#bro is playing on nuclear reactor

[baqsy]

screenshots of shadPS4 bloodborne emulator by IExplosiveRage

[davekat-sucks]

Oooh! I have my own headcanons as well!

John Egbert, movie critic and professional prankster, has a small Youtube Channel named EctoBiologist_143 that does a lot of skit based comedy reviews, think Nostalgia Critic without the scummy business practices. John also tries to code personal birthday card files for his friends, they work half the time, if unzipping the .ath file is recognized on the computer’s software.

Rose Lalonde loves to overanalyze kids media, especially squiddles as it’s a way for her to bond with Jade, and Rose notices quite a lot of references to the deep sea and hidden realms in the media.

Dave Strider, as much as he loves to remix and produce beats, he also learns the drums as a traditional instrument to play band, he made one EP with John Rose and Jade, he says he doesn’t want to publish because it “sounds too normal to be indie” bit really he wants a piece of his second family to keep as a memory. His first family was him and bro, and yeeeeeeah, he doesn’t like puppets, except Randy Feltface.

Jade Harley prefers to be a vegetarian, but her Bec side loves meat, she treats herself to black bean burgers and tofu sausages. Her mostly veggie diet comes from her gardening, making all-organic foods. Her Bec side also makes her droop when she’s near nuclear reactors, that’s why her job is reactor designer and not inspection.

Jane Crocker made an MSPFA called Professional Charlatan, an adventure about a hard-boiled prankster, an Adventuring Dandy and a Populist Ingenious work as a team with intelligensia from Master Kernel to defeat the insidious and undersea work of the MERMAID MOB. It is very obvious this is loosely based on Jane and her friends fighting the Condesce.

Jake English dabbles in the art, and takes from Pablo Picasso’s blue period. Rose has a very psychoanalytical idea for why he likes to draw so many blue landscapes, and round, wavy feminine shapes. Jake also draws Robots, a lot. He even gets commissions to draw corny 1950s sci-fi book covers!

Roxy teaches John how to make code in .ath that does not suck. She and John love to share simple code that range from ripoff arcade games to ascii gifs. She takes a lot of the wine her mom stored to be sold in a wine store she owns. Roxy likes to taste wine, but declines anything more than one glass to drink, modesty is policy!

Dirk Strider works with a lot of felt and soft fabrics. He actually makes quilts as therapy for living on his own for 16 years. He also likes to hang out with Dave, he looks up to Dave and how he turned out even with the worst Dirk in all of Paradox space. Dirk still has a manipulative streak where he tries to subtly convince Dave to binge The Muppet Show with him to grow a tolerance for non-smutty plushes. Dave still can not watch any scene with Gonzo without getting sweaty and tense.

This is a lot of text for 8 characters so if I ever do troll headcanons they are in a separate batch.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

fuck it we're liveblogging Batman '66

black list "#66 time" right now if you don't want to see this because god. there's going to be so much.

ep 1x01: Hi Diddle Riddle

"Makenzie you never included the episode titles when you were doing Gotham" yeah man but the 66 episodes make little rhyming couplets and I want you to experience the whimsy with me

I think all the time about the way that Burt Ward was fully married with a child when he started playing Dick Grayson as like. the ageless platonic ideal of a wholesome young lad

"the Riddler contrives his plots like artichokes" I'm always saying that Bruce

Frank Gorshin Riddler you will always be iconic. he's literally just suing Batman for assaulting him. and it's working!

except he's not REALLY suing him that's just a pretext for delivering MORE riddles as part of a scheme to kidnap Robin and replace him with a henchgirl like it's so needlessly convoluted

so much is made about how much it would suck if Batman had to appear in court and reveal his identity but he's like. he's so above board in this show. he says in the first ep he's a "duly deputized agent of the law." he's literally just a cop in a bat costume with a teen sidekick he's only wearing the bat costume because it's fun. this Bruce is arguably the biggest freak of any Bruce ever put to screen.

bro they drugged his orange juice... can't have shit in Gotham...

Gorshin plays the Riddler as such a fucking. creature. always scuttling around and crouched over and bouncing and cackling and popping out of spaces where he absolutely should not be with a deeply weasel-like look on his shifty little face. he had such a blank slate to work with (if memory serves, the Riddler had cropped up in a grand total of like six comics prior to appearing in the show) and he picked violence.

and he was right for that

1x02: Smack in the Middle

see look at that. a couplet. how cute.

Bruce has an uncle? an alive uncle?

things that exist in Gotham: the old turtle mill on Orleans Cove

more writers should let Bruce have a "Bat Ray" the just kills the ignition in people's cars. surely that won't go wrong.

I don't think anyone talks enough about how buckfucking wild it is that in the second episode ever of this very goofy non-violent series a woman dies by falling into a nuclear reactor

and then Bruce makes a terrible pun about it that literally no one can hear but him. dick move tbh.

Riddler's got a whole plaid suit pink shoe/gloves/hat situation going on... kind of serving

the lawsuit was dismissed btw. if anyone was worried.

[yogurtyogitup]

Hi hello it is Liveblog anon. I have a favor to ask. I am trying to get my lore obsessed friend to watch blackrock. But. I have bad memory and forgor. what is rythian’s lore again……… :,)

i remember end stuff but my brain unfortunately got filled with I Hope They Kiss disease instead of story

YOOOO LIVEBLOG ANON!!!

Ok so, Rythian's a human that was taken to the End (implied that the portal his scientist parents built was what allowed the endermen into the overworld) and raised to be a warlord and take over the overworld. At some point, he realized "actually this sucks" and ran away? details unclear--to the overworld, where he set up shop in the "Old World," an old Yogscast server. There, he was the resident wizard/sorcerer and played up the "totally not evil" thing. Duncan and Sjin then had a whole fight that culminated in Sjin burning everything with his fire ring and sabotaging Duncan's nuclear reactor so that it blew up and destroyed the server.

Rythian wakes up underground in the New World (colloquially called Tekkitopia or whatever by fans back in the day, usually in fics) and sets off to get revenge. He scams Sjin and Sips by pretending to be an employee of the new Sipsco, wanting to get items. It totally works, and he disappears to set up shop elsewhere. As he's scoping out an area, Zoey falls from the sky!!! Cue Blackrock.

There's some really fun tidbits like Rythian's enderbane sword burning him because of how end magic because interwoven with his being. Quote from Rythian: "From birth he was trained to use the powers of the End, and while he eventually adopted different disciplines of magic, the End left it’s mark. Enough to make the Enderbane hurt him, but not enough to do any worse."

More on Enderbane: "...the idea was that it was created and enchanted by magesmiths from the Realm of Twilight in ages past, and used in a war between the two peoples long ago. The weapon was used to great effect to slay Endermen, but what really helped win the war was the realm-wide aura that nullified/subdued/limited the use of End magic."

The wraps on his hands are from Enderbane burning his skin :) (We know this because Dusty asked him. Thanks Dusty!)

His hair streaks: According to Rythian, the hair streaks are because "powerful acts of magic have a physical cost." After healing Zoey between seasons one and two, he gets some gray streaks. The blond hair streak is from a past act of magic that has slowly been healing over time. Which has absolutely batshit implications bro what did he do

The wraps on his hands are from Enderbane burning his skin :)

hmmmmm what else. He really likes sandwiches. That might just be bleedover from IRL Rythian tho.

Thank you so much for asking me I love the chance to infodump about second best character (best character being Zoey of course)

[egcdeath]

(this is succession anon) hi you can’t just casually drop the concept of DAN EGAN PATRICK like that because I love both of those cocky arrogant charming pieces of shit and patrick would be so excellent in veep dishing out those one liners… and yes he would also be a great jfk figure especially the belonging to a big prominent family and legacy and everything part

you should go full patrick in the hbo-verse lmfao. patrick in game of thrones next

succession anon if you’re comfortable you should totally dm me sometime 👀👀

patrick would be the perfect veep character. just dishing out insults left and right but also getting humbled left and right. having a relationship where you’re like dan and amy?? where you dated super briefly and kinda dislike each other but also kinda like each other and are coworkers and when it looks like you might be getting back together he sleeps with your sister because he thinks it’ll help him social climb 😭 yikes.

now i’m thinking of who patrick would be in game of thrones… im thinking oberyn? cocky bisexual hedonist??

i’m laughing so hard at the thought of inserting patrick into hbo shows. i feel like he’d fit well into being a messy husband in big little lies. i could see him being in the white lotus too as another messy character who comes to the white lotus and tries to get jennifer coolidge to become his sugar mama. patrick as the school counselor at the euphoria school that no one listens to. patrick in scenes from a marriage as the man you have a failmarriage with. patrick in the sopranos playing a christopher character. patrick in chernobyl being hot fireman #3 who has to go put out the fire at the nuclear reactor. patrick in girls being like trainwreck adam (i have thought about patrick in terms of the panic at central park episode but i don’t think that would work). true blood patrick as a sexy vampire (i haven’t seen it but im sure that exists in it). silicon valley patrick as a tech bro that the main characters can’t stand. patrick in barry taking an acting class with barry to switch things up and getting more than he bargained for. patrick in sex in the city (which i also haven’t seen but fear he would fit too well into).

i fear i could do this all day 😭 i love hbo shows and putting patrick in stupid situations too much!!

[minnesota-fats]

I was rereading a Dead Marvel x Danny Phantom crossover ( last updated in 2014, RIP ) called Marvel Phantom by Slayer Anderson, and here is the Summary.

So...the Fentons punch a hole through to the afterlife in their basement, and develop unparalleled hover technology and...they're crackpots?

In that fic, that gets played seriously because they showed their tech and a brief glimpse of the Ghost Zone to the News for an interview on their studies and everyone on the planet, from Companies to the Military, wants their tech.

Like they made a physic cancelers shd gravity inverters for their hover machines to study ghosts, not knowing that what they did went beyond groundbreaking and make every technology look like it came from the stone age.

That they are actually geniuses that do genius things despite being 'kooky.'

And you know what, that author is right. Are there any other stories out there where someone stops and says 'You built a what in your basement that did what?!

Sure, Amity is Amity which deals with weird supernatural shit, so they get a pass on not actually stopping and thinking that, but what's everyone else excuse?

Suddenly imagine everyone knows about FentonTech and what they can do.

Remember the Fenton Crammer that can shrink humans and inanimate objects? And if a ghost gets shrunk, their powers get weaker? That can be very useful to transport stuff that would had taken time and money.

Or how they have a what's basically a futuristic tank for a RV that has a lot of space?

