#sorry seeing all the new superman movie images and all i can think about is him

[betryl]

Babe wake up new Henry Winter fancast just dropped

[camslightstories]

Tolerate It - Part 13

Lena Luthor x reader, Kara Danvers x reader, Alex Danvers x reader. Baby Danvers. Female Reader.

Notes: Hey! I hope you guys are doing great and if you are not I promise things get better. I’m sorry I haven't updated but its just work and home are being hectic but I’m trying to get everything in track again. This chapter took an awfully long time write, i hope you guys like it!

My inbox is open for suggestions, recommendations, questions, and more. If any of you need help I will be honor to help you, always! Please fill my inbox with theories, comments and more i wanna hear what you guys think of the story! Hope you have a great day!

Taglist: @multi-images​  @captain-josslett​  @aznblossom​  @venteen​   @coxmicbabygirl​  @lezzzbehonesthere​

The smell of fries and burgers invaded your nose as you sat on the floor, glancing at your sore hand. Your legs extended on the floor as you held your head against the column of the place. The uncomfortable ache on your hand had seemed to increase by the second, as you sat down.

Confusion was the main thing in your head, the confused heavy feeling in your chest when you close your eyes, the twisted and ached void confusing you when reality sets in. It felt like a war between your mind and heart that neither of the two you understand. It felt like the reasons that your brain had were now gone, the reason part of feeling nonexistent.  

“Didn't think I would see you so soon” You claimed when you felt the presence of the brunette behind you. Two bags in her hand as the archer sat beside you. 

Thea replied teasingly, and flirtatiously grabbing fries from her bag, after hitting you softly in the shoulder. “Neither did I, princess”

“Thanks” You whispered as you started to eat, both of you sharing a knowing and somewhat comforting. The Queen woman smiled and kept silent giving you a nod. 

Thea had known you for a long time, but not until three years ago she saw you as her older brother’s best friend. She and Talia had taught every skill, you needed and wanted to learn. She had seen you put all of your anger everywhere you could. You were there subtly with alcohol after every break-up and make-up she had with Roy, showing your care as you sat with her drinking in silence until she couldn't anymore. 

The small creek sound of the door took both of your attention. Your mother stood silently with a white medical kit in her hand and an understanding expression on her face. You glanced at the brunette beside you, meeting her glance. A small spark in her eyes which you had never noticed before, you stopped in your way to comment on it when you heard the knowing clearing throat of your Mother. 

“Can I come in?” The Queen woman smiled reassuringly before leaving the room. Your mother stood at the side of the door, watching curiously and carefully before speaking. 

You looked up and met her eye glance, giving her a small nod as you spoke almost inaudible. “Sure”

Your mother had been making the small notes, and remainders when she saw you. She couldn't lie about the fact that her heart joined in joy and broke in less than 24 hours. It had been difficult to maintain a straight face when your oldest sister called her explaining the situation, letting her know and Jeremiah that after days of trying, they were the last option to bring some feelings to you. 

She saw your father way too comfortable yet nervous when they got the news, the trip had been too questioning and secretive that she suspected something had happened with the two of you. But seeing you with her own eyes as you stood in the room with void eyes, and rage protecting your walls. 

The complete silence from your party told her more than you knew. The isolation, the hidden pain, the calm and silence. It all reflected in one thing and it was you trying to understand your feelings, your world, yourself. It had happened when your dad had supposedly died. The heavy feeling in her chest grew as she sat beside you, while you stared at the wall quietly debating with your thoughts and feelings. 

Flashback - February 2005

You sat in the backyard of the house, dressed in black attire. Your eyes watching over the waves as they ended in the sand. The way the breeze moved the palms and softly touched your face. Your hands gripping the blanket covering you. 

You waited for everything to process in, you waited to wake up, you waited for him as you walked down the stairs that morning, you waited for your sisters to tell you it was a lie, you waited for your mom to serve his favorite lasagna as he came back home, you waited for the sound of cheer when he and your oldest sister finished repairing another part of the old car, you waited for him and Kara coming back from the forest at night after watching the stars, you waited for him to sit on the small bean bag of your bedroom as you played him something new in your instruments, you waited for the loud laughs and scolds that would come after you and your sisters would create an eating contest ending with Kara smiling proudly as you and Alex throw up, you waited for the ‘pizza and tacos night’ where the five of you somehow cooked without burning the kitchen down, ending with a marathon of movies and smiles on everyone faces. But it never came. 

The distinct voices from the house gained your attention as they felt closer. You closed your eyes, trying to focus on the sound of the waves failing in the attempt. Turning around to see both of your sisters standing side by side as one of your family members expressing their condolences to them. Kara seemed to keep it together as she nodded shyly, while Alex clenched her jaw giving a small thanks before walking away, your blonde sister watched the redhead walk away before looking at the floor excusing herself too. 

You looked away back to the beach, before deciding to get up and walk down the small hill entering the beach. Taking off your shoes, you put them at the side of the beach entrance before wrapping the blanket tightly around you. The voices began to zoom out and the sound of the ocean began to fill your ears. The soft sand on your feet as you walked closer to the shore felt grounding. The soft breeze that moved your hair out of control felt comforting as you sat down. 

Burying your feet in the sand as you closed your eyes trying to remember something, to have something to hold on to. It felt weird, out of place, like something was missing. Your mind tried to wrap up with the fact that your father was dead but even if you knew what was happening, you still had questions. Sitting on the sand, you stared blankly at the ocean, as the waves came, as the breeze moved the palms and touched your cheeks, as the soft salty smell invaded your nose, and the coldness of the day began to increase.

It was like a debate between what you wanted to believe and what was happening. There were running thoughts in your head that made you feel exhausted. It was unpleasant and even tiring to think of how this event would change your and your family's life. You avoided the thought as much as you could, wishing and hoping to wake up from the nightmare but it was real and as much as you didn't want to accept it, your father was gone, and he was not coming back.

You didn't even realize when the sun that was high in the sky had come down and reflected in the ocean, you didn't feel the breeze and air get heavier or the way the only thing illuminating the night was the light bulb you dad put at the entrance of the beach. 

It felt like time went in seconds, long seconds that you wished to take back and at the same time to move faster. It wasn't easy, it didn't feel easy, and the hole in your heart was unmistakable. You weren't a person who liked change, nor a person who easily understood what was going on around you. 

Sure when Kara came into the family, it was like the missing piece. It didn't take you long to warm up to the blonde, but she was suffering from the loss of her planet so you stayed behind the doors and waited the right moment to comfort her and make her as welcome as you could. You saw her hesitate when she was doing something that would make her happy, you saw her doubt herself as Superman came into the news, you saw her shed tears when she tried to find where Krypto would be. 

You tried constantly to win her affection, her trust, her intelligence, and more but you couldn't make her happy if she didn't heal. So you stayed awake during the night waiting to comfort her, you played with melodies on the piano so she could have a similar bed song as she had in Krypto, you ran as fast as you could after school to help her with her English or to watch and sing along with Wizard of Oz. You keep trying and trying even though she was legally your sister, you wanted to have a connection with her just like you did with Alex. So when the blonde the morning of your birthday hugged you and in English told you, you were her sister and she could be prouder than to call you that, you shredded in tears hugging her closely. 

But it was different, everything was different, it felt different, it sounded different, it even tastes different. There was a silence between your family, Alex kept her feelings inside and bottle them in trying so hard not to break, mad at the world, mad at dad, at you, at your mom, even Kara. Your mom was understanding but quiet, she tried to be your and your sister's rock during the day but at night you can hear her crying her heart out. Kara kept silent, mad at the world for taking another person from her, holding you close trying to be helpful as much as she could even if she was hurting as much as she was when she first landed. And you, you kept quiet, trying to understand, trying to find the lie, trying to reach and understand your feelings but couldn't. So you waited for the time to pass by and for things to get in order, just like your dad used to say ‘time heals things, everything gets better with time’ but as the words rounded your head you couldn't feel more than the biggest lie of the world.

Flashback ends

The soft wrap with alcohol against your knuckles ached as your mom determinately disinfected your hand. You felt her eyes constantly glancing at you when you kept silent, trying to ignore the slight throb from the small wound in your hand. You glanced from the wall you stared continuously into her eyes, before speaking. “I tried”

“I know sweetie” Eliza looked up while finishing wrapping her hand before speaking in a motherly tone. As soon as she heard you talk she knew, she knew what you meant. Just your silence gave it away, she knew your conflicted feelings weren't going to help now and they didn't before, but what scared her was how long you were going to take to heal, to flash a familiar smile, to laugh until you couldn't anymore, to look at the eyes of your significant other, to sign with your older sisters until either of your throats wouldn't give more. 

Fighting back the tears your eyes had swollen, you claimed again making eye contact with your mother, your mother's eyes redating with comfort and sadness as she looked at you. You clenched your hand into a fist but immediately opened it again when you felt the strong throb in your knuckles. “I tried, and it didn't work out. It didn't do anything”

“Healing isn't about not feeling sad or feeling numb, it's about letting in, letting go, and finding yourself again but you can't do it if you are not ready for it” She answered brushing a strand of your hair behind your ear. 

And the understanding in her eyes and voice made you doubt, as your feelings started to fall in place. Heartache, anger, sadness, disappointment, pain, and more began to feel your chest and your mind as you took the words of your mother in. Your now bloodshot eyes looked away from her as you felt your lip tremble.

You nodded quietly, and before you knew. You threw your arms around your blonde mother, tears furiously leaving your eyes as she soothed you, with comforting and reassuring words. Your head was hidden in her neck as you cried your eyes out. 

The feeling of heartbreak and pain overwhelming you as everything started to come down on you. And you wanted to cry, for minutes, for hours, days, weeks, even years. Because somehow after everything you still didn't feel enough, you felt everything you did was wrong, that you could have been better and you could have changed differently, closing your eyes you wished for it to be gone, but deep down you knew it wasn't.

“Please just make it stop, mom. Please, it hurts so much”

Flashback - February 2005

“Please just make it stop, mom. Please, it hurts so much”

You don't know how it happened or how long you had been furiously crying until you stared at the small seashells in the sand getting wet thanks to your tears. The once beige shell now was white. Grabbing the seashells from the sand, you started to throw them angrily at the water. 

The sound of the rock making contact with the water somewhat comforted you, longing to throw everything away for it, for the broken shells to absorb your problems and leave with it. Soon enough you fell to your knees sobbing out. As the night lighting shot in the ocean, as the ocean tide had gone up, the once breeze became violent air. 

One second you were crying furiously on your own, and the next you sobbed into your mother's arms, as she reassured you that everything was going to be okay. You gripped her shirt hugging her closely before looking up to her, touching your chest as your bloodshot eyes glanced in hers.

Your lip trembling from the cold and your sobs, her heart broke, even more, when you hid in her neck which made her look up as she soothed your back. She was trying so hard to keep it together for you and your sisters but the moment she caught sight of Kara and Alex with blankets around themselves walking straight to where the two of you sat, made her break into tears. 

You looked up from your mother's neck as you felt a hand rubbing your back and others grabbing your hand softly in reassurance. Each one of them by you and your mother's side, your cries had slowed down when your redhead sister asked with a crack in her voice to your mother. “Are we gonna be okay?”

“Yeah, we will be but it will take time to heal, we can't rush it, we have to be ready”

“We are going to be okay” Kara claimed as a statement of reassurance after your mother responded, but her trembling lip, bloodshot eyes, and the high tone she used made her sound more like a prayer than anything.

Your mother reassured, making you three nod slowly before falling into a reassuring silence. “Until then we have each other, and one of the most precious things you girls are going to have in your life is each other, your family.”

Flashback ends

Unknowingly to you, your sisters had been watching from the door the moment Kara heard your heart spike. Tears in their eyes as they watched your mother rocked you slowly as you cried. Silent sobs and bitten lips coming from them as they stopped each other from walking into the room. 

Alex kept her jaw clenched as her hands gripped each other hard as she tried to keep the tears inside. The redhead felt responsible for your crying, the urge to run in and comfort you debating her self-control. Doubts, questions, and more gained in her head as she saw you sob into your mother's arms, rage slowly consuming her emotions as the protectiveness over you began to show up.

Kara let out silent sobs, with her hand on top of her mouth. Her bloodshot eyes and red cheeks had overwhelming tears. The superheroine hated herself, as she felt responsible for your crying. She just wanted to hold you in her arms and tell you everything was going to be just fine, she wanted to see your sunny smile when you saw her or the bad jokes and puns you used all the time, she wanted you, she wanted her little sister but a part of her told her you needed the same space she once received from you. 

The two of them standing next to each other with broken hearts and tears in their eyes, a small sense of hope in their chest as they watched the scene. Sharing a knowing, Alex came closer putting her arm around your blonde sister’s shoulder before speaking. 

“Everything is gonna be okay, we are getting her back, I promise,” She said quietly reassuring Kara even when neither of them fully believe it.

[princess-of-riviaa]

Record Breaking

Pairing: Henry Cavill x Reader (first person POV)

Summary: Porn without plot, or the time Henry wants to bring your pleasure to new levels.

Warning(s): dirty talk, thigh riding, fingering, oral (f receiving), overstimulation, aftercare

Word Count: 2,766

“How many times have you cum before?”

It’s an intimate question, one I take by surprise. I audibly gasp at Henry as he finally closes the distance between us. His hands come up to rest on the counter on either side of my hips, blocking me in. He leans down to bring his face close to mine and my arousal starts to drip through my panties at the lustful look he’s giving me.

“Um…” I struggle to remember his question, let alone think of an answer. “F-four. That’s my record.”

He quirks an eyebrow, like this surprises him. “Four? And who was the magical guy that did that to you? Anyone I know?”

I swallow before shaking my head no. “It was… on my own. I’ve never actually had more than one orgasm with a guy before.”

I swear his pupils dilate even more at that. “I swear I’m gonna keep you here and make you touch yourself until you orgasm that many times one day, but as for now…” His lips brush against my neck, just under my ear, and I shiver, which makes my chest brush against his. Every inch of me is already on fire and he hasn’t even done anything. His mouth latches onto my skin and begins to suck hard enough for me to cry out in pleasure. When he finally pulls away, there’s a cocky grin on his face--he knows exactly what he’s doing to me. “As for now, little one, I’m going to be the one to make you cum. Over and over again. Until we break that little record of yours. How does that sound?”

I’m only able to nod, my arousal locking my throat up.

He smiles before kissing me, his tongue instantly pushing inside my mouth. I moan loudly, which only grants him more access to me. His hands latch around my hips and pull me tight against him. I feel like putty in his arms with the way he’s making me burn alive. He nudges his leg between mine, moving me until I’m practically sitting on his thigh. He begins to move my hips back and forth. I know exactly what he’s doing, but I’m just too fucking aroused to feel nervous about it. My hips move of their own accord. His hands return to my sides and he watches my expression as I begin to ride his thigh with fervor.

“That’s it, little one, I want you to ride my thigh,” he growls, the sound of his voice making my breasts ache. “Ride me until you’re staining my clothes with your cum.”

I don’t dare stop, feeling my mind numb with a blissful fog. Either Henry’s a mind reader or he can see what I want written clearly on my face because a second later he’s ripping my dress off of me and kneading my breasts in his hands.

“Oh, fuck!” I cry out. I clutch onto his shirt, needing something to ground me.

“The things I’m gonna do to you, to this perfect body of yours… God I can’t wait to destroy your fucking pussy.”

His words and the images they procure in my mind make me moan. My hips begin to move even faster. I can practically taste my first orgasm now and my eyes squeeze shut as I chase it down.

“F-fuck!” I cry out as my body explodes with pleasure so intense that I can’t breathe for several seconds. Fuck, fuck, fuck he feels so good, and he hasn’t even touched me yet…

He kisses me slowly. It’s the kind of kiss that I can feel in every inch of my body. “You’re such a little slut, coming all over my leg like that…” He pulls his leg back and we both glance down at the wet spot on his jeans. “Look at the mess you made.”

“I’m sorry…” I gasp out, still feeling the effects of my orgasm.

“No you’re not,” he laughs darkly. Then he sets me on top of the counter and forces my legs apart. “But you’re about to be.”

I open my mouth to ask him what that means, but a second later he shoves a thick, calloused finger inside of me and a moan comes out of me instead of words. He moves his finger in and out of me at a pace too slow to do anything but tease me.

“P-please…” I cry out.

“Please what?” His voice is a low growl.

“Please fuck me,” I manage to get out. “I want to cum on your hand.” Normally I’m too embarrassed to talk dirty, but my arousal has pushed me past the point of modesty.

Henry licks a stripe up my neck before nipping up my ear. I melt into him just as he adds another finger. The stretch comes with a painful sting but it’s gone the moment he starts curling his fingers inside of me, replacing the pain with hot euphoria. It takes just a few flicks of his skilled fingers to make me reach the edge. One touch of his thumb against my clit pushes me over the edge and I clench his shirt as my body shakes uncontrollably. My breath gets stuck in my throat, my vision turning white.

“H-holy fuck,” I gasp out. A second later Henry’s fingers are pushing their way into my mouth. I taste my arousal as my tongue brushes against his thick digits. My gaze jumps to his as I suck on his fingers. The way he looks at me… I can tell he’s thinking of shoving something else inside my mouth and letting me suck on that instead. I let out a pornagraphic moan around his fingers, just to tease him.

“If I had known you were such a fucking slut…” he begins, but never finishes his thought.

I wait until he pulls his fingers out of my mouth to reply, “What? What would you have done?”

He places his hand on my stomach and pushes me back until I’m lying across his counter. His hand slowly crawls up my body until it wraps around my throat. I let out a moan as he tightens his grip, choking me.

“I would have claimed you as mine a lot sooner,” he says, and then he puts his mouth on me.

He licks a long stripe up my already-soaked folds. That is enough to make my entire body shudder. My pussy is sensitive from the last two orgasms and the stimulation hurts, but that fire in my core is still too far away for my liking. I want to be surrounded by it; I want to be burned alive in it. And I want Henry to be the one to make me feel it.

If there’s one thing I take away from tonight, it’s that Henry Cavill deserves a fucking gold medal in eating a girl out. That tongue of his is magical and he knows just how to use it. I’m gasping and writhing beneath him in no time. He gives attention to both my clit and my entrance, occasionally fucking his tongue in and out of me well enough to make my eyes roll back in my head. I clutch his curls between my fingers, torn between wanting to push him away and wanting to bring him closer to my pussy, even though he’s already as close as possible. His hands find their way under my ass and lift me up from the counter so he has a better angle. My hips buck up to meet every movement of his tongue until I’m coming, I’m coming so intensely that I squirt. He steps back but still keeps a finger brushing over my clit, making me squirt for several long seconds. I have no doubt I’m making a total mess of his kitchen floor, but that’s the last thing on my mind right now.

When I’m able to focus again, his mouth is on mine. I kiss him back hungrily. Henry’s suddenly covered in too many layers; I want him open and vulnerable, just how I am. I reach for his shirt, but he must know what I want because he yanks it over his head and tosses it on the ground before I have to say anything. I gasp at the sight of him.

Henry Cavill is a high-status actor. There’s no doubt about it. There’s also no doubt about his perfect physique, since there’s plenty of shirtless workout photos of him on the internet. But Henry Cavill, the actor, the star, the celebrity--that’s not who I’ve gotten to know in this last month over nervous dates and late-night phone calls. The Henry I’ve gotten to know is a simple guy who plays video games and loves his dog and is insecure about his body, unable to see the perfections in himself. The Henry I know, the Henry I’m falling for, is so human it overwhelms me sometimes. And now, as I see him shirtless in person for the first time, it’s like those two different versions of Henry are colliding and morphing to become one. I suddenly feel awestruck and intimidated, like I don’t deserve to see him like this.

“Shit,” Henry grumbles.

I meet his gaze to find him staring at me like I’ve disappointed him. “What is it?”

“You’re doing it,” he says, like it should be obvious. “You’re suddenly remembering I’m Superman, I’m the Mission Impossible guy, I’m The Witcher.”

With every passing second I can sense him building his walls higher, locking his heart away from me.

“Henry…” I start, but don’t know what to say. He’s right; I am doing that--I’m completely dehumanizing him, idolizing him, turning him into a god in my head. And I promised on our first date--the first time we saw each other in person after being two strangers who texted for weeks--that he didn’t have to worry about me ever doing that.

He turns to pick up his shirt, but before he can put it back on I grab his arm. Carefully, but hard enough to gain his attention.

“You’re not Henry Cavill to me,” I tell him. “You’re not the same Henry to me as you are to every other person in the world. You don’t have to prove anything, be anything other than who you are. You’re an actor who’s been in huge, successful films because you’re talented, and I applaud you for that, but it doesn’t change how I see you.” I won’t let it change how I see you. “You’re not just the movie guy to me, okay?”

He hesitates. The look in his eyes tells me I’ve convinced him, but his body betrays him.

“You’re Henry,” I continue, “the guy who’s best friend is his dog. You’re the guy that bought me a new pair of shoes when my heel broke on our first date. You’re the guy who I hate taking to family dinners purely because you get along with my family better than I do. You’re not the movie guy to me, you’re a million other things. So please don’t put your shirt on. I want to look at you.”

That convinces him. He lets go of his shirt and keeps his arms at his side, letting me take in every inch of him. He’s not even flexing yet his abs and biceps are outlined clearly beneath his skin. He’s large, his shirts hiding just how broad he is. Dark, curly hair swirls around his pecs and beneath his naval, hugged on either side by the V of his hips, which disappears beneath his jeans. I finally notice the erection straining against his zipper and it takes every ounce of self-control not to reach out for it.

“Fuck,” I softly exhale as I bite my lower lip. I’m suddenly very aware of my heart racing in my chest, adding to the heat coursing through my body, and the fact that I’m very, very tiny compared to him. The size difference between us is almost laughable. When I look back at his eyes, I realize just how blown his pupils are. The air between us is electric, filled with sexual tension.

Henry slowly, teasingly slowly, reaches for his jeans. He pops the button. I catch a glimpse of dark blue underwear as he drags his zipper down, taking his time to reveal what I’m so desperate to see.

“Henry,” I whine without meaning to. As soon as his name leaves my mouth I’m blushing like an idiot, though it just makes him smirk.

His fingers hook around his belt loops. He tugs them down. My heart is in my throat at this point and I’m so wet that I can feel my arousal drip onto the counter. My eyes catch onto the writing on the band of his underwear. Calvin Klein is written in bold, white letters. I have no idea why I need to know that, but I feel myself storing that information away for later. His underwear is tented with the thick outline of his erection. I’m just now beginning to realize that Henry is big… everywhere. I swallow when I realize that he’s easily seven inches, but probably closer to eight.

How the hell am I supposed to fit him inside of me? The thought scares me as much as it arouses me.

Henry finally, finally lowers his underwear. I realize I’d been holding my breath when I let out a humiliating moan at the sight of his cock. There’s a thick vein that runs along the side. He curves a bit along the head, and his tip is red and already leaking pre-cum. I lick my lips, wanting him in my mouth as much as I want him buried deep inside of me.

When he finally speaks, his voice is loud amidst the quiet tension. “If you aren’t ready to do this, tell me now, because in a few seconds I won’t be able to stop.”

I force my gaze to meet his. My want must be written all over my face because he doesn’t hesitate a second longer. He closes the distance between us and pulls me in for a slow, sensual kiss that I feel in every inch of my body.

“I want you,” I get out between breathless kisses.

He growls in response and his mouth begins to trail down my neck, down my chest. He stops to suck on each of my nipples before moving his mouth lower.

“Henry!” I call out before he can put his mouth on me again.

He freezes and looks up at me, his eyes completely dark with sinful lust.

“I don’t want your mouth,” I say. “I want--I need…”

“Use your words, little one.” He kisses each of my hips as he waits for me to speak. The way he touches me sends me straight to cloud nine. His hands, his mouth, his tongue--everything about him is addicting.

“I want you inside of me,” I admit. “I want you to fuck me, Henry.”

His smile presses against my skin. A second later he stands up and wraps his hand around his cock. I let out a ridiculous moan as he drags it between my folds, not just to soak up my wetness but to tease me until I’m close to the edge again. I reach out for him, grabbing onto his arm as he grips my hip in his hand. With his other hand he guides his cock to my entrance. He barely pushes an inch inside of me before the pain starts, my walls already stretching to the point of a bitter sting. I hold my breath as he slowly enters me, careful not to go too fast. My legs are spread wide on the counter, allowing me to watch his cock disappear inside my pussy. I let out a small whimper when he’s not even halfway inside of me; I swear it feels like he’s ripping my body in half. He’s so big, and I’m so tiny, so tight… But the pain is gone as soon as he bottoms out inside of me, his head resting snugly against my cervix.

“Fuck, you’re so goddamn tight,” Henry grunts out as he leans in for a kiss. This kiss isn’t about the passion or the heat--it’s his way of telling me that this moment is as much about me as it is about him, and if I need him to stop, he’ll stop. He won’t push me. I can trust him.

And I do trust him, enough to say, “Fuck me, Henry.”

...

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[preciousthingsareprecious]

With a Heart of Scars Ch. 10

Hey guys! I hope you are all doing well and staying healthy. This chapter splits POVs between Dick and Stephanie because both of them had short scenes. 

AO3 Link

~

Dick woke to a splitting headache.

He blinked up at the roof of the cave and wondered how he’d gotten there. The last thing he really remembered was the building coming down around him. So, who had gotten him home?

“Grayson? Are you awake at last?” a small voice asked from beside him.

Dick turned his head and saw Damian, curled up in a chair, hands wrapped around his legs, wearing a Nightwing hoodie of all things.

“Dames?”

The boy scowled, “Tt, I see you finally recognize me. Perhaps you did not lose all your sense when you allowed a building to fall on you.”

At that, Dick remembered his rescue. The image of Nightwing’s symbol the only clear thing on Damian’s then blurred figure, his terrified tone, and unrelenting grip as he dragged Dick to safety. He swallowed, at the memory of being lost in grief over Bruce, and wondered how much he’d admitted out loud.

