#so even after the hero/villain decodes the key they still need to get out of the facility and get a working signal

[szhmidty]

Could have the key microetched in a coin or something, small enough that only an AMF or SEM or the like could visualize it. And that's already fitting to the genre! "Ancient artifact reveals secret under modern technological analysis". Could have that be a bait and switch, instead of giving you a key it gives you machine instructions for some long-dead processor, but one that modern emulators don't emulate perfectly, whereas this program takes advantage of some niche instructions, leading to a mad dash to track down the one of the last remaining physical units that works.

Functionally a thumb drive full of bitcoins bought in 2010 could fill basically the same plot function a briefcase full of bearer bonds or unmarked bills used to before the government started caring about money laundering, but in practice I don't think I've ever really seen a story where they do.

[controloffandoms]

Numb (D.W.)

Prompt: Just something that came to mind. Reader is part of the Super Fam. Older Damian Wayne.

Pairing: Older!Damian Wayne x Super!Reader, Dick Grayson x platonic!reader

Words: 5870

Warnings: Cursing, violence (lots of violence for a little bit), Deaf reader at one point, emotionally vacant reader

Notes: This just kind of happened. There may be another part, but this is where I felt this part ended.

Part 2   Part 3   Part 4   Part 5

You slowly rose from your bed. You had gotten in around four that morning and had to be at work by seven...unless there was a crisis that you needed to stop that involved you getting snapshots of Krypton as she fought against whomever decided to become the villain of the morning. Then, you could tell your boss you were late because you were getting some action shots of Bludhaven’s favorite hero-though Dick Grayson would challenge you on that fact. 

You would think a Super as yourself would be in Metropolis or another city close to it, but you would be wrong. You wanted to be independent of your father’s influence and your other siblings. You needed to make your own name. So, your father, Clark Kent, had reached out to Bludhaven Global Journal and had allowed you to further your career as a journalist without having to live up to the expectations of the Daily Planet since your parents were Clark and Lois, two famed journalists. After much debate, you decided to take the out and transfer to Bludhaven. That had been the best decision to make. 

Last night you and Dick, as Krypton and Nightwing, had taken on Bane and Blockbuster who were teaming up to take Bludhaven before moving onto Gotham. Bane had been working on the Gotham end while Blockbuster had worked on Bludhaven. Last minute, Bane had joined the fight and your found yourself between a rock and a hard place. Why, you ask, does that put you in a pickle? While you are part Kryptonian, you didn’t get all of the powers your dad had...or Jon had...you didn’t even have the best attributes like Connor did. Sure, you can fly, you have heat vision, super hearing and strength. You do not have cold breath, X-Ray vision, or superspeed. The worst part was that you didn’t even have the invulnerability. You get bruised and cut like Dick does after a rough battle. While it takes more force to break bones, that’s also a possibility-especially when fighting Blockbuster and Bane. 

You and Dick had stood back to back, taking in the new scene and information. Needless to say, your ached all over and were grateful that Dick was able to find the information you both needed to stop their operation in its tracks. While he had been off on a search of information, you had taken on the two powerhouses. Let’s just say that by the time Dick had the information, you were overpowered and running out of energy. 

You stumbled into the bathroom and started your morning routine. A short, but relaxing shower followed by applying makeup to your bruises and cuts so no one at work could ask about your after-shift activities. You checked everything in the mirror before exiting your room and walking to the kitchen where Dick was just setting out a warm breakfast with coffee while taking a face-time from Bruce. 

Dick’s eleven years older than you (as you were Damian’s age) and had taken it upon himself to watch out for you in Bludhaven. After you had accepted your position at BGJ, you had been called by Grayson telling you that he had lots of extra space in his penthouse that he would be willing to rent out to you. He knew the only way that you would accept the offer is if you worked for the space. He had been right, and you couldn’t thank him enough. It was nice not being all alone in a new city at the beginning. As the months went on, it was just nice to come home to someone who knew your nightly activities and understood both the mundane and super things. 

Dick sat next to your at the bar, leaning the phone on the popsocket to get both of you in the picture and freeing his hands so he could eat. “Morning Bruce,” you mumble, not yet completely awake. 

“Morning. Tell me what you experienced last night,” the frame shifted as Damian joined the picture. 

“TT, they did a number on your face, (Y/N),” Damian sighed. 

“Thanks for the update,” you rolled your eyes. “I had my suspicions after having overheard a conversation Blockbuster was having with someone on the phone before Dick showed up last night. No names were mentioned but they were talking about a ‘shipment’ that would cripple both Gotham and Bludhaven. They wanted to take out the vigilanties and take over the cities and make them in their own image. After the call ended, Blockbuster met with Tarantula. Tarantula was in charge of the shipment and was given coded directions that I still haven’t been able to decode. Whatever this ‘shipment’ is, I believe we better get ahead of it before they have a chance to use it against us. I’ll keep on trying to decode the message after I get to work today.”

“The information I downloaded and deleted from their computers seemed to cripple the operation for the time being. I think that they have something to do with the shipment that (Y/N) was talking about. She gave me a copy of the coded directions and I’m going to see if I can get anything from looking at that and the files. I’ll make it my primary case today. From the information I got several warehouses in Gotham, I’ve sent the information over to you for you both to look into. Be careful, in case the Gotham end is more prepared than ours,” Dick took a gulp of coffee.

“I will grab Drake, Todd, and Brown. We’ll go look into the warehouses. I will let you know of our findings,” Damien nodded. 

“I did my own recon last night while Bane was still in Gotham. He was meeting with Joker, Harley, Penguin, Two-Face, and Riddler. I wasn’t able to get much information out of the conversation, but they were talking of the operation taking place in the next two weeks. Depending on if all of the information you gathered transfers over to the Gotham operation, you could have set them back as well. I want us all to be on our toes. I also believe that if Bane was meeting with five other villains that your operation is bigger than just Blockbuster and Tarantula,” Bruce sighed, looking up as a knock sounded on his door. “I don’t want either of you patrolling on your own, that goes for you as well Damian. We’ll talk more later. Be safe.” 

The video ended and you stretched as you stood to take your dirty dishes to the sink. “Damian was right, Bane and Blockbuster did a number on your last night. Maybe you should call out today.”

You turned sharply, ignoring the pull of multiple cuts on your stomach. “I am a powerful Kryptonian, I do not need to take ‘sick days’. I will apply more makeup and be on my way. Stay safe on the job today, Dick. I’d hate to have to take an early break to save your ass because you can’t reveal to your partner that you’re Nightwing,” you stalked off to finish getting ready for work. 

Don’t misunderstand, you love Dick Grayson. He’s like a big brother to you, a big brother that you never got, being the oldest in the Kent clan. At twenty-three, you’re still headstrong and willing to push every ache behind in order to get the job done and seem normal. You had been the first one that Clark had to teach to control your super strength, dial down your hearing, control your heat vision when you were angry. You had been the trial run. Hell, you were the reason that they slowly tested Jon’s abilities just in case he was like you, with penetrable skin. After realizing you weren’t bullet proof, it took your father almost a whole year to let you patrol again. 

You stepped into the living room of the penthouse, seeing Dick grabbing his keys. You sighed quietly and walked over to him. “Thank you for being concerned, but I know my limits. I’ll leave work early if I’m not feeling well. Don’t do anything stupid today, Detective Grayson,” you hugged him. He wrapped you in gentle but firm arms. 

“I know you do, but you’re my little sister (Y/N/N). I worry. I promise no stupidity today as long as you do the same,” he released you, giving you a look. 

“Scouts honor,” you smirked and grabbed your own set of keys. You both parted once you got to the car garage. 

_____________

You looked up as a shadow cast over your workspace. “Kent, we need to talk.” You rose an eyebrow at Damian and stood. 

“I need to tell my boss that I’m not feeling too well and will be taking the rest of the day off,” you state as you grab your things. After he was informed, you and Damian began the walk to the parking garage. “What’s this about, Mr. Wayne,” you asked. Since you were in public, you were treating him as if he was in on your next story. An informant or professional expert on what your next article was going to be. 

He opened the passenger door of his car and closed it behind you before joining you in the car. “We have time sensitive information on Blockbuster and Bane’s operation. It’s even bigger than we thought. We’re meeting everyone back at Grayson’s penthouse.”

You nodded and stared out the window before turning to look at Damian as he drove. His chiseled cheeks, his broad shoulders, the muscles rippling beneath the tailored suit he wore. His eyes turned to you briefly, but you didn’t turn away. “It’s been a while,” you casually stated.

“I know. Next time I’ll come for a social visit. Or you could come to Gotham, either way. We haven’t spent time together since you got your job eight months ago,” A small smile was present on his face. 

“You still see Jon almost every week,” you asked.

“Oh most definitely. He asks me when I’m going to come see you,” you rolled your eyes. Jon and Damian were best friends, much like you and Damian were. Jon just seemed to think that there was more to your relationship than just being best friends. He was right on your end. You realized four years ago that you were in love with your best friend. You knew he couldn’t feel the same, so you kept it to yourself and used your feelings for him to better your friendship and protect him when your worked on missions together.

“The little brat thinks he’s so slick,” you joked.

“You might want to tone down the judgement on your brother. When I said this operation was even bigger than we thought, that meant that it spread to Metropolis. Jon and Conner are already with Grayson in the penthouse. Your father is off world but is trying to wrap up the mission to get back here to help deal with the situation. Father, Todd, and Drake have arrived at the penthouse. Pennyworth and Brown are monitoring things in Gotham.”

You nodded and stretched your hearing to the penthouse. Everyone Damian had mentioned was, in fact, at the penthouse. Another sound caught your attention. You zoned in on it and tensed. “-eady in two hours. We’ll take those idiot do-gooder’s out in no time,” that was Tarantula. 

“Good. I want to be rid of them as soon as possible.” Blockbuster.

You zoned back into the car as it parked. You both exited the car, but you paused as a scream reached your ears. It was coming from the same direction as Blockbuster and Tarantula. “-(Y/N)? KENT,” Damian shouted as he shook your shoulder. 

“What?” 

“Are you coming?” 

