#just a solid villain group. miss them

[lavenderjewels]

this was very cute actually

[re-colligere]

Here's my second spy-villain duo YAYYY!! They have that enemys yuri going on... I generally have a solid idea of the rest of the cast's roles and dynamics. Just need to doodle them soon ,':] These two were fun to design and brainstorm for! (Though, gentle reminder, I'm not a mobility aid user myself so any helpful tips for improvement are very welcome! Bughaw uses other mobility aids, forearm crutches are just the main aids she uses)

Agent Bughaw is Verte's boss/handler - she gives Verte the rundown and gives her advice throughout the mission. Though, Bughaw always finds herself as a friend and confidant to her fellow agents. She used to be a field agent for a good few years until she transferred herself to the handler position. Smart and cool-headed, though surprisingly sensitive to other's problems. She follows a strong moral code, which may or may not have been why she changed her role in the agency.

Miss April Fools is the League's primary field agent/assassin. Being the most charismatic and the most social of the group, she's most frequently sent to recon missions that requires more smooth-talking and less fist-fighting. She's not one to be underestimated, however - she harnesses the humor and the capacity for violence of a living cartoon character, and she's truly unpredictable when she's allowed to get her hands dirty.

I've got an Idea of their first meeting, which is obviously not the best first impression to have of each other.................. but yuri will always PREVAIL.

[lefaystrent]

One random day, Patton declares he is going on vacation. He will be leaving the mindscape for awhile, and it's up to the rest of the gang to hold down the fort while he's gone.

"You're Thomas's sense of Morality; you can't just go on vacation," Logan points out.

Patton's grin goes a little too wide, his eyes a little too intense. "Watch me."

Remus bobs his head up and down to check him out. "Since when do you do the ominous thing? I thought that was my thing. Are we playing around with each other's thingies?"

"No–thing wrong with switching things up now and then," Patton says cheerfully.

Virgil squints. "Are you Deceit in disguise?"

"I am sitting right next to you, Virgil," Janus points out. "Also, I wouldn't be caught dead in a floral print."

"Are you going to Hawaii? Without me?!" Roman demands, eyeing Patton's– well, Hawaiian shirt he's donned on rather than his usual polo.

"Now, now Roman, this is nothing personal kiddo. I'm just taking some much needed me-time. So I'll need to take this journey alone."

"Oh thank God," Janus mutters while Logan blinks rapidly, flabbergasted. Logan spits out, "We are all personified pieces of one man's personality. By the nature of our existence, you can't be alone."

"That's quitter talk," Remus butts in. He literally turns and shows them his butt for some reason, though thankfully with pants still on. "Want me to yeet you out the door, Daddy-o? See how far you can go? Or maybe load you into a ballista and send you hurtling to a beautiful bludgeoning death?"

"No thanks, bud," Patton says far too good-naturedly. "Our dear lord in Heaven gave me two perfectly good legs to walk with. I think I'll be fine."

"You're serious? Just– what, gonna walk out the door?" Virgil questions sharply. Skeptical he may be, he seems somewhat interested in seeing how far Patton will take this bit.

"Absolutely! There's a whole big wide world out there! So much to do! So much to see!"

"So what's wrong with taking the back steets," both Remus and Roman sing at the same time.

"You guys will be fine for a while without me. But just in case you miss me, I have provided each of you with your very own Patton Pal."

They each look down into their hands where a small, stuffed version of Patton materializes. It has stitched in glasses, a removable Cardigan, and its mouth is in the shape of a heart.

"What," they all respond collectively.

"If you feel lonely or need a hug, you just give your Patton Pal there a good ole squeeze! That should tide you over until I get back. Anyways, I'm gonna skeddadle now. Bye! Love you!"

And Patton walks out the front door.

Dad has left the building.

Roman ponders with pursed lips, "Sooo, did we just get abandoned?"

"Nah, I'm sure he's just gone out to pick up some milk."

"Thank you, Remus."

Virgil rises up from the couch and strides over to the door in a huff. "Alright Pat, you can come out now."

The door swings open. A brick wall is revealed where there once was not one.

"Uhhh, guys?" Virgil asks the group, stepping back. Unconsciously, he grips his Patton Pal a little tighter.

"What in the Chris Angel Mindfreak?" Remus questions and taps at the brick. His nail makes a scraping sound along the mortar. Curious, he examines his finger and licks it.

"Did he trap us in the Mindscape?" Roman asks, squeezing in between his brother to test the solidity of the wall. It is indeed a wall.

"Is this his villain origin story?"

Janus rolls his eyes at the twins. "Patton's just serious for a change, that's all. He doesn't want to be followed, and obviously he must be out hanging with Thomas. Really now, have some sense."

"You do know who you're talking to, right?" Virgil asks him waving at the twins, to which Janus gives a saucy, "Touche."

Logan sighs and begins ascending the stairs.

"What, you're just gonna leave too?" Virgil calls after him.

"I have work to do, as I'm sure the rest of you do. Patton will return once he tires of this stunt."

Logan is gone and now it's just the four of them.

"Someone's salty about being abandoned," Roman comments too loudly.

"FALSEHOOD!"

"Alllll byyyyy myseeeelffff," Remus sings off-key.

Virgil debates whether to follow Logan up or try a window next. He stares down into the beady, button eyes of his Patton Pal doll.

"Need a hug?" Janus asks him teasingly, watching him.

Virgil scoffs and shoves the plush into his hoodie pocket. It's bulky, but it fits.

Will it stay there?

Will Patton ever return?

Will the sides use this time to overcome their differences and bond as a true family?

Find out next time on "Episodes From The Mindscape"!

The screen flicks off.

[poppyplate]

minor season 5 spoilers for lmk!!!

(some sketches + my thoughts on the new season :0)

this season was so good!! i'm gonna put my long rant about my thoughts below, just cause i have a lot of things i wanna talk about :3

animation: ik the animation change was jarring for some people and i did almost cry about flying bark leaving the show when the news first dropped, but i honestly think wildbrain did a great job and the animation is still super cute and fun. it's definitely different and you can tell, but they still do all the silly animation things that flying bark did and this season honestly had some of my favourite humor (visual and otherwise).

i'll definitely miss the old animation, fully hand drawn 2D animation is becoming harder to come by in cartoons now so it's sad to see this show lose one of the most exciting aspects of it, but i'm looking forward to seeing how wildbrain does in the following season(s?). i'm honestly just glad we're getting more monkie kid content.

plot: i did enjoy the plot they set up. this season did feel different pacing wise? if that makes sense. not that it's necessarily bad i just noticed it felt a bit different. i'm really excited to see more about this whole chaos thing.

ik li jing wasn't necessarily a villain, but he was an antagonist for a bit so i'm adding my two cents about him and nezha. i didn't love what they did with their story arc, but ik there's only so much that can be done in a 10 episode season where each episode is only 10 minutes long. i think their arc would've just benefited from more time :(

villain(s): i think the nine headed demon is such an interesting character (even though he did confuse me a bit) so i hope we get to see more of him. probably my favourite big bad so far personality-wise.

main characters: i'm glad sun wukong had more screentime this season!! he always either isn't around or gets trapped, so it's nice that he was present again.

i definitely felt this season focused a lot more on the monkie trio, which was bound to happen, but i like them so i was fine with it. idk how much of a redemption arc macaque is trying to have, but i kind of hope it's not a standard redemption arc. not that i didn't enjoy macaque's character this or any other season, i do like him most of the time. i just personally hope they keep him as more of a neutral figure even if he does stick around with the group.

i don't have much to say on mk that hasn't already been said. i love the guy and i hope he gets to be happy again soon T^T

side characters? ig: i thought mei and red son's episode was cute. i love dragonfruit interactions a lot, but i do hope red son gets some more screentime next season cause i miss him </3

i am happy sandy got some more screentime though, his episode with mk was cute. also tang was so real this season, he's just like me fr (i hate manual labor).

other notes and whatnot: this season felt shorter somehow, even though it wasn't and i'm not sure if we'll be getting a special like we always do or if they're just going to move on to the next season. either way, i'm excited to see where it goes from here.

although i wasn't in love with the ending of this season, it just felt a tad rushed and i definitely think we would've benefited from a few special episodes again.

i'd give this season a solid 8/10. i would love to go through all the episodes and share my thoughts on them, but i'm just gonna share my ranking of the episodes.

(i feel pretty even with 1-2 and 3-5)

1. collar the king

2. temple of the goddess

3. the cage

4. sacrifice

5. strings that bind

6. into the pagoda

7. claim to flame

8. harbinger

9. the storm within

10. festival fugitives

[imthepunchlord]

With Wish supposed to be a return to good ole fashion Disney villainy, I think they missed a big opportunity. By what we got, there's enough set up I saw for a literal return of old Disney villainy, particularly one of the more iconic.

I could see Maleficent easily fit into the film.

Magnifico could've worked, he had the charisma, fun, and spite. But wound up an awkward flop. The Magnifico we got wasn't really set up as a villain. Everyone is happy in his kingdom, he doesn't tax them, doesn't demand residents to give up their wishes and he safeguards all of them even if not granted, he keeps his people in the know of what's going on, and grants wishes to people free of cost. He crafted a utopia. And I saw people in his kingdom just demanding more and more of him, and saw them as ungrateful. And yeah, by set up, Asha did feel more like a villain in contrast to him, starting a revolution because she was told no, and having a risky belief that all wishes should be granted or returned to people, not even considering that there are just as many dark and selfish wishes as there are pure and selfless ones. I wound up standing more with Magnifico instead of the hero. And it shouldn't be so.

Additionally, he doesn't exactly click with the villain label. Having an ego and being petty is not enough to make someone a villain. It's actions and intentions that do. Which he doesn't have either. He has no ambition as a villain. And despite being petty to Asha, he still promises to safeguard her grandfather's wish. Why, they had to bring out an evil spell book to corrupt him and make him fit the villain label. And that's not good for your villain...

Which just leads to my thought process that maybe Maleficent should've been the villain. And there's just a lot of details I saw in the film that could point to that thought and how it could work.

To start, there's the vagueness of his backstory. We have an unnamed group that destroyed Magnifico's home when he was younger. Also this inspired him to study and learn magic. Maleficent can fit with both details: she does have an army and is a sorceress (and maybe fairy?), and typically it takes magic to fight magic.

Plus, their names can be solid counters to each other and could work off being foils, with Magnifico relating to greatness, noble, and exceptional wonders while Maleficent is great evil and harm.

But, the biggest thing that sells the thought for me, all relates to the mysterious evil book Magnifico has. Where did he get it? Who made it? Why does it have this ability to corrupt anyone who looks into it?

Maleficent is just an easy answer to all of those questions.

She's the Mistress of All Evil. It's plausible she'd make a spell book that would corrupt any that opened it and read through it's pages. And if she's a major threat, it makes sense for Magnifico to think he needs to get this potential source of power and wickedness away from her, keep it under lock and key.

Also, everything tied to the spell book just screams to me Sleeping Beauty references.

From the dragon on the cover.

To the claw-like green magic that reminds me of Maleficent's magic.

To the "thorny vines" take over of the kingdom.

All the details and magic to the book remind me of Maleficent, and it makes me wonder if maybe she should've been the true villain of Wish. Maybe even a surprise twist villain, the true return to Disney villainy.

Even more so, when you introduce a vague threat that shaped one of my your major characters, defining his backstory and reasons for where he went in life and built up, typically that threat comes back. And I would think wherever he got that spell book from, would want it back.

And I can just see Maleficent having the cunning and spite to get Magnifico to destroy the kingdom he built up, having the audacity to stand up to her, thinking he can challenge her power. She could've whispered to him with Star made him scared and nervous, escalate things that he looks into the book and gets corrupted.