Or that they have an Emergency Ops Center on their home that can turn into a hover vehicle.

All of the anti-ghost weapons.

I can go on and on, but things can get funny/ hairy real fast.

Wayne Ent, Lex Corp, Cadmus, every military will want a generous piece of that Fenton Pie, with the Fentons going, what's the big deal? We only made this for ghosts and shit. Whatever happened because of that was a happy accident.

Also imagine Lex Luthor about to pop a blood vessel, and holding himself back from throttling Jack during a talk .

Lex: 'Let me get this straight. You built a pocket-sized mini nuclear reactor that can power the US for six generations at full capacity and still have the juice to power an extra two, and instead of using that to for the betterment of mankind and showing those aliens ( cough Superman cough ) their place, you use it to power a pastry machine homemade peanut butter FUDGE!?'

Jack: Gourmet peanut butter fudge! :D it even makes pies and cookies. That nice Superhero with that A on his chest sure loved the Apple Pie it made!

Luthor: *collaspes and start to foam at the mouth out of rage, shock and disbelief*

Vlad that was sitting at a corner: *Sniff*. 'Welcome to my world.'

Bro this is HILARIOUS!!!!

This is the type of chaos I LIVE FOR!

I know little to nothing of Alex Luther other than the fact that he is a xenophobe…. And that he got cancer from being a xenophobe. (Ha! that’s how it should be for racists and such(jk cancer is actually really bad and not a joke))

He would just be MAD that these social idiots would have been able to go all of this with NO FUNDING!

Like seriously where did they get the money to do this crap????

Also Vlad crying in the corner is so funny to me, the grown ass man being a pouty bitch cuz he can’t have a woman he simpped for for 20 plus years!

Wish I could add more but I can’t possibly think of what else to add other than this.

[gayestblogthesite]

I want a fic where Chris was in Raccoon City and with Leon the whole time, things go as usual, obviously they woulda fallen in love that part’s obvious from the get go, but instead of Leon and Sherry getting picked up by the GOV afterwards, Leon made a beeline for his parents (as long as it’s an AU where he has a good relationship with them) and calls Chris to tell him the GOV WILL find them soon (maybe not a call-call cause… well the GOV is ALWAYS listening in…) and where he can find them and Chris hightails it over there while making arrangements to get them all out of the US, while Leon’s dad is confused about the sudden kid in their home and how the FUCK Leon survived a nuclear reactor meltdown but maybe that’s why the kid is with him cause she was all he was able to save, while his mom is just pretending none of this is happening and happily spoiling Sherry like she’s any neighborhood kid wandered into her kitchen and Leon basically decompresses by packing a bag of what little clothes and such he still had at his parents apartment, and he gave Sherry a stuffed bear he had in the closet from his childhood (🥺 she gets really attached to Sargent Fluffy) and finally Leon just sorta collapses on the couch a few hours after they get there and doesnt move for like three hours straight while his dad tries to figure out if he’s okay and Sherry is the only one who could get him out of it when she crawls onto the couch beside him and hugs him and asks him to come back cause she still needs him, and he snaps out of it and goes back into guard mode, following her around constantly and playing dutiful dad/big bro while she gets spoiled by her new grandma and cautiously accepts new grandpa’s attention, and I just need this.

When Chris and Jill (their ride out of the country) get there on day two, Leon cries when he has to tell his mom he’s probably not coming back to the US for a long time, but once he’s out he might be able to contact them more, and Sherry is sad to say bye, and Chris is like ‘lmao awkward’ and he feels bad about having to move them along but he needs to pick up his sister on some weird ass island she’s on now, and Leon is really arguing with his mom that he can’t tell her WHY he has to leave cause that’ll make shit hard for her too, and his dad has to convince her that’s really how Witness Protection works and doesn’t ask questions but they ask if Sherry is their grandbaby now and Sherry holds her breath while waiting for Leon to answer and Leon asks if she’d like that and she says yes so now she’s his baby and they get to leave the cpu try with Chris and Jill and not be recruited into some bullshit and Leon gets to sit at home learning to knit while watching his kiddo play in between missions with his new beau at BSAA and one day Claire comes home with Alice, another Umbrella project she found and some more kids, and they all live happily ever after.

[dontbesoweirdkira]

Can you do a list of Mic being pure w/ his favorite student, (y/n) (like, he’s not afraid to show it), but she’s living with her friend and their family since she’s alone in Japan, and trying to keep it a secret. But when he finds out he’s just “ASDFGHJKLWHAT”, and he’s trying to help her with so many things, which soon evolves to “custody of child—”.

https://dontbesoweirdkira.tumblr.com/post/189518600672/hey-its-me-again-i-hope-you-are-still-open-for

A/N: I first would like to say I ALSO HAVE EATEN A NUCLEAR REACTOR...it tasted like radiation and strawberries yummy!  Here’s your soft present mic X student. I hope you enjoy.  

(I kind of made it where you aren’t fully living with your friend. Just bouncing from the streets to her house every so often if that makes sense??)Requests open

-So at first Mic didn’t notice anything was up...well no he did but he kind of brushed it off since he didn’t want to cross any boundaries.

-Like when he asked for your parents signature but they were always somehow “out of town” or “working overtime” 

-Or when he was going to offer you a ride home since it was pretty late but you just insisted to walk by yourself. And how you didn’t bother to call them and let them know you were going to be home a bit later than usual. 

-He was always curious but like i said he didn’t want to cross a boundary and make you feel uncomfortable about something so personal. Besides how would he bring it up?

-”Hey Y/N, Why do you always conveniently “forget” to fill out your home address on forms?” 

-Yeah see his dilemma?^ And like what if it was nothing and it really was just a convenience.  It seemed better to leave it alone and not worry. You’d tell him if something was going on, right?

-Maybe one day you’re talking to your friend and He’s just around the corner so he overhears the conversation.

-”Hey Y/N, my family is going out of town for a few weeks. I- i would ask if you could come with so you’ll have some place to stay but we are going out of the county and you know how that is..”

-”Oh..um..Don’t worry, I'll figure something out.”

-”Are you sure? I- i can always leave the house key so you can have somewhere safe to go? But uhm, My cousin might come over every so often to watch a game or to check the house so be alert and make sure he doesn’t see you.” 

-”N-No it’s okay, seriously. I’ll find somewhere to go, thank you though. ”

-”Well, I'll leave the key under the doormat if you change your mind, we’re leaving in the afternoon tomorrow so after then the place will be yours for a bit.I’ll text you later, ‘kay?”

-He’s shocked?? Like he thought maybe your at home life wasn’t good or maybe you were embarrassed about living in a low income place, but you were homeless?? And you’ve been staying with your friends every so often?? Why didn’t you tell him? Did you not feel comfortable? He’s in this weird state of shock and acknowledgement.

-For the rest of the school day hE Is cOnTemPlaTiNg oN WhaT tO Do. He’s not sure how he should bring it up or even if he should bring it up. 

- *is casually being torn apart internally as he’s trying to teach english*

-*dEeP sPaCe STarE while he is standing at the board pointing to the sentence structures*

-”Sensei, are you oka-”

-”IMTHINKINGASHARDASICANTOFIGUREOUTASOLUTIONDONTPRESSUREMEoKaY.”

-lolol but once classes are over he taps you on the shoulder and asks if he could walk with you home for a bit. You visibly nervous, you reject and say “Umm It’s all right Mr.Hizashi, you’re busy and I don't want you to take up any of your time plus it’s late and I'm tired and i have to go and-”

-”Y/n...You don’t have to make up excuses, I know you don’t have anywhere to stay.”

-stopping in your tracks, your eyes went wide and you faced him 

-”I heard you talking to that friend this morning.”

-M-mr.Hizashi I can explain-”

-cutting you off once again he begins “Hey, you don’t have to do any of that. It’s your business. But I don’t want you to just roaming around or staying anywhere alone anymore, okay? If you would like, I have an extra bedroom at my house, you can stay there until we get everything sorted.”

-”No..Mr.Hizashi...It’s okay..I’ll be okay, I’ve always have. Plus you have been such a great teacher and already went out of your way more than what I could have asked...staying with you would be too much.”

-”Y/n, it’s okay to ask for help. I seriously don’t mind. At least stay for the night so you can eat and have a roof over your head, then in the morning we’ll figure something out.”

-You hesitantly accepted but you told him that you’d be out of his hair as soon as the next morning hit.

-That night going to his house was...nice to say the least. The guest bedroom that he had was bigger than your friend’s kitchen and nicer than any place that you’ve stayed at. It really was heaven. So warm and cosy. There was a nice sense of nostalgia and security, something you’ve haven’t felt in years. His home was somewhere anyone would want to live in their whole lives. 

-”Once you’ve settled down, you can come to the dining room. I ordered some take out, I figured you’d be hungry.”

-For a moment you sat on the fluffy bed and just took in everything. God was so good to you right now and honestly you thanked him. Although it frustrates you to think that this would only last for a second and you’d be back on the streets, roaming around. Yeah yeah, Hizashi wants to help you but you knew soon he’d get tired of your presence in his house…..they all did. 

-Taking a deep breath, you went to go meet hizashi in the dining room.

-He welcomed you then motioned you to sit down at any of the seats at the table. “Oh hey, there’s miss america. You may sit anywhere you’d like. And help yourself to the food here.”

-You sat down across from him, only not to look at him just to have your eyes on the empty plate in front of you. You didn’t really touch any of the food actually or even make a sound. You weren’t trying to be rude or anything, you just..there was a lot on your mind and facing hizashi seemed difficult.

-”Are you okay Y/N? I hope sushi is okay. I- i meant to um ask what you would like to eat first. I’m sorry.”

-”No I’m sorry for-,”  twiddling your thumbs for a moment you then looked towards the blonde fellow “Mr.Hizashi..My parents left when I was around three but they left me with my aunt. She was a very good person and took good care of me but she got very ill...and um you know. At first I was living in her apartment but i couldn’t pay for it when it was time for rent so..I stayed with my friend for a couple of months. But her parents kind of got tired of me staying there and it was this thing, so I lied and told them I found a family member to stay with. And um up until now I've been staying on the streets. Sometimes having a sleepover once every so often.”

-”Y/n…”

-”I didn’t tell you because I was so scared… I didn't know what to do and I really really don’t want to go in foster care or anything so I just thought I was better off keeping it from you. But I guess it backfired anyways because you still found out haha….I’m sorry Hizashi. I hope you don’t think of me any less. I- it was a tough situation and all and you know how that is...”

