#roy goes along with it because he thinks it's funny and he tells anyone who asks that hal jordan is also their uncle

[undertheredhood]

random person: are you dating arsenal?

jason has never seen roy as anything but his older brother's friend and is disgusted that people see them as romantic: *makes up an incredibly complicated sob story on the spot about how he and roy are actually cousins whose parents' had a nasty falling out and they were only able to meet each other because jason became robin instead of saying no like a normal person*

random person who now regrets ever asking: you could've just said no, i didn't need to hear your whole life story

(this is in reference to this post, btw)

[itsclydebitches]

When Trent asks about writing the book and everyone is frantically getting Ted to say no literally behind Trent's back, do you think Trent knew what they were doing?

I do! On both a textual and a "realistic" level.

Meaning, if this were an irl scenario their reactions would be pretty hard to miss. Not only are Rebecca, Higgins, and Keeley saying 'No' with gestures grand enough to draw any eye, but Ted keeps shooting them very obvious "I'm uncomfortable with what they're doing over there" looks. As much as the Tedependent lizard part of my brain likes to read Trent's stare in this moment as heart eyes and heart eyes alone—why would he want to look at anything other than Ted??—I think, under the circumstances, it reads more like him deliberately staring to give Ted as much agency as he can in the moment. If Trent catches the others in their lies + insulting "Get him out of here" display, that puts him in the position of the victim, for lack of a better word. Ted then feels super guilty and he says "Yes" to Trent as a way to try and smooth things over. Trent doesn't want that. He wants to be here because Ted wants him here and though he can't control the others potentially influencing him, he can control his own reaction to the events: keep calm, open expression, non-judgmental, don't beg for it... just let Ted decide on his own.

However, to get back to the point about realistic scenarios, this is a comedy-drama where the characters often don't engage in realistic reactions. Emotions and responses are often deliberately exaggerated for the sake of comedic effect, so they definitely could have made Trent an Oblivious™ character who somehow misses the three people losing their minds right beside him and isn't that funny to watch? But I personally don't think Trent is that character. The show has never shied away from acknowledging what an ass he's been (see: his entire relationship with Roy) and Trent is more than aware of that reputation. He's cultivated it. There's really no version of these circumstances in which a very intelligent, emotionally aware Trent Crimm goes, "Hmm. I'm going to try and write a book about Richmond, the team made up of footballers who have avoided and cursed me out for years, a gaffer I threw to the proverbial wolves, and an owner who once hired me BECAUSE she knew I tear people to shreds in print. Besides, everyone loves having the press dog their steps for a season and then judge them in a permanent medium! Everyone's gonna be thrilled about this offer." Uh huh. Trent knows. He's not stupid. He's actually lucky that Rebecca went the polite route and passed the responsibility onto Ted Forgiveness Lasso. Ted's superhuman optimism was the very opening Trent needed.

Plus, I think Trent's knowledge of how he's really being received is shown throughout his first few weeks there. It's telling that Trent engages in a reversal of what's just been done to him, wherein he calls Rebecca out on why she really wants Zava: he can tell when she's lying and he knows when others in the room—this time Keeley, Higgins, and Ted—are trying to sway someone. Trent is already nervous when he walks into the changing room (you can see his fingers fluttering in his pocket) and he's a little shocked, but not surprised when Roy puts a ban on anyone speaking to him. We have that running joke of people going, "Don't put that in the book," the first instance of which is in Rebecca's office right after he's hired, yet again, there's no surprise along the lines of, "You're concerned about what I'm including? This is making you nervous, Rebecca? Why? I thought you wanted me here and the only thing keeping you from saying yes on the spot was respect for Ted and a belief that he should have the final call? 🤔" This girl was under NO delusions about how everyone was really receiving him. This is the face of a man who is very deliberately NOT looking behind him.

[asteria-argo]

5, 10, 15, 20!

Yesss love getting asks. You haven't specified any particular wip so I'm just gonna go nuts with whatever I want. All of these questions are from this ask game, for anyone who would also like to send me an ask!

5. Is there any scene you're excited about writing?

in To All The Better Places, or my teacher jamie au, there is going to be a scene where Jamie has to go into the principals office to have a meeting with Roy, Ted and Sam, because Jamie's classroom is the room that Sam has been paired with for the mentorship program.

This is the first time Jamie see's any of them in years, and also the exact moment Roy, Ted and Sam all realize that the lovely young teacher he's sure Sam will get along with swimmingly the principal has been telling them about is Jamie fucking Tartt. So I'm pretty excited for that one.

10. If unpublished, can you show a sneak peek of what you've written?

behold, the opening line of my currently untitled aro Jamie fic.

Sam was worried about Jamie. Well, maybe worried was a bit of a strong word. It wasn’t like there was anything particularly wrong with Jamie, he wasn’t quiet and drawn the way he got that one time that freaked everyone out, Sam was just… concerned for his friend.

15. Do you have any unwritten scene that you think about a lot?

YEPYEPYEP, I have several, the aforementioned scene where Jamie meets Sam, Roy and Ted again for the first time, there's a confrontation scene in the currently untilted aro Jamie fic between Jamie and the entire team that plays on repeat in my mind, there's also the hair washing fic which is basically only one scene so the whole thing is living rent free in my brain.

The big one I think about almost daily is another scene from To All The Better Places, in which the richmond players learn the absolute stupidest lie Jamie has ever told his students, which is "if I play football I'll explode because I'm allergic" which on the surface is a funny scene but there are LAYERS and I am excited for them.

20. Give a vague description of something that will happen without revealing too much

Jamie and his friends go to karaoke. the richmond team also goes to karaoke. These two events were not supposed to be related, but alas.

[alicepooryorick]

hey there! you recently reblogged one of my posts with a question about roy’s character (the op is fishfission-dc, this acc is my main.) i just wanted to let you know that the account you asked (elioherondale) is someone who goes around tumblr harassing anyone that draws or writes jason and roy together, with the characterization of the New 52 (2011-2016ish) run of their comics. (and I do say in the original tags that it’s specifically about this run!) So if you get a hateful or strange answer from them I just wanted to warn you :)

But if you wanted my answer to your question about how Roy is characterized differently, you can read this monstrous essay below.

In the older comics he’s more of a serious “asshole” who’s a ride or die for his teammates and daughter. (The new Green Arrow is a little more like this Roy, I know you said you’ve been into that recently :) ) He had an era in like the 80’s or smth where the writers gave him alcohol and heroin addictions, where Oliver was super unsupportive for a while, it was a whole thing. But Lian and his teammates and eventually Oliver helped him back to being a standup guy and the comics just stopped mentioning the addictions. When the DC universe was jumbled with the New 52 2011, he was a member of the Outlaws in Red Hood and the Outlaws and then when Kori left the series Red Hood / Arsenal followed just him and Jason. These series made him more goofy, the funny man to Jason’s callousness. But Roy would still kick it into gear and be serious as hell when needed, and he was competent, intelligent, all that jazz that’s true to his character. He just makes jokes now and actually tells his friends that he loves them.

this era also brings back the concept of Roy being an addict, which writers tries to shove under the rug for a while after the edgy 80’s arc that created it. Elioherondale and his jayroy harassment goons like to say that the New 52 comics “regressed Roy to being an addict” or that his friendship with Jason did it, but that’s not true!! In the New 52 he’s not actively using, he’s been clean for a long time, it just addresses the fact that heavy addictions aren’t something you can just get over and forget about. You struggle with them for the rest of your life. It’s a super serious topic and I think this contributed to why they made Roy more lighthearted and silly outwardly, because they focused so heavily on this inner struggle he has, and had a lot of serious moments around it.

the characterization in the New 52 comics also implies to change Jason’s and Roy’s ages to be more similar, making them “best friends” and “partners” whereas in the old comics Roy would’ve been probably 6ish years older than Jason, and would have met him at least 18 years old when Jason was 13. There is also so much romantic implication and just general good friendship and loyalty and all that good stuff in this era, even if the writing might suck at times (often).

so anyway, I love the characterization in this goofy little New 52 comic era of Roy and Jason but it makes Roy have a funny disaster personality and reintroduces the idea that someone with a heavy addiction can’t just get rid of that. so sorry this was so long, I just wanted to give you a more objective take on the question!!

The squeal of joy I let out when you said this was along message. Thank you so much for taking the time to give me such a thought out response!

Also thanks for the warning, I just got a notification that they rb'd my question. It felt like this kinda situation but i also wondered if this was a Barbara Gordon situation, as I am a batfan. So it's not inconceivable that Roy got a similar n52 treatment as Barbara did.

I own like... one issue of the n52 redhood // Arsenal run. #9 I believe. I love Jason and Duela's relationship in the book.

But again, thank you for this message it was so fun reading through that, the new green arrow run is my first time reading a green arrow run and it's easily one of my top 5 along with Wonder Woman.

Hope you have a great day bestie!

[stxleslyds]

Robin Jason, a friend and ally of the Titans.

PART 1.

Last Friday I was feeling extra rage-y after the news about the Titans mini with the Titans show line-up of heroes. I still think that a) Jason shouldn’t be considered a Titan or be in the team as Red Hood and b) that him going back to wearing a bat symbol on his chest is just bad but as @randomlut said there is a possibility of that book not being set in DC’s current universe and if that’s the case then okay, I will not complain about it anymore.

But this post isn’t about that Titans book it’s about Jason’s Robin’s appearances in volume two of the New Teen Titans!

Now, this won’t be an in-depth review of those issues from a story point of view, it will be a post in which I talk about Jason’s characterization and interactions with the Titans. Maybe I will even dive a little bit into why I think that the interactions that Jason and Roy have in those issues makes the relationship that they had in New52 very out of place.

Let’s begin!

·         NTT (1984) #19

Jason as Robin appears here only in the last page of the issue. After the current team of the Titans appears to be falling apart Donna calls Jason and others to help in a mission, this team that she puts together resembles the “original” line-up with Robin, Speedy, (Kid) Flash, Aqualad and Hawk.

·         NTT (1884) #20-21

Jason appears in the Titans tower along the OG Titans, when Donna finally tells them what the mission is all about (stopping Cheshire from interrupting a meeting) she asks if they are in on the job, Jason is not only excited about being there but about Batman actually letting him come all the way to the tower. A little bit of what Jason thinks or saw in Bruce is shown when Wally says that he “didn’t think the Batman could be thrilled by anything. He is always so grim.”

Basically, what Jason says is that the Bat isn’t that bad if you get to know him and that he cares about Jason’s education outside of vigilantism. Also, Jason seems to be grateful and very receptive of the things that Bruce taught him, he regards him as a very good mentor.

After everyone decides to help, they get on their jet. Here we have a very important interaction between Jason and Donna, she is telling him how she is feeling about the attitude of the rest of the team and about how she is a little bit lost now that she is in charge of the Titans and then she asks what Robin thinks about the whole thing, Jason is obviously thrilled once more, someone as experienced as Donna is asking him for his opinion? It blows his mind away! Batman never does that, he is always following his lead and never has a say on what they do so, to him, helping the Titans is only getting better and maybe he will ask the Bat to let him join them permanently.

Because they were talking Donna wasn’t paying much attention while flying and after they barely avoid crashing the jet, she apologizes to everyone and once more looks for reassurance with Jason, this time Jason is caught off guard but after Hawk teases him about his hesitation he tells her that “everything’s okay”.

When they arrive to Switzerland (where the meeting will be held) we have Jason’s first interaction with Roy Harper and him also slowly transforming into a burrito, that boy was cold and pissed off about it!

It’s really funny to me that Roy talking about Oliver’s pervy arrows is his very first interaction with Jason, who would have thought that a mad man would later make them besties?

They all go inside a building to get warm and for a while Jason is just chilling while the other Titans are all having an existential crisis, because here is the thing, Jason is a kid, he was presumably 14 here while all the other are in their twenties. Donna is having trouble with her new position as leader of the Titans, Wally is trying to live up to Barry, Garth is grieving his love, Roy is still very uncomfortable about being on a mission that involves Cheshire and Hank is just crazy. The others are trying to complete a mission while their real-life problems loom over them and Jason is just on an adventure with cool people.

Its not much later than Cheshire attacks the Titans, she first takes on Wally because he is her biggest threat and then detonates a bomb, now here I will give a little bit of context, Cheshire does not want to kill the Titans as of now, she just wants to incapacitate them because them being there is making her own mission more complicated, all I will say is that she doesn’t truly have villainous intentions and that she has a very weak spot for Roy.

Anyway, the bomb incapacitates Garth and Roy and Cheshire also managed to shoot Wally so only Donna, Hank and Jason are left standing to capture Cheshire, but here is the thing, Hank doesn’t want to capture her, he wants to kill her.

Jason has interacted very few times with Hank so far and it has always been Hank teasing him but now as Jason is going to fight Cheshire Hank interrupts him telling him that he will do “what has to be done”. Cheshire of course wont fall easily and I think that at this very moment she is thinking that killing Hank wouldn’t be a bad idea because he is going to mess her plans up! But not to worry as she is raising her gun Jason comes in to save his ass!

