#in fairness caine’s explanation makes sense bUT STILL!

[dragonanon]

BRUH WHY’D THEY HAVE TO DO MY BOY GUMMIGOO LIKE THAT??! 😭😭😭💔💔💔

[in-tua-deep]

Hufflepuff Five is so good! Are the Hargreeves lives as students as adventurous like the main crew from HP? What about the Ministry of Magic? Would they get involved if someone caught wind of the sibling’s powers that weren’t just magic?

Their lives are SO wack honestly like, they just vibe. They just are going through their magical youth being absolute feral children who don’t trust adults as far as they can throw them while trying to hide their weird funky powers and also ravenously going through magical feats like they’re going out of style

Luther is every sibling’s go-to practice partner because apparently durability extends to being like? Slightly magic resistant? Basically if you hit Luther with a spell it will only be like, maybe half power? So the siblings use him as a magical shield half the time and an experiment the other half and Luther just Suffers Through This until it all goes wrong and he ends up as a werewolf, oops

(But at least Ben is alive! Honestly the only reason Luther wasn’t straight up mauled to death was a combo of his durability, Ben’s proficiency in healing magic, and Ben managing to befriend the acromantulas)

(Luther eventually gets a sense of humor about this after long years of working on accepting himself and constantly threatens to bite his siblings or makes comments about them looking extra tasty when they irritate him)

Allison is a quidditch star, super popular and athletic as all hell. She probably ends up being the Slytherin team captain, honestly. Allison is all glamor and charisma and in her later years of hogwarts has an absolute blast. Allison is very much functional passing so she’s usually the front man to get the professors off their backs, but she also is the front man for a lot of the shit that the family sell for extra spending money. Five and Ben might make potions, but Allison rules the underground black market in slytherin with an iron fist (which gets them into shenanigans involving other kids who Owe Debts)

Diego is on the gryffindor quidditch team and so him and Allison are constantly at each other’s throats on the pitch (Allison sometimes rumors him during matches when she gets within earshot which makes all of the siblings yell at him but she maintains that he gets to use his stupid powers to score points so she should get to as well). Diego gets roped into everything because he’s super soft. He starts a lot of fights because he has vigilante genes so he serves a lot of detentions. His house tolerates him losing them points because the man is a wizard with a quaffle

(Diego and Allison actually practice a lot together, which their respective teams are like HMMMM over but they’re siblings and slytherin knows that Allison would never hesitate to knock Diego off his broom and wave cheerily as he falls to his death, and gryffindor is aware that Diego can, should, and must throw a ball directly at Allison’s dumb face if she gets too close to him because of the Cain Instinct)

(Honestly Allison and Diego do a LOT for interhouse unity, showing that you can still be ride or die for each other while also wanting greatly to kill each other uwu)

Ben is too independent for his own good, which is what gets him into trouble. He likes gardening, and he likes herbs, and sometimes he’s just GOTTA go into the forbidden forest on a full moon to gather these very specific ingredients, c’mon. He also just. Likes spending time in the forbidden forest. He’s Hagrid’s favorite student because he doesn’t bat an eye at all the weird magical creatures, bc homeboy got an eldritch horror in his navel. Ben makes friends with the acromantulas (who have a healthy respect for him after the Horror ate a few of them), patiently avoids the centaurs, and bribes the pixies into giving him their shed wings through liberal application of jam stolen from the Hogwarts kitchens. 

You know what Allison is functional passing and Ben is distinguished passing, all their teachers assume that Ben is the most put together of them but they’re WRONG. They haven’t seen Ben at two in the morning yanking Vanya out of ben because if they don’t break into greenhouse four and help those poor fucking plants the first years are tending to they’re all going to DIE and that’s not fair??? ben is single handedly going to save all those poor plants (and all those first year’s grades)

Vanya is just VIBING, he ends up coming out as trans in fourth year and gets to be roommates with Ben which is pretty sweet. If only Ben didn’t drag him into shenanigans?? All the teachers are like “ah yes Vanya, such a quiet boy not like his siblings at all” but Vanya can will should and must climb onto the roof of the astronomy tower to play his violin because He Just Likes To Be Tall. Vanya once punched a snobby ravenclaw kid in the nose and then stared them down saying “the teachers will never believe you.”

Vanya steals Luther to practice his powers with in unused classrooms the most?? he’s durable. he’ll be fine if Vanya blasts him into a wall with his powers lol

Vanya’s solution to all their problems is “do you want me to blow it up with my powers?” or “do you want me to kill them for you?” 

(All of the siblings now refuse to duel with Vanya except for Luther bc Vanya is RUTHLESS. He WILL murder his siblings (almost) given the chance. They’re all so lucky that Ben is so good at healing and carries extra vials of healing potions on his person otherwise Madame Pomfrey would be VERY CONCERNED)

Five and Klaus probably get into the most shenanigans? Klaus gets less and less afraid of ghosts the more he runs into nice ones like Fred Weasley. Fred also lovingly nurtures Klaus’s absolutely terrible sense of humor and encourages him to prank the whole school. Klaus knows ALL the secret passageways thanks to Fred, a previous owner of the Maurauder’s map, so he’s just like. Constantly in the walls. He once dropped out of the ceiling to get to transfiguration in time and nobody even commented on it because Klaus is just Like That.

(A few people see Klaus’s boney elbows and knobbley knees and thinks he’s a good target for bullying just because he’s a slytherin and interhouse awfulness absolutely it at an all time high so recently after the war. YEAH his siblings step in and put the fear of god into any bullies, but Klaus fights like a cornered raccoon.)

Five is just way too smart and curious for his own good. He likes to poke around, figure things out, and also make money. Five does people’s homework, charges them for potions or rune work, tutors, dismantles shit in the chamber of secrets, ALSO explores the secret passageways (and finds some that weren’t on the map), is lovingly bullied into Friendship Activities with his housemates, breaks into the other houses’s common rooms for funsies, and keeps getting fed by the house elves who found out he can ‘apparate’ like them (without a wand) and have apparently adopted him against his will

Five is the sibling who has his fingers in like. ALL the pies. and just constantly pops up and drags them into things. Five will be helping Klaus with potions homework then glance up and tell Diego he’s cashing in the favor he’s owed for carving runes into Diego’s knives and that Diego now gets to break into Douglas Eddington’s room to steal back Lana Delwich’s diary so that Five can trade it to Lana for her rare Solomon Babik chocolate frog card which Five can give to Barnaby Beeson in exchange for a Large Distraction of Five’s Choice and a sketchy book on ward breaking which Five needs so he can break into the headmaster’s office to get a confiscated dark magic book that has some information Five needs to alter a potion that he’s probably going to make Luther drink later

Five is the sibling who is like “Ugh, I thought I was trading for some nundu ingredients but now i have a Whole Baby Nundu in the basement :/”

Which, of course, Klaus wants to keep despite the poison breath.

“This is literally one of the most dangerous magical creatures, we are not keeping it.” Luther says, unimpressed. However, he definitely has it cradled in his arms and makes kissy faces at it when he thinks no one is looking. (Apparently baby toxic nundu breath only makes Luther sneeze, so there’s that?)

“If you guys are arrested for smuggling I am not bailing you out.” Is Allison’s only decree about the matter.

Honestly I wouldn’t be shocked if someone DID eventually find out about one of the siblings’ powers - however, they would come to entirely the wrong conclusion about them?? Because this is a world of MAGIC and so everything magical has to have a magical explanation, right???

Luther is durable as all fuck???? Uhhhhh maybe he has some like. Troll blood or giant blood something back in his family line, obviously not something he would ever want the world to know about bc of species-ism

Allison can make you do whatever you want with her words????? Maybe she’s part veela? With that charm appeal?

Five is doing. Wandless apparation?? I mean, that’s rare as FUCK but wandless magic is,,, grudgingly accepted though it’s usually only used for small or very familiar spells and not usually something as complex as apparation but OKAY just sit him down and forbid him from doing it anymore bc boy boutta be SPLICED or some shit

Klaus can. Klaus can talk to ghosts. Who are not full ghosts. Hmm. huh. Maybe it’s?? A family ability??? a super rare one? like being a metamorphagus? (What the fuck??????? what the FUCK???????)

Primarily the kids started off paranoid because they believed that their abilities indicated that they weren’t the same type of magic, and they didn’t want to be returned to their father, and then it progressed into “these abilities might make people scared of us (looking at you allison, with your imperius-ass abilites)” or “we can’t afford that kind of scrutiny or curiosity about our powers (they might find out luther is a werewolf or something idk)” and “if we are ‘desirable’ children with ‘rare abilities’ the government might try to split us up and adopt us into weird pureblood families or something OR might try to lock us up (like where would they even put Ben??)”

honestly if ben ever got found out he’d just deadpan “it’s a curse, hand me the black wormroot would you?” and be like “oh yeah it’s under control i just go vibe in the woods every so often and rip up a tree or something. I think the horror wants to be the whomping willow when it grows up actually, so just don’t get too close when i’m in the horror zone. if you can live with a murder tree on campus you can live with me on campus”

someone sees vanya fuck something up with his powers and is like ???? and Vanya is just like “accidental magic lol” 

“aren’t you... a bit... old for accidental magic...”

“accidental. magic.”

[alittlewhump]

Unbidden - Act 1, chapter 7

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Content warnings: death mention

Morgan was surprised to return to consciousness. He hadn't expected that to happen again. He was lying in a rough bed, covered by thin sheets. His eyes wouldn't quite focus, but sunlight was shining through a window and giving everything a golden cast. It smelled familiar, like healing herbs - maybe Akara's cabin? Someone must have arrived just in time to save them from Andariel's clutches. His efforts certainly hadn't bought enough time for an enthralment to wear off. He made to sit up, but the pain that lanced through his arm cut that plan short. He cried out before he could stop himself, biting down on his lip to muffle the sound. Even that hurt more than it should have.

The priestess appeared beside the bed. "Finally back with the living, are you? Good. We've been worried. Drink this." She pressed a cup to his lips. He hadn't realized how thirsty he'd been, but he gulped back the water quickly. The cool liquid soothed his raw throat a little. It still hurt to swallow, probably to speak as well.

He risked a soft "Thank you," barely more than a whisper. It felt like his throat was lined with sand, and he grimaced.

"Just rest, hero." Hero? The confusion must have been plain on his face. The expression of concern had been out of character, but this was much stranger. Akara gave him a sympathetic, slightly worried look. "Don't you-"

Blaise burst into the small room at top volume. "You're finally awake! The great hero rises at last! I've been telling everyone how you defeated Andariel and saved us all. They'll be so glad to see you've pulled through!" She was making an unusual amount of eye contact. This was a cue, then. Despite the confusion of the situation, Morgan found himself relaxing a little. It was good to see her alive and well, although she continued to baffle him. Why would she lie about what had happened?

"It would be a treat to hear the tale from your point of view for a change," Akara murmured. Blaise's smile froze. She was, Morgan realized, banking on him playing along with the version of events she'd laid out. He'd already told her he didn't lie, so why would she involve him this way?

"I, ah..." He cleared his throat and regretted it instantly, wincing. "I'm afraid I... don't remember that," he said carefully. It wasn't a lie - he couldn't remember what had never happened.

Akara clicked her tongue. "I've seen this happen before. Poisons can wreak havoc on the memory. It's a shame." Blaise looked relieved. "Anyway, now that you've made it through the worst of it, I can get out and replenish my stock." She was already slipping a cloak over her shoulders. "Blaise, you'll keep an eye on him, hm?" It was not a question, and she did not wait for a response before leaving.

Blaise watched the door until the sound of footsteps faded away, then she turned on Morgan with a ferociously angry expression. "You're a complete fucking idiot and I don't care if you don't remember any of it. I'll sum it up for you: you decided to just jump up on Andariel like she wasn't going to destroy you in one second. Then - of course - she did. We're both fucking lucky that I managed to shake her stupid demon mind control and put a whole quiver of arrows through her ugly skull. Now tell me what in fuck's sake you were thinking when that seemed like a good idea to you."

Her sudden switch from cheerful to enraged was confusing and overwhelming. "You were enthralled, I had to try something," he blurted. He didn't know what she wanted to hear, but evidently it wasn't that.

"You should have tried going back for some fucking help! That's what any person with a brain in their idiot head would have done!"

That hadn't even occurred to Morgan. Given the prevailing attitude toward his brotherhood, asking for help from others was not usually an option. He would have rejected the idea anyway - it would have spelled her doom, which would have been an unacceptable outcome, especially when the likelihood of receiving help from the others was so low. They'd both managed to survive somehow, so why was she so upset? Maybe if he just explained. "As a follower of Rathma, my sworn-"

"Your sworn duty is to maintain the Balance. I know. I've heard your little speech. What does that have to do with anything?"

