#I want you to know the second panel is a brutal self drag. that's why it's so specific 💀💀💀

[naughtynoodle056]

Leo can be quite oblivious to how his own actions have consequences, often to a comical degree

[some-kindofgnome]

Kinktober #9: Elevator Pitch: Hawks

In which you and Hawks spend some quality time together, and you’ve spilled coffee on your shirt.

Characters: Takami Keigo (Hawks) / f!Reader

Warnings: smut (18+ please!), vaginal sex, up-against-the-wall-sex, partially-dressed, semi-public, uncaffienated sex, stranded/stalled elevator, hawks is a smarmy piece of shit

Notes: Okay, enough feelings! Only porn. What better way to jump back on the thirsty bandwagon than with everyone’s favourite smug bastard? Today’s prompt was ‘In Public,’ and while this isn’t the most public of public places to have sex, it’s definitely one that I’ve been thinking about... a little too often.

Kinktober Masterlist

“What was that?”

The elevator gives a sickening clash and lurches to a stop. You look up so fast you can feel the strain in your throat, glancing suddenly back to the control panel to see if it can possibly offer you any more information.

The lights die over your head, plunging the elevator into darkness. You give a little scream.

“That’s not good.”

The voice next to you is familiar but grating. Of all the people to be stuck in an elevator with, it has to be Hawks.

He runs the agency two floors above your office. But your companies share many of the same amenities- these elevators, to name one- and you’re unfortunately all too familiar with the self-serving hero.

As if things aren’t bad enough already.

Your manic Monday is already off to an excellent start, proven by the coffee stain on the front of your blouse. Apparently, the morning train was just a little too crowded to be careless with your latte-the half that didn’t get sloshed all over your front ended up on the floor- so here you are, trapped in the dark with the dull edges of a caffeine headache already beginning.

“Hang on-“ It’s Hawks again, and before he finishes his thought the emergency lights flicker to life. He seems entirely too relaxed given the situation. It’s pissing you off. He’s leaning against the opposite corner of the elevator with his wings tucked neatly behind him, arms folded across his chest.

He looks you up and down.

“Damn, you musta put on a few pounds if you’re heavy enough to short out the elevator.”

“Don’t even start,” you hiss. Your headache is getting worse. Spending nine floors with Takami Keigo was supposed to be bad enough already. You don’t have time for this.

“If anyone was going to be too heavy for the elevator, it’s you,” you snap back. You brush past him to the control panel and he starts a little as you push yourself between it and him. His wings give an alarmed little flutter and he steps aside, opening the space between you again.

You’re jamming your thumb against the ‘call’ button, but nothing seems to be happening. You’re not altogether sure how this is supposed to work- you’ve never been stuck in an elevator before. But Hawks looks as though it’s happened to him on a weekly basis. You suppose he sees worse on the daily, given his line of work.

“I don’t think anyone’s comin’ for us, kid.”

You glare over your shoulder at him, hearing the smirk in his voice. He raises a gloved palm to his mouth and yawns. Then he stretches, and his wings follow suit. He can’t extend them fully in here, but you’ve still forgotten how big they really are.

“Might as well get cozy,” he sighs. He slides down the wall, stretching a leg out and hooking his elbow over the other knee, bent.

“No thanks, I’ll stand.” You toy idly with the front of your skirt, brushing an invisible coat of dust from it. It’s when you notice him watching you that you stop and furrow your brow. He’s staring right at your chest. Not even trying to hide it.

You’re just about to say something when his eyes flick up to yours and his smirk, if possible, gets even lazier.

“Rough morning?”

You fold your arms over your chest, hyperaware of the coffee stain that you had conveniently forgotten about seconds before. That doesn’t change the fact that you’re permanently ticked off at him, though.

You decide that he’s not worth answering and avert your gaze. Sullen silence settles over the two of you for a moment. Finally, he chuckles, shaking his head.

“Let me ask you something,” he prompts.

“No thank you,” you answer.

“No, no, that’s exactly it. You don’t like me. I’m not an idiot, kid. But the thing is, I’ve been wrackin’ my brain, and I can’t think of one thing I ever did to deserve it.”

You swallow. Hard. Your cheeks are going hot. The truth is, you’re not entirely sure why you don’t like him.

You’d like to say it’s because he’s self-serving and arrogant. Because he saves people for the clout and not because he cares about their safety. He’s only ever been snarky and sarcastic to you, and you’re sure he treats his staff like garbage. He soaks up the celebrity status like a goddamned sponge.

You’d also like to say that you’ve followed his career so closely for the same reasons. You scour the Internet for stories about him and save newspaper clippings from your coworkers’ subscriptions, looking for evidence that your claims are true. You need to hear somebody else talk about his arrogance because it pisses you off to no end how obsessed with him you’ve become.

“I don’t… I like you,” you scoff. If you could press your back even further into the elevator wall, you could.

He laughs. Throws his head back and laughs and you want to disappear.

“You treat all your friends like that, kid? No wonder you look so sour all the time.”

That does it. You’ve had enough of Hawks, enough of this elevator and this damned headache. You’ve had enough of today.

“Alright, fine. You wanna know why I don’t like you?” Your eyes narrow. Your arms tighten across your chest. Hawks gets to his feet. He’s not all that much taller than you, but he seems to tower over you in the narrow space.

His tawny eyes narrow as he tilts his head, serious but inquisitive.

“Enlighten me.”

“You are the most egotistical, self-centered person I’ve ever known,” you hiss. “You treat women like they’re disposable, you-“

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he stops you, holding up his palms. “Like they’re disposable? What in the hell gave you that idea?”

“You’ve got a different girl on your arm every week,” you retort. Later you will sink into your desk and expire as you remember saying these things to him, but he asked for it. And you’re starting to get claustrophobic.

“So what?” He shoots back.

“So what? So what? So what makes you think you can go around breaking hearts like that? You’re gonna make some enemies, y’know.”