Jason is not a match for Cheshire and after that she quickly subdues him. But what’s important here is two things, first Jason doesn’t want or consider the idea of killing Jade, he just wants to capture her and bring her to justice, secondly, he doesn’t even want her to kill Hank, who has been violent towards every Titan and rude to Jason every single time that he has interacted with him. What I am trying to say is that this IS Robin Jason, he doesn’t think or act the same as Red Hood will in the future, he has his opinions on what punishments killers should get but he is not there to kill anyone himself.

There is this whole page where Donna beats Hank against a tree so he stops killing, because that’s not what the Titans do, she explains that if they do that then the public (that is already quite afraid of them) will just fear them more and they don’t need that, plus she believes that he is acting that way out of grief after losing his brother, as she is saying all of this though she is putting quite a lot of pressure on his chest and that might have ended up in her actually killing Hank if Jason hasn’t been there to stop her.

Donna is obviously not having a good time and after this she says that she “has had it” and that from now on Robin should “take command” because “its his group anyway”. Oh man…its clear to the reader that Donna is not having a good time being team leader but she also misses a certain person a lot. She is obviously not seeing Jason there, she is seeing Dick, the person that she is used to take orders from but he is not there.

Jason is aware of this, he might be a kid and might not have as many problems as the other Titans as of now but he is not a fool and he doesn’t want people to see someone else when they look at him, so he confronts Donna about what she just said/did.

Jason is just great in this scene; he just doesn’t want people that he admires to treat him as if he were someone that he isn’t. Just because Dick isn’t there doesn’t mean that he (because he is Robin) can replace him, they are not the same person and they do not have the same experience. He calls out Donna on her behaviour towards him and Donna being an adult takes responsibly for her actions and understands that ultimately, she was hurting Jason’s feelings. We have a kinda wholesome moment when they hug but because this is written by Marv Wolfman and he just can’t help himself, he proceeds to write Jason as a horny teenager. What a way to ruin the moment Marv…

Back to Cheshire, she is about to kick Wally’s face in when she decides to first tell him what he has to tell the others when they wake up, which is “Cheshire remembers”.

Wally tells the Titans Cheshire’s message but none of them truly understands what it means, Hank says that he doesn’t even understand why they are alive. Donna comes to the conclusion that Cheshire might want something from them and this is where Jason gives his thoughts, he says “Doesn’t matter what she wants. We take care of her. She’s a killer.”, its clear once more than although Jason (as Robin) wouldn’t kill anyone he does feel a certain type of way about criminals and wants them to be locked up.

After yet another verbal fight between Hank and Donna the Titans take a cable car to their next location, Jason is shown as exited about the view and the whole experience once more. When they arrive, they find Faraday (the guy that called Donna for help in #19) and he explains a bit more the situation but Jason once more is having trouble staying warm so he goes to the cable car tunnel nearby, but he doesn’t go alone, Roy goes with him because his “costume wasn’t made for this kind of weather either”, in this second interaction between these two we get to see Jason’s detective skills shine.

Jason has been watching Roy and he found his reaction to Cheshire’s message quite sus. Not only is he showing his detective skills here but he also said in a previous panel this: “The Batman keeps telling me to watch people’s eyes. And every so often I notice you become awfully agitated…like something was going on you didn’t want to be part of”.  Zdarsky, hey pal, I am talking to you, look at this dude! He read Roy like an open book, this is Robin Jason, he likes being Robin and he is brilliant at it, he is methodical because he learnt from paying attention and working with Batman, so, you sir are wrong, not only did UtRH disprove your dumb narrative but so does this interaction (along all his appearances in this book).

Roy is impressed by the kid, and yeah, he calls him kid because he is a kid…Roy is visibly older than Jason as he should, do you see it Lobdell? Yeah, there is no dubious age gap between those two as you made it seem. Roy is impressed because between both of them he is the one that is most experienced, not the other way around. How did Lobdell manage to make up a whole as run where not only were Roy and Jason close in age and besties but also Jason was better at vigilantism than Roy and Roy was the one being impressed. It’s wild, wild and bad.

Back to the issue, Jason taken out of the fight quite fast once more by Cheshire and she proceeds to talk to Roy, that’s where we find out that they were lovers and that she feels weak when she is around him because he makes her feel feelings but that’s not all, she tells Roy that he is “the man that fathered my child” …Oh and now she does want to kill him. That’s where #20 ends, so let’s see what happens with Jason in #21.

In the beginning of #21 Jason is conscious once more and when he hears Cheshire’s threat, he attacks her so she can’t shoot Roy, he also says this “Sorry ‘cat’ that’s a definite no-no. Don’t you know mommy’s and daddies should never fight” I, I don’t know why he had to say it like that…the 80s were weird. While Jason is being himself Roy is thinking “Don’t be cocky kid, Jade hasn’t got a sense of humour…” but because he wants to talk to Jade, he tells Jason to go, that he will handle Cheshire and he leaves.

Roy and Jade talk, Donna and Hawk are fighting bad guys and each other and at some point, Jason joins Garth and helps him take down a couple of guys, he also tries to make conversation with him but Garth is still not talking to anybody.

Cheshire tells Roy that he will never hear about their child again and that he needs to let her do her thing and stay out of it because he doesn’t understand what’s going on, Roy doesn’t do what she asks and she “poisons” him. Donna saves a guy that Hank was trying to kill. After Cheshire leaves Roy comes to the conclusion that she wasn’t there to kill the people from the meeting or that she poisoned him, but because they were there and everything went to shit now the people that were getting together are blaming the Titans for the interruption. The whole thing is a mess and the news channel are not nice about the Titans as a whole, but I am not interested in exploring that here. All you need to know is that the people that made Cheshire do what she did to the Titans were the Brother Blood people.

It’s on the jet that we see Jason again, he and the others are going back to the tower. Because the news are painting the Titans as bad when they are arriving to the tower Jason sees a lot of people protesting about them and he feels bad. This was his first job with the Titans and he is a kid, imagine how sad it would make you if you wanted to help and after getting the job done people were mad at you. But even though he is sad about that he takes time to ask Roy if he is okay after he sees him almost running away from the tower, he doesn’t get a response but he isn’t mad about it.

Jason’s stay with the Titans comes to and end and he says that he loved hanging out with them and is grateful for having been invited, he is so sweet!

·         NTT (1884) #24

Here, for some reason, we see Jason saying goodbye to the Titans again and unlike at the end of #21 Roy is there to see him leave.

I am not going to lie though; I liked this goodbye better it feels like it’s more complete than the other one. Here he says that Batman wants him back in Gotham but that if the Titans ever need him again all they need to do is call. He also mentions Nightwing which is funny because he will be called by Donna again in #26 to help the Titans get Dick back from Brother Bloods Church.

I am going to cut this part here because issues 26 to 31 have a lot of Jason content that I want to explore and I can’t put any more pictures here, also this post is already long as it is now!

I just love Jason’s little moments in these issues, him confronting Donna and reading Roy like and open book in #20 are my absolute favourite, I just think this is a nice way to kinda show how wrong some current characterizations of Robin Jason are and what better way to do that than reading and looking into some good stories.

Oh! Before I forget, in #21 Roy leaves the Titans’ tower to go see Jade and he actually gets to meet his daughter Lian for the first time, so yeah, that was a wholesome moment!

[woahajimes]

One of my favourite issues of comics ever is that one issue in The Brave And The Bold (#83) that’s from the late 60s and in which Thomas and Martha have this family friend or business partner and they signed this legal document in which if they [family friends] were to die, their son (little boy named Lance Bruner) would have to stay with the wayne family. And so one day, the Bruner couple dies, and their son is left orphan. And of course, the document didn’t say Thomas and Martha, instead it said Wayne Family, which is at this point, Dick, Bruce, and Alfred. And Bruce of course can’t say no, and he doesn’t even want to (which tells you a LOT about Bruce’s character towards children and just people in general). 

So it turns out that this Lance kid is around Dick’s age (who is with the teen titans, with Roy, Wally, Donna, and occasionally Garth) is a complete troublemaker. He vandalizes police cars and does other stuff, and guess who takes the blame. Dick.

And he [Dick] tells the teen titans that he does it because Lance needs a friend, which could be true, and they all decide to befriend Lance, to see if he like ‘straightens out’. 

As you may guess, that did not go well. Lance flirted with Donna, in quite a disrespectful manner, and he was a literal jackass. 

And then Lance pulls this thing with a great amount of money, and THIS brings Bruce’s attention, because the police came to the manor, and Bruce is just talking to Lance in the living room, and Lance is just lying over and over, saying how the money was from his parents, that they had left the money for him, in cash, you know the drill. And literally in the basement, the hang-out place for the teen titans, Dick and the titans are there and they’re listening through a vent and they’re like ‘oh my GODDD how is bruce FALLING FOR THIS?!” 

and this just gives me a lot of happiness overall because you can see their characters, and for someone that reads rebirth comics or new 52 (especially new 52), they’ll look at it a bit funny and go ‘well this seems out of character, no?’ and NO! because bruce actually loves his kids!!! and the whole idea of the batfamily, the FANON IDEA OF THE BATFAMILY, in which they’re all getting along and being a FAMILY, would actually be CANON if ONLY dc hadn’t massacred their characters so much. So yeah, hang on to those headcanons. 

At this same time, there’s this thing going around in Gotham with the oil supply I think, and Batman has this deadline to like,,, solve the case. Whatever

I just paid attention to how beautiful this issue is for all the domesticity and the writers actually writing Dick having a BROTHER, and Bruce adopting another kid. It’s just so fascinating and disappointing because how on earth did ANYONE let this happen, Bruce now hitting his kids so often, being such a dark and angry person. ‘Broody’ some say. Because let’s face it, Bruce has that whole ‘dark and gloomy’ persona, because of Gotham. It’s been said so often, that ‘Bruce is Gotham’ ‘Batman is the night and he only wear black’ and all that thing (Also keep in mind that Bruce’s uniform/costume wasn’t even black, it was blue- purple in other runs- with yellow and gray). 

(also can i please bring to attention that Bruce has actually- here, look at it. 

Don’t tell me this bruce is completely different from the ‘hrn’ bitch we have now)

As I was saying, there’s the oil case in Gotham, and nobody wants that, and Lance is begging for forgiveness, that he’ll ‘be good’, he says. 

And he IS. For a while.

Now bruce is fighting with some guys that have a lot to do with the oil thing, and in that one, Lance is like “wow Bruce and Dick do leave the house quite often, eh?” And then -catch this, it’s literally my favourite thing about comics- Lance finds a button in the elevator, and he goes “WOW! a super-secret button that leads to a super-mysterious place??? wack!” and then he finds out Bruce’s and Dick’s identities. 

Not such a great boy after all, right?

Long story short, and I’m summarizing it because I actually know little of the actual vigilante plot, but Robin gets shot.

“that boy meant more to me than anything in life” Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you? Just let that little line sink in for a little, just... let it sink in. Bruce has just seen Robin get shot. And this happens. 

Later, though, we find out that ‘Robin’ had actually been Lance, so in the end, Lance died, in the same literal issue he was introduced.

This was Lance as Robin, but Bruce didn’t know this. Bruce was convinced that Dick was dead. And did you hear what he said? God... 

[kiseiakhun]

What are your feelings on Kyle/Jason/Wally. I kinda think it might happen if Kyle had a crush on both. Accidentally tells Wally. Teasing. Jason finding out. Jason and Wally overdramaticly flirting. Dick finds out and Kyle dying from the close proximity of both Jason/Wally Wally/Jason Jason/Kyle Wally/Kyle. And then Flirting/Showing off intensifying. Although I don't really know much about Wally or Kyle. ❤

RUBS HANDS TOGETHER

Hello? This is the greatest ask anyone’s ever sent me. Kyle is a lovey-dovey dumbass who falls in love after two seconds of knowing someone, so like. It’s real. It’s very real. He and Wally would’ve had their thing first? Because of their whole enemies to lovers arc in JL, except - because of that whole dynamic where they started off ragging on each other, I feel like they both would’ve been oblivious to their feelings. Add in a healthy dose of compulsory heterosexuality from Kyle, and yeah... the adults of the League have probably been waiting years for that ship to sail, except the babies just keep being oblivious dunderheads.

(Wally realized in his teen years that he’s not strictly heterosexual, because being on a team with Dick Grayson when you’re male tends to draw out any bent inclinations very, very quickly. It’s just. Kyle is the snot-nosed rookie too big for his britches. He’s a baby? He’s an infant. Wally is not attracted to an infant, wtf.)

And then Kyle goes off on his journey of self-discovery with Donna and Jason. Well, journey of self-discovery for him, because Jason’s ass and body and his devil-may-care tough guy attitude is the culmination of Kyle’s bisexual crisis. Seriously, countdown is basically Kyle going “ugh, that stupid hot sexy asshole is so hot and sexy around Donna, there’s no way she can resist him. Why is he attractive? He needs to stop. I’m going to fight him because he’s TOO HOT.” It’s incredible. If the writers weren’t cowards, countdown would’ve ended with them being in a triad.

Donna’s probably the one who points out that mayhaps... Kyle’s constant mooning over Jason might mean something different... and Kyle’s like wtf, no. And then he actually thinks about it, because Kyle’s one of maybe two (2) men in the dcu who has a semblance of emotional intelligence (idk who the other one is, but I’m sure he’s out there) (edit: it’s Connor. Connor Hawke. Connor is the other man. I was going to say Clark but Clark keeps going to extremes whenever he or his are threatened and. like. he tries, bless his heart, but there’s still a lot of repression going on with him) and he’s like wait. Fuck. Well what do I do with this information!! It’s not like Jason is into guys!!!

