#one of the few good ideas to be spawned out of this awful book

[bagea]

sketchbook dump part 1 of 2 because you can’t add more than 10 images on mobile (dumb) and i’m starting to feel exhausted and hating drawing in this small sketchbook, thankfully i’m pretty close to done

[vaguely-concerned]

I’m on a Star Wars books roll so here we go with my — unhinged thanks for asking! — thoughts on Dooku: Jedi Lost, specifically the audio play. Short version: I fucking loved this one! For maximum emotional devastation, pair with Master and Apprentice and Padawan the way my stupid ass did and then be sad about it forever I guess that's what I’m going to have to do.

 Long (LONG oopsie) version:

- So. First of all, let’s get the most important thing out of the way on this here old man yaoi website. We all agree dooku and sifo dyas explored each other’s bodies right. Or at least definitely would have if not for the laws of this order etc., potentially. That’s not just me. Good. Thank you. We can now move on 

- Secondly. Well. Guess I’m just going to be inconsolable about Sifo-Dyas forever now. I miss the days in which he was just a throwaway line in AotC spawned by a random misspelling to me, rather than an eternal raw aching wound in my heart

- poor poor ventress just reading through all the proof that dooku absolutely does have it in him to be a good dad I mean master and just — idk got tired of that and went the force lightning route with her. I love the move of having her dead master hang out with her all that time as well (having her slip up and refer to ‘us’ did something to me, god this is so sad. Is he actually there in spirit or is it just her grief dreaming him up because dooku is awful and cold as a cliff  wall and she needs some kind of attachment figure even if she’ll have to reinvent him herself, rebuild him word for word, gesture by gesture. Pain. sorry about your terrible track record with father figures asajj) 

- Lene: (About Averross): He hasn’t changed. 

Dooku: (In the warmest fondest voice you ever heard) And I hope he never does

WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH MYSELF? MUST I SET MYSELF ON FIRE TO ESCAPE THE PAIN???

Another strong showing for Rael in general, btw. He’s so warm and charming as a presence even though he’s also a little chaos gremlin. (He’s quite similar to how Sifo-Dyas was when he was young in some ways, I can definitely start to see what Dooku responds warmly to in terms of character traits.) 

- the fact that good ol’ sheev showed an interest in rael, dooku and anakin… interesting huh! He’s just got a soft spot for the disaster lineage I suppose, maybe there’s an element there of luring yoda’s most direct lineage into the dirt with him without yoda even noticing for the longest time. Also cackling at the idea that he looked at qui-gon ‘too fucking stubborn and insufferable to fall to the dark side out of sheer spite’ jinn and went ‘...not that one tho’ fhdskjfa. And obi-wan is more like ‘that one blorbo all my little guys seem wild about but I just don’t get it guys’ 

IF rael’s refusal to join dooku at the end of ‘master and apprentice’ is the last word (which I am not convinced of ;___; be safe cowboy jedi we never see in mainline canon so far), then he’s the only one who has dodged palpatine’s attentions. Wonderful if true love that for him

ALSO rael is one of the few people we know to be on (or at least to consider himself on despite what palps might think lol) first name basis with palpatine. Hilarious. I concur with dooku never change rael 

- Sifo-Dyas: That’s insane. 

Dooku, deadpan: Yes.

Sifo-Dyas: The worst plan I’ve ever heard.

Dooku, somehow even more deadpan: Most probably. 

Sifo-Dyas: I’m in. 

Crying… weeping and dying………… what if someone could have helped sifo with his unfortunate prophecy propensity and they hadn’t drifted apart. Clone Wars averted methinks if dooku still ended up leaving the order he would have been too busy having tender gay sex with the love of his life (and only person who can call him out on his shit and have him actually listen) to be a war criminal (I am being extremely facetious of course this is very much a ‘time traveler killing baby hitler’ situation where the underlying forces causing this point in history are way too powerful to avert the catastrophe in one move. but at least palps would probably have had to pick someone else to wreck the galaxy through and sifo-dyas would be kissed & held instead of going slowly mad. A net plus some (I, me) would say) 

- I just wanted to applaud both the writing and the voice acting for the characterization of Dooku in this, from his young self trying so hard to be haughty and self-possessed but also being like, y’know, twelve and a dweeb and easy for Sifo-Dyas to pull into trouble, to the dry wit and warmth he shows with Rael and Qui-Gon or his sister later. It took me a little while to get into the voice acting specifically (the actor makes no attempt at going the full Christopher Lee, which in hindsight was probably wise), but now I love it. It gets a bit goofy in places but you know what, I am a long time lover of audio plays, that’s part of the charm 

- “Master, have I done something wrong?”

My heart is clenching… do you think… that master yoda’s deal with leaving his student to try fucking everything to have some kind of relationship with him until he just breaks down in tears of despair… is the kind of thing that maybe started a little bit of a generational trauma cartwheel through the ages. The point that bb!dooku is arrogant isn’t without merit and he strikes out incredibly ungracefully about it (in fact I would be a lot more worried than yoda seems to be that he decides to try to kill a tree about it, ‘I felt like destroying something beautiful’-style)  but I just don’t think a… fourteen year old? A teen anyway, Is going to learn what you think he learns from this. I simply don’t believe that silent treatmenting kids will teach them emotional intelligence I guess especially if they already struggle with that naturally lol 

(It is exactly the same mistake (in my opinion) that Qui-Gon makes with Obi-Wan, too, just leaving the kid completely alone and forcing them to come to you every which way for comfort or guidance instead of meeting them or reaching out to them. Especially once you see that really Dooku’s prime emotion/big core wound right from the beginning is loneliness. And that doesn’t only come from a feeling of superiority (which to be sure is also a big factor), because he has no idea where he comes from until he meets his sister. I don’t think the jedi as a whole were unsalvageable by any stretch of the imagination, but Yoda specifically… you are on such very thin ice with me at this point you little green fuck. You’re very funny and moving in yoda dark rendezvous and that’s all that’s keeping you in my somewhat good graces.)

- Okay, coming back a bit later I think I’ve found the right words to say this. more precisely dooku has two big issues which you can later see haunting all the way down his lineage — loneliness and control. (and not incidentally the intersecting elements of the two haha.) We see from his relationship to sifo-dyas that he’s not incapable of having close mutual relationships with an equal, but that kind of crashed and burned for reasons neither of them could really help and after that it seems quite telling that he has the easiest time with deeper connection in a teacher-student sort of form. I think his affection is unconditional and real, but you can’t get away from the fact that he also has the most control in that relationship structure by default, he gets to dictate what form it takes to a big extent. He doesn’t trust other people — the underlying idea ‘Only I can do this’ that eventually leads him down the Separatist path is there the whole way. It speaks both to a sense of superiority and an utter lack of faith that other people can or will help him. And then that echoes down through the master-padawan line: 

Qui-Gon with his self-righteousness and utter refusal to compromise leaving him isolated among the jedi (only he is right. Yeah the Force told him so. Don’t worry I’ve got a permit *insert parks and rec I can do whatever I want meme here*), Obi-Wan with his anxiety and perfectionism and incredible sense of shame and responsibility that he should be able to carry the whole world on his shoulders alone and beating himself up for failing, all feeding into not knowing what to do with Anakin and his complete lack of control of himself and his desperation to gain and maintain connection and love (which earns him the title of ‘Dooku’s least favorite family member’ fhdsa his immediate disdain for him is so funny and so in character. Repress and go slowly mad like a normal person anakin the way you’re carrying on is just undignified and that is much worse than being evil)… 

- Rael gently telling Dooku to take on another padawan soon… so sweet, so sad, local cowboy jedi looking out for his dad. Also highlights something about Dooku I think is true: that he does much better and seems to have an easier time holding to the light when he’s responsible for someone else. Again, I do feel like Dooku’s core problem is loneliness, but it seems like raising kids is the one point where that relaxes somewhat. Maybe if Sifo-Dyas had stayed in a better mental place and they kept in touch it could have been different.

- Lene Kostana is SUCH a character! Charismatic and deeply fucked up, when it’s revealed how her and Sifo-Dyas’ relationship remains long after his padawan stage is done I felt a little bit sick, to my surprise. Because that could just be kindness on her part, of course, it’s good that he has someone he trusts to look after him when he can’t himself, but also there’s something… queasy about the way it keeps him continually young, in a way. (Notably he still calls her ‘master’ even as an adult, when they’re working together. Not uncommon in Star Wars, of course, but together with everything else going on vibes-wise… hm.) The inherent unreliable narration of this story really worked for me in this regard especially — do we know that young Dooku was entirely wrong when he sensed the dark side in her? She certainly is willing to go to lengths that are… worrying! in her fascination with sith shit, she tempted children into a dangerous place they didn’t understand and couldn’t know the consequences of and she continually puts sifo-dyas in situations that are implied to be a risk to worsening his condition. Run of the mill incredibly irresponsible at best, sincerely sinister at worst. Did she choose Sifo over Dooku because he’s more vulnerable and shapeable? There is an undercurrent of something icky and emotionally incest-y going on with how she relates to Dooku and Sifo-Dyas in general (right down to the ‘NO, no one can know about this’ intensity after the… evil moss cave. I can’t believe I’m this emotional about a book with an evil moss cave). I don’t think she’s a proper sith in any way and I also believe there is real affection there on all sides, but idk something about the whole thing makes me deeply uneasy. Yoda where the fuck are you your son is out there with his irresponsible mom again they’re looking for dirty needles in haystacks and they’re not even wearing any gloves

- dooku telling sifo-dyas he can come back to haunt him if he likes as a joke… well well well I’m sure that doesn’t ring with some dramatic irony at some point down the line lmao

- honestly looking back at master and apprentice after reading jedi lost makes qui-gon's apparent lack of reaction to dooku leaving seem — let's call it highly suspect haha. rael asks him if he's spoken to dooku after and qui-gon is like 'no. why would I. it's literally fine. anyway this topic is done now'. (and rael seems to just go ‘*older brotherly knowing* uh-huh’) meanwhile he's thinking about dooku *all the time* trying to figure out his role as master to obi-wan, thinking about being a padawan himself, the parts of his life he shared with both dooku and rael. The jedi doth protest too much methinks  

ALSO how much of qui-gon thinking the council was too lenient with rael after he had to kill his padawan is about that actual situation, and how much is a ‘our family still likes my older brother more than me even though he Fucked Up so bad and breaks just as many rules as I do’ sort of deal mixed with his own neuroses about how he’s failing obi-wan (to which rael’s situation symbolizes the worst possible outcome, i.e. the kid dies and it’s basically your fault). Many thoughts. 

- moment of silence for jenza of house serenno. Girl your only sin was being surrounded by asshole male family members and I’m so sorry I think you did all you could with what you had to work with here.

Not… entirely sure how dooku’s claim to the title supersedes hers — is he a year older than her? (she’s eleven when they first meet, he might be twelve or older at that point I don’t remember haha) Does she just give up her place in the inheritance order? Are primogeniture and male heir preference factors in Serenno inheritance law? Not the most important thing honestly it works anyway thematically but could have been clarified quickly!

- interesting to see that the council’s restrictive policy against engaging with prophecies had a surprisingly big impact on how things went down. Kostana has a lot of responsibility in Sifo’s fate for insisting he keep it secret, but there is genuine fear for what might become of him if the rest of the order finds out he’s got 24/7 futurevision hovering over him threateningly… listen it’s not like the poor guy can help getting the future constantly pumped into his brain at nightmare resolutions, I think maybe if there had been more willingness to at least engage curiously with the concept of prophecy and how it works, even if you don’t put your faith in the particulars of what the prophecies say, this wouldn’t have had to be such a shitty isolated secretive life for him. hearing him slowly fall apart over the years considering how bright and lovely he started out... oof is all I can say 

- when dooku was a good jedi he was such a good jedi!!! The scene where they’re saving the kids from the collapsing hospital, every time he teaches his students anything…the impulse of someone has to do something about this! that made him so good at saving lives turning dark with the tarnish of frustration and rage over the years… nooooooooo problematic grandpa why did it have to be like this :(

- …do you think infant jedi can sense what’s going on around them in the Force. Because it makes a very sad kind of sense if dooku on some level remembers bodily or in the Force that he was not only abandoned but rejected in disgust as one of the first things he discovered in the world. Oh boy. With all the ways attachment relationships can go wonky in the first few years in real life I don’t even want to consider how much more wrong it can go when the baby is fucking psychic lol

- vaguely related: the way dooku seems to find the very idea of being truly reliant on anyone, emotionally or otherwise, personally offensive, terrifying and humiliating lol. Yoda saves him from being crushed by rubble and he is outraged because that means he can’t save himself (and his newfound sister) without anyone’s help like he thought for one glorious moment he could. The fantasy of perfect emotional self-sufficiency, doing away with all the messiness and risk of interpersonal relationships and cutting off the possibility of really being abandoned again. It’ll get ya every time. This is also a thing you see reflected in his lineage — they’re all quite inward-turning that way until you get to anakin, to different extents and with varying presentations but it is there I think. Qui-Gon turns to the Force, Obi-Wan to perfectionism and shame and rumination, Rael to the bottle and depression and hedonistic apathy, but they all struggle hugely with letting anyone in to help them. Dooku’s line are all much more comfortable being the helpers rather than the helpees, as it were.  

- “Thank you for everything, Lene. Tell Rael and Qui-Gon — tell them… tell them the Force will be with them, always”

Emotional terrorism against me specifically and personally. You asshole you just excused yourself from the non-attachment rules there’s literally nothing in the world except you to stop you from reaching out and telling your children you love them yOURSELF why are you like this

- the recurring theme of dooku seeing something beautiful (the tree in the temple, the tirra’taka as a child and an adult) and ending up lashing out to destroy it… but the tree was old and mighty and he was young and new and couldn’t truly harm it, so he was saved from his own impulsivity. And then when he sees the tirra’taka as an adult he loves it immediately. And in the end he still mangles and destroys it. He didn’t mean to, but he did. He woke it up and hurt it just by existing as a child and then he had to kill it as a mercy because he was too powerful at that point for anything to buffer his mistakes. The parallel with the bird he loved that he also couldn’t protect. He starts out with an aching loneliness somewhere at the core of him through no real fault of his own but by the end it is entirely his own fault that it’s worse, because he starts wrecking everything he loves in an almost absent-minded but definitely intentional way, like it’s a nightmare he’s listening to through the door as it happens in the next room over. He really IS the ‘I just felt like destroying something beautiful’ central of the jedi.

at the end qui-gon is dead and through dooku’s own influence, however indirectly. Rael has had to turn away from him. Sifo-Dyas is dead on Dooku’s own orders and so is his sister, he might as well have done it with his own hands. (though I think it’s very interesting that in each case he didn’t do it with his own hands, he consistently uses a middleman.) He lives within the coldness of his sterile empty castle and horrifically mistreats the one person he might have found something like connection with the way he did with his students before (Ventress), deliberately trapping her in a similar state of utter desolate isolation and telling her, essentially, ‘We’re like this as people and nothing can be done to change it. We can’t escape, we’re already doomed, stop trying, it’s too late. You are just like me (and if you aren't already I'll make you like me)’. And that’s the closest thing he gets to love anymore. When he accused Ky of using her ‘as a salve for his own loneliness’ and you’re like well well well mr projection man how’s that working out for you. He is completely, shatteringly alone and he is so entirely as a consequence of his own actions and he's too far gone to understand or care. I’m howling you useless fucking FOOL dooku  

- dooku 🤝 john gaius

“Hm. I have observed that there are in fact many flaws in our society and the government is deeply corrupt. So if I kill a few billion people here and there in order to fix it, is that not basically okay when you really think about it” 

Dooku making salient points about the political and ethical failures of the Republic and then, just when you think he’s onto something, he goes and makes The wildest fucking decisions about what to do about it. Sure. dark magic and genocide are probably the only ways out of this you’re so right bro. If we make enough minuses to add together surely we’ll end up in plus sooner or later

- *head in my hands once more* I can’t believe I am genuinely emotionally invested in someone called Count Dooku with the looks of a knockoff dracula and ultimate moral character to match right now this is terrible. hey. hey dooks. what you have to go and fuck everything up so bad for huh I’m so incredibly sad now

there is something to be said about how getting to see glimpses of what dooku looked like in the light makes it so much more heartwrenching that he never came back. he could have, a thousand times. and every time he chose not to.