You could even go so far to have her be the Queen in disguise, playing a long game.

This film also could've established her rivalry with benevolent fairies and wish granters, especially with fairies tied to stars in older Disney films, which are also tied to wishes.

Maybe it would've been too much, but I do think, over all, it was a missed opportunity not doing more with Maleficent and her potential ties to that book, cause everything about it just reminds me of her and seems like a big Sleeping Beauty reference. Could've been cool for Magnifico to mention he got it from "The Mistress of All Evil", just to give a more definitive origins to this plot device that made him a villain, though not a good one... I will say, concept wise, he was a better villain from what I've seen. I am also bummed that we didn't get our villainous couple. You cowards, Disney.

[ilikepjo24]

Octavian is not the villain all of you make him out to be.

He's annoying. He slices open teddy bears to supposedly see the future. He's a rich boy (although we never actually see him brag about that). Out of context, he sounds like a demonic toddler. He's a blackmailer. He's a fucking asshole. But that's all.

Not trusting Percy? Perfectly normal. If all your life you were told that there's this group of people that you've been in war with ever since before the Roman Empire was a thing, that this group of people hates you with a burning passion and wants nothing more than to see your doom, that you've hurt and humiliated them and they've hurt you and humiliated you back, that they inferior to you in every way, and then a person from that group showed up at your doorstep, chased by monsters and started making friends with a suspicious looking guy that turned out being a spy and an undead person, would you trust them?

Personally, I wouldn't. Remember, the audience knows and loves Percy, but to a stranger Percy is a random, aggressive, powerful dude that causes chaos everywhere he goes and is the main suspect in multiple cases of terrorism. To Octavian, a person he knew and had worked with and might have enjoyed the presence of suddenly went missing, and then this troublesome, forbidden kid shows up and hangs out with a spy and a zombie. What reason could he possibly have to like Percy? How is he a villain for not trusting Percy? He's just being a freaking sane person dude.

Not go mention that Percy was also a forbidden child, one that typically everyone is wary of. And what does the greek forbidden child that causes chaos and develops friendships with spies and zombies do? He goes in one quest and is immediately granted the position that Octavian has wanted and has been working for for years, which happens to be the same position that Octavian's... Friend (?) had before he literally went missing. Doesn't it sound a bit suspicious when your powerful friend disappears, and a powerful potential enemy with questionable company shows up and steals your friend's job?

What luck, am I right? For a powerful enemy to show up as soon as there's a position of power open that needs to be filled by somebody who has power? Who's to say that Nico, who was later on proven to be a spy, wasn't send there by Percy? Who's to say Percy wasn't the one to kidnap and maybe even kill Jason, so that the position of the praetor would be open for him to take, and then allow Greeks into the camp so that they can destroy it and win this endless, centuries old war between Romans and Greeks?

And isn't that exactly what Percy ended up doing? He was granted praetorship, allowed Greeks into that camp on a heavily weaponed, flying warship, and they ended up blowing up part of the camp!

And what excuse do they give him for that? "This dude you don't know and don't trust and has built this warship got possessed by a ghost who we claim is rising but have no real, solid proof to support this claim. But she is rising and she did posses Leo, he didn't want to do it, he's a good guy that just happened to walk into your property with a huge weapon and blew up your house by accident. Despite all you've ever been taught about Greeks and despite that all the history books have told you about how much they hate you, and despite the extremely suspicious circumstances surrounding the situation, and despite blowing up your home, Greeks actually love you and want to work with you. Trust me bro." And this was coming from the dude that was friends with a literal spy that lied and kept secrets from everyone.

You know guys, you're right, I'm starting to see why all of you hate Octavian so much. He's being so unreasonable and overreacting over such small things. 😐 /sarcasm.

And then you were all upset that he gathered an army to go to war against the people that threw bombs in his house to defend himself.

Octavian was a dick, that's out of the question. He manipulated and blackmailed people. But the only thing he did that crossed the line of "dick" and entered "villain" territory was being the primary suspect for Gwen's murder. And she didn't even stay dead, so even that is not that bad.

This proven.

And for scientific reasons, I want to see if I actually convinced anyone.

[sadhornydemons]

Rapid-Spoiler-Season-Speculation: Mastermind/Sinmas

Mastermind:

After a bout of angst filled episodes, I'm theorizing that this one might be the nice change of pace: fun, filler episode/calm before the storm.

Not to mention, a nice mixup of two villain groups.

The Cherubs mention they are waiting for I.M.P. to return to Earth, but the D.H.O.R.K.S. seem to have a portal to get to them faster?

Robot? Robot with a skull chest emblem? Well, if they already have a Loona Fursuit, I guess they could just be into making freaky shit now. Could they send it through the portal? In which case,

There's a massive battle going on in the Lust ring.

Blitz is missing from these scenes until this one where he appears to be at the Pride ring.

Where the crystal portal is finally shown, see previous example:

D.H.O.R.K.S. appear defeated (but still alive? Well, it's not like IMP kills humans for a living..oh, wait) and Blitz is grabbing the card off their desk.

End of screen captures/speculation for this one, but I feel like events have to be running gradually in the background of the last few episodes for the doo doo to really hit the fan in the last:

Sinmas:

First, let's talk voice actors. Harvey Guillén came in fairly recently, but has been confirmed to voice Vassago. Now, they can always work around voice work to be added later, but I'm really leaning towards his character not appearing until this last episode.

Jason LaShea voices Andrealphus, assuming this shot is from the finale:

I think it's likely that Andrealphus, being a minor character, only appears in one or two episodes. With that in mind, let's assume the following scenes, which share the same background images, also take place in Sinmas:

We see at least one Sin, confirmed members of the Ars Goetia, and several sporting crowns. Aka the higher ups & royalty of Hell. And Stolas is missing. Oh, but Andrealphus states he will summon him.

(Off topic, but does anyone in hell know/care that Stolas's ex wife tried to have him killed? Paparazzi mobbed his hospital when he was hurt, but no one followed up on that news story?)

Likely the same scene, "You are a disgrace." Unknown character states. Whom? Ozzie? Stolas? The demon who took the last blueberry muffin from the snack table?

"Where is Stolas, anyway?" Well, this is the only image of him that appears to be from the finale:

1) Is that a blessed weapon sword?) 2) Is that a Gabriella hair stripe or an 'I was frozen today!' Anna-inspired white stripe?)

Which matches up with this:

And either Stolas left the refrigerator open for 4 solid episodes resulting in his mansion freezing over or his in-laws are relatives of Elsa's and favor home renovations.

Okay, buckle up sluts, MASSIVE SPECULATION TIME:

What would cause Stolas to move out?

Or rather, what would force Stolas to move out?

Andrealphus wants his money and property, Stella just wants him dead, but she has to follow her brother's wishes. Andrealphus tells her, "I say we bid our time. And wait for the chance to gain the upper hand."

And they might had had it all along.

You know, I wanted to say that Blitz fully and unprompted, spelled out, in detailed terms, how he was using Stolas's item to gain access to the mortal world immediately upon meeting Striker, but in watching it again:

Striker seemed to already know? So, either, Stella knew and told him or he did his research (if the IMP commercial from the pilot is still canon, they basically broadcasted it). But Blitz does go a step further and literally job interviews the guy, likely giving him even more info in the process.

Stolas even states, more than once, that they're not suppose to be using the book and that it's 'less than legal' even in hell.

So far, Stella has only been attacking Stolas. Striker knows Octavia is Stolas's main weakness, but hearing all the 'Blitzy' mentions during torturing, maybe he'll relay that there's another way they can exploit him. After all, Stella just thinks of him as any interchangeable Imp.

Stolas stated before that he would not leave Octavia, so maybe this was the reason he returns to the palace? But not soon enough, considering...*

The voice over does not match the scene, but it is as follows:

"You never loved mother and you don't love me, you love HIM!"*

Back to the image, is Via a fast learner or does she have the Grimoire? During the Loo Loo Land flashback, Stolas, having studied the book for a decade at that point, still needed it to travel to other planets.

And IMP seemed to be using the crystal in the last episode..

And if that's not complicated enough, let's get back to the Hell High Council meeting,

It sounds like they're discussing Stolas, before Vassago asks, "Where is Stolas, anyway?" Before demanding that they summon him, "at once!" Fortunately, this parrot's suppose to be a good guy, since unfortunately it seems like Stolas is in real more trouble.

Is it the illegal spellbook loaning? The (still alive?) D.H.O.R.K.S. having him on film? Satan help him if someone also managed to record him twerking on stage at the Verosika Mayday show.

We'll have to wait and see, but Stolas appears to return to the mansion with Blitz afterwards.

< / End MASSIVE SPECULATION >

Well, that's what I came up with. We've got 6 more months to go, and as the episodes do FINALLY get aired things might become more clear.

[whetstonefires]

The thing about the Shazam! (Captain Marvel but they don't have the rights to call him that) movie is that overall it's pretty good? Even if I question the pacing choices made in terms of screentime breakdown for '14yo boys making mortifying life choices and humorously failing judgment calls' vs. 'character development wrt to literally anything else about this fairly large cast.'

It's hokey; it should be. It's got some decent themes and fun character bits and set up good solid hero/villain parallels to subvert.

But.

But it massively clotheslined itself with a major storytelling fuckup connected to the opening hook mystery, whose resolution is meant to be the emotional inflection point of the whole film.

Because the thing is, this movie chose to be slightly interesting in how it approached its 'family' themes. In a variation on 'family of choice' (since your foster family are in fact assigned by the government and Billy not having a choice about living with them only about trusting them is a major story element) it went for the more nuanced and kind of interestingly grimy take that the people who are actually in your life giving a shit about you matter, if you let them, and that you need to stop giving the people who failed to love you power over your happiness.

Which is not a bad premise at all! As messages for a movie about a kid being sent to a group home go, that's the most upbeat you could possibly get and still be tied to reality.

The Vasquez couple are written and played well in these terms too because they really, genuinely care, and are making so much effort, but as system graduates themselves they never had competent parenting modeled for them and god does it show.

And the mental health problems of the kids who got enough characterization to have them were similarly...realistic in a best-case-scenario sort of way.

But! Still with the but! Even though they pulled off a lot of this fairly touchy premise rather well, there's a crack in the foundation that makes the whole movie kind of collapse on a thematic level.

Because the movie (following the prologue introducing the villain's backstory) opens with a juicy emotional hook where small Billy is separated from his mother at a Christmas fair and never sees her again.

Cut to some years later, establishing status quo scene, he's a Troubled Youth rebelling against the system in an endless quest to find his mother and go home. He is committing minor felonies to get access to police information about women surnamed Batson so he can go to their houses because eventually one of them has to be his mom.

His case worker after he's picked up again refers to his mother as 'someone who clearly didn't want you,' which Billy rejects as bullshit, and he's valid! Because that is not what you say when you have actual information. That's a surmise. That's a sentence that says Child Protective Services and the police couldn't find her either.

Especially because you don't immediately chuck a kid into foster care because he's found unattended. Maybe you do that later, after a lengthy period of oversight, depending on his mom's reaction to having him returned and her race and socioeconomic status and apparent mental health and so forth. But you don't just not contact her, and you definitely don't refuse to tell the kid about the result once you have.

The only normal situation where an accessible record exists of a kid's original parentage but it's denied to the kid is in sealed adoptions, which are a formal procedure that clearly didn't happen here. There is every indication in this opening sequence that his mom was never found.

Which means she's a missing person. Either because they located the correct Billy Batson and his adult never came back to their house (which would suggest foul play or some other drama) or because despite being old enough to be in school and knowing his own name, no one could find evidence that Billy existed prior to turning up at that street carnival.