To which Donna just looks at him like, how are you so smart yet so stupid at the same time. She remembers how baby Jason mooned over Roy and Dick as much as he mooned over her. She Remembers.

(Also, lbr, Donna’s very experienced by now at dealing with dumb boys in denial about their non-het leanings. See previous statements about being on a team with Dick Grayson. She saw all of it, man. She’s seen so much.)

Cue Kyle, sitting bolt upright in bed after they’ve just wound down for the night and just saying, “Oh my god, Wally.”

And Donna’s just like, yup.

And Jason’s just like ? wtf is that asshole up to now. Whatever, idc, blissfully unaware of Kyle’s bi panic.

Anyway. The world is saved, and they get back to their Earth, and Kyle manages to put it aside because Everything Happens So Much. He’s the Green fking Lantern, okay, he doesn’t have time to deal with sexuality crises, except. Except. It won’t leave him alone?

Like, in his downtime he hangs out with Wally a lot since they’re friends, and oh yes, hello raging crush that he can no longer pretend isn’t a thing, because once Kyle acknowledges his attraction? That is it, man, there’s no turning back from that point. And ik that in canon, Jason threw a snitfit and left Kyle and Donna in the middle of their happy fun space adventure fieldtrip, but let’s say he didn’t have a sudden ooc personality turn because of writer mandate, and he stayed with Kyle and Donna until the end of their journey, and they stayed in touch.

And Kyle realizes, to his horror, that Jason is charming, and funny, and not bad on the eyes, and fuuuuck. This isn’t really helping his stupid dumb crush. Stupid dumb crushes. Goddamn.

(Sometimes Jason even joins him in his Space Adventures because of his new team. More specifically, Kori and her shiny new spaceship that can sustain humans in space conditions, and he is not jealous, shut up, Roy.)

(Roy caught on pretty quickly, because he’s much more empathetic and in tune with other peoples emotions than he pretends to be 90% of the time. Unfortunately, he only uses his powers for chaos.)

Ofc, Wally would start getting curious about Jason eventually because suddenly this kid is fucking everywhere? Dick’s calling on him for intel in the middle of a firefight, and he’s ragging on Roy’s atrocious dress sense, and he’s joking with Donna and Kyle’s giving him the same shit that he used to give to Wally, excuse me. Wasn’t he a villain or something? The last time Wally paid attention to him, he was sawing heads off in Gotham, and now Wally can’t seem to turn without tripping over him. When the fuck did that even happen?

(I’m not sure if Wally ever met Robin!Jason. Hm. Were Jason’s guest-appearances on the team during when Wally was pulling one of his stints of... I don’t WANT to be a hero, I want to be a NORMAL BOY who goes to COLLEGE, even though I literally re-created the Flash’s lab accident down to the letter just so I can have his powers and be a hero and save the world? ... ykw, we don’t acknowledge that era of Wally. This was back when he was a meninist incel or something. Ick.)

... and damn, Wally really can trip over him now, huh. Because he sure did grow up big, and strong, and rugged, and haha fuck now Dick is starting to glare at him, too, and not just at Roy, abort, abort.

...... Wally does attempt to subtly ask Roy, later, if there’s any truth to the statements about him and Jason and Kori that Roy says to Dick to get him all riled up. I say “attempt to” because Wally is bad at subtlety. It’s part of why he and Kyle get along so well. Roy realizes what he’s asking and he about has an apoplexy because Wally? Wally? Now there’s a surprise contender he did not expect, tossing his hat into the ring.

But also. Also... hot.

Roy and Kori are watching all of this while munching popcorn like damn, this is better than TV. Because Kyle’s having his crisis, his Love crisis, and Wally’s having his oh my god why do I find my best friend’s little brother hot crisis, and Jason is just happily oblivious to all of this, because he’s too busy angsting over his dad not loving him enough and dismantling trafficking rings and being the big, bad scourge of Gotham to notice Kyle pining after him like a lovelorn puppy, and Wally eyeing him appreciatively like he hasn’t eaten in a whole hour and Jason is a tender piece of marbled steak roasted on both sides to perfection. He does notice the way Kyle and Wally look at each other, though, because he’s only observant when it comes to the positive emotions of other people. And he is not stepping in the middle of that, tyvm, because from what Roy’s told him the two of them have a looooong history and he does not want to get caught in the middle of that crossfire.

Roy and Kori are both like, what makes you think it’s going to get messy, anyway? And Jason, whose real world examples of functioning relationships are 1. Willis and Catherine Todd, 2. Bruce and Selina, 3. Bruce and Talia, 4. Dick and all his exes, 5. Roy and all of his not-exes because he doesn’t date but people keep falling in love with him anyway and he panics and ghosts them because he is Roy William Commitment Issues Harper, 6. Kori and whatever the fuck she’s got going on with Dick and like, an ex? back on Tamaran? who she might still be married to?? what the fuck, 7. Kyle and Donna and their messy breakup(s)(?) (Jason doesn’t ask, because he Does Not Want To Know) (he’s too busy repressing to realize it’s half because of jealousy), is just like, that’s just how things go.

And Roy and Kori, both having mentally run through all of those ^ options while Jason was thinking of a response, are just like. ... yeah, alright, that’s fair enough.

God, every single relationship in DC is a mess.

Where was I even going with this?

Oh, right. Basically, Kyle is pining like a lovelorn idiot, Wally doesn’t know what the fuck he’s feeling and it’s making him confused, and Jason is ignoring his feelings because maybe if he just represses them hard enough, they won’t spill over and punch him in the face. Honestly, I see Wally making the first move, because his inadequacy issues don’t run as deep as Jason and Kyle’s do, and Kyle’s just like :D and Jason’s like, what the fuck. What the fuck? Because it literally blindsides him, even though it’s stupidly, painfully obvious to everyone else around him.

Either that, or Roy gets sick enough of watching their lovelorn pining, and employs Dick’s help to lock them all in a closet, naked, and fuck it out.

(Dick doesn’t actually disapprove of Jason sleeping with his friends, he just needs to get over his mental block of still seeing Jason as a baby)

Anyway. They’re all a whole-ass mess.

[bigskydreaming]

remember when devin grayson wrote about green arrow flirting with teenager dick grayson and then bruce and dick have an incestuous relationship............................

Listen, I have no idea what this ask says, I just see a string of random letters followed by dot dot dot. 

In completely unrelated matters, the only dynamic between Dick and Ollie I abide by is one where the nicest thing Dick’s ever said to Ollie is something like “hey why does your face look like you killed a squirrel and glued it to your chin, is that what you were going for or do people just not like you and so nobody ever told you til now that that’s what it looks like.”

And even there, that’s still just the best Dick could manage (or was willing to even aim for) after Bruce gave Dick a totally and one hundred percent genuine and sincere Talking To about how he needed to be more polite to Ollie. Cuz the way I envision it, all that’s after Dick initially opened with something like, idk, “hey wanna hear a funny joke, it goes “what do you call a known Errol Flynn fanboy who thinks putting on a domino mask when he fights crime with a bow and arrow like, magically makes his goatee invisible? A dumbass who doesn’t get how secret identities work, that’s what. Get it, its you, you’re the joke.”

LOL for the record, I don’t actually hate Ollie and have no really strong opinions on him one way or another, it usually just depends on how he’s being written in whatever story or issue I’m reading with him. Its just canon that Ollie is like, one of the few people that Dick just openly can not stand, pretty much, with this stretching back far enough that personally, I like to headcanon it goes all the way back to even before Ollie took Roy in and has absolutely nothing to do with Roy whatsoever.

Idk, its just really fucking funny to me to picture that like, for whatever reason, ten year old Dick Grayson decided upon meeting the Justice League that they were all awesome except for Oliver Queen. Dick doesn’t know why, he doesn’t care why, he just knows that like, “I do not care for that Oliver Queen guy, not one bit, and no, I am not open to constructive criticism on this matter, UGH BRUCE STOP TELLING ME I SHOULD AT LEAST TRY AND BE NICER TO HIM, I SAID HE WAS A BUTTFACE AND I MEANT IT, WHERE’S THE CONFUSION.”

Because see, while Ollie is not Actually The Worst, he IS one of the League heroes who is prideful and petty enough to like, absolutely take offense to someone hating his guts for no discernible reason, while considering this more than reason enough to hate their guts right back. Even if that particular someone happens to have both miles and years left to go before they hit either puberty or the top side of five feet tall, and thus in the meanwhile, Ollie must literally lower himself in every sense of the word in order to return fire at his pint-sized and prepubescent critic.

Like, if Dick for whatever reason decided he just doesn’t like Superman or the Flash and he’s not gonna and you can’t make him, then I mean, Clark or Barry or someone else along those lines would just be like, oh, okay, that’s fair I guess. No, its totally fine Bruce, the adorable little human incarnation of glitter, cotton candy and all things Cute and Precious and Wee that you just took in is allowed to hate me if he wants to, its absolutely *wheezing sob* not a big deal. I’m a big boy, I don’t need you to intercede on my behalf with him. Now if anyone needs me, I’ll be wallowing in my room for the next 84 years, trying to figure out if I was some kind of monstrous puppy-kicker in a previous lifetime and that’s why my fate here in this one is to be despised by a ten year old with the superpower of Absolute Preciousness. Its my punishment, clearly, for being just the worst kind of monster to ever exist, the only kind that could actually be hated by someone like your adorable little Fun-Sized sidekick of joy and sunshine and l-l-laughter......no, don’t look at me, I’m hideous! *bursts into tears and scurries away to hide from the light*

But see now, Ollie, on the other hand, like.....he’s not a monster but he’s not about to let even some paragon of preciousness go around painting him as one. Why the fuck does he spend so much money on publicists if he’s just gonna roll over belly-side up the first time one of the people bad-mouthing him just happens to be like, a toddler instead of the usual TMZ?

So Ollie’s not about to admit that he’s actually miffed and even a little bit wounded that this cherub who seems to like even most supervillains more than he likes Ollie, just like, can not seem to be in his presence longer than sixty seconds before drawing his weapons and stabbing Ollie with words that hurt, dammit, because he has feelings too, y’know, he spent a lot of money on pricey therapists figuring out that yes, those are feelings he’s feeling and he can even name some of them.....

Like, he’s not quite on board with actually ACKNOWLEDGING that hey this stings, and that he really just wants to know what the hell this kid’s deal is and why don’t you like me, tiny human, what did I ever even do to you??? But all of that is like......Advanced Level Therapy stuff that he hasn’t quite gotten around to finishing yet at this point in time. Like yeah he’s already dropped a mint on the A-list of the head-shrinking world by now, but apparently he was supposed to keep coming back or something like that, they all keep making a really big deal about that for some reason, and look, he’s been busy. So he really just hasn’t had the time to finish up the course on How To Make Peace With the Fact That Sometimes Tiny Humans Don’t Like Me Even Though I’m A Fucking Delight, Dammit.

But even if the why of this kid getting under his skin so much eludes him for the nonce, Ollie is perfectly clear on one thing: he doesn’t typically go around making enemies of the twelve and under set, but if you prick him, he doth in fact bleed, you little prick. So if this knee-high nightmare is gonna keep coming at me and trying to start shit, then I am more than willing to throw down, is basically Ollie’s take here. 

“He wants to dance? Then c’mon, let’s do this thing. We can dance if he wants to. I’ve got the time,” Ollie says to himself and any other nearby Justice Leaguer who might be looking at him with that swiftly-becoming-familiar expression of mingled judgment, pity, exasperation and something a bit more ambiguous but which probably lands somewhere in the ballpark of “We honestly don’t know what to make of all of this but we’re all a little concerned This Is Not A Good Look, Bro. And also, we would like to formally request by way of this petition with all 200+ signatures of Leaguers and auxiliary members and support staff: please don’t escalate this into something where Batman might actually kill you, because that’s definitely not gonna make any of this less awkward for the rest of us, and uh....not to be indelicate here, but all those times we’ve all said things like no Ollie, we don’t think Bruce is a better fighter than you and we absolutely agree with you, you could totally maybe take him in a fair fight if you had your bow and arrows on you and he had the flu probably.....like. Umm. How to put this....Okay, soooooo....here’s the thing. There may, perhaps, ever so slightly be a possibility slash definite hardcore certainty that there were fib-like qualities to those conversations. A little bit. Oh hey, look at the time, we gotta run, there’s a fire somewhere, hopefully. Lol wait whoops did we say hopefully, that’s so weird like where did that even come from. We definitely meant to say probably. There’s a fire somewhere, probably."

But look, at the end of the day, the thing is, Headcanon Ollie is not like, proud of any of this, but he’s not unproud of it either. He is hashtag justified and he wouold appreciate some validation of that Ugly Truth, even if it might go against the grain and not ever exactly be a POPULAR opinion with the “please don’t tell the ten year old that nuh uh, his face looks like a hairy butthole, nobody wins there, that is not the victory you are looking for” crowd.

