#and search for a hero is just. GOD it's a good fucking arc.

[necrotic-nephilim]

for the ask game, an AU where (somehow…) jason and tim (begrudgingly) team up in the search for a hero/battle for the cowl era (either when jason says tim should work with him on the gang stuff or when batman jason asks tim to be his robin) :]

for the ask game!

god, Search For A Hero my beloved. for the Search For A Hero version of their team-up, I think I'd write it something like this

I think the biggest reason Tim says no when Jason asks him is Jason asks Tim too early in the arc. as the storyline develops, Tim gets more and more desperate to best Ulysses, which is what pushes him to make the mistake that gets Ulysses' siblings killed. he's in a tight spot and he misjudges the situation. (i think the guilt he carries from that moment is one of the biggest inciting incidents for becoming Red Robin) so, i'd introduce Jason to the plot just a little later. just as Tim is on the edge of desperation. Tim isn't entirely adverse to working with villains if he thinks he can stay on top of them. so instead of sending Jason to prison, i think if Jason came to Tim at the right time, Tim would begrudging accept Jason's help

part of Tim's plan would be leveraging Jason's power with the mafia/mob scene in Gotham. they'd agree that topping the gangs would just cause a power vacuum (i'm pretty sure that's actually addressed in SFAH but i could be misremembering) so it's more about a balancing act, which is where Jason thrives. Tim is right on the cusp of being willing to do more morally questionable things, so it'd be a fun internal war for him to second-guess himself at every turn.

there would be such a delightful lack of trust in their partnerships. TIm has *zero* reason to trust Jason, and while Jason likes Tim enough, i don't think he's naive enough to put any trust in Tim. so there'd be moments where they don't fill each other in on aspects of the plan. Jason kills people behind Tim's back, Tim keys in his cop friend behind Jason's back. it builds the tension between them with a lot of hot arguments that get more and more charged.

the jealousy. there would just have to be a scene where Jason gets wildly jealous over Ulysses' complex over Tim. Ulysses tries so hard to pit himself as like, Tim's biggest adversary, his opposite. and Jason would *despise* that. sure, Jason is working with Tim, but part of the fun is that they're still enemies as they do it. i think it'd be sort of fun to have the moment where Ulysses blows Tim up be something Jason witnesses and he raises unholy hell about. because if anyone is going to kill Tim Drake, it's going to be him. and that angry possessiveness is what makes the romantic/sexual tension something neither of them can ignore anymore.

Tim deciding to put on the Red Robin suit to fight Ulysses would be where Jason just. goes full tilt possessive "he's mine i marked him that's my suit. see. mine. i said so." and Tim would push back but. what ground does he have to stand on bc he could've picked any suit with any cowl to protect his head after the blast, but he did choose Jason's. it was his own open invitation to Jason in a way. and well. they fuck nasty about it. and then Damian becomes Robin, so why not Tim keep the suit and just maybe, keep Jason in his back pocket.

and!! for the Battle for the Cowl version. man on one hand i love "Tim accepts Jason's offer to be his Robin" fics but i feel they lack a bite to them, so this is personally how i would try to pull it off, while being relatively in character.

so the biggest thing for me is, TIm agrees to be Jason's Robin not because he trusts or likes Jason, but for the same reasons he became Robin in the first place: to keep Batman stable. being Jason's Robin isn't about wanting to work with Jason, it would be Tim knowing there's no world Jason is ever going to stop and seeing Jason slowly tip over the edge of madness and well. if Tim was self-sacrificial enough to do it for Bruce and attempt to do it for Jean-Paul, he can do it for Jason.

him agreeing would i think startle Jason. like, Jason's offer was never particularly serious because he's at the point he knows Tim wants nothing to do with him. so when Tim says yes it sort of. snaps Jason out of the rage BftC puts him in. he's so startled but enticed by the thought, he willingly agrees to stipulations Tim sets, like no murder. like even if just to see where this goes, Jason jumps on the chance.

i'd really want to keep Dick and Damian as Batman and Robin, and the weird divide that would exist with Dick/Damian and Jason/Tim both running around as Batman/Robin and how off kilter that puts Gotham. like Gotham is so baffled by it, it actually makes criminals easier to handle. because they have no clue if they're getting the Batman who needs Robin to keep him in line, or the Robin who needs Batman to keep him in line. people know there's two Batmans, two Robins and no one knows quite what to do with that information. who's the "real" Batman? who's the "real" Robin? and on the personal level, the divide between Dick and Tim would be unmistakable. Dick would know what Tim's doing and try to convince him Jason is a lost cause bc well, Dick at this point *really* believes Jason is a lost fucking cause. So Dick's genuine care and concern for Tim just drives a further wedge between them.

i think there'd need to be a scene where Tim flat out asks if Jason even *wants* to be Batman. in a sort of attempt to slowly ween Jason off of being Batman, but also because i don't think Jason ever really wants to be Batman, he just wants Batman to be what his vision of justice is. and it'd be the first real heart to heart they have, discussing the legacy of the Robin and Batman mantles and how it's affected them. it'd be heated, but it'd be their first real conversation as just. Jason and Tim.

to me, i think the end goal of this AU would be Tim successfully "taming" Jason, and not in like a soft way, but in like a manipulative way, where even Jason knows that's what Tim is doing, but he just goes along with it because it's the first real human connection he's had in a while. also, i would work in Scarlet, Jason's sidekick in Batman & Robin (2009) as like. a pseudo daughter figure for them to help Jason find his humanity a bit. so it's not just Tim as Jason's rock, but also this misguided girl they'd both try to help. and well, then they ride into the sunset and all that, but still have a complicated, toxic dynamic they're both aware is unhealthy, but as balanced as it can be.

[justatalkingface]

The 'Great' MHA Read Along, Part Five (Chapters 22-44): The Mandatory Exploitive Tournament Arc

Been awhile, huh? Let's see if I can still pull this off. I'm warning you, this is probably going to have a bit of heft to it.

We start off people trying (and failing) to investigate Shigarki and the Villains and, first off, a couple of things. The whole, 'Quirk Registry' shit? Very X-Men. I'm... kinda mixed feelings on it. It makes sense for a government to try and keep track of this kind of shit, but at the same time it feels like a whole lot, you know? That said... the way the guy in the suit phrased it makes it seem like they only searched for 'Shigaraki/Disintegration' and 'Kurogiri/OP warping' pairings, which seems... dumb. Like, really dumb.

Are they.... are they not going to search for anyone with a similar Quirk? Because it sounds like there are other people with similar Quirks, so... what about them? Oh, this pale haired guy who mutters a lot about how horrible heroes are isn't named Shigaraki, so clearly this isn't the guy? Do some ground work or something, man, bloody hell.

*spits out drink*

Even All-Might thinks Shigaraki is a man-child, lol. Brutal. That said... Vlad goes, 'You mean he's just like a kid with a 'power' or something?!'

And I. My dude. You're just some guy with a power. It feels like some depersonalization of the 'villains' because, yeah, everyone in this story is, in fact, just some rando human, 99.9% of the time with super powers. I don't know, it just feels like that's this really concerning perspective for someone in authority to have.

'I keep forgetting this is an actual school!'

That. That's... actually really concerning? Everyone, literally everyone, from Aizawa, to the students, to the actual author, can't seem to figure out if UA is some military academy meant to pump out child soldiers, or an actual high school meant to prepare children to go into society. And not to belabor the point here, one I've talking about on and off again for awhile, but that's fucked up.

I can't help but get the impression that UA (and presumably every other hero academy) is some military complex, setting up the students to live a life where the only way they know how to live is through violence and trying to be famous, but it's just... pretending to have standards, pretending to care for the kids as anything more than the next generation of... idol-police, or something. The way every school related thing is so out of place, the way their grades are so unimportant... it's very telling.

And like. It's not a bad thing, per say. Morally bad, sure, but from a story telling perspective? For a story like this, the way the heroic's school is morally dubious is actually a really good plot point to work off of. But... that's the problem. It never happens.

If the setting was fucked up enough, it'd be understandable if it wasn't explored, but it's not. I feel like there's some fertile ground to talk about... how heroes don't know how to handle living normal lives. How to cook, clean, do taxes, hIstory (which is, of course, very loaded sort of topic in a more dystopian kind of a set up) and so on. There's no way they have the time and energy to do all the thing a normal kid should do at their age, and as they grow up, and get these dangerous, fucked up jobs? There has to be consequences to that.

And the next line later, they bring up, you know, a bunch of terrorists just attacked the school. Which is, in fact, a serious fucking concern! What does Aizawa say?

'No no, we're only doing because we're so sure we have this shit locked down.'

Spoiler alert: They did not, in fact, have this shit locked down. In the least.

My god, this is so fucked up. It's pretty clear that the fact this is still happening is because UA, and heroics as a whole, honestly, is doing a show of force to try and make all the bad things go away. In all honesty, they're putting these kids lives at risk; the only reason nothing went wrong isn't because 'the school had all its ducks in a row when it comes to crisis control' or what the fuck ever, but because AFO didn't want to do anything. And you know why he doesn't interfere?

Because it's so damn useful for him that they flat out broadcast the details of the students and what their Quirks are!

And don't even get me started on this 'Olympics have fallen out of favor' bullshit. It's a world wide event, and it doesn't matter if the population has... shrunk (? That's what my translation says, anyways. Is this honestly saying that so many people died that the Olympics no longer holds any attraction? I mean.. what? What the fuck? What happened???? Why in the hell is this getting brushed over?! Or is that just a bad translation, and if so what is he saying is the reason the Olympics no longer have any appeal?) or whatever, because that's just... bullshit. That's just bullshit. If super powers happen, and they get at all stabilized and regulated like they are in here, all that's going to happen is that the powers are going to be part of the Olympics, and a lower population count really isn't going to change the fundamental reasons why it's popular in the first place.

Speedster racing, various forms of competitive flying (racing (in all its variations), acrobatics, mid-air dancing, synchronized flying.... flight along has dozens of potential new Olympics sports, easy), something like shot-put hurling but with some kind of projectiles, fire, lasers, whatever? Oh yeah, the Olympics are going to be just fine.

So please, Hori, spare me your obsessive need to make heroics the most important thing EVAH all of the time.

But, wait, there's more! It's not just, the new super Olympics, oh no, this is for their careers. In high school. This is, apparenlty, a make or break moment for the rest of their lives (again, with however that undefined heroics ranking and what not works). How old are they? What, fifteen? 'Here, go do bloodsports, and if you fuck up, you're going to be a menial, loser fry-cook of a wannabe police officer, dressed in brightly colored spandex for the rest of your life, barely making any money, and never getting any real respect or validation for putting your life at risk'.

Oh, I have opinions on the Sports Festival, believe me, I have a lot of opinions, but I'd like to save at least some of these more for when the actual Sports Festival starts, and not, like, five pages into the first chapter out of what, twenty two? We've got the time.

Uraraka! You're an actual character! My, this is nostalgic. I always loved the contrast between her hyper cute-zied design of her and the fact she's down to beat the living shit out of someone at the drop of a hat, and it's nice to have that again.

(Also, she's showing more ability to inspire the class here than Bakugou has shown literally the entire series, no matter how much Hori goes on about his 'charisma' or whatever.)

And then we get into her "impure" motivations to be a hero, (which I've also talked about on occasion), and it's very humanizing, both for Uraraka as a character, and the industry as a whole. It's one of those great set ups Hori ended up dropping on world building, which sucks because it'd be so interesting if he got into the nuts and bolts of the world a bit. I'm not saying we need to see the tax code or anything, but for a series that's about corruption and what not, some more detail would really help pull all of this together.

Ah, Dumb Might. I didn't miss you, except I kind of did because Dumb Might is still better than Useless-Side-Character Might.

Also, can I talk about how stupid it is that Dumb Might is burning his less than an hour's worth of time 'teaching' students again? Because holy fuck that's such a waste it's honestly criminal.

And what the hell is this switch in motivations, here? All Might never mentioned, you know, replacing him is the Symbol of Peace before now. Before this point, the whole reason he chose Izuku is that he'd be worthy user of his power, not, what, replacing him. If Izuku never gained any real fame, but still managed to save a lot of people? Before-this-point All Might would have been fine with that. More than that, he would have been proud of it, proud his successor was humble and chose to focus on doing good rather than fame. Hell, not too long ago it was pointing out by All Might that Izuku wouldn't want to use All Might's fame to benefit himself, to go slow and steady and earn his success rather than relying on fame.

Where the fuck did this come from? What the fuck kind of pressure is he trying to put on this kid?

And then right after that, we see flashes of who All Might used to be with the whole 'don't forget how you felt at the seaside park, that day', bit. Because, like, that's good. That's great! It's real, and deep, and gritty, and I'd love it if it wasn't being use with this set up, because those expectations work in other shonens, but they don't work here. Izuku can't do what All Might did, because he can't stop damn hurting himself. Going Plus Ultra, here, now, for this? It could cause real, serious harm to him for the rest of his life! And for what? To make a good impression?

And if something would call him on that, it could still work, because All Might is canonly shit at taking care of himself, that could, like, close the circle for all of this, bring it together with the two them as shit at at self care as a place to build them improving off of, but for whatever reason, Hori never went all the way on that because he was too damn afraid to commit to it, commit to a story, commit to a theme, commit to a moral.

...Holy shit, how many pages is this? We haven't even gotten to actual Sports Festival yet in the post about the damn Sports Festival.

And now we have this creepy, kind of morbid mob of people filling the hallway to stare at Class 1-A for.... being attacked by terrorists.

*what the fuck.jpeg*

What is wrong with you people?! What the actual hell is wrong with you???

And then Shinso rolls up:

"Wow. Look at these arrogant assholes, so excited about not getting killed. I'm going to declare war on them, because they deserve it for getting all high and mighty."

...

You know, I completely forgot about the epic story of, 'Shinso Hitoshi and his Completely Unmerited Persecution Complex'. I'm sad that I remember that now.

Bakugou: "People's opinions don't matter once your at the top."

Me: *looks at how much people's opinions matter to getting to the top, and staying there*

Me: ...Uh.

Thank you, Kaminari, for pointing out his edgy bullshit is, in fact, actually bullshit, and is only going to make his life more difficult for no reason. I like you as an actual person who does things other than cheerlead for Bakugou.

Izuku. Izuku no, Izuku...! Damn it. Bad Izuku. Bad! Stop getting inspired by the festering waste spewing out of Bakugou's mouth!

Cue all of two panels of the media being absolute assholes only out to make ratings with no redeeming features.

And... here's the actual Sports Festival, god knows how long into this post later!

(if you believe the text editor I just posted all of this into? Well into four pages. ...Even with my generous use of spacing, I think I have a problem.)

..Wait. Wait. Where the hell is this happening?

*does five seconds of research on the wiki*

I'm right. They have a stadium for this. Like, a giant ass sports stadium that exists for this. Only for this. That is used once a year.