Which would constitute a very mysterious situation! What is he, from a cult? Another dimension? Did someone (in the social worker's proposed scenario, Billy's mom) erase all record of her kid somehow? Was magic involved?

So: the way we're introduced to this scenario, there's a legitimate weird mystery here that none of the adults in Billy's life care enough about to do anything but tell him to write it off, the way they have. That his missing person clearly did it on purpose.

Billy's being ridiculous because if what he's trying would work then he wouldn't need to do it; his social worker could have arranged a meeting years ago. So it's a useless self-destructive behavior he needs to let go. But he's valid, in that he's being very obviously failed by the system and is doing the only thing he can think of to try to address his situation for himself.

And then! The Big Reveal is that his mom has been living under her maiden name in the same city as him this whole time.

Which the Gamer Kid Who Turns Out In This Scene To Be A Hacker (he's about 10) learned by. Breaking into a federal database.

So he goes to her house and it turns out. She'd been a teen mother and her babydaddy walked out after marrying her, and her parents cut her off, and she was depressed and felt like a bad mother so. When she saw the cops had her kid, she just walked away. And she wants to believe he's been happy and better off without her.

And the emotional arc of the film rests on how Billy comes to terms with this. With the fact that his past will never take him back and he has to learn to find joy in himself and his present situation and his future.

Having let go of that idea, he's able to emotionally commit to his gaggle of foster siblings and realize that unlike the villain, who was obsessed with punishing the people who never loved or accepted him, or the wizard who was focused on finding The Perfectly Worthy Champion, what you needed to be good and not lost was to be part of a mutually supportive group, like the wizard Shazam was before he and his siblings were betrayed. And then they can be a superhero team, woo!

And that part is actually depicted fairly well, all things considered!

But the problem is that the audience, to vibe with this properly, has to roll with the revelation that Billy was wrong to cling to the mystery of his vanished, beloved mother and the fantasy of going home again.

We have to be willing to participate in the idea that the Resistant Child Subjected To Foster Care was in the wrong.

And he wasn't! He wasn't wrong! His understanding of the situation was flawed but it should not have been flawed in this manner.

Because this scenario as it's depicted doesn't make any sense. The cops do not just keep your kid without following up if you fail to collect him from the baggage claim. CPS does not fail to provide a kid with the readily available evidence that he's been voluntarily surrendered to them, when he keeps running off trying to go home.

Why would they do that, after all? Billy's misbehavior was a huge hassle for them. They gained nothing by denying him access to his mother and the information about her that was, you recall, sitting totally available in a government database that could be hacked by a random 10 year old asian-american orphan. They just...made their own lives harder for no reason, while extending the suffering of a child in their care.

If the cops tried to return him back when and she said 'no i left him with you on purpose please keep him' maybe she gets prosecuted for child abandonment and maybe not, but either way, billy would know about it.

But if the screenwriters had made it clear early on that this information had been offered to him and he'd chosen not to believe it, they couldn't get a proper Reveal at the end because it would just be Billy being unable to continue pretending something the audience had known not to believe all along.

And they couldn't cram a good reason for the scenario they'd set up into the space they'd accorded it.

So they were just like, it's fine, if we cram enough cliches into this space people will react to the familiarity and go 'ah yes i know this one' and go along with it, and not notice that this isn't an actual coherent reply to the question that was set up an hour ago and therefore is emotionally unsatisfying somehow.

Anyway this is an important storytelling guideline: if you put in a mystery to control either the actual plot or, even worse, the emotional storyline, that mystery and its resolution have to make internal sense.

If you pull the Real Situation out of your ass, and it's not a matter of red herrings or That One Fact you didn't have that makes all the rest fit together differently, but in fact no one involved could have figured this out and especially if the people who did say this in the first place had no good basis for it, but still get narratively awarded the Correct trophy in a way that contributes to the thematic climax so the audience has to care. Then that will not get good results. It will make it hard to deliver on your intended themes.

Some people will not notice or care! This is true! But a lot of people will, and you'll get enough of a better punch even with the other folks, if the setup and denouement fit together properly and don't require reaching, to matter.

And when people do notice at all, rather than their naturally flowing along with the climax you're steering toward and experiencing A Story, there will be a tendency to notice you standing there placing roadsigns toward the Intended Emotional Response, and call you a hack.

People call out plotholes way too vigorously sometimes, so I want to be clear: it's not the lack of supporting logic I mind. It's that the active presence of illogic, of what's presented as a chain but is broken along its length, means the central character arc intersects with the core theme in a noticeably forced way. Which is bad craftsmanship on a meaningful level.

There is a loss of cohesion where you cannot satisfactorily resolve how the scenario we were initially shown came to be superimposed over the revealed truth, because that relationship between elements is very important to making a 'revelation' storyline land, you know?

In this case it's particularly vexing to me because the last-minute asspull and its thematic weight reaches back around and at the last minute moves the whole movie thematically to the other side of the line wrt whether it's approaching Billy, our protagonist, as a subject with whom we're supposed to identify or an object whom we're supposed to observe.

It makes all the high-school-freshman-posing-as-adult gags retroactively less funny because we were now more explicitly laughing at him, and takes a lot of the depth out of the emotionally sincere moments.

Up to that point I had really appreciated how, despite wavering that way, Shazam! hadn't actually fallen to the MCU Spiderman temptation to dehumanize its protagonist. Which seems to arise out of this weird tendency I've noticed to assume the natural sentiment of adults toward adolescents is bemused contempt, and that therefore if they ask their audience of paying grownups to empathize too closely with a teen hero instead of setting him and his Immaturity up as a clown for our amusement, they'll get themselves banished to the Children's Fiction ghetto.

And, of course, if they'd been fully committed to one side or the other of 'Billy is a protagonist the viewer relates to closely' or 'Billy is a protagonist the viewer relates to distantly,' they wouldn't have gotten snarled up about how much information to hand over when.

Committing to either option (giving us only as much information as Billy had and constructing a story that was solid from a being-Billy angle or giving us more information than Billy and operating confidently in the realm of dramatic irony) could have worked quite well. But because of the mixed signals and unstable narrative distance, they wound up with a distinctly weakened finale.

[iwritewhump]

"you've hurt them for the last time" + rescue

day five of whumptember

1846

warnings: captive whumpee

part one

~~

Villain looks over her shoulder at where Whumpee was standing and her heart drops. His old mentor is standing in the same spot with a new small group of people and there’s no sign of Whumpee. 

Villain shakes off her anxiety and walks over to the group. She stands behind Mentor and taps her shoulder, “Hi, Mentor?” 

She turns with a plastered on smile and nods, “Yes?” 

“Did you see which way Whumpee went? I wanted to check in with him.” 

Mentor’s brows knit together and she frowns, “I didn’t know you two knew each other.” 

And as much as Villain would love to expose Hero as the monster he is and tell Mentor exactly how they’d met, she pushes her anger away and laughs, “Yeah, just barely. I had a question about a project we’ve been working on together and he’s so hard to get a hold of! So did you see which way he went?” 

“Oh, right. Sorry, I might’ve had one too many glasses of champagne already.” 

“That’s alright. Whumpee?” Villains says, panic starting to set in. 

“Umm, I think they went that way,” She says, pointing to the hallway. “They left in a hurry though, so they might have moved on.” 

Villain smiles, “Thank you so much! Have a great night.” 

Without missing a beat, Villain scurries to the hallway and runs along its length, popping in the closed doors as she passes. There’s no luck, so she takes a moment to compose herself and walks back out into the party. 

Henchman leans lazily against the wall and catches Villain’s eye. She glides over to them and sighs heavily, “Have you seen Whumpee?” 

“My job was Supervillain!” they say, “He’s mingling, chatting with a few people, not bumping into Hero.” 

“Whumpee?” 

“No, Supervillain. I just told you I haven’t been focused on Whumpee. Last I noticed him he was talking to his old mentor.” Henchman says, taking a sip from their glass. 

Villain looks at the ceiling and takes a deep breath. “I already checked with her.” she rubs the bridge of her nose and exhales heavily. “Ok, just…keep an eye on- what?” 

Henchman’s sushing her and holding a hand over their face, “Security.” 

“We have invitations,” Villain says, rolling her eyes. 

One of the guards notices her and walks up to the pair, “I’m sorry to do this, but apparently Hero didn’t approve of your being here. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” 

Villain scoffs, “He invited us!” 

“I’m just doing my job, ma’am. Please leave or I’ll have to escort you out.” the guard says, already sizing the pair up.

“There’s no need,” Villain says, taking Henchman’s hand in hers. “Just let us find our friend, he drove here with us and I don’t want him to have to find a new ride.” 

The guard stands in front of her and puts his hand on her shoulder. He turns her towards the exit and shakes his head, “Why don’t you text your friend that you’re leaving. I’ve been informed that he and Hero are catching up.” 

Villain looks over her shoulder at the perfect moment and sees Hero and Whumpee standing in a small group of chattering people. Hero has his arm wrapped around Whumpee’s waist with his head on his shoulder. He notices her staring and smiles, waving just enough for her to notice. 

“Keep walking,” the guard says, nudging Villain forward. 

And so Villain and Henchman make it back to the car without Whumpee. Without succeeding in keeping Hero from Supervillain. They let Hero take Whumpee. Again. 

Villain hits the dashboard and shouts, “How could I have let this happen!? I promised-” “We’ll get him back,” Medic comforts. “Not tonight, that much is clear. But we’ll go home and come up with a solid plan. Whumpee’ll be back home in no time,” 

~ 

“It’s been TWO WEEKS!” Villain shouts, slamming her fists on the table. “How haven’t we come up with a plan yet?” 

Medic and Henchman share a look and both take a deep breath. Henchman puts their hand on Villain’s shoulder and twists her so she’s looking at them. “We might have an idea. But it’s risky and there’s no way it’ll actually work.” 

“Tell me.” 

Medic starts, “I heard that he’ll be at the Halloween party tonight with Whumpee. So…we just need to find someone with an invite, take it from them, find last minute costumes, and get in without getting noticed. It shouldn’t be too hard since it’s not Hero’s party and he’s just attending, but finding someone with an invite will be challenging.” 

“Especially since we’re trying not to draw attention to ourselves right now.” Henchman finishes. “I have a lead that I can check out, so while I do that it’s up to you two to find us costumes.” 

Villain nods, “Why’d it take you guys such a long time to tell me this? I can’t help but think that you’ve known about Hero’s plans of going to the party for longer than today. So why the wait?” 

Another shared look. 

Medic inhales, “We’ve been a little…worried about you. We’d planned on going just the two of us.” he shakes his head, “Which we obviously aren’t doing anymore because we told you about it.” 

Villain seethes silently and exhales heavily. “Ok. Well. Henchman, go and get the invites while Medic and I find some costumes. Maybe we can find a ketchup and mustard for you two and maybe some fucking onion for me!” 

She storms off and the pair looks at each other. Medic snaps, “Because onions get left out as a topping on things!” 

“Whoopdy fucking dee!” Villain shouts from her room. “You figured it out!” 

~

To say Villain was less than thrilled with her costume would be an understatement. She shifts uncomfortably in the tight corset and it feels like there are already blisters on her feet. She looks in the mirror and covers her face with the matching eye mask, twisting to see the back of her head. 

“Are you sure I’ll be able to move in this thing? I can barely breathe!” she complains, pulling on one of her curls. 

Medic swats her hand away and adds some liquid latex to the edges of the mask. “You’ll be fine, the fabric will stretch and you’ll get used to it. Now let’s go!” 

Henchman pulls down the visor of his blacksmith’s mask and Medic does the same with his knight’s helmet. 

“We totally dominated these costumes by the way,” he says, hands on his hips. “Slayy.” 

