#just a corpse leotards

[feralchaton]

Just A Corpse - leotards

[sl-newsie]

Melted Mind (Dr. Spencer Reid x OC Coworker)

Summary: The team checks into a hotel and one of their coworkers has never used a sauna, leading to late night shenanigans. (Hinting at intimacy towards the end)

“You’ve never used a sauna?”

I’ve had a lot of strange and unusual conversations with the BAU but this has got to be a very random one. I guess one half-mention of never having used a sauna seems to be the hot topic of tonight.

I shake my head at Emily’s question. “Never had a reason to. I can’t stand being too hot.”

Of course now Spencer has to hop in and give his input. “Saunas actually help us sweat toxins out of our bodies and improve lymphatic drainage. They also reduce stress levels and help strengthen the immune system.”

I love him dearly but he can come in at the worst times. Just because he’s my boyfriend does not mean he can drag me into this too.

Meanwhile Emily is looking at the hotel’s brochure. “There’s one in the pool room. We should try it.”

Um, no. We’ve just spent three hours flying. I feel no need to sit in a boiling hot room with my coworkers.

Quick, grab the suitcase and start walking away. “I think I’m going to relax in my room-”

Morgan grabs my arm. “C’mon, it’ll be fun!”

In the corner of my eye I see JJ and Penelope waving goodbye with cheeky smiles. Hotch has already gone to his room and Rossi avoids the situation by heading for the bar. There’s no getting out of this.

There’s no other way to say it. This is Hell. I won’t sugarcoat it. 

I don’t care how Emily tries to sell this as a good thing because it’s a ‘steam sauna.’ Spencer’s facts from earlier have completely flown the coop because thinking about the positive health benefits of sweating is the last thing on my mind. All I can think of is drinking water and staying alive.

“I’m melting.” We’ve been here for half an hour and I’m already slumped in the corner.

“You look like a lava lamp."

My glare can burn through walls. “Thanks, Morgan.”

“That swimsuit is really cute,” Emily comments. “But why wear a shirt over it?”

The suit I packed is my patriotic one. A one-piece suit with blue and white stars at the top cascading into red and white stripes. When we met up in the hall I threw on a swim shirt and I guess that raised a few eyebrows. Why? I don’t know.

“Some call it image paranoia, I call it modesty. I will not walk around half-naked in a hotel lobby.” Technically my onepiece could count as a leotard but it’s still not modest.

Emily snickers. “Between you and Reid both you guys could give a lecture on social etiquette.”

“I’m giving a lecture?”

Reid pokes his head in and a wave of cold air washes over me. It’s Heaven! But it’s only a split second because he closes the door and I’m submerged in the moist prison once more. He hops up on the seat next to me and from the look he gives me I can tell he’s looking to see if I’m still alive. I think I am. Maybe.

“Here’s the boy genius!” Morgan claps and gestures to my limp body’s presentation of a corpse. “What do you think of this lovely swimsuit?”

Why? Why did Morgan of all people have to find out about us? I’m honestly surprised Penelope didn’t find out first. If only Spencer didn’t want a picture of me on his desk so badly. Ever since we became official he’s been much more manly about it. Like he wants to make sure everyone knows I’m his. It’s actually cute.

Spencer gives me a look-over. “Very patriotic. It looks nice.”

Those eyes say more than that. He loves it.

“Thank you. I’m lucky I brought it with me. Though this may be what I’m buried in if I don’t make it through tonight. This sauna’s going to be the death of me.” 

So the night goes on. My mind dwindles in and out of the conversation but the only thing keeping me awake is Spencer’s occasional squeeze on my shoulder. Though him rubbing my back is definitely not helping. After a while my mind starts to wander.

“Ever notice how radio stations play the same songs over and over?”

The chatter stops and in the corner of my glazed eye I see everyone look at me. 

“That’s kinda deep,” Morgan teases.

“I can’t help it. This sauna’s making me think deep.”

Emily waves a hand in front of me. “Ok, I think it’s time to call it a night. You need to drink some water. Make sure she gets to bed safely, Reid.”

Reid gives me a hidden smirk. He’s definitely thinking about that out of context. Thankfully the others are too tired to notice and we all slowly exit the human vegetable steamer from Hell. 

“I’ll go get you a towel,” Reid says before walking off.

I’ll finally get to go to my room, rinse off and relax- Uh-oh. I catch a quick glance out the window. A pair of blue sunglasses lies on a patio lawn chair. No one’s outside. I guess I should do the Girl Scout routine of returning them to the lobby desk.

Brr! How is the air outside so cold? The sauna must have really gotten to me. Back inside now- Oh no. Is it my wandering mind or am I locked out? No. No! I don’t have a key card!

Inside Spencer walks around the pool looking for me. The towel he’s carrying might as well be a fur coat.

“Oh- Spencer! Help!” I knock on the glass door. “Please! I’m locked out!”

Reid’s eyes widen and he strides over. “How did you get stuck out there?”

“Someone left their sunglasses out here and I didn’t think about needing a key card to get back inside. Could you let me in?”

He starts reaching for the door but then gets an amused smirk. “Hmm. I don’t know…”

Is he kidding? “Spencer! Please! It’s freezing out here!”

Reid checks the thermostat. “It’s only 65 degrees.”

“I just came out of a sauna! Do you want me to pass out?” I put my hands on my hips.

Spencer’s laughter is muffled by the glass but he turns the doorknob anyway. “Open sesame.”

I sigh in relief at the warm air. “Thank you- oh!”

My temperature spikes the instant Spencer’s lips are on mine. He backs me against the cold condensation-covered door and pulls me close to him. I hope no one’s looking!

“It was hard not to do that in front of the team, seeing you in this suit.” Spencer presses a kiss on my cheek. “It looks very nice.”

If I weren’t so exhausted I’d encourage this. “Ready to go to bed? I’m getting tired.”

“Me too.” Reid wraps the towel around my shaking shoulders and we start walking back. “Would you like me to rub your back?”

“I’d love that very much, Spencer.”

The sight of our hotel room is equivalent to scoring an A+. I speed-wash through the shower and all but dive onto the soft bed. I lift my sleepy head up to look at Spencer, who’s sitting in the lounge chair staring at me.

“What?”

“You know my attraction to you didn’t start from your body,” he murmurs, still looking at me as if examining a piece of art.

I smile shyly and look down. “It was my eyes.”

He walks over and kneels down to my level. “It was your eyes. Those eyes that show a deep wisdom but are always wide with excited curiosity.”

Spencer crawls up onto the bed and rests his head on my chest. “Still tired? I can feel your heart rate elevating-”

“Let me pause the lecture, professor.” I put a finger to his lips. “It’s time to sleep. You can resume tomorrow.”

He sighs but gives in to his own tired state by going limp. I’m too tired to push him off. 

“You were right, Spencer. Saunas really do reduce stress levels. Even if I was almost locked out.”

He smiles with his eyes closed and feels around for the bedside light switch. “Goodnight, angel.”

The room goes dark and I give him one last kiss. “Goodnight, genius.”

[whumpurr]

The Greatest Show part 6

cw: pet(?) whump, male whumpee, nonbinary whumpee, male whumper, circus setting, dehumanization, peril

masterlist

--

Gasps, chatter, and murmurs filled the wide space of the circus tent, people standing up out of their seats to look over one another, desperately trying to sate their morbid curiosity. Was… was the acrobat dead? Would parents have to enroll their children in therapy? Would the sight of a crumpled corpse plague the nightmares of onlookers?

Only perceptible to the very front row of the audience, Rogue’s chest rose and fell beneath their tight, black, glittery leotard.

Apollo, standing on the sidelines down the performers’ entrance aisle, could not see that. He didn’t even realize what had happened until seconds after the fact when his blood ran cold in his veins and the Ringmaster, who was standing in front of him, instructed the behind the scenes crew of the circus to attempt to restrain him. It was only when there were hands on his shoulders pushing him back that he snapped out of his stupor, but by then, the Ringmaster was already standing out before the audience and addressing them.

The dark shadow of a bulky man in a top had obscured the harsh spotlight from Rogue’s squinting eyes. The Ringmaster’s hands were held casually in one another behind his back, his elaborate cane in one. 

“Hm, no witty quips from ya this time?” He asked, looking down at Rogue. The only sounds Rogue offered up was a squeaking gurgle, followed by a weak cough. Their body was nowhere near as twisted as they felt. Their back had hit the floor at about the same time as their legs. They could most definitely not move one of their feet, and the very thought of hoisting themself up off the ground made them want to vomit.

By that point, more circus assistants and handymen had rushed in. Two ushered out the audience, promising refunds if they went back to the ticket booth at the front of the land plot, and two more came to the Ringmaster’s side. Their bodies obscured the warm spotlight from Rogue’s body.

“Get ‘em out of here,” The Ringmaster said, jabbing his thumb towards the other side exit. “Put ‘em… Somewhere.”

Apollo watched in horror as the darkly clothed men stepped towards Rogue. He didn’t even care about the people holding onto him, he did not care about his promise to never hurt another person. He wrenched his arms out of their grip and ran forward.

The final few people got shuffled out of the tent.

Rogue screamed as their twisted body was lifted off the ground and roughly tossed over a shoulder. By the time Apollo made it to the center of the ring, Rogue had already been carted off by the security guards. 

Apollo’s towering figure loomed over the Ringmaster. It blocked the warm light from the hot spotlights, and the Ringmaster looked up, unbothered. His smarmy smile almost made him look like he enjoyed this massacre. While in any purely physical scenario, the Ringmaster was outmatched, one would have to consider the power which he holds. He is the one who stole Apollo away in his hour of need, when the name Apollo was not yet known to him. He was the one who housed him, who fed him and gave him a purpose.

He was the one who gave him Rogue.

Who had just been carted away over the shoulder of some brute.

The wide eyes and otherwise blank expression that Apollo wore while he stared down at the Ringmaster was one that would haunt the nightmares of any bystander, if there were any left. 

“Is there somethin’ you needed?” The Ringmaster sneered, looking up at Apollo, unafraid.

The grating sound of the Ringmaster’s voice was enough to snap Apollo out of whatever limbo he had been in. Had he been in possession of his comically large barbell that he used for his act, the Ringmaster would have been far more fearful. Since Apollo was unarmed, the Ringmaster did not anticipate the first strike.

A heavy, solid blow, with a closed fist across the Ringmaster’s brow. The empty tent bore witness to the first thud, and then the second as the Ringmaster’s body tumbled to the ground. Apollo wasted no time in tailing him down, kneeling over his body, landing hit after hit to his face, head, and chest. Apollo was not thinking. He was allowing himself to follow his most primal instincts, recalling actions that he had spent so much time, effort, and sanity trying to shut down.

“I’ll kill you-” Apollo growled through grit teeth. “Nobody will miss you!” He repeated the things that the Ringmaster had told him time and time again. Dark red blood pooled in a small puddle beneath the Ringmaster’s dark hair. Apollo did not stop. The man beneath him had been unresponsive since the first blow. Apollo wished that such was not the case.

He lost track of how long he was over the Ringmaster before he heard the crackling sound of a tool often used against him in the past. An electric cattle prod. It was coming from behind him, but he didn’t care to look. The pain that struck him next was unlike the prod that he had felt before. Hot, jolting, excruciatingly painful against the back of his neck. It gripped his body until Apollo was rendered unconscious on the floor next to his prey, and the circus stagehand behind him was putting the taser back into their bag.