-He immeadately stood up, walked over to you and hugged you. It was with So mUcH compassion and genuine love. You really was his favorite student no scratch that HIS FAVORITE HUMAN i swear he would end the world for you. 

-He gave you a little cheek kiss and was like “I’m not letting anyone put you in foster care and I'm sure as hell am not kicking you out even if i have to take custody of you.”

-”w-wait what? wAiT wHaT???”

-”KID IM fucking keeping you here safe with me even if i’m in court all year. We are going to make this work somehow, you aren’t doing this alone anymore. Do you understand?”

-YeAh hEs cRyInG iM cRyinG yOuRe CryInG wE aLl CryinG 

-BRO YOU ARE UGLY CRYING NOT NO SOFT CUTE CRY LIKE HAHA YOU SOUND LIKE A WALRUS TRYING TO SAY ‘t-tH-Th-HaNKy-yyy-YoUUU-UOi  mR hIzZaShIiIi”

-He whipes the tears of your cheeks and ruffles your hair 

-”it’ll be okay Y/N, I promise.”

-I swear he’s like rushing to the computer and trying to figure out how to adopt you.

-”HoW tO aDoPt a ChILD wHen You aRe a hEro.”

-There's an actual wiki-how about it???????

-No but he’s really doing his research and is visiting lawyers trying to find the right one. He has them immediately looking into everything and making sure that his chances of getting you is as high as possible. 

-He’s up late at night on the phone, emailing,  and writing

-He has pounds and pounds of evidence that he is the most fit person to take care of you. He is not playing whatsoever

-He already let’s you decorate and he even gives you an office so you can do work or whatever. He most definitely brought you clothes and stuff for your room.

-When the courts and everything finally approves it after a long year of fighting, he picked you up and spun you around.

-”What did I tell you?!? I was not going to lose you and i made sure of that. And starting today and the rest of  forever you’ll never have to be alone.”

-BonUs

-100% takes you out somewhere super fun and nice. 

-”Wait we must take a selfie, The first day we are legally Father-daughter!”

-The most chaotic duo now, Everyone at school knows he adopted you and like he won't let anyone forget it.

-MISSSSSS AMERICAAAAAAA, is now, MISSSSSSS HIZAAAAASSSHHHHHIIIIIIII.

-”WHEEEEERRREEEE ISSS MYYYY LITTLE MUSHROOM???”

-”YYYYYY/NNNNN YOU LEFT YOUR BAG IN MY MINIVAN.”

-He has a minivan now. It also has a ‘Yeah I’m a soccer dad and i’m proud’ sticker on it.

-He joined the PTA 

-HE IS SOOO BIASED I SWEAR NO ONE IS ABOVE YOU IN HIS CLASS AND NO ONE BETTER SAY ANYTHING ABOUT IT

-Always hugging you and giving you little cheek kisses when he sees you in the halls

-Made a titled track called “Now a dad”

-he most definitely wears ‘Best Dad’ shirts now. He also is in a ‘Single dad’s in Japan’ group now

-”I think we look just alike, Don’t we Y/N?” you both smiled and posed at the same time

[pinnithin-writes]

Good Jokes

Chapter 10

Tommy wandered Black Mesa for what felt like days.

It couldn’t have been days; his hands were still sticky with rust and he hadn’t gone far from where -

Where that happened.

He didn’t feel like he even had permission to mourn. Tommy barely knew Gordon - had known him for maybe 72 hours max - but he had grown so important so rapidly that his absence punched a hole straight through Tommy’s torso. He couldn’t shake the sense of loss, how bitterly unfair it all was.

To have someone be such an almost. An almost friend. An almost lover. Never having gotten close enough to be allowed to miss him.

This was not to mention the overwhelming sense of guilt that had crawled inside his lungs. If he had been quicker, if his judgment were sharper, he could have prevented this. If he had been strong enough to break free of whatever bound him. If he had paid greater mind to his father’s warning.

Tommy drifted, heavy with regret as he glided through the halls like a spectre. Shackled down by should-haves. What did he do now? What was there left to do, when the world was fucked and the only person who gave a shit about it was dead?

The room he wound up in was cavernous, ringed with a toxic neon glow. Appropriate mood lighting, he thought wryly to himself as he stood in the shadow of a massive cistern. It was strange, standing there, saturated by radioactive waste, almost-grieving an almost-lover. Would have been nice if not for the cockroaches.

Would have been nice if Benrey wasn’t there, too.

Tommy felt his presence as soon as he appeared, unpeeling from thin air and hanging his elbows over the edge of the cistern. Looking all the world like a kid at a pool party. Tommy watched him materialize and felt something dark settle in the pit of his stomach.

“Hey,” Benrey drawled nonchalantly.

Tommy didn’t have the patience for pleasantries. He was going to set this guy on fire. As he raised his hand toward him, the entity blurted the only thing that could have possibly saved him.

“Dude, he’s alive.” His voice was pained, as if he were already feeling the blood boiling in his own veins. “Chill.”

He released his hold on the atoms that made up the entity’s body as hope lodged a painful lump in his throat. Benrey sagged with relief while Tommy took a thoughtful step back, eyeing him warily. His hand was still lifted in a threat.

“Where is he?” he demanded coldly.

Benrey threw his careless exterior back on once he was sure he wasn’t about to be immolated on the spot. He gave a narrow shrug. “I don’t fuckin’ know. On the move somewhere. Last I checked he wasn’t in the garbage anymore.”

The garbage. They had tossed him in the garbage. Tommy wanted to kill this guy all over again. He clamped down on that impulse, instead uttering a single, perfunctory syllable.

“Why?”

“Probably because he didn’t wanna be in the garbage anymore.”

“Why,” Tommy tried again, barely containing his anger, “did you do that to him?”

Benrey began picking at his cuticles lazily, rolling his eyes so he wouldn’t have to meet Tommy’s gaze. “I dunno. He was getting boring.”

“I don’t believe you.”

When Benrey showed him his teeth, it was more of a snarl than a smile. “Your problem, bro.”

Tommy was about to grill the entity, in both the physical and metaphorical sense, when a scuffling sound echoed from a pipe on the opposite wall. He turned, tempted to dismiss it as another alien, but a heavy thud followed, and a very human groan came shortly after. Benrey’s mouth turned into a knife as he leered at Tommy.

“Huh. Maybe he’s not so boring after all.”

Tommy turned back to face him, his stare hard and dangerous. “I’m going to kill you and then I’m going to kill you again.”

“Hurts, man,” Benrey said, but he was delighted. “Just like old times.” He dangled his arms over the edge of the cistern, grinning cheekily. “I missed this.”

The noise from the pipe was growing louder. The person inside - and he had a pretty fucking good guess who - was clearly in a lot of pain. Tommy’s heart squeezed just hearing it.

“Get out,” he told Benrey.

The entity smiled his shark’s teeth smile. “Make me.”

Tommy did. Clapped his hands together and slammed Benrey into the same pocket dimension he’d trapped that shithead soldier in only a day ago. His patience was nonexistent, his self control barely hanging on. Go have a time out in the void.  It was a kinder punishment than the entity deserved.

He stood there, watching the space where Benrey had disappeared from, for several long seconds. Then he turned and strode across the room to watch the dead come back to life.

The relief that surged through Tommy upon seeing Gordon Freeman crawl out of that drain was so sudden and powerful it knocked the breath out of him. He was alive. He was alive. God, he was alive. Tommy could only stare, gaze catching mournfully when he noticed he was short a hand.

“Hey!” Gordon shouted hoarsely. He sounded terrible, like he had been dragged for three miles from the back of a moving van. Looked as much, too - he was covered in a horrible smear of his own blood and whatever sludge had been at the bottom of the trash compactor. A crack spiderwebbed across his glasses. Tommy felt awful, seeing him like that.

Gordon was still calling his name like it was the only word he knew. “He - Tom - Tommy! Tommy, up here! It’s me! Tommy.”

Tommy smiled sadly up at him. “Hello, Mr. Freeman.”

“Are you - are you here to fuckin’ kill me?” he demanded, and the fear in his words broke Tommy’s heart. “Did they tell you to finish me off? Please, please tell me-”

“No,” he interrupted him before Gordon’s voice could get any more distraught. “They tricked me.”

“What? Oh... god.” Gordon slid unceremoniously out of the pipe and onto the floor. Tommy took a step forward retroactively, but paused when he caught the nervous look Gordon threw at him. He didn’t know if he could trust Tommy. Hell, he didn’t know if he could trust anybody .

Keeping his distance took a great deal of effort, but Tommy managed.

Gordon groaned. “Oh, my fucking arm.” He staggered to his feet, clutching the stump where his hand used to be. He returned his gaze to Tommy’s face, studying him warily. “Hey buddy,” he ventured. “What are they-what did they do to you?”

What did they do to me? Tommy wanted to ask. What did they do to you, you half-dead, waterlogged, survivor of a man? He bit the inside of his cheek and looked away, joking to calm his nerves.

“Um, they gave me a Beyblade.”

Gordon paused, ignoring the jest as he puzzled over Tommy’s situation. “In exchange for - for going with them? Why are you - th - did they leave you behind?”

“Yeah,” Tommy answered. He turned his eyes back to Gordon, utterly loathing himself. “I ran away.”

Gordon, however, relaxed visibly at this. “Oh my god,” he sighed, and then he didn’t approach so much as he pitched forward, unsteady on his feet as he was from blood loss. Tommy caught him, pulling him in close. The armor of his suit dug into his chest but he hardly cared, arms clasped tightly around Gordon as if he would slip through his fingers if he let go.

The other man sagged against him, barely able to stand. “Thank you, man,” he breathed. “Honestly.”

Tommy supported him, tucking his chin into the crook of his shoulder. He smelled like sweat and weeks of garbage and the awful tang of alien guts. Ironic that the first time he got to hold him like this was in a pit of toxic waste. Tommy would find it funny if Gordon wasn’t rapidly losing blood.

He smirked into his neck, drawing out the bit despite everything. “They took the Beyblade back though, Mr. Freeman.”

Gordon exhaled through his nose in a weak, silent laugh. “Oh,” he said. “Would you go back if they gave you another Beyblade?”

Tommy took a step back, steadying Gordon with both hands on his shoulders, checking him for further injury. Other than the gaping fucking hole where his hand used to be, he was purpled with welts from the beating he took. There was no telling what kind of head trauma he had - the man could barely stand upright on his own. But he was alive, alive, alive, and that was better than Tommy had allowed himself to hope for.

