#teenage superheroes are just the embodiment of anger

[strawberrytalia]

okie okie here we go!!!! 🐠 btw there is like BARELY a gap between all of them lol, they’re all beloved to me

1. ollie - IM SORRY i had to choose the white man, bc im so attached and connected with ollie more than any other mainstream hero. he resonates so deeply with me in a lot of ways, and i find his stories are often very engaging and interesting to think about (not you ga 2023). i feel like love is such an important aspect of him and what he fights for.

2. lian - i think about lian everyday im not even joking, she’s like a sibling to me atp. i think sooo much about how instead of dying, she could’ve spent all these years being loved and trying to be a hero just like her dad, and living up to ideals and aaaaaa, she was literally the one thing keeping me going with ga 2023, her having a cat motif is everything to me

3. connor - he IS so special for so many reasons, and i feel like he embodies the traits of a superhero in such a realistic way?? with his childhood anger issues, lack of father figure, his promise to his mom, and the way he steps up to take on the title of GA and continue on the legacy even after losing the father he’d just met eeeeeeee, i don’t talk abt him often bc like tbh content here is lacking and im lazy, but maybe ill change that.

4. roy - he’s lian’s father so on principle i gotta love him (IM KIDDING). roy is also soooo special and i partially love him out of spite because DC clearly seems to have a weird vendetta against him and his happiness. he is so loving, so strong, so accomplished, and so much more than what they label him as. i also love his really out-there personality, but he’s also VERY down to earth, and he’s just so aaaaaa <333. he’s not perfect but he tries his best, and he puts lian before everything and that makes my traumatized-by-father heart melt. and i HATE how ableist all of his weird jayr*y fans are as well as dc, it makes me wanna pull him out of the pages and gatekeep.

5. shado - free this woman from the racist writing AND her entire yakuza life!! she has SO MUCH potential bro, but aside from that, she’s so badass and i love her personality and i loved her og interactions with ollie, and im ngl it makes zero sense for her to forcibly want a baby from him when she KNOWS her lifestyle sucks and she’s trapped in it bc of intergenerational trauma herself, anyways shado deserves better fr

6. mia - I LOVE MIA. i really do!!! i find however that i’m more inclined to loving her when i don’t really interact with fandom posts about her. mia is so so so so <3. literally one of the first teenage girl characters i could connect with. her story is so horrible but she is such a bright light for me, and she is a joy to draw and write about. similarly to ollie, i think love is such a huge part of her! she’s kind of low tho, bc i find that a lot of her really loud fans never have anything to say about the arrowfam poc. like obviously it’s fine to stan mia, but it’s really telling to me when you make all your content about the skinny blonde white girl.

7. jade - her YJ version is in my kin list LMAO, and i need to read more of her comic appearances, but from what i’ve seen, she literally carries the arrow trademark of “pushes away from loved ones, doesn’t believe she has a happy ending” and that kills me so much. she is a really complex woman who’s suffered from racist writing, and i love that unlike talia and shado who are like more gentle souls, jade is a hardcore bitch lmfao. she loves roy and her daughter and some of the secret six, and that’s it.

8. cissie - it’s been a longggg time since i read cissie appearances, but i remember enough to know why i like her. her story of maternal abuse literally rips my heart out, i think her character background is so perfect, and her storyline with retiring was really well done (from what i remember). personality wise, she’s more of a girly girl and so am i lmaooo, so she’s quite relatable to me. i like that she wasn’t perfect and she had plenty of catty, jealous, moments to show bc like that’s so realistic for a girl raised to be #1 her whole entire life. i wish for cissie to have a girlfriend or three and live peacefully. and i’m a BIG fan of her being ollie’s kid bc that’s hilarious even if it isn’t realistic lol. she’s just low on here bc she’s not quite an arrowfam member on page, more like a separate party but yeah

9. emi - im sorry bby, i love you and all your potential but it’s marred quite a bit bc your backstory was a retcon, you replaced mia, and you haven’t gotten a chance to really shine outside of shitty writing in a long time. i think emi also has a lot of “edgy teen raised by villain” stereotypical traits given already to damian, so it’s a little hard to see her as a fully original character sometimes. the emi in my head is way cooler, more gnc, and has more personality other than “vaguely annoyed all the time.” emi also deserves way better than to just be the bitchy badass girl in that weird titans run. i would give her more friends besides them and expand more on her relationship with her mom (one of the things i do like). i still love her tho!!!

10. dinah - this is what’s gonna cancel me. i AM SORRY I LOVE DINAH SO MUCH but this is also another case of a character’s weird ass racist anti feminist writing ruins them for me. like the dinah in my head is AWESOME AND FLAWED AND TRYING. but canon dinah is like so intertwined with shitty ass performative feminism and being victim-blamey and abusive towards ollie that i like can’t handle it lmao. i think she’s a really complex woman if given justice and better writing with BOP and such, but yeah. bombshell dinah + movie dinah = best dinah ever imo.

11. sin - i love sin. this has nothing to do with sin as a child. but her story writing is so fucking racist and ooc for dinah lmfao, i’ve been pretending it never happened until the start of this year pretty much. i’m sure there’s a way to write around it, but if we keep it as is, i abhor everything about it pretty much. which SUCKS bc sin is so adorable and i loved her appearances. but again idk it felt weird to push dinah into that motherly role (already weird with mia lol), so idkkkk.