--

Rogue yelped with each step from the person carrying them. It jostled their body, shoving their injured foot against the person’s stomach. They’d be kicking and flailing if they could muster up the energy to push through the pain. They never laid down for the Ringmaster, they prided themself on retaining at least a little bit of fight inside them, but they just couldn’t now. They hadn’t properly eaten in weeks. They were worked to the bone. And now their foot was twisted in a way that it hasn’t ever twisted before.

As they were brought out of the tent, they heard the muffled sound of Apollo’s yelling. It was a rare and terrifying sound that Rogue had heard maybe only once before. Even though Rogue knew that it was not directed at them, it still made their hair raise. 

“Let go of me.” Rogue demanded of the man carrying them. They thudded their fist against his back. He was unfazed. “Let go!” They shifted as much as they could and drove their elbow into his back. They struck again and again, kneeing him with their not-as-injured leg, elbowing him, and yet their actions garnered no response. 

Rogue was carried out of the tent and into one of the metal shipping containers that the circus used to travel around by train. When they were on the move, the whole circus would be backed into a couple of these containers, but now that they’ve been set up at this location for a while, the container was bare. The handyman-turned-abductor opened the heavy metal door and flung Rogue bodily into the cold, metal box.

They crashed down into the box, head slamming into the floor of it, body crumpling and unable to move. Hot pain lanced through their leg and their back. They were committed to bearing with it, at least mentally. Though they could hardly turn around before their body gave up, trembling then collapsing unconscious on the floor. The last thing they saw was the handyman closing the door, hiding them away in the darkness.

[whxlmedwing]

🔪 for twcfaces!

@twcfaces | from here

Dick had never been shy about his appearance. Similarly, the freedom of movement allowed by the leotard of his Robin uniform was just that—a choice made to allow him to move. Bruce had rightly been protective of him and his training never truly ceased, but he never gave mind to the names he was called by those they fought. He drowned it out in the same way he’d drown out the crowd at the circus.

Here, in Arkham Asylum during a breakout, with Batman busy chasing down Zsasz, he was being forced to rethink that willful blindness.

The bruises are already forming, his hands and knees scraped and oozing blood, and the body of his assailant dead beside him on the floor. His neck had been snapped, his head at a awkward angle that pushed at the collar of his short in a grotesque manner. He had been a guard, or at least, he was in a guard’s uniform.

Dick just stares at him. At the corpse. He can’t move. He can’t look away from his neck. It looks just like his mother’s when she had plummeted to the ground. He remembers someone saying she hadn’t suffered—but the rest of her body had been so broken how could that have been true? The muted chaos beyond the walls was beginning to sound an awful lot like the cheers of a crowd. Dick pulls his legs closer to his chest, suddenly feeling incredibly exposed.

[9uatre]

リクエストを多数いただいていたJust A Corpseイラストレオタードのキャミソールバージョンが入荷となっております！

イラストレーターのHana Stupicaさんが描いたどこにもないメルヘンなイラストがそのままプリントされたJust A Corpseのレオタード。

「第二便」として到着していたのは長袖バージョンでした。

あっという間に完売となり、その後多くの方々よりお問い合わせをいただいており、

今回は「第三便」としてその���ャミソールバージョンが入荷となりました！

サイズによっては早々に完売しておりますが、まだご案内可能です！！

「気になっていた！！」という皆様、ぜひぜひMaison de 9uatreオンラインブティックをチェック🍒

READING LAMB – camisole leotard with hand braided straps – peach/multicolor

DANCING MARTEN – camisole leotard with hand braided straps – sage/multicolor

[stemmmm]

for someone whos made that may sex jokes i dont think beato knows what sex is. good for her

ahh. this baby story explains the weird phonecalls. question becomes are they real or also hallucinations. im assuming hallucinations.

god who do you think you are, anthy? tho this brings up a thought i'd been having which is that... if we are to say beato isn't a witch and natsuhi's (or someone else is) making all this shit up anyways, then this "beatrice" within the game board is just something that will say anything that whoever is imagining her wants to hear. the perfect scapegoat. the perfect vessel in which to scream "a witch did it! it was a witch's curse!". hm. ok yeah all the demons are saying it to her outright. god every time i think i've pieced something together on my own and think i'm so clever the game goes right ahead and wacks me over the skull with it lmao.

very fun, very ooky spooky for the implication of the 1st twilight to be that battler slept in a room full of corpses without a clue.

very fun also for it to straight up be lambda doing a voice for the phonecalls, not even pretending like there's some other person, she's just rustling shit up

i love to see erika getting her shit kicked in for being an absolute bitch no one likes because she sucks so bad. even bern hates her ass in a way that makes me think bern made her in a moment of "oh you know what would be sooooo funnnn :3c ive never played a detective before detectives are soo fun and cute :3ccc" and then instantly got bored. erika will absolutely become someone sympathetic at some point im certain but not now lol.

i know she has a voice but the instant dlanor showed up and started talking in a strange, kind of robotic manner my hc for her voice instantly became this: https://www.reddit.com/r/Grimdank/comments/yhrho1/uwu/

i was also astonished i was able to find that video so easy by googling "giant robot warhorn welcome to the maid cafe" because 1. the only version i knew of was the majorly crunched tumblr version and 2. i got the phrase completely wrong

i will also say of dlanor, in addition to my distaste for increasing magical bullshit, the shitty leotards all of the characters get put in makes me hate them on sight because it means when they show up i have to see their awful outfits, so she had a major disadvantage starting out but she was able to instantly come around in my mind by being soooooooo cute. :3

thank god battler clarified after the fact that the wack shit with him jumping out a fucking window was his piece being controlled by lambda because while i sincerely had no problem with his actions or reasoning, i just couldn't forgive him somehow shattering the 4th wall to interact with the "phantom" team or w/e (love that we've got a 3-way battle also. very excellent development for how things are going). everything was absurd and fun but i was just screaming the whole time "wait battler isnt playing right. he's not- he cant be- is he??? he hasnt shown up as not a piece in so long, when did it switch, when did he come in???" so PHEW!

every single person, especially everyone who's a piece seems like they hate bern and lambda pretty fucking bad so I've got a feeling that this shit is gonna end with the entire game revolting against those two. battler and beato don't even need to be involved for that i think.

part 5 (+?) thread

ep1 ep2 ep3 ep4

erika furudo is bern's fucking self-insert oc................ i knew they had to be the same person because they Look Like That and also. Name. but. oh my god this is funny. she's managed to say a single line btw, this is just spoiler knowledge and inference running

ah! ok so we are doing answer arc-ass answer arcs. cool i'm fine with that! makes things a lot easier to follow especially since more inane bullshit's gonna get thrown in

hate haaaaate seeing beato like this tho :(((( this is miserable, she makes me so sad, and battler saying over and over again "dw boo i'm gonna kill u for sure" also makes me so sad. get well soon queen!!!!!!!!

i may be wrong but i get the impression that this was kind of the same as the evolution of the real life beato's situation/personality.... and in that sense i can't imagine any of this ending well but i want it to so baddd because i love herrrrr she deserves the worllldddddddd

it's nice of them to rewind things for battler's sake but uh. erika's a bit of a fucking cunt huh. no love in this game, indeed. we are bringing out peoples worst and making sure battler has as miserable of a time as possible. it's interesting to see that the epitaph is solved before any murder but know that people still die in the end tho.

also love that we're saying kinzo's dead for real, none of this with natsuhi is happening. open your eyes battler, look. nothing's there. really good moment.

battler's been confronting the epitaph in terms of why it exists rather than solving it, and there's definitely been much spoken of miracles, added onto by lambda saying there'd be no point in the riddle if it wasn't hard which would add ammunition for a miracle to happen, though there's still the insistence that beato has nothing to gain from the riddle existing... at least materially. and she doesn't kill for pleasure. so there's the obvious point that she made the epitaph because she wanted to play with someone, specifically battler since he always lives, and battler himself mentioned the play aspect though I dont know how serious he was about that. beato's very obviously just wanted to play with him from the beginning, even though her kidnapping and torturing of him in the first place pretty heavily obscured that. if we accept play as her reason for it existing and doing the murder games, that still leaves the miracle up in the air. does the chance of a miracle occurring not count as a potential material gain? is doing something purposely to try and create a miracle not... a reason for doing it? is the miracle that beato could Actually be revived in some way or is there something else?

[rhyme-is-sublime]

Okay. So- I've been reading a lot of Batman X Danny Phantom stuff on this site lately, and I came across a short post that included Batman finding Phantom's grave(it was a corpse au) and mentally comparing Danny to Ace. A girl who wanted to be a child yet who was too powerful and ended up dying with our resident Batdad sitting next to her up until her last moments in a fake world she made for herself in a bid for happiness. (I might be wrong about Ace's personality or motivations cuz I only rly remember Ace because of how she died, so plz bear with me if I'm wrong)

Now, a thing about Ace is that when she died, she was wearing a black/white leotard with a single clover suit on one side. And I've discovered that the Ace of Spades can depressingly enough be represented as death and bad luck.

And so(here's where the DP comes in), I'm introducing a ghost called:

Spade ♤

For her appearance I'm thinking white porcelain like skin for how delicate she felt in her final moments. Maybe inked details all across her like tattoos or like how fancy playing cards have to show how who she WAS wasn't entirely up to her to decide. Her white bobcut hair looks like it was shattered/cut off a larger part and is able to cut those who aren't careful enough, and that there's a crack across the top of her head to showcase as a deathmark that she died from a fatal migraine(maybe?). (The crack doubles as her hairline-) Her eyes being the same rings of yellow and orange(or maybe whatever their inverse counterparts are...) that appeared when she used her powers, but with her black pinprick eyes at the centers. Her actual FACE I'm thinking her eye lashes, lips and eyebrows look painted on in black ink. Cuz, come on. If Danny can hav black eyebrows as Phantom, so can Spade-

Outfit wise, I kinda want to put her in a reverse colored leotard and call it a day, but I ALSO wanna add onto that. Because the thing about her last moments is that Batsy carried her body out of the park where she was staying in her fantasy land in a princess carry, so I'm imagining her in a fancy dress/leotard amalgamation cuz that princess carry might've the last comfort she might've received before her body got buried(or smth along those lines). If this post gets popular, I want art of that leotard/dress amalgamation with playing cards detailing cuz while I draw, I already know I'd butcher the idea 😅

DP plot could just be Danny transversing the Ghost Zone/Infinite Realms for one reason or another and coming across this mad hatter, Alice in Wonderland type lair/area(think the world Ace made Gotham into) where after stumbling through everything in it, he just meets this black and white ghost girl sitting on a isolated swing set. There's only two seats on it, and she's just swinging back and forth on one of them. Danny must figure she's waiting on company and maybe just watches for a while. She'd look just like a statue if not for the fact that she just keeps swinging, and swinging, and swinging, and Danny's getting the idea that this is just another lonely ghost in the zone. Peaceful, and wants to be left alone, but maybe could use a friend. So, Danny sits next to her on the other swing.

Tdlr; Spade and Danny become friends after he stumbles across her lair and started showing her other parts of the zone.

