#game designer bart allen

[reddblight]

I feel like I see so many contrasting opinions on jobs for Bart when he’s older, ranging from scientist, super suit designer, cop (ew), unemployed and bouncing between part time things, etc. Honestly of those I know my personal favorites are fashion design and kinda bouncing between part time courier jobs (he’s never seemed like a full time kinda person to me tbh).

But I got to thinkin about it, what is one thing that we know Bart loves more than most other things? Video Games.

I propose this, indie video game designer/freelance artist Bart.

It makes sense in my head, Bart’d be bitching to Preston or Kon about how he’s beat like an ungodly amount of games and is getting bored/needs something new to play. They would make an offhand comment, joking about making one himself and I think he would find the idea intriguing. (Or honestly Helen could have suggested it after listening to Max get on Bart about needing to do something responsible to make a living & Bart shutting down).

I think that between hero work it would give him a creative outlet for his hyperfixations. Plus he’d probably have a blast figuring it all out. The first couple of games would be simple, figuring out the basics, but after those I can see him getting like really focused on a passion project game that he fully codes and illustrates. (He probably makes a young justice game, or skins in the games of his friends)

He’d definitely become a hit in the indie gaming community for the unique controls and mechanics in his games. People would reach out and ask him to help make their games, and eventually people would just start becoming really excited for whatever project he was working on.

Meanwhile he’s still just chilling with his friends in his free time, letting them playtest his games and taking suggestions on what the funniest easter egg could be. I think he’d mostly be couch surfing, hopping between staying with friends and “family” members on a whim. Usually chilling wherever the YJ was or hanging out at Carol, Preston, or Rolly’s.

Just feels more fun than him being a DC brand of “scientist” (no specific generalization or study) or cop (again ew). Plus he could still design hero suits while doing this (i like that headcanon, its fun)

[longitudinalwaveme]

Flash Video Game Concept: Wally West Edition-“Rogue War”

At long last, here is the Wally West game proposal that I promised in the Barry Allen game proposal post!

  Important Disclaimer: I am not a video game designer or regular video game player and my knowledge of the mechanics of game play is thus fairly limited. This is more of a plot proposal for a video game than anything else. While I will be selecting bosses and creating hypothetical side missions, there won’t be any detailed descriptions of how the playable characters will work. That being said, should someone with a broader understanding of video game mechanics wish to offer suggestions, I will gladly add their ideas to the proposal.

And now...onto the plot!

The main playable character for the game will be an adult Wally West (the third Flash), though Jay Garrick, Jesse Quick, and Bart Allen will be playable in side and/or bonus missions that are separate from the main game.  The game will be set in Keystone City. Linda Park and Hartley Rathaway (the now-reformed Pied Piper) will be major supporting characters; Fred Chyre and Jared Morillo will be Wally’s main support in the KCPD police department. Barry Allen can be either alive or dead, but for the purposes of the game (and because he was the star of the last game), he won’t be active as the Flash here. Jai and Irey West, Wally’s twins, will also be in the game, but they won’t be major players in the story due to how young they are and to how dangerous the current situation is…though that won’t stop them from attempting to slip away from their parents to fight supervillains at least once. There will actually be two sets of antagonists in this game: the Rogues (lead by Captain Cold and consisting of him, Sam Scudder, James Jesse, Heat Wave, and Captain Boomerang, plus the dubiously-trustworthy Top and Golden Glider, who want to lead the group themselves but have no interest in teaming up with Blacksmith in order to do so) and the “New Rogues” (lead by Blacksmith and consisting of her, Axel Walker, Evan McCulloch, Murmur, Girder, and Double Down, plus the Weather Wizard, who’s left Cold’s team). These two teams are responsible for the titular “Rogue War” as they fight over Central City; Wally will have to put a stop to the war before it destroys the city.

The game would open with narration from Wally that explains who he is, his relationship with Linda and his children, and how he became the main Flash. This narration will be full of Wally’s characteristic snark and will lead into a cutscene where Wally is shown watching baseball with Linda (and the twins). He’s bored out of his mind, and as such, he is overjoyed when the game is interrupted by a news report that announces that KCPD headquarters is under attack by the Trickster. The cutscene ends with Wally rushing to the scene…unaware that his daughter is following him. After this, there will be a tutorial/intro level with Axel Walker as the boss. This fight will allow the player to become accustomed to the controls and to Wally’s fighting style; as such, it will be less difficult than subsequent levels (justified in story terms by the fact that Axel is a kid). After the player wears down Axel’s health bar to a certain point, Irey will appear on the scene in an attempt to help her father. Her appearance distracts Wally and allows a crowing Axel to get away…but not before throwing one of his t-bombs into the evidence room at the KCPD. The player, as Wally, will have to use a very high level of super speed and precision in order to rescue Irey and a few police scientists from the explosion.

After this, the story will shift to a cutscene at the Wests’ house, where Wally and Linda are scolding Irey for putting herself in danger (while Jai unhelpfully comments about how his sister is in trouble). Irey runs to her room in tears and Wally follows her. He tells her that he understands that she just wanted to help him, and assures her that he still loves her. While he reiterates the fact that crime fighting can potentially be very dangerous and that she’ll need to wait until she’s a little older before she can become his sidekick, he then cheers her up by telling her a story of a time that he screwed up as Kid Flash. Irey promises that she’ll stay out of trouble from now on, and the two of them hug. After the cutscene ends, the player will be allowed to spend some time investigating the West house and the open-world environment of the twin cities; with the option of speaking with neighbors, flirting with Linda, playing with the twins, stopping petty crimes, carrying people’s groceries, painting fences, and generally doing all of the typical Flash things. The game will not progress until a certain number of goals have been met. This section exists to familiarize the player with the game’s map and to give them more practice in controlling whatever super-speed mechanics that the game will end up utilizing.

The game would then transition to another cutscene. Captain Cold, Captain Boomerang, Weather Wizard, Heat Wave, the Trickster (James Jesse), Golden Glider, the Top, and Mirror Master (Sam Scudder) are all in one of their dilapidated hideouts. Heat Wave, Cold, Mirror Master, and Boomerang are playing cards; James is watching TV; Lisa and Roscoe are kissing in the corner; Weather Wizard is reading Twain but seems to be on edge. After a bit of introductory chatter, a news broadcast comes over the TV, announcing that the Trickster has escaped from his attack on police headquarters. James, who hasn’t been anywhere near police headquarters for over two months, is initially confused, and then becomes outright livid when he sees footage of Axel causing mayhem at police headquarters. “That’s my bag of tricks that punk’s using!” Cold is more concerned with how Axel managed to get ahold of James’ gear. James is usually pretty good at protecting his equipment; no teenager could have gotten ahold of it without help. Before the conversation can continue further, there’s a knock on the door. Len opens the door to find Blacksmith and her team (importantly, Evan is not with them). She proposes that the Rogues ally themselves with her group, whereupon she will lead them to greater heights than they could ever have imagined. Spotting Axel in the group, James is furious and is the first to reject the offer, followed shortly by Cold, who tells Blacksmith in no uncertain terms that he leads the Rogues and that he’s not interested in working with them. He’s heard about her and is sure she’ll only lead them into trouble they don’t need. A fight immediately (and unsurprisingly) breaks out. The player will be allowed to control Sam Scudder (the first Mirror Master) during the ensuing fight. The Rogues, who were caught off-guard and without most of their weapons and costumes, are at a severe disadvantage (though Sam and James have a few of their gadgets, Cold has one of his cold guns, and Roscoe obviously has his innate powers). The fight won’t last for too long (primarily due to the fact that Sam’s controls would differ from the Flash’s and we need to have the time controlling him be relatively short); being put to a very decisive end when Weather Wizard switches sides and manages to zap Roscoe into unconsciousness with a lightning bolt. Cold demands to know what Mark is doing; his question is answered when the Weather Wizard goes over to Blacksmith and the two of them kiss. Blacksmith explains that she has promised to help Weather Wizard become a more capable and competent wielder of the weather wand. All that she requested from him in exchange for this power were some of his teammates’ excess technology. Mark somewhat awkwardly attempts to persuade the other Rogues that Blacksmith’s offer is a good one and that the two of them are in love, but none of them are particularly interested in what he has to say. Sam, sensing that they have to escape and regroup, opens up a mirror portal and yells for the other Rogues to go through it. Cold manages to create an ice wall to cover their escape and all of the Rogues (except Weather Wizard) flee into the Mirror Realm, with Captain Boomerang carrying an unconscious Roscoe as though he’s a sack of potatoes. Unfortunately, before they manage to complete the journey to one of their other safehouses, a second Mirror Master appears (the player will still be controlling Sam at this point). At first, Sam assumes that the second Mirror Master is a mirror duplicate of himself, but that notion is put to the lie when the new Mirror Master starts talking. “Howzitgoan?” Sam demands to know who—or what–the newcomer is, at which point he cheerfully introduces himself as Evan McCulloch, a Scottish mercenary/hitman. He explains that he’s been hired by Blacksmith and that he has orders to ensure that Rogues will be neutralized as a threat—“one way o’ the other”. Sam quickly finds and opens up his emergency escape route—the one he uses when threatened by mirror monsters and other inhabitants of the Mirror Realm—and tells the other Rogues to escape while he deals with “this impostor”. Cold hesitates, arguing that there’s strength in numbers and that they don’t really know what Evan’s capable of, but Sam insists that he won’t have any problems defeating the Scotsman. After all, how could Evan possibly be more skilled with the Mirror Technology than the man who invented it? Cold reluctantly concedes the point and gets the rest of the team out of the Mirror Realm. The player will then control Sam for a brief fight with Evan—a fight that will demonstrate Evan’s almost supernatural capabilities within the Mirror Realm. Everything that Sam is able to do in the Barry Allen game, Evan can do better, and Sam is totally unprepared for his opponent to be able to be more dangerous in the Mirror Realm than he is. Neither the player nor Sam will be able to get more than a few hits in, and, after a certain amount of time, the game will automatically transition to a cutscene, where an injured Sam will go flying out of a mirror and land in a heap in front of the other Rogues. He’s followed by Evan, who steals Sam’s remaining mirror gadgets before disappearing back into the Mirror Realm. “Ta!”  Sam has a broken arm, a bad concussion (obvious from his slurred speech and poor balance), and a few broken ribs, but, being Sam, the injury he’s most concerned about is a nasty cut across his face. When he gets a proper look at his reflection, he all but goes into hysterics. Scudder’s as vain as a peacock, and he’s horrified by what’s happened to his once-handsome face. Lisa is equally upset about the unconscious Roscoe, and Cold is livid. No one messes with his team. “This means war!”

After this cutscene ends, the game will pick up a few days later. Wally and Linda are at the Jay Garrick Park with the twins and are discussing how weird it is that there’s apparently a new Trickster on the scene when Hartley arrives. After exchanging pleasantries (and getting tackle-hugged by an overly-enthusiastic Jai and Irey), Hartley tells Wally and Linda that he’s done some digging and managed to identify the new Trickster as Axel Walker, a teenaged troublemaker who dropped out of high school a few months ago. He says that, since extensive experience with James has taught him that all of James’ tech is heavily guarded by sneezing powder, yo-yos of doom, weaponized rubber chickens, and exploding whoopie cushions, in addition to a complex security system, he is sure that Axel had help from someone with a lot of power and connections to get ahold of the technology—which in turn suggests that the new Trickster is on the payroll of someone who could potentially be very dangerous indeed. Wally asks Hartley if it’s possible that the Rogues gave Axel the tech, but Hartley tells him that it’s not very likely. The Rogues haven’t recruited anyone since the Golden Glider (six years ago), and James would never let another Rogue use his name and weapons. The conversation is interrupted by several alarms going off, and Wally has to rush off in response.

Wally follows the alarms to Central City’s First National Bank, which Double Down and Girder are attempting to rob. The player will have to fight both of them at once while also protecting civilian hostages and the police from any collateral damage. Girder has super strength and can throw a wide variety of objects at the Flash. His punches cause a lot of damage if they land, and his health bar takes half again as long to deplete when compared to other bosses. Double Down has a greater range with his razor-sharp cards, and he’s more agile than Girder, but he’s much less durable. Once Wally manages to defeat them, he snarks about how they should obviously just give up this whole crime thing, since they’re clearly not very good at it—only for both of them to suddenly disappear through a nearby reflective surface. “Blacksmith sends her regards, sucker!” Needless to say, Wally is perplexed. Girder and Double Down aren’t Rogues, so why would Mirror Master help them to escape? And who’s “Blacksmith”?

The player will next get to control Hartley as he and Linda attempt to uncover evidence as to who Blacksmith is. This section will somewhat resemble the CSI segments from the Barry Allen game. Their search takes them throughout much of Keystone, but the evidence eventually leads them to an upscale penthouse owned by one Amunet Black, an important mover and shaker in the Twin Cities’ financial circles. Hartley comments that, when he was a Rogue, he had heard rumors that the criminal network in Central City was run in part through a prominent corporation; Amunet’s company fits the bill nicely. However, before they can do too much digging in the apartment, Murmur appears and attacks them both. Hartley goes for his flute, but Murmur is close enough to him that he’s able to inject Hartley with a syringe before he can actually use his weapon. Hartley yells for Linda to escape. “Not without you!” “I’m contagious! You have to leave me here! Murmur—it’s his Frenzy Virus!” Linda still doesn’t want to leave, but Hartley insists that he can’t leave the building or he’ll risk infecting the whole city. Linda flees as Murmur pulls out a serrated knife and starts to give chase. Hartley manages to use his flute to freeze Murmur in place and Linda leaves the penthouse. With Murmur’s threat temporarily neutralized, Hartley continues his search for anything that might incriminate Amunet or hint at what her plans for the city might be. His search uncovers a trail of paperwork that leads to a Scottish hitman named Evan McCulloch. Hartley is about to photograph the evidence when the Mirror Master suddenly appears in the penthouse. Hartley naturally assumes that this is Sam, and,  while he does go on the defensive, he also believes that he has a surefire way of getting his former colleague to leave without a physical confrontation. He tells “Sam” that he’s been infected with the Frenzy Virus and that Sam should probably leave if he wants to stay alive. “I appreciate the concern, chief, but ye’ve got the wrong man.” Evan’s been immunized to the Frenzy Virus (a precaution on Blacksmith's part). He takes advantage of Hartley’s surprise to destroy Hartley’s camera, incinerates the paper trail with a laser beam, and tells Hartley that the Flash had better stay out of Blacksmith's affairs if he knows what’s good for him. Then he disappears, taking Murmur’s frozen form with him.