At this point, I'm honestly wondering why UA isn't just it's own city. Like, Izuku should have moved here, along with the rest of the students, and all the families and various staff needed to run this just.... live on site. It's not like it'd cost them anything, since they apparently have spare cities sitting around for the kids to trash.

That's... that's actually a really interesting idea? Because it'd be a hero run city, then, which feels like it'd work well into the over commercialized, corrupted state heroics is supposed to be like, their overwhelming level of influence. I don't think that's what Hori was going for, to be clear, I think he has no idea just how much space he's causally put on UA's campus and didn't think through the implications... at all.

Ooh, and here comes Todoroki's characterization.

And... here comes the bloodsport, because that's what all of this is: bloodsport. They're throwing a bunch of teenagers onto this stage, broadcast them to the entire country, and have them fight against each other for fame. This society is so fucked up.

Random Gen Ed kid: Yeah, he placed first in the Heroics Entance Exam.

...Yeah. As fucking stupid as it is that Bakugou somehow placed first, it does make sense the person who place first in the Heroics Entrance Exam would be class representative in a school for heroics. Damn, you're salty, kid, but you're also kinda dumb, not going to lie.

Bakugou: *opens his mouth on live TV*

Bakugou: *vomits diarrhea for the entire country to see*

Izuku: ...Wow, Bakugou's so cool! He's grown up and mature now!

...Izuku. Izuku, buddy, please, stop doing this to yourself.

As yet another thing I've mentioned before, a lot of our views on Bakugou comes from Izuku. Izuku who has, from chapter one, all but worshipped Bakugou. Even when he does things wrong, even when he's actively fighting against him, Izuku can't stop himself from going on and on about how great Bakugou is, how cool and tough and determined he is. Izuku's hero worship of his abuser is sheltering Bakugou's actions from the readers, papering over all of his worst traits with a a transparent facade that he's this glorious figure. It's the narrative going the extra mile to cover his arrogant ass, to make him seem like a rival instead of an bully, someone worthy of respect rather than contempt.

Hmm. I don't want to go too much into the nuts and bolts of the event, I think, since I've done that before, so let's try something else: How Many Times Could This Kill A Literal Child? Where I, you guessed it, count how many times a teenager could have been killed, on national television, in this event.

Count one: The start of the race itself, where... *counts how many kids are in 1-A, multiplies by eleven*... two hundred and twenty kids run forward at the same time, trying to force themselves through the same opening. This shit is why it's illegal to shout fire in a theater, because a stampede like this could get someone trampled to death, or maybe crushed by the sheer weight of the crowd (which is something that happens, someone getting killed by the a crowd of unruly people just... squeezing them on accident).

*stares at Shinso being carried around like a wannabe king instead of using his own damn legs judgingly*

Count Two: Mineta gets bitched slapped by a robotic arm bigger than he is. I don't think I have to get into how that could be fatal.

Count Three: The army of Zero Pointers who could easily step on someone.

*Momo wondering about how UA can fund this makes me feel very validated, BTW*

Count Four: Todoroki dumping the Zero Pointer on the rest of the competition to block the way, again for obvious reasons. He obviously doesn't meant to, but this kid isn't even looking back. This is both lamp shaded and then dismissed because it happens to the only two people who could shrug that off, but holy shit that could have killed so many of them.

...The cameras are robots. The cameras are robots with AIs that are cheering on the other robots. I- I can't- what?!?

And then everyone can't stop themselves from praising Bakugou for the radical idea of going over a problem instead of blasting through it. Wow, Bakugou. Amazing. Such brains, such smarts.

Count Five: The Fall. Because there's no way that anyone could get themselves killed by. You know. Falling. If I was more generous, I'd say something like, 'There's probably something down there to catch them if they fall', but I'm not terribly impressed by UA's ability to actually keep these kids safe, so that doesn't make me think they'd have thought that through that much.

Grudgingly, I'm going to give a landmines a pass, because they're explicitly supposed to be non-lethal, and them blowing up didn't do any real damage. Burns, maybe, possibly a broken limb, probably some scars, but this count is about people dying. Izuku's pile could have been, maybe, but that's a level of deliberate action on his part big enough that I can't really blame UA, per say.

Eraserhead, on how 1-A has improved: I didn't do anything.

...Well. At least he's honest.

One other thing: I've said before how bullshit All Might telling Izuku to 'fight to win' was, and right here, here's the proof: All Might explicitly going, "I was afraid you'd be too nice to try and beat other people in competitions, but you proved me wrong! I'm so proud!". You know, fighting to win. Like he later says Izuku doesn't for some mysterious reason *cough*, to make him seem at the same level as Bakugou, *cough*. Poor, poor All Might, yet another victim of Bakugou's narrative warping favoritism.

And here we see the management kids going all out in how to sell Izuku and his brand, which is so very fucked up, for them and the people they're 'selling'. I'm aware this is something that celebrities go through, (which is fucked up for them as well, don't get me wrong; I'm an equal opportunity 'this is fucked up' call out-er), but these kids are in high school. The fact that they're doing this, and getting this done to them, in such numbers, in such an early age... yeah. There's no way this could give them lots and lots of long term stress and psychological problems, right?

Meanwhile, as we get to the offical rankings, I think it's time go back over the 'How Many Times Could This Kill A Literal Child?' count... at five. Five times they could have been killed on complete accident.

That is not a good score.

I'm stopping it here because the other events don't have the same problem, but instead of a whole new problem of delibrately pitting them against each other. On live TV. With minimal supervison. Cementoss popping in at the last second in Izuku vs Todoroki, considering how badly Izuku got hurt in the process, does not fill me with a great sense of these fights being well monitored.

*gets an omake chapter*

*Bakugou gets called Izuku's childhood 'friend'. Bitch, please.*

So. Here's a new point: the million point bullshit is... well. Bullshit. It's the snitch in Quiddich all over again, giving the hero something both super import, with an extra layer of difficulty, to drive up the stress and stakes, only kicked up by a million. Making more than the others makes sense, and making it enough to pass by itself is still pretty reasonable, but making it so excessively much has no point other making Izuku feel isolated from his peers and hunted by his classmates.

Also, Mt Lady going on about how 'great' an exercise the second round is is missing the point that this is literally a thing Japanese kids do in school. Literally, this is a game they're playing with Quirks, not some tactical exercise; it's like saying that playing hide and seek makes you great at hunting people down or something. Again, Hori, dial back your constant need to tell us how great the Sports Festival is. Because it isn't. It really, really isn't.

More doses of everything drooling over how great Bakugou is, and how much of a total shit of a human being he is, joy. Mineta and Shouji's teamup is actually pretty damn brilliant, even though it's tainted by how much of a one-dimensional character Mineta is. Iida is getting shown as Izuku's enemy, but honestly it looks more like he's just trying to improve himself more than anything, while acknowledging how competent Izuku is. Not just that he won the first round, or has a lot points but that Izuku, as a person, is the goal he wants to surpass; there's some good shit there, and pretty validating, if Izuku could allow himself to accept it.

Oh Mei! Mei... actually, I have a post I need to do about the Mei and Izuku dynamic at some point, how they're so designed to work together, but yeah she's fun.

And then Uraraka thinks about how strategic Izuku is being and again, I can't help but contrast this with how things happen later on; even if Izuku never lets himself really feel the respect people have for him, people at this point in time really, honestly seem to respect him, not for his Quirk, but for his brain, his determination, his heroism; it's so well setup for Izuku to stand on his own two feet without OFA and it's some really good stuff. It's a shame Hori gets rid of it.

Hmm. Class B. Class B is... interesting. They're set up as rivals but after this it never goes anywhere, and just leaves us with a bad impression of Monoma, without letting him get a good chance to get past it. I don't like him, honestly, his personality grates at me and he needs to get over himself, but he doesn't deserve the hate he gets from the fandom.

That said, though, the Class A vs Class B victory philosphy is honestly just another example of destroying yourself vs having realistic limits, how All Might and Izuku keep destroying themselves vs everyone else not doing that. The fact Class B is actually thinking ahead is smart, but the series doesn't give them that credit because it's not ambitious enough... even though that runs straight into conflicting with Izuku and his issues.

Hori, fucking commit already. In all honesty, it feels like 1-B should have won over Bakugou and knocked him out of the compition; they planned it out, and played him like a sucker, because he's a bullheaded moron. It's all right there, but right as they win... Eraserhead shows up in the booth and says, 'Yes, you've won, but actually no, because Bakugou need to win anyways. So he is. Because REASONS!' Then All Might gets dragged into that same bullshit just to make it really clear that no, Bakugou is right. Planning? Strategy? That's for losers. Real winners just need to want it hard enough, and no one wants things more than Bakugou!

It would have been better, as a story, and for everyone's character development, if that had happened. Bakugou would have lost to some 'nobodies', Izuku would have gone past him without even validating him with a fight, and Class B and Monoma would have gotten a better chance to show themselves as characters; win win win.

And then Endeavour shows up. Fuck Endeavour. Also that is a man who looks like a serial killer. Dumb Might continues to reign and be completely unable to recognize when someone hates him when he monologues about it right in front of him.

Meanwhile, Bakugou is just... there. For some reason. Why? Why does he need to be there for this? It makes his hissy fit later even worse when you realize he knows why Todoroki doesn't use his fire, and it has literally nothing to do with him. Ignoring him, though, Todoroki and Izuku's moment here is some good stuff, a nice setup for a healthy rivalry based on mutual respect, rather than the toxic mess he has with Bakugou.

Ugh. That cheerleader bullshit. Honestly, it says a lot that they can be told that, 'Aizawa says you need to dress up as cheerleaders', and apparently no one questions this, because of course Aizawa would pull some kind of weird bullshit on them with absolutely no warning at what anyone else would think is the worst possible time.

Midnight being really creepy about how she talks to teenagers, of course, and now... Shinso.

'Consent is for losers' Shinso. 'Everyone is coasting on their Quirks except for me, who only knows how to use my Quirk' Shinso. 'Let me use my Quirk on someone before we even get in the arena so I can blatantly cheat' Shinso. 'No one else has dreams or ambitions' Shinso.

I don't like Shinso. I like the idea of Shinso, sure, but that idea is another one of those paper thing veneers Hori likes to put on his characters, without doing the work to make that match the reality; the only hardship we've seen him go through is his apparent inability to work hard. Like, everyone loves Shinso, in story and out, they can't stop themselves from telling him how great his Quirk is. And you know what? It is. It is a great Quirk.

But Shinso talks like he's had a such a hard time with it, even though he seems to love it, love using it, and the way he acts, like he knows he can go through a career as a hero based only on that Quirk. He's wrong, since he's so out of shape he can't even run, apparently, but he's operating off that assumption at this point, which conflicts with his poor little martyr act.

I want you to look at the iceberg Todoroki makes, and compare it to his efforts against Stain. If he did that against him? That fight would have been over the minute he showed up, and Todoroki ambushed him. This is pretty much our last moments of Todoroki, certified badass, before the nerfs roll in. Savor it, Todoroki fans, because he'll never recover from having to lose against Bakugou.

Another omake, which seems like foreshadowing about Hori deals with women characters: bringing up a good characterization, or valid idea (do women heroes need sexiness to do their jobs?), before throwing it away to fall for the same tropes that he was making a stand against just a minute ago (women getting in a cat fight, which apparently gets really explicit, all of this on a TV before Mineta, Hori's avatar of his own horniness).

Then, as if to prove my point, we get Bakugou vs Uraraka where, like Class B before her, she does everything right, gets the win... and then gets it taken away at the last minute by idiotic bullshit pulled out of nowhere (since when could Bakugou make a blast like that? Why does he need those bomb gauntlets if he can do that?) because Bakugou isn't allowed to lose. And then Eraserhead, Hori's mouthpiece, shouts down the crowd, and us, when we think bad thoughts about it because that isn't allowed either; we need to love Bakugou.

Bakugou respects women! ...Just as much as he respects everyone else. That is to say, he doesn't. Hell, he doesn't respect her enough to think Uraraka planned her own fight! He just gets one line for one second that makes it seem like he respects her, but of course once that moments gone it's back to the normal level of complete disrespect. That's totally character growth right there, one second of acting different before returning right back to standard behavior.

So... Izuku vs Todoroki. I like the fight, it's very dramatic, very cool, but... stop to think about it a second, and about a minute in, Izuku's entire ass hand is broken. That is not OK. Why are they letting it go on? It's simultaneously a great fight, but a seemingly awkward implementation of Izuku having a Quirk, because so much of this arc is built off of him not using a Quirk, not having it. This fight only works with it, though. And it's cool, don't get me wrong, but it's shallow at the same time because of the Quirk, because Izuku has to go Plus Ultra, has to go past his limits. Instead of accepting a more reasonable win, he has to win, period, and he doesn't have the power for that.

There's this awkward conflict here between the story's various narratives, between Izuku needing to suffer, and struggle, and break himself, and his more grounded planning and actions, and you can see Hori's old, better planned out ideas getting replaced with newer, less thought out ones. It's honestly kind of a theme for this arc in it's own right.

Flaws aside, though, the fight is gripping, and it's a great setup for Todoroki, a great starting point in making him an important character, in giving him growth. Shame Hori ends up throwing all that away literally the next fight.

Well, before that happens, let's talk the one two punch of, 1, Izuku having done himself permanent, life long damage, which nobody thought to stop, and 2, the sheer, unmitigated clusterfuck of Recovery Girl going, 'I'm not going to treat wounds like these'.

So. If Izuku breaks anything... well. She's not going to treat that. I guess he has to walk around with a broken finger/hand/arm, without any medical attention whatsoever? Well. I certainly don't see any problems with that.

Then we get Bakugou, who canonly has problems using his Quirk for extended periods of time, outlasting someone by using his Quirk for extended periods of time, before going on to fight someone who uses cold, his canon weakness, and ignoring how it should completely neutralize his Quirk to overpower it, through what I can only call his sheer, narrative warping concentration of favoritism.

On what happens after he wins... I've seen people say that he doesn't mean to attack Todoroki, just try to wake him up, but looking at that scene: he's holding Todoroki's body up with one hand as if to shake him, sure, but it's the other hand that's the problem. The way he's holding it is, for his Quirk, an offensive pose, making it ready to attack his target. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt (against my own opinion) and say it's not proof positive that he was about to attack, but there's no getting around that Bakugou had himself perfectly set up to hit Todoroki, full blast, while he was unconscious. Even if it's the more innocent explanation, that feels like something that should have disqualified him because... that's really concerning. That feels a step away from him threatening victims he thinks should have stood up for themselves or something; it's not heroic, in the slightest. The fact they had to knock him out, presumably for Todoroki's own safety, says enough about how bad that is.

The fact that the ending comment is basiclly lamenting from his perspective, that this 'isn't what he wanted' is... certainly a choice. He won, but, gasp! The person with long held issues in using his full power that long predate him didn't use his full power! The poor baby!

Then we get to the award ceremony where they... chain him up? Why!? If the doesn't want the damn award, don't give it to him; they let those guys earlier give up when they felt they didn't deserve it, why is Bakugou different? It feels like it's Hori tying him up here, against Bakugou's own will, and characterization, to give him that win just so he can win, but also to forcefully set up Bakugou's own importance with the League later. It's ham handed. It's probably child abuse. It's stupid.

