#so it’s like. Ok so are you trying to claim some people don’t believe batman is real. But then what about robin. YOU KNOW?

[mangoisms]

WAIT A SECOND. just saw something. remember when i was wondering if people knew what batarangs were. because i constantly wonder about the level of knowledge ppl have in-universe in gotham. WELL

i didn’t even realize it when i read this issue but. PRESUMABLY. it IS because they’re at a party and she thinks he’s just ‘dressed’ as robin. so people do know that batarangs are. well. called batarangs. right?????

sorry i just saw this posted again on instagram and it BARELY hit me. ok. wow. it was for a thing in ck that i ultimately solved by having him call it that. but. that’s not necessary. apparently. well.

(also this page and the few after are so funny to me. this entire thing. bc bart and kon step in and then he gets mad 😭)

[kaithonks]

So I’ve had some Thoughts about Jason Todd’s Robin

I guess you could say I’m still a little peeved about Robin lives, but it made me remember a story from a Class I took. I had the pleasure of getting to take a Comics and Graphic Narrative Class for my degree. The professor had a mind set to the class, in that he was not trying to show why comics are an art form, but how. Which meant we didn’t read Maus or Watchman, but we did read Heroes in Crisis. I do have thoughts about that, but that’s for another time. Any way, in class when we talk about Heroes in Crisis, Jason got briefly mentioned, with that someone mentioned his vote. And someone mention it was a landslide vote. I, of course, corrected that it was a very narrow margin of only 72 with some rumors of tampering. Which is about where I stopped myself, because it was getting too far from the original discussion. So I tried to circle the conversation back around, explain that,

“Yeah, I get a little carried away when Jason Todd comes up.”

The guy sitting next to me decided this was the time to say,

“No one cared about Jason Todd until he was the Red Hood.”

I realized now this was in jest, but my gut reaction was to tell him (a little louder than I meant) to “eat shit.”

I do regret saying that despite the laughs I got, and I did apologize to the class, though they told it was ok because “I was standing on business.” (The guy I told to 'eat shit' didn’t speak to me again till a like a month later, though)

So what’s my point with this funny little story? Well, I know I am coming from a biased perspective, but I still believe that there is some strong disregard for Jason’s Robin run, even among his fans.

He was only around for about 5 years, first appearing in 1983 and then ending with his death in 1988. Which is very short compared to Dick’s 40 plus year run as Robin, so really he wasn’t given time to be fleshed out in the same way. Some of Jason’s complaints at the time could have just been solved with time and not being written by someone who hated him, but that’s a recurring problem, it seems. Anyway, his death is a pretty pivotal moment in not only Batman's history but in comic history, so that can make his short run seem less important than how it ended. And what also doesn’t help is the almost instant back tracking on what Jason’s Robin run was really like.

So putting the Robins into boxes of happy, angry, smart, and girl is really regressive (Yes I'm looking at you Heroes in Crisis) as they are all their own characters beyond this very simple traits. They even overlap in places. And I’m saying this because I don’t think any one Robin was ‘the angry one.’ I think most of them as hurt kids who were using the identity of Robin to bring some light and levity, whether it being to themselves or to Batman. Or in a meta sense, that Robin is there for younger readers to relate to and bring a lighter tone to the story. And well in the 80s where Jason’s ran started comics were starting towards the darker gritty tone. I recommend people read “The Lives and Death of Robin: An Oral History of A DEATH IN THE FAMILY” By Joe Grunenwald to see a lot of the attitudes not only towards Jason, but Batman at the time. Jason came at a time when things were changing and well there wasn’t a desire on the editorial part to make Jason’s Robin work with what they want, because there was in incompatibility of what Robin was with the tone they wanted. And for all they claim that people hated Jason’s Robin, again the vote margin was very slim. And the published letters to the editor after, showed that kids of the time still claimed Jason as their Robin and were upset by his death. Beyond that, the Reddit thread r/comicbook had someone ask people about what they called for with Jason’s vote. There is quite a handful of people who admitted they didn’t think it would happen, so that's why they voted for his death. And of course there is a pretty vocal group saying they thought he was annoying, but in that they were also people who already loved Dick Grayson. He was their Robin. But as stated earlier, there are still those where Jason was their Robin, which is also in that thread.

Bringing it back, people definitely still cared about Jason when he was Robin. And even so many years later, I cared about Jason’s Robin. Jason’s post crisis Robin story is probably even more relatable today, with the growing of people barely able to scrape by.

Now many people point to The Diplomat's Son as a story where Jason’s character was whiny, and showed that “he’d eventually betray Batman”. But Jason through that story is trying to defend a woman who was sexually assaulted and was upset the man was going to get away. It’s always this I think of when people complain to me about Robin’s run. It also reminds me of in Under the Red Hood when Jason kills Captain Nazi. In my mind, it’s hard to frame these things as bad. Extreme? Yes, absolutely. But it speaks more to a character who was constantly failed, and faith in the system was broken. So the only way he saw to really help was to take it upon himself and make it permanent. Which when you consider Jason is only about 19-20 in Under the Red Hood. That’s heavy. But it’s only so heavy with the comparative of Jason’s Robin not completely having that faith broken and him having hope. If Jason’s Robin was also so extreme and angry, it makes the impact of Under the Red Hood, becomes almost nonexistence. It doesn’t mean anything if this is where Jason has always been, so neatly putting Jason as “always the angry Robin” and “always destined to betray Bruce’s morals” hurts his character.

Sometimes I feel that the people around Jason���s origins sort of stumbled into making a compelling character that wasn’t necessarily for them and don’t understand that, specially the way they talk about “my Batman”. They weren't the kids at the time of Jason’s Robin (maybe weren't really planing for young readers) and did a lot of blame shifting around Jason’s death. Which is strange to say the least, and this is where the back tracking on his run really starts. He didn't die because he just ignored Batman, but because he wanted to save his mother, who lied to him about the Joker. Still, they said after the fact, that “he didn't listen.” That isn't really what happened, it's an over simplification that's detrimental to their own story.

Now, a whole another conversation could be made about comic demographics and who Jason is for, past and present. But that’s getting a little too far from my point, that I feel to this day it's ignore that people did truly care about Jason’s Robin. People still do. Without Jason’s Robin, we wouldn’t have Tim’s Robin, or Steph’s or Damian’s. Jason is still an important character with in Batman, as Red Hood and as Robin. You can’t claim to love any later Robin run without paying respect to the fact Dick set it up, Robin, and Jason was his first successor. His death does overshadow a lot, even if it wasn’t permanent. And you can’t say you like the Red Hood without respect Jason’s time as Robin and how he’s changed. So Yeah. Jason Todd, Robin, is influential and shouldn’t be so easily dismissed.

[nevertheless-moving]

Continued from here. You can read the origin of this branch of the au and a continued smattering of @dykerory‘s and @willowcrowned’s original ones under the corn boy anakin au 

The conversation between Batman and Anakin skywalker goes as well as can be expected. 

(l love that i just wrote that sentence wow crossovers are fun)

They’re very frank and depart on cordial terms

Anakin doesn’t try very hard to convince Batman, “yeah it is a crazy story, I don’t really have any proof that couldn’t have been fabricated at this point, I’m flattered that you think so highly of my intellect, sorry Clark roped you into this.”

and Batman doesn’t try very hard to convince Anakin “No you’re quite stable and I don’t want to mess with what you’ve got going on, I don’t have to show you the profiles I put together if you don’t want, sorry Clark keeps bringing this up.”

And Wayne Co. supports another one of the Shmi Foundation’s civil rights projects. They tell Clark that Batman put his best resources behind it but another universe is another universe, you know?

Clark doesn’t stop trying on their intersteller missions. Batman just sort of resigns himself to cringing internally whenever it’s brought up- he supposes legends have to come from somewhere.

A year later, 31 years after Anakin crashed in the Kent’s corn field, another spaceship crashes to Earth, appearing out of nowhere on Earth’s fledgling intersteller sensors. 

Due to high prevailing winds that day, it unfortunately does not land on the Kent Farm, but rather across the road. The property owners do the responsible thing and call the police about the UFO, who call the military about the spaceship with a little green man inside, who call the CIA, who are strong armed by the Department of Extranormal Operations, and manage to claim custody over the spaceship over Checkmate. 

Yoda is brought to DC Area 51, where scientists quickly realize he’s dying, well before they even get to start any experiments

Lot of frantic running around and yelling- they even try to ask the thing what he needs from them but he just says “The Force. Without the force, dying, I am” and no one has any idea what that means.

Batman get’s word of this like...oh fuuuuu and reluctantly sticks the Justice League’s hand in for custody of the extraterrestrial 

because if he doesn’t Superman’s going to tear down area 51 and he does not need that. 

There’s some precedent for this, but it’s not exactly a threat per se, so this is really overstepping some of the agreements they’ve made

J’onn and Kal-El have to make a bunch of rapid promises to sit down for interviews that they’ve been dodging with some important figures

Superman whooshes Yoda away to the new Justice League Facility in Upstate [Redacted]

Everyone with alien or magic expertise is called in to try and keep Anakin’s um...great-great-grandfather? did he say grandfather? alive 

Wait Anakin is Superman’s brother? I...what?

Anakin is deeply emotional at seeing the old troll again, and Yoda is just as thrilled to see the lost padawan alive and well. Even without the force, Anakin has the bearing of a Jedi Knight.

“He’s dying,” Anakin explains to the assembled magicians and scientists. “He’s 900 years old, the only reason he’s lived this long is because of his connection to the Force. Without it...”

Constantine: “You’re both talking this awfully calmly.”

(sidenote: by the time Anakin stumbled upon actual magic users who could actually teach him magic, he was settled enough in himself that it was the connection he missed, not the power. He tries a few spells, shows some basic aptitude but hates the feeling and doesn’t try again) 

Anakin, sadly: “Emotion, yet peace.”

Yoda, coughing: “Ignorance yet knowledge.” 

Together: “Passion yet Serenity; Chaos yet Harmony; Death yet...”

They trail off- Anakin looks devastated and Yoda’s ears droop

Anakin: “Grandmaster, I don’t know what happens to people in this universe when they die- every religion says something different!”

Superman (Christian): “Um.”

Batman (Atheist): ...

Zantana: “I’ve been to the underworld! It’s...not for everyone.”

Constantine: “Literally fucked Satan and I’m also unclear. Wait, does your universe have one set afterlife, like for certain? Nevermind, I’ll ask later, sorry.”

Yoda: “...That I will find my way to the force, hope i must have.”

Anakin: “Kal, I need you to get my lightsaber.”

Throwback to the Checkov’s Kyber earlier. Zantana overloads the crystal, it explodes and releases the remnants of force trapped inside. 

Clark and some of the League get to experience the Force for a minute

It’s very beautiful, ok? 

Anakin gathers and directs the explosion of force towards Yoda

And a tiny window opens up to what looks like the Council Room. 

Yoda thanks Anakin and then fades into thin air ok that’s a bit weird for everyone except Anakin who just pretends that he already knew that was going to happen because ‘joining the force’ was a thing that he did believe in he just had never seen it happen so literally

and obi-wan runs at the window desperately and it's too small for anyone to fit through anyway but mace and kit are holding obi-wan back because they just saw Yoda fade into oblivion while in the arms of a strange man but obi-wan's like ANAKIN ANAKIN THAT'S MY PADAWAN ANAKIN WHERE ARE YOU

Anakin jolts up desperately IT’S ALRIGHT OBI-WAN I’M-

and the window closes and the force fades and Anakin sort of sags in on himself

“I’m glad I got to show you what the force was like, Clark, even just for a moment”

“Me to Ani...I’m sorry...”

“It’s alright, I just...it’s fine.”

[jmoriarty-221b]

So I saw somewhere a post that talked about how some fictional characters just have a divorce vibe going on, like, at no point in time were they ever married but they just give off that feeling that they got divorced

And now I can only think of Clark Kent and Lex Luthor having that vibe

And I spent close to an hour talking about this to my sibling and how it would be a good idea for a new DC show like, you can make so much money off of just the main Batfam alone and there are literally so many people in there that it’s just an amazing idea to have them all in a show together but kind of like a Good Luck Charlie kinda thing because there’s more than enough angst in the world

But in the case of not having enough of a budget for so many characters in one show I turned to the Superfam (Batfam is Huge like, I don’t even know half of the extended family version and that’s like at least ten characters so I could see why it wouldn’t be entirely feasible to have a show that included everyone while still being good with nice character development without having a billion dollars for the budget)

The Superfam, in my personal experience, is composed of Ma & Pa Kent (farm vibes plus I refuse to have either of them die in my AU), Clark Kent (main Superman), Lois Lane (Lana? was Smallville Lois i guess??? But idk enough about her so she’s not here), Jon Kent (Superboi II), Kara Danvers (Supergirl) & Conner Kent (Superboi I)

Now I’ve stopped watching CW shows like, forever ago??? But my brother kinda keeps up with them and basically the gist is that the ratings of every other show suck Except for the Superman & Lois show (because it’s 💫new💫) and I saw the cover of the poster like “Ah, the werewolf dude. . . mmmhhmmm that’s Lois yes, yes that’s Johnny boi, and um is that???? Nooooo, they wouldn’t do that to Conner right???? Please tell me they didn’t make Conner blonde” and I was informed that the blonde teen is Chris???? Like

Whoms’t do ye speak of

I’m not even joking but the only way I even know of Chris is from a random fanfic I read where Dick Grayson gets his own super from an alternate reality named Chris, that’s my only point of reference for this character

But let’s talk about how Conner Kent (OG Superboi) was excluded

Now I haven’t seen any episodes of this and I probably never will (no hate I’m just really unmotivated to start new shows at all) so idk if they might mention Conner or even allude to him in one scene or something

But this was my main motivator as to my new Superfam TV Show Idea

Have Lex Luthor not be a Superman villain, he’s mainly a successful businessman, a little shady but who isn’t, and he doesn’t want to Kill Superman, he just wants to be able to have some sort of viable protection against a Kryptonian in case of an invasion (see Man of Steel + CW’s Supergirl) or suddenly having a mind controlled Superman on their hands (see Justice League series or just look up what Red Krytonite does) so he makes it like his side thing to figure out ways to neutralize or hold back a Kryptonian, Clark totally thinks that Lex is obsessed with finding a way to kill Superman because they had a bad end to their friendship in high school so he’s always suspicious of Lex, Lex hasn’t really ever tried to kill him though because 1. It’s not that deep Clark ok? And 2. He’s a busy busy man with a very important job position and a company to run so does he look like he has time to harbor an obsession over someone who rejected him back in high school??? You’re more of a constant side quest Clark, so stop trying to put him on the JL watchlist ( btw ik about Lena Luthor, haven’t forgotten her but she doesn’t really play a part in this AU so let’s just have her and Kara off to the side doing their own thing ok? Ok)

Lex, Bruce & Oliver all knew each other when they were kids and went to the same school, this is just an extra detail I wanted to happen because Lex and Ollie definitely know Bruce is Batman and absolutely HATE having to deal with Brucie Wayne because “I know you’re just doing this to irritate me Bruce, you just want to see if you can make a vein throb in my forehead but I will valiantly ignore your dumbassery because I know you hate being Brucie just as much as we hate having to put up with Brucie so suck on that you petty bitch” because they bonded in ye olden days, childhood friends so to speak

Anyway so Cadmus tries to get Lex to make an investment in their company, seeing as Cadmus is shadier than Gotham when it rains Lex is basically like ‘no ❤️’ and doesn’t make a deal with them, Cadmus gets mad at not having Lexcorp financially backing them so Lex has an ‘accident’ and they steal his DNA, then they steal Superman’s DNA somehow and *boom* a Superboi is formed

Because I don’t know much about how the Core Four became friends in the first place (Robin Tim Drake, Impulse Bart Allen, Wonder Girl Cassie Sandsmark & Superboy Conner Kent) I’m just gonna go with what happens in the show Young Justice except it’s the Core Four becoming the Core Four when they liberated Conner (who at this point believes himself to be a clone of Superman and has only been given Superboy as a name) from Cadmus, same shit goes down meaning that Clark is just straight up NOT vibing with Conner, Conner just wants a mentor please, and the Bats kinda give Clark a passive aggressive treatment for not taking Superboy under his wing or at least agreeing to teach him how to control his powers, especially Tim because that’s his Bestie so yes

Anyway, YJ saves ppl and is on the news or whatever and Lex finds out about Superboy’s existence that way, so he researches this new super on his free time, finds out that he came from Cadmus and claims to be a clone of Superman, yet doesn’t have the whole power set Superman has??? Wait, didn’t Lex reject Cadmus’ proposal and the got into a mysterious accident??? Long story short Lex goes connecting the dots, hacks into Cadmus’ files, finds out he technically has a son with Superman and decides to take Superboy under his wing (I’ll go more in depth as to why Lex would want to do this in this AU later but the abridged version would be that he wants a kid but doesn’t have the time nor interest in finding a wife??? Also the radiation that made him bald as a kid also affected his reproductive system so while it’s not impossible for him to conceive kids he would have a very hard time actually getting to father a kid)

Him and Conner, who still goes by Superboy at this point in time, meet up and Conner finds out that here is a parent figure that is both available and actively wants to be a part of his life, so he agrees to get to know Lex and the series would focus on them becoming a family, with a special episode when Conner asks Lex for help in choosing a name for himself and it ends up with him agreeing to become Conner Luthor, it would be heartwarming and Mercy would make sure it happens within a day (Mercy is Lex’s bodyguard/PA but they’re also besties and she becomes the Responsible yet Chaotic Aunt as Lex and Conner’s father-son relationship progresses)

Obviously Clark becomes super suspicious of Lex getting close to his ‘clone’ and when Conner decides to go public as Lex’s son he’s like *GASP* and calls up Bruce because we need to get on this Bruce, Lex is a villain and blah blah blah but Bruce would be over Clark’s shit and hit him with that “actually, Lex was also an unwilling genetic donor to Superboy, who actually is not your clone either, and has agreed to take him in, I’ve been on this shit since they first met and the kid is doing just fine so if you keep poking your nose in their business then that’s your problem but you better be ready to pay child support bitch . . . have a good day ❤️”

