#I have scores of work with off the wall characterizations

[glassrowboat]

Orange Ribbon. Itto.

Summary: Dressing up animals is therapeutic, no matter what anyone says. To see them in cute little clothes, in top hats, maybe even bow ties never fails to put a smile on your face. A hobby. It's a silly one, but a hobby nonetheless. And, of course, Itto (under his own insistence) needs to be decked out by his girl, too!

Word count: 1000+

Authors note: mentions of the reader being short, but to be fair when I think of Itto I still imagine that one photo of him next to Zhongli back before he was released. Itto is seven foot in my heart damnit-

Perhaps this is the perfect hiding spot, tucked behind grandma Oni's house with a stray slab of wood leaned against the wall to cover a few boxes from the rain whenever a storm comes crawling through, and currently yourself too. The treated otogi wood had a familiar smell that filled your senses. Though admiring some lumber wasn't your prime objective of this little game of hide and seek.

Not that you really needed to bother. Shinobu said the boys would be busy today helping put up posters for one of the many odd jobs they tend to pick up just to rake in some cash. Meaning you had all the time in the world to-

And the safe haven shook, the wood peeling back from this old paneled wall of the hut to reveal red horns and wide eyes right on you. A wide smile with pointed teeth that could only belong to one man, or in this case oni. “Look what I got for us!” He called out, hand holding up a small bag that, knowing him, was undoubtedly full of snacks.

So, no time in the world then.

Heh….

Taking a lid to the box you had set the onikabuto in to keep him all nice and secure as you subjected him to dress up time you slowly tried to slide it over the little guy as Itto excitedly talked. “Well my favorite sweetie pie, my bro, I got some strawberry daifuku, melon pan, and I even scored dorayaki!”

Dropping his bag on the box you were slowly sliding the lid over with a nice, hefty thud you couldn't help but jump. Itto was right about the snacks, they were something to get excited over, but not so much so when the little bug inside made a noise from the fright he was unwillingly given. You couldn't even fully click the lid over the box in time as Itto's black nails were poking the lid off as he made a small huh?

“What are you doing to my little buddy?”

The real answer to that? Well, the stray cats in the village have taken to running away from you everything they even caught a sight of your presence. Fully self done, but it still hurt as they turned away from you, fleeing from the person who would snatch them up and cover them in bow ties, little sweaters, or on the rare occasion a top hat for the less squeamish ones. It seems that you've completely lost every cats good graces after treating them like dress up dolls so you were stuck with no choice but to turn to a creature that reasonably couldn't run away. So now there's Crimson Staff being revealed to both your eyes as a bright orange ribbon was wrapped In a neat bow around his horn.

Deflect. Deflect. 

“What have I told you about calling me bro?”

“Don't call you bro when I've had my tongue in your mouth? Sorry, babe.” As he spoke, an awkward laugh slipped out of him, sharp fangs on show as he tried to brush it off with a smile. “But what are you doing to my star onikabuto beetle battler?”

Can't have his little champion getting distracted from the ring and all that. 

Okay, the first deflection didn't work.

“It's actually for your beetle battles!” You claimed, eyes flicking down to the bright orange fabric. “It's a warning. You know how in nature the most colorful animals are the dangerous ones, right? So this is just like war paint.”

Poison dart frogs are characterized by one very important feature that could only help solidify your point, so clearly, this claim has some backing. Backing Itto only seemed to nod at as he raised a hand to pat the little guy on the back, always so careful to make sure he wouldn't do any actual harm as he did so. “Interesting way to see it.”

Not at all….

“Though I'm not sure an orange ribbon would look more menacing than the bright red color he already has. Or what about that badass looking scar? But I respect the decision.” 

“Why thank you for your approval, I'm honored.”

Teasing him didn't work well though when he moved his hand over to pinch at your cheeks, pulling and squishing them at his leisure. “You’re a goof, you know that?”

“Says the town idiot.” A little uncalled for? Yes. Did you care when he was still trying to egg a reaction out of you? No. You didn't even feel bad as your tongue stuck out to point at him.

“Who you callin’ an idiot, short stuff?” How you could see his eyes flicking down to your tongue, or maybe even your lips as he leaned in closer, towering frame crouching down to where you were kneeling close enough to kiss. 

So how could you help yourself from pressing a quick smooch to his nose, trying not to giggle outwardly as his eyes crossed to watch your actions. So cute. “You, tall stuff.”

“Oh now you're asking for it, babe.” Reaching his hands out you didn't even have time to squeal as he picked you up, raising you up and into the air as Itto stood back up. There would be no freedom for you to have like this. Especially not when he had such easy access to grab at your ass. “Alright, so let's play a guessing game, yeah?”

Without even bothering to wait for you to say yes, you're down for this, Itto kept talking. “This is because you can't dress up the cats anymore, isn't it?”

Ah…you've been figured out.

“No. Maybe. Okay, yes.”

“Then I volunteer.” Katniss? “Why bother the onikabuto when I'm right here, babe? You can tie all the ribbons you want in my hair. Get some clips too if you want. I'm down for it all.”

“Is-”

“Better yet!” Itto started, cutting you off as he jostled you in his arms to keep you from falling. Mother fucker could've given a warning. “We can get the entire gang in on it. You could make us look all cool and stuff with all sorts of things. So let's get you some ribbons so then I can be the manliest oni on the block.”

“You're…ridiculous.”

“No, I'm all yours.”

Fair. “Yeah, you are.” Grabbing a tussle of his white hair you twirl it around your finger, unable to help yourself from thinking about tying it in all sorts of ways with all the little hair accessories you have back home. Maybe the ones with little skulls, more ribbons, or that one charm Itto had got you after first becoming official. (Shinobu had only told you later Itto had worked for a week straight to get it for you). “Then you're my dress up doll for the next hour, mister. No backsies?”

“None at all. Do to me as you wish, I'm so ready for a makeover!”

Oh, you're gonna make sure he'll regret saying that.

“Challenge accepted.”

Sucker.

[cactusspatz]

February recs

All 9-1-1 this month (except for a handful of others over at Pinboard)! A mix of gen and Buck/Eddie sorted from shortest to longest, because why not.

Solid Ground by @kingreywrites (gen)

"Hey Buckaroo," she says conversationally, as if any of this is a common occurrence. "I'm glad to see you awake, but please, whatever you do, don't move, okay?" (Or, Hen is here to catch Buck when he falls. Literally.)

Tightly written rope rescue, with a warm Hen-Buck relationship and Hen being a badass.

flutter in the dovecote by KiaraSayre (gen + Buck/Eddie)

Buck, Eddie, and Bobby quarantine from a bird flu exposure, and everything's fine. Totally fine. They're handling it just fine.

This felt SOOOO MUCH like an actual (bottle) episode and now I dearly wish it was.

things you don't say reach me somehow anyway by @sibylsleaves (Buck/Eddie)

He writes CHRISTOPHER at the top of the page in capital letters. Underneath it goes BUCK. Then PEPA, CARLA, CHIM, HEN and so on until he has fifteen names listed out. Fifteen people to show his appreciation for. He starts with the easiest name first. or, Eddie tells the family he chose how much they mean to him. All of them except one.

So sweet and affecting, with plenty of bonus Fire Fam feels while Eddie's therapy homework leads him to figure out the true shape of Buck in his life.

Winter Prayer by @cal-daisies-and-briars (gen)

When a work conflict prevents Athena from accompanying Bobby to Minnesota for the ten year anniversary of his family dying, Buck and May offer to go instead. Over the course of the trip, they all learn more about each other, and Bobby faces his grief.

Quiet and occasionally devastating, with a truckload of soft found family dynamics along for the roadtrip.

piece by piece, you filled the holes that were burned in me by polish_amber / @the-amber-raven (gen)

Buck didn’t see Hen and Chimney exchanging knowing smirks and he was still muffling his groans against the table when they went over to the kitchen to refill their coffee mugs and had a hushed conversation: “Should we tell him that Bobby also asks for feedback?” “Nah,” Hen replied mischievously. “I kind of want to hear what he’ll come up with on the spot.” 5 times Bobby has feedback for Buck during his annual review, and the one time Buck gets a perfect score and has some feedback of his own.

Such a fun use of that bit of canon, and great snapshots of their changing dynamic across the years.

I'll Scrawl it on Every Wall I See by @letmetellyouaboutmyfeels (Buck/Eddie)

When Eddie joins the 118, he and Buck don't exactly hit it off on the right foot. Or continue to walk on the right foot. In fact they kind of can't stand each other. Good thing they each have a beloved anonymous pen pal to share their daily woes with, someone completely unlike their insufferable coworker. Or, in which Buck and Eddie love each other before they know each other, and know each other before they love each other.

Delightful epistolary identity porn! Very very classic set up but the execution is *chefkiss* perfect.

Evan Buckley & The Coma-Verse of Madness by @cal-daisies-and-briars (Buck/Eddie)

After being struck by lightning on a call, Buck experiences a plethora of alternate realities showing him different directions his life could have taken. Fighting hard to get home, Buck learns what, or who, is important to him in every lifetime.

Great varation on 6x11 (the coma-dream episode), with gorgeous characterization. Emotionally devastating at times, but also devastatingly romantic.

[delkios]

Some years ago I had it in my head to write a plot heavy RepComm fic, set in Clone Wars, that I wanted Fixer to take the lead roll in. I admit I tend to favor him in my work mainly because most people don't do anything with him. I love Delta Squad pretty equally as a a group and individuals as they all tick different boxes on my 'Fav Characterizations' list. Except for Boss who is objectively The Best. Unfortunately, because writing plot-centric long fic is a bit of a struggle for me, I never really got more than a vague idea of "clones that work off the front lines because they're no longer able to fight are disappearing, someone needs to play bait and find out what's happening to them". I thought maybe they were being sold as trophies or for gladiatorial sport or as part of a Most Dangerous Game scenario but never quite found anything that resonated. I kept it on the back burner, thinking I'd figure it out eventually, but after a couple years of not looking at it I've decided that's not going to happen. But the few things I've managed to write I quite enjoy so I'm sharing those here.

(scene: Luminara works with Delta Squad to find out what's happened to the missing clones, Delta Squad argues who gets to play bait and who will be following the trail.)

“With all due respect, sir, I believe I’d be better suited for this mission.”

It took a moment for Boss to register what had just been said and who said it. He turned to Fixer with a bewildered, “What?”

“You would be better suited to help the general track me down. I’m confident I can handle the situation.”

“Well, since we’re airing out our opinion,” Sev pointed a thumb at himself, “I’m the one that got highest scores in survival training, if anyone can handle being dropped into the unknown, it’s me.”

“Absolutely not. There’s no discussion.” Boss rounded on the both of them. “Whoever is going down there will be without support and likely without supplies. We need flexibility and adaptability. I’m going.”

“You’re not going to volunteer in?” Luminara asked with mild amusement.

Scorch waved a hand with a laugh. “Nah. My preferred skillsets aren’t going to be that useful in this kind of situation.”

“Again: survival. Me.” Sev growled.

“And if there’s equipment available to create a tracking beacon, I’m the only one of us capable of building one from scratch.”

That seemed to throw the other two for a moment. Sev waved a hand in acquiesce but Boss rallied. “I have the best weapons and unarmed combat record. If there’s anything dangerous down there, I’ll have a better chance in subduing it.”

“And my record is right behind yours,” Fixer countered coolly. “There isn’t much that you can handle that I can’t.”

(snip)

“It makes more sense for me to go- if anything goes wrong, I’m more expendable than you are.”

“Okay, hold up, stepping in now,” Scorch said, pushing away from the wall and moving to the middle of the discussion. He pointed a finger at Fixer and said, “You are never allowed to say that again. Or anything like it.”

“It’s not-”

“Ah, ah. No excuses, no deflecting. You’re not allowed to say or think that you’re more expendable than the rest of us. Go it?”

“Six-two-”

“You say yes or I’ll tell Sev what you did to his helmet.”

Sev swiveled his head between the two. “Wait- what about my helmet?”

“Sev,” Scorch said dryly, “do you mind not interrupting?”

Fixer crossed his arms and looked to Boss who just shrugged and said, “He’s just saying what I would.”

Fixer sighed. “Fine. I won’t say that again.”

“What happened to my helmet?”

(I need more Deltas- or clones in general -being petty brothers to each other. There's no way that they're not.)

---

(scene: Fixer meets some of the clones that had recently disappeared. The people that caught him believe he's a regular CT which he's posing as, the CTs immediately recognize that he's not. Fixer might be used to having to take charge of the squad when Boss is unavailable but I thought it would be interesting in having him interact and lead clones he's unfamiliar with.)

“You can call him Nice.”

Fixer tilted his head to one side. “Nice?”

‘Nice’ sighed in a way that felt achingly familiar to Fixer. “I’m CT-6969.” Fixer just looked at him blankly and Nice fidgeted under the stare. “It… it’s a sex joke.”

“I’m aware.” He just didn’t know how that correlated with ‘nice’.

(did I make a character for the sole purpose of making a sex joke? Yes, and I have no regrets.)

---

(scene: a group of armed individuals go after the clones, Fixer stays back to cover their escape. Flashback.)

“Fairness,” Vau had said, the word like a rotten thing in his mouth, “does not exist. It especially does not exist for the likes of you. You are soldiers, therefore you are expected to sacrifice for those unwilling to sacrifice. You are clones, therefore you will never be seen as a true person. You will never know freedom, you will never have a choice and no one will care. You are slaves for a war that has yet to begin to protect people who do not know you exist and will not mourn when you die. A lesser being would crack under that knowledge but you will not. You will endure, you will overcome. You will be the fiercest, hardest, most ruthless beings in the galaxy because that is the only way you will survive its cold indifference. Now,” Vau slammed his beskad to the floor, the sound of it ringing through the training room. Fixer’s hands flexed, breathing slow and steady despite his heart racing and anxious sweat prickling at his brow as he stood, unarmed and unarmored, surrounded by a squad in full training armor, ready to come down on him from all sides. His squadmates, like Fixer, like many unlucky others chosen for the exercise, stood in their own circles, waiting for the order to be given. “Show me who among you have what it takes to become a true ramikad. Begin.”

(I imagine Vau tended to make his exercises a level harder than what the other trainers did. Setting his commandos up to fail if they didn't think smarter, act quicker, fight harder. Never sugar coating how little their lives would mean to anyone but teaching them they would never need anyone's approval or kindness, even his. Whether he succeeded or if that was the right thing to do is up to the reader.)

---

“As they say: the enemy of my enemy is a useful tool.”

Tio hesitated. “Uh, isn’t it the enemy of my enemy is my friend?”

Fixer blinked at him. “What sense does that make? That’s just asking to be betrayed.”

“...you commandos must’ve had gone through some karked up training.”

(As much as Vau scoffed at other trainers as being soft on their commandos, they're still very much commandos. So having their habits and teachings contrasting with CTs who didn't have such brutal, cutthroat trainers and likely had more exposure to 'normal' people is interesting to me.)

---

(scene: after Delta Squad and Luminara and her troops arrive, taking out whoever was here and saving the captured clones. This is Delta reuniting with Fixer)

An arm snaked around Fixer’s neck and his body was stretched back over hard armor as Sev put him in a chokehold. “You were the reason why my helmet smelled like a kriffing gym locker room for a month? Do you know how many times I bitched to requisitions about faulty filters?”

It wasn’t a serious hold and Fixer could crane his head enough to not pass out. “You got me written up for bypassing the GAR’s holonet restrictions!”

“That wasn’t me, di’kut! Scorch implicated you when some uptight officer caught him distributing porn to the regs!”

“To be fair,” Scorch added quickly, “the implication that I was getting the material from you happened before I got caught.”

Fixer boggled. “Why were you distributing porn to the regs?”

“Hey, I am an accidental entrepreneur. I was just selling pirated unrated cuts of movies and then I started getting requests and the next thing I knew,” Scorch clapped his hands, “boom- I’m running an underground porn supply line.”

Fixer turned to Boss accusingly, “Did you know about all this?”

“Look, if I want to keep tabs on what the three of you do at all times, I’d never get any sleep. Don’t try to pin any of this on me.”

(There is no way the clones were allowed unrestricted access to basically anything, let alone the holonet which would be like the internet times, like, fifty. The fact that they were given holonet access at all was probably such a novelty and gave them a sense of freedom that they probably didn't notice or care that they were essentially parental controlled. Fixer, in Legends continuity, got Delta Squad's terminal taken away during training because Vau worried he'd hack Kamino's mainframe. I don't doubt one of the first things he did when he had time was to see if the GAR set up any holonet restrictions and getting around them. He likely didn't actually care about what was being restricted, he just saw a challenge to overcome. Scorch, being the kind of guy that people would feel more comfortable talking to, saw the potential it offered: oh, you guys like this movie? Did you know there's an unrated version that I could get you a copy of for, let's say, extra rats, some loose ammo and first crack at that blaster cannon that's going to salvage, whaddya say? It kind of snowballed on him from there but hey. Man knows how to adapt, he could definitely work with this. Until he got caught.

Sev tends to look for trouble and Scorch tends to make trouble. Fixer's troublemaking is generally a byproduct of boredom. At some point Boss just has to say they're someone else's problem or he'll collapse from exhaustion.)

---

(scene: epilogue, Delta Squad ready to deploy and the clones Fixer helped free say their farewells.)

“I appreciate your help, Sixty-Nine.”

Behind him, Sev snorted and Scorch cackled. “Nice.”

Nice’s expression was a mask of eternal suffering.

(Fixer is probably the only person that hasn't snickered at his number and for that Nice will always hold him in the highest regard.)