It's fucked up all the way down, is what I'm saying.

Then All Might shows up, and fucks up his entrance timing because he's not allowed to win anymore, of course, and then forces that medal on Bakugou.

Uuuugh.

Last couple of panels, though, are pretty nice: we build up Uraraka's character, get the next arc set up, set up Izuku (fucking finally) getting away to use his own damn power, and develop Todoroki a bit.

A nice little cherry on top of the shit sundae.

[adainesfroggieboggy]

siobhan thompson appreciation post because her characters just make me so happy and they're so. good. she's so good at characters! spoilers for every intrepid heroes season of d20. i could do a whole other post about her sidequest characters bc they're so good.

Adaine Abernant. The Elven Oracle. She's always been one of my absolute favorite characters ever. Her anxiety representation in the first season makes me feel more seen, understood, and represented than any other character ever. She's literally so cool! She starts freshman year as an awkward nerd and becomes a cool nerd! Her anxiety never goes away, but the medication makes it manageable. She hates her parents because they're awful! Just the rep of having awful parents and hating them and that's okay because they suck! You should hate your parents if they suck as bad as the Abernants! Not everyone gets a redemption arc. If they suck, they suck.

Misty/Rowan. Misty is the perfect representation of an old lady who gives no fucks. She flirts so hard with that guy at the pixie wedding. She openly admits to having been friends with John Wilkes Booth. But at the same time? Will not give her age. A lady never tells. She's absolutely ancient and doesn't fucking care, but she also has this undertone of absolute existential panic because she needs adoration to survive! She stays relevant because she has to! Don't get me started on Rowan. I have a crush on Rowan Berry. She's reborn and immediately starts flirting with Pete, which is iconic in its own right. She's a bard who gives bardic inspiration by either flirting or complimenting, and sometimes the lines blur just a little bit. Absolute queen shit. She defeats the queen of Faerie and has no desire to go back until the Fae court tells her hey. You left us with no leader. And then brings democracy to Faerie! President Rowan!

Ruby Rocks! She starts the season as a kid who loves her sister just so much. That's the most integral part of her character. She's a princess and a rogue, and she loves her sister. She has a lot of development over the season! She ends as a woman who fights for her family and her country. She hates Saccharina when they first meet, a new sister on the tails of the loss of the most important person she's ever had. After Jet's death, she's overcome with grief and takes a level of shadow sorcerer because of it! Her development is amazing, a truly wonderful arc.

Iga Lizowski! Oh. My. God. She's the first pc that is a mom in d20, or at least in the Intrepid Heroes. Her relationship with her kids is so fun to watch, from urging Jessica to engage with the chest to bringing her into another part of the Unsleeping City. Then Nick, who she hadn't pressed at all to take responsibility for the chest, decides to become another defender of his family's magic! Not only is she an amazing mother, she's a fortune teller by trade! She knows full well that everything she does has merit, and that magic is real, but makes it all seem like a lie to cater to her clientele. It's not her intention to become a part of the Dream Team, but when her family is threatened, she fights like hell. Also she has a pseudodragon that's just a magical chihuahua and that's so old ladycore it's such a perfect choice.

Riva. They're just on their gallivant, honestly. They decorate their psychodrone with magnets. They're trying to sell pleasure putty. They make their own hours, but they don't know how. Riva is sweet and fun and naive. They love their friends and they love the outside world and they're having a great ass time on their gallivant.

Rosamund. Du. Prix. Quick little shoutout to Siobhan's princess voice because no joke she did my favorite accent. It borders on transatlantic (my favorite accent) but is very Disney princess. She starts as a Disney princess, too! To have a character looking for her true love wake up, search for him, and ultimately sacrifice her chance at having him is *mwah* beautiful. True love isn't real! She directly confronts this, and a member of her party is living proof of it. She has to see the prince who came to save her, and upon meeting him, she realizes how fucked the idea is. He kisses her once and that's all? She doesn't know him, she doesn't love him. How can she live happily ever after with him? Her story is about having things happen to her, but she wrenches the pen from the authors' hands and writes her fucking own! Once upon a time, there was a princess who tried speed dating!

[dadoodler25]

Why Eden's Zero Universe 0 ruined everything

Eden's Zero, one of Hiro Mashima's newest works. A space fantasy about a boy and his friends going on a journey to find the God of their world, Mother.

So, this was a pretty interesting series all things considered. When Eden's Zero started, it was at first similar to that of Fairy Tail, a happy and action-packed adventure. But that all changed for the better when we reach the Sun Jewel arc.

This is when you can tell Eden's Zero was going to be different from Fairy Tail. In this arc, Homura searches for her android mentor on planet Sun Jewel until finding out she died protecting the people, and her mother was the corrupt ruler of the planet.

What made this arc special was that unlike Fairy Tail, there was no comebacks. Valkyrie was truly dead, even though she was an android, she couldn't come back to life.

In Fairy Tail, they would've just said 'fuck it' and somehow bring her back to life by using the fact she's an android. But even though the crew discussed it, they realized they couldn't do it.

This very death, set the whole tone for Eden's Zero. A happy and friendly series, but one that wasn't afraid to get serious and kill off a character. And it was excellent. Fairy Tail was similar, but was too afraid to permanently kill off or even permanently injure the main characters.

With future arcs, they began using this power, showing darker instances of how actually fucked up the villains are here. There are some ones that you can sympathize with, but nearly all the others were pure evil.

Dr. Muller was a psychopathic and disgusting monster who cut of the limbs of a 10 year old and made his younger sister watch. Shura was a piece of shit prince who didn't give a damn about anybody's life but his own. None of them got redemption and that what's made them so good.

Out of all the villains, only a few got redeemed, Kleene, Kris and Laguna, people who actually deserved their redemption.

And the heroes suffered consequences too! Shiki lost his eye, and got a new cyborg one, Happy was a cyborg cat after nearly dying brutally in a car crash. None of these were changed or undone in any way.

This was shaping up to be one of Mashima's better works, potentially surpassing Fairy Tail.

And then Mashima realized FUCK CONSEQUENCES AND RUINED IT ALL ARGGHHHHHHHHHHH

Give me a minute, ok.

So, right before the final saga, we got on of the best arcs in Eden's Zero, the identity of the true villain, the backstory of Rebecca, where her powers came from, Mother is dying. So for the FINAL saga, one of the most PIVITOL arcs in this series...

MASHIMA RETCONNED IT ALL!!!!!

So, to save Mother, they had to travel to this alternate universe called Universe 0 where their whole adventure would be reversed. Ok, so I guess the time skip, the fights and the development were for nothing. But fine, maybe this will be a little different, NOPE!

Everything is rest. Universe 0 is this happy land of gumdrops and sunshine, where nothing bad EVER HAPPENED.

In the original universe, Happy was a cyborg, showing he's different from the Happy in Fairy Tail. Here? NOPE, CAR CRASH NEVER HAPPENED, HE'S A NORMAL CAT. What made him unique and different was GONE.

Ok, that's just one, right? NO! One of the former villains that got redeemed, Kris, was originally a cyborg because he was the kid who got his arms cut up because of Muller. But here? He's still a cyborg... cause apparently he needed it to live on his planet. Alright, fine. Somewhat reasonable, but what about joining one of the villains. In the original universe, it's because they were desperate to find a cure for Kleene, his sister. Why did they join the villain in Universe 0?

They took a wrong turn on the way to college. No, really, look.

you know how on Twitter sometimes I see Jujutsu Kaisen fans react to the latest chapters and they tell Gege to start running?

Yeah, I hope the same happens to Mashima.

He took the tragic backstories of these characters, that shaped them into who they were... and made them jokes instead.

"Well, he couldn't ruin the villain-?" It's HIRO MASHIMA we're talking about here.

Muller went from a legitimately terrifying and psychopathic guy... to a generic funny mad scientist. Shura went from spoilt brat to an actually somewhat chill guy. The girl he spent years torturing and humiliating for the fun of it, who ended up developing a sick kind of sympathy for him, was now his bride to be. Drakken Joe went from a cruel mafia-like boss to becoming more mellowed out. Madame Kurenai was an evil bitch queen to a kind protector.

I think Mashima went through Fairy Tail 100 Years Quest, and thought

'Hmm, Eden's Zero actually having stakes and consequences was too hard. I'm just going to turn everything back again!'

NO! This ruined everything! Every sacrifice, every death, everything that happened, ruined! This was Mashima taking the worst parts of Fairy Tail and putting it into Eden's Zero. With had the current arc is now, I feel like would've fit perfectly into the original universe.

[river-bottom-nightmare]

i love the idea of the entire batfam being hypercompetent. just like. good at stuff.

because yea, they’ve all been trained extensively by a variety of teachers and mentors and various learning experiences. they all have their skills that they’ve honed to perfection for years. but there are just some things that they’re a natural at, things that make the unique, things that give them an edge just enough to rise to the top in a world full of gods and monsters.

yes, damian’s a trained assassin, and has been since birth. yes, damian works hard to keep his skills up. but the weapons training? it comes to him almost naturally. maybe it was something passed down from both bruce and talia, both deadly fighters in their own right. maybe it has something to do with the al ghul bloodline. either way, damian is absolutely deadly with a weapon in his hand. a blade can arc through the air faster than the human eye can see when it’s in his hand. he can work horrible wonders with an unbalanced sword, and turn combat into an art with a balanced one. tiny fingers wrap around the rough handle of a whip with surety, and he can slip batarangs into his palms and up his sleeves without them ever being seen.

tim’s got one of the most analytical minds of any vigilante alive. he’s not a supergenius or anything, and he leaves the higher-order computer skills and tech to barbara. but to him, the world is a puzzle after a puzzle, and tim never fails to solve them. figuring out dick and bruce’s identities. taking apart a grapple gun and fitting the parts together to make a beartrap. knowing exactly what to say and what to do to get bruce to break and bend and let him in. catching patterns in the chemical formulas of crane’s various toxins. reading through the lies that fell from his family’s lips like raindrops from the sky. everything and everyone tim knows are made of jagged pieces, but tim figured out early on how to put them together, step back, and take a look at the bigger picture.

people say cass doesn’t have any people skills, due to the years spent in isolation, spent alone. but the reality is, she has too many. reading people has always come easy, body language is an open book to her. but what many didn’t know was that there was a big difference between reading a book and analyzing it. it’s easy to see the insecurities of each of her brothers. it’s much harder to know exactly what to do or say to let them bring down their walls for just a moment, show their affection and prove their love in the smallest but most important of ways. it’s easy to see the poison of a smirk on a reporter’s lips, to catch the probing gleam of their eyes. it’s much harder to turn the reporter around, chasing their own tail until the story they were searching for in the first place was lost. it’s easy to pinpoint teammates and other heroes’ strengths and weaknesses, to see them play out in the field and plan for them the way every bat did. it’s much harder to make the others aware of their own strengths and weaknesses, and to convince them to put aside their ego and work on bettering themselves. but cass seemed to have a knack for it.

jason may like playing up the role of the blustering, bull-headed wild card of the family.  mafia-don-from-movies meets muscled brawn. but he’s got a literary mind at the heart of it all. he’s real good at codes and decryptions, because he’s read about them before. he’s lightning fast a nygma’s riddles, because he’s poured through the books from which riddler gets his inspiration a hundred times over. life and art turn into one in his mind, and overlaying his family’s stubbornness and trust issues with novel style analyzations and character assessments that help him understand their interactions a little better. words float off the page and wind their way inside his head, and some may call him dramatic when he can’t force himself to speak so he uses quotes instead, but never say echolalia wasn’t useful.

each member of their worn out and sewn together family had their niche, their own particular area in which they excelled. but dick was brought up in a world where there was only two protecting gotham, two partners working together to keep an entire city from falling apart. jack of all trades, master of none, but better of master than one, dick always said, eyes twinkling with mischief. because sure, his acrobatic prowess was unchallenged. but he grew up on the road visiting city after city, country after country, and it gave him a head for languages. not even dick is sure how many languages and regional dialects he actually knows. his darling little smile was honed to perfection, and interrogations with him never lasted that long. you could drop him in the middle of nowhere and he’d always find his way to civilization, or you could toss him in the middle of a bustling but unfamiliar city, and he’d always make his way back.

me, aggressively chugging sparkling probiotic drinks: I JUST WANT THE BATFAM TO BE FREAKY LIL FUCKS WHO ARE JUST UNATRUALLY GOOD AT STUFF, OKAY???

tag list: @woahjaybird @birdy-bat-writes @elles-shitposts-personified @anothertimdrakestan i’m tagging both accounts bc elle it’s like you don’t even love me anymore. @subtleappreciation @screennamealreadyused @catxsnow @pricetagofficial @yesboopityboop @dangerduckjpeg @astroherogirl @iconbicon

[holeynightsky]

overthinking albums: midnights pt. 1

welcome back, lovelies! today's Long Rant is brought to you by all the beautiful RWBY art i've been seeing as we get hyped about vol9.

today, we'll be thinking way too hard about the lyrics and general vibe checks of taylor swift's midnights album, and how each song was specifically written with a RWBY character/relationship/arc in mind. this is going to be split into two parts, because i, ahem, hit the character limit for a text block post on tumblr.