“Hope I didn’t worry you too much.”

Damian rolled his eyes and laid his head back down on his knees, facing away from Dick, which Dick took as “yes, you did worry me.” He wouldn’t have needed the eye roll to know that. Damian had come after him, hardly dressed to be on patrol with little more than a domino and utility belt to help him, and was here sitting by his bed. Yeah, the kid was upset.

“Drake should have been there.” Damian mumbled, voice muffled due to one cheek being squished against a knee.

Dick pushed himself up so he was sitting, his chest twinged at that, but wasn’t nearly as painful as it might have been. His legs, however, were not pleased with the movement, and Dick winced at the sharp pain in his thighs.

“It’s not like he bailed, Damian. I planned to go out on my own.”

The boy squeezed his legs tighter, “He failed in his duty as Robin.”

“Batman used to go out all the time without Robin. I mean, when I was growing up I only went with Bruce on the weekends for the longest time. A partner is not a requirement, Dames.”

“He has not been a partner though, has he?” Damian asked, raising his head suddenly to level a serious look at Dick, “He has hardly been here for weeks, he left Batman at one of his most crucial times, while you were getting used to the cowl, and now because no one was by your side you almost--” he broke off, swallowing whatever he was going to say, “a building crashed down on you. It is not a question of what Batman has done in the past, but what he needs now.”

He dropped his legs to the ground, and balled his hands on his thighs, “You need a partner, Robin or not. This is a different Gotham than Father’s, if only because you are a different type of Batman.”

Dick was surprised that Damian didn’t tag on a jab at his skills as Batman as he’d done regularly. He expected to be told that he needed a partner because he wasn’t good enough to be Batman. What he had not expected was a heartfelt --for Damian-- speech about Dick needing to be safe.

He leaned forward and took one of Damian’s hands in his own, Damian hadn’t released his fist, so Dick ran this thumb over the top of his hand, “I’m sorry I made you worry. Thank you for looking out for me no matter what, and thank you for being so patient with me while we sort things out.”

He wanted to tell Damian he’d been thinking the same thing, and how much he wanted to bring him out as his partner, but he bit back those sentiments. He still needed to talk to Tim.

“I’ll talk to Tim when he’s back, see if he can stick around a little longer or something.”

Damian pulled his hand out of Dick’s and stood, “Good.” the word was clipped, “Let us hope he decides to stick around long enough to keep you alive this time.”

“Are you leaving?” Dick asked, frowning at him.

He hesitated, “I was going to get Pennyworth and let him know you were awake.”

Dick reached his hand out again, “Stay for a bit longer? You haven’t even told me just how much damage the building did to me.”

Damian sighed, and flopped back down into the chair, “You are surprisingly indestructible. Between your armor and pure luck you only need contend with a concussion, some heavy bruising, and mild lacerations to your thigh.”

“I’m sure Alfred will insist I stay in bed for a week.”

His brother shrugged, “He mentioned something of the sort. Brown and Cain have also agreed to look into the explosion while you are incapacitated. They would have gone after I returned with you, but by then emergency crews had arrived on the scene."

He wrinkled his nose, which made Dick raise an eyebrow.

"It took far too long to rally any kind of emergency response. Considering the time it took me to arrive and find you, firetrucks should have been swarming the area. It is as if something had delayed the signal."

"We'll have to look into that too then." Dick hummed.

He was about to ask Damian for more details, when the sound of a bike roaring came into the cave. Both Dick and Damian looked to see who was arriving. Robin's Redbird bike pulled in, and Tim was just turning it off.

“Damian, don’t start a fight, okay?”

“Tt. I will go get Pennyworth.”

This time, when Damian stood Dick did not stop him from walking away. He hated it, but the kid was dealing with a lot of emotions right now, and one of those was profound anger at Tim, maybe not Tim himself, but the fact that Dick had gotten hurt without Tim there. It was understandable, and Dick was willing to let him go and cool off a bit. Something told him that the longer he and Damian spent together, the more likely he'd become just about as overprotective as Bruce could be.

Dick shook his head, and put on a smile for Tim.

A light, angry, set of stomping feet preceded Damian’s entry to the kitchen. The sound was enough to alert Stephanie of the kid’s mood. She eyed Cass who nodded, having also picked up Damian’s emotional state even before seeing him.  It wasn’t like it was a hard guess. Beyond Cass, the kid was the only one who was still small enough to make a sound that light while also stomping, and Dick was downstairs hurt on a gurney. One plus one equals two, or in this case injured mentor plus stomping feet equaled an upset Damian.

The boy stopped short at the door to the kitchen, his face a veritable movie of emotions as he flipped from deep concentration to surprise, irritation, and at last settled on mild annoyance.

“Brown. Cain.” he said, by way of greeting.

“Hey.” Steph said.

Cass waved, and said, “Cocoa is on the stove.”

Both of them waited for Damian to pour himself a mug of the still warm hot chocolate, and settle on a stool across from them at the island.

“So, what’s the news? Did Dick wake up at last?” Stephanie asked him.

Damian scowled down at his drink, “Yes, the fool is awake.”

Steph raised an eyebrow, Damian wasn’t usually so grumpy when he talked about Dick. At least not anymore, especially since they’d gone out and bought all those art supplies. A genius stroke on Dick’s part, one she’d been planning to make him take if he hadn’t caught on sooner or later. Really, the kid screamed artist.

“What did he do to earn your ire?”

The boy tsked at her and sipped at his cocoa.

“We are not mind readers, Little Brother.” Cass said, gently.

Damian huffed, and looked up, “Drake has returned.”

Ah. That made sense. Steph stifled a smile, Damian’s little rivalry with Tim was pretty one sided, and while it had originally be born out of a need to fit in, it was obvious now it was about Dick’s attention.

“He’s been away a while, I’m sure Dick missed him.”

“Tt. That is not why I am upset.”

“Because Dick got hurt?” Cass asked, though they all knew it was the truth.

The boy squirmed in his chair, his scowl deepening.

“It’s pretty obvious.” Steph said.

“You two are insufferable.” Damian declared and took a large sip of his hot chocolate.

Now Stephanie did let herself laugh, “You know, if you gave Tim a chance I bet you’d find him as ‘tolerable’ as you find the rest of us lately.”

Damian tilted his head back, adding an air of superiority to him, even as he sat there in a hoodie too big for him, cupping hot chocolate in a Superman mug, “If he were here more often, then perhaps I could.”

“That, I can't fault.” Steph said, “But I won’t judge him for his actions either.”

“How is Dick?” Cass asked, changing the conversation.

Damian looked relieved he didn’t have to answer any more questions about his ‘rival’ and tapped a finger on the side of his mug.

“He is surprisingly well, and in far too good a mood for a man who had a building fall on him.”

There was something fond about Damian’s tone, even if he meant it to be dismissive. Steph was oh so tempted to tease him, but held off.

“Good.” she said, shifting in her chair, “Hey, what do you say to a trip to the park tomorrow? I need to get out and get some fresh air that’s not tinged with doom, gloom, and nighttime, and you told me you were bored of painting Alfred’s garden. A change of scenery would be fun.”

“You are trying to ensure I do not start a fight with Drake.”

Steph dropped her mouth open in an imitation of surprise, “Me? Never. I just thought you might want a change of scenery, and --since you’re ten and most certainty grounded from being alone in any kind of vehicle after tonight-- might need a ride.”

Damian groaned, “Pennyworth told you?”

She grinned, “A good deed does not go unpunished.”

The kid glared at her for a moment before nodding, “Fine, but I will not go to the last park we visited. The duck pond had no ducks at all.”

[jonroxton]

dceu fandom gothic

two year old meta being recirculated whenever a new dceu movie drops and remembering all your bvs fandom friends are deactivated and others have changed their names so you don’t know who they are anymore

it’s 2015 and you can talk about man of steel that’s been out for two years now. you find out it was well received and broke records. u openly cry about the hans zimmer score changing your life you still listen to it

realizing after the first bvs trailer dropped how many people you follow were unironic m(u stans and the veil is torn from your eyes. wait a second. all of tumblr is unironically into the m(u and female coded tony stark meta has10,000 notes and ignores six of the thirteen movies tony appears.meta about dancers in captain america that appear in one scene as 30000 notes. the meta about steve running laps in DC has 20,000 notes and these ppl use real math to calculate a path to ????? idk man i still don’t know but ON YOUR LEFT LOLLLLL dc pretentious losers with their artsy fartsy allegories and PTSD and character arcs and multiple POCS and WOCS pffff

HAhaaaa if they listen to the haters they’ll hire j0ss wh3don to take over justice league AHAHAAAAAA IMAGINE!!!!!!!!!!!sdkfsflhsdkf

bvs the 950 million dollar flop

suicide squad the 750 million oscar winning flop

ww the savior of the dceu makes 1 billion for zero reason without marketing or lead in gal gadot just appeared before our very eyeballs fully formed

no no nooooo aquaman saved the dceu makes another 1 billion for also zero reason it’s not like the first image zack released six years before justice league came out was of jason momoa as arthur that incorporated his culture into the mythos that was by accident

shazam saved the dceu

no birds of prey saved it

except no? birds of prey flopped

except birds of prey made its money back

except birds of prey was not exemplary of feminism so it failed as a female movie

it should’ve been pg-13 so little girls could see it

except the movie should not just be for little girls

and it shouldn’t alienate men

everyone who is going to this movie is being tricked into seeing it bc no one has any awareness about the media they consume whatsoever

except it should have had absolute mass appeal to matter

trying to explain the difference between performative diversity and inclusiveness and actual diversity and inclusiveness but lol hot topic MARTHAAAAAAA grim dark NOT MYYYY SUPERMAN

you don’t actually hate the m(u and while this has always been true you are constantly surprised when you remember that you don’t hate the m(u actually you’ve never thought as much about the m(u until you joined the dceu fandom

being nostalgic for 2015-2017 even tho you received death threats 

the joker as a domineering unpredictable gangster who abuses his girlfriend? nope sorry can’t have that! also doesn’t matter that margot robbie worked on her costumes with the female costume designer who won an academy award for her work or that the most exposed amazons were professional body builders holding up a thousand tons of rock to help their queen escape it’s all exploitive bc zack snyder hates women and wants you to sexualize their bulging muscles faora who what now? marthat LOL MARTHAAAA lois has sex with her boyfriend of two years the slut how dare she be vulnerable

every single dceu movie is a rip off of an m(u movie but also somehow too fake deep and too different stylistically to appease m(u fans and you have stopped trying to make sense of why these people want the same movie ten thousand times, movies they actively ignore and outright hate

you try not to think about how the wb chose to listen to the haters who were never going to like their movies instead of the people who passionately loved and defended them. you don’t know if you’re going to see the next dceu movie. you listen to old MOSAIC podcasts and discover something you missed in bvs even though it’s been five years and you’ve seen it a hundred times

there is ONE single cbm news site you trust but you expect them to let you down any moment now. 

james gunn had to delete 10,000 tweets with p3do jokes about little boys and he made a parody of man of steel where a little super powered boy turns evil. the wb gives him suicide squad. zack snyder’s daughter suicide is fair game. the wb fires him.

critics still hate dceu movies despite them being brighter, lighter and more fun standalones with zero consequences like they wanted. almost as if they never gave a shit and won't ever give a shit! you want to tok about this but the dceu fandom doesn’t really exist any more not like it did

every single dceu tag gives you anxiety

you are ready at any given moment to fight j0ss wh3don. buffy isn’t that good and neither was firefly and you should say it. ANGEL 4EVA

[aion-rsa]

Zack Snyder’s Justice League vs. the Whedon Cut: What are the Differences?

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This article contains Zack Snyder’s Justice League spoilers.

Whether you love or hate his style, there is no denying Zack Snyder is an original. From 300 to Watchmen, and Man of Steel to Justice League, his characters often hover above the screen as much as occupy it. They’re mythic figures who’ve stepped off a Botticelli canvas, or at least Frank Miller comic book panels, and they’re imbued with such a sense of scale from their director that the aesthetic is nigh impossible to duplicate. That is only clearer now thanks to Zack Snyder’s Justice League, a restored four-hour edit of Snyder’s original vision for the DC superhero movie team-up and their universe at large.

Admittedly, you’ve seen the movie’s tale before, back when Warner Bros. released a truncated, heavily reshot version into theaters in 2017. But that two-hour theatrical cut of Justice League, assembled by director Joss Whedon, really is a night and day different film. It shares many of the same scenes and story beats, but it lacks Snyder’s singular grandiosity and tonal consistency.

Comparing all the significant changes between the two versions—which we’ll hereby distinguish as the “Snyder Cut” and “Whedon Cut”—creates a fascinating juxtaposition of the different choices filmmakers can make with similar material, as well as the drastically disparate visions the directors had for these six superheroes and the larger DC Extended Universe. So join us as we contrast all the major changes (and by and large improvements) made by Zack Snyder’s Justice League.

The Opening

One of the most surprising changes made by the Snyder Cut comes immediately. Back when the ostensible Whedon Cut of Justice League opened in theaters, one thing many assumed was unchanged from Snyder’s vision was the opening credits. With imagery clearly filmed by the director—including unused footage from the Superman funeral sequence in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice—the downbeat credits were edited to Singrid’s rendition of “Everybody Knows,” a cover of a song from one of Snyder’s favorite musicians, Lenoard Cohen. I’m also fairly certain only Snyder would film a homeless man with a cardboard sign saying “I tried” in a superhero movie (the destitute figure may still appear in the Snyder Cut in an overhead shot when Cyborg is later surveying the bleakness of the world).

Indeed, quite a bit of the Whedon Cut’s opening credits scenes are used elsewhere in Zack Snyder’s Justice League, including breathtaking imagery of the Superman symbol draped in black over London’s Tower Bridge. But the new edit foregoes a traditional opening credits sequence for a more restrained montage that returns to the climax of Batman v Superman, and to the moment when Henry Cavill‘s Superman dies. In pained slow-motion, we again experience the moment of Doomsday’s spike piercing Superman’s heart and see how his scream reverberates throughout the world.

The Snyder Cut is more directly linked to the previous movie with Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor, complete with hair, hearing Superman’s cries from deep in the bowels of the Kryptonian ship. Meanwhile the echoes of Clark’s anguish reverberate all the way past Zeus’ magical cloak to Themyscira where the Amazons (rather impressively) have an entire army guarding the Mother Box they obtained 5,000 years ago. When the Mother Box hears Kal-El’s death rattle, it begins to crack, drawing a terrified Amazonian closer to its new glowing light.

And finally, we end with the cries being heard by Cyborg. It is on the image of a hunched over Ray Fisher that Snyder chooses to include his “directed by” title card, indicating a strong sense of solidarity with the character and the actor who plays him after Cyborg was largely sidelined in the Whedon Cut. Clearly this is going to be a different movie.

Batman

Ben Affleck’s Bruce Wayne remains the focal point, at least in terms of leadership, of both the Snyder and Whedon cuts of the film. But right down to how they’re introduced, these are subtly diverging interpretations of the character. In the Whedon Cut, Batman has the first scene of the movie that isn’t shot on an iPhone. It gets Affleck in costume immediately and features archetypal Gotham City imagery as Batman uses a criminal as bait for a Parademon, an alien from the planet Apokolips that Batman is already familiar with. He’s so aware of these creatures that Batman ignores the thief spelling out the subtext of Justice League’s first act: With Superman dead, where does that leave us?

By contrast, you intrinsically feel that absence in the Snyder Cut. Whereas Whedon and WB got Batman in the costume faster for a tongue-in-cheek action sequence with screaming crooks and flying aliens, Zack Snyder’s Justice League ignores the Batsuit for a clean two hours. Instead, it opens with Bruce Wayne already “north” in a remote part of Europe near the arctic. We get the impression he’s been traveling for weeks on a horse and over mountains, sporting a bushy beard as he reaches the fishing village Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa) has provided supplies to.

The scene where Batman meets Aquaman is more or less the same, but tonally Snyder evokes a funereal quality by letting the scene breathe in Bruce’s desperation instead of Arthur’s flippancy. And rather than Bruce noticing an inserted mural of Mother Boxes being what upsets Arthur, it’s Bruce pulling a trick from Momoa’s on screen wife on Game of Thrones which sets Aquaman off: he reveals after his hosts have made fools of themselves that he too can speak Icelandic. (There is also no longer a joke where Bruce says, “I hear you can talk to fish.”)

This somber opening is strikingly different and a vast improvement (see the Aquaman section for more). After Arthur rebuffs Bruce’s request to team-up, Bruce’s defeated return trip home is also subtly changed. For starters, we see his journey to his private jet where Alfred is waiting. In the Whedon Cut, the pair’s conversation after Bruce has shaved is a reshot sequence with some admittedly amusing character-building dialogue, like Alfred saying, “I miss the days when one’s biggest concern was exploding wind-up penguins.” The Snyder Cut’s version is more expository and ominous. As neither has seen a Parademon yet in this version, Alfred doubts whether Bruce needs to build a team based on the ravings of a now incarcerated and visibly insane Lex Luthor. Batman says he isn’t just doing this based on Luthor.

“I made a promise to him on his grave,” Bruce broods about the Kryptonian alien he hounded to near death in the last movie.

The next time we see Bruce Wayne is in a scene that appeared in the Whedon Cut, if slightly different. It’s when Gal Gadot’s Diana Prince breaks into his “building” with million-dollar security. However, the Whedon Cut led viewers to believe this airplane hangar-like space was the Batcave (even though it visually looks quite different). The Snyder Cut confirms it is a decrepit warehouse near the docks in Gotham harbor. Gone also is the cheeky line, “Yeah, it looked expensive,” from Diana when Bruce mentions the cost of his security equipment.

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In this off-site Batcave area, it’s also established by Alfred that he and Bruce Wayne have built new gauntlets that absorb energy (they come in especially handy later when they save Bruce from Superman’s heat ray vision).

The first time the gauntlets are used occurs when Batman leads a nascent Justice League beneath the tunnels of Striker Island in Gotham harbor. Up until that point, most of Affleck’s scenes remain the same, even if they breathe or are edited slightly differently. Batman recruits Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) to join the Justice League while talking about competitive ice dancing, and looks positively exhausted when Barry sees the Bat-Signal. The early Commissioner Gordon scenes are also the same, albeit now without composer Danny Elfman’s Batman theme from 1989.

In the tunnels, Batman’s scenes diverge again though. There is more of the misterioso act when Victor Stone (Cyborg) says, “I heard about you. Didn’t think you were real.” The Dark Knight answers, “I’m real when it’s useful.” Additionally, Batman doesn’t really mentor the Flash in this sequence or in any other going forward. Gone is the Flash admitting he’s terrified at seeing Steppenwolf and Bruce advising he “save one” person and will then know what he needs to do.

Instead, the Flash says, “I guess that’s the bad guy” in the Snyder Cut, and Batman stoically responds, “Good guess.” Bruce also drops his sense of humor, losing some solid bits like “Sorry guys, I didn’t bring a sword” when the Knightcrawler starts shooting up Parademons. Now he simply says, “My turn.”

However, Bruce remains the stoic team leader, harnessing a steadier team dynamic. There are no insert shots of Commissioner Gordon telling Batman it’s good to see he’s playing well with others after the Striker Island fight, and rather than berate Wonder Woman and his team members into bringing Superman back from the dead, Bruce and the rest come to the same conclusion, silently.

During the sequence where Cyborg reveals the Mother Box can bring Superman back from the dead, no one says Kal-El’s name out loud. The Flash even asks, “Is everyone thinking it or am I going to have to say it?” The camera pans around the table and lands on Bruce, who is watching Cyborg’s projected image of Superman’s cape. It’s a nice moment for Affleck, who looks much more alert in this version than the Whedon Cut. The dialogue in the Snyder Cut can often be perfunctory and expository, but the vast four-hour running time leaves room for the actors to indulge in quiet moments. The only person who doubts the idea is Alfred who in another scene warns Bruce, “If you can’t bring down a charging bull, then don’t wave the red flag.”

Batman counters, “I’m operating on complete faith now.” Quite the about face from the last movie.

The team otherwise staying on the same page, even after the Superman fiasco (more on that below), is a stark difference with the Whedon Cut. Here Bruce invites the team into the Batcave proper after they lose all three Mother Boxes, with teammates regrouping; in the Whedon Cut there is a strained attempt to create tension. Particularly between Bruce and Diana….

Wonder Woman

Gal Gadot has spoken in the past about how she was unhappy with the Justice League reshoots. While still not knowing the full details of what occurred behind the scenes, Zack Snyder’s Justice League makes apparent why she’d be disappointed with the direction of her added scenes.

To be fair, Wonder Woman is still objectified to a certain degree in the Snyder Cut. Her non-warrior attire still revolves around several low-cut dresses, and there is still a (much more understated) flirtation between Diana and Bruce. In an early scene of her and Bruce discussing their prospective teammates in front of a computer—with an awkward stab at humor where she coaxes out of Bruce that Arthur said no—there’s a moment where their hands trip over the mouse at the same time, like they’re in a teenage rom-com. Similarly, when Barry and Victor are digging up Clark Kent’s grave, Barry asks Victor if he thinks Wonder Woman would “be into younger guys.” Victor dismisses the thirstiness by saying, “Barry, she’s 5,000 years old. Every guy’s a younger guy.”

But these moments are few and far between. In the Whedon Cut, they’re constant with Alfred teasing Bruce about Batman inviting Wonder Woman to a candlelit team-up dinner, and a gross gag where Flash saves Wonder Woman during the Striker Island fight but then awkwardly lands on top of her body and gets flustered. Perhaps most frustratingly though, her character arc is reduced to a lot of flirting with Bruce, and coming to see he is right when he chastises her for “still being hung up” on Steve Trevor. She then helps him undress from his armor and shares a drink with him, like co-workers with a forced “will they or won’t they” chemistry.

All of that is gone in the Snyder Cut, which instead focuses on presenting Wonder Woman as the most ferocious and noble of the film’s six superheroes.

Her first scene is much the same as in the Whedon Cut, although it’s another film school-ready example for what a difference post-production makes. We see a group of eco-terrorists take a school group hostage, and Wonder Woman stops them. But in the Whedon Cut, the scene is nimble and brightly colored with a tongue-in-cheek quality, right down to the way Elfman uses an orchestra to play Hans Zimmer’s previously electric “Wonder Woman” theme. In the Snyder Cut, the sequence lasts nearly eight minutes in a desaturated, gray color scheme. The sadism with which the terrorists want to kill their hostages is belabored, and Junkie XL uses a fearsome version of Zimmer’s Wonder Woman theme while introducing one of his own, which relies on a haunting choral harmony.

In the new cut, Wonder Woman not only throws the bomb through the roof but jumps with it to make sure it explodes faar above the skyline. And when she returns, her power move to stop the head terrorist from killing the school children is to obliterate him into dust, with his hat blowing out the window and before the faces of shocked and unnerved London police officers. Meanwhile Wonder Woman then turns around after slaughtering this man (plus another terrorist who’s head she smashes into a wall) to rather jarringly smile at the school children. She leans down before one girl to say, “You can be whatever you want to be.” It’s actually sweeter than her saying “[I’m] a believer,” but I’m not sure it works given the new tone of the scene.

The next time we see Diana is a longer version of the scene where she discovers her mother has fired a burning arrow into the Temple of the Amazons in Greece. Snyder actually uses an impressive long one-take shot where Diana remains in focus, cleaning a statue at the Louvre, while her co-workers stay out of focus and needle her with questions. It’s a genuinely dryly funny, restrained moment, unique for this genre.

There is also an all-new scene of Diana going to Greece and retrieving the arrow from the temple. It’s one of the better additions that feels like a pseudo-Indiana Jones scene of Diana using the arrow to unlock a hidden chamber beneath the ruins, and then descending with a torch. Below she discovers a spooky room filled with spooky murals containing even spookier images of Mother Boxes and war… and a godlike monster DC fans will recognize as Darkseid.

Diana’s narration of what these images tell her is also different (more on that in the Darkseid section), with no lakeside chat with Bruce. Rather than using romantic imagery, Snyder favors to-the-point storytelling between colleagues as Diana tells Bruce in his new Batplane that the Age of Heroes defeated Darkseid. That age is over.

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While Bruce is recruiting Barry, Diana has a nice scene with Alfred about making tea before Victor Stone summons her by hacking the Bat-computer. She has no idea who he is in this scene (as opposed to having seen him earlier in the Whedon Cut), and there is no conversation where she convinces him to meet her. Instead, he designates location, summoning her. Their next scene together is more or less the same as in the Whedon Cut.

Overall, Diana has few added scenes and is honestly one of the less developed characters in the Snyder Cut despite being one-half of the team’s leadership. So the inclination of giving her more to do than discover Darkseid/Steppenwolf’s backstory was a prudent one, but all it left her with was smiling longingly as Batman drives off in the Batmobile during the third act. Ugh.

The Amazons on the other hand…

The Amazons

While Wonder Woman’s scenes in the Snyder Cut largely remain the same, the Amazons are given subtle but fierce new texture in their few added moments.

The movie opens with the Amazons tirelessly on guard when the Mother Box awakens. The next time we see them, Queen Hippolyta (Connie Nielsen) is arriving to inspect the phenomenon for a prolonged build-up to Steppenwolf’s attack. When one soldier tells their Queen maybe the box will go back to sleep, Hippolyta remarks, “Evil doesn’t sleep. It waits.”

Steppenwolf eventually attacks, leading to one of the best moments in the Snyder Cut. When he says his Parademons will feed off their fear, Hippolyta calls to her Amazons, “Daughters of Themyscira, show him your fear!” In a tribal yell matched by Junkie XL’s score, they chant back, “We have no fear!” Slaughter commences.