[crest-of-gautier]

EVP 999 reached on bone rattle arena! this makes my third gold map badge (my other two are jammin salmon junction + gone fission hydroplant!). i'm really happy to have been able to get this badge, it took 50 jobs starting from EVP 300 to get here.

the short of my thoughts is that it's important to take lots of breaks! but i have some other things related to salmon run and my journey with it in the past year that i want to share, so i'll put that under the cut 👍

i've only really grinded salmon run "seriously" since march 2023, and i only really attempt pushes on map rotations that i find favorable (it's important to have fun and having weapons you like help a lot!). and trying to get these map badges is a lot like a marathon, meaning that it's important to pace yourself appropriately.

i could go on about salmon mechanics that are important to learn. but salmon run at it's core ultimately tests your ability to quickly assess situations and make judgment calls. and the most important judgment call, to me is knowing when you need to step away from the grind because you've hit a skill wall.

the challenges i've faced with SR have changed over time as i've accumulated more experience with the mode. but generally speaking, i find that hitting a wall is characterized by repeatedly reaching a certain hazard level/wave, but not being able to completely clear it. i know i certainly found it annoying to reach wave 3 but not meet the quota.

when i started doing these pushes in 2023, i used to throw myself back into the queue because "we were just 1-2 eggs off! we'll get them next time!" and uh. here's the general gist of how that went:

(we failed again)

(i get increasingly irritated)

(my performance starts dropping from irritation)

(i get irritated that my points are dropping because there's only so many hours in a rotation)

("i need to keep playing otherwise i'll be stuck with the not as experienced players!!!")

(the cycle continues and i get a net loss of points)

fortunately, i don't do this anymore because it's largely unhelpful. it took awhile for me to get over the idea that throwing myself into another shift would get me back my points but. i did eventually!

these days i find that it's much more effective (and healing!) to take a 15-20 minute break (and sometimes an hour or longer!) whenever i notice signs of agitation or tension... any shifts that i do afterwards are MUCH easier.

the other reason why i think breaks are so important is because time away from the game helps you ask yourself better questions on what went wrong.

generally speaking if you can pinpoint why your shifts go to shit (thank you video footage and clips), you should be able to figure out a solution for that. and isn't that what learning is about?

i think a lot about how many shifts it took for me to get from EVP 300 -> EVP 999 on gone fission (124 of them). and when i think of that experience, i'm grateful that i learned the power of breaks since it took like half the jobs for me to get to 9's on bone rattle 💪

i definitely think that it's important to remember that getting through shifts will gets easier as you accumulate more experience. this is easier said than done but i think that if you can find ways to take note of your improvement, no matter how small, it will be easier to stay motivated!

i find this most noticeable with eggstra work... while i've only scored within the top 20% and never top 5%... i have gotten closer to the scores of the top 5% (i <3 marooners bay + jammin salmon junction eggswork) than i did at the start!

scoring aside, i cringe a lot at my spawning grounds eggstra work video, these have to be some of the most abysmal gameplay decisions ever and i'm happy to say that i wouldn't make that these days 💀! so if you've ever cringed at your old gameplay do not fret... it is natural and it's a sign of improvement!

anyway that's my lizz talk. while this is about salmon run i technically think this can expand to other pursuits in life. like creative hobbies. and sports! or maybe something else i didn't think of. learning is so wonderful and cool!

as a bonus, here's a notebook spread i made about golden rotation when i needed a break from the game... (did you know i really like my notebook... it's so fun)

[wildcards1407]

Travel Documents 129: Bang Bang Bodhisattva

by Aubrey Wood

Genre:  sci-fi, near-future, cyberpunk, bio-punk

Publication Date: May 9 Pre-Order At This Link

The Dust Cover Copy

Someone wants trans girl hacker-for-hire Kiera Umehara in prison or dead—but for what? Failing to fix their smart toilet?

It’s 2032 and we live in the worst cyberpunk future. Kiera is gigging her ass off to keep the lights on, but her polycule’s social score is so dismal they’re about to lose their crib. That’s why she's out here chasing cheaters with Angel Herrera, a luddite P.I. who thinks this is The Big Sleep. Then the latest job cuts too deep—hired to locate Herrera’s ex-best friend (who’s also Kiera’s pro bono attorney), they find him murdered instead. Their only lead: a stick of Nag Champa incense dropped at the scene.

Next thing Kiera knows, her new crush turns up missing—sans a hand (the real one, not the cybernetic), and there’s the familiar stink of sandalwood across the apartment. Two crimes, two sticks of incense, Kiera framed for both. She told Herrera to lose her number, but now the old man might be her only way out of this bullshit...

A fast-talker with a heart of gold, Bang Bang Bodhisattva is both an odd-couple buddy comedy that never knows when to shut up, and an exploration of finding yourself and your people in an ever-mutable world.

Quick heads up: this book is in pre-release, so this is a spoiler-free review. There’s more depth I’d love to dig into, but I’m hands-off until more folks have read it!

The Scene

Worldbuilding

Hooooo BOY. Buckle up. Here we go.

A high-octane story in the cultural tradition of Snow Crash, Minority Report and Blade Runner, Bang Bang gives folks in the queer community what they’ve been waiting for: a look at the cyberpunk world through their eyes.

In worldbuilding, Wood has taken cues from all your favorite wouldn’t-live-there-if-you-paid-me futures: the tech that argues with you has shades of The Fifth Element, the use of bionics and implants is reminiscent of Repo Man. And the harsh reality of gigging for a living and running on ice? Well that, we’re living right now. Mixed together, they make for a world I really enjoyed reading, but definitely don’t want to visit.

The Crowd

Characterization

Wisecracking, fast-moving Kiera is the POV character we’ve been waiting for. She’s clever, quick-tongued, a little bit of a spaz and an absolute sweetheart. She’s the type of quick-thinking trans girl who’ll yell ‘I got a dick!’ when a skeez wolf-whistles, just to watch him walk into a wall. She’s thirty years old, sick of the grind, and sweet-natured under the armor her world impels her to wear. Her foil is Angel Hererra. No wait, sorry, he changed that name, and that face, to get the world to give him a bit less of a hard time. It sort of worked…sort of. But it cut him off from part of himself too. And that’s never a good thing. On their side are a clever assortment of allies: the android studying law, the classy dame with all the threads to the underworld in her hand, and the indentured servant who really just wanted a better life. Underpinning the story is the sweet support of Kiera’s polycule, waiting at home with snuggles and bingeable TV. Cueing up the ominous music for this piece are Detective Flynn, who gives new meaning to being a dick, and several other impressive baddies. The characters, even those who aren’t fleshed out, are well-written and interesting. The ones who get more time on the page are rounded into wonderfully whole people. Most of them don’t fit society’s definition of ‘people’ for some reason. And with every move, they prove why they should.

Writing Style

Fast paced and sometimes brutal, this work is full of bright one-liners and witty zings. Like it says on the dust cover, it definitely has echoes of The Big Sleep going on, along with Snow Crash and similar zany takes on a dark future. But the author pulls on this setting like a favorite coat and wears it with style, making it fresh. I particularly enjoyed the showcasing of authority using legalism as a weapon against people who don’t fit: it’s a nasty part of the LGBT and minority experience that needs to be addressed. But I enjoyed watching our characters find their way around it even more!

The Moves

Plot

I’ll say this up front: I was not expecting these twists and turns. And I bet you won’t see what’s coming either, not until it’s right on top of you! Or, in most cases, right on top of Kiera. Poor kid.

(cue Kiera shouting ‘I’m thirty, dammit!’ in the background) In the classic neo-noir style, you have your crime, you have your slueth, and you have your unknown criminal. But the twists and turns that take us from ‘oh crap a dead body’ to the last page are nothing like you expect, and everything you want to read.

Overall Rating

A high-octane race through Cyberpunk City, with pit stops for queer love and solidarity.

[deniigi]

Hey, Matt! Do you have any tips on writing Matt Murdock? I'm failing expediently at it and your characterisations of him are, like, the actual best.

Hi friend!

Oh, I’m sure that you’re doing fine.

I’m not quite sure how to answer this ask because everyone’s going to have a different characterization of a character in their heads and writing is way that we kind of work those out into the open.

So the real answer here is: you tell me who you think Matt Murdock is and then guide me through that character by presenting me with scenarios that show me that version of him and how he became that way.

But!

Since that’s a bit metaphysical and might just confuse you more than help you at the moment, I’ve talked a little bit about how I figure out my characterizations for different Matts here.

I guess if I had some general tips about writing Matt Murdock, it would be these:

Never forget that Matt is blind. That doesn’t need to be emphasized or anything, but the way he responds to things and moves through space in your piece will be inherently different from the way a sighted person (including yourself if you are sighted) does those things. So you have to think harder and do a little research before you write certain scenarios sometimes.

What that looks like in the text is occasional references to him using his stick or asking for clarification or using alternate means of media (if you look through Inimitable, for example, you’ll find places where, instead of text messages, I have Matt submit voice messages to the chat, and that’s just because Voice to Text isn’t always great for sending longer texts, so it’s easier for him to use the voice message function on apps that have it, like Whats App. These kinds of things are small but go a long way to helping you feel out Matt’s perspective. You’ll start to think about things which might be frustrating for him and things which might be interesting, etc.)

Matt is a whole lot of adjectives and trauma, but above all of that, he is generally pretty guarded and secretive at the outset. He’s not the kind of guy to just have an emotional conversation with people he doesn’t know well, even if he’s willing to help them, and so he typically needs a warming up period with people before he decides that he’s willing to throw down for them. (It weirds me out when people just have Matt divulge a whole lot of personal information about himself in fics without there being some kind of tension/struggle/catalyst leading up to that)

Last tip: Matt is fun. 

Yeah, actually, he is. He’s fun and he’s funny and he’s frequently silly and very creative. So have fun with him. The doom and gloom and trauma that he’s lived through in both the Netflix series and the comics often overtake peoples’ understandings of Daredevil and that’s totally fine if that’s what you’re into, but personally, from what I’ve read/watched/seen, Matt is silly, petty, and charming and he knows he is and he revels in it. So if you like that part of him, lean into it. Just keep in mind that he’s got a shitty sense of humor (as in, he thinks pretending to be his own twin brother is both clever and inspiring) and he often makes jokes to people about himself that he knows damn well they won’t get.

Anyways, these are just my approaches. They don’t have to be yours (except for the blind note. The blind note is non-negotiable.)

I hope this or something in the other post helps, anon! But above all else, don’t worry about it so much! Write for yourself and do what feels right to you based on your observations of the character and you’ll be good to go!

[wouldntyou-liketoknow]

The Professor

DISCLAIMER: The AU this story is based off of belongs to @fangirltothefullest. The characters used in this story belong to Thomas Sanders (yes, that includes the characterized version of him), and the Little Nightmares franchise belongs to Tarsier Studios.

(Psst! You can also find this story and the ones to follow it at https://archiveofourown.org/users/WouldntYou_Like2Know)

(Trigger Warnings: detailed descriptions of body horror, mentions of animal death and implied dissection, implied strangulation, mentions of eating. Please let me know if I missed anything)

Indigo paced the table, fuming and fretting and feeling very grateful that no one was around to see him fume and fret. It wouldn’t do for rumors to start spreading about how he let his emotions get the better of him (not that they were, mind you). Students were expected to be calm, collected, and composed. It was only logical; this was a school, after all. Of course there had to be rules. 

And Indigo had always followed those rules.

. . .Well, okay, fine, perhaps he had just recently broken one of them for the first time, but he honestly couldn’t understand why he was being punished like this. A peek inside the professor’s office: that was all he’d wanted! It wasn’t like he’d set out to steal any answers of future assignments or vandalize the equipment. No students were allowed in there, and he’d simply grown curious as to why. 

(By now he’d gotten his answer, which was as confusing as it was satisfactory: he’d seen diagrams and illustrations of things that were far beyond the class’ typical work. While Indigo hadn’t had enough time to examine it in order to truly understand it, he’d initially grown very excited about his discovery. Would these things be involved in the class’ projects later on? This question had, obviously, gone unanswered, as he’d asked it a few times upon being discovered but was instead met with lectures about his behavior.)

Indigo supposed he could understand the staff’s aggravation with him. Yes, it would’ve been better to politely ask the professor about the office instead of sneaking in, but the professor had been busy with his own work! It would’ve been rude of Indigo to interrupt him with questions. Therefore, answering his own question by himself seemed to be a much more efficient course of action. 

If anything, the adults should’ve expected this from a student like Indigo. Indigo prided himself on being the most mature and capable pupil in the building. He always took good notes, always studied, always did his own work, and always received some of the highest scores. 

He was respectful towards his teachers and his fellow students (though he’d become infamous for having quite a sharp tongue if anyone tried to downplay his intelligence). And that was another thing: when Indigo had tried to plead his case and defend himself, he’d been cut off or snapped at. Why? If anything involved him, then it was only fair that he had some kind of say in it.

Shouldn’t the teachers be happy about a pupil’s eagerness to learn?

Knowledge was power, and that power was free, wasn’t it?

Just because Indigo was young meant he didn’t deserve to try and advance himself?

Was that how it was? Did adults really not have to listen to children due to their difference in age?

___

Red put his back to the wall and crouched, cupping his hands together. Thomas offered an appreciative nod and quickly took the leg-up, catching the frame of the door’s empty window. Thomas pulled himself up, then had to carefully balance himself as he peered into the next room. 

He discovered a wide alcove with counters and sinks on the sides of the walls. Long-legged tables and stools of the same height had been carefully positioned as to take up the rest of the available space with controlled chaos, all cluttered with glass jars and beakers and flasks and stacked books and racks of test tubes. At the front of it all was a large desk and chalkboard.

They’d stumbled upon some sort of laboratory.

Huh. That was. . .normal, Thomas supposed. More normal than some of the stuff he’d seen, that was for sure.

Figuring it would be rude to keep Red waiting, Thomas took a deep breath before he lightly jumped down the opposite side of the door, just barely managing to catch himself on the handle, which turned with a satisfying click under his weight. 

The door slowly creaked open, which prompted Thomas to brace himself as he let go and plummeted to the floor. . .only to never actually hit the floor. Thomas blinked at the fact that he was now being held in a princess carry, tilting his head at Red. Red simply chortled at this before letting his friend down.

The duo easily scaled one of the stools and hopped up onto a tabletop. Thomas surveyed this new area and spotted a vent above one of the cabinets over by the counters. He made for the edge of the table, planning to jump across to the next one, but stopped short as he heard Red gasp. Thomas turned his head, about to ask Red what was up, and then tripped over something, a metallic clatter ringing through the air as he fell.

 Thomas put a hand to his temple and picked himself up to glare down at the offending object. Only to then realize that the offending object was, in fact, a scalpel; he was lucky he’d tripped over the handle. Otherwise he might have cut his foot.

Thomas looked over to Red, who stood frozen over by the center of the table. He went to his friend’s side and gently shook his shoulder. He finally followed the other child’s gaze and quickly froze in the same way. 

A tray sat before them, holding some kind of dead animal--Thomas glanced at its head and, seeing the snout that was shaped like an upside-down heart, guessed it was a piglet--that lay on its back with its all four of its legs spread. A line had been sliced all the way from the piglet’s throat to the end of its underbelly, showcasing all the little organs packed inside.

___

Indigo felt his eyes start to sting and quickly shook his head, snapping out of his self-imposed stupor. He sighed and gently kneaded at his forehead. Now was not the time to get a headache. Well, there was no getting out of this--not unless he wanted to get into more trouble. No amount of analyzing his current situation would actually change anything. 

With that in mind, Indigo got to work. 

He jumped from one table to another, then looked around the library. As usual, books were scattered here and there, courtesy of careless visitors, their spines surely almost broken by now. A mess like this would have normally been taken care of by the librarian, but not tonight. Tonight, that was Indigo’s job (though he failed to see why the teachers thought it would make a good punishment. Indigo was skilled at many things, and of course organizing was one of them. This would take hardly any time at all). 

Indigo stared intently at one of the abandoned booked and outstretched his arms, holding his open palms in empty space. The book shuddered in place, then gently began to hover over the table it’d previously been lying on. Indigo silently called it over, and the book silently obeyed, pages fluttering as it floated across the room, only pausing when Indigo flinched at the sound of thunder and rain pounding on the roof. Once the book was close enough, Indigo read its title, then made it slightly turn so he could look at the little sticker on its spine with the first three letters of the author’s last name. 

He then glanced around the bookcases until he found the one marked with those same letters, holding a hand out to it and carefully moving a few other books to place the one he’d been levitating back where it belonged. Indigo repeated this process before stopping short. 

Why was he just focusing on one at a time? Sure, lifting several objects at once could be tiring, but it’d still be faster than what he was doing right now. 

Indigo allowed himself a small smile as he moved another book, this time holding it before him to be used as a platform. He raised it up until he could safely step onto the top of a bookcase before glancing around either side of the shelves. Then, gathering his strength, he raised every misplaced book he saw, letting them orbit around and above him as he checked where they went.

 In just a few moments, only one book remained. Indigo examined it and quickly realized that this was one of the encyclopedias the librarian usually kept at her desk. Indigo knew he’d grown more weary than he had been earlier, but he also knew that he had enough energy left for this.

 Once again, he moved the book in a horizontal position and climbed atop it, guiding it and himself to float towards the librarian’s desk. He soon found himself hovering above his landing target, and began carefully lowering the book when a particularly loud peal of thunder boomed outside. Before Indigo had time to register the sound, the library suddenly went dark.