[cubitodragon-moved]

Forever actively hiding his shadow infection worries and upsets me - in that good ‘how dare you rp your character so well’ way CC!Forever brings to the table, of course. (Some of it is also due to meta changes and the Purgatory event being that weird “is it/isn’t it RP relevant?” blurred line, but either way…)

A thing we all need to appreciate is that none of the other Islanders are aware this is even a thing. As far as anyone is concerned, seeing WB012 at the Green reshuffle meeting was the first time the majority had seen it at all. And questions about that went unanswered when they asked the Worker about it, likely thanks to the Watcher’s influence. (They also never saw them leave, and never saw them die thanks to being booted for maintenance. Goodnight sweet WB012, we hardly knew ye.)

But wait, Farli, didn’t people who attended the Guy Fawkes night mini-event see the state Forever was in? Yes, some of them did! And of those present, only Bad actively noticed and openly queried about his extensive injuries, which Forever tried to brush off and defer to explaining ‘later’. The rest simply assumed he was a wreck after being in the Nether for a month —Which, you know. Valid— before all getting distracted by blowing up buildings and setting things on fire.

One can’t fault our beloved cubitos for being easily distracted by things like that.

By the end of the mini-event, Forever had pulled an Irish Goodbye and wandered off to check out Cucuruchito, wander the server, and go back to his mega base. Others logging in didn’t see the state he was in, as he wasn’t there.

Forever had planned to speak with both Philza and Bad privately about what happened - except his PC died in RL. One way I choose to view that unlucky circumstance is thus: his body just forces him to pass out from sheer stress and exhaustion. And that promised ‘Later’ never comes.

The next time anyone sees Forever, he’s in a new skin, burns and scars and infection covered up, and Forever looking tired but somewhat better (for a given value of better). It’d be easy to think “oh the black stuff probably just washed off”, never mind that most people there at Spawn had no idea there was any black gunk on him in the first place.

And then cinematics and server shuffling and the Purgatory event happen. Teams happen. An awful week of awfulness divides friends and made thinking about what happened before Purgatory irrelevant in the face of needing to survive.

Forever is a man who doesn’t share his hurts openly, emotionally or otherwise, bottles things up to an alarming degree until he explodes. He puts others far far far ahead of his own well-being. He’s the sort who wants people to notice and care, but also doesn’t want anyone worrying about him. He has the unreasonable expectation as a people pleaser that he needs to do this by himself. What other people don’t know won’t hurt them, only him.

It’s not like anyone else can do anything about it. So why worry them needlessly, when saving the eggs is the priority?

He’s still covered up. Still hiding the shadow infection. And while he’s now on a team that has a few more people he’s relaxed around and has some trust in, we also have little under one week left of being stuck in Purgatory. For all there are long moments of alone time while preparing for the day, there’s few opportunities for privacy right now, where confiding in someone might happen.

When Forever next gets to rest and check himself over, will the infection have spread? Will someone else see and put 2+2 together - and potentially get a 5? Is the infection why he’ll be able to use the Judas book at all when that time comes?

I don’t know. I’m worried. Especially if the infection could potentially be infectious to others….We’ll have to wait and see.

[nereidprinc3ss]

sam, I can't figure you out. and it drives me crazy. you're like an enigma that I can't seem to solve. i'm in awe of how your mind works because, on one hand, you say you don't read books that often but then, you have like broadest vocabulary I've seen in someone your age. which doesn't make sense because there must be something that feeds your mind and vocabulary because it's not like the words just spawn in your mind out of nowhere. do you listen to podcasts? or listen to too much music? maybe you read articles instead? and then you once said you're terrible at maths but there have been mathematical analogies in your fics multiple times. there's a discrepancy here. please end my mawing curiosity and enlighten me 👉 🎤

First of all this is REALLY boosting my ego so thank you I appreciate that and this is going to make me sound so annoying so I’m putting a read more

I read more when I was younger. I was never like a super voracious reader but words have always interested me and I liked knowing what they meant. To get into the gifted program where I grew up you had to be IQ tested and when they did my verbal IQ it was high and I don’t have any better explanation for why the literary and vocab stuff has always just clicked for me. There were very few words I couldn’t discern the meaning of through context and pattern recognition but as you get older and start learning more words there are plenty you can’t figure out based on context because they don’t appear that often and unless you have some sort of degree in etymology you probably won’t be able to figure out by looking at the root of the word and trying to understand it from there (although I will never stop trying🙏🙏) so I started looking up every word I came across that I didn’t know the meaning of and writing it and its definition down because the idea of NOT knowing what words mean makes me claustrophobic lol!! I learn words the way a doomsday prepper stocks canned goods it’s like compulsive and also my family all have expansive vocabularies so even when I’m not reading I’m learning words from them, but two books I can tell you right now I read within the past two years and got a lot of vocab from were Prozac Nation by Elizabeth wurtzel and Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov. Like you don’t have to read that much to get a lot out of what you do read

Also the math stuff…… math does NOT come easily to me and if I put in effort I can excel but it requires a very specific kind of teacher and a lot of time and energy from me which I HATE dedicating time and energy to things! I want to be immediately and naturally perfect at them!! I also had a huge mental block about math when I was in elementary school and convinced myself I couldn’t do it and I’ve dealt with a lot of genuine humiliation from my teachers for not being naturally good at math so I have absolutely no good associations with it but I’m being brave and taking a math class next quarter.

As for the math analogies…. Google is a beautiful thing….. I literally look up stuff like “what is the most mathematically complex shape” or “list of mathematical paradoxes” or “unsolved math problems” and I can paraphrase them for a fic but if you want me to explain y= mx+b??? Eulers number??? I’m cooked

[sparklepocalypse]

🥑☁️🐝🎨 please.💜

🥑 ⇢ you accidentally killed somebody, which mutual(s) do you text for help?

I'd get in touch with @cha-melodius for her anatomical knowledge (y'know, maybe I can resuscitate whoever it is?) and @happiness-of-the-pursuit for his legal expertise, in the likely event that the resuscitation doesn't work.

☁️ ⇢ what made you choose your username?

You know, I've had this username since about 2010, and I honestly can't remember the backstory. I'm fairly sure it has something to do with some sort of arts and crafts project and then-untreated ADHD, though...

🐝 ⇢ tag your biggest supporter(s) and say one nice thing about them

This might get long, so I'll come back to this one and toss it under a jump. 🤣😅

🎨 ⇢ link your favourite piece of fanart and explain why you like it

You know, prior to the latest RWRB zine being published, I wouldn't have been able to narrow it down to just one, but this JC Leyendecker-inspired piece by @artofobsession is possibly my favorite piece of fanart that's ever been created. It's just -- even nearly a month after it was first posted, it causes beauty aggression in me and I just want to bite it because it's so pretty and glowy and ethereal and lovely and they're just so blushy and so into one another. It's the first fanart print I've ordered in years, and it's going to go on my wall of ephemeral pretty things with my Lindsay van Ekelenburg art and my various tarot card prints from Kickstarter decks.

[Send me emoji from the Writers Truth & Dare Ask Game and I'll answer the corresponding questions!]

Aight, back to 🐝 ⇢ tag your biggest supporter(s) and say one nice thing about them

I mean, obviously I'm tagging you first, @ad-astra13, because you're the Most Excellent of Doc Gremlins and your flailing in my Google Docs has been so, so motivating. Your fiber work is really cool and creative! I'm always intrigued to see which project you'll take on next.

And then there's @hgejfmw-hgejhsf, who even with a bunch of stuff going on IRL still takes the time to DM me a screenshot when someone has recced one of my fics, which -- warm fuzzies just everywhere. Val is one of the sweetest, most deeply passionate RWRB fans I have ever met, and her encyclopedic knowledge of all things book and movie have come in handy on like, dozens of occasions in the few months since I've gotten to know her.

@kiwiana-writes and I basically have the same brain in different bodies on different continents, the vibe is so consistent. Half the time I read his work it feels like it could've emerged from my brain instead of his, and now it turns out he's a pretty gifted songwriter too? Incredible, awe-inspiring, iconic, etc.

@artofobsession and I have a Spider-Man meme thing going on where I yell at Hann about their art, and they yell at me about my writing, and it's just a never-ending cycle of yelling. Pretty amazing to consider that I was Too Scared To Say Hi ™️ for awhile there, because I'm a big ol' introvert. Regardless of what Hann's got going on, I've never read an unkind word that's emerged from their keyboard, and they're super well-spoken and yeah, really glad I started making unhinged bulleted lists of art reviews as a way to break the ice, because they're good people.

Speaking of Spider-Man memes, @seanchaidh7 and I have also been Spider-Manning back and forth these last few months. She's created some really, really incredible art for my Big Giant AU, and just genuinely seems like a cool person. I'm happy we stumbled across each other in this fandom!

@duchessdepolignaca03 is one of the best unhinged idea riffers I've met. She deserves at least partial credit for the idea for my RBB fic, because a simple "fic where [x]" message can lead to a thread of dozens (or hundreds) of messages back and forth just flinging ideas out there to further the prompt. Half the time the riff is all that happens, but occasionally, the riff spawns something way bigger.

And there are folks who either I haven't found on Tumblr, or who left Tumblr behind in like 2013 and haven't looked back -- super grateful for everyone who's enabling my weird little brain to do the thing!

[mysticstarlightduck]

10. Has a piece of writing ever “haunted” you? Has your own writing haunted you? What does that mean to you?

35. What’s your favorite writing rule to smash into smithereens?

Thank you so much for the tag, @starlit-hopes-and-dreams!!!!

10.Has a piece of writing ever “haunted” you? Has your own writing haunted you? What does that mean to you?

Well, in the negative sense of "haunting", I guess I am haunted by bad backstory ideas I've scribbled on a blank document at nearly midnight and that I look back at and physically cringe at the thought. But that's it - I try to write with the mindset that there isn't any bad writing, just things that can be edited later on. That has helped me a lot with my issues with perfectionism!

Now, in a positive sense of "haunting", when I get an idea I'm really, really excited about writing and thinking about, that idea follows me throughout the day - and if I'm lucky it'll grow into a writeable concept and spawn more of those ideas! So it's like a nice, curious little ghost "haunting" the back of my mind and giving me exciting new ideas to work on throughout the day! Lately, that spot has belonged to Augustus & Harriet's love story arc from my WIP Enchanted Illusions, and Evangeline Daemitya's backstory (+ family lore) from the same WIP.

35. What’s your favorite writing rule to smash into smithereens?

I'm not sure about which writing rule I love to ignore because my writing process is as chaotic and messy and weird as it gets - sometimes a rule that may be useless for one moment in a specific story might become my lifeline later on in the same WIP. It really depends!

However, I do know which writing tropes I love to smash, obliterate, and subvert in my stories though! (Disclaimer - My dislike for these tropes is based on my personal opinion and feelings towards them. If any of you like these tropes, that's okay too!!)

To name a few:

The Bad/Absent Father Trope - Look, I love writing some family drama as much as the next writer, but this trope has been overdone to the moon and back, especially in fantasy stories. So instead, I like to give my characters good and present father figures instead, dads who are a part of the characters' lives and want to keep them safe.

Evangeline's backstory was written with the main intent of subverting this trope - her main parent has always been her dad, who is very loving and present in her life - and is actively a part of it - having raised her basically by himself.

Miscommunication - By this, I mean miscommunication that wouldn't actually happen if the characters were being themselves and not just tools to advance the plot - especially if the plot depends on that one miscommunication to cause a big falling out with no other reason than the author wanting it to happen. I don't vibe with that.

Dark and Edgy Magic User who also happens to be an Awful Love Interest - I have a personal bone to pick with this one after some books I've recently read. If I'm going to write someone with the powers of darkness or death or the supernatural as a love interest, you can bet I'm making them secretly or openly be the dorkiest most supportive, "weird little gremlin energy" partner one could ever hope to meet. Yes, they may be chaotic murder hobos when it comes to defeating bad people/killing their enemies, but damn if they're not cheering on and being hopelessly in love with their SO! (Gomez and Morticia style!!!!) - just out of spite for the things I've read. This got very specific - I say as I look to my OC Augustus, the necromancer who fell for a (supposedly) normal girl who is also deeply weird herself. 👀

[s0leander]

Boyfriend Material - Alexis Hall (2020)

This book has been compared to Red, White and Royal Blue on a few occasions in book circles, and frankly I do not understand how anyone would come to that conclusion. Everything about this book reads like a bad fanfiction or roleplay session someone wrote when they were twelve. From the one dimensional stereotypical characters, to the confusing prose (if you can even call it that at this point) the tired tropes and idea soup, it is more similar to an old "crack fic" you'd find on fanfiction.net.

The writing itself is bland and often confusing when it isn't downright boring. Thoughts that aren't spoken aloud are written in quotations right next to things that are said out loud. Two characters share a name (James Royce-Royce) with no distinction between the two in scenes where they both have dialogue. It's atrocious and- while I don't wish to rain on anyone's parade -I cannot fathom how this book has so much praise. Did all our brain cells collectively die out before we could review it or did people simply put the book down and walk away, trying to will it from our minds? There seems to be more focus on the comedic aspect of the book that I almost want to think that Alexis Hall wrote this in order to troll us all.

Let's start with Luc O'Donnell, our all-too-angsty protagonist who is reminiscent of a teenager with severe self worth and mental health issues. If an asshole is aware that they are an asshole does that make them any less of one or more of an asshole? If I had to answer in the case of Luc I'd easily choose the latter. He spends most of the book hating himself, making crude jokes, being an all around nightmare to be around, and talking to the reader as opposed to interacting with the man he apparently falls in love with. Luc's also the son of two 80's rockstars, I guess? His father walked out on them as a child which is most of what he bases his dreadful personality on. It's also a major plot point at one time in the book all the way up until it isn't anymore with no real climax or denouement, which is quite unfortunate because if this book had any depth at all it would have been interesting but that is sort of the theme with Boyfriend Material.

Oliver Blackwood is the only saving grace of this book (for the most part). He's a lot like if a singular normal person with far too much patience was put on a reality TV show with the most ridiculous people you've ever met. The stark contrast between him and all the other characters gives me whiplash at the very best of times. His vast vocabulary proves that Hall can write somewhat interesting sentiments without using yassified dated internet terminology and simply chooses not to.

All of the characters, specifically Luc's friends, some form of stereotype and have no real value in the story aside from taking up space and doing whatever Luc needs them to do for him at any given time. All of his friends have somewhat elaborate backstories that are never really expanded upon beyond getting mentioned every now and again in passing. He often ignores other characters unless he can get something out of it or needs something from them (this briefly changes and then continues on subtly) and only hyper fixates on Oliver because he can instead base his worth on a man which is inherently toxic. Luc's boss is every stereotype of a person on the autism spectrum thrown into one. The list goes on.

The vast majority of this book consists of one character being awful to everyone around him, especially the man he supposedly fancies while the latter just allows it to go on. There's no real pining, no significant conflict, no relationship building or anything to denote a true enemies to lovers arc or even a strangers to lovers arc. There is no build up to their relationship, it simply spawns up out of seemingly nowhere after Luc spends a good chunk of the book being in half assed denial about his feelings and Oliver just continues to be a semi-regular guy who's just sort of along for the ride. Why in the world is this book 400+ pages aside from the fact that the author clearly picked several ideas out of a hat and just ran with it, stringing it along together as they went?

