the walls. People started making fun of me, thought I was just a terrible klutz. I wasn’t super confident to start with, between being mixed and caught between those two worlds and having two moms. When I first realized that people made it a thing that Mum is a trans woman, or that Jacques and Alex are enbys, I stopped talking about my family. But as my powers kept bursting out of me, I started trying to hide in plain sight all the time, tried to appear smaller, and I learned to be afraid. Afraid of what people would say and were saying. Afraid that they’d target my siblings or moms. Afraid that my next mistake would be super noticeable. Afraid that everyone would find out about my powers and I’d never be anything other than Virgil the Freak.

“It just got worse. The more I thought and worried about hiding my powers, the more they broke away with me. I was constantly on edge, hiding in my hoodie in the back of the classroom, hoping no one would look at me or notice me or even think about me. And then one day, when I was fifteen, I accidentally picked up an entire wall of lockers to get an assignment that had fallen under a crack. I thought no one saw me but… I was in my yard that night, scrolling on my phone, when I started getting text after text of these dumb memes and messages making fun of me. Then I got a call. Six of my classmates, all on speaker, all together at someone’s house, laughing at me. I hung up on them, but I’d already started crying. It felt like all my fears were coming true, and I was panicking. I couldn’t breathe or think straight, and the world felt like it was moving way too fast and also frozen at the same time. Sandry heard and came out to comfort me, to try to talk me down, literally, because I’d started hovering again, all curled up in a tiny ball.”

Virgil paused, taking in a deep, shuddering breath. Logan squeezed his hand and started rubbing his back in small, comforting circles. Patton watched solemnly, not interrupting.

“All I can say is I didn’t realize it was her,” he continued, his voice hollow. “All I could hear was their laughter, all I could see was the taunts I’d been receiving, and when she touched my arm… I exploded. I screamed at her to get away, and it triggered the power I didn’t yet know about. I blasted her into the big old oak tree in our yard and she hit it full force, frozen in the middle of reaching out for me. The crack as she connected…” he shuddered. “I’ll never forget it. It’s the worst sound I’ll ever hear. But it was enough to break through, for me to come back to myself, to see what I’d done. I started sobbing and yelling for Mum and Mama and Jacques and Liv and Alex and they all came running out. They were horrified, and terrified. Of me.

“We broke every single speed limit on the way to the hospital - to here. I was almost fully mute with shock but we were able to tell them it had been a super accident. Sandry was bruised all over and non-responsive. We didn’t know for a full day if she was still frozen from my power or the injuries, but we found out she was in a fully comatose state. My little sister, Sandra Skylar, was eleven years old and in a coma, the doctors had no idea when or if she’d wake up, and I’d put her there. It was my fault. And if she died, brain-dead, never waking again, that would have been my fault too,” Virgil finished, voice cracking.

Logan shifted to hug his boyfriend around the shoulders, shushing softly. “It’s okay, Virge. She recovered, and your family still loves you, and that’s when you got the help you needed.” Turning to Patton, he explained, “It lasted a week, and in that time, the hospital staff learned that Virgil wasn’t enrolled at HEARTS, the super school. His moms hadn’t heard of it, but the minute they did, they got him transferred, so he could get instruction on how to manage his powers and get support for the ups and downs of using them. And that’s where we met. It’s where he became a hero.”

Virgil leaned into Logan for a moment and brushed away his tears. “Only half-right, Lo. That was where we met, but here is where I became a hero. Or resolved to be one.” He gazed over at Roman’s still form. “Spending days and nights on end, seeing her in that bed, hoping desperately that she would be okay… I promised anyone who was listening that if she survived, I’d never let it happen again. That I’d learn control, and that I’d keep her and everyone like her safe. I wish I could say it was because it was the right thing to do, but so much of it was just knowing what that pain felt like, knowing what I’d done.”

“Wait, really?” Patton asked. “Heroes are allowed to be doing it for something other than Truth, Justice, and the American WayTM?”

Logan was frowning. “Well, not ideally, but-”

“We all want to, but most of us don’t,” Virgil interrupted. “Or maybe we did when we were young and now it’s just a job, a specialized skill we have. Not all of us can be as pure as the Doc over here.”

Patton hesitated, then reached out and took Virgil’s hand. “Thank you for trusting me with your story.”

Virgil shot him a small smile. “Thanks for listening.”

“But, Virgil?”

“Yeah?”

“Next time you use that force wave power, it better be against the bastard who put Ro here.”

