#how does one man destroy an entire country and convince everyone he's their hero

[snrland]

I hope Putin has the most painful, barbaric death a human ever had

[pangtasias-atelier]

Endless (W)eight

Well this story kinda ended up changing a rather bit from what I initially planned lol. But I am kinda content with how this was especially cause struggling to write immense sizes. Of which this is cause I kinda just kept making Freyr fatter and fatter lol. 

This was meant to be like a semi sorta sequel to the Joshua Gerik story I wrote but this isn’t even really summer themed anymore. If you do understand the reference with the title, I love you. Anyways, enjoy but please do not fucking perceive me cause while this is far from horny or anything this is self indulgent and feels kinda weird since it isn’t the same characters I gush over and also cause this is like the biggest I've written lol

Askr's Order of Heroes enjoying a now endless summer, the revelry continues to increase throughout the weeks just as the heroes' waistlines. Heroes summoned from the beginning of the Order's creation to those summoned during the current reigning peace partake in the merriment alike. No hero quite forced into enjoying themselves and their time, the bit of nudging from the food's addictive nature and decreased metabolism only strengthens the feeling laying dormant inside a hero, one particular new recruit is completely absorbed in enjoying themselves to the fullest.

The King of dreams, Freyr, appears nothing like he once used to. The God who governs dreams appears to be enjoying his own blissful, hedonistic dream. Never having eaten a morsel of human food in his entirety of living, he more than makes up for it now, Freyr having eaten more food in his short time of being summoned to Askr than any  human could possibly imagine in their lifetimes.

Absolutely corpulent, Freyr's overwhelming fatness is enough to put even whales to shame. Unable to move unlike a whale, Freyr's size is simply from pure, unabashed hedonism. So content and obsessed with stuffing his face with the divine delicacies produced by humans, his ballooning waistline had been of zero importance to him. It still is, what with his ever ongoing display of wanton gluttony. Immobile several millions of calories ago, Freyr's current appetite is enough to put the entire Order to shame. Far more than even a dozen times over. Unable to get up and move around, the same is true for the entirety of Freyr's castle crushing weight. His hands and feet are gone in their entirety. They're absorbed and smothered under the enormity of his weight. The near same is true for even his head with his numerous flabby back rolls and engorged cheeks. An overly ridiculous amount of fat is caked all over his blubbery, rotund form. His appendages are just as useless as the rest of his bloated body. In a constant euphoric dreamlike state, Freyr has no need to do anything besides enjoying himself. Especially with the aid of the summoner. Kiran perfectly willing in enabling the perpetuation of Freyr's overconsumption, the summoner is able to at least transport Freyr from place to place through magic. Albeit at an increasingly concerning amount of magical and physical strain on Kiran's part with so much required to move the meaty mountain that is Freyr. And at the cost of creating more monumental goat sized craters throughout Zenith with every transportation. Not that anyone is able to tell that Freyr is a goat. His once magnificent horns appear to be nothing more than sad little stubs on the overflowing stack of pancakes of a man. Not like most would even be able to discern Freyr as a human either, the man more akin to a gelatinous blob. Completely nude, all people get upon the sight of Freyr is a staggeringly wide wall of blubber. Clothes had been forwent long ago. Not that anyone could remember; Freyr's sheer weight alone is more concerning for everyone else. All his fancy adornments are no more. His bright lei had been torn asunder from his several chin folds and doughy neck. His pristine white shawl had fallen off from his melon breasts and ample back tore the strap. His gold bracelets snapped in half by his overburdened arms and calves. And his flowing lower garments which grew too tight for his widened rear and hips. Clothes too much of a hassle back then, the time and material needed to clothe Freyr now makes a shirt back then seem like an expert working on a simple scarf.

The beach no longer suitable for Freyr, what with the sun's heat combined with his own overabundant body heat, Kiran had brought him to Nifl. The icy cold region suits him perfectly. A nice freezing temperature provided year-round, the nice cooling helps keep him from feeling like a furnace about to explode all the time. Nifl also a rather sparsely populated country, Kiran had moved him to the absolute most desolate place. It had taken a modicum of convincing on Kiran's part at first, Freyr unwilling to hide his splendor and immensity from humans. Until Kiran cajoled him throughout several talks, reminding him that his enormity can be seen from those all around him from great, vast distances and that the move was only to ensure him a proper space to grow comfortably. Freyr large enough to fill up and destroy the entirety of Askr castle from his abundant acres of adipose back when he had first been magically transported to Nifl, his efforts in simply grazing and lazing worked wonders on his body, Freyr now large enough to occupy Nohr's Castle Krakenburg and even the entirety of Windmire and then some. His frame towering just as imposingly as it spreads, the great, mountainous man is indeed visible despite residing weeks from the nearest inhabitable place. His own size indeed a great issue, the amount of food required to merely keep Freyr fed, much less the food necessary to ensure his continual growth, is also another concern with regards to space. The summoner able to find another spell to aid with just that, a small portal floats above his face. His feeding tube comes out one end of it, the other end coming out another portal somewhere in Askr. The contraption alone is the size of a castle, such great quantities of food needed to feed Freyr and Freyr alone. Speaking of food, giving him enough complete meals to satisfy his hunger is completely out of the question. Instead, his feeding tube houses a mixture that Freyr can never quite place. Some days, he tastes an arrangement of the most cloyingly sweet desserts paired with an assortment of decadent toppings. Other days, an impossibly wide array of spicy yet savory dishes enter his mouth. And on even more days, the mixture changes throughout the day, his taste buds never left unsatisfied with the selection. Though such a thing is impossible with Freyr simply caring about stuffing his gullet. Freyr currently devours away at his unending torrent of food with the same fervor he always does.

His growth still occurs at a rapid pace, hundreds of pounds slathered onto his elephantine body daily. But at such a prodigal girth as extraordinary as Freyr's, the extra few hundreds is nothing but a pathetic drop of blubber into the oceanic bucket of lard that he is. Completely unrecognizable as even a human figure at this point, a passing semblance lost tons and tons of weight ago, his stomach puts even the largest of doomsday dragons several heroes once faced. His soft, flabby expanse of lard oozes and flows forward in all directions. His mountainous stomach spreads for miles as far as anyone could see, his expansive pale blubber blanketing the snowy landscape as it takes up the area in its need for more room. Rivers for love handles jut out the side of his mountain of a gut, the ginormous rolls of flab melding into an indiscernible shape. The upper roll of his gut lurches forward onto the lower valley filling slab of fat that is the lower half of his gut. Or what can be construed as it, Freyr's towering body hard to discern. His cavernous navel is in a constant state of twilight from the overhang, the space reminiscent of a black hole. His enormous breasts remain flopped on his great cushiony gut. Freyr's own corpulence the only thing able to rival itself in terms of sheer size, the two titanic tits take up a sizable, meaty portion of his stomach. Each breath alone can crush the entirety of Daein Keep alone. The bright pink hue of his areola is the only real demarcation of his breasts, the sagging tits even managing to mesh together with his mound of a gut. Above his gut is Freyr's unfathomably high amount of neck rolls and chins that simply crash upon one another to form a ringlet of uncountable rolls. Freyr's ass surges out behind him. The tremendous ass cheeks splay out further than even the Mila Tree's canopy. Freyr's ass and gut take up the most space of himself, both assets spreading wherever they please unlike his bloated, sunken appendages. Not that there is much distinction between his ass and gut, both absolutely massive piles of blubber with little shape to speak of. His back is riddled with hundreds of soft plush rolls. His legs useless several hundreds of feasts ago, the two oceanic thighs are bunched up together in a mockery of what a leg should be, rolls upon rings of fat smothering one another to make up a leg. The same is true for his arms, dozens of rings of fat making up his arms uselessly splayed to the side from his uncountable plush love handles. Freyr's cheeks occupy an even greater amount of space than his head, the bulbous mounds of fat splaying out to the sides of his face even as it takes up most of said face. And yet, even at such an inconceivable size, Freyr simply needs more. He craves it. To eat and grow to the absolute inordinately massive that he can possibly be.

The telltale sound of a ripple sounding out, Freyr nearly misses it over the crashing pleasant torrent of his muffled moans from his eating. Knowing what is to come, his monstrous guzzling somehow becomes even more fervorent. A figure comes out of the portal and steps onto Freyr's corpulence.

Kiran is merely the molehill to Freyr's mountain. Yet, even such a comparison is far too diminutive of Freyr's grandeur, Kiran neither even being an anthill, merely an ant in the presence of someone as monumentally fat as Freyr. Always visiting daily to check upon his process, Kiran's next action is not done so often. He closes the portal housing Freyr's feeding tube, the colossal man going without food for more than a second for the first time in weeks.

Freyr's eyes are constantly closed now just as they were when he was once thin and fit, an image hard for those to imagine with his size being what it is now. Able to more easily attune himself to the dreams of others with his eyes closed, he keeps them closed for his own dreams. Dreams of the future. Dreams of living as the god he ought to. Of nothing more than to simply eat and grow. To further display his greatness for all humans to see and awe. To tower over them in immensity and power. Of growing so immensely fat that even the mortal realm will be unable to withstand his divine corpulence and returning back to Ljósálfheimr only to continue eating and growing with the aid of his realm's infinitely expanding space. With his treasured human who benevolently offered unto him the knowledge of human delicacies and set him upon this path.

And so, he opens his eyes as his most loyal devotee rests comfortably atop him. It is only right for him to offer such a pleasure to a mere mortal. For despite the summoner's abilities, that is all he is in comparison to one as great as he. A delicate human before a god. His own titanic waves of lard fills up the near entirety of his vision. The fat from his waves of back fat folding on up to his face just as his greatly stuffed cheeks do.  The only break to the monotonous view of his pale blubber is the summoner's face peering down at his sunken face.

"Kiran…" Freyr's deep rich voice is magnified from all his fat pressing down on him. His luscious mannerism in speaking in a near hazy drawn out whisper is magnified as well, speaking a time and energy consuming task at his monumental size.

A relaxed smile on his face, Kiran allows himself to rest a ginger hand on Freyr's cheek. Unable to lift a single cheek with even both hands, he merely pinches at the plush malleable lard. His eyes never once leave Freyr's own. Keeping them fully open is also too taxing of a task for Freyr. Instead, they remain half lidded. Kiran's hands explore only the near perimeter of Freyr's face. Enough rolls on his expansive lard, Kiran could spend hours simply exploring such a small section of Freyr's corpulence. Freyr's churning stomach is a turbulent, raucous machine with its tremor like desperate growls. Freyr's taxed wheezing mixes in, the two filling in for the silence. Freyr's slight moans trickle in as Kiran's hands wander off towards Freyr's horns, his delicate hands wrapping around and rubbing the tip of them.

"Hnnn… Kiran…" Unable to even squirm from the touching, every single part of Freyr immovable, he remains still as the red tinge of blush on his face deepens and darkens.

"I am here to serve you," Kiran drapes himself over Freyr's enormity, one hand never leaving Freyr's horns. "Whatever you may wish for, I will perform," Kiran's smile widens as Freyr's black hole for a stomach seems to respond to the thinly veiled offer, Kiran always being like this whenever he has come to increase Freyr's intake of food.

"Haah, so hungry,,, I hnngh-require food," Freyr wheezes from a mere sentence, the energy required of him to do anything a foreign concept now. "Much more hah food,,,"

"Of course," Kiran reactivates the portal spell. A bright iridescent blue portal appears above Freyr's face. A ripple in the sky, Kiran reaches his hand inside it and rummages around. Grabbing the thick wide tube, he drags it out of the portal.

"Wait,,," Freyr slowly croaks out right before Kiran brings his feast of a snack to his lips. His stomach wrenches in pangs of hunger at the tantalizing offer of food dangling right in front of his face. "I shall haah have you stay,,," His bloated face puffs out in exertion. It is only fair to offer such a devoted human such a great right of basking in his presence.

Kiran's face softens. "Of course," They respond as if asked to hand over an item, not remaining atop an inconceivably obese and growing man. "Now, I mustn't keep you waiting much longer," With no interruption on either end, Kiran slots Freyr's feeding tube back inside his mouth. Freyr begins guzzling away at it before Kiran even activates it. Kiran huffs in amusement before activating Freyr's feeding machine.

"You deserve to grow as big as you wish. And I would be delighted to remain by your side as you do,"

Freyr merely half grunts half moans in affirmation, preferring to eat and to not disappoint his loyal devotee. Especially as he wishes to find out his possible limit, not that he'll ever willingly stop growing nor that he even presumably has one.

[animebookworm16]

Who Are You? - Angst

For @j3ssisam3ss

This is my angst piece for @maribat-angst-fluff-april, prompt 25 Childhood Friends

It was the middle of winter in Gotham when she showed up. A tiny girl everyone guessed to be about three. She never spoke or made a sound, but she often smiled, even on the coldest nights. The little girl would just curl up to whoever had taken her that day and smile. At first the other homeless believed she'd never make it to spring. But the little girl was full of surprises. Not only did she survive the worst of the winter, she thrived once spring arrived.

Everyone knew she had a name, no one knew what it was, but they knew she had one. They also knew she was old enough to know it. Surprisingly, no one ever tried to give her a new name. Sure she got nicknames. More nicknames than a toddler could ever hope to keep track of, but somehow she did.

The little girl grew. As all children must. And the older children and adults always made sure to enunciate whenever she was in the area, hoping to teach her how to speak. They all banded together, like they always do for the especially young kids, and kept her away from the worst of the drugs, gangs, rogues, and the overall darkest parts of Gotham.  She grew, and most people started calling her Pixie. Their little fairy caused laughter and mischief wherever she went. Even still she rarely spoke, her words as few and far between as they were, were always impactful to whoever she spoke to.

When Jason Todd started living on the street, everything changed. Pixie stuck to his side like glue. She laughed, she started talking, Pixie acted like the entire five years she had been living around Gotham she had been solely waiting for Jason to show up. The ones who raised her would have felt jilted if it hadn't been for how happy the little girl looked. Two years passed and the two ten-year-olds rarely left each other's sides.

Then Jason stole the hubcaps off the Batmobile and Pixie was finally picked up by CPS.

Pixie had to be strapped down by CPS so that she wouldn't hurt anyone. Luckily for her, a young French couple had been passing by when they saw what they were doing, and demanded to adopt the young girl. CPS didn't want to deal with the girl for much longer and agreed. When Tom and Sabine found out she didn't have a name, they quickly named her Marinette Dupain-Cheng and decided her birthday would be the same day they adopted her. 

The newly named Marinette was quickly taken out of Gotham and out of the country as the couple returned to Paris.

She never knew that Jason had been adopted by Bruce Wayne.

Jason was picked up by Batman and quickly adopted by Bruce Wayne. Before long he had taken up the mantle of Robin and was fighting crime.  He looked everywhere for his friend but no matter who or where he asked, no one had any idea. As the months passed, Jason lost hope for ever finding Pixie again.

He would never know that she had been picked up by CPS and adopted by a Parisian couple and taken back to Paris.

In Paris, Marinette always appeared happy, and her new parents were always busy but tried to make time for her. Marinette had taken to wandering Paris. She wanted to be familiar with her new city, even if Tom and Sabine didn't always agree with her new habit.

When she started school, Marinette stayed quiet. Friendly, but quiet. This made her a prime target for the mayor's spoiled daughter Chloe. Marinette allowed it to happen and did nothing to change the status quo. three years passed in this way until suddenly Marinette was seated next to an extremely outspoken girl named Alya, who would absolutely not stand for the status quo, so Marinette filled that space, doing what she'd always done since she'd come to Paris molded herself into what everyone around her wanted. The same day she met her new deskmate, and self-proclaimed bestie, Marinette also became one of the two heroes of Paris, fighting an emotional terrorist who thrived on negative emotions (and just being from Gotham made her a prime target). Marinette became Dame Nuit, with her partner Mister Bug.

She listened to everything Plagg told her, especially the warnings and consequences of using the Black Cat Miraculous.

For the next four years, Marinette would fill every mold she was placed in. The hero, the Guardian, the class president, the perfect baker's daughter, everything. 

Then the consequences started showing up. Marinette knew she had to wrap up Hawk Moth and Mayura quickly. She started pushing it so much that Mister Bug called her out one night and in a single moment of weakness she told him what was happening. What her Miraculous was doing to her.

Mister Bug immediately wanted her to stop and let him give the Miraculous to someone else, but Dame Nuit shut it down saying that even if she stopped now, the damage was done and nothing would change that. In fact, using the Miraculous, while it had started the process, was actually slowing it down. Mister Bug cried when she told him that.

Together they redoubled their efforts to bring Hawk Moth and Mayura down. Of course, Mister Bug insisted on bringing in more permanent heroes, under the guise of keeping one of the two things Hawk Moth was after out of the fight. Dame Nuit then argued that it should be the Ladybug because it's the one that can fix everything which just left them going in circles. But even still she conceded to his request for more backup.

Within six months, Gabriel Agreste and Nathalie Sancoeur had been stripped of their Miraculous and Paris was free to feel their emotions once more. All the Miraculous were returned and Marinette and Adrien revealed their identities to each other.

Adrien stuck to Marinette's side and became an unofficial brother. He helped her as the build-up of chaos in her soul took a physical manifestation, and began to destroy her 

A year after Hawk Moth's defeat Marinette's entire class was granted a trip to Gotham City.

Marinette would have laughed at the irony if she didn't know it would probably be the last place she saw. It was strangely comforting to know that the city that held her most precious memories would also be the place that would hold her last.

In Gotham, Jason grew into a young man. He discovered the woman he thought was his mother wasn't. He tracked down his real mother, then got beaten half to death by the Joker only to be blown up by one of Joker's bombs.

Jason died.

Then Jason was revived by the Lazarus Pits and trained by the League of Shadows. He grew to hate Batman and wanted nothing more than to see the end of the Joker. 

Years later, Jason would return to Gotham only to find he had been replaced and that the Joker was still running free, and alive. Jason tried to kill the new Robin, a kid named Tim Drake, Batman, and the Joker. He managed to end none of them.

Bruce convinced Jason to stick around and one thing led to another and Redhood became part of the Batfamily patrol rotation. He doesn't stay in the manor but he does drop in at least once a month for family dinners at Alfred's request. On the weekends, Jason would take Tim out and teach him how to spot a sniper, an assassin, what different guns look like when someone is trying to hide them, and most importantly, how to defuse a bomb. It becomes a bonding time for the two, but Jason still calls Tim 'Replacement' but now as a term of endearment.

He never forgets Pixie and she is one of the few things that kept him sane during the worst of the Pit Madness.

Then Damian shows up and Jason has no idea how to deal with the tiny Demon Spawn. It's rough going for a while but they all found their ways of bonding and before long they are one large dysfunctional family. 

When Jason turned eighteen, he, Dick, Tim, and Damian welcomed a French class to Wayne Industries for a week-long tour. And that is where he thought he saw someone he would never see again.

Without his permission, Jason called out to her, "Pixie?" It was barely a whisper, but she heard it.

Her head whipped around and she stared at him, "Jason?"

He wanted to say it was a happy reunion. And it kind of was. They hugged. Her class and his brothers stared. Then the tears started. Pixie was smiling but tears were streaming down her face.

One of the other students came over and asked her in French if she was okay. Pixie shook her head and the blond boy asked if there was somewhere she could rest. Jason offered to show them a room. The three of them sat in a quiet room as Pixie cried. She kept leaning into Jason and he wasn't about to stop her. After who knows how long, Pixie dried her eyes and haltingly told Jason what was going on. She told him, how she'd been adopted and went by Marinette now. How she was dying and no one besides Adrien, the blond, knew. How she probably wouldn't make it out of Gotham.

Jason's first reaction was to want to hurt something. His second was to hold Pixie as close as he could and never let her go. Jason cried. 

For the rest of the week everywhere that Pixie went, Jason was close behind. The other Waynes noticed and on the fourth day of their stay, invited Pixie and Adrien to join them for dinner.

There, a not-so-subtle interrogation went down, asking Pixie how she knew Jason. At which point, even Pixie's failing health allowed her to spill so many childhood stories about Jason that even they couldn't resist her knowledge. In return, Jason told Adrien stories he had collected about her as a toddler and little kid. It was the brightest smile Adrien had ever seen on Marinette, and the first real smile Pixie had given Jason all week. He could almost pretend that she wasn't dying.

After dinner Pixie said, "Jason, did I ever tell you about the dream I've had ever since I was a little girl?"

"What dream Pix?"

"I've always wanted to stand at the very top of the Wayne Industries building at dawn, and feel the wind at the top of the world."

"Really?"

Pixie smiled a soft sad smile, "Yeah. Do you think we could do that tomorrow?"

Jason suddenly realized what Pixie was talking about, and had to fight a lump in his throat to answer, "Yeah. Pix. Yeah, we can do that."

Adrien and Pixie stayed the night that night. That morning at about three, Jason woke them up and took them to the top of Wayne Industries. Pixie stood as high up as she possibly could. Adrien and Jason watched her with tears in their eyes. Before long, they were joined by Batman, Nightwing, Red Robin, and Robin, who all wanted to make sure she wouldn't fall. Jason didn't have the heart to tell them they couldn't stop what was about to happen.

As dawn started to creep up on them, Adrien broke down sobbing, begging Marinette to fight a little longer. When the light hit her head, Marinette closed her eyes and smiled. They all saw her start to fade.

Her hands went first. Like dust. As the light increased so did her fading. Before she faded completely, Pixie walked towards them a peaceful smile on her face. Jason was crying now too. His Pixie looked like a ghost.

And as she faded completely, everyone on that roof heard her say, "My name is Jeanette. It's so nice to meet you!"

[leportraitducadavre]

What are Naruto’s character flaws in Part 2 ? Did even growth at all during the timeskip or did he get worser ?

Naruto did not develop much after the first part, most of his characterization was based on his impulsive, reckless attitude that was shown to us before the time-jump, but little did they try to establish a more mature Naruto in Shippuden. After the time-skip, the first thing Naruto -actively- does is spar with Kakashi alongside Sakura, there’s nothing there that show us some growth in his behavior (or what humor is) when talking to Konohamaru, and his feelings for Sakura hadn’t changed (still in love with her and asking her on dates despite not seeing her for two years). His tactic to defeat Kakashi is effective, but little have to do with maturity, I know it was planned more for comedy purposes, but it still establishes a Naruto that differs from his former version only by his design, and little bit at that.

During the Gaara’s Retrieval Arc, we again see a reckless Naruto that jeopardizes the mission on occasion in order to get to Gaara, his heart is in the right place, and we already saw how Naruto feels about jinchurikis during the first part. This arc seemed to be more about establishing three things: Gaara’s position of power -despite his tailed beast, which introduces the idea of Naruto having a possibility of getting the position-, Naruto and Gaara’s friendship (and hence, Suna and Konoha), and Suna’s relationship with their Kazekage. Chiyo’s character was presented to serve as the “old vision” of the jinchurikis, being antagonistic to Naruto’s views but ultimately changing thanks to “our hero” and sacrificing herself for Gaara, and to be the second mentor to Sakura to show her development in other circumstances that aren’t sparing with her former teacher.