Hartley is able to put two and two together and figure out that the Mirror Master with the Scottish accent is probably the Scottish hitman that was hired by Amunet Black, but before he can continue his investigation (he’s already dying—what worse can be done to him?), the effects of the virus begin to kick in (something that would be reflected in the player’s ability to control the character). He sees Wally arrive on the scene just before he slips into unconsciousness.

After a cutscene showing a worried Wally and Linda standing by Hartley’s hospital bed (this happens a day or so later in story terms and Hartley is obviously quite ill), Wally speeds off to find Jay, who tells the younger Flash that, since the Frenzy Virus stems from Murmur’s own mutated blood, he might be able to create an antidote for Hartley’s condition if he can get a sample of that blood. Wally races across the city and eventually finds Murmur in a building that he recognizes as one of the Rogues’ old safehouses—alongside Girder and Double Down, who are thoroughly destroying the place. A fight predictably breaks out, made more complicated by the fact that Murmur is wielding one of Captain Cold’s guns. Murmur isn’t nearly as talented with the gun as Cold himself would be, but it still presents an added complication for Wally as he attempts to defeat the villains and to keep the battle relatively contained.  Once the player manages to best the villains, Wally will whisk them away to a room without any reflective surfaces in the hopes that this will stymy any mirror escapes. He also manages to get a sample of Murmur’s blood. He calls the police to have them hopefully arrest the trio of criminals before rushing off to Jay’s lab. Jay manages to create an antidote with it in record time (super speed is helpful for more than just combat!). He immunizes Wally with it and Wally zips to the hospital, where he immunizes everyone in the building and also manages to save Hartley’s life. Hartley even regains consciousness, though he’s clearly in no condition to go back into the field. He tells Wally that there’s a new Mirror Master, a Scottish guy named Evan McCulloch, and that he’s on Blacksmith's payroll. Then he passes out again.

Linda and Wally then return home to their twins (relieving Joan Garrick of baby-sitting duty), only for Wally to get a call from Officer Jared Morillo. “Flash? The metahumans you said you defeated appear to have escaped.” An exhausted Wally apologizes to Linda and the kids for having to rush off again before returning to the place where he left the defeated villains. Sure enough, when he arrives, the only sign of the supervillains is a note that reads “Eyeballs are reflective, too! Better luck next time, Flasher!” Morillo and Chyre are puzzled. Sam Scudder always needed an actual mirror to pull off his stunts. Wally informs them of Evan’s existence but admits that that only muddies the waters further. Evan McCulloch hasn’t had access to Scudder’s technology for that long. How could he possibly be using it to pull off feats that Scudder himself can’t? Having reached an apparent dead end, the trio depart in frustration, with Chyre noting that he’s off to visit his old partner, Julie Jackam, and her son Josh, who’s about two years old.

This would dovetail into the next level, which would take place a few days later in story terms. Wally and Linda would be dropping the twins off at school when a news broadcast would report that the Weather Wizard is whipping up a massive storm downtown. Wally promptly dashes off and engages the Weather Wizard in a fight, only to be repeatedly caught off-guard by the villain’s unusual display of competency in the use of the Weather Wand. The mechanics of the battle would effectively be a more difficult version of those used in the Weather Wizard’s boss fight in the Barry Allen game.

Weather Wizard is full of bravado and is boasting about how Blacksmith has provided him with a way to become even more powerful than he is now. Eventually, he creates a tornado and vanishes from the scene while Wally desperately tries to stop the tornado before anyone gets hurt. Once he puts an end to the threat of the tornado, Wally zips off to find the Weather Wizard and catches up with him just as the Weather Wizard rips Josh out of Julie’s arms. Wally demands to know what the Weather Wizard is doing, and Mark replies by telling him that Josh is his son. “After all, he has my eyes.” Josh’s eyes are sparking with electricity, and the Weather Wizard explains that the boy is a metahuman with natural weather-controlling powers. He wants that power for himself…and all he has to do is bring the boy to Blacksmith to be opened up. Julie is in an absolute panic and pulls her gun on the Weather Wizard, telling him that Josh is her son and that Weather Wizard can have him over her dead body. The Weather Wizard laughs her off and is about to depart when he gets a good look at his son. “He does have my eyes….my brother’s eyes.” The storm that’s been raging throughout the city dies down, and Weather Wizard actually lands. He seems to be a bit dazed; staring at his son as though he’s seen a ghost. He doesn’t even react when Julie snatches Josh out of his arms. However, when Fred Chyre moves to arrest him, Wally is blinded by a violent flash of light. By the time Wally’s vision clears, Weather Wizard has disappeared. A frustrated Wally decides to pay a visit to Captain Cold in the hopes of figuring out why the Rogues are working alongside Blacksmith.

Wally finds Captain Cold sitting in a bar with the Golden Glider, nursing a beer. The two of them react to his arrival by launching into action and Wally will have to face both of them in a boss fight. The two siblings compliment one another very well and watch one another’s backs closely. Golden Glider has aerial attacks; slicing and kicking the Flash from above. She also has a lot of weaponized tops and her own weaponized gems that she can use; Captain Cold can lay down traps and slow the Flash’s speed to a comparative crawl. However, Wally eventually manages to defeat them and demands to know why the Rogues are working with Blacksmith. Captain Cold replies by telling Wally that he isn’t in league with Blacksmith and explains that Weather Wizard betrayed the Rogues when he sided with her. He tells Wally that the Rogues are going to defeat Blacksmith personally. “No one steals my turf and hurts my people!” He tells Wally that he should stay out of his way—and to underscore this point, he manages to distract the Flash long enough to freeze him in place and flee with the Golden Glider. Wally escapes the ice and decides that he needs to go home and regroup before he can continue his campaign against the two opposing groups of Rogues. He’s really run himself ragged today!

The scene would then shift to the original Rogues, who are hiding out in the back of Paul Gambi’s tailor shop and generally bemoaning their bad luck. Although the Top has regained consciousness, neither he nor Sam are back to full health, and Sam is in a bit of a sulk over the blows to his pride he received from Evan. Most of their hideouts have been systematically destroyed by Blacksmith’s gang, and they’re running very low on both money and technology. But Captain Cold is determined to come up with some plan to take everything he’s lost to Blacksmith back…with interest. The other Rogues, particularly Sam, are rather skeptical that there’s any way they can regain their old power…at least until James hits upon the idea of calling in the Rainbow Raider to induce some fracturing into the other group. This meets with approval from the rest of the group, and James promptly calls up the Rainbow Raider to request that he help them out. The Rainbow Raider is overjoyed by the prospect of finally being respected in the underworld and eagerly agrees.

The player would then control Linda for more detective work as she returns to Amunet’s apartment in the hopes of finding more evidence to tie the businesswoman to the recent chaos in the city. She finds rather more than she bargains for when she accidentally stumbles upon a meeting of the whole gang sans Girder and Murmur (all in civilian clothes as to reduce suspicion). Murmur is off doing his own thing; the exact details of which will be revealed in a side mission. The player will have to ensure that Linda doesn’t give herself away during this sequence. She manages to stay hidden as she listens to Blacksmith haranguing the Weather Wizard for not having brought his son to her. Weather Wizard protests; arguing that she’s taught him to be powerful enough already. They don’t need Josh! Blacksmith vehemently disagrees. She calls Weather Wizard a moron for ignoring his chance at obtaining innate powers; Weather Wizard responds by questioning Blacksmith’s love for him. He was under the impression that she wanted him to become powerful to improve himself…but now it’s starting to sound as though she’s more interested in him being her weapon. Blacksmith dismisses his claims by telling him to shut up and then orders Evan McCulloch to find Josh and bring him to her—but Evan refuses. “You didnae say anything about hurting a woman and her wean when ye hired me!” Blacksmith is decidedly displeased by her hired gun’s sudden and inconvenient display of a conscience and reminds him of his million-dollar paycheck. Evan stands his ground and refuses again. “What sort of hitman are you?” Evan laughs and disappears into the Mirror Realm. “Call me when ye have a real job for me.”

As Linda carefully undercovers documentation in the shadows, Double Down furiously demands to know why Evan’s paycheck is so much bigger than his, which prompts Axel to demand why he isn’t getting paid at all. As the argument increases in volume and eventually escalates into physical violence, Linda finishes gathering up the necessary evidence and prepares herself for departure…only to run directly into Rainbow Raider, who has been using his emotional-manipulation powers in order to create tensions between the members of Blacksmith’s group since before Linda even arrived. The two of them glare at each other but decide to depart without a confrontation in order to avoid being discovered. As soon as they get out of the penthouse, Rainbow Raider zips off on a rainbow and Linda is picked up by Wally. The couple return to their home at Flash-speed and Linda shows Wally all of the evidence she was able to gather while Blacksmith’s group was arguing amongst itself. Wally congratulates his wife enthusiastically for her accomplishments and says that, with any luck, her discoveries will enable him to get Blacksmith off the street before Captain Cold can launch a counter-assault against her. The two of them then enjoy a celebratory dinner with the kids (during which Wally eats as much food as the player can get him to consume in a two-minute time limit).

Unfortunately for Wally, the wheels of justice turn slowly enough that Captain Cold’s Rogues are able to issue a challenge to Blacksmith’s Rogues. Wally doesn’t find out about this until the fight has already begun and the news begins to report on the damage that’s being caused. Desperate to contain the damage, he rushes to the scene and is faced with what will be by far his biggest challenge of the game: fighting both groups of Rogues at once, while also protecting innocent bystanders and keeping collateral damage to a minimum. (Note that the Rainbow Raider is present and fighting alongside Captain Cold’s team; Sam Scudder and the Top are absent since they’re still too injured to fight.) The player’s most important goal is to protect the civilians; defeating the Rogues is a secondary objective. During the course of the fight, Weather Wizard will defect back to the Rogues and put Girder out of the fight entirely by fusing him to a nearby car via a lighting strike. In a brief pause in the action, he apologizes to Captain Cold and receives a fist to the face for his troubles. Cold doesn’t actually knock him unconscious, though—-Weather Wizard is too valuable an ally to lose. A bit later in the battle, Evan McCulloch turns on Blacksmith as well when he sees Captain Cold go out of his way to herd the battle away from a group of civilians that includes several small children. (The player, as Wally, evacuates them all to safety not long after.) He rather handily defeats Double Down and offers his allegiance to Captain Cold, who accepts with a degree of bemusement. Evan’s defection then prompts a similar defection from Axel (who can read the room and wants to be on the winning team). Blacksmith is predictably furious, and, aware that she’s about to lose, uses her metal-controlling ability in an attempt to collapse a building on everyone. Wally has to use his speed to evacuate anyone in the two blocks surrounding the building before the building can collapse (cue hyper-speed Flash time). Blacksmith makes one last attempt on an exhausted Wally, but she’s stopped by the civilians whom Wally rescued, who gang up on her and manage to knock her unconscious. Thoroughly exhausted from their war and not particularly willing to fight an army of furious civilians, Captain Cold has Evan transport all of the Rogues away from the scene. Blacksmith, Double Down, Girder, and Murmur are left behind and are taken into police custody.

Wally rebuilds the neighborhood that was destroyed during the fighting and promises that he’ll bring in the rest of the Rogues the second they show their faces again. He gets ice cream for all of the children in the area before returning home to Linda, the twins, and Hartley (who’s just been released from the hospital) for a relaxing baseball game and a well-deserved nap.

[spaceintruderdetector]

https://archive.org/details/Mondo.2000.Issue.03.1991

Special Guest Editorial - William S. BurroughsOur Readers WriteCongressional Bill would Suspend ConstitutionPushing the Rollercoaster Reality Envelope - Louis M. BrillFiber in the Valley - Denise CarusoStreet Tech - Gareth BranwynPXL 2000 - Brian GoldbergDurk and Sandy Explain it all to You - St. JudeThe War on Drugs and FIJA - Robert Anton WalsonFlow like a Dragonfly, See like a Bee: a Drug-Free Expansion of the Senses - Nick HerbertDo G-men Dream of Electric Sheep? - R. U. Sirius & George GleasonCivilizing the Electronic Frontier: an interview with Mitch Kapor & John Barlow of the Electronic Frontier Foundation - David Gans & R. U. SiriusSynergy Speaks: Goodbye Banks, Goodbye Telephones, Goodbye Welfare Checks - Michael SynergyFreaked by Phrack: an interview with Craig Neidorf - John Perry BarlowA Message to You From Legion of Doom Member "The Mentor"On the Road to Chaos in East Berlin - Morgan RussellThe Worlds Oldest Secret Conspiracy: Fronted by Steve Jackson Games, Inc. - Gareth BranwynGuess Work: an interview w/ Ausust Bequai - Gareth BranwynPhreaks R Us: an interview w/ Hacker Publishers Emmanuel Goldstein of 2600 & Rop Gonggrijp of Hack-Tic - R. U. Sirius & George GleasonDeborah Harry: 21st Century Girl - Tresca Behling, R. U. Sirius & St. JudeDangerous AttireCybernetic Jewelery - Wearable Microsystems - Vernon ReedBoom or Bust - Justine HJeff Designs - Bart NagelHats by Pine - Bart NagelWhat Computers can for for the Fashion Designer - Willard Van de BogartCovert Design & Holographic Clothing: a look at the 21st Century Fashion - Mark HeleyPlastic People - R. U. Sirius & in conversation with Dr. ForshanFuture Food as conceived - Erez with Joshua Ets-HokinShadow World of Heavy Metal Part 3 - Gracive & ZarkovFrank Zappa for PresidentEscape from New York / Talking Hearts & Severed Heads: an interview with Tima Weymouth & Chris Franz - R. U. SiriusBitin' Off the Funk with George Clinton - Rickey VincentHouse Music: the Best Techno-Shamanic Cultural Virus so far - Mark HeleyTune In, Turn on the Acid House with Psychic TV - Philip H. Farber with DjenabaMuzak: the Concept of Manipulation through Music - Genesis P. OrridgeDeee-Lite: Like Tapping into the Soul of a Deep Program - St. JudeThe Primal Venting of Buttheads: a Post Punk Dialectic - Antonio LopezButthole Hacker: We Talk to Gibby, Mostly about his Computer Graphics - Bart Nagel & R. U. SiriusTaking Toys from the Boys: an interview with Rebecca Allen - Jas. MorganSIGGRAPH Gallery: the Wizards of Light & Motion Collected - Jas. Morgan & Christopher CaseChaos & Catastrophe: an interview w/ Ralph Abraham - Rebecca McClen & David Jay BrownQuantum Randiness: Mathematica Author Stephen Wolfram & Physics Genius Saul-Paul Sirag in conversation - Jas. Morgan & Efrem Lipkin assisted by John Zaitz, George Gleason & Jeff MarkDrugs for Sex: Real Aphrodisiacs - Leila Mellow-WhipkitA Word (or Two) on Aphrodisiacs from Dr. Ward Dean interviews - John MorgenthalerAttitude: File Under "Bad" - John ShirleyGreatest Hist from Timothy Leary's Greatest Hists - R. U. SiriusHolidays in Cambodia? - Richard P. GreenfieldMONDOzines - Mike GunderlowSim City, A Cybernetic PlaygroundCracking Mac Software for Fun and Profit: Words from an Expert

[corner-stories]

mornings together

Irey West. Rose Wilson. Bart Allen.