The series would just focus on Conner getting to have a good parent figure in Lex and go more into their civilian lives rather than focusing on the superhero thing, Conner, Bart, Tim & Cassie have a sleepover at Lex’s house at one point, Lex totally Knows what’s up but it’s all good because these are his baby’s friends and they’re good people who are more than willing to prank Superman for rejecting his kid and giving his baby self worth issues (Mercy supports them)

Anyway, that’s basically the idea for a new Superhero Show

[liquid-luck-00]

Consolation + The “Talk”

Bio!Dad Bruce

Day 9: Consolation and Day 10: The “Talk”

@biodad-bruce-month 

Ao3 ~~~ First ~~~ Previous ~~~ Next

This got a little long, sorry not sorry

~~~~~~~~~~

One week, one week has passed since Damian started school in Paris. One week since the tower of lies that Lila has built began to crumble and fall. 

By the beginning of the next day she had backed off all her lies about the Wayne family but she just re-doubled all her efforts on lies that included Prince Ali, Clara Nightingale, and Jagged Stone. But the tower she had built was going to fall. 

And Damian was ready to bring an end to this liar’s reign.

So you can trust that he would find a way to avenge his sister without the use of violence against her, especially in Paris, and especially knowing his father’s mantra of vengeance not revenge. But revenge is needed. So, Damian made a few phone calls. Over the course of the next week he would have enough video and audio evidence to prove his little sister is innocent. But what would really put the icing on the cake is if he could convince the principal to hold a career day or week. Granted it shouldn’t be too hard, he is the only blood son of Bruce Wayne after all. So, telling his sister that he would meet her after fencing practice he went off early in search of principal Damocles. He found the man quite simply and was it far too easy to convince the man to go to career day parents of the students will be able to come in to do you demonstrations or speeches as well as anyone else who they would like to invite.

---

Damian left for his fencing practice which left me packing up my things getting ready to leave. I was one of the last ones out so of course something had to happen. Adrien came up to me then “hey Mari can we talk.”

‘Sigh’ “If this is about the highroad again Adrien. Her lies are hurting people it doesn’t matter if you think it’s right, she’s hurting people’s futures their chances it…” He cut her off, great this is going wonderfully.

“It’s not that, well it is that but that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.” He was stumbling over his words and she softened her expression slightly “Marinette what’s the difference between infatuation and love?”

“What?” That was not what she was expecting. This is confusing, and where was this coming from anyways. Never mind why “can you explain it to me more I’m having a little trouble wrapping my head around the question.”

He had sheepish smile and started “I. I love ladybug but I’m not sure if I love her or what she represents more”

“You don’t know if you like the idea of her more than the person who she is?” Marinette asked him seeming to understand where this conversation was going. 

“before we go even further down this rabbit hole, Adrien why don’t we meet up somewhere more private”

“why? “

Marinette simply pointed towards the door “We seem to have gained an audience”          

There at the door was Alya filming but unknown to her someone else was behind her. “Bean we have to go” Alya you jumped at the sound of Tim’s voice.

“OK Tim I’ll be out just give me a minute,” Tim nodded and left Alya having scurried off when she was found out. “I’ll text you place and time to meet up and talk further that is if you’re still confused about your feelings about this girl”

“Sounds good and thank you Marinette” he whispered as she left the room. Once she got to the car she glanced at him oh no, was the only thing that went through her mind “you look like a cat who ate the canary Tim spill” she was moving in to tickle him to get the info out. “Fine, fine, fine I give I’ll tell, but” she shot him a look. “only if you make me some coffee, today feels like an all-nighter”

“Deal! Now spill”

“Damian set up that next week there is going to be career days for the entire week at the school.”

“Okay” she nodded her head understanding where her brothers’ train of thoughts were heading. “The career week will be the perfect opportunity to expose the rest of Lila’s lies. At least that’s what you and Damian are hoping to accomplish isn’t it.”

“Mari, you do know you’re my favorite sister” Tim replied with a smirk that would rival even Damian’s.

So, the two of them got to work. Damian may think he’s clever and the most discrete out of everyone, but he wasn’t able to pull off hiding the cameras and microphones well enough that Mari wasn’t able to figure it out. This means they are going to have plenty of video and audio evidence use against the liar.

Now when Damian got home from practice the three of them really set out to destroy the liar. With all the audio evidence as well as the footage proving it was Lila speaking Marinette made several phone calls.

Jagged and Clara were both on board completely and wholeheartedly, especially after hearing what was going on. With those two she called the principal and he had agreed to keep them as a special surprise for the last day.

She called her father and he was willing to fly out to speak on one of the first days. Her father also happened to be able to get into contact with Prince Ali, and once hearing of everything that was going on, he to agree to come and speak.

Damian had called the Kent’s so Lois Lane, Clark and, and Jon were all going to come to speak, well Lois Lane in Clark were going to speak, Jon was coming to hang out with his two best friends.

Once Mr. Kent heard it was going on well it wasn’t long afterwards for Barry Allen to come to speak about forensics science, Oliver Queen to speak further on different aspects of business, and several other members of the league who seem to have fallen in love with Mari.

Everyone knew that as soon as Lila saw the names on the list, she would be tempted to spread the lies about every single one of them, so they would continue to record everything that was said in the class.

And who’s to say that a couple of the heroes may or may not make an appearance was well, but it was to be determined if Lila lied about them or not. Within the hour the three Wayne siblings knew, oh they knew this liar would not have a chance to escape. And anyone left believing her by the end of the week, well they felt sorry for those poor souls who still believe her every word.

---

After about two hours getting our allies ready for the incoming slaughter of the liar I met up with Adrien. And that was different.

“Mari” Adrien seem unsure of how to start. We had we decided it would’ve been best to meet up at the Wayne Enterprises Paris branch that way we can have a conference room to discuss it somewhere private, I won’t have to worry about people eavesdropping. Well everyone except for my brothers but it’s a price I’m willing to pay. “This is the first crush I’ve ever had, I, I don’t know…”

“Adrien I’ve known you now for about a year. You are quite honestly still sheltered. Well that’s the best way I can describe it.”

“What I’m not! I’m no?” Adrien began to stutter because that was not where the conversation was originally going.

“Adrien you are still quite sheltered. The way you think things should be handles when it comes to lies or personal space is the same way that people deal with the paparazzi and those are not the same at all. But I’m saying that because it’s normal to be confused when it comes to a crush. I had a crush on you for the longest time and was unsure how to act on it. I got to know about you a bit more and the crush well it changed.” He was looking at me shocked by my proclamation.

“How? Why? What are you mean? I’m not.” Adrien seemed a little taken back before he finally decided what he was going to say. “You said had?”

“I had the biggest crush on you until I learned you were a coward, or what seemed like cowardace. You decided that someone you didn’t know was more important than the person you claim to be a friend. This past week has shown me that you are a pacifist, not a coward, but you strive for peace with everyone. but that’s not how everything goes. I learned that about you that’s what made me move on. So what is it about this girl that makes you stay or is there something about someone else who makes you want to stay with them instead?“ He was silent he wasn’t staring at me, but he was starting off into space. He seemed to not know exactly what to say, but the thought was there. 

“Ladybug she’s my…” He was about to say something but stopped himself, almost as if he knows her as more than just the heroine. But that is not possible the only ones who interact with her while in the mask are now her family and…

“Your Chat Noir” she said it’s so calmly and as such a fact that he just stared at her calm and unblinking until the inevitable freak out which cost him to pass out. Great now she’s stuck at a conference room trying to revive her partner who doesn’t know she’s his partner. Once he finally came to, she just watched as it to make sure he wasn’t about to faint again.

“I’m not! I can’t be! I’m not superhero, that’s crazy Mari your” he was rambling. In the past month she has perfected the Batman Glare and well Adrien was getting it, because she was not believing the bullshit that was coming out of his mouth.

“Are you paws-itively certain about that Chat.” He went silent, but doesn’t know if it was because of the pun or because she called him Chat.

“How?” Adrien whispered to her.

“Well I figured it out since it seemed like you knew Ladybug more than just a hero.” She stated hoping that her identity was not compromised. “anyways Ladybug’s your partner but what were you going to say afterwards”

“she’s my partner and my best friend. She’s the person who may know me the best out of everyone, except I think that goes to you now” he began to chuckle, but it evolved into full-blown laughter and Mari couldn’t help but laugh along with him.

“You know it makes a lot of sense of your Chat. Chat is always carefree and bubbly, but he always makes sure to keep it professional. Sure, flirting in the middle of the battle isn’t the best. But knowing Adrien and Chat Noir are the same person makes the whole so much more. What’s the word complete” she muses tapping her chin.

“Ladybug is the hero Paris deserves. But I don’t think I love her. I thought I did. I thought about this a lot, I love that when I was with her, I was free. I don’t know the girl underneath the mask. But I do you know the girl beneath the mask is strong and courageous. She is undoubtably amazing. But maybe you are figuring out my identity snapped things into focus, because I love the way I feel around her. But I also love the way I feel about my friends. Thank you, Mari.”

“For what I haven’t said anything this was all you.”

“Exactly, I needed someone to hear me, and not force me into a conclusion they thought was best. And at this point you are my first true friend. Can we. Can we be friends again Marinette?”

Mari looked at him for a second and then broke into a smile. “Of course, Adrien we’re friends”

“Good now let’s bring down a liar”

---

Of course the week leading up to career week was unexpectedly full of lies, all coming out of the Italians mouth. Oh, Barry Allen yeah she met him on Central city oh Oliver Queen she once saw him at a charity event in Star City oh she’s practically Lois Lane and Clark Kent‘s daughter, Jonathan their son, is her best friend. The list goes on and on. Everyone on the left side excluding Adrien do believe every word that came out of her mouth. The three in the very back on the right side, being herself, Damian, and Chloe couldn’t contain their laughter. This usually resulted in a Alya yelling at them from laughing that of course Lila wouldn’t be lying and then defending Lila as she began to cry her crocodile tears.

The entire school was informed that the entirety of career week was mandatory and missing a single speaker would be equivalent to failing a midterm for and class, meaning there was no skipping at all.        

 Monday

Today there were three guest speakers, them being Bruce Wayne, Prince Ali, and John Stewart.

Prince Ali was the first to go up go up and just let’s just say that many people we surprised that he did not do go green charities but in fact did children’s charities called a few things in the question specifically from Rose and Mylene.

Luckily for Lila she didn’t lie much about John Stewart, who spoke of his time as a marine and about currently being an architect, but that was a short-lived victory on her part, when he showed up as the final school guest at the end of the day as Green Lantern. He gave her a speech about honesty and the importance of discipline and hard work in order to succeed.

Bruce spoke about honesty and a hard work when building a company as well as the importance of working with reputable companies and brands.

At the end of the day she had two ceases and desists, one from Prince Ali and one from the Wayne family.

On the bright side a new Wayne charity was in the works alongside Prince Ali for children’s medicine.

 Tuesday

Was Barry Allen who spoke about pursuing forensic sciences and the work he does alongside the police.  

Wonder Woman who was speaking as an ambassador of Themyscira, and way at being an ambassador entailed. 

And Mayor Bourgeois spoke on what it means to be a part of the political and legislative sectors of the government.

Again, Lila received two cease and desists from Barry Allen and Wonder Woman respectively.

 Wednesday

Went similar to the previous two. Oliver Queen spoke about ways to modify businesses and expanding them in order to change with consumers.

Wang Cheng, Marinette’s uncle, spoke and gave a demonstration of cooking techniques for the school.

Tomoe Tsurugi, Kagami’s mother, spoke about fencing and also about ableism against disability, mainly that even being blind she can hand many fencers their asses without breaking a sweat.

Lila only received one cease and desist.

 Thursday

Nora, Alya’s sister, spoke of being a professional boxer and the training she does for it.

Lois and Clark gave a joint presentation, and of course Alya wanted her idols to review her blog. And well that did not go so well for her, Lois tore her interviews with Lila apart stating she gives no further evidence and simply takes what the girl says at face value. However other interviews she did provide more links to her information which prove she is a capable journalist, but there is room to grow.

The Kent’s also presented Lila a cease and desist, luckily for Alya she hadn’t posted anything in the past two weeks since Marinette’s return about anything Lila had said, and she was glad for that right now.

 Friday

Jagged Stone and Clara started Friday with a mini concert, that included a special duet with the two artists. Jagged spoke about Rock’n Roll and the changes and subcategories of the genre.

Clara Nightingale spoke on the pop side of the music industry and how she got started at a young age, as well as her background in dance and choreography.

Gabriel Agreste was the final speaker, we’ll he was on video call actually, and spoke on the fashion industry, the standards that come with the consumer market, and the way public opinion shapes brands and companies.

Gabriel was about to log off when Jagged walked in front of the camera.

“Too true Agreste, public opinion does shape the way many of those who have spoken this past week” many don’t know this about Jagged but mess with his family and he will not hold back. “That is why you should know, your model, Lila Rossi has had a total six cease and desists field against her this past week. As un-Rock’n roll as it is Clara and I will be adding two more to that list. I will also be suing for defamation of character as well. Clara?”

“Lies and cheats, make for poor feats. I will also be suing as well for defamation of character. This has made me so mad I can’t even come up with a rhyme.” She called out to the crowd.

“So Agreste, how will your totally not Rock’n Roll model affect your business?” Jagged asked. Everyone was watching the screen for Gabriel’s reaction.

“It would seem it is best we terminated contact Miss Rossi. Also, Adrien.” The poor boy practically jumped in his seat.

“Yes”

“There will be no contact between you and Miss Rossi until we are able to discuss this further. Goodbye”

The entire school was in a shocked silence. This final day as set up so the whole school would see it altogether.

Lila began to cry until she became furious. She jumped from her seat and yelled. “You did this! You set me up! You ruined my entire empire Marinette!” She was glaring daggers at me.

“If it’s any consolation to you Lila you made me miserable for eight months. You took my friends, those I’ve known since I was practically in diapers. You made my life hell and if that’s consolation to you fine. I will also be suing you for slander and defamation of character. But just know this I have people who genuinely care for me and I’m sorry if you felt threatened by me to blame all this on me, but I don’t care about your opinion or the opinion of those who turned on me without batting an eye not anymore.” It’s so liberating to say that to them. Oh, a weight has been lifted off my chest and so I walked out of the school side-by-side with Damian, Adrien, and Chloe with my head held high. And for the first time and I can’t remember when I could breathe. They weren’t going to hold me down any longer.

~~~~~~~~~~

Just for to clear this up Marinette is the youngest out of all the children. She and Damian are the same age but he is older by a few months.