Honestly though, at this point Ollie’s list of Big Asks is quite small. Miniscule, even. All he wants, all he really really wants, is for someone, anyone, to join him in grasping the one essential corn kernel at the heart of this whole clusterfuck. The thing that nobody but Ollie seems to get and that Ollie’s pretty sure would be enough to allow him to die happily, if he could just manage to find one other person to sign on to the one single extremely obvious observation he keeps trying to point out to everyone, with a whole lot of nada to show for it:

Because see, the one thing about all of this that drives Ollie just absolutely up a wall, is that for some reason he can’t seem to get anyone to understand that like.....this whoooooole ridiculous mess, just like, even in terms of its very existence in the first place?

None of it is Ollie’s fault.

Dick started it!

Mere moments after frustratedly trying to convey this to Dinah for the umpteenth million bajillionth time:

“Okay, could you at least say something?” Ollie asked exasperatedly. “Anything? Seriously, I would take you counting to ten in Cantonese as an acceptable response at this point.”

“I’m just trying to decide which concerns me more,” Dinah said at last. Several epochs and the equivalent of the entire Jurassic Period later. But whatever, its not like Ollie was holding his breath at this point or anything. “The fact that you are genuinely trying to find and occupy the moral high ground in your feud with....a ten year old. Or that you actually think you’ve found it. That this is it, this is what that looks like. ‘The ten year old started it.’”

That was apparently all Dinah had to say. She fell silent again, and said silence lingered through a recreation of now the entire Cretaceous Period, before continuing into a revival of the whole Paleozoic Era from start to torturous finish.

“Well?” Ollie said with a patience that belied the urgency of the many pressing matters he had to attend to. Like the vanquishing of a ten year old archnemesis most foul.

Dinah just continued to frown pensively.

“Hang on, I’m still deciding.”

[cyrellea]

✍ (for august!)

✍: For what my muse has written about yours in their diary. @fckaugust

DISCLAIMER: cyrelle does not journal. i had debated on adapting this to something more realistic for her, like a scene from one of her therapy sessions in 2020 ( inspired by the ‘fuck everyone who isn’t a sea slob’ episode of ‘euphoria’ ). but then i realized that cyrelle probably never got in too deep with her therapist before she stopped going. so, that scene would’ve just been cyrelle saying something like “oh i guess august was one of my friends from darkwood” and not really expanding much on that singular fact because she MUST be Unknowable even to the people she pays to know her. it wouldn’t have been very interesting for anyone to read or for me to write. but let it be known that the idea came to me & i still ended up settling for what cyrelle probably would have written about august in her diary, if she was the type of person to document her uncensored thoughts. which she is not, but for the sake of this prompt she is and she has a green leuchtturm1917 notebook. also idk if i need to clarify this, but these are just excerpts from what i imagine are longer diary entries — i’m only writing out the parts where she directly references august ( since that’s the prompt ) b/c i cannot be bothered to write out every single thought cyrelle had outside of him. but i just wanted to point that out so that no one’s reading this & left thinking “is august ALL she would write about?” no, probably not, i’m just really lazy!

NOVEMBER 17, 2010

MX brought the new American boy over today. The one who “replaced” Eddie. It’s so fucked up, that the Michaels just went all the way to the States and got another kid to take his place in their home. I wanted to ask if he knew about the son they kicked out before him, but I didn’t. What if he didn’t know? Then I’d have to be the one to tell him about Eddie, and that’s not really my story to tell. Plus I didn’t want him to start getting worried about possibly getting tossed to the curb, too, on the off chance that he gets accused of a horrible crime that no one can actually prove he committed. Besides, he’ll get more than his fill of Darkwood gossip soon enough. He’s already at the center of some of it — Sharleen McKinnon said he had a “record” in the States. Don’t know what the fuck that means or how she knows all that. She didn’t have much else to say after I tossed her in the dumpster.

NOVEMBER 20, 2010

Apparently August is from West Virginia, yet he somehow hasn’t seen “October Sky.” Tragic.

NOVEMBER 22, 2010

Made August watch “October Sky” with me, & realized too late that I had talked all the way through it. I don’t know if he remembered a single character’s name by the end because I kept going on about the stupid Space Race. He didn’t seem too annoyed by me, though, & I loaned him my copy of the DVD to make up for it. So I think we’re fine.

DECEMBER 3, 2010

There aren’t many things as funny as the look on August’s face after he realized that ordering “bacon” at Roy’s means getting the kind that’s not streaky. Welcome to England, friend.

MARCH 11, 2012

God, I really just told Sierra that one of my professors is “plumb crazy.” Fucking August.

SEPTEMBER 9, 2014

Holy fuck, August was there, too. Fuck fuck fuck FUCK.

JULY 8, 2016

Fuck, I actually did text August last night. I’m such a fucking mess. How do I not remember that? Is it worse if I just don’t explain myself? I doubt he’d want to hear from me again. 

OCTOBER 29, 2019

How the fuck do I forget my own birthday, yet August still remembers it? I know I didn’t wish him a happy birthday when his came around. I’m such a loser.

JANUARY 30, 2020

I can’t fucking stand that mural. I hate that I have to see their faces every time I come back into town. It’s marvelous and he’s so talented and I hate it. How is it that he goes through something that horrific and creates something so beautiful from it? I used to always think we were more alike than different, but I can’t create shit. I go through shitty situations and come out of them an even shittier person who contributes absolutely nothing to society. It’s better that we don’t really talk anymore because then I don’t think I can pretend to love this thing he created. He deserves all the praise in the world and I can’t even fucking give him the bare minimum compliment. Nina and George would be so proud of it, Rachel would love to be able to see it. And I can’t stand to even look at it. I fucking suck.

FEBRUARY 21, 2014 ( ROMAN RELOADED — THE RE-UP )

It’s funny, I missed him more than I realized I did. And he never actually left. That’s kind of a tragedy in and of itself — losing someone you could’ve had all along, if things had just been a little different.

[m00nslippers]

Titans S2E2: Rose, a review, I guess.

Here, have another bullet-pointed, kinda-review. Spoilers ahead!

This episode has awesome stuff, but it’s kind of choppy. We flash pretty quickly from scene to scene between pretty much all the Titans. We get Dick with the kiddos at the tower, Kori and Donna going after Shimmer, Hank and Dawn at their ranch in Wyoming. And then there’s the occasional jump to Rose or Dr. Light. It didn’t jump so much that it was confusing but it gave me the feeling that as soon as I was really into what was happening the scene moved on to something else and that left me disappointed. Luckily everyone seems to be coming together by the end of the episode so hopefully this won’t be an issue going forward.

Dick is getting super into the Big-Bro/Dad/Mentor thing and it’s kind of hilarious. After spending all last season trying to get rid of as much responsibility as possible he’s gone all-in on the mentorship thing to the point that it’s funny to me. He’s over here being super serious with his “Even your eyes can be taken from you!” sensei-thing, and having them read Sun Tzu, and making them food that is apparently terrible. No wonder he goes to that coffee shop all the time, his food is inedible I guess. Like, he’s trying so hard it’s a little manic, but endearing.

Dick is actually pretty great with Jason. Sending Jason with Dick was probably the best thing Bruce could have done because it’s clear that Dick is starting to get Jason where Bruce seemingly didn’t. Jason is complaining about being stuck in Cali and wants to go home to Gotham and Dick’s like, “Me and Bruce don’t think you’re ready, you were joyriding in the batmobile and the thing with the motorcycle and using the batcomputer inappropriately (seems like a porn reference), yada yada,” And Jason seems a bit dejected and upset. And you can see Dick looking at him, seeing how disheartened he is and he seems to get an idea and is like, “and besides, I could really use your help around here, you’re more skilled than the others, they don’t have your experience, everyone looks up to you, etc.” And like, yeah the first part is true, but it’s clear by the others reaction that they really don’t like Jason much or look up to him, Dick is just trying to cheer him up. Jason wants praise and recognition so bad. Even when he’s obviously being manipulated he just wants to believe it so much. That leads me to think this Bruce has been doing typical Bruce-things and maybe not giving Jason much positive reinforcement, which is probably contributing to Jason acting out.

I like Jason but it’s clear the Titans don’t. Last episode we saw bits of Donna and Hank and Dawn not exactly giving Jason a warm reception even though he really didn’t do anything to deserve it. And now in this one Gar and Rachel are icing him out a bit (referring to how he basically adopted Gar and Rachel, Dick says, “but I didn’t help Jason,” and Rachel rolls her eyes and says, “can anyone help Jason?”). Dick said they look up to Jay but that doesn’t seem like the case, I felt like he was just handling Jason. Do they defer to him when it comes to vigilante things, well yeah, maybe, but that’s not quite the same thing. I’m really hoping this isn’t the comics all over again, where everyone was said to pretty much universally dislike him outside of Donna and Eddie (after Jason’s character was rebooted). I know I’m a Jay-fan so I might be biased but aside from being a little cocky and mischievous there’s nothing we’ve seen him do to anyone that really warrants this kind of dislike, IMO. I’m hoping over the course of the season he proves himself to Gar and Rachel at least and they get along better. I want everyone to like Jason but even if they didn’t I would be fine with it if they at least disliked him for good reasons, and right now I haven’t seen anything to suggest their reasons are anything but shallow.

Kori and Donna interacting are a treasure. Kori and Donna clearly bonded over being badass chick who like to beat people up and have the same sassy sense of humor. They are constantly bickering but you get the impression they are loving every second of their verbal repartee. They are so hilarious. It’s interesting to see Kori interact with someone who is an ‘adult’ and isn’t Dick. I feel like with Donna more of that zest that Kori has in the comics but didn’t really last season, comes out. Before she was so focused on her mission she didn’t have time for herself and now she does and it’s great seeing her do Earth-things and finding them fun or interesting and enjoying herself. Kori loving Disco and Donna liking Madonna is so damn appropriate.

Roy foreshadowing!!! Donna’s contact that sent her after Shimmer is shown to be Roy Harper from her phone call. I have to wonder what version of Roy we are getting here. OG Roy-fans and Titans purists are probably going to hate me for this but hear me out...I want it to be the new version of Roy, in terms of personality and looks. Goofy genius-dumbass hillbilly with a heart of gold Roy. Look, I just feel like the other version of his character overlaps way too much with characters we already have, especially Donna. Say what you will about New 52 Roy, but he’s got character and personality, he stands out in a way I feel the other Roy didn’t, especially alongside Wally and Dick, who had very similar personalities, I feel. I’ll be happy with either version because it’s Roy but I think it would be interesting to see the New 52 alongside these characters, with his trucker hat and gadgets. Or maybe they could do a fusion, at least have his aesthetic. Everyone in this show kind of has a sameness that could be shaken up. We could use some comic relief, honestly. I hope we actually do see him this season though and it isn’t just foreshadowing something for next season.

The stuff with Hawk and Dawn was...fine. Basically after getting that ranch, Hank getting clean and presumably getting his surgery and retiring from heroing like they always dreamed/planned it all went up in smoke. I guess it was probably inevitable, to be honest. But there was this whole thing where Hank caught Dawn going out as Dove behind his back after they’d decided to stop and they were having a big important fight about it--and then it’s all rendered moot when Dr. Light destroys their whole life and they have to go to Cali and meet up with Dick. It just kind of seems like too easy of a way for the writers to resolve the situation. I hope this isn’t the end of Hank and Dawn’s argument because it was a really big deal. Hank was giving Dawn a break-up ultimatum if it’s never brought up again I’m going to be annoyed.

Rose has potential. I felt like the actress’s acting was a little stiff but that might have just been the choppiness of the scenes she was in, the sections were too small to get a real feel for her. I like her looks, she’s awesome in the action scenes and she has her powers/healing factor and all her comic abilities which is great. I feel like her writing is good though, and I’m interested to see is she’s actually on her own like she seems or if she’s a mole for her dad (I kind of feel like she’s a mole...). I hope we see JayRose though. I think him being interested in her is just a given, he called her a badass from seeing her fight. Whether she will have any interest in him back is more of a question, but I’m hopeful.

I wanted more Deathstroke. Not gonna lie, I wanted more Deathstroke. We saw a scene at the end where Jason found the connection between Rose and Slade, but that’s it. I have a feeling he’ll be in the next episode though.

Seriously, Ian Glenn is an awesome Batman. We got another great conversation between Bruce and Dick and I loved it so much, you guys. Give Ian Glenn a chance, people. I’m telling you the writing for Bruce is on point and the acting is great. He feels a lot like the DCAU-version to me, the one voiced by Kevin Conroy. I actually really like his voice in particular because it’s sort of deep like Conroy’s is, and he manages to put a lot of buried emotion into more or less flatly spoken words. The writing and the acting absolutely has that Bruce-thing where gives you answers in the most concise but cryptic way possible, acts all dramatic and he’ll seem unhelpful and kind of like a jerk and then he’ll say something profound and meaningful to let Dick know he actually does care about him a lot and it’s like...yeah, that’s the Bruce I’ve wanted, guys. he’s an asshole without really meaning to be but his intentions are good. It’s just so nice to have Titans!Bruce when comics!Bruce is such a nightmare right now...I really hope people who don’t like or doubt him will give Ian Glenn’s Bruce another chance, because I love him so much already. Yeah, his looks aren’t quite right but I’m getting used to it. The core of Bruce is there and that’s what’s really important.