Eavesdropping. Sunlounges. Sketchbooks.

2227 words.

(ao3.)

From the day she was born Irey West had been vibrating through matter like it was nothing. Even after gaining a full connection to the Speed Force, walking through  chairs and tables alike was already second nature to her now. 

A habit she had yet to outgrow involved literally walking through doors, something she often did on reflex rather than laziness. Her father actually had to remind her how to use door knobs before her first day of school.

In the public eye Irey presented the image of a (mostly) normal twelve-year-old girl, but in the presence of heroes she saw no need to hide her powers and phased through walls as she pleased.

Her stays at Titans Tower were no exception. 

On her third weekend with the Teen Titans, Irey West woke up, got dressed in a flash, and immediately phased through the walls. 

Despite being a chronic sleeper, Irey often became an early bird whenever she visited the Tower. Perhaps the excitement of being a Teen Titan simply overwhelmed her desire to sleep, even if her father insisted that she was a ‘Titan-in-Training’ for the time being.

Irey moved through the walls without a sound. She knew better than to slip into anyone’s private quarters, but the public areas of the Tower were fair game. She phased into the computer room to see Cassie and Kon musing over a case, then phased through the gym where Raven and Kiran led Damian in a bout of meditation, then finally arrived at the rooftop pool of the Tower. It was there she stumbled upon a pair she was not expecting to see. 

Despite the morning air being more frigid than usual, Bart Allen was at ease as he laid on a sunlounge. He was sporting his blue and gold college sweatshirt and his usual messy curls. With his hands behind his head he looked up at the cloudless sky, taking in the sight like he had never seen the sun before. 

Next to him sat Rose Wilson, the designated swordsman of the team and Irey’s second favorite Titan after her beloved cousin. Like him, Rose was comfortably relaxing on a sunlounge. However, seemed less concerned with the picturesque view of San Francisco and more interested in drawing with the sketchbook on her lap.

Irey knew that the pair hung out sometimes, but she hadn’t heard of them ever spending mornings together.

Bart and Rose seemed to thrive in the silence, both taking in a moment of the early hours before the chaos of the day. Rose continued to sketch and Bart mindlessly ran his hand through his hair, a chronic habit of his that only served to make his mop-top even more scruffy. The fact that his hair had yet to gain sentience despite its resemblance to a shaggy woodland creature was the greatest mystery of the world. 

Before Irey could walk up to the pair, Bart let out a yawn and pulled his sweatshirt off his torso, causing Rose to frown.

Suddenly Irey’s instincts kicked in and compelled her to be as silent as possible, which was rather rare considering her status as Keystone Middle School’s resident motormouth. She hid behind a conveniently placed potted plant and watched the two closely. 

Rose narrowed her eyebrows at her teammate. “Hey, not cool!” Bothered, she scribbled harder on her sketchbook. “I was drawing you.” 

Bart looked amused. “Oh, were you?” He tossed his sweatshirt at the foot of the sunlounge and laid back with a little more dramatic flair than before, making sure to extend his legs fully and place one hand behind his head. 

“Make sure to get my good side then,” he smirked. 

Rose gave her teammate a stern, yet comically serious look as she flipped her page and restarted her work from scratch. By now the charcoal sticks she used were starting to show on her hands, tinting her fingertips with smudges of gray. 

Bart’s confident aura lasted until his phone buzzed. Quickly, he took the device from his pocket and read the message on the screen. Whatever it was caused him to knit his eyebrows in concern.

“Ah, shit.” 

Rose looked up from her sketchbook. “What’s going on?” 

“Tim needs me,” Bart explained. “Something about delivering a letter.”

Rose looked befuddled. “Who sends letters anymore?” 

“People who want messages to be untraceable,” answered Bart. “You can’t hack paper.” 

For a moment Rose paused, then let out an impressed hum. “Smart.” She scribbled in her sketchbook a little bit more, then looked up to take in the sight of Bart furiously texting. 

It was strange that someone who could break the sound barrier even felt the need to text anymore. Perhaps it’s one of those things he Bart did to feel just a little more human.

As  he texted and Rose sketched, she asked —

“You guys really look out for each other, huh?” 

Her gaze had moved up to meet his, so when Bart looked back his momentarily concerned eyes softened considerably. 

“We do that sometimes,” he soon answered in a simplistic voice. He gave his old friend a gentle, friendly smile. “I’m sure you’d do the same for… someone.”

Rose put her pencil on the corner of her lip and began to think for a second. “For the right person,” she quickly clarified.

Still hiding behind the bush, Irey found herself cocking her head to the side, confused. For a reason she couldn’t entirely comprehend, her mind began to question everything she had just witnessed. Bart was always playful and jovial to his friends, Rose was no exception, but looking at them now one would think that the Wilson girl brought out a different side of him, one characterized with fondness and warmth rather than the usual humor he carried himself with.

Irey was certainly beginning to think so. The few times Bart had commented on his teammate’s prettiness, or the occasions Irey caught Rose flashing him playful smirks during team meetings was only evidence to her hunch.

A lifetime ago the Titans had believed Rose to be the enemy — or so Irey was told — yet even then Bart believed in her innocence. Whether it be because of the few months they had spent shackled to Uncle Roy’s Titans roster or something else entirely, his belief still stood.

It seemed that what remained of that bond, even today, still stood strong. 

Whatever the truth may be, Bart was clearly comfortable enough with Rose to entrust her with certain details of his life. He slipped his phone back in his pocket and eyed his friend on the sunlounge.

“If Irey asks, tell her I’ll be back soon,” he explained. “I don’t want her to think I ditched her.” 

Rose didn’t hesitate to shake her head. “She would never.” For the first time in the morning she closed her sketchbook and looked the speedster in the eye for real. 

“You know she adores you, right?” 

There was a beat, then Bart seemed to tense up in the shoulders, perhaps a new form of nervous fidgeting. 

“Yeah,” he sighed. “Never figured out why, though.”

And with that said Bart got off the sunlounge and onto his feet. He took a single step and sped away, zipping away from the roof of Titans Tower and down to earth. Even from where she was Irey could see her cousin running across the the waters around San Francisco, gradually increasing speed until he disappeared into the horizon. 

Refocusing her attention back to Rose, Irey watched as the older girl sighed. She stood up and stretched, looking out at the world to take in the view for a little bit longer. She looked to the foot of Bart’s sunlounge and noticed he had left his sweatshirt there, a cliche memento for any college freshman. After gathering up her sketchbook and charcoal sticks, she reached for the sweatshirt and then turned towards the entrance. 

In the second it took Rose to look at the door, Irey took off with all her might. Her instincts told her to head to her room, since the older Titans were under the assumption that ‘Baby Flash’ was still fast asleep. Like before she phased through the walls, moving through layer and layer of the Tower until she arrived in her familiar quarters. 

And there stayed, wondering just when Bart would come back and when the other Titans would pick up on her little eavesdropping habit. 

…

…

…

Rose Wilson sat in the midst of the Titan’s kitchen, nursing a mug of coffee as she continued to draw in her sketchbook. In her own words she knew she was nothing special, just some person encouraged by their brother to pick up a hobby. But what Rose also knew was that drawing helped her feel at peace, whether it be the feeling of her pencil on the paper or the sense of accomplishment that came with a piece’s completion.

Plus, it was healthy to have a hobby that didn’t involve bladed weaponry of any kind. 

Rose’s style was far from photorealistic, much preferring a scribbly, impressionistic way of interpreting the world around her. Sometimes she pressed hard on her charcoal, thickening the lines of the piece to better create the way she saw things. 

Just as Rose was putting the finishing touches on a sketch of a dagger, she heard the sound of footsteps coming down the hall. When she looked up she was greeted to the sight of little Irey West entering the kitchen. For a reason that couldn’t be known, there was a nervous look on the young girl’s face. 

“Hi, Rose,” Irey greeted in an uncharacteristically timid voice. 

Rose raised an eyebrow, both concerned and amused. “Hey, Red. What’s got you in a funk?”

Irey was quick to shake her head. “Nothing! Nothing at all!” 

Before Rose could question things any further, Irey skipped to the kitchen central island and hopped onto a stool. Immediately, her bright green eyes looked straight to Rose’s sketchbook. 

“Whatcha drawin’? Ooooh! A knife!” 

Irey seemed strangely intrigued by the image of a dagger. Rose watched as the little one took in the drawing with utter interest, then reached over to flip the page of the sketchbook.

“Here, check it,” Rose said, rifling through the various charcoal-filled drawings until she found the one she was looking for. Eventually she settled on the blocky, cartoonish sketch of the team’s other resident speedster, something she had created that morning. She took extra care to emphasize his boyish prettiness and his untameable curls. 

“Doesn’t this look like him?” asked Rose, holding up the drawing of Bart. 

Irey looked at the photo and tilted her head to the side, her brows knitting as she took in the piece and thought things through.

“Sorta,” the little one soon said. “His hair’s not floofy enough.”

As Rose processed the mild implications that she had been subtly roasted by a middle schooler, she closed her moleskine and placed it back on the table. 

“Everyone’s a critic…” she muttered. 

Slipping out of her stool, Rose grabbed her coffee mug for another quick sip and walked to the kitchen fridge. “I’m starved, want some breakfast?”

Irey nodded with a smile. “Of course!” 

Without hesitation, Rose grabbed the eggs from the fridge and got to work. As she cracked eggs into a bowl with butter and milk, she put the little Speedster to work making some toast. They worked in tandem quite well, Rose cooking the eggs over a hot stove while Irey sliced up some sourdough. 

As Rose continued to cook, Irey came over to the stove and peeped into the pan, then glanced up to her teammate with a curious look in her eyes. 

“Rose?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you and Bart together?”

Rose looked at Irey in surprise, then let out a lighthearted chuckle. “Why do you ask?”

“Because you’re wearing his sweater.”

Suddenly Rose became very aware that she had snagged her teammate’s sweatshirt off a sunlounge less than an hour ago. The garment fit her quite well and bore the colors of Bart’s university, but for the life of her now Rose couldn’t exactly explain why she picked it up in the first place.

“It was cold out,” she decided to say, focusing on the eggs in front of her. She took the saucepan off the heat and plated the food.

“Is that a yes?” asked Irey. In the corner of the kitchen the toast popped, and in half a second she had zipped over and brought it to the plates by the stove.

“It’s none of your business,” Rose soon claimed, handing a plate of eggs to Irey. “Besides, dating within the team never ends well.”

Irey smirked as she salted her eggs. “I was told that.”

Rose raised an eyebrow at the younger girl, both curious and cautious. “By who?”

“My Dad,” Irey answered simply. She then poured an absurd amount of hot sauce onto her eggs. “He tells me a lot about team drama.” 

Intrigued, Rose slipped onto the stool next to Irey and leaned her elbow on the counter. “What kind of drama?” she asked in a slightly kinder voice, perhaps hoping that her tone could endear her to the girl and give her some new dirt.

With a proud smirk, Irey took a bite of her eggs and said — 

“It’s none of your business.” 

[robinofgothamcity]

♡ starting prompt: “if I was your boyfriend, I’d pepper you with kisses and gifts and spoil you so bad.” 

♡ pairing: tim drake (Robin YJ S2) x fem reader

♡ lyric inspiration: “if we go down then we go down together, we’ll get away with everything, we’ll show them we are better.” 

♡ note: not checked for grammar or spelling mistakes

Tim Drake was a special one, everyone knew that. he wasn’t Dick, the happy go lucky Robin, he for sure wasn’t Jason Todd, the sarcastic and very rude Robin. he was the tactical Robin, the one who made sure everything went as planned, whether it was on a mission or when all of you decided to hangout. 

you were not apart of his plan. at all. 

when you first joined the team, you were very similar to Garfield and Bart. very playful, extremely flexible when it came to hanging out with everyone on the team which made you very likable amongst them. Tim didn’t really like it at first. 

he thought all you liked to do was have fun and play games but when he finally saw you out on the field, he was more than impressed. it was like a flip of a switch. your playful personality immediately went out the window and it was like you became a whole other person. 

the team at the moment was having a bit down time. more than usual that is. you were lying around the lair, kicking your legs up against Bart as Nightwing walked in with Robin following behind him. 

“hey guys!” you murmured through a mouthful of chips, “afternoon ( hero name ), enjoying that bag of chips?” Nightwing asked. you nodded happily as Bart reached in and ate some, “what has all of you here? you guys aren’t usually around at this time of day,” Garfield exclaimed. 

Robin sat next to you, making sure he didn’t sit too close to you. when he started developing his crush on you, he immediately sensed himself getting nervous around you so he made it his mission to remain a close yet far distance. 

“we need to talk to the team and since some of you are here, we figured it was best to break the news to you now,” you gave Tim and the rest of the boys a nervous look, “is the team breaking up? because I can’t afford to be back on the street,” you practically blurted. 

Nightwing laughed, shaking his head, “nothing like that! the city of Gotham actually wants to honor the team this weekend at a special dinner,” Nightwing said. you sighed in relief as he continued, “they want it to be a black tie event so all of you need to be dressed appropriately. Wonder Woman herself offered to buy your attire if you choose to attend,” he mentioned to you.

you perked up in excitement. 

“awesome! I’ll give her a call right now, thanking her in advanced,” you said, getting up from the couch and heading to the nearest phones. Tim sighed, watching you walk away as Nightwing gave his brother a look of confusion. 

