#Like its always dictates how far he will go in a Bad thing and not like. Whether he forces his goons to hand out free meals in the park

[dankovskaya]

(Guy who is currently fixated) And really a lot of the best two face stories are the ones where he is actually shown behaving like. You know. A demented lawyer. That is ultimately the strongest aspect of two face: year one in my opinion and ALSO its why the Jurisprudence arc is kind of the gleaming diamond in the unreadable dumpster fire that is no man's land. It's SO much fun and it makes every time he's shown as just like, a two-themed gangster kind of disappointing in comparison. I still enjoy that ofc but ideally there would be both in equal measure.

[mooonbae]

Just finished watching Wicked pt. 1 at my local theater, and I’m left with a few major thoughts:

1. I cannot for the life of me understand this trend of lying to the audience about what a movie is going to look or sound like, or trick us into watching a multi-part series that is advertised as a solo film. I’m not mad it’s a two-parter, I walked into the theater knowing it had to be, but seeing that title card with “part one” on it still made me furious.

2. The movie was visually stunning, far more than the previews would lead you to believe (see above re: tricking the audience for no reason).

The costumes were spectacular (with one weird exception — what was uppp with Nessarose’s jacket??), the sets were gorgeous and rich and detailed, and the visual world was one I can’t wait to dive into again.

The color grading wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected, though it still could’ve been better. For a world meant to be viewed in technicolor, anything less than Avatar-level saturation felt wrong. Many scenes were still washed out more than reasonable even though the film is graded far better than the previews. All in all, though, the visuals are actually the best part of the film.

3. The casting was great. Ariana sold me as Glinda, I can’t really imagine anyone else better filling that role, it’s like it was made for her. Cynthia and Ariana had great chemistry, and I’ll watch literally anything Jonathan Bailey is in, so there’s that too. Witnessing Ariana reject her boyfriend on screen, the boyfriend who she met on the set of this very film, was really…something.

4. The audio mixing was terrible.

The vocals were…shockingly hard to understand, especially the lyrics in ensemble numbers. I would chalk this up to my auditory processing issues or the reliance I’ve developed on subtitles, but I have NEVER had such a hard time understanding the words in any musical, in theaters or out, including recent releases. Ariana’s lines in particular, especially the higher notes, devolved into unintelligible whistling, and ensemble pieces like the opening number were so cacophonous that I would’ve missed really important exposition if I hadn’t already known what was going on. Even the taunting song her classmates sang to Elphaba was hard to make out, which then made its call-back moment later in the film lose some emotional power.

Is this problem because they allegedly sang live during production? Possibly, but that’s all the more reason not to do it. We already know how hard it is on the actors (hello, Les Mis, we learned nothing from you), and if the sound quality suffers as a result, what are we even doing here? And whether that is the explanation or not, it feels criminal to make a musical adaptation where the music is hard to understand. With all the technology at our disposal, leaving the sound so muddled is a choice, and an insufferable one imo.

(Also, the way that Defying Gravity was weirdly chopped up in the final scene, and the pacing of that entire final sequence, was really jarring and confusing and felt really unnecessary…but that’s a topic for a different post entirely.)

5. None of these things really matter.

As a queer and disabled woman, Ephelba’s story has always resonated deeply with me. Now, watching this movie in November of 2024 made me deeply, profoundly sad.

Two weeks after the most devastating election our country has ever faced, I had to sit and watch a story about a world that has been taken over by a charismatic dictator, a wealthy showman-turned-politician, who has bamboozled the public with smokescreens and flashy gimmicks, turned the majority of the population against intellectuals and anyone who is different, singled out a vulnerable population and scapegoated them for all of the countries problems — problems that he, himself, and his greed, have created — and convinced the public to give up their freedoms and critical thinking in favor of comfort and blissful ignorance.

I had to watch a story about a world in which queerness has been co-opted by the oppressor and stripped of all of its meaning, where privileged gay people have become the bullies, where the native population is being eradicated, where educational institutions are not allowed to teach the truth, where knowledge is kept under lock and key or destroyed entirely, where those who protest or threaten the ruling class are locked in cages, where sensitive and compassionate people are systematically taken advantage of and ground down by the mechanisms of capitalism and tyranny.

I had to watch a story about a girl with physical differences being treated like a leper, a girl with a different way of thinking being gaslit and ostracized, a girl with amazing abilities only seen as a whole, worthwhile person when she’s performing them a specific way for other people.

I had to watch a movie where “different” (read: queer, disabled, neurodivergent, ethnically diverse) people like me are being used as the vehicle for an obvious, slap-you-in-the-face sort of moral to the story, and the remainder of the cast are written as a transparent parody of the oppression that we face in our modern society. Where the cautionary tale, change-your-ways-before-you-end-up-like-this, dystopian nightmare we are being shown on screen…is just a mirror reflecting exactly, precisely the world we have created around us. We are being entertained with horror stories about our current condition. The 911 call is coming from inside the dispatch office, at this point.

And I had to watch all of this, knowing that at least half of the people in this country will walk away from seeing this movie with entirely the wrong message. That I couldn’t even trust that the people sitting in the seats next to me were understanding the moral of the story as they were watching it unfold. But the resounding silence in the theater once the credits started to roll told me maybe they did.

We have been bombarded with advertising and press coverage for this film for months. The cast is plastered across all of our screens while we make memes of them crying and starving themselves to death in front of our eyes. Any discussion of the moral of the story or it’s parallels to our modern society, any examination of its message about the mistakes we are currently making, has been gutted in favor of dangling something shiny to catch our attention and attempting to recreate the Barbenheimer phenomenon for shareholders. In an industry oversaturated with live-action remakes that have no reason to exist beyond revenue generation, this flat and soulless adaptation fits right in. The idea of fighting for what is right and building a just society is being packaged and sold to us as a gimmick, a moving concept that now exists only in fairy tales. And the story doesn’t even get to have a happy ending, because, again, we get to suffer through a sneaky two-parter RE: capitalism! What fun!

The theater was decked out in pink and green, there were commemorative popcorn buckets and collectible pins at the register, and groups of viewers showed up in matching outfits for the event. The acting was lovely, the costumes were brilliant, the movie was a fun and nostalgic way to pass a few hours. But the vibe was decisively hollow, and I walked away feeling less like I was shown a piece of art and more like I was force-fed propaganda. It didn’t move me, it made me grieve. The rest of the audience quickly walked out with me in somber silence, and I have a feeling many of them had the same experience.

Because art used to exist to inspire, to move people, to send a message. A story like Wicked used to exist to remind society of the value of inclusion, the importance of studying the lessons of the past, and to inspire us oppressed folk to keep fighting for a better future. This type of story has always existed, told in so many different forms and repeated again and again because it needed to be. But after three decades of remakes, it feels like we’re past the point where we can learn any lesson Wicked has to teach us. What is the point of another adaptation if it feels this hollow? It is profoundly sad to be sold a message about your own dignity that the world around you has already decided it doesn’t want to hear.

Sitting in the audience of Wicked in 2024 is to confront the fact that we live in a world that has already bought what the Wizard is selling, has already tricked the flying monkeys into attacking, and it’s only a matter of time before the cages are coming.

[antianakin]

@theneutralmime

I think there's probably NUMEROUS reasons fans have for disliking the Jedi.

I think some people might dislike them because before the Prequels came out there was this alternate perception of what the Jedi were/had been that was primarily dictated by Legends which seemingly based them far more on European Knights than anything else, something which clearly appealed to a lot of people and was familiar and fun as an archetype. People became, ironically, attached to this version of the Jedi that they'd grown up with and so when the Prequels came out and they were NOT in fact European Knights with laser swords and magic powers but Buddhist Monks with laser swords and magic powers, it was jarring. So I hear, at least. I had no concept of Legends and I saw the Prequels first anyway, but I'm told this was apparently jarring for people. So it's just a lot of "Well these aren't MY Jedi from my childhood" going on.

And adding to that, I think some people just disliked the Prequels as a whole and so one way to sort-of reinterpret the Prequels in such a way that they felt they could enjoy them more was to decide that their dislike of the Jedi was the intended reading of the film. It's not that they were misinterpreting it or that Lucas had somehow done it wrong, but that the Jedi being unlikable was the whole point. And this is the ONLY way they can see the Prequel films as enjoyable or worthwhile, so they're not going to accept any other explanation. Either the Jedi are supposed to be the bad guys and the films did exactly what they were meant to do, or the Jedi are supposed to be the good guys and the films failed because they didn't get that across TO THESE FANS.

And when you dislike something that much, it's VERY VERY DIFFICULT to turn that opinion around, even after you see other people make arguments on its behalf. As someone who has pretty strong negative opinions about things, I can speak to that from experience. I know people liked the Ahsoka show and even thought it was genuinely well-written and well-acted, I've seen some of their arguments for why they believe that. But none of those arguments are ever going to mean anything to me because my experience of it was so negative that I don't particularly WANT to like it or have my opinion changed. To me, it's just bad. I can't just force myself to understand it differently than I do at this point, even though I recognize other people don't share my opinion.

So some of those people who just had really negative experiences of the Prequel films and the way they depicted the Jedi might just be in a similar position. No amount of knowing other people interpreted it differently, no amount of arguments in defense of the Prequels and the Jedi, no amount of quotes by George Lucas, is every going to take away from the fact that these fans had a really negative experience with these films that will likely always color their opinions of them.

Some other arguments I've seen about why they dislike the Jedi in particular seem to stem primarily from their feelings about Anakin and the way his relationship with the Jedi was depicted in the films. Some of it might come from people having the hots for Anakin and so they just... don't care about anybody BUT him, but some seems to come more from how young Anakin is in TPM and the way it really changed their perspective on this character who had only ever been a villain prior to that film.

I think people saw the Council scene with this fairly small child in the middle of a room full of adults whose job it is to decide his future and really related to his fear and nervousness and defensiveness far more than they related to the Council being put into a difficult position and trying their best to be objective but not unkind. And while you are SUPPOSED to relate to Anakin here to some extent, you're also supposed to be able to recognize that just because Anakin's fears are valid doesn't mean the Council are wrong to see that he's not prepared for this life and that being a Jedi is likely not going to be the right path for him. That second part seems to elude a lot of people because all they see is a scared little boy and so they insist in the same breath that the Jedi stole Anakin away from his loving mother AND that they should've just let him join the Order no matter what. And so when Anakin starts making bad decisions and killing people and being arrogant, they don't blame Anakin for it, they don't trace it back to Anakin's mistrust and dishonesty, they just decide it was the Council's fault for not giving him everything he wanted immediately and causing him irreparable trauma as a result.

People also I think ended up relating a lot more to ADULT Anakin than they do to the Jedi because Anakin is INTENDED to be relatable, he's got all of the character flaws that are causing the entire story to happen, while the Jedi are primarily side characters who have completed their own character journeys and are now there just to guide others. They're the moral compass of the films, delivering many of their themes and messages, but they're not the HEART of the story the way Anakin is. I think this led to a lot of protagonist bias in some ways where they like Anakin and so they just proceeded to come up with every excuse under the sun for why he was right instead of understanding that even though Anakin was the main character and the heart of the story doesn't mean he's not also a cautionary tale of what NOT to do. That's truly it. It's a very long, very complicated fable for children about the consequences of selfishness and greed.

But people these days OFTEN feel like if they enjoy a character then they cannot also be problematic or do problematic things, so if they enjoy Anakin, despite all of the objectively horrific things that he does, then Anakin just cannot be the one at fault for it. It MUST be someone else's fault. And of course the opposite also ends up true where if someone dislikes a character, then they must come up with a reason for why they're problematic to explain it. And thus we also get the Jedi then becoming the scapegoat for Anakin's choices. They didn't like the Jedi, but they liked Anakin, so of course then Anakin was right and the Jedi wrong all along.

