#but i also spend a lot of time thinking about clark as somebody who is always so aware that no matter what he is Different

[batcave-dinosaur]

Thinking about xenobio Clark dick but in a sad way. Like obviously he'd never be able to have sex without them knowing about him being Superman, unless he did it with his pants on but like. Going unreciprocated for a long time would suck anyway. But anyway, I was rereading some great superbat xenobio fics and at least a couple have Bruce mentioning that like. Alien dick (especially tentacles) are a huge fantasy for a lot of people. And that got me thinking about Clark, lonely in his young adulthood, looking into all kinds of fantasy porn and it being soothing and heartbreaking in the same breath. Because it is sort of nice, to have this part of him be desired both in spite of and because of its weirdness, but also knowing none of it comes from a place of real understanding. Cuz knowing that people desire something is not the same as knowing they would accept you, as an alien and a Person.

[hollow-keys]

Diana and Clark for the character bingo (bc you said they were on your mind)

I mean, they were on my mind but I have the attention span of a *remembers goldfish can actually remember things for months* me.

Anyway, on it boss 🫡

Clark

People in the 30's were so right to get attached to him I really love him. I relate to his feeling of alienation and his self consciousness a lot which has led to some. Projecting. A lot of people are wrong about him (by virtue of being so popular) but not enough to tick the everyone is wrong about them box.

Of course there's the "Superman should be dark" Zack Synder crowd and whatever the fuck Injustice is but there's also people who make him too clean and perfect or overemphasise his niceness IMO. My view of him probably comes from reading older comics (especially golden age) where he's a bit rougher and I like that side of him. Like his original tagline was "Champion of the Oppressed" he forced a war profiteer to enlist to teach him a lesson, he trapped a mining company owner (and his party guests) in a mine so he would make his mines safer, he tore down a slum to force the government to rebuild it with better materials all within his first few issues in Action Comics. And this characterization wasn't entirely in those early issues, like later on in DC presents #28 where he fucking. Gives Mongul (unfortunate name)* a brain hemorrhage (it was the only way he could think of to defeat him). Or in The Death of Superman where he kills Doomsday without umming and ahhing over whether or not it's sentient. He's like Diana in that he won't kill most of the time and tries to understand others but he's not a hardline "no kill" guy.

*Elaborating on that but giving a character who is both a villain and has yellowy coloured skin a name that's one letter off of a real Asian ethnicity is uhh... unfortunate ignorance at best and purposefully racist at worst. Mongul. Mongol. They're not even pronounced differently.

*Abrupt segue* Anyway, back to Superman. His meaner and more overtly leftist side frequently gets watered down so he gets characterised as a "hug it out" liberal. I won't say this is a mischaracterisation because there's no one Superman, but it's not my fave.

There's also a lot of discourse about who the real guy is. Is he Kal, Clark or Superman? So you get the shitty take in Kill Bill that calls Clark Kent his critique of humanity (what?) or the Byrne take where Kal doesn't matter.

In my view, he's all of it. He grew up an anomaly, worried he could crush his peers without a thought, constantly having to control himself. Of course he's clumsy because he's spending so much time reigning in 99% of his power, he doesn't have brainspace to think about minutiae. Of course he's anxious because one wrong move could kill somebody. When he's Superman a lot of his brainspace gets freed up because he doesn't have to hide so he's more confident. His heritage does matter because all immigrants, or even descendants of them like me, feel a connection with their heritage, and for someone who never got to know it in the way he should have, he feels a longing for it.

He idealises Krypton and is forced to recon with the flawed reality of it later when he talks to Kara about what it was actually like, which I found a bit relatable because I would idealise Ireland as a child and only really took the rose coloured glasses off later on (which sounds stupid but I was a child and it was really easy to feel like Ireland would be more of a home for me when I didn't fit in in England and my Irish mother accepted me. I extrapolated).

None of it is fake, which is out of line with golden age Clark being non-confrontational and making himself small as part of his disguise, but I don't treat any era as gospel. So yeah, I have a lot of autistic feelings about him.

Umm. I didn't intend for this to be so long I just got rambling about various Clark thoughts that have been buried somewhere in my head for a while.

Diana

She may not be your fave of all time but she's still going in the blorbo by proxy category because you're a fan. On to my actual thoughts about her.

A lot of my feelings about her are mired in my thoughts on her treatment as the only female member of the trinity and how the amazons are treated/written in general rather than solely being about her because in a lot of ways she's symbolic of DC's treatment of women.

WRT the trinity, she's the only member without a secondary title (she used to have Sensation Comics a long time ago) and her potentially much more interesting dynamic with Clark is shoved aside in favour if Clark + Batman. The trinity really feels like it's BATMAN!!! Superman also! and uh *checks smudged handwriting* Wobner Woman.

WRT her she's frequently sexualised, almost always written by privileged men, her supporting characters get nothing (the first non-Diana wonderfam related ongoing was Wonder Girl in 2021 and only lasted 7 issues), her lore gets retconned with much less hastle than Batman or Superman's and her series numbering keeps getting rebooted*

*This may seem like a petty complaint but I've noticed that characters who get rebooted numbering are often ones who while popular enough to get consistent ongoings, don't get a lot of faith from DC so they use the new number 1's as a gimmick to garner interest.

But to focus solely on her as a character, I feel similarly to you about liking her in a chill way. She feels less relatable to me than Clark but she's very cool still. I like her optimism, her strong sense of justice, general badassery and also that she's willing to cross that line and kill under certain circumstances. Her diplomatic bent really makes her unique among heroes too.

I need to read more of her absolutely.

---

But yeah, the reason I was thinking about them was because I was (and am) annoyed that Clark and Bruce are pushed as the dynamic when Clark and Diana make much more sense.

They're both outsiders (in different ways) with incredible power who base their justice around harm reduction and have a sense of optimism about the world and the ability to do better. Both make a point of being compassionate, considerate and diplomatic. Bruce's justice is rooted in his trauma and a desire to protect others from experiencing that and he's more pessimistic. He's not particularly considerate or good at communicating, he can be quite self centered and he's obscenely wealthy, which I think would put him at odds with Clark and his values. (Yeah, yeah, Bruce donates to charity but he's still a billionaire so it's clearly not enough, and while Clark may not be straight up commie, I do think he'd agree that being a billionaire is too much).

The reason Bruce and Clark are pushed so much is because they're DC's most famous characters but Diana isn't too far behind and she makes more sense as Clark's closest friend on the League but DC hates women and loves Batman so it's Batman and Superman: World's Finest forever and ever.

Thanks for asking!

[coffeeandfaeries]

The Vampire Diaries: The Struggle - A book review

L. J. Smith

I have once again read this book in one sitting. I am for some reason REALLY into this series. I didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did. But then again, I was obsessed with TVD (the show) as a teen so it makes sense. But the books somehow have more likable characters. Don’t get me wrong I think the cast did an amazing job, but I wish they didn’t change some characters, Elena and Bonnie in particular.

Even though Bonnie in the books can be a bit annoying because she’s often way too nice, I like her better than the TV Show version of her. I feel like Bonnie in the show was often rude and stubborn. I can understand why they changed Elena, to a certain extent. I wouldn’t be surprised if they wanted the main character to be a bit more “palatable”, but instead they made her into this whiny, useless character. If I recall correctly, Rebekah actually points that out. Although, Elena on the show was unbelievably self-centered. I don’t know a lot of people who genuinely liked her character.

I do have to warn you, I will be comparing the books to the show pretty often. I’m also team Stefan. Well, in the books at least. I definitely preferred Damon on the show. So if that bothers you, you probably shouldn’t waste your time reading thirteen reviews.

Yes. I’ve decided to finish this series. Even though L. J. Smith got fired after writing seven books. She wrote books 1-7, then an anonymous ghost writer wrote books 8-10, and Aubrey Clark wrote the last 3 books. L. J. Smith was hired to write The Vampire Diaries, unfortunately she didn’t realize what contract she was signing. If I recall correctly, she didn’t understand what “work for hire” meant. So, while the books were copyrighted to her, she didn’t actually own the books, she couldn’t publish anything without the approval of Alloy Entertainment. She wanted Elena to end up with Damon, Alloy didn’t. So they fired her and got somebody else to write the books. While I don’t like Damon personally, at least so far, maybe she’ll give him a redemption arc, I can’t imagine how horrible it would feel to spend years working on a book series just for that to be taken away. All because someone didn’t like my story.

Anyway, time to start talking about this book. Four hundred words into the review and I’m finally starting to talk about the actual book.

As we remember from the previous book, Elena is shouting Damon’s name trying to get his attention. One thing I gotta say is I do respect Elena’s cockiness, like nothing says teenager in love than acting like you have nine lives. She’s threatening Damon, acting like she could overpower him in any way. Ma’am, he could kill you before you even have the time to react.

Damon is still trying to win her over, he’s comparing her to Katherine. Saying she’s already powerful even as a human and how she would be unstoppable if she was a vampire. Honestly, I do agree with him. Vampire Elena would be amazing. I’m pretty sure Elena will become a vampire pretty soon. I know she didn’t become a vampire in the show until the fourth season. I wonder if she’d be more excited to be a vampire in the book. Another thing that hasn’t been discussed in the books yet is the “switch” vampires in the show have. For those who don’t know, vampires have some sort of switch in their head that, when flipped, turns off their empathy and emotions in general. Essentially turns them into a monster. However, I have noticed that vampires in the book have slightly different powers, like being able to turn into an animal and control the weather. So there is a pretty good chance the “switch” doesn’t exist in the books. If that’s the case then I have no idea how Damon is going to get a redemption arc. Especially since he was a bad person even before he became a vampire.

While Damon was trying to talk her into leaving Stefan and joining him he said this: You’re the girl who has everything else, but there’s always been something just out of your reach, something you need desperately, but can’t have. So… She’s just spoiled? Damn, first world problems. All jokes aside, he’s not wrong. Nothing ever satisfies Elena, she said so herself. The moment she gets something, or someone, she is already bored of it. The only reason she wanted Stefan so badly was because he wasn’t paying attention to her. For the first time in her life she didn’t immediately get something she wanted. I feel like the fact everything is so easy for her is partially the reason she always wants more. She’s never had to work for anything, it always just falls into her lap.

Also, throughout this entire encounter, and a couple of times in the past, Damon has been trying to use his powers to compel her, but it’s not working. She’s successfully resisted them almost every time. I know that she hasn’t been drinking vervain and doesn’t have it on her anywhere. So how is she doing this? It wasn’t explained in this book, but I think she is just strong-willed. I don’t think there’s anything more to it, but I did find it interesting nonetheless.

This book came out in 1991, A Game of Thrones: A Song of Ice and Fire came out in 1996. Therefore Winter is coming is originally from TVD. G. R. R. Martin apparently was inspired by 15th century Scotland. So I like to think that Damon met the characters from GoT and they decided to steal the phrase from him. Or perhaps G. R. R. Martin is a big fan of the vampire diaries and just really wanted to use the phrase in one of his books.

Damon told Elena that she should give up and join her because Stefan is dead anyway To which she said: If Stefan was dead, she would know. How? Literally how. Did I miss the chapter in which Elena discovered her psychic gifts?

Elena starts running, looking for Stefan. But then she stops, lays down on the ground, covered in snow and says she has no reason to look for Stefan because Stefan will look for her. She falls asleep and Meredith and Bonnie find her, passed out, covered with snow. They take her home, Elena is still in a delirious state, saying she needs to go back and look for Stefan. Understandably, Aunt Judith, Robert (her fiancé), Meredith and Bonnie are against it, and decide they need to stay with her to make sure she doesn’t try to run away in the middle of the night.

But Elena is relentless, she is not going to give up on Stefan. So she asks Bonnie to use her abilities to find Stefan. Bonnie lights a candle and tells Elena and Meredith to focus on Stefan and not say anything, no matter what. Bonnie was channeling Stefan, he’s in water, it’s cold and he’s thirsty and tired. At one point Bonnie says Stefan feels like he should just end his life. And, of course, Elena screams No, breaking the one and only rule Bonnie had. Bonnie is willing to put her life out on a line for Elena, who doesn’t care about anyone other than Stefan.

Then a voice starts speaking through Bonnie, saying to stay away from the Wickery Bridge. The girls assume this is Stefan speaking through her and drive straight to the graveyard. Idiots. How have they not noticed by now that whenever Bonnie channels a message it’s never a positive one and something bad happens every time?

They go to the bridge and Bonnie just feels like something is off. We also find out that Matt followed them, because he knew Elena wouldn’t be able to give up. Honestly, Matt is such a sweetheart I really like him. Sure, he’s a bit of a simp and Elena doesn’t deserve him, but he’s just adorable. Call me boring, but I’d take a guy like Matt over a Stefan or a Damon any day.

Bonnie tells Matt what she saw, he doesn’t really believe her but he helps them find Stefan anyway. He realizes it sounds like he is in a well and drives them to the abandoned well on an abandoned farm. They find Stefan in there, and he looks ROUGH. They take him home insisting he goes to a hospital. Obviously taking a vampire to a hospital would raise some eyebrows so Elena and Stefan are against it. Bonnie, Matt and Meredith keep insisting so Elena compromises. She tells them to go get Bonnie’s sister Mary, who is a nurse, and if Mary says he needs a doctor they’ll take him. This gives Elena the time (and privacy) to give Stefan some of her blood, not a lot, but enough to recover.

I just would like to add one of my favorite quotes from the book, just straight up copy-paste this from my notes. Any additional commentary is unnecessary.

Maybe you think I’m terrible for loving him, considering what he is. He can be violent, and I know there are some things in his past that he’s ashamed of. But he could never be violent toward me, and the past is over. He has so much guilt and he hurts so much inside. I want to heal him. Ok Bob the Builder.

They go back to school and there’s a new European History teacher. Alaric K. Saltzmann, and he is way too friendly. Immediately he’s like “Yeah, let’s all sit in a circle, talk about our feelings, yadda yadda yadda”. He asks Bonnie about the night when she found Mr. Tanner’s body, and, understandably, she gets very upset while talking and starts sobbing. He apologizes and invites them over to his house. Then says attendance makes up for 50% of the final grade. Yeah, totally not creepy. Imagine your child coming home and telling you that they have to go to a teacher’s house that night or they’ll fail history. I’d be calling the cops on the spot.

I assume that because Alaric is a vampire hunter in the show he will be a vampire hunter in the books too. So the only non-creepy reason I can find for a grown ass man to invite a bunch of students to his home, is to check if any of them are vampires. But, uh, spoiler alert, no that didn’t happen. We didn’t really even get to see Alaric during the house party scene.

But anyway, we’re not even there yet, there’s one more thing that happened while they were in school that I just have to talk about. I have no idea if this is a US thing, or a 90s-00s thing, or, most likely, a media thing, but do people actually care about being popular in High School? Maybe I don’t get it because I wasn’t popular in High School, but I can’t understand breaking up with your partner because they’re not “cool” enough and are “ruining your reputation”. You’re a senior, chances are, you are never going to see the other students again after you leave for college. So who cares? Sure you’re not gonna be popular, but you still have friends? Like this quote in particular: It might be better if we didn’t see each other for a while. If they think we’re not together, they’ll leave you alone. Fam, you’re a 500 year old vampire, how do you still have the mentality of a child. I can understand breaking up with someone because they are a suspected murderer, but you know he isn’t. You have met the killer. To be fair, it’s not even Elena’s idea. Stefan is concerned about her public image more so than her.

I know that Stefan was just trying to be considerate because he didn’t want Elena to “suffer” because of him. But Elena wasn’t even being bullied, people were just a bit awkward around her because they think she’s dating a killer. I don’t necessarily blame them, and I do know that we, people in general I mean, love drama and making a big deal out of everything.

Elena‘s aunt Judith really doesn’t like Stefan, and I get it, I wouldn’t want my niece dating a guy who I believe is a killer either. But then again, the cops talked to him and he’s been cleared of all accusations. Also, aunt Judith is referred to as an “older woman”. How old is she exactly? I thought she was in her early 30s. According to the TVD wiki she’s middle aged, older than aunt Jenna in the show. So I’m guessing mid to late 40s?

On top of the issues Elena has with Damon and aunt Judith, Stefan has been acting like an idiot too. He’s extremely weak, weaker than ever and he’s refusing to drink from Elena. Your brother is on the loose, harassing your girlfriend and her friends, and murdering everyone else. If I were you I’d take any blood I can get, especially if it’s gonna help me protect my loved ones, or you know, not get murdered. It doesn’t even matter that Elena’s been keeping Damon’s visits a secret from Stefan, he still knows Damon is in Fell’s Church.

Stefan’s main concern is not being able to stop once he starts drinking from her. So why let him drink straight from the source? When you donate blood you give about 500ml (17oz). Which means she could easily give him a bottle of her blood. Like don’t let him drink straight from you, just fill a cup or something. Problem solved. Author’s need to start writing me as a character in all of their books, I would make the character’s lives so much easier.

Finally, we get to Alaric’s house party. Again, a really weird move from a teacher, but okay. Everyone is pretty awkward around Elena and Stefan, except for Bonnie, Meredith, and Matt, of course. They talk about how strange it was that he had planned a party, but made it look spontaneous. I’m glad they realize this is strange. Elena then goes to get a snack and oh my, who would’ve guessed it! She runs into Damon. Damon immediately starts acting like a weirdo, taking a bite out of some garlic bread Elena had in her mouth, almost kissing her. Stefan gets all cocky trying to threaten Damon. Stefan, sweetie, a child could beat you up now, stay in your lane. Elena drags Stefan out, but on their way out someone slips a piece of paper into Elena’s purse.

It’s a piece of paper from Elena’s diary, and it reads: I want to touch him. More than any boy I’ve ever known. And I know he wants it, too, but he’s holding back on me. I mean yeah that’s pretty personal, but a teenager being attracted to their boyfriend isn’t exactly weird. A bit embarrassing, maybe, but like this isn’t really a good threat. Why this part in particular? Especially since Stefan is dating her, if they weren’t together and the word that Elena was thirsting over a random classmate came out it would be embarrassing. But I’m pretty sure Stefan already knows Elena’s into him.

It’s pretty obvious now that Caroline has the diary. I thought at first that Damon had it, that he was gonna change her diary entries and make it seem like she actually hates Stefan. Then let Stefan “find” the diary and read it. But uh, that doesn’t sound like something Damon would do, it’s kinda childish.

Once Stefan and Elena get home (Stefan’s home) we get a bit of an info-dump, which I don’t necessarily mind because it was all in dialogue. If your boyfriend was a vampire you’d probably have some questions too, so him talking about vampire lore for an hour wouldn’t really be unnatural. The reason I’m mentioning this is because this is the first time vervain was mentioned in the books. It protects humans from succumbing to vampire’s powers.

The next day they find another note, tacked to the office bulletin board. It said: I feel as if someone has hurt him terribly in the past and he’s never gotten over it. But I also think there’s something he’s afraid of, some secret he’s afraid I’ll find out. Seriously, why are these parts of her diary chosen? Again, this is a pretty normal thing to say “Someone hurt my partner in the past, I wonder what happened”. My assumption is that it’s Caroline taunting her. The notes aren’t meant to be humiliating, they’re just supposed to make Elena realize someone has her diary and is planning on using it against her.

I think Vickie turned. Or perhaps she’s being controled by Damon. Nobody has seen her since the night she was attacked. Now she’s back in school, in the middle of the cafeteria, taking her clothes off. She also keeps freaking out whenever she sees Elena and says: You’re the one of them! I saw you! You’re evil! Is Katherine back? Was the gentle girl just a persona she put on?

After the whole Vickie fiasco, Elena tells Bonnie and Meredith to stay away from Damon, and to not invite him in under any circumstance. Bonnie tells Elena she kissed Damon, because of course she did. Then she says the weirdest, yet somehow the most Bonnie thing ever. Killers are sort of romantic. Imagine you’re dying with his hands around your throat. He’d strangle the life out of you, and the last thing you’d see would be his face. Someone keep an eye on Bonnie so she doesn’t fulfill her grandma’s prophecy.