“You’ve got yourself a fucking deal.”

~~~~~~

a/n: Backstory! Moms! Momming!

(I love Virgil's moms very much, I know far too much about them for characters who haven't appeared until chapter 9. Please ask me about them. i love them)

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Recaps: The Shining Beacon Part 2

I miss RWBY. Specifically, I miss early RWBY when there was less drama (not really but let me pretend), so let’s head on back to Volume 1.

In our opening scene of Episode 3, Ruby and Jaune have managed to find the hall where the rest of the newbies are meeting and honestly? I’m super proud of them for it. These are the two fools who will later argue over who had the map while wandering around the wilds of Remnant. Baby leaders managing to find the rest of their flock? Great job. Well done. Mama’s proud.

This little time skip raises some questions though. Did they ever find the Beacon cafeteria? What else did they chat about the rest of the day? Yang makes it sound like they’ve been gone a number of hours and I for one would love to know what awkward Ruby and even-more-awkward Jaune got up to during that time.

Tis the realm of fics though, not canon. Instead we get another shot of RWBY’s infamous shadow people with Yang standing out like the goddamn sun.

Who could the main character possibly be??

Beats me. What a gosh darn difficult question.

Yang: Ruby! I saved you a spot.

Are... are there spots, Yang? You’re all standing in a giant auditorium. If Ruby comes to stand beside you is another student gonna throw a fit about it? I mean real talk, I went to watch the changing of the guard while spending a month in London and let me tell you, there were people who guarded their spots like a pissed off bird guarding her eggs. (For the record you couldn’t even see anything. This was just human prickliness at its finest). So who knows, maybe Yang knows precisely what she’s doing.

Ruby abandons Jaune to join her, which on the one hand is kinda mean—you can’t invite your new friend to stand around with you?—but Ruby does say she’ll “see [him] after the ceremony,” so that’s nice and all. I know my anxious ass would have been thrilled to hear someone making future plans like that, even if it’s mostly just a nicety. Making new friends is hard.

Of course, Jaune doesn’t make that job any easier on himself. I’ve written before about his Nice Guy tendencies in the early volumes and they come back in full force here. He bemoans Ruby’s leave, asking himself where he’ll find “another nice, quirky girl to talk to?” It’s an easy introduction for Pyrrha, revealing her behind Jaune and quite obviously setting her up as that “nice, quirky” girl who he’ll become closest to as the episodes progress, but jeez, Manic Pixy Girl assumptions abound. Especially given the fact that Jaune/Pyrrha became canon in Volume 3. Obviously Pyrrha will be written with great depth as RWBY continues, but it does rankle a bit to have her introduced as a Ruby stand-in, someone positioned as a way of fulfilling Jaune’s ridiculous “needs.” I’m glad this is undermined later when she takes initiative towards him, i.e. saving him during initiation and angling to be his partner. Her interest is clear even if at that point Jaune will take anyone pretty: Ruby, Weiss, Pyrrha herself.

But I digress.

Ruby gives her whole spiel about meeting Weiss and Yang’s response is, “Yikes. Meltdown already?” heavily implying that she expected Ruby to have a “meltdown” at this school, just not so soon. Which—iffy terminology aside—isn’t at all surprising. RWBY does an excellent job of setting up Ruby’s nerves, from her “bee’s knees” comment to her eagerness in showing Weiss exactly what she’s capable of. The girl is desperate for validation—as is the whole RWBYJNPR gang, in their own ways—and a lot of that comes out as anxious, social awkwardness. If Ruby was at all inclined towards “meltdowns” at Signal then I’d say she did a damn good job holding herself together through everything that happened at Beacon. Granted, being put in a position of power will help with that, at least on a surface level. To semi-quote Oz, how can you expect others to put forth their best if you’re not constantly doing the same? Ruby has the veneer of self-control down now because she had to for her team... which makes me anticipate her inevitable breaking point all the more. We saw in Volume Six how close Ruby got to dropping her ‘I’m an endlessly put together leader’ persona with Qrow drinking himself to oblivion, but she never quite got there. I’m waiting (hoping really) that Ruby’s long-established anxiety will finally be addressed, what with Yang having made good headway in that department and all the shit they’ve gone through adding up to a very justified breakdown.

Let the poor girl really falter for once and let the rest of the group grapple with that. Everyone deserves it.

I’m jumping six volumes ahead though. Here and now Ruby is still telling Yang all about her horrible encounter, segueing into how she “just wanted her to stop yelling” which of course is the perfect moment for Weiss to sneak up behind her with a loud “YOU!” (Jaune’s comment linking to Pyrrha; Ruby’s comment linking to Weiss—RT enjoys writing these little bridges, particularly for introducing new characters).

I love this moment simply for how much it tells us about Weiss. Largely in retrospect. Because while her trailer song is definitely on the nose in some respects—“I’m the loneliest of all”—it’s not until later on that we realize exactly how abusive Weiss’ family is and how isolated she’s been for the whole of her upbringing. This girl has absolutely no experience interacting with people outside of the Schnee/everyone else hierarchy (note in a moment how she assumes that Ruby will want to “make it up to [her]”) so if you’re suddenly surrounded by people for the first time who aren’t fawning over your name and money and dust connections... what do you? How do you get some vaguely positive attention? Oh okay, guess I’ll force it! Here Weiss is claiming that she never wants Ruby to speak to her again, but she’s the one who barged in on their conversation and loudly drawing attention to herself. Weiss is starved for healthy validation while simultaneously stuck in the behavior she’s been taught: asking for attention solely by trying to show off— here’s a rambling summary of the Schnee Dust Company’s disclaimer look at what a good puppet I am—or by insulting others. Weiss mocks Ruby’s genuine offer to buy school supplies together but then doesn’t move away from her and Yang once the announcements start. She doesn’t know how to say ‘yes’ to any offers of friendship, but she also doesn’t want to say ‘no.’

Interestingly, that moment also tells us a fair bit about Ruby. Not just by re-emphasizing how kind she is by extending the offer to start this relationship over, but also adding weight to the headcanon that Ruby is neurodivergent. Weiss’ heavy sarcasm about how they can “go shopping, paint our nails, and talk about cute boys” goes right over Ruby’s head. She responds with a “Wow! Really?” similar to the “...can you?” heard right before she attacks the Nevermore during initiation. Ruby has a history of not just being awkward but missing a lot of ‘normal’ social cues as well.

The girls’ bonding is interrupted when Ozpin begins his speech and boy oh boy do I love this moment too. Anyone who reads my metas knows that I’m a firm defender of our disaster headmaster, especially after volume 6, and looking back this scene is the PERFECT example of how RT tries to make Ozpin seem shady... while really failing to accomplish that. Obscuring eyes/the whole face is a super easy way to tell the viewer that this is an Untrustworthy Character. See: every horror movie where the villain’s face is obscured by shadows, our own dear Adam who keeps his face hidden with a mask, etc. It serves to dehumanize the character, keeping us from seeing some of the most expressive parts of their bodies, and equates one thing they’re hiding—such as a deformity. Yay ableism! /s—with other things they’re keeping from the heroes; secrets, sinister intentions, and the like. The primary exception to this are characters who wear masks for defined and morally acceptable reasons. i.e. superheroes who need to keep their secret identities intact and, notably, aren’t withholding that information from the viewer. We as the audience usually know who they are and thus aren’t inclined to distrust the character based on secret-keeping.

Awesome superpowers aside, Ozpin doesn’t fit within the mold of superhero, so all of this reads as pretty damning:

Like holy shit, friends. With the exception of one moment, 

notably when Ozpin informs them that “knowledge will only carry you so far,” the cinematography goes out of its way to hide his eyes, if not his entire face. Oz comes across as super shady here, compounded by the close up and centered shot of Ruby’s silver eyes to contrast. Compounded further by the exchange Ruby and Yang have afterwards about how he seemed “kind of off”—an exchange that doesn’t precisely fit with in-world logic (how does Yang know what Ozpin is normally like?), but serves as a clear message to the viewer: Something is UP with this guy.

The problem? This isn’t Ozpin’s introduction.

Imagine a series where in Episode One we only hear about a powerful Beacon headmaster. Someone who bends the rules and let’s Ruby in two years early for reasons unknown. Then by Episode Three we see this guy almost insulting the new group of students (Yang’s eyes narrow when Ozpin says he sees only “wasted energy in need of purpose”) and the entire time the camera refuses to give us a good look at him. That would have set up a character who is legitimately creepy. Someone we know instinctively might not really be on our side.

Instead our introduction to Ozpin is this.

He’s smiling and charming and legitimately kind. He listens to why Ruby wants to come to Beacon before making his decision (aka establishing her agency here). He shares a fond “Aww, you know I’m gonna get what I want” look with Glynda. He brings cookies, for god’s sake. Ozpin’s supposed shadiness falls completely flat here because we’ve already developed positive feelings for him, notably while he was with our protagonist and his BFF headmistress. The intimacy in Episode One implies that this is the “real” Ozpin, whereas a formal speech in front of (from the audience’s perspective) a literally faceless mass sets this up as a “fake” Ozpin, one that comes out when he feels the needs to be stern with incoming students. Or, based on information we learn later, when he’s pulling from another personality.

All of which isn’t a criticism of RT’s writing. Rather, given what we now know definitively from Volume Six, I don’t think they were invested in making Ozpin into a legitimately shady character. What RWBY is invested in is poking at or outright dismantling a lot of tropes and conventions, which is essentially what they did here. “You EXPECT the secretive, powerful headmaster to be a morally gray kind of guy... so we’re just not even gonna go there. Not really.”

But back to the actual plot. Jaune ends the scene by sliding up and announcing that he’s a natural blonde, another excellent example of precisely the thing women aren’t looking for in a guy. He knows Ruby now so it’s totally cool for him to re-join her, but using that as an excuse to start talking about his looks? Nah. Remember folks, women generally like it when you treat them as more than just a romantic and/or sexual conquest!

But enough about Jaune. We cut to that night where all the newbie students—way more than we’ll actually see throughout the rest of the series—are crowded together in Beacon’s hall, which from a world building perspective is a really great choice. I love what it says about Beacon as an institution: We’re not giving you rooms yet because we believe that most of you will fail the initiation (or at least that’s the impression they want to give the students). There’s a sense of ‘roughing it’ with simple mats and no personal space, the sort of things they’d have to get used to if they’re out traveling as huntsmen later in life. The overall emphasis on community and team work. Like the teams of four, Beacon is invested in setting up situations where the students are forced to work with one another. Particularly with those they might otherwise avoid.

That’s precisely the sort of interaction we get in a moment, but first: a tangent. Okay. So in previous metas—mostly Volume Six stuff—I’ve gotten a lot of pushback for my use of the term “kids” to describe the RWBY gang. Which I get. Post-Beacon most of them are legally adults by our standards and they’re certainly doing Adult Things nowadays. I do think there’s a lot of interesting nuances here—the fact that our protagonist and arguably most significant character plot-wise (Oscar) are both still underage, asking whether Remnant even views age in the same way we do, whether hitting the magical age of 18 suddenly gives you any more insight or maturity than you had at 17 or 16, acknowledging that they were never meant to be out in the world fighting this war and making these decisions yet, so we shouldn’t conflate traumatic necessity with emotional growth—but for the most part fans don’t want to grapple with those sorts of questions. There’s a knee-jerk reaction (particularly from those who are around the group’s age) of, “Most of them are 18. They’re not kids so stop acting like they are.” RWBY has raised a lot of questions for me regarding how I balance “Kids/teens/young adults are people with agency and more maturity than people tend to give them credit for” with “I remember how much of a kid I still was at 18 and know precisely how much I’ve grown in the decade since. I was not an adult then, no matter what the law said.” It’s a matter of acknowledging generational experience without turning into one of those, “Bah! Kids don’t know what the hell they’re talking about” curmudgeons. I’m an adult with a father who dismisses everything I say because he’s got—and will always have—50+ years on me. I’m well aware that it sucks.

Why am I bringing all this up again? Because this scene is just so kid-ish. It’s wonderfully young and carefree! Ruby is writing a letter to her friends in cutesy grimm PJs. Yang slides over with a comment about how it’s just like a sleepover. They acknowledge that Tai would not be pleased with all the boys around while Yang ogles the shirtless guys and Jaune wanders around in a footed one piece. This entire scene has a distinctly middle school or early high-school vibe. Not that adults don’t hang out and chat in super comfy PJs—we totally do—but rather that viewers know how scenes like these are coded. They’re supposed to look young here and even though experience has most certainly aged them, even though about two years have passed since this moment... that’s still only two years. I have a difficult time accepting that we should now view the group’s decisions as irrevocably Adult and Mature (cough-airship-cough) when such a short time ago they weren’t either of these things. And they weren’t meant to be those things. Not yet. I wish that these later Volumes of RWBY were more interested in exploring the concept of (yes) kids forced into the role of adults, as opposed to trying desperately to pretend that they’re adults already with a more worthwhile voice than people with 10, 20, or in Ozpin’s case, a 1,000 years more experience than them.

Anyway. Enough ranting for one recap.

Ruby shares her fears about not making any friends and Yang has her “You’ve just made one friend and one enemy!” line before giving her little sis a legitimate pep-talk. She explains that there are friends all around Ruby, “you just haven’t met them yet.” A near identical perspective to what we heard from Jaune last episode. Which is hilarious given that ten seconds ago Yang was pseudo-insulting the guy.

Seriously though, how is there not more Jaune-Yang interaction in canon? They’re got so much more in common than just blonde hair and anger management issues.

Cue another segue. Right after Yang finishes talking about future friends Ruby catches a sound off screen and we get our first look at Blake since the courtyard.

Yang quite literally drags Ruby over and it is an excellent display of siblings being siblings.

Blake recognizes Ruby as “the girl who exploded” and honestly I’m sad that this didn’t become a moniker for her in the same way “vomit boy” did for Jaune. Nothing like being defined by your embarrassing moments and ridiculous habits to encourage true bonding! My BFF calls me Trout and I call her Hunter and no, I will not expand on the ridiculousness that was my middle school years.

I mean, Ruby starts to tell Blake that she can call her crater face before realizing that this might not be the best idea. The girl is awkward af and I love her.

Yang: What are you doing??

Ruby: I don’t know help me!

God they’re so fucking relatable.

Yang manages to get Blake’s name out of her and then makes the mistake of commenting on her bow. Granted, Blake doesn’t show any overt signs of discomfort here—that would have been too obvious even by RWBY’s standards—but looking back we can assume that any conversation veering towards the one thing she wants to hide wouldn’t exactly endear her to these girls. Blake gets pretty rude by saying that she’ll continue to enjoy her book just as soon as they leave. Yang gets ruder by announcing, right next to Blake, that she’s a “lost cause.”

The book is Ruby’s in though. Now it’s less small talk and more legit interest as she asks what Blake is reading. The fandom has acknowledge to death the “It’s about a man with two souls, fighting for control” line and how that obviously relates to the Ozpin-Oscar situation, but beyond that I’m interested in the fact that we never learn the title of this book. Normally that wouldn’t mean much (only so much world building you can do and book titles aren’t necessarily the sort of thing RT wants to waste time on), except that Ruby specifically asks for it and Blake delves straight into the summary. I wonder if perhaps this specific text will show up again in future volumes. I don’t have any real evidence for the hunch, just the fact that we now know Ozpin has put stories out into the world that relate to his situation, namely The Maidens fairy tale. I have to wonder if perhaps other lives of his created art as a way of coping with their situation—unknowingly truthful accounts that people like Blake read, oblivious to the ways that this fiction might be setting them up to be more empathetic towards the same situation in real life. It just stands out to me that we’re not given a title or author here; that Blake was one of the ones to learn about Ozpin’s immortality off screen (denying us her initial reaction); that comparatively she was one of the more sympathetic during that awful moment out in the snow. It would be awesome if the “lol Blake is a nerd who sometimes reads porn” aspect of her personality actually sets her up to be one of the more understanding people in Volume 7.

Basically, please give me super nerd Blake who starts warming back up to Ozpin because she finds out he’s authored a bunch of her favorite books lol. Or at the very least she realizes that she’s now living the stories she’s long adored; she’s been given the opportunity to extend real support to someone so very like the characters she’s felt for all these years...

RWBY does love its meta.

Ruby admits to loving books too, particularly the fantastical stories that Yang used to read her. Blake is far more pessimistic.

Blake: Hoping you’ll live happily ever after? 

Ruby: I’m hoping we all will.

Hello, conflict of the entire series. As well as many fans’ hope for how it will all turn out. I’m personally not at all interested in a 7+ year investment with this cast only to watch them end on a bleak, or even bittersweet note. Despite what some might claim nowadays, happy endings are far from overrated. Given the state of the world, happy endings are radical.

Blake tells Ruby that her dreams are “Very ambitious for a child,” one of the very few indicators we’ve gotten (along with Weiss’ “Aren’t you a little young to be here?”) that the rest of the students recognize on sight that Ruby is younger than them. I’ve literally never heard one child refer to another, same-age acquaintance as “child.” Especially not when they’re hinting strongly that they’re being naive.

Yang is SUPER proud of that optimism though and starts a tackle hug that leads to them fighting cartoon style, complete with stars, cat noises, and dust clouds. The racket of course brings Weiss over. And by “of course” I mean “Oh look, another excuse she can use to go talk to the only people she knows here.”

We get another handful of great lines—Ruby has known Weiss a day but she was “always on [her] side,” Weiss exclaims that Ruby is “a hazard to [her] health”—but the episode is basically over. Blake blows out her candles and that’s that.

Meanwhile, I can’t believe I just wrote nearly four thousand words on a six minute episode. I’m gonna go re-think my life choices.

Minor Things of Note

“You’re lucky we weren’t blown off the side of the cliff!” Hey there, episode four foreshadowing! Also, Weiss, you guys are nowhere near a cliff. You’re so dramatic.

You can really see the difference in their expressions when Oz gives his speech. Ruby and Yang looked pumped and joyous. Weiss is anxious and unsure.

Still super interested in Ozpin actually using his cane as he leaves the stage. Probably just a random animation choice before they worked out all his character kinks, but if we imagine that his host was currently speaking maybe that’s a quirk specific to him.

We never again hear about “the gang back at Signal” that Ruby is writing to. Just like we never see the friends Yang apparently entered Beacon with (and weren’t meant to given that they were also shadow people). Not that RWBY needs any more characters to keep track of, but from an in-world perspective it is a little strange that they were supposedly super close to all these people and then just... never mention them again lol. 

