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thimbil · 3 years ago

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Having some thoughts about the references and inspirations used for the Bad Batch’s designs.

So Boba Fett is my absolute favorite character and Temeura Morrison was perfect casting. I went to see the 2008 TCW movie in theaters because I was so excited to see him again, even if he was animated. You can imagine my disappointment. Whoever was on screen was not Temeura Morrison. You could sort of see a resemblance if you squinted and didn’t think too hard about it. They replaced Temeura with Racially Ambiguous G.I. Joe. If I didn’t know better and someone told me the animated clones are space Italians from the moon of New Jersey I would buy it. One Million Brothers Pizzeria and Italian Bistro. Not that there’s something wrong with being space Italian, I just don’t think it’s the right choice for the Fetts. The design got slightly improved by season 7 but it still bugs the hell out of me.

I did eventually get into the show later and (of course) got invested in the clones. Unfortunately, they were largely sidelined by the Jedi storylines. Out of the two new main characters created for TCW, Ahsoka definitely got more development and focus than Rex. When they announced The Bad Batch, I was excited to see a show specifically devoted to the clones… at least that’s what it said on the tin. We have all seen what lurks beneath those stylish helmets.

Jango Fett, you are NOT the father.

So who is?

Based on interviews with Filoni, it sounds like the Bad Batch was a George Lucas idea. And like all his ideas, it’s super derivative. The original trilogy directly lifted elements from sci fi serials, westerns, and samurai movies, more specifically Kurosawa films like The Hidden Fortress. For The Bad Batch character designs, the influence is obviously American action and adventure movies.

Now let’s get specific. Bad Batch, who’s your daddy?

Hunter

Sylvester Stallone as Rambo in First Blood 1982. That bandana has become an integral part of the iconic action hero look. You see a character wearing one and it’s a visual shorthand for either “this character is a tough guy” like Billy played by Sonny Landham in Predator 1987, or “this character thinks he is/wants to be a tough guy” like Brand played by Josh Brolin in The Goonies 1985 or Edward Frog played by Corey Feldman in The Lost Boys 1987.

Hunter’s model is closest to the original clone base. If you look closely you will see the eyebrows are straighter with a much lower angle to the arch. His nose is also not the same shape as a standard clone like Rex, including a narrower bridge. It’s certainly not Temeura Morrison’s nose. Remember what I said about space Italians? It didn’t take much to push the existing clone design to resemble an specific Italian man instead of a specific Māori man. The 23&Me came back, and Hunter inherited more than the bandana from Sylvester.

Crosshair

The long narrow nose, the sharp cheekbones, the scowl. That’s no clone, that’s just animated Clint Eastwood. Not even Young and Hot Clint Eastwood from Rawhide 1959-1965. With that hair, I’m talking Gran Torino 2008. The man of few words schtick and family friendly toothpick in lieu of cigar are pure Eastwood as The Man With No Name from Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns A Fist Full of Dollars 1964, For a Few Dollars More 1965, and The Good the Bad and the Ugly 1966.

In a way, this is full circle because the actor Jeremy Bulloch took inspiration from Clint Eastwood for his performance as Boba Fett in ESB.

Wrecker

In an interview Filoni lists the Hulk as an (obvious) inspiration for Wrecker. Ever seen the old Hulk tv show from 1978? Well take a look at the actor who played him, Lou Ferrigno. Would you look at that. Even has his papa’s nose.

You could make the argument that Wrecker was influenced by The Rock, an appropriately buff ‘n bald Polynesian (Samoan, not Maori) man. But look at him next his Fast and Furious costar Vin Diesel and tell me which one resembles Wrecker’s character model more.

Tech

Tech is a little trickier for me to place. If he has a more direct inspiration it must be something I haven’t seen. That said, his hairline is very Bruce Willis as John McClane in Die Hard 1988. His quippiness and large glasses remind me of Shane Black as Hawkins from Predator 1987. In terms of his face, he looks a but like the result of McClane and Hawkins deciding to settle down and start a family. Although, Tech’s biggest contributors are probably just everyone on TV Trope’s list for Smart People Wear Glasses.

And finally,

Echo

Oh Echo. Considering he wasn’t created for the Bad Batch, he probably wasn’t based on a particular character or movie. But if I had to guess, his situation and appearance remind me a lot of Alex Murphy played by Peter Weller in Robocop 1987. However, Robocop explored the Man or Machine Identity Crisis with more nuance, depth, and dignity. Yikes.

The exact tropes and references used in The Bad Batch have been done successfully with characters who aren’t even human. Gizmo from Gremlins 2: The New Batch 1990 had a brief stint with the Rambo bandana. I could have picked any number of characters for Defining Feature Is Glasses but here is the most cursed version of Simon of Alvin and the Chipmunks. Suffer as I have. Marc Antony with his beloved Pussyfoot from Looney Tunes has the same tough guy with a soft center vibe as Wrecker and his Lula (also a kind of cat). Hell, in the same show we have Cad Bane sharing Cowboy Clint Eastwood with Crosshair. I actually think Bane makes a better Eastwood which is wild considering Crosshair has Eastwood’s entire face and Bane is blue.

So we’ve established you don’t need your characters to look exactly like their inspirations to match their vibe. So why go through the trouble and cost of creating completely new character designs instead of recycling and altering assets they already had on hand? Just slap on a bandana, toothpick, goggles, and make Wrecker bigger than the others while he does a Hulk pose and you’re done. Based on the general reaction to Howzer it would have been a low effort slam dunk crowd pleaser.

But they didn’t do that.

So here’s the thing. I like the tropes used in The Bad Batch. I am a fan of action adventure movies from the 80s-90s, the sillier the better. I am part of the Bad Batch’s target audience. Considering what I know about Disney and Lucasfilm, I went in with low expectations. I genuinely don’t hate the idea of seeing references to these actors and media in The Bad Batch. I don’t think basing these characters on tropes was a bad idea. If anything it’s a solid starting point for building the characters.

The trouble is nothing got built on the foundation. The plot is directionless, the pacing is wacky, and the characters have nearly no emotional depth or defining character arcs. They just sort of exist without reacting much while the story happens around them. But I can excuse all of that. You don’t stay a fan of Star Wars as long as I have not being able to cherrypick and fill in the gaps. This show has a deeper issue that shouldn’t be ignored.

Why do the animated clones bear at best only a passing resemblance to their live action actor? In interviews, Filoni wouldn’t shut up but the technological advancements in the animation for season 7. So if they are updating things, why not try to make the clones a closer match to their source material? Why did they have to look like completely different people in The Bad Batch to be “unique”? Looking like Temeura Morrison would have no bearing on their special abilities and TCW proved you can have identical looking characters and still have them be distinct. In fact, that’s a powerful theme and the source of tragedy for the clones’ narrative overall.

Here’s Filoni’s early concept art of Crosshair, Wrecker, Tech, and Hunter. (Interesting but irrelevant: Wrecker seems to have a cog tattoo similar to Jesse’s instead of a scar. Wouldn’t it have been funny if they kept that so when they met in season 7 one if them could say something like “Hey we’re twins!” That’s a little clone humor. Just for you guys 😘)

None of these drawings look like the clones in TCW, much less Temeura Morrison. Let’s be generous. Maybe Filoni struggles with drawing a real person’s likeness, as many people do. But he had to hand this off to other artists down the line whose job specifically involves making a stylized character resemble their actor. Yet the final designs missed the mark almost as much as this initial concept. Starting to seem as if the clones looking more like Temeura Morrison was never even on the table. It wasn’t a lack of creativity, skill or technical limitations on the part of the creative team. I don’t think there is an innocent explanation. They went out of their way to make the final product exactly how we got it.

This goes beyond homage. They could have made the same pop culture references and character tropes without completely stripping Temeura Morrison from the role he originated. It was a very purposeful choice to replace him with more immediately familiar actors from established franchises and films. It wouldn’t shock me if Filoni, Lucas, and anyone else calling the shots didn’t even think hard or care enough about the decision to immediately recognize a problem. And I don’t think they believed anyone else would either. At least no one whose opinion they cared about. Those faces are comfortingly familiar and proven bankable. They are what we’re all used to seeing after all. They’re white.

Lack of imagination, bad intentions, or simple ignorance doesn’t really matter in the end. The result is the same. Call it what it is. They replaced a man of color with a bunch of white guys. That’s by the book garden variety run of the mill whitewashing. There’s no debate worth having about it. For a fanbase that loves to nitpick things like whether or not it’s in character for Han to shoot first or Jeans Guy in the Mandalorian, we sure are quick to find excuses for clones who look nothing like their template. Why is that? If you don’t see the problem, congratulations. Your ass is showing. Pull your jeans up.

#star wars #the bad batch #unwhitewashtbb #wrecker #crosshair #tech #hunter #echo

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camelely · 4 years ago

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13rw S4 Fix

So i did one of these for last season and I think now that I’ve had some time to think about S4 I’ll do the same. While last season I thought the issue was one character being overused. But here it seems like there were multiple smaller things that could have improved the whole season Again I’m keeping the same basic plotline and characters :)

1) Winston

Have Winston stay at Hillcrest. Him moving to Liberty did nothing for the main plot and he was basically a red herring through most of it. Let him try are befriend the characters from the outside. He can learn about Jess from Bryce’s trial and the news coverage and then try to befriend her at Monet’s. This is where he meets and later starts to date Alex. Since he doesn’t go to liberty school Alex sees him as a sort of escape and lets him in. Clay and Ani dont tell everyone about him because they dont know he is trying to get close to them. It makes them seem less like assholes and more like people. They don’t mention his connection to Monty because they dont realize how close he is getting to answers. Clay can still suspect he did the graffiti, after all it was a break in and a non student could have done that. Plus Estella is another red herring in the school. She serves that purpose so let Winston be the outsider looking in. His arc would still be about knowing a different Monty and not knowing who is was at Liberty but now he is literally the outsider who didn’t really get Monty, rather than it just being a figurative thing at the prom. You can still have the prom scene it would just be entirely imagined rather than the half imagined thing they went with. I think they overused the people talking to ghosts thing so here it would be a fantasy of Monty and the relationship they had rather then a representation of what could have been. However I don’t think this would have retracted from the point. Also play him up, he is a sympathetic antagonist and it sucks how much he is sidelined for Diego. I didn’t hate Diego but Winston and him basically went through the same arc. They were pro Monty and ending up dating a member of the group, couldnt believe that member was involved and then learned something about Bryce and Monty agreed to move on and just did. All while saying they will alway care for that member of the group. It was an unnecessary rehash. Having WInston be the outsider looking in and Diego the insider looking out also lets their characters compliment each other. They should still work together, just have Winston contact him looking for Monty’s friends. It’s simple.

2) Tyler and Tony

Oh Tyler. The character who seems to be in the middle of everything despite never doing anything himself. I didn’t mind his arc of helping the cops find the guys who sold the illegal guns. But Tony’s suspicions, eventually leading to Clay and Tony finding out the truth and just moving on never really go anywhere. I think it would be cool if Tyler tells Tony, despite the cops telling him not to tell anyone, because he trusts Tony. But Tony, who has had bad run ins with the cops, thinks it is a bad idea. He doesn’t want Tyler taking the deal. Tyler says its the only way the guns wont be traced back to them but Tony thinks teh cops are planning to double cross them to mind out more about Bryce and Monty. At the same time he starts getting close to that cop that takes him boxing and helps him get into college (i dont remember his name for the life of me lol). Tyler sees this as being hypocritical and pulls away. Tony still suspects Tyler is behind the lock down because he is pulling away and Tony is getting paranoid. The rest of their story can still be the same but this way they can show Tony’s paranoia and his loyalty.

As for Tyler and Estella, It was fine. The scene of them in the bathroom was really powerful, being in the bathroom with a de la cruz and becoming comfortable because isnt her brother was really nice. This could even be another reason Tony and Tyler fight. Tony can be paranoid that Tyler is trusting her too quickly and think she will turn on him.

3) Jess

Her arc with the principal, being scared and agreeing with the security measures before she sees them in action was really interesting. Focus more on it and less on her manipulating Diego. I did like parts of that arc for her so I don’t want it completely gone but I do think focusing on her working with the principal would have been cool. I would call more attention to her first meeting and her agreeing with the measures and slowly show her change her mind and start to turn against them. Maybe even have an early scene of her and ANi talking about it and have Jess admit she feels safer. Move the creepy cop trying to pat her down to the second or third day. So she can have a moment where they make her feel safe before the negative experience. I loved the protest and a bit better build up would have made it amazing

Her arc with Ani. They fought over Bryce... It should have been a conversation. Not a moment where Ani judges Diego and then they argue. I still think this arc should have been Chloe and Jess and should have been in last season. But they had the opportunity to include Chloe this season and just didnt. I’ll talk about this a bit more in the Zach section but I think Chloe should have been at Prom and the moment between the Ani Jess and Chloe should have been then. It would be right after Jess and Ani made up and would have been cool.

I don’t think she should have had scenes where she saw and talked to Bryce. Yes it created some powerful moments but they could be reworked. Have WInston use his wealth to commission a positive thing in the paper about Bryce and Monty and have her talk to his idealized photo of Bryce. I will mention it in the Clay section but her hallucinations detracted from his journey with mental health.

4) Clay

Okay two thing here the first is his arc with mental health, hallucinations, and blackouts. They used it for drama and I wish they hadnt. It should have been about him healing. I didnt mind the way they handled the realization for clay that it was him doing everything (Did they explain the symbol he kept drawing because I missed it if they did? or i just forgot because it was that forgettable lol) but I think the whole thing could have been handled a lot better and a more educated fan then I can provide a better explanation for what exactly was off about it. I will say the the therapy sessions were repetitive and I know thats realistic but for a tv show its boring. The scene were Clay goes to his home was weird and low key scary. I understand the purpose but I wish he had called him and asked to meet at his office instead. A more likable and relatable journey for Clay with his mental health would be really good for a show that was accused of glorying suicide (personally i dont think it did. My inbox is open if you wanna talk though :))

The second thing is the phantom phone caller. I hate this trope so it might just be me but this is so stale. There are exactly two ways it could go. The person could know everything and be a real problem or the person could be fishing for information and not be a real problem. The whole thing was predicable since Winston had red herring written all over him, Estella was barely developed, and on this show it is always the football guys. Instead let the pranks be smaller and less crazy. Like these boys had to coordinate a lot to mess with Clay. There should be more than one prank and end with a Monty doll and Clay holding a knife to set up the camp episode. But they should be pranks, not the phantom caller psychological torture bs. The blood shower can also happen just on a different day. Clay can be confused about what is real and what isnt making him even more worried about his blackouts and again assuming the mental health arc is handled well, the pranks can be a real part of it. Dumping him in the pit on the camping trip also seemed kinda attempted murdery so maybe do something like tie him to a tree of the path or in a small dirt ditch not a rocky pit where if he hit his head or fell weird the team would all be murderers.

5) Alex

His arc with Charlie was one of my favorite stories this season. I was also not bothered by him getting close to and exploring his sexuality with Winston and Zach. I’m in the minority but I’m glad Zalex wasn’t made canon and Zach was used to be an effective (kinda) ally and good friend. Plus this way Zalex can live on in the fandom untouched or ruined by the writers interpretation.

They should have given us Alex in therapy. He tried to kill himself had a traumatic injury, an arc with steroid abuse, and an arc about killing someone. All of which were forgotten this season. All the other characters seemed to be dealing with Bryce and Monty, why not focus on Alex? Even if it isnt in therapy just let him exist in his feelings.

6) Zach

I have one major issue with Zach’s arc, the lack of Chloe. She was the reason he almost killed a man. Let them date, let him start to spiral while dating her. She doesnt know what he did. Have them grow apart on screen but her still connecting to him and not wanting to give up on him. They should go to prom together. I know the hooker was supposed to represent Zach turning into Bryce with the hookers and the drunken sex/potential rape and cocaine. But Chloe fills the same comparison. He brings cocaine she is not okay with it, He tries to convince her to have sex in the back she is not having it. Maybe he tries to convince maybe it becomes a bit worse than that but she breaks up with him at prom and leaves early. She sees Bryce in him, she doesnt have to say it but you can see it on her face and she walks away when her mind and heart tells her to this time no making excuses. Boom Chloe actually has an arc. As for Zach this is a big wake up call for him he sees what we had become. I know it is later in the actual show but I think it should be in the prom episode so he can have a better conclusion in the finale, like the other characters. The whole season was a downward spiral and I wish we got to see more of him pulling himself out of it. If the whole finale is him getting better even though he wont be all the way done he will be in a better place up the end.

7) Justin

Okay the hard one. I think the writers really wanted to kill him. I mean a fan favorite, who did bad things, and the death would be in the series finale. this is a tv writer’s drug of choice. So I’m gonna do a fix where I still kill him first then to the ideal version. Ok so first Justin dies. No HIV/AIDS. It was out of nowhere, unneeded, and seemed a bit insensitive. If you want it to be related to his drug use, make it so he got a bad batch when he relapsed. Or maybe organ failure. If it doens’t need to be drug related it can be an accident or someone he knew on the streets getting revenge, like that drug dealer we spent time with last season. Or if Justin helps Tyler put the gun salesmen behind bars then have it be retaliation for that. He can still go to the hospital and have goodbyes but it wont be an aids diagnosis and death in the same episode. I know they had signs in earlier episodes but the timeline is still really fucked up...

An ideal ending would have him live. He can still pass out at Prom. The diagnosis can be a combination of stress and withdrawal symptoms.He can be the red herring for the person in the coffin. If Justin lives he can represent hope. He can show the audience that you can get better and things can work out. Even if you are sick and think you will die you can do better be better and live in a better world. Plus I love him and really wanted him to be happy. The message would be you can get out of a bad situation and wold have ended a sad series on a positive note. Even if you are a bad person. Even if you have bad circumstance. Even if it feels like the world is against you, it can get better if you put in the effort. Which felt like the message the show was going for in eariler seasons by showing the people on the tapes doing better but abandoned this last season.

So who would I put in the coffin. Ani’s mom. Now I know she wasn’t a well liked character and her mom wouldn’t have the same audience or character reaction Justin’s death did. But this version isn’t about making the audience sad. Ani would finally have a plot that was really about her, her mom died, Bryce’s mom basically wants to provide for her. And she isn’t sure what to do. Justins funeral felt like it was overshadowed by graduation anyway. Now Ani’s moms absence and the funeral being overshadowed both make sense. She is going to college and doing what she can to honor her mom. And the death of a parent causes Clay to immediately appreciate his own family more. The theme in the first season with Clay was appreciating and acting on his feelings for Hannah before she was gone. Ani’s mom dying is a reality check for him and he know the most important things are his family and friends. Justin’s arc was about finding a family and he did. The core of the show is about family, friends, and the importance of a strong support system. And starting it with a mother grieving her daughter and ending it with a daughter grieving her mother would be a cool full circle moment.

This post is really long so if you read all the way down Thank you! :)

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purplebass · 4 years ago

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Dark Light Ch. 3 //Blackdale

Couple/Characters: Blackdale, Lucie Herondale and Jesse Blackthorn Rating: T

✨ You can also find it on AO3 ✨

Chapter 1 // Chapter 2

Trying to hide somebody was difficult, and Lucie hoped she would never have to do it again.

Jesse came to the Institute three days prior, looking for a place to hide. Lucie knew that she would have brought him there if he had been complacent after he opened his eyes to life again, but she hadn’t planned much after then. It had been silly of her not to think about the situation better, but after all of the tests gone wrong, she truly believed she would never be able to pull this off.

Jesse had slept on the armchair in her room. She had never shared a room with anybody, not even her brother James. They had always slept in separate chambers, and only spent time together on her bed when they told each other stories when they were kids.

Jesse wasn’t her brother, nor was he a cousin or a closer friend. Lucie had known him for a few months, and his present self was slightly different from the person she had met. And, if she were to be honest with herself, she liked Jesse too much to put him in the “family” group. He was someone she would love to become her family, a husband, perhaps. Which made everything more complicated.

For this reason, Lucie never changed into her nightclothes in front of him. She was still a respectable young girl, even if she was momentarily sharing a room with a boy. If someone were to find that Jesse had been sleeping there... People were quick to make judgements. She had seen it with Cordelia and James.

Besides that, of course, Lucie’s main source of worry was that the Clave would find out what she did. What would they say? It was a challenge to hide him, let alone explain how he, who had been dead for seven years, was alive and well.

Speaking of which, she had to take one last trip to Chiswick. She still had the Black Volume of the Dead, and if someone would discover it under her bed, there would be hell to pay.

She wasn’t sure the Clave could connect Jesse being alive with her. Did necromancy… smell? Could the Clave trace back to whoever had used dark magic? She didn’t know, and she wished she would never have to know.

“When do you think my mother will find out?” Jesse asked from the window on the fourth day after his return from the dead.

He was eating scones and sipping tea, and watching as the sky grew darker outside. Lucie had brought those things to her room a few minutes earlier. They would be his dinner, or sort of. She hated that she could only give him these scraps, but it would be suspicious if she asked for an extra dish. She rarely ate more than what was served during meals.

Lucie took her eyes off the book she was reading. The question he asked concerned one of the things that were bothering her. “Perhaps she already has,” she said, her tone resigned. “And she’s preparing her revenge.”

Jesse chuckled. “This seems unreal,” he commented.

“What is the last thing you remember?”

He frowned, and Lucie wondered if he remembered anything at all. He could have forgotten about most of his life. “I remember we had dinner, right before the Silent Brothers came to give me my first mark.”

“And then?”

“I recall that I felt sick when they left,” he said, sipping his tea. “And when I woke up, I met you.”

“I see,” Lucie said. “I was doing research about that, by the way.”

“About why I can’t remember?”

“Yes,” she nodded, glancing back on the page she was skimming. “I still can’t find anything. There are no precedents.”

He had come off the window, and approached the desk, putting himself behind her. Lucie bit her lip. The temptation to raise her head and look up at him was strong.

“That’s too bad,” he commented. “Want me to help you?”

“Actually, yes,” she nodded. “Because I have an engagement soon, and I am afraid I must focus on that.”

“More time alone,” he chuckled.

She frowned, and finally met his eyes. He was smirking, and teasing her. “My parabatai ceremony is in a few days,” she explained. “We had to delay it several times, me and Cordelia.”

“There’s no need to explain,” Jesse answered placidly, placing his hands on the side of the desk. “Besides, we both know I can’t go out for the time being.”

“But you will,” Lucie remarked confidently. She put her hand over his. “Soon. I’m sure we’ll come up with something.”

He glanced down, where Lucie’s hand had covered his. She hadn’t realized what she had done. It had been an instinctive gesture to do it. She opened her mouth, embarrassed, and retreated her hand slowly. Jesse smiled, but didn’t say anything.

Lucie continued with her reading, and he helped her. When the clock struck eleven, she stood from her chair, and grabbed her cloak.

“Where are you going?” Jesse wondered, frowning from his book.

“I need to take this book back to your house,” she adjusted the coat around her shoulders. It was freezing cold. “If your mother finds that it’s gone, and I have it,” she sighed, not finishing the sentence. She put the volume in a dark blanket.

“You can’t go there alone,” he warned her. “I must come with you.”

“And risk being discovered?”