Next

~~~~~~~~~~

Taglist:

@mochinek0 @justafanwarrior @abrx2002 @ranger-gothamite @fantasiame @moonystars14 @mochegato @bigbeautifulandfullofsugar @maribat-is-lifeblood @iglowinggemma28 @miraculous-ninja @talutah0 @vixen-uchiha @danielslilangel @witchsblackfox @pawsitivelymiraculous @lizziejay @marinettepotterandplagg @colorfulmongerpsychicranch @dast218 @sassakitty @miyla-lokidottir @lilkymilky @tazanna-blythe @tired-butterfly @lozzybowe @smolplantmum @queencommonsense @loopingtangent @chez-pezeater @paintedhope7 @technicallyburninggarden @meme991001 @wannajointhecrabcult @melicmusicmagic @trippingovermyfeet @greatcatblaze @fidget-eep @miraculouslydumb @iamablinkmarvelarmy @laurcad123 @hauntedwintersweets @fc-studios @fusser90 @madking-warqueen @buginetye

[ellana-ravenwood]

Batfam and friends after dentist

I just remembered this video : clickclickclick, and this happened. Please, don’t take it too seriously it’s just a fun little joke post haha. I hope you’ll still enjoy it a little nonetheless ^^. Here we are, the Batfam and friends, after dentist :

DICK

Dick : “Turns out my dentist is not giving me a plaque for great teeth after all. He really hurt my fillings.” Makes all the WORST pun you can think about, to calm his nerve, as he’s about to go to surgery to take his wisdom teeth out. Bruce is there, for support. Of course, he’d be there for his son. Dick wakes up, the surgery went GREAT. He looks around, a little groggy, looks at his dad, and...Starts to rap absolute nonsense, as if his life depended on it : 

“I'm feeling the rainbow like skittles

dropping reptars like my name was tommy pickles

for rizzle, thats drizzle?

nah my nizzle, thats the shizzle”

Asks Bruce to buy him a “big ass gold chain” and if the dentist could transplant silver teeth on him now, “while we’re at it”. Bruce is able to reason with him and convinces him that sure, he’ll buy him the gold chain he wants, but he should wait for the teeth because his mouth is still too numb and such. Dick agrees that it sounds sensible, but does not drop the subject of him becoming a successful rapper. On the way back to the Manor, they stop to buy a gold chain, because Bruce cannot resists when his kids give him the “puppy eyes”. Dick choses the ugliest biggest thing in the entire shop. It says “bling bling” on it, has a few shiny diamonds, and is about twice the size of his head. He looks at it as if it was the best thing on earth while on the ride home. The drugs start to wear off but as a result he’s super tired again, he goes to sleep...Wakes up with that ugly chain, wondering what the hell happened. 

JASON

Woke up after wisdom teeth removal. Got pissed because he really wanted Coca Cola but there was only Pepsi. Proceeded to tell Bruce that him bringing Pepsi back instead of Coke was worst than when he didn’t kill the Joker to avenge his death (queue Bruce nervously looking at the nurses, and really insisting on how funny people who just got their wisdom teeth removed could be). After the Pepsi/Coke debacle claimed he has 9 children (Bruce’s influence for sure hahaha). Apollo and Jean-Claude being his favorite two. Proceeded to cry because he admitted he had favorite children, and thought it was horrible to choose a favorite. Apologized to “his” kids that were definitely not there and talked about how his dad (pointing at Bruce), never had favorites. Bruce is touched. Until Jason remembers the Pepsi incident and tries to escape the room by jumping out of the window to go pouting alone somewhere. Queue a ridiculous struggle between Bruce and his son, as Jason, still quite limped and out of it because of the sleeping drugs, resists as best as he can while his dad drags him to the car to go home, trying to be as gentle as possible because he doesn’t want to hurt Jason’s mouth. Just to be sure, Bruce stops on the way to buy a bunch of coke bottles... 

TIM

After waking up from getting his wisdom teeth removed, sitting in a wheelchair because he can’t stand yet (Tim is very resistant to anesthetic, and they had to give him more than usual for it to work), telling to Bruce who’s wheeling him back to the car, in a very dramatic way : “Lady, I thank you for your help. You have to release me back to the ocean now. My time on land, is over.”

Bruce, not sure he quite understood : “...What was that, chum ?” 

Tim : “I said please m’am, get me back to my people. They need me.” 

Then the boy proceeds to stick both his legs up, and move them as if he was a mermaid, making “woosh” sounds with his mouth as if he was splashing water around. Bruce doesn’t even try to reason with him (he remembers how it was impossible to do so with Jason and his Coke, or with Dick who really thought he was a rapper), so he goes along with it, talking about Tim’s “people” and why he can’t stay on land. Queue a dramatic full of adventure stories where he was taken away from his land and...and Bruce realizes the boy is kinda telling Aquaman’s story (that he probably learned by hacking into Batman’s secret files he has on everyone). He seems to really believe it...When they get back home, Tim is suspicious because there is no ocean, but his dad convinces him that the pool is said ocean, and Tim solemnly say “good bye” to Bruce, before dipping into the water. Of course, Bruce keeps an eye on him, because in the state he is there might be accidents, but Tim just lays there, on his back, floating around and mumbling about fish species he knows. Eventually, the cold water gets to him and he finally comes back to his senses. Bruce helps him out of the pool, and Tim goes to sleep, wrapped in blankets, holding his dad’s hand. 

CASSANDRA

She had to have a rather heavy mouth surgery after an accident, and woke up ,slowly, in a hospital bed. Bruce was there of course, waiting patiently, worried, and hoping she’d wake up soon. It was nerve wracking to wait for your child to be better ! When she does wake up, she doesn’t even look lost or anything, although the surgeon told Bruce that she was probably gonna be feeling a little hazy and such. So the fact she seems totally fine reassures her dad. And then suddenly she throws her blanket off of her, stands up so fast that Bruce’s brain doesn’t have time to react, and walks to the nearest fire alarm. She looks at Bruce straight in the eyes, pull the alarm, and just says : 

“Shit’s fire.” 

DAMIAN

He had to have a minor surgery on his jaw, but was still put under anesthetic. Bruce, having witnessed his other kids under it, is ready to have a good laugh...But his boy is just sitting there, waiting for his father to fill in some paperwork and pay for the surgery. Yeah sure, it’s a little weird that he keeps petting his tongue but, ya know, maybe he’s feeling weird because his entire mouth is numb. Then Bruce is done with paperworks and such, and goes to Damian, who proceeds to tell him he got “a ‘ew ‘at” (a new cat)...

“Um. Really, champ ? Uuuh...Where is it ?” ----> Bruce playing along. And then Damian looks at him and breaks into a huge goofy smile and says : “’Ight ‘ere.” (Right here) Showing the tongue he has been petting for the past twenty minutes. Damian then tells to whoever goes by that he has a new cat and asks them if they want to pet him. Bruce takes him home, laughing to himself all the way, and promises a Damian who came back to his senses that this little story will indeed stay between them. 

BRUCE 

Not actually him after dentist, but something I thought about a lot :

Dentist : “Mister Wayne, do you grind your teeth ?” 

Bruce : “Yes. Have you seen how many children I have ?” 

Also, he waits the last minute before having to urgently remove his wisdom teeth, because the big bad bat is...afraid of the dentist. Alfred has to go with him. Bruce makes sure all the kids are busy this day, to their great disappointment...Alfred takes a lot of video for them (because it’s unfair he got to see them all floozy and they didn’t). The kids make a montage of it and post it on YouTube, as well as on instagram stories, calling it : “Is Bruce Wayne ok ?”, and it’s like a bunch of short images of what Bruce did after his surgery, still under the anesthetic’s influence. Him crying, him laughing like a mad man the second after, him hugging a pillow shaped like a tooth and refusing to let go because he thinks it’s the one they took out of his mouth, blabbering nonsense, asking for a “taco milkshake” etc etc...Of course, video went viral. 

ALFRED 

Has apparently nothing wrong with him, which is infuriating to the family who was really expecting him to have something that they could eventually use against him. Since he “raised” most of the them, he has way too much leverage against them, and they have way too little. But he’s just normal, and it’s so annoying. 

Up until they come home, and he goes in the kitchen, ignores Bruce telling him that he needs to get some rest, and proceeds to whip a five course meal, making the weirdest combination ever...Porridge and Turkey ? Saurkraut in an Enchilada ? Salt and Vinegar chips in a smoothie ?

STEPHANIE

Bruce picks her up after her wisdom teeth removal (it’sjusttheeasythinghaha), along with Tim, and she has that dreamy look in her eyes. Tim asks her if she’s alright, and she’s like : 

“The dentist said I need a crown.” 

Tim and Bruce are a little perplex, like, this doesn’t sound nice ? But then Steph looks at them and just says : 

“I said, I KNOW RIGHT ?! Guys. I’m going to be a queen.” 

Queue Bruce and Tim smiling, and Steph mumbling something about how one day, she’ll be the boss of them haha. 

DUKE

Of course, Bruce went with Duke because...Well, he unfortunately has no one else :/. And when you have any sort of surgery, it’s nice to have someone you trust with you. So. Anyway. Surgery goes on, and Duke wakes up after a few hours, a little out of it. He looks at Bruce, smiles and is like : “Hiii Brush !” while laughing a little to himself. Which makes B smile too, but then he gets worried because all of a sudden, Duke freezes, and stares at the nurse. Then after a few seconds he’s whispering to Bruce : 

“Hey, hey, why didn’t you tell me that Céline Dion was my nurse ?” 

Evidently, Bruce is confused. Duke then proceeds to admit his biggest guilty pleasure is to blast Céline Dion’s songs when he’s alone. Gushes over that nurse that looks NOTHING like Céline Dion, but he’s SURE it’s her. He blushes and is embarassed because he’s such a fan ! But then finally asks for an autograph, sings her songs badly (even worst with all the gauze in his mouth), and leaves the room, holding onto Bruce, with tears in his eyes because man...he just met Céline Dion ! 

BARBARA

Wakes up from having her wisdom teeth removed, crying, admitting that she killed the president...Which one ? Martin Van Buren of course. Spends the next few minutes crying about how she’s a disgrace to her family because she killed someone and HER DAD IS A COP !! Starts to sing : “Mammmaaaaaaaa, I killed a maaaaaaan” while still crying. But then suddenly is sure that she actually got framed, and becomes super suspicious of everyone, everything culminating when Dick comes to pick her up to bring her home and she thinks he’s the one that is “blackmailing” her, so she takes a run for it...Dick gets Barbara back to her place with a black eye, saying “I don’t want to talk about it” to Commissioner Gordon. Haha. 

LUCAS FOX :

As the dentists says : “I need to put some bitewings in your mouth for the X-rays ok ?”

Luke Fox : “Bat...wing ? Oh. OH ! BATWING !” Hahahaha (could also work with David of course). 

************

Ok done. Again, nothing to take too seriously, it’s obviously just a few little jokes :). Wanted to share nonetheless, I like writing “domestic” lighthearted Batfam stuffs...haha ^^' .

Ah and yeah I know some members of the Batfam extended family (it’s pretty big now) are missing, but I guess it just means I’ll make another post about it hehe. So please, don’t give me too much grief about those I “forgot”, it was getting too long ^^. 

[florenceandthemachine]

since we’re back on our bullshit pls consider: jackson in glasses and stiles losing his mind at how soft he looks in them thank u and goodnight

now that we.... back on our bullshit?

“hey Siri were we ever not on our bullshit?” “no”

“ok ty”

anyway here’s a little short thing because the only thing Stiles loves more than Jackson is Jackson in some big handsome dorky frames, ahahaha ha h a!!!!!!  what a nerd, am I right? h haha hahahhahhh!!!

--

Jackson would probably get them in college. He’s getting his pre-law stuff out of the way so he can get into law school a year early, and taking an accelerated program even then so he can graduate at the same time as Stiles does with his masters in criminal justice.

(And partially because his parents said that they would pay for his schooling, which in Jackson’s mind meant the sooner he was done with school, the sooner he could burn that bridge and never look back.)

He got accepted into UCLA, and accepted because he wanted to go there, thank you very much, not because most of the pack had been accepted there as well. And Stilinski, for some reason, how had such a weird level of scholarship fuckery that he basically had a full ride—Jackson could admit that was impressive, because if anyone knew what it was like to fuck the system so successfully, it was Jackson. 

As great as college would be, as great as it would be for Jackson to become more independent, and more reliant on himself and the pack, as great as it would be for Jackson to have his own “great bi awakening” (”shut the fuck up, Stilinski, I swear to Christ—”).... college would be a whole new realm of issues for him. 

The most annoying was easily the least problematic—staring at screens for ten hours a day hurt his fucking eyes.

It didn’t seem to be something that could be helped, either—staring away from the screen helped his supernatural healing kick in, sure, but the irritation came back as soon as he was looking at his laptop.

Old Jackson would have probably shut up and stared at his laptop screen until he went blind, because he was NOT one to deal with things in a healthy manner. 

New Jackson was.... a little better, in that it only took him a few weeks before he asked Derek what the fuck was up. 

As it turned out, blue light was an issue for werewolves, so that was cool. 

It was an easy fix, but that didn’t mean that Jackson was thrilled about it. He had never had to wear glasses before—he had kind of hoped that becoming a werewolf was going to head that off at the pass before even age would affect his vision—so he was less than looking forward to the next pack study session. 

As usual, he was one of the last people to show up to the huge table they had basically claimed in the Darling Law Library (it was his week, next week would be in the Biomedical library for Lydia), and he slunk to the furthest end of the table before pulling out his glasses, glaring daggers at anyone who dared to make a remark.

They weren’t bad looking, of course. Jackson had basically picked out the nicest designer frames he could find, ignored anything having to do with a prescription, and paid extra for the blue light filters. The result was something he could live with—a nice dark frame, thick enough to add credibility to his profile without being bulky, stylish in a timeless way instead of something trendy that would be out of season in a year.

By the time Stiles showed up, they had already broken into their little teams—Allison and Lydia were flipping flash cards at a frankly impressive rate, Scott and Isaac were busy working on translations that neither of them were getting quite right (seriously the formal vous was not that difficult) and Jackson was nearly buried behind a pile of books. 

Truth be told, he had literally taken less than a minute to forget about the glasses—the relief from his headache was great, but nothing he could really focus on. So when Stiles sat beside him and Jackson looked up, catching his gaze, he literally had no idea why Stiles cut himself off and started to gape at him like a fish.

Jackson did the worlds slowest double take when, typing up several more passages from law textbook, he saw Stiles still staring at him. He moved to push his glasses up, and—oh fuck, that’s right, he was wearing glasses—and suddenly Stiles’ staring took on a whole new tone. 

“Can I help you?” he snapped, his self consciousness coming out in a sneered whisper that would probably have been much curler sounding if he had any volume in his voice. Stiles, for what it was worth, seemed to shake out of his stupor.

“No, no, Jackson, you just... I mean... you have really nice eyes. I can’t believe I didn’t notice before.”

Jackson frowns, scanning the heartbeat for a lie, but Stiles is being honest... and that’s something that he’s not sure how to deal with quite yet, so he just shrugs it off. 

“All of me is pretty, Stilinski, now get to work.”

--

As Stiles was so fond of saying, once was an incident, twice was a coincidence, and three times was a pattern, and Jackson was pretty sure that he was up to six times and counting where he had adjusted his glasses, or pushed them up into his hair, or even tapped at the side of the frame, and had Stiles immediately snap his attention to him. 

Which wasn’t a bad thing, he figured. He was man enough to admit that he had definitely grown to appreciate how Stilinski grew into himself over their first year of college—gone was the awkward, s scrawny teenager, and in his place was a more confident, self respecting, young adult...

... who just seemed to revert back into a teenager whenever Jackson did something like, take off his glasses. Or clean his glasses. Or push his glasses up. Stiles would always falter in his step, or trail off in his speech, or—as Jackson noted, pulling his glasses off as he pretended to read and sticking one of the arms in his mouth—literally walk into a doorways.

And it just. Kept. Happening.

It got to the point where Stiles got a B on his midterm (which was NOT the end of the world, like Scott kept reassuring him, but for a perfectionist like Jackson... well, he could definitely relate to how stressed out Stiles got about it). 

He even started to try to leave his glasses at home when he could, but that was always a recipe for disaster. Because now that Jackson had noticed Stiles looking at him, it was all he could notice, even without his glasses off. The only difference was that he now had a headache, so he was already irritable, which meant he usually started snapping between the second and third time he caught Stiles staring at him, which meant that there was more than one study session where Lydia had sent them all home early.

The most recent of which ended in Jackson, sitting in his car, rubbing his temples and growling, as if that would help the headache. He had all but threatened to gut Stiles if he looked over one more time, and Lydia had taken a minute after declaring the session was over to mentally shake Jackson to death. 

“You two get to study alone next week until you can play nice. Whatever the fuck is going on, fix it. With him. Immediately.”

Jackson hated Lydia. Mostly because she was always right.

--

Since they had been banned from the library by She who Wields the Table Reservations, Jackson had decided to announce that they would be taking a study break—Stiles only seemed too happy to oblige, especially if Jackson’s idea of a night off was terrible food and bad movies. He had threatened Stiles under risk of bodily injury to secure the good couch on the fourth floor of the student union while he went and picked up far too much fast food for two growing boys, even if one was a bottomless pit and one was a werewolf.

“So, are you finally going to ask me out or what?” Jackson asked, an hour into their “study session” where neither of them had even attempted to crack a book yet. After giving up on forgoing the frames, he had started wearing the glasses more and more often—even when there wasn’t a laptop in sight, just a couch and a table littered with wrappers from their greasy, delicious haul.

He figured it was the safest way to address the tension between them. Either Stiles would snap at him and storm off, or laugh about it and shrug things away, or they could actually fucking get somewhere like adults—Jackson wasn’t picky, he just wanted something to fucking progress.

Stiles promptly choked on a curly fry, looking at Jackson like he was crazy, opening his mouth to prepare for what Jackson knew was going to be a protest—so he was surprised when Stiles closed his mouth again, tilting his head. 

“Fine, but you better be taking me somewhere nice.”

Jackson laughed and threw another fry at him, shaking his head. “Fucking finally. Here I thought you just liked me for my glasses.” he said with a smirk, looking at Stiles over the rim of his glasses in a way that he knew would have Stiles blushing so prettily in no time flat.

Stiles tiled his head a little at that, a small smile on his face. “Don’t get me wrong, the glasses look is definitely... I mean, it’s.... god, you’re so pretty, but dude, just ask Lydia. I’ve been gazing longingly at you ever since you announced you wanted to go into family law to help make sure no kids wind up in your situation.”

Jackson frowned—that was at the beginning of freshman year, just over a year ago, there was no way—but Stiles heart was ringing true. 

Oh. 

“Oh.”

Jackson pinked up, and Stiles crooned.

(On Halloween, Stiles talks Jackson into doing a couples costume—Batman and Superman. Jackson shows up to Stiles’ apartment in a suit, tie, and his glasses, and Stiles—clad in his Batman suit—is pissed. All Jackson has to do is open his button down shirt to reveal the big “S” underneath and Stiles has to pick his jaw up off the floor.