Spade's closest friends are Princess Dora, Youngblood, Klempter, Danielle, and other ghosts among her mental age. But of course, she considers her best friend to be the black and white Phantom who got her out of her lair and living a better afterlife. She wants to pay him back, and sees how badly his afterlife has been treating him (wait- he's not entirely dead?) Scratch that, she wants her friend to live the rest of his half-life as happily as possible. She, personally, is happier in death than in her life, but she doesn't want his remaining life to suck, and who better to introduce him to than the man who made her last moments bearable? Or... should she say the Bat who made it bearable >:3c

Dadadada~! We've arrived at the DC plot!

So, Spade being a frickin overpowered ghost(cuz if she wasn't overpowered enough as a human, you can BET that she's OP as hell after getting ghostly) cows all Danny's usual rogues gallery into leaving his haunt alone until she can get done introducing him to someone who was her father-figure for all of however long he sat with her before she unalived. Danny as Phantom is going along with it cuz why not, free vacation! Sam & Tucker were skeptical, but they can't fault Spade for wanting to introduce her new friend to her old life(?).

The DC timeline is messy, and I only know about Ace because of Justice League Unlimited. The show which has NONE of Batman's sidekicks in it cuz Nightwing was getting enough screen time in Teen Titans. And idk how long Spade spent along in Time Is Weird Here, Infinite Realms, but I rly want her to meet the Batfam and hav this rly heartwarming reunion after Oracle tells Batsy about a disturbance near this one swing-set where reality's getting kinda weird and he just KNOWS-

He knows he's gotten a second chance, and if that means getting blindsided by the fact he and the batfam are highly likely to become an Infinite Realms ghost cuz of the highentened levels of ectoplasm from his new/old child's visits, then so be it. The fact that Phantom's still living under his ghost hunter parents roof actually makes it easier to file for custody if it comes down to it...

(Idk Ace's character & DC's plot enough to flesh out an obsession for Spade that fits with all the other nonsense I've just spat out. If someone wants to try and puzzle smth out, I'll be grateful for the opportunity to read it. This has heavy ship potential, but I'm no writer so I've just put Spade and Danny as friends. But if there's gonna be a name, I wanna try for Mad Ghost, Ghost Hatter, Phantom Card or smth along those lines. For my first dp x dc prompt I've ever written, I'm just hoping Ace as a character gets a little more love as a dead DC character, cuz that shiz made me cry when I first watched it ages ago- XD)

[ballet-symphonie]

Are there any ballet wear brands you recommend?

Oooh so many! Just for leotards? Or are you looking for specific products? Or just dancewear in general?

Some of my favorite dancewear brands include DellaLo Milano, Yumiko, Eleve, Chacott, Rubia Wear, Maldire, Just a Corpse etc.

[merryfortune]

Day 14 / Feather

Clover and Violets 2021

Ship: Harpyshipping | Grace/Ruri

Universe: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tales

Word Count: 1,420

Rating: T

Tags: Major Character Death, Suicide (by Drowning), Inspired by Swan Lake, No Dialogue, Fluff with a Sad Ending

   How darling and peculiar, Grace thought to herself as she explored this lakeside all by her lonesome. Every step on her tip-toe, careful not to crackle the grass or snap twigs. She was a huntress. She was meant to be stealth incarnate and yet, she had always been the one to fumble. The one to drop the bow and arrow when it was least convenient; to be far too minding of the passing beauty in the very things that she was meant to hunt and bring back dead.

   Her elder sister was everything she wasn’t and she would be coming soon.

   Fireflies hung in the sky with emerald delight. The lights upon their bodies trailing with a fading glimmer all leading back to the middle of the forest, where the lake was. Overhead, the evening starlight sank through the thick canopy of ever lush foliage and ancient, grandiose trees. The forest here was thick. Endless. Filled with trepidation and elegance. Grace’s heart hammered as she approached the lake: the centre of the forest and what beauty it was.

   It was perfectly flat. Like a discus mirror. From one shore to the other, its entirety could be viewed. It was breathtaking. 

   But from this vantage point, where the shore did not lap at her ankles whilst Grace stood in slowly sinking sand, she watched the most peculiar thing. A quartet of dancers out on the lake. She was entranced by them. They were beautiful. 

   All of them danced in a uniform outfit. They wore leotards of a lovely silver white with intricate, lace bodices. Stiff tule fanned off their waists in the form of their tutus. Their wrists glittered with jewelled bracelets. Slung across their necks and shoulders were scarves and shawls that were feathered and quilled. Yet despite such extraneous on their lithe, toned bodies, their dance remained unfettered and immaculate. 

   They danced delicately enough that their toes in their ballet slippers, ribboned up tight, did not cause ribbons. Their arms interlinked like intricate daisy chains. Their expressions sorrowful and concise as they danced to unheard music that made Grace’s heart throb with emotions she could not fully identify beyond morose. All their movements were precise and synchronised, to the left with skittish movements and then back to the right, harder this time. Their dance was enchanting.

   From left to right, they were like an array of the seasons: indigo for the winter, pink in the spring, green in the summer, and purple for the fall. And it was that fourth girl that caught Grace’s eye like none other. She was incomparable. A true diamond, even among her equally polished kin with such similar faces.

   Grace couldn’t help but applaud them when they finished. Their arms arched out in every way, one to the left, one to the right, to the back and one to the front: the girl of autumn to the front and her almost avian gaze met Grace’s. She smiled with a funeral giggle.

   The other three girls noticed Grace clapping and acknowledged her but there wasn’t that prismatic spark of a connection like she had with that autumnally complexioned girl. With languidly spiralling movements and lucid pierrettes, the girls came off the surface of the lake; their dancefloor. Still, there was not a nary ripple to be seen as they drew in closer and Grace was enraptured.

   Grace didn’t reveal herself as a huntress, she didn’t want to scare away this girl who seemed so flightful like a bird herself so she introduced herself as an ordinary adventurer who found this place by luck rather than calculation. Saying she had found her next big adventure here at this gorgeous lake with her. Not knowing she was being misled, in good faith, the girl revealed herself as Ruri, the one whom Grace was mutually enamoured with. Everything about her; to the cut of her cheeks to the plumpness of her lips to the elegance of her movements made Grace want to know more about her and all her strangeness. 

   They could have spent the whole of the coolly lit night dancing. Grace was no primadonna by any natural talent but with Ruri, she felt like she could have been. Flirtation and infiltration came so naturally to them both. It felt like it was just them alone in the grass.

   Ruri bestowed her feathered shawl upon Grace who guiltily took it. She promised to return it by dawn given that it had such a treasured aura about it. Yet by the same token, Grace also guiltily hoped that dawn would never come. She wanted to keep dancing and playing with Ruri. 

   Set to silent melodies, Ruri showed Grace around and every inch of this place awed her. Easily and endlessly. But it was the lake’s shoreline that they continued to return to no matter which knot or whorl of trees that they visited. The way it shimmered placid yet entirely unmoving. 

   Grace wet her boots in the outskirt mire of it where Ruri tiptoed atop its surface. Grace smiled, dejected, as Ruri tugged on her hands, urging her to go out and play and dance and make merry in the very centre of it but Grace couldn’t. She wanted to because of how Ruri’s face lit up with urging joy but she couldn’t. She wasn’t of brittle bones and hallowed elegance quite like Ruri was - or even quite like her sister Gloria was. Instead, she sank into the slurried sand below but she was happy. She did it, holding onto Ruri’s hands, with a smile.

   It truly did just feel like them alone in the grass. On the lakeside. In the forest. In the big, wide world. Just them and the flitting insects until the serenity, just before dawn, was discordantly struck.

   The shrill screams of birds and the flurried flutter of wings filled the air. Grace glanced towards these noises and she counted: one, two three. Three swans. And something glittered on their necks. Jewels which seemed so familiar and in her reverie, she was warned. The echo of an arrow shot. Grace paled. She turned around but rather than feel Ruri’s hands slip from her own, they tightened. She felt the echo of nails like talons on her skin as she craned her head away and her heart dropped.

   From the glade she watched as her sister approached like a confident, gloating soldier.

   Her posture was perfect. Her bow and arrow, nocked, and she released. Her finger triggered and the arrow shot forth with blinding speed. It whizzed past the side of Grace and Ruri’s head; their long hair fluttering it the breeze that it caused. Grace was harrowed, she frozen, but Ruri wanted to fight.

   She tugged on Grace’s hand with a silent beg. Let’s go; we have to go. But Grace stood still as she let Gloria, like a tigress, approach, elegantly retrieving another arrow from the quiver.

   Ruri’s eyes watered and she had the frigid realisation. Gloria and Grace were one in the same. Twins. Huntresses. The type of women who hunted for supernatural trophies and animals to eat. And yet, she begged Grace again. Tugging her hand, trying to pull her out to the lake, wanting to take her and flee. And for that hope, that they could flee, together, she was felled.

   Gloria released the trigger on her next arrow.

   Ruri’s eyes grew so wide. The wound was to her heart. Her white leotard was ruined with the sanguine scarlet of blood pulsating out of the wound. Grace caught her and she wept. She screamed as Ruri felt so faint and light in her arms. 

   Gloria, snide that she had caught one of the four swan princesses, began to encroach on Grace who clung to the corpse of her infatuated. But Grace wouldn’t let her and so, finally, moments too late, Grace took Ruri’s invitation and she entered the cold waters of the lake.

   Ripples ringed Grace as she waded through the water. The shawl of feathers trailed behind her as she went further out into these depths. She wouldn’t let Gloria have Ruri, not at all. And maybe Grace wouldn’t let Gloria have her either as she kept going, crying into Ruri’s breast, her face brushing up against the very same arrow of alder that had caused her death. 

   And soon enough, the glimmer of feathers, still pure with their swan white colouring, on the surface of the lake was all that could be seen of either Grace and Ruri.

[macawbre]

A new exercise craze has taken over the continents and has now infiltrated Fodlan’s borders. A group of people claiming to be professional instructors are hosting a class promoting ‘The Askr’ along with other various aerobic, high-energy exercises to keep one warm! If the new wave and synth pop beats don’t get you moving, then maybe the brightly-colored leotards, headbands and legwarmers will grab your attention. (Or maybe you’re just there for the cute men and women in said leotards). [Grants Heavy Armor +1]

No way. These guys were weird but not his kind of weird. And that was weird, right? Heck, it was as cold as a corpse and these guys were out, clad in their neon leotards and legwarmers, crunching to some music he had never heard in his life. Kinda sounded like this was a Freddybear gig, actually! (No offense to the guy, but he was tooootally this brand of weird. Missed him! But deeefinitely didn't miss the 6 AM cardio.) He popped his head in, ducking behind a couple gals and pals that were about twice his size. "Hey pal, you mind giving me a lift? Nya ha ha! I think one of my old army pals must be mixed up with your posse."

The thumbs up from the guy was as good as a sign as any.

"Hup!" Pushing himself up, he hung off the buff guy's shoulders and skittered his feet a little to catch his balance. Henry scanned the plaza, looking for the good ol' bush of hair, trimmed to perfection. "Mhm. Mhmmm." A pause. "Yeah, I got nothing, ahaha~"

"Sorry, my guy, guess your buff shoulders will be of more use to someone else."