With that, Naruto’s characterization in the second part has been established, his reaction to Sai's enlistment in team 7 as Sasuke's replacement differs nothing to how he would have reacted during the first part. It could be said that two years are short to change a person’s personality, but Naruto’s development hasn’t moved nor forward or backward, it’s stanked in what seemed to be the most highlighted traits of his personality and the ones the fans recognized him for the most. 

There was an attempt to establish a more mature, more in-depth Naruto during the Pain Arc and later on with the Dark Naruto, but little did succeed, quite the contrary. They tried to show the mature way in which Naruto handled a situation that at another time would have caused another reaction on his part, but the resolution was pure nonsense and their attempt relied on the destruction of a deeper, smarter character like Pain. Naruto “changed” Pain’s view of the world because he quoted a phrase from the book Jiraiya wrote that was inspired by something Nagato said as a child, and that was pretty much it. The reply to the question Pain asked (how would you face this hatred [the world’s hatred, their desire to revenge those who were killed] in order to build peace?), was:

“I believe in what Jiraiya did”. 

There was no depth in that response, there was no argument against what Pain believed in, there was nothing that put Naruto above Pain or showed him to have grown enough to reason with him on the same moral or intellectual level. In that sense there was no growth, Naruto responded that he believed in what his former sensei did, which was already established before, the fact that Konoha was the responsible for the despair of small countries like Nagato’s is completely overlooked in that moment not to be addressed again during their meeting.

Here’s the thing that differentiates Pain or even Sasuke from Naruto: Their traumas. I’m not trying to diminish Naruto’s feelings about the things that happened to him, but everything that was thrown his way was quickly overcome and had little effect on his actions later on. We start the series by knowing that Naruto was an outcast and was despised by the village for things he couldn’t control, like the Kyuubi being sealed on him when he was born, and that he didn’t know who his parents were -hence, his identity, which is something a dictatorial system does, did, and will do and there are no red flags there for the fandom?-. His personality, a loud boy that tried to get everyone’s attention, was explained by those reasons. He was desperately trying to get some control over what was happening around him, he was trying to get whatever acknowledgment he could (whether it was good or bad). His goal and dream, becoming the Hokage, was explained by that same desolation and loneliness, since becoming the ultimate leader of his village would guarantee everyone’s respect, or at least, acknowledgment. During the first part, that worked.

Throughout the series, they wanted us to believe that the dream that began with the simple desire to be loved by his own people morphed into something even deeper when Naruto gains knowledge of the shortcomings of the system and wants to modify them, but that reason falls flat when Naruto doesn’t acknowledge Konoha’s responsibilities, nor on other countries’ miseries, nor in the slaughter of their own people (UCM) during the second part. Losing Jiraiya presented another trauma for Naruto, since it was the first time a person he “truly” bonded with and represented the grandparent figure -being the official connection with his parents- died during combat, but that trauma is “resolved” and never brought back after Pain’s Arc.

Naruto never overcomes his main trauma. He never overcomes the need to be loved and acknowledged, the “trauma” is resolved when he’s considered a hero for the same people that despised him and suddenly, since he can control Kurama and is the weapon he was intended to be from the very beginning, he’s not that bad. The “Dark Naruto” that was introduced to show us how Naruto grew from being the boy that was impulsed by the hatred he felt for the rest of the villagers to the man that forgave them for what they did, translates more accurately as the transformation of the “boy who wanted to be acknowledged and did everything to show he was worth it” to the “man who will do anything to show them they weren’t wrong about trusting him”. 

There’s no morph in his dream or ideals. He’s still dependable on the views others have of him, on his “usefulness”, during Shippuden, rather than overcome it, the need deepens, which is the major modifier of his character. Sasuke went from wanting to kill Itachi to revenge his clan, to understanding that there was a system that cemented the basis of the coup and allowed, encouraged, and covered the Uchiha massacre; so he went from wanting to kill a man, to want to take down the system that put him in that position to begin with (Itachi is a more complex character so I’m not going to enter in that area now). Nagato witnessed the killing of his parents at the hands of Konoha shinobi -the country that started the war in the first place-, and Yahiko later on by Hanzo -helped by Danzo-, and went from wanting to bring peace without the use of brute force (Jiraiya and Yahiko’s view), to achieve peace through justice (stripping the countries of their most powerful weapons to control the system and bring it down). Naruto went from wanting to be Hokage to be loved, to wanting to be Hokage to bring peace, but without acknowledging or trying to understand and offer solutions to the problems presented by the two most important characters to the plot (Pain and Sasuke) there was no solid base to build that peace, it would be, at best, temporary. 

His idea of peace is exactly the same that Nagato saw was fruitless, and there’s nothing a single Hokage can do to change the shinobi political bureaucracy around the globe, convincing the present leader of a village does exactly nothing when the system they have to move around is the exact same that it was since the clan wars, and that’s the sole problem if we are kind enough to believe everyone will listen and act as Naruto wants. The idea of the Chain of Hatred that was the basis of Pain’s beliefs was offered no response by Naruto or his ideals, while Sasuke acknowledged the problem and suggested that the solution was for everyone to focus their hatred on just one person (himself), and start all over again, without ties to that oppressive past. Naruto replied exactly nothing to that issue, and once Pain died, he cared no more about it. Not only that, but the only time it was brought up again was when Karui physically assaulted him because of Sasuke's actions against her sensei. Naruto single-handedly decided that he deserved to be the one to receive the hatred of everyone in order to stop the “Chain of Hatred”, a solution almost identical to the one presented by Pain and Sasuke, but when fighting Sasuke during the final arc he condemned the idea of a single person carrying that weight. The contradiction of his statement a few Arcs before being beaten up for Sasuke is completely irrational writing-wise.

Sasuke grew from his hatred and wanted a revolution, Naruto did not. His characterization wasn’t allowed to become “somber” because that will shatter the reason fans were so enamored with him, will ultimately destroy the fandom’s idea of their “golden, relatable boy”. Naruto is the exact opposite of his rival, not only on his ideals but also in personality and design, if Sasuke is the one who represents the most “radical” responses and embodies a stoic personality, Naruto has to be the opposite, particularly in Shippuden when we see how Sasuke’s beliefs morphed into something entirely new. 

There’s not a significant change in Naruto because he doesn’t need to, his traumas are brushed aside because people started to like him, so the reason why they hated him in the first place stopped being important and it became what gave him enough strength to become remarkable and to be relied on during the war. The system that tortured him and used him as a weapon now pats him on the back, calls him a hero, and puts Sasuke down (the one who used to be loved when he was functional to them), so now Naruto feels accepted and beliefs himself to be the one morally capable of “accepting” others into that system. Destroying it will mean questioning that “meritocracy” that put him there in the first place, because he played by its rules and it paid off, so the others should too, no matter how unfair it is. 

[kinetic-elaboration]

June 2: 2x21 Patterns of Force

Took a nap after work today!! Perhaps a bad idea.

Anyway, some thoughts on the... awkward Patterns of Force.

Another story about Jim looking for his hero, I see. That never (always) ends badly.

Definitely getting an image of little Spock (teenage Spock? young adult Spock? all little Spocks) reading about Earth history.

Oh no, an armed drone. That does not bode well. Why do Kirk’s heroes always betray him?

A subcutaneous transponder. That seems like a useful device to introduce into the narrative. (Slash remember for future purposes...)

Also it reminds of me “He’s a...a... a transponster!”

Spock in a hat. I guess the Ekosians and/or Zeons don’t have pointed ears, then.

“It’s our old enemy...fascism.”

Well this guy literally was not subtle in his references to Nazi Germany. (I’m referring in universe to what’s-his-face but this also applies to the episode writer.)

“The evidence is clear... someone did interfere.”

“You look quite well for a man who’s been utterly destroyed, Mr. Spock.” This man canNOT stop flirting for one second.

Lol, using Spock to distract the Nazi.

“It’s logical to pretend to be a Nazi? Okay, I’m convinced. You said the magic word.”

“Look! I captured him!” So proud.

Kirk’s face when Spock says he would make a convincing Nazi. Bb, you’re not doing the compliment thing right. (I’ll actually be quite honest... I find the humor in that moment but it also makes me uncomfortable given both these actors are Jewish.)

That said, Kirk is canonically better at blending into undercover scenarios than Spock is. He thinks better on his feet, creatively.

How do these people NOT recognize two whole-ass aliens.

...Maybe they do.

I do like when Kirk is being interrogated and still tries to be charming..

That Nazi really lost a lot of authority after being dressed down by his superior in front of the captives.

I like this Zeon. 

“The flaw in the plan is this locked door.” Thanks Spock. It’s this subtle humor that I think people often miss in him. Like where you can’t tell if it’s intentional or not.

Kirk is so smart!!! He never gets credit for being this smart.

Hmm, taking out the transponders is such a weirdly intimate scene.

The Zeon wants to be included in this adventure so much but they’re obsessed with each other, like “What Zeon?”

“I’ll be your platform, Mr. Spock.”

This is such a weirdly humorous interlude for a story about Nazis. Kind of reminds me in a way of that conversation with the police man on City on the Edge of Forever. I mean that ep was much better but just like the sudden switch in tone.

Spock’s like “Oh, that was cool. Made a laser.”

I heard Kirk say, “You, over there,” as in directing Spock to stand over there, but the subtitles say “Beautiful. Over there.” As in, “we did a beautiful job getting out, now Spock, stand over there.” But combine them...?

Not gonna get a disguise for Spock huh? Just gonna let him be shirtless a little more for no apparent reason.

Poor Zeon. These aliens are inscrutable and not letting him in on anything.

“Alien pistols.”

“Who would win? the entire military force of this planet or two phaser-less space husbands?"

I probably shouldn’t laugh every time Kirk impersonates a Nazi but I do. "Don't mind me... completely believable Nazi here..."

The unsubtle of the Hebrew names. And of course.. .Zeon.

“We’ll be just as bad as the Nazis.” No, actually, you’re not and never will be that’s not how it works. BUT you definitely should help the aliens. Like, that phrase grates because it’s usually used to refer to, like, use of violence, use of “censorship” but here’s it more about turning away people who are different or minority and so then it does make sense but....the connotations.

Spock’s like, “May I... get away from this emotion? Has enough time passed for me to ask that?”

More Nazis! Following them everywhere!

Oh, psych. Not Nazis after all.

Spock’s like “Betraying your own father, you say? I have never thought about that.”

“The Fuhrer... is an alien?” Actual real line AND a correct summation of the situation.

This ep does not paint the Federation in a great light. Although to be fair... John Gill was breaking the rules so.

Documentary corps... I love it. Great disguise. Flash lights in people’s eyes, have an excuse to stay in a group, no on looks at you. Genius.

Spock is honestly so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed about EVERYTHING. He cannot be tamed. Again, really an aspect of him I miss in the reboots.

Kirk really is the captain of everyone in his vicinity.

“Think positively, Spock.”

Uhura is unflappable. “A Nazi Colonel’s uniform? Of course, Captain.”

Send him down naked if you have to!! Yes, please, send him down naked.

Spock giving McCoy detailed instructions on how to put on boots... Why was dialogue like this not in the reboots?

McCoy is so polite. Polite first, confused later. “Nice to meet you, Nazi--wait, Nazi???”

I love how McCoy immediately put on his drunk face and Spock was like, "An opportunity to insult McCoy?? Awesome.”

So I assumed the Chairman was either dumb or didn’t recognize them with their shirts on but apparently he was yet another mole, so. At least it’s not a plot hole.

“The speech has no discernible pattern or logic.” Hmmm, I wonder what it feels like to have a leader who speaks with no discernible pattern or logic?

Guys. Pals. Awful people. Did he really give orders, or did he just say random shit? People will flock to anything. I'll be honest, I actually think this is one of the subtler and better parts of this episode: how chilling it is to contemplate how people will rally around any non-speech that has the right tone and a few key words. This is garbage language. But it incites people to kill.

McCoy and his stimulants again.

Spock and his mind probing again.

Wow Spock really messed with his mind there. “He can answer questions but not otherwise speak?” What kind of crazy shit is that?

They are being so mean to Spock. “Malformed ears.” “Low forehead.” That’s not a low forehead, that’s bangs.

Nice triumivirate scene at the end. Feels good, feels organic. Kirk likes to hear his two BFFs bickering because it feels like all is right with the universe, and I agree. Nature is healing.

This episode has a very weird (and very hard to swallow imo) backstory. Like, who primarily associates the Nazis with efficiency? And even if you do, if you think there’s something to the way they put together the country so fast post-WWI, all of this “efficiency” is directly tied to hatred and violence. Like Isak said, the Ekosians have nothing to hold them together BUT hating Zeons. That's at the center of the design. It's not like Gill’s plan backfired it was just... a horrible plan?? It doesn’t even make sense to me that his “effective regime” was co-opted by one hateful person because what was at the center of the “Nazi” regime before the hatred of Zeons? What could it have been? There are no other alternatives provided. Also, even if it could have been somehow accomplished without the use of a scapegoat.. is fascism really an ideal? Like the story never reckoned with that concept at all, which I find disturbing.

Here’s the thing about Gill. He is a certain real type and I appreciate his inclusion up to a point. He’s the Naive, Hubristic Intellectual. He thinks because he’s studied something, academically, he knows more about it even than people who experienced it, and he can fix all of its problems. “I can do this, but better. I am so smart, I am so well-informed, I have no flaws.” I can even see this sort of person being someone a young Kirk would admire because there’s an optimism and idealism to this naivete. I don’t think Kirk is arrogant but he is very idealistic, and when he was a young man, still in the market for heroes, or at least idols or mentors? Yeah, someone with that kind of attitude toward life--that we can deeply understand and then improve upon history--would have appealed to him. It’s possible that Gill even was the “compassionate, gentle” person that Kirk thought, or that he had that side to him.

Where I think the episode erred is in absolving Gill of most of his guilt for this state of affairs. He does die and he does admit he was wrong, but his biggest sin is allegedly in introducing a regime that could be co-opted for evil rather than one that was inherently bad. He is literally drugged (tortured in a way), to emphasize just how non-culpable the narrative thinks he is. Also, while he does apologize for interfering at all, even this is fairly brief and not expanded upon in the rest of the narrative. The truth is he shouldn’t have interfered in general, because that’s not his place or his right, and he shouldn’t have interfered in this way specifically. Even if Malakon hadn’t risen and taken over, the ideal Gil was imposing was one of unthinking uniformity, lack of autonomy, worship of a leader over the rule law--these are not the values of the Federation, the show Star Trek, or me. But he’s used more as a device to explain why the show is so unsubtly Nazi, rather than a real villain or object lesson. Even though Gill is a much better object lesson than Malakon.

And what about Malakon? The ending presents him, literally and in so many words, as the “one evil man” responsible for all of this. I think we know both from studying history and, unfortunately, from our own times, that this is untrue because impossible. One evil person is just a lunatic ranting on the street corner. One evil leader became leader because others agreed and gave him power, or agreed in part, or made a deal with the devil, or disagreed but said nothing, or spoke but were overwhelmed. It’s a disservice to the subject matter to say that dictatorships or authoritarian regimes are that simple. I get that the episode is only 50 minutes and it needs to wrap up, and it’s simpler to say “Okay, killed the Villain, now we can go back to being Not Evil, all the Ekosians will be as happy as the Zeons because we never really wanted this.” But Hitler and his henchmen weren’t the only Nazis. Regular people--and in this context, regular Ekosians--weren’t Nazis too.

Overall, the episode was okay. Very awkward though. Very blunt. I think it would have been better off not using the Nazi symbology so literally. Like the idea that a human would come into a society and purposefully create something from our history is interesting (and “what if Earth but alien?” is certainly something TOS likes doing and finds various ways to do--like the gangsters in A Piece of the Action or Neo-Rome in Bread and Circuses or even literal Greek Gods in Who Mourns for Adonais?) but not worth it given which society was being emulated. It seemed to be too much an excuse to dig out the old WWII movie costumes (and put Jewish actors in Nazi regalia which... is very... distressing) and not so much an excuse for some kind of commentary along the lines of what I said above re: the hubris of historians, the hubris of time. That aspect leaves a bad taste. It had some good ideas but I think, again, it was hindered rather than helped by how literal it insisted (for some reason) on being. Compare it to A Private Little War, which was just about as obvious a Vietnam allegory as you can get, and yet still didn’t literally transport anyone to Vietnam, and this ep looks all the more clunky. I’m probably judging it more harshly than I have on previous viewings, but I really feel like... you can use sci fi to make a commentary on the rise of authoritarianism, but the delicacy of the subject matter requires you to be particularly thoughtful in the way you do it and the actual statements you’re making.

Anyway, the Enterprise Defeats Nazis is a good episode summary at least.

I think in my last attempt at a whole rewatch I stopped at around this point. I seem to have watched the next two episodes, according to Amazon, but I have a weird feeling I only watched one, the next one, By Any Other Name, and then stopped. I don’t remember either of them so we’ll see how that goes! Will they seem familiar or not?

[jbuffyangel]

The Good and the Bad: Arrow 8x09 Review (Green Arrow & the Canaries)

Arrow did another backdoor pilot for the spin-off even though 7x16 felt like one, 

but it’s clear from this episode things have been… retooled. 

Not always for the better. I liked Green Arrow and The Canaries more than I disliked it, but I’m an easy sell. If Olicity’s progeny are available via my television then I’m watching. Period. End of discussion. 

There’s good content for the writers to mine, but there’s definitely some kinks to work out.

Doing things a little different with this review. Yes, I can change. 

It didn’t feel like a fully fleshed out episode and I have a feeling we’ll be repeating this pilot in some form if Green Arrow and The Canaries is greenlit, so for now we’ll just hit the highlights – the good and the bad.

Let’s dig in…

What I Loved

This is the first episode immediately after Crisis, so we don’t entirely know how the present day is impacted, but the future certainly is bright. Mia and William have grown up in an almost paradise. Star City is the safest city in the country. There’s been no crime for almost twenty years and it’s all thanks to the city’s hero – Oliver Queen.

Source: feilcityqueen 

It’s nice to see Oliver being honored years later by the ungrateful twats of Star City. They are slightly less ungrateful in my eyes. However, it’s even more wonderful to see that Oliver’s children grew up safe, protected, and maybe even a little pampered. It’s everything he wanted for them. 

The big stick with this carrot of course is Oliver not being able to raise William and Mia.

Mia Smoak is the princess we were promised and she is ready to ascend the throne. I loved everything about her character. 

Source: kathmcnamara 

The alternate timeline/universe (?) has softened Mia. There’s no anger. No dark and twisty past. No hatred of vigilantes. No resentment over lies and betrayals. 

Mia knows her father was a hero, but she hasn’t grown up hiding out in a cabin with Felicity. Instead she grew up with William in the Queen Mansion (where she currently resides). On the surface, Mia’s life has been pretty friggin perfect, even if she’s a little adrift. That said, the Grand Canyon sized hole in her life is that her dad is gone.

Source: oliverxfelicity

Mia blissfully wakes 

Source: kathmcnamara

and is proposed to by… JJ DIGGLE!

Source: kathmcnamara 

We have a scantily clad naked Diggle boy and he’s already dropping down on one knee. This show is my crack.

This also means JJ Diggle isn’t evil! Plot twist!! Dun dun DUNNN!!!

Source: kathmcnamara 

Mia says yes after a brief hesitation and the DIGGLE BROTHER LOVE TRIANGLE HAS COMMENCED. I know I’m the only person who wants this love triangle, but I don’t care. 

JJ is the “good” brother and Connor isn’t “evil” but he seems like a colossal screw up with questionable facial hair. 

But also maybe I like the facial hair? 

It’s clear he has an adversarial relationship with Mia, but so many romances have been born from loathing. Enemies to lovers is a classic trope. I’m all in.

Of course, we’re supposed to expect Connor in Mia’s bed since the Season 7 flash forwards more than hinted at a brewing romance between the two, 

but instead it is JJ. A plot twist the Olicity fandom called ages ago.

John Jr. is new and improved though. There isn’t much to dislike about this version of him. He’s kind, sweet, sexy, attentive and pulling out expensive jewelry in the first five minutes. What’s not to love? There’s a smol and tol aesthetic happening too. Everyone knows that’s my shipping jam.

Things immediately get rocky though (pun intended). First, JJ gives Mia the Queen family engagement ring. 

Source: arrowdaily 

Mia makes a point of saying it was her mother’s which gives me the feels. 

I never had the same issues with Moira’s engagement ring others did, but even I can recognize there’s some bad juju in it

Next, Mia gets her memories back (more on THAT later) and officially remembers her fiancé was a psychopathic killer who ran one of her friends through with the pointy end of a sword. It’s a little difficult to kiss JJ after that visual. 

Things don’t get much easier after Mia accuses JJ of being the mastermind behind Bianca Bertinelli’s kidnapping. (Yes, she’s Helena’s daughter). He’s not the kidnapper. All his secrecy revolves around the honeymoon JJ is planning. It does lead to a truly hilarious moment between the two characters. 

JJ: Jumping to conclusions is I’m cheating on you not that I’m a kidnapper. For the record, I’m neither.

It’s a heavy moment, but I died. It’s going to be a little hard to pick out cake now.

The scene itself is heartbreaking. Charlie and Kat acted their asses off in it too. JJ thinks Mia doesn’t want to marry him. She hesitated before accepting his proposal (Yes, he noticed that Mia. So did I). JJ believes Mia is commitment phobic. It’s not wildly unlike how Oliver’s story began. Thank God there’s no cheating with siblings though.

Mia is merely struggling with the idea that her fiancé was a cold blooded killer in another world. She just needs some time to… adjust. She’s also a little commitment phobic. After stopping the real bad guys, Mia reassures JJ, but she doesn’t tell him the truth about who she is.

Mia: I couldn't imagine spending my life with anyone else."

I see your not-so-subtle wink at SmoakNHawke writers. I AM SO HERE FOR THIS.

The truly awesome moment with JJ’s character is when he gets his memories back too. I was not expecting this and was genuinely surprised. Charlie Barnett is a PHENOMENAL actor. He played that scene perfectly. 

Giving JJ his memories back is a stroke of genius because now he's a more complicated villain (I hope). He gets to struggle with his love for Mia and his loony tune desire to take over the city. 

Katherine McNamara also does a fantastic job of blending the two versions of Mia after she gets her memories back. 

Source: supercanaries 

She’s reeling from the suffering and loss, but Mia is still our bad ass princess who takes no crap. 

Source: oh-my-hades

She is still every bit the hero Oliver and Felicity raised her to be.

Source: feilcityqueen 

She’s just a little more pragmatic. Her communication skills are much improved. One of the best moments of the episode is when she gets to show up L*urel with her “new” experience.

Source: supercanaries

Mia telling L*urel where to stick it was a long time coming. We had to wait twenty five minutes for it to happen, but it was GLORIOUS when it did. 

Source: arrowversedaily 

William is a perfect cupcake, excited to be Mia’s man of honor, but bummed his boyfriend cheated on him. We hate Kevin. 

