#except there is. because he's danny partner in every meaning and that's Danny’s baby (not Stan's)

[trickster-archangel]

@five-wow hid another meta in the tags

2.14, in which Steve spends a consecutive eight seconds of screentime heart eying at Danny for being ridiculously kind and decent and good

Also known as an average day in the life of Steve McGarrett, I suppose.

[ladydarklord]

The Mighty Boosh on the business of being silly

The Times, November 15 2008

What began as a cult cocktail of daft poems, surreal characters and fantastical storylines has turned into the comedy juggernaut that is the Mighty Boosh. Janice Turner hangs out with creators Noel Fielding, Julian Barratt and the extended Boosh family to discuss the serious business of being silly

In the thin drizzle of a Monday night in Sheffield, a crowd of young women are waiting for the Mighty Boosh or, more precisely, one half of it. Big-boned Yorkshire lasses, jacketless and unshivering despite the autumn nip, they look ready to devour the object of their desire, the fey, androgynous Noel Fielding, if he puts a lamé boot outside the stage door. “Ooh, I do love a man in eyeliner,” sighs Natalie from Rotherham. She’ll be throwing sickies at work to see the Boosh show 13 times on their tour, plus attend the Boosh after-show parties and Boosh book signings. “My life is dead dull without them,” she says.

Nearby, mobiles primed, a pair of sixth-formers trade favourite Boosh lines. “What is your name?” asks Jessica. “I go by many names, sir,” Victoria replies portentously. A prison warden called Davena survives long days with high-security villains intoning, “It’s an outrage!” in the gravelly voice of Boosh character Tony Harrison, a being whose head is a testicle.

Apart from Fielding, what they all love most about the Boosh is that half their mates don’t get it. They see a bloke in a gorilla suit, a shaman called Naboo, silly rhymes about soup, stories involving shipwrecked men seducing coconuts “and they’re like, ‘This is bloody rubbish,’” says Jessica. “So you feel special because you do get it. You’re part of a club.”

Except the Mighty Boosh club is now more like a movement. What began as an Edinburgh fringe show starring Fielding and his partner Julian Barratt and later became an obscure BBC3 series has grown into a box-set flogging, mega-merchandising, 80-date touring Boosh inc. There was a Boosh festival last summer, now talk of a Boosh movie and Boosh in America. An impasse seems to have been reached: either the Boosh will expand globally or, like other mass comedy cults before it – Vic and Bob, Newman and Baddiel – slowly begin to deflate.

But for the moment, the fans still wait in the rain for heroes who’ve already left the building. I find the Boosh gang gathered in their hotel bar, high on post-gig adrenalin. Barratt, blokishly handsome with his ring-master moustache, if a tad paunchy these days, blends in with the crew. But Fielding is never truly “off”. All day he has been channelling A Clockwork Orange in thick black eyeliner (now smudged into panda rings) and a bowler hat, which he wears with polka-dot leggings, gold boots and a long, neon-green fur-collared PVC trenchcoat. He has, as those women outside put it, “something about him”: a carefully-wrought rock-god danger mixed with an amiable sweetness. Sexy yet approachable. Which is why, perched on a barstool, is a great slab of security called Danny.

“He stops people getting in our faces,” says Fielding. “He does massive stars like P. Diddy and Madonna and he says that considering how we’re viewed in the media as a cult phenomenon, we get much more attention in the street than, say, Girls Aloud. Danny says we’re on the same level as Russell Brand, who can’t walk from the door to the car without ten people speaking to him.”

This barometer of fame appears to fascinate and thrill Fielding. Although he complains he can’t eat dinner with his girlfriend (Dee Plume from the band Robots in Disguise) unmolested, he parties hard and publicly with paparazzi-magnets like Courtney Love and Amy Winehouse. He claims he’s tried wearing a baseball cap but fans still recognise him. Hearing this, Julian Barratt smiles wryly: “Noel is never going to dress down.”

It is clear on meeting them that their Boosh characters Vince Noir (Fielding), the narcissistic extrovert, and Howard Moon (Barratt), the serious, socially awkward jazz obsessive, are comic exaggerations of their own personalities. At the afternoon photo shoot, Fielding breaks free of the hair and make-up lady, sprays most of a can of Elnett on to his Bolan feather-cut and teases it to his satisfaction. Very Vince. “It is an art-life crossover,” says Barratt.

At 40, five years older than Fielding, Barratt exhibits the profound weariness of a man trying to balance a five-month national tour with new-fatherhood. After every Saturday night show he returns home to his 18-month-old twins, Arthur and Walter, and his partner Julia Davis (the creator-star of Nighty Night) and today he was up at 5am pushing a pram on Hampstead Heath before taking the train north to rejoin the Boosh. “I go back so the boys remember who I am. But it’s harder to leave them every time,” he says. “It is totally schizophrenic, totally opposite mental states: all this self-obsession and then them.”

About two nights a week on tour, Fielding doesn’t go to bed, parties through the night and performs the next evening having not slept at all. Barratt often retreats to his room to plough through box sets of The Wire. “It’s a bit gritty, but that is in itself an escape, because what we do is so fantastical.”

But mostly it is hard to resist the instant party provided by a large cast, crew and band. Indeed, drinking with them, it appears Fielding and Barratt are but the most famous members of a close collective of artists, musicians and old mates. Fielding’s brother Michael, who previously worked in a bowling alley, plays Naboo the shaman. “He is late every single day,” complains Noel. “He’s mad and useless, but I’m quite protective of him, quite parental.” Michael is always arguing with Bollo the gorilla, aka Fielding’s best mate, Dave Brown, a graphic artist relieved to remove his costume – “It’s so hot in there I fear I may never father children” – to design the Boosh book. One of the lighting crew worked as male nanny to Barratt’s twins and was in Michael’s class at school: “The first time I met you,” he says to Noel, “you gave me a dead arm.” “You were 9,” Fielding replies. “And you were messing with my stuff.”

This gang aren’t hangers-on but the wellspring of the Boosh’s originality and its strange, homespun, degree-show aesthetic: a character called Mr Susan is made out of chamois leathers, the Hitcher has a giant Polo Mint for an eye. When they need a tour poster they ignore the promoter’s suggestions and call in their old mate, Nige.

Fielding and Barratt met ten years ago at a comedy night in a North London pub. The former had just left Croydon Art College, the latter had dropped out of an American Studies degree at Reading to try stand-up, although he was so terrified at his first gig that he ran off stage and had to be dragged back by the compere.

While superficially different, their childhoods have a common theme: both had artistic, bohemian parents who exercised benign neglect. Fielding’s folks were only 17 when he was born: “They were just kids really. Hippies. Though more into Black Sabbath and Led Zep. There were lots of parties and crazy times. They loved dressing up. And there was a big gap between me and my brother – about nine years – so I was an only child for a long time, hanging out with them, lots of weird stuff going on.

“The great thing about my mum and dad is they let me do anything I wanted as a kid as long as I wasn’t misbehaving. I could eat and go to bed when I liked. I used to spend a lot of time drawing and painting and reading. In my own world, I guess.”

Growing up in Mitcham, South London, his father was a postmaster, while his mother now works for the Home Office. Work was merely the means to fund a good time. “When your dad is into David Bowie, how do you rebel against that? You can’t really. They come to all the gigs. They’ve been in America for the past three weeks. I’m ringing my mum really excited because we’re hanging out with Jim Sheridan, who directed In the Name of the Father, and the Edge from U2, and she said, ‘We’re hanging with Jack White,’ whom they met through a friend of mine. Trumped again!”

Barratt’s father was a Leeds art teacher, his mother an artist later turned businesswoman. “Dad was a bit more strict and academic. Mum would let me do anything I wanted, didn’t mind whether I went to school.” Through his father he became obsessed with Monty Python, went to jazz and Spike Milligan gigs, learnt about sex from his dad’s leatherbound volumes of Penthouse.

Barratt joined bands and assumed he would become a musician (he does all the Boosh’s musical arrangements); Fielding hoped to become an artist (he designed the Boosh book cover and throughout our interview sketches obsessively). Instead they threw their talents into comedy. Barratt: “It is a great means of getting your ideas over instantly.” Fielding: “Yes, it is quite punk in that way.”

Their 1998 Edinburgh Fringe show called The Mighty Boosh was named, obscurely, after a friend’s description of Michael Fielding’s huge childhood Afro: “A mighty bush.” While their double-act banter has an old-fashioned dynamic, redolent of Morecambe and Wise, the show threw in weird characters and a fantasy storyline in which they played a pair of zookeepers. They are very serious about their influences. “Magritte, Rousseau...” says Fielding. “I like Rousseau’s made-up worlds: his jungle has all the things you’d want in a jungle, even though he’d never been in one so it was an imaginary place.”

Eclectic, weird and, crucially, unprepared to compromise their aesthetic sensibilities, it was 2004 before, championed by Steve Coogan’s Baby Cow production company, their first series aired on BBC3. Through repeats and DVD sales the second series, in which the pair have left the zoo and are living above Naboo’s shop, found a bigger audience. Last year the first episode of series three had one million viewers. But perhaps the Boosh’s true breakthrough into mainstream came in June when George Bush visited Belfast and a child presented him with a plant labelled “The Mighty Bush”. Assuming it was a tribute to his greatness, the president proudly displayed it for the cameras, while the rest of Britain tittered.

A Boosh audience these days is quite a mix. In Sheffield the front row is rammed with teenage indie girls, heavy on the eyeliner, who fancy Fielding. But there are children, too: my own sons can recite whole “crimps” (the Boosh’s silly, very English version of rap) word for word. And there are older, respectable types who, when I interview them, all apologise for having such boring jobs. They’re accountants, IT workers, human resources officers and civil servants. But probe deeper and you find ten years ago they excelled at art A level or played in a band, and now puzzle how their lives turned out so square. For them, the Boosh embody their former dreams. And their DIY comedy, shambolic air, the slightly crap costumes, the melding of fantasy with the everyday, feels like something they could still knock up at home.

Indeed, many fans come to gigs in costume. At the Mighty Boosh Festival 15,000 people came dressed up to watch bands and absurdity in a Kent field. And in Sheffield I meet a father-and-son combo dressed as Howard Moon and Bob Fossil – general manager of the zoo – plus a gang of thirty-something parents elaborately attired as Crack Fox, Spirit of Jazz, a granny called Nanageddon, and Amy Housemouse. “I love the Boosh because it’s total escapism,” says Laura Hargreaves, an employment manager dressed as an Electro Fairy. “It’s not all perfect and people these days worry too much that things aren’t perfect. It’s just pure fun.”

But how to retain that appealingly amateur art-school quality now that the Boosh is a mega comedy brand? Noel Fielding is adamant that they haven’t grown cynical, that The Mighty Book of Boosh was a long-term project, not a money-spinner chucked out for Christmas: “There is a lot of heart in what we do,” he says. Barratt adds: “It’s been hard this year to do everything we’ve wanted, to a standard we’re proud of... Which is why we’re worn to shreds.”

Comedy is most powerful in intimate spaces, but the Boosh show, with its huge set, requires major venues. “We’ve lost money every day on the tour,” says Fielding. “The crew and the props and what it costs to take them on the road – it’s ridiculous. Small gigs would lose millions of pounds.”

The live show is a kind of Mighty Boosh panto, with old favourites – Bob Fossil, Bollo, Tony Harrison, etc – coming on to cheers of recognition. But it lacks the escapism to the perfectly conceived world of the TV show. They have told the BBC they don’t want a fourth series: they want a movie. They would also, as with Little Britain USA, like a crack at the States, where they run on BBC America. Clearly the Boosh needs to keep evolving or it will die.

Already other artists are telling Fielding and Barratt to make their money now: “They say this is our time, which is quite frightening.” I recall Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, who dominated the Nineties with Big Night Out and Shooting Stars. “Yes, they were massive,” says Fielding. “A number one record...” And now Reeves presents Brainiac. “If you have longer-term goals, it’s not scary,” says Barratt. “To me, I’m heading somewhere else – to direct, make films, write stuff – and at the moment it’s all gone mental. I’m sort of enjoying this as an outsider. It was Noel who had this desire to reach more people.”

Indeed, the old cliché that comedy is the new rock’n’roll is closest to being realised in Noel Fielding. Watching him perform the thrash metal numbers in the Boosh live show, he is half ironic comic performer, half frustrated rock god. His heroes weren’t comics but androgynous musicians: Jagger, Bowie, Syd Barrett. (Although he liked Peter Cook’s style and looks.)

“I like clothes and make-up, I like the transformation,” he says. Does it puzzle him that women find this so sexually attractive? “I was reading a book the other day about the New York Dolls and David Johansen was saying that none of them were gay or even bisexual, and that when they started dressing in stilettos and leather pants, women got it straight away with no explanation. But a lot of men had problems. It’s one of those strange things. A man will go, ‘You f***ing queer.’ And you just think, ‘Well, your girlfriend fancies me.’”

The Boosh stopped signing autographs outside stage doors when it started taking two hours a night. At recent book signings up to 1,500 people have shown up, some sleeping overnight in the queue. And on this tour, the Boosh took control of the after-show parties, once run as money-spinners by the promoters, and now show up in person to do DJ slots. I ask if they like to meet their fans, and they laugh nervously.

Fielding: “We have to be behind a fence.”

Barratt: “They try to rip your clothes off your body.”

Fielding: “The other day my girlfriend gave me this ring. And, doing the rock numbers at the end, I held out my hands and the crowd just ripped it off.”

Barratt: “I see it as a thing which is going to go away. A moment when people are really excited about you. And it can’t last.”

He recalls a man in York grabbing him for a photo, saying, “I’d love to be you, it must be so amazing.” And Barratt says he thought, “Yes, it is. But all the while I was trying to duck into this doorway to avoid the next person.” He’s trying to enjoy the Boosh’s moment, knows it will pass, but all the same?

In the hotel bar, a young woman fan has dodged past Danny and comes brazenly over to Fielding. Head cocked attentively like a glossy bird, he chats, signs various items, submits to photos, speaks to her mate on her phone. The rest of the Boosh crew eye her steelily. They know how it will end. “You have five minutes then you go,” hisses one. “I feel really stupid now,” says the girl. It is hard not to squirm at the awful obeisance of fandom. But still she milks the encounter, demands Fielding come outside to meet her friend. When he demurs she is outraged, and Danny intercedes. Fielding returns to his seat slightly unsettled. “What more does she want?” he mutters, reaching for his wine glass. “A skin sample?”

[singofsolace]

Miranda Otto’s Filmography as seen through a specific lens

otherwise known as: I watched some of these things so you don’t have to. But more specifically, I want to share basic information about which of her films and tv series require trigger warnings. Honestly, I’ve never recovered from some of them (thinking about In Her Skin... but also Homeland... because what the actual fuck, Saul?)

This isn’t a complete list. It’s only 21 of over 60 credits Miranda has to her name, but I think these are probably some of her most famous roles. Please let me know what you think of these brief descriptions, and whether anything should be added or removed.

It should go without saying that there are spoilers below. Read at your own risk.

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina:  Zelda Spellman

A powerful role, but be aware Zelda is abused, raped (implied), and violently murdered (twice)

Downhill: Charlotte

I love this woman with all my heart, okay? Miranda Otto is supposed to be playing the most heterosexual woman ever, and instead manages to make every single scene gay as fuck.

The Silence: Kelly Andrews

Gets her leg mutilated (also it’s implied that she and Kiernan’s character would be made sex slaves by this random cult that shows up... which is super tasteful and not at all disgusting)

Annabelle: Creation: Esther Mullins

Face mutilated, eventually murdered (I think? It’s been a long time since I’ve seen this one)

24: Legacy: Rebecca Ingram

Powerful woman kidnapped, tortured, and violently murdered

Homeland: Allison Carr

Powerful woman violently attacked by her former lover in full view of her coworkers. Riddled with bullets while she is curled in a trunk.

The Daughter: Charlotte

I’ve made a whole post about how I think Charlotte was raped by her employer, and that it therefore shouldn’t be framed as a sexy affair… but here we are.

I, Frankenstein: Leonore

Powerful woman kidnapped and used as a bargaining chip. I’ve also made a post about this one, and how Miranda Otto claims this part could have been played by a man, but the blatant sexism around the kidnap and ransom—making a woman who is the leader of warriors powerless to fight back against her attackers, and having her rescued in a way that frames her as a damsel in distress (complete with bridal carry)—makes me believe that Miss Otto doesn’t notice just how much sexism was written into the role.

Reaching for the Moon: Elizabeth Bishop

While as a whole, this movie is beautiful and wonderful and one of my all-time favorites, we need to still acknowledge that Lota and Elizabeth were in an incredibly toxic relationship—which I actually think is great representation, because abuse doesn’t just happen between a husband and a wife, or a boyfriend and a girlfriend, it can happen to anyone with any partner.

Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries: Lydia Andrews

I unapologetically adore Miranda in this one. She is so convincing as the grieving widow that the plot twist caught me completely by surprise. This is perhaps the only role that I’ve seen Miranda play where a bad woman was brought to justice, but in a way that had absolutely nothing to do with her gender. Justice was neutral and exacted without prejudice, in this case.

In Her Skin: Mrs. Barber

This is one of the most upsetting and disturbing films I’ve ever seen. Miranda Otto is brilliant in it, but playing the role of a mother whose daughter went missing (and then was brutally murdered) definitely took its toll. I will never understand why the movie released an interview during which Miranda was clearly distraught. She breaks down into tears multiple times just trying to talk about this movie (which was a real-life murder case).

Cashmere Mafia (TV Series): Juliet Draper

Okay, I LOVE LOVE LOVE Juliet Draper. I would cherish her and dote on her for the rest of her life if she were my wife. But in the actual show, her husband is a serial cheater. When her friends find out about it, they don’t judge her broken marriage, but they do give her the courage she needs to leave him. They tell her she deserves more��and she does!! But in the final episode there is a pretty disturbing plot about a multi-millionaire who wants to buy not only her Hotel company but also her… which is exactly as bad as it sounds.

War of the Worlds: Mary Ann

Miranda Otto is heavily pregnant and glowing in a grand total of five minutes of this movie, but oh, what wonderful five minutes!!

The Lord of the Rings: Eowyn

This is the role for which Miranda is most famous. I have nothing bad to say about Eowyn, except that she ought to have been given more screen time, and that there shouldn’t have been that creepy plot about the King’s advisor or whoever wanting to have sex with her. It was incredibly unnecessary and frames Eowyn as a potential victim in the beginning, which was completely unnecessary in terms of character/plot development. 

Danny Deckchair: Glenda Lake

Glenda Lake is a precious cinnamon roll, too good for this world, too pure. Please for the love of Otto watch this film for baby Miranda in a sweet romantic comedy.

Julie Walking Home: Julie Makowsky

I don’t understand this film at all. It has one of the most absurd plots I’ve ever seen. Miranda’s husband/partner cheats on her and gets caught, and then he gets violent (in front of her children and multiple adult witnesses!!), and then their son gets cancer, and then she goes to Poland, and then a Healer tries to cure her son, and it works for a while, and eventually Julie (Miranda) has sex with the Healer, in order to teach him how to have sex? and then she gets pregnant by this man, and then her son’s cancer comes back, and then the Healer runs for the hills, and then her former partner takes her back so that they can all be a family again....?!?!?!?!

Human Nature: Gabrielle

This film made Miranda popular with a lot of creepy old men (okay maybe just Bruno Barreto based on this interview… (seriously I am so uncomfortable with the way he’s like… oh yes, I knew her from that film... and then later *places his hand on her bare knee/thigh* Lowell doesn’t give a shit about (Elizabeth/Miranda) being awkward! 

(the implication being that Lowell is only interested in getting Elizabeth into his bed...)

anyway… she plays a sexy French scientist, who isn’t actually French. There’s lots of lingerie, dancing, and kissing.

The Jack Bull (TV Movie) Cora Redding

Miranda Otto dies an incredibly violent death in period costume for no apparent reason besides generating male pain.

Dead Letter Office: Alice Walsh

Young!Miranda is so cute in this, but there’s a sort of ambiguously creepy older man-younger woman relationship… because Alice (Miranda) is looking for a father figure… and anyway I don’t remember this film well enough to comment more specifically, but I remember it being lovely except for the age difference between Alice and the guy in charge of the missing letters.

Doing Time for Patsy Cline: Patsy

I watched this purely for Miranda, and I do think it’s good, but only her part in it. Miranda plays the “busty bimbo with a heart” incredibly well. I remember being scared for her character, because her husband was a mean drunk/drug addict, but I don’t think any actual violence gets portrayed… but someone who has watched this more recently can correct me if I’m wrong.

Sex is a Four Letter Word

I only made it through half of this film before I turned it off. I wouldn’t watch it unless you’ve ingested/inhaled some substances and don’t mind people monologuing about their terrible sex experiences. 

...

Let me know if you’d like to know more about any of these films!