Villain grabs both of their arms and drags them to the car, “It’s quick in and quicker out, understand? The longer we stay the more time Hero has to catch on. Find Whumpee and run.” 

Medic gives the keys to the valet and waits for the rest of the team to get out of the car before walking up to the end of the line. He tucks his phone away in his waistband and nods to Villain and Henchman, “Everyone has their phone?” 

“Yes, let’s go.” Villain says, pushing in front of a few people in the line. 

They manage to get quite a ways up the line through pushing and shoving people out of the way, maybe a few excuses like: “I already got in, I just had to run out to my car!” or “Our friend is holding a spot for us!” or even the classic, “I’ll give you five bucks if you’ll let us in front of you.” 

So after half an hour, Henchman presents the invite to the doorman and the three of them are let into the party. 

“Ok,” Henchman says, holding onto Villain and Medic’s hands. “Split up, keep an eye out for Hero and Whumpee. Only engage with Whumpee and necessary chit-chat. Got it?” 

Villain smooths out the dress and rolls her eyes, “Yes, can you let go now?” 

Henchman sighs anxiously, but lets go of both of them. Villain turns away and just catches Henchman shouting, “Text if you see Whumpee!” 

The busy crowd sweeps Villain away from her team and into a small circle of conversation. Everyone is shouting to be heard and Villain lights up when she recognizes someone in the group. 

“Mentor!” She says, walking up next to her. “It’s great to see you again!” 

Mentor nods and smiles widely, “I’m sorry, I don’t recognize you!” 

“It’s this silly mask!” Villain shouts. “I had to liquid latex it on so I wouldn’t have to keep moving it all night! It’s me, Villain. I’ve been looking for Hero and Whumpee, have you seen them?” 

“Yeah!” Mentor shouts. She turns Villain around and points, “They’re talking to the mayor.” 

“Thank you so much!” Villain says. “I really love your costume, by the way!” 

She’s turning by the time Mentor has a chance to react. And within seconds, the crowd fills in the gap between her and her old chatting-circle. 

She sees Hero and Whumpee, dressed like an officer and a criminal, with a chain around Whumpee’s waist and cuffed to Hero’s wrist. Villain closes her eyes and looks back at them, trying her best to ignore the bruises on Whumpee’s face. Any swelling had gone down, but not even Hero’s makeup artist could replicate bruises that well, no matter what he wants everyone else to think. 

She bumps against Whumpee and apologizes, hoping he recognizes her. 

“Villain?” He whispers, barely audible to himself. 

She takes his hand in hers and presses her back against his, “I’m gonna get you out of here.” 

Shaking his head, Whumpee’s chest heaves with a silent sob, “The chain is real, I can’t leave his side.” 

Villain pulls a pin out of her hair and begins to pick the lock, praying that Hero was engrossed in his conversation enough so that he didn’t notice her. 

“Ok,” She says, almost finished with the lock. “When this drops, Hero’ll notice so you need to grab onto me, shed the jumpsuit if you can and run like hell.” 

“I can run,” He replies, already threading his fingers with hers. 

Villain exhales heavily as she finally undoes the lock and the chain falls from Whumpee’s waist onto the floor. It clatters loudly as the pair runs away, holding tightly onto each other. Villain shoves people out of the way with no remorse, running through the crowd and not stopping until she runs into a locked door. 

She looks over her shoulder and sees Hero running after them. She looks to her left, then her right and shoves Whumpee down the hallway, “Run!” 

He does, leaving her alone in front of the hallway, next to a locked door with Hero storming up to her. 

“Let me by!” he snarls, spittle hitting her square on the nose. 

She anchors herself in the center of the hallway and shakes her head, “Don’t make me scream.” 

“You wouldn’t.” 

“I’ll do anything to keep Whumpee safe from you.” She says. “You’ve hurt him for the last time.” 

He smiles cruelly, “You said that two months ago.” 

[aliensunflower-fics]

CHANGING FACES Chapter 6: Arrival

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After years of dealing with each other Lila Rossi win’s when she  convinces Hawkmoth that Marinette is Ladybug. In order to throw off  suspicion and keep the Miracle Box safe Marinette and her supportive parents leave Paris and head to Gotham of all places. In this new place  away from her friends and her unhealthy routines Marinette is forced to  confront herself and change for the better. Helping her on her journey  is a surprising new friend and potential ally. When Alya missing her  friend learns about the chance to win a free trip to Gotham she  convinces the class to work hard to qualify. When her new life clashes  with her old one will Marinette be able to hold on strong to her new  confidence or will she crumble under the pressure?

( This fic will be for the most part comedic, fluffy, and sweet, with only a bit of seriousness to tie it together. With only the mildest salt  because I don’t think the class or Adrien are bad people just that they  can be naive and selfish thanks to the canon writing. I hope you enjoy  reading this work and have fun with me on this journey. )

CHAPTER 6:

Arrival

Marinette had never been so happy to be on solid ground. The plane ride had been… Turbulent to say the least not to mention long leaving Marinette to agonize and worry the entire time that maybe while she was busy up in the sky Hawkmoth would strike luckily the freak of a villain seemed busy and so the flight passed without the need to use Kaalki which was a great thing as Marinette was unsure just how precise the power of voyage was. 

As the small family of 3 disembarked from the plane with their meager belongings Marinette breathed in the fresh air with relief it was chilly and barely light out … She was tired, yes, but she was also giddy and a strange sense of freedom was filling her with every step she took. There was no Hawkmoth here, no purple butterflies no constant need to lock her own emotions into vault, no more need to lie to her parents, no more Bustier telling her to be the classes shining example, no more Lila whispering lies behind her back, no more Adrien too shoot her longing puppy dog stares as he waited for her to ‘forgive him’ when he had never bothered to apologize. 

She was free. She was safe? … Well as safe as one could be moving to a city known for its killer clowns and freaks in masks. Not that Marinette wasn’t prepared for that, her training with her own mother and the Amazon’s of Themyscira for the last few years had transformed her small unassuming body into a weapon. Not to mention the new magical training the Kwamis were giving her, Tikki especially pushed for more training once she started learning just how awful some of the villains of Gotham were and she made Marinette promise that if the Joker so much as even looked at her she would not hesitate to transform him into a cockroach. Technically it wasn’t murder so she figured Batman would be fine with it.

As they moved through the airport presenting their documentation to the necessary people Marinette’s excitement only grew with her fingers twitching with anticipation as the polite woman welcomed them to their new home and they exited the security clearance area into the wider airport. Her eyes scanned the crowd eagerly until they landed on the group of 3 men chatting amongst themselves. She let out a squeal and started running, catching the men’s attention as she flung herself at them in joy. Jason however acted fast and caught her first wrapping her into a tight brotherly hug and lifting her off the ground and away from Dick and Alfred.

“Woah there jelly bean you trying to take the old man out? Lucky I caught you huh!” 

Marinette snorted and rolled her eyes trying to squirm out of Jason’s grasp so she could hug Alfred and Dick who was looking rather put out.

“Oh please Alfred’s not frail he’s like Grandma Gina he will live forever at this rate and be healthier then all of us.” 

Tom and Sabine chuckled at the scene as they walked over with their meager bags and proceeded to hug Alfred and catch up while Dick tried to pry Marinette free from Jason in order to get his hug that Jason had so rudely stolen. Marinette meanwhile dangled from Jason’s arms with an amused and exasperated look on her face. She’d missed her ‘brothers’ greatly and was happy to see them again. There was just one thing, one tiny little thing…

“When did you freaks get so tall!”

The sudden comment had both boys stopping as they seemingly for the first time paused to take in Marinette’s appearance. Sure they had seen pictures of her and video chatted plenty of times but this was the first time in years where they had physically been around her and now that they were… 

“I think the better question here is why are you so short.” Marinette gasped in faux offense squirmed out of Jason’s grasp clutching her heart in mock betrayal. 

“How could you say such a thing… Dick is my favorite now.”

The oldest Wayne grinned and accepted his hug while sticking his tongue out at Jason who was playing the part of the dramatically betrayed. 

However now that Dick was hugging his little sister he could not help but blurt out. “God you really are short.” 

Marinette squawked indignantly at the comment. “What no! I’m normal it's you two who are the-” She gestured at them with waving arms. “Alfred! What have you been feeding them and where can I get some!” 

Alfred chuckled and opened his arms calmly to accept the warm hug of his god daughter. “I’m afraid I haven’t been feeding them anything unusual; they simply sprung up like weeds.”

Marinette huffed and puffed up her cheeks. Stupid genetics.

“Ah don’t feel too bad jelly bean Dickie here isn’t even THAT tall, just wait till you meet Kori in the flesh now that's tall.” 

As the group moved its way out of the airport Marinette recalled the measurements she’d received when designing Kori’s wedding dress, not to mention the pictures that showed the beautiful tan woman towering a full head over Dick at the altar. Maybe it was something in the water of Gotham that made people tall. Considering all the supervillains she would not doubt it.

“When will I finally get to meet Kori and Mar’i face to face anyway? I wanna hug my cute little niece already!!!”

“Why? Because she’s the only one not taller than you?” Jason snickered before letting out a surprised yelp as Marinette playfully punched him in his side with a pout. She had some surprising strength in that arm of hers.

“Later in the week, they wanted to come pick you up with us but it was so early and your parents told us your new school was giving you a week off to adjust to the new timezone before classes start.” Honestly it had been a hectic night with Mar’i refusing to sleep determined to go with Dick to the airport but eventually she fell asleep clutching Silkie and so Dick had left alone.

“What school are you going to anyway, jelly bean? Maybe I can come pick you up sometime after school for some lessons in self defense at my gym.” Mostly he wanted to see her flatten some of the men twice her size; he knew Sabine had been training Marinette since she was young and he was eager to see what his little sis was capable of.

Marinette smiled at the thought. “That sounds nice, as for my new school mom and Alfred arranged it for me, I think it's called Gotham Academy.”

Marinette missed the way Dick and Jason whipped their heads around to glare at Alfred. Gotham Academy wasn’t a bad school, in fact one could easily say the opposite: it had great staff, good facilities, and it had accepted Marinette on a full ride scholarship thanks to her high grades and many achievements. The problem was the school was also full of a bunch of rich leeches, but worst of all it had Damian. Now both older Wayne’s could admit they loved there little brother even if Jason would deny it to keep his cool reputation but Damian had a bit of a bad track record with first impressions. Not to mention the fact that the 3 Wayne’s had already discussed how best to introduce the Dupain-Chengs to the rest of the family so they could all be one bigger happier family and they had agreed to wait and while and let them settle in before dropping the bomb that was the Wayne family and more specifically BRUCE on to them but if Marinette met Damian at school and got a bad idea of him… Things would get complicated.

Alfred however unlike the younger two Wayne men was not worried. He had a feeling that Marinette and Damian were just what the other needed right now. Yes, he’d heard many things about Marinette’s situation from her parents. What she needed now was someone to bring out that bold Marinette he knew was waiting for a chance to shine. And as for his youngest grandson while he had been doing much better and had made friends he was still hostile and wary Marinette however might be just what he needed. The old man chuckled with a warm smile. 

“I think you will like Gotham Academy very much, Marinette.”

—-----------------------------------

Damian Wayne had a reputation. Since his first ever day at school at the age of 10 after he’d moved in with his father the young heir had… Problems with other students. His personality was icey and his training too deeply ingrained that school and him had not gone well. Yet his father refused to let him skip or be homeschooled, determined that with time school would help him develop his social skills. For the first few years Damian was alone he shoved people away and did only what was required waiting for the day when finally his father would see that school was beneath him and he could achieve so much more without it.