“I’ve got to check something out,” you muttered, mind still on the information you’d gotten on the way...and thinking of the scream. Was it just a trap to see if their plan would work on you? Was someone really in danger and needed assistance? As the scream returned, you rushed into the penthouse, ignoring the people already in it. You changed into your suit and was out your bedroom window before Damian even reached your room. 

“TT, damn it Kent,” you heard Damian exclaim and you tuned out the penthouse. 

Landing quietly on the roof of the building you tracked the scream to, you carefully looked around. You weren’t going in blindly. This could very well be a trap. You wished that you’d gotten the genetics for X-Ray vision at this point, but you could deal with this. You could help the person in danger and get back to the penthouse to talk about the operation with everyone else. 

You entered through a vent, using the many lessons Bruce and Dick had taught you about hiding in the shadows and using the element of surprise. Finally you found the room where the screaming originated from. Good news was that there was cause for you to investigate. Bad news, someone did need rescuing and it was most likely a trap. 

You reached your hearing to the penthouse, before whispering out, “Jon, Conner, your listening ears on?” You heard them quiet down the others in the penthouse as they responded. 

“Good news, I know where Blockbuster’s master plan resides currently. Bad news, they’re going to go through with the plan in two hours.”

“Why the hell did you go off without anyone else,” Conner hissed.

“Other bad news, they have hostages.”

It was silent for a minute before Jon sighed. You could imagine him running a hand down his face, “and they know you have enhanced hearing meaning they were planning on drawing you into a trap...which you blindly did.”

“Not exactly. They still don’t know I’m here. I spent too much time with bats to be that stupid,” you paused as you saw movement as the door in the room opened. “Hold on, movement.”

“Don’t engage, Kent,” Damian growled, “we’re coming to you. You don’t move until we get there.”

Your heart stopped momentarily as you realized that you didn’t have a choice in that. Seconds after seeing the man come through the door, you put up your mental shields as you had been taught. Manchester Black, renowned telepath and enemy of Superman and all of his children. You didn’t know he was back on Earth. “Black,” you whispered, hearing Jon tell the others of the telepath. 

Apparently you hadn’t put your shields up fast enough to block Black. “Come now, Kryptonian.”

Before you could move, the vent was torn from the ceiling and you were left staring at Monolith and General Zod. A quiet curse left your lips as you made a head count. Manchester Black, General Zod, Monolith, Blockbuster, Tarantula, Bane, Joker, and Harley Quinn. “And I thought your little plan wouldn’t work,” Bane chuckled as he looked at Zod. 

“All of Kal-El’s children are too righteous to ignore helping the innocent. Even his clone can’t ignore the need to help others. It’s pathetic really,” he responded. You could feel Black trying to break your shields. 

“Can we hit this one now? I want to see her turn black and blue,” Harley leaned on her bat as she waited on an answer. 

“I need her disabled in order to test our plan out, go ahead,” Blockbuster grinned. 

It was like you were an all you can eat buffet and the villains were starved people as they all rushed at you. You growled under your breath and fought them off. You stayed as far away from Monolith as possible. As far as you and Dick knew, he was invulnerable-not to mention the superstrength he possessed rivaled your own. You kept Zod at a distance as well. He was a full blooded Kryptonian, he possessed all of your dad’s abilities and other than kryptonite, he had no vulnerabilities. 

You focused on Tarantula. Get her out and you’ll have one less villain to deal with. It wasn’t hard to knock the young woman out. With her out of commission, you worked on Joker and Harley while still dodging attacked from the others. You had knocked Harley out just as you felt yourself being picked up and thrown through the air, complete with the feeling that your skin was being melted. A huge fist pushed your farther into the concrete you rested against. 

You met the next fist and threw off Monolith. You didn’t get far before it felt like your head was exploding. With your concentration gone, you crashed to the ground, hands going up to your head as the rest of your shields fell. You felt the blood starting to leak from your nose and you couldn’t fight the scream that left your lips as the pain in your head intensified along with the physical abuse by the other villains in the room. Just as you began to pass out, you felt your left leg shatter, causing a broken gasp to leave your mouth as everything went black. 

___________

You don’t know how long it had been since you lost consciousness when you woke next. A quiet groan left your mouth and you bit your lip as you pushed yourself up. You hissed as you put weight on your leg. You floated slightly to keep weight off of it. Several fearful eyes stared back at you once you began to look around. As you took stock of the situation, you extended your hearing, hoping to find the heartbeat of your brothers or the bats. You couldn’t find any sign of them and that worried you. As you looked around again, you realized that this wasn’t the location you scoped out earlier. They had moved you. 

Your heart beat began to quicken and did your breathing before you quelshed the fear. Damian Wayne would find you. You trusted him with your life. He would find you and he wouldn’t stop until he did. You took one more look at the hostages in the cage with you, your face hardening slightly. “It’s going to be okay. I’m going to try and get the bars open enough for everyone to crawl out,” you whispered. You didn’t know where any of the villains were, but you didn’t want them to overhear you. 

As soon as your hands clasped the bars, it felt like your energy was being drained from you. As you pulled at the bars, they moved barely and inch apart. As you went to pull at them again, a very familiar chuckle reached your ears. “I made them especially for you Supers. The cages are infused with Kryptonite. I have to say, Krypton, I’m surprised that the other idiots’ plan worked. I didn’t think you were dumb enough to fall into the trap.”

You backed away from the bars and glared at the man coming from the shadows. “Lex Luthor, why am I not surprised. I thought you were still off world.”

He smirked, coming closer to the cage. “I came back just for this. You didn’t think that Bane, Zod, and Blockbuster came up with this whole operation by themselves, did you? By being off world, no one would suspect my involvement. Once we take Gotham, Bludhaven, and Metropolis, the other heroes and cities will fall into our control.”

“How do you plan to make the cities fall? How do you plan to get rid of the other heroes?”

“That’s the easy part. You’ll be helping us out. We’ll see if it works on you. If it does, we can implement it on the others. If it doesn’t, we’ll fix it until it does...and even if it doesn’t work, you’ll be out of the picture,” Lex smirked. He crossed his arms in amusement as you pried at the bars again. “How does it feel to know that you’ll either be under our control or dead in less than thirty minutes?”

“That’s not going to happen,” you growled. Monolith, Zod, and Blockbuster emerged from the shadows and Lex smirked. 

The cage door opened and you took the chance to attack, pushing the Monolith back into Zod. You used your heat vision to blind Blockbuster temporarily. You had to admit that you were panicking on the inside. You were a cornered animal and they all knew it. It would only be a matter of time before one of them restrained you. 

You screamed and fought as Zod held onto you, dragging you through darkened hallways as the others followed. “When we get in there, make sure to inject her with the compound before we hook her to the machine,” Lex turned to smirk at you. “The show is about to begin.”

A door at the end of the hallway had light peeking from the bottom. It blinded you as the door swung open. It took a second for your eyes to adjust. That was enough time for your handlers to be changed out. Monolith was now holding you as Zod approached with a syringe. “No,” you shouted and tried to fight against Monolith’s hold on you. You used your heat vision, superstrength, and flight to try and get away, but nothing you did got you free. 

Whatever was in the syringe burned your veins as it moved through. You grit your teeth, refusing to give them the satisfaction of knowing how much pain you were in. “Lock her in,” Lex stated as he moved further in the room. 

You fought the whole way there. You weren’t going without a fight. As the last restraint was put on you, you felt tears of frustration building up. “No no no no no,” you mumbled, pulling at the restraints. 

“You’ll find that those restraints are made of Kryptonite. While I’ll be displeased if this doesn’t work, at least I have one Super out of my hair,” Lex turned to look at Black behind the console. “Light her up!” 

As the machine roared to life, you heard glass breaking all around you and multiple figures entered the room. You didn’t have time to take it all in before the machine sent a steady stream of energy at you. Upon contact, the fire in your veins intensified tenfold and you couldn’t help but scream out. You could feel Black probing your mind and implanting thoughts, but you couldn’t focus enough to block him out. You felt like your body was being torn in two...but then it all stopped. 

Black was unconscious, the machine shut down, Conner and Jon fighting Zod and Monolith… Damian in front of you, hands on your cheeks, wiping away your fallen tears. His mouth moving, but you can’t hear what he’s saying. All you hear is whitenoise. “Hurts,” you form the word with your mouth. Whether it’s spoken or not, you don’t know but Damian understands. 

Your restraints are undone and you can’t catch yourself, but you don’t need to. Damian has you, he’s lowering you to the ground, crouching with you, still saying something you can’t make out as he turns his head while he talks in order to see how the others are doing. Slowly, your hearing comes back, “-got you. Should have gotten here sooner. How are you feeling,” he turned back to you, picking you up bridal side. 

“Hurs, Dee,” your words are blending, but you can’t help it. 

He exits the building with you, holding onto you tightly as he sits in the passenger seat of the batmobile. Not long after, the other vigilantes exit the building, some with villains in tow, others talking in low voices. Well, low for them. To you, it was like they were yelling directly in your ears. Your hands come up to cover your ears, letting out a distressed sound. 

Damian’s arms tighten around you as you begin to try to get out of his grasp, “loud...too loud. Hurts,” you squeeze your eyes shut. 

“Father, get us out of here now,” Damian’s voice is loud as well as he calls to his father. 

_________

You’re lucky the penthouse soundproof. Even with that, you can still hear things, but it’s all dull. Everything that happens in the penthouse, though, sounds like an airhorn in your ear. The quiet talking of the other people in the house are like shouts. The flush of the toilet is like a hurricane. The beeping of the coffee pot being done is like being right next to the tsunami siren. Not to mention every time you move, even the smallest bit, everything burns and hurts. You imagine this is how Jason Todd felt after being beaten by Joker then left to a fiery death by bomb. 

You hissed slightly as you sat up on the bed. You had to get out of here. You had to get rid of the headache. You had to go somewhere quiet...and you had just the place: your dad’s Fortress of Solitude. You stumbled into the wall as you walked to the window. 

Suddenly, Jon is in front of you, arms crossed and worry evident on his face. “Where are you going,” he asked. 

Your right hand went up to your ear as you winced. “Quiet,” you whispered. Your left hand, which you had against the wall for support, quivered. 