And more and more people who see the Prequels this way are the ones creating new Star Wars content, so we keep seeing more stories that emphasize this idea that the Jedi were wrong and Anakin was right. It's obviously in the Ahsoka show, it's in Rebels, it's in Tales of the Jedi, it's in the Cal Kestis video games, it's in the High Republic novels, it's definitely come up in several of the other Star Wars novels, it was (to some degree) in the Sequel Trilogy, and we know it's going to be in The Acolyte. And of course it's just VERY popular in the Star Wars fandom in general. Most fans aren't going to be looking up George Lucas quotes or watching his audio commentaries and researching what he meant by attachment, so they're just going to consume the content that's available and that content at this point is pretty consistently sending the message that the Jedi were wrong and Anakin was right. It's almost entirely inescapable these days. So I don't necessarily even blame most fans for being Jedi critical, I just personally can't stand it anymore.

[zahri-melitor]

Okay, general roundup of New 52 titles I have read so far, now I am well into 2013 in my read through:-

Batwoman, J.H. Williams run – genuinely great. This is a highlight of the New 52, honestly. If DC had stopped occasionally remembering that Kate Kane is now Bruce’s cousin and had let Kate and Maggie get married, it would be perfect.

Blue Beetle – it’s not the best Jaime run I’ve ever read, but in terms of restructuring Jaime’s origin to simplify it and remove the heavy connection with Infinite Crisis shenanigans, it worked far better than the Rebirth reboot. Let down by getting cancelled just as it started becoming more interesting (aka had finally finished the retread of Jaime’s origin story and started him having new adventures).

Threshold – this was certainly a comic I read entirely to see Jaime in it. If you are lucky enough to know nothing about it, it’s basically a planet of foxhunting tagged ‘criminals’, where Jaime ends up one of the tagged. It’s meandering, pointless and bad. I think if you’re a Lantern fan you’d also think it was bad. Deservedly knocked off after 8 issues.

Justice League Dark – I made it through 6 issues. My biggest takeaways were that everyone here was just so miserable and Boston Brand was dating Dawn Granger for reasons that surpassed understanding. I want to like it more than I do, for the cast it has.

Batgirl, Gail Simone run – appealing and infuriating in turn. There’s some genuinely beautiful writing here (the WWII paper balloons!) and Babs is recognisable as Babs, but it’s horribly let down by the fact that ‘healing’ Barbara means that she’s now both not allowed to operate as Oracle (by editorial dictat) AND she’s having trouble as a street vigilante as she’s still recovering from her injuries. It makes sense but it also makes Barbara doubly incompetent which is maddening as they’ve taken away everything that was hers specifically. Also James Gordon Jnr is always intensely irritating to have around and I am never going to get over giving Babs a villain called ‘Knightfall’ in the run immediately after healing her back. Yes. I got the reference. It’s not that funny.

Birds of Prey – it’s hmmm still finding its feet. Lacks the soul of the original run, but there are flashes of the old magic occasionally. It is hilarious to me that they decided to merge Dinah Drake and Dinah Lance back into a single character for this run, creating a bizarre new ex-husband for Dinah in Kurt Lance (seriously, Kurt Lance, why do you exist you’re so weird) and then within 6 issues or so abruptly realised WHY Dinah Drake and Dinah Lance have been separate characters since 1983 and reinvented a new Dinah Drake mother for the character. Spectacular. Sheer evidence that nobody involved in new 52 was actually spending much time thinking about how an all new origin reboot would affect characterisation.

Batman – I have my differences with Scott Snyder over his run, but he at least manages to make things interesting and spend time interrogating Bruce’s identity. It feels in conversation with the Loeb and Dini storylines around Thomas Elliot and that whole crowd of elite Gothamites. Lots of interesting set ups let down by execution or obsession with conspiracy theories. Love his work with Harper Row as a character.

Batman & Robin – okay folk, I do agree, this is a far far better Batman & Robin run than 2009. I feel like I’ve spent more time with Damian showing me his character rather than being informed by Morrison via Alfred mouthpiece about Damian’s character. There’s some lovely character work in here. It’s still suffering from getting New 52ed but it’s honestly the first run anywhere that’s actually really good for Damian characterisation (plus or minus the Damian and Colin Wilkes fight Zsasz plot in Streets of Gotham or Gates of Gotham).

Batman Incorporated – fuck you Grant Morrison. Nobody reading this title is having a good time. If you’re here for actual Batman Inc characters well I’m sorry, they’re mostly standing around the sidelines of a plot about Bruce, Talia and Damian. If you’re here for Talia I’m so sorry for you. If you’re here to read Bruce and/or Damian you get like 3-4 sweet scenes that I am sure you have already seen in screencapped panels floating around with no context. DC would be a better place if this book hadn’t been approved (also Cyril might still be alive)

Nightwing – this comic so far is obsessed with Haly’s Circus. Now I don’t like the whole Talon retcon (I think it cheapens a lot of things about Dick’s backstory as a character) but I will admit it’s nice to see Dick spending time with his Haly’s Circus friends and Dick’s optimistic side coming out in the ‘let’s just rebuild Amusement Mile as a place that isn’t Joker-haunted!’ Tragically of course because we’re never allowed to have nice plotlines involving Haly’s Circus it gets blown up again and lots of people die. But at least Dick’s back to owning the circus, amirite? (For bizarre ‘Pop Haly left it to him in his will’ reasons rather than Dick buying it out with his inheritance money that is totally not one of the many occasions Bruce has lied to Dick and told him that this trust fund is 100% based on investments of his parents assets, rather than Bruce attempting to give Dick Wayne money again so he stops living out of cardboard boxes in a tiny apartment)

Red Hood and the Outlaws – I have now suffered through three whole issues of this comic (actually 4 but I paged through that one to read like one scene at the end) and it is determined to make me hate everyone involved with it in terms of its disrespect for Roy and Kory. Also all the issues kept trying to convince me that Jason and Tim have always been each others’ favourite brothers, which lol. (If that’s actually ever true for Jason it’s the most hilarisad thing ever).

Teen Titans – I made it through two issues for crossover purposes. I am tempted to come back as I think I will get some stuff out of it once I’ve finished my Teen Titans 2003 read (and look there does actually appear to be some things in here I may enjoy). Can’t believe Kurt Lance shows up in this comic. I swear he’s my new nemesis.

Suicide Squad – I am 100% not reading this comic, I only opened it for crossover issues. What have they done to Amanda Waller. (Also why is Harley Quinn trying to date Floyd Lawton, did editorial suddenly realise how many people are into his deep uh comradery with Thomas Blake and overreact trying to remove the gay cooties or something?)

Catwoman and Detective Comics – honestly I haven’t got a good enough read on either yet from the few issues I’ve read, but ‘Tec is running a Penguin plot and I’m not in the mood for a Penguin plot at the moment.

So far, my recommendations: Batwoman I recommend without hesitation. Batman & Robin has been embroidered in fans’ memories but is worthwhile in any case. Batman is interesting stories sometimes let down in execution and may actually read better if you avoid touching any tie-in issues for a readthrough.

Nightwing, Batgirl, Birds of Prey and Blue Beetle are “these are some of my favourite characters, I want to know even if I don’t always like it” reads. They’re still the same characters, just trapped in a maddening world.

[frogmanfae]

Newsies as Shit I've Heard This Week 5

Another a long one🙃

Medda: Hows it going?

Davey: Not terrible

Medda: Ah... well we aren't aiming for terrible so I guess we're on the right track

Elmer: Do you have memories by Taylor Swift?

Jojo: Do you like Jesus?

Crutchie: What are you wearing tomorrow?

Race: Probably that random guys sweat shirt

Crutchie: Which random guy

Race: The one from freshman year

Crutchie: From the football game?

Race: No the basketball game

Crutchie: Ohh the blonde freshman basketball guy

Race: No the one who had purple highlights

Crutchie: Oh! Okay that guy

Race: Yeah

Spot: Why the fuck did you pull so many guys as a freshman?

Race: You say it like I don't still pull

Jack, either about Medda or his partner: She spewed words at me over the phone but I was mad and I wasn't listening so I have no clue what she was trying to tell me

Race: I was hot. Right? Spot?

Spot, either not listening or avoiding his feelings: That car was going way too fast

Jojo: Is that your stuff??

Elmer: No?

Jojo: Who's stuff is on your chair??? Ugh! Excuse her! What is this

Race, after getting a concussion: This Barbie has brain damage

Race: Okay I woke up and I felt like shit, lately I've always felt like shit when I wake up but it was extra bad today so I just started crying

Davey, who's learned sometimes Race just needs to talk and not be consoled: It be like that sometimes

Race: So I was trying to do my eyeliner but I was crying and that- well that doesn't go too well

Davey: Right because your eye liner isn't waterproof

Race: I really need to invest in waterproof liner but the guy I'm seeing thinks it's hot when my makeup gets fucked up when I suck hi-

Davey: that took a turn a little too far for your volume to still be this loud

Crutchie: are you ready for Mandatory Corn Hole?

Jack: MANDATORY CORN HOLE!!!

Buttons: Have you found the post where she talks about eggs growing on trees?

Jojo: What's being in the school musical like?

Elmer: Uh so do you know Stockholm Syndrome? It's like that

Jack: It's that time the moment you've all been waiting for: me to stop talking

Graves: Hey if you're gonna die just lemme know *gestures to shirt advertising a cemetery he works at*

York: You can get me in there?

Graves: I can dig your grave for you

York: That almost sounds like a threat but I know you

Jack: He's such a little dictator !!!

Medda: I didn't know what you were going to say-

Jack: He's such a dick /tator/

Jojo: Is the test tomorrow going to take all period?

Medda: The way this review is going? Probably

Davey, who recently began to gage his ears and has noticed an accompanying smell: I was trying to read an article-

Race: Was it about how your ears smell like cheese?

Crutchie: ... What

Romeo: I saw you holding out your hands like you were showing the size of something

Race: Oh yeah someone's dick

Romeo: :0

Romeo: I'm gonna go back to reading my gay webtoon now

Oscar: *in the background* I shaved my pubes earlier

Davey: 😟

Crutchie: Did you hear that too??

Davey: I heard it

Crutchie: Who the fuck just says??

Davey: out loud??

Race: *holds out an entire handful of quarters* I put a 10 in the vending machine because I got thirsty

Albert, cishet: shut up

Race, gay and afab nonbinary: Are you???

Albert: Yes.

Race: You just???

Albert: Yes.

Race: You hate gay people!

Albert: Yes!

Race: You hate women!

Albert: Yes!

Race: You just called me a tranny!!!

Albert: Yea!!

Race: :0

(They're best friends)

Davey: I tried washing it off but my hand is still sticky

Race: That's what she said

Davey: :0 you're the reason why non binary peo aren't recognized by the LGBT community

Race: :00

Race, to Albert: DID YOU HEAR THAT

Albert: No. He got away with it. I didn't hear a thing.

Romeo, in an official award acceptance speech: I would like to thank my peers for voting for me to receive this honor, my dad for always supporting me, peanut butter for its buttery goodness, and my friends for always having my back

Elmer, to Buttons in the audience: did he just-

Buttons: thank peanut butter for its buttery goodness? Yeah. Yeah he did.

Elmer: isn't he-

Buttons: yeah he's allergic to peanuts.

Race: Whenever I hear "terrible towel" from the sports ball people I think "cum rag"

Spot: you think WHAT

Sarah: I love sexism I have sexism every night

Race, looking in his phone camera: I am so hot omg

Jack: I'm actually kinda col- oh. I thought you were talking about temperature

Graves: Why's he got his shirt unbuttoned like he's prince Sebastian

Romeo: PRINCE SEBASTIAN??

Graves: from the little mermaid??

Romeo, dying: THATS PRINCE ERIC

Romeo: SEBASTIAN IS THE CRAB

Graves:...

TW SUICIDE JOKE AND F SLUR AS A JOKE

Sarah: Don't worry I would never trade you for money. Only Bitcoin

Davey: Kill yourself. Die

Sarah: You first!

Davey: Kill yourself!

Sarah: You first!

Sarah: Faggot!

Davey: You're a faggot first!

Sarah: Faggot! You like men!

Davey: You like women first!

Sarah: At least they're better!

Davey: Ah- yeah...