Source: arrowdaily 

He encourages Mia to join Smoak Tech, but she’s not sold on joining Mama’s company. William running Felicity’s company fills me with a deep and abiding joy.

William Clayton-Harris-Smoak-Queen is perfection from start to finish. 

Source: oliverxfelicity 

The chemistry between Ben and Kat is so natural. William’s good natured teasing about their “family heirloom” exuded warmth and love. 

Source: feilcityqueen 

I adore how comfortable the two characters are now. Erasing William and Mia’s separation is the best thing to come out of Oliver’s Crisis retcon.

ZOE IS ALIVE because I said she would be and I like to get my way.

Source: oliverxfelicity 

Din*h owns a bar (Thea’s old club) and lives in the apartment upstairs (Thea and Olicity’s old loft).  

Source: canarynetwork 

She woke up in the future after Oliver’s funeral and discovered she doesn’t exist in 2040. I’m only mildly curious about this. The bigger shock is Din*h is tolerable. She’s compassionate towards Mia and often serves as the peace maker between her and L*urel. She feels like an older and wiser Din*h Dr*ke. More like Season 5 Din*h, but not so angry.  

Also, hello that voice? She can be like Lorne on Angel and randomly break out into show tunes.  Juliana did a beautiful job.

E2 Oliver cheated on L*urel with Sara too. There is no universe where L*urel & Oliver end up together. Nobody hates L*uriver more than these writers.

What I Hated

L*urel. I hated everything about L*urel. 

At first, I thought I was being too sensitive, but after a certain point it was clear she is just an asshole. L*urel being unbearable in Arrow pilots is a tradition apparently.

It starts with how Mia gets her memories back. There were some spoilers out on this, but I wasn’t entirely sure how it would play out onscreen and yeah… total dick move. 

Source: supercanaries 

L*urel destroys Mia’s life by forcing unbelievably painful memories on her without discussing it with her first. And for what? So, Mia can help L*urel find her kidnapped friend. 

Even the newspaper article L*urel drops about the Green Arrow failing the city doesn’t excuse the way she gave Mia her memories back. I understand she is trying to convince Mia to be a superhero, but I feel a more effective approach would have been to sit down, grab a cup of coffee, offer the pros and cons of getting her memories back and then let MIA DECIDE.  

Source: supercanaries 

L*urel didn’t need to grab her from behind at her graduation/engagement party.  It had the uncomfortable vibe of mind rape and no amount of “girl power” makes that okay.

Oh hey - if  J'onn J'onzz from Superg*rl is going around and zapping people’s minds without clearing it with them first - 

What was with L*urel insulting Mia every two seconds? UGH. Where is that damn bird baton?

There’s a fine line between snark and nasty. L*urel was just nasty.

L*urel decides Mia is a lazy, self absorbed, idiot because she’s not immediately jumping at the chance to be the Green Arrow. She literally blew this kid’s life apart, gives her no time to process, and immediately begins insulting her because she’s not following all of L*urel’s commands.

On what planet does L*urel have any authority over Mia's life? 

They have a warm and fuzzy heart to heart about choosing to be a hero to smooth over L*urel’s wildly unpleasant personality, but it’s ludicrous. L*urel didn’t even rate a goodbye from Oliver. I find her suddenly being an expert on what Oliver would want for his daughter pretty tough to swallow. 

This conversation should’ve been with William. PERIOD.

Source: oliverxfelicity 

It’s insane L*urel is judging anyone about anything because SHE IS A MURDERER. But sure, being a socialite is the real crime. Thank goodness L*urel is here to stop all the shopping.

The show was desperate glaze over Bl*ck Sir*n’s history with bizarre explanations.

L*urel: I wasted a lot of time pretending to be something I wasn’t because it was easier.”

So, Bl*ck Sir*n was pretending to be a murderer because it was easier? 

That’s not a thing. You don’t pretend to a murderer. You just are one.

Bl*ck Sir*n wasn’t like Oliver Queen. She killed good and innocent people. We’re just supposed to accept she was always a good person simply because she says so? Sorry sweetheart, the evidence does not exist. I would send your ass to prison for a good 25 to life, but the network didn’t ask for my opinion about your participation in the new show. THEY SHOULD HAVE.

Then there’s the way they casually avoid things Bl*ck Sir*n has done.

Din*h: I can let go of the people I lost and mistakes that I made.

Din*h lost her boyfriend because L*urel murdered him. They ate French fries and drank milkshakes in a ten second scene and now we’re supposed to believe they’re best friends. Umm… no. If you want to make this friendship believable don’t pretend their history doesn’t exist. Most of your viewing audience is coming from Arrow. We remember that L*urel killed Dinah’s boyfriend.

L*urel: D you’re up. You ready?

Din*h: Never not.

Ugh. Cringe. Arrow was effortlessly bad ass because Stephen Amell made Oliver Queen look effortlessly bad ass. 

The action was show, not tell, and that includes the dialogue. There is no making L*urel and Din*h cool, so just-

And POSE. It’s like mannequins in a Macy’s window. YIKES.

Source: canarynetwork

They force this “Ra Ra Girl Power” nonsense with clunky lines and empty camaraderie while at the same time; L*urel eviscerates Mia’s life choices by insulting her all hour. If you want to bolster “female relationships” on this network then start with the women treating each other with respect.

There was a criminal lack of William, Zoe and Connor. TERRIBLE DECISION.

Hopefully, this changes dramatically if the show goes to series. This is what I meant by “retooled.” It is clear two different concepts are being slapped together. The one we saw in 7x16 and whatever KC pitched to the network. The biggest flaw in this backdoor pilot is how disjointed it feels.

It’s like there are two shows. Mia has her life with William, Zoe, JJ and Connor and the other show is Din*h and L*urel. It’s similar to Oliver and L*urel/Tommy/Thea versus Diggle/Felicity in the beginning of Arrow, but it feels really unnecessary to make that mistake again. I do not feel Green Arrow and The Canaries is Marc Guggenheim and Beth Schwartz’s vision for what they wanted the spin-off to be and it is GLARINGLY obvious.

No mention of Felicity or Diggle. Yes, I understand why. We have to watch the Arrow series finale to find out what happens to our beloved characters. Mia and William never mentioning Felicity and JJ and Connor never mentioning Diggle & Lyla is WEIRD. Particularly since it was Mia’s graduation and her engagement party with JJ.

Stray Thoughts

 I vote for this to be Mia’s next tattoo. Source:  amunetblack

Well… that’s new information Din*h. Source:  shawgroves

Why is L*urel calling Din*h “D?” When did that start?

Rene is running for a third term. Do we need to be concerned about a utilitarianism regime happening?

I will never believe Din*h can do “Felicity stuff.” Where the hell is William?

“Oh frack you.” FINALLY.

The adversarial relationship between Mia and L*urel is a wise choice given how KC and Katherine McNamara interact online with each other. Or don’t as the case may be.  

What is happening with L*urel's boots? Are there bombs attached to them or something?

The lipsticks on L*urel and Din*h are not good. There's a lot of eye makeup happening too. Let's tone it down makeup department.

This is my face whenever I see L*urel too.  Source: supercanaries

You killed her fiancée L*urel. Pay your fucking tab.

Female Big Bad. Could be awesome. Just have to wait and see.

I'm really glad William and Mia are rich again. I missed billionaire money. It's fun.

Disclaimer: Any gifs on the blog are not mine. If you would like a gif removed from my reviews, please message me. 8x09 gifs credited.

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[ruffiorocks]

Lena deserves better than being the only one to suffer for her faults

You know, I hope they don't make Lena go bad, even if she temporarily loses her way.

It would be such a waste of 3 seasons of character development and soooo cliche.

Plus I know Kara is the main character and the main hero, but this show has actually done a pretty good job of showing us that Kara is in no way perfect, she makes rash decisions, f**ks up, lies, has a lot of emotional issues, has been xenophobic (Mon El) makes poor choices sometimes, can be manipulative (using James against Lena), uses Lena quite a lot, has serious Jekell and Hyde issues, scoffs at authority even if those in authority are arseholes etc. She's even killed people/aliens, she killed Rudy/Parasite and she killed Reign, even if she did go back in time and reverse that.

Lena is in no way perfect either, but then she was never supposed to be a squeaky clean hero like we're supposed to see Kara as, although as I've mentioned she isn't squeaky clean at all! Lena has done dodgy stuff but because of her last name and the fact the show likes to 'tease' her going bad, she is the ONLY one that anyone is concerned about when it comes to being questionable, because that's how the show presents it. Even in the teasers or promos about her, they leave whatever she's doing as a question mark.

But Kara on the show, and even in promos is presented as the hero in the right no matter what. The only way we really get to see Kara as having done something wrong is if Lena or Kara herself points it out. People say this is the show Constantly making Kara apologize to Lena but I think it's great! Having Kara apologize for some of the nonsense she pulls, especially to Lena humanizes her and acknowledges that she isn't as perfect as she's usually presented to be.

The show does a horrible job of ignoring how dodgy the other Superfriends can be, because they are the 'heroes' and Lena is forever the question mark, even though without her they can't always save the day. They get round this by sometimes making Lena indirectly responsible for what goes on. But Lena isn't always the ONLY one involved in the issues that happen.

E.g. Rhea and the Daxamite invasion:

When Rhea first arrived with Mon Els dad and the Daxamite fleet, she had no interest whatsoever in Earth. ALL she wanted was for Mon El to go back with them. She threatened Earth because she thought they were holding Mon El hostage.

Mon El who had talked a big game about not being OK with slavery or anything else Daxam did and wanted to be a hero, took less than an hour to decide he had no interest in taking the colossal opportunity handed to him where he could make a difference. He thought his culture was dead, no way to make up for his past faults. But lo and behold he got a second chance to write Daxams wrongs. Yes his mum threatened to lock him in a cell until the reached Daxam but is 3 years in a cell really that big of a price to pay for the ability to make changes? He would have been king, he probably couldn't change things Immediately, but he could have built a support base, staged a coup, led a rebellion or at least tried!! But nope, he decided to leave the remaining Daxam Slaves and any future ones to their fates so he could have his girl. Don't forget as well that Mon El left it until he was beamed aboard his parents ship to let Kara know who he was. He let Kara think he was possibly going to his death when he knew it was just mum and dad and he was way past currew! Kara in tears because that jack ass was crying to thought he might die and risked her own neck to join him on the Daxamite ship.

Kara in this situation wasn't any better. She talked a big game about how sh*t Daxam was and how wrong slavery was. She even went to Slavers Bay with Mon El and rescued people. But when the time came for Mon El to possibly fix or at least begin to fix Daxams slave issues she had zero interest in it, she had a go at Rhea for it but made no attempt to convince Mon El that maybe going back and helping his people was a good idea, no Kara's concern for Daxamite slaves only goes as far as her not getting her man. The stupid thing was if it had been the other way round it would have been in character for Kara to take that 3 years in a cell and do the noble thing.

So yeah, Rhea only invaded because Mon El told her to get lost and she blamed Kara for it. Lena had absolutely nothing to do with that, Rhea had already made the decision to make Earth New Daxam because of Kara and Mon El, way before she ever set eyes on Lena.

But non of that is ever acknowledged, but Lena's part in helping an alien try to get home and in the process perhaps help third world countries get the aid they needed in mere minutes was heavily highlighted. We got to see Lena hating herself for that, while Kara/Supergirl mopped about like an emo ignoring Lena and not really acknowledging the part she played in the invasion. Because we're left to see it as purely Lena's fault.

We are shown Jonn as the fatherly papa bear who struggles with violence. We saw him try the path of peace and fail at it, his father shows up and tells him that's OK and we're all like "ahhh papa bear".

BUT

Whats glossed over is Jonn's serious anger issues and homicidal tendencies. He wanted to kill the White Martian that was impersonating the Senator, he had already knocked it out and subdued it. But that wasn't enough for Jonn, he wanted it dead because it was a white Martian, he was going to kill the unarmed, unconscious alien and even brought along Kryptonite cuffs so Kara wouldn't be able to stop him from slaughtering it. Thankfully Kara gave a hope speech and he snapped out of it.

Secondly Jonn actually DOES kill Manchester Black after he disarms him. Manchester who can no longer do any harm to him is brutally stabbed it the chest, all because he made Jonn see something traumatic. If Jonn can't handle the possibly of psychic attacks he shouldn't be out there fighting. He killed a human that couldn't harm him after he was disarmed. But is this highlighted or discussed in any way whatsover? No! Manchester is just gone and Jonn gets to be all 'well that's done and dusted, off to game night".

Kara's roll in this? Kara is shocked for all or 5 seconds before she is telling Jonn every one makes mistakes amd he can still be on his path of peace.....I mean....... What?! Who wrote that dialogue? But Kara's own super hero code shouldn't she have reported Jonn or had him arrested? No of course not because Jonn is one of the designated heroes and not deemed questionable by writer's or the audience even though his actions say something different.

People that call Lena a murderer for shooting an unarmed Lex don't seem to recall Kara killing Parasite rather than locking him up and getting the DEO to try and find a cure. They don't recall Jonn INTENDING to kill the White Martian. They don't remember Jonn MURDERING an unarmed Manchester Black in same F**king season as Lena shooting Lex! Why is this not acknowledged? Because the show chooses not to highlight it! They don't even have Kara bothered by Murder or Killing enemies if it's her or the super friends doing it.

But Lena? Ooh she shot an unarmed Lex, must be dodgy as f**k and deserves to be locked up, what an evil murderer!! Oh no, Lena shot the Arrowverses version of Hitler who was about to destroy an entire planet of Kryptonians who are only still here because of Lena!! How awful she must be.

Let's not forget as well that a lot of what Lena has done has been supported by the Superfriends at one point or another. I seem to recall a certain Alex Danvers and Brainy working on that Harun El serum!

Yes Adam was a terrible tragedy that shouldn't have happened. But is that worse than Jonn actually premeditating murder? Or out right Killing someone he had already disarmed? You talk about clinical trials etc but the show isnt going to waste precious air time going through that. Lena made a gigantic mistake, at least she owns the mistake and refused Haley when she wanted to use the Serum on DEO Agents.

Kara has zero issues telling Nia a girl she has known for 5 minutes her secret because she felt some solidarity and was missing Alex. She didn't know Nia at all, Nia could have been playing her or anything, but this isn't acknowledged because Nia is the new Hero (fyi love Nia). But Lenw, her best friend of 3 years and the girl who has been in the DEO kicking add and saving lives and the world apparently isn't Worthy of this secret. Why? Kara's bulls**t excuse is to keep Lena safe, yet she apparently gives zero f**ks about Winns of Nia's safety. The real reason is because Lena is q Luthor and the show just needed her to not know and although the keeping Lena safe reason isn't a bad one, it becomes null and void when they have Kara telling people she barely knowns who she is. That goes for the "Kara doesn't owe her identity to anyone" argument as well , that only works when she isn't telling everyone she meets after 5 minutes of knowing them.

Basically after that tangent I went in, if Lena becomes bad after saving the world and Kara's ass more times than many of the super friends have done purely so we can have Kara defeat her and come out as the shining heroine that defeats the bad Luthor (not cliche at all) whilst not acknowledging some of her own faults and the homicidal tendencies of Jonn and the actual murder he committed it would be beyond hypocritical.

Fyi, had Kara told Lena who she was, a lot of issues could have been avoided, especially the Rhea one and Reign/Kryptonite one.

[f4liveblogarchives]

Fantastic Four Vol 1 #198 & #199

Mon Aug 26 2019 [12:46 AM] Wack'd: It probably bares pointing out that this story is being billed as "The Greatest F.F. Epic of All!". I disagree [12:46 AM] maxwellelvis: I thought that kind of hyperbole on the covers died out with the Silver Age [12:46 AM] Bocaj: I wonder what the greatest FF epic of all is [12:47 AM] Wack'd: Thus far I'm not sure anything's topped the Lee/Kirby epic of the Four being trapped in Latveria, if only for its sheer manic energy as it ping-pongs wildly from one twist to the next, only to end on a shaggy dog note when Doom gets bored and lets them leave [12:47 AM] maxwellelvis: Some people would argue it's the original Galactus Trilogy. [12:48 AM] Wack'd: I mean. If you define "epic" as "more than two issues". Otherwise it's probably the Thomas/Conway/Buscema one where a janitor gets a sentient cosmic cube to turn the world into a bonkers 50s mashup [12:48 AM] Wack'd: Isn't Galactus just 49-50? Otherwise I guess you could include that [12:48 AM] maxwellelvis: Man, that story got kinda last-episode-of-The Prisoner-y in the middle when they're both captured. [12:49 AM] maxwellelvis: People count the Silver Surfer stuff in #48 as part of it. [12:49 AM] Wack'd: That's probably fair [12:49 AM] Wack'd: Anyway! Reed has the Pogo Plane and is going to get Doctor Doom [12:50 AM] Wack'd: Weirdly, he figured this out because only Doom could've designed all the neat stuff he saw at his new job, funded the rocket that got him his powers back, and captured his friends so easily [12:50 AM] Wack'd: And not because his boss is the spitting image of his old college roommate [12:51 AM] Wack'd: Seriously there's one bit where it looks like Reed might recognize Son of Doom and instead it's like "that face? where have I seen that face?" [12:51 AM] maxwellelvis: How could he know what Victor Von Doom looks like? WE barely see his face even in flashback. [12:51 AM] maxwellelvis: I just assume he always has a shadow around that he lurks in. [12:51 AM] Wack'd: Pffft [12:52 AM] maxwellelvis: Like, from what I remember from his origin story, we see his face when we see him as a boy, but as he grows to college-age, his back is turned to us or his face is obscured more. [12:52 AM] Wack'd: The Four have left Latveria alive. Numerous times. But okay.

[12:53 AM] maxwellelvis: When did Doom start hiring goons? I thought his only human employee was Boris. [12:53 AM] Wack'd: We've seen him have human goons numerous times! [12:53 AM] maxwellelvis: Oh [12:53 AM] Wack'd: Just last issue a human goon he had in the 60s came back! I made a joke about what a ridiculous continuity pull it was and everything! [12:54 AM] maxwellelvis: Right [12:54 AM] Wack'd: Okay this feels like a little much but I'm sure everyone will forget he could do this soon enough

[12:54 AM] maxwellelvis: It's just weird because I'm used to him having an army of robotic henchmen, aside from the Doombots even. [12:54 AM] Wack'd: He does run a country. It'd be weird if there were no federal jobs [12:55 AM] maxwellelvis: These guys, to be specific. His Servo-Guards. [12:55 AM] Wack'd: I never said he didn't have robots

[12:56 AM] Wack'd: Man, those are some Tony Stark lookin' goons [12:56 AM] maxwellelvis: Wow, they look way less efficient than the Servo-Guards. [12:57 AM] Wack'd: Anyway Reed tries to rewire one of the robots and as a safeguard it explodes, knocking him unconscious and into a nearby lake [12:57 AM] Wack'd: Yeah, Reed's gonna die less than halfway through the issue, I buy this

[12:58 AM] Wack'd: "Face down in the water." Keith Pollard wins yet another art award [12:59 AM] maxwellelvis: Don't they write the scripts after the art is drawn? [12:59 AM] maxwellelvis: This could be on Marv's head. [01:00 AM] Wack'd: To the extent that this wasn't a myth perpetuated to justify Stan's writing credit, it was dying out by the 80s as comics became more of an auteur medium [01:00 AM] maxwellelvis: Ahh [01:00 AM] Wack'd: So possible, but unlikely [01:00 AM] Wack'd: Last time Doom was thwarted when someone pointed out he probably didn't want to destroy all the historical artifacts in the building so he's learned literally nothing. Very in character for him

[01:01 AM] maxwellelvis: This is the same guy who burned an original Renoir because he didn't like looking at it. [01:02 AM] Wack'd: Also apparently the statue Alicia's sculpting is "a gift to the UN when they vote not to condemn Latveria for its...more aggressive policies" [01:02 AM] Wack'd: Presumably also why Doom's "stepping down"--makes him look good in the run-up to the vote [01:03 AM] Wack'd: Little does he know the UN has no power and any condemnation they issue is basically just to make themselves look good! A rare day one manages to get one over on Doom [01:04 AM] Wack'd: Doom's also convinced the spaceship explosion killed Reed. For some reason. Even Sue has to point out that's a really dumb assumption [01:05 AM] Wack'd: Love me a good "Ben doesn't know when to quit" moment

[01:08 AM] Wack'd: Love a resistance. Don't love that they're big into hereditary monarchy

[01:08 AM] maxwellelvis: Especially because the guy Doom overthrew was a genocidal monster. [01:09 AM] maxwellelvis: Or maybe Doom just does that thing were every Latverian nobleman he undermined and disposed of, in his mind, he always saw the face of the man who killed his father. [01:09 AM] maxwellelvis: Y'know, like Batman. [01:10 AM] Wack'd: Possibly. Marvel Wiki says Rudolpho appeared in person occasionally through the 70s but doesn't mention anything about him being the guy who killed Doom Daddy [01:10 AM] maxwellelvis: I didn't mean to imply that. [01:11 AM] maxwellelvis: But Doom IS the kind of guy who would probably hold him just as accountable as that man was. [01:11 AM] Wack'd: Fair [01:12 AM] Wack'd: So we get to see a bit of the statue carving and the back of Doom's head looks like he's melting and Ben says he "has a puss that makes mine look like Robbie Redford's" [01:12 AM] Bocaj: I wonder if Doom will ever do a T'Challa and make Latveria a democracy so he doesn't have to put in the hours anymore [01:12 AM] maxwellelvis: Never [01:12 AM] Wack'd: Is basically every interesting or sympathetic aspect of this guy besides his origin a massive retcon [01:12 AM] Bocaj: Historically, Doom has walked away from ruling the world at least once because he found it tedious [01:12 AM] maxwellelvis: He loves being in charge [01:12 AM] Wack'd: I'm starting to feel like it id [01:13 AM] maxwellelvis: That sounds more like he didn't realize how much work the entire world would be compared to Latveria. [01:13 AM] Wack'd: So Son of Doom shows up and is like "it's time for the transference" [01:13 AM] Wack'd: I feel like we can all see where this is going [01:13 AM] Bocaj: Whats funny is that I think Doom keeps trying to conquer the world after the Emperor Doom story [01:14 AM] Bocaj: I guess wanting is better than having [01:14 AM] maxwellelvis: He's transferring his mind into his son's body, isn't he? [01:14 AM] Bocaj: He also definitely had some airs of ennui during God Emperor Doom in Secret Wars [01:14 AM] Wack'd: I also guessed this but apparently not [01:14 AM] Wack'd:

[01:15 AM] Wack'd: He's gonna give Son of Doom all the Four's powers [01:15 AM] maxwellelvis: Ah [01:15 AM] Wack'd: Minus one [01:16 AM] Wack'd: hahahahaha

[01:16 AM] Wack'd: This is basically a Superdictionary entry [01:16 AM] Bocaj: HAY THAT MACHINE [01:16 AM] Bocaj: THAT’S THE SAME MACHINE HE USED AS A SKRULL DETECTOR IN AVENGERS EARTH'S MIGHTIEST HEROES [01:17 AM] Bocaj: "It does more than one thing. SHUT UP!" [01:17 AM] Wack'd: Huh! [01:17 AM] Wack'd: Deep cut! [01:18 AM] Wack'd: Love me some casual mook dialogue

[01:18 AM] Wack'd: God so much of this issue is just letting Reed show off [01:19 AM] Wack'd: "How will we climb this mountain?" "I'm a rope now!" "How will we hide from this drone?" "I'll make myself look like part of the mountainside!" "How will we cross this moat?" "I'm a bridge now!" [01:20 AM] Bocaj: So him giving Reed his powers back is thus implied to be not about Doom's self-serving definition of a fair fight but to fill that fourth bubble? [01:20 AM] Wack'd: Probably yeah [01:21 AM] Wack'd: Marv Wolfman: Should I pace this slower so that everyone that's been complaining about Reed not stretching has time to nut? [01:22 AM] Bocaj: pfft [01:22 AM] Wack'd: I fucking love these two

[01:24 AM] Wack'd: I would watch a sitcom about these people [01:25 AM] Wack'd: ...weren't you trying to put a king back on the throne?!?