Jon placed both hands on your shoulders to steady you. “Let’s get you back to bed.”

“No,” you shouted. This caused Jon to jump slightly, giving you a moment to back away from him. “I-I can’t think! I can’t-I can’t concentrate! I can’t-I need-I-Hurts! Jon, it hurts! My head-My head, feels like it’s ex-exploding! I don’t care how quiet you and everyone else talks, it’s like you’re each screaming in my ears!!” By now, tears were freely falling and you had drawn a crowd. 

You backed away until your back hit a wall. The fire in your veins was back and getting worse with each breath you took. “Make it...STOP!” The temperature in the room dropped and you could only watch as each of your increased breaths cooled the room even more. “What’s happening to me,” your voice cracked, as did the mirror on your wall from the amount of ice piled on it. 

Damian was in front of you, placing one hand on your knee and the other on your cheek. “Beloved, you need to calm down. I will help you figure it out, but I need you to calm down...you’re scaring me.” The fact that Damian Wayne admitted that he was scared was enough to get your attention. You stared directly at him, nodding slightly. 

“Damian, I’m scared. Everything hurts. I can’t think-I can’t-I can’t focus...Veins on fire.” You shut your eyes, letting out a shaky breath. You let out a scream intentionally and stood abruptly. “Injection. Lex,” you closed your eyes, trying to bring the words to your lips, “injected me with something.” You could tell your body was shaking but you couldn’t focus on it. Get it together, Kent. “Black was-Black-in my head. Changed things. Put things in.”

The different heart beats in the room were going at different speeds. It created an unsteady thrum that you couldn’t help but focus on. “What kind of things did he change,” Conner asked as quietly as he could, at least you thought he was trying for your benefit to be quiet. 

You still winced at his voice, slowly sitting on the edge of your bed. “Thoughts. Feelings. All fucked up.” You put your face in your hands, trying to scrub away the tears that had fallen. “My fault. All my fault. Stupid. Idiot,” you mumbled. “Feels like-like mind’s splitting in two.”

“That’s probably an accurate description. You didn’t fully complete Lex’s plan before we interrupted. From what Conner and Jon heard, you were either supposed to be dead or under their control. Black was probably implanting memories and changing your beliefs and didn’t get to finish. Your core beliefs are fighting what he changed making your mind fight itself. As for what he injected you with, I’m running that through my systems to figure out what it was. Alfred and Stephanie are tracking down the exact components of it to see if we can create something to counteract it.” Bruce slowly stepped forward. “You just need to hold on. Clark’s almost back to Earth. We’re going to figure this out.”

___________

You’d finally passed out around five a.m. Looking at the clock, it didn’t seem worth it. Six fifteen a.m. You went through your morning routine on autopilot. You felt numb. You looked at yourself in the mirror, wincing at your battered body. You couldn’t feel it, but it sure as hell look like it hurts. Now that you think about it, you should be more worried that you couldn’t feel anything. You were battered enough that your makeup didn’t even cover the bruising. 

You rolled your eyes and walked out of your room and to the kitchen. You were slightly surprised to see almost everyone sitting around the living area/kitchen. You hadn’t heard them moving around. You grabbed a plate and grabbed portions of eggs and grits. You decided to take it back to your room as all of the convenient seats were taken. 

Before you could walk back to your room, a hand landed on your shoulder and turned you around. You cocked your head, why didn’t he just call for you? Dick’s mouth was moving, but you couldn’t hear his voice. The confusion must have shown on your face as Damian and your brothers approached. As much as you wanted to figure out what was wrong with your hearing, you couldn’t help but not care about it. You handed Dick your plate and turned around, locking the door behind you.

You finished your morning routine and deciding on a hat for today so that you could hide some of your bruised face. You had to get to work. You had an article due today after all. As you approved your look in the mirror, you walked out the door of your room. You gave the usual parting words to Grayson as you neared the front door, “don’t do anything stupid that I have to save your ass from today, Grayson.”

You had just made it out the door when there was another hand gripping your shoulder. You huffed and jerked out of their hold to come face to face with your father. His mouth moved and you barely made out the words ‘you’re hurt. You need to rest and heal.’ You shook your head and backed away from him. 

“Article due today. Gotta finish it. I feel fine,” the truth was you didn’t feel anything at all. His arm moved quickly to grip you again, but you jerked back again, glaring at your father. “Don’t make me do something I’ll regret later, Daddy.”

Jon was on your right side and Conner on your left. Both their mouths were moving, but you couldn’t concentrate on one of them to figure out what they were saying. You started to walk away from them again. You didn’t hesitate to fight against the next hand that grabbed you. You swung the arm over you, disorienting your brother before popping his shoulder out of its socket and shoving him hard enough into the wall to leave a Jon sized print.

You didn’t bother to stop to apologize, just continued to your car. This time no one stopped you. 

(Third Person POV)

Damian wasn’t sure what was going on with you. It scared him. The previous day when he couldn’t figure out how to comfort you and make the pain go away, he felt like a complete failure. He’d finally been able to get you to go to sleep around five and had promptly found his father and the others in the living area to figure out what to do to help you.

About an hour later, you walked out of the room like you were back to your old self. Like nothing had happened the previous day. Dick excused himself from the conversation as you reappeared with a plate of food, heading for your room. “(Y/N)! What are you doing up? I would think you’d be resting.” She didn’t respond. “(Y/N)?”

He placed a hand on your shoulder and you turned around, cocking your head in question. “Are you alright? How are you feeling this morning? (Y/N), can you understand me?” Each question was followed with her brow furrowing. Damian, Conner, and Jon approached you while Dick held your attention.

By the time Damian had an idea of what was wrong, you were already back in your room. He tried the door, but it was locked. He thought of picking the lock, but maybe you just needed some time to yourself. 

When you came walking through the room again, this time looking like you were going out, Damian was out of his seat quicker than any of the others. “(Y/N), where are you going? You should be resting.” It didn’t seem as if you’d heard him. 

“Don’t do anything stupid that I have to save your ass from today, Grayson,” you called as you grabbed your keys and proceeded out the door.

Clark was right behind you, gripping your shoulder. “I think there’s something wrong with your hearing, Sweetheart.” You turned in his grip, shrugging out of it. “You’re hurt. You need to rest and heal.” 

Damian watched as your face hardened and you glared at your father. He had never seen you act this way around Clark Kent. You adored him. Sure, there were times when you argued with your father about missions, but he had never seen this pure hatred that crossed across your face. “Article due today. Gotta finish it. I feel fine.” Your voice was a little loud which supports the theory that your hearing could be shot from the previous day.

He watched as you jerked away from your father’s grip again. If you had been an animal, he could imagine your hackles rising and you growling to ward off a predator or unwanted visitor. “Don’t make me do something I’ll regret later, Daddy,” you practically spat the last word. By this time, Jon and Conner had closed in on both sides, making a narrow opening for your to walk through. 

“(Y/N), Sis, this isn’t you. I think it’s best that we keep you here for today. Let us help you,” Jon held his hands out complacently. 

“(Y/N/N), please. We don’t want to hurt you anymore than you already have been. Let’s go back inside,” Conner tried. 

He watched as you walked away from them. “Jon, don’t-” Damian tried to call out as he saw Jon reach for you. Your demeanor suggested that another attempt to stop you would end up with one of your family hurt. You tossed him like a rag doll, dislocating his shoulder and pushing him hard enough in the wall to leave an imprint. Jon called out in pain as you walked away. Something was very wrong...and Damian was going to figure it out.

D.C. Loves

@jadedhillon @marvelite1998

Bats

@lettucewayne

Dickiebirds

@jadedhillon @actiongirl2005

Forever Tags

@miraclesoflove​

[stevenuniversallyreviews]

Episode 124: Lion 4: Alternate Ending

“Please tell me my destiny.”

We’ve had Ronaldo as a toxic gatekeeping fan intent on harassing the creator. We’ve had Lars as a disappointed fan whom the creator is desperate to impress. We’ve even had Navy as a false fan who’s only interested in robbing the creator’s spaceship (arguably a rarer breed than the first two). So now it’s time for the obsessive clue-hunter, who parses through the creation so deeply that the original meaning gets lost in the shuffle. And this time, our fan stand-in is Steven.

Lion 4: Alternate Ending is an episode about Steven trying to ruin Lion 3: Straight to Video. All the magic from that first glimpse of Rose Quartz threatens to be extinguished through overanalysis, to the point where his discovery of a new tape is met with dread instead of excitement. For all the Steven Universe fans that get frustrated by Steven not being as invested in the lore as they’d like, well, this is what happens when Steven gets as invested in the lore as you’d like. 

To be clear, I don’t think Steven succeeds in ruining Lion 3, especially because the conclusion of Lion 4 manages to enhance its predecessor. I also don’t think it’s a bad thing that he tries: it fits his post-Storm in the Room state to tear through whatever evidence he's got to figure out why he was born, and it’s properly painful to see him so desensitized to the wonder of Rose’s tape that he’s reduced it to a possible decoded message. What better way to express how Steven feels than tainting a pivotal moment with his mother?

I’m super into stories where a mystery to the characters isn’t a mystery to the viewer: the core example is Cowboy Bebop episode Speak Like a Child, where our 2070s crew is trying to solve the case of a strange antique object that a 1990s audience already knows is a videotape (although a fifth of the way through the twenty-first century, we’re already getting removed from an era where modern audiences would know what a Betamax is, even as a cultural relic). Because the writers don’t have to try to fool us, we can focus more on how the characters tackle a problem instead of trying to beat them to the punch with our own deduction skills. I wouldn’t call Lion 4 the most concrete example of this sort of story, as it’s not impossible that Rose was leaving encrypted messages behind, but to me at least the “twist” that Rose’s tape wasn’t part of some dubious master plan is obvious enough that I can just enjoy the ride.