[glimmeringtwilight]

Moth to a Flame

(This is almost as long as the first one I wrote, but this is the actual correct scene, with my OC written proper instead of OOC like my phat dumb ass had originally written. Anyway, I’ll post the other one if anyone’s interested in reading it lol. Fingers crossed I can crunch through at least one RQ tonight).

 You weren’t supposed to be here.

 Alarms were screaming in your ears as you lay on the ground, keeping low to stop yourself from inhaling so much smoke. Already your eyes were stinging and tearing up, your throat burning from the fumes.

 The ceiling was covered, obscured by a sea of billowing black smoke. Part of you wondered if you should give up, succumb to the smoke before the flames reach you and you die a worse death.

 This was a mistake. Playing hero, trying to take down the monster that had been setting fires to homes and businesses across the city.

 It was stupid, really. Going into this, you felt like you were an actual hero. Chasing the arsonist into the building, sword at the ready.

 Already you could hear the sirens approaching the building. So, it was either death or arrest… You knew, going into this, what awaited you, though. After getting rejected by the academy, you accepted the life of a vigilante. The academy was rife with corruption, anyway; you wouldn’t have gotten far even if you’d decided to play fair.

 You’re interrupted from your thoughts by the sound of the door to the room you were in opening. Pulling your shirt over your nose, you raised yourself up slightly from the ground, peering out from behind the desks you’d been lying behind.

 In the doorway the arsonist stood, a hideous mask in the visage of the moth obscuring their face. They wore a cloak to match, patterned like moth wings, which dragged along the floor as they walked. How it hadn’t caught on fire yet was beyond you, but you figured the pyromaniac might have thought that through and used flame-retardant fabric.

 The mask tipped in your direction, and you ducked back behind the desks, hoping they hadn’t seen you through the glare of the flames.

 You hear their shoes crunch against the smoldering rubble on the floor, and you wonder how the smoke hadn’t gotten to them yet—gas mask, perhaps?

 They walk steadily past the desks you were hiding behind, deeper into the room. You grip the handle of your sword tight enough to turn your knuckles white, watching them as they leisurely walk through the smoke and the ruin.

 You watch as they step into the next room without ever looking back, and though part of you can’t shake the feeling that they’re leading you into a trap, you get up to follow.

 When you step into the next room, which has yet to be devastated by flames(you wish you knew that earlier, you would have waited in here to ambush that maniac), you don’t see any sign of them. You turn your gaze to the ceiling beams, searching for any signs of them.

 Nothing.

 Steeling yourself, you step further into the room. The door slams shut behind you.

 You turn back and still see no signs of them, but you don’t go back to try the door, feeling as though you’ll be attacked the moment you turn your back to the rest of the room.

 “You know, you and I, we kinda represent every parent’s nightmare.” Your eyes snap back to the rafters, where the voice is coming from. Faintly, you see the moth figure sitting leisurely on one of the ceiling beams, swinging their legs casually.

 “If you’re going to start monologuing, save it. I don’t care.” You snap, straightening from your crouch now that you know they’ve seen you.

 “Oh, I’m not in a monologuing mood today. I was going for playful banter between hero and villain, you know? I’m saving the monologue and tragic backstory for next time.” By now you realize the voice is feminine, though it’s going through some sort of filter to distort it. You wonder, once more, if maybe she is wearing a gas mask, and it’s muffling her voice.

 You snort at her reply, shifting your weight to one leg as you watch her guardedly. Despite not seeing any visible eyeholes on her mask, you get the feeling she’s burning holes into you with her stare, with how sharply her head turns to the movement. It’s eerie, like she’s examining you as a predator would its prey.

 Maybe she is. Too bad this prey carries a knife.

 “There isn’t going to be a next time.” You tell her. She laughs, though the sound is garbled and warped by the mask. It comes out almost sounding like a growl than a laugh.

 ”Oh, really?” She asks, tipping her head to the side. The movement sends a few strands of pink hair spilling out from under her hood. Interesting choice. “What are you going to do, hm? Arrest me?”

 You step a little further into the room, “Nah. I’m going to stab you to death.”

 At your response, she barks out a laugh, tossing her head back and moving to grip the beam so she doesn’t fall off, “Hah! Ha… No wonder the academy rejected you.”

 You bristle at the comment. “What.”

 She raises a hand to the mask, as though she’s clapping a hand over her mouth, “Whoops! Strike a nerve? Sorry. We won’t talk about it anymore, yeah?”

 “No, no,” You wave your hand at her to signal her to continue, “How do you know that?”

 “Lucky guess,” She replied, but it sounded almost like a question. You feel the beginnings of dread welling up in your chest as you stare at her. If she knew that about you, what else did she know?

 You aren’t given much time to dwell on it, as she suddenly shifts, quickly hopping down from the ceiling and landing in a silent crouch. The movement almost reminds you of a cat, practiced and graceful. You adjust your stance back into a defensive one as she straightens up and regards you in silence for a long moment.

 “You didn’t let me finish earlier,” She says, lowly. You brace yourself for an attack, despite her completely relaxed posture. She’s trying to lull you into a false sense of security, you know.

 “Boo hoo.” She laughs, again, and takes a step towards you. You lunge forward with the point of your blade aimed her throat, missing by only inches as she quickly takes a few steps back.

 “I was going to say, ‘We represent parent’s nightmares: you, playing with knives, and I with fire.’” Her head tips to the side again, “Or did your mother never teach you not to play with sharp things?”

 You don’t dignify her needling with a response, just lunge forward again to stab her. Again, she dodges, but this time she sidesteps your attack and slinks behind you. Thin fingers curl loosely around your shoulder and you tense, cursing yourself for letting her get behind you in the first place.

 “Looking forward to the next time,” She rumbles low in your ear, and at the quiet volume her voice is less warped by the mask. She almost has a nice voice, for a monster. “I’ll be sure to come up with a good sob story to tell you.”

 The fingers disappear and you spin around to take a stab at her again, but she’s already gone. You’re left standing alone, in the dark, listening to the wail of the fire alarm and police sirens just outside.

[falkenscreen]

ROCKETMAN

Rocketman is not a movie, at least not to me.

Anyone who writes about movies does it because they love movies and will, and should, assess any given picture as a film. We don’t generally question, at least in this form, whether we are altogether objective, but it’s none too often a subject comes along superseding even our affinity with cinema.

I’ve listened to Elton John as long as I’ve listened to music. To say it’s been a soundtrack to my life is an understatement and without embellishment the man’s discography is my very favourite. That I’m a bigger Elton John fan than a movie fan means no small thing when a film about his life comes along.

This biopic cannot be assessed by this author as easily as any other, for the simple matter of seeing Elton’s songs writ large on screen amidst high production values and an able star (more on this later) in and of itself is no little joy to behold. For Rocketman is not just a movie; it’s cyclical, near unabating cavalcade of greatest hits (and some obscure ones ‘Here and There’) just as much resembling every one of Elton’s last six Australian tours and no doubt decades worth of concerts.

Something between Jersey Boys and Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again, numbers are alternately relayed as background tracks, as if we’re watching an extravagant musical or otherwise via Elton (Taron Egerton) and co going about their regular lives; whether it be pitching to a producer or nutting out tunes on the piano. Director Dexter Fletcher imparting this story with a hybrid, at times surrealist recreation of the thrill fans will remember when first seeing Watford’s favourite son live, here’s hopefully as objective and impassioned an account you will get from someone who thinks you should stop reading and cue up ‘Madman Across The Water.’  

First thing’s first; Taron. It’s not the first time he and Elton (here serving as Executive Producer) nor Producer Matthew Vaughan have worked together. Fans of the Kingsman films might recognise one particular costume paying homage to their first collaboration.

Well chosen, Egerton, in his best performance to date, doesn’t just look the part but earns the tagline ‘Taron Egerton is Elton John.’ Mimicking the star’s mannerisms to a tee and his spitting image in several of the most outlandish costumes, while much of the film requires dramatic turns Egerton’s contagious sense of fun in the recreations of several well-known numbers is the cinematic equivalent in every sense of Elton leaping on a piano and baring a grin at his audience.

Jamie Bell as long-time lyrical partner Bernie Taupin (as South Park fans might fondly recall) does well; another development in what is an increasingly interesting career. Rocketman requires a villain and like Bohemian Rhapsody (the comparisons don’t stop there) casts an ex-Game of Thrones star (Richard Madden) as a questionable manager.

Bryce Dallas Howard and Steven Mackintosh are more than decent as the parents, though both are largely sounding boards for whatever is going on in Elton’s life at any given stage. Elton’s decades-long collaboration with lead guitarist Davey Johnstone, uncontroversial and unsurprisingly ill-befitting of a biopic that requires drama, like most his other lengthy stage partners are permitted a token average of about one screen grab.

Now to the music. Without changing the lyrics, and the filmmakers generally err on the side of sacrilege, there aren’t a lot of singles that squarely fit into a retelling of anyone’s life. Opting, again, like Bohemian Rhapsody, to almost always defer to numbers that appeared on one or more Greatest Hits volumes (‘Border Song’ being a notable exception), they land about half the time.

Opening with ‘The Bitch is Back’ in what is as nonsensical a creative decision as Lily James’ rendition of ‘Kissed The Teacher,’ Rocketman reaches its heights in the film’s earliest scenes with the spectacularly promising staging of ‘I Want Love,’ the only later era Elton clanger meriting inclusion. Not simply supremely endearing but sensical within proceedings, it is nearly matched by only ‘Honky Cat’ and the ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ duet. The early addition of “Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting,” if making little sense, is still spectacularly fun and serves the same purpose as Elton’s generally predictable placement of the tune in the opening stages of his shows.

The computer-generated scenery in this sequence and a couple more, amidst a film largely resonant for its strong use of colour and costuming in real life environments, regretfully wreaks of some of the more infamous deaths of cinema moments.

‘Tiny Dancer’ is shoehorned in among so many others in relation to a fleeting character simply because it ‘had to’ be there, neglecting more appropriate scores from the likes of ‘Tumbleweed Connection,’ ‘Captain Fantastic’ and of all things Elton’s debut studio album ‘Empty Sky.’ Opting to portray ‘Crocodile Rock’ as Elton introduces himself to an American audience, when every pair of shoes slowly rise off the ground in Rocketman’s most utilised promotional image, Fletcher strikes the right blend between that hyperrealist and euphoric, recreating what will be intrinsic to those sitting in the 22nd row the world over.

Fletcher showing a consummate, distinctive filmmaking flair in only two other scenes; the rip-roaring rendition of ‘Pinball Wizard’ to whirling camera-work, editing and effects thrillingly matching the song’s pace. It is otherwise only at the very end, in a heartfelt recreation of one of Elton’s most famous video clips, that all involved not only shine their brightest but look like they’re having the fun everyone should have handed the unique prospects of an Elton biopic. Why filmmakers always leave these sorts of sequences to the end and never take these leaps throughout I’ll never know.  

Rocketman is regrettably at it’s worst in the staging of the titular number, taking place within a swimming pool as Elton sings with his childhood self. Groundless and egregiously indiscernible in what is otherwise a straightforward if oft-lightly surrealist narrative, the sequence soon heedlessly morphs into a stadium scene with an all too literal interpretation of the lyrics. Doing so for a standalone visual gag that takes us stars away from what long since established itself as a temperately fantastical flick, it’s like is confusedly never repeated.

Too taking place on the heels of Elton’s most overrated number ‘Bennie and the Jets,’ the whole chapter is an aberration in what is still a more hit than miss musical.

Far above and beyond this, the entire number revolves around one of the darkest chapters in Elton’s life and in the film’s most reckless advent does not reckon with the sensitivity of what it is depicting. Curiously, the decision was not made to utilise ‘Someone Saved My Life Tonight’ at this juncture, the stated, apparent intent of the song (among other unused Elton numbers) being better reflective of the subject the filmmakers here chose to explore. Seeking to so quickly (as the flick often does) move to the next greatest hit, given the creatives sought to pursue this confronting avenue so blatantly it was a poor mistake not to address it requisitely or properly account for its aftermath even if it meant sacrificing one or more of the myriad other strands.

For chapters in Elton’s life come and go; the crew seemingly intent on telling as much as possible. His first marital relationship and wedding (which actually took place in Sydney) are confined to mere minutes, while other hugely significant moments elapse in as little time. Making the choice to confine the narrative to the first stages of Elton’s career and never travelling down the likes of ‘Peachtree Road’ is not a problem in and of itself, this era proving just as interesting for Elton as any other, it’s just that the form has been done and done and done.  

Again, we return to Bohemian Rhapsody. It’s no surprise that Rocketman suffers many of the same pitfalls with Fletcher in charge here; the Director having been credited as same on the Queen biopic.

Rocketman fares better for not trying to cram the entirety of Elton’s life into two hours, yet still attempts to cover everything from it’s chosen era and there simply isn’t enough time from a narrative standpoint. The film does however manage to fit in Elton winning over a cynical record producer with a fresh style, flashing sign-heavy montages hurling us forward years in time, informative text on Elton’s achievements immediately prior to those credits rolling (interposed with the performers’ real life counterparts just to show us how well they’ve done) and, as if this wasn’t enough, the whole narrative is framed by Elton relaying his story via flashback to the dozen odd others in rehab.

Not forgetting to namecheck everyone from The Beatles to Neil Young, with a recording session thrown in with Kiki Dee for good measure as we’ve ticked off almost everyone else already, the reference to Leon Russell given ‘The Union’ is somewhat more digestible. Hitting just about every biopic cliché, though never so wincingly nor often as the treatment proffered Freddie Mercury, speaking from experience this is not a film you’d want to watch within years of catching Walk Hard.  

Elton fans, casual and most dedicated, will relish repeat watches pure and simple. If you’re not into the music, unfortunately there isn’t much in the retelling to recommend it.

Rocketman is in cinemas from May 30

[astoundingbeyondbelief]

Fifty years ago, Japan’s Kaiju Boom was at its peak, with Ultraman and Ultraseven on TV and films from four of the country’s five major studios in the theaters: Toho’s Son of Godzilla and King Kong Escapes, Daiei’s Gamera vs. Gyaos, Nikkatsu’s Gappa, and Shochiku’s The X from Outer Space. Wouldn’t you know it, in 2017 there were five kaiju movies and two Ultraman shows too, as the transnational Kaiju Boom rolled on with no end in sight. Let’s take a look back at all that transpired.

1) Kong is King

If cinematic universes are the future, then the world’s greatest kaiju are lucky to have Legendary Pictures in charge of theirs. Jordan Vogt-Roberts’ Kong: Skull Island, the second entry in the MonsterVerse started by Godzilla in 2014, hit theaters during a busy March to rave reviews and respectable box office. Packed with monsters, helicopters, talented actors, and 70′s hits, it kept the action contained on the giant ape’s home; a restrained blockbuster by today’s standards. If the film’s post-credit scene ate up the conversational oxygen a bit too much, well, that’s the price you pay for teasing Godzilla, Rodan, Ghidorah, and Mothra in one scene.

But that wasn’t all for the Eighth Wonder of the World this year. BOOM! Studios’ Kong of Skull Island comic concluded with its twelfth issues. It was succeeded by a one-shot, Kong: Gods of Skull Island, and a strangely apt Planet of the Apes crossover, still being published. Legendary got in on the act too with Skull Island: Birth of Kong, a prequel/sequel to the film.

I have proposed a moratorium on Kong titles with “Skull Island” in them. Unfortunately, this confusing trend is set to continue, with Jonathan Penner and Stacy Title currently writing a King Kong Skull Island TV show for MarVista Entertainment and IM Global Television.

2) Godzilla is King of the Whole Stinking World, What Now

Another year, another new Godzilla movie. It’s been a while since we could say that, hasn’t it? Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters, the first in an animated trilogy by Kobun Shizuno and Hiroyuki Seshita, was released in Japanese theaters this November. A worldwide Netflix release will follow on January 17th. The next two are coming this year, presumably so Toho can atone for not releasing one in 2015. Godzilla: The City Mechanized for the Final Battle (or however it’s ultimately translated), due in May, will feature the return of Mechagodzilla.

Shin Godzilla, meanwhile, made kaiju history earlier in the year, becoming the first film in the genre to win Picture of the Year at the Japan Academy Awards. (It also netted prizes in six other categories.) On the American side of things, Legendary finally started filming Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), and Godzilla vs. Kong (2020) found a director in Adam Wingard.

On the home video front, Shin Godzilla hit DVD and Blu-ray around the world, and Criterion picked up the rights to almost every film in the Showa series, plus Rodan and The War of the Gargantuas. Physical releases have yet to be announced -- they’re currently streaming on Filmstruck -- but seem inevitable.

3) Sturm Organs, Chaiyo Vanquished, and the Phantom Channel

I could have made this post the 2017 Ultraman Year in Review without changing the format of the photoset one bit, although the tone would have been a shade more bitter.

Ultraman Geed, starring the son of arch-villain Belial, ran for 25 episodes. Ultraman Zero and his mild-mannered salaryman host Leito ended up stealing the show. (It also gave us the phrase “Sturm organs,” which I never want to read again.) Cruchyroll, as is tradition now, announced it was simulcasting Geed about eight seconds before the first episode aired.

Ultraman Orb: The Origin Saga, the prequel to last year’s series, concluded on Amazon Prime Video in Japan. A promised English release never worked out, although the fansubbers picked up the slack.

Ultraman Orb the Movie arrived in Japanese theaters on March 10. It wasn’t very good, but Ultraseven made a hell of an entrance.

Keeping the Orb train rolling, the 24-minute Ultra Orb Fight aired over the course of eight episodes of Ultraman Zero: The Chronicle, another one of Tsuburaya‘s compilation shows. 

Ultraman X the Movie and Ultraman Ginga S the Movie played in a handful of American theaters, with English dubbing from William Winkler Productions. Winkler also dubbed the three Zero movies this year; no word on when they’ll be released, nor what happened to the physical/digital releases of the X and Ginga S movies.

Tsuburaya Productions uploaded scores of Ultra Fight episodes to its YouTube channel. Unfortunately, no subtitles were provided; the show’s narration was significantly more intensive than Redman screaming attack names.

Toku, a ludicrously obscure on-demand channel, picked up the rights to a ton of Ultra shows, most of them without official releases in the U.S. -- Leo, 80, The Ultraman, Neos, Nexus, an English dub of Max, Ultraseven X, both seasons of Mega Monster Battle, and Neo Ultra Q. No one has recorded any of them. The channel is affiliated with Amazon Prime, but only 80 (free on Crunchyroll) and Neos (already fansubbed) are available through it. go90 also has Neos and Ultraseven X (also already fansubbed).