(what's that? sorry, i can't hear you, but if you're suggesting the album was not in fact written about a niche animated show, i'm replying with shhhhhhhhh.)

the album can be found here on spotify, if you're interested in listening along.

lavender haze - okay guys we gotta start with a bumbleby song. and this one--whoo boy. are you kidding? hell yeah! you don't really read into / my melancholia.... i just wanna stay in that / lavender haze. i mean come on. can't you just see blake singing about yang? staring into her eyes? the epitome of sapphic love??? also, obsessed with the way adam didn't scare yang off in conjunction with the line they're bringing up my history / but you weren't even listening. i know it's not a one-for-one match but i'm gonna die on that hill.

maroon - bear with me for this pain, but: a jaune-grieving-pyrrha song. the visual of the two of them over time, all those shades of red... the tension just before and during the vytal festival arc (how the hell did we lose sight of us again? / sobbing with your head in your hands / ain't that the way shit always ends).... jaune in the forest during vol4 (and i wake with your memory over me / that's a real fuckin' legacy)... him standing in front of her statue, finally putting his ghosts to rest (the rust that grew between telephones / the lips i used to call home / so scarlet it was maroon)

anti-hero - a hot take, but i feel like this is a song for oz/oscar/ozma. i have this thing where i get older but just never wiser is him struggling under the weight of everything he knows and all the ways he's fucking it up anyway. not to mention this whole thing: i end up in crises / tale as old as time / i wake up screaming from dreaming / one day i'll watch as you're leaving / 'cause you got tired of my scheming / for the last time. i--i don't even think i need to explain this one? are we good to move on?

snow on the beach - a qrow/clover song. you might think this is qrow thinking about clover, because of lines like you wanting me / tonight feels impossible--but ohoho, slow down there my friend. i will die on my headcanon hill that clover was just as traumatized as qrow, just with different coping mechanisms, and that he was absolutely whipped within hours of meeting him. plus, qrow just deserves at least one (1) nice thing--and don't you want to see him getting all flustered and happy when someone else looks at him and thinks of the lines i searched 'aurora borealis green' / i've never seen / someone lit from within / blurring out my periphery? akjsdbfkasjfh and the pause after can this be a real thing, can it? with their hands gently brushing.... hello? my heart?

you're on your own, kid - yang. yang alllllll the way. am i maybe projecting the oldest-female-child-syndrome? yep. but i mean--oh my god how could it not be??? i didn't choose this town / i dream of getting out / there's just one who could make me stay doesn't have to be romantic. that can be her thinking of ruby. my friends from home don't know what to say / i looked around in a blood-soaked gown / and i saw something they can't take away is living at the dorms in vale and leading up to the fall of beacon, 'cause there were pages turned with the bridges burned / everything you lose is a step you take is her recovering her confidence in vols 4 & 5. you're on your own, kid / yeah, you can face this / you're on your own, kid / you always have been is that moment where she steps past raven and ventures into the spring portal alone...... i'm simply not okay.

midnight rain - raven and ty. we were all thinking it, right? i mean. i mean. how could it be anything else? my town was a wasteland / ... / my boy was a montage / a slow-motion, love potion / ... / i broke his heart 'cause he was nice. the way she left but didn't feel guilt that we really see at any point in the show? he wanted it comfortable / i wanted that pain / he wanted a bride / i was making my own name pretty much sums up that dynamic. ty is a himbo and i love him but as soon as we met raven i was like "oh, obviously that wasn't gonna work." also, i peered through a window / a deep portal, time travel / all the love we unravel / and the life i gave away is so perfectly on the nose it's not even funny.

question...? - blake and ilia!! blake! and! ilia! specifically, ilia being bitter as she watches blake move through various relationships with various levels of health, and never once look at her. good girl, sad boy / big city, wrong choices / we had one thing going on / i swear that it was something / 'cause i don't remember who i was before you. or, or!! she was on your mind / with some dickhead guy / ... / it was one drink after a another / fucking politics and gender roles / and you're not sure and i don't know / got swept away in the gray. i simply cannot. i shall pass away before i ever make my peace with this level of pining.

stay tuned for part two, coming soon! <3

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 311: Hand Gun

Previously on BnHA: Horikoshi was all “thinkin’ about dropping in some woke analogies of the very real and very presently relevant issue of racial profiling idk what do you guys think” and then shrugged and did it without waiting for an answer, and ngl it was a bit sudden, but I’m here for it. All Might was all “DEKU YOU NEED TO EAT” and Deku was all “OKAY” and took his hero bento and went to go stand dramatically on a tower in the rain whilst having some highly anticipated Vestige flashbacks. OFA II was all, “sup, I guess I’m not Kacchan... OR AM I,” and ngl I think he is?? Alternate universes anybody?? Hello??? But anyway, so OFA the First a.k.a. Yoichi was all “remember that time you guys rescued me from my evil brother and Two took my hand and we Had A Moment?”, and Two and Three were all “ahh yeah good times”, and it was very nice and very, very gay. The chapter ended with it being very unclear if Two and Three have actually lent their power to Deku yet or not lmao. Y’all need to get your shit together dudes.

Today on BnHA: Horikoshi is all “what if I gave a random bad guy a fucking tommy gun that shoots nails” and jesus christ calm down son. The Hawksquad, a.k.a. SQUAWK as per @hotchocolatier​, are all “time to drive aimlessly around town acting like Deku has a restraining order on us because that’s literally the best plan to combat the League we could come up with,” and I have no further comment. Hawks is all “idk about you guys but I want to know more about AFO and Tomura’s whole deal” and I can’t remember the last time I identified so strongly with one of these characters. All Might is all, “[EXPLODES???]”, and the chapter ends with that mysterious hot girl from the Tartarus breakout being all “HELLO I CAN TURN INTO A GUN AND I LITERALLY DON’T GIVE A FUCK” and (1) WOW, and (2) IT’S TRUE, SHE CAN, AND SHE REALLY DOESN’T. GODDAMN.

(ETA: so this wholly escaped my notice on the first go, and also has nothing to do with the chapter itself, but I only just realized that this chapter was scanlated by a new group, TCB Scans. they actually did a very good job, and I’m curious if they’ve found a new RAW provider, because the quality this week is actually crazy good in comparison to what we’ve been dealing with for the past few months. I’m gonna have to get caught up on what exactly happened here lol.)

so what will it be this week? more Vestige antics? more of Sad Nomad Deku standing on buildings and pretending like he’s some cool aloof antihero, as if he could fool us when we all know his hero backpack is secretly stuffed full with his nerd diaries and the remnants of all the hero bentos that All Might keeps giving him?? or, just putting it out there, just a crazy thought, but you don’t suppose we might actually cut back to U.A.? mmm. side-eyes emoji

maaaaaan I’m starting to get tired of this trend of beginning chapters by dropping in on random power-tripping civilians and/or Shindou lol. just once can we get a chapter that opens with someone I actually give a fuck about

oh at least Endeavor is here

A WHAT SUPPORT ITEM!??! HOLY SHIT DDLKJSLFKJL

lol somehow that’s more terrifying than bullets for me?? like I’m fully aware that bullets will fuck you up way worse and that in real life nail guns probably don’t work like this AT ALL and only have a range of like... hold up let me just google... up to 100 to 150 m/s and distances of up to 500m wait WHAT

okay wait. hold up. like I was expecting google to tell me nail guns only shoot a few feet at most, and instead the first search result is some CDC blog article that’s “dispelling” the “””myth””” -- please note my repeated sarcastic quotation marks -- that nail guns can fire 1400 feet per second, by explaining that actually they can fire anywhere from 315 ft/sec to 1,295 ft/sec, and that “it is in the pneumatic nail gun user’s best interest to handle these tools as if they were a firearm despite having a lower velocity” dlkjdslkjflkl

SO THAT SCENE IN IRON MAN 3 WHERE TONY RAIDS A HOME DEPOT AND BUYS A BUNCH OF RANDOM TOOLS AND SHIT AND GOES ON TO STAGE A ONE-MAN INVASION OF AN INTERNATIONAL TERRORIST’S FLORIDA MANSION HQ IS ACTUALLY TRUE. YOU’RE TELLING ME THAT THE FILM “HOME ALONE” IS ACTUALLY A DOCUMENTARY. “the Discovery Channel television program “Mythbusters” compared the penetration capacity of an airborne projectile shot from a pneumatic framing nail gun to that of a 9mm hand gun” HELLO YES AND A MERRY “WHAT THE FUCK” TO YOU AS WELL

anyway, so. there’s apparently a reason why the Number One hero, who can burn people with the intensity of a sun going supernova, is hiding here behind this concrete support column making frowny faces. nope. nuh uh. he ain’t about that. I don’t blame you buddy

so now he’s barrel rolling out of his hiding place and setting this dude THE FUCK ON FIRE because HELL NO. BAD ENOUGH I HAD TO WATCH THAT FUCKING MUSHROOM EPISODE LAST WEEK! YOU TAKE THAT SHIT SOMEWHERE ELSE

LOL look at his face

I know the context is actually him being all “I know I’m responsible for basically everything that happened and so that’s why I’m so grim and serious about this mission to set things right piece by piece,” but in my mind this pissed-off face is 100% all because this dude tried to shoot his eye out with a nail gun. look at that. you made him go full flame face again. beard and all. protecting his face so that it can hopefully melt any stray nails that get too close. nope nope nope

good lord. so what’s up next. let me guess the guy fighting Best Jeanist has like an atomic chainsaw or some shit

lol nope we’re just cutting back to Hawks and Jeanist chilling in the Jesla after they’ve wrapped things up

Jeanist has got some serious Groot energy you guys jesus christ he’s like 12 feet tall

oh snap someone threw a pipe at him now

today is just the chapter of Endeavor being assaulted by random DIY tools I guess

I mean, I get why they’re pissed at him obviously; I would be too lol. but tbh I also don’t really understand the “get out of here we don’t want your help” attitude that all of these people suddenly seem to have?? like it if were me, I would be fucking DEMANDING for him and the other heroes to be working round the clock to fix their stupid mess. I mean who else is gonna do it?? it’s their mess, I sure don’t want to be the one to clean it up instead. anyways but whatever lol

oh shit?

so they haven’t dropped the whole “OFA secret potentially gets revealed to the world” thing yet after all. that makes sense I suppose, it did seem like that whole thing wound up playing out a bit too easily

anyway so yeah

the locals are definitely none too happy. well at least Dabi’s got something to be cheerful about I guess

so now we’re cutting to the interior of the Jesla and they’re chitchatting about the current investigation

oh wow this actually makes a bit of sense now. so there was a reason they were keeping their distance from Deku

please note that even in this abstract Endeavor’s-Mental-Image-Of-Him panel, Deku’s eyes still don’t have the light in them anymore :( my poor son

also ftr I still think using Deku as bait in this particular sense is the shittiest idea ever ngl. like sure, let’s let the sixteen-year-old run around battling miscellaneous escaped prison convicts while we stay several kilometers away ON PURPOSE despite the fact that you’re using him as bait to draw out the Big Bad, who just a reminder can destroy anything with a mere touch and who you were all basically helpless against. what exactly are you all planning to do if Tomura or one of the other League VIPs actually shows up to retrieve him?? are you even keeping tabs on him at all in real time?? jesus

(ETA: well that escalated quickly lol.)

Horikoshi is all of a sudden dropping whole pages of exposition here and I can’t be bothered to summarize this lol so just,

a big fat YES to what Jeanist said, though. that’s why imo they would have been better off laying a trap at U.A. rather than just wandering around out in the open. I assume they’re trying to cut their potential losses because U.A. is full of students (and civilians), but those students also happen to be more capable than pretty much anyone else in the manga at this point. and tbh they’re already in life-threatening danger regardless of how things play out from here on, so they might as well at least try to use the few advantages they have right now. U.A. is almost certainly going to come under siege at some point anyway, so they might as well prepare for it

lol I don’t think I’m explaining this very well because I don’t have the patience right now to break it down point by point like it really ought to be, so for now I’ll just say that imo “U.A. siege” stands a good chance of being the eventual endgame even now, and so this whole “Deku runs around being bait” arc is really just killing time until then lol. like and subscribe for more rambling nonsensical takes such as this. maybe next time I’ll even put it all into one single sentence for maximum meandering senior citizen rant value

well it’s nice that they’re finally talking about all of this I guess

we readers have known all of this for months now but this confirms the heroes are finally caught up. ALSO, Hawks is so fucking smart, as always. kinda wonder if things would have played out differently if All Might had let him in on the secret a bit earlier. probably that’s why Horikoshi made damn sure they didn’t find out until after the War arc lol

OH MY GOD YOOOOOO HAWKS OUT HERE ASKING THE REAL QUESTIONS

“anyone else wondering why AFO bothered to raise Tomura as his fake heir for fifteen years when he was secretly planning on taking over his body the whole time” YES, [raises hand] lmao Hawks where the hell were you when I was debating this “AFO is the final villain and Tomura is just his pawn” thing on multiple occasions over the past several years lol

lmao seeing them debate the metaphysics of OFA and all of its mystical bullshit is seriously surreal you guys

JEANIST HAVE YOU CHECKED OUT MY META TAG I HAVE WRITTEN SO MANY ESSAYS. I ACTUALLY WAS PLANNING ON WRITING ANOTHER ESSAY ABOUT THE THING THAT I’M PRETTY SURE HAWKS IS ABOUT TO BRING UP, BUT I NEVER GOT AROUND TO IT WHOOPS, BUT MAYBE I WILL NOW LOL LET’S SEE HOW IT GOES

yes!!

WHICH AFO FUCKING ENSURED HE WOULD BE BY LITERALLY PLANNING OUT EVERY LAST DETAIL OF HIS FAMILY TRAGEDY, FROM SECRETLY GIVING TENKO THE QUIRK TO MAKING SURE NO CIVILIANS OR HEROES WOULD HELP HIM UNTIL AFO FINALLY STEPPED IN. I’M 1000% CONVINCED THIS IS THE CASE YOU GUYS. NOT JUST BECAUSE I’M NOT A FAN OF “THE WORLD IS A FUNDAMENTALLY SHITTY PLACE, ACTUALLY” TAKES BECAUSE MISTER ROGERS TOLD ME TO ALWAYS LOOK FOR THE HELPERS, BUT ALSO BECAUSE IT LITERALLY JUST DOESN’T MAKE A LICK OF SENSE OTHERWISE. THEIR ENTIRE HOUSE CAVED IN FFS, YOU’RE TELLING ME NONE OF THE NEIGHBORS FUCKING OVERHEARD THAT SHIT AND WENT “UMMMMMMMMM” AND WENT TO SEE WHAT WAS GOING ON?? “DIDN’T THERE USED TO BE A HOUSE HERE, AND LIKE A WHOLE FAMILY, AND SHIT?”

LIKE I’M SORRY, BUT IT’S ONE THING TO SAY IT’S REALISTIC THAT NOT A SINGLE PERSON WOULD ATTEMPT TO HELP THE WANDERING TRAUMATIZED CHILD AFTERWARDS (WHICH I DISAGREE WITH AS WELL BUT AT LEAST THAT’S MORE SUBJECTIVE), AND IT’S A WHOLE OTHER THING TO ARGUE THAT IT’S REALISTIC THAT NO ONE WOULD BE FUCKING NOSY. LIKE THAT’S A WHOLE DIFFERENT LEVEL OF “THAT’S NOT HOW ANY OF THIS WORKS” ENTIRELY LOL. anyway tl;dr AFO is a piece of shit and Tomura’s entire worldview is based on a magnificently intricate and savagely cruel lie more at 11

anyway so after all that ranting it looks like that wasn’t even what Hawks was talking about after all lol. I just went off for absolutely no reason lol oh well. instead it seems that Hawks is suggesting that Tomura’s carefully cultivated hatred might not yet have actually reached “can defeat OFA” levels even after all of that trauma. interesting!

don’t mind me, I’m just sitting here while my brain furiously scrambles to put together all the parallels between Hawks and Tomura that it never noticed before until exactly this second. like I’m not even sure that was the intent here at all (I need to check out another translation or two lol), but regardless my mind decided that now would be the perfect time to make the connection between these two twenty-somethings who both had horrific childhoods and spent years being molded by their respective manipulative guardians, and developed eerily similar “laugh at everything because what else can you do” coping mechanisms to deal with it all hmmmmm

anyway so they were talking more about their strategy, but now all of a sudden Jeanist’s phone is beeping??