[nxtritething]

TASK001 : MUN QUESTIONNAIRE 

name  /  alias : caro / care / carebear gender  /  pronouns : female / she&her where  ya  from  ? : u s of a .  orig n y c. the  current  time :  9 pm ( when i started? ) , 1 pm ( when i finished ) job  or  major :  i majored in mechanical engineering and math. no, i canno favorite  thing  (  s  )  about  yourself :  i have some good one-liners.

why  you  joined  hqclouds :  ... i helped make it. also its felt like a long while since i got to play some of my favorite babes, and i just missed them, so i obviously had to jump at an opportunity to bring them back !!!

meaning  behind  url :  it’s uh...... next right thing ,  as in anna’s big song in frozen 2. and i just felt it like, FIT. 

last  thing  you  googled :  zac efron high school musical gif icons, bc i wanted to use for this, but then that account was flagged as adult content and i guess those beloved gifs are lost to the void now...

zodiac :  pisces in  your  opinion  ,  does  your  sign  suit  you  ? : yes. i am a crying fish. also i’m a pisces venus. it makes a LOT of sense. myers  -  briggs :  istj ??? i think?? moral  alignment :  i can be chaotic good, but mostly neutral neutral i think hogwarts  house : i used to be a slytherin, now i’m a hufflepuff. idk what happened to me.

three  fictional  character  (  s  )  you  see  yourself  in  +  why :  uhhhh... 1) bubbles from powerpuff girls. because i am baby. 2) juliet o’hara from psych. i’ve just been rewatching a lot of psych and i love how she’s such a serious yet funny / soft and idk why i just relate to that. 3) john mulaney in mulaney. because this is a cop-out to say i relate to anything / everything john edmund mulaney every does.

i  started  roleplaying : i first started on some fourms ??? on an app on my itouch ??? but my first tumblr rp group was percy jackson and everyone though i was this all knowing pjo fan... when really i was just fast to look shit up on the wikia. i had never read a single page of the series. types  of  rps  i  enjoy :  fandoms, typically ! i used to be exclusively love animated roleplays? like cartoons? but then i transitioned to musicals? like, exclusively playing musical characters??? at this point, tara is like the one exception nowadays... favorite  fcs  to  use :  um... olivia holt is a recent fave? joshua basset, also. my old faves are mary kate wiles and hunter parrish tho. real old. otherwise, i don’t know if i’d say i get attached to fc’s? fandom  (  s  )  you’d  like  to  write  in : i kinda wanna go back to some of my cartoon roots, maybe? i really haven’t deviated from the same 8 - 9 mostly musical characters in literally years...  fandom  (  s  )  you  aren’t  in  but  are  curious  about :  um... the raven cycle ,  miraculous ladybug  , uh..... everything else. i’m so randomly interested in everything.

share  a  funny  roleplay  horror  story :  my favorite is when i was in a youtuber rpf / oc rp, and this girl... made an oc... and made the fc... herself. she made a literal self-insert oc. with herself as the face. like low-res gifs of herself. why, you ask? i think she was trying to ship herself with dan howell. that didn’t age well, did it?

favorite  canon  muse  (  s  )  to  play : do i just list all the characters i’ve been playing for literal years? my recent faves are katherine plumber from newsies and princess anna. favorite  original  muse  (  s  )  to  play : i had a hunter parrish oc. he was in both the pjo and youtube rp. he was obsessed with hanging out with trees and pranks. don’t ask me why. canon  ships  you  can’t  help  but  love :  kristoff / anna , jack kelly / katherine plumber , jake peralta / amy santiago , orpheus / eurydice , && donny novitski / julia trojan. yes, most of these are musicals. who doesn’t love a good love ballad? trope  (  s  )  you  tend  to  be  guilty  of : uhh... adorkable, one of the boys, badass adorable

i  prefer  .  .  . angst  ,  smut  ,  or  fluff :  i am a massive sucker for fluff, but i’m so guilty of angst... i love pain. i don’t really do smut tho. sorry. long  or  short  replies :  i generally prefer short replies, unless we’ve somehow developed a thread into something long. or i’m feeling particularly inspired. pre  plotting  or  chemistry : i love chemistry with all my heart, but sometimes it’s fun to plot past connections that can reignite? idk. mostly chemistry sentence  starters  or  headcanon  memes : headcanon memes, because im never creative to turn a sentence starter into something that makes sense, esp between two characters who don’t know each other. single  muse  or  multimuse  blogs :  multimuse, because i spent too many years reblogging replies to the wrong sideblog and those days are over !!! gif  icons  ,  medium  gifs  ,  or  static  icons : i prefer gif icons for shorter replies and medium gifs for longer ones... or whatever my partner is using. i like some sort of consistency.

grab  the  book  nearest  to  you  and  pull  a  quote  from  it : ‘ what’s the rush? ’ repeat this phase when you’re feeling overwhelmed or stressed out. ask yourself whether somethings really needs doing immediately. are you ignoring your needs in order to do it?  - the little book of sloth philosophy. 

what’s  a  quote  or  song  lyric  that  speaks  to  your  soul  ? : “ did you fall? or did you let go? ”  -  connor murphy to evan hansen, dear evan hansen. ( idk why this immediately jump to mind but... )

top  current  celebrity  crushes :  jeremy jordan, corey cott, jordan fisher, claire saffitz, brian david gilbert. last  movie  you  watched :  bridal boot camp did  you  like  it  ? :  yes. i loved it. it’s absolute garbage and i loved it. favorite  movie  (  s  )    of  all  time : idk but i can always rewatch prince of egypt. godspell favorite  tv  show  (  s  )  of  all  time : uhh.... i keep rewatching psych.   favorite  tv  show  (  s  ) that  hasn’t  ended : brooklyn nine-nine, zoey’s extraordinary playlist. sports  team  (  s  )  you  rep : uh... grew up in a yankee / mets household. favorite  video  game  (  s  ) : pokemon, animal crossing  favorite  youtube  channels : drew gooden, danny gonzalez, jenna marbles.

put  your  music  on  shuffle.  what  six  songs  pop  up  ? :

greased lightin’ from grease live ; oh mother by hunter parrish ; nerds by bo burnham ; a miracle would happen / when you come home to me from the last five years ; just another day from next to normal ; who tells your story from hamilton mixtape. 

i haven’t listened to any of these in forever, but i am still, indeed, musical theater trash.

personal  aesthetic : demin overalls, scrunchies, the color teal, big stuffed animals. dream  vacation  ? : somewhere beautiful with people i love. dream  job  ? : perhaps like designing custom 3D prosthetics dream  car  ? :  i hate driving, but a big ol’ truck. like suv. big one. favorite  musical : gospell, dear evan hansen, bandstand, newsies, shrek the musical, mamma mia, i could go on... unwatched  stuff  in  your  netflix  /  hulu  /  etc :  sailor moon crystal, crash landing on you, locke & key, all the bright places, the half of it, younger, meteor, hello my twenties ...

what’s  a  subject  you  know  too  much  about  +  never  get  tired  of  talking  about  ? : musicals. so many musicals. i know both know too much and not enough.

[pluckyredhead]

Daredevil 101: Eurotrip!

This is going to be a long one, folks. I tried to trim it down as much as I could, since I don’t want these sort of intermediary stories to be taking as long to cover as they have, but I was left with cutting it up into two short chunks or giving you one hefty meal. I chose hefty meal, so loosen your belts and tuck that napkin into your collars, kids!

...This metaphor may have gotten away from me.

Last time, Matt escaped from jail and headed to Monaco to track down Alton Lennox, the elusive lawyer who, for some mysterious reason, hired the convict who killed Foggy - who the reader (but not Matt) has just found out is actually alive! We’re picking up with more of the Brubaker/Lark run, DD v2 88-93. The official storyline name is “The Devil Takes a Ride.”

Content Warning: Image of a dead body, mention of murder made to look like suicide.

We start with Foggy, who is trapped in Witness Protection, unable to contact Ben or Dakota or anyone else who might be able to get through to Matt:

It’s not actually clear who the FBI is claiming to be Witness Protecting Foggy from, at this point? All they know is that he was stabbed by a guy at Riker’s, who is now dead, and also Foggy isn’t in Riker’s anymore. Matt’s enemies in general, maybe?

Anyway, this issue is called “The Secret Life of Foggy Nelson” and it’s basically a love letter to Matt. Foggy's narration boxes are all directed at Matt (who can’t hear him, of course), as he explains that he’s always wanted to do the right thing, but he’s been so afraid, especially with the dangerous life they lead:

I’M CRYING. Also, I’ve always loved that Foggy envisions Matt saving him, not Daredevil. Even after he learns that the two are one and the same, Matt is always the part he loves.

Foggy eventually gets so desperate to escape Witness Protection and talk to Matt that he sneaks out of the house he’s being held in and hails a cab that is...idling around this remote suburban neighborhood...suspiciously...

Hmm, yeah, that’s not good.

Luckily, Foggy is rescued! By ninjas!

Foggy’s face in that first panel is amazing.

Anyway, I LOVE THIS SO MUCH. Elektra is leading the Hand at this particular point in time, and she has ordered them to keep Foggy safe. Matt has no idea she’s doing this, of course - he doesn’t even know Foggy’s alive - but she knows what Foggy means to him. Also, she has a demonstrated soft spot for Foggy. I just love everything this says about all of them so much, even if I don’t know why the mafia wanted to kill Foggy. I guess they just be like that.

Thwarted in his escape, Foggy settles in to essentially wait for Matt to settle things in Europe and come rescue him. Meanwhile, Matt is being tormented by dreams of a bucolic Silver Age life with a living Foggy (and Karen!):

Aw, baby.

You can see that as is traditional for when Matt goes to Europe (or imagines going to Europe), he has dyed his hair black.

Matt is in Monte Carlo, because the only client he can find for Alton Lennox in Monaco, a mob boss named Tybold Lucca, runs a casino there:

Matt and his ill-fitting suit - I’m sorry, “Ray Mallory” and his ill-fitting suit - have been using his powers to win like crazy and thus draw Lucca’s attention. It works, as Lucca’s daughter Lily herself shows up to invite him to an exclusive party at the Lucca estate:

When Matt gets to the party, Lily doesn’t seem to be having a great time:

The scent thing is important. Lily reminds Matt of something, and he’s conscious of it enough to realize it’s making him want to bend over backwards to help her, without realizing exactly what - or who - she reminds him of.

The centerpiece of the event is a bullfight. After the bull is killed (Matt doesn’t enjoy that), Lucca announces the aforementioned deal with his “Spanish associate,” i.e. the bullfighter, Juan: Lily’s hand in marriage!

Matt’s moralizing over these strange cultures in the first panel makes me laugh. I know it’s another continent, Matthew, but it’s the same century.

Anyway, yikes! Juan has just killed Tybold Lucca! Also I don’t know how Matt knows the guy with the gray temples is Alton Lennox but whatever!

Matt Daredevils up, but Juan kidnaps Lily and Lennox and escapes in a helicopter. And that’s when something clicks into place, nose-wise:

I love this page. Why does Lily smell like Karen? Who is the mysterious mastermind behind, uh...a matador stabbing a gangster and said gangster’s daughter being kidnapped? What does this have to do with Foggy’s death? It’s a bonkers and extremely extra way of "explaining” this plotline, Brubaker, and I salute you.

Matt pursues Lily and Lennox, because they’re his only lead and because, well, it would be shitty not to. Lily’s scent haunts his dreams:

I love that all of Matt’s sweaty shirtless dreams about his conflicted feelings towards his love interests have Foggy in them, too. Just bro stuff!

Matt tracks the kidnapping victims to another opulent European mansion and finally catches up with Alton Lennox...but too late:

The man who hired Foggy’s killer has taken his secrets to the grave. But Lily is still out there. In fact, not only is her scent all over Lennox’s room, she’s actively being re-kidnapped:

This is Tombstone, who I don’t think has shown up in these recaps before? He’s a mob guy, gray skin, very strong, basically made of stone. A better sparring partner for Luke Cage than Matt “The World’s Most Breakable Bones” Murdock.

Tombstone gets away with Lily. Matt goes on the hunt:

This just makes me laugh. (In the first panel, I believe he’s saying “I can’t promise that you will land in the river.”)

Finally, one of the people Matt beats up mentions seeing Tombstone - and the woman he’s working for. And the whole plot flips over in Matt’s mind:

Yeah, Lily’s not the victim here - she’s the mastermind, or at least she thinks she is. Tombstone is working for her. She killed Lennox, or at least was there when he was killed. And that dude is Juan, the bullfighter, who killed her father so that they could be together and have all her father’s ill-gotten gangster money.

But how can she smell like both Juan’s mother and Karen? IS KAREN JUAN’S MOTHER??? (No.)

Matt finally catches up with Lily and her “kidnappers”:

Matt, you absolute tart.

Matt manages, rather ingeniously, to take down Tombstone, and the powerless Juan absolutely panics - like, to the point of something chemical going weird on him:

Juan kind of collapses after slicing Lily with the sword (not too badly; also wasn’t it a rapier before?) and Matt knocks him out. Matt then tells Lily he knows she’s been playing him, and demands that she come clean:

And so Matt finally confronts the mastermind behind all of this, the person who had Foggy Nelson killed, who hired Danny Rand to pretend to be Daredevil, who hired Lily and Juan and Tombstone, and who has had at least four loose ends murdered by now:

VANESSA FISK???

But why? Well, as far as she sees it, her life was destroyed by Fisk and Matt’s endless battle, in which she was essentially a pawn. (They don’t mention it directly, but it’s very worth noting that Matt once essentially held her hostage, after she had spent god knows how long as a presumably sexually abused prisoner, in order to manipulate Fisk. Matt didn’t, like, promise not to be a gangster and then marry her and then go back to being a gangster, but he’s not exactly innocent here either.) She is now dying of Killedherownsonitis - seriously, she’s like “the doctors don’t know why all my organs are failing, but it’s because I killed Richard” - and before she goes, she has a deal to offer Matt:

She has enough pull to get the charges against Matt dropped, meaning he can resume his normal life. In exchange, he will get Fisk out of jail. And from then, he’ll know that every time Fisk kills, it will be on his conscience. This is the kind of tortured logic superhero comics end up with, in a world where no one except civilians stays dead and jails have revolving doors, but trust me when I say that this reveal and all of Vanessa’s supervillain explanations absolutely work in context.

Matt’s like “YOU USED TO BE COOL, MAN”:

He refuses to take the deal and storms out. Vanessa tells her minions to put everything into motion anyway, because as she sees it, Matt is essentially selfish, and will ultimately act in his own self-interest.

And so, the FBI Guy who has been trying to bring Matt down for issues and issues and issues is found dead in his apparent from apparent suicide (killing people and making it look like suicide is Vanessa’s signature move, it’s the third one in the Brubaker run so far), along with a note saying he framed Matt who is totally super duper not Daredevil. And Really Incredibly Blind Matt Murdock is found wandering a road back in the States, having “escaped” from being “held captive.”

Matt being Matt, he decides to hold a press conference to explain his kidnapping/disappearance/reappearance, because Matt fucking loves holding press conferences:

Fratt shippers, please take Ben’s line as the gift it is.

Rather than spin the erotic tale Ben is clearly angling for (and that Frank, watching his on his Murder Van TV, is dreaming of), Matt spins some bullshit about Frank hating defense attorneys for putting criminals back on the streets and wanting information on Matt’s clients and yadda yadda. Basically no one actually believes him but everyone likes Daredevil so they’re all like “Welcome home, Regular Matt Murdock Who Isn’t Daredevil!” and then they wink a lot.

Matt is back home, reunited with Milla and Becky and Dakota, when he senses something impossible in the hall:

I will never be over this hug, or those tears, or Foggy’s joyous face in the fourth panel.

Anyway yeah, now that Matt’s officially Not Daredevil, Foggy I guess no longer needs to be protected from Daredevil’s enemies? Or more accurately, the only reason the FBI was really holding him was because of Vanessa’s machinations, and she’s now released him.

What I find really interesting is that she basically justifies it to her minion by saying she’s showing Matt how sweet life can be so that it will hurt more when he inevitably ends up bleeding out in the trash again, but Matt sees it as proof that the Vanessa he knew, the good person she once was, wasn’t totally gone. I think he’s closer to correct.

In return, even though he got what he wanted from her and never promised her anything, Matt gets Fisk out of jail. (Which is, again, the tortured bullshit morality of comics, where you have to get the villain out of jail to do more villain stuff.) The FBI case is so hopelessly compromised that it’s not even hard. But he makes Fisk promise to renounce his American citizenship and leave the country forever, AND he waits until after Vanessa has died so that Fisk can’t bury her, which is pretty vicious. (Matt’s, like...not a nice person, guys.)

And thus this storyline’s all over but the rooftop heart to heart with Foggy!

They are textually talking about Fisk here. They are also textually talking about Karen, who Matt admits that he’s still not over.

But Karen’s death didn’t change Matt so much that the freaking Punisher had to get himself arrested to remind him who he was. Matt has acted erratically since Karen’s death, but Matt has always acted erratically. Foggy’s “death” made him go feral.

So yeah, I think Foggy is talking about two people here (and I think Brubaker wrote the conversation to be about two people). But Matt is talking about three.

Next Up: Lily Lucca comes to New York! It doesn’t end well for anyone!

[nina-a-pines]

Interview With the Triplets

Sometime ago, I reblogged this post, that gives authors an interview to make with our characthers. Well, today I’m on fire about gravity falls, wendip and my triplet babies so I thought “why not?”

Let’s get this party started!

How do you like to spend your free time?

Anne: In the woods. No matter if with my brothers, with Nickie, or what I’m going to do; study, explore... I love the woods and being outside.

Danny: Video games! Also playing basket. And playing basket on video game!

Tyrone: Reading. If I could, I’d be reading 24/7 but since that’s not possible, my free time will have to do.

What is your relationship with your immediate family members?

Anne: It’s pretty good, I guess? I mean, between my parents and my brothers, I get along with all of them. My Dad’s one of my heroes and I tell my Mom almost as much as I tell the boys and Nickie.

Danny: Ty, Anne and I are practically attached by the waist. I get along with my Mom, Grandpa and uncles really well. And with my Dad... is fine? It’s not bad, but we’re not close.

Tyrone: My relationship with my siblings is everything to me. And I guess I have to thank it to my Dad, if there’s one thing he always told us is that family is everything. My Mom is the best, always there when I need her, or when I didn’t even know I needed her.

If you inherited a large sum of money, how would you approach handling  it?

Anne: I’d invest on my future researches. Be it the weirdness of Gravity falls or my other projects, if I get my hands on money, it’s gonna be invested in cience.

Danny: Well, I’m a simple guy with simple wishes. First of all I’d buy every pair of Nike’s limited editions, then a manor somewhere, a ferrari for when I turn sixteen, pay for a license right now so I don’t have to wait till I’m sixteen... (Nina here: his list’s long, believe me, I’m helping you by ending this here).

Tyrone: I guess I’d save enough for college and then Invest everything to preserve libraries and historical places.

Who are you closest to in your life?

Anna: That’s easy, my brothers.

Danny: My siblings. plus Grunkle Stan.

Tyrone: Anne and Danny, no doubts about it.

What is your most painful memory?

Nina: I’ll skip this one ^^”

What is your happiest memory?

Anne: Our twelth birthday, the day my Dad gave me his old journal. I felt closer with him than ever.

Danny: The Corduroy Meeting two years ago. I won a competition against my Grandpa by some miracle, and he put me on his shoulder and all the family started chanting my name.

Tyrone: The first time I played my guitar in front of an audience. It was the school’s talent show, I was nervous as never before, but when I started playing... everything just felt perfectly right.

Describe your experience in an education system, if any.

Anne: School is... good. Of course, there’s that demon Billy Matthews, and the Math teacher hates me and my brothers - REALLY hates us; my Dad’s the history teacher, he sees everything, he can confirm. But that aside, I have my friend, my brothers, and the principal is really cool.

Danny: School *snorts* Not much my thing, the nerd siblings are the other two. But it doesn’t matter what the Math Witch says, I’m not a trouble student, ok? I am not!

Tyrone: It’s fine. I can’t say I never suffered bullying because of my grades or my six fingers, but when your sister is Anne, you’re less worried about the bullying and more worried about not letting your sister get into a fight with the bullies.

What is your biggest fear and why are you so afraid of it?

Anne: Being a deception. As I said before, my Dad’s like my hero, and now that he trusted me with his researches... I do my best to not let this happen, but I’m terrified of the idea of let him down.

Danny: Fear? Ha! I’m not afraid of anything. When I go to Ty’s or Anne’s bed during the night is just because I want to be sure they’re ok, it totally isn’t because I had a nightmare of them noticing how useless I am and leavin’ me behind.

Tyrone: Since I almost drowned, I’m terrified of places like pools or lakes. I can be around them, but nobody will convince me to get too close or going in them, unless it’s on a boat.

What is the number one personal rule you have for yourself?

Anne: Never give up without a fight, be it metaforicaly or literally.

Danny: It doesn’t matter if the world hates you, as long as the people who really matter don’t.

Tyrone: The truth goes above everything else. Except Anne and Danny, and that’s how importante they are.

If you saw a picture of yourself, what is the first place you would look?

Anne: My teeth. I like to smile to take pictures but I’m always afraid that there’s something on my teeth.