He was going to shred Benrey for this. Him and Bubby both. If they wanted to play god, he’d step up to the plate and take a swing. Hot, angry tears suddenly sprang to his eyes, and he pulled back, blinking them rapidly away.

“I know, that’s hard to think about,” Gordon broke in gently. “That’s a good - that’s a good deal.”

He was still playing off his stupid Beyblade joke. Tommy gave him a watery smile and swiped at his eyes with the heels of his hands, wondering what had compelled the universe to gift him with this wonderful man twice over. He glanced back at Gordon’s ruined arm, making another lame attempt at levity.

“Oh my god,” he said sarcastically. “You don’t have a hand.”

Gordon chuckled mirthlessly as he examined his own wound. “I know. I know.” He sucked in a painful breath. “Oh, god.”

“How are you going to… write?”

“That’s the least of my concerns,” he answered, suddenly serious. “I’d like to live. And get out of here.” He cast a curious look around the room. “Where the hell are we? Are we back in the nuclear reactor?”

Tommy was still fixated on the hand thing. Maybe he could pull some strings with time and space. Call in a few favors. It would be tricky, but he felt somewhat responsible for the wound’s existence at all. The least he could do was find a way to reverse it.

“We can get you a new hand, but not in this room,” he said thoughtfully.

That caught Gordon’s attention. “A prosthetic?”

“This room has too many creatures in it,” Tommy went on, wrinkling his nose in particular at the cockroaches. “It doesn’t look sanitary.”

“Do you have any medical experience?”

“No,” Tommy answered honestly. His complicated relationship with mortality made first aid knowledge a low priority. He briefly thought back to what he’d read online. Was this a tourniquet situation? Was he bleeding enough to need one of those?

Gordon cast around for even a miniscule sense of relief. “D’you have any pills?” he asked. “You have like maybe an ibuprofen or an Advil?” He tried to laugh, but it came out more like a thin sob. “It hurts, man. It hurts a lot.”

Guilt closed around Tommy’s throat. All this power at his fingertips and he couldn’t ease Gordon’s pain even a little.

“I only have soda,” he admitted, too drained to make it humorous. “We should get going.”

Moving to support the man’s unsteady weight, Tommy reached for his elbow. If he could get him through the facility quickly enough, he’d make it. Gordon Freeman wouldn't die here. Tommy wouldn’t let him.

“Yeah, probably not gonna be in herewait wait wait, don’t go anywhere.” Gordon yanked away from Tommy, wincing as he did so, and fixed him with a critical look. “I need - we need to talk a little bit more.”

Tommy tried to meet his eyes, but he couldn’t pull his gaze away from the bleeding end of his arm as it slowly dripped scarlet onto the floor. The longer they stood here talking the less time he had to live. He waited wordlessly.

“So - enough - okay, I’m gonna trust - I’m gonna trust that you... are go - I trust-” Gordon shook his head, starting over. “Can I trust you, Tommy?”

He lifted his gaze and gave Gordon a heavy stare. “Yes.” It was not even a question. He had chosen Gordon. He wasn’t about to lose him again.

“Are we good together?”

God, Tommy hoped so.

---

He guided Gordon through the obstacle course from hell, answering his constant slew of questions as best as he could without breaking his brain. Tommy wanted to shush him - the more he spoke the quicker he would bleed out - but he suspected that the constant talking grounded him somewhat, so he spoke to him gently in reply.

Gordon’s thoughts had turned the tap on and his mouth was a faucet of words. He was steadily losing hope; it leaked out of him like the blood from his stump, his sanity going with it.

Tommy needed to keep him alert and engaged. He murmured into his ear as he carried him through Black Mesa, reassurances and stories and the shittiest jokes he could think of. I’m here. I’m here. You’re safe. You’re safe. Stay with me.

“Look,” he told him as they leapt unsteadily over a pathway of stones. “That rock you’re standing on looks like Tibet.”

It was a delayed response, but he saw Gordon’s shoulders shake as he snickered. “Showing off your geography skills even in the worst of times, huh?”

Good. They were still good. Tommy turned, continuing to lead.

They kept moving.

Emerging on the other side of a network of pipes, they were met with a room clustered with vats of waste, each one slowly pressed by a hydraulic plate. Tommy, struck once again by the utter ridiculousness that made up this backwards facility, snorted with derision. Beside him, however, Gordon staggered, looking crestfallen.

“It’s okay, Mr. Freeman,” Tommy muttered as he studied the presses. “I think you’ll be fine - this room is OSHA approved.”

Gordon managed to scrape together a response. “To code? To code, like you said?”

Tommy turned his attention to the man beside him. He was weary and haggard, too exhausted to smile, but humor glittered behind the lenses of his glasses as he stared back at him. The fondness flowering in Tommy’s ribs threatened to suffocate him.

He was going to get Gordon out of this nightmare and then he was going to date the hell out of him. Maybe even marry him. Become a second father to his stock photo son. Apocalypse be damned.

They kept moving.

Their path led them through darkened hallways and more vats of sludge. Where was all this shit coming from? Gordon had slipped into the substance a few times already, and was rapidly growing delirious, his words stringing out incoherently. Tommy was just beginning to wonder what it would take to physically remove the toxins from his veins without removing all of his blood in the process when Gordon caught him with another question.

“Did you hear anything else?” he asked, referring to the event that rendered him handless.

Tommy crouched thoughtfully in the dark as he gripped his rifle. “Screams after that,” he said. Even remembering the sound sent a chill through him. “But… I think that I - I also screamed.”

He could just barely see Gordon’s face in the glow of the flashlight beam reflecting off the tunnel walls. A worried little crease had formed between his eyebrows, and Tommy resisted the urge to reach out and smooth it over with his thumb. Gordon didn’t need to waste his energy on concern over him. They had a bigger, more blood-related problem right now.

Gordon didn’t ask him anything after that, so Tommy didn’t answer.

They kept moving.

Tommy would be happy if he never had to swim again. The pressing sheet metal walls and the smell of raw sewage had kind of ruined the experience for him. He hauled Gordon through the water, coercing a current to propel them along.

Gordon chuckled softly as he allowed himself to be carried. “You ever tried to swim with one arm?” he asked.

Tommy rolled his eyes and rewarded him with a smirk.

“It ain’t easy.”

He appreciated the levity, and the fact that Gordon could tell how uncomfortable Tommy was - enough, at least, to crack a joke on his behalf. It was beginning to get to him: the scent of blood and shit and the slimy water sloughing around him and the dead weight of Gordon on his arm and the harsh industrial lighting searing his eyes and -- Tommy wanted to hit pause and catch his breath, it was all so much. But he had to get Gordon out of here first. He had to make sure he was safe.

Tommy pressed on, pulling the man under a submerged barricade and breaking through on the other side. Stopping to rest was not an option. He had anticipated that this would be a hard journey and had steeled himself accordingly.

He did not, however, anticipate the clones.

Chapter 9 <-----> Chapter 11

[thegodshavehorns]

Dave Strider and the Hollowed Heart (2/5)

Chapter 2: Tea and Melody 

Your name is Dave Strider, and you are nine years old. You are getting wiser about the world.

You learn that the Maid of Time is the goddess that everyone will meet at least once. She is present for every death, just like the Book of the Zodiac says. She does not wish that anyone should die alone, and so she comes and sits with them in their final, frozen moments, between time. There are many who dream to serve her well enough that she will fulfill a last request, or heal the pain of dying with regrets.

Everyone will meet her at least once, but few people will meet her twice. Fewer still will meet her at six years old, and then be invited to weekly teas at the hospital, with her and another goddess.

The living gods have names, not just titles. Some people know them. Fewer speak them. The names are wrapped up in taboo and mystery, sounds too holy for the unwashed and profane to utter them. Fear and awe keep the names secret, not any act on the part of the gods. But then, they don’t care enough to divulge their names in most cases anyway. Where the names are remembered, there is usually disagreement over who they belong to.

But you’re different.

“I’ve been called the Queen of Bow, since before the foundations of this city were laid,” the Rogue told you once over tea with the goddesses. “The Leader of Hosts, the Opener of the Womb, She Who Begets All, and Goddess of Goddesses.” There was a steady beat as she said it, a ba-dum ba-dum to her words that seemed to mimic the pulsing of your heart.

“But what’s your name?”

“Nepeta. And the mopey cat is Aradia.”

The words were like honey, with an almost iambic beat to them. The Soothing Herb… Nepeta of Heaven and Earth, Who Begets All, Who Forgives Sins.

You find yourself repeating the words to yourself in the dark, not knowing why but only that it satisfied some part of your soul, something that wasn’t entirely woken up yet. A chant, a rhythm, like you’re trading whispered rap lyrics with spirits that never respond. A mantra, almost.

You don’t really know how Bro is taking it. He seems disturbed, and has become more so after you mentioned that you were also seeing Aradia. He met Nepeta once, briefly, and now by mutual unspoken arrangement you have made sure that the two never see each other again. You aren’t sure why he's so scared. He’s the reason that you recognized her at all— there’s a little idol of her sitting near the household shrine for Uncle Crab, draped with fancy Sigil necklaces that he cleans every Lejonday. But when she up and comes into the house, he doesn’t want anything to do with her. These days, he more often prays to the Knight for protection.

You know he hasn't always been this distant with gods. There's Li'l Cal for one thing, propped up in the kitchen when Bro isn't using him, and he came straight from the Dark Carnival. Has the Sigil of Rage on his inside lining and everything. Bro probably got him there, though he doesn't talk about it. You wish he'd tell you about the Carnival, it was probably hella cool. But whenever you ask, he just shuts up.

Bro’s older, you will someday understand. Old enough to recognize gods for what they are, and old enough to be cautious of divinity. He prefers his goddesses at a comfortable distance, somewhere on the other side of the world or the galaxy, not sitting in his living room, playing board games. So, instead you play them at the hospital.

Nepeta tries to explain it to you one day as the two of you sit in a hospital waiting room one night, waiting for the third member of your merry band. “He doesn’t want to tell you, though. He knows that there isn’t any point to it.” She smiles, revealing the sharpest teeth you’ve ever seen. “Whom the gods choose, we have chosen.”

“For what?”

“To be our company.”

You shrug, thinking to yourself that if the gods want somebody to play Monopoly with, then maybe they should just ask. You are still not catching on. Even when she tries to make it clear as day. “People have written hymns to me. They’ve praised me and they’ve cursed me. We don’t leave the world alone.”