“Sweetheart, those girls don’t want anything to do with me, either. No false pretenses there. I think you just don’t like seeing me with other women.”

Your stomach lurches, rejecting the idea. But you know that it’s true.

“Don’t be ridicu-“

“No, it’s my turn to speak now,” Hawks growls. He steps closer, caging you against the elevator wall. Your cheeks and ears are burning. One step closer and the coffee on your blouse will start to boil all over again.

“If you’re jealous,” he hints, bending down to whisper in your ear, “I’d be happy to treat you like those other girls, kid. All you gotta do is ask.”

“Hawks-“ you choke. He’s so close now that there’s no way you can pretend you don’t want this. You can feel the heat of his body radiating against yours, the soft, spicy Monday morning scent of him filling your senses.

He grins, and his lips brush the crook of your neck.

“That’s what I thought.”

In the next second his mouth crashes down on yours and you’re kissing him back. You from ten minutes ago would be disgusted at the sight of this, but you can’t even deny wanting this. Not when he’s giving it to you. Not when you didn’t even need to ask for it.

You’re not shy about combing your fingers into his disheveled hair, tugging him closer to you. Already he’s tugging the hem of your blouse out of the top of your skirt. He rips off his gloves and pops open a few of the buttons without even breaking his mouth from yours. It’s only as he digs his fingers into the fabric and pulls the folds open around your chest that he pulls back to have a look.

“Look at you,” he growls. “So fuckin’ gorgeous. I wanted you from the second I met you, y’know that?”

You consider pinching yourself. But you don’t want to give him the satisfaction. Instead, you hook a palm around the back of his neck and pull him harshly down to you again.

“Shut up,” you hiss, dragging his mouth back to yours. Your hands wander, pulling the strap of his belt out of its loop and giving it a harsh tug. It pulls tight and he grunts, then you let go and let the buckle fall open. You reach in further, going for his fly. He lets you. As you dig your hand into the opening of his pants you realize that he’s already hard- already rock hard.

Maybe he really meant what he said.

You shove his pants down around his knees and he grabs you by the backs of yours, hiking your thighs over his hips. His hands crawl up your thighs and under your skirt. He finds the strap of your thong and you nuzzle into his shoulder to keep yourself quiet as he swipes a thumb up your clothed slit.

“Fuck,” he groans in your ear. “Soaked for me already, sweetness. God, lemme have you.”

He shifts his hips forward and presses the head of his cock against your entrance, easing forward until he’s sure he’s lined up correctly. Then he rams into you without warning and you nearly wind yourself on his shoulder as all the air from your body rushes out at once.

“That’s what I thought, baby,” he growls, starting into a brutal rhythm. “You’ve wanted this too, haven’t you? Fuck, why didn’t you say something? I coulda been fucking you this whole time.”

You’re in the clouds at this point. The words he’s growling into your ear are blurring together, clouded by the immense pleasure that he’s sending through your gut with every thrust. He fits you perfectly, it seems, and you’re already drawing embarrassingly close to the edge.

“Hawks,” you practically sob, your head lolling against the wall as he fucks you into it. “Can’t hold on- gonna… g-gonna..”

“You’re gonna cum for me, sweetness? That’s it. That’s it. Cum for me, sweetheart, aw, hell, I’m there, baby.”

His voice is growing shaky now, his thrusts erratic, and as the elastic band draws tight in the pit of your stomach you realize he’s not far off, either.

He gives you one, two, three good thrusts and you’re falling, coming so hard around him that your vision whites out for an honest minute. Currents of tension rush from your head to your toes as you clutch at his back and whine and pant through your climax.

He follows close behind you, driving his hips into your sensitive pussy before drawing abruptly out of you and coming in long spurts against the inside of your thigh.

For a dozen heartbeats, the two of you are still, catching your breath. Settling into what you’ve just done.

The emergency light flickers as the regular lighting returns. The elevator gives a telltale beep and a shudder and starts heading downward. Your brain short-circuits.

“Get off,” you hiss, shoving him off you. You tug your skirt harshly down around your thighs, hiding the mess as he hurries to tuck himself back into his pants and zip up. You’re two floors from the lobby when he turns back to you and starts.

“Your shirt.”

“Oh, shit.” Your fingers race to the buttons on your blouse and you fumble to get them fastened again. He reaches over to help but you bat his hands away as the elevator draws to a stop. You’re just finishing the last button when the doors slide open, revealing the surprised faces of a coverall-sporting technician and your boss.

“There you are,” she gasps, relief flooding her features. “The power went out and they told me people were still stuck in the elevator, I- good morning, Keigo,” she greets, giving a little nod of acknowledgement to Hawks, who’s taking his time strolling out of the elevator with his hands in his pockets.

“Mornin’,” he greets idly. Then he calls your name, and you look past your boss’s shoulder. He’s smirking, his eyes lit with the memory of what you’ve just shared.

“See you around,” he calls. Then he’s gone, and your boss is asking you some sort of question, but it flies straight in one ear and out the other. Your teeth sink into your lower lip. Every time you close your eyes you remember him, groaning in your ear and forcing himself into you.

You are so fucked.

[duhragonball]

BEGIN: Battle Tendency Liveblog.   JJBA Ch. 45-47

🇺🇸🗽🧗‍♂️🧼🪀🌵Part 2, Hell Yeah!🌪️🎈🛩️🌋🚬

I'm pretty friggin' excited for Part 6 anime, and Part 6 is one of my faves, so one could understandably assume that Part 6 is my favorite.  And I post a lot of other JoJo stuff on this blog, so it's probably not obvious, but Part 2 is the best.   

I got into JoJo in 2017, watching Parts 1-4 in anime version, then reading the scanlations of Parts 5-8 while I waited for the anime to catch up.    Then I re-liveblogged the Part 5 manga because there was finally a proper translation available.   And technically the Part 8 liveblog never ended, since the manga is still ongoing.  