At 13 that reputation evolved. And not for the better. Damian had been so sure of his own intelligence and his own superiority that he failed to notice that viper slinking through the grass. A girl, the same age as him, unlike other girls who had failed to approach him due to the obvious attempts, Lila had been more subtle. Instead of acting interested in him she acted unfazed she even began dating Jon the only person his age Damian was close to. He’d let his guard down thinking that she was nothing but a simple sweet girl. But he had never been more wrong. 

Somehow the viper had found his weakness, somehow she knew that deep down under all his posturing he felt insecure, unloved, unwanted, and she prayed on it. She made him feel strong, she made him feel special, she made him feel wanted, she used lies to paint Jon the villain and herself the victim so that Damian would save her and fall deeper into the strange infatuation that clouded his mind. She was a snake. And worst of all he had not even discovered her lies himself; it had been sheer dumb luck overhearing her plot her schemes that had revealed the truth to him.

But by that point it was too late. The vipers poison had already spread and Damian Wayne’s reputation fell from just ‘ice king’ to ‘monster’ even after the lawsuit even after proving her lies and sending the snakes father to jail. Even after he had proven himself innocent… The reputation clung to him. It was a stain that would not wash off, even after Dick convinced him to go to therapy and his attitude improved, even after he fixed the broken relationship with his family, even after he broke out of his shell and made friends in his school, the stain was still there and every action he did and didn’t take only made it worse.

It's not that Damian wasn’t trying, because he was really. He tried to be polite and courteous; he tried to make a good impression. But somehow someway it often seemed to go wrong, though it did not help that his peers were a bunch of rich kids who tended to be overly sensitive, at least in Damian’s eyes. It did not help that Damian was self admittedly a little… Overly blunt and honest not to mention how sensitive he was about girls flirting with him, he knew he’d not fully recovered from the Vipers poison and so even now 3 years after she was gone he was on high alert constantly on the lookout for lies and manipulation. And this… alertness of his had led to again more then a few terrible first impressions. 

To put it simply, Damian was aware that whenever a new student was joining the school bets were made on how fast Damian Wayne would manage to offend them. So when the teacher announced that come next Monday a new student would be joining the class a young girl all the way from France no less a ripple of excitement went through the class as once more bets were being made. This time however Damian Wayne was determined to make them all lose. He would be polite, and courteous he would not snap, not say anything un-intentionally mean, he would be normal, he would simply ignore the new girl and all would be well.

Which is why of course his Teachers asked him to give the new girl the school tour. He was one of the few who spoke French and they were unsure how good the girl's English was so they wanted to play it safe and coincidentally all the other students who could speak French just so happened to be too busy to help the new student. Damian seethed he knew it was a lie, they just wanted to force him to interact with her for their little bets. Fine then! A Wayne is not so easily defeated. He would be a perfect gentleman, he would not offend the girl, it would be fine. He would prove to himself and everyone else that Damian Wayne might be the Ice Prince of Gotham but he was no brute. Bring it on Monday Damian Wayne was ready to meet the new girl.

( Thank you again for all the patience and support! I tend to update slowly due to well... The need to keep food on the table and my finances have been especially tight lately so I was struggling but things are getting better now so hopefully I can write more often in the near future. This first chapter was more to establish some stuff I know its a little short but it felt good to get back into this fic with something a little neater sweeter and smaller. Hopefully I have more up soon! )

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[chaosbeetlefrontiers]

Intergang: how MAWS can tap into its potential

We’re halfway through My Adventures With Superman and I love this show a lot so far. It’s easily one of my favorite Superman adaptations and I love talking about it with my friends every week. The characters are all charming and understandable, I find the story very interesting so far, its animation is mostly solid and is carried by an art style I absolutely love, I can recommend it to just about anyone.

I will say though, one thing that kinda frustrates me about the show currently is how centered discussion is on Clark and Lois. And I get it, they’re the two main characters of the mythos as well as the show and they’re both very cute and very good characters. That being said, I feel like the other characters deserve their time to shine. Jimmy is my favorite character in the show so far and he’s (ironically) been pretty shafted in terms of discussion. The villains get it the worst though. Imma be honest, even if I can see the complaints for the villains all currently being tech based (even though that’s in favor of the story), it’s the writing on a fundamental level that I’m concerned about. And yes, I think that MAWS handles its villains far better than STAS. While STAS’s villains are very inconsistent, MAWS’s villains are all in the same ballpark in terms of writing and each and every single one of them deserves exploration. And I wanna talk about the villains that I think have the most potential: Intergang.

So let’s get stuff cleared up first since the episode keeps it vague and as such most people and the wikis don’t take this into account.

Silver Banshee is Siobhan McDougal, that’s pretty clear in the episode. Mist in the episode is simply addressed to as Kyle, and a lot assume it’s Nimbus even though the episode never really states that, nor do the credits. However, he refers to Siobhan as his sister more than once, which Albert doesn’t do. And if we look at this promotional material, the article addresses Mist as Kyle McDougal. In MAWS, Siobhan and Kyle are biological siblings. Rough House isn’t biologically related to the two, rather a very good friend. This is another thing the episode doesn’t state but in MAWS, Rough House is Albert Donovan which references how Rough House is a clone working for Intergang in the comics and Dr. Dabney Donovan is a Superman rogue also from the comics who specializes in cloning. In fact, he made Rough House in the comics. So this lays out the dynamic of the group that a lot of people seem to miss: Siobhan and Kyle are biological siblings, Albert is found family. Pretty small potatoes compared to everyone else admittedly. Onto the main point: Intergang have the best dynamic out of any of the villains in the series so far.

I feel like the best way to put it is that Siobhan, Kyle and Albert sorta mirror Lois, Clark and Jimmy in a way. Given a lot of the drama in the later episodes, Intergang acts a reflection of the intern trio: not taken seriously and barely given opportunity to rise up. Main difference is that Intergang has been doing their schtick for a lot longer, and thus their bond is a lot closer. Let’s start with Siobhan:

Siobhan acts as in a leader role not too far off from Lois. Siobhan genuinely cares for both Kyle and Albert but serves as the middle ground for Kyle and Albert’s back and forths instead. She also contrasts well with Livewire from the last episode, as Siobhan is constantly positive with the trio and searches for an opportunity to grab respect. She’s also leans harder into the leadership role than Lois does. Kyle and Albert follow her a lot more than Jimmy and Clark follow Lois (which may also have to do with their different positions) and she doesn’t exclude them from the dynamic because they all have the same end goal. Heck, Kyle and Albert burst into Stryker’s just to free Siobhan. Also, Siobhan in general just has a lot of that same energy that makes Lois so fun, just with some more punkishness to her and her respect for the people she loves is probably above her pursuit for respect itself.

And next up we have Kyle:

This may surprise you but I think Kyle mirrors Clark the most for a few reasons. The biggest of which being caution. Siobhan and Albert share a LOT of the same energy together and Kyle basically acts as the straight man to their more active attitudes. Kyle acts pretty secretively compared to the other two with a big desire to hide their real names and is really critical of Albert especially. Their back and forths are basically that small crack in the trio as Kyle’s tolerance for the slip ups is not very high at all. It’s clear that he works with Albert for Siobhan’s sake but even then their first appearance shows that they’re willing to put aside a lot for the end goal and the trio functions well because of that. I’ve seen people push him aside and him getting cut from the opening does make me a little scared for the future but either way I love Kyle. He helps balance out the trio a lot and he’s very entertaining in general.

And finally, we have Albert:

I definitely see Albert as the Jimmy of the group for… a lot of reasons actually. Rough House is the most consistently enthusiastic in the group, he’s a bit of a goofball, he can come off as frustrating to Kyle especially (while Lois and Clark more so see Jimmy as more of an oddball), and Kyle and Siobhan already have a connection that Albert’s not in, this time being the biological kind. The big difference? Albert is consistently included in the group. He’s clearly Siobhan’s best friend and Kyle brings him along to free Siobhan even while being frustrated with him. It actually makes sense to me that people refer to both Kyle and Albert as Siobhan’s brothers since yeah, Albert’s basically family to them.

Now, Intergang’s only got one episode so far and Superman’s villains are notorious for being underutilized. Whether it be Parasite, Livewire, Toyman or even Silver Banshee, they could always have room for more expansion. My hope is that MAWS will actually expand on its villains this time so how do I think Intergang can be expanded on?

First idea: contrast them with other villains. Livewire and Heat Wave both have gangs much bigger than the trio but Leslie puts her gang down and Heat Wave’s gang ditches her. Intergang functions much better as a unit even if Livewire and Heat Wave have more experience. Plus, compared to those two we haven’t gotten any glimpses on their reactions to Task Force X, mainly because they were the first ones captured after Livewire. Maybe make the trio more interested in what Waller offers compared to the other criminals. Or at least write it in a way where Task Force X, whether they oblige or resist, are their rise to fame.

Second idea: include Jimmy. I love Jimmy’s relationship with Siobhan in the Williamson run. Do I think it can work here? Absolutely! Both of them bring their respective trios together and their personalities would compliment each other well. I see it as with Clark and Lois dealing with relationship stuff, Jimmy ends up forming one with Siobhan and as a result is welcomed into the trio as a friend. Kyle would be suspicious but at the end of the day he just wants what’s best for his sister.

Third idea: SUPERPOWERS!!! Kyle and Albert I think work fine with just their tech but Siobhan’s definitely the odd one out. I feel like a storyline involving her gaining them would be really interesting, especially since we have seen what it would be like is Siobhan didn’t have control over what she ended up being capable of. Plus it could give more of Kyle and Albert working together for Siobhan and I’d be down to see more of that. Or Siobhan going solo for Kyle and Albert’s safety. Or Mist getting powers and Jimmy trying to help him out and both of them gain mutual respect, the possibilities are endless!

I’ll reblog and update this whenever we get more significant appearances from the trio, I feel like it’s pretty guaranteed we’ll see them again before season 1 ends. I made this because I love this trio, I feel like I’m the only one who cares about them and I feel like I’m the only one who’ll care if the show somehow manages to screw their dynamic up. Either way, I’m holding out hope and I also hope this little study got you more interested in the trio. Whether its fanart, fanfics, edits, what have you, show your love for MAWS Intergang if you can! I know I will.

[foolishwriting]

A/n: the perspectives for the first few chapter will likely change, im not quite sure the best perspective to write this in yet so

Chapter 1

“The world has been simplified and dumbed down to keep us pliable and stupid” dad had explained to me. “It isn't as simple as a letter to explain the threat level a single person is. Its like we’re cattle to them, you’re not a cow for sale you understand Sage? Never let the government break you down into something easy to understand, or to boost the egos of the heroes undeserving of their titles. You are a human, a beautiful and complex human.” 

Its a strange lesson to tell your nine year old daughter during a jail call. I love my dad, wouldn't trade him for the world. He’s a petty thief, petty enough to have broken into a heroes headquarters and steal sensitive information about a government project and leak it to the public. Papa has nothing to do with hero business in the slightest, hes a great model and he and dad have never once told me i was wrong for my career path. 

I considered going into hero work in middle school but so did everyone else. I know some of the new heroes, they're the kids who won the popularity contests in middle school and throughout highschool. Half of them never realized their lives would lay in my hands. I'm no hero but i'm certainly your favorite hero's healer they've begged for a quick recovery from after being a prick. I don't take it lightly when a hero, no matter how grand they are, plop themselves down in front of me and are rude and demanding. It might be my job but they can easily go find someone else if they are gonna speak ill of me or any one else. 

My dad’s lesson rings clear in my head now as I watch a vicious battle between a band of four D level heroes against one E level. It’s strange how it's a big deal. They’ll likely get bumped up if they get in a couple more fights with higher level villains like this. The group is the Senses Five, notably they’re fifth and arguably most valuable member, is missing. Theyre what they sound like, a group of teeagers fresh form highschool with powers that fuck up your senses. They work as a great team, managing to disorient and batter in the most unexpected ways. 