Remember how we talked about vervain a couple of paragraphs ago? Well apparently there’s no vervain in Fell’s Church, at least not during winter. So, Stefan and Matt get in Matt’s car and go on a road trip down south to get some vervain. Honestly, Matt is unbelievable, imagine your ex girlfriend’s new boyfriend comes to you and tells you they need your car so they can go “south” (doesn’t even give you an actual location) to get some weeds for your ex. And you just agree, as long as you can go with them. I’d tell him to go to a flower shop and fuck off from me. But Matt is simply built different. Matt and Stefan are slowly becoming friends. Stefan even said that Elena and Matt are his only friends, the only two people who make him feel comfortable and accepted. I hope their friendship doesn’t get ruined.

For whatever reason, L. J. Smith switches from one POV to another without any warning. There isn’t even a divider, she just starts a new paragraph from another person’s POV. Which makes it difficult to write a cohesive review. How am I meant to do that if we go from two guys in a car to Elena’s dream sequence without a warning?

While Matt and Damon were on the road trip, Elena and Bonnie were planning a sleepover. Not for fun, Elena is worried that now that Bonnie and Damon had kissed, she might become a target. So she thought Bonnie would be safer if Elena was there with her. I’m not sure what Elena could exactly do to protect Bonnie, but alright.

Elena keeps dreaming the same dream again and again. The exact same scene from the beginning of the book is described now, 46% into the book. Almost word for word. Elena and Damon are in the same room and he asks her if she wants to dance. She doesn’t reply, she just laughs and walks away, knowing he’ll follow her. She’s not running, she’s teasing him. He’s trying to get her to forget about Stefan. The first time this happened she remembered him and then woke up. This time Damon managed to bite her, she woke up, screaming, while Damon in his crow form was attacking her. Bonnie’s dad beat him with a broom. King shit.

Damon compelled her to open the window and let him in. But the thing is, she invited Damon into Bonnie’s house in the last book, during the ritual. I can’t remember if I mentioned it in the previous review, but Bonnie taught Elena a ritual she can perform to see who she will marry. You’re supposed to light a candle, put one plate, one fork and one knife on a kitchen table. Then you hold a chair, and when the clock strikes twelve, pull the chair out and say “Come in”. She didn’t realize Damon was there and when she said it, she accidentally invited him in. So… Why did Damon need to compel her to open the window? He can control the weather and shapeshift, but he can’t use his powers to unlock a door?

She asked Bonnie’s dad to take her and Bonnie back to her house. Poor man thought she was suffering from some sort of emotional breakdown so he obliged.

Stefan came back with vervain and gave some of it to her, kept the rest so he could extract oil from the flowers. He notices something is wrong with Elena but she’s still refusing to tell him what’s been going on. He doesn’t even know she lost her diary and someone’s been using it to taunt her. I know Elena thinks she’s protecting Stefan by lying to him about Damon, but if I were him I’d be pretty pissed. She’s putting herself and everyone else in danger. Also, why hasn’t she asked Stefan to tell Bonnie and Meredith his secret? Wouldn’t they be safer if they knew what’s actually going on? They already believe Bonnie is psychic, why wouldn’t they believe in vampires too?

The next morning Elena tells Matt someone’s been sending her parts of diary and she thinks it’s Damon. Bonnie, Matt and Meredith all say that it just doesn’t sound like something a guy would do. It sounds too petty, and Damon doesn’t look like a guy who would be that petty. So they all come to the same conclusion, the only person who would do that is Caroline.

Elena leaves the cafeteria and accidentally overhears Tyler and Caroline talking in one of the empty classrooms. They are planning to use Elena’s diary as proof that Stefan is the killer. They want to announce this during the Founder’s Day parade. To humiliate Elena in front of everyone and get Stefan arrested. In her diary, Elena said that she had lost her ribbon near the Wickery Bridge and Stefan found it. Apparently this is proof that he’s a killer. Like stalker? Maybe. But killer? That’s a bit of a stretch. Seniors get to read poetry during the parade, Caroline was one of the seniors chosen for this and she plans to pull out Elena’s diary instead.

Caroline is taking this “being popular in school” thing a bit too seriously. Girl, no one's gonna care you were popular in like six months. What is wrong with you?

Elena, Bonnie and Meredith break into Caroline’s house one night in order to retrieve Elena’s diary. They ransack the house and find Caroline’s diary, but Elena’s is nowhere to be seen. The Forbes’ come home early and the girls need to leave the house quickly. Elena somehow gets stuck. I genuinely have no idea how she managed that. So she tries to get out through a window and guess who’s already there? Damon! Who would’ve guessed. He, once again, tries to talk her into becoming a vampire and “ruling” the darkness with him. She says she’d rather die than join him and tries to jump off the roof. He catches her and tries to make a deal. He’ll get her diary back and in return Elena has to spend time with him and let him drink her blood. She, of course, says no. Damon tells her to think about it and leaves.

Nothing important happens for a bit, but there is one diary entry I wanted to talk about. (Elena got a new diary).

And there are little things that shouldn’t matter, but they bother me. Like why Stefan still wears Katherine’s ring around his neck, even though he loves me. In his defense, she did die. Breaking up with someone and losing them isn’t the same. That doesn’t necessarily mean he doesn’t love you, or that he loves Katherine more. But she’s not an ex, she’s his deceased lover. This really is a tricky situation. On one hand dating again can be difficult after losing your significant other, and even feel like you’re betraying them. So just getting rid of the only thing you have left of them can be hard, and honestly unnecessary. On the other hand, however, being 17 and dating someone who lost their partner can be just as hard. Being insecure, not just in general, but also in your relationship can make you feel like you have to “compete” with the deceased person. Grown adults sometimes can’t handle dating someone who lost their previous partner, let alone teenager. Grief is complicated. I don’t think either of them are bad people, they’re handling it to the best of their abilities.

Alrighty, let’s get back to the plot. Vickie is back! And doing worse than ever. Vickie attacked Tyler, tried to bite him. Alaric said: Don’t hurt her! Be careful! It’s epilepsy, we just need to get her lying down! Epilepsy? Really? Does epilepsy make people strip naked, sexually harass other students and try to drink their blood? I’m no doctor, but that doesn’t sound like epilepsy to me. Maybe this Alaric isn’t a vampire hunter, or he doesn’t want the other students to freak out. If you don’t know what epilepsy is, maybe you’d fall for it.

For whatever reason aunt Judith hosts a rehearsal Thanksgiving party every year to make sure everything goes well on Thanksgiving day. Personally, I’ve never seen anyone practice hosting a holiday dinner, is that a common thing? Anyway, it was time to sit down and eat when Judith announced they have a guest this year. Yeah, you guessed it right, it’s Damon again. This man does not give up. The fact that Elena hasn’t tried to kill him is quite impressive. Could never be me. So, now Damon has access to Elena’s house as well. As if that wasn’t enough Bonnie got briefly “possessed” during the dinner. A voice spoke through her, telling Elena that Death is coming for her. Funny how this only happens when Damon is there. Not suspicious at all. Poor Bonnie.

Damon leaves and aunt Judith pulls Elena aside and says this: Well, I just thought you might give him a chance, that’s all. I thought he was very pleasant. The kind of young man I like to see around here. Can’t blame her honestly. Narcissistic abusers are remarkably good at charming people. Much easier to abuse your partner when their close friends and relatives are on your side. They can be incredibly charming and charismatic. It’s not that they can’t help themselves, they just choose not to control themselves. They know exactly what they’re doing. Elena doesn’t really say anything to this. What could she say? There’s no way for her to prove that Damon is a killer and not Stefan, without outing them as vampires. Something tells me that aunt Judith doesn’t believe in vampires.

As I’ve said, Damon does not give up. After they’ve all went to bed he came back. But once he got to Elena’s room he couldn’t get in. Which leads to Elena being, once again, an idiot. She tells him that the reason he can’t get in is because the living room and her room are what’s left of the old house. Therefore someone needs to invite him in again. Why tell him this, he can just come back and ask to see the living room, it’s not like Elena in particular has to invite him.

The following day Elena goes to Stefan’s house to tell him they need to talk. Finally, she’s gonna tell him everything! Is what I thought was gonna happen, but nope. She only tells him about the diary, she continues to keep Damon a secret. Honestly, I’m starting to think she’s not lying just to keep Stefan safe, I feel like she likes running into Damon. I mean, she does talk often about how attracted she is to Damon.

Now, the moment we’ve all been waiting for. (and by we I mean me) Stefan finally feeds from Elena. Technically, he did drink her blood when she dragged him out of that well, but that was just a couple of drops. This time he drank straight from her neck. Also, the whole drinking blood thing is kinda like sex to vampires. The way the author writes these scenes feels weirdly erotic. It’s kinda uncomfortable to read. And!! He told her I love you for the first time. Then, he did something so incredibly stupid. He proposed. Proposed. She’s 17, she’s not even out of high school yet. Not only did he propose, but he proposed with Katherine’s ring. Lord. I think that may have been done so that Elena is wearing a ring once she turns into a vampire.

Elena then says my favorite quote in the entire book. I’ve learned my lesson; I’ll never keep things from him again. Elena, darling, you are STILL keeping things from him. What are you talking about? I don’t think she knows what “I’ve learned my lesson” means, because she most certainly did not.

We’re getting near the end of the book. It’s the day of the Founder’s Day parade. The girls were hoping Caroline will leave the book unattended while she’s in costume. Unfortunately, Caroline isn’t stupid, she found a way to carry the diary with her. At this point I thought they would go to Damon to ask for help. Honestly, if I were Elena I’d fake being ill. Dramatically fall over and pretend to faint. Everyone would be paying attention to me, and then Stefan could offer to take me home. Caroline could still decide to go through with her plan, but the main reason she’s doing it is to humiliate Elena. Can’t humiliate her if she isn’t there.

They fail to get the diary and proceed with the parade, bracing themselves for the inevitable humiliation. Caroline’s turn to speak comes and she gives a little speech. Saying that she would rather read something about what’s happening in Fell’s Church now, not a hundred or two hundred years ago. She then pulls out the diary and freezes. Someone switched Elena’s diary with Caroline’s. Now she looks like an idiot. Was it Damon? Yeah it was. Elena asked why he had done it and he replied: For my own purposes. To which she said: I don’t think so. I don’t think that’s the reason at all. She really thinks she’s hot enough to make a cruel vampire feel empathy or compassion. I respect the confidence.

Elena’s aunt comes over and tells her she should be nicer to Damon. Damon takes control of her aunt and Elena has a horrible argument with Judith/Damon. She runs to Matt and asks if she can borrow his car, saying she just wants to be alone right now. She drives straight to the old graveyard. She parks the car and while she was hysterically laughing/crying she feels Damon’s presence. She tries to get across the river, because Damon can’t cross running water. Something goes wrong and she crashes Matt’s car and drowns.

Bonnie, Meredith and Stefan find her and pull her corpse out of the water. The next bit was so confusing and I couldn’t tell if Elena was dead or not because Bonnie kept referring to her as a “wax doll”. For a bit I thought there was an actual doll in the river and Damon took Elena, but no she was actually dead. The darkness comes once again and Stefan tells them to run. He shouts that he’ll leave Elena under the Willow trees. Bonnie realizes that the reason Stefan is telling them this because he will not be there when they come back for Elena.

Since Elena didn’t say anything about Damon to Stefan, he doesn’t know that that night when Damon broke in, she drank his blood and he drank hers. He didn’t know that she died with Damon’s blood in her system.

Stefan is going after Damon. He’s planning on killing himself. He’s fed on Tyler, Caroline and their friends. He has to be stronger if he wants to take on Damon. He doesn’t care about getting caught because he doesn’t plan on living long enough to get caught. But what’s gonna happen once he realizes Elena is not dead? Is he gonna use his new strength to compel the people of the town?

While Stefan and Damon were fighting, trying to kill one another. Elena was waking up. Elena woke up. Hungry and tired. She could hear voices, someone screaming somewhere far away. She got up to follow them, when she remembered “him”. Oh yes, it was coming back now. She remembered him. He was the one who understood her, who loved her. He was the one she wanted to be with forever. And I had a slight feeling she’s not talking about Stefan.

Her next sentence confirmed my suspicions: He was there, with his black, fathomless eyes, and his secret smile. And he needed her help. She would help him. Stefan’s eyes are hazel. Is this because she died with Damon’s blood in her system in particular? Maybe that forms some kind of bond between them. God, as long as this book doesn’t have fated mates I’m good.

The book ends with Elena shaking ice crystals out of her hair and stepping into the clearing in the woods where Damon and Stefan were fighting.

I’m having so much fun reading this series. Honestly, I enjoy it a lot more than the TV show. I’m really glad the books are quite short, about 250 to 300 pages. Since I take notes while I read, it does take quite a bit some time to finish a book, usually about 4h. Writing the actual review takes a couple of hours too, but it does mean I can finish everything in one day. With longer books, especially other YA Fantasies which can be between 600 and 900 pages, it takes a long ass time to write.

I don’t remember the last time I was this excited about a book series. Is it perfect? No, definitely not. But it’s so entertaining. The fact that I know and love these characters already definitely helps.

Fingers crossed that the other authors who took over the series won’t ruin it.

Rating: ⛤⛤⛤⛤

[impala666]

The One With The Monkey Part One: Marcel The Monkey

Here you go! Ross gets Marcel and Phoebe sings a depressing Christmas song! 

Friends Rewrite (masterlist) Last Part (part four, episode 9)

Four of you were sitting around Monica and Rachel’s kitchen table with a bowl of popcorn and a bowl of cranberries and you, Phoebe, and Joey were helping them make a strand of garland. You had work early in the morning tomorrow and even all day tomorrow, but thankfully all you could think about was Phoebe finally getting to perform holiday songs at Central Perk tomorrow night and all of you were going to watch and support her. “Guys, there’s somebody I’d like you to meet.” Ross who just happened to poke his head through the door like he lived there, but to be fair all of you kind of did that. Your jaw immediately dropped open when Ross entered and the cutest little monkey came in riding in on Ross’s back. 

“Wait, w-wait, what is that?�� Monica asked, not sure whether she should step toward it or run away. 

“That would be Marcel.” Ross introduced the furry creature. “Wanna say hi?”

“Yes, please!” You shrieked when you ran around the table to take the monkey from Ross, and Marcel seemed more than happy to crawl down Ross and on to your shoulder. Your smile only grew when Marcel’s tail hung over your other shoulder. 

“He is precious, where did you get him?” Rachel asked as she watched the monkey relaxing on your shoulder. 

“My friend, Bethel, rescued him from some lab.” Ross explained while he took Marcel back from you, but you couldn’t help but shake your head at the fact that the poor little guy had to go through so many experiments and tests that he never had the say of just because of the species that he was. 

“That is so cruel.” You nodded in agreement with what Phoebe said, thinking she was on the right path. But boy, were you wrong. “Why would a parent name their child Bethel?”

“That was not what I expected out of you, Pheebs,” you said a little disappointed in yourself for getting your hopes up. You reached into the popcorn bowl and popped one in your mouth to prevent you from saying anything else. 

“Hey, that monkey’s got a Ross on his ass.” Chandler greeted his friend after he had stepped out of bathroom, and leaned against the back of Joey’s chair. 

“Ross, is he gonna live with you like in your apartment?” Monica couldn't help but ask an actual question out of concern for her older brother.  

“Yeah, it’s been kind of quiet since Carol moved out.” Which seemed like a very logical reason to go out there and get a pet that is completely out of the normal, you could totally understand Ross’s thought process on this one.

“Why not just get a roommate?” Monica asked, yet another great question.

“I think when you reach a certain age, having a roommate is kind of pathet…” After playing with Marcel’s tail, Ross realized the mistake he made when he saw all of you staring at him waiting for him to finish that sentence correctly. “Sorry, that's ‘pathet’ which is sanskrit for ‘really cool way to live.” 

**********

Finally, finally, finally, your day was over with. You toured the school that you were accepted to and have a very long 8 hour shift, so now it was time to kick back and see your weird and beautiful friend sing her set at Central Perk. As you walked into the building you were finally able to unclench once you felt the heat after just walking block after block in the freezing cold snow. “,and one about a snowman.” You heard Phoebe finish as she sat on the arm of the couch with her guitar on her lap. When they all see you enter all of them flashed you a smile in greeting, which you returned once you had hung your coat and scarf on the hooks by the door. After you had ordered your preferred hot drink of the day, you finally walked over to spend time with everyone. But apparently Joey wasn’t there yet. 

“Might want to open with the snowman,” Chandler told her. But you just looked at him confused. “Oh trust me, you don’t want to know.” Chandler promised once he saw the look on your face.

“Oookay,” you mumbled into your cup as you sat down on the couch arm next to Monica. “Hey, Joey,” you smiled once you saw him walking into the shop as he dusted off some of the snow that had fallen on him. Everyone joined in on your greeting him, while greeted everyone else also walking up to you, placing a hand on your waist and pecking you on the lips as your greeting. 

“So, how’d it go?” Monica asked Joey, wondering how his job interview for being Santa Clause went.

“I didn’t get the job,” Joey groaned in disappointment as he took off his coat and sat down in the chair next to you. All of you awed in agreement with his disappointment, while you leaned forward from your spot on the couch to rub his arm in sympathy. It was hard enough for him to get work as an actor, and now he didn't get the one job he got and looked forward to every year. Joey looked up at you with a sad smile while taking your hand while he sat backwards in his seat. 

“How could you not get it? You were Santa last year.” Ross couldn’t help but ask, Joey was really looking forward to that job. 

“I know!” You whined in agreement with Ross, “you were a shoe in, and you were so excited.” Plus he would make a really really hot Mr. Claus, but you decided to keep that piece of information to yourself.

“I don’t know. Some fat guy’s sleeping with the store manager. He’s not even jolly, it’s all political.” Joey added in on the complaining that just seemed unfair.

“I’m sorry, hon.” You rubbed his arm as you got to your feet. “Do you want some coffee?” You offered while giving him a hug and wrapping your arm around his neck. He nodded a yes, and you pecked him on the forehead before turning to the counter and ordering a coffee to cheer him up. 

“So what’re you going to be?” Monica asked. 

“I’m going to be one of his helpers, but it’s just such a slap in the face, you know?” He just couldn’t get past the way that he didn’t get the job that he knew that he was so right for. 

“Hey, do you guys know what you’re doing for New Years?” Rachel asked, causing everyone except you and Joey to groan just at the thought that none of them had dates. “Geez, what is wrong with New Years?” Clearly not liking that way that she was getting attacked. 

“Well nothing for you, you have Paolo. And it’s not a problem for Y/N or Joey either because they have each other. You don’t have to face the horrible pressures of this holiday.” Chandler explained to her as he walked over towards her. “The desperate scramble to find anything with lips just so you have somebody to kiss when the ball drops! Man, I’m talking loud.” He finally just noticed that his voice was dramatically getting louder and louder with each sentence. 

“Well, for your information. Paolo is going to be in Rome this New Years, so I’ll be just as pathetic as the rest of you.” Rachel explained to the rest of you. “Well, except Joey and Y/N,” she grimaced at how lucky you two are while she watched Joey kiss you very sweetly after you brought him the coffee that you bought for him. 

“Yeah, you wish,” Phoebe added in where her comment didn’t really make sense. 

“It’s just that I’m sick of being victim to this Dick Clark holiday.” Chandler wowed. “I say this year, no dates. We make a pact, just the seven of us. Dinner.” Everyone seemed to be in agreement.

“How can it be no couples in the seven of us when two of us are already in a relationship?” You asked him, retaking your spot on the arm of the couch. 

“Just don’t act like one, okay?” Chandler whined as he tried to reason with you and his best friend. “I know which will be hard for you because you two are gross.”

“Well, thank you,” you said taking it as a compliment. 

“Well, you’re welcome.” Chandler played back. “And I was hoping for a little more enthusiasm.” Causing everyone into different forms of celebratory sounds. 

“Phoebe, you’re on.” Rachel warned her as she stepped onto the now stage to introduce her friend. “Ladies and gentlemen, back by popular demand. Miss Phoebe Buffay!” Rachel wooed as she and everyone else in the building applauded and Phoebe took the stage. 

“Hi!” Phoebe said into the mic. “Yeah, hi. I want to start with a song that means a lot to me this time of year.” You smiled watching in wonderment as Chandler leaned against the side of the couch next to you. Phoebe jingled some bells before she officially started her song. “I made a man with eyes of coal and a smile so bewitching.” Phoebe started to sing what sounded like was going to be a nice, cool Christmas song, but you should have know better by now that it would take a drastic and depressing turn. “How was I supposed to know that my mom was dead in the kitchen?” And immediately your smiling face turned into an uncomfortable and disturbed face, which you shared when with Ross and Monica. 