"Actually, before you go..." The instructor pulled him in, whispering something discrete with a wide smile.

insert increasingly distressed montage of Henry training here

A couple of weeks had passed and it was now up to him to pick up some new recruits. Yeah, okay. This was fun and all? And yeah, okay, Frederick's routine was way wayyyy more difficult. But his body felt all tingly and not in the fun way... So he was just going to put his back into recruiting a few sad suckers and make for the hills.

"Hey! Hey you!"

He skipped up to the guy with his best selling smile—the only smile he's ever known, actually— and popped his hands up in celebration. Yes. For those inquiring: he did commit to the leotard. "Congrats! A birdie told me you might be looking for a new exercise routine that's sure to get your muscles roaring. I mean, between you and me, I've grown from a sad sack of a mage to a sad sack that's kind of happy, too."

"How's about it? Up for some exercise?"

@lionheartsoath

puffin and poundin' away {

[lostandlonelybirds]

Hello everyone!!! I have a fluff request I’m working on at present, but until I finish that, have some random AU ideas from my notes that I might turn into full fledged fics one day! Feel free to request anything from any of the prompt lists, within my ship limits ofc lol. And if anyone requests a fully fledged fic from this list, I’m definitely willing to see what I can come up with! Also!!! If any other fic writers sees one of these and wants to use them, feel free to do it so long as you credit me and send me a link!! I’m always down to read some new fics!!!

He laughs, sending chills down Jason’s spine. “What? You want me to apologize? To say I’m sorry? I can’t. I can’t feel sorry, I can’t feel guilty, I can’t feel anything. Isn’t that the whole point? They took everything from me, and there’s nothing left but me, a parasite dancing in a dead man’s skin. You want me to say I love you? Guess what Jason, I don’t.”

Sex with Dick is animalistic desperation, it is biting and clawing, kicks and punches transitioning into kisses and thrusts just as violent. Every time he throws his clothes back on and leaves, he sees Dick’s fragile and bruised heart break a bit more. Sex with him is benediction, salvation, the feeling of which Jason hasn’t experienced since he’d first donned the R and matching pixie boots. It makes him love and hate Grayson in equal measure.

He’s lifted into a guard's arms. He reaches a hand to grab Bruce, to have someone to catch him when he fell. For a moment he bathes in the fantasy that Bruce is alive, and his corpse is a gag. Everyone is up and fighting, and Bruce raises his hand up, urging his protege to join him. To help him win. The hand never moved. There is no net to catch him when he falls.The cowl falls into a red haze, disappearing as Dick approached what he knows is his end. This is the end. He's fought his whole life. He'd fought against Zucco when he got justice for his parents death. He'd fought against Joker when he killed the clown for Jason. He'd fought against Deathstroke when he'd threatened Damian's life. He'd fought against his own blood and Destiny when the time came. He....He...He... He doesn’t have any fight left in him. He has nothing left to fight for.

Sometimes he hated Bruce, hated that he’d left him. Hated that he’d abandoned him. Other times he just wanted his father back

If he ignores the cold pixilation of the hologram, he can almost pretend Jason is still there, still alive.

For a moment, just a moment, Dick thinks he hates Bruce. Hates his inability to let him go, let him be with Damian

Because he is safe. It didn't matter how far he falls into darkness, as long as Grayson is always there to catch him.

Dick turns his back to the group, pained. “I can’t do this anymore, I can’t be the one to survive and move one every time.”

Sometimes Dick wonders if it’s his never-ending supply of self hatred or his adrenaline addiction that keeps him in the hero business. Batman told him he loved the thrill of Robin-jumping off buildings and bending the laws of physics and gravity like he was beyond them, facing hoarded of men bigger than him, stronger than him, and not knowing if he was going to make it through the night. That’s what kept him in it, but that’s not what made him trade in his leotard for a cape, not in the beginning. Something him and Bruce shared was their aptitude for blaming themselves for every mistake around them, including the deaths of those around him.

He’s perfect at everything he does and sometimes he hates how perfect he is at this.

He never used to believe in poetry or poetic nonsense, but if nothing else changed after his death, at least he did.

It wasn’t blood and broken bones that haunted his nightmares, it was circus colors.

What could one possibly say about life to a person who has already seen the smirk on deaths face

There were nights Jason knew Dick perfectly, intimately. Then there were nights he didn’t know his predecessor at all, catching Dick staring off into the distance looking like he was made of porcelain, heartbreak coloring his eyes and unable to summon any smile.

Jason is still alive, even if it’s only for the moment, even if it’s only in Dicks hallucinations

“I don’t want to be another roadblock on your grand journey to love your fucking soulmate again!” Jason shouts at Dick, red in the face and fuming.

He feels more than anyone else, And anger is an emotion after all.

“If I’m alive, why do I feel so empty? So hollow?”

He’d wanted something that was HIS, only his, no matter how selfish it sounded.

There’s the light at the end of the tunnel, right? The gingerbread house you aren’t supposed to enter, the yellow brick road you aren’t supposed to deviate from. And it’s confusing, because somewhere along the way he changed. And he doesn’t think he likes the end result.

His honesty is a lie, Dick Grayson is the best liar by far

Loneliness comes to him more naturally than he’s willing to admit. Perks of being a vigilante, I suppose.

It should be a hard choice, his father or the son none of them had expected, but it’s easy. Too easy.

“Say it,” Dick whispers, eyes burning with hate. “Get it over with.” “I thought you were fixed.” “Slade, you know you broke me. Say the damn words before I slit your throat open.” “Renegade, rise.”

[madphantom]

Goodbye Eddie Goodbye

Chapter 20 - Dearly missed

"Singer Beef missing," Phoenix read on the newspaper front page. She froze. "No...!"

"Miss, are you all right?", the cashier of the grocery store asked. Phoenix nodded absentmindedly. "Yes...yes, yes."

She tossed the cashier a bank note, didn't wait for the change, grabbed her shopping bags and raced out of the shop. This was no good.

She noticed a record store across the street she occasionally visited. And suddenly she had an idea.

Phoenix took a deep breath. Then she sprinted across the street.

The door to the shop was open and a little old man was waiting inside. He looked up from his newspaper when Phoenix chimed in breathlessly. "Phoenix!"

"Hi Ted." She flashed him a smile. "Listen, I'm really sorry, but this is an emergency, I have to get somewhere real fast and need to put my groceries somewhere, can I maybe leave them here...?"

"Of course!" He got up and took them from her. "I'll put them right behind the counter. You can get them any time. I'll wait for you if you're late."

"Oh, thank you so much, Ted!" She gave him a hug. "I promise, one day I'll actually buy something here. Bye!" She ran out of the store.

Now she got herself ready to get to Swanage. She wasn't wearing make-up, so she couldn't pass as a singer. Dammit, she thought.

"I didn't bench press my own weight for nothing," she finally sighed and with that she jumped over the wall around Swanage and right on a biker's head.

Five minutes later, with the biker knocked out cold in a bush and wearing his leather clothes, her hair in a bun and her face smeared with the bikers' standard black make-up Phoenix entered Swanage. She was no expert at theatre make-up, but she'd tried her best to look convincing. With a clenched jaw and a frown she'd pass as a young biker. Thank God her voice was low already.

"Want a Havanna?", a huge guy greeted her as she entered. "Some dude left them here."

She nodded, trying to blend in. He handed her one and gave her fire.

Phoenix felt her eyes tearing. She wasn't used to smoking. She rubbed them for distraction. "Ah, stupid pollen allergy."

The huge guy nodded in compassion. "I feel ya, lad. Dairy's been killing me too lately."

Phoenix grinned and blew out the smoke. Never again, she thought.

The sudden tap tap tap of high heels warned her that somebody else arrived in the hallway. She looked around. Red high heels, crimson leotard, black pencil skirt - it was Mary Margaret Amato. Swan's secretary.

She glanced over at them with a professional look on her face. "You. Lad. Stop smoking, come here, I need your help with something."

Phoenix groaned (in an annoyed tone, she hoped) and threw away the cigar. The huge guy shrugged. "What a waste."

Phoenix followed Mary across the corner, where the other woman abruptly turned around and shoved her against the wall.

"Listen, I know you're not a biker. You can thank God you ran into Doug," Mary hissed.

"Doug was friendly," Phoenix whispered.

"Doug is a himbo. Listen, I don't know who you are but you gotta get out! Now!"

Phoenix was serious now. "Listen. A friend of mine is missing and it's pretty clear that he's somewhere here. I have to find him...please."

Mary bit her bright red lip and stepped back. Finally she nodded. "Okay." She pressed a key into Phoenix' hand. "This is the central key, it opens every door here. Don't let yourself be caught. If you don't find them leave and don't come back. Do you understand?" She looked into Phoenix' eyes. "Don't come back."

Phoenix nodded. "Thank you so much."

"No problem," Mary whispered. "Go!"

Phoenix nodded and took a flight of stairs down. She had an idea where Beef might be, but it was...no. It couldn't be.

Phoenix hesitated. She knew what was waiting behind the door. Winslow had told her often enough.

She turned the key and opened.

For a brief moment she wanted to up and run away as a wave of stench swept into her face.

"Oh my God," she whispered.

Corpses.

Dozens of corpses.

She clenched her jaw. Just don't vomit, she thought. Just don't vomit. Oh God oh fuck.

She looked around. Some of the bodies were obviously young singers, still in their fancy dresses and high heels. Phoenix spotted a skeleton wearing nothing but a silver bikini. She shivered. There were more. She saw a police officer with a ginger moustache who still looked relatively fresh. A guy in a cowboy hat she remembered from some audition. She was genuinely freaking out by now.

And suddenly she spotted a familiar plateau shoe.

She felt the colour draining from her face.

"Beef," she whispered.

Phoenix hurried over to the pile of bodies.

And then she nearly screamed.

Here he was. Beef. Dead. Staring at her with empty eyes. White. Lifeless. Gone.

She pressed her hands on her mouth, desperately holding back the screams and sobs caught in her throat.

"No," she finally croaked, her voice hoarse. "No. No. No. No. No!"

"Phoenix, this is too dangerous!", Beef had said. And yet he'd gone to Swanage. Yet he'd tried to steal Swan's money. Yet he'd listened to her. Yet he'd been there for her until the very end, yet he'd given his life.

Phoenix sank to her knees and started quietly crying as she realized that last night - while she'd been asleep and safe and sound - Beef had died.

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #207: Beyond a Shadow...

May, 1981

“After countless centuries HE LIVES AGAIN! THE SHADOW LORD COMETH!”

He cometh riding upon a tornado like its a mighty sand worm. What a guy, this Shadow Lord.

Honestly seeing the Avengers tumbling about in a tornado cracks me up every time. Especially Wonder Man who looks nonchalant about it aside from being ass over head.

So I don’t think we’ve really talked about it but this period of Avengers is kind of between main writers.

Since issue 200 and its four writers, we’ve had David Michelinie and Roger Stern on the two-part adaptation of that Ultron novel, David Michelinie for that weird story with the Crawlers in the sewers; Jim Shooter, David Michelinie, and Bob Budiansky for the Yellow Claw two-parter, Bill Mantlo for the everything is on fire story and now Bob Budiansky and Danny Fingeroth for this issue and the next. We start getting a consistent writer again starting in #211.

I wonder what was going on behind the scenes around this time.

Anyway, onward.