“Who said we’ll get caught?” he shrugged. “It’s better if we’re in two. We can watch each other’s backs. And I am acquainted with the property.”

“Alright, you can come. I’m going to grab a coat for you,” she said. “Don’t leave without me” she warned.

…

At least, Jesse didn’t desert her. She feared he would sneak out of the Institute while she was trying to find him a coat that would fit him (in the end she stole one of James’) and go somewhere. She literally ran back to her room, imagining it empty and with the Black Volume already gone. She was grateful that Jesse kept his promise and stayed.

“Do you think she’s home?” Lucie wondered, glancing at Jesse for a moment. They were perched on the driver seat of her family carriage. It would have been less suspecting if they had taken the horses, but Jesse said he didn’t know how to ride.

“She’s rarely not home,” he confirmed. “And when she told us she had to go out, she used to lock us inside of our rooms until she came back.”

Lucie frowned. It wasn’t out of character for Tatiana, but it still chilled her to the bone. Her parents would never do that. She didn’t know how to comment and wasn’t sure if she had to. She remained silent. He didn’t seem to want to be pitied, either, but he probably didn’t even realize the magnitude of his mother’s actions, since that was the only life he knew. He could have grown up by thinking that being locked inside of your room without the possibility of roaming around your property was the norm.

They talked about superficial things during the trip. This Jesse was also an avid reader, and they discussed plot holes and writing styles of Victorian classics. It was easy to talk to him. But then, she had spent the last four months getting to know him. The only difference was that now he was there in the flesh, with seven years wiped off his memory.

“We should go to the back entrance,” Jesse said after they had left the carriage behind. “She never uses it.”

“Is there a back entrance?”

Jesse smirked. “There is always a back entrance, Lucie. Come,” he prodded, and led the way.

“Jesse, wait,” she said, and he stopped instantly.

“What’s wrong?”

“Shouldn’t you get some runes first?”

He frowned. “Is this what you usually do before you sneak in someone’s house?”

“Yes,” she nodded, and took her stele out. “We draw runes that could help us. I thought that maybe you’d want some?” she asked, her voice hopeful.

“I don’t know anything about runes, and I wouldn’t be able to draw any on you.”

“That’s fine, I already got mine before we left,” she smiled, trying to be as calm as possible. “I’m drawing your runes.”

He thought about it for a moment. “If you think they may help,” he began, “then why not.”

“Give me your hand,” she said. He didn’t hesitate, and extended his arm. It was covered by the coat, and he pulled the material above his forearm. She realized how his arm was leaner compared to James’. There was enough space to fit two arms. Jesse helped her, and she remembered that she didn’t ask if she could do it herself. “I’m sorry, I should have asked.”

“Go ahead, Lucie,” he said with a placid smile. “It’s just an arm.”

It wasn’t just an arm for Lucie. She was about to draw his first rune. The moment was monumental for any shadowhunter. Having never been a proper shadowhunter, to Jesse it was ordinary. She wondered if he would remember it.

She proceeded to draw a stealth rune. She wondered what he was feeling, but didn’t dare to ask. “This will help us not to make any noise,” she explained. “While this is to sharpen your sight,” she added, and drew a night vision rune to see better in the dark.

He looked at her work with satisfaction, but also surprise. He had probably never seen runes aside from the faded voyance rune on his hand. Lucie wondered if Tatiana had books about shadowhunters in her father’s library. If she did, she didn’t think that she would have let Jesse or Grace see them, let alone read them.

“Can I cover my arm now?”

“Oh, yes. They’re temporary, but it’s not like it’s ink or something,” she laughed nervously. She couldn’t believe she had just given Jesse his first two marks. She would never forget it.

After the brief rune moment, they continued with their quest. Jesse took her behind the main building. She had never been there, not even when she went to Chiswick with Cordelia or by herself. The door was partially hidden by vines, and that was the reason Lucie had never seen it.

“This is the exit the servants used,” Jesse murmured. The door opened instantly, it was unlocked. Weird. “When my uncles lived here, I believe. We never had any servants. The room where my sister found that book is my grandfather’s private study. I remember that once, my mother lamented that one of my uncles needed his diaries, but she didn’t want to give them to him. And said that your father was wretched because he convinced her. How, I have no idea.”

“He gave her money,” Lucie said as they moved through the corridors and up a spiral staircase. “That’s what he told us, at least.”

The stair wasn’t lighted, but she could sense his smile in the dark. “Your father never keeps anything from you, does he?”

“Never,” she replied firmly. I’m the one who keeps things from him. I’ve kept you from everyone, she wanted to add, but kept silent.

They reached what Lucie remembered was the first floor. There weren’t any witchlights nor mundane lights on. The corridor was bathed in the light of the moon. Lucie was grateful for the night vision rune.

Jesse walked in front of her, and she followed, occasionally casting glances towards the doors in case someone was there. She could hear no sounds, but this didn’t mean that the house was empty. After wandering around statues and broken windows, they finally reached a door in the middle of the floor.

Jesse tried to open it, but to no avail. Lucie drew an open rune, and it unlocked without further pressure. They looked around before entering, and closed the door behind them.

“I don’t know where this book was, exactly,” Lucie whispered. “It was Grace who gave it to me.”

“How did Grace know?”

“I have no idea,” she said, unveiling the Black Volume. She found an empty space on one of the shelves. “I’ll just put it here and we’ll go,” she announced with anticipation.

Jesse signaled her to stay silent. She didn’t know why, since there wasn’t anyone around, until she heard the footsteps and understood. She exchanged a glance with him. He didn’t know what to do either. The door opened, and Lucie started to panic. What would they do?

Jesse pulled her down to the floor, behind the desk, leaving her no time to think about another solution. She held her breath.

“I thought I locked this door,” a voice said, and the steps grew closer to their hiding place. The light from the window outside had turned the pavement grey. The same color Lucie’s face must have been out of fear.

#tsc #blackdale #tlh #lucie herondale #jesse blackthorn #the last hours #tsc theories #tsc fanfiction #chain of gold #chain of iron #chain of thorns #tweety.writes

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wunderlass · 4 years ago

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I’m feeling so deflated to be writing this post. S1 had its flaws but those could be placed at the feet of a freshman showrunner who could learn from her mistakes going into S2 and up her game. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, and S2 was a mess.

S1 had a clear central plotline: the mystery of Rosa’s death, leading to justice in the form of Noah’s death and Rosa’s resurrection. S2’s central plotline was…um. The kidnappings? Leading into the plot to blow up Crashcon? I think? But there was so much other stuff gong on it’s hard to tell.

Carina – if you happen to come stumbling into the tags for reactions – you’ve already acknowledged that you struggle to edit your scripts down for length. And it does show in the finished product. But you also struggle to edit your ideas down to fit into the episode count you have. There were too many extraneous plot threads this season, too many guest characters, and the ideas you had were shoddily and sloppily executed.

There were shining moments scattered here and there and the occasional good episode, but for the most part this season lurched from badly paced episode to badly paced episode. Stuff was crammed into each episode and yet somehow the plot also treaded water until 2x11 when it all kicked off – and this was because so much of what happened in the earlier episodes didn’t feed into the main plot. Even Max’s death, the overarching motivation for many characters at the beginning, was shoved to the side for other ideas.

And the payoffs for each of these storylines was too often underwhelming. Max can’t come back because he’ll be full of dark energy and a destructive force! Resolved in 30 seconds by him blowing up a pile of stuff. Max can’t remember Liz! Fixed in the same episode. That pattern continued with the finale feeling like it was trying to wrap up all these storylines without really having a story of its own. The various cliffhangers from Crashcon were tied up before the title card and then let’s spend the next 40 minutes treading water again.

There were good moments in the finale. Max and Isobel’s discussion, the Maneforrest kiss, Rosa and Helena’s reunion. But as for the rest? Hear me whine:

- Jesse’s death was anticlimactic. His line about “no more Manes men” makes no sense given as far as he knew Flint (and maybe Clay?) is still alive. His death should have been poetic because one of his son’s killed him but it didn’t hold the weight it should have, possibly because it came so early in the episode.

- It would have been far better if Jesse had discovered that Harlan killed Tripp and buried him beneath the shed. How awful would it have been for his entire worldview to be shaken by that revelation? How perfect would it have been if he discovered that Tripp loved Nora? If he died after learning all of that, becoming desperate and sloppy in whatever scheme he was trying to pull off (self-immolation via the bomb?), it would have been a fitting ending.

- So many characters this season were badly served. Alex, Michael, and to a lesser extent Max, had real arcs and progression. Alex especially you can see them setting up his growth for a payoff in the finale.

- Kyle was shafted, shoved to the side for the Steph storyline that didn’t feel like it was going anywhere, and I suspect we got a lot of that cut away to make room for other stories.

- Rosa’s story started off strong and then mostly got tied into rehab or helping Isobel. Them having her out and about in public in Roswell is complete nonsense.

- Max had a line for Isobel about her becoming her “entire self” this season, and that rang false to me. We’ve only seen Isobel develop her powers. Her personality has shifted each episode, fractured and inconsistent, dependant on what the writers needed her to do. She didn’t get much of a storyline of her own – the abortion was redundant, serving as a political soapbox for Carina rather than anything that served the character – and while she’s found out more about her heritage, that’s never been as important as Michael or Max finding out about theirs. She said she wanted to become more like her mother and that never went anywhere.

- I was so hopeful that Carina had listened and understood the criticisms with Maria’s handling in S1 and worked to improve it. She certainly gave her increased screentime. Except, so much of that screentime was tied into Michael, and latterly Isobel. She lacked interactions with Liz or Rosa. She was in two whole scenes in the finale and after she broke up with Michael, she disappeared from the story, and if that doesn’t say it all…

- And that break-up was contrived bullshit. I’m not saying this as a shipper. It felt like they’d planned to have them break-up in the finale and wrote it even though the motivations hadn’t been properly established. Seeds were sown but they were communicating well as a couple and resolving their issues as they went along. Suddenly those issues got un-resolved and were enough to break them up.

- The most galling part is that so much of what follows comes from Tripp’s diary, and Maria is excluded. This is her story too! Louise was her great-grandmother! Rather than sitting around her in the hospital room reading this stuff, they do it in the Crashdown.

- Which fits the pattern of what’s happened all season. Maria found out she was part alien and it was about her powers, rather than her legacy, rather than what happened to her great-grandparents.

- And it became clear that it was done so they could do the Nora/Tripp and Malex parallel.

- Which completely solidifies for me where Carina’s priorities lie. She’s been clear that Malex is her favourite ship on the show and Michael is her favourite character. But this season has shown that she’s incapable of ensuring her favouritism doesn’t screw over other characters.

- The sad thing is this really does show up in marketing. Carina always pushes and praises Vlamis and barely ever mentions Jeanine on her SM. Media outlets write about Malex as the centre of the show and they aren’t supposed to be. We have a sci-fi show with a Latina leading lady and nobody cares – not the showrunner, not the media (outside of Latinx-centric publications), not the fandom. I’m not Latina and it frustrates me so I can’t imagine how actual Latinx people feel about that.

- Maria was dragged into a love triangle that Carina never had any intention of doing justice to. Maria and Michael were always only ever meant to be a pit-stop on the way to a big Malex reunion. Sadly it’s clear the same goes for Maneforrest. Why write something if you’re only going to do it half-arsed? And it clearly was. That’s why the Maria and Michael break-up was so perfunctory and illogical.

- While I’m on the subject of Maria – last season Mimi was clearly deteriorating and didn’t recognise adult Maria anyway. Now that seems to have shifted to Mimi’s mind moving through time. It’s still unclear if this is the alien DNA or what was done to Patricia Deluca in Caulfield. I don’t understand why they introduced both elements – apart from being able to give Maria a line about unethical science which OH BOY what a contrast with Liz.

- Speaking of Liz.

- Wow.

- If the central storyline was the kidnappings and Crashcon shenanigans, she really had no involvement with that all season apart from the very end. All the investigation went to other characters. Her mother was involved, but not Liz.

- Let me repeat that.

- Our lead character was not involved the central storyline of the season.

- Alternatively, if you think Max learning about his history, and all of the reveals about 1948, and Maria’s heritage etc etc were supposed to be the main storyline…

- Doesn’t matter because Liz wasn’t involved in any of that either!

- Liz was a subplot in her own show after they brought Max back. Hell, she was a subplot even when she was working on that.

- The narrative focus really has centred on Michael, Alex, and later Max.

- I wonder what they have in common with each other.

- If you don’t believe me, check out the screentime figures for this season. Liz had the fourth largest amount of screentime in the finale, and she’s only had majority screentime in a handful of episodes all season (2x01, 2x07, 2x11).

- And then realise that the plot kept moving after Liz left Roswell. She’s just not part of it anymore.

- I watched the finale and kept asking myself where Liz was because she kept disappearing for whole chunks of time.

- She was in her own subplot about science for the back half of this season, and honestly, I’m going to have to write an entirely separate post about Liz and ethics in science because NOPE.

- Max was right. Liz deserved to follow her calling but she had options that didn’t involve risking the aliens.

- As such the Echo break-up was stupid but whatever, based on this season I guess it needed to happen.

- Did Max even care that Liz left? He loved her for twenty years and then when he had her, it didn’t matter anymore? What the fuck? Are we ever going to get answers as to why he fell so hard and loved her for so long, or is the “Malex is cosmic” story more important?

- Also the whole thing about the Genericorp lady not being interested in Liz based on meeting her at the Crashdown was stupid. You hire scientists based on the previous work they’ve done and their credentials. Diego’s word should have been enough to convince her, and then maybe an actual proper job interview to make sure she was a good fit. Not “let’s sneak into her secret lab to look at what she’s working on”.

- When Liz does leave, she only says goodbye to Rosa and Kyle. Arturo is mentioned but not seen. Which means the whole ICE sequence this season, which should have been a solid motivation for Liz to take the Genericorp job on its own, has been resolved without a proper payoff. All that stress – scenes that I know felt genuinely stressful to some viewers because of how close to home it hit – and we don’t even get to see Arturo seeing his “genius daughter” leave with his future secured.

- It’s plausible that Liz said goodbye to other characters – Maria, Isobel, Michael – off screen BUT SHE’S YOUR LEAD CHARACTER AND HER LEAVING TOWN SHOULD CARRY SOME EMOTIONAL WEIGHT FFS

- Compare Liz leaving and arriving at the ocean to Buffy Summers leaving Sunnydale in Becoming Part 2. There is no contest.

- It’s clear to me that the audience Carina writes this show for is herself. And that’s fine. Plenty of writers do that. But that means she’s writing a show for the women in fandom who like epic mlm romances with lots of angst. And the problem with that is that this show has a Latina lead who is not being done justice.

- This is not me railing against Malex. There is space in the show for both things. This is me expressing my frustration at a showrunner and creative team who are not taking care with all characters equally.

- Carina uses her platform to throw in politics and use characters as mouthpieces without considering their impact. She thinks she’s educating the straight white people in the audience without thinking about how scenes of ICE intimidation, homophobic violence, and racism will affect the people who are impacted by those things in real life.

- Am I done with the show? Probably not. I’ve got fics I want to write and while I’m not hubristic enough to think I can write better than a team of professional writers, I’m going to at least try and do some of these neglected elements of the show justice.

- Hubris. Remember when I thought that was going to be a theme of this season? Apparently not. There was no theme, unless “no editing, we die like men” counts..

#roswell new mexico #rnm spoilers

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saiilorstars · 4 years ago

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Rise Up

Ch.11: Black Orchid

Previous Story: It Had To Be You || Current Masterlist

Pairings: Barry Allen x OFC

Chapter Summary: Following a tip from a time travelling friend, Belén starts the endeavor to find a way into the Green: a world for all botanist metahumans. She goes in search of a potential ally from another botanist metahuman, Black Orchid, who seems like she would rather work alone.

Pronunciation of OC: Bell-en. The last syllable has an emphasis so it’s not pronounced like ‘Helen’ would be.

Taglist: @ocfairygodmother @anotherunreadblog @maaaaarveeeeel @stareyedplanet @perfectlystiles [If you’d like to be part of this OC’s taglist, let me know!]

"So...Mom knows about you?" Maritza watched her sister's uncomfortable form on the other side of the glass. Belén gave a silent nod of her head. She'd told Maritza about her mother finding out, in the worst way possible, she was the Azalea. "Gosh, Belén...she didn't take it well, did she?"

Belén shook her head. "Nope. She's moved on from the 'I'm ignoring you' phase and she's onto full fledged anger."

"I think the word 'metahuman' is just tarnished for her after everything that's happened," Maritza said, though in no way did she mean to give their mother a pass on her behavior. "I'm sorry."

"No, this one's not on you. It's on me," Belén sighed. "I thought that maybe after telling her my secret, things between us might start getting better again, but…"

"I'm sorry," Maritza felt the need to say again. After everything Belén had told her, going from their mother's challenging personality to the metahumans hunting them down...Maritza could only say 'sorry'. She wished, wished, that she could do something to help Belén but her past choices have prohibited her from. "I really wish I could help you out there."

Belén found it in her to smile. She didn't know how, or when, but coming to see Maritza had stopped being a chore and more like...a way to relieve stress. She could tell Maritza everything that was going on and not be judged. She hadn't quite forgiven Maritza for everything she did last year, but...Belén could say she was getting there.

Feeling her phone buzz inside her pocket, Belén gave it a quick check and found a text from Iris. She had to say goodbye to Maritza in order to meet back at STAR Labs.

~ 0 ~

Iris had done her job as best as she could and when she wanted to, she could almost be like a spy the way she found information on people. She had pulled up a profile of a woman dressed in a black and magenta suit with an over-sized jacket. Soon as Cisco saw the picture he let out a wolf whistle, along with questions about her specific clothing choice.

"This is why I do the suits, just saying," he raised his hands to show he was just making a statement...a true statement.

"Who are we looking at, Iris?" Belén asked, brown eyes already scanning the woman's picture till it burned in her mind.

"She calls herself Black Orchid," Iris began. She rose from her seat and zoomed in on the picture of woman. "As far as anyone knows, she's a meta with - take a guess - plant-based powers who usually appears in the lower parts of the city."

"The slummy parts?" Barry figured that would be the best place to lay low and still make a name for themselves.

"She's not known for always appearing when needed, but she's still known enough to have search engine results," Iris scrolled through some of her pictures, stopping at a familiar tab. "This is actually from my old blog. People still send me stuff and take a look at the date for this post."

Belén walked up to the screen to find the date stamp. The picture was of Black Orchid holding up one, no doubt, petty thief in her arms in front of a crowd of people. "That's last month." She turned sideways, one finger pointed behind her at the picture. "She's an active meta, then."

"It's been weeks since her last appearance but do you know what's interesting about that too? It's right around the time Datura and you fought for the first time."

"Could it be that's she's scared of Datura, then?" Caitlin's theory made sense since pretty much everyone in the room feared the siphoner.

"It also means she's keeping up with the news and thus still very much in the city," Barry crossed his arms.

"So, why exactly are we looking for this girl?" Cisco made the question he'd been dying to ask ever since Iris made them gather in the cortex.

Belén walked back to the main desk and put her arms over them, nervous for some reason. It wasn't like her friends would call her crazy for what she wanted to do, after all. "Graciela mentioned a place to me - the Green - that I could use to contact other metahumans that are like me. It's a place like the Speedforce, if you will, where I could train and...meet metas like me. Meta who could help me get better so that I can fight Datura and actually stand a chance."

"And you think Black Orchid will be that meta?" Cisco languidly pointed at the picture on the screen.

"With any luck, she's got a better handle on her powers," Belén shrugged. "And I can pretty much use any help I can get."

"It's worth a shot," Barry agreed with her. "We just have to find her and bring her in."

"Like...here?" Caitlin blinked. She hadn't made that connection until now. "Do we think that'd be a good idea? Revealing where the Azalea and the Flash work?"

"She's obviously taking on crime already," Iris gestured to the pictures she'd collected. "She could be a good addition to the team."

"Black Orchid was a villain on my Earth before she disappeared," Harry startled the group from behind. He'd come in as quiet as usual and strode down the room with purpose. He came to a stop in front of the pictures on the screen and gazed at them for a few seconds. "You should be careful. She's as toxic as you, Belén."

"But she's not a villain here, clearly," Belén said. "And I actually need her to be toxic, okay?"

Harry turned sideways, giving them all a look that said 'you're all idiots and are going to get killed'. "Bringing in more metahumans into this is only going to blow up in your face. You want to take Datura down? You kill her already."

"Easier said than done," Belén folded her arms. "And I'm not exactly looking to kill her."

"She is with you."

"Okay," Barry cut in before Harry's imprudence got worse. "Thank you, Harry, for your input but this is something Belén wants to do. I support her and so does everyone else."

Harry scoffed lightly. "Course you do. Cos you're all idiots."

"Do you have a better idea?" Cisco called from behind. "No?" he let a few more seconds of silence pass by before saying, "Then hush!"

"Thanks guys," Belén sent her friends a warm smile. "And thanks Iris for searching. My head's been all over the place, so…"

Iris nodded at her. "Any time. I can keep looking if you want."

"I say we focus on Black Orchid right now," Belén glanced at the screen. "We need to find her, so...yeah. Let's focus on where she appears most."

As the group made plans to continue searching for Black Orchid, eventually dispersing from the room, Harry inched closer to the super suits left on display. He looked over his shoulder to make sure he was alone in the room then yanked off Belén's suit tracker. He then gingerly planted a decoy in its place. For Jessie.

~ 0 ~

Datura swiftly caught Belén's suit tracker with both her hands and squealed with genuine delight. "Finally!" She held the small device between her fingers and clicked her tongue. "Now the game can finally start!"

Harry stood across her in the alley, his face blank of any expression. "My daughter is safe, right?"

Datura lowered her hand and offered one sneaky smile. "Sure. I do remember to feed her once in a while." She waited for his reaction but he stood frigid. "Don't like my joke? Fine. So-" she tucked the suit tracker into her pocket, "-what's my dear Belén up to now?"

Harry stayed quiet for a few minutes. He hated this so much. A snitch. That's what he was reduced to by some 25 year old in a leather suit. Not just that but a thief and a traitor.

"Wells?" Datura's voice darkened, as did the part of her face Harry could see with her mask. "I need to know what Belén is up to. I might just forget to give Jesse some dinner today."

The mention of his daughter made the man finally move from his stance. "She's looking for the metahuman, Black Orchid."

Datura snorted. "Killed her off a while ago," she mumbled. Her dark eyes met his surprised gaze and caused another sneaky smile to spread across her face. "What? You didn't know that one? Offed her months ago."

"Why?" Harry asked wearily. He would love to finally know what she was planning, what Zoom was planning...but learning that would mean he'd die seconds later.

"She was in my way and I thought she would be the one," Datura's cryptic answer was almost like she hadn't answered at all. All Harry got from that was it just another fight between criminals. "Anyways," she played with one of her long curls, "Let Belén find the doppelganger. No matter how hard she trains she'll never be better than me. It's just impossible." She turned to leave but stopped to give Harry one more warning, "By the way, Zoom might be requiring something from you soon."

At that, Harry gulped.

~ 0 ~

"I think we got a pretty good location, don't you think?" Iris glanced back at Belén to see the woman staring down at the kitchen table that held all of their information on Black Orchid.