I'm not even going to get started on how and why this book is problematic because the one star reviews before mine have done a fantastic job of illustrating that point. The concept is intriguing but the overall story felt like one long slow walk towards nothing and I am genuinely glad that it's over.

[dismal-alien-darling]

The Gentle Heart of the Monster

Alcina Dimitrescu x female reader 

Bela, Cassandra and Daniela Dimitrescu 

Summary: Lady Dimitrescu and her daughers take care of a very pregnant reader. 

Warnings/tags: pregnancy, slight pregnancy kink, talk of impregnation, some sexiness, Lady D and her daughters are so caring, personal attention, caring for a pregnant woman, wholesomeness

A/n: For the sake of the fic Alcina carried and birthed her daughters so she has extensive knowledge on vampire babies/pregnancy. Let’s say they are fraternal triplets to make things simple. No father involved just witchy baby magic just let me have this please! 

y/n=your name

b/n=future baby’s name 

“Ugh! You’re close to overstaying your welcome b/n!” you groaned as b/n gave your ribs a firm kick. You were seven months pregnant with still two months to go and you were over being pregnant. As if being pregnant wasn’t hard enough, having a human-vampire spawn growing inside of you was an entirely different animal. Alcina had come to you with the request of you carrying her next child a few years after you had come to live in the castle. You started as a servant, then her personal hand maid, then her lover and now her brood mare. Lady Dimitrescu would have trusted no one else to carry her next child. You had initially refused her request. You deeply loved Alcina but not enough to have some Dimitrescu man rut you like a rabbit in heat. Lady Dimitrescu had laughed, given you a very sly look and then explained how the conception would happen. You had listened mouth agape closing it after Alcina was done explaining. When you were told SHE would be the one impregnating you your decision instantly changed to a resounding yes. The rest was history. 

“B/n hurting my dove again?” Alcina cooed kneeling down to take your shoes off. You grumbled in response. You had spent most of your pregnancy in one of the lounge rooms upstairs. It had the most comfortable chairs in the castle accompanied by equally comfortable foot rests. It had a fireplace and an adjacent balcony with a lovely outside dinette set. The doors leading to the balcony were made of glass so you got plenty of sunshine and had easy access to fresh air. Lady Dimitrescu had joined you every day as often as she could in your little sanctuary. She would often read in the chair across from you, rub your feet, neck, shoulders and back or you would curl up in her lap so you and her could caress your growing bump. Even the first two months your pregnancy had been challenging due to the circumstances. You had been around countless pregnant women in your old village and none of their pregnancies resembled yours, in some aspects yes but most aspects no. 

“B/n, you little shit, stop hurting your mother,”Alcina chastised the baby inside you. You chuckled. It always made you laugh when Alcina and the girls would talk and vaguely threaten b/n. Alcina sat on the floor, placing your shoes to the side and began rubbing your feet with her inhumanly strong hands. You sighed in relief. You settled further into the chair placing your hands on your stomach as b/n continued their assault on your insides. 

“Ow fuck!” you cried as b/n dragged their foot along the length of your stomach as if they were trying to rip your skin. You sat up doubling over. 

“My dear sweet y/n,” Alcina said placing a comforting hand on your head stroking your head. She glared at your stomach and as if the baby could see her terrifying glare b/n finally settled and stopped moving. You lifted your head and slumped back into the chair. Alcina gave you a delicate smile and continued to rub your sore feet. 

“I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up my lady,” you confessed tears forming in your eyes. 

“I know I know dear one. Growing a vampire baby is a daunting task. The girls were fist fighting even in the womb and look at them now! Ah, but alas my body was more than equipped to handle the pregnancy.” Alcina admitted. She had been in her same form she was now when she had been pregnant with her triplet girls. You however, were still a feeble human so just one vampire-human baby was more than enough for you. 

“I’m so weak and fragile I’m too-” you were cut off by Alcina placing a hand on your stomach. 

“My dove don’t start...” Lady Dimitrescu trailed off. You simply nodded in response wiping your eyes. You hated how emotional you had become. Alcina hated when you tore yourself apart especially now since you were carrying her fourth child. Alcina and you had discussed the mechanics of what a vampire pregnancy would entail making sure you were fully aware of what was ahead of you. You accepted the task because you would literally die for Alcina Dimitrescu. You had also discussed that if b/n were to almost kill you coming out she would turn you no questions asked. 

“Would you like me to rub your neck and back draga mea?” Alcina asked breaking your recollections. You nodded leaning forward as Alcina moved behind the chair. She could fully sit on the floor and still be tall enough to reach your neck and back comfortably. “You look so beautiful cel mic, I love how you look with your child growing inside you, our child. I must admit I’m going to miss you looking like this when b/n arrives,” Alcina fawned as you gave her hand a quick squeeze. “If you weren’t hurting sweet one I would take you right here and now,” Alcina purred into your ear. You twisted your neck meeting your lips with hers. During the first few months Alcina hadn’t held back making love to you in your early stages but now you were too sore to entertain the idea.

“You flatter me so Alcina,” you said licking her lips before deepening your kiss. Alcina reached down snaking her hand over your belly rubbing it softly. She moved her hand and ever so gently touched your swollen breasts. “Oh my dear lady,” you moaned into her lips. Lady Dimitrescu moved her hand down your stomach again and was just passing your hips when the doors to the lounge room flew open. You and Alcina jumped apart breaking your tender moment. 

“LUNCH TIME!” Bela announced pushing a tray full of delicious food and snacks. Her sisters followed in behind her pushing another tray of herbs and drinks. 

“Oh thank you my loves,” you thanked as Bela, Cassandra and Daniela presented the spread to you. Cassandra began mixing the herbs into a liquid which she poured into your tea. It was mix of supplements and pain relievers. You gladly gulped the tea as the almost instant effects settled into your aching body. 

“I have water, more tea, juice and milk,” Cassandra offered. 

“Thank you Cassandra just set it down for the moment,” you said. 

“So you have bread, that’s...feta and brie cheese, tomato slices, ham, salami, fresh basil, I picked it myself,”Bela boasted.

“But I have grapes, strawberries, almonds, roasted chicken and chocolate cake,” Daniela boasted back glaring at Bela. Since you had been pregnant the girls had been competing to see who could take care of you better. 

“You’re feeling better aren’t you y/n because of my herbal mixture right?” Cassandra asked pushing past her sisters. 

“I can rub your feet!” Bela offered kneeling down and getting right to work. 

“Well I can rub your neck and shoulders,” Daniela barked bulldozing her mother out of the way. Alcina looked sternly at her daughter in response. 

“You two didn’t ask her what she really wants! What would you like me to do for you and b/n y/n?” Cassandra asked sweetly. Alcina could see her daughters were overwhelming you. 

“GIRLS!” Alcina bellowed making all three girls freeze. “You’re going to make y/n go into early labor if you don’t quiet down.” Alcina continued in a low and deadly voice. You spoke up to diffuse the situation. 

“My lovely caring girls. All three-four of you,” you started looking up at Lady Dimitrescu, “are doing a wonderful job taking care of me and b/n. You all have made this pregnancy so much easier for me and I don’t know how I’ll ever be able repay the countless hours you’ve devoted to us.” You finished eyes welling up with tears for a different reason this time. 

“AWE Y/N!” The girls squealed in delight as they gathered around you hugging you lovingly but gently because they knew if they were the slightest bit too rough with you mother would have their necks. You gave them each a kiss on their heads eliciting even more squealing. You glanced over at Alcina who had a single tear running down her face. She quickly wiped it away and cleared her throat. 

“I can clearly see you and b/n are well taken care of here so I’m assuming I’m not needed,” Lady Dimitrescu teased. You rolled your eyes as the girls removed themselves from you. 

“Oh no my lady, you’re job is to be the most beautiful view for me,” you teased back as Alcina leaned down kissing you chastely. “Now my angels you can each take turns rubbing my feet and then when I’m finished eating you can take turns rubbing my neck, shoulders and back. Does that sound like a good plan to all of you?” You finished with a feigned tone of exasperation. 

“Yes!” The girls said in delight and just before they could bicker about who was to go first you exclaimed “Bela you can be first, then Cassandra and then Daniela and that was the order that popped up in my head,” you assured before any of their feelings could be hurt. Bela knelt down again as her sisters sat on the floor waiting their turn. Alcina walked over to the chair opposite you and picked up her book from where she had left it the other day. She took a seat admiring the beautiful picture of her pregnant lover and her three daughters so eager to attend her. 

[lfc21]

Work stress

A relationship. That was the one thing any girl urged to have, something that was worth the world. A relationship was a bundle of love between two people who have the possibility and power to take on the universe as one. No one needs the big dates with fancy clothes and expensive drinks but it dosent hurt to have the odd few, does it? You where in awe of kostas and had no doubt in your mind that this wouldnt be something to make countless memories from. The days together where yours to decided upon and create with love and affection. None of this was planned but it held such spontaneous beauty and lust.

Today was a normal day - work, work even more and than slightly more work. Kostas hated how much you worked even though he knew how much you truly adored it. You and kostas had very similar aspirations in life and alot of them spawned from your careers. Kostas was a world and a half away from understanding what you do at work but he was always there to support and appreciate you.

"Hey love" you shouted from your office as you heard the large door shut with a bang. It was around 4 o'clock which ment kostas would be eager to get home from training, probably flying around every bend in sight upon the roads in Liverpool.

"Hello" kostas shouted back kicking off his trainers and sending them flying into the white wall (even after you warned him black marks up and down the walls was not a good look). You had no reply, your head was face first into a large book about the history of Channel. Your job to you seemed like a luxury, spending time with fashion and creating the most incredible and stylish pieces but kostas thought you spent most of your time in the pits of hell trying to think off fashion that hadn't been done before and couldn't figure out how you where ever so creative. You heard heavy footsteps running up the stairs in a hurry to reach your presence.

"There you are" kostas mumbled as he saw your small frame sat on the chair through the door frame. Your head looked up from your seat looking at the man upon your eyes. Even a few hours caused your heart to break and miss every action from the human you urged to be around.

"Hi" you mumbled with your face planted onto the palm off your hand, now copying over notes onto your laptop. Kostas's body made a straight beeline to your presence and guided his hands onto your delicate shoulders. His chin came into contact with your shoulder, inhaling ever comforting sent from you. Your head rested onto the side of his as the idea of his safety fell into your wants within your head. His warm skin was delicate on yours creating the most perfect creation of protection and intimacy.

"Are you finishing work soon?" Kostas asked with mumbles whilst his lips softly found your neck in a mission to distract you from work.

"Erm I think so give me an hour" you replied back trying to work out why half of your work team had decided to discard any idea of effort. Your team hadn't ever been this bad before. One day was spent working from home and the rest was in the office and not one of those days had they ever left you to do everything on your own.

"An hour?!" Kostas asked with a very high pitched tone due to the idea of 60 minutes without any attention from you.

"Yes an hour" you sternly said trying to get your point across whilst your eyes scanned down your contact list to find out what was going on in the place you where known to call work.

"Urrrrrrgh" kostas shouted throwing his head back in annoyance whilst looking at the huge window in your office showing the garden you both learnt to love as your own.

"Not my fault" you mumbled putting your phone against your ear letting the annoying noice run through your ear. Kostas didn't know who you where ringing and he didn't really care all he wanted was your attention and that was the last thing he was getting. Your phone finally stopped ringing and you where greeted with a very drunk and rather annoying work colleague.

"Are you for real?" You said down the phone furious at the fact someone you had hired was beginning to sack of there job to get drunk on a Thursday night. She hadn't been working with you for long, but she definitely had potential to become some what of an amazing talent but in your standards this was pathetic.

"Seriously I can't believe you, your supposed to he working" you sternly replied to her slurred words and clear lack of understanding. Kostas turned around to look at your annoyed face on the wooden desk. For the life of him he couldn't understand who had drove you mad this much.

"Ring me in the morning when your speaking sence" you replied back ending the phone call and throwing the phone onto your desk in anger. Kostas's eyes fell onto your phone and back to you with your hands in your hair wanting to pull it out.

"Who? And what was that about?" Kostas asked in shock at the sudden outburst. You looked over to him in disbelief letting out a small chuckle as you couldn't understand what was going on.

"Someone who clearly can't get there head out of drinking all night and caring more about going out than making a career" you blurted out whilst kostas wondered over to you gesturing you to stand up. You stood up not really understanding why until he pulled you down onto his lap with his large hands rested onto your hips. You turned to look at him whilst his eyes glued onto yours showing nothing but love, his love was your nutrient and it was all you could ever think about.

"I think you should tell them to fuck off" he said whilst placing his hand onto the side of your neck and guiding your lips onto his. That's all you wanted. His lips where on yours creating the most perfect mixture of love and lust.

"I'm gonna" you replied back looking at him with your hands running through his pushed back blonde hair. His hands ran up and down your back feeling every inch of your warm addicting skin.

"That's my girl" he replied back sending your cheeks to fall into a colour of redness at his pleasant words.

I hope you enjoyed this! This was a request from the amazing writer @kostasstsimikass definitely read her writings they are unreal! Please leave feedback and requests as they are greatly appreciated.

@daddyhendo @trentsko @trentshoe @robbo38 @weddingdisco @avenirdelight @nyctophilic0vitnir @smileytaa @chelseamount @chilwellsbitch @mrs-henderson @football-and-fanfics @andysrobertson @robbossidehoe @prettylittletrent @cornertakenquicklyyyy

[blind-rats]

The Rise & Fall of Joss Whedon; the Myth of the Hollywood Feminist Hero

By Kelly Faircloth

“I hate ‘feminist.’ Is this a good time to bring that up?” Joss Whedon asked. He paused knowingly, waiting for the laughs he knew would come at the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer making such a statement.

It was 2013, and Whedon was onstage at a fundraiser for Equality Now, a human rights organization dedicated to legal equality for women. Though Buffy had been off the air for more than a decade, its legacy still loomed large; Whedon was widely respected as a man with a predilection for making science fiction with strong women for protagonists. Whedon went on to outline why, precisely, he hated the term: “You can’t be born an ‘ist,’” he argued, therefore, “‘feminist’ includes the idea that believing men and women to be equal, believing all people to be people, is not a natural state, that we don’t emerge assuming that everybody in the human race is a human, that the idea of equality is just an idea that’s imposed on us.”

The speech was widely praised and helped cement his pop-cultural reputation as a feminist, in an era that was very keen on celebrity feminists. But it was also, in retrospect, perhaps the high water mark for Whedon’s ability to claim the title, and now, almost a decade later, that reputation is finally in tatters, prompting a reevaluation of not just Whedon’s work, but the narrative he sold about himself. 

In July 2020, actor Ray Fisher accused Whedon of being “gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable” on the Justice League set when Whedon took over for Zach Synder as director to finish the project. Charisma Carpenter then described her own experiences with Whedon in a long post to Twitter, hashtagged #IStandWithRayFisher.

On Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, Carpenter played Cordelia, a popular character who morphed from snob to hero—one of those strong female characters that made Whedon’s feminist reputation—before being unceremoniously written off the show in a plot that saw her thrust into a coma after getting pregnant with a demon. For years, fans have suspected that her disappearance was related to her real-life pregnancy. In her statement, Carpenter appeared to confirm the rumors. “Joss Whedon abused his power on numerous occasions while working on the sets of ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ and ‘Angel,’” she wrote, describing Fisher’s firing as the last straw that inspired her to go public.

Buffy was a landmark of late 1990s popular culture, beloved by many a burgeoning feminist, grad student, gender studies professor, and television critic for the heroine at the heart of the show, the beautiful blonde girl who balanced monster-killing with high school homework alongside ancillary characters like the shy, geeky Willow. Buffy was very nearly one of a kind, an icon of her era who spawned a generation of leather-pants-wearing urban fantasy badasses and women action heroes.