In November, Tsuburaya finally regained the international distribution rights to the first six Ultra Series from UM Corporation, setting the stage for more abrupt Crunchyroll additions in 2018 and beyond. Before the ruling came down, UM licensed Ultraman to a Chinese company, BlueArc Culture Communications, for three years. Dragon Force: So Long, Ultraman was released in Chinese theaters in October. I thought this ruling would make it rather difficult to see, but, uh, it’s on YouTube already.

The Ultraman manga by Eiichi Shimizu and Tomohiro Shimoguchi reached Volume 11 in Japan, with a 3DCG film adaptation by Production I.G and Sola Digital Arts due in 2019.

4) She is Colossal

Director Nacho Vigalondo and Voltage Pictures survived a Toho lawsuit to bring us a bizarre tale of alcoholics in an upstate New York town who have the ability to summon and control giant beings in Seoul under very specific circumstances. Kaiju are often metaphors for issues that are accordingly massive in scope, like nuclear warfare or environmental devastation. Here they embody more personal problems -- not a totally novel concept, but one handled with far more depth than, say, Ultraman 80. The movie was a thud at the box office (the producers apparently ordered an upgrade to the VFX after rave festival reviews), but will hopefully find a second life on Hulu.

5) What Do You Find Between a Dragon’s Teeth?

Based on a 2014 short, The Dragon Dentist is an anime film (well, a two-part TV special that’s 90 minutes long) in which dragons and humans have reached an unusual agreement: the humans clean the dragons’ teeth, and the dragon rain down destruction on their enemies. If that sounds strange, well, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. Unless Planet of the Monsters pulls off a miracle, it has my vote for best kaiju movie of 2017. Section23 released it on Blu-ray in October with an English dub included.

6) A Jaeger is You Times a Thousand

Pacific Rim Uprising, the sequel that refused to die, is mere months from release, and its trailer made a big splash at New York Comic Con this year. Mysteries abound about the plot, but we have details on an art book, prequel novel, prequel comic, novelization, and plenty of toys. (Still waiting on that tabletop RPG and the return of the Create-a-Jaeger site.)

7) Reddo Continuation, and Other Printed Works

IDW may be finished with Godzilla, but Matt Frank is far from finished with kaiju comics. He sold The Last Hope, his Heisei Gamera prequel doujinshi, at G-Fest this year, and announced in October that he would be writing and drawing a comic about Redman, the murderous Seventies “hero” of recent YouTube fame. Phase 6, the same company reprinting Godzilla: Rulers of Earth in Japan, is the publisher. Other kaiju comics this year: Season 3 of Xander Cannon’s always-excellent Kaijumax (which I need to finish reading), Greg Pak’s Mech Cadet Yu (which I need to start), and Marvel’s crossover event/miniseries Monsters Unleashed (which I am too intimidated to start).

And in the realm of prose: Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski published their long-anticipated Ishiro Honda biography, providing a comprehensive look at the legendary kaiju director’s life and career. Raffael Coronelli threw his hat into the authors’ ring with Daikaiju Yuki and Y2K: Yuki Conquers the World, post-apocalyptic epics about the Pantheon Colossi and the human heroes who join with them to protect the world.

Oh, and some guy named Michael Callari announced he was writing a book on the Gamera series.

8) Every Monster Has a Country

The movie-mockers of Mystery Science Theater 3000 have been linked with giant monsters since the beginning, and this year’s Netflix revival saw them taking on two more: Reptilicus and Yongary, Monster from the Deep. The former led off the season, and the novelty of a monster from Denmark led to one of the show’s greatest songs.

9) In Memoriam

As I wrote in August, “Monsters, of course, live forever. The people who bring them to life are never so lucky.” 2017 saw the passing of four giants of the kaiju genre:

Haruo Nakajima (b. 1929) -- Suit actor and fight choreographer for Godzilla and countless other Toho/Tsuburaya monsters from 1954 to 1972.

Yoshimitsu Banno (b. 1931) -- Director and co-writer of the Godzilla vs. Hedorah, assistant director and co-writer of Prophecies of Nostradamus, executive producer of Godzilla (2014).

Yoshio Tsuchiya (b. 1927) -- Eccentric actor with a long tokusatsu filmography, including the titular role in The Human Vapor, the Xian Leader in Invasion of Astro-Monster, and Shindo in Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah.

Chikara Hashimoto (b. 1933) -- Suit actor for Daimajin in Daiei’s trilogy and Daimon in Yokai Monsters: Spook Warfare.

[littlemisssquiggles]

RWBY Musings #23: How Squiggles Thinks Volume 5 will end.

..Or rather how I would like for it to end. With the Volume 5 finale in just 2 days and the excitement for it building by the hour, I wanted to make this brief post sharing my thoughts on not what I’d like to see from the finale but also how I think it should end. I’ll start with the endings first before moving into stuff I’d love to see in last episode.

The way how I see it, RWBY Volume 5 can end either one of two ways for me:

The Happy Go-Lucky, Sunshine and Rainbows Ending

The Battle For Haven is won in favour of the heroes. Triumph is theirs! The villains are all captured (with the exception of perhaps Hazel, Emerald and Mercury who managed to escape) and taken to prison where they’d be held accountable for their crimes, possibly putting an end to Adam and the White Fang for good (or at least put them in the Void of Obscurity until their evilness is needed again in a later season)

The Relic of Knowledge is acquired safely. Our heroes survive and the volume ends with everyone making plans to head towards their next designated kingdom but not before a brief period of celebration first.

I can see the team returning to Vale next, to reclaim Beacon Academy and secure the Relic of Choice. Or if the CRWBY writers’ game plan is to save returning to Beacon as the final battleground when RWBY is nearing its series finale (or at least the end of the ‘Salem Arc’ in case RWBY is planned to go on even after Salem is supposedly defeated), then I guess the next best place to go is probably the Deserts of Vacuo to meet the Headmaster of Shade Academy to secure the Relic of Destruction and meet the next seasonal Maiden: the Summer Maiden (granted that she is in Vacuo).

And I’m excited for the gang to go to Vacuo since it would finally mean some well-deserved development for Sun Wukong since it is his home turf if I recall. It’d be nice to have a season where Sun can take centre stage despite being a supporting character for the past five seasons.

I know most fans are waiting for the team to head to Atlas but...so far the Maidens have been going more or less in order of the seasons. We had Fall first, then Spring. So naturally, shouldn’t Summer come next with Winter following after?

Then again, when I checked the RWBY Wikipedia page, I noticed they have Winter listed before Summer since the Winter Maiden is connected to the Relic of Creation which consecutively comes before the Relic of Destruction which is tied to the Summer Maiden. So...I’m guessing if the story is going in order of the Relics rather than the Maidens themselves, then the next destination for the story to go to would be Atlas and Signal Academy for V6.

It’d be remarkable to see just how everyone makes it into Atlas considering that Ironwood locked it off. Not to mention that returning to Atlas would spark another character arc for Weiss or at least bring some closure to her side of the story moving forward since it would mean reuniting with her strained family again. Maybe this time we can actually meet her mother.

Then there’s also the irony of Weiss escaping Atlas to go to Haven only to go right back to Atlas in the end. But, at least this time it would be of her own will rather than being held hostage by her own father.

As much as I would love for the gang to head to Vacuo (so that best monkey boy Sun can get some development for once), I’ll admit that I’d be excited for them to go to Atlas too.

Focusing a season on Atlas would mean giving us fans more opportunities to explore more of the kingdom and its inner citadels. The thing that disappointed me about the Mistral arc is that we never got to actually walk about the city and see it through the characters’ eyes. The most we got were 2D still images of the kingdom in the first episode and Qrow walking around part of it in Chapter 6 when he was gathering his huntsman team. But beyond that, that was all folks! I hope things are different in Atlas. For me, I imagined Atlas with its technologically advanced culture and rich elites would be like the Capitol from the Hunger Games series. It just gave me that kind of vibe y’know what I mean.  

Even Jacques Schnee can be almost interpreted as a RWBY version of Hunger Games’ President Snow (minus the homicidal tendencies and proficiency to both physically and emotionally torture and scar those he sees as a threat, all with a smile on his face). 

 They’re both moronic tyrants in their respective shows, but I digress. 

Going to Atlas would also mean reuniting with fan favourite characters from Weiss’ arc from Volume 4 like Klein, Whitley (yes, believe it or not, I actually would like to learn more about Whitley and understand why he’s the way he is) and even Henry Marigold. 

That’s right, you heard me correctly. I think Mr. Pretty Boi is gonna make a comeback. It’ll be even funnier if he ends up being the one to assist Weiss and everyone when Ironwood in his paranoia, refuses to permit them into Atlas or something like that. 

You don’t just give a character a full name in RWBY without them making a return to the show unless it’s the special case where said character got unexpectedly killed off of screen. Like poor Fennix Altair. I’m still salty about how he just dies at the start of V5 though the show never actually takes the time to confirm this. Then to make it worse, Weiss straight up forgets about him once she’s taken prisoner by the Branwen Tribe.

Doesn’t even ask if he made it out alive after meeting the bandits and Vernal for the first time. Seriously CRWBY writers! Weiss didn’t just arrive in Mistral on her own so where’s that continuity? I understand that he was more or less an expendable character for Volume 5 but jeez, why even bother to give him a name if he was going to be killed off. Heck they didn’t even confirm his death.

It was just left up for assumption and the debate is still out on whether he’s actually dead or stuck in the forests of Mistral somewhere or maybe he was taken in by the Mistral Police who made sure he was hospitalized for his plane crash injuries. That could be it but I guess we’ll never know that for sure, will we?

Not to mention, an Atlas arc would mean meeting Penny’s creator-father. It could even mean Ruby reuniting with Penny or...at least another version of her. What did happen to Penny’s robotic remains after the Fall of Beacon?

Surely they were returned to Penny’s creator-father who should be able to make Penny a new body and revive her personality based on Penny’s memory unit since she was a robot---a human super computer and computers have memory especially backup memory. Penny Pollendina could be brought back for V6!

I can also see Penny’s creator sharing a connection to Dr. Arthur Watts. Like maybe they used to work together in the past. Didn’t Raven say he was originally from Atlas when they met this season so we can all assume that Watts is going to be the primary antagonist from Team WTCH (along with probably Tyrian too) if the gang head to his old home turf.

Not to mention...that being in Atlas...meeting a man who makes robot humanoids could also give our farm child Oscar (who recently got a taste of Ozpin forcibly taking control of him and might not be too happy about that) the crazy idea of...maybe trying to transfer Ozpin’s aura from his body into another artificial one.

After all, I’m sure the machine that Ozpin planned on using to transfer Amber’s soul and Maiden power in Pyrhha’s body must’ve been Atlesian in origin.

But I’m getting ahead of myself here and theorizing too much on this.

So like I said, the good ending is everything is all good for everyone or mostly good.

And before the departure is made for their next adventure, let everyone return back to Menagerie to celebrate their victory over Haven as well as get some well needed downtime.

Because let’s be fair, given all that’s happened between Volumes 3 to 5 and seeing that Menagerie, though mostly Faunus territory is technically a lovely tropical island paradise, don’t you think the gang could use a little vacation before beginning their next big adventure.

Not saying that they should make next season about the whole gang in Menagerie but it would be nice if Volume 5 concludes with a big celebration in Menagerie (with evil looming on the horizon naturally) and then begins Volume 6 with a little beach downtime in Menagerie where everyone catches up. 

We can get some nice one on one character interactions and conversations including a proper Team RWBY reunion, maybe some tension and slight resolution between Blake and Yang granted we don’t get it in the V5 finale which I doubt.

All this before Ozpin-Oscar pulls them in to discuss moving onto the next location towards the next Relic and Maiden.

The Not So Good But Still Such a Nice Twist That It’s Good Kinda Ending

Everything is the same as the good ending. The Battle of Haven is a victory but at a price.

Ruby and Oscar both become prisoners of Salem and though they manage to escape their hijackers’ grasps, that doesn’t change the fact that they’re not quite in Remnant anymore as they find themselves face to face with the Grimm within the walls of a mysterious dark world.

This then sets the stage for our two young simple souls having their own adventure next season as they make the perilous trek across the dark world of Salem’s Domain together; surviving only on their skills and each other with Ozpin as their spirit guide.

The series had hinted more than once between volumes 4 and 5 about BOTH Ruby and Oscar being captured for Salem. In Volume 4, Tyrian was sent to Mistral to kidnap Ruby for Salem and this volume, Lionheart straight up proclaimed abducting Oscar to take to Salem.

Fans are saying either or but I’m mostly gunning that they both get taken prisoner and have to depend mostly on each other to escape and stay alive. 

I don’t just strongly desire this kind of story arc for the obvious amount of RoseGarden bonding moments it will bring but mostly due to my curiosity about learning more about Salem, hers and Ozpin’s relationship and history together as well as the World Salem resides in as I believe it used to be Ozpin’s home too before the Wicked Witch took over with her monstrous Grimm pets. I voiced most of my reasons for wanting a story arc like this in this ♦ musing right here.

I’m still gunning for this kind of arc but even if we don’t get it for Volume 6, I still do hope we get an arc like this eventually, perhaps after a period of Ruby and Oscar becoming better acquainted to each other and having a decent comradry. Because not only will it be great for Ruby and Oscar’s character growth but, I honestly believe an arc like this is coming.

They wouldn’t hint at Ruby and Oscar being taken to Salem if it wasn’t gonna come to fruition at some point in the story. So when it does, I hope that it’s an actual arc that takes place over the span of either a whole season or at least half of it and not be some short subplot in a season that winds up being irrelevant. That’d be lame in my opinion.

Now that I’ve covered how I thing V5 would end, let’s get into the next segment.

Things I Want To See In The Finale:

No Reconciliation for Bumblebee this Season: Let Yang remain uncomfortable to talk to Blake and part of Season 6 is the two working through their tension and issues with each other; among other things like Yang’s true feelings toward Blake. It’d be interesting if Illia is the character to mostly help Yang through this because at some point, she was the same as her (not to mention that, like Sun, Illia is going to be an affirmed member of the hero party, I hope). 

If they make Bumblebee suddenly hug and be all buddy bud at the end of V5, it’d be a total cop out in my opinion. They made such a big deal about Yang’s anger towards Blake this season (which they didn’t have to since Blake’s reasons for running way were justifiable in my opinion). To tell the truth, I never quite understood Yang’s reckoning behind her blatant anger towards Blake.

Even when she said that she’s angry that Blake left because it reminded her of her mother leaving, while I gave it a pass, I still never bought that excuse in the sense that I don’t think that’s the only reason. It can’t be if that’s what you’re trying to sell me. If her leaving was the main issue then why wasn’t Yang pissed at Weiss or Ruby.

Blake wasn’t the only one that left Yang behind when she could’ve used the help getting through her depression over the loss of her arm and her PTSD. While Weiss’ motive for departure was mostly due to her father, Ruby left Yang of her own accord. So how is it that Yang can easily forgive Ruby for leaving but not Blake? And don’t even use the pretext that she’s her beloved little sister.

Ruby left Yang too and so did Weiss (technically). Her entire team left her behind, albeit for different logical reasons, so why is Blake the only one being thrown under the bus.

Personally I’m not that big on the Bumblebee ship. Don’t get me wrong, I do think it’s a lovely pairing with lots of potential for canonicity however I’m more of a Black Sun kind of fangirl which falls in the same category. But despite being a Black Sun shipper, even I can notice that there is definitely more to Yang’s anger at Blake and I strongly believe it’s due to her apparent feelings for her; whether she acknowledges it or not. This isn’t about friendship with a friend leaving a friend. This is about love with someone dealing with the sting of watching their love interest leave them behind. I have a better time believing that Yang is mostly upset with Blake’s departure because the girl she was secretly in love with abandoned her just like her mother did over the excuse of ‘Blake is just a friend and she left me’.

All of Yang’s friends left her, not just Blake, and she forgave them easily! That being said, I’m hoping the Bumblebee dispute is savoured to be resolved next season because it deserves its own focus.

Save it for next season where it can be allowed more time to simmer and then be resolved properly at the perfect moment as opposed to during a big battle where emotions are already high. For what it’s worth, I figure that the season 5 finale will leave Yang and Blake’s relationship still on the edge.

While most of Yang’s displeasure probably died down during her talk with Weiss during Chapter 7, I don’t believe it’s enough to just make Yang straight up forget her anger and forgive Blake.

I don’t even want them to hug it out. Is it weird that I want Blake to reach out to Yang as an attempt to make peace but Yang refuses it, not out of the disappointment she felt before but more so of her not entirely being over what Blake did and her not ready to deal with it yet.

So she just ends up walking past Blake, not even bothering to make eye contact with her again, while Ruby and Weiss stay by Blake’s side overlooking the tension between them in worried silence.

So even though the team is reunited, things aren’t the same as before and...probably may never be again; at least till next volume.

Oscar’s semblance: I’ve already talked; practically preached about how much I want the finale to reveal or at least give us a taste of Oscar’s semblance. Still itching for that to happen along with it being a mind-based semblance. I really hope Oscar’s semblance is clairvoyance—the kind that can connect him to someone’s mind so that he can read their thoughts, access their memories as well as project his own thoughts and memories inclusive of the ones belonging to Ozpin onto others if ever necessary.

Could even have an extension where it can allow Oscar to communicate with and even control less intelligent creatures like...animals or even the creatures of Grimm perhaps (like imagine our precious farm boy unexpectedly pulling a S2 Eren Jaeger and controlling the Grimm with his mind). Okay that one’s a crack theory tossed out for funzies but really gunning for Oscar having mind powers.

Oz-cane true form reveal: I’ve preached about this too. If we don’t get a teaser of Oscar’s semblance this season then we gotta get an Oz-cane trick. Seriously, they hinted at this in an earlier chapter of V5 so...it’s gotta be coming for the finale. C’mon Oz-cane secret time scythe/sickle mode!

RoseGarden Trigger for Oscar Defeating Hazel: We know that Ozpin’s control over Oscar’s body is temporary and once it wears off, not only will this leave Oscar probably weak and extremely fatigued but also puts him in the line of fire for Hazel to attack unexpectedly.

If Oscar is down and Hazel attacks then I can see Ruby jumping in at the last minute to take the hit for Oscar. We all saw how ‘aggressive’ Oscar became after finding Ruby unconscious.

Maybe seeing her hurt especially by Hazel trying to protect him is enough to trigger his semblance awakening. I’m still standing by my hunch that Oscar using his semblance for the first time could be what finally puts a stop to Hazel’s rampage. Since Hazel’s semblance makes him immune to physical pain then brute force is not going to be enough to stop him. So, maybe the power of the mind can quell the beast from within. I’m hoping that an Oz-cane trick can lead into this so that we can get both Ozpin unleashing the true power of his weapon finally as well as Oscar revealing his own hidden power. 

It’s the finale so why not go out on a bang and give us both of these things one after the other.