“Enjoy” is perhaps the wrong word, because while this is an excellent episode, it’s not a fun one. There are comedic moments, because this is still Steven Universe, but watching a kid at the end of his rope struggling to understand his place in the world is bound to be harrowing stuff. Steven’s determination is compounded by his solitude: the Crystal Gems are pointedly absent, as the last time he asked them for answers his dad got abducted to a space zoo and it’s easy to confuse correlation with causation. So it’s just Steven and Lion for most of the episode, and it’s telling that Lion answers Steven’s final cry for help by bringing him to see his dad. Some things can only be fixed by talking, and for all his strengths, Lion isn’t a great conversationalist.

Before we get to Greg, this Steven/Lion solo outing uses constant activity to sidestep the dullness factor that bogged down Steven’s Lion. After a strong first impression of Steven’s mental state as he scours Rose’s tape for clues, going so far as to try to find meanings in anagrams, Lion revs up the plot by retching up a giant key. I love that Steven’s first thought is the same as mine, and likely yours: the chest in Lion’s mane that we first saw in Lion 3, which unlike Bismuth remained a mystery (and it still is, because we never saw what Steven found in there between Change Your Mind and the movie). Even though the key is comically oversized, Steven ignores the obvious and keeps trying to make it fit. So right off the bat, we get two little stories about Steven looking for answers where there clearly aren’t any and doubling down despite the futility out of sheer desperation for the truth.

From here we get a montage of past locations a la Marble Madness and Warp Tour, accompanied by a gorgeous medley of location themes from Aivi and Surasshu; I will never not complain that we don’t get to have an album of their scoring, because this episode’s soundtrack is one of their best. Visiting the Armory harks back to Lion 2 as the tape did for Lion 3, and we also get a glimpse of Rose’s Fountain and Rose’s Room to continue our references to the many known areas tied to Steven’s mom. When nothing works, Steven pleads with Lion for more information, aware by now that the cat has some answers.

While I’m not huge on Steven’s Lion as an episode due to the aforementioned dull pace, it’s awesome to see our heroes return to where Lion was first found. Buddy’s Book already did a great job of reminding us of Lion’s desert home, but now it’s time to finally investigate the area further. 

Jesse Zuke and Raven Molisee paired up for our last episode, leaving their usual respective partners Hilary Florido and Paul Villeco at bat for Lion 4. The ragtag team has so far given us rich visuals, with a particularly expressive Steven and Lion (crucial for the non-talking member of the duo) and a callback to the lovely settings of the past, but every aesthetic choice they make is topped by the desert run. It’s a beautiful shot, evoking the iconic ocean run of Lion 2, but Steven’s exhaustion (aided by Zach Callison’s beleaguered performance as he narrates his thoughts) tinges the scene with melancholy where there was once only magic. Steven’s desperation is no longer the frenzied need from when Greg was kidnapped, or even from the beginning of this very episode, but has been worn down to a weary determination that just breaks your heart. This is Charlie Brown after a yanked football too many; he hasn’t been thrown a single bone in his search for answers, and this might be his last chance.

I try not to include too many images in these reviews, because they can mess with the flow of the text, but screw it this shot is also amazing:

The pyramid-like structures leading to the locked door are the first we see of a new hidden getaway, and retrospect makes Steven’s plight even worse: as we learn in Legs From Here to Homeworld, all he had to do was touch one of them to get a major hint about Rose’s true identity. 

It wouldn’t have solved everything, as Garnet would likely assume they were spoils of war, Amethyst wouldn’t recognize them, and Pearl would keep her mouth shut. And it would’ve ruined the pacing of the mystery for such a strange hint to be presented, so from a storytelling perspective it makes total sense to keep this in the backburner. And it’s not like it’s that weird that Steven doesn’t feel compelled to touch what seems to be a couple of statues when he’s spent the whole episode looking for a lock and it’s right in front of him and he just survived hours of desert travel. But knowing what we know now adds to the drama of how close our hero is to the truth he deserves.

In yet another bummer, Rose’s hidden landfill is worn down to the point where most of the walls had collapsed, meaning Steven didn’t even need the key. Which isn’t to say the key wasn’t important, as it prompts his trip in the first place, but it’s just one more way that the universe seems to be throwing unnecessary hurdles at him. In the same vein, Lion not only could’ve warped him to the destination as he mentions, but he could’ve done so without hacking up the key in the first place. But we’re long past the point where we should expect straight answers from Lion, so I forgive the big lug.

The first thing that came to my mind when Steven saw the dump wasn’t Amethyst’s room, although there are obvious similarities. It was Greg’s storage locker, the place where we first talked about Rose all the way back in Laser Light Cannon, the place where Greg expressed confusion about why a magic woman fell for a regular guy like him. And as frustrated as Steven is, this room is a wonderful unspoken answer to that distant question: among Rose’s many imperfections was that, like Greg, she was kind of a slob. It’s so nice to have a mundane flaw after nearly a full season of focusing on her as a liar and murderer, especially a flaw that reminds us of why she and Greg were so great for each other.

But yeah, Steven isn’t interested in subtext, and his tantrum is both realistic and reasonable. He finds the tape for Nora by accident, right after kicking some garbage in anger, and this is where that Speak Like a Child oomph comes in. It’s crystal clear that the tape was a backup in case Steven was a girl, but he’s so primed for lies and complications that the obvious answer eludes him and he suspects the worst. I honestly can’t blame him. If you learned out of nowhere that your mom killed someone, who’s to say you don’t have secret siblings?

The contrast between harsh desert and soothing sunset is another treat for the eyes, readying is for a cooldown after two distressing acts. Greg’s excitement over seeing the old tape blinds him to Steven’s angst in a way that adds honest tension to the exchange, because he’s trying to give Steven a fun treat but has no idea how much anguish his son has been through to get to this point. To Greg, telling Steven the answers outright would be ruining the moment, but the wait is already killing the kid. In an episode without an external villain it’s such a clever way to present a final “confrontation” to overcome.

When we finally see the tape, it becomes even more apparent that it was a backup for a hypothetical daughter. Still, I love how the strange new version of a video we know and love is only half-seen, as we focus so much on Steven’s reaction at the expense of footage. Where he was once gazing at the marvels of a new glimpse of his mother, his eyes are now furrowed in frustrated concentration. As in Lion 3, he has a viewing partner, and Greg’s welling tears mirror those of Steven and Sadie from the first tape, highlighting that the Steven of the present isn’t feeling an ounce of tenderness.

Tears do come for Steven, but in the form of anxious release. When he’s told that he’s Nora, meaning he’s the person the tape was intended for, Steven still doesn’t get it and exclaims that he’s his mom and his sister; it’s sort of a joke, but boy is it rough to hear him slip that in some way he does see himself as his mom rather than his own person. So thank goodness he’s saying this stuff to Greg, who’s calm at first but leaps to the occasion when Steven frantically asks why he exists.

As is standard by now, Greg's got fatherhood down cold. He adjusts his tone to show he’s taking Steven seriously, but rather than jump in he sits his son down and lets him talk. He addresses Steven’s concerns gently but firmly, leaving no room for doubt that he’s loved and appreciated no matter what. He brings himself into the conversation by saying he changed his name, doing so not to turn the topic to himself but to reassure Steven that it’s okay to not be stuck on one identity. And just look at how perfectly our three main characters exist in the shot during this last talk:

Steven gets those happy post-tape tears after viewing the last part of the video, and our happy ending is earned, but it’s not a full victory. Rose still had issues, but at least Steven has gained some confidence back that she wasn’t all bad. He’ll go back and forth on how much guilt he feels for her actions, but at the very least he knows now that his decisions to try and atone for her mistakes are his to make, and not a mandate from a dead parent looking for an escape route.

Whiiiiiiich means that now he’s able to try and feign a sense of control over helpless situations by assigning blame to himself in new, exciting ways. Hey, it’s not like the show could’ve solved all his problems less than halfway through Act III of the series. Lion 4 thus doesn’t have the conclusive oomph of Lion 3, which closed a trilogy of Lion Episodes as well as the stage of the show where Rose was a well-realized but distant idea more than a full character. For all its strengths, Lion 4 feels much more like Just Another Episode. But that’s okay. It doesn’t owe the past a thing.

Future Vision!

Again, those pyramids return in a major way, because they’re not pyramids.

Greg talks about Garnet’s inability to predict things about Steven, which is an element of their relationship throughout the show but gets major focus soon in Pool Hopping.

Escapism blends the two big Lion Runs by setting it back on the ocean, but making the passenger an exhausted Steven facing one last ordeal before relief in the form of his dad with a guitar.

We’re the one, we’re the ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!

It doesn’t make the top twenty, it does make the top twenty-five. Just like Bismuth right before our hundredth episode, this doesn’t mean much now, but it will next time, because I’m expanding again to a Top Twenty-Five when we hit the big One Two Five with Doug Out. 

Top Twenty

Steven and the Stevens

Hit the Diamond

Mirror Gem

Lion 3: Straight to Video

Alone Together

Last One Out of Beach City

The Return

Jailbreak

The Answer

Mindful Education

Sworn to the Sword

Rose’s Scabbard

Earthlings

Mr. Greg

Coach Steven

Giant Woman

Beach City Drift

Winter Forecast

Bismuth

Steven’s Dream

Love ‘em

Laser Light Cannon

Bubble Buddies

Tiger Millionaire

Lion 2: The Movie

Rose’s Room

An Indirect Kiss

Ocean Gem

Space Race

Garnet’s Universe

Warp Tour

The Test

Future Vision

On the Run

Maximum Capacity

Marble Madness

Political Power

Full Disclosure

Joy Ride

Keeping It Together

We Need to Talk

Chille Tid

Cry for Help

Keystone Motel

Catch and Release

When It Rains

Back to the Barn

Steven’s Birthday

It Could’ve Been Great

Message Received

Log Date 7 15 2

Same Old World

The New Lars

Monster Reunion

Alone at Sea

Crack the Whip

Beta

Back to the Moon

Kindergarten Kid

Buddy’s Book

Gem Harvest

Three Gems and a Baby

That Will Be All

The New Crystal Gems

Storm in the Room

Room for Ruby

Lion 4: Alternate Ending

Like ‘em

Gem Glow

Frybo

Arcade Mania

So Many Birthdays

Lars and the Cool Kids

Onion Trade

Steven the Sword Fighter

Beach Party

Monster Buddies

Keep Beach City Weird

Watermelon Steven

The Message

Open Book

Story for Steven

Shirt Club

Love Letters

Reformed

Rising Tides, Crashing Tides

Onion Friend

Historical Friction

Friend Ship

Nightmare Hospital

Too Far

Barn Mates

Steven Floats

Drop Beat Dad

Too Short to Ride

Restaurant Wars

Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service

Greg the Babysitter

Gem Hunt

Steven vs. Amethyst

Bubbled

Adventures in Light Distortion

Gem Heist

The Zoo

Rocknaldo

Enh

Cheeseburger Backpack

Together Breakfast

Cat Fingers

Serious Steven

Steven’s Lion

Joking Victim

Secret Team

Say Uncle

Super Watermelon Island

Gem Drill

Know Your Fusion

Future Boy Zoltron

Tiger Philanthropist

No Thanks!