And those were my main thoughts watching this episode. I loved it and it left me wanting more. It had some issues but nothing deal-breaking.

[mittensmorgul]

Faith on the tnt loop (which, full disclosure, I slept through oopsie, so I pulled out the blu ray because this is NOT one I can skip).

Post 14.20, this episode is... extra-amazing, honestly. I’ve always felt that this episode was unwittingly (possibly, at the time it was written) a window into what this story could potentially do. When I first binged this series, this was the first episode I finished where I had to stop and completely reevaluate what I was actually witnessing. This was the episode that took me from casually consuming a fun lil monster show to 100% invested in this grand narrative. Even without any knowledge of what the ensuing 6 1/2 season (that existed at the time), I felt like I had my first glimpse of a much bigger picture in store for me. This was the first episode that, after a break to absorb what I’d just witnessed, I went back and immediately watched it again. Turns out I wasn’t reading too much into it... in fact, I wasn’t reading nearly enough into it...

The episode begins with Sam and Dean hunting a monster that we’ve only ever seen once more in the entirety of canon-- a rawhead, which earned a mention in 14.01 after an off-screen hunt for one went wrong enough to have left a tooth behind in one of the AU hunters. As if the monster in this case has been rendered doubly irrelevant, by virtue of the fact it practically dies offscreen in 1.12 while Dean's defeat of it and his own actions and choices in defeating it are the actual inciting incident of all the relevant action to follow. And in 14.01, all that remains of the rawahead was a tooth that's extracted from a wound and likely a wild hunter's tale.

Dean explains the use of the tasers they're using to take down the rawhead (specifically that the electricity is deadly to it and each weapon is one use only, "so make it count"). Dean takes his shot, and misses, but they find the children the rawhead had been holding captive. Dean tells Sam to take them outside to safety, and Sam hands over his taser to Dean, leaving Dean alone to face the monster (who we learn in 14.01 moves a lot faster than expected, and fast enough that we never even really see it in 1.12). Dean is literally backed into a corner, on the ground in a puddle of water, with the monster looming over him when he chooses to take his shot. It's not like he had much choice, right? So he shoots, and thanks to the water he's lying in, he electrocutes himself as well, damaging his own heart to the point where the doctor gives him a month to live.

He could've made a different choice, could've rolled out of the water, could've tried to fight off the rawhead (probably ineffectively) but perhaps enough that it would've given up and escaped to hunt children another day, but Dean took his shot, in a circumstance where he felt it was the right thing to end this monster and prevent it from hurting anyone ever again, even when it hurt him in the process. Not that he knew it would necessarily kill him to do it, but he was fully aware of the power of the weapon in his hand and what it was capable of, and accepted that it would hurt him right along with the monster he'd aimed it at since they were “connected” through the puddle of water.

Can anyone else say Hammurabi? Equalizer?

All of this has happened before.

But that's just the beginning. Because Dean survived, even if mortally wounded. This was the first time, though, that they were motivated to defy death, and that brings us to the true Monster of the Week-- Sue Ann LeGrange. Yes, I know it's technically "a reaper," but operating under Sue Ann's control and on her orders. She was the one who chose who lived and who died, based on who SHE thought was worthy, or unworthy in the case of her chosen victims. She was "playing god," deceiving her husband after saving HIS life with this dark magic (which required at least TWO sacrifices on her part-- one to make the altar and talisman to bind the reaper in the first place, and one person to die to save Roy, unbeknownst to him), and letting him think that he was miraculously granted the gift of healing by God.

And Sam decides to look for a similar sort of miraculous cure for Dean, even when Dean had accepted his own apparent fate:

DEAN: Look, Sammy, what can I say, man, it's a dangerous gig. I drew the short straw. That's it, end of story. SAM: Don't talk like that, alright? We still have options. DEAN: What options? Yeah, burial or cremation. And I know it's not easy. But I'm gonna die. And you can't stop it. SAM: Watch me.

Sam isn't about to go committing human sacrifice like Sue Ann, but after a tearful phone call plea to John for help, which goes unreplied to, Sam takes matters into his own hands, just as Dean checks himself out of the hospital having accepted his fate:

SAM: You know, this whole I-laugh-in-the-face-of-death thing? It's crap. I can see right through it. DEAN: Yeah, whatever, dude. Have you even slept? You look worse than me. SAM: (Helping DEAN to a chair) I've been scouring the Internet for the last three days. Calling every contact in Dad's journal. DEAN: For what? SAM: For a way to help you. One of Dad's friends, Joshua, he called me back. Told me about a guy in Nebraska. A specialist. DEAN: You're not gonna let me die in peace, are you? SAM: I'm not gonna let you die, period. We're going.

(aside to lol at John’s friend being named “Joshua,” namesake of the one angel God continued to talk to after supposedly abandoning Heaven and Earth, the angel who told Sam and dean in 5.16 that God refused to step in to help stop the apocalypse, and the angel killed in 12.19 by Dagon before fetus!Jack hijacked Cas to kill Dagon in turn... and even after his death it was Joshua’s amulet in 14.17 that enabled him to summon Chuck back into the story... funny that this hunter we never hear about again was the one to point Sam in the direction of this healer...)

And I'm sorry to just keep pasting in chunks of transcript, but this all goes to Sam and Dean's respective outlooks on pretty much everything, and the Grand Manipulation of Chuck in the entire narrative as we now understand it post 14.20:

DEAN: I mean, come on, Sam, a faith healer? SAM: Maybe it's time to have a little faith, Dean. DEAN: You know what I've got faith in? Reality. Knowing what's really going on. SAM: How can you be a skeptic? With the things we see everyday? DEAN: Exactly. We see them, we know there real. SAM: But if you know evil's out there, how can you not believe good's out there, too? DEAN: Because I've seen what evil does to good people.

Sam has faith, Dean's a skeptic. Throughout s14 we saw what it would take to break Dean to the point where he would accept the word of God without question. It literally took the entire season, more than half of it revolving around his possession and complete loss of free will and self, building him up when Michael left him again and giving him a false sense of security to begin to feel comfortable building emotional bridges to his entire family (including Jack), only to tear it all down and lose himself to Michael again on a whim, losing Mary again, losing Jack to soullessness because of his own failed choices (in his estimation, at least). This process of showing Dean how little power and control he has over his own existence was furthered by Billie presenting him with the supposed singular solution to save the world, which Dean interpreted to mean the most horrifying iteration of self-sacrifice the show has ever presented to us-- an eternity spent at the bottom of the ocean, locked with Michael in the Ma'lak box. Ironically, just as he was beginning to think of himself as something more than just a weapon, the parallel can't help but be drawn to the First Blade, which Cain had thrown to the bottom of the ocean in a similar fashion. Which should only serve to remind us that even that's not a permanent solution to any problem. And I think THAT was the lesson Billie truly wished Dean to understand. Jack is the one who ends up making the true sacrifice (his own human soul) to kill Michael once and for all, and Dean is left with the guilt of that.

But several other important incidents in s14 tie directly back to this, too. 14.08, playing with life and death, learning about what truly matters in someone's destiny after death, and what the Winchesters are willing to do to save a loved one. Ironically, in the process, Cas is backed into a corner, making a deal with the Empty Entity for his own happiness in exchange for Jack's soul.

Nothing ever comes for free. The Winchesters have been juggling these horrific choices and sacrifices their entire lives, and nothing is ever just as simple as an uncomplicated win.

Which is a key element of 1.12. Dean's skepticism, his feeling of "wrongness" after being healed by Roy, uncovers the larger truth. Sam desperately wants Dean to just let it go, accept it as a miracle, and move on:

SAM: Look, Dean, do we really have to look this one in the mouth? Why can't we just be thankful that the guy saved your life and move on? DEAN: Because I can't shake this feeling, that's why.

A miracle isn't enough for Dean, and the truth is darker and more horrifying than Sam can accept. As he uncovers more and more of the facts of just how Roy is supposedly healing people, he tearfully apologizes to Dean, and they work together to find a way to stop it from happening again. Someone is controlling a reaper, literally trading one life for another. Chuck must've LOVED this episode of his favorite show. It nails all his favorite themes:

DEAN: You never should've brought me here. SAM: Dean, I was just trying to save your life. DEAN: But, Sam, some guy is dead now because of me. SAM: I didn't know.

Ignorance of the truth didn't stop them from becoming entangled in this mess, though. Just like it hasn't stopped them from becoming entangled in every other cosmic mess they've stumbled across over the succeeding 14 seasons. Sam believed it was a miracle, and his faith had blinded him to the truth-- or at least made him want to believe, motivated by the results at Dean's miraculous healing. It's the same faith that led him in early s11 to want to believe his visions were coming from God, that maybe his visions that had plagued him in early seasons were being used for good now-- and with the intervention of Billie in 11.02 when those visions began, it's interesting how the solution that actually saved his life in that circumstance technically came from what she said to him about being "unclean in the biblical sense."

Reapers and their powers and limitations (clean hands!), and their knowledge of the Bigger Picture that Billie herself won't be able to see until she dies and is resurrected with the mantle of Death, have their beginnings in the mythology right here, enslaved to the will of a mortal woman who believed she could make choices about who deserved to live and who deserved to die based on her own corrupted sense of morality.

Even when the concept of Death is introduced in 5.10, he's presented as "lesser" than what he truly is by virtue of Lucifer having bound him to his will for the purposes of the apocalypse, and as merely one of the Four Horsemen equal to War, Famine, and Pestilence. In 5.21, we learn what he's "supposed to be." Practically an equal to God, with the power over all life and death. It's not really until 13.05 that we learn the truth about just how powerful Billie has become, and yet what her limitations still are. We begin to see one side of this massive cosmic chess match, all leading up to the biggest revelation of them all in 14.20.

Back to 1.12 again... (sorry it's impossible not to be continually distracted by the theme spiral here). Dean also is uncomfortable for the first time over the potential for The Lord to be eyeballing him specifically, which is a feeling he's gonna truly grow into throughout s4 "I don't like being singled out at birthday parties, let alone by God," right up through the showdown at the end of 14.20.

DEAN: Why? Why me? Out of all the sick people, why save me? ROY: Well, like I said before, the Lord guides me. I looked into your heart, and you just stood out from all the rest. DEAN: What did you see in my heart? ROY: A young man with an important purpose. A job to do. And it isn't finished.

Throughout the episode, they believe it's Roy controlling the reaper and making the choices about who lives and dies, but he was literally blind to the fact it was Sue Ann. He was as much a victim in all of this as the people he believed he was healing, that he believed he had been touched by God to impart new life to. But knowing the full truth, Dean has to stop someone from being healed that even HE believes deserves to be saved, to be spared the suffering of a life cut short by an inoperable brain tumor, after learning an innocent man would die in her place. No matter how much he might feel that Layla didn't deserve that fate, he also doesn't believe the man who'd been protesting Roy's healing ministry deserves to die just for that fact, either.

SUE ANN: I just don't understand. After everything we've done for you. After Roy healed you. I'm just very very disappointed Dean DEAN stares at her, saying nothing. SUE ANN: You can let him go. I'm not gonna press charges. The Lord will deal with him as he sees fit. SUE ANN leaves. The cops turn to DEAN. COP 1: We catch you round here again son, we'll put the fear of God in you, understand?

Once again, in text, Sue Ann is unwittingly labeled "God." It's not God's wrath Dean fears, but Sue Ann's, knowing his defiance has likely turned him from worthy of healing to unworthy of living. Now this has moved beyond idealistically wanting to stop someone from playing god with people's lives right back to the immediate need to stop them before someone else becomes the next victim. And all of their choices-- Dean not being able to walk away, not being able to look the other way, discovering the full horrific truth of how he himself had been brought back from the brink of death, led them to this juncture where it truly felt like they had no other choice but to stop the monster. It literally became a life and death matter for Dean.

I still find it fascinating that as a result of their actions and choices in this episode, the reaper who'd been enslaved to Sue Ann's will was freed when Sam crushed the talisman that kept him bound. I find that highly amusing in retrospect, that while Dean was literally touched by an incarnation of Death several times in this episode, Sam effectively committed services rendered to the Cosmic Order.

We've learned so much about all of this over the years, as well-- the need for balance, order in the universe, and so many of those lessons have come from Death directly. Dean learns some of this firsthand in 6.11, for example, when he takes on Death's job for a day (or at least the life-and-death side of his job, now that we know so much more about his knowledge and understanding of creation as a whole). We learn even more through Billie, and her constant reminders that what's dead should stay dead, and through Billie's reapers once she becomes Death. 13.19 reminds us, through a story about the consequences of killing reapers, just how tenuous the course of cosmic events can be, and what the universe does to self-correct when the balance tilts too far in one direction. It's a lesson Tessa began to teach way back in 4.15, in an episode where Dean once again saves the life of a reaper (not only unwittingly protecting the cosmic balance, but literally stopping the breaking of a seal and staving off the apocalypse for at least another day, and that entire episode, that entire case, only happened through the unwitting guidance of them to the case by Cas-- still operating under Heaven’s orders and pretending to be Bobby sending them to that town to investigate...).