“any of you planning on asking any of the girls as a date?” Nightwing asked off handedly. Garfield and Bart instantly perked up, eyes darting in the direction of where you went, “definitely ( hero name ),” the two boys said. 

suddenly, the air went thick as Bart, Garfield, and Tim looked at each other. a competitive stare fell on their faces as Nightwing could tell something was up, “mind telling me what all of you are thinking?” Nightwing asked them as Garfield and Bart instantly looked at each other. 

“I’m asking her out!” the two of them shouted. 

Nightwing shook his head disappointedly. he knew that this would become an issue. there wasn’t many girls on the team that could be asked out on a date so that really only left you and Cassie on terms of availability. 

“please, like she’d accept you as a date,” Bart told Garfield as Garfield immediately stood up in defensive, “you’re the one to talk!” he retorted just as loudly. 

Nightwing could tell his brother was thinking to himself. something he did often and while he wasn’t exactly the best at figuring it out, this time, he knew it had to do with the conversation at hand. every now and again, Dick could see the way Tim looked at you. some of it was eyes of admiration but more often than not, he had that lovestruck look. 

Dick could just tell that Tim was also apart of the competition in trying to ask you out. you had walked back inside to the living room but this time with Cassie at your side. you were laughing at something she said before Garfield and Bart attacked you suddenly. 

“do you want to be my date to the dinner?” they both yelled in unison. Cassie immediately started laughing as you stood in place, not knowing whether to accept or not, “uh, Garfield? I thought you seen me as a sister?” you asked, seeing Gar’s dejected face. 

last week while all of you were playing a game of cards, he had mentioned that he thought of you as a sister in passing. while he never thought that the comment would ever come back to haunt him, sure enough it did. Gar hung his head low as Bart gave you a hopeful look. 

“you serious?” you asked the redhead. Bart nodded excitedly, “yeah! we can get matching ties and dresses!” he practically boasted as he grabbed your hand, shaking it in excitement. 

you shook your head, “whatever Allen, the color we’re wearing is dark green so find a tie and I can find a color to match a dress with it,” you stated, making Bart nod in agreement. 

once you were out of earshot with Cassie, Bart fist pumped the air in excitement as he danced in place, “told you I’d get the girl!” he exclaimed happily. Tim sighed, not saying much as he tried to not make it sense that he was both jealous and disappointed. 

he had no idea that they were going to ask you out this quickly. Tim figured that maybe he could get you alone and ask you out when the time was right but now....Bart had beat him to the punch and by the looks of it, you seemed pretty interested in him too. 

Tim wasn’t one to get insecure about himself rather quickly but seeing someone he had grown to like over the course of the last few months, he felt that small bit of insecurity rise up. 

+

Saturday morning at the lair was busier than usual. since Gar hadn’t acquired a date for tonight, between him and a few others, they offered to take patrol for the night. you were feeling nervous bubbles in your stomach. you had never gone on a date before and while you had never saw Bart as anything but a brother, maybe the dinner could change it. 

you ironed out the forest green dress and hung it in your designated room closet. while you were trying on a few heels Wonder Woman had bought you, you heard a knock on your door before seeing Megan walk in with a solemn look on her face. 

“hey Megan!” you exclaimed happily. she gave you a tight lipped smile, “Bart’s on the phone. he needs to tell you something,” she murmured, handing the phone over to you. 

you grabbed it, hearing the hacking cough coming from the other end of the phone. you instantly sighed knowing exactly why Bart had called you. he wasn’t going to be able to make it to the dinner. he had caught the bug that Jaime had a few days before and wasn’t able to get out of bed. 

“I told you not to hang out with him Thursday night,” you threatened, clutching your heel in your hand, “but did you listen? no you did not. now I have dress that won’t be worn because the IDIOT who had offered to be my date was irresponsible,” you exclaimed. 

Bart tried to makeup an apology but you practically waved it off, “have fun in bed you jerk!” you said before hanging up. Megan gave you a sad look, “you’re really not going tonight?” you sighed, shaking your shoulders, “you should! Wonder Girl, Robin, Blue Beetle, Nightwing, Superboy, and the rest of us are still going. you could always just tag along with one of us!” she offered. 

you thanked her silently. you figured since Wonder Woman had already bought the dress for you, you couldn’t just let it go to waste. “sure, I’ll tag with Wonder Girl tonight,” you murmured, trying not to seem disappointed. 

Megan gave you a quick hug before letting you go back to doing your makeup. Tim walked in with his suit in hand as Megan walked out of your room, “what’s going on?” he asked Nightwing. he looked to his brother, “Bart caught the bug Blue had a few days ago and can’t go to the dinner with ( your name ), he whispered. 

Tim tried not to seem happy by what he had just found out but since Bart was sick and Gar was staying for patrol, he figured his stars must’ve aligned. the dinner was going to be happening in under an hour and all he was told to do was bring his suit so all of you could head out in one car. 

“that must be upsetting for her,” Tim replied, seeing as Dick started to laugh, “some how I get the sense that you aren’t as upset as she is,” he said before walking away. 

Tim didn’t say anything as he heard Dick tell him to get dressed within the next few minutes before all of you were late. as Tim went into the bathroom, he heard you call Cassie or Megan over to your room. he wondered what you needed but figured it wasn’t his place to head over if you didn’t call for him. 

putting on the suit didn’t take as long as he thought. all he needed was help tying the tie and he went back out to the front of the lair. “she looks great, doesn’t she?” he heard Zatanna say to Megan, “I feel kinda bad for Bart. he really missed out,” she added on. 

you walked out of your room as you struggled to walk with your heels on. Garfield, Tim, and even Nightwing were a bit taken back by how you looked. you had never been so dressed up before so they were in a bit of shock as you walked out with Cassie. 

“wow,” Garfield whispered, “can I be your date tonight?” he said as you smacked him in the back of his head, “sorry Gar, you have patrol or else I would actually take you up on that,” you giggled before sitting down on the couch. 

Tim almost instantly sat next to you as he gave you a smile, “you look....fantastic,” he mentioned. you looked at the ground, not trying to get caught with a flustered expression, “thanks Rob, it means a lot coming from you,” you said, not realizing what you were actually saying. 

Dick smiled to himself as he watched the interaction. his heart warmed up at the sight of the two of you. he knew Tim took himself a bit too seriously sometimes so seeing you break that harsh exterior made him happy. Tim needed to loosen up and maybe you would be the one to do that for him. hell, Tim trusted you with his life and that was not something he said often.

after all of you arrived to the dinner and thanked everyone who coordinated the event, all of you sat down at separate tables to eat. you had asked for a two seat table since you figured that Bart was going to join you but now, you realized that you’d probably be eating alone on the balcony. 

just as you handed your jacket to the hostess, you saw Robin walking your way, “mind if I sit with you?” he asked nervously. you perked up, “of course! you sure you don’t wanna sit with Nightwing or even Blue?” you asked. Tim shook his head no, “I’d prefer if I sat with you,” he tried to say without a blush covering his face. 

he pulled your chair out, making sure you were already seated before pushing you back in. Tim sat across from you, giving you a smile before looking to the hostess who was making her way over to the two of you again. 

-

the night had went relatively quickly. that semi-awkward tension between the two of you quickly disappeared as both of you got comfortable around each other. 

Robin, underneath that shell of his was a pretty funny guy. he would tell a joke that would have you crying from laughter for at least a few minutes and while the hostess that was attending the two of you had mentioned that it was getting a bit more cold and the two of you should just head in, neither you or Robin made the move to actually go inside. 

the two of you were sitting down on cushioned lawn chairs, talking about a failed mission the two of you had went on a few months ago that made Bart lose his eyebrows due to an explosion. 

“I swear, it was the funniest thing ever,” you said through giggles, “you really should have been on our team.” Tim sighed contently as he watched you run your hand through your hair, “hey, can I ask you something?” he asked suddenly. 

you nodded, a bit nervous on why he changed his mood all of a sudden, “do you have a thing with Bart?” he asked. you were taken back, not knowing that this would be the question, “uh, no? we’re just friends. I know we were supposed to be each others dates but I think he really only asked me because of his little competition with Garfield,” you murmured, “why do you ask?” 

the two of you had been leaning up against the rail of the balcony as you had taken Tim’s jacket earlier in the night and wrapped it around yourself. 

“I was wondering...if after this dinner.....you’d be interested in going out on another date with me?” 

you stayed silent for a moment, not knowing what to respond with. 

“with me? really? I never thought of Mr.Perfect asking me out on a date,” you replied, trying not to make it too awkward, “I don’t think you’re any different than I am. I’ve liked you for a while now and have been wondering if you felt the same.” 

you let out a sigh, “of course. I’d love too. I’m just not sure what you see in me is all,” you responded with. Tim grabbed your hand and held it, “you’re amazing. whether it’s on the field and kicking someone’s ass or just lounging around the lair with Gar and Bart. if I was your boyfriend, I’d pepper you with kisses and gifts and spoil you so bad,” he confessed. 

you stayed silent, not knowing how to reply. you had never taken Tim as the romantic type and was not expecting that kind of confession. 

Tim leaned in and placed the smallest kiss on your lips as he put his forehead on yours after he pulled away. you smiled, putting your hand on his cheek and brushing your thumb against it, “that means I should probably tell you who I really am,” Tim murmured, taking off his domino mask. 

“I’m Tim, Tim Drake.” 

“ ( your name ).” 

[tinietrex]

Caregiver! Konner Kent / Superboy headcanons

(For my lovely friend @wonderinglullaby 💛 )

Konner CG's for Tim Drake and Bart Allen (sometimes Cassie will help out or also be babysat)

Konner and Jaime will often meet up to take care of the boys and do day trips as a family (Jaime also CG's for Bart)

He loves to play video games with his littles! No matter what game it is, though Bart will often ask for Minecraft.

Konner plants/pots every flower Bart and Tim give him so usually his house (designed by Tim in a lovely crayon blueprint) is surrounded by flowers and full of flower pots

Sometimes the boys will just sit in his lap or in a chair next to him (a beanbag for Bart) and watch him play

I imagine he would also be a handler for Bart, as Bart would also be a puppy regressor

He LOVES to give head scratches and pats to his pup and loves when they play wrestle

He cannot be strict with his boys, one flash of puppy eyes and he'll give them a treat and cuddles

Kon is an expert sandwhich maker! But he is absolutely horrid at making any other food so Tim and Bart usually tease him (/lh) and run off to ask someone else (they get tickled for bullying their dada/baba later)

Tickle wars! Kon loves to play the "tickle monster" so there is lots of running and squealing around the place while Tim and Bart run away from him to try and avoid tickles

Expert piggy back ride giver!

Can and will carry a baby on each hip like a cool mom™️ (with his sunglasses on obv)

Loves taking the kiddos to parks and pushing them on the swings!

Park trips do however usually end with him having to fly and hope no one sees him as he rescues Tim who stranded himself on top of the monkey bars again

His jacket and sunglasses get stolen and chewed on all the time. Bart likes to try and put everything in his mouth and unfortunately that also means Konner's sunglasses

Konner is an expert at fairy princess dress up games. He gets Cassie to help put glitter makeup on them. Sometimes she'll join in too.

Sometimes Konner takes the boys for flights. (Yes they get strapped to him in a makeshift baby carrier.)

He reads a bedtime story to the boys every night because they love the voices he does

He also has every word to finding dory memorised because it's Bart's favourite movie and every line to Rio memorised for Tim

(Tim loves infodump babbling about endangered species during it. Usually they get halfway through the movie before leaving)

Konner also makes sure they all do "dance breaks" as a chance for Bart to stim (canon adhd) and for Tim to have time away from his screens and have some fun time with his cg and baby brother

(This is my first Caregiver HC post! I'm so nervous. I hope you guys like it! Leave a comment or ask if you have any more characters you'd like to see)

[biromanticbooknook]

My Most Ambitious Crossover

I got bored by posting only my second gen Amazon AU, so I’ll get back to that tomorrow, but enjoy this one-shot about Chloe and Marinette creating their own trip instead of their class trip in the meantime. Can’t have you all thinking I’m a one-trick pony, can I?

“-and that’s why we think you shouldn’t go on the trip this year.” Mlle. Bustier tried to look apologetic, but it was as much her idea as the students. Between Marinette refusing to set an example and Chloe associating with her, neither of them deserved to go.

“Oh, thank goodness. I was afraid I would have to get my daddy to donate 30% of the funds like he does every year.”

“I’m just glad I don’t have to take 60% of the trip funds out of my commission profits. That will give me a much bigger budget for fabric and accessories.” Everyone blanched at the statements of the 2 girls. They were saying that they paid for 90% of the trip every year, but that couldn’t be right. They worked so hard on fundraisers every year, they must be lying about how much they contribute.

Marinette just ignored them, turning to her seatmate. “Do you think that our other friends would want to go on a trip with us? Most classes take their trips during May, so we could leave at the beginning of June and take the entire summer.”

“Nice thinking, Maribug. With fewer people, prices go down and we can afford more bang for our buck.” They walk out of the classroom, discussing who to ask and when.

The class just made a big mistake.

-----

By the time the weekend rolled around, Marinette and Chloe had their group list finalized. The people going on their trip were themselves, Luka, Kagami, Aurore, Mireille, and Marc. They got together and started brainstorming fundraisers.

Marinette started. “There are the given examples; you know, car wash, bake sale, raffle. What else?”

“We could host a show.” Luka suggested.

“Like an exhibition?” Marinette asked. “We could have you perform, Kagami do a fencing demonstration, and I could do a small fashion show, using Chloe and Marc as models. Aurore and Mireille could be our MCs.”

“To capitalize on money-making, we could sell tickets, food and drink, and merch for Luka’s solo career as well as commission spots for our resident designer.”

“That’s good.” Marinette starts scribbling in the shared notebook.

“At Le Grande Paris, we could host parties. I know days when the grand ballroom is open. We could host an auction, sell lessons and creations and stuff. We could also host a masquerade ball that we sell tickets for. We could charge for food and drink. The pools are open for private reservation quite often, we could have parties there too.” Chloe takes the notebook and starts writing down her ideas, mapping out all the resources needed while muttering.

“We could also host a carnival or a gaming tournament in the ballroom.” Kagami looked thoughtful. “I’ve never actually been to one.”

Chloe added that to the list. “Should we do anything else?”

“We could start a go-fund-me. Artists and writers do it all the time to get their creations off the ground.” Marc murmured.

“That would be great. What’s our goal for this entire endeavor?”