So we start the issue with who I assume is the Shadow Lord. But he’s not riding a tornado, like Pecos Bill. He’s standing on an invisible ocean structure of some kind. Apparently a mysterious invisible ocean structure of some kind that hasn’t been seen for almost two millennia.

And yet, someone has kindly painted the title of the issue in English on the mysterious invisible ocean structure of some kind.

Some guy, maybe the Shadow Lord: “The dreaded time has at last arrived, the moment I prayed would never come... the moment I knew would surely come. He is soon to return, and only the power entrusted to me is capable of stopping him. And even that power may not prove sufficient.”

“With every passing second, my city and myself pass ever more fully into the Earth’s plane of existence. Would that the cause of my return here from the barren vastnesses of the Shadow World was as joyous as the glow of this new day’s sun.”

“But the grim responsibility of an entire race is my unwelcome inheritance. It is a duty I cannot shirk. Alas, I must take what comfort I can in knowing that no matter what the result of the coming debacle, I will at least be free to rejoin Ayshera, she whom my heart holds most dear... though whether our reunion will be in celebration of victory -- or in darkest mourning for the ashes of this planet -- none willy truly know until the final battle.”

Some Guy sure is helpfully monologuing his entire life story here. And even so he manages to be vague, inside his own mind, about the nature of the threat he faces. Way to preserve the mystery, Guy.

Also, he’s from the Shadow World so he may be a Yugioh.

Anyway, as one might expect, a city appearing in the middle of the ocean out of nowhere is of alarm so US aircraft carrier Poseidon shows up and starts yelling at Some Guy.

Some Guy decides that they sound mad but he doesn’t have time for lengthy explanations so instead he gestures and the winds and waves start whipping up.

Welp! Seems like the US Poseidon is going on an Adventure!

Meanwhile, Mt. Vesuvius!

Yup. Its that kind of story, the kind partially set at Vesuvius.

Some archeologists are digging in the foothills of the mountain in what has been a fruitless several weeks of archeology but one of the archeologists finds a hand shaped object which may be a hand.

They mistake it for a statue at first but realize its actually a perfectly preserved lava mummified corpse.

And while they’re busy congratulating each other about how wealthy and famous this discovery will make them, they fail to notice the hand moving its finger shaped fingers.

And elsewhere again, the best damn thing.

A cowboy shouts “SLAP LEATHER, YA GALOOT!” and then gets shot by a cannon.

This isn��t the Wild West of the America, this is a spaghetti western film set and the director is very upset at Black Bart’s shitty death acting. How hard is it to get hit by a cannon and then to fall down and pretend to die like you just got hit by a cannon?

You wouldn’t think there’s a wrong way to get shot by a cannon but you’d be wrong.

Simon Williams, Wonder Man: “I’m sorry, Mr. Bertolini. It’s just that, being Wonder Man, it’s hard for me to pretend those cannonballs are hurting me when I can hardly feel them.”

Mr. Bertolini: “True, signore Wonder Man, but I hired you because I thought you could-a act!”

Oh yeah, Mr. Bertolini talks like Mario. So that’s another tally for Marvel’s respect of other countries and cultures.

Aside from this being the seventh take on a ‘guy gets hit by a cannonball, beefs it’ scene, cannonballs are expensive. The cannonball that bounced off Wonder Man’s midsection looks fine but maybe you can’t just reuse them.

The filming breaks for lunch and Wonder Man wanders over to where his moral support is.

His moral support, of course, being Beast.

And he is moral supporting but he’s also multitasking with some women because even in Italy, women are just fascinated by blue fur. Furries are universal.

Wonder Man doesn’t feel supported though and this lousy spaghetti western film is a good opportunity for him.

If you remember, the last project we saw him get was as a cheetah print leotard wearing muscle man on a kids show and he got fired for making the host Uncle Elmer look ridiculous.

(Revealed to Simon’s chagrin in #194, lost to mishap in #201)

Being in an actual movie, even a spaghetti western, is the boost his career needs.

(I think we need to confront the actual possibility that Wonder Man is not a very good actor. But he might be a good stunt man if he can learn to act like things hurt)

Wonder Man’s publicist Rachel Palmer shows up as well and wow. Rachel has never appeared before and given the fillery nature of these chaotic no consistent writer times may not appear beyond this story. But you instantly get the sense of their working relationship.

And they have good banter too.

Wonder Man: “Wait. There she is -- Rachel Palmer -- the apple of my eye, the light of my life, the bane of my existence!”

Rachel: “If you delivered your lines that well in front of the cameras, Simon, you might actually keep this job -- which’ll make it just a little easier to hype you as a star back in the States.”

Wonder Man: “Your encouraging words are a constant source of inspiration, Rachel. But I’d appreciate it if you’d confine them to your press releases.”

Rachel: “You’ve got me all wrong, Simon. I hope this whole thing turns out well for you. Really.”

Wonder Man: “And for yourself. After all, if you make me a big name, you can ride along on my coat-tails and become a media hotshot -- instead of being stuck as a flak for Grade D Westerns.”

Rachel: “No, Simon. I--”

Wonder Man: “Forget it, lady. I’m a big boy. I know that all’s fair in love -- and show biz.”

And then he walks off towards his trailer, satisfied at getting the last word with someone whose job it is to make him look good. Beast says that he thinks Wonder Man was too hard on her and that Rachel probably digs Wonder Man.

Wonder Man: “Maybe you’re right. But I still can’t get over feeling that Rachel’s motivated by sheer self-interest and everything else places a distant second.”

(I’m pretty sure she does dig Wonder Man because unbeknowst to Wonder Man and Beast, she follows them to the trailer, wanting to convince Wonder Man that she’s not as self-serving as he thinks and also to invite him to a romantic dinner)

Anyway, Wonder Man’s social life isn’t important. At all. And not right now. Because when he and Beast go into Wonder Man’s trailer and discover the Avengers’ emergency signal briefcase is BEEP BEEPing.

It’s Cap and there’s an emergency situation that demands immediate investigation.

A brand new island city has just popped up in the middle of the Mediterranean slash off the coast of Majorca from out of nowhere and the government wants the Avengers to investigate.

Presumably the US government.

Because if I know anything about mysterious island cities appearing from nowhere - and I know exactly one thing - by jingo, they start wars!

Beast is enjoying his vacation so asks why the US Sixth Fleet doesn’t handle it instead. They’re actually paid to do things while on an ocean. But Iron Man just says that the fleet has had problems.

And with a little reading comprehension we can guess what problems. Because we’ve seen it. Its not a mystery.

Iron Man has a Stark plane sent to pick Beast and Wonder Man up and fly them to Majorca. Or somewhere thereabouts. I don’t know if Majorca has or had an airport.

Wonder Man bemoans that he’ll never be a movie star if he keeps leaving the set to go have exciting comic book superhero adventures.

Which is a little like complaining about being too handsome. Ya jerk.

And remember how Rachel Palmer was peeping on them? No? Scroll up a little and look at the above panels again. Back? And remember how Rachel Palmer was peeping on them?

Her media senses are tingling and telling her that she should definitely go check out the city that appeared in the middle of the ocean. She’s much intrepid for not a reporter.

Meanwhile, some slice of life filler fluff that doesn’t matter but that I find delightful.

And if this liveblog isn’t about sharing things that I find delightful then what is it about? Exhaustively recounting plots to comic books from decades ago? That’s just a side benefit!

The call to action back at Avengers Mansion comes right when Wanda is having Vision move a couch.

Vision: “Wanda, while it may be true that I am capable of moving this couch about all day, it seems a gross misuse of my android abilities to do so.”

Wanda: “Maybe if we just move those shelves then you just put it down there. We’re Avengers, not interior decorators.

This is the content I eagerly crave.

So back in not America, Beast and Wonder Man complain about the plane ride but passing over the ocean they see what trouble the Sixth Fleet was having.

Some Guy, Possibly Shadow Lord managed to strand the Poseidon aircraft carrier fully on a deserted island.

And I was wrong about the plane taking them to Majorca. Its apparently taking them to Poseidon because it lands on the ship’s airstrip so the two Avengers can consult the stranded sailors about what the heck is going on.

Captain Paul Garrison tells them that they were investigating the mysterious new island/city (not mentioning that they were also yelling at it) when a tidal wave suddenly swelled up and carried the Poseidon several miles and left it on this island.

And apparently the same thing happened to any other plane and ship that attempted to approach the island. Thwarted by winds and waves.

Damn you, nature!

Anyway, its all rather mysterious but Wonder Man figures

“Well, we were sent here to investigate. So... let’s investigate.”

And Wonder Man rockets off to investigate the city. While giving Beast a piggyback ride.

Which. Amazing image. Bless this issue for its bounty of amazing images.

Bear in mind that the captain said that the aircraft carrier was carried several miles. Wonder Man’s belt rockets have impressive duration considering he can’t be carrying much fuel on his person.

When they reach the city, they find a localized hurricane hovering right above it. But Wonder Man just flies down through the eye of the storm to get to the city.

Some Guy Shadow Lord is surprised because he had been expecting big boats and planes. Not a guy with rocket pants and a blue gorilla riding on his back.

But he’s able to shoo them away just as easily as any big thing, with a wave of his hand summoning a wind that carries Wonder Man and passenger Beast away from the city.

Meanwhile, Rachel Palmer is also here. She spent all her money renting a plane and then a boat but she’s going to get to that mysterious city and get an exclusive inside story!

So is she a journalist? Or what? She’s Lois Laneing but as far as we’ve heard her job is to convince people they want to see Wonder Man do stuff in movies.

Wonder Man spots her and tries to fly to her rescue but two water spouts spurt up to ruin this rescue plan.

The first one launches Rachel’s boat into the air and smashes it to pieces. The second blasts Wonder Man out of the sky preventing him from saving Rachel from falling to her death.

But unseen by either of the Avengers, a strong breeze safely lowers Rachel to the ground of the city.

Because what is an Avengers comic without men developing weird and intense feelings for a nearby woman.

Some Guy: “How beautiful she is, how like my own Ayshera. And, also like Ayshera, she is courageous... and more than a little headstrong.”

Cool. I hope this doesn’t get weird. Or that we’re not asked to sympathize with a guy whose only ‘sympathetic’ trait is a possessive attraction to a woman. Looking at you, Living Laser. And, I guess, Graviton.

Anyway, Wonder Man doesn’t see Rachel getting rescued by an airbender so he works himself into a lather.

Wonder Man: “That sinks it! It’s one thing to attack naval ships and planes... one thing to attack Avengers... But when he kills an innocent woman who could do him no harm -- that guy’s gonna answer to WONDER MAN!”

Honestly, I think you’re selling Rachel short. I’m sure she could do harm if she put her mind to it.  Like, what if she covered him in bees. That would suck.

Anyway, Wonder Man rages through the city’s protective winds and then gets SAFUUSH!’d between two walls of solid water.

He’s left sputtering and disoriented in the ocean. At least until some hooks hook down from the Quinjet, hook Wonder Man, and then hook him up into the ship.

I didn’t know that the Quinjet had hooks for grabbing people out of the ocean but I am thrilled.

Ideally, the Avengers would use their newfound ability to vaudeville hook people into orbit more often. I can think of so many instances where it would be useful, or at least hilarious.

Anyway, Wonder Man apprises the other Avengers into the situation.