     6. Horror Club      5. Fusion Cuisine      4. House Guest      3. Onion Gang      2. Sadie’s Song      1. Island Adventure

(Kind of unbelievable to me that a Lion Sequel doesn’t have official promo art, but luckily we have discount-supervillain’s measured take on what Nora Universe would realistically look like.)

[artisticamore]

Amethyst exited the commuter bus. She’d had a long, hard day at the restaurant and couldn’t wait to get home to soak her feet. She glanced at her watch as she walked down Main Street there weren't that many people out,  It was one o’clock in the morning. Even though there weren't many people out she still watched any and ever move those around her. Amethyst sighed in annoyance, then cringed. She needed to be more careful. Habits died hard she couldn't afford to get comfortable if she did she was as good as dead. If she made the mistake a few years back getting comfortable that she almost got caught by a group of villains.     She instantly thought about last week and how she refused to give some punks her money. She was tired. She had worked a month of double shifts getting four hours of sleep a night just so she could pay the rent and food bills. Amethyst couldn't afford to stress more so she focused on getting home and sleeping as long as she possibly could. * * * * Amethyst had paid the landlord yesterday, so she didn’t have to use the back entrance to avoid seeing him. Thoughts of a hot bath filled her head as she entered the front door. There was no security, hardly any working lights, and the place reeked of garbage. As she ascended the stairs, her stomach began to quiver. She was frightened of her landlord he could get hands when he had too much to drink, normally her brothers would deal with him but they were busy a lot lately that she rarely saw either of them unless it was on the news. The anticipation of his state if he was waiting for her was getting the best of her. 'Quit worrying and move faster', she told herself as she reached the third floor. Amethyst reached her door and placed the key in the lock. As she entered the apartment, she closed the door and threw her purse onto the couch. The house was clean it looked like one of her brothers if not both had stopped by and cleaned up for her, going by the strong smell lavender and sage in the air they either ran her a bath or used her favorite soap. Decided to take a shower instead of a bath  Amethyst stripped on her way to the bathroom  leaving a trail of clothes she'll get them later. Once cleaned she oiled up throwing on her nightie to sleep. His hunch had brought them to Paranormal Liberation Front office in the bowels of the mansion. Approximately seven months ago, his senses began to go haywire every time he saw Re-Destro or Tomura Shigaraki. His Ingenious Intellect, keen eye along with his partner's empathic abilities tipped them off to something being amiss where those two were concerned. So they began watching them and monitoring their behavior and activities. Their kate night trips to the depths of the mansion, their disappearance at days on end and telephone calls they thought no one knew about. Hawk knew that he had to play it smart and safe when it came to those two. Re-Destro was very powerful plus a genius and Tomura Shigaraki was just as deadly be know as one of the most dangerous villains in Japan. Hawk was already playing a deadly game being a double agent for The Hero Public Safety Commission. He knew he was constantly being watched from time to time. Not to say sometimes he could get far enough away from them. He just had to be extra careful Tomura Shigaraki was too smart to leave clues out now that All  For One was locked up. His keen intelligence paired with his partner's empathy they noticed more then they were supposed to like how Trumpet and Skeptic were constantly giving off anxiety on more than a few occasions.  It started a few months back, they often were seen together walking around the mansion more. They had looked over their shoulders every time they enter the boss's office or their own. Or when going to the lower levels of the mansion. Seeing it would bring to much attention to himself he never followed his partner took on that responsibility keeping to the shadows or investigating during his downtime. His partner was like him an agent too who's been uncovered for years now. His partner often reported back to him seeing Skeptic retreat to his office after his trips to the mansion ' s bowels and spending a substantial amount of time inputting information into his computer. He felt in the depth of his soul that the data was important, but he didn't know that it was about to blow apart his only means of peace because what he uncovered was one of the biggest mysteries of his life and one of the darkest secrets of the underworld. Should it get out. So he bides his time until his two targets were away and the rest of the leading members were taking take of business elsewhere. He knew that Tomura and Re-Destro were meeting with important gangs and the Yakuza while the Lieutenants had their own missions. He also knew that everyone should be back in two to four days' timem so time was of the essence. So here he was in Skeptic's office bypassing the locked doors and other security measures, downloading upon a flash drive the wealth of data and documents he had inputted into the computer over the past year. His mind was a jumbled mess as he hastily scanned the files being downloaded. Being the skilled hero he was, he was able to bypass the eight encryption passwords in a considerable amount of time he even got touch with his partner checking in, letting him know he was okay through their coms. No one had that many passwords let alone took the time to encrypt them unless they were in possession of something they didn't want to be seen. He was sure Tomura Shigaraki was keeping track of the mansion, even though he was away. He had infiltrated the League of Villians and couldn't afford any mistakes nowadays otherwise all hell would break loose. He looked at the clock above the door of Skeptic's office. It was 2:54 in the morning. He then glanced at the percentage of the data already downloaded. He had 42% to go. He rubbed his gold eyes to relieve some of their sensitivity to the light-emitting off the computer screen. As he scanned the screen his eyes coursed over the rapid movements of the scores of data and documents being downloaded. He looked at the clock again. Only fifteen minutes had elapsed since his first glance. Automatically he glanced down at the bottom of the computer screen. Almost there only 15% remained. He used what time he had left to go through the office thoroughly. Making sure he didn't miss anything important, suspicious and securing the room by removing all traces of his presence. The download was finished and the computer was waiting for his next command when he reclaimed his spot before it. Hastily, he typed in a series of commands to shut down the computer and retracted the flash drive, deftly slipping it into the pocket of his aviator jacket. Hawk looked around again to ascertain everything remained in place. Even as a proficient hero, one couldn't be too careful. When he satisfied all was well, he made his way out of the office as covertly as he could as he had entered. It wasn't often that Hawks was shocked, but when he was, it was then likely something significant earth-shattering. To say he was reading was earth-shattering was an understatement of the century. After he had left Skeptic's office, he made his way to the place he was to regroup. Anxious to read the data he had downloaded. "This is bad!"Hawk hissed. What the hell had he stumbled upon? The two folders that held the bulk of the data was labeled Weapon Armageddon and Rebirth XX and was heavily encoded. A third folder was labeled Breeding encrypted. What the...? Rebirth XX? Breeding? Weapon Armageddon? He muttered a few curses, It was to take all of his skills and concentration to decode their encryptions. What the hell was contained in these folders that they needed to be so heavily secured? He stretched out his hands, linked them together and cracked his knuckles ready to get working on the smaller file. Hawks wings trembled feathers ruffling, an uneasy feeling suddenly washing over him. A nagging voice in his head telling he didn't have much time. Sending a quick text to his partner he told them to meet him back at the apartment quickly instead. He made it across town faster than he normally would, once inside he quickly sat down at the kitchen table a pot of coffee brewing. His laptop booting up in front of him. He reaches up rubbing his temples attempting to alleviate some of the stress that weighed him down. He knew he should get some sleep to regain some of his strength  yet something told him this couldn't wait. He moved trembling hands over the keyboard picking up speed decoding the files as fast as he could. Halfway through reading the files, he was disgusted with what he was reading the documents contained detailed information containing a chilling future. Apparently, Rebirth XX was a woman with a strong nature quirk. There were little notes written here and there on other quirks similar to that on the top chosen woman. A subfolder was labeled test subject and candidates, this was where Tomura Shigaraki and the doctor came into play. They provide the genetic breakdown and of course the medicine and space needed for the operations. They were all listed by age, quirk, sex, possible quirks of children between males and females. In great detail, the woman on the list was organized by body type, occupation, family, health history, skin tone, eye shape, color. This was a breeding list! Hawk got sick as the meaning came together before him. Hawk a Ted to beat them he wanted to fly to agency ordering an all-out manhunt against sinister people he hated that he had to pretend to be one of them. He didn't think he could be any more shocked than he was, but he quickly learned that was not the case the more read. He has carefully perused the subfolder within the one that was already opened. Each page listed a female with more than thirty males all with buyer price Shifting through the folder he came to the end of the folder. The page was different then the others it was outlined and titled different. Class alpha quirk! All columns containing information one strong woman from hero's, villains and civilians. This folder scared him his sister was on this list. With alert eyes, he gleaned every information that Skeptic had collected on his sister. He was scared to read the information block to find out who she was paired with. Glancing down Hawk forced himself to read even with the sinking feeling in his chest. The candidate and buyers for his sister started with Tomura  Shigaraki and Re-Destro themselves followed by ever top-ranked villain in Japan S class through D class.   Hawk's eyes widen horror. No! No! No! There was no way in hell he going to let his baby sister be touched by such vile creatures. What the hell was he going to do? What the hell could he could for that matter he couldn't protect her he was uncover, he's been uncovered for two years now there was no way he could afford to get caught not when so many lives depend on what he finds. "Think..Think," he muttered over and over again. His sister was in danger. How was he to begin protecting her? He pushed his laptop aside getting up pacing the kitchen. He stopped mid-stride when a thought popped into his head. It definitely had merits and it would most definitely could work. He was going to send Amethyst to one of the top hero's hopefully he could get one of the top ten to protect his sister. The sound of a front door pulling up broke him out of his thoughts. He glanced over to the digital clock on the stove. Damn, he been up way too long! It was 4:30 in the morning. That had to be his partner, but he remembered him coming in not even thirty minutes after him. When did he leave and why? "You finally calm?" Dabi greeted him. "Yes where did you go?" he asked. Dabi held up a burner phone and a small carry on bag. "I was getting our little gem some stuff, I read over your shoulder she needs to leave tonight I don't want to take any chance on her being caught since there isn't a date for her capture. By looking at the file on her it seems they know everything except where she lives she can't stay here any longer. There's no time to lose she needs  to be out and the house empty by nightfall." "You're right to let's go wake her up she needs to be gone now!" Hawk walked with Dabi following him to their sister's room. They were going to miss her!