It has always felt to me that the show has subtly revealed more about the truth of the cosmos through death and Death than anything else. And that's on full display now in 1.12. Sue Ann's lies of omission about Roy's "powers," her manipulation of circumstance and her ensnarement of a reaper to do her will, choosing who lives and dies and literally "playing God," is it really any wonder to find out that Chuck has attempted to do the same on the highest cosmic scale from the start? He is a writer, after all, writing the entire story of the universe even as the universe fights to tell its own story. It's only by looking to the center and seeing the truth of the entire picture that they can free themselves from that fate, break the spell that's held them captive to Chuck's narrative and this endless cycle of sacrifice.

Heck I still love this episode. So much that I’ve let the next three episodes play out in the background... This is the entire spiral of the story played out in miniature, wrapped into a single episode.

[misscrawfords]

Rose! How do you feel about Emma and its various adaptations?

Sorry for the delay in answering - blame the school trip!

I love Emma. I wrote my dissertation partly on it (also on Northanger Abbey, Rob Roy and St Ronan’s Well) and while I loved it before I loved it even more after studying it. All of Austen’s novels are extremely well plotted, but Emma might just be the best. It’s like a detective novel in that respect (and has been described as such on multiple occasions) because you can pick up on clues to what’s really going on all the way through but on a first read, you don’t see them. Miss Bates unintentionally reveals details that can be explained by Frank and Jane’s secret relationship but they are hidden in her verbal overloading. Emma’s own thoughts betray her unknown interest in Mr. Knightley, and his actions point to his love for Emma. And so on. 

Jane Austen is also being radical in her use of literary conventions and genre in Emma (as she is in basically all her novels). She has the tightest mystery plot ever written at this point hidden directly inside a novel that sticks strictly to the conventions of romantic comedy. She even goes overboard with it - successfully navigating three couples to appropriate happy endings. However, within that solid structure, she plays with expectations and conventions in a subtle way and this is where I get really excited.

First we have Emma herself, a heroine “nobody but myself will like”. Austen clearly loved questioning and pushing conventions of who was allowed to be a heroine. Her previous novel, Mansfield Park, gave us Fanny who most people at the time found disappointing after Elizabeth Bennet and modern readers (unjustly IMO) hate, and she followed Emma with Anne Elliot who was far too old to be a romantic heroine according to contemporary standards. In the middle we have Emma Woodhouse, a meddling snob. She’s got a lot in common with Mr. Darcy actually and her character development in terms of recognising the bad behaviour she is guilty of and the prejudice she feels towards those of a lower social status is pretty similar. But while Darcy and his character development is held up as beautiful and heroic and romantic, Emma is frequently condemned as dislikable. I do wonder why that could be… Personally, I love Emma. She’s clever and shrewd and funny and, honestly, is there anyone who doesn’t think Miss Bates is annoying and doesn’t want to throw a tantrum at the prospect of being upstaged by Mrs. Elton? Are you, dear reader, such a paragon of rational enlightenment and charitable feeling? Would you instantly see through Frank Churchill and resist his flirtations? Would you be best friends with Jane Fairfax and not be just a little bit jealous of her and how much Mr. Knightley everyone seems to admire her? Have you never said something cutting and regretted it? Are you perfect, reader, ARE YOU? Come on. Emma is one of us. She messes up, she judges badly, she says cringeworthy stuff in inappropriate situations, she gives bad advice - she’s human. And she deals with it without losing her positive outlook and she does grow, enough to “deserve” her happy ending (though that’s a loaded concept) but not so much it’s unrealistic. And what makes her likeable through it all are that her intentions are good. Emma is not a bad person who has to become good and “be redeemed”. She is a fundamentally warm and caring person who needs to have some bad habits of thought and action corrected by guidance and experience. Emma’s intentions and understanding are good from the beginning.

Emma’s also interesting because, yes, she does change, but if you put her in the context of the genre she inhabits, she also gets to keep a lot. Basically, in another novel, Emma would have to pay significant penance for her bad behaviour before she would be allowed to marry Mr. Knightley and she would have to prove that she is a changed woman and is absolutely not going to continue meddling and will be a good and submissive wife. Usually this also involves giving up the dangerous reading of novels which have led her astray. Several points. Firstly, Emma is not a novel reader, she is a novel writer. Emma is described by various critics as “an avatar of Austen the author” and if you read the novel through the prism of Emma being an author, things become really fascinating. Beautiful, illegitimate Harriet Smith is the heroine of Emma’s novel and obviously Emma-as-author wants to discover that she is really the long lost daughter of Somebody and give her a socially advantageous marriage. Emma’s matchmaking attempts are the workings of a novelist plotting with characters. Emma is creating her own world. This is radical stuff, in a society where female novelists were looked down upon. Emma has the means and independence and cleverness to write a story of her own - and she is comically bad at it. This is one way in which Austen plays with genre. Secondly, it is not at all clear that Emma does give up her matchmaking at the end of the novel. Austen is coy when she floats this suggestion about Mrs. Weston’s daughter: “[Emma] would not acknowledge that it was with any view of making a match for her, hereafter, with either of Isabella’s sons”. Does this suggest that maybe Emma isn’t as cured as she should be? Thanks to Austen’s levels of irony it’s impossible to tell, which is the point. Thirdly, Emma is the only Austen heroine to have real financial and social clout. Emma really does rule Highbury and at the end of the novel, instead of being subsumed into her husband’s world, he in fact moves in with her (however temporarily). This is practically the Regency equivalent of her keeping her name after marriage. She and Mr. Knightley are social equals and she does not leave her home or her sphere of influence when she marries. The only other heroine this would be true of is, interestingly enough, Fanny Price. But Mansfield Park is notoriously inward looking and Fanny’s ending allows her to truly become a Bertram which is what she wanted all along for better or worse. And Fanny and Edmund’s social status and influence are much less significant that Knightley and Emma’s are.

Something else to bear in mind when thinking about Emma’s character is that, despite her social power and wealth, she also lives an extremely confined and limited life. She is essentially a carer for her stultifying and claustrophobic father. She has never left the environs of Highbury. She is surrounded by people who jump to her every command and shower her in praise, both deserved and undeserved. The only person who criticises her is also in love with her. The only eligible men in her world before the arrival of Frank Churchill are her brother-in-law who is 16 years older than her, and the obsequious vicar. Yes, she can remain a spinster but even a rich spinster cannot maintain the sort of power she currently holds when faced with a married woman like Mrs. Elton (who is a real threat to her), but her alternatives are bleak. A woman of her rank and fortune should be having a London season and meeting other young people of her rank and forming external connections. Because of her father’s passive control over her, Emma has none of these opportunities. Even Fanny Price travels more and meets more people than Emma does. Yes, Emma Woodhouse is handsome, rich and clever and has had very little to vex her, but I suspect that is probably Emma’s own view of her life and it is not necessarily accurate.

Okay, this post is already far too long so I’ll end my discussion of the novel here. There’s also a lot that could be said about Jane and Frank, Emma and Mr. Knightley’s relationship and more, but Emma is clearly the most important and, honestly, the most in need of defence!

Onto the adaptations, and I’ll try to be brief:

1. The Gwyneth Paltrow film. Jeremy Northan is divine though his hair could be better and he’s not my favourite Mr. Knightley, even if I do have a massive crush on JN. Harriet Smith is a not particularly attractive redhead which is… weird. Frank Churchill is Ewan McGregor but he has appalling hair so IDK what was going on there - such a missed opportunity. Gwyneth Paltrow as Emma is a casting disgrace and I honestly can’t bear to watch this film because every time she is on screen I cringe. The producers were more interested in the aesthetic than making a good adaptation. My grandma hated it. Enough said.

2. The Kate Beckinsale film. Honestly, I don’t dislike anything about this except that I wish it were a mini-series and the proposal scene is a bit… eh. But I think it manages to stay true to the book in a feature film and I love Kate Beckinsale’s Emma. She has the right mix of liveliness and arrogance for me. Mark Strong is a stern Mr. Knightley but he’s not too handsome. Frank Churchill is perfect in this adaptation. Controversially, this is my favourite period adaptation.

3. The Romola Garai miniseries. I love lots about this mainly because the length allows everything to be expanded suitably. Johnny Lee Miller is the best Knightley by far. The Eltons are fabulous. Frank and Jane’s relationship gets more time dedicated to it. The Westons and Bateses are great. Harriet Smith is dumbed down too much - she’s naive and not too bright but this adaptation makes her practically an idiot, almost as much a disservice as the 2005 P&P film’s character assassination of Bingley, though physically the actress is perfect and she’s very likeable. And I really do appreciate what they were trying to do with Emma. It was clearly an informed choice to make her bubbly and often silly and a chosen interpretation of the text and I respect that - better that than wilful misinterpretation which some adaptations go in for. I fundamentally disagree with it - whatever her faults, I don’t think Emma is silly and giggly and I struggle to believe this Emma is a 21 year old woman secure in her position as a social leader. Her mannerisms often come across very modern - her little waves, giggles and posture and this is very irritating because Romola Garai has done some fantastic period acting (Daniel Deronda, The Hour etc.) and these mannerisms aren’t consistent across the cast. I love Romola Garai and I think it’s an interesting choice of direction, but not one that rings true to how I see the character though.

4. Clueless. Clearly the best adaptation of Emma ever made. We all know it.

5. Emma Approved. Only seen a bit of it and didn’t warm to it. Should probably give it another go. Why did they change Knightley’s name to Alex? What the hell is wrong with George!?!?

Anyway, here are my thoughts on Emma. Hope they’re at least somewhat interesting. There is nothing I like better than rambling on about Jane Austen! :-) Thank you for giving me the opportunity!

[bluboothalassophile]

”You’re the perfect height for me to rest my chin on your head” with JayRae? Btw Blue, I absolutely love ALL your stories!! Everytime you upload a new story I litterally act like a school girl with her first crush haha

Hello,

I’m so glad to hear you enjoy the stories! And I hope you continue to enjoy them as they are a lot of fun to write! =)

Lug…

Raven sometimes wondered how the hell she landed in thisposition as she sat there looking over her homework as she valiantly ignoredthe pain in the ass who was currently using her as a chin rest as he read hisown book.

“Jason, don’t you have… anywhere else you can be?” shedemanded huffing her hair out of her face.

“I’m comfortable,” he rumbled.

“Well you’re giving everyone the wrong impression!”

“You started the damn shirt war.”

“It’s not about the damn shirt!” she snapped.

“Raven, I am sitting here, annoying you, comfortably,” hemused.

“Jason, I am trying to do my homework and study.”

“I know, and I’m reading Dickens,” Jason said. “Now shush,this is important.”

“My grades are important. Get off!” she shoved back againsthim. “What the hell are you made of!?” she sputtered. It felt like he was solidrock!

“Hard work, and home cooking.”

“You could just say a rock! Now I’m serious Jason, get off!I’m trying to focus!” She tried elbowing him and winced at the impact. “Ow.”

“Shut up and focus.”

“I hope the paparazzi stalk you!” She hissed.

“They’d never, besides, I’m hiding.”

“From who!?”

“Roy. He’s colicky.”

“Roy or You?”

“I’m not colicky.”

“Uh-huh, you had separation anxiety from Lian!”

“And I’ll repeat to you, her and Roy, I did not! I’m not herdad!”

“Keep telling yourself that.”

“I’m serious! I am not married to the dumbass, we just livetogether.”

“Jason. Peter. Todd.” She growled.

“I hate that Alfred told you my full name.” he muttered.

“Actually it was Richard. But back to the matter at hand, ifyou do not get off me this instant, I will banish you to hell.”

“No you won’t.”

“Jason I’m trying to study!”

“And I’m trying to read! You’re not making it easy, quitsquirming.”

“You. Suck.”

“You’re the perfect height to rest my chin, so stop moving.”

“If I didn’t know any better I’d think you’re dating.”

“What?” she and Jason asked, turning to look at the intruderwho had walked into the library. She smiled, her dark brown hair was loose, andshe was dressed in pink.

“Reyna,” Raven said.

“I’m not dating her,” Jason snapped.

“Uh-huh, so the cuddling…?”

“He’s deadweight.”

“You’re an unruly chin rest,” he growled.

“I am not your damn chin rest! Go bug one of your sisters!”Raven snapped.

“Again, I’m hiding.”

“I’m calling Roy!”

“Are you two sure you’re not married?” Reyna giggled.

“We’re not!” they snapped together.

“You two are a cute couple.”

Raven could feel Jason snarling at the idea and she slammed herelbow on his latest bruise only to earn a pinch in her side. Raven glared atthe man leaning on her.

“We’re not a couple,” they reiterated.

“I came to ask Rachel if he was going to the Wayne CostumeParty,” Reyna smiled.

“What?” she and Jason sputtered in unison.

“Do you two practice the unison talking or something?” Reynaasked.

“No. Stop it. Shut it. You’re annoying.” They grounded outtogether.

“I hate you.”

“You love me and you know it.”

“You’re annoying so go bother your sisters or your husbandor anyone else! I’m trying to study!”

“And I’m trying to read.”

“You two are persistent,” Reyna chuckled.

“To answer your question I’m not going to the Halloween Party.”

“Why not?” Reyna asked.

“Because I have to study.”

“Jason?” Reyna pleaded.

“What the fuck makes you think I’m going?”

“Because you’re a Wayne, and it’s your family’s party.”

“I’m not going.”

“He’ll go,” Raven said, and smirked traitorously as Jason jabbedher ribs.