___

Thomas eventually tore his eyes from the dissected piglet at the sound of footsteps echoing through the hallway. He glanced up at the door, which he then berated himself for leaving wide open, and felt his pulse skyrocket. Just outside the door, he could see a long shadow quickly growing larger as whatever light was casting it quickly grew brighter.

Now acting on instinct, Thomas grabbed Red’s wrist and dragged him away from the piglet’s carcass, only releasing his grip once Red was running beside him. Together, they leapt onto another table and ducked behind a rather large jar that had been placed somewhat precariously near the edge.

Those footsteps were much louder now--Thomas gulped as he heard the door slightly bang against the wall as a newcomer pushed it away to wander into the laboratory. The light he’d seen before--Thomas realized he could now see its outline along the jar. Trying hard to steady himself, Thomas ever-so-slightly stepped forward and peeked out around the jar, wondering if Red was doing the same. He watched as an adult traced their fingers along the writing on the chalkboard, their back to his and Red’s hiding place. Thomas squinted, able to make out a black shirt being worn over a grungy pair of trousers. 

The light was obviously coming from this stranger. . .Thomas titled his head at how it seemed to be shining onto the chalkboard from their face. Were they wearing a headlamp? Something like that? Thomas ducked out of sight as the stranger finally turned away from the chalkboard, then peered back out. He felt the color drain from his face as it became clear that that person was not wearing a headlamp or anything like it. 

Now, what with the clothes it was dressed in and the good posture it kept and the short, neatly-combed bushel of black hair atop its head, it would have been perfectly understandable to label this monster as a more normal entity.

The monster’s face, however, was anything but normal, considering the fact that said face seemed to have been wiped from its head completely. In the place where its eyes, nose, and mouth should have been were twisted folds of skin that seemed to have first imploded around the monster’s skull, and then sunk into the gaping orifice in the center of the head. The aforementioned orifice was what illuminated the monster’s path: it glowed with an intense white beacon and shone like a spotlight on whatever the monster’s head happened to be pointed towards.

___

Time seemed to slow down as the book, no longer under Indigo’s influence, plummeted through the air. A startled shout escaped Indigo’s lips as he went crashing to the floor, followed by a yelp at the sound of the book he’d been carrying bounced off of the librarian’s desk. 

What uncanny timing for a power outage. 

Everything had its flaws, and Indigo’s gift, as impressive as it was, was no exception. He could only use it in light, whether that be artificial or natural. Indigo groaned, blinking as he got to his feet.

 Now he’d have to manually lift the book and put it in place and manually find a way to turn the lights back on and . . .why was everything so blurry? It was dark, of course, but his eyes would’ve been able to adjust. . .

His glasses! His glasses were gone!

Heart pounding in his chest, Indigo tried to keep calm as he lowered himself onto his hands and knees and started crawling, patting at the floor as he went. It was imperative that he found his glasses--he was as good as blind without them!

In the midst of his searching, his fingers brushed against something that certainly wasn’t part of the carpeted floor. It also certainly wasn’t his glasses, but Indigo, ever-curious Indigo, palmed it and brought it closer to him. Whatever this was, it was made of smooth fabric--silk, perhaps? 

If it was some kind of clothing article, then it was an adult’s clothing article. It had to be. . .from what Indigo could tell by touch alone, it was longer than he was tall. Indigo squinted even more than he had been already and brought the object closer to his face, trying hard to see what color or shape it was. One could easily imagine his surprise as the object was suddenly moving in his grasp, as though of its own accord. 

Indigo’s eyes widened as he felt something snake around his throat and tightly coil around it, felt his hands follow suit and tug at the object in an attempt to pry it off him. The object responded by tightening its hold on him. Indigo let out a strangled cry, trying desperately to get his fingers beneath the object. He stumbled and fell onto his back, but he hardly even noticed. His only concern was getting the object off and getting the precious oxygen he needed. That was his only concern, even as his already poor vision began slowly but surely started to darken around the edges. . .

___

Whether it was raw fear or morbid fascination that made Thomas stand and watch the monster, one couldn’t be certain. Whatever the reason, Thomas found that he simply couldn’t look away as the monster shambled over to one of the tables, lifted a book to eye(?)-level, and just held it there. 

The haze emitting from its orifice seemed to pulse, then lengthened, almost as if it was reaching for the book. Then, the very second the light touched it, the book was suddenly shaking, its pages being ripped out by some invisible force. The monster’s orifice seemed to ripple as it widened, making room for the pages, and soon, the whole body of the book itself, as they were sucked into its head.

Thomas’ mouth opened and closed a few times with no sound coming out. 

 Did that thing just eat a book? 

The monster was leaning over the table now, giving any other books it found the same treatment as the first. Thomas quickly learned that this monster apparently was not the discriminatory type, watching as it grabbed a rack of test tubes and vacuumed them up, one after the other. The monster circled the table, hands never leaving its surface as it searched for something else to consume. 

When it came up empty-handed, it made some kind of guttural, crackling hum as it advanced to the next table over. The one Thomas and Red had previously been standing on. 

The monster took a moment to feel around and, to Thomas’ horror and disgust, inhaled the dead piglet as well as the tools that had been used to dissect it like they were nothing. 

 That could’ve been us, Thomas realized, stomach dropping. 

Then, as if things couldn’t get any more terrifying, the monster started moving on to their table. Thomas glanced over at Red, not surprised at how Red was standing stark-still, eyes fixated on the monster with undoubtable dread. 

Thomas cringed at this and tip-toed over, reaching out to take Red’s hand. This turned out to be a very big mistake as Red cried out, startled, seemingly having forgotten Thomas’ presence thanks to his fear. The monster’s head turned in their direction, forgetting its search of the table as it shuffled towards them. With one swift movement it shoved the jar off the table, sending it shattering to the floor. 

Thomas wanted to run, but screaming was suddenly all he could do as Red was pinned to the table under the monster’s hand. He screamed as the monster began lowering its head towards Red, to which Red’s hair started waving about as the air pulled on him. 

He found that he was still screaming when he sprinted over to the monster, just narrowly avoiding its orifice’s light as he leapt up to snatch at the tie around its neck and gave said tie the hardest tug he could manage. Thomas hadn’t even been thinking of what would actually make the monster stop--he’d just wanted to do something, anything to distract it in order to save Red.

To his surprise, yanking on the tie had been much more effective than it should’ve been. The light flickered before sputtering out altogether, prompting the monster to abruptly stop what it was doing in favor of clawing at its face. Red was on his feet in an instant, wasting no time as he grabbed Thomas’ wrist and raced for the next table. 

 For a split-second, Thomas’ fear was forgotten--that was the monster’s weakness? A necktie? How did that even work?! 

A question that would, unfortunately, have to be put on hold. Thomas’ fear sparked anew as his shadow was suddenly being cast by a familiar light while a furious, static-lined shriek bounced along the walls and floor.

@fangirltothefullest

[cosmicjoke]

Alright, so onto chapter 2 of “No Regrets”.  

I want to talk a little about these opening panels, when Levi, Furlan and Isabel are being driven to HQ by carriage.  They seem unimportant, but I think they’re actually really important in understanding Levi’s psychology going into this new situation they’re all in.

We see the interior of the carriage, with Levi and the other two, along with an escort from the SC.  Furlan and Isabel are both looking out the window of the carriage, and in particular, Isabel seems incredibly excited and in awe of the passing view.  She’s stood up, with her face pressed to the window.  And in the next panel, we see her looking at a little girl with her mother, dressed nicely and holding a doll.  This really encapsulates everything Isabel herself has probably never had.  A reliable mother to take care of her, fancy clothes and toys to play with.  Essentially, an actual childhood.  We see Isabel’s face in the window, and her mouth is open in wonder, her eyes wide.  Like she can’t believe what she’s seeing.  It emphasizes the depravation and lack of privilege she’s endured all her life.  Meanwhile, by contrast, Levi sits there with his head bowed down, ignoring the passing scenery, looking deeply unhappy, even depressed.  When he does look up though, he sees Isabel looking out the window, and on the close up shot of him, he’s got an almost thoughtful expression, if still extremely dour.  No doubt, Levi is feeling uneasy and uncertain about the situation they’ve all gotten themselves into here, but I’m also sure that he’s unable to ignore the bubbling over excitement of Isabel, her obvious joy in being, at last, on the surface.  I’ll get more into this later in the post, when we see Levi really considering his friends and their dreams, and how it influences and dictates his own decisions.

But first lets talk a little about Erwin and his role in all of this.

Now at the time this series came out, Erwin’s actual, motivating reasons for doing what he does weren’t yet known, so it’s interesting to read into his actions in this story with that context.  I have no doubt that Erwin really DOES care about humanity, and wants to fight for it, and its salvation.  But as we come to learn from the main series, he places his own dream of proving his father right about the existence of human’s beyond the walls above what’s best for humanity, and it puts his actions in this story into an interesting, if harsher light.

No doubt, Erwin is a master manipulator.  He plays both sides expertly against the middle in this story, and I’ll get more into it by the end, when his actual plan is revealed to Levi.  But what I don’t see often discussed is how, exactly, Erwin got all the parts moving in the direction he wanted, to obtain a specific outcome, and how he pretty ruthlessly uses so many people as pawns to do so.  It’s obvious from the context of what we later learn in the story that Erwin first spread a rumor about having evidence against Lovof stealing funds in order to force him into tipping his hand by trying to make a preemptive move.  What I see people miss all the time, or at least, fail to discuss, is how Erwin also, at the same time, made it public knowledge within the Capital, that he would be going after a group of thugs in the Underground who had shown exceptional skill using ODM gear, and that he would be making contact with them as soon as possible to try and enlist them into military service, and how Erwin made these plans public specifically to encourage Lobov into seeking out Levi and his friends for the exact purpose of both implicating Lobov in a crime, and gaining Levi’s and his friends strength for the SC.  One, by hiring a group of criminals to steal from Erwin and attempt to assassinate him, so he could use that as leverage in case he wasn’t able to obtain proof of Lobov’s further criminal activities, thus having two means of getting rid of one of the SC’s biggest threats, and at the same time, also manage to score for the SC the exceptional skill of Levi and his friends through forced enlistment.  He even says to Zackely at one point “I intend to make use of anyone who has even the smallest potential during this expedition.”.  Erwin manipulated and had control of this entire scenario from the start, and from behind these scenes moved all of these people exactly how he wanted to, to achieve his goals.  That’s pretty impressive, but also pretty scary.  Well, I’ll talk more about all of that when we get to it later on.

Back to Levi and his friends though.

We see them arrive at the SC HQ, and a really important conversation happens between Levi and Furlan.  

Furlan seems like he’s almost bitten off more than he can chew here, beginning to express his concern to Levi about what joining the SC actually means, before Levi cuts him off, telling him he’s got no intention of enlisting, and that he only agreed to come along so that he could get closer to Erwin and then kill him.  I think Levi genuinely felt murderous towards Erwin at this point, and really means what he says here, at least about killing him.  Though given the end of chapter 1, with the significant look shared between Levi and Furlan, and Levi’s begrudging acceptance of Erwin’s offer, it’s obvious that Levi also agreed to come because that’s what Furlan wanted him to do, to give them the opportunity they needed.  Levi’s just feeling incredibly emotional here, I think, with the way Erwin treated all of them hot on his mind.  Furlan tries to implore Levi to forget about killing Erwin, that it isn’t necessary anymore because of his own plan, and the almost certainty that Lobov and his people won’t ever try to make contact with them again.  He tells Levi, if he just listens to him and follows his plan, “I know it’ll work.  Trust me, Levi.”  Furlan asking him to trust him pulls a meaningful look from Levi, seeming to break through Levi’s angry insistence on killing Erwin.  This is where the manga improved on Levi’s characterization and motivation by leaps and bounds over the visual novel, because in the next few panels, we see Levi walking away, with Furlan calling after him, concerned, but we get to see Levi’s inner thoughts, and he’s remembering specifically Furlan insisting to him that “one day, we’ll get outta this trash heap and live up above.”  We see Levi thinking about Furlan’s hopes and dreams in these panels, and he has a saddened, and guilt-ridden look on his face, like he feels bad about having dismissed Furlan’s plans back there in favor of his own plans for revenge.  We didn’t get any of this in the visual novel, instead the text there making Levi look like he refused to consider anyones position but his own in this whole situation.  But here, Levi is clearly concerned with and considering Furlan’s desires.  

We go into a flashback then, with Furlan explaining to Levi his plans, telling him that “nothing’s gone according to plan... But with you here we’ll really be able to raise hell.”  Furlan’s trying to explain to Levi that since he now has Levi’s strength to rely on, they can actually get something done once they get into the Survey Corps.  It almost seems like Furlan’s been planning on trying something like this, or at least, had some sort of loose plan about getting to the surface, even before he met Levi.  It’s obviously something he’s been dreaming about for a long time.

Then Isabel comes back, and she’s been roughed up and assaulted, and we learn from Furlan asking her if she went to see those “low-life scumbags again?” that this has obviously happened to her before, that she’s been associating with some bad people and it’s gotten her hurt.  She denies it and lies about having just tripped, but clearly neither Levi or Furlan are buying that.  Levi asks Isabel what happened to her hair, and Isabel reacts badly, running away and hiding in her room.  We get a close up of Levi holding a knife in his hands, foreshadowing his own intentions.  Later that night, Furlan hears Isabel crying in her room, and her chanting to herself over and over that she’s going to “kill you”, presumably meaning the men that hurt her earlier.  Furlan stands there lamenting that he thinks both Levi and Isabel are going “mad”, and that all they can think about is dragging everyone else down to where they are.  He’s obviously terrified that he’s going to lose both his friends to the savagery and ruthlessness of the Underground, that both of them are going to end up becoming lost to their own anger and pain.  He starts to say “That’s why I...” before Levi suddenly comes back in, holding a bloody knife, clearly having returned from exacting revenge on the men who hurt Isabel.  Furlan asks Levi “Did you kill them...?”, and Levi doesn’t answer, but we see a completely resigned, even sad look on his face.  This of course is the world Levi comes from.  It’s the world he was raised in.  A world of kill or be killed.  Levi must have figured, if he didn’t go out and kill those men that had hurt Isabel now, then someday, they would end up going too far with her, and kill her instead.  But Furlan clearly doesn’t understand, and doesn’t relate to that kind of mindset, despite coming from the Underground too.  Of course, Furlan wasn’t raised by Kenny the Ripper either.  This is how Levi was taught to deal with his problems, and Furlan can only see him spiraling into an abyss from which he fears Levi won’t return.

We cut back to the present then, and Levi is sitting up on the roof of the SC HQ, again remembering Furlan’s words about “This is our chance.  Trust me.”.  Getting to the surface and finding better lives for themselves is Furlan’s dream.  The fact that Levi keeps remembering it, keeps remembering Furlan insisting and pushing the idea of the possibility of living on the surface, shows that this is probably something he would talk about all the time with Levi, trying to get him to agree to it, to believe in it.  Once again, Levi is contemplating the hopes and dreams of his friends.  We get another close up of him holding a knife, and it represents, I think, his struggle between his desire for revenge against Erwin, and his desire to help Furlan realize what, to Levi, is probably an unrealistic goal.

We then get Furlan and Isabel joining Levi, commenting on how beautiful the night sky is, and asking Levi how he could keep it to himself.  Levi snips testily at Furlan that him and Isabel are so loud, that he’d be too irritated to get any killing done, and then Furlan looking clearly unsettled by the remark.  But it’s obvious, given the context of the previous panels of Levi’s thinking about Furlan’s dream, that Levi is just being peevish and saying things out of frustration and confusion.  He doesn’t really mean what he says here.  He’s taking his frustration out on Furlan by saying what he knows will upset him the most.  What this also tells us is that Levi is very much aware of how bothered Furlan is by Levi’s willingness to kill.  He isn’t at all oblivious to it, and given his resigned, saddened expression after coming back from killing the men who assaulted Isabel, I would say Levi even understands Furlan’s dismay.  That’s a glimpse at Levi’s famous compassion.

The next panels show the three of them bonding, sitting together and admiring the night sky.  Isabel asks Levi if the stars are as pretty as where he used to live.  I’m just going to chalk the mistake in continuity here up to this manga coming out before, I believe, Levi’s backstory of being born in a brothel in the Underground was established by Isayama.  Regardless of this mistake, this is an important moment between the three of them.  You can see the awe and wonder they all feel, looking up and seeing the sky fully for what has to be the first time in all their lives.  Remember, all three of them have lived literally underground their entire lives, with little to no sunlight, stagnant, stale air, hideously unclean living conditions, etc...  It must be overwhelming to them , just to see nature in all its splendor like that.  It’s after sharing this moment together that Levi tells Furlan that he’s decided he won’t kill Erwin for now.  He looks at him and says “I’m going to trust you.”.  And Furlan smiles at him, clearly happy and relieved.  This scene is really important, because we’re seeing Levi choose Furlan’s dream over his own desire for revenge.  We see Levi place Furlan’s desires over his own, which is totally in line with how Levi is in the main AoT storyline.  He decides his revenge can wait, that it’s not as important as helping Furlan achieve his goals.  What’s particularly remarkable about this, I think, is that it doesn’t appear that Levi ever dreamed of going to the surface himself, and likely that he never even considered it a possibility.  So just like Levi fights, later on, for a world without fear and violence, for humanity’s salvation, even as all his life experiences tell him it likely isn’t possible, we see the Levi doing the same here, deciding to fight for his friend’s dream, even as to him, it seems unrealistic.  It’s obviously a pivotal moment too, when Levi tells him he’s going to trust him, because this ties in hugely with the theme which applies so much to Levi throughout the whole series, of never knowing if it’s better to rely on himself solely, to trust himself, or to trust and rely on his friends and their capabilities.  Levi chooses, here, to trust in his friends, and that will obviously have it’s own ramifications down the line.  Again, this is an area in which the manga improves radically over the visual novel, which had no instances whatsoever of Levi struggling with the question of the choices we make, which is absurd, since it’s one of the driving factors behind who Levi is, and how he ultimately came to see the world as he does.  It was precisely this struggle between choices, between trying to choose correctly, giving so much thought and effort to our choices, and still sometimes coming out wrong, that shaped Levi into being able to accept his lack of control and instead of regretting it, using it to keep fighting.  