They were in Belén's apartment, scouring through every last detail they could find of their meta. Together, they'd found more pictures of Black Orchid, some even when she was in the middle of some pretty gruesome fights.

"She's pretty much all over the slummy streets but, if I counted right, she's appeared at this intersection more than the others," Belén picked up a picture of an intersection that happened to hold a pretty cruddy-looking bar. "I bet you that bar is where we'll find out more about her."

"You want to go there?" Iris made a face at the picture. It was only a picture and it already scared her.

"It's okay, I can go by myself," Belén's reassurance didn't exactly help Iris because she didn't want Belén going there by herself either.

But someone knocked on the door, preventing Iris from voicing these opinions out loud. Belén let the picture back on the table and went to go open the door.

"Mom?" she blinked in surprise to see Veronica. Of course, when the surprise faded she was pretty relieved - and perhaps partly excited - to see her. "Come in!"

Veronica, in her part, still looked pretty unsure of herself. She walked in and gave a brief, small smile at Iris. "You're busy…"

"Yeah, but, don't worry. You wanted to talk?" Belén's excitement did not go unnoticed by Veronica.

With a sigh, Veronica shrugged. "I would like to, but...I don't know if it'll change things." She walked towards the kitchen and noticed all the papers sprawled across the table. "Were you two working?"

Iris didn't know what to respond with. She looked to Belén for some help, or clues, as to what to say. Would Belén want to disclose what they were actually doing or keep it away from Veronica?

"Yeah, we're looking for someone," Belén came to stand beside her mother, looking pretty unsure herself.

"A meta?" the distaste in Veronica's tone was clear for anyone to pick up on. She picked up a photograph of Black Orchid and frowned. "So you're really deep into this metahuman world."

"I have to be, Mom. I'm one of them," Belén said quietly and with eyes boring onto her mother's face for a reaction.

"Don't…" Veronica seemed to shiver at the reminder of Belén's metahuman side. "I wish you wouldn't say that so openly."

"Why not? It's the truth."

"Yes, but…" Veronica stopped and glanced at Iris. Just as the reporter was about to announce her departure, Veronica caught her off guard with a question. "How do you let her do this? How can you just let Belén go into this dangerous world and be okay with it?"

"Mom!" Belén exclaimed disapprovingly, but Iris was good with quick responses thanks to her line of work.

"Because it's her choice and, to be honest, she's a perfect fit for the job," Iris crossed her arms. "She and Barry are the perfect people to protect us. And people like us-" she pointed at herself then Veronica, "-have a duty to help them wherever we can. That includes being supportive."

Veronica's face was indescribable. On some part, she seemed impressed with the response...but then another part was angry Iris wasn't taking her side. "Well...you would say that," she said in the end in a low mumble, "Barry's your brother...does Joe know about this?" Iris didn't have to say or do anything for Veronica to know. "Course he does because he's your father."

"Mom, I thought we were going to talk…" Belén inwardly sighed. She should've known that Veronica would not get over this so quickly. At least there was no shouting this time.

"Belén, I just don't understand why you are so fixated on this...this world!"

"Because it's my world, mom. And I can't abandon it when there's so many people that could get hurt if I do."

Veronica shook her head. "I-I think we need to continue this another day because…"

Belén didn't want to keep pausing this argument because every time they did, it just dragged on the feelings more. But she also feared that if they kept going in one go, they really would just end up shouting at each other like the other times. At least this case seemed to be so grave for Veronica that she wasn't shouting. She was thinking. She may be thinking the wrong things but at least she was thinking…

"I'm here...whenever you want to pick up on things…" she said quietly.

Iris sympathized for her friend while Veronica walked out. "Bells, I'm so sorry."

"No," Belén sniffed and turned back for the table, eyes flickering from one picture to the other. "I need to focus on this."

"Yeah, but-"

"-Iris, I have to focus on this first. Maybe my mom just needs some more days to process this." Belén wanted to believe this so badly.

~ 0 ~

The pictures of Central City's slum parts did no justice to its reality. There was a lot more graffiti on the walls, a lot more trash on the streets. A lot of people were ruder and definitely looking for something to pick-pocket. Belén kept her arms crossed over her chest as she walked down the street. She found the bar from the picture she and Iris were looking at and went directly inside.

There was a foul odor at the entrance that she wished she could forget.

"Take a seat with me sweetheart," she heard a man say as she walked in.

"Screw off," she spat without sparing him a glance. She came up to the bar counter, which was pretty empty save for two more customers at the end. She pulled her phone out and left it on the counter in front of her, just in case she needed to snap pictures or look at one of the ones she already have.

A tall Asian woman with long, dark hair came by a couple minutes later. "What can I get you?"

"Um…" Belén wasn't that big of a drinker, and much less during the day so she just asked for a mimosa. While she waited, she began to look around the bar with more searching eyes. She didn't see anyone that would necessarily stand out. Everyone seemed to be doing their own things, whether it was legal or not.

"Here you go," the bar tender returned with the bright orange drink in her hand. As she put the glass down, her eyes lingered on Belén for a few seconds. "You looking for someone?" her tough voice startled Belén. When the woman nearly fell off her stool, the bartender smiled. "You're not from around here."

"That easy to tell?" Belén bit her lower lip.

"Yeah. Don't walk alone in these parts."

"Is it really that bad here?"

The bartender nodded her head. She popped a bubble from her bubble gum and smirked. "Not if you know how to take care of yourself."

Belén saw some odd marks on the side of the woman's neck. She was sure there were some stitches poking up from her blouse. "Are you okay?" she pointed at the injuries, startling the bartender for a moment.

"Yeah. Just got into it with someone, no big deal." The bartender seemed to shift from friendly to brief. "My name's Shivhan if you want to leave a tip," she said before walking away.

Belén picked up her mimosa and had a couple sips from it. As she was putting it down, she heard a familiar voice behind her that nearly made her spill the glass.

"You are beautiful but crazy," Barry stood behind her and not too pleased.

Belén turned her stool sideways so she could see him. "Hey, what are you doing here?"

"Iris told me you were coming here! Belén!" he whisper-hissed as he sat down next to her. "This is a shady place to be at on your own, Bells. How could you come here alone?"

"Um, because I'm a big girl who can take care of herself?"

Barry deadpanned her. That's not what he meant and she knew it. "It never hurts to have backup. Besides, do you even know what you'd say to Black Orchid if you found her?"

"No, but...I'm a reporter. I'd wing it," Belén picked up her mimosa again and smiled.

Barry shook his head at her. "Alright, so what do have? Any clues?"

"Not really. I was just kind of scoping the area out," Belén shrugged and briefly looked back at the room. "But there's barely any people here and those who are, are definitely not Black Orchid."

Barry could agree with that since almost every customer in the building were men. "Maybe we should try later."

"I'm hoping something will happen that would make Black Orchid appear."

"Bit cynical," remarked Barry.

"Desperate." Belén sighed and forgot about her glass as she turned her stool to face the room. "I don't know, maybe we could speed things up or something."

"Like how?"

"Well...Black Orchid seems to appear whenever there's trouble, so…"

Barry was giving her a strange look. "You want us to stage a fight?"

"Something like that."

"I don't know about that Belén...I think we need to come up with a good plan and then-"

Belén was about to cut him off with the fact they didn't - or rather she didn't - have time to sit down and plan, when they heard a loud crash from outside. At once Belén jumped off her stool and tried to peer out into the street from her spot.

"Fight! Fight!" a crowd sitting near the door started to chant, prompting some delirious laughter from the room. It was only a matter of seconds before they rushed out into the streets.

"Creeps," Shivhan, the bartender, spat while she continued to wipe down the counter.

Barry got up as well and sprinted up to the window to see what was going on. Belén soon followed and saw with him that there were a couple of masked thieves making out of a shop with some valuables. Two of them had guns.

"We gotta do something," Barry rushed out the door but just as he was about to leave the sidewalk, Belén yanked him to her side.

"This is our chance!"

"Belén, someone could get hurt!"

"They won't because you'll intervene if she's not here in 1 minute," Belén promised then faced the street.

The thieves were trying to make an escape but there were being confronted with another group intending on taking the stolen valuables. Just as they were about to fire, something purple swooped down and punched the two gunmen from the first thief band.

"I told you…" Belén sounded breathless as she gazed at none other than Black Orchid. Barry had to hand it to her and her precise thinking.

Black Orchid was a feared presence by most of the people outside, judging how they stepped back. From what they could see, the meta had long, dark hair and dark eyes hidden behind a black mask that covered half her face. She wore a one-suit in the colors of black and violet. It was the same one Iris had shown them earlier.

Black tendrils sprouted from the woman's back and captured three of the men. She threw them halfway down the street without regards of where they hit or how hard they hit. She then ducked to avoid being hit by one of the men behind her. She jumped back up and kicked a leg up to knock the man down. As bullets fired towards her, she used her vines to create a shield where the bullets embedded themselves. Once she disbanded the shield, she sent the bullets right back and injured two more men. The last two remaining were from each of band and they both looked equally terrified.

"Drop it and go," she ordered in a rough voice.

The two instantly dropped their stolen things and made a run for it. Black Orchid raised three fingers and when she'd pulled them down, her arm did a boomerang action and released two different black masses that attached themselves to the men.

"Barry, we gotta get her alone," Belén spoke quietly to the speedster next to her.

"But how?" Barry looked around and saw that while the thieves had been taken down - killed, really - the crowd around them was still watching Black Orchid like hawks.

"I brought something with me," Belén admitted. Barry looked down at her and saw her reaching into her purse. She showed him the tip of a syringe. His eyes widened at it but before he could say something she said, "It's a sedative."

"Belén, we can't really do-"

"-I need her, Barry," she told him like this was already decided with or without him. "Datura is going to kill me if I don't up my game. Black Orchid can help me do that."

There was some questionable tactics Barry saw Black Orchid far too comfortable with, but he knew that he could stand there and argue with Belén without making a difference. "Fine." He took the syringe from her and disappeared. A minute later, so did Black Orchid.

When Belén felt a set of arms pull her as well, she smiled. She found herself in an alley where Black Orchid was already down with sedation. "Thank you," she said to the speedster.

Barry gazed down at the unconscious metahuman. "I don't think she'll be thanking us for this."

~0~

Team STAR Labs was never one for kidnapping. So when Barry and Belén brought in a guest, kidnapped and unconscious, they had much to say over the matter.

"This is not legal," Caitlin was the first to say, or scold, at the two metas. Barry and Belén stood in the middle of the cortex, listening to everyone having their go at them. "You kidnapped someone!"

"Well, if I asked she wouldn't have come," Belén argued. "You guys didn't see her out there. She's tough."

"And you think you need to be the same?" Cisco's doubtful stare made her roll her eyes.

"I need to change something and she can help me figure out what."

"Least she's taking initiative," Harry inputted his own opinion, surprising Belén that he was actually siding with her since he originally didn't agree with the plan of finding Black Orchid. "You can't always be soft. Especially when someone's trying to kill you."

"Uh, thanks Harry," she offered the man a small smile before looking at Caitlin and Cisco. "I'm not hurting her. I just needed to get her here so I could talk to her."

"And if she doesn't want to help?" asked Cisco.

"Let's hope she does."

"Well…" Caitlin has looked up from a computer, "... now's your chance. She just woke up."

~0~

Black Orchid was a woman who could be scary. Her balled fists repeatedly pounded against the pipeline pod. "LET ME OUT!" She screamed and screamed the same thing.

Cisco honestly thought the pod wouldn't last if this kept going.

Black Orchid only stopped when she saw someone coming into the pipeline. She straightened up and raised her head to judge if this person was going to help or not. "Who are you?" She didn't have to wait for a verbal answer since she saw clear as day who was on the other side. "The Azalea? Hm. That's a shocker. Would you let me go? I didn't do nothing wrong."

"You did kill people…" Belén reminded, though not as a way to punish her.

"They're thugs! It's kill or be killed!"

"Look, I'm not here to talk about who you killed or how many you killed. I need your help."

Black Orchid dropped her arms to her sides. Her chin raised again and though she had a mask on, Belén swore she was being judged. "Why would the Azalea need my help?"

"Because Datura is a dangerous metahuman that I cannot stop if you don't teach me how to get into the Green."

Black Orchid lowered her head. "Excuse me? The Green? You know about that?" Belén nodded her head. "But you don't know how to get in?"

"Have you ever seen me in there?" Belén made a good point.

Black Orchid crossed her arms and looked around the pod she was trapped in. "And you thought the best way to get me to help you was to lock me up?"

"Not my best idea but I really needed to have a minute with you."

"Here's the thing, I don't trust you. And, let's be honest, you don't trust me." Black Orchid inched closer to the glass wall. "I'm not training anyone. In this world, it's all about yourself. I need to look out for myself."

"Well, that's a pretty way of looking at life," Belén remarked. "But look, I really need your help. Datura is coming back-"

"-then you fight her off. She's your fight, not mine. Why do you think I've hidden for a month now? I'm not looking to get killed."

"But if you don't help me a lot of people are going to die!"

"Better them than me," Black Orchid said so plainly, so flatly, that Belén's mouth almost fell to the floor.

"How could you...how could you say that?"

"Because it's the truth. Self preservation."

Belén was flabbergasted to hear such a thing.

~0~

"I cannot believe she said that!" Belén stormed into the cortex, looking ready to kill someone herself. "How rude! How...selfish!"

"Sorry it didn't work out, Bells," Cisco meant as a true apology but she scoffed at him.

"Are you, though? You weren't even on board with the idea in the first place!"

Cisco made a face but, knowing she was just upset, he kept his mouth shut. He, did, however, give a look at Barry and Caitlin. Someone else needed to step in.

"Belén, maybe we just need to give her some time," Barry's suggestion was also responded with a scoff.

"I don't have time!" She groaned and turned to leave.

"Where are you going?" Caitlin called after her.

"Out! Don't follow!"

"She's m-a-d mad," Cisco whistled then quickly looked back to see if Belén had heard.

"She's upset, and with good reason," Barry rubbed his forehead. "Let's just keep an eye on her. She took the suit so-"

"-she's really mad," Cisco blurted and received a disapproving look from Caitlin. Barry just sighed.

"She turned off the tracker in her suit," Caitlin informed a few minutes later.

"Not surprising," Barry mumbled and moved over to see the screen himself. "She couldn't have gotten far. I'll go get her. See if I can talk to her."

He zipped out of the cortex with his suit, intending on finding Belén and bringing her back. However, it turned out Belén was very good at hiding. It'd been at least an hour of him scouring through the city before he gave up and asked for some additional help. Caitlin and Cisco were monitoring as usual, but, like Barry, they didn't have a clue where Belén went. It was like she disappeared.

"I've gone through all the places she usually goes to, I'm starting to get worried," Barry admitted. He stood at the top of a rooftop overlooking the busy streets of the city. It was fine that Belén wanted to have some time alone but two hours of no contact felt wrong.

"Uh, we got something, Barry!" Cisco exclaimed.

"Did you find her?" Barry quickly asked, ready to go as soon as they gave him a place.

"Yeah, um…looks like some warehouse off on Third and Carson street."

"That's weird," remarked Caitlin. "That whole block is for warehouses. What could Belén be doing there?"

"Don't know but we're going to find out," Barry said before speeding down the building he was on. He followed the instructions from the two and didn't bother coming in cautiously. He skidded to a stop and looked around the empty warehouse. "Belén?" he called out and received no answer. "Belén!"

"What's going on, Barry?" Cisco asked after the third failed call for Belén.

"She's not here," Barry ripped the cowl off his head and started walking down the left. There was something making a light noise coming from that direction. "But I...I don't think this warehouse is empty…"

"Belén's tracker says she's there, dude," Cisco insisted, though he was going through the tracker's ping just to make sure.

"Well, I don't see her," Barry kept walking forwards, now spotting something silvery round the corner. "Belén?"

"Barry, be careful," Caitlin warned. She was beginning to think there was something wrong with this entire situation. As if the world was reading her mind, she got a different type of alert on her computer screen.

Barry reeled back when a redhead swung from the side. "Hi there pretty boy," Poison Ivy showed off a smug smirk before firing at the speedster with a high-tech gun.

"Barry!" Cisco shouted as the computer stopped getting readings from Barry's vitals, his entire suit's actually. "Everything's gone offline." Cisco leaned back against his chair and heaved a heavy breath.

"Caitlin!" they both heard Belén's voice shriek from the other end of the line.

The two in the cortex did a quick double-take at each other before calling out their friend's name.

"Where are you!?" Caitlin demanded while she worked to figure out how the meta alert was coming from one part while Belén's tracker was pinging from another.

"Downtown! And I'm -" Belén shrieked again.

As it turned out, she was nowhere near close Barry's location. She didn't know how it happened, to be honest. She'd been sulking on her own for a while when she started to see some familiar red energy from a distance. Trained or not, she was not planning on giving Datura a pass. She chased after the energy until it led her downtown…

Datura had sucker-punched her from behind. She seemed to be on a different plan because even though she had a clear, open path to hurt Belén again, she walked past the woman on the ground and moved towards a street pole. Her eyes glowed an orange before shooting lasers at the street pole.

As Belén turned on her stomach, she saw the bottom of the street pole begin to steam as the acid from the lasers melted it away.

"Better, run, run, run!" Datura sing-sang to the people around when the street pole started creaking and leaning on its side.

"Oh, dammit," Belén muttered and scrambled to her feet. She started throwing vines to pull away the people in danger of getting squashed.

Datura boredly rolled her eyes as if saving people was a waste of time, and to her it was. When Belén pulled the last person out of the way, Datura rubbed her hands together and created a sword from her red energy.

"Uh oh," Belén had the good sense to back away. "Caitlin!" she started to call but for some reason, no one answered her. "Caitlin!"

"Where are you!?" Caitlin demanded so suddenly that, if Belén had been more focused, she would've picked up on the fact something was wrong.

"Downtown! And I'm -" Belén shrieked and ducked when Datura threw her sword at her. "It's Datura! She's back!"

"And ready to win," Datura said with a proud smile. Her eyes glowed silver, as did her hands. She radiated in Lunar energy, something Belén hadn't quite seen before and was therefore a little scared. "The power of Eclipsa-" Datura's smile widened, but Belén once again noticed there was a different voice speaking with Datura's, -is mine. Here's a little taste of what I can do!" She drew her hands back and started firing consecutively with lunar bolts.

Belén whipped her hands in front of her and tried doing what she saw Black Orchid doing earlier. She created a makeshift shield in front of her but Datura was going nonstop. "Caitlin, I really need Barry right now!"

"I - we thought he was with you!" Cisco exclaimed. "We lost contact with him!"

That made Belén automatically drop her shield in shock. "What!?" A series of lunar bolts hit her square in the chest, knocking her back on the ground. She shook her head in an attempt to rid her ears of the warped sounds. "Caitlin...where's...Barry?"

"We're working on it!"

"Oooh, are you looking for your partner?" Datura started walking towards Belén who was sitting up. "Yay-high?" She made a gesture of Barry's height over her head, "Red suit? Admittedly good looking?" Belén openly glared at her, making the woman laugh. "Don't be jealous. But, I do know where your Flash is."

Belén paused and gave Datura a look. "What?" She quickly got up and, to Datura's surprise, she swung a vine to throw the Earth 2 meta into a bus stop bench. "If you hurt him-"

Datura raised a hand and delivered a shock of electricity Belén's way. The brunette screamed as her body convulsed with the electric shocks.

Datura slowly got up and felt something over her lip. She took a drip of blood off her skin and scowled at herself. "Great." She walked towards Belén, admittedly feeling wobbly on her feet. "Listen up Azalea, here's the deal. I've got your Flash all nice and unconscious thanks to a speed gun I swept from Earth 2-" she bent down in front of Belén, smirking at the weariness in the woman's face from being attacked, "-and if you want to see him again...you're gonna have to drop this. Poison Ivy doesn't do patience."

Belén blinked rapidly from the electricity still lingering in her body. "I...want to...see him."

Datura smirked. "Thought you would." She raised a hand, making it seem like she was going to wave goodbye when instead she fired one last energy beam to knock Belén out.

~ 0 ~

In the cortex gathered at the cortex after realizing their two leading metas had been taken right under their noses.

"It was a trap," Cisco said quietly, and defeatedly, at his chair. He had his hands put together to the bridge of his nose. "It was a trap and we didn't see it."

"But it doesn't make sense how Datura got Belén's suit tracker in the first place," Caitlin hated the fact she couldn't figure that mystery out. "We didn't even realize it was gone."

From the corner of the cortex stood Harry, still and silent. His jaw was clenched with guilt but he still could not say anything.

"We know where they are," Iris reminded them. She looked at the screen on the wall, displaying the last known whereabouts of Barry. "Let's just go get them."

"First of all, we don't even know if they're still going to be there," Cisco pointed out, dropping his hand to his lap. "Second of all, even if they are still there...what the hell are we supposed to do?" he made a quick gesture at their members. "They'd kill us."

Caitlin set a hand on Cisco's shoulder and gave a smile at the rest. "I think what Cisco's trying to say is that we do not have the...meta-skills to take on Datura and Poison Ivy at the same time."

"Well, we have to do something," Iris walked up to the desk and set her arms over the top. "Can we call in Nina?"

"Even then, taking on these two metas…" Caitlin gave a shake of her head. "She'll need back up."

"Where do we get that from?" Iris looked at the trio expectantly.

Cisco looked up at Caitlin, both apparently thinking of the same thing.

"Wait here," he pushed himself up from his chair. He exchanged a nod with Caitlin before the two walked out of the cortex.

~ 0 ~

After hours of screaming to be released, Black Orchid resigned herself to the fact she may never be getting out of the pipeline. She picked herself up as soon as she heard the pipeline door opening.

"Who the hell are you?" she demanded when she was face to face with Caitlin and Cisco.

"Manners," Cisco pointed at her. "We have a proposition for you."

"And why the hell would I care?"

"Because it involves your freedom, smartass," Cisco snapped. Caitlin inwardly sighed. This would definitely infuriate Belén but right now what mattered was bringing her and Barry back.

Black Orchid leaned on her hip. "I'm listening."

"The Azalea and the Flash have been kidnapped by Datura. We need you to help our friend, the Tempest, get them back."

Black Orchid unceremoniously snorted. "You want me to go up against the siphoner this entire city is talking about? She's the reason I stopped showing my face."

"What do you mean?" Caitlin's eyebrows knitted together.

Black Orchid didn't like the fact she'd unintentionally admitted that. "It's clear that this Datura wants to kill anyone in her path. I've seen what she's done to the Azalea. Imagine what she'd do if she found another botanist metahuman? No way!"

Cisco wasn't in a particular mood to remind the woman she was a human being. So, like Belén, he did first and would apologize later. "Fine, then I guess you'll stay here forever. Or at least until you die."

"You wouldn't let me die," scoffed the meta.

"Have you seen any other prisoners here?" Cisco's question made the metahuman pause. "Yeah. What do you think happened to the others in here?"

"You can't do that!"

"Then please help us," Caitlin pleaded. "C'mon. You're afraid and we get that, but if you don't do anything then Datura will kill the Azalea. And, if there's no one left to fight Datura...you're not going to be safe anywhere."