As I developed an appreciation for the manga, I started to feel like I should go back and check out the comic versions of Parts 1 through 4.  Where better to start than my personal favorite?   But I never got around to it, until now.

There's a few things I want to explore with Part 2.    First, I want to go through and work out why exactly I like it so much.   It's kind of tough to articulate, but usually I just say that it's fast-paced and something's always happening.   Part 1 takes a while to get going, and Parts 3-8 rely on the Stand concept, which means that each of them occasionally fall into the trap of becoming formulaic.   Part 2 doesn't have the hassle of introducing all the lore, and it doesn't have the luxury of just doing a gauntlet of Stand Battles to pad out the story.   But I think there's more to it than that.  Battle Tendency has a charm all it's own, and that's what I want to talk about.

Second, now that I've become familiar with Parts 1-7 (and most of 8), I want to go back and see how 2 holds up as part of this mythos.   BT sort of gets overlooked, I think, and that's fair, since it doesn't involve Dio, Stands, or the more outlandish costumes of the later installments.  A lot of fans write off Parts 1 and 2 for being "boring", but at least Phantom Blood carries the prestige of starting it all, and providing the origin of Dio.  Something I think a lot about is whether or not Part 2 "connects" with the later entries in the JoJo series.  It forms a trilogy with 1 and 3, and Part 4 features Joseph's legacy in an important way, but what about the later ones?   Parts 5 through 8 owe a huge debt to Stardust Crusaders for introducing Stands, and to Phantom Blood for introducing JoJo's, but what does Part 2 give them, if anything?   

Third, I'm interested in seeing how BT holds up in isolation.    It's a direct sequel to Part 1, and it ends with a prelude to Part 3, so it's clearly designed to function as part of a larger saga.   But Parts 4 and 5 really don't operate that way, and that got me thinking that maybe Part 2 is more self-contained than I give it credit for.  

But enough about that, let's get this started.

There's two plot threads in these opening chapters.  One reintroduces Robert E. O. Speedwagon, now a 70 year old oil tycoon, and Straizo, who has succeeded the late Tonpetti as the Ripple Master.   Speedwagon has been using his oil fortune to fund a research organization called the Speedwagon Foundation, and it discovered something major during an archaeological expedition: an engraving of the stone mask, the same one Dio used to turn himself into a vampire 50 years earlier.   Note that the mummified corpse lying on the slab with the engraving has vampire fangs.   Whoever this guy is, he didn't just know about the masks, he used one personally.

It might get revealed later in the comics, but I'm pretty sure the anime version had Speedwagon explain that he primary purpose of his foundation was to learn more about phenomena like the Stone Mask, which is probably why they were digging up an Aztec temple in Mexico to begin with.   As I recall, the Stone Mask was discovered in that part of the world, and taken back to Europe, where it eventually came into the possession of the Joestar family.   Speedwagon would know this tale, and so if he wanted to find out more about the mask, he would have known where to start.   Fifty years later, he seems to have hit paydirt.

But the mask engraving isn't why he called Straizo all the way in from Tibet.   Deeper in the temple, there's a weird looking area that looks like something from out of an H.R. Giger painting.   In the center stands this column, or pillar, if you will, and mounted on the pillar is...

...This guy, surrounded by more stone masks.   When I first watched this part of the anime, I though the big reveal here was that there were lots and lots of Stone Masks, which would be a big problem, since Part 1 made a big deal out of destroying the one Stone Mask that started all the trouble.   And maybe the guy in the pillar was the one who invented the things, I thought, but the bigger problem is that he made so many of them.   But no, Speedwagon explains that the "Pillar Man" is not an image carved into the stone, but a living being, in some form of suspended animation.  He even has a pulse.   

So who is this guy and why did he create the Stone Masks?   Speedwagon does not care.   He only wants this Pillar Man destroyed before he wakes up, and that's the sole reason he called in Straizo.   The two of them were the only survivors of the battle with Dio 50 years ago, and Straizo's Hamon power, also known as the Ripple, can destroy vampires that were created by the Stone Mask.    So he's desperately hoping Straizo can finish off the Pillar Man the same way.   But Straizo doesn't seem as concerned about it, and he asks about Joseph Joestar instead.    So I guess I ought to circle back to the other plotline... 

Fifty years after Jonathan Joestar sacrificed himself to defeat Dio Brando, his wife Erina and his grandson Joseph have moved to New York City.   Joseph tries to buy a Coke, but this kid swipes his wallet.   Kind of funny how Joesph's first and last appearances in JJBA are him getting robbed. 

But the kid runs afoul of the local corrupt cops, who bludgeon him with their batons and threaten to put him in jail for 20 years unless he agrees to give them a cut of whatever money he makes from pickpocketing.   When Joseph catches up to this scene, the cop even says he's going to keep Joseph's wallet "as evidence".   I gotta say, not everything from Battle Tendency has aged well, but this police brutality stuff has become incredibly relevant.  This could be 2021, except the cop would have had a gun, and he would have shot Smokey, then Joseph because he mistook the Coke bottle for a rocket launcher.  

Joseph tries to defuse the situation by claiming he gave the wallet to the kid as a gift, but the cop doesn't believe that story, and he wouldn't care even if he did.   He even smears boogers in Joseph's face just to prove that he can say and do whatever he pleases.    Up to this point, Joseph looks and seems a lot like Jonathan.  Later artwork tries to downplay that resemblance, probably just so it's easier to tell them apart.   The anime gave Joseph different color hair, and Hirohiko Araki himself started drawing young Joseph with aviator goggles all the time, even though he doesn't wear them that much in this story.  But starting out, the idea was that Joseph is the spitting image of his grandfather, and it almost looks like this is just an clever way to sneak Jonathan back into the story and transport him forward in time, except....

Coming through, coming through, coming through now  

Coming through, coming through, coming through now

Coming through, coming through, coming through 

Shake it like it's heat, Overdrive!