Danny: My hair, I gotta check if it’s good enough to match the rest of my handsome face.

Tyrone: My glasses, to be sure that no light got reflected on them. 

How would you describe yourself?

Anne: An adventurer.

Danny: The handsome triplet.

Tyrone: A bright mind.

How would others describe you?

Anne: So boys, how’d you describe me?

Danny: The perfect partner in crime.

Tyrone: Someone who could really think before acting more often.

Danny: What about me?

Anne: A melon head, but one of my melon heads.

Tyrone: A very determined guy. Like, very, very determined.

What do you believe is your greatest weakness?

Tyrone: My turn, I guess?

Anne: My baby bro that thinks too much.

Danny: The king of the nerds, in a good way.

Anne: Ok, so I guess Ty is right and I should try to think a bit more before trusting other people.

Danny: My tendon, like Aquiles.

Tyrone: Maybe my lack of physical strenght.

What do you believe is your greatest strength?

Anne: My spirit. Some would say it’s a problem but I find the boldness to call out people’s bullshit on their faces a bless.

Danny: I may not be a nerd like my siblings, but I have what Gunkle Stan and me like to call “sharpness”. It means that while Anne get us into trouble, I’m the responsable to talk our way out of trouble.

Tyrone: Why, my mind.

What makes you get out of bed everyday?

Anne: The unspoken promise of new adventures.

Danny: The thought of whatever the day throws on me, I’ll face it with my siblings.

Tyrone: The checklist in my mind of things I have to do.

What is the major challenge you face every single day?

Anne: People trying to retain me. “You can’t mix these two chemicals, Anne, you’ll explode the school”, and stuff like that.

Danny: People who judge me without even know me.

Tyrone: With siblings like mine, staying alive.

If you could give a message to your younger self, what would it be?

Anne: Keep going on and never regreat the butts you’ve kicked.

Danny: You’re not alone, don’t forget that.

Tyrone: Don’t go to the lake that summer day;

What is it that you want most?

Anne: To make my family proud.

Danny: To be someone worth fighting for.

Tyrone: To be a real musician someday.

[incorrectmlpquotes]

My Thoughts on Equestria Girls: Rainbow Rocks

Or: Are we sure this didn’t come out in 2004 rather than 2014? Because the “battle of the bands”  story line feels super dated for some reason. I feel like almost every early 2000s cartoon had some sort of music contest episode, and I never liked them. I blame American Idol for making those popular.

Some History:

I’m under the impression that everything in this movie I dislike is a completely subjective thing that wouldn’t bother someone else. I know that, from a movie standpoint, this is much better than the first, but I just don’t like it as much. Everything that warrants complaint comes from a personal hangup that I have (such as: my lack of any musical ability causes me to not care at all whether their band is successful), so if you disagree, I completely understand. These are all my opinions, and I’m aware that this is probably the best of the four movies. (As stated on a previous post, I haven’t watched any of the shorts from 2017 or 2018 as of this entry)  

There were a series of promotional shorts released before the movie debuted that explains how the members of the Main 5 came to play their instruments in Rainbow Dash’s band, and some other random stuff. Here’s the link to the playlist on youtube. Here’s a quick rundown of what I think:

Music to My Ears : meh

Guitar Centered : funny, but kind of mean spirited

Hamstocalypse Now : Hilarious.

Pinkie on the One : exactly what you’d expect it to be

Player Piano: a masterpiece

A Case for the Bass: Applejack is one word, why would she have AJ embroidered on the strap? I know people call her that but those aren’t her initials

Life is a Runway: There’s a reason they didn’t let Rarity write the songs

Shake Your Tale: Bad.

This was a pretty clever way to establish some musical background within the group without taking up time in the movie. It also is some sneaky foreshadowing with Trixie, which I appreciate.

In the actual movie: My nitpicks are going to be less Why is no one in class? Why is doesn’t anyone have homework? Because I realize this is a movie and depicting high school as it actually is would be boring to watch. Besides, there are plenty of other things to complain about.

We open on a scene of this film’s villains. And yes I am going to refer to them as villains instead of antagonists because 1) they are actually a threat and we see them doing bad things, and 2) other people will serve as antagonists. A villain is different from an antagonist, even though the terms are often used interchangeably. 

The Dazzlings are so cool, they make a cameo four years later. Either this is some really deep foreshadowing, or by season seven the writers were so desperate for an ongoing arc, they looked to other properties. But we now know that the guardians banished them over 1,000 years ago. So they really are ancient magic. And now they have to go to high school. Talk about eternal torment… 

Way to take all the credit, Starswirl

We are shown how they are a sort of siren, who feed off of people’s negativity and discord and use their beautiful enchanted voices to cause mayhem. Kind of like a mix between Ursula the sea witch and Spectra from Danny Phantom. Oh my gosh, this is the second one of these reviews that I’ve brought up Danny Phantom. Maybe this is why Butch thinks he’s so popular.

The Dazzlings, we can infer, have been exiled to the EQG-verse from Equestria. So apparently this universe is like the pony version of colonial Australia, where they send all their criminals and miscreants. A solid plan that couldn’t have any negative repercussions. The sirens see a beam of light that must be the one from the last movie. This is good news for them, but bad news for me because now I have no idea how much time has passed the two films. Has it been a couple days? Weeks? Moons? This will make a difference in regards to why people still don’t trust Sunset. But why waste time setting up the story when we can get right into the remix title card?

At this point, I can only assume that principal Celestia threatened to expel students if they told the news or the FBI about the magical winged demon that attacked the school, because no one seems too concerned about that incident.

But they have plenty of time to hurt my baby’s feelings

I’m going to be honest, when I first watched EQG I thought that Sunset was faking her remorseful act after being defeated. As cool as that would have been, she makes a much better reformed bad guy than an antagonist, because she really wasn’t in the last movie that much.

List of “evil” things Sunset Shimmer has done: send fraudulent text messages and emails that honestly could have been pretty easily disproved, made fun of Fluttershy, made fun of the steamers in the gym, somehow divided the school into cliques, ran a mostly unsuccessful smear campaign against Twilight’s bid for dance princess, threatened to destroy the portal to Equestria, transformed into a demon to hypnotize the students, and she dissed the Apple cider. 

Ok, that last one is pretty evil. But what really makes this and all subsequent movies great is that we get to see her learn and grow and change from the experience into a real friend.

I am glad to see that the Main 5 have forgiven her, but no one is quite ready to absolve her of guilt. Like, I might not think she did all that much bad junk, but the students of Canterlot High seem to think she was one tier below Mussolini  in terms of maniacal dictators, so I don’t blame them for being cautious. It takes a lot to earn back trust.

Back in Equestria proper, the Mane six plus Spike are sitting around waiting for the plot to affect them. They kindly provide some exposition and once again setup the fact that only Twilight can go through the portal, because the others can’t interact with themselves. So we think. I will be bringing this up when we get to The Friendship Games.

Back through the portal, Twilight  gets looped into the fact that Sunset has changed her ways. It’s fair to be a little apprehensive to trust someone who, the last time you saw them, was an actual literal demon. (Don’t worry though, Twi, you’ve still got two more unicorns to reform. It’s kind of your thing.)

Don’t reject her love Twilight, it’s all I have to live for

And now it’s time to discuss the small blue elephant in the room. I feel like I really need to explain why I dislike the addition of Flash to any of the plots. He’s kind of a waste of a potential. You want to add a male character: fine. But make them an actual real fleshed-out character. The show has proven that they can do it and do it well. Sunburst and Thorax are great characters who feel like a good addition to the story. And we got a real sense of who they were in one or two twenty minute episodes. I have no clue what this guy’s purpose is except to be a love interest, and this is not the show to do that with. With very few exceptions, the main characters of MLP have not sought out romantic partners, Twilight included. Why would she choose to do so now? I mean, I get why he’s into Twilight: she’s taken the form of a cute teenage girl. But he’s a species that doesn’t even exist in Equestria. She just fell through a portal and instantly got the hots for some weird otherworldly creature…

Wait a minute. Wait just a minute. Perhaps this isn’t compulsory heterosexuality. Perhaps Twilight Sparkle is just a Monster Lover™. I can respect that.

Moving on.

It was so very smart of the writers to have the Dazzlings brainwash the principals in order to get away with this scheme. That makes so much more sense and covers any plot holes that could arise (such as, someone claiming to be a new student despite having no transcript, no grades, and no knowledge of how to hold a pen).

Does time work differently between these two universes? Has it been months in Equestria but only a week in this world? (It really threw me off that the first four season of MLP took place over one year, and these movies don’t help that). And the sad thing is, this could be easily hand-waved away by a single throw away line, but it isn’t.

The Dazzlings are already better villains than Sunset, even from a character standpoint. We know their powers, we know their motivation, and we know they are capable of bringing about an actually believable rift between friends.

Then the best song, best montage, and possibly best scene in any of these films happen: the Dazzling come into the lunchroom and hypnotize everyone. This song is beautiful and eerie and exactly what you would expect a magic spell to sound like. I also enjoy the visual representation of the bands competing (and not just because I didn’t want to hear any of them perform) that we’ll see later. To give credit where credit is due, this movies has some great visual sequences.

Give ‘em the o’l razzle dazzle

At first I thought it was unrealistic that this many kids had bands, but I realized it was probably an effect of the spell. But I might not be the best judge: I think I know maybe three people, plus myself, who don’t play an instrument. I’ll just assume that the Disney channel exists in this universe, and all these children just really want to be famous.

It’s worth sitting through this movie just to see everyone’s pajamas. That’s not weird, right? No really, the scene of them all having a big slumber party is everything I ever wanted from this series. They managed to capture everyone’s personality from an article of clothing. Now THAT’s good character design.

I get the distinct impression that the writers of this don’t like Rainbow Dash.

Oh good, references to technology that couldn’t possibly date this movie in the slightest. Wait… this is Pinkie’s house. Aren’t the Pies supposed to be like Amish or resembling Amish-type folk? What is the human equivalent of rock farmers? Not actual farmers because those exist in the pony-verse. This really confuses me, but Maude’s cameo is fantastic.

The scene with Twilight and Sunset is one of those really well-done moments that reminds me why I love the show so much. It feels really genuine, and supports my argument that it was worth having Sunset as a crappy villain just to reform her.

Ah yes, the sweet, lingering glances that totally platonic female friends share with each other late at night. I know them well.

Our girl Twily seems to be having trouble writing a spell that can double as a catchy pop song (She’s no Lana Del Rey), so they go with an old set list. How long has this band been operational? Weren’t they in a huge feud for several years?

Mac is a close second for best cameo

So we get to watch the band audition, and it goes about as well an actual high school talent show. The CMC are in the outfits from Showstoppers (which is hilarious) and Snips and Snails rap (which is disturbing). In order to keep my goblin brain from exploding while trying to figure out the ages of everyone, I’m just going to assume that this is a combination Middle School and High School. So, if Sunset won fall dance princess four years in a row, she would be in the tenth grade now, so they would be about 15-16. The Equestria Girls Holiday Comic shows Rarity driving a car, so that could be a possibility.

A. Daft. Punk. Reference. Wow. Just wow. (Note: this was more shocking before season five, when there was a character that was basically Lady Gaga. And by basically, I mean very obviously Lady Gaga. Remember when the pop culture references in this show were subtle?)

Dash’s song is quite possibly the most cringeworthy thing I have ever heard. The only defense is it does sound like something a high schooler would write.

On that note, why is Rainbow Dash the lead singer of the group? I mean, I know why, but WHY? (and yes, I am aware that her voice actress is a singer. But Ashleigh Ball uses her normal voice when she performs. Think back to all the songs RD has sung in the previous four seasons before this aired. There are not a lot of solos or high notes. When she sings as Applejack, it is beautiful, but Dash’s voice is grating sometimes)

Really? A battle of the bands is the greatest thing you’ve done at the school? That whole “stopping an actual demon with magic” was just a regular Friday for you? I’ll chalk that up to the brainwashing, otherwise I might go full on rage and throw my laptop out a window.

I guess our merry band of protagonists weren’t paying attention to big cafeteria scene, because they just now figured something suspicious is going on.

Still haven’t fixed the lights in that dim corner of lockers. Fortunately, there are many dramatic confrontations to be had.

I think we’re supposed to see Rarity’s obsession with the outfits as a ridiculous thing, but I think it’s important to distinguish this universe from the one with the professional seamstress who has unicorn magic at her disposal. This is a teenager who has school, extracurriculars, and parents to contend with. If I went through the trouble to hand-make seven costumes for my friends, then found out no one would wear them, I’d be pretty ticked off as well.

Now this is how you montage. We get to play a fun game of “guess which characters are in which band,” and seeing their “humanized” designs. Lotta bootcut pants in this show.

I’m just going to leave this here...

This is some actually effective villainy. The whole school has turned against each other. Maybe they need to learn about the magic of friendship. Unfortunately, the gang is too busy squabbling over band stuff, and Twilight is too distracted to give an overly emotional speech.

No one in the rule book does it say magically turning into a pony is grounds for disqualification...I would assume.

If we’re being honest here, the Dazzlings are better performers than the Rainbooms.

And we’ve come to the crux of things. The scene where they’re locked under the stage is the perfect example of my biggest issue with this movie. I do not like to see Mane 6 fight. I don’t like Trade Ya, I don’t like Putting Your Hoof Down, and I despise Look Before You Sleep. Seeing this otherwise close group of friends constantly have petty arguments, even if it’s for completely valid plot reasons, make me want to turn the movie off. This isn’t a criticism of the screenwriting, it is just a reason why I personally dislike Rainbow Rocks more than the other films.

Of course, they make up because this is about the magic of friendship and what not, but notice how no one actually apologizes for their behavior. No, “I’m sorry that I minimized your contribution to the group or made fun of something you were passionate about.” I realize they were under the influence of magic, but they also knew that! They knew the Dazzlings had the power to turn people against each other! An apology is just a preamble to fundamental behavior change, and if they don’t realize why they were being bad friends, how can they learn from anything?

And the real kicker is, they knew what the Dazzlings were capable of. Twilight read a book about them immediately before going through the portal. It’s not they they just learned that they spread chaos. Why are we fighting? Gee, I don’t know.

DJ-ex-machina. I’m ok with this.

To the movie’s credit, the finale really has one of the best song of the movie. And by that, I of course mean Trixie’s song. Trixie is the most fun addition to the cast. She makes for a fun antagonist, on her own and as a Pawn to the Dazzlings.

Fight scene! Fight scene! We’re gonna have a fight scene!

Now that they’ve put their petty squabbles behind them, it’s time for a big music battle. The Dazzlings pony up harness the energy of the audience to project their Equestrian selves to...I don’t know. Take over the world or something.

This isn’t even their final form

Oh. This design looked better in book form

Sunset is Magic. That’s the show.

So the stones auto-tuned them, and that made everyone mindlessly antagonistic. I’m sure there’s some clever commentary there.

T’was the magic of friendship that killed the beast.

No, you don’t get to just rejoin the plot

Thank you, Trixie.

The real story here is how Principal Celestia will pay off the press.

Thus Twilight goes back to the land of horses, Starlight has been truly forgiven, and my Netflix suggestions will never been the same again.

I want to give a big shout out to the person who put all the captions on the image gallery for this movie’s wikia page. They are funnier than I could ever hope to be.

Some general thoughts:

The scene of Twilight awkwardly yelling “Friendship is magic!” to a room of confused teenagers is the cringiest thing I’ve ever seen, but it got a good laugh out of me. Look at the Dazzlings faces in this scene. “Ok, we legitimately didn’t see that coming.”

One of the reasons that I am so drawn to the show is that they are able to create conflict and drama without being mean-spirited. I have to deal with that kind of nonsense so much in my daily life, I just don’t want to subject myself to eighty minutes of it. But i get it: from a narrative standpoint, this is the most cohesive. There’s some good set up and pay off, and an actually intimidating villain who is actually present in the plot.

I love Trixie so much, I should be dead. She really is the star of the show. I forgot how little we saw of her before season six.

The stinger, oh the stinger. Forget what I said about the pajama party; it was worth sitting through this for the promise of an interesting sequel.

We’ll get to you soon, you marvelous lesbian disaster.

Starlight’s redemption is the best part of this franchise, and it’s worth all the nonsense to hear Rebecca Shoichet’s angelic voice.

From a purely film standpoint, this is probably the best one of the bunch. It has a clear structure, everyone’s motivations check out, there’s an actual climax that feels earned. I just don’t enjoy it. There are worse ways to spend eighty minutes 3.7/5

The worst thing to come from this, however, is the terrifying merchandise:

What Fresh Hell is This?

[apostateangela]

Part 3: The Power of the Pussy... I mean Autonomy.

I’m back.

So much has happened, but I’m reluctantly going to at least bring this sex post to a reasonable close, in a sense of fairness as there was a bit of a cliff hanger. Though I’m baffled at any interest in my sex life because there are much more interesting stories out there. Except I suppose a middle aged good Mormon girl turned slut contains some intrigue.

Yes, I used the word slut.

And I’m okay with it.

There’s a movement, of which I have found myself a part of, to take that word back.

I have participated in two Slut Walks now and have felt their power as I’ve stood with fellow sluts and chanted “MY BODY! MY CHOICE!”

Just for clarification, though I’m sure you don’t really need it, the negative connotation of the word slut suggests that it is somehow shameful and wrong to have a lot of sex with as many consenting people as you want.

I clarify because this is the place I came from; this negative space where sex is reserved for one person and one person only, that of your eternally bonded husband.

The idealism and ridiculousness of this concept aside--of which I’ve already established--the reasoning ties back to what I’ve already articulated, that somehow a woman’s body is not hers but rather God’s, and by extension, her husband’s. This idea that a woman’s body is not her own to do with what she likes exists outside of the church or other ecclesiastical entities.

I am not unique in fighting against it.

But as I’ve also already shared, my feminist journey is very closely tied to my spiritual one.

Where did I leave off?

Oh yes, sexistential crisis, Danny, I needed more experiences.

I didn’t understand a lot back then, but something I did know was that I didn’t want to be tied to anyone, I didn’t want a boyfriend, or heaven forbid a husband. This was partially the fear of falling back into the abusive horror I had just left, escaped from. And I knew that I didn’t understand the scope of that enough to attempt a new relationship even though it had been a year since I had gotten out of my marriage (I wasn’t divorced. Divorce takes a long time. Yes, I am an adulteress).

The other reason is, I wanted to explore and understand sex and I wanted to be free to do that with multiple people. Getting into a monogamous relationship would inhibit that. I was up front with Danny from the beginning. But it seemed he didn’t really hear me, as is often true. To my credit, when he started calling me his girlfriend, told me he loved me, and started to exhibit some ownership tendencies I, as kindly as possible, put a stop to it. We drifted away, there wasn’t much heartbreak. It was more his choice than mine as he couldn’t handle the criteria.

Which led me to talk to more people on OKCupid. So many men...like a candy shop!

And I had me some fierce cravings and desire to try it all.

Remember the questions I had at the onset of this journey?

What kind of sex?

With who?

How did I find someone?

Would anyone even want to have sex with me?

What about safety?

What about after?

What kind of experiences could I have?

I had answered the ‘How did I find someone?’ The internet is a convenient and wonderful tool. As well as the answer to ‘Would anyone even want to have sex with me?’

Yes… duh.

I was bold and hungry and had discovered something my friend/colleague (the one who got me started on OKC) called “The power of the pussy.”

If you’re offering, it’s not hard to find someone who wants it. I have discovered that this power is something that most women on the planet know they have. Most are taught about it by other women, sometimes even their own mothers--or their sisters to say the least. But, if you live and learn in a culture that limits sex and treats it as a sacred or shameful thing (two sides of the same coin) then no one tells you about it, let alone teaches you about it.

I won’t bore you with the naughty details. Except to put the scope of my endeavour into perspective, because I find it somewhat remarkable.

I hit it, and hit it hard, for about six months.

If I only had one new partner a week... it was a slow week.

I learned a LOT! About sex, and men, and myself in connection to men and sex.

My experiences ran the gamut; from assault to group sex.

Yes, I was sexually assaulted.

I am not unique in that either.

I joined the sisterhood (one in five women) of those who have been sexually assaulted a few months into my journey.

It’s not a surprise.

Having lots of sex with men you meet online has many risks, assault being one of them.

Sadly, I learned from that experience too.

It is one of those things that I had to have explained to me. I didn’t know how to understand what had happened to me or how I should deal with the reality and feelings of it.

Because I showed up as a consenting person, things were muddy.

It started out different than I had experienced before, a bit more aggressive.

But it was exciting, so I went along with it because, remember, I wanted sex.

Then in the middle, things escalated, changed.

It became rough and violent to where I was afraid and wanted it to stop.

I remember clearly saying, “Stop. I don’t want this, I don’t like that.”

…to no avail. I stumbled from this man’s apartment late that night and somehow made the 90 minute drive home without getting in an accident, though I don’t remember much of that late night drive.

In my confusion, the next day, I went to my militant feminist friend and she clarified the reality of the assault for me and as well as identifying the rape victim’s behavior I also exhibited; that of almost leaving your body, disassociation, while waiting for it to end.