Now the mood in the coffee shop that was once filled with Christmas cheer was now filled with a depressing silence. Phoebe’s song was far from over, making everyone very depressed and just staring off into space. Rachel was sunk down in a chair, Chandler took your spot on the couch arm, and you were sitting on Joey’s knee with your head resting on Joey’s head with the look of deep sadness on your face. “My mother’s ashes, even her eyelashes are resting in a little yellow jar. And sometimes when it’s breezy, or I feel a little sneezy, and now. Excuse me!” Phoebe stopped singing which made you wake up a little tiny bit, and she started yelling at the rude, loud talking men. “Excuse me! Noisy boys? Is it something that you would like to share with the entire group?” She asked them, like a teacher catching a few of her students passing around notes during class. 

“No, no. That’s okay.” The nerdy guy in the flannel told her. 

“Ohhh they’re in trouble.” You whispered with a little smirk on your face. Chandler looked at you with a similar smirk, as well as Joey and Rachel next to you. 

“Well come on, if it’s important enough to discuss while I’m playing then I assume it’s important enough for everyone else to hear.” Phoebe argued back over at Flannel. 

“Well, that guy’s going home with a note.” Chandler told the three of you with a bit of a scared look on his face. 

“Could you speak up please?” Phoebe asked very close to the microphone when the other guy in the sweater started mumbling out his reasoning for interrupting her. 

“Sorry,” the guy in the sweater stood up. “I was saying to my friend that I thought you were the most beautiful woman that I’d ever seen in my life and then he said that you thought that Daryl Hannah was the most beautiful woman that he’d ever seen in his life. And I said, “Yeah I liked her in Splash a lot, but not so much in Wall Street, I thought she had a hard quality. And, um, while Daryl Hannah is beautiful in a conventional way you are luminous with a kind of delicate grace.” The guy paused after realizing he just said in public. “Then that’s when you started yelling.” After he finished the guy in the sweater sat back down in his seat. All of you turned towards Phoebe to see what her reaction was going to be.

“Okay, we’re going to take a short break.” She announced while setting her guitar down on the stand so that she could go talk to that man that said all the nice things about her. 

“That guy’s going home with more than a note.” Joey announced with a sneaky smirk on his face.      

[bisexualsforprompto]

Okay so like, I don't know if you take requests but uhhh, Jealous Adrien with Marijon?

I’d love to do this! And thank you for suggesting it! I love your work, reading it always brightens my day! :D

Jealous! Adrien Marijon Headcanons

Adrien had noticed that Marinette had been looking more down ever since she and Luka had broken up, he wasn’t really sure the details surrounding it but he did know that he thought Marinette could do better than Luka

He tried to talk to her still after classes and sometimes in between, but she was mostly dispondent

He did, however, with the help of Nino and Alya, get her to go on the class trip to Metropolis

They figured it’d be a good bonding experience, although Alya had said that she thought it was a good idea in order for Marinette to find some other guy to get over Luka

Adrien didn’t know how he felt about that

On the one hand, he wanted his good friend to be happy, but on the other hand he wanted to spend more time with her. If she found a new boyfriend he’d barely get any time with her.

So when they went to Metropolis Adrien made sure to stick next to Marinette. He sat next to her on the bus, walked with her to the hotel, even hung out with her and Alya in their room until curfew

Marinette still seemed wary of him though

The next day they were scheduled to go to the Daily Planet, Alya wouldn’t stop talking about it and Nino had to listen to her, so Adrien took the opportunity as they walked there to talk to Marinette.

“So Mari,” he smiled, “Are you excited for today?”

“Yeah.” Marinette said and then ran up to join Alya and Nino.

Adrien followed her and they stuck as a group until they got to the newspaper business.

The rest of their class were more interested in Lila’s stories rather than the tour of the Daily Planet, of course, Adrien didn’t mind, it gave him more chances to hang out with Marinette

Adrien was going to go talk to her but then Clark Kent stopped them

“Marinette, is that you?” He had asked

“Hi, Mr. Kent!” Adrien deflated a little when Marinette had immediately brightened to greet the reporter, how come she wasn’t like that with him?

“Wow you got so big.”

“Wait hold up! Marinette how do you know the Clark Kent?!” Alya squealed

“I went to camp with his son when I was littler, Jon and I hung out all summer.” Marinette laughed.

For some reason Adrien started feeling a little irritated...

“Wait, wait, wait. Jon Kent, as in Clark Kent and Lois Lane’s kid?!” Alya asked with stars in her eyes

“Y-yep thats me!” Interrupted a bashful voice. Adrien couldn’t even see who it was, Marinette went flying past him and hugged the stranger.

“Jon! I’m so glad I got to see you!” She grinned.

Adrien felt a frown come to his face, great now he’d spend no time with Marinette.

“Me too! We have to catch up!” Jon said.

When Marinette finally pulled away Adrien felt his stomach drop.

There was no doubt that Jon Kent was handsome. He was also very muscular. The only thing Adrien could see that was wrong with him was his fashion sense, flannel was out, according to the Gabriel brand

He felt himself relax, Marinette wanted to be a designer, surely she wouldn’t give somebody with such poor fashion sense the time of day

“I agree! Can you do lunch? We have a free time and maybe I can get you some new clothes while we’re at it.” Marinette teased

“Hey!” Jon said in mock offense, “You love my country chic!”

Marinette burst out laughing. Adrien felt his blood boil. “It was cute when you were a kid, you always wore oversized ones!”

“Oh so I’m not cute now?”

Adrien saw Marinette’s face transition from pale to tomato red in a spilt second

So she did think he was cute, Adrien thought while gritting his teeth

Marinette started to stutter but Jon just laughed, “Just kidding!”

Marinette let out a sigh of relief. Adrien huffed and walked over to Nino and Alya

“Who is this guy anyway?” He asked.

“Marinette’s old friend, she told me a lot about him actually.” Alya said, “this is perfect! I bet they’ll be dating in no time! Two sunshines, perfect together!”

Adrien crossed his arms, everyone always called him a sunshine, why wasn’t he with Marinette?

“Dude, Are you jealous?” Nino asked teasingly.

“No why would I be?”

This time Alya answered, “Well you kind of act like you like Marinette...After she broke up with Luka it seemed like you wanted to date her.”

Adrien’s blood ran cold

No...he didn’t like Marinette romantically...did he?

Alya and Nino were probably wrong

But...were they?

He needed to find out.

When the nightmare at the Daily Planet was finally over and Marinette had finished her lunch with Jon, Adrien decided to talk to her.

“Hey Mari!” He called. She gave him a tired look. He cocked his head to the side. “So...how was your lunch?”

“Oh the date was great! We’re going out again tomorrow!” She smiled

“Oh...don’t you think that’s a little soon? I mean you saw him today!”

“Adrien, I’ve stayed with his family for two summers in a row when I was a kid, if you worried about him, you don’t have to be! Jon is great!” She almost blushed by the end.

“Right...well what about Luka?”

“What about Luka?” Marinette asked with furrowed brows

“Well didn’t you guys used to...”

“Well yeah, but he just like yo- this other guy I used to like, were both kind of push-overs I guess. Not that Luka would let people walk all over him...push-over wasn’t the right word...both of my crushes were kind of spineless.”

“And Jon isn’t?” Adrien asked with more hostility than he meant.

“Adrien! No! He isn’t, you don’t know him like I do...you could say he’s kind of a...hero.” Marinette rubbed the back of her neck.

“I’m a hero too!”

Silence

“W-what?” Marinette said, dumbfounded, Adrien kicked himself, “First, how did you know that I used to like you and sec-“

“You used to like me?!” Adrien smiled. “Mari that’s great, will you...do you want to go on a date?”

“Adrien...I like Jon. I don’t like you that way anymore. W-what did you mean when you said you were a hero though?” Marinette asked.

“Oh uh nothing.” Adrien said, “Are you sure we can’t go out? I think we’d be really good together, like soulmates.”

Marinette stiffened. “No Adrien.” She said coolly.

“But-“

“Hey.” Jon said as he walked up to Marinette, “Listen Adrien, you seem like a nice guy. I don’t want to yell at you or anything, but Marinette gets a choice too and she said no.”

“Right...Sorry.” Adrien said before running into the hotel, tail tucked between his legs. He tried not to listen to them but he did hear,

“Sorry about that Mari. Should I have done more?”

“It’s okay Jon, it’s not your fault. And no! I-I l-like you b-because you’re a person positive, I mean positive person, but you don’t let that get in the way of standing up for what you believe in.”

Adrien huffed and ran up to his hotel room. He was glad they weren’t in Paris, he definitely would’ve been akumatized.

After all, he was in love with someone who didn’t love him back (again)

And he was utterly screwed

________

Taglist:

@northernbluetongue

@queen-of-the-trash-planet-tm

@luciferge

@legendaryneckjudgestudent

@interobanginyourmom

@beaversuenightly

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[aion-rsa]

Superman & Lois Season 2: What to Expect When the Show Returns

https://ift.tt/3xZHqMm

This article contains Superman & Lois spoilers.

The first season of Superman & Lois has come to a close, and what an absolute joyride it was from start to finish. Are you left craving more? Do you need to spend more time in Smallville ASAP? Well, we’ve got good news for you, because Superman & Lois Season 2 has already been confirmed by The CW, and the first episode has already been written!

We spoke with showrunner Todd Helbing to try and get some details about what to expect from Superman & Lois Season 2.

Superman & Lois Season 2 Villains

Superman & Lois has already given us multiple Kryptonians for Superman to have super-powered brawls and trade heat vision blasts with. There’s always an instinct to just give Supes someone he can hit, but the first season managed to do that while also telling a pretty nuanced, even tragic, story for its central villain. But that just means it’s going to be a little trickier to follow up Tal-Rho with someone equally compelling.

“From the earliest days that Greg Berlanti and I talked about this show, the question was always, ‘okay, if we’re going to do this, how are we going to make it different?’” Helbing says. “And if you go through any of the movies, I think the natural tendency is, you have to have somebody as strong and powerful as Superman, or he would never lose. The story engine that we have though, and what’s really important is the family of it. So once you become a father, once Superman became a father, he has weaknesses that he never had before, his thoughts about Lois, about the boys. That family aspect makes him a weaker in a lot of ways, because he loves more. But it also makes him a better hero, because he has something to fight for.”

It doesn’t seem like Helbing thinks power levels are as important to building a Superman threat as others do.

“It doesn’t have to be somebody that can punch as hard as Superman,” Helbing says. “I think of the end of episode 14, when he came back and he had to tell his wife that he can’t find Jordan. There’s a look on Tyler’s face, like he doesn’t know what to do. Those are the situations we want to put Superman in. Because I think to all of us, writers, actors, producers, that’s the most important and what really works on our show.”

Lex Luthor?

And everybody knows that if there’s one villain who definitely can’t “punch as hard as Superman,” it’s Lex Luthor, who has been brought brilliantly to life on Supergirl over the last few seasons by Jon Cryer. But with Superman & Lois determined to forge its own path, it may be awhile before we get to see Lex show up in Smallville.

Read more

TV

Superman & Lois: Inside the Season’s Big Twists and that Finale Ending

By Mike Cecchini

Movies

Lex Luthor: Jerk Of All Trades

By Mike Cecchini

“Look, I think Jon was awesome as Lex, so I’m certainly open to anything,” Helbing says. “I think we’d have to find the right story where it would work. Lex Luthor is such an iconic character, so it might be a bit, you know what I mean? There are some other characters that we want to explore. If we’re going to make our own stamp here and try to carve out our own story in Superman history, let’s tell some fresh new versions of this.”

Will There Be More Flashback Episodes?

One of the highlights of the season was the flashback episode, which told us big pieces of Lois and Clark’s history together before the boys were born, and showed us Clark’s first adventures in Metropolis as Superman (in that cool Fleischer-inspired costume).

“We’re not going to make the show into Lost,” Helbing jokes. “We’ll certainly have flashbacks if it’s going to help tell the story and help the audience understand where a character is and where they came from so it really lands emotionally, then yeah, we’ll do it.”

Still, that doesn’t mean that a flashback episode is automatically baked into the plans for Superman & Lois Season 2 just yet.

“We don’t necessarily have a format that we’re trying to follow per episode,” Helbing says. “Not having the typical sort of heroic television formula is really, I think, allowed us to approach stories from a different point of view and aspect, and not maybe worry about stuff that I would have worried about on The Flash.”

Will There Be Crossovers With Other DC TV Arrowverse Shows?

The pandemic put the kibosh on all DC TV crossovers this year, although in fairness, those were always expected to be smaller in scale after the massive Crisis on Infinite Earths in 2019. As for what characters or shows Superman & Lois Season 2 could potentially crossover with, Helbing isn’t talking yet.

“I think our sort of north star is just, it’s not any particular character, it’s just whatever benefits the story the best,” he says. “Honestly, it could be anybody right now. I think we’re under the assumption right now that things are going to kind of get back to how they were pre-pandemic, but I’m still a little hesitant to do that. And not just me. I think everybody is a little cautious, and we just want to be safe first and make sure everybody’s protected. We’ll see how it all plays out. I’m optimistic. I would love to do what we can.” 

Helbing also teases more information about where Superman & Lois sits in relation to the other Arrowverse shows airing.

“There’s been a lot of talk and questions about how all the shows interact now and are related post-Crisis,” he says. “I think in season two, the audience will get a lot more answers about that.”

Natalie Irons and Steel

Helbing is keeping quiet on all the implications about Natalie Irons arriving from her corner of the multiverse to surprise her father, John Henry Irons, and the Kent family.

“We knew Nat was going to show up, and we knew we wanted her in the show, because we want to explore a new family dynamic,” he says. “I’ll just say, in season two, there’s a lot that everybody is dealing with, having to get used to new members of a family, I’ll just put it that way.”

Yes, we have to imagine she won’t be thrilled to see that her mother on this world is married to the man who murdered her on their world, for starters.

Will Reign of the Supermen Happen?

Look, you can’t blame us for speculating on this. Superman & Lois introduced John Henry Irons, and even gave him his Steel armor and hammer. They introduced the Eradicator, both as a piece of Kryptonian tech and also as the living embodiment of that tech with a mission to make Earth more like Krypton.

And in a sense, it also gave us Superboy. No, not the half-clone of Superman who eventually adopts the moniker of Kon-El (and then Conner Kent) but the actual biological son of Clark Kent and Lois Lane, Jordan Kent. For Superman fans, this is 3/4ths of a set of “replacement Supermen,” the heroes who rose after Superman’s “death” at the spiky hands of Doomsday in the famed Death and Return of Superman comic book story.

Helbing admits that they’ve talked about things, but certainly won’t commit to the possibility, either.

“We talk,” he says. “We kick all that stuff around, and it’s … I won’t say no, but I won’t say yes either, because we already wrote the first episode of season two. There’s some really cool stuff coming.” 

And since Supergirl already did a version of Hank Henshaw, the infamous Cyborg Superman, and with all the other love for Superman comic book lore already on display in Superman & Lois, is any of this ever being discussed by the writers?

“I think one of the things that we want to do is we want to stay away from any of the villains that Supergirl did for the most part, unless we’re going to completely reinvent them like Morgan Edge. So we’re trying to find some deep dives and bring those stories out in our show. And I think so far, I’m really excited about season two.”

Superman & Lois Season 2 Release Date

At the moment, all we know is that Superman & Lois Season 2 will arrive in early 2022. The first season arrived in February, so that might be a good spot to pencil in for now.

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What do you want to see from Superman & Lois Season 2? Let us know in the comments!

The post Superman & Lois Season 2: What to Expect When the Show Returns appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3zaX2ON

[dilfdoctordoom]

What do the JL think of Bette? Specifically Barry, Hal, Clark, Arthur, Ollie, and Diana

I very much love that you included two of my favourite characters here.

Barry:

Bette spent many of her formative years in Gotham, so you can bet your ass that this girl is ACAB

Now, I don’t know if you’ve been called a bastard by a thirteen-year-old in a red dress, but Barry Allen has

Life-altering experience

He spends an hour asking Bruce what he did wrong, why does Bat-Girl hate him? He hasn’t even spoken to her yet what could he have done

And Bruce just... the fun explanation that she hates all cops. Instantly. Oh you’re a CSI that must be fun, it doesn’t matter, it’s already on sight for you

Like, okay, in Gotham? Pretty much every cop is dirty. Gordon, Montoya & Bullock are the only ones that Bette knows aren’t & she still doesn’t really trust them

So she’s not gonna be particularly nice to Barry Allen & Bruce literally has to tell her to behave

(Kathy is very amused by it all)

There’s a moment where Barry thinks she just hates speedsters, but then she & Wally seem to be getting on great. Like, Kid Flash is awesome, cool fast guy. Flash is a cop & therefore she cannot trust him

Bat-Girl: I can respect you as a hero but I do not like you as a person

So, yeah, Barry’s, uh, iffy on her. He’s sure she’s a great hero & she seems nice to the others, but he’d really rather not work with her, even when she’s Flamebird/Hawkfire. Especially when she’s Flamebird/Hawkfire, then she’s got tasers & flamethrowers

Hal:

Very different from how she interacts with Barry

Mainly because she first meets Hal after Kathy’s died & she goes to Coast City as part of her whole ‘run away from her emotions’ thing

She’s always loved the beach & Coast is supposed to be so nice. Plus, they’ve got Green Lantern; they’re not gonna need her to suit up, are they?

And then there’s an incident with Manhunters & like, Hal’s got this handled, no doubt about it, but also, Bette is impulsive & has a massive hero complex & yes she does suit up & help out. She does it because it’s right, because she’s angry, just because

But Hal kinda freaks out? Because she’s a kid and yeah, that might fly in Gotham where Batman can keep an eye on her, but oh god, what if he was fighting Sinestro? That’s low key terrifying to him, he doesn’t wanna put a kid in danger

He’s still good with kids. Like, that’s canon, he’s just good with them. So he & Bette do get along & after he gets over the initial ‘please do not fight mass murdering robots you need adult supervision & idk if I qualify for that’, they do actually spend time together!

Mainly because Hal isn’t too comfortable letting a teenage vigilante who just experienced a massive lost be alone & honestly? He’s right. Like, Kathy has just died & Bette threw herself into an extremely dangerous fight... red flags all around, my dudes

So they do work together while she’s in Coast. She only stays a few weeks before she moves on, but she does kinda like Green Lantern?

And the feeling’s mutual. They don’t really keep in contact but Hal keeps an eye on the news to make sure she’s okay & not, uh, dead

They don’t actually meet face to face until a dumb Justice League party years later & then they discover that Bruce finds Hal annoying... he finds the concept of Bette & Hal even being acquaintances annoying... he’s given them the ultimate weapon. Bruce Wayne goes grey earlier and it’s because Hal & Bette spend an entire night pretending that they went on a massive space adventure, full of danger & peril, solely to drive up his blood pressure

Hal doesn’t look into her identity all that much, but thinks she’s fun. Anyone who annoys Bruce for fun is cool in his book

(And I know this is supposed to focus on his feelings about her but consider: Bette meets the Green Lantern of Coast City & he lets her stay in his shitty rundown apartment. Everything that can go wrong for him seems to, but he’s still there, making jokes and saving people and doing the right thing. His willpower keeps him going, even on the darkest of nights and maybe, just maybe, Bette’s stubbornness picked up a little bit of inspiration for somebody along the way)

(And maybe, maybe, she joins the fight against Parallax and realizes just how far her heroes can fall)

Clark:

Um, well, I absolutely headcanon that Clark gave Bette the name Flamebird. Like, told her the story, made a series of not-so-subtle mentions that she should take up the name...