Buffy was so beloved, in fact, that she earned Whedon a similarly privileged place in fans’ hearts and a broader reputation as a man who championed empowered women characters. In the desert of late ’90s and early 2000s popular culture, Whedon was heralded as that rarest of birds—the feminist Hollywood man. For many, he was an example of what more equitable storytelling might look like, a model for how to create compelling women protagonists who were also very, very fun to watch. But Carpenter’s accusations appear to have finally imploded that particular bit of branding, revealing a different reality behind the scenes and prompting a reevaluation of the entire arc of Whedon’s career: who he was and what he was selling all along.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer premiered March 1997, midseason, on The WB, a two-year-old network targeting teens with shows like 7th Heaven. Its beginnings were not necessarily auspicious; it was a reboot of a not-particularly-blockbuster 1992 movie written by third-generation screenwriter Joss Whedon. (His grandfather wrote for The Donna Reed Show; his father wrote for Golden Girls.) The show followed the trials of a stereotypical teenage California girl who moved to a new town and a new school after her parents’ divorce—only, in a deliberate inversion of horror tropes, the entire town sat on top of the entrance to Hell and hence was overrun with demons. Buffy was a slayer, a young woman with the power and immense responsibility to fight them. After the movie turned out very differently than Whedon had originally envisioned, the show was a chance for a do-over, more of a Valley girl comedy than serious horror.

It was layered, it was campy, it was ironic and self-aware. It looked like it belonged on the WB rather than one of the bigger broadcast networks, unlike the slickly produced prestige TV that would follow a few years later. Buffy didn’t fixate on the gory glory of killing vampires—really, the monsters were metaphors for the entire experience of adolescence, in all its complicated misery. Almost immediately, a broad cross-section of viewers responded enthusiastically. Critics loved it, and it would be hugely influential on Whedon’s colleagues in television; many argue that it broke ground in terms of what you could do with a television show in terms of serialized storytelling, setting the stage for the modern TV era. Academics took it up, with the show attracting a tremendous amount of attention and discussion.

In 2002, the New York Times covered the first academic conference dedicated to the show. The organizer called Buffy “a tremendously rich text,” hence the flood of papers with titles like “Pain as Bright as Steel: The Monomyth and Light in ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer,’” which only gathered speed as the years passed. And while it was never the highest-rated show on television, it attracted an ardent core of fans.

But what stood out the most was the show’s protagonist: a young woman who stereotypically would have been a monster movie victim, with the script flipped: instead of screaming and swooning, she staked the vampires. This was deliberate, the core conceit of the concept, as Whedon said in many, many interviews. The helpless horror movie girl killed in the dark alley instead walks out victorious. He told Time in 1997 that the concept was born from the thought, “I would love to see a movie in which a blond wanders into a dark alley, takes care of herself and deploys her powers.” In Whedon’s framing, it was particularly important that it was a woman who walked out of that alley. He told another publication in 2002 that “the very first mission statement of the show” was “the joy of female power: having it, using it, sharing it.”

In 2021, when seemingly every new streaming property with a woman as its central character makes some half-baked claim to feminism, it’s easy to forget just how much Buffy stood out among its against its contemporaries. Action movies—with exceptions like Alien’s Ripley and Terminator 2's Sarah Conner—were ruled by hulking tough guys with macho swagger. When women appeared on screen opposite vampires, their primary job was to expose long, lovely, vulnerable necks. Stories and characters that bucked these larger currents inspired intense devotion, from Angela Chase of My So-Called Life to Dana Scully of The X-Files.

The broader landscape, too, was dismal. It was the conflicted era of girl power, a concept that sprang up in the wake of the successes of the second-wave feminist movement and the backlash that followed. Young women were constantly exposed to you-can-do-it messaging that juxtaposed uneasily with the reality of the world around them. This was the era of shitty, sexist jokes about every woman who came into Bill Clinton’s orbit and the leering response to the arrival of Britney Spears; Rush Limbaugh was a fairly mainstream figure.

At one point, Buffy competed against Ally McBeal, a show that dedicated an entire episode to a dancing computer-generated baby following around its lawyer main character, her biological clock made zanily literal. Consider this line from a New York Times review of the Buffy’s 1997 premiere: “Given to hot pants and boots that should guarantee the close attention of Humbert Humberts all over America, Buffy is just your average teen-ager, poutily obsessed with clothes and boys.”

Against that background, Buffy was a landmark. Besides the simple fact of its woman protagonist, there were unique plots, like the coming-out story for her friend Willow. An ambivalent 1999 piece in Bitch magazine, even as it explored the show’s tank-top heavy marketing, ultimately concluded, “In the end, it’s precisely this contextual conflict that sets Buffy apart from the rest and makes her an appealing icon. Frustrating as her contradictions may be, annoying as her babe quotient may be, Buffy still offers up a prime-time heroine like no other.”

A 2016 Atlantic piece, adapted from a book excerpt, makes the case that Buffy is perhaps best understood as an icon of third-wave feminism: “In its examination of individual and collective empowerment, its ambiguous politics of racial representation and its willing embrace of contradiction, Buffy is a quintessentially third-wave cultural production.” The show was vested with all the era’s longing for something better than what was available, something different, a champion for a conflicted “post-feminist” era—even if she was an imperfect or somewhat incongruous vessel. It wasn’t just Sunnydale that needed a chosen Slayer, it was an entire generation of women. That fact became intricately intertwined with Whedon himself.

Seemingly every interview involved a discussion of his fondness for stories about strong women. “I’ve always found strong women interesting, because they are not overly represented in the cinema,” he told New York for a 1997 piece that notes he studied both film and “gender and feminist issues” at Wesleyan; “I seem to be the guy for strong action women,’’ he told the New York Times in 1997 with an aw-shucks sort of shrug. ‘’A lot of writers are just terrible when it comes to writing female characters. They forget that they are people.’’ He often cited the influence of his strong, “hardcore feminist” mother, and even suggested that his protagonists served feminist ends in and of themselves: “If I can make teenage boys comfortable with a girl who takes charge of a situation without their knowing that’s what’s happening, it’s better than sitting down and selling them on feminism,” he told Time in 1997.

When he was honored by the organization Equality Now in 2006 for his “outstanding contribution to equality in film and television,” Whedon made his speech an extended riff on the fact that people just kept asking him about it, concluding with the ultimate answer: “Because you’re still asking me that question.” He presented strong women as a simple no-brainer, and he was seemingly always happy to say so, at a time when the entertainment business still seemed ruled by unapologetic misogynists. The internet of the mid-2010s only intensified Whedon’s anointment as a prototypical Hollywood ally, with reporters asking him things like how men could best support the feminist movement. 

Whedon’s response: “A guy who goes around saying ‘I’m a feminist’ usually has an agenda that is not feminist. A guy who behaves like one, who actually becomes involved in the movement, generally speaking, you can trust that. And it doesn’t just apply to the action that is activist. It applies to the way they treat the women they work with and they live with and they see on the street.” This remark takes on a great deal of irony in light of Carpenter’s statement.

In recent years, Whedon’s reputation as an ally began to wane. Partly, it was because of the work itself, which revealed more and more cracks as Buffy receded in the rearview mirror. Maybe it all started to sour with Dollhouse, a TV show that imagined Eliza Dushku as a young woman rented out to the rich and powerful, her mind wiped after every assignment, a concept that sat poorly with fans. (Though Whedon, while he was publicly unhappy with how the show had turned out after much push-and-pull with the corporate bosses at Fox, still argued the conceit was “the most pure feminist and empowering statement I’d ever made—somebody building themselves from nothing,” in a 2012 interview with Wired.)

After years of loud disappointment with the TV bosses at Fox on Firefly and Dollhouse, Whedon moved into big-budget Hollywood blockbusters. He helped birth the Marvel-dominated era of movies with his work as director of The Avengers. But his second Avengers movie, Age of Ultron, was heavily criticized for a moment in which Black Widow laid out her personal reproductive history for the Hulk, suggesting her sterilization somehow made her a “monster.” In June 2017, his un-filmed script for a Wonder Woman adaptation leaked, to widespread mockery. The script’s introduction of Diana was almost leering: “To say she is beautiful is almost to miss the point. She is elemental, as natural and wild as the luminous flora surrounding. Her dark hair waterfalls to her shoulders in soft arcs and curls. Her body is curvaceous, but taut as a drawn bow.”

But Whedon’s real fall from grace began in 2017, right before MeToo spurred a cultural reckoning. His ex-wife, Kai Cole, published a piece in The Wrap accusing him of cheating off and on throughout their relationship and calling him a hypocrite:

“Despite understanding, on some level, that what he was doing was wrong, he never conceded the hypocrisy of being out in the world preaching feminist ideals, while at the same time, taking away my right to make choices for my life and my body based on the truth. He deceived me for 15 years, so he could have everything he wanted. I believed, everyone believed, that he was one of the good guys, committed to fighting for women’s rights, committed to our marriage, and to the women he worked with. But I now see how he used his relationship with me as a shield, both during and after our marriage, so no one would question his relationships with other women or scrutinize his writing as anything other than feminist.”

But his reputation was just too strong; the accusation that he didn’t practice what he preached didn’t quite stick. A spokesperson for Whedon told the Wrap: “While this account includes inaccuracies and misrepresentations which can be harmful to their family, Joss is not commenting, out of concern for his children and out of respect for his ex-wife. Many minimized the essay on the basis that adultery doesn’t necessarily make you a bad feminist or erase a legacy. Whedon similarly seemed to shrug off Ray Fisher’s accusations of creating a toxic workplace; instead, Warner Media fired Fisher.

But Carpenter’s statement—which struck right at the heart of his Buffy-based legacy for progressivism—may finally change things. Even at the time, the plotline in which Charisma Carpenter was written off Angel—carrying a demon child that turned her into “Evil Cordelia,” ending the season in a coma, and quite simply never reappearing—was unpopular. Asked about what had happened in a 2009 panel at DragonCon, she said that “my relationship with Joss became strained,” continuing: “We all go through our stuff in general [behind the scenes], and I was going through my stuff, and then I became pregnant. And I guess in his mind, he had a different way of seeing the season go… in the fourth season.”

“I think Joss was, honestly, mad. I think he was mad at me and I say that in a loving way, which is—it’s a very complicated dynamic working for somebody for so many years, and expectations, and also being on a show for eight years, you gotta live your life. And sometimes living your life gets in the way of maybe the creator’s vision for the future. And that becomes conflict, and that was my experience.”

In her statement on Twitter, Carpenter alleged that after Whedon was informed of her pregnancy, he called her into a closed-door meeting and “asked me if I was ‘going to keep it,’ and manipulatively weaponized my womanhood and faith against me.” She added that “he proceeded to attack my character, mock my religious beliefs, accuse me of sabotaging the show, and then unceremoniously fired me following the season once I gave birth.” Carpenter said that he called her fat while she was four months pregnant and scheduled her to work at 1 a.m. while six months pregnant after her doctor had recommended shortening her hours, a move she describes as retaliatory. What Carpenter describes, in other words, is an absolutely textbook case of pregnancy discrimination in the workplace, the type of bullshit the feminist movement exists to fight—at the hands of the man who was for years lauded as a Hollywood feminist for his work on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.

Many of Carpenter’s colleagues from Buffy and Angel spoke out in support, including Buffy herself, Sarah Michelle Gellar. “While I am proud to have my name associated with Buffy Summers, I don’t want to be forever associated with the name Joss Whedon,” she said in a statement. Just shy of a decade after that 2013 speech, many of the cast members on the show that put him on that stage are cutting ties.

Whedon garnered a reputation as pop culture’s ultimate feminist man because Buffy did stand out so much, an oasis in a wasteland. But in 2021, the idea of a lone man being responsible for creating women’s stories—one who told the New York Times, “I seem to be the guy for strong action women”—seems like a relic. It’s depressing to consider how many years Hollywood’s first instinct for “strong action women” wasn’t a woman, and to think about what other people could have done with those resources. When Wonder Woman finally reached the screen, to great acclaim, it was with a woman as director.

Besides, Whedon didn’t make Buffy all by himself—many, many women contributed, from the actresses to the writers to the stunt workers, and his reputation grew so large it eclipsed their part in the show’s creation. Even as he preached feminism, Whedon benefitted from one of the oldest, most sexist stereotypes: the man who’s a benevolent, creative genius. And Buffy, too, overshadowed all the other contributors who redefined who could be a hero on television and in speculative fiction, from individual actors like Gillian Anderson to the determined, creative women who wrote science fiction and fantasy over the last several decades to—perhaps most of all—the fans who craved different, better stories. Buffy helped change what you could put on TV, but it didn’t create the desire to see a character like her. It was that desire, as much as Whedon himself, that gave Buffy the Vampire Slayer her power.

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Anonymous asked: Have you watched Lupin? What did you think? (And are you a fan of the books or other adaptations of the character?)

The short answer is yes, I have seen Lupin on Netflix. Overall I enjoyed it so long as I suspended my disbelief at certain things.

Unfortunately it took being struck down by Covid and being bedridden for me to actually to binge watch the whole series. So I was behind the curve when my friends, French and those outside of France, started to talk about it around me. I had to beg them not to give away spoilers until I had seen it all.

It did surprise me that it won rave widespread reviews outside France because usually French drama series don’t travel very well outside of France. I’m sure even Netflix had no idea how successful it would be for them. I’m sure being in Covid lockdown had something to do with it. In any case I don’t begrudge its success as it’s well earned.

However I wasn’t too surprised that within France itself the French reviews were decidely mixed and divisive. The critic at Le Point painfully hit the nail on the head when he wrote, “Le plus gros défaut de l'ensemble reste la pauvreté des personnages, tous unidimensionnels, caricaturaux et aussi épais que du papier à cigarette.“ - loosely translated as, ‘the biggest flaw of the whole thing remains the poverty of the characters, all one-dimensional, cartoonish and as thick as cigarette paper’.

There’s a growing amount of good French stuff on TV and streaming services but a non-French audience will not have had the chance to have seen all of it yet. I can think of any number of French television drama/dramedy/cmedy series that are much better than Lupin with better plots, characters, and even a truer perspective of French society and even modern day France (Dix pour cent (Call My Agent!), Le Bureau des Légendes, Engrenages, Baron Noir, and Paris Police 1900). But you would be hard pressed to find anything that comes close to Lupin just for the sake of something fun to watch during the Covid lockdown.

What makes the current generation of home made French television series so interesting is how much of it is a reflection of France’s own anxieities about itself and its role in a increasingly English speaking dominating world. In a funny way it sees itself as defiant plucky Asterix fighting off the Roman American cultural hordes from totally invading their Francophone culture.

For sure, it has societal and racial issues stemming from its colonial legacy and issues of immigration and integration (France has the largest Muslim population in Europe). However it seems to want to ‘resolve’ these issues through the almost sacramental adherence to French secularist ideals rather than American inspired ideas of social justice and equity. There’s always been something very admirable about the French - from the time of General de Gaulle and perhaps before - always swinging from snooty ambivalence to outright antipathy towards the influence of American culture ‘americanising’ French culture (no to Walmarts or fast food chains for example).

Is it any wonder then that Netflix’s ill-conceived American series ‘Emily in Paris’ was widely hated and mocked within France for just perpetuating those lazy American tropes of Paris and French culture?

Personally I know Francophile Americans, long resident in Paris, who were frankly embarrassed and spent a lot of time apologising to their French friends. I have one American friend who has told me that she was so mad that she would have blind folded Emily and shoved her hard in the car boot and drive her all the way to the poorest of the banlieues in the grimey crime saturated suburbs of Paris - Seine-Saint-Denis came to mind - and dump her preening arse there. She would slap her and tell the spoilt entitied brat to make her own way back home - you know, to her spacious apartment in one of the most expensive arrondissements of Paris that of course(!) any American intern working for French marketing firms can afford.

I digress. My apologies. Watching this God awful show gives me PTSD.