Meanwhile, not dead Rachel Palmer wakes up and finds the Shadow Lord brood slouching in a chair and watching her while she was unconscious.

She is alarmed that he’s just sitting there staring but he basically goes ‘DON’T WORRY I READ YOUR MIND TO LEARN YOUR NAME AND LANGUAGE’ and then decides to explain his entire backstory.

Shadow Lord: “The city in which we stand is the Shadow Realm and I... I am called the Shadow Lord!”

DAMMIT I KNEW HE WAS A YUGIOH!

Anyway.

THOUSANDS OF YEARS AGO! Give or take! An ancient tribe decided to move to an island to isolate themselves from “primitive, superstitious neighbors who feared [their] more advanced society.”

Off to a good start with this guy.

Free of the mundane concerns of living in a world that hated and feared them, they were able to peacefully ALL BECOME WIZARDS WHO COULD CONTROL THE FORCES OF NATURE.

Maybe the X-Men are onto something.

So the Shadow Lord’s people learned to control, winds, waves, earth, and maybe fire so what I’m saying is that it was an entire island of Avatars.

Boom, sequel idea. Give me millions of dollars, Nickelodeon.

“Though veiled in mystery, rumors of our existence spread throughout the world. We were feared and shunned by the other peoples of the Earth -- which allowed us to continue our studies undisturbed.”

“Those who mistrusted anything they could not comprehend... they called us witches and sorcerers. Those who knew and understood us called us... the Earth Lords!”

“For centuries our sole purposes were to augment our knowledge of the Earth’s forces and to maintain the natural balance between these forces. Otherwise, we had no interest in the day-to-day affairs of the outside world.”

Maybe I was wrong about them being Yugioh. Maybe they’re the Time Lords from the Doctor Who.

Anyway, the Earth Lords were happy sitting on their island being Avatars but over the eons they sensed a disturbance in the Force, for I must reference all the things.

"Over the eons, we became aware of a seemingly immortal, human force of awesome destruction, one who could potentially plunge mankind into an irreversible slide to its doom.”

“Singlehandedly he could destroy towns. With an army beside him -- countries. Time and again, he did. It was when he finally joined the legions of Rome at the peak of the Empire’s power... that we first feared the balance of nature was in danger of being destroyed. Rome could forever take over the world.”

The Earth Lords tried on several occasions to destroy this menace. We don’t get to know what constituted these efforts and that’s disappointing because of what the final successful attempt was.

By 79 AD, they knew he was on the slopes of Mt. Vesuvius so they caused it to erupt, just to bury this one guy under hundreds of tons of rock and ash and lava.

Mission accomplished.

Except for the little thing where the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius also wiped out Pompeii and Herculaneum and other cities people know significantly less about, killing over 20,000 people.

As things go, that’s pretty dire amount of incidental deaths to kill one person. And the Earth Lords realize that this was a pretty major fuck up.

So they decided that they couldn’t be trusted with their powers and that they would disperse into the outside world to live and die as people do and have their powers dissipate over the years.

But before they did that, they discovered that the seemingly immortal guy they hit in the face with a volcano was somehow still alive somehow. Just trapped. Under hundreds of tons of rock and ash and lava that cooled into rock.

They killed thousands and didn’t even permanently kill the dude they were trying to kill? That’s pretty incompetent. They really can’t be trusted with their power.

Since he eventually might get out and resume being a dick, the Earth Lords drew lots and chose one of their number, the Some Guy later known as the Shadow Lord from the Shadow Realm, to forever watch over the city alone and await the day that the immortal guy would again walk the land.

And to help him solo the dude that took an entire city of people and a volcano to deal with, the Earth Lords concentrated all of their powers into this one Shadow Lord guy and taught him how to send himself and the city into a twilight plane of nothingness which is back to being called the Shadow World.

So this might also be Twilight Princess.

For two thousand years the Shadow Lord in the Shadow Realm in the Shadow World observed Earth and waited. And now, it seems that the seemingly immortal dude is back.

Rachel: “But I don’t understand. How can one man threaten a whole world -- and live for thousands of years in solid rock?”

Shadow Lord: “This is no mere man, my dear... this is the Berserker!”

And speak of the devil and we scene transition to him because we scene transition to Pompeii.

The lava mummified human figure that seemed to move before has stopped beating about with finger twitches and has gotten up to rampage around and backhand archeologists.

Don’t feel bad though. They were in it for the money and fame, those fiends.

Back at the city of Shadow Realm, the Avengers suddenly show up as a full team and basically enter swinging. Iron Man even blasts a wall for no reason.

Rachel tries to tell the Avengers that Shadow Lord means no harm but the Avengers can’t hear her over the sounds of Wonder Man loudly reassuring Rachel that they’re here to rescue her.

Iron Man exploding a wall for no reason probably also didn’t help.

So Rachel instead tries to tell Shadow Lord that the Avengers are a force for good. While he can hear her, he chooses to ignore her.

Using his powers of being the Avatar, he tries to pull a rocks fall but nobody dies. Rocks falling is something the Avengers deal with panache and also lasers and punches.

Some panache. Beast’s skycycle gets hit by a rock and he ends up leaping onto one of the spires of the city to avoid crash. And then, like a cat who climbs a tree except its a building in this context, Beast has a hard time figuring out how to get down from there.

While the larger Avengers punch and laser boulders and jump onto spires, Wasp just flies right in and shoots Shadow Lord in the eyebrow.

Amazing. Another good use of Wasp powers, being able to get in close while the opponent thinks the team is distracted at a distance.

Shadow Lord is none too pleased to be shot in the eyebrow by a tiny insect-sized flying woman and decides that a particularly karmic punishment is required.

Shadow Lord: “An insect-sized flyling woman! What sorcery is this? But if an insect you be, then it is only fitting I ensnare you in a cocoon of living wind... a cocoon which will grow and envelop your so-called fellow Avengers!”

And as Rachel still pleads with Shadow Lord to knock it off, he summons a giant tornado that suck in all of the Avengers (save Beast stuck up on his spire).

Shadow Lord even has the tornado carry him along, the better to continue mocking the Avengers as he carries them to their doom.

Shadow Lord: “You hopeless children! Did you actually think to defeat me, to deter me from my purpose? I who who command the earth and wind themselves to do my bidding?”

Yeah, dude. Definitely not sounding like a supervillain now. Cannot fathom why the Avengers are assuming you are one.

Iron Man manages to escape the tornado by firing his boot-jets at maximum, sending him flying free with a SHA-BOOSH! but also carrying him far away because momentum.

Shadow Lord then creates a whirlpool in the ocean and has his tornado carry the Avengers towards it. The whirlpool goes to the bottom of the ocean. Which then cracks open to reveal bubbling magma.

That’s right. The Shadow Lord is going to shoot them out of a tornado, into a whirlpool and into magma beneath the ocean floor.

Its. At least more precise than hitting them with a volcano, I’ll give him that. Definitely feels like overkill to go from rocks to tornado-whirlpool-magma execution but its definitely more precise.

Somewhat more precise.

Because when Iron Man manages to slow himself down to turn back he notices that a yacht is being swamped by the waves Shadow Lord is churning up.

And because of heroism, he takes the time to scoop the yacht out of the ocean and rest it safely on an island.

Geez. There’s a lot of boats being beached in this story.

Shadow Lord actually sees this. And a thought starts penetrating his thick skull that maybe he should have listened to Rachel.

Shadow Lord: “The armored one paused in his attack on me to save those people -- innocent people... which is more than we were able to do 2,000 years ago. Perhaps, as Rachel says, they are not agents of evil...”

He decides that he’ll stop throwing them out of a tornado into a whirlpool into magma but he doesn’t get the chance to put that train of thought on the tracks.

Beast waves Iron Man over. From his perch on the spire he’s noticed that the building he’s on is cracking from the strain of all the power Shadow Lord is throwing around even though he’s not been throwing it at that building.

So Beast deduces that the city is key to Shadow Lord’s power in some way and should have the shit beaten out of it.

And as Iron Man starts punching some wall, Shadow Lord doubles over in pain and the tornado he was about to dissipate dissipates.

The other Avengers get free and decide hey, follow the leader.

Jocasta: “The battle has truly just begun. Malevolent power such as this must not be allowed to exist. We must follow Iron Man’s lead and destroy the city -- totally!”

So unnoticed by the Avengers as they level the city into a pile of rubble, Shadow Lord staggers and swoons at Rachel’s feet.

But even dying, he still has some exposition bottled up.

To be fair, he’s been isolated for 2,000 years with no one to talk to.

He explains that the powers of an entire population of Avatars was way too great to be contained in one squishy mortal body so the powers were instead imbued in the city itself.

And with the city destroyed, it can no longer serve as a source of power and also can’t keep him alive anymore.

He’s honestly not too broken up over it. Since the Avengers are valiant and worthy, they can pick up his unfinished business while he goes and dies and gets to reunite with his girlfriend who died sometime during those 2,000 years.

Shadow Lord: “But please understand... I am as much to blame for today’s events as anyone... I bear you no malice... we misjudged each other. I have done my best... no more can be expected of a man... perhaps you will succeed... where I have failed. So do not mourn my passing... for me, death is but the long-awaited door that opens to my beloved... Ayshera.”

And the Avengers realize belatedly ‘we done goofed.’

“A sad -- and confused -- group of heroes grimly watches the passing of the Shadow Lord... and only then does the cruel truth reveal itself to them: what they had thought to be one of their greatest triumphs is instead... one of their most bitter defeats.”

Oh, and as I expect they’ll soon find out, the Berserker has been kicking the Italian army’s ass near Pompeii so that’s probably escalating into a bit of a situation and they just accidentally killed the guy who could have helped with that. Although in fairness, he deliberately ignored Rachel when she told him that the Avengers were heroes.

Like he said, he fucked up too.

Still, while its a bit of a Marvel tradition to have mighty misunderstanding fights, I don’t think they tend to result in people dying. One for the history books.

Next time: the Berserker.

Follow @essential-avengers​. Also like and reblog. And send me Avengers triumphs that are way more impressive than beating up a city.

[cerezsis]

Chipped

Chapter Two: Revelations Pending

Chapter Summary: With White out of commission, it’s up to the others to piece together who this new threat is.

--

           There was a good minute of panicking before anyone even thought to pick up White Diamond’s gem; it was like they were hornets in a nest that had been hit with a rock. Everyone’s minds were buzzing with questions and adrenaline, meanwhile the queen hornet’s corpse laid under the rock.

           “Who was that gem!?” Steven asked, pointing at the monitor, now frozen with the image of the vengeful gray gem.

           “No idea,” Yellow said, as she finally came to her senses enough to pick up White’s gem.

           “We’ve never seen her before,” Blue confirmed.

           “How did she do that to White!?”

           “She didn’t.” Yellow still didn’t look up from the gem in her hand.

           “Our forms sometimes dissipate when we get a strong enough influx of emotion,” Blue explained, “If just seeing her was enough to do that to White…” She trailed off.

           “Ok, so White definitely knows who she is,” Steven said, more to calm himself down than anything else, “We just have to wait for her to get back so we can figure all this out. How long does she usually take to reform?”

           Blue and Yellow looked to each other.

           “She’s never reformed before, has she?”

           “Not that we’re aware of,” Blue confirmed, somberly.