[01:25 AM] Bocaj: Maybe they don't know what democracy means [01:26 AM] Wack'd: Latveria doesn't seem to have a robust education system [01:27 AM] Bocaj: But they do have a robot education system [01:27 AM] Bocaj: Every latverian schoolchild is taught how to make a Doombot [01:27 AM] Wack'd: So all of the rebels but the main one get trapped between sliding doors and gassed, thus massively simplifying the plot [01:28 AM] Wack'd: Zorba is distressed his men might be dead but Reed reassures him they can still win, which I'm sure was his main concern [01:29 AM] Wack'd: So it turns out Hauptmann is the brother of the original Hauptmann, who died in that Latveria epic [01:29 AM] Wack'd: I forgot [01:29 AM] Wack'd: He's totally on board with overthrowing Doom since his brother...was killed by Doom? Died on Doom's watch if nothing else. [01:30 AM] Wack'd: FINAL SHOWDOWN TIME [01:31 AM] Wack'd: I like that Doom assumes this was a clever ruse on Reed's part and that he did not, in fact, almost die

[01:31 AM] Wack'd: Anyway not final showdown time I guess! Cliffhanger time!

[01:32 AM] Wack'd: Boy the "soul-shattering secret" thing kinda makes me wish I hadn't looked him up

Mon Aug 26 2019 [01:32 AM] Wack'd: FANTASTIC FOUR VOL 1 NO 199: [01:34 AM] Wack'd: I like that Doom plays the piano. That it's just a thing he does and incorporates into his plans just because he likes it.  It's a nice little thing

[01:34 AM] maxwellelvis: That's an organ setup [01:34 AM] maxwellelvis: Just as cliche and ten times as bombastic [01:34 AM] maxwellelvis: Which suits Victor [01:36 AM] Wack'd: Anyway Zorbo is...back outside, now? And he's leading a mob? [01:37 AM] Wack'd: Doom tries to fire on them with his suit weapons but the entire mob pulls out guns and draw on him [01:37 AM] Bocaj: Normal guns? A trifle for one such as VICTOR VON DOOOOOM [01:38 AM] Wack'd: You'd think [01:38 AM] Wack'd: But he backs down and redoubles on his promise to retire [01:38 AM] Wack'd: The mob has formed, essentially, because they don't believe him [01:39 AM] Bocaj: Do they know his plan to put his son on the throne? [01:39 AM] Wack'd: Yes [01:39 AM] Wack'd: Zorbo is threatening to expose the "dark secret" behind Son of Doom [01:39 AM] Bocaj: So they're fine with that but they just don't believe Doom is really retiring? [01:40 AM] Wack'd: Well, they don't know what it is yet [01:40 AM] Wack'd: Zorbo is keeping us them in suspense [01:41 AM] Wack'd: stupid 👏🏼 baby 👏🏼 word 👏🏼 games

[01:43 AM] Wack'd: So apparently UN is threatening to expel Latveria [01:43 AM] Wack'd: This is a weird set of circumstances to slowly unfold over the course of the story but I'm digging it [01:44 AM] Wack'd: Meanwhile: Reed punches out of his sphere and frees the others while Doom is distracted with statue stuff [01:45 AM] Bocaj: Ego is his downfall as happens [01:46 AM] Wack'd: I hadn't thought about it until now but it's very interesting to me that this arc ends not with Reed learning to value his other virtues in lieu of his powers (before of course getting them back) but with him completely forgetting his midlife crisis and reforming the team

[01:47 AM] Wack'd: Like in modern comics there'd be some kind of character beat before the big return but nah, Reed can stretch again! All problems are solved forever! [01:49 AM] Wack'd: Anyway they fight some mooks, dodge some lasers, the usual, before reaching Doom. And Alicia, who is being threatened with a dislocated finger

[01:50 AM] Wack'd: So naturally the Four surrender [01:50 AM] Wack'd: Doom's speech here has big Mother Gothel energy

[01:51 AM] Wack'd: Zorbo frees the Four and Alicia. Quick turnaround time, but then the arc is ending [01:52 AM] Wack'd: The Four show up, reveal Son of Doom as a clone, fight fight fight [01:53 AM] Wack'd: ...huh. Did not see this coming

[01:54 AM] Wack'd: So anyway Son of Doom declares he has no interest in his dad's petty cruelty and thirst for revenge, and the two duke it out [01:55 AM] Wack'd: It's...pretty cool

[01:56 AM] Wack'd:

[01:56 AM] maxwellelvis: I don't think I've ever seen Doom have a breakdown like this before. [01:56 AM] Bocaj: "Learn some self-care, Doom!" "NEVER" [01:57 AM] Wack'd: As with the thing with Agatha and Nick Scratch I kinda wish the hammer had dropped sooner so we had more room to explore this dynamic [01:58 AM] Wack'd: But we definitely get some good mileage out of it in the final moments

[lovemesomerafael]

Destroying the Planet to Save It    Chapter 3:  One for All, and All that Shit

Chapter 1   Chapter 2   Read it on AO3

Bruce Banner had gathered as much data as possible about the latest event, and had done as much with it as he could with the equipment he’d brought to Washington D.C.  He needed to get back to his lab in New York and get to work.  He tried to sleep, but found himself staring at the sunrise from the window of another Stark jet, rolling ideas through his head and trying to plan his next steps. Trying not to think about Catherine Mulready.  

He hadn’t wanted to call her.  Hadn’t wanted to barge back into her life when he’d promised her he wouldn’t.  But he’d had no choice.  She was one of maybe four people on the planet with the knowledge and ability to help him, and the other three were scattered across the globe. Of course, he wasn’t in love with the other three, which was a significant complicating factor.  

She’d taken his call. Just picked up the phone with a casual, “Hello, Bruce,” like the last time they’d seen each other they hadn’t both been crying.  And when he’d asked her how she was, she’d actually answered, rather than simply shutting him down with the “fine,” he deserved.  Like she was happy and it was no big thing that he’d called.  Which is what he wanted; he’d told her to get over him and be happy, it was just…  He didn’t know that her actually doing that would hurt quite this much.  It was one thing to miss her, like he did every damn day. It was another to know that she didn’t miss him.  That she’d moved on.  Just like he’d told her to.

 Clint Barton wasn’t sleeping, either.  He was looking down at Natasha, the only person on the plane who was sleeping. Her head rested in his lap, her beautiful, shiny red hair spilling down his thigh to pool on the cushion next to him. As soon as they’d boarded the jet, they’d just gravitated together, settling on the sofa near the center, as if they’d had reserved seats.  It had always been like that for them, from the very beginning.  As he stroked her smooth, sleek hair, Clint thought about the day they met, and the almost instant sensation he’d had that they’d always known each other.  And now, they really had known each other for a lifetime.  He could no longer remember, couldn’t even imagine anymore, what it would be like without Natasha Romanoff in his life.  

And in his heart.  

It had been many years since they’d met, since that day when he’d first seen her and knew that S.H.I.E.L.D. had been wrong.  Yes, Natasha was lethal and yes, she was working for the enemy.  But she was nothing like they’d believed.  Clint had seen immediately who she was.  What she was.  And instead of killing her, as he’d been sent to do, he’d brought S.H.I.E.L.D. one of the very best agents it ever had.  

It hadn’t been a choice. He’d tried to explain it a thousand times, and each time he’d failed to find the words that would explain how he’d simply known that’s where she belonged.  This woman, this beautiful, tortured, devastatingly lonely woman, was a hero.   And he’d seen it as soon as he’d looked into her eyes.  

He huffed a quiet laugh at that.  Part of the reason it was hard to explain how he’d known in that moment that Natasha Romanoff was a good woman was that she’d been covered in someone else’s blood at the time.  And then she’d cursed him and fought him and led him on a four-day chase through three countries.  It had taken most of that time for him to realize that, all the while, she was doing just enough to escape but never really hurting him.  

And then he’d caught her. Or maybe she caught him.  He’d followed her to Tallinn and thought he’d lost her, entirely convinced she’d found a way to cross the Gulf into Finland. He’d been devastated.  Clint didn’t give a rat’s ass about explaining to his superiors at S.H.I.E.L.D. that she’d escaped.  They knew how good she was, and they’d expected that.  What he cared about was her.  So he’d holed up in a ratty old dockside inn for the night, nursing his wounds and a bottle of black-market vodka.  He’d been standing, wearing nothing but jeans and looking out the dirty window at the poor fucks trudging around in the thick slush on the street, when she’d just… been there.  

He’d heard a scrape behind him and turned to see Natasha, no longer bloody, but showing definite signs of having been on the run, sitting at the tiny table in his room and drinking straight from his bottle of vodka.  She’d given him a smug little salute with the bottle, stood up, and offered it to him. He took it from her, swigged a mouthful, and then moved to stand face to face with her, leaning his arm behind her to set the bottle back on the table.  Neither of them was surprised that she didn’t move away, but slid one hand around his neck and the other down his bare chest to the button of his jeans.

They’d stayed there, in that damp, dingy little inn, for three days, sleeping for a couple hours at a time between rounds of hard, messy, athletic sex.  They barely spoke.  They asked each other no questions and shared no information beyond moans and cries and instructions.  And when it was over, Clint had simply stated that he was taking Natasha to the U.S. with him, and she had not objected.

*****

Stark Tower was not your usual skyscraper, in pretty much any way.  Tony had no trouble at all housing a planeload of surprise guests, one of whom was the President of the United States.  A lot of things bugged Tony, but housing important people wasn’t one of them.  That was what Friday and his staff were for.  Besides, he had other things on his mind.  He was anxious for Bruce to arrive so they could start comparing notes and, until then, he just planned to lock himself in his lab and work with the data he had so far.  The rest of the team could take care of the guests.  Even the damn President.  Well, Presidents.

Tony almost made it.  He was that close to getting into his lab and away from everyone, especially the newly-bearded, tank-like asshole who was even now getting off the other elevator.  Fuck.  It was still dark, way too early in the damn morning for this.  

“I thought we should talk,” Steve said, wearing his patented Wholesome and Earnest© expression.

“No, we really shouldn’t.”

“Tony-“

“You should get back in the elevator - I designed them so they go both up and down, I’m clever like that – and you and your pet assassin should deal with our guests. Isn’t that what you do?  Aren’t you, like, the Jawline of Democracy, or the Shoulders of Freedom or something?  Babysitting the President seems right up your alley.  I have work to do.”

“Damn you, Tony, we have a deal.  I expect you to hold up your end.”

“Yeah, you know what, Not Chuck Norris?  I am holding up my end.  You might have noticed me last night, right next to you the whole damn time, getting the President out of there, hauling him here on my plane, to my secure building.  That was me, holding up my end.  I’m all about keeping the Avengers together.  One for all, and all that shit.  But here’s the thing.  A little of you?  That goes a long, long fucking way, and I’ve had about as much Captain America as I can stomach right now.  Someone tries to take over the world?  Call me. I’m in.  But until that happens, I seriously need you to fuck off.”

Tony turned on his heel and slammed his palm down on the sensor that would open the doors for only him.

“So that’s it?  This is as good as it’s gonna get?  We just coexist and you avoid me and –“

Tony wheeled around and stormed up to Steve until they were chest to chest, with Tony’s livid expression mere inches from Steve’s stubbornly set jaw.  “Yeah.  Yeah, it is. Because we were a team, and we were something, y’know?  We did some amazing shit together.  I thought that meant something, that we’d built something.  And then you turned around and took a blowtorch to the whole damn thing like it had all been some cute little hobby for you and you were on to the next thing.”

“I had no choice,” Steve hissed.  “It was Bucky.”

“Yeah, no, I get that. I read the files, I know what they did to him.  I had a lot of time to think while you were in Wakanda, and me and him?  We’re good.  But me and you?  No.  And I don’t see that changing.”

“How do you expect us to be a team if we don’t work together?  Train together?  Trust eachother?”

“Yeah.  I know.  That’s what you cost us.”  Tony turned around and went into his lab.  “See you around, Cap,” he sneered as he punched the button to shut the sliding door between them.  

*****

Craig Thomas had volunteered to take the first shift in the President’s suite, along with another two Secret Service officers.  Joss Emerson had agreed to relieve Agent Thomas at seven, and she was just fumbling her way to consciousness and beginning to form the hazy thought of caffeine when she heard a quick, solid knock on the door of the room she’d been assigned.  Frowning, she rolled off the edge of the shockingly comfortable bed and to her feet.

She’d groaned as she crossed the room, but it was nothing to the groan she let out when she looked through the peephole into the hallway.  Glancing down with a whimper at the nightgown she wore, she opened the door a crack and poked her head around it.  

Bucky stood there, slight confusion clouding his blue eyes, despite the amused quirk of an eyebrow. “Are you…  Everything OK?”

“I’m good. Thanks.  I just, um…  I just woke up.”

“I see that,” he grinned, indicating her sleep-scrambled hair.  “I brought you coffee.”  He held up a very large paper cup with a lid, from which came a scent almost as seductive as he was.  

Joss reached out a hand, but didn’t open the door any wider.  “Oh, man.  You are officially my new best friend.”

As he handed the cup to her, Bucky stepped closer and tried to look past her into the room.  His expression was a little more serious now. “You sure you’re OK?  I wanted to talk to you about something.  If you’re…  You don’t have company in there, do you?”

“No!  For Pete’s sake, we’ve been here, what?  Six hours?  And you think I…”

“Well, President Lattimore does seem to really like you.”

“That’s not even remotely funny.”

“It will be, once you get a little caffeine in you.  C’mon, let me in.  I wanna get your take on something.”

“Give me a chance to put some clothes on, will ya’?  I thought you were from the ‘40’s, aren’t you supposed to be embarrassed that I’m not dressed?”

Bucky grinned, enjoying Joss’s discomfort.  “I’m a quick study.  Anyway, you have clothes on, I can see your sleeve.  What’s the problem?”

“It’s…  I just…”  She looked down at herself again.  “I can’t. Come back later.”

“Joss.  What’s going on?”  Suddenly, he was serious.  He put his right hand on the door, ready to push it open unless she gave him a very good reason not to.

“Damn it,” she sighed, stepping back and opening the door so he could enter.  

Bucky stepped in, looked her from head to toe, and instantly had to fight not to laugh, although he didn’t fight very fucking hard, if you asked Joss.  

The nightgown she wore was basically a black, long-sleeved, V-necked T-shirt that came to mid-thigh, which wouldn’t have been a problem except for the left arm.  The gray left arm with black stripes of various thicknesses at random intervals and a large red star on the shoulder.  

“I hate Tony Stark,” she spat, hunching her shoulders and looking everywhere but at Bucky.

“I don’t.  I get royalties from those.  And they’re selling like crazy.”  Bucky’s eyes danced as he affected a way-too-innocent expression.

“You laugh, and your reign as my new best friend will come to a bloody end.”

“Well, if you don’t like it, why are you wearing it?”

“Stark got some store to deliver clothes for us to wear today, but he said this was all he could do as far as sleepwear.  If the damned President isn’t wearing one of these, I am going to have some very unpleasant things to say about this place on Yelp.”

He chuckled.  “Well, it looks good on you, if that makes you feel any better.  May I?” He indicated the sofa that sat across the room, under a wall of windows with an extraordinary view of Manhattan. It really was a stupendously luxurious room, especially when Bucky Barnes was standing in it.  Joss looked down at her coffee.  It was tempting as hell, but if he was standing there, that meant she was still dreaming, and this was one REM cycle she really did not want to interrupt.

*****

On five hours’ sleep, Anita Herrera looked as if she’d stepped out of the pages of one of those glossy magazines they put a blocker in front of at the grocery store so little kids won’t see cleavage.  Sam Wilson, not so much.  He was standing in the large communal kitchen that served this floor of luxury hotel-like rooms and suites, finishing his second cup of coffee and beginning to wonder if cup number one was ever going to kick in.  The grainy dryness of his red, swollen eyes could not be attractive, and he almost wished Agent Herrera wasn’t here right now to see it.  

Out of the corner of his eye, Sam saw her pick the carafe out of the huge, stainless steel, state-of-the-art  coffee maker that looked like it belonged in the cockpit of a Space Shuttle.  She carried it, practically gliding across the floor, until she was standing next to where he leaned against the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows.  She lifted it in question and, when he held out his cup, refilled it, smiling. Suddenly, Sam was wide awake.  

“Short night,” she commented.

“Yeah.  I guess Banner and the others have landed now.  They should be here soon, and maybe we’ll get some answers.”

“About that.  I’ve been thinking.  We need to get back into Arias’s… bunker?  Lair?  Hideout? Whatever he calls it.”

“What do you have in mind, Agent Herrera?”  Sam lifted an interested eyebrow.

“Well, for one thing, I’m not calling you ‘Mr. Wilson.’  So my name is Anita.”  The cheeky smile and flip of her hair just about dropped Sam where he stood.  “And for another, I’m thinking you and I should go on a date.”

Sam’s mind skipped like a dirty CD.  “Uh…”

“How are you at breaking and entering?” Anita asked as she crossed the floor again to replace the coffee carafe.  

“Breaking and entering. You’re not seriously thinking we can sneak into that… underground fortress?”

“We need to get in there. You got a better idea?”

“That’s asking a lot on three hours of sleep.  But let me think about it.”

“You do that,” she said over her shoulder, opening the huge refrigerator and beginning to take stock of the very full shelves.  “In the meantime, Stark said to make ourselves at home, so I’m going to make breakfast.  You’re going to help.”

“What makes you think so?”

“I was a Navy Warrant Officer.  I outrank you.”

“Shit.”

*****

Breakfast was a noisy, chaotic affair made bearable by the fragile, temporary camaraderie among those who had been unexpectedly and unwillingly been brought together in New York. Sam and Anita had been busy, and everyone had been lured into the common room by the delicious smells coming from the kitchen.  Even both Presidents were there, although President Burke spent much of the time on the secure phone Tony had put at his disposal.  

Tony Stark was nowhere to be found, since Bruce Banner had now arrived and the two were holed up in Bruce’s lab on one of the top floors.  Which left Steve playing host, which wasn’t his strong suit.  As it turned out, however, it was Sharon’s, and she came to his rescue quickly, smoothly, and without question. So smoothly, in fact, that no one noticed.  No one except Steve.

There were heaping serving bowls of scrambled eggs with peppers and onions, spiced with a Cuban flair, that everyone devoured, along with seemingly endless platters of bacon, toast, and fruit.  Anita had found a bottle of ridiculously expensive champagne, with which even the President spiked his orange juice.  Sitting around the huge table, groups of strangers became almost friendly, with Sharon gently guiding conversations and smoothing over occasional quiet spells and rough spots.

Air Force One was on its way, now that the weather was clear in D.C. and no further energy spikes had been detected there.  Since they hadn’t recurred in any of the places they’d appeared so far, there was no reason to suppose Washington would be any different.  President Burke was expected to be back in the White House by afternoon.

President Lattimore, however, lived in Mobile, and wasn’t happy that he wouldn’t be on that flight. Instead, Bucky had arranged to fly him back home in a Quinjet, with his Secret Service detail and Joss Emerson. That’s what he’d wanted to talk over with her earlier, and she was still having occasional retroactive blushes about being caught out wearing an officially licensed Avengerswear™ Winter Soldier nightgown.  

Everett Burke was known to be a big eater, and to have a sincere appreciation for good food. Fortunately for him, he liked to exercise as much as he liked to eat, and had a reputation among the Secret Service for being extremely competitive when they had to accompany him on his runs. He managed to retain much of his SEAL-era conditioning despite now having a desk job that required him to attend banquets and dinners almost nightly.  He managed to put down the phone for long enough to tuck into an enormous plate of breakfast, engaging a hollow-eyed Clint and entirely refreshed Natasha in a series of questions about last night’s phenomenon.

“Dr. Banner is convinced that the energy he’s detecting is responsible for the destructive events that follow, and he’s hopeful that he’ll be able to learn about the connection from the storm in Washington last night.  He was able to gather an overwhelming amount of data on it, more than we have on any of the other events.  He has a world-renowned meteorological scientist coming in today to consult, and we should have some answers soon,” Natasha said, her face a bland mask of competent calm that only Clint could see through.  He could tell that she was, in fact, highly amused to find herself across the breakfast table from the leader of the free world, given her former occupation.  

For his part, Clint was just sleep-deprived enough to find the whole situation hilarious.  The Secret Service agents around the table and surrounding the President seemed much more concerned about an as-yet theoretical threat than the fact that their principal was, at this moment, having mimosas with the Winter Soldier and the Black Widow.  He was sorely tempted to ask Bucky and Natasha to list the number of ways they could kill him – hell, everybody in the room – using just what was currently within arms’ reach.  Yeah, he should probably excuse himself and take a nap before he found himself answering uncomfortable questions in a soundproofed room somewhere beneath the Pentagon.  

Sharon stepped in.  “Director Coulson and Captain Rogers have asked me to be your liaison to S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers, Sir.  It’ll be my job to make sure that you know everything we know.”

“I appreciate that, Agent Carter,” the President replied, almost retaining his placid mask of imperturbable authority without letting the twinge of disappointment show.  “I’m used to working with Captain Rogers, but you’re much prettier.”

Half the room grinned, while the other half consciously restrained themselves from facepalming. How many times in his political career had Everett Burke gotten himself in trouble over inappropriate remarks like that?  Sharon’s face showed nothing of her annoyance, or her gratitude that there were no reporters in the room.  

“Sir, you don’t want me,” Steve said with a self-deprecating smile that belied his irritation on Sharon’s behalf.  “You need something punched, I’m your guy.  Science and tech, that’s Sharon.”

She gave him the slightest nod of approval, while promising herself that, if she ever got the chance, she would thank him in a much more personal way for that.  