Onto Lupin.

Thankfully Lupin doesn’t try to play to non-French tropes of what Paris is or isn’t. It does skim the surface of current discontents within French culture and society (race, class, power, and money) but ever so lightly so as to not get in the way of just spinning a good crowd pleasing yarn. It invites you to have fun and not to think too much. I have to be honest and say I enjoyed it as long as I suspended my disbelief here and there.

Lupin refers of course to the character Arsène Lupin, the French gentleman thief who stole jewellery from Parisian haute bourgeois and aristocracy at the turn of the century. Lupin, as written in the novels and short stories by Maurice Leblanc between 1905 and his death in 1941, was the archetypical anti-hero, a Robin Hood who stole from those who deserved it but kept the loot himself. He was often portrayed often a force for good, while operating on the wrong side of the law.

Lupin never really made much of an impact outside of France as he had within France where is revered with many French film and television adaptations. In England, we already had a Lupin type character in the form of A.J. Raffles, a cricket playing gentleman thief with his aristocratic side kick, Bunny. E.W. Horning’s stories of Raffles’ daring heists proved to be quite popular with the British public when Raffles first appeared on the scene in 1898. And even later Leslie Charteris’ The Saint took over the mantle from Raffles as the gentleman thief/adventuring Robin Hood.

I think Hollywood tried to introduce him to an English speaking audience (legendary actor John Barrymore even played him) but he didn’t really take off and eventually they found their gentleman thief archetype in Sir Charles Lytton aka The Phantom (played by David Niven and Christopher Plummer) in the Pink Panther movies. So Lupin never got the English audience he deserved.

I first got wind of who Arsène Lupin was when I was growing up in Japan as a child. As strange as it sounds Lupin was big in Japan especially after World War Two. The Japanese did their own take on the Lupin character using Japanese actors and plot lines but it was Lupin.

I don’t know how exactly but I remember watching these scratchy DVDs of these Lupin inspired films. I think it was one of my parents’ Japanese friends who was mad for all things Lupin and he had studied French literature in France. Jogging my memory I now recall these black & white films were done in the 1950s. One starred Keiji Sada and the other version I remember was with Eija Okada (he was in Resnais’ classic film, Hiroshima Mon Amour) as Arsene Lupin called (I think) Kao-no Nai Otoko. I didn’t understand most of it at the time because it was all in Japanese and my Japanese (at the time) was pitiful, but it looked fun.

There was even a Japanese manga version of Lupin which was called Lupin III, - so named because he was the grandson of the real Arsène Lupin.

The 1960s manga series spawned generations of TV series which I do remember watching and finding it terribly exciting if somewhat confusing.

It was French expatriate friends whom my family knew that introduced me to the real Arsène Lupin. They had a few of the books authored by Maurice Leblanc. It was in French so I read them to improve my French but enjoyed the story along the way.

I also remember them showing me scratchy episodes of the 1970s Franco-German TV series ‘Arsène Lupin’ with the monocle wearing Georges Descrières in the lead role. It was a classical re-telling of the adventures of the aristocratic gentleman-burglar and very family friendly viewing. I don’t really remember much of it to be honest.

It was some years before I actually started to read more of the Maurice Leblanc’s novels and short stories collection. I have them all now. I was a teen and I remember being stuck in a snowed in a Swiss Alpine chalet and with nothing else to do but pull out a few dog eared books from the bookshelves belonging to our French host and read to pass the time.

I read Les Dents du tigre, Arsène Lupin vs Herlock Sholmes, and Les Huit Coups de l'horloge and thoroughly enjoyed them in the original French. I was already reading classic detective and mystery novels (Sherlock Holmes, Poirot etc) so it was natural to read the adventures of Arsène Lupin.

I haven’t got around to reading all the novels and short stories but I have read most of them and I enjoyed them all immensely. In the same way Conan Doyle, through Holmes and Watson, manages to conjure a convincing picture of late Victorian and early Edwardian England, so Leblanc manages to give us a taste of Belle Epoque France through the eyes of his suave gentleman-thief, Arsène Lupin.

Indeed it's a lot like reading Sherlock Holmes in that you're always trying to figure out how he did it, but the difference is that you are rooting for the bad guy. You can’t help but be drawn to this gentleman thief who is charming, comic, playful, and romantic and generous. Lupin is not an intellectual puzzle-solver but first a master criminal, later a detective helper, who maintains his curious ethics throughout his adventures. In this regard he is very much the anti-Sherlock Holmes; and I wasn’t disappointed when I actually read the story where Lupin faces off with Holmes himself. Brilliant!

I’ve also seen the 2004 French movie with Romain Duris in the Lupin lead role and it also starred the majestic Kristin Scott Thomas and the sexy Eva Green.

It was a decent adventure flick and it was a clear confluence of different Lupin novels (The Queen's Necklace (introducing Lupin's childhood), The Hollow Needle (where the treasure is the macguffin of the story), The Arrest of Arsène Lupin (the gala on the ship as a backdrop) and Josephine Balsamo, (one of Lupin’s most memorable opponents in the The Countess Of Cagliostro).

Romaine Duris, a fine classical actor, was I felt miscast because he didn’t have Lupin’s levity of wit and be at ease within himself. I love Duris in his other films but in Arsène Lupin and even in his other film, Moliere, he seemed ill at ease with the role. Perhaps that’s just me.

The latest Netflix adaptation (or reimagining to be more precise) is a welcome addition to the world of Arsène Lupin.If you don’t over-think it, it’s bags of fun.

Omar Sy is immensely likeable. Sy is a deservedly a big star in France - he won the best actor César for “The Intouchables,” an international hit - and has played forgettable secondary characters in big-budget American special effects movies (he was Chris Pratt’s assistant in “Jurassic World” and a minor mutant in “X-Men: Days of Future Past”). It was reportedly his desire to play Arsène Lupin, whom he’s compared to James Bond (“fun, funny, elegant”), that led to the series, created by British writer George Kay. And it is on his charm that the series largely, though not entirely, rests.

So the basic story revolves around a jewellery heist. Sy plays Assane Diop, a first-generation French-Senegalese man in contemporary Paris. A collection of Lupin stories, a gift from his father - whose undeserved fate Assane set himself to avenge in long-delayed, Count of Monte Cristo style upon a criminal tycoon - has made the actual Lupin books a foundation of his life and profitably illicit career. This fan-ship goes as far as borrowing practical ideas from the stories and constructing aliases out of anagrams of “Arsene Lupin,” a habit that will attract the interest of a low-level police detective (Soufiane Guerrab as Youssef Guedira) who shares Assane’s love of the books. (That the detective also shares an initial with Lupin’s own adversary, Inspector Ganimard, is possibly not a coincidence.)

Among the many comic delights of Lupin, is an unspoken one. Time and again, the show’s hero, master thief Assane Diop is able to slip into a place unnoticed, or by assuming a minor disguise that prevents witnesses from providing an accurate description of him to law enforcement.

Why is this funny?

Because Omar Sy is six feet three (and, since most actors are short, seems even taller), is roughly as wide as soccer pitch, and is memorable even before he flashes his infectious million-Euro smile. This is not a man for whom anonymity should be possible - even allowing for racial bias in a majority-white country, Assane would be memorable and distinctive - and Lupin seems cheekily aware of this. Like the various incredible sleights of hand Assane deploys to pull off his thefts and escapes, his ability to be anyone, anywhere, is treated more as a superpower than as something even the world’s greatest criminal would be able to pull off.

At one point, when he’s slated for a cable news appearance as a much older man, we learn that Assane is also a master of disguise. The revelation of this skill arrives with a wink in the show, and it feels pointless to ask where he learned it, or how he affords movie-quality latex and makeup. Or rather, asking the question feels wrong.

We know this is impossible, the show seems to be asking its viewers again and again, but isn’t it so much fun?

The performances and the production - it has that particularly European filmic quality of feeling natural even when it gets stylish - keep the series warm even as the plot is made up of incredulous contraptions that require everything to go right at just the right time and for human psychology to be 100% predictable. Its physics are classical rather than quantum, one might say, and like the world itself, which becomes more curious the deeper you peer into things, it is best handled along the surface. You do not want to take too much time working out the likelihood of any of this happening. Just go along for the ride.

Somehow, though, it all works because Sy is so magnetic and charming that questioning plot logic feels wildly besides the point. Though he never looks appreciably different in his various aliases (including one ill-conceived live-TV appearance done under old-man makeup and a thick beard), he changes his posture and voice ( if you watch it in French that is) enough to allow for the willing suspension of disbelief, in the same way that any lead actor as Superman has to do when playing Clark Kent. But Sy and the show are at their strongest when Assane is just being his own Superman self, utterly relaxed and confident in his own skin, and so captivating that his ex-partner, Claire, can’t really resist him despite ample reason to.

If Assane seems practically perfect in every way, he is not perfectly perfect. His most obvious failing is that his criminal shenanigans and revenging make him less than reliable in his daily life, affecting his relationships with ex-partner Claire (Ludivine Sagnier, whom non-French audiences might recognise from “The Young Pope” and “The New Pope”), who despairs of his inability to show up on time to see his son Raoul (Etan Simon). Like Sy, Sagnier brings a lot of soul to her part - though onscreen far less, she’s as important as Sy to the series’ success - and the two actors have great chemistry. Also impressive and key to creating sympathy are the actors who play their flashback teenage selves, Mamadou Haidara and Ludmilla Makowski. Really, you could do away with action elements and build a series around them.

This is a pity because Lupin often fumbles its emotional reveals in other parts - the story of Diop being torn between his job and his family feels like wheel-spinning, rather than genuine emotional intrigue.

Soufiane Guerrab is wasted in the Young Detective Consumed by the Case role and spends most of this season pinning colour printouts of book covers to cork boards and getting waved off by his colleagues, who are all blinded or otherwise hampered by careerism.

But to my mind the weakest link is the villain himself and his daughter. Veteran actor Hervé Pierre hams it up as Hubert Pellegrini, a business tycoon who is the patriarch of the Pellegrini family. He just comes across as animated cartoon villain with no character depth (think moustache twirling Russian villain, Boris Badenov, in the Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoon shows). He just emotes anger a lot without any nuance or hint of complexity.

Even Clotilde Hesme who plays the daughter who is unaware of her father’s criminal tendencies is miscast. For the record I adore Clotilde Hesme as she one of France’s most talented classical actresses (that non-French outsiders will not have heard of). She is a classically theatre trained actress and is one of the best stage actresses of her generation that I have ever seen. I’ve seen her in plays where she is just mesmerising. She has said before that she’s more comfortable on the stage than she is on the screen. And when she has been on screen she still has been a powerful presence. She’s actually won a César too. Here in Lupin, she seems to have no agency and looks bored with nothing really to do.I really hope they give her more scenes in the next part of Lupin.

The series is at its best when following Diop enacting his plans, and when revealing each one from a different vantage, making us privy to every moving part like a magician revealing his secrets. The show captures the momentum of a clockwork heist, the tension of sudden obstacles and the ingenuity of improvised responses, with thrilling precision (especially in “Chapter 1 - Le Collier de la reine,” directed by Now You See Me’s Louis Leterrier).

Lupin is also politically incisive when it wants to be; it brings to mind Ladj Ly’s Oscar-nominated 2019 film Les Misérables, which adapted the broad strokes of Victor Hugo’s novel about the 1832 Paris Rebellion, and modernised the story by focusing on the police brutality faced by non-white Parisians.

Lupin opens with Diop disguised as cleaning staff and entering the Louvre after-hours, alongside dozens of forgotten, anonymous non-white workers as they pass by “La Liberté guidant le people,” Eugène Delacroix’s famous painting of the July Revolution of 1830 which replaced France’s hereditary rule with popular sovereignty.

Before any semblance of plot or character, Lupin centres broken ideals and promises unkept (without giving too much away, the show’s primary villain has much more nationalistic view of French culture and history which merely adds to a cartoonish caricature than a complex character). The rest of the episode is about valuable jewels once owned by Marie Antionette - one of the most recognisable symbols of wealth and extravagance in times of extreme poverty - which are put up for auction by the Pelligrini family, and bid on by other wealthy collectors with bottomless purses and no sense of irony.

Granted, beyond this auction subplot, explorations of race and class are largely limited to individual interactions, but the show continues to refer back to (and implicitly comment on) its source material in ways that wink at the audience. An elderly, unassuming target of Diop’s schemes seems like an unlikely victim at first - Diop, though he acts in his own self-interest, usually displays a moral compass - until this victim reveals the colonial origins of her wealth, immediately re-contextualising the ethics of the situation, in a manner that Leblanc’s stories did not. (The show is yet to apply this lens to Arsène Lupin himself, who Diop treats with reverence, but that’s a secondary concern since Lupin is entirely fictional in-world).

Barring some nagging structural problems - like cutting to flashbacks when things are getting exciting, or epilogues that feel ten minutes too long - Lupin mostly works. It plants a few personal seeds early on, which it keeps hinting at without fully addressing, but by the time its scattered elements come into focus, the show finally figures out how to weave them together, and delivers a mid-season cliffhanger that renders many of these flaws irrelevant.

Lupin manages to have fun even with an antiquated premise - the story of a suave con-man who charms his way through high-profile robberies - while adding just enough new spin on the concept to feel refreshing. Omar Sy may not have much to work with, but his alluring presence makes Assane Diop feel like a worthy successor to Arsène Lupin.

Lupin isn’t going to win César, BAFTA, or Emmy awards, or even turn heads for its ability to develop tertiary or even secondary plots or characters - that doesn’t really matter. You’re there to see a difficult hero be difficult and heroic - everyone else is there to be charmed, vexed, or eluded by them. Sy’s performance bounds off the screen, and is almost musical. He floats through scenes like he glides over the roofs and through the back alleys of Paris; he outmanoeuvres his foes with superior literary references and sheer athleticism. He is irresistible and also good at everything he tries, even kidnapping.

I would encourage anyone to watch Lupin for a fun care free ride. But the only caveat I would make is watch it in the original French.

If you don’t know French then put on the subtitles to understand (that’s what they are there for). The real crime is to watch this (or any film or television series) dubbed in a foreign language. It’s disrespectful to the actors and film makers and it’s silly because it’s comical to watch something dubbed over.

Please watch it in the original French.

Then go and read the books. You won’t regret it.

Thanks for your question.

[thr-333]

Mismatch- Part 6

Bio Dad Bruce Wayne Month 2020

Sibling bonding at its finest, fighting and breaking rules

First< Previous> Next

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“Maman, Papa, we’re fine,” Marinette holds the phone between them.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come home?” Tom asks through speaker phone.

“No Papa, Nette worked hard for this trip,” Marion insists, they are sitting in the back of Bruce's car with him and Selina in the front.

“We both work-”

“Both want to stay, that's right,” Marion cuts her off, grinning at her glare, “Besides we have things to do here remember ?”

“Ok, but if you change your minds,” Sabine frets, they do have a concert coming up.

“We’ll be on the first flight back,” Marinette agrees, Aunt Selina leans back and she holds up the phone for her.

“Don’t worry Tom, I’ll keep them out of trouble,” She tells her brother.

“You’re the last person I trust to do that,” Tom laughs from the other end of the line.

“Rude,” She glares down at the phone.

“I’m sure you’ll do just fine,” Sabine speaks over her husbands laughter.

“Thank you Sabine, you're my favourite person in Paris,” She winks at the twins, whispering "Right now,"

"Hey!" Tom shouts from the phone.

“Of course,” Sabine chuckles over her husband,“We have to go back to the bakery now,”

“We’ll talk later,” Tom promises, "Have fun,"

“See ya,” Selina sits back upright.

“Bye Papa, Maman,” Marinette moves to hang up

“Also we met Aunt Selina's fiance! Bye!" Marion blurts, everyone in the car freezes.

“WHA-” Marion hangs up.