The battle is much bigger and more reliant on slow-motion, including shots of Hippolyta flipping off walls and hesitating to bury the other Amazonians alive. Yep, when she tells her sisters to seal the cave, it’s a death trap. The door collapses, and then the whole structure also falls into the sea. There is then A. Long. Beat. of Hippolyta thinking she’s killed Steppenwolf before he and his Parademons ascend from the sea to slaughter more of the Amazons.

The Amazonians’ defeat is largely the same, although there is now a long denouement, with the Amazons having a musical prayer that grieves their dead and brings magic to the arrow they’ll fire to warn Diana. The Amazons and Wonder Woman iconography are also much more heavily featured in flashbacks to Darkseid’s first attack on Earth 5,000 years ago. We get better shots of Zeus and Ares (David Thewlis from Wonder Woman), and Amazonian Venelia (Doutzen Kroes) being filmed like she’s one of Snyder’s 300 Spartans in the ancient war. But all of that is just background for…

Steppenwolf and Darkseid

Steppenwolf is one of the most dramatically improved characters in Zack Snyder’s Justice League. Beyond more spikes being added to his armor (and his chin being slightly shrunken from its ridiculous size), the Ciarán Hinds-voiced baddie’s motivations are wholly different. In the Whedon Cut, he was a generic “conquer the world” supervillain who was defeated thousands of years ago on Earth by an alliance of men, Amazonians, and Atlanteans. He then returns and refers to his Mother Boxes as “mother.”

While he still chases magic boxes he wants to use to conquer the world in the Snyder Cut, he’s at least a little more nuanced and a lot more despairing toward the whole endeavor. Steppenwolf is revealed to be a meek middle management malcontent with dreams of coming home. As we eventually learn in dialogue exchanges over BvS’ weird molten metal intergalactic telecommunication technology, Steppenwolf is a pariah back home on the planet Apokolips. Long ago, he was party to a failed coup against comic book creator Jack Kirby’s ultimate space fascist, Darkseid (Ray Porter). Think Thanos before there was a Thanos.

“I fall before you,” Steppenwolf moans during his first conversation with Darkseid’s minion DeSaad (Peter Guinness). “Let me make a plea that I may come home after I take this world in [Darkseid’s] name.” But DeSaad will not hear it, saying Steppenwolf is basically on probation for helping an attempted coup against Darkseid millennia ago, even if Steppenwolf then changed sides and killed Darkseid’s other betrayers. Now Steppenwolf has a debt of a 150,000 worlds he must conquer in Darkseid’s name if he wishes to return home.

Basically, Steppenwolf is a putz. Hence he can be both menacing and pathetic when he first attacks the Amazons and remarks of them, with a hint of resigned boredom, “Defenders? Defenders have failed a hundred thousand worlds. They always fail.” And it’s with exhaustion he decides to create his home base on an irradiated scrap of Russian land because it’s toxic.

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Darkseid, by contrast, is introduced to be Emperor Palpatine meets Sauron. Aye, there’s a real Lord of the Rings level of ambition to Diana’s flashback to the Age of Heroes. Rather than Steppenwolf, it’s Darkseid who first steps foot on Earth, turning some of the soil into the scorched cursive hellscape that Kirby fans will be intimately familiar with. We also get a better look of his foes, including an alien Green Lantern whom Darkseid personally kills by cutting off his hand. The green ring flies away before the fiend can grab it.

The sequence is filmed to mirror the opening moments of The Fellowship of the Ring, with Darkseid’s defeat harkening back to the glorious day the people of Middle-earth were victorious. However, personally speaking, it doesn’t reach that height, with Darkseid coming off like more of an overpowered Orc who’s out-flexed by Ares. Yep, David Thewlis’ villain from Wonder Woman is revealed to be the guy who whoops Darkseid’s ass in the end, planting an axe in his shoulder blade and leading the Greatest Evil to be carried from the battlefield, screaming.

Much later in the movie, Darkseid is introduced properly when Steppenwolf reveals he’s learned Earth is home to the Anti-Life Equation. It’s a pretty vague secondary MacGuffin in the context of the Snyder Cut, although Steppenwolf says it would give Darkseid power over the multiverse—it’s unclear why Darkseid did not know it was on Earth when he lost to Ares and the band of heroes, or why he never could come back for it.

However, Darkseid then appears on the telecom with Steppenwolf, causing the Spiked One to take off his armor for the first time and show his bare flesh in fealty to his space dictator. Darkseid promises Steppenwolf he can come home once he’s taken Earth and brings Darkseid the Anti-Life Equation.

We also get a glimpse of how Darkseid plans to use it. Elsewhere in the movie, Cyborg has an inexplicable vision the moment right before a Mother Box is used to bring Superman back from the dead: It’s of an Armageddon much darker than the Knightmare scene in Batman v Superman. The sequence begins with the Amazons finally off Themyscira. They’re burning Wonder Woman in a funeral pyre after putting two coins on her eyes for the boatmen. Hippolyta cries.

Elsewhere in a montage, Superman grieves over the scorched body that can only be Lois Lane (Amy Adams) and Darkseid appears to place a not-so-comforting hand on his shoulder. Later we see the ruins of the Hall of Justice that diehard Superfriends fans will recognize, with an evil Superman flying over it with heat ray eyes. Finally, we see Darkseid himself murder Aquaman with his own trident…

This appears to be an inevitable future of “the Snyder Verse.”

Aquaman

But that is not the destination of the current film. The Snyder Cut, after all, has to lay a lot of groundwork that’ll make us care about these characters in the here and now.

Aquaman is the first to get that treatment in his early scene with Bruce Wayne (detailed more above). The Whedon Cut includes Arthur Curry saying, “You’re out of your mind, Bruce Wayne” as he gets into freezing cold water to swim away. In the Snyder Cut, we don’t see him shoot off. Rather Arthur disappears quietly beneath bubbles between shots. Snyder’s desire to emphasize the godlike wonder of these characters is then underlined in neon when several villagers see him off by singing a worshipful Icelandic hymn in Aquaman’s honor.

If the point is missed, after several minutes of crooning, one woman walks up to caress the sweater Aquaman took off and sniff it, savoring his undoubtedly godlike musk.

The sequence of Aquaman saving a crew from a shipwreck is almost exactly the same in the Snyder Cut, although there are no added jokes about him calling the captain “Ahab” in the bar. Additionally, there’s a really nice grace note of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ “There is a Kingdom” playing when Aquaman goes to brood stoically before a raging storm. It’s exactly the same as in the Whedon Cut, but Whedon makes it generic blockbuster filler with a White Stripes song playing in the background. Snyder goes for a mournful, reflective tone that resembles the better elements of his version of Justice League.

Afterward Aquaman makes his first of two trips to Atlantis in the film—meeting Vulko (Willem Dafoe) in a scene that was entirely deleted. It turns out the effect of Atlalnteans only talking in air bubbles was always a Snyder affectation, although what was lost in the Whedon Cut (and eventual Aquaman movie) is that all the properly born Atlanteans speak with English accents. Dafoe’s Vulko is a bit hammier, seeming adjacent to Dafoe’s wonderful turn in The Lighthouse. But Amber Heard’s Mera speaking her lines in a purely Posh London accent after a whole movie of her using an American one in Aquaman is a real trip.

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What brings Arthur back the second time is Steppenwolf diving below the waves for the Mother Box. He learns of its location (which is unexplained in the Whedon Cut) by torturing Atlanteans whom Parademons have dragged from the ocean, reading the water dwellers’ minds with some gruesome sci-fi spider robot.

Steppenwolf’s actual attack on Atlantis is much more coherent in the Snyder Cut. With action beats given time to pause, and Steppenwolf’s surprise appearance underwater less hilariously cringe-inducing. Mera also gets a cool moment where the villain has her pushed against the wall and says she can’t run away, “I wasn’t trying to,” she responds. Previously, we saw her use superpowers to suck water out of air pockets; now she uses it to suck the blood out of Steppenwolf’s face. He of course throws her back into the water and almost kills her if not for Arthur’s chivalrous, splash-page rescue of his future love interest.

Most of Aquaman’s subsequent scenes play out the same, although he is much less brutish and frat bro-y. There are at least three fewer “yeahs” and “alrights!,” and there is no scene of him sitting on Wonder Woman’s Lasso of Truth, blurting out he’s scared and horny at the same time.

The Flash

Interestingly, the Flash is both the least developed of the superheroes in the Snyder Cut and also the most unchanged by Whedon. It appears that Ezra Miller’s seemingly improvised humor was the element of least importance to Snyder, and the most useful thing Snyder filmed for Whedon’s purposes.

Maybe that’s why the Flash’s first scene in the Snyder Cut does not occur until nearly 70 minutes into the film. It’s also a wholly different introduction scene to what we saw in the theatrical cut. In the restored sequence, Barry Allen is applying for a job as a dog groomer at a pet shop when the unnamed woman who just left—or as fans know her, Iris West (Kiersey Clemons)—is almost pancaked by a semi-truck. The driver, in a rather crude cliché, is a simpleton reaching for his food on the cab’s floor when he slams into Iris’ convertible.

Luckily, Barry sees it coming and slows things down for another somber needle drop on the soundtrack. The whole thing plays like a more wistful, alternative rock version to one of Quicksilver’s big scenes in the X-Men movies. In extreme slow-motion, Barry catches a hot dog from an exploding hot dog vendor, placing it in his pocket, and then catches Iris out of her shattered car. When time returns to normal, Iris realizes she was saved by this cute dork, who then rushes back in time for the pet shop owner to be unsure who broke her window in the blink of an eye. Barry’s feeding the hot dog to her canines.

Otherwise, by and large, the Flash’s scenes remain the same until near the end. Snyder has removed Whedon’s unfunny addition of Barry drawing glasses on the eyes of someone in line while waiting to see his dad at prison, but the Miller/Billy Crudup scene remains the same but longer. Bruce Wayne still breaks into Barry’s loft and tells Barry his superpower is that “I’m rich.”

In the Striker Island action sequence, rather than “save one,” the Flash leads an exodus of civilians to the surface. And when debris nearly falls on them, he creates a shield by running so fast he looks like lightning in the sky blocking the falling rubble. He also is wounded by a Parademon laser blast so sharp it leaves him bleeding from the side of his leg, temporarily hobbled.

The one significant change before the climax is Barry and Victor digging up Clark Kent’s grave. It’s a sincerely quiet moment that (Wonder Woman leering aside) is refreshingly earnest and hushed for a superhero movie.

“I could do this in a second,” Barry says. Victor responds, “Yeah.” The implication is they should take their time and give Superman the honor he deserves. After his body is exhumed and wrapped up, Barry says, “He was my hero.”

Cyborg

Of the main five heroes in Justice League, Cyborg turned out to be the most important by far. Whatever occurred behind the scenes between Whedon, the producers, and Fisher, the actor had reason to be frustrated simply because his character arc was removed. In its place, he was forced to say, “Booyah.”

The Snyder Cut restores Victor Stone/Cyborg’s importance from the opening credits onward. It begins by basking in what isn’t sad between Victor and his father Dr. Silas Stone (Joe Morton). Initially, we spend more time with Silas, as the father throws himself into his work at STAR Labs to better understand the Mother Boxes.

Eventually, Cyborg gets his own flashback to a time when he was more man than machine. Under an aching musical theme written by Junkie XL, it’s revealed Victor was a gifted genius (his dean even says so!) at Gotham University. Victor is so intelligent, while also being a football star, that he can get away with hacking into the school’s database and changing a friend’s grades.

We also meet his mother who defends her son’s kind heart from the dean in a sequence that’s intercut with his slow-motion football glory, plus a side of melancholy because daddy wasn’t there. Only mom shows up for the game. Afterward they argue in the car about whether Dad really cares about Victor. A car is then seen rushing (unsurprisingly) into frame, T-Boning their car.

The process of Victor becoming Cyborg is only hinted at in scenes through various other flashbacks. But we do see Silas being told his wife is dead and that he’ll soon have to let his son go, too. Hence the bad blood between the two nearly throughout the Snyder Cut’s whole four hours. When we see Silas come home to Victor at their apartment, the son will not even speak to his father. Instead he reluctantly agrees to listen to a recording his father left for him. On the tape, Silas tells his son that the fate of the entire world is now “in your hands, Vic.”

Thanks to the alien technology of the Mother Box used to resurrect Cyborg, Victor has superpowers, which we see him fumblingly try out by flying on his father’s Gotham rooftop. But that’s “just the tip of the tip” of the iceberg, according to Silas’ voiceover. Victor’s high-end computer body now gives him the ability to control the world’s nuclear arsenals and the world’s economy.

This is visualized in a CGI mind palace created in Cybrog’s digital brain. There Fisher gets to play Victor as whole, and without a red eye. Some of it is effective, like floating missiles above his head. Other bits are just ludicrous, like financial markets being personified by a CGI bear slapping a CGI bull. It’s… weird.

But there are nice elements too, like Victor choosing to use his superpowers to see folks suffering, and giving a struggling single mother $150,000 out of an ATM machine. Through it all, he remains hooded and lonely, catching glimpses of people staring at his glowing countenance. It’s why he destroys his father’s recording when Dad tries to stop talking about Cyborg’s powers and instead address Vic as a loving father.

What draws Victor out of his proverbial cave is of course his father being kidnapped by Parademons. He seeks Diana Prince’s counsel but ignores her when she says his powers are a gift—I did miss the line, “If these are gifts why am I always the one paying for them?” Still, as in the Whedon Cut, he shows up on GCPD’s rooftop to join the team.

The one big addition during all the fighting is that when Cyborg flies now, his famous comic book face armor that protects everything but his red eye is finally used on screen. Plus he gets to save his father. Silas is shocked his son came for him, but Victor only says, “You’re my father.” Nothing more needs to be said.

After the Striker Island fight, however, Victor again takes center stage when Aquaman accuses him of possibly being compromised by his alien tech body. Cyborg reveals in a visual flashback, which Victor walks through in his mind palace, that the Mother Box was acquired by the Allies during World War II, taken from the Nazis’ collection of occult goodies in 1944. For nearly a century, it sat undisturbed in the Department of Defense until his father Silas realized it was similar to the technology used by the Kryptonian ship in downtown Metropolis.

That’s how Silas discovered its power, and in a horrifying flashback, he uses it when he looks at his son’s body on a slab, Vic’s lower torso gone. When Silas uses the magic box on Victor, the son screams bloody murder.

It is Victor Stone who puts the pieces together for the nascent Justice League and gets the heroes to begin acting like a real team. He puts together for the others that the Mother Box can be used to bring Superman back from the dead, and projects an image of Big Boy Blue for everyone to see.

Vic leads the team into STAR Labs to do the deed. And when Silas sees his son, still not talking to him, walk by with Batman and other weirdos, Dad doesn’t call it in. In fact, Vic and Silas are why the heroes win in this version, because after the Superman resurrection is bolloxed up, and Steppenwolf arrives to retrieve the third Mother Box, rather than run away, Silas sacrifices himself by heating the box with a laser so hot, that Batman can conveniently track wherever it goes in the world.

One could argue Cyborg was the most crucial of the heroes in organizing a true team team. Well, him and the legacy of another…

Superman

One imagines Superman’s treatment by Snyder and screenwriter Chris Terrio in what we now call the Snyder Cut, and Batman v Superman before it, played a major role in Warners’ eventual lack of confidence in the filmmakers. The beginning of the Whedon Cut even starts by course correcting where Whedon might’ve thought Snyder went wrong. Hence the awkward smartphone video of Superman talking to some children with a big smile on his face (and mustache unconvincingly erased from it).

Honestly, though? The depiction of Superman in the Snyder Cut is at times quite heroic and sweet. Certainly sweeter than the abysmal “no one stays good forever in this world” line of dialogue from BvS. However, there are major caveats.

Someone who unequivocally benefits from the new version is Amy Adams’ Lois Lane. While she again has relatively little to do, the rare moments where she is on screen in the Snyder Cut count a hell of a lot more. For starters, there is a genuinely heartfelt sequence about grief—one that it’s fair to wonder if Snyder has added special emphasis to. We follow Lois as she begins her morning routine by getting out of bed, buying a cup of coffee, and going to spend an hour or so at Superman’s memorial in downtown Metropolis.

The soundtrack plays Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ “Distant Sky,” and the scene bleeds a dignified sorrow as Lois unfurls her umbrella in the rain and walks up to Superman’s memorial to lay flowers. The cop she gives her morning coffee to asks Miss Lane if she ever skips a day, and she says there’s nowhere else she’d rather be. This is the transition to the Superman flag in London.

Afterward Lois goes nearly two hours before appearing again in the film, while Diane Lane’s Ma Kent (who is seen early in the picture leaving home) vanishes for well over that amount of time. It makes their reunion scene in Lois’ apartment feel awkward and obligatory after such a long pause, but the restored scene is still better than the “Clark told me you were the thirstiest girl he ever met” in the Whedon Cut. At least until the Ma Kent of this scene is pointlessly revealed to be Martian Manhunter. (Sigh.) It’s almost as bad a bit of forced world-building as future Barry Allen warning Batman about Lois Lane in BvS.

Meanwhile the League all comes to the idea of resurrecting Superman at the same time, and there are no second guesses other than Alfred’s skepticism. Thus begins a resurrection sequence where it’s genuinely affecting to hear Zimmer’s Superman theme again as Kal-El’s body is placed into the Kryptonian ships goo-room. Similarly, Snyder achieves another grace moment when Lois sees Superman flying in the sky right after his resurrection. Before this moment, Lois made the decision in bed that morning for this to be the last time she’d visit and grieve Superman’s death at the memorial. We’re also teased to the fact she keeps a pregnancy test on the nightstand. So she made her final trip to his memorial.

And on the same day, Superman came back.

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Unfortunately, his return is much the same as it was in the Whedon Cut, with the gloomy gray cinematography and the outright sinister version of Superman who’s apparently forgotten his identity. In fact, he’s more menacing than the familiar footage of him smacking down Wonder Woman and Aquaman. Now he takes time to study his monument before still coldly attacking the other superheroes and using his heat ray vision to try and murder U.S. soldiers stationed by his memorial.

If not for the interference of Batman, Superman would’ve killed servicemen. For what it’s worth though, he tries to kill Batman too. Gone is the “do you bleed?” callback to the previou cut. Instead Superman uses his heat ray vision to try and cook Batman inside his own cowl—which is only stopped by Bruce’s special “energy absorption” gauntlets.

As with the Whedon Cut, Bruce’s death is prevented when Lois shows up, but now of her own volition, and she and Clark fly away to Smallville. And once there, Superman’s soul returns and we get nice Americana scenes of Clark Kent watching a butterfly land on his hand, and Lois joining him in the wheat field.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he says of the engagement ring he planned to give her before his death, and which she keeps on her hand. Soon Ma Kent joins them and it’s a lovely moment of reconciliation with the women in his life. It’s also far more emotionally effective than the version of Lois apologizing to Clark for “not being strong” after he died in the Whedon Cut.

And yet… it’s compromised by the constant foreshadowing of another heel turn in Superman’s future. The Kryptonian ship keeps warning, pleading even, with Cyborg that there is “no turning back from this action” as he prepares to resurrect Superman. Only then does he have a vision of an evil Kal-El drifting over a smoldering Metropolis. This muddle created by these conflicting sensibilities—folksy domesticity versus foreboding doom—do not mesh. At all.

At the very least, Clark returns to the Kryptonian ship to find there was a black Superman suit hidden all along in the corner. Additionally, he hears both of his dads’ voices, Jor-El (Russell Crowe) and Pa Kent (Kevin Costner). Some of it is old audio about “they’ll join you in the sun” from Man of Steel. Some of it is new recordings, which don’t really make sense as both men are dead. But we hear Pa repeat, “Fly son” and Jor-El intone, “Love them as we loved you.”

Black-suited Superman then flies into the orbit, taking the same Christ pose he had in Man of Steel, visually suggesting the Lord is risen, hallelujah. Superman then flies to the Batcave and meets Alfred, who tells him where to go… for the end of things.

The Ending

It is the ending, when everyone comes together, where the Whedon Cut and Snyder Cut perhaps most definitively diverge. It’s still technically the same ending: the five main members of the League show up in a nondescript Russian town to fight Parademons. Superman returns at a desperate moment and they all prevent the Mother Boxes from becoming one ungodly MacGuffin that would destroy Earth, knocking Steppenwolf on his CG ass.

Yet how these elements are incorporated, and where they leave the DC Extended Universe, are like on different planes of existence. From the top, the gore level (as with the Striker Island fight) is just more extreme in the Snyder Cut. Batman shoots Parademons with his Batmobile and then later uses the aliens’ own plasma guns against them; Wonder Woman beheads and cripples more computer generated baddies than all the armies of Gondor combined. Even Aquaman’s trident tastes blood.

There is also a much stronger sense of teamwork in the Snyder Cut. Batman’s suicide play of driving headlong into carnage makes more sense in this version as he crashes his plane into one of Steppenwolf’s magical machines, which brings down a force field and lets the team enter beneath the villain’s dome. And instead of Wonder Woman coming alone to Batman’s rescue, the whole team fights alongside his Batmobile for a freeze frame worthy of a splash page. It really is bizarre that Whedon, who was so good at these kinds of images in his Avengers movies, took this one out.

Once inside Steppenwolf’s evil lair, things are also far more exciting. There are no civilians (or randomly shoehorned in Russian family) to save. But there are enormous stakes as Cyborg has to stop the Boxes by merging with them. In the process, he enters his proverbial mind palace to face the three boxes in the flesh, as they’ve turned into literal witch crones. At first they appear as his dead parents, promising mom is ready to be reunited with her “broken boy,” but it’s a ruse that torments Victor to an even greater degree.

Meanwhile Steppenwolf has opened a Boom Tube portal to Apokolips where Darkseid, DeSaad, and Granny Goodness are waiting to take over Earth and claim the Anti-Life Equation. It was always “save the world” stakes in both versions, but you actually feel them in the Snyder Cut, particularly since… the heroes fail.

In a development that maybe would’ve left a Flash solo movie with nowhere to go, Darkseid and Steppenwolf briefly win, the three Mother Boxes merging despite Cyborg’s best efforts. The world instantly begins being ripped apart by a CG blur which presumably will turn Earth into a hellscape. The Flash, who is further afield from the action and bleeding from a gruesome wound in the side of his stomach, knows he has only one choice: to run backwards in time fast enough to reverse the flow of time.

It’s a trick that is expected to play heavily in DC Films’ upcoming Flashpoint inspired film, and Barry executes it here to undo the heroes’ defeat. Running into a seeming tornado of blue computer generated lightning, Barry undoes the damage and gives Cyborg a little more time, with Superman’s help, to stop the boxes from combining.

The action prevents the world’s end and allows Aquaman to skewer Steppenwolf like a fish on a hook. In the Whedon Cut, Steppenwolf is slashed by Wonder Woman and unsatisfyingly undone by becoming so fearful that he triggers his Parademons’ scent, and they eat him alive. Essentially, it’s a dippy retread of The Lion King where Scar is devoured by his own hyenas.

While certainly more bloodthirsty, there’s no denying there’s a satisfaction in Aquaman stabbing Steppenwolf, Superman punching him, and finally Wonder Woman beheading him. That is justice for her fallen Amazonian sisters.

Afterward, the whole direction of the DCEU still pivots toward darkness in Snyder’s vision. The Boom Tube to Apokolips stays open long enough for Steppenwolf’s head to return home. Darkseid crushes it beneath his foot. He also accepts that, for whatever reason, they cannot reach Earth through the Boom Tubes due to this defeat. “We will do things the old way,” Darkseid hisses. He summons the armada to head to Earth, setting up a very different future for the DCEU.

Epilogue

Continuing on the divergent paths between the Whedon and Snyder Cuts, the epilogue of the latter (complete with a title card) essentially presents the road not taken in the DCEU. Many of the elements we saw in the Whedon Cut remain, such as Bruce and Diana opening up Wayne Manor to become the headquarters for the Justice League by building a table “with room for more;” we also see Barry tell his incarcerated Dad he got a job at the Central City crime lab; and of course there’s Superman’s beloved shirt rip.

However, there’s so much more added on by Snyder. Some of it is very intriguing, such as Diana taking the arrow from her mother and looking out at the horizon of the Aegean Sea by the Temple of the Amazons. The implication is she’s begun yearning to return home. Could this have once been the plot thread of Wonder Woman 2? Could it still become the plot thread of Wonder Woman 3?

The most effective element is, again, Cyborg as he reconstructs his father’s broken audio recording and hears Silas’ love as a “father twice over.” It’s bittersweet Victor never got to verbally reconcile with his papa, but just saying, “You’re my father” might’ve been enough.

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Yet the epilogue ultimately becomes a teaser for what Snyder’s original vision for a Justice League trilogy might’ve looked like. In the Whedon Cut, the sequence of Lex Luthor on a yacht with Deathstroke (Joe Manganiello) comes as a post-credit sequence. In the Snyder Cut, it’s part of the body of the story. The build-up to Lex’s escape is longer, and once on the yacht he has no quippy joke about “forming a league of our own.” But he does tell Deathstroke that Batman’s secret identity is Bruce Wayne.

That captures Deathstroke’s attention and seems to set up potentially catastrophic events for Bruce’s future in Affleck’s now defunct The Batman movie. It also would appear to further set up the Legion of Doom Justice League sequel with Deathstroke and Luthor.

But that’s pittance compared to the far bigger stinger for the future. In one more “Knightmare,” and another vision of a future where Darkseid has turned Earth into a Mad Max apocalypse, we once more see Affleck’s Batman as a road warrior in a desert, this time with Amber Heard’s Mera, the Flash, Deathstroke, and Cyborg as his road trip buddies. Clearly Cyborg’s vision earlier in the film came to pass, with Mera swearing she’ll kill Darkseid in order to avenge Arthur.