You would have to be blind not to notice that people try to clear out around her. All except for the occasional apparent maniac who can’t get enough of being around her. Some of the staff have to stay in the waiting room, though, and there are a few people whose conditions are apparently serious enough that they can't wait for a night that the Lady of the Lands isn’t there.

“I am the Rogue of Heart. I can make them want who I want them to, if I want. Do you see the nurse over there at the desk?” she whispers into your ear. “All I have to do is will it and she’ll walk past us and drag that man with the cast there into a closet. You can forget about her wife. She sure will!”

“That could mess some people up. So, uh, thanks for not doing that?”

“I’m Lady Heartbreak, and I leave a trail of hearts behind me where I walk. I’m like a spiritual surgeon, making people trade hearts like playing cards. Not because I’m intending it, but because I am, I exist. :33 < I am She Who Sends Messages of Desire,” she says. “:33 < I’m only holding it in beclaws I don’t want to make a scene. But that’s all.”

You shudder at the Tinge in her voice, and then you try to pretend that it never happened. How would Bro handle this? What would he say?

“Yeah, okay, so I’ve got a friend like a walking leaking nuclear reactor of emotions, but that’s cool. And I’m just too stone cold to fall for your wiles, is that it? All these losers are tripping all over themselves but your best bro here just wants to roll the dice and move his dog five spaces and pay the rent on Boardwalk.”

Nepeta laughs. “You couldn’t resist me if you tried.”

“Prove it.”

She grins. “Maybe when you’re older, kid.”

And then Aradia comes, and you play Chinese checkers and drink tea in the space between 1:05:04 and 1:05:05.

Later, you do catch on. Why people are afraid of divinity. But you’re still so used to being around them. It’s easy for you to understand why others might be worried. But not why you should be.

[scifigeneration]

Friday essay: is this the Endgame - and did we win or did we lose?

by Danielle Clode

In Avengers: Endgame, Clint Barton (aka Hawkeye) experiences insurmountable loss. Perhaps his grief represents our fear of making sacrifices to save the planet. Marvel Studios/IMDB

I had a momentary brain-fade when I went to the movies this week.

“Three tickets to … what’s it called again?” I asked.

“Endgame”, the ticket seller replied firmly, “What other movie is there?”

At over three hours long, it certainly is a movie for the fans, packed full of emotionally satisfying vignettes and snappy interactions for the cast of thousands that has become the Avengers trademark. I don’t think I’ve ever watched a faster three-hour movie.

Avengers: Endgame, the concluding half of Avengers: Infinity War, has quickly become one of the biggest grossing movies of all time. By pure numbers these are important and influential movies. So what are they are telling us?

Let me say at the outset that this is not a critique of the movie itself. I’m not going to document plot holes, flaws in logic or whether or not the science is correct. I’m happy to suspend a bit of disbelief for the sake of a good story. But I am interested in the function that stories like these play and what they reveal about our broader hopes and fears.

Jeremy Renner and Ava Russo in Avengers: Endgame. Marvel Studios/IMDB

Although not pitched as one, Endgame is an environmental movie – and an apt one for our times. Its predecessor, Infinity War, saw the world under threat from powerful villain Thanos, whose home world had been destroyed by overpopulation and resource exploitation. His grief sets him on a quest (involving, naturally, a gauntlet studded with variously magical and powerful stones) to halve the population of the universe.

Despite being cast as the antagonist, it is Thanos’s character who undertakes the “hero’s journey” in this movie. By the end of Infinity War, Thanos manages to achieve his goal across the universe, without violence – painlessly and humanely, with a click of the fingers – wiping out exactly 50% of the population at random, all at once.

It’s a little unclear in Infinity War what Thanos intends to reduce: half the human population or half of all sentient life. His track record had focussed on people, killing “people planet by planet, massacre by massacre”. In Endgame the goal is broadened. Not just all humans or even all sentient life forms, not just the resource exploiters and over-users, but half of all life forms. It’s a telling ecological misstep.

Clearly, it’s the people that matter and humans in particular. Despite having the breadth of the universe as a stage, even the alien Avengers are strikingly Earth-centric, with the exception of Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers, who is the only one, aside from Thanos, who cares that the same thing is happening across thousands of planets.

Various critics have discussed whether Thanos’s population reduction strategy would work – at least in terms of halving the human population of Earth. And they generally conclude that it wouldn’t.

But this is an over-simplification of the movie’s message. The specific population reduction strategy Thanos employs can also be read as a broader environmental goal – to “restore” ecological balance. Climate change, pollution, species extinctions, overpopulation, resource use and distribution are all connected parts of the broader issue of environmental sustainability. The question is not, is population reduction a viable strategy? (Probably not.) Nor even, would a reduced human population be good for the planet? (Perhaps, if it were sustainable.)

The question Endgame poses for us is, are we willing to make personal sacrifices to save our own futures? To which the answer is a categorical no.

Environmental activists from Greenpeace protest against climate change in Berlin in May 2019. Felipe Trueba/EPA/AAP

Our greatest fears

Eco-catastrophe fiction is often castigated for not being scientifically accurate, and for failing to promote action on any of the various threats that face our planet – overpopulation, pollution, extinction, nuclear fallout, climate change. But when my colleague and I looked at climate change fiction across the centuries, we found that such stories are not about providing answers to our problems, but articulating our greatest fears. These stories – in book or movie form – are reflections of how society imagines the world of the future.

Eco-catastrophe stories have been a part of our culture from the earliest mythological stories of floods, fires, eruptions and storms. These stories of punishment and redemption form the foundation for much of our literature, not least that of superheroes with god-like or even godly powers.

The emergence of both the novel (and modern science) in the 17th and 18th centuries saw a growing awareness of environmental change reflected in fiction. Early Romantic literature may have seen climate change as a metaphor for social progress and human advancement into a Utopia, but that rapidly shifted into the dystopian fears that dominate environmental fictional literature today.

From the mid-19th century onwards, fiction, and particularly science fiction, closely tracked developments in science. Our deeper understanding of past ice-ages and the influence of solar variation, geological instability and the oscillations of the earth on climate, emerged in stories like Gabriel De Tarde’s Underground Man, S Fowler Wright’s Deluge and William Wallace Cook’s Tales of Twenty Hundred.

Goodreads

Extra-terrestrial influences (comets rather than aliens) provided the catalyst for eco-catastrophe fiction in the 19th and 20th centuries. This phase was a phenomenon undoubtedly inspired by the first-hand experience of the “little Ice Age” which caused widespread famine, crop failures, and food riots across the Northern Hemisphere. Astronomer Camille Flammarion’s Omega: The Last Days of the World (1893-4) was perhaps one of the most influential of the comet-inspired fictions and marked the continuing dominance of dystopian over utopian visions for the future.

This pattern continued into the 20th and 21st centuries and, as the climate change debate expanded from a restricted scientific focus to a broader social and political dimension, the literature expanded from science fiction to a broader range of literary forms. Eco-catastrophe has emerged in every genre from thrillers to literary fiction and particularly young adult fiction. And of course, in the visual forms of storytelling – superhero, science fiction and apocalypse movies.

A sense of inevitability and hopelessness pervades much of the modern literature on climate change, irrespective of sub-genre. Rarely is climate change depicted as being solved by human agency. For many, the damage of climate change can only be overcome with the assistance of either supernatural or extra-terrestrial powers. We can see the same patterns in movies where the future of humanity is so often saved by superior intelligence rather than our own, either aliens, angels, or, as in Interstellar, our unrecognisably advanced selves.

Anne Hathaway and Wes Bentley in Interstellar, a film where only our unrecognisably advanced selves can save humanity. Warner Bros/Paramount Pictures/IMDB

Distrust of scientists

The history of eco-castastrophic stories reveals that, far from being agents of resolution and improvement, scientists are mostly depicted as untrustworthy or even responsible for the crisis. Environmentalists are even less trustworthy than the scientists; they are frequently depicted as extremist and violent loonies.

This distrust is reflected throughout the Avengers franchise. The original 2012 Avengers film saw Tony Stark’s (aka Iron Man) sustainable power source, the Arc Reactor, co-opted to create a wormhole entry point for alien invasion. The shadowy law enforcement agency, SHIELD, subverts research into the environmental potential of the Tesseract, an alien object with infinite energy, for weapons development. The same theme recurs – green technology is dangerous and scientists cannot be trusted.

Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark (aka Iron Man) in The Avengers (2012). Marvel Studios/IMDB

And nor can “environmentalists” like Thanos. On his home planet, his environmental crusade earns him the title “The Mad Titan”. By the end of Infinity War, however, he has completed his quest, accepted the sacrifice his choices entail, and his hero’s journey is at an end. Both he and the world have been transformed into a new order. Thanos sits in the countryside and watches the sunset.

Except that it’s not a happy ending. Endgame opens with a powerful scene that illustrates the central problem. Clint Barton (or to use his “made-up name”, Hawkeye) is picnicking with his family in the country – having given up his action persona – and is teaching his daughter to shoot arrows. As he turns away for a moment, his daughter, wife and two sons all suddenly disappear – victims of the 50% erasure. Hawkeye’s loss is both excessive and insurmountable. He loses everything.

Versions of this continuing loss permeate the movie. Hawkeye retreats into his vengeful violent superhero persona. Thor drinks himself, comically, into oblivion. Captain America runs group counselling sessions helping people to move on.

The differing manifestations of grief are represented in different characters – denial, anger, depression, bargaining, even acceptance. But these are not stages that characters work through. Ultimately all the characters are grief-stricken and unable to move forwards, except for Tony Stark, who has moved on but decides that, in a hastily explained piece of time-travel sleight of hand, he can fix the most of the problems without losing the future he has created for himself.

Nonetheless, the future in which our environmental problems are resolved is infused with melancholy. While Thanos’s rural retreat is a pastoral idyll, the rest of the world is empty, seemingly devoid of life. When Captain America mentions the environmental restoration, he is flippantly dismissed by Black Widow:

You know, if you’re about to tell me to look on the bright side - I’m about to hit you in the head with a peanut butter sandwich.

In traditional superhero stories, the hero(ine) must sacrifice the thing they love most for the betterment of the world. But in Infinity War and Endgame, the heroes sacrifice the betterment of the world to save (or at least reconcile with) the things they love best. Individual interests win out over social or environmental restoration. Rather than securing the future we need, they save the world of the past. With superheroes like this, my sympathies lie with the villains (and not just because of Tom Hiddleston).