Me and a couple of coworkers sit around in the Hero’s Commission HQ’s kitchen in the Healers Wing. its pretty much our normal, lounge around for most of the day until theres a sudden strike of injured heroes then we all shoot into action. Its a pretty solid job, get paid a shit ton to heal the morons who nearly get themselves killed trying to get promoted through a system that's not designed to promote them. Im one of the few who do, i cant anymore, im an S ranked healer, i deal with shit from heroes on their deathbeds to literally dead ones. 

I lucked out in the power department, necromancy, healing, some light manipulation and some minor shit that's not really important to mention. Theres a reason i have the luxury of letting heroes fucking die because their egos have no room to be polite. Not all of them of course, don't get it twisted, I just have a bit of a chip on my shoulder. It's a mixed bag, I happen to work with both the pleasant and the egotistical. 

We all sorta watch the news a little bit dumb founded by the fight being broadcasted. We were about to be seeing all of them soon. The calamity is minimal, buildings damaged that can be easily fixed by any builder, the roads are shattered and cars shredded but there seems to be no civilians in danger. Thank god man. Its awful, a group of us would get sent out with the builders and repair and heal and resurrect if necessary. Its terrible some of the stuff ive seen man, kids, teens, heroes younger than my sister destroyed by a fight they were mislead about, entire city blocks flattened. It isn't pretty. 

“Miss Cyris” Eric said getting everybody's attention “you have a meeting with Mr. Peters” 

“Now?” i ask, i don't remember this being in my schedule for the day let alone the week. 

“In five minutes yes” 

“Why did I not know about this?” i ask

Eric shrugs glancing at his tablet “you should have been aware of this a month in advance” 

Obviously I wasn’t. I sigh and get up taking my lunch with me. The organization and communication around here needs work. Why didn’t anyone tell me when the meeting was booked? I would have put it in my calendar or made a reminder instead of jogging through the halls to Mr . Peters’ office. 

Mr. Peters’ is an ex sidekick to one of the greatest super heroes in history. The Eldritch was, from what i hear, as nice outside the mask as he was in the mask. We never found out his civilian identity but if i had to guess it’s Mr. Peters’ husband and i'm usually right about these things. I've met him, he made me homemade muffins for my birthday last year and made a delicious curry for the office two months ago. The Eldritch was powerful as hell, he could use and pull any power from myth or folklore or fairytale. So you can imagine why he stands as the world’s greatest hero. 

Mr. Peters’ office has trophies,  framed newspaper headlines, photos of himself with the eldritch in their prime and awards hard won. He sits at his desk when he calls me in. hes a furry creature, broad shouldered and sewn into the suit he wears. He looks better in his costume than in a suit sitting in an office job managing healers. He’s a hard worker, that's for sure. He checks his watch.

“Right on time,” he smiles at me softly, “as usual”

I sit down and return the gentle gesture with a smile of my own, “im sorry, i wasn't aware of this meeting”

“I know, i asked Eric not to tell you about it”

“What?” i can’t stop it from slipping out. Mr. Peters has my respect and he’s been nothing but kind to me but what the hell? Why would he want me to not know about this meeting? 

“While we are waiting, how are you?” he asks

“Im ok sir” i say not having much of an answer still trying to figure out what this is about. Waiting for what? Better yet, for who?

“How’s your sister?”

“Oh she’s…” robbed a bank, stole a famous painting, vandalized quite a few monuments, blew up a police station and sprained her wrist. “...doing well” 

“That’s good to hear, I heard rumors of your father getting released?” 

“Yes, he is” i say. Finally after nineteen years in jail for honestly a crime that's greatly exaggerated, he’s coming home. “Two weeks from now dad will be home again.”

I have to keep the childish giddy feeling that flutters in my chest, the nervous wreck of my teenage self and my overjoyed now reigned in. If I don't just talking about it puts me on the verge of tears. He's my dad, he's my dad who I've been seeing through a piece of glass and talking to over hour long calls at a time with men itching to find a reason to cut it short since i was seven. He missed the end of middle school, my high school graduation, the end of my official medical education and he wasn't even allowed out for his mom’s funeral. I'm elated to say the least. 

“I remember your dad in highschool” he says thoughtfully. “We all knew he’d do something stupid one day, but all of us knew he was also harmless” 

I would not describe my dad as harmless per say, he can cause some real damage if he tried, there's a reason he’s in jail. The only crime he committed was i guess treason and like breaking and entering but otherwise the crimes he was nailed with are fabricated. I’m not gonna tell him that though, he is an ex sidekick and a government worker who can easily have any of us investigated.

“I’m glad things are working out for you Sage, you're a good kid” he says, glancing at his watch.

He frowned. Whatever we were waiting for was late. I want to know if i'm right, who it is that’s late and why they're late. Better yet actually, why i wasn't told about this meeting in advance but i have doubts on that being answered. He sighs and looks at me apologetically.

“Im so sorry for the wait” he says

“It’s ok, what is this about?” i ask

“Well as you know there have been some reorganization-”

The door opens and a tall black haired woman stands in the doorway, her chest heaving as she tries to catch her breath. She’s really quite pretty. Shoulder length black hair, pale skin, tattoos up her right arm and on both legs. She seems familiar. No one i've worked with but I'm pretty sure she’s Chameleon. The Chameleon is an S level Sidekick who could easily get through the ranks of Heroism but chooses not to.

“I'm so sorry, got caught up in… traffic” she says, clearing her throat and glancing my way.

“Thank you for finally joining us Kassidy” he says. “Have you two met yet?”

“No sir”

“Not formally no” Kassidy says

We haven’t met at all. Have we? I think we’ve passed each other and just nodded in acknowledgement and that's not even meeting. Otherwise not in the slightest. 

“Sage, this is Kassidy McGarthy, Kassidy this is our best healer Sage Cyris” 

I nod with an awkward smile stuck to my face. She holds her hand out and I take it. I don't know who she last fought but holy shit. Her side is mostly just on big bruise and the opposite shoulder has certainly seen better days, not to mention a nasty scar from her younger years of fighting and a weird ankle that was reinjured recently, maybe a month or two ago? I can’t help myself, I send a warmth through her to speed up the healing process. She hardly notices.

“Nice to meet you”

“Pleasure” i say shortly

“Joined at the right moment, i was just about to explain to Miss Cyris here what’s going on” Mr. Peters explains. He adjusts slightly before continuing, “as you are both aware, the Hero’s Commission has been making adjustments throughout the all of the sections, one of those changes includes pairing up healers and Sidekicks, we have done so based on skills, ranking and threats” 

I look at Kassidy. She looks unimpressed with the arrangement, her face fixed into a tight frown. The way Sidekicks and Healers are set up is different from each other. Sidekicks are commissioned to work with heroes for a time, like rent a sidekick. Healers are normally in one place, here, and heroes and sidekicks are brought to us or us to them depending on the situation. On a few occasions heroes will hire us as a permanent member of their support team. I tend to be nitpicky about salaries and benefits and all that shit, hence why i'm still with the commission.

“We are doing and official announcement to the entire commission next week, when everyone is no longer set up with a hero” 

“So why are you telling us this then?” Kassidy asks

“Wouldn't it be easier to have us know at the same time as everyone else?” i ask

Mr Peters nods, “you see you two are in a special situation” his hands close together and i notice the stack of files on his desk. There’s four of them. Hes looking at me over the frames of his glasses, i've gotten to it too soon. “There's a contract in the works between us and the some of the great new heroes, in order to give out best healers and sidekicks our best available opportunities, you two have already been assigned, you have the rest of this week to become familiar with each other and” he hands two folder to each of us. The official Hero’s Commission Headquarters stamp sits across the folder with Mr Peters signature on the corner of the stamp. “You will also become familiar with those files, one is the other’s file, the other is the file with all the pertinent information about the hero you are assigned to. Next monday you will be making yourselves at home with their headquarters and familiarize yourselves with the hero in and out of costume in person” 

“I have a question,” i say , skimming over the information in the folder about Kassidy.

“Yes?”

“So instead of having a conversation about things, we just have everything about each other right here?” i ask

He smiles kindly, “private history is not included. i ensured anything you wouldn't want them to know wasn't in there, with that said, there are criminal records, family records, schooling and so on”

I glance at Kassidy who’s looking over the first page about me. I look at Mr Peters, sure my hesitance is clearly written on my face. I can only see this going wrong. My family is reason enough—a villian, a vandal, my own records even—to not want to be associated with me beyond the bare minimum. 

“Any other questions?”

“Yeah, we’re not like, moving into the HQ right? I know sometimes that's a thing” Kassidy asks

“Not unless you and the hero arrange that”

“We’ll be working exclusively with them?”

“Yes”

“Are they paying or is the commission?”

“Commission”

“How long?” i ask

“You two will be working together permanently, with the hero, it will be a year.”

[fatgumsurpremacy-remastered]

Welcome folks-

My name is Festen Martinez, you can call me Festen. I am an actor above all else and a writer second. I write and draw for Team Fortress Two, as well as the Batman Rouges, (Some Hazbin), and FNAF. If you spark up a convo with me and I know the property and character you have a good chance at me writing for them too.

Feel free to send me requests and I’ll have a look. Current count (41, with 3 more in drafts).

Follow my second blog @faire-of-fictition

My hazbin oc blogs: @mc-tooley-tobias-toby , and @magnum-pritchard-repro

Other info:

21

He/Its

Bisexual

Transmasc

American (West Virginia, and Texas)

You can send me requests for your OCS or you can ask for mine as well. Don’t me shy, make yourself at home. 🧡

Requests open!

I am a Fandom Writer:

I write for:

Btas villains: Riddler, Twoface, Mad Hatter, Scarecrow, Harley, Ivy. Batman also

TF2: All Mercs AND MS PAULING

I will write:

•Should be obvious but chubby (or fat) reader

•Yandere (preferred)

•Smut (preferred, just reference what you’d want in the ask and I’ll give it to ya.)

•Non con/ Dub con/ CNC

•Platonic

•Headcannons

•Drabbles

•Imagines

I’ll draw any of the above as well

I won’t write (or draw)

•Scat

•Pedophillia

•Age Regression (dkh)

•Detransition

Masterlists:

Tf2

Demoman:

Demo joining a LARP group!

Yandere Demo w/ an s/o who doesn’t like dancing

Yan demo w/ bartender S/O

Engineer

Yandere Conagher Brothers x oblivious reader

Dell x trans husband smut

Yandere Engie and forced affection

Traveling preist Engie Art by @virginstoner666 💗

Go! Yandere Engineer x GN reader (almost smut)

Heavy:

Yan heavy cuddles!

Pyro

Yandere Platonic Emesis py Reader

Semi unmasked art

Ms. Pauling

Yandere Ms. Pauling

Semi Marriage proposal

Platonic Ms. Pauling and new trainee

Medic:

Yandere medic smut

Yandere medic with a captive that goes missing

Yandere medic and a partner w/ stolkholm

Yandere medic lap dance

Yandere medic Cycle of violence smut

Scout:

Get bonked

Yandere scout, kissing practice

Platonic scout

Sniper:

In my style

With a bratty so smut

Soldier:

Nsfw thoughts

Platonic Solly and overstimulated hugs

Spy:

Yandere spy egg vibes

All:

Yandere Red Octoberfest drawing

Would I trust them with my pets?

Demo and heavy x reader Head-cannons

Mercs reacting to a love letter

Yandere emesis Blue x reader

Yandere medic and sniper w/ clingy s/o

Emesis character comfort

Yandere mercs and if they’re comforting or not

Yandere mercenaries and how scary they are when jealous

Yandere Angel au with Sniper, Solider, and Medic smut

My my mercenaries

Soldier/Demo

Medic/engineer

Merc Headcannons

Memed science party

Spy and Engie dad stance

Btas

Alberto

Cornelius Stirk:

Stirk img.