Elmer, walking into Brooklyn for the first time: Oh my god! WEAR YOUR CLOTHES!!!

Denton, an english teacher who's never met Jack: Did you know that the West symbolizes death and endings?

Jack: What.

Davey: Legend has it- or SCIENCE has it-

Albert: Shut the fuck up

Race: Sit on my lap

Medda: I would crush you

Race: I've gotten crushed in football I'm used to it

Medda: Not this much buddy

Buttons: It's like when your dog runs away. That's how I feel without Splasher... Fido come home...

Race: It was dark and windy and there were no lights on and suddenly there was a machette

Davey: I was gone for 2 seconds what did I walk into

Specs: This freaks me out. I can't deal with things touching my eye. It's why I don't wear contact lenses. Cuz I'm a big baby

Davey: You get rid of noro virus by... *vague hand gestures* both ends... As people say... And that doesn't mean you play both quarterback and line backer it's... It's not good

Splasher: Will that thing we did last year work again?

Medda: No, I don't think so... It's cool but it's not that cool

(You don't understand how funny this was, it was our (very conservative) biology teacher talking about baiting his freshmen to bring back "phat with a ph" for bonus points)

Davey: I could light myself on fire and I don't think they'd even notice. At some point I think someone would go "...*sniff* *sniff* ugh I don't think lunch is gonna be good today" and they would have no idea that I burned to death

Davey, teacher: *drawing examples on the board* how about that? I'm hard pressed to make anything else because I can't draw but you get the point

Denton: It's like you're stabbing Ms. Medda in the eye

Crutchie: What.

Denton: Like a jump scare like- TRUTH

Crutchie: What compels you to say that? You could have said anything else

Denton: Because that's what it feels like!

Albert: We have a pep assembly on a Tuesday? What has the world come to?

Romeo: Do you want some gmo rats? They count as fruit

Jack: Maybe I'll just wallow in depression and everyone who's here can observe like I'm a zoo animal

Davey: I think that's less likely than biological warfare- which is real. Biological warfare is REAL

Jack: Dave, I love you, but what the fuck does that have anything to do with me asking if it's pizza day?

Davey: sorry I'm in a mood and all I can think about is bio-

Jack: biological warfare? Yeah I noticed

Jack: Some of my answers are like a politician. Like... "He talked a lot but... he didn't really say anything... Like that really wasn't an answer that... I was looking for"

Davey: They're serial killers!

Jack: But the good kind?

Davey: *overjoyed* BUT THE GOOD KIND!! A VIGILANTE!!!

Race: It's science but Master Chef

Davey, tutoring a large group: When these cells mature, they no longer laugh at potty jokes. Until then they're insufferable to be around...

Literally everyone: *silence*

Davey: You guys can laugh that was funny

Everyone: *nothing*

Davey: A... Science joke...

Albert: *exaggerated* Ha ha

Davey: I appreciate that, thank you Albert

Finch: Ah!! A freshman left his water bottle here!! *drags trash bin across the floor and knocks water bottle into it with a meter stick* gross. Infectious. That's how you take care of that

Denton: The original Trojan horse

Race: *gasps* transgender!

Race: Spray tan or tanning bed?

Spot: ...What?

Race: Spray tan or tanning bed?

Spot: ...Neither? Go outside?

Albert: *Sarcastic* yeah go phospholipids

Davey: *excited* yeah! Phospholipids!! That's what's up!

[strqyr]

A lot of people are really hostile to the idea of Theodore ever opposing the heroes (even temporarily), even though Before the Dawn dedicated a good portion of its plot to showcasing just how much power he holds and pointing out that literally the ONLY reason he's not a dictator is because he doesn't feel like it.

The only check on his political power is that he's willing to listen when Rumpole tells him something is a bad idea.

And that check is entirely dependent on Theodore himself.

What I'm saying is that the political situation in Vacuo is a powder keg waiting to blow, and Theodore himself has his thumb on the detonator.

yeah. the show has addressed the problems every kingdom has so far re: the power the headmasters hold—it's not there always front-and-center but it exists—so i'd be very surprised if they didn't do that in vacuo where the council is only nominal with no real power while doing so in vale, mistral, and atlas were the headmasters had one or two seats in the council.

it's one thing for theodore to come to his senses to realize that the crown is a threat that he should be worried about, but what he is really worried about—enough to mostly ignore the crown at first—is salem. so. what's going to happen when theodore learns that the Big One is there, with tyrian and mercury running around? is he going to concern himself with the refugees, or is he going to see them as a distraction from the real fight?

that is the crux of the matter; how is theodore going to react when faced with salem? lionheart was a brave huntsman and a friend of ozpin... then salem happened. ironwood may have teetered on the brink for a while, but ultimately he still listened... until cinder did her thing and salem arrived.

one other thing that also stands out in before the dawn is that theodore doesn't... really do any of that meticulous leader stuff; that's rumpole, with theodore being more of a charismatic and strong figurehead that everyone can rally behind. they're a duo, the brawn and the brains, and we saw what happened when rumpole was compromised—what's the opposite going to look like?

salem sent two assassins to vacuo. we are used to a headmaster dying at the end of the arc, but what if theodore dies early? is he going to leave a power vacuum behind? will vacuans see rumpole as someone worthy of following? will the crown seize control (remember, carmine is still at large and incredibly loyal to gillian)? would there be others attempting to vie for control, seeing the opportunity in front of them with theodore gone?

there are so many things they can do with theodore, and i am expecting him to act in antagonist manner at some point—it doesn't have to be a complete turn into villainy like ironwood, it could very well be a disagreement on how to deal with the refugees of atlas—considering that that has happened with the other headmasters as well, and the whole academy system and the power the headmasters hold has come under fire since cinder's speech in v3.

[thealmightyemprex]

So thing I have noticed with Disneys Zorro,now that I have 18 episodes ,and 4 specials left

Season one Zorro we have two active threats . Zorro is a reaction to the tyranical Captain Monstario who is the antagonist for the first 13 episodes but before Zorro can hang up his cape,he must spend the rest of the season dealing with the machinations and henchmen of the mastermind/wannabe dictator the Eagle .

Season two ...Well we dont have big threats anymore.There are still bad guys but so far no one on par with Monstario or the Eagle ,heck two of the arcs so far didnt even have "villains" but comedic foils to Diego :an old friend of Diegos who is a romantic rival and a practical joker , and Cesar Romero as Diegos roguish gold digger uncle who tries to woo a much younger woman.more one off episodes which I find myself more drawn too(Also by coincidence more actors I recognize.Hi Cesar Romero , Lee Van Cleef ,Robert Vaughn,Annette Funnicello , Whit Bissel and Niel Hamilton )

Now comedy has always been apart of the show,and Zorro in general so I am not opposed to the comedy .Hell Sergent Garcia is my favorite character ,who is very much the comedic relief ,and so far my favorite arc in season 2 has been the Cesar Romero arc,but I cant help but miss the bigger stakes of season one

However Season 2 does have its strong points .What we do have is some good introspection for Diego as a character ,a really interesting status quo change with Diegos father Don Alejandro , and more one off episodes which I find myself more drawn too(Also by coincidence more actors I recognize.Hi Cesar Romero , Lee Van Cleef ,Robert Vaughn,Annette Funnicello , Whit Bissel ,Niel Hamilton ,and I know later on James Hong ),so far I do like season 2 ,but I do think season one is stronger, but we will see as we go along

Am I thinking too hard about this old TV show.....Maybe,but I still love this show,and this is how I express my love for it

@ariel-seagull-wings @amalthea9 @goodanswerfoxmonster @princesssarisa @angelixgutz @the-blue-fairie @themousefromfantasyland @filmcityworld1 @marquisedemasque

[bonesandthebees]

that ties into the fact that we have no idea whatll happen to wilbur afterwards

I would love to believe that he wont be forced into any roles (maybe even get to figure out his relationship with clara, communicate it out with her in a way or something tho that is very hopeful and foolish) and get to live as a person if he wishes to (which im confident to say he does)

he has phil on his side (and surely also tommy, niki techno, some other deathlings too) and I would even dare to believe eret wouldnt force him into a strict role like that, plus he did agree to the plan but im not sure if that really accounts for any insurance

but does any of that really matter if he still keeps getting visions

at this point it doesnt feel like enough for wilbur to get to be a person while still getting and relaying vision, bc there is deep rooted trauma

I think he either ignores the visions or fixes his relationship with clara ig (idk how that could even happens but it would definitely be very interesting ngl)

not sure if that makes sense but in general im just praying for some closure and freedom for him, my boy deserves at least that

wilbur has made some insane progress lately and it can be seen, especially in the last chapter and I go over that in my comments but just trusting more in general, less afraid to break pythia rules, ... im so proud of him

what I do want to point out is how, despite the deathlings being his friends/family now, the good ones basically, and even kristin being more there than clara ever really was, wilbur still doesnt like kristin and doesnt want to be a deathling

like hes with them and hes one of them in a way, but hes not a deathling, he isnt switching to kristin just bc he hates clara

and I absolutely love that, bc while switching to being a deathling would make sense, his journey here is about discovering himself, without the influence of anyone else, especially not goddesses (I think if he werent chosen as the pythia he wouldve been an atheist, talking to q about it was very intriguing to him)

on completely different note I noticed that the kind of visions wilbur receives (or maybe how he perceives them) is relevant to how he feels about something rn, like the vision about escaping vs the new vision being confused bc hes confused

not sure if thats what's actually happening but it feels like it

and ofc I cant forget, THAT SANDDUO SCENE? WITH THE NAME REVEAL? BONES YOUR SANDDUO ARE EVERYTHING TO ME

so unbelievably proud of wilbur for how far hes come and prying this all goes well and he gets to live the life he deserves

and a mandatory "the pythia"/"wilbur" narration changes bc I dont think ill ever be normal about that, it just always gives every moment even more meaning, its genius

2/2

hm... while it would be great for wilbur not to be forced into any more roles he IS still clara's chosen. he is still going to receive visions of the future whether he wants them or not. and that means something even if he doesn't want it to.

guess you'll have to wait and see how that turns out :)

yeah the thing is I think a lot of readers expected wilbur to switch to kristin since she's the 'opposite' of clara in a sense, but that's not the route i wanted to go down. wilbur's trauma is so deeply ingrained, any kind of religious institution leaves a bad taste in his mouth now. the past ten years of his life have been dictated by the rules of the divine, but he doesn't want that anymore. he wants to step away from the divine entirely, and get the experience he's been denied for so long: just being a person.

aaa thank you I loved writing that sandduo scene so much. he's made SO much progress it's been so fun to write his slow character growth throughout this entire fic, and finally reap the rewards.

[janaawrites2024]

Week 3 Writeup #1: Personal Writing

Write about your hero.

Written by: Nike

I've read many heroic stories in my short life, and my all time favorite will always be Spider-Man.

There’s much to like about Spider-Man. What’s not to like? He’s witty, he’s cool, he’s smart, he pulls the hottest people, his suit is cool---I could go on. But the most common reason people admire the webbed wonder is because of the sheer strength of his perseverance. You see, Peter Parker has been through a lot. Actually, it’s more the fact that he’s always going through a lot, whether it be his Aunt May having cancer in the comics or his villains acting up or just bad luck in general (kicked out of his apartment). It always seems as if life (or the writer for his comics and movies) was out to get him specifically.

And well, when the writers keep finding new ways to beat you down, giving up was always a temptation one could not resist. Many a time, Peter was in this boat. And many a time too, he found the courage to stand back up. Scared, bruised, and bloodied to hell and back—he stood up and went back out there to fight for people who would never know who he was outside of his spider moniker.

That’s another thing that I admire him for. His deliberate kindness. A gift passed to him from his Uncle Ben and Aunt May along with the famous quote, “With great power comes great responsibility.” I say deliberate here because Peter wasn’t always a very kind person. In fact, in the beginning stories of his comics, he was bitter and angry at the world (which he had all the right to be). When he gained his powers, the first thing he did was join an underground fighting ring to make money off of it to buy himself a car and impress his love interest, Mary Jane Watson. When his Uncle Ben died after a robber shot him (a robber that he didn’t care to stop), he was so consumed with his need for vengeance that he nearly killed the man responsible. But reminded of his dearly-loved Uncle’s words, he spared the man’s life. He then went on to shape his entire life to upholding his Aunt and Uncle’s teachings, and to make sure that no one would ever feel the same type of grief and loss that he felt on that day for as long as he was able.

