#i'm not even making up a fake name to protect his identity

[graincracket]

So like

If we're gonna stick with Yuma being named Yuma, the fuck do we call this guy??

[moonchild-in-blue]

Vessel and the New Lore

So the new messages got me thinking and connecting dots. I don't know coherent this will sound, but I think there's something here? Anyways. Something about the relationship Vessel has with himself vs. The Mask.

I thought it'd be interesting to link the parallels between the Room Bellow show and the Fall For Me video messages, with the new ones and the album. Long post ahead so I'll put a cut somewhere.

(This is the second time I'll be writing this cus tumblr decided to be a hoe and deleted my entire draft so if it seems weird, you know. Pro tip: never use the app for long posts.)

Disclaimer: I'm in no way endorsing or encouraging any type of discourse about Vessel's irl identity and/or other [Redacted] and such. Unfortunately I do know things, but not everyone does. Respect the band; don't spoil it for others. If you know, keep it to yourself.

So, starting with the first message:

Mask: Why am I here? What is my purpose in all of this? Vessel: Your purpose is twofold. You protect me, from them, and you also protect them from me. Mask: How is it that I serve to protect anyone from anything, that makes no sense. Vessel: In order for all of this to work there has to be a certain boundary in place. They need to be able to project themselves onto this, without anyone else's identity getting in the way. In turn, I need to be able to show my true self to them in a way that does not compromise their ability to connect. Mask: So that's what I am? A boundary? Vessel: Yes.

We have here a confirmation of what he has told us many times before, either indirectly or not. The Mask/the Vessel persona serves as a way for him to connect and engage with us, while keeping both parties safe. We get to project onto and take from him some sort of comfort and catharsis, without any external factors to influence and skew the way we interpret his music, and He gets to expose and deal with his pain and negative thoughts in a protected environment. Who he is is irrelevant, we're merely here to share and understand each other.

Through the anonymity the mask offers, he is free to be as vulnerable and open with us as he wants, while keeping his identity safely stored away. The Mask serves as the physical reminder of how much we are allowed to know about him, and in return, how far he can (or should) expose himself without compromising his true identity. By living as Vessel and forgetting himself, he is ironically free to bare his most fragile and imperfect parts of himself on display (much like how we're all infinitely more honest about our struggles behind a fake online name than in irl.)

(curiously, this seems to be a contradiction to Higher's second verse, which feeds into the idea that Sleep is not the protector Vessel sometimes claims Them to be - "With all that you believe / You still refuse to shelter me")

From the Room Bellow:

"I experienced a great deal of pain in my life, however I do not believe I have suffered as you have suffered. Perhaps that Is another reason why we are here. At the very least, we have all suffered."

Lore wise, we are told time and time again that Vessel is a "sacred guardian", a messenger, a weapon, a tool - a physical vessel - for Sleep and Their message. He is the answer to Sleep's necessity for connection with us. And for that to work, he willingly gives up his identity for Sleep. For us.

Mask: I don't believe you. I believe there is more to it than that. I believe you are afraid of something. Vessel: We are all afraid of something, are we not? Mask: What is it you are so afraid they will see? Vessel: That I am exactly like everyone else. ... Vessel: I think I am afraid of becoming you. Mask: What does that even mean? Vessel: My life is becoming gradually consumed by you. Before long, all that I am will be contained within you. Then, one day, when I no longer wish to wear you, there will be nothing else left.

"I am afraid, are you afraid? I want to understand what it is to let go." (Fall For Me)

At the end of the day, Vessel is just some guy - he fears, and aches, and bleeds the same as us. We're equals. But as Vessel, he can't allow himself to crack, to break the illusion. As Vessel (and to connect to the lore, as the vessel of a god), he poses as someone we can look up to, someone who's there to carry our pain for us, almost like a symbiotic relationship of sorts - we feed on each other's emotions and energies.

From the Room Bellow:

"To love oneself is not the easy task we are sometimes told it is. (...) My own path towards greater self acceptance is paved with the art that I create. It is a path I continue to stumble down at the expense of everything else."

Without getting too much into it, it seems Vessel/Sleep Token were created as a sort of coping mechanism to deal with whatever it is that He went through. And he seems to have achieved that - he escaped his former self and became "Vessel", someone who's allowed to cry and rage and let his feeling loose. Someone who receives praise and comfort for it, someone who is finally understood.

Except that somehow, that same safety the Mask offered him backfired. Because how can you tell what's you and what's not? It appears that the lines between Vessel vs. Him have blurred beyond recognition. Because "Nothing lasts forever", so once ST ends, and Vessel is no longer a necessity, who does he become? Can he go back to his old self? Is there even a self to go back to?

Do you ever believe that we can turn into different people? It's getting harder to be myself. Do you wish that you loved me? Could we ever release? Is it better to just not feel?

I think it's worth mentioning DYWTYLM. Usually when I listen to it, I just interpret as being about self-love/esteem, suicidal thoughts, insecurities, yada yada yada, BUT! I think it kinda fits this right?? Like a conversation between Vessel and Him, the guy behind the mask.

And really, if you think about it, I think this dialogue is the basis of what TMBTE is. It's Vessel facing all these different facets of himself, the past versions, the ugly sides, coming to terms with them and learning to move on. And in the end, we see he finally does realize, albeit somewhat reluctantly, that there is more to it, than he can "be someone new", even if it means he needs to shed and let go of past versions of himself.

(of course, this is putting aside the whole trilogy and the story we've been told about Sleep/Vessel/Whatever romantic entanglement he was involved in. i'm merely giving this some other meaning and choosing to look through a very specific lens. call it a parallel universe if you want)

It's him accepting that although there may not be a version of himself to come back to, his Eden so to speak, there is finally something more waiting for him. But I'll get more into it later.

Also worth mentioning, this part of conversation-

Mask : Do you think they want you to cry? Do you think they like it? Vessel : Not as such, I think they just want to know that I am feeling something, feeling what they are feeling, perhaps. Mask : Do you think that this amount of crying is healthy for you? Vessel: I don't know. But at least I feel something, if I don't feel anything than why would I even do this?

-seems to be directly co-related to those lines on DYWTYLM. He wonders if maybe would be better not to feel at all, as if really asking himself, "should I continue to live as Vessel?", because that is his/The Mask's function.

(I almost forgot to mention the "Smile back at me" / "I can only ever see them smiling. That's good, I want them to smile." co-relations, but you see where I'm going right?")

Mask: It seems you have forgotten who you are. Before you had me you were nothing. All of this artifice, all this pathetic conjecture about your identity, it is nothing but a manifestation of how short-sighted and solipsistic you have become. I lifted you from misery and obscurity. You would be better to become me. You are nothing without me. You always were nothing without me.

"I am nothing without this music. I am nothing without this mask." (Room Bellow)

Sleep is a dickhead. And there it is - another confirmation of what we all assumed, of what he has also told us many times before in different words. Vessel, or better yet, Him, struggles with imposter syndrome, and a part of him seems to believe his worth is exclusively tied to his ability to create music and perform. Because who matters is Vessel, not Him. The praise and adoration, the glory, belongs to solely Vessel (in-lore, to Sleep).

He does not matter. He is insignificant. He is nothing.

So it makes sense to see how much he wishes to be someone else. How dependent he on his Mask (on Sleep). He can't shed that new identity away, because somehow, it became is ONLY identity. And yet, he knows that one day that must happen. And from a creative/artist standpoint, when you expose yourself the way he does into your art, almost bleeding into it, if that outlet is taken away, you really are left with nothing.

(yall, read the poem "about the PEN conference" by Bukowski).

"The truth is, I am ugly, I am inadequate, I am lost. I am no God." (Fall For Me)

And can I just say, how incredibly heartbreaking it is to hear him talk about himself like that? I have so, so much love and respect for Ves, it's almost ridiculous to think he is only worth the weight of his mask. I would give him a million hugs if I could. Whether or not he still believes that, I hope he one day can look at himself the way we do, and be proud and happy of the amazing human that he is.

I also think that, and this is just me rambling, their sudden explosion to fame must've taken some sort of toll of sorts. It must be SUCH an amazing feeling to see this many people connect and dedicate themselves to something you created, to be able to read between the lines of you thoughts, but it must just equally as scary. Suddenly there's SO many eyes on you, demanding and picking apart every gesture. Viciously clawing at the mask for a glimpse of the fragile soul within. It must not be easy to cope - and this goes to everyone in Sleep Token. They have to deal with so much unfairness, it's disgusting.

Vessel: You. Are. Wrong. In the end, my fractured sense of self was only another piece of fuel for the fire that burns in the eyes of these people before us. They too are pained. They too not know who they truly are. They are each stood alone on a stage of their own. And yet, they are here. United by that sense of never truly belonging. They see something beyond their own bleak horizons. And they reach for it. Together. So let us join now. To reflect their joy and to serve as a conduit for their anguish. To swallow their fear. To Worship.

"So for now let me serve as a living drama of your pain. If we are to be submerged then let us be submerged together." (Fall For Me)

And this is the part that really breaks me. He knows how much we need this, how much we rely on his music, on his words. He fights against his own claims that he has no value - he serves a purpose and that purpose is to serve the audience. Us. To take our struggles, our desires, and make it his own. To basically serve as a sacrifice for our well-being. To suffer, to feel together. To serve as a living drama of OUR pain.

"I will smile through the agony for you".

Because in the end, we're all equally broken. Because that's what the Mask is for, the anonymity, the mystery, the band - for us to "project ourselves" onto him, onto them. They are vessels, servants, worshippers of a god who shelters them; much like how we interact with their music, much like how Vessel thinks his purpose is for.

(and I could expand on this weird worshipper vs worshipee cycle, but i'm tired and i can't ramble on for too long. someone more clever than me feel free to expand)

(a post edit: peep that "fire that burns in the eyes of these people before us" vs "those eyes like fire, I'm a winged insect, you're a funeral pyre" parallel. Vessel sacrificing himself to us, for us. Performing and being Vessel as something he cannot but feel compelled to do.)

From the Room Bellow:

"We are here to silently collect. To project ourselves onto one-another. We are here to remember. We are here to forget."

WHICH BRINGS US TO EUCLID.

No, by now The night belongs to you This bough has broken through I must be someone new

If we are to take the messages as a complement to the album, then this definitely marks the "shift" in Vessel's perspective. He CAN be more, and he NEEDS to be more. To be new.

The night does not belong to god - it belongs to US. To Him. Not just Vessel, but Him. Obviously this is all speculation, but it really feels like he's ready to let go of so many things, and move on. To renew himself, to stand up and fight. To finally "bite back". He doesn't seem to be completely changed, as there are things he still seems to hold on to (just listen to Euclid). But it´s different now. The "vicious cycle is over."

"They see something beyond their own bleak horizons. And they reach for it. Together. So let us join now."

Vessel seems to emphasize the "collectiveness" of what Sleep Token is and represents quite often. So in a way, it´s him saying "We´ve all suffered together, we've all experienced so many things together, so let us reach for something better as one. Let us all become new. You are not alone in this, and neither am I, so hold on to us and be happy."

WHICH IS!!!!! JUST!!!!!

I think this shift represents something important. My guess, like many others have said, is that Something Big is going to happen in/after Wembley. I don't know what, I don't know if it's truly the end of the road for ST, as many speculate, but something is definitely going to happen. Whatever it is, I hope this is a positive change for them, and specially Vessel, and I am just so so grateful to be part of this amazing community of ours.

(if you read the whole thing, I love you and thank you and I'm sorry. My brain was itching real bad and this had to be let out. Don't take this a proper analysis or whatever, this is me squeezing excess water off the old rag that is my mind)

[eris-snow]

𝐈𝐜𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐥𝐝

Tags: bakugou x fem!reader, bakugou x ochaco, angst

Your first love felt as warm as the sunshine, and as welcoming as a fireplace.

Bakugou was your first love.

As warm as the sunshine, and as welcoming as a fireplace, that's exactly what first love was like for you.

The wind picks up speed whenever you see him again, as if guiding you to him...or pulling him away.

Awkward silence engulfs the two of you when you see each other again. He has Ochaco now, and he has a familiar large, protective hand snug around her waist, right where it used to be around yours.

You wish Ochaco's meaner. Wish she was cruel, unkind or even taunting just so it'd be easier to hate her. She's the opposite though. Bubbly, beautiful, strong, all encapsulated in her being displayed like she was an angel from heaven.

You can see what Bakugou sees in her.

You remember the feeling of your heart breaking all too well when you see him dipping her into a kiss at their wedding. You wish you hadn't been invited.

You do your best to feign smiles to ensure the couple that you're over him, over them, but it reaches the breaking point when they start with speeches.

You're not over Bakugou, the wound is still so fresh, and it never really set in for you until you see that dazzling ring on his finger, an identical band around Ochako's on the same hand.

Perfect, smiley Ochako.

It feels a little chilly in here, don't you think?

"I don't deserve you, Ochaco," God, her name sounds so fond when it comes out of Bakugou's mouth. A gentle caress contrasts his gruff, raspy voice that makes everyone coo. "No one here knows what shit we've gone through, the war, the damn PRESS THAT WON'T LEAVE US ALONE!" He emphasises this by throwing a withering glare at the cameraman as if daring him to sell the photos to the internet.

Everyone laughs good-naturedly, and you're the only one that feels a sting to the heart at every sentence he utters. "I'm not good with words, but I mean what I fucking say. I love you, Ochaco," There's a pause, not an ounce of doubt and it's ripping you apart as everyone around 'awws!' at his bold declaration.

"I'm not gonna elaborate about how I'll catch every star in the universe for you, or whatever poetic Shakespear equivalent you're expecting. I love you. Those words, those three simple words? They prove my fucking point."

He just had to say it again.

Your heart is shattering with every word while you gather up the shards with gloveless hands. Each fragment cuts deep, and it feels like there's a messy trail of blood trickling behind as you hug the splintered memories close to your chest.

"Izuku," You whisper, catching his eyes with a pained gaze. "I can't do this anymore. Could you tell them that I'm sorry for leaving so early? I-I just...don't want to ruin their best night and-"

Izuku cuts you off with a tight embrace. "Go," The hero says, smiling gently in understanding. "I'll explain it to Kacchan."

You thank him profusely, saying that you'd do anything to make it up to him for the trouble but Izuku just waves you off, telling you to have a safe trip home.

You hastily grab your coat from the rack, finding a bench to take your high heels off and exchange them for comfortable sneakers.

"Leaving so soon?"

Your head snaps up so fast you thought you'd dislocate something, and your eyes meet red.

Bakugou.

Your guard flies up immediately, expression guarded. You're not faking happiness, simply a void of emotion, neutral and defeated.

It fucking hurts.

"Izuku told me," He said, raising an eyebrow. "Mind if I join you?"

"No, yes, maybe." You laugh at yourself. "It's been quite a night."

Bakugou never meant to hurt you, and never, ever to this extent. He sits down. "Congratulations." His eyes meet yours, and they're so fucking blank like it's your only way to stop yourself from crying. "Ochaco's a wonderful person. I couldn't think of anyone better suited for you."

Bakugou studies you carefully and watches out for a lie but never finds one. Oh, God, you mean it. Bakugou sees what you're doing. Your self-esteem has crashed into the negatives because you don't even believe you were even worth it.

Bakugou can't help but cave.

"L/n, you know that it wasn't you, right?" He insists. There's an arm's length between both of you like you're afraid he gets too close. "It was me, fuck, I wasn't ready for a relationship. Not when I wanted to be the number 1 hero-"

"I get that." You interrupt calmly. You don't smile, you don't frown, simply keep that dumb sangfroid mask on your face. You've always been too fucking respectful. "I know everything, that's why I need to go tonight. It's painful knowing."

Bakugou wishes you'd show him something. You used to be an open book, full of life whether it was large, overexaggerated reactions or the energetic person that'd always make time for him, but now you look...tired. Subdued, if you will, as if the life got sucked out of you. You're so tensed that it makes Bakugou's eyes furrow because, gosh you seem so quiet now.

Just a sign...a tear forming, eyes misting, a bottom lip quivering perhaps? Or maybe he'd get a hearty laugh and a smack to his shoulder for him being so concerned.

Any second now.

The blank look stays in your eyes. There's nothing.

"You were great out there." You continue, finally averting your gaze to slip off your shoes. "Ochaco's lucky to have someone like you. Your speech spoke volumes. I think she'd like those bentos you make for her on the daily. I remember seeing them on her desk when I got the same patrol shift as her-"

"L/n, listen, I-"

"Your skills really improved," You power through, tying your laces on the sneakers now. "You should keep doing them, you know?" your laugh sounds more like a wheeze, like there's glass stabbing your lungs. "Bet they tasted heavenly-"

"Y/n, stop-"

"Her face lights up every time she sees you, y'know?" You stand up, eyes staring up at the stars. "She loves it when you surprise her, I remember that one time-"

"Sunshine!" yells Bakugou.

Your eyes flicker back to his, finally pausing your rant. "That's playing dirty, Bakugou, I thought you'd never call me that again." You frown.

You're like a different person now, so rational and collected it throws him off. "I just..." He runs a hand down his face, and you look at him curiously, guard higher than ever. You fully expect him to do say something worse, and he hates it.

He was young and cruel back then, he should have handled the breaking-up process better, not just...tell you so out of the blue as if he simply wanted to tell you his hero schedule for the month.

"I'm sorry," Bakugou apologises, soft and genuine. You look as if he just grew another head. "I never got to...apologise. You didn't-you never deserved to be let down like that, I should have done it better. I should have done..." Bakugou's eyes drop down to his ring, shiny and beautiful, just like his life ahead. "a lot of things better."

You catch him staring, and shake your head. "You shouldn't dwell on things so far back in the past," You chide. "What's done is done. I forgive you."

Stop.

Show him something, anything. Bakugou knows, he knows you're breaking inside, knows you want to slap him, laugh at him...he doesn't know but just anything!

Instead, you make your way to the door. "I'll be going now," You bow towards him, the corners of your mouth upturning into a small smile. "Have a good night."

Bakugou's eyes trail to your face, but you've already turned your back onto him. His eyes fall on your shoes, the same, battered sneakers he'd gotten you close to a decade ago back when you were together.

"Good night," He whispers softly, staring at your back a little longer before closing the door.

Your high heels dangle on your fingers as you use another to wrap your hands around yourself, a bitter laugh escaping you as your tears overflow.

It's really cold out tonight, isn't it?

---

End notes:

I don't really know why, but I started to tear up while I was writing Y/n talking about bentos. I was really feeling this story, so I hope it came out well.

[weirdmorefics]

Unmasked Chpt 3

Chpt 1 Chpt 2

AO3 Etsy, Youtube

TW- Graphic gore

Taglist- @bunbunbl0gs

AN- Sorry for the delay been without power for a few days due to the insane storm in Maine.

Word Count- 2,386

Spencer drove the van to my aunt's house where I figured out my sister was by texting Dewy. Spencer immediately got into the driver's side without asking me to drive which struck me as odd because I know how much he despises driving. The car was filled with uncomfortable silence I could easily sense Spencer was still upset with me for hiding so much. I wish he would just understand I did this to protect them even though it clearly did not work. I begin to pick at the skin around my nails the old habit that always seems to come back when I am in terrible situations. My nails and skin were already scabbing from me anxiously picking them during the flight and I could easily pick at the old scabs. As I reached to mess with the barely healed wounds Spencer grabbed my hand and placed it in his.

"You really shouldn't pick at those your red blood cells just spent hours scabbing them over. That's a lot of work for the cells to do for you to just carelessly rip them off," he says factually not letting go of my hand.

I smile at him just thankful he's talking to me after the cold shoulder I had been receiving from him.

"My sister is going to be so mad when she sees me," I mutter.

"You are worried about that over the masked killer right now?" Spencer's lip quirks into a slight smirk.

I roll my eyes, "Of course I am but you have not seen the fury of Sidney Prescott especially when you don't listen."

"I am assuming it's similar to your fury, you have quite a temper of your own," he grins and it feels like how we used to be. Before Scratch, Cat Addams, and my true identity came into the picture.