*****

The lobby of Stark Tower was much like Tony Stark himself: blatantly luxurious, faintly ridiculous, easy but dangerous to underestimate.  Bruce knew there were a plethora of defensive systems that would make even approaching this level of the tower a suicide mission at a word from Tony.  He looked around, trying to spot all the cameras, lasers, remotely-operated panels, and other fixtures that weren’t what they appeared to be.  Tony liked to say that the strange sculpture in the middle of the fountain was actually a robot drone that could be controlled from several places only Tony and Friday knew, but he was never sure whether to believe that.

Bruce was exhausted, frightened, annoyed, frustrated, and anxious as he paced the area in front of the massive, ultra-modern reception desk, chewing on a thumbnail and, had he known it, muttering to himself.  He paid no attention to the many people who steered extra-wide of him.  In fact, he paid no attention to any of the passersby and tourists who thronged the lobby, having no idea that the strange, rumpled man scowling at the floor was, in fact, one of the Avengers they were there hoping to glimpse.

Preoccupied as he was, he knew the moment she appeared outside the tall, glass doors, squinting up at the landing platform jutting out into the morning sunshine and squaring her shoulders before she nodded to a young man in a suit who held the door open for her, and stepped inside.  He stood, not breathing, just letting her happen to him all over again.  Her jet-black hair was short now, rather than the long, straight fall it had been when he’d last seen her in London. Although he knew intellectually that it was an intentional style, his body thought the shaggy, spiky layers made her look like she’d just gotten out of bed, which he really didn’t need right this minute.  Her suit was stylish and professional, but it fit her like a glove, reminding him of her body, which he really fucking didn’t need right then.  

She saw him almost as soon as she entered the lobby.  Did her steps falter a little?  He thought so, but then, he wanted to think so.  What he knew for sure was that she was smiling warmly when she came to stand in front of him.  She took off her Ray-Bans and he was immediately struck anew by those piercing green eyes.  

“Hello, Bruce,” she said. Was it a little hesitant?  A little tight?

“Catherine.  Thank you so much for coming.”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” she said in the Estuary accent he still heard in his most private fantasies. “I’m dying to get a look at what you’ve got.”

“I can’t wait to show you,” he grinned shyly.  “Let’s go.”

Bruce waved her toward a bank of elevators down a hallway that was guarded on both sides by imposing men whose firearms were intentionally not well-concealed under the jackets of their dark suits.  They nodded to him as he passed, having been briefed that he would be bringing a guest up to the Research floors.  They weren’t worried that she might be armed or carrying anything they might not want on the upper floors of the tower.  The elevator would silently scan her and invisibly detect any of several hundred dangerous organic and explosive materials.  There was even radiation detection.  If any of those scans showed a problem, the elevator would descend to the lobby and lock down until the doors opened on a fully suited Ironman.  Tony took no chances with security.

They were alone on the elevator.  It seemed quiet after the bustle of the lobby, especially because the thick, soft wool carpet and brocade wall panels absorbed sound, and the mechanism itself was all but silent.  

Bruce was staring.  He knew he was.  But he couldn’t help it any more than he could help the awed tone of voice in which he nearly whispered, “You look good, Catherine.  I like your hair like that.”

She smiled self-consciously and seemed to be forcing herself to meet his eyes.  “You look good, too,” she said softly.  “I wasn’t sure what to expect.  You’ve been through a lot these last years.”

“Yeah,” he chuckled mirthlessly.  “You could say that.  It’s not every day you get to battle an alien invasion.”  

“Speaking of that,” she said, now clearly avoiding his eyes.  “I, uh…  I know that you were responsible for destroying the ones that attacked my building. I don’t know if that was for me, but… I appreciated it. You may be a superhero, but I am decidedly not.  I was scared shitless.”

“Yeah, me, too,” Bruce grinned, and she met his eyes again.  “Don’t tell anyone.”

For a second, they just stood, grinning softly at one another.  

“Are you really OK?” She finally asked, no pretense now. “I can’t stop caring just because you tell me to.”

“I’m as OK as I always am,” he muttered.  

“That’s a shitty answer.”

“Yeah, well…”  

She sighed.  

“Have you ever met Tony Stark?”  Bruce asked, fooling neither of them with his change of subject.

“Never.  I’m afraid I’m going to be a little starstruck.”

“If you tell him I said this, I’ll deny it, but I’m a little starstruck myself.  His mind is…  not like other people’s.”

“So I understand. Anything I should beware of?”

Bruce barked a genuine laugh with a smile that, although he couldn’t know it, rocked Catherine back on her heels.  “Pretty much anything having to do with him.  We’re just lucky this particular crisis will have us working with a lot more theory than mechanical engineering.  That’s the part where there’s usually explosions and inadvertent time travel, things like that.”

“What’ve I bloody gotten myself into?”  She mumbled, loud enough that he knew it was intended to be a joke.

When the doors opened, they found themselves in a room that comprised most of this floor of the building, so spartan white that the morning sunlight streaming in made it seem uncomfortably bright.   The scattered work stations throughout were almost bare except for sparse bits of… some kind of electronic hardware whose purpose wasn’t immediately apparent to anyone who hadn’t seen it in action.  Walking toward them through the sun-drenched room was Tony Stark, barefoot and wearing jeans that looked ancient, with a black T-shirt featuring a white decal of an old-school floppy disc.  

“Dr. Mulready!  You have to be Dr. Mulready,” he said, holding out a hand for her to shake.

“Mr. Stark, it’s a pleasure.”

“Oh!  You’re English!  Cool.  Bruce didn’t tell me that, just that you used to bone and then he dumped you. Something about being an enormous green douchebag.  So. Let’s get started, we got a lot to show you.”  

Entirely oblivious of the effect of his words, Tony turned around to the closest white-topped table, a long, curved expanse with only a few of those electronic-looking odds and ends scattered atop it.  Until he flung his arms wide and, so unexpectedly that Catherine jumped and let out an embarrassing yelp, a glowing screen appeared in mid-air.  

“Banner’s gonna bore you with a bunch of squiggles on a graph, but I know you’re a tornado expert, so I’m going to show you the really cool stuff.  Starting with this.”  He did something with a flick of his wrist and the screen was filled with video of the previous day’s tornado over Washington D.C.

They watched in silence for several minutes, Catherine’s entire attention laser-focused as the storm raged and the funnel wreaked devastation on the ground.  “Anti-cyclonic rotation,” she murmured.  “That’s interesting.”

“Why?”  Bruce asked, watching her as she watched the screen, crinkling her nose and tilting her head to the left in a way that instantly flooded Bruce with nostalgia.

“The Coriolis effect. Less than five percent of tornadoes rotate clockwise in this hemisphere. Doesn’t mean anything on its own, it’s just rare.”

They watched for a few more minutes before Catherine stiffened and said, “Wait.  What was that?”

“What was what?”  Tony asked.

“Go back.  Play the last ten seconds again.”

He did and they watched as a jagged lightning bolt shot across the sky.  It was cool, but Tony wasn’t sure that it was particularly interesting. He looked curiously at Catherine.

“Can you slow it down?”

“I can do anything. How slow do you want it?”

“Frame by frame, if you can. Starting just before the lightning strike.”

He did, advancing the video and watching her as he did.  

“There!”  She cried, pointing to the screen.  “That.”

Tony and Bruce looked at each other.  “OK, I’ll play,” Tony said.  “What am I supposed to be seeing?”

Catherine stepped up to the screen and pointed to the leading edge of the lightning bolt where it appeared to actually strike the side of the tornado.  “See that?  How the lightning looks like it’s poking a hole in the funnel?”

“Yeah…”  Bruce answered tentatively.

“Now.  Next frame.”

In the next frame, there appeared to be an actual divot forming in the wall of the funnel.  

“Next,” Catherine said, scowling.

In the next frame, the divot had grown and was clearly a bend in the wall of the tornado, making the funnel look like it was moving away from the lightning.

“Next.”

The effect became more pronounced in the next frame, and the next.  The lightning strike lasted only a few frames beyond that, but it was clear, now that they had slowed it down, that the lightning had actually “dented” the funnel of the tornado, and caused it to bend away from the strike.

“OK.  We see it now.  So what?” Tony asked impatiently.

“So that can’t happen. Lightning isn’t powerful enough to affect a tornado, and the power surge doesn’t last long enough, even if it was. Whatever we’re looking at, it’s either not a tornado, or it’s not lightning.  Or both.”  

*****

When breakfast was over, Steve and Sharon were left alone in the ravaged common room amid the greasy, jumbled remains.  

“Do you suppose we’re supposed to clean this up?”  She asked, looking daunted at the possibility.

“Of course not. Tony’s got people for that,” Steve answered, with a look that told Sharon he disapproved of something about what he’d just said.

“What?”

Steve looked over at her, trying to cover his look with a smile.  “Nothing.  We don’t have to clean this up.”

“Did something happen between you and Tony?”

Steve blew out a breath in disgust.  “Tony happened.  I thought we were gonna try to get past this.  I believed him that we’d put aside our anger and were going to try to figure things out for the good of the team.”

“But that isn’t true?”

“Doesn’t look like it. He told me to stay away from him unless someone’s trying to take over the world.  In so many words.”

Sharon put a hand on his arm.  “I’m sorry. I know you really want things back the way they used to be.”

“It’s not about what I want.  It’s about what the world needs.  If the Avengers hadn’t been here, who would have stopped the Chitauri?  The military?  They were about to nuke the city!  If it wasn’t for us, working together, New York would be gone now and maybe the Chitauri would be in control of Earth anyway.”

Steve stood up and began pacing the room, pent-up frustration and energy with no outlet urging him to action.  

“I’ve gotta find a way to get through to him.  We have to work together.  We don’t have a choice.”

“Steve,” Sharon began tentatively.

“What?”  He stopped pacing to look at her.

“What have you and Tony… said to eachother about what happened?  About the Accords, and about The Raft, and Berlin?”

“Plenty.  There’s a bloody bunker in Siberia that will show you, we had quite the conversation about that.”

Sharon stood then, walking over to where Steve stood in front of the wall of windows.  She reached out hesitantly, laying her hands lightly on his chest, and was pleased to see him take a step toward her and rest a warm, heavy hand on each side of her waist.  “That’s what I was afraid of.  You haven’t talked about it at all.”

“We did, Sharon.  I called him, and we met in Washington. You know that, you were there.  We agreed that the Avengers is too important to end.”

“And that’s the only time you’ve sat down and talked about this?”

“Well…  yeah.  What else is there to say?”

Sharon basically banged her head against Steve’s chest in disgust.  “Men.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that, for a really smart guy, you’re a damn fool.  That’s what it means.  You need to talk to him, Steve.  You need to talk, and you need to keep talking until you each understand what made the other take the position they did.  And you need to apologize to each other.”

“Apologize?  What the fuck for?  He’s got us answering to a committee, for fuck’s sake!”

“Yes, and he believes that’s the right thing.  He believes that.  Do you really think Tony Stark, of all people, would willingly submit to anyone’s authority if he didn’t truly believe it was necessary?  And do you know why he thought it was necessary? Did you even ask?”

“I know why.  Of course I asked, we argued about it for hours…”

“You argued.  You both talked at each other – shouted, actually – and neither one heard a word the other said.”

“Whose side are you on, Sharon?”  Steve yelled, letting go of her.

“Yours,” she said, keeping her voice as calm as she could.  “Always yours.  You have to know that.”

He frowned and turned toward the window, his face working as he thought through what she’d said.

“Steve.”  

After a moment, he turned back to her.  She stepped to him again, this time wrapping her arms around his waist.  His arms naturally encircled her, and she found herself pressed against his chest, looking up into his bright blue eyes. “Do you remember when we first met? How we first met?”

“Of course I do.”

“I was on your side, there for you, even before you knew who I was.  I stood with you when Hydra infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D.  I stood with you when you refused to sign the Accords, and when you went to Bucharest to try to keep Bucky from being captured.  I kept you both from facing criminal charges, and I’ve worked like hell to help him get through all the other fallout of what Hydra made him do.  Right?”

“Right,” Steve admitted softly, holding her a little closer.

“And then, when you were ready to try to approach Tony again, who made that happen?”

“You did.”

“Yeah.  I did.  So please tell me that you know I’m as loyal to you as anyone could be.  You do know that, right?”

He looked into her eyes for a long, long moment.  “I do know that, Sharon.  I do. And I’ve been selfish as hell when it comes to you.”

Sharon rolled her eyes, lowering her forehead to rest against him and shaking her head.  “I’m in love with a fucking moron,” she muttered to his chest.  Then, looking up at him again, she said, “We’ll come back to that.  Right now, I just need you to try to hear me about this.”

But Steve wasn’t hearing anything.  He was blinking at her, his face an absolute mask of surprise.  

“What?”  Sharon demanded sharply.

“You…  You said…”

“I said you need to listen to me.”

“You said you’re in love with me.”

“I said I’m in love with a moron, and that we’d come back to that.  Focus!”

Steve smiled weakly, still looking at her with wonderment, as though he’d never seen her before but found her fascinating.  It was definitely about time he looked at her like that, but right now she was trying to make a crucially important point that could have repercussions for the whole world.

“You said it yourself. You and Tony need to make up.  You need to find a way to start working your way back to trusting one another.  You both fucked up.  Huge.”

“I didn’t-“

“You left him to deal with the Accords by himself.  You turned half the team against him.  And then you beat the shit out of him and threw your shield away like it was nothing.”

“I could have killed him. I didn’t.”

“No, you just left him for dead.”

Steve broke away angrily and turned back toward the window.  “I think you and I might have different definitions of the word loyalty, Sharon.”

Undeterred, Sharon just closed the distance again.  “Loyalty doesn’t mean saying what you want to hear.  Loyalty means saying what you need to hear.  And you need to hear Tony’s side of the story, which is what I just told you.  Do you really think you’re blameless in all this?”

Steve scoffed furiously, but didn’t answer.  

“Just think about it,” Sharon said, giving his arm a squeeze.  “I’m going to go check on Tony and Bruce.”

She walked slowly across the large room, wondering whether she’d just ruined any chance she might have had with the man she loved.  The man she’d just, entirely without her knowledge or consent, told she loved him.  She hoped he would stop her, or say something to let her know he understood that she was trying to help him, and Tony, and the Avengers.

He didn’t.

[epiphyllous]

What if: Marine!Luffy (technically)

I feel like a lot of people have touched on the AU if Luffy ever became a marine instead of a pirate, and I really like reading about them! I watched a video on YT that goes into it pretty in depth (check it out here), and I do agree that some of it is very plausable! But it takes away a lot of what I believe is integral to Luffy’s story (asides from the fact Luffy wants to be a pirate).

Honestly, this stemmed because I don't want Luffy to lose most of the integral part of his life-- which is meeting Shanks.

As stated in the video, it due to Shanks’ influence and Garp's absencenthat sets Luffy on the path to becoming a pirate, and I do see why Shanks has to be out of the picture for Luffy to even consider being a marine.

But what if Luffy raised to be a marine but still maintains his integrity that not everyone is bad just because of what they are? And thus we would still see OUR Luffy but Marine, which makes me happy :)

(Feel free to interact and share your thoughts too! I'm just trying to have fun fleshing my thoughts out. ‘tis long post)

Luffy doesn't grow up wanting to be a marine hero like Garp, bc I still maintain that he doesn't want to be a hero. He should still be a free spirit for the most part, but I think his main goal in this AU at first would be strong-- whether it's to be strong for the sake of being strong or to protect other people.

Or maybe he hears and listens to marine stories and learns how they travel through the Grand Line-- all romanticized, btw, but I do believe marines out there who do fight justice (not that Luffy is interested in that aspect at the age of 6) and go on "adventures" as they put it, making Luffy star eyed about the world. Regardless, he isn't off-put by the marine thing and that's the big point. Maybe if Garp hadn't just forced him to be a marine and instead instilled the aspect of adventure and camaraderie, Luffy wouldn't be so resistant.

When Luffy meets Shanks, I think most of the interaction remains, except Luffy's fascination is replaced with curiosity. Doesn't change much, but it does let Luffy still be as fearless as ever in the face of pirates and want to know more about Shanks. Maybe as a child he DID have the mindset that all pirates are bad, so he tries to fight them off much to Shanks' amusement and eventually realizes after interacting with them that not all pirates are bad after all.

"Take me to sea with you!"

"No way! You're too weak! Besides, aren't you afraid of sailing with a bunch of pirates?"

"Shanks is not a bad pirate!"

"So there are good and bad pirates now?"

"Yeah. Good pirates party all the time and have fun. Bad pirates do bad things," is what I'm sure Luffy at age 6 would think for the most part.

And they'd laugh and tease Luffy for being weak, Luffy would cut his eye to prove he's not, and at this point Shanks is more of a role model rather than a pirate role model: he shows what a man should do, how he should protect his friends, and when to stand up for yourself.

And in saving and sacrificing his arm for a Luffy who doesn't want to be a pirate but a marine, it solidifies the theme that it doesn't matter what you are, but who you are that counts.

And that teaching follows Luffy everywhere he goes for his entire journey.

As for the straw hat, I stubbornly refuse that Shanks does not give it Luffy. As we know, the hat plays in a much larger role than being the crown for the next king of pirates. It's evident in the large straw hat in Mariejoa and the significance the Gorosei puts on a symbol like that. Anyhow, I'm not going to go into that much but REGARDLESS, Shanks gives Luffy the straw hat and to return it to him once he becomes a great (read: powerful, impactful, influential) man.

I think a large bump in the road with this theory is that Luffy would have an insanely harder time in his childhood. As a big-mouthed child, he wouldn't shut up about being the next Marine Admiral (best position of power little does he know; Luffy just knows they tend to be the strongest Marines), and knowing Ace who would never EVER want to be a marine because of his influence with Sabo and his upbringing of bandits, this does not fly well. I could probably entertain that Ace could have been a marine because people hated his father so much, but I think his goal of being more than just his father's son really paves a path for him to be a pirate, regardless of other influences.

So if you think Ace hated Luffy before at this point in time, oh boy.

I mean, Luffy can't just DIE, so really the meeting between him, Ace, and Sabo go relatively the same except Ace and Sabo are much more suspicious of Luffy, which doesn’t really bode well for him. But I’m pretty sure, marine or not, even Ace and Sabo wouldn’t abandon Luffy if he refused to rat them out-- or they might even feel even more incensed that Luffy didn’t say anything because he wants to be a marine.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“If I said anything, you wouldn’t be my friend!”

“We’re going to be pirates; you’re going to be a marine-- we’re not even on the same side! We shouldn’t even be friends!”

“But why does that matter?”

And everything goes well, they become brothers, and Sabo “dies.”

And above all, I think this moment is a turning point in Luffy’s life (wow he’s having a lot of revelations as a ten-year-old; poor kid) because now he not only recognizes that not all pirates are bad but also know not all marines are good (because how could they be protecting someone who killed his brother?) and their system has a lot of fixing to do.

Ace has a lot of mixed feelings about this, because his baby brother may want to be a marine, but Sabo died from going against the government-- so what does this mean for their future? But in the end, Luffy is still Luffy, and Ace wouldn’t abandon his brother, especially not when after he announced he wasn’t going to die Luffy declares that he was going to be a Marine and destroy the system from within.

Not really sure how small Luffy would put that in words, but the feeling is already there, and that sets his beginning, seven years later.

Some Straw Hats are not going to be with Luffy, and it’s unfortunate but a must. Some will, like Zoro, who Luffy saves at Shell Town-- and honestly, it might just be easier for him to find Mihawk if he’s part of the Marines-- and Nami, whose mother was a marine and the Arlong Pirates never gave her any reason to like pirates anyhow. There is some sticky business considering Nami’s earned treasure was stolen by the marines, but I’m very sure meeting Luffy would definitely convince her that there are good marines out there.

Many of the Straw Hats would have never been pirates if not for Luffy, asides from Usopp and Brook, who were or had aspirations to be a pirate before. As such, Usopp’s village would be saved by Luffy, but he wouldn’t go be a marine because he’s always wanted to be like his father. Brook would probably go back to Laboon after getting back his shadow on Thriller Bark and Luffy wouldn’t have a musician and the One Piece Universe Beyonce would never be born :(

Tbh, there’s a high chance Chopper wouldn’t join either, considering his father-figure waved a pirate flag, but I wouldn’t put it past Luffy to defend that flag anyways because of its significance to Chopper and the bravery that Dr. Hiruluk conveyed through it. But for the sake of this indulgent AU, lets say he does. :))

Robin though... uhhh being a wanted women makes it pretty difficult for her to join Luffy and considering Enies Lobby and the whole Buster Call deal... probably not. I can see her joining the Revolutionary Army pretty early on as a result though, but Luffy’s choice to save her life would not have changed nor would his impact on her change as well. You know, low key, I kinda want her to hide out on Luffy’s ship for a while and his crew being all “wtf captain, she’s a danger to society; isn’t she a bad person?” and Luffy just shrugs and laughs and tells them it’s okay (his original Straw Hat crew that stuck with him as a marine just smh but they know him too well to think he wouldn’t save Robin otherwise) and to have them decide if she’s a bad person or not themselves.

And EVENTUALLY Robin will be recruited into the Revolutionary Army, maybe in like a intense, “You have to go Robin, because even I can’t save you if you stay” sorta deal. (This could also be a chance for Luffy to meet Sabo, but that’s like a whole ‘nother can of worms.)

So Enies Lobby doesn’t happen. Franky doesn’t join either :/ And I don’t see Jimbei becoming a pirate after all the shit that’s happened to him and his bros, and honestly I just ever see him as being a marine, no matter how much he admires Luffy. Maybe they’d be buddies when he’s a Warlord though :))

So Alabasta-- Vivi gets to save her country with actual marine support aka Luffy. He works together with Smoker (heehee!) and Tashigi (god I would die for the interactions between her and Marine!Zoro) and kicks Crocodile’s butt regardless of his title as Warlord. Luffy calls it as he sees it, and violent dictatorship and mistreatment of his friends is a BIG no-no, maybe especially as marine who upholds goodness.

He gets promoted and gets the credit he deserves, though he’s too busy chomping down on food to even notice.

Vivi stays with her people, and they leave.

Meeting Ace during the Alabasta arc would have taken a little more secrecy-- or maybe Ace goes undercover for a brief period of time like Oda drew him a while back; wouldn’t put it past him to meet his little brother while he chases after Blackbeard.

Oh wait, would Sky Island even happen??? Honestly, who knows, but if he fights Bellamy, it would just ruin his redemption arc during Dressrosa bc wouldn’t Luffy just capture him?? or maybe he just punches him and that’s punishment enough who knows I didn’t think about this part in particular

BUT MARINEFORD. oh marineford

You see, I think as a marine, Luffy is completely different from Garp from the fact that he would NEVER put his job over his family. Luffy has already had one brother die, and he isn’t going to let another die if he can help it.

So what does that leave us? Maybe a prison break? Maybe going behind the scenes (as per Nami’s suggestion and implementation bc Luffy can’t be subtle for shit) to rig the execution and fuck up the cannons.