Yang and Raven talking; not fighting, in the Vault of the Spring Maiden: That way we can finally get some answers about Raven with maybe a flashback.

Fallen Maiden Cinder: I already talked about Cinder possibly coming back as some kind of corrupted half Grimm, half Maiden monstrosity possessed completely by her Geist Grimm arm but with her Fall Maiden powers still in her arsenal in ♦ this musing. While I’m not sure how this will fit into the finale episode with all that is going on already.

However we know Cinder is coming back. We know she’s probably going to get the jump on Raven and Yang.

 So maybe she is going to come back as a monster that Yang and Raven will have to fight together (mother-daughter tag team battle anyone?)

Maybe it’ll conclude with Raven using all that she has to restrain Cinder while Yang escapes (possibly with the Relic of Knowledge in hand) as the Maiden Vault crumbles around them.

Even if the Vault falls, I don’t think Raven will die or even trapped inside cause she has her sweet teleportation powers and her connection to Yang to portal her to her at any time.

 They can even tease Raven still being alive by having Yang spot a familiar raven outside as always. We can even get one last mother-daughter conversation before Raven departs and falls into obscurity until her character is needed again for whatever reason (like helping Yang or cause further distrust in Ozpin) for another season.

New Threads for Oscar: If he doesn’t get napped by the V5 finale’s end then give the precious farm boy some new clothes that fit his new huntsman title and role. In the event that the CRWBY decide to save Oscar’s new look til V6 (buying them enough time to pay @xen-vita for her amazing design for him), then at least give him a cool new character theme.

Seriously, if we don’t get a new character theme for Ozpin-Oscar during his showdown with Hazel and the reveal of his Oz-cane trick then at least let the end credit song for Volume 5 be about Oscar; addressing his growth following the events of last volume and highlighting how much further his character development is going to progress; even subtly foreshadowing his inevitable conflict with Ozpin over who’s in control. Can we at least get that please?!  

Would love a duet between Jeff Williams and Vic Mignogna cause as most of us in the anime community know, Vic has a lovely singing voice (see Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, One Piece and D.N.Angel).

I know Vic is Qrow’s VA but...admittedly when I first heard Oscar speak back in Volume 4, I actually thought it was Vic doing a double role and using his ole Edward Elric voice to voice him, not knowing it was actually Aaron (a.k.a Alphonse Elric) (due to the uncanny similarity in their voices at times).

I’m just saying it would be cool for RT to utilize Vic’s amazing singing vocals and have him sing for a character in RWBY even if that character isn’t the one he plays in the show.

Like imagine how awesome it would be for Jeff and Vic to sing a new song together that is supposed to represent Oscar and Ozpin singing to each other about their bond; again foreshadowing many things to come for their side of the story.

Eyy? Hey CRWBY, c’mon! Hire me for my ingenious ideas RoosterTeeth!

Last RoseGarden Moment or Moments out of Volume 5: Something for us shippers to savour til next volume (or at least till RWBY Chibi Volume 3 arrived next weekend because they gotta be getting an Oscar for the third season, right?)

It doesn’t matter if they fight side by side together, protect each other, save each other, hug, kiss each other on the cheek (mostly Ruby to Oscar cause I want her to lay a big one on them flushed, cute, freckly cheeks of his), hold hands or even check up on each other in recovery. I’ll even accept them blushing at each other for whatever reason. Don’t matter. I’ll take it still. I’ll take it ALL!

I want a real nice tender RoseGarden moment or moments (more than one will not be refused) for the V5 finale for me to enjoy, pterodactyl screech over, die of feels over, resurrect myself and come back to hype up, over-analyze and over-emphasize and of course, download and watch multiple times till Volume 6 or again, at least till RWBY Chibi Season 3. They gotta be getting Oscar for S3. His adorable freckly chibi presence needs to be added to the chibi pot too.

So to finish...

I think that’s it for what I want mostly from the finale. I’ve made my list, checked it thrice and now all that’s left is to jubilantly look forward to possibly checking off all; if not most of the stuff on this list.

What about you fellow RWBY fans? What are you looking forward to seeing in the finale on Saturday?

On that final note, I’ll see ya’ll for the epic RWBY Volume 5: Chapter 14!

~LittleMissSquiggles (2018)

[jokikudistrict]

Enter MACBETH | Hideo + Yata | Chapter 3 | Talent Tour

The most expected thing would likely be for Hideo to perform a scene from one of his films. But though he’d considered it, ultimately it hadn’t seemed like the best idea. For one thing, most of the movies he’s been in hadn’t really had the kind of scenes that could be played out in short by one or two people. A lot of horror lost its true impact outside its proper context, without the necessary build-up and atmosphere.

Aside from that, though, he’d also felt that most of the usable options weren’t appropriate for the setting. It didn’t seem right to stage a scene featuring torture or murder or monologues about being trapped considering the circumstances they were all in. Fortunately, Yata had helped him figure out a good alternative, and so…

Hideo waits with them behind the fountain in the park, just out of sight as the audience arrives, fidgeting anxiously with his prop weapon. And once it seems like everyone who’s coming is gathered, he takes a deep breath and steps out.

Or rather, a tall man wearing armor (well, costume armor, but the way he wears it carries the illusion) strides into view, sword drawn and at the ready, a wide, wild smile on his face, the confidence of an animal that finds itself cornered by what it thinks are lesser predators.

“Why should I play the Roman fool, and die on mine own sword?” Amused incredulity saturates the lines, and yet there’s something, about the forcefulness of it, perhaps, or the tension in the way he holds his sword, that gives the impression of some level of desperation. “Whiles I see lives, the gashes do better upon them!” Hideo’s English is impeccable, and his voice is strong, projecting wonderfully, not sounding like his own at all.

Yatagarasu strides in immediately after. Today they would be a God of Theatre as well. They too were dressed in the proper regalia, and looked rather convincing… despite the big happy mask still obscuring their features. (How else would they know it was them aiding the Horror Star?) This had been quite exciting. Acting was far more strenuous than their talent, in a physical sense. Luckily, their enthusiasm for the task substituted their lack of experience. 

“Turn, hellhound, turn!” they barked. Their English wasn’t as polished as their scene partner’s, their accent exceptionally heavy, but their volume nearly matched, making for a somewhat convincing portrayal.

Hideo does not break character, and it is Macbeth who goes still at the command, at the voice of his much feared former friend.

“Of all men else I have avoided thee,” He says before he turns, the bravado of a moment ago dulled, frustrated. When he does turn it’s sudden and violent, expression a cold warning, “But get thee back. My soul is too much charged with blood of thine already.” The threat is obvious, but so is the regret, the sorrowful almost-plea. They were not always enemies. This Macbeth will not lay down and die, but nor is he eager to carry more guilt than he already does.

Yata, no, Macduff regarded their enemy with a slow tilt of their head. “I have no words.” the infliction was just as frigid, tone sharp as their blade. (Speaking of, it was time to raise it!) They pointed the prop in Hideo’s direction, stepping closer. “My voice is in my sword!”

A easy, loose languidness came with their continuing approach. Every inch of their act had been choreographed to a tee which no doubt explained their confidence and lack of a cane. However, judging by their movement, a cool saunter, Yata seemed more prepared to dance than spar. This wasn’t a burdened man out to avenge his family and countrymen from a delusioned megalomaniac. It was more of a... friend(?) reciting lines and having too fun while doing it. They were called plays for a reason, right?

“Thou bloodier villain than terms can give thee out!”

Their fake swords clash, Hideo swinging his with an air of violent resignation so convincing that it’s almost a shock the sound of metal on metal doesn’t ring out into the air. Of course these aren’t real blades, but the fight choreography, while simple and well rehearsed, is (perhaps surprisingly) quite engaging. Hideo clearly has experience with stage-fighting, enough that the battle between Macbeth and Macduff is tense and fierce to watch, though anyone with any real knowledge of swordplay would likely notice how perfectly timed and scripted each strike was, that the swords are intentionally aiming to hit each other rather than their wielders.

They fight, and as they do Macbeth seems to gain and lose confidence by turns, with every blow, every ‘near miss’, until he laughs, a high and bitter sound, stepping close to cross their blades and say in a strained taunting tone, “Thou losest labour! As easy mayst thou the intrenchant air with thy keen sword impress as make me bleed.” He pushes them back, a haughty, triumphant action that leaves him half-open for a moment, as if defying them to keep attacking. “Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests, I bear a charmed life, which must not yield to one of woman born.”

Oh boy, this was the really fun part. Yata remained in character despite their internal hindrance. Hideo or Macbeth or whatever was so intense! But, of course he was, being his talent and all. The AMSRtist relied on the soft pattern created by the faux weapons. The duo struck there, here, here, and there again, according to their ears. They managed to spit their next line with pure malice and mocking, “Despair thy charm, and let the angel whom thou still hast served tell thee Macduff was from his mother's womb untimely ripped!”

The words seem to have an immediate effect, Macbeth stepping back as if stunned, eyes wide and then, settling into a kind of betrayal. He raises his sword as if to strike- or to throw it down, though he does neither, tension in every line. “Accursed be that tongue that tells me so,” his voice quakes with what wants to be denial but is instead realization, painful and absolute defeat, his last line of defense stripped of the assurance he relied on. And it dips slightly, an indication that, were he not still projecting for the audience, he would be speaking more softly, a shamed admittance. “For it hath cow'd my better part of man. And be these juggling fiends no more believed, that palter with us in a double sense, that keep the word of promise to our ear, and break it to our hope.” He lowers his sword, angry, but not with Macduff, but rather with the ones who fed him the false prophecy, the twisted words that, in his belief of them, led to all of this. “I'll not fight with thee.”

His quarrel is not with Macduff, not anymore. For this moment, at least, Macbeth has regained a shred of his humanity, seen the full scope of his wickedness in his failure, a failure that was always his true destiny.

Wait. No. They lied. THIS was the fun part! Yatagarasu chest swelled with pride. They crept forward, blade pointed upward until it rested under Macbeth’s chin. “Then yield thee, coward”, Yata crooned back, more teasing than intimidating,“and live to be the show and gaze o' the time! We'll have thee, as our rarer monsters are, painted on a pole, and underwrit, 'Here may you see the tyrant~’”

Despite the… liberties, Yatagarasu takes with the lines, Hideo doesn’t break character, and it’s still Macbeth who answers, angrily smacking the blade pointed at him aside with his own and hissing through clenched teeth, “I will not yield to kiss the ground before young Malcolm's feet, and to be baited with the rabble's curse!” In an instant the tyrant is back, the man with so much blood on his hands, the man who sought to be a king. He knows now that he is doomed, but seeing no way out but through he rallies for his last stand. “Though Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane, and thou opposed, being of no woman born, yet I will try the last. Before my body I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff! And cursed be him that first cries, 'Hold, enough!'”

He throws himself into the duel, a man who has nothing left to lose but pride, and nothing to gain but death by sword. Still he is fierce, in his final moments, this last defeat, as the fight carries them back to the fountain, off the ‘stage’ as it were, and the end of the scene.

And only then does Hideo finally relax, sliding out of the character with a sheepish smile and a quick, anxious bow, “Um, okay that’s it! Sorry if it was… too long or… or too short… or anything…” He reaches up to brush a bit of sweat off his forehead, eager to get out of the fake breastplate and into cooler clothes again, though he turns to murmur something to Yata before they can depart with the crowd.

[sending-the-message]

Atonement for Water by survivalprocedure

They say great minds think alike. It’s an anecdotal cliche spouted by two people who are about to say or do something similar. It’s an empty expression, though. Because great minds do not think alike. Not at all. That’s not what makes them so great or unique. Great minds will see the paths others failed to consider. Only ordinary minds think alike.

Great minds work differently. And I’m left wondering whether the mind of Thomas Jenkins was a great one or a heinous one. His mind was not like yours or mine.

My first encounter with Mr. Jenkins was not what you would call “favorable”. He sat in his hospital bed with a blank stare of anguish directed at me. If I had met him on the street I’d assume he was a lost man with a few loose screws in his head and try to maintain a safe distance.

“Cut if off.” It was one of the first things he said to me. His voice shook with reluctance, yet there was still a hint of conviction behind his tone. “It’s the only way she’ll love me again...the only way I can atone. I’ll do it myself if you won’t.”

The bizarre request upset my foundations of reason. It isn’t uncommon for hospital personnel to witness some rather outlandish cases of medical marvel. A rare disease; survivors of horrific injuries; even the humorous cases where obscure items became lodged where the sun doesn’t shine. Just yesterday a patient was admitted after her husband insisted on having intercourse through her stoma. Day in and day, nurses and doctors see it all.

But this...this I had not seen before. None of us had.

“E-excuse me? You want me to amputate your arm?” Using his right index finger, Mr. Jenkins drew an imaginary line across his left bicep. “Right here. See this line? That’s where the cut should be.”

Ordinarily a situation like this would lead to the conclusion of either a mentally imbalanced patient or a neurological disorder. I immediately thought of apotemnophilia as a potential explanation for the rash desire I observed in my patient. It wouldn’t be my first case handling the urge to cut off one’s own limbs. A young couple had previously came in after deciding to simultaneously bite off the first joint in the others’ pinky finger in a sexually motivated stunt.

Mr. Jenkins, however, did not exactly fit the bill. Most reverends wouldn’t. And it wasn’t just his request to be mutilated. Originally he had been brought to the hospital to have his stomach pumped after ingesting an entire bottle of painkillers. He was clinically dead for three minutes during the entire ordeal. Bringing him back was a challenge.

Actions such as these were not expected from a man of God.

I squinted back at him as he sat with that cold, cemented stare. “Is there something wrong with your arm? Are you in pain?” “No pain.” He shifted his head and stared longingly out the window as his eyes welled with tears. “‘...whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’" “Is that from the bible?” Jenkins nodded. “John 4:14.” He inhaled deeply through his nose; his snot-filled nostrils blocking the flow of air and erupting into a moist commotion that filled the room. “I’ll never get to drink that water if I have this arm.” “Would you...like to speak with someone?” “You mean a shrink?” “A psychiatrist, yes.” Jenkins’ face turned stern, his voice raising in volume. “I’m not crazy!”

The sudden outburst clouded my thoughts with uncertainty. How should I proceed with this? A man once filled with such enthusiasm for life was abruptly showing signs of mental deterioration. A man who aided many families in overcoming hardship was now viewed as the town villain. Beating your wife in her sleep will do that to you. It doesn’t matter how many people you’ve helped in life. One night can forever alter the perception society has on someone. The years Mr. Jenkins had helped others were now distant memories of a completely different person than the one who sat in the hospital bed today. He was no longer seen as kind and gentle. He was a wife-beater who had tried to kill himself, and now he was asking to be mutilated.

The number of times we help others in life becomes meaningless when we need help ourselves. And no one wanted to help Revered Jenkins. His value to the world was gone. The community tossed him aside like stale bread, feeding the languished remains to birds as they shoved their beaks into him and ripped him apart.

“I think it might be best for your mental health to speak with someone.” “I don’t need that! I need you to cut my arm off!” “I’m afraid I don’t visibly see any reason for amputation. You need mental care, not physical.” Jenkins slouched back into the bed, defeated, his voice calming. “I met him...in the afterlife...before you pumped my stomach...I met him. He whistled at me.” He stopped speaking and mimicked a whistling noise, first holding a high pitched tone for about two seconds before dropping the pitch an octave and holding for another two seconds.

Wwhhhhhhhiiiiiii wwhhhhhhhooooooo

“Just like that. I think he was trying to intimidate me.” “Who was this man?” “He calls himself Patrick.” “And who is Patrick?” Mr. Jenkins lightly tapped the right side of his head with his right index finger. “Right here. On this side of my brain. The right side is his. He’s the other man that lives inside of me. Inside my head. That’s who Patrick is.” I masked the internal feelings of pity with a coy smile at the reverend. “I see. Are you familiar with multiple personality disorder?” Jenkins furrowed his brow and spoke sharply, “It’s not multiple personality disorder.” “It would appear that way to me.”

The left arm draped over Jenkins’ lap twitched, jerking around as though he were trying to alleviate a numbness. It flopped like a fish out of water momentarily before promptly raising itself and casting the obscene gesture of a middle finger pointed directly at me.

The Revered immediately expressed regret for the action. “I-I’m sorry, doctor.” His hand lowered and draped itself over its owner's lap once again. “That was Patrick. Not me.” “It’s quite alright. I’ve had patients do far worse.” I buried my face in the patient chart and documented his actions. “We’re going to keep you overnight for observation. I’ll send someone to speak with you shortly so we could get a more precise diagnosis.” “You believe me, don’t you doc? You have to cut my arm off before Patrick emerges again!” “Don’t worry about Patrick, Mr. Jenkins. You’re in great care. Just let us do our job.”

I spun and ignored his cries as I walked out. After I closed the door to his room I could still hear his muffled cries from the hallway. “Patrick is real! Patrick is real!” he shouted over and over. The words faded as I walked away, heading straight for Dr. Quinn’s office, the hospital psychologist.

Later in the day, despite my attempts to shake Mr. Jenkins from my mind, his condition piqued my interest and remained in my thoughts for the remainder of my shift. What could possibly drive a normal, God-loving man to such extremes?

”It’s not your problem,” I’d tell myself. ”There’s nothing you can do for him.”

Perhaps it was my previous studies in neurology, or perhaps it was the slight scar I noticed under his hairline, but Thomas Jenkins found a cozy little spot to set up camp within me. Patrick was surely just a figment of his imagination. He wasn’t real. He couldn’t be. It was Mr. Jenkins’ mind that engaged the braquial plexus nerve and primary motor functions to give me that middle finger.

The image of that finger stuck with me even after I had left the facility and went home for the evening. Something just didn’t quite fit. Why had his left arm twitched the way it had before giving me that finger like it was struggling? Like it had a mind of its own?

Mr. Jenkins had tapped the ride side of his head with his right hand when he proclaimed that specific side as the area where Patrick resided. It was the left hand that had twitched and shot the middle finger at me. The right hemisphere of our brains control the left side of our bodies. Not many people were aware of that fact. Was it a pure coincidence that Mr. Jenkins tapped that side and then gave me the finger with his left hand, or had he done some sort of research beforehand? Could he really be that desperate to convince someone to amputate his arm to thoroughly study neuroscience?

I went to sleep that night still thinking of the reverend, promising myself to look more into his case the next day.