Of course, as I’ve previously mentioned, life would always treat Peter as if he was its personal cat toy, and his morals would always be tested with his heart. Still, he makes an effort to reign in his anger, and be so consistently good and kind that it would inspire others that watch him to act with a similar goodness.

There are many iterations of Spider-Man (Spider-Noir, Robot Spider, Spider-Woman, Spider-Pig), but here’s the thing: no matter what shape or form they come in to take the mantle, they almost always show the same traits of stubbornness and kindness as the first one.

And here’s the third reason as to why Spider-Man is my favorite. The thing about ‘Spider-Man’ is that anyone can wear the mask. Anyone can be Spider-Man.

For others like Batman, Superman, Iron Man, Captain America, or Captain Marvel, to name a few, there’s something specific about their personas that you have to carry in order to be them. You can’t be Batman or Iron Man if you aren’t rich or a genius. You can’t be Cap either if you don’t have a sense of duty or love for your countrymen that requires you to stand up to dictators without flinching.

For me, it’s a tall order to look up to them because, well. They’re legends. They’re too ‘big picture’ for me and all for the greater good. Distant titans with cheesy posters, saving world after world; shining, powerful, buff, and so far from everything I could ever hope to be. Point is, I’ll always be looking up at them. For Spidey, I could be him and all it would ever require of me is heart (and maybe Spider powers, it’d be cool to have them). For me, this character says to me that, no matter how small, I could still make a difference. And for all that I know that small difference will have a greater impact than I could ever imagine.

[icyrambles]

hi this post is probably going to be a mess, so fair warning for my nonsense ramblings about robots.

okay so i'm currently working on cataloguing and creating a document that compiles a somewhat comprehensive catalogue of idw1's transformers comic line. this involves me going through and reading every comic, start to finish, and making notes on each page (basically i just summarise what happens on each page and jot down things that i find interesting)

i'm doing this because i eventually plan on rewriting idw1 because it has a number of writing flaws, plotholes, and general decisions that either piss me off or baffle me to no end. and since i am of the firm belief that one needs a good idea of what actually happens in canon in order to make a rewrite that makes sense, i'm taking notes.

and with these notes have come a lot of thoughts, particularly on how the hell i'm going to tackle megatron. see i love idw1 megatron, he's by far my favourite megatron and i will continue to call him my favourite until another piece of tf media actually attempts to give megatron more than a handful of scenes that explores him properly as a character.

however, my want to slowly break megatron down into tiny pieces so i can understand how he works doesn't change the fact that idw1 megatron is kinda poorly written.

and that's how i feel about idw1 as a whole. it has done a lot of really interesting things with tf as a franchise, particularly relating to worldbuilding and the pre/post war environment. like it is not perfect, not by a long shot and i have soooo many personal grievances with how certain plot points are handled, but it still remains my favourite continuity because its writers were allowed to explore these characters in a somewhat new way.

but going back to megatron, his... well i hesitate to call it a redemption because redemption implies that he made up for what he did and i don't really think he did. but his betterment arc specifically trips me up so badly because jro really, really wants you to like megatron. like sure he starts off as an asshole but megatron does distinctly shift from being a warlord into being a proper captain, which then culminates in his leadership in the alternate universe, but my brain continues to truly wonder how genuine megatron is.

because early idw1 portrays megatron as a really bad revolutionary. he overthrows the senate and basically instills himself as a dictator. i don't think the writers genuinely intended for megatron to come off as a guy who wanted to change the system (despite what later comics will say) which does line up with the fact that early idw1 megatron was just a warlord who was running around conquering planets and attempting to exterminate organic life.

and this is where my conundrum comes in. how the hell do i rewrite megatron so that his later characterisation in mtmte actually makes sense. like.... ugh it's hard for me to truly put it into words but i have issues with the way the decepticon faction as a whole are written (mostly because i think the plotline of "oh this group of oppressed people actually just want to oppress everybody else" is overdone in tf media and really needs to stop)

early idw1 megatron doesn't have enough internal dialogue for me to truly get a grip on what exactly his genuine intentions were. like sure i could assume that his plan was to overthrow the senate and create a utopia where everyone was living peacefully and were equals but then his characterisation in the primacy trilogy makes no damn sense because in those comics he basically just becomes a prime in the sense that he's going to make his own government that has it's own special form of oppression that is implied to be just as bad, if not worse than the functionalism he was originally trying to get rid of.

but then if i think about it the opposite way, where he always planned on overthrowing the government and becoming a dictator i have to wonder about stuff like towards peace, a manifest that he originally didn't even want published and that was posted anonymously by terminus before he even got to c-12.

so like the logical assumption is that whirl beating the shit out of him changed his world view so much that he decided that the only reasonable solution was to just make his own government so he can control everything. which like okay sure, but what about his relationship with the other decepticons

idw megatron is nothing if not charismatic and considering soundwave is a literal telepath whom megatron tests to see if he actually considers his cassettes as equals, i have a hard time thinking that he only wants to oppress people. i'm someone who often takes what is said at face value so when it comes to analysing these comics i'm constantly wondering if megatron is actually someone who wanted to make a difference or if he was the world's biggest hypocrite grifter who basically talked his way into having an army that could accomplish his real goals.

i think part of this stems from the fact that we never really get to see the parts of the war where megatron was running around the galaxy murdering billions of organic species. like tarn mentions that megatron realised that quote "the prejudice and injustice he'd rallied against on cybertron was prevalent elsewhere - everywhere, in fact. the universe was actively and implacably anti-mechanical: of the flesh, for the flesh." so that means that at some point between the primacy trilogy ending and whenever the fuck the whole thunderwing incident ended, megatron realised that organics were something to be feared and decided to whip out a whole bunch of them.

but like, tarn's perspective and narrative is probably really fucking warped. like i have no problem believing megatron hates organics and wants them gone, that's literally a core principle of the decepticons as a faction, but tarn is a megatron fanboy who idolises megatron like he's god. so i take his words with a massive handful of salt.

honestly i just really want to know what happened to megatron. mostly because at the end of the primacy trilogy it really seemed like he was willing or at least open to the possibility of negotiations and it's stated that the autobots and decepticons had to work together to seal thunderwing underground but somewhere along the line that truce didn't last and i desperately wish that the writers put a bit more effort into making early megatron feel less inconsistent.

i truly struggle between whole heartedly adoring mtmte megatron and how jro characterised him and sort of hating him because he feels sort of out of left field and about 80% of his character growth and atoning for his actions happens entirely off screen and that's terrible fucking writing. like i'm aware that lost light was rushed but i don't really think that's a good enough excuse for me not to criticise it. everything in comics is rushed, that doesn't make lost light special enough to make up for the poor writing at the end.

and this disagreement i have internally is why i sort of feel bad for characters like getaway. he's right in a lot of senses, megatron murdered billions of cybertronians and billions more innocent organic species. he set up literal death camps and allowed the formation of the decepticon justice division, a group so evil that even other decepticons don't want them around. like getaway isn't a good person, but i feel like his crimes are blown vastly out of proportion. he's comically evil by the end of lost light, literally killing his own crew to satiate sunder and it's like, why is he doing this??? jro i know he's the bad guy but getaway is a charismatic bastard, not someone who completely goes off the rails trying to hang on to the small amount of control he has.

everyone on board the lost light is an asshole who have probably committed at least one crime but megatron is special in the fact that he's the reason for all of them committing crimes (bar like, tailgate and rung i guess. i don't think megatron is the reason why rung is a bit of a shit psychiatrist and tailgate was in a coma for six million years) but like..... ugh i don't entirely know where i'm going with this beyond, getaway is a bad person who does terrible things but he's fundamentally right about the fact that as soon as a certain amount of people die, you stop seeing them as actual people and see them as statistics.

i'm not entirely sure if this post has a point. i merely have thoughts and opinions in regards to how megatron, and the decepticon faction as a whole, is treated in idw1. more so the fact that they were clearly meant to be relatively one dimensional evil guys when the comics first started out and when they writers got the opportunity to write more about them, post war, they were faced with the issues of giving backstory and new traits to characters that weren't meant to have those backstories and traits in the first place.

feel free to leave your thoughts in the reblogs if you wanna. my thoughts are jumbled and messy but i want to write a version of idw1 that feels coherent so if people wanna add their two cents, then go ahead.

[adesertintime]

For quite a while, I am overwhelmed. For some reason, I almost immediately find an image in my head that doesn't allow me to understand, but at least describe the situation, and that I now cling to, to have at least a modicum of abstraction going on. That image is that I have been given a severe whack with a frying pan. I can almost remember the corresponding sharp and transient impact sound and its metallic reverberation, and my mind, much like a trapped ulnar nerve, is now enslaved by the trajectory that is dictated by the early part of a damped oscillation.

As often with such things, there is a lot of irony in how it all comes about. Josh and Bede sleep at our empty flatshare after elegant Dan has had too much whisky and weed at Jonas' farewell garden party and is now, after emptying his stomach into André's toilet for a good while, occupying Jonas' couch instead of taking the car back to Edinburgh together with David. In the morning, Bede leaves early for a Fringe show, and so after waking up relatively late, Josh and I sit at our kitchen table, together with Jonas, having some caffè and pains au chocolat before we plan to head off to the sauna. We talk about Dan, I bring up how elegant the man had appeared to me at first, with his physique, his suit, his demeanour, and his watch. Josh mentions how he lost his ex-girlfriend from Italy to Dan, something Josh had emotionally overcome, but something that had happened between them. In my caffeinated mood, I must get my mother's Eric Clapton - Story CD from my room, and we must listen to "Further on up the Road". Soon after, we are sweating together in the Arlington Baths. I am still quite bubbly and chatty and talk a lot, with pretty lateral associations, kind of in that way that I do not permit Jonas to talk in without me hating him for it. Josh is just someone who knows how to make people talk about things that are important to them, someone I want to entrust with my whole life, someone who won't judge, someone who will understand. Josh mentions how something slaps, and I mention how someone had recently chastised my usage of the verb "slap" in that context as a ridiculous example of internet slang that they considered to be of particularly bad style. Josh does not seem as if this would change his vocabulary, but picks up on the thought by asking for more details about the hater, and I continue to mention that they were from Yorkshire, and that I recently dumped them, and hasten to add that I was not proud of it. Whether it was a Gestalt thing or a particular problem, Josh asks, and I chuckle to my German psychologist self and say yeah, it was a Gestalt thing, but something that was very far from being that person's fault, and that I felt sorry about it. Someone else entered the chat I say, and the Yorkshire person had been found on the apps, and now I drop the next brick, finding someone on the apps always left that slight sense of dissatisfaction for me in relationships. Jonas is sitting in the sauna, too, and I try to save the situation by mentioning that I rationally know that this is a stupid way to think about relationships, that I know entirely wholesome relationships coming from the apps, but that I just can't shake off this feeling about them. Another stranger in the sauna, who had, much to our disliking, forced us to listen to the BBC 3 in the gym earlier, chimes in and says that he feels the same as me.