Yeah, so Joseph can do Hamon/Ripple tricks just like his grandfather, and all the others guys who could use Hamon back in Part 1.   The difference is that when Joseph does it, it looks coooooool.  After breaking Officer Hulk Hogan’s trigger finger, Joseph takes a big swig of soda, because it’s awesome.

To Smokey’s surprise, Joseph did all that badass stuff a second ago, but he’s terrified about his grandmother scolding him for it.  So Joseph wants to run for it, and that suits Smokey, so they rush off together, beginning a long tradition of JoJo’s running from things.   Enemies, consequences, you name it. 

Smokey asks Joseph how he learned how to do that trick with the coke bottle, and he says he has no idea, he’s just always been able to do it.    He knows his grandfather had the same power, but he’s dead, and so are his mother and father.  Curiously, Joseph’s father did not have Hamon powers, so it seems to have skipped a generation. 

And that sets up the other side of the plot.   Speedwagon wants Straizo to destroy the Pillar Man immediately, but Straizo first asks about Joseph.   He had heard some time ago that Joseph had innate Hamon abilities, and he had used them once to rescue Speedwagon from a kidnapping attempt in midair.   A flashback shows us this moment, with guys threatening to ransom and kill Speedwagon, but Joseph is just chilling in the back with a Superman comic. 

Okay, time out.   This panel rules and all, but the Superman comic book didn’t start until 1939, a year after Battle Tendency begins.   Superman was featured in the 1938 magazine Action Comics, but this scene on the plane is a flashback to Joseph from his early teens.   Also, the earliest DC bullet logo didn’t appear until 1940, so what is this?  Some kind of magic, time travelling comic book?    I hope someone got fired for this blunder! 

Anyway, Joseph was content to ignore the hijackers until one of them struck him, and even that wouldn’t have upset him except he got his own blood on his clothes, which Erina bought him, so that sends him into a rage.   Speedwagon was worried that Joseph might clobber the hijackers, but instead he knocks out the pilot, then drags him and Speedwagon out of the plane before it crashes.    The main thrust of that story was that Speedwagon was more worried about what Joseph might do than the hijackers who had already threatened to murder him.   Joseph is slow to anger, but once you piss him off he’s going to go to war, and he doesn’t always think things through.

But he’s never been trained to use his powers like Straizo’s order.  Upon hearing this, Straizo kills his own disciples, and all of the Speedwagon Foundation guys, then knocks Speedwagon himself out.   This will anger Joseph when he hears about it, but Straizo is counting on this.    As he explains, Hamon power can slow his aging process down considerably.   He and Speedwagon are both about 70 here, but he looks much younger.   Even so, he’s feeling his age, and he confesses that he always admired Dio for his immortality and power.   So now that there’s Stone Masks available, he’s decided to use one on himself, become a vampire, and become “a being that surpasses all”.  

And that’s a theme that runs through all of Battle Tendency, along with the rest of the JoJo franchise.  The main villains always seek power to position themselves above the rest of humanity.  At first, it seems kind of random for one of the men who opposed Dio to suddenly switch allegiences like this, but in truth, it’s human nature to be tempted by this kind of power.  Dio succumbed to the lure of the Mask, and now we find that Straizo would have done the same.   He just didn’t have the opportunity until now.

But the reason he’s concerned about Joseph is that he’s thinking this through.  Dio was defeated after all, so Straizo wants to eliminate anyone who could potentially defeat him.  Aside from himself and Speedwagon, the only others who know about the battle with Dio and the Stone Mask are Erina and Joseph.   Once he eliminates them, he’ll be free to do as he pleases.

Back to New York, this is a pretty sweet drawing of a car.    I’m not a car guy, but even I can get behind this.  By now, Smokey has met Erina Joestar, and he finds out some of the backstory from Part 1.    Erina’s husband died at sea, and she was pregnant with their son, Joseph’s father, and had a baby girl whom she rescued from the same incident at sea.   The two children grew up, married, had Joseph, and died, the father in World War I, and the mother of some unspecified illness.  Perhaps out of loneliness, Erina is “unflinchingly kind” even to someone like Smokey Brown, who doesn’t seem to think he’s worthy of her favor.

Anyway, Erina wants to take Smokey out to dinner at this nice Italian restaurant, but this racist mafia guy makes a big stink about a Black person being allowed to eat there.    Joseph gets up to kick his ass, but first he has to check with Erina to make sure it’s okay, and she’s like “Yeah, destroy that guy,” because even though she doesn’t approve of Joseph beating up people, she can’t abide disrespect to her friends.   This leads to the memorable fight scene where Joseph is like eight steps ahead of his opponent.  He goes for his brass knuckles, but can’t find them, and Joseph deduces where they are because of some bloodstains on his shirt.  He even suggests what this guy is about to say next because he’s so predictable.

Then he dodges every blow, moving so quickly that this jerk thinks he was hitting Joseph, when in fact he was punching a hat rack behind Joseph, and somehow he didn’t notice that he impaled his hand on broken wood until Joseph explained it to him.     And honestly, this feels like the prototype for a lot of Stand Battles down the line.  I’ll have more to say on that later.

What puts Battle Tendency over the top is how Joseph not only outwits this big lummox, but the rest of the diners at this restaurant all start applauding him for doing it.    They’re just honored to be present in this insane comic book where literally anything can happen.   “He made that asshole punch a hat rack!   This is awesome!”

Then this dude suddenly speaks up.   He’s not only the mafia guy in charge of the first guy, but he’s also heard a hot tip about Speedwagon getting murdered in Mexico by a Tibetan man.   He knew Erina would be interested in hearing this, but he’d never met her before.  Small world, huh?  

How would this guy already know about it, though?  I guess Straizo deliberately leaked the story, specifically so Joseph would find out about it sooner, but it seems awfully convenient.   But that’s how Battle Tendency rolls.   This thing’s only seven volumes long, and we’ve got a lot of ground to cover...