I’m not writing about this because I want pity or anything akin to special recognition. Again, I am not unique.

I am including this because it connects to shame.

I said in the last post after I spent the day in bed with Danny that there was something inconspicuously missing, shame.

I did not feel bad about what I had done. Quite the contrary, I felt great!

And that is fairly incredible considering my Mormon programming.

I had sex with many men before my assault.

And after each encounter, I still felt no shame.

But after my assault, I did…deep despairing shame.

Because I thought it was my fault.

This is what sexual assault does to victims. It suggests that because you were in a certain place, dressed a certain way, drinking perhaps too much alcohol, consenting to casual sex with someone you barely knew, that somehow it meant that the assault was your fault. That you had done something to bring this violence upon yourself.

There is shame attached to that.

But, sexual assault is never the fault of the victim.

And the shame felt by a rape victim is misplaced at the very least, and downright criminal at the most.

To take the blame for something you did not do, is a dishonesty of self.

It is the deepest wronging of a personal nature.

It is also very Mormon.

For the easiest thing in the world, is to blame yourself for everything that goes wrong in your life, ask God for forgiveness, lay the burden at his feet, and move on clean. Except, you can’t. Because it wasn’t your fault to begin with.

While it is true I learned to be more careful from that experience, I also learned that Mormonism had made me take the blame for things that were not my fault and apologize for myself at every turn.

I try really hard to fight that impulse… every day.

Did I stop having sex after the assault?

Not at all, after my bruises healed, I continued my exploration.

I was not as traumatized as some because I had experienced worse; the psychological and mental abuse I suffered at the hands of my husband for over twenty five years.

The violence of a single experience cannot compete with that.

So what are my conclusions?

What does sex mean to my life and my identity?

What did I learn from this exploration?

I learned about physical, mental, and emotional connection.

I learned that these intimacies can exist in different combinations as well as independently of each other. And that it is okay for me to want sex in those different combinations.

I learned that people are not perfect, and their struggles and imperfections are not my fault, just as my baggage is not theirs.

I learned that attraction and beauty wear so many different faces.

I learned how to release myself from inhibition and let go to fully experience all the moment had to offer, and then take it even further.

I learned that my mother was right… somewhat.

SEX is wonderful!

Sex is FUN!

Sex IS something to be shared.

But, sorry Mom, it is much MORE of all of those things when you diversify and explore.

Your baby girl is a SLUT, and proud to be.

As a mother, I hope my own children embrace their inner sluts, and I have indeed taken one of them shopping to that funfactory of adult toy stores.

Bottom line, I LOVE SEX!

It is a SERIOUS physiological need I have (Maslow you are correct).

More than that, I WANT IT!

And as a autonomous woman realizing her own power, with respect and consent,

I will find ways and people to enjoy and fill that desire, as well as continue to explore and expand my sexual horizons.

I will revel in pleasure...

...without shame.

-Angela

[five-wow]

9.20 thoughts! this got very long, just as an fyi.

not even a minute in and some guys sold a teenage girl a gun. oh boy.

on the plus side: i remember which episode this is now! it’s the one with the gun that somehow has a connection to lots of five-0 members’ lives!

the banter between those two cops was really fun (and not as stilted as it sometimes is when a random Cop Or Security Duo shows up!) and then one of them got shot and something like that kind of HAD to happen but i’m still sad

OKAY so the first connection is that junior is friends with one of the guys who sold the gun and the guy shows up at HQ and i was like, oh no, but then he tells junior what he did!!! that’s so good!!! i’m weirdly proud of this very minor side character who did a very bad thing

DANNY. THERE’S DANNY. i technically knew he had to be in this episode somewhere because i’ve seen photographical evidence of it here on tumblr, but THERE HE IS. YAY. i mean, i love almost all of the main cast, but i think part of the reason why it took me a month to watch the previous episode was because danny wasn’t in it. it still just doesn’t feel right. it’s like there’s something missing. and here that something is!

junior and his buddy leave and steve and danny are alone in the office and steve said something case-related directly to danny and i’m weirdly excited about that, too!! my bars are literally so low.

BABY STEVE. baby steve is watching inspector gadget, oh my gosh, aw.

i love how doris is supposed to be there and she picks up the phone and tells mini steve to turn down the tv, but we never see any part of her except a hand and some hair because they didn’t hire the actress for this episode. so subtle.

i am... so conflicted about this scene. on the one hand, mini steve is super cute. on the other, we’re probably supposed to like young john here and think he’s a Good Dad but i just... kind of low key hate everything he does. he looks annoyed when doris tells him the call is for him, like she’s bugging him somehow after being the one who picked up the phone in the first place, and the whole “i have to go to work. take care of your mom while i’m gone, okay?” that he says to steve is so bad, omfg. steve is what, five? i know the “man of the house” thing is very common in media but it’s! so! stupid! doris is a grown woman and steve is a tiny little boy - doris has to (and can!) take care of steve, not the other way around, god. /rant

oh! we do get a full body shot of doris but it’s blurry doris! and she’s SUPER PREGNANT which makes the fact that john let her get up to answer the phone in the first place kind of bad too, actually, oh boy.

doris: “john, if something was wrong you’d tell me, right?” john: “i’m not gonna lie to you, i don’t know. just lock the door behind me, i’ll try to call you as soon as i get this straightened out.” OMG WHAT. okay a) this is hilarious knowing as we do that doris was actually a highly trained cia agent/assassin and probably way more skilled than john and outranks him by far, fjdkfd, and b) i’ll give john a little credit for being somewhat honest and not just going with “no, everything’s totally fine, don’t worry”, but the answer he does give is almost worse because it’s so incredibly vague, holy shit. he says “i’m not gonna lie to you” and he doesn’t, but he also doesn’t tell doris who called or what they said or why he’s suddenly leaving for work in the middle of the night or why he thinks she needs to lock the door.

i’m only six minutes in at this point. i’m talking too much oh gosh

WAIT WAIT WAIT. john is offering himself up as a hostage, alone and unarmed and without backup, and THAT’s the “oh, i don’t know if there’s something wrong honey” situation he was leaving for? john. the fuck. now the “i’m not gonna lie” was definitely a lie after all.

the guy with the gun: “you’re such a good boy, john.” i respectfully disagree, my man.

the guy with the gun apparently killed his business partner and john arrested him (of course) and he and john have a talk about it where the guy is like “i shouldn’t have gone to prison!” and john is like “you got off lightly!” and it’s okay but. john is so smug about it and i hate that. he’s probably supposed to look bad ass and cool but i just. i just really dislike it. it’s this macho man thing and i’m not into it at all.

guy with gun, talking about his son: “you made sure he grew up without a father.” this, um, kind of made me laugh, because apparently that’s one of john’s specialties - for this guy’s kid by sending him (probably deservedly) to prison, sure, but later also his own kids by sending them away, fdjfkd. wow.

ooohhhh the gun guy said “steve, right?” and the frame kind of flipped to present day steve and that was very cool! i loved that.

2010 danny! and he’s talking to grace on the phone!!! already love it.

i also love that they gave him a baseball cap, presumably to hide the kind of obvious difference in hair that nine years brought.

danny kind of snubs the local food and it’s very 2010!him, but oh danny. it’s not the poor shop owner’s fault that your ex dragged you there against your will.

oh BOY. the shop gets robbed and the owner shot (which was expected, of course, when a main character wanders in there at night), and then danny asks the random woman shopping there to keep pressure on the owner’s wound until the ambulance gets there (which... he hasn’t called, and he also hasn’t told her to call for one, so that, uh, might take a long, long while) and then he takes the shop owner’s shotgun and RUNS AFTER THE SHOOTER. which is very heroic of him but also makes every single complaint he has in season 1 about steve’s daredevil approach to law enforcement VERY IRONIC.

oh, danny loses the guy and NOW he calls it in, fjdkfkd.

jerry is doing some smart tracking thing on the computer and it’s pretty regular h50 stuff but there’s an email adress on the screen that’s literally “gunlover[bunch of numbers]” and i’m screaming oh gosh

they already found the girl! but her dad is understandably not that jazzed about letting his daughter be investigated for murder. but good job on tracking her down so quickly!

2015 tani at a party!!! aww.

ohhh gosh koa is target shooting with the gun, which probably means he’s going to end up getting framed for something, oh no.

oh boy, tani has the same concerns so she confronts her boyfriend about it but she also knows her boyfriend’s in a gang and then the police comes knocking at his door about a murder, so that’s not going to end well.

ooh, 2015 tani was a police informant! and she’s talking to a pretty cool female detective and i appreciate that, even though you’d have to squint to count this scene as passing the bechdell test because almost every sentence references tani’s boyfriend, the boyfriend’s gang or tani’s brother.

steve and danny are interrogating a suspect together!! i might be completely wrong, but i feel like we haven’t seen that in a while.

suspect: “i don’t know if either of you guys are married, but even if it goes south, you can’t shut down some of those feelings, you know? like the ones that go right down into the core.” HMMM. INTERESTING. the camera is literally on danny’s face for a good portion of this, gosh.

they close their main case and i thought for a moment there was going to be some big twist because the episode isn’t near over yet, but instead they realize that this gun was used for a whole bunch of other crimes. it’s a “community gun”! i love that term, wow. how nice and cooperative of them all, sharing this one piece between them.

danny recognizes his case from the ones on the screen!!! and he tells the rest of them that he went to get a bite to eat on his first night in hawaii and that the store was robbed, and i’m kind of glad that at least the team seems to recognize that this is extraordinarily bad luck, ha.

also, steve barely reacts to danny’s story, so i’m taking that to mean that he definitely already knows it. which would make total sense! this seems like the kind of thing danny would rant about at some point during one of his “why i hate hawaii” tirades in season 1, but still, i like that. they know each other.

fjdkfjdk i LOVE how the whole team is standing there and piecing together the fact that they have connections to a ridiculous number of the crimes committed with this one gun, and jerry keeps commenting about how freaky it all is. this is so much fun, awww.

young john gets shot but of course he was wearing a vest, because he can’t die yet, because he needs to save that for a moment much later when he’s scarred his kids more and when he can die horribly on the phone with his son.

OKAY BUT “d. lukela”!!!! i’ve been watching the john bits very sceptically at this point but THIS I DID NOT SEE COMING and i ADORE IT.

john: “listen, duke, i’m not gonna lie to you man...” WHY do you keep saying that john, omfg. at least this time you’re telling the truth about not lying, i suppose. 50% not lying about not lying isn’t much, but it’s a start.

steve!! remembers!! that night!! and it’s because he was six and really scared because he knew something was wrong oh nooo

danny and tani talking in the car is super nice!!! and danny gets to drive the camaro for once which, wow, that’s pretty shocking

ahhhhh, the only thing this danny+car scene was missing was steve and then he CALLS. very good.

i just. listen. i just love danny. the way he keeps butting into the tense conversation between tani and this guy she used to know who she put in prison? it’s both hilarious and secretly very kind, because it’s making the moment so much more bearable for tani.

danny and tani find the guy from the convenience store robbery and he just turns around and puts his hands on his back to be cuffed when they ask him to! he doesn’t pull out a gun from somewhere or even try to run away! holy shit!

duke and steve are in california rounding off steve’s dad’s case and of course they get shot at before even knocking on the door and then the suspect runs for it, too. maybe it’s just steve. maybe their work would be a lot easier if steve’s presence didn’t magically make all the suspects shoot and run.

and the gun gets put away in a box in evidence storage, closing the case(s). aww. that’s a nice end.

okay, so, as much as i complain about john mcgarrett, i did really enjoy this episode very much! it was a really fun idea to have this gun travel around the island and use it to show little parts of characters’ backstories and i liked the execution of it too, plus the pacing was good and it had some funny moments and it had (very importantly) danny in it. and tani’s background!!! i think that was the one that surprised me most, because danny being a good cop with bad luck and steve having a not-so-great dad are a bit of a given at this point (though i still enjoyed seeing that, too!), but we knew precious little about tani’s life before five-0, and apparently there’s a huge story there. knowing what this episode showed us, i kind of want her to have a conversation with kamekona at some point - they both had a youth where they (almost) went the wrong direction, and they both got out of that in part for the sake of their brothers, and then they both ended up in the five-ohana somehow, which is probably not a place they ever saw themselves. i don’t know, i just love the idea of this unexpected friendship/understanding between two characters who don’t seem to have a lot in common at first glance.

also, more general comment: the funny thing is, until i watched this episode i hadn’t realized how much i missed this silly show and its silly characters over the past month. i totally did that not-watching-it thing to myself (not even intentionally, but still) and clearly it was more of a mistake than i realized because oh my god it felt good to see them all on my screen again, gosh. :D

[plotwholls]

Jason loves his partner.

He loves the way she seems to float instead of move, but never looks delicate; he loves how intoxicating her eyes are, like your forget everything outside of them, and how she never seems to blink; he loves how when she speaks, it’s a murmur, yet everyone hears her crystal clear, and he loves when she raises her voice, steadily making everyone in the room (except those that are Hers) feel like they’re being driven insane. He loves her. He loves Jazz.

He loves her height, and how he has to actually put up a fight when they play wrestle, and he loves how she lets him braid her hair, and he loves how she refuses to cook (but will help him if he asks), and he loves how even though she hates cooking, she loves baking, and he loves the protein bars she makes (because they are the best patrol snack), and he loves how chill and supportive she is of him being a literal crime lord, and he loves everything about her.

He loves her work at Arkham, he loves how she encourages him to cry when he’s upset, he loves how she’s never afraid of him, only ever for him. He especially loves how she offered to kill the Joker after he told her what the monster had done to him (he remembers the deadly silence, how he wondered faintly if it was directed at him, before Jazz asked him— he remembers trying to figure out if her ring size ever slipped into conversation, and resolving to slip it in, ASAP).

Jason loves everything about Jazz, which means that he automatically loves her baby brother, even when not considering that he loves Danny, too. Danny is sweet, and kind, and the biggest, most petty asshole Jason’s ever met. Danny could but would never hurt a fly unless it was hurting someone else, and Jason thanks every higher being out there that Danny doesn’t want to be a superhero.

This is all a really, really long way of saying that Jason wishes Danny would come stay over more and that he loves Jazz Nightengale in a way he doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to define as anything other than “completely and utterly”. He would kill for her, and he would die for her. He would rip down nations for her. Give up— for her. And, if he’s being honest, he’s probably do even more for Danny.

Danny was about as tall as Jason, but he reminds Jason of a porcupine, in that underneath all of Danny’s spikes, he is visibly soft. Danny reminds Jason of himself, before he died, to be honest. Danny’s heart bleeds gold, leaving bloody footsteps in his wake, and Jason knows that his willingness to do anything for Danny was the reason Jazz was sitting him down with that serious look she only ever gets when Datnny’s safety is involved.

“Batman is looking into my past. That would be fine if it weren’t for how he’s trying to find out who killed our….” She paused, pursing her lips. “Jason. What kind of day is it?”

Now Jason was worried. She only ever asked that when she had to bring the Joker up. “I’m good. Keep going.”

She hesitates (but not because she doesn’t believe him— oh, how he loves her like a cat does a spot of sunshine— just to figure out how to say it). She nods slightly and says, “Danny had a pair of Jokers. I got rid of them. Permanently. Batman is trying to find out it was me. I don’t know how to stop him.”

…Has Jason mentioned that he loves Jazz? He feels like he hasn’t mentioned it enough.

“Darling, please put the ring away and stand up. I love you, too, but I could potentially be sentenced to prison and Danny could get a government’s worth of Jokers if we don’t stop Batman.”

Oh, that’s not okay. Jazz getting sent to prison is fine enough, Jazz wouldn’t care (they’ve discussed it), but Danny was finally settling into his new life, and a disruption like that is unacceptable. Jason stood up, pecked the love of his life on that wonderful mouth that said absolutely lovely things, and announced, “I’ll handle it.”

She hums, smiling, as she plucks the ring box out of his hand. “Then I’ll get started on the wedding planning. How do you feel about a fall wedding?”

DP x DC prompt where Jazz and Jason have been dating for awhile and she’s managed to keep her past a secret. 

Jason doesn’t pry for information; he trusts her and if she wants to tell him then she’ll tell him on her own time. 

Only… once Bruce learns about Jazz and tries to do a cursory paranoid background check he finds a lot of missing information and concerning details about Ms. Nightingale, whose original surname was Fenton. He keeps searching until he’s finally found her family– or, what used to be her family. 

Jazz’s family home is no longer standing and something dark and grisly happened that resulted in the violent murders of her parents inside that house. The Fenton children were never found following the incident– only one of them is now in Gotham (possibly both).  

Jazz somehow realizes that Batman is investigating her and now has to try and hide the fact that she and/or Danny are responsible for the murders of their parents (following them hurting Danny).

She confides this in Jason, not realizing he’s close to Batman and a vigilante himself. Jason jumps at the chance to help her.

[dawnofaqua]

Green Looks Good On You

Danny posts a lot of nudes and Roy doesn’t like it.

A/N: This is a prompt that was sent to me by an anon. I worked on this for a while, and I kept postpone the day I would post it because something bothered me about it and thanks to Lemonade, I found out what it is: that I don’t enjoy writing about some topics unless I make clear that I don’t feel the same way as the characters.

So, I thought I should make a little disclaimer before this: first of all I don’t know Roy or Danny and this is purely fictional, of course, but the most important thing is another one. Jealousy can be cute to an extent, but once it becomes toxic - as in “I want my partner to stop doing x because I don’t like it” it’s not cute anymore. Being in love shouldn’t mean you want to tear your lover’s wings apart just because you’re scared or because you want them all for yourself. That’s not love, that’s obsession and it’s not healthy. Please, if you ever find yourself in a relationship or friendship that makes you think “I don’t want to do this because x would get mad” consider leaving that person. Now, onto the fiction!

Roy had always been used to sleeping for only a few hours per night: when he moved to New York, between his work as a seamstress and his shows in drag at night, he would be able to sleep only around four hours before the alarm was ready to get him out of bed early in the morning. Even now that he was more successful and he could relax whenever he wanted, there was this rush, this need of doing more and more, to fill every hour with something. It wasn’t weird that anyone would call him a workaholic, and he never really cared. Relaxing was good and everything, but after a few hours he’d feel anxious, thinking that he was wasting time. D.J., once, had joked that he needed a Momo in his life, and Roy had just rolled his eyes at the time, snapping back and telling him that he was even surprised the other one would know the book at all. He was confident, though, that he wasn’t losing time. It was actually well spent in his mind, after all, his fans were always happy with his work, why would he stop then?

The thought that maybe he needed to slow down at least for a few days arrived during his traveling for the premiere of Hurricane Bianca. He wasn’t on tour with his show in May and until the end of June he wouldn’t have to leave the US, and when people told him he was lucky to have almost two months of relax, he just laughed and pointed at everything he still had to do. There was DragCon, tough he would be there only for one day to sign his new book, Hurricane Bianca was gonna come out, and the whole Drag Tots had just been announced after he worked on it with a few of his friends. To think he would actually take two months to just recharge was funny, at least to him.

But then, when the various premieres of Hurricane Bianca had finished, Roy just needed to open Instagram to witness how much he needed some time off. He had been posting photos and answered few of his friends as well, but he didn’t pay too much attention at anything - except for the whole Acid Betty thing, since everyone texted him about it - while he was travelling.

Roy was greeted with a picture of Adore on tour. He knew she was in England, and she looked happy in the picture - she was surely having a shit ton of fun. He just needed to see her smile to feel suddenly empty.

They talked in the last few days, mostly because of the way Danny acted a few days before. Shane texted him about the whole situation, and after reading his tweets, Roy thought he could give him a hand to understand what he did that night, talking so loudly at 4 am, was wrong. It wasn’t really cute, mostly because Danny was stubborn and childish sometimes, and he didn’t want to understand what Roy was trying to tell him. They didn’t argue, at least not too much, and while Roy wasn’t sure the other one had understood what he was trying to make him understand, at least he gave him something to think about. They texted a few times, mostly to know how they were doing, but it surely wasn’t like talking face to face.

That’s what made him feel empty. They had spent so much time together at the start of the year, he was growing used to having Danny around him most of the time, and once he was back on tour through the States, it was difficult to realize he couldn’t simply get up, call Danny and tell him they could hang out that night. It was something he then got used to all over again as soon as the tour kept going, but it still bothered him.

Roy clicked on the username of his friend: he decided to go through his latest posts, just to see what he has been up to, maybe leave a few comments and let him know he was thinking about him.

Most of the pictures were from the tour, obviously. There were also a few pictures of places he had seen while travelling, some with his friends… and naked pictures.

Now, that wasn’t something new - Danny had always been open about his sexuality and he liked to post pictures like this one, but the thought didn’t make Roy feel any better. He usually ignored them, because everytime he could feel his stomach tighten in a strong grip that resembled jealousy too much for his taste; just thinking about it was scary. Danny was young, he liked to have fun and Roy didn’t want to ruin their beautiful friendship in any way. He couldn’t have feelings for Danny, no, it was out of discussion.