“Marion! That was…..” Their Aunt shouts before giggling, turning into full blown laughter,“... That was so…”

The twins start laughing as well, making her give up on whatever lecture she was going to launch into.

“Selina, your phones ringing,” Bruce says, as she calms down.

“Yeah, it’s probably going to do that for awhile,” Selina turns it to silent and ignores the call, then turns to Marion,“Don’t ever do that again,”

“Are you planning on getting remarried?” Marion asks cheekily.

“Quite the thing to admit in front of your fiance,” Marinette adds, glancing at Bruce to see he is also smiling slightly. Years with Kagami had trained her to notice those hints of emotion.

“Brats,” She huffs turning back around.

“We love you,” They chorus.

“Brats,” Selina shakes her head fondly just as they approach the gates.

Marinette stares in awe at the large estate. The architecture and gardens immediately had her pulling out her sketch book to jot down ideas. She gets pushed out of the car by Marion and keeps drawing as they walk towards the Manor doors.

"You're home is beautiful," Marinette compliments Bruce.

"Thank you, I think so too," Bruce says as the doors open.

“Welcome home, Master Bruce, Miss Selina,” Alfred stands in the doorway, “And you, Miss Dupain-Cheng and Mr Cheng-Dupain, welcome to Wayne Manor.”

“It’s good to see you again, please, just Marinette's fine,” Marinette puts away her sketchbook.

“Yeah, I'd rather you just call me Marion,” Marion beams at him, before whispering, “Did we even tell you our last names?… witchcraft,”

“Very well, please come this way,” Alfred guides them into the Manor, stopping outside a door, "Master Damian is waiting, I must be off to prepare dinner,"

"Thank you Alfred," Bruce tells the butler as he leaves.

They enter the living room type area. A boy who couldn't even be thirteen yet stands. 'He's so small' Marinette thinks to herself.

"Father," He glares at her and Marion.

“This is my son Damian,” Bruce introduces, “Damian met Marinette and Marion,”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Marinette smiles, holding her hand out.

“Tt” Damian looks away, getting a glare from Bruce before taking her hand, “... Likewise,”

Selinas phone buzzes again. Drawing attention away from the insincere tone.

“I should probably answer them, or they’ll never leave us alone,” Their Aunt sighs taking out her phone, “Bruce come with me, I’m sure they’ll want to meet you,”

“Is this going to be a pleasant conversation?” He asks.

“No its going to be very painful,” Marinette smiles, knowing they were about to have a very long conversation with her over excited Papa. He would probably have planned their wedding by the time they manage to hang up.

“Right,” Bruce says hesitantly, he turns to Damian with a pointed look, “Behave,”

"Tt," is Damian's response as he is left alone with them.

Marion sits down. Marinette follows sitting next to him on one of couches, surprised at how soft it is. Damian sits down on an armchair, picking up a book.

“So, Damian how old are you?" Marinette asks, after a full minute of silence

“12,” He doesn't look up from his book

“... We’re 18, twins if you couldn't tell,” Marion steps in gesturing between them.

“I could,” Damian answers shortly.

“Right... so what are your hobbies?” Marinette tries again.

“... painting,” Damian concedes under her expectant gaze.

“Oh, can we see?” She asks excitedly.

“No,” Damian snaps. She doesn't let that discourage her, she doesn't like showing strangers her designs. Apart from the millions of strangers who see her designs anyway.

“Alright, I get that," Marion shares the sentiment, "What about-Oh my god,”

“What?” Damian finally looks up from his book, scanning the room for the cause of his outburst.

“Kitty!” Marion practically leaps from the couch to get a better look at the cat sauntering across the room.

“Oh no,” Marinette sighs watching her brother melt over the cat.

“That’s Alfred,” Damian tells them eyeing the cat and Marion with mild amusement.

“After Alfred, Alfred your butler?” Marinette tries not to snicker at the name.

“Yes, pennyworth is his namesake,” Damian nods, glare daring Marinette to laugh.

“Can I pet him?!” Marion pleads, with baby-doll eyes  that could put Manon to shame.

“You can try, Alfred is very selective about who pets him,” Damian grants, and Marion sits on the ground, inching closer.

“I wouldn’t worry, Mari has a way with cats,” Marinette smirks, thinking back to the time she had to fight an Akuma alone because he was being smothered by cats.

“Come here Alfred,” Marion rubs his hand on the ground, Alfred watching closely.

“Do you have any other pets?” Marinette asks, Damian puts down his book.

“I have Titus, a great dane,” Damian watches as Alfred gives in and pounces on Marion’s hand, “Batcow, self explanatory,”

“Bat-cow mutant?” Marion guesses letting Alfred sniff his hand.

“No,” Damian's irritation shows, “She has patch shaped like the Bat symbol,”

“Oh, that was my second guess,” Alfred lets Marion scratch behind his ear.

“Can we see them?” Marinette excited over meeting Batcow.

“They’ll be around here somewhere, roaming the manor grounds,” Damian responds, non committaly.

“Alfred the Cat, feels weird to call them both Alfred,” Marion muses, Damian looks surprised as the cat climbs into this lap.

“Have you any pets?” Damian asks his first question about them.

“No, we live in a bakery so it would be a health code violation,” Marinette answers sadly. She doubts a box of animal type Kwamis are regulation either but no one has to know about that.

“Al-at? no,” Marion talks to himself, or more likely the cat.

“That’s a shame,” Damian acknowledges monotonously, watching as Alfred the cat starts to purr as Marion scratches his chin.

“We did try to sneak strays in when we were little,” Marinette is unwilling to let the conversation drop.

“Ca-Fred, Cat-Fred!” Marion exclaims, apologising seconds later to the newly dubbed Cat-fred for startling him.

“Try?” Damian sneers.

“The first few times were a disaster, we didn’t get past the front door,” Marinette explains, “Maman and Papa would send them to the shelter straight away,”

“At least they didn’t put them back out on the street,” Damian muses.

“They would never,” Marion responds, in baby talk directed at Cat-fred.

"You don't have to use that ridiculous voice," Damian scolds.

"I know," Marion answers, in the same voice, Damian glowers.

“As we got older we started being able to actually get them inside before being found out,” Marinette distracts him from Marion's taunting.

“One of us would be the distraction and the other snuck in, with a sleeping cat or dog, that one we learnt the hard way,” Marion uses a normal voice, still showering Cat-fred with attention.

“I think that is how I got my reputation for being clumsy,” Marinette sighs, it was always left up to her to distract their parents by knocking something over while Marion snuck in.

“What can I say? Cats love me,” Marion proves his point as Alfred turns over, letting him see his belly.

“I can see that,” Damian seems amused as much as he is surprised.

“At first, they’d find them in a few hours, so we learnt by trial and error,” Marinette continues, relaxing into the couch. "We must have taken in at least a hundred strays,"

“I think the last one we had managed a few months before we go found out,” Marion guesses, they hadn't tried again since the received their miraculous.

For one because they couldn't afford their parents searching their room regularly and coming across the Kwamis. However being the heroes of Paris had also proven effective in getting people to adopt. Usually the first person they asked would immediately agree, if they were suited up.

“So how many more pets have you managed to smuggle in?” Marion stage whispers to Damian, the gap between them being too big to actually whisper, “In a place this big should be easy,”

“I’ve tried… Pennyworth has caught me each time,” Damian admits, looking down at the almost asleep Cat-fred.

“That man is a witch,” Marion declares with certainty.

“What?” Damian seems taken aback.

“He appears out of nowhere and knows too much,” Marion provides what Marinette is sure he considers evidence.

“Hn, that is true,” Damain starts to share his multiple accounts of such behaviour.

The three fall into easy conversation after that listening to and sharing stories.

“I must be going insane,” All their eyes snap to a man standing in the doorway “Demon spawns actually getting along with someone,”

“Todd,” Damian acknowledges coldly.

“Hi,” Marion waves with far more friendliness, “I’m Marion, this is Marinette, your names Todd was it?”

“Jason actually, I lived here and drop by every now and then, mainly when Alfred asks," He explains, sitting on another couch near Marion, "Heard about you had a run in with a villain today,”

“Did you?” Damian asks, the two having avoided it in their conversation so far.

“Yeah, got an earful from Aunt Selina,” Marion laughs nervously.

“Did you get hurt?” Jason looks over Marion, concern written all over his face.

“What? No I’m fine thanks,” Marion smiles, Marinette rolled her eyes she stretches her leg to press to his bruised side, "Ow! Nette!"

"No lying," She shrugs as Marion turns to her. Cat-fred runs at the sudden movement, making Marion pout.

"Rich coming from you," He mutters, turing back to see the look on Jason's face, "My side just a little bruised, doesn't hurt unless someone, oh i don't know, kicks me!"

"I didn't kick you, you drama queen," Marinette sticks her tongue out at him and he copies.

“Did Selina train you?” Damian reverts the conversation.

“A little when we were younger, we still to spar together,” Marinette pretends to go for a kick to his side again, expecting the easy block.

"One of the few instances we're allows to punch each other," Marion jokes, "Although I think I'll hold off for now, you're not above using my injury to your advantage,"

"I'm resourceful," Marinette corrects, "Also, now you're hurt when you're afraid to get you're ass beat?"

"Such crass language, young lady," Jason teases, Marinette pokes her tongue out again.

"I can spar you if Marion is unwilling," Damian offers, Marion grumbles something along the lines of 'I never said that'.

"Right now?" Marinette sizes him up, she could tell he had some training.

"If you want," Damian also starts to size her up.

"Hold up now, you can't do this," Jason steps in, Marinette starts to deflate, "In here, Alfred would stop you, lets go outside,"

She perks up, following Jason, Marion and Damian outside to a clear area of grass. She toes off her shoes and socks, knowing they were steel capped and would cause some serious damage. She also pulls off her scarf, not willing to give him any advantage. Damian keeps his shoes on, clicking his tongue. They start to circle each other, waiting for someone to make a move. Marinette feels the grass beneath her feet, she feels more like Ladybug in a way.

Damian breaks the standoff, lunging at her. Marinette side steps at the last second, reminding herself to tone it down. She tries to make use of the opening by getting behind him, but Damian instantly pivots to keep her in front of him. Marinette takes note he's a lot faster than anticipated and decides to test it. She makes the next move forward throwing a few punches to see how he reacts. Damian easily dodges each one, Marinette realises that she is unprepared to fight someone smaller than her. They did occasionally have to fight Akumatised children but that was with superpowers. She had never actually gone hand to hand with someone smaller.

Taking this into consideration she adjusts to a style she uses more when sparring Marion. They're both about the same size and he's fast so she can rarely use his weight against him like she usually would. Marinette stops trying to get behind Damian, instead planning to send him to the ground, knowing she had the size advantage. Damian seemingly notices this change and adjusts his defences.

'how well is he trained?' Marinette asks herself. Damian tries to goad her into attacking, throwing out punches. Marinette doesn't rise to the bait, dodging and blocking. Marinette dances around their sparring area, testing Damian's stamina while waiting for an opening. She sees her chance and is about to move into counter attack.

"Damian!" They both pause looking toward the manor to see Bruce and Selina.

"Marinette! what do you think you're doing?" Aunt Selina storms towards them.

"Uh... bonding?" She laughs nervously.

[spookyspaghettisundae]

What Wretches Call the Law

The chains squeaked and creaked, and I startled awake.

They always made that dreadful sound whenever I moved, whenever the wind blew. It was driving me insane. It was not like sleep came easy for me anymore.

My feet ached. Everything hurt. The iron bars dug into my back as I sat there, with my legs so close to me that I could have held my ears shut with my knees. So uncomfortable.

But I only had two options left. Standing up until almost everything hurt or sitting like this until everything else hurt. I had given out hope of ever experiencing anything but this persistent pain. But I had yet to come to terms with my end.

The bastards left me out here to die. On display for all to see.

Did not even have the decency to hang me first, or quarter me, or whatever else the sick coxcombs come up with next.

Maybe I could have spent more time in pondering where it all went wrong, but I had stopped seeing the point in that. Somewhere in between shouting profanities into the night until I went hoarse, mulling over all the little things I came to regret in life, and sobbing while I pleaded for my freedom, every single peep from my parched throat falling upon deaf ears.

Nobody ever answered.

Only the damned metal chain links squeaked.

So, there I was, hanging inside this inhumanly narrow cage. They called it a "gibbet". Love how they always found the time to come up with fancy names and forms for shit like this. All their riches and all their reading and faith and books, and this is what they filled their lives with.

Rotten inbred scum.

Their twisted sense of justice in putting me here, leaving me here—there was nothing just about it. They were deranged. Their sadistic pleasure in seeing my plight spoke volumes of their madness. The way the crowds gasped, and laughed, and cheered whenever they watched public executions.

I knew. I had been of them, too. At some point.

And all the while, every single one of them would have done the same in my place.

I knew because that was where I had gone.

As well as all the louts who stopped by the crossroads to look upon me there. To point, to talk ill about me, to tell their children that this was why they had to eat their supper and go to sleep and obey whatever they were told.

All cowards. Cowards who either loved to crush the peasants beneath their heel and mock me as they rode by on fancy horses, or cowards who feared the thought of ending up in my place if they helped me or even just dared to question this disgusting injustice.

Little walking piles of shit, all of them.

Even that little girl.

My thoughts had boiled down to these two extremes. Crushing remorse over mistakes I had made, and seething anger towards my captors.

Light and dark.

My skin had begun to peel from all the exposure to bouts of the sun burning down on me, while the cold and gloom of cloudy skies was something I had come to appreciate. Rain remained absent, as if God and heavens had decided to mock me like all the other cowards down here.

Day and night.

That was how my thoughts kept circling, cycling. I had no way of telling what time of day it was, or how long I had been left here.

Left to die miserably. For all to see.

Just like I had lost track of the passage of days and nights, I drifted in and out of uneasy slumber.

Squeak.

Fucking iron. Woke me up again.

There she was. Again.

The little girl.

No ten winters old, I guessed. Filthy, ratty, just like the rest of us who lived their lives in squalor. I began to wonder if she had even had a home where she took the food from, or if she was an orphan who nabbed these bits from townsfolk that pitied her. I wondered if she, too, one day, would end up like me.

Or if one of those bastards would take her life and get stuck in a cage to die, too.

Or if she would just be another one of the sorry souls, trampled underfoot by those rat bastards.

She held up a piece of soggy bread, offering it to me.

The first few times she had brought me any food, I always greedily gobbled it up. But in the beginning, I had held hopes of escaping. I ate only when I still dreamt of getting out from this fucking cage somehow, of getting my revenge.

Now, I would have spat on the little girl out of spite, but I did not want to spare any more spittle from my chapped lips. My mouth felt like sand.

I did not know how much longer I had, but another damned day in this damnable cage was a day too long to suffer through.

I shook my head at her, and she continued to stare at me through those big, wide eyes. Like staring at a doe in the woods, and the doe staring back. Curious and fearful. Frozen as I was, ready to bolt.

Like she knew what I had done but was entranced by it. Or she had no idea and did not understand why I was here. Or maybe the little witch was possessed by a demon who took pleasure in my torment.

At first, I welcomed the morsels she brought me. Usually bread, an onion here, even a chunk of cheese there. At first, I had still mistakenly believed I was getting out of this gibbet alive.

Now, I cursed her misguided pity. I cursed her with every bit of God's body. Anything she gave me only prolonged my suffering. Prolonged my captivity here, not only in this cage—but in this flesh.

I was too weak to do anything, too weak to speak back at people who insulted me whenever they passed my cage anymore. Too weak to hurl back profanities at those who mocked me, or threw rocks, or flung mud and dung pies. I reacted plentifully in the beginning. Colorfully. Sometimes pleaded, even.

But if there was one thing that the Lord had failed to teach us all, I guess it was showing mercy. This I now knew, taking root deep inside my bones.

The little girl shook the piece of bread, emphasizing how she wanted me to take it and eat it.