[tumblunni]

gettinG REALLY KINDA SALTY about digimon world next order u guys GOD GODDDDD its like the sequel we always wanted to digimon world... IN GAMEPLAY IN GAMEPLAY ONLY the plot is SO BAD its so bad in THE WORST WAY its a good game with a bad plto, so it frustrates me infinately more cos i WANT it to be good enough to live up to the rest of the game! and it has infinate spewing geysers of potential that went completely untapped cos of lazy bullshiT!

and its not like they had a lot to live up to or anything?? like.. the first digimon world practically DID NOT have a plot 90% of it was just free open gameplay with sassy dialogue yes but no real overarching narrative it had an excuse why the story started, and it had a very cathartic ending to it all. But it was all up to you to decide in what order our nameless protagonist did it all, who he met, how he won, what bits he might have missed entirely even! it was so fun cos it was a game where EVERY quest was a sidequest! the only real thing that would stay the same is that you needed to complete a certain amount of those sidequests to unlock the final boss quest, but which ones you pick is totes up to you. Except that there was an annoying bug in the PAL version that meant that one area had a random chance of being locked off thus the ending fight never spawns :P But even if i never actually finished the game I still had infinate enjoyment making my own story, yknow?

so the bad plot shenanigans in next order are annoying because they also made really foolish gameplay decisions to FORCE you to follow this main plot stuff is way less open, very very VERY commonly you can unlock a damn area, walk around in it, and every sidequest in it just refuses to start because you havent hit the right chapter milestone. and it gets to be increasingly stupid excuses too! most of the time the npc is just like ‘yeah i have a huge emergency but I DONT WANT TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT IT’ *sits there panicking forever* How the fuck do they even know I’m ‘not worthy’ anyway, and why would it MATTER??? In DW1 if youre underlevelled for an area you just find out cos you fail the quest! you at least get to see what it is and KNOW what you have to work towards to be prepared next time! plus the plot is just a huge fuckin textdump of nonsense pseudo science that is never explained, its EVERYONE ELSE just doing stuff offscreen instead of letting you even see the potentially cool plot threads! and whenever anything has to happen they have some made-up excuse why everyone can just magically know what the villain is planning, due to this pseudoscience, and they HAVE to explain it EVERY TIME which just makes it far clearer that its a terrible plot hole??? and they waste all this time on this yet skip over vitally important stuff like ENTIRE CHARACTER ARCS and LETTING YOU ACTUALLY PARTICIPATE. All you ever fuckin do is be the one to defeat machinedramon cos everyone else is inexplicably weak and useless! oh and EVERY FUCKING BOSS IS MACHINEDRAMON AGAIN AND AGAIN goDDDDDDDDDD

anyway, The Awful Plot is that [insert made up magic excuse here] is turning everyone into Machinedramon clones with a virus and somehow this is bad because as well as digivolving to an arbitrary form they also turn evil for no reason and then its just YEARS AND YEARS of people explaining exactly how the virus must have been created and like five different contrived things we can do to slow it down and then after like FIFTY HOURS we finally get out first appearance of the fucking villain. as a silhouette. in the background. im at 90 hours now and i still dont even know his fucking name, or why the fuck he wants everyone to be machinedramon. but man it was vitally important to instead waste time explaining the ‘antivirus enforcer program’ and how it would totally be useful only to reveal it was taken out offscreen before the game even started and now it’s a villain. cos like we needed five more fake villain minions to delay this actual villain man’s appearance, UUUUUGH! none of them even talk! its just magic virus that makes you magically evil. and why did we need to explain the compelx metaphysics of an antivirus when ultimately you could have just said ‘its omegamon, he’s a big hero in this setting, he got turned evil and now we have to save him’. Why did we need a misdirect that this antivirus wasnt a person??? why did we need to go on a quest to find a guy who can make flower seeds and then plant the flower seeds in the most contrived way waiting 1 ingame day between each step, then somehow the plant is a clue that omegamon is evil SOMEHOW and then its still 30 hours til we fucking meet the guy... sorry, sorry, this probably makes about as little sense as it did to me. i just had to try and give an example of a particular main quets line that FUCKING PISSED ME OFF and i STILL dont know what any of it means so i cant even explain it to you! i got spoiled for the goddamn ending and i STILL dont know why there was an omegamon-predicting rafflesia that took one ingame month to get past...

BUT YEAH SORRY IM TRYING TO SUMMARIZE THIS

theres some mystery villain who’s turning everyone into machinedramon for no reason thats the plot and youre not really given a reason why this town needs you to recruit more digimon except somehow if you get [insert amount here] prosperity that’ll take enough time that jijimon will finish magically hacking [insert plot device here] to find the next location of [whatever the thing is]... i mean its vaguely mentioned once at the start that a machinedramon destroyed the town or something? so i guess maybe we can assume all the townsfolk actually died and we’re getting new ones/searching for their reincarnated selves or something. Man if that was ACTUALLY THE INTENTION and ACTUALLY EXPLAINED then it would have been pretty damn good! it’d add some interestingness to the sidequests if the digimon had to recover lost memories of being someone else in the city once. plenty of potential for interesting interactions if their new digiegg’d self is a wildly different form or something! Like that could have been a good setup for the one endearing fashion designer skullgreymon who’s super sad about looking so scary. Also seriously WHY DID SKULLGREYMON NOT GET TO OPEN A FASHION SHOP?? why did they remove that feature from reDigitize, this game is for a far more powerful console so it couldnt have been impossible to add in... (I still have no clue how they managed to pull off actual digimon customization on the first generation psp! WHY IS THIS THE ONLY UNDUBBED GAME) so yeah the original DW1 even had a more solid establishing plot here, even though it was 99% less text! ‘for some reason digimon are turning violent and losing their abiloty to speak, all my friends at this city slowly dissappeared into the wilderness, please solve this mystery and bring them back’. THAT WAS INTERESTING! That had an actual reason why recruiting shopkeepers equals plot progression, you were ACTUALLY DOING SOMETHING, not just waiting for someone else to decode an ambiguously explained ‘frequency’ to point you at your next key item/FIGHTING THE SAME DAMN BOSS AGAIN :P

ALSO ALSO why no analogman WHY NO ANALOGMAN how does this make ANY SENSE?? why is it even machinedramon in particular, if not for the fact it was analogman’s digimon in the first game??? thats just getting my hopes up for no damn reason! why didnt we get to see The Very Original Villain come back and get fully voiced dialogue and maybe some more development on who he is and what his backstory is or whatever his plot was minimal back then because it was a very low tech game, now we have NO EXCUSE for it :P its just ‘yeah his entire presence in the plot is that someone on the writing team was inspired by his postgame sidequest, i guess’ cos a ‘machinedramon virus’ did technically exist, but it was more like just an excuse for why the final boss battle was replayable for your enjoyment. a random digimon would turn into the final boss battle (sans analogman cos he’s Mysteriously Vanished And/Or Potentially Dead seriously that was SUCH A SEQUEL HOOK and they DIDNT TAKE IT) so like seriously they took ANALOGMAN’S ACTUAL VIRUS POSTGAME THING THAT HE MADE and yet no analogman! WHY! and also it fucking sucks to try and base a whole game’s plot on a single dialogueless sidequest that was just an excuse for battle replayability some guy just probably took 0.2 seconds to think ‘yeah maybe the computer the villain left behind does a virus thing to make the boss replayable’ and some fuckin bright spark decided to make an entire game about it IT DOES NOT WORK hell, a good writer could have made it work! if theyd expanded upon the vagueness and explained things! or gave motivations! or used it as a reason for analogman to retURN AND HAVE A FUCKING PLOT seriously WHY did they have to make this game be marketed as A DIRECT SEQUEL TO THE FIRST GAME they were just setting themselves up for failure yo every fucking thing in the game is 100% unrelated except someone else is doing analogman’s signature plan and the protagonist from DW1 makes an entirely pointless cameo just to remind you its supposed to be a sequel and is FAILING

OKAY OKAY SERIOUSLY LETS TALK ABOUT *HIM*

mameo mameo poor mameo you literally only existed to trick people into buying the game with a fake plot that doesnt exist it was marketed as if he���s the villain, and it got everyone curious about it, and then no he isnt he’s just mistaken for the villain once in his introduction as an excuse to drag out another pointless sidequest instead of progressing the plot then he just becomes a mostl;y voiceless useless npc who does more magic unexplained science to magically amke the plot do whatever the writers need it to do without needing to ACTUALLy have a REASON why it HAPPENS, gaAAHHHH he’s just magically a super hacker now, like how jijimon is magically a super hacker now, and blablabla jijimon for some reason couldnt track down the next place the villain would strike but mameo can the end end of mameo’s entire plot gone. oh, aside from a brief mention again that he’s developed a prototype antidote for the machinedramon virus and then it fails. which just exists to be an excuse for another plot to happen without (AGAIAN) any actual reason it happened, or any form of development or player participation. blablabla oh no one of the hero’s friends’s digimon got infected by the virus so now you get a boss battle against them, and they dont have to leave the plot or change or grow cos magic antidote thing turned them back. But it didnt REALLY work, she’ll just turn back into machinedramon in like 50 days or something blah blah. please feel sad for this character you barely know, who is facing no consequences for what they did, but we’re telling you they might maybe sometime in the future, but of course they never will because the plot doesnt actually have a time limit. Also please believe that mameo is useful! and its just ITS JUST SO FRUSTRATING!!! cos mameo is still THE BEST PART OF THE DAMN GAME! he’s the only character who seems to have any damn effort or emotion put into him, his english voiceactor really stands out in a cast of bored-sounding people. It feels like whoever voiced him was maybe actually a fan of the first game? And he gets to sound so cool and act so cool and look so cool and have really good sassy moments and then HAVE NO PRESENCE IN THE PLOT AT ALL! GAHHHHH!! why must you waste EVERYTHING???

