#I’ve been bitter about Job ever since I learnt it and I ain’t about to stop now

[theclaravoyant]

Heaven stripping away every piece of Aziraphale’s earthly life and still expecting loyalty . but it’s fine because his faith will be Rewarded , right? something something Job something something

[one-boring-person]

When It's All Over.

Alan "Dutch" Schaefer (Predator 1987) x reader

Warnings: swearing, mention of injury, mention of death, blood, mention of gun violence, MILD SPOILERS

Context: The reader is a part of Dutch's group, and is one of the only survivors left behind. This takes place during their preparation for the final fight.

A/N: This is my first time officially writing Predator stuff, so please don't get angry if it's a bit out of character, but I really wanted to write something! Dutch is an absolute favourite of mine, and I want to write more for him in the future 😅

Masterlist

"That's the last of the traps I can rig." My voice startles the filthy major as I climb up beside him onto the raised area he's selected for his makeshift workshop. His hand instantly reaches for the nasty-looking knife at his belt, grey eyes widening slightly as they fix on me. 

"Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you." I apologise, holding up my hands as he breathes out and relaxes again.

"Don't worry about it. I'm just...on edge." Dutch reassures me, his gruff voice somehow calming my own nerves slightly. 

"For good reason, I guess." I muse quietly, sitting down opposite him, watching as he continues what he's doing, "What're you making?"

"Explosive arrows. They'll throw that bastard off, and will hurt it, too." He clarifies, gesturing to the opened shells lying beside him, the powder inside just visible.

I nod appreciatively, knowing that his expertise far outreaches mine, the veteran having had a lot more experience than it looks like I ever will. Silently, I watch him work, enraptured by the deft movements of his hands, his bare muscles bulging with every twist, his grimy skin somehow still showing through under the layer of dirt that hasn't quite rubbed off yet. We'll re-paint ourselves with the stuff soon, but for now we're simply preparing in the reprieve we've been gifted by the ruthless killer that is hunting us down. My hand instinctively goes to the wound on my upper arm, the hastily-bandaged injury still throbbing with every movement, though I've long since learnt to deal with pain. With the reminder comes a flashback of something Blain said to me before he met his end, back in the guerrilla camp.

"I ain't got time to bleed."

At the time, I'd laughed it off, finding his callous yet brotherly antics reassuring after the chaos of the attack on the camp. I miss him already, just as I miss the rest of them, the tight-knit group having become my family in the years I've been part of it. A bitter laugh escapes me again as I think over how bad my luck with families is.

"What?" Dutch's question snaps me from whatever trance I was in, his hands having slowed again as he watches me closely, head tilted to the side.

"Huh? Oh, I just remembered something Blain said to me." I reveal, sitting back against the tree trunk behind me, making eye contact with the major.

He chuckles, going back to what he was doing.

"That's quite general, (Y/n). He says- said, a lot of things." He corrects himself, grimacing at the reminder of what happened to his friend.

"I guess so." 

Falling back into silence, I take out my knife and check the blade, waiting for Dutch to finish up with his job, making sure the weapon is sharp enough for me to use.

"What do you think it's doing right now?" I mutter, glancing up at Dutch curiously.

Shrugging, he places down the arrow he was working on, taking up the longbow he's fashioned out of a branch and fibre from a vine.

"Honestly, I'd rather not think about it. We've just got to be ready for when it comes back." The veteran confesses, plucking at the string of the bow experimentally, smiling triumphantly when it makes a satisfying twanging sound.

"Fair enough." I nod, replacing my knife in my belt and standing, stretching out my sore muscles. 

After a moment, he also climbs upright, leaving the bow where it is as he comes to stand beside me, looking out over the clearing. Absentmindedly, I allow my eyes to roam over the particular spots where I know there are traps hidden, each one of them hidden precisely, the action having taken me most of the time we've had in this sudden lull of the hunt. A pit of dread had managed to work it's way into me, my mind slowly convincing itself that we may as well be dead already, our little show of traps and bravado probably not going to help us much. Swallowing, I turn my gaze down to my feet, clenching my fists at my sides, trying to fight off the feeling. 