“My hero.” he breathes.

They barely make it to Lydias party before midnight.)

[popwasabi]

What “The Dark Knight” says about our bad politics

Waaay back in the summer of 2008, me and my dad drove up to Northern California to attend San Jose State University’s freshman orientation.

It was a long drawn out process where first-year students basically were told and shown a bunch of things they would forget and relearn by their first day anyways and culminated with all of us spending one night in the campus dorms so we could all get a taste of the “campus life” experience.

I wanted it to end badly for a couple reasons. Being an introvert, I was not comfortable sharing a room with anyone, let alone a stranger, for a night but more importantly, I was being kept from the biggest movie premiere of the year that day: “The Dark Knight.”

As soon as I woke up the next morning, I rushed my dad to find the nearest theater and purchased tickets immediately for a late-night screening. I was already a huge fan of “Batman Begins” but every trailer to Christopher Nolan’s epic follow-up indicated we were in for an even bigger blockbuster than before and I was beyond pumped.

(Me getting the fuck off campus to watch “The Dark Knight” that day.)

Two and a half hours later I left the theater blown away by the experience. “The Dark Knight” was everything, at the time, I was hoping for in a comic book movie; angsty, dark, edgy (all things I thought I was as a teen), cinematically sharp, thrilling, a fantastic score once again by the legendary Hans Zimmer, and fulfilled just about every fanboy wet dream I had at the time for a perfect Batman movie.

To this day it remains the most satisfying theatrical experience I’ve ever had seeing a movie, not that it’s my favorite movie of all-time anymore, mind you, but that I have never gone into a movie with such high expectations and had them blown away quite like that since.

(Conversely, this^ was my most disappointing experience...)

I’m a different person now, of course. If you were to wipe my memory of the film and had to watch it again today I doubt I would have the same fanboygasm I had then as the cynical 30-year-old I am now but I’ll argue that “The Dark knight” still remains a high mark, if not the standard, for comic book movies today.

That said, parts of this film have definitely not aged well. Visually the film still holds up, the action is still exciting, the performances are all stellar (though Bale’s Batman voice is still bad) but what hasn’t aged well, for me, are the movie’s politics.

“The Dark Knight” is, of course, a post 9/11 movie, in fact, it’s arguably the definitive one as its pop-cultural footprint dwarfs pretty much all within its sub-genre. This Nolan sequel deals heavily in themes of terrorism with its iconic villain The Joker, played maniacally by the late great Heath ledger, wreaking havoc across Gotham with various explosive devices. Though the Clown Prince is more an anarchist than someone with an ideology, like those in Al Qaeda or the Taliban, the results of his beliefs/non-beliefs are more or less the same; cause pandemonium and fear in the masses. Batman, representing the power of justice and order, does battle with this in a war to save Gotham’s soul and again this is still a damn entertaining and thrilling story.

(Seriously, it’s still a rock solid entry in the comic book movie genre.)

But where the film’s 9/11 politics become problematic is toward the end of the film when the Joker begins his final act to plunge Gotham into unstoppable chaos. Batman becomes desperate; The Joker has eluded him at every turn, always two steps ahead of him, escaping justice no matter what Bruce Wayne does so he concocts a plan to finally to locate and stop the Joker for good.

He creates an elaborate sonar system using every cell phone in Gotham, effectively creating a massive surveillance state to spy on its citizens in order to locate the Joker.

(And it’s the only time we have ever got the real Batman eyes on screen, damn it!)

Lucius Fox, played by Morgan Freeman, appropriately calls this out telling him he’s wrong and that he cannot support this but Batman insists that it’s the only way. Fox reluctantly agrees and tells him he’ll resign once this is over as he can’t morally support such a system. The sonar, of course, works and Batman is able to stop the Clown Prince once and for all and upon Fox entering his name into the sonar computer the program dissolves and is deleted presumably for good.

This is of course to wash Batman’s hands of this deed to the audience. Our protagonist knows this is wrong, the audience is told it is wrong but by ending the surveillance he shows he would never abuse such a program, that sometimes good men have to do terrible things to defeat evil and that makes it ok.

For years, as a bleeding heart liberal (at the time) who grew up in the Bush years but loved the hell out of this movie, I tried to reconcile with this part of the story because Batman was the hero. I thought maybe this kind of action is ok because if the “good guy” is in charge bad stuff is fine because he/she won’t abuse such power. That’s real justice, right?

The problem is in the real world, at the top, there really aren’t any good guys and they are counting on you to believe that they are when they get a hold of such power because that’s how we are programmed.

The Patriot Act, which was the signature Bush-era reform post 9/11, created our current surveillance state. In the interest of national security and ensuring those “dern turrists don’t go killing lil’ Timmy riding his tricycle out in Des Moines, Iowa” our elected leaders, both republican and democratic (make no mistake), effectively signed away our constitutional rights to “ensure our safety” by spying on us basically without warrants. The proponents proudly claimed its necessity in fighting the “War on Terrorism” and those naysayers either shouldn’t worry “if you have nothing to hide” or worse were un-American Taliban sympathizers.

For progressives, of course, this was an evil violation of our civil liberties but for many conservatives, this wasn’t a big deal. They are just trying to keep us safe after all. 

But conveniently ignored by many on the left still today is the complicity they had in bringing about this era in warrantless surveillance. Yes, this policy started under Bush, of course, but it continued to be re-upped through the Obama administration and the Trump administration, not to mention revolving majorities in the House and Senate, showing no matter who was in charge they all liked the idea of keeping an eye on all of us with or without reason.

Considering the Patriot Act was made to win the “War on Terrorism” our leaders were never going to relinquish this power anyways because you can’t win a war on terrorism. Terrorism is not a country or a people, it’s an ideology behind many different ideologies. The US, no matter how you see it, be it as liberators or oppressors, will always have enemies and that’s all the reason they need to keep this power it seems.

Having the data on our lives mined like oil can easily be used against us in a variety of ways regardless of if any of us have terroristic or even criminal intentions. But for many in this country, it was only a problem if the wrong guy wielded that power. As soon as their “good guy” got in though, suddenly it was no big deal. I wonder why...

“The Dark Knight” puts forth a problematic view on who can and should wield supreme power, that even terrible choices can be made as long as the “right” person is the one making them.

Liberals are notorious for justifying them when it’s one of them who does it.

It’s a lie. A lie that both parties use to their advantage because they want you believe everything they do can be justified because you happen to be a part of their party; the “good guys” once again. But there is something extra cynical about the way liberals wield it as they parade themselves around as paragons and moral pillars against the Jokers of the Republican party.

For all the platitudes liberals give, that would make some superhero speeches seem benign, they wear masks about as well as the vigilantes do but not for the same reasons. When confronted by this blatant hypocrisy, liberal voters justify all kinds of horrible things as long as the other “bad guy” isn’t the one doing it. For all the shit Bush gets, and rightfully so, for plunging us into a military, financial, and humanitarian quagmire in the Middle East, Obama gets almost zero real pushback by liberals for effectively drone bombing the hell out of the same people. During these past three years Trump has more or less allowed ICE to run rampant on immigrant communities sure and liberals have been critical, again as they should, but who made the cages they were thrown into and who deported more of them during his first three years in office than Trump did?

(And once again, and I can’t emphasize this enough, Andrew Cuomo is NOT your fucking friend...)

Liberals often like to present themselves as the moral purveyors of good in the face of conservative opposition and they use it to their advantage to more or less do many of the same foul things those with R’s next to their name do. Sure, not all their actions are equally as evil but even then, we rarely truly hold either of our leaders feet to the fire because we believe their actions are somehow better because they have a “D” next to their name.

These horrific policies and actions will never see justice as long as we keep justifying them because the “right” person is behind them.

No, this is not an all sides are equally bad take. That discussion requires more nuance and for a different time, but I will say both sides are varying degrees of bad that should be taken seriously instead of not at all and can’t be pushed aside again and again and again because “the other guys are worse.” 

We are running into the same situation today as our presidential election features a credibly accused rapist, sexual predator, who supports Bush-era tax cuts, who takes money from major corporate lobbyists, who is against Medicare for All, has open disdain for millenials, and not only supports but openly bragged about the aforementioned The Patriot Act.

Hmmm, sounds an awful lot like someone we know, huh?

You could argue that one of these two men mitigates, or even vastly mitigates, harm if in office and I’m not here to necessarily scold you for making what you feel is morally the least awful choice but the point still remains; we are justifying evil again because our “good guy” is in charge.

Being liberal, just on its own, does not vastly minimize the problematic nature of a bad person.

Regardless of how you feel about this election and what choice you plan to make this November (and again, I’m not here to tell you what to do), bad things and bad policies will be continued to be enacted by bad people because that’s what choices we’ve been given. There isn’t a good one and the most vulnerable will be hurt the most by it regardless of who wins. There is a reason so many are disillusioned with voting and it’s not just voter suppression laws.

I can already hear some of you screaming “OH MER GERD pURiTy TeStS,” but this is far more cynical a standard we have than simply choosing a less than perfect candidate. Many are already making rather tone-deaf comments about people being “privileged” for choosing not to compromise their morals anymore. What’s “privileged” is voting for the guy who will do less harm for you but ultimately still disproportionately harm more people of color no matter who is in office.  

(The country and the world can really begin to truly heal when a Democrat is in charge of one of these Freedom Machines once again!)

Yes, I might agree that one is probably a net positive for the world at this point but to act like someone choosing to not participate anymore in what is effectively a never-ending cycle I can’t say I blame them either. At some point, our society has to draw a real line in the sand on these things with our leaders and force a more moral standard for our government instead of the status quo.

We can’t go on this endless “pragmatic” path picking “the lesser of two evils” until we gradually just become evil. You can make the argument that maybe the time isn’t now, and you might be right but when? These folks at the top are COUNTING on us accepting circumstances and justifying terrible beliefs and actions over and over again because of the state of our politics.

“The Dark Knight” believes that sometimes bad things must be done to defeat evil but the real world can be so much less cynical if we stopped compromising on our beliefs. It’s not entirely too late for us to do the right thing. We can’t go on forever letting bad behavior go because the “good guy” will be the one doing it instead of the other one.

Taking money from corrupt billionaires is wrong. Extra-judicially drone bombing the Middle East endlessly is wrong. Throwing migrants in cages like fucking animals is wrong. Rape and sexual assault are wrong. Mass warrantless surveillance is wrong. Doesn’t matter if its Batman or fucking Superman doing any of these things; immoral behavior cannot and should not be ever justified.

Otherwise, we really will live long enough to see ourselves become the villain...

Looking forward to the comments on this one...

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

we’re partners in this.

so titans 2.12 was mostly about (awkwardly) moving pieces around to get them in place for a grand finale. it was great! but also awkward. but great! let’s talk about it, if you don’t mind:

SPOILERS ahead.

1. i apologise for going off on a tangent right off the bat, but i just had this weird bit of insight about this show’s universe and it’s kind of hilarious. so you know those clickbaity articles about titans fucking up its worldbuilding by having its characters be so blase about protecting their superhero identities? (screenrant and cbr have inundated my newsfeed. oh good lord the pain. the agony.) maybe that’s just how It’s Meant To Be. batman and robin have been around for at least a decade and a half; the big bat’s likely been around for longer. the justice league is a sophisticated organisation with connections, representation and influence on worldly affairs. no doubt there has been countless battles and alien invasions--to the point where superheroes have become so ingrained in public life that their identities are semi-public knowledge but Nobody Gives A Shit. it’s like asking folks about their local legislators--people are aware that they exist and perform a Function in society and that a minimal amount of research would reveal who they are, but most aren’t keen on/interested in doing that. as a result, keeping up a secret identity isn’t the priority it used to be. and That’s Fine! the titans universe is its own beast with its own internal mechanics and as long as it’s internally consistent, let it deviate from its comic origins as much as it wants to.

oh typical emmram, i can hear you say. scrambling for explanations to excuse careless writing and plot holes. well, dear Strawman I Just Made Up, you may be partially right--there was a time when i would’ve waved my ‘the author is dead’ flag, but (i like to think) i’ve matured since then. but also: have you considered that plot holes aren’t really plot holes if you can successfully use what’s been established about a story’s universe to explain them away and that it’s significantly more fun? 

with this background in mind, i can appreciate more than ever that titans plays out more like an intense, soapy family drama (with perhaps higher stakes than your average soap). this was never a show about a bunch of disparate heroes coming together and finding purpose in order to defeat a common enemy. this was always about a bunch of kids who grew up in a world where vigilantism and superheroing and magic and alien invasions are just an accepted part of life, and the deeply dysfunctional ways they keep coming together and pinballing away, over and over again. there’s no point where each of the characters have definitely Gotten Over Their Issues so they can all gather together to defeat the big bad; it’s why this late in the game we can have rachel looking for people to connect to and relate with that aren’t a series of adults who claim to protect her but only keep her in the dark; hank at the bottom of a self-destructive spiral; dick barely picking himself up from rock bottom, and kory falling apart at the seams. 

so anyway, that’s it on this edition of Emmram Tries To Give A Grand Unifying Theory of Titans; let’s move on to the actual episode.

2. rose’s story could’ve been so good, you guys. actually you know what, scratch that (she types, on a computer while having 20+ years’ experience in knowing how to use the backspace key), it’s a great story that got muddled in the process of the show trying to tell a number of great stories all at once. this season has been inexorably building up to dick grayson becoming nightwing, using his unreliable narration to build up suspense as we see him battle personal hangups and the fallout from literal decades of trauma to gain a sense of equilibrium and a renewal of purpose (it can be argued that even now, on the cusp of actually putting on that dang costume, he hasn’t really learned anything--but i’ll get to that later). if this is the main story that this season is trying to tell, then taking two gigantic detours for episode-long flashbacks and building up to jericho’s death as much as they did makes perfect sense. it also makes sense to set slade up as a foil to dick, in that they are both caught up in their heads and make self-absorbed decisions to protect their ‘children’ but dick comes through with the realisation that that’s a crock of bullshit. 

but that’s not the case, is it? there are so many things going on at once but they’re all orbiting around this throughline of ‘dick becoming nightwing’ and so we only get the barest glimpses of some relatively complex character motivations and development going on with the others. 

2.25. in this episode’s flashback (we’re still getting flashbacks! in literally the penultimate episode of the season! god i have never wanted to take a red pen to anything more) we come to a number of weighty realisations: the extent of rose’s powers, her feelings of otherness, her desire to connect with her father so that she doesn’t feel alone in her otherness, how desperate she is to connect with him--so much so that she’s willing to throw away her entire life and undergo physical mutilation in service of his revenge plan--and how...learning exactly how her brother died and... being with jason??? made her change her mind??? ok that last one’s a bit muddled, but i’ll try and make sense of it.

as far as i can see, there are four big turning points in rose’s story so far:

a) that moment in the car when slade invites rose to join him and reveals that he’s basically been funding her ‘normal’ middle class life till that point. i can imagine how destabilising that realisation might be to rose, and why she might think going along with slade, no matter how weird and how abrupt, is how she’s going to live a life true to who she is

b) but imagine actually being taken in by the titans, being given shelter and support and succour by a group that her father had described as ruthless and manipulative. i can imagine her still being on board with slade’s plan, but maybe the reason she didn’t do all that she could’ve possibly done while at the tower to sabotage the titans might be because she’s actually interacting with these people, and while they might be a Hot Mess, they aren’t actively cruel or vindictive. i wish the show had woven in more scenes of rose interacting with the others, of her learning intimate things about their pasts, of her bonding with the younger titans’ struggle with their own ‘freakish’ natures. rose hardly seems to have any presence at all after her intro episode, and that’s a pity.

c) dick’s confession about what actually happened with slade and jericho. it’s more complicated than she was lead to believe--her father was actually complicit in her brother’s death. it’s a very confusing moment for rose, who’s already (probably) feeling the first stirrings of guilt, unsure, really, about her devotion to the father and brother that she’s known only for a little longer than the titans themselves, and slowly coming to the sick realisation that slade used her as a pawn in his game against the titans. 

d) jason latching onto rose is understandable--he saw her as the only person making the effort to connect with him when he was feeling vulnerable and rejected by almost everybody else. jason practically bleeds a need for connection and acceptance. i don’t think rose anticipated that jason would come with her, or be as attached to her as he is--but she sees in him a sensitive and struggling soul baring his heart to her, and in herself the kind of deception and secrecy that she’d originally wanted to rebel against. so she finally comes clean with him, and thinks they should help the titans against her father.

i mean. i might be making some assumptions (actually i’m making a lot of assumptions, to be fair), but i’m just trying to work with what the show’s given us, which is... not insubstantial, but haphazard enough that it’s easy to forget that rose exists sometimes. 