AND NOW WE’RE CUTTING AWAY TO ALL MIGHT AND HIS MIGHTMOBILE DAMMIT so that means the call to Jeanist was actually something important then!! WAS IT BAKUGOU OMG. DOES YOUR INTERN WANT A WORD FFFKLFSJK please it’s been so long I just need a little crumb or two to tide me over lmao have mercy

anyway so All Might’s following the GPS tracking device he’s apparently got planted on Deku (which in my conspiracy headcanons he’s actually had for a long time now, like since before DvK2 lol because HOW ELSE WOULD HAVE HAVE KNOWN THAT THEY WERE FIGHTING EACH OTHER IN GROUND BETA, PEOPLE) and thinking angsty thoughts about Deku’s sucky life

AND NOW ALL MIGHT’S PHONE IS RINGING TOO?? BAKUGOU HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE YOU CALLING. “WHERE ARE YOU HIDING THE NERD GODDAMMIT”

OMG

lol is he under attack or is he just finally giving All Might the slip like we all know he SECRETLY PLANNED TO ALL ALONG oh my poor dumb angstmuffin

OMG AHHHHHHH WHAT

DID ALL MIGHT JUST FUCKING DIE LMAO NO OF COURSE NOT, BUT WHAT

WHAT IS HAPPENING OMG

THE FUCK IS THAT. AT LEAST IT’S NOT A NAIL

OH IT’S A SPEAKER!! OMG DID THEY TAKE ALL MIGHT HOSTAGE

“THEY’RE HERE” WELP, TIME TO SEE JUST HOW SHITTY THIS SHITTY PLAN REALLY IS LOL

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

SHE!!!!

omg. AND OVERHAUL JUST CHILLING THERE IN THE BACKGROUND ALL “WHAT DO YOU EVEN WANT ME TO DO I’VE GOT NO FUCKING ARMS” YEAH GOOD RIDDANCE LOL

DOES THIS GIRL HAVE ONE GIANT LEG OR WHAT, LIKE WHAT’S THE DEAL HERE

-- HOLD UP WAIT, THE GUN IS HER ARM, HOLY SHIT SHE CAN TURN INTO A GUN -- OKAY HOLD UP BECAUSE I NEED TO SAY THAT IN BIGGER TEXT BECAUSE !!!!

YOU GUYS, THE COOL TARTARUS GIRL IS BACK AND HER QUIRK IS “CAN TURN INTO A FUCKING GUN.” THIS IS NOT A DRILL!! MY BEST GIRL MT. GUN IS FINALLY BACK ON THE SCENE WITH HER QUIRK “CAN DO ANYTHING A GUN CAN DO.” “I HEARD Y’ALL WENT AND NAMED ONE OF YOUR HEROES ‘GUNHEAD’ EVEN THOUGH HIS HEAD ISN’T EVEN A GUN, LIKE WTF IS UP WITH THAT LET ME SHOW YOU HOW IT’S DONE” DANG OKAY

lmao only fifteen pages this week, and STILL NO KACCHAN (THEN WHO WAS PHONE!!!), but man I don’t even care because finally we’ve got a cliffhanger that’s actually deserving of being a cliffhanger! hot dog. okay then

[thesecondpossum]

Tumblr's Goncharov (1973) DOES NOT EXIST

Hi. So, if you’re new to Tumblr or you haven’t been around for a while, you might have seen some discourse about the hidden Scorsese-masterpiece Goncharov (1973). I’m sorry to tell you that that film just DOES NOT exists. I REPEAT. DO NOT GO AROUND SEARCHING FOR 1973’s GONCHAROV. It’s just another example of Tumblr over-analysing something and tripping over itself.

I can’t believe I have to be the one to say it, but the actual 1973 film Goncharov isn’t actually that good. In fact, I’d say that at-best it’s a poorly executed mess of interesting ideas and at worst a full-on 3-hour snoose-fest. The fact that anyone could think that this is one of Scorsese’s or DeNiro’s greatest films is honestly astounding to me. Don’t get me wrong, I see that a lot of good ideas were brought into this film, and I’m sure that everyone involved gave it their best shot, but good intentions don’t make up for bad execution, and I have some grievances I’d like to address:

This is probably one of DeNiro’s worst performances, period (and I’m counting all those movies where he plays a raunchy grandpa). I know that his god-awful Russian accent has been talked to death, but honestly, even without it, his performance is all over the place. The man clearly can’t decide if he wants to play the titular Goncharov as a greater-than-life character or as a subdued, meekly man moved by his circumstances. The result is two conflicting performances that might’ve worked on their own, but make absolutely no sense in the same film. And before you start, I know about the grandfather clock scene. I agree that it might have been one of his best performances ever put to film. But ONE masterful scene does not make up for a full three hours of poor acting.

Tumblr is reading waaaaaay too much into Katya’s arc. I get that we all want her to succeed, but unfortunately, everything about her, from the homo-erotic subtext to her independence arc is handled so poorly. This isn’t a dig at the actress. In fact, if any of us were able to get anything from the movie it’s 100% due to her masterful performance, but if you actually look at the text of the film, you’ll see that Katya’s character is awfully underwritten.

Sorry, I’m not done talking about Katya because WHAT THE FUCK IS UP WITH THE HOMOEROTIC SUBTEXT IN THE MOVIE. I get that it was the early seventies and Scorsese would probably risk full-on career suicide by putting an explicitly queer woman in his film. Once again, I’m not blaming him or the mesmerising Cybill Shepherd. I get that this was probably the closest we could get to seeing Katya’s inner struggle without the film getting banned, but it’s still such a missed opportunity. As it stands, the film falls into the “evil lesbian that plots against our hero” trope, and despite being a supposed morality tale, we’re still supposed to root against Katya for not being 100% on Goncharov’s side at all times.

Also, how anyone can miss the fact that Katya’s ending is completely tragic is beyond me. Like, DID WE EVEN SEE THE SAME FILM? Katya’s ending might be one of the most heart-wrenching things I could possibly THINK of.

Al Pacino. I rest my case.

Once again, what the fuck are the Russian accents in this movie????

I don’t know if a lot got lost in the editing room floor or if the script is just clunky, but there’s so much about the film that just doesn’t make sense. The movie is OVER ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY MINUTES LONG you should be able to tie up at least one (1) single narrative thread. The film is ambitious; I give it that, but it’s such a mangled web of themes that whenever someone asks me what it was about, I can’t say anything beyond hehe funny mafia movie.

You don’t even have to believe me, Sheperd and DeNiro THEMSELVES have said that the film was “a lost opportunity” and that “it had a lot of potential […] but unfortunately, it just didn’t work.”

Now, I don’t enjoy being a negative-stu all the time, so here are a couple of good things I’ll say about the movie:

You’re all right about the soundtrack, I mean holy shit. I still can’t listen to “Katya’s main theme” or “farewell to Berlin” without getting teary-eyed.

The cinematography is gorgeous. The film is absolutely a visual delight, especially in every scene that Katya and Sofia share together.

Wanna know why I haven’t talked about Sofia? Because I have no notes. Magnificent performance, brilliant characterisation, everything about her is just perfect. If you can find it, the “and yet it sparkles” deleted-scene is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. I cry like a baby every time I watch it.

The film at least attempts to show themes of queer romance in a nuanced light. And as much as it often fails to do so, I still appreciate the effort.

So yeah, I’m sorry, all-in-all Goncharov (1973) isn’t that great a film. It has tons of good ideas but the execution just falls flat. I don’t mean to be a hater, but this really isn’t a hidden-gem from Scorsese’s early career. It’s a so-so film that got forgotten to time for a reason, and all the amazing music, stunning visuals, and homoerotic subtext in the world can’t fix poor execution.

[mysterylover123]

BNHA Chapter 291: “Let My New Villain Crush Say His Piece”

mysterylover123

AWW He’s so cute you guys! I think I’m officially declaring Toya/Dabi my new LOV crush. It used to be Shigaraki and he’s still 2nd. Technically Shigaraki’s actually more sympathetic than Toya, since they’ve both got tragic backstories and abusive dads and Shigaraki at least still likes his friends, while Toya hates everyone and just does not give a fuck. But hey, I still love him anyway. Seriously everyone in this series needs a hug.

(lol no way I’d dye it). It’s the Bride of Frankenstein look ya’ll!

SHADES OF LIL KACCHAN. Man no wonder Shoto’s so drawn to Lord Explosion Murder.

1) I guess we’re officially confirming that Endeav did not, in fact, sexually assault Rei into pregnancy. Which - GOOD. There’s a limit to what morally complex characters can get away with and still be redeemable. 2) BABY FUYUMI AND BABY TOYA CUTE OVERLOAD.

IS THAT THE ALL MIGHT FIST OF TRIUMPH?!

Uh oh baby burning. That image of endeavor across the gulf from All Might sure comes up a lot.

Well then you shouldn’t have abused your kids dumbass.

Let’s sum this part up pretty simply: DABI: “They never told you what happened to your son.” ENDEAV: They told me he was dead. DABI: No, I am your son. ENDEAV: That’s not true. That’s impossible! DABI: Search the DNA tests, you know it to be true. ENDEAV: NO!!! NO!!!

1) Spinner is so Shigaraki’s LOV boyfriend. 2) Seriously Dabi you didn’t tell any of them? 3) Tomura are you OK?

LOL THAT WOULD BE HILARIOUS. Shiggy: “Also I’m All Might’s master’s grandkid! And Kurogiri’s Aizawa’s long lost friend! And Muscular’s Bakugou’s cousin, Toga’s Ochako’s wife, Spinner’s Tsuyu’s secret dad, Gigantomachia’s Kirishima’s grandfather, Compress is Jirou’s 5th cousin once removed, and All for One is Deku’s dad...” blah blah blah (actually 2 of those are true...)

Um isn’t 99.99% less Missing Lost Son and more Actual Clone?!

OH SHIT MORE REVELATIONS?! THIS GUY’S NOT DONE YET!

POOR NATSUO AND FUYUMI. Your whole family is so screwed.

Legit good question! Even if he’s asking it for selfish reasons. 

AW! You precious child. I was wondering what his verbal reaction would be. Looks like we’re going with “Denial”.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT

Oh dear god (BTW Who the fuck was filming this? Is big brother always watching or something)

Oh man. (Poor freaking Twice. Isn’t this exactly what Curious wanted to do to Toga? I think she’s gonna be pissed at Dabi later on). 

ENDEAVOR AND HAWKS FEELS. HOLY SHIT

Ooh, I think you just made a mistake Dabi. Jumped the gun a little. (Please don’t let this undo all the good, society-destroying work our villain did before this once the Not Deadness of Jeanist gets out! People already don’t want to believe him)

Similar to who? Also TOKOYAMI. HAWKS. OH GOD

HOLY SHIT. (Similar to someone else? By that DO YOU MEAN YOU!?! Oh man I thought Dabi/Hawks was sunk for good after the burning incident but maybe not so much.)

All good points! Great writing and art touch, all those ads. (Again, he’s still a dick for doing all this. But still. Worth thinking about).

1. HIS FRIENDS CALL HIM CANT YA SEE KUN. 2. deku and kachcan deku and kacchan you guys need so many hugs. 3. Yeah right Dabi. Sure you would’ve. 4. Iida and Hado get to be part of this!

Endeav’s gonna have a real crisis now that the Denial Stage is over.

(Senpai=Hado?) “The Others” here...I’m guessing Kacchan and Aizawa? Either way, that “Midoriya”. Tododeku is alive and well! (+TDBK and bKDK. The OT3 lives). Also CRYING SHOTO. HUG HIM DEAR GOD SOMEONE HELP THIS GUY. And he’s keeping it together pretty well though! 

Fierce Deku and Kacchan! Dabi using ultimate moves from Endeavor! 

Here we go.

Jeanist is here huh. Yay he’s not dead!

So I asked myself while writing this, why am I apparently not wanting Jeanist to pop up and prove Dabi’s “lying” (he’s not, he just doesn’t know the truth) about Hawks? Apparently I want society’s faith in heroes to be shaken or something. Well yeah. I guess, as long as our heroes make it out of this arc alive, I’m kinda rooting for the villains to win here. Not because I agree with them, but because it feels like that’s the point of this arc, this piece of the story. It’s the “fall of the old” to make way for the new. The Darkest Hour, the ending of the Empire Strikes Back (fittingly), the climax of the Rise of Villains Saga for the series as a whole. Night getting darkest just before the dawn. So I guess I want the villains to win here. (so the UA protags can bring everything back up again). I guess I’m just hoping Jeanist’s arrival doesn’t undermine everything Dabi just said, cause so much of it is true. All the stuff about Endeav is true. And Hawks did kill Twice, for the greater good no. So to have everyone just live in denial...it would undermine this whole arc. So yes, I’m rooting for the villains here.

(again, not endorsing their behavior at all.) 

On break sadly. TWO WEEKS FROM NOW. 

[blkgojo]

Two Superheroes, One Bed | Carol Danvers x Reader

In which, you and Carol hate each other, but have to share a bed. 

Request: Anonymous

Despite popular misconception being a former terrorist does not make people like you. If anything, it makes them hate you. Despise you. Question you incessently with things such as, "Why did you do this? What is wrong with you? How could you have justified those acts?" And to be honest, your answer was less than satisfying. There was no tragic backstory. No great villain speech. Just you and your hatred for the government.

Living in the Avenger facility did little to change that.

See, the thing about Carol Danvers was that she wasn't an "Earth" hero. Logically speaking, there should've been no reason you disliked eachother as much as you did. You didn't work for the Kree. You had no squabble with saving refugees from colonial rule. On paper, you two were two peas in a pod. Both looking after people who didn't have others to help them, but you hated her the moment you laid eyes on her. Carol Danvers with the huge ass ego. Carol Danvers who somehow was fighting an intergalactic empire, but saw no problem with the way the US military conducted business. She hated you because honestly, who likes a murderer. Redemption arc be damned. You know how it goes.

"I just feel like I've done nothing to deserve this."

"You've killed hundreds of people."

"In total, the Avengers have killed like 2000 so, I don't really see how that's relevant."

Natasha sighs. Steve steps forward and when you cut your eyes at him, he raises his hands in plea.

"Half the universe's population is gone. The US government just needs a win."

You nod slowly. "And sending me across the fucking galaxy with-" You gesture vaguely to the blonde who until that point had decided to be quiet. "- is somehow a win."

"I hate to say this, but I agree," Carol interjects. "I work better alone. Y/N will just hold me back."

"We just need someone to go back to the planet where the infinity stores were destroyed. Make sure there are no remnants."

"It'd be quicker if I did it by myself."

"Y/N is the only one with the ability to replicate organic life," Steve retorts. "If there's a possibility she can locate some particle of infinity stone and replicate that, we need to take that chance."

"It'd be good publicity for her image and it'd bring us one step closer to bringing them back," Natasha continues.

"The world needs you to put aside your differences for the mission."

That was another thing you regretted about joining the Avengers. Steve had no shortage of motivating speeches under his belt. The good thing about villains was that they weren't much for conversation - there was no need to give motivating speeches when the odds were in your favor.

But, people were gone. Wanda, the only one you remotely liked, was gone. Snapped. Looking at Carol now, it looks like she must've lost someone, too. Her unpleasant face looks somehow more restrained than it usually did.