Anyway, I’ll get to chapter 3 tomorrow.  

[longitudinalwaveme]

Arkham Sessions: Captain Cold

These vignettes, and, more specifically, the characterization of Dr. Hugo Strange, are based on the wonderful Arkham Files YouTube videos produced by Mr. Rogues.

Here's his channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyxNOHiNclZlVpeRhYV2QRQ

Since I am a huge Flash nerd, I decided to use this idea as a jumping-off point to explore how the Rogues would respond to therapy sessions. Again, all credit to the basic format goes to Mr. Rogues.

Not everything Dr. Strange says should be taken as truth; his bias against costumed vigilantes affects most of his interviews with the patients.

Hugo Strange: From the patient files of Dr. Hugo Strange, director of Arkham Asylum. Patient: Leonard Snart, also known as Captain Cold. The patient displays a number of antisocial tendencies, but no formal diagnosis has ever been given to him, and since he arrived at Arkham only a few days ago, I have not had the time to give him a complete psychological examination. Session One. Good day, Mr. Snart.  

Capt. Cold: Len. 

Hugo Strange: Pardon? 

Capt. Cold: Just call me Len, Doc. I ain’t the type to stand on formalities. 

Hugo Strange: Very well, then. (Pause) So, Leonard-

Capt. Cold: Not Leonard, Len. 

Hugo Strange: I take it you’re not especially fond of your given name? 

Capt. Cold: Believe me, Doc, if your name was ‘Leonard Snart’, you wouldn’t be fond of it, either. 

Hugo Strange: Fair enough. So, Len, what exactly influenced you to put on a parka and go running around robbing banks and jewelry stores with a freeze ray?

Capt. Cold: It ain’t a freeze ray, it’s a cold gun. 

Hugo Strange: Besides semantics, what is the difference? 

Capt. Cold: Mr. Freeze-you got him locked up somewhere in this loony bin, right?- has a freeze ray. It shoots ice. Me? I’ve got a cold gun. My gun negates thermal motion. Stops protons and electrons dead in their tracks. People too. Even the Flash slows to a crawl when I hit him with it. 

Hugo Strange: (Surprised; a bit skeptical) Do you mean to say that you have invented a weapon that can create temperatures of absolute zero? 

Capt. Cold: Yep. And I did it years before that lovesick freak got turned into a popsicle man. 

Hugo Strange: Your records indicate that you dropped out of high school at the age of fourteen, Len. How could you possibly have the requisite knowledge to create such a weapon? Are you even familiar with James Prescott Joule or J.J. Thomson? 

Capt. Cold: Who? 

Hugo Strange: J. J. Thomson is the man who discovered the electron. James Prescott Joule is the scientist who discovered the First Law of Thermodynamics. If what you’re saying is true, you managed to exceed the wildest dreams of either of these illustrious men, without even knowing of them or their theories. 

Capt. Cold: Huh. Guess I did. Well, how about that?

Hugo Strange: How could you possibly have managed this, Len? 

Capt. Cold: Just ‘cause I’m trailer trash don’t mean I’m stupid, Doc. 

Hugo Strange: Clearly not. So, how did you do it? 

Capt. Cold: Sorry, Doc. Trade secret. 

Hugo Strange: Len, we gave you a number of psychological and intelligence tests upon your admittance to Arkham Asylum, and-

Capt. Cold: (Cutting him off) About that-what’m I doin’ in this loony bin, anyhow? I ain’t crazy, and even if I were, I’m from Central City. That’s a thousand miles away from Gotham. 

Hugo Strange: A few weeks ago, Iron Heights Penitentiary’s southwestern wall was destroyed in a mysterious accident. As a result, it is currently incapable of holding supercriminals, metahuman or otherwise, and you and your cohorts had to be housed somewhere. Through a series of political and judicial decisions that I confess make as little sense to me as they probably do to you, all of you so-called “Rogues” were transferred to Arkham Asylum until such time as Iron Heights is properly rebuilt. 

Capt. Cold: I get havin’ to send us someplace else if Iron Heights is destroyed, but...I ain’t insane. Why not send me to Blackgate instead of the loony bin? 

Hugo Strange: Many people are of the opinion that anyone who puts on a silly costume in order to commit crimes is insane by definition, Len. 

Capt. Cold: That include you, Doc?

Hugo Strange: Whether or not you are insane in the legal sense of the term is not for me to decide, Len. That being said, I do believe that your decision to commit crimes in such a...theatrical...manner indicates some level of emotional disturbance. 

Capt. Cold: Hey, Doc, you’re the expert on this stuff, not me. 

Hugo Strange: In that case, why don’t we return to the subject of your astonishing invention? 

Capt. Cold: I’m stuck in the loony bin anyway. Might as well. 

Hugo Strange: Can you please refrain from describing this facility as a “loony bin”, Len? The term is pejorative, both for the staff who work here and the other patients who live here.

Capt. Cold: Pejorative? What’s that mean, Doc? 

Hugo Strange: It means that it is rude. Describing the mentally ill as “lunatics” is unkind and unscientific. 

Capt. Cold: Whatever you say, Doc. Whatever you say. 

Hugo Strange: (Coughs) As I was saying, when you arrived at the asylum, we gave you a number of psychological and intelligence tests. While your scores in the area of mathematics were unusually high, especially for someone who never finished high school, your literacy scores were abysmal. You are thirty-eight years old, but you read at the level of the average six-year-old. 

Capt. Cold: Well, we can’t all have your fancy education, Doc. What’s my reading ability got to do with my cold gun? 

Hugo Strange: I find it difficult to believe that a high school dropout-a high school dropout, moreover, who can barely read-would be able to invent a gun that can produce absolute zero on his own. 

Capt. Cold: Are you callin’ me a liar? 

Hugo Strange: Not necessarily, Len. What I am saying is that I do not believe that the Cold Gun was created in the way that you may believe that it was. 

Capt. Cold: Oh, so you ain’t callin’ me a liar-you’re callin’ me crazy. 

Hugo Strange: I did not say that either, Len. 

Capt. Cold: You didn’t have to, Doc. I may be a redneck high-school dropout, but I ain’t survived as long as I have by not knowin’ when people are bad-mouthin’ me. 

Hugo Strange: Len, I am not bad-mouthing you. I am trying to help you.

Capt. Cold: Sure you are.  

Hugo Strange: (Frustrated) Not everyone is looking to take advantage of you, Mr. Snart! 

Capt. Cold: Funny. Hasn’t been my experience, Doc. (Pause) Look. I ain’t mad, Doc. If I had a buck for every time somebody called me trailer trash or a dumb thug or a stupid hick, I wouldn’t need to rob no more banks. You ain’t said nothin’ I haven’t heard a million times before. But I want you to know this: I invented my cold gun, and I did it by myself. I. Ain’t. Stupid. 

Hugo Strange: (Looking to change the subject) Len, I never said that you were unintelligent. In fact, your criminal history makes it quite clear that you are an effective, pragmatic operative. An unintelligent man could never have organized the only successful costumed criminal combine in the nation. Every other group of costumed criminals has folded within a few months at most, usually due to interpersonal tensions, but you have somehow managed to keep your little group together for over a decade. What is it you call yourselves, again?

Capt. Cold: The Rogues. 

Hugo Strange: That’s right. The Rogues. Now tell me, Len, what exactly is the secret to your group’s...ah...success? 

Capt. Cold: (Amused) You plannin’ to start a costumed gang, Doc? 

Hugo Strange: Certainly not. I am simply curious. It isn’t often that I get the opportunity to interview criminals from outside of Gotham’s borders. 

Capt. Cold: It ain’t that complicated, Doc. The reason we’ve held together for so long is ‘cause we got an unspoken code. We watch one another’s backs to the end. Nobody gets left behind; everybody gets an equal share. 

Hugo Strange: (Surprised) Are you implying that you are...friends...with your Rogues? 

Capt. Cold: You think I’d trust people I hate to watch my back?

Hugo Strange: Admittedly, that wouldn’t make much sense...it’s just that I was under the impression that you were the leader of the group.

Capt. Cold: I am. 

Hugo Strange: Most gang bosses I know keep the majority of the profits from their crimes for themselves.Why don’t you? 

Capt. Cold: ‘Cause we’re a team. We do equal work; we get equal rewards. 

Hugo Strange: A surprisingly admirable sentiment for a common thief. 

Capt. Cold: (Proudly) There ain’t nothin’ common about me, Doc. 

Hugo Strange: (Sigh) That’s certainly true, Len. (Pause) On the subject of things that are not common, why the parka and the silly goggles? 

Capt. Cold: Practicality. Parka keeps me warm; goggles help focus my vision and keep me from bein’ blinded by the flare of my own cold gun. 

Hugo Strange: I see. (Pause) And why call yourself “Captain Cold”? After all, you aren’t really a Captain of anything. 

Capt. Cold: I’ll admit, it ain’t the most creative name in the world...but anything’s better than “Leonard Snart”. 

Hugo Strange: Why not just change your name, then? Why take up a ridiculous costumed alias?

Capt. Cold: Because I’m not just an ordinary thug. Leonard Snart is ordinary; boring…..but Captain Cold? Captain Cold is cool.

Hugo Strange: Was that a...pun?

Capt. Cold: What can I say? I admit they’re dumb, but old habits die hard. 

Hugo Strange: And the Flash had nothing to do with your decision to put on a costume and call yourself by a silly, alliterative name while committing crimes? 

Capt. Cold: The Flash? Why would he have anything to do with it? 

Hugo Strange: I was under the impression that the Flash was your arch-enemy. 

Capt. Cold: (Laughs) Arch-enemy? What is this, a Saturday morning TV show? 

Hugo Strange: The Central City papers make quite a big deal of your rivalry with the so-called “Scarlet Speedster”. 

Capt. Cold: Look, the Flash is basically a cop. Sure, he’s a cop with superpowers, and he’s good for sharpening our wits, but at the end of the day, he’s just an obstacle to our getting the score. 

Hugo Strange: Then you don’t view your battles with him as some epic confrontation between ideologies? 

Capt. Cold: Why would I do that? Ideologies don’t pay the grocery bills, Doc. 

Hugo Strange: And you haven’t dedicated your life to proving your superiority over him once and for all? 

Capt. Cold: No. I fight the Flash for the same reasons I fight the cops: I want to get rich, and he’s standing in my way. Nothin’ more, nothin’ less.

Hugo Strange: So the Flash is nothing special to you?

Capt. Cold: I didn’t say that. Like I said, he’s good for sharpening the wits. I wouldn’t be half as successful as I am if he weren’t around to keep me and the guys on our toes, and yeah, it’d be neat to finally get the victory over him once and for all...but really, he ain’t so different from us. He’s just another guy workin’ a nine-to-five, tryin’ to provide for his family. I don’t like him-he’s a stuck-up, self-righteous prig sometimes-but he’s a good person. He’s not a superhero ‘cause he wants hero-worship. He actually wants to help people. He’s even helped me, and I make a career out of trying to freeze-dry him. You gotta respect a guy like that. 

Hugo Strange: You actually see the Flash as a man?

Capt. Cold: What else would I see him as? A Martian? ‘Cause I’ve seen Martians, and I can tell you, the Flash ain’t green enough to be one.

Hugo Strange: It’s not that. It’s just that I’ve spent so much time with the patients who view Bruce Wayne, formerly the Batman, as some sort of supernatural entity or as a grand opposite in a never-ending conflict between order and chaos that it’s rather...odd to listen to a costumed criminal who claims to view their local costumed vigilante simply as a person. 

Capt. Cold: Man, you have got to get out more. 

Hugo Strange: (Coldly)  I don’t recall requesting life advice from you, Mr. Snart. 

Capt. Cold: Well, you should take it anyway. Ain’t often I give stuff away for free. 

Hugo Strange: (Annoyed) This session is not about me, Mr. Snart. It’s about you. 

Capt. Cold: What else do you wanna talk about? I’m not stupid, I’m not creepily obsessed with the Flash, I don’t butcher people for fun, and I don’t have any weird hang-ups about dead relatives or riddles or plants or dolls or jokes or the number two. I’m not a good guy, but I think I’m a pretty normal guy, all things considered. 

Hugo Strange: Mr. Snart, no one puts on a costume without some sort of psychological disturbance. Even if the Flash was not in some way responsible for your decision-something which I am not yet fully convinced of-no rational human being would do such a thing. I just need to find out what your disturbance is. (Pause) Perhaps it began in your childhood, Mr. Snart? 

Capt. Cold: (Icily) My childhood is none of your business. 

Hugo Strange: I am your psychologist, Mr. Snart. That makes it my business. (Pause) Let’s see. Your file says that you were born to Lawrence Snart, a forty-year-old police officer who was kicked off the force for public drunkenness and suspected corruption, and Shirley Snart, a fifteen-year-old high school dropout. You and your family lived in a dilapidated trailer park, and your father was a known alcoholic who drank away your family’s welfare money. Five years after you came along, your younger sister, Lisa, was born...and your mother ran away, never to be seen again. The neighbors called the police because of domestic disputes between her and your father no less than thirteen times in five years, which leads me to suspect that she was spurred to leave the family because of her husband’s abuse. You were left to raise your sister, essentially on your own, at five years old, and you were effectively the head of the household from that point on. You never had a childhood, Mr. Snart. 

Capt. Cold: Don’t you talk about my sister!

Hugo Strange: I take it that you’re close to her? Understandable, I suppose, given that you grew up with her in an abusive household. Your grandfather, who drove an ice cream truck, did his best to protect you and your sister from your father’s cruelty, but he was old and in poor health, and he died when you were only twelve years old. You never got over the loss, and your father’s abuse only got worse as you and your sister got older. When you turned 14, you dropped out of high school; you then worked a number of odd jobs to support yourself and your sister. However, shortly after you turned 18, you and your father got into a dreadful argument, one that ended with you running away from home and leaving your little sister alone with your father. After that, you eventually fell into a life of petty crime. 

Capt. Cold: I...I had no choice. If I hadn’t left, he would’ve killed me! 

Hugo Strange: I am not blaming you for choosing to run away, Mr. Snart. You were an abused child with very few options available to you. 

Capt. Cold: (Quietly) I could’ve taken her with me. 

Hugo Strange: And why didn’t you? 

Capt. Cold: ‘Cause I was an 18-year-old dropout. Nobody was gonna give me custody of my sister...and besides, I’d started hangin’ out with dangerous people. I...I didn’t want her to get hurt. 

Hugo Strange: In other words, she would have been in danger no matter what you had done. 

Capt. Cold: It don’t matter! I’m her big brother! I was supposed to protect her! 

Hugo Strange: (Coming to a realization) And because you weren’t able to protect her from your father as a boy, you’re trying to make up for it now by becoming this “Captain Cold”; a larger-than-life persona that can do all the things you weren’t able to do as a child. You’ve made yourself too powerful and dangerous for anyone to threaten, and you’ve made a surrogate family for yourself and your sister. That’s why the Rogues are so successful...it’s because they aren’t really a gang at all. They’re your family. Isn’t that right, Mr. Snart? 

Capt. Cold: (Sarcastically) An’ I suppose the fact that my grandpa drove an ice cream truck somehow subconsciously influenced my decision to become Captain Cold? 

Hugo Strange: (Aware of the sarcasm, but ignoring it)  That’s perhaps a bit of a stretch, but it isn’t impossible. 

Capt. Cold: I don’t believe this….

Hugo Strange: Don’t be afraid, Mr. Snart. Admitting you have a problem is difficult, but it’s also the first step on the road to recovery. 

[anotheruserwithnoname]

Thoughts on No Time to Die

Finally got around to seeing the final Daniel Craig Bond film last night and for the most part I was impressed. I’m going to have to have a few spoilers in my thoughts (specifically ending spoilers), so here’s a break. One thing I will say in the clear: I agree this is a Bond film like no other.

The Craig era is going to stand alone from all the others as the first attempt at telling a single story arc. True, the Connery era (with the Lazenby film included) formed a loose arc involving SPECTRE (though Goldfinger was an outlier in this). But the 5 Daniel Craig films are the first to have a generally tight story arc. Which is all the more impressive when it becomes clear it wasn’t planned as such and for it working so well. One almost wishes the people behind the recent Bonds were in charge of the Disney Star Wars trilogy.

No Time to Die continues the Craig era’s tendency to invoke plot and story elements from the Fleming novels, something the Brosnan era tended to avoid except for a few small things, mostly in Die Another Day. (Spectre, the previous Craig film, even borrowed elements from the Kingsley Amis/Robert Markham continuation novel, Colonel Sun, something DAD coincidentally also did). In this case, NTTD is a stealth adaptation of the original You Only Live Twice novel (something that was expected ever since the working title, Shatterhand, was reported in early 2019 - that’s the name used by the villain of the book). One of the final scenes of the film even quotes directly from the novel.