Tom Hiddleston in Avengers: Infinity War. With superheroes like the Marvel team, who needs villains? Marvel Studios/IMDB

So, is Endgame a paean to conservative values, a retreat to an idealised version of the past, a failure to meet the genuine challenges that face the Earth and its ever expanding human population?

Nathaniel Rich, author of Odds Against Tomorrow (2013) once argued: “I don’t think that the novelist necessarily has the responsibility to write about global warming … but I do feel novelists should write about what these things do to the human heart.” This is true of movies too.

What Endgame reveals is that in our hearts we are afraid that the price of environmental salvation is too high, that the losses will be too great, that we will not be able to cope with the scale of the personal sacrifice required.

An insight into the cultural zeitgeist

There is no point in complaining that there are no great climate change movies, or books, with real solutions, or which inspire real action. This is not their purpose. Movies and books don’t help us to overcome our fears, they simply express them. But surely they also reinforce them. Cliched fears about the risks of environmental change, scientists and technology may not be intentionally promoted but they risk promulgating pervasive subconscious biases that both perpetuate and delay vital cultural change.

The real risks of environmental inaction, of course, massively outweigh the risks of any environmental action. But that message does not yet seem to be permeating the popular psyche.

It may well be true, too, that the worst environmental costs will not be borne by the relatively well-off viewers of Avengers movies, but disproportionately by poorer and more vulnerable communities (something that only heightens the irony of fictional East African nation Wakanda’s role in the Avengers franchise).

A 2017 climate march in Washington DC. Nicole S Glass/ Shutterstock

Effective environmental action does not demand the destruction of half the human population. But it does require the vastly more efficient use and distribution of resources. The sacrifice is not that of the individual, but the vested interests in old-world resources and technology who would prefer not to incur the costs of change. Responding to environmental change does not threaten our comforts, but failing to act will.

Endgame isn’t the endgame: it’s an insight into the cultural zeitgeist. Neither threats nor solutions come from purple aliens, gods or superheroes. They come from us – politicians, scientists, environmentalists, industry and the general public.

Markets, technology and industries can and will adapt rapidly to changing circumstances, in milliseconds, months or even decades. Economies recover, but species do not. The environment takes millennia to adapt and what is lost never comes back. We need to face our fears and find solutions to these problems, rather than just perpetuating the fantasy of regressing into the past.

As Peter Parker says: “You can’t be a friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man, if there’s no neighbourhood.”

About The Author:

Danielle Clode is a Senior Research Fellow in Creative Writing at Flinders University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. 

[aion-rsa]

Vigil Episode 3 Review: For Bros In Peril On the Sea!

https://ift.tt/3n6thLy

This Vigil review contains spoilers.

Well, that got complicated fast. After two action-heavy instalments bracketed by exhilarating ‘Brace! Brace! Brace!’ emergencies, episode three switched gears for some old-fashioned gumshoeing that left us with a truckload of information and new characters. If anyone felt like requesting a paracetamol from the medical officer after that one, you’re not alone. Best check it for tampering first though, eh? Wouldn’t want to end up like Burke – in a body bag, being slid in and out of a torpedo tube every two minutes like a human swanee whistle.

Silva was right; Burke was poisoned. And the chief suspect for his murder is currently… Chief Petty Officer Glover, aka the Coxswain with the dragon tattoo. Experienced crime drama viewers knew that Shaun Evans’ character was entirely too inoffensive and omnipresent not to be suss. He’s lurked fuzzily in the background of every scene since the start, proffering cups of tea, kind words and jokes about Ryanair, when all along he’s been up to his neck in this whole conspiracy. Probably. 

What, exactly, is the conspiracy? This info-heavy episode filled in a lot of the blanks. HMS Vigil’s bad boy reputation came from a missile servicing visit to Florida 18 months earlier. You know how it is on shore leave. Everybody has a few drinks, things get a bit lairy, you let off some steam… Except in this instance, the steam was let off a malfunctioning nuclear reactor cooling system minutes away from a meltdown to rival Fukushima, and it cooked two men alive. The Navy covered it up by dumping their bodies in the sea, but Burke knew the truth and was preparing to blow the whistle.

That’s one theory. Another is that Glover saw Burke off because he was blackmailing the Coxswain over his affair with the crew’s medical officer. On that thumb drive was an incriminating sexy photo of Doc Docherty that Burke had stolen from the married-with-kids CPO’s phone. That’s right, after all the fuss Glover made about not setting foot in the women’s bunk room, it turns out he’s no stranger to entering illicit places, including Lt. Tiffany Doherty. She was the one who sourced the wee to fake the tests to clear the names of the pisshead crew (that Jack built). But was she pressured into it and if so, by whom?

Read more

TV

Vigil Episode 2 Review: Deeper into the Conspira-Sea!

By Louisa Mellor

TV

Vigil Episode 1 Review: A Top Twist On the Trid-ent Tested Murder Mystery

By Louisa Mellor

That’s the question both Silva and her onshore counterpart Longacre were asking this episode. Their investigation is taking place in stereo, once on land and once again at sea. The two detectives are chasing the same information via different leads, and usually reaching a simultaneous shared conclusion thanks to a series of cutesy lovers’ riddles. It’s a plot necessity, of course, and on paper, probably felt like an innovative genre twist. As a viewer though, it feels not unlike having the same radio station playing slightly out of sync in different rooms of the house, which may explain the need for paracetamol.

Episode three introduced us to several new players. With the addition of two MI5 agents and local electioneering politician Patrick Cruden, there are now four major powers in play and at each other’s throats: the Navy, Police Scotland, the British intelligence service, and Holyrood. Five, if you count the Dunloch peace camp. Six, if you count the US Navy, who should probably come first if we’re ranking by firepower. The Russians aren’t involved as far as we know, because that secret shadowing boat turned out to belong to the Americans, but give them time. The US boat’s gone now, but was likely there as a result of the hushed-up scandal at Port Havers. 

It’s a lot to keep in mind at once, with the sheer volume of new revelations (the Florida deaths, the Coxswain’s dirty business, Jade being the secret lovechild of the anti-Trident Scottish MP…). Add to that DCI Silva’s personal tragedy, which is causing her to go wibble roughly every fifteen minutes, and Vigil has its plate full. I don’t blame Silva. I’d go wibble too if I’d packed three days’ worth of knickers for what turns out to be a three-week stay. More pressing is her soon-to-be lack of anti-depressants, which doesn’t bode well for anybody hoping her mood would improve.

Though reasonable considering the pressure she’s under (both hydrostatic and otherwise), Silva’s brusqueness is starting to feel a little repetitive to watch. If she had an ally in the boat, perhaps Suranne Jones could show another side to the character apart from the one that marches around making demands and, like a Big Brother contestant, saying that she didn’t come here to make friends. With Glover on the suspect list, there’s now nobody to reveal that different facet – only the misery flashbacks to step-daughter Poppy being torn from her arms. After talking Gary Walsh (Daniel Portman) down from his suicide threat, perhaps there’s kinship to build there? 

If the first two episodes made you feel like you were on a ride at Alton Towers, this one was more akin to doing a hard Sudoku, with lots of potential scenarios to keep in mind at once and plenty of notes scribbled around the margins. Who leaked Burke’s death to the press? Who spiked Burke with LSD? Who made Doherty cheat the drug tests? Is Longacre’s nice boss (Gary Lewis) to be trusted? And weren’t they all singing that hymn a wee bit loud for a top secret silent running submarine? Until next week. Dismissed!

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Vigil continues next Sunday the 12th of September at 9pm on BBC One.

The post Vigil Episode 3 Review: For Bros In Peril On the Sea! appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3kZw2vw

[goodbye--1989]

Tell me everything about Chernobyl

Buddy you’ve done and opened yourself a big ol can of worms.

(Deep breath, followed by a sip of water.)It all started with the damn stress test. It was set to take place during the DAY of April 26th, with professionals, but for some fuckin reason, they 1) had amateurs do it, 2) turned off most forms of safety/security to prevent this shit, and 3) did it at motherfucking night. When most people were at home. 

See, even us, not-radiation-science type people can tell that this shit was headed for disaster the moment the day came forth.

The whole test started p ok, shit was going fine for a while. Then, of course, the everything-turned-off-and-everyone-at-home shit AND INTERIOR FLAWS AND THE FUCKING PEOPLE SETTING THE STUFF UP FOR THE TEST WRONG resulted in water leaking in to the core they were testing, which evaporated quickly due to heat, which built up the pressure, which led to a steam explosion.

Now, all that fucking up earlier would’ve been ok if it had happened during the day or with people who knew their shit and didn’t turn off (sigh) every damn protecting system they had. Instead, of course, all these minor fuckups built up and now we have 30-40 people in what’s obviously now a radioactive danger zone, at least. The actual population of the town is 14,000 and the pop. in the danger zone (Chernobyl and a neighboring town, Pripyat) is 49,000.

49,000 is the population of a small town and maybe a neighboring town. Imagine your small town being told that it has to pack up and leave cos some assholes playing around in the nearby nuclear reactor fucked up. I’d be pissed, quite frankly.

Now, they raid out of there and then they just go home for the night, tell their friends and fam maybe, and go to bed. They fuckin go to bed after inciting the biggest nuclear disaster in history. 

In the morning, thank fuck, oficcials like police and shit catch wind and they see what happened to the plant, which is rubble in the spot where the incident happened, and say “Nah bro we gotta get these folks out of here.”

Well, they did it about as enthusiastically as a dead dog chasing butterflies. Civilians stayed in the danger zone for a bout three days afterwards, bathing in that tasty radiation, catching that succulent radiation poisioning.

Meanwhile, helicopters keep flying in and out, dumping such helpful materials as fuel to the fire, more fuel to the fire, water, and even more fuel. By “fuel”, I mean stuff like sand and concrete, stuff like that that would smother most fires. However, the fires in this case seemed to come straight from Hell and were currently impossible to get near, in a volatile zone, and poisoning thousands.

Oh, the illnesses! The after effects! The death!

The automatic death on the scene was, surprisingly, only 2, one of whom was never found. Later, however, millions died due to little Cher and their accident.

How, you ask?

RADIATION POISONING AND CANCER.

At least 10,000 people have been definitely cursed by cancer from the event. 30 firefighters also died in the days after, trying in vain to calm the now 1660 Celsius fire. That's 3020 Fahrenheit! If your oven was able to acieve this heat, not only would your pizza rolls be cooked, but your kitchen, your house, you, and the neighbors too! (The average oven gets to about 400 Fahrenheit 177 Celsius).