Silent beside me, Dutch seems to notice my body language and turns to face me, watching me as I keep my gaze averted.

"I'm scared, Dutch." I finally reveal to him, ashamed of this as I feel a blush come to my cheeks. I am confident that I can tell him this, but I still feel stupid admitting it, as if I'm giving in to what the creature wants.

"I know." He murmurs, placing an hand on my shoulder, "And so am I, but we can do this together. We'll beat that bastard into the ground." 

Looking up at him, I allow a small smile to cross my face, before I find myself enveloped in his muscular arms, my smaller figure pulled into his massive body. Grateful, I wrap my own arms around him, inhaling the mix of scents that shroud him deeply, the smell reassuring me even as his tight grip does, the feeling of his corded body under my hands grounding me. Neither of us care if we are covered in mud and gore, only caring that we have this last moment together before all hell breaks loose, my heart throbbing as he presses my head into his chest with a hand, burying his face into my hair. 

"I'm glad that I don't have to do this on my own, (Y/n)." Dutch murmurs into my scalp, rubbing my back gently with his one hand, the other playing with my hair.

"Me too, Dutch." I mumble in response, my voice muffled by his chest.

Pulling away, the major presses one kiss to my forehead, smiling down at me as we part, bodies aching to be back with each other again, still feeling the residual heat from each other. He takes my hand in his briefly, before we split off and start caking ourselves in mud, doing so in companionable silence. We coat ourselves thoroughly, making sure to cover every inch of our bodies, knowing this may well be what gives us the upper hand against our opponent. Finishing, we come together one last time.

"You ready?" The veteran asks me softly, taking up the currently unlit torch from the floor.

"No, but I'll do my very best." I respond, watching as he shoulders his bow, admiring the movements of his bulging muscles.

He smirks, gesturing for me to go.

"Get into position. I'll see you when it's all over." He commands me, brushing some of my filthy hair from my face.

"Yes sir." I salute him, grinning as I scramble to get into position, climbing down the rocks into a small alcove we found nearby, crouching down behind a conveniently placed boulder. From my position, I can just about see Dutch stride out to the centre of his walkway, halting at the end with the torch held aloft, an orange flame blazing at its tip.

Shooting one last look my way, Dutch releases a powerful roar, the sound clearly a war cry, or challenge to the predator hunting us, the force behind it making it resonate around the clearing, his grief and anger giving it strength. Throwing down his torch, the veteran moves back to solid ground, taking hold of a vine and swinging to the opposite end of the clearing, having grabbed his bow and arrows at the same time. Once he is in position, I recover the last shotgun we have left from under the nearby leaves, cocking it as I kneel down in the mud, holding myself stock still. 

Silence falls as we wait for our attacker to arrive.

[taraljc]

my thing about Batgirl

(Reposting from mah Facebook, because reasons. Also, for clarity, I'm a 44 year old nerd girl who started reading comics when she was 11 or so.)

OK, so, possibly after drinking a statistically significant amount of coffee that I likely shouldn't ought to have done right before catching up on social media, I have now consolidated and cleaned up what was an open letter to Warner Bros but came across more as a bitter and angry rant about something I care a lot about, but the rest of you may not really understand or even care about. So here's what's been on my mind for quite a while now.

I've never been as incandescently happy as I was in this exact moment I learnt a certain womanising hack who has coasted on an outdated reputation for way too long is never going to get the chance to destroy one of my all time favourite female characters in the entire history of comics. I feel as if need to commemorate this with pie of some kind.

(sweet potato pecan pie with bourbon whipped cream is the frontrunner at this time, assuming I can find $$$ to go grocery shopping for the ingredients except the bourbon because you know me. I always have bourbon.)

In case you haven't guessed this is gonna be about Barbara Gordon.