[lemoncakepanda]

My top 25 NaLu moments! (Part 3)

FINALLY! I’m sorry I dragged this for so long, but it’s finally here. The final part of my 25 NaLu moments, which means, the final top 5. Part 1 of the list can be found here, and part 2 can be found here. Now let us finally finish this. Beware of spoilers for the current arc, if you’re not updated on the manga, you probably shouldn’t read this.

5. “I heard his voice. I know he’s here” (ch. 50).

My favorite NaLu moment from the entire Phantom Lord arc; talk about trusting someone. I mean, Lucy had two choices in that moment. Either she jumped and would fall to her death, or she’d go with Phantom Lord and return to a lonely life. Lucy, surprinsingly, chooses to jump from the tower/castle (I don’t recall what it was), and I was like, “Natsu’s totally gonna catch her”. But what I didn’t know was that Lucy knew that too. She jumped, being sure that she heard Natsu’s voice, and that he’d be able to catch her. So she cries out his name, trusting that he’ll get to her in time. And back then, their relationship was still progressing, and she already trusted him with her life this much. And then, right after she calls out to him, Natsu shows up at last second and grabs her and they both fall to the ground with Lucy’s boobs on his face. It’s so cute when she says “I knew you’d be here”. That was an amazing moment, one that’ll surely always be on my mind, and I’m sure a lot of people have this moment as one of their favorites as well.

4. “Lucy would still be Lucy” (ch. 477).

There are exactly two reasons why I love this moment so much. First reason, Natsu finally woke up after spending a few chapters unconscious, and worrying eyerbody. And how did Mashima let us know he woke up? By having Natsu protect Lucy, of course. With a really badass loving line of how even if all there was left of Lucy was her head, it would still be Lucy, “so how about I turn your sorry ass into a pile of ashes instead?” *squeals*. Second reason, Natsu couldn’t save Lucy when Future Rogue tried to kill her, which resulted in Future Lucy dying to protect Lucy. Back then, he couldn’t stop the shadowy sword. And here, in a really similar moment, he’s able to get to her in time and he saves her life, which was one of the reasons why he left to train to become stronger. And finally he is able to protect her like he’d wanted to that time, and this time, nobody died, and the woman he cares for is right behind him, alive and smiling.

3. “It’s always more fun when we’re together” (ch. 227).

*give a minute k* Lucy Heartfilia is a precious human being who’s had one of the most beautiful character developments EVER, in history of anime/manga. And this moment right here, was one of the best she’s ever had. She was about to die, but she stood brave and with a smile on her face, looking at the people she loved the most (Natsu and Happy), saying she refused to run away because she wanted to stay with them. To me, this was actually a nice callback to chapter 5, when Team Natsu was on their first mission, and Natsu says it’s more fun if everyone eats together. And 200+ chapters later, we have Lucy smiling beautifully at Natsu like this, saying “it’s always more fun when we’re together”. And Natsu’s looking at her with so much distress, because he’s about to watch her get brutally killed, and at the same time it’s like he’s amazed, because the loud-mouthed blonde he used to find annoying who always wanted to run away when things got too dangerous, would rather stay with him and die than to leave him behind. I think something in Natsu’s feelings for Lucy definitely changed after this; it’s no wonder, since it was after the fight with Kaien that Natsu started acting more friendly to Lucy. But seriously, look at the panel, Lucy’s shaking, she’s obviously afraid, but she’s smiling because being with her friends is what matters the most to her. Such a great NaLu moment, no matter how you see their relationship.

2. “Come with me!” (ch. 1 & 419).

It wouldn’t be a NaLu list of moments if either of these two moments weren’t included here. And the reason I chose the two instead of just one, is because I feel like they both needed to be here, in order to make this more emotional. I mean, the first moment is the one that started everything. It’s Natsu bringing in some girl he knows barely anything about, all he knows is that she helped him, so he wants to help her as well. Lucy doesn’t know this guy either, all she knows is that he saved her life and he’s from Fairy Tail, the guild she most wants to join. But when he pulls her along, and asks her to come with him, I feel like they formed a real connection at that moment. Just look at the way they’re both smiling; so innocently, not knowing what’s in store for them, not knowing that they’ll become each other’s precious person. They’re starting an adventure right there, and unknowingly, changing each other’s lives forever. On the second moment, we have Natsu and Lucy again, in the same situation, only this time they’re Natsu and Lucy; they know each other, they love each other, and they’d do anything for each other. And just like in the day they met, Natsu’s going to change her world again, Lucy knows it. It’s everything she’s been waiting for since he left and the guild disbanded. She’s looking at that smile, the beautiful smile on his face that started everything, and she can’t help but tear up. I thought it was a nice thing that Mashima added a blush to Natsu’s cheeks in the most recent moment, because it shows just what I said; the first time, she’s just a girl and he’s just a boy and they have yet to know each other; the second time, they’re Natsu and Lucy and they love each other. And they’re going to change everything, again. 

1. “Thank you” (ch. 337).

After everything I said in the last moment, you might wonder how could that one not be my number one favorite. And it is almost a tie, but there’s something about this moment right here, with Lucy embracing Natsu as the GMG arc comes to an end, after everything that happened, and it just kind of tells me that they’re in love. All she says is “thank you”, yet that kind of means everything, you know? Like, “thank you for everything you did”, “thank you for protecting the future”, “thank you for being my friend”, “thank you for always being here”, or even “I won’t ever leave your side, I promise”. Because Lucy knows Natsu, she knows the death of her future self hurt him, and she wants to give him that reassurance that she’s still by his side, she’s still alive. That’s what this scene means to me. That’s the message Mashima sent to me. And that’s NaLu for me, you know? They’re each other’s source of comfort, family, and home. They might never get together romantically (even so make them get together mashima), but this is something we can always believe about their relationship, something that will never change. And the best of this, is that in this moment right there, is just the two of them. There’s no one else, it’s just Natsu and Lucy. Both battered, both hurt, both with a lot on their mind, but they have each other and they’re both alive, so they’re gonna be alright.