"If I go up against her I'll die right there and then," Black Orchid countered with.

"You said you were hiding from Datura so you didn't show your face," Caitlin reminded. "But the Azalea said you showed your face today after a store got robbed. That doesn't sound like self preservation to me."

"...that was my favorite store," Black Orchid rolled her eyes, attempting to make it all casual.

"Cut the crap, girl!" Cisco exclaimed. "Your freedom's on the table and you're gonna seriously waste it?"

"We can help you," Caitlin added. "We can make sure you're well prepared. We could even help you heal from your past fights." Black Orchid visibly stiffened. "The Azalea told us about some of the stitches she saw on you. And like my friend said, your freedom is on the table."

Black Orchid's dark eyes flickered from one scientist to the next. She knew what her position was and how far she could actually get. It wasn't good. "Fine," she huffed and reached a hand to the back of her head where her mask's tie was. "But I need some stitches to be re-done. So, who's the medical doctor here?" she tore the mask off to reveal a familiar face, though not familiar to Caitlin or Cisco.

Bartender Shivhan Jang stared at the scientists.

Author's Note:

So, first of all, this is a disclaimer for the fact that while I am writing in the character of Black Orchid, I am doing a different VERSION of the character. Black Orchid belongs to the DC world.

Now, the reason I decided to write this character in was because I felt it genuinely wrong she was written and barely got recognition. I never heard of Black Orchid until I started doing research on botanical metahumans for this precise arc. It amazed me she was such a complex character that I just had to write my version of hers.

And a visual reference of Black Orchid, aka Shivhan, would be the Korean singer Sunmi.

#ocappreciation #arrowverseocs #fd: the flash #the flash #barry allen #barry allen imagines #barry allen fics #the flash fics #the flash imagines #oc: Belén Palayta #oc: the azalea #fic: rise up

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longitudinalwaveme · 4 years ago

Text

Smoke and Mirrors

Dramatis Personae

Wally West, the energetic, enthusiastic, and confident third Flash

Iris Allen, the wife of Barry Allen and a daredevil reporter

Mirror Master, alias Sam Scudder, a talented inventor and the de facto second-in-command of the Rogues

The Top, alias Roscoe Dillon, an arrogant elitist who is suffering from a mysterious disease

Weather Wizard, alias Mark Mardon, a rather dimwitted thief with an obscenely powerful weapon, the weather wand

The Trickster, alias James Jesse, a charming con man with no fashion sense

Script

Act I

(Enter Wally West and Iris Allen, who has just arrived to the Flash Airport of Central City)

Wally: Hi, Aunt Iris! How have you been? It’s so nice to have you back!

Iris: Hi, Wally. It’s good to be back. How’s your Uncle Barry been?

Wally: He’s been great. Really slow since he lost his super speed, of course, but otherwise, he’s fine. He even took down the Trickster all by himself!

Iris: I heard. It made a great story. (Pause) How have he and Bart been doing since I went on my trip?

Wally: Bart’s still really impulsive, and he scared Uncle Barry half to death when he ran to New York City and watched an off-off-Broadway show without telling anyone, but overall he’s been doing great. Uncle Barry enrolled him in sixth grade and he’s become friends with this girl named Carol and this boy named Preston, and he’s finally kind of adjusting to life outside the speed force. He’s still not crazy about Irey and Jai, though-he thinks they’re annoying tagalongs. Oh, and he discovered anchovy pizza for the first time, and, for some reason, he loves it! He’s eaten 45 slices in the past two days, and Uncle Barry says that he thinks he’ll single-handedly keep the neighborhood pizza place in business. (Pause) How was your trip?

Iris: I loved it! There’s nothing quite like the thrill of investigating the government of Kandaq.

Wally: But isn’t Kandaq led by Black Adam?

Iris: Yes. That’s why it was so much fun to investigate what he’s been up to! Before I did some snooping around, no one knew what he was doing because everyone was too scared to check, so I was able to write the biggest exposé of my career and take down a supervillain at the same time. It was awesome! I even got to interview Captain Marvel after he rescued me from Black Adam.

Wally: No wonder you won a Pulitzer. (Pause) So, besides risking your life, did you do anything else in Kandaq? I’ve heard it has delicious food.

Iris: (Laughs) Of course you would focus on the food.

Wally: Well, is it as good as Dick told me?

Iris: Actually, yes. The spices in particular are delicious-and unique to the country, too!

Wally: I’ll be right back. (Wally exits, then rapidly re-enters) That was delicious!

Iris: That’s my Wally. (Pause) And to finish answering your question, besides eating and investigating, I did a lot of sightseeing and even more souvenir-buying.

Wally: Sounds fun!

Iris: It was. (Pause) And in speaking of souvenirs….. (Pulls t-shirt out of bag) This is for you.

Wally: (takes shirt, reads) “I stood in the presence of the all-powerful Black Adam and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.” (Laughs) Thanks, Aunt Iris! I love it!

Iris: I thought you might. I also got a doll of Isis for Irey, a book on Kandaq’s history for Jai, a longer book on the same subject for your Uncle Barry, a necklace for Linda, a fan for Joan, a scrapbook for Jay, and Captain Marvel’s signature and promise to visit our house for Bart.

Wally: Sweet! (Pause) Do you have all your bags?

Iris: Yes, I do.

Wally: Then let’s get you home! (Pause, then in “official” voice) The West Delivery Service will get you there in three seconds, or your money back!

Iris: (Laughs) Definitely my Wally.

(Both Exit)

Act II

(Top is onstage, sitting at table and talking on the phone)

Top: (on the phone) Greetings, my darling. How are you? (Pause) Excellent. I’m glad to hear it. How fares the mission? (Pause) What sort of complications? You know as well as I do that I haven’t much time. If you do not find a cure soon, my powers will quite literally be the death of me. We do not have time for failure! (Pause) I’m sorry, honeybunch. I did not mean to snap at you. I am simply anxious. Even I cannot come out on top in a battle with the grave. (Pause) Of course I trust you, sweetums. Remember though, my darling, if my calculations are correct, I only have a month left. We must get the cure! (Pause) Well that, at least, is good news. If Allen likes you, it will not be long before he is willing to trust you enough to help you find the cure. (Pause) I love you, dearest. Farewell. (Puts phone away and puts on earmuffs) And now to enjoy my meal in peace.

(Enter Trickster, Mirror Master, and Weather Wizard)

Weather Wizard: So, how’d you guys find me?

Trickster: It’s simple, Wiz! We followed the reports of snowstorms in July.

Mirror Master: You aren’t exactly subtle, Mardon.

Weather Wizard: Fair enough. I guess being able to control the weather doesn’t leave much room for subtlety. (Pause) So, what do you two want?

Mirror Master: Your help. If there’s anyone who can keep the Flash away from our heists, it’s you. You’re more powerful than all of us-even me.

Weather Wizard: I know.

Trickster: And you’re modest, too.

Weather Wizard: Hey, if you could control the weather with a flick of the wrist, you’d be a little arrogant, too.

Trickster: Fair enough. (Pause) Say, last I heard, your wand was busted. How’d you get it working again?

Weather Wizard: (Defensively) None of your business. I just did, okay?

Trickster: (Suspiciously) Oh, really? Then let me see the wand.

Weather Wizard: No! You can’t touch it!

Trickster: Why not?

Weather Wizard: Because it’s mine, and you aren’t gonna touch it!

Trickster: (Grabs wand) Too late! I already have it!

Weather Wizard: Give it back! (Tries to grab wand, but fails and falls on his face)

Trickster: All right, Mr. Weather Wand. Make it rain! Bippity boppity boo! (Waves wand, nothing happens) That’s funny. I thought you said you fixed the wand, Wiz.

Weather Wizard: (Gets to his feet and grabs the wand back) Okay, so I exaggerated about being able to fix it. I’ve used the weather wand long enough that I was able to do a patch job and get it to make some snow, but it’s pretty much useless for any other form of weather. I can’t even make it whip up a decent blizzard!

Mirror Master: All you can make is snow? (Trickster notices the Top)

Weather Wizard: (Weakly) Yeah.

Mirror Master: Well, that’s just great. Here I was thinking that we had tornadoes, lighting, and hail on our side, and all we have is a glorified snow machine! (Pause) And when were you planning on mentioning the fact that you can’t make anything but snow, anyway? When the Flash showed up to take us to jail?

Weather Wizard: Well, to be honest, I hadn’t really thought out that far. I was trying to save face, not come up with a battle plan.

Mirror Master: (Despondently) There goes my Ferrari.

Trickster: Don’t give up on the Ferrari just yet, Sam! I have a way to salvage our heist!

Mirror Master: James, I already told you. I am not going to use a “whoopie cushion of doom” to stop the Flash. Unlike you, I have some dignity.

Trickster: First, the Whoopie Cushion of Doom is high comedy, and you should be honored that I offered to let you use it. Second, that’s not it.

Mirror Master: Then what is it?

Trickster: It’s the Top! He’s sitting right over there! (Points to Top)

Mirror Master: (Surprised) So he is.

Weather Wizard: What’s he doing here? I thought he and Golden Glider were in Hawaii on the fifth anniversary of their first date or something.

Mirror Master: Who knows with those two. Maybe they came home early.

Trickster: Came home early ? They never went ! They’ve been in Central City this whole time!

Weather Wizard: They have? But then why did they tell everyone that they were on vacation?

Mirror Master: Probably so they could spend time together without Captain Cold breathing down their necks. Given how overprotective he is, if I was dating Lisa, I would probably pretend to be out of the city, too. It’s hard to have romantic moments when you know that her big brother’s watching and will maim you if you look at her funny.

Trickster: Nah, that’s not it. If Roscoe was afraid of Captain Cold, he wouldn’t challenge his authority all the time. I think they’re planning something, something they want to keep secret from the rest of us, and I want to find out what it is. (Taps Top on shoulder) Hiya, Top!

Top: (Takes off earmuffs; Aside) Why me? (To Trickster) What do you want?

Trickster: Well, Mirror Master wants a Ferrari, and I want some excitement, so we need your help to rob the jewelry store on Fifth and Main.

Top: I am afraid that you will be disappointed. I am quite busy, and am being pressed to the top of my bent. I have no time for frivolities, Giovanni.

Weather Wizard: Giovanni? Who’s Giovanni?

Trickster: Me.

Mirror Master: You gave the Top an alias when he asked for your real name?

Trickster: (“Offended”) No! I’d never do anything like that! (Pause) I didn’t give him an alias when he asked for my real name. I gave you two an alias!

Weather Wizard: Your real name’s Giovanni?

Trickster: Yep! Giovanni Giuseppi. My family is Italian.

Mirror Master: Then why do you always go by James Jesse?

Trickster: Because Jesse was our family’s stage name from the circus. Since we used an alias in our performances, I got used to being called James, so I eventually decided to just start using it as my regular name. Besides, it’s easier to say than Giovanni Giuseppi.

Mirror Master: Well, whoever you are, clearly, your plan failed. Dillon doesn’t want to get involved in our plan, and so it’ll be a bust.

Trickster: (Aside) Oh, ye of little faith. (To Mirror Master) I’ll be able to get him to come around. Trust me.

Mirror Master: Forgive me if I’m less than convinced. (Trickster walks over to Top)

Trickster: (To Top) What if I told you that there would be something in it for you?

Top: I would still refuse. As I already told you, I am quite preoccupied. Now, if you will excuse me, I am going home.

Trickster: (Stopping Top) Top, old buddy, just hear me out. If you don’t like it, I promise you can leave, but you’ve gotta at least learn what it is.

Top: We are not “old buddies”, but, since you seem determined to annoy me until I listen to what you have to say, I suppose I will give in to the inevitable and allow you to speak. But be quick about it. I am giving you five minutes- tops .

Trickster: You know what? Never mind. It was silly of me to think you would be motivated by something as small as an engagement ring. (Moves out of Top’s way; To Mirror Master and Weather Wizard) Come on, guys, let’s go. I’m sure I’ll be able to come up with something else.

Top: What was that about an engagement ring?

Trickster: Oh, you wouldn’t be interested in it, I’m sure.

Top: You are mistaken. Do tell me what you think I will get out of this heist.

Trickster: Are you sure? If you really are busy, I don’t want to bother you.

Top: No, no. I am fine. Please, tell me what you mean.

Trickster: Well, if you insist…..A few months ago, Lisa told me that she saw the perfect engagement ring at the jewelry store that we’re planning to rob, and that she would be thrilled if you proposed to her with it. But like I said, if you don’t want to help us….

Top: (Quickly) If it will please Lisa, I would very much like to help ensure that you come out on top .

Trickster: Great! Glad to have you aboard, pal!

Mirror Master: (Draws Trickster aside) How could you have talked to Glider “a few months ago”? You spent the last six months on a cross-country swindling trip and didn’t get back until three weeks ago!

Trickster: (Aside to Mirror Master) That’s right…..but he doesn’t know that.

Mirror Master: (Aside to Trickster) Clever.

Trickster: (Aside to Mirror Master) I know, right? (Aloud) So, what’s the plan?

Act III

(Enter Wally and Iris)

Wally: Is there anything else you need me to do, Aunt Iris?

Iris: Wally, you’ve already gotten me home from the airport, unpacked all my bags, put everything away, pulled everything out when you put everything away wrong, put everything away in the right places, delivered my letter to your Grandpa Ira in Florida, fixed my car, and repainted the garage. You’ve done enough.

Wally: Aww, it was nothing, Aunt Iris.

Iris: It wasn’t nothing. That was a lot of work, and I really appreciate it. (Pause) By the way, you haven’t eaten much since you brought me home. You should probably get some food.

Wally: Good idea, Aunt Iris! (Wally exits, then quickly re-enters) I love Japanese food!

Iris: Did you really run all the way to Japan just to get food? Wally: Why not? I can get there and back in three seconds!

Iris: (laughs) Oh, Wally. You’ve gotta stop doing that before it rubs off on Bart.

Wally: I think it might be too late for that. He’s already running to New York City to watch off-off-Broadway, after all.

Iris: I know, but now that Barry doesn’t have his super speed, we need to dissuade him from doing that again. We can’t be calling you all the time because we can’t bring him back when he disappears to another continent. Without at least one parent with super speed, he needs to stay close to home so that we can help him if he gets into trouble.

Wally: I don’t mind bringing him home.

Iris: Yes, but I’m pretty sure your boss will mind if you have to keep leaving work to bring Bart home from Namibia or Laos or Bithynia.

Wally: But he knows I’m the Flash! I have to leave work all the time!

Iris: True, but there’s a difference between leaving work to stop crime or save people and leaving work to track down your cousin who went on a joyride.

Wally: Yeah, you probably have a point there.

Iris: As soon as he and Barry get home from their trip to the park, I’ll have Barry sit him down and have a little chat with him about running off to other states or foreign countries-assuming that he can focus long enough to get the message, that is.

Wally: Hey, do you mind if I stick around until they get back? I wanted to talk to Uncle Barry about the Rogues’ latest escape from jail.

Iris: Of course you can stay here! (Pause) And why didn’t you tell me that the Rogues escaped? That always makes for a good news story!

Wally: I don’t really know a lot about how it happened yet, so I guess it just slipped my mind.

Iris: In that case, I’ll have to do some investigating to find out how….after Barry, Bart, and I have our little chat, of course.

Wally: Have I ever told you that you’re awesome, Aunt Iris?

Iris: Not lately.

Wally: Well, you’re awesome. (Phone rings) Sorry! I have to get that! (Pulls out phone) Hello? (Pause) Oh, hi, Mrs. Rowen. Why are you calling? (Pause) Suspension? Why? They’re only kindergartners! (Pause) They did what? (Pause) Well, yes, I’m sure that the school having all its windows broken by dual sonic booms would be problematic, but they don’t know how to control their speed. I know they didn’t do it maliciously. (Pause) $600,000? Wow….That is a lot of money. I’m really sorry. I didn’t even know they were moving at supersonic speeds yet. Did anyone get hurt? (Pause) Two teachers are going to need stitches? Oh, no. I’m really sorry. I’m really, really, really sorry. (Pause) Yes, of course I’ll come meet with you. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. I’ll be right there. Bye. (Puts phone away) Looks like I won’t be able to talk to Uncle Barry. My kids shattered all the windows at the elementary school when they accidentally created a sonic boom, and now I have to meet with their principal. I swear, parenting super-powered children is a million times harder than fighting supervillains. At least with supervillains, I don’t have to pay for the damages that they cause. I’ve gotta run. Bye!

(Exit Wally)

Iris: It’s at times like these that I’m glad Bart stayed in the Speed Force until he was old enough to know how to control his speed. (Pause) In speaking of Bart, there he and his dad are now. Hopefully, Bart will cooperate with the limits he sets on his travel, because if not, I’m not sure that Barry and I will be able to enforce them. Even Wally wasn’t as impulsive as Bart is.

Act IV (Enter Top, Trickster, Mirror Master, and Weather Wizard. Trickster is wielding a fearsome rubber chicken and a kazoo)

Mirror Master: Did everyone make it through the Mirror Realm all right?

Top: I feel more than a little nauseous, but otherwise, I am fine, since we managed to arrive at our intended destination.

Mirror Master: What are you implying?

Top: Nothing. It is simply that I would feel far more comfortable if I knew that the realm through which we traveled so shortly ago was controlled by a man who had at least completed his secondary education and who hailed from somewhere other than the part of town colloquially known as “Skid Row”. In all candor, your credentials do not inspire confidence.

Mirror Master: Hey, I might not have your fancy education, but I’m just as smart as you. How else do you think I discovered an entire alternate dimension?

Top: My supposition would be that the goddess Fortuna smiled upon an unworthy candidate with the freakish caprice for which she is known.

Mirror Master: Are you saying I just got lucky?

Top: Indeed.

Mirror Master: You’ve got some nerve, Dillon! I worked for years to learn how the Mirror Realm worked! Just because I’m from Skid Row doesn’t mean I’m stupid!

Top: My experience, and the experiences of my father, would suggest otherwise.

Trickster: Girls, girls, girls . You’re both pretty. Now, let’s start the heist already! I already deactivated the alarms, but they’ll come back on eventually. And besides, I’m bored!

Weather Wizard: Trickster’s right. I already created enough snow to slow down the cops, but that won’t hold them forever, and it won’t hold our friend in the red pajamas at all. We need to hurry.

Mirror Master: Well, if the Top is ready, so am I.

Top: I was not the one delaying us, but I am quite prepared to proceed in our enterprise. (To Trickster, as Weather Wizard and Mirror Master start grabbing jewelry) Where is the engagement ring that my beloved desires?

Trickster: (Looks around at the various rings) Let’s see…..I know it’s around here somewhere ….. (Finds a particularly ostentatious ring and points at it) Oh! There it is!

Top: Are you certain that that is what she desires? It seems a bit gaudy for her tastes.

Trickster: Of course I’m sure! (Aside) And I’m not lying. I’m sure she’ll hate it, and I’m sure that learning that he got outsmarted by a circus brat will take Mr.Phony British Accent down a few pegs. He’s smart, but he’s not nearly as smart as he thinks he is.

Top: You have my gratitude, Giovanni. (Takes ring) Is there nothing that you are inclined to take?

Trickster: Not really. I’m here to put on a show, not to take money. (Pulls out bottle of paint) Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to replace the bathroom sinks’ water with paint.

(Exit Trickster; Top analyzes jewelry and slowly begins to select the sophisticated jewelry)

Mirror Master: (To Weather Wizard) I know I said that I was getting a Ferrari, but I’ve been thinking it over, and I think I might get a Lamborghini instead. What do you think?

Weather Wizard: Which one’s faster?

Mirror Master: I’m not sure. Except for a three-day period where I was in possession of W. W. Wiggins’s stolen Ferrari, I’ve never actually owned a car.

Weather Wizard: (Surprised) You’ve never owned a car? How’s that possible? Before I became the Weather Wizard, I was the world’s biggest loser, and even I had a car. I mean, granted, I crashed it into a tree, but I had one!

Mirror Master: (Defensive) I grew up in the inner city. Have you seen the traffic in the interior of Central City? It’s a nightmare! There’s a reason everyone takes the subway to work. The traffic gets so jammed that cars are basically useless.

Weather Wizard: But you still live in the inner city. If there’s no use for one, why do you want it so bad?

Mirror Master: (Angrily) Because I’m tired of being poor! I’ve spent my entire life either in jail or in tiny two-room apartments on Baker Street, and I’m sick of it! I’m sick of always being behind on rent, I’m sick of wearing other people’s cast-offs, and I’m SICK of Roscoe implying that I’m stupid! I want a car because it would be a sign that I finally have enough money to get off of Skid Row! People would have to give me some respect then!

Weather Wizard: If it makes you feel any better, without the weather wand, nobody gives me any respect, either. The only reason that I’m here right now is to earn back the reputation I lost when it broke. I don’t really need the money.

Mirror Master: You don’t?

Weather Wizard: Nah. I won a $20,000 poker game a few weeks ago.

Mirror Master: But you’re terrible at poker!

Weather Wizard: (Shrugs) I was playing against an 18-year-old who had just inherited his daddy’s company and had never played a game in his life.

Mirror Master: And Dillon says I’M the one who gets lucky!

Weather Wizard: Don’t take it personally, Sam. He’s a jerk to everyone-except Lisa, that is.

Mirror Master: What does she see in him, anyway?

Weather Wizard: That, my friend, is one of the great mysteries of life. He’s not even that attractive!

Top: (Comes over) It is not so mysterious as that. Unlike the rest of you ruffians, I am a man of birth, breeding, and education. Our relationship is a great boon for her social status, especially given the “trailer trash” from whence she comes-to use a colloquialism, of course-and I am certainly better company than any of you could hope to provide. Her selection of me as a paramor proves that she, alone among you “Rogues”, has taste.

Mirror Master: (Sarcastically) Yeah, you’re a real prince, Dillon.

(Alarm goes off)

Weather Wizard: Oh, no! The alarm! We must’ve lost track of time, and now the Flash is gonna show up and make me a laughingstock all over again!

(Enter Trickster)

Trickster: Where’s the Flash? He should be here by now!

Mirror Master: Who cares? Let’s get outta here!

Trickster: Wait! I want to fight the Flash! It’s no fun if I don’t get to fight the Flash!

Mirror Master: Trickster, we got what we came for! Now let’s go!

(All exit quickly, Mirror Master dragging a flailing Trickster)

Act V

(Mirror Master, Weather Wizard, Top, and Trickster are onstage, sitting. Trickster is pouting)

Weather Wizard: We...we actually did it?

Top: Obviously. We are here and not in jail, are we not?

Weather Wizard: I know that, I just can’t believe that we actually did it! We never get away with heists this big!

Mirror Master: You’re right, Mardon. It’s been over four years since we had a heist that the Flash didn’t stop….and we got away with it!

Weather Wizard: So, what do we do now?

Mirror Master: I….I don’t know. It’s been years since we got away with anything, so I haven’t had a plan beyond “get away” in years.

Weather Wizard: I guess you can buy your car now.

Mirror Master: Yeah. I guess so. (Sighs) It’s so weird that we’re not in jail right now.

Weather Wizard: Tell me about it. I haven’t had a run of luck this good in ages!