I guess if I had learned the lesson of mercy myself, I would have had to give the little brat the benefit of the doubt—that she pitied me, and shared food with me, thinking it was just the right thing to do.

That part won out. For now.

I shook my head again. She finally stopped holding out the chunk of bread. Turned around and left.

She always looked over her shoulder back at me when she went away, like I might finally climb out of my cage and follow her. She always showed up alone, no other people in sight. Vanished back into the hills, not taking the muddy roads where my cage swayed drearily in the wind.

Her presence portended something slightly unreal. Part of why I wondered if she was not some devil.

But none of that mattered. I just wanted it to end. All of it.

Not only my own life. I wanted the world to end. I wanted to see it burn, and to hear the screams of people suffering in ways undreamed of.

I wished ill upon all who had wronged me. And as far as I was concerned, here, hanging in this cage and dying slowly like a wretch—the whole damned world was guilty of wronging me.

I had lied, stolen, and slain. I cannot say that I did any of that for good reason. Sometimes I did it for fun. Often, I did it for my own survival and more often for my own gain, reckless of the cost upon others.

But how else was I supposed to live?

Not just survive.

Live.

Was I supposed to work the fields until my bones were bare and my feet bloody? To accept my place in life? Watch as others lived high and mighty, looking down upon us from their grandiose castles, taking from us because of the blood and loins they were born of? Leave alone all the things they have and do not need, so many that only the Lord almighty can keep an eye on it all and they need more servants to watch what they believe is theirs?

Craven toads.

Of course, I would steal from them. Of course, I would take their rotten children for ransom, and kill one of them when it came to saving my own hide. If those liver-eaters could get fat on the food we decked their tables with, then they certainly could fuck whomever they wanted to, to spawn more of their little rat-fucking offspring to continue their awful legacy.

Cowards. They would have done the exact same in my position. Any of you who want to tell otherwise, why are you lying to yourselves?

The only difference between them and us was the golden spoon that fed them from cradle to grave.

For when they stole, raped, and murdered, it was just. When we did as the example they led with, it was crime.

I regretted none of that. Think of me as a terrible creature, and I will not argue with you. That is not my place. Think of me as a terrible monster, that I have come to embrace.

As I awaited Death to greet me, sitting in my hanging cage, I only felt the occasional pangs of remorse over other things. My things.

The time I watched as the other children bullied a friend, and I joined in on it with them. How I should have done something. I could tell that he never looked at me the same away again ever after. And here, of all places, I wondered what became of him. Would he throw the first dung pie if he had the opportunity?

The time I broke a friend's nose in anger, and we never spoke again afterwards. I had overreacted, and he never deserved that. His wrathful gaze and bloodied face, I will never forget. I wondered if he still loathed me, wherever he wandered now. If he even walked this earth anymore.

And the time I made my darling cry, and never saw her again but doors closed on my face, angry shouts muffled by the wood. Owed to mistakes I had made all on my own, with nobody else to blame. Though I would never apologize for where I wandered in my life before and after, I would never strike her again. Those eyes, so filled with accusation, so cold and unforgiving for all the times I had wronged her, I had learned from those mistakes and would nary repeat them.

My sadness stemmed from those moments and filled my quiet loneliness now, thoughts I had not afforded much space until I had wound up stuck in this cage where I would die.

I was not a good person, and never would be. The longer I lingered here, the closer Death crept to my tiny prison, the smaller that remorse shrank. The shorter the bouts of sadness.

With this justice? This mockery of justice?

No. By now, I felt only anger. I had no more energy for it to burn bright like a flame.

All that was left of it was something seething and cold and almost sinister.

Oh, the things I imagined doing to people now as my last moments waned, and I drifted in and out of depraved dreams thereof.

Squeak.

Fucking iron.

Night had fallen, and I struggled to stand again, finally relieving my back of the pressure from the cage's bars. Within minutes of standing in the gibbet, my feet began to ache.

My stomach had long stopped growling. Funny, that. Never realized that it only growled after I had eaten. Now, that I had gone without nourishment for God-only-knew-how-long, all that my belly had become was a pit from which sharp spikes of pain shot out every now and again, stabbing at my insides to remind me of my coming demise.

I gripped the bars of my cage. And that was that.

No longer did I try to bend them, no longer did I possess any strength to even dare dreaming of such folly.

Death awaited me.

The shadows in the mist between the hillocks, they sometimes took the shape of people. Like the silhouette of a person. Standing still. Watching from afar.

Death.

When I came to next, it was gloomy again, light out.

I hated everything. Everyone.

A horse carried a nobleman down the crossroad. Hooves kicked up muck and the bastard turned his nose up to look down at me as he passed by. Pure disdain and disgust, judging by the lop-sided sneer across his visage.

Never seen him before but would have murdered him in a heartbeat over some food. Especially now. Or—my freedom, rather. Food only meant further torment, I reckoned.

Food without freedom only meant that Death took his time. Took longer to finally approach me.

The lousy nobleman in his bright and colorful cloth offered no prolonged stare, ignored me on his ride, gaining distance quickly. Had somewhere more important to be. Had others to gossip with, and perhaps speak derisively of me.

Now swallowed by the fog.

Squeak.

Next, I remembered, I was sitting again. My back no longer hurt. My eyes did not open.

Yet I saw.

I saw everything from here. Floating beside myself, studying the husk of my former being. Oh, how pathetic I looked. I wondered how many days lay in wait between my passing and my body turning into a skeleton. Knowing the scoundrels who had done this to me, I knew they would leave it there as a reminder.

Do not cross the crown, or you shall find yourself in the gibbet, just like me.

But my body was not alone as I hovered there.

There was that girl again. She could see me—not in my new form—thus she held up some bread to my body. Then she lowered her hand, seeing that my sorry carcass offered her no reaction. The deathly, vacant stare in my hollow eyes. The crows already cawed in the distance, hungry to pick the jelly from my skull.

The shadow of Death had long come and gone. But in sending only his shadow, so did I remain, a shadow of my former self.

My time in this flesh had passed.

But I now understood the potential. Felt something when I should have felt nothing anymore.

A thirst to dwell longer and unleash my wrath. All I needed was a way back.

That spark of curiosity. That open little mind of hers.

I could taste it. I could touch it.

And she could not see my shadow, growing as the sun set, crawling across the dirt, and reaching out like dark thorns.

I took control. I entered her head and took over. Saw through those big wide eyes. Studied my tiny little hands and wondered what I could possibly do with them. Wondered next if I could take another body, bigger and stronger than hers.

She still had all her teeth. Soon I knew her every memory.

Had I known this possibility, perhaps I would have welcomed Death sooner.

And without a body to tether me any longer, I would have my revenge.

I would make them pay.

All of them.

Now, I know you look at me in disbelief. I have seen so many faces like yours before.

How can this be?

Well—kill me. Cut me down. End my life and find out if my yarn is but a strange tale. I dare thee.

But when I return to haunt, I will remind you. No matter the face. I will admit that I lie, I steal, and I murder, like anybody else. Even if man gives me no right to. And whatever justice you think there is, it is an illusion. Justice serves only the strong and the wicked.

I will wear another face, and I will speak, with pride, "The flesh is a cage, and I am here to free thee from it." I will remind you of this tale as you weep and beg for mercy, and you will know for certain.

There is only what wretches call the law.

And then there is me.

—Submitted by Wratts

[votederpycausemufins]

The next chapter is going to be the last chapter. It’ll mostly end on a happy note, though there will be something at the end :3

@petrichormeraki @helleborusangel

Grian was glad to finally finish sorting through all the paperwork, narrowly missing Lynn arriving with another Watcher to discuss his kids. He dragged Grifter along with him and made a portal back to his base, glad that it seemed everything would be calm for a while. Until Grifter screamed.

Grian was sure it was just going to be a chicken left over from Hermit Challenges since those always seemed to appear at the worst times. Maybe someone wearing a chicken head who happened to be around. But instead, there was actually someone standing there. Someone Grian ever so vaguely recognized.

“H-hi there person I haven’t seen before. I’m Grian and that’s Grian and we cloned oursel-” Grifter quickly tried to say, but then freaked out as a chicken appeared next to him.

“Don’t lie. I already know what’s going on. I don’t like it, but you’ll get out mostly scott free. This time.”

“Ha ha ha... “ Grifter weakly laughed, glancing at the chicken to his side. “Hey, so is Mini-”

“Go home before I change my mind Ze.”

“Um, I actually changed it to-” Grifter started to speak before the chicken next to him hissed, making him jump and then make a portal back to helscraft.

Grian looked away from where his copy stood to where Punch was floating. As a Watcher, Grian could feel the death magic radiating off of the man. The man signaled to the chicken which hopped over to him and fluttered its way up to his lap where he pet it like a villain would their cat. “So. Xel I presume?”

After seeing how Punch had responded to Grifter correcting him, Grian just nodded. “Yeah.”

For a moment, the man just stared at Grian before smiling. “Well I’m sure you’re much better than my nephew. It’s a shame that your guide ignored you all those years ago.”

Grian had no clue what was being talked about. “Guide? What guide?”

“Something that could be discussed another time. You have more things to worry about. I’m sure your mother won’t be happy about me sticking around here too long, so I’ll leave you with a gift.” The man looked down to his chicken. “Kokatori, why not stay with Xelqua for a bit?” The chicken clucked once before hopping back down to the ground and standing next to Grian. “If anyone asks, you got it from a guy named Pablo.”

Punch looked like he was about to leave, but then at the last moment to turn back. “Oh, and by the way, I’d check your calendar if I were you. It’s currently May.”

Grian was left puzzled for a few moments as Punch disappeared. May? What did it currently being May have to do with anything. The only thing going on was closer to the end and- Grian pulled his comm out and checked the date. They had been so focused on the mess of the past week that Grian barely registered the days were actually passing. “I NEED TO FIND MUMBO!”

.

.

.

Mumbo watched as Grian was using Watcher magic to multitask. He had explained everything that happened while Grian was gone to him, and the builder was glad to be filled in, but before Mumbo could ask much, Grian pulled out a calendar, his communicator, a book, and also a lead which he put his new chicken on. “Grian, are you doing okay?”

“NO!” Grian stressfully shouted at Mumbo, making him take a step back. Had something happened? Was someone hurt again? Was it the boys? “I DON’T EVEN KNOW IF GRUM CAN EAT CAKE!”

“I’m… sorry what are you talking about?” Mumbo asked, a bit calmer but much more confused.

Grian thrust the calendar into Mumbo’s face. “It’s currently May 21st! We have less than a week to get everything ready!”

“Ready for…?”

“Are you- GRUM’S FIRST BIRTHDAY!”

Mumbo’s eyes widened at Grian answer. “Oh my word! That really is just around the corner, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. I already had some plans in place of course but now it’s basically all out the window since there’s more family and friends involved to invite. Right now the only thing taken care of is presents!”

“Right, and did it get delivered?”

“Of course it did! I hid it in a por- I HID IT IN A PORTAL! THE BOYS COULD ACTUALLY GET THERE NOW!” Grian yelled, freaking out.

“Okay, calm down. It’s going to be fine. If we need to, we can hide it somewhere else. And I’m sure even if we don’t move it, it’s going to be perfectly fine. I doubt either of the boys will manage to get in there.” Mumbo did his best to calm Grian. “I know the boys wanted some people to visit today. Possibly you can get those people to come and we can find time to ask them more about who else the boys might have gotten close to and get a guest list that way.”

Grian was glad to finally finish sorting through all the paperwork, narrowly missing Lynn arriving with another Watcher to discuss his kids

Grian snapped his fingers at the idea before putting almost everything away. “That’s a great idea. Let me message Tommy on the change of plans. You said they wanted Fundy and Michael?”

“And Michael’s parent since he’s young. Parents? I’m not completely sure, I’m sure all those time problems didn’t help.”

“I’m sure they didn’t.” Grian remarked as he finished sending a message. “There. Now I guess we wait for Tommy to respond.” And he didn’t need to wait long as a message arrived. “Okay! He says I can pick them all up, though I might need to search a little for Fundy. But I’m sure he’ll want to visit Iskall at the very least.”

“Oh, that’s right! There’s one thing I forgot to mention.” Mumbo spoke up, making Grian’s head whip in his direction. “It’s maybe a little concerning, but I’m sure it will be fine. It… it just looks like Grum might be skittish around Iskall again. It makes sense after everything that happened of course, but better I remember to tell you now and not let you find out yourself.”

“I guess you’re right about it making sense. It sort of was like he got… void he got brainwashed again.”

“Hey, he managed to do well on his own. Might not be the best way to take after you, but it’s still good he took after your survival skills.”

“Oh ha ha. I don’t have survival skills.” Grian rolled his eyes. “The amount of times I’ve dive bombed or exploded myself. I mean, You know how many times I died testing my minigame mister ‘Watch This’.”

Mumbo chuckled for a moment. “Not one of my finer moments. But I meant about when you were growing up. I know it’s not your favorite time, but you made it through that part of your life. Grum was able to do the same.”

“I wish he didn’t have to. I wish neither of them got stuck there.”

“I’m sure no one did. But they did and got through it, and that’s what matters. So let’s just work on making sure they know everything’s fine now. Go pick up Tommy and the others.”

“Alright. And thanks for the talk Mumbo.”

“Always.”

.

.

.

Jrum was practically bouncing off the walls when he saw Michael. Grum was a bit more reserved, but was also pretty excited. It seemed Michael was a little nervous being in such a new place, but Jrum was quickly at the ziglin’s side to reassure him. To the side, Fundy was currently admiring the marvel that was the spawn area. Since Jrum had gone with their friend, Grum made his way to the hybrid. “Um, hi Fundy.”

“Wh- Oh hey Grum! How’re you doing?”

Grum rubbed his arm. “Better. Thank you for helping me out when everything was happening. You didn’t need to.”

“Of course I did. You’re a kid and what Dream was doing was seriously fucked up.” He got a look from Grum. “Well, okay. Maybe I wouldn’t have normally, but he kept getting me involved and Iskall knew you, so it was kind of different.”

“Well, thank you very much for that.” Grum said, hugging Fundy. “Well, I bet you want to see Iskall’s tree.”

“Oh hell yeah! Where’s the Omega Tree?”

Immediately Jrum was back next to them. “I can take him there! I’ll also see if Iskall is there or can get there soon! You can play with Michael while we’re gone!”

Grum nodded and looked to Michael. “Do you think that your parents will let you follow me through the nether to a place to play? I know a safe path and Dad assured me if something were to happen, you would absolutely safely respawn.”

Michael snorted before running over to Tubbo and Ranboo, interrupting their conversation with Tommy. Grum followed him over to elaborate on whatever he would say, or just translate in general. When they were told of the idea, Ranboo and Tubbo weren’t entirely sure about it, but Tommy put in a good word. “C’mon, Grian and Mumbo let the bots run around on their own all the time. This place is safe, so he’ll be fine.”

“I guess… but only if you two stick to the overworld. The nether might be faster, but it’s also dangerous.” Tubbo relented.

Grum thought it over. They would need to take a boat over to where they were going, and there would be a bit of a trek through the jungle, but there was a path they could take. “Of course! We will do what we can to stay as safe as possible. Now…” Grum pointed to the bubble elevator. “Up the tube!”

Michael followed behind Grum to get to the surface and the bot crafted up a boat for the two of them. As Grum rowed, Michael looked around at everything around them. Though there wasn’t too terribly much in the ocean in the direction they were headed, there were enough large builds that could still be seen to keep Michael in awe.

Eventually they landed and Grum led them through the jungle. “The best place to play is in Uncle Scar’s village. It's got plenty of buildings to work with and the style is perfect for games! And then nearbyish is Larry the snail and the magic arrow.”

Michael oinked a quick question and Grum elaborated as they walked. When they finally reached the village, Michael quickly ran into it and started exploring, Grum quickly following behind the ziglin. Though the buildings themselves were interesting, Michael decided the best thing were the small mushrooms that had built along the path.