Now we are at roots and fruits for a traditional Saturday brunch after the Arlington. André and Ina are there, too, and report that Dan must have left the house earlier. And Lavinia is there, arriving a bit later. Instead of following my continuously forwarded updates and invitations to tag along for our steamy morning routine, she has brought food to her colleague Dom, who is working his life away in the School of Infection and Immunology. The discussion reaches Josh's private life. He is going to move in with his partner, who is buying a flat, and working, and working out, and running marathons, and the like. I think Lavinia asks how they met, or was it some other similar question. They met on the apps. How her own relationship situation was looking like, Josh asks back. And it is this moment which completely deranges my life for a few days. Lavinia seems surprised by the question, and says, I think she says ambiguous, the situation is ambiguous, or complicated, or something like that, and Josh says oh I see it is ambiguous, ahah, and Lavinia nods, and blushes and smiles, and during all of this I try not to look at her and not react to it, but also a frying pan is being slammed in my face, and I have the worst pokerface of them all, so probably I am not very successful, and Jonas quickly de-escalates the situation and asks for Josh's leftover tomatoes that he didn't finish, and instructs me to have some as well, and somehow I manage to grind out that I am full, and I avoid eye contact with Lavi, who gives me an insecure smile, and soon after we pay and leave, and all I want is to either disappear or be just with Lavi to talk, but we are trapped in this script of a social situation of friends who are going to hang out in the garden on a sunny afternoon, and I wait in front of the café, and lean against a lamp post, while others are getting groceries from roots and fruits, and I try to smile into the sun and look relaxed, and Ina, who has probably heard about what is going on between Lavi and me comes out and says I look cool, in an encouraging and nurturing way, and we head to Huntly Gardens to sit in the sun, and Lavi takes a photo of Jonas and me from behind.

We end up lying in the grass, Lavi has brought a blanket and asks me if I want to lie on it, too, which I do, I lie on the blanket and put on my sunglasses and close my eyes and give in to a strong dizziness. Everyone is reading, but I have no book, instead I entertain myself with the rotating universe in my head. Lavi lies next to me and starts reading a book, what is the book someone asks, and Lavi responds it is a book given to her by Ele, and it is about love and narcissism, and my world rotates faster and wilder, and it might be now that I for the first time think how interesting it all is, I start observing my feelings rather than just feeling them, and I wonder, who is the narcissist, am I a narcissist, IATA, is she a narcissist, what is going on, why did she say that, mmh what you say, mmh what did she say, this smells like the beginning of the end I think, the strength of my reaction seems weird to me from a rational perspective, but it also must mean that the whole thing between Lavi and me is important to me, that is an informative thing to see so clearly, and I am lying there, and Lavi cuddles up to me, and I am getting even more confused, and at the same time I enjoy it and smile, and am overwhelmed, I have to pee, but I don't want to move, so it takes me a good while to pick up on some movement amongst us sunbathers and ask for the keys to go to Jonas' apartment to pee, and as I step back up the stairs from Jonas' apartment, Lavi is waving through the house's windowed front door, we stand in the corridor, and she says she doesn't need a toilet, she just wanted to talk to me, and she asks if I am ok, and that she realised that I am not ok, and I am close to crying when I say that I have no pokerface, Lavi says that's good, I say that she can say whatever she feels about her situation and that my reaction to that is stupid, and she says she didn't know what she was supposed to say, it was just Josh and not Yuxi and Jonas, she barely knows Josh, and I say that I think that the situation is interesting, that I like her, that I like spending time with her, and that my reaction tells me how important the thing between us is to me, and she says she needs time, and there is some heads getting closer to one another, and probably it is me trying to be tender with her, and her just trying to react in a way that is not too rejecting, and we go to the garden, and she says she actually would need a toilet, but she now prefers to not go, and we are again lying on the blanket, and I am only slightly less confused, this was only a tiny fraction of the amount of exchange I needed, and I close my eyes and think about the short conversation, and I get extremely dizzy right away, she needs time, this really feels like the beginning of the end, how do you bounce back from this, and I maybe think about how I would have wanted to talk about it all earlier, how I had wanted to tell her how writing to her on Thursday about ho bisogno di un abraccio felt like a risky move because I was again so needy to see her and the only one trying to initiate contact over the last few days if not two weeks, and she seemed to need so much time for herself and her work, so I felt I was probably ruining it by not just doing my own thing instead, but how at the same time I so much wanted to see her and talk to her, and all of it felt so weird because at the same time it felt so intimate and close and beautiful on Friday night at Rali's and at Lavi's afterwards and in the morning, but then so distant again at Jonas' garden party, and how I started to worry about how I mentioned to people that her mum was running a design gallery in Milan, and how she maybe didn't like me to publicise these private family details, so was that why she didn't want to see me again in the night after Jonas' party, and so on and so forth, I am ruminating and rotating, and breathing and thinking, and wondering about misunderstandings, and not being given anywhere close to enough time with Lavi to just address all of these things rather than freak out over them.

I want a book as well, and getting a book from home could be so quick, couldn't it, a subway home and back, could be just 20 minutes couldn't it, so I go to get Infinite Jest, and I stumble into Stratos, and we chat about his finished MSc dissertation, and his flat situation, and I awkwardly mention how he might move in with us once Galen leaves, and he mentions how I am his supervisor and how this would be somewhat weird, and I don't mind, I admit that this could be weird indeed, and say I got to run now but invite him to come by Jonas' garden later, and he wants to go and eat something now, and I take the subway home and lie on my bed and just want to cry, and can't get up for probably 15 minutes, then I reply to Donata who is inviting me to an aperitivo at hers, I say I'll make it by 7:45, and I go back to Jonas' garden, and I read a few pages, and then Stratos comes, and we chat about this and that, and Lavi is gone, and everybody is leaving, and Jonas goes into his apartment, but Lavi's stuff is still there, and I pack it up and Lavi calls, she is just back at the garden door next to her apartment, so I go there with Stratos and her stuff, we hand it over, and she is there with Dom who has cut his finger and fixed it with a bandaid, and I ask the two Italians what one does for an invitation for an aperitivo as I am not sure what the best thing to bring is, and Lavi says that I should go there, that it sounds great, and I feel angry for her telling me that because I did not ask if I should go, I wanted to know what I should bring, I wanted this to be a way of telling her that I am busy and unavailable tonight, ideally as a response to her asking me if we should do something that evening, but it doesn't turn out that way, and now I ask if wine and some crisps sound good, and Dom and Lavi agree that this would be a good idea, and Stratos and me head back to our bikes and cycle away, me to Waitrose and then home, where I find the Eric Clapton CD still on the kitchen table with its back side facing up, together with the coffee cups, so I take a snapshot of the kitchen table with an f-stop of 2.0 and move the focus on track 7 on the track listing, and I post it on instagram and feel good about it, nobody knows what it means to me in that moment and nobody likes the picture.

I move on to Donata's, where I feel completely numb, but I am happy to see Donata, and I drink a lot, and we mostly talk about superficial stuff, succulent Chinese meals, Italy, Rita who wasn't available, how the Normans invaded Great Britain, the Lord of The Rings, JRR Tolkien, how Donata's workplace in Italy treated her like crap, there is some friend of Donata's and Elias with her dog Patchy who wants to just fetch forever, we go inside in their living room and I am really drunk and feel somewhat fuzzy with Donata and Aonghas, and finally we listen to Eric Clapton's "Further On Up The Road" on Aonghas' glorious sound system.

[edgy-ella]

Thoughts on the Ren and Stimpy reboot

In case you were unaware, Ren and Stimpy is getting a reboot on Comedy Central, and at least one episode of that reboot has been leaked online. For reasons I’ll get to in a bit I won’t share the leak here, but as I’m writing this it’s really easy to find. It doesn’t even seem like Nick/Paramount/Viacom can be bothered to take it down (for now).

When I first heard about this reboot and that it was going to be on Comedy Central instead of Nickelodeon, I had my…reservations. Ren and Stimpy very infamously already had a reboot aimed at adults, and it bombed so bad that half the episodes never made it to air. Granted, I think a lot of that can be pinned on Spike TV letting John K run wild at the time, and John has no involvement in this new reboot (thank god). But then again, neither does anyone else who worked on the original show. Not a good sign.

But hey, who knows. Maybe it’ll be a hidden gem. So, what are my thoughts after watching the leaked episode?

If anything, I’m surprised that this airing on Comedy Central and not Nick. Get rid of a few random swears here and there, and I think it’d fit in fine.

Okay, positives first. I’ve seen some people say that the writers seem “uninterested” in engaging with the original source material, which I don’t think is necessarily true. For one, the main duo is written fairly well. You can tell the writers understand their personalities and how they play off of each other. Even if Ren is highly temperamental and Stimpy doesn’t always understand what Ren wants, you know that they couldn’t live without each other. The reboot leans a little bit more into that 1950s married couple dynamic, with Ren as the beleaguered breadwinner husband and Stimpy as the fussy housewife. I like it! I’m also relieved that they get across that they’re a couple in a way where they don’t have to look at the camera and go “yeah, we’re gay” every other scene.

Billy West returns to voice the two, and he sounds leagues better than he did in Nickelodeon All Star Brawl 2 (which to my knowledge is the last time he voiced them). He’s definitely showing his age and he’s still a little crusty as Ren, but overall he gives a solid performance. His delivery is as great as it’s always been. The writers gave him a lot of fun stuff to work with.

Now, for any Ren and Stimpy fan out there, I’m sure that word feels out of place. Writers. Ren and Stimpy isn’t supposed to be script-based, the storyboard artists are supposed to dictate each episode! And…yeah, you can really feel that shift. In my opinion, this is the show’s greatest weak point—no matter how much research the crew may have put in, their writing style is so intrinsically different from what the show is known for that it doesn’t really feel like Ren and Stimpy.

Once again, I don’t want to discredit their efforts. There’s gross out humor, but its implementation feels very forced. Like, “oh, this is Ren and Stimpy, we have to make things gross.” Many of the best classic Ren and Stimpy episodes like Ren’s Toothache have the plot revolve around something gross or have a key moment in the narrative revolve around Ren getting thrown up on or something, while in the reboot these moments are relegated to simple side gags. You can tell that the tone and content of the original series was on their mind, but the way it’s written and produced is so different that it never really feels the same.

The reboot’s also weirdly tame. Again, this is meant for Comedy Central, not Nickelodeon. South Park airs on Comedy Central. They have room to go all out. I’m not asking for them to push it too far like with Adult Party Cartoon, but at the same time, nothing here really feels that adult.

Here’s an example of what I mean. The first segment of the leaked episode has the pair die, with Stimpy going to heaven and Ren getting sent to hell (the bit where angel Stimpy looks around asking where Ren instantly cutting away to Ren falling into the fiery pit of hell got me, I have to admit). Ren is appointed the new head of torture in hell, a job he relishes in. I was excited to see how this would play out. My favorite Ren and Stimpy episodes typically revolve around Ren slowly going insane (Stimpy’s Invention, Stimpy’s Fan Club, Insomniac Ren, etc), so him inflicting that torment upon others sounded like a fun concept. In particular, my brain went to that segment in Man’s Best Friend where Ren beats the everloving shit out of George Liquor with an oar. According to John K, this sequence was so considered so gruesome back in the day that Nickelodeon refused to let the episode air. Indeed, it remained as a banned episode until being repackaged as a makeshift pilot for Adult Party Cartoon. Now we’re on Comedy Central, the same network that has proudly aired South Park for decades now. What did the reboot do with this idea?

Nothing!

They don’t do anything fun with Ren being in charge of torturing sinners in hell. In fact, they don’t do anything interesting with hell at all! It feels incredibly safe and sanitized in a way that Ren and Stimpy really shouldn’t. Instead, the focus of the episode revolves around Stimpy trying to get Ren to reform and Ren refusing to torture Stimpy once he’s told he has to. Moral learned, status quo reset by the end.

Once again, I feel like this is the result of the reboot being script based instead of storyboard based like the original. I’m sure most storyboard artists out there would love a chance to show Ren living his best life in hell with him graphically torturing and mutilating every other poor soul in there. I’m sure most storyboard artists would kill to really make hell as demented and chaotic as hell ought to be in a show like this. That’s not to discredit the storyboard artists that actually worked on the reboot, but I sense that they’ve been put on a leash.

Should we need to point fingers at anyone for this, I’d say point them at the directors and producers. The writers are just doing their jobs, it’s not their fault that this intrinsically isn’t the type of project they should be leading. Same for the board artists. But the people calling the shots dictating how things should be run obviously don’t get Ren and Stimpy and what gives the show its distinct edge.

Also, if the lady from the second segment becomes a permanent addition to the cast, I’m ending it all.