He had to repeat to himself those words while he decided to stop looking at the photos, especially after reading all the comments of people praising him for his appearance. He didn’t want to get upset about Danny simply being himself and living his life, especially since they were probably gonna see each other the next day - he was going back to Los Angeles and the other one was coming back from England - or even to the people that commented. It wasn’t their fault Roy was jealous, not even Danny’s, it was his own for letting himself feel anything remotely romantic towards his friend.

He put down the phone and called it a night. The flight was early in the morning the next day, and he had to rest at least a bit if he didn’t want to look like a mess - and lingering his thoughts more on the matter would’ve never let him close his eyes. He got under the blankets, took a deep breath and tried to fall asleep, praying that his own feelings would’ve let him rest for once.

Of course, Roy couldn’t sleep at all that night. He kept turning around, waiting for his eyes to finally get heavier and let him slowly lose consciousness, but he had never been lucky with that. His brain kept reminding him of all those pictures, Danny’s face in everyone of them with that little smirk of someone that knew how attractive they were, the comments of everyone complimenting him… it was almost painful, at some point.

In the end, Roy got up for his flight with zero sleep, got dressed up and took the plane and went home. He managed to sleep at least a bit during the flight, even if he kept waking up for a few minutes and then fall asleep again, but at least he wasn’t as exhausted as he was when he woke up that morning. He also managed to stop thinking about the pictures, and when he arrived home he was just happy to see his babies again.

“Hi baby, come here.”

He called Dede, that was still jumping in front of him even when he sat down and took Sammy on the couch with him. She was always a little more energetic than the other dog, but that day it was more than usual; Dede was jumping and barking like she did when someone was coming and she could hear them already, but Roy wasn’t expecting any visitors. He was actually thinking to go to sleep for a while, since that day he didn’t have any work to do, and wanted to try to rest for the next day.

His plans were cancelled as soon as Dede sprinted to the main door, just a few seconds before someone rang the bell. Roy sighed, then got up from the couch after stroking Sammy’s head one last time and yelled a “Coming!” loud enough for whoever was on the other side to hear him.

He knew Danny was gonna come back that day, but as soon as he saw his friend in front of him, that stupid grin printed on his face and his luggage behind him, Roy was surprised. After last night, he pushed any kind of thought about Danny deep down, where they were gonna be out of sight in his own brain, but as soon as he saw him they broke free and filled his mind. The photos, especially, were still there - and he could feel his blood boiling in his veins. For a few seconds he even considered slamming the door in front of Danny’s face, but as soon as he was able to find control again, Roy remembered that it wasn’t Danny’s fault that those pictures made him angry. He didn’t want to be harsh to him, so instead of slapping him, Roy managed to smile and even hug Danny, that let out a laugh while hugging him back.

“I’m back, bitch!”

He chirped in Roy’s ear, so loud he almost made him deaf. Roy chuckled, patting his back for a few seconds; he was still on the edge, but the more he could feel the warmth of Danny’s body against his, the more he was feeling comfortable. It was always a mystery to him how the younger one was able to calm him with just a smile or a hug.

“I can see that.”

The reply came out a little more harsh than intended, but thankfully Danny thought it was just one of his jokes and laughed again, breaking the hug. Roy held him for a few seconds more, until he had to do the same to not raise any question - even if it wasn’t what he wanted to do. After all, he missed Danny a lot in the last weeks, more than he felt comfortable admitting.

Roy glanced at the luggage behind Danny’s back and raised an eyebrow, giving a questioning look to the younger one.

“You came here straight from the airport?” When Danny nodded, Roy couldn’t help but sigh. “You live next door, you should’ve stopped there first!”

Danny didn’t look like he cared at all about what Roy was saying; he took the bag with him, entering the older man’s house and then said hi to the dogs with a high pitched voice. Roy just closed the door, and couldn’t help but chuckle a bit: Dede was trying to jump in Danny’s arms, but she was clearly too little to be able to, at least until Danny decided to get down to get her.

“I couldn’t! I wanted to see you and these babies… I missed you all so much.”

Danny mumbled, while he was busy covering Dede with kisses. He then did the same to Sammy, once they were all on the couch, and surprisingly enough he even gave Roy a quick kiss on the cheek. He had always been affectionate, but for Roy everytime he gave him that kind of attention, it was a beautiful surprise he didn’t think he deserved at all.

Of course, that was the only thing he needed to completely forget about those pictures. He smiled, simply happy to have his best friend back, even if he gave Danny a little punch on his arm.

“Ever heard of consent?”

“Come on, it was just a little kiss!”

Danny complained, making Roy laugh loudly - and he joined the laugh immediately afterwards. They spent some time like that, just talking: Danny was clearly not pissed at him after the whole 4am thing, he even told Roy he was right and that he was simply pissed in the heat of the moment, and then they talked about their travellings in the last weeks. Roy talked about the different premieres of Hurricane Bianca; they all went well, people seemed to like the movie just as much as the first one if not more and he was really proud of Matt and his crew’s work. He was hoping they would make another one, and maybe this time Adore could be in it. Danny was simply happy just thinking about the possibility of finally working on a movie together, after last year’s mess.

Then it was Danny’s turn. While Roy managed to witness how happy he looked on tour thanks to some of the photos, hearing from him directly that it was the time of his life and that he really enjoyed being able to interact with his fans and feel their love. Roy could listen to him talk all night, and even without saying anything at all, just like he was doing in that exact moment. His enthusiasm made Roy smile, and he caught himself almost stroking his head at some point, but then managed to stop before Danny could notice. He knew the younger one probably wouldn’t read too much into it, but after last night, Roy felt that if he tried anything remotely affectionate, he would give away what he was feeling. It was almost as if he feared Danny would be able to see through his chest and realize how his heart would beat faster everytime he was nearby.

Danny leaned on him, placing his head on Roy’s shoulder once he decided to stop talking. Maybe he was tired as well, after all he just came back from another country - and he was more than ready to let him sleep there, in his bed. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time; it was something they always did, now that they lived next to each other more than ever.

Instead, Danny looked up to him, his eyes twinkling like everytime he was ready to drag him out of the house, and then smiled.

“How about we go out and get something to drink? It’s been so long!”

Roy sighed; he knew Danny would ask him something like that, and while usually he was more than happy to go out with him as well, after the last couple of weeks he was just looking forward to a chill night on his couch, maybe with a glass of wine and a movie on.

“I think I’ll pass today. I didn’t get much sleep last night, I just really want to rest.”

Danny pouted, poking his arm for few seconds before he sighed as well. He was ready to hear the younger one complain, like he usually did when Roy declined his invitations, but instead he placed his head on his shoulder again for a few seconds before getting up. He didn’t look pissed off, he was smiling again.

“All right, but we’re still drinking and you can’t say no!”

He chirped then, and without waiting for Roy to answer him, Danny made his way to the kitchen. He knew where Roy had what he called “the good stuff”, and it didn’t take him too much to come back with bottles of different drinks and two glasses.

“You know, we shouldn’t mix those--”

“Oh shut up, I’m not a baby. I know what I’m doing.”

Roy let out a laugh, then decided to let Danny do whatever he wanted. After all, if he was sure they could get wasted without any problem, he had to know he was free the next day. While Danny was usually wild and ready to party everyday, he also loved his work as much as Roy did, so he probably wouldn’t drink too much if he knew he had to do something in the morning. It was always difficult for Roy to stop acting like his mother; he would always worry about Danny’s well being, even if now the other one was a little older and a little more mature, even if he never lost his childish vibe.

Roy didn’t want to sound too much like a party pooper, so he simply sighed and took the glass that Danny was giving him. After a while, they both had drunk a few glasses together, and they were definitely in a happier mood. They were still talking, but this time there were more giggles, and Roy didn’t feel the need to be less affectionate than usual. At some point, he even held Danny close, while the younger one was playing with the buttons on his shirt.

“You’re finally back at being yourself, bitch. I was worried.”

Danny said after a while, a softer smile on his face. Roy didn’t understand: he frowned, looking at the other one with a questioning look, hoping he would tell him more about it. Danny simply shrugged, while he kept unbuttoning and buttoning back the same button on Roy’s shirt. He didn’t pay too much attention to it.

“Well, when you opened the door you didn’t really look like you were happy to see me. I almost thought you were gonna close the door right on my nose.”

His voice was cheerful, as if he knew Roy would never do that… and that was what made it painful to Roy. He actually thought of doing so, to someone that actually didn’t do anything at all to him. He didn’t want Danny to know, though, so he laughed a bit, scratching him a little behind a ear like he was a kitten to cuddle.

“I was just caught off guard. As if I didn’t know that if I closed the door on you, you’d take it down with kicks.”

That was enough for Danny to laugh and punch him lightly on an arm, and then everything was fine again. They talked a little more, but soon the younger one was more interested in going through social media and pointing at things that made him laugh, so he could show them to Roy. It was okay, until he suddenly stopped and smirked at his phone. Of course, Roy caught his expression, and he had to ask what happened.

“I’ve been stalking this guy for months, he’s so hot - and he liked one of my pics. Well, I wouldn’t blame him, my ass looks fantastic in that one.”

Danny exclaimed with a laugh, but as soon as he brought his eyes on Roy’s again, he stopped.

Roy didn’t like being jealous. It was a stupid thing to do, especially when you’re jealous of someone much younger, prettier and especially someone that wasn’t yours to begin with. And yet here he was: it took him just one comment from Danny about one of his naked pictures for the jealousy to be back as if he didn’t spend an entire day trying to not think about it. It was boiling in his body, hotter than any drink he had ever had, and this time around he wasn’t able to control it.

“What’s going on? Are you okay?”

“No, I’m not. Can you put your phone away? I don’t want to talk to someone more interested on his phone.”

The answer came out meaner that he meant, but he couldn’t help it. He wanted Danny all to himself, at least for a few hours, and knowing that someone was not only looking at him naked but he would also probably get to see Danny in person like that, was enough for Roy to want to punch something or someone.

Danny was still clueless. He raised his head from Roy’s shoulder, confused, but at least he put his phone away.

“What did I do? It’s something I said, isn’t it?”

Roy shook his head. He was drunk, but not enough to just put all the blame on Danny… even if he seen him way more guilty than before. He thought that the younger one didn’t have any kind of respect for how Roy felt towards him, he would always sleep around and then brag about it later - he didn’t care if he never told Danny about it. It had to be obvious how much Roy liked Danny, at least in his mind. He would never take care of someone as much as he did with Danny, at the point where he would get up during the night just to pick him up when Danny called him, drunk and in need of a lift. There was nothing he wouldn’t do to help him.

“No. I just don’t want to think about another idiot looking at your ass and jacking off to it.”

He growled, raising a hand just to put some distance between Danny and himself. The more he thought about it, the more he didn’t like the idea, the more he got angry. That’s why Roy didn’t like to drink too little - he just got meaner than usual. He either didn’t drink or drank enough to pass out.

Danny looked at him with his big green eyes, surprised by his answer… and then smirked. He fucking smirked and Roy hated it so much he was ready to punch him right on the nose.

“What’s so funny about it?”

He said after a few seconds, with the same tone as before. Danny didn’t look scared, he actually looked pleased. He even tried to get closer to him, but Roy wasn’t having it, pushing him lightly on the chest so he wouldn’t get too close. Danny pouted, and the fact that he was taking so lightly something that made Roy so angry was even more upsetting to the older man.

“So, you’re angry because a guy is interested in me?”

The way his voice was purring was distracting, but Roy was still way too angry to care. He crossed his arms on his chest, letting out an annoyed snort, and he even looked away. He felt so stupid, as soon as Danny said those words - it sounded like Roy was a stupid child instead of a grown ass man.

Danny didn’t like the silence. He grabbed Roy by the chin, forcing him to look back at him. As soon as he did so, he was met with two green eyes that were clearly having way too much fun for his taste.

“So, am I right or not?”

“Yes. No. Fuck, I don’t know - I just don’t like it, okay? And I don’t want to hear about it. Actually, I don’t even wanna see your nudes on the internet for everyone to see, but it’s not like you’re gonna stop anytime soon, no?”

He blurted out everything in a matter of seconds, so fast he wasn’t even sure Danny would catch everything - and it wasn’t like he actually wanted him to know, it was just a way for Roy to be able to be honest with himself, and simply stop having that weight on his shoulders. He didn’t look at Danny, snorted again and stubbornly looked away again, acting as a fool the entire time. Surely, if they ever had that conversation, that wasn’t the way he wanted to handle it. It was too late now, he guessed. Now Danny was probably gonna be pissed: he could already picture him getting up, telling him he was too controlling and possessive and that it was freaking him out, and then their friendship was gonna be ruined forever. Good job Roy, he thought to himself. There was no one that could mess his own life as good as he did.

But when he felt a weight on his legs and he found Danny on his lap, his arms already around Roy’s neck, he suddenly found himself at a loss of words. He didn’t have the time to react or anything, though: Danny chuckled, and his eyes were full of pure lust - and Roy was way too weak to be able to push him away, especially after waiting years for being looked in that way from him.

“You’re so cute when you’re jealous.”

That was the last thing he heard before getting dragged in the most heated kiss he ever received. Danny’s mouth was over his, then his tongue made its way in Roy’s mouth and all he could do was shiver, hold Danny closer and kiss him back as hard as he could. Roy still couldn’t believe it was happening: he thought about kissing Danny way too many times, but it was never like this. This was wild, tongue and teeth and hands everywhere - this was just perfect. There was nothing in his mind but Danny, the way he whimpered against his mouth when Roy’s hands squeezed his ass, his hands in Roy’s hair. It was a moment completely out of time and space.

But when they stopped and Roy was able to look in Danny’s eyes again, he didn’t even let himself catch his breath; his brain was moving way too fast, realizing that maybe that wasn’t anything Danny wouldn’t do with anyone else, that maybe he was just horny after days without sex and so on.

“Okay, what was that for?”

He asked, his breath a little faster than before - but he tried to focus on what that actually meant more than the act itself. He didn’t want to gets his hopes up, not so soon at least.

Danny giggled, sliding a little lower so he could place his chin on Roy’s chest. He looked like the cat that finally got the canary.

“For being jealous, of course. I can’t believe it worked! I owe Shane twenty bucks now.”

He added, pouting a bit. At that point, Roy was just confused, but it took him very little to understand what happened. He frowned, glaring at Danny.

“Did you two bet about this? Seriously? I thought you were better than that.”

His annoyed voice was cut out by another kiss. This time it was way more gentle, a quick kiss that had only their lips involved and nothing more. Danny then shook his head, a softer smile just for Roy.

“No, not in that sense- I just.. well, this is embarrassing…”

He mumbled, but as soon as he saw Roy’s serious face and he understood the other one wasn’t gonna cut him some slack, he sighed and continued.

“I didn’t think you were interested in me. I talked to Shane about this, and he was sure you were, even if I didn’t believe him… so he challenged me. He said that if I kept posting nudes, you’d get jealous and snap back. I didn’t think it would actually happen, but here we are.”

Roy raised his eyebrows, at a loss of words. He was gonna kill Shane first of all, of course: that was surely a dumb idea. Why not talk about it instead of playing with his emotions? This wasn’t a movie, they were real people and Roy found the strategy to be childish.

At the same time, though, he was happy. He still didn’t want to think too much of it, mostly because Danny didn’t say anything about liking him in a romantic way - he was a free spirit, it was nothing new for him to sleep with his friends. Danny didn’t even shy away from telling Roy he found him attractive, but that never escalated until that moment… and Roy didn’t want to be just one of the many. He cared about Danny more than he cared about anyone else, and he hoped the younger one felt the same.

Danny was looking at him in complete silence. He was nervously biting his lips, and Roy almost made him stop with another kiss - but that wasn’t the moment.

“What do you mean by ‘interested in you’?”

“Are you really gonna make me say it out loud?”

Danny complained, with a deep sigh once Roy simply nodded in response. Maybe he was being way too cautious, but after way too many heartbreaks, he couldn’t simply jump in the void without knowing if someone was gonna catch him on the other side.

“I like you. I always have, but there was this aura coming from you that told me you didn’t want anyone that close to you. It was painful, watching you being beautiful and perfect and shit like that and not being able to be by your side but as your friend. But now… it’s different. Isn’t it? Please tell me that you kissed me back because you like me as well.”

His voice changed during the whole thing - he was begging him. Danny was begging him, to like him back, to not destroy his heart… and Roy still couldn’t believe it, but as soon as he saw his big eyes filled with fear, he couldn’t help but give him a soft smile.

“You fucking idiot. Why would you orchestrate something like this - posting nudes all the time just waiting for me to react - instead of talking to me directly? This is much better. And way more healthy.”

He added, caressing his cheek with a different feeling than usual. He was relieved, and it was finally starting to kick in that Danny actually liked him and for as long as Roy did. The only thing that was bothering him at that point was that they wasted a lot of time… but as soon as Danny’s face lit up, that wasn’t a problem anymore. There was nothing he cared about more than seeing that smile on his face, especially when he knew he was the one that made him that happy.

“Hold on, you’re not kidding right? You like me?”

“You fucking idiot, why would I joke about that?”

Danny laughed in response, a happy laugh that could be heard from miles away probably - and it was all for him, only for him. He gave him more kisses, way more enthusiastic than any of the ones they exchanged before, but soon they became heated, and Roy could feel Danny’s breath getting heavier against his lips. After all, they both waited for so long, it wasn’t a surprise that both of them needed definitely more than a few kisses to feel satisfied.

“I am so happy I could die, really, but right now I just need--”

“Bed. I know. I need it too.”

He whispered against his lips. Danny smirked, tightening the grasp of his legs around Roy’s hips while the older one, even if with some difficulties, managed to get up and lead him to the bedroom.

Roy wasn’t sure where they were gonna go from there, but one thing was for sure: he would make sure to make a fuss about every damn picture Danny posted of himself naked if it made him as hungry as he was that night.

___________________________

“So, no more nudes now?”

Danny asked him, his head resting on Roy’s chest. It was late, they didn’t know how much, but it didn’t matter in that moment. Roy stroked his hair, massaging his scalp until Danny sighed happily at the sensation, closing his eyes.

The older one raised an eyebrow; now that he was definitely more calm, holding the person that was now his partner, naked and warm, he was embarrassed with the way he behaved. He wasn’t a teenager, he was a grown man that knew what boundaries were - and he didn’t have any right to tell Danny what to do.

“That’s not up to me to decide. It’s your life, your body.”

Danny looked at him confused for a second. He held Roy’s hand, placing it on the older man’s stomach.

“But I thought-”

“What? That I wouldn’t let you keep posting pictures like those?”

Danny simply nodded, making Roy sigh. This is what he feared the most; he didn’t want to become the reason for Danny not to be himself. He already saw what that could do to any relationship: it would become toxic, and the last thing he wanted was to hurt Danny in any kind of way.

“That’s not my decision to make, sweetheart. Do you enjoy taking those pictures?”

Another nod. Roy took it as a sign he could continue.

“Then keep doing it. I trust you, I just want you to be happy - and if that makes you happy, keep doing it. I was way out of line today… and I wanted to apologize for that.”

Danny got up, still looking confused like a puppy. He would look cute if Roy wasn’t worried about how he came across a few hours before - so he sat down instead of lying on the bed, waiting for Danny to say something.

“So you’re not mad anymore for the pictures?”

“No, and I shouldn’t have been in the first place. We weren’t in a relationship, first of all - and yes, even if you tried to get my attention, it’s still not right for me to get so mad at you. I will do better from now on; we’re a team, I support you and you support me. There’s no place for toxic jealousy.”

Danny smiled, leaning on to kiss him tenderly. It had been a few hours since the first one, but Roy still didn't have enough of them. He kissed him back before he decided to hold him close, just as before.

“Alright. If you ever act like an asshole again, I will tell you.”

“Good. And if it ever happens again, you have the permission to make fun of me.”

The eyes of the younger one suddenly lit, and a smirk that Roy knew too well was suddenly making its way on his face. He answered rolling his eyes, even if then he couldn’t help but smile.

“And you won’t talk back?”

“I won’t talk back.”

“Wow. You will regret this.”

Danny said with a laugh, that made Roy laugh as well. He really doubted he would regret anything that was happening in that moment, especially once Danny decided they needed to sleep and dragged him back to lie on the bed. Roy was actually relieved they had that talk, and when he closed his eyes, he couldn’t think of anything but how much he was looking forward to the next day, and the next one and the next one again.

[poipoi1912]

Carisi-centric thoughts on Ep 19x11

Wait, was Sonny even in this episode?

Still, I do have some thoughts about him (I do not, however, have overall thoughts because this episode kind of put me to sleep). But first:

Dodds Thoughts

I LOVE HIM. I support him. I will not stand for him turning into some villain because the writers need to add some tension and they can’t figure out a more creative way of doing it.

I will, however, say that Liv works best when she has an adversary, and if the writers have realized that, and they’ve chosen to use Dodds for that purpose, I guess I’ll take it. I’ve said this before, but Liv is more sympathetic as an underdog. And she has more fire when she’s fighting against someone stronger. She is a woman in a position of authority, and it’s great to see the others respect and acknowledge her position and her skill (i.e. her being the ONE AND ONLY person who could EVER do this job that COUNTLESS people have done before her etc etc), but dramatically speaking that can get preachy or sycophantic or just plain boring. Giving Liv an enemy just might be a positive step. BUT WHY’D IT HAVE TO BE DODDS?