I sigh, "You know I am really sorry for hiding this all from you. I trust you most in the world but I hide my background for the well-being of others. Ghostface targets those closest to you and won't stop till all your loved ones are dead or he's dead."

Spencer's hand grips mine tighter, "I understand why you didn't tell me. I kept secrets too, to protect my mother but you saw where that landed me. We are better when we work together as a team."

I inhale deeply, "I suppose you're right."

I swallow deeply as we pull into the driveway, Spencer reluctantly drops my hand so we can both exit the van. I clench and unclench my fist in preparation to knock on the door. I knock once and hear quick rushing around inside then Dewey greets us at the door gun in hand.

I raise my hands up and so does Spencer, "Chill Dewey, it's just me."

He shifts his gun to Spencer, "Who's the guy?"

"He's another agent at the BAU I trust him with my life," I state.

He lowers his gun, "Yeah, you and Sidney don't have the best track record with that."

"I missed you to," I say bitterly.

Sidney appears at the mention of her name and her eyes widen in surprise, "I told you to do one thing Y/N! Not come back to Woodsboro! What are you doing here?"

"You forget this type of stuff is my job Sid," I mock.

"This is different, and you know it! They don't want to kill a stranger they want to kill you," She shouts.

Spencer chimes in, "Agent L/N is not alone the BAU team is here."

Sidney's eyes narrow on him as if noticing his presence for the first time, "L/N? Oh right, you are still using the fake last name. Do they even know who you are and what you have gotten them into?"

I pinch the bridge of my nose, "Yes, they know... Ghostface called."

Worry instantly coats her face, "He called you! You are alright aren't you?" She instantly starts scanning for any visible injuries.

"I'm fine. I'm fine," I brush off her worry.

"Nice seeing you Y/n, and talking to you Sidney. I have to get back to the station to meet with Y/n's team," Dewey lets us know as he makes his exit as his radio chatters.

"I am going upstairs to check on Jill. She got a call this morning too," Sid sighs.

"I'll come with I haven't seen my cousin since she was a baby," I reminisce.

The silence between me and my sister is defining I am encountering that awkward silence a lot today. We walk upstairs to Jill's room Spencer right behind us and Sid knocks once before entering.

"Oh, I'm sorry! I hope I wasn't interrupting anything," Sid backs out quickly of the doorway and blocks my view.

"No, sorry, he was just leaving. He's my ex, " Jill defends quickly.

"Oh," Sid pauses as we both exchange knowing looks.

"The one and only," the said ex responds. "It's cool to meet you... officially. I keep meaning to pick up a copy of your book but I keep forgetting to... you are much smaller in person."

This guy was really starting to give me the creeps but Sidney just chuckled in response. He climbed out the window without saying another word. It felt like deja vu almost, a reminder of Billy Loomis sneaking into my cool older sister's room through her own window then nearly killing me a few days later.

My heart pounded at the memory and I assume my sister's did too because Jill turned to face us confused by our faces and asked, "What?"

"Nothing. You just... uh remind me of me," Sidney stuttered.

Jill laughed and I interjected, "Lock your windows... please."

"Y/n, I didn't know you were coming?" Noticing my presence.

"Had to keep my baby cousin safe didn't I?" I smile

She smiles back, "You really didn't have to."

"Of course I did! That's what family is for. Get sleep, okay?"

Sidney shuts the door and as we turn around we are jumped by the presence of another officer. Even Spencer did not notice the new cop's presence which makes me suspicious of her immediately.

"Just checking in, making the rounds," She tries to ease our nerves.

"Great. Thanks," Sid responds.

I flash my badge, "Thanks but I've got it covered." Spencer gives me an odd look as I brush the cop off.

"Kinda hard to have it covered when you're one the targets. Don't you think?" Her response made my anxiety increase ten times more than it already was. "You two don't remember me? Do you?"

"Excuse me," Sid jumps in.

"Judy Hicks? We went to high school together. We had the same homeroom and drama club. Y/n you used to be so little Sidney would sneak you into drama rehearsals because you loved Shakespeare. We were in Peterpan together I played a lost boy. Sidney was ...Tiger Lily." She tries to jog our memory failing miserably. I honestly think I blocked out my whole childhood just to forget the trauma but the trauma was the only thing to stay.

Sidney speaks for the both of us, "I'm sorry, that was a long time ago."

"It's okay you two both had a lot going on back then," she says sympathetically.

I feel Spencer's gaze on the back of my head but I don't want to turn around to face him because I know only pity will fill his eyes.

"Well, it was nice to see you again Judy," Sid responds.

She smiles and says, "You too," before exiting.

Sidney turns to me, "You really should not have come here Y/n."

"I had to! Ghostface won't stop until they have their perfect stop," I yelled in annoyance.

"Yet you got more people involved," her gaze directed on Spencer.

"I trust him! I trust my team!"

"Come on Y/n we can't trust anyone! And you know it! You haven't used your real last name in years. That is the epitome of distrust," she shouts back.

I clench my fists unsure how to get through to her and Spencer puts his hand on my shoulder, "I won't let anything happen to your sister. I swear my life on it."

"It might come to that... it often does," she responds coldly.

The argument comes to a sudden stop when screaming is heard from Jill's bedroom. Spencer and I instantly draw our weapons and rush into the room. Jill and her friend are pressed up against the window screaming. Spencer is quick to rush them out of the way and Sidney backs up in shock as soon as she sees the scene unfolding. Ghostface is brutally attacking Jill's neighbor with no remorse.

"Reid! Do you have a shot?"

He tries to aim his gun, "No, they're moving too much!"

"Screw it," I rush out of the room and Sidney rushes after me.

"L/N! Shit Prescott!" I hear Reid shout.

I can tell he is really mad by the swearing which he hardly ever does but I don't have time for his feelings right now. I won't let Ghostface hurt me or my family ever again.

Sid shouts for the cops as I continue to run for the house. I try the door but it is locked so I bust the window open with the butt of my gun. I run up the stairs and hear quick footsteps follow behind me.

"The cops are missing," Sid shouts.

"Of course they are," I sigh as I run.

We sneak into the room using the wall as cover. We enter into a horrific scene blood splattered all over the walls and the poor girl's organs falling out of her. Sidney sinks to the ground trying to keep her breaths even. I hold my gun tighter, I am used to scenes like this while working at the BAU, but this is a new level of overkill.

A phone somewhere in the room starts to ring. Sidney and I exchange glances as I walk towards the phone to pick it up.

"Welcome home Y/n. Nice of you to join us, though I wouldn't say I gave you much of a choice. I hope you and Sidney enjoyed my preview of the movie." I could hear the smirk in his voice over the phone.

I swallow deeply and growl, "Why don't you say that to my face."

"Oh Y/n, we both know you are not star material. Hiding away solving crimes so you don't have to face your own. Put your sister on the phone why don't you?" The mechanical voice of my nightmares mocks me.

I put the phone on speaker and Sidney shouts an aggravated, "What!"

"It is time to relinquish your stardom to someone who actually deserves it, Sidney," Ghostface seethes and I can tell this is what it is really all about for this Ghostface. The fame.

"This isn't a fucking movie!" Sid shouts.

"It will be," the grin in his voice could be heard.

"These people are innocent!" I jump into the conversation.

"Shut it Y/n! This isn't about you! Sidney understands she has done quite well under all this bloodshed," the caller's emotions are up and down like a yo-yo.

"I am going to slit your eyelids in half Sidney so you can watch when I gut your sister like a fish! Just like the town you left gutted in your wake of destruction. Then you will die when I want you to! Not a moment before or a moment after! Until then you suffer," Ghostface screams.

"Sid, none of this is your fault," I assure her.

"Y/n!" I hear Spencer shout from downstairs he must be ticked to be using my first name in the field.

"Sidney," Jill shouts after Reid. Damn, what was he doing letting civilians over here... I'm no better I let my sister over here too.

"Jill?" Sid questions loudly.

I hear Spence and Jill's footsteps on the stairs. Sidney is quick to block the doorway with her body.

"Ried! What are you doing letting my cousin up here!" I shout.

"What are you doing here without backup!" He shouts back at me equally mad.

Jill tries to look around Sidney, "Is she alive?"

"Do not look! Okay?" Sid shouts

"She said you were the angel of death," she looks at Sidney in fear.

I frown at the statement when I see Ghostface appear behind Spencer and Jill.

"Look out!" Sid shouts too late as Ghostface slices Jill's arm.

Jill falls to the ground and I am quick to shove Spencer out of the way of Ghostface. I stumble down the stairs and unfortunately drop my gun. Ghostface swiftly kicks my gun away from my reach. I rapidly stand trying to find a makeshift weapon and slam a picture frame over their head. Ghostface sweeps my legs and I fall hard onto my back knocking the air out of my lungs. Ghostface hovers over my body knife in their hand. I struggle to flip them over but eventually I do and Ghostface rolls down the stairs and so do I.

"Y/n," I hear Spencer shout and quick footsteps.

I turned to look which was definitely a bad decision as Ghostface yanked my hair and held a knife to my throat. I kicked my foot backwards into his shin which caused them to drop the knife. I turn and sucker punch the bastard in the face knocking them to the ground.

Two town policemen burst through the door, "Where is he?"

I turn to point but am shocked to find him missing, "He-he was just here."

"We'll check out back," They say exiting.

Spencer grabs my face in his hands leaving me utterly shocked as he turns my face side to side checking for injuries.

"What were you thinking shoving me out of the way!" He shouts.

"Protecting your life! He will kill you right away! You aren't important to his movie," I defend

"And what part do you play in this movie?" He asks

"It- it doesn't matter," I stutter out.

"Y/n, what part do you play in this movie?" He repeats himself sternly.

I gulp, "For my sister to fail to save me one last time."

[deadsince1973]

What happened to Despicable Me?

(SPOILERS for Despicable Me 4 ahead)

I went to see Despicable Me 4 today, and it was easily the worst of the franchise.

I think there were two overlapping problems. The first one is that there were too many characters and too many storylines, and they all felt truncated. The second is that the storylines themselves, truncated or not, were bad. Let's look at the storylines that we got.

First, the big point of this movie: Gru has a baby son now. The arc with the baby is that the baby doesn't like Gru, but then by the end, the baby learns to love his father. That is such a stupid storyline! Babies are not capable of determining who they like and who they dislike. That's just not how that stage of brain development works. I admit, I may not be the target audience of this movie (even though I should be; more on the below), but babies in movies are, in my opinion, annoying, and not at all cute or funny. I heard once that "all animals in movies act like dogs", and not just real dogs, but like idealized versions of dogs, who can think and emote like humans. I actually love that trope, because I love the fantasy that my pets or an exotic pet it would be cool to have could be a true friend to me, as an equal who could understand me and respond to me with intelligence and insight. I can only speculate that many people enjoy having the same fantasy about babies; all I'm certain of is that this storyline did not work for me at all.

Then there's the cluster of storylines making up the premise that Gru's family is now in witness protection. -Margot is upset about leaving her friends and having to start at a new school. She gets bullied on her first day. And that is the last we hear about that. -Edith and Agnes go to a karate class. (For the entire day? Why didn't Edith have to go to school?) She breaks the teacher's toe. And that's the last we hear about that. -Agnes is upset about having to leave Lucky, her pet unicorn/goat from Despicable Me 3. That does get wrapped up in the end, but it's absent from the middle of the movie. It's not even really an arc or a storyline, more a callback to the last movie. -Agnes is also upset about having to use a fake name in witness protection, because that's lying and she doesn't want to lie. That's potentially a good storyline because it would result in actual character growth, but it also goes nowhere! Agnes never uses her fake name, and that has no consequences (other than setting up Edith's story). -Lucy's new identity is a hairdresser, and she burns down the salon while working with her first client. The client later tries to chase her down in the grocery store for the sake of a wacky chase scene. Lucy and the girls escape, and we never hear from the injured client again. -Gru wants to make friends with his new neighbor in order to prove that he's not awkward. He plays tennis with the neighbor, but the game is interrupted by the arrival of the antagonist. The neighbor is never seen again.

Even though there isn't even enough room in the movie for all the family members, they still added a new character, Poppy. Poppy is the neighbor's teenage daughter and an aspiring supervillain who blackmails Gru into helping with a heist. Why? What does that have to do with either of the main two plots? (It does tie in with them, but it was entirely unnecessary to them.) Poppy later makes friends with Gru's daughters, but then she disappears during the climax, and she's only seen again during the ending montage, when we see that she got admitted to the villain school. What happened to her pet honey badger? We'll never know.

The A-plot, the one that's set up in the first scene, the one that drives Gru and his family into witness protection, the one that the movie ends on, is about Gru's high school bully. Really though, other than being the catalyst for putting Gru's family in witness protection, he has precious little role in the story. There's a reason this story is so far down the list. There's also yet another new character, Principal Ubelschlect. She's the boss fight of the heist Gru and Poppy do together, but, since the heist was pointless, she's a pointless character too. (This is how Poppy technically ties into both of the main storylines, by the way. Gru brought his son along on his heist, so the heist related to the bonding arc Gru had with him. But the heist was not the catalyst for the baby finally bonding with Gru, so what was the point of bringing the baby along at all?! And when the heist goes awry and Principal Ubelschlecht catches them in the act, she contacts the bully to join her in attacking Gru's safehouse. But there are any number of ways that the bully could have found Gru's location without making a whole other involved storyline that rivaled the main storyline for screen time! That should have been a single story beat, not a lengthy sequence.)

Of course, there are also the cutaways to the minions' wacky antics. This is why I say I should have been the target audience for this movie. I love the minions. Obviously this is a very small sample size, but it seemed to me that I laughed more at the minions in this movie than anyone else in the theater. I mean, if that's an accurate perception, then why were any of those other people even going to see this movie? Despicable Me is the minion franchise. If you don't like minions, this movie isn't for you. And if you do like minions, then this movie should be for you. Anyway, they split the minions into two groups for this movie: exactly the same symptom as the rest of the characters had! One group had a recurring gag about a minion being stuck in a vending machine. Okay, that doesn't need to be that developed. But it was entirely unrelated to the other minions' storyline, which felt weird! The other minions' storyline was the "Mega Minions", the ones in the promotional material. This storyline was about five minions who got superpowers and tried to become superheroes. It had nothing to do with any other plotline whatsoever. It felt a little bit like a retread of the mutated purple minions from the second movie, but the mutated minions actually connected to the main story of that movie!

Altogether, this movie just felt cobbled together from a bunch of disparate ideas. The animation felt as good to me as ever, but the writing and the design felt like it was rushed out the door. It felt like a bunch of people had got asked to write an idea for a funny thing to do with the characters from this franchise, and then they just put a bunch of those ideas in without considering how they would weave together into a single coherent movie.

And all of this is just my analysis of the problems with the stories. It doesn't address some of the other, smaller problems I had with the movie. -The baby was named Gru, Jr. I HATE when characters have a baby and they name one of them "Junior". Not only does it smack of a lack of creativity, but it also really shows how little the writers value the character. This might seem a little hypocritical after I implied above that babies aren't even human and complained about how there shouldn't have been so much of the baby in the movie, but I think calling a baby "Junior" exacerbates the problem. It's implicitly telling me, the viewer, not to care about this character as his own person, but to think of him as an extension of his father. Why should I care about him then?

Speaking of wanting less of the baby in the movie, I just want to add that part of the reason why I dared to have higher hopes for this movie despite the presence of the baby in the marketing is because of the Shrek movies. A friend of mine told me the other day that they had noped out of the Shrek franchise when babies became involved because they feel the exact same way I do about babies in media. But I don't really think that's fair. Shrek the Third and Shrek Forever After did an admirable job of keeping the babies on the periphery. I'm just bringing this up to say that that was very much an option for this movie too. They could've had their cake and eaten it too.

Almost as criminal as the poor writing was the poor design. The main villain, the bully, was cockroach-themed. That's not bad, per se, but compare him to the villains from previous films: Vector, who had both direction and magnitude (how memorable was that line?!); El Macho and his pet chicken; Bratt and his 1980's theming; Scarlet, with her feminist bent and perky personality, and her husband Herb who was delightfully 1960's; and the Vicious 6, all of whom had amusing puns for names: Jean-Clawed, Nun-Chuck, and Svengeance being the stand-outs for me. I guess, on paper, a cockroach theme isn't any worse than any of these other villains, but Maxime really had nothing else going for him other than his French accent. He didn't have a funny name, he didn't have an over-the-top personality, and he didn't have a particularly memorable style.

Finally, and here's where I'm fine with being disagreed with because it's just a matter of taste, but: as a general rule, I don't like bathroom humor in kid's movies. There were two jokes that were just about an animal pooing, and, worst of all in my opinion, was one of the English words in the Minionese. My friend and I had been discussing whether the one Mega Minion had "a cone head" or "was a missile." Well, one of the other minions shouted "suppository" when it jumped off a rooftop. So that clears that argument up. -_-

I just think this is a real shame because, while the other movies weren't flawless (except possibly for Minions), they all had a charm to them and at least a few good jokes. I'm also the type of person to find the storylines of Despicable Me 2 and 3 painful, but at least there were enough moments that I found sweet or endearing in those movies that I still enjoyed them more than I expected I would. This was the opposite, because the only moment I found charming at all was when the camera did a fly-through of the AVL office and we saw the minions participating in a wide variety of activities. I'm always a sucker for that.

This honestly makes me reluctant to hope for a future for this franchise. :/

[steddiebang]

Steddie Bigbang Weekly Round-up: November 1 - November 4

Remember Me, Love (when I'm reborn) Author: @stevebckley and on twitter / Artist: @fancycheliniarts and on twitter Steve Harrington was born an Alpha. Everyone in his life had expected him to be an Alpha so they weren't surprised

Everyone except himself.

After over two years of saving every spare dollar, Steve is finally ready to take the final leap to transition from the Alpha he appears to be, to the Omega he’s always known he is. When the clinic pairs him with Eddie Munson as the Alpha that is meant to help guide him through his transition, it only takes one meeting for Steve to realize that he may not want to let go of Eddie when it’s all over.

The Baby Project Author: miraculousmultifan / Artist: @danadaria. Steve turned around with a grin and propped his elbows up on Munson's desk. Then, before he could really think about the words coming out of his mouth, he said, “Guess that makes us married then, huh darling?”

Munson, of course, stared back at him blankly, but instead of backtracking or something, Steve batted his eyelashes for good measure, really hamming it up.

Munson blinked at him once. Then twice. Then he raised an eyebrow and said, deadpan, “What the fuck are you talking about?”

In the last month and a half of Steve's senior year, he gets paired up with Eddie Munson for the final project in Mrs. O'Donnell's Home Economics class. The assignment? To take care of a fake baby for four weeks. For some reason, Steve finds himself surprisingly excited. Eddie, not so much.

I Wanna Be Adored Author: @StrangerThings1975 / @strngrthngs1975 (twitter) / StrangerThings1975(ao3) / Artist: gimmekaseddie (twitter) / @gimmedemosteve (tumblr) Eddie thinks it would be cool to add a fake demon summoning ritual into his song lyrics. He thinks it’s even cooler when the summoning actually works... eventually. At first, though, he’s just wondering what the hell Steve Harrington is doing at his door.

“What is it exactly that you want, Eddie? What are your deepest desires?”

And they thought he was the freak?

“Dude.” Eddie threw him a look. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I know one of them.”

“Oh, and what would that be?” He couldn’t resist taking the bait.

trouble’s always gonna find you, baby (but so am i) Author: tumblr strangersatellites / twitter strngrsatellite / Artist: tumblr becomingfoxes / twitter becomingfoxes / Artist: tumblr amethyst-crowns / twitter amethystcrowns Steve Harrington has spent the better part of the last five years knocking out hit after hit for the Assassin’s Guild and becoming one of the most lethal agents in the business. After a series of unprecedented, wildly successful cases across the country, his boss pulls him off the active case roster for eight months. He’s been keeping tabs on the Chicago Syndicate for years and has finally deemed Steve ready to take out their leader, The Sandman.

The only problem is that undercover agents have been able to turn up little to no information regarding The Sandman’s identity. The only information the Guild has been able to dredge up is the name of one of their business fronts: a sophisticated private nightclub called Hellfire, and the name of its director, Syndicate member Eddie Munson.

or: Eddie is a low ranking member of the mafia and Steve is the assassin hired to kill his boss.