Top: It is not so peculiar as you are treating it. After all, I accompanied you on this heist, something I have not often done. It is not, therefore, terribly surprising that you were successful-I enabled you to come out on top .

Mirror Master: Dillon, do the world a favor and shut up. I’m not in the mood for your attitude.

Weather Wizard: (To Trickster) Hey, James, why are you so upset? We just got away with a million dollars! You should be on cloud nine!

Trickster: I’m upset because the Flash didn’t show up! He’s what makes crime exciting! Since he wasn’t there and we did it at night, I didn’t have an audience, and it wasn’t any fun! Besides, escaping changes up the game. How are we supposed to start the game over if we don’t get captured and have to escape again?

Weather Wizard: Now that you mention it, I did feel like our heist was lacking in that rush. It’s hard to feel excited when there’s no danger that you might be stopped.

Mirror Master: Yeah. It’s not enjoyable to beat him when he doesn’t even show up. (Pause) But hey, at least we’re rich now, right?

Weather Wizard: (Without confidence) Right. And I’m sure we’ll be able to come up with something to do. It’ll be great!

Trickster: (Petulantly) No, it won’t. The game’s been ruined!

Mirror Master: How has it been ruined? You don’t need the Flash to trick people.

Trickster: No, I don’t, but it’s not the same. I came back to Central City to play the game, and now the game has been ruined because the Flashes won’t play!

Weather Wizard: (Too cheerfully) Hey, why don’t we go get some ice cream? That’ll make us all feel better.

Mirror Master: Sure, why not?

Trickster: I guess so. But only if I can get gummy bears and rainbow sprinkles.

Top: I will pass on that offer. I have fulfilled my part of the agreement and must get back to work.

Weather Wizard: Okay. More for us, I guess.

Mirror Master: (Mutters) Good riddance.

Trickster: I had better get two dips, too.

(Exit Trickster, Mirror Master, and Weather Wizard)

Top: Ahh. Peace and quiet at last. (Pulls out cell phone) Hello, Lisa, darling. This is Roscoe. How fares the mission? (Pause) Allen is willing to help you get the cure? Good. Good. Very good. You, my sweet, are a veritable Sarah Siddons. (Pause) Oh, my apologies. I thought that was common knowledge. Sarah Siddons was a famous Shakespearean actress who was renowned for her life-like portrayal of Lady Macbeth in the 19th century, and you are quite as talented an actress. (Pause) Oh! I almost forgot. I have pleasant news as well, honeybunch. I appropriated the engagement ring that you so desired! (Pause) Wait, you never picked out a ring for that purpose? My profuse apologies, sweetums. It seems that I was misinformed. (Pause) Don’t worry, my dearest darling. The pain has been quite manageable, and given what you have just told me, I have no fear for my life. (Pause) Thank you, darling. Your snuggle-bunny loves you, too. Good-bye. (Puts phone away) TRICK-STER!

(Scene change. Enter Wally, in jewelry store)

Wally: Aw, come on! I’m getting sued by the school district AND I let the Rogues get away? Man, this just isn’t my day! (Pause) Oh, well. If there’s one thing that Uncle Barry’s taught me, it’s that a true hero never gives up. I’m sure to find them eventually-especially since they aren’t exactly subtle. (Pause) And if there’s one good thing about all this, it’s that things can’t possibly get worse! I’ll go get a quick snack, and then I’ll find Aunt Iris and Uncle Barry so that we can take down those Rogues- in a Flash!

#wally west #flash rogues #dc comics #fanfic

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ithinkthingsaboutstuff · 5 years ago

Note

how would you analyze the rebooting scene?

Thank you for the ask, (but i think you’ll be sorry, lol)

Ok here we go (i did this to myself)

I said before that this scene is a masterclass and I’m going to show you why I think that, but strap in its going to be long one.

the version of the scene I’m looking at is 3:46 secs (note this version a quick cut to J’onn but i will ignoring that, for the sake of time and my sanity)

the scene opens with this

Brainy is locked in a chair, but we are looking at his right hand of all things

Note: this is were he wears his ring (that has been taken from him) so this open shot is saying, Brainy is being held back and his ring (legion/ friends) can’t help him.

a few shorts later that is conformed for the audience.

Note: that the rings is what is in focus and not the man holding it and it too is locked up (on a chain)

so safe to say that the ring has always been a symbol for Brainy himself or his core beliefs (as a hero) he say’s as much in earlier ep’s (before the alien march i believe)

this is a good example of visual symbolism and its done in two shorts.

moving on.

the next few beats go like this, ‘don’t hurt her (nia)’ ‘or what’ he gets zapped

but then this dialogue

“Ever one else here got these crazy powers but you as far as i can tell are blue.”

“are blue” is met with this image.

he tilts his head and the Brainiac symbol is on full display, so dramatic irony, we (the audience) know there’s more and we are about to find out how much.

“The girl (Nia) on the other hand”

is meet with this

so this has done two this

1) he have moved way from thoughts of himself (getting away)

2) We are looking at his ‘human’ or organic face and eyes (not the brainiac lights)

Brainy’s face then moves from, ‘i need to leave’ and into ‘take me not her’ this done by Jesse closing is eyes for a second and opening then again

he next is a back and forth of you will not hurt her. but then he gets hit by the gun. this then leads to lights on his head flashing and then cuts away,

note that

1) His head is leaning back and is looking up

2) the sound (hissing) and lights flickering

so he is in a state we have never seen him before.

now this then cuts to Eve and J’onn so I’m going to skip that. this is how we renter the scene,

the sound is still happening, coupled with his discomfort (understatement), but we are looking in, like we are an unknown entity overbearing but distant

note that you can’t see face’s (expressions) from anyone most notable being Brainy

a shot like this distance us from the emotion of what is happening, that’s amplified with the next shot

we are literally creeping in, like we are the thing his is trying to keep out or away from him.

note: this could also be seen as brainy himself losing his emotional attachment to himself

but he can’t keep ‘us’ away as the very next shot is

a close up like this is always for emotion.

but he is sounding less human (voice being more robotic) or at least less himself (lights flickering) it is also a dutch tilt and those are used to show ‘something is not right here’ or ‘this is not as it seems’

and he is not talking about himself “why would anyone hurt her”

so his self attachment is all by gone, and he has all but given up on his own fight, as stated by his captor

“he’s done…on too the other one boys.”

it is then meet with a music drop and a matter a fact

“no”

this is when things, get layered

there are a few more mechanical shifts sounds

met with different types of ‘No’

this is also meet by some flickers of back and forth between himself, this shows an internal shift of keeping them here “no, no” (don’t leave) to “No,you can’t.” (stay back, something is inside me) this is done with tone of voice and micro expressions.

so this writing when viewed the first time makes us question who he is talking to now, because dialogue alone makes it sound like he is still talking to the guards

(and the not so micro ones)

this is when he falls back on or uses his last line of defiance his ‘Little Box’s’

this is the last big red flag for something is about to go down and its not going to be good.

“But eventually box’s get opened.”

but this makes the audience ask in Brad Pitt in the movie 7 fashion

‘What’s in the box!’

and for those paying attention Brainy answers that question before it starts

“there’s a story about that right…Greek.”

(I have already mentioned this part before in another ask but since i’m lazy and unoriginal, i’ll do it again)

this moment is a good example of conscious and subconscious intertextuality

the use of Little Box’s has 2 meanings in this scene.

1) the show made a coping technique out of it as a way to seal away unwanted pain

2) as to what is in this book is ref to Pandora’s Box

now what was in Pandora’s Box you ask

Oh! Out of the box flew every kind of trouble that people had never known about before: sicknesses, and worries, and crimes, and hate and envy and all sorts of bad things. The bad things all began to fly away like little bugs, all over the place.

Pandora was very sorry now that she had opened the box! She tried to catch the bad things and put them back in the box but it was too late. They all flew away.

https://quatr.us/greeks/pandoras-box-greek-mythology.htm

this double meaning is used as a way to tell us was is going to happen without actually tell us, and is good solid writing.

and going back to the angle of this shot looking up at someone usually shows them having power over someone in the scene,

but thanks to the acting here

it shows that he is powerless against himself.

this is the moment before he loses himself (momentarily) to the Brainiac’s

the camera tilts again (this time onscreen) while it and Brainy move in a snake like fashion.

“your just primitives.”

in a Voice that is clearly not Brainy’s (in a literal and metaphorical way)

“and I have worked so hard to….to get back here.”

the Voice in this line fades back down to his real voice (so he is still fighting)

the line is also solid writing as it takes on different meanings

1) the literal, ‘i have worked hard to come to the past’

2) the metaphorical ‘I am working hard to get control of my mind again.’

3) the emotional ‘I have worked hard to get to a good emotional sate.’

and again this angle show how he is powerless against himself.

the next few shots are the camera swaying back and forth and he goes a small disjointed rant about time travel (and space travel)

the camera swaying is showing the mood swings but it is also showing the state of his mind

‘it could go either way’

(and Jesse’s back and forth is seamless.)

then finally a calm before the storm moment as he ‘fully regains himself’

with “the point is, the point is..I’m from the future,”

then to a rational but angry

“my species has ancestral memory.”

the lights are still going so this has not pasted.

“and my ancestors very bad people.”

then cut to

“I remember everything!”

oh this shot

(Jesse’s acting top notch here (that single tear still gets me) )

1) the lead in from ‘bad people’ to ‘I remember’ so sharp and intense

2) this shows that he is actually seeing everything they have ever done (world killers)

3) this shot removes the Brainiac symbol from sight again, as this is Brainy’s agony and not there’s (they don’t feel anything lest of all regret)

and this shot is also how we know he has just lost against who he is fighting. and the fact that this is only time we see him in profile this could mean symbolically he has just been ‘split in half’.

then a few moments before

“uh oh”

this angle again but this time meet with a ‘glee’ then leading into a cry (the last cry) for help Brainy uses.

“I don’t want to.”

then the head goes down and silence’s, then

this time the Brainiac’s symbol is the main focus, the dutch tilt is back, so Brainy is gone,

then this leads to the rise and lifting up of Jesse’s body, like his is being filled with air

the he says how he has been aligned with with his family, and how he has been rebooted,

as this happens the camera sways back and forth but slowly this time, as to show that shows its gently moving into his mind and making itself more comfortable before, so the camera straights up and he states

“that was a calamitous mistake.”

then he breaks free and beats them brutally braking bones and smashing in heads (but not killing oddly enough)

but the first thing he does is

pull the ring to himself but unlike all the other times in s4 he does not grab it rather

he garbs this guy’s neck

so if Brainy ‘is the ring’ (symbolically speaking)

then he is still chained up, in these next fighting beats. (again bashing skulls and breaking bones)

then there is this moment

a taking in a new mind set (literally),

then the camera spins around him and cutting to his side to show him put out his hand and then this

remember Ring= brainy

high angle = power

so the rebooted brainy has power over the chained up one (symbolically)

then he pulls it off the chain (but dose not put it on, that we see anyway)

J’onn walks in and ask

“what happened”

his response

“i’m free.”

double meaning is double meaning (i don’t have to explain that one)

there are few other things i noticed in this scene

1) like how the fight scene had a deeper or inverted version of Brainy’s usual theme music.

2) there are 3 big lights on the wall hanging over the scene (like the brainiac’s)

3) most of this scene is close ups and that is not easy to do (acting wise)

4) he takes down the scientist last (thought that was worth pointing out)

so yes this scene is one of the best the show has ever made (for me anyway) its very layered and well planned and well executed,

now do i think every thing i listed here was intentional for the reasons i listed them, no (that’s insane)

but that doesn’t matter, the point is i was able to make and find these connections using the film language that was presented,

but this scene is filled with character building (brainy with Jesse’s acting ability’s), season long payoffs (little box’s) and setting up story’s and premise’s for what was going to be next season, that is now this season (s5.)

so no matter which way you look at it this scene is so well put together that it could be it’s own short film, and no one would have batted an eye.

that’s the mark of good story telling (in this case acting, writing and directing) if you can take out all context and still be its own peace of work.

and this is all just my take someone else could come in and see something totally different and that’s great.

[and just for fun I will throw in the scene and you can take a look and see how you feel for your self

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPvPkDxhxoY]

#long post #meta #brainiac 5 #querl dox #brainy #supergirl #man #i do not like myself all that much to i #why am i like this #this is what i do for fun #wow #anyway this is a thing that happened #jesse's acting man #its so good #the angles in this scene were great #and the music was well done to #but i was to lazy to mention it

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teatitty · 5 years ago

Text

Rogues Lore

First of all I want to thank @schweeeppess for letting me spam her with Rogues lore 2 months ago cuz it made this post so much easier to type out when I can just copy-paste everything and then edit it to be more cohesive lmao

Second this is under a read more because it is A Lot

Leonard Snart AKA Captain Cold

He grew up with a super abusive father and his only refuge was when he would hang out with his grandfather in his grandfather's ice truck. When the grandfather died, he grew tired of his dad's abuse and set out to start a criminal career and moved to central.

(He's the one who started the rogues!)

He found blueprints for a "cold gun" which he ended up making from scratch (it’s also canon that he knows the gun so well he can remake it out of scraps in about 30 seconds to a minute) and had three main rules in his group: No Killing, No Harm To Women Or Children and No Drug Use. His cold gun is capable of interfering with the speedforce cuz it can reach “absolute zero” which is even colder then Mr Freeze's tech.

He's also the only cold-based villain capable of mastering this temp. In New Earth he was described as an "adversary" but in Prime Earth (same backstory as before mind you) he's described as being a straight villain whose only rule in the group is "no killing" (which seems to be a pretty flexible rule these days cuz DC has made him more, well, down with killing). He's also much younger here then he was in NE.

In Flash 2016 #17 we see another upgraded version of his gun that's capable of separating the Flash from the speedforce directly and, in doing so, causing Barry excrutiating pain. Generally, he and Barry had more respect for eachother in NE, to the point that Len even considered him family. In PE, though they have teamed up now and again, Len is far more hostile towards Barry, sometimes even being written in a way that suggests he wouldn’t mind if Barry died.

Sam scudder AKA Mirror Master (the first one!)

He was a simple convict who just really wanted to learn how to get inside a mirror's reflection. He practiced in a hall of mirrors and, once he succeeded, became Mirror Master. He was a frequent foe for Barry and, during Crisis on Infinite Earths, died around the same time Barry did.

He was the one who discovered the "mirror world". At one point he got himself trapped there and hated that the mirror world could just get him whatever he wanted instead of him stealing it so he got Barry to bust him out. He could also use mirror's to mind control ppl (dont ask) and this intrigued Barry.

On PE he's dating Lisa Snart (Len's younger sister) and is the only Mirror Master to exist. In N52 he, Len, Lisa, Mick and Marco all got fused with their weapons for a while and given meta-human abilities which I. hate because it took away what made them all so cool (I'm fine with Marco tho and you'll find out why in a minute) he's also a really big attention seeker lol

Hartley Rathaway AKA Pied Piper

Alright most of Hartley's info is from NE so: he was born deaf to wealthy parents who got him very high-tech hearing implants. He became obssessed with sounds and started experimenting with sonic technology. Bored of his rich life (and sometimes it's implied he had ableist and/or homophobic parents too) he took to a life of crime after learning how to hypnotize people through music (Pied Piper ayyy).

He was the first person to ever successfully break out of Iron Heights and did so because he befriended the rats there and used them to help himself escape, adding more to his whole Pied Piper thing. After Barry died he gave up crime and started working to help the poor and underprivelaged (I'm not saying he quit specifically bc of Barry's death buuuuuut most of the Rogues did so).

He struck up a close friendship with Wally and came out as openly gay! On PE all that we know for certain is that he's a "reformed vigilante" who's the conductor for the Central City orchestra. He used to share an apartment with Barry (yes for real) before he moved in with his bf, David Singh (also Barry's director in the CCPD). Lisa was the one who convinced him to come out to the Rogues, and they were all chill with being gay, their problem came when he started dating David who is, you know, a cop.

He has a pet rat called Moon (cute, right?). Also in pre-N52 canon (cant remember if it was NE specifically or older) Hartley once had a nervous breakdown after Barry arrested him so Barry took him to get help at a mental health hospital :')

(Some artists draw him blonde, some brunette and others go more for reddish-brown it’s kinda confusing)

Marco/Mark Mardon AKA Weather Wizard

On NE he's a two bit criminal called Mark Mardon (he's also white and yes thats important to note) but one day, after escaping from a cop van, he ran to find his brother, Clyde, who was a scientist only to discover his bro had died of a heart attack (however, there's implications that he actually murdered his brother and simply blocked out the memory).

He then found Clyde's notes on how to create a wand to control the weather and made it for himself. The worst he ever did on NE was imprison a town in winter and after Barry's death he went into semi-retirement (told you the Rogues all did this)

On PE however! He and Clyde are Latino and are the heirs to a huge cartel! Clyde takes over the cartel and Marco wants nothing to do with that life. After their father dies, Marco runs away and eventually becomes Weather Wizard.

He comes back when he hears his brother has been murdered and gets accused of the crime. He finds out it was Clyde's wife, Elsa, who orchestrated the whole thing and, in a fit of grief and anger, kills her with lightning. He also tries to kill himself at the same time but it doesn’t work. After her death, he curls up into a ball and starts crying because he feels like he hasnt got any family left but then Lisa shows up and is like "yo the rogues are still here for you bitch"

His emotions affect the weather in this continuity and I’m a weak bitch for that but that’s 100% my bias for Ororo Munroe showing itself lol

James Jesse AKA Trickster (the first one!)

James Jesse was born to the Flying Jesses, famous circus performers. He, however, was afraid of heights, and preferred reading stories of Western criminal Jesse James.

He invented air-walking shoes to get rid of his acrophobia, and this led to his fame as an aerialist at the circus. Buuut he wanted more excitement in life and became a conman instead! He had a lot of wacky gadgets like exploding teddy bears and, after Barry's death, moved from Central to Hollywood and started working in special effects.

Like Hartley, he even attended Barry's funeral. He once beat the devil, Neron, at his own game and eventually started using his skills for good, collecting weapons of incarcerated villains so they couldnt fall into the wrong hands. He eventually died protecting Hartley during Final Crisis. Deadshot was the one who got him.

On Prime Earth his parents were straight up neglectful and, instead of creating his own boots, he stole them from STAR labs instead. This version of him is also WAY more fucked up and murdery then NE to the point us long-term Rogues fans got really upset at how much DC had changed him

On NE his real name is “Giovanni Giuseppe” (swear this is, like, the only italian name DC knows) and on PE the Flying Jesse's were a deliberate rip off of the Flying Graysons

George “Digger” Harkness AKA Captain Boomerang

The illegitimate son of an American toy-maker, W.W. Wiggins, and an Australian woman, Betty Harkness, George Harkness was raised in poverty in the small town of Kurrumburra, Australia. His stepfather, Ian Harkness, hated the boy and made his life miserable. (Like canonically Ian was an abusive alcoholic and even abused Betty who was too ill to defend herself or George. The reason George goes by "Digger" is cuz that's what his mom used to call him before she died; it's aussie slang for "soldier")

In school, Harkness crafted a boomerang. He discovered he had great skill with the aboriginal weapon and often used it for mischief with his best friend, Mick Wentworth. He further honed his skills while spending some time hiding from the law in the Australian bush.

When Digger was eighteen, he and Wentworth robbed a general store and were able to make their escape with the aid of Digger’s boomerang. However, this incident caused Digger’s stepfather to kick him out of the house.

His mother gave him a plane ticket to Central City and told him to get in touch with Wiggins. Wiggins had been searching for a spokesman for W.W. Wiggins Game Company's latest product, a toy boomerang. Under the alias "George Green", Digger auditioned for and got the job. Wiggins outfitted him with a costume and gave him the name "Captain Boomerang."

Ridiculed by the audience, he took to a life of crime instead.

His story is pretty much the same on PE. The only diff being there was no childhood friend and Digger made boomerangs in an attempt to impress his absentee father. Also he has a habit of making up fake stories about himself lmao

The only one's he really doesnt stab in the back are the Rogues and Harley Quinn but everyone else? fair game. In Flash: Rebirth he and Barry even exchange favours for info and it’s implied this is a regular thing for them

Roscoe Dillon AKA The Top

He technically appears on PE but he's one of Thawne's acolytes so lets just. Skip that and focus on NE instead

Literally his whole thing is that he was obssessed with spinning tops as a kid and taught himself how to spin fast enough to deflect bullets. He became a criminal, tried to blackmail the entire world once, and was Lisa's first boyfriend!

He was also her ice-skating coach and taught her how to spin super well like himself! He has a very confusing characterization tho cuz sometimes he was written to be all about revenge and killing but other times he was just like the other rogues; a blue-collar criminal who stole things because he liked to.

He died eventually which I'm not going to try to explain cuz it's...yeah. There's also this whole thing where he could possess people after his death but this was in the silver age and that shit just happened sometimes so whatever

In short: Roscoe has a really cool concept to him but nobody really knew how to write him so he ended up all over the place

He also has a Spinning Top shaped satellite in space where he stores all his loot (dont ask)

Mick Rory AKA Heatwave

Mick Rory has pyromania! Very severely! He was born on a farm outside of Central and, as a child, was very fascinated with fire. This turned into an obssession and he ended up burning his house down. So fascinated by the flames, however, he never ran to get help, watching his whole house burn down (and killing his parents inside) and he ended up living with his uncle after this.

On a schooltrip, his schoolmate stuck him in a meat locker as a prank where he gained Cryophobia (fear of the cold) so in retaliation Mick locked the boy in his house and set the thing on fire (again, pyromania). He ran away again and ended up becoming a fire-eater for a circus. That didn't last long either because, surprise!, he burned the place down.

Desperate to find a way to help his obssession, he happened to see the Rogues operating in Central and decided to take up villainy. At first he and Len got into a few altercations with eachother due to Mick's fear of the cold but eventually they settled their differences and Len officially brought him into the Rogues.

Mick kinda relies on them to keep his pyromania in check basically. There was a time where he was, briefly, reformed and gained a close friendship with Barry (even being roommates with him. By then he'd already known Barry's real identity for a few years) and used his pyro knowledge to become a fire-fighter consultant. At one point he even worked for the FBI

His backstory is practically the same on PE the only difference being that he never expressed regret for burning down his house, and actually says he wishes he’d burned down the whole neighbourhood instead

Lisa Snart AKA Golden Glider

When I say her NE version is leagues above PE I mean it.

Like Len, she suffered abuse under their father and escaped it by becoming a figure skater under the name Lisa Star for the Futura Ice Show! Her fame came from her very fast spins, a trick she was taught by Roscoe. When Roscoe died while fighting Barry (brain complications though there’s more to it, but again I’m not going to get into that) Lisa turned to villainy, blaming Barry for her lover's death.

Her attempts on Barry and Iris' lives were always foiled. She used a pair of ice skates that created their own ice flow, and had many gadgets that caused hypnotism. She also stole Len's gun once but retooled it into a twirling Baton.