A bigger surprise are the elements taken from the novel and film of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, including the use of the phrase “We have all the time in the world,” which becomes an “arc phrase” in this film. But more than that, although Hans Zimmer is credited as the film’s composer in the opening credits, so much is used from the late John Barry’s score from OHMSS, from its opening theme being referenced to the actual “We Have All the Time in the World” song, I’m surprised he wasn’t given an opening-credits acknowledgement. Sadly, I was less impressed with Billie Eilish’s theme song, which I literally had forgotten within minutes of it ending (something I can’t say for Sam Smith’s Writing’s on the Wall from Spectre and Adele’s modern-classic Skyfall theme). One good thing I will say is it’s a better song than the misfire that opened Quantum of Solace.

NTTD has pissed a few people off for giving the 007 number to a female agent. (That’s not a spoiler as even the trailers mention this). In the film, it’s explained logically, and it’s another throwback to the novels that long ago established the 00 numbers as being passed on when someone dies or retires. And Lashana Lynch has the charisma and - important here - chemistry with Daniel Craig for it to work. Her character also respects Bond immensely - something that doesn’t come across in the trailer - and (spoiler here) even voluntarily asks for Bond to be redesignated as 007 at one point. Female 00 agents have been hinted at for decades, with ones appearing briefly during briefing sequences in Thunderball and The World is Not Enough, they have been featured in novels and comic strips since the early 1970s, and the movies have featured 00-equivalent agents numerous times (Anya Amasova, Holly Goodhead, Jinx). If I had one complaint about Nomi is that they allow her to be overshadowed by Ana de Armas’ CIA agent character, who appears in only one major setpiece (apparently she was added to the film at the last minute to cash in on de Armas and Craig working well together in Knives Out). The best action sequence in the film involves both de Armas and Lynch, but it’s Ana who outshines everyone. In any other film she’d have joined the ranks of Anya Amasova as a classic partner (never mind “Bond girl”) to Bond.

I’ve heard people criticize Bond’s characterization in the film. Actually, I think he was very close to the way the increasingly world-weary Bond was depicted by Fleming in the later Bond novels, and to a degree John Gardner in his continuation works in the 1980s as well as Amis’ Colonel Sun. Plus it has been 14-15 years (in movie time) since Bond was first referred to as “a blunt instrument” by M. The nature of his character has naturally changed.

I also liked seeing the return of the “save the world” plot line, one that admittedly might have been used a few times too often in the older films, but it still gave a nice callback to great films like The Spy Who Loved Me.

And then there’s the ending, which turns OHMSS’ finale on its head. There is clearly no way Bond 26 won’t be a reboot. Which may become an issue for those hoping to see more of Lashana Lynch’s 00 agent, the current versions of M, Moneypenny and Q, and even Ana de Arma’s character. Of course, there is precedent for legacy actors to cross over - Desmond Llewellyn returned as Q for the Brosnan films, and Judi Dench’s M was herself rebooted continuity-wise between the Brosnan and Craig films. The Connery to Dalton era was hardly air-tight in its canon either, given the wildly different interpretations of Blofeld and Felix Leiter from one film to the next (never mind the Bonds themselves who went from Scottish to Australian to English to Welsh to Irish to back to English again). So who knows? Some have suggested this might be the time to retire James Bond completely and either yield the floor to Lynch’s 00 agent (who may or may not be 007 again - the film does not indicate this and there’s a reference to retiring the number) or create someone new.

Fortunately - and I sat through the credits to confirm this - the very last thing shown on screen is “James Bond will Return”. He’ll be back. And I look forward to seeing who takes on the role from Daniel Craig, whose 5 films have been rocky at times and not always the best of the best, but deserve credit for trying new ideas. And I certainly found more good than bad in them, and I consider Casino Royale to be in the all-time Top 5.

If anyone cares, here is how I rank the Bond films under Daniel Craig:

1. Casino Royale

2. Spectre

3. Skyfall

4. No Time to Die

5. Quantum of Solace

Problem with such a list is it gives the impression I think NTTD is a poor film, especially when you consider I feel Quantum to be one of the lower 5 Bond films of all time. Hardly - it’s just that 1, 2 and 3 were such amazing films (and yes I did like Spectre, despite that being an unpopular opinion) that they managed to overshadow NTTD. But it’s still an excellent film, I think.

[belphegor1982]

not sure if you're doing the prompt list, but parenthood (6) with leonard snart and janet? 👉👈 i'm in love with your characterizations of len and his wife 💕

It took me two weeks, but there it is :D

Parenthood (DCAU)

When she’d been a kid, Janet had – very naturally – assumed that her adult life would match her parents’, or their neighbours: a house, a husband, a dog, a white picket fence, not necessarily in that order. And kids. Like an afterthought, something not really important so much as vaguely necessary.

She hadn’t thought about it until a couple of years or so into her and Len’s marriage. They’d had somewhat rocky beginnings: she’d been fierce, he’d been grumpy, and they’d both been so damn young they hadn’t seen how ridiculous they were, dancing around each other like they weren’t sure they were allowed this… that. ‘Relationship’ was too big a word. Whatever they had, though, they had kept, because it was good and it was theirs. One day it had hit Janet that Len basically only went back to his crappy little apartment to shower; one night they’d been in bed, sweaty and tired and stupid happy, and as Janet reached for the book on her bedside table afterwards while Len scribbled on his ‘heist ideas’ notebook like he’d been struck with sudden inspiration, she had realised in a rush that she wanted the rest of her life to be like this.

“Wanna get married, one of these days?” she’d asked, almost not nervous at all.

Len had stared at her long enough to make her start to regret asking. Then he’d given a small smile, the very rare sort that showed in his eyes.

“Sure,” he’d said, and that was that.

They’d gotten married six months later. Janet wore blue. Her parents showed up, despite the disapproval hanging thick in the air – her father convinced that she could ‘do a lot better than a thug’, her mother ice-cold at the thought of her daughter marrying ‘some two-bit crook’. Len had only invited his sister, a stunning young blonde who’d been friendly to Janet but still appeared put-out that the invitation didn’t extend to her boyfriend.

“He’s a jerk,” Len had said later, making Janet laugh.

“You’re a jerk, Len.”

“Not the same kind. He’s stuck-up. Lisa’s too good for him anyway.”

“Yeah, well. That’s not up to you to decide, is it? It’s your sister’s choice.”

“I know, I just… She deserves better. Better than she got as a kid.”

Janet had looked at him, long and careful, suddenly a little tense.

“Do you think she’s… not safe? With him?”

Len had blinked, then shaken his head.

“Nah, nothin’ like that. You can tell Dillon’s actually good to her. Nothing like…” He had trailed off, something hard and cold and sudden in his eyes like someone had slammed closed a pair of shutters. That had only lasted for ten seconds before he’d shrugged. “I just wish he wasn’t such a dick, that’s all.”

Then he’d abruptly changed the subject, and Janet had followed, because she knew precarious ground when she saw it.

* * * *

Living with someone in the intimate way meant noticing a lot of things about them, more or less willingly.

Len had cottoned on pretty early to her tendency to snap when she was tired or angry, and of holding nothing back then. She also caught him looking at the crisscross pattern of scar tissue on her knuckles from when she’d punched a wall, repeatedly, after the girl who’d been her best friend in school was battered to death by her boyfriend. “I only slapped her around a bit,” the bastard had said, and ten years later Janet still wished that she’d had the guts to punch him instead. She’d finally told Len about it one day, and seen his face go stone and his eyes ice. His cold fury had been comforting.

It went both ways. She noticed things about her husband, too. Like some odd scars she had a feeling he hadn’t picked up in juvie, the trace of a cigarette burn in the hollow of his right shoulder, or the mark – still chillingly precise even years later – of a belt buckle in the small of his back. She wondered whether Lisa had similar scars. Not that she’d ask. She and her sister-in-law didn’t have that kind of relationship.

Janet had a past. Len had a past. That was what being human meant. Sometimes that felt more like dragging a corpse through the dust wherever you went than a happy set of picture-perfect memories, but it was part of the whole package.

The major reason Janet didn’t entertain the idea of kids for longer than a passing thought was because she didn’t want any – for the moment, she told herself, even as she kept forgetting to really think about it. She’s grown up with the distinct impression that she hadn’t been wanted, or had come at an inconvenient time to her parents. The last thing she wanted was to make a kid feel like that.

The lesser reason was everything Len wasn’t saying. He wasn’t crazy about opening up about things either important or trivial, though he did anyway because they both liked to get their point across clearly. But she’d never, ever heard him say anything at all about his life before he’d struck out on his own, a couple of years short of eighteen years old. His sister Lisa was six years younger, and that was all Janet knew. Family, parents, home life – Len didn’t let anything slip. This, combined with the scars and a few odd reactions, carefully hidden under a lot of attitude, told her more than he appeared willing to share.

One day, when he’d been nicely mellowed out by a good score and a shared bottle of the good stuff to celebrate, she had asked him, “Do you ever think about having kids?”

The split-second look he’d given her still haunted her to this day. She had seen him angry, she had seen him silent, cheerful and surly and balking at house chores, but it hadn’t crossed her mind that he could ever be afraid.

“No,” he’d answered curtly. “Why?”

“Just wondering. Kevin from logistics just had his third the other day. Kept asking me when I’d finally get started on my own.”

“Kevin from logistics needs to mind his own damn business.”

“That’s what I told him,” said Janet, and Len smirked. “Anyway, he got me thinking. Turns out I don’t think I want kids. You know, at all.”

The relief on his face was as fleeting as the fear, but just as stark.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I like what we have.” A pause. “You’ve really never thought about having kids one day?”

“Sure I did, once – for about five seconds. Weirdest five seconds of my life.”

She’d given him a look, half amused, half a smile. Relax, Len. You’re not getting interrogated.

“That bad?”

“Look, I don’t… Kids are weird, all right? Adults I can deal with. Besides, all I know is how not to be a father. No way I’m risking—no way.”

That was as close as he ever came to telling her why she’d never even heard Snart Sr.’s first name. But it was enough. They closed the subject and moved on to other things.

* * * *

And then it turned out that Metropolis and Gotham were not the only cities that could boast an actual superhero, because Central City quickly became aware of a lean, young-looking man in a red costume who called himself the Flash and went after burglars and thieves with superhuman speed. Whoever he was, whatever he was, he added an element of danger to her husband’s chosen profession, and Janet took an instant dislike to him and his big smug smile. Then she dismissed him from her mind quickly enough.

Len, though, was a very different story.

While he didn’t like the Flash any more than Janet did, the guy’s addition to the tried-and-true equation of cops and robbers added an edge that hadn’t been present before. Having an actual superhero in town made all of Len’s old research on absolute zero – and tinkering in the basement – not only relevant but useful. He designed a ‘cold gun’ from plans he’d stolen years ago, looking more excited than Janet had seen him in the last eight years, and worked hard to ‘up his game’.

Privately, Janet thought that, for a man who claimed to be as serious about his trade as Len did, creating a brand-new persona complete with parka, visor, and goofy moniker was hilarious.

Not that she ever actually laughed at him. Especially not the one time Len came back from a heist with an armful of cash and a weird look on his face.

“He’s a kid, Jan,” he said when Janet had asked him what could be wrong when he’d clearly got away with the loot unscathed. “He’s a goddamn kid. I don’t think he’s even old enough to drink.”

“What the hell is he playing at, then?” she exclaimed. “This job is not kid’s stuff! What was he thinking, that he could waltz in and play Superman, just like that?”

“I don’t know.” Len took off his visor and pinched the bridge of his nose. Then his eyes hardened. “And I don’t care. I like my job. If this guy thinks he can stop me, then he’d better be prepared to try harder.”

“I got him good today, though,” he said hours later, in the small hours of the night, after Janet’s hands had searched for his, cool and calloused, under the covers.

Something tensed inside in the region of her stomach.

“You didn’t kill him, did you?”

“Of course not,” he snapped, looking annoyed that she’d even ask. Janet’s guts relaxed. “I’m a crook, not a murderer. Besides, you know the second someone offs that guy, Superman or another big hero is gonna show up and turn the city inside out in revenge. It’d be like when a cop gets killed. They close ranks and start shooting indiscriminately.”

“So when you say you ‘got him good’ –”

“I just sent him packin’. Didn’t rough him up more than I would a cop. The kid’s got a mean right hook but he has no idea how real cold works, speed or no speed.”

Janet closed her eyes again and murmured, “Maybe he’ll quit, then.”

“Maybe.” Even half-asleep, she could tell that this ‘maybe’ meant ‘fat chance’.

“So… on the off-chance that today didn’t put him off, what are you gonna do?”

“I was thinking I might hit Drake & Hall Savings on Infantino Street next month.”

“I meant about the Flash.”

Len’s voice was low but certain when he said, “Me too. I’ll just keep doing my job, and if this joker is as serious as he claims to be, he’ll keep trying to stop me. But I’m not gonna drop everything just because of a kid in a onesie and a mask. I’ll just have to find ways to slow him down.”

The last thought that coalesced in Janet’s mind just before she nodded off was Did my husband just become a supervillain?

She fell asleep before the laugh passed her lips.

* * * *

While ‘supervillain’ might have been stretching things – not to mention the word made Janet choke up on laughter – Len’s new approach to the job was certainly different from the one he’d had before the Flash came along. He still refused the label, though, arguing that supervillains had powers, costumes, and delusions of grandeur, while he just had a cold gun, a parka, and banks to rob.

“Okay,” said Janet when she was in a ribbing mood, “what’s the Joker’s power, then?”

This usually earned her a deadpan look.

At least Len didn’t remain the only crook with a gimmick and an eccentric costume for long. Soon her husband had colleagues, fellow not-supervillains, some of whom not only willing to work together but also seemed to actually appreciate it. Their ‘powers’ were not innate, nor did they get them in freaky accidents; like Len, they either stole tech or were savvy enough to design it. And they all rejected the label of ‘supervillain’.

They were ‘rogues’. Or rather, Rogues. And Len – who knows why – took the place of the de facto leader.

Of her husband’s coworkers, Janet got on with Mick Rory the best. She liked his even temper, his slight smile, and the fact that he generally found it easy to keep a level head. Digger Harkness was his exact opposite, and her whole life she could never quite shake off the urge to slap him whenever he opened his mouth. The others were scattered along the scale between those two extremes: some were never quite sure what to do with her (or she with them – apart from making sure the old couch in the basement could be slept on and keeping an eye on their quickly-dwindling stock of coffee and beer packs), while others were more accommodating about having to spend time with ‘Len’s missus’.

One day Janet caught James pilfering one of the cookies she’d baked herself for the next night she’d have to spend alone. He looked so terrified at being caught red-handed that she refrained from rolling her eyes and told him to help himself and share with his musician friend.

She drew the line at pointing out Hartley was too skinny, though. Just because the young man was friendly and polite and, indeed, looked rather underfed didn’t mean she had any right to turn into her Aunt Debbie. She’d rather die first. Besides, she wasn’t the kid’s nanny, was she?

Nevertheless, the cookies proved a success. Like the couch in the basement, like the stocking up on beer packs, like the occasional patching-up of scrapes not serious enough to warrant a trip to the hospital, they surreptitiously became a habit.

* * * *

Over the years, Janet Snart slid smoothly into middle-age never regretting once her decision not to have children. Turned out being a woman, a wife, a friend, and a sometimes kind-of-support to a bunch of Rogues was quite enough.

Parenthood was overrated, anyway.

______________

Hope you liked, @orion-nottson 💜

Timeline notes thingy: Janet and Len met when they were about 25-27 and got married a couple of years later. ‘Dillon’ is of course Roscoe Dillon, the Top, who has a blink-and-you-miss-it cameo in the JLU episode with the Rogues, but since I don’t want to kill him or Lisa, I’m thinking he was her ice skating trainer, they fell in love, and didn’t go into villainy.

Wally was the first Flash of this universe - maybe the second and Jay was a superhero in the 1940s? - since he says “my uncle’s flying in” for the ceremony. Also, when he first pops up in this story he’s not quite 16, while Len is a bit over 30.

...I really overthink these things, huh 😅

[blood-sucking-freaks]

idk if i'm gonna do all of the BJ book on here yet, BUT here's a section of it that kind of helps expand on the 'Evil Bill and Evil Ted trash Bill and Ted's place' scene and I fucking love that we got a little bit more fleshed out characterization of EB and ET in the book because I love them (also a funny little bit on De Nomolos' 'teaching')

Bill and Ted weren't the best housekeepers in the world. Evil Bill and Evil Ted were even worse - horrible, in fact. They were also totally into mindless destruction, and while Good Bill and Good Ted had their faults, destroying for destroying's sake was not one of them. Of course, they knew that once they got the Wyld Stallyns off the ground, they would have to destroy a few thousand dollars' worth of equipment whenever they played some live gigs in mega-arenas -the fans would expect it - but that was in the future, when they could afford it.

With Evil Bill and Evil ted, on the other hand, it was not only their life's work, what they had been totally programmed to do, but it was their hobby was well. Now, having destroyed their relationship between Good Bill and Good Ted and the princesses and murdering Bill and ted into the bargain, Evil Bill and Evil Ted were addressing themselves to the question of trashing Bill and Ted's apartment. They were very good at it. Pros, you might say.

They had already had a certain amount of fun tearing up what there was of bill and Ted's meager wardrobe, flushing smaller household items down the toilet and totally scratching and smashing their prized collection of Aerosmith and Iron Maiden records. The stereo and the TV were just smoking shells, the posters had been stripped from the walls, the rug ripped up from the floor, the curtains destroyed, the furniture hacked to splinters.

Evil Bill and Evil Ted now turned to the kitchen and found that that was a very entertaining venue, opening up many opportunities for creative and imaginative ways of destroying things.