“I’m not going and that’s final.”

“I’ll get Stephanie and Cass to get him there.”

“That’d be wonderful, but I’m insisting you come as well.”

“I’m not going.”

“Well I’m only going if she goes so I’m not going,” Jason decidedsmugly.

“On second thought, I’ll go. And I’ll ask for all our merryband of idiots to come along, and the entire family. I’m sure they’ll love havingyou there.”

“I really fucking hate you.” Jason snarled.

“No take backs.”

“You sound rather childish,” Reyna chuckled.

“I hate you a lot some times.” Jason growled.

“Good, now get off.” Raven squirmed as she attempted toshove him off of her again. “What the hell are you made of!? Seriously! Lay offthe sweets!”

“I don’t eat sweets and you know it, waffles!” he growled.

“I could do with some waffles,” Reyna mused.

“His are the best waffles ever. Maybe you can take him tocook them while I study!” Raven snapped.

“You’re not studying.”

“It’s hard to study when I have you laying on me.”

“I could help you with your studies,” Reyna offered.

“Well the only help I need is for someone to take this lugoff me.”

“You take that back! I’m no lug!”

“Lug!”

“You two are funny.”

“I’m serious, someone take him off my hands.”

“I’m not going anywhere. I’m fact I’m going to get morecomfortable!”

“Damnit Jason!” Raven gasped as she was pushed further downas he curled over her and the weight of him crushed down on her.

“Well, it was nice seeing you two, and Rachel, we shouldhang out some time.” Reyna smiled and waved them off as she walked away.

“That’d be great! Now Jason seriously! GET OFF!” she huffedas she pushed up against him.

“I’m comfortable.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“You’re a bitch.”

“I should send you to hell.”

“You won’t.”

“You’re a bastard.”

“You adore me, no shut up and you study while I’ll read.”

“I can’t with you crushing me.”

“You were doing fine earlier and you’re my chin rest.”

“I’m siccing Cass on you.”

“No you’re not, we’re all hiding from the kids.”

“No, I’m not the family babysitter.”

“Terry, Helena, Mar'i and Lian would disagree!” she snarledas she squirmed.

“You’re a pain in the ass!” he growled.

“I’m siccing Selina on you.”

“Now you’re dragging my mother into this!?”

“Ah-Ha so you’re admitting you’re related to them!?”

“I did no such thing!”

“I’ll get you to admit it one day!”

“You’ll do no such thing, cause they aren’t my family.”

[jazy3]

Thoughts on Grey’s Anatomy Premiere: 15X1 & 15X2

Okay here we go! I really loved the two part Premiere of Grey’s Anatomy’s 15th Season! It was really funny and heartwarming and gut wrenching and good. It reminded me of Season 1 and why I fell in love with Grey’s in the first place! Some really excellent writing here and the actors did an amazing job!

I was really worried about the whole Meredith and DeLuca pairing. When the episode started and Meredith woke up and it was all just a dream I was so so thankful. First I was confused then I was relieved. I thought it was interesting that it was from Mer’s perspective and that it was a crazy sex dream with more than one person in it. I didn’t see that coming. I was thinking it was going to be a dream or fantasy from DeLuca’s point of view. Mer seemed surprised and startled too which I think emulated how the audience and the fans were feeling. When Zola barged in I almost had a heart attack along with Meredith! Thank god! Oof! When the second episode started I was so confused! Grey’s really got me good there! I was freaking out!

Alex and Jo on their honeymoon was too cute! I’m glad they are finally so happy and get to be together freely. They so deserve it. I love that Jo got the vacation she never had as a kid and Alex got to relax a little bit. When Bailey made Alex Interim Chief I was surprised and really excited! He so deserves it and I think he’s going to be great at it. He hasn’t had a good career storyline in a long time so I’m excited for this. The scene at the end with him and Mer was one of my favourites. It was so classic Grey’s. I love their relationship. And Jo finally gets to be a Fellow and wear dark blue scrubs! You go girl!

I didn’t get Teddy at all this episode. Why would she fly across the Atlantic and show up at Owen’s house on a work day without calling ahead first? And why hasn't she talked to Megan at all during this time? I was rooting for her and Owen before this, but now she’s being so irrational and ridiculous I just can’t buy into it. I never thought I’d root or care for Amelia and Owen, and I’m still not a fan I think they are better off as friends, but compared to that hot mess I’d take them any day.

I liked that Owen and Amelia showed real maturity in this episode. I think the conversations her and Owen have this episode are the most real and honest conversations Amelia and Owen have ever had. I’m glad to finally see them acting like adults! Amelia will always be recovering and that’s important for her to admit. I love how meta Amelia was in her speech to Bailey. Post-tumour Amelia is actually an interesting character that I don’t totally hate. I’m even starting to like her a little bit which is no small feat considering how badly she was written for so damn long. Which is a real shame because the actress who plays her does such a fantastic job and does comedy really well.

I liked the interactions between Parker and Teddy. I didn’t like the interactions between Teddy and Maggie. I’m not a Maggie fan, but Teddy was complete jerk. Although the patient in the bed next to her was hilarious! She needs her own Vegas show! It was really unfair of Teddy to just randomly show up, divulged personal information Maggie didn’t need to know, and then ask her to lie and omit the truth to everyone she lives and works with and is close to, and then disappear. I liked her character when she was on the show previously, but in the premiere there was literally nothing likable about her. I also didn’t like Teddy saying that Meredith, Maggie, and Amelia aren’t sisters. That’s just mean. Especially considering that Maggie, Zola, Farouk, Leo, and Betty are all adopted. You don’t have to share blood to be family, but Teddy is saying you do and that’s just stupid!

I loved the African art at Jackson’s place. I like that they are doing more with the décor lately. It really rewards you for paying attention. When Maggie and Jackson almost got hit by a car I thought thank goodness DeLuca was there to save them! I never thought I’d say that! I really disliked DeLuca’s character the last few seasons as he went from interesting to being really whiny and stupid. But in the premiere, he really redeemed himself. He was on a roll this episode!

Bailey seemed to really be enjoying herself at the beginning of the episode and I felt bad for her when Teddy bailed. Bailey had some great one liners this episode! Her and Link were hilarious together. The Moon Spa line cracked me up! I loved Catherine’s dress! She always has such great fashion sense and such beautiful clothes! I want to raid her closet! Anyone else? Carina was great in this episode. Telling it like it is! Too funny. If they keep her around for comic relief I could get into that. I loved her whole ‘don't blame the gays’ speech! Sing it sister! Sing it!

I also felt really bad for Jackson this episode. He worked so hard to no avail. I’m glad we are seeing some character growth and personal discovery for him. I realized after watching the episode that we haven’t really seen a lot of growth with Jackson, in comparison to the other characters. When you compare them to where they started when they were first introduced most of them have grown and changed a lot. But Jackson really hasn’t for the most part. It would be nice for instance to see him let go of his big picture not caring about the little people or actual humans and focusing solely on the bigger organization outlook on life. It gets him in trouble every single time yet he keeps adhering to it.

I actually liked the new Ortho surgeon Link. He was funny and charming and reminded me of Mark Sloan. Plus his interactions with Meredith were hilarious! He’s worth keeping around just for that. Nico the hot doc eyeing glasses was funny! I’ll be interested to see where that goes. Vik Roy is good for literally nothing it seems. Sigh. I mean how stupid can you be? When he says back away BACK AWAY!!!! Webber is not dealing with losing his sponsor well and I can see how they are setting this up to be a big arc for the rest of the season which I didn’t foresee coming.

I actually liked Maggie and Jackson this episode. I disliked them in the past but this episode made me like them. They seemed sweet together and their relationship seems stable and healthy and mutually supportive which neither has really ever had in the past. Hopefully Maggie can be there for Jackson as he struggles through his issues this season.

The patients were really well played and written this episode. They had depth and character and I was really rooting for them. The relationship between CeeCee and Neesha was so sweet and touching. I really wanted both of them to make it and was so sad when Neesha didn’t. My heart broke for CeeCee. It wasn’t her fault, but what a terrible thing to live with. When she started gasping and dry crying saying she didn’t want the heart she came right through the screen. I connected with her so much! A+ acting! CeeCee was also really funny and warm and she totally knows what’s up with Meredith!

Meredith is back to using her old purple scrub cap!!! Be still my beating heart! Meredith taking her dream out on everybody was funny. I really loved the interactions between CeeCee and Meredith. I like the idea of her being set up by a matchmaker. It feels right for her and is a good way to broach the subject and for her to wade out into the dating pool again. I’m excited to see where this journey takes her.

Looking forward to hearing everyone else’s thoughts! The promo for next week looks good. Looks like a funny episode overall.

And that’s all folks! Till next week … Au revoir!

[creion]

gen z/millennial fma headcanons courtesy of me.

greed:

greed is friends with everyone in this au. everyone. he knows everyone.

no one knows greeds real name. he’s just greed. in this au thomas halbert doesnt have the url greed. greed does. hes not even that greedy and he most definitely blocks everyone who calls him out on it.

he’s mysterious in general. his youtube channel goes between him doing backflips off of things he shouldnt be doing back flips off of to a podcast about [some obscure political thing]? who is he?

greeds probably low key homeless like idk in an au where hes human i can imagine him showing up at one of his friends houses every night with like his one backpack of belongings like “hey im sleeping on ur couch and using ur shower” and no one really questions him because hes charming enough to get away with it yknow

except edward questions him. “ling isnt even here. wyd.” “please. if i dont shower i might die.” “fucking fine I GUESS”

greeds favorite place to go is ed and lings apartment because theyre nice and ling always feeds him and also eds funny and greed appreciates humor

this is just a general greed headcanon but god is he poly :3c i can and will fight about this.

ling:

GAY! TANA! MONGEAU! hes wild and a lot of people hate him even though hes really a giant sweetie. he’s best friends with greed and sometimes ling goes on greeds podcast so they can talk about their exercise regimen

hes dating edward of course. theres not more to this other than theyre dating and they love each other and Would kill for each other. also a lot of people probably dont think they have a deep relationship but im telling you. theyre star crossed lovers. its total romcom bullshit.

ling probably gets paid to go to parties. like thats his job and he makes good money doing it even though he has a masters in psychology. he just. goes to parties. pays off his student loans.

he does a lot of prank videos on youtube. think tgfbro but american and less edgy.

ling probably also models on occasion. like hes pretty enough that he just does it.

he shaves his head at some point or like maybe gets an undercut and no one can look at him for a month because its just weird. lings hair is like his identity.

he gets up to a lot of hijinks with greed. theyre probably a little gay together. edward doesnt care because its 2018 time 2 start normalizing polyamory ok.

ling spends actual money on new clothes for greed but the man always wears the same two outfits and although ling rarely gets angry this gets him a little riled

edward:

his youtube channel is just a mess kind of like greeds except with him its unintentional he just... does what he wants. theres videos of him showing off his physical prowess. like hes small but he WILL kick your fuckin ass. hes probably a black belt and is the physical embodiment of the navy seals rant.

sometimes he does vsauce style videos on youtube and everyone hates when he does it because hes memelord 69 but at the same time hes wicked smart

hes a physicist in this world and im serious it throws anyone who meets him for a loop.

ed gets asked a lot how roy is his dad if hes only 12 years older than him. eds answers are either “he found me and my brother as infants and has mothered us since” or “idk man”

ed accidentally starts a meme. he posts a bunch of pictures of ling either sleeping or passed out and idk the specifics of the meme but he starts a meme and it pains him. he consumes he does not create.

ed likes greed but he doesnt express it. “i dont like you” “[eyeroll] and???? im still eating ur leftovers”

ed actually does kick russel tringham in the head for a skit for one of lings vlogs. ed and russel are best friends even if russel genuinely did try to steal eds identity at some point and may or may not have put ed in debt for a few months

roy: 

hes one of ed’s professors much to eds dismay since roy is, technically, his adoptive father.

he probably argues with ed a lot in the middle of lectures (”hey dumbass thats not how it works” “im literally teaching you what you’re majoring in.” “yeah and im telling you that you’re wrong.”)

he’s like 35 in this au and technically a millennial. ed’s 21.

roy has an instagram and its literally just pictures of hughes and elicia and nina and ed and al

roy and hughes are most definitely a foster family and am i pulling this from my own fic yes i am can you stop me no you cant

hughes:

HES FINE. HES ALIVE.

all of the gen z kids in this au think hes awful bc of all the dad jokes and slightly outdated humor. hes not awful. hes perfect. hes doing his best.

he loves all four of his children.

he and gracia are best friends even if their marriage didnt work out for unknown reasons. they along with roy are GOOD PARENTS to elicia. you can pry this from my cold dead hands. canon can suck my chode.

lust:

shes not like greed she doesnt try to be mysterious. shes probably a beauty guru (SolarisCosmetics) and does a lot of tutorials like “Low Commitment Goth Makeup Tutorial”

shes unintentionally mysterious because for her first like 50 videos or so theres no commentary its just subtitles

her first video with commentary is like “i... apologize. i was not intending to be so... mysterious.” and shes actually very sweet and nice and you can fight me on this ok

greed is her adoptive brother and greed makes her bleep out his name and blur her mouth whenever she calls him by his name bc he likes to lurk in the background of her videos because hes an asshole

winry:

shes a mechanic in this au and i mean shes a mechanic in canon but she prob specializes in like. idk. cars. this is a headcanon list im not looking up specifics of mechanics point is she can rebuild an engine in an afternoon and everyone in this au is in love with her