But the real mega problem here, is if Ace dies, I don’t know if Luffy can be a marine anymore, and that’s a big problem. Or maybe in having his brother die in his arms, despite trying to help him escape, will incite him to challenge the system and destroy corruption once and for all. (Demotion be damned.) But when Sabo finds out Luffy let Ace die in front of him, I think the connotations would change with their reunion since Luffy is a marine and thus still, regardless of who Luffy is, “on the other team.”

In fact, the existence of the Marineford Arc makes it extremely difficult for Luffy to continue being a marine, so honestly, at this point, even though it goes against the entire Marine!Luffy AU, I think Luffy could just go rogue, like he was always meant to be in the original One Piece timeline. So maybe it’s a full-circle to Luffy being what he was meant to. Who knowssss but that’s all I’ve got.

Let me know what you think!! If you read this far haha I’m always down to talk about Luffy bc I love him sm.

[buffpidgey]

Au: Trisha Elric was the older sister of Petunia and Lily Evans, and as such when Lily dies Harry is sent to Amestris to live with the Elrics instead of to the Dursleys, as Trisha is a far more suitable parent and also it's far enough away to offer extra protection to Harry.

Ohhhhh… forget 5… this looks more like…. 10…………  oh no it got long…

1: When Harry arrives on their doorstep, Van is a little terrified. He’s barely gotten used to the idea of having one baby, but to suddenly have an entire one year old right here? But he keeps it together for Trisha, whose in her fifth month AND who just lost her sister.

She can’t travel all that way for the funeral, especially since she IS Lilly Potter’s Sister and the war isn’t quite done. She wears black mourning bands on her arms for the next three months though, and sends a letter to Petunia. Petunia doesn’t write back.

2: Harry’s accidental magic is another shock to Van, who sees it first. He frets for three months that he’s somehow contaminating the children, until Harry floats a cookie across the kitchen and Trisha laughs; she remembers this from when Lily was little. 

3: Van still leaves and Trisha still dies. Harry is convinced that he’s Bad Luck - after all, he’s killed TWO sets of parents now - so when Hagrid comes to collect him, he gladly goes.

Ed isn’t as mad at Harry as he is at Hohenheim, and he knows that Harry isn’t as good at alchemy as he and Al are, but he thinks it’s very stupid to assume that /Harry/ is the reason Mom died. After all, Harry is Good! If Harry is Good, he can’t have done something like drive away parents. After Ed and Al get lessons from Izumi he’s largely over it.

4: Harry is a little more used to being recognized (he grew up in a small town after all, of course people know him…) and he has a vague idea of what happened to his parents. Trisha explained a bit about the war and who his parents were, but not why they were so important. She was saving that for when he was older.

Harry grew up knowing his parents were heroes for fighting back against the bad man who came to attack him, but he wasn’t expecting them to be NATIONAL heroes.

Harry sends back lots of letters to his family - Ed and Al and Winry and Granny about his new friends - Ron and Hermione. Ron is really friendly and knows a lot about wizard stuff, and is as good at chess as Al! Hermione knows a lot too, and she would probably love talking about alchemy too!

(Harry befriends her really quickly because her attitude towards magic reminds Harry a lot of Ed and Al’s hunger for knowledge)

Some people are kind of nasty about him having an accent (Malfoy. It’s Malfoy who’s nasty), but mostly the first year is really cool.

He gets worried when the letters from Ed and Al stop coming back, but then Winry tells him it’s because they found a teacher themselves!

5: Harry talks a little bit about what happens with the Stone, but doesn’t talk about how it burned when he touched Quirrel, or how long he spent in the Hospital Wing.

6: In second year, Ed and Al send Harry a breathless excited letter when they get back from Izumi’s. Then Harry hears nothing at all for weeks, even from the Rockbells. He’s so scared. Not only has something happened to his family, something is happening in Hogwarts.

He gets a letter back from Granny saying that Ed and Al had an accident, but are recovering. After that, there’s too much going on for Harry to write back.

7: He kills the basalisk, the basalisk almost kills him. He goes back home to discover what happened.

Harry really does feel like he is cursed. First, his parents. Then his aunt and uncle, now his cousins have been seriously hurt.

He knows what they did was wrong, and they knew this would happen. He feels kind of responsible, though, that he wasn’t there to stop them. He knows losing family hurts! They shouldn’t have done this!

He’s also angry that he had to wait till summer to find out this happened. Isn’t he as good as their brother? Isn’t he family too?

8: It takes all summer, but Ed finally admits to Harry that he’s planning on joining the military this year, to help get Al’s body back. They have a screaming row about it, where Harry is basically trying to be The Oldest Brother at the same time as Ed.

The summer before third year doesn’t end as badly as it does in canon, but it’s still bad.

It takes until Winry ties Harry to a tree and locks Ed out of the house (conveniently next to said tree) for them to make up.

(Without two legs or two arms, it’d be hell for Ed to get back to the house… but oh, look, there’s a slipknot in the rope right where Ed can reach it, and if Harry were free he could help…)

(Winry might or might not have been helped by Al.)

They both get a bad case of sunburn, but at least when the grim starts showing up and the dementors raid the train, Harry does write and tell them about it.

9: Ed becomes a state alchemist. He writes to tell Harry, and that makes Harry feel like he needs to step up as a student. (He’s also realized that with Hogwarts’s Library he might be able to help restore Ed and Al!)

Meanwhile, Ed is also trying to balance the desire to help Harry, who is apparently being freaking stalked by specters of despair and also an omen of death while he’s doing Mustang’s chores. Not. Ideal.

Then it turns out there’s also a murderer after his cousin. What the freaking use is being a dog of the military if he can’t even help protect Harry? ????

Mustang does not let Ed travel a few thousand miles to be protection duty to one random civilian.

10: Then it turns out that specter of death dog is actually Harry’s godfather. Who offered Harry a place to live in Britain. Where Harry was born.

Ed visits the Rockbells more often because that’s where Harry sends his litters.

Ed reads all about this letter, and spends like 3 weeks stewing and wondering if Harry is even coming back. Then Mustang says he can’t wait for Harry to come home from school, he has to go back to work so Ed gets to stew LONGER, wondering even MORE about if Harry will come back.

It’s July before Ed manages to get back to Resembool, and he spends the whole train ride back in a brooding nightmare that Harry isn’t at home.

He is though! Surprise!

Winry gives him a knowing look and laughs at him as she steals his arm to give it adjustments.

Over the summer Harry talks with Ed and Al about lycanthropy and they take a research detour into biological alchemy with the addition of some of Harry’s transfiguration texts. They don’t get very far in the few weeks Ed has for leave in Resembool, but he does promise to keep an eye out when he’s in the library.

(It’s during this research that they start to figure that the wizarding philosopher’s stone is different than the alchemic philosopher’s stone. It might be, one could say, a sorcerer’s stone instead.)

11: Harry leaves early to go to the Quidditch World Cup with his friends. It’s great until the terrorists happen.

This year at Hogwarts, Harry applies himself fully to DADA both because he is forced to be in this deadly tournament, and because Ed and Al are out there doing military tasks while he’s at school.

Winry is furious that Harry can’t get out of the Triwizard Tournament, and so is Granny Rockbell, but there’s not much they can do about it. (Dumbledore tries to convince one of the Elrics or one of the Rockbells to show up for the second task, but everyone is way too busy. They do show up for the final task.)

Rita Skeeter makes a hell of an uproar about Harry’s accent in her article and Malfoy gives her some… insights. It’s not great. Harry’s a hot topic, but interestingly with mixed appeal.

Cedric still dies in the final task. Harry is still captured and Voldemort still returns. 

(Winry sees yet another member of her family bleeding and in distress and has nightmares. She pretends she’s just working very hard whenever the boys ask.)

(Harry once again wonders if he’s cursed.)

12: As a gift, Harry convinced Winry to let him send off a few of her tools and little bits and bobs to Sirius, as a gift (because of the motorcycle). That’s the only gift he sends off that summer since everyone is keeping secrets from him, and he’s been having horrible dreams.

He saw Ed and Al for only a few days that summer. Mustang is giving them more work in exchange for more leads. Sure, it’s nice to know that Ed and Al have leads, but he misses his family and it would be really nice to see them and know they’re safe considering how many damn nightmares he’s been having.

(He remembers when they were little, like maybe seven and eight, when he had nightmares about the green light they would all huddle in the same bed and Harry would fall asleep to the sound of soft breathing. And then loud snores.)

He reads the Amestrian papers, and the British papers he has delivered. There’s nothing about Voldemort in the British papers, but in the Amestrian papers, stories start appearing about “The Peoples’ Alchemist” after Ed blows up the office of one particularly corrupt asshole.

The bright spot of Harry’s summer is teasing his cousins about joining him in the ranks of the great and famous.

The dementors don’t show up, but the Ministry still puts Harry on trial. They try him for treason- giving away ministry secrets to a foreign power. After all, he is in constant contact with a high ranking member of the Amestrian military.

Dumbledor sweeps in with Mustang and Ed (Al has elected to remain in Grimmauld Place tyvm) and clears everything up. Ed gets to meet all of Harry’s friends.

Harry had told them Ed was short. They still had been expecting taller.

Ed removes the portrait of Mrs. Black about the same time he accidentally destroyed that wall.

That year at Hogwarts, Harry learns about sabotage, gets tips from Ed who has had some first hand experience at this now, and starts realizing just how screwed both his countries are. (Ed might not have been paying attention to national and international affairs on his journey, but Harry is friends with Hermione and has been reading newspapers all summer.)

umbridge is still a problem, but it doesn’t get to the point where she carves shit into Harry’s hand. More than once.

Harry is still getting weird visions. Mr. Weasly still gets bitten. But Harry works at things besides occlumancy and has mustered a really stellar D.A. this time around, since he has some insight that he didn’t before.

They also practice hand to hand.

Despite this, the bait is set and Harry goes to the Department of Mysteries.

Sirius doesn’t fall through the veil, but he is badly injured. (I’m not sure if he loses a leg or something here. But let’s all take a minute to imagine Sirius making his way in secret to Amestris to convalesce with the Rockbells who know about this sort of thing. Winry offers to make him special automail that can shift between human and dog…)

13: Ed tries to bargain with Winry to not tell Harry about how Scar almost killed him. He doesn’t want to distract Harry! Harry already has someone out there who wants him dead! It’s fine!

Winry gives him the longest, deadest stare.

Ed realizes that this was a very dumb thing to say, especially since last year Harry almost exploded because people weren’t telling him things.

Harry also almost explodes this time, because someone! Is trying! To kill! His family! A G A I N

So when Dumbledore tells him about Hourcruxes Harry immediately puts two and two together (because he grew up with Ed and Al and helLO soulbonded armor?) and realizes that he IS a Hourcrux after a few… delicately worded letters to Ed.

So on both sides of the channel, Ed and Harry are desperate to fly across the continent in order to strangle people they’ve never met. Fun times.

14: Ed gets pulled deeper into this whole homunculus plot, but so much of it is moving so fast he doesn’t have time to write it all down for Harry.

It’s gonna be one fun summer, that’s for sure. Now Harry knows what it feels like to come back and see how much danger his cousin has been thrown into. Oh how the turntables.

15: When Ed vanishes for 4 months while the whole Promised Day bsns goes down, Harry throws himself deep, deep into this Hourcrux hunting thing. Ron and Hermione follow him to make sure he doesn’t get himself killed.

(Ed hates being out of contact with his family. HATES it. Hopes Harry isn’t doing something stupid. Knows that’s exactly what he’s doing, because he, Edward Elric, has been doing the same fucking thing for three years.)

Ed resurfaces, fights Father, and the whole she-bang happens but because Harry is being heavily hunted he doesn’t have any good access to international news. When he does manage to grab a muggle newspaper and reads a report on how a small country to the east between here and russia went up in red light…

Harry does something… inadviseable and mixes magic and alchemy to try and keep Voldemort out of his head. It works, it does, he de-hourcrux’d himself.

Harry is out of comission convalessing for weeks.

They manage to use that mix of alchemy and magic to do away with a few more of the hourcruxes, in a much less dramatic fashion.

After they do away with the rest, after Voldemort is mortal again, Harry does send a letter back home.

He doesn’t want to die, but this plan is so risky, and the prophesy… Harry doesn’t know how to feel about it, but there’s always a chance he’ll die. He is cursed, after all.

Harry agrees to meet Voldemort on the battlefield, on the battlefield where he lures Voldemort to a special stretch of dirt. When their wands catch in that priori incantautum where they lock, the alchemy circle Harry aranged to have drawn activates.

Voldemort’s current body is a construct. It’s as much of a Hourcrux as anything else, and he comes apart.

16: Harry goes back to Resembool and sleeps for an entire week, then Winry and Granny make apple pie and life goes on.

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #168: First Blood

February, 1978

Wherein the Avengers meet their most hated foe of all time. More heinous than Dr Doom, more despicable than Kang, able to antagonize faster than a whole bushel of Ultrons.

This truly marks a turning point for the Avengers as they meet the Worst Person In the World.

Also Starhawk guest stars in a Rambo movie? I should probably actually read the issue before writing this part of the post.

Last time: THERE WAS A GIANT SPACE THING! But it was a friendly giant space thing and meant no harm. The Avengers met the Guardians of the Galaxy (the ones sans talking trees or raccoons, so probably the less popular iteration). They barely fought at all because both teams are heroes! A bad cyborg with Ultron-6′s lower body aesthetic has gone back to the past to maybe do bad things! He must be stopped!

So we pick up with the Avengers plus the Guardians minus Vance Astro rocketing toward Earth in a surprisingly roomy space capable Quinjet.

And its sans Vance Astro because unlike some Avengers I could mention coughcoughBEASTcough he knows better than to fuck up the space-time continuum by being on the same planet as his younger self.

He sure is lonely though. Alone on that big Drydock space station.

On the Quinjet, some of the Avengers and Guardians bond. Like Nikki Gold asking Scarlet Witch how she even functions in proximity to Thor all the time. How are you not turned on constantly, Nikki Gold asks.

Scarlet Witch: “Well, I am married, Nikki!”

Also this is an awkward line of questioning, Nikki.

Although I don’t think Scarlet Witch has ever shown much interest in Thor. Maybe its because they haven’t been on a team together that frequently but as far as I recall she was interested in Captain America but then became singularly focused on Vision once that sultry brooder heel face turned onto the scene.

Vision too, seems to have only had eyes for Wanda. Its sweet but for what happens later.

But while the people in the back bond, Captain America and Iron Man fret. They can’t seem to contact Jarvis at the mansion. In fact, the mansion’s receiving station seems to be shut down.

What could it mean??

Landing at the mansion, Captain America second guesses Iron Man’s command decisions because that didn’t stop being a thing that was simmering.

Iron Man: “Heads up, Avengers! We’d better be ready for anything -- just in case!”

Captain America: “If you were smart you’d order a precautionary recon, Shell-Head!”

Iron Man: “At ease, mister! I’ll make that decision when and if it’s warranted! Got it?”

But when they get inside the mansion hanger, there’s a loud

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

from the security system alarm.

Captain America: “You convinced that action is ‘warranted’ yet, tin man?”

I love catty Captain America.

The elevator out of the hanger has been deactivated so Thor rips the door open so the Avengers can fly or slide down the cables to the first floor.

My first instinct in this situation was to joke about casually destroying Tony Stark’s property but the man himself is already on it.

Iron Man: “The elevator’s on the first floor! We should be able to climb thru the hatch and get out -- without smashing any more doors, okay?”

Who do you think pays for all of this, Thor?

While Vision ghosts to check the living quarters and finds that every room has been ransacked but nothing stolen, the rest of the Avengers find that the first floor has been similarly torn apart.

Meanwhile the Guardians decide the Avengers have this handled and just stay out of the way.

Sometimes wisdom is letting other people do the work. Because you’d get in their way.

Iron Man discovers that someone is in the meeting room and has sealed the doors from the inside.

That’s no impediment to the armored Avenger, who can overload his repulsors against the door, creating a concentrated explosion.

But he does lament that it comes at the literal cost of a couple thousand dollars of vanadium-steel plate.

Continued dents into Tony Stark’s wallet aside, it did get them through the door and face to face with...

Sunglasses jerk?

So this was your masterplan all along!

Okay but actually: Henry Peter Gyrich from the National Security Council.

He tells everyone to get into the meeting room because he has something he wants to say.

Also he’s holding Jarvis hostage but everyone does that. Hawkeye did that.

Vision Solar Beams the ropes off Jarvis and was that really the best way to do that? You have HANDS. AND ROBOT STRENGTH.

Anyway, with everyone gathered, Gyrich does some worldbuilding.

The Avengers are provided many special privileges by the government. Excemptions from air-traffic regulations, exclusive communications wave-lengths, and oh hey A-1 security clearance and a unique Avengers priority status.

In fact, there’s only two people in the entire country who can override or deny those privileges: the President and Henry Peter Gyrich.

I don’t trust either of those people to override the Avengers.

I mean, lets face it, the president was recently revealed to be a supervillain who tried to take over the country with a mutant powered UFO. This is perhaps a time to scale back on the executive powers. WHEN A PRESIDENT TRIED TO TAKE OVER THE COUNTRY WITH A MUTANT POWERED UFO.

Give Avengers override to Congress or whatever. Because there have to be some checks and at least with Congress you probably won’t get the scenario of a majority of them trying to specifically take over the country with a UFO, powered by mutants.

But to get back to the point, during the Nefaria incident, Gyrich strolled through a twelve foot hole in the wall, subdued the butler, and gained access to everything in the entire building.

Including records, probably literal tons of sophisticated and classified hardware, and computers tied into the US security network. If Gyrich was an enemy agent instead of just a jerk, he could have left with a bushel of the nation’s most vital secrets.

Also, I guess this happens pretty soon after the Nefaria three-parter. Next morning, I guess. Since Beast was taking a shower and Cap was yelling at people for not waking up at 6 to jog thirty miles uphill both ways in the snow.

And I guess Gyrich has just been lurking in the mansion the whole time!

Gyrich keeps on dumping on the Avengers. I mean, its a bad look for them to arrive with a bunch of people with no security clearance right when he’s yelling at them over their security. And also Wonder Man doesn’t have security clearance.

Speaking of Wonder Man. After getting two previous terrible costumes destroyed in battle against Grim Reaper and Count Nefaria, Wonder Man apparently decided to just wear a red safari jacket over a black turtleneck.

It. Actually looks really good on him. Black and red are definitely his colors. And wearing weird but technically normal clothes definitely fits his mindset of not knowing whether he even deserves to be a superhero.

Anyway, after giving the Avengers the biz, Gyrich leaves but not without one parting shot.

Henry Peter Gyrich: “How can you expect to be trusted with this country’s top security clearance, when your own security is a joke?”

Iron Man: “Gyrich! Wait!”

Henry Peter Gyrich: “I’ll be back!”

With Gyrich its definitely a case of ‘you’re not wrong, you’re just an asshole.’ The Avengers’ security is and has always been a shit show. I’ve made constant jokes about it.

They needed someone to kick them in the ass eventually and Gyrich is just the asshole for the job. Of course, he’s also too much of an asshole but what he’s too much of an asshole about is kind of weird that we’re supposed to find it being an asshole. I’ll get to that later.

During all this, the Guardians are feeling very awkward, the way you might if you visit someone’s home and witness a family argument. Or when you get to meet your heroes and see them chewed out by a superior, I guess.

Jarvis feels terrible about all of this. He laments that maybe he should learn jiu-jitsu but Iron Man tells him its nobody’s fault.

Captain America: “BULL!”

Scarlet Witch: “Cap! What on --”

Captain America: “The fact is that we should have beaten Nefaria before he ever got near this mansion! But this team’s been a pushover since you became leader! It’s your fault... because you’re treating your chairmanship like a part-time job! But that’s what it is to you, isn’t it? You’re moonlighting as an Avenger, because you have a full-time job as Tony Stark’s personal bodyguard!”

Another case of ‘you’re not wrong, you’re just an asshole’ but also you’re kind of wrong Cap.

Who do you think pays for the Avengers? Tony Stark. They even live in his house. Maybe don’t begrudge him of needing Iron Man’s time.

But he’s not wrong in that if Iron Man doesn’t have time to devote to being the chairman, he should let someone else handle the responsibility.

But also he’s wrong by handling it this way. He should have brought these concerns to Iron Man privately long ago instead of letting them simmer and then air his dirty grievances all in front of the other Avengers and a bunch of superheroes from the future.

Iron Man retorts that his dealings with Stark are his own dang business and reminds Captain America that all Avengers are guaranteed their personal privacy by their charter.

So Cap punches Iron Man in the face, clearly hurting his own hand.

Captain America: “You low-life mercenary! Don’t the Avengers pay enough for your services?”

But before this can devolve into Civil War 0.2, Scarlet Witch uses her powers to huck a chair between them.

Scarlet Witch: “The days when Avengers engage in senseless brawls among themselves are past -- as long as the Scarlet Witch can help it... and I most certainly can!”

Iron Man: “All right, Wanda! I don’t need your --”

Scarlet Witch: “I have something else to say to Captain America, if you please, Mr. Chairman! I’ll grant you that we’ve had some rough times lately -- and it’s pretty easy to blame the team’s ineffectiveness on the leader, but before you do -- let’s talk about how much help you’ve been recently! Seems to me you haven’t been a factor at all... except once, when you got in my way and prevented me from defeating Ultron!”

Damn. I’d like to report a murder.

Also, does anyone else kind of want to see Scarlet Witch as chairperson right now?

There’s a moment of silence as I guess that all sinks in and then Cap turns around and stalks out of the room.

Captain America: “you win, wanda! you made your point!’

I remember the first time I read these issues, I was annoyed at how ineffectual the Avengers were and how much they fought but I’m kind of into it this time.

These enormous egos have more or less coexisted peacefully for so long with only momentary bits of friction. It was the Kooky Quartet that fought and bickered, not people like Cap and Iron Man.

But as stressful situations keep piling up, it makes a good character beat for them to start chafing at the other.

There’s actually a similar situation in the Busiek run because Busiek must have loved Shooter’s run on Avengers. As I recall, Scarlet Witch took on a sort of moral officer position to take some of the responsibility off of then chairman Cap’s hands.

Anyway, we then decide to check on Hawkeye and Two-Gun Kid again.

I’m getting sort of tired of these digressions where we see why these two aren’t helping the plot of the week. We don’t do it for Hellcat and I care much more about what she’s up to than I do these two.

Anyway.

They apparently quit their ranch job and are on an eastbound train. They’ve decided to rejoin the Avengers after all. I guess Hawkeye got tired of dude-ing it up.

To entertain the passengers and ruin a perfectly good deck of cards, they perform a trick. Two-Gun Kid tosses the deck into the air and Hawkeye nails four aces.

But after they sit down and start talking about how Two-Gun refuses to get in an airplane, he literally blinks out of existence.

Huh. So. I guess checking in on Two-Gun and Hawkeye was for plot reasons this time?

Back at the mansion, Iron Man apologizes to the Guardians for all the awkwardness they just had to sit through. But then they start making plans to guard Young Vance Astro. But it seems like Starhawk just up and vanished.

Wonder what Starhawk is up to?