The biggest bombshell here though is that this is where Jared Leto reprises his performance as the Joker. I wish I could say it was better than this grubby, grinning, awkward reshoot moment where he talks about giving the Batman a reach around. Bruce’s dialogue isn’t much better as he mumbles, “When I held Harley Quinn, and she was bleeding and dying, she begged me with her last breath that when I killed you—and make no mistake I will fucking kill you—that I do it slow.”

We’re a long way from Adam West, eh? The sequence ends with Evil Superman appearing with heat ray vision, coming to kill all of them. This clearly stands as a trailer for Justice League sequels that almost certainly will never be. It’s also a vision for the Justice League trilogy Snyder originally planned with Terrio that’s making its rounds across the internet. Part III was meant to be about Batman and the Flash in the ruins of a destroyed Earth traveling back in time so Batman could make sure that Lois Lane never died—sacrificing his life so Superman never turned to evil. Again.

I can’t say this scene adds a lot to this movie, any more than the final, final tease of Harry Lennix’s Martian Manhunter showing up one more random time to give Bruce Wayne a pat on the shoulder. He says your parents would be proud of you and that he wants to join his team. Affleck’s Bruce is strangely not perplexed by any of this and gives off a general “Cool story, bro” vibe.

Martian Manhunter travels into a future we will never see, setting up a sequel that has been abandoned. It’s a shame, but it is so brazenly, defiantly Snyder’s vision—and so far removed from the Whedon Cut’s goofy ending on Superman and Flash having a happy go lucky race to the Pacific—that one can at least give this to to the director: He did it his way. There’s something to be said about that.

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[imnotwolverine]

The good, the bad and the parents

Henry Cavill x OC Lisa - multi-chapter fic

Author’s note: There’s a lot of ups and downs when you live your life in the spotlights... Gosh this chapter got so long. OOPS. I hope you Henry-bear lovers can endure. 

Word count: 4.918

Disclaimer: fluff

--

This is part 11 of the Tea for Two story. 

Find the Masterlist here. 

--

< Go back to part 10

The cab rocked over the cobbled stones as it moved at a snail’s pace through the narrow London streets. I wasn’t even bothering anymore to check what time it was, but it was dark and it had been raining for hours. Prejudice confirmed: England stands equal to rain. Blergh. I really hadn’t missed this moody European weather.

I looked over at Henry, whose baritone voice hummed through the cab as he was making a phone call. He was rubbing his temple in annoyance, his whole body silently screaming: Fuck this phone conversation. Poor bear. 

I felt my heart ache for him, but it didn’t seem like a good moment to bother him with well-meant cuddles. I looked back out of the window, trying to find any street signs. Were we almost there? The thick water drops on the window made it rather difficult to decipher anything and I soon enough gave up, sighing softly.

This had been one shitty journey. Excruciatingly long, with lots of bad weather, endless delays, some trouble with Kal’s traveling papers and as a cherry on top: lost baggage. Sometimes travelling was fun. Sometimes it wasn’t. Today it was definitely the latter.

‘Madam, sir, looks like the road is blocked. I could drop you off here. It’s a 5-minute walk to the address if you take a right turn here.’ The cab driver pointed at a small alleyway between the sloping brick buildings. Henry looked up from his call, moving the phone from his ear and covering it with his hand. ‘Alright..’ He nodded, before looking at me with a defeated smile. ‘Let’s go home.’ He said, the fatigue evident in his voice. I nodded in turn, sitting up and paying the cab driver while Henry quickly finished his phone call.

—

After what seemed like the longest suitcase walk from hell, including freezing cold rain, uneven cobblestone roads, a very impatient Kal tugging at his leash and a tired-to-the-bone Henry..we arrived. Finally! For heaven’s sake!

Henry was busy digging up his keys, so I took the moment to look around, the rain having thankfully dimmed down to a light drizzle. I wiped the wet strands of hair out of my face and peered through the dimly lit street. I could distinguish a small courtyard, surrounded by a dozen small Mews houses laid out in pretty red brick. This is rather cute. I didn’t know what I had exactly expected from Henry’s house. I guess probably something more modern. Something like a Hollywood bachelor pad with large windows and clean white walls. Now…this was anything but that. This was actually really quaint and romantic.

I felt Henry’s hand on mine as he took my suitcase, awakening me from my silent observation of the neighbourhood. Our eyes met. ‘So..’ Henry started, moving my suitcase inside, being immediately interrupted by Kal who’d walked up to Henry, shaking off the rain from his thick fur coat. ‘KAL! Come on man.’ Henry wrinkled his nose as the drops flew around, his one arm trying to shield himself, while the other pushed Kal to the back of the hallway. I chuckled softly. ‘Try two.’ Henry sighed, stepping back towards the door and gesturing me to come inside. ‘Milady. I’d like to welcome you to my..humble abode.’ He said, politely nodding his head. I smiled warmly at him, quickly shrugging off my coat as he took it from me, placing it on a hook near the door.  

The house oozed “Henry”. Be it the slightly musky smell, the coatrack full of discarded jumpers and coats - all his - or the gazillion dog toys that were strewn over the floor. Okay, maybe the house was 50% Kal, 50% Henry. I smiled at the thought as I heard Kal’s nails happily ticking on the old oak floors. I looked over my shoulder, seeing Henry still standing near the door. What was he up to? His large blue eyes looked back at me quietly, expectantly. Was he nervous about my first impression of his house? I smiled a reassuring smile before peeling off my wet shoes and joined Kal in what appeared to be the living room.

Henry followed close at my heels as I started to look around. A small living room with a soft grey corner sofa, shelves filled with movie paraphernalia, fantasy books and pictures. And of course Henry’s trusty treadmill, that was placed in the far back corner - used whenever he didn’t feel like doing his morning cardio outside. ‘This is so much homelier then I expected.’ I smiled, looking for Henry over my shoulder, but instead being greeted by his whole body as he pressed himself against me.

‘Hmmm.’ Henry hummed, his wet hair dripping on my cheek. I chuckled softly, leaning into his broad chest as he wrapped his arms around me, his hands folding around mine to warm them back up. ‘You’re freezing.’ He whispered, pulling me even closer. I nodded in silent agreement. I was too tired for polite conversation and just wanted to enjoy his hug, allowing my eyes to fly back to Kal who was zooming around the house happily, a toy squashed in his large muzzle. ‘Well at least ONE of us still has some energy left.’ I groaned. ‘Yea..I probably should walk him soon before he breaks the whole place down.’ Henry said, pushing his nose into the crook of my neck, inhaling deeply. ‘Probably.’ I smiled, enjoying his hot breath as it made my skin tingle. I had long forgotten the cold and rainy weather outside now my personal body heater had pressed himself against me. I hummed happily, turning around in his arms and looked up into his stormy blues. ‘Welcome home.’ I said, earning the first real - albeit tired - smile from him in hours.

——

The next morning I decided to give myself a little house tour. Henry had of course shown me some essentials last night. Essentials like the toilet and the bed. And…well..okey..maybe that was actually all. We simply hadn’t made it much further than the bed since we had been too tired. But.. the good news was that it had left me a whole 2 bedroom house filled with Henry’s stuff to explore now Kal and Henry were out for a quick morning walk, picking up some breakfast for the three of us. Perfect timing for some snooping around.

One shower later, my body now wrapped in some comfy dark blue palazzo trousers and a big beige sweater, I decided it would be the upper floor first. A floor that was covered in such light beige carpet that it was an absolute no-go-zone for Kal and his mess. No dog toys to be tripped over at night. The master bed room with its four poster king size bed was simple yet effective. There was a large closet with Henry’s clothes on one end of the room and it connected directly to a good sized bathroom with his and hers sinks, a toilet, shower and bath. Quite the luxury for London standards. On the landing there was another huge built-in closet running the whole length of the wall. I opened a few doors. Gym clothes, neatly stacked. Of course. Another door. Leather jackets, at least 20. Goodness..me. I don’t think I ever met a man with this many clothes. The closet door at the far right however proved to be the most interesting. Oh yes! Costumes! I let my hand glide over some of the materials. Movie costumes. Hmm. I had been aware of the fact that only one set of each costume was saved when a movie production was wrapped up. But I had never really thought about what happened to the other costume sets. Well. Apparently they were all stored here by Henry, as this closet was about to burst with the many costumes it contained.

My fingers drifted over the fabrics, before halting when they touched a supple deep red fabric. Hmm. Intriguing. Very different from all the medieval-like browns and greys. I pulled it out. A cape. Oh. OH! Superman’s cape! Well how about that. It was surprisingly light, flowing effortlessly through the air as I moved it around. Pretty.

‘Honey, I’m back.’ Henry’s voice sounded from the bottom of the stairs. DARN! I hadn’t even heard the front door. I swallowed my surprised gasp as I quickly pushed the cape back in between the costumes. ‘Coming!’ I chanted, struggling as this darn closet was way too closely packed. Hmmpfff. ‘GET BACK IN THERE.’ I muttered under my breath. ‘Want some tea?’ He asked, still at the bottom of the stairs. ‘Ye..DARNIT,’ A few costumes fell off their hangers, now causing a whole avalanche of clothes to spill out. ‘YES.’ I exclaimed, perhaps a tad too loud. I heard Henry’s chuckle come closer as his feet moved up the creaking stairs.

‘Ah, so that’s what you’re up to.’ His chuckle turned into a laugh as he saw me struggling with a bunch of costumes in one arm, Superman’s cape in the other. ‘Oh..’ My eyes got big with embarrassment. ‘Sorry…’ I felt a blush creep up my cheeks. ‘Me and this closet were just having a little…disagreement.’ I said while Henry took over some of the costumes, his big blue eyes giving me an amused look. ‘I see.’ He grinned, looking back at the closet. ‘I guess I really should get a bigger closet for all of these, hmm?’ He smiled, his body turning towards the closet to put back the costumes one by one. Inadvertently my eyes caressed his tall frame as his arms flexed under the soft material of his grey sweater. So hot. Wew.

He turned back around, making his stubborn curl fall back over his forehead as he reached for the cape in my arm. He rubbed his thumbs over the fabric, gingerly smiling. The sudden realisation came over me I was right now looking at Superman. The Superman. Especially with that darn curl tumbling down his forehead..he sure was the spitting image of the superhero. I felt another blush creep up my cheeks and was more then glad that Henry didn’t notice as he finally reached back into the closet to squeeze the cape back in there.

And…another few costumes fell out again. He sighed, letting out a dry chuckle while looking down at the costumes that had tumbled to his feet. ‘See!’ I exclaimed, laughing at the fact that Henry was failing to do the exact same thing I had tried. He raised a handsome eyebrow, shrugging. ‘I guess Supe’s doesn’t want to go back in there.’ He pulled the cape back out and placed it carefully back in my arms. GOSH, stop blushing girl. I felt my cheeks burn as he moved back up from picking up some of the fallen down costumes. ‘What is it?’ He asked, half-knowing the answer, a humoured glint in his eyes. ‘Oh..nothing.’ I breathed, quickly lowering my eyes at the cape. ‘So where do we leave this..?’ I said, trying to sound casual about it, shrugging slightly, still feeling the slight blush burning on my cheeks. ‘Just put it on the bed. We’ll find a place for it later. Let’s have breakfast.’ He said, cupping my cheek and placing a chaste kiss on my lips.

How in the hell did I ever get to date Superman? Life’s so weird.

——

It was the night of the London premiere. I was fidgeting endlessly while waiting for the cab to arrive. I walked back to the mirror in the hallway, checking my hair and make-up for the gazilionth time. It was fine. I looked fine. Pffft. E-very-thing would be fine. Keep it together girl. I straightened out my thick winter jacket, again, and paced back to the living room. Kal was fast asleep on the floor, the lights were dimmed down and the house was quiet. Oh how I wish I could just stay at home and get comfy on the couch with a cup of tea. But avoiding challenging situations was not my thing. I best just get this over with, right?

A car approached and I felt my heart jump again. That must be it. I felt my phone buzz, alarming me the cab had arrived. Okey. Let’s go. Let’s..let’s meet the parents.

——

I entered the gallery of the movie theatre while the interviews were being held on the red carpet outside. Already there was quite a buzz and it took me a good moment to find the cloakroom where I could drop off my jacket. Alright, what’s next? I let my eyes travel through the crowd, trying to find any familiar faces. Some hair- and make-up ladies…nahh..I barely knew them. Anyone else? I looked further and further until my gaze reached the far back corner. And sure enough - Thank the gods! - I noticed a few of the sound guys from Poland and my uneasy heart calmed down. Friendly folk. I picked up a glass of white wine at the bar and made my way to them, earning praising looks as they noticed me appearing from the crowd. The black and white dress was working its magic.

‘Not too bad looking yourself gents.’ I winked, stepping into their little circle and clinking my glass with theirs. ‘Ah..it’s at least an attempt.’ The Sound 1 guy smiled, shrugging. I believed his name was Jack, but everyone always called him Sound 1 so I wasn’t completely sure. I nodded at him and Jack sighed, his suit jacket barely holding on as the button strained under his bulging belly. And do I spy he is still wearing his usual dark blue jeans? I quietly chuckled, taking a sip of my wine. Nerds will be nerds.

‘So now it’s just waiting for your prince charming, huh?’ Jack asked, looking around the room. ‘Worse even. I’m about to meet…the parents.’ I muttered quietly, taking another large sip, hoping the wine would further calm my nerves. ‘OH! Well ain’t that exciting. Surely they are friendly folk.’ He smiled, his gruff moustache curling up. He reminded me somewhat of a chubby Jack Nicholson with beard. Yea..surely his name was Jack. It fit him.

‘Hey,’ Sound 2 interrupted us. ‘I think that’s them.’ We looked at the direction he was pointing at, seeing a small blonde lady with neatly coifed hair followed by a bear of a man. Oh my. That looks like them. They look just like the pictures Henry showed. I quickly turned back, seeing the men were making no attempt to hide their stares. ‘Don’t stare.’ I admonished, patting Sound 2 - Alex? was it Alex? - on his arm. He grinned, his eyes meandering through the room before finally looking back at me. ‘Well..no worries. They’re off to the bar. I think you’re safe for another few minutes. So.. the first time meeting them..and it’s right here at the premier, hmm?’ Alex / Sound 2 said, raising a careful eyebrow before turning to one of the others who asked him a question.

I hadn’t quite heard what they were discussing, so I just decided to smile before taking another sip of my wine. These silly nerves! How bad could it really be? I quickly glanced over my shoulder, noticing Henry’s father leaning over the bar to order a drink. Hmmpff! When would Henry be here? There was no sighting of him yet and with my current drinking speed I sure would be hella drunk by the time I’d finally get to shake hands with his parents. I looked back at the group, noticing Alex was looking back at me. His big grey eyes were looking even bigger through the thick lenses of his glasses, enlarging every movement of his eyes. Alex was your typical “grey mouse”, currently wearing a dull grey suit which was perhaps a size too large for his slender frame, his long fingers wrapped around a nearly empty glass of beer. I smiled awkwardly at him, taking a shallow breath.

‘So ..eh…what have you guys been up to? Got any projects going on right now?’ I asked. Alex shrugged. ‘Oh just some small projects. Nothing real interesting. Just waiting for the new season to start.’ Alex said, rolling the last sip of his beer around in his glass. ‘Going to get another drink. Can I get you folk anything?’ He asked, looking up at the others, whom were quick to order: three more beers and a soda. His eyes fell on me, before looking down at my nearly empty wineglass. ‘Another?’ He smirked. ‘I guess so…’ I sighed, looking down at the glass. Was it smart to get hammered? Probably not.. ‘You know what. I’ll follow you there. Might as well get this over with and “accidentally” run into his parents.’ I said, downing the last bit of wine and turning towards the bar. I couldn’t see them right now since the room was too crowded, but surely they were still there. Alex nodded. ‘Fair enough. Grab the bull by the horns!’ He smiled. I rolled my eyes at him, immediately feeling that nervous flutter in my guts.

Oh Henry. Please be here soon.  

——

I had ordered my wine and found Henry’s parents standing just a few meters away. I took a deep breath, nodding at Alex who had placed the other drinks on a tray, before heading over.

I squeezed through the crowd and quickly swallowed my nerves. ‘Hi there.’ I said. The man and woman immediately looked up at me, their faces telling me they were definitely recognising me. Had Henry shown some pictures? Probably. ‘Henry’s parents right?’ I smiled. ’Oh! Oh yes! Sorry dear. Hello. You must be Lisa. My my you are SO tall! My name’s Marianne…’ The woman reached out her small warm hand, eagerly folding it around mine and shaking it. ‘..And I am Colin.’ The man spoke in deep english accent, also shaking my hand. Henry obviously got the tall genes from his dad, and the good looks from his mom. Her greyblue eyes sparkled through thick long lashes as a kind smile made her cheeks dimple. A pretty woman for sure.

‘Nice to meet you Marianne..Colin. I’m sorry for the intrusion. I guess I was getting more nervous to meet you with the passing minute..’ I smiled awkwardly, not finishing my sentence. Marianne laughed, sounding like chiming bells as she squinted her eyes. ‘Oh how darling! Well it is nice to finally meet you.’ She peered into my eyes with something that could be best described as motherly love. Okey. Perhaps it wasn’t so bad. She seemed nice.

‘I can remember when I got to meet Colin’s parents. I was absolutely terrified!’ She winked, eyeing her husband as he shrugged, unimpressed. ‘It wasn’t that bad dear.’ He said, before taking a better look at me. ‘You are..dutch..right?’ He asked. I nodded. ‘Yes. Born and raised, then moved to Los Angeles when I was 27, for work.’ I answered, trying my best to curl my tense lips in a soft smile. Oh these darn nerves. I took another quick sip of my wine, while Colin continued. ‘All praise for the dutch. I had some dutch colleagues during my time in the navy and they sure were good folk. Straightforward, hard working..and dare I say perfect company for a game of cards.’ He winked. Marianne quickly poked him in his ribs. ‘Colin! Don’t make her another victim of your card games.’ She huffed, earning a shrug from her husband. ‘She doesn’t like it when I joke around.’ He said a touch more softly while slightly leaning into me. I rolled my eyes. ‘I highly doubt it.’ I smirked, seeing Marianne’s mock-annoyed roll of the eyes. We all laughed.

‘But I do think the rest of your description is quite fitting. We are straightforward and hard working people, the dutch. I remember that moment when I got to LA. My team was super apprehensive of having this “european chick” joining their team, but thankfully they soon warmed up to me. So much so, that I now lead the team, which is super cool.’ I smiled at Colin. He nodded. ‘A career woman!’ He laughed. ‘Sort of..’ I shrugged, ‘..Though I have more to live for than just work.’ I said, taking another quick sip of my drink. ‘Hmmm..that reminds me of..’ Colin started.. ‘Oh! And Henry told me you are a fantastic cook!’ Marianne interjected, quickly stopping Colin from bringing up fuzzy old memories. We shared a mutual smile as I answered. ‘I guess so. I don’t like to boast, but..yes.. I guess I’m a pretty good cook..And it’s especially fun since Henry is into cooking as well. It’s good to have a shared hobby.’ I spoke, noticing Colin’s gaze had moved to something happening at the other side of the room.

‘But you are a quite phenomenal cook too, aren’t you?’ I winked at Marianne, turning a bit so I could also take a quick glance at the commotion near the entrance. All I saw was lots of flashes. ‘Well that’s what you do when there’s six hungry men to feed!’ Marianne laughed, moving to her tippy toes and craning her neck in an attempt to see anything. The crowd was too tall, completely blocking her view and she soon sighed in defeat. ‘If only I would grow a bit more in height from all that food!’ She exclaimed.

‘There he is! The man of the hour.’ Colin boasted proudly, wrapping an arm around his wife. Marianne smiled up at him, before looking at me, giddy excitement sketching her face. ‘Is he coming our way?’ She asked, peering in the direction of the flashes. I looked back at the cloud of flashing cameras, only seeing the top of his hair as he ever so slowly coasted through the crowd. ‘..Eventually.’ I shrugged, amusement in my voice. I turned back towards them.

‘So do you also live here in London?’ I asked. Colin shook his head, his eye occasionally flying back to Henry’s direction. ‘No, no, we’re just here for a few days. Visiting some family and friends before flying back to our beloved Jersey Islands on Sunday.’ He said. Marianne shrieked and folded her hand around my arm, eagerly pulling it to turn me around. ‘LOOK!! I see him! There there!’ She squealed. Me and Colin shared a knowing look, both amused at her excitement. Such a proud mom. Colin winked at me before squaring his shoulders with pride as “the man of the hour” finally neared us. ‘Moms will be moms.’ He said airily.  

Henry wore a dark grey suit, his black blouse buttoned open to show a smattering of chest hair. Gosh. He looked so handsome. I squeezed my knees closer together, feeling my core burn up for him. Okay Lisa. Focus. Calm down. Act normal. Just act normal. I looked back in his direction and our eyes interlocked for a brief moment before he accidentally bumped into some people, immediately offering his profuse apologies. I smiled, not being able to tear away my eyes from him as he moved his attention to closing the last bit of the distance between us. My silly, far too handsome man.

While Henry tried to move to us, it seemed to get more and more crowded. There were so many people trying to get a look at Henry that we were soon finding ourselves trapped in a pushing and pulling mayhem of fans and press. Oh man. This is not cool. I looked down at Marianne, who was so very small compared to all these tall people around us. She looked at me with a slight shade of concern in her eyes, her tiny figure leaning heavily into Colin’s broad chest. This is so not cool. I looked back at Henry, whose eyes were now piercing mine as he was just an arm’s reach away from us. His eyes spoke a thousand words. I’m so sorry. I hate this just as much as you do. I want to get out of here.

At long last the path was cleared - apparently Henry did have two bodyguards with him that finally managed to control the crowd. He first wrapped his arms around his mother, pulling her in for a big hug, before shaking hands with his father. They exchanged a word or two before he turned around, smiling at me. Oh my dear Henry. We looked at each other like two puppy dogs in love. ‘Hello beauty.’ He whispered, leaning in to press a chaste kiss on my lips. Flash flash flash. ‘You’ve already met my parents, I see.’ He winked, turning back towards his parents. ‘My my. Mom you look great!’ He complimented, a broad smile on his face. She poked him in the arm. ‘Oh stop it you.’ She cooed. ‘Shall we..find somewhere more quiet?’ He asked, looking around to signal his bodyguards before looking back at us.

Yes. Oh please! I thought, feeling myself getting more and more annoyed as someone was continuously poking me in the back. I looked over my shoulder and immediately a wild flash burst right in my face. HMMPFF. blinked my blinded eyes a few times, grasping Henry’s arm to steady myself. These people! Have some mercy..please! Fucking hell. I felt a protective hand fold over mine. ‘You okay?’ He breathed, pulling me closer. I nodded quietly, feeling slightly disoriented as the lights danced in front of my eyes. He nodded once my dazed eyes looked back at him, his brows slightly furrowing. ‘Let’s go.’ He muttered, clearly not amused by the whole thing.

We moved our drinks to the bar, not wanting to spill them, before a new path was cleared and we finally managed to move away. No more blinding camera flashes. No more posters and Witcher paraphernalia that were shoved in our faces, to be signed. And no more gossip that was spoken just a tad too loud - ‘Look at how flat she is. She definitely needs to eat.’ - ‘Did you see that? She’s sooo ugly.’ - ‘PSSSTTT! Snake! You’re a snake!’

I clung to Henry’s arm as if he were my life buoy. Sure I had gotten a thick skin throughout the years of working in the movie industry..but still.. it stung when people spoke like that. I felt my heart sink with every word and a silent tear burned in my eye as I crushed my teeth together, trying to keep up good appearances. By the time we arrived at a more secluded area where we could sit down, I had almost squeezed Henry’s arm to mush. 

‘You can relax now.’ He whispered, laying gentle fingers over my hand. I let out a shivery breath as our eyes met. Those knowing blue eyes. I felt my lip shiver as the unshed tears burned. He looked at me with question and all I could do was shake my head, a hot tear moving down my cheek. Within an instant he had wrapped his arms protectively around me, hiding me from prying eyes. He leaned his head down, quietly nuzzling my hair. ‘I’m so sorry.’ He whispered quietly. ‘This was not okay and I’m sorry.’ We stood there for a quiet moment, embracing each other, while my tears dried. I couldn’t even care that much for whomever saw me. Or what his parents would think. I was just glad Henry was there. Glad I could at least hide away in his big bear-arms.

‘I…I need a drink.’ I said with shivery voice while slowly untangling myself from his arms. He looked at me, his calm blue eyes studying my green ones. ‘Do you want to go home?’ He asked honestly, no judgement in his voice. I shook my head, quietly smiling. ‘No..no. It’s fine. It’s just..the nerves kind of got to me. And now I finally get to meet your parents and I’m a crying mess…’ I spoke, feeling one of his thumbs rubbing my cheek. ‘Do I look like a raccoon now?’ I asked, seeing him smile down at me. ‘No. No, you look perfect.’ He said. ‘Somehow I doubt that.’ I raised an eyebrow, shaking my head softly. ‘I swear it! Scout’s honour! You look beautiful and your make-up is where it should be and…’

I gasped, quickly swatting his arm. ‘My make-up is where it should be, huh?’ I huffed, quickly retrieving my phone from my handbag to check it for myself. Hair. Make-up. Okey, fine. He was right. I was looking surprisingly fresh and my make-up was indeed still looking alright. I looked back at Henry who was looking at me with such awkward desperation, he sure as hell was expecting to be dragged to hell and back. ‘Okay, it’s fine.’ I shrugged in silent defeat. He sighed and immediately his face lit up as he hummed in delight, quickly placing a kiss on my cheek. ‘Pfieww! Got me worried there. I would not want to get in your bad book.’ He smiled. I rolled my eyes, wrapping an arm around him and looked to the corner where his parents had taken a seat. They had squeezed themselves in a corner of a large fluffy purple couch, currently having an animated conversation with one of the waiters.  

‘Okay.’ I nodded with a determination in my voice. ‘I’m okay. Let’s join your parents.’