[aion-rsa]

The Batman: Can a Superhero Movie Be Too Dark?

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“What are you?” It’s a question posed to any self-respecting Batman in his first movie, and it’s one that always gets the same answer. “I’m Batman.” That’s the iconic bit Michael Keaton whispered in Batman (1989), and Christian Bale growled in Batman Begins (2005), each arriving in a movie that stunned audiences in its day. Yet those moments seem  like child’s play when compared to Matt Reeves’ The Batman, a film that, despite only being 25 percent filmed, shocked fans during this weekend’s DC FanDome.

When Robert Pattinson’s Batman is asked “what the hell are you supposed to be?” he responds with a brutal, almost sadistic beating of the other party. Using the kind of violence that would be deemed excessive force if he were in blue instead of black, the Batman pummels the man into a puddle before gasping, almost to his own surprise, “I’m vengeance.”

This isn’t your father’s Batman. It isn’t even your Batman from five years ago.

Like new iterations before it, Reeves and Pattinson’s interpretation of Bruce Wayne crawls deeper into the abyss and the crime dramas it emulates, finding something more grotesque and unsettling than we’ve previously known… which makes it irresistible to adult comic book fans. Whereas Christopher Nolan had grand success with his epic interpretation of Batman, pulling as much from the sweeping moviemaking of David Lean as he did the chilly criminality of Michael Mann’s Heat, Reeves appears to be diving into something decidedly grittier and more unsettling. The Riddler-based crime scene at the beginning of the trailer, where a riddle accompanies a presumably mutilated corpse, recalls the neo noir fatalism of David Fincher’s Seven.

In fact during the DC FanDome panel, Reeves outright named Roman Polanski’s Chinatown as his “key” cinematic inspiration. That 1974 classic is a detective thriller in the mold of other 1940s and ‘50s film noirs, but in Chinatown the tropes were liberated by ‘70s cynicism. Thus the movie depicts a Los Angeles rotten to its core, and far beyond redemption. The downbeat and defeatist ending even confirms there is no salvation for anyone.

While it’s still early goings for The Batman, it would appear the new movie is leaning into that sentiment, making the hopeful optimism of saving Gotham City at the heart of Nolan’s The Dark Knight Trilogy appear doomed, or at least naïve. Consider Reeves also said at the panel, “Where did Bruce’s family sit in that [citywide corruption]?” He’s teasing a third act revelation as crippling to Bruce’s belief in the system as the revelations that damned Jack Nicholson’s gumshoe and everyone he ever met in Chinatown.

But then that may be par for the course, with nearly every cinematic adaptation of Batman trying to justify its existence by being more ruthless, more sinister, and ultimately more cynical.

Treated as a beloved relic of ‘80s and ‘90s kids’ nostalgia today, when Tim Burton’s Batman opened in 1989, it stunned audiences with a black-clad superhero who brooded as much as he saved the day, and a performance by Jack Nicholson so nasty that his Joker was publicly dismissed by his predecessor, Caesar Romero. Keep in mind that in the late 1980s, Batman was still the subject of pop culture ridicule and camp thanks to Adam West’s 1960s television series, on which Romero played a harmless prankster in a purple suit.

Upon seeing Nicholson’s Joker, who killed people with a smile and electrocuted mobsters to death with a joy buzzer, Romero said Nicholson “was just so violent” and the movie was “dreary.”

Of course compared to Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix’s Oscar winning portrayals of the Clown Prince of Crime, Nicholson looks camp himself. But this showcases the creeping need for adults to darken their Gotham heroes and villains. The generation of parents who grew up with Adam West would revolt against Tim Burton’s stylized noir aesthetic in Batman and even grimmer Gothic fairy tale in Batman Returns (1992), with some parents protesting the second movie specifically and McDonald’s association with it via Happy Meals.

“Violence-loving adults may enjoy this film,” lamented one angry letter from a parent to The Los Angeles Times. “But why on Earth is McDonald’s pushing this exploitative movie through the sales of its so-called ‘Happy Meals?’ Has McDonald’s no conscience?”

Following the parent backlash to Batman Returns, Warner Bros. momentarily conceded the point and hired Joel Schumacher to make a pair of toyetic and Happy Meal-friendly superhero movies. But when that vision fizzled out, Christopher Nolan stepped in to make his groundbreaking superhero trilogy.

The film that coined the term “reboot,” Batman Begins eschewed the fantastical excesses of the Burton and Schumacher years, and revealed a strong allergy to anything camp. Nolan’s films were intended to be big old school Hollywood epics, with each having its own specific inspirations. On the whole though, they offered standalone action dramas that defied modern convention with an emphasis on in-camera stunts and somber-to-a-fault characterizations. Bale’s Batman even went about his crime fighting with the exacting vision of a campaign strategist, seeking to turn his Dark Knight persona into a political platform that would inspire Gotham to save itself.

And his villains, in their various forms, were allegorical stand-ins for all the anxieties facing Americans in the early 21st century: foreign terrorists scheming in the mountains; the lone gunman who just wants to watch the world burn; and a populist demagogue who would drag our institutions to collapse. That last one is eerily prophetic these days. At the time, however, it was all in service of an entertainment spectacle as big as James Bond or Michael Bay, but now filmed in dazzling IMAX photography.

Heath Ledger’s Joker was terrifying to many, but he was also a beloved figure for his seemingly supernatural ability to know and undermine everyone’s motivations and to speak with a forked tongue as seductive as the Devil. Feeling like a real-life monster, he could be scary to adults, unlike Nicholson’s Joker, but he was still a rock star as far as internet memes were concerned.