“Our goal, Maribug, is €45,000. That should cover travel, boarding, tours, food, and souvenirs. Whatever we don’t spend gets redistributed to the group.” Chloe supplies.

“Then that should be it. Nice job, guys!”

“My, what a whirlwind of a planning session. I hope nothing rains on our parade. I wonder weather Mlle. Bustier’s class is doing this well.” Aurore beams at them.

“Mm-hmm.” Mireille agrees with Aurore.

“Probably not. Our classmates couldn’t pour water out of a boot with instructions on the heel. They’ll just listen to Lila that the boot will empty by itself through the toe because ‘I worked on patenting this boot’, then they’ll get mad at the boot for not doing it.” Chloe chuckles dryly.

“Be nice.” Marinette reprimands half-heartedly.

-----

Chloe immediately filed the paperwork with the school board so they could go on their trip with no safety or legal concerns. She recruited Mme. Mendeleiev and M. D'Argencourt to be their chaperones, who were more than happy to go on an all-expenses-paid trip to Los Angeles, Star City, Central City, Metropolis, Gotham, New York City, and Tokyo.

They had their first fundraiser at the end of September, a pool party at Le Grande Paris. Even Mlle. Bustier’s class attended, though they didn’t know who had set it up, only that Luka was performing. They hadn’t even started their planning  yet. The group made €3,041.

The next was a car wash in the middle of October. It was cool enough for a car wash to be pleasant while being warm enough that everyone was still out and about. They earned €2,632. Bustier's class was getting ice cream and listening to Lila brag.

They then had an All Hallow’s Eve bake sale, complete with candy decoration reminiscent of the American holiday. They earned €1,800.

During November, they held a carnival, with a full fall theme. It was wildly popular with families from all over Paris, earning them €6,483. It was around this time that Mlle. Bustier’s class held a bake sale, and earned €1,594. They celebrated.

Throughout the holiday season, they took advantage of peoples’ spirit. They held a raffle throughout the 12 Days of Christmas, while also holding a bake sale the day before winter break. Overall, they earned €10,749.

Over winter break, Chloe bought plane tickets and reserved tours and hotels, so all that was left was to get money for the tours and food. They were over halfway to their goal.

During January, they rented a theater, and held their exhibition. They had a crowd of fencing enthusiasts, rock music lovers, and fashion followers. They made €5,830.

They held a date auction and a masquerade to celebrate Valentine’s Day. It was amazing, and they earned €7,284.

They had checked their go-fund-me, and had found that €10,000 was there, putting them €2,819 over their goal. They were ecstatic!

They still held the gaming tournament at the end of April, but let it be free for everyone to enjoy as their celebration of reaching their goal.

-----

Mlle. Butsier’s class had made €7,000 over their 3 fundraisers, and they were pretty proud of themselves. No doubt they would be going somewhere much better than whatever Maribrat and Chloe have planned. Once the girls walked into the classroom, the class started to brag.

“We’ve finished fundraising!”

Marinette smiled and decided to be nice to them. “Cool. Where are you going?”

“We are going to New York City.”

Chloe was not as kind. “Oh, so are we! It was so hard to raise the €45,000 needed for our trip, but we did it. It was so euphoric to meet our goal. How much did you guys raise?”

“We made €7,000.” The smiles slowly slipped off the faces of the class. “What do you mean the €45,000 needed?”

“Well, we needed to cover food, travel, boarding, and tours, and that was just for the 7 of us. I can’t imagine what the budget would’ve been like for an entire class.” Her smile got an edge, like a lioness who knew she had cornered her prey.

Her classmates blanched. “What was our budget, Alya?” Rose looked towards their new class representative, hoping that she had an answer.

“We never had one.”

“Well, at least you filed the paperwork right?”

“What paperwork?”

Marinette responded this time. “The paperwork needed to go on a trip. You were supposed to submit it to the school board for approval of safety and legality. It was on page 17 of the packet I gave you at the beginning of the year. Didn’t you read it, Alya?”

“I-I-no. Lila said that was just extra work that you had given me to throw me off my game. She said you didn’t actually need to do all of that.”

“I didn’t know that Lila had more experience being a class representative than me and Marinette, the only 2 people who have ever been class representative here.” Chloe’s voice became as sharp and sweet as her smile. “Well, have fun with your trip. Marinette and I have to do last-minute checks on our arrangements.”

The class looked at the people that had carried them the previous years, and realized how much they relied on the girls. Lila was cursing herself for pushing away the only people who actually did anything in this class.

-----

The class ended up going to Disneyland Paris, and tried their best to look as upbeat as possible on their social medias. Meanwhile, The group was having the time of their lives.

They stayed in LA for 2 weeks, visiting movie sets and meeting actors. They spent another week just going on everything at Disneyland and California Adventure.

They then spent a week in Star City, touring Queen Industries and having a meet and greet with Oliver Queen and his ward, Roy Harper, who seemed to enjoy Aurore’s outgoing personality. They even saw the vigilantes.

They spent another 2 weeks in Central City, touring STAR Labs and watching the rogues try to fight the Flash family. It was the most meta-filled city in the world, and They toured a forensics lab with Bart Allen. Chloe seemed grimly pleased with seeing the bodies. She might’ve been projecting certain people onto them, not that she would ever admit it.

2 weeks in Metropolis was really fun. They toured the Daily Planet with Clark Kent and Lois Lane. Mireille was amazed by what you could do to report without having to be in front of a screen. They made a scavenger hunt of how many Supers they could find, and they found 2 different superboys. Lex Corp also gave them a tour, although it was more professional than the tour of the Daily Planet.

They spent 1 week in Gotham. They toured Wayne Enterprises and stayed out of the Bats’ way. Luka got the phone number of Tim Drake. Marinette enjoyed the inspiration that the gothic architecture brought her. There wasn’t much of a nightlife scene, considering only fools stay out after dark in Gotham.

Their 1 week in New York City was hectic. The Avengers were all at the tower when they were touring with Pepper Potts by Chloe’s request. Chloe might’ve been unofficially adopted by Tony Stark when she stood up to them and made them ‘cease their bullshit’. The Black Widow also took a liking to the girl. They also ran into these weird teens muttering about monsters when they were waiting for the elevator at the Empire State Building.

2 weeks in Tokyo. Their last stop. They visited the prestigious Ouran Academy, the host club getting Marc to come out of their shell by constantly helping boost his self-esteem. Chloe enjoyed talking business and finances with Kyoya Ootori. Kagami led them all in a traditional tea ceremony, before they all stormed the streets to try the unfamiliar street food.

Marinette ended up being unofficially adopted by 3 heroes, 2 rogues, and 5 billionaires. She was happy getting to spend 7 weeks on the road with only her closest friends.

The class was incredibly jealous of the trip their classmates took. They hoped next year they could go on a trip like that as well, but they had missed their shot.

[multiverseforger]

Leonard Snart was raised by an abusive father and took refuge with his grandfather, who worked in an ice truck. When his grandfather died, Snart grew tired of his father's abuse and set out to start a criminal career. Snart joined up with a group of small-time thieves and in planning out a robbery, each was issued a gun and a visor to protect their eyes against the flashes of gunfire. This visor design would later be adapted by Snart into his trademark costume. In recent years he has added a radio receiver to them which picks up the police band to monitor local law enforcement. Snart and the other thugs were captured by the Flash and imprisoned. Snart decided to go solo, but knew he had to do something about the local hero, the Flash.[4]

Snart read an article that theorized that the energy emissions of a cyclotron could interfere with the Flash's speed. He designed a weapon to harness that power and broke into a cyclotron lab, intending to use the device to charge up his experimental gun. As he was finishing his experiment, a security guard surprised Snart. Intending to use his gun only to scare the guard, he inadvertently pulled the trigger and discovered that his weapon had been altered in a way he had never imagined. The moisture in the air around the guard froze. Intrigued by this twist of fate, Snart donned a parka and the aforementioned visor and declared himself to be Captain Cold - the man who mastered absolute zero.[7]

Snart then committed a series of non-lethal crimes, on one occasion placing the city in suspended animation in an attempt to force Iris West to marry him as he had fallen in love with her when he saw her in the prison, but the Flash got through a wall of ice and was able to reverse the process. He later fell in love with a newscaster, and competed with Heat Wave (in his first appearance) over her in a crime spree, but they were both beaten by the Flash. But after Barry Allen's death, during the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Captain Cold became a bounty hunter with his sister Lisa, the Golden Glider.[4]

During the events of Underworld Unleashed, Captain Cold lost his soul to Neron but Wally West brought it back to the land of the living. He soon returned to crime, this time a member of Wally's Rogues Gallery. The Rogues had first been assembled when another Flash foe, the super-intelligent Gorilla Grodd had broken them out of jail to distract the Flash. The Golden Glider had abandoned her bounty hunter career and had started partnering with a series of thugs who she dressed in a costume, armed with a copy of Captain Cold's signature Cold Gun, and called Chillblaine. Already distraught over the death of her lover, the Top, it seemed that the supposed death of her brother pushed her over the edge. But the last Chillblaine was a little smarter and more vicious. He murdered the Golden Glider, prompting Captain Cold to hunt him down, torture him and kill him by freezing his outer layer of skin and then pushing him off a high rise building. Not long after that, Snart was framed by a new incarnation of Mister Element. He used his Element Gun to simulate Cold's gun, using ice and cold to murder several police officers before Captain Cold and the Flash discovered who was actually responsible. With the death of his sister, and having killed Chillblaine and Mr. Element in vengeance, Cold has again become an unrepentant criminal. However, during a confrontation with Brother Grimm, Cold actually worked with Wally West to defeat the powerful magic user, although this was mainly because he and Mirror Master had been betrayed by Grimm and wanted revenge.[4]

Captain Cold was declared the leader of the Flash's Rogues Gallery. His skill and experience have made him a strong leader to the likes of the Weather Wizard, the new Trickster, the new Mirror Master, and the new Captain Boomerang. Len seems to have taken the young Captain Boomerang under his wing, after the elder Boomerang was recently killed. Tabloids rumoured that Captain Cold's sister, the Golden Glider, was Boomerang's mother, making him Captain Cold's nephew. This turned out to be false, however, as the new Boomerang's mother has been revealed to be Meloni Thawne, who is also the mother of Bart Allen. Despite his more ruthless nature as of late, Captain Cold's heart is not completely frozen, evidenced by having sent flowers to honor Sue Dibny, murdered wife of the Elongated Man.[volume & issue needed]

Traditionally, Captain Cold is driven by three things: money, women, and the desire to beat Barry Allen. Although not the lecher that Captain Boomerang was, Len Snart has an eye for the ladies, particularly models. When Barry Allen died, Captain Cold drifted for a while, jumping back and forth over the lines of crime and justice. He was captured by the Manhunter and served time in the Suicide Squad, worked with his sister as a bounty hunter (Golden Snowball Recoveries), and, with his longtime friend and sometimes nemesis Heat Wave, encountered Fire and Ice of the Justice League. He has teamed up with various villains over the years other than the many Rogues. These include Catwoman and the Secret Society of Super Villains. His favorite baseball team is the Houston Astros.[volume & issue needed]

"One Year Later"Edit

In the 2006 "One Year Later" storyline, he and several other Rogues are approached by Inertia with a plan to kill the Flash (then Barry Allen). Though Inertia was defeated, Captain Cold, Weather Wizard, Heat Wave, Mirror Master and Abra Kadabra killed Bart with a combined barrage of their elemental weapons. He, Heat Wave, and Weather Wizard seemed to express guilt, however, after learning the identity of the Flash and how young he was.

Salvation RunEdit

Captain Cold is one of the exiled villains featured in the 2007-08 miniseries Salvation Run along with his fellow Rogues: Heat Wave, Weather Wizard, Mirror Master, and Abra Kadabra.

New RoguesEdit

The New Rogues version of Captain Cold is Chill, a unknown man who possesses a Cold Gun.

Final Crisis: Rogues' RevengeEdit

In the 2008 miniseries Final Crisis: Rogues' Revenge, Captain Cold and the Rogues briefly joined Libra's Secret Society of Super Villains. In Final Crisis: Rogues' Revenge story, however, Cold and the rest of the Rogues reject Libra's offer, wanting to stay out of the game. Before they can retire, they hear of Inertia escaping and decide to stick around long enough to get revenge for being used.[8] Cold and his group are challenged by a new set of Rogues, formed by Libra to be their replacements. The new group, having kidnapped Cold's father, challenge the Rogues, and are defeated and killed. Cold goes to his father, talking to him about the abuse he suffered, and the fate of his sister. After the elder Snart insults him and his mother, calling them weak, Cold punches him, but finds himself unable to kill him, instead getting Heat Wave to do it.[9] The Rogues have their confrontation with Inertia, despite interference by Zoom and Libra, and kill Inertia. Libra then reveals that he needs the Rogues because Barry Allen has returned from the dead, and the Flashes are potential threats to him and Darkseid. Though shocked by the news that Allen is alive, Cold still rejects his offer of membership. After regrouping, Cold and the other Rogues agree not to retire, claiming that the game is back on.[10] In "Final Crisis" #7, someone that looks like Captain Cold appears as a Justifier and is seen fighting the Female Furies alongside the other Justifiers under Lex Luthor's control.