(i fear) for what tomorrow brings Author: eiqhties (tumblr / AO3) / Artist: sullymygoodname (tumblr / AO3) Since Starcourt, Steve and Eddie have been meeting (and falling in love) secretly. Until - frustrated by Steve’s secrecy - Eddie ended things between them. Steve doesn’t cope well. He’s been having nightmares, nosebleeds, and painful headaches. 

Everything is made much worse after Chrissy Cunningham dies in Eddie’s trailer. Steve is forced to watch as Eddie becomes involved in everything Steve tried so hard to protect him from. 

Or: Steve Harrington’s No Good, Very Bad, Awful Month. 

nobody rules these streets at night like me Author: maxinemaxmayfield [tumblr / ao3] / Artist: maikaartwork [tumblr / twitter] Eddie Munson has never stayed in one place for long. 

When his mom disappears for the last time and his dad goes to jail, he has no other family to turn to. He spends his teenage years moving through the foster system, making friends and then losing them just as quickly. In the end, there’s never any reason to stay. 

After he runs away from his fifth foster home, he finds his way to Hawkins, Indiana and for the first time, finds a reason to stay.

At the Start of the End of the World Author: InsaneJuliann /marvelingjules / Artist: mc-i-r Eddie survived the Demobats (if only barely), Max is in a coma, and the Upside Down is seeping slowly into Hawkins. Steve’s doing what he can, looking out for the people he cares about - but who takes care of him? Eddie, who’s cleared of murder charges but only technically, figures he’s got the time and the interest in taking that job on. And maybe, there’s more to the friendship growing between them than just Platonic feelings. But as the Upside Down grows stronger in Hawkins, becoming harder to ignore, and old enemies and allies make themselves known, Steve and Eddie’s growing feelings for each other may have to wait - indefinitely.

An Act of Grace Author: missberrycake / @daysarestranger​ / Artist: @bienmoreau​ / Podficcer: singinginmay / @daysarestranger​ On the morning after Broughton Hall’s annual summer fête, the body of a local Baron’s son was found on the grounds of the estate, as lifeless and cold as the morning was warm. Having spent the summer together, member of the household staff Edward Munson was the first to be suspected. As for the Baron’s son, perhaps there was more to him than the Baron would have society believe.

Decades later, Max Mayfield comes across the murder of Steven Harrington while researching topics for the second season of her hit true crime podcast. Along with her some-time engineer and full-time ex-boyfriend, Lucas, Max uncovers a story of two people that, entwined in secrecy and truths left unspoken, reaches out across history.

Two Truths and a Lie About Steve Harrington Author: endzela [ao3] / Artist: singinginmay [ao3] Steve is desperate to find a date for his high school reunion, and his best friend Eddie volunteers to pretend to be his boyfriend. What Eddie doesn’t know, however, is that Steve has had a crush on him ever since they became friends in college, and although Steve is not planning on letting him find out about it now, spending a week together in the same room might make things difficult. Especially since Eddie keeps flirting with him at every chance he gets.

As the poets say Author: ChristinMKay / @transmascsteveharrington / Artist: @quokkafoxtrot / Artist: riddletalks Eddie loathes the idea of soulmates. The words his soulmate will say the moment they realize they are in love with him sit heavy on his wrist. Heavy like a burden, like a cursed prophet, harbinger of death. Others cry tears of joy when they get their words, Eddie had cried tears of anxiety. The dark letters on his wrist read, “Dustin died.” On the other side of town and yet worlds apart from Eddie, Steve loathes the words on his wrist just as much. Not because he doesn’t want a soulmate. No, he longs for them every day. And every day is a painful reminder that he hasn’t found them yet when someone randomly calls out his words. The letters on his wrist simply say, “Hey Steve.”

tin roof rusted Author: @bdelaney_ao3 [twitter] [ao3] / Artist: @themeanderingty /. Artist: @cemeterylight / @cemeterylights Steve had always been someone who thinks of sex as something that was shared between people, never something that could be just for himself. After coming to terms with his sexuality, Steve finally finds the nerve to visit the adult store where Nancy works only to find something so much better than a toy along the way: the owner and resident king of nerds, Eddie Munson.

22 upcoming projects to be posted next week (Nov 5 - Nov 11).

*To keep up with all the Steddie Bigbang 2023 posting, be sure to follow us @steddiebang or track tags #steddiebang23 masterposts, #steddiebang23 project promo, or #steddiebang23 upcoming projects.

[astyrial]

sleuthing spider 🕷️ ch. 4 - charming distractions

    a restaurant sits nearly empty, only fisk and some of his goons are entering. from what you can see from across the street, there are a couple people sitting inside. the shades are half drawn to protect their identities. you look through your camera and grab a couple shots of fisk's back. his car drives off, blocking you from seeing him enter. 

  you reach to your cup holder, grabbing a coffee. it's a little too hot, the cover still letting a lot of the heat escape to your fingers. "shit," you whisper after taking a drink, a couple of droplets of it on your chin. 

  the lady had given you one napkin, giving you a chance to wipe it off while you sit there waiting. you open your phone as you make sure there's no notifications, checking for anything from any clients or friends. still nothing from spiderman, whom you wondered how he would even contact you. when you look up to check on the building again you can see someone standing on the roof of the building.

  spiderman, speaking of the devil, is your first thought. the outline seems to be a red and blue, the person backflipping randomly. you raise an eyebrow, pursing your lips as he seems a little too far away to focus on. it could be him or it could simply be someone pretending to be him. or, possibly, a goon of fisk's to distract you, if he knows you're there.

  your eyes flicker between the figure and the front door; however, when you look up, the person is gone. your breath catches as you wonder where he could've gone, and if he was the spiderman that you had met. with a shake of the head you bring your attention back the building, figuring if it was your spiderman, he'd say something. 

  the blinds quickly drop to the ground, completely blocking your view. you bite the inside of your cheek, hand resting on the key to start the car. what if he had caught on? shuffling out the back of the building? you turn on the car and figure that at this point, you'd give it a try. 

  you pull out onto the road, quickly merging to turn at the nearby light. your fingers tap the wheel instinctively as you turn at the light. behind the car is a limo, with the well-known fisk name printed across the top. you sit a ways away in another car's parking lot, staring it down. 

  someone opens the back door and you grab your camera, bringing it up so you can grab a picture of the person. as you bring it up to your eye, someone pops up into your view, spiderman. he's on top of your car, blocking your camera with his masked face. you lower the camera and wave your hand to indicate that he should move out of the way. 

  his lenses widen and he jumps out to the side of your car, swinging open the door to join you, "well hello, you come here often?"

  "shut the door, i'm watching for fisk or his associates," you bring the camera up once more, staring out of it at the back door. 

  spiderman climbs in, muttering something about being ungrateful or annoying. he sits there for a moment, closing the car door so that it doesn't bring any attention to them. he then turns to look at you and sees a very focused expression on your face. spiderman brings his hand up to where his mouth would be and lets out a nearly perfect fake yawn.

  you turn to look at him for a second, raising an eyebrow, "yes, spidey? i am trying to get pictures of them together, so if you could wait a second?"

  "yeah- yeah, no. i understand, totally," he shrugs, tapping his index fingers against your dashboard like it's a drum.

  the back door doesn't allow for much speculation, a blind also covering that from head to two. from what you know, it's a sandwich shop, well known. from what you can assume, it's owned by someone who works with fisk, which is why they're there. either that or he has the money to just pay the man off to keep quiet-

  "you didn't bring like any snacks or anything?" 

  you look back at spiderman, biting your lip. normally you'd try to be at least a little more civil with someone, but he understands the importance of this work. that fisk is a powerful man who can get around law enforcement like it's a still obstacle. however, he's asking about food and is making jokes. leaving you to turn back to the camera, shrugging. 

  "no, there are no snacks, i forgot. there's like a two day old water bottle on the back seat though," without moving your vision from the camera, you take your free hand and point it out.

  without even seeing him, you know that his eyes are narrowed, annoyed with you. however, much to your dismay, the feeling is ultimately mutual. he has the playful personality of a puppy which also comes with the ability to annoy those around him if persistent enough. you continue to look through the camera when last night's events enters your mind.

  without missing a beat, you finally tell him what happened the night before, "by the way, a federal agent came to my apartment last night. wanted to know if i would garner information about you and hand it off to them. i said no, if you wanted to know."

  a pause in the air lingers, your finger tapping against the camera as you wait for a response. spiderman could be taking it in anyway and you wouldn't know. your eyes stay trained on the building in hopes of fisk exiting. however, a part of you wants to know what his mind is thinking in this moment. being tracked by the fbi? it probably never crossed his mind before.

  "thanks- that means a lot," his voice is more quiet than the evening before, timid in a sense.

  you finally look away from the camera, eyes peering over at him. you had met him in such a chaotic time that you couldn't see the amount of care that went into his suit. your mind wanders off of fisk and onto the man beside you. like how his suit hugs his biceps and broad shoulders. despite barely knowing the man, you can tell that there's a certain intricacy to his handiwork. however, before he gives you a chance to say something else, he's turning to look at something.

  "fisk is at the back door!" he points, making you look back at the opening of the limo's door. fisk had already entered by the time you focused the camera once more. 

  you groan, looking back at spiderman with an annoyed expression on your face, "you distracted me!"

  "what? with my good looks and charm?" 

  "oh don't flatter yourself bugboy!"

  "actually, contrary to many five years old's beliefs, spiders are not bugs.."

  "yeah, no shit sherlock- we have to follow them," you turn on the car and instantly push it into drive, waiting for the limo to start its journey. 

  for all you could know, this was a trick, fisk knowing that you were following him. the limo could lead you to a back alley and make you swim with the fishes, but just as your paranoias enters your mind you swat them away. the limo moving leading you to realize you need to be focused again. you step on the gas and start following the rather obnoxious vehicle. 

  however, just as luck would have it, a large truck drives in front of your vehicle. it's suspiciously placed in front of where you were meant to be, like it's there on purpose. the driver turns on his four-way flashers and just sits there. you shove back the urge to cuss the driver out in fear that he could possibly be working for fisk. you look over to see spiderman already opening the passenger door to continue following.

  "wait! will you tell me if you found out where he was going?" you open your own car door as he starts walking towards the truck just after pushing it into park. 

  "why don't you find out with me?"

masterlist / chapter three / chapter five taglist:

[eletricheart]

Karma is a relaxing thought

(Mira Kano x Reader)

*image creds to owner

ps: I tried to make this most dialogue but that is my weakness, sorry😭

Word count: 647

----------------------------------------------------

An expiring visa was the only thing that could get in the way of your relationship with Mira. 

While it took her days to admit her feelings, once she did you were always together. Mira knew the games, and being beside you made her feel more in control, as if she could protect you forever.

However, the beach was having a problem with the noise of shooting practice, therefore the executives were busy coming up with a solution. Mira wanted to leave with you, especially not knowing what you were playing, but you insisted that she stayed, asking her to make sure a war doesn't start while you're gone.

It was a relatively quick spades game, you were supposed to leave unharmed but this new player mistook you for a threat and threw you off the stairs.

He panicked once realizing the damage but your friends found you in time and took you back to the beach.

Mira was furious once she saw your injuries, you were barely able to stay conscious through the whole trip. Other than you and Mira, Ann and Chishiya  were the only one allowed in the room, helping with bandaging and accessing your condition.

You woke up a few hours later to a worried Mira sitting beside you on the bed and waiting.

She noticed your movement right away, smiling at you once your eyes opened. "Hi there, you okay?"

"Yeah, just feeling like I fell down the stairs. Curious, right?" You answered not only attempting a joke but also coughing when trying to laugh.

The woman gave you a glass of water as your breathing went back to normal. "I told you to let me come, now you're hurt and I had to stay here dealing with these…people." She said, pouting.

You smiled and held her hand. "I know, my love, but it would've hurt more to see you in this bed. Besides, it was all an honest mistake, the boy already apologized."

She furrowed her eyebrows at this, not being aware that your accident wasn't that much related to the game itself. "What do you mean by a mistake?"

Your eyes widened at this and a nervous laugh got out. "Mistake? I didn't say that, in fact I'm suddenly very sleepy."

She narrowed her eyes at you. "Who did this to you?"

You closed your eyes and sighed. "He is just a kid, Mira. He didn't mean it."

"Who?"

You pulled her closer to you. "I didn't catch his name, he is new here. I think he was speaking to me on the way back but I'm not sure if it was an hallucination."

She nodded and gently hugged you, positioning her head on your chest.

She kept a close look on you, always ready for anything you needed, but also searching for the boy's identity. Your proximity wasn't new but her anxiety skyrocketed during your bed rest days, making her even more attached than usual, and you didn't mind, finding it all lovely.

A few days later, the boy died in a hearts game, Mira's satisfied smirk didn't come unnoticed but neither did yours.

You looked at her after receiving the news. "Funny how he died and no one else did."

She turned to you with a smile. "I suppose it is."

"Will you tell me how you did it?"

She faked a gasp. "How rude of you to assume I did this."

"Mira, you threatened him at least ten times a day, and you almost killed the kid when he brought flowers."

She rolled her eyes. "That doesn't mean I would do this, threatening is very different from murder. It was all just an unlucky game, it happens all the time. Does it not?"

You laughed and turned to hug her. "I can't wait to hear the true story."

She chuckled and hugged you back with a smile.

----------------------------------------------------

masterlist

[hello-im-not-a-possum]

Shattered Identity

Chapter three: Li(es)ghts, camera, action!

Chapter one. Chapter two.

Fitting the ghost-speak-to-English-translator around his neck, adjusting his face mask, and double checking to make sure he looked presentable enough that they wouldn't call child protective services or the non emergency hotline the second they saw him, Vlad took a deep breath in and rehearsed his regular human cover story.

"I'm Vlad Masters's son and I came to Amity because I got a letter stating that my father was killed under mysterious circumstances and you two seem like people of interest."

No, he shouldn't start with that, felt too accusatory too quickly and could tip Danny off that he does have something of a grudge against his parents, which would mean that he'd lose the boy's trust.

"Hello! I'm Vlad Masters's son and I originally came here because I'm an aspiring crypto-zoologist with an interest in ectobiology, so naturally I figured that the most haunted town on earth had a few colleges with good courses in the subject."

Good, good, it's not perfect yet but it's certainly better than murder accusation. And the Fentons would be more likely to open up to him if they assumed he was fascinated in their field. Now to explain why and how they've never seen him in their lives before, not even as a picture...

"I've been studying abroad for years, mostly in Europe. And Dad? We haven't really seen each other since the divorce, it was a messy and complicated one so he really doesn't like talking about it."

Perfect! But should he go for a fake accent, or just speak normally? Hell, he hasn't even picked out a fake name yet! Ugh! If he kept going on like this and stalling, he'd completely miss his chance!

He took a deep breath in and knocked on the door.

"I'll get it!"

Jack Fenton opened up the door with a friendly grin. "Hello there kiddo, here to report anything ghost... related..?" He trailed off as he noticed that the young adult on his doorstep had a stark resemblance to his old friend.

He looked just like how Vlad did back in college! A little thinner and his hair was sticking up in ways that reminded him of the Wisconsin Ghost, but other than that he was the spitting image!

"Hello Mr. Fenton! My name is Jack Masters and I'm an aspiring Crypto-zoologist with an interest in ectobiology..."

"Jack... Masters..?" the man repeated, his eyes watering with a weak smile.

"Er.. Yes..?"

The teen nervously smiled back despite the smile in question being hidden. Swiss rolls! What did he do?! Why was Jack crying?! ACK!

Jack scooped his Best Friend's son up in a tight bear hug. Despite how distant they've grown and how upset he was after he came out of the hospital, Vlad still loved and respected him so much that he named his own son after him! And despite the white-gray hair, this kid was clearly at least sixteen! Doing the math, that meant that he was born a few years after the portal incident!

"Uh.. Nice to meet you too?" The teenager in the gold, white, and green sweater wheezed while being crushed.

"Oops! Sorry about that." The big Jack put the small Jack down and wiped his eyes while the teen brushed his sweater off. "I guess I got a little too excited..."

"No worries, mind if I come in? I think your family and I have a lot to talk about."

"Of course, J-Kid! Come in! We're about to have breakfast, we'll fix you a plate too."

"Thanks Mr. Fenton!"

"What's with all the commotion?" Jazz asked and froze as she saw the guest.

"Kids! Your cousin Jack Masters dropped by! Isn't that great?"

"Yeah.. Great..." She nervously smiled while her brother held back his laughter behind her. "Hey, can we see him in private before breakfast?"

Before their father could answer, she was already dragging him upstairs and into her room, Danny following close behind.

"Are you okay? Did something happen back at your house that you came to warn us about? Are you suffering side effects from the Ghost Duster and came here for help?"

"Were you panicking when you picked Jack as a fake name or did Dad mishear you when you were getting a bear hug? And of all the things to steal from my parents, why an old lab coat?"

"Tell your homicidal friends that Vlad didn't make it!" The masked teen blurted out instead of answering any of the duo's questions.

"What?!" Both Jazz and Danny gawked in unison.

"Sam and Tucker, tell them either the core was destroyed due to a mishap or that shortly after he reformed, Jack and Maddie gunned him down for good. Either way, I know they want me dead and if they already believe that I am, they won't try to kill me. I may not know the full picture of why I'm being hunted down and treated like the scum of the earth, but I don't want to be destroyed!"

"...Did you catch them breaking into your house when you went home last night and thought that they wanted to kill you in your sleep? Because if so, that wasn't the plan." Danny wrung his hands with a nervous smile.

"...You know what? Forget it, that's not the important take away here." He shook his head. "The important thing is that this" he gestured to his own body. "Cannot be reversed. The only way for me to grow back up that I know of is the natural flow of time. Which means that I need to both fake my own death and fake my own new life."

"Okay, that sounds... reasonable, but what do we have to do with that?"

"You two can't tell anyone else that I'm alive, not even your friends who you might trust but I certainly don't. I know they won't buy that I'm actually my own estranged son which is why my cover story for them is that I'm a clone designed to play 'undertaker'. You know, that I just exist to handle all the chaos that normally would've come up without a death plan in mind as well as destroy all evidence that Vlad has supernatural abilities after his death and may or may not just melt into nothing imminently after the Job's done?"

"...I hate that that's a plausible thing you- Er, past you would do." Danny groaned.

Vlad gave him an unamused look which was easy to read even with the face mask.

"What about our mom?" Jazz raised an eyebrow.

"...What about her? She can't be trusted with the truth or the clone story."

"Not that, I'm curious, do you still have any strong feelings towards her?"

"Yes: Fear. I feel very strong feelings of fear." Vlad nodded. "And other various and hard-to-name emotions too, but those are in the background. If you're worried about me lusting after her then don't. I know that even boiled down to our very essences as people, we're completely incompatible as a couple."

"Oh? Care to elaborate?" Jazz sat next to the bed and gestured for him to lay down on it and gestured for Danny to give them some privacy for Vlad's comfort, which both did. "When did you discover that you and mom are incompatible?"

"I can't really put it down to an exact date or moment, just... It was like a switch was flipped while I was reduced to a core. The need to survive outweighing both ghostly obsession and human delusions. It was like... carrying a backpack full of rocks while trying to scale a cliff, and when I almost lost my grip, I cut off the backpack without even thinking about it. It didn't matter to me if they were the most precious jewels or just dead weight in the moment, I had to..."

"I see... And how exactly would you describe this incompatibility? Romantic, platonic, spiritual..? Or were you so deeply effected by the trauma she inflicted on you that you can't even tell what you used to see in her anymore?"

...He was going to say that while he is willing to forgive her for her part to play in the portal incident, her abandoning him to rot alone in the hospital while marrying his best friend, robbing him a few times, several attempted dissections, and many more things, he still had standards and self-respect and would never in a million years date a Viking's fan. But he also felt that if he did say that out loud to her, she'd think his priorities were completely stupid.