"The forces of darkness are gathering. I must do what I can to hinder evil and preserve good." Blaise just kept staring. Was that not enough explanation? Time to take it down to basic facts, then. "You're a good person, Blaise."

He was not expecting the series of emotions that crossed her face, most of which he couldn't identify. She settled on anger, which was recognizable but still confusing. He was also not expecting the slap that stung suddenly across his cheek. He winced. She was fast.

"What about now, huh? Do you still think I'm good?" Blaise's voice was low and dangerous. Morgan's eyes narrowed, searching her face for anything that would make sense of this. He found nothing. Why was she reacting so strongly to such a simple observation? Maybe - oh. Cain had mentioned Andariel's influence extending to emotional anguish as well, not just physical. That... well, that might explain this volatility but it wouldn't help him navigate it. He wasn't going to lie to her. It wouldn't matter anyway, since it felt like neither answer was going to be correct.

"Yes."

Another slap, harder than the last one. Morgan bit back a yelp. She had managed to hit the exact same spot, and he could already feel it beginning to swell.

"How about now?" Her voice trembled with anger. This was going nowhere.

"The answer -" here he flinched, closing his eyes in anticipation of the next strike. "- will continue to be yes, no matter how many times you hit me." Nothing. Maybe he'd gotten through. He opened his eyes hesitantly, only to be met with another slap. He made a soft grunt of pain, despite himself.

"You're a fool," Blaise spat. So she didn't believe his assessment. This could definitely be solved with more explanation. He just had to choose his words carefully. His cheek throbbed.

"I have spent enough time around you," he began slowly, looking at a spot on the wall. It felt safer than making eye contact. "To observe that you are loyal, brave, kind, and fair." He didn't dare risk looking over at her, so instead he continued. "I am an outsider with... few social graces. I keep company with the dead. You were ordered to escort me on an unpleasant and dangerous quest, which nearly got you killed." He paused to swallow, grimacing. His throat burned painfully, but he wasn't finished. "All things considered, it is reasonable for you to hate me. That does not change your nature."

Something else was beginning to occur to him. Blaise wasn't saying anything, so he forged ahead despite the discomfort. "And yet, despite all the trouble I've caused you, you still went to the effort of bringing me back here. To your healer. It would have been easier to leave me. Where I fell."

She snorted at that. So at least she had been listening. "And what do you suppose I would have told everyone then, huh?"

Morgan turned his head to look at her again, searching for some sign - was this a trick question? What was the answer supposed to be? He decided to go with the factual. "That I died. You don't mark the passing of outsiders here."

That earned him another scoff. At least it wasn't a blow. "Yeah, that would go over great. 'Hey, everyone! We defeated Andariel! Where's Morgan, you ask? Oh, he died in battle and I just left his corpse down there in the monastery.'"

A deep-seated emotion coiled around his ribs, squeezed like a snake. That wasn't what happened at all. Wasn't what would have happened. All the pieces of it were wrong. He could feel himself scowling, a visceral reaction to the feeling in his chest.

"See? That wouldn't be right," Blaise said.

"No. Not in battle," he spat. Ridiculous. It hadn't been a battle. He'd barely put up a fight at all. "He died a coward," he corrected, half snarling. "Screaming. Writhing. Helpless. Like a worm on a hook." He wished the poison had taken his memory as Akara had suggested. Instead, he remembered each terrible second with crystal clarity.

Tears had sprung to his eyes. Apparently he was also feeling the emotional effects of Andariel's influence. Recognizing that didn't help. He drew a shaky breath and raised his hands to wipe away the tears. A searing pain shot through his injured arm as he moved it and he choked back a cry, pressing the limb back against his side where it hadn't hurt so badly. He scrubbed at his eyes with his good hand, but when his fingers brushed the spot on his cheek where Blaise's hand had connected, he made another soft sound of pain. Gods above, why did everything have to hurt so much? The anger and frustration and embarrassment all boiled over suddenly, without warning. An animal sound bubbled up from inside him, a growl that opened up into almost a howl before being overtaken by violent coughing. That hurt too, of course.

Strong hands gripped Morgan's shoulders, sat him upright and rubbed his back as the coughing fit subsided. Shame burned hot across his face. He was supposed to be able to control his emotions, but evidently he hadn't completed his training as well as he'd thought. To lose his composure so completely, then get treated like this - like a child! By someone who barely even tolerated his presence, probably compelled by pity. He closed his eyes and lay back, wishing he could just disappear.

Blaise spoke softly now. "You're not a coward, you know. You were actually really good down there." A hollow feeling settled over Morgan. Now he was definitely being pitied. This was worse than the anger, harder to accept. People were often angry at him, and he was at peace with that. But this... this made him feel so small, and he hated it.

"Don't," he rasped.

"What?"

"You don't have to... soothe my pride." His lip curled. "I know what I am." Weak. Pathetic. A burden. "I will leave as soon as I am well enough. It should be easy to avoid me until then." That ought to please her, the promise of seeing him gone. He was certainly looking forward to being alone so he could work on regaining his emotional control.

"Listen, Morgan." Blaise's voice was quiet, serious. She sighed. "I don't hate you."

That... no, that didn't make any sense. Most people disliked members of his Order on principle, and she had more reason than most to hate him. Morgan opened his eyes to peer suspiciously at the woman seated beside him. He couldn't read her expression. Was this a joke? Sarcasm? Did she really mean it? A long moment passed in silence. He broke it with the barest whisper, "Why?"

"You saved my life, idiot. You almost died trying, I thought - Anyway, I didn't hate you before that either. I wouldn't say I like you, exactly... I mean, you're... not normal. But it's obvious you're trying to do what's right, and I respect that." She made a face like she'd tasted something sour. "I haven't been... I mean, I know I've treated you - fuck, and just now..." She trailed off, ran a hand through her hair, and tried again. "Look, I'm sorry I hit you. I shouldn't have done that. I just don't... why would you say... why would you think I'm a good person? I've never even been nice to you."

"You don't have to be nice to me to be a good person," he explained tiredly. Nice was surface-level, easy for people to fake. Besides that, impartiality was a central tenet of Rathma's teachings. It was essential to the Balance. Personal feelings and experiences could not be permitted to colour a priest's judgment. Removing oneself from the equation had to be second nature. Being treated nicely, or not, had nothing to do with it.

Blaise was making that sour face again, and Morgan didn't have the energy for any further explanation. He didn't feel like he had the energy for anything. Everything hurt and he was feeling a lot of emotions, most of which he was not at all comfortable with. He closed his eyes again. "I need to rest." He paused. "Thank you. For saving my life." No response came. That was fine. Silence was easy. So was slipping back into unconsciousness.

[smokeybrand]

Breaking the Rules

So the Snyder Cut finally dropped. Four hours of Snyderisms like slow-mo, dumb kinetic camera work, and relentless edge. Now, I'm a card-carrying Marvel shill. Been real transparent about it for years. Marvel is my sh*t and Spider-Man is my favorite superhero. That said, i do like DC. I always give them a fair shake. Hell, my favorite capeflick is The Dark Knight. I even like Watchmen and that was a slog to get through. I’ve seen every film in the DCEU and they have left me wanting. A lot of DC heads write off my opinion because of my Marvel bias but let’s be serious; The DCEU is inferior to the MCU in almost every way. As it is, the DCEU needs to be better. It needs better storytellers. It needs a better plan. It needs a Feige. Snyder is not that dude and i don’t think Wan is either. I think WB and ATT have to figure out a way to coalesce this sh*t because it’s all wonky, especially now that we have this Snyder Cut. I’ve already reviewed a Justice League before so all of the observations i made about performances in that, stand. This is more what i think this version does better and worse.

The Better

This opening is much better and makes more sense. That Super Death Wail as the principal genesis of Steppenwolf’s conflict, the thing that wakes that first Motherbox, makes way more sense that whatever the f*ck Whedon did.

This thing definitely looks so much more gorgeous that that first run. Zack Snyder can’t plot a story to save his life but this motherf*cker can compose a shot, for real. Snyder is an idea man, a cat that just wants to make cool looking sh*t, but this ain’t the medium for that. You can have all the beautiful shots in the world but if they are tied together by a shoestring of a narrative, then it’s just polished sh*t, you know?

The extended Aquaman intro was outstanding. Whedon didn’t let this scene breath and, seeing it as it was intended, that was a mistake. Seeing this version of Justice League kind of makes Josstice League in it’s entirety, a mistake. It’s weird that this was cut because it’s so good and shows so much more of Arthur.

Jeremy Iron’s Alfred continues to be my second favorite Alfred after Michael Caine. Sorry, Michael Gough...

Wonder Woman’s first scene in this, the one with the terrorists, is ridiculous. This one scene is a perfect example of the difference between the two versions of this film. Snyder’s is better, if way more brutal than it needed to be. Still, i love the warrior version of Diana so I'm good with this.

Speaking of Amazons, Snyder, apparently, put them in more clothes this time around? I couldn’t really see for sure because of the color correction but it didn’t seem like they weren’t rocking those iron bikinis like in the Whedon cut. I think Joss Whedon might be a bit more problematic than we think. Between the half naked chicks, the way he kept sexualizing Diana, the fact that there are no people of color in his version or the way he shortchanged the entirety of Cyborg’s plot... Breh.

Steppenwolf is SO much more menacing in this version of the movie. Dude feels like a force, like a proper threat an not just some stop-gap for something better. Ol’ Wolfie was a decent antagonist for an initial run at an Avengers-esque team up for the DCEU. Definitely more Loki this time around and less Ultron like the first time.

Also, the Parademons look much more dope. The first time, they looked like fodder. This time, they actual felt like a force, like a horde.

Hey, we got an Atom sighting!

Not a ton of Iris West but enough to wet my appetite. Anytime i get to see Kiersey Clemons in stuff, I'm happy. Having it tied to an outstanding sequence demonstrating Flash’s powers was just icing on the cake. Seriously, Snyder did a great job visualizing Barry’s abilities. That scene where he saved everyone from the debris and then the subtle reversing of time; All of it was dope to see.

Are those Starros that Steppenwolf is using to “interrogate” the cats with Motherbox stink on them? They look like little mechanical Starros. I hope they’re Starros.

Lots of Cyborg stuff. Like, intricate Cyborg stuff. The sh*t Whedon cut of Vic was instrumental to the coherency of this story and dude was just like, “Nah.” It’s no wonder that version of the movie doesn’t make any f*cking sense.

Hey, we got a Spectre sighting! Nice.

The explanation for the Motherboxes and their mcguffin-ness goes a long way to soothing the whole “resurrecting Superman” thing. Snyder basically tells the audience they’re magic boxes that can do anything because of magic-technology. It’s a little ridiculous considering what Motherboxes actually do in the comics but whatever. It makes sense in this universe i guess.

All of the action scenes are better. All of them. Snyder is nothing if not a cat that can actualize a dope punch-out. Dude can’t get out of his own way when telling a story but if you need a fight scene, Snyder is definitely your guy.

Speaking of, that climax was WAY better. It carried far more weight and there were times when the heroes felt like they could lose. There’s an unrelenting tension that grips you hard and doesn’t let up until it finally does. I appreciated this way more than the first one, even if it’s dumb edgy for no reason.

The Worst

Zack still doesn’t understand these characters, man. It’s very apparent to me that a lot of this is just window dressing for kind of a Zack Snyder fan fic version of DC and that’s fine i guess? Sh*t’s not my cup of tea but a great many people seem to like it. Dude’s writing can definitely be tighter and he can skew a little more toward the heart of these characters but i mean, it’s called Zack Snyder’s Justice league for a reason.

The Snyderisms, man, they are all over this thing. Look, i just don’t like how Zack makes movies. Too much style, not enough substance, or rather, not enough focus. He has a ton of great ideas but gets too bogged down in how sh*t looks, or tumbles down his rabbit hole of concept but never expresses any of them clearly enough. Outside of 300 or Dawn of the Dead, this film is probably the most focused I've ever seen Snyder and it’s still kind of all over the place yet, never where it needs to be.

So many plot holes, man. Less than before, but so many threads left untied.

This thing didn’t need to be four hours long. Not even close. There were several shots that i thought could have been cut. Like, that three hour version which got the standing ovation was probably the best version of Justice League and we’ll never see it. This version is definitely better than the theatrical run but f*ck is it long. You really feel that sh*t, too.

Cyborg still looks gross to look at. You’d think they’d try and make his weird, angular, body look a bit better upon the redo but nope. This what we get i guess.