ultimately the only real thing this game gave us was finally having a name for DW1 protagonist, and getting to know that he grows up to work with computers and gets to retain his ability to visit the digital world forever, and he still loves his partner [insert name of whatever you called it when you played] but EVEN THAT is fucking wasted!!! They say that Mameo’s original digimon from last time was somehow cursed to be stuck as a digiegg, as an excuse for not.. yknow.. having to canonize any particular partner choice and upset the fans. Even though the postgame cutscene in the first game already canonized Mamemon as his partner and you literally named him for it! (the excuse in-universe is that Mameo is a nickname and we still dont know what his canon name is. also he has a cute mamemon patch sewn on his beanie hat this time! that made my heart melt even as i was grumping about bad plotlines lol) Oh and this is also probably just an excuse for mameo being sidelined with no plot role, like he’s too powerful to let him actually fight or anything :P its making me mad cos im kinda imagining how this game would have worked so much better if mameo actually was the protagonist??? like, have him summoned back to face this new threat, and his powerful digimon is knocked back down to a digiegg and has to start over. i mean the actual protagonist ALREADY HAS THAT PLOT! you literally start as someone who’s EVEN STRONGER than mameo, you have an omegamon and then machinedramon kills it/them and you start over. And like.. if they decided to make a new hero cos they wanted male and female options, honestly just give me a female version of mameo and im fuckin fine. Pokemon Crystal retconned in a female option to a game that didnt have one before, and nobody complained! Oh and they dont even need to justify why mameo is clueless in this setting, cos its literally a different digital world anyway. Somehow. he fell through dimensions or something, they explain it very poorly. (WHAT A SURPRISE) actually, THAT is a huge wasted potential too! cos it means he never even gets to have a tearful reunion with jijimon and other npcs he met last time, instead every digimon that was in DW1 is just explained away as being a parallel universe equivelant that’s never met mameo. SeriouslY WHAT is up with this game and explaining ridiculous excuses to justify their pltoholes instead of just NOT WRITING THE PLOTHOLES??? i mean you could have just said this is like the digital world of the future. just like how mameo’s original adventure had him return to the human world and only one day had passed, maybe the amount of time it took him to grow up is the equivelant of centuries in the digital world? so Floatia could still be a new town, and everyone could be like descendants/reincarnations of the old npcs, and the digital world could have gained a bunch of new areas and etc. EASY EXPLANATION it wasnt necessary to make up a FUCKING HOUR LONG PLOTHOLE VERSION WITH METAVERSE SCIENCE

ALSO why dont we ever get to have any character exploration of like.. anyone?? why doesnt anyone get personality or scenes where you can actually get attatched to them and stuff. why are they just silent floating npcs that do NOTHING and then suddenly are revealed to have had a plot offscreen while you weren’t looking?? literally you are not even introduced to the two male and female friend characters they just.. come into existance in the plot you dont really get a scene of their personality or them getting to know you, or anything?? its just ‘oh i guess two other humans fell into the digital world’ then they sit around as silent npcs for 30 hours while you do everything without them then they just add some miscellaneous comments at the end of a main plot quest and oh i guess its been revealed that female character’s salamon digivolved into gatomon offscreen with no real emotional reason why it had to happen now, or any sign she was even training in the same way you are?? and then that just continues oh i guess she has an angewomon now and then you find out that offscreen her and angewomon were arguing about a problem that was never mentioned before offscreen you dont even SEE them arguing and its like you dont find out what its about no you just get a literal text that her and angewomon had a fight offscreen and angewomon ran away offscreen and hey can you go find her cos for some reason I CANT EVEN DO MY OWN DAMN PLOT then its just ‘oh no please worry that the character youve never even reallY MET has been struggling from a thing never mentioned before, and now she might die from a virus we never saw her get infected with’ and YOU have to defeat her beserk form and cure her and calm her down while her tamer just STANDS THERE and also btw she DIGIVOLVED INTO ANGEWOMON OFFSCREEN IN THE FIRST PLACE so its ‘hey please find my digimon who ran away’ and she’s A DIFFERENT DIGIMON when you find her! its THAT rushed! and then she digivolves again immediately afterwards because somehow being saved by SOMEONE COMPLETELY UNRELATED helped her bond enough with her tamer to become mega level and also the plot of her having the virus is just magically discarded instantly cos WHY NOT And after ALL this bullshit, what is it that they even argued about? it was just The Oldest Trope In The Book, a stupid misunderstanding caused by people not talking about something even though there is no reason why they wouldnt. Angewomon got upset that her tamer wanted to go home to the human world, thinking she’d done something wrong to cause it. And her tamer had just NEVER MENTIONED to anyone ever that she had twin sisters who’re suffering from sitcom disease or something and she’s worried they might not be okay without her. And like.. honestly why did there even NEED to be an excuse why she needed to go home? its natural for someone to miss home, it could have been solved much quicker in like one damn conversation yo. ‘hey i dont want to leave because i dont enjoy having a digimon, its because i have other friends back home too’ And honestly its kinda contrived how angewomon would even not understand that to begin with? this angewomon has a personality like a very young child too, which just makes it even more of a shame that we spend barely any time with her as her rookie form and pretty much never even LEARN that she’s like a little sis figure until this damn sidequest. this is the longest screentime these two ever had, and the first and only time theyre mentioned to have personalities and backstory! and its THEIR FINAL SCENE T_T and seriously it DOESNT EVEN MEAN ANYTHING to see her digivolve into a mega when none of these characters ever actually get to fight, or even exist in the plot theyre just stated to be having their own adventures offscreen. EVERYTHING OFFSCREEN! i mean GAHH the new gameplay even woulda justified this?? like, instead of having two digimon partners maybe you could bring along an assistant character to fight with you! or hell, maybe you could have both! if they can prove they can handle two playable characters onscreen at once then why not three? make everyone like social links that get stronger as you befriend them! and it;’d be a big help to developing your own digimon too, yo! like, these characters are at preset levels to you’re always gonna be able to be more powerful than them if you try. but it makes it less painful when your digimon reincarnates, you could partner up with a champion-level friend and they could help you train out in the field! hell, maybe add a feature of them being able to join in with the training gym too?? that’d be a better excuse for the daily bonuses than just... there’s daily bonuses. why does one particular training gym give better results on thursdays? maybe cos a certain character is there on that day and helps out!

and anyway where was i OH YEAH WHY IS THERE NOT AN ACTUAL CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT PLOT FOR MAMEO IN PARTICULAR he at least got an establishing scene and some cool dialogue, so im more invested in him than the other empty presences in this plot! like, we could have examined his actual emotions about his childhood digimon partner being stuck essentially in a coma with no idea if he’ll ever see them again. a guy hugging the digiegg of his poor dead mamemon is something you’d think they’d give SOME attention to! but he just talks about it so casually as if we should all already know, and then its NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN. It literally IS just an excuse to keep mameo from being able to fight alongside you! more plots! you could have an actual friendship sidequest of him being like your mentor, passing down the torch to the next generation of heroes. we could explore the plot of an adult digimon tamer more! what is it like, is it ever difficult? What is his day to day life even like? its implied that he’s able to go to the digital world at will like the 02 protagonists, so can his mamemon come to the human world too? did he have to take it to school and hide it in his bag like davis and co? did he basically live The Better Written Version Of That Season??? Did his parents ever find out? Does his mamemon still run on digimon world rules, like is the gameplay actually meant to be canon in-universe? does the protagonist digimon only live 10-20 days while everyone else gets to have a good ‘ol long life? has it been sad for mameo that his best friend keeps dying and reviving like 12 times a year, and never remembers him? i really hope thats not how it works, seriously. itd make for a good sad plot tho... And seriously why couldnt this have been the same jijimon in the same town and they get to meet again and we get nostalgic heartwarmingness???

oh and the other ‘friend’ character is even worse, seriously he does absolutely nothing except complain about how upset he is that other people dare to be better than him wah wah but a girl digivolved before me wah he started off looking like a normal cute nerd guy but then he deliberately infects his growlmon with the virus to try and become stronger, and he seems to get off scott free for it?? cos the plot is so vague and undeveloped it rushes through his realizing he’s wrong and it just seems so un-genuine. and we dont even get to see him meeting his digimon again and apologising once he gets reincarnated! its just you see him die horribly cos his tamer infected him with a fucking death virus out of ego that he’s so perfect and so strong he could handle the power. and then you just.. see him again and he’s a baby jyarimon and its all fine. you just see jyarimon following this tamer’s silent npc model around and its like DID YOU EVEN APOLOGISE AT ALL?? apparantly his digimon never even got mad at him or anything about it! it makes me feel so damn sad for the poor guy, i mean he spent so long trying to tell his tamer he’s not useless for not being stronger than the otehrs,a nd blaming himself for not being able to digivolve, and yet STILL tamer guy chose to ignore him and force him to virus-digivolve while he was begging not to! And we dont get to see the consequences for this! we get to see him learn his goddamn canned lesson of the day but we dont get to see him apologise and yukimura the guilmon just reincarnates and goes right back to being a silent mindlessly obedient npc who never complains when he’s mistreated :( and its so fucking stupid cos the plot even started off promising, it started off seeming like the problem was just ‘i’m not strong enough to protect people like you are, protagonist’. but its so badly written it felt like it derailed into him just being egotistical?? and whining about being blessed with this magical monster pal who isnt THE BEST magical monster pal so why even fucking bother. and the game acts like he’s justified cos he has ~a boring school life~. He has no problems at all but he’s just AVERAGE and not THE BEST, and oh gosh that terrible terrible fate has just worn down on him and made him have no self confidence. except yknow for all the scenes where he’s screaming ‘IM THE BEST, I DESERVE THIS’ throughout this fucking stupid plot... its like i can see what he was supposed to be, but they really failed??? i think i would have liked what he was SUPPOSEd to be... also it sucks that yukimura’s evil digivolution is inexplicably skullgreymon instead of megidomon (i think thats the name?) Yknow, the one guilmon actually turned into in tamers and it only had a one episode appearance but it was really scary cool! man it never gets to reappear in the games, no wonder i keep forgetting its name :P

aaaaargh and i just listened to the final battle music on the soundtrack and i havent got that far yet but i just know its NOT GONNA BE AS GOOD AS THIS SONG DESERVES im getting so much feels imagining what if the final boss actually WAS analogman from the first game, and if the supporting characters ACTUALLY HAD CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT and they could fight alongside you to defeat him once and for all! and what if this game’s status as the direct sequel to DW1 wasnt just a fucking baldfaced lie. seriously why didnt they just remove this nonsense plot and let it be its own original thing, if they werent gonna actually put effort into making the cameos actually decent.... MAMEO YOU DESERVED SO MUCH BETTER AAAAA

[ethanalter]

10 Classic '80s and '90s Movies That Influence 'Spider-Man: Homecoming'

Tom Holland and Jacob Batalon in Spider-Man: Homecoming (Photo: Sony Pictures)

Warning: This post contains spoilers for key scenes and plot points of Spider-Man: Homecoming.