‘Okay.’ Henry smiled, offering me the warmest of smiles.

--

Part 12 > 

[sambergscott]

i’m gomez you’re morticia i feel so happy when i’m witcha (the addams family wedding rap origin story)

written for @outofinspo for the @b99fandomevents Fall 2019 Fic Exchange. you gave me the prompt of a couple’s halloween costume and this is not... quite that but still i hope you enjoy :)

also shoutout to @amyscascadingtabs for helping me!! 

(set a few months after Amy joins the nine-nine)

Jake prides himself on being the self-confessed best detective in the Nine-Nine. His arrest numbers are off the charts. He holds the precinct record for quickest time to get a signed confession out of someone. And just last week he beat Rosa at an intense final showdown of rollerchair derby. Yet for some reason he can’t figure out what Santiago is planning on wearing to Boyle’s Halloween party.

T-minus two hours to go and it’s driving him a little crazy.

“Sexy librarian?” He guesses, scrolling through a Google Image search of ladies Halloween costumes. “Sexy superhero? Sexy zombie cheerleader?”

She rolls her eyes. “Not every Halloween costume has to be sexy, Peralta.”

“The good ones do,” he says with a wink.

“Gross.” She throws her pen at him.

“I guess your costume is just gonna be super lame, Santiago,” he goads, knowing it will get a reaction out of her. She’s so competitive, it’s practically in her DNA to rise to a challenge.

“Your costume will be the costume that is lame,” she fires back. So predictable. And so adorable.

“Sick burn,” he teases. “Anyway my costume is dope.”

“Are you going as yourself? Because that’s terrifying.”

“Ha-ha,” he deadpans, throwing back her pen. He misses her head by a inch. “I’ll have you know, detective, I’m going as a super awesome movie character that you’ll never be able to guess-.”

Right off of the bat, she says John McClane.

Which, to be fair, is a pretty good shout. He has mentioned John McClane being his hero pretty much every day since the day they met. But, alas, he went as John McClane last year. And Jake Peralta is no outfit repeater. Not on Halloween. 

“007?”

“Nope.” He grins. “Last guess.”

She drums her fingers on her desk and bites her lip as she flicks through a mental rolodex of iconic movie characters. It’s kind of distracting how hot she looks biting her lip like that and he’s totally not listening when she speaks again. She rounds their desks and has to wave her hand directly in front of his face to snap him out of it.

“Sorry.” He blushes wildly. He’s been having a lot of those thoughts lately. About how pretty her hair looks when she wears it down. About how good she looks when she wears semi-decent clothes to Shaw’s instead of her usual grey pantsuits. About how much he loves making her laugh. Sometimes he thinks he’s developing a crush on her but then he remembers she’s his annoying, nerdy partner and thoroughly quashes any thoughts of liking her romantic-stylez. “What were you saying?”

“Superman,” she responds. “My final guess is Superman.”

He makes a loud buzzer noise. “While I am thrilled that you think I could save the planet, detective, you are incorrect. Again. I thought you were supposed to be the smart out of the two of us!”

“I am smart.”

“Not smart enough,” he retorts. “Clearly.”

“Hey, it’s hard! You like a lot of movies! And, besides, you’ve been guessing all morning and you’ve still yet to get mine.” She smiles smugly, folding her arms across her chest.

“OK,” he responds, rubbing his hands together eagerly. “Gimme another clue.”

“I am also going as a movie character.”

“Holly Gennaro!” He guesses immediately.

She rolls her eyes. “No. Stop being so obsessed with Die Hard.”

“I’m not obsessed with Die Hard, I just know all the words and have seen all of them a thousand times.”

“Sounds pretty obsessed to me,” she nudges his shoulder. “Die Hard’s not the only movie out there, you know. There are other movies. Better movies.”

He gasps and recoils like Scully when he poured hot coffee all over himself. “Take that back! Die Hard is the greatest movie of all time!”

“Wrong. Ignorant and wrong. The Lion King’s a great movie.”

“Never seen it.” He shrugs.

“You’ve never seen The Lion King? But it’s a classic. We watched it all the time when I was a kid.”

“I was alone a lot,” he explains, “single mom who worked, absentee father. I just watched sports and Die Hard.”

“Oh,” she whispers, making this sad, frowny face. “Wanna watch it together some time?”

“Uh, ye, yeah,” he stutters, a little taken aback at the invitation. He thought she found him childish and annoying.

“I still think you’re annoying,” she says as she returns to her desk, like she can read his mind.

“Ditto,” he grins.

++

He’s the first one to arrive.

While he normally insists on showing up at crime scenes/morning briefings/family events fashionably late, this time Boyle specifically asked him to come early and it’s his duty as The Best Friend™️ to resolve all Rosa-is-coming-to-his-party-related meltdowns.

“Smell my breath,” Boyle demands, getting real close.

“OK. Personal space, Charles. We talked about this, remember?”

“Of course,” he nods, taking a few steps back. “I just don’t want Rosa to think I have bad breath when we make out.”

Jake grimaces, relieved when there’s a knock at the door. “I’ll get it,” he excuses himself before Boyle sticks his mouth in front of his face again.

He opens the door and stares at the other early bird in silence.

It’s Amy. Of course it’s Amy. She’s always early. Even after drinks at Shaw’s, hungover, she’ll get to work forty-five minutes before she has to. It’s not surprising that she’s early, it’s what she’s wearing that has him speechless.

In a long black dress with a long black wig, she is unmistakably Morticia Addams. Not as iconic as Holly Gennaro, he has to admit, but still. She’s rocking it.

The only issue?

He’s dressed as Gomez, the patriarch of the Addams family, Morticia’s husband.

They’re matching.

They’re wearing matching Halloween costumes!

Amy blushes beneath her heavy make-up. “Um. Nice suit.”

“Nice dress,” he responds, equally flustered.

“This is weird, right?” They say at the exact same time before dissolving into giggles.

Jake scratches the back of his neck awkwardly. “I guess we’ve been spending a lot of time together the last few months. I must have telepathically given you the idea.”

“Unless I thought of it first.” She raises one eyebrow, challenging him. Before he can come up with response, Boyle appears behind them, incredibly excited about their accidental costume situation.

“It’s nothing,” Jake brushes it off.

“Yeah,” Amy agrees, still standing in the doorway. “The Addams Family are just popular Halloween costumes. That’s all.”

“It definitely means something,” he insinuates in his super high-pitched, annoying insinuating voice. “It means that you’re soulmates.”

Jake rolls his eyes. First the wedding bells comment on Amy’s first day, then the constant questions about whether she’s seeing anyone, now this. He gets that his best friend is just trying to be a good wingman or whatever but it’s A Lot. Even if he did like Amy, nothing would ever happen because she’s obviously uncomfortable about the whole thing. She is the most professional person he’s ever met and would never do anything to jeopardise her integrity at work, especially not something as scandalous as a workplace romance!

Not that anything would ever happen anyway. They’re just friends. Co-workers. Portners. He doesn’t even like her in a romantical way.

Sometimes, for example later in the evening when she steals his last slice of pizza, he doesn’t like her at all.

But then he tells a dumb joke and she’s the only one in Charles’ ex-wife’s, new boyfriend’s basement who laughs and he thinks that maybe Charles is right. Maybe he does have a crush on her. A little one. Tiny.

Not that it matters anyway. Someone like Amy would never date someone like him. They’re just too different. He’s the Gomez to her Morticia, the Detective Peralta to her Detective Santiago, and that’s all it’s ever going to be.

(Eight years later, it’s only fitting that they end their wedding day with him performing his Addams Family themed wedding vows rap in just his boxers. There’s no beat boxer and he’s horribly out of time and he’s forgotten most of the lyrics, but it’s perfect. And Charles was right after all -- they are soulmates, just like Gomez and Morticia). 

[chicagoindiecritics]

New Written Review from Mike Crowley on You’ll Probably Agree: 10 Reasons Why ‘Blade Runner 2049’ is better than ‘Blade Runner’

If you haven’t’ seen the movie, see it then read this. No intro, let’s jump right in.

1. K is a replicant

The reveal of K’s genetic code, or lack thereof, flips everything we assume the movie will be on its head. We are learning along with K what it means to exist. Do we as humans, live like replicants? Do we obey a society that treats us like trash but breath anyways out of the fear of death? Where we viewed “Blade Runner” mostly through Deckard’s eyes who didn’t have much of a personality, K’s lack of a character is his entire purpose for existing. For K to emote is to face death.

Where Harrison Ford’s Deckard entire arc was us questioning if he’s human or not (despite what Ridley Scott unequivocally says), there’s nothing much of substance to Officer Deckard. He gets drunk, retires replicants, that’s it. Name one thing that makes Deckard standout? I’ll wait. Ryan Gosling’s Officer K goes from a machine that is dying spiritually on the inside to someone wanting to have a purpose in life. All while maintaining his composure, if perhaps too much poise for the film. Anything with a conscious can feel. Whether or not how it was made is as relevant as where you were born or what skin color you are. The importance is that you’re here.

K doesn’t seek gratitude nor affirmation. He doesn’t suffer from a narcissistic personality. All he wants is not just to be another useless piece of metal.

2. Deckard has depth this time

Being a daddy changes you a lot. Rick isn’t just a slouchy drunk who likes to shoot robots out of legal obligation. He’s a man who’s principles and love for forbidden things cost him his life. What kind of soul did Deckard have in the first film? Who did he care for? Please don’t say, Rachel, we all know why he was attracted to Rachel. Like Winston in 1984, Deckard rejects Big Brother for a life of pain to gain a glimmer of happiness. 

3. It’s horrifyingly relevant

Denis Villeneuve based the imagery in 2049 on a planet that has become degraded with pollution. The buildings are extrapolating enormous amounts of water into the atmosphere, the sea wall at the end of the picture will be our new Mount Rushmore, the orange Vegas is happening now. Denis Villeneuve didn’t predict the earth looking like this, but his production team was still spot on. A picture that transcends its very style, developing a look that will be discussed on its merits separate from the ubiquitous original, is a stunning achievement.

Everything isn’t dystopian because that’s the way it was in the book. It’s what will happen to us in real life, why we’d look for colonies to live on if we had the technology or funding towards NASA to do so. God help us all.

4. The love story questions the essence of relationships

The story between K and Joi further examines the meaning of love, sex, and mortality, with the two being different versions of artificiality. When the default sexed-up version of a naked Joy pops up on the screen, we are emotionally mortified. Some of us may be repulsed to observe a character we care for utilized like a thirsty Godzilla.

The towering ad tries to seduce K tempting him to buy it, rendering everything Joi said to K throughout the picture questionable. Its manipulation solidifies his final decision in life to help another man. We’re not sure if she loved him or said what it thought it wanted him to hear throughout the narrative. Possibly Joi herself didn’t know her intentions. An unusual amount of nuance and uncertainty rests in the love story. Who do we love? Why do we love? Do we love by the heart or the heart of our designers whom we don’t know?

Meanwhile, Deckard was just drunk and horny when he bashed Rachel up against the wall. Sorry, that really was all there was to their passion despite what Wallace says.

5. The movie was an honest commentary about how the world views woman

Here’s a controversial one. A lot of women were disgusted by the way they were depicted in the film. Outwardly watching the movie, I can’t blame them. I’ll let Mr. Villeneuve speak for himself. “I am very sensitive to how I portray women in movies. This is my ninth feature film and six of them have women in the lead role. The first Blade Runner was quite rough on the women, something about the film noir aesthetic. But I tried to bring depth to all the characters. For Joi, the holographic character, you see how she evolves. It’s interesting, I think. What is cinema? Cinema is a mirror on society. Blade Runner is not about tomorrow; it’s about today. And I’m sorry, but the world is not kind on women.”

Villeneuve is right. Women today are still sexualized. Even with the Me Too movement, women are continually seen as sex objects or subservient slaves in a male-dominated society. Villeneuve isn’t interested in painting a rosy picture that Hollywood does for female roles to make the audiences feel comfortable. It’s an honest reflection on who we are. What we see is what we don’t want to see, but that’s part of the honesty of cinema.

6. The score is mesmerizing

Another point in which I may face some contention. Yes, Vangelis’ score is iconic, but it only works for the era it was composed in. Much of its mixture of bleeps, blops, and wind chimes are a product of its time. A lot of emotion is missing from the score other than the opening theme and “Tears In Rain.” Hearing much of the soundtrack while on the road, I sometimes thought I was listening to something from a porno. Take a listen to “Wait For Me” in the soundtrack and tell me otherwise. Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Walfisch’s score is timeless while also paying respect to Vangelis’ synthetic use in the original. It dives into the character’s mind providing a replication of something more human than what Vangelis composed.

7. It thematically ties more directly to “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” than “Blade Runner” does.

“Blade Runner” got the overall gist of Phillip K Dick’s novel. Replicants are scared, trying to find a way to survive as Deckard hunts them down. However, the Andies in the movie almost deserve to die. In their quest for more life, they torture and kill multiple civilians. What did the guy making the eyes do to deserve being frozen to death? What about J.R. Sebastian? He was nothing but pleasant to Roy and Pris. Did Roy eye gauge him when he was done with Tyrell?

Aside from Luv (Sylvia Hoeks), our replicants are fully rounded people. Sapper Morton is a watchful protector who was meant to be a NEXUS 8 combat medic; Joi’s true intentions come into question for herself and us. K’s inner conflict is the central core of the story. All of this revolves around the meaning of existence within a world that has forgotten about you. The introduction of Robo procreation is an evolution of Dick’s ideas, widening his notion of why life exists in the first place.

8. It doesn’t get lost in the scale

Many sequels love scope over characters. Remember “The Matrix”? Remember how they talked about Zion and all these other things we didn’t see? When the sequels brought in Zion, the focus got lost in the spectacle. “The Matrix Reloaded” was a bumbling CGI mess of Agent Smith Clones and cave orgies. “The Matrix Revolutions” was a glorified “Space Invaders” game. Shoot as many sentinels as you can before becoming overwhelmed. Amidst the sequels bumbling chaos, I missed the smaller scale of the Nebuchadnezzar crew.

The story of “2049” could have focused on the replicant uprising with thousands of robots slamming into humans. We could have gone off-world to finally see what all these other colonies we’ve heard about are like. Some have argued that the movie could have borrowed some of its source material from the later novels about replicants creating humans, so on and so forth. All of that sounds incredible in theory. In execution, you would likely get “The Matrix” sequels.

A movie that overreaches in scope, attempting to please fans by showing everything. What we got was an incredibly meaningful story that further explores the themes of the original while building upon its world without going too far. We see what’s beyond L.A. on the dilapidated west coast. The answer is not much. The film aims at minimalism over extravaganza.

9. We’re still talking about it

After being MIA for decades, “Blade Runner 2049” isn’t forgotten. I can’t say the same for “Superman Returns,” “Monsters University,” “The Incredibles 2,” “Live Free or Die Hard,” and “Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull.” In fairness, people do talk about Indy 4, but not in a positive fashion. “Blade Runner 2049” returned to the limelight with disastrous box office results yet high accolades, even gaining the Academy’s attention. Ironically it seemed destined to live the life of its predecessor.

“2049” may have tanked because it was a multimillion-dollar art film that respected its audience’s intelligence. Maybe “Blade Runner” was too far gone amongst the public to gain an interest geared almost entirely towards comic books and Disney. I think the trailers after the reveal teaser looked too generic for my own two cents, turning me off from the film for a short while.

Here we are with Honest Trailers in 2020, making a video about a film that came out in 2017. Bloodsoaked orange skies from the headlines mention the atmosphere of this film. Somewhere, about 100 other people are writing their analysis of “Blade Runner 2049” as I type right now. Seven years from now, we’ll be talking about why the world is still like “Blade Runner 2049.” Villeneuve made a timeless sequel to be remembered.

10. It’s better than the first film and one of the best films in the last ten years

Here’s why you’ll probably agree with this one when you put your pitchfork down. Remove your nostalgia goggles. I know it’s hard to do, please, trust me. Look at the points I made above. Think about how ironic the love story is to our lives. The layers of meaning behind K’s existence is lightyears beyond the featureless Rick Deckard. The picture isn’t flawless. Niander Wallace is spectacularly corny in his scenery-chewing grim monologues. Dr. Eldon Tyrell had some ambiguity regarding the morale of his intentions. For that, I’ll give the original the benefit of my doubt. I understand Ryan Gosling was cast to be intentionally deadpan, but it’s okay to emote once. His distant stare in all of his other performances made it difficult for me to discern myself from the actor’s rather dull persona.

With this said, “Blade Runner 2049” understands cinema. Its atmosphere is why we venture into a dark room that takes us to a different place. Denis Villeneuve’s masterful follow up is one of the most orgasmic cinematic experiences I have witnessed in the last ten years that demands a re-screening in 2022 when theatres reopen at an entirely safe capacity. The style doesn’t overshadow its substance, which is far richer in detail than the original without grasping at blatant metaphors. “Blade Runner 2049” is slow cinema at its finest, letting us into the character’s heads, knowing when to be quiet and when to be loud.

Like “The Empire Strikes Back,” not everyone appreciated the movie at first. Time has been incredibly kind to it, though. I wish the Academy recognized “Blade Runner 2049” beyond its technical marvels in 2018. I suppose it wasn’t the type of picture that catches Oscar voter’s eyes. But it has acquired the audience’s to this day. Now, if you could just look up and to the left for me?

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[kasdeyathebitterwoman]

A Ninja Warrior Love Story - Part 15

HELLO! It’s been a hot minute since I posted to for the Ninja Warrior fandom. I do apologize for the delay. I had quite a bit of this part written, but I definitely got distracted and felt a little distant from it. But I’m back! I’ve got a new chapter for you all! We’re getting further along in the story and I hope you like it! 

CW: abuse, family trouble talk

Word Count: 3,690

taglist

@maeleeme @henrycavillluv32 @andyrazzledazzle @blossom-a @fanfictionaddiction99 @jhenno2002

A week after getting out of the hospital, Henry surprised Lily with a single heart pendant necklace and a request to officially be his girlfriend. He was old-fashioned like that and it made Lily appreciate him further. Through tears and laughter, Lily accepted. About a month after that, the two of them drove up to Oklahoma to begin pre-shooting for the movie. Lily didn’t actually do much but spent as much time as she could with the lead stunt coordinator. She watched from the side as Henry began working on shots. He and Tom would perform a scene multiple times, often from different angles, but mostly just shooting the scene until Tom felt they had it right. She was fascinated but the process and loved talking with Henry about it all. She also knew when to back off after a long day.

On her days off, which were often, she walked around the cities they were filming in. Pretty often Henry’s local assistant, Sarah, and Kal would come with her. They walked around the Oklahoma City playing tourist for the most part. Lily liked Sarah. She was from Arizona but moved out to Texas with her family when she was twelve. Years later, she started working as a virtual assistant for several people before landing roles as an assistant for celebrities in the area. The two chatted about different things, what they studied at school, how they met Henry, etc. While out walking one day without Kal, Lily and Sarah found an old bookstore. Lily perused the shelves and found herself in awe of a vintage copy of The Velveteen Rabbit. She explained it was one of her favorite that Eleanor had given her years ago, but was lost after college. Lily didn’t have the heart to explain what exactly happened. It was too expensive to justify purchasing it, but just knowing she could find a copy again made her happy.

Both Henry and Sarah learned what a voracious reader Lily was when she wasn't working or training. During their first of three weeks in Oklahoma, Lily devoured twelve books during her downtime. By the fourth week, it was less because she found a ninja warrior gym that Donovan had suggested for her. She was able to get workouts in when she wasn’t on set working or studying.

When their first month of filming was up, Lily and Henry had about two days off before they were expected on set again. Henry was staying in a trailer on set while Lily commuted from a hotel nearby. On their first day off, Henry arrived at her hotel knocking on the door waking her up. Her sleep schedule was off completely with the random call times for shooting combined with the pretty consistent days off. She shuffled over to the door after Henry had knocked for the second time and opened it, squinting at him from around the door. Henry smiled wide and chuckled. He held a cup of coffee and the leash for Kal, who was sitting dutifully at his feet.

“Did I wake you sleeping beauty?” he asked, laughter tickling his voice. Lily grunted in response and stepped aside to let him in. He balanced a cup of coffee and Kal’s leash in his hands as he walked in. Kal trotted in and soon as Henry let go of his leash, immediately found solace next to the couch. He looked up at Lily as did Henry. She yawned wide and loud, stretching her arms above her head. Henry laughed as he closed the gap between them. Lily graciously took her cup of coffee and look-up at Henry.

“What are we going to do today, Brain?” she asked her voice heavy with sleep. Henry looked at her confused. “Sorry, old cartoon reference,” she replied and Henry chuckled. He reached out and pulled her hips closer to his.

“Well, funny enough, it’s National Comic Book Day,” he started. “I heard there was a comic book store in the city. I was thinking we could go there for a bit and then maybe find a walking trail for Kal to run around,” he looked at her expectantly.

“Sure, we can do that,” she said. “Plus, I think there’s a bookstore that Sarah and I went to not too far from the comic book store,” she said absentmindedly, missing the twinkle that flickered in Henry’s eyes.

“Oh yeah,” he said, smiling wide. “I remember you telling me about that store.” Lily nodded, then sighed.

“But if we go out, there’s going to be a crap ton of paparazzi,” she said and Henry sighed as well. Since arriving in Oklahoma, the paparazzi had been relentless. They even snapped several pictures of Lily and Sarah when they were walking Kal because they recognized the dog himself.

“True, but I don’t want you to think I’m hiding you away from the world,” he said, a slight plea in his voice. Lily shook her head no.

“Oh no, you’re not hiding me,” she replied. “I’m hiding myself,” Henry laughed loudly at that. So loud that Kal jumped in his spot. He looked down at Lily.

“Okay, how about a compromise?” he asked and Lily looked at him skeptically. “What if we go out this morning and then spend the rest of the day and tomorrow indoors?” he raised his right eyebrow at her, a gesture that made Lily weak in the knees. She thought about it some then replied.

“Deal, but snuggles come first,” she said, taking a sip of her coffee and looking at Henry over the rim. He smirked and laughed.

“Deal,” he replied. Lily nodded her head once then pulled away. Henry started to follow her until he realized she was gesturing to Kal to join her in the bedroom. “Wait, what?” Henry stopped in place and watched her confused. Kal padded into the bedroom and in the doorway, Lily turned around to look at Henry.

“Oh, you thought I meant snuggles with you?” she asked playfully, a smile she couldn’t resist crossing her face. Henry’s confused expression quickly turned to amusement as he understood what she meant.

“Oh you little,” he muttered, immediately chasing her into the bedroom. Lily squealed as she turned into the bedroom. She would have been able to evade Henry’s hands, but Kal was right behind her, desperate to see what was taking her so long. She almost tripped over his large frame and then suddenly Henry’s hands were on her, tickling her until she was short of breath. Henry held her tightly as he pulled her toward him. She lifted her coffee cup up and over his shoulder right as Henry leaned down to kiss her. It was rough and a little sloppy, but Lily didn’t mind because it was also real and passionate. Kissing him was her second favorite thing to do with him. He held her close and finally pulled back to look at her. She smiled up at him and felt her love for him stir in her chest.

—

As predicted, the paparazzi were out snapping photos, but they weren’t as bad as Lily had expected. Walking up to the comic book store in town, they were stopped once by a local. A father and a son, who was wearing a Superman shirt, asked for a photograph and Henry obliged. Lily offered to take their picture since there was no one else with them. She smiled at Henry as they continued to the store. He was so kind and generous to those around him. He caught her smiling and gave her a confused look.

“What?” he asked. Lily smirked.

“You’re adorable,” she said, low and only to him. Henry just beamed at her. They continued on to the comic book store. Henry went directly for the Superman comics and Lily wandered over to the graphic novel section and perused in their respective sections for a while. Lily then wandered around the store and found a section with old posters. She started flipping through them and got excited to see renderings and images from the Adam West Batman television show. There were great shots of Cesar Romero as The Joker as well as great images of Adam West and Burt Ward as their respective characters. Lily gasped when she found a beautiful, technicolor shot of Eartha Kitt as Catwoman. She pulled the poster up to inspect it further when she felt someone behind her. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Henry smiling at her.

“What did you find?” he asked. Lily pulled the poster around to show him.

“Look,” she said excitedly. “Eartha Kitt as Catwoman. Did you know her first appearance as one of her most iconic characters was actually uncredited?” there was a passion in her voice that surprised Henry.

“No, I didn’t know that,” he replied, examining the poster. Lily bit her lip in excitement.

“And there’s more,” she turned back to the posters. She could feel Henry move closer to her. “There’s this one with Cesar Romero as The Joker. He never shaved his mustache so they just painted over it!” She laughed and Henry laughed with her excitement. “Oh, I didn’t see this one!” she pulled out a poster of Frank Gorshin. “Oh my gosh, the original Riddler!” she gasped as she pulled it up to show Henry.

“Wow, that’s so awesome,” Henry agreed. Lily did a little dance in giddy excitement and Henry chuckled at her. “I didn’t know you liked this stuff so much,” Henry said. Lily smiled up at him.

“Oh man,” she started. “Me, Mar, and her little brothers used to get up on Saturday mornings to watch this show. The Adam West Batman was my first superhero experience,” she smiled up at Henry who was watching her with intrigue and intensity. She blushed to realize how much she went on about Batman. “Um, what did you find?” she asked, glancing down at the stack of things in his hands. Henry jumped to it.

“I found these great versions of a few Superman comic books and these amazing art renderings,” he showed her the artwork. Lily looked through the artwork and smiled. They really were very well done.

“These are incredible,” she said, smiling up at him. He looked back at her warmly. They headed to the front to check out. Henry bought his artwork and comic books while Lily bought the posters of Eartha Kitt and Frank Gorshin. Then they headed over to the bookstore a few shops down. Lily was hoping to show Henry the copy of The Velveteen Rabbit she had found but when they got there, it was gone. Disappointed, she turned to Henry who saw her despair.