For that we have to go to Forest Hills.

And here’s a Starhawk thing. Remember when I said Starhawk was in an on-again off-again fusion with Aleta? What that apparently means is that they share a body and can switch between their forms.

And Aleta!Hawk has followed her Starhawk senses to this house on Forest Hills which is filled with dread.

She rings the doorbell and... Carina? Is this where you got off to? Where’s Jan’s sultry summer jumpsuit?

Anyway, Aleta asks to see the master of the house.

And there he is. Michael Korvac.

Wearing green short shorts.

I have to say, something seems different about his lower body and also the rest of him. In that he doesn’t seem to be a cyborg anymore.

He sends Carina away but uses part of his power to protect her from whats about to go down.

Starhawk/Aleta is the only great power in all of existence who is aware of Korvac. And he can’t allow that knowledge to spread.

So one shall stand, one shall fall.

(Why didn’t you tell anyone before you came, Starhawk?)

Thus begins a battle that takes place on every plane of existence.

Which is to say, things are going to get trippy.

The battle is so intense, in fact, that we have the more cosmically aware characters of Marvel reacting to it, a trick that the Dark Phoenix Saga would later pull as well.

The fight creates a freak storm where Peter Parker and Mary Jane are shopping and Peter’s spider-sense danger squiggles louder than ever before.

While meditating, Dr Strange senses a great upheaval in the fabric of reality but is unable to sense the cause.

Captain Marvel senses powerful forces in conflict but despite his cosmic awareness, he cannot pinpoint the disturbance. Almost as if it were being veiled from his perceptions.

And as the fight draws to a close, the Silver Surfer flies over the Earth and senses a whisper of the cosmic wind, almost like a death moan that echoes through the corridors of time and space. But he too is left baffled for meaning.

Its hard to summarize a trippy cosmic battle that takes place on every plane of existence but here are some of the highlights.

While in the material plane, Starhawk fights glowy energy Korvac, there is also a subconscious realm where short shorts Korvac punches Aleta in the face.

Starhawk can sense that Korvac has divided his power to shield Carina from this fight but Korvac claims that Starhawk can sense that even divided Korvac’s power is supreme and that he fights a hopeless fight.

Korvac also states that the core of Starhawk’s strength is his bond with Aleta.

Korvac: “I never feared your power -- but in the oneness of your love... in the union of your souls lay strength to shake the heavens. Now, her will is silenced. No longer do you have the psychic might to keep me at bay.”

And Starhawk is subdued in the physical plane, Aleta defeated on the subconscious plane, and in the astral void where Starhawk is strongest his spirit is at Korvac’s mercy.

And Starhawk does not crave mercy and Korvac dares not risk it. Its not enough to execute Starhawk. He must be obliterated.

So he converts Starhawk’s spirit into base substance, shreds it, and then reduces him to dust.

And in the physical plane, Starhawk is also reduced to dust.

The greatest powers of the universe remain unaware of Korvac. So the ones who would oppose him do not yet prepare themselves for the war that has already begun.

And then Korvac resurrects Starhawk. Remakes him molecule by molecule exactly as he was. With one major change.

Korvac: “Henceforth, you will not remember this incident, nor the fact of my existence... and never again shall your senses perceive me! Go now -- aid your friends in their petty ‘mission’ in this era -- reassure them that it is imperative!”

In this way does Korvac cover his tracks. A missing Starhawk would have brought attention.

And Starhawk flies back to Avengers Mansion where the Avengers and Guardians are discussing the mission.

Iron Man figures that Tony Stark will buy a house in Vance’s neighborhood for the Guardians to use as an HQ. They’ll stay in the neighborhood and keep an eye on Vance and summon the Avengers when Korvac strikes.

Beast remembers that he’s the disguise expert and offers to help some of the Guardians blend in. But probably mostly Nikki Gold and Charlie-27. Yondu and Martinex are going to be hard to disguise.

Unless... I’m thinking trenchcoat and fedora. Its historically the most effective disguise ever.

Starhawk appears and tells the assembled teams that it is imperative that they proceed with the mission. ACCEPT THE WORD OF THE ONE WHO KNOWS!

Which leads me to think that whatever Korvac is planning, it has nothing to do with Vance Astro. Its something much bigger. Something that would aggrieve the greater cosmic powers.

But the belief that he plans to attack young Vance Astro is a helpful diversion that will keep the Avengers and Guardians occupied.

And the book closes out with Michael Korvac, scheming in the darkness of his study.

Probably up to something sinister.

I mean, that’s how I’m reading the tone.

But whatever his evil masterplan it involves short shorts, picking up dates at a fashion show, and a nice home in Forest Hills. So it can be nothing short of insidious and possibly nefarious.

If I didn’t already know where this was going, I would have no idea where this was going.

Next time: filler.

Because sometimes you need an extra month. Maybe Marvel should try that these days instead of having delays. Have a couple filler stories lined up. I guess that would interfere with writing for the trade though...

[gadgetgirl71]

Top Ten Tuesday 22 September 2020

Welcome to this weeks Top Ten Tuesday. Originally created by The Broke & The Bookish, which is now hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl. Each week it features a book or literary themed category. This weeks prompt is:

Books On My Autumn 2020 TBR:

Meet Me in London by Georgia Toffolo

What do you do when your fake engagement starts to feel too real…

Aspiring clothes designer Victoria Scott spends her days working in a bar in Chelsea, and her evenings designing vintage clothes, dreaming of one day opening her own boutique. But these aspirations are under threat from the new department store opening at the end of her road. She needs a Christmas miracle, but one is not forthcoming.

Oliver Russell’s Christmas is not looking very festive right now. His family’s new London department store opening is behind schedule, and on top of that his interfering, if well meaning, mother is pressing him to introduce his girlfriend to her. A girlfriend who does not exist. He needs a diversion. Something to keep his mother from interfering while he focuses on the business.

When Oliver meets Victoria, he offers a proposition: pretend to be his girlfriend at the opening of his store and he will provide an opportunity for Victoria to showcase her designs. But what starts as a business arrangement soon becomes something more tempting, as the fake relationship starts to feel very real. But when secrets in Victoria’s past are exposed will Oliver walk away, or will they both follow their hearts and find what neither knew they were looking for…

Breathless by Jennifer Niven

From Jennifer Niven, the New York Times bestselling author of All the Bright Places, comes an unforgettable new novel about a sensitive girl ready to live her bravest life–sex, heartbreak, family dramas, and all.

Before: With graduation on the horizon, budding writer Claudine Henry is making plans: college in the fall, become a famous author, and maybe–finally–have sex. She doesn’t even need to be in love. Then her dad drops a bombshell: he’s leaving Claude’s mother. Suddenly, Claude’s entire world feels like a lie, and her future anything but under control.

After: Claude’s mom whisks them away to the last place Claude could imagine nursing a broken heart: a remote, mosquito-infested island off the coast of Georgia. But then Jeremiah Crew happens. Miah is a local trail guide with a passion for photography–and a past he doesn’t like to talk about. He’s brash and enigmatic, and even more infuriatingly, he’s the only one who seems to see Claude for who she wants to be. So when Claude decides to sleep with Miah, she tells herself it’s just sex, nothing more. There’s not enough time to fall in love, especially if it means putting her already broken heart at risk.

Compulsively readable and impossible to forget, Jennifer Niven’s luminous new novel is an insightful portrait of a young woman ready to write her own story.

The Illustrated Child by Polly Crosby

Romilly lives in a ramshackle house with her eccentric artist father and her cat, Monty. She knows little about her past – but she knows that she is loved.

When her father finds fame with a series of children’s books starring her as the main character, everything changes: exotic foods appear on the table, her father appears on TV, and strangers appear at their door, convinced the books contain a treasure hunt leading to a glittering prize.

But as time passes, Romilly’s father becomes increasingly suspicious of everything around him, until, before her eyes, he begins to disappear altogether.

In her increasingly isolated world, Romilly turns to the secrets her father has hidden in his illustrated books, realising that there is something far darker and more devastating locked within the pages…

The truth.

The Illustrated Child is the unforgettable, beguiling debut from Polly Crosby.

Ghosts by Dolly Alderton

Nina Dean has arrived at her early thirties as a successful food writer with loving friends and family, plus a new home and neighbourhood. When she meets Max, a beguiling romantic hero who tells her on date one that he’s going to marry her, it feels like all is going to plan.

A new relationship couldn’t have come at a better time – her thirties have not been the liberating, uncomplicated experience she was sold. Everywhere she turns, she is reminded of time passing and opportunities dwindling. Friendships are fading, ex-boyfriends are moving on and, worse, everyone’s moving to the suburbs. There’s no solace to be found in her family, with a mum who’s caught in a baffling mid-life makeover and a beloved dad who is vanishing in slow-motion into dementia.

Dolly Alderton’s debut novel is funny and tender, filled with whip-smart observations about relationships, family, memory, and how we live now.

Friends and Strangers by J Courtney Sullivan

An insightful, hilarious, and compulsively readable novel about a complicated friendship between two women who are at two very different stages in life, from the best-selling author of Maine and Saints for All Occasions (named one of the Washington Post’s Ten Best Books of the Year and a New York Times Critics’ Pick).

Elisabeth, an accomplished journalist and new mother, is struggling to adjust to life in a small town after nearly twenty years in New York City. Alone in the house with her infant son all day (and awake with him much of the night), she feels uneasy, adrift. She neglects her work, losing untold hours to her Brooklyn moms’ Facebook group, her “influencer” sister’s Instagram feed, and text messages with the best friend she never sees anymore.

Enter Sam, a senior at the local women’s college, whom Elisabeth hires to babysit. Sam is struggling to decide between the path she’s always planned on and a romantic entanglement that threatens her ambition. She’s worried about student loan debt and what the future holds. In short order, they grow close. But when Sam finds an unlikely kindred spirit in Elisabeth’s father-in-law, the true differences between the women’s lives become starkly revealed and a betrayal has devastating consequences.

A masterful exploration of motherhood, power dynamics, and privilege in its many forms, Friends and Strangers reveals how a single year can shape the course of a life.

Our Story by Miranda Dickinson

Otty has just landed her dream job. She’s about to join the writing team of one of the most respected showrunners in TV. And then the night before her first day, she’s evicted from her flat. Joe has been working with Russell for years. He’s the best writer on his team, but lately something has been off. He’s trying to get his mojo back, but when his flatmate moves out without warning he has other things to worry about. Otty moving into Joe’s house seems like the most obvious solution to both their problems, but neither is prepared for what happens next. Paired together in the writing room, their obvious chemistry sparks from the page and they are the writing duo to beat. But their relationship off the page is an entirely different story, and neither of them can figure out why. And suddenly the question isn’t, will they, or won’t they? It’s why won’t they? An epic and modern love story for our times, we will all see ourselves reflected in Otty and Joe. We are our own biggest barriers and this novel explores what happens when we get out of our own way. And it is glorious.

From Breath and Ruin (Elements of Five Book 1) by Carrie Ann Ryan

New York Times bestselling author Carrie Ann Ryan dives into a world with magic and sacrifice with the Elements of Five.

It is said the Spirit Priestess will one day unite the two Kingdoms of the Maison Realm. She will one day fight alongside Wielders and unlock the five elements of power.

It wasn’t until I nearly died that I realized they were talking about me. They tell me I have the power to save the world, and yet the war raging around me seems insurmountable. I must rely on those I thought shunned me long ago: a boy who isn’t who I thought, and a new realm of warriors who have come to protect me.

The darkness is coming, and the Queen of Obscurité wants to ensure that the King of Lumière can’t get his hands on me. And to make that happen, the Queen will sacrifice anything—including me.

Reflect (Reclaim Trilogy Book 1) by Jess Booth & Joanna Reeder

Their romance only lasted a short few months… but that was more than 100 years ago.

Ever since his fiancé, Gemma MacLugh, was killed at the hands of a dragon shifter, vampire Leif Villers has mourned his loss. Still, a part of him never gave up on her. He could hear her voice, feel her love even through the grave, relive her memories over and over until they were stripped from him.

Now Leif has discovered the final piece to bring her back from death’s clutches. He carried her brooch, never knowing it held the key to resurrecting his love.

Too bad it’s now in the hands of the formidable kraken shifter who nearly destroyed the Shifter Academy in the recent vampire/shifter war and then slithered away, never to be seen again.

Across time, powerful selkie Gemma MacLugh–a magic user who can shape-shift into a seal–should have a wonderful, comfortable existence at her home in New York in 1897. But jealous sisters target her with their cruelty, making life miserable. If not for her Grandmother and her best friend and fellow selkie, Frederick, things might have been truly unbearable.

But when a mermaid seer foretells her upcoming death and opportunity arises to leave her home and travel across the country to a boarding house in Washington, she takes it.

To get away from her cruel sisters.

To escape her destiny.

But is it luck or fate’s final joke when she meets a tall, dark and handsome man by the name of Leif Villers?

Their love will challenge time and death itself, but can Leif get Gemma back? Can Gemma truly escape her fate?

**Reflect is the first book in the Reclaim Trilogy within the Shifter Academy Universe written by USA Today Bestselling Authors, Jesse Booth and Joanna Reeder**

The Trials of Koli (Rampart Trilogy Book 2) by M R Carey

The Trials of Koli is the second novel in M R. Carey’s breathtakingly original Rampart trilogy, set in a strange and deadly world of our own making.

Beyond the walls of Koli’s small village lies a fearsome landscape filled with choker trees, vicious beasts and shunned men. As an exile, Koli’s been forced to journey out into this mysterious, hostile world. But he heard a story, once. A story about lost London, and the mysterious tech of the Old Times that may still be there. If Koli can find it, there may still be a way for him to redeem himself – by saving what’s left of humankind.

The Golden Hour by Beatriz Williams

The New York Times bestselling author of The Summer Wives and A Certain Age creates a dazzling epic of World War II-era Nassau—a hotbed of spies, traitors, and the most infamous couple of the age, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

The Bahamas, 1941. Newly-widowed Leonora “Lulu” Randolph arrives in Nassau to investigate the Governor and his wife for a New York society magazine. After all, American readers have an insatiable appetite for news of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, that glamorous couple whose love affair nearly brought the British monarchy to its knees five years earlier. What more intriguing backdrop for their romance than a wartime Caribbean paradise, a colonial playground for kingpins of ill-gotten empires?

Or so Lulu imagines. But as she infiltrates the Duke and Duchess’s social circle, and the powerful cabal that controls the islands’ political and financial affairs, she uncovers evidence that beneath the glister of Wallis and Edward’s marriage lies an ugly—and even treasonous—reality. In fact, Windsor-era Nassau seethes with spies, financial swindles, and racial tension, and in the middle of it all stands Benedict Thorpe: a scientist of tremendous charm and murky national loyalties. Inevitably, the willful and wounded Lulu falls in love.

Then Nassau’s wealthiest man is murdered in one of the most notorious cases of the century, and the resulting coverup reeks of royal privilege. Benedict Thorpe disappears without a trace, and Lulu embarks on a journey to London and beyond to unpick Thorpe’s complicated family history: a fateful love affair, a wartime tragedy, and a mother from whom all joy is stolen.

The stories of two unforgettable women thread together in this extraordinary epic of espionage, sacrifice, human love, and human courage, set against a shocking true crime . . . and the rise and fall of a legendary royal couple.

Until next Tuesday

#JustForFun, #Top Ten Tuesday, #TopTenTuesday, #TTT

[jewel021]

[Translated] The Current Truth of Mainland China in My Viewpoint

The Current Truth of Mainland China in My Viewpoint - Maybe Worse than Your Thought Please help to spread around. Please help to spread around. Due to my current situation, I may delete the original article any time. I am a college dropout from Mainland China. When I was a kid, I was bullied frequently due to my small physical size. As a result, I became sympathetic to the weak ones. Every time, when I see that the majority finds reasons to destroy minorities’s dignity, I always stand by with the weak sides. I was a loner when I grew up without many friends. This gave me a lot of time to read and think. One day, when I was in the college, I read Yang Xianhui and George Orwell’s books. My heart ached with anger and sorrow and fell into deep fears. The contents of those books had happened and would continue happening. I fear that they will further sensor and monitor into people’s thoughts and minds. If there is only one voice allowed, that voice basically only tells lies. Therefore, I always keep my mind sober and rational as long as there are sensors and monitors around. I feel sorry for my parents because I am from a poor family in a village. I was accepted into a prestigious university but dropped out. I have not yet told my family and do not know what to do. I plan to study one more year and retake the college entrance exam. I hope to go to abroad in the future. I have limited writing abilities, and my writing style is vulgar. I only try to justify what happen. Let me talk about the current situation in Mainland. 1: Indecency from diplomacy to the public broadcasting and from the top to the bottom. The statements of spokesperson from Foreign Ministry during the last Chairman’s regime were standardized and repetitive but still sounded diplomatic. During the current regime, the diplomatic style is changed to rude and unreasonable, even bitchy. The new style is appreciated and encouraged within the internal management, and the ones with the most fierce remarks were promoted the quickest. In general, the statements, which were recommended by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) controlled media and were praised by the Little PInky [1], were indecent, at least, very unprofessional. For instance, the spokesperson called out certain countries, "troublemaker" and openly stated "live with it." They often rephrased their behaviors as "angrily rebuke" and "diss." They praised bitches, scoundrels, and racketeers as their ideological idols in their massive propaganda statements. If you randomly visited any website from the Mainland, the first thing you saw would be: "Dear Chairman Xi Cares the Poor." The next headlines would be: "Fai Ching [2] from Hong Kong Blocked Tourists Going Back Home", "The Americans Scare Pissing Themselves and Beg to Stop Trade War", etc.. I was too lazy to make screenshots. Believe it or not. Just go ahead to look around those popular Simplified Chinese websites, such as Hao123.com, NetEase, etc. These information was all real. They turned the patriotism into indecency. No wonder there is a saying, "Patriotism is the last shelter for hooligans." For instance, a bandit raped, stole, robbed, and committed all manners of crimes in a village. When the Japanese came, the bandit shouted out, "I am a Chinese man!" He fought the Japanese in the name of patriotism. Then, all his crimes were forgiven, and he became a hero instead of a villain, whom the villagers used to hate.[3] Nowadays, I do not know how many people like this bandit are under the disguise of patriotism. Those who shouted online, "Beat U.S. and kick Japan," may actually be loan sharks and pimps in real life. I met several of them like this in real life, including corrupted governmental officials. Those corrupted governmental officials made the most radical comments in WeChat Moments.[4] Not only the people are indencent, but also their behaviors are immoral. They believe that the patriotism has the highest moral value. If that is so, why do they act like extremely vicious mobs? They assaulted, smashed, robbed, killed, and eventually harmed their fellow citizens. Patriotism should be influencing others by persuasion, not threats. They used very malicious languages and behaviors to attack others, including smashing a Japanese brand car owner's head by using a metal U-shaped lock. Does anyone actually believe that the car owner would become more patriotic after receiving this evil attack? Besides, the car owner was labelled "unpatriotic" by them! A few days ago, I watched a video featuring some Northeasterners cursed Hong Kongers using foul languages and dirty words acted like a mob of hooligans, and they shouted, "You, Motherfucker, Hong Kong belongs to China." They also threatened to beat up some people. Those Northeasterners did not even understand why Hong Kongers protested. Nobody will be sincerely convinced by being attacked by foul languages and threats. The Mainland's internet was full of people acted like members of Boxer Rebellion [5], and those people claimed to wipe out whoever advocates Hong Kong independence. Those wolf warriors [6] in the name of patriotism from the Mainland to overseas behaved violently and filthily. Who actually disgraced Chinese people? One of the most notorious wolf warriors was the one, who a CCTV journalist, Kong LinLin, committed assault in the UK Conservative Party Convention 2018. Apparently, some other aggressive international students from Mainland acted like Kong and used some similar behaviors to grab people's attention online in the name of patriotism in order to get a good job or get promotions when they go back to the Mainland. 2. CCP kidnaps China CCP claims the ownership of everything in China. Anyone attacking the government is labeled as unpatriotic. Anyone disagreeing with Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is labeled as ass-licking foreign dog. Anyone believing that stinky tofu is unhealthy is labeled as feeling superior of eating foreign junk fast food. Anybody, who is detested by CCP, will be called out by CCP: "Disgrace to China and Chinese people." CCP has perfected their ways of doing this method lately. In the past year, many people, groups, organizations have been called out. They created a false sense, which everyone outside of the Mainland was alienating and attacking China and its people, and they did nothing else for China and its people for an entire year. Nobody can even clarify anything was untrue on the news or in the social media or other discussion forum online. People are unable to post any opposition opnion online without being attacked by the little pinky or the wolf warriors. Even if the opposite opinion was not posted on the front page, they will still manage to dig out the post and curse the commentator. There will be at least a few dozens of people attacking the commentator, and the commentator's message box will be full of verbal attacks as well. As a result, the post will be censored and deleted by the website. This kind of scenario happens more on Bilibili. In the past few decades, CCP successfully established a bottom line for every Chinese as solely and wholly maintaining the nation's sovereignty. However, hatefully, CCP specifically mixed up the concepts of CCP or party, nation, and government. Therefore, anybody, who is against the CCP's interests, will be labeled as the advocates for independence of Hong Kong, Taiwan, Uygur region, etc. Let me give you an example why the CCP is wrong to mix up the concepts. Kuo Ming Tang (KMT) used to say to take back the Mainland. What if we reverse the CCP's notorious slogan, "Take back Taiwan"? Let KMT have the Mainland. I don't think they will reject the offer. Hence, in this scenario, Taiwan and the Mainland were still the same sovereign nation. So the problem is not about maintaining a nation's sovereignty rather than who rules the nation. As I stated in my previous texts, when maintaining the nation's sovereignty becomes everybody's bottom line, Chinese will react with rage towards anybody, who is labelled as separatist. This method is time-tested and proved useful, and the CCP keeps reusing over and over. 3. About 70 to 80 millions employees under the government's payroll. [8] The regime basically ties every citizen's livelihood into the same boat as theirs. More and more people take the governmental employee entrance exam every year. It doesn't mean that government employees have bigger paychecks than the rest of the society, but in fact, the government employees have good benefits, including paid maternity leave. [9] A benefit like this is very rare in the private sectors. Plus, working for the government is less stressful compared to working in the private sectors. The largest employer in the Mainland is the CCP and its controlled government. The reason for the CCP and the government to be the best employer in China is that they controlled every resource in the society. The CCP's controls are everything, but the people cannot feel the CCP's existence in their daily life, because the CCP is everywhere like the air which people breath in and they integrate into every corner in the society and people's daily life. People use to surround by air, so they will not pay attention to the air. When people walk on a street and see a wall, but people do not question why the wall is there, because they unconsciously recognize the existence of the wall by default. For instance, one of my relatives asked me, "Have you joined the party?" I replied, "Which party?" Then, he stared at me as I was a retarded person. On July 1, someone reminded me that was the Party's Day today. I asked, "Which party?" The person replied, "Of course, the CCP!" I responded, "Why wouldn't people and the media say the holiday is the CCP's Day instead of the Party's Day?" This is exactly like I stated previously. People have unconsciously recognized solely, perpetual, and lawful existence of the CCP by default. This is not based on fear, because people are used to it. People do not question the CCP nor sense anything wrong with it. People do not aware its integration into their daily life. Its supervision and control are like the gravity. It is always there and unsurprising. This is the reality of the mindset of the majority of the Mainlanders. 4. Most of the contents of the CCP come from the mid-age people between 50 and 60. Most of the young people are the CCP's defenders. I am merely stating my observation and not encouraging people to believe if there is any good in the CCP. The mid-age people were harmed the most by the CCP, so many of them were actually anti-communists. However, they barely express their viewpoint online and rarely pass their political view to the next generation. Next, I am going to write about the differences in the political views in the younger generations. For those were born in the 80s and dislike the CCP, they had emigrated to other countries or regions already. For those staying behind, they have a family and own properties (condos) in the Mainland. They are very cautious and never reveal their true political views. They sometimes take things as they are and immerse themselves into the "wisdom" of only serving self-interest. Moreover, they will not be the main force standing with the pro-democracy movement because they are no longer young. Those CCP's supporters and the CCP do not realize that the 80s group disgruntles the CCP the most among all other age groups. The millennials have the most little pinky within this age group. I do not know how many people in this age group actually read the news or receive information outside of CCP controlled media or social media. I feel pessimistic about what I witnessed. For instance, My high school classmate, Rhee, was from a prominent family. His father was a deputy director of Bureau of Land and Resources (BLR), and his mother was also in the leadership of the government. His family accumulates their wealth not merely based on his parents's salaries. His family bought 2 additional properties in Shanghai, where they did not reside. When Rhee studied abroad, he called other international students from Hong Kong names. He also tore up Hong Konger's posters on the pro-democracy movement. Moreover, he obstructed the Hong Konger's peaceful protests and demonstrations. I do not believe that those were the correct way to express one's disagreement. I believe that people persuade the opposite party by reasoning and logics. People should always defend for everyone's freedom of speech, even if they do not agree with that person. People should not simply silence the voice from an opposition party. Rhee sent the video quarrelling with the Hong Kongers to a group chat with his high school classmates. Other people in the group chat clapped and cheered praising him as "a real man" and "a good patriotic young man". They also scolded the Hong Kongers severely. Nobody ever thought about how Rhee's parents were able to pay his tuition when he studied abroad. Nobody questioned whose right was infringed when Rhee's father signed over some rights of some public resources at work. Nobody thought about this, but jubilated and complimented Rhee. He did not tear up for filming video and seeking attention, but he really believed that his actions were patriotic. The millennials aboard are like Rhee anti-democracy and support building firewall on the internet to decouple the Simplified Chinese to the rest of the world. A few days ago, I went to a prestigious university in Shanghai to look for a former classmate of mine. I overheard something when I was eating with my classmate. It was a conversation among a few fine-looking students regarding the current situation in Hong Kong. I heard clearly from one of the students, "This was all the US stirred up the fire. Those Hong Kong separists should be executed." I was too angry to eat. I was in rage, but felt pessimistic because those students were from top-ranking universities in the Mainland. They may study abroad one day. Why would they think like this? I did not understand. 5. Little pinky is disgusted. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [1] Little Pinky, a group of people [2] Fai Ching, the teenagers or young adults, who are useless and have something wrong in their mind behaving aggressively. Also, means negatively as a combination of jerk, asshole, and idiot. [3] Author's reference was related to Japan's invasion to China. For more information, you may find on other scholar's historical articles or archvies. [4] WeChat Moments: WeChat is the most popular social networking app among Chinese speaking people. WeChat Moment is very similar to Facebook or Instagram, which those two are banned in Mainland China. For more information, you may find the information online. The Translator of this article, Jewel, does not recommend to install this app to your device or link or cellphone number to it. [5] Boxer Rebellion: [6] Wolf Warriors: [7] Bilibili: [8] 4% - 5% of the population based on the official data, which could be false. [9] Mantatory paid maternity leave: ================= To Be Continued