"Y-yeah, both the trauma and the romantic thing... Looking back with a new perspective and going off of what I remember about us, if by some means we genuinely got together, we would bring out the worst in each other and I think that it would be an exhausting power struggle where if one of us won, the other would be trapped in a miserable metaphorical cage and if it was us as equals against a shared enemy, say, the ghost zone, we would be genocidal tyrants of likes the universe had never seen before."

"...Okay... And how come you and her worked out as friends then?"

"In hindsight, Jack was the glue that healthily held us together-"

"Wait, you don't wanna kill my dad anymore?"

"Well out of everyone who intentionally tried to kill me that I know of, he's been the most friendly and considerate, so no? Not really." He shrugged

"That's great! Er, not the almost dying thing but..."

"Kids! Breakfast!" Maddie called up the stairs. "Better hurry and get it before the bus comes!"

"Okay, while we didn't the chance to dig too deep I think we made some good progress on figuring out what you're working with. Wanna do this again next week?"

"I'll think about it..." Vlad got off of the bed. "I mean, the next few weeks are going to be insanely busy for me with all the paperwork."

The two went downstairs and sat at the table, where the Fenton Family ate while Vlad just picked at his food as he didn't want to take off the mask.

Maddie took notice of the older teen's lack of appetite as well as a few other red flags about him.

The son of one of the most talked about billionaires in the world, and there's never even been so much of a peep by media about him? She wasn't denying his paternity, it would be extremely difficult to prove that the teen wasn't his son. (He was practically the spitting image of his younger self from what she could see of his uncovered face) but how and why did Vlad manage to keep the boy out of public eye for so long? Not even a single family picture anywhere in the house? Vlad never even talking about him once?

And that's not even touching on the mysterious teen's physical state; He was frail, had dark circles under his eyes, he was shaking like a chihuahua, and call it a mother's intuition, but the way his clothes and mask were, it... it seemed like he was strategically covering up injuries...

Oh god... did he name his kid "Jack" because he was using him as punching bag to let his anger out..? She tolerated so much of Vlad's... peculiarities for her husband's sake, but so help her, she will maul that man like a feral bear if he's been abusing his own son over his petty grudge against her husband!

"So J-Kid, tell us about yourself." Her husband gave the guest a warm smile. "What got you interested in Crypto-zoology?"

"Mostly morbid curiosity. I grew up hearing about sightings of strange creatures, both alien and terrestrial and I wanted to know more about them. What evolutionary niches are they supposed to fill? How intelligent are they? Are they sentient and sapient? And regarding my interest in ectobiology, with the existence of ghosts being proven real, how many of the cryptids on earth are living, breathing creatures that we know very little of and how many are ghosts of the entities they once were? ...I figured if I could tell the difference between ghost biology and living entity biology, it would come in handy with some of my questions."

"Well if you're up for an internship here, we'd be more than happy to teach you everything we know about ghost biology!" Jack beamed.

"Thank you for the offer Mr. Fenton, I'll think about it while settling in to town."

"And do you have a place to stay? ...Specifically, a place you feel safe staying at?" Maddie inquired.

"Yes, don't worry, I plan on staying with Vladimir. It's going to be my first time meeting him since the divorce so I'm both nervous about it and excited."

"The divorce..?" She repeated, surprised, but not sure what she should be surprised about. Maybe the fact Vlad got married in the first place?

"Yes, from what I can tell about it it was really messy and mom was pretty spiteful about it, not giving an inch while taking miles, refusing to let him see me, spreading bad rumors... I'm not surprised he never really told anyone about me, I bet he didn't want to talk about the whole thing. It kinda feels weird calling a man I've never met my dad though..."

Okay, so whatever the kid's been through wasn't directly caused by Vlad... He's safe from her mama bear wrath for now.

"Well I'm sure you two will get along just fine, why, you and V-Man even have the same favorite football team! Sure moving's always hard to adjust to, but you have nothing to worry about regarding your old man, okay?"

"Got it, thanks Mr. Fenton. And thanks for the breakfast" Vlad weakly smiled.

"Oh? Going so soon?"

"Yeah, sorry, but boxes aren't going to unpack themselves and I really just came to let you two know I'm in the neighborhood before you get caught off guard."

"Well feel free to visit again any time, J-Kid!" Jack gave him a firm handshake. "Our home is your home too."

"And mine is yours." the teen smiled back.

---

"-So let me get this straight. He's dead? As in, dead dead?" Tucker almost couldn't believe his ears.

"Yeah, as it turns out, while I was trying to take him to Frostbite, he didn't survive the trip..." Danny scratched the back of his head. Not comfortable with lying directly to his two best friends but it wasn't like paranoid amnesiac had an unreasonable request considering that all he knew about them right now was that they tried to kill him. "His core fell apart while we were trying to figure out what happened to him.."

"Dang..." Tucker leaned against the bus stop. "I mean, I never liked the guy... but really? That's how the cookie crumbled instead of some epic final battle?"

"Are you sure? It feels too... convenient." Sam spoke up. "He just falls apart and that's it? He's done and dealt with?"

"Do you want him to come back..?"

"No! But just.. I think we should keep our guards up. He could be faking it so he can go lick his wounds somewhere before ambushing us."

"I... don't think it's possible to fake having a core fall apart." Danny frowned.

"I'm less worried about him somehow surviving being completely destroyed and more worried about who or what will raid Vlad's mansions for weapons and money to use against us." Tucker shook his head. "Just imagine Skulker with the Plasmius Maximus incorporated into his arsenal."

"So he'd disable his own powers?" He snorted in amusement.

"Okay, bad example..."

"Anyway, I don't think we should be too worried about what happens to his stuff, Vlad made a clone of himself specifically to handle it. I've met him and he's not too bad."

"HE HAS A CLONE OF HIMSELF?!" Both Tucker and Sam gawked in unison.

"...Yeah? But don't worry, he's not evil, just skittish."

"How do you know this..?" Sam shook her head in exasperation.

"He showed up on the doorstep and Dad let him in to have breakfast."

"Huh... Does Dani know she has a big brother?"

"...Or a little brother depending on how long he's been out of the tube?"

"Good question... I guess I'll ask him the next time we see each other."

[misty-groves]

Josie is standing before Tucker's room dressed in nothing but her kevlar undersuit. Though she still has knives strapped to her thigh. She dosen’t like to feel defenseless in a warzone.

She's exhuasted after trying to take down Felix today.

She knocks, waiting for whatever happens next.

Tucker opens the door, in lose sweat pants. He looks her over and gives a low whistle, "damn Josie, visiting me in next to nothing late at night?"

She laughs, "Can I come in?"

"Yeah, sure."

He steps aside, and she walks in.

"Can't sleep?" Tucker asks, trying to figure out what she's doing here.

"Not really. You can't either."

"Sho says?"

"You're up, aren't you?" She gives him a soft smile, the real one she hides from people because she thinks it's dorky and stupid.

Tucker is struck by just how genuine she's become around him. The others too, but she is genuine around him.

His whole persona is being a play boy! And she trusts him.

He snorts, "guess I am, sweet cheeks."

She laughs this time. She likes that name, from him at least. If someone else called her that she'd tell them off. But for whatever reason, when Tucker calls her that it makes her happy.

It didn't used to, but somewhere along the lime she warmed up to it. Maybe it's because she warmed up to him.

Josie sits herself in his bed, leaning back on her hands as she looks at him.

"Thanks, for stepping up." She says.

Tucker blinks, taken aback by both the words and the image of her on his bed.

"Uh- sure thing. Someone had to."

"I appreciate it though, Tucker. I'm glad I'm not the only one leading."

"Yeah well... we make a good team, don't we?"

"Of course we do!" She tilts her head, thinking.

"What's on your mind, Josie?"

"I miss the others... It's weird to be away from Wash again."

"You really love him, huh?" Tucker asks.

And it hurts, knowing that Josie is hedlad over heels for the ex freelancer.

It hurts that Wash is so gone on her he dosen’t even look at anyone else.

But he's seen Wash and Josie together, they fit together better than anyone he's ever seen but Simmons and Grif.

"You do too." Josie says simply.

"What?"

"At the very least you like him. I'm not stupid, Tucker, you two have a thing."

"You're fucking with me. It's not fucking funny, Josie. Next you'll tell me you're interested in me."

"And what if I do? Would that be so awful?"

"Don't fuck with me." Tucker says, crosshis arms firmly.

"I'm not. Do you need me to lay it all out?"

"Might as well, since you're so sure how I feel."

Josie sighs, turning her gaze to the wall for a moment. But she looks back at Tucker. Her hair sways as she crosses her legs.

"You already know Wash and I have this- thing."

Tucker rolls his eyes. "Everyone knows."

"Wash and I aren't together, never have been. I know you have a thing for him, which, I totally get by the way."

"So what? Just because he's hot doesn't mean-"

"Tucker," Josie interrupts, "Don't bullshit me. I know you."

"Whatever."

Josie takes that as a win. She continues, "But more than that I have a thing for you. And I think you like me too. Or I would like to think you do."

"Wait- you're serious?"

"I've told lots of lies, Tucker. But I wouldn't lie about this. Not to you."

And Tucker nearly chokes. He knows she's lied. She faked her own death, created a new barley different identity, and kept her A.I hidden. She'd withheld info from Wash back when he was hunting them

Hell. Josie had even admitted to sneaking out as a teen.

But she sounds so earnest. And she hasn't ever lied outright to Tucker only kept things hidden to protect herself or others. But never outright lie.

"Fuck." Tucker manages.

"This is the part where you tell me of you have a thing for me or not."

"Are you kidding? Of course I do you dumb bitch."

"Women don't usually appreciate being called that." Josie says, smiling nonetheless. "But it's good to know how you feel."

"You don't expect me to fall into being your boyfriend do you?" Tucker asks.

And he doesn't know what answer he wants.

She laughs, shaking her head. "No, there's a lot of talking that should happen before we slap any real label on us. There's the whole "we like Wash" thing."

"Yeah. I guess."

"How about for now you just come sleep with me?"

"Bow chicka bow wow!"

She rolls her eyes, "You know what I meant."

"I can dream."

"You don't to, we can try that later. But for right now, come lay your ass down and sleep."

"Bossy."

"You like that."

"I really do." Tucker agrees.

He joins her on the bed. They lay down and curl under the blanket. He finds that he likes having her in his space aren't he falls asleep.

Tucker wakes up before Josie for the first time he can remember. He's sprawled across his bed, one arm around her.

She's curls up with her back to him. He wild curls spread haphazardly about them both.

She's still breathing slow and steady, dead to the world as he moves to sit up.

"Josie?" Tucker asks softly.

"Ngh?" She groans, stirring.

"Josie."

"Shhhh...."

"Josie wake up."

"No." She says, closing her eyes harder.

Tucker snorts. Struck by the way the artificial light highlights her scars.

Josie opens one eye and looks at him "mhh, mornin' Tucker."

"Morning, sweetcheeks."

"You're awful flirty."

"I just go after what I like."

"Good."

And she's sitting up, smiling again at him. She's done that a lot lately.

"You are a menace when you sleep. You tried to kick me."

"Sorry. I forgot about that."

Tucker just rolls his eyes. Of course she did. The menace.

His menace though.

Wait-

"I should go get ready. See you at breakfast?"

"Like I'd skip breakfast."

She just snorts as she stands up.

She grabs her knives she left on his nights and and heads out.

And this time, Tucker dosen’t feel any guilt for staring at her as she leaves.

[dementedspeedster]

From the 'Weirdly specific but helpful character building question' prompt: 1, 7, 13, 30, 31

Accepting || WEIRDLY SPECIFIC BUT HELPFUL CHARACTER BUILDING QUESTIONS

What’s the lie your character says most often?

"I'm fine."

7. What would you (mun) yell in the middle of a crowd to find them? What would their best friend and/or romantic partner yell?

Mun: I wouldn't mean it, but I'd probably say something vaguely insulting about The Flash/Barry Allen because Thad would come find me in that instance. For a best friend: @deborahmorgna gave me a few options for Deb: - "I think Bart is hot." - "Supers are better than Bats" (That would work in either of my ship verse) -"Marco" In Interlac with the expectation he yells back, "Polo." - No words needed Deb's just starting a fire. - Or just Deb screaming. (Thad would absolutely ) A Romantic Partner: I also asked @volucerrubidus and they replied, "Probably a straight up insult" and that definitely would definitely get Thad's attention. He would also respond in a very Miette way f you're familiar with the meme. Thad's response: "You insult Thad??? Oh, oh! Jail! Jail for Tim." (He will be mustering the biggest puppy eyes and the poutiest pout he can.)

13. When do they fake a smile? How often?

Thad doesn't fake his smile too often nowadays, but he will fake his smile in moments of duress. In the moments where he has to play villain for someone. In the moments where he needs to be a villain to just get by the moment even when that's not what he wants. If someone is so sure that he's bad, evil, or a villain, then he will fall into that role and put on a mask for them and play his part because arguing against people like that is so much harder. It's not worth the time or energy for him, so he just doesn't fight back. Also just relating to the first question. He would fake a smile when saying "I'm fine".

30. When they make a mistake and feel bad, does the guilt differ when it’s personal versus when it’s professional?

No, it doesn't differ for him. You might notice that I refer to Thad pretty strictly as Thad in my writing because there is no difference between Inertia and Thad Thawne. Inertia is not an alternate identity to Thad or a name he can hide behind, but instead it is just him.

31. When do they feel the most guilt? How do they respond to it?

I think Thad feels the most guilt when he betrays the trust of someone he cares about or when he fails them. These types of moments have to due with just who he s as a person. He's selfish at times, self-serving, he'll do almost anything to protect himself first and foremost, so sometimes he tries to defend his actions. But other times he will just feel that guilt and shame. He'll probably try to stay away from the person he hurt.

[kitkatt0430]

Time for another Flash episode. And the jerky camera work is not off to a good start.

So Blaine is now playing mechanical engineer for Red Death and he still hasn't gotten anything out of this relationship.

"A superstitious and cowardly lot" Red Death says of criminals. As if she is not one herself.

I think Barry & Iris are getting a little too caught up in the 'avatar of the negative speed force' thing. The Speed Force has lots of speedsters and Nora 1.0 proved that more than one speedster can use the negative speed force at a time... sometimes a speedster is just... angry. (Of all the retcons, what they've done with the Negative Speed Force and the other negative Forces I like the least. The N!SF was originally just something Eobard made himself. Which was a big deal when it inspired Barry and Cisco to attempt the same thing... and foreshadowed that the ASF would have bad side effects. It's now it's own living thing? That's... whatever, it never totally made sense that the N!SF survived the Eobard being erased from the timeline anyway.)

Oh, hey, Jenna gets to be a person again. The show has remembered this child exists again!!! Now if only her parents would do the sensible thing and move the hell out of Central City. I would hope that they'd sell the house to Barry and Iris, though. It's a gorgeous house, been in the family for two generations now. It should stay in the family.

I'm proud of the Central City citizens who realize red lightning is bad news and got the heck out of dodge when Red Death showed up. Could have done with less screaming, but they have learned to book it when a bad speedster shows up.

Oh, it's Roy Bivolo! Haven't seen him since S1. I'm so glad to see him. And he's learned new tricks and emotions to mess with. Also... he kinda deserves a little vengeance after the pipeline thing in S1.

Blaine unsurprisingly protects Barry's identity from the last people in the city who don't know the Flash's real name. Because of course Blaine has to be wrestling with his conscience and it's leading up to some heel face turn that I honestly don't care about because at this point he's used up his chances to be even remotely sympathetic.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Khione continues to be nature girl and inspires Allegra and Chester to get in touch with their new Rogue friends using a metaphor about static electricity. But if talking in metaphor is getting a bit annoying at this point since that's all she does. If that's her super power - making nature based metaphors - then it kinda sucks. I'm honestly not seeing why the show writers killed Caitlin off if this is the best they can manage with Khione.

But hey, looks like we're getting Hartley, Goldface, and Jaco back after all. Fun times. :D

Red Death torturing Barry for the funsies. While Barry makes speeches. Fun times.

Oooh, is that the real Ryan? Does this mean that I was right about the multiverse finally getting reintroduced??? Then again she does have the skunk stripe too, but maybe they just decided her hair is styled that way now. Either way, Ryan and Iris getting a chance to bond is something I've been wanting since it was announced Ryan would be in this season.

Still... something about Ryan seems off... and that skunk stripe. I don't think I trust this is the real Ryan.

So I feel like they wouldn't have needed the Rogues if they still had Cisco. Chester just... is not as good under pressure as Cisco was. Though Hartley showing up and being all smug about his toys and then... his speedster tracker doesn't work. *snicker*

Red Death showing off fancy new tricks is cool and convinces me that the Ryan with Iris isn't the real Ryan. But I'm also pretty sure Iris suspects something is off too, so hopefully I'll be proven right about that.

So Red Death 'built their own speed' so they made an ASF of their own. Which is what the Negative SF started off as...

Woohoo, Iris suspects Ryan's a fake. Go Iris. She's just so awesome.

'Another timeline'. Let's just call it the multiverse mmkay?

Red Death stopping thought crime and presumably killing criminals instead of catching them. No wonder the alt timeline's Flash fought her. There are lines she shouldn't have crossed and it sounds like she crossed them. And... if she needs this Iris to talk to that other Barry... did Ryan kill her 'best friend'?

Barry trying to talk Blaine around. *flat tone* yay. Who would have seen that coming?

Using Frost as an example of Barry giving second chances isn't a bad decision, but oh wow was the situation so different there. Frost was struggling to find herself as a person, afraid of Caitlin who was suppressing her, and everyone assumed she'd be evil before she ever had a chance to make her own choices. It was less 'giving her a second chance' and more 'giving her that first chance they'd failed to the first time around'.

I know. I'm a Frost apologist. *sigh* But seriously, I see people in the fandom getting upset over Frost never apologizing herself and being easily forgiven but first? Practically no one apologizes on this show and everyone's easily forgiven. And second? No one gave Frost a chance to be anything but evil in S3. None of them. Especially Caitlin. Even Barry 'reaching out' in the pipeline was him urging Caitlin to take control and Caitlin to be a good person.

Anyway, back to Iris and Ryan and the more interesting conversation... I gosh, I was right. Red Death killed her reality's Iris West. Whoops. Maybe you shouldn't have been trying to kill your besty's husband and you wouldn't have killed Iris instead, Ryan.

Iris pointing out the flaws in Ryan's story is great. But sadly interrupted by the storm knocking out my power for several seconds. So time to save a draft and come back later.

Okay, storm has calmed down and the worst has moved past my area. I still have power so I'm gonna finish this episode.

Back to Iris calling out Ryan for lying and twisting the truth.

So the Red Death's armor coming to her is a neat sequence but a little... uncanny valley at points?

I do like Cecile's telekinesis. But Joe is right about them needing to move.

And Hartley's machine works! Also Blaine double crosses Red Death and proves to be a better no-power fighter than Barry is. I will give him that much.

Oh! did Allegra pull Nash's teleporter out of storage?

I was hoping for some more Rogues vs Rogues fighting. But i guess next episode? I wonder if Blaine's actually dead. I mean. I'd like to be done with his character but it's a comic based super hero show and i don't believe a character is dead if I don't see the dead body. And even then, how many times has Sara been dead?

And what was the point of the Joe wanting to move plot if there's no pay off? Because him deciding to stay is just a return to form after not really having anything of substance happen. Like, seriously, what was the point of that subplot?

And Red Death declares war in the end. But I gotta wonder. What's been happening with the real Ryan? Has she been dumped into the Red Death's reality? (timeline? Whatever.) I really hope we get to see her next episode to know she's okay.

Okays, so final thoughts on the episode was, not nearly enough time with the Team Flash ally Rogues, way too much time spent on subplots that go nowhere (Joe wanting to move, the Allegra/Chester nonsense, Khione rambling about nature), and I guess parallel timelines are the new multiverse?

I do think that Khione is correct in real world terms about every life being precious and it being important to try to save lives when you can. But I also think Hartley probably made the right call getting them the hell out of Dodge with Nash's teleporter. Even at Blaine's expense. They do Blaine no good if they die too. No one deserves to die a terrible death, but needlessly sacrificing yourself to save someone else's life when doing so won't actually achieve that goal? No one can save everyone. Not even heroes.