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In other words, a far cry from what came later in Phoenix’s lonely and visibly unpleasant murderer, Arthur Fleck. But before Joker or Pattinson as The Batman, we got a nominally darker Batman than Nolan’s. As portrayed by Ben Affleck in Zack Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, the Caped Crusader was now a deadened, self-righteous fascist who liked to prove his badassery by branding criminals with bat symbols and driving his Batmobile through someone’s skull. Nolan’s Gotham created the illusion of a grounded, grim reality, but Snyder’s was just grim: a humorless exercise in violence that appeals to a certain type of angsty teenage nerd. Nevertheless, Snyder recently insisted on Twitter that his vision of DC superheroes is “made for grownups.”

While I personally find the end result unconvincing in that regard, the desire for a more serious, “grownup” Batman is evident from Burton through Snyder, and now Reeves. Future generations who grew up with The Dark Knight Returns comics or Burton’s movies don’t feel the need to protest if a Batman movie isn’t made with Happy Meals in mind. In fact, they demand it—and revel when a Joker movie is so macabre and nihilistic that it creates misplaced anxiety about “These Times,” and wins Oscars for Best Actor and Best Original Score.

The results can be as exhilarating as The Dark Knight or as numbing as Batman v Superman, but both appear to benefit in appeal from fans who, after growing up with ostensibly serious versions of these characters, wanted to see that taken further into mature storytelling—which better justifies liking a child’s power fantasy.

This is not necessarily a bad thing: The Dark Knight and Logan remain my personal favorite superhero movies, likely in part because they renew inherently silly concepts with modern context and a deeper complexity. Matt Reeves appears to simply be going farther in this direction with The Batman, a film that may also be as far removed from the dry sense of humor of Bale’s Bruce Wayne as Affleck’s was. But judging by only a teaser trailer, it’s a movie so committed to its vision of Batman as a noir hero in a broken city, and not a blockbuster spectacle, that its director won’t need to tweet anyone that this is for grownups.

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[nofomoartworld]

Art F City: Long Live Dusty Whistles’s New Flesh (with no apologies to David Cronenberg)

Dusty Whistles

It amazes me that we still talk about drag as if it is anything but performance art. Yes, there are degrees of drag, which makes it hard to pin down, to make institutional, and there are many, many styles: night club fancy drag, high end theatre grade drag, quick-draw men in dresses/women in suits “rough drag”, and the still alive tradition of “female/male impersonation”, to list only a few.

We understand the performative nature of gender itself, and from that how our daily gender performances can so easily become creators of further performances. The very term drag is in many ways just another descriptor of life itself (“it’s all drag”, as RuPaul famously remarked of so-called gender normative presentation). Why then do we still regulate drag to “entertainment” and not discuss it with the same bookish, hushed, churchy-schooly gaze we apply to more official, more self-declaring forms of performance art? Is it simply because drag shows mostly happen in bars and performance art generally happens in art galleries? Is it simply a class thing? Well, fuck that.

Berlin-based, NYC-born artist Dusty Whistles practices a purpose-driven drag that blends futuristic post-gender, post-human iterations with front line political messaging. In Berlin, where mainstream drag can be boiled down to two show types, Cabaret/Sally Bowles re-castings and Hausfraus in bad wigs low comedy, Whistles is part of a new drag generation that wants to put the pocket knife back in the queen’s purse. Drag is political, and always has been. Sometimes, however, drag culture needs a bit of a tune up. Whistles is here to help.

In a series of monthly events, Whistles and their colleagues take the non-essentialist truth, that gender is a fluid construct, to the front lines of Europe’s current identity crisis. How, Whistles asks, can the innate in-betweeness of drag be a lived example in the promotion of understanding between “born” Europeans and “arrived” Europeans; in particular to the increasingly difficult situations lived by displaced and migrating people who come to Europe seeking asylum?

The connection is so clear – people who live between binary-based gender assumptions and people who live between nationalist identities and those sets of assumptions have a lot in common. To be always both and neither in a world that demands singularity is damned exhausting. Watching Whistles in action, one marvels at the sweet truth of the parallels they present, dissect, and make beautiful.

Dusty Whistles

Dusty Whistles: I’m the child of immigrants in North America; my parents arrived from Venezuela and the island of Madeira to a suburb of New York City, cycling distance to the 7 train in Flushing Queens. My parents gave a shot at a more typical North American lifestyle, and we lived in a nuclear family constellation, that is, till the apartment building which I spent my early childhood in was condemned. In solidarity with an old neighbor my folks refused to move as our building became slowly empty. Memories of my early childhood were composed of running around stairwells and empty flats of a crumbling building, and my father taking down a wall to give our small flat an open floor plan feeling, even though we, my parents, brother sister and I, still all slept in one room. Later we moved in together with 3 generations of my family, in the same town, surrounded by the parking lot for the LIRR train. I feel like these experiences of urban decay and reinvention, as well as collectivism, made for an easy transition into my life in the squats of the LES and in the collective houses of the DIY Punk scene of Brooklyn.

New York City at the time in which I grew up was still full of experimentation and a rich culture of poor people, very much unlike it is today. I started my relationship with the city, being young, out, and gay, and sneaking out of my family’s home in the night to partake in the vibrant club culture of the late 90’s, where difference and wit were celebrated above all. I saw the city I love change into a safe homogenized corporatized and heavily policed playground for the wealthy. Sometime shortly after the increased police powers granted in the wake of September 11th and the Patriot Acts 1 and 2, and the brutality of mass arrests during the Republican National Convention for Bush’s second term, I got the hell out.

RM Vaughan: What was it like to start over in a new country?

I had a limited connection to drag in Berlin, outside of an awareness and admiration of its history in the Polittunte movement, an intersection of drag and politics reaching back to drag’s history as a culture and artistic practice connected to resistance. Back in New York, drag was club kids, and piano bars, and the odd visit to Lucky Cheng’s with tourists.

[After much exploring] I found a community in [Berlin, with encouragement from the legendary drag artist/provocateur Olympia Bukkakis] in which I could interact with a political discourse that was not heavy with the weight of a lecture, a reading circle, a panel discussion, a workshop, or the dry and tired performance of a demonstration. I saw an art form that was interactive, vulnerable, ripe with the potential to experiment and play, and entrenched in a long history of resistance struggle.