When Barry died she renounced her feud with him and attempted to go straight again with her brother. They created a company that recovered lost or stolen items. Eventually she returned back to a life of crime, went through three boyfriends, all using the name Chillblaine (she named them that iirc), until the fourth Blaine killed her. Len got revenge on that one

On PE, however, Lisa had a brain tumor (it got cured later) and was a tag-a-long villain for her brother and her boyfriend, Sam Scudder. This version of her never became a skater and is instead murderous just for...the sake of it. She also has this thing about wanting to be the leader of the Rogues instead of Len, and when she's in charge of them for a while the Rogues’ morals change and killing is suddenly fine so. Whatever. NE Lisa is the best (also her whole outfit? Stunning)

Roy G. Bivolo AKA Rainbow Raider (not technically a Rogue anymore but he was a member for a while)

He appeard on PE as Chroma but gets murdered by Grodd so we only have NE canon to use (they did my mans dirty)

He was a wonderful painter from an early age but was born colourblind. His father, an optometrist, was determined to create a device that would let him see in full colour. Toy didnt get the device until after his father's death but unfortunately the device didnt let him see colour.

Instead, the goggles could project beams of light that could become solid objects, make him invisible, blind his opponents, or affect the emotions of his targets. Angry that he couldnt pursue an artistic career. he decided to become a thief and primarily stole famous artwork. He was eventually killed by Amunet Black

Evan McCulloch AKA Mirror Master (second one)

Evan was born to rich parents Louis and Carol Erikson who gave him up for adoption because they were too young to be responsible parents. He ended up at the McCulloch orphanage.

At age 8 he was molested by one of the older boys there and, in self-defence, ended up drowning the him. At 16 he left the orphanage, taking on the name of the woman who raised him and moves to Glasgow (he’s scottish btw)

He found that it was super difficult to hold down a job but, needing to make ends meet and constantly breaking the law anyway, he turned to a life of crime and became a hitman and then a professional assassin.

One day he got hired to kill his birth father but was unaware of who his target was until after he took the shot. Grief-stricken, he attended the funeral and tried to work up the nerve to approach his birth mother. By the time he had, she'd committed suicide and he turned himself in for his crimes.

Either the Scottish or US government gave him Sam's old Mirror Master gear and hired him to be a mercenary.

His first job was scaring Animal Man into stopping his activism, but he failed because of Animal Man’s wife. Refusing to actually kill the wife and children (thanks to his own morals) he gets fired and helps Animal Man seek revenge.

He continues to work as a criminal and supervillain-for-hire, even working out of costume as a mercernary in Britain.

Eventually he found his way to Central City and joined the Rogues, taking over as Sam Scudders official successor. There was a time where he had a Cocaine Addiction which caused friction between him and Capt Cold because of Len’s rule against drug use.

Throughout all of this, Evan made sure to donate a portion of all the money he ever got to the McCulloch Orphanage

Axel Walker AKA Trickster (second one)

On PE, Axel was recruited by the Rogues early on in his career. He messed up during a heist and they kicked him out (they'd never do that but w/e)

He worked for Mob Rule as a henchman for a bit then went freelance when MB was arrested. He saved Cold's life cuz he felt he still owed Cold a debt. When Grodd took over Central, Axel tried to join his side but Grodd tore his arm off from the bicep (ouch) and left him to die on the street. Axel got himself a cool sleek robot arm and returned to crime anyway. He got accused of murder, Barry cleared his name, but he still got sent to Iron Heights for other charges.

The Rogues, hearing about this, went to bust him out and were like "okay fine u can hang with us" and he stayed with them from then on

In NE canon, while Jesse was working with the FBI, Axel stole all his gear and ended up working for Penguin in Gotham. Penguin gets attacked by Tarantula, Axel fails to stop her and a few days later he gets caught by Robin (Tim) for causing trouble in Gotham.

He moves on to work with Amunet Black, but after her defeat is offered to join the “new Rogues” by Capt Cold and accepts the offer. Some stuff happens, he fights the OG Trickster who leaves him in a dumpster and tells him never to pick up the gear again, then Axel answers an ad from some college students asking for a trained hero to teach them some things, he has dinner with them and then kills them all. Neat.

When Jesse died, Axel redonned the Trickster gear and started operating his own crew out of an old Rogues hideout. When the Rogues returned to Central, Axel found out they were gonna retire and go underground. He rejoined them to help them get revenge on Inertia for manipulating them into killing Bart Allen, and he stayed with the group henceforth.

Evan explained to him that joining the Rogues wasn’t a matter of him wanting to be one, but why he needed to be one

In short: Axel is a punk kid who wants to fit in with the big boys and the Rogues are the only ones who really gave him a chance, acting like his older siblings. It’s worth noting that canon never mentions any relatives for him so, as far as we know, crime is all he’s ever known

And that’s all of them!

#random facts #the rogues #this took. so long to do #good luck reading it all lmao!#god i'm tired #i love them a whole lot can you tell?#tw: abuse mention #tw: drug addiction mention #tw: assault mention

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ahumansvoid · 5 years ago

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Misc WIP Folder

So I’m going through my WIPs folder’s subfolders.

One is labelled Misc, so that’s the one I’m going through now. Everything will be below the cut because this will probably be a long post, there are sixteen files in this folder.

Most of them are from different fandoms, so I’ll put what fandom it’s in + what title I have for it in my folder in bold before I talk about it. I’ll be going from oldest to newest. Technically not because I can’t sort Google docs like that, but rather “last modified by me” so, longest abandoned to newly abandoned I guess?

Also Spoilers for any of the fandoms, maybe? Probably.

If you have any questions about any of the fandoms, message me or send me an ask. I’m open to talking about any and all of them.

Fandoms Involved (Ordered by appearance):

Murdered: Soul Suspect (Video Game)

Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia (TV Show)

Gravity Falls (TV Show)

Until Dawn (Video Game)

Avatar: The Last Airbender (TV Show)

The Mummy (2017) & (1999) (Movies)

Assassination Classroom (TV Show/Anime)

Red vs. Blue (Online Show- Rooster Teeth)

Camp Camp (Online Show - Rooster Teeth)

Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (TV Show)

Devil May Cry (Video Game + Anime)

Aladdin (2019) (Movie)

Castlevania (TV Show)

Murdered: Soul Suspect - MSS

So there isn’t much in this one, just a bullet pointed outline. Murdered Soul Suspect is a video game, if you don’t know it and are curious you can google it or message me.

Anywho. This is just a little part I thought was funny.

It’s essentially a Ronan survives AU of the game, pretty standard and I thought it would be fun. Honestly this part about Ronan and his cracked spine just reminded me of Obi-wan and how I write him in ignoring his injuries (and how most people write him) so it made me laugh a bit.

There’s really not much here, I didn’t even finish the outline.

Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia - trollhunters au

I am very creative with my titles. Clearly. This is another bullet point outline. but this one is longer and irrc I actually started writing this, and that file would also be in this folder so if I did write it’ll also be featured on this post.

This is an au where Claire is the trollhunter rather than Jim.

The top bit is literally just for context on the next star point. Anywho Writing AAARRRGGGHH/ seeing it spelled out is funny to me. Also I’m pretty sure I rewatched bits with AAARRRGGGHH with subtitles on to see how it was spelt and then replicated that.

The second star point is funny to me because I describe annoyance/anger (rightful, both of them) as pissy. And that’s funny.

There’s more but if I’m write and I wrote it out, then that’ll be featured later.

Gravity Falls - Gravity Falls

... Okay I’m not creative with titles until I have to be. Once more, bullet point outline. So this is an after-canon AU where Bill left a remanent of himself in Dipper and it’s become apparent when they’re in Piedmont.

I just like the rules I had Dipper give Bill. I thought they were neat. Also, I like Mabel convincing Dipper to let Bill live because he’s pathetic. This is a demon who has tormented them for an entire summer, but nows he’s pathetic so lets help him.

Not much of interest in this. I probably didn’t write it because it’d be a long and day-in-the-life type fic. It’d just be Dipper and Bill coexisting and going through life and IDK how well I’d of written that. So I didn’t write it.

Until Dawn- Until DAwn AU

FYI I’m keeping the titles case-sensitive. Another bullet outline. So this is a Josh survives/exorcised AU, also an Everybody Live AU. I’m pretty sure I wrote this when I was heavily invested in Until Dawn and Josh (because I like him.) And I was reading Until Dawn fanfic in which Josh is blamed for what happened on the mountain. And I think I was getting pissy which lead to this:

So in this AU the Until Dawn Group splintered into Sam, Josh & Chris, and Mike, Emily, Jess, Matt & Ashley. So this conversation/fight is between Chris and the second group. So Chris is the 1st,3rd and 5th talking bullet point. I don’t know who’s talking in the 2nd &4th bullet point but it’s one of the second group. Probably Emily, Mike or Jess maybe. Not Ashley.

Im 90% sure that I wrote out this entire outline just for this little interaction.

It just tickles my id. I still kind of like it, but I honestly don’t know what else I’d write for this AU.

Avatar: The Last Airbender - Zuko is the avatar

Title is self-explanatory. Also, I really like bullet outlines. So. Anywho.

Aang is still a 12 year old in this, he used up all his “avatar energy” (that’s literally what I wrote) to keep himself alive so he’s just an airbender now.

I just love Iroh. And this is just funny to me.

If I ever wrote this, it’d be a lot of hijinks of Katara and Aaang (and eventually Toph) covering for Zuko whenever he bends anything other than fire. More cracky than serious.

“The Mummy (2017)” and “The Mummy (1999)” - Mummy x Mummy

I watched the 2017 version of the mummy (got it from the library for 2 bucks) and since there are some throwbacks to the 1999 movie I decided to try to combine them. This also became an AU where Evie and Rick save Imhotep in Mummy 2, and due to Evie being revived meant she was functionally immortal (doesn’t age, but can still be killed). And due to everything, by the Mummy 2017 rolls around it’s just her and Imhotep hanging around, investigating ancient egypt and whatnot.

Honestly this is just part of the outline. None of this is really amusing to me, just, if I ever tried to write it, a lot of work. Although, the fact that I can’t remember the blonde lady friend from the Mummy 2017 is kind of amusing and I literally call her ‘BLF’ throughout this entire outline. I think her name was Lisa. Or Sara.

i’ll google it.

Assassination Classroom - AC AU

At this point, I might as well tell you when it isn’t a bullet outline than saying when it is.

This was really just a Reaper/Koro-sensei raises Nagisa rather than his mom.

People panicking around children is amusing to me. Again, long AU. And this was probably an excuse to write some baby assassin Nagisa and whatnot. Honestly whenever I read this I do remember more details on this, that I have never written down.

Murdered: Soul Suspect - Murdered: Soul Suspect

...

Okay I think this is just a repeat of the one I posted earlier???

I- I don’t know what this was? Like this is newer than the other one?

?????

Uh, brain weirdness?

Let’s move on.

Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia - TRollhunters

Ok! So this is the written out of the bullet point earlier. I did not write out much. But I’ll talk about it a bit more? So this AU is also a Bular survives and Jim finds him and helps AU.

This is literally all I have written. So, right after this, Jim would find an injured Bular and helps him. There isn’t much to add, but I will add what I had written as Barbara’s reaction from the outline:

Large AU, but it would be fun to write. I would most likely end up writing Claire’s journey of Trollhunting along with Jim’s adventures with Bular.

Red vs Blue - Meta, no, that wasn’t, he wasn’t

Okay, that’s not the full title but also the full title is literally the first sentence. Which is a long one so you get part of it. This is actually a written au, it’s about Agent Maine/ The Meta surviving and meeting up with Siris. This is just the first couple paragraphs:

Nothing I read was particularly funny to me, so just the first two paragraphs. Essentially what would’ve happened is Siris would help Maine find Washington (on Chorus) go to Chorus. Find Felix and Locus. Drama Ensues.

I might actually write this. Maybe. There’s potential, if the drive hits me.

I havent watched RvB in a couple of years, but I did like the series. It was interesting.

Camp Camp- Camp Camp

Y’know since this is ‘misc’ I get just having fandom names. Lot easier to identifiy.

So, this file is currently loading still, but I remember this. It wasn’t that long ago. This wasn’t so much a fic as a comic I would of like to have done. I definitely would’ve needed to brush up on my art skills (I am mediocre at best) but it’s just a small little comic I would’ve done on Camp Camp.

First little bit. I actually wrote out most of this rather than just bullet pointing it.

There is a little bit I’d have to polish up, but I could probably post this entire thing. But I kind of want to actually do the comic first. But boy that’s a lot of work.

I love how most of the reason I’m not writing these is that they’re a lot of work.

Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (TV Show) - Project Cheron

This is an AU where Priest is one of the projects of Blackwing. Specifically Cheron and I think my reasoning is that he makes people go where they need to be. IDK. I actually wrote a couple of these. But this one is essentially Priest getting a bunch of projects together to help something. Idk.

This entire thing is weird and would probably be labelled crack if I ever finished it.

Okay. This entire scene is funny to me. Just, this girl rushing out in front of the car waving happily with a decapitated head in her hand. I like it. So, Aine and Herodias are OCs. Both are projects Priest is collecting.

Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (TV Show) - “Dirk

Another Priest is a Blackwing Project AU but that’s not really the focus of this story. This story is about a project (Project Carman- OC) who can trap people in their certain significant memories of her choosing. Carman gets annoyed at Bart, Dirk and the Rowdy 3 so she traps them in memories signifcant to their stay in Blackwing and Priest.

I’ve only written 2 of the six memories, so that’d be fun to complete. These are also just sad. They’re not happy memories. So, random moment that’s somewhat amusing:

Also, title is the first sentence in the fic.

Devil May Cry - “Should I

I- why did I decide to do this from oldest to newest? Part of me is embarrassed, the other part is reminding me I have no reason to be? It’s a video game fic. But also this is a game of my childhood. It’s about Nero looking for his dad and finding Dante instead. Canonically Dante’s twin brother, Vergil, is Nero’s dad.

Just a random moment because I didn’t write that much of it. Also I thought it was kind of cute. Patty shows up in the Devil May Cry anime. Which I watched before I played the games.

Aladdin (2019) - Aladdin AU

A mix of bullet outline and written. I don’t actually have much of this AU, but essentially before Aladdin wishes to become a prince, he notices some mercenaries kidnapping a little girl and decides to rescue her.

This girl is the princess of Shiroba, Aladdin takes her back to Shiroba. The Queen/ Sultana appreciates Aladdin going out of his way to help her so she invites him to stay in the palace.

Eventually word gets to Shiroba that Agrabah is planning to attack so Aladdin and the two twin princes of Shiroba (that I made up, OCs) make a plan to infiltrate and see what they’re planning. They’re not planing espionage, but as Shiroba is a peaceful nation, they want to see if they should start evacuating people and whatnot.

So you get the Prince Ali stuff with the Genie and yada yada.

I have none of that written. I just know that’s what I intended to do with it.

So, first little bit. Long AU that would take a lot of work. Also, I know this isn’t super popular but I liked the 2019 version of Aladdin. I really like the changes they made.

Castlevania (TV Show) - Waking up in Jail wasn’t a new experience

Again, title is first sentence. Not writing that out. Anywho, this is a kind of complete canon AU to Castlevania. Essentially we haven’t reached Lisa getting burnt at the stake yet. So, loving Dracula fam. Trevor and Sypha meet earlier due to circumstance. Alucard gets attacked by something and gets rescued by Trevor and Sypha. They travel together for a while. And then Sypha and Trevor get to meet Alucard’s parents.

That’s where this AU will go if I ever write it. To be fair, last time I wrote in this file was March, so I guess that’s technically possible. Don’t hold out hope.

First couple of paragraphs.

Also, that’s it! Misc WIP folder done!

Oh, if you’ve made it this far, a)thank you and b) if you want to continue/write any of these, go ahead, but tag me or send me a link. I will be very happy to see/read what you create if you like any of this in an inspo way.

Also. This is long, so, IDK if Imma go through the other folders rn. Maybe tomorrow.

#a humans wip fic folder #a human yelling into the void #my writing #WIPs #Wip #Fanfiction #multiple fandoms #I'm not going to tag all of them.

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thelocalshooter · 5 years ago

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The Local Shooter Vs. Kira

(LS) Goodmorning thank you being part of this great come up, and welcome, so Kira; do you mind telling us where you’re from and why it is that you do?

(K) Originally I’m from Mesa but I been all around, I initially got into making music by making beats. This was when I was living In Alexandria Virginia, I had a homie who had the same interests in music as me and we would try to create our own version of shit we were listening to. The homie actually put me on to a lot of legends in this scene We were barley walking into. Those artists consist of Lil Ugly Mane, Supasortahuman, and SpaceGhostPurrp, just to name a few. These influences really shaped the type of sounds I was using in my beats. I eventually started releasing my beats as $limKira just before I turned 18. I would promote myself on twitter a lot by posting little snippets of beats I was working on at that time. People would fuck with it and I was really social on my Twitter at that time always working making new connections, always sending out beats that type of shit, I happened to find myself in a group chat full of artists that were from a lot of different parts of the country and I just kept building from there. Eventually I turned 18 and made my way back home to Az were all this music shit for me really started and where I Progressed into becoming an artist of my own. FuccKira.

(LS) Being from Arizona how do you feel the music scene has changed in the last couple years? I know we’ve had prior interaction through Ace McCain but doing it back then I’m sure was a bit more different and definitely harder based off the fact people didn’t really have venue selections, or even ways to get music recorded, but now everyone is throwing shoes left and right! Do you think Arizona separates themselves within groups or? As far as being an east valley or west valley artist.

(K) Not too familiar with Ace McCain but I’m really close with Multiplexes out there, he pretty much took me under his wing when everything else didn’t pan out as planned, really good and genuine dude he is. But to be honest I feel like I haven’t been in Arizona in so long I can’t give an opinion on the current state of the music scene, I know when I was out there in 2017-2018 the group I was with would get shows at club red or it’d be a warehouse show and shit would be jumpin. Recording wasn’t really a problem for me cause we’d just record at a homies crib or wherever we were staying at, it’s all about the mixing lmao but a lot of bridges since then have been burned so for me now it’s really a matter of staying true and making good music. Don’t get me wrong although the Music scene in Arizona can get hectic, it is definitely full of talent no matter where your from within it or who you fuck with out there, and just for the record I have love for everyone out there It takes a lot to be an artist and to be a successful one at that and so it’s always respect from my side.

(LS) You’ve released many projects and have done a handful of shows, why do you think you’re still missing as an artist? Are you constantly elevating yourself to be greater or are you still trying to figure it out yourself?

(K) Facts, I have released many tracks but they’re not anything I would say I’m proud of and that’s why I’m missing as an artist because I’m still trying to figure out what music I love making. I haven't truly focused on only myself or my own progression with my music and that’s another reason why I feel I’m still missing as an artist, my confidence behind each track needs to be 100% in order for me to drop and feel good about it. That’s why most of my tracks are on private and I’ve only got 3 tracks on my SoundCloud currently . They need to be worth listening. I want people to hear my music and want the next track immediately. Shows are always fun and give people a way of seeing a face behind the music, my experience with shows has taught me it really brings a better connection with your audience/fanbase when your up there performing what they been bumping on their own time, that was a big favorite of mine out there was seeing the energy at each show. I remember waking up the next day after my first show with my whole body sore ready to schedule the next one. As far as the question goes I’m still trynna figure myself out as an artist, but progress is definitely being made. I’m always looking to make a better track than my last, so I would also say it’s a goal of mine to continue to exceed my own Expectations.

(LS) What the next move? You currently dropped “Voodoo” (https://soundcloud.com/fucckira/voodoo-prod-srry ) over 48 hours ago, now do you plan on doing any visuals or are you already back in the booth?

(K) A visual would be cool for the track, I might look into getting one made for it if the track continues to do well. Visuals are 2nd to my priority when it comes to what I’m trynna do right now. Actually releasing quality music is my main focus right now but like I said I’d be down to do a video, I actually know a couple people that can get that done. As far as any new music I do have a song ready to release prod. rose (my lil bro) , it’s wild my lil bro watched me do all this shit as a kid and now he’s making beats for other artists and myself. Deadass makes better beats than I ever did and he makes em off his phone lmaoo fuck a beat pad kids only 15 too. No doubt in my mind he’s gonna be successful. Lil dude is already building connections wit people on his own it’s only a matter of time.

K- Goals for me this year is to really gain and maintain a steady fan base. Thats something I’ve always strived for and wanted, I love when people give me feedback on how the songs make them feel, like I said energy is a big thing for me. I also would like to finally figure myself out as an artist and find my own sound I feel like I’m on my way there. Besides music I fuck with clothes heavy my homie Albert owns a brand out there called Macabre, fuckin ridiculous. I don’t own a single shirt that doesn’t say macabre. Anyway I would be down to do modeling for any upcoming clothing designers or any street wear brands. I’ve done it in the past for Garza out in AZ, (idk if your familiar) but it’s pretty cool would love more opportunities like that from other designers/brands.

(LS) With music being a main focus for you I’m sure it has a heavy impact on your life, when do you first remember falling in love with music? Was it a certain track? A certain time in your life?

K- I remember the first major thing I did for

music was use the money I had saved up for a

car to buy a new computer to make music on

because my laptop had completely died. Had to use my skate board to get everywhere until I turned 18 and got a car lmao. During this time in my life my parents trust in me was at 0 so I pretty much was secluded to my room most of the time making beats and getting high. Music was all I had when I felt I had nothing so I believe buying that computer was a pretty fuckin good decision. Just wish I coulda used Uber back then lmao

(LS) As an artist, do you find it difficult to work with other artist? Especially other local artist? Being that everyone in Arizona has their own sound, do you usually go out of state for collabs or how does that work?

K- working with other artist isn’t hard at all. I’m very straight forward when it comes to the music ima be working on. If I dont fuck with it I’ll tell you and try to find something I can get a hit with us both on. As far as Collabs go I don’t like doing them if I’m being honest. Reason being I just truly believe I’m better off on my own shit UNLESS the energy is right. If we in the Stu and everything is going right and the engineer knows what he’s doing and everythings organic then fuck yeah that’s a collab ima fuck with. Dont get me wrong I still got collabs on the way. matter of fact I have a few with some artist out of El Paso, TX

Chris Apex , Saybien and Jesse Commas just to name a few.

(LS) Are you looking to stay independent? Or to sign a deal one day? What’s your game plan as far as career wise? And why? Which do you think will help you more in the long run?

K- I wouldn’t be opposed to signing a deal one day but the freedom of being an independent artists is something that would be hard to give up. I’m really early in this scene as far as being an artist so for now I’m just focused on releasing quality music and gaining a loyal fan base. I feel if my supporters are behind me with every track I drop it’s bound to bring me more opportunities in the future.

(LS) Making music for over 5 years already, what’s are some tips or struggles you faced as an artist you’d like to let new up and coming artist know? Any motivation you can give knowing how hard the grind is?

K- lmao don’t join any groups. Stick to yourself. Be transparent and be consistent! Don’t be scared to be social either that’s how you build connections. When I first started I would send beats to MY favorite artists for ex. Supasortahuman was one of the first artist to follow me back and support my music by telling me through dm. That was wild to me because like I said previously he was an inspiration for me when I was barley starting making beats. For him to tell me he fucks with my music and he keeps up with me really gave me the motivation to keep making music and sending it out.You never know. Shouts out sortahuman too he still supporting the music I make as an artist.