Sometimes Barry has to be dragged, kicking and screaming, away from the brink of martyring himself. This was probably one of those times.

It seems like, as has become a hallmark of the show in recent seasons, the pacing of the various plots is all over the place in a very bad way. Dragging out plots that should have been short or cut altogether and then rushing the main plot as a result. So I'm sure there will be more of that in the next episode.

Speaking of which, based on the trailer it looks like Red Death will be taking a play out of Zoom's book next and going after the CCPD. And of course Barry's speed has been drained - again. Bringing in Red Death was a really cool idea for the final season but... once again... the Flash seems to be suffering from poor execution of good ideas. It's not as bad as last season - at least Red Death has a single plan and motivation instead of three conflicting plans that make zero sense when executed simultaneously - but that just puts it on par with season 7 and I wasn't exactly impressed with that one.

If the team ups with Hartley end with the Red Death: Rogue War plot then I honestly don't know if I'll be sticking it out. I mean... I am interested in the return of Jay Garrick and Bloodwork coming back for round two - since Bloodwork's time as the show's main villain was probably the last time the show had good pacing and had subplots that were relevant to the main plot and interconnected everything really neatly - but there's a difference between interested and excited and I'm just... never excited about the show anymore.

[tazzy-ace]

For the AU askgame: DMBJ + Guardian Horror Movie AU

Hi there ask from my favorite chief that was almost a year ago o/ jsksjksks After this long and scrolling through my blog to find the original post to figure out what this was about I'm here to answer! 😅

The rules for this ask was give 5 facts... but as you'll see I got a little carried away. Enjoy!

I did look up the tropes of Horror characters because I've honestly only watched a handful of horror movies but I know enough from pop culture to be ready to answer this sjksj My just being bad at names meant I needed help from the internet

Horror Movie AU w/ DMBJ + Guardian

Okay first let's start with the cast:

Obviously got to have Zhao Yunlan, Shen Wei, and Wu Xie Pangzi and Xiaoge (I've got special plans for him 😉) Lin Jing and Liu Sang would be interesting in this settle, especially keeping the fake monk being a monk and Liu Sang having enhanced senses. As much as I would love to have my beloved cat and Chu Shuzhi or Xiao Guo, I've gotta focus in otherwise this would become so much more jsksjksjs

The Plot Hook

When a group of tomb raiders are caught by authorities as they are leaving a tomb, they think that will be the worst of it, until members of their team are slowly being killed or going missing. They are forced to team up in order to make it out alive. Is it man or monster? Living or dead? The group must find answers before there's no one left.

Character tropes/Roles

Zhao Yunlan - The competent fighter/cop, he's trained for taking down killers and bring justice to those that have been wronged. He's there for a purpose and is always motivated to keep moving forward without giving up hope

Shen Wei - The smart one/competent fighter, combines with facts told by other characters to piece things together and actually figure out who the killer is/why

Wu Xie - The final "girl", destined to be the last survivor as he eventually realizes that he's not being targeted the way the others are

Pangzi - The character that sacrifices himself to protect/safe his friends, he would never let his friend's be hurt if he could do something about it (maybe in the sequel it's revealed he didn't actually die bc I couldn't bear to keep this man dead)

Lin Jing - The one trying to guide through the problem and understanding the deeper thing going on

Liu Sang - The one able to warn when danger grows near, as the plot continues he struggles more and more to tell when something is about to happen until he's too late to save himself

Xiaoge - The corrupted killer, maybe a tomb curse or the effects of the Zhang family trying to bring back their perfect immortal head of the family under their control (Do I love the friends fighting against each other against their will/one refusing to hurt the other in a fight? yes, yes I do)

The Resolution

With the combined intelligence and competence, the group is able to figure out the identity of the killer and the effects that Xiaoge is under to do such things. It's a struggle with losses, Pangzi dying (or maybe not quite and he comes back later) to protect Wu Xie to get back to Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan with important information and Liu Sang being eventually bested by the man he always looked up to and unable to bear raising a hand to his Ouixang. Lin Jing has a close call, almost dying after being attacked but manages to make it out alive. Zhao Yunlan, Shen Wei, and Wu Xie end up even closer bonded and Wu Xie ends up joining in their task force (SID equivalent in this AU) to follow the captured Xiaoge, hoping to be part of the solution of helping his friend through the effects that drove him to doing all of this and believing Pangzi dead and burying Liu Sang.

Could totally have a reboot/sequel with Pangzi coming back for revenge or something. Jksjksjs this escalated, but enjoy this full Horror AU breakdown! 😁 Thanks for the ask, chief o/

[systemadministratorclu]

For Milo and Rourke:

🤡How do you deal with avoiding suspicion while living forever? ✨Other than immortality, do you have other supernatural abilities?

🤡How do you deal with avoiding suspicion while living forever?

"We use fake names, for one thing," Rourke answered, "Usually, I'm Jack O'Neil and Milo is Daniel Jackson. Milo even made us fake IDs once he had the tech." He held up a Texas driver's license with his picture that did indeed say "Jack O'Neil" and his actual date of birth, though with an altered year. "He updates them every so often."

"We use other names sometimes, but we never steal anyone's identity." Milo added quickly, "We always make something up or use a fictional name."

"Like, I was Paul Merrit on one trip to the surface, and Milo was Frank Poole." Rourke explained.

"I wanted David Bowman, but I don't look like a Dave." Milo said.

"Anyway, we never stay on the surface long enough for anyone to care about or even notice the no-aging thing." Rourke finished, "You're up, Mi."

✨Other than immortality, do you have other supernatural abilities?

"Well, that's not even our ability." Milo started, "It's just because of the Heart of Atlantis, actually a piece of ancient alien technology we still don't fully understand. Like, we don't know how it slows aging almost to a stop. It also protects us from disease......but it has to encounter someone with a disease before it can do that. I've figured out that it needs to encounter a disease, usually by someone with one of these pendants getting the disease, and collect its data in order to protect us against it.......I, uh, helped it do that a few times." Rourke nodded and pulled him into a side hug and Milo smiled at him as he continued, "But Lyle here took very good care of me when I was sick."

"You did the same for me, Milo." Rourke returned the smile before going back to anon's question.

"It lets us heal some injuries, too. Although, that takes energy. Sometimes a lot of it."

"And I think that's about it for 'supernatural abilities'. What do you think, Lyle?" Rourke grinned.

"I think Milo's brain should count. And his unstoppable powers of Irresistible Cuteness." He laughed softly and gave Milo a kiss on one blushing cheek.

"Alright, big guy, that's how you wanna play? Well I can do it, too. Lyle can strike fear into total jerks with just his eyes. And if he gives you a shoulder massage, ohhhh, I swear his hands are magic. He does it better than even Sweet, and Sweet's a doctor.......And he's very, very charming." Milo added the last bit with a smirk as he saw Rourke's cheeks start to burn.

"Well-and this is no exaggeration-Milo's just being.....Milo. His 'Milo-ness', if you will.....literally saved my life."

"Aaww, Lyle."

"Hey, you did three for me, that was my third for you. Now we're even." Milo just smiled and laid his head on Rourke's shoulder, looking fondly at the gold bands on their left hands, Milo's looking older as it had been his grandfather's before it was his.

"Yeah," he agreed as Rourke dropped a soft kiss in his hair, "Now we're even."

[sinkingtime]

Remaking the DCU 3 - Enter the Multiverse, kind of

Part 1, Part 1 and a half, Part 2, Part 2 and a half

This one is more vague, as I have vastly exceeded the original scope of the idea, but I still have a few stories I want to get to.

Also, the thing I was insecure about including, which nobody said anything either way so I will proceed under the assumption that it's perfectly ok. That's how that works, right?

We should ostensibly be in the "space arc" that I wanted to get Supergirl off-world to introduce. But before that, I have one more Earth character I'd like to have, right after Red Daughter of Tomorrow.

But before that, let me fill in one of the blanks I had before.

But before THAT, minor insignificant addendum.

...about Azrael

Jean-Paul Valley Jr, the Angel of Vengeance of the Holy Order of Saint Dumas, was the one to get Supergirl's hair. There isn't such an order, he's just a hitman who calls himself that.

His sword is actually on fire, so maybe that could establish her hair was a little super after all. I think preferably not, though, on the grounds that the Legion would deem hair useless and not bother modifying it.

Anyways, the point is that I've been skipping over Gotham-based characters, for the sake of the "Bruce but no Batman" agenda. But this guy doesn't need to be from there, it makes the most sense that they meet him in europe somewhere.

Identity Crisis

This isn't actually an adaptation of Identity Crisis, probably doesn't deserve the name, but maybe there could be a couple references that justify a "loosely inspired by" tag. Maybe.

What this is is the movie right after Lobo, dealing with magic and mass-mind control. I have decided Zatanna is the villain. There will also be Manchester Black, but he turns out to be a fake she set up to take the fall.

She's using her power to join the League, retroactively. There's flashbacks to when she first helped with something and they offered her membership, and mention that she and Jinx actually did some training together, Jonah was an old friend of Zatanna's dad, etc. All of that is a lie, but hopefully by this point we have introduced enough members without comment that the audience doesn't catch up early.

J'onn would easily mess up her plot, so she needs to deal with him early; and I consider his reveal important enough that she shouldn't give any indication that she's dealing with him. We don't know about him until Rebirth, but when we do the general thought should go "wait why didn't he know about OH right she did that thing".

So, before she sets foot on the Watchtower Station for the first time, the first time they learn about Black, she's shown to resist him. She later says she always has psychic defenses active, it's an elementary precaution any decent mage would take. Cue awkward fidgeting from Jinx. Then the two of them then cooperate to cast wards protecting the entire League.

Later, when those fail, Zatanna can blame the nature of Jinx's power for it. The movie could also imply this to be true, if it's happening early enough.

Zatanna's power source is a book that is written mirrored. Call it the Tome of Reflections or somesuch. It is the reason she speaks backwards; it's not that anything she so says will happen, but it's still a necessary component of all her spellcasting.

Her plot is ultimately to replace that with Diana's magic. The innate one, what she inherited from Zeus. She's not even using it, really, and Zatanna is professionally offended by that. (If she knew about the Lanterns she'd freak out.)

Extracting Diana's magic would kill her, but I'm saying that as omniscient narrator, I don't think she should know that for sure. Not that it would stop her if she did, but it's probably best if she tells herself she will be fine, that she'll later agree it was worth it, when both of them are heroes together.

Also, I keep imagining her cutting open her own chest to carve magic symbols in her ribs and heart and whatever other surfaces are available. Sadly, we can't use that, because it would be far too gruesome for this kind of movies, and also because she's not going to win. Spoilers, by the way!

Also also, I was considering making King Shark be a demigod after all, and therefore older than Wonder Woman because she really needs to be the last one. That would make him probably a better target for Zatanna, so that finally convinces me against it. He's just a weird mutant after all.

Anyways, I don't have much to add. Manchester Black was sometimes an anarchist, or at least pretending to be. His "evil plan" should include making public statements roughly in that vein. He could be someone who had previously complained about the League's existence and operations, though I don't think that's important enough to actually add him to previous movies.

He dies, by standard supervillain accidental suicide, except it's staged by Zatanna as a last-ditch effort to settle matters and distract everyone's attention.

The movie itself should be mostly mystery, maybe minor horror, on the grounds of the paranoia that Zatanna's actions are seeding.

After her defeat, Diana claims the Tome. She's also not going to use it, just keep it in storage with her friend's brooch. If we actually see that, there should be a third thing with them, doesn't matter what exactly but it should be somewhat recognizable.

Also this means the brooch was also more powerful than the book, or else that'd be what Jinx "borrowed" for Jonah to use during Rebirth.

Roxy Rocket

This was a minor villain from Batman: the Animated Series. She has since also appeared in comics, but never in an important fashion, as far as I can tell. She was a stunt actress who was addicted to danger, and so kept escalating her stunts until studios would no longer hire her. Then she turned to crime, primarily for the thrill but presumably also for the money. She rides a huge rocket with bike controls bolted on, and mostly antagonizes Batman and friends, but also Superman at least once.

Anyways, I want her to have Lobo's bike. I'd thought from the start I should want someone to use it to become a super; it's kind of a crappy spaceship but for a planet-bound character it's probably one of the best vehicles available. Then I dropped that when I thought that would be Supergirl's best idea to contact the Lantern Corps, but then then I remembered Roxy and have decided to go for it.

We open with her jumping out of a plane, wearing one of those flying squirrel-like flight suits. She's intending to get some air time and then land in another plane. This is not being recorded, she's doing it for fun, on her own money. The receiving plane gets out of position and leaves her to fall, presumably to her death.

Either someone from Hollywood wants revenge for some insult, real or imagined, or she was already involved in crime and is being double-crossed. Probably the later, but if I could come up with a plausible motivation for a (previously) non-criminal, I think it could be better to have the start of her life of crime be on-screen and not a flashback. Probably.

She realizes she's been betrayed and panics, but then gets a wide smile. She wouldn't have tried jumping from that height down to the ground, despite her reputation she's not quite that stupid, but now that it's happening she loves it. She does her best to control her fall, having the best time of her life, then crashes into the desert and slides and rolls a large distance, destroying her suit and getting large friction burns all over her body. She smiles and tries to raise her hand in triumph, whispering that she made it, then falls unconscious.

She's woken up by a voice she doesn't understand, probably with weird camera and audio effects to show us she's suffering from pain and hunger and sun exposure, but the voice is genuinely speaking a non-human language; it's someone that received Supergirl's transmission but also didn't understand it, and is trying to get a response back. This probably means it hasn't been very long since she left Earth, though the exact timing doesn't actually matter.

Roxy crawls towards the voice, with great difficulty, until she is convinced that it's below her, and begins digging in the sand, wondering if she's gone crazy. She finds the communicator and tries to answer, but it's quickly made clear to both that they can't understand each other. What's important is she also finds Lobo's bike.

First she raids the cargo boxes, finds his rations and begins eating and drinking. After that, a little more recovered, she takes a better look at the bike. It's obviously weird and she wonders if it's some prop, but by now humanity is aware that aliens and weird science exists, so she gets on it and tries to get it running.

It flies away at great speed, almost tossing her off, but she barely manages to hold on and climb properly. She's once again laughing, extremely happy. As she leaves, the camera goes back to the ground, we see she left behind the comm and Lobo's two books. Maybe some sand starts burying them again.

We should also get some small montage of her figuring out the bike. In particular, it can take her to space, but she very quickly figures out she shouldn't go that high, and it can take her around the planet trivially quickly. She also has some space guns, that she should have fun figuring out. And either we don't worry about power or there's some universal power converter and she also steals electricity from various places.

Beyond that, it's mostly a standard revenge movie. She figures out who betrayed her and why, starts attacking their interests, they start to retaliate but after some dramatic setbacks she wins. As keeps happening, I'm not sure if she should be a hero or a villain. She was already almost sympathetic in the episode, her main motivation is seeking adrenaline and that could easily be fulfilled by fighting supervillains. But I also need some recurring villains, arguably? So maybe she can stay as a "not so bad" criminal. Dunno.

She uses a version of her cartoon costume, which in-universe will be from an old movie she was in, called "The Ultimate Thrill", which was the name of the episode. Her last or her best work or something like that. We should see the poster but she's not in it, since she was a stunt actress, not a star. I think it would be funny to have her stunt double be the one posing for the poster, so as to say the roles are reversed in-universe. Unless the part were played by someone who does her own stunts, in which case nevermind.

After credits, back at the desert, the communicator speaks up again. The voice asks, in english but poorly, if this is the correct language and can anyone understand them now. Then the battery finally dies.

...next is a bunch of movies I can't actually think of

For that "space arc" that I wanted to have, but don't have any good ideas for.

I wanted to have a movie following Jonah Hex in the afterlife, after the events of Rebirth, but it was bad. Mostly the point was to establish that nothing else in the universe could destroy souls, besides the White War enemies; and furthermore that this was the reason why the Legion's meddling with time failed to make them unexist.

But there's nothing I'm comfortable letting get out of the afterlife, so there are no real stakes I could give the movie, so it was always going to be bad. Discarded.

I also had an idea for a New Gods one, mashing together Apokolips and New Genesis into a single planet, so as to make it be a real society. They'd be in the middle of a civil war, from which Orion would emerge as a Robin Hood-like figure.

That one has potential, I guess. I must have writen and deleted it like five times. For now all that remains is this "maybe".

The Violet Lantern Corps have a long-standing lawyer firm, that absolutely exists in the setting even if I've not had a legitimate excuse to introduce them in a movie. And from Lobo's attitude we can infer there is some form of galactic bounty hunters association. Either or both of them should get some sort of police procedural.

I've also decided Dick Grayson was a lawyer, as his day job back on Earth. That probably means when he first left Gotham it was to go to Harvard, and he only wound up in Blüdhaven after. Unless we just say Blüdhaven has a good law school. Either way, the point is that he'll end up joining the Star Sapphires proper, this may be his movie, or at least he shows up after credits.

Also, whoever was trying to answer Supergirl's call was probably either a Star Sapphire or Lobo's contact to them, since she was using his space phonebook. Whoever it was doesn't need to be particularly important, but should probably at least be mentioned.

Princess Koriand'r originally received visions of multiple "nice" worlds, specifically such that the Light thought it possible she would rather go to one of them than stay with her dying mother. Again, I consider this canon even if I don't think it should have been mentioned. Though I suppose she could have mentioned it in Red, actually; Dick could ask about her Test after learning that his was not standard-issue.

Anyways, someone should probably be in or from one of those worlds. The fact that they are desirable places to go to could mean whatever happens there is low-stakes and pleasant, which would make a good respite in between two tense movies, should there be such.

There should also be an appearance by the planet where the martians ended up. I don't have anything specific in mind for them, J'onn wouldn't have gotten to space and they have no particular reason to care about their former world, but nonetheless it feels like a waste to not have them come up.

Also kinda wanna establish that they can't phase through objects, J'onn only has that power as a result of the teleport accident, regular martians are merely shapeshifter telepaths.

A movie about a world that's been ravaged by a gang of space bandits, maybe slavers so they can ultimately rescue some people. A kid manages to escape and goes to seek a legendary warrior, famed for intervening in several wars through the galaxy. It's Supergirl. She helps him hunt them down, they philosophize about the nature of revenge and so on.

This is a story archetype that's been done many times, but I kinda wanna develop this one more. Can't help but feel it just needs one more gimmick.

I want the Challengers of the Unknown. Kind of. They would normally be a human group, but I'm making them aliens in part as payback for all the aliens who got turned into humans back on Earth. They'll actually appear later, so all we want during this section is a tease after credits. Members of the broader organization they will belong to, some space university or something, showing up to check up on whatever scientifically interesting debris one of the movies may have left behind.

I also keep thinking about the Black Mercy, but that's overplayed actually. Maybe mention that someone got black mercied, but don't show it.

And on the subject of officially running out of ideas, there's a minor character known as Space Cabbie. No real name I can find, though I admit I didn't look very hard. He's in the future, but that's easy enough to ignore, so I want him here, even if just as a minor character in some other movies. He transports people through space, and that's it.

His spaceship probably needs to look less like an obvious Earth taxi, but we have many different taxi designs and there's only so many colours, so I guess some overlap will be ultimately inevitable? But at least it shouldn't look like a New York taxi, since those are the ones we all see in movies.

Also there needs to be a sequel to at least one of these, hopefully more, to give this stretch of the franchise legitimacy. That I need to specify it like that betrays its lack of legitimacy, of course. So moving on.

Lanterns

Poster is one of each of the Lantern rings, threaded on a string that's held from off-screen. In rainbow order, backwards, just because.

We open with Koriand'r and Dick Grayson following rumours that her sister has become a Blue Lantern. He was probably the one that heard of it, on his new job with the Star Sapphires. Along the way they should find at least a bit of further weirdness; the answer is that people from other universes are being transferred here for reasons unknown, but they shouldn't quite figure that out yet.