3. i fell asleep right after watching this episode for the first time, and apparently at some point before actually sleeping i appear to have had some kind of Great Insight about it because in the notes app on my phone i typed in “dick bruce concept of justice” with no further explanation.

i’ve spent the better part of this evening trying to retrace my train of thought, and i think it went like this: essentially, i was curious that dick was so broken up about jericho dying that he banished himself to a five year long lonely journey to seek penance that ended with him voluntarily getting himself arrested, but didn’t seem all that cut up about zucco dying or basically ordering the deaths of the scientists at the asylum in 1.07. betraying jericho and the older titans’ trust in him is a far greater burden on him than being responsible for the death of people who have wronged him or hurt the people he loves. but this is also a man who has internalised batman’s mission and ethos for the better part of his life, so he can’t actually come out and admit that. instead the two things come together to form one conclusion: he killed jericho, and he must be punished for it. 

(i also imagine locking himself away in prison was a result of growing up under the influence of batman--who responded to trauma by embarking on rigorous, brutal, solitary journey of penance and extreme self-discipline. batman doesn’t ask for help. batman goes to the batcave and rides it out.)

so when dick finally breaks himself out of jail, it isn’t because he’s come to a great realisation about his self-destructive behaviour (although he’s aware of it on some subconscious level); it’s because he realised the thing he was punishing himself for didn’t actually happen. he hasn’t really learnt a lesson. to be fair, he would need some pretty intensive therapy to untangle the things running through his head, so it seems quite believable that this is the way he gets back on his feet in time to be nightwing.

4. i know people think that the conversation between rachel and kory was awkward, and uh, it kinda was a little bit, but it makes sense that they can talk like that to each other. rachel wants to protect dick but feels confident enough with kory to lash out at her; kory is unafraid to be vulnerable or sad around rachel which just feeds into the trust that rachel has in kory. i don’t know, i thought that conversation was a nice way to both re-establish this dynamic and give some insight into what kory’s feeling.

5. god, mercy graves--a family woman!--tenderly wiping the blood off gar’s chin after having turned him into her own personal killing machine is just... so unsettling on so many levels.

5.5. it continues to KILL me that gar had so much faith in the titans right up to the very moment he had his fucking skull opened up and his brains messed with against his will: an undeserving loyalty to a family who took his easygoing acceptance of their shitty treatment of him at face value and essentially threw him to the wolves. how do you even start recovering from this? i feel like we’ve gone past the point where a few heart-to-hearts could help.

6. man, hank spiralling the way he did was too brutal to be anything but deeply uncomfortable. i’m sure the teenager who bought hank’s suit from him was supposed to inspire hank and remind him of his place and purpose as a titan, but it came off as kind of a cruel joke. hank has been putting his body out on the firing line over and over and over again, and his lesson is to be told that he isn’t putting himself out there enough? yikes.

7. stu and lily and their collective disdain for dick grayson’s drama are my new favourite characters on the show and deserve their own damn spin-off. MAKE IT HAPPEN DC

[aboyandhisstarship]

Kindergarten AU: car crash

Thanks to @dysphoric-artist for the prompt and proof reading

still written in a diary style  and () are still kid adding his thoughts in after the fact 

anyway without further ado lets hop into it 

Ok now, you may not unreasonably say something along the lines of “Mike, you have literally died, hundreds of times. A good chuck of which happened when you were just a kid…how are you not 8 different kinds of traumatized.” And I thank you for your concern (weird guy who is reading my diary…really who does that you would have to broke into my room and stole this thing…which is uncool in every state) to be frank, I am traumatized…but I can’t really tell anyone why, what am I going to tell a headshrinker?

 Headshrinker: so Mike…why don’t you talk to me about the tragic events at your kindergarten….”

Me:  *bursts out laughing* which one…the time I got killed by the principle…or bugs, or monty, or Cindy…or the janitor…or those weird monster things (this would go on for some time)

Headshrinker: uhhh, I think you’re crazy…off to the crazy house!  (ok in fairness I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work this way…but I’m not exactly keen to find out.)

“Ok Mike” you may retort, “They might think you’re crazy…but you could be a superhero! Like the Flash, or Batman! They could call you….Reapto!”  (First off Random guy, Reapto? that’s the best you can come up with?) I tried that once to be the big hero…it can be rather hit or miss.

 High school parking lot:

Nugget said with a smile “if friend Mike, Friend Carla and the Pretty Lilly would be willing to accompany Nugget, we will indulge in some super…”

Nugget was interrupted by the loudest car screech I ever heard, my eyes went wide as felt massive pain and the air forced out of my chest.

I shoot up hyperventling as my alarm went off screaming a little bit too loudly “FUCK!”

My mother bless her soul, responded with an “I know you don’t want to go to school today young man but I will not tolerant such language.” (yea that was embarrassing)

I shook my self-off, and considered putting on a tally before deciding that it was a one off death adding to my journal *Don’t go to the parking lot after school Dummy* (normally I leave myself notes like this…and normally they are a lot more helpful, like don’t mix the red and green flowers it blows up the room you know useful stuff)

 Hallway, My high school:

I had been glancing at my watch about 4 times and Carla (Perceptive as she is) finally snapped “goddamn it Mike you got a date or something?”

I smiled awkwardly “what me no!?”

Lillie frowned “alright you are sketchy…”

Nugget nodded “friend Mike is definitely hiding something.”

A second later a car came crashing into the school slamming through several walls, nailing all 3 of us I paused briefly musing  “man I didn’t think the school was this badly built,” Before hitting the ground hard.

I woke up to the sound of my alarm and groaned grabbing my pillow throwing my face into it saying “not again!”

Before throwing himself out of bed grabbing his marker he added two marks onto my skin

5 loops later:

Ok I didn’t know the school was this badly built, guess what no matter where I was I got taken out by that car, the bathroom, Boom, the library, boom…I even skipped school once…I may have gotten grounded but I laughed thinking I had in fact won, only to get hit by a different car crossing the road, and looping. (I sometimes wonder if the universe hates me…)

But before I died I did get some valuable intel, I saw the death count (the entire school by the way…yea after this I wrote a strongly worded letter to the school board…again) but also the names of the folks in the car, two high school seniors…(now for the sake of timelines I can’t tell you who they are, but mike they didn’t die! Yea yea…just trust me the less anyone knows about the other timelines the better off we all are, tried that once when I first started looping…the planet literally exploded, so no names) so these teens who I dub….Bob and Bertha  crash and kill the whole school…and I need to find out why.

 So I approached the gang saying “alright sit down.”

Monty asked “what this about mike.” His voice clearly impaintent

so I lifted my arm showing the tally’s, that was it they were all ears as I explained “alright in exactly.” I glanced at my watch “4 and half hours, a car comes crashing into school and kill literally everyone, we need to stop that so ideas?”

Jerome proposed “maybe tell them?”

Buggs shook his head “real high and mighty types won’t listen to us.”

Lilly sighed “well they crashed into the building…so they clearly were not leaving it…”

Billy nodded “that’s right, that means they left are coming back for someone or something…we figure out what and bing bang boom.”

I pointed out “has it literally ever been that easy?”

Ted smiled “me and penny can think about cars, figure out what caused it.” Quickly blushing

Penny also blushed “I would love to Teddy…”

Felix cleared his throat “perhaps me and Cindy can get close to them ?”

Cindy smiled brightly (she had grown out of her bitchiness, but she was natural born queen bee, even if she was cool with us all the snobs and assholes in school love her.) “I can reach out…maybe find out what they have going on and more intel.”

I nodded “right find out what we can but tell me before it happens, so I can write it down.”

Everyone responded “right!”

I spent most of the loop with Monty and Carla using their connections to figure out if they were getting any drugs or other fun stuff to explain there “Skillful” driving (got em….yea ok not the best burn)

 Loop 12th:

I woke up with another groan “If I have to read another book about cars I am going to lose it!”

He glanced at his notes the car (a 66 Camaro…I swear those two are like a couple form the 60’s) and the other intel he had gathered from the others (they had indeed been indulging in drugs those bad bad boys and girls…ok I’m not one to talk, seeing  the number of crimes I have technically committed…but those were other timelines…and you know what let’s not go down that rabbit hole)  but the issue was simple, they had indeed nought some weed from Carla and monty’s secretive network (I never asked) but had not in fact gotten it yet, so the question still stood as to what exactly caused it.

 Nugget hole:

The Lair  (Ozzy wanted to call it that)  is what we call our base of operation’s,  I have been spending my time shooting down ideas that we already tried and smiling with evil glee whenever I  make ted and penny work together (honestly I want to yell make out already whenever I see them) but then it hit us, instead of stopping the car crash maybe we should stop them leaving.

 Now mike, you are likely saying, I literally thought of that after like the third loop, first off no you didn’t you liar, (seeing as we didn’t even know who they were then) also, this loop was different normally there are multiple things that need doing to affect a change in the timeline, so it is almost never that easy (ohh jee mister principle, the star athlete and his girl are going to skip class and kill us all ohh geee, yea real convincing huh?)  there was of course the factor, that our group (ok just me) were not exactly popular around school or town, they called us the kinder busters (pretty badass name right?...yea I don’t dig it either) so people consider us bad luck (to be fair…we did end up at two schools run by crazy kidnappers in a row…if that is not unlucky I don’t know what is.)so we needed a couple of people that will actually be believed, now 3 guesses of who my friends who Is the most likely to believed about that kind of thing?

Cindy? Well no seeing as she has her queen bee rep they may think that she is “fronting” (there words not mine…I shuddered just thinking about them trying to street)

Bugs? (HAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHAHAHA *snort* HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA…wait your serious… HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA)

Carla or Monty (better, but no joy they are bit to up to something…we need purist faces.)

Ok by now you have either guess correctly (good job!) or are yelling at the page, “stop teasing me mike and tell me!”

And naturally the answer is Ted and Penny, (I mean have you seen those faces! Who could say no to them?!)

Of course I had to convince them to do it.

 Nugget hole:

Ted asked “are you sure about this?”

I smiled “of course I am…ninty percent sure this will work.”

Penny smiled “relax Teddy this will be fine.”

I pulled out 5 dollars “here you go get yourselves some ice cream afterwards.”

Ted pointed out “you know I’m a billionaire right…”

Penny took the five dollars saying “deal! Come on Teddy.”

Now you dear reader may be sitting there thinking “that was easy, that’s it, what no boss fight, no dramatic showdown, no sweet groundhog day style montage where you do whatever you want?” (that was happened…more on that later)

My rebuttal to that dear sir, is screw you  let me have this, alright most of time when I start looping I have to fight monsters and a whole thing so I think I earned a nice break, but you might be sitting thinking “that was anti-climactic! Did Ted and Penny at least go on a date!?”

My answer to that is a yes… and no, you see both told me (under the promise to never tell a soul after the loop) they also sadly made me promise not tell the other person, now you may say Mike…after the loop they would not remember, you can pull a sneaky and just tell them that they like each other, and while you are right I don’t for a couple of reasons, number one being I keep my promises, number 2 is they would think I am messing with them (I know right those oblivious idoits.)

But sadly this journal is not a relationship journal of ted and penny (sorry guys, but this supposed to be a record of loops) but I will quietly disclose that they may have been a kiss on the cheek (I screamed I tell you)  of course they are still claiming to be friends in front of us but I don’t buy it…anyway I should proably end this entry…

So thanks for reading? (I mean you are reading a private journal…so I don’t know why you are reading this)

Mike June 26 20XX

[seriouslycromulent]

MCU’s Captain Marvel - Thoughts, review & more

I’m off to see DC’s latest superhero reincarnation Shazam later today, but I wanted to make sure I captured my thoughts on the MCU’s last superhero outing, Captain Marvel, so I don’t get my feedback crossed. 

I know I’ve said in the past that I’ve been a bit burned out when it comes to comic book movie (CBM) adaptations, but there are a few here and there that still catch my eye, and essentially I’ve boiled it down to: “Does this genuinely pique my interest?” 

Now, I wasn’t too interested in Captain Marvel based on the trailers and didn’t plan to see it, but I struck a deal with my Mom. (Backstory: She and my stepfather go to see all the superhero movies because, hello!, they’re the nerds that nurtured this Big Nerd. Seriously, I started reading comic books because of them, and my geekery just grew and grew. I rely on them often to fact check the fandom details most comic book nerds on Tumblr claim to be authorities on. And yes, their 40+ years of comic book knowledge and expertise puts most of you to shame.)

With that said, she wasn’t very interested in Shazam. She said it looks like they’re aiming for a kids-only audience, and that made it kind of m’eh to her. But I said I would go see it because I’m a Zachary Levi fan. Billy Batson’s OK, but for me, it’s the casting of Zach that piqued my interest. So the deal was that she would see Captain Marvel and tell me if she thought I’d like it. And I’d see Shazam and do the same for her. Based on her commentary, I went to see CM, and now I’m returning the favor.

That was the intro. 

Now, here’s the set-up.

If you’ve read anything related to the CBM-world here on my Tumblr, you know that I am a supporter of the DCEU, X-Men and the MCU, but I go hardest for the DC universe. You’ll also know if you stop by often that my point-of-view rarely matches up with the popular perspective within the fandom world, in general, or in the fandom communities, specifically.

But unlike some (dare I say, many), I never want to harsh anyone’s squee! If you loved something that I didn’t. Bless you. Live in that love, and pay me no mind. I have no desire to rain on anyone’s parade simply because I don’t land on the same conclusion regarding comic book characters or their feature film adaptations. I don’t think less of you, hate you, or even care if you don’t agree with me. If you do, that’s cool. If not, that’s cool too. 

But before I jump into my mini-review of Captain Marvel, allow me to prepare you for how I roll. Here are some examples of where I landed after watching many, but not all, of the films from the MCU, DCEU, X-Men, Deadpool, and Spiderman franchises. I repeat, I rarely share the popular perspective or take on a CBM as the masses. You have been warned.

I enjoyed Ant Man and the sequel. If they made a third film, I’d see it.

Logan is a brilliant masterpiece, and I would change absolutely nothing about it.

Although I’ve never been a big fan of origin stories because they’re typically written like the audience is simple and can’t appreciate anything beyond the most cookie-cutter of plots and a paint-by-numbers of good and evil characters, I enjoyed Sam Raimi’s first film of the Spiderman franchise the most when it comes to comic book adaptation origin stories. So far, he’s still the person to beat in this category.

I enjoy most of the X-Men films, but often find the changes they make to the characters unnecessary and poorly executed. I also want Bryan Singer to leave the Summers boys alone. 

I found the Wonder Woman film completely underwhelming. Why? See my #3 regarding origin stories.

I enjoyed Black Panther, but was not really wowed by it.

I enjoyed both Deadpool films, but I still think his character is highly overrated by male fans. I like the movies for what they are. They don’t really say anything. You’re just meant to “Ooh!” and “Aah!” and LOL! Then go home. I can respect that.

I thought Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was brilliant, and easily one of the best comic book-based films of the last 20 years. That film is a work of art, and I’m saddened that Zach Snyder’s vision wasn’t appreciated and respected by the studio. Even if the mainstream public thinks that comic book movies should be light and fluffy with virtually no connection to any messages of substance or strong characterization, the studio should have respected his vision and let him complete it with Justice League.

I liked The Avengers and I thought Age of Ultron was pretty decent, but I felt that Civil War was a mess of poor characterization, weak execution, absurd conclusions, unresolved tension, and a dispensable villain unworthy of the audience’s time. Literally everything the mainstream public and MCU fanboys (and fangirls) complained about Batman v Superman applies to Civil War, not to BvS. Civil War was the film that was rushed, and it shows.

I have virtually no interest at all in the main storyline of the MCU anymore. I don’t care about Thanos. I didn’t see Infinity War, and I don’t really plan to see Endgame. Yes, I’m aware of certain events happening regarding specific characters. Still don’t care. The run-up to this final showdown with Thanos was so poorly done and underwhelming that I have no emotional investment in this fight anymore. 

Now, if you’re still reading, I want to say thank you for sticking around and ... welcome to my brain. Since this post is already long, let’s dive into Captain Marvel.

I saw the film twice. So that right there should tell you I enjoyed it. Yet, the weekend it came out, apparently, a bunch of fanboys and a handful of critics took to their keyboards and YouTube channels to review it and cry disappointment. Ultimately, I didn’t care too much because, again, it didn’t really pique my interest. 

Then my Mom told me what she thought about the film and how it was the antithesis of what the fanboys and reviewers were claiming, and this ... is what actually piqued my interest. I love a good mystery, and I felt as if I needed to see the film for myself to not only see what the hubbub was about, but to also determine who was wrong/right. 

So I saw it the following Tuesday after its opening weekend. And I walked out feeling as if the MCU had finally grown up.

What I liked

The 1990s nostalgia without the 1990s “nostalgia.” That is, the language, the clothes, the tech, the venues, etc. were all great throwbacks to this oddly romanticized decade without any of the romanticizing. As someone who was a teen throughout the ‘90s, and remembers it somewhat differently than others, I appreciate that. Respect.

Maria Rambeau. She is a best friend who gets to shine and enjoy the spotlight in her own way. She also has dark skin and short hair. (Yes, it matters.) But more importantly, Maria Rambeau isn’t a sidekick. Instead, she is the best friend everyone dreams of. Not only is she smart, fearless, and a badass behind the controls of a space-worthy fighter jet, but she’s also not judgmental. I don’t know many people who wouldn’t have some residual anger over being made to believe their ace boon was dead for 6 years, then one day just knocks on your door and say “What’s up? I’m not sure who I am.”

The villain-turned-not-so-bad-after-all Talos, played to perfection by Ben Mendelssohn, has the best one-liners and reaction shots in the film. Also, we get aliens with a variety of accents, character depth, and families. 

Despite the fact that the passengers on the light rail/subway car saw the “old lady” could handle herself in a fight, the surrounding passengers did get involved to try and pull Danvers off of the old lady because, from a common sense perspective, this young woman should not have been trying to beat the hell out of an old woman. Kudos to them for trying to do the right thing.