One last thing I’d like to add is that the leak was originally posted on archive.org, which, uh…please don’t do that? Archive.org is already under heavy fire from lawmakers, don’t give more fuel for the fire. Post it on Dailymotion or Vimeo or another website no one cares about. Archive is a resource we can’t risk jeopardizing, don’t post leaks there.

[subbyfoxelf]

[movie review] halloween ends (2022)? more like my patience ends

there’s not sticking the landing and then there’s teetering & flailing for a frankly uncomfortably long time before flopping straight on your face, and the halloween legacyquels opt quite decisively for the latter.

i spent the first half or so of halloween ends thinking, “okay, i sort of see what they’re setting up, i’m not sure i like it but i guess we’ll see what they do with it” and i kept waiting. and kept waiting. and kept waiting. and it became increasingly clear that they weren’t going to “do” anything with any of this, it was just sort of stuff happening, man.

like, in basically every technical aspect of filmmaking this movie is beyond competent, so it’s easy to be lulled into thinking it’s a perfectly serviceable movie by its solid moment-to-moment entertainment factor, but it just doesn’t add up to anything.

despite never really “losing interest” per se, i turned on this movie hard about halfway through it when i realized it was just thoroughly wasting my time, and subjecting me to plenty of unpleasant bullshit in the process. all while acting like it was a Serious movie with Things To Say.

you know what would’ve actually made a good ending? the first movie in this reboot sequel trilogy. like i know the filmmakers swear up & down that this was always intended as a trilogy, but it just super doesn’t feel like it? halloween 2018 was a resoundingly good ending for this franchise, and then they made two more.

(spoilers & cw: racism, lynching, politics)

you might remember that i thought the second movie was actually super good when it was just trying to be a dumb slasher movie but thoroughly awful when it was trying to Say Stuff. this is like they just made an entire fucking movie out of the bad parts of the second movie.

the closest i came to thinking it was all worth it and we were getting a good movie was when corey woke up to find laurie sitting in a chair and she gave him one last chance to stop the path he was on, and warned him that she was going to defend herself and (especially) her granddaughter with whatever force she needed to. in isolation this was a signature moment for laurie, showing us exactly how much of a stone cold badass she’d become over the years.

i’m frustrated on allyson’s behalf that the femboy who cheated on her was apparently far & away the best person she’s ever dated, considering she followed him with a cop and fucking michael myers jr.

i’m doing absolutely zero research to back this up, but the impression i got from directly reading the film was that corey & michael’s relationship was meant to be some kind of clumsy allegory for the way disaffected working class white guys have been radicalized by fucking donald trump & fox news, and when i say it was a clumsy allegory i mean clumsy.

again i may be overthinking this, but it really clicked for me when they were parading myers’ body through the streets like some fucking deranged dictator does to his political enemies and then fed him to a woodchipper that this is fucking exactly what the democrats think they did by beating trump in an election. laurie starts talking about how “now haddonfield can heal,” and we see allyson moving out of town which she & laurie should’ve done IMMEDIATELY after the second movie, fucking HELL.

look i’m not even getting into the weeds here, guys. and those weeds are fucking thick with shit like unexamined racism. like you bring the black cop from the second movie back so he can rubber stamp them lynching michael, presumably because someone along the way realized that was kinda a little uncomfy. but you give him exactly zero lines???

every single other black character in this movie is super victim blamey or a conspiracy theorist, and for the crime of being kinda annoying i guess? that one black radio dj gets the most brutal murder in the entire movie and for added thematic flourish his fucking tongue gets cut out? and spins on the record making it skip? and just… are you kidding me with this shit? you have really no idea how bad of a look that is?

or how about the fact that allyson’s nurse coworker who gets promoted over her just has to be depicted having an affair with their doctor boss? and they have to go out of their way to make her seem like the bad guy as much as he is, and not have it be pretty fucking clear that he is clearly the asshole in this situation? and also she gets the more dramatic & brutal murder out of the two of them?

just. fuck, guys. this is a spiteful movie. i kind of just genuinely hate it.

and having the triumphant ending of the damn movie be a public defilement of a dead body, no matter what michael myers is guity of, is just wild. like, this is one of the few things that basically everyone, everywhere agrees is pretty fucked up, and we’re acting like it’s some kind of resoundingly triumphant moment?

this should have ended with the first movie. i was wrong at the beginning of this review. well, not wrong exactly, but i left some things out. what this series did was stick the landing perfectly, then go “oh shit i have two whole movies left to go,” hop back onto whatever gymnastics equipment it was using in this metaphor, do some awkward flips & shit, and then fall flat on its face like i said earlier.

what a complete waste of everyone’s time.

c-rank

[princeblack]

“it is,” he agrees. “that’s why sirius hated her… and i should’ve hated her too.” he frowns. “i still don’t, though– not really. i just hate the way my first life went and more than anything i hate voldemort.” it burns deeply; his desire to see the other wizard dead. he would do it himself and part of him is almost planning to, if he can find a way to make it feasible. at the very least, he’s going to kill as many of the older death eaters as possible.

“but i agree… i’ve always wanted to have kids. despite my family making it sound like it’s some sacred holy duty. the motto we’re taught is Toujours Pur… it means ‘Always Pure’. my ancestors prided themselves on each one of their children. our family had so much power that people used to think of us as royalty. a lot of people believed it was because of our bloodline itself, and the way we didn’t marry too far out…” after attending hogwarts like he did and being exposed to people from muggle cultures, the way he spoke about the black family seemed more and more ridiculous. but it’s true, that for centuries what people have believed is that blood dictates power. how could they not, when being a witch and wizard was genetic? he’s not so sure how far it goes, but what he does know is he’s tired of pureblood elitism and everything it’s done to tear their world apart.

she says she could take him even despite his power and he smiles, looking at her curiously. “do you promise?” he purrs, leaning in. “will you be on top of me, after?” he’s not interested in fighting her unless it means he gets to feel her. he thinks about her teasing words before asking, “would you be attracted to me? if i were bad?” he wonders if she would’ve touched him, even when he was a death eater. on the other hand, bee is even more special than he thought, being a user of ancient magic. he had never met someone who was able to practice it and truthfully he knew almost nothing of the subject, for once. “see? you are a special girl.”

“to diagon alley?” he asks, when she offers to take him to get his wand. “i have to go to gringotts anyway… maybe do some shopping. we could even stop by my family home so i could get clothes.” it never would have been possible for bee to visit before, but now they’re all dead besides kreacher and sirius. he wonders if sirius is even home, and what’s happened to him in all these years since.

it makes him feel soft, the idea that she felt connected to the place he would eventually wake up. “if that’s true then fate might actually favor me after all,” he muses, always having thought before that his life would have a bitter end. he didn’t anticipate getting a second try; especially not with an angel at his side. “i’d like to hear more about how you think i’m pretty.” it’s not like he doesn’t know, but he wants to hear all about it from her. he likes the way her voice sounds and how her soft cheeks get all pink.

he’s surprised when she mentions the triwizard tournament, having read about it but knowing it was discontinued due to the death toll in 1792. he wonders if she means it was cruel to the dragons or the students, or both. he doesn’t like the idea of them involving dragons in something that could get them hurt or further misunderstood. “i’m sure it was amazing to see them up close, but that sounds barbaric. maybe instead of making students fight for their lives for entertainment, they should’ve slapped dumbledore in a clown costume, tossed him into the ring and had us place bets on which dragon would get to its dinner first.” he never liked dumbledore before and he doubts that’ll change much on his second time at hogwarts.

he softens again at the mention of how many times she’s read the book. “i would love your copy. especially if there are cute little notes in the margins.” he pauses, smile tugging at his lips again. “i could dedicate my first book as a dragonologist to you... or i could thank you in other ways. my heart isn’t the only thing that’s big and beautiful.”

he likes how she teasingly continues what he said about playing house, a shiver running through him because of her words. it makes him horny in a way he’s never felt before, unfamiliar with the intensity of it. he’s always wanted to grow up and marry a beautiful girl; settle down and have children. but he never imagined it would be with a girl who looks like an angel and acts like one too. “yes, i’ll be daddy and you can be my girl… i’ll put the prettiest babies in you and take care of you every day.” she asks if he’ll be a good husband to her and he leans in, speaking near her ear. “i’ll be the perfect husband… we’ll make love every night.” he doesn’t know how they got here, the air so heavy, but he’s intoxicated with her and needs more.

a soft sound leaves him as she takes his finger into her mouth, her pretty lips wrapping around it and sucking. his pants feel tight and the warmth between his legs has only grown, unable to tear his gaze from her perfect mouth. he can't help but wonder if her mouth will feel this good around his aching length, wanting to push his finger further until she suddenly pulls back. “good girl,” he murmurs, and sucks his finger clean of her spit one last time. “you taste better than the pancakes.” he stands from the table as she does, taking her hand when she offers it, even though it makes his heart flutter.

'daphne doesn't seem like my type' is a sentence she's never thought she'd hear but it's not that she doesn't believe him because she does, she's just pleasantly surprised. regulus seems like the type of guy who could have anyone he wanted, who could be in any kind of relationship with any girl or as many girls as he wants but instead he seems like the type of guy who is careful with who he loves, he knows his worth and doesn't just sleep with anyone he feels like. "an heir, that's a little medieval even for the 70s isn't it?" she giggles softly. "kids shouldn't be used as products, you should have kids because you love the person you're having them with, because you're excited to be a parent and raise your beautiful children to be wonderful people...not because she's a rich girl." bee understands why he wouldn't want anything to do with it.

regulus was the most enchanting person she'd ever seen. green eyes like a large forest and a smile that could light up villages so maybe it shouldn't surprise her when he tells her that he doesn't even need a wand of course he doesn't...and it makes her smile a little as she shakes her head. "maybe I should've gussed someone as powerful as you didn't need his own wand. still, I'm pretty sure I could take you if I wanted..." her tone is suggestive, a sly smile on her lips as if shes implying something which in a way she is. "I can too, apparently....It seems that I am one of few witches left that have ancient magic abilities. though I can't control it and it's more of a accidently blowing things up sort of thing because I can't control it yet...I'm still pretty sure I can take you if you were such a bad boy." she teases almost playfully as her green eyes flicker towards his lips. "I'll go with you to get your new wand tomorrow if you want? get a head start?"

"well maybe I think you're the special one...a guy as pretty as you? I'm sure anyone would want to help." he seems like the type of guy worth saving, anyone who wouldn't was just a fucking fool. "plus like I said those rocks were important to me growing up so to me it was kind of fate, you know? like I was supposed to know you...and to find you." she smiles warmly. they say soulmates come to you in strange ways who would've believed hers was a prince from 1979...or at least she would like him to be.

regulus goes on to tell her what he wanted to be, his dreams before they were shit on by selfish parents. it warms her heart imagining a baby regulus walking around with a little book in his hands, telling everyone he wanted to be a dragonlogist and she can't help but feel more connected to him than she's ever felt before. a smile tugs at the corners of her lips, blue eyes looking at him. "you should've been there for the triwizard torment two years ago...my brother went up against a swedish short-snout and harry potter was almost set ablaze by hungarian horntail. the whole thing felt kind of cruel in a way but...it was pretty cool to see them." she takes his hand a bit, a gentle smile on her lips. "you're a powerful wizard regulus, I'm sure you'd make a wonderful dragonlogist. they could use someone with a big and beautiful heart protecting them...and if you want you can have my copy of the book, I've read it like a million times."

she giggles a bit, smirking softly at his words as he says when full name. "whatever you say your highness." she teases softly, biting down on her lower lip. he was so perfect that it was almost unfair and annoying. cause how could one look like him or be as sweet as him and not have a damn thing wrong with him...even if he did you wouldn't be able to convince her otherwise, she's obsessed with him, she's never felt like this around anyone before.