You sigh and fold your arms. "Fine."

All Carol does is nod.

--

It would take two earth days to reach his planet. Two. There'd been complications with the engine and so, it would take not the twenty four hours you expected, you know the time span that was customary for light travel, but it would take two days. Between that and the ship having to lower the heat to maintain proper oxygen levels, it wasn't fun.

"I could fly us there," Carol offers.

"Are you forgetting I can't breathe in space?"

Carol shrugs. "You replicate organic life right? Just replicate yourself a new pair of lungs."

"Fuck you."

She smirks, takes the only other available chair next to you. At first, she seems content to annoy you by tapping her fingers against the dashboard. Then, she grows bored. Worse, she tries to talk to you.

"Isn't all of this stuff automated?"

"Yes."

"So," she begins, stretching out the word. "You don't actually need to be here monitoring it. You can get on the cot." She shrugs. "Take a nap."

"I'd rather keep watch."

You think that'll be it and she'll be done, but she continues. You never would've pegged her as the type to not like silence. But, maybe that's not even it. Maybe, she just wanted to squeeze information out of you. God knows you weren't exactly open with the other Avengers when Fury made you join.

"You ever been to outer space?"

You shake your head. "When you're flagged as a global liability they tend to prefer you on the ground."

"A global liability? Is that what terrorists call themselves?"

"At least, we don't give ourselves cutesy nicknames like Black Widow or Captain Marvel."

She scoffs. "No. You guys just blow up innocent civilians."

"Yeah, I guess accidentally killing them is way better." You smile thinly. "For the greater good and all, you know?"

She stares at you long enough that you don't think she'll actually speak. Finally, she looks away and out to the empty abyss in front of you. "I don't pretend to know what the Avengers did while I was off-world. I see them now and they're good people."

You don't respond and she continues. "You must agree. Otherwise, you wouldn't be here."

"Fury said it was either this or experimentation."

"Fury didn't say that."

You laugh bitterly. "He didn't, but he didn't need to. The governments experiment on all mutants - that's how we got Steve and Wanda - they just don't talk about it anymore." You spare her a glance. There's nothing in her expression that would tell you what she's thinking. "So, I chose the Avengers. And here we are."

"You could've escaped."

"Where?" You lean forward in your seat and prop your elbow on the dash. "Please tell me. Where can someone who's wanted internationally hide?"

She squints her eyes. "I'd help, but unfortunately, my knowledge of ideal vacation spots is pretty limited."

Carol's lips seem to be trapped in a permanent smirk - the corner always tilted up in vaguely hidden amusement. Even now. Her snark never stops. You feel your own anger dissipate as quick as it came. There was no point being angry with her. She loved it. Fed off it like a parasite or leech.

"It's almost like you're trying to piss me off."

She places her elbow on the console, leaning forward to shrink the gap between you two.

"Would it make you more angry if I was?"

One time, you and the raccoon had a bet. Whose eyes were more blue: Captain America or Captain Marvel? Like this, you'd have to say Carol. Her eyes had their own halo wrapped around the rim, highlighting the blue and making it fluorescent.

You rub your lips together and lean back in your seat, turning away from her to once again, look at the controls.

The ship breaks down when you reach his planet. You and Carol spend the first ten minutes after landing, arguing back and forth, blaming eachother. The next fifteen, Carol leaves you. Fucks off like a glow stick and searches the planet. When she returns, you haven't moved. Haven't left. You opted instead to lie down in the flowers. It was a beautiful planet. Perfect for retirement. The air was pure, almost light enough to get high in.

"I found his cabin."

"Great." You jump up. The blood rushing to your head and spotting your vision briefly, almost enough to cause you to wobble. "Let's go."

She steps in front of you, quick. You stop just short of bumping into her. Your faces are inches apart. That same infuriating smirk on her lips. Your eyes dart down, down to her chest - she was quite muscular, you could see that even through her clothes-  down enough that she has to clear her throat.

"It's too far by foot." When your eyes meet, she's trying to not look smug.

You arch a brow. "Well, we can't fly."

"I'll have to carry you."

You groan.

"Believe me. I'd be more than willing to do anything else."

"Fine. Do it."

You step back and gesture at her to turn around. She rolls her eyes and in a breathe you didn't know you were holding, throws your arm around her shoulders, wraps her arms around your waist, and jumps. You scream. Through the rush of wind, you think you hear her laughing or perhaps, that's a lie and it's you. Laughing hysterically. No. You are screaming. Hitting her chest. And she's laughing. Fuck Natasha. Fuck Steve. When this is over, you're quitting.

When your feet touch the ground, you bend down and kiss it. Pray to it.

"Anyone ever tell you you're dramatic?" She asks.

"Anyone ever teach you about consent?"  

"You told me to do it."

"I don't care!"

The two of you spend hours looking for remnants of the stones before you finally give it up and return to the ship. You were careful not to drift too close to his cabin. The Avengers never recovered the body. The rot of Thanos was thick, enough to gag over if you got too close. This planet wasn't used to death, not the harsh meat of Thanos. It had been months and he was still there, newly rotting as if it had been a week or two.

"I'll look again tomorrow before we leave." Carol pops a chip in her mouth, her feet kicked on the co-pilot chair while you lounged on the cot. "For now, you should get your rest."

"Don't you need to sleep, too?"

"I have been." She gestures to the chair.

You stare. Frown. The chairs were nowhere near comfortable.

"We can switch. I'll just take the blanket," you offer reluctantly. The nights here were cold anyways. Much colder than space. You involuntarily shiver.

"I prefer to sleep sitting up."

"Is that a military thing?"

To your surprise, she laughs. "Why?"

You shrug the blanket higher - the thin layer providing little comfort. "Cap likes to do that too."

As the sky gets darker, the cold filters in the cracks of the ship and between the layers of your comforter. You snuggle tighter within yourself, curl your knees up to your chest, burrow your hands underneath your pits. When that doesn't work, you shift again. It was always something. The blanket doesn't cover your feet here. You're uncomfortable there.

"You still up?"

You peek up to glance at Carol. She's leaned back in the chair, her head propped back against the headrest. When you shift, she pops one eye open.

"It's cold," you respond. "Are you cold?"

She shakes her head. "Temperature stops being a concern when you get superpowers like mine."

"Oh, yeah. Forgot you're a glow stick."

She snorts. "You talk a lot of shit for someone whose close to being an icicle."

"Bravado under pressure. It's my best quality."

You think she's gonna retort with another snort, but she stays silent. You make a move to stand, but she stops you.

"It's colder over here. See." She breathes out and you can see the cloud of her breathe. You frown.

"I can't sleep like this."

You think she's gonna do something like procure a blanket or throw you her jacket. You even think she might use her powers to heat the ship. It would make sense. Now, that you thought about it - she could've flew your ship to Thanos's exact location. You open your mouth to say as much, maybe, even yell at her as well, but she surprises you by standing.

Her head tilts to the side. Her mouth opening and closing again as if she's mulling over her next words carefully. If it were brighter, you might say this is the closest to nervous you've ever seen her get.

"I could lay down next to you." You blink. "My body generates a certain amount of heat due to -"

"Your powers. Yeah, I get it."

Slowly, you scoot over in the small cot. There wouldn't be enough room. You'd be touching regardless, but if you didn't turn over, it'd be okay. You could pretend instead of Carol, it was some space heater next to you.

"Come," you order.

You feel her weight in the cot, the warmth of her sinking in and spreading across the fabric. It hasn't even been a minute and already the cold has been dissipated. You could sleep if you wanted to. But, you don't. No matter how much you had wanted to pretend she was just some space heater, she was Carol. She felt stiff like a board and she was unbearably loud in her stiffness, her unwillingness to move.

"You can relax you know," you mumble.

"I sleep on my side."

You wonder now if she's smirking.

"No one's stopping you from doing that."

She moves and you know without looking that she's facing you. Her breathe tickles the hair on the back of your neck. You wouldn't be able to sleep like this. She's thinking so loud that whatever thoughts she's having are sure to interrupt your dreams. You turn over towards her - your faces are a hair apart. She's not smirking. Her lips are parted and her eyebrows raised, her expression torn between surprise and delight.

"You're making it difficult to sleep," you say simply.

"Am I?" She retorts. There it is. She's grinning. "That sounds like a personal problem."

You don't take the bait. "You know why you're making it difficult?"

She shifts her head slightly to imply 'no'.

"You're too far away. I'm still cold," you say.

She arches one brow. "This is too far away for you?"

You nod.

She shifts closer. Close enough that there's no room for you to glance at her lips. There's only her eyes staring into yours.

"This good enough?" She whispers.

"No."

"You're proving difficult to please, Y/N." And you can tell she's trying to be smooth, but right now, you just want her to shut up.

You barely have time to open your mouth to say as much before she's kissing you. Pressing her soft lips to yours, her hand finding its way to your hip and resting there. She tugs you closer to her until your bodies are flush against one another. The soft pecks growing longer. Light sparks from her fingertips, burning the trim of your jacket. She fists it as she presses you into her. Her touch still gentle if demanding.

You pull away slowly to breathe. To catch air. You forget why when your lips stop touching.

"Been wanting to do that for awhile," she says with a smile.

"I didn't know I wanted to do it honestly," you respond because it's true. All you knew was that Carol was infuriating. Still is. Only now you want to kiss her, too.

"Really?" Carol asks. "You didn't know you wanted me?"

"You find that hard to believe?"

"I do," she grins. "You know the raccoon and Groot have a running bet on which one of us would crack first. Groot bet on me."

"Groot lost, then." You mean to kiss her, but she pulls back.

"You're the one who invited me into bed with you."

"Because you offered your services."

"Because you complained about being cold."

You groan, snuggle into her chest so you don't feel the need to respond to her. Thankfully, she stops. Her spare hand strokes your back and slowly, you drift into sleep.

[davekat-sucks]

OK, wow, you don't like Terezi either, thought I was alone in that boat. When Terezi first properly showed up, she kind of fell into the same spot as Karkat for me, just slightly better? As the story progressed though, between blaming Vriska for ALL the murders, not really giving all that much of a shit about everyone being dead (besides trying to revive Tavros) and the kismesissitude with Gamzee, I actually found myself disliking her even more than Karkat and Gamzee. -Blue Team Anon

She had her good moments when playing off with Karkat, roleplaying along with Nepeta, or helping Dave in her own way. Her arc of trying to get over Vriska after all the things she done was an important moment for her character. But after act 6 and killing Vriska, which should have been her continue to growth and helping Dave & Rose, she just....feels guilty on killing a bad friend and wants more toxic behavior on herself, by having Gamzee be the next one to harm her. She knows Karkat and Dave couldn't do it. She finds the idea of getting better too foreign that Terezi has to be around familiar bad situations in order for her world to feel natural again. When post retcon has Vriska surviving, it's like Terezi forgets everyone else has died. No care for Tavros or Nepeta. Sure they caught Gamzee, but what then? God Tier Feferi ain't doing shit to give the other trolls life. Terezi had considered not reviving Eridan out of all the trolls, which is a justified reason. And even when she is with a Vriska, the teal girl leaves to try and find her timeline Vriska. She doesn't try to lead a new life with the other humans or help Karkat or Kanaya. She wants to find the same horrible person because of her lust for that same abuse. Along the way, she sees the black hole sucking everything in its way, including the ghosts in the Dream Bubbles. She fucking took a picture of Nepeta getting sucked in. HER ACTUAL FRIEND!!! One could argue that she couldn't do much, even with her own Mind powers. But why wouldn't she go back to others or find other ghosts that are still around, to try and stop this black hole from getting more people and causing another catastrophe?!! Terezi just goes off to continue searching for Vriska, thinking that maybe she has a plan to stop it too or that this hole will settle itself out by having John solve it! She is worse than Vriska! As much as Vriska may be Vriska, at least she had moments of showing some regret for things she has done. Her goal would be to make herself a hero, at least she would admits it. But Terezi? She tries to think of herself as a morally good person, despite her own bad things and won't admit. The tealblood goes on and on about justice this and that, but she never really goes through with serving it to people that deserve it. She only lets them free so she can just pretend to chase them and catch them doing the bad deed. But never giving the punishment for them! Not even Eridan is that desperate for such black romance like that. Terezi fucking sucks! I don't know how she would be paired up with John of all people! I understand that she was first few trolls talking to him, but people forget she did try to kill him and doom his timeline, as we see from Davesprite. She claims to be sorry, but she doesn't really do much to John or the others to help beat Jack. Terezi just focuses on helping Dave the most. If Davesprite heard that John fucked with Terezi, he would be reasonably upset. All his work and suffering to save his best friend, and he gets literal fucked by the same murderer that doomed his timeline. Terezi didn't really save the timeline for that post retcon! She made it worse to make it her ideal version instead! It's the most selfish thing she has ever done and I'm surprised nobody calls her out for it! Not in the Epilogues, Pesterquest, and even then, she pulls that same shit with Homestuck^2 as she is working with Dirk Strider and fucking with Rosebot, who she probably knows that she had a relationship with Kanaya, another friend of hers! Kanaya would chainsaw her head if she heard that Terezi made with her Rose! Fuck Terezi! She's the worst character out of everyone in Homestuck!

[jamesholden]

I just got myself super heated thinking about how often fandom seems to reduce Holden down to nothing more than “straight white male hero” with a side of “kinda dumb and nice”. I feel like the darker parts of him, all his internal struggles, get ignored to help push that fanon view of him.

So in the interest of talking more about how Holden really is as a character: What are your favourite “darker” parts of Holdens character, and what things about Holden do you wish fandom would see more?

oh my god this is going to be a lot like a LOT so just brace yourself, nonny. Imma talk about Holden’s burden of responsibility, his guilt center, his PTSD, how he makes mistakes and actually tries to apologize, make up for, and grow from them, and his absolute fucking resiliency so like here we go I guess.

It’s easy for us to be like “oh he had an easy life” and for a long time, he did have an easIER life than Amos or Naomi. But he had a lot of weight put on his shoulders by his family, eight adults. They wanted him to take over the farm, and the message he got from them was “it’s your job to protect this, our home, our legacy, and to carry it on”. That it was HIS RESPONSIBILITY to save his home. The entire reason he was born. Elise feels guilt over his upbringing even years later. That his childhood was devoted to learning how to save the farm. Reading court briefs and GOING TO COURT. That he met ARMED GUARDS AT THE GATES AS A TEEN. for someone who had a normal childhood that seems uh NOT NORMAL.

So he left at his mother’s behest and joined the Navy. Took the officer tract. Was well liked by his superiors and fellow crew members. Until one day when he refused an order to fire on a ship that he believed had Belter refugees on it. He threw a punch, broke his hand, and watched how he was proven right in the end. He was kicked out, and never went home again. Ran from responsibility because all he did was fail people. So he did what he believed he was best at and ran. He lived with a lot of guilt, pretending he didn’t.