“Yeah! My Daddy really likes those too. He also found a haunted bed when he owned the place for a bit. I wonder if it’s still haunted. Ooo!” Michael pretended to be scared before laughing, and then the two went off to play in the village together.

Back at spawn, Tommy was still chatting with Tubbo and Ranboo when Grian arrived. “Hey, have you guys seen my boys?”

“Yeah, Jrum took Fundy to Iskall’s and Grum went with Michael to play.” Tommy answered. “Why, is something wrong?”

“No, I was actually making sure they weren’t around.” Grian looked to Ranboo and Tubbo. “Are you two willing to come back with Michael in like five days? It’s going to be Grum’s birthday and maybe Michael can be one of the guests?”

“Oh hell yeah, you two need to come. It’ll be so pog!” Tommy said, hoping they would agree to visiting again.

“I guess we probably can, but it’ll also depend on how today goes.” Ranboo answered, Tubbo agreeing with him.

“Okay good.” Grian nodded, writing something down. He then looked over to Ranboo. “Do you have any idea some of the people the boys were close to when they were stuck over there?”

“Sometimes I barely remember my name.”

“Hmm, alright I guess I’ll have to ask Fundy.”

“Hey, I do know one thing.” Tommy piped up. “Or maybe two. Wil’s also a big music lover, so there might be something there. The other bit you probably aren’t going to like though.”

“I’m sure I’ll be fine. What is it?”

“Pretty sure Grum’s favorite uncle is Techno now.”

Grian was just silent as he contemplated the answer. Tommy nervously glanced at his friends before taking a slight step back, worried about how exactly Grian would react. When the avian’s wings started puffing up, Tommy was sure they would need to run, but instead Grian just took a deep breath. “Alright. Fine. I was already planning to invite him since he’s family and all. Yep. It’s fine. Totally fine.”

“It doesn’t sound fine.” Tubbo spoke up, and Grian quickly looked at them with a glare, though he was still smiling.

“Nope. It’s absolutely completely fine.” Then Grian sighed. “Well, I guess I’m going to find Fundy and ask him some questions. If you think of anything else, just message me.”

Tommy agreed before the avian flew off and then looked to his friends. “Alright, so this is probably the best excuse to show you around the shopping district since I’m going to need to pick something up. And if you guys want to buy something, just say the word, I can spare some diamonds.”

“Are you sure? We could get our own-” Ranboo started to speak up, but got stopped by Tommy.

“Nah, don’t worry. I’ll probably earn back whatever I spend in like a week. Probably from one of the redstoners.” Then Tommy led them to the bubble column. “Now let’s go. Oh, and Ranboo, if you need some armor to help with the water, just grab one from one of the stands. That’s what they’re there for.”

“You mean… the full netherite armor?”

“Yep.”

“Something tells me even I won’t have trouble forgetting all of this.”

[stranger-who-writes-fiction]

Gonna make full use of my ‘comic rant’ tag and roast Future State: Superwoman.

Spoilers! And yelling! Of the disgruntled kind!

So a few things at the start here: 1.) I wanted to love this book. I wanted it to be great. I wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt, in spite of some iffy stuff in the solicit text. So this rant is not coming from a place of having decided this was going to be awful ahead of time. 2.) My tolerance for bad Supergirl comics is pretty high! Takes a lot for me to actually come out and say that a particular issue is trash. Reader: This story is trash.

It’s not ‘middle-aged white guys writing/drawing a story about sending a minor to a potentially hostile planet fully nude’ trash, mind you. It’s the compost bin, rather than the landfill. Slightly nicer trash, but it still stinks to high heaven. Allow me to expand!

PROLOGUE - SUMMARY: ...I actually can’t summarize this comic b/c it would devolve into a lot of senseless yelling. We’ll just have to tease out this terrible plot as we go along. 

PART I - DEAD DOGS TELL BAD TALES: The comic opens with Kara standing at Krypto’s grave. That’s not why this comic is trash, but it bears mentioning. Because why. Why would you do this. 

PART II - IN WHICH IT ONLY GETS WORSE: So, Kara has a running inner monologue, and the main thing we gather from Kara’s thoughts is that it was Krypto who taught her to be a hero. On paper, that sounds very sweet! In practice, it reads as Kara having no moral center whatsoever—whatever good qualities she might possess, she did not learn from her parents, or her foster parents, or friends, or fellow heroes. Nor do they come from within Kara herself. Nope, t’was Krypto who taught Kara not to be a jealous rage monster. That is not hyperbole--Kara’s walking around angry about her cousin all the time and she’s like, ‘It was you, Krypto, who taught me not to judge, and to let go of anger.’ Listen, I love Krypto, but this? This is, as the youth would say, a bad look.

PART III - THOSE CERTAINLY ARE...SOME THEMES: The set-up here is that Kara is on the moon, and has established a sanctuary for alien refugees. That’s a dynamite idea! I love that! Buuuuut Kara didn’t look at the plight of alien refugees and say, ‘I want to help!’ Really, she didn’t even look at herself and say, ‘I don’t want others to feel like I’ve felt.’ No, she said, ‘Earth won’t accept me as a hero, and Clark didn’t name me protector of Earth, so. I’m out!’ (Honestly, if your moral compass is so whack that you need a dog to walk you back from Hulk-Smashing...can’t say I blame Clark for not picking you, Kara!) But apparently, the people on the moon don’t really like her either. And it is literally never explained why. There’s a whole montage of Kara fixing stuff and saving lives and all the moon folk just glare at her. This makes both the moon people AND Kara look like a**holes, because they come across as ungrateful, and she comes across as a glory hound. Thanks! I hate it! So the ‘peace’ Kara’s found on the moon isn’t really peaceful at all, cause she still resents her cousin, and people still don’t like her, in spite of the fact that she’s constantly performing acts of service for them. 

Also, side note, I’m just now realizing this is an entire population of alien refugees...and Kara is somehow still the odd one out. Like, Earth I get, because everyone else is a human and maybe freaked out by the super powers. But a bunch of aliens? WHY. Why did you do this. Why did this need to be set on the moon with alien refugees if you’re not going to interrogate Kara’s identity as an alien refugee herself AND all of the aliens are inexplicably humanoid in appearance and utterly ordinary in terms of power levels.  

Like. This is not the CW show, where they have a budget, and a huge ensemble cast to serve. YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE. AAARRRRRGHHHH.

PART III CONT’D: There’s also this weird ‘birthright’ element introduced...like, Clark and Jon stole Kara’s ‘right’ to be earth’s defender which is...a terrible reading of Kara’s modern origin. It brings in the idea that Kara is a ‘chosen one’ and because she didn’t get to be that chosen one, all of her hero work is for nothing. Never mind the whole central conceit of what makes Clark and Kara heroic...that they have this incredible power, and choose to do good with it. Nah...it’s all about her ‘right’ to protect the people of Earth! And mean ol’ Clark took that away! THANKS. I HATE IT. 

PART IV - A POOR USE OF SPACE: So, all of the Future State books kind of struggle with the issue of too much exposition, which is understandable. They have to introduce an entirely new status quo in a very limited amount of literal page space, so you *really* have to have a handle on how you allocate your time and focus.  

Introducing a brand new, lore-heavy heroic character who gets all of the development and dynamic art and pulls focus away from the character you’re meant to be writing is a bad use of a two issue limited series.

Like, this is a crappy Supergirl comic but it’s a great backdoor pilot for a Lynari ongoing, I guess. 

Imagine if in the Jon Superman book, they introduced a random, brand new best friend for Jon, and he got the big character arc instead of Jon. That’s something you save for an arc in an ongoing title, NOT A TWO ISSUE EVENT COMIC.  

Back to said new character, there’s a lot of forced attempts to parallel Kara and Lynari, but Lynari’s backstory is so confusing, rushed, and poorly explained that it’s like: okay, they’re both...angry? And the moon jerks hate them? ...uh. Okay.

(I’m gonna bring back my ‘why is this set on the moon, even’ question so that my ‘poor use of space’ header becomes a better joke.) 

PART V - I'M HOLDING OUT FOR A HERO...B/C THERE SURE AIN’T ONE HERE: I’ve already mentioned that Krypto was apparently Kara’s conscience so when Lynari’s aunt arrives to...kill them? (again, everything about Lynari’s backstory is rushed and poorly explained) Kara gets real mad and basically pulls a Gothel: ‘You want me to be the bad guy? Fine! Now I’m the bad guy.’ But thank goodness Lynari is there to tell Kara no! Don’t murder the giant aunt eel! Lynari then steals Kara’s powers and gives up the swamp jewel that’s been hidden inside their body and now their aunt is less murder-y!

WOW. Couldn’t even give the big damn hero moment to Kara in her own book, huh?

So the day is saved. It takes Kara a while to regain her powers, and it’s only then, when she’s no longer ‘above’ the moon jerks, that they’re like, ‘oh, we like her!’ There is a bit of narration about how that attitude is awful. But that narration is provided by Lynari. See, the inner monologue is no longer Kara’s thoughts, but rather it has switched to Lynari’s point of view. They’re telling us this story. And do you know why?

PART VI - WHY THIS COMIC *SUCKS*: KARA DIES. SHE’S THE FRIGGIN’ ‘SECOND GRAVE’ OF THE TITULAR ‘TWO GRAVES’

Fudge this comic to heck.

See, Kara dies on the moon, presumably of old age. She’s buried next to Krypto. And this random character who we’re suddenly supposed to care about tells us her story. Not Clark. Not the Danvers. Not Brainy. Not even one of the supporting cast members from her solo title. No one from Kara’s life is mentioned at all, save for Jon and Clark, and they’re pretty much relegated to flashbacks of Kara punching them. 

PART VII - TIME TO COMPARE DEATHS, I GUESS: First and foremost can I just say that I hate that’s a sentence that I’m typing about Kara in the year of our lord, 2021. But okay: Kara’s big famous death in Crisis stopped the entire DC universe cold. Everyone paused in the middle of the destruction of the multiverse to mourn her loss and honor her (GENUINELY HEROIC) sacrifice. Clark and Barbara--two established characters with a strong connection/relationship to Kara--offered lovely eulogies. 

This one: Kara gets to die of old age in obscurity after a lifetime of striving to be recognized and only achieving it by de-powering and serving a population of jerks. 

Not the warm and fuzzy ending you think it is!

(Meanwhile, Clark lives for millennia and spawns an entire dynasty of Els, all of ‘em out there, protecting the cosmos. I was looking forward to House of El in the hopes of maybe seeing some Kara stuff but NOPE. Thanks to Superwoman, we’re probably not gonna see any future Kara stuff beyond this! G R E A T)

And like, the argument could be made that this ending makes Kara happy. This is the life she chooses! She wants to be alone and garden on the moon! Except, we get zero insight from Kara regarding the remainder of her life. We only have Lynari’s narration and some montage shots...nearly all of which focus on other characters. But honestly, even if we did get Kara’s side of things, I doubt it would shed much light on her feelings, bEEECAUSE...

PART VIII - SUPER BLAND: This Kara really has no personality outside of ‘detached and vaguely bitter.’ I like Sauvage, I think she’s an incredibly talented artist, but here, Kara is stiff and her expression often reads as aloof. She’s very pretty, but it comes at the expense of being expressive. (And I know Sauvage can do expressive stuff...because Lyanari gets to be expressive.) Like...I love that shojo manga vibe but this is a Kara devoid of spark and warmth. 

...Like...Melissa Benoist’s portrayal of Kara is right there... 

I’ve already sort of touched on this but her inner monologue doesn’t have much personality either. She’s just parroting the same, ‘I need to do as Krypto taught me!’ nonsense for both issues. Until, of course, we shift to Lynari’s narration, and lose Kara’s thread entirely. 

PART IX - LET’S WRAP THIS UP: This book frustrates me to no end because it had a lot of stuff going for it. It’s got a female writer and artist--still a rarity for the Supergirl book--it’s a limited series mostly free of continuity and character baggage, and it’s not tied down to the grimdark cyberpunk stuff happening in the Gotham books. YOU COULD’VE DONE ANYTHING. And, once again, DC goes with a pitch that’s: Kara is angry, Kara resents Clark...and Kara dies.

It’s also happening...right as Kara has no dedicated ongoing title, the movie’s been shelved, the TV show is entering its sixth and final season, and all promotion has shifted to new CW and HBO shows. 

*screams into the void* 

MAAAAAAN I hate this book. I hate that it retroactively makes me hate the Andreyko run a little bit--a run that I took to be about a traumatized young woman forced to confront her grief, and who leans on a beloved animal companion for comfort. Here, Krypto is L I T E R A L L Y the reason Kara’s not constantly frying folks with her heat vision. 

I hate that this book has made me use the word ‘literally’ so much in this rant.

I hate that this could possibly be more in continuity than Millennium.

Remember Millennium? Where Kara was in like...five pages? And she was warm, and kind, and promised to help Rose because it was the right thing to do, and oh yes, WAS PRESIDENT OF EARTH?!??! AND A CLASSY OLD LADY!?!?!?!?! WHO WAS STILL ALIVE AND KICKIN’ IN THE FAR FLUNG FUTURE!?!?!?!?!

I hate that I’m using my lunch hour to rant about how much I hate this comic.  

I hate that DC editorial seems hell-bent on erasing the interesting aspects of Kara’s character to sand her down to ‘the angry one’ or ‘Batman 2.0′

PART X - LET’S END ON SOME (?) POSITIVES: Don’t read this book! Don’t do it! Don’t waste your time and money!

Instead, check out ANYTHING ELSE. If you want mom!Kara, read Tom Taylor’s ‘Last Daughters of Krypton’ in the DC Nuclear Winter special. If you want heroic oldlady!Kara, read Millennium. Honestly? Pick up anything by Bendis that has Supergirl in it. It is miles away better than this. You want angry Kara working through her grief? Andreyko, Red Lantern, even Infected. ANYTHING BUT THIS. HECK, grab Superman of Metropolis instead! That has bad Kara characterization but at least she doesn’t end up dead. 

Anyways. This comic is bad. I wish it wasn’t! And this is now the SECOND TIME IN A ROW that Kara’s book ends on a terrible note before the character disappears from monthly comics for an unknown period of time.  

*screams into the void again*

[justletmeplayminecraft]

Some Cleo for the ask game?

cleo is so good, ngl. appreciate cleo more.

original post is here!!

Realistic: Something I don't see appreciated as often as it should be is zombie rules affecting Cleo! She can't use healing potions since they damage her. She wears a special paste or hat to stop her skin burning in the sun. But she's not against just sitting in the sun, on fire, having chugged a fire resistance potion, and calling it tanning.

Unrealistic, but hilarious: Cleo is what she likes to call 'a self-domesticated zombie'. She was born as a zombie, spawned into the game like that. But, turns out there's a lot more fun to be had being around players. Sure her existence gives most admins a minor crisis, and she needs to eat the occasional dose of brains, but are you going to find armour stand talent like her in many other places? She thinks not. How a zombie can do such delicate work like armour stands... Don't question it. Cleo lives as a contradiction.

Heart-crushing, awful, but fun to inflict on friends: This one ties more into Xisuma as well, but Cleo's death was a glitch in the system. Xisuma was a new admin at the time, and something in respawn broke. Only briefly, but briefly enough. And Xisuma panicked. He acted first, thought later. Determined not to lose her code. So much so that it was his mistake, and he brought her back wrong with no idea how to fix it. Cleo had to learn to adapt to being a zombie, and X swore not to mess with player code again.

Unrealistic but fun: This isn't really unrealistic jkjgf But everytime someone asks Cleo how she died, she gives a different answer. Every single time. Only a few people know the actual answer, whatever it may be. It's ranged from dolphins, a freak meteor, a minecart, a particularly determined chicken... She has a book full of them.