[sineala]

Bullet Points

Hey, Tumblr! I wanted to tell you about Bullet Points, my new favorite canonical Marvel AU, so that maybe I can convince you to love it too! So I have prepared a summary and picspam! I had not even heard of Bullet Points until I found someone on the internet saying there should be Steve/Tony fanfic set in Bullet Points. And then I read Bullet Points, and oh my God, does there ever need to be Steve/Tony fanfic set in Bullet Points.

(Don't worry, I have written some, because I try to be the change I want to see. But there needs to be more!)

Bullet Points is a five-issue limited series from 2007 by J. Michael Straczynski and Tommy Lee Edwards. It's definitely of interest to Steve/Tony fans, or at least to Steve/Tony fans who are willing to do a bit of work with the timeline to get them together. But I am pretty sure Steve/Tony fandom will like the premise.

You see, Bullet Points is a universe where skinny Steve Rogers is Iron Man in World War II. And he survives World War II. I knew you were interested.

Bullet Points takes place on Earth-70105. On this Earth, Erskine is shot the night before Rebirth is scheduled to happen -- and without Erskine, Rebirth doesn't happen. So skinny Steve Rogers, determined to serve, who has waited in line all night to have the first crack at Rebirth -- well, he impresses the men who are in charge of a different secret project. Project Iron Man.

Before we go on, I feel the need to inform you that Steve in Bullet Points is SUPER PRETTY. VERY VERY PRETTY. Here, I brought some visual aids:

(I happen to like the art style of Bullet Points a lot, but, yeah, it's all like this. Kind of dark and smeary.)

So the Army has this giant metal weaponized suit of armor, and only a skinny 4-F guy like Steve could ever fit inside. What a coincidence! But here's the catch: he's going to need to undergo surgery to have the chestplate physically wired to his heart, via electrodes. And he's going to have to have the chestplate for the rest of his life. The chestplate is part of the control system that connects the armor to his nervous system -- yeah, yeah, Comic Book Science -- and it also acts as a dead man's switch, because the armor will self-destruct if he dies or if the Axis tries to yank him out and put their own man in.

Here's some more pictures of Steve, looking very pretty and very earnest about wanting this opportunity to serve his country:

(I know he looks almost brunet, but he’s supposed to be blond. The actual brunets basically have their hair colored black. It’s very dark art.)

And here is Steve and his Iron Man suit, before they get hitched:

So after the surgery -- I will omit pictures of the surgery, but Steve is conscious the entire time and of course he toughs it out and says he can take it and urges them to keep going -- the Iron Man makes his debut at Guadalcanal. (Which is, like, two years after Erskine's death; I don't know what took so long.) And of course he saves the day.

A fact that is probably of interest to you h/c junkies is that fighting in the Iron Man suit causes Steve immense physical pain and exhaustion, but of course he keeps going, because he's Steve:

He doesn't get frozen. He fights all through the war. Later on we learn that the primary person responsible for keeping Steve in one piece is Reed Richards, who has taken time away from his outer space ambitions (yes, of course he still wants to go to space) to follow Steve around and patch him up:

(You could probably ship Reed/Steve if you wanted. I'm just saying.)

Now I will briefly summarize some of the rest of the plot, which does intersect with the Steve plot, although honestly mostly I was just here for the Steve (and Tony) stuff and I disagree with some of the plot choices in the rest of it.

Anyway. Erskine wasn't the only death, the night before Rebirth. The MP guarding him was also gunned down -- with the same bullet -- and that man's name was Benjamin Parker. Yep. That would be Peter's Uncle Ben. Who he never gets a chance to meet. And without Uncle Ben's stabilizing influence in his life -- because, what, Aunt May doesn't count? -- he grows up into a brash, risk-taking kind of kid. The story skips ahead to when he's a teenager; we don't get precise dates, but based on the fact that the rest of modern Marvel is kicking off in these issues, and based on the design of the cars, I'm gonna date it to the early 60s. Anyway, Peter's on a field trip and his friends dare him to steal a jeep and so they do and eventually Peter ends up wandering into the gamma bomb test site and... yep, he becomes the Hulk. Yeah, okay. Fine. (Later on it turns out that Bruce Banner is in fact Spider-Man. And Strange becomes Wolverine but Wolverine is also still Wolverine. Making sense is not really a thing this AU has going for it.)

Steve, by the way, has just been given the Presidential Medal of Freedom, is a colonel, is no longer on active duty, and Reed is still trying to talk him into actually retiring because he's probably going to kill himself if he fights again. Steve tells Reed he'll be fine and that Reed should go ahead and go on his rocket mission already and stop hanging around patching him up. I mention this scene because even middle-aged Steve is still SUPER PRETTY, oh my God. Look at him:

So of course when the Hulk starts rampaging through New York, the only person who has a shot at stopping him is, of course, Steve Rogers, the Iron Man. (They want to make more Iron Men, but unsurprisingly, very few people want to sign up for a lifetime physical bond to a suit of armor.) And so they pull him out of retirement, and they want him to suit up, and they want him to take down the Hulk.

(I think you can make a case that going in, Steve knows it isn't going to go well. He expresses doubt that the new armaments they're proposing can take down the Hulk, but he doesn't want them to pull Reed off his rocket project and help him, and, okay, now I kind of think Steve knows what he's in for, as I'm rereading this. But he goes anyway. Oh, Steve.)

Steve fights the Hulk.

Steve dies.

Sure, it's tragic. But it's noble, it's pretty much exactly the death Steve would have wanted, and honestly it's the kind of death that's really, really easy to AU. *cough*

And there's still more story left!

The Fantastic Four's launch is sabotaged. Sue, Johnny, and Ben die. Reed loses an eye. At the funeral, a shadowy government figure approaches him and offers him the chance to become part of SHIELD. So Reed actually ends up the director of SHIELD, because I guess the best qualifications for that are (a) going gray at the temples and (b) having an eyepatch. Yes, that means he basically looks exactly like 616 Fury. I hope JMS thought he was hilarious when he wrote this.

And this is where Tony Stark finally enters the picture.

Here he is. He's young and pretty:

He shows up at SHIELD because he wants the contract to make more Iron Men, and, as you can see, he wants to know why there aren't more. Reed's answer is that he doesn't want anyone to suffer like Steve did:

And Tony, because he's Tony, also wants to volunteer himself for the Iron Man testing:

Reed says no, because Tony has a heart condition.

Reed then introduces Tony to the actual candidate for the new Iron Man... Bucky Barnes. I neglected to mention this before, but we see Steve save Bucky's life during the war. (They don't seem to personally know each other; that's as close as they get in this AU.) Bucky feels that he owes Steve his life and wants to repay the debt. Tony thinks Bucky is a lousy candidate because he's old, but Reed is kind of snappish about being in charge here and wanting to pick someone who doesn't have a weak heart (and, understandably, Reed is sad about having lost everyone he's ever cared about and doesn't want anyone else to die). So Bucky is still the SHIELD pick for Iron Man.

Spoiler alert: Bucky does not get to be Iron Man.

Reed shows Tony around the helicarrier, introduces him to Bruce Banner (Spider-Man), and then... Galactus shows up. To destroy the planet. Yeah, it's pretty sudden.

(Also, weirdly, the beginning of the last issue dates it as forty years after Erskine's death (which would then be the 1980s), but I don't think that can be right, so I'm going to ignore that and pretend it's all still in the 60s sometime because it seems weird that Reed spent at least twenty whole years building SHIELD and wants to put 60-year-old Bucky in the suit. I know that Tony complains that Bucky is too old but that's really, really too old, isn't it? So I say we can totally ignore that dating and go with the 1960s.)

Right. Galactus. Oh no! Everyone's gonna die! But, wait, who is this dapper figure, stealing the Iron Man suit?

Did you guess Tony Stark? You did? Did you guess that he's going to be Iron Man even though his heart might give out from the strain? You did? Oh, Tony.

(Yeah, I'm not sure how he can wear the suit without having had the chestplate surgery either. Whatever! Comics!)

Anyway, everyone fights Galactus and the Hulk shows up and fights Galactus and dies and a lot of people die and it is noble and tragic but the Earth is saved and there is a big funeral at the end. I would just like to note that Tony survives; we see him in the background a few times. THE END.

So, obviously, I think this is perfect for Steve/Tony fandom. You can write fic where Steve doesn't die and he meets Tony! You can write fic where he and Tony knew each other at some point before the Hulk fight! Maybe Steve knew Tony when he was growing up! For the h/c fans, Steve and Tony can both have amazing chestplate-related Iron Man armor angst and pain! You can explore an all-new age difference because Steve is actually older than Tony! You can have a new and different take on Tony's hero worship of Steve, because Steve is Iron Man, because they're both Iron Man! So many story ideas!

Sure, you have to AU it! But think about, say, how many Noir Steve/Tony fics there are! And Steve doesn't even canonically exist in Marvel Noir!

The back of the Bullet Points trade paperback proclaims it to be "the Marvels of the new millennium" and while I enjoyed it a lot, as an assessment of its quality I think it's fair to say that it is definitely not the next Marvels, although from a perspective of the feels it gives me it was certainly worth it. It wasn't what you might call especially popular, meaning that I was able to find the TPB for approximately $3 new. It's on comiXology and Marvel Unlimited as well. So it is definitely easy to find and read! You all should read it! And then come write fic with me!

[thepinkseat-askthemoonbunny]

Dumbledore Explained

Right, so I found a chapter of Harry Potter rants on fanfiction,net. And this chapter was super long and it lists almost all of the common reasons why people hate Dumbledore or they think Dumbledore is bad/evil person. So one by one, I was able to explain most of these things and have decided to compile my answers. The link to that chapter/url is here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11917130/1/Harry-Potter-Rants , and my answers to all of her points are below:

1: Dumbledore is only a teacher. He's not Headmaster, he's not an Auror, it's a Muggle orphanage and thus outside jurisdiction. He has neither the power or the responsibility to stop a kid from doing things in a Muggle orphanage because there's no direct violation.

2. Not his job, they had tons of other teachers, Tom is not Dumbledore's problem.

3. Dumbledore DID report his suspicions. Hagrid said this, Dumbledore tried to convince people that Hagrid was innocent. Nobody believed him, and Dippet wanted to keep everything hush hush. Again, he's one guy and only a schoolteacher with none of his fame and influence yet.

4. The Ministry didn't give a damn, Hagrid was a half giant and as such they were prejudiced against him. Plus, a ghost? Really? She didn't see WHO killed her, she didn't know about Tom. She just looked into a pair of eyes and...ghost.

5. Where is this clear evidence? Dumbledore ain't psychic, what evidence did he have? Plus the book is called Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, not Albus Dumbledore and the Chamber of Secrets.

6. It's a MAGIC school. Where kids go to learn MAGIC things. Of COURSE they're gonna be around love potions and stuff. They have teacher supervision, they have to learn how to BREW these things! Dumbledore can't stop crazy kids or some random crazy people from doing stupid human things. The spells have to be taught.

7. No explanation for this, that was stupid. However, we do know why he hired Lockhart. Plus the job was cursed, he had to find SOMEBODY to fill it. And plot, these teachers gave Harry his story every year basically.

8. Dumbledore keeping Snape out of Azkaban literally won them the war. If Snape wasn't around to spy, we would've all been fucked without his intelligence. I don't know why he made him a teacher, I assume it's because he was highly skilled in Potions so that was the best job for him.

9. That was stupid as hell, but this trope has been around since the dawn of man so I don't really care.

10. He didn't know Sirius was innocent, only three people did and two of them were dead, one was presumed dead. He wasn't gonna get a trial from Fudge, they wanted to Kiss him. But he should have pushed for a trial, I agree.

11. The scar was a Horcrux, what was there to investigate about it? Plus, not his job. That scar is literally the entire plot from the books, if Dumbledore investigated it, Harry would once again have no storyline.

12. There WAS no safe way. This is stated in the books, the only way to destroy a Horcrux is to destroy the vessel. Harry was that vessel.

13. This was foul, completely and utterly foul. I have no explanation for this, but Harry COULD NOT be removed from that house, for his own safety.

14. Snape is an asshole, he chose to be an asshole. He's a grown man who should have straightened up his act, I don't know WHY Dumbledore didn't fire him but he needed him close.

15. Kids are evil little shits. You really think that he's going to be able to stop every kid in the school from being a bully? Nope, that's not the way school works. He should have done more, I definitely agree. However, Dumbledore is the principal. And in school, the principal isn't really the one who handles bullying like that. It's the teachers who take care of that stuff. Hogwarts is NOT a Muggle school. It's a fantasy school in a fantasy world, real world logic does not apply.

16. Plothole

17. Plot. This is Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, this was literally the whole story. All of that mess with the Stone was the plot, that was Harry's storyline.

18. Again, plot. See number 17 for title of book.

19. I am so SICK of this stupid theory. We literally have no proof that Dumbledore ordered Madam Pomfrey to do jack squat, and even if he did she could have disobeyed him. Harry stays at school for nine months out of the year, that's more than enough time for him to look pretty healthy if a little skinny. Most injuries heal around that time, it's not shocking to think nobody would notice. The Dursleys didn't physically abuse Harry all that much either, not many in that neighborhood knew he existed. Maybe there wasn't anything for her to find.

20. Again, plot point. NOBODY knew what was really up with Quirrell, except Harry and that was because he saw Voldemort's face himself. Quirrell was the antagonist of the first story, plot device.

21. Nobody knew where that troll came from. Nobody, what was Dumbledore supposed to do? Stalk every teacher twenty four seven? He has better things to do with his life.

22. He was a BABY dragon! Hagrid could have easily hidden him. Come on, Dumbledore ain't omniscient. He's not psychic, it's not his job to know what everybody is doing every second of every day. Hagrid isn't at the castle often, plus dragons ain't dark creatures. So no protective enchantment would have detected him.

23. Plot. Harry needed to investigate, this is his story. Plus I believe that was his detention. Magic isn't infallible, these protective enchantments aren't airtight. We need things to keep the story going.

24. Plot point. If Dumbledore had come back quickly, Harry wouldn't have had time to retrieve the Stone.

25. Who cares? It was irrelevant to the story whether they were counseled or not. The wizard world doesn't act like the Muggle one when it comes to mental issues.

26. This is already explained, Harry had to go back. What protections would you have had him enact? They're Muggles.

27. Again, maybe Harry is just skinny. It's not unusual, plus everyone probably figured he's gonna eat at school so he should be fine.

28. Dippet did the same thing. Plus the Basilisk is dead, the threat has already been dealt with. Why tell anybody, it's been taken care of.

29. The Basilisk is dead, there's nothing in the chamber that can hurt anybody now. What's the point.

30. You can't stop people from spreading rumors, people are going to be assholes if they want to be. People spread rumors about Dumbledore, he can't stop them. People are going to gossip and lie on you.

31. They HAD mandrakes, Professor Sprout had them. Plus they probably didn't have time to ship mandrakes from some foreign country, even with magic the negotiations and dealings, finding a seller would have taken too long.

32. Plot device and plus it's a magical school. Such things probably happen all the time.

33. Explained this already, the wizarding world as a whole is shit when it comes to mental illness.

34. Already explained this.

35. Plot. It's the Harry Potter series, of course Harry and his friends are going to be the ones to track down and destroy the Horcruxes. In a kids/YA story, the adults are often absent minded to give the young heroes some leeway.

36. Already explained that, there was no way to remove the scar. Dumbledore says in book one that he can't do crap about it.

37. It was a government mandated safety precaution. Dumbledore may be powerful but he isn't above the law or anybody's government. Him "caving" to the Ministry, what would you have him do? Break the law and get himself locked up?! Skeeter is not a reliable source AT ALL, and him threatening to close the school would have done nothing. It's a public school, the board of governors decides all those things.

38. Again, maybe there were no physical signs. Oh he knew, but maybe nobody else did because the physical abuse would have disappeared.

39. He didn't ignore that. He chased the Dementors from the pitch. Reporting it to whom? The government that put them there in the first place?

40. You just answered that. It would have made the whole plotline of the book moot.

41. Already explained this.

42a/b. Already explained this too.

42. Plot point, AND Barty had captured Moody. Maybe he learned how to imitate his mannerisms?

43. Plot point. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire?

44 Voldemort ISN'T a student? Students enter their own names, nobody else does it for them (Harry was a special case). Nobody would have thought of that, just because Dumbledore doesn't pull perfect solutions all the time doesn't make him stupid. And if he did that, books five through seven would have been moot, plot device.

45. Dumbledore could have done that, but people are going to spread rumors regardless. He clearly favors Harry, people would think he's lying for him. Kids are going to be dickheads.

46. Okay, so you want him to take every single student's mail and screen it? Invasion of privacy, plus it'd be impossible because that's a shit ton of mail to go through. People get secret passages, and Dumbledore can't stop hundreds of random strangers from writing letters.

47. He did, Minerva was guarding him. Nobody would have known that Fudge would be dumb enough to bring a Dementor. Plus what happened is exactly what Fudge would have done in any case, there wasn't going to be a trial. Why does everyone think that Hogwarts enchantments work like some sort of alarm system? Nothing is going to go off or beep and flash to tell Dumbledore anything, that never happens in the books.

48. To Rita?! RITA SKEETER IS NOT A RELIABLE SOURCE! Keep in mind this same Rita slandered Dumbledore in the papers AND Harry, with the Minister's help. And her slander the Ministry? She'd get arrested just like that. Fudge of course would have ignored him, he tried to cover up Voldemort's return.

49. Explained this already

50. Explained this too.

51. The books explain this, he was trying to protect them both from danger. Voldy could see into Harry's mind, this would have screwed up everything.

52. Nobody knows, this is really small and not that important.

53. This was foul and horrible and he should have done something about it.

54. The GOVERNMENT forced her on him, plus he probably didn't see anything. Harry didn't tell anybody about that Blood Quill, he only saw one instance of Um-bitch's treatment and that was with Marietta. Plus then he got kicked out by the government, so there was nothing he could do.

55. Probably didn't want to burden Harry with that. Plus then he'd have to tell Harry he's a Horcrux, and he didn't want to tell him till the very end.

56. No alternatives, Occulmency is the strongest mental shield. Snape was the best Occulmens around pretty much, he was the most qualified even if he was a dick.

57. Plot device, plus nobody wants to tell a kid all that heavy stuff.

58. Explained this already.

59. Explained this already.

60. Explained already, mind connection with Voldemort plus it's a plot device.

61. To stretch the storyline further. The books would have been over in ten minutes.

62. No it doesn't, if the government ignored most of the shit that went down in Hogwarts, one kid trying to commit murder isn't going to move them. Lots of kids join the DE, he can't stop them all. Plus Dumbledore was kind of dying, he has bigger fish to fry. This is still very bad, it's horrible. But there's the explanation.

63. This was a very personal thing for him, plus it's a plot device, the mentor always has to get killed off. That ring held a lot of private and painful moments for him, and maybe he didn't want anybody else to get hurt.

64. Harry was stuck with the fate of the world the moment his parents were whacked. Plus it's the Harry Potter series, he has to solve the problems, he has to fight Voldemort, he's kind of the protagonist.