Also, why the f*ck the Atlanteans sound British? Why they make Amber Heard do that accent? She can’t do that accent, man. You’re actually asking a chick who’s professionally pretty to act and she can’t act. She’s just pretty. That actually brings up an interesting question; Is Aquaman canon to this universe because Mera in that doesn’t have an accent and her Pops is still alive. This one has an accent and her parents are dead. Or maybe the accent makes it easier to recast Heard later with a British actress? Maybe the Mother of Dragons really is about to be the Queen of the Seas?

Why is this Knightmare sequence in here? Sure, it was awesome to see, pure fan service, but this is the blue balls of blue balls because we don’t have a movie to follow this one. This is it. This is all the Justice League we’re getting. There is no part two or whatever. Why even hint at something more?

The Verdict

There’s a lot to like about this version of Justice League. It is, hands down, better than Josstice League in almost every way. Sh*t is a better film, man, and should have been what we got to begin with. WB did Snyder a disservice by letting him go and then letting Whedon butcher his movie. I don’t like Snyder’s take on DC. I think it’s try-hard, edgelord, nonsense but it is it’s own thing and i commend him for that. Dude has a vision and I'll never take away from from a creative’s inspiration. That said, this thing was a slog to get through. It’s definitely better than what we got before but it’s still not that great and it’s way too long. Three hours is more than enough to tell this story if you make prudent cuts. Still, I’m glad it exists and, if you’re a fan of this world, a fan of Snyder’s work, you’ll love it. For me, as a cat who has no skin in this game, I'm not all that impressed. Per usual, Snyder has too many ideas and that leaves the plot unfocused and meandering at times. In a genre that is predicated on storytelling, you can’t be a bad storyteller like that and just gloss over it with spectacle. That’s disingenuous. At the end of the day, it was entertaining. It was pretty to see. It was a Snyder film.

[yoursummerfrost]

Hogwarts House Sorting: Lucifer Characters

After hemming and hawing for weeks, I finally decided to commit to making this character analysis. I’ll be using the @sortinghatchats​ system of house sorting because I really love how much nuance it allows for!

You can find excellent explanations of the system on their blog, but a brief explanation for the un-initiated: Primary houses explain WHY a person does things. Secondary houses explain HOW they do them. Frequently, people may model another house, meaning they borrow that system or approach, but will fall back on their “true” house when the chips are down. Additionally, people can lose touch with their house(s) in a process called burning/falling/petrifying/stripping. Without further ado, here we go! Sortings under the cut. [Spoilers through Season 4].

LUCIFER MORNINGSTAR. I’ll start with Lucifer’s secondary, which I think is more straightforward. Our chaotic Devil is a Slytherin secondary through-and-through. He’s at his best when he’s improvising by charming other people, waltzing into a drug dealers’ home base, or paying off a traffic cop. While he can look like a charging Gryffindor or a favor-dealing Hufflepuff, these are ultimately tools that Lucifer uses to be a more effective Slytherin.

At first glance, Luci looks like a Slytherin primary, too. However, I actually think our titular Devil is a burned Hufflepuff primary who resorted to modelling Slytherin when he Fell. In fact, Luci’s character arc over the course of the show is to un-burn, a journey that starts even before he meets Chloe in the pilot. Hufflepuff and Slytherin primaries are both loyalist; the main difference between them is in the scope of their loyalty. Slytherin primaries prioritize a smaller circle of people whom they have decided to prioritize. In contrast, Hufflepuffs believe in the innate value of people, and seek to prioritize people based on need or a sense of what is fair–in Lucifer’s case, this revolves around the basic right to free will.

Hufflepuffs tend to burn when the world has treated them so unfairly that they end up believing that caring about everyone is an impossible goal. Facing this rejection, they narrow their circles and start to prioritize looking out just for themselves, or a few loved ones. This often comes with a sense of shame: if the Hufflepuff were a better person, they could be kind to everyone (and remember, being kind doesn’t mean being nice). Lucifer is constantly asking himself this question. Is he a monster? Can he be a good person? In the pilot, his first interaction with Amenadiel includes asking, “Do you think I’m evil because I was born that way, or because dear old Dad decided I was?” 

At the beginning of the series, Lucifer mostly looks out for himself and, to a lesser extent, Maze. However, even in the pilot, we see glimpses of his inherent sense of justice and compassion for humanity. His interactions with Delilah (and his reaction to her death) set the stage, and his work with the LAPD–beyond his fascination with Chloe–continues the trend. Linda says it best when she tells him, “I think you’re starting to enjoy seeking justice for the good ones.” He only punishes people who have betrayed his innate sense of what is kind and fair–people who hurt other people–and he detests when someone takes away another person’s choice.

This isn’t to say that Slytherins can’t have this innate sense of fairness and compassion; it’s that a Slytherin would still put their “own people” first when the chips are down, and feel good about that decision. A Hufflepuff would feel like they’ve done the right thing when they put the collective good first. When Luci gives Marlotte her own universe at the end of season 2, he’s prioritizing the good of the world–and God and all his siblings in Heaven, estranged they may be–above keeping someone he loves very dearly: his mom. It’s a pretty significant character moment that this is the moral act which gives him his wings back.

Similarly, Lucifer’s pivotal decision at the end of season 4 also shows his Hufflepuff primary. He makes a huge personal sacrifice by going back to rule Hell, and hurts Chloe and his other loved ones to do it too. At the end of the day, Luci wants to do what’s best for humanity, even if it’s at cost to his inner circle. The flip side of this is the very Slytherin decision he makes at the end of season 3 which triggers the reappearance of his Devil face: killing Cain. Lucifer has killed exactly two people, both for the Slytherin motivation of protecting Chloe. Now, we can argue that Luci’s Slytherin model actually served him pretty well here, and the show generally wants us to support Luci after these difficult choices. But the key is in his reaction, which is an intense level of guilt uncharacteristic of someone who genuinely believes that the ends justify the means when it comes to protecting the people they love. 

For our true Slytherin primaries, we need to look no further than the occasional murder-buddies, Maze and Dan.

MAZIKEEN SMITH. Maze is a classic Slytherin primary through and through, and she petrifies over the course of season 3. Her Slytherin primary clashes with Lucifer’s Hufflepuff primary as he slowly un-burns; she can’t understand why he cares so much about humans and why he would change for them. It also explains why she’s so betrayed by his refusal to take her back to Hell: For Slytherin Maze, Lucifer refusing to prioritize her must mean that he cares about her less. For Hufflepuff Lucifer, he has to consider the good of the system–and taking Maze back to Hell could endanger everyone else by angering his father. Plus, it would break up the family!

At the beginning, Maze’s circle consists of herself and Lucifer, and she’s willing to go to any length to protect him–including almost killing Chloe and siding with Amenadiel to bring Lucifer home.  While her stance on humanity ends up changing, it’s primarily because she finds some humans that she happens to like–Trixie and Linda, first and foremost, though she adopts more as the series goes on. She tells Chloe, “I’m glad I didn’t kill you,” not because she suddenly decides murder is inherently bad, but because she ends up looking at Chloe and thinking, ‘This one is mine.’

Maze petrifies when she slowly loses everyone in her circle besides herself. This starts by Linda and Amenadiel lying to her and spirals out of control when Lucifer refuses to take her back to Hell. “None of you deserve me,” she tells him, and suddenly finds herself with no one to protect but herself. However, Maze un-petrifies at the end of the season; the first step is when Amenadiel shows her compassion, but she ultimately finds her place again when she rushes to save Linda from the bluffed threat from Cain.

Maze is a Gryffindor secondary. She’s at her best when she charges head (and knife) first into situations. However, she also has a Ravenclaw model that, similarly to Lucifer, she uses to make her a more effective Gryffindor. Maze collects weapons and fighting styles in a very Ravenclaw-fashion so that she can be the best possible torturer and bounty-hunter, but when trouble arrives, she’s not going to stop and make a plan–she’s going to kick trouble’s ass.

DAN ESPINOZA gets along with Maze so well because they’re both Slytherin primaries. Dan’s willingness to feed Warden Perry to the mob–and his lack of remorse afterwards–because Perry is a scumbag who hurt someone he cares about is clear evidence of his primary. He also knows exactly where to look for a little backup in Maze, who’s always down to offer him the means to his end. At his “Detective Douchiest,” Dan is leveraging his Slytherin primary to justify his bad behavior. He’s loyal to himself, after all, and throws himself into his work to avoid being attached to anyone else. However, Dan’s primary is also a strength. It makes him fiercely loyal and dependable to the people he loves–willing to do whatever it takes to protect them, or get them the revenge they don’t believe in getting for themselves.

Speaking of throwing himself into work: Dan is a Hufflepuff secondary. He’s a hard-working detective who keeps his head down–which makes him clash with his Gryffindor ex-wife, Chloe, who would rather make loud, controversial decisions in the name of justice–and puts in steady hours to chip away at his goals. When he’s in a good place, he puts a similar work ethic into the people he loves. When he’s in a bad one, he hides behind his work and detaches from the “human” side of his secondary.

CHLOE DECKER. Like I just mentioned, Chloe is a Gryffindor primary who desperately wants to pretend that she’s a Ravenclaw. Her Ravenclaw model–attributing morality to the legal system, carefully considering the facts when making decisions–can serve her well, and she falls back on it when she’s trying to wrangle Lucifer’s Slytherin antics. However, Chloe’s real strength has always been following her gut–occasionally to the point of self-righteousness. This also explains her base moral conflict with Dan, who both prioritizes people over ideals. A similar conflict could exist with Lucifer, but Luci is constantly encouraging Chloe to trust her instincts–he values her true primary more than her model. She has an innate sense of right and wrong that she has to fight very hard to overcome, and things normally go worse for her when she does. 

I’m talking about the clusterfuck that was early season 4, obviously. Chloe sees Lucifer’s Devil face at the end of season 3 and is faced with a reality that her Ravenclaw model was stubbornly refusing to accommodate; she has a gut reaction of fear that tells her to run away. This initial need for space wasn’t actually the issue. I think that, if Chloe had met anyone besides Father Kinley, things would’ve been just fine. But when she meets Kinley in Rome, Chloe is manipulated into ignoring her Gryffindor instincts. Her heart is telling her to trust Lucifer–that he’s a good person who she loves. However, Kinley manipulates Chloe into trusting an external source of morality instead: his twisted brand of Catholic pedagogy. What restores Chloe’s conscience is tossing out everything Kinley tries to tell her and realigning with what she feels, which is love for Lucifer.

Chloe is also a Gryffindor secondary, although her Ravenclaw secondary model is more useful and stable than her primary model. Like Maze, she borrows the thoughtful planning and skill-collecting of a Ravenclaw. Chloe tackles cases by examining every angle, carefully interrogating suspects, and weighing the pros and cons of every solution. I would hazard a guess that most of her colleagues assume that Ravenclaw!Chloe is all there is–especially because she seems so much more sensible that her reckless partner. But if we dig deeper, Chloe is more than happy to charge into situations with a stubbornness and bravery that’s nearly unmatched. When push comes to shove, Chloe will take a psychologist on a date rather than wait for special permission to speak to a suspect, leverage Lucifer’s impulsivity to shake down perps, and stand between Lucifer and Cain’s henchmen while daring them to shoot.

AMENADIEL.  Our resident solider of God is a little harder to pin down than most of the others for me, primarily because I really want to know more about his time in Heaven before the series started. Amenadiel reads either like a Ravenclaw or Gryffindor primary, though I lean towards a stripped Gryffindor. This is complicated by the fact that Amenadiel was stripped long before he realizes it during season 2. Stripped Gryffindors learn that they can’t trust their own moral compass and have to find a new system to follow instead. I think this happened to Amenadiel when he was still living in the Silver City, perhaps around the time Lucifer Fell, if not before.

Amenadiel functions by being his father’s loyal solider–by doing exactly what he’s told, because it’s supposed to be the right thing. He labels his brother as selfish, reckless, and evil despite harboring a clear love for him at the same time. This cognitive dissonance exists because someone else taught Amenadiel that he should believe those things about Lucifer. He survives in Heaven by falling in line–essentially adapting his father’s party line, like a Ravenclaw would. The issue is that a Ravenclaw would be satisfied with adapting such a system, and would not struggle as much to revise this system later if they found it inadequate.

In contrast, Amenadiel is constantly struggling to figure out what’s right. He’s horrified by his own behavior during season 1, causing him to Fall from angelhood and lose his wings and powers, but can’t seem to re-orient himself. He tries on different hats–first being like Lucifer, then following their mom instead of their dad, and finally trying to follow their dad again–but nothing ever feels right. Amenadiel’s greatest comfort is found in the realization that angels self-actualize. Once this realization comes, Amenadiel learns to trust himself again and regains his wings once and for all.