Ted threw open the door of the refrigerator and yanked out a can of soda. He shook it ferociously and then fired a long stream of sticky liquid at Evil Bill.

"You look thirsty, dude!" cackled Evil Ted.

"And you look hungry!" yelled Evil Bill. He grabbed a handful of eggs from the rack in the door of the refrigerator and pasted evil Ted in the side of the head with two of them.

"Yah!" Evil Ted squeezed some of the yolk from his hair. "And I know what you want!"

"What?"

"Dessert, dude!" Evil Ted pulled out an aerosol can of whipped cream topping and blasted away at Evil Bill. Cream, eggs and soda made the kitchen floor sticky underfoot, and just for the heck of it, Evil Bill and Evil Ted pulled all the food out of the refrigerator, tossed it to the ground and trampled it into paste.

Then they turned their attention to the kitchen cabinets, inventing, on the spur of the moment, a new kind of basketball. Instead of using a ball, like normal people, or even normal robots, they played with all the glassware - plates, glasses, saucers - that they found in the cabinets. True, you couldn't dribble a plate - no bounce, right? - but it did make for a very satisfying slam dunk.

You see, Bill and ted had a little indoor basketball net over their kitchen door, and sometimes, when they had to have some very serious and deep conversation, they would sit at their kitchen counter, talking about the Wyld Stallyns, their babes, their future and other serious things, shooting a nerf ball at the hoop. It helped them concentrate and it didn't do any harm.

That just wasn't evil Bill and Evil Ted's kind of game. Evil Ted had a big water glass in his right hand, and he was backing in toward the basket, his left arm out to keep Evil bill out of the way. Evil Bill, for his part, was working hard to block, in Evil ted's face, trying to prevent the attacker from getting a look at the basket.

"No way, dude," said Evil Bill, "you'll get through my totally non-heinous and most resplendent blocking."

"Yah?" Evil Ted powered in a few feet and hooked the glass at the basket. It sailed through the air, end over end, whiffed through the basket and exploded with a crash on the tile floor.

"Two points, dude!"

"Lucky, dude, that's all. My turn." He scooped up a dinner plate, faked right, went left and blew by Evil Ted, leaped for the hoop and jammed, slamming the plate into smithereens.

"He shoots! He scores!" yelled Evil Bill. "The man, er, robot is unstoppable!"

Evil Ted had an armful of glasses, and he was standing about where he imagined the free throw line to be, pitching them toward the basket. Not all of them swished - a couple of them just smashed against the kitchen wall, showering glass over everything - but most found their target and then shattered.

Evil Bill did his best to help out, goaltending, tipping in a few of the rim shots. It sounded as if it were raining broken glass in the wreckage of Bill and Ted's apartment.

Then, abruptly, it stopped.

"More!" demanded Evil Bill.

Evil Ted was peering into the cupboards, rummaging around, throwing out cans and cereal boxes, rifling the shelves, like a thief searching for hidden valuables.

"Bad news, dude."

"What?"

"Game's over. We are totally out of dishes!"

"Heinous."

They look for a moment over the extensive wreckage, smiles of satisfaction on their faces.

"Well," said Evil Bill. "It was fun while it lasted. I just wish those other us's had more stuff to wreck."

"Well, we didn't make all that much at Pretzels 'n' Cheese, dude."

"Yah, but I wish we had spent more on decorating."

Evil Ted suddenly had a totally triumphant idea. "Wait, Evil Bill, check this out."

"What?"

"This, dude." Evil Ted put his hands around his neck, as if he were trying to strangle himself, and pulled. His electronic, completely solid-state head popped out of his neck, trailing a few wires like tentacles. His headless body thundered across the kitchen, crunching glass underfoot, and slam-dunked his own indestructible head into the basket.

"Two points!" Evil Ted's head roared as it rolled across the kitchen floor.

Evil Bill was most impressed with this new variation on the game. True, they were trashing themselves now, but trashing is trashing.

"Not bad, dude, not bad."

"That's what I call heads-up basketball, dude." Evil Ted's head was still on the floor, and it was giving a certain amount of thought to the problem of how to get back to his body.

"Here," said Evil Bill, "lemme try that." Just as Evil Ted had done, Evil Bill pilled his head off his neck, as easily as popping a tab on a soft-drink can. "Check this out, Evil Ted. Keep your eye on the ball and watch a perfect Kareem-style sky hook." Evil Bill lofted his own head high in the air, a long graceful arc that seemed to be perfectly on target - until it slammed into one of the blades of the ceiling fan in the kitchen. It stuck there and turned slowly around, as if it were on a merry-go-round.

"Whoaaaaaa!" shouted Evil Bill's head. "Totally bogus!"

"Dude! You totally didn't see the fan!" Evil Ted's body, all on its own, decided it was time it had a head back. It reached down and grabbed it and stuffed it back on his neck.

Evil Bill's head continued to turn round and round. It was beginning to make him a little dizzy.

"Evil Ted! Get my body over here and take me off this thing."

"Yah! You heard him, dude," said the now-complete Evil Ted to Evil Bill's headless torso. "Go get your head, dude."

Instead of doing what it was told, the body casually waved to Evil Bill's twirling head, gesturing to him as if it didn't give a damn whether it ever got back with its head again.

"Whoooaaa!" said Evil Ted. "What a lousy attitude you have, Evil Bill."

"As soon as I get back to my body, dude, I am gonna totally beat myself black and blue."

"You'll totally have it coming to you, Evil Bill. Trouble is it's gonna hurt you more than it'll hurt yourself."

"It'll be worth it. Evil Ted, dude, get me down from here, would ya please?"

"Yah!" Evil Ted leaped as if going up for a jump shot, grabbed the head off the fan blade and came down lightly. This seemed to get Evil Bill's body's attention. Evil Ted waved the head at the body. "Got your head, dude!" he said tauntingly.

"Stop fooling around, Evil Ted, and totally reunite me with my body."

"No way, dude!" Evil Ted tucked the head into the crook of his right arm like a football running back. "I'm gonna score a touchdown!"

Evil Bill's voice was muffled. "Gotta get through my triumphant defense first." Evil Bill's headless body charged toward Evil Ted like a front-line blocker. "I'm gonna totally tackle you, dude!"

"No way!" Evil Ted danced around Evil Bill's body, raced into the living room and spiked Evil Bill's head into a wastebasket. "Touch-down for Evil Ted! Now for the triumphant field goal!"

"You're not kicking my head anywhere, dude!" Evil Bill's body rushed into the living room and grabbed the head out of the wastebasket. Quickly he jammed the head back on his shoulders. "That's better."

"That was fun!" said Evil Ted.

"Yah! Way to go, dude! We are truly most resplendent total headbangers."

"Yah!" Evil Ted air-guitared wildly for a moment, then stopped stock-still, a funny look on his face.

"What's up, Evil Ted?"

"We're wanted on the phone, Evil Bill. It's the boss from head office." Evil Ted smacked the back of his head and his eye popped into his hand. There was a moment of static and fuzz in the pupil, the De Nomolos's sneery face came on the screen.

"How's it goin', master-dude?"

De Nomolos looked with utter contempt at his two evil creations. Even though they were central to his plan, he couldn't help but loathe these two creatures. He looked forward to a time when not only would there be no Bill and Ted, but no manmade Bill and Teds either. Bliss...

"Give me a report," snapped De Nomolos. "At once!"

"We totally ruined things between Joanna and Elizabeth and Bill and Ted," said Evil Bill.

"Yah. They were most sad dudes when we totally murdered them."

"Yah! And now we've been having a little R and R while we trash their heinous apartment."

"Stop wasting time," De Nomolos barked. "You must proceed with the plan. Immediately, do you understand me?"

"Yes, master-dude!" they said in unison.

"Understand me, you cretins," said De Nomolos, "it is not enough that you destroy those two...those two...," he couldn't even bring himself to say their names, "...imbeciles. It is imperative that you destroy everything about them."

"Totally!" agreed Evil Bill and Evil Ted.

"So get on with it," De Nomolos ordered. "Follow you orders to the letter."

"Okay, dude," said Evil Ted. "What's next? What does the program say?"

"Don't think! You're not programmed to think!" yelled De Nomolos. "Just do! The next phase consists of completely alienating Bill and Ted from everyone they've ever known."

"Right!" said Evil Bill.

"Excellent!" said Evil Ted. "You are one most smart dude, dude."

De Nomolos looked withy disgust at the machines he had created in the image of his greatest enemies. "I hate them and I hate robot versions of them."

"Hey, dude," said Evil Bill, "don't blame us. You're the one who made us."

"Yah!" said Evil Ted.

"Don't remind me," said De Nomolos. "Get to work!"

The image on the eye monitor fuzzed over and De Nomolos disappeared. Back in the future, he was busy implementing his own part in the plan, which consisted mainly of indoctrinating his captive students at Bill and Ted University in the history he had so carefully and nastily rewritten.

"Pop quiz!" he said suddenly to the class. "Close your books!"

Thomas Edison, Bach and the rest of the class closed their personal copies of a not very fascinating book called Nomolos de Nomolos - The Greatest Man In History and sat up straight.

De Nomolos scowled at the ranks of students. "In what year did Robot Ted marry Missy?" He scanned the room, as if about to choose a candidate for execution. "Thomas Edison! Answer me!"

Edison started as if he had been pinched and swallowed hard. It had been a while since he had taken a pop quiz, and he had never taken one with a gun to his head. It was a most disconcerting feeling.

"Uh...1996?" he asked hopefully.

De Nomolos actually smiled, an expression that looked sort of peculiar, out of place on his face. "Very good. You are as smart as your reputation said you were."

Seeing as Edison was on De Nomolos's good side, he thought he might use the opportunity to get out of the jam he found himself in. "Sir, I hate to bother you, but I have to be getting back to New Jersey to invent the motion picture, and I happen to know that Johann Sebastian Bach here was halfway through Das Musicalishes Opfer - really smoking, really on a roll too - so maybe we could be heading back to our own times now."

Edison wasn't teacher's pet anymore. "Shut up. You know no one can leave the century during a quiz. Leads to cheating. Now... you!" He pointed to a student in the third row who was so scared she jumped about a foot on the air.

"Me?"

"Yes, you..." De Nomolos's brow furrowed as if he was trying to think up a real toughie. "In what year did Missy marry Robot Bill?"

"1998," she said quickly.

De Nomolos smiled his bad guy smile. "Good... Good... Things are coming along very nicely, very nicely indeed." De Nomolos looked around the room, drawing a bead on another hapless student, like a sniper fixing a victim in the crosshairs of his sights. "You!" All the time that Robot Bill and Robot Ted were on earth, where were the actual Bill and Ted?"

The student swallowed hard. "They were dead, sir. Totally."

"Exactly." De Nomolos spoke with a great and obvious sense of satisfaction. Things seemed to be going his way, just as planned. "Gone... dead. Never to return again. And that means that their idiocy will have died with them. No one can do anything about it. Ingenious, isn't it?"

[goldenraeofsun]

the best day with you

Part of this verse!

Dean taps Claire on the shoulder. “You got plans for this weekend?”

Claire twists on their couch to see him and sets aside her laptop. With narrowed eyes full of suspicion, she grabs the remote and mutes Dr. Sexy. “Why?”

“Because.”

“Because why?”

Dean rolls his eyes. This is why he became a teacher. To help teenagers. Not to strangle them for sassing him to his face. Sure, Claire might be a sophomore in college now, and she’s not really a teenager anymore, but Dean’s never going to see her as anything but an angsty junior in high school. Especially if she keeps up the this attitude. Dean says, as evenly as he can, “Because I want to do something with you.”

Claire grimaces. “Really? Don’t you have other boring old man friends to do things with? Like, for instance, your boyfriend?”

“No,” Dean says. “Cas is going to visit Gabriel in LA this week.”

“And you chose to stay behind with me instead?” Claire says, her eyebrows rising to her hairline.

“Yes.”

“Are you dying?” 

“What?” Dean gapes. “No!”

Claire squints at him. “Are you hoping I can score drugs for you?”

Dean rolls his eyes. “I can get my own drugs, thanks. It’s one of the perks of being a real live adult.”

“Do you need money?”

“If I did,” Dean starts incredulously, “why would I ask a broke college student?”

“I don’t know,” Claire says with a shrug. “Dementia? That kicks in about now for you, right?”

Dean’s mouth falls open. “I’m barely thirty-four!”

Claire shrugs. “Alzheimers?”

“That’s a kind of dementia,” Dean tells her flatly. He runs a hand down his face. “Look, are you free or not, kid?”

Dean is pretty sure she doesn’t have plans, judging by the way she’s religiously camped out on their couch for the past two weeks straight. She's abandoned her spot only to go to the bathroom, eat meals, and, on one memorable occasion, visit her parents for Sunday dinner. The living room her space now - which is fine with him, Dean’s been doing his summer school grading at the kitchen table. Along with her computer, Claire’s got the coding handbook Charlie Frankenstien-ed for her out of a bunch of different documents, probably all downloaded and printed illegally. On the television, she cycles through daytime soaps and CW evening dramas.

Claire grins. “On Saturday or something? Yeah.”

He rolls his eyes. “Was that so hard?”

“No, but it was fun.”

“Anyone ever tell you you’re a handful?” Dean says as he turns to head back into the kitchen. Lunch wasn’t going to make itself, and Cas was due back any minute from his errands.

“Just my parents, every day from age thirteen to eighteen,” Claire says casually as she reaches for the remote to resume Dr. Sexy.

Dean freezes. “Hey,” he starts, not really sure where he’s going with this.

“What?” Claire snaps as if annoyed, but her face is guarded. 

“Your parents were asshats, you know that?” Dean says. “They shouldn’t have done that to you.”

“Yeah, well, you know what they say about family,” Claire mutters as she turns up Dr. Sexy.

In the middle of her junior year of high school, Claire moved in with Cas for about six months.

Early in the year, she had an explosive argument with her parents about transferring from their preferred private school to Edlund High. She also came out to them.

Dean has the sneaking suspicion Claire doesn’t think she had it that bad. Her parents didn’t hit her. They didn’t kick her out. They didn’t even stop giving her her allowance.  But they didn’t talk to her for days on end. They ignored her until she needed something from them, or the other way around. By Christmas, Claire had had enough. She left.

Back then, Dean told Claire her parents were in the wrong as many times as she would let him - which wasn’t many.

Cas took the lead with her, instead. She was his family. He found her a therapist and encouraged her to make friends at Edlund. Dean didn’t really feel like it was his place. She was Cas’s niece, and Dean was the guy who stayed over a couple times a week when she was crashing there too. And then he became her teacher when the transfer to Edlund became official. Still, she wouldn’t consider him family.

“My uncle always said, ‘family don’t end in blood,’” Dean tells her seriously.

Claire slumps back on the couch. “Right,” she says dully.

Dean takes a step back, rubbing his neck as he swallows down his next few words. He’s not about to give a heartfelt lecture on family and healthy boundaries to someone who’s going to grumble and groan through it. He jerks his head towards the kitchen. “I’ll get started on-”

Claire interrupts, “But that’s not grammatically correct. Aren’t you an English teacher? Who gave you a license to teach?”

Dean snorts. “Just think about it, will you?”

“Uh huh,” Claire waves him off. “If you’re going to the kitchen, can you make me a sandwich?”

Dean rolls his eyes. “Yes, Your Majesty. Cas finished off the strawberry jelly while he was grading essays last night, so you’re gonna have to settle for grape.”

Claire makes a face but nods. Dean’s almost at the kitchen door when she asks, “Your uncle, was he really your uncle?”

Dean shakes his head. “Not by blood. He was a good friend of my dad’s. But he was as good as family - better than, sometimes.” He swallows. Bobby’s been gone two years now. Dean had thought the grief when his dad passed was bad, but it was a whole other beast with Bobby.

Claire squints at him, looking so much like Cas Dean can’t help the warm feeling in his chest. “This is your show, right?” she asks out of the blue, gesturing to the television.

Dean blinks. “Yeah?”

And that’s how Cas finds them ten minutes later, eating PB&Js on the couch, watching Dr. Sexy - with Claire skewering every characterization and costume choice, and Dean defending Dr. Sexy’s cowboy boots with his life.

* * *

“Minigolf, really?” Claire asks as they pull into the parking lot on a bright Saturday afternoon. The early-summer temperatures are already high enough to make Dean sweat in the Impala, and Claire’s shorts could double as bikini bottoms, they’re so small.

She adds, “You realize I have a fake ID and we could probably go to a bar or something.”

“One,” Dean says as he slams the car door shut, “minigolf is a classic American pastime. Much better for your liver than drinking. And B, don’t ever tell Cas about that fake.”

 Claire clambers out of the car. “I’m not an idiot.”

“Just making sure,” Dean says airily as he starts walking. He holds out his hand as she jobs to catch up to him. “Lemme see it.”

“Why?” she asks suspiciously as she digs for her wallet in her purse and fishes the ID out.

“Nice job,” Dean says as he holds it up to the sunlight shining overhead. “Ash?”

Claire stops short, surprised. “What?”

“Did Ash do this one?” Dean asks. “Come on,” he tells her as he nudges her shoulder to keep her moving out of the middle of the parking lot. “Nobody else does ‘em this good.”

“How do you know that?” Claire demands.

Dean laughs. “I told you I can get my own drugs.”

“Ash deals too?” Claire asks, looking hopeful.

Dean leans over to ruffle her hair. “His dope is a little out of your price range, squirt.”

“Hey!” Claire squawks as she tries to smooth everything back into place. “And nobody calls it ‘dope’ any more, you doof.”