They do meet Blue Komand'r, but she's an alternate version of Koriand'r instead; and in her universe that's the name of her older sister, who is "a bit difficult, sometimes". The two make good friends quickly. (the bet that resulted on each of their parents naming each of them had a different result, but I don't think they should actually learn that part.)

Together they figure out the "alternate universes" bit, and then Dick excuses himself from the rest of the movie, saying he should try and find Supergirl and inform her, in case she wants to try and contact her brother. The other two continue the main plot, eventually teaming up with one of each colour, plus the group that the Challengers are the elite of, to figure things out. Here in rainbow order:

Red is Atros, better known as Atrocitus, but we're using the slightly less on-the-nose "original" name.

In the comics, his galactic sector was mass-murdered by the Manhunters, robot cops who are the Oans' first attempt at galactic police, before the Green Lantern Corps. He survives, along with four others but he betrays them later so they don't matter, and his mastery of blood magic leads him to harness the power of rage and create the first Red Lantern.

For my version, given the changes to Lantern lore, neither he nor the Oans can be in charge of creating either magic. He's just one more Lantern, and they're entirely unrelated. But the rest works reasonably well.

I would limit the destruction to just the planets of Ryut and Oa, which are at war. The Manhunters could still be robots, but Oans in powered armor would probably be better. Atros survives the destruction of his city, hiding in the rubble, having lost his wife and children, and as he watches the army move on his ring appears before him.

He reaches for it once, and when it moves away he screams "Stop that! We have to go!", pointing with his other hand towards the retreating Oan soldiers, where we see one of them take a potshot at the ruins. The ring deems this worthy and flies towards that hand.

He rallies any survivors he can find to fight back, destroying all the Manhunters they can find. Once they run out of enemies he uses his magic to transport his army to Oa. Oa should also be a genuine civilization, not just a dozen old immortals.

Atros' armies run rampant through the world, until one day an Oan flies at him, also wielding a Red Lantern ring. They fight to the death, and as he watches the ring fly away he realizes he has become what he hated, giving him the shock he needs to become at least anti-heroic enough to function properly in the ensemble cast for this movie.

His canonical appearance is good, with the big shoulder pads. Just use his flashbacks to show that Ryut's armies used a version of that armour, so his is retroactively one of them, modified to be Red Lantern-themed.

Orange is John Henry Irons. As he was starting to research AmerTek's crimes, one of the power armor prototypes erupts in orange light, which isn't fading away for no apparent reason. Naturally the company quickly moves it into secure storage, for later research. He switches his efforts towards getting into the team that will work on that, thereby passing his Test; after he gets it he naturally uses it to destroy the company, and also becomes a superhero in his Earth.

He doesn't use a hammer and didn't get a ring, the armor itself being his magic's receptacle. It's still just unpainted steel, but later he crafted the symbol of the Orange Corps into the chest.

He can add other weapons and devices to the armor, to be run on Orange Light, but not immediately. He needs to do research for adapting each. The way that works is that he already comes with a variety of options, and if he collects anything interesting he says he'll work on it and we leave it as foreshadowing for a future appearance.

If he becomes a recurring character after this, it will be by having added dimensional travel capabilites to the armor.

Yellow is Jor-El. The first movie didn't specify one way or the other, but from his talk to the Council it seems possible that he'd warned them about the impending destruction of Krypton years earlier, and then grew increasingly frustrated as they did nothing, until it was too late. I'm running with that interpretation.

In another universe, when he was going to inform them for the first time, he saw a vision of their doing nothing and letting the world fall. So instead he spoke to the people at large, hijacking some sort of public address system they may have had. He was starting to seem like a crackpot, some soldiers approaching to remove him, but then his ring flared into existance. He put it on, raised that hand to call for action, and those soldiers fell to their knees, as well as many people watching through the world.

With the early warning and his magic, they were able to find a suitable new world and evacuate most of the population. They wanted to name it after him, or the Yellow Corps, but he convinced them to go with "Argon" instead.

(That probably also means those names are actually the name of the corresponding element in the kryptonian language, getting translated for our benefit, but we can ignore that.)

Also, because the first movie established kryptonians get their powers from the chemical composition of Earth's air, and I then established Lantern life support is based on your specific species' environment, he doesn't have those powers or know about them.

He still wears the same mostly black suit, but has replaced the symbol of the House of El with that of the Yellow Corps.

Green is Lobo. We do not get to learn how his Test went; instead he tells multiple contradictory stories about it.

He doesn't have his bike, but still carries multiple space weapons which he mostly doesn't need.

He also wears Lantern Rings of every colour except Violet. They don't do anything, of course. Since he can see Koriand'r doesn't use hers, he'll spend the movie pestering her to sell it to him so he can complete the set.

He has the symbol of the Green Corps tattooed on his chest, and loves finding excuses to show it off.

Blue is Komand'r. In her universe, as her mother lay sick, she kept insisting that she would get better, and then they'd travel the galaxy together. Everyone knew she wouldn't, but then one day she suddenly did. The princess grabbed both hers and her sister's hands and tried to drag them away, "to adventure".

The Queen was just starting to say it wouldn't be that easy when the Blue Ring appeared in front of them. She tied it to her hair, which works, and then she did indeed drag them both to another world.

Fun fact: I was considering making tamaranian royals be shaven and wearing wigs, like ancient egyptians allegedly did. I've decided against it for the sake of this.

Nowadays she wears her ring behind her neck, at the base of a braid that's almost as long as her body. She also has the same suit as Koriand'r from "our" universe, a.k.a. a more realistic version of the one from the cartoon and at least some comics, though again with the main colour changed to blue.

Every (tamaranian) year, on the aniversary of her mother's recovery, she brings her to a new, hopefully beautiful planet. Her sister rarely joins them. Last year she missed it on accout of the White War. This time she's just hoping the situation can be resolved in time for her to not miss the appointment again. This could also be a hint for how long tamaranian years are, but I hope that can still be kept vague.

Indigo is Sheko, from the Red Daughter of Krypton comic. She was a judge from a world where the justice system had been corrupted beyond any hope of repair; she's basically the last remaining believer in justice. She declared the crown prince guilty of multiple crimes and sentenced him to death, then the executioner shot her instead. She arose as a Red Lantern and immediately went on a murderous rampage.

She also had some sort of telepathy which she used to "judge" people, which is not standard-issue for Reds but she also didn't seem to have before; I'm also not clear on if those deemed guilty die as a result of it, or she just kills them after.

Anyways, for my Indigo version, her role in her society will be more focused on providing aid to victims, rather than punishment to the guilty. That may mean she should be more of an attorney than a judge, but I like the "judge" title, so let's just say their system is different.

Her Test was during the White War, so innocents were returned, starting with someone she tried and failed to help, then from her coworkers, and so on. She started trying to use her position to aid them, but had to admit it was beyond her resources and instead publicly ask for help, thereby passing the Test and receiving her ring.

However, by that time the corruption had spread enough that some people were White "zombies", further working to spread it and consume more souls. Again she tried to use her magic to save everyone, figured out she couldn't and left for space to seek assistance. Instead she got involved in the War. They didn't save her planet, she's the last of her people, but she cannot deny it was absolutely the right thing to do.

(In the aborted afterlife movie, I was going to show the main universe version of her didn't leave, her magic and soul were eventually consumed and she ended up joining the War on the other side.)

She also always had mild telepathy, which she mostly didn't use because it wouldn't be admissible evidence anyways. Her Lantern magic augments it, so she no longer speaks except telepathically. Maybe she can't, or at least pretends she can't. She also can "absorb" suffering from others, so it's easier to deal for them, though only temporarily.

She still wears her traditional judge robes, though with the colour and symbol swapped out for those of her Corps.

Violet is Koriand'r. We already know her.

Plus maybe alternate versions of one or more actual, named members of the Challengers of the Unknown. They would naturally realize what's going on and try and contact their local counterparts, thereby converging on their planet.

The Lanterns help this group with the research, transporting people and large machines all over the place, volunteering to be tested, powering devices, stuff like that. Together they figure out that space-time is "cracked" and sort of bending "inwards", so that people and things from other universes keep falling in.

Some of them also theorize this could destroy the universe, possibly retroactively; though not all agree on this interpretation. They start a plan to repair it, which will mostly involve them creating more machines and the Lanterns delivering them to key points in the galaxy. When they activate they should automatically push everyone back home; but even if not, they're confident they'll be able to build transporters for them.

The machines activate, nothing happens, and they power down. They check and discover signs of sabotage, so everybody scrambles to check out everything. Most of the devices have been tampered with. One of them also finds a portal machine, seeming similar to what the Science Team said they'd build later, though they insist they haven't yet.

They converge there, though Lobo is missing. After some debate, they decide to cross together, all six Lanterns and a few scientists.

The portal brings them to the outside of the same universe. Should be interesting-looking, but not fully psychedelic nightmare since they'll be spending a reasonably long time there. There are a bunch of highly advanced dimensional machinery, which the scientists are both excited and worried about.

There's also Lobo's decapitated corpse. His Green ring is already gone, having crossed back through the portal and gone off to the local Lantern Sector. We don't know that, because he needs to die offscreen to protect the traitor's identity, but we may see it in flashback later when he or she is ranting about motives.

If possible, have had some red herrings to imply Lobo was the traitor, earlier. He clearly died for getting too close to the truth, which means he was investigating, he suspected someone among them; this is presumably enough for careful scene design and camera work to make him seem suspicious, though I don't have any specific details in mind.

I haven't actually decided which Lantern is the traitor.

Anyways, the group keeps exploring, at least two of them arguing for going back (the traitor is either one of them or "undecided"), until the scientists start figuring out how to turn off or destroy the machinery, then the traitor kills most (but not all) of them before anyone can react. The other five Lanterns stand against him or her, we get a motive rant and a sufficiently impressive fight.

The general gist is that there is a multiversal conqueror, Prometheus, that is expanding in the general direction where all their universes lie. The traitor's world was already scouted by his advance forces, they barely destroyed them before they could report back.

The plan was to turn this universe into a sort of "trap", summoning powerful people from various adjacent ones. From among them he or she hopes to recruit an army that can hopefully stand up against Prometheus'. Also per the traitor's calculations (or whatever scientists support him or her), this particular universe is outside of the army's path, just far enough that they should avoid notice, but just close enough to ambush his forces when the time comes; that was why it was chosen as the staging grounds.

The traitor also needs an advantage to almost stand up to five alleged equals, so:

If Atros is the traitor, he has sorcerous skill far more advanced than Lanterns usually do. His magic may be blood-themed, as a comics reference. He may know how to disrupt other Lantern's magic, or at least mess with their biology in spite of their defenses.

He also has experience rallying an army against a coming conqueror, so it's reasonable this would be his plan.

If John is the traitor, he had a larger humanoid mech waiting, which interfaces with his armor and is powered by his Light. It's full of strange and powerful weaponry, some of it pilfered from Prometheus' scouts.

It's also in character for an Orange to focus on the "gathering" part of gathering allies. They must be prepared. He may be a little manic, in his rant.

If Jor-El is the traitor, he has figured out how to manipulate his magic's atmosphere to give himself superpowers. Either Superman's, or something even stranger and more powerful.

It's also highly in-character for him. He's warning them of oncoming danger, and they are fools not to listen.

If Kommand'r is the traitor, I don't have a particular idea for her advantage, but the betrayal would be extra poignant after the interdimensional sisters have become close. It's worth serious consideration just for that.

If Sheko is the traitor, her telepathy is more powerful than previously advertised, or maybe there are mechanisms that augment it.

She also will be focused on the fact that there's people who need help, she's absolutely willing to do her part, but she's not enough so she also needs them.

After the traitor is killed, the remaining scientist(s) figure out how to reverse the machinery's effect, which prevents more visitors from being dragged, but doesn't automatically send the people back.

They get out to see the rest of the Science Team has moved in and secured the area around the portal. Their instruments did detect the change in the structure of space-time, they are now reasonably certain reality won't cease existing, and will begin working on getting visitors to their homes.

A few months later, they've finished that. Koriand'r uses the Empire's reach to spread the news, direct people to get re-transported. They're also helping with security, and Komand'r (Queen, not Blue) hopes to leverage that into some manner of trade opportunities for them, thereby finally showing some interest in actually ruling her damn empire. At least for now.

The remaining Lanterns make their goodbyes, all promising to keep watch in case that conqueror does come, and carrying the data they'll need to rally their universe's Science Teams to build some sort of transdimensional comm system. If we have remaining alternate versions of Challengers, they also carry a full report. So, the traitor kinda won. Congrats!

Komand'r (Blue, not Queen) also promises to bring her mother here next year, and Koriand'r tells her she'll take them to her boyfriend's world. Unless she was the traitor, of course.

After the credits, in the Director's office in the Watchtower Station, Supergirl is holding back Power Girl. Bruce is cowering at his desk. She screams "HE KILLED THE SUPERMAN!" and her eyes light up, but a display of Red tentacles gets her to back off. He meekly asks what's going on, and the scene ends.

...some more movies here

I don't actually have ideas, just that the next one shouldn't be immediately next.

Challengers of the Unknown

They are basically the Fantastic Four. Actually it seems plausible they are the original idea that the Fantastic Four were derived from, though I don't know that for sure. Anyways.

Lanterns featured the larger group that they are a part of, which has no basis on the comics and I also didn't properly specify; they're probably just referred to as the name of their species and/or planet. But this movie is about an alternate universe version of the actual team, the four, sometimes five named members. I say we go with the five to further distance from Marvel's First Family.

None of them is from the alternates we saw previously. They are travelling on their own, for Science!, aboard a spaceship of their own design that can do that. They don't know about Prometheus, their higher-dimensional trajectory brings them from a different direction, kinda perpendicularly to his army.

The important thing is that they bring us the reveal that timelines created by "time travel" are particularly easy to detect and access. They should find Supergirl and talk to her in particular, explain that time travel actually doesn't exist, and how that really works. She already kinda knew her future had kept on existing, since Rebirth, but she could still get emotional about that and also decide to go home for this reason.

The important thing is the implication that the traitor Lantern was wrong, Prometheus may have been moving in a trajectory to miss this universe, but will presumably correct course as he comes closer, and probably was seeking the Legion's split-off timelines all along. The war will come here. No character has both sets of information yet, but we do, which is always cool when that happens.

The Challengers also sought her intentionally, as she's the single most interesting thing in this universe, from their perspective; they would have some device that can detect her. Again, the implication is that Prometheus' forces may or may not have a similar capability.

The Challengers don't believe there's a way to access her original universe, more or less for the same reason her new one is so easily entered. Action and reaction, something like that. They remain interested in the problem though, and promise to stay alert for any hint of a method, and to come back and inform her if such is found.

No such will be found, I will insist on "no actual time travel" for the sake of things still having stakes, but of course they don't know that. Also the movie presumably also had some sort of crisis or conflict that they dealt with, but honestly that matters less to me than the worldbuilding. Probably someone is attacking someone and they're here just in time to help, the movie ostensibly being a team-up between the Challengers and Supergirl.

With that we can finally have movies openly set in other universes, which means it's time for Power Girl. Actually again there may be a couple more indetermined stuff in between, but still:

So, about that Power Girl...

I'm not lying when I say I'd hoped for feedback on this. Still hoping I'm being over-sensitive.

In the original writeup (for Rebirth), I had Supergirl's brother tell her that the second time traveller, after the Legion deduced she had failed, was "your friend, whom you used to dress in your clothes". At the time I had no intention of bringing that character back.

My only thought had been that he needed some embarrassing anecdote about her, that I should tie that up with some bonus worldbuilding for their future, and that I should take the opportunity to establish the second time traveller was a man, because the Legion is equal-opportunity.

It was only later, after I accidentally invented Prometheus, that I started considering alternate timeline characters. Power Girl is an alternate version of Supergirl, but still distinct enough that either has continued existing at times when the other may have been retconned out. So, her being my second time traveler is too perfect for me to pass up.

I'm still bothered by the implications, and also the fact that Supergirl's brother would have to have known how his sister's friend ended up, but still chose to use that incident to make fun of her. To be honest I am tempted to retcon it away, claim the Legion's future doesn't have gendered clothes and he was instead making fun of her for the frivolity of it all.

But that would be untrue to the original reason for the annecdote, even if I ultimately voided it, kinda (the Legion is still equal-opportunity, because they didn't know until after), and also it would be a retcon, which I oppose on ideological grounds, mostly. So, I can only hope it's not too offensive? Here's her movie.

Justice Society

This is kind of a speedrun of the franchise so far, in the other timeline. Maybe it needs to be broken up; not a full twenty something movies, but perhaps more than one? But for now I will proceed assuming it can all be one.

The poster for Justice Society is a bunch of papers with sketches for various potential logos, and furthermore all sheets are arranged like the poster for Justice League, but mirrored horizontally. Obviously specific logos cannot match up, but they still should look cool side by side, I hope.

The movie starts with the Legion, on the day Supergirl was sent back. That's arguably overkill but we need it for the bookends. We open with her going into the time machine room, but from the other angle, so she's floating towards us. They do the small ceremony, the light show happens, but she disappears and we stay with the rest of the people.

I'd like it if this can be literally another angle of the same moment, filmed from another camera way back then. That may or may not be possible, depending on how exactly her floating is achieved, plus maybe any other technical issues I wouldn't know about.

Anyways, after she's gone everyone stands around stoically, waiting for the end of their universe, which doesn't come. The scientists start frantically checking their instruments. After a moment, the highest military officer present (the guy that Supergirl was talking to) turns to what seems the highest scientist to ask how long is it supposed to take. She looks at all her systems one more time and says "...not this long". Everybody deflates.

Then we would get some opening credits, probably set to some generic soft rock or somesuch, and the title card. Then come three sets of scenes: Power Girl's time in the Legion leading to her time travel, montage of her saving various people right after arriving in the past, and an interview she gives to Lois Lane about six months after arrival.

I'd also like for them all to be intermixed, using Lois preparing the article for publication as a framing device, but I'm not sure it works, since that implies everything is stuff she learned and there's at least two things in the Legion scenes that the people of the past shouldn't learn: that Power Girl is trans, and that she's the second attempt (and they believe the first failed and died). So here in order.

First, we need an actor to be pre-op Power Girl. Given they're rebuilding her "on a cellular level", it could just be anyone and we say any differences were per her request. But I actually prefer to not do that, and get two people as similar looking as possible, both for story clarity and to be able to say she didn't have any particular request, cosmetically. He gets at least two scenes.

First, getting measured for the making of the supersuit. It's again modelled after Superman's, boots and cape still red, but the rest of it is white, and there is no logo. They explain that the first attempt most likely failed on account of faulty historical information of some sort, so they're sending him further into the past, to have the opportunity to research and plan better. Superman is alive at that time, they wouldn't want to offend him. They considered using the Legion's logo, but ultimately decided it's not impossible that some version of it existed back then, better not to risk it.

Second, right after she explains and requests to be remade as a woman. I don't think we should actually hear the request, literally immediately after, with the actor looking slightly embarrased as the scientist responds. He says that yes, they can do that; it's basically trivial given all the other stuff they were already going to do. But re-tailoring the suit is much harder, he's not even sure if they can, "you should really have informed us of this before that was made".

That's also why the boob window; she couldn't fit in, afterwards, and they didn't have the resources to fix it properly so they just cut a vertical slice, at great expense, thus allowing the fabric to be pushed to the sides. I guess that makes it less circular than normal and kind of a diamond or cat's pupil shape, which we would have seen all the way back in Lanterns. Hope some people speculated about that.

I also enjoy having this justification for having the window at all. There's been many through the years, some stupider than others, but I'm reasonably sure it's never been something like this.

I also really enjoy the idea of her trying and failing to put it on, but there's no way to show that in a superhero movie, right? So instead let's say the cast jokes about that in interviews, "we tried so many camera angles and stuff, but couldn't get anything that would fly". And then it would inevitably become a sort of mad quest among certain fans, to get hold of that deleted footage, even if most believe it never existed and it was just a joke.

Anyways, this actor could have more scenes, studying and training for the mission, saying goodbyes to friends and family, stuff like that; or those could go to the final actress. Doesn't really matter, except that at least some training needs to go to her, since logically she'd need to do it after getting her powers.