Eddie

BTAS Eddie nsfw snippet

Yandere Arkham asylum riddler w/ shy and anxious reader

Yan telltale riddler with a reader who tries to escape

Yandere telltale Eddie

Yandere Arkham Eddie hcs

Handling it (smut)

Caked up Eddie img.

Eddie frame redraws💚

In my style: Ed and Jerv 💚💙

Nightmares img.

An Ed Kento for Sunny 💚💛

For Arkhamverse simps

Scantily clad ed

5’2 Au pt 1

5’2 suited up

5’2 Au ground img.

5’2 classic mv

5’2 smut pic

There’s a light img.

BTAS Insp. Art

Indulgent riddlebat

More fancy Eddie Art

Dilf Eddie?

Flashy Eddie ing.

Yandere platonic Eddie teaching riddles

Harley:

Harvey:

Au art

Harvey and insert art

Tasteful nudity

Ivy:

Jack:

Joinker au

More whore clown img.

Jervis:

Bonkers img

Jervis img.

Wonderlan img.

Reading img.

Johnathan:

Johnny img.

Scarecrow design img

BTAS scarecrow yandere head-cannons

Comp drawing w/ batman

Yandere BTAS headcannons

Ozwald:

Oswald Img.

Compilation

Au Squad: Jervis, John, Jack, and Edd

5’2 height matrix img (WIP)

Batman Vigilante Squad Au

Hazbin/Helluva Boss

Alastor

Under the Same Young Sky (male reader, ao3)

Vox

Yandere Vox housespouse

It Takes Time to See a Doll, Yandere Vox x Cis!Fem Reader P[1] [1.5]

Vox x chubbyfem reader wip

Ocs

Maddox

Maddox x reader play fighting

[romancomicsblog]

Harley Quinn adjusts to the status quo while still maintaining most of its charm - REVIEW Season 4 Ep 1-3

*Spoilers for all of the Harley Quinn show*

Harley Quinn is a show that continues to impress me with its swings and devotion to beloved characters. I would say this is one of if not my favorite DC Universe. You can have fun portrayals of classic characters that feel authentic, and you can have the Joker become the Mayor.

Going into season 4, I was a bit skeptical about the idea of Harley joining the Bat-Family. The concept itself is fun, but the Bat Family, particularly Barbara and Nightwing, have not been my favorite interpretations of the characters.

Don't get me wrong, I love Harvey Guillén, but this Nightwing is too uptight. And Batgirl remains too fangirly for my taste. Nonetheless, having Harley trying to figure out Batting and having a day out with Alfred was probably my favorite episode.

"I wish a bitch would try" from Alfred likely got the biggest laugh from me. It is rather unfortunate to me that Alfred will not be a part of that story any longer, as he get imprisoned at the end of episode 2.

So far the Bat Fam/Harley parts of each episode has been the main draw for me. Harley trying to figure out the superhero game while likely making fun of superheroes has comedic potential.

I really like that the central struggle of the season is Harley & Ivy needing to figure out the new work life balance. I think a lesser show would've had them break up for Harley even considering being a hero, or have both of them become heroes.

Now we have two coinciding stories that will eventually have to come to a head: The Bat Family vs The Legion of Doom.

While many of the Ivy jokes in the workplace were funny, I do think Ivy needed more characters to bounce off of. I think pairing Ivy with Nora Fries is an excellent choice. While it took me a while, I have taken a liking to Nora. The idea of Mr. Freeze's beloved wife being a real asshole and incredibly obnoxious gets funnier and funnier to me by the season.

Bringing in King Shark in IT and doing more with Bane to flesh out her entourage seems like a winning strategy. I'm sure in time the Ivy storyline will draw me in more.

Also introduced in these episodes is Talia Al Ghul, who I assume will be the big bad of the season. I like her having a foot in both Ivy and Harley's world, manipulating both the Bat Family and Ivy for her own ends.

Also just the bit of her not knowing how old her son is or how to raise a child kills me.

While some fan favorites are missed for me, like Batman and Joker, what I really miss is the group dynamic. King Shark is off having kids, Clayface is now working in Vegas, and with Harley and Ivy both working their new jobs, the show feels very split.

I fell in love with the show due to these unlikeable secondary characters becoming a villainous crew. I hope the all join forces once again somehow. But narratively, I understand why there's a split.

Overall, I think this season has a lot of potential and had a solid start. While I wasn't as drawn in as I have been before, I think there's definitely a lot of room for this to wow me. And if there's anything I've learned from three seasons and a Valentine's Day special of Harley Quinn, it's trust the writers, sit back and relax. The show is in good hands.

Thank you for reading! If you'd like to support me, you can follow me on my socials here!

[ridley-was-a-cat]

Winter 2023 Anime Roundup

Anime of the Season – Tsurune S2

I hadn’t watched season one, so I did not plan to watch this show this season, but all the gorgeous screenshots and gifs on Tumblr got to me, and I watched the entire series during the last week of the season. Hilarious, honestly, that the show I wasn’t even going to pick up ended up being my favorite of the season.

As good as the first season was, this was an upgrade on pretty much every front. All of the intersecting relationships between the characters at different schools made for more interesting and more grounded drama than the previous season. The art and animation both absolutely sparkled, and the sound design made you feel like you were watching in person. In particular, the spat between the two cousins/best friends on the team made for one of my favorite episodes this season. Something about how realistic their disagreement was, pushing each others’ buttons like only lifelong friends can do, and the way they resolved it by tiring themselves out in a tense archery duel that ended with a fit of the giggles, just thoroughly charmed me. I adored all of these characters, and I hope we’ll see more from the franchise. 9/10

First Runner-Up – Tomo-chan Is a Girl!

I had my doubts about this early in the series, with all the boob jokes and efforts to make Tomo girlier, but they were all gone by the end. It was just a solid romcom about a loveable group of lunatics that actively affirmed that Tomo was perfect the way she was. 8/10

Second Runner-Up – Buddy Daddies

The hitman content was not as good as the stuff about two single men in their twenties suddenly grappling with the minutia of parenting a five-year-old girl, but I was entertained week after week, and thought they did a good job sticking the landing. 8/10

IDOLiSH7 Third BEAT! Part 2 – Idol shows have a reputation for being harmless vehicles for hot guys/girls, but wherever that idea came from, it absolutely does not apply to this show, which repeatedly punched me in the gut and made me feel. Ryu is a top-ten hateable villain, for sure. 8/10

Play It Cool, Guys – I believe this was pretty popular in Japan, as it’s also getting a live-action drama, so I hope that means we can look forward to more relaxing, lightly amusing shows about cute guys doing cute things in the future. I just really enjoyed watching a handful of fairly normal dudes bumble around. 8/10

Don’t Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro S2 – As much as this series is a comedy first and foremost, I just really love the relationship between Nagatoro and Senpai. Their dynamic is so playful, and they have great chemistry along with a genuine friendship. 8/10

The Vampire Dies in No Time S2 – Season 1 was a little uneven with the jokes, but this season was consistently funny, episode after episode. The character interactions hit better once you’re more acquainted with everyone, and the silly situations were just better this time around. 8/10

In/Spectre S2 – The end of season one dragged quite a bit with the Steel Lady Nanase arc, but this series was made up entirely of shorter, three-episode arcs that made the best use of the medium and the characters. Kotoko is the tiny, thirsty queen we need in these troubled times. 7/10

“Ippon” Again! – For years now, I’ve been wanting a serious girls sports anime that wasn’t an anodyne cute girls doing cute things show, and this pretty much gave me what I was looking for. The judo matches had a nice level of tension and excitement to them, and the girls were free to get intense, work hard, and not look particularly pretty while doing it. 7/10

Sugar Apple Fairy Tale – This sat at the top of the chart for me this season, until the final episode had me ready to take my earrings out and square up. The infuriating story decision isn’t necessarily irredeemable, so I will watch part two this summer to see what they do, but my expectations are low. 7/10

The Ice Guy and His Cool Female Colleague – This was more of a vibe than it was a story, but I enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere of a bunch of yokai who are otherwise bog-basic office workers interacting with their human coworkers. 7/10

Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun S3 – My love for Iruma and all his friends knows no bounds, and I’m really hoping for a season four, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say the harvest festival arc felt really padded and dragged out in this season. 7/10

My Hero Academia S6 – This season had some pretty epic fights and story developments, including a resolution of sorts for Todoroki’s family situation and a boiling point for Deku’s self-destructive selflessness, but it was a little uncomfortable to watch the angry citizens portrayed as ingrates. It had a whiff of “Blue Lives Matter” to it. 7/10

Malevolent Spirits: Mononogatari – In many ways, this is just a basic off-brand action shounen with a blunt main character taking his anger out on everyone he fights on a quest for revenge, but I think the female lead and her retinue of tsukumogami adds enough novelty to keep things interesting. I look forward to watching part two. 7/10

Endo and Kobayashi Live! The Latest on Tsundere Villainess Lieselotte – I enjoyed the unusual approach to otome isekai in this, where two players in the real world became connected to the characters inside the game, who heard their voices as though the gods were speaking to them. It was nice to get a full adaptation of the source with multiple ships setting sail, but it started stronger than it finished. 7/10

Handyman Saitou in Another World – With the exception of two poorly paced episodes in the middle of the season that centered on a hideously animated monster in a group battle in the dungeon, this was a highly entertaining and refreshing take on isekai, with a cast of loveable characters. 7/10

Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? IV Part 2 – If you stripped out all of the titty harem business, or just focused on building a genuine romantic connection with Ryu, this would shoot to the top of my favorite action/adventures. All of the dungeon exploration and fighting is just fantastic, with high stakes that get your blood pumping. 7/10

UniteUp! – It was feast or famine with this show. The first episode was straight up the best premiere I watched, and there were several excellent episodes where characters struggled with their families or with adjusting to working as an idol, but there were multiple production delays, some of the voice acting was fairly wooden, and there were several episodes that were merely okay. I wanted more Kacchan content! 7/10

Revenger – I can’t really argue with the people pegging this as an edgy revenge story, but I thought the main character had an interesting internal conflict, the fights were creative, and the guys were all easy on the eyes. 7/10

Kaina of the Great Snow Sea – The 3D CG animation wasn’t fantastic, and the second half that focused on a war between two remaining kingdoms was a little blah, but the setting was imaginative, the backgrounds were gorgeous, and the two leads had great chemistry. 7/10

The Fire Hunter – On the one hand, I really love the world building and all the intersecting plots going on in this post-apocalyptic fantasy. On the other hand, a number of questionable artistic choices mingle with straight up sloppy work to make the visual presentation an extremely mixed bag. 7/10

By the Grace of the Gods S2 – This is one of those shows that I can’t quite bring myself to call “good”, because the animation and art are just meh and the story is barely a story, but the vibe is so chill and the characters are so nice that watching it every week felt healing. 6/10

Giant Beasts of Ars – This is one of those fantasy shows that entertained me while I was was watching it, but I will likely never think about again. It had some creative world building, I enjoyed the adventuring party that formed around the main characters, and the voice acting was solid. 6/10

Ningen Fushin: Adventurers Who Don’t Believe in Humanity Will Save the World – If they didn’t decide to tie one of the main characters’ backstories to a false accusation of sexual abuse by a spiteful child, I would have enjoyed this fantasy adventure series about a party united by their histories of being betrayed by those they trusted a lot more. 6/10

Trigun Stampede – Having enjoyed the original anime and everything else this studio has done, I expected to enjoy this. While I didn’t hate it, something about the story and characters just didn’t click with me, and I didn’t like how they animated the characters’ faces when they were talking. 6/10

Saving 80,000 Gold in Another World for My Retirement – I am sort of in awe of the author’s sheer audacity in taking the colonialist power fantasy subtext of modern isekai and making it bright, glowing, neon text. Not a good show, but an entertaining one. 6/10

The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady – I really wanted to love this one, but I thought the writing was a bit of a mess with inconsistent characterization, elements introduced then quickly forgotten about, and a underdeveloped romance that felt unearned. 6/10

[dekuprompts]

boku no hero academia, season two, part one.

prompts taken from the subs of the second series of the anime, specifically the u.a. sports festival arc. some lines have been lightly edited for roleplaying suitability. content warning for implied violence, mentions of injury.

it was foolish to throw away the advantage of having unknown quirks.

you thought everything would simply go your way.

there are plenty of people who don’t know what to do with their quirks.

what i aspire to be seems so out of reach.

hey, did you watch the news last night ? did you see how we were on-screen for a second ?