And that’s a common pattern for him. He carries a lot of guilt. For home, for the belter ship, for the Cant, Shed and the Donnager, getting the Roci crew into trouble, Eros. Eros was what really fucked him up, what the fans really took the wrong messages from. He lived with not only survivor’s guilt, but PTSD, which fans ignored or wrote off as “assholery” even as the show gave clue after clue that the protomolecule was his trigger. It took him back to Eros. the books had an incredibly sad scene where he actually thinks he IS back there when on Ganymede, and Amos has to snap him out of it. 

He struggles with that, and it colors his actions for SEASONS. destroying the aid ship, the search on Ganymede station and the moon itself. He’s scared of Eros happening again and he wants to stop it at all costs, and he comes to realize how it’s affecting those he loves most. And it still affects him for YEARS after. Miller in his head, the station, SEEING AN ENTIRE RISE AND FALL OF AN ENTIRE CIVILIZATION, the Behemoth, Ilus OH MY GOD ILUS. 

I saw him being called “whiny” for a particularly meaningful scene in S4 in which he tells Elvi he has nightmares of what he’s seen over the years, but specifically what the station showed him. She writes it off because BUT SCIENCE, which bothers Holden in the moment. Holden’s trauma, which has kept him up at night, kept him from eating, changed his behavior so much he pushed his loved ones away, brought him to Ilus to relive parts of it, means NOTHING because SCIENCE.

And like... if that isn’t reflective of fandom’s response to his trauma over seasons 2-4... I don’t know what is. Holden’s trauma was virtually ignored or waved away. While we (rightly!) praised the portrayal and writing of Amos’ trauma, decades older than Holden’s fresh and ugly trauma, people wrote Holden off as an asshole, an abuser, a pointless character who should just die already. Like wow what a way to talk about a character who is traumatized and raw, one whose portrayal was based in ACTUAL RESEARCH OF PTSD BY STEVEN STRAIT. All because... what, we don’t like him? No one has to LIKE Holden, but to be so flippant about what is pretty plainly fresh, horrible, ugly trauma that made him into someone he isn’t and never wanted to be, while praising Amos and Alex for their responses to trauma, even when they also bordered on “bad behavior”... it left a really bad taste in my mouth. I gave up on arguing about it. Holden isn’t WHINY. He’s open and vulnerable about his pain and trauma and fears. Something I thought we WANTED from male heroes. Less toxic masculinity, more vulnerability. 

I love Holden for being a character who makes mistakes, acknowledges they are mistakes, and apologizes or tries to atone or be better for them. He wears his flaws on his sleeve. And he tries to patch them up. He tells Naomi he logged the distress call. He tells Naomi that he almost didn’t go back for the refugees on Ganymede. He tells her he regrets fighting for justice for the Cant instead of protecting them better. He tries to tell her his own feelings don’t matter about her decisions, and goes on to tell her he’ll never like something she did, even though he’d never hate her for doing it. He blames himself for her leaving, admits that his actions pushed her away, even if she denied that. He defers to Naomi SO MUCH after realizing how he’s wronged her or because she’s opened up to him because he realized how he didn’t listen and tries to listen MORE. He’s HONEST. Even when it hurts him or the person he’s speaking to. HE GROWS. Even if it’s imperfect at first. Holden tries, and to me that’s so incredibly important, and it’s not spoken of because for many it’s not good enough just to TRY. and that’s a shame.

Lastly, I love his resilience. It’s what drew me to him from the get go, aside from being someone who tried very hard to do the right thing. Holden gets beaten down so many times, but he always gets back up. Always. He always keeps fighting, keeps trying, keeps learning. His arc plays out SO BEAUTIFULLY in book 8, because he doesn’t give up, and he uses all he’s learned to survive. I found The Expanse when I was in a really dark place, trying to claw my way out. Holden helped me with that because he ALWAYS clawed his way out. And it meant so much to me. Holden doesn’t stop. He keeps moving forward.

SORRY THAT WAS SO MUCH i kept coming up with new thoughts and ideas I am SO sorry but I hope this gives you what you’re looking for! Thank you for giving me the space to rant about my bisexual himbo space knight. 

[pa-pa-plasma]

For the ask game G D Z💖

owo fanfic ask meme?? assuming this is that one xD the search function doesn't work very well, so this is the one im doing

G: Care to share a favourite crack fic? every fic that includes Danny revealing his identity, but no one believes him because of Wes asdfghjkl plus that post about Vlad claiming to be Phantom's dad, so Danny claims Vlad killed him in retaliation. I really hope that gets turned into a whole series cuz im fucking dyying lmao specifics though?? Things I (Cannot) Do In Amity Park An Experiment in Absurdity It's uh...Formal Tuesday? are some that i can remember off the top of my head!

D: Is there a song or playlist to associate with [insert fic]? i make playlists for my fics if that's what you mean xD my two biggest playlists that i listen to the most (when writing, when reading) are: Flying Over the Pit of Death Hand On My Stupid Heart (Implode Alright my beloved)

Z: Major character deathーdo you ever write/read it? Is there a character whose death you can't tolerate? i actually hate reading major character death fics ;-; especially ones with the trio (Danny, Tucker, Sam). i just can't handle it very well. i very vividly remember reading the fics "stop the world i wanna get off" and "mars" a long time ago, and i still think about them sometimes. they're good fics, but i get too sad thinking about it. plus fics where Danny is immortal or somehow gets hero of timed and ends up very far into the future with no way home, and everyone he knows is either dying or dead. hate that. im okay with hurt/comfort, & can handle stuff like PoT/SoaD, and all those infamous fics, but i like to read more relaxed fics now also this fic: One Thousand Years

for writing, i personally like to use other means of traumatizing my characters, and don't usually write character death all too often. i usually write in threats of death, threats of vivisection (as one does, naturally), and like. psychological torture stuff, ya know? maybe a broken bone they have to hide here, a little bad parenting there. sprinkle in anxiety disorder. have the cap accidentally pop off and spill anxiety all over everything. fuck. shit. everyone's severely anxious now. they have PTSD. oh god. the usual closest i did recently at least was an off-screen minor character death in Black Dog, and the guy never got a name (they just call him "that werewolf" & "that guy"). idk if im gonna kill anyone else. runner up for getting killed is Vlad, though. havent decided how to deal with him yet in this au also killed people in my old fic Phantom (rip ricky marsh) but never got that far into posting it. got like, a bit through the first "arc" and then stopped for some reason. might just throw the rest of Phantom up on ao3 when i get the chance, but i'm working on fotpod, homsh, and black dog atm so idk when that'll be uwu

[sarahjtv]

BNHA Chapter 311 Quick Spoiler Analysis: Searching For Answers

The new chapter is out after waiting 2 weeks!  I hope Horikoshi and every other mangaka had a good Golden Week!  Anyway, there was a lot of dialogue in this chapter and it was primarily focused on the Top 3 Heroes: Endeavor, Hawks, and Best Jeanist.  The last few pages had All Might and Deku in it and 2 surprise guests!  I don’t think I have too much to comment on, so this might be a short one:

The chapter starts off with Endeavor taking out a couple of villains who broke out of prison with Detnarat support items on them.  Endeavor quickly takes them out with a new Super Move called Ignited Arrow.  Well, I say new, but I think we’ve seen this move before back in the Stain Arc.  It was that fire spear that Endeavor threw at the winged Nomu.  I think that it was only in the anime and it didn’t have a name then.  Well, it does now.

Anyway, the Top 3 are trying to capture as many villains as they can in hopes they can trace back to Muscular and ultimately Shigaraki and AFO.  No luck so far though.  It’s not like finding AFO is going to be THAT easy, c’mon...     

But, of course, there are people who have lost their faith in Heroes and are now actively protesting against them picket signs and all.  The Top 3 tried to convince them that they’re still Heroes during their big press conference, but it’s clear that wasn’t enough for some people so they just leave in the Jeanistmobile.  The ironic thing is that none of these 3 are “False Heroes”  Even Endeavor, while he was still a shitty dad, was a great Hero in his own right.  Right now, the Top 3 are the last people who should be getting yelled at by the public.  

It’s a short detail, but Hawks makes sure that Edgeshot is still looking into the Liberation Front.  I’m glad to know that it’s confirmed that Edgeshot is still doing Hero work by gaining intel from the enemy.  I don’t think we knew about Edgeshot’s status before.

Another small detail: During this long talk, Hawks calls Izuku “Midoriya” and Endeavor calls him “Deku”.  They’re both treating Deku like the kid he is, but it’s interesting that they address him differently.  I think that Endeavor is trying to see him as a hero just as much as a child.  He did mentor him after all.    

The Top 3 have agreed that they should still keep their distance from Deku since they don’t want Deku to be caught with the mass media.  Endeavor comments that Deku shouldn’t be burdened anymore than he already is.  Even if all this is his idea, Deku shouldn’t have to do this in the first place.  I remember reading a comment somewhere that basically said that it was refreshing to see adult characters remind us and our Shonen protagonist that, at the end of the day, they’re just kids.  Characters like Reigan from Mob Psycho 100 and Nanami from Jujutsu Kaisen are good example of this.  I’m kind of glad to put Endeavor into this category now too.  Big improvement from the beginning when he straight up tried to intimate Deku during the Sports Fest.

As Endeavor’s talking, there’s this one panel that shows Deku presumedly when he told his idea to the Top 3.  Ngl, this panel makes me sad.  Deku just looks so serious and detached in a way.  The light in his eyes is still gone.  Someone here on Tumblr pointed out that the light in Deku’s eyes have basically been gone since he went off on his own.  I quickly went back to the last 5-6 chapters and yeah...  That light is just gone.  I honestly can’t even tell if that light was there when he woke up back in Chapter 309.  Deku’s been through too fucking much.  I don’t know if my heart can take it anymore 💔😢

*sniffle* Anyway, the Top 3 are taking about their plan in all this, the status of Shigaraki and AFO, and why they’re after OFA.  It’s basically things we already know, including why AFO needs Shigaraki, how much power Shigaraki actually needs and why (they call it “Hatred”), and how they can lure AFO and Shigaraki out.  These 3 are just putting all the pieces together into this one massive puzzle that we’ve all been trying to figure out.  There’s an interesting focus on Endeavor at one point when he figures out that Shigaraki has a “Lack of Heart” which is probably what’s fueling that Hatred to begin with.

We transition back to All Might who’s keeping track of Deku’s GPS in his own car.  All Might comments that Deku’s not getting a lot a of sleep lately.  He thinks of what Sir Nighteye said to him back in the day, that All Might should get some rest.  For one, Deku needs to get some rest.  Sleepless nights aren’t going to help this kid at all.  Second, I’m worried that Deku’s going down the same path that All Might went.  Being broken down, but still hanging on to that heroic spirit enough to keep fighting even when he probably shouldn’t.  Third, I wonder why All Might was thinking of Sir Nighteye specifically here.  I feel like All Might still has some regrets about how he didn’t listen to Sir Nighteye before he died.  I do wonder why now though?

Suddenly, Deku’s GPS signal is gone and All Might is ambushed with an explosive!  Horikoshi please don’t let this be how All Might dies!  I highly doubt he’s dead, but god I’d be mad if this is how All Might goes out.  He deserves a more ceremonial goodbye when that happens.  I’m hoping the car he’s driving his has some sort of extra shield on it like Nick Fury’s did in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

Finally, we go back to Deku who’s nearly shot at by a mysterious assassin.  That assassin being the mysterious women in Tartarus who freed Overhaul!  She has a sniper rifle oozing out of her elbow and she has new gear on.  It’s also stated that she was sent by AFO himself, so Deku’s plan is actually working so far.  I wonder if her Quirk is similar to Momo’s Creation but with only weapons as opposed to almost everything under the sun.  We all thought she had an electric-type Quirk earlier, but maybe she made a taser of some sort.  IDK, I’m spitballing here.

Speaking of Overhaul, HE’S RIGHT NEXT TO HER TOO!  I wasn’t sure with the early leaks because I could only see his head and hair, but the cleaner leaks are out and that’s definitely him.  He’s sitting on the roof flappy sleeves and all.  I can’t tell if he’s conscious or not, but it’s interesting that the Assassin woman brought him with her.  I wonder what his role is going to be?  He’s not doing anything at the moment.  The Ultra Analysis book said that Overhaul’s Quirk developed somehow without his arms, so I wonder how he uses his Quirk now?  With his feet maybe?  Also, how’s Deku going to react to this?  Will he kick Overhaul’s ass again?  Will he try to turn Overhaul to a better path away from the Yakuza and villainy?  He wasn’t able to do it last time, so this might be Overhaul’s second chance.  Though I’m not sure given that he’s probably one of the biggest pieces of scum in the series.  I mean, what he did to Eri especially is straight up unforgivable.  I don’t know how Deku’s going to try to redeem Overhaul if he tries.  But, I wouldn’t put it past him if he doesn’t.        

Yeah, that’s the chapter!  It’s good to be back!  No sign of Bakugo or Shoto though😭.  I want my kids, Horikoshi!  But, I’m glad to see that we’ll get to know who this mysterious Tartarus women is.  It’s time to simp again, my dudes.  I need to know if All Might is ok and I need to know what Overhaul is going to do too.  I need to know what Deku’s going to do now too.  Things have gotten a lot more interesting now that it seems like Deku’s definitely going to encounter former Villains from the past.  

Me rooting for our Heroes and admiring our new villain 💙:  

[jessicajonesrp]

Public warning

Patricia Walker does not do well with lack of control. It’s a tendency passed down from life with Dorothy Walker, easily the most controlling non super-powered person she had ever met. For the first eighteen years of her life, most of Trish’s actions, from her clothes to her work to her every public word and expression, had been chosen for her by Dorothy, and the only real choice she had for herself was whether to give in and make life easier for herself or rebel and suffer Dorothy’s wrath.

 Her desire for the control she had lacked had left her with severe insecurity, eating disorders, and self medication through drugs, all issues she struggled with for a good ten years before channeling her need for control into efforts at bettering herself and helping others. She had finally reached a place where life was stable, heading in a direction Trish could be content with, if not fully satisfied.

 And then Kilgrave happened. First to Jessica only, without Trish having any idea why her best friend had suddenly vanished without contact for eight months, and then with the shattered mess it left her once Trish did know and struggled to support her. Then to Trish herself, when she, against Jessica’s orders and even pleas, involved herself in trying to draw him out and capture him.

 Trish knew she had not suffered anywhere near the level that her sister had from Kilgrave, but it was still enough to make her feel sick and cold when she remembered. She still occasionally had nightmares of his cold, snapping voice, telling her to shoot herself in the head, telling her to kill people she had never met before out on the docks. She still shivered in disgust when she remembered the feeling of his hands on her face, his lips on her skin, the terrible ambivalence of wanting to kiss him, enjoying it, even as every part of her true self screamed out in horror. And she could never forget Simpson’s hands around her throat, choking her nearly to the point of death at Kilgrave’s command.

 She had hated and feared the man from the first moment Jessica managed to stutter out what he had done to her. No, she had hated him before then, when she first saw the unnaturally shocked, broken state of her sister when she finally broke free from his initial control. Anyone who could hurt Jessica so deeply and so permanently earned her hatred without needing to know their identity.