I’m scared of Ms. Monica and her guilting her Mom to fly with Danvers, Fury and Talos on a life-endangering mission. When she said, “Just think about what kind of example you are setting for your daughter if you don’t go?” I was like, “No, she did not!”

The perfect subversion of the “prove to me you can beat me without weapons” gag at the end. Not only because it means that Yon-Rogg (Jude Law’s character) might show up in later films, but because that trope is sooooooo annoying. Plus, we all know she’s stronger, so why bother?

There’s some subtle commentary about the treatment of refugees as terrorists or enemies of the people by the same people who made them refugees in the first place. I would like to think that commentary is intentional, but that may be asking for too much.

What I didn’t care for

The CGI on Phil Coulson’s face. Um, yeah. That was not good. It would seem they spent more time on getting Samuel L. Jackson’s face just right so he could look believably younger, but then they ran out of time to do the same for Clark Gregg.

The CGI they used on Annette Bening’s face is ... not great in some scenes. Not all. Just some.

Why does Danvers sitting down with Fury in the bar for a Q&A about their past provide proof that they’re not Skrull? If the Skrull can’t adsorb distant memories, then this Q&A would only fill you with confidence to trust the other person if you actually know the other person. Danvers didn’t know Fury before that day, and he didn’t know her. Sitting there and answering questions only lays the groundwork to determine if they’re not Skrull later, but it shouldn’t provide proof that they can trust that the other isn’t a Skrull at that very moment. Also, how does Fury know that the Skrull can’t shoot blasts from their hands? He’s just going to take her word for it? Although given he was told by his “boss” to stay close to her and find out what she knows, I could see this as him simply playing along for the sake of his mission.

I’m not really buying this imaginary world where a black woman in the military is taking the time to keep her hair straightened while flying jets and working on special aircraft missions. However, I will suspend disbelief this time due to the fact that Rambeau was working on a top secret project and therefore was not necessarily hindered by the typical schedule of the average fighter pilot. ... This time.

I wished we could have seen more of Gemma Chan. Yeah, Minn-Erva’s a bad guy, but ... it’s Gemma Chan. I already had fanfiction theories playing in my head about her relationship with Yon-Rogg before I left the theater.

What I loved

We go on a journey with this character. We learn about her as she learns about herself, which is what keeps us invested beyond the “she’s going to be Captain Marvel by the end of the movie, obvs.” idea. This is an origin story done in a far more interesting and captivating way than anything presented in the Marvel cinematic universe since Iron Man. We get flashbacks to the most unassuming events of her life that later turn out to be the most important ones. Where others complained about this approach to an origin story, I wholeheartedly applaud it. Nothing in CA: The First Avenger, Thor or Ant Man was as clever or interesting as this angle when it comes to introducing a superhero’s origin.

I don’t want a flurkin. But at the same time, I want a flurkin.

Having a villain who turns out not to be a villain, and a mentor who turns out to be our actual villain, was to me another sign that the MCU has finally realized that complexity isn’t a bad thing and not every story must have a one-note single-purpose villain. Yes, we get a little bit of that in Ronan (Lee Pace’s character), but to lead the audience down this road where not all the information you receive can be immediately trusted suits me just fine. It’s realistic and engaging. Danvers’ confusion mimics our confusion, but not so much that we can’t enjoy the story. We don’t have it all figured out and determined who has the moral high-ground until she does. I love that. And as a writer myself, I respect that. 

I love, love, loved the 1990s songs in this movie. Not only because the songs reminded me of my adolescence and you can never go wrong with Garbage’s “Only Happy When It Rains,” but because No Doubt’s “I’m Just A Girl” is THE perfect song for the big showdown between Danvers and her former Kree brethren. I almost jumped out of my seat in excitement when I heard that music intro. Kudos to whomever made this soundtrack! 

There is no love story. Unless you count the love between 2 best friends/family being reunited, there’s no love story. Thank you.

When I first started watching the film, I had to scratch my head. I thought, “Since when are the Kree good guys?” After watching every season of Agents of Shield and knowing how it’s the Kree who leave mankind dangling on by a thread, manipulating them, torturing them, and turning them into their own little ant farm, my brain had to pause and question this version of the Marvel universe where Danvers is a Kree. But as the story continues, of course, we’re led on this journey where we learn 1) I was right not to trust the Kree as good guys, 2) there are some Kree who are good and Dr. Mar-vell is one of them, and 3) the MCU is capable of writing stories where character development isn’t sacrificed just for laughs and boss fights. See what I mean about growing up?

I think that’s it for now. This review is already long enough, and I’m sure I could discuss more details about the film if I had more time. Yes, I am aware of the mainstream critic and fandom backlash against the film. I’ve heard some of the complaints, and frankly, I struggle to find the justification for them anywhere in the film.

I read one critic complained saying that because the audience doesn’t know who Danvers is from the beginning, she’s hard to root for or identify with. I disagree. The audience learns as Danvers learns. And by the end of the film, it’s clear that what matters most about her is not her name or where she’s from, but what she does with her power. Personally, that’s a great message to everyone when you think about it. 

I’m also aware that a lot of the fandom backlash has been ... how do you say ... male-driven. I think that’s unfortunate given that Captain Marvel is the MCU’s first female-led superhero movie and it’s long overdue. I don’t know if CM is flawless (I doubt it), but I know I enjoyed it as much as (and in a lot cases, more than) the other superhero origin MCU films. The message was great and the character relatable. 

No, I’m not saying everyone can relate to a human-turned-all-powerful-superhero by a blast that should have killed her, but we can all relate to understanding that it doesn’t matter how many times we are knocked down, what matters is how many times we stand back up. 

I’m not usually one for the hokey, after-school special messaging that a lot of MCU films (and DCtv shows) push, but that message about what makes her a hero (the standing up after getting knocked down) seems just as powerful as the message behind what makes Steve Rogers a hero (it’s not the special serum, but the fact he was willing to die for his countrymen in battle). I’m not sure how Danvers’ story is less worthwhile than Rogers’ story.

As for fanboys saying the studio should have just made a film about Natasha/Black Widow, it’s statements like that that make others wonder if your dissatisfaction with Captain Marvel isn’t rooted in misogyny. You would rather watch an origin film about a female team member on an already predominantly-male team where she plays a role, but is in no way as strong or as powerful enough to go toe-to-toe with most of the team members. Hmmm? 

Hear how that sounds? There’s nothing wrong with liking Natasha. She’s the bomb. But again, making a film about Black Widow instead of Danvers, leaves the Avengers with one less female character, and one less character who can kick ass and take names with the big boys. The fanboys -- whether intentional or not -- have painted themselves as afraid of Captain Marvel’s strength and the power she has to be actually considered an equal to the other members of the team.

Perhaps if they said the MCU should’ve made a standalone or origin film about the Scarlet Witch, the misogyny wouldn’t be as glaring.

I don’t know. I’ll leave that argument for others for now. I’m heading out to movies now. Shazam here I come!

[onisionisacanceronthisearth]

Greg vs Alleged Classmate Part 6: Abuse

So this is the final part of the video starts with a secret child of Greg but mostly involved Greg talking about his relationship with Lainey. This was a tough one to get through and I’m sorry if it isn’t my most coherent one. I didn’t edit this one that much and Greg rambled a lot but I couldn’t go back and re-read most of my work. I’m sorry

It’s not creepy to mention kids Greg, holy shit

Ok, so this needs to be said. If I say my aunt has 5 kids, that isn’t talking about the kids, it’s talking about the aunt. If I say my aunt’s kids are all in school, that’s talking about the kids but it’s vague and just mildly descriptive. If I say “my aunt’s eldest female child whose name is Sansa Stark married Tyrion Lannister at age 14″, THAT is getting creepy in terms of how much I’m talking about the child who probably should remain more anonymous than that. We got that? Good, Greg still doesn’t so he wastes my time talking about how creepy it is to say he has a secret kid for the kid’s sake despite nothing actually being told about the kid and then skips the video. He misses a lot, and hilariously, it wasn’t even about the kid still

What Greg missed in the full minute he skips

It’s second-hand information again but M trusts the source

Lainey doesn’t know

He’s gone from small annoyances which have now blown up into very large, unmanaged problems since high school. These issues now define him as a person

“I don’t have any chemistry with Lainey???”

Nope, you didn’t then and you don’t now

Apparently, he defines chemistry with kissing on camera. His proof of chemistry is that with Skye they never kissed on camera but with Lainey he does. Also he again forgets this interview is old because he says how they both kiss in her videos. Also is claiming M said him and Skye were passionate which isn’t the case, just that Greg flip-flopped a lot and abused her then left her out to dry.

Yay, another gay joke. Even dressed as a boy, kissing Lainey, if anything, proves how little you love them because you show no passion in the kiss, push her away, belittle her in your videos, shit on her, scare her, etc. Your videos prove you don’t love her. It is heartbreaking even if you don’t like Lainey.

Also, years don’t count when it’s abusive, it just shows how long you’ve groomed and manipulated her Greg. Also, THIS INTERVIEW IS 3 YEARS OLD

And now I’d say Lainey does know you, she’s just so stuck on you. I don’t need to know the victim to hate the abuser, I don’t have to know the victim to feel sympathy for them. I don’t need to know Skye, I don’t need to know Shiloh, I don’t need to know Adrienne, I don’t need to know Billie, I don’t need to know Lainey, I don’t need to know Sarah, I don’t need to know Maya, I don’t need to know Madison. They’re all women you’ve used and abused. The last three you did so through Lainey

Billie blame

If we want to see Lainey be abused by someone we should watch “My Side of the Story” by Lainey. But the main shitty person there isn’t Greg apparently, it’s Billie for how she responded to what they did to her and putting all the blame on her when at most it was half. With Greg pulling all the strings

And Greg is claiming she basically told Lainey to kill herself using vague imagery using a hateful and direct way because he needs to make sure we can’t turn around and showcase the many times Greg has told someone to kill themselves.

So Billie is the horrible, violent, abusive person while Greg stood by his spouse, If by “stand by” he means standing in front of his pregnant spouse and signing his two kids to her because he’s leaving her for Billie then yes, he did “stand by” her. The only reason he’s “still here” is because Billie didn’t take him back

Holy manipulation of a situation Batman!

Also, this interview is pre-Billie so this argument makes even less sense

ALSO, he very specifically describes abuse as violent. I want him to try and refute his actual abuse which is much quieter than that. Especially abuse they’re talking about which is pre-Billie, but I’m glad to know anytime he thinks of a time he was shitty, he at least thinks of the time he cheated on Lainey and told her to deal with it then told her he was leaving and didn’t give to shits about her, their son, and their unborn child while also thinking he wasn’t that bad

I don’t want to listen to this: skips the good stuff and makes out like M is creepy for thinking of Greg’s child-filled audience

He skips:

M predicting what Greg was going to do if he ever responded (pretend it’s all a lie)

His millions of audience members will believe him. Thankfully, no. This video has 20k views and only 300 good comments (with some bad ones he hasn’t deleted yet). Likes/dislikes turned off

“You know this is just a grand version of what he would do back in high school. As opposed to saying “I have problems, I did some messed up things” ; he’ll say “I don't have problems, I don’t do messed up things. None of this is true“ --> sounds about right

“Watching him so easily be all right with making himself a role model to hundreds of thousands of children out there, teenagers are frankly still children“ ----> Greg skips here and hears “thousands of children” before going “yuck” and skipping, building a retoric that M is a creepy pedo as per usual

“Some of these kids, my son and my daughter, are going to be the same age as these kids that watch him right now one day.. and it breaks my heart that a lot of these kids are gonna sit there and think ‘that is how I should be in life. I should be someone that judges other people, whom I don’t know, for things that aren’t any of my business.’“ ---> I wish Greg had responded to this

“How could I have changed since high school?” also “Cycle of abuse? What’s that?”

Greg states he’s confused because in high school he had to rely on his mom and now he controls others

People change, though you still act as if the government is going to act like your mom and not ever punish you for doing things wrong

People who experience abuse tend to inflict it on other. You admit your mom was abusive Greg, these two stages in your life link together quite well

My spouse is a psych major, how can she be abused?

Simple:

“good thing Greg doesn’t hit me”

“Oh, it’s different when he does it”

“but he wouldn’t be nice if he hated me”

“we have kids”

“he kisses me on camera” (Like Jaclyn)

“he came back to me after he left”

Also, not all psych degrees cover abuse and Lainey only has her bachelor's degree. Or at least as in-depth as Greg seems to think. It’s possible to miss things in your own life. That’s why therapists have their own therapists, that’s why doctors can’t prescribe things for themselves or family. Not to mention you’d already sunk your claws into your obsessed fan before she ever read a psych book. When you’re gaslit and abused, something as simple as logic or googling “am I in an abusive relationship” does not register to you as a red flag. The latter happened to me, I googled it at least once every six months, ticked all the red flags, then said no, doesn’t apply here. But it did, and it does the moment you had to google that phrase. Lainey went through the motions in a video, she came up with the same bullshit I did and elected to ignore the questions even she couldn’t pretend didn’t apply as many do. People who are abused don’t tend to know they’re abused until it’s too late. If we knew we’d have left long before being raped or beaten by our “loving” partners. As I’ve said before, fuck you Greg

“I paid for their school”

Irrelevant, but glad to know you hold it over her head. Also glad you decided to put in how much money it was in your statement.

Also, her father was paying her tuition and board, as well as giving her an allowance. All while she was secretly married to you. You simply wasted your own and his money. Yeah, her father had every right to threaten to pull her college fund, she wasn’t owed it, and it was a desperate attempt to get his essentially kidnapped daughter to come home from the adult man who had preyed on her and took her away as his own.

His argument here is, “deflection to her dad without context”, “look, I saved her”, and finally “I gave her her college education of 50k, this isn’t abuse because I gave her this massive gift that saved her life”. Wow, if that isn’t a nice abuse tactic...

“You guys aren’t psych majors, she is”

See the point of her being a psych major above plus the fact that experience helps identify it, almost all your former partners calling you abusive (“we get it, Greg, you like hurting young girls”), you filling all the checkboxes for abuse, outsider perspective, former friends calling you abusive, Social Fucking Repose identifying your abuse (I’d say he’s an expert in that field), and anyone who is a decent person can identify shit when they smell it

Also Lainey doesn’t have more psychology experience than all of us combined, she got a bachelor’s in psych degree online many years ago, never worked in the field or as a co-op student as far as I’m aware, never got her master’s, and her intention was to be a children’s social worker. She’s as qualified to talk about abuse as Kati Fuckface Morton is to talk about diagnosing and treating personality disorders as a marriage counsellor. Lainey should work for BetterHelp, at least she does have one degree

Concluding statements on abuse by Greg

And so we end with Greg attempting to gaslight the audience by calling us the crazy ones who are actually abusing Lainey by invalidating her feelings and the misunderstanding the cycle of abuse. Things Greg is gaslighting us as doing:

We’re acting like Lainey is stupid

That Lainey can’t think for herself

We’re belittling Lainey

We’re acting superior to Lainey

We’re attacking her intelligence and calling her nothing like a blob of goo on the pavement, essentially a vegetable

(See Lainey’s “Hater Listens to 21 Pilots” and see if this checks any of Greg’s behaviours on screen)

Greg now describes the cycle of abuse as the victim replicating their abusive dynamic. Sometimes it results in people running from one abusive relationship to another, other times it results in the victim never wanting to be a victim again and wanting power so they then become the next abuser. Greg himself calls himself the dom of his relationship, the “father figure” or “guider”. Also notes he pays for the bills in most relationships which is a typical sign of a power imbalance. We see two iterations with this with Greg, Greg being abused by his mom. She tried kicking him out before becoming an adult, yelled at him when he cried, beat him with a fire extinguisher, etc. Now Greg is the abuser, laughing at Lainey when she cries, makes her cry, talks down to her, uses her mercilessly, etc. And now Lainey uses children like Sarah the same way Greg uses and hurts her. Lainey also defends herself with these girls as her shield against Greg.

You kept your finances separate because you didn’t want a Skye situation, Lainey has a degree she cannot use to get a job, Lainey’s youtube was dependent on you and still mostly is. Lainey requires you for all emotional issues she has but yet you will wake up a guest in your house so she can deal with it instead of you.

Food for thought Greg, your mom abused you all your life, yet you always returned to her and tried keeping her happy until now. It’s almost as if you let your abuser get away with things

The video ends before the end of the interview, Greg never addresses the alleged death of two of his dogs

[thecreativeangel]

aut neca aut necare: lll

Peter Parker x Fem!Reader

*Please don’t plagiarize my work, thank you :3*

Summary: Apparently she’s not popular with reporters, she might have a thing for her best friend and has to watch her mother leave (good riddance?). 

Warnings: Cursing. Peter’s fallen madly in love.......with Kimberly. 🎉

Words: 2.7k 

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“Newest Queens vigilante “Nyx” seen alongside Spiderman on a midnight prowl of the city.” You read aloud at lunch, Peter and Ned listening closely. Michelle might have been listening in too, but she didn’t show it. “Nyx, seemingly an apprentice of sorts to Spiderman, was captured on camera by teens near the docks of Brooklyn. The teens provided little comment, except that they were uneasy with her presence.”

You threw the newspaper down, trying to hide the scowl that was forming on your face. That had been the latest article of many, all of them more condescending than the next. Compared to other papers this one was tame. And “Nyx”? Seriously? Like the MAKEUP BRAND?

“What do you think about it Peter?” Ned asked, staring at his friend with a suspicious level of curiosity. Peter only shrugged, nudging Ned with his elbow.

“She’s probably a nice person.” He said, picking up an apple slice. “I haven’t seen her around Queens yet.”

“Fuckin’ nosy ass paps,” You grumbled quietly. “‘They felt uneasy around her’? What a bunch of bull.”