So, yes, Clark knows Bette

She’s Bruce’s cousin, after all, and he’s his best friend. Of course, their paths would cross, especially with how often Clark seemed to work with Batman & Robin when they first started out

He’s worked with her a lot when she’s Bat-Girl & every single time, Bette is starstruck because oh my god, that’s Superman, she’s talking to Superman, she’s working with Superman

He tells her the legend of Nightwing & Flamebird when she’s a kid & she loves the concept of Flamebird. She’s only twelve at the time, but something about it clicks with her

And when she gives up on being Bat-Girl, but is still determined to be a hero, he suggests Flamebird

(Bette absolutely tears up at this)

They don’t really work together when she gets older, except on big, world ending disasters that require the entire Justice League’s attention, but he still sends her one of Ma Kent’s apple pies for the holidays

Clark’s just the cool uncle from when was younger

She stills freaks out a little every time he talks to her, though

She’s never gonna get over knowing Superman

Arthur:

It took me a while to think about this but, yes, Arthur likes Bette

Mainly because Bette is a friend of La’gaan’s. That’s pretty much how he knows her

He doesn’t even know she’s a part of the Batfamily for years, because she’s always seen with the Titans

So, like, he doesn’t really know her that much, but she’s a good friend to one of his sidekicks & La’gaan’s already made passing mentions to crashing at her & Gar’s place, so. Yeah. She got Aquaman’s seal of approval

Though Arthur is always gonna be entertained by how much teasing Flamebird is allowed to get away with. Most of the League may not be aware of her Special Cousin Privilages, he isn’t either, but it’s absolutely hilarious to see her tear into Batman at random

11/10, good friend to La’gaan, very entertaining. Would be better if she could keep a goldfish alive

Ollie:

Okay, so, Ollie is, like, shown to be nicer to the younger heroes, Kyle excluded because he’s dating his son, so she’s gonna be nice to her. Or, at least, Ollie nice. Hm.

He thinks she’s way too small when she first starts out because even when she’s eleven, Bette still looks like she’s nine, but she’s got two heroes looking out for her & with a kid sidekick of his own, he’s not in a place to judge

Aside from one poor team-up between Green Arrow & Speedy and Batwoman & Bat-Girl, where Ollie & Kathy absolutely butted heads, oh my god, they’d hate each other, he didn’t see much of her. He works in Star, she works in Gotham, when are their paths gonna cross

While she works less with most Leaguers the older she gets, she actually ends up working more with Ollie when she’s older

Mainly ‘cause she’s friends with Roy & Cass may be friends with Connor, but that doesn’t mean she can drive so sometimes she’ll get Bette to bring her to Star

Which is honestly what Ollie knows her most as: Batgirl’s older sister who’ll lend a hand whenever she’s in Star

She’s good with kids, efficient & a little showy, but he really can’t judge that last part. Got Roy & Dinah’s stamp of approval, though, & that goes a long way with him

They never, like, exclusively work together, but she’s good to call on in an emergency

He did do a double take when she called Deathstroke ‘uncle’ though because... well, look, at Flamebird. Now look at Deathstroke. Do you see his confusion? It only grows when Slade lets out the most exasperated sigh, mutters something about how he wishes he could kill her without Addie getting mad, and then Bette sticks her tongue out to him & makes some joke about the shitshow he married into

Well. At least his family will never involve Deathstroke

Diana:

Diana gave Bette the shovel talk

This is when DonnaBette is happening & close to figuring out each other’s identities & probably the biggest hint for Bette is Wonder Woman flying down to tell her that if she breaks Wonder Girl’s heart, she’ll have her to answer to

So. Diana’s first impression of Bette is Flamebird having an anerysm on a rooftop in Gotham because she just realized she’s dating Wonder Girl

The absolute dumbassary of DonnaBette, unparalled

Diana likes Bette, thinks she’s probably a great person, but it is her legal job as Donna’s big sister to make it clear that if anything happens to her baby sister, it means war

They end up meeting later, after Donna & Bette have had their mutual break-up, when Diana is working with Kate & Bette is still unable to form a full sentence. Wonder Woman oh my god, oh my god, her brain doesn’t work that’s actual literal Wonder Woman oh my go-

Bruce did later let it slip that after the Maxwell Lord incident, Bette was 100% on Wonder Woman’s side, which she honestly didn’t expect, but eh. Bette’s not as big on the whole no killing as her cousin

Diana mainly knows Bette in the capacity of her being Donna’s girlfriend

Definitely prefers her to some of Donna’s other partners ie Terry because I don’t csre what anyone says, that relationship was trash & I will not pretend that miss Diana Prince was okay with her nineteen-year-old sister dating a divorcee in his thirties that was also her professor

[godstaff]

Kent family watches the Incredibles movies

Clark: Well, guys: due to the pandemic, the JL has restricted the amount of operatives in the field, so Mommy and I will spend the day with our family. Do you know any of them? Where are they?

Aster: We’re here, Dad! We are your family!

Selene: He’s joking, you Goblin!

Aster: Shut up, “Big Larda”!

Diana: That’s enough! Both of you!

Clark: Mom is right: stop it now, or there won’t be ice-cream for anybody! I mean it. No more name calling, okay?

Selene: But, Daddy: aren’t we immune to this Covid stuff?

Diana: We are, Lena, but Dad and I have a duty to set an example to others. We are privileged, but we need to see the bigger picture.

Clark: Besides, we must not parade our immunity in front of much vulnerable people. It would seem like laughing in their faces. Even if we’re impervious, we can carry the virus with us and transmit it to the folks we come in contact with. 

Diana: We can’t deliver the wrong message.

Selene: Okay. Why don’t we end the problem once and for all?

Diana: May be we can, but we have to give humanity the chance to try and solve their problems themselves. As Daddy says: “we can’t carry them straight to the top, we can only...”

Selene and Aster: “...help them up when they trip and fall.”

Clark: Exactly. And accompany them in their journey. In this cases, we intervene when things get way out of hand, or they will start to depend on us for anything and stop thinking for themselves.

Aster: Is it bad not thinking for ourselves?

Diana: Thinking for yourself is the best way to really learn. Let you to think for yourself is the best gift anybody can give you. Daddy and I can teach you a lot of things, but it is up to you and your analysis of those things to create your own personality and knowledge. Imagine your head is a library and Dad and me are filling it with books, all kinds of books: if you can’t think for yourself, there won’t be any organization. You are the librarian who organizes everything in your personal order, to connect those books with others of the same content. So far, you need guidance. The day will come when you get good at it, and won’t need any help. When people learn to think for themselves, it will come a time, perhaps, when they won’t need our help.

Clark: It doesn’t matter if you don’t completely understand all this right now: just remember what you can. In time you’ll find out the meaning.

Aster: I’ll try, Daddy. Lena: did you find out yet?

Selene: What I’ve found out so far is it takes a lifetime to do it. The important thing is keep on trying. It’s like having a baby brother: it sucks, but you get used to it. You may even enjoy it sometimes.

Clark: Enough with the learning moment. What you say we have a marathon of movies and junk food?

Diana shot a disapproving look in Clark’s direction.

Clark (with an apologetic tone): Just for today...?

Diana: Just for today.

Clark, Selene and Aster: Yaaay!

Clark: What do you want to watch?

A battle of propositions and rejections followed, from “that is too childish” to “ugh! That’s a girl’s movie!”. Until Clark said:

Clark: What if we start with “The Incredibles”? I’ve heard it’s funny and not entirely for kids. Besides, they could be us.

Selene: I’ve seen the first, I was your age back then, but not the sequel. It’s truly funny, and realistically shows the pain of having two baby brothers, emphasis on “baby”. Count me in.

Aster: I’ve seen both, but I don’t mind watching them again. 

Diana: All set, then: “The Incredibles” 1 and 2 it is.

Clark: I’ll make the popcorn. Lena: a hand, please?

Selene: Sure, Dad.

Aster: Bring me a soda!

Selene: Of course, “my Liege”. Move it and get it yourself!

Aster: Mom!

Clark: C’mon, Len, we’re already here. Let get sodas for everyone.

Selene: Ugh! I swear I’m gonna kill him one of these days!

The movie started and Clark asked:

Clark: Do I look like that?

Diana: Don’t be so self aware: it’s a cartoon. Besides, you’re not blond, thank Hera!

Clark: I’ll double my workout routine, beginning tomorrow.

Selene and Aster: Shhhh!

Diana (whispering in Clark’s ear): Please tell me I don’t have that enormous ass.

Clark (also whispering): Of course not!

Selene and Aster: Shhhhhhhhhh! We still can hear you!

Diana and Clark: Sorry!

Selene (pressing pause): Doesn’t the villain remain you of Luthor? Minus the hair, that is.

Clark: Believe it or not, Lex had red hair too before losing it.

Aster: Dad: what do you think of capes?

Clark: I’m in favor, of course. It’s not that terrible, once you learn to deal with them. And they look majestic while flying. But you will have to decide for yourselves. Granddad Jor wore capes, and so did the fathers of aunts Karen and Kari, my uncles Zor from both Kryptons. It’s tradition.

Diana: And Grandmamá Lyta wears one for ceremonial purposes

Aster: And masks? What do you think of masks? They look cool.

Diana: Your Dad didn’t wear them because he wanted people to trust him. It would be a pity to cover that handsome face (smiling at Clark)

Clark (smiling back at her): When  Mommy and I got together, the double personality made no sense anymore. We were not hiding our love to the World, and, if we did, Superman and Wonder Woman and Diana Prince and Clark Kent were two very similarly looking couples: tall, black hair, athletic build, etc.

Diana: People are not stupid: they would’ve connected the dots in no time, so we came clean. And it was a good thing to do: now we have time for our family, instead of wasting it in a job or trying to make another life as a civilian. 

Clark: In fact, it’s very liberating not to hide half of the time, although I miss the office sometimes. 

Diana: Look at uncles Bruce and Richard and the Robins: all, except Jason, have to work twice as much, and none of them have a real job.

Clark: Besides, just look at your sister: blue hair, 6′7″, a complete and total Kryptonian Amazon...and, before you say a word, you’ll be no different: as tall as her, if not taller, and the same build. You only lack the blue hair.

Aster: Why does she have...?

Selene: Are we done? Can we continue with the movie?

Aster: It was you who pressed “pause”.

Selene: Well: I’m done. Are you?

Aster: Yeah.

At the end of the first movie, everyone stood up and went to do their things.

Clark: Okay, people, the intermission is 15 minutes. Stretch your legs, if you have to.

Aster: It was very cool. 

Selene: See? It’s not important how much we squabble, if we’re united when it matters.

Aster (coming back from the bathroom): Mom: Why does Lena have blue hair?

Diana: Dad and I are the first couple of our kind, therefore, you both are the first of your species. It was predictable you would have some genetic peculiarities. There was some magic involved in your conception, don’t forget Daddy is from another world. Don’t get me wrong: we made sure you two will not come out as strange beings, with two heads and all that.

Aster: It would have been cool to have two heads!

Diana: Mmmmno. We’d had love you all the same, though. Anyway, Lena was the first, and her hair is proof of that. You two are special, only in her case, she showed it immediately. Don’t sweat: you can still grow a second head.

Aster (enthusiastically): Really?

Diana (throwing herself over her son): Naaah!

Selene: Don’t talk about me behind my back! It’s not polite. I can hear you, you know?. Superhearing, remember?

Diana: I’ll have to teach you both sign language, so we can keep some secrets in our family. 

Selene: You know sign language?

Diana: And Braille writing and reading. So does Dad. There’s also a language based on small taps on the other people’s hand, for those unfortunate who lost both, sight and hearing, called Tactile Signing. If we want to help, we must be able to communicate with everyone, back and fore.

Selene: I want to learn! I’m starting tomorrow!

Diana: How about you, Ast? Your sis is giving you the chance of starting early.

Aster: I would hate she talking to you and me not understanding it. I’m in.

Clark: Two minutes and the show will continue!

Once everybody was sitting, the second part began. Half way to the projection, it was Aster who pressed pause.

Aster: Mom, Dad: do you need to have a job?

Clark: We don’t really need it. Mommy and I can get anything we need, and so will you someday. We could have one, if we want it, but our work protecting humanity and raising you takes precedence.

Diana: Dad and I can find all kinds of minerals men consider precious and extract it with our bare hands.

Selene: If they want it, they can be richer that Luthor, Mr. Terrific and uncle Bruce combined.

Clark: But the pursue of riches is not a priority. Some time back, Mommy and I designed the basics for nuclear fusion based energy supply, which is sustaining our home, the rest of the Fortress and some parts of Themyscira. We gave the blueprints to Mr. Holt and uncle Bruce, so they could adapt it for human usage. Mr. Holt wanted to make it into a business, but uncle Bruce and I prevented it. It wasn’t an evil thing what Michael wanted to do, from a mundane perspective, but if the whole planet was going to benefit of the findings, we better let corporations and businesses out of the picture, We convinced him with only two words: “Fair Play”. 

Diana: Lex hated us: he lost a ton of money and four of his energy corporations rolled the curtains down definitely. We made sure the employees left without a job, were absorbed by Wayne Enterprises and Holt Industries.

The movie continued. At some point, Selene interrupted it.

Selene. Mom, Dad: is it so easy to take over somebody’s mind, like in the movie?

Diana: Depends on whose mind. If the person is in need of something or lacking other things, like Elastigirl here, it’s easier to invade someone’s mind, the invaders has to take advantage of the weaknesses of that person. If Dad or any of you are in some peril, my state of mind will be compromised and I would constitute an easy target.

Selene: How can we prevent that kind of happenstances? Specially in our particular situation.

Clark: Being very careful, knowing all the time the others are safe. That’s why is so important to be always in communication with each other.

Diana: It’s not invasion of privacy, it’s just caution. We won’t stop you from living your life, we won’t use tracers or any kind of location devices: we are asking you to keep us informed. You’ll understand when you have children of your own.

Clark: There are individuals with immense power no mind can resist, like Maxwell Lord...

Selene: Who is that?

Diana: No longer a problem.

Clark: ...in those cases, we have to be patient and look for an opening. There’s always a mistake these people make: too confident and underestimating their opponent. There’s always, in the back of your mind, a vestige of consciousness. And Mommy’s Lasso of Truth will protect its bearer and it can reverse the process in others.

Selene: I see. But there’s always a risk.

Diana: Our occupation is always a risk. We must be prepared. Even if you don’t want to follow our steps, problems will reach you because of who you are, I’m sorry. It’s like being the offspring of someone very rich: there’s always a virtual target on your backs.

Clark: But life is beautiful and worth living, don’t let potential dangers take that away. People in other situations than ours are also in other kind of perils. Is a constant no living being can escape.

Diana: Animals in the wild are always at the mercy of predators. 

Clark: Ours are just another kind of predators.

Selene: I think I get the idea, but I have to ruminate on it.

Clark: Sure, baby. Take your time.

Diana: We are here for any question.

Selene: Thank you. Let’s finish the movie, please. Hey, Astroboy! Wake up!

Aster: Uh? Are we done?

Selene: Welcome to the land of the living.

Aster: Can we finish the movie now?

[ladylillianrose]

First Comes Marriage a Max Richman/Zoey Clarke Fanfiction

A/N: Apologies for taking so long to update, work and school have been a lot to handle as of late. In just a few weeks I'm starting my last semester of grad school so updates may not be as frequent as they have been before! Thank you all for your support and comments, I really appreciate them!

As always a huge thank you to my lovely beta AubreyRichman

Any dialogue you recognize is from the episodes Pilot and Best Friend.

Chapter Two

Chapter One

Zoey quickly ran to the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face. Max was singing her another love song? What was going on here? 

She thought back to the other day when she had been about to tell Max about her strange powers.

________________________________________________________________

“There she is, our new team leader! Is it weird that I’m now a little intimated by you?” Max teased.

“Oh, please,” Zoey grinned, waving him off.

“So first day, how you feeling?”

“Really good actually. You know, I just want to tell you what a great friend you’ve been through all this, Max. It’s just been really comforting to know that I have you, as like my rock. And, crazy thing is, I haven’t even told you everything that’s been going on with me lately. You wouldn’t believe….”

Max suddenly looked anxious, he started playing with the ring on his right finger, something she noticed he only did when he was nervous.

“Are you alright? What’s going on?”

“Nothing. Nothing, it’s just…. Last night”

I was sleeping and right in the middle of a good dream

Like all, at once I wake up from something that keeps knocking at my brain

Zoey sighed, “Okay, now you’re singing too. I don’t think I know this one.” She took a seat in Max’s chair and watched as he danced around his desk. It was quite endearing to watch.

Before I go insane I hold my pillow to my head

And spring up in my bed screaming out the words I dread

“What words are those?” she asked, curiously. Max turned around to face her and sang the last words she had ever expected to hear from him.

I think I love you!

“I’m sorry, what?” Zoey laughed out nervously. Max slid over to her on his knees.

I think I love you so what am I so afraid of

He held out his hands for hers, spinning her around in the chair.

I'm afraid that I'm not sure of a love there is no cure for

Max danced up the staircase, as he continued his song.

I think I love you isn't that what life is made of

Though it worries me to say that I never felt this way

Zoey stared at him unsure of how to react to his revelation.

Max looked at her confused, “What?” 

________________________________________________________________

And now here she was splashing cold water on her face, trying to hide how flushed Max’s newest love song had made her. How long had her best friend had these feelings for her? She glanced down at the ring on her right hand, did he have these feelings for her when they got married? He would have said something right?

Zoey sighed, this was all too much to deal with right now, she would just try and make it through the day and think about it later. She nodded at her reflection and squared her shoulders before heading back out to the bullpen.

________________________________________________________________

Zoey stood at the cereal bar, eating and trying to think about what she should do about Max.  Speak of the devil.

Max approached her grinning, “Great news, I won the lottery!”

“What?”  Does Max even play the lottery?

“Well, the restaurant lottery. I finally got us into that fancy farm-to-table place," he explained.

“You got us into Hand-Picked?!” Zoey couldn't believe it.

“Yeah! Thursday night. Is it a date?"

Zoey panicked, "Is it a date?!"

Max looked at her oddly, "What? No. I just thought we could have a celebration of sorts…."

Zoey was confused, "Like for my promotion?"

Max awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck, "Well, yes that, but it's also been a year…."

"A year?" She repeated.

He glanced significantly at the ring on her right hand and cleared his throat. "Umm yeah, a year…"

Understanding dawned on her face, "Oh wow, you're right! A year already?"

Max grinned, "I know, it just flew by. So, what do you say?"

Zoey worried her bottom lip, she didn't know what to do. "Let me check my schedule, make sure there isn't any family thing going on that night and I'll let you know?"

Max nodded, "Sounds good," and he headed back to his desk.

Zoey pulled out her phone, "Mo, we have an emergency! Meet me at Golden Gate Grind in 10!"

________________________________________________________________

"It happened again. I heard Max sing another love song to me this morning, and, this time it seemed way less ambiguous than last time."

Mo looked curious, "What song was it?"

Zoey winced, "Sucker."

Mo grinned, "Ooh, that songs hot! How did Max look doing it?"

Zoey blushed as she thought about how distracting and attractive she had found Max while he sang to her. "It doesn't matter. My best friend is super into me, Mo!"

"So what? He’s attractive and single, you’re attractive and single, I don’t know why you haven’t tried to lock that down already!” Mo said, rolling his eyes.

Zoey was about to respond when she heard the notes of a song beginning.

“Zoey, are you even listening to me?” Mo asked.

 "I’m listening, just not to you at the moment," Zoey responded distractedly as she listened to the people in the cafe sing.

"You mean you're hearing a heart song right now?"

"Yeah, and it's very emotional and moving." Zoey stood entranced as she watched the people in the cafe sing and dance to, "I Wanna Dance With Somebody."

Her eyes followed their usual barista Autumn, as she sadly sang.

I need a man who'll take a chance

On a love that burns hot enough to last

So when the night falls

My lonely heart calls

Zoey could feel a plan forming in her head.

"Hey, Autumn," she smiled at her.

"Oh hey, Zoey, the usual?"

"Yeah. And actually, I think I'll get something to go for my buddy, Max. Speaking of Max, what's your take on Max? You like his vibe? Appearance? General outlook? You a fan?"

She could feel Mo glaring at her, "Zoey, this is not a good idea."

Zoey waved her hand dismissively, "Quiet Mo, I'm working here."

Mo rolled his eyes, "I reserve the right to say I told you so," he murmured.

________________________________________________________________

"Zoey, this feels weird," Autumn said as she nervously smoothed her clothes. "You sure Max is okay with it?"

"Psh, of course, he is!" Zoey led Autumn over to the chair Max was working in.

"Hey. Guess what? I used Dijkstra's algorithm to find the shortest paths between all hunt locations so we can make sure our guests get to…. Hi," Max finally looked up to see Zoey and Autumn standing in front of him.

"Hey Max, you know Autumn right?"