The Flash: RebirthEdit

In the 2009 The Flash: Rebirth miniseries, Captain Cold is seen with the other Rogues, reading about Barry Allen's return and claiming that they would need more of the Rogues.[11] The Rogues are still debating Allen's return, with Cold saying it's time to pull out their contingency plan that Scudder came up with, stating "In case The Flash returns, break glass."[12]

"Blackest Night"Edit

In the 2009–2010 "Blackest Night" storyline, the Rogues realize that the bodies of various dead Rogues are missing and prepare to fight them. Captain Cold knows that his sister, the Golden Glider, is among the reanimated Black Lanterns but is still ready to lead the Rogues against the zombies.[13] He is confronted by the Black Lantern Glider, who attempts to use his feelings of love for her against him. However, Captain Cold manages to suppress these feelings long enough for him to fight back, freezing her within a block of ice.[14] He subsequently kills Owen Mercer by throwing him into a pit with his Black Lantern father when he learns that Owen has been feeding people to his father in the belief that consuming flesh will restore him to life, informing Owen that Rogues do not kill women and children.[15]

The Flash (Vol. 3)Edit

In The Flash (Vol. 3), Captain Cold and the Rogues visit Sam Scudder's old hideout and unveil a giant mirror with the words In Case of Flash: Break Glass written on it and release beings from a Mirror World upon breaking it.[16] However, Captain Cold is told by Mirror Master he had discovered that the giant mirror is actually a slow acting poison.[17]

The New 52Edit

In the timeline of the 2011 company-wide reboot of all its superhero titles, The New 52, Captain Cold is reintroduced as a younger man than in the previous timeline and now with his Rogues lives with a code to never kill. His origin remains the same, however, his sister Lisa has not been the Golden Glider, and is instead dying of cancer. Upon learning that the hospital does not have enough energy to power a laser that could save her life, because of an EMP seemingly caused by the Flash, Cold blames him for everything that has happened to him, including a falling out with the Rogues, and decides to break the rules of their "game" and kill the Flash. Captain Cold has undergone experiments that have given him ice-based metahuman powers, including the ability to slow down the molecules around him, creating a field of inertia that reduces the Flash's speed to human level, allowing Captain Cold to touch him and effortlessly beat him.[18] He and the Rogues are set to return,[19] but later defeated them with help from Flash, and the Pied Piper.[20]

After freeing the Trickster and attending the meeting at the Justice League Watchtower, the Rogues return to Central and Keystone City, only to see that both have been destroyed by Gorilla Grodd. Grodd returns to Central City during the eclipse, while a ceremony commemorating Flash between the humans and gorillas is occurring. Grodd proceeds to take control of Central City as its king and renames it Gorilla City. Captain Cold sees the city's cops tied up from Grodd, and proceeds to free them. He then asks Mirror Master to help him get to the hospital where his sister is being held in order to check on her. While there, the Crime Syndicate send Black Bison, Hyena, Multiplex, Plastique and Typhoon to finish Grodd's work and destroy the hospital. The Rogues are able to hold them off, only to be interrupted by Deathstorm and Power Ring, who were sent by Ultraman to deal with the Rogues for resisting the Crime Syndicate's offer to join them. After battling Deathstorm and Power Ring, Deathstorm attacks Captain Cold and is able to extract his freezing powers from his DNA. Mirror Master attempts to get the Rogues out through the Mirror World, but Power Ring destroys the mirror causing the Rogues to be separated. Captain Cold ends up at Luthor and his Kryptonian clone's location where they are also joined by Black Manta, who has retrieved Black Adam from the ocean.[21] Luthor realizes that, with the help of his clone, Black Adam, Black Manta, and Captain Cold, he may be able to stop the Crime Syndicate. Captain Cold and the rest of the squad, now joined by Batman, Catwoman, Sinestro and Deathstroke, infiltrate the fallen Watchtower, where Black Manta kills the Outsider and Cold proceeds to shatter Johnny Quick's right leg after having frozen the molecules in it with his cold gun. He then unmasks the hooded prisoner brought over from Earth-3, revealing it to be Alexander Luthor, who is their version of Shazam, Mazahs, who states he will kill them all.[22][volume & issue needed] After defeating the crime syndicate, Captain Cold is pardoned by the U.S government, and becomes a member of the Justice League, along with Luthor.

DC RebirthEdit

Snart and the Rogues first made a cameo appearance in the DC Rebirth's storylines; they are fleetingly watching a news report about the many newly created speedsters appearing throughout the city in The Flash #3. Snart quips that it is time for the Rogues to leave Central City for a while. Visually the Rogues still seem to be based upon their New 52 appearances in this cameo, though when Snart later appears in one of Flash's memory flashbacks he has resorted to an even older look. He and the other Rogues retain these costumes in their later appearances.

Snart and the Rogues make their first full-length appearance in The Flash #15, where they are attempting to steal a valuable golden statue of the god Mercury from the small island nation of Corto Maltese. The Flash arrives to stop them, but they turn out to be constructs of Mirror Master laid so that the Rogues can commit a crime spree in Central City. Captain Cold reveals what he had been working on in his absence from the city—a "black ice gun" that uses the anti-Speed Force weaponry of the terrorist group Black Hole combined with his regular freeze gun. After a fight, the Golden Glider had a chance to kill the Flash, but was talked out of it by her fellow Rogues. Despite this setback, Flash manages to finally beat Snart and the rest of the Rogues without killing them. By the end of The Flash #17, Snart appears to be ready to take over Iron Heights from the more neophyte villains, including Papercut.

In the Watchmen sequel Doomsday Clock, Captain Cold and his fellow Rogues are among the villains that attend the underground meeting held by Riddler that talks about the Superman Theory.[23]

[dcbicki]

Here’s to Peter Dinklage, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Lena Headey, Emilia Clarke, Kit Harington, Sophie Turner, Maisie Williams, Isaac Hempstead Wright, John Bradley, Liam Cunningham, Alfie Allen, Gwendoline Christie, Jacob Anderson, Nathalie Emmanuel, Ian Glen, Conleth Hill, Hannah Murray, Joe Dempsie, Carice van Houten, Rory McCann, Kristofer Hivju, Jerome Flynn, Pilou Asbæk, Richard Dormer, Gemma Whelan, Daniel Portman, Ben Crompton, Bella Ramsey, Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, and Vladimir Furdik, Sean Bean, Michelle Fairley, Mark Addy, Richard Madden, Art Parkinson, Charles Dance, Natalie Dormer, Finn Jones, Diana Rigg, Aidan Gillen, Rose Leslie, Jason Momoa, Michiel Huisman, Jack Gleeson, Harry Lloyd, Peter Vaughan, Kristian Nairn, Natalia Tena, Joseph Mawle, Aisling Franciosi, Dean-Charles Chapman, Stephen Dillane, Kerry Ingram, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Ellie Kendrick, Paul Kaye, Kate Dickie, Tobias Menzies, Clive Russell, Ian McShane, Donald Sumpter, Tom Wlachicha, Oona Chaplin, Ron Donachie, Esmé Bianco, David Bradley, Iwan Rheon, Michael McElhatton, Miltos Yerolemou, Julian Glover, Ian McElhinney, Tara Fitzgerald, Lino Facioli, Gethin Anthony, Wilko Johnson, Eugene Simon, Ben Hawkey, Jim Broadbent, Jonathan Pryce, Hannah Waddingham, Amrita Acharia, Noah Taylor, Anton Lesser, Rupert Vansittart, Josef Altin, Mark Stanley, Owen Teale, Pedro Pascal, Indira Varma, Richard Rycroft, Staz Nair, Ciarán Hinds, James Cosmo, Patrick Malahide, Will Tudor, Mackenzie Crook, Marc Rissman, Megan Parkinson, James Faulkner, Tom Hopper, Jessica Henwick, Keisha Castle-Hughes, Rosabell Laurenti Sellers, Nell Tiger Free, Max von Sydow, Brenock O’Connor, Philip McGinley, Harry Grasby, Elyes Gabel, Richard Brake, Tom Brooke, Tim Plester, Joel Fry, Sibel Kekilli, Ian Beattie, Susan Brown, Mark Gatiss, Faye Marsay, Marc Rissman, Hannah John-Kamen, Ed Skrein, Margaret John, Ross Mullan, Ian Whyte, Ralph Ineson, Charlotte Hope, Elizabeth Webster, Nonso Anozie, Ian Hanmore, Steven Cole, Roger Ashton-Griffiths, Eros Vlahos, DeObia Oparei, Ian Gelder, Essie Davis, Bart the Bear II, Lucian Msamati, Birgitte Hjort Sørensen, Brian Fortune, Michael Condron, Robert Aramayo, Alexander Siddig, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Enzo Cilenti, Toby Sebastian, Luke Roberts, Richard E. Grant, Eline Powell, Kevin Eldon, Dean Jagger, Tim McInnerny, Sean Blowers, David Rintoul, Kae Alexander, and more. Here’s to the actors who gave their all.

Here’s to David Nutter, Michael Slovis, Mark Mylod, Alex Graves, Alan Taylor, Jeremy Podeswa, Alik Sakharov, Neil Marshall, Matt Shakman, Brian Kirk, Michelle MacLaren, Daniel Minahan, Timothy Van Patten, David Petrarca, Jack Bender, Daniel Sackheim, and Miguel Sapochnik. Here’s to Dave Hill, Ethan J. Antonucci, Jane Espenson, Gursimran Sandhu, Vanessa Taylor, and Bryan Cogman. Here’s to Ramin Djawadi. Here’s to the visionaries and the storytellers.

Here’s to HBO. Here’s to David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. Here’s to the producers and the casting department. Here’s to the second unit directors and the whole production crew. Here’s to the stunt guys, body doubles, and the choreographers. Here’s to the location scouts and the transportation department. Here’s to the sound editors, and the visual effects team. Here’s to the camera crew. Here’s to the cinematographers and editors. Here’s to the production and art departments. Here’s to the set designers, costume designers, and the makeup department. Here’s to those who made a whole world come to life.

Here’s to the Starks, the Lannisters, the Targaryens, the Baratheons, the Greyjoys, the Tullys, the Arryns, the Martells, the Mormonts, the Tyrells. Here’s to all the other houses. Here’s to the bastards: the Snows and the Sands and the Waters. Here’s to the direwolves: Grey Wind, Lady, Nymeria, Summer, Shaggydog, and Ghost. Here’s to the dragons: Drogon, Rhaegal, and Viserion. Here’s to the Seven, the Drowned Gods, the Old Gods and the New. Here’s to the Red Priestesses. Here’s to the Brotherhood Without Banners. Here’s to the Faceless Men. Here’s to the Maesters. Here’s to the Knight’s Watch. Here’s to the Free Folk. Here’s to those who became wights. Here’s to the wargs and the Children of the Forest. Here’s to the giants. Here’s to the Bravosi, the Dothraki, and Unsullied. Here’s to the Knights of the Vale. Here’s to all the soldiers. Here’s to the fighters. Here’s to those we loved, and those we lost along the way.

Here’s to George R.R. Martin. Here’s to A Song of Ice and Fire. Here’s to Game of Thrones. Here’s to the fandom and the friends we made along the way. Here’s to you.

[jcogginsawriter]

Hand to Hand: Mark Waid’s Flash

I have been a fan of comic book characters for a long time. I started with the cartoons, and as I got older, I began doing deep dives into wikis, reading fanfiction, and participating in that shallowest of internet past times, the vs debate. I dabbled in writing fanfic for myself, but I spent far more time thinking about writing fanfic instead. I would come up with all these ideas about what I would take from the various different versions of the characters, and don’t get me started on the idea of Crossovers.     The point is, I knew a lot of what happened in the comics, but I never read many comics. I didn’t know where my local comic shop was, and even if I did, I wouldn’t have had the money to spend on them. The comics that I did read were usually fan translations of manga. I did read a few comics, big name stories like Death of Superman or Crisis on Infinite Earths, but they were few and far between.

Recently, I’ve begun to change that. I now follow several comics as they come out, most notably the current X-line. This change sprang in part because I began reading a lot more comics criticism. In particular, I followed the blog of a certain Superman fan, and began to eagerly digest his various takes. I wanted to be able to ask him questions about new comics without looking like an idiot (This is how 90 percent of my interactions on comics twitter go, BTW) and that was a kick in the pants for me.

After getting into a steady habit, I decided to look into reading some of the classic runs I’d read so much about throughout life. To go from knowing them second hand, to knowing them first hand. After a bit of hemming and hawing, I’ve settled on Mark Waid’s legendary run of Flash Comics to start off with.

(Spoiler Warning for some 30 year old comics, by the way)

As of this writing, I have read up to the final issue of his story arc Dead Heat, wherein Wally does battle with the speed cultist Savitar. Before we get into things like plot and characters, I want to discuss the art, because no discussion of comic books is really complete without talking about the art. Unfortunately, the art in this run hasn’t done much for me, but that’s not really it’s fault. I read this comics in manner that they were not created to be read, digitally and zoomed in. These comics were drawn with physical issues in mind, and I don’t doubt that they’re good in that format. It also doesn’t help that I’ve read far more manga than I have American comics. American comics have never clicked with me the way manga does. Even now, I still find the layout of manga more legible than the layout of an American comic. That’s not a value judgment, it’s just my personal experience.

I do distinctly recall thinking that the art was better up to issue #79 (The conclusion to the Return of Barry Allen storyline), than it was after. I prefer the less exaggerated character designs, and lighter inks, though it could very well be a case of me having gotten used to the initial style and not liking the change. One thing that thing I can say about the art is that it helped me grasp how Wally’s costume differed from Barry’s. Before this, I was incapable of separating them in my mind, but seeing them side by side made it clear to me how different Wally’s Costume was colored and shaded.

Now, onto the writing of the run, we’ll start with the lead, Wally West. My previous touchstone for Wally was the Justice League series from the DCAU, which I watched a lot as a kid. The Wally in these comics comes off as more serious that his DCAU incarnation. Not too serious, he still cracks jokes, but he’s more on the ball. He takes his adventures as seriously as any hero would, rather than the more carefree attitude I recall his DCAU version having. This is not unsurprising, Wally here is the lead whereas there he was part of an ensemble cast, and here we get his internal monologue which gives us a much more thorough sense of his headspace. Not to mention, the DCAU version was voiced, so we know with no ambiguity what tone his dialogue’s in. In text, tone is more up to interpretation.

Perhaps the biggest thing that set Comic Wally apart from DCAU Wally is that the Wally in the comic was more consistently angry and frustrated. While his DCAU incarnation had hidden depths, I can’t recall a time when he got seriously angry. This Wally is frequently irritated, usually by things which are enitrely understandable. On occasion, his irritability causes him to be rougher with the bad guys than he could be, and that feels uncomfortable sometimes, though thus far he hasn’t gone too far.

Going into this, I knew that one of the issues that Wally had to overcome was his mental block about surpassing Barry, and to my surprise, it wasn’t as much of a through-line as I expected. I was expecting it to be a reoccurring issue that was solved by the Return of Barry Allen storyline, but in reality there are only one or two times something like it comes up, usually in the context of him not being able to do the vibrating through walls trick. In the Return of Barry Allen, it feels more like an issue introduced in that story than a long running plot line. Granted, it may only feel this way because I’m solely reading Mark Waid’s Flash. I didn’t read the issues prior to his take over, so that storyline could have been more apparent there for all I know.

Moving on, starting with Waid’s run had another knock on effect, that being that the character introductions aren’t introductions. I came into this expecting to see when Wally met Linda, when he met Jay Garrick, when Pied Piper redeemed himself, but all of that happened before Waid took over the book, so they’re already part of the cast from the start. Again, not a flaw of the work, it’s just a result of my personal experiences. Now, let’s take a look at some of these characters.