And, of course, how could I forget! The Chernobyl Divers!

Those three brave souls, how we owe our lives to them!

It was like a week or so after when someone realized that an area was still melting down and they were like “Oh, fuck, if that doesn;t get taken care of, then there could be a second disaster that’ll probably wipe out this half of Europe.” Melted radioactive material made of shit like uranium, other radioactive materials in the plant, and the stuff they threw at the fire to put it out were all gooped together like a 1660 Fahrenheit nightmare slugand that was headed for a coolant stored near the bottom of the plant (which was just water, aka a failed putter-outter) and if they came together, then the resulting steam would be filled with the radiation in the evil lavaslug and then they’d be even more fucked.

They sat down and cried for a little before making it known that some people in their prime state (25-40 and fit) had to give up their lives and dive below the deathzone in to the nuclear water and drain the coolant.

I’m starting to get teary at the thought of this. It reads like some sort of beautiful action movie. I’ve honestly thought for a while that movies should stop being about superheroes and wars and let Cher have a turn in the spotlight with it’s beautiful fires and brave souls.

Now, their names areValeri Bezpalov, Alexie Ananenko, and Boris Baranov,and honestly, I would cry if I got to meet them.

Val and Alex were both engineers on the plant and Boris was a fellow worker. They all volunteered to do what was probably, most likely, definitly gonna kill them, or at least fuck them up for life.

They go and do it, no witty comments to say there. The story is a little skewered, some sources saying that they really did have to dive in 30+ deep water and others saying it was only knee high, but whatever the truth is, they took care of the water, and saved Europe’s ass.

Finally, everything’s been said.

EXCEPT

THE FOREST.

The Red Forest (Ginger Colored forest in Ukranian and Russian) got probably the highest dosage of radiation during the disaster, which KILLED microorganisms like fungi and especially the plants, leaving it barren looking.

Now, I’m assuming most of y’all know your tree biology. They grow, they leave seeds a few times, they die, they fall over, and they rot.

NOT IN THE CASE OF THE RED FOREST.

Since those sad little micros got shot with enough rads to kill a human, they got way dead. Sonce there was nothing left to eat the radioactive wood, it remained, soaked in rads, for years and years.

It’s still one of the most highly radioactive spots in the Pripyat/Chernobyl zone, second only to the plant. If someone were to, say drop a slightly burning cigarette butt on any piece of wood in there, then the whole place could go up, releasing radioactive smoke in to the air to wreak havoc on eastern Europe once more!

Well, I’m sorry for rambling so much about my Big Interest but lmao I had a good time

[savetopnow]

2018-03-09 21 TECH now

TECH

Ars Techica

After industry meeting, Trump highlights alleged game violence effects

In an audit of supply chain partners, Apple found increased labor violations in 2017

Nintendo announces a bunch of 2018 games, but none as big as Switch Smash Bros.

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy returns—with the original cast

California’s first proposed per-ride city tax to raise Uber, Lyft prices

Buzzfeed Tech

Lawyers Are Duking It Out In Court Over Whether It’s Unconstitutional For Trump To Block People On Twitter

Jared Kushner Tried To Sell His Newspaper To Trump’s Political Enemies

Trump Just Read Elon Musk’s Tweets About Trade With China On Live TV

A Samsung Galaxy S9 Review That’s Mostly Pictures Of Dogs

Facebook Played A Pivotal Role In The West Virginia Teacher Strike

CNet

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is back, with the original cast - CNET

Uber rival brings bike-sharing operators under one app - CNET

Google doodle marks opening of Paralympics 2018 - CNET

Here's Trump's bloody showreel on video game violence - CNET

Amazon said to fire delivery man for allegedly dropping box on puppy - CNET

Clean Technica

Fukushima Ice Wall Failing, Water Seepage Into Nuclear Reactors Still A Problem

Porsche Could Make A Wild Passenger Drone & Leave You Baffled

Yo! Millennials Want Clean Energy But Need Climate Change Activists To Outline Incentives

Mary Barra Speaks Truth To Rich White Men In Houston

SMC Motors Hosts Webinar Showing Dramatic Efficiency Gains in Electric Motor Technology

Hacker News

Ham Radio operators are saving Puerto Rico

Ten Hours of Static Gets Five Copyright Notices

How exercise in old age prevents the immune system from declining

Super ‘superlattices’ could enable ‘superfast’ transistors

Crypto Zealots

Mashable

Alec Baldwin brings Donald Trump back to 'SNL' for the gun control debate

Learn Python and you could put yourself on track to make a six-figure salary

Cable-free charging in the car? Yes, it's possible.

The only 'Mulan' remake you need to see is right here

Uh-oh, Disney has some explaining to do about these 'Solo' posters...

Motherboard

Federal Judge Tells Trump to Just Mute People on Twitter

One of Trump's Video Game Experts Thinks Cops Are at War and Murder Makes You Horny

The Women Pioneers of the Internet Say There Have Always Been Trolls

Revenge Porn Moves to Slack

Researchers Can ‘See’ Your Memories While You Sleep

New York Times Technology

Broadcom’s Other Regulatory Hurdle: How It Treats Customers

Ex-Leader of Baltimore County Schools, a Tech Booster, Pleads Guilty to Perjury

Tech Fix: A Review of the Samsung Galaxy S9, in Emoji

In Sri Lanka, Facebook Contends With Shutdown After Mob Violence

It’s True: False News Spreads Faster and Wider. And Humans Are to Blame.

Recode

How to watch Kara Swisher interview chef José Andrés live at SXSW

Twitter wants everyone to get a blue verification badge

Uber has hired a top Amazon voice exec as head of product as Daniel Graf departs

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson is coming to Code Conference

SXSW 2018

Reddit Technology

One of Trump's Video Game Experts Thinks Cops Are at War and Murder Makes You Horny - Trump's meeting about violent video games today includes some questionable experts.

Vision-improving nanoparticle eyedrops could end the need for glasses

Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act: Tech Firms Push To Modify Senate Bill

U.S. appeals court in San Francisco will hear net neutrality appeal

Stop SESTA/FOSTA: Don’t Let Congress Censor the Internet

Reuters Technology

PBOC governor says Bitcoin not a legitimate method of payment

Wall Street has never been so far behind on Netflix

Platinum's fuel-cell car bonanza proves elusive

Toshiba expects to complete chip unit sale by June at latest: executive

Toyota affiliate Denso buying stake worth $800 million in chipmaker Renesas

Slashdot

The Hitchhikers Guide To the Galaxy Returns With the Original Cast

Fake News Spreads Faster Than True News On Twitter -- Thanks To People, Not Bots

132-Year-Old Science Experiment Washes Ashore In Australia

Florida Lawmakers Approve Year-Round Daylight Saving Time

Intel Launches Mainstream Optane SSD 800P Series Based On 3D Xpoint Memory

TechCrunch

Mad Paws, Australia’s Wag, raises $5M led by airline giant Qantas

Grab launches a bike-sharing service in Southeast Asia

Barack Obama’s next move could be a series on Netflix

Trump’s take on gaming and violence was wrong in the ’90s and it’s twice as wrong now

Boxed reportedly rejected $400 million buyout offer from Kroger

The Next Web

Xiaomi’s $215 Redmi Note 5 Pro offers tremendous value in a bezel-less package

“What is stress, really?” according to Boris

EasyEmail uses AI to autosuggest sentences as you write replies in Gmail

14 common user experience mistakes to avoid on your company’s website

Google Chrome makes it easy to switch to a password manager of your choice

The Verge

Barack Obama is reportedly planning Netflix shows

Fortnite Battle Royale is coming to iOS and Android

Lawsuit against VC says he ‘groped and fondled multiple women’ for over a decade

Here’s all the games in Donald Trump’s ‘violence in video games’ supercut

Logan star Dafne Keen will play Lyra in the BBC’s adaptation of The Golden Compass

WSJ Tech

At-Home Cancer-Risk Test Opens New---and Fraught---Field

China Fast-Tracks IPO Approval for Foxconn Unit

Do Cellphones Really Cause Brain Cancer? We Have Answers.

Uber Agrees in Principle to Exit Southeast Asia for Stake in Rival

Elon Musk Tells Trump That China's Trade Rules 'Make Things Very Difficult'

Wired

‘Dr. Strangelove’ Is Basically a Documentary

Total Clips

Aliens Would Probably Like It If You Gave them Flowers

All About HomePod

Netflix’s ‘Altered Carbon’ Is Over-the-Top in Every Way

[marcuserrico]

Holy Easter Eggs! How 'The Lego Batman Movie' Celebrates the Caped Crusader's Big-Screen History

Batman v Superman in ‘The Lego Batman Movie’ (Warner Bros.)

One triumph of The Lego Batman Movie is its ability to simultaneously satirize and celebrate the legacy of the Dark Knight, a rich history spanning eight decades of comic books, TV shows, and, especially, films. From Will Arnett’s Christian Bale-inspired gravelly growl to callbacks to the 1940s serial, The Lego Batman Movie is overstuffed with cinematic references and inside jokes. Here are a dozen of our favorites to look out for as you head out to see the film this weekend. (Caution: There are a few minor spoilers below.)

The Joker’s Squashed Schemes In the opening moments, the Clown Prince of Crime boasts to the pilot of a hijacked plane that his latest plot against Gotham is foolproof. The pilot immediately calls out the Joker, pointing out how his previous big-screen endeavors were thwarted by the Caped Crusaders, alluding to both 2008’s The Dark Knight and 1989’s Batman.

Pilot: Batman will stop you. He always stops you.

Joker: No, he doesn’t.

Pilot: What about that time with the two boats?

Joker: This is better than the two boats… Trust me, Batman will never see this coming.

Pilot: Like the time with the parade and the Prince music?

Batman’s Phases During an early scene in stately Wayne Manor, Alfred catches Batman staring longingly at photos of his lost family. “Were you looking at the old family pictures again?” the devoted butler asks of his brooding charge. “I’m concerned… I’ve seen you go through similar phases in 2016, 2012, 2008, 2005, and 1997, 1995, 1992, and 1989… and that weird one in 1966.” As he ticks off each year, we see Lego-fied versions of the corresponding films: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, The Dark Knight Rises, The Dark Knight, Batman Begins, Batman and Robin (complete with Clooney’s Bat-nipple costume), Batman Forever, Batman Returns, Batman, and the 1966 Batman movie based on the vintage TV series (which is shown in live-action — a scene featuring the created-for-the-show character King Tut, who also figures in The Lego Batman Movie).