Then she's transported back to the past, and the very first thing she does upon appearing on the empty Moon is to fly down and plant her feet firmly on the ground, before looking up to see the Earth's status. This one is always standing, and runs a lot; she only flies if required for tactical or logistical reasons. I don't have any deep psychological truths that may be revealed by this difference between her and Supergirl, but I still like to keep the contrast.

Also on the subject of parallels and contrasts, since Supergirl had her hair cut early in her adventure (and therefore presumably had long hair before), Power Girl will start with very short hair, but through the heroics montage we will see it growing progressively longer. Probably at an unreasonably fast rate, since that's supposed to last six months; but maybe it just extends further into the movie. Whatever the case, she ends up settling at butt-length hair.

She arrived in the past 6 years after Jason Todd's death, so the interview is three and a half years before Superman's, and 2 before General Zod came. That also makes it 3.5 years since Princess Koriand'r arrived and 3 since she's been dating Dick Grayson, though that's less important.

As for the montage itself, the only thing of interest is that she saves Victor Stone and his mom from their car crash. That means Cyborg won't exist in this timeline, and therefore also his dad gets to live. The cube itself remains in safe storage at S.T.A.R. Labs, no other scientist having been desperate enough to get stupid with it.

Unless maybe it's related to the end of the world, and both time travellers eventually destroyed theirs. I'm tempted to establish that connection simply for lack of anything better to do with either, but not sure. Let's say "maybe".

After the montage comes the interview, where Lois has various general questions for her. She admits to being from the future, from the Moon, here to save the world from an upcoming disaster she can't say more about for operational security, and various other stuff that it's surprising she'd be so open about.

I figure there may be some oblique-to-casual acknowledgment of her asexuality, as Lois asks about potential love interests (she's very popular, of course) and she denies having any interest. I also picture Lois apologizing, and claiming the more tabloidy questions were not her idea, others at the office insisted. Kinda wanna imply that was Perry, though she'd know better than to name him if that's the case.

At this point the world at large is already referring to her as "Power Girl", and Lois not-so-subtly suggests she use this opportunity to rebrand, as she doesn't find that name particularly dignified. Power Girl agrees she's probably right, but she doesn't care. Per the Legion's attitude towards names, it doesn't matter if it's technically stupid; nobody in the world is confused about it, that's all you can ask for from a name.

She still does share her serial, ac252ac247asc58tf123, and also draws the Legion's symbol for the article, having already determined there isn't any organization using it at this time. That would lead Lois to ask about the boob window, and if we're doing the interlocked scenes this is when we show the pre-op actor getting mildly berated for causing them to have to modify the suit; but either way all she says is "what, you don't like it?".

Also, about that name. That's the first appearances of Supergirl in general, the Legion of Superheroes, Power Girl specifically and Earth 2, respectively. It's also not a coincidence that the first half is the same as Supergirl; they were approximately the same age, and these are supposed to be serial numbers. That can't possibly hold up for any others, but we don't need serials for anyone or anything else.

This also confirms this timeline is a version of Earth 2, as may have been hinted by Power Girl's presence and also the Justice Society. I will be populating it with heroes who are, or could logically have been, from that continuity; not exclusively, but to some degree at least. I also suppose that makes the Legion timeline Earth 0. And then normally Earth 3 is the evil counterparts one, but I'm not doing that, my timelines are strictly "one change, butterfly effect".

Anyways, back to the interview. There's some sufficient generic interview-type questions, as modified by the reality of her being a superhero, then Lois closes by asking if there's anything she wants to tell the world. There's two things.

First, she may not be an alien, as maybe some people had been suspecting (unless the Moon counts), but there is a visitor from the stars currently living among humanity. She wants to have a meeting, in private if need be, for personal reasons.

Second, she needs to meet the Lex Luthor, as soon as possible, for future reasons. She stresses that it is important he receive this message, Lois reassures her the entire world has been waiting for this article and there's no way he'd be the one to miss it, and then they separate.

The very next day, Lex announces he's put all his other business for the month on hold, and is ready to receive her at her leisure, in his mansion in the caribbean. She arrives that same night, finding a fancy dinner waiting for both of them. We may take the opportunity to show she's a picky eater; it nicely contrasts Supergirl again, but it may be a little more unsympathetic than I want for the main protagonist.

Maybe a mild one: she grimaces a little, he asks if anything is wrong, and she says no, she's just still getting used to her enhanced senses, then keeps eating. Something like that may work.

Anyways, Lex is a big fan. He loves the idea that, in the future, humanity will seize godhood for themselves. We should see his "angels vs demons" painting, but he's graffitied it with a Legion symbol. She easily recruits him to save the future, and he admits since her arrival he's been looking into rumours of other people with strange abilities, which he wouldn't have credited before, but now he's been thinking about approaching them (and her) about forming some Society together. "Society for what?" "I don't know, Heroes? I'll have the guys at Marketing come up with something".

So they recruit some people to save the day. Still Wonder Woman, and Captain Cold. For Flash I established the older, dead one was Wally West, so I cannot in good conscience bring in Jay Garrick, sadly; he's either Barry again or missing.

I definitely want Alan Scott, the original Green Lantern from before there were space cops and so on. In this version he's not going to be related to the Corps at all, just a local mage, and won't be called that. From his list of titles from Wikipedia, I think Jade Knight works best. He'd have the power I denied Lanterns, to manifest objects made of hard light, but no active manipulation; he can create any tool but then has to wield it normally. Also his magic needs to be a different shade of green. May or may not have the weakness to wood, depending on if he gets enough screentime for it to be showcased.

Kinda want Shade, one of Jay Garrick's villains, who occasionally was a "noble adversary" kind of thing so it's not so much of a stretch to make him a hero. He basically controls shadows, so if Earth 1 had Ebon, this guy could be his counterpart. At the very least, Lex should be interested in recruiting him, even if he doesn't join.

Also Wildcat, though I don't have anything interesting to say about him. I know he taught Power Girl wrestling or boxing or something like that, but obviously that won't happen in this version. Nonetheless, he's in.

Add a couple more people, they succesfully change the future but she doesn't think she'll die, she solemnly thanks her people for their sacrifice and carries on. Honestly, Supergirl was also told how they expected it to work, she just didn't pay enough attention. Afterwards the gathered heroes become the first of the Society, with Lex as their Director.

For the record, he will be good. A little more underhanded than Bruce would be confortable being, which is why he succesfully recruited Cold, but this is definitely a "redeemed" Luthor.

They do heroics, maybe recruit a few more people, and a few months later Koriand'r meets Power Girl in the sky. Still wearing human clothes, but without her fake skin/eyes, and obviously wreathed in Violet Light. She thinks she's the alien that was being called out at the end of the interview; Power Girl is surprised enough that she realizes she's not and asks who, but agrees when she's told she won't betray the other's secrets.

She's here to tell her about the spaceship her systems detected incoming, and also the fact that she has such systems, though she probably knew that, from the future? She didn't, I know I originally said a better future historian would have recognized Koriand'r, but on second thought I realized they shouldn't; Earth 0 Star Grayson, née Anderson, lived and died in obscurity and comfort.

Power Girl theorizes it's probably the kryptonian survivors, though it's a few years too early for them to come. She guesses, but doesn't say, that probably the Kal-El triggered the distress signal early, as a result of the changes she's made to the timeline. Koriand'r is surprised to hear there are any survivors, Tamaran didn't know that. After a little more catching up between the two, they agree to go to meet them, so she takes her hand and flies them into space.

Minor retcon time! The way the kryptonian ship worked was very clearly visually a teleport, but it was never explicitly said, and the technobabble was very vague. Once again I assume that was on purpose, in case they wanted to build up on it later. That's convenient for me right now: we will say that it's actually continuous travel, though in a semi-immaterial state which is what allows them to break light-speed. I already had the martian experiment and the Cult of Mongul's spell also kinda work like that, so we may even go ahead and say every teleportation does.

The important thing is that a sufficiently advanced technology, such as tamaranian planetary surveillance, allows them to detect ships in transit and intercept them, which is what they will do. The ladies meet General Zod's ship around the asteroid belt, where it materializes to allow them to board. Probably Koriand'r had been transmitting a signal asking for parley, it's something the planetary surveillance systems could plausibly do.

The kryptonian atmosphere bothers Power Girl, but she's better able to resist, on account of her augmentations. Koriand'r probably doesn't drop her aura, after seeing her new friend coughing for a moment. Though she'd be fine if she did; this won't actually come up until later, but Tamaran's atmosphere is sort of "in between" the other two; both humans and kryptonians can breathe comfortably, and the later don't get any powers.

Koriand'r translates for the meeting. We may get a scene of her kissing General Zod, for linguistics purposes, on the grounds that these people aren't capable of love and therefore her magic doesn't give her their language. Faroa Hu-Ul told Superman as much, at least, and I've no idea when else I would be able to invoke that clause.

Plus it'd be kinda cool, her trying and failing to talk to them, until she realizes that won't work and just says "Tamaran", pointing at herself, hoping they understand. General Zod does, sighs and takes off his helmet so she can do it, then when she's done he puts it back on before asking her if it worked.

But on the other hand, clearly Jor-El and his wife and kid were love-capable. Presumably they wouldn't be alone, if we have that restriction it would be for the soldier caste specifically. So that begs the question of whether the requirement for Lantern translation is per person, or species-wide. I feel it should probably be the later, because magic, but it does deprive us of a fun visual right now. So, dunno.

General Zod confirms they're after the other last survivor of Krypton, Jor-El's son, whom he saved using illegal experimental technology. Power Girl denies it, it was she who found the ancient ship, and while trying to salvage it triggered what seemed to be an alarm of some sort, which is probably what they're tracking. He confirms that. She claims there are no kryptonians on her planet; she checked, after first finding the ship, in case she needed one to access the systems. Koriand'r realizes some or all of that is a lie, but doesn't mention it.

They keep talking, General Zod admits to his people's plans for Earth, which Power Girl knew from the future and neither of them will allow. He starts getting angry. Koriand'r insists they must claim a world without an existing biosphere, and offers her empire's resources making up for the added difficulty. This is the first time she'll explicitly admit to being tamaranian royalty, which should make Power Girl flinch briefly.

Koriand'r keeps trying to calm things down, but General Zod keeps getting angrier until he orders his people to attack, then immediately does so himself. The others hesitate very briefly before trying their best to capture or kill the two ladies.

Now, the first movie kinda established that the kryptonian power armors are almost on par with a powered kryptonian. More specifically, they defeated Superman the first time, when he was trying to figure out his powers, then he defeated them the second after he had some proficiency. I've never explicitly established this but it's most reasonable to assume Legion faux-kryptonians have equivalent power levels, and Power Girl is a trained soldier, so she'll have no trouble keeping up with them. The atmosphere probably bothers her more than the enemies.

As for Koriand'r, she's a Lantern. They simply have nothing that can threaten her.

So the two are getting swarmed by mostly ineffectual soldiers, while Koriand'r keeps trying to de-escalate and General Zod keeps ranting madly, until he says something to the effect that he'd rather see the mission fail than take her charity. Then he's immediately shot in the back, and before anyone can react Faroa kicks away his helmet and shoots his head off.

Then she drops the weapon, turns towards Koriand'r and kneels without further word. The other soldiers stop attacking, confused. Most of them drop their weapons, a few bow or kneel. Power Girl drops one she was grappling so he can join in.

Once everyone has acknowledged the end of the fight, Faroa apologizes for her superior. He lost his best friend during the planet's destruction, and apparently his mind as well. They will turn around and seek an empty planet to settle, difficult though it may be. They would be honoured to accept any help she still may feel gracious enough to offer, though of course they understand if the time for that has passed.

Koriand'r tells her to stand up, there's no need for that and of course the offer stands. She just needs to bring her friend home, and say some goodbyes. They agree on that and she grabs Power Girl and flies away. The moment they're gone, General Hu-Ul orders the ship start travelling towards Tamaran, on the grounds that a Lantern can easily catch up with them, or even wait for them there.

Koriand'r brings her directly to her appartment, where she applies the fake skin, so we finally see that. It'd really be up to the special effects people to work something out, but I'm imagining a small plastic box, like any makeup, which unfolds spider-like legs to crawl around her skin, applying a plastic-like substance. She dons it hastily this time, so we can see a little orange up her sleeve or down her neckline.

She also quickly writes some letters to unspecified people in her life, as she asks Power Girl if they can talk further after she comes back. She agrees of course, and promises to keep her human identity out of it, now that she has the address and also presumably could have read all those letters if she wanted, but she does need to report what happened to the Society. They both fly away.

Koriand'r delivers her letters but sees Dick in person, to tell him she'll be gone for a while on business, she can't say more for now but maybe she can explain after she returns, in a couple months. He doesn't see her fly or use any magic, but is maybe confused/worried about her having come all the way to Blüdhaven for that.

Meanwhile, Power Girl flew to the north pole, where she quickly found the ancient kryptonian ship and stood at attention outside. Clark emerges, already wearing his Superman suit and thinking she's here on account of future info. She tells him about the other kryptonians, their upcoming new world, and that the Princess promised to come visit soon-ish, she can take him to them if he wants.

He thinks about it for a moment, but refuses. He literally just found out he was an alien, he's lived on Earth all his life and has no interest in leaving. He'd really like to consider himself human, if possible. And also start helping people, like she does. So she brings him to see Lex about joining the Society.

He's having a meeting and dinner with Raven, who will end up becoming the Society's main mage. Power Girl is the one to introduce Clark as "the Superman", which surprises him briefly but he goes along with it. Lex is again excited to meet him, by now he's definitely an enthusiastic superhero supporter. He's also invited to the north pole, to see the kryptonian ship. He and Jor-El's hologram quickly establish a rapport, as fellow men of science.

They eventually move the Society's headquarters to the ship, and start building more structures for heroes that need or want housing there, plus support staff. Kryptonian science allows it to be both comfortable and ecologically sound. Jor-El ends up being in charge of comms for the Society, so all members get to know him at least a little. We also should meet some more new heroes.

I want both Jimmy Olsen and Lana Lang, in their superhero identities of Elastic Lad and Insect Queen, respectively.

She found an alien in distress and helped him, then he rewarded her with a ring that lets her partially transform into giant insect human hybrids at will. In my version he will not be an alien, I'm being much more conservative with those, so instead it's a human (or secretly atlantean) mage. And maybe she fails to save him so he leaves her the magic ring because he's dying; I denied that to Lantern Corps so there could be a Test system, but for an one-off it's not bad.

As for Olsen, he's actually already been introduced, as a CIA agent who dies as part of Lex's evil plan. There's no evil plan this time, so he'll be fine. Instead he gets involved in a secret project to give soldiers artificial superpowers, being the only success, maybe the only survivor. He's sent to infiltrate the Society, working under Amanda Waller. Lex knows about it, and offers him to coordinate on what he'll report back, which of course Waller knows about, and etc. He's a bit stressed about that but ultimately decides to just focus on heroing, leave the politics to the politicians.

On the other hand, I'm not sure if it's yet time to introduce him. Time is already getting vague, but we still need to be a while before BvS time. On the other other hand, the world is already highly changed, and presumably he'd been in that assignment for a while before it got him killed, so it's probably ok to just say he got different orders.

Other than that, one of the minor powered assassins from Steel, not the same one who was in Task Force X.

This is also probably the time for a super they try to approach but find mysteriously dead. I volunteer Black Canary, the original one from Flash comics; she may or may not leave behind a daughter who will be implied to eventually get the same powers and take over the role. (Batman killed her, but we won't be explicitly told that.)

Anyways, the next big thing is Lex and Jor-El cooperating to use kryptonian terraforming technology to try and help Earth's environmental problems. They construct two of the thing that was in the sea, since the one over Metropolis was their ship and they explicitly were only using it because they didn't have two of the other machine. They are placed on the poles.

Wonder Woman wants them to not do that, she's clearly worried, but doesn't want to say why, even when officially ordered. Lex and Jor-El double-check all the maths, in case she'd noticed something they missed, but decide she was probably wrong and proceed. First test goes well, data is promising, but they do have to cut it short due to an unforeseen event (Martian Manhunter, though we're not told that yet).

A little after, Atlantis attacks. King Orm used the test to rally all other kingdoms to his cause. Presumably, he would have tried it in Earths 0 and 1, but since there it was not humanity's project but rather an attack against them, it didn't work. Also this means Black Manta won't exist this time, since he doesn't need a man on the inside.

This is what Wonder Woman was worried about, but she didn't speak because she respects Atlantis' secrecy. She gets a minor reprimand for it, though ultimately Lex agrees she was caught between a rock and a hard place, there are no repercussions for her other than her conscience.

The opening attack destroys Coast City, Atlantis will use the ruins as their forward base. This means Jinx died, so Raven won't need to worry about that. The Society and various militaries rally to defend against them; if Jimmy's here already, this is when he officially goes from "multiple agent" to "liaison".

While the war is going on, Mera and, uh, Green Goblin? Ok his name is Vulko, thanks google. Those two split off to go betray the war effort. She tries to recruit Arthur, but instead finds a note where he tells her not to bother him again, he disavows both of his peoples. He won't be seen in this timeline.

That would also mean his mom will remain in exile forever. Sorry, ma'am.

Meanwhile, Vulko goes to talk to Luthor, much more succesfully. He goes to Coast City with a bunch of supers, including King Shark even if it's his first introduction, to assassinate Orm and install Mera as Queen, since she failed to find Arthur. Maybe he can suspect she didn't try all that hard, but we know that's not true so we shouldn't dwell on it.

Power Girl is the one to actually kill Orm. By neck snap from behind, because obviously.

Queen Mera immediately orders a ceasefire and announces she's giving the surface world "one last chance to surrender". Lex goes to her under white flag, along with Waller and some military leaders from some other nations, to negotiate terms. Which are secretly exactly as already agreed upon between Lex and Vulko. The atlantean peoples are impressed with their new Queen's leadership and proud of their victory, humanity actually gets a pretty sweet deal, and they begin having actual cultural and economic exchange, leading to greater prosperity to both.

Superman and Power Girl toss the terraforming engines into the sun. Maybe introduce a new hero to help with that. Let's say Rocket Red, I don't know if he would be capable of extra-planetary operation, but we can pretend Lex helped upgrade him.

Wonder Woman is sent back to her people, to also establish actual diplomatic relationships, before something like that happens again. She brings two ambassadors along. Lana Lang for humanity, and Lori Lemaris for atlantis.

That's a mermaid, powerful telepath, who was also one of Superman's ex-girlfriends, though not in this version. She uses a wheelchair, but does not hide her tail, it's simply a legitimate mobility need, on dry land. Also she may be a princess, Aquaman implied only atlantean nobles could breathe both water and air; that doesn't necessarily extend to merfolk but I'm ok with saying it does, so long as it's also clear Lori wasn't a realistic candidate for the throne nor does she have any other obligations she's neglecting by taking this commission.

Diana meets her sister, Donna, who should be a little younger, but I'm not sure how much. She's going to be 15 at the time of Dick's Test during the White War, but I never established exactly how much longer that is after BvS, which has been kinda my centerpoint for timekeeping. I guess she'd be between 8 and 12, but also we're still a little before Superman would have died.

Both ambassadors are very popular with the amazons, but unfortunately both of them are straight. Also, Queen Hyppolita lives, thanks to their presence either her accident doesn't happen or at least she's saved.

Some time passes, and we should see, probably in news clips or so, that some people are nervous about all the power Lex Luthor has been amassing. That's two, arguably three, alien civilizations that kinda have diplomatic relations with his Society, rather than any actual government. Mostly people agree he's benevolent, but not everyone is so satisfied.

Some general anti-superhuman sentiment can also start rising, though we wouldn't dwell on that because I specifically wouldn't want to tread on X-men territory.

A bit later, Ace Reporter Clark Kent is investigating the apparent suicide of Gotham City Police Commissioner James W. Gordon. He's walking a dark alley when a person jumps down from the rooftop, tells him not to move. Obviously he knew but he's here in disguise, so he pretends to be surprised and scared. He turns around slowly and sees Batman pointing a gun at him. That hand is shaking, slightly.