[name], you’re back too soon !

my well-being doesn’t matter.

the school sports festival is drawing near.

think of it as us showing that our crisis management system is solid as a rock by holding this event.

it’s not an event to be cancelled because of a few villains.

a lot of people miss their chance to become independent after that and become eternal sidekicks, though. [name], i feel like you’d be one of them.

if you expect to go pro, then the path to your future will open up at this event.

[name], i’m getting kind of nervous now ! i need to stand out !

[name], you have a unique way of getting fired up.

what’s wrong ? your personality’s all over the place.

you want to become a hero for money ?

you still can’t regulate your power, can you ?

frankly, i don’t have much time left as [title.]

you still feel the same as you did back then, don’t you ?

i want you to tell the world, i am here !

no-one’s better at spouting nonsense than you !

i understand how you feel, and this is more for me than you. i won’t force you.

out of my way, extras.

stop calling people extras just because you don’t know them !

i came to see what the famous [group / name] was like, but you seem pretty arrogant.

are all the students in the hero course like this ?

depending on the results of the sports festival, they’ll consider our transfer into the hero course.

if you get too carried away, i’ll sweep your feet out from under you.

i came with a declaration of war.

i heard you fought against villains, so i came to hear about it !

what are you going to do about this ? it’s your fault that everyone’s hating on us !

[name], be careful not to get hurt.

no matter what comes, we have no choice but to deal with it.

looking at things objectively, i think i’m stronger than you.

hey, hey, hey ! why are you picking a fight all of a sudden ?

we’re not here to play at being friends.

[name], you probably shouldn’t talk so negatively.

i can’t afford to fall behind.

we’re just here to make those guys look better, huh ?

i won’t let you get away so easily !

you got me with that once, you won’t get me again !

if they went through all this trouble, i wish they would’ve prepared something better.

hey ! someone’s trapped underneath !

if it hadn’t been me, someone would have died !

that [class / group] really is filled with bastards.

like i’d let you get ahead of me !

it doesn’t matter if it’s close ! just get to the next round !

it’s time for my support items to be in the limelight !

[name] is probably watching … i can’t let them see me acting uncool !

i don’t have time to worry about what’s behind me !

if i can’t take back the lead, then i can’t let you get ahead of me !

modern heroes depend a lot on their popularity, so they need to have that desire to be above all others.

you should still try to stop being such a crybaby, though.

it’s survival of the fittest, with a chance for those at the bottom to overthrow the top !

there are times when you have to kick others down in order to show your stuff.

you don’t pay attention to what’s around you at all, huh ?

[name] ! team up with me !

if we run away the whole time, then you’ll win, right ?

what’s the matter ? you look ugly, you know.

it’s just that you’re so bright that i can’t look straight at you …

they aren’t the only ones who see you as a rival.

if i team up with you, then i’ll inevitably become part of the team everyone’s watching most, right ?

[name], keep watch over our blind spots !

give that back ! i’ll kill you !

there’s no point in being obsessive over winning in the prelims, right ?

tell me about it sometime - about how it feels to be attacked by villains once a year.

i’ll be taking that now.

there’s nothing left to lose ! full attack mode !

they seem to think highly of you, [name.]

sorry, but you’ll just have to bear it !

if they don’t know about [thing], then we can use it to hold them back !

don’t you often hear about heroes who get done in by villains who want revenge ?

such nice quirks. mine’s better, though.

[name] ! picking a fight, huh ?

oh, don’t get mad at me ! you’re the one who provoked us, right ?

they can see right through you, fool.

you won’t be able to use me after this.

it’s a secret move i hadn’t told anyone else about yet.

i told you, didn’t i, [name] ? that i’d challenge you.

the feelings of those who trust in me – i’m carrying all that right now.

don’t act on your own, [name] !

i told you to say something if you were gonna jump !

we’re gonna get an indisputable first place !

it hurts, but it’s not broken !

[name], get a hold of yourself ! that was close !

even though we won, it felt like we were skating on thin ice.

i won’t use this to attack. that’s what i decided, but i was overwhelmed …

at this rate, i’ll be doing what my [relative] wants.

before i knew it, we had zero points and it was over …

[name], i didn’t know you had a special move like that ! no fair !

i wanted to do something so i could compete with [name.]

what did you want to talk about ?

at that instant, i was the only one who was overpowered.

[name], are you … [person]’s secret love child or something ?

there’s a connection between you two that you can’t talk about, right ?

if you have something from the number one hero, then i have even more reason to beat you.

i haven’t seen you since that talk we had with the press [x] years ago, huh ?

you look clueless as usual, and it’s getting on my nerves.

you’ve heard of quirk marriages, right ?

i won’t become the tool of scum like that.

in my memories, my [relative] is always crying.

the world you talked about was so different that honestly, i was scared.

no matter what you are to [name], i will rise above you.

if this were a comic, you’d be the main character. that’s the type of backstory you have.

my motivation might seem trivial compared to yours, but i can’t lose either.

i have to live up to the hopes of those who supported me.

why am i always caught up in your schemes ?

i’m gonna stand on the stage i watch on t.v. every year !

i can’t be up there with everyone without knowing what really happened.

also, why are you wearing a cheerleader outfit ?

you should just say, i’ll do my best, damn it, you prince of nonsense !

is the image of the hero you’re trying to be that flimsy ?

don’t forget that i’ve got high hopes for you !

even though you’ve done well, what’s with that face ?

put your morals and ethics aside for a moment !

i’ll stop things if they go too far.

if you know what you want for your future, then you can’t worry about appearances.

don’t you think [name] was dumb for throwing away their chance ?

you didn’t stand out at all, but could you actually be someone amazing ?

i failed the practical exam for the hero course.

a quirk that can control people, huh ? isn’t that too strong to beat ?

i’m going to say something selfish, but please do your best for me, too.

you probably don’t understand, but even with a quirk like this, i have my own dream.

lose for me.

thanks to my quirk, i’ve been behind from the start.

someone who’s been blessed like you can’t understand, can you ?

it’s good for being a villain, huh ? i’m used to people insinuating that about me.

that was a kind of boring first match.

[name], why do you want to be a hero ?

you can’t help the things you long for.

even if it didn’t work this time, i definitely won’t give up.

people are usually wary when they talk to me.

at this rate, someone’ll trip you up in no time.

don’t lose in an unseemly way.

their cries hit close to home for you, huh ?

you put some weird pressure on [name] again, didn’t you ?

when it felt like my mind was filled with fog from the brainwashing, the vision appeared as if to drive it away.

you’re in my way.

you’re acting disgracefully, [name.]

stop this childish rebellion already. you have a duty to fulfil.

i won’t use your power when i fight.

you’re good, but what’s that plainness you just can’t get rid of ?

well, i don’t feel like i can win … but i don’t feel like losing, either !

don’t you think that’s a bit much ?

sorry i went overboard. i was angry.

for some reason … you looked very sad to me.

pretty things have thorns you know !

i’ll comfort you if you’ll have me.

[name], you’ve been amazing since i met you, but this is making me think that you’re amazing all over again.

weren’t you going to fight fairly ?!

you don’t want to watch the other’s matches ?

you’ve helped me so much, [name]. that’s why i thought maybe i could help you a little.

during the last battle, i thought it’d be easier to team up with friends, but now that i think about it, i might’ve been trying to rely on you.

let’s meet in the finals.

if you’re gonna withdraw, do it now.

how can you say you want to be a hero like that ?

since you’re friends with [name], i thought you’d be up to something.

all right, let’s get serious then, [name] !

if you’re gonna do it, do it properly.

you’re really letting your personal feelings take over.

that was your idea, wasn’t it ? that damned desperate plan.

you just have to be annoying, don’t you ?

[name] was leading you around by the nose.

that was tough, huh ? playing the bad guy.

there’s always next year, right ?

if we’re talking about power alone, yours is comparable to [name]’s.

watch carefully and prepare, [name.] they may become obstacles to you one day.

it’ll be dangerous to let you use that power as you like.

i’ll be up against you next, [name] ! let’s have a good fight !

quirks are physical abilities, too. they must also have some kind of limit.

what, you’re that beat up just from defending and running away ?

with your arms like that, you can’t fight anymore, can you ?

why are you going so far ?

you’re trembling, [name.]

you want to win with just half your strength ?!

you haven’t put a single scratch on me yet, you know !

come at me with everything you’ve got !

[name], what are you planning ?

did my damn [relative] buy you off or something ?

you’re full of adrenaline now, so you’re probably not feeling much pain, but those injuries …

right now, i think you should stop screwing around !

stand up ! if you’re downed by something like this, forget beating [name], you won’t be able to take the small fry villains.

you want to be a hero, don’t you ? it’s okay for you to be one.

don’t look at that, [name.] they’re from a different world than you.

[name], i’m going crazy, i can’t take it anymore.

they injured you, so i put them in a hospital.

it’s your fault. you’re the one who made them …

it’s your power, isn’t it ?!

you don’t have to be a prisoner of your blood.

it’s okay for you to become who you want to be.

[name], don’t tell me you’re trying to save [them / name] ?

which one of us is screwing around now ?

have you finally accepted yourself ?

why are you smiling ? with those injuries, in this situation … you’re crazy.

don’t blame me for what happens next.

just because something is powerful doesn’t mean it’s good.

what the heck is up with your class ?

hey, who won the match ?

you mean you didn’t have a plan ? you were just provoking them ?

you can’t be a pro hero if you’re injured every time you attack.

you’ve finally become a perfect upgrade of me.

after you graduate, come work for me.

i’ll lead you down the path of the mighty.

it’s not something that can be so easily reversed.

it’s just … back then … for that one moment … i forgot about you.

it’ll never be the same as it was before.

i don’t like your style of rubbing salt into people’s wounds.

i’m sorry i couldn’t do what you asked.

meddling when you don’t need to is the essence of being a hero.

you must find a way to use your power in a way that is not so self-destructive.

you think that someone else should be my successor ?

you know, i was quirkless too.

you have gone beyond what i imagined, time and time again.

you didn’t have enough guts, [name] !

you forgot i could do little tricks like this too, didn’t you ?

we’ll have to watch carefully, and get our revenge next time.

you guys haven’t even noticed this warped society covered with hypocrisy and vanity.

i’ll show you what happens when you make a fool of me !

there’s no point if i can’t get higher up than [name.]

didn’t i tell you there was no point, damn it ?!

i assume there is a reason you didn’t use your full power in the final ?

first place like this isn’t worth anything.

if you had come into surgery two minutes later, it would have been too late.

why do you want to see [name / me] now after all this time ?

i thought my presence would put pressure on you, so i never came to see you.

even if you don’t want it, i will rescue you from here.

i’ll support you, but that doesn’t mean i don’t worry.