Also, Peter Gallagher is a wonderful actor and he continues to bring the best out of Mariska and it’s beautiful to watch. So, again, maybe it’s a good thing that he’s possibly shady. EXCEPT IT’S NOT. BECAUSE HE’S GREAT. BEST GUY EVER. BEST HAIR. BEST EYEBROWS. BES-ok I’ll stop.

Barba Thoughts

He is a feminist icon.

He is hungry for a nice thicc

steak.

Legal Thoughts

Nope lol. Grand larceny? OK then.

Sonny Thoughts

So, Liv comes back after 3 weeks, and Sonny literally turns his back the minute she walks in, and then he walks away and never even says a word? Never welcomes her back? The hell?

Allow me to say something as objectively as I can, considering Sonny is my fave.

I think Sonny has been relegated to last man on the totem pole, which is what he was originally brought in for. What he actually was, when he first appeared on the show, back in S16, when Amaro was still the main guy. For about a year after that (during S17) he was given a larger role, and more storylines, partially because Danny Pino had left and Kelli took time off to have a baby, and that changed things for him. Sonny started having more nuanced interactions with all the other characters (Liv, Barba, Amanda, even Dodds and Fin). In S18 he was the stereotypical Angry Male Lead, so he was getting a lot of screentime and bigger scenes, and working the cases more extensively. In S19, he’s been getting less screentime, and he only ever interacts with his partner, Rollins. No scenes with Liv, no scenes with Barba. And I actually lament the former more, because we’ve had one or two funny Barisi moments this season, bit the Benisi dynamic has been paid dust.

Liv has gone through a lot, as we’ve heard, and Sonny has always idolized her, and she always seemed to have a soft spot for him (certainly over Amanda lol). So it’s weird not to see his concern for her. I realize that the new showrunner sees Amanda as Liv’s new confidant, and the Rollivia scenes are true highlights so I most certainly am not about to complain about that, especially since I love seeing two women bond without the bullshit antagonism that used to plague their relationship, but I wish Sonny’s relationship with Liv wasn’t sacrificed in the process.

Also, is this season ultra light on Sonny, or is it me? Hasn’t his screentime been decimated since the start of the season? There were several (suspiciously so) deleted Sonny scenes in the first handful of episodes, and ever since he’s literally had nothing to do. Just the random one-off comment here and there. No real contribution. When was the last time he cracked a case? More importantly, when was the last time he connected with a victim? Or a suspect? He used to do that even in S16, when he was still the butt of all the jokes.

I mean, I can’t complain, because in previous seasons Peter was getting what was perhaps a disproportionate amount of screentime, and I certainly (and selfishly) enjoyed that, and I’m glad Kelli has been finally getting the increased role she’s always deserved (and barely had in S15), but still. Maybe they were overusing Sonny before, but they’re definitely underusing him now. As a Sonny fan, I guess I’m just saying that I want to see more of him because that’s the only way I can justify the fact I’m still watching SVU. Cause it sure ain’t about the cases.

Stray Thoughts

Kressler! I couldn’t believe my eyes! Old school!

“The guy doesn’t have so much as a parking ticket” =  “he’s guilty”

Peter’s side-eye when that flight attendant said “I turned 30! I’m so old!” rivaled my own.

Also, I only caught it after I saw the gifset, but Sonny spilled his coffee as he was taking a sip? I love it when Peter is bored as an actor, he always makes his own fun in the background.

Martin Donovan is so good. I wish the writers had given him more to do.

Dodds: This is a case for the FBI.

Liv: lol no

I liked that Liv wasn’t acting like being separated from Noah would be this traumatic “WHERE IS MY BOY???” thing. I liked seeing a working mom be like “omg I’ve had enough of my kid after 3 weeks, let him go to school to play with other kids so I can go do my job!” That’s refreshing. And necessary.

Is Barba a masochist? Why did he look so happy when Liv turned him down for the eleventh time in the last 3 episodes? And why couldn’t Liv come up with an actual excuse? It’s possible she has run out of excuses, to be fair, but still. “I’d love to but [dot dot dot]”? What’s that, if not a gentle brush-off? And what does she have to do that’s better than dinner with Barba? I don’t know what these moments are supposed to convey, other than “Liv doesn’t like Barba Like That” and “Barba has no other friends”. Maybe that’s it? His loneliness? As yet another reason he might eventually leave? A slow burn of a reason? He wants to fully embrace a nice thick life and the job won’t let him? Is that the point? yes I’m overthinking this shhh

Fin, like, did some stuff. Good for him! He even has a sort-of feud with Dodds, for some reason. I’ll take it! Peter Gallagher also brings out the best in Ice-T, and they’re so fun together! There’s some macho posturing that’s very amusing because both of them have a very specific and incompatible way of, just, being, and I love every minute of it.

Dodds: How’d you get this memo?

Fin: I got a memo guy.

[atc74]

The Simple Things Aren’t Always So Simple - The Aftermath

Word Count: 1444

Warnings: Implied smut, language, minor violence

A/N: So my dear good friend @spntrista tells me in great detail about a dream she had about Jensen one night. It has inspired this. Let’s all remember that this is FICTION and I do not in ANYWAY condone cheating on your spouse or partner. This is simply a work of fiction, please regard it as such. I mean no disrespect to Jensen or his family. Thank you.  

Much thanks and love to my bestie @just-another-busy-fangirl for the beta (me loves her) and @mamaredd123 for a jump start on this part in a series that took too long to finish. This is the end - thank you to all of you that waited so patiently for me to get my poop in a group!

“Danni, it’s not what you think…” I began.

“Don’t fucking talk to me you little homewrecking slut! And to think I trusted you with my kids! And you! You fucking bastard! How dare you choose this, this trollop over me!” Danneel’s voice was filled with venom and her face turned red as she continued to unleash her fury on us.

“Danneel, you hold on one fucking minute! First, you are the one that left. You are the one that cheated on me, remember?” Jensen was just getting started. “Secondly, don’t you dare talk to her like that! EVER! She is ten times the woman you will ever be and she has been here every minute since you fucking walked out!

“Thirdly, we’re done here. I have been home for more than forty-five minutes and watched every minute of your ‘time with the children’ and you have been on your phone the entire fucking time! They are down there alone right now because you left them. Again. Now get the fuck out of my house! You’ll be hearing from my attorney!” Jensen was now shouting. I had never seen him this angry.

“This is far from over, Jensen. I won’t give up my children without a fight!” Danneel yelled over her shoulder before she slammed the front door.

“Hey hey, it’s okay, Baby,” Jensen wiped away my tears and pulled me into his arms, comforting me.

“Jay, I am so sorry, I should have been watching more closely. I am so sorry,” I cried.

“Y/N/N, it’s not your fault, Baby. What I said was the truth; she wasn’t even spending time with them. I was watching from your room. She is playing some kind of game and I want to know what it is, but first, let’s get the kids and go out, get our minds off it, okay?” he inquired and I gave a quick nod, wiping away the remaining tears.

~*~

“Just until this is over, okay?’ Jensen pleaded with me.

“I trust you Jay. Whatever you think is best,” I sighed as he kissed me before walking out of his trailer.

Since Danneel’s visit the previous Saturday, Jensen had been on high alert. He had added extra cameras at the house and now JJ and I were in his trailer on set. He had decided until the modified orders had been served to Danneel, he wanted all of us close. Clif had arranged for one of his colleagues to accompany Austin to school while JJ would not be attending preschool for a few days.

JJ and I colored and worked on her letters and reading for a bit before making some lunch for the three of us, once Jensen had a break. We all ate in relative silence, with the exception of JJ, who insisted on reading to Jensen while we ate, but he was content to listen to his little girl ramble on about Princess Sophia.

Soon, Austin was dropped off after school and I got him started on his homework while I fixed a snack. As soon as I turned back to the sink, I heard a high-pitched scream, followed by profanities and Jensen’s name. There was a pounding on the door before it was ripped open and slammed against the side of the trailer.

“You fucking bitch! You put him up to this! I am going to ruin you!” Danneel’s shriek echoed inside the small space.

“Austin, take JJ and go hide in the bathroom; lock the door. Now. GO!” I pushed them away from the table toward the back of the trailer, but before they were clear, glass smashed all around them. I turned to face Danneel as she reached for something else on the bookshelf, attempting to launch it at my head. Clif burst through the door and caught her arm before she could, restraining her with his large arms.

“Y/N, go with the kids, I have already called the police and Jensen is on his way,” Clif commanded and I stepped gingerly around the shattered glass. Once I reached the bathroom and knocked, letting Austin know it was me and he released the latch, letting me in.

I sat on the edge of the toilet and inspected them. JJ looked unscathed, but scared to death; her little body wracked with sobs and I pulled her into my lap. Austin however, had a few cuts on his forehead and cheek. I set to cleaning them best I could with JJ in my lap when Jensen rushed through the door.

“Daddy!” JJ cried and threw herself at Jensen. “What’s wrong with Mommy?”

“Shhh, JJ, it’s okay. Daddy’s here now; it’s okay, Baby, I got you,” Jensen cooed as he rocked his daughter in his arms. He looked over at me, tears in his eyes, mouthing to ask if I was okay. I nodded a silent yes as I finished with Austin’s face.

Jensen passed JJ to me as he knelt down to examine Austin for himself. Austin was strong, but broke down when Jensen pulled him close. “I was strong and protected JJ, Uncle Jay. I did what Y/N told me to and protected my baby sister,” Austin sobbed into Jensen’s shoulder.

“You did good, Buddy. I am so proud of you for being brave and protecting our girls,” Jensen’s voice broke as well.

“Ah, Jensen?” Clif hesitated in the hall.

“Yeah, Clif?” Jensen didn’t turn, but held tight to Austin, his hand resting on my knee.

“The CMP are here and need your statements. I already gave mine, so I will stay with them while you go,” Clif reached out his arms to take both Austin and JJ as we filed out of the bathroom.

Jensen reached for my hand as we walked into the main living area of the trailer. Danneel was seated, handcuffed with an officer next to her. Another officer approached Jensen.

“Mr. Ackles, I am Officer Willis. I know this may not be the best time, but I need statements from you and your nanny,” the man said apologetically.

“Of course, Officer Willis. But she isn’t the nanny; she’s my girlfriend. I wasn’t present when the incident occurred, I was filming and arrived when Clif called me. But, Y/N was here with my children when it happened,” Jensen revealed.

“Miss? Can you tell me what happened here?” Officer Willis asked me softly.

I recounted for him what had happened once Austin had returned from school, right up the point where Clif arrived in the trailer, including Austin’s lacerations. Jensen rubbed a comforting hand up and down my back the entire time. The officer then asked for the children to be brought out so they could be checked out by the paramedics.

“Once she is removed, I will bring them out,” Jensen stood and demanded Officer Willis.

“Templeton, remove the suspect, please,” Willis commanded the officer. Danneel started shouting again.

“Clif,” Jensen called out to his protector and friend, “can you bring the kids out here?”

“Daddy!” JJ lunged for Jensen once she was in arm's reach and Austin grabbed my hand once by my side.

“Austin, buddy, this is Officer Willis and is going to have his friends look you over quick, make sure I didn’t miss any cuts on your face, okay? I know you are strong and brave, and I will be right here the whole time,” I promised Austin.

Jensen handed JJ over to me and pulled Willis aside where they talked in hushed tones. I could tell by look on Jensen’s expressive face that he was angry, hurt, worried - too many emotions to count right now. He nodded once, shook the officer’s hand and returned to my side.

“I have to go with them to file an order for protection. Clif will take you home and stay until I get back. It’s almost over, Baby.” he pulled me close and whispered in my ear.

“Be safe and hurry home, Jay,” I replied.

~*~

The recent past has been a roller coaster, to put in mildly. I took what I thought was a simple nanny job for a wealthy couple in Austin. Within a matter of weeks, I was living with a man in another country as his girlfriend. My name is Y/N Ackles. I’m not fancy; I am a simple girl. I like simple things, but over the past two years I learned that the simple things aren’t always so simple. Sometimes they are real fucking complicated, but in the end the hard climb was worth the view as I watched my husband play with our children in the yard and I wouldn’t change a thing.

Tell me what you think - I crave validation ;)

Taglist - add yourself here if you ain’t already on it: @padackles2010 @like-a-bag-of-potatoes @smoothdogsgirl @mamaredd123 @meeshw777 @tmccarney @milkymilky-cocopuff  @iwantthedean @ashstrom87 @chelsea072498 @paintrider13-blog @zeppo-in-a-trenchcoat @spntrista @mikey2217 @d-s-winchester @scorpiongirl1 @just-another-busy-fangirl @winchesterprincessbride @gemini75eeyore @waywardjoy @katewatso @cosmicpeanuthologram @jotink78 @l8nitl0vr @supernaturalyobsessed @memphisgirl1977 @bmcnally85  @ruprecht0420 @mskitty416 @theoriginalvicki @hexparker @nanie5 @whywhydoyouwantmetosaymyname @sandlee44 @fangirl1802 @moonstar86 @raylin19 @niamandthings  @feelmyroarrrr @ellen-reincarnated1967 @kittenofdoomage @t-bear99 @hamartiamacguffin @colorfulobjectenemy @uttertrash--butlikecutetrash  @sammieb1127 @evyiione @you-didnt-see-that-cuming @death2thevirgin  @moshingatthedisco  @tankcupcakes  @winchestersmut  @@alicat-life @mogaruke @cyrilconnelly @growningupgeek @CharlieBradbury1104 @evansrogerskitten @therewillbeblood @docharleythegeekqueen @megansescape @taste-of-dean​ @leatherwhiskeycoffeeplaid   @scarlet-soldier-in-an-impala  @deathtonormalcy56  @notnaturalanahi @jensen-jarpad @impalaimagining @fangirlextraordinaire @itseverythingilike @jesspfly @love-kittykat21​ @mrswhozeewhatsis @aiaranradnay @supernatural-jackles @samwinlover  @spnsasha @27bmm @keepcalmandcarryondean @iamnotsaneatall @autopistaaningunaparte @sis-tafics @blacktithe7 @deansdirtyduchess  @emoryhemsworth @dracotomanddeansprincess23 @bringmesomepie56 @devilgirlsarah @spnbaby-67 @katymacsupernatural @holytrenchcoatedsubtextchuck @emilycollins11 @myoutletforfanfiction @deansangelgirl @thinkwritexpress-official @queencflair 

Dean/Jensen tags: @anokhi07 @perpetualabsurdity @txp87 @akshi8278  @iamabeautifulperson18 @suzannebeaketa @thing-you-do-with-that-thing @deandoesthingstome @emilycollins11 @spn-dean-and-sam-winchester@boxywrites @deansangelgirl

The Simple Things tags: @nathaliabakes @willows-supernatural @winchester-lover95 @mariahoedt @sydneymarie101195  @delessapeace-blog​@dixonsvixon2017 @mrsdeanfuckingwinchester @redeyedvixen @deanislife67

[bringitspielberg]

Knives and Kisses: Prologue

Alright! Finished the prologue. I wrote this one like it’s being told by the narrator, but the other chapters will be different. This is optional to read if you want, just wanted to set up some of the basics, so you can start with the first chapter if you prefer since this one’s a bit long. Some of the things in the prologue will come back into play in the series, but it will be explained in those chapters. So hope you guys enjoy!

-

Series Summary: Sometimes a kiss is nothing, sometimes a kiss is something, and sometimes a kiss is everything. And Diego Hargreeves may have finally found someone who can not only keep up with him but teach him exactly that.

Chapter summary: Optional Prologue of Reader

Pairing: Diego x (fem) Reader

Warnings: None

Author’s note: The reader and her sister have powers that I’m not specifying until later in the story, I’m sure you’ll be able to guess what some of their abilities are, though. But don’t worry, both their abilities will come into play in later chapters and their powers will be clearer then.

Word Count: 6,100

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On October 1, 1989, 42 women around the world went into labor, and 43 children were born. This was odd only in the fact that before this day, none of these women were pregnant. Reginald Hargreeves, an eccentric billionaire, sought out to find and adopt all of them. It is unknown how many he initially found; however, he successfully adopted seven of them. But it had almost been nine.

---

“Gabby, come on, you can do this!” her brother shouted from beside her hospital bed.

Gabby pushed through another contraction with her face drenched in sweat from the effort. She tried to catch her breath for a moment, trying to find the words, “Danny, I’m scared.”

He pet her head to comfort her and squeezed her hand tighter, “I know, I know. This is completely impossible, but you’ll get through this.”

Gabby pushed again and the sound of a baby crying entered the room.

“It’s a girl!” a nurse called while swaddling the baby.

Gabby cried and breathed heavily like she was about to pass out, not knowing what she should feel, “I-I always wanted a daughter.”

“Alright, sorry, but you won’t get a long rest,” The doctor said. “The second baby is on its way.”

“Second?!?!” Both Danny and Gabby yelled.

“Did you not know it was twins?” the doctor asked.

Gabby squeezed Danny’s hand as she felt another contraction. His eyes were wide with fear for his sister. “Doc, she wasn’t pregnant this morning, she didn’t even know there was one!”

“Well, this is a weird day for all of us!” the doctor answered. “Alright, now Gabby I need you to push!”

Gabby kept pushing until the sound of crying filled the room.

“It’s another girl!” the nurse called swaddling the baby.

“You did it. It’s okay, sis. You did it. However impossible it is, you did it.” Danny squeezed his sister’s shoulders in an effort to comfort her as her breathing hadn’t slowed down.

The nurse handed one of the babies to Danny and another nurse held the other baby near Gabby so she could see them both.

Gabby started crying again but this time she smiled, “I love them.”

Her eyelids grew heavy and her words came out between deep breaths, “Danny…look…after…them…” She fell unconscious and the machines around her started beeping.

 A nurse took the baby from Danny and ushered him out of the room as the doctor’s started tending to Gabby. The last sound he heard as he was shoved out the door was the sound of his sister’s heart monitor stop beeping.

 “I came as soon as I could,” Pete said, gaining Danny’s attention.

Danny blinked, trying to come back to reality. He kept reliving his sister’s death again and again and he couldn’t make any sense of it. She hadn’t been pregnant and then she suddenly was and the birth had killed her, this never should have happened. Every time he closed his eyes, he just saw his sister lying in a hospital bed and not waking up.

“I’m so sorry, Danny.” Pete said. “I honestly have no idea what you must be going through right now. This literally came out of nowhere.”

Danny nodded his head, tears threatening to fall once more. “Yeah, I know. I don’t know what to do. And I know how much you cared about her, she was your partner, you were as much a brother to her as I was.”

Pete sadly looked down at the police badge hanging around his neck, “Yeah, I was. And I will deal with my own feelings when it comes to that. But…right now, there’s something we need to discuss.”

Danny brought his face forward, his eyes gazing through the glass of the nursery in the hospital. “The twins.”

Pete nodded solemnly, “Yeah, the twins. What are you gonna do?”

“What do you mean what am I gonna do?”

They could both hear the sound of a man talking, asking where the nursery is down the hall, both of them ignored it.

Pete sighed and put a hand on Danny’s shoulder, “They just appeared out of nowhere, they don’t have a father, the only person they were tied to was their mom, and she…well, you know. Which means, that they go to her next of kin.”

“Me.” Danny said. “It’s up to me what happens to them.”

“Finally, this hospital is entirely incompetent,” a man standing behind them interrupted with a huff.

Danny and Pete both turned to look at him. The man adjusted his monocle and scrutinized them.

“Reginald Hargreeves, gentlemen,” the monocle said. “Did I hear correctly that you’re the man to speak to about the mysterious twins?”

Danny eyed him suspiciously, “What’s that matter to you?”

Reginald stepped forward to look into the nursery; the twins were being kept separate from the other kids because the doctors weren’t sure what to make of them, so they weren’t hard to find.

“Extraordinary,” Reginald said. “Twins, of all things.” He turned back to Danny and stood even taller. “How much do you want for them?”

“Excuse me?” Danny asked.

Pete stepped forward to block Danny from Reginald’s view. “Sir, I don’t know what kind of game you’re getting at, but they’re not for sa—”

“I’ll give you one million dollars.” Reginald interrupted.

Pete and Danny gaped at him.

“Each.” Reginald continued.

Danny shook himself out of it, “What the hell? You can’t go around trying to buy babies!”

Reginald grabbed the lapels of his jacket and stood with his shoulders back, “I can, actually, as it so happens. I am fully prepared to take these mysterious children under my jurisdiction and intend to do so. I have already acquired a fair number of them, but these two are of particular interest to me. So, I ask again, how much do you want for them?”

Pete grabbed a hold of Danny’s arm to get his attention, “Danny, I hate to say this, but maybe you should take the guys offer.”

“You’re a policeman!” Danny whisper-shouted. “Shouldn’t you be against this?”