 And now he was back. Again. As much as Trish feared for herself, for being used or even killed in his obsessive pursuit of Jessica, she feared even more that Kilgrave would damage Jessica even more deeply, that he would continue to pile up dead and damaged bodies around himself and place the blame at her feet. Jessica didn’t need this, not again. And if Trish could do anything to help or stop it, it would help her feel just a little bit more of a sense of the control she knew she didn’t really have.

 She made her way to her recording studio after first sending some of Heroes for Hires guards ahead of her to thoroughly check out the studio for any signs of danger from Kilgrave or any of his like, giving them a code phrase to use to insure that they would be able to alert her if he did show up and control them or others.  Trish had already called ahead to insure that all people were thoroughly searched for any possible weapons and passed at least twice through the metal detectors already installed before being allowed entrance. After receiving the all clear, she went, Jessica insisting on accompanying her, via one of Danny’s cars to the studio, passing through the checks put in place and heading straight to her recording studio and instructing the techs to set up for a live broadcast. She was aware of Jessica skulking behind her, hands shoved in her pockets, as Trish rapidly read from the speech she had just finished churning out.

 “Good afternoon New York City and beyond, this is Trish Walker with an urgent report coming to you from Trish Talk, by way of myself and all our associates at Heroes for Hire. Soon, a follow up broadcast will be coming your way via Channel 5 News with more information, but please, listen very carefully to this announcement for your safety and those of your loved ones.”

 Trish paused, swallowing, and snuck a glance back at Jessica’s impassive expression before facing the mic again and continuing. “Most of you may remember the terrible events of last summer, when the man whom called himself Kilgrave provided mass terror and destruction in our city and in far too many of our own lives and homes. It is to my great sorrow that I inform you that Kilgrave is not, as was believed, deceased. Kilgrave has made personal contact with myself and with-“

 Jessica made violent throat slashing motions behind her that Trish saw out the corner of her eye, and Trish edited her intended words smoothly.

 “With myself and my colleagues, and we have evidence to support that this is no hoax. Please be aware of yourself and those you love at all times. Know their whereabouts, establish coded phrases and patterns of behavior in order to test out the level of control the people in your life may have at any given moment. Kilgrave is a white male with a British accent, last known to have short medium brown hair and brown eyes. He tends to dress in a professional manner, especially in dark purple suits and ties, and he is considered a threat of the level of nuclear war. Do not approach him should you see him; instead do all you can to get away and call in our hotline at Trish Talk or Heroes for Hire to report a possible sighting. If you suspect that someone you know may be controlled, treat them in the same manner, do all you can to subdue them without causing permanent harm to them if necessary. Kilgrave’s powers last up to 12 hours, so do not under any circumstances try to reason with anyone you suspect to be controlled. If at all possible, wear ear plugs or head phones or listen to loud music when necessary to go out in public. Kilgrave cannot gain control of those whom are not within his direct path and whom cannot hear his commands. He-“

 “Stop,” a voice suddenly came over the ear, and both Trish and Jessica jumped, recognizing the voice after a moment as not Kilgrave’s, but female and American. Trish quickly identified the voice a second later as belonging to one of her tech support assistants, Chloe Ash. “The information is over.”

 “What the fuck?” Jessica hissed, shooting Chloe a vicious glower and striding towards her quickly. “Will you shut up, even I know to shut the hell up on a live recording, over something this damn important!”

 Trish tried to recover, giving a somewhat forced chuckle and speaking over them. “I apologize, there are some technical difficulties, but if you’ll bear with me I will make sure you all get the information you need. As I was saying, Kilgrave cannot-"

 “This information is too much, this recording is over,” Chloe repeated, more loudly and forcefully, standing up and taking the headphones off of her ears. She fairly shouted out her next few words, speaking loudly enough that Trish’s words were drowned out.

 “Loyal listeners, you will now hear the sound of a suicide by Chloe Ash, Patsy Walker’s employee. More are to follow in the names and as a direct result of the avoidance and rejection of Jessica Jones. Goodbye, loyal listeners, and know that Kilgrave is a patient man.”

 She head butted Jessica in the face when Jessica grabbed for her arm, ducking under her and weaving to the other side of Trish. As Trish leaped up, expecting Chloe to grab or try to harm her, the young woman instead ran to a small cabinet against the walls containing little more than sound equipment and various office supplies. Throwing it open, she grabbed a pair of scissors from its contents, opened the blades wide, and closed them around the front of her throat.

 She made no sound, showed no pain as she dragged the scissor blades more deeply into her skin, sawing back and forth to make as rough and deep a wound as possible. The live recording now picked up the sound of Trish’s horrified scream, her outcries of “Oh god, no, no!” as blood spattered in a wide arc just short of reaching her, and the noisy scuttle of multiple feet moving towards Chloe as others tried to reach her before it was too late.

 Jessica got to her first and wrenched the scissors out of her hand, breaking them in half and throwing them down so Chloe could not get them and use them any further. Tearing off her oversized sweatshirt, she pressed it against the woman’s throat, grimly noting how the blood immediately stained through its thick material and onto her fingers, how it had sprayed hot and thick over her arms and chest before she could touch her at all. The woman didn’t try to speak, likely couldn’t have, but she was losing all color in her face, her eyes already growing glassy and lifeless, and as Trish sputtered and tried not to vomit or pass out in the background, Jessica held onto the almost useless bloodied sweater, as though she could somehow keep the woman alive just by holding on tight enough.

 It didn’t matter. Within another minute the woman was clearly dead, limp and unmoving under Jessica’s hands, and she could hear the shrill noise of sirens in the background. Jessica let her drop to the ground, stumbling back and nearly yelling out loud when she bumped into Trish and felt her hands latch onto her arm.

 “We have to go, now,” she mumbled, giving her sister’s arm a rough tug.” Before someone else of his comes through in the aftermath.”

 Even as she lead Trish out of the room and building, she could still hear the dying woman’s words echo in her mind. More are to follow, as a direct result of the avoidance and rejection of Jessica Jones…

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

i’m an idiot. i screw everything up.

Titans 3.03

still here, still doing this. these reviews take a fair bit of time that i cobble together across days (like, ten minute chunks during breaks, etc) and i tend to struggle to keep up with episodes as they come out. this means that by the time i’m done with one, most of my stuff is jossed (or geoffed in this case? idk) or outdated and the post sinks like a stone into oblivion. so! i’m going to change things up a bit with this one and write as i see the episode rather than collecting my thoughts later. in my experience with spn, that was a faster way to get them done. 

anyway. let’s see how it goes! *shadowboxes*

SPOILERS ahead.

1. an auspicious start with some grave-digging!

digging up a grave and breaking open a coffin is some serious, back-breaking work--that dick did it on his own, likely straight after that fight with red hood, is a testament to the sheer intensity, stamina and discipline that he’s capable of. like, we like to joke about dick cooking cauliflower crust pizzas and making gar and rachel spar and memorise sun tzu--and despair at the obvious consequences of some of bruce’s parenting skills--but imagine crime-fighting almost daily without any superpowers, performing some of the most intense parkour in bulky, uncomfortable armour, doing detective work, pushing through every last barrier of exhaustion and then getting up to repeat it all over again the next day. dick probably thought he was going extra-easy on rachel and gar.

1.5. then again, dick probably had a hundred different easier ways to confirm whether jason was still buried or not, from using equipment to merely asking connor to have a quick look with his x-ray vision. but, no, he’s too caught up in confusion and terror, not really having come to terms with jason’s death in the first place, leave alone the possibility that he could be alive after all. he can’t possibly let the others know until he’s confirmed it himself, even if it means digging all through the night until his arms are jelly, thinking over and over again about jason’s eyes, jason’s voice, from behind that red mask. 

... besides, dick has good reason to believe that he could’ve been hallucinating. wouldn’t be his first psychotic episode, after all.

that just imbues this sweaty, desperate, fingers-scrabbling-in-gravedirt scene with that much more poignancy, and a fair bit of bone-chilling terror. dick is horrified to realise that jason’s grave is empty, but a part of him is also probably relieved.

1.75 (... also it’s curious that we’re never shown any of the team asking to see jason’s grave after they come to wayne manor. i guess it’s because the writers--and the audience--know that jason is actually alive, but these people don’t know that. i don’t know if it’s sad or infuriating or both that they’re barely shown mourning him.)

2. oh GOD the sheer TENSION in kory saying, “i don’t want to say it, but--” and dick quickly interrupting, “it was jason. i saw him,” and hank giving him this loaded sidelong glance. i love how dick’s precarious mental health from last season is still this big elephant in the room but at least nobody’s blowing up in his face and questioning his every decision yet

2.25. i love the relative matter-of-factness with which they’re discussing a possible resurrection. and, of course, ra’s al ghul is brought up and quickly dismissed

(still wouldn’t put it past this show to bring him up at the very last second as the real real mastermind)

2.5. “maybe they can bring donna back” OH KORY

2.75. didn’t they have this same conversation about killing/not killing rose last season? man, the og titans make me tired.

and i don’t know if it’s just hank, but there’s a definite in-group/out-group vibe going on with the og titans, where they’re not only ready to consider killing anybody who threatens the group but makes it difficult for new people to fit in. donna and kory got along well with each other, but the dynamics between hank/donna/dawn and gar/rachel/rose were somewhat strained, and with jason, they were really fucking terrible. it makes sense when you think about how the titans started and how they broke up the first time--both were fairly disruptive events, i’d imagine, in that they probably got together to break away from their mentors and strike out on their own, and when they split up, it was the first time they felt directly responsible for the loss of an innocent life.

but the titans that dick is leading now is explicitly about mentoring a young generation of heroes, about second chances and found family. dick definitely wants to reach out to him first, and i have a feeling he’s going to be forced to make some sort of terrible Choice later on in this episode. 

2.8. (honestly tho, this also seems like hank struggling with his own guilt re: jason; if red hood is not the kid that he failed, it’d be easier to fight him.)

3.

HANK NO

4. honestly this season is already ticking off so many things on my wishlist, but i really wish dick would sit down with the newer members of his team and trust them with important information the same time that he’s telling them to the other members. gar searching for help and reassurance from a man who just dumped all of his responsibilities on his son overnight and went AWOL is a sad sight

4.25. has it only been just 48 hours????? wow! jason’s definitely been planning the red hood gig for a long time now...

5. ezekiel, my man! shady looking guy gets into your cab without a destination in mind... no problem, get right in! said guy gets a call to go to the observatory when he’s barely even looked out of the window so far at gotham... yep, a damn tourist! i want more ezekiel in this show.

5.25. (of course jason has upturned table lamps all along the floor... we have to *gritted teeth* balance the TEAL with the ORANGE don’t we?)

5.5. “dick’s a fucking psycho--he could be following you right now.” hank... has no objection to that lol

5.25. hank, hank... this is bad-decision-palooza. i can’t imagine that hank actually thought that jason was reaching out to him for help, given that the last time hank and jason had any substantial interaction hank had been one of the people accusing jason of sabotaging the team. but for him to go seek out jason and go along with his demands without any backup, weapons or equipment? not the best idea he’s ever come up with.

(add to that getting into the swimming pool of a condemned gym... oh yuck.)

((yes, i have enough self-restraint to not cap his ass.))

(((cap his ass! HA!)))

5.5. do you think jason has bugs/monitoring equipment planted in wayne manor to monitor the titans, or remote access to the cave’s systems? wouldn’t put it past him.

6. oh man, hank came back before dick and the others could meet ezekiel! this is TRAGIC

6.25. i mean, it’s plot-convenient that connor was able to give so much information about the bomb from just looking at it once, but i also like to think it’s the luthor-side of him coming to the fore. it also reminds me of that (in)famous scene from the new52 run of Nightwing comics, where a bomb was attached to nightwing’s heart and luthor disabled it by killing nightwing (temporarily). it’s a neat little callback. 

6.55. “where i come from, you go after family? there’s no mercy.” BUT THAT’S THE PROBLEM ISN’T IT

6.75. i mean, dick’s making sense: this is a game, and they need to get it off playing out on jason’s terms. but having a member of his team in his face, doubting his reasoning and every decision? a very familiar sight. 

6.8. krypto with an a+ sense of humour? also a very familiar sight.

7. wayne enterprises... providing the military with... bombs that can be implanted in humans? a BIIIIG yikes. i guess it’s not too many steps above developing clandestine intra-dermal trackers and implanting them in your own sons, and bruce probably thought they could be used as part of negotiation tactics, but still... YIKES.

7.5. on the other hand, conner being asked to build a deactivation advice seems part of a growth arc that started from last season... he knows so much, but part of growing is learning, and part of learning is using what you know to create something new.

8. oh man, my heart broke at hank going “i’m an idiot... i screw everything up.” like. for him to go like this, after being brought down to such a low last season? struggling with pain and addiction and his relationship with the love of his life? it’s so sad.

9. oh, oh, oh! ronnie from schitt’s creek! i love her!

9.5. “one of jason’s minions” took his body out of the morgue... how deliciously morbid that he planned out his own death like this!

10. TALK TO HANK, DICK

honestly, tho, i’m quite impressed with dick here. trying to think beyond just the most alarming part of the crisis at hand, keeping his cool, delegating tasks, frequently touching base with different members of his team... well done. 

10.25.... whoops, spoke too soon. i’m genuinely confused here, tho. where did the van full of gold bars come from? why did they stop there and get out? how did dawn even know about this?

on the other hand, it’s cool to know dove has bulletproof feathers!

10.5. eh... curran walters isn’t really selling red hood’s menace to me so far. but then again, if titans version of red hood is vulnerable-kid-with-father-issues-trying-to-overcompensate, then yeah! yeah, it makes sense. 

11. “when bats have sex, they gotta have something to hang from” OH GOD HANK

... because i want smiley!gar on my blog :)

11.5. awww. i feel sorry for hank but NONE of these fuckers deserve gar except maybe kory

12. ohhh FUCK! look at jason being exactly one step ahead of the titans at every turn. nice.

no really, i love the building stakes and the building mystery - i feel like the deathstroke arc from last season should’ve been more like this. the flashbacks about jericho and rose came too late and after too much build up, which resulted in a very underwhelming and confusing season throughline.

13. HANK AND DIIIIIICCCKKK

“you’re doing your best by me. always have.” WAILING HERE

it also kills me to think that hank thinks that his imminent death is because of his failure to keep the team together (when he was clearly struggling with his own issues and was spiralling towards rock-bottom) and his fear that he will once again be the cause of the team falling apart. 

also:

14. “i grew up... you can, too. you just have to face your fear.”

yep, got scarecrow’s grubby little fingerprints aaaaalllll over this. 

14.25. nightwing’s got specialised batarangs! yay! (somehow i can’t see this universe’s dick calling them “wingdings”)

15. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

oh man, that was devastating. well done, show. fuck, well done, jason.

this is going to bring up all sorts of “if onlys” for the team. i can’t wait for some fucking aftermath.