Dean grins. “Yeah, I know.”

They enter the main building and get in line to rent the putters. It smells strongly of sunblock and worn down parental patience. A few parents wait ahead of them, all older than Dean with kids younger than Claire. A group of high schoolers are inspecting a row of putters on display on the far wall. Through the windows to the back, Dean can see a splendid display of mostly-intact astroturf and course obstacles with sun-faded paint.

The guy behind the counter is wearing an obnoxiously bright shirt and smile. “Hiya,” he says cheerily as they step up to the counter, “I’m Garth, welcome!”

“Two adults please,” Claire says quickly, like she knows Dean was going to ask for a kid’s ticket to mess with her.

“You got it,” Garth says as he bends down to grab two putters. “The bathrooms are by Hole 7, and if you want to grab lunch across the way at Fenris’s Diner, show them your receipt and you’ll get 15% off.”

Dean steps forward with his wallet. “Do you know if they have pie?”

Garth smiles wider, showing even more teeth, which Dean didn’t think was possible. “You bet! The best darn cherry pie I’ve ever tasted.”

“Awesome,” he says. “Thanks, man.”

“Thank you!” Garth says as he rings them up. “And good luck on the course!”

* * *

Dean is uncomfortably sweaty by Hole 2, and Claire piles her hair on top of her head in a messy bun to cool off her neck halfway through Hole 4.

“Swing batter, batter, swing!” Dean shouts from right behind her as she hits the ball at Hole 6.

Claire glares at him as her ball knocks against the windmill blade and skips off to the side. “That’s for baseball, idiot.”

“But you still missed,” Dean points out as he sidles up to tee. “So does it really matter? Hey!” She kicks him in the ankle as he strikes at the ball. “You cheater,” he gasps dramatically.

“So what?” Claire asks, putter swinging ominously at her side, “You gonna tell on me?”

Dean frowns. “No, but I won't buy you any pie when this is all over.” He keeps his eyes peeled for an opportunity to mess with her as she takes another stab at the windmill.

“Fine with me. I like cake better.”

Dean raises his head to gape at her. “Seriously?”

Claire throws him a funny look. “Does it matter?”

Dean’s mouth works furiously. “You ate the last slice of pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving two years ago.”

Claire’s eyebrows climb to her hairline as she leans against the windmill and watches him take another stab at it. “You remember that?”

Dean hardly watches where his ball goes. “Of course I do.”

Jimmy and Amelia had elected to have Thanksgiving at Cas’s mother’s place. Cas, whose frosty relationship with his mother wasn’t helped by her dismissive attitude towards Claire, hosted a separate Thanksgiving at the (then) new house he shared with Dean. Sam and Jess flew in from California, and Claire was, of course, invited too. They were having a fucking blast, until Claire stole the last slice of pie right out from under Dean’s nose.

Claire snickers under her breath. “You’re so weird.”

Dean glares. “I called dibs.”

“I seriously have no idea what you’re talking about, McMurphy,” Claire says, the liar. She crouches to get a better look at the windmill. 

Dean tries to suppress his smile. “Was that a One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest reference?”

Claire rolls her eyes. “I paid attention in your class, you know. Even if you gave me an A-minus.”

Dean grins. “But you got a 5 on the AP Exam.”

Claire does a little jig as her ball falls into the hole. 

* * *

“What the fuck?” Dean howls as his ball stops just short of Hole 9. Parents chaperoning a group of five kids at Hole 10 glare daggers at him.

Claire laughs uproariously. “Sucks to suck, old man.”

“Hey!” Dean glowers as she sinks a hole in one. 

“What’s that?” Claire holds her putter up in victory. “Did you see that? Did that go in the hole? I wasn’t watching. Did the ball go in the hole?”

“Shut up, kid,” Dean grumbles as Claire smirks. “It wasn’t funny the first time.” He concentrates on his next shot. God help him if he fucks up with his ball barely half a foot from the hole.

One of the toddlers at Hole 10 lets out an ear-splitting shriek, and Dean’s ball skips off in the direction of Hole 13.

Claire doubles over laughing.

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean grumbles as he sidesteps her to go fetch it, “Like you would’ve done any better.”

“I just did. Or did you miss my hole in one?” Claire asks from right behind him.

“I’m hungry,” Dean declares.

“Okay…?” Claire squints at him.

Dean nods to a hotdog stand by Hole 14. “Whaddya say to a dog?”

“Mystery meat at a roadside attraction that hasn’t been renovated since ‘97? Sign me up,” Claire says sarcastically.

Dean claps her on the back, just a shade too hard. “That’s the spirit.”

She stumbles but doesn't fall - exactly Dean’s plan - and glares at him. “If I get E. coli, it’s your fault.”

Once hotdogs are in hand, they sit and eat on a worn bench that’s more chipped paint than bench, facing a dinky little fountain. A few pennies glint dully from at bottom, almost obscured by the bright midday sunlight reflecting off the surface of the water.

“So,” Claire says after she takes her first bite. “You wanna tell me what this is all about?”

“What?”

“This whole distant dad trying to reconnect with his kid routine,” Claire says.

“I - I’m not your dad,” Dean stutters, face heating. 

“Duh. Dad was more of Church retreat guy.” She leans back on the bench, stretching out her legs, and tilts her face up to catch more sun. “I would’ve had a better time if there was no singing and 100% more hitting things.”

Dean asks haltingly, “So you don’t think this is weird?”

“What hanging out with you?” Claire asks, her smile guileless. “I heard elder enrichment is important to prevent cognitive decline, so I’m just doing my duty.” She laughs at his disappointed frown. “Relax. This has been… great.”

“Really?”

Claire finishes off her hotdog and balls up the aluminum foil wrapper. “Yeah. Don’t let it go to your head.”

Dean gets up to put her trash and his in the garbage and manages to stow his broad smile before he gets back.

* * *

“Hole in one!” Dean crows at Hole 15.

“Do you want a gold star?” Claire snarks as she tees up.

“Shut up.”

Claire swings, and they both watch as her ball deftly navigates around the bumps and turns to sink neatly into the hole.

Dean’s smile falls off his face as Claire jumps around in victory. “Lucky shot,” he tells her as they troop to Hole 16.

“Uh huh,” Claire says. “And that makes, what seven lucky shots for me? And how many holes in one have you had?”

At the next hole, they have to wait for the large family ahead of them to finish up.

“Oh my god,” Claire mutters as one of the parents demonstrates how to properly swing the putter for the youngest child, “it’s minigolf. Not the Olympics.”

“I know, right?” Dean says in an undertone. “Who cares how she hits the ball? If she wants to bowl it down the course, let her.”

“Seriously, who gives a fuck?”

“I bet she’s gonna scream before they’re done with the lesson.”

“What?”

“Water works in 5… 4… 3…”

They wait with bated breath as, sure enough, the child sits down in the middle of the course and wails. She refuses to even touch the putter.

“How did you know that was gonna happen?” Claire asks as the family moves on. She eyes him critically. “High schoolers aren’t the tantrum type.”

“Shows what you know,” Dean snorts. No matter the point of spending today with Claire, he wasn’t about to tell her how he became an expert in toddler care. Christ, he can still remember the sticky feeling of Sammy’s vomit all over his front when he cried so hard he puked. Dean’s crime? Telling Sammy his favorite blanket needed to be washed. Dean hadn’t even taken it away yet. 

Dean tells Claire instead, “I’ve seen more meltdowns over bad essay grades than I’d like. And it’s not like I can say, well, you should have read the damn book, Ava.”

“You wouldn’t say something like that,” Claire says as she bends down to set up her ball.

“Of course not,” Dean rolls his eyes, “that makes it worse.”

Claire straightens. “No, I’m saying, you would probably ask her why she didn’t have the time to read the book; if she’s tried the audiobook instead; if you should talk to Mr. Lafitte for her since she spent too long on Algebra and didn’t get to your homework.” She shrugs, meeting his eyes briefly. “You would do something like that.”

Dean blinks because she’s got him exactly right. He’s a firm believer that there’s no such thing as a lazy student. There are unmotivated students; there are students with undiagnosed ADHD or dyslexia; and there are anxious and/or depressed students. Hell, there are students with side-jobs, bills to pay, and little brothers to look after.

“Yeah,” he agrees, discomfited. Claire was his student for one year, but her presence in class was kind of eclipsed by her rocky home life. In senior year, she was back with her parents, but she also caught up regularly with Cas. In class, she faded into the background - Kaia’s blonde shadow. Cas’s stories provided Dean with more insight than any discussion on The Plot Against America ever did.

“All the seniors loved you,” Claire says. “Max Banes would’ve slept with you if he could.”

Dean hits his ball right into the mini sand pit. “What?”

Claire smirks. “You didn’t know?”

“No!”

“Uncle Cas was right, you are oblivious,” Claire says as she whacks her ball straight into the hole.

“Hey,” Dean says, but the protest is weak. “Cas wasn’t much better.”

Claire grins. “No one’s arguing that.” She waits until Dean’s mid-swing to say, “Max would’ve slept with Uncle Cas too - which, gross.”

“Dammit, Claire!”

* * *

“Okay,” Claire says as they walk away from Hole 18. “I’m gonna need to sit in AC for at least forty-five minutes.”

They’ve been out in the sun for nearly two hours now. Dean pulls his damp shirt away from his stomach with a grimace. “You down for pie?”

“Sure,” Claire says gratefully as they leave minigolf behind them.

In the diner, the air conditioning hits them like a bucket of cold water to the face. Claire throws herself into the first both they see as Dean troops off to relieve himself in the bathroom. He checks his phone - one grumpy text from Cas about Gabriel’s inappropriate choice of swimwear for a hotel pool - and exits with a smile on his face.

Back at the booth, Claire is twirling a lock of blonde hair around her finger, smiling coyly up at the waitress from lowered lashes. But Claire's inviting expression flips off like a switch as Dean drops down into the opposite seat.

The waitress’ own sunny smile takes on a distinctly plastic sheen at his arrival. “Hello!” she chirps as Dean picks up the menu. “Is there anything I can get you besides water?”

“Can I get a coke?” Dean asks the waitress - Maggie, according to her nametag. She’s tall, probably taller than Claire, and dark-haired. She seems around Claire's own age, so Dean would bet she’s only working here as a summer job.

Claire is still glaring daggers at him, so Dean asks, partly to be a dick, “And what’re you getting, Claire?”

“Water,” she says through gritted teeth.

“A coke and a water, please,” Dean says cheerfully to Maggie. 

She bobs a nod and casts a lingering look at Claire. “I’ll be right back to take your order.”

Claire kicks him under the table as she disappears into the kitchen. “You couldn’t have waited another five minutes?” she hisses “I was just about to get her number.”

Dean grins. “My bad.” 

“Now she thinks I’m here with my dad or something.” Claire crosses her arms across her chest.

Dean rolls his eyes. “You call me an old man, but I’m, what, twelve years older than you? We’re more likely to be on a date.”

Claire’s flat-out horrified face is enough to make Dean’s week. He’s still laughing as Maggie makes a return, one water and one Coca Cola in tow. 

“So what can I get you both?” Maggie asks as she reaches for her pad and pen.

“One slice of cherry pie, thanks,” Dean says brightly.

“Nothing for me,” Claire mumbles.

Maggie looks from Claire to Dean and back again. “One cherry pie,” she confirms slowly. “Should I bring out two forks?”

Over Dean’s fresh bout of laughter, Claire says loudly, “We’re not together!”

Maggie blinks a few times, and Dean can’t tell if she’s more shocked by his reaction or Claire’s. “Okay.”

As she leaves, Claire buries her head in her hands. Her voice is muffled by her hands and hair, but Dean can make out, “This is all your fault.”

“How?” Dean asks as he sucks on his straw. “It’s not my fault if you’ve got no game, kid.”

Claire slumps onto the table. “I used to.”

“Stalking doesn't count as ‘game’ or else Cas and me would have gotten together way before we did,” Dean says sagely.

Still face-down on the table, Claire flips him the bird.

“Have you spoken to Kaia lately?”

Claire doesn’t move for a long moment. When she finally raises her head, her expression is pinched. “Not since Spring Break last year. She was doing good, I guess.”

Awkwardly, Dean says, “It’s okay if you’re still hung up on her.”

Claire waves his assurances away. “It’s been a whole fucking year."

Dean sighs. “These things can take time. You were with her while a lot was going on in your life, and she was there for you through all of it. Just ’cause you're young doesn’t mean it meant less. But if you want to move on, sometimes you don’t have to wait until you’re 100% ready.”

“Thanks, Senpai.”

Maggie approaches carrying a large slice of cherry pie.

“Here you go,” Maggie says as she sets the plate down. “Anything else I can get you?”

“Nothing for me,” Dean butts in before Claire can get a word in edgewise, “But Claire, here, would like your number.”

Maggie goes bright red.

“Dean,” Claire hisses, completely mortified. “What the fuck?” She turns to Maggie. “Forget what he said. He’s a moron who doesn't know what he’s talking about.”

Maggie glances to Dean before settling back on Claire. “So… you don’t want it?”

Claire splutters, “I - no - yes, but not if-” She takes a breath, clearly trying to compose herself. “Yes, I would like your number. But not because he said so.”

“You don’t have to decide now.” Dean fishes out his wallet and takes out a five. “It won’t affect your tip,” he says with a wink as he shoves the bill under the napkin dispenser.

Maggie bites her lip. “I’ll think about it.”

Once Maggie’s left, Claire leans over the table and punches Dean, hard, in the arm. “Oh my god, are you actually braindead?”

“Hey, watch the pie!” Dean yanks his plate closer, out of Claire’s line of fire.

“What on earth possessed you to do that?” Claire demands.

Dean eyes his pie, planning his perfect plan of attack. “You needed a push in the right direction.”

Claire’s eyes flash. “I don’t need your help.”

“Tough luck, because you got it anyway,” Dean says with a shrug as portions off his first bite. “You’re only here for the summer. You don’t have the time to pine from across the softball field for a whole season.”

Claire frowns, saying warily, “I know Maggie isn’t Kaia.”

Dean points his fork, dripping with pie filling at her face. “So you gotta try a new strategy.”

“How?”

“Well, get yourself a capable wingman, for starters,” Dean says around his next bite of pie.

“Who? You?” Claire asks incredulously.

“Probably not,” Dean says, shuddering at the thought. He’d intervened with Maggie because was fucking funny as hell to see Claire get Cas-levels of awkward, but scoping out any more romantic prospects for Claire makes him feel sleazy. “I’m more of a pinch hitter.”

“What?”

“You really didn’t pay attention to a single softball game, did you?” Dean says, almost impressed.

Claire glares.

“They’re the guys called in last minute to fill in for a batter,” Dean says. He shovels the last bit of pie into his mouth, saying, “Did you keep in touch with Krissy?”

Claire shakes her head. “They were all Kaia’s friends first, so…”

“She got them in the divorce?” Dean says sympathetically.

Claire nods, her expression darkening.

“I know she’s back home for the summer too, taking care of her dad,” Dean says. “I bet she could use someone to hang with - if you ever get bored coding from our couch. Data entry for Charlie can’t be that exciting. Don’t tell her I said that.”

Claire rolls her eyes. “You don’t need to set up playdates for me, Dean.”

Dean shrugs. “Suit yourself. But none of Krissy’s other friends are back home - Josephine’s abroad, and the rest of ‘em are staying in their college towns.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Dean nods. That’s probably as good as he’ll ever get with Claire - she’s not the type to gratefully accept help. She’s more likely to complain to his face while going behind his back and doing it anyway. Which, fine, if it gets Claire out of their apartment and out of her funk.

On their way out, Maggie leaves her number on their receipt.

* * *

Claire slams the Impala door shut and relaxes in the passenger seat. “Well that was fun,” she says sarcastically as Dean twists around to pull out of the parking lot without mowing down an unfortunate 1999 Toyota Camry. “Let’s do that again soon.”

“Really?” Dean asks. At her blank stare, he adds, “I never know with you. Did you really have a good time?”

She fiddles with her seatbelt, biting her lip. “I won’t say this again, so cherish this moment: today was not the worst day I’ve ever had.” She huffs out a long breath. “It was almost fun, if you forget that shit in the diner.”

Dean laughs. “I’ll take it, I guess.” He taps his fingers against the wheel as he waits for an opening in traffic to merge onto the highway. “I’m glad.”

“Me too,” Claire mutters, so low he can barely hear her.

Dean lets the noise of the road take over for a few minutes: the reassuring rattling of the toy soldiers in the back air vent; his baby’s engine purring like a dream; the low ambient hum of her tires carrying them across miles of pavement.

Once he’s as calm as he’s gonna get, he says, “I have a question for you.”

Claire shoots him a look. “It’s not like I’m going anywhere.”

Dean shouldn’t have bothered asking. She really is incapable of being anything other than a teenager. 

“I’m thinking of asking Cas to marry me,” Dean says quickly. As Claire absorbs his words, his heart kicks up to double-time, hammering away in his chest. “Would you be okay with that?” 

“Why are you asking me?” Her eyebrows are drawn together in that same furrow that Cas always has whenever a student stumps him with a question. 

“Because you’re his family.” He’s honestly surprised he has to say this part out loud.

“Shouldn’t you be asking Grandmother instead?” Claire asks.

Dean shakes his head. “Cas doesn’t care about her opinion - or Jimmy’s.”

Claire takes another long moment to think that over. “So… are you, what, asking my permission?”

“Yep.”

“To marry my uncle.”

Dean shoots her a look. “I really don’t think the concept is that hard to understand.” Claire’s a smart kid. She’s probably drawing it out on purpose.