“I’m not saying I feel right about it,” Pete answered. “Believe me, my skin is crawling at this. But there’s two kids in there that just appeared out of nowhere and led to the death of your sister. This isn’t exactly a normal situation, you’re in no way prepared to deal with this. This guy might be one of the people who can.”

“Two million dollars is a lot of money.”

“Yeah, and you could really use it. Danny, I promise I will help you in any way I can, no matter what you decide. But honestly, you need to consider the options.”

“Does that mean we have a deal, gentlemen?” Reginald impatiently called.

Danny closed his eyes and turned back to the nursery before he opened them. Both the twins were sleeping peacefully. If things had been different, he’d be overjoyed to be an uncle, but he never would have thought in a million years it would happen like this. He furrowed his brow and thought of Gabby; how quickly he had lost his baby sister, how they had nothing left of her, she hadn’t left anything behind to keep her memory alive, anything except—

Danny turned back to Reginald with a glare. “No. The answer is no. My sister asked for one thing on her deathbed, and that was for me to look after them. She always wanted kids, and they’re all I have left of her. And I’ll be damned if I let anyone take them. So, get the hell out of here and don’t ever come near my girls again or I swear I will end you. There isn’t a price high enough that you could pay.”

Reginald huffed and turned to walked away indignantly, not seeming like he was finished, but not pressing Danny further.

Pete watched him go then turned to Danny with a sigh. “So, looks like you’re a dad now. I’ll help you however I can, Danny. If you think that’s what your sister would want, then I support you.” They both fell into a short silence. “You’re gonna have to name them, you know.”

“Gabriella,” Danny said without hesitation. “The smaller one is Gabriella.”

 Pete smiled, “After your sister. And the other one?”

Danny pursed his lips then slowly smiled. “Y/N. She always wanted a daughter named Y/N.”

“Sounds perfect.”

---

Several years later…

“Gabby,” her dad said from the driver’s seat, “will you please put your seatbelt on? You’re almost sixteen, I shouldn’t have to ask twice.”

“She can’t hear you, dad.” Y/N said peeking her head up from the back seat to look at her sister. “Her powers are going crazy again.”

Gabby was sitting shot gun and her eyes were storm gray instead of their usual color. Every now and then she would mumble something incoherent, but besides that she didn’t move. A tear rolled down her cheek and Y/N made a move to wipe it away with her hand.

“Don’t!” her dad shouted. “Remember, we don’t touch her when her powers are going haywire! That makes it worse. Just like we don’t touch you either, you know the drill, Y/N.”

“I know, I know,” she answered. “I just hate to see Gabby like this. It’s hard not to comfort her.”

She leaned her head forward and brushed her hand against her dad’s arm.

I really wish you cared a lot less. You care too much about everyone and it’s only gonna get you into trouble.

She whipped her hand away and wrapped it around herself. Her dad noticed her do this in the rearview mirror.

“You did it again, didn’t you?” He said. “Look don’t be afraid of it, I promise you, we’ll find a way for you to control it.”

“You think I care too much.” she said matter-of-factly.

“I think a lot of things. And I worry, that’s my job as your dad.”

They fell into an awkward silence as she fiddled with her fingers.

“It’s getting stronger,” she said. “Sometimes I can hear thoughts without touching someone. And when I touch someone, I hear full sentences and sometimes I see clear images. Especially with Gabby.”

“I know,” he said. “Gabby’s getting stronger too. I wish I could help, but somehow you have to learn how to control it.”

“That’s why we came all the way here. You wanna see if The Umbrella Academy guy can help, right? I don’t think he’s gonna be much help.”

“I just want to talk to him, that’s all. The whole power thing with you and your sister is more than I could ever handle and he’s somehow managed to do that with six kids! Maybe more, as far as we know.”

“Five now, one of them disappeared, remember?”

“Whatever the case, if he can help, I wanna know how. And if he can’t, then we just focus on the party and you guys get to have your birthday in the city.”

“And I get to give The Umbrella Academy their gifts.” Y/N pat the wrapped packages beside her with a smile.

“Ugh, you and your weird Umbrella Academy obsession.” Gabby suddenly spoke up from the front seat, her eyes back to their usual color.

“Gabs, can you put your seatbelt on?” Her dad asked.

Gabby obliged and clicked her seatbelt then turned to look at Y/N. “Seriously though, spending all your allowance to buy gifts? Inviting them to our birthday party? I don’t get why you would go through all the trouble for people you’ve never met. Wait…oh, I get it. You totally have a thing for one of them!”

Gabby teasingly made a kissy face at Y/N who was blushing as red as a tomato from her words.

“I do not! I just…It’s their birthday too!” Y/N defended. “And they save the world! They deserve good things and I wanna tell them thank you.”

“And I want to not worry that the world rests on my shoulders because of my powers or that you’ll go insane with all the other voices in your head. There’s more to the world than some super-powered celebrities, Y/N. Just…please try not to get your hopes up too high, you might not even meet these kids and if you do, they might not be what you think.”

The rest of the car ride was silent. When they pulled up to the street of the academy, there was a large crowd waiting outside the front doors; some of the people holding posters or shouting things towards the doors.

Gabby sighed and looked so stressed that she might pull her hair out. “I told you this would happen. God, I hate when I’m right.”

“This is just a coincidence,” Her dad said in an effort to calm her down. “This doesn’t mean that you’re always going to be right, Gabs. You don’t have to worry about the visions coming true. It’s nothing to worry abou—”

Y/N interrupted him, her eyes on Gabby. “Dad, she’s gone again. She can’t hear you.”

Their dad turned to look at Gabby, her eyes were gray again and her lip was trembling. Their dad pulled off his seatbelt and slumped back into his seat, the weight of the world on his shoulders as he rubbed his eyes with a pained expression.

Y/N clicked off her seatbelt and leaned forward. She wrapped her arms around her dad.

I can’t handle this. I can’t watch both of them suffer.

A tear rolled down her cheek, but this time she didn’t pull away from him. She pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead and he immediately looked better.

He pulled himself away and looked pointedly at her. “Y/N!”

“I know.” She grumbled. “I’m not supposed to use my powers—”

“—Unless it’s an emergency or you have permission.” He finished. “If someone finds out what you can do, they might take you away. And I can’t let them do that.”

“I know, I know. I just…when I see someone in pain…I just want to help. And you have so much on your shoulders! I thought that I could…”

“I get it, and I’m proud that your first instinct is to help. And the whole kissing thing I’m not a fan of because of obvious reasons, but I love that the reason you do it is to help people. But you have to stay out of people’s heads, yeah? There’s a reason they don’t say things out loud and I’d hate for people to be afraid of you.”

“Okay, dad.” She said, quick to drop the subject. “Can we go in now? I’m sick of sitting in the car.”

“Oh, are we finally done here?” Gabby said out of nowhere, gaining both their attentions. “Sooner we’re done, sooner we can go home.”

Gabby’s cheeks were soaked with tears that weren’t there a minute ago. She looked like she might start crying again any second.

Y/N eyed her sister, knowing that she had just seen something really bad. “Dad, can Gabby and I talk for a minute? You can head on in without us, we’ll be right there.”

Their dad nodded and got out of the car without another word, knowing when it was best to let the sisters deal with their troubles. He walked over to the academy and started trying to make his way in.

Gabby sucked in a breath and a tear fell down her cheek.

Y/N picked at her fingernails, keeping her eyes on the floor. “How bad was this one, G?”

Gabby looked out the window, her eyes seeming to focus on nothing particularly. “You didn’t die in this one if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Did someone else?” Y/N asked.

Gabby grit her teeth but didn’t answer.

“Do you know what causes it?” Y/N pressed.

“…No.” Gabby answered after a moment.

“…Do you know how to stop it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Should I tell Pops or Dad?”

“No, the less they know, the less likely it is to happen.”

“Okay, anything I can do to stop it from happening. I’m here for you if you need to talk.”

They fell silent for a minute. Gabby chewed her lip and turned to look at Y/N.

“Y/N?” She tentatively asked.

“Yeah?” Y/N answered, taking her eyes off the floor.

“I…I know dad tells you not to do it unless it’s an emergency…but do you think you could…” Gabby trailed off, her eyes imploring Y/N to understand.

“G, you know I don’t believe in the whole ‘only for emergencies’ thing. And for you, I would do it even if it was something as small as a papercut.”

Y/N held out her hand for Gabby to take, Gabby took it without question. She leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Gabby’s forehead, Gabby immediately seemed to be at ease afterwards.

What would I do without you? Images of Gabby hugging Y/N flashed through her head.

Y/N pulled away before she could hear or see anything else. “You would probably die of boredom. I mean, honestly, without me you would never leave the house.”

Gabby rolled her eyes. “Annnd, moment’s gone. God, I forgot I was dealing with my LITTLE sister.”

Y/N playfully slapped her arm. “You’re only older by four minutes!”

Gabby teasingly stuck her tongue out at her. “Come on, let’s go meet these famous weirdos and the guy that tried to buy us until we were two. We shouldn’t keep Dad waiting.”

Both girls opened their doors and prepared to leave, but before they were out of the car Gabby frowned and looked back at Y/N.

“Y/N?” Gabby said.

“Yeah?” She answered.

“…Thank you.”

“Anytime, G. Anything I can do to help you.”

---

Their dad couldn’t even get in the building. Reginald Hargreeves had disregarded him and his daughters as three more of the crazed fans waiting on his stoop. They kept trying, but Reginald was in a particularly bad mood because of the mission his children had just got back from, so they gave up and decided to just forget about it and go back to the hotel they were staying at; Gabby and her dad argued that it was probably for the best, the whole idea was a long shot going into it.

For Y/N, however, that wasn’t good enough.

While Gabby and their dad had given up and went back to the hotel, Y/N had sneaked away with her presents in hand. This, in itself, was a feat considering there were seven presents in all different shapes and sizes. But she was determined to find a way to at least give the gifts to The Umbrella Academy. She was incredibly stubborn when it came to birthdays.

So, Y/N had found herself sneaking away from everything and trying to find another way into the academy while carrying seven wrapped presents. Which is how she found herself somehow in the alleyway next to a door of The Umbrella Academy: a nervous wreck trying to figure out what she was going to say. She was almost fully prepared to just leave the presents by the door and leave a note when out of the blue, the door was aggressively opened.

A boy Y/N’s age came storming into the alleyway from the door and smack dab in the middle of ranting about something.

“—Right, because Luther is such a good leader! Not like the mission went sideways because of…” He trailed off, seeing he wasn’t alone in the alleyway. “W-who the heck are you?”

Y/N’s cheeks turned a deep red, realizing she was caught somewhere she DEFINITELY wasn’t supposed to be. She knelt down and put the presents on the steps, laying the party invite on top of them, so her hands were free. She took in a deep breath and started rambling, her eyes still on the ground.

“Oh hi,” she said. “So, um I wanted to give these to all of you because I know your birthday is in a week. Which, my birthday is in a week too, and I’m really honored to share the day with heroes! I think you guys are amazing! Helping people and um, you know…So uh for this birthday my dad brought me and my sister into the city for the party and I figured that this would be the perfect time to meet you, since it’s gonna be your birthday too. So, I used all of my allowance from the last couple of months to buy you guys some presents. But see, I didn’t know how many of you there were because I know there used to be six, but one disappeared, and I didn’t know if there were others that just weren’t really known. So, I got two extras just in case but the five of you can share the extras! They aren’t much, but I tried really hard to find things all of you would like because you’re so amazing and I—Oh God, I’m rambling! I’m so sorry, I—”

She finally looked up to see the boy and her words failed her. For a second, she was starstruck, because she was meeting one of her heroes—Number 2 specifically, if she had to guess—and without his mask, no less. 

But that admiration immediately turned to worry when she noticed that he had a black eye.

She gazed at him with concern written all over her face. Without thinking, she stepped closer to him and tenderly put her hand to his cheek. He flinched away from her touch, which she took to mean that he was in pain. She wanted more than anything to help him; in her eyes, the academy kids deserved only good things, not pain or fear. She knew she wasn’t supposed to, but knowing that she could meant she couldn’t let herself not help him.

She took another step forward and leaned her forehead against his chest, being sure not to touch him with her hands. He didn’t move, but this time he didn’t flinch away.

“You deserve only good things.” She whispered, removing her forehead from his chest. 

She stood up on her tiptoes as high as she could go (he was easily a head or so taller than her) and pressed a gentle and timid kiss to his lips. She pulled back to admire her handiwork, the black eye already starting to look much better. She smiled, her focus only on the healing.

Number 2 was blushing a deep red, not moving an inch.

Y/N blinked a few times, realizing four things: 

First, the boy in front of her was the Number 2—if she was right—(the one she had a crush on) and she had just kissed him even if it was to heal him. Second, he was blushing A LOT. Third, he was incredibly cute; and fourth, how she was about to be in so much trouble for every single thing that happened in the last couple of minutes.

“Um…” She said, starting to blush under the boy’s gaze. “Uh, thanks again for being you! I hope you like the presents and come to my birthday party! Okay, bye!” 

She ran off in the direction of her hotel without another word, too embarrassed to hear what his response to her awkwardness for the last couple of minutes would be.

 -

Diego’s Point of View:

He was angry, as he should have been. Luther had made the whole mission go sideways, and Diego was the one with a black eye that got in trouble because of it. He needed some time to himself, being around his siblings felt suffocating. He was planning on sneaking out, go somewhere, anywhere but there, leave out the alleyway and do something that would only get him into worse trouble.

He was ranting to himself, not even really knowing what about, just everything. He hadn’t pulled or pushed the door open, he was too mad for that. He had slammed the door open hard enough that he hoped he broke the hinges. His eyes scanned the alleyway and he trailed off in the middle of his rant, realizing that he wasn’t alone and that the presents with legs had to be a person.

“W-who the heck are you?” He said, cursing the stutter he hated so much to kingdom-come in his head.

The legs bent down to place the presents on the stoop, revealing a girl behind them.

He hadn’t been out of the house much due to the rules of a certain Reginald Hargreeves. So besides his siblings, his experience with kids his age was very limited—especially with girls.

The girl had started rambling while staring at the ground about how amazing The Umbrella Academy was and how she liked sharing a birthday with them. Diego had heard obnoxious fans tell him and his siblings how much they admired them ever since they stepped into the limelight, frankly, at some point it had just become incredibly annoying to him to hear strangers praise his siblings. But he could tell that this wasn’t a crazed-fan kind of rambling, it was more like awkward rambling of not being able to find the right words to say, it was honest and sincere nervous rambling; something that Diego could understand. And he found it adorable.

He was about to say something, maybe interrupt her, so he could ask what she was doing there. Before he could, she looked up into his eyes and stopped talking, and Diego lost whatever thought that had been at the tip of his tongue.

Diego couldn’t find the words, he kept telling himself to picture the word in his head like Grace had taught him, but he was too focused on something else to picture the words. He was too focused on the fear that his heart would leap out of his chest or that it was beating so loud that she could hear it. He had never seen someone so pretty. And he had absolutely no idea what to say to a pretty girl. Throw knives? That he could do. Stop bad guys? Easy. Talk to a pretty girl? Nope. To him, that was impossible.

She took a step closer to him and tenderly put her hand to his cheek. 

He flinched away, remembering that he didn’t know this girl and she could have just been there to start trouble. But then she frowned, and he immediately regretted it. To him, her frown made her look a kicked puppy and he hated seeing her sad.

He was amping himself up to say something, ANYTHING, to get her talking again, maybe even get her to smile if he could. 

She took a small step forward and leaned her forehead against his chest. 

Diego didn’t dare react or break the silence then. He had no idea what was happening. All he knew was that a pretty girl was very VERY close to him and he liked it. He didn’t even know what she was doing or what he was supposed to do; a voice in his head told him to wrap his arms around her but he didn’t even know if it was supposed to be a hug or if he should even be enjoying this from some girl he didn’t even know.

He slightly parted his lips, hoping some sound would come out.

She looked up into his eyes and softly whispered “You deserve only good things.” then stood up on her tiptoes and pressed a gentle kiss to his lips.

Diego’s face turned beet red, he was completely frozen in place. When she pulled back with a smile, he opened and closed his mouth like a fish. 

He was trying to force words to come out or a reaction or at least something other than blushing redder than a tomato. He had never so much as held a girl’s hand before, and this one just kissed him—and he had let her.

She blinked a few times as a blush came onto her cheeks. “Um…uh thanks again for being you! I hope you like the presents and come to my birthday party! Okay, bye!” 

She then ran off without another word like she had never been there in the first place, leaving a blushing Diego standing by a tower of seven wrapped presents.

Diego shook himself out of it and bent down to pick up the invite from on top of the presents. The place where the person whose birthday it was was scratched out to the point that he couldn’t tell what it originally said, and next to it were the words “It’s your birthday too! Come celebrate with us!”

He sighed and ran a hand down his face, a confused laugh leaving his lips. 

There’s no way he or his siblings could ever go to that party, it wouldn’t matter how much he wanted to go, that would never happen as long as there was Reginald. But the girl had scratched out her name on the invite and ran before she finished explaining, so the party would have been his only chance to find out who she was.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about the situation. He liked it, her kissing him, that is. Her lips were soft, and he could still taste her strawberry Chapstick on his lips. No one had ever gotten him a present for his birthday before or invited him to a party or wanted to celebrate the day of his birth, Reginald was against that kind of thing. No one had ever believed so deeply that he deserved good things and he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to feel. 

She was a stranger that he didn’t know but she had stolen his first kiss, and he had liked it.

He smiled and shook his head. He picked up the presents from the steps and brought them inside, dying to know what he would get to remember his mystery girl by.

If he wasn’t so focused on what had happened, he might have noticed that his black eye was gone, it had healed completely. But all he could focus on for the next few days was the girl who had stolen his first kiss and he forgot he ever had a black eye in the first place.

 ---

At the party…

“I told you they wouldn’t show up.” Gabby said as she took a sip from her bottle.

A bunch of teenagers partied around near the beach as Gabby and Y/N sat next to the bonfire. Y/N sighed in exhaustion as she watched them.

“Yeah,” Y/N said. “I know you did. I was just hoping they would.”

Y/N looked into the fire sadly as both her and Gabby fell silent.

“Hmm, what?” Gabby asked with a playful tone. “Not enjoying your ‘normal’ party? You seem like you’re as done with this thing as I am. Did you really want The Umbrella Academy to come that badly?”

“No, it’s not that. It’s just…all of them are kids like us, you know? They have their powers under control, or maybe they just seem like they do. And I…I don’t know. I just felt like they would understand what it’s like to be different and struggle with powers. I love Pops and Dad, but they just don’t get it. I just feel so alone sometimes.”

“Hey, don’t start a pity party. You’re not alone, you have me! We understand each other, we know what it’s like. And hey, we’ll figure out how to control our powers eventually, I’m sure we will.”

Y/N looked at Gabby questioningly. “…You’ve seen it, haven’t you?”

Gabby nodded and took another sip of her drink as they both fell into silence.

Y/N smiled slightly and pursed her lips. “I’ve been thinking…”

“That’s dangerous.” Gabby said without hesitation.

Y/N looked at her feet and chewed her lip. Gabby noticed and sat up straighter.

“Oh, okay,” Gabby said. “This is one of those ‘completely-serious-no-jokes’ conversations. Alright, go ahead. I won’t say anything.”

“The Umbrella Academy—”

“—Oh no.”

“—what they do is pretty great.” Y/N paid no mind to Gabby’s interruption. “And I wanna help people, it’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. But I…”

Gabby’s eyes turned gray and she leaned back, her head hitting the pillow behind her, her facial expressions shifting from one emotion to the next.

Y/N stopped talking and waited, knowing it would be seconds or minutes before her sister was back. She wanted to hold her sister’s hand or comfort her in some way to help her get through whatever she was seeing, but she knew better. Instead, she waited patiently and stared into the fire, her thoughts becoming more and more clear the more she thought about it. She drew her lips into a thin line and nodded her head determinedly.

“Jeez.” Gabby said.

Y/N turned back to Gabby who had sat back up and whose eyes were back to their regular color. Gabby didn’t have tears running down her cheeks, which Y/N took as a good sign.

“Was it a bad one?” Y/N asked.

“Not sure,” Gabby answered, “it was a blurry one, so I couldn’t tell who it was about.”

“You good this time?”

“Yeah, the blurry ones aren’t as bad. Just more possibilities. But, not the time for that, we were in the middle of something serious. So, come on then, out with it. What have you been thinking?”

Y/N smiled and took in a breath like she was preparing herself to speak. “I’ve always wanted to be a doctor, that hasn’t changed. I wanna help people who are in pain. And I’m going to keep doing that. But this whole thing with The Umbrella Academy got me thinking.” She turned to her side, so she was completely facing Gabby. “We’re both incredibly lucky to have each other and we’re helping each other with life and our powers. We’d crash and burn if we didn’t have each other. But as far as we or anyone knows, we were the only ones like us that were born as twins. And I…the reason I wanted to meet The Umbrella Academy is because I just feel so alone sometimes, and I thought that they would understand. So, I’ve been thinking—actually, I’ve decided—that I wanna find the others.”

Gabby choked on her drink as Y/N finished her sentence. She coughed and hit her chest to relieve herself. “Y/N, that’s crazy! They could be dangerous!”