Clark tries to defuse, tells him he thought he was an urban legend, that he'll be glad to bring his message to the world, stuff like that; but Batman "didn't lead you here for an interview". So Clark raises his hands and walks forward, slowly, to press the barrel of the gun against his chest.

He looks around at the alley. We see the abandoned theatre on the side. "It was here, right? This is where the monster was born." "This is where the monster will die." And the next thing he tries to say is lost in the sound of the gunfire, and the pain, and the surprise.

Clark falls backwards and dies with the exact same choreography as Martha Wayne did. Same limb movements, same camera angles, same amounts of slow motion. I would seriously give him a pearl necklace if I could think of a halfway decent excuse.

Batman sees that and drops the gun, stumbling backward a bit. He's breathing hard, and turns to the side, hands on his knees, about to throw up. But he doesn't, he collects himself and walks back to the corpse. He hesitates one last time, then bends down to pick up his gun.

For the record, he never thought he could really get the drop on Superman. He was counting on him playing along, rather than revealing himself, for long enough to allow himself to be shot with what he would expect to be a regular bullet.

Also, this means I do need to remove all guns from BvS Batman. Back then I was ambivalent about that, but now it's important for thematic contrast, so officially: all his murders in that movie were done on melee or thrown batarangs, not a single bullet fired from him or his vehicles.

A few days later, the Society is giving an emergency announcement. There's a temporary platform in a park, with a line of reporters in front of it, not including Lois Lane, and a bunch of random onlookers behind them. On the platform, at the back, a bunch of heroes.

Nightwing is in his older, disco uniform. We probably don't get to hear this, but he first adopted it to distance himself from Batman as he started getting worse, since the better suit is definitely Batman-inspired. In Earth 1 he went back to it after Bruce's redemption, before we met him, but in Earth 2 that won't happen so disco will never die.

Chloe Sullivan, she also has a superhero suit, which shows her duties are as a healer, not any admin. Probably green hearts or plus signs, something like that.

The eldest of the Shazam Family, Mary. I guess arguably she shouldn't exist yet, but whatever. Timeline has changed, Billy was chosen even younger, which is probably fine.

Stephanie Brown, as Spoiler, she'll be 14 or 15 so we are under a year from Rebirth, though we don't necessarily know that since we are just meeting her for the first time.

Flash, if we have him.

James Olsen, the Elastic Lad.

Some strong-looking people. Let's say Hourman and two or three nameless generic heroes.

And at the podium at the front of the platform, Lex Luthor is flanked by his two closest friends, Power Girl and Superman. He thanks everyone for gathering on such short notice, says they must be wondering what this is about. Someone at the back asks if he's finally running for President, causing everybody to start screaming over each other. Not completely positive, but mostly.

Lex just stands in silence, smiling, holding out his hands until everyone calms down. The last thing before silence is someone at the back, not the same person, screaming "You have my vote!". Lex takes a deep breath, then turns around and exchanges places with Superman. Now everyone is really paying attention.

He says he will be going to New Krypton, to be with his people and learn about his culture. He thanks them all for welcoming him all these years, and turns around towards Lex to thank him for letting him be part of such an important project, and then he's shot down from above multiple times, bullets shining green. He falls to the ground, reverting back to his martian form.

Batman falls from the sky in a giant humanoid robot. If Orange Irons was the traitor in Lanterns, it is the same model, though with fewer add-ons, just the two wrist-mounted gatling guns. Also black and with bat ears, purely cosmetic.

The heroes mostly scramble to get Lex and all the civilians to safety. Chloe rushes to try and heal J'onn, Jimmy and maybe one other tagging along to protect her. We see from her expression that it's not working.

Power Girl rushes the robot and knees its chest, pushing it back a few metres but not doing any visible damage. Her eye beams also have no apparent effect. Batman focuses fire on her, which she dodges, but only barely, so as to keep his attention. That works, and while she distracts him Mary gets underfoot to invoke Shazam's name multiple times, getting it repeatedly struck by lightning.

We see from the inside of the cockpit, Batman wearing his power armor, as he desperately flicks switches and presses buttons, trying to keep the systems working as more and more of them fail. Eventually all his screens go black, and then he falls. The robot was toppled, but we're still looking at the inside, hopefully the motion is still clear.

Some light comes in as Mary and Power Girl finally pull open the front of the robot. Then the later grabs the chest of his armor, squeezes a little to hold it, and pulls him out. She starts demanding an explanation, he instead says something defiant. Probably something about killing gods, I don't have good wording. He simultaneously flicks open a butterfly knife, edge shining green, and stabs her directly in the eye.

It shatters, harmlessly. We see genuine surprise in his face; he'd never believed the "future woman from the Moon" thing. She smirks and pulls his face closer to hers. "Seems like someone will be going to New Krypton, after all". Then she flies away with him.

At the north pole base, Jor-El reports the criminal and asks for transportation. Shortly after a ship arrives and takes them both, leaving his armor behind for future study.

Kinda want this ship to be Space Cabbie, but actually New Krypton should have their own prisoner transport by now. But maybe they don't, and he has some comment about that? Not sure.

The audience chamber is clearly modelled after the Council's chamber in Old Krypton, but Governor Hu-Ul stands alone. After hearing the charges, she reminds Power Girl that she had originally testified that there was no kryptonian on Earth. She admits to that, but claims it was per his request, and that he wished to be considered a human, not a kryptonian.

Technically true, though he only said that afterwards.

Hearing her say that triggers Bruce to shout something hateful about him, which in turn makes Governor Hu-Ul shoot him through the chest. Then she says she'll accept that as a confession, from both of them, and sentences Power Girl to some amount of community service, on account of hiding Kal-El from their government, which inadvertently led to his death.

Given her power, she's tasked with helping the terramorphing efforts. Digging rivers, leveling mountains, stuff like that. A couple months later, Koriand'r arrives on a regular visit and learns about that. She helps her finish her tasks faster and then brings her to Earth, glad to finally have the excuse to visit.

She explains the deal with the Star Sapphires, which was easily fixed, but also that she's Queen now, which we should see in flashback. Her and the kryptonians stand before Komand'r in the audience chamber. She says they will not receive a single <alien small currency, probably> "for as long as I sit on this throne". She smiles meaningfully as she says that part. The kryptonians and her guards start getting tenser as the sisters stare down each other, but finally Koriand'r sighs in defeat and walks forward.

She gets up to let her sit down, takes off the Gown and tosses it over her head, and leaves, whistling to herself. That thing is their crown-equivalent, I hope that be clear by now. Also she's wearing regular clothes underneath. I don't want to just give her another colour swap of the Starfire suit, but then I never bothered to establish any further tamaranian fashion. Just, something casual-looking but still tight enough to plausibly have gone under the Gown.

Anyways, the kryptonians are left dumbfounded at what just happened, and the flashback ends.

While Power Girl was gone, Wonder Woman returned. She already sorted out her exile, this time she's an officially sanctioned diplomat. She brings along another to go to Atlantis, not her mother, either of their love interests, or her sister; any other named amazon from Wonder Woman. Though Donna may also be with them, on an allegedly temporary basis.

Also for the record, Vulko will be the atlantean ambassador to humans, and his counterpart is Giganta, a genius scientist who gave herself the ability to become giant, but growing makes her proportionally less smart. She's usually a villain, but it's far from the first time I just flip that around.

Koriand'r and Power Girl return directly to the Director's office in the north pole, where the first thing he does is ask them not to reveal that Bruce Wayne was Batman; the Society covered that up. That's probably all he needs to say, since Power Girl is a disciplined soldier and Koriand'r doesn't really care about either of them. But I do have more info, because I just can't help myself, so:

The Society planted evidence suggesting Wayne had been secretly cooperating with the late Commissioner Gordon, using a discreet amount of his wealth and influence, working to take down Batman. Actually it was Luthor who was trying to secretly support Gordon, which is also why the Society never took any interest in that situation.

Some more false evidence suggests that, shortly after Gordon's death, Wayne suddenly fled the country; but that was planted more ineptly, to make the police think Batman did it after killing him. This worked.

As for the man she brought to face neokryptonian justice, they released his identity as Patrick Malone, alias Matches, a minor criminal only notable for having worked under most or all crime bosses in Gotham. The police already suspected he had also done work for Batman, probably under duress; nobody really questioned the reveal of his identity. As for the real Malone, Luthor assumes Batman killed him long ago and took his name, though if he still exists he seems to have taken the opportunity to disappear, and he's glad to let him.

Fun fact: "Patrick" comes from Gotham, the tv series. As far as I can tell, no other version gives him a first name.

Also, Lex is wearing power armor. It's a modified kryptonian power suit, green and purple and modelled after his common cartoon one. He was traumatized by the attack and is never going to not wear it, for the rest of his life.

Finally, once Koriand'r leaves to visit her friends, but mostly her boyfriend, Lex also informs his friend of some new recruits. In particular he wants her opinion on one of them, who was apparently inspired by the attack. Wears power armor and a fancy warhammer of his own design, very impressive work; both painted solid white, and the Legion's symbol on his chest. Calls himself Legionnaire.

She mostly doesn't understand why it may bother her. She doesn't own the name or the logo and even if arguably she could lay prior claim to them, she would not have cared. Also the entire reason she's here is to prevent the Legion's very existence, so it's not like she can complain in their behalf. So it's all fine.

Some more time goes by, but not much, and then Dick's corrupted Test begins. Raven and whatever mage was Returned for her start doing the research, but as soon as they speculate about "love magic" Koriand'r suggests the Violet Corps will know about it, so she should go ask them. Dick immediately asks her to bring him along, thereby implicitly placing their relationship above literally everyone in the planet, thereby passing his Test. They leave together before anyone can notice the problem is over, as far as this planet is concerned at least.

And yes, he should get a violet version of his disco outfit.

The two of them get involved in the White War, and neither is ever seen again. We do not confirm their deaths, gotta keep open the possibility that they fell into a dimensional rift in case we ever want either or both to show up elsewhere. But as far as Earth 2 is concerned, they are missing, presumed dead.

Some appropriate time after, Komand'r reassumes the throne. Her first move is to mobilize an army to lay siege to New Krypton, demanding their ruler's hand in marriage. She gets it, and thereafter Queen Faroa mostly takes charge of all the Empire's paperwork. She ushers the way to greater prosperity and peace, and also a closer economic and cultural exchange with Earth, which finally becomes an actual member of galactic civilization.

As to whether the Queens had a personal relationship, either before or after, neither will ever confirm nor deny. That's why I specifically didn't want an answer to what orientation, if any, Komand'r has.

Eventually their heir will be a clone of Komand'r's mother, the late Queen Luand'r, created in the neokryptonian cloning vats. Queen Faroa will argue the use of them makes the child her legitimate daughter, in accordance with their law and custom, regardless of any peculiarity of her biology. All the nobles are satisfied by that, since all they actually care is that the eventual Ruler be of noble blood, even if they don't want to admit such out loud.

That also means the late Queen's corpse was stored in such a way that retains viable genetic material, though it must be almost a (human) decade since her death. Probably longer, no particular need for them to have had a kid immediately. So let's say Tamaran has ritual mummification, and a memorial planet full of royal corpses, too far from any sun to sustain any life.

The princess' name is Kand'r; I will admit that's the main reason I wanted these two together. Her mother will raise her to be an excellent clerk and keep up the administration of the Empire. In this timeline, they will far surpass the end of the (human) millenium.

Also, Stephanie Brown and Donna of Themyscira should become friends, because that's why I made them the same age, but I don't have any particular ideas for them. Maybe leave them for a sequel.

And that's about it. We've basically caught up with Earth 1, timewise, and leave off with Earth entering a new and exciting status quo. Could add something about Lex and Jor-El starting research into dimensional mechanics, but I don't think it's strictly necessary.

After credits, back at the Legion, we see the day the last atmosphere generator was destroyed. A team of repair technicians deploys, all dressed in a "realistic" version of Booster Gold's suit: the helmet covers their head fully, and all of it is fully sealed. A bit of bulk at the back, not nearly as much as an astronaut's backpack thing, but a little reminiscent of that. And some arm braces on both forearms, which are their computer terminals.

Their leader is Supergirl's brother, though obviously he can't be referred to as such. He's the Chief Engineer, or something like that. But we still may figure it out when his suit sounds an alarm, some info displaying on his arm, then before he can read it an explosion gets him.

His second in command tries to keep the rest of the team on task, but we follow the one that breaks and runs away. The others are screaming at him to come back, until he turns off his comms. He flies through the ruins of the facilities, until he drops to his hands and knees, breathing hard and crying.

The camera pulls back to show us this is the time machine room. The end.

If that was too much for a single movie, my first thought is to split most of the Power Girl stuff into her own movie, probably called just "Power" so it can pretend the original guy will stay, at least a little. That one keeps the Supergirl and Booster Gold scenes, of course. Poster would be the Legion's logo, against black or starry sky background.

...about Prometheus

First off, there is a Prometheus in DC. This is not that; I came up with the character first, then thought what his name should be for about five seconds, then checked to see what they may have used that name for. All I can say about that guy is he won't be showing up or be hinted at in any way, to minimize confusion.

So, this starts in the timeline where Ares' plan worked (from the tags), Steve Trevor and all the soldiers chasing him died at Themyscira's beach. Also I just checked that scene and they don't have planes, actually? I assumed he flew in, because he's a pilot, which would mean his enemies need to also fly in order to get him; but they're actually all arriving on ships.

Whatever, amazons don't fly until later. Still Diana gathers a crew to go out and bring peace to humanity, as inspired by Ares' visions.

Definitely include the one that would have been Donna's Other Parent. Her farewell to Queen Hippolyta is a little more heartfelt than any of the others; they're not a couple yet, but they're both already interested.

On the other hand, no to the one that was to be Diana's dead love interest later. She asks her to come, but only because she's asking everyone to come; they don't seem to have any particular feelings at this point.

The amazons are very successful, arguably extending the Great War by a few years, unless we count it as having ended immediately and then been succeded by their attack; historians will be divided on that.

If Doctor Poison was not removed from Wonder Woman, they recruit her to be the first of the science team. She also becomes a close friend of Diana, though not her lover because then we'd have to kill her off. That honour instead goes to some important guy, a prince or general from somewhere.

By the time World War II would have come, it doesn't, because all human nations already recognize Diana as Queen. Instead at that time she launches an attack to also conquer Atlantis. Aquaman's grandfather shatters her sword, but she kills him with the last bit left on the hilt.

This is before his daughter would have been born. Actually most people from the franchise won't be born, simply because of the huge changes in demographics. Princess Koriand'r is a Violet, but her visions did not include this world.

Anyways, a few decades later a farmer sees a ball of fire fall from the heavens into his farm, which contains a baby. He assumes it's God-Imperatrix Diana's son, and reports it as such.

It's actually not that unreasonable. Nobody knows where amazons came from; the official answer is "you are not worthy of knowing", but she also unofficially encourages the myth that they descended from the heavens, drawn by the last prayers of those dead in the Great War.

The kid's not hers, but she decides he should be, and adopts him. Also gives his ship to her science people to figure out, which is why she names him after the mythical figure, who brought fire from the heavens to help pull mortals out of the darkness.

About two decades later, Earth's joint peoples have made huge progress. They're already mining the asteroid belt, and begun terraforming both Venus and Mars. At that point they detect what seems like more of Prometheus' technology in the north pole, both he and his mother go to check it out.

She and Jor-El should get along well, I think. He approves of her parenting.

They do trigger the emergency beacon and draw in General Zod's forces. But because Mars has cities now, that's where they land and launch their threats and deploy the world engine, which also means Martian Manhunter will stay trapped, presumably forever.

Diana, Prometheus and their Honour Guard all go fight them. That's a bunch of supers, but we don't need anyone specific, just that every soldier there is special in some fashion. They're all wearing spacesuits modeled after roman armour. They easily kill the kryptonians and claim their ship.

Diana checks the ship's computers and learns about the history of the galaxy. The enormity of the conflicts going on breaks the last of the hope she didn't remember she still had, and that's when Ares shows up. After a brief talk she does go with him, both disappearing forever.

Prometheus picks up her sword, which has since been reforged using atlantean and/or kryptonian technology, and crowns himself God-Imperator. After a brief period of the scientists figuring out the arctic ship and the captured one, he leads Earth on a ridiculously succesful conquest of his galaxy.

In about a decade he has gained control of most territories not claimed by Tamaran or the Lanterns, and are starting to threaten war with the former when his scientists figure out interdimensional travel, starting the multiversal conqueror phase approximately at the time BvS would have been, because I vaguely picture all timelines running concurrently. Don't want people suddenly travelling to Victorian World or something.

Also, if Yellow Jor-El was the traitor in Lanterns, Prometheus would have found the same world that gives kryptonians even better superpowers, and his personal armor would be tuned to provide him that atmosphere, either permanently or as a temporary battle mode.

At some point someone needs to wrestle him from behind as he threatens to use his laser vision on something, but he succesfully fights it off and destroys his target and/or the interloper.

For his eventual defeat at the end of his part of the franchise, I was vaguely thinking there could actually be two Promethei, their interdimensional empires overlapping without anyone knowing it, so that the heroes may learn that and manipulate things to pin one against the other. That probably needs too much setup for movies to do it correctly, though.

Also thought Diana (any) could meet him and run some psychological warfare, but honestly probably not. He's likely met Dianas by now, perhaps even killed a few.

And there is always kryptonite, of course. But actually in the comics is usually been a rule that kryptonite doesn't work unless it's from the same universe, which to my knowledge no movie has brought up, undestandably. That may mean I'd be obligated to make use of that, no? Is that how that works? That's probably how it works.

...and then...

...there was a bunch of details that I keep elaborating upon, which were threatening to delay this even more. I have removed them and saved them elsewhere, there will be at least one more post in this series. And so on and so forth, probably.

[starplatinumnun]

more nastya questions!!!! four specifically bc there's a thunderstorm so loud i genuinely cannot think but the need to know is too strong: 1) do she and her sister get along? 2) is she girl-shaped bc of the randomness of genetics, by choice, or bc of how she was created? 3) when you say 'caused a birth' do you mean a matchmaking kinda thing or did she make the polycule grandmothers and 4) PLS HOW DID SHE ACQUIRE HER KITTY i'm immediately attached to fish

it's ok lol my oc universe is confusing. i honestly feel cringe bc i have a convoluted way of explaining things 😭

i hope this clears things up but also i just want to say that i appreciate this so so so so much!!! 💕💗💕💕💗 feel free to dm me about it whenever you want to!

1) she and her sister bicker, as most kids do, but they also love each other very much. they also stop fighting as much towards adulthood. they'll pick on each other, but won't tolerate anyone else making fun of them. i honestly haven't thought of her sister's name yet 🫣

2) she was sculpted that way. she was shaped from clay, so she's sort of just girl-shaped because it's how she was made.

3) when nastya is an adult, through her job as court oracle, she indirectly causes a man and his wife to get together. this baby is the child of a prophecy she foretold, and that very prophecy later starts a civil war.

that is most of the conflict of nastya's story.

putting the rest under a read more because fish's backstory is slightly longer than the other answers <3

4) fish was a fourth birthday present to nastya from eleanora, who found it hunting birds and eating plants in their garden. it used to be a bicolor brown tabby cat, with white mittens. she was very loved, and passed away from old age when nastya was seventeen.

mischa and judith taught her how to reanimate fish as a lesson in necromancy when she was nineteen or so. (they were the ones teaching her reanimation, because they are the only wives to have a talent for magic, and nastya is the only child to have a talent for magic. her other moms and her sister still love fish very much, though, even though they weren't the ones to help reanimate her.)

she and fish have an intense bond, and fish comes with nastya wherever she goes. even when she's on the run and faking her identity. though, it's significantly harder to hide your identity when you carry around a pretty noticeable reanimated cat skeleton everywhere.

fish is overly protective of her, as she watched her grow up. though, that doesn't mean she isn't friendly to people. she lets strangers play with her, and has a soft spot for connie out of all of nastya's mothers.

again, tysm for asking!!! 💗💕💗💕💗😊‼️