BIG LESBIAN

she probably tries getting ed to go on double dates (him and ling with her and lan fan) but every single time he shoots her down and its to the point shes almost convinced that hes not even dating ling in the first place

greed is probably her biggest client. no one knows how he does it but his car is constantly breaking and winry is the only mechanic in his general vicinity who knows how to do her job worth a shit and also her repair shop has cool music and he probably finds excuses just to chill for the music

“[greed] please. if your fat ass is going to be taking up counter space AT LEAST help clean up” “excuse you my ass is FIRM AND PERKY.”

its probably a joke among ed’s following that winry DOES NOT put up with his shit and when winry gets asked out it shes just like “hes an asshole why the fuck do you think im gonna let him walk around all half cocked like that”

riza:

i like to think shes in the military in this au too. not like military military but maybe air force idk. imagine pilot riza. wow.

shes not on active duty or w/e but you KNOW shes in a foreign country going to college paid for by the government.

everyone in this au is at least bi and riza is no exception. she is dating olivier armstrong. they are in love u can pry this from my cold dead hands you fucking gremlins

edward is probably platonically in love with her. like when he gets to see her (which isnt often) he has to occasionally stop, put a hand on her shoulder, do the ‘boi’ hand (idk how else to describe it) and say, “i love you dont ever change” “thank you, edward.” “[hug]”

envy: 

a troll. like you know those troll blogs that are pretending to be otherkin or some really obscure gender w neopronouns (u do u but we all kno theres trolls). envy has one of those blogs.

envy is actually nonbinary irl but theyre very critical of “special snowflakes” (again u do u these headcanons dont necessarily reflect my opinions and as long as u aint hurting no one i support u) and they probably cyberbully ppl

envy is garbage in this fic

“god i hate you” “actually eat my ass, greed”

see greed is the opposite of ed w riza. he looks at envy and occasionally has to say “i fucking hate you”

theyre secrety buds but like... they annoy the shit out of each other. u kno they do.

ENVY STARTS A LOT OF DISCOURSE. THEY PROBABLY START A LOT OF HOMESTUCK DISCOURSE. GOD. here i am in 2018 writing about envy starting fucking homestuck discourse. its probably like davekat discourse too tbh

i know im forgetting alphonse, may/mei (i spell it mei), and lan fan but its like 4:19 am 

please send me asks if u have any feedback. or reply to this post. its up to u. i trust u to make the right decision. (there is no reight decision and honestly i need to go to bed)

[thewitchqueen281]

Experiment 808 AU

Hey so I did actually have someone show some interest in this AU, but I’m awful at formatting so I'm just making a separate text post. Read about each character under the cut. A bit about the setting. It’s pretty distant future, this big lab in the middle of the city was commissioned to make a ton of super soldiers. Not knowing where to start they just... started kidnapping kids. Like from their cribs and everything. Not legal but they can like start from scratch there. By the time most of them are ten they’ve been tortured and beaten and do not want to be there. So they just escape. Because like what are they going to do to stop a bunch of kids with powers.  They run free into the city. They stay hidden in bunkers and hideouts. They are all about 15~16 ish. I haven't decided whether or not Al is still a year younger or if they are twins so, for now, its up too you. 

Anyway, enjoy these stupid teens.

Ed 

Has gills on his neck and sides, and dragonfly wings.

the wings are red and while he can fly fast can’t fly for a very long time. 

Instead of his traditional black tank top and coat, he wears one of those knit sleeveless turtleneck things with his red coat that ties around in the front.

Anyone with gills is bioluminescent underwater, he glows red in his face and all around his arms.

he wears a different outfit because it hides his wings and his gills. 

still kind of a little shit. 

knows all the other kids, is friends with most of them surprisingly. 

lives with his brother, Roy Mustang, Riza Hawkeyes, and Denny Brosh in an abandoned library on the west side of the city. Because they are the kids he trusts the most.

he would live with Ling, Lan Fan, and Winry. But Ling and Lan Fan don't really live anywhere and Winry travels between all the kid's hideouts making sure they didn't break anything.

Likes knives, like really really likes knives

has like twenty on him at all times. 

he actually meets Ling by throwing a knife at him and getting really pissed that he missed. 

Roy Mustang 

Has a salamander tail, sometimes breaths a small bit of fire. 

Doesn't really like people at all. 

is four ten and has a lisp and you can pry this headcanon away from my cold dead hands. 

frequent all-nighters, whether playing video games or trying to master fire breath. 

Wears really baggy cargo pants, he likes the pockets. 

has a haircut with two very long pieces of hair in the front and kinda shitty bangs. 

he regrets this haircut. 

he’s best friends with Riza and Ed because Riza and Ed are also wild kids who won't stop him from jumping off really high places or putting bugs in Al’s tea. 

Likes lollypops, no one is sure why he just thinks they taste nice. 

huge crush on Jean Havoc from the group uptown, The others make fun of him. 

Riza Hawkeye 

Has a cheetah tail and likes to R U N

She's a very fast girl, for a long time everyone thought that was one of the abilities given to her during her time in the lab.

it's not  

she just likes to run. 

despite being a wild teen is the second most sensible one in their group. Has had to drag Roy to bed, but almost everyone has had to do that once or twice.

cant cook for shit. like really. she hates cooking shes so bad at it. 

everyone expects her to be the mom for some reason like they think she cooks and cleans. 

shed rather die, Ed cooks, they take shifts cleaning.

loves long skirts and horror novels. 

likes to think she can talk to ghosts or summon demons. 

or maybe she can. 

nobody really knows. 

Talks to herself on occasion. 

Al 

Has gills like his brother. Very small antlers as well.

glows blue underwater near his ears and around his legs. He and his brother have matching symbols on their backs.  

wears a blue hoodie to cover the antlers. 

The actual Mom Friend TM 

Enjoys tea and not having to deal with his brother and CO’s bullshit. 

for once would like to sleep in. just once. 

Would be a wine mom but he is responsible and doesn't drink while underage, unlike almost all of his friends who really don't seem to give a shit.

Sassy, like, really sassy. 

bad at hiding his emotions. 

you will know when he thinks your being a dumbass.

*looks into the camera like he's on the office* 

“Al me and the others are going to jump off the top of the building and see with we can stop ourselves.” “Good luck brother.”

Is friends with everyone and really he loves them all but goddamn. 

One time Ed dated a real shit head and you don't want to know what happened after he dumped Ed. he isn't dead but he won't be walking anytime soon.

Denny Brosh

Has Squid tentacles under his arms and fins on his legs. He glows a bright yellow underwater. 

Knits, like a lot. Every one of them has a homemade sweater from him. the others he lives with wear theirs all the time. Because they do gross things like care about one another in this household. 

Is still really good friends with Maria Ross, he wishes they saw each other more. 

can and will shock you with his tentacles, especially if you make jokes about them. 

Meme dream team leader. 

Al doesn't understand memes and Denny hurts every day because of this. 

has a bright yellow sweater that he knitted himself and then had every single one of his friend sign.

Thinks Kain Furey is super cute. Roy thinks he's super gross because Furey is an innocent Denny!

wholesome meme some days sex jokes on others. 

pretty much all the kids have pretty severe mental health issues, but Denny is one of the few who has tried to help his. 

takes anxiety meds. 

while he doesn't have any sibling this timeline he has his friends and honestly they are pretty close to siblings. 

has called Ed big brother but like everyone has once or twice. Ed doesn't really give a shit and has accepted his fate as the oldest and apparently the most brother like. 

Maria Ross 

Lots a scales, like all over her body. 

has wings but she isn't sure what animal they could be from.

they are big and scaley like her. 

Lives with Olivier, Mei Chang, Sheska, and Winry Rockbell when she's around. They live in an old dinner on the east side of town. 

Would date Sheska 100%. 

Sorta has claws, doesn't matter she enjoys painting them. 

Good friends with Olivier, actually best friends. This is a problem in some ways because Olivier and Denny don’t get along at all. 

Has a gun, only used it once or twice to protect her friends. 

she hopes she never has to use it again.

Sometimes wonders what her family would be like if she hadn't grown up in a lab. Wonders whether of not her family sold her or if she was stolen. She wonders for the other kids as well.

Breaths and cries ice. 

prefers if her friends called her Ria 

Olivier Armstrong  

This bitch got bat wings

they are fucking huge. 

she can’t really hide them so she only goes outside at night. 

she has become a cryptid. 

blurry shitty pictures of her crouching on buildings wings extended, her eyes glowing are all over forums. 

Batgirl strikes again?? 

she thinks its super funny. 

Doesn't really try to hide how she's feeling. 

most of the time she’s Arragont or amused.

Anime character tch. 

Her list of people she dislikes is bigger than the list of people she likes. 

that's a lie she loves all her friend's

she’s just bad about showing it and claims to hate them. 

everyone calls her Livi. 

she hates it but nobody cares. 

keeps her hair in a ponytail.

Mei Chang

has a cat tail, and night vision.

Please don't make any jokes. 

she doesn't want this.

People sometimes pull her tail. they only pull it once though. People learn from their mistakes.

wears a big pink coat with lots of pockets. she keeps both dead mice and her kunai in the pockets. 

Is Winrys assistant when she's around.

loves to help. is crushing on Al from the west side library. Everyone knows but Al. Ed and Ling think that is hilarious. Like it didn't take them months to get over themselves. 

Ling is her half-brother. She isn't sure how trustworthy the info is because it’s something she heard from lab technicians. 

Wants to learn to fight better but nobody wants to spar with her. 

Sit’s up at night and stares at her coffee. 

it’s cold now but she can’t get to sleep. 

Winry Rockbell 

Has butterfly wings, emperor butterfly wings. They don't make her as fast as Ed but it is faster to fly than to walk and she can fly for pretty long periods of time.

automail isn't really a thing. So Winry does general doctor stuff.

she goes between bases and makes sure that everybody is healthy. 

most of the time that isn't the case so shes pretty much always working.

Thinks Mei is a wonderful helper.  

Wears her signature tube top. doesn't travel through populated areas and definitely doesn't by day.

Butterflygirl isn't as cool as a cryptid as Batgirl so she doesn't get much coverage. 

Will still hit you with a wrench don't test her. 

She carries it and her entire toolbox because she’ll be damned if she loses time for her machines while helping out these idiots.

Dating Mothman. 

Mothman is actually Lan Fan. this joke doesn't make a lot of sense to her because Lan Fan doesn't have moth wings. Ling and Ed tell her to shut up and go with it. She rolls her eyes fondly. 

Kain Fuery 

Has ant antenna. he can send messages across radio waves because of this. makes it easy to keep up with his friends. 

Lives with Jean and Rebbeca in what they think was once a club. It's unused now but it does have an underground bunker for some reason.

He is an innocent 

(He isn't) 

keeps a picture of some dog in his pocket. 

he needs it to keep up morale. 

yes, it is just a stock photo of a dog that he stole out a picture frame at wallmart a couple years ago.

He really likes animals. Ed and Roy hate going out with both him and Al in a pair because both of them insist on stopping to pet every dog and cat or whatever animal.

Functional Bi 

Jean Havoc  

Has fins he thinks. they are like spiky and help him swim better. they are all over his back and wrap around his arms. Has gills, and he tends to glow a bluish purple.  

he lives in the club but prefers to be near the docks. 

Loves to swim

Just call him Jean

Please god just call him Jean. 

Olivier and Maria butchered his last name so bad when he first meet him that he is permanently traumatized. 

he’s being dramatic but like, that's who he is??

Disaster Bi 

Pinning? His constant mood?

Ling Yao

Red panda tail and claws. 

Loves sweet things, like so much.

Can see in the dark, loves his night vision

Thinks Ed throwing knives at him is super hot

Ed is Concerned TM 

Doesn't really live anywhere. 

bounces around the bases with Lan Fan. 

Lan Fan is actually his twin sister but they haven't told Mei that yet.

he doesn't know why people don't just know.

Climbs in Ed’s window in the middle of the night. 

freaked Ed out the first time it happened but he got used to it. 

spars on rooftops in the middle of the day. 

For some reason, nobody seems to freak out. 

Kink is love and appreciation

doesn't actually know most of the other kids. Sometimes there will just be a different kid at the base and He’ll be like cool.

Everone knows about Ling though. 

Lan Fan

She has lunar moth wings. Although Winry seems to think they are from some type of butterfly like her. Ed and Ling know the truth and call her moth man. 

She flicks their faces for it. 

loves food. thinks it must be because lunar moths cant eat, that side of her wants to eat E V E R Y T H I N G. 

Or maybe she just has a huge appetite because Ling eats a ton as well. 

has night vision as well.

Is her last name Fan? Not even she knows. 

Everyone calls her Lan Fan though. 

Spars with Ling but prefers fighting with Ed because Ling holds back. Ed doesn't.

tries so hard not to scream at her friends. 

god, she tries so hard. 

This took so long. If you want to hear about specific characters request it and I’ll make another one of these. If anyone wants to write a fanfic send it to me, I’ll be the first one to kudos that ish.