Amenadiel splits himself between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw secondaries and somehow manages to fail at both. (I say this with love). This is mostly because, I think, his Gryffindor primary is so stripped that his HOW is too detached from a WHY that makes internal sense–this leaves him ineffective and lost. Looking at season 4, though, I think Amenadiel is a Ravenclaw who models a Gryff secondary. While he’s still up for a Gryffindor-esque charge into the fight, Amenadiel approaches Linda’s pregnancy and impending fatherhood with a desire to learn as much as he can and make a better world for his son.

LINDA MARTIN is a Ravenclaw primary who briefly falls when she sees Lucifer’s Devil face, then promptly picks up herself back up and builds a new moral system for herself. It takes her about a week and she’s fairly satisfied with the result, even when her emotional and physical fears flare back up and she has to baby-proof her ceiling. Pre-fall, Linda believed in a system of compassion and warm skepticism, which made her an excellent therapist. She liked to think she might be reincarnated as a chameleon. She enjoyed the process of questioning the world. During her fall, Linda found her current system incapable of accommodating the simultaneously massive and personal scale of Divinity–and post-fall, she builds a new system that largely looks the same as before but, as Amenadiel helpfully points out, contains “different questions.” 

With Linda, we’ve finally found a straightforward Ravenclaw secondary, no modelling to be found. Linda likes to plan for trouble, and she flounders when that opportunity is taken away from her. She’s constantly trying to remind people that she’s not that kind of doctor, and while she lets herself get swept up into Lucifer’s schemes–like breaking God out of a psychiatric hospital–she’s never comfortable in that kind of situation and the decisions she makes impulsively don’t tend to work out well for her (see: the resulting interrogation from the ethics review board). 

ELLA LOPEZ is another “double” house, and our second Hufflepuff primary. While many people who have a strong religious faith can be seen as Ravenclaw primaries, Ella’s connection to her faith is driven by her innate love for humanity. She believes that people–including the Devil, who she says gets a bad rap–are basically good and deserve love and kindness. After Charlotte’s death, we see that Ella’s response is not to lose faith in her approach to life like a Ravenclaw might–instead, she resents a God who she thought shared her Hufflepuff morals and clearly doesn’t, if such senseless bad things can happen to good people.

Her Hufflepuff secondary is a fairly classic kind, combining cheerful work with an interpersonal warmth that endears people to her. Ella’s natural charisma is a sweet, understated variety that makes even Azrael, the Angel of Death, want to look out for her. While Ella rarely leverages this consciously–and her lack of desire to do so feeds into her charm–there are multiple points in the series where people casually go to bat for her. Two prime examples are when Charlotte tells off Pierce in an immensely satisfying fashion and when Lucifer scares Ella’s brother straight.

CHARLOTTE RICHARDS. Oh, dearest Charlotte. So much of her time is spent in a existential crisis that she’s another hard one to pin down. but I think she’s a Slytherin primary. When Charlotte finds out about the Devil of it all, she doesn’t run like Chloe, and she doesn’t have to reconstruct her view of the world like Linda does. Instead, Charlotte struggles to understand how to be a “good” Slytherin. Pre-trip to Hell, it’s implied that Charlotte lived fairly selfishly, extending her Slytherin circle to herself, her clients, and perhaps her children. Post-Hell, Charlotte is rocked to her core by the realization that she was not living free of guilt.

Now, some could argue that this means Charlotte isn’t actually a Slytherin. However, Slytherins aren’t free from other aspects of morality just because their first priority will always be their chosen people. Charlotte prioritized protecting criminals who she knew did terrible things, and she put herself first to an extent that many people would feel guilty about, even though most would agree that it’s good to put yourself first sometimes. When she’s trying to become a “good” person, Charlotte initially tries to give up her Slytherin ideals entirely. She quits her job and joins the DA’s office, trying to more like the cheerful Hufflepuff Ella.

This ultimately fails; it simply isn’t her. But Charlotte finds success–and a tragic redemption–when she learns that there’s more than one way to be a Slytherin. She turns some of her Slytherin loyalty outwards, towards victims and survivors of domestic abuse as well as new loved ones–Dan, Ella, and Amenadiel. She’s willing to go to great lengths to protect the people in her circle, which is still a very Slytherin motivation, but one that she feels much more at peace with in the end.

As for Charlotte’s secondary? Look, anyone who steals a dude’s motorcycle while cheerfully informing him, “Don’t worry, it’s for God!” is probably a Gryffindor. I don’t make the rules here.

MARLOTTE. The thing about being a Hufflepuff primary is that people matter, but not everyone has the same definition of “person.” At first glance, the Divine Goddess might look like a Slytherin primary. However, I argue that she actually values all “people” equally, it’s just that she considers Celestials to be people, and humanity to be both too foreign and simple to matter. (This logic is, by the way, the same reasons Hufflepuffs are no less capable of racism, homophobia, etc. than anyone else). 

Goddess’s primary goal is to reunite her family, sans God, and she’s willing to roast a bunch of humans on the Santa Monica Pier to do it. Humans are fundamentally expendable–except for her “favorite human,” Dan, who essentially gets a loophole when she spends enough time with him and stops seeing him as “other.” But Goddess doesn’t consider any Celestial to be expendable. She’s not willing to harm Luci and Amenadiel, even when she realizes that they were planning to betray her. She doesn’t value herself more than she values her children, and she doesn’t play favorites. If she did, she might be content to try and stay on Earth, or to wage a war in which some of her children (i.e., the ones who didn’t side with her) died. If Goddess were a Slytherin, it would be possible to “kick” people out of her circle, like Maze does when she petrifies. Instead, Goddess’s natural state is essentially inclusive, much like her son, Lucifer–they just have a pretty substantial conflict over who gets included.

Goddess is a determined Ravenclaw secondary. When she needs to make things better with Lucifer, she learns how to make “cheesy noodles.” She throws herself whole-heartedly into learning  how to live as Charlotte Richards–including reading every legal book every, apparently. While she’s certainly cunning like many Slytherin secondaries, Goddess actually doesn’t function very well without a plan. Things fall apart for her pretty quickly when she runs out of time in her body and has to make decisions off the cuff. Unlike Lucifer, who works best when he’s under pressure, she needs time to set up her course of action.

EVE is another difficult one to sort because so much of her characterization is about not knowing how she is. This makes her primary fairly obscured, and I hope we’ll see more of her in season 5 so I can revisit this sorting. For now, I’m going with a Gryffindor primary. Eve is motivated by doing what feels good–whether it’s leaving Heaven because she’s tired of being someone’s wife or convincing her boyfriend to punish people. She has an instinctive solution to every problem–even when logic says, ‘Hey, maybe don’t release demons from Hell?’ because she knows how things should be–and that’s with her and Lucifer together.

The reason she clashes with Lucifer is that while Eve’s primary is about ideals, Lucifer’s primary is about people–whether he’s operating on his Slytherin model or his true Hufflepuff primary. Lucifer cares a whole lot about other people’s desires–including Eve’s–but he doesn’t care that much about his own if they hurt other people. Interestingly, Chloe and Lucifer have this same idealist vs. humanist conflict; Eve and Chloe just have very different flavors of Gryffindor morality, and it turns out that Chloe’s ideals match up with Lucifer’s Hufflepuff values more of the time. Furthermore, Chloe comes to accept Lucifer’s Hufflepuff-ness in a way that Eve doesn’t. Chloe actually prefers Luci as a Puff–her Gryffindor righteousness says that they should protect other people, which is the same thing Lucifer wants to do.

Much like Ella, Eve uses a Hufflepuff secondary to build connections with other people that she can depend on. However, Eve leverages those connections on a much more conscious level than Ella ever does–in fact, it’s essentially the first thing that Eve ever does, both in her life and in the series. She starts by connecting herself to Adam, trying to be the perfect wife. Then, she leaves Heaven and seeks out Lucifer, relying on him to help her accomplish her goals. After getting dumped, Eve jumps to Maze instead. She’s a particularly effective Hufflepuff because of her Slytherin model, which allows her to adapt to whatever the other person needs her to be (see: the entirety of “Super Bad Boyfriend.”) You could make the argument that Eve is actually just a Slytherin secondary, since the “chameleon” aspect is so central to how she functions. However, Eve has a level of discomfort with her constant mask-wearing that a Slytherin secondary probably wouldn’t. In fact, deciding to part ways with her Slytherin model and figure out who she is represents Eve’s big character moment at the very end of the season.

MARCUS PIERCE/CAIN. I saved Cain for last because (in my opinion) he’s the closest thing to a pure antagonist that we have on the show, but frankly even that’s debatable [EDIT I FORGOT KINLEY EXISTED LMAO]. Anyways, Cain is a Slytherin primary who has been petrified for so long that he’s ready for a hard-out on the whole immortality thing. The only person in his circle is himself–we see, mostly in flashbacks, that this is because he’s tired of the pain that comes with losing people he loves. Cain only wants to live again once he adds Chloe to his circle and she reminds him what it feels like to have people to live for.

The neat and/or horrifying thing about Cain is that he’s a fantastic example of a truly insidious Hufflepuff secondary. His entire Sinnerman persona revolves around crafting a network of people and resources he can depend on. When Luci and friends put his back against the wall after the death of Charlotte, Cain doesn’t resort to charging, improvising, or leveraging his own skills. Instead, he calls up a bunch of people who owe him favors and are too terrified to betray him, and they do all the dirty work for him. It actually very nearly works, too. 

[nooneelsecomesclose17]

If you knew how lonely my life has been - part 4

I’m really unsure about this one, it’s the start of the whys and wherefores and I just hope I’ve managed to make it work. I’m borrowing bits and pieces from canon that I didn’t like btw so yeah...not so much in this chapter but you’ll see ;).

He hadn’t stayed long after that, told her what he knew and collected Seb, leaving her on the phone to Cain. All he had the energy for was to go home and play video games with Seb until bedtime.

Maybe he should’ve told him about Robert but he had no idea where to start. He’d always been honest with him about his Daddy Robert and now he had to undo all of that somehow. It didn’t help that he had no idea how to deal with it himself, let alone how to help a seven year old who still said goodnight to the photo of his Dad beside his bed.

He doesn’t sleep, spends most of the night pacing the kitchen, can’t settle his mind on anything. He’ll have to see Robert, he knows that, but right now he’s not sure he wants to. Not so long ago he would’ve given anything for it but all he can think of now is how he’s been lied to, how hurt he is.

When the banging starts on the door not long after seven he can only sigh. He should’ve known Robert wouldn’t wait.

“What part of give me time don’t you understand?”

“I have to explain. I know you’re angry, but if you hear me out…well, maybe you’ll see I had no choice.”

“There’s always a choice.” He sighs because even now he can’t say no to him. “Seb’s still asleep and I haven’t had chance to talk to him yet. Meet me at the yard in an hour. I’ll get Mum to watch him.”

“I know you said yesterday but…I need to see him too Aaron.” For the first time he can almost see a hint of how much Robert is hurting too.

“We’re going out later, I’ll talk to him after, then if he wants to we’ll arrange something. It’s got to be at his pace Robert.” He can hear Seb moving about upstairs, never one for sleeping late. “You should go.”

“Who was that?” Seb’s on the stairs when he closes the door, hair ruffled from sleep, pyjamas dragging a little on the floor because Nana Chas had bought a size too big again.

“Come and sit with me a minute.” He smiles as Seb climbs up onto his lap, for once not protesting that he’s too old for cuddles. “You know how I’ve told you about your Dad?”

“He died, like Mummy. But I’ve got you!”

“Of course you have. Well…thing is…this probably won’t make much sense bug, but your Dad, he’s alive.” Seb doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even acknowledge he’s heard. Aaron’s never felt so out of his depth before. He has no idea how to do this and it’s not the kind of thing you can look up on the internet like he had in the past when Seb first came back to live with him. “Seb…”

“Do I have to go live with him now?”

“Oh. Um…your Dad and I would have to talk about that, but no one’s going to make you do anything you don’t want, ok?” He’s a bit ashamed that he’d not even thought about Robert wanting Seb back. He didn’t want to think about it.

Seb had been the reason for him to turn himself around and try to get his life back to some sort of normality. He’d known that Robert and Rebecca had sorted out the legal stuff back after the wedding, Robert adamant that Aaron have rights over the little boy in case anything happened. Maybe now he knew why.

“Why did he go away?”

“I don’t know bug, but I’m going to find out. Are you ok to go to Nana’s while I do that?” He holds him close a little bit longer, wondering if Seb really was that ok with everything or if he was going to react more later. “If you want me to stay here instead, I will.”

“You said we were going out!”