(LS) Thank you again for being apart of this great come up and is there any last things you’d like to mention to the viewers? And links you wanna add where they can check out your music or even contact you? Much love Kira!

(K) Viewers can keep up with me through my social media’s!

Instagram.com/fucckira

Twitter.com/fucckira

Also my Music Links:

SoundCloud.com/fucckira

Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/fucckira/1485190577

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/0brnKNJ2UDC6e4dAOXU6YN?si=mx245oXGTEO6WtaBlRLK3Q

Thank you for the opportunity to let y’all know a little bit about me and what my goals are looking like this year. I appreciate all the love and support. More music coming soon!

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tymime · 5 years ago

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I generally consider Gen IV the last good generation of the Pokémon franchise, but really only up to a certain point. I’ve played a bit of Platinum, and it’s... okay. Doesn’t inspire me with wonder like Gens I and II do. And I pretty much gave up entirely on the anime after the Battle Frontier arc.

And looking at the Pokémon introduced then, I really only like Bidoof/Bibarel, Buizel/Floatzel and Riolu/Lucario. Buneary/Lopunny is pretty good, and Gible etc. is okay, but almost all of the rest of them I can’t stand their designs at all.

Of course, I really like HeartGold and SoulSilver, but I guess I’m biased.

Back when I was growing up, the anime was the most important to me, and it still is. I hardly ever played the TCG, as I was more of a collector, and I didn’t even play the games that much because I was so bad at it (although I did complete Silver). I remember that when it came to Pokémon, the online fandom in the early 2000s was mostly concerned with the anime as well, whereas you mostly heard about the glitches and rumors in the games and schools banning the cards. The main reason I preferred the anime was because of the characters. Ash, Brock, and Misty made a great trio, and Jesse, James, and Meowth are among the greatest sympathetic villain characters of all time, imo. Nowadays you hardly ever hear anybody discuss the anime.

But ultimately the reason anybody becomes a fan of Pokémon is because of the cool monsters. I think sometimes fans forget this, incredibly- too much focus is given to gameplay mechanics and metagaming and competitive gaming, which I really couldn’t care less about. I remember one of my first interactions with a Pokémon fan, way back in 1999 or so, was when somebody asked what my favorite Pokémon was. I told him it was Charmander. And why not? He’s a cute, fire-breathing dragon-lizard thing! His reaction was “But Charmander is weak!”, and all I could do was stare at him incredulously. I didn’t care if he was “weak”, which is an exaggeration anyway. Must I quote Karen?

That’s actually the entire point of Pokémon. Lots of PETA-types didn’t understand this: We’re not forcing them to fight as slaves, we’re making friends with all these creatures. The early episodes of the anime especially emphasized this, culminating in the movie Mewtwo Strikes Back, and it’s message of peace, sacrifice, and love still makes me misty-eyed to this day.

The anime started going downhill as soon as Ash left Kanto for the Orange Islands. We all remember how incredibly dull and pointless Tracy was, and how repetitive and formulaic the Johto episodes were. This was despite how amazingly good the G/S/C games were. It was around this time that the fandom was diminishing, and people who weren’t all that in love with it in the first place started sneering at it and saying it was “for little kids” and “uncool”. I remember Digimon fans were especially obnoxious about it. Here’s the thing: It might sound a bit shallow, but I don’t think I would’ve become interested in Pokémon if the monsters didn’t look cute or cool. I’m very keenly aware of what kind of character designs I like, and if I don’t like the way a cartoon looks, there’s absolutely no way I can get into it. Lots of people are gonna hate me for this, but I find the vast majority of Digimon to be downright butt-ugly. They’re mostly wrinkled and lumpy and look as though they’re made up of leftover puppet parts. There’s a tiny amount of them that I actually think look decent, but not nearly enough to make me want to watch the show.

But that ties into what happened next- when the Gen III games were coming out, I was looking forward to it, but I was disappointed in how unappealing some of the Pokémon designs were, especially the legendaries. I thought they looked more like Digimon. I don’t see anybody else who has this view. Sure, occasionally I see someone complain “They don’t look like Pokémon anymore!” but they’re always shot down with the rationalization “Who says what Pokémon look like is set in stone?” It’s not a good idea to slowly drift the art direction of an ongoing franchise with an established look and continuity. It’s what makes for a TV series suffer from Early Installment Weirdness and Seasonal Rot, among other things. Things like Mickey Mouse and Looney Tunes can get away with this because they don’t have an established canon, but a series like Pokémon shouldn’t start looking weirder and weirder. I remember having high hopes for the Hoenn episodes of the anime, hoping that the fresher, more sophisticated animation would bring the series out of its doldrums and return to the more heartwarming, personality-driven stories of it’s golden age. For a while it seemed like this would be the case- Ash seemed wiser and more experienced at first and the Pokémon were showing more personality. But it slowly but surely entered a long string of indistinguishable contests for May to compete in. Another thing I wish there was more of in the anime is the Pokémon themselves having more personality. Too often they’re just used as battling tools and have few chances to show emotion or interact with the other characters. The Hoenn episodes also made one thing clear: Ash was going to replace his battling team pretty much every region from now on.

This trend flies in the face of the early franchise’s message of friendship. Ash’s Pokémon from yesteryear are hardly ever seen again once they get sent to Prof. Oak or to some other place.

I suspect this new attitude towards the Pokémon is why they’re becoming uglier and uglier. It doesn’t matter what they look like, you just want to train something NEW, right? Something with good stats and EVs?

I've never seen anybody who shares my view about the Pokémon designs from Gen IV and onward. There was a brief period when older fans were saying the new Pokémon were dumb ideas- ice cream cones and garbage bags and key rings aren’t my idea of a cool concept. But then came the whole “Genwunner” backlash. “But Gen I has inanimate objects too! Dont’cha think Voltorb and Grimer are dumb??” people would say. My answer is this: A living Pokéball and a pile of toxic sludge are cooler than keys and garbage. And just because Gen I had a dumb idea like a bunch of eggs doesn’t mean you should repeat it. And of course there’s an excess of foxes, cats, bats, small electric rodents, and cutesy legendaries that look vaguely like Mew. When the Pokémon aren’t stupid or ugly, they’re redundant. And now it seems like older fans are almost entirely silent about their opinions.

I don’t understand why this isn’t a more common opinion. A Pokémon’s visual appeal is absolutely crucial and yet they still continue to look inorganic, cluttered, and awkward looking with every new generation. There’s only a handful of recent Pokémon that ever get fanart, and 100% of the time the fanart is better drawn than the official version.

This seemingly coincided with the American dubbers having the brilliant idea of replacing the entire voice cast of the anime to “celebrate” the tenth anniversary. It was difficult watching the anime after that, and I only stuck around because they were revisiting Kanto. After that, I stopped watching it entirely. It got worse, of course- Ash was redesigned and looked almost entirely different. The eyes are the windows to the soul- if you ask me, by changing Ash’s windows, they changed his soul.

The Pokémon franchise was dead to me by then. As far as I’m concerned the whole series is a shambling zombie, a shell of its former self. And with the anime using retconning flashbacks and remaking the first episode and Mewtwo Strikes Back, the anime has split into two different continuities anyhow. And yet people still try to defend it, even older fans, which boggles my mind.

#pokemon #unpopular opinion #ash ketchum #bidoof #lucario #buizel

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charmingcentry · 5 years ago

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Bechloe - Variety Show

HS AU Bechloe where Beca and Jesse are fans of Bo Burnham. It’ll be a 4-parter going through each year of the Variety Show their school holds. This one is mainly Beca and Jesse BROTP with a hint of Bechloe.

----

Freshman Year

“Aw come on Becaw it’ll be fun!”

Beca did her signature eye-roll towards her friend, looking straight into his puppy-dog eyes with a glare; Jesse always did have the appearance of a kicked poodle. “No dude, fuck off with it already… I’m not performing in the variety show with you!” She smacks Jesse lightly with her pencil, although it did cause him to wince, and continues on with her mathematics homework - surprisingly one of her favorite subjects. Jesse lets out a sigh and continues on with his own math homework, the duo laying down on the hardwood floors of Beca’s house.

As she shuts the rings in her math binder, Beca still feels two small holes, drilling into the top of her head. The brunette glances up and sees Jesse, quickly lowering his head down and refocuses his mind on the math problem in front of him; the male always did have trouble with factoring. The brunette shakes her head and rummages through her backpack, pulling out her English binder - her least favorite subject.

She never could focus during her English class even if it was right after lunch. Her teacher’s voice is incredibly monotone and robot-like, Beca constantly has to force her head up throughout the long lecture. The lack of decorations in the classroom contributed to the lack of exuberance amongst the class and the teacher didn’t seem to care. Unluckily for Beca, her father had forced her to partake in the Honors English class rather than the regular, one of the many cons of having a Literature Professor as your parent. For an honors class, the teacher seemed to lack the enthusiasm and ability to care.

If there was one thing Beca did care for in English class, it would be the redhead that sits diagonally from her. She would be the main energy source of the class - Beca presumes that English is her favorite subject - and would participate nearly every day. For 14-year-old usually oblivious Beca, she was surprisingly quite aware of how her stomach became a butterfly cage when the redhead would say hi to her or how her mouth went dry during group work and how her hands would become clammier. Some days, Chloe - Beca peered over at the redhead’s binder second day of school to learn her name - would shoot a smile at Beca whenever the brunette got caught dazing off in class. There were other days where Chloe offered Beca water or even gummy worms to keep her energy up - how did this girl not have cavities? I guess you could say Beca has a crush on Chloe but the brunette denies any part of it.

The brunette continues working on her worksheet about rhetoric terminologies when she hears a rustle come from Jesse. She glances up and notices he’s pulling out a blue pill speaker Beca had gifted him for his birthday and his narrowing of eyes as he selects music. The brunette couldn’t help but sing along to the song chosen.

I am the left brain I am the left brain

I work really hard till my inevitable death brain

You got a job to do you better do it right in the right way with the left brain’s might…

Beca is startled when Jesse enters in with the next part; the brunette admits, Jesse did have a nice voice.

I like Oreos and pu- puppies! (“Nice censorship there.”) yes in that order!

And I cried for at least an hour after watching Toy Story 3… WOODY!

I am the right brain~ I have feelings

I’m a little all over the place but I’m lustful trustful and I’m looking for somebody to love

….do do do do do do

Beca playfully rolls her eyes once again at Jesse’s hilarious attempt at censorship as she answers a question about the definitions of ethos, pathos, and logos. She continues singing along to the song when Jesse pokes the top of her head. “Come on Beca, we have amazing voices! We can perform this for the variety show together.” The brunette’s face went pale as she sat up, her jaw slightly dropping.

“That’s a lot of censorship we have to do there Swanson…” Beca states, knowing how many dirty jokes there are within the song, but it would be fun to perform it she has to admit.

“We’ll work on that! You can like do the instrumental since you have that program and we can change the lyrics together.” Beca ponders and narrows her eyes slightly. “Please Becsss!” Jesse drones, clamping his hands together while shaking them. The brunette lets out a sigh.

“Fine.”

Jesse lets out a deafening cheer as he works out the details of what would happen with their performance. Beca was surprised at his planning and organization skills, considering the 14-year-old can’t even locate his pencil case and listens to her friend’s ideas. The brunette would be taking the part of “Left Brain” of course and Jesse “Right Brain.” Beca would organize the instrumental behind the song and voice the beginning part. To settle who would be playing “Bo,” they settled with Benji who is a mutual friend of the duo - he enjoys performing on stage. Their outfits with just be Beca in blue and Jesse in red, inspiration taken off of the lighting Bo Burnham - writer and singer of the song - from his show.

“Honestly, thank god you said yes. I signed us up before telling you.”

“Oh, I mea- wait you did what!”

---

The day before the Variety Show, Beca’s English class held a party to celebrate the end of the school semester. The brunette sat in her desk, she didn’t have friends in the class other than Chloe - the redhead was in the stage between acquaintance and friend. She scrolled through her phone, listening to a Bo Burnham playlist she had created back in seventh grade. As she chucks a brownie into her mouth, she feels a slight tap on her left ear. She looks and notices it’s Chloe, smiling brightly at Beca. The brunette widens her eyes slightly as she pulls her earbuds out. “I heard you’re in the Variety show Becs.”

Beca goes red as she rubs the back of her neck. “Oh, uh yeah. Jesse, he’s my friend, made me do it.” She puts a chip in her mouth, only worsening her dry mouth situation.

“I know him, he’s in my Biology class! He’s really nice and funny.” Beca could feel a bitter taste in her mouth as she slightly pouts. “I probably taught him all the humor he knows y’know.” The brunette bites her lip, was she jealous? “I- I’m sorry, I don’t know why I said that…” Chloe only smiles politely at Beca

“Nah, you’re alright Becs…” There’s dead air between them for a while. “Can I listen to your music? Don’t really have anyone else here to be with and I wanna hang out more with you.”

Beca feels slightly touched and offers the left earbud to Chloe. The redhead smiles when she inserts the device in her ear and suddenly, Beca remembers she’s listening to “Eff” by Bo Burnham. Chloe gives Beca a shocked look as the brunette grimaces “Aw don’t be nervous Becs, it’s actually really good… who is this guy?”

Chloe scoots her chair closer to Beca as they both eat a platter of junk food and talk about Bo Burnham. Lucky for Beca, Chloe seems to enjoy his music and sense of humor. The two don’t notice the spreading blush on each other’s faces.

---

Of all of the places their performance could be in, Beca and her group had to be last. Last of all places! Expectations are already high and the brunette is nervous seeing that right before them was a comedy bit by a hilarious girl in their grade who goes by Fat Amy. Beca begins to pick at her nails as she sees the host walk on stage.

“Oh my god, I’m dying! That was so hilarious. Thank you, Fat Amy, for her wonderful stand-up and also stories of crocodile wrestling.” He clears his throat. “Now, give it up for Beca Mitchell, Jesse Swanson, and Benjamin Applebaum who will be performing Left Brain, Right Brain by Bo Burnham! The final act of tonight… good luck you three!”

Beca gulps as Jesse rushes to the right side of the stage as Benji goes on, starting off with a pretend magic trick. The audience laughs as Benji releases a fake dove that plops onto the ground, the brunette smiles as she nervously tugs on her blue-collared long sleeve. Then, she hears her voice.

Hello, Patient 24602. How are you feeling?

Benji goes back and forth with Beca’s pre-recorded voice, quietly laughing at her friend’s improvisation with the dialogue. To her surprise, the audience is slowly erupting with quiet giggles and laughter as well!

“Real mature of you disembodied voice, calling me a loser.”

I was just joking you dumbass. (Thank God for the principal who allowed cuss words for this performance)

Beca stops her giggling fit when she hears the song is slowly approaching her cue. She glances across the stage and makes eye contact with Jesse. He gives Beca a thumbs up and the brunette smiles widely at him.

Splitting your neurological functions in 3, 2, 1.

The lights go out as Benji runs off stage, pretending to scream in pain. When the lights go off, Beca emerges from the side of the stage and stands with arms folded across her chest, standing tall and straight, appearing to be confident. The lights go on as her own voice introduces herself

This is Benji’s left brain, objective, logical, cold, analytical, aware of patterns, aware of trends. He’s efficient... and a prick.

The way Beca raises her hands gives the implication of the middle finger about to be raised. Then, the lights go off, causing the audience to erupt with laughter once more. The laid-back and steady beat transforms into a lively keyboard melody as the spotlight focuses on Jesse who is jumping with joy. This is Benji’s right brain. Subjective, creative, sensory, aware of feelings, aware of people. He’s emotional. And an idiot. He skips around himself and waves excitedly at the audience, pretending to be hurt by the last part of Beca’s voice.

Alright, you two.

All of the light appears on stage as Beca darts her head towards Jesse and vice versa.

Play nice.

Beca starts singing the first verse, making calm collected hand gestures towards herself as the focus of the light is directed on her. She appears to be extremely less bouncy and excited compared to Jesse’s character - or just himself if we’re being honest here - and yet on the inside, her heart is pumping dramatically. Just about when finishes her verse, she catches the eye of a specific audience member, Chloe Beale who is grinning brightly and raised her shoulders playfully when she noticed Beca staring right at her. The brunette fights back a smile when the lively keyboard melody begins once again, the focus of light on Jesse this time.

The light is now everywhere on stage, focusing on both Jesse and Beca. The audience begins to die down from laughter after a little bit between the friends, revolving around the right brain teasing the left brain about playing with Rubix Cubes.

Well, at least I did my freakin’ job, alright? I kept him working, I kept him productive. You were supposed to look after him, you were supposed to keep him emotionally stable for all this.

The audience is silent as Beca pretends to be furious with Jesse. The brunette is throwing her hands up frustratedly as the taller of the two appears to be on the verge of tears.

Now you’re trying to blame me for how he’s feeling, how he’s feeling! If he’s feeling unhappy it’s because you failed him!

Beca pushes Jesse once, causing him to fall on the ground.

You did this to him he hates you I know he does! He freakin’ hates you!

Jesse begins bawling over-dramatically as the audience lets out a collective chuckle by the male’s performance.

Beca pretends to feel bad and kneels down to Jesse, singing the next part of the song. The Left Brain apologizes to the right brain as she holds her hand out and helps the male stand up. Left Brain suggests an idea of how the two can work together, Beca playfully pushes Jesse’s shoulder.

Do you know what it is? JUGGLING! WE CAN JUGGLE AND JUGGLE OUR CARES AWAY.

The audience cackles as Beca looks towards an excited Jesse who is jumping in place, dumbfounded. The brunette rubs the bridge of her nose and lets out a sigh of frustration.

It- it was comedy. We can do comedy together.

Beca’s pre-recorded voice appears once again, stating the reassembly of the two halves of Benji’s brain.

Left brain! Left brain I love you!

Beca says with a blank slate on her face. I know.

The lights go out once again with only Benji reappearing on stage once Beca’s pre-recorded voice says the final line. The crowd cheers and hoots for the group and Beca and Jesse emerge from the wings, bowing and bowing when the crowd cheers them on. They eventually make their way down as the host concludes the Variety Show with a couple of school-related announcements.

Out of Beca’s peripheral vision, she notices a patient redhead, looking at the brunette. She turns to Jesse’s parents and excuses herself, walking over to Chloe. Beca smiles as she tugs on the black necktie she wore for the performance, swaying side to side.

“Becs that was amazing! I didn’t know you can sing so well.” Chloe reaches out to grab Beca’s hand, the brunette notices and gulps a bit loudly, hoping Chloe didn’t hear. The brunette lets out a nervous chuckle and shrugs.”You also look pretty c-cute with that whole tie and collared polo thing...”

“I- I guess. I mean, I don’t sing really often…” Their hands pull away, Chloe still smiling as bright as ever. “Thank you by the way… Jesse gave me it.”

“Well, you look and performed great!” A voice abruptly calls Chloe from the entrance of the auditorium. The redhead snaps her head back towards Beca. “Well, I hope to hang out with you more Becs!” Chloe wraps her arms around the brunette, nearly causing the two to tumble over. The redhead pulls away and winks at Beca. “See you around!”

As the brunette walks back towards Jesse with an astonished expression and a great blush on her face, Chloe walks over to her best friends Aubrey and Stacie who have their eyebrows raised to their hairline. “I thought you didn’t like her?” Stacie asks, waggling her eyebrows

Chloe rolls her eyes and leads the two to her parent’s car. “Well, maybe I do now… hopefully, she does the Variety Show again next year.” The redhead plugs in her earbuds into the audio jack of her phone as she slides into the black leather seats of her mother’s car. “She did pretty great.”

Chloe’s mother begins the drive to a nearby restaurant as the redhead hits a familiar playlist from the day before, it was labeled “Bo Burnham Shit.” A smile washes over 14-year-old Chloe’s face as she imagines Beca singing along to the songs.

#bechloe #beca mitchell #chloe beale

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ellnaturae · 5 years ago

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Bloody hell

CHARACTERS: Elliott Gilbert and Jesse St. James.

TIME & LOCATION: May 6th, 2019. Jesse’s room.

NOTES: Elliott needs to ask Jesse a favor.

Content Warning: blood.

Elliott is so close, just a tiny step closer to be able to practice a demonic ritual, he had to study the symbols, the materials and be extremely careful with his choice of summoning, but most importantly, for those spells there was an ingredient that he couldn't have so easily. Blood. He knew at the market in NYADA they sold it, animal blood was the menu for vampires, but he couldn't just go and buy it. He would have to prove he was a vampire, and he obviously couldn't. Though he had been said many times he looked like one, whatever that meant. However, he knew there was one person who could help him, but he wasn't sure if he wanted to hear him gloat about it. He knocks on Jesse's door and waits.

Upon his bed, Jesse St.James sat confident and comfortably his hands graciously plating the beautiful mane to his familiar Sterling St.James. "Oh sweet, Sterling are you ready to hear about the woes of my day?" Jesse St.James does not wait for a response from his familiar as he throws himself dramatically on the bed, falling back on the silk sheets, "Oh it was another cruel, cruel day in NAT 156 Social Media, Pop Culture & Modern Societies for you see, Sterling these utter fools..." Jesse St.James pauses as there is an unexpected knock on his door. He jumps up gracefully, "How dare someone turned out unexpectedly, how very, very dare they!!"Jesse St.James was in the middle of the monologue when someone dares to interrupt an adventurous tale of woe and despair. Furrowing his eyebrows he marches to the door, dressed only in his silk rob, dramatically Jesse St.James swings the door open to see his oh so fabulous rival, Elliott Gilbert. "Hark!" Jesse gasps at the sudden visit, an unexpected twist in today's tale, how unprepared he was. Swiftly and speedily, he slams the door, speeding to out dress his fabulous rival. Jesse St.James makes himself presentable, out doable to his rival opting for a silk white shirt, fine tailored trousers and his designer boots. Jesse St.James was now ready for his close up. Opening the door, he does it slowly, drapping himself against the door frame,"Oh too what do I owe this visit, dear rival?"

Elliott can't suppress a smile when he sees Jesse changed outfit. It was kind of funny, even though annoying and he still didn't really get where the rivarly came from "Dear rival" he replies to him "I am here to ask for a truce, I need your help in an important matter" he finds himself trying to sound less casual as he speaks, maybe to match Jesse pompous ways "Would you be so kind to help me?" he asks hoping Jesse is kinder than his egotistical persona suggest.

Jesse poses, elegantly and confidently against the door frame, rather possibly the most perfected way that all these feeble door ways have seen. Jesse St.James listens to his oh so fabulous rival, Elliott Gilbert, as he states his reasons for being here. Alas, Jesse does notice the sudden eloquence upon his rival's register, his tone far more formal, however, still harbouring the melodious tone Elliott speaks into his day to day. Alark, his rival was using mimicry, a honourable attempt to match Jesse's perfected tone, he grimaces rather amused. "Dear rival, for it is a truce one seeks, for help that I, the great Jesse St.James, only may offer. May I, Jesse St.James, say, one has me intrigued." Still draped against his door frame, Jesse kicks the door open wide inviting Elliott in,"Enter my humble abode for here you, fabulous rival may address me about this matter of high importance."