I’ve heard a lot about Linda and Wally’s romance, and so far it’s not bad. I wouldn’t rate it as one of the best of all time, but I haven’t gotten to most of the major moments yet, so that’s not a huge surprise. One thing that’s very apparent is the Lois Lane DNA in her character. Some of that is to be expected, which the love interest to your superhero is a reporter, but I see a lot of similarities in their personality as well. There’s a lot of the same fire in her. Fortunately, the fact that Wally’s identity is public lends a very different arc to their relationship than what you see with Lois and Clark, so Linda doesn’t come off as a Lois rip-off. Linda’s concerns that there’s no place for her in Wally’s wild superhero life is the kind of relationship hurdle that isn’t present in Lois and Clark’s Relationship.

Next, let’s take a look at the first Flash, Jay Garrick. Within this series, Jay is perfectly pleasant, and by no means unlikable, but he also comes across as...kind of superfluous? There are three elderly male speedsters in this comic, and of all of them Jay is by far the least defined and has the least role. Max Mercury is the Wally’s mentor in the ways of speed, the one with the most knowledge of the Speed Force. He’s basically what I expected Jay Garrick to be going into this. The third of the group is Johnny Quick, a speedster who is the father of another speedster, Jesse Quick. Jesse is also very skeptical of Max Mercury’s teachings, which veer from the scientific into the mystical.

Because Johnny takes the role of skeptic, Jay is left without a role in the narrative because being the nicest of Wally’s friend group. Veering over to Hollywood for a second, whenever a book gets adapted into a movie or TV Show, minor characters get lost in the transition. Either they get composited with other characters, or they get cut entirely. Game of Thrones is the most prominent example in recent memory. I bring this up because, if Waid’s Flash were to go through that process, it’s hard to argue that Jay wouldn’t get the ax. Despite being the most important of them in the context of the universe at large, Jay is the least important Speedster in this narrative. Of course, Jay’s importance in the context of the larger universe means that in this hypothetical adaptation, he probably be composited into either max or Johnny. More likely Max, since mentor is the logical position for the first Flash to take in the Third Flash’s narrative.

I mentioned Jess Quick there, so let’s talk about her. Thus far, her most prominent role in the narrative has been to call Wally out and be his critic, though she does have very good reasons to be angry. In the Terminal Velocity storyline, Wally believes he’ll die soon, and tells the Flash Family that Jesse will be his successor, but it turns out to be a lie in order to motivate Bart Allen to take things more seriously. Jesse has remained angry with Wally since then, though it hasn’t seriously impacted her hero work. That’s good, because her continued competence lends legitimacy to her anger within the narrative. She’s not being punished for being mad at Wally for mistreating her. Hopefully it stays that way going forward.

Now let’s take a look at the character Wally chose over Jesse, Bart Allen AKA Impulse. I’ll say up front that I’m not reading Bart’s solo series during this read through, as I didn’t want the hassle of going back and forth between books. As such, the only issues of it that I’ve looked at are the ones that tie into the Dead Heat arc. I feel it’s important for me to say this, because I’m basing my opinions of Bart primarily on his showings in Wally’s book, not his own. In Wally’s book, Bart’s character flaws are more on display.

Bart is a character deliberately designed to be obnoxious, and such characters are a hard tightrope to walk in fiction. Gotta be annyoing enough to get the point across, but not annoying enough to turn people off from the work. Bart in Wally’s book isn’t perfectly balanced, and tends toward the too much pile. Not to an egregious extent, but a little bit. I found myself echoing Wally’s frustration with Bart more than a few times. In Bart’s defense, Wally does share some of the blame here. He doesn’t do a very good job as a mentor, and handing those duties off to Max is probably for the best.

I find it interesting, that a character like Wally who is so defined by inheriting a legacy is a poor mentor, to both Bart and Jesse. He makes different mistakes with both of them, but he still fails both of them. I’m eager to see how that plays out in the future issues.

Now that we’ve discussed the supporting cast, let’s discuss some of the book’s villains. We’ll start with the one who is most infamous, Eobard Thawne. Thawne’s spends the majority of his time in this book thinking he’s Barry Allen, and if I’m being honest, he’s more effective under that guise that he is as Eobard. The scenes where what appears to be Barry Allen turns evil out of jealousy of his successor are powerful, more so than the more traditional villain Eobard displays after the reveal. Not that it would have been a good idea for it to actually be Barry, of course. Much as I prefer Wally to Barry, having Barry go full supervillain would have been very out of character. In any case, this run had a profound impact on Eobard’s character going forward, solidifying him as an agent of toxic fanboyism, making him a dark mirror of Wally West.

The next major villain of the run is the cult slash terrorist organization Kobra. That might bring thoughts of GI Joe to your mind, and you honestly aren’t far off. So far as this run goes, the biggest differences between DC’s Kobra and Hasbro’s is A) DC’s version prefer green over blue, and B) Hasbro’s version has more in the way of distinct characters. Kobra thus far is more of a plot device than  anything else. They’re generic terrorists with little to make them distictive. Their storyline, Terminal Velocity, is more notable for it’s introduction of the Speed Force, Wally preparing for his upcoming ‘death’, and Linda going on a revenge quest after said ‘death’. All things that Kobra is incidental to, any villainous organization would have sufficed.

The final, as of my current point in the run, major villain is Savitar. Savitar was formerly a soviet test pilot who gained a connection to a the speedforce, gave himself the name of Hindu god, and started a speed worshipping cult. It says a lot about my mind that my immediate thoughts upon reading Savitar’s origin were. “Huh, an AU where Hal Jordan became a Speedster the same way would be neat.”. Savitar is in some ways an improvement on the Kobra Cult from Terminal Velocity. This time the Cult has a more direct connection to the Flash and his mythos. Dead Heat is by no means a retread of Terminal Velocity, but if you wanted to mesh them into one story, it wouldn’t be hard. And it’d improve on both, in some ways.

One of the things I like to do in my fanfic ideas is connect the other speedsters to Thawne’s theme of Toxic Fandom, and it wouldn’t be hard to do that with Savitar. His entire motivation is to deprive those he considers unworthy of their speed, and that can easily by played as a metaphor for gatekeeping.

Over all, while the run is far from perfect, I must say I’m enjoying these comics a good deal, and if you’re like me and have read a lot about comics without actually reading them, I don’t think you’d regret jumping into them.

[cryptocism]

What are five of your favorite things about Bart Allen?

hey welcome to my numbered list:

5. im gonna be honest i Did Not like his costume design very much when i first started reading young justice and his solo series. and yet my love for it has grown along with my love for the character so here we are - its very good. the goggles? amazing. the fingerless gloves? inspired. 

4. he gets bored waiting for the lights to turn on. now this may not seem like much but i personally get really hyped about the use and application and pros/cons of super-speed. if waiting for electrical currents to turn the lights on is boring than it becomes clear that speedsters or at the very least Bart in particular experiences the world in a very fundamentally different way, and thats just real interesting to me. (tbh it was probably a throwaway joke line but its canon so im gonna extrapolate as much as i damn well please)

3. i like that he has a mentor who never asked for him. (well, technically he has three, but barry and wally kind of shirked most of their mentor duties off to max so). actually this is a quality that he shares with the other core four members as well. bruce never chose tim for robin, tim chose himself. kon was made to be superboy and so thats what he was, regardless of what clark had to say about it. cassie literally demanded superpowers from zeus himself. and bart was this time-displaced two year old going on fifteen who just kind of barrelled his way into max’s life. it’s a quality i like about all of them - when the world wont make space for you, you make space for yourself. (and make no apologies)

2. in general i just find him a really relatable and endearing character. i like that he thinks differently from other characters and never tries to change that. i like seeing his growth from a kid raised on video games to a young adult with an actual comprehension of consequences

1. hes fun to draw

[allbestnet]

Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set by Wizards RPG Team

Clean Code by Robert C. Martin

How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie

Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software by Charles Petzold

Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy by David D. Burns

No More Mr Nice Guy by Robert A. Glover

Introduction to Algorithms, 3rd Edition by Thomas H. Cormen

Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe

Player’s Handbook (Dungeons & Dragons) by Wizards RPG Team

C Programming Language, 2nd Edition by Brian W. Kernighan, Dennis M. Ritchie

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

JavaScript: The Good Parts by Douglas Crockford

Three Felonies A Day by Harvey Silverglate

Design Patterns by Erich Gamma

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared M. Diamond

Code Complete by Steve McConnell

The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing by Taylor Larimore

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

The Pragmatic Programmer by Andrew Hunt, David Thomas

Cracking the Coding Interview by Gayle Laakmann McDowell

The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker

The Demon Haunted World by

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

She Comes First by Ian Kerner

Head First Design Patterns: A Brain-Friendly Guide by Eric Freeman

The Martian: A Novel by Andy Weir

The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

A Manual for Creating Atheists by Peter Boghossian

The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt

The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch

How to Prove It by Daniel J. Velleman

The Flavor Bible by Karen Page, Andrew Dornenburg

Models: Attract Women Through Honesty by Mark Manson

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies by Nick Bostrom

Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter

C++ Primer (5th Edition) by Stanley B. Lippman

A Universe from Nothing by Lawrence M. Krauss

Batman Vol. 1: The Court of Owls (The New 52) by Scott Snyder

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Revised Edition by Robert B. Cialdini

The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook by Matthew McKay

A Random Walk down Wall Street by Burton G. Malkiel

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards

The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman

The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham, Jason Zweig

Come as You Are by Emily Nagoski Ph.D.

A History of God by Karen Armstrong

The Art of Game Design by Jesse Schell

Red Rising by Pierce Brown

Time Management for System Administrators by Thomas A. Limoncelli

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore

Ender’s Game (The Ender Quintet) by Orson Scott Card

The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

Learn Windows PowerShell in a Month of Lunches by Don Jones, Jeffery Hicks

The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley, William D. Danko

Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson

Cracking the Coding Interview by Gayle Laakmann McDowell

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins

How to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff

Command and Control by Eric Schlosser

Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion by Sam Harris

Getting Things Done by David Allen

Working Effectively with Legacy Code by Michael Feathers

The World Of Ice And Fire by George R. R. Martin

Misquoting Jesus by Bart D. Ehrman

A Guide to the Good Life by William B. Irvine

Trump: The Art of the Deal by Donald J. Trump, Tony Schwartz

Head First Java, 2nd Edition by Kathy Sierra, Bert Bates

Effective Java (2nd Edition) by Joshua Bloch

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

The Creature From Jekyll Island by G. Edward Griffin

The Mind Illuminated by Ph.D.) Culadasa (John Yates

Rise of the Warrior Cop by Radley Balko

Ready Player One: A Novel by Ernest Cline

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondō

Mindfulness in Plain English by Bhante Henepola Gunaratana

Manufacturing Consent by Edward S. Herman, Noam Chomsky

The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive) by Brandon Sanderson

Don’t Make Me Think, Revisited by Steve Krug

1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann

Saga, Vol. 1 by Brian K Vaughan

The Practice of System and Network Administration, Second Edition by Thomas A. Limoncelli

A People’s History of The United States 1492- Present by Howard Zinn

Dune by Frank Herbert

The Lean Startup by Eric Ries

The Problem of Political Authority by Michael Huemer

The Baby Owner’s Manual by Louis Borgenicht M.D., Joe Borgenicht

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker

On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee

Sex at Dawn by Christopher Ryan, Cacilda Jetha

A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 1) by George R.R. Martin

Old Man’s War by John Scalzi

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

Everyone Poops by Taro Gomi

What’s the Matter with Kansas? by Thomas Frank

Escape from Camp 14 by Blaine Harden

The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook by Edmund Bourne PhD

How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren

Ordinary Men by Christopher R. Browning

Elements of Style by William; White, E. B. Strunk

Why Evolution Is True by Jerry A. Coyne

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

On Killing by Dave Grossman

On the Historicity of Jesus by Richard Carrier

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck

What Every BODY is Saying by Joe Navarro, Marvin Karlins

HTML and CSS: Design and Build Websites by Jon Duckett

[sunkingsyre99]

My Take on a DCEU

Phase 3

The Era of Shows begins

Manhunter 2 - Music Meister’s hypnotic singing vs Martian Manhunter's psychic abilities.

The Flash 3 - Barry seemingly dies and Wally takes on the mantle of The Flash.

Superman 3: Death of Superman - an almost 1–1 retelling of the Death of Superman storyline. Cameo of Mister Mxyzptlk at the beginning.

Junior Justice League Season 1 - Tim Drake, wanting to prove himself to Batman, goes out to investigate a string of missing people, and teams up with Impulse—Bart Allen. Along the way, they befriend the newly born Superboy (Conner Kent) whose very existence is still supposed to be a secret. Tim changes his alias from Robin to Rook ( I chose this name specifically because it's the name of a species of Crows, some of the smarties birds out there. It's also a chess piece, chess is regarded as a game for the intellectually superior, alluding to Tim's high intelligence. My initial design is a recoloring of the classic Red Robin suit with small bat ears and without the belt thing across the chest. New logo.). Bat-Mite.

SHAZAM 2 - 

Supes: Return of Superman - Cyborg Supes appears and claims to be the real Superman. Lex Luthor reveals a Superboy to take on the mantel. There is also Steel

Aquaman 2 - 

Bronze Tiger 2 - 

Guy Gardner and the Red Lanterns season 1 - 

Bat-Mite v Mister Mxyzptlk: Dawn of Mayhem - animated or live-action short released online. Destruction and recreation of the Universe (This can be used to explain any plot holes and inconsistencies). They have fun and decide to do this every once and a while.

Batgirls Season 1 - Cassandra Cain (Batgirl) and Stephanie Brown (the newest Robin) team up to take down Heckler

Plastic Man 2 - Kiteman and Rubberneck

Titans Season 1 - Nightwing (Dick Grayson) creates a team of young adult superheroes including Cyborg (Victor Stone), Beast Boy (Garfield Logan), Raven, Aqualad (Garth), and Starfire to defeat Brother Blood.

Batman 3: Under the Red Hood - an almost 1–1 adaptation of Under the Red Hood. The scene where Jason beats on The Joker goes on just a smidge too long.

Muhammad X - Muhammad and Steel take on the forces of Earth 10. Reference of The Brown Bomber.