"Umm sure. Hey," he responded, unsure of what was happening.

"So, turns out I can't make it Thursday, but Autumn is a big fan of farm-to-table and would love to take my place," Zoey explained, as she nudged Autumn forward.

"Oh," Max tried not to look too crestfallen. He had been looking forward to spending their first anniversary together.  She's only your wife on paper, it's not a real marriage remember? No need to celebrate an anniversary that doesn't mean anything.

"Only if you're cool with it," Autumn interrupted his train of thought.

"Well, yeah. Um, I mean, I can't really think of anyone else I would take at the moment," Max agreed. Best not to waste the reservation, and Autumn seemed nice enough.

"Great!" Zoey exclaimed eagerly. "I'm gonna go work on the thing," she quickly backed away as Max watched her with an unreadable expression on his face.

Zoey sighed, relieved to have found a solution to her problem. She glanced back and saw Max laughing at something Autumn said. She shook her head, ignoring the ache she felt in her chest as she watched them. Thinking no more on the subject, she threw herself into her work.

________________________________________________________________

Zoey was walking around the bullpen checking in on her team's progress, ignoring Max who was trying to get her attention.

Max got tired of waiting for her to look at him, "Hey, Zo. Will you tell me the truth?"

Zoey's eyes widened in a panic and she gestured for him to follow her.

"Why didn't you want to go to dinner with me?" Max asked, looking at her sadly.

"What? No, I have a thing," she started.

Max raised his eyebrows at her, "Uh-huh, a rather convenient thing. You've been acting weird since I mentioned Hand-Picked. What's going on?"

"I just think that people might suspect something if we were to go to a place like Hand-Picked." Zoey nervously played with her ring as she spoke.

"Everyone knows we're friends, Zoey. It's not like we haven't had dinner together before."

"I just think that it's not such a good idea, especially since I'm your boss now. We need to be extra careful that nobody finds out about…"

"Considering it's been a year and no one is even remotely suspicious, I think we're okay. What? You think that we eat some pickled beets out of a Mason jar, and they suddenly realize that we're married?" Max replied sarcastically.

"Keep your voice down," Zoey hissed.

Max glanced over at the team, none of whom were paying attention to the two of them.

"I'm pretty sure that nobody cares," Max rolled his eyes.

"Max, I don't want to fight about this," Zoey sighed.

"No, wouldn't want the team to think we were in the middle of a lover's quarrel now, would we? If you need to create some boundaries between us, fine, " Max bit out as he walked back to his desk.

Zoey winced at his harsh tone, she knew she had hurt him.

Max spent the rest of the day refusing to even look in her direction. When they were done for the day he quickly packed his things and left, not even saying goodbye.

Zoey felt that ache in her chest again as she watched him leave. She groaned in frustration and placed her head on her desk. This was a disaster, she needed to fix things and fast.

[ottorocket808]

Chapter Two: The Weirdo on Maple Street

I wonder how they coaxed her back to Mikes house it was probably easier than I think because they’re also kids and it’s raining and cold because I’m pretty sure it’s November in Indiana. I’m just gonna say that the lunge clap isn’t the best way to tell if somebody is deaf I’m pretty sure they’re gonna flinch regardless because you lunged at them. 🤣🤣🤣 Modesty don’t exist where she’s from y’all cut her some slack. Wait is that blood? Wait it’s probably from her nose. I don’t even know where the nearest ‘nuthouse’ is why does Lucas? How did Dustin and Lucas both forget that they snuck out the house and therefore telling any adults right now would be a bad idea?

Yo Joyce is talkin about spending $2000-$3000 on missing posters and he’s in a different dimension and this is in 1983 that might as well be $20,000-$30,000 now I know my mom would know my voice anywhere they gotta stop doubting Joyce no matter what interference came down the line.

Hop and these pills are gettin on my nerves you are not House sir sidenote Hops reaction to Jonathan volunteering to go to his dads house felt like dick measuring why wouldn’t he want him to go looking for Will if seeing the cops would mean he runs again which means even longer until he comes home.

Don’t start shit with your little brother when he knows your boyfriend was in your room last night without your parents knowledge or consent Nancy. Sidenote it’ll never not be suspicious to hear your kids say ‘nothing’ together when you ask them a question.

I think Wills been missing for 2 or 3 days at this point where is he getting water? I’m pretty sure this kid is well on his way to dehydration on top of breathing in the toxic atmosphere of The Upside Down Will is a strong little dude.

I think I’ve spotted Els first Eggo that might be why she likes them so much Mike gave her her first one I mean Eggos are good but plain with no syrup no butter and lukewarm and she still likes them more than anything else. El’s hesitation towards telling any adults makes perfect sense after what happened to Benny.

Calling a lady crazy who’s kid just went missing feels a little insensitive I mean what did she do in regular my kid isn’t missing life that would make him say that?

Steve’s hair looks so much better but he’s kind of a dick because he invited Nancy to the ‘party’ not her and Barbara which isn’t really a problem is that he did it in front of her but if you pay attention to his ‘friends’ they aren’t any better in all honesty this is just a double date. Nancy’s little brother hangs out with Jonathan’s little brother all the time you’d think she’d stand up for him just because of that I mean she looks legit guilty listening to the others make fun of him I mean how many times has Jonathan been at her house to pick up Will?

Mike said damn goin to school I have girl who doesn’t think I’m weird at home.

I’m pretty sure this is what older siblings are for sharing music and teaching you the ropes to life and giving advice.

Jonathan also said damn goin to school

Lonnie still hasn’t made an appearance and his youngest son has been seen in 2-3 days he ain’t even called Joyce back and he knows that he’s missing and that there’s been full on search party and he’s been AWOL this whole time.

Where the hell did they find a Pinto? Joyce is kind of a boss she got a phone and a pack of camels for free and two weeks pay in advance.

Am I trippin or did the news call the power company a completely different name? If they did who are The Bad Men supposed to be pretending to be? I wonder why Hop didn’t notice the goop on the wood.

I need to know how them getting 3rd in the science fair was political what was their project? How does she know? It’s almost like she was about to start hyperventilating did she see him in her sleep because as much as the Demogorgon scared her I can’t imagine her looking for him on purpose. Was the baby not strapped into her car seat because Mikes mom got into the house way too fast.

I feel like Hop should be concerned that one of his officers was gullible enough to believe that anybody could survive that drop into cement I mean water.

Man these govt people suck Justice for Benny.

Lonnie doesn’t have a single picture of his kids in that house if he did his girlfriend would know who Jonathan is.

Shout out to Dustin for picking up on keywords like ‘Danger’ and El is racking up favorite character points with the double door slam topped off with the locked door El is in the lead as my favorite 2nd is a three way tie between Joyce Mike and Dustin.

Lonnie won’t be getting father of the year anytime soon but his car is sick 1972 Oldsmobile 442 I ain’t mad at it at all. I don’t know why people in small towns swear that people in the city are more ‘real’ you have bullshitters everywhere Lonnie should know he was fake In Hawkins and the only thing that changed was his address and the car he drives.

Barb wasn’t invited to the ‘party’ (double date) and Nancy knows this Steve said do you wanna come to my house not you guys y’all or any other variation. Nancy begging her to go and using Wills vigil as her suggested excuse says a hell of a lot about her character she knows that it’s only supposed to be the four of them because again this is a double date her making Barb be the 5th wheel so she would feel better sucks.

Mike choking on his milk cause he sees El coming down the stairs followed by Dustin’s ‘spasm is still funny but Nancy using Wills Vigil to sneak to see her boyfriend still rubs me the wrong way.

And that torn piece of El’s gown makes its appearance good eye Mr. Clarke.

The boys use so many words she doesn’t know I wonder how lost in conversation she was in the beginning. Dustin looked so grossed out by the spit swear part and I don’t blame him. El looked super suspicious of what Mike was saying about friends telling each other things that parents don’t know.

Parking 3 blocks away is a little excessive. Barb really should’ve just dropped her off and went home. Nancy should know her best friend well enough to know that parties aren’t her thing. Nancy likes to play stupid but she’s not she should’ve just gone by herself there’s nothing wrong with wanting to spend time with the guy that you like but dragging your friend along is unnecessary.

Ew Hop wears tighty whiteys wait who is that lady? So I have the subtitles on and they say her name is Sandra still don’t know who she is but at least we got a name.

El’s powers are crazy strong no wonder they want her back so badly she touches the D&D board closes her eyes for a second and knows which piece is Wills. Dustin is in the drama club? I wonder if he is a lighting and sound guy. You can tell that shit just got real to these kids.

Quick question how close do the Byers live to Steve? I mean for Jonathan to hear Carol scream it’s gotta be pretty close maybe Will had to run way farther than I originally thought. Everything about Barb screams ‘I don’t wanna be here’ shorty still has her coat on she looks extra uncomfortable you can tell this isn’t her thing Barb is a better friend than Nancy deserves. She cut her hand trying to shotgun a beer to make Nancy happy and when she goes inside looking for bandages Nancy doesn’t help she stays outside and plays with her not boyfriend and his ‘friends’ There’s a strong ass lesson about peer pressure wrapped around these five. Jonathan has gotta know that this is creepy I mean he’s hiding behind a bush damn near frantically taking pictures of the popular kids having fun how’d he switch so fast from looking for his brother to this weird shit?

This is the 2nd phone Will burnt up tryna call home man they are $30 a piece man we need a better communication attempt. Ask and ye shall receive sidenote I really do like this song I wanna learn to play the intro where is the dog I know the Demogorgon didn’t eat him but he just disappears. I feel bad for Joyce she’s always alone when the weird shit happens because the Demogorgon coming out the wall like that was some scary shit and nobody but us saw it. That’s how you know she ain’t worried about somebody running off with her whip Joyce has the doors unlocked the windows rolled down with the keys in the visor.

I don’t understand why she begged Barb to go to this thing if she was gonna have sex with Steve anyway and then talking about go home how Nancy she’s supposed to be spending the night at your house to help cover the truth about what’s going on. And Barb being half stubborn half a good friend goes down to the pool to wait for her friend to finish losing her virginity so they can go Barb should’ve gone home and ignored Nancy the next day at school. How did Jonathan not hear The Demogorgon growling or Barb scream and he was what 30 ft from the pool?

[musingsofabooklover]

The Truth About The Dark Sides

I have a theory about Sanders Sides:

Neither Dark Sides nor Light Sides really exist.

There are only Sides, and whether they’re called dark or light depends only on how Thomas perceives them. 

Let me explain. Each side, each facet of personality, however “dark” they might seem to be, provides something to the personality that would be catastrophic if taken away. We’ve seen it with Virgil before when he decided to quit. Even though anxiety is something that’s seen as scary, and if you have a lot of it, it can indeed have a big negative impact on your life, it turned out that having some sense of caution was vital to Thomas’s continued wellbeing. And I believe this is true about all of the supposedly “Dark” Sides.

Equally, all of the supposedly “Light” Sides, if they were present to a great extreme, could have unhealthy effects, and also if Thomas wasn’t as comfortable with using those aspects of his personality, the other sides might be trying to get them to go away or not listening to them.

Let’s go through each of the sides we’ve got so far:

Patton:

Good things: leads to you trying to do things that are “good” actions; stops you from being an uncaring asshole who exploits everyone, or a serial killer or whatever, or worse; also generally what drives you to try and make the world a better place.

Bad things: if your morality isn’t calibrated right, it could lead to a variety of bad effects done with good intentions. For instance, if your morality is too strict, you could turn into one of those people who tries to ban Harry Potter because they think it’ll turn all the children into devil-worshippers or something, or you could end up cutting off all your friends because you demand moral perfection. In another scenario, you could end up as a Well Intentioned Extremist who believes it’s ok to kill thousands of people if it’s for the “greater good”, because your morality was able to justify it. In a third scenario, a common moral feature amongst people who don’t value themselves much is that they should always put other people’s wants above their own wants or even needs. This is unhealthy and leads eventually to a lack of life satisfaction, a growing resentment of your own friends and family, and martyrdom, when, really, your friends and family probably didn’t WANT you to be a martyr for them and would actually like it if you did some things for yourself sometimes.

Logan:

Good things: logic enables you to take account of the facts when you make decisions, and consider what consequences are likely to follow from those facts and from decisions you take. Being out of touch with logic means the results you expect won’t follow from the things you do, because you haven’t paid attention to what’s happening.

Bad things: If you only use logic to make decisions, and ignore the more emotional sides, you will end up doing things like choosing a career entirely for the money or because you think you’d be good at it even though you hate it and find it boring or stressful, leading to unhappiness. Plus, if you’ve truly got no emotional preference and only use logic, you don’t know what to prioritise in life. How do you choose between 5 different breakfasts that are roughly nutritionally equivalent? What should you do in your free time? Is fun allowed? We saw that chart Logan came up with for how Thomas should divide his time...

Roman:

Good things: enables you to see a bunch of possibilities for how things could be. You can come up with ideas for how to spend your time, you can do creative work and hobbies of various kinds (not just the arts - anything that is innovative!), and this also seems to be where the optimism is, so you also get hope for the future. Enables you to imagine that things might go right. Encourages you to take risks, which means you don’t get stuck in a rut. Without imagination, every day would look the same.

Bad things: too much imagination/optimism at the expense of, say, logic, and you’ll get out of touch with reality. Those “positive thinking” type books that claim you can get anything you want to happen by just imagining it really hard might work to some extent, but eventually a practitioner will run into the hard facts of reality and come crashing down. If you spend too much time imagining how perfect and wonderful a romantic interest is, the reality of them as a human person with the usual quirks and annoying little habits is going to be a big disappointment. Optimism and imagination is great, but it needs to be tempered with realism. Also, if your positive imagination caused you to take too many risks, that’s called being reckless and it generally doesn’t end well.

Virgil:

Good things: applies caution and checks for danger, preventing you from being reckless. Helps you to assess future risks, so that you’re ready for them when they come along. Without caution, you will do stupid things because you don’t care.

Bad things: use too much caution and you’ll never do anything, because literally everything in the world comes with some level of risk. Either that or everything will seem equally risky, so you’ll actually do something that’s genuinely a serious risk because you couldn’t discriminate between that and something that was just a small risk. Those of you with serious anxiety probably know more than me about this section, I feel.

Deceit:

Good things: I know there’s a feeling amongst some quarters that lying is always bad, but that’s really not the case. Imagine you live under an oppressive government with really bad laws and the secret police come knocking saying, “have you seen this person?” In that case, lying and saying you don’t know who they are, or that you haven’t seen them for a month, or whatever, would be much more moral than telling them that the person’s hiding in your attic. Imagine, on a lighter note, you’re a superhero with a secret identity. If Lex Luthor asked Superman who he really was, Supes isn’t gonna tell him “Clark Kent” and lead Lex right to Jonathan and Martha. Or even imagine somebody gave you a gift that you really, really, hated, but you can tell they put thought into and they’re giving it sincerely. Do you tell them “I hate this!” and give it right back, or do you say “Thanks” and discretely take it to a charity shop later? While in most cases it’s good, honesty really isn’t a clear-cut virtue.

In addition, Deceit seems to be Thomas’s selfish instincts. Without any selfish instincts, then, as described in the section under morality, you’re gonna gradually turn into a martyr.

Bad things: If you lie all the time no one will trust you, which means no one will believe you when it counts and you actually need them to. See the story of the boy who cried wolf. If you’re too selfish, you will trample over other people’s needs in order to gain a trivial want for yourself.

Remus:

Good things: Remus seems to be great at imagining horrible, cynical things (as well as disgusting things, but anyway). This means that if you’re in a scenario, you’ve probably already thought of the worst way that things could go, which means if everything goes sort of ok, you’re not too disappointed, compared to if you’d only been imagining that things would definitely go really well. Remus seems to provide cynicism (which Virgil also feeds off). Cynicism, while not great by itself, is important as a counterbalance to Pollyanna optimism. Also, if you’re a crime novelist or something, the darker side of imagination will help you come up with some good grizzly deaths and crimes waiting to be solved.

On another note, there are certain types of recreational activity for which I doubt it’s Roman doing the imagining. ;)

Overall, without Remus, as an adult you’d come across as incredibly naive.

Bad things: Too much cynicism and imagining the worst all the time without any realism as a balance will lead to depression, as you stop being able to see the ways in which things could go right. Extreme cynicism is just as unproductive extreme optimism. And I think we saw the other negative aspects of Remus in the recent video.

So, as I said: each side has its good and bad part. It’s only how you see them that makes them light or dark.

[unfortunate-stranger-losers]

Right-Side Up AU, Part Three: It’s the End of the World {AO3} {tumblr} {Part One} {Part Two}

Chapter Two → The Radio

“Shit, shit, shit!” 

Mike rubbed his eyes as he walked down the hall, stopping at Jonathan’s door. He could hear Nancy’s muffled voice, shouting something about how they had to hurry the hell up; Mike didn’t remember her saying she was staying over last night. He knew he should probably knock on the door, but, well, he wasn’t very good at that yet, and by the time he remembered that rule had been established he was already pushing the door open. 

“Mike!” Nancy shouted. She had just thrown a dress on, shoving on a belt as she shouted. “What did we say about knocking?” 

“I forgot.” Mike admitted, noticing Jonathan on the other side of the room, also throwing on clothes. “I thought you went home last night.” 

“Yes, well, um. Decided to stay over. Surprise!” Nancy said. She gave him a smile, and continued, “But, unfortunately, we can’t do anything fun right now, because the power outage knocked out Jonathan’s alarm, we forgot to reset it, and if we don’t move we’re gonna be late for work.” 

“You hate work.” Mike said. 

“Work’s not that bad.” Jonathan said, quickly grabbing his camera bag. 

“Maybe for you.” Nancy said bitterly. “They love you.” 

“They love you!” 

“Yeah, as a coffee fetcher.” 

“Look, they’re gonna realize how great a writer you are someday-” 

“Do you want me to throw them across a room?” Mike asked. 

Nancy sighed. “No, but put a pin in that conversation. We gotta go. Tell Will we said ‘hi.’” She leaned over, giving him a kiss on the forehead, and said, “You’re taller than me now, stop it.” 

“I’m taller than everyone, I can’t control it.” 

Nancy laughed. “Alright, I’m going out the window.” 

“Why?” 

“Um, more fun.” 

“Can’t argue there.” 

Mike waved at Jonathan and Nancy, and then walked back to his room, where he’d forgotten his bag. He slung it over his shoulder, returned to the kitchen, and said, “Nancy’s climbing out the window.” 

Joyce sighed, looking up from the table, where Will was drowning his pancakes in syrup. “I wish she wouldn’t. She can just say hello.” 

“Why doesn’t she sleep over with me? My room’s big enough.” Mike said. 

Will giggled, as Joyce very slowly said, “Well, she just… wants to spend time with her boyfriend.” 

Mike nodded as he sat back down. “Like me and El.” 

“...sure.” 

Jonathan ran by, and Joyce jumped to her feet. “Oh, hey, hey! Wait up!” 

Jonathan paused, an apology in his eyes. “No, no, I’ll eat at work-” 

“No, cheek.” she laughed a little as she wiped a lipstick mark off of his face. 

He gave her a nervous smile and said, “Alright, gotta run. See you later.” 

“Alright!” Joyce turned back to the kids. “Will, slow on the syrup.” 

“Yeah, it’s my turn.” Mike took the syrup and immediately dumped it onto his eggs. 

Will glanced up towards where Jonathan disappeared. “Can you make him and Nancy stop being gross? They’re as bad as El and Mike.” 

“Shut up.” 

Joyce smiled a little. “I don’t think you’ll find it gross when you fall in love.” 

Will hesitated, before stabbing at his pancake. “Yeah. Maybe.” 

Mike gave him a curious glance, but kept quiet. 

“Now, hold on! Hold on!” 

El groaned and turned around. “Dad, this bag of shit is heavy!” 

“And Steve has to get to work, you don’t want him to be late.” Max added, tying her hair back into a ponytail; she’d recently got more used to tying it up, to keep it out of her face. 

Hopper sighed and gave them all quick looks. “I don’t want you out late in the field.” 

“Dad.” 

“Back to the Byers’ by ten, okay?” 

“Back by Dustin, got it.” Max nodded. “Can we go now?” 

“And El.” Hopper gave her a look. “Three inches.” 

El shot Max a glare, who shrugged an I didn’t tell him! shrug. “Dad, chill, it’s just Mike. What’s he gonna do? Feed me too many eggos?” 