“We still can…are you sure?”

“Yeah!"

“Right then. The film doesn’t start until two. I’m not going to miss that am I, hmm? Come on, let’s get dressed and get your stuff.” Seb’s halfway up the stairs before he stops. “What is it?”

“Can I see him?”

“Yeah, of course you can. We need to talk first though.” He forces a smile. “Seb…you know it’s alright if you’re upset or whatever, yeah? You can talk to me.”

“I know. Love you Dad.”

“Love you too bug.”

Robert’s sat on the bonnet of his car when he gets to the scrapyard. He’d feel bad about making him sit outside but he’s still angry. He doesn’t say a word, just unlocks the door, sitting at his desk looking at Robert.

“Well go on then.”

“Aaron…”

“No. You don’t get to use that voice on me. I’m so mad at you. I can’t even find the words.”

“I know, and if I could change it.” He sighs and slumps onto Jimmy’s desk. “This place hasn’t changed much.”

“It’s a portacabin Robert, what were you expecting?”

“I s’pose I thought you might be a little bit pleased to see me.” He doesn’t answer, just watches as Robert runs a hand over his face, noticing his wedding ring for the first time. He can’t deny a little fizz of something at the sight of it and runs his thumb over his own. “I had to leave, I didn’t have a choice.”

“You said that before, but there’s always a choice. You could’ve told me, left a note, anything. Instead you just…I thought you died Robert. Did you think I’d just get over that?”

“No…but you had Chas, and Liv, and everyone. I knew you’d be alright.”

“I wasn’t though. You just don’t get it do you? I needed you! I needed you and you weren’t there. So I don’t want to hear how you thought I’d be ok. All I want is an explanation.”

“I was being threatened. More to the point you were being threatened. Liv, Seb, everyone. It was the only way out.”

“But…we were happy. I would’ve noticed.”

“I’m good at hiding stuff.” He scoffed a little because that couldn’t be further from the truth.   “Ok maybe not, but…like you said we were happy, and I was doing everything I could to keep it that way.”

“Hang on, go back a bit. Who was threatening you? Kim Tate? Lachlan?”

“No. I wouldn’t have done this because of them. I need to…this goes back to before I met you.” He wanders over to the window and Aaron waits him out, knows that’s the best way to get him to talk. “Before I started working for Lawrence even. I’d got myself into debt, and I don’t just mean a few hundred. Thousands. Every time I managed to claw something back from a deal I lost it again. Anyway, you know me, I can blag my way into anything. Found a job, the boss offered to help me get out of debt if I…well let’s just say not much of it was entirely legal. You have to…I’d been on my own since Dad made me leave and those first couple of years were hard Aaron, I would’ve done anything not to end up back there.”

He nods because Robert’s told him about that time before, even reducing himself to tears over it. “So, you were in trouble with the police or…”

“Did I ever tell you how I met Chrissie? I think most people assume I set out to seduce the boss’s daughter, but I didn’t. I met her in a bar one night when I’d just done another one of his jobs. She was nice. Anyway, sorry…I never told her about him, but she thought I was unhappy at work, suggested she talk to her Dad for me. I snapped her hand off. It was a way out of the mess I was in.”

“And he didn’t like you leaving…seems a bit of an extreme reaction?”

“Yeah well you know me, I couldn’t just leave, could I? He’d trusted me a fair bit, I knew a lot of his secrets. So when I got the job with Lawrence, I took what I had and gave it to the police. He got to stay at Her Majesty’s pleasure for a few years.”

“And he took exception to that and when he got out…”

“He came looking for me. He wasn’t going to let it go, I should’ve known that. It’d been that long I thought…well anyway.” He sits again, looks worn out. “So, now you know.”

“Is that it?”

“What else is there?”

“How did he find you? Who is he? And the one I keep coming back to, why didn’t you tell me! Why you thought it was ok to keep all of it from me and let me think you were dead!”

[davidmann95]

It seems Tyler Hoechlin is your favorite live-action Superman, but can you rank the actors from worst to best as you see it (of the current actors, I'm not sold on Hoechlin yet, but I think it has more to do with my dislike of his costume—particularly how the cape attaches—that it distracts me from the character, while Cavill seems to physically look perfect for the part and certainly is capable of the acting and charm, but the script he has to work with is lacking)?

Leaving out Kirk Alyn, John Haymes Newton and Gerard Christopher, since I’m not familiar with their performances:

7. Tom Welling

I feel kind of bad about this one. I grew up watching Smallville, y’know? And in terms of sheer man-hours devoted to the role, Welling has more of a claim to being Superman than anyone other than Bud Collyer. But he…wasn’t great, in retrospect. I suspect it was largely a matter of the material he was given; he did well whenever he actually had something to do, whether as dorky reporter Clark Kent intermittently throughout the final season, or various cases of amnesia/mind control/body-swapping/Red Kryptonite exposure. But outside maybe a sweet spot after he’d grown into the role and before he visibly started to get tired of it, and occasionally when getting to spar with (better) actors like Durance, Rosenbaum, and Glover, he had a weird stiffness when playing regular Clark Kent that for the most part didn’t translate into charm once he couldn’t bank on teen awkwardness anymore, and while that frankly made him a pretty honest depiction of the increasingly dicey version of the character he was written as, it didn’t make for a great take on Superman.

6. Henry Cavill

Cavill’s been more let down by the material than anything else - the unfortunate unifying factor of the bottom three here. When the movies let him be great, he really is great, whether promising Martha that he isn’t going anywhere even after learning the truth about Krypton or fighting for the stories he believes in against Perry White. For the most part though he just seems to be called on to look varying degrees of sad and solemn, asked to call on none of the charm he showed in, say, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Granted his Superman has a lot to be down about, but there’s no range on display here; I don’t doubt he’s got a great take on the character in him, but for now it’s being kept under wraps.

5. Brandon Routh

Of all the reasons Superman Returns was such a damn shame, maybe the biggest was that it buried any chance of seeing the performance out of Brandon Routh that he so clearly had to offer. He’s a great dorky Clark, a charming Superman, and when the stars line up just right, he really manages to capture the idea of Superman as a melancholy figure - his take doesn’t just seem to be bearing the weight of the world in the philosophical abstract, but much more palpably feels an entire planet crying out for him, knowing he can never save them all but always trying anyway out of unconditional love, very much in line with Garth Ennis and John McCrea’s take on him in Hitman. Unfortunately all that takes up maybe 10-15 minutes of runtime, spending the rest of the movie stalking his ex with a neutral expression until he gets shived by Kevin Spacey and regurgitates Brando at his secret kid. Superman Returns was weird, ya’ll.

4. Dean Cain

I was honestly surprised with myself when I decided Cain won out as the best of the rest outside the big three - I thought for sure it’d be Routh. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that while Routh’s take is definitely closer to the version of Superman I had in my head, it’s compromised in a way the Superman of Lois & Clark never was: like the take or not, this is a perfect realization of the Superman the creators of the show clearly had in mind. His Clark’s funny, clever, warm, and vulnerable, and while it feels weird for him to be acting that way in the glasses these were the Byrne years, so as an expression of his ‘real’ self it’s pretty on-point. His Superman’s the weaker end, stilted even given it’s supposed to be him putting on a performance in-universe, but there’s such an unironic earnestness there that it typically slid back into charming.

3. George Reeves

I thought for awhile about 2 and 3, ultimately concluding that what was asked of George Reeves was a fair deal simpler. He didn’t much differentiate between Superman and Clark, and his booming radio announcer voice made clear we weren’t supposed to be measuring his performance in terms of whether or not he seemed like a real person. What he was called on to show though, and what he had out the wazoo, was raw charisma. When Jimmy asks him why he burst through a wall rather than using a door and Superman replies with a grin “Well, this seemed a little more spectacular,” you’re 100% willing to buy into that explanation, because yeah, it was spectacular, because Superman’s fantastic. And he could more than hold his own with the best of them when asked to work with more serious material, whether wandering through an amnesic fog in Panic In The Sky with only his instinctive decency to guide him, or here, in the final scene of The Dog Who Knew Superman, where Clark has to deal with a dog not only adoring him, but recognizing him in both identities:

2. Christopher Reeve

I gave Tom Welling his well-earned due earlier, but if you really want to talk about a guy with a solid claim to being Superman, Christopher Reeve didn’t just embed himself on the psyche of a generation, but is still held up today as the unequivocal standard by which the role is set. In all likelihood he’ll always be ‘the’ Superman, in the same way as Sean Connery will always be James Bond, and Bela Lugosi will always be Dracula. He shone like the sun in the costume, he was believably such a wimpy klutz out of it that no one would guess they were the same even when it was staring them in the face, and if anyone has any lingering suspicions that he just had the easy task of playing two extremely arch roles to the hilt, they might be forgetting this bit:

Was it perfect? I don’t know about that - if nothing else there were one or two awkward line readings, and the identity division is so sharp that it’s hard to tell when you’re getting a glimpse of the real guy underneath all the identities. But while I definitely question how much of a positive impact on Superman those movies themselves really had in the long run, Reeve’s performance on its own was an undeniable revelation, everything he did reverberating with such a sincere and powerful sense of decency and love for his fellow man that it not only brought Superman to the life, but frankly changed him forever for the better.

1. Tyler Hoechlin

I expected nothing out of this guy. Not that I by any means thought he’d be bad, but when I heard some dude from Teen Wolf was gonna appear on an episode or two of Supergirl, my reaction was about as intense as…well, what you’d expect upon hearing that some dude from Teen Wolf was showing up on Supergirl, even given who he was playing (granted I’ve never seen Teen Wolf and don’t actually especially know what Teen Wolf is, beyond that it’s based on that werewolf-playing-basketball 80s movie written by…wait, Jeph Loeb?!). Looked fine - and it became clear he actually really did look the part once behind-the-scenes pictures started to come out, rather than that godawful original promo picture - and I figured he’d belt out his best Reeve/Animated Series/Cartoon-on-the-side-of-a-cereal-box brand Generic Superman Performance to cheer Kara on before vanishing into the sunset forever outside of the opening credits. I was plenty interested in the potential long-term ramifications of Superman being allowed on TV again in any capacity for the first time since the 90s, given the influence that suggested Geoff Johns had as the new DC President and what that could mean in terms of other characters showing up down the line, but I wasn’t inclined to think of this as anything other than a stepping stone, only notable in its own right because it meant someone would be wearing the s-shield.

Then we actually saw him.

Where the hell has this guy been all these years? Was he grown in a goddamn laboratory for the part? How did the best Superman ever end up in a minor recurring guest spot on the CW Supergirl show?

It would be so, so easy to leap to the idea that he simply works as a jack-of-all-trades: he’s almost as charming as Reeve, just about as confident as Reeves, nearly as vulnerable as Cain. But that would be selling what he’s doing short - especially given that he probably hasn’t had the opportunity to stretch as far as he could in any of those directions, as his role so far has very much been as Supergirl’s backup dancer. What it comes down to is his general demeanor and how he incorporates those aspects into a whole that feels more fully-realized than any portrayal before him. His Superman and Kent are not only distinctive to the point that within the heightened reality the show occupies you can buy that people think of them as different people, but you can see threads from both of them connecting back to the real Clark you see around Kara. He’s open and warm and authentic in a way none of his predecessors quite were, and he’s able to turn on a dime into steely determination or outright fury while remaining recognizable. He’s above everyone’s heads and vaguely alien at times without ever seeming detached or less than entirely loving of the people around him, able to admit his fears and failings while staying strong and capable of changing for the better, utterly and palpably good without ever sliding into naivete or cartoonishness. In short he has range and nuance, and thanks to that along with the air of laid-back friendliness he brings with him, he more than anyone else to put on the suit feels like a real person. And somehow, that real person feels as much as anyone ever has like Superman. And that’s a hell of an achievement. So someone give him his own goddamn show already.

[mst3kproject]

301: Cave Dwellers

Have you ever gotten the feeling that they were just making these movies up as they went along?  Oh boy, have I got a story for you!

Achronus the Great One has discovered the secrets of the Geometric Nucleus, which is… um… okay, I admit it, I have no idea what it is. Lord Zor, the Darth Vader to Achronus’ Obi-Wan, wants the Nucleus for himself, so Achronus sends his daughter Mila to find the warrior Ator, the only man capable of protecting such a terrible weapon.  Mila convinces Ator and his sidekick Thong that their planet needs them, and although it only took her four hours to get to their place, the three of them spend approximately six weeks heading back, stopping for a couple of side quests while Achronus and Zor trade bullshit philosophical dialogue.  At last Zor is defeated, and Ator takes the Geometric Nucleus away and detonates it in stock footage of a 50’s nuclear test.