“Oh, sweetheart, I’m sorry,” he said, pulling her closer to him. “Maybe we can find you another copy.” Lily bobbed her head as she accepted his embrace. They walked back to Lily’s hotel hand in hand. Lily forgot completely about any photographers that might have been around.

Henry dropped her off at the hotel with a quick kiss then left to collect Kal and a vehicle so they could head to a park. Lily dropped her things off in the front room and sat on the couch. For a moment, she allowed herself to feel bad about this loss. It hurt not getting to see or hold the book again, but she decided to believe it went to a good home. A few moments later, she got a text from Henry that he and Kal were downstairs. Lily changed her shoes to her trainers and jogged downstairs. Climbing into the SUV, she was met with a smiling Henry and Kal. He told her he found a dog-friendly walking trail nearby, but they would have to drive to it. The drive was relatively silent with an occasional grunt or huff from Kal in the backseat. Henry did reach out to grab Lily’s hand and run his thumb over her knuckles.

At the park, they found a spot to park the car then headed out with Kal. They continued to be quiet in each others presence. After a while, Henry finally spoke.

“So tell me about watching Batman with Mar,” he prompted. Lily smiled. She told him about the year she had to stay with Mar and her family. And how on Saturdays, all the kids would get up to watch Saturday morning cartoons. After cartoons, old television shows would play and one of them was the 1960’s Batman show. Lily was enamored right away and it never left her. Mar’s brothers would drive her to the comic book store to pick up comics and graphic novels as well. “So let me ask you,” Henry started. “Would you be interested in reading Superman comics?” he smiled at her coyly. Lily threw her head back and laughed.

“I have read several Superman comics, but I’d be willing to read a few more,” she looked up at him and smirked. Henry smiled back.

“Good, because this,” he gestured between the two of them. “Wouldn’t work out otherwise,” he laughed at Lily’s expression.

“Oh, so that’s the dealbreaker?” she asked, her eyebrows raising. Henry just giggled. They continued to laugh as they walked. Kal trotted ahead of them taking in the area. He sounded like a pig sniffing around the ground. Henry reached for Lily’s hand and took it in his. They walked like this for a while, silently stealing glances at one another. Well over an hour later, they hot, sweaty, thirsty, and ready to sit down for a while. Lily and Kal at least seemed ready, Henry seemed okay. They trekked back to the car and headed back to the hotel. Henry grabbed Kal and the travel items he had for Kal and himself in the car. In her room, Henry got Kal set up for the evening then turned to Lily.

“So now what?” he asked, turning to Lily. He closed the small distance between them so Lily was forced to look up at him. She turned her face up to his and smiled sweetly.

“Well, to be honest, I’m thinking about a shower,” she replied and Henry smirked.

“That sounds like a brilliant idea,” he said to her, his voice low and husky. Lily ran her hands over his broad shoulders and down his arms. The tips of her fingers hovering along the top of his jeans. Henry closed his eyes and sighed, his head tilting back ever so slightly. Taking his hand, Lily pulled him into the bathroom. He watched with hawk eyes as she pulled the shower door open and started the water. Then, Lily turned around to him. He stepped forward and closed the gap between them. Lily's hands immediately pulled on the hem of Henry’s shirt. Between her efforts and Henry’s, they pulled his shirt up and off of his large frame. Then with nimble fingers, Lily began unbuttoning his pants. Her fingers quickly undid the button and began tugging on the zipper. Henry’s hands were on hers immediately, helping the process along.

Once he was down to his briefs, Henry wasted no time getting Lily out of her clothes. Just as she had, he started with her shirt. His hands pushed her shirt up and over her head then his warm hands rested gently on her waist. She looked up at him through her eyelashes and for a moment, she thought she saw him holding his breath. Then, slowly, he reached up and unhooked her bra. Gently, he pulled the straps down off her shoulders and revealed her breasts. He placed his hands so they cupped her sides and one thumb could gently trace her nipple. Lily shuddered with pleasure, the feeling of his hands on her body was one of the few things she craved most in the world.

“You said it to me once,” Henry said suddenly, his voice low. “And I liked it so much, so I’m saying it back to you. I love the way that you make me feel,” he said this, then moved is hands down to Lily’s jeans which he began to undo.

“And how do I make you feel?” Lily asked, stepping out of her jeans. She ran her fingertips down his abdomen and saw him relax into your hands.

“You make me feel,” he started. “Good - really, really good,” he looked down at her, his blue eyes shining bright. “I feel like a man that can do anything when you smile at me,” he watched her with a sweet intensity. Lily felt herself blushing as she smiled and bit her bottom lip. Unsure of what to say, she stood up on her tiptoes and pulled Henry in for a kiss. It was passionate and real, the kind of kiss between two people that love each other and love that they are together. Then she pulled his hand and they moved toward the shower. They removed their underwear and stepped in. It was a tight fit thanks to Henry’s size, but that just meant more of an opportunity to touch every bit of real estate that was Henry Cavill.

The two giggled through their shower. Henry enjoyed taking care of Lily and making her laugh. He covered her head to toe in suds and laughed hysterically when he was able to make her hair into a faux-hawk. When they were done, Lily got dressed in the plush robe provided by the hotel while Henry donned his sweat pants and nothing else. Lily’s hotel wasn’t nice enough to have room service, but she was able to find a place nearby that would deliver burgers for them. Henry was on a strict diet now that filming was in the swing of things, however, he hadn’t had a cheat meal that week, so the burger would be fine. While they waited, they sat on the couch in her room. Henry was at one end with Lily on the other side, her legs outstretched over his lap. He took her feet and began giving her a foot massage.

“Tell me more about staying with Mar,” he started quietly. “It sounds like it was pretty good,” Lily had been watching his hands work. For a moment she paused before sighing and responding.

“Yeah, it wasn’t bad at all,” she started. She looked up at Henry’s face. Though he was working out the knots in her feet, he was watching her intently. “The circumstances just sucked.” she shrugged her shoulders. Henry watched her, his blue eyes sparkling. “When I was 16 or 17, my dad relapsed. He started getting drunk as soon as he’d wake up. Since I was the only other one in the house, I took the brunt of his anger and pain. One night when he was really worked up, he kicked me out. He literally threw me out on the porch and locked the door behind me.” Lily paused, feeling Henry’s hands stop. She wasn’t looking at him, but off into the distance. Her head snapped back and she looked him in the eye. “I cried for three days straight. I didn’t go to school, I didn't get out of the little cot Mar’s parents set up for me in her room. I laid there for three days and cried. Then I got up, started running again, started working with Ray and I haven’t really stopped,” her voice cracked a little as she spoke, realizing just how much pain she’d been holding in all these years. Henry’s lips were open slightly, his brow slightly furrowed as he watched her.

“Lily, I’m so sorry,” he said quietly. Lily shrugged.

“It’s part of the past and to be honest, I’m really tired of letting my past hurt me,” she said as she looked at Henry’s hands. Then she shifted her eyes up and looked into his soft blue eyes. Then Lily stretched out her hands and gestured to Henry to come towards her. They shifted so that Henry was laying half on her, half on the couch. His head rested on her chest while her arms wrapped around his shoulders. She began running her fingers through Henry’s hair and felt him pull her closer to him. She smiled as she pressed her lips into his hairline. “Tell me about boarding school,” Lily murmured to Henry. He chuckled into her chest. He began to tell her how excited he was to be sent away. How it was a much-needed change of pace, albeit a tough one since most of the boys were rather mean to him.

“They called me Fat Cavill,” he explained, laughing with Lily. “Which wasn’t entirely wrong. I was fat and my name was Cavill,” he said. Lily giggled. Their food had come and they were sitting on the couch, eating, avoiding Kal’s gaze as he watched them from a distance envious. When they were done eating and had cleaned everything up, they moved their conversation to the bedroom. Again, Henry lay so his head was on Lily’s chest and her hands were running through his hair. They continued to talk and share more and more about their past. It was hard for Lily to be so open, but Henry said something that filled a crack in her heart.

“Honestly, you remind me quite a bit of my mum,” he said. “Like her, you are so smart and fun and interesting. And you’re both strong, but it’s not an obvious strength. It’s a quiet, dignified strength that can’t really be measured,” he said this so surely, with so much confidence it left Lily in shock.

“No one’s ever said that about me before,” Lily said, quietly, still in shock. Henry tilted his head so he was looking up at her.

“No one has ever called you strong before?” he asked almost incredulously. Lily shook her head.

“No, I mean,” she started. “No one has ever referred to me as dignified,” she emphasized the last word. “I’m usually just the poor girl who had to be strong,” Henry readjusted so he was leaning on his arm, looking at her intently. Then he pulled her in for a kiss that was sweet and passionate. 

“You are so much more than that to me,” he whispered quietly. Lily smiled and kissed him back, feeling her love for him grow deeper. 

[memories-are-mine]

We Survived The Crisis, Babe

You want to know what happened to Hannah and Ethan, you say? Give Ethan some medical attention, you say?

Well, I’m terrible, so no. But here’s some Lex to make up for it. 

Some handy links:  Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3 

ao3

As always, let me know if you wanna be on the taglist!! 

TW:  References to child abuse, near-death experiences - stay safe kids

Chapter 4 - Lex 

This is not how I wanted it to end. 

That was all Lex Foster could think as she knelt on the floor of the Toy Zone stockroom, Sherman Young’s arm wrapped tightly around her neck, constricting her breathing. It was not how she imagined that she was going to die. 

Fighting her mother, maybe. Defending Hannah from her drunken wrath. Or saving a small child from the middle of the road. Something heroic, something she would be remembered for. Or, after a nice, long life in California, she would die peacefully in bed with Hannah and Ethan by her side. Instead, it was this. 

Dying in the stockroom of a shitty toy store, in a town she had sworn that her life would not end in. A town where the only two people who loved her were likely dead already. She was alone. No one would save her. California would die with her. That’s what she got for wishing. 

Only her ashes would ever see the sea. 

It was a nice dream while it lasted. 

The edges of Lex’s vision began to go black as Sherman squeezed harder. She was strangely calm. It didn’t hurt as much as she thought it would. It was almost like falling asleep with her eyes open. She refused to close them. She wanted to look death straight in the face. 

It was serene in a way, almost beautiful. There was no noise, and Lex could vaguely hear the sounds of seagulls and wind through trees, how the beaches were in the movies. Maybe dying wouldn’t be so bad. Then Lex’s oxygen-deprived mind went to her two last regrets. 

Her biggest regret, of course, was Hannah. She would never see her little sunshine sister again. Never get to hold her again - God, she’d miss holding Hannah. Hannah had been the only thing worth living for, for such a long time. They needed each other. Lex hoped that she could go on alone. She was strong. And Lex was leaving. And her sister was going to be murdered by the psychotic, toy-worshipping cult that Linda Monroe was leading out in Toy Zone. Hannah wouldn’t be shown any mercy. 

Sorry, I couldn’t save you, Banana. 

Her other regret was Ethan Green. Funny, dumb, loyal, brave, incredible Ethan Green. Ethan Green, who let her cry on his shoulder and cried on hers. Ethan Green who was really good with anything mechanical. Ethan Green, who, on a day that Lex had a big test, cut school to take care of Hannah when she was sick and Lex’s mom was too drunk to be bothered, knowing full well he would earn a beating for skipping. Ethan Green, who she kissed and smoked and dreamed with. Ethan Green, whom she loved. She’d never had the courage to actually tell him that.  

Now, I’ll never get the chance. 

If he had stayed with Hannah, as Lex knew he had, the cult would kill him too. There would only be ashes in California. 

Suddenly, it hurt a lot more to die. Lex gave up the “facing-death-with-my-eyes-open” shtick and allowed her vision to go dark. She didn’t want to look anymore. 

“You aren’t dead yet,” a new voice said. Lex managed to open her eyes and look to her right. A man, with shoulder-length hair and a scruffy beard, dressed in black combat fatigues and what looked like one of those weird floppy artist hats, floated a few feet off the ground. Sherman wasn’t reacting to this intrusion, so Lex figured this was some sort of near-death hallucination. 

“Alexandra Foster,” Lex’s near-death hallucination said in an authoritative tone. “My name is General John MacNamara and I’m going to help you through this.” 

“Wh-what?” Lex managed to gasp out.

“First, you need to subdue your assailant,” General John MacNamara said, efficiently removing a gun from a holster at his belt. He flipped it around and offered it to Lex, handle first. “I’m authorizing you to use my firearm.” 

This was cruelty - Someone offering to save her, to give her a fighting chance to save her family. And it wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. And yet Lex found herself raising her arm, desperately stretching for the weapon. 

“I can’t reach it,” she choked. 

“Yes, you can.” General MacNamara looked Lex directly in the eye. “Your sister has always had the power. Something tells me your friend has it too now. You have it.” 

Lex barely had time to process that. Power? What the fuck was this guy talking about. 

“Reach into the Black and White. You must manifest this weapon into your reality.” 

The Black and White. That was the thing that Hannah always talked about. 

Okay, so this definitely was a hallucination. Lex could barely manifest the will to get up in the morning. She could not manifest things from other dimensions. She felt like she would have known that about herself. So why did that statement set every single one of her cells jumping, and not because she was being strangled. 

“Look me in the eye, now, Lex,” the general barked. “Become your best self. If Wiggly’s been born, then who knows what will happen. But people are depending on you. It’s time to lead.” General MacNamara’s image began to flicker. “Time is running out. It’s time to make your choice.” 

Lex somehow stretched her arm a little farther. Her mind was clear. She could not give up. She would not give up. For Hannah. For Ethan. For herself. 

“I’m gonna kill you,” Sherman hissed in her ear. 

No the fuck he was not. 

Adrenaline rushed through her. Before Lex even knew what she was doing, she dislodged Sherman, twisted and pulled the trigger. 

Direct hit. 

Sherman stumbled back. “Where did that come from?” 

Then he collapsed. Dead. 

Lex gasped. The gravity of what she had done began to sink in. She had killed someone. Sure, she had done it in self-defense but she had still killed someone, and she felt horribly guilty. 

“Nice shot, Lex.” General MacNamara’s image was definitely beginning to fade now. Still there, but less substantial. Apparently, Lex wasn’t hallucinating. Hallucinations didn’t give people guns. “But we aren’t through yet. The leaders of your world are lost and helpless. You’ve been called to serve.” He spoke louder, now, as if afraid Lex wouldn’t be able to hear.  “If you can defeat Wiggly here in Hatchetfield, then he can be defeated anywhere.” 

That seemed like a tall order for Superman. But here, it was wildly hopeless. She was Lex Foster - a high school dropout with no prospects and a drug addiction and who was positively not Superman, no matter what weird-ass power she had just discovered. She was being called upon to save the world. What could she possibly do? 

Then, she thought of Hannah. Of Ethan, and her resolve hardened. 

“What do I have to do?” 

“Gather your forces,” General MacNamara said. His image was so faint now that he was almost impossible to see. “There is a warrior of light trapped in a deep sleep. Wake the warrior. Kill the prophet. Save the world.” 

Oh, was that all. 

General MacNamara gave Lex a salute, then faded into nothingness, leaving her alone in darkness. 

Lex stayed on her knees for a few moments, trying to catch her breath and process what had just happened. 

Okay. First, a man had appeared while Lex was being strangled in a toy store stockroom and had told her she could manifest things from other dimensions. Then she had actually done that, and shot Sherman Young with an actual bullet. And now she had to gather some forces, kill the prophet, and save the world. 

Awesome and totally doable. Except for literally all of that. 

First, Lex did not have any forces. The only possible ally that she would have had in Toy Zone was Frank. And he was dead. 

Second, the prophet, presumably Linda, had an entire goon squad of crazy people surrounding her, and, going back to problem one, Lex was by herself. 

She could have kept going, but this already seemed impossible. 

She glanced out the stockroom window to the loading lot at the back. Was it possible that just this morning she was there, with Ethan and Hannah, laughing and dreaming about California. It seemed like a million years ago.  She saw Mr. Houston’s car, still in the loading dock, with a bright pink ticket on the windshield and laughed, despite herself. God, had really been this morning that she’d seen…

Holy shit, Mr. Houston. 

Maybe Lex wasn’t entirely alone in this mall. Maybe, possibly, in a one-in-a-bazillion chance, she could find Mr. Houston, and he wouldn’t be corrupted by Wiggly. And if she found Mr. Houston, maybe she could find Hannah and Ethan and get out of this mall. Maybe she could save the world. Maybe she’d even make it to California. Maybe she’d just die, but damn if Lex wasn’t going to die fighting. 

Lex got to her feet and cocked her new pistol. 

General MacNamara had told her to gather her forces. So that was what Lex was going to do. 

“Stay alive, you two,” she said to empty air. “I’m coming.”

Taglist: 

@hurricanehellion, @asshole-gay-797, @ethngreen, @just-a-side-kick, @theirishhufflepuff, @somegeekychic, @curse-brekker, @unusual-ly, @softotacoo, @believeinasmilinggodtoday, @scorpiotrash468

[81scorp]

Consctructive criticism: Man of steel

(Originally posted as an editorial on Deviantart May 1, 2015. It has not been changed from how I originally wrote it.)

With Superman Returns not being the success Warner Bros hoped for, no more sequels that take place in the Superman universe that Richard Donner created have been made since. But since a reboot worked for the old Dark Knight it could work just as well for the big, blue, flying boy scout.Superman`s movie franchise got a reboot in a movie directed by Zack Snyder and written by David S Goyer. The result was... a little bit divisive. Some loved it, some hated it but never the less it made money, enough to greenlight a sequel... or rather: a bigger, shared movie universe. Not unlike what they were doing over at Marvel.Personally I kinda, sorta liked it, at least more than Superman returns. But, like I mentioned in my "More thoughts on Frozen" Editorial where I briefly talked about Avatar, I can see it`s flaws. Otherwise it wouldn`t have ended up here.

Where did it go wrong and how could it have been better?

The S stands for SPOILERS

The colour saturation

With the failure of Green Lantern and the success of The Dark Knight trilogy, the film makers came to the conclusion that future DC movies has to be more "Dark and Serious". Just because it worked for Batman it doesn`t necessarily mean that it would work just as well for their other characters. The tone of the story differs a tiny bit from Batman`s because Superman`s image of a beacon of hope rather than justice lurking in the shadows is heavily ingrained in the public`s perception of him. That left the film makers with one thing left to "darkify": The colours of the movie. A little bit more colour wouldn`t have hurt.

The shaky cam

Usually I don`t care (much) about this, but in this case I noticed it while watching the movie for the first time and it bothered me a little. Less of the shaky cam please.

Johnathan Kent`s advice to young Clark

Young Clark: "What was I supposed to do? Just let them die?"

Jonathan Kent: "Maybe." He`s not saying "Yes! You should`ve let them die!" So he`s technically not giving him bad advice, but he`s technically not giving him good advice either.

He should have focused on teaching Clark to have a low profile. That doesn`t have to mean that he shouldn`t help. He can still help as long as he does it in secret. So instead he could have said."If you`re gonna keep doing this, try not to get seen. Think before you act."Then he could pause and then add: "But at least your heart was in the right place." If it was my hypothetical kid from another planet with great powers who did something good and heroic I`d want the discussion to end on a positive note to give him the feeling that technically he did not do a bad thing.

Johnathan Kent`s death

Yes, I get that he did not want Clark to expose himself, but still. He died not because Clark couldn`t save him but because he wouldn`t let him. How about: Jonathan dies from a sickness. Yes it is similar to the Donner version but the difference is that in this version it doesn`t happen as suddenly and Clark gets time to say goodbye to his dad on his death-bed. Jonathan can remind him about the "Think before you act" bit, and say something about how he will change the world.

Lois telling Superman about her mindprobing

Movies are a visual medium and there`s a rule called "show don`t tell". Telling through pictures is a more universal language. Instead of Lois telling Superman what she went through they could have showed it in some way. From what I remember we saw what was going on in Superman`s head when they probed him but not what was going on on the outside. Here`s what they could have done: After we have seen Superman`s little nightmare landscape we could see what is going on outside his body as Zod`s voice keeps talking about how he`s gonna revive Krypton. We see him lying in an alien chair with a mindprobing helmet on and his face twitches as if he`s having a nightmare. Move the camera a bit to the right and we see Lois lying in an alien chair going through the same thing. Cut to: close up of Lois`s face, then cut to: inside Lois`s mind: pretty much the same thing we saw in Superman`s head. Cut to: close up of Superman`s face, then we go back inside Superman`s mind.

Yes, I said "lying in a chair". The correct word is "sitting", but I imagine them as kind of like dentist chairs...evil dentist chairs.

Zod showing Superman all that nightmarish landscape

Besides that it would "look cool for the trailer", what reason is there for Zod to scare Superman with that nightmare-landscape? Shouldn`t he try to make Superman trust him and see him as a friend?

How about: Supes is shown what Krypton looked like before it blew up.

Zod: "Behold Kal-El, this what Krypton once was, and what it can be again." Clark wonders what would happen to the people of earth. Zod uses the cold, empathyless logic that "simpler civilizations will have to make way for the more advanced ones."

"Krypton had it`s chance"

I get where they were going with this but still, it sounded a bit too cruel. This would have sounded better: "Krypton should not live at the expense of Earth!"

Saying it like that would make it open for the interpretation that he does want to see Krypton resurrected, (just not at any cost).

The level of destruction

They could have toned it down a bit. Some say: "But this is what realistically would happen if someone with Superman`s powers were to have a big fight." Someone with Superman`s powers yes. But how about someone with Superman`s mentality?

Yes: most of the destruction was caused by the terraforming machine, but when that destruction was over and it was just Superman and Zod they still plowed through a few buildings.

Let`s forget that it`s Superman. Someone with concern for human life and the ability to strategize, at least a little bit (which Superman is fully capable of doing), should try to direct the fight away from heavily populated areas. Yes, Zod would try to use this weakness and direct the fight back to said populated areas, but Superman would still do his best to keep the fight in safe/safer places.

Plus: The "Think before you act" lesson from his father could come back to play a part here.

"But he was new at this, he was learning to be a Superhero." We saw earlier in the movie that he had been doing this for a couple of years, so he would have gotten the hang of (most of) it by the time he donned the cape." It`s the first time he fights other super-powered Kryptonians." I can`t argue that much with this statement, even Supes has limits. On this point the fault is not on Superman as a character but rather the filmmakers who wrote him into a corner and made sure that there was no other way out than to destroy almost more than half of Metropolis. They seem to suffer from a "darker-and-more-action-is-always-better" perception. Not all DCCU movies have to be the Dark Knight.

On the fence: Jenny

First I thought that she had a last name, and that it was Olsen. So I thought she was a genderbent Jimmy Olsen. But last time I checked (on imdb) she didn`t have a last name. Could she be an original character created for the movie? I`m OK with that. But I want to talk about what I feel about if they were to change Jimmy`s gender.

This makes me feel like the film makers haven`t bothered to check the comics that the movies are based on. Not because of the change, but some seem to think that there are only four people working on the Daily Planet: Clark, Lois, Perry and Jimmy. The majority of the people that I mentioned are male so I agree that there could be at least one more woman. But instead of changing one of the characters they could just pick one from the comics. How about Catherine Grant? Or Alice the intern? And if you`re looking for a black character, how about Ron Troupe?

Sorry for being a purist, but I feel that if you want to add a little diversity, look for a character that has what you are looking for in the source material before changing one or some of the other characters.

That`s why  I hope that we in future DCCU movies get to see Maggie Sawyer and/or Renee Montoya.How do I feel about Perry White? Well, he`s played by Laurence Fishburne. So I`m good.

On the fence: Superman killing Zod

When I heard about it at first I thought "Oh come on! Superman doesn`t kill!" But then again, he could be pushed to a point where he would have no other option. Then I thought "If he`s gonna kill someone he should at least feel bad about it." And he did, so I guess I`m OK with it. But still, the way they did that scene made me feel like there was more that could be done before they went in for the kill. Technically, Superman could have just knocked him unconscious. And then there`s the film makers`s explanation: "He needs to kill so he learns that it`s wrong to kill." I haven`t killed anyone and I know it`s wrong to kill.

I think the real explanation is: He needs to kill because the movie needs to be dark, because DCCU movies needs to be dark to be good, because it worked for the Batman reboot. The thing is: Nolan`s Batman had a little thought put into it. Man of Steel`s darkness didn`t have much thought behind it.

A light-hearted, silly and campy movie with a bad script is a movie with a bad script. A dark, gritty and serious movie with a bad script is still a movie with a bad script.

If I were to change this, here`s what I would do: Zod and Superman are flying around, fighting each other. The spaceship (that was sent far away thanks to Clark`s babyship`s warp drive) is still on earth. Superman punches Zod so hard that he is knocked back onboard his ship. The warp drive is activated and Zod and his friends are warped to God knows where.I also want to point out that I´m not too crazy about when they kill characters that have played an important part and/or has been in the comicbook  a long time. That`s why I`m a bit critical not only to Zod`s death but Prof: Emil Hamilton`s as well. (Though he may not be dead.)

Yes, there are other things wrong with this movie. But if you did the changes that are mentioned here, I personally wouldn`t care about those other things

I want to finish with two things that, while they aren`t constructive criticism, are at least Superman related.

Joe Quesada`s reason for not liking Man of Steel

“As a comic book fan, I wanted to love that movie so much,” said Quesada. “I wanted to love it so much, and I didn’t love it so much. Again, there are little things here and there that you could pick at and things like that, but I just think at the end of the day, Zod was the hero of the movie to me.”

Interesting defenition of a hero you have there.

“He wanted to save his race, and Superman didn’t let him."

Oh poor Zod, all he wanted to do was to rebuild his planet at the cost of billions of lives on an already inhabited one. It`s not like there were any other Earth-like planets in the solar system, suitable for terraforming, like Mars or Venus. No. Clearly Superman was the bigger badguy here.