It amazes me how no-one has ever thought to adapt the EPIC storyarc by Ostrander & Yale about how a former vigilante became one of if not THE most power and influential non-superpowered women in the entire DCU after literally being thrown away like trash.

(Google the quote "Cripple the bitch." Trust me, it will make you understand where I'm coming from with a lot of this.)

Oh yeah, and not only did she do so using all the skills she already had before she put on a cape and kicked some ass as one of a dozen minor figures in the Gotham vigilante scene, but she created and ran one of the best covert teams in history.

(If you do not know who the Birds of Prey are, that's OK. An origin film would solve that problem for you.)

OH OH OH and not only was she running the Birds, but she was simultaneously acting as the Field Co-ordinator that turned her original vigilante found family into a much more efficient, effective, and powerful crime-fighting force not just in Gotham but the entire DCU.

All while transitioning to life with a disability. Did I mentioned she'd been shot through the spine solely to torture her uncle/father in one of the most mysoginist comics stories of the past 50 years? Sorry. I probably buried the lede a bit, there.

What really matters is, we're talking about a woman who used her research and cyber security skills honed by her day job as a research librarian and went up against Amanda Waller and came out on top.

If someone who claims to love comics as much as that guy who did that male power fantasy TV show about hot chicks back in the 90s can't figure out why Barbara Gordon as Oracle would have relevance or appeal, well...

What can I say. Maybe it's time to actually hire a writer who can deliver a solid script that doesn't reduce 50 years of history (the balance of which was spent not as Batgirl, but as Oracle) to a casualty of the feud between Bats and the Joker?

So you know, if anybody's looking for a list of creatives that as both a comics fan and a film fanatic whom I believe would be more than up to the challenge, I am ready to write a six part series on @TheMarySue any time. Y'all know where to find me.

I think what a lot of people don't realise that when you take a character like Barbara Gordon who trained hard in isolation, with no teachers or mentors, because she chose to join the fight because she knew she could make a difference, only to be under-used, under-valued, written off as collateral damage, and ultimately expected to fade away into the woodwork...

...there is an incredibly compelling story just sitting there waiting to be explored about how someone with that drive, those skills, that passion for justice who flat out refuses to let the world write her off. She takes the world by the balls and shows them there's still work to be done, and that you don't need to wear a cape and a mask to do it.

And THAT to me, ever since I was 15 years old, reading Ostrander & Yale's Suicide Squad while my other friends were off going to malls or Depeche Mode concerts or whatevs, was what made me a hardcore fan of Barbara Gordon. Not Batgirl. ORACLE. And THAT story of Barbara Gordon becoming Oracle is the story that I want to see told in theatres, to the masses, so they can see what I first saw in a former sidekick who turned into a massive powerhouse in the DCU not by force, but by using her intelect.

I've never got why people don't understand how HUGE it was to see a character who'd been literally thrown away like garbage, be reinvented as a character so much more important and integral to the future of comics, not to mention A++ representation of a hero with a disability.

If no-one can turn that incredibly compelling story into a 120 page screenplay, then it's time to stop looking to the same 4 white guys (like for reals I am not kidding) to write comics adaptations for the big screen, and cast a wider net.

What I'm saying is, I think after the last 2 decades we've seen all there really is to see in terms of range from The Usual Suspects (David S. Goyer, Christopher Nolan, Zak Penn, and the aforementioned womanising hack Joss Whedon) that have stayed at the top of studios speed-dial for far too long..

Time to spin that rolodex and give The Wachowski Sisters, Zack Stentz & Ash Miller, Allan Heinberg, Jennifer Lee, or Ava DuVernay a crack at nailing just the right tone and story for a big-budget feature Batgirl.

Look, I know It's easy to play armchair producer when it's not my $$$. But as a fan, Warner Bros. ain't getting a single CENT of my money if they don't take the lessons they learnt from critical & commercial success of Wonder Woman and apply same 1st class treatment to Barbara Gordon/Batgirl.