           “Well it won’t do us any good just standing around,” Yellow interjected, “We need to prepare ourselves for battle.”

           A realization suddenly dawned on Steven. “We better tell Spinel the ball’s canceled.”

--

           Spinel stared at the large, white gem in Yellow’s hand, her mouth agape. Many questions ran through her mind, but none would leave her throat.

           “We’re sorry, Spinel,” Steven said, “We know you’ve been working hard for tonight.”

           Spinel forced her gaze away from White’s gem.

           “Well, I can just reschedule. I wouldn’t want to have it without White there, anyway.”

           Blue and Yellow nodded.

           “We need to start digging through the archives,” Yellow declared, “Whoever this gem is, there has to be a record of her somewhere.”

           With an unspoken agreement, the small group followed Yellow to the archive room. Opening the door, they were met with thousands upon thousands, possibly even millions upon millions of shelves and drawers, all laid out in neatly organized rows. Steven and Spinel’s eyes widened as they made their way down the center of the never-ending maze, every now and then passing by a diamond-sized table with four chairs seated around it. Steven thought of the library he’d sometimes visit with Connie back in Beach City, and how many times over that library could fit in this one room.

           After what felt like a few miles of walking, Yellow finally stopped at one of the tables, gently setting White’s gem down on its smooth surface.

          “We’ll start here and make our way down.”

          “Um…” Spinel spoke up, looking back down the infinite stretch of shelves, “Isn’t this gonna… take a while?”

           “We don’t have any other option. We have to know who this enemy is.”

           With that, she began assigning everyone sections of files to dig through. Despite this combined effort, it took just under two hours to get through one row. They moved from row to row, each time coming up empty. All the while, White’s gem still rested, motionless, on the table.

           Fourteen hours into the endeavor, they still had nothing, and they’d barely managed to even make a dent in the archives. Steven couldn’t help but feel that he was partly to blame for that. They’d certainly be moving a lot faster if he could do more than just examine picture and video files.

          Just as he had this thought, he spotted something in the video he was watching. He paused the video, his tired eyes widening as he fully registered what he was seeing.

           “Guys, I got something!”

           The others dropped what they were doing and gathered around him. The video in question was of an old fighting arena, gems from all courts gathered to watch the final fight before it was to be demolished and replaced with a new, more modern arena. Several large statues of White Diamond lined the pillars, the bases of which contained writing in a strange, yet familiar language.

          “It’s the same language from the message!” Steven said, pointing to the pillars, “You guys said you’ve seen it before. What’s it doing here?”

           A light clicked on in Blue and Yellow’s heads.

           “Of course! How could we have overlooked that?” Blue said mostly to herself.  

           “It’s an ancient form of our written language. It predates even Blue and I,” Yellow explained, “We stopped using it shortly after Pink emerged.”

           “Which means this gem predates Pink!” Blue thought out loud, “We need to move farther back, to the files from the early days of Era One. Perhaps even the later files on Era Zero.”

           “Era Zero?” Steven asked, intrigued.

           “That’s not it’s official name,” Yellow clarified, “It’s just shorthand for the time before Blue and I came into existence.”

           “I thought Era One started after Pink emerged?” Spinel questioned.

           “It’s a bit complicated. White doesn’t like to admit it, but Pink was supposed to emerge with Blue and I. She came out a few hundred years late, so while on paper it reads that Era One began at her emergence, it technically started earlier.”

           Before anything else could be said, a bright glow suddenly came from behind them. The group turned to see White’s gem beginning to hover, followed quickly by the formation of a large, white silhouette. In less than a moment, White Diamond was standing on top of the table where her gem had been resting, her form mostly the same as before, with only a few minor changes to the coloring and design of her leotard.

           “White!” everyone cried in unison.

           Before she could even get down from the table, White found herself surrounded by the others.

           “White, that gem from the message,” Blue began, relieved both by White’s appearance and that they wouldn’t have to dig through the files anymore, “Who was she?”

           “We’ve been searching through the archives for hours, and we haven’t found any files on her,” Yellow added, “We think that-”

           “There are no files on her,” White cut her off, “I destroyed them long ago.” She climbed down from the table, refusing to meet anyone’s gaze. “Her name is Gray Diamond. I made her when I was very young.”

           This was news to Blue and Yellow.

           “Gray…” Blue tailed off.

           “How is that possible? You said that us and Pink were your only personal creations.”

           “That wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t entirely the truth either.”

           “What is that supposed to mean?” Yellow demanded.

           “It means there’s things about myself that I haven’t told you. Things I’ve kept guarded for longer than the two of you have been alive.” She gestured to the four of them to follow her. “There’s something I have to show you.”

[anip-ocs]

A Visit

Short fic below!

TW: Parent death, mild suicide ideation

The sun hung low in the sky, streaks of pink and orange beginning to paint their way across the sky. Darkened silhouettes of large trees blocked out parts of the sky, old branches hanging, craggly with time, above rows and rows of tombstones. The field was silent, save for the quiet footsteps of a visitor. His dark cloak hung around him, dark as if made from the shadows themselves, tattered red converse scuffing against the grass. Across his back, a bow and a quiver of arrows glowed, pulsing with a gentle orange light. Had anyone else been present in the graveyard, they would have easily recognized the hero, Shadow. Though, at the moment, his hood was off, and he didn’t look all too heroic cradling a bouquet of flowers to his chest. Of course, none can be too heroic standing amongst the remnants of the dead. And though he wore his hero attire, Shane Parker wasn’t here to be a hero. He was here to be alone. But not quite alone, all the same.

As he approached his destination, he took a breath, the plastic wrap around the flowers crinkling as he shifted his arms a bit. “Hey, Mom.” he said, his voice so shaky and quiet he himself could barely hear it. He could feel he was about to cry if he stayed a moment longer, but if there was ever a place to cry this was certainly it. “I was in the area, so I thought I’d drop by.” a bit louder this time. He lifted his gaze to look at his mother’s gravestone head on, lifting an arm to wipe at his tears as he tried to smile. “I brought your favorites.” he kneeled down and set the pink and white carnations before the grave, before taking a seat next to it. He wasn’t too embarrassed to admit the grass where he sat was worn away a bit.

A moment of silence hung in the air, as he tried to get a grip on the stuttering in his chest. This was a one-sided conversation between him and the two month old corpse of his mother, and the tiniest part of him felt stupid for almost expecting her to say something, expecting her to sit up and hug him to her and promise everything would be okay. Hell, his mother hadn’t been able to sit up in almost a year now, let alone hug anyone. Now was not the time to be craving something impossible to get.

“...everything seems so weird now, with you gone.” Shane said quietly. “Before, I could… I could keep going because I thought you’d get better someday, and we could be a normal family again, y’know? I think we all were hoping for that. Or maybe I was just naive. But now… its so hard. I mean, i-its always been hard, but everything feels like its piling on.”

He sighed, glancing at the grave, at the stems of the flowers he’d brought. Pink and white.

“...Alice got kicked out of ballet, and it's all my fault. I know you really wanted her to do ballet, and she loves it so much, I just… I couldn’t afford it. Haven’t been able to pay the studio in almost a year now, and they’d let it slide, but…” but enough had been enough, he supposed. But they didn’t have to be so cruel about it, did they?

~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~

“I-I’m sorry, I can’t pay this month, but I promise--” he stammered out, quiet and weak under the glare of the receptionist.

“What, you ‘promise’ to pay next month? You’ve been singing this song and dance for a year now, and I’m having a hard time believing you!” she said, tapping her pen against the record book with a scowl.

“I know, and I’m sorry, I just--I’m working as hard as I can, but--”

“If you can’t afford dance lessons, then don’t come get dance lessons!”

“If it were just for me, then I’d do it, but it's for Alice, I have to, she--”

“Well, then.” the receptionist’s voice suddenly went cold, her glare icy through her dark-framed glasses. She stood from her desk, the pen clattering to the floor. “I’m officially terminating her lessons with Miss Anne. Starting now.”

It felt like his heart skipped a beat, and for a moment he was frozen as the receptionist came around the other end of the desk and marched for the practice rooms. Then his brain kicked back into gear as he realized what she was about to do. “W-Wait, you can’t!! She has a recital in two weeks, she’s worked so hard, please--!!”

“Oh, the big recital?! Swan Lake?! In order to participate she’d need a new tutu, new slippers, new tights, a new leotard in order to match the other dancers, and you, sir, can’t even afford for her to be here! There’s certainly no way she’s going to ruin the big recital, especially if she should’ve been out of here a year ago!”

“M-Miss Greenwich, please, you have to believe I’m trying--”

Before he could try and get another word in, the receptionist threw open the door to the practice room, three dozen little faces stopping what they were doing to turn and see what was going on one by one. Forcing her way through the sea of children, she picked out a frizzy-haired little girl and grabbed her by the arm. Alice let out a shout as her nails scratched at her arm and she was yanked out of the room.

“What’s going on here, we’re in the middle of--” the ballet instructor began, pausing the music and turning to address the receptionist.

“Alice Parker hasn’t been paying the studio fees in almost a year now, Miss Anne, so her time in this class is over. Hopefully she didn’t have too big of a part, though I can’t imagine she would.” Miss Greenwich barely even turned her head as she continued her way across the room, grabbing Shane by his sleeve and dragging them both out of the dance studio entirely, practically tossing the two onto the sidewalk.

“Miss Greenwich, please--” Shane began, only to be cut off once more.

“You’re lucky I’m not calling the authorities! Your girl’s not welcome in here ever again until you can actually afford tuition, and to repay twelve months of it too! Now get off of our property before I do call the authorities, cheapskate!” and then she slammed the door in their faces, her form walking off through the frosted glass. Shane felt like time had frozen for a moment, his brain still trying to process that that had just happened, until he heard Alice start to cry beside him. He picked her up, and she wrapped her arms around his neck as he carried her back to their beat down pickup truck, her tears beginning to wet his shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Alice.” he mumbled, hugging her tight a moment as a heavy weight bore onto his shoulders.

~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~

He pulled at the sleeve of his cloak, just thinking about what happened made him feel incredibly… small. “She was heartbroken. But honestly, the only thing worse is that now she feels like she has to worry.” he let out a sigh. “She stopped using the lunch money I gave her… she stopped eating lunch for two weeks before I found out, she said she didn’t want to use up money we need for something else. It’s taken me forever to even convince her that it's okay for her to eat, I don’t know what to do anymore! I’m working as many jobs as I can, but with Disillusions I... “

He laid back in the grass, the bow and arrow fading into sparks of light. “Its… selfish of me, isn’t it. I could be working so much more, but I have to take off to fight villains and monsters and go to team meetings… one of my jobs even threatened to fire me if I took another unauthorized break. I can’t blame them, but I just… Disillusions is one of the only other places I feel like I’m doing something. I could stop, but… I guess I just don’t want to.” he sighed. “Stupid, right?”

Of course, he could get help through Disillusions. Ken was rich, loaded rich--his father owned one of the largest technological corporations on the globe, and sent him $500 allowances that the boy barely used. All he had to do was tell him just how bad the situation really was and Ken was near-guaranteed to throw enough money at the problem to make it not a problem anymore. He’d helped Maddi a ton already, paying to rebuild her entire treehouse home when it was destroyed in a storm and even buying her groceries every other week.