“I was in the mood to watch that Superman movie, and afterwards I was just angry,” said Quesada.

Well, I, and many others, felt similar after reading One More Day so I guess that makes things even.

In defense of the Clark Kent disguise

I`m sure many of us has questioned that no one can recognize Superman in his Clark Kent disguise just because he wears a pair of glasses. However, here are some examples from real life:

An author who interviewed Marilyn Monroe later wrote of an incident that occurred when they were walking down the street talking. The author was confused that, although they were in plain sight, no one seemed to recognize her. Monroe then said, "Do you want to see her?" She changed her posture, walk and way she was speaking to what she used in the movies and suddenly people saw Marilyn Monroe, movie star and sex symbol, and reacted accordingly. Shakira, a famous singer, managed to spend an entire summer at UCLA posing as a normal person. She went by her middle name and dressed up in a cap and pants. The fact that it hit the news after she was done with the classes proved how effective her disguise was. Comedian Groucho Marx painted on his famous mustache with grease paint for most of his career. He was surprised to find a large crowd of fans who had gathered to see him at a train station completely ignored him when he got off the train. Realizing what had happened, he ducked into his car and smeared on a grease paint mustache, and was instantly recognized. So you see, real people are pretty stupid too. ^_^

[bmlycr-blog]

Superman & Superboy

I noticed it just a second too late. It must have been a microscopic speck. But I could feel it. Kryptonite.

I was having breakfast with my brand new sidekick, Gad. He sought me out after a battle one day and begged to join me. I refused and flew away. I don’t take sidekicks anymore. But battle after battle, he kept showing up and asking. He was insistent, and I liked that. But one look tells you he is not fighting material. He bleached and dyed his hair in chunks of red, blue, and gold, and he’s got a few nose and eyebrow piercings that tell me he doesn’t take things seriously. He’s got some lean muscle— maybe he swims or runs— but he lacks strength. I ask him what his specialty is— karate, wrestling, MMA? “Mechanical engineering!” he proudly replies. I stare at this college punk in disbelief. How will he ever fight crime with equations? “...and also Tai Chi!” What!? You mean the slow walking thing for old people? I roll my eyes and start to fly away when I realize his engineering skills could be useful at home. “Can you fix complex machinery?” His eyes beamed as reassured me of his excellent skills and years of experience with advanced machines, modern robots, “anything on the cutting edge of modern technology.” “Well, that sounds great! I think you would be the perfect person to take a look at my broken coffee machine.” He made a feeble attempt at suppressing an eyeroll, graciously thanked me, and came over the next day.

Over the weeks he actually proved useful, not just fixing, but also improving my equipment. Not that I needed any of it for battle, but I have to spy on my enemies somehow. One day, after a battle, I returned home and looked for Gad. I searched around and was startled by a voice behind me: “Hey Superman...” I turned around and saw... me... or was it me? I recognized the tight blue lycra suit, which clings tightly around my body, snuggling every muscle. Even today, I can still feel how with even subtle movements of my body, or while fighting, the lycra rubs and groans against my skin. Or how the lycra compresses my body to be tight and firm in Earth’s pathetically weak gravity. But I saw something else... something I hadn’t seen in a long time... those bright red briefs.

I used to wear them long ago. They looked great with my red boots and cape. Those briefs were the focal point of the image of masculinity and strength I projected. They sculpted my meaty manhood into a smooth, plump bulge, on display for all to see. They showed the world that yes, I am a SuperMAN. And unlike Earth men, my balls were not a point of weakness. Many villains tried to bust me. But I am the Man of Steel, they are too weak to hurt me. I am clearly more of a man than they are. But over the years, Earth’s conservative culture began to chip away. I could tell my humble parents quietly didn’t approve. Others would often bring up my red briefs in conversation, making things awkward. And I noticed that other superheroes worked to hide their bulges. Eventually I caved and decided to drop the red briefs. That was years ago. I had almost forgotten about them. But now, here they were... in front of me. Oh, they looked so great, even better than my memory. How they restrain my package by squeezing my balls just right. I remember the intense feeling of running my fingers over my briefs, how the texture of the tight and shiny fabric transmitted my fingertips to my scrotum. Yes, I remember these feelings, as I am looking at this bright red, plump bulge in front of me, and just as I—

“Superman! Um... Helloooo...?” Huh? It’s... it’s Gad? “I see you like my outfit”, he said with a cheeky smirk. “S-sorry, Gad, I—“ “No. My name is not Gad anymore. I am now Superboy, your sidekick.” Wait— What!? My sidekick!? He’s weak! He doesn’t have superpowers. How can I take him to battle? He would be destroyed. I’d have to rescue him every time. No way I could ever rely on this scrappy punk. He still hasn’t even gotten around to fixing the coffee machine! “Better you stay at home and do what you do best.” He looked at me with utter heartbreak.

So the following weeks were pretty much the same, except that Superboy went about his tasks in his super suit with bright red briefs. Fine by me. Every time I saw him come around, I found myself glancing at his jewels. And, embarrassingly, I only later realized I got semi hard when looking at Superboy’s package. Now I need to be clear. I am not gay. Many men have thrust themselves upon me, and I have never felt attraction for them. But Superboy is different, perhaps because he somehow is a version of me. A scrawny, nerdy, rainbow-headed hipster version of me, but it is me nonetheless. But I must admit, he is well endowed! His cock is about average length, but has proper girth. His balls are that of a champion. His manhood fills the briefs to the brim, leaving a somewhat floppy basket that tastefully balances smoothness and detail. Meanwhile for me, I always felt Earth tailors had difficulty with my generous manhood. My bulges always felt a little bit too restrained in comparison. That makes for a tight and super smooth bulge, and this has its appeal, especially in movies for prude Earthlings. But I can see that Superboy enjoys more freedom in his fabric, which shows off more details of his manhood. I admire the audacity he has to showcase his finely clad bulge.

I asked him over breakfast about his choice to bring back the red briefs. His face lit up as he told me how, years ago, he saw me in an old movie wearing those red briefs. He wondered why I chose them, so he searched around online for men’s fashion on Krypton. That was not easy. After exhaustively looking through increasingly distant planets, he found a long-lost archive of images of men’s fashion from Krypton. He pulled out his phone and showed me images of all kinds of Kryptonian men. They all wore spandex suits. And they all showed off their bulges! “There was a sophisticated culture around showing off that you were a man. Look, here was the prime minister!” This was a man much stronger than me. And his enormous sky blue bulge prominently protruded from an elegant outfit of lycra and other fabrics. Just as I start to think about how I’ve been suppressing my Kryptonian, bulge-displaying heritage all these years, I realized that with the spoonful of cereal I just ate I swallowed a speck of Kryptonite.

Ok. Panic. Wait. Breathe. Ok. First, it’s not enough to kill me. All right. But how much is it? I could barely sense it at first, but now it’s inside me. This isn’t good. I feel dizzy. “We are in trouble.” I murmur. As a I start to slip away, henchmen break through the windows and kidnap us.

I awake to find myself in an arena. Again. I see my sidekick tied to a frame with his arms and legs spread out, exposing his vulnerable bulge. Again. And surprise, who else is standing next to him, again, but Lex Luther. This time he is wearing an all-white spandex body suit that has no chance of concealing his hard-on. Lex has been the reason why I don’t have sidekicks. The moment he finds out, he has us abducted, and devises some sadistic game of torture that ends up destroying my sidekick’s balls. I remember my first sidekick, Blue Lightning, who got his balls zapped and smashed with Thor’s hammer. Or The Crusher— he was a very strong human, I had high hopes for him— but Lex used a mortar and pestle to pound and grind his balls to a pathetic pulp. Or poor Sky Sailor, who could actually fly (sorta), but was no match for Lex’s steel boots. I remember kicks #47 and #51, which were each punctuated by a distinct popping sound and the extraordinarily agonized wail of a man who was losing his manhood. I never met any of my former sidekicks after they suffered their emasculating hazing ritual with Lex. I imagine they are ruined. Human men are so weak.

I look at Superboy futilely struggling to escape his restraints. This time is different. Lex doesn’t have some random sidekick wannabe up there. That’s me up there! He is going to attack me! He is going to hurt my long-lost red bulge. I can’t let him get away with this. I rush at him and find myself knocked back by a shield. “Oh ho ho, Superman.” You know attacking me is against the rules of our game. Penalty: ten hits.” A tennis ball cannon emerges from the ground underneath Superboy. Its barrel is pointed straight at Superboy’s package. “BOOM—GAAAAAAAHHH!... BOOM—RRRGGGHHHHHHH!... BOOM—AAAAAOOOOOUUUGGGGHHHHH!...” Every muscle in his face and body are working hard against his restraints. But despite all his struggling, his bright red target remains in the crossfire. Watching Superboy suffer like this makes me feel sympathy for the first time for an Earth man’s suffering. I wonder what the pain must feel like... pain in the very part of a man’s body that is supposed to define strength.

“Ok Superman. Be prepared to fight my army of robots.” I roll my eyes. Villains try robots from time to time. They might work against other superheroes, but I always crush them like a soda can. “And remember, for every robot you destroy, I will launch 20 tennis balls at your pathetic doppelgänger.” As the robots emerge, I realize there is no way Superboy is going to withstand hundreds of tennis balls. I take one last look at him. At his tense body and and flinching face. At his beautiful bright red bulge. This is goodbye, Superboy. I face the robots and start walking toward them, surveying the different ones. And then it hits me.

I remember Krypton. I remember it now clearly even though I was a baby. The planet was going unstable and about to explode. Before my parents placed me in the rocket, all around us men were screaming, holding their balls. My father— oh, my own father!— wearing a black bodysuit with a bright red stripe running down the center and accentuating his bulge. The look on his face... agony and strength... Why were his balls and everyone else‘s balls in pain? Did it have to do with the planet? Were Krypton’s men connected to the health of their planet? That connection. That pain. I am starting to feel it. Wait, I am? My balls? They are hurting? How?

I snap out of it. Yes, it hit me. An impact. A comet strike? My balls? Ohgod no no my balls they hurt. Wait is that really pain? ow... owowOWOWOWOWOW I’m not supposed to feel that much pain down there! That’s my manhood! They can’t! They—OOOOOOWWWWWWWW!! My balls squish, squirm, and squeeze around my suit, while wobbling, vibrating, and aching. The crushing pain of the impact gives way to waves of aches that wash across my body and focus on my strained abdomen. My ears are ringing, the outside world is tuned out, all I know is this pain. I observe myself slowly collapsing on the ground. I clutch my tender crotch and massage it with a whimper. I now understand the warm relief a hand can lend. I now understand the weakness that comes with the strength of men. I now understand ballpain.

“....aaahahahahaahaaa.... Oh this is even better. I finally got you, Superballs! After... decades? These robots are powered by neopyrrhium, an element that existed on Krypton and is extremely hard to find. That robot used neopyrrhium to crash a steel ball into the Man of Steel faster than the speed of light. You could have never noticed! Oh yes, my robots are stronger and faster than you. And finally I will crush you and your pathetic balls.”

With a burning ache in my groin, and my sore abs, I grit my teeth and jump into the air. I’m Superman. I’m not going to let Lex get away with this. But in an instant I get lassoed by a cowboy robot and he yanks me back to the ground. My arms are tied up, and I thrash my legs about. The robot, wearing steel toed cowboy boots, grabs my ankles and gaspedals me. I squirm and groan. I can’t grab my balls for relief. He stops, and then produces a jackhammer, which he mashes into my crotch and turns on full blast. Each pound of the jackhammer digs into my tender orbs, causing a sharp, stabbing pain that makes me afraid that my balls will be split in half.

But I eventually use my heat vision to break my arms free and yank the robot’s legs out causing it to fall. I quickly zoom away, but I find myself tangled yet again. This time it‘s some octopus robot. My arms and legs are completely ensnared. Then another tentacle slurps onto my bulge, and begins sucking and vibrating! Ohhhhh I have never felt anything like this before, it actually feels good, especially after the busts I suffered. More at ease, I think of Superboy, and his bright red bulge. Superboy. Oh right, Superboy! I can’t stay here like this, I need to save him! I try to struggle to break free. I work hard to pull my bulge out of the tentacle. Every time I pull away, my balls groan at the extra suction caused. The harder I try the more they ache. Eventually I free my balls with a “plop!” and slip my limbs out of the tentacles. I zoom away as fast possible.

I check my package. Huh, my balls are easily 2-3x the size. And a quick flick test told me they are a lot more than just 2-3x more sensitive. And my cock was swollen and pointing straight up, exposing my balls further. This is bad. Have I met my match? I can’t think about this, because a group of five karate robots rushes toward me. I surprise them by zooming to the one that is straying further away from the pack. I use all my strength to take it out, and it cracks and hisses as it flails uselessly about before collapsing. “Good job, Superman. Finally, one robot down.” And then “BOOM—AAUUUGGGHHHHHHH!” I turn briefly to see Superboy screaming and squirming, but I can’t lose focus. One hit from these robots and I am down. I start attacking the rest, but I can only really keep up with them. It takes a lot of awareness to keep track of these four robots surrounding and attacking me. But I constantly lose focus due to the throbbing pain in my tender balls, and to the series of screams coming from Superboy. On hit #18, Superboy lets out a whimper after a scream. Oh no, is he really hurt? Should I— oh wait no, don’t lose focus— and with that, one robot lands a solid uppercut to my balls. Yeeeooowwwww! I feel that fist connect with my potato-sized balls, which are then firmly clamped to my pelvis and transmit the impact which launches me in the air and toward another robot. Before I get the chance to react, this robot nut-punts me back into the air toward another one. They take turns playing hacky sack with my balls this way. After an agonizing eternity, they stop and I curl up on the ground. Three robots then pin me down, and the fourth one uses my sack as a punching bag. Punch after lunch, I start to fade out, overcome by the pain. I see Lex has won. I should surre—

“Enough!” Lex stops the robots. “Seems like you’re too weak to destroy your sidekick. Here why don’t I give him back to you. That way you can both be crushed side-by-side.” He said this while stroking his raging salmon. I was mortified. If these robots introduced me to pain, I can’t imagine how an Earth man would respond. Superboy is going to be completely pulverized. He is doomed. Lex unties Superboy and tosses him into the arena. He collapses on the ground as a heap of flesh and lycra and pain. I can see his hands massaging his battered bulge and can hear his soft groans. Lex starts the robots again, and my robot resumes pounding on me. My eyes are on Superboy. He gets up. One of the robots approaches him. Looks like a boxing robot. This robot is probably almost as strong as me. Just one low blow to Superboy’s bright red briefs will spell the end.

The robot wastes no time in launching the first strike. And the robot... misses? And misses again? Um, was this robot defective? I focus to slow down my perception of time. I see Superboy calmly slipping past the robot’s attacks. It’s very subtle, it looks like he isn’t doing anything at all. After letting the robot try to attack a few times, he leaps into the air with a front flip over the robot. This is a marvelous sight, seeing him launch himself in the air in slo-mo, his scissor legs showing off his bright red bulge as it arcs over. While in mid-air, he quickly thrusts his arm into an opening in the back of the robot’s neck and pulls out some wires. The robot sizzles and seizes, toppling to the ground. I had no idea Superboy was capable of this. It was beautiful spectacle. My robot starts punching more frequently, and I lose my slo-mo focus. Through clenched teeth and screaming testes, I see how the cowboy robot sneaks up behind Superboy. He tosses his lasso, and again it looks like he misses while Superboy just stands there. It takes a few tries before I observe the cowboy robot getting tossed over Superboy onto the ground. Did he grab the lasso and yank on it at just the right time? Superboy jumps on the fallen robot, and again seems to find the right spot to pull out wires and cause fireworks. He continues to make light work of many of the other robots. As the pile of scrap metal grows, I can see the increasingly confused and panicked look on Lex’s face. Eventually my karate robots let go of me and head toward Superboy, apparently in a desperate change of command.

I am relieved at the break I get from all this pummeling. I stay quiet and nurse my throbbing balls while watching in slo-mo Superboy battle all these robots. He is like fluid, ever aware of the motion around him and finding the minimal amount of effort needed to slip by. He also clearly understands robots, and knows after a few seconds of observation where the weak spot is. “So is that your Tai Chi?”, I ask in awe. “You tell me, I thought Tai Chi was for old people”, he retorts with his trademark smirk. His particularly crowning moment was somersaulting off the head of the final karate robot after pulling out wires from its navel. I have never seen anything so graceful, him sailing in the air with elegance and determination and again his bulge in full display. I spied him starting to look at me. I could see the corners of his mouth turn up to form a grin. And then I felt something familiar. With a wave of panic I turned on super-slo-mo. This time I could see it.

Superboy frozen in the air. A flash of light. A steel ball appears, races fast, crashes into Superboy’s danglers. When the cannon robot nailed me, I remember feeling the dull kthunk of a direct impact. But this ball seems to have aimed too low because after crashing into Superboy’s balls, the steel ball sails straight through his legs. Good thing Superboy wears such a loose bulge. A direct hit would have spelled doom. I could see Superboy’s bits flailing about in response to the grazing impact. The wave of tension spreads from between his legs. His muscles seize. His grin starts to slowly transform to a grimace. I need to rescue him.

I zip into the air, scoop him up, and fly him to the opposite side of the arena to buy us time. He wails and shrivels up on the floor, clutching his manhood. “They’re coming. Get back on your feet or we are both toast. You have five seconds.” I turn around to shield him and face the oncoming robots. I see the cannon robot approaching me and brace myself. KTHLUNK—GGGYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGHHHHH Oh dear god it hurts way more than the first time owowowowowo—KTHLUNK—YYYYYOOOOWWWWWWWWWGGGHHHHHRRRRR I clench my teeth and tense every muscle in my body. KTHLUNK-URRRRRRRRGGH I clench my fists by my chest to fight the urge to cradle my aching nuts and collapse on the floor. KTHLUNK-GGGGGGHHHHHHH I have to keep this robot distracted can’t hit Superboy. KTHLUNK-GGYYRRRGGHHH Superboy yeah he’s up great he’s disabling the—KTHLUNK—AAAHH!—DDDRRRGGHHHGGGHHH disabling the other robots?? gotta stand it endure keep distracting the—KTHLUNK—GYAAAUUGGGGHHHHHHHHRRRRRGGHHHH no way I can do this yes I— KTHLUNK—YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUGGGGGHHHHHHHHH gotta protect gotta protect gotta—KTHLUNKTHLUNKTHLUNK—YYYEEEOOOWWWWUUGGHHHAAAAAUUUUGGHHHHHHH—what three times in a row I can’t even—KTHLUNKTHLUNKTHLUNK—EEEYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH—this is too much this pain it’s—KTHLUNKTHLUNKTHLUNKTHLUNKTHLUNK...

I’m there again. I can feel their collective pain. Since ancient Kryptonian history, men have been busting each other. Though eras and trends varied, some norms were inviolable. It was considered gentlemanly to dress in a way that accentuates your bulge and leaves it vulnerable, in order to be considerate of other gentlemen who would bust you. Mutual busting was a ritual that allowed even mildly acquainted gentlemen to bond. Different social situations called for different busting protocols. Non-consensual, or non-mutual busting was inconsiderate and taboo. However, in the generations leading up to Krypton’s demise, some villains wore cups and started attacking men without reciprocity. Eventually an army of men formed, which also wore “protection” and eventually stopped the villains. However, feeling the thrill of liberal busting freed from conservative norms proved addictive, and they eventually became the next wave of ballbusting villains. The world was soon engulfed in a panicked busting frenzy. Norms slowly broke down, and gentlemen started to bust indiscriminately. Hysterical busting mobs roamed about. That’s when the first global kryptonquake hit. Mysteriously, all men felt an aching rumble in their balls. The quakes returned, getting stronger, and causing more and more damage. I can feel it in my balls, too, now, the agony of billions of men consumed by the fire of an exploding planet, and the fire of their own tortured orbs.

...spark pop flash hiss... what is ugghhh is that? Superboy! Standing triumphantly on the malfunctioning wreck that was the cannon robot. Oh what a relief! I look around at the robot corpses littered about, at the heap of around one hundred metal balls all dented with the imprint of my own balls, at Lex who clearly blew a massive load. “You may have won this round, but my new army of robots are going to destroy your balls!” And with an evil cackle he hops into an escape pod and vanishes. Superboy hops off and walks to me. “Aren‘t you glad I saved you?”, he says with that smirk again. “You? I was the one who saved you. Besides—“ and I say this with a smirk of my own and a backhand to his balls “I wish you had taken out the cannon robot first.” He screams and laughs as he doubles over a bit. “But you were having such a good time, I didn’t want to interrupt.” His cheeky comment causes my blood to boil and just as I think about slapping that grin off his face, I notice he is looking at the massive erection that is straining my tight lycra suit. I’ve honestly never seen it so thick and meaty.

“Shall we go home, sidekick?” He nods, wraps his arms around my back and his legs around mine. Our balls are rubbing against each other, and our hard cocks are throbbing through our lycra side by-side. We fly off into the sky. Once in the air he suddenly grabs our balls and starts rolling all four of them around. I let out a groan and wobble in the air a bit. And there is his goddamn smirk, his smug, know-it-all, condescending... and charming smirk. He continues to massage us both, applying gentle pressure which combines the relief of a gentle hand with the bittersweet ache of our battered gonads. All it took for him was to hold my throbbing cock for just a moment before I came all over my supersuit. I returned the favor. We embrace and float for a moment, staring off into the sky around us.

We arrive home and sprawl on the couch, each gently holding his balls in hand. “You know, your balls are still too weak. That cannon robot would have made purée out of your plums. I need to toughen them up if you want to fight alongside me. I can’t always come to your rescue when a villain finds your bright red bulge an easy target. First thing tomorrow, we are going to spar, and your balls are going to suffer.” I realize Superboy is looking at my rising boner as I say this. “Well I need to toughen your balls too, Mr. Super.” “Hah! Right. That’s impossible. You’re human, you can’t make a dent in the Man of Steel.” He stifles a laugh and looks me straight in the eye with a peculiarly devilish smirk. And I notice it’s his turn to show off some blue steel. He takes off one of his glossy red boots, and pours out shiny red orbs into his hand. “Guess what these are.” “Your childhood marble collection?” “You wish. No, this is neopyrrhium. When I was taking down those robots, I also nabbed their neopyrrhium cores. I can use these to build far better robots than Lex’s pathetic jerk-offs. If his robots brought you down, mine are going to make you cry like a Superbaby.” My jaw drops, the blood drains from my face, and all I can say is a stuttering mess because I keep recalling today’s painful events. The prospect of even worse pain terrifies me. I tremble a little. My balls cringe. I hold them for comfort and reassurance. Is this what men are supposed to go through? This feeling of being so vulnerable? Being exposed to constant, world-ending pain? How can you be strong when your masculinity makes you weak? And why am I more aroused by all this pain than anything else? Am I gay? I look Superboy in the eyes; at his bright red, bulging briefs; at his throbbing cock, which he started to stroke; at his devilish, punk-ass smirk. I lean into him and say “Look, you can build all the robots you want, but before you do, you need to finally fix that goddamn coffee machine” while backhanding him hard in the nuts. He bursts out laughing, groaning, crying, and coughing all at once. Our eyes find each others’, our hands find each others’ stiffies, and we get to work all over again.

[the-desolated-quill]

Quill’s Swill - The Worst Of 2018

Congratulations dear reader. You survived 2018. And you know what that means. It’s time for another best of/worst of list. Welcome to Quill’s Swill 2018. A giant septic tank for the various shit the entertainment industry produced over the course of the year. The films, games, TV shows and various other media that got on my bad side. As always please bear in mind that this is only my subjective opinion (if you happen to like any of the things on this list, good for you. I’m glad someone did) and that obviously I haven’t seen everything 2018 has to offer for one reason or another. In other words, sorry that Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald isn’t on here. I’m sure it is as terrible as some have been suggesting. I just never got around to watching it.

Okay everyone. Grab your breathing masks and put on your rubber gloves. Let’s dive into this shit pile.

Hold The Sunset

The news that John Cleese would be returning to the world of BBC sitcoms was incredibly exciting, being a massive Fawlty Towers fan and all. Unfortunately Hold The Sunset was not quite what I had in mind. It’s one of those rare breed of situation comedies that chooses to offer no actual comedy. It’s not a sitcom. It’s a sit. Like Scrubs or The Big Bang Theory.

An elderly couple plan to elope abroad only for Alison Steadman’s son to barge in, having left his wife, and forcing them to put their plans on hold. Hence the title ‘Hold The Sunset.’ It’s like a cross between As Time Goes By and Sorry, but if all the humour and relatability were surgically removed by a deadpan mortician. The characters are weak, the plots are thin on the ground and the humour (hat little of it there is) feel incredibly dated. The middle aged mummy’s boy is something that hasn’t been funny since the 90s. It’s an utter waste of great talent and what hurts even more is that this tripe is actually getting a second series. I can only assume the people watching this are comatose. Either that or there’s an epidemic of people in Britain who have lost the remote.

Avengers: Infinity War

Yes this is one of the worst movies of 2018 and no I don’t regret saying that one little bit. Avengers: Infinity War was fucking terrible. Period. There were too many plots and characters going on, which made the film hard to follow (and what staggers me is that the so called ‘professional’ critics have condemned movies for having too many characters and plots before. Spider-Man 3, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Batman vs Superman: Dawn Of Justice and even Deadpool 2. But because this is an MCU movie, it gets a free pass. Fuck off). The characterisation was weak due to sheer number of characters they try to juggle, resulting in characters coming off as one dimensional caricatures of themselves and scenes where characters such as Iron Man, Doctor Strange and Star-Lord sound completely interchangeable. The villain, Thanos, is a stupidly and poorly written villain, but that’s hardly surprising considering what a shit job Marvel have done building him up over the course of these 20+ movies. And let’s not forget that pisstake ending. A bunch of prominent Marvel characters die and it’s all very, very sad... except all these characters just so happen to have sequels planned, which makes this ending fucking pointless and have less impact than a feather on a bouncy castle.