If you’re a Marvel Comics fan, Spider-Man: Homecoming is a veritable gold mine of Easter eggs from the wall-crawler’s 55-year-and-counting career of catching thieves just like flies. At the same time, it’s equally rich with homages to popular teen movies from the ’80s and ’90s. Even before the film went into production, Marvel Studios chief, Kevin Feige, made a point of describing it as a “John Hughes movie,” directly name-checking the writer and director responsible for so many of that era’s high school classics.

In separate interviews with Yahoo Movies, star Tom Holland explained that director Jon Watts gave the young cast a must-watch list of classic movies to watch before shooting began, while Homecoming  co-writer John Francis Daley elaborated on the Spidey-Hughes connection. “What John Hughes was best at was finding the funny in the relatable… and to keep Peter as a truly normal, grounded, relatable person I think is really set him apart from all the other versions of Spider-Man that people have seen.” Homecoming‘s cinematic influences do extend beyond Hughes, though. Here’s a list of 10 teen favorites that are overtly, or subtly, referenced by Spider-Man and his amazing friends.

Matthew Broderick in ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’ (Photo: Everett Collection)

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986) This one is kind of a gimme; while in hot pursuit of the Vulture’s henchmen, poor Peter Parker (Tom Holland) has to forego his usual web-slinging action due to the fact that he’s in that dreaded low-rise territory known as suburbia. Crashing through backyard after backyard, he passes a pool party where Matthew Broderick’s own climactic backyard chase from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is playing out on a TV screen. “Great movie,” Peter calls out as he continues on to the next yard. (Wonder if he considers Ferris Bueller to be as ancient a film as The Empire Strikes Back?) “That scene is a perfect example of our challenge to take Spider-Man out of a world where he’s comfortable,” director Watts told Yahoo Movies. “If you put him in the suburbs where there’s nothing tall to swing from, what does he do? It was a great opportunity to put him in an awkward situation.”

Judd Nelson and Ally Sheedy in ‘The Breakfast Club’ (Photo: Universal/courtesy Everett Collection)

The Breakfast Club (1985) At a press conference in June, Zendaya revealed that Ally Sheedy’s proto-Goth girl, Allison Reynolds, is a direct ancestor of her Homecoming character, Michelle “M.J.” Jones. And the two do have a lot in common, including a quiet manner that masks a caustic wit, as well as a flair for epic side-eye and eye-rolls. In fact, Michelle is glimpsed sitting in detention alongside Peter — the Anthony Michael Hall of her school — in one memorable Homecoming scene, despite the fact that she’s not even supposed to be there. Speaking with the press, Zendaya made it clear that she hopes modern teens take away the same lesson from Michelle that their parents learned from Allison, namely that: “It’s OK to be weird. If you make things awkward and uncomfortable, that’s cool. I love that Michelle’s outspoken and says what everyone’s thinking, but she just doesn’t care.”

William Zabka and Ralph Macchio in ‘The Karate Kid’ (Photo: Mary Evans/Ronald Grant/Everett Collection)

The Karate Kid (1984) He may not pledge allegiance to Cobra Kai, but Flash Thompson (Tony Revolori) is totally the Johnny Lawrence to Peter’s Daniel LaRusso. Whether calling him “Penis Parker” (itself an indirect shout-out to another ’80s classic, E.T.) or engaging in some decidedly unsportsmanlike trash talk during Academic Decathlon training sessions, Flash is always eager to humiliate his rival on the most public stage possible. But Peter, like LaRusso before him, scores the final knockout, hijacking Flash’s car and leaving him by the side of the road with his homecoming date. Revolori, who previously played the hero of Wes Anderson’s acclaimed 2014 film, The Grand Budapest Hotel, has said that he enjoyed breaking bad in Homecoming, especially since the movie doesn’t make an issue about his race. “The fact that there’s not a single line of exposition to explain why I look the way I look. I’m just in the movie. It’s not about being a certain race, and I think that’s the kind of diversity we need in Hollywood right now.”

Can’t Hardly Wait (1998) If only Peter had re-watched this nostalgic ’90s favorite before heading over to Liz Allan’s shindig, he would have realized that a high school house party is the absolute worst place to try and impress the girl you’ve been crushing on for years. Sure enough, his plan to swing in and make a big splash as Spider-Man is thwarted by an unplanned side mission involving the Shocker. Can’t Hardly Wait‘s Preston (Ethan Embry) is similarly unable to persuade his dream girl, Amanda (Jennifer Love Hewitt), of his affection due to a series of increasingly crazy circumstances. According to Daley, an early version of the storyline involved Peter hosting the party instead of Liz, but is similarly prevented from joining the festivities in costume. “All the cool kids from school burst into his bedroom while he’s gone and just start going through all his s—t, like all the toys he still kept.” Adds Daley’s co-writer, Jonathan Goldstein: “That’s very Hughes-ian, like the characters Anthony Michael Hall used to play. The kid who’s too old to still be doing this stuff.”

Anthony Michael Hall, Kelly LeBrock, Ilan Mitchell-Smith in ‘Weird Science’ (Photo: Universal Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection)

Weird Science (1985) We should probably be glad that geek buddies Peter and Ned (Jacob Batalon) are only applying their serious science and tech skills to making web fluid and hacking Tony Stark-designed super-suits. Otherwise, they might go and do something really weird…like building a cyber-girlfriend who steps out of the computer and into reality. Here’s another fun connection between Weird Science and Homecoming: Robert Downey Jr. is a big ol’ spoilsport in both. Back in ’85, he dropped a red Icee on dorks Gary and Wyatt, and 32 years later, he drops a bomb on Peter by taking away the teen’s Spider-Man suit after his Staten Island Ferry mishap.

Jon Cryer and Molly Ringwald in ‘Pretty in Pink’ (Photo: Paramount / Courtesy: Everett Collection)

Pretty in Pink (1986) High school law eschews the designated dork from taking the pretty girl to the big school dance. But Hughes went and upset the natural order of things by having Duckie (Jon Cryer) swoop in and rescue his best friend and longtime crush object, Andie (Molly Ringwald) from being stood up at the prom by status-conscious Blane (Andrew McCarthy). Truthfully, it was a bridge too far for audiences at the time, who demanded that the ending be reshot with the pretty girls and the popular guy walking off into a happily ever after. For a brief moment, though, Duckie got to be the hero who gets the girl, a geek dream that Peter gets to live out when he asks the significantly more popular Liz to the homecoming dance and she says yes. For better or for worse, he ultimately loses the girl to her villainous dad rather than a petty prepster.

Michael J. Fox in ‘Back to the Future’ (Photo: Universal/courtesy Everett Collection)

Back to the Future (1985) No sooner has he gotten to Hill Valley High’s “Enchantment Under the Sea” dance than Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) has to ditch his date — and future Mom — Lorraine (Lea Thompson) in order to take care of some pressing time travel business. Peter isn’t able to bust a move at his school’s homecoming soiree either, regretfully abandoning Liz on the dance floor in order to thwart her Vulture father’s plot to raid Tony Stark’s airborne storage locker. At least Marty gets to invent rock and roll during his time brief time at the Hill Valley dance; Peter has to bail before he can show off how he can out-Rihanna Rihanna.

Jennifer Connelly and Frank Whaley skate the night away in Career Opportunities (Photo: Universal Pictures)

Career Opportunities (1991) Peter Parker isn’t the only nerd lucky enough to spend a night locked in a facility with Jennifer Connelly. This John Hughes-scripted comedy traps awkward outcast Jim (Frank Whaley) and knockout Josie (Connelly) in a Target store after closing time, where they have to contend with their wildly different backgrounds, as well as a pair of bungling burglars. Midway through Homecoming, Spider-Man’s attempt to foil a Vulture robbery lands him in deep storage inside the U.S. Department of Damage Control, with only his “suit lady,” a.k.a. his in-suit A.I. K.A.R.E.N. (voiced by the Beautiful Mind Oscar winner), for company. We’ll leave it to you to decide whether Target for the Damage Control storage locker has better toys.

Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (1985) Not a teen movie, you say? Perhaps that’s true, but Tim Burton’s feature filmmaking debut is nevertheless an ’80s classic for young kids and teenagers alike. Besides, it can’t be accidental that Spider-Man’s first big victory in Homecoming involves stopping a bicycle thief. And he doesn’t even have to leave Queens to do it! Poor Pee-wee Herman has to travel all the way to Texas to recover his beloved two-wheeled ride. Here’s an eye-popping face-off we want to see in the Homecoming sequel: Spider-Man vs. Large Marge.

 Watch: Tom Holland Wants His Peter Parker to Be This Generation’s Marty McFly:

Get more Spider-Man scoop from Yahoo Movies:

Your Ultimate Guide to the Spider-Man: Homecoming Easter Eggs

Decoding the End Credits of Spider-Man: Homecoming

Revisiting the James Cameron Spider-Man Movie That Never Was