This movie is fucking amazing.  Nothing in it makes sense. Achronus keeps the Geometric Nucleus in a hole in the wall and Mila has never noticed this bright glowing thing before despite the fact that she lives there.  Ator apparently carries a fucking hang-glider around in his loincloth or something.  Literally all of the dialogue is nonsense, especially the stuff that comes out of Achronus’ or Zor’s mouths.  Thong never talks, although Ator makes several references to him having been right about something… I like to imagine that he actually doesn’t speak English and is doing some other quest of his own, with no idea why Ator and Mila are following him around.  They never give us the slightest idea of what the Geometric Nucleus actually is, besides it being bright and shiny and able to destroy the world if it falls into the wrong hands.  Maybe it’s the seventh infinity stone.

But I promised you a story, didn’t I?  All right – well, according to an interview with David Cain Haughton, who played Zor, Cave Dwellers is the way it is because they literally improvised the whole thing.  The actors turned up to be in some completely different caveman movie, but that got canned at the last minute.  Director Joe D’Amato still wanted to make a movie, so he decided to make one anyway, whether or not he had things like a ‘story’ or a ‘script’.  He’d already made Ator, the Fighting Eagle starring Miles O’Keefe, so since O’Keefe was there they did an Ator sequel, literally making the whole thing up as they went along!

That explains so much. It explains why we never learn what the Geometric Nucleus is – they never bothered figuring it out.  It explains why the conversations between Zor and Achronus are total nonsense – they were literally first drafts.  It explains the invisible assassins – they didn’t have any extras that day.  It explains why Ator’s love interest from the first movie dies offscreen in narration – the actress wasn’t available on such short notice.  It explains the random caveman footage in the opening – that was the only thing shot for the original movie before they were told they couldn’t make it anymore.  I could probably list every single confusing or nonsensical thing from the entire film and explain it in this way… except the hang-glider.  There’s no explaining the hang-glider.

That would be a boring review, though, and my specialty is analyzing that which defies analysis.  What is there, then, to analyze in Cave Dwellers?  The movie seems to have two intentional points that are repeated throughout, and these are explicit enough that I think D’Amato and the cast probably talked about them and agreed to use them as unifying themes.  The first is the idea that human ingenuity is both our greatest strength and the greatest threat to our survival.

This is hardly a new or unique idea – we saw basically the same thing, much better-executed, in First Spaceship on Venus.  Although Cave Dwellers is pretty explicit about this theme, it doesn’t actually put a lot of effort into it.  The Geometric Nucleus, which seems to represent human hubris and which Achronus didn’t dare to show even to Mila, never does anything and is only a MacGuffin.  Achronus states that imagination – ingenuity, the ability to invent – is as important as knowledge, which is a sentiment I’m sure any scientist or engineer worth their NaCl could get behind, but we don’t see a lot of ingenuity saving the day in this movie.  Mila is able to break out of the cell by making her own gunpowder Captain-Kirk-style, and Ator later uses gunpowder against the cavemen and during his castle flyover, but the payoff of this doesn’t seem to match the setup.  Ator and Thong throwing their cloaks over the invisible ninjas is some nice improv, but when confronted with the giant snake Ator simply fights his way out.

I think the big ‘ingenuity saves the day’ moment is supposed to be when Ator appears on his hang-glider, but I refuse to believe he built that thing in the woods in five minutes.  Achronus says he taught Ator the secret of flight, so I find it much more plausible that they’d stashed the glider in the woods somewhere earlier, and Ator just dug it up and patched a couple of holes.

The other ostensible conviction of Cave Dwellers is that all human beings are equal.  This is stated several times, both by Achronus and by Ator, and to their credit both actually act on it.  Achronus asks Zor to treat Sandor the Magician with mercy, even though Sandor is also Achronus’ enemy, and insists that Zor himself stand trial rather than letting Ator kill him outright.  Ator allows himself to be distracted by the plight of the village of Solachek, despite Mila’s objections, because the people there are no less important or in need of rescue than her father.

At the same time, Cave Dwellers presents us with a profoundly unequal world.  In the opening shots we see the titular Cave Dwellers, sitting in filthy caverns eating raw meat and killing each other for no apparent reason. Then we leave them and meet Achronus and Mila, who live in a castle and benefit from textiles, metallurgy, medicine, and literacy.  Somewhere in the middle are the people of Solachek, who seem closer to Achronus and Ator’s medieval world than the Cave Dwellers’ prehistoric one, but are still very primitive.  Exactly what the relationship is between these three levels of society is very unclear. The cavemen seem to live in isolation just because they eat anyone who intrudes, which I guess is fair enough, but what is Achronus in relation to people like the villagers?

The likeliest-seeming explanation to the historian in me is that he is a lord and they are his serfs.  That would explain who feeds Achronus and Mila, since they clearly aren’t out tilling the fields in between conducting science experiments.  Yet Achronus himself seems completely unaware of the outside world except insofar as it contains people like Zor and Ator, who are his intellectual if not always his moral equals.  He is certainly not interested in the crisis in Solachek, though it seems like something he would probably disapprove of.  The villagers never refer to any form of government except for the ‘elder’.

This failure of worldbuilding is, obviously, the sort of thing you get when you make shit up as you go instead of sitting down and thinking your story through properly.  In the film itself, however, it just makes Achronus look like a rambling old hypocrite. He claims that all men are equal, but rather than righting any of the copious wrongs going on around him, he just hangs out in his castle all day wearing a robe and mixing beakers of kool-aid. In fact, it’s possible to make a similar argument about Ator: he says no one person’s life is more important than another’s, but when he wanders off to help the people of Solachek he lets us know that they are actually his own kin – his parents were born in the village.  It’s hard to drive a lesson home in a movie when the characters who embody that lesson seem to be telling us to do as they say, not as they do.

Then there’s Zor, the villain.  David Cain Haughton claims he was meant as a parody of mustache-twirling evil and honestly, that might be the best explanation for why Zor never does anything much.  He invades Achronus’ castle and makes a couple of long-distance attempts to stop Mila and Ator, but for most of the movie we’re just watching him and Achronus stand around talking each other to death.  He claims he could torture or kill Achronus if he wanted to but doesn’t because that would be too easy – indeed it would, then the movie would be over. Nor do we ever find out what Zor plans to do with the Geometric Nucleus if and when he gets it.  I guess they couldn’t tell us that, since we would have to know what the damn thing does for it to make any sense.

Which brings us to what is possibly Cave Dwellers’ third intentional message: the anit-nuclear theme. This would be part of the thing about human ingenuity making us a danger to ourselves, and its hinted at several times. The name Geometric Nucleus and the idea that this object is a terrible weapon imply that it might be something atomic, although the fact that Achronus carries it around in a wine bucket seems to argue against it being radioactive. This actually led to a rather interesting discussion on the Sattelite of Love News episode guide for Cave Dwellers, as MSTies try to figure out if the movie is supposed to be prehistoric or post-apocalyptic.  The opening narration, talking about long ago and the ‘fiery period of man’s ascendency’ seems to imply pre-historic, but the fact that Achronus calls the Geometic Nucleus a ‘discovery’ rather than an ‘invention’, and that the equipment available to him is in no way equal to controlling nuclear energy, would appear to speak to the latter.  The easiest answer, I think, is that Cave Dwellers takes place, as many movies do, in another universe entirely – one that is obviously not constrained to make logical or narrative sense.

The footage Film Ventures International used over the opening credits is apparently from a movie called Thor and the Amazon Women.  I definitely have to see that.

[madpicks]

New Post has been published on https://www.madpicks.com/sports/mlb/5-curious-decisions-made-baseballs-contending-teams/

The 5 most curious decisions made by baseball’s contending teams

These teams are as win-now as win-now gets, but they calmly and quietly filled these roster holes.

You are tasked with writing a series of offseason previews. Congratulations. You get to pour over 30 rosters and figure out what each team needs. Some teams are easy because they need younger, cheaper players (Reds). Some teams are harder because they’re at a crossroads (White Sox).

You make a list of what each team needs, and then you set about your business. You spend time researching it all, analyzing the free agent market and trade candidates, and you come up with your ideas.

These are the teams that didn’t listen to a single lousy word you wrote.

Here are five teams that don’t want you to worry your pretty little head about what they need. They’ve got it figured out, and they’re smarter than you. Shoo.

1. The Cubs preferring the fifth starter in the bush to the one in the hand

There are teams that did less with their rotations. The Astros never snagged their ace. The Orioles are still counting on Ubaldo Jimenez. The Yankees are bringing back the same starting pitchers from last year’s underwhelming season.

The Cubs, though, are different. They had a rotation. They were set. They’re the defending champions, and no one would have begrudged them for avoiding the entire hot stove league.

Jed Hoyer: “We were already pretty good, you know”

But instead of exercising their option on Jason Hammel — for a reasonable one-year salary of $10 million — they paid him $2 million to test the open market. It saved them $8 million, and it was reasonable to speculate what they had up their sleeves. Sonny Gray? Julio Teheran? Chris Sale?

Brett Anderson.

Which is fine! The difference between Hammel and Anderson ended up being $4.5 million, and that turned out to be more than half of Jon Jay’s salary. It’s exactly 1/45th of the total number of “CUBS WORLD CHAMPS” aprons they’ve sold in the time it took you to read this paragraph, but now we’re quibbling. A reasonable person could suggest that Anderson is preferable to Hammel, even if their salaries were equal. I disagree, but not so strenuously that I’d spend more than five seconds debating it.

It just seems like an exchange of cost certainty for a pitcher who has topped 50 innings in just one of the last five seasons. If the Cubs had pitchers spilling out of their system, it would make more sense, but that’s not how they’re built. Not yet.

They’re smarter than I am. From here, though, it’s a move that seems to have a concealed explanation that we’re not privy to. Fair enough.

2. The Red Sox and Mitch Moreland

The Red Sox, like the Cubs, are stacked. They have talented players at nearly every position, but that’s selling them short. They’re young players. Stars, some of them. Their best starting pitcher is the one without a Cy Young.

Even considering that, though, the Red Sox made a weird decision at first base. Here are Mitch Moreland’s WAR totals for his career, from highest to lowest, according to Baseball-Reference:

2.2 0.9 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.1 -0.1

That’s one good year, and six years a well-managed organization should be able to find at a yard sale. If WAR isn’t your thing, that’s fine — Moreland did win a Gold Glove last year, even if defensive stats and the eye test weren’t so sure — but there’s no way to argue that he’s been more than a generic first baseman for several seasons now. He’s a career .254/.315/.438, even though he’s played in Texas his entire career.

The Red Sox sought him out. Paid him $5.5 million. Then they suggested that Moreland’s platoon-mate would be Chris Young, a lefty-thumper who has never played anywhere but the outfield.

Color me curious! And confused. But, like with the Cubs, I’m willing to appeal to authority. I’m just a dumb blogger, kicking rocks.

The only thing that bugs me is that the Rangers are also a smart team, and they were fine with letting Moreland walk. They didn’t think there was any more nectar to squeeze out of the 31-year-old. It’s hard to appeal to authority when there’s another authority that might be more authoritative. This is so confusing!

3. The Rangers gambling with 40 percent of their rotation

The Rangers are about to sign Mike Napoli to play first base. He’ll work with James Loney, who also signed. This is not a position of concern for them, considering they have Joey Gallo in reserve and Jurickson Profar without a position. They had a first base arrangement already if they wanted to focus on something else. Now they have another first base arrangement.

Meanwhile, they’re entrusting their final two rotation spots to a pair of pitchers who both had ERAs over 5.00 last year. One of them was closer to 6.00, even.

A.J. Griffin and Andrew Cashner were the bee’s knees in 2013, we’re talking the snake’s hips. But that was 2013, which is about 50 years ago in pitcher years. Since then, Cashner has been disappointing-to-awful, and Griffin has thrown 119 innings in the majors. There are fine reasons for a smart team to want to take a chance on both of them.

There are also reasons to be skeptical. Griffin gave up 28 homers in 119 innings, which is one of the highest rates in baseball history for any pitcher over 100 innings. Cashner’s tenure with the Marlins was an absolute debacle. He’s trending in the wrong direction, and he’s doing it violently.

If the Rangers were a destitute, revenue-sharing franchise, fine. You do what you do, if that’s what you have to do. If the Rangers didn’t have prospects or trade chips of interest (see the Giants, who are sticking with Matt Cain), the raffle tickets make sense.

The Rangers, though, have that conundrum up there, with Joey Gallo and Jurickson Profar, who won’t get playing time. There wasn’t a way to turn a logjam into a pitcher? what about good ol’ Bartolo Colon or R.A. Dickey? Just one more starter in the Colby Lewis mode, steady and stable, would have done so much.