But when I arrived for my evening shift that day I was met with a rather grim situation. I remember first seeing the carpet in the lobby being completely stained with blood upon my entrance through the sliding glass doors.

The event was later played back to me on security camera footage. Mr. Jenkins had been discharged in the morning, went home for some time and came back to the hospital with an electric knife, the kind you would use to cut the turkey at Thanksgiving dinner. He walked into the lobby of the emergency room with his shirt off, pulled the knife from his pocket, plugged it into a nearby outlet, flicked the switch and immediately dug the blade into his left bicep, sawing away at his own flesh in front of horrified families all waiting to be seen

I was told his screams were so intense that his vocal cords went into paralysis. But it didn’t stop him from cutting away as much as possible before the saw began to struggle cutting through the bone. He twisted the blade around, desperately trying to completely sever the limb. When it became clear to him that the blade was not strong enough to finish the job he began cutting through tissue vertically down the length of his arm, ripping through the flesh from his bicep all the way to the tips of his fingers in jagged zig-zags.

Eventually a security guard was alerted and took action, tackling Mr. Jenkins to the floor to prevent further damage. But by then it was too late. There was simply no saving the mangled remains of his left arm. It had been turned into a useless lump of meat. He was rushed into the operating room where surgeons completed the amputation.

While the whole ordeal was odd and frightening to watch, what really caught my attention was Mr. Jenkins’ face and his actions moments before he was tackled. During the process his face was filled with agony, but at one point something changed. The agony washed away and it was replaced with a burning hatred. He stopped cutting his arm and glared at everyone in the room as though he were about to turn the knife on an innocent bystander.

But, he was taken down before anything else could happen. Ultimately, I suppose you could say Mr. Jenkins got his wish. His left arm was now gone.

“Why do you think he did this here?” Dr. Quinn asked me, her voice shaky with uncertainty as the two of us looked through a window into the room where Mr. Jenkins was sedated and resting peacefully while a nurse checked his vitals. “Why didn’t he do this at home?” “Probably knew he was going to need immediate medical attention,” I replied, keeping my eyes fixed on Mr. Jenkins. My focus landed on the subtle scar in his hairline once again. “Did he ever have brain surgery?” “I believe so. Had some sort of procedure done to treat epilepsy around ten years ago, if I recall.” My eyes narrowed, squinting at Mr. Jenkins. “So he’s a split-brain?” She shrugged. “I have no idea what that means, Kenny.” “A split-brain. You know...to treat epilepsy the corpus callosum is severed, leaving both the left and right hemispheres in the brain independent from each other.” “Oh, well, why does that matter? That doesn’t have anything to do with his mental state.” “Well, actually...it does. Sort of. Studies have shown that split-brain patients experience a second personality, so to speak. The right hemisphere controls the left side of the body and will act independently from the left hemisphere, which controls the right side of body. At times the two sides will disagree with each other. There were cases where the left hand would swat away food it apparently did not want to eat. In one case doctors had trained the right hemisphere to answer questions by pointing at words laid out on a piece of paper. The left hemisphere, our conscious, vocal selves, answered on a different piece of paper with the right arm. The man was asked simple questions and provided mostly the same answers with each hand, until they asked whether the subject was male or female. The right hand pointed to male, while the left pointed to female.” Dr. Quinn shot me a menacing glare. “So you’re saying his procedure ten years ago birthed a whole new person?” I gave a frown. “I don’t really know. No one does for sure. There’s conflicting conclusions drawn from the experiments conducted on split-brain patients. Some say the idea is nonsense and that the two hemispheres are a collective, single person. Others tend to think that there’s always another person or soul or whatever you want to call it attached to the right hemisphere...that the mind houses two separate people at all times...and that the corpus callosotomy procedure somehow unleashes the right hemisphere as though it were a caged beast dwelling within our whole lives.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest. “You observed him yesterday. What do you think?”

I recalled the events from yesterday - the twitch in his left arm, the middle finger he gave me, the tap he placed on the right side of his head. The truth was hard to deny.

I finally took my eyes off Mr. Jenkins and turned to meet the gaze of Dr. Quinn. “Patrick is real,” I declared.

Our discussion was interrupted by a scream inside the room. Dr. Quinn and I quickly turned our attention inside to see the nurse bent over the bed at the waist. Mr. Jenkins had buried his head into her neck. The nurse struggled and screamed again, frantically flailing her arms around in a frenzied panic. In one swift jerk, Mr. Jenkins pulled his head away. Hanging from his mouth was a thin slab of skin that dangled in between his teeth. Its red texture glistened in the flourescent lighting above as he leaned over and spit the skin out, projecting it forward onto the floor beside the bed.

The nurse rolled over onto her back and instantly a stream of blood shot upwards as though it was propelled by a super soaker. Repeated surges of blood squirted into the air with each beat of her heart, quickly painting the blankets in bright red gore.

There was only one reason for blood to shoot like that. Mr. Jenkins had bit into the nurse’s carotid artery. If we didn’t immediately help her she would soon bleed out.

I rushed into the door, eager to aide my fellow medical co-worker. Her screams persisted as I reached her side, pressing my hand against her neck.

“I need to stop the bleeding…” I advised, hoping it would calm her and keep her from squirming like a worm cut in half. “Hold still...please...oh Jesus…”

Wwhhhhhhhiiiiiii wwhhhhhhhooooooo

Whistling. The second pitch an octave below the first. Just as Mr. Jenkins had described.

I looked up and found Mr. Jenkins standing over us on the opposite side of the bed in his hospital gown that was now drenched in blood. He looked down at us both with a raging fury in his eyes, making it abundantly clear he intended on causing further harm.

I quickly grabbed the nurse by her arm and began dragging her towards the door. We needed to get to safety, and I had no intention of leaving this poor nurse alone to be devoured. As I pulled the nurse away, I heard the whistling again.

Wwhhhhhhhiiiiiii wwhhhhhhhooooooo

The location of the noise had moved slightly. I looked up and saw Mr. Jenkins was walking towards us slowly, stepping with left foot first, then dragging a stiff right leg behind him. The remaining stump of his left arm raised itself as though he were reaching out to us. His right arm retaliated, balling its fingers into a fist and thrusting itself into Mr. Jenkins’ face. His breathing labored and he began taking short, quick gulps of air.

The right hemisphere of ours brain is not capable of controlling speech. Although a few hospital personnel would later argue that he whistled because of his vocal cord paralysis from earlier in the day, I knew the real reason. It was the only way the right hemisphere could communicate. Patrick was announcing himself to us.

Mr. Jenkins was clearly no longer in charge. The will of Patrick had somehow taken over. I was seeing an internal struggle where the right side of his brain overpowering his left. It was Patrick, frustrated by the removal of his arm that was now acting out. And all Mr. Jenkins could do to fight this monster was to keep his leg stiff and beat his own face in, hoping it would slow Patrick down.

Dr. Quinn rushed into the room with another doctor she had hailed down. Together the three of us pulled the nurse out and placed her on a gurney. I pulled the door shut behind as we exited and after watching the other doctor wheel the nurse away I looked back at the room and saw Patrick standing right up against the window looking back at me and Dr. Quinn. The anger that had shaped his face was now replaced with frustration. Without a working hand, there was no way for Patrick to turn the knob and exit the room.

“P-Patrick? Is that you?” I asked, hoping to confirm my suspicion.

He didn’t whistle this time. Instead he widened his eyes like a madman and curved the left side of his mouth into a small smile.

Maintaining the mad look on his face, he pulled his head backwards and then violently thrust it forwards into the window. The blow cast a spiderweb of jagged cracks in the window and sent the piercing sound of broken glass echoing through the hallway. He repeated the act again. And again. And again. Rapidly he bashed his own head against the window over and over, each blow spreading more cracks through the glass. Blood began to flow out of numerous laceration in his forehead, covering his entire face.

With one powerful blow the glass finally shattered. Patrick’s momentum sent him tumbling through the new opening and crashing against the tile floor. He lay there, unable to pick himself up with just one working leg. Instead he rolled onto his stomach and began pushing himself forward with his left leg, slowing inching his way towards me, breathing heavily with his mouth open wide, all too eager to sink his teeth into another person.

I stood frozen, unsure if I was believing what I was seeing until a hand grabbed my shirt and pulled me backwards.

“What’s happening to him?” Dr. Quinn urgently asked me.

A team of police officers rushed into the hallway from around the corner. They pulled their weapons and aimed them directly at Patrick, but before they could say or do anything Patrick abruptly stopped. His body went limp and his heavy breathing ceased. An uncomfortable silence took over the scene, all of us standing over the body in awe.

“Mr. Jenkins is gone,” I said, answering Dr. Quinn.

We have a long history of associating evil with left handed people. In biblical times it was considered a sign of moral compromise. Matthew 6:3-4 reads, But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.…

For Mr. Jenkins, his left hand cost him his life.

The official cause of death was a ruptured brain aneurism, the result of severe head-force trauma. The area of the aneurism was on the right hemisphere which leads me to speculate as to whether Mr. Jenkins had somehow caused the aneurism from within.

Since that day a lot of questions have been asked by many people, some of which believe that Patrick was real, and some that refuse the notion. The most intriguing so far has been where split-brains end up in the afterlife if one hemisphere is considered worthy, and the other is deemed evil. Would they both go to heaven? To hell?

I can’t answer that for certain. I can only hope that Mr. Jenkins got his wish. I hope he achieved atonement for his water.

And most of all, I hope the strangers dwelling inside us all won’t prevent us from doing the same.

[heroes-of-our-hearts]

Chapter Fifteen: Ruin the Mood

By the time Shouta made it back to Hizashi, you were already in full conversation with him.

The two of you got along really well, which is great, if it weren’t for the fact that your conversations were ridiculous to follow and the two of you fed off one another.

Your energies combined would bounce back between the two of you, and you’d keep switching between Japanese and English.

It was confusing as all hell to follow along.

“Look who decided to show up,” Hizashi joked, wrapping an arm around you.

He’d gotten you one of those swivel chairs, and Shouta had a feeling it was just so he could pull you close during the intense moments of the matches.

“You lost,” you reminded him, sticking your tongue out much like a child would.

He met you with tired eyes, despite the warmth that was enveloping his heart. You had a sweet smile on your lips, one that was filled with a careless joy. He found it refreshing.

He knew, without a doubt, you had troubles that plagued you. You were a hero, and like all heroes, that came with baggage. Perhaps you’d lost someone, or you hadn’t been able to save someone, or you’d nearly died yourself. Whatever it was, you’d experienced pain and grief and fear so heavily, it was on a scale of its own.

Yet, you still had the strength to exhibit genuine happiness. As much as he hated to admit it, you really were a lot like All Might. You weren’t just physically strong, but you had such an emotional strength that it even helped those around you.

“Ooo, what’s he owe you?” Hizashi asked, jumping up at the opportunity to possibly meddle in a relationship.

Not that there was a relationship, but… yeah he just wanted to meddle.

You shrugged.

“The crushing weight of a vicious defeat.”

“You’re no fun!” Hizashi proclaimed.

Shouta scowled at the man. He knew that he had something planned, something that would most definitely put him in some sort of situation with you that could be described as romantic.

“What about dinner?” The voice hero suggested, leaning so that his glasses were balanced precariously on the edge of his nose. He raised both brows, willing the man before him to answer.

“I’ll raise you one better,” you piped up, offering a small amount of reprieve from the blonde’s harrowing gaze. “Jaws 2.”

Shouta groaned.

“Absolutely not,” he protested weakly, knowing he’d sit through two hours of listening to Hizashi screech if he got to spend time with you during it.

“Two?” Hizashi inquired, “Where’d the first one go?”

“We watched it already,” you told him, leaning forward and resting your head on your palm. “Even though somebody didn’t appreciate my dishware.”

Hizashi was giving Shouta a look that said ‘tell me everything’. He knew his two friends were overly involved in trying to make a relationship happen. It was endearing, since they were doing it because of Shouta’s obvious interest, but also very annoying. They constantly hounded him for details.

“You’re going to miss the match.” Shouta mumbled lowly.

Both Hizashi and you had jumped at the realization that the beginning of the first round was dangerously close and they had yet to say anything. Even from this distance, the two of you cringed at the disappointed look from Nemuri.

Hizashi began hyping up the crowd, preparing them for the- as he called it- incomparable matches ahead.

Shouta was ready for a nap.

Perhaps you’d also want a nap? Did you enjoy naps? Was it weird that he wanted to know something so tiny and inconsequential about you? He found himself often wondering about certain smaller aspects of your life.

Yes, he knew you were the number one hero. But what was your favorite breakfast food? Did you like scary movies? Do you read a lot of books?

What are the little things that make you, you?

His gaze slid to where you were sitting. You were enraptured, watching the crowds with diamonds in your eyes. The little fascinated curve of your lips had a smile threatening to bloom on Shouta’s own features.

“This is amazing,” you breathed, and Shouta almost missed it, too distracted with the gentle awe on the contours of your face.

He hummed, not really sure if he was agreeing with you or just far too distracted to actually reply. He was willing to bet it was the latter as your eyes met with his, the twinkling still present.

It truly was a shame that so few had the pleasure of knowing you for who you really were, not the mask you wore or the civilian you pretended to be. He felt special in a way, and almost undeserving of knowing such an obscure version of you.

“You know,” you began, glancing over to him to make sure you had his attention.

If only you knew how often you did.

“I always thought I’d be here under different circumstances,” you added softly, careful to make sure you weren’t very audible, especially with Hizashi yelling out at the crowd.

He still wasn’t privy to the information of who you really were. It’d be best to keep the number of people who know to a minimum until you’re safe.

He often wondered about that too.

After what he’d seen of your power, both up close and in videos, he couldn’t understand what kind of villain could possibly leave you on the run.

He shifted a bit. The thought made him uncomfortable.

As a hero, and also just someone who cared about you, he felt a need to protect you. (Which, honestly, seemed a bit redundant. You were far more powerful than nearly anyone he’d met.) Still, it was unsettling, knowing that it was a threat he couldn’t protect you from.

“Became my dream for a bit,” you laughed gently, completely oblivious to the downtrodden thoughts swirling through his mind.

A stray few strands of hair fell right in the middle of his face. Before he even had a chance to attempt to fix it, your hand was there, carefully tucking it behind his ear.

This close, he could see the rise and fall of your chest. Your cheeks were dusted pink, eyes wide as if you’d just realized what you’d done.

“I used to want to be a doctor,” you continued, though your voice was much quieter.

Shouta knew that Hizashi was right there, he knew that he was wondering what the hell the two of you were doing, but he found the world fading from around him. Every worry and fear and bad thought dissipated. The extent of the universe was nothing more than where your hand rested gently against the bandages on his cheek.

He cursed them for being there. On the outside, his expression hadn’t changed. He still looked just as apathetic as he did in the classroom.

You couldn’t feel the catch in his breath at the warmth of you, or see the twitch of his fingers as he fought himself from reaching out.

He didn’t want to shatter the moment, so instead he just stared into your eyes. For once, he hoped you saw the emotion there. He hoped you saw exactly what you meant to him.

“A doctor?” He echoed, his voice raspy.

The smile on your lips was a fond one. Shouta could feel the soft sigh that slipped past them.

“Thought I’d save people, you know?” Your gaze was flitting around his face, and the strange tingling in his heart intensified. “Heal them.”

He was reminded of the warmth that had flooded his system when you’d placed your hands on him at the USJ. The pain was relieved substantially. He’d only ever seen your quirk used for fighting, he didn’t realize there was a healing aspect to it as well.

“How are you feeling?”

Your voice was so gentle, like a lullaby in the chaos that surrounded you both.

“I’ll survive.” Was all he offered.

His wounds did hurt, but he didn’t want to worry you. He knew he needed to heal. Sitting around and waiting to feel better was never really the kind of person he was though.

“Good,” you replied, slowly removing your hand from his cheek.

He swallowed at the loss of your contact. Your touch was pleasant, and he found himself wishing for it back.

“Match is starting!” Hizashi singsoned shamelessly, well aware that he was interrupting something.

You broke eye contact and physically pulled yourself back from him, instead moving to practically press yourself as close to the viewing window as you could.

Shouta hid his disappointment, leaning back in his chair as the match began.

He’d studied up a bit on the different quirks of the students that would be participating in the matches before he’d gone to find you. Though he was to remain impartial, he had a fairly good feeling he knew who would be winning each match. However, he was expecting to be surprised.

You, on the other hand, clearly had no idea what everyone’s quirks were. As Hizashi gave you a quick rundown of the names and quirks, you nodded enthusiastically, your eyes widening a smidge when you found out that Midoriya was going against someone who could control minds.

“Poor kid,” you muttered, eagerly watching as the two conversed below.

Hizashi complained (loudly) about the match being boring. Just as Shouta was about to berate him, you beat him to it.

“Fighting isn’t always about jumping into the fray,” you spoke wisely, “It’s about waiting and listening for the right time to strike.”

The crowd cheered and cooed at your words of wisdom. You laughed awkwardly, clearly not realizing that your mic had been on.

“Whoops,” you chuckled.

The match was still proceeding, though Midoriya had begun to walk towards the exit.

“C’mon kid,” you whispered, clenching your fist so tightly.

Shouta perked up a bit in his seat, watching with interest as he made no move to stop. They were slow steps, each patter of his foot on the ground like a drum. It echoed through the crowd, Hizashi’s cries growing in volume as Midoriya moved closer and closer to the edge of the stadium.

“No,” you breathed, “Stop.”

But the kid didn’t listen. His blank eyes stared straight ahead, body moving on its own accord to his ultimate failure. Just as he moved to take the final step, he paused.

It was such a miniscule pause, Shouta’s gaze flitting over to you as his foot began the final descent.

You weren’t watching the match. The look in your eyes mirrored the one in Midoriya’s. For the smallest of seconds, Shouta could’ve sworn there was a bright blue in your eyes.

Then, a gust of powerful wind clouded the arena.

You snapped back to attention, and Shouta momentarily questioned if you were the one responsible. (You were notoriously bad at sticking to the element you were assigned.) He was surprised to find that you were standing, your brow furrowed as you stared down at where Midoriya was.

The kid was back to himself, an injured finger clearly the creator of the sudden windstorm. He exchanged more words with the other student, running at him with determination.