It hasn’t stopped since then, contrary to my life and poverty, bouts of homelessness, and working two jobs as a carpenter and cleaner. And though I don’t confuse it for political action, I see it as an important part of my political practice, in the exercise of recreating a commons of sorts, exploring the possibility of collective emotional processing, and at times the fabulous simplicity of agitprop.

Dusty Whistles

Your work conflates the questions of gender identity, and of binaries, with the situation(s) of the dispossessed. To put it plainly, you embody in your performances the intersectionality between being multi-gendered and being multi-national. How did this parallel come to you and how do you continue to grow these representations in your work?

My drag persona is a living network of relation expressed through a point of multiple intersections of lifeforms and experiences. Sometimes I am a cloud and folds of atmosphere, sometimes the process of photosynthesis, or red volcanic earth and a field of orchids, sometimes more human in form but not in expression. It is somehow, also, an extension of what I would consider my spiritual life. Off the stage I am fluid in my gender presentation, often wearing wigs as prosthetics, and make up. The borders between my performance practice and my life are thin, and my life and its experience always bleeds through.  The practice of performance is often for me a space to explore the struggles that I find myself and my community within, not to find answers to my questions, but to explore them in a space of play.

Do dispossessed, multi-national people (I hate the word “refugee”, aren’t we all refugees from something?) come to your performances? What do they say to you?

For starters, we are not all refugees. As a North American I come from a country that creates and feeds the massive global political instability and war that creates the conditions for people to need to flee their homes and lives, not by choice, but for survival. I am not subject to racial oppression and the violence of national borders and immigration policies. Yes, the nation in which I was born failed me, and the construct of nations fail all lifeforms, but there is an implicit privilege in holding certain markers of citizenship because of the currently insurmountable damage of empire and colonialism.

To answer the question, yes, I’m sure some refugees have seen my shows, especially since I participate in Queens Against Borders, a drag performance night which donates all its proceeds to support queer refugee projects and performers, who also participate in the night’s performances. But do they say anything particularly different compared to other audience members? No. My audiences are often queer, unless I’m in the context of a gallery or museum performance… but even then they are quite queer. I seem to do quite emotional performances, people often cry or open up to me afterwards. I guess I’m that emo-polemic queen. But those moments are quite beautiful, and I feel less alone, and the isolation of modern life falls to the wayside, even if just for a while. As always I feel more like a facilitator, or a channel, they are not my performances, we did it together. It is a sacrament of sorts.

Dusty Whistles

Why is it vital to be doing this work here, in Berlin, and now?

I am doing this work here because I live here. I am doing work about, and for the community I live in, particularly for those who are immigrants like me, but also to keep a culture alive that knows no country. It’s very internally focused work, I guess.

The sexual revolution of the west started here. It survived 2 wars, somehow. And the radical and playful culture of the squatters movement and the radical left laid more groundwork… institutions that somehow managed to survive… the few of them that are still left… and give this city its character. I wish I could be more positive about this city, positive that that energy will survive the meaning and culture-destroying mechanisms of late neoliberal capitalism, but I’m not so sure if it will. Cities are slowly becoming a way of life only for the wealthy and Berlin is no exception. I’m not wealthy, neither is my family, and I can envision a time in which I too will be forced to leave if I want to continue living an artful life.

There is a word in German, lebenskünstler (lebenskünstlerinnen in its gender neutral variation). It literally translates to “life artist” and is more often than not used as an insult for someone with a lack of direction. I take it on as a life direction, an archetype to embody, the fool in the tarot. It’s not the easiest of careers, and by no means the most profitable, but it depends on how you find value in your life.

Drag has always been political, always presented and at the same time messed with certainties and shared experience. Where do you see your work in the larger “canon” of drag (with full acknowledgement that drag defeats systems such as canonization … but everything comes from something, yah know?).

I struggle with this. I look at perfect make up, and the standardized and limited range of contemporary popular drag performance, and I do not see myself there. I enjoy it, for what it is, but it’s not something I can do well or find much satisfaction in. The German Polittunte scene, which also somehow still exists but is separate from the international “alternative drag” scene, doesn’t appeal to me in its current practice, and politics.  I see myself take this art form into artistic institutions and also struggle as it bends and twists with more performance art narratives and an audience that doesn’t necessarily understand all of the subtlety that speaks to the queer community I would find in a bar or nightclub. Just the same in nightlife, I struggle to be heard reciting prose and lip syncing to Monteverdi arias over the clamor of “people wanting to have a good time”.

I’m still a young artist, and I guess I have yet to see where I fall into this “canon” or herstory. I know for certain I seek to preserve the connection of this art form to a herstory of resistance and revolt, to find overlaps in a political practice. Drag Queens in revolt at Stonewall, Drag Queens in the front lines of the Gay Liberation Front, Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, my New York City sisters, trans and fabulous, STAR (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries) and FEIRCE, and the queens of ACT UP, and the queens of Queer Fist and Gay Shame, the Radical Faeries and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.

I seek to realize drag as a continued pursuit of an ideal that is never reached. An art of struggle, play, and failure, and an absolute rejection of things as they are for how they might be. Isn’t it fabulous?

Your work is giving and open, even, I would say, vulnerability-creating, or creating a safe space for vulnerability. Yet, we live in Germany, where vulnerability is almost a taboo. How do you reach a German audience in this climate, one that over-privileges the false face of “strength”?

Haha! I don’t think i do [reach them]… though there are often a lot of German people in my audiences, they are often Germans who feel comfortable in more multicultural/national communities. Still, i don’t really know how I do it, or if it is even something I can affect. It just is. Like I mentioned before the work moves through me and is realized by us together. I’m always so absolutely grateful for that opportunity. Without each other, we are nothing.

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