Tyson Ross might come back in May or June. The only thing that makes me feel remotely confident about this arrangement is that Cashner and Ross combining for 300 outstanding innings for the Rangers would be so, so, so, so overwhelmingly Padres that I can’t stand it. The rotation is still filled with a lot of ifs and maybes for a team looking to defend a division title.

Eh, they’re smarter than me. I’m OK with this, even if I have to repeat it every section, self-flagellating to obscure the fact that at least one of these teams is totally going to eat it with their underwhelming offseason decision to be so calm and self-assured.

4. The Giants don’t have a left fielder you’ve heard of

The last All-Star outfielder developed by the Giants was Chili Davis, who was drafted the year that Star Wars came out. They’ve had a good left fielder or two since then — that surly guy, with the records — but they’re in something of a drought over the last decade. They can get one-year stopgaps, but nothing like a long-term solution.

They had a hole in left field. It was an obvious hole. They hit 130 homers, and one of their leading home run hitters, Angel Pagan, was leaving in free agency. Also, one of their leading home run hitters was Angel Pagan. That seems important.

The Giants also had a gaping, bleeding, oozing bullpen hole that needed to be cauterized last July, but was left festering. It got infected by October. So they focused on that first, which made sense.

When it came to left, though, they went in house. Mac Williamson is a strong, athletic outfielder straight out of central casting, and Jarrett Parker is a high-whiff, big-power left-hander who hasn’t been intimidated by the dimensions at AT&T Park, but neither of them have the statistical pedigree that a win-now team might want. The Giants, who have cycled through Fred Lewis, Dan Ortmeier, Nate Schierholtz, Armando Rios, Calvin Murray, Jason Ellison, Todd Linden, John Bowker, Roger Kieschnick, and Gary Brown since the new ballpark opened, are willing to count on one of Williamson or Parker in a contending season where every extra win will be exponentially valuable.

Fine, great, grand. They see something. I’m the dummy. There is a reason for this, at least, in that they’re going to pay the salary-cap tax, which they have for two years now, and they’re maxed out on their budget. That, and they’re devoid of the top prospects needed to trade for a younger outfielder that would allow them to fit that budget.

If there were a year to sell out — Buster Posey, Brandon Crawford, and Madison Bumgarner are excellent now, but there are no guarantees in two years — this would be it. As is, the Giants are going to start either Williamson and Parker and fix things at the deadline if it doesn’t work. That’s a fair solution for a team with budget constraints. It’s just hard to believe they’re so comfortable with it.

5. The Nationals are going in-house with their closer

The last time we saw Shawn Kelley was in that picture at the top of the page. He was hurt. The two-time Tommy John survivor was hurt, and his postseason was over. He’s the closer now.

This makes sense because he’s ridiculously talented. He was the steal of last offseason, and he makes the Nationals much better. But he’s also a closer that will need to be treated carefully. Kelley’s 58 innings last year was a career high, so the Nationals shouldn’t expect any Andrew Miller-like marathons if they reach the postseason again.

This is fine … except the Nationals, of all teams, should be on the hunt for those Miller marathons. They’ve made the postseason three times since they were the Expos, and each one of those appearances has included a devastating bullpen-fueled loss. There was the Pete Kozma Experience in 2012, the Jordan Zimmermann Yank in 2014, and the Sweet Crap Did You Really Use Five Pitchers In One Inning fun of 2016. For a team that’s so tightly constructed, with such an obvious ultimate goal, it’s always felt like they were one ultra-reliever short.

They still might trade for David Robertson five seconds after this is published, which is fine. But I would think this was the team that could justify an absurd stretch for Kenley Jansen or Aroldis Chapman. This was the team that could have traded their best prospects for Miller last year. Instead, they’re making do. They have a cavalcade of high-walk, high strikeout pitchers, the types with an eternal chance of metamorphosing into trusted late-inning options. But they don’t have that guy, the one who could have saved them in ‘12, ‘14, or ‘16.

Do I have to keep going with the theme? The Nationals are smart. They’re old-SABR smart when it comes to spending millions on a bullpen. Forget it, move along. The rotation is as good as any in the National League, so there are worse weaknesses to have.

If we’re back in here eight months, though, talking about the danged Nationals bullpen, I’m going to use cuss words. I don’t want to, but, consarnit, what choice do I have? This is a team that needs to prepare for a possible post-Bryce apocalypse, so I get why they aren’t ditching their formidable collection of prospects. But just one more reliever would do so much to help their ability to not do what they’ve done in the recent past.

Five teams. All contenders. Weird decisions. Maybe correct. They’re the big shots around here, and I’m just some schnook that likes to get slapped around. But there’s at least a chance that some of them will have regrets by the end of the season, even if we could spot the problems way back in February.

[junker-town]

The 5 most curious decisions made by baseball’s contending teams

These teams are as win-now as win-now gets, but they calmly and quietly filled these roster holes.

You are tasked with writing a series of offseason previews. Congratulations. You get to pour over 30 rosters and figure out what each team needs. Some teams are easy because they need younger, cheaper players (Reds). Some teams are harder because they’re at a crossroads (White Sox).

You make a list of what each team needs, and then you set about your business. You spend time researching it all, analyzing the free agent market and trade candidates, and you come up with your ideas.

These are the teams that didn’t listen to a single lousy word you wrote.

Here are five teams that don’t want you to worry your pretty little head about what they need. They’ve got it figured out, and they’re smarter than you. Shoo.

1. The Cubs preferring the fifth starter in the bush to the one in the hand

There are teams that did less with their rotations. The Astros never snagged their ace. The Orioles are still counting on Ubaldo Jimenez. The Yankees are bringing back the same starting pitchers from last year’s underwhelming season.

The Cubs, though, are different. They had a rotation. They were set. They’re the defending champions, and no one would have begrudged them for avoiding the entire hot stove league.

Jed Hoyer: “We were already pretty good, you know”

But instead of exercising their option on Jason Hammel — for a reasonable one-year salary of $10 million — they paid him $2 million to test the open market. It saved them $8 million, and it was reasonable to speculate what they had up their sleeves. Sonny Gray? Julio Teheran? Chris Sale?

Brett Anderson.

Which is fine! The difference between Hammel and Anderson ended up being $4.5 million, and that turned out to be more than half of Jon Jay’s salary. It’s exactly 1/45th of the total number of “CUBS WORLD CHAMPS” aprons they’ve sold in the time it took you to read this paragraph, but now we’re quibbling. A reasonable person could suggest that Anderson is preferable to Hammel, even if their salaries were equal. I disagree, but not so strenuously that I’d spend more than five seconds debating it.

It just seems like an exchange of cost certainty for a pitcher who has topped 50 innings in just one of the last five seasons. If the Cubs had pitchers spilling out of their system, it would make more sense, but that’s not how they’re built. Not yet.

They’re smarter than I am. From here, though, it’s a move that seems to have a concealed explanation that we’re not privy to. Fair enough.

2. The Red Sox and Mitch Moreland

The Red Sox, like the Cubs, are stacked. They have talented players at nearly every position, but that’s selling them short. They’re young players. Stars, some of them. Their best starting pitcher is the one without a Cy Young.

Even considering that, though, the Red Sox made a weird decision at first base. Here are Mitch Moreland’s WAR totals for his career, from highest to lowest, according to Baseball-Reference:

2.2 0.9 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.1 -0.1

That’s one good year, and six years a well-managed organization should be able to find at a yard sale. If WAR isn’t your thing, that’s fine — Moreland did win a Gold Glove last year, even if defensive stats and the eye test weren’t so sure — but there’s no way to argue that he’s been more than a generic first baseman for several seasons now. He’s a career .254/.315/.438, even though he’s played in Texas his entire career.

The Red Sox sought him out. Paid him $5.5 million. Then they suggested that Moreland’s platoon-mate would be Chris Young, a lefty-thumper who has never played anywhere but the outfield.

Color me curious! And confused. But, like with the Cubs, I’m willing to appeal to authority. I’m just a dumb blogger, kicking rocks.

The only thing that bugs me is that the Rangers are also a smart team, and they were fine with letting Moreland walk. They didn’t think there was any more nectar to squeeze out of the 31-year-old. It’s hard to appeal to authority when there’s another authority that might be more authoritative. This is so confusing!

3. The Rangers gambling with 40 percent of their rotation

The Rangers are about to sign Mike Napoli to play first base. He’ll work with James Loney, who also signed. This is not a position of concern for them, considering they have Joey Gallo in reserve and Jurickson Profar without a position. They had a first base arrangement already if they wanted to focus on something else. Now they have another first base arrangement.

Meanwhile, they’re entrusting their final two rotation spots to a pair of pitchers who both had ERAs over 5.00 last year. One of them was closer to 6.00, even.

A.J. Griffin and Andrew Cashner were the bee’s knees in 2013, we’re talking the snake’s hips. But that was 2013, which is about 50 years ago in pitcher years. Since then, Cashner has been disappointing-to-awful, and Griffin has thrown 119 innings in the majors. There are fine reasons for a smart team to want to take a chance on both of them.

There are also reasons to be skeptical. Griffin gave up 28 homers in 119 innings, which is one of the highest rates in baseball history for any pitcher over 100 innings. Cashner’s tenure with the Marlins was an absolute debacle. He’s trending in the wrong direction, and he’s doing it violently.

If the Rangers were a destitute, revenue-sharing franchise, fine. You do what you do, if that’s what you have to do. If the Rangers didn’t have prospects or trade chips of interest (see the Giants, who are sticking with Matt Cain), the raffle tickets make sense.

The Rangers, though, have that conundrum up there, with Joey Gallo and Jurickson Profar, who won’t get playing time. There wasn’t a way to turn a logjam into a pitcher? what about good ol’ Bartolo Colon or R.A. Dickey? Just one more starter in the Colby Lewis mode, steady and stable, would have done so much.

Tyson Ross might come back in May or June. The only thing that makes me feel remotely confident about this arrangement is that Cashner and Ross combining for 300 outstanding innings for the Rangers would be so, so, so, so overwhelmingly Padres that I can’t stand it. The rotation is still filled with a lot of ifs and maybes for a team looking to defend a division title.

Eh, they’re smarter than me. I’m okay with this, even if I have to repeat it every section, self-flagellating to obscure the fact that at least one of these teams is totally going to eat it with their underwhelming offseason decision to be so calm and self-assured.

4. The Giants don’t have a left fielder you’ve heard of

The last All-Star outfielder developed by the Giants was Chili Davis, who was drafted the year that Star Wars came out. They’ve had a good left fielder or two since then — that surly guy, with the records — but they’re in something of a drought over the last decade. They can get one-year stopgaps, but nothing like a long-term solution.

They had a hole in left field. It was an obvious hole. They hit 130 homers, and one of their leading home run hitters, Angel Pagan, was leaving in free agency. Also, one of their leading home run hitters was Angel Pagan. That seems important.

The Giants also had a gaping, bleeding, oozing bullpen hole that needed to be cauterized last July, but was left festering. It got infected by October. So they focused on that first, which made sense.

When it came to left, though, they went in house. Mac Williamson is a strong, athletic outfielder straight out of central casting, and Jarrett Parker is a high-whiff, big-power left-hander who hasn’t been intimidated by the dimensions at AT&T Park, but neither of them have the statistical pedigree that a win-now team might want. The Giants, who have cycled through Fred Lewis, Dan Ortmeier, Nate Schierholtz, Armando Rios, Calvin Murray, Jason Ellison, Todd Linden, John Bowker, Roger Kieschnick, and Gary Brown since the new ballpark opened, are willing to count on one of Williamson or Parker in a contending season where every extra win will be exponentially valuable.

Fine, great, grand. They see something. I’m the dummy. There is a reason for this, at least, in that they’re going to pay the salary-cap tax, which they have for two years now, and they’re maxed out on their budget. That, and they’re devoid of the top prospects needed to trade for a younger outfielder that would allow them to fit that budget.

If there were a year to sell out — Buster Posey, Brandon Crawford, and Madison Bumgarner are excellent now, but there are no guarantees in two years — this would be it. As is, the Giants are going to start either Williamson and Parker and fix things at the deadline if it doesn’t work. That’s a fair solution for a team with budget constraints. It’s just hard to believe they’re so comfortable with it.

5. The Nationals are going in-house with their closer

The last time we saw Shawn Kelley was in that picture at the top of the page. He was hurt. The two-time Tommy John survivor was hurt, and his postseason was over. He’s the closer now.

This makes sense because he’s ridiculously talented. He was the steal of last offseason, and he makes the Nationals much better. But he’s also a closer that will need to be treated carefully. Kelley’s 58 innings last year was a career high, so the Nationals shouldn’t expect any Andrew Miller-like marathons if they reach the postseason again.