He didn’t utilize his quirk, Shouta noted with pride, as he fought the kid in hand-to-hand combat. It was a short scuffle, one that ended rather quickly with Midoriya as the victor.

“You okay?” Shouta finally found his voice, watching as the crowd cheered on the winner.

“Yeah, just got lost in my thoughts,” you explained, waving it off like it was nothing. Though, if Shouta looked a little deeper, he would’ve seen the questions bursting in your mind.

“Hopefully the next match is a little livelier,” Hizashi cut in, talking to the two of you and not the crowd.

You gently shoved the voice hero.

“Don’t call matches boring.”

He flashed a sheepish smile.

“Oh wise one, please forgive me,” he joked, prompting a groan from Shouta.

Man, he should’ve never agreed to spend the whole day with the two of you trapped in a booth.

[renaramblesaboutcomics]

Wednesday Roundup 8.23.2017

Whooo weeks where I have more than one trade to review at once are always difficult and this week I got two massive ones for sure. We’re, maybe for the first time since I started the Roundups, fairly Marvel heavy this week so it’s going to be a game of determining whether or not that makes it a cakewalk for the Mouse’s favorite leaking sieve of potential movie rights. 

Or maybe, y’know, I just read a bunch of good comics and it’s not nearly as competitive as I make it out to be. You decide~ 

Marvel’s Deadpool, DC’s Detective Comics, Marvel’s Immortal Iron Fists, Image’s Lazarus: X + 66, Marvel’s X-Men Gold

Marvel’s Deadpool (2015-present) Vol. 8: ‘Til Death Do Us... Joshua Corin, Gerry Duggan, Christopher Hastings, Iban Coello, Salvador Espín, Scott Koblish

You know, if Marvel is attempting to use these endless crossover events as a way of pushing readers to only buying books in trade rather than subscribing individually, I will have to admit to their amazingly successful marketing campaign. Because no book has made me more relieved that I wait for the trade than this collection of Volume 8 of Deadpool (2015-present) which has the entire storyline of “’Til Death Do Us...” which only includes two issues of the actual titular Deadpool (2015-present) series. How can that possibly be? Well let’s find out together.

Story: So this is a massive event crossing all of the Deadpool titles. Because, as I’ve said before, there are a lot of them. Much like Wolverine or Spider-Man before him, Deadpool is being used to prop up so many books at once that it’s to the point of insecurity. Comics and their need to oversaturate a character.

In any regard, this particular storyline brings to a head the relationship between Wade and his wife, the Queen of Monster, Shiklah. Which, as Wade himself has joked about before, really had no chance of anything but imploding upon itself. In this case, it involves the invasion of monsters on New York City, a cross-world roadtrip with Wade and Peter, the Mercs for Money... existing until eventually helping manage the epic final battle, and the dissolution of Wade’s marriage in favor of a union between Shiklah and Dracula himself. 

It is a very bloated story, and considering I only regularly follow Deadpool and Spider-Man/Deadpool out of the crossover comics included, it’s easy to see how my investment in this entire crossover was a matter of waning in and out between the characters I care about the most and how much any of them had to do per couple of pages. I mean, Hit Monkey only really got to make out with a Goblin and I think that spells out exactly how divided the amount of stuff there was to do was. 

Even in that case, there were a lot of good moments, arguably the best being any time Gerry Dugan was at the helm and helping to mold the Deadpool I have come to love so much over the years. The story is slapstick and ridiculous, the characters wild and arguably dysfunctional, but even as it comes to an end that feels like it was the only way things could have ended, there is that sense of regret, sadness, and just pure depression that weaves its way into Wade’s stories when the mania dies down. And all of which is positively amazing in how much it does work beyond all reasonable expectations saying it shouldn’t. 

Art: Given this was a crossover event, there were many artists collaborating on this entire book and while the styles differed between issues, there is no denying that the layouts must have been fairly meticulous because the story flowed easily from book to book. There was never any feeling that despite style differences something didn’t belong in the story as a whole and it was a refreshing consistency to how it all came together. There were great monster designs, I was glad to have every issue separated by their cover art. It was seamless work and much appreciated as a whole. 

Characters & Dialogue: Oh boy. So, obviously only reading two of the books which were involved with this crossover, I can’t speak for most of these characters’ portrayals -- maybe Peter Parker and Aaron Stack, but those can be summed up as “modern Peter gives me aneurysms” and “everything with Aaron makes me miss Nextwave.” So I’m going to focus instead on Wade and Shiklah.

While there’s some variation between books, obviously, it is just amazing to me how after years of reading Deadpool, Wade’s voice and character has been really shaped by Gerry Duggan and his years long work with the character. Everything pays off and feels right, and you can see other writers shaping their own writing of the Merc with a Mouth to match. And I mean that in the absolute best way. There’s something inspired about having a character so known for ridiculousness and mania have such a strong and tragic underlying narrative beneath the layers. You can feel how bad Wade feels when his marriage to Shiklah comes apart and how much responsibility he feels for it, but also just how resigned he is to the fact that he messes up his own good things in life. And I love that pathos. 

Shiklah, while a supporting character, has been one that I’ve genuinely enjoyed since Gerry Duggan first brought her into the Deadpool comics through “The Gauntlet” and I love that her fish-out-of-water and normalcy in the name of Marvel’s creature feature and monstrous side of the universe made a strange amount of sense for why she and Wade worked for each other for the time that they did. And I like that this has been something building up for a long time now and that Shiklah’s reasoning and perspective is respected by the narrative and, to an extent, by Wade himself. 

I’m sure this isn’t the last we’ll see of the Monster Queen but it is a good send off until we do see her again. 

DC’s Detective Comics (2016-present) #963 James Tynion IV, Christopher Sebela, Carmen Carnero, Arreola, Fitzpatrick

We’re getting back to what Steph’s doing out on her own and getting some semblance of what the Anarky plot is ultimately going to amount to. The real question I, and everyone else must now ask is, did that Anarky plot from pre-Rebirth Detective Comics have anything to do with this bc I don’t think anyone read it and if it is important or something we could be at just the start of a world of utter and total confusion. Lllllet’s find out.

Story: While this is the beginning of a new arc for ‘Tec, you could make the argument that the real beginning of this story was the one-off Spoiler-centric issue prior to the Zatanna/Azrael storyline we just wrapped up. We follow up from that story where Stephanie was attempting to put an end to the need for vigilante justice in Gotham by taking over cases meant for the Batfamily and completing them with little to no visual evidence of her involvement or credit given to anyone but the authorities. 

At the end of that issue, Anarky had approached her to join his own, similar cause. According to him. 

But the actual start of this issue was a flashback to Steph and Tim’s time together and romance. Which was not only a much better looking relationship than what they had in the preboot which was pretty uneven and full of some teenage shenanigans compounding Steph’s natural self-depreciation, but is also extremely necessary because ‘Tec absolutely dropped the ball in giving the start of the new series any time to establish these characters, show them training together, or grow their relationships before killing off people and breaking the team apart to the point where half the Belfry aren’t even children being trained anymore.

Not that we ever saw much training. 

In any case, I’ve made it known before how much I dislike the use of flashback to make up for previous development and establishment so this kind of puts the new arc on a bad starting foot, at least with me. Especially with how creepy Anarky is around Steph (STRANGER DANGER) and how creepy it is that Bruce is stalking them from a distance to try to figure out what they’re doing (STRANGERER DANGERER). But we’ll have to see. 

Art: While I have mentioned that the rotation of artists on the bimonthly books like Detective Comics and Wonder Woman has been something of a hinderance in other comics, I have to say I’m pretty impressed with the stable rotation of genuinely great art on ‘Tec every arc so far. Now, it’s not stylized the way I personally prefer, like when we get Marcio Takara’s turns to work on issues, and therefore can seem like a very good but standard house style for DC, but I really enjoy the consistency and appreciate how the female characters have reasonable body types and are not overly sexualized like has been part of the DC house style in the past. Steph’s actions and even her stance carries weight, and I increasingly like her new Spoiler costume each time I see it. 

So all in all, great consistent art once more.

Characters & Dialogue: Tynion is usually the strongest when it comes to characters, and I think the beginning flashback between Steph and Tim highlighted that more than anything else. He obviously has a lot of love and nostalgia for these characters and it’s clear to see that that leads directly into direct homages all the way to bringing back an obscure Robin villain like Anarky. And that stuff’s good because, like I mentioned before, I do feel like Tynion has at least learned to be critical of his nostalgia and is righting things that were objectively not so great in the previous canon, like the treatment of Stephanie off-and-on in the Robin (1993-2009) series. Which is very nice.

That being said, I’m still waiting to be completely sold on Steph’s character here. I don’t dislike the change up of having her rebel against Bruce’s ways of doing things early and trying to forge her own path. And I don’t dislike the direction of her being critical of the way superheroes have grown in the public eye as authority figures and thinks instead they should go back to operating within the shadows and without bombast (apparently this is contentious in the Steph fandom? but i digress). But I do dislike that Stephanie, since her reappearance, has all but been refused the right to have her own secret identity. Which is ridiculous. Her identity gets immediately outed -- mostly by herself -- to nearly everyone, from her very first interactions with Dick to unmasking herself willy nilly here in front of a character named Anarky who is all but wearing a golden Guy Fox mask that he then refuses to remove in front of her for most of the issue. 

Which brings us to Lonnie and the general creep factor I felt throughout this issue. Like. I don’t know. Hopefully the exact nature of their relationship will be built on later in the story, but to have him put her through the ringer and ‘test her’ only to then be so familiar with her as to brush her cheeks and put her mask on for her and use her civilian name. I don’t like. And being familiar with preboot Lonnie just adds to that. 

Bruce is... Well, he’s Bruce. 

Marvel’s Immortal Iron Fists (2017-present) #3 (of 6) Kaare Kyle Andrews, Afu Chan

The adventures of Danny and Pei continue and my heart is still trying to recover from the roller coaster it was given in this issue. So let’s just jump straight into it.

Story: Much like last time, the real show stopper in this issue is Pei and how simple yet still nuanced the portrayal of a young, immigrant girl’s struggles are in a middle school. 

Danny’s reluctance to teach the next generation of Iron Fist and his preferred concentration on superheroics and recovering the scrolls comes to a head in this issue as Pei finally unleashes after her attempts to fit in only cause her mentor to be frustrated and upset with her. Which is all kinds of terrible because Danny pretty obviously doesn’t realize that everything Pei is doing at the moment is being a normal girl growing into her own. 

Including the yelling and rebelling. 

What further frustrates the characters, and me as a reader, though is that while Danny is forbidding Pei from getting involved with the current fight for the scrolls and demons and whatnot, it’s not only forcing her to neglect her destiny but also ignoring the fact that even without her direct involvement, her friends and classmates are being hurt and effected already. It’s not only hurting Pei in that Danny’s not helping her embrace her new abilities, but it’s making her feel the burden of responsibility on herself and making her feel even more useless to her friends.

Of course, if they explained their problems we wouldn’t have a story to begin with.

Art: Like I said with the last issue, this art is just so adorable and, most importantly of all, so fitting for the story being told. It displays so much emotion and so much color without giving up solid sequential sequences when there is action to portray. And in that way I love it all the more. But of course, I’m a big sucker for style at the end of the day.

Having read quite a few of Marvel’s digital exclusives at this point, however, I do hesitate to not point out that this is laid out like a regular comic instead of really taking advantage of the new media’s abilities. Whether or not that would be fitting for the story that Andrews wants to tell is debatable, but it does fall into the concerns I have with DC Digital First comics which is that the “digital comic” aspect is not taken advantage of for the sake of future traditional prints of this comic. It’s a delicate balance and ultimately I’ll trust that this is just how the creative team wanted their story to be told.

Characters & Dialogue: Considering that this story is incredibly character based, ultimately most of my bases here was covered in the story section. Still I just want to emphasize that Pei’s arc has been incredibly interesting to watch, and I like that she doesn’t seem to reject any of the “cliques” in school in favor of others but seems genuinely dedicated to making friends with everyone, which is refreshing in storytelling since in a very Mean Girls-esque way it’s usually that the freaks & geeks are held up as the Real True Friends as opposed to the fakers. And the reason I find that relieving is because they’re all fakers. That’s just what middle school is. 

That being said, I will say that as much as I’m not always the biggest defender of Danny Rand as a character or a concept (usually the opposite tbh), I do think that even with the excuse that we’re mostly seeing thing’s from Pei’s perspective, I don’t see Danny as someone who would be this unreasonable and callous toward Pei when she really hasn’t actively gone against his wishes. Perhaps we’re just channeling a little too much of the dynamic from Jackie Chan Adventures for this story when Pei is not a Jade-like character who arguably earns her scolding from time to time. 

Image’s Lazarus: X + 66 (2017-present) #2 (of 6) Greg Rucka, Michael Lark, Mack Chater, Aaron Duran, Arcas, Wynne

I really had no idea what to expect when this miniseries first came out, but you can thoroughly count me in the department as down for this world building and just general enjoyability that is coming from further exploring the world of Lazarus. As much as I would love to soon return to the regular title, this has been a great way to have more heartstrings pulled.

Story: As I said, I didn’t know really what to expect with this book but I’m not understanding more that it’s something of an anthology of stories beyond the perspective of the Carlyle family, and honestly I really love that. 

I’ve mentioned many times before that I feel like Greg Rucka, like few writing peers of today, understands the importance of making a storyline feel complete within a single issue, and his work with this issue really feels like his signature. We follow the Morray family and specifically Joaquim, their Lazarus. From start to finish we don’t waste a single panel getting to learn the turmoil within the story, Joaquim’s tragedy, and the way his actions in protecting Forever in the main title is having severe consequences for the main conflict of this story.

And that conflict rather simply is how much of Joaquim’s humanity can he maintain as a Lazarus that is growing more and more robotic than man, and how much of that decision is in his own hands as he is a product of a system that has been losing its humanity more and more, not only for the Morrays but for all the major families of this dystopian future.

Art: While not as dynamic or fetching as the usual issue of Lazarus, the art for this issue is still outstanding. There’s a lot of... intensive anatomical study, we’ll say, but there was also not a whole lot of action. It was mostly a conversational and expositioning sort of issue which comes with its own complications -- how to make conversations feel alive and dramatic without a whole lot of actual action taking place. To which I must confess that the art did a fairly brilliant job of, as there was quite a lot of expressiveness and uniqueness in setting throughout. 

Characters & Dialogue: It’s difficult to completely parse out the characters here because there are so many and the only one we had a fully established relationship with through the regular series was Joaquim himself, who also had the honor of the most panel time and presence throughout the issue. But that isn’t to say that every moment seen of the Morray family, how they conduct their business, and what that all intended for Joaquim himself was not excellent and as well characterized as always. I genuinely appreciated the culture and the look into the family dynamics which are so similar and yet so different to the Carlyles. 

Rucka’s great with character and it truly shows when he has only an issue to pt everything on the line because he fully delivers almost every time. 

Marvel’s X-Men Gold (2017-present) Vol. 1: Back to the Basics Marc Guggenheim, Adrian Syaf, R.B. Silva, Martin

My renewed interest in the X-Men is getting costly and I completely blame Tom Taylor’s run on All-New Wolverine for getting me back in that groove to begin with because I was totally over my addiction before then. Now I’m here for the Guggenheim.

Story: When an opening arc to a story calls itself “Back to Basics” there’s a decent reason for your expectations to generally be that whatever people haven’t liked about the comics in the most recent Giant Change Up To Forever Break the Status Quo in Comics is going over like a lead balloon of sorts or that they finally wrestled a book out of Bendis’ hands. And there’s nothing in Volume 1 of X-Men Gold that really changes my mind in regard to that impression. 

Which might not be entirely fair. Kitty in particular has been pushed more and more to the forefront of the X-Men in recent years and as a result, they had to erase her curly hair and also force her to really grow up. In a way, Kitty -- who was once the youngest of the X-Men and the student to everyone -- has become the teacher, mentor, and leader to what remains of the Mutant Race. Who aren’t doubles of past versions of themselves. And who aren’t living out of their late dads’ apartments. And who aren’t being killed by yet another serial race murderer. 

X-Men Gold focuses on establishing the elder team to X-Men Blue’s younger mutants and gives us a team of fan favorites as a result. This first arc has them dealing with a very on-the-nose Ann Coulter analogue who has a No Spin Zone style show on Fact News (get it). She’s a race baiter attempting to stir up mutant prejudices again for ratings and also some sort of greater grudge I’m sure will come back later. It includes her hiring Mesmero to create a new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants to frame all mutantkind for their terroristic acts and encourage public calls for mass deportation of mutants. Get it.

Subtlety of a sledgehammer aside, I want to take this moment to point out that one of the Brotherhood’s new members is an alien lizard looking guy that no one’s familiar with. And from the time he appears until the time they learn gasp he’s an extraterrestrial and not a mutant at all, Kitty (and others but mostly Kitty) keep talking about his appearance and how he’s a creep or scary and I’m just like. Apparently the X-Men truly haven’t learned from their own prejudices. I mean, everyone was assuming this guy was a mutant but at the same time judging him based on his appearance? Like wasn’t this the whole point of having Nightcrawler, Beast, and Anole on the X-Men??? But whatever. 

The second half focuses on Remy discovering the newest incarnation of the Sentinels which are now conscious and learning nanites which take three issues to take out and are only dismantled by Rachel having a Walkabout of sorts talking to her old selves, her mother, and her father which encourages her enough that she psychically blasts every single nanite. To the detriment of her eyes apparently bc now all the Avengers and X-Men now reflect in them. I’m not entirely sure about that cliffhanger. 

Other than the little girl on the last page I thought for sure was Molly Hayes and could not figure out why she was in New York or where the rest of the Runaways were until I realized oh that’s probably just another kid and artists don’t know how to vary their style of drawing younger age groups bc lbr it’s not like it happens that often on most books.