Adam Strange Season 1 -

Green Arrow and The Black Canary 2 - 

Green Lantern 2 - Fatality

Hawkman and Hawkgirl Season 1 - Vandal Savage

The Justice League 3 - Booster Gold travels back in time to warn the League of Darkseid. After successfully repelling Darkseid, it is revealed that BG has been traveling back in time to try and find a way to defeat Darkseid with the least amount of sacrifice, but without Superman’s help, the only sacrifice is Batman. Darkseid’s physical body is destroyed and he technically died. Maybe a two parter.

The Justice League 4? - 

And of Phase 3

[littlemissonewhoisall]

Justice League is really good, guys

Okay, let me be level with y’all: I hated Man of Steel. And I mean, despised it. Didn't like Batman V. Superman, though I thought it was slightly better. So far, the only DCEU film I liked was Wonder Woman, so as you can imagine, I didn't have too high hopes for a film by Zack Snyder, whose faux-philosophical brood-fests I despise, and Joss Whedon, who doesn’t always know when to tone down the humor and tends to use a lot of male gaze and other stuff I dislike. Combine that with a very generic plot, and I went into this movie expecting to find it mediocre at best. 

I. Was. Wrong.

I don’t know how it happened. Two mediocre directors, a ton of behind the scenes issues, a bunch of questionable creative decisions, and tons of cut footage SOMEHOW combined to make a movie that I didn't just tolerate, but loved, in spite of its issues. 

I’m gonna go more in depth under the cut, but here’s a brief spoiler-free rundown: Justice League is a movie that understands exactly what makes the JLA the most iconic super team in comic books. It combines some perfect characterization with great acting and some really fun scenes that more than make up for its dodgy cgi, occasionally uncomfortable cinematography (probably Whedon’s doing), and rather mediocre plot (probably Snyder’s).

I give the film an 8/10, and I think it’s a must-see for any DC fan. 

Justice League’s first scene sold me on the film immediately. Superman actually taking the time to talk with some kids after saving the day yet again, being the lovable dork he is, washed away the bad taste in my mouth from the previous two movies almost instantaneously. Somehow, that one scene made the whole following montage of the world grieving for Superman incredibly compelling, despite how little I cared about Superman’s death in BvS. Of course, the movie very quickly reminds me of my issues with Snyder’s previous films when it shows us what is, in my personal opinion, the film’s weakest link: Lois Lane.

You have to understand something: I LOVE Lois Lane. She is my favorite character within the Superman mythos by a LONG SHOT. So seeing her reduced to this helpless shell feels so goddamn insulting to her character. From the beginning, Amy Adams’ Lois always felt like it was missing the spark that made her comic counterpart so great. She’s too gentle, too traditionally feminine, too much of a damsel in distress. Compared to her badass cynic-with-a-heart-of-gold comic self, I always felt this version of the character was a poor reflection of the original. But in this movie, she does nothing but mope around until Superman comes back. While her scenes with Clark after his return are good, they lack the perfect character dynamic that makes Clark and Lois my favorite couple in comics, and literally her only contribution to the plot is snapping Clark out of his rage when he gets in a fight with the League through some “power of love” crap. It’s really disappointing. 

In addition, Commissioner Gordon feels like a real waste of such a great actor as J.K. Simmons. If you've seen the trailers, you’ve seen his role in the film. There’s nothing else there. He’s basically a glorified cameo. 

The early parts of the film, while Bruce and Diana work to assemble the League, are great. Flash and Cyborg’s introductions are done perfectly, and while Aquaman’s is a little bit clunky, it still gets you interested in the character. As someone who was never really sold on the idea of Cyborg as a member of the League, this film made me really appreciate what he has to offer both in terms of skills and what he adds to the team dynamic. That said, I liked him much better when he had his hoodie on, because his overly complicated all-CGI body does him no favors. There was really no reason to make Cyborg CGI, and his design looks like a Michael Bay Transformer. 

Speaking of unnecessary CGI, we’re soon introduced to our villain, Steppenwolf, who looks like he stepped straight out of a Halo game. Steppenwolf is... not a good villain. I did like his motivations, actually, but they were underdeveloped and his dreadful design did him zero favors. I’m of the opinion that his great-nephew Kalibak the Cruel should have been the villain, as it would have added a great deal of nuance to his motivations. 

In contrast to the lackluster villain, the heroes are incredible. I’d say Aquaman was the weakest of them, but that’s really not saying much, because even he was a blast, especially in the final battle. The Flash is a highlight, as he spends most of his time in Superman’s spot in the main trio. This Flash is absolutely a joy. He’s clearly coded as autistic, yet doesn’t feel like a punchline despite being the film’s main comic relief. Admittedly, fans of Barry Allen will likely be a bit disappointed, as this hyperactive, socially awkward kid has little in common with the comic character outside of his backstory. Fans of Bart Allen like myself, on the other hand, will be overjoyed, as this is the closest we’ve gotten to a real adaptation of the character on-screen. 

Speaking of the trinity: Wonder Woman isn't as strong a character as she was in her solo film, and most of what we get from her is just kicking ass, but she’s still great and feels pretty much like the same person we saw there. Batman is done very well, trading barbs with Alfred and generally being the emotionally stunted loser we all love. It’s obvious that his well-meaning control-freak tendencies are in full effect here, and it’s wonderful. But as great as the rest of the League is, Superman is easily the best part of the film. Holy shit, I was smiling every time he was on-screen. THIS is the Superman I fell in love with eight years ago when I first picked up All Star Superman by Grant Morrison. He’s a sweet, rather goofy dork who just loves people. The bit where he fights the League while still in a fugue state really showed off his powers, but after that his personality is what is most focused on. Yeah, that’s right, HE HAS A PERSONALITY. A huge relief, given his previous DCEU appearances. 

The Justice League as a whole are great, but I’d be remiss if I didn't talk about the true star of the film: a random criminal Batman uses as bait at the beginning of the film. Holy shit, I love this guy. He gets ambushed by Batman, dangled off a roof to lure a monster from another planet, and sees Batman beat the crap out of it before IT EXPLODES. And how does he respond? He casually strolls up to Batman and chats with him about an oncoming alien invasion. What. A. Legend. I’m gonna headcanon he’s this universe’s version of Kite Man. 

To sum it up, Justice League combines the greatest strengths of its directors, completely overshadowing their weaknesses.

[disregardcanon]

a few holiday (mainly christmas tbh) fic recs for christmas eve! 

fandoms include young justice, supergirl, the flash, ms marvel, merlin, the vampire diaries, hannibal, and a song of fire and ice/game of thrones

All the Way Home I’ll Be Warm

Author:  Readergirl37

Fandom: The Vampire Diaries

Pairing: Elijah Mikaelson/Elena Gilbert

Summary:  "If you kiss me," Elena says, "All the way home I'll be warm." Christmas fic set while Elena is a senior in college and she and Elijah still play their game of being allies. Not even close to canon.

At Sanctuary

Author:  ygrainette

Fandom: A Song of Fire and Ice

Pairing: Sansa Stark/Brienne of Tarth

Summary:  On the Isle of Tarth, Sansa and Brienne are safe at last, but the winter is not over yet.

Bart’s First Christmas

Author: @khaki-da

Fandom: Young Justice

Pairing: Jaime Reyes/Bart Allen

Summary:  When the team throws a holiday party, Bart has to rely on Jaime to teach him about some very strange holiday traditions of the past.

Christmas Lights

Author:  Ryface

Fandom: Young Justice

Pairing: Artemis Crock/Zatanna Zatara

Summary:  On the floor in the middle of the room, there was a heaping pile of tangled Christmas lights, and caught up in them was Artemis, her hair pulled into a messy ponytail with what looked like tinsel holding it in place. But she looked anything but jolly.

Good for Goodness Sake

Author:  Redrikki

Fandom: Ms. Marvel

Summary:  It's hard enough being an American Muslim at Christmas time. Then the Inventor had to go and make it worse.

Homecoming

Author: @mautadite

Fandom: A Song of Fire and Ice/Game of Thrones

Pairings: Sansa Stark/Margaery Tyrell and Robb Stark/Theon Greyjoy 

Summary: Sansa comes home from King's Landing University for the holidays, having broken up with Joffrey Baratheon, bringing along her new girlfriend Margaery Tyrell. And she's not the only one with big news, it seems. Fluffy family Christmas fic.

I Saw Mommy Kissing Supergirl

Author:  StephIsInsanity

Fandom: Supergirl 

Pairing: Kara Danvers/Cat Grant

Summary:  Carter Grant had stopped believing in Santa Claus when he was eight years old.

No Matter How Far Away You Roam

Author:  lady_ragnell

Fandom: Merlin

Pairings: Arthur/Merlin and Ygraine/Nimueh

Summary: “I was wondering if you might come home with me.” Merlin stops mid-rant and stares at him, and then down at his panini again, and back at Arthur. This is a panini of lies and pain. He can tell already.“For Christmas? I’ve got an uncle and a mother and a sister waiting for me at home, in case you hadn’t remembered, I’m not going home with you just because you’re a workaholic.”“No, it’s. My mum might be under the impression that we’re a little bit married.” In which Merlin gets conned into spending Christmas with Arthur's family and pretending to be his husband, because somehow this is his life.

Season’s Greetings from the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane

Author:  damnslippyplanet

Fandom: Hannibal 

Pairings: Alana Bloom/Margot Verger and Hannibal Lecter/Will Graham

Summary:  Three Christmases where Hannibal Lecter is behind bars, and one where he isn't: A story about Alana Verger-Bloom being 100% done with everything, forever.

The Love Club

Author:  heart_nouveau and notsmokingcamellights

Fandom: A Song of Fire and Ice/Game of Thrones

Pairings: EVERYTHING no i’m not joking there’s everything up in this bitch

Sansa/Margaery, Renly/Loras, Jaime/Brienne, Ned/Cat, Jon/Daenerys and Robb/Daenerys, Stannis/Davos, and Tyrion/Shae are just the ones that I remember off the top of my head. It’s a Love Actually au you’re in for a clusterfuck of christmas romances 

Summary: A Love Actually AU. It's Christmas season in London and everywhere you look, love is causing chaos. From the bachelor Prime Minister of the United Kingdom who on his first day at 10 Downing Street is taken by his extremely handsome (male) deputy chief of staff, to the young graphic designer who's fallen hopelessly in love with his cousin's bride. From an aging rock star and his struggling ex-wife (with some skeletons of her own); to a just-dumped writer who goes abroad to nurse his broken heart only find solace in his tough-talking housekeeper; to two literature professors with a legendary feud who just happen to settle their differences in the spirit of the holidays--love arrives in many forms, shapes, and sizes.

Two best friends fall in love at university only to be torn apart by demands of family holidays; a MP and his wife rediscover their undimmed love for one another; the head of one of Britain's top corporations struggles with his new role as a single father and has to come to terms with his new and surprising dependence on his second-in-command. Ten stories of love all progress through Christmas to lead up to a dramatic, romantic climax on New Year's Eve.

Waiting for Santa

Author: @sophisticatedloserchick

Fandom: The Flash

Pairing: Iris West/Barry Allen 

Summary:  Dawn decides she’s going to wait up to talk to Santa about a very serious request that shocks Barry.

[campaignsoftheworld]

2022 Special Olympics USA Games Logo, an inspiration to society

The 2022 Special Olympics USA Games "United O" Logo is the product of the hard work of nine different Special Olympics athletes. Each designed their own unique logo, which was used to inspire, and combined to form the final logo. This is their story.

For the first time in the organization’s 50-year history, the logo is inspired and designed by Special Olympics athletes. Athletes from across the country gathered for a three-day workshop in Orlando, where they joined forces with professional designers from Publicis Seattle, to provide the vision for the 2022 USA Games logo, as well as the primary color palette that explodes with life. “It is an honor to be part of the team that created the logo,” Special Olympics athlete Lee Savage said. “This was so important to us because the Special Olympics is such an important part of our lives. We are proud of the logo and hope it can be an inspiration to society.” Added Joe Dzaluk, president and chief executive of the 2022 Special Olympics USA Games: “This logo tells a story of how a combined passion for sports, perseverance and art can literally come to life on a blank canvas. These incredible athletes used their unique talents to inspire and design an iconic image for the 2022 Special Olympics USA Games brand, and it proved to be more meaningful than any of us could have ever imagined.” Pete Kearney, executive creative director, Publicis Seattle, stated: “We’ve always felt this was never our logo to create – it was the athletes’. We embraced that idea and empowered the talent, vision and passion of these spirited artists. We’re in the business of changing perceptions, and with this work, we’ve shown that creative power exists in each and every one of us.” Credits Advertising Agency: Publicis Seattle, USA President: Melissa Nelson Executive Creative Directors: Jason Lucas, Pete Kearney Creative Directors: Chris Campbell, Earl Wallace IV Sr. Art Director: Chad Ford Sr. Designer: Michelle Billings Copywriter: Kai Nedderson Head of Production: AJ Karim Executive Producer: Jen Allen Assistant Producer: Grace Gutierrez Group Account Director: Garth Knutson Account Supervisor: Pat Hutchinson Account Executive: Brooke Songey Project Managers: Nina Scarnici, Kurt Hartwig Studio Director: Ricky Fisher Sr. Print Producer: Molly Costin Special Olympics Athletes/Artists: Caroline Shin, Haley Waggoner, Lee Savage, Aarushi Pratap, Marta Paramo, Coby Fineran, Andrew Weatherly, Patrice Jetter, Mariah Gilbert Director: Rayka Zehtabchi Director of Photography: Sam Davis Editor: Sam Davis Assistant Editor: Tim Deters Design & Animation Company: Laundry Executive Creative Directors: PJ Richardson & Tony Liu Creative Director: Reza Rasoli Managing Director: James Sweigert Head of Production: Matthew Primm Producer: Dean Marchand Design: Reza Rasoli, Yoojin Seol, Teppei Maki, Ana Perez Lopez Animation: Reza Rasoli, Teppei Maki, Ramzi Hogan, Samantha Maurer, Ana Perez Lopez Audio Record: Push Button Productions Producer/Engineer: Yeosh Bendayan Producer/Engineer: Jon Ruhff Mix / Sound Design: Bart Radio Producer/Engineer: Bart Smith Tags: Publicis Seattle, Logo Design, United States, Sports, Special Olympics USA Games, Publicis, Academy Award-winning documentary, Orlando Read the full article