‘The Dark Knight’/’The Lego Batman Movie’ (Warner Bros.)

Later, in a similar montage, the new Gotham police commissioner, Barbara Gordon, gives a presentation about how Batman has been patrolling the streets a “very, very, very, very, very long time” without stopping the crime problem. Bricky vignettes of classic comic covers, and movie and TV scenes flash by from his 78-year-history, including many of the movies mentioned above as well as his debut issue in Detective Comics, Batman: The Animated Series, Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns graphic novel, and the Caped Crusader’s earliest screen incarnation, the 1943 Columbia serial.

Batman’s Phrases The film’s dialogue is peppered with references to Batman’s previous screen outings, and one of the zaniest comes during the opening battle between the Dark Knight and the Joker’s army. Before launching his attack, Batman says, “Let’s get nuts” — just like Michael Keaton did in this scene in Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman.

Related:  Yes, There Is a Condiment King: A Field Guide to Oddball Characters in ‘Lego Batman Movie’

The Jerry Maguire Connection Batman unwinds after a tough day of crime fighting by watching rom-coms in his home theater. One of his favorites: Jerry Maguire, especially the famous “You complete me/You had me at hello” exchange. This is a nod to one of the most memorable scenes in The Dark Knight, when Batman interrogates Joker, prompting the immortal rejoinder, “You complete me.”

  Batman v Superman Beginning with the opening credits, a running joke throughout Lego Batman is the Caped Crusader’s perceived rivalry with Superman. During his initial confrontation with Joker, Batman insists that “Superman is my greatest enemy,” which the Joker dismisses. Later, when Batman comes calling to the Fortress of Solitude, he tells Superman, “I’m not here to throw down or anything…” to which Supes retorts, “I would crush you.”

‘Batman v Superman’/’The Lego Batman Movie’ (Warner Bros.)

Speaking of Superman Aside from liberal callbacks to the Batman filmography, Lego Batman also pays homage to 1978’s Superman: The Movie. The Fortress of Solitude, modeled after the Christopher Reeve film version, features a doorbell chime using John Williams’s seminal score. Batman triggers a hologram of Superman’s dad, Jor-El, which looks like a Lego Marlon Brando. And Lego Batman‘s main plot is a direct result of General Zod being exiled to the Phantom Zone, which figures in both Superman and Superman II.

Superman answers the door at his Fortress of Solitude (Warner Bros.)

Squad Goals A more recent movie skewered by Lego Batman is 2016’s Suicide Squad. During Joker and his cronies’ initial attack on Gotham, Killer Croc swims under a nuclear reactor, affixes a bomb, and then exclaims, “Yay! I got to do something” — a dig at the character’s unimpressive showing in Squad. Later, when Gotham is faced with a bigger menace, Batman pooh-poohs the idea of recruiting some of his rogues to help in the fight: “Using villains to fight villains? What a dumb idea.” Finally, at the end, Barbara Gordon/Batgirl, tries to convince Bats that he needs a team. To which he retorts: “Who? Seal Team 6? Fox Force Five? Suicide Squad?” [And big props to the screenwriters for slipping in that Fox Force Five mention; of course, Pulp Fiction/Fox Force Five alumna Uma Thurman also played Poison Ivy in Batman and Robin.]

Holy Hoarding, Batman The Batcave is bursting with Bat-gear, and it will take repeated viewings to catalogue all the cinematic vehicles parked there. But we spotted several the first time around, including the Batsub from Batman Returns, several Batjets, and nearly every iteration of the Batmobile, from Christopher Nolan’s Tumbler of the 2000s, to the various versions from the 1980s and ’90s movies, to Adam West’s 1966 classic. There’s also a container of “useless” shark-repellent Bat-spray from the ’66 Batman.

Batmobiles in the Batcave (Warner Bros.)

Na-na-na-na-na-na-na Batman! Along with the Nolan-Bale Dark Knight trilogy and the Burton-Keaton Bat-flicks, Lego Batman really embraces the camptastic 1960s movie and TV show starring West and Burt Ward. The soundtrack is loaded with cues of Neil Hefti’s seminal “Batman Theme,” from a sample during Batman’s villain-dispatching song (watch below), to the horn on the Batmobile, to the way Batman says no-no-no-no-no-no.

Aside from all the ’66-spawned sight gags noted above, there’s a meta moment before Lego Batman and Robin tangle with the baddies at the film’s climax where Batman says, “Together we’re going to punch these guys so hard words describing the impact will spontaneously materialize.” Pow. Bif. Boom.

Two-Face Is Back, Baby One of the great wrongs Lego Batman rights is giving Billy Dee Williams the opportunity to finally play Two-Face. Williams was cast as Harvey Dent in the 1989 Batman movie with an eye to eventually playing the villain in a sequel. But by the time that era’s Caped Crusader got around to fighting Two-Face in 1995’s Batman Forever, Tommy Lee Jones had been recast in the role.

Billy Dee Williams as Harvey Dent in ‘Batman’ and Two-Face in ‘The Lego Batman Movie’ (Warner Bros.)

Bane Lego Batman’s Bane is much beefier than the Dark Knight Rises version, but he still sports that fur-lined coat and speaks with a weird accent in homage to Tom Hardy’s character.

Tom Hardy as Bane in ‘The Dark Knight Rises’/Bane in ‘The Lego Batman Movie’ (Warner Bros.)

The DC-Marvel Rivalry Lives OK, this one’s not specifically a callback to another Batman-based movie, or even a DC film, but we had to flag nonetheless. As the original crime-fighting tech billionaire, Bruce Wayne doesn’t have time for pretenders. Thus, we get his secret password for entering the Batcave: Iron Man sucks! Burn.

Related Links:

Yes, There Is a Condiment King: A Field Guide to Oddball Characters in ‘Lego Batman Movie’

‘Lego Batman Movie’ Offers Alternative Origin of Robin’s Costume

‘Lego Batman Movie’ Gives Wayne Manor the ‘Cribs’ Treatment

Watch Will Arnett Reveal Secrets of His ‘Lego Batman’ Vote

[zayzaycom]

IN THE AFTERMATH OF PRAIMFAYA, OUR HEROES MUST BEGIN AGAIN AS

WARNER BROS. HOME ENTERTAINMENT RELEASES

THE 100: THE COMPLETE FIFTH SEASON

Warner Archive Collection to Offer The 100: The Complete Fifth Season on Blu-rayTM via Online Retailers

Featuring all 13 episodes plus extensive bonus features including the 2018 WonderCon Panel, a new featurette, gag reel, and exclusive-to-DVD deleted scenes!

BURBANK, CA – For four seasons, The CW’s smash hit show, The 100 has taken fans on ups and downs as post-apocalyptic heroes fight to survive.  The fight has torn them apart, turned them against each other and taken the lives of their closest friends.  Already renewed for Season Six, the fifth installment takes us through the journey of establishing a new home and protecting the future generations when Warner Bros. Home Entertainment (WBHE) releases the exhilarating The 100: The Complete Fifth Season on DVD.  The 100: The Complete Fifth Season will feature all 13 explosive episodes plus all-new bonus content and will be available for fans to own on October 9, 2018 for $24.98 SRP.

In addition, The 100: The Complete Fifth Season also arrives on Blu-rayTM courtesy of Warner Archive Collection. The Blu-rayTM release includes all bonus features on the DVD, and is also arriving October 9, 2018. Warner Archive Blu-rayTM releases are found at wb.com/warnerarchive and your favorite online retailer.

In addition, The 100: The Complete Fifth Season also arrives on Blu-rayTM courtesy of Warner Archive Collection. The Blu-rayTM release includes all bonus features on the DVD, and is also arriving October 9, 2018. Warner Archive Blu-rayTM releases are found at wb.com/warnerarchive and your favorite online retailer.

Last season, our heroes were introduced to the harsh truth that the human race is doomed to face an unbeatable enemy: the remaining nuclear reactors on Earth have melted down and are setting the atmosphere on fire.  The group had very little time to prepare for the worst, with every possible solution disappearing almost as quickly as they were able to come up with them.  With a literal countdown to the end of the world, our heroes were forced to go to unimaginable lengths to make it out alive – with or without each other.  In the aftermath of Praimfaya, they must begin again and with Season Five, our heroes will have to examine their responsibility to the new place they call home and the future generations who will inhabit it.  Can they begin again and celebrate what remains or will the frailties of human nature cost them their one chance to rise from the ashes?

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Based on Kass Morgan’s bestselling young adult book of the same name, The 100: The Complete Fifth Season returns with an all-star cast including Eliza Taylor (The November Man), Paige Turco (Person of Interest), Bob Morley (Home and Away), Marie Avgeropoulos (50/50, Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief), Christopher Larkin (90210), Richard Harmon (Bates Motel), Tasya Teles (Rogue) and Henry Ian Cusick (Lost).  The series, from Bonanza Productions in association with Alloy Entertainment, Warner Bros. Television and CBS Studios, is executive produced by Jason Rothenberg, Dean White and Leslie Morgenstein.

“With more than 2.3 million total viewers for The 100’s Season 5 premiere, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment is thrilled to release the latest installment of the sci-fi hit on DVD,” said Rosemary Markson, WBHE Senior Vice President, Television Marketing. “Already renewed for Season Six, this DVD will take you even closer to the action with the 2018 WonderCon panel, new featurette, gag reel and deleted scenes.”

13 ONE-HOUR EPISODES

Eden

Red Queen

Sleeping Giants

Pandora’s Box

Shifting Sands

Exit Wounds

Acceptable Losses

How We Get to Peace

Episode 9 (airing on 7/10/18)

Episode 10 (airing on 7/17/18)

Episode 11 (airing on 7/24/18)

Episode 12 (airing on 7/31/18)

Episode 13 (airing on 8/7/18)

Digital

The fifth season of The 100 is also currently available to own on Digital. Digital allows consumers to instantly stream and download all episodes to watch anywhere and anytime on their favorite devices.  Digital is available from various retailers including Amazon Prime Video, iTunes, Google Play, Vudu, Xbox and others.

  SPECIAL FEATURES:

The 100: 2018 WonderCon Panel

Season 5 Mythology

Deleted Scenes

Gag Reel

###

100: The Complete Fifth Season – On DVD in Two Weeks, 10/9! IN THE AFTERMATH OF PRAIMFAYA, OUR HEROES MUST BEGIN AGAIN AS WARNER BROS. HOME ENTERTAINMENT RELEASES…