"playing house? so you get to be the daddy while I'm the mommy?" bexley bites down on her lower lip, humming softly with a purr. "I kind of like the sound of it actually, being your wife, cooking your meals and taking care of you...having kids of our very own and when I have my bad days you can hold me in your arms and take care of me too." she smirks, maybe she's playing a little too deeply into the fantasy now, of course they only just met and according to regulus his standards were high. "would you be a good husband to me?"

the air feels thick between them, her heart was racing so fast and loud that she worried he might even hear it and think she's insane. but the way he feeds her with the fork and looks at her like that makes her need him even more. "and what kind of host would I be if I didn't help you release that stress?" she says teasingly but her confidence only lasts for a moment because his thumb brushed against her lower lip, wiping away the left over syrup and she can feel her breath hitch a bit as he takes it back to his own mouth, sucking the sweet taste off his finger as his eyes look into hers. she can feel the heat growing between her legs, feeling soaked as he brings his thumb back to her lip, taking the syrup against his finger again.

she wraps her mouth around his finger, looking up at him as she sucks off the sugar, cleaning it from his thumb before pulling off as she licks away the rest from her lips. "I can't wait to release stress together...but you should probably get a shower, you kind of smell like dirt." bee teases with a chuckle as she stands up, holding a hand out for him. "come on."

[leslie-lyman]

Punchbowls & Pincushions (Congressman Marcus Pike x f!reader)

summary: The duly elected representative from Texas’s 27th congressional district has a meeting, takes a walk, and meets a woman.

pairing: Congressman Marcus Pike x f!reader

rating: general audiences for this installment, though this series will be explicit and my blog and its content are only for those 18 and up

warnings: none

word count: 2.7k

a/n: Y’all, I’m excited for this one. This is the first installment of what I hope will be a more relaxed fit-ish series I’ve been thinking about for a long time: an AU in which Marcus Pike decides to turn in his badge and his gun and try a different kind of public service. I’ve just been waiting for the right excuse to finally get this first bit down on paper, so thank you as always to the lovely folks at @writer-wednesday for the photo prompt! Big thank yous also to @ezrasbirdie, @whataperfectwasteoftime, @magpie-to-the-morning, and @the-ginger-hedge-witch for letting me ramble at them about this idea for far too long, and to Birdie for looking this over for me!! ❤️

punchbowl: the Secret Service’s code name for the United States Capitol Building.

pincushion: the Secret Service’s code name for the Rayburn House Office Building, one of three main buildings where members of the House of Representatives and their staffs’ offices are actually located.

Main Masterlist. | Series Masterlist. | Taglist.

———

It’s not going to happen.

The words play on a loop in Marcus’s head as he tries to calmly traverse the halls of the Capitol.

Leonard, I campaigned on this.

I know, Marcus, I’m sorry.

Look, if this is about HR 86 -

It’s a matter of cost, Marcus.

Bullshit. The whole package is $57 billion. You’re telling me $100 million to expand drug treatment courts is the straw that breaks the CBO’s back?

It’s a miracle we got all the things in that we did. It’s gonna be hell trying to get this through the Senate as it is.

And what am I supposed to tell my constituents in the meantime?

To get used to disappointment. Or just blame the Senate. I always do.

Leonard -

It’s not going to happen, Marcus. Next time.

Marcus had scowled, recognizing that continuing to argue with the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee was going to get him nowhere.

It’s not going to happen.

He should go back to his office. His chief of staff, Linda, is expecting him. They’re supposed to go over a few things he has coming up this month, make some decisions on what events he’s been invited to that he’d actually like to attend, discuss strategy for the rollout of an education bill he’s introducing soon…

But the thought of heading back to the tiny three-room suite of office space each Congressperson is allotted, one whole room of which is designated just for him with its deep blue walls and heavy drapes and uncomfortable leather furniture, makes claustrophobia start to claw its way up his throat. There’s no air in this place, there’s no room to breathe. Between the windowless House chamber, old stone office buildings, and underground tunnels connecting everything, he can go hours without seeing the sky.

Three months he’s been in this job. Three months since he put his hand on a Bible and swore an oath to defend the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic, and swore an oath to himself that he would do right by the people of San Antonio who had placed their trust in him to represent them in Washington.

He’s not sure how successful he’s been so far. When he was an FBI agent, his life was governed by rules, by procedure, by the book. His working life had structure, it had guardrails. It had clear objectives: track down the art, arrest the bad guys, solve the case.

Congress, too, is governed by rules. The orderly structure by which bills move through the House, the procedures dictating how hearings are run, the ethics laws spelling out what he can and cannot do in his capacity as an elected official.

But there are so many unspoken rules, too. Ones that offer guidance on how to get your issues noticed and your priorities heard. How to strike deals, even how to just get into the room where the deals are struck or a seat at the table where the horse-trading happens. How to, as the famous book title says, win friends and influence people. There are ways to get things done, but Marcus can’t seem to get a handle on any of it.

You’ll learn soon enough, one of Marcus’s septuagenarian colleagues had told him during his first week on the Hill. Keep your head down, don’t make waves, kiss all the leadership ass you can. Freshmen Members always think they’re hot shit, but here? You’re just one of 435. All of us won our elections same as you, except most of us have been doing it a lot longer. You’re at the back of the line in this place, kid. Try not to get crushed. Good luck.

The man hadn’t been purposefully cruel, it’d been phrased as genuine advice.

Marcus texts Linda that he’s taking a detour.

He exits the Capitol on its west side, dodging both reporters and tourists and escaping unnoticed. At first he thinks he’ll just walk the Mall, just keep going until he hits the Washington Monument, or even the Lincoln Memorial, however long it takes him to regain some sense of calm, his dress shoes be damned. But as he crosses the street, the lush entry to the U.S. Botanic Gardens on the corner beckons him.

He wanders onto the grounds, past the main greenhouse and into the outdoor gardens. Flowering plants are just barely starting to bloom, and it’s early enough in the month that the spring break tourist crowds have yet to fully descend on the city. A few families linger here and there, but the further away Marcus walks from the greenhouse the fewer people there are. He spots a bench set away from the main path, nearly up against the stone wall that encircles the garden, and sits. The sound of a small stream trickling along nearby is nearly drowned out by the white noise of cars passing by on Independence Avenue just on the other side of the wall, but he tunes it all out.

It’s a pretty, peaceful space. Not as iconic or picturesque, perhaps, as the famous cherry blossoms down by the Tidal Basin, but he's grateful for the corresponding lack of people.

He can still see the dome of the Capitol above the trees, the sun glinting off the painted cast iron and threatening to blind him, the sight of it apparently inescapable even in the midst of this urban oasis. Marcus drops his head into his hands, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes and trying to block it out - the meeting, his schedule, his frustration, his uncertainty, the damn outline of the damn building looming over all of it, all the time...

"Rough morning, Congressman?"

The sound of a voice quite close by makes Marcus sit up straight in surprise. His head whips to the left, in the opposite direction from the Capitol, to find its owner, a new source of aggravation making him want to grind his teeth.

Can he not get a moment to himself, even here...

"Sorry!" The voice says again. "I didn't mean to startle you."

Then he notices: there's another bench to his left, slightly behind him and half-hidden by the low-hanging branches of a nearby tree. And on it sits a woman.

Marcus's irritation starts to melt away as quickly as it came. She's dressed casually, in jeans and a cream-colored moto jacket, her ankles crossed and tucked under the bench. As far as Marcus can tell, she's there alone, and is perhaps a few years younger than he is. And there's something in the way she's looking at him, bright eyes framed by long lashes, the corner of her mouth pulled upward in an apologetic half-smile...

She's beautiful.

And for a moment, he just…stares at her.

“It’s okay,” he finally says after several beats too long, his brain and his mouth trying to play catch-up. “It’s fine. You’re fine.” He winces, hoping she doesn’t take that the wrong way. But her smile widens, just a little.

“It has been a bit of a rough morning,” Marcus admits. “I’ve been having a lot of those lately, to be honest.”

“No rest for the elected, huh?” It’s a gentle teasing, which is a welcome respite from the disappointed - or even downright hostile - tone many people use when they find out he’s in Congress.

Although that begs the question…

“How’d you know I was - ”

She taps her jacket collar, jutting her chin in the direction of his own lapel. He looks down automatically, already knowing what he’ll see - the gold-and-silver pin a little larger than a quarter, stamped with the Congressional seal and pinned to his suit coat. His Member pin, a little metal disc that served to identify him as a Congressman, in lieu of an ID badge.

Heat creeps into his face.

“I keep forgetting I’m wearing it,” he mutters, abashed. The woman shrugs.

“A lot of Members refuse to take it off. Everywhere they go in this town, they want everyone to know how important they are.”

Marcus visibly shudders.

“I should tell my chief of staff that if I ever become that kind of person, she should slap me before telling me to retire.”

The woman laughs, a small, tinkling burst of sound, like someone rapidly opened a music box and allowed only a few notes to escape before shutting it again. She lifts a hand to smooth it over her hair, and that’s when Marcus notices she has a camera in her lap. A very nice, very expensive-looking camera.

She must see him notice it, just as she must see the way tension creeps unbidden into his shoulders, his neck, his jaw, because she turns the lens to the side, away from him.

“I’m not press,” she reassures him. “I’m just here to see what’s in bloom.”

The strain in his muscles eases, just a bit.

“Do you wanna talk about it? Your rough morning?”

He shouldn’t. She may not be a reporter, but she could easily pass on anything he says to one. She knows he’s a Member, and even if she doesn’t recognize exactly who he is, it wouldn’t be hard to figure out. He’s, on average, three decades younger than most of his colleagues, and the combination of what his campaign manager called progressive charisma and movie star good looks had gotten him a level of national attention while he’d been running that he’d neither wanted nor felt he deserved. To this day, he’s still not sure how he let his team talk him into saying yes to the Vanity Fair cover…

He has no reason to trust this woman. Nothing but a feeling in his gut. And Marcus refuses to be made so cynical by this town already that he spurns a kind offer from a pretty stranger.

“Off the record?” He asks, just to try and cover his bases.

She chuckles again.

“I told you I’m not press. But if it’ll make you feel better, yes.”

He takes a breath, turning on the bench to face her more fully, and launches into an abbreviated version of today’s events.

“It’s like I’ve been thrown into the deep end of a pool,” he says at the end, “and I haven’t been able to get my head back above water yet.”

The woman nods in sympathy, having listened attentively to his sorry tale.

“Can I ask you a question?” She asks, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees. “Why did you decide to run for Congress?”

How does he begin to answer that question? He used to have a precise, snappy, inspiring response, one edited down and workshopped and focus group tested to use at every campaign stop:

San Antonio is where I was born and raised. It has always been home to me. I love this place and its people, and I was taught that when you love someone, you fight for them. You care for them. You give back to them. And when it is clear that they are not being served by those in power, when it is clear that their leadership is failing them, you say something. You do something. And that is why I am running…

But that feels disingenuous here. This woman isn’t asking Marcus, the candidate. She’s asking Marcus, the person.

“I wanted to help people,” he says simply. “When I see an injustice, I can’t ignore it. Crime, poverty, inequality, violence. And the man who held this job before me wasn’t doing nearly enough to fix it.”

She’s quiet for a moment, absorbing his words.

“Too many people forget that being an elected official is supposed to mean being a public servant,” she tells him. “It sounds like you’re here for the right reasons. Keep remembering why you wanted to come here in the first place.”

Marcus smiles wryly at her.

“You work on the Hill?”

Her face immediately scrunches up in disgust, a sound a cross between a scoff and a gag escaping her lips before she clamps a hand over her mouth, clearly worried that she’s insulted him.

But Marcus throws his head back and laughs at her unfiltered reaction. It might be the first time he’s laughed all week.

“That’s a ‘no’, I take it?”

She shakes her head, grinning.

“No. I mean, it’s not that I don’t respect the work, it’s just…the environment leaves a lot to be desired.”

Marcus can’t fault her there.

“Do you come to the gardens a lot?” He asks, gesturing vaguely at the flora around them.

“Not as much as I’d like,” she admits. “This is my first day off in forever, and I’m more used to shooting people; this lets me stretch my creative muscles in a different way. And it’s so beautiful here.”