“What’d you say Y/N?” Ned asked, leaning closer to you.

“Nothing,” You said lightly, smiling at him. “Just talking to myself.”

“It’s a weird name to call her, don’t you think?” Michelle said loudly from her end of the table. “‘Nyx’. Not really a superhero name.”

“I think it’s ‘cause she only comes out at night,” Ned answered, toying with the straw in his milk. “And she only wears black.”

“Nah, she wears dark blue and silver too.” Peter said passively. Michelle, Ned and you all turned to look at him with varying degrees of confusion.

“I saw some other pictures,” He explained quickly, sending you a sheepish smile. You had looked the most confused. “It’s a nice suit. She seems very cool.”

Michelle raised an eyebrow. “She only comes out at night.”

“Like a bat.” Ned commented.

“Like Batman.” Peter offered.

“Like someone who wants to blend in,” You said, wrinkling your nose. “Not like Batman.”

Peter opened his mouth to say something but closed it immediately. He looked behind you, watching someone pass by. Without looking you could tell it was Kimberly. No matter how hard he tried to hide it from his friends, Peter’s eyes got a bit brighter when she was near. You’d memorized that change without meaning to, even though you didn’t like it.

“I need to go get some water.” was Peter’s brilliant excuse to talk to her. You waved your hand dismissively, flipping through the news article lazily. It’s not like you told Peter that Kimberly hated you because you failed to save her mother. Telling him must have slipped from your mind. And it’s not like guilt ate away at your insides every day because of that failure. It’s not like that at all.

“Hey Kimberly…”

You listened into their conversation, somewhat irked, your eyes still trained on the article. Kimberly’s pleasant voice faded in and out of your hearing range. You heard her giggle, saying something back to him. Listening to them talk like normal people was torture. You focused back on your newspaper. ‘Several more reports came in from a family that claimed Nyx robbed last Saturday as they came back from a concert.’ You scoffed and noisily sipped apple juice through a straw. ‘The family also chose to remain anonymous.’ Ha! Turn on your location assholes, I just wanna talk. Peter sat down again, looking happier and more thoughtful than before.

“Well what happened?” MJ asked, still glued to her book. “Did you make out or what?”

“No! No-” Peter scratched the back of his neck. “We just talked.”

“About what?” You asked, regretting it soon after. You hadn’t wanted to ask, but it slipped out.

“She’s happy to talk to someone,” Peter said, his ears turning pink. “Her mom died in the fire last month, and it’s a lot to get used to. She’s so…”

“Resilient?” Ned finished.

“Yeah, but nice too.” Peter said, glancing back at Kimberly. “And positive.”

You saw her stand up once more to throw away her trash, flashing Peter a shy smile. And, when Peter had turned his back, she met eyes with you. Kimberly looked at you like she was watching an animal eat its own throw up. That’s exactly how disgusting you felt too. Her usually kind dark brown eyes shone with cold blooded murder.

“Hey, d’you guys already have Mrs. Keilman’s class?” Peter asked, sorting through his notes. You snapped out of your trance, happily taking the chance to look away from Kimberly.

“I had her second peri-”

Your phone dinged, and you scrambled to unlock it when you saw it was your mum. It was a short text: “Don’t go to Peter’s house after school.” Before you could reply, she sent another one. “Come straight home before 5. Or I’ll leave anyway.”

“Shit.” You muttered, typing out a quick “ok”. Peter, who’d been reading over your shoulder, pretended he was minding his own business. You were too tired to tell him off.

“So what’s your mom gotta say?” MJ asked, actually looking up from her book.

“She uh- she says I can’t go to Ned’s after school,” You said, playing with your food to avoid meeting her scrutinizing gaze. “She’s probably staying at the company over the weekend.”

“You can’t come over for movie night?” Ned asked dejectedly. “But we rented Back to the Future. Peter was going to bring popcorn.”

You put on a grin and patted his back. “It’s fine Ned. Michelle will be happy to take my place, won’t you Mickey?”

“Wh- excuse me-” MJ stuttered, probably for the first time since you’d met her. She suddenly looked very flustered, a general reaction to you calling her Mickey. “F-first of all, don’t call me that. Second-”

“She’d love to go Ned.” You cut her off.

Your mother set down her wine glass and stared at you through half lidded, unimpressed eyes. This happened often, the mother daughter staring competitions, testing who would crack first. Your ears and neck felt hot, and when she raised an eyebrow, you looked away. She always won.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me sooner,” You said, avoiding looking at her. You sounded pouty, like the child she thought you were. “What am I supposed to do for two months? How am I going to buy food? Is this even legal?”

“It’s legal unless you decide to tell the authorities,” Your mother said cooly. “Which you won’t. You’re sixteen now, old enough to make your own decisions instead of following me like a sheep. When I was sixteen-”

“You were already starting your college education, I know.”

Your mother picked the glass up again, taking a bored sip as you continued what she considered a childish rant. “Mum, I’m not even mad ‘cause you’re leaving- I’m pissed ‘cause you supposedly forgot to tell me.”

“Watch your language.” Was her only reply.

“What-” You snapped. “I’m allowed to stay at home alone for two months but I’m not allowed to curse? That’s some backwards logic right there-”

She stood up suddenly, nearly knocking the chair over in the process. Maybe it was an adult thing, but she had always been able to silence you with her glare. Add the fact that she was a smidge taller than you, assuring her win in this intimidation game. You noticed that suitcases were already laid out on the leather couch.

“I am only doing this because the company called me a few days ago, very short notice, mind you,” She huffed. “And they need me to be there, since Kacy proved to be an incapable-”

Your mother’s nose twitched. “I’ll leave you some money. Tell Peter’s aunt if you’d like, maybe she’ll help you with groceries and such. Don’t sit around being useless like you normally do.”

Having finished off her glass, she went to put it in the sink, once again ignoring your existence. That tended to happen when you disappointed mother, and it made you shake with anger. As soon as the wine glass left her hand-

It exploded. 

Your mother shrieked like a wild pig. Shards flew and scattered, thankfully staying mostly in the sink. You realized you’d been glaring at the glass and quickly looked away, still frowning.

“How the hell?” You mother breathed, hesitantly approaching the sink. She picked up a shard of glass and held it between her thumb and pointer finger, as if examining it would explain why the glass exploded. I did that. I didn’t even touch it!

“Have fun on your trip,” You murmured, pushing past her to get to your bedroom. “I hate you.”

She made no attempt to follow you, but yelled “fucking brat” as you slammed your door shut and locked it. With half a mind to fall on the bed and scream into a pillow, you instead decided to do something. Talk to someone, maybe. Still face down against the mattress, you blindly grabbed around for your phone and propped yourself up on your elbow to dial Peter.

“Hey, this is Peter. Parker. Uh, I messed up- May! How do I delete thi-”

You breathed a laugh, quiet just in case your mum was listening in. Peter never failed to mess up his voicemail. You’d been there when he spent two hours trying to make it perfect, in case Liz ever called. Through the door, you heard your mum loudly zipping up her suitcases and calling a cab. You shoved your head into the pillow and groaned. Should’ve asked when she was leaving.

You looked through your contacts and clicked May’s before thinking. Yes, dialing your best friend’s aunt’s number might not have been the best idea, but May was an angel. An angel who knew how to responsibly buy food and make out checks. She answered within two rings.

“Hello?”

“Hi May.” You greeted.

“Y/N!” She chimed. “Oh god, it’s wonderful to talk to you! How’s everything going?”

“It’s great,” You said lightly, cringing when your mum dropped a suitcase and cursed. Hopefully Aunt May didn’t hear that. “I’m doing alright. Is uh, is Peter home?”

“No. Sorry honey, he’s out with a friend. I could leave a message…?”

“That’s okay,” You refused politely. “Actually- Could I borrow Peter’s old bike? My mum won’t be able to drive me for a few months.”

“Sure, he doesn’t use it anyway. What’s wrong with your mom’s car?”

You bit your lip. “Her license expired. She has to retake the exam and all that. Can I come over and pick it up?”

“Mhmh, I’m home anyway, so…” You heard her briefly lift the phone from her ear. “Wait honey, Peter just got home. Do you want to talk to him?”

“That would be great, thank you.”

You practically felt her beam through the phone and call something to Peter. Laughter and feminine giggling sounded through your end, and no offence to Peter, but he never had girls over.

“Sorry honey,” May said, sounding confused and apologetic. “Peter’s busy right now, but you can still come over for the bike. He says he’s with a friend, but I’m positive she’s more than a friend, because I haven’t seen him look at anyone that way since Liz.”

The heat drained from your face. “M-May, who’s Peter’s friend?”

“Oh, she’s from his science class I think, very quiet by the way. I think her name is Kimberl-”

You chucked your phone across the room. Probably not your best moment, but come on. Of all the people, why, why, why, why why why why why wHY WHY-

Breathing in deeply through your nose, you marched over, picked up the phone and hesitantly lifted it to your ear. May was already panicking. “(Name) honey, are you okay? I think something fell-”

“M’fine May,” You answered. “K-knocked over my lamp, but it’s fine. I’m fine.”

She didn’t say anything for some time, and you heard her walk further away from Peter and Kimberly laughing. “Honey, is everything alright at home? If your mother’s being difficult, you can sleep over here for a few days.”

“No, no,” You said quickly. “Mum’s been normal. It’s not that.”

Only after saying that did you realize your mistake. It’s not that. You knew May narrowed her eyes when you said that. “What’s wrong...?”

You opened your mouth and were interrupted by a shriek of laughter from Kimberly. If it were possible, you felt May narrow her eyes even more and glance in their direction.

“Y/N sweetness,” She whispered, even more caring than before. “Is it Peter?”

You bit your lip harder, feeling the skin break beneath your teeth. May pretended to be clueless in terms of pop culture and teenage angst, but she understood better than any adult. She knew the answer. “Is this why he didn’t want to talk to you?”

“I don’t know,” You breathed sadly into the phone. “I don’t want to know. May, it’s better to drop it-”

“It’s her, isn’t it?”

May, you are too damn smart for anyone else’s good. Stay this way forever. “I-I think so.”

“Okay, okay, just tell me one thing,” Her voice trembled with poorly concealed excitement. “Oh, I’ve wanted to know for six years- Sorry, sorry, gotta stay on task. Do you…like him?”

For some reason you looked around the room to make sure no one was there, even though the door was locked. What a hard question. Well, not really, but it was impossible to put into words. Do I like Peter? I mean, he’s opted not to talk to me because Kimberly is there, and I wanna choke him right now… Haha, that’s what she said. If you did like Peter, did you want to? So far, him being your second biggest secret, you hated it. You’d spend life denying that you were attached to anyone, even your mother (you being emotionally distant was her fault, probably). The question still stood: Do I like Peter?

“Yeah.” You shyly mumbled into the phone. May squeaked the moment it left your lips.

“You have no idea how long I’ve waited,” May said breathlessly, like she were holding in a squeal. “This is so perfect! I mean, I always thought, hoped, even- But wow, that’s amazing!”

“Uh, May?”

“Yes honey?”

“He’s- Peter’s not-” You held the phone away from you and huffed. It seemed physically painful to say “he doesn’t like me”, but it was better to reject yourself before Peter got the chance. The group picture of him, you and Ned was sitting on your bed stand, collecting dust but ever present. You looked away from it. “Peter isn’t with Kimberly…to study. Just putting that out there.”

“Oh-” She gasped, biting her tongue. “Oh, I’m so sorry. She’s not very nice, by the way. Terrible girl. Very rude-”

“May, I know you like her. It’s okay that you like her. Kimberly’s a great person.”

It sort of burned your tongue to say that, but the statement was half true. Kim was nice to everyone, except you. She was kinder, more thoughtful, more tolerant and patient and optimistic. Perfect grades in all her advanced classes, in an already advanced school. Not to mention her flawless skin and shiny hair… But May seemed determined to make you feel better. “Y’know, there’s still something about her that I didn’t like.”

You smiled sadly at her attempt at cheering you up. “And what’s that?”

“She isn’t you, sweetness,” May said sincerely. “There’s only one of you.”

You laughed at that. “May-”

“I know, I know,” She confessed. “That might have been the corniest thing I’ve ever said, but I mean it. You’re such a wonderful girl, honey. Your mom just doesn’t give you enough credit.”

If this were said in person you might have cried, because even now your throat tightened with emotion. You let out a strangled “thanks May” before your voice got the chance to crack.

“No problem,” She said. “I’ll always be your honorary aunt. And honey?”

“Yeah?”

“Peter will always be your best friend,” May said thoughtfully. Peter and Kimberly’s voices got louder in the background. “But god help him if he hurts you, I swear I’ll-”

You giggled at her antics. “Thank you May. G’night.”

Aunt May grinned happily on her side of the call, feeling careworn but content. “Goodnight Y/N.”

Authors Note: This is the last chapter before things get...interesting. 

[theabominableblogger]

My Reaction to “Gotham” S5E4

...WOOF.

Also, this is just the episode of poor decisions all around.

AN:  I managed to record my reactions to this episode and hopefully I can transcribe what I said into this post. 

*imitates the Epic Voice Trailer guy doing the Gotham commercials and ends up laughing*

Is Selina ever gonna find out that Tabitha died?  Like, she was her mentor!

Oh God, is Will dead?!?

*A shot of the fiery Haven*  Oh my God... I don’t even wanna know the casualty count for this.

*jaw drops in absolute shock*

*Barbara points her gun at Oswald*  BARBARA YOU BETTER NOT!  NOT RIGHT NOW!

Oh my God!

Holy shit!  Something tells me this was NOT Jeremiah.  I don’t think- no, no, this wouldn’t have been him. 

Holy shit!

*softly gasps in horror when Harvey gives Jim the badge that he gave Will*

Nooo!  Where’s Will?  Where the frick did that kid go?  I know he’s alive!

*reels back when the opening theme starts*  We have to start an episode like that?!?

Oh my God..

“As of now, death toll stands at 311.  49 injured, more than 2 dozen left unaccounted for.”  *drops jaw in horror*

OK, we are meeting the Walker character!

“You have been promising me help for weeks.”  So how much time has passed between the first episode and this episode?

*An angry crowd comes into the precinct*  No one is gonna be happy!

OH MY GOD, JIM DOESN’T EVEN KNOW ABOUT BRUCE AND SELINA!

*reels back*  Shiiiiitt...

“But whoever destroyed that building can’t destroy the hope we’ve built.  Not unless we let them.”  Jim, I don’t think a speech is gonna help this time.

Lucius!  He’s in this episode this time!  Oh thank God!

“Nothing makes sense anymore.”  *shakes head*

“SELINA!”  Oh my God, Bruce!

Oh my God...

*Some of Ecco’s goons come in*  Ohh no.  Ohhhhhhhhhh noooo.

*Bruce beats up some of the goons while he’s still handcuffed to the door*  Holy crap, Bruce!  Let’s go!

*can’t help but laugh when Bruce tries throwing a wrench at a goon and missing him by a long shot*

*Alfred comes to the rescue*  Ohhh!!  Alfred!  Yes!

“I was afraid you didn’t get my signal.  Lucius said the range was only a couple of miles.”  What is that?!?

“Now go on then... how did that happen?”  Selina.

“I think you’re telling porkies.”  *laughs*  What?

AN:  British slang for a big lie.

“Until that day comes... I think we should go find her.  Don’t you?”  Oh God...

“Because the person who blew up Haven has to be stopped.  That’s all that matters now.”  So who blew up Haven?

“We heard people talking about a shady guy working around Haven before it blew.”  “This is Gotham.  You’re [Barbara] gonna have to do better than ‘shady guy.’“  *laughs*

Harlow Park?  How many parks are there?

“Do you really think I could have murdered all those people?”  No... that’s not your nature.  Barbara wouldn’t have done it.

*Penguin and Co. wait for Jim in the precinct*  Ooooohhhhhhhhhhhh-oooooohhhhh...

Is Oswald gonna try and team up with Jim?

*mouths along with Oswald saying “woefully apparent”*

“...you [Jim] are outmanned, outgunned, and out of options.”  *sings*  OUTNUMBERED, OUTPLANNED!

*Penguin’s men bring in more guns*  Holy shit, they’re bringing in the big guns.  Literally and figuratively!

“Ain’t you [Oswald] just St. Nick on Christmas morning?”  *chuckles*

“I’m guessing there are strings attached?”  “No strings.  Save for the one that we’ll cinch around the neck of the Haven bomber.”  Wow, everyone just really likes Jim today!  OK, OK... OK, something’s going on.

“Let’s just hold that in abeyance for the moment.”  Abeyance?

AN:  Means that you’re gonna put something on hold for the moment.

“What do you [Jim] say, partner?”  Oh God.

I thought he [Oswald] was gonna call him “old friend.”

*eyebrows raise in confusion when Ed finds a suitcase on his daybed*  Whaaat the...

I like this music going on.

[IN AT #1215]  Inmate?  Inmate!

“Inmate #1215 knows.  KNOWS WHAT?!?”  OK, are we talking like Blackgate or Arkham?

Where are we going?

Oh my God, the mayor posters [from S3]!

*The GCPD and Oswald’s group march*  Whoa, now that’s a troop!

“Don’t tell me I gave them hope!  They’re dead.”  JIIIIIMMMM...

*Oswald pulls out a megaphone*  Of course he has a megaphone!

“There goes the element of surprise.”  *laughs*

“We will root you out like the vermin you are!”  OSWALD, stop talking!

*gasps when someone shoots the megaphone*

Whoa whoa wait...

“We’re sitting ducks out here.”  “And one Penguin.  Hey Oswald, why don’t you crawl out there, grab that bullhorn, tell him to come out here quietly?”  *laughs*

*imitates Oswald’s insulted “Yooouu...”*

“Pretty cozy up here.”  *gasps excitedly and slams hands on desk*  IT’S ZSASZ!  IT’S ZSASZ!

“Oh hey guys!”  *excitedly waves hands*  HIIII!!!

*Victor blows Oswald a kiss*  OH MY GOD!

*Ed steals a refugee’s blanket in order to sneak into the precinct*  Are we serious?  Ed, are we kidding?  Are you kidding me?  That is the worst disguise!

It’s the “Thor Ragnarok” disguise!

*gasps when Lucius catches Ed in the records room*

“It’s impolite to sneak up on people.”  “So is breaking and entering.”  *laughs*

“I am given and I am taken.  I was there from your first breath and I will follow you until your death.”  Your name.

“Call it a personal matter.”  I love that pose [that Ed does]!

He looks like Jim Carrey in the beginning of Batman Forever, with the hair hanging in his face?  Holy crap.

“What is it that you [Lucius] would like?”  “Your [Ed’s] expertise.”  Whoa, what?

“So the second smartest man in Gotham needs my help?”  Ed, shut up.

*cracks up when Ed tries to take the file from Lucius and utterly fails*

*slams fist aggressively on desk*  Detectives Lucius Fox and Edward Nygma on the case!  Let’s go!

“I [Victor] did not make that building go boom, Jim.”  *cracks up*

“You gave up any shred of honor long ago!  Why should we believe a snake like you?!?”  “Because I would never take credit for somebody’s else’s work?”  I!  Love!  Zsasz!

“Is this about Sofia Falcone?  You should really move past that.  It’s not healthy.”  *laughs*

*still laughing*  Ahhh, I need to breathe!

He [Oswald] literally has a watch and is just holding it up!

Oh my God, is Jim gonna sneak up there and like, sneak attack him [Zsasz]?  Let’s go, Jim!

*cracks up when Zsasz goes for a drink break*

*Jim body slams Zsasz to the ground*  Oh my God!

Holy shit, Jim, that was the fastest take down I’ve ever seen!

“Well done, Jim.  We make a hell of a team.”  Surprisingly yes!

“Allow me [Oswald] to deal with him [Victor].”  No, no, we’re not- no, no.

“One of the areas I [Oswald] excel at is the loosening of tongues-”  Could we not word it like that?

Oswald, do not eff this up!

*Selina follows Ecco to Jeremiah’s lair*  Ohhhhhhh here we go!

*softly*  Hoooooo here we gooo...

How did you get there so fast, Selina?

*gasps when Jeremiah slits Sykes’s throat*

“Well, not with that attitude you’re not.”  *leans far and away from screen*  Shiiiiiittt, mannn!

“Everyone, let’s reach inside and dig a little deeper, shall we?”  TIM CURRY, THAT YOU?!?

*freaks out in disgust when Jeremiah licks blood off his knife*

Ohhhh... Oh God...

*pauses when Jeremiah starts talking to himself*

*laughs when Jeremiah stops talking to himself and awkwardly clears his throat when Ecco walks in*