“I trust Mike,” Hopper said, and he put a hand on his daughter’s shoulder. “I just don’t want you growing up too fast, okay?” 

“Dad, don’t be weird.” 

They heard a car horn beep from the driveway. “Great, now you pissed off Steve.” Max said. “Thanks, Hop.” 

“Stay safe.” 

“You, too.” El nodded. She and Max ran out the door, running towards the car. 

“Seriously, though, chill with Mike for today, it’s weird.” Max said. 

“You’re just mad cause you wanna date Lucas.” El said. “Seriously, Max, be more direct with your flirting. He was raised in a Lab, he doesn’t pick up on that stuff.” 

Max’s face turned as red as her hair. “I’m not flirting with Lucas. I just like hanging out with him.” 

“Sure.” 

They hopped into the backseat, where Lucas gave them a wave. El slammed her bag onto the ground as Max shut the door, and Steve said, “You know, if I’m late for work, I don’t get money, and Dustin and Lucas don’t get arcade trips.” 

“Sorry.” El huffed. “Dad was being weird about me dating again.” 

“What does that mean?” Dustin asked, as Steve pulled out of the driveway. “Why would he be weird?” 

“Because El’s not a baby anymore and has a boyfriend and keeps sucking face with him.” Max said. 

“Max, I’m going to throw you out the car window.” 

“Do it! I dare you!” 

“No one’s dying in this car while I’m driving!” Steve said. 

“Obviously she wouldn’t die in the car.” Max said. 

“No mutinies or I turn this car around and drop you off at the goddamn grocery store.” 

“I think we’re still banned from that.” Lucas said. 

“Exactly!” 

The kids burst into the Byers house just as Joyce was grabbing her things to leave. 

“Hi, Ms Byers!” El waved, running past. “Where’s my boyfriend?” 

“Will’s room.” Joyce said, smiling at the other boys. “They’re both in there. You’ll be alright?” 

“Yep! Be back before dark!” Dustin waved. 

“Won’t fall into any alternate dimensions!” Max added. 

“Call if you need anything.” Joyce nodded. “Have fun!” 

El was already gone, and the boys and Max shared a quick look before ducking into Will’s room. El was, indeed, already sitting beside Mike on the floor, the two of them locked in a kiss. Will was focused intently on his drawing, enough so that he noticed neither them nor the teens entering. 

“El, we talked about this whole ‘being gross’ thing.” Max groaned, averting her eyes to the ground. 

El flipped her off. 

Will finally noticed everyone, sitting up from his doodle of a butterfly. “Did you get it?” 

“Yeah, and we owe Mr Clarke money.” Max said. 

El pulled away from Mike, glaring at her. “We’re borrowing it.” 

“It’s a lot of shit.” 

“He said we can do it so long as we show him. He likes encouraging science, and when we told him the boys had never built a radio-” 

“This is gonna be the shit!” Lucas said. 

“We better get going, then.” Max said. “Come on. You, too, lovebirds.” 

“What, you don’t wanna draw?” Mike asked, eyes wide. 

“This radio’s gonna take some time, now move your ass!” 

“Geez, fine.” El rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to be the dictator.” 

“And you don’t have to be glued to Mike, but there ya are.” 

“Max?” Will asked, leaning on Dustin’s shoulder while they walked, “Do we have to go so far?” 

“Do you wanna carry the bag?” 

“I could carry the bag.” Mike volunteered, stretching out his hand. The bag then flew out of Max’s arms, levitating beside them. “Easy.” 

“Mike!” El giggled, though she tried to look stern. “Stop it, somebody could see!” 

“We’re going up a hill, who else is here?” Lucas shrugged. 

“I’ll just-” Mike waved his hand, and the bag flew to the top of the hill, up ahead. 

To Mike and El’s confusion, Max looked a bit annoyed. “Cool. Thanks.” she said blankly, before moving back towards Will to say something about his art. 

El glanced around the field as they finally made their way to the top. It was a bit darker than they’d thought it would be, but that was alright, they could stay out a bit late. It wasn’t as if they had anywhere to be. 

“Isn’t Summer great?” El whispered to Mike, leaning on his shoulder. “No school, so we can hang out all day.” 

“School sucks, you should stop going.” Mike said, fiddling with her hand, running his fingers inbetween hers. 

“I dunno. You might like it. You like learning.” 

“I don’t like crowds and sitting still.” 

“You liked Mr Clarke, when he met you in the store.” 

“Everyone likes Mr Clarke.” 

“He was nice at the Snow Ball.” Dustin remembered. “He told me and Lucas that we looked good.” 

“He was lying.” Max quipped, glancing back at him. 

Dustin flipped her off. “We looked great! Didn’t we, Will?” 

Will bit his lip. “I guess.” 

Dustin’s face fell slightly. “You guess? What does that mean?” 

“I don’t know what’s pretty and what’s not.” Will said quickly. “I mean, with clothes.” 

“I mean, that much is obvious.” Max rolled her eyes and elbowed him. “You still dress like Jonathan.” 

“I like looking like Jonathan.” 

“You like looking like a nerd?” 

“Yeah?” 

“What’s a nerd?” Lucas asked. 

“You all are.” Max said. “And we’re here.” 

They stopped at the top of the hill, where the bag waited, and Max spread out her arms. “Look around, my labrat friends! This is what nature looks like!” 

“I hate nature.” Lucas muttered, flopping onto the grass. “And walking.” 

“Don’t call them lab rats.” El said, leaning her chin onto Mike’s shoulder. 

“It’s alright, it’s funny, and we know she’s not being mean.” Dustin said. “When do we get started on the radio?”  

“Right now!” Max knelt down to unzip the bag. “You know, I haven’t been up here since the mall opened. It’s weird having it in the view. Right, El?” 

“Hm?” El and Mike had sat down beside each other. “Oh, yeah. I guess.” 

Max bit her lip and turned to face the other boys. “El and I would sometimes come up here when Hop needed us out of the house. Play D&D or have a picnic or throw rocks.” 

“Build radios?” Will asked, peering into the bag of supplies. 

“Not really.” Max laughed. “This is new for us, too. Right, El-? Oh, they’re making out again, okay. You boys wanna help me get this up?” 

“Of course!” Dustin beamed, racing forwards and brushing past Will to pull something out; Will backed up slightly, startled. “What’s this do?” 

“Well, that’s part of the legs- no, don’t just- lemme get the instructions Mr Clarke made us first.” She pulled out a slip of paper. “It shouldn’t be hard. Once it’s up, we can try to hack into other radio signals.” 

“To listen to people?” Dustin asked, uncertain. 

“No, no. Just find music that stations around here haven’t got.” Max said. “El and I used to talk about doing this all the time, and now we can. Isn’t that great, Ellie?” 

El didn’t respond, so Lucas said, “How do we start?” 

Max smiled at him and spread out the instructions. “Alright, so- first of all, Mike and El need to get their asses over here.” 

“Fine.” El said, her and Mike finally dragging themselves over. 

“Now,” Max said, “We start with the initial setup.” 

Melvad’s was empty again. Joyce had gotten used to this over the last few weeks, and had found new ways to occupy her time, such as fixing up old clothes for Will, or sewing an extra pillow or blanket with spare material. At the moment, she was patching up a shirt when Hopper came in. 

“I’m going to guess,” Joyce said, barely glancing up, “That you’re here to complain about our children again.” 

“I’m not complaining.” 

“They’re spending the day out again, though.” Joyce said. 

“It just worries me. I don’t like them running around without supervision.” 

“They’re fourteen, Hop, what are they gonna do?” 

Hopper smiled a little, leaning against the counter. “Well. You remember the shit we got up to when we were fourteen?” 

Joyce finally looked up, a smile brightening her face. “Okay, but we were idiots, and four out of six of them have superpowers. And two of them can kill any threat without so much as breaking a sweat.” 

Hopper sighed. “It just… you know, feels like El and Max are always gone.” 

“Well, they’re at that independent stage.” Joyce shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. I mean, we always knew this was going to happen with our kids, when they hit that age they wanna try things on their own. It’s part of being a parent.” 

“Doesn’t mean I have to like it.” 

“So long as you don’t take it out on Mike.” Joyce said. “Because Nancy might kill you.” 

“If she doesn’t kill her bosses first.” 

Joyce bit her lip. Nancy had ranted to her about the sexism she faced in the office once or twice, and she was starting to wonder if it had been appropriate to mention that to Hopper. Of course she made him swear not to bother all the editors of the paper, because she knew if she didn’t he’d burst in guns blazing and find some reason to arrest them all, and that would just cause more trouble for Nancy. She was already doing so much for them, it would be unfair to throw her under the bus like that. 

“Still, Hop, you know what Mike’s been through- what they’ve all been through. It makes sense they’re all a bit…” 

“Feral?” 

“That wasn’t the word I was looking for.” 

“Joyce, Lucas and Dustin still dig through the trash whenever they’re over to try and find ‘useful things,’ and one time I swear to God I saw Mike bark back at a dog.” 

“Oh my God.” Joyce laughed. “Are you serious?” 

“Of course I am. And that’s who El decided to date.” 

“Well, first she decided to hide him in your attic and rescue his friends from a government base, and then she decided to date him.” 

“Don’t remind me.” 

“I feel like you’re going to be reminded for the rest of your life.” Joyce hesitated, and then said, “Look, if it’s really bothering you, talk to them.” 

“It feels like every time I try I just- you’re better at words than me, why don’t you do it?” 

“Cause they’re not my kids.” Joyce said, leaning over the counter. “Listen, why don’t you write down what you’re thinking and use it as, like, a cue card? Get it all out and then you’ll remember-” 

The door swung open, then, a small bell going off. Joyce stood up and said, “Hold on, customer. Be right back!” 

She ran off to the door, smiling jovially at the woman who came in, looking for something for her son’s party. Hopper smiled after Joyce, content for the moment to just watch her. As she grinned, sunlight bouncing off her hair, he couldn’t help thinking how perfect she was. 

Max flipped a switch, and grinned as they heard some fuzzy music. “Y’all! I found another channel!” 

It was getting darker, and Lucas kept nervously checking his watch; if they were late back to the Byers’ house, they’d worry everyone. Will and Dustin were spread out on the grass, giggling and pointing towards the stars; Dustin had just gotten an astrology book, and was excitedly pointing out constellations to his friend. 

“I had no idea there were so many stars.” Will muttered. 

“I never would have thought of making shapes out of them.” Dustin said. “Who do you think was the first person to do that?” 

“I don’t know, but sometimes I like seeing things in the sky.” Will said. “Like, there- you said that was the Dragon?” 

“Draco, yeah. After the Latin name.” 

“Well it kinda looks more like… a snake. There aren’t legs, but you can see the head. And that star down there, that could make a tongue.” 

“Hey, you’re right!” 

Lucas sat beside them, pointing up. “Look at those stars.” They followed his finger, as he moved it to point out specific shapes. “It looks like a bear.” 

“Yeah!” Will nodded, sitting up a little. 

“I mean, there’s already a bear constellation.” 

“You mean the one that looks like a pot?” 

Max glanced away from the boys’ conversation, her attention drifting to Mike and El; while he braided flowers into her hair, she was making some kind of grass chain. Max moved over, saying, “Hey, mind if I join in?” 

“Not at all.” El said. She finished her chain and started tying it into a circle. “But we should probably get back soon.” 

“We only barely finished the radio, though.” Max said, starting to tie two stalks of grass together. 

“But it’s getting darker. They’ll freak, you know they will.” 

“We’re probably late.” Mike said, not sounding very concerned. 

Max sighed. “Well, maybe if you guys had been more help it would have been set up faster.” 

“We were helping.” El said. 

“Don’t fight.” Mike said, shrinking back slightly. 

“Sorry.” El turned around, putting her hand on his. She glanced at Max and said, “We can come back later. Maybe tomorrow?” 

Max bit her lip. “Sure.” 

El waited a moment, to see if she would say anything, but after a while, she tried to shrug off the awkwardness, and then put her grass chain on Mike’s head. “Grass crown for the Grass King.” she said. 

“What does a Grass King do?” Mike asked, smiling. 

“He wears grass crowns and carries his Grass Queen back down the hill.” 

“Alright, then.” Mike stood up, and El let out a delighted laugh as he picked her up. 

Max rolled her eyes. “Listen, El, just because your boyfriend is tall-” 

“Race back to the Byers, go!” El shouted, and Mike nodded at Max and took off. 

“Hey, no fair!” Max jumped to her feet. “Player Two, get back here! You have to-” she groaned. “Boys, come on, we’re racing back!” 

“Okay!” Lucas jumped to his feet, excited. “I’m faster than Mike, let’s go!” 

“Um,” Will bit his lip. “I might stay here a bit longer. Stars.” 

Dustin noticed his glance, and said, “I’ll stay with him. Make sure he doesn’t get into any trouble.” 

“Okay, but if you don’t meet us at the Byers’ in thirty minutes,” Max said, “Nancy and Hopper are gonna come up here and kill you themselves.” 

Will’s eyes widened, until he realized Max was joking. Lucas waved at him and Dustin and then ran down, grabbing Max’s hand and dragging her after the rapidly disappearing Mike and El. 

Once they were out of earshot, Dustin glanced back at Will and said, “What is it?” Will shook his head. “Come on, it’s okay. You can tell me.” 

Will sat up, shaking his head again. “It’s dumb.” 

“I doubt it.” 

Finally, Will moved over to the radio. “I was… I was hoping we could… try and call Kali. And her gang. I… I worry about them. They’re still out there alone.” 

Dustin watched him silently for a moment, and said, “That’s not dumb.” 

“But they won’t have a radio. I don’t even know where they are. I was just gonna- gonna flip through channels until I-I heard something- this is dumb.” 

“No!” Dustin scooted forwards, his eyes lighting up. “Here. Start flipping through, and I’ll try to force a vision. Maybe it’ll tell me what channel they’re on.” Will shook his head wildly. “Seriously, it’ll be fine. I’m getting better at it! I’ve been practicing when I’m bored, and I’ve been able to predict small things! Sometimes I can get the visions to tell me what I want! Let me try, okay?” 

Will hesitated. “Only if you’re okay-” 

“Of course! Come on, start flipping!” 

Will hesitated. “How- how do I do that?” 

“Shit, I forgot you don’t know… well, just gimme a moment. I’ll see something.” 

Dustin scooted back, sitting cross-legged and gripping his hands together, hmming slightly. Will’s eyes widened, and he fiddled with the grass, watching his friend try to slow his breathing and concentrate. 

After a moment, Dustin’s hands flew to the radio controls, and he started moving very fast, so fast Will blinked in amazement and leaned forwards, trying to pay attention to what he did. 

“Did you see something?” Will asked. 

“Just… a… flash…” Dustin said, very slowly. “Recently I’ve been getting small… flashes… hold on.” 

He landed on a channel, and Will said, “Is it Kali? Wilder? Mick? F-” 

“I don’t know, I just… had a flash…” Dustin leaned back. “Do you hear anything?” 

Will listened, and then slumped. “No.” 

“It- it could’ve been wrong. Or maybe the wrong time. I can try again-” 

Will shook his head. “It’s not your responsibility. Mike and I should’ve- I should’ve figured something better than just running.” 

“You were in a rush. And if you and Mike had arrived any later, we would’ve been Demodog food.” 

“Well, that was mainly Mike. I… I wasn’t useful.” 

Dustin’s eyes widened. “The hell does that mean? We were all useful! We all went into the tunnels and saved Mike!” 

“I-” 

At that moment, they heard a faint voice from the radio.

“What the…” 

Dustin moved back to the controls, adjusting them slightly. “Does that sound familiar?” Will shook his head again. It sounded male, but it didn’t sound like Funshine or Axel. In fact, it sounded like gibberish.

“Didn’t Max pack a recorder?” Dustin asked. Will nodded, and ran to the bag, which she’d forgotten beside them. He brought out the recorder, remembering her saying something about how her and El used to sing into it and maybe they could do group karaoke or something. He brought it to Dustin, who had finally gotten the voice much louder. 

And now that it was clearer, Will understood what the man was saying. He gaped, and turned to Dustin. Almost instinctively, he tapped on the side of the radio, several dots and dashes. 

Dustin nodded. “That’s Russian. Mike knows Russian, right?” 

Will shuddered, tapping out Papa taught him little. Enough? 

“Record it, we’ll see if we can have him translate when we get back.” 

Will handed him the recorder, thinking. He recognized one or two words thrown in- the boys had all been given basic Russian lessons, in case they were “needed undercover”, whatever that meant. But Mike had been given the most, because he could see people. In the Void. At least, they thought so. Mike never paraded his lessons from the Lab around, but Will remembered some of the doctors discussing “classes,” and occasionally Mike muttering words in other languages under his breath while visiting. 

Dustin was recording, so he didn’t want to speak aloud. So instead he waved his hand until Dustin looked at him, and then he tapped on the ground. A simple question: Do you really think this is important? 

Dustin responded very quickly. At least it will be interesting.

[oldtvandcomics]

Copying this in a separate post because I want it to actually show up in the tags.

@chupacabron asked:

@oldtvandcomics​ haven't seen many lone ranger fics. I barely started getting into the show. If you're still taking requests, I wouldn't mind reading a fic/character study type thing about it!

Hi, @chupacabron! Lovely request, thank you! Is it the tv series from the 50s? I hope you’ll enjoy it!!

I am a bit touchy as far as writing Lone Ranger is concerned, because while I love it very much and think that this is a story with lots and lots of potential for good, there IS a history of racism as far as the writing is concerned. So basically, I refuse to publish any fics without having somebody look it over first, and that is… A lot more difficult to arrange than I thought.

You are right, there really should be more Lone Ranger fics. Well researched and sensitivity read ones, if possible.

But that said, I can still totally tell you about the way I see the characters!

Basically, John Reid is an idiot. Everybody seems to agree there, even the dreaded 2013 movie got it right. It was about the only thing it did (if you are new, than I’m begging you, don’t watch that **@#*#!!). He’s just kind of stuck living in his own fantasy world where people are nice and want to get along. You know, a lot like Clark Kent, just maybe not quite that bad. Because this is a fairy tale, this doesn’t end in a complete disaster within a week, but the people around him actually play along. Part of this is because he is actually helpful, and also he doesn’t stay long enough and doesn’t talk about himself, so he manages to fool everyone in the short run into thinking that he is a serious person who knows what he’s doing. And he is quite clever, actually, he has got good, original ideas that work, but…

So yeah, John’s an idiot. I really love him, because I relate to him a lot.

Tonto is definitely the most interesting character in the story. For starters, he is the one who we can actually imagine staying alive on his own. He is clever, kind, a good fighter, and knows a lot about medicine and following tracks. And he’s great with children, you can tell from his interactions with Dan. He also ended up living alone in the desert with a borderline insane superhero and their two horses (all superheroes are insane, that’s just a Basic Rule), and we know from the first episode that he had been alone before. My headcanon is that he is literately unable to live in a civilised society. Maybe he has got attachment issues due to his entire tribe being killed in front of his eyes, maybe it’s just the way he is, but he couldn’t function properly in a bigger group.

I also found it incredibly interesting how my own view of Tonto changed over time. I started out as seeing him a bit dark, a bit grumpy (I partly blame the actor voicing him having a very deep voice, and also most of the time not speaking in complete sentences). The more I saw of him, the more I’m convinced that he is the nicest person ever, only really, really introverted. I don’t think that there really are any people apart from the Lone Ranger (and later Dan) he feels safe to open up to.

He obviously loves spending time with John and getting in all kinds of weird shenanigans together. My first impression was actually “that guy is only there for fun”, and I mostly maintain this opinion, only adding that with time, his relationship with John and the fact that they are helping people became very important motivations, too.

I have a lot of thoughts and feeling about Tonto.

Dan Reid, you probably haven’t met yet. I’m not talking about John’s brother, but his son, John’s nephew and Britt Reid’s father. He is a teenage sidekick. He reads therefore like pretty much every teenage sidekick Mary Sue character ever. Not that it’s a bad thing, I quite like Dan and the idea of John and Tonto raising a teenager together. Dan calls them Uncle John and Uncle Tonto, and you will not convince me otherwise. But Dan Reid only really gets interesting as an adult. He is one of the few sidekicks who actually managed to leave the superhero life behind and built himself a successful career. He is definitely the sanest person in the entire Reid family.