“Yeah, but -” Claire breaks off, “It’s weird, though.”

Dean rolls his eyes. “You literally called me a weird old man yesterday.”

“But… not this weird.”

“It’s a yes or no question, Claire,” Dean reminds her testily.

Claire waves him off. “I mean, yes, obviously, but what the hell?” Her eyes narrow, accusatory. “Is this why you made me do this weird bonding thing with you today?”

“I -” Dean stutters. “I didn’t make you-”

“It is!” Claire crows. “Were you thinking about it for all 18 holes?”

“No,” Dean says shortly.

“I don’t believe you.” Claire grins. “Were you nervous?”

“No.”

“Yeah, I’m calling BS again. You gotta work on that poker face.” She sits back in her seat, her smugness practically radiating off her in waves. 

Dean has the strangest urge to hug her.

Claire lets her hair fall over her face as she picks at her nails. “Just so you know,” she starts in an undertone, “I know it was you who convinced Uncle Cas to take me in. Back in high school.”

“Cas wanted to be there for you,” Dean says quickly, “He just didn’t know how. Honestly,” he says with a laugh, “Cas was scared he’d piss you off more, and then where would you go?”

“Really?” Claire asks, surprised.

Dean nods. “The guy is a great teacher, but he’s not great with kids if there isn’t a desk between them, you know? He's been working on it, though. Having you around taught him a lot.”

“That makes sense,” Claire says, almost to herself. “Anyway, I’ve only really known Uncle Cas while you were together. It’d be more weird if you didn’t get married.”

Dean doesn’t bother turning on the turn signal as he pulls over to the side of the road.

“What the-?” Claire starts, twisting in her seat to look out the window. “Why’d you - oof.”

Dean wraps his arms around her, squeezing tightly.

“Ugh,” she groans, “You smell.” But she hugs him back anyway.

[doomonfilm]

Thoughts : Willy’s Wonderland (2021)

Nicolas Cage has built a career out of occasionally interspersing his unique characterizations in random films with a sort of inverse approach involving an unchained Cage as the figurehead of a story so off the wall that only Cage could carry the weight of it.  That’s why it was no surprise that an immediate groundswell of buzz and anticipation occurred when Willy’s Wonderland was announced.  To the average movie-goer, any opportunity to witness a Cage-rage (as one of my coworkers refers to the Cage approach) is a welcome one, and seeing him beat down human-sized android puppets sounds too good to miss out on.  For those aware of Five Nights at Freddy’s, however, the film seemed like an attempt to steal the thunder from a film that will automatically have a built-in fanbase if (or more likely, when) the trigger is pulled on production and release.  That being said, Hulu came to the rescue and picked up the streaming rights to Willy’s Wonderland, meaning I had no excuse for not seeing this fever dream of a flick.

What we are looking at is a unique two-fisted cash grab attempt, and luckily, each fist contains the main elements worth talking about in this film, as honestly, there is not much going on here.  We’ll start with the elephant in the room before diving into the obvious realm : this is basically the Wish version of a Five Nights at Freddy’s film, with a healthy dose of R.L. Stine-inspired lore building tossed in to give the film a sense of purpose or narrative thrust.  First and foremost, there is BARELY a narrative arc to this film, and many of the story beats feel tacked on purely for the need of having the parts of the story that aren’t Willy’s-centered still feel like they’re moving forward.  With Five Nights at Freddy’s already being a dark take on the real-life Showbiz Pizza and Chuck E. Cheese’s establishments that dot the nation, taking it one step deeper with Willy’s Wonderland gives the film’s creators a false sense of agency in terms of the need for backstory.  We are literally dropped into the proceedings with the barest bones of a flashback sequence before being asked to buy into no less that 4 sets of character stories, three of which consistently managing to bring the portions not involving the centerpiece of the show to a cringe-filled crawl.

Speaking of the centerpiece of the show, the other obvious attempt to bring curious viewers to Willy’s Wonderland is the lure of the most curious star in the Hollywood system : the enigma that is Nicolas Cage.  It’s no secret that Cage has built up an extremely varied career of roles that fall all over the highlight and lowlight spectrum, many of which appear to be blatant cash grabs to keep him financially in a head above water situation (allegedly, as I am not his accountant).  Willy’s Wonderland falls completely into the same realm for Cage of films like Jiu Jitsu, the upcoming The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, Left Behind and so on, where the addition of Nicolas Cage is meant to lift the credibility of the content by association, and the anticipation of Cage going off the rails is implied by his connection.  With this in mind, I’ve got to give it to Cage for continuously being able to cash in on properties like this while still managing to maintain some version of star power, as trying to imagine the likes of Sylvester Stallone, Brendan Frasier, Johnny Knoxville or some other ridiculously outlandish casting immediately makes this film way less interesting.

From the outside looking in, it appears that the budget was mainly allocated to two realms : the animatronics and however much it cost to include Nicolas Cage in the cast.  The work on the animatronics is one of the few saving graces for Willy’s Wonderland, as each puppet has just enough of a unique look to have them stand out from one another.  The movement of each figure matches their personality, and the gore effects for each animatronic kill really give those highlight moments additional impact.  The visual look is otherwise a bit dry in terms of color timing... there is quite a bit of eye-catching fluorescents once we enter the Willy’s establishment, but everything in the film (including these sequences) are so washed out that it mutes the effect... my guess is that they were looking to capture a living and breathing comic book look, which is accomplished, but somewhat in odds with the tone of the film.  A nod must be given to the score and soundtrack creators for attempting to create a small bank of original jingles and in-world diegetic music rather than going for stock tunes. 

Giving Nicolas Cage top billing is an interesting choice... he gives you a textbook Cage performance full of odd choices, intense but hilarious stares and overconfident physicality, all without uttering one word (to my recollection).  Beth Grant gives her down-home, over the top best as a literal plug-in character meant to explain the existence of Liv Hawthorne (who we will get to).  David Sheftell, Ric Reitz and Chris Warner all bring in some much needed levity in the form of outrageous caricatures of standard horror character tropes.  Unfortunately, the thing that really drags the film down is the inclusion of the teenagers in the story : Emily Tosta is given very little purpose as Liv Hawthorne, as her character could have literally been one of what is implied to be scores of kids sacrificed to Willy’s Wonderland, while her counterparts (Kai Kadlec, Caylee Cowan, Christian Del Grosso, Jonathan Mercedes and Terayle Hill) are, ironically, nothing but sacrificial lambs, both symbolically in terms of the narrative and literally in terms of being characters.  Jiri Staneck, Jessica Graves, Taylor Towery, B.J. Guyer, Chris Schmidt Jr., Billy Bussey, Christopher Bradley and Duke Jackson must all be given props for their animatronic performances.

Willy’s Wonderland may almost certainly go down as the most singularly unique and interesting viewing experience of the year, short of someone like Charlie Kaufman releasing a new film.  I don’t ever see myself returning to this film in a capacity outside of sharing it with friends or watching it “impaired” (if you catch my drift), but don’t let my bit of a beating that I gave the film fool you... this isn’t a bad movie... I’d say it’s an unnecessary guilty pleasure, if nothing else.

[thewebcomicsreview]

Homestuck 2! Chapter 13! The funeral! 

One thing I’ve noticed about these Homestuck Chapters is that they are exclusively Meat or Candy, and we never cut from one to the other in a chapter. Presumably this is setting up a “rule” that will be “broken” in a really dramatic moment (a la “Pearl doesn’t Shapeshift” in Steven Universe). Or it’ll be an anticlimax joke. Or, given the occasionally sloppiness of the writing team, it’ll happen randomly this chapter right around the point the trend is starting to become noticeable. Anyway. Jane is speaking, and it’s a funeral, so presumably this is Candyland and this is a chapter with Yiffy in it.

Are those the Derse and Prospit colors in that church?

Why are there so many trolls in the audience if Jane’s a human supremacist and humans and trolls are at war? I know HS2 sanded off the grimdarkness of the epilogues, but is there even a war anymore? Or is it just a family squabble between the gods? Jane conspicuously avoids mentioning the Trolls, but references the “Human Nation State”, formerly known as the Human Kingdom. If the Humans are now an independent nation then what exactly is Jane the president of? If there’s a one world government, then what the hell is Jane talking about? Why does anyone give a shit what she thinks of troll breeding if the four nations live in harmony are independently run? What is the political situation of Earth C, exactly? Is there an open war? Is Karkat leading like a terrorist cell? Who’s in charge of the Troll Kingdom?

Maybe it doesn’t super matter because the story is less about politics and more about “Bluh bluh, Jane’s a huge bitch”, but I’m kind of curious as to what the facts on the ground are.

Speaking of things I don’t understand that will hopefully be explained soon. What’s Yiffy even doing here? I guess to be revealed to the world and executed?

JANE: And my first memory of our Purple Prince 

Classpect speculation time! Everyone’s favorite! “Prince” is a class, and it’s even capitalized here so we don’t miss it, but Gamzee wasn’t a Prince, he was a Bard. The joke may be as simple as “Jane doesn’t really care about Gamzee”, but it could also be foreshadowing, as Prince and Bard are opposite classes and inversions and all the BladeKind Eyewear stuff.

It takes Jake a few seconds of puzzled eye contact before he catches exactly what it is Yiffany is tossing down. In his defense, he is distracted by his wife’s speech, which is doing the emotional equivalent of wringing him out like a wet towel, before using that towel to slap the sweaty buttocks of a large, odorous man. Even if he knows everything she’s saying is a load of horsefeathers, it does nothing for his composure to hear her heap praise on that smelly, homewrecking clown.

This narration is trying way too hard to be quirky.

He narrows his eyes in Yiffany’s direction. She’s a lovely girl, really

Oh good, a weird throwaway implication that middle-aged Jake English is sexually attracted to his own teenage granddaughter who he’s literally holding by a leash at the time. That’s just phenomenal. Thanks, Homestuck. 

I do love that, as soon as Jake accidentally-on-purpose lets her go, Yiffy chooses not to escape but to just fucking charge at Jane. As a character who doesn’t talk (but could talk at any time, another “rule” being built up to be broken at a dramatic moment), Yiffy has to be characterized by her actions, which thus makes her way more, well, active than anyone else in Homestuck 2 or really even in Homestuck 1. Even Vriska would filibuster a bit here before attacking, and Spades Slick would have some dramatic narration, but Yiffy gets none of that, just wild abandon, attacking a woman who is blah blah blah-ing endlessly. 

Obviously this isn’t an all-purpose “correct” choice for every story, but I think having Yiffy be silent and the narration not clueing us into her thoughts works really well for her. It gives her a bit of mystery (void?), lets us project into her a little which inherently makes her more sympathetic, and makes her very fresh and different in a comic that’s mostly known for giant walls of introspective dialogue. She’s a bit of a counterweight to the comic’s excesses, in that way.

JANE: I was born on proto-Earth, that half-finished dystopia mangled by the ravages of foolish leadership and endless war.

I legitimately don’t know if the point of this line is “Jane, who had a rich and privileged upbringing, is pretending she didn’t in order to score political points” or “Fuck Obama”. 

JANE: It would be simple to let this disgusting, vile, SHAMEFUL act of spiteful revenge turn us away from the blinding light of the sword of justice that hangs over us all--

For fuck’s sake.

Writers.

If you’re going to have a villain ironically monologue about how “justice” is coming for everyone, unaware that a hero is about to attack her, and the villain says that justice “hangs over us all”, then why is the hero attacking from beneath her? Why not have Yiffy, like, lass scamper up to the rafters and then be dropping down on Jane as she says this line? Wouldn’t that work stronger? A low angle shot of Jane saying justice hangs above us all, blissfully unaware of Yiffy in the background dropping down on her? Come on. It’s right there. 

Oh, okay, never mind. Yiffy is not attacking Jane, she’s childishly and ineffectively stomping on Gamzee’s coffin. That’s....much less cool than what I thought was happening, but it’s still okay for something to be not cool. I guess Yiffy, child of the two smartest characters in Homestuck, is a bit of a dipshit. 

I do like that Jane is just continuing with her speech as if nothing is happening.

Wait, they have Gamzee’s body? Isn’t Jane’s super-power raising the dead? I get why Jane isn’t doing that, but you’d think someone in-universe would’ve asked, unless she’s planning to do it right now. 

Does the president of the world and/or the Human Nation State not have bodyguards? 

Ah, there we go. Now the Sword of Justice is hanging above Jane, who’s realizing that the shock collar isn’t working as well as expected and that she might be in trouble here. I just had to be more patient, we got there eventually. 

JANE: After everything I’ve done for you--paying for your education, helping your parents cover up your existence from the world!

(Honestly, the sudden reveal of a hitherto unknown CHILD OF THE GODS should probably be a big deal to the people of Earth C, but none of them matter)

There he flies--in his gangly, purple, necrotizing glory. A phantom honk seems to hang above the congregation, as if from an echo of a time long past. A simpler time. A time before we had to deal with this disgusting clown’s bloated corpse every other update. He vanishes into the seething crowd, and we are confident that we will never have to deal with this asshole ever again.

The more the narrator opines on what’s going on, the more I question who the fuck it is. I thought it was Alpha Calliope, who was drawing weird stories with “lots of nudity”, but Calliope was all gung-ho on Gamzee’s redemption arc.

But also I kind of hate the Candy narration? I get that we’re supposed to be going “Wait who is this” and the constant editorializing is meant to call attention to this question, but let’s take it down 20% fellas? 

The stained glass window shatters inward, obliterated to stardust. The war is knocking.

Ah, so there is a war. And Jane stood in front of a giant-ass window on live TV in a church with no security in it? These are the dumbest fucking people, I swear to god. 

[everydisneymovie]

Review #68: Summer Magic

Post #73

1/25/2021

Next up is 1963′s Summer Magic

Enjoyment : [3]

This movie is very boring. First off, all the characters are awful people, and no one faces any consequences for being awful. We are introduced to the family while they are trying to manipulate their maids into working for free, and immediately after they scam a guy into renting a house to them by faking an illness. When their scam is found out, the guy just laughs and forgives them, which is way less charming than the movie seems to think it is. They try to go for a ‘rich city folk have to rough it out in the country side’ but the characters go through almost no actual hardships to get you invested. Sure they TALK about how they have no money and how hard it is living here, but they still wear fancy dresses, go to fancy balls and hang out in a lavish mansion rent free. (ya know, because of that scam they pulled.) I could not get invested in anyone because they were just so mean and always got away with it. The opening scene is about how sad they are because they have to sell their piano, only for it to be revealed that they are selling the expensive piano, and buying a slightly less expensive piano with the money. That sets the whole tone right there, a very minor conflict, that gets dismissed effortlessly with no lasting consequences.

Quality : [3]

This movie is pretty average, with little to say in terms of camera work. The costumes and sets are decent for the most part, but it rarely rises above ‘passable’ at least to my eye. There are some structural issues with this movie, mostly stemming from poor writing and characterization. This movie also suddenly decides to be a musical a half hour in? The way it handles its music numbers are really sloppy, since it can’t decide if it wants to be diegetic or not. Some numbers are done entirely within the narrative played on instruments the characters physically have with them, while others have ghost orchestras playing for them and are seemingly dream sequences? None of the songs really land and the tone is way too grounded to achieve the dream-like quality of a true musical. 

Hold up : [2]

Wowie this movie is racist. Pretty much every character says a racial slur at some point in the movie. It starts off subtle, with the characters hinting about the ‘easterners’ and end just came fully out spewing asian slurs. Like this movie really pointedly hates asians even forcing in slurs where they make no sense. Two characters will be talking politely and suddenly turn to the camera and say something weirdly hateful. The rest of the movie isn’t great either. They same some weird stuff about women, and all the female relationships are oddly hostile. Like, the main character really brutally humiliates her cousin and then it brushed over like nothing happened. The hate coating this movie make the whole watching experience feels grimy.

Risk : [4]

How many times do I need to teach you this lesson old man? Rich people ALMOST becoming slightly less rich is NEVER interesting. This is a very safe movie, and it is utterly boring because of it. I can’t fault it too much for focusing on a low stakes story, low stakes can be fun in the right situations, but this ain’t it chief. Also, how come they never showed any character doing any farm labor? There is like a big cut where they go from uppity city folk, to hard working country folk but at no point is it earned. I think the Disney writers just really like writing stories upperclass white people STAYING upperclass and white.

Extra Credit : [2]

Some jokes made me laugh, and the opening song slaps for the 30 seconds it plays. There are also a few legitimately funny fourth wall breaks, like the Time? Rag! joke in the opening shot. Although I swear they don’t do anything as funny as their opening gag for the rest of the movie.

Final thoughts:

This movie isn’t the worst thing I have seen so far, but it REALLY isn’t anything worthwhile. The music is forgettable, the pacing is weird and the characters are all assholes. I really do feel that a lack of consequences stands out more in low stakes stories. People don’t have to die or suffer for a movie to work, but there has to be a driving force behind the narrative. This movie spits in the face of all conflict over and over again just to spite you for watching it. They have to sell their precious piano because they need money? No problem they bought a cheaper piano that is just as good and had a ton of money left over. They lied about their living situation to scam an old man out of a house? No problem the old man found their scam funny and gave them the house for free anyway. The old man is only the landlord and if the original owner comes back they might lose the house? No problem the original owner gives the house for free and is also a hot guy who wants to marry the protagonist and let her live in the lap of luxury for the rest of her life. When I saw the title, I thought that this was going to be something whimsical and fun, but all I got was a dull movie about rich con artists avoiding consequences and getting an unearned happy ending.

Total Score: 14/50 

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