Elliott nods politely as he enters the room after the invitation, if he didn't know this was just one of the same rooms at Sciron he would swear Jesse lived in a parallel world. The room was dark, and covered in black and red velvet one way or another, the curtains, even the furniture seemed out of a different era, and even if it was initially shocking, he kinda digged the aesthetic. He was lost in thought looking at the candles decorating the room when he suddenly noticed the horse standing there with beautiful half-braided hair. Jesse's familiar, he remembered. Elliott stepped in, getting closer to it and inevitably petting its head, it was indeed very beautiful and soft. "Well... I need to buy something" he says not wanting to beat around the bush "I need blood for... an artistic project" he lies "you know, very experimental material, meaningful..." he tries to come up with something "I know they sell blood at the market place, but only vampires can get it, so I was thinking you would probably be the person to go to, to help me buy it" he explains "Would you mind?"

As Jesse allows his fabulous rival to enter his sleeping chamber, a woe-some thought enters his head for how splendid it would have been if he, Jesse St.James had delivered his dialogue from his chair for he had been practicing the perfect swivels in his chair. Alas a moment wasted, a moment missed or alark was it, would his rival even be aware he had missed a moment for perfect dramatics, nay he would not! Yet a nay nonetheless leaves Sterling St.James upon getting attention from Elliott, the fabulous rival. Mimicking Jesse, Sterling also flicks his hair rather more majestic than Jesse could obtain. Jesse St.James hastily decides to swivel on his chair in a dramatic fashion whilst Elliott reveals the question which only, Jesse St.James the Great could only complete, to be the hero upon his rivals needs. However, there was pause upon the rival's reveal, "Blood...for an artistic pursuit? My, my, my you, rival have peaked my interest," Jesse stretches his legs upon his desk,"You come into my temporary home, requesting for I, Jesse St.James to get you, blood. Are you even aware what it is you are asking of I, Jesse St.James?"

Elliott admires the horse and the dramatism of the hair flip, he tries to do the same in a reflect, though even if he is letting his hair grow, it isn't that long. It moves slightly, and he chuckles partially embarrassed and noticing what he could swear is a judging look from the horse "Well..." he paused realizing Jesse's dramatic pose. This was so over the top, if he wasn't slightly annoyed he would actually love it "I mean... does it offend you that ask?" he says confused.

"Offend me, why you sir, I, Jesse St.James do not get easily offended, how dare you assume so," Jesse St.James gasps in a dramatic fashion. "Alas, however," Jesse rises from his chair presenting himself tall, with every step he took one would hear the click of his masculine heels to the floorboard for a sound that he had perfected for moments such as this. He had made sure the sound echoed perfectly through the silence that befell before himself and his oh so fabulous rival. "As you state dear fabulous rival, one wants blood for a mere artistic pursuit. One treats the obtaining of blood to be something as trivial as Commons and Witches alike ponder to the store for a packet of Doritos. Does one thing think obtaining Blood to be something as mundane as that?" Jesse sticks out a hand,"Nay, for I, Jesse St.James would never pick a rival to be ignorant as other fools naturally are. One must know the complexities that come when being an other. Blood, oh blood, for it is a life source that flows with all beings which live, a pulsing heart beats, oh listening to the melodious tick of a beating heart may it be mortal or animal, blood allows to live. Now here is where there is a fallacy for other's, the utter fools of the world who place upon themselves to call upon judgment, judgment which myself, Jesse St.James, has bared, alas I, Jesse St.James are not bothered by as I, Jesse St.James is a being of pure perfection, alas a speech reserved for rather sooner than later. Alas, to the main tale, the irony in which, the undead thrive upon blood that comes upon the living. When moments like that happen many perceive it to be unnatural, intangible to be canon. Then a blind eye is held upon other's with their means of survival when only it is the necessity to thieve upon." Jesse looks upon his rival. "Do you rival understand what I, Jesse St.James speak of?"

Elliott rolls his eyes as Jesse says he doesn't get easily offended, when their whole rivarly was started by him for a reason Elliott still wasn't sure about. However, he doesn't bother to talk about it, as he hears what else Jesse has to say. Elliott feels his embarrassment rush to warm his face, though he hoped if his glamour was doing its job it won't be notice. He may have thought of blood as something more mundane that he should, though not enterily ignoring what it meant and what was it for, but definitely not giving it the importance he should either. It was strange that Jesse was talking, even if decorating his speech flamboyantly as usual, in a honest way. He was speaking in his own Jesse way about his experience, and it did made Elliott think of it "No one is exent of ignorance, my dear rival" he replies touching his hair slightly nervous "Even though I know what the blood is for, I may have not thought about the deeper connotations..." he looks at Jesse in silence not really sure what to say.

One must now embrace thyself as rather rare moment occurs for Jesse does not focus upon himself as he channels all his sense to occupied wholly upon his rival, heightening his senses to hear the thumbing heartbeat drum against his chest in a harmony of anguish and doubt to the sweat trickling down from nervous that better him. Jesse watches close to the nervous hair touching all the glorious signs in what Jesse wisely suspects. "Wise words there, dear rival," Jesse feels rather pleased his way of speech was the more dominate way of speaking. To up the theatrics, Jesse speeds, closing the distance being right in Elliott's face,"Well then, I, Jesse St.James need to ask, are they connotations in which one shall consider deeper?"

Elliott can't even react when suddenly Jesse is on his face, he has rarely seen the vampire in action, and he is impressed "Well... hmmm" he stands correcting his position "You said it that way, I... hmmm, I understand how it may seem like a waste to give it to me when it is something that provides you so much" he explains "But I need to buy it" he insists getting himself close to Jesse. He debates if telling him the truth, but he isn't sure if he should risk admiting out loud he is going to perform forbidden rituals.

Hesitation was prominent from the pauses and utterances in his, oh so fabulous rival, Elliott Gilbert. Oh for how Jesse St.James had missed making others' sweat, fickle from their own decisions. "Alas, it could be wasteful for an artistic pursuit thus one would think that I, Jesse St.James, would deny your request." As the shedim steps closer, Jesse does not allow him to square up to him even with a few inches on his height, he puffs up his chest holding his shoulders high, his nose pointed in the air, a toothy smirk,"But alas as a fellow artist myself perhaps, I may grant your request, Elliott, however it beckons the question, what in the devils name would I, Jesse St.James gain from helping my very in need rival? Hmm?" Jesse questions him in a melodious tone, looking him up and down curious to spot other tells that could reveal all.

Elliott rises an eyebrow thinking Jesse was going to do something more, but his speech seemed to be more a facade than a reality maybe. He was willing to do it after a few seconds more focused on what he could obtain and not so offended "Well, what would you want in exchange?" he says wondering if that's better or worst.

Alas, Jesse St.James has his rival in the corner, a position for his oh so fabulous rival to owe him a favour. "Oh for how I, Jesse St.James, am glad you asked rival," he looks upon his desk, coyly,seductively running over over his desk where a pile parchment papers written in flawless cursive as he hands one to you,"Here is a list to ways you may make it up to, I, Jesse St.James. Bullet point four may catch your interest, for, I, know it all, Jesse St.James, have heard you have a rather artistic eye." Jesse St.James chuckles,"However rival, the choice is up to you and I, Jesse St.James, shall get this blood to which you desire." He takes a seat upon his chair, "Now begone for now one shall be going into wardrobe." By that the vampire meant ways in which he shall outdo is rival upon their next encounter, one he shall craft perfectly.

#p: bloody hell #//pls dont judge me that pun wrote itself in the title #i got possesed by the pun ghost lmao

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takaraphoenix · 6 years ago

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Writing a post about how much I need James Marsters and Dominic Sherwood to star in the same franchise reminded me that wait, I did a pitch for that before.

Which in return reminded me that wait, I sat through a long and boring day at college last semester and actually did a more detailed pitch. And since I have absolutely nothing to do right now, hear me out.

It’s a TV show based around a pack of werewolves. More precisely, focusing on one particular werewolf who can turn at will while the others are bound by the moon. Also, there’s gays in it and basically most of my favorite actors. Really, it was mainly born from me making a list of TV actors I enjoy and would like to see in the same piece together and then I spun a plot around it. It turned into a bit of a mix between Shadowhunters and Teen Wolf, really. With maybe a slight dash of Vampire Diaries in there.

So let’s start with the cast, yes?

Dominic Sherwood as Heliodoro ‘Haley’ O’Rinn, an orphaned werewolf and the protagonist of our story.

Dylan O’Brien as Maximillian ‘Max’ Blythe, Haley’s best friend, a nerd with a lot of chaotic energy, who also turns out to be a sorcerer without knowing it.

Yaya DaCosta as Jessamine ‘Jess’ Kemp, Haley’s other best friend and the voice of reason in their chaotic trio. Also love interest to Max Blythe/Dylan O’Brien. She’s the human who runs with wolves and where they sometimes let their instincts win out over common sense, she is the one with a plan.

Alexandra Daddario as Menodora ‘Meena’ O’Rinn, Haley’s twin-sister, stricter than Haley and taking everything, including training, more seriously than him. The twins aren’t very close, but Meena is fiercely protective of her brother, even when she doesn’t like to show it.

Alyssa Milano as Dorothea O’Rinn, Haley and Meena’s mother who dies in the first episode but we will have regular flashbacks to the childhood of the twins and the things Meena, in particular, learned from her mother. Because she was the Alpha of the pack - and Meena was supposed to follow in her pawprints, so to speak.

James Marsters as Lucius O’Rinn, Haley and Meena’s father and the husband of Dorothea O’Rinn/Alyssa Milano. He was the aloof and fun parent who used to play a lot with little Haley while Meena learned all the important Alpha lessons from their mother.

John Laroquette as Conall O’Rinn, the grandfather of Haley and Meena, who raises them after their parents die when they are still small children. He lives in a secluded cabin in the woods, knowing he has to protect his grandchildren after their entire pack, including their parents, was killed.

Amy Acker as Riley Blakesley, the Alpha of the new pack moving into the territory over the following ten years since the O’Rinns and their pack were murdered. She is a one hundred percent badass and becomes a new mentor-figure to Meena O’Rinn/Alexandra Daddario after the twins meet her.

Jamie Chung as Sara Lin, the loyal Beta and second-in-command of Riley Blakesley/Amy Acker. Like her Alpha, she is a strong and fierce fighter. And she particularly has no time for Max Blythe/Dylan O’Brien’s nonsense.

Santiago Cabrera as Antonio ‘Tony’ Del Bosque, Haley’s love-interest and a member of Riley Blakesley/Amy Acker’s pack. He is reckless and gets into a lot of trouble, which is why he gets dragged into this mess.

Shemar Moore as Mark Chase, Tony Del Bosque/Santiago Cabrera’s best friend and Sara Lin/Jamie Chung’s love interest. Which always puts him into an awkward position, because he knows what his best friend is up to - and he should tell his girlfriend, for one because honesty is key to a healthy relationship and also because she is the pack’s second-in-command so honesty is key to staying healthy.

Jane Lynch as Cassandra Leclair, a powerful sorceress who will help our friends on their quest. She is the one who will enlighten Max Blythe/Dylan O’Brien about his heritage and she also finds out why the O’Rinn pack has been killed.

John Barrowman as Maximus Bloodworth, the main villain of our show, former best friend of Lucius O’Rinn/James Marsters, former apprentice to Cassandra Leclair/Jane Lynch and also the biological father of Max Blythe/Dylan O’Brien.

And with that, we have actually finished the cast list and gotten quite far on the story. But let’s focus on only the story now.

Dorothea O’Rinn/Alyssa Milano and Lucius O’Rinn/James Marsters are killed in our opening scene, along with their entire pack, leaving Haley O’Rinn/Dominic Sherwood and his twin-sister Meena O’Rinn/Alexandra Daddario as orphans.

All we see is a fire and a shadowy figure walking away from it.

The next scene, ten years later, the twins are living with their grandfather Conall O’Rinn/John Laroquette in a secluded cabin in the woods, keeping away from society as much as possible.

Only that Haley’s best friends from high school are two people that really can not be shaken off - Jess Kemp/Yaya DaCosta and Max Blythe/Dylan O’Brien.

Max and Haley have always gotten into a lot of trouble, even as little children. Jess was always the voice of reason behind them who essentially kept the two idiots alive. But when she starts to suspect there might be a cult in their small little hometown of Sunhaven, even Jess’ curiosity is piqued, so the trio goes and investigates.

It started five years ago, that new people moved there and were behaving weird. Living together in one big house, people who definitely were not family. But lately, there seemed to be more and more.

Jess’ suspicion is that Riley Blakesley/Amy Acker is some kind of cult-leader.

Only that she’s not. She’s an Alpha werewolf who was chased away from her own territory by hunters and considering the O’Rinn pack had been dead for ten years alrady, she figured she could claim the land.

First there is distrust and suspicion - Riley thinks the trio might be hunters, while they actually believe that Riley and her pack are a cult.

Conall O’Rinn has a lot of explaining to do. We’ll do that about mid-season.

Haley doesn’t know he’s a werewolf. He was only ten when their parents died and since he was not next in line, there was no reason to concern him with it. Well, in the back of his mind, he vaguely remembers wolves but he figured that was just his overly active imagination, you know? His twin-sister Meena however had been groomed to become the next Alpha from a young age and she always knew that they were both wolves.

That revelation causes a rift between the twins and it also makes Haley really freak out. Because, what? He’s a werewolf now? He always was a werewolf?

He runs away in a panic.

Not knowing what to do, Jess and Max go to seek help from the werewolf pack because who knows where Haley went and if something happened to him.

The Alpha however is still talking to grandpa O’Rinn and will not be disturbed - her loyal and fierce second-in-command Sara Lin/Jamie Chung makes sure of that. To appease her, her mate Mark Chase/Shemar Moore decides to get the meddling human kids out of the way.

Listening to their story though, he and his best friend Tony Del Bosque/Santiago Cabrera decide to thelp them find the runaway young wolf.

It’s Tony who finds Haley, trapped in a cave where he slipped and panicked. Only... the boy isn’t human when he finds him. Instead, he’s a beautiful white wolf. In the middle of a bright and sunny day. Something that should be absolutely impossible.

Now that needs to be reported to the Alpha. Because usually, young werewolves undergo their first change at age 25 - and it’s coming up for them. But it should only happen on a full moon. Wolves can’t just change at will.

Understandably freaked out, they look toward Riley for answers. The Alpha has to know what any of this means, right? Well, no, not really.

She instead sends them onto a quest to New York to visit a great sorceress - she might understand what strange magic is going on here.

While the pack-situation may not be sorted out, Riley does feel responsible for them so she sends Tony, Mark and Sara (the latter under great protests because she feels like babysitting is beneath her and that she ought to protect the Alpha and the pack) along with them. The journey is long and dangerous, after all. Sorcerers can’t be trusted and who knew what might lay along the way?

They travel cross country and encounter different supernatural creatures along the way, seeing the world with different eyes now. Jess grows incredibly fascinated by it all and starts documenting it, while Tony and Haley slowly fall in love with each other during the journey. Though neither is yet ready to admit anything.

Season 1 ends on a cliffhanger of Cassandra Leclair/Jane Lynch opening her door and greeting them - “I have been waiting to meet you, Sun Wolf.”.

Throughout the first season, we’d have a lot of flashbacks to the twins’ childhood. To their dad playing with Haley whenever their mom was teaching Meena about wolves. Most of the flashbacks would be Haley re-evaluating his memories, seeing the things in them that he, as an innocent child, had overlooked. And in those flashbacks, John Barrowman would repeatedly appear as their father’s best friend, though remaining unnamed for now and unassuming.

By the way, The Sun Wolf would also be the title of the show.

We open up season 2 where we left off in season 1 and Cassandra essentially tells Haley that there is nothing she can do for him. She only knows of a prophecy about a wolf who would walk the sun and that’s it.

The second season mainly takes place in New York, where Cassandra did however notice the magic pulsing through Max and starts teaching him about his powers. He never met his father, was raised by a single mother who never spoke a word of who Max’ father even was.

Haley all the while is majorly sulking because he feels like a freak, where Tony becomes a reassuring, gentle voice to him.

Jess gets her own plotline where she starts feeling left out. Between Haley the day-walking werewolf and Max the sorcerer, she was just... human. Her interest in magical creatures sparked in season one leads her to discover vampires though.

And while she doesn’t get turned, she gets into a lot of trouble with them. Weak from bloodloss and delirious with vampire-venom, she is used as bait to lure the others out. The vampires are out to kill them, but thankfully they brought Sara, Mark and Tony - aka three well-trained wolves - with them. Though Sara does most of the ass-kicking.

Afterward, we see the vampires reporting back to a shadowy figure where we can’t make out the face.

Sara decides to take Jess under her wing after this. She teaches the girl how to fight and how to defend herself and they share some bonding. Sara confides that she doesn’t always like being a werewolf, that all she ever wanted was a peaceful life. That turning every full moon is painful and a curse.

Jess learns to appreciate her humanity and embraces her role in their team. She gathers all the information she can - now no longer just a random journal about the supernatural they encountered, but clear evidence and everything they can find out about the Sun Wolf.

After Max’ training ends, Cassandra sends them on their way back home. They’re still bummed out that they didn’t really find any leads and she suggests they should talk to Max’ father about it - since he was a local sorcerer back when the O’Rinn pack was still in town, apparently (otherwise the siring of a son would have been hard, after all).

They get a name from her, because she recognized the signature of Max’ magic as that of a former student of hers. Maximus Bloodworth.

On their way back to Sunhaven, they are attacked by hunters.

In the final scene of season 2, we see the hunters report back to the same shadowy figure as the vampires earlier this season. The doorbell rings, interrupting the meeting. The figure walks toward the door and opens it to have our protagonists standing in front of him. “Are you Maximus Bloodworth? I think I’m your son”, says Max as the camera pans over his shoulder to reveal John Barrowman as not just Max’ father but also the one who had tried to kill them all along.

In season 3, we are finally returned to Sunhaven and have Maximus Bloodworth/John Barrowman relay the story of how the O’Rinn pack died from his perspective. Which, obviously, is a lie. He also tells them how he had fled, trying to save his own life, not knowing that Max’ mom was pregnant at the time. Which is... actually not a lie. Max is a factor he had not anticipated, so he changes his plans. He tries to sway them, to be the voice in Max’ ear, to appeal to the boys’ longing for a father-figure.

So season 3 sees a heavy focus on Max’ loyalty being torn between his friends and his father, with Maximus teaching him not just magic but dark magic that in its essence corrupts a sorcerer’s soul.

We are also shown that while they were off questing, Meena joined the pack and has taken to learning from Riley. That puts Meena and Sara at odds, because Sara sees her position as second-in-command threatened.

This season, Tony and Haley are actually finally going to get together. Because Max is so busy reuniting with his father, while Jess has completely buried herself in her research and in absorbing all the knowledge she can. In that time, Haley draws a lot of strength from Tony and here, back in the woods, he can actually train his shifting.

Now, Jess’ digging and researching brings her dangerously close to the truth, ending in an epic reveal. Because reading up on magic and wolves and sorcerers, she finds out that the first werewolf had been cursed by a sorcerer to walk the night under the full moon, using powerful light magic. So she finds out, or rather deducts, that it was powerful dark magic that enabled Haley to walk in the sunlight. The only powerful sorcerer anywhere nearby however was Maximus Bloodworth.

Max does not like to hear that. His dad was everything he had always pictured and more. And the dark magic he had unbeknowns been using had been corrupting him too.

The season ends with an epic show-down and fight between Max and Haley during which Jess gets hurt. In the end, Max flees with his father and we are left not knowing Jess’ fate.

Season 4 opens up in the hospital, where Jess is bitching to Sara about how much she hates it here.

The pack had done their best trying to find Max and his father and now they are trying to find out why Maximus would have done this in the first place.

Max all the while starts growing suspicious on his own. Now that they are no longer in a cozy lake house, having fun father-son bonding, he sees his father’s scheming and his underlings.

One day, he confronts his father and asks for the truth, demands to be trusted.

Maximus reveals that werewolves are bound to the moon. Instead, Maximus wanted to bind them to him. An army of obedient wolves, who can shift and attack and fight whatever day or night it is. He had used Meena and Haley as experiments when they were born, he had been trusted by their parents, had babysat them and spend a lot of time around them. And while the magic did not take with Meena, it took with Haley.

But when their mother found out about it and alerted the pack, it became too risky and Maximus intended to kill them all and only take Haley with him. Only that the twins had been with their grandfather at the time and the attack resulted in a large fire. Not knowing the twins had been gone to begin with and being unable to find them in the ashes now, Maximus assumed they had perished alongside their pack.

Only when Haley ran away and shifted at day, not far off from Maximus’ lake house, did he realize that his experiments had survived and been successful.

Panicked and disgusted does Max run away.

The pack however is not too welcoming toward the traitor. Sara in particular chases him off, because she had grown very protective over Jess since the vampire-incident in New York.

Not knowing what to do, Max finds himself returning to Cassandra Leclair in New York. The sorceress takes him in and she shares stories of his father’s youth. He had always had great potential, but also too much pride. He thought sorcerers were above all else. They were the ones who had created the curses of werewolves and vampires, they should be the ones to wipe them up. For that, he intended to pitch them against each other - since they had been rivals for as long as they existed.

While Max overcomes his addiction to dark magic at Cassandra’s and Jess goes through physical therapy at Sunhaven, Meena and Haley slowly reconnect again, because Meena knows how much it hurt Haley to lose his best friend like that. In the end, it is Meena who encourages Haley to go and search for Max - especially after Sara reveals that Max had dropped by weeks ago.

The twins go on this quest together and bond, sharing about their respective experiences. How Haley had always felt excluded by their mother favoring Meena. How Meena had always envied that Haley got to just grow up and be a child. Their parents were what had caused the rift between them.

In the end, Meena makes it to Cassandra’s. Bloodied and battered. And alone. Because Maximus knew that on the long run, Haley would come and seek out his best friend - and of course did Maximus know where his son went. He kidnapped the boy. And that’s how we end season 4.

Now, in the fifth and final season, the pack has to band together to track down Maximus and free Haley.

Jess and Max rekindle their friendship during this quest. They also find a new sense of appreciation for Tony, who is going completely crazy with worry for his boyfriend - and anger toward Meena for taking Haley on this quest without any form of backup.

Riley and Sara get to kick major ass. A lot of asses will be kicked this season, because Maximus also had his vampire experiments - and he had continued those over the past ten years. He has an army of vampires who can walk in the sunlight (which is why we had the vampires attack our team in season 2).

This season is very action packed and dramatic overall, so there’s not much to tell. In the end, they win, obviously. Riley, and other members of her pack, die during the fight. And we conclude the series with Meena becoming the rightful Alpha of the Sunhaven pack.

We see, battered and bruised but very much alive, Sara and Mark swearing their loyalty to their new Alpha who had proven herself during the final battle against the vampires.

We see Tony and Haley, happy and together, kissing in the sunset at the very cave they had first met.

We see Jess and Max opening up a book store - with a special section dedicated to magic, a book written by Jess laid out in the display.

#TV Show Pitch #Werewolves #Dominic Sherwood #James Marsters #Alexandra Daddario #Dylan O'Brien #Santiago Cabrera #Yaya DaCosta #Alyssa Milano #John Laroquette #John Barrowman #Jane Lynch #Amy Acker #Jamie Chung #Shemar Moore

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