Y/N rolled her eyes. “Or they could be struggling to find their way in this world just like we are! They’re probably feeling even more confused and alone then us, and we have each other! They don’t! I think I can help them, G.”

Gabby sighed and ran a hand down her face. “Dammit. We weren’t supposed to have this conversation for at least another year.”

Y/N raised an eyebrow at her sister. “You’ve seen me talk about this in a vision?”

Gabby nodded but avoided Y/N’s eyes.

“Then just this once,” Y/N said, “I need you to tell me something from your visions: do I find any of them?”

Gabby nodded again. “Yes.”

“Do I help them?”

“In some ways.”

“Then why do you not want me to do this?”

Gabby finally looked up directly into Y/N’s eyes. “Because I haven’t seen what happens to you if you do. For the first time, I have no idea where the future will go if you do try to find the others and that terrifies me. I don’t have control of my powers; I can’t save you if I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“G, I’ll be okay. I promise. But this is something I have to do. I need to find the others. I’m not going anywhere until both of us learn to control our powers, but I’m going to help the others learn too. I don’t want them to feel alone and I know I can change that.”

Gabby sighed and ran her hand down her face again. “I’m not going to stop you, if you’re serious about this. Dad and Pops aren’t gonna like it and they’re going to kill you. I swear that I’ll have your back, though. But please, for the love of God, be careful with what you decide to do.”

“Okay.”

They both fell into an awkward silence. Both of them looked into the fire as Gabby took another swig of her drink. Y/N smiles and bumps her shoulders with her sister.

“Hey,” Y/N said, “it’s not like I’m in The Umbrella Academy. I’m not gonna put on a mask and go after bad guys or something.”

Gabby reached her hand out as if to hold Y/N’s hand, but pulled it away knowing that she shouldn’t because of their powers. She smiled like she knew something Y/N didn’t, which she did, she always did. 

“Well,” Gabby said, “maybe one day you will.”

[dannyphantomrpg]

Visual Aid: Danny Phantom Ghost Zone Secrets REVEALED!

Trying to get back into Danny after a few long weeks of helping my husband, I decided to kick off the month of Halloween with another visual aid!

Danny Phantom Ghost Zone Secrets REVEALED!

Warning: Super image heavy. 

Creating new worlds in movies like Star Wars, Tron, and The Wizard of Oz is pretty standard fare in the entertainment industry. I threw my hat into the ring when I created Danny Phantom, and now, we're going to explore some of the old and newest haunts of Danny's villains and I'll be your tour guide through the Ghost Zone.

Hi, I'm Butch Hartman, and welcome to the Ghost Zone. How do we get here? How can you get here? Well, there's only two man made portals into the Ghost Zone that we know of.

The first one resides directly under the Fenton Works building.

It was created by ghost hunters Jack and Maddie Fenton. This portal ties in directly with Danny Phantom's origin story.

Yo, Danny Fenton, he was just 14, When his parents built a very strange machine. It was designed to view, a world unseen. (He's gonna catch em all 'cause he's Danny Phantom.) When it didn't quite work, his folks, they just quit, But then Danny took a look inside of it, There was a great big flash, everything just changed, His molecules got all rearranged!

Danny isn't the only tie between humans and ghosts. The Ghost Zone is a flip side of our planet's existence. In other words, the Earth and the Ghost Zone are interlinked. If one side of the coin is affected, the other side will be as well.

Sam: Tuck, in astrophysics, what happens when an entire dimension is suddenly removed from a plane of existence? Tucker: Easy. The whole dimensional structure become unstable and kaflooy. Sam: Well, the Ghost Zone is the flip side of our plane of existence. If it goes, we go.

One characteristic that seems to remain constant in the Ghost Zone, is that whenever a human enter the Ghost Zone, they basically become a ghost in there. So, like a ghost can go through walls in our world, a human could go through walls in the Ghost Zone. Humans can fly, they can float, do everything a ghost can do here on the Earth.

Sam: Oh right. Human pass through stuff in the Ghost Zone. Cool.

Besides giving Danny his ghostly abilities, the Fenton portal also allows access into the Ghost Zone. It's pretty cool. But how is this technology developed? Here's how it happened.

Jack and Maddie Fenton went to college at the University of Wisconsin, and there they had a pal, a buddy, a lab partner, names Vlad Masters. Vlad Masters was injured in an accident as Jack was developing the prototype for the Fenton portal.

Maddie: One second, Vlad. Jack, did you remember to fill the filtrater with ectopurifier? Jack: On it, baby!

The attempt failed due to Jack’s decision to use cola instead of ectopurifier. Caused a huge explosion and Vlad was affected by the plasma coming out of the ghost portal, and he got powers just like Danny has now, but he got them twenty years earlier. 

This turned Vlad Masters into the villain, Vlad Plasmius.

As I said earlier, there are two man made portals, that we know of, first is at Fenton Works, the second one was redeveloped after Vlad Masters was turned into Vlad Plasmius.

Vlad put a second portal in the basement of his mansion so he could access the Ghost Zone as well.

There are other naturally formed portals that are only open for a certain time period. But these portals are unpredictable as you never know when or where they're going to open or close.

Frostbite: The Ghost Zone is constantly shifting. Entrances appear in many different periods. Most only remain open for a short time before closing forever.

Ever since Pariah Dark's rule over the Ghost Zone was overthrown, anarchy has pretty much ensued, and the Ghost Zone is kind of a place of a little bit of chaos. Because, since all the ghosts are now free, they've all turned against each other. I mean, the Ghost Zone is this endless place of ectoplasm holding a million ghost homes, and now ghosts are spread far and wide across the Ghost Zone. And Danny has only scratched the surface of this place during his time on Nickelodeon.

Ok, now let's talk about some sectors of the Ghost Zone that might be a bit more familiar. First off, is Pariah's Keep. This is the castle of the mighty ghost king, where his body lies in his tomb for all eternity. It's guarded by his ghostly servant Fright Knight. In this place is the Ring of Rage and a Crown of Fire.  If both of these objects are worn at the same time, it gives the user omnipotence.

Vlad: Here we are. Pariah's Keep.

Each sector of the Ghost Zone has it's own set of rules, depending on who governs it. Except for Walker's prison. Walker is sort of a warden, a ghostly warden, who has his own place and his own idea about the way things should be and if any ghost violates what he thinks is right, he throws them in prison and he often enforces his will upon them with members of the Ghost Zone Police Department.

Walker: Trespassing, loitering, creating a disturbance, and possession of real world contraband. Danny: Excuse me, sir, but -- Walker: Name's Walker, son. Know it. Fear it. Obey it.

Ok, now, Skulker's Island. Basically a floating island in the Ghost Zone with a giant skull overlooking the entire refuge. And this is basically where Skulker trains to hunt ghosts. He even had Valerie Gray and Danny chained together in one episode where he used them as target practice.

Skulker: Greetings, prey. Having failed to determine which of you is the superior challenge, I've decided to hunt you both at the same time!

Now let's explore the unexplored. Let's check into some Ghost Zone oddities that weren't seen on the show.

Sam: Wow, this place is amazing. Danny: No, it's not. It's creepy, and it goes on forever. I don't even know where to start to look!

Ghostly black holes. Now, these events don't occur very often in the Ghost Zone, but when they do is a major reason why.

Each Ghost Zone kingdom has ectoplasm surrounding it, but it's got it's own type of ectoplasm. So let's say one world mixes with another world.

The ectoplasm that mixes together with too compacted, and it'll combust into a ghostly black hole that will devour everything in its wake.

This event occurs very rarely, but when it does, the news and the destruction spread like wildfire.

Another unexplored region of the Ghost Zone is a place called the Unworld. It's kind of a limbo type area, and here's how you get there. If you're building a portal to the Ghost Zone, let's say you're in your basement, you wanna construct a Ghost Zone portal, you put one together, but your calculations have to be exactly correct. Because if they're not, you will end up in a nightmare realm called the Unworld, which is between Earth and the Ghost Zone. But when you get there, you have no human abilities or ghostly abilities. You're stuck forever. I'd like to see what your interpretation of this nightmare realm would be, so create some fan art, I would love to see it.

One last unexplored place in the Ghost Zone is called the Elsewhereness. This is a place where all fear, all pain, all misery, don't exist. It's a paradise for ghosts, and every ghost - yes every ghost - wants to be there, but none of the ghosts have ever found it.

There's a rumor though, that one ghost did, and his name was Sojourn.

Sojourn is a ghost, sort of nomad traveler, who has catalogued every single section of the Ghost Zone, and he kept all of his findings in a journal.

Hold on, how’d that get there?

And the journal's never been found, but pages of the journal float through the Ghost Zone randomly, and each page has a clue on it to the location of the Elsewhereness, sort of like a treasure map. And a few pages have been gathered, and Vlad will do anything to get his hand on these pages so he can find, and ultimately control and rule, the Elsewhereness. But there's one person who stands in his way, one hero, and that person is Danny Phantom.

Gonna catch 'em all, cause he's Danny Phantom. Gonna catch 'em all, cause he's Danny Phantom. Gonna catch 'em all, cause he's Danny Phantom.

[fantasticworldoffanfics]

DEREK/STILES

Fandom: TeenWolf

Just an extended must read list of awesome fanfics that is in no particular order :) ...

top favourites, more top favourites

In The Woods Somewhere

Author: WithMyTeeth (Ylith)

Summary: Peter travels with various carnivals, showcasing a massive black wolf he parades as a man-eating beast. In his caravan he keeps Stiles, his most precious possession who is much more special than he may outwardly appear. Stiles feels a kinship with the creature through their mutual captivity, so when he makes his escape he frees the wolf as well. Like Stiles though, the wolf is also more than he appears

Five Days of Dickings

Author: drunktuesdays, mklutz, the_ragnarok

Summary: Five Dickings in Five Days was the (hopefully interim) title he’d seen on the contract. More like five days of dickings. Whatever, Stiles was into it. The money is great; the fucking is also great. It’s a win-win way to pay for college.

Wolf Pack: Beacon Original

Author: Beerwolves, fearfrost1211

Summary: When his father landed the Deputy Chief of police position in Beacon Hills, Stiles moved to his new town gladly, embracing the chance of a fresh start. What he didn’t expect was to find himself hopelessly drawn to the gruff Vice President of the local motorcycle gang, the Wolf Pack. Derek Hale, resident bad boy of Beacon Hills, spent his time helping his sister lead the Wolf Pack and working on motorcycles at his family’s automotive garage. Then, one hot summer afternoon a bright-eyed boy walked into his life and turned his world upside down.

And That's a Wrap

Author: the_problem_with_stardust

Summary: An insanely attractive guy and his terrifying dog move into the Preserve. Too bad Stiles is a magnet for embarrassing situations.

Comprehensive Study in Getting a Boyfriend via Persuasive Essay-Writing

Author: Luddleston

Summary: Stiles is a junior Journalism major who takes Rhetorical Strategies because it covers his English requirement. He's also trying to be subtle about the way he keeps checking out his professor. Derek is a grad student teaching his first class ever. He also has the most annoying student on the face of the planet, and is donereading essays about the history of male circumcision. Flirty e-mails are exchanged, Stiles spends way too much time in Derek's office, and they fall in love over a mutual hatred for APA formatting.

The Rose and the Wolf

Author: xxjinchuurikixx

Summary: For who could ever learn to love a Beast?  Stiles takes his father's place as a Beast's prisoner in an enchanted castle.

Home

Author: coffeeinallcaps

Summary: Derek has bought a beautiful house. Stiles can't stay away. (In which everyone hangs out at Derek's place all the time and Stiles tries but fails not to fall for a certain socially inept alpha.)

(Not So) Pure Imagination

Author: theroguesgambit

Summary: "There is a world where whenever someone fantasizes about you, you can physically feel it, but you have no idea who is thinking it about you."Stiles knows it's wrong, but he's been Fantasizing about Derek and he can't bring himself to stop. Derek doesn't know who's taken an interest in him, but he's enjoying it way more than he probably should.

Forbidden Forest (eat you up)

Author: kishmet

Summary: Okay, so technically werebunny Stiles isn't supposed to wander around in the woods at night. But creative interpretation happens to be one of Stiles' special talents.

Happiness is Not a Horse, You Cannot Harness it

Author: otter

Summary: Derek's expecting the new guy. He's expecting another mostly-useless college kid who doesn't know one end of a horse from the other, and Derek doesn't have the time to babysit. What he's not expecting is Stiles Stilinski, who carries on conversations with the livestock and gets maybe a little too chummy with Isaac and is really kind of stupidly perfect in every way. And it's just distracting, that's all.

On Job Training

Author: suzvoy

Summary: Stiles finally gets the practical experience he's been looking for. It's safe to say it doesn't happen even remotely the way he was expecting. AKA, pretend boyfriends! With a twist!

The Searching Ceremonies Series

Author: KouriArashi

Part 1: Divided We Stand

Summary: Derek is being pressured by his family to pick a mate, and somehow stumbles into a choice that they didn't expect and aren't sure they approve of....

Part 2: United We Mend

Summary: Sequel to Divided We Stand. Six months have gone by, Stiles is slowly recovering from his injuries, and the Searching Ceremony is about to happen. This time it's Cora who brings someone home, but he might not be what he seems...

Part 3: Together We Build

Summary: Everything has settled down after the last Searching Ceremony. Stiles decides to tackle a cold case that his father gives him - a 10 year old murder caused by a rejected werewolf bite. Meanwhile, Derek is trying to solve an even bigger mystery - what's going on between Uncle Peter and Sheriff Stilinski, and how much does he have to worry about it?

Part 4: Forever We Strive

Summary: When Peter and Sheriff Stilinski decide to adopt a child, they meet a little girl named Malia, whose parents were murdered. But when Stiles starts looking into who killed them, he finds a lot of unanswered questions.

Ever After

Author: Sybilina

Summary: Four years ago, Stiles left Beacon Hills, to go to college, to get away from the pack, to try to mend a broken heart. He thought he'd succeeded but right when graduation came around, his whole world fell apart. Again. There's only so many times Stiles can deal with his world falling down around him. This was one time too many.It isn't about getting the girl, or the guy, because romance and lovey feelings aren't a cure for depression.

Play It Again Series

Author: metisket

Part 1: Play It Again

Summary: In which Stiles goes along with one of Derek’s plans and ends up in an alternate universe as a result. He should’ve known better. He did know better, actually, and that means he has no one to blame but himself.“Laura wants to lure the kid in with food and kindness and make a pet of him, like a feral cat. Derek wants to have him arrested for stalking. They’re at an impasse. (And the rest of the family is staying emphatically out of it in a way that suggests bets have been placed.)”

Part 2: This Doesn’t Hurt

Summary: Melissa isn’t sure how she accidentally adopted a teenager, but she’s confident that somehow, it’s all Stiles Stilinski’s fault.

Derek Hale: Werewolf Cop Series

Author: the_deep_magic

Part 1: CherryBomb

Summary: Stiles is yanked up to his feet so fast that his world spins and his shoulder aches and he’s a second from screaming police brutality! when he gets a good look at the cop’s face.Holy shit. Stiles was just tackled to the ground by a fucking underwear model with a badge.

Part 2: Service Weapon

Summary: It is 100% against Beacon Hills Sheriff’s Office policy to allow two officers engaged in a romantic relationship to be partners. It is also 100% accurate that no one else on the force can last more than three days in a car with Stiles without begging for either a ball gag or the sweet release of death.

Scent Marking For Dummies

Author: Hatteress (goddammitstacey)

Summary: Stiles is almost used to being chased around the school by werewolves at this point. Having to share a bed with Derek freaking Hale, on the other hand, is just needlessly complicating his life.

The Right Number

Author: kyaticlikestea

Summary: When Stiles Stilinski's phone gets switched at the gym, he really just wants it back. The last thing he's expecting is to fall hopelessly in lust with the guy who's got his phone.So, of course, that's exactly what happens.

All You Ever Needed To Know About Knotting

Author: KuriKuri

Summary: Derek had started reading the column by accident. Really, reading strangers’ questions about knotting and heat had never really appealed to him. However, at that point in time, he was a little desperate.And he was right: most of the questions submitted by anonymous readers didn’t appeal to him. The answers, though, did.(Or: In which Stiles writes an advice column about knotting and Derek is smitten. Also they're neighbors.)

Show Me The Way Back Home Baby

Author: stilinskisparkles

Summary: In which Lydia and Jackson produce the world's cutest baby, and the pack goes crazy-- the good kind of crazy. Except for Derek, who is afraid of tiny cute babies and Stiles who plans to be the best Uncle ever. Even if Danny called dibs on Godfather.

Dating Backwards

Author: RemainNameless

Summary: Pornstars Derek and Stiles work for the same company. Derek only shoots with werewolves and Stiles only shoots with humans. That's not going to change after they meet. It's really not. (It might.)

Dirty Paws and Furry Coats

Author: queerly_it_is

Summary: Stiles is eight years old when his dad brings Derek home.[AU based on Disney's The Fox and the Hound]

This Is Home

Author: raisesomehale

Summary: Other than being a werefox with a werekit for a son, Stiles' life is relatively normal. He's a single parent, owns a modest sized home, and has a variety of kid-friendly meal recipes tucked neatly under his belt. It might be just him and Nate, but they have it in the bag. Nothing is missing from their lives.That is, until Nate befriends a girl named Sadie Hale on his first day of kindergarten. Then everything changes.

Adventures and Explorations Series

Author: Survivah

Part 1: A Simple Life

Summary: Derek plans to spend the rest of his life holed up in the woods after Laura dies. Then he meets a stubborn young fox, and the stubborn young fox meets an urn of Deaton's magic powder, and his plans change.

Part 2: Finding Miracles

Summary: Stiles was planning on just being a fox for his entire life. Then, well, magic, true love, blah blah blah, things got complicated. But as it turns out, he still has a lot to learn about this new world he's living in. Humanity, man. It's weird.

Knot if You Don't Knock

Author: jsea, marguerite_26

Summary: Stiles never expects to present as an omega -- that's something that happens to people like Greenberg, not him. He is so wrong. His life only gets stranger when Derek Hale mistakenly bursts through the door of his exam room during a doctor’s appointment. What happens next is a complicated series of events, including freshly baked cookies, book-carrying and surprise heats.

Sweet Tooth

Author: Spikedluv

Summary: Derek Hale had returned to Beacon Hills and the ice cream place was reopening. “Best. Day. Ever,” Stiles told Scott.

Oh God, He's Hot

Author: lupus

Summary: When Stiles came home a couple of days before junior year started from a summer away, he was a little more than excited to see his best friend Derek, especially now that he’d finally gotten the courage to act upon his long standing crush on the guy. There’s just one problem; somewhere in the span of three months puberty hit Derek like the bus hit Regina George and all of the sudden Derek is hot. And Stiles isn’t the only one who’s noticed.

Worth Series

Author: holdin_out_4a_hero

Part 1: You’re Worth It

Summary: "NO WAY! Her sons coming here?”Danny sighed dreamily. “Yeah, the Stiles Stilinksi. The young model that made it big on accident with his moms camera. The L.A. heartthrob that has actually never dated anyone, and no one knows what he does over summer, and yet he still manages to keep the hearts of young Americans easily.”“So why’s he coming here?” Scott asked, remembering that the entire Stilinski family was loaded with money, given the success of every single one of them, and yet Stiles would be coming to the middle of nowhere, for a random school that offered nothing.“Who knows? His parents are from here, but they’re not coming here with him. I have no idea, but honestly? I’m not complaining.”

Part 2: You’re Worth Everything

Summary: Stiles loves Derek, Derek loves Stiles... if it's meant to be, why does it seem so hard to get it to be?

The Awkward and Sometimes Painful Life of Genim Hale

Author: BlueRunawayMoon

Summary: Stiles is a writer of gay erotica whose work, according to his Editor (one miss Lydia Martin) has gotten dull and boring. Lydia suggest's that Stiles try to LIVE a little, gain some new juicy experiences that he can write about and bring the heat up again. Only problem is Stiles is a bit on the dorky side and not good with 'living a little'. After a whole slew of embarrassing situations brought on by his best(sometimes!) friend Scott, he's given some wise advice and decides to take a tropical paradise vacation. All's going good and well, and he's got a major crush on his super hot tour guide Danny. Yet it seem's like he can't stop bumping into Derek, who, as annoying and brooding as he seem's, also makes it quite clear he WANTS Stiles. As in...wants wants. With the two being brought together almost by fate, Stiles discover's that Derek is more than he seems....WAY more.

The Christmas Raffle

Author: mikkimouse

Summary: Every year, the royal Hale family raffles off a Christmas dinner with Prince Derek to raise money for charity. But this year, the winner is the second chance Derek didn't know he was looking for.

Kings Of The Moonlight

Author: thelogicoftaste

Summary: Derek is the newly single father to his only son, Isaac Argent Hale, and he finds himself having to move back to his home town of Beacon Hills to escape the insanity of his ex. It's in the middle of all this upheaval, the crazy mess that his life has become that he meets Stiles. Crazy, beautiful Stiles.

more fics: part 2