I don’t know which is more shocking. That Marvel and Disney think their audience are that stupid and gullible, or that their audience are actually validating their view. Fuck you Disney.

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

I’ve always wanted a Harry Potter RPG, where you could customise your character, choose your house and actually live a full school life at Hogwarts. This year, Warner Bros and Jam City gave us just that.

That was a mistake.

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery is the epitome of everything that’s wrong with the mobile gaming market right now. The gameplay is boring and involving where you just tap images on a screen until a progress bar fills up. Wizard duels are little more than rock-paper-scissors challenges that require no kind of skill. Bonding with friends and caring for magical creatures just consist of pathetically simple pop quizzes and yet more boring tapping. Oh and of course you only get a certain amount of energy to complete these tedious tasks. If you run out of energy, you wait for it to fill up... or pay up for the privilege. So determined are they to extract your hard earned cash from your wallet, there’s actually a bit where Devil’s Snare strangles your eleven year old avatar and the game effectively tries to guilt trip you into paying micro-transactions to save them. It’s sleazy, gross and manipulative. Honestly, you’re better off just playing Candy Crush.

Agony

When the developers of this game said they wanted to give the player a trip through Hell, they had no idea how true that statement really was. Agony is dreadful on a number of levels. The design for Hell itself, while visually interesting at times, is often not very practical and gets quite dull and repetitive after a while. The stealth mechanics are a joke and the AI of your demonic enemies are pitiful. All of this alone would have been enough to put this game on the list, but then we also have the casual misogyny. Agony is a gorefest trying desperately to shock the player. We see men and woman get tortured, but it’s the women that often get the extreme end. The violence inflicted on them is often sexual in nature and the game seems to go out of its way to degrade and dehumanise women at every turn. The orgasmic cries of ‘pull it out’ quickly become a staple of the game’s experience as we see naked women raped, tortured and murdered, all for the purposes of ‘entertainment.’

I would call Agony sexist, but honestly that would be giving it too much credit. Agony is like a little child trying desperately to be all dark and edgy in a pathetic attempt to impress everyone around him, and we should treat it as such. Go to your room Agony. No ice cream for you.

Peter Rabbit

If you listen closely, you can hear the sound of Beatrix Potter rotating in her grave.

Yes we have yet another live action/CGI hybrid, but instead of something innocuous like the Smurfs or Alvin and the Chipmunks, Sony instead decides to adapt Peter Rabbit, with James Corden in the title role.

It’s about as bad as you’d expect.

Their attempts to modernise the story are painful to say the least with pop culture references, inappropriate adult humour and twerking rabbits. Plus rather than the gentle, but slightly mischievous character we got in the source material, here Peter is a sociopathic delinquent who seems to revel in making the farmer’s life a living hell. He’s unlikable and unwatchable as far as I’m concerned and the film doesn’t in anyway earn the emotional moments it tries so desperately to sell to the audience. And the worst part is it’s getting a sequel.

Wait. Do you hear that sound? That’s the sound of Beatrix Potter tearing out of the ground, ready to kill whatever idiot came up with this shit.

Fallout 76

I was excited for Fallout 76. A MMORPG where players band together to rebuild society after a nuclear apocalypse. Could have been great. Pity it wasn’t.

Fallout 76 is a dreadful game. Not only is it a buggy, glitchy mess that requires a constant online connection to play, which could result in you losing hours of progress if your WiFi went down, it’s also unbelievably tedious, and that’s because there’s nothing to do in the game. There’s no other characters to interact with, the various robots and computers you come across are really little more than quest givers, there’s no actual plot so to speak, and because of the sheer size of the world and the number of players allowed on a server, the chances of you actually meeting any actual players is remote. And let’s not forget all the behind the scenes drama. Bethesda falsely advertising Fallout themed canvas bags and players getting shitty nylon ones. Bethesda accidentally releasing the account information of various players trying to get a refund for said bag. Bethesda failing to program the year 2019 into the game code, meaning that the game’s nukes don’t work.

Maybe there’s a chance that Bethesda could pull a No Man’s Sky and fix everything over the coming years with various patches and DLCs, but the damage has already been done. It’s incredibly disappointing. The Elder Scrolls 6 is going to have be fucking incredible to win everyone back.

Mama Mia!: Here We Go Again

I can’t stand jukebox musicals anyway, but Mamma Mia was always one of the worst. Its boring, meandering story with its one note, obnoxious cast of characters screeching out ABBA songs like they’re at some drunken karaoke session at some poor sod’s hen party has always grated on my nerves. So imagine my delight when they announced we were getting a sequel. Ever wondered how Meryl Streep met her three lovers and founded her hotel? No? Well tough shit, we’re going to tell you anyway.

Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again is basically just Mamma Mia again. The actors still can’t sing, the characters are still annoying and story is still boring and meandering, completely at the mercy of the chosen songs rather than the filmmakers using the songs to compliment the story (you know? Like proper musicals do?).

How can I resist you? Very easily as it turns out. Gimme, gimme, gimme a fucking gun so I can end my misery.

The Cloverfield Paradox

A lot of people were unhappy about the direction Cloverfield was going. They wanted a continuation of the found footage, kaiju movie from 2008, not an anthology series. I was personally all in favour. Partially because I thought the first Cloverfield was a tad overrated, but mostly because I thought it would be a great opportunity for more experimental film projects and could be a great launchpad for new writers and filmmakers. 10 Cloverfield Lane was a great start. Then The Cloverfield Paradox happened.

The Cloverfield Paradox is basically JJ Abrams trying to have his cake and eat it too. Maintaining the anthology format whilst connecting everything together in a ‘shared universe’ (yes, yet another shared universe). The result was a cliched, poorly edited and idiotic mess of a film that actually took away from the previous two films rather than added to them. Everyone hated it and, as a result, 2018′s Overlord, which was totes going to be part of the Cloververse, was made its own standalone film and Abrams double pinky promised to make a true sequel to the original Cloverfield. A complete and total disaster. No wonder it was a straight-to-Netflix film.

The Handmaid’s Tale - Season 2

This is probably going to be the most controversial entry on the list, but please hear me out because I’m not the only one who has a problem with this season.

I was reluctant to watch The Handmaid’s Tale simply because of how gruesome the original book was, but I forced myself to watch the first season and I thought it was pretty good. It remained faithful to the source material for the most part and included some nice additions that helped to expand the story and mythos. If it was just a one off mini-series, everything would have been fine. But then they made the same mistake as The Man In The High Castle and Under The Dome did where they commissioned another season and attempted to tell a story that goes beyond the book.

There’s a reason why the original story ended where it did. The Handmaid’s Tale isn’t meant to be an empowering story about women sticking it to the patriarchy. It’s a cautionary tale about how fragile our civil rights truly are and how easily they can be taken away from us. It’s designed to shock, not to satisfy. So seeing a handmaid blow herself up in a suicide bombing feels very incongruous and just a little bit silly. It would be like doing a TV adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984 where the first season followed the source material and then the second season turned Winston Smith into this heroic freedom fighter trying to overthrow Big Brother. It would represent a fundamental misunderstanding of what the book was about in the first place.

And then of course there’s the increased level of violence in Season 2, which many have complained about. In Season 1 and the original source material, the violence was justified. In Season 2, the motivation behind the violence has gone from ‘how can we effectively demonstrate how easily a fascist patriarchy can happen in the West?’ to ‘what brutal act can we inflict upon Ofglen to shock the audience this week?’ It’s purely for shock and nothing more. And with the showrunner (who I feel I should mention is a man) announcing that he has planned ten seasons of this, it seems that The Handmaid’s Tale is going to go even further with this depravity until it effectively becomes the equivalent of a Saw film.

The Handmaid’s Tale exists as a way of shining light on and critiquing misogyny in its most extreme form. Season 2 however demonstrates that there is a serious risk of it becoming the very thing it’s criticising in the first place.

The Predator

I love the Predator franchise, but The Predator is the worst.

People thought that this would be good because director Shane Black had actually starred in the first Predator movie back in 1987. Instead we got this bloated, confusing, obnoxious and insulting mess of a film that seems to go out of its way to ruin everything that makes Predator so good. There’s no tension. No suspense. No intrigue. Just a bunch of gore, explosions and shitty one liners from annoying and lifeless characters. They essentially took this big alien game hunter from outer space and turned him into a generic monster from a bad summer blockbuster. It no longer hunts for sport. It wants to take over the world and splice our DNA with theirs. But don’t worry, a rogue Predator doesn’t want to kill humans (even though he himself kills a bunch of humans), so he gives us a Predator Iron Man suit to set up a sequel that will probably never happen because this movie was a box office bomb and it fucking SUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKKKKEEEEEDDDD!!!

This film also has a very nasty streak towards those with disabilities. There’s a lot of jokes at the expense of a character with Tourette’s and it has an extremely ignorant and patronising view of autism, portraying the main character’s kid as being a super genius who can decipher the Predator language and even going so far as to say that he represents ‘the next stage of human evolution.’ Presumably the Predators want social communication difficulties because apparently it helps them hunt somehow.

What with Disney acquiring 20th Century Fox, the future of both the Alien and Predator franchises were very much in question. This film needed to be a success in order to make a case for Disney to keep making more of them. It wasn’t. Congratulations Shane Black. You might have just killed off this franchise for good. Thanks arsehole! :D

So those were my least favourite stories from 2018. Join me on Wednesday where we shall discuss something more positive. Yes, it’s awards season. Who shall win the coveted Quill Seal Of Approval? Watch this space...

Or don’t. It’s up to you. I don’t want to force you or anything. It’s a free country.

[mcrmadness]

Movies, I love movies...

Okay, it's happening again. Getting addicted to thing, I mean. And wanting to share my addiction and shout it to the world but not having even friends to open up to... So, Tumblr, here I'm again, basically talking to walls I guess but it's okay 'cause I've got used to it. (Basically my whole life has been that idk.)

I've had flu for the past 4 days so I've just stayed at home watching tv all day. Yesterday I started feeling like watching those (newer) Marvel movies that I haven't watched before so yesterday, I started with Iron Man 2 (which I also have had on dvd for years but have never watched that) and watched couple of movies I hadn't seen yet and now I'm pissed because I want to watch more and on Netflix (Finland at least) there's every Captain America movie but I really don't want to watch the third one when there's two other movies between them BUT THOSE ARE NOT ON NETFLIX and I don't know what I'm gonna do with my life. I want to watch more but I just hate to do things in "wrong order", no ocd here (at least something that ISN'T mental in my life wooohoo), but it's just something I like and what makes me happy. But also annoyed sometimes. You know, I have the second Thor on dvd (I might have a little obsession with pairings and I regretted buying that dvd but I did it just because of the pairing, now how pathetic is that? :DDDDDDD) but I don't have the first one. And every time I see that dvd at supermarkets I just WANT to buy it so bad because it looks stupid to have only tje 2nd in my shelf but I don't want to buy it because only thing I like in that movie is Loki and, yeah, I don't want the DVD but I want it. Struggle is real!!!!!!!!

...so I need to see more but I guess I have to start searching for the missing movies as DVDs in order to watch the rest if the movies on Netflix 😐 (One day, I swear, I will buy that first Thor dvd so it doesn't look so idiotic to have just Thor2 next to Iron Man and Iron Man 2 dvds hnnnnngh---)

Also I struggled because I felt like watching all of the movies in order but I didn't feel like rewatching some of them and I couldn't stop thinking about how this comes after this which I have seen but a long time ago argh what am i gonna do??? Well ended up just rewinding them to see if I remember everything and to see if I had watched through the end credits too.

[[[HERE I NEEDED THE READ MORE LINK BUT FORGOT HOW TO ADD IT ON MOBILE??? Or did the app just change?]]]

About the Marvel movies overall... Well I grew up with "superhero movies" and I'll always be tru Batman fan and I'll avoid this reboot of the DC franchise as I'm this stupid avoid-all-what's-mainstream kinda person who loves to stick to the "old stuff", and I've also watched lots of Marvel movies and have collected some of those on dvds as well.

I'm proudly one of those who love the original Spider-Man trilogy with Tobey Maguire. For me it's special because I was 13 or so when I first saw it on tv and it touched me because I was heavily bullied and rejected at school and it just made me feel better to see someone going through bullying and then finally defending themselves.

X-Men was also another trilogy that I used to watch and that I liked a lot and I still do. I have each of them on dvd. X-Men are still my favorite from Marvel and I grew a huge obsession to Deadpool a while before his first movie and there's no turning back, I'm still a huge fan and can't wait for the second movie and if had to talk using internet slang, DP would probably be my spirit animal. I'm still annoyed he has to be just a comic book character but fortunately we have Ryan Reynolds there somewhere which is almost like having the real DP in this world.

With the newer movies... Idk why they never got me. Maybe it's the same as with Batman: I love the Batman universe but I act like no other DC universe existed and I ALWAYS hated Superman (Lego Batman would be proud wait what?) when I was a kid so I guess it was same thing with the X-Men for me. And Spider-Man. Actually I think it's this my issue with not being able to adjust to new things that easily that made me not to be interested in those newer movies and I just stuck to the X-Men franchise and spent my energy for new things with Nolan's Batman trilogy.

I don't even know why and when I got that Iron Man dvd but must have been my first newer-Marvel dvd. I guess Robert Downey Jr. was the biggest reason and honestly, I still don't know if I like Iron Man because of Iron Man or because of Robert Downey Jr. 🤔 Anyway, I like Iron Man best from all these and I actually have liked all three movies too. For me they've been more interesting than... the rest? (of what I've seen so far.)

At first I was also annoyed by Captain America's character and I don't even know why. He seemed so negative for some reason - remember that at that time I had seen him only in the Avengers movie - but actually both of what I watched today were pretty interesting. (And I found a ship and can't see anything from behind it anymore. Probably the reason why these movies got so much more interesting so fast..... Sorry, can't help myself.)

I guess the only movies I didn't like that much were both Thor movies and Avengers. Why? Thor is basically a love story and I can't stand love stories and I can't understand love or romance. So I'm just fed up with all that cheesy romantic love story that I just wanna puke. I don't remember if the second movie was any better. I've watched it only once. But I rewinded it today and it seemed boring, mainly cause I could remember every scene as I saw the little images. And Avengers then? Well it's okay, I guess I just was so inspired by Loki's "You're free from freedom" speech that it woke up the anarchist in me that I can't remember anything but Loki and how I melted into another identity crisis and started hating society for not having freedom over my own life because some idiot once invented money and rules. (I'm too kind you know...) Otherwise it was bit cheesy and cliché, I was able to "predict" what's gonna happen so I was probably great company while watching the movie because I couldn't keep my mouth shut and kept telling what happens and "didn't I just say???" and kept criticizing everything they did cause HOW MUCH MORE WRONG CAN YOU GET? Like what about CPR instead of watching your friend die who didn't even die, what about pulse or breath, you know?

But I don't think these are that bad at all. It's just. Funny to see how the plots are usually built the same way. Evil vs good, two different plots told to the audience and these plots will be connected towards the end. After watching this many superhero movies you just KNOW who will be the main villain in this particular one because of the way they're portrayed. Either something completely opposite loser-like OR something mysterious and nameless, powerful and feared character whose face is not seen at the beginning at all. Yeah, I hate clichés. Also with Marvel (minus X-Men) everything often seem to be so black and white. Either it's bad or good but there's no in-between and good will get bad when infected or enchanted or manipulated whatsoever and in the end they will always be back to being good. (With Batman I love how psychological everything is and nothing is black and white. Same with X-Men, it's not always good or bad but just people being imperfect and different.)

I think the main thing to inspire me to start watching these was the LEGO Marvel's Avengers game, it was about the movies and the levels were interesting. Also a while ago I saw the first Captain America movie on tv but couldn't watch it then and every now and then I've felt like I want to hear his story so yeah, I watched some of these today and was not disappointed, at all.

DISCLAIMER: So these are all my own thoughts and opinions so please don't get mad. Or do if you feel like that? My purpose is not to make anyone mad but just talk nonsense to myself but as I hate hearing my voice, I rather do that by writing somewhere instead of really talking to myself. I hate fighting (but live a good talk!) anyway so take it as honest opinions, just my thoughts written down. Not all can like the same things nor can all dislike the same things either. Thank you.

[orrangepoem]

imaginary friend // h.s

author’s note: A quick shoutout to @iloveyouhaz because I submitted a part of this story to her and she was kind enough to read it and give me feedback! Hope y’all enjoy! P.S: I had the song ‘Sick of Losing Soulmates’ by Dodie Clark on repeat while writing this, so give it a listen while you read! You can find it here.

w.c: 2k

summary: Harry has an imaginary friend called Y/N

Even as a child, Harry was introverted. While the other children his age would be out and about playing, he preferred to stay in the comfort of his bedroom, spending time with his imaginary friend Y/N.

Now Y/N wasn’t your usual imaginary friend. She wasn’t some monster with purple skin, six eyes, and four arms. She was just a girl. Hair and skin that looked as soft as clouds, which Harry always longed to touch. He never did though, in fear that she would disappear. Her eyes and smile were the prettiest and brightest Harry had ever seen. She was fun, always had a story to tell, and never failed to make five-year-old Harry feel special. He made a promise to himself that he would do any and everything to make sure that the light in her never went out.

Y/N wasn’t always around, she just came and went. Harry never knew when or why it was going to happen, but he always wished that he could control it and that she would never leave.

He loved Y/N. Hell, he was in love with her. Which terrified him because she's imaginary. A part of Harry's brain, and if he wanted to at any moment, he could just force her out of his mind. But he didn't want her to go away. 

They would spend their childhood days reading to each other, or play pretending to be Wonder Woman and Superman. On occasion, Y/N would get on Harry's shoulders to try and reach the sweets his mum had hidden at the top of the pantry. Harry's favorite thing he and Y/N did was to climb out through his bedroom window, up the tree in his backyard, and make their way to the roof. The two would just sit in silence and look at the stars, there was never a need for conversation. Though he was young, Harry knew this is what he wanted forever, just him and Y/N. No worries or cares in the world. 

But then it was time. Y/N would fade away; every atom, every particle that was a part of her would dust away and join the stars. Though it broke Harry’s heart every time, he always knew she was going to come back.

However, things change. People grow up. Y/N stopped coming around as often as she used to. It was the day of Harry’s 15th birthday when the first change came. His mum had bought tickets to a Fleetwood Mac concert and Harry couldn’t be more excited. He had woken up earlier than usual, a soft orange glow peeked its way through his curtains and cast itself all around his room. He looked over to the other side of his bed expecting to see Y/N.

“I know the both of us are still clueless about how this whole thing works, but do you think you could come over a bit earlier than you usually do? If I’m still sleeping, you could just lay in my bed or something. You don’t have to of course, it was just an idea-”

“Harry, you’re babbling again.” Y/N let out a small chuckle and put her hand up to get him to stop talking. “I’ll see what I can do.”

The idea of waking up to Y/N excited Harry more than anything else. He had the perfect image in his head; her frame sprawled out onto his bed, hair fanned out onto his sheets, and her mouth open just slightly, releasing cute little snores.

But she was nowhere to be found. Even though it wasn’t for sure that she would be able to come early, Harry still held that little bit of hope in his heart.

When he went down for breakfast, Anne could sense something was wrong with her youngest child.

“You alright sweetheart? Did you not sleep well?” As instinct, she placed a caring hand on his forehead, making sure he didn’t have fever.

“It’s just-” Harry hesitated for a moment, he knew how his mother felt about Y/N.

“Y/N didn’t wake up with me this morning. We talked about it last night and I dunno...I suppose I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up.”

Anne’s lips went into a straight line, not knowing what to say or think. She had always hoped Harry would grow out of Y/N but nevertheless, she knew how fond he was of her.

“Oh, I’m sure she’s around here somewhere. Maybe just went to the shops to get you a birthday gift. Why don’t you get some food in ‘ya then go up and get dressed, okay? I’ve got a big day for us planned.”

Harry and his mum made their way to London and spent the whole day out and about. The eventful day had distracted him from thinking about Y/N but she came back into mind when they walked into a small coffee shop. The smells of vanilla and cinnamon were soft, but very relaxing, just like Y/N.

--

Few hours later, and it was time for the concert. The seats weren’t great, but Harry didn’t dare complain. Halfway through the show, something told him to look up at the steel beams that supported the venue. His brows furrowed when he noticed something, a shadow, sitting up top. Was it a person?

The figure turned around and looked down at Harry, its bright eyes looked oddly familiar.

“No... can’t be.” Harry started laughing and grinning from ear to ear.

“Hey Y/N.” Harry whispered to himself and continued to enjoy the show.

--

“On top of steel beams? At a concert? Are you mad?” Harry was still laughing at the image in his head as he and Y/N lay on his bed talking about how great it was.

“I wanted to surprise you! I felt bad about this morning. I tried showing up but I just couldn’t. I wish we could figure out how this all worked.”

“Me too love.”

Then she faded.

Y/N didn’t show up the next day, which was a bit unusual, but Harry didn’t let it get to him. Next day, still no Y/N. And the day after that, and after that.

This went on for two weeks and Harry felt lost.

--

“Psst. H, wake up.”

Harry struggled to open his eyes and see what was happening. He rubbed at his eyes and let them adjust to the darkness so he could try and see who was talking to him.

“Y/N?! Wha- what? Where have you been?”

“What are you talking about? I just saw you yesterday remember? It was your birthday, the Fleetwood Mac concert…? How hard were you sleeping?” Though it was dark, he could still see Y/N smiling. She really didn’t know.

“Love, that was two weeks ago. I haven’t seen you since.” Y/N’s face quickly fell and he could see her light going out.

“Two we…no. Harry no, that can’t be right. How could I have been gone two weeks?”

“You’re asking the wrong person Y/N. I thought you left me, I’ve been feeling so miserable and lost without you.”

“Oh, Harry I’m so sorry. I would never leave you, you’re my best friend.”

Friend.

“We’ll figure this out okay? I promise. Go back to sleep H, I’ll be right here.” Y/N made her way under the sheets and placed a gentle kiss on Harry’s forehead that sent sparks all throughout his body.

--

This same pattern went on for the next year. Weeks would go by without her and she would turn up with no recollection of how much time had passed. It was difficult because Harry’s love for her grew more and more. He watched her grow into a woman, and she saw him grow into a man. He loved watching her mind grow and develop, she had always been extremely intelligent. She looked at the world in ways no one else and ever could, and it amazed Harry beyond belief.

Eventually, he never saw Y/N ever again. He kept wishing she would come back, but she never did. He didn’t know why or how. Did something happen to her? Is it possible for something to happen to imaginary friends? He tried making friends and having girlfriends but no one could give him that feeling that Y/N could. Harry felt like he could take on the world when he was with Y/N. The shell that he had always hid behind cracked and whittled away when she was around. He could have fun with her, with no fear of judgement.

--

The time had come for Harry to start university. He was nervous, but also excited, and hoped that starting a new chapter would help him get over Y/N.

“I can’t believe my little boy is all grown up.” Anne helped Harry unpack his last box in his dorm room, wiping away tears as she did so.

“C’mon mum, you’ve been crying all day! This is just London, I’m only a little ways away and you know I’ll be home all the time. Can’t stay away from your great cooking.”

Harry and his mum said their last goodbyes and he quickly got into his new bed and took a nap.

--

The first few weeks of university was going rather well and the stress of classes has kept him distracted from Y/N. However, he couldn’t always keep away from the thought of her. He couldn’t stay in the library too long because the smell of the books reminded him of how she used to read fairytales to him. The smell of spaghetti in the dining hall made him sick to his stomach; spaghetti was her favorite meal. Harry thought he was going to go insane when that new Wonder Woman move came out. It’s all anyone could talk about and merchandise for the movie was everywhere. He never saw Gal Gadot, he always saw Y/N.

One day on campus, Harry decided to walk around and let his mind explore. Two of his professors had cancelled class, and final exams were over, so it was okay for him to miss the others. The weather was quite nice as well, sun out and a slight breeze passing through Harry’s hair.

There’s some benches underneath a pair of trees outside by the main Art building. It’s where a lot of students go for some quiet study time and it has become one of Harry’s favorite places to be. He took a seat on one of the benches and put his headphones in his ears. He observed everyone walking to and from classes, either making conversation with friends or their head buried in their phone. He was about to rest his eyes for a moment when he saw this girl making her way to the Art building.

“It can’t be.” Harry’s heart started racing, his palms grew sweaty, and he took his headphones out of his ears.

“No. No it can’t be. She’s not real, she was just…imaginary.” He was whispering to himself and frantically running his hands through his hair. If anyone were watching him from afar, he probably looked like a mad man.

Oh no. She’s walking closer. What was he going to do? Should he talk to her?

“Y/N!” The name slipped from his mouth before he could even think any further. Saying her name again still gave him those same butterflies in his stomach. The girl stopped in her path and looked at Harry with raised eyebrows. Harry quickly stood from his spot and made his way towards her. Once he got close, he realized that it really was her. His Y/N. Her hair had grown longer, but it still looked as soft as ever. Her cheekbones were more defined, she was taller, (though still shorter than him) and she had…developed. Harry noticed- but tried not to stare too hard- that her chest had gotten bigger, hips grew wider. She looked like an absolute goddess.

And her eyes. They still held that light.

Harry quickly realized he had just been gawking at her with a goofy smile plastered on his face, and had not said a word.

“Sorry um, how have you been? I haven’t seen you in forever! You look so different, but somehow still the same. I never expected to see you at uni either, I know how you always felt about school and-”

Damn. Harry had been talking nonsense like he always did when he was nervous. He stopped to let Y/N get a word in but she wasn’t saying anything. She looked confused. Her lips were pursed and brows furrowed. She kept looking at Harry like a puzzle with missing pieces.

Finally, she opened her mouth to speak, “I’m sorry, have we met before?”

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READ PART TWO HERE!