And the token straight one, I like to think. I adopted the headcanon that Britt is bi and in a relationship with Kato. John and Tonto, I like to headcanon both as aromantic, because I can, and also a- or bisexual, depending my mood. I also read their relationship as queerplatonic. But everybody thinks that they’re married, because this is a fairy tale and homophobia doesn’t exist.

Something I’d definitely would like to see more about is their relationship and how exactly it works, since it is an intercultural one, and that has got to be interesting. Also how it plays out on Dan’s education, and later, Britt’s. There have to be some Comanche elements that get passed down to him.

John and Tonto also move around in an interesting space between cultures, and since they are The Two Idiots Running Around Telling Everyone To Be Nice To One Another, they have to have a huge knowledge and understanding of them all. This is one of the parts where the source material gets a little problematic, so just assume that it’s a biased retelling of an outsider’s biased view of reality, and things got twisted and rewritten along the way. The Lone Ranger is, in his core, a White Saviour, so yeah, as I said, problematic per definition. I like to think that “in reality”, they are much more careful and respectful. Tonto is responsible for the communication with the First Nations, John for the one with the settlers. They both are fluent in multiple languages, at least Comanche, English, Apache, both Eastern and Western, Spanish, and some others. Among themselves, they use English and Comanche, and randomly switch around between the two.

“Kemo Sabe” (still my headcanon) is totally a made-up term, by one of Tonto’s ancestors. It kind of stuck around as term of endearment. His family has been calling their partners “Kemo Sabe” for generations, and it just felt right for him and John to use it. They both call the other so.

[tessatechaitea]

Superman: Year One: Book Three

Here's the back cover instead because I misread it as "We serve one purpose: Jesus," and I was ready to accept that.

Due to the amount of lava and debris, I would have gone with "sharts."

Superman saves Lois Lane from dying under the ocean which probably means she's going to reward him with her big city sexual prowess. But before Superman can accept his reward for being a nice guy, he has to defeat a troop of Navy SEALS who have come to capture him. So everybody's looking for Superman now because he showed off a few too many times while training in the Navy and his commanding officer became jealous that the mermaids let Clark fuck them. So Superman's big enemies are the god Poseidon and the American military, both because Lori Lemaris chose to fuck Superman instead of them. You might think I'm concentrating too much on Superman fucking the women he saved, and people being upset that they didn't get to fuck those women. If you are thinking that, it's probably because you haven't actually read Frank Miller's Superman: Year One. You'd totally understand that it's not me who is obsessed with Superman getting laid for fighting for truth, justice, and the American Way (honorably discharged version). It's apparently the entire theme of Frank Miller's Superman story. I just realized that I was going to make a Batman sucking Superman dick's joke based on the cover but then I didn't scan the cover. Oh well! Lesson learned! Any time somebody says, "Lesson learned," you should immediately ask them, "Oh? What was that then?" I bet most of the time, they won't be able to explain how they learned anything. The good thing about the cover of Book Three is that it was drawn by Frank Miller. And no matter what you think of Frank Miller's art, you have to agree (or at least better agree or we're going to have a problem) that it's better than John Romita Jr's art and better than Frank Miller's writing. After beating up the Navy SEALS and rescuing Lois Lane, Clark Kent winds up graduating from college and interning at the Daily Planet. Don't ask me what happened to Lori Lemaris and Atlantis! I guess it was such a terrible break-up that even Frank Miller doesn't want to write about it.

You can tell how dumb a person is by how much they defend Trump and blame the mainstream media. The fucking mainstream media bends over backwards not to point out just how fucking ignorant Trump is about everything!

Stepping away from the comic itself for a moment, here's what John Romita Jr had to say about this comic book after it was announced amidst a lot of "eye-rolls and groans" at San Diego Comic-Con. "The cynics that don't like my artwork or Frank's work were everywhere on the social media. Now we'll see what they have to say, because this is damn fresh, and I'm really proud of it." Well, I didn't have anything to say about it before reading it. I even bought it mostly knowing that I wasn't going to enjoy it even though I always hope that I enjoy everything I purchase as entertainment! Why else would I bother if not to hopefully be surprised and elated? Well, let me tell you, I was not surprised nor elated. Superman in the Navy might be fresh but it's also pretty fucking stupid. The whole idea was that Superman would join the Navy so he could see the world? But then he spends his entire time training in California where he learns he doesn't want to kill people after battling pirates in the Pacific waters off of the coast of California? Also he fucks mermaids during that time because why the fuck not? Now imagine reading all of that while looking at John Romita Jr's terrible facial expressions. The announcement of this comic book with this creative team should have garnered a lot more than groans and eye-rolls. There should have been jerking off motions as well. Working at the Daily Planet with Lois Lane (who, if you remember from the part where I said she wants to fuck him, wants to fuck him), Clark Kent realizes he needs a disguise. So Frank Miller makes sure to explain how the hat and glasses work as a disguise. The hat "changes his silhouette" and the glasses are just "the geek factor" he needs. The whole "dress to unimpress" angle is the disguise. Fucking bullshit. We all know that the glasses and the outfit are the least part of the disguise. He needs to discuss how he changes his posture, how he acts clumsy, how he puts on the air of naive farm boy, how he's terrible at pleasing a woman in bed. These are all aspects that work to make it unbelievable that he could be Superman. Christopher Reeves in Superman nails all of these aspects and I wish writers would be more upfront about how Clark Kent's disguise is less about the accouterments and more about the act Clark puts on. Superman begins deciding how to fight crime now that he's come to Metropolis. And his logic goes like this: "What do criminals want? Money! Where is the money? Banks!" And just like that, he becomes the protector of corporate America! He even thinks, "Never mind the third rate muggers and street swindlers." No wonder Batman doesn't respect this asshole! A third rate mugger killed Batman's parents and Superman is all, "Bah, they're harmless! Better get the guys going after the money that's insured!" Fuck this Superman! Next Superman goes after street level drug makers. That's better, I guess, but couldn't he go after the pharmaceutical industry itself?

What the fuck is "factory brand duct tape"? Having managed a warehouse on the Netscape campus back in the 90s, I'd say they should be wrapped in shrink wrap.

This morning, I discovered Carrot Cake flavored Oreos. It was nice living without diabetes but I must say goodbye to those years now. Later, Superman stops a man from abusing his wife and kids. I don't find out if she thanks him with her sex. But from what the previous chapters of this story have taught me, she did. After that, Superman frees some hostages from a hostage situation that was set-up by Lex Luthor so he could meet Superman. Lex manipulates Superman into working for him to stop Batman. Why does Lex care about Gotham and Batman? I don't know! I don't even really know how Lex manipulates Superman! And I don't think it's because I'm too stupid to follow the story. I'm pretty sure I'm smart enough to understand a comic book! But this comic book feels like a bunch of pages are missing. Hell, Superman's first words to Lex Luthor upon meeting him for the first time are "You're a damned liar!" What did he lie about? When did he ever say anything to Superman? What the fuck is going on?! Over in Gotham, Batman uses a gun. Okay. Whatever. Let's wrap this shit up.

Here's a terrible picture of Superman since I can't write about a story I can't follow.

The gist of the rest of the story is that Lex Luthor is tired of Batman and Superman foiling his crimes. So he decides to convince Superman that Batman is a jerk. After they get done killing each other, Lex Luthor will profit. Not that he isn't profiting already. But he'll profit more, I guess? Superman lands in Gotham to speak with Batman and Batman instantly tries to kill him. Oh yeah, Frank Miller totally understands these characters. Batman wants justice but is willing to kill Superman because Superman wants to talk to him. And Superman goes around doing good while constantly thinking, "I'll show them!" and "I could kill these guys!" and "Which other woman should I save so I can fuck her?" Batman tries all kinds of violence on Superman while telling Superman smarts are what counts. If only he'd use some and realize he can't hurt this guy. This might be the dumbest version of Batman I've ever seen. Eventually Wonder Woman arrives to point out to these two blockheads that maybe they should stop fighting and work together to make the world a better place. Batman is all, "Well, I can't hurt him anyway so I guess I'll work with him." And Superman is all, "How is she stronger than me? She doesn't need rescuing from anybody. Has she ever gotten laid?!" The issue basically ends with Wonder Woman telling Superman that she's ready to fuck him after he goes into space to learn to fuck (by fighting Brainiac?) and Batman telling Luthor he hopes he gets raped in prison. So exactly the way I'd expect a Frank Miller Superman comic book to end.

I wish I were right popular in high school.

Superman: Year One: Book Three Rating: What I learned from this comic book is that every woman in the DCU wants to fuck Superman and every man in the DCU is jealous of all the women Superman gets to fuck. What I also learned is that I should have read this series before purchasing Dark Knight Returns: The Golden Child. I'd still like to know what happened between Clark and Lori. I guess he just left her the same way he left Lana and the same way he left Wonder Woman (who he fell in love with immediately, I guess?).

[almostafantasia]

Lancelot (14/14) - Epilogue

Lexa Woods, an impeccably dressed British secret agent for the covert Kingsman organisation, whose latest mission sees her sneaking through the corridors of the White House in the middle of the night, finds herself having to seduce the daughter of the newly elected President of the United States in a bid to save the world. It’s a surprise to Lexa when she ends up falling for her target as fast as she does, meanwhile Clarke doesn’t expect her gorgeous date for an international political gala dinner to drag her into a world of thrill and danger where one wrong move could cause a global disaster.

a clexa kingsman au | chapter 14/14 read on ao3

EPILOGUE

“Space!”

Lexa slams on the brake at Aden’s outcry, a move so sudden that it would perhaps propel them both out of their seats and through the windscreen of her car if they weren’t crawling around a busy car park at walking pace looking for somewhere to park.

“Aden, you can’t tell me there’s a space after I’ve already driven past it,” sighs Lexa.

“Yeah, well I didn’t bloody see it until after you’d driven past it,” complains Aden, folding his arms across his chest as he slumps back into the passenger seat in a teenage sulk.

Finding a parking space at Heathrow Airport, it turns out, is actually harder than trying to figure out and put a stop to a nefarious global plot masterminded by a bitter and power hungry old woman. Lexa would much rather face down the former Azgedan royal family once again than to have to spend any longer driving in circles around the car park getting directions from a grumpy thirteen year old who seems to think he could do a better job at finding a space.

“I tell you what, Aden,” says Lexa, her voice laced with sarcasm. “Why don’t you drive next time?”

“I wish,” replies Aden, taking his phone out of his pocket and tapping away at the screen. “We would have been here like twenty minutes ago if I’d been driving. You drive like a grandma.”

“Oh, piss off.”

Aden glances up at Lexa, eyebrows raised, “I’m telling the dads you swore at me.”

“Do it, I dare you,” Lexa challenges him.

Aden falls silent and Lexa knows that she’s won. There are advantages to being the oldest child, and one of Lexa’s favourites is that ever since she’s moved out, she gets away with a lot more than she used to. At twenty two, she’s hardly going to get grounded for swearing. The same, however, cannot be said for Aden.

“Space!”

Aden’s outstretched finger points dead ahead, where another car is reversing out of a parking space. Spotting another driver eyeing up the same space, Lexa accelerates forward and swings into the empty bay almost as soon as the previous occupant has left it, then cuts the engine.

“Finally,” grumbled Aden, opening the passenger door and manoeuvring his lanky limbs out of the car, before leaning against the side of Lexa’s car, his phone still in his hand.

“Come on,” Lexa calls out to him, as she climbs out of the driver’s side and starts looking around the car park for signs to the lift. “Clarke’s plane touched down ten minutes ago. We really should get moving.”

Aden looks up from his phone and starts following Lexa.

“Oh, so now you’re in a hurry?” he snorts, though he stays close behind as Lexa speedwalks across the carpark to the lift that will take them down to the arrivals hall.

Lexa presses the button to call the lift, then takes her own phone out of her pocket. There’s a text from Clarke announcing that she’s landed and is making her way through customs, and Lexa’s heart starts fluttering in her chest with the knowledge that Clarke is so close. It’s been three months since they saw each other and Lexa has been counting down the days until their reunion since her own flight back to England from Washington D.C.

Lexa doesn’t realise that the lift has arrived until Aden gives her a nudge with his elbow.

“I thought you were in a hurry,” he teases her, eyes flickering down to the phone in Lexa’s hand.

“Shut up or I’ll just leave you at the airport instead of taking you back home.”

Lexa sees Clarke straight away, as if her eyes are magnetically drawn to Clarke as soon as she emerges from around the corner. Lexa’s heart starts doing somersaults the very moment she sees Clarke, who squints and scans the crowd waiting at the arrivals gate. Clarke’s features relax as soon as she finds Lexa’s face, and she speeds up into a faster walk, weaving in and out of the other passengers with her suitcase trailing behind her as she races to get to Lexa as fast as she can.

Clarke lets go of her suitcase as soon as she’s close enough to touch Lexa, which is exactly what she does, flinging her arms around Lexa’s neck and wrapping her legs around Lexa’s waist. Lexa staggers back a couple of steps under the weight as Clarke jumps into her arms, putting a hand under each of Clarke’s legs to support her, and buries her face into Clarke’s neck so that she can inhale Clarke’s scent.

“God, I missed you so much,” Clarke half sobs. “Come here, I want to kiss you.”

Lexa lifts her face from Clarke’s neck and lets Clarke place a hand on either side of her head as she swoops down for a kiss. Clarke’s lips are softer than Lexa remembers, yet more insistent too, kissing Lexa with an urgency that seems far too indecent for such a public place.

Not that Lexa is bothered by that. It’s been nearly three months since she last saw Clarke back in D.C. at the end of her mission in the States. Nearly three months of having to make do with texts and phone calls at strange hours that never seem quite long enough. Nearly three months of only seeing Clarke’s face through a grainy webcam or in the photo of the two of them that Lexa has set as her phone wallpaper. Nearly three months of daydreaming about Clarke at every possible moment, and of having wildly inappropriate dreams about Clarke at night, and of crying out Clarke’s name into the darkness of her empty bedroom in the dead of night as she touches herself over and over again.

Nearly three months without touching Clarke. And now that Lexa has Clarke in her arms, she wants to whisk her away somewhere secluded and only stop touching Clarke when both of them are too exhausted to be able to keep going.

Except that she can’t, because they’re in public, and Lexa’s thirteen year-old brother is right there next to them.

“Gross!” exclaims Aden. “I didn’t come here to watch you two get off with each other.”

Lexa reluctantly pulls back from their kiss and Clarke untangles her legs from around Lexa’s waist so that Lexa can lower her to the ground again.

“Why did you even come here?” Lexa asks Aden, her hand grappling for Clarke’s and knotting their fingers together. “You’ve done nothing but complain so far.”

“Because I wasn’t sure if I should believe you when you said you had a girlfriend, and I definitely thought you were lying about her being Clarke Griffin.”

“Hi,” says Clarke, greeting Aden with a smile. “You must be Aden.”

Aden stops bickering with Lexa as soon as Clarke addresses him, wide-eyed and apparently speechless now that she’s looking at him. His gaze drops, ogling the low ‘v’ of the loose t-shirt Clarke travelled in without even a trace of subtlety.

“Her eyes are up here, pervert,” says Lexa, giving Aden a prod with one of her fingers.

“Sorry,” mumbles Aden, glancing away as a pink flush of embarrassment glows on his cheeks.

“No need to say sorry,” says Clarke. “I think it’s cute.”

Aden’s head snaps up and a slow, almost dumbstruck smile spreads across his face.

“She thinks I’m cute,” he says breathlessly. “Clarke Griffin thinks I’m cute.”

“Okay, stud,” says Lexa, rolling her eyes. “She’s just saying that to be nice.”

“Oh, are you getting jealous?” teases Clarke, her fingers squeezing Lexa’s reassuringly. “You’re pretty cute too, you know.”

Lexa smiles bashfully, then says, “Right back at you.”

“Guys, I’m right here!” complains Aden, startling them both to attention before they can even think about leaning in for another kiss.

“Aden, make yourself useful and grab Clarke’s suitcase,” Lexa instructs her little brother. She turns to Clarke and presses a tender kiss to Clarke’s cheek, then whispers, “Let’s get you home.”

“I’m terrified,” admits Lexa.

Parked on the driveway of Lexa’s family home in rural Oxfordshire, they sit in the two front seats of Lexa’s car, neither one making any move to get out.

“You’re terrified?” Clarke asks surprisedly. “I’m the one meeting your parents.”

“Yeah, my parents,” explains Lexa, reaching across the central console to rest her hand over Clarke’s. “I’ve never brought somebody home to meet them before. What if they completely embarrass me and scare you away? Oh my god, what if Maxwell doesn’t like you?”

“Your dog? Is that … is that likely?”

Clarke completely forgets that they aren’t the only two in the car until Aden speaks up from the back seat.

“Can you two, like, have your gay panic after you’ve let me get out?” he complains, tapping Lexa on the shoulder from behind. “Also, Maxwell likes anybody who gives him treats and belly rubs.”

Lexa opens the door on the driver’s side of the car and steps out, pulling the switch that tilts her seat forward far enough for Aden to be able to awkwardly maneuver his long limbs through the gap and out of the car. Getting out of her own side of the car, Clarke shuts the door behind her and moves round towards the trunk to fetch her suitcase.

“Okay,” she says, as Lexa pops open the trunk and reaches inside to haul out Clarke’s bags, “so treats and belly rubs for Maxwell. Any tricks for winning over your dads?”

“Just be yourself,” says Lexa, placing Clarke’s suitcase down on the gravel driveway with a gentle thud, before she seeks out Clarke’s waist with both of her hands and pulls her in close. “If I like you, then they’ll like you too.”

“Do you like me?” Clarke asks coyly, already knowing the answer but wanting to hear it from Lexa’s lips anyway.

Lexa’s mouth curls up into a shy smile, and she answers, “A little.”

“Only a little?” Clarke mock gasps, pretending to be offended.

“Okay, a lot,” concedes Lexa, pulling Clarke in tighter, as if afraid that she might run away. “Let me show you how much.”

Clarke leans in and meets Lexa halfway, only too happy after months apart to spend as much time as she can kissing those beautiful lips. She drapes both arms around Lexa’s neck and lets herself fall into the kiss. There aren’t the words to explain how much Clarke has missed Lexa, missed this, while they’ve been apart, but they have the next three weeks in England to make up for all that lost time.

Starting right now. Clarke pulls Lexa impossibly closer and briefly wonders if it would be wildly inappropriate to push Lexa against her car to make out with her properly.

Clarke doesn’t get the chance to make that decision because they’re interrupted by an amused voice calling out from the direction of the house.

“Hey, Peanut! Do we not get to meet your girlfriend before you kiss her on our drive?”

As Clarke detaches her lips from Lexa’s, though she keeps her arms draped loosely around Lexa’s shoulders, her heart does a nervous little flip at the word ‘girlfriend’. It’s not that they aren’t together - or at least as together as two people can be when there’s an ocean and a five hour time difference between them - but that they haven’t yet had that conversation. It’s much easier to let the ‘I miss you’s devolve into steamy bouts of phone sex than to try and have a real conversation about putting labels on a relationship that sometimes feels like it must be too good to be true.

Now doesn’t seem like the right time for that conversation either. Not when there are two dads waiting to meet Clarke and an impatient thirteen year-old lurking on the other side of the car. So Clarke chooses to deflect things away from the word ‘girlfriend’ and onto another word that whichever one of Lexa’s dads heckled them from the front door decided to use.

“Peanut?”

“So embarrassing,” whines Lexa, a pretty pink flush decorating her cheeks.

“It’s cute,” counters Clarke, before she asks, “Are you going to introduce me?”

Lexa nods and disentangles herself from Clarke’s embrace, reaching for one of Clarke’s hands before she starts leading Clarke around the car and towards the front door.

Lexa’s family live in adorably quaint cottage that looks like it’s stepped right off a postcard. Clarke didn’t realise that homes like this actually existed - a rustic stone exterior, vines creeping up the sides of the house and curling around windows and drainpipes, with a lush green garden that seems to be sprouting every flower that could possibly exist. It’s so far removed from Clarke’s own life, from both the bustling college campus where she spends most of her time and the high fences and armed security guards of the White House, but it’s so incredibly British and Clarke loves it.