*gasps when Jeremiah grabs Ecco by the neck to inspect her scar*

*is pretty much speechless when Jeremiah and Ecco start dancing*

“Bruce Wayne and his sidekick Curls- or is he the sidekick?”  *gives small smile*

“And Curls can walk.  Really well.  Especially... for a paraplegic.”  *jaw drops*

*raises eyebrow in interest when Jeremiah purrs appreciatively at Ecco*

Should we leave them alone at all... like do they need anything?

Like snacks.... a condom?  Like, like... um... kay...

AN:  Also, I can definitely tell that Cameron Monaghan looked at Tim Curry for Jeremiah, especially the voice and the way he looks at people.  Y’know how Tim Curry’s voice in “Rocky Horror Picture Show” just oozes this sort of sexual presence?  That’s exactly what he’s doing, especially when he’s with Ecco.

“OK recruits, let’s do like my daddy did before my sixth birthday and move out!”  *literally chokes on my drink*

Oh my God, wha- *has to take a moment to calm down and cough up my lungs*

OH MY GOD, did- did she just say [Ecco] that?

“Evidence of deflagration would suggest something with a slower burn rate, like gunpowder or nitroglycerin.”  A bazooka?  Did someone bazooka the building?

“The bomb was the building.”  *imitates the way Ed says “the bomb”*

“Ow!  That’s a really nice table.”  *chuckles*

“Figured with you guys occupied, I [Victor] might help myself to some of your supplies.”  Of course he would!

“If I blew up a building full of people, I would have covered every inch of my body in sweet, sweet scars.”  But let’s see them!

“You gonna do a strip search?  I’d [Victor] let Alvarez do it.  He’s handsome.”  *jaw drops*  Ohh my God!

AN:  What’s better is that line was improvised by Anthony Carrigan.

Oh that shot’s awesome [of Oswald in the precinct entrance]

“Oh, I did not expect you to go soft, Jim.”  He’s not going soft!  He’s telling you the evidence!

*shakes head and sighs in disappointment when Oswald orders his men to bring him Zsasz*

“Despite our inflamed passions-”  Could you not say that?

“Good to know who’s really in charge here, Jim.”  Oooohhh...

“That and the RPG case is right over there.”  Did the guy literally just leave out all the evidence for them to find?  Great job, dude.

“I truly hope you find whoever did this and make them pay.”  OK, so like everyone is after this Haven shooter!

“I appreciate your help, Ed.  Couldn’t have done it without you.  If you tell anyone I said that, I will deny it.”  *chuckles*  Lucius, I love you!

*Ed reads that the inmate he’s looking for is dead*  Oh my God...

Wait, why does he [Ed] have blood on his sleeve cuff?

“Deaf old bat!”  Oh my God...

“You gotta do something.”  “Yeah, like what?  Make another speech?”  *laughs* 

“Maybe this is what the people need.”  Jim, no!  You are turning into Magneto from “Dark Phoenix!”

“So, will I [Victor] be appointed a lawyer?  I feel like my rights are being violated.”  *chuckles*

*Victor gets his mouth duct taped shut*  MMM-MMM...

“He [Jim] claims that Mr. Zsasz is not responsible for the bombing!”  LISTEN TO THE EVIDENCE!

“Captain Gordon, if you would like to say something, now is the time.”  Do not make another freaking speech!

Tell the evidence, Jim!  Come on!  *slams water bottle on desk*

“I know you all want justice-”  Oh my- JIIM, we don’t need a speech!  We do not need a speech!

“What we do now is more important than ever.”  They're not gonna like that.

“Now that the defense has rested, let’s put it to the crowd.”  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

*Crowd calls Zsasz guilty*  Oh my God... WELP...

Oh there’s the Penguin theme in the background

*shakes head in disapproval*  Ohhhh my God...

Can we go back to Jeremiah?

OH MY GOD, IS THAT A GUILLOTINE?!?

*gasps*  The Pax Penguina posters!

“...I sentence you, Victor Zsasz, to die.”  No.

“Any last words?”  *sings*  THAT’S WHAT THEY ALL SAY!

*gasps when Oswald shoots the rope holding the guillotine blade up*

*sighs in relief when Harvey drags Zsasz away just in time*  Ohhhh my God, I thought he was gonna die!

Holy shit, I thought they were gonna kill off Victor.  Ohhh my God...

“I [Harvey] gotta be honest, Jim, I don’t know how safe Zsasz is gonna be at the GCPD.”  He’s not going to be safe.  Or he’s gonna escape.

*Jim decides to let Victor go*  Jesus Christ, Jim!

“This city will never be what you it to be, Jim.  It’s always gonna belong to the bad guys... like me.”  Hell yes it does!  Accept it, Jim!

“Give him your gun, Harvey!”  What??

We are not doing a showdown right now, Jim!

He’s [Victor] not gonna shoot Jim, he’s not gonna shoot him...

*gasps*  He [Jim] wants Victor to shoot him!

*jaw drops in shock*

*collapses back in relief when Victor turns him down*  Oh my God... oh my God...

“See you around, Jim.”  Jesus Christ...

Jim is losing it in this episode!

*gasps when some of the tunnel workers get knocked out*

That was Bruce, right?

*Bruce emerges from the shadows and catches up to Alfred*  YEAAHHH!  Let’s go!

Also, holy crap, how did they track down everyone else so fast?

*laughs when Jeremiah starts fanning himself with his hat*

“So what do we do when we feel like giving up?”  “Dig a little deeper.”  *starts singing “Dig a Little Deeper” from “The Princess and the Frog”*

*gasps and yells in absolute shock when Jeremiah gets stabbed*

“Deep enough?”  *covers mouth in hands and yells*

THEY’RE [the workers] JUST GONNA STAND THERE [while Selina stabs Jeremiah]?!?

*screams into hands when Selina stabs Jeremiah multiple times*

NO NO NO nonononono!

*yells when Bruce comes in and pulls Selina off Jeremiah*

*gasps when the workers go after Bruce*

OK, wait wh- what happened to Selina?!?

GET UP- NO, NONONONO!  GET UP!

*slams hands on desk repeatedly*  You’re fine, you’re fine, you’re fine!  Get up, get up, get up!

*sits back in chair*  Oh my God...

“I hate stairs!”  Me too!

OK, hold on, hold on...

“You were on the roof and you had some kind of a rocket.”  *jaw drops in shock*  OH MY GOD, ED BLEW UP HAVEN?!?

*Ed starts to remember*  Oh my God!

Why?!?  Why would he blow up Haven?!?

Also, the long hair and bowler hat is not a look.

*jaw drops when we see Ed blow up Haven in a flashback*

Woman in Apartment!  1215!

*Gasps when Ed shoves the witness out the window to her death*

Uh wha- wha-

*Jim takes a drink of whiskey*  Yeah, god damn, Jim, me too if I was old enough.

*shakes head*  WHY IS BARBARA THERE?!?

“Poor Jim.  All alone again.”  SHUT UP, Barbara.

“No one knows what it’s like to be him.”  Barbara, get the hell out!  Stop talking-

*Barbara gets in Jim’s face*  NO!  NO!  NONONONONO!  NO!  STOP IT!  RIGHT NOW!

MMMMMMMMMMMMM NO!  NO NO NO.

Jim, you better freaking not.

NO

*LEAVES THE ROOM when Jim kisses Barbara* Get the f-

*sits back down after a good five seconds*  Get the frick out of here!

*End credits start*  That’s it?  We’re just- we’re gonna end on that?  We’re gonna- what?!?

Wha- no, Jeremiah ain’t dead.  They’re gonna freakin’ leave Jeremiah there.  They’re gonna- Jesus...

Really?!?

I’m gonna need like a week to recover from that.  Holy crap!

[justfcrkicks]

01. what’s your name/alias you go by ??

it’s not my real name but i go by cody online, usually.

02. what’s your age ??

nineteen, almost twenty. i feel 12 tho

03. what’s your zodiac sign ??

aries! i added the exclamation point bc we’re supposed to be assertive but i didn’t get the memo.

04. what’s your ethnicity ??

umm what ISN’T my ethnicity is a better question haha. but no i’m mostly italian/sicilian, lots of different other european countries too, and also part native american, but sadly the only person that even knew what tribe was my grandmother who never really shared those details with anyone before her passing.

05. what’s your nationality ??

i am a US citizen :)

06. what’s your favorite band and/or musical artist ??

i can never answer this because i like pretty much every genre of music and my “favorite” is constantly in flux but right now i’ve been listening to a lot of greta van fleet, eminem, harry styles, joyner lucas, tenacious d, and also one specific willie nelson song has been on a constant loop when i’m not listening to the other stuff.

07. what’s your dream job ??

i don’t really have one tbh. lots of people do and that’s awesome, but sometimes people don’t believe me when i say the only thing that matters is that i don’t hate the job and it earns me enough money to live comfortably, maybe own a small house, reasonably priced car, etc. 

08. what’s one place you would love to visit ??

alpha centauri

09. what’s your favorite tv show ??

another one of those things where i can’t pick a favorite. i’ve been enjoying arrow, riverdale, titans, the ranch, sabrina, supergirl, the flash, legacies, and legends of tomorrow lately though. i’m also a big fan of general hospital, the 100, izombie, lucifer, and stranger things.

10. what’s your favorite movie ??

um... tough one but i have always had a soft spot for Joe Dirt, or The New Guy. Also, I really liked Why Him with James Franco, Bryan Cranston, and Zoey Deutch. I mean, not the greatest movies ever but they’re what come to mind when asked, so... lol

11. what’s your favorite song ??

as of the past couple weeks? “cruel cruel world” by willie nelson, or “unshaken” by d’angelo. for weeks before that it was “lucky you” by eminem & joyner lucas. but i really, unironically love “only in america” by riff raff. the video is hilarious and it just puts me in a good mood.

12. what’s your favorite sport ??

is watching tv a sport? haha video games is a sport, right...?

13. what’s your favorite food ??

pizza. or cereal. i have difficulty picking favorites if you couldn’t tell.

14. what’s your favorite face claim to use ??

chris wood or paul wesley, usually. i’ve just used them a lot and gotten used to them. i tried to justify chris wood for john but he’s way too buff to be john and his skinny gifs don’t look nearly enough like john to make any sense.

15. what’s your least favorite face claim ??

andy ballsack biersack. emma roberts. those two bring up bad memories. dylan o’brien. idk why, i like him well enough as an actor. i’m not necessarily opposed to rping with any of them though

16. what’s your favorite canon character to play ??

i played kai parker for a while. that was fun.

17. what’s your sexuality ??

heterosexual. i legitimately cannot remember a time i wasn’t into girls. as a toddler i’d play with barbies to take the clothes off lmfao

18. what’s the last movie you saw in a cinema/theater ??

batman v superman i think. it’s been way too long.

19. what’s the worst injury you’ve ever had ??

i’ve had some bad ones. i broke my wrist/hand in a few different places, which wasn’t too bad. had a sprained/fractured ankle which didn’t heal for like a year. but the worst was when i got assassin’s creed brotherhood as a kid and laid on my stomach across the whole couch, propped up on my elbows for like 7 hours straight. my back was in a u shape the whole time and when i finally moved, that was the moment i realized i fucked up lol

20. what’s a random or interesting fact about you ??

um.... idk i’m boring but maybe that i have lost 120lbs 

21. do you listen to music while you write ??

sometimes. if i find a good playlist (i’m too lazy to make one) that’s not too distracting then sometimes i’ll use it for a while but other times i just like the silence.

22. are you a morning, day, evening, or night writer ??

night. no matter how hard i try my sleep schedule always gets turned upside down eventually to where i get up at like 6 pm and go to sleep at like 10 am, so i usually only write while the skies are dark lol

23. have you ever roleplayed intoxicated ??

nope. i’ve never had a drink or done drugs so that’d be a neat trick. lol

24. what language or languages do you speak ??

only english. i’m probably too dumb to learn another language tbh. though for a while after playing assassin’s creed 2 i’d say random italian sentences and call people “stronzo!”

25. how long have you roleplayed ??

i mean technically i’ve been rping since i was 8 on myspace, but i didn’t move on to legit rp until i was like 11 or 12, then i went to rp.me for a while, then finally got to tumblr around 2012-2013. 

26. favorite roleplay genre ??

i don’t really have one, but i was once in a scifi rp that changed my view on what groups can be, and i think it was my favorite experience ever. everyone was so close and friendly and that made the rp even more fun, so now a good scifi rp brings up those memories for me and makes me enjoy that genre even more.

27. one sound you hate & one you love ??

ok so the sound i hate is nails scratching cotton. not a chalkboard, oddly enough that’s tolerable to me, but nails scratching up against cotton... i have no idea why but it sends chills down my spine lmfao

i love the sound of a crackling fire though. or rain. or rain and a crackling fire. 

28. do you believe in ghosts ??

hell yes i do. pls don’t hurt me ghosts i believe in u

29. do you believe in aliens ??

do i think aliens exist? yes. do i think we’ve been visited by aliens, or that we’re even close enough for them to know we exist? not necessarily. but i do like the ancient alien theory that we were visited by aliens a long time ago and taught stuff. especially when you consider that so many cultures, even those that had no way of being in contact with each other are so similar, have similar thought processes, and progressed at similar rates.

30. do you believe in true love ??

yes & no. i believe that initial attractions can be very powerful in producing a “love at first sight” feeling, but no one is just meant to love another person. i believe you can grow to feel “true love” for anyone assuming the right circumstances.

31. do you hold grudges ??

i’d like to think i don’t but i know i do, at least in the back of my mind. sort of forgive but not forget, but also never 100% forgiving either? idk.

32. do you have any obsessions right now ??

red dead redemption 2. big shock, i know haha. i just can’t get over the ending, the characters, the music, the world, etc. 

33. do you drive & if so, have you ever been in a crash ??

nope & nope

34. do you like the smell of gasoline ??

nooooo it makes me feel sick, honestly.

35. do you prefer writing fluff, angst, or smut ??

all of the above! each has its merits, and writing too much of one thing can get old and make the others feel more appealing. smut gets old the quickest though imo, even though i’ve run a smut rp in the past haha

36. are you in a relationship ??

are you? lmao

37. grab the nearest book to you and turn to page 23, what is the 17the line ??

well it’s a comic/graphic novel so there’s not 17 lines on that page but the second to last line is “and edward nigma... did you know that when the riddler was first transferred to arkham, they had to keep moving him from cell to cell to keep him from being able to formulate an escape?” it’s Batman Volume 10: Epilogue by Snyder & Capullo.

38. put your playlist on shuffle and list the first four songs that pop up:

1. Santeria by Sublime 2. Money Trees by Kendrick Lamar 3. Heart Shaped Box by Nirvana 4. Ladders by Mac Miller

[thetruestsentenceyouknow]

The world doesn't need another hero. It needs a monster.

“Too easy.”

The door swung open without a sound, almost inviting. Really. They couldn’t have made it any easier.

Not that I had become a thief because it was difficult. On the contrary — I like when my work is easy. But come on man, a little resistance once in a while made things more fun.

I walked in like I owned the place. I supposed I could, really. One little mind wipe and, BAM. But again, where’s the fun in that?

The problem, I decided as I ran my hands across the granite countertops (yeah, I really needed something like this) was that people just weren’t afraid anymore. Something major had changed the playing field. Of course, the religious were still claiming God and the second coming. Darwinists were arguing some threat had caused a significant jump in evolutionary pattern. I couldn’t care less what the real answer is. But mutations were becoming more prevalent. More OBVIOUS. And it was leaving the world in a bit of a tizzy.

I opened the fridge, scanning a bit before settling on what I needed. Milk was a good choice. And the OJ. Oh. Fish sauce. That’s gold too. I brought my bounty to the table.

You see, dear reader, the problem was when people have power, it corrupts, right? Absolute power corrupts absolutely and all that shite. But that only really works without fail safes and shit. Like, people just can’t understand the depths of your power. But if you’re marked by your power, like, let’s say you grow a testicle on your forehead (No. I don’t have a testicle on my forehead, you sick fuck.This is theoretical. My testicles are in the right place, thank you.) Well, a testicle of power is probably going to change the way you behave.

Oh, hold on a sec. This cap won’t unscrew right. Don’t you hate how OJ gets crusty like that on the top? Too much pulp. Ah, there we go. Let’s get you mixing here.

Where was I?

AH yeah, so everyone that has mutated has a mark so far. They’re all different. Like, I legit saw a guy in line for smokes the other day with wings. What. A. Pain. Some are more subtle. Mine are my ears. I’m lucky. They’re subtle. They’re just point little elf ears. Nothing a hair or some hat can’t hide.

My point is though, when you’re marked as different, you behave as different. So although you have the occasional dumbfuck trying to use whatever weird power mutation they got for bad, most people are tripping on the power high of good. So like the other day at the coffee shop this guy with a Mr. Fantastic stretch thing going on starts trying to rifle through people's things when nobody's looking. Only problem is dude has fucking whiskers. So he’s twitching the fuck out as he’s messing with shit and people notice. There were a few other mutations in line, so they fuck him up something good. Cat eye lady was best. I don’t know what her spit did but the sound he made was fantastic.

So now, even though not everyone has mutated yet, (The scientists think we’ll get there though) there’s been something of a hero syndrome going on. People, even people who fucked other peoples wives and ripped off poor people “for the good of the business” or whatever have started going good. Its like their high on something. Or anxious to get caught? I’m going with high. The caught thing still doesn’t bother some people. Point is, there’s so many do-gooders now, life's gotten lame. They cancelled gambling because there are too many people who can see the numbers before they happen. Criminals are scared because we’ve got a bunch of batman wannabes playing vigilante. And people are so nice now. It’s real gross.

Haha. Real gross. About as gross as Milk/OJ/SoySauce smoothies? Probably not. Hold on, let me put my handiwork in the fridge.

There we go. That’ll be a fun one. Now, where was I?

Oh yeah. So the point is, with all this Thomas More shit going on, there’s not much room for else. Countries are getting along. Less people are getting arrested. Things have gone so bananas people are too scared shitless to try anything. Meanwhile good working folk like me are out of jobs because everyone decided to listen to the line-leader today.

Oh, did I mention? I used to be a cop.

Anyway, my point is. I’m bored. I’m tired. I miss work. Nothing like the thrill of killing a banger before he pops you. So I started breaking into houses. See, thing is, when people saw you as the good guy for so long, when people don’t realize you’re not one of them, life gets a whole lot more interesting.

I don’t know if they’re others like me. I don’t know if their powers would work on me either. But I can do this thing where I can make you forget. It's funny how it happened actually. You see, it was my girls birthday and I forgot. I don’t have the best memory myself, which is what makes it funny. Anyway she was really having a go and I put a hand up. Then her eyes kind of glazed and she completely went tangential. Whole different topic, like nothing happened. Of course, I was too stupid to realize the blessing I had here because I went and reminded her and got her going again, not realizing what I’d done. But I figured it out after that. Life’s been cake since. And the great thing is if anyone does notice my mutation, I can make them forget that too. Most mutations are small fry like mine, but hell if it isn’t convenient.

I walk up the stairs, stopping along the way to take in the photos along the wall. Cute little couple. He looks like a prick. Bet that hair is fake.

Oh, so why am I here? Sorry, I got distracted there. Point is, someone needs to even the playing field. Man needs conflict. Without conflict, without strife or whatever, how is it the world is supposed to get better? Necessity is the mother of invention and all that, right? Ok so breaking into people's homes and causing a little mayhem, taking a few things — it’s not evil. Not really. But it breaks the complacency. Just lock your goddamn doors people.

We all need a little chaos. A little something to keep us on our toes. There’s too much good in the world now. Can we believe it's come to this? It’s hard sometimes. So I steal a thing or two here and there. Make people's lives...inconvenient. It’s not much — I’m no monster or anything. But maybe people will get off their asses and start caring again. Maybe the world will get back into balance.

Ah. I found the bedroom. Now excuse me while I go poke some holes in some condoms.