Marcus hums in agreement.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been here before,” he realizes. “Even during the times I was based in DC with the bureau, I never made it down here.”

“Well now that you have, what do you think of it?”

“It’s definitely exceeding my expectations,” he says, and he doesn’t miss the way her breath hitches, just the tiniest bit.

Marcus clears his throat and sheepishly rubs the back of his neck.

“You know, there’s a couple dozen cherry blossom trees out around the east side of the Rayburn building. I read that they’re expected to hit peak bloom this week, if you’re looking for new plant subjects to photograph without fighting the hordes at the Tidal Basin.”

She fiddles with the camera in her lap before looking up at him through her lashes.

“I wanted to, last year. Missed peak bloom by a couple of days. But maybe I should try again.”

Marcus opens his mouth to agree when the tinny vibration of his phone in his pocket breaks the moment. He makes an apologetic face at her before fishing it out and tries not to grimace at the name on the caller ID.

“I - it’s my chief, give me one second?” He pleads with her. He turns his body slightly away from her and answers the call.

“Linda?”

“Marcus. They’re about to call votes. Please tell me you haven’t gone AWOL such that you can’t make it back to the chamber in the next five minutes.”

His gaze drifts upward to where he can see the Capitol beyond the trees. He’s known Linda since he was six years old, and while there’s no one in DC he trusts more, he can’t bring himself to admit to her where he is, or why he blew off their scheduled time to chat without explanation.

“I just…needed some air,” he says lamely. “I won’t miss the vote window.”

He can hear her suppress a sigh.

“Can we at least go over the education bill stuff while you’re en route?”

“Hang on.” He swivels back to look at the woman on the bench, wanting more than anything to stay here, to keep talking with her, to keep feeling lighter than he has in a long while.

But she’s gone.

Marcus shoots to his feet, looking around to see if he can spot her. But aside from a young family nearby watching some ducks bathing in the stream, he’s suddenly alone.

In his past life, Marcus would have gone after her. There’s only so far she could have gotten; there’s an entrance at the garden's westernmost edge near the benches, she’s probably just on the other side, standing on the corner and waiting for the light to change. Marcus could follow her, find her, ask her for her name, for her number, if he could see her again, talk to her again, find out if she feels the connection he’s feeling -

He almost does it.

But then Linda’s voice is coming through his phone’s speaker, pulling him back to reality. He has to go vote. He has a job to do. A schedule to keep. And when has running after a woman ever gotten him anything but eventual heartbreak?

He puts the phone back up to his ear, the gravel path crunching under his feet as he walks back in the direction of the Capitol.

“I’m here, Linda. Talk to me about the bill.”

“Are you heading back to the chamber?”

He is, and he tells her as much. And if a part of him feels like he’s heading in the wrong direction, he keeps it to himself.

[urwelcomeforthis]

Alex’s tattoo shows up the day after she punches Marcus Hinkle.

He had been picking on Kara in the hallway, dangling her math book above her head, taking advantage of his summer growth spurt.

Kara still doesn’t know what possessed Alex – Marcus Hinkle had been a thorn in her side since she had landed on Earth and started school a year ago, but whatever the reason, today was the day Alex couldn’t take anymore.

Eliza had been furious. Jeremiah had been (not so) silently proud.

Kara didn’t know what she had felt, really. Especially not when she asked Alex why, and the older girl had just shrugged and said “You’re my sister. It’s what we do.”

Up until this point being sisters meant fights in the hallway over the bathroom and ignoring each other at the dinner table.

Apparently, things were changing.

Kara is just waking up when she hears Alex’s hushed “What the hell?”

“What is it?” She asks, groggily sitting up and wiping at the sleep in her eyes.

Her sister is holding her forearm up, frantically scrubbing at a spot right in the middle, her eyes frantic.

“I don’t…. I don’t know! It’s like a tattoo but I didn’t get a tattoo! Fuck, Mom is going to kill me.” Alex sounds panicked as she continues scrubbing at the spot, and Kara feels her heartbeat speed up.

“You had a tattoo just appear on your skin?” Kara asks slowly, her mind suddenly far away on a planet that doesn’t exist anymore, in a culture she had been forced to leave behind.

Alex stops scrubbing and looks at Kara with a piercing gaze. “Yeah. It’s some funny symbol too, like the way you used to write before you learned English. Did you do this to me?”

Alex leaps off the bed and crosses the room in two quick strides, arm held out like an accusation.

Kara shrinks in on herself a little but nods. “I think so. I didn’t know it was possible here, but well, on Krypton when your soul mate reveals themselves, a tattoo linking you appears. I should have one too, somewhere, if you do.”

Alex stops dead in her tracks, her eyes wide. “Soul mates? But we’re sisters! That’s so gross!”

Jumping up from the bed, hands held up in surrender Kara hastens to explain further. “No! Not like that, I promise! Back home, people had different kinds of soul mates. Sometimes it was the romantic kind like you talk about here on Earth, but other times it could just be a compatible soul, someone who was meant to be a part of you.”

Alex still looks wary, if not relieved, as she tentatively holds out her arm. “So, what does this mean? What kind of soul mates are we?”

Stepping forward Kara delicately traces the symbols on Alex’s forearm. “It literally means “sister of the soul.” Je shesur. The symbol after it is unique, the way we would know we were linked. If this had happened on Krypton it would mean we were soul sisters. Not from the same parents but family just the same.”

Alex nods. “And here on Earth? What does it mean here?”

“The same thing. At least that’s what it means to me.” Kara refuses to meet Alex’s eyes, not sure she wants to see what waits for her there.

There’s a long minute of silence after Alex takes her arm back. The clearing of her throat brings Kara’s eyes up from their place on the ground.

“Where’s yours?” Alex asks, eyes burning with curiosity.

Kara shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s not on my arms like yours is. It must be hidden. Can you look on my back?”

“Sure.” Alex nods. “Lift up your shirt.”

Kara turns and tugs her shirt up and over her head. It takes a moment, but she hears her sister gasp followed by the feel of fingertips against her left shoulder blade.

“It’s the same as mine.” Alex says reverently, and Kara closes her eyes against the emotion welling up there.

Who would have thought she would get to have this piece of home?

“So, I guess I’m stuck with you. For like, ever, huh?” Alex smiles once Kara has turned back around.

Kara grins back. “Yeah, I guess so.”

Alex shrugs. “Could be worse. But you have to tell Mom about this, because she’ll never believe me, and she is going to be pissed that I have a tattoo.”

“Sure, I can tell Mom.” Kara grins, a piece of her heart settling in place. She hasn’t felt at home on Earth, not really, but at this moment she feels like it isn’t all that bad.

--

The next person to get a tattoo is, interestingly enough, James.

It doesn’t come when they’re dating, or whatever it was that they were doing, no.

It comes after he has revealed himself to be Guardian, and he and Kara have the biggest fight of their friendship.

Kara wakes up the morning after tired, groggy, and more than a little cranky. Its as she’s stripping down to get in the shower that she notices it – the Kryptonese scrawled along the inside of her right bicep.

Throniv Shesur. Protector of the soul.

Kara heaves a deep, deep, sigh and grabs her phone.

She meets James at the DEO, both tentative around each other after the yelling match of the day before.

“So. I woke up with a tattoo. Kryptonese. Any idea what that’s about?” James looks smug, like he’s won some kind of battle with Kara and god, at that moment she wishes they were in the training room and she could just punch him.

“Yeah. I did too. It means “protector of the soul.” She crosses her arms against her chest, desperately trying to hold onto her anger from yesterday but the wide grin on James’ face is making it hard.

“I know. I asked Clark first thing since I figured you’re still pissed at me. He was a little surprised, but he translated it for me.”

“Where’s it at?” Kara asks, still pretending to be upset but truthfully it was hard given the glaring message from home telling her that James was meant to be Guardian. That they were meant to protect each other. Protect others together.

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.” James says with a waggle of his eyebrows and that’s what finally breaks Kara, a laugh ringing out across the room.

It wasn’t who she expected to have a tattoo, not in this way at least, but if it had to be anyone, she’s glad it’s James.

--

Mon-El doesn’t get a tattoo. Kara wishes she were more disappointed.

--

The last person to get a tattoo is someone Kara had desperately hoped both would and would not get a tattoo.

For a long time, she feared what that tattoo would be, if it were to happen. She feared having to explain it, having to explain herself.

She had checked with Clark a few times, when paranoia would get the better of her.

No, he always told her. Lex did not have a tattoo. They were enemies, yes, but it hadn’t been decided by destiny or fate. It just was.

That mollified Kara because she couldn’t stand it if she and Lena were to become Clark and Lex. She would fight against it, fight against fate to keep it from happening.

And then, well. It kind of happens anyways.

They aren’t enemies, not really. Lena just hates Kara and aims a few Kryptonite cannons at her and tries to mind control the entire planet, but really everyone is allowed a brief lapse of their sensibility, right?

And what matters is she came around, in the end.

It did take time, however, for them to build back to what they once had. It was different now, but in the way that things once broken and fixed usually are.

It was better, if anything.

They were back to shared lunches and dinners, quick breakfasts and coffee breaks. They were back to game nights as partners and movie nights as friends, and the occasional sleepovers as best friends.

Things were finally back to normal, so of course Kara had to go and absolutely, irrevocably, mess it up.

It was Alex’s fault, really.

If she hadn’t said anything, if she hadn’t asked Kara what was up between her and Lena lately, Kara probably never would have stopped to think about it.

She never would have stopped to think about the way her heart sped up when Lena entered a room, or the way her palms got sweaty when they hugged, or the way she just could not stop staring at Lena when she laughed at game nights.

But now she had thought of it and had come to the very scary conclusion that she was in love with her best friend.

Her best friend who didn’t have a tattoo.

She would, after all this time, have a tattoo, the tattoo, if they were meant to be together, right?

Kara mulls it over for weeks. It haunts her. She asks Lena about tattoos, and if she has any.

She learns that yes, in fact Lena does have tattoos and boy howdy one of them is on her lower back and it is seared into the back of her eyes now that she has seen it.

But she doesn’t have any kryptonian tattoos, which is really what Kara was aiming for.

Much like it was Alex’s fault that Kara even realized she was in love, it’s also Alex who reminds Kara of one important detail.

“Well I didn’t get my tattoo until after I punched what’s his face. Maybe you have to tell Lena how you feel and then she’ll get the tattoo.”

Kara feels dumb struck, right there on her own couch, because of course, Alex is right.

The tattoos always come after the person has already revealed themselves.

Then of course comes the true fear: what if she tells Lena and she still doesn’t get a tattoo?

That’s the question she’s mulling over the next night as she and Lena sit on her couch watching some documentary that had been put on Netflix.

Lena looks beautiful, face bare of makeup, hair piled on top of her head in a messy bun, glasses slipping down her nose.

She’s eating a piece of pizza, a rare treat after a long week of work, and Kara decides that it doesn’t matter if Lena doesn’t get a tattoo.

She’s hopelessly, desperately in love with the woman and she can’t let a tattoo that may or may not come dictate her life.

“I’m in love with you, you know.” Kara blurts out, like this isn’t a life changing moment, like it’s the easiest thing in the world to say. (It is.)

Lena chokes a little on the bite she was swallowing, her hand coming up to her chest as she sets down the slice.

“Excuse me?”

Kara laughs. She’s never felt more free than in this moment. “I’m in love with you. I just thought you should know.”

Lena looks at her, shock written all over her face. “Oh. I guess that’s good.”

“Just good?” Kara nudges Lena’s thigh with her knee.

Lena shakes her head. “I mean it’s more than good, considering I’m in love with you too.”

“Yeah?” Kara could float up to the moon, she thinks.

Lena smiles, nose crinkled. “Yeah.”

It’s the next morning that Lena calls and asks if Kara can stop by. She has this tattoo she didn’t have yesterday, right on her ribcage, and it looks like it’s Kryptonian.

Kara frantically searches her own body, finding the script on her hip, on the left side.

Zhao Shesur. Love of the soul.

It took them five years to get to this point, but Kara knows, this moment was more than worth the wait.