Clarke nearly trips over her own feet when she sees the two men standing in the front door, awaiting her arrival. Because the house may not have been what she expected, but it still makes sense, whereas Lexa’s dads are the absolute opposite of what she ever imagined they might be.

They’re both huge, is Clarke’s first impression. Two veritable giants of men, with hulking figures and thick tattooed arms and some very impressive facial hair, and it all has Clarke thinking that they could both have just stepped off a Viking longboat, if it were not for their complexions that are too dark to be Scandinavian.

“Clarke,” says one of the dads. “Come on in and make yourself at home, pet.”

“This is my Pops, Nyko,” says Lexa, gesturing to the man who has just spoken, then turns to the other of her dads. “And this is Gustus - or Dad.”

“It’s so nice to meet you both,” says Clarke, offering out her hand.

“We don’t do that here,” says Gustus. “You’re part of the family, come and have a hug.”

Clarke finds herself being swallowed up in a hug, with two pair of muscular arms wrapped around both herself and Lexa. The dads hold them both for a few seconds and it’s a little weird to be embraced by two men that she hardly knows, but she knows that it’s with good intentions and she does immediately feel like she’s welcome in their home.

As they drop their arms and release the two girls from the hug, Aden drags Clarke’s suitcase up to the front door and hauls it up the steps and over the threshold into the house.

“There you go, Clarke,” he says brightly.

“Thanks, Aden.”

Both dads look surprisedly between Aden and the girls, but it’s Nyko who addresses Lexa.

“Did you leave your brother at the airport and bring home somebody else’s thirteen year-old?” he asks.

“He’s got a schoolboy crush on Clarke,” explains Lexa.

“Bore off!” growls Aden.

“And there he is!” grins Nyko.

Nyko reaches out and ruffles Aden’s hair, and Aden ducks out of the way with an incoherent grumble, lifting his hands to fix his hair. His cheeks are pink, and Clarke can’t help but smile to herself as she is immediately reminded of Lexa, and the flush that rises to her cheeks when Clarke catches her off guard with a compliment or a flirtatious comment. It amuses Clarke that she seems to have had both Woods siblings wrapped around her little finger within moments of meeting them, but she finds it nothing more or less than plain sweet that Aden has a soft spot for her.

“Come in, girls,” says Gustus, stepping aside so that they can enter the cottage.

They’re immediately greeted by another member of Lexa’s family. A dark mass comes bounding down the hallway, which Clarke quickly realises is Lexa’s dog Maxwell, and he jumps up in front of Lexa, barking excitedly.

“Whoa!” says Lexa. “Steady, Max. Down, boy.”

Maxwell stops trying to jump up, but he still runs back and forth in front of Lexa, tail wagging with excitement.

“Maxwell!” says Lexa, her voice a little sterner. “Sit!”

Maxwell’s ears prick up as soon as he hears his name, and he obediently drops into a seated position, head tilted slightly to the side and tongue hanging out of his mouth as he pants noisily.

“Good boy!”

Lexa drops to her knees and rewards Maxwell with a good scratch behind his ears. He immediately rolls over onto his back, his paws brought up to his neck, exposing his long torso for a rub. Lexa indulges him, using both hands to scratch lovingly at his belly.

Lifting her head to look up at Clarke, Lexa says, “So, this is Max. He’s basically a giant puppy.”

Clarke crouches down beside the German Shepherd and tentatively offers out a hand. Maxwell tilts his head enough to be able to sniff Clarke’s fingers, curious about this new stranger in his home, but he almost immediately relaxes again, resting one of his paws over Clarke’s hand and using it to try and drag her hand onto his stomach, as if Lexa’s two hands treating him to a belly rub just aren’t enough.

“Aww,” says Clarke, gently scratching Maxwell exactly where he wants her to. “He’s very clever.” Clarke softens her voice, and coos, for Maxwell’s benefit, “Such a good boy.”

“He’s very spoilt,” Lexa corrects, with a glance up at her dads, though she continues to smile and reward Maxwell.

“Just look at his eyes,” says Nyko. “How can you say no to those?”

Lexa stands up again, much to Maxwell’s disappointment, and Clarke gives him one final scratch out of sympathy for the whine he gives out before standing too.

“I’m going to show Clarke to my room and get her settled in,” Lexa explains to the rest of the family.

“It’s lovely meeting you, Clarke,” says Gustus. “Give us a shout if there’s anything you need.”

“Thank you so much,” smiles Clarke.

She makes to reach for her suitcase, which Aden has brought into the hallway, but Lexa steps forward and gets there first.

“Let me.”

“How chivalrous of you,” teases Clarke.

In the end it takes both of them to get Clarke’s huge suitcase up the narrow stairs leading to the upper floor of the cottage. Lexa does most of the work, hauling it up by it’s handle, while Clarke stands below and helps guide it around the corner and up onto the landing.

“How much stuff have you brought?” jokes Lexa, dropping the suitcase with a thud when they get to the top of the stairs, before she wheels it across the landing and towards a door with a crooked handmade sign reading Lexa’s room.

“Stop it,” replies Clarke, rolling her eyes playfully. “Do you want me to run out of clothes while I’m here? Wait -” Clarke could kick herself as soon as she realises what she’s just said, especially when Lexa shoots her a suggestive smile, “Don’t answer that.”

Lexa’s bedroom is just as quaint as the rest of the house, if not more so. There’s a slanting ceiling from where the roof meets the house, supported by wooden beams that stretch from one end of the room to the other. The room looks like it belongs to a teenage girl, and Clarke imagines a younger Lexa trying to make her room just perfect. The bedcovers are a soft blue colour, with a string of fairy lights hanging above the bed and a selection of candles littering the top of both the dresser and the corner of the desk under the window. There’s a tall bookshelf in the corner, crammed with so many books that some have had to be piled up in front of the others, too many to fit in neat rows on the shelf.

Clarke’s eyes are immediately drawn to a large photograph that hangs in a frame on the wall. At first, Clarke thinks it’s a photo of Lexa and a young toddler, but then she starts to notice the differences. The woman’s eyes are too light, greyish-blue instead of green, her face is slightly rounder than Lexa’s, her hair a shade lighter, and it’s only when Clarke’s eyes drop to the little girl in the photo and recognises her immediately, that she realises who the woman is.

“Your mom?” asks Clarke.

She phrased it hesitantly, caught between not wanting to pry into a relationship that Lexa probably hardly remembers, and wanting Lexa to feel able to open up to her about anything.

“Yeah,” replies Lexa.

“She’s beautiful,” Clarke tells Lexa. “She looks just like you.”

Lexa’s eyes widen, full of hope, and she says, “You think so?”

“Yeah. Do you miss her?”

Lexa hesitates before she answers, just long enough for Clarke to start regretting even asking, but when she does reply she doesn’t seem upset or angered by the question.

“I think that sometimes I miss the idea of her,” Lexa admits honestly. “It’s hard to miss her when I barely remember her, and especially when I’ve got two such amazing dads.”

“They really are great!” agrees Clarke, latching onto the opportunity to steer the conversation away from Lexa’s mom before she pushes and pries too far.

“Aren’t they just?” says Lexa, with a content sigh.

“They’re … they’re not at all what I expected,” admits Clarke. “I feel so bad - in my head I was expecting one or both of them to be a stereotype. But they both look like they’ve stepped right out of a motorcycle gang.”

Lexa grins, and then says, “They actually met at a biker rally. But they’re both huge softies. Dad keeps bees and Pops has a chihuahua that he crochets sweaters for. They’re like a pair of grandpas, honestly.”

Clarke can feel her heart melting just a little bit more with each word that Lexa says.

“I love them already,” confesses Clarke, making a mental note to express her appreciation of the dads to their faces later tonight. “And they’ve been so welcoming.”

“I think they love you too,” Lexa tells her. “I wouldn’t be surprised if one of them pulls me aside tonight and begs me to propose to you right now.”

“After knowing each other for three months?” gasps Clarke, feigning shock. “I’m pretty sure that would make us the stereotypes.”

It’s a whirlwind of an evening.

Clarke takes a shower to freshen up after her transatlantic flight, and then Lexa’s family jump right into making sure she feels at home. She meets Delilah the chihuahua, who wears a hand-crocheted sweater and is by the far the biggest diva in the house, then gets led out into the garden so that Gustus can show her the fruit he’s growing in the greenhouse as well as his four beehives. And after turning down a third helping of spaghetti and homemade meatballs, somebody produces a board game from seemingly nowhere and Clarke finds herself trying to reign in her competitiveness while Maxwell sits at her feet and Lexa’s thumb traces patterns across the back of her hand.

It’s so far removed from Clarke’s normal life as the First Daughter of the United States, but she thinks she could get used to this, to being a permanent fixture in Lexa’s life, to domesticity and dogs and dads.

Aden triumphs and is declared the winner of the game (both Lexa and Gustus make accusations of cheating and Clarke is struck by their obvious similarities, only falling more in love with this odd little family with each second she spends in their house) and then Lexa excuses them both to bed, yawning exaggeratedly to fake her own tiredness to give Clarke a reason to bid her goodnight and head upstairs too.

Clarke doesn’t realise how tired she actually is until she makes it to Lexa’s room. The time difference means that it’s still the afternoon back at home in America, but after an overnight flight with very little sleep on the plane, Clarke is starting to feel the effects catch up with her. Her eyelids are heavy and her entire body aches with exhaustion, and now that she can see Lexa’s bed, Clarke wants nothing more than to lose herself in that mound of pillows and wake up in twelve hours time feeling refreshed.

But it’s been nearly three months apart, and there’s also a really gorgeous girl at her side that Clarke would quite like to lose herself in too.

“I didn’t think it possible, but you’re even prettier than I remember you being,” says Clarke, wrapping her arms around Lexa’s waist to draw her closer.

Lexa takes the bait and dips her head, capturing Clarke’s mouth in a soft kiss. And it’s nice, more than nice, but Clarke hasn’t been waiting three months to be kissed softly. She wants Lexa to kiss her like she means it, and then throw her down on the bed and make her moan until she can no longer remember her own name.

But when she tries to deepen the kiss, flicking her tongue against Lexa’s in a silent request for more, Lexa is having none of it.

“You must be exhausted,” Lexa mumbles against Clarke’s mouth.

“Not too exhausted for you,” replies Clarke, lifting one of her hands up to cup the back of Lexa’s head in an attempt to bring Lexa’s lips back to her own.

“Baby, I want this, but I’m still going to be here in the morning,” says Lexa, hands squeezing Clarke’s hips in a reassurance that she isn’t blowing her off because she doesn’t actually want this. “You’ve been suppressing yawns since dinner. You need to sleep.”

Clarke is disappointed, but she understands, and her body betrays her with another lurching yawn.

“I think you’re seriously underestimating how much I’ve missed you because I’m pretty sure I’d be done in less than two minutes,” jokes Clarke.

“Three months,” says Lexa. “We can wait twelve more hours.”

“I’m going to be all over you the second you wake up,” promises Clarke, extracting herself from Lexa’s arms and bending down to rifle through her suitcase for a pair of sleep shorts and an oversized college tee.

“Can’t wait,” grins Lexa.

As it turns out, they can’t wait until morning.

They do manage to get a little bit of sleep. Lexa gets woken by Clarke rolling over to face her in the middle of the night, and when she blinks her eyes open to find Clarke’s face inches from her own, sleepily peering at her through the darkness, it takes them all of about five seconds before Lexa’s mouth is on Clarke’s and her hand is between Clarke’s legs.

When they’re finally done, after two orgasms apiece, Lexa tucks herself into Clarke’s side and drapes an arm across Clarke’s stomach.

“Is it a cliche for me to say that I’ve missed you right after sex?” says Lexa, as she tries to catch her breath back.

“Probably,” says Clarke, laughing softly. “But that doesn’t mean that it can’t be true.”

Clarke wraps both of her arms around Lexa and holds her tight, and Lexa has to try really hard not to cry at how nice it is to be held like this after three months of only being able to imagine it.

“You know what Dad shouted at us when we were kissing on the drive earlier?” Lexa mumbles against Clarke’s collar bone. “When he called you my girlfriend?”

“Mmm?” hums Clarke in response.

“Are you my girlfriend?”

Lexa’s heart pounds against her ribcage as she asks her question, and the way that their bodies are tangled together surely means that Clarke can feel it too.

“Are you asking me to be your girlfriend?” Clarke asks, a hint of amusement in her voice.

“Well, I wasn’t sure if we already were, or not,” admits Lexa. “Because we agreed to be together and to not see anybody else but we also never put a label on it. And part of that was because I was scared that we weren’t going to make the distance thing work, but we are making it work and I would really like to have permission to refer to you as my girlfriend…”

“Permission,” laughs Clarke, pressing a kiss to the top of Lexa’s head as her arms squeeze her a little bit tighter. “You have my permission. I’d really like to be your girlfriend, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Okay,” Lexa exhales in relief and pushes herself up on one arm so that she can look at Clarke’s face. “Good. I’d like that.”

“You are really bad at this whole seduction thing,” Clarke teases her. “Like completely useless.”

“Hey!” pouts Lexa, flopping down onto the pillow next to Clarke. “You fell for me, so I can’t be that bad.”

Clarke considers this for a few moments, then replies, “True. And I’m so glad that I did.”

[itsblosseybitch]

Off-Hollywood Producers: Interviews with Griffin Dunne & Amy Robinson by Clarke Taylor (Sept 1985; Part 2)

Question: You and Griffin Dunne have worked independently of the Hollywood studio system, and at the same time you’ve worked with the studios. Do you see yourselves as independents?

Amy Robinson: We haven’t thought of ourselves as being “independent” or not “independent,” and I think this has probably saved us. First of all, no one in the film business is totally independent, because it takes money to make movies. Whether it’s a rich relative or a studio, you’re going to be in business with somebody. Also, we’ve never wanted to be independent for the sake of it. There’s no percentage in that. The fact is, the studios have savvy, especially when it comes to marketing, and we’re happy to benefit from their expertise. I think we’ve become much less defensive than we were at first, when dealing with the studios; much more open-minded and willing to listen. We still try to have eyes in the back of our head, but we don’t so much think that the studios are out to get our movies. I think this is because we feel more secure; we’ve established our independence.

Question: Good point. How  have you established it?

Robinson: The trick is to find empathy and sympathy, to have smarts about what you’re doing, and to be willing to spend two years of your life on a movie. Also, you have to be willing to go only so far by way of compromise; you have to be willing to walk away.

Question: When you started out, however, you had relatively few “smarts” about producing, and very little experience in the film business. How did you set out to get your feet in the door?

Robinson: We’ve simply taken one step at a time, and if you take one step at a time, you don’t think in terms of the process being an overwhelming Mt. Everest that cannot be conquered. Also, we didn’t start out thinking, How can we break into Hollywood, but, rather, How can we make this low-budget movie, Chilly Scenes of Winter? We asked a lot of nuts-and-bolts-type-questions. We had some connections to the business, especially on the creative side, and we used them to gain relatively easy access to the people at the studios. Also, when we first went out to Hollywood, it wasn’t as though we were producers in from Tennessee, naive and empty-handed. We had a book by a rising literary star, Ann Beattie. And we didn’t carry on as though we were people we were not; we didn’t ride around in a Mercedes and rent a big house, in order to live up to some image. We had no pretenses.

Question: You make it sound very easy.

Robinson: It’s not so difficult, when you go out to Hollywood, to get led into the stream of things. People start saying, “Go call so-and-so.” And people are looking around to take a risk; in this sense, it’s not a button-down, corporate structure. I think it helps being new to town, not part of the old-boy network. Other independents could take advantage of this, but I’m not sure they try. It’s an industry looking for product and for independent producers with ideas.

Question: Do you think there was anything about the climate surrounding the film industry at the time you arrived that helped things click for you?

Robinson: We were in the right place at the right time, yes. We not only had a book by Ann Beattie, we also had Joan Micklin Silver to direct at a time when there was interest in “women’s films.” With Baby, It’s You, we had the advantage of knowing John Sayles before the success of Return of the Secaucus Seven. We also came along at a time when small, personal, independent films started coming into vogue, and when the “auteur” director and runaway, big-budget films were definitely not in vogue.

Question: It’s been said that there is a trend toward the so-called creative producer.

Robinson: Yes. We started it! We came from the creative side of the business, from the side where you’re least powerful, as actors, and I think this remains our strongest suit as producers. And we have maintained creative freedom  on all our films--freedom, not control. The studios had the right of final cut on our first two films, and Marty [Scorcese] maintains absolute, final cut on all of his films. There’s always somebody with final veto power. But we’ve been hands-on producers when it comes to the material, the director, casting, the script, day-to-day production of the film, editing, and even marketing.

Question: What has enabled you to maintain even this much control?

Robinson: We can do this because our projects do not cost a great deal of money, and because we’ve turned in films without causing problems to the studios.

Question: You haven’t always said the same for the studios. You have publicly stated your complaints about the way in which United Artists initially handled Chilly Scenes, including a title change and a change in the ending of the film, and you said at the same time of the release of Baby, It’s You  that Paramount could have marketed the film to a better advantage. What were the problems?

Robinson: Well, we certainly expected better from both films; we never intended them to be “art-house” films, but to be seen by a lot of people. I think Chilly Scenes was ahead of its time, and Baby, It’s You came out before the onslaught of “kids’ film.” Also, the word “marketing” wasn’t even in our vocabulary at the time of Chilly Scenes. We’ve learned a lot. But I think the primary problem was that neither film had strong support at the studios. Chilly Scenes was pushed through at UA by Claire Townsend, an advocate of ours who was then at the studio. And there was a lot of shakiness at Paramount about the Sayles film. You have to have more support than this at the studio. This is why we think we have our best shot to date with After Hours, because David Geffen loves the film and sees great marketing possibilities, and Warners seems to love it and understand it, too.

Question: You chose not to go the studio route with After Hours. Why?

Robinson: One thing I’m damned sure of is that if you’re going to make a totally studio-financed movie, it had better fit into a category: “kids’ movie,” “comedy,” “love story,” “science fiction.” If it doesn’t, it’s going to be very hard for the studios to understand, market, and distribute the movie. And one of the problems with the kinds of movies we have been making is that they don’t fit neatly into a category. They might be called “quirky,” “urban,” or a lot of other things.

Question: What about After Hours?

Robinson: As soon as I read the script, by Joe Minion, I loved it and saw it as a perfect vehicle for Griffin. But it never occurred to me to take it to a studio for financing, because it was too offbeat. It was unique, in tone, dialogue, behavior. I knew it would be easier for a studio to see a marketing angle once it had been completed and could be seen. Otherwise, they would be reluctant, because there would be a lot of guesswork involved.

After all, they’re in a business, and with millions of dollars at stake they have a certain responsibility. Besides, in order to make the film with a studio we would have had to spend far more money than we thought necessary, and then run the risk of falling short of making the movie pay off.

Question: What do you mean? Don’t you go in expecting the movie to be successful?

Robinson: Yes, of course, but in relative terms, and this is what the studios don’t or can’t seem to see. David Geffen realizes what the studios do not: that if you can make a movie on less money, you can make more money. There aren’t $100 million worth of tickets in this movie: everyone  in the country is not going to see it. But a lot  of people will. Thus we don’t have to compromise our material to appeal to one hundred percent of the movie-going public.

Question: What made you think you could make the movie work on a low budget?

Robinson: We knew that Marty’s involvement we could assemble a cast we wanted. We arranged it so nobody, except Griffin, had to work more than two weeks, and everybody  worked for very little money plus a percentage of the profits. Also, by shooting the film in New York with a NABET crew, as opposed to an IA studio crew, we could shoot it for far less money.

Question: Was there any concern about maintaining creative freedom as producers, with a strong, one might say auteur, director like Scorcese?

Robinson: First of all, Marty agreed with us completely about the film we wanted to make. He has very strong ideas, but I like that, because I have very strong ideas.

Question: Do you plan to continue the way you have been going, independent of the studio system, and yet a part of it? Do you think you can keep your foot in the door?

Robinson: It’s a strange and in some ways very individual business. You can catch someone’s attention with your vision as well as with power, because, as I said at the start, everybody’s always looking around to take a risk. Power and vision are the two most important elements to getting in the studio doors. Either you’re very powerful--you’re Robert Redford or Warren Beatty--and they want you, or you’re able to ignite somebody’s imagination about the movie you’ve made, or want to make, and they will take it, or make it.