But… he was too afraid to ask. Maybe he was just too prideful to admit that he was struggling, especially to someone who’d been raised in opulent captivity for so long he barely understood what middle class even looked like. Yet… that wasn’t quite it. Honestly? He was just kind of scared of Ken.

It wasn’t hard to be. With his dark black eyes and icy demeanor, most people shied away upon seeing him. Seeing him dressed in a cloak, big angel wings out for all to see, grinning as he sliced the head off the thirtieth little monster that day only solidified the fear. Ken was typically so stoic, it was hard to tell how he felt about… almost anyone. Shane wasn’t even sure if Ken liked him--he didn’t want to ask for help from someone who possibly hated him.

But he did need help. And soon.

“If we could just join the city’s program, that’d make things so much easier, but we can’t. The Independence program only allows one person per home, and Alice is still too young to apply for her own little place through the program. If we want to stay together, we’d have to go to the orphanage… I don’t think I want to do that.” he sighed.

“...I think I’m cursed. Well, I know I’m cursed, but I think it's reaching farther than I thought.” he rested an arm over his eyes and let out yet another sigh. The curse. He’d been cursed with immortality, which gave him an interesting sideset of powers but came with the weight of knowing he’d outlive everyone he’d ever cared for. He’d never imagined he’d lose his mother so soon, but she’d gotten ill and never improved. Only declined. It had started about a year after he’d been cursed in the first place, almost to the day. Since then? It had all gone downhill, until now Shane was struggling to pay utilities on the apartment and everything around him was falling apart.

A fresh set of tears welled up in him, and he wiped at his eyes. “I don’t know if I can do this, Mom…” someone his age was never meant to go through all of this alone--hell, he felt like no one should have to go through all of this at all, let alone on their own. Everything was piling up, and it was a guarantee that the problems would keep piling on his chest as everyone fell around him until he was alone carrying the weight of lifetimes of issues. Part of him wanted to just lay there beside his mother’s grave for eternity, through wind and rain, heat or cold, let himself be buried alongside her until he didn’t have to worry about anything anymore. The life of the dead (or lack thereof) seemed rather peaceful, after all.

But he couldn’t. He had to keep going, if for nothing else, for Alice. He was all she had left, and she desperately needed him to keep going so she could even dare hope for a future of her own. He’d sworn to himself that, if nothing else kept him going, that he’d keep going for his little sister. Even if it meant running on fumes, on bare remnants of energy and self. As long as she stayed happy, he could be a bit happy too.

But he still missed his mother, desperately. It was a constant ache in his chest, like a hand was squeezing at his heart. It sucked the life, the joy out of… everything. The burning determination he felt to care for his sister and those he cared about was nearly swallowed up by a dark void of nothingness. Sometimes he wanted to just fall backwards into it, watch everything fade to black and--

No. He couldn’t think like that. Shane sat up, biting his lip, gripping the grass in hands tight. He had to stick around. He had to. He could grieve, yes, but he had to keep living. Not because he didn’t have much choice, but because he had his reasons to want to. He felt a fire burn in his heart, and knew he could find the strength, the means to go on. His fingertips glowed, orange and hot. If he was strong enough and capable enough to fight hordes of giant monsters, he could find a way out of this mess they were in.

He fought monsters with a team, didn’t he? Maybe what he needed here was a team too. He just had to ask for help. Even if it meant facing down Ken Shinigami himself, he’d do what it takes.

He stood up, turning to face the gravestone again. Aziza Parker, it read, 1978--2019. The doctors had sworn to him that she’d never stopped fighting her illness for even an instant. His mother was headstrong and determined, had been as long as he remembered, and he couldn’t help but feel like she’d just shared a bit of that strength with him. He managed the smallest of smiles, took a deep breath. “Thank you, Mom. I’ll make you proud.”

Then he teleported, vanishing in a flash of orange sparks, bright against the dying light of the sun as the stars began their reign over the sky.

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

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Batman & Robin is the only good live-action Batman movie since 1966. No really.

(To be clear, when I say good in this case, I mean the only good adaptation, not the only well-made made film. Joel Schumacher has never made a competent film in his life, and while I’m fairly sure Christopher Nolan doesn’t have a soul, he is definitely a skilled technical film-maker).

So a quick run-down of live-action Batman movies to date:

1. 1989′s ‘Batman’ desperately wants to be something other than a superhero movie. This will be a running theme in what follows. The decision to focus on the romance to the exclusion of almost every other relationship was a really bad choice that I can only put down to a strong desire to be making a Bond Film instead. Also that version of the Joker is just... really bad, honestly. Mark Hamill’s joker is creepy, Heath Ledger’s Joker was manic, even Leto’s Joker had a kind of dream-like quality to him (which owes more to the camera work than the acting, but I’ll take it). Nicholson’s Joker is just sort of... there. The only compelling thing about him is the score, which is working so hard to try and make us care. (Seriously, try watching any of his scenes with the music off. What little tension there was vanishes instantly).

2. 1992′s Batman Returns. Why is Batman in this movie? Could Burton not get funding for the sexy mental patient fights freak-show survivor movie he actually wanted to be making? So little would change about this movie if you took Batman out of it, but I guess if we did that we’d have to give Selina Kyle a personality beyond ‘outdated and uncomfortable even for the 90s attitudes towards female sexuality’. (Get it, if a woman is sexually available she must be crazy!) I do fully admit this is a fun movie, and I dig the aesthetic it’s going for, it’s just a bad Batman movie.

3. 1995′s Batman Forever. I think we can all agree - fuck this movie. Joel Schumacher is not a good film-maker on his good days, and this is not one of his good days. The script is weak, Val Kilmer won’t stop pouting, Tommy Lee Jones is trying but he’s the only one who is and he’s not trying very hard. The decision to add a Robin was good, the decision to make that Robin in his mid 20s and easily the second worst thing about the movie was absolutely not. Everything Jim Carey does in this movie is terrible. (Everything Jim Carey does in most movies of this era is terrible, because you should only ever hire Carey if you want the film to be about him and absolutely no one else. He does not share the frame well.) Also this movie fucked over Billy D Williams, who had accepted a bit part in Batman Returns on the understanding that he would play Two-Face in the next movie.

4. 1997′s Batman & Robin. The film so bad Clooney would reportedly refund you the cost of the cinema ticket out of his own pocket if you told him you’d seen it. The only good one. Okay, technically this movie is bad. Joel Schumacher had not got any more competent since 1995. However, a combination of performers alternately chewing the scenery and trying not to corpse and a surreal neon asthetic that no one asked for but which would go on to be ripped off by so many video games, make this one of the very few actually fun Batman movies. But we’ve already established fun =/= good adaptation, so why’s it a good Batman movie? Because it gives a damn about its source material, and that source material is not Batman comics of the 80s and 90s (which is good because they were still letting Frank Miller write for them back then) but the 1966 TV Show/movie. The bad jokes, the sudden inclusion of Batgirl, the leotards, the kooky asthetic and ‘everyone’s at least slightly drunk’ tone, the super-styalised version of the Batsuit (like them or not, Bat-nipples are as memorable as 1966′s Bat-eyebrows), all of these can be traced right back to ‘66. This movie is a neon love-letter to Adam West, and it is the only love-letter in the entire Bat-movie canon, which is why it’s the only good one.

5. 2005′s Batman Begins is what you get when you combine a director who doesn’t like Batman with a writer who doesn’t like Batman and a producer who doesn’t care about Batman. It’s a technically competent (if poorly cast) film, that Ayn Rand would almost certainly have enjoyed immensely, and that desperately doesn’t want to be a Batman movie. This is a Serious Movie you guys, not like Batman Returns and Batman & Robin, this movie is above petty concerns like fun or asthetics. The target audience for this movie a) people who don’t like Batman or superheroes in general and b) the kind of Batman fans who claim Stephanie Brown was never Robin because she’s a girl. The sort of fans who purchased All-Star Batman & Robin and TDKR II. The only redeeming feature of this film is Cillian Murphy.

6. 2008′s The Dark Knight. You probably remember this movie being fun, and you’re not wrong exactly, but what you’re actually remembering is Heath Ledger. Ledger is fun in this movie, and he’s so god-damned fun he comes really close to redeeming the entire film. With a different film-maker he probably would have done, but this is Nolan, so instead of being a fun stupid romp, this another Serious Movie. The camp is undercut but the seriousness, the seriousness is undercut by the camp, the script makes no sense whatsoever, and the result is so confused that, like Suicide Squad, viewers find they’ve forgotten a lot of what they actually saw and just remembered the points of interest. Every time I rewatch this film I’m surprised by half of what happens in it, because my brain has blocked out everything that it’s Heath Ledger or Michael Cain, and I’m definitely not alone in that. Also it’s a Nolan movie, so it desperately doesn’t want to be a superhero movie. Superhero movies don’t win Oscars and Oscar nominations are the only way Nolan can feel joy anymore. (Obviously that’s a joke. Christopher Nolan has never felt joy.)

7. 2012′s The Dark Knight Rises is actually my favourite of the Nolan films, despite being technically the worst. The plot is so nonsensical and confused that it actually forgets to be a Serious Movie for whole minutes at a time and becomes something approaching a Batman movie. A lot of that is Anne Hathaway, who is doing the best job of elavating a terrible script through great acting that I have even seen. The fact that you like or care about her character is down entirely and exclusively to Hathaway’s charm and charisma. Apart from that it’s another Nolan ‘Batman is stupid that’s why I made three movies about him’ movie. Also the fight choreography in this is really bad. Like, form an orderly queue inside the shot so we can all atttack Batman one at a time but the audience can see us waiting our turn Bad. The only person doing a good job with the fighting is Hathaway’s stunt-double, who is doing it all in one of the most impractical outfits ever put on screen.

8. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Some people liked this film, and that’s fine. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with liking a bad film - hell I almost exclusively like bat films. Batfleck was pretty good casting, and Henry Caville looks a lot like Superman. Snyder is for the most part a very good technical film-maker, who has a lot of fun with the camera. Amy Adams is woefully miscast, but it’s not like she’s not a great actor. It’s just... I’m sorry guys, I know that saying a bad film is bad is now seen as a personal attack on the people who liked it, but it’s just a bad movie! The editing is terrible, the script is dire, laughably bad in places, and worst of all, it hates Superheroes. It hates Superheroes so much the only DC canon it could think to adapt was Frank Miller’s extended fuck you to comic-book fans. The picked as the source material for a movie with Superman’s name on it, a comic by a writer who openly hates Superman! Also there’s plot contrivances, there’s plot holes, and then there’s people thinking Superman shot someone. With a gun. When he has lazer eyes. David Ayer has never written a good script in his life, and if he worked in any other industry he’d have stopped getting work two decades ago, but this is probably the worst thing he’s written.

So yeah, Batman & Robin is the only good Batman movie, because it’s the only one that is about Batman. It is totally shameless, high camp that knows it’s high camp, knows Superheroes are inherently stupid and that that’s not the same as worthless or uninteresting, knows Batman is only as interesting as his supporting cast, and revels in it. (And the most frustrating thing is, given a better script this is exactly the kind of movie Snyder would probably have made. More gold and abs and less neon, but kooky over-the-top fun that doesn’t think a film has to be art to be worthwhile. Fucker Ayer and the people who hired him for denying us that.)