This is fine ... except the Nationals, of all teams, should be on the hunt for those Miller marathons. They’ve made the postseason three times since they were the Expos, and each one of those appearances has included a devastating bullpen-fueled loss. There was the Pete Kozma Experience in 2012, the Jordan Zimmermann Yank in 2014, and the Sweet Crap Did You Really Use Five Pitchers In One Inning fun of 2016. For a team that’s so tightly constructed, with such an obvious ultimate goal, it’s always felt like they were one ultra-reliever short.

They still might trade for David Robertson five seconds after this is published, which is fine. But I would think this was the team that could justify an absurd stretch for Kenley Jansen or Aroldis Chapman. This was the team that could have traded their best prospects for Miller last year. Instead, they’re making do. They have a cavalcade of high-walk, high strikeout pitchers, the types with an eternal chance of metamorphosing into trusted late-inning options. But they don’t have that guy, the one who could have saved them in ‘12, ‘14, or ‘16.

Do I have to keep going with the theme? The Nationals are smart. They’re old-SABR smart when it comes to spending millions on a bullpen. Forget it, move along. The rotation is as good as any in the National League, so there are worse weaknesses to have.

If we’re back in here eight months, though, talking about the danged Nationals bullpen, I’m going to use cuss words. I don’t want to, but, consarnit, what choice do I have? This is a team that needs to prepare for a possible post-Bryce apocalypse, so I get why they aren’t ditching their formidable collection of prospects. But just one more reliever would do so much to help their ability to not do what they’ve done in the recent past.

Five teams. All contenders. Weird decisions. Maybe correct. They’re the big shots around here, and I'm just some schnook that likes to get slapped around. But there’s at least a chance that some of them will have regrets by the end of the season, even if we could spot the problems way back in February.

[alittlewhump]

Unbidden - Act 5, chapter 3

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Content warnings: fantasy religion, death mention

Morgan's golem eventually warned him of people approaching. He didn't need to look to guess it would be Blaise and Icharion. It had not been an especially dignified departure. Blaise would have questions, and would have dragged him along with her to satisfy the sentry. Morgan took a steadying breath and raised his head. This conversation might as well happen now. He made a cursory effort to wipe the tears from his cheeks, not that it would make it any less obvious that he'd been weeping.

Icharion was the first to speak once they had rounded the corner and spotted him. "It was cruel of Master Ordan to lie to you as he did," he said stiffly. That didn't sound right at all. Morgan hadn't known Icharion especially well, but he hadn't been one for that sort of reflection. It was the sort of sentiment he would expect from Blaise, though. He glanced over and saw her watching him intently.

"We both know that cruelty was not the Master's intention," he said, addressing Icharion. "And we both know he was in the right."

Icharion exhaled. "I told you," he said to Blaise. She elbowed him.

"There's nothing right about what he did. Don't sell yourself short," she said to Morgan. "You've gotten so much stronger since we met. Just look at everything we've done together."

"That has nothing to do with it," Morgan replied.

"I told her, she wouldn't listen-" Icharion was silenced by another elbow to the ribs.

"Explain it to me, then," Blaise said, crouching in front of Morgan to look him in the face. "Because it sounds like this Ordan just sent you out to die without even telling you what you did to deserve it, and I really don't understand how the two of you seem to think that's justified."

"You know we don't perceive death the same way you do," Morgan reminded her. She nodded grudgingly. "Master Ordan's primary concern is the maintenance of our Order. Our numbers are few enough, but even a small tree can benefit from pruning its weakest branches." That had been one of the master's favourite metaphors. He'd usually used it in the context of seeking out weakness within oneself, but it seemed apt enough here too.

"Yeah, that's pretty much what he said, but you aren't weak." Her voice was rising, the frustration clear on her face.

"I am weak in the ways that matter to the Order," Morgan explained. The heat of shame prickled at his neck. He had no desire to enumerate his failings to her here, in front of someone who could verify the precise degree of his inadequacy. But Blaise was a force to be reckoned with, and he couldn't let her focus her anger on the Order. They were important, even if he was not, so he tried to explain. He started reluctantly with the most fundamental issue, the lowest bar he'd failed to surpass.

"In order to uphold the Balance, we must be objective in our judgment. And we cannot do that if we are beholden to emotions. It's some of our most basic and essential training, and I have never been able to master it properly." He could hear the bitterness creeping into his voice, feel the familiar weight curling in his gut. Even now he was failing.

"So, let me get this straight. You have feelings, like a regular person, and for some reason you think that's so bad you deserve to die for it." Blaise cocked an eyebrow at him. "It's not like that's something you can just turn off."

"I should be able to. It's one of our central tenets. We must be able to separate ourselves from our emotions so we can remain clear-headed. I truly thought I had myself under control when I set out, but... oh." He trailed off as the pieces finally clicked into place, tracing an unmistakable pattern back to its origin. It had felt like it had finally started getting easier by the time he'd left on his quest. The doubt he'd had in himself had been erased by the Master's assurance that he was ready. And he had found it to be possible, if not exactly easy, right up to a very specific point.

Proper control had been impossible ever since the fight against Andariel. Whose venom had caused a lasting change in his sense of pain, lingering even after all physical traces of the wound were gone. Permanent, Jamella had said. And Cain had also mentioned that Andariel could cause emotional sensitivity. So this, too, would be permanent. A heavy feeling settled over Morgan, coming to rest behind his ribs. The rest of his shortcomings were insignificant in comparison to this. There was no hope of redemption. It would take years more dedicated training to overcome this weakness, if it was even possible. And he had nowhere to train, no mentor to correct him when he inevitably strayed. He couldn't return to the Order, not after the story Ordan had woven. Icharion's reaction would be amplified a hundredfold. Why had he-

"Speak, Morgan. You're inside your own head." Icharion's voice was not unkind, but Blaise shot him a dirty look.

"I was clearly mistaken. I just don't understand why Master Ordan lied about the request," Morgan said, voice so low it was nearly a whisper. "He only had to ask. I would have gone willingly." If the goal had simply been to remove him, that could have easily been accomplished in a number of simpler ways. Everything else made sense. Morgan looked up at Icharion, half hoping to find an answer, half dreading what it might be.

"Politics, most likely. Any expulsion from within the Necropolis must be approved by the council, and Jostan is too troubled by our numbers to let anyone go, no matter the reason. No one would have believed you decided to go of your own volition, and Ordan has too many eyes on him to stage a convincing accident."

"Ah." Morgan looked back down. That explanation made sense enough, he supposed. He had simply been so intolerable, so far from adequate that it had forced the Master's hand. The man was fiercely loyal to the brotherhood, if rather unyielding in his views. His decisions were unswayable, and clearly he'd decided - he'd seen - that there could be no place for someone as weak as Morgan in the priesthood, no matter how earnest his devotion.

"Hang on," Blaise said, "when you talk about 'going', do you actually mean-"

"Dying, yes," Icharion interrupted. "It is an honour to lay down one's life in service to the Order." It was an honour he would never know, Morgan realized suddenly. That twisted like a knife.

"You're really not convincing me that any of this is okay," Blaise said.

"You don't need to believe the truth," Icharion replied. "It will be true all the same, with or without your approval."

"Blaise," Morgan said quickly, "wait." She looked ready to explode, glaring murderously at Icharion. Morgan tried to find the right words, ones she might take heed of. "Master Ordan was right. I cannot serve the Order of Rathma. I am not capable of meeting their standards. He saw that and acted in their best interest because that is his duty. The only fault here is mine. I should have seen it too." Should have recognized the truth and gone long ago, saved them all the trouble.

"That's stupid. The whole time I've known you, everything you've done has been in the name of the Balance. I've watched you work yourself nearly to death for it, and you're telling me that's not good enough? Bullshit."

"I've no doubt his intentions are pure," Icharion said with surprising gentleness, "but effort alone cannot overcome inability. Not all people are capable of all things. Few are suited to our work, fewer still are able to carry it out."

"Bullshit," Blaise repeated, but it was quieter this time. "That's not fair."

"It is important work," Morgan said. "It cannot be entrusted to those unfit to do it."

"And you really believe that includes you? Even after all the shit you've been through for it? After how hard you've worked?"

"I do." Morgan closed his eyes against the surge of emotions that swelled up at the finality of that admission. He had no choice but to accept the truth. It was nothing new, after all. Hardly the first time his best efforts had proven to be insufficient. That didn't do much to soften the blow. At least his ineptitude was likely to have prevented him from doing any real damage to anything in his efforts, he thought dully.

"I could witness your departure," Icharion offered after a time, breaking the silence. "We are far from home. The rules would allow it." It was an unexpected gesture, permitted but not necessary by the laws of the Order. Morgan studied his face for a moment. He found nothing; of course Icharion could make himself unreadable, like a priest ought to be able to do. There was an undeniable thread of kindness in the offer, though. At least it could be done properly. That would be a small comfort.

"I would appreciate that very much," Morgan said, getting to his feet. Blaise sprang up as well as Icharion drew his sword.

"Whoa, whoa, hang on a second here. Somebody tell me what's happening. I'm not going to let-"

"It's not that kind of departure," Icharion interrupted her. "Sit back down." Blaise bristled.

"It's just a ceremony," Morgan reassured her. "An oath. Nobody dies." She seemed slightly mollified but did not sit down, instead crossing her arms and narrowing her eyes. She would let them proceed, then.

Morgan fished out a vial of oil from his chest pocket. Uncorking it, he pinched the tip of Icharion's proffered blade with his thumb and forefinger and squeezed several drops of blood in to mingle with the oil. Then he poured out the contents in a rough circle around himself. The circle glowed faintly as he imbued it with intent. He had never seen this particular ceremony, but the steps were as familiar as all the others he'd ever committed to memory.

"On my heart's blood I swear I shall never again interfere in the Order of Rathma, nor in the affairs of the dead." The words left a heavy feeling in his chest, but it was a little better than the jagged hurt that already sat there.

"On your heart's blood it is witnessed," Icharion replied, "and so are you bound." He traced a line under the circle with the bloodied tip of his blade. It drew in the light from the circle, which faded to nothing as he dismissed the magic with his free hand. Morgan wiped his fingers on the hem of his shirt.

"Thank you for that," he said quietly. Icharion nodded an acknowledgement as Morgan handed over the rest of his ceremonial oils. He no longer had a use for them. A thick, protective numbness was starting to settle in, blunting the world's edges.

"So that's it? You're just... done?" Blaise hadn't moved, still regarding them suspiciously.

"It is a very straightforward oath," Icharion pointed out as he wiped his blade clean and returned it to its sheath.

"Oh, fuck off."

"I will continue to do my part in the effort against Baal," Morgan clarified, the words feeling far away and hazy. "But on my own behalf, now. I think I'd like to join you in battle tomorrow." He could still work toward a purpose, still make himself useful. He needed that. To hold him together.

Blaise slung an arm around his shoulders. "I'll be glad to have you by my side." Morgan leaned into her gratefully. "And I think the barbarians are going to like your golems. If you're still..." she broke off, glancing over at the one still standing watch.

"He cannot raise the dead, but the earth is still fair game," Icharion confirmed. "Now if you're quite finished, I'm going back inside." He turned and left without further comment.

"You should go back with him," Morgan said. He pulled away from Blaise, but her hand lingered on his shoulder.

"Hey," she said softly, "are you... okay? I mean, fuck, obviously not, this is... I know the Order is important to you. Can I help? Somehow?" Once again, she was looking at him with earnest concern. He should have felt something about that, probably, but the numbness was there instead.

"I don't know," Morgan replied. "I'm going to finish checking the wall for damage," he found himself saying, "and then I think I'm going to meditate." Being fully rested would be a good idea. He'd been getting so much sleep recently, he didn't need any more and he certainly didn't want to risk the nightmares. But he found he didn't want to be conscious either. Though the specific techniques had been developed by the Order, the act of meditation was hardly exclusive to them. It wouldn't interfere with anything. He could still have that little peace, at least.

Blaise squeezed him gently. "Think about eating something too." That was probably also a good idea, but less appealing. He nodded anyway. "I'll leave you to it, then," she said, then followed Icharion's path back toward the gates.

There was still more to do, Morgan reminded himself as he walked slowly around the wall. Tyrael had bidden them to slay Baal. He still had a purpose, for now. Between that and the numbness, it was enough to propel him through the rest of the day's actions. His body patched a few more damaged spots in the wall, and put some food into itself, and found a bed to lay itself in, and then it rested as his mind drifted in meditation, carefully focused on absolutely nothing at all.