Art: The art for both arcs was honestly really spectacular. There were strong, solid lineart with great use of colors, the characters all had varied designs, and explosions -- which are always important to X-Men stories, of course -- were fantastic and bombast. But it’s also that house style I like to mention so much so it’s also really hard to get into why it works or doesn’t work because it’s just the established good storytelling style that both of the Big Two are comfortable using on any book for good reason. 

Characters & Dialogue: Since X-books are always filled to the gills with characters I can’t go into every single character or voice, but I’ll focus on the two most central characters to these first arcs: Kitty and Rachel. I thought both were written extremely well and there was real gravity to their interactions, a feeling of the importance and enormity of their histories. Sometimes that feels absent in modern books, especially for Rachel who seems to be a character most writers approach with apprehension, but we got to actually do a deep dive on both of them. And as a result, that maturity the book refers to through other characters and through Kitty’s inner monologue feels genuine. 

One thing I have to stress, though: Marvel please stop pushing KittyxPioter. It worked back in the day once. It’s not really going to work again and it’s been too long and Kitty is 1000% right when she says she’s moved on. So have we. 

I wasn’t sure what I was going to do if I had so many ridiculously good issues at once to pick from but fortunately we have only three issues for singles to pick from this week. And even though I legitimately enjoyed all of what I read this week, there is just something special about the way Immortal Iron Fists pulls at my heart strings. I’ve really come to adore Pei, her unique voice in comics, and especially the way it’s developing Danny’s potential in ways we’ve never seen before. Not to mention I’m just incredibly partial to all-ages comics which aren’t afraid to tackle very mature problems and themes while still speaking to a young audience’s tone.

Now between the two collected trades here, we’re stuck between an Weapon X and a X-Men which I’m not sure how it happened to me since I’m fairly sure I’ve not had to pick between two choices like that since I was in middle school. It’s kind of astounding. But, bang for my buck, I’m giving this one to X-Men Gold. It was a solid introductory arc and also had the benefit of not being a massive crossover with more characters than it knew how to properly work in. The irony of me saying that about the non-X-Men book here does not escape me.

And those are my picks of the week! That being said, I’m sure there’s lots to agree and disagree with me on in this Roundup. Be sure to let me know one way or the other. Also, do you think there are any books I missed picking up that would be good reads for me?

And now it’s also that time of the week everyone dreads but not nearly as much as I do. 

I am in a bit of a financial crunch for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which being the medical bills I’m paying for my dog, Eve, who experienced a catastrophic dog fight and underwent surgery recently.

As such, I really would appreciate if you enjoy my content or are interested in helping me out, please check out either my Patreon or PayPal. Every bit helps and I couldn’t thank you enough for enjoying and supporting my content.

You could also support me by going to my main blog, @renaroo, where I’ll soon be listing prices and more for art and writing commissions.

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[tyrantisterror]

How I’d Ruin It: Batman

(thanks to The Lego Batman Movie for making my brain keep coming back to this, and also for making such awesome goddamn toys for my retail therapy needs)

While I write my own stories nowadays, the old fanfic writer in me resurfaces every now and then in the form of idle thoughts about how I’d handle certain stories I love.  Sometimes these musings lead me to one horrible conclusion: that no matter how much I may love the story in question, I’d be absolutely fuck awful at writing it.  This is because the scope of things I’m interested in writing is significantly smaller than the scope of things I’m interested in reading/watching - my muse is a pickier eater than I am.

Still, no matter how awful and off message my bastardized mental versions of these stories may be, they keep popping up now and then, demanding to manifest as stories are wont to do.  So today I’m going to exorcise one of them by summarizing it to you.

Today, my wonderful readers, I’m going to tell you how I’d utterly fuck up at writing Batman.

I’m a conditional Batman fan, because there’s a lot of Batman media out there and a lot of it is shit - and also there’s so much of it by volume that even reading/watching only the good Batman stuff would take more time than I can spare.  So when I say I love Batman, know that I mean, like, mostly the 90′s animated series and scattered arcs like The Long Halloween that can stand alone, and The Dark Knight, and the Adam West show, and Holy Musical B@man, and some other random Batman stuff.  I only know/like some Batman, but the amount of Batman I like is still, like, a lot of Batman.  Jesus Christ there’s so much fucking Batman dudes.

But I have some problems with Batman, two of which are relevant to this post because they’re also kind of necessary to its appeal.  The first is one that is almost justifiable, although it will undoubtedly sound preposterous to most people: why does Batman have to be so dark?

Don’t get me wrong - I’m a horror fan, so obviously I’m not completely averse to darkness in my fiction.  A big part of Batman’s appeal to me comes from how it’s rooted in Gothic Horror tropes.  It’s a comic about a dude who dresses up as a Dracula to fight monster men in a city that’s literally called Gotham, so darkness has to be part of the story.

But jeeeeeesus christ Batman is needlessly dark sometimes.  Does a bat themed super hero really need to be fighting a guy who carves tally marks into his skin for every person he’s murdered?  Is the Joker really more interesting when he’s killing everyone he sees than when he committed clown themed heists?  Isn’t being a crocodile man enough intrigue for Killer Croc, or does he need to be a creepy cannibal too?  Does every villain need to be a murderer?

While the Adam West Batman show is so campy that I can only tolerate it in small doses, it nonetheless makes me pine for a brighter take on the character/series.  It’s kind of nice to have bright colors and jokes and a Batman who doesn’t whine about how sad he is, and villains who are more into making elaborate puzzles and traps instead of finding new ways to mutilate their victims.  I’d love to see it blended with the complex psychology of the darker Batmans - but more on that after we get to problem number 2.

Which is, of course, Batman himself.

Batman can be an interesting character.  In the best Batman stories, I certainly do love him.  But, to be totally honest with you, even at his best, Batman is never the main draw to me in a Batman story.  He’s like the bun of a hot dog - it’d be weird to have one without him, and a lot of the more interesting ingredients would sort of fall apart without him holding everything together, and you’d have a great big sticky mess on your hands, but... I mean, if I’m honest, he’s not the part of this I’m looking forward to experiencing.  Batman isn’t the meat of the meal to me - no, that role goes instead to his villains.

Goddammit those villains are great! Joker, Two Face, Harley Quinn, Catwoman, Poison Ivy, Mr. Freeze, the Riddler, even the obscure ones like Killer Croc and Clayface, and even the shitty ones like Calendar Man - I just fuckin’ love almost every single one of ‘em, and they’re the reason I keep thinking about how I’d love to just... just utterly ruin Batman.

But when I start thinking of the story I want to tell with those villains, inevitably I remember that, oh hey, I need to have something for Batman to do because, y’know, it’s called Batman for a reason, and my muse just wants nothing to do with that.  And that’s why the wheels always fall off.

Well, that and I have a billion other stories to write, but still.

So here’s how I’d ruin Batman in a brief pitch: My Batman story would star the villains, almost none of whom are murderers, in a version of Gotham where Bruce Wayne died with his parents, and thus has no Batman.

You’d have a Gotham City much like the one in Year One (I hate to reference a Frank Miller comic but it’s easily the most well known framework for where I’m starting here), ruled by a mix of slightly exaggerated gangsters and corrupt businessmen - more outlandish in their evil than the real thing but not quite on supervillain level.  The villains would all retain their origins for the most part, but without a Batman to draw their focus they sort of turn on each other.  It sort of splits into two factions: the Freaks, who are victims/products of the corruption inherent to the city, and the Crimelords, who are the few members of the old/mundane criminal element that adapt to the superpower boom and transition from normal gangsters to supervillains.

The resulting conflict would be the story of a bunch of broken people trying to destroy the system that made them, and the horrible remnants of the old crime world desperately trying to return things to how they are - anarchists vs. tyrants.

Now that we’ve got the basic plot/conflict down, let’s go to what I always focus on first when writing a story: the characters.  We’ll begin with our protagonists...

The Freaks

The Joker - obviously the leader of the bunch, the Joker is probably one of the characters I would bastardize/alter the most.  Nowadays it’s set pretty firmly in stone that the Joker has to be, like, the most evil man in existence.  He’s gotta kill people on a whim, physically abuse his girlfriend, cut off his own face and wear it like a mask, and just generally be a real fuckin’ creep.  But does he have to be that evil?

Well yes, yes he does, it’s what makes him iconic and is basically his defining trait, and without it most of the stories told with the character wouldn’t be possible.  The idea that he’s the villain who gives other villains nightmares is what makes him stand out.  If you lessen the depths of his depravity, you’d ruin Batman.

but does he haaaaaaaaaave to?

Imagine if you will a young, down on his luck commedian named Jack Napier who, in an attempt to provide for his wife, accidentally gets involved with the mob.  They make him dress up as a (fictional) crime boss called the Red Hood for a caper - he has to act the part to get the police off the scent of the real bosses.  Little does he know that he’s a patsy, set up to not only mislead the police but to buy time for the crooks’ escape by getting into a firefight.  He’s shot and falls into some chemicals, gets bleached, and wakes up with a new, much more unhinged state of mind.  Like the normal Joker, he finds the magnitude of his tragedy to hilariously absurd.  Also like the normal Joker, he decides to become an agent of entropy in hopes of dismantling the city that made him a monster.

Unlike the normal Joker, however, the focus of his wrath isn’t a paragon of morality and justice, but rather the corrupt and powerful rulers of Gotham.  He becomes the arch enemy of mobsters, crooked cops, and politicians - people the normal version of the Joker also antagonizes, of course, but not to this level.  Since his nemeses are different, this Joker never defines himself as a force of evil and corruption.  Instead he humiliates - this Joker punches up and brings those in power down a peg.

The “joke” theme because important here, as the Joker ends up creating a lot of schemes designed to ridicule and embarrass his victims as much as destroy them.  It’s not enough to just shoot the corrupt politician - he needs to kill their ego and their sense of power.  This Joker would much rather scare the shit out of his victim with a convoluted and frankly stupid “death” trap than just shoot them - and he’d be perfectly content just splatting them in the face with a vaudevillian pie instead of actually killing them at the end.

He wouldn’t be an out and out hero - he doesn’t go out of his way to save people or anything - but he’d also be a far cry from the “killing dozens of people a day for the sake of proving he’s evil” Joker we get nowadays.

He also wouldn’t be aware of the fact that other people don’t necessarily get the joke - not in the malicious “BWAHAHA I’M EVIL AND I’M KILLING YOU WITH LAUGHING GAS IT’S FUNNY TO ME BECAUSE I’M EVIL” way, but in the “Look, I know you’re technically in peril here but you have to admit it’s objectively ridiculous that you’re being dangled above a tank full of piranhas, right?  I mean, is it even true that they eat people, or is that a myth?  This whole thing’s pretty surreal right?” sort of way.

Harley Quinn - Harley is my favorite Batman character when she’s written well, but sadly she’s normally written absolutely horribly so I’m kind of happy to just fuckin’ ruin this story for her sake.  Part of her problem is that the core concept for her character is “psychiatrist is seduced by patient, subjected to psychological and physical abuse by him, and because of said abuse becomes a supervillain.”  I mean, a lot of Batman villains also have the “horrible psychological problems make people evil” thing going on which is, y’know, horribly unfortunate, but I feel like Harley’s hit harder than most.

But since the Joker isn’t nearly as much of a bastard in this story, maybe Harley can get out with a nicer origin as well?

This version of Harley isn’t the Joker’s victim so much as a collaborator - maybe the Robin to his Batman?  They’re kindred spirits in their love of whimsy and their distaste for how the city is run - Harley in particular has a focus on the corrupt nature of the mental health facility she works at (I mean, Arkham’s not particularly good at its purpose even in the normal Batman universe).  Like Robin, Harley softens the Joker’s war on Gotham’s criminal underworld a bit - she drags him into a more compassionate viewpoint.  Unlike Robin, she’s not a subordinate/ward - while Harley plays on the Joker’s clown motiff, she doesn’t follow his schemes without question, and always argues for a different way of doing things when the Joker’s plans get too mean-spirited.  They’re actual partners in crime, as opposed to the victim/abuser dynamic they had in past fiction.

I realize this is the kind of alteration to canon - y’know, making the main villain sympathetic and a canonically abusive relationship into a healthy romanticized one - that makes people use the word “fanfic” as a pejorative, but, well, I did say this is how I’d ruin Batman.

Catwoman - while the Joker is obviously going to be the leader of the bunch, Catwoman would be the deuteragonist, both because she’s just as iconic and also because she’s probably the closest thing to Batman in this world, and it is still ultimately a world designed to work around a Batman-ish character.  Born poor, Catwoman pickpockets her way into wealth, specifically targeting the most corrupt of the wealthy.  Unlike most of the other Freaks, she has the option of living a normal life, but is ultimately compelled to keep robbing from the rich and giving to the poor (and also herself - look, she has a lot of cats to feed).  Catwoman grounds the Freaks in reality and helps them understand the rules of the system they’re trying to break - and, with her status as an up and coming socialite, is able to give them valuable intel on some of their targets.

Mr. Freeze - honestly you could just transplant the Batman: The Animated Series take on him right into here, because it’s kind of baffling he was considered a villain in the first place.  It takes literally no effort to make him a heroic figure - you just have to remove the more-traditionally-heroic Batman to make him shine.  Mr. Freeze isn’t as daffy and volatile as the Joker, but is every bit as determined to bring Gotham crashing down and to make the corrupt pay for their cruelty toward people like him.  He’s also hilariously serious, providing a stoic counterpoint to the more flamboyant personalities of the other villains.

Poison Ivy - Poison Ivy’s motivation has been “protect the environment, plants specifically”, which is pretty noble to be honest - it’s just that her methods are unnecessarily homicidal.  So, y’know, maybe tone that down a bit?  Less “mind controlling innocent people and murdering them for money to build a plant park” and more “using convenient giant animate plants to halt construction that threatens local parks” sort of schemes.  She’d basically be an environmental sciences themed vigilante - Captain Planet with an aggressive streak.

I know it’s more traditional to pair her with Harley Quinn, but I’d kinda like to try setting her up with Catwoman instead - both of them has this history of being femme fatales/evil seducers of men, so it’d be kind of fun to have a story where they just have none of that at all.  Though pairing her with Harley and making the Harley/Joker relationship purely platonic is an interesting dynamic too...

Killer Croc - he’s a great big crocodile man who lives in the sewers because no one above ground accepts him, on account of him being a big crocodile man and all.  Despite his fearsome appearance and prodigious strength, he’s a pretty swell guy - the gentle bruiser of the group.

Two-Face - like Mr. Freeze, you really don’t have to alter much to make him a good guy.  Just keep Two-Face pointed at mobsters and he works as a hero pretty well.

The Riddler - In this world, the Riddler begins as a cop who, while clever, isn’t corrupt enough to excel in the police department.  His superiors assign him to the Freak case in hopes of getting rid of him (preferably in a fatal sort of way), but that plan succeeds in the worst way, as he ends up defecting to their side.  The Riddler helps the Freaks make their schemes truly bizarre and unpredictable, and helps them get to the bottom of who is truly running Gotham City.  He’s also a smug prick about it, because smugness is key to his character.

Clayface - a star of Gotham’s theater scene, Basil Karlo is convinced to try an experiment age-defying makeup which turns him into a giant shape changing mud man.  He becomes the group’s master of disguise and also ups their general theatricality, and can back up Croc as the muscle in a pinch.

The Crimelords

Penguin - a petty thug with delusions of grandeur, Penguin wants to rise to the ranks of the social elite and goes to great lengths to seem more educated and “classy” than he is.  While he is never accepted by the rich people he idolizes, he continues to do their dirty work in hopes of getting their approval.  He is cunning in a way, though, and rises to prominence throughout the story as one of the few criminals who can keep up with the increasingly eccentric Freaks - probably because he’s basically one of them despite his protests.

Scarecrow - a corrupt psychologist at Arkham Asylum who helps the mafia by providing insanity defenses for mobsters and driving key witnesses insane, Scarecrow’s obsession with fear would spiral out of control throughout the story.  Eventually he’d switch sides to the Freaks when he gets too weird for the oldschool criminals to tolerate, although he’d never be well liked by either side.

Firefly - a particularly skilled arsonist for the Maroni crime family.  Not much more than that.

Deathstroke - the greatest assassin employed by the Falcone crime family, Deathstroke takes himself very seriously, which is to his detriment considering the pack of ridiculous monster men he’s facing in this story.  He has a bitter rivalry with...

Deadshot - the greatest assassin employed by the Maroni crime family.  Deadshot doesn’t take his work very seriously at all and is prone to sarcasm and flippancy.  He kind of loves the fact that the freaks are causing so much ridiculous trouble for his employers, but that doesn’t mean he won’t kill them for a paycheck.

Bane - a mercenary hired by the crime families to take down the Freaks.  Bane eventually switches sides; he may be a bad guy, but he also cares about the downtrodden having grown up in a city not unlike Gotham itself.

Calendar Man - the youngest son of the mafia boss Carmine Falcone, Alberto Falcone is inspired by the theatricality of the Freaks and becomes a holiday themed serial killer, targeting enemies of his father’s business in a misguided attempt to earn his approval.

Black Mask - As the different crime families slowly dwindle in number over the course of the story, Roland Sionis, an underboss for the Maroni family, eventually rises in the ranks (due to his superiors dying) and unites what remains of the mafia under his iron fist.  Deciding to fight fire with fire, he crafts a grim alter ego for himself in hopes of striking fear into the Freaks.  It doesn’t work because he’s just not theatrical enough to pull it off, but he does manage to be a thorn in their side for a while.

Hugo Strange - the chief psychologist of Arkham Asylum, Hugo Strange is an awful, awful man.  He’s also an incredibly intelligent one, master minding many of the problems the Freaks encounter.  He’s not the root of Gotham’s problems, though, as he ultimately serves...

Ra’s Al Ghul - an ancient sorceror who has made and destroyed countless societies in his many centuries of scheming, Ra’s Al Ghul made Gotham City into a nexus of misery and cruelty in hopes of awakening a world ruining entity - i.e. basically he’s trying to bring about Gozer the Destroyer.  ‘Cause why not bring in a bit of Lovecraftian terror to a setting that has a madhouse that makes monster people that’s literally called Arkham Asylum?

And that’s it.  That’s how I’d ruin Batman.

I’ll probably repurpose some of these ideas into other stories like I do with most of my fanfic ideas, but man, this sure is shitty as a Batman story, huh?