12. eddie - don’t get me wrong i love this man, he’s just not like part of the fam fam you know, and i need to rebuts on ga vol 2 soon, but just know: trashy cia person with shitty morals but trying to do good is one of the best character tropes. y’all call him a rat man, but you gotta actually stick by it. it’s more than him being gay for ollie (which he is), or more than being a dad to connor (also so true), give me him doing weird sketchy shit.

honorable mention to hal, who i’d place somewhere in the lower half bc he’s not a fave but he’s very enjoyable as an arrow and you can tell he loves them very much. moonday is also somewhere in the middle!!!

and uh i’m ngl sienna still doesn’t even have a last name, like i like her, i just don’t have much of an opinion lol.

what if i revealed my personal arrowfam rankings (not in skill, just how much i like them)

[clueless-fan-critic]

Stargirl: Next Gen Superheroes

After the season finale of DC’s newest teen superhero show Stargirl, it was one hell of an emotional ride with intense fighting, strong character moments, and the world building of this new Earth-2.

The show follows Courtney Whitmore, the typical teenager who comes across the Cosmic Staff, formally Starman’s main weapon. She then takes up the mantle as Stargirl and comes across other teens with their own personal struggles which were explored throughout the first season.

I liked that each character had multiple episodes dedicated to exploring their history, personal lives, and development: Yolanda trying to move past a humiliating experience despite the school and her own family (seriously, they’re just being cruel) keep putting her down, Beth’s isolation from her parents and finding a friend in high-tech goggles, and Rick’s anger building over time from his parents’ deaths at the hands of Solomon Grundy and the Injustice Society.

My favorite episode was Brainwave Jr. for the amount of character development with Henry King Jr., going from a stereotypical jock-bully to a noble hero. Although influenced by his father’s dark view on humanity, Henry saw that people can be good and to never forget that, which he said before sacrificing himself to save the new JSA from his father.

While the Injustice Society had standout villains, the one that stood out was Cindy Burman, or Shiv, as both the embodiment of unhinged teenage cruelty and a dangerous monster created by her father Dragon King. What makes her interesting is how easily cruel she can be, questioning if she was made like this or is who she truly is on the inside.

I do hope Season 2 gets to expand on the characters’ parallels to their original hero counterparts and their personal histories that further plays a role in becoming their own heroes. I also want to see the Shade as a complicated anti-villain/neutral hero type character who’s interested in self-preservation than picking sides. That would bring an interesting dynamic with the new heroes and Pat Dugan who witnessed Shade’s hand in the JSA’s destruction.

Have a Happy New Year!!!

[ufonaut]

(Anon that asked about alan’s opinion on the gls) Yes I did know that alan’s green lantern is not related to the pseudo-space cops of hal and co! It was his difference of style (and chaos) from the other gl’s that made alan stand out to me at first lol! I also care very little for kyle so I wasn’t really aware of where he stood with alan, but I love alan and hal’s relationship/dynamic. Alan’s jealous of hal’s popularity, but he also loves setting things and himself on fire too much to make a great showboating superhero like hal 😂😂 Alan jealous: Why is Hal so popular as green lantern? He’s an arrogant idiot?! Also Alan: *Sets teenagers on fire - 😂😂Thank you for answering my ask!

I MEAN. YES. BUT ALSO NO? there’s depth there, is what i’m saying. alan can’t be reduced to his temper and violent tendencies just as much as he can’t be reduced to the elder statesman status. yes, absolutely, he regularly sets things & himself on fire but the anger doesn’t come from nowhere, the jealousy mentioned in dc first: gl/gl #1 doesn’t either

it’s not that alan sees superhero-ing as a popularity contest, it’s that he wishes he could be perceived like hal is. before parallax and spectre and everything in-between, hal does legitimately embody the image of an All-American Hero. he’s ostensibly straight, young, has his air force bg and a decent job. he’s not the closeted ceo of a failing company long past his prime who was forced out of everything he held dear by the huac. hell, there’s even a comparison to be drawn there between the vast majority of the earth glc members having military backgrounds and alan doing everything he could to avoid enlisting (back in his 40s solo run). there’s more to alan, you know!!

THAT BEING SAID. THANK YOU AND I’M GLAD U LIKED MY ANSWER!!!!!!

[dc-earth53]

#0002: Wonder Woman (Diana of Themyscira)

Age: 45

Occupation: Ambassador, author, adventurer

Marital status: Single

Known relatives: Hippolyta (mother, deceased), Gaea (mother),  Lyta Hall Trevor (half-sister. deceased), Daniel Hall (nephew), Ares (grandfather), Donna Troy (sister), Cassandra Sandsmark (great-aunt).

Group affiliation: Amazons of Themyscira, Justice League of America, formerly Star Sapphire Corps.

Base of operations: Themysciran Embassy, New York City.

Height: 6′0″

Weight: 165 lbs.

History:

45 years ago: Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, ashamed that she had to leave her first daughter behind in man’s world, petitions the gods of Olympus to give her another child. They take pity on her, and instruct her to mold the form of a baby girl from clay. Gaea, spirit of the earth itself, imbues this clay figure with a soul, and Hippolyta names the newborn child Diana.

29 years ago: Teenage Diana befriends Troia, another young Amazon who had been adopted by the tribe after washing ashore as a baby.

20 years ago: 

Sensing much trouble and discord in the world of men, the Olympian gods declared that Themyscira should send out an emissary of peace into the world. Hippolyta holds a contest to determine which Amazon would be sent, forbidding Diana to enter. Disguised, Diana enters the competition nonetheless, winning and claiming the uniform her mother had worn decades before her, as well as her Lasso of Truth.

Diana leaves Themyscira, arriving in Boston, Massachusetts, where she is detained by local authorities. The Olympians intervene on her behalf, appearing to her in animal form and granting her abilities beyond those of normal Amazons.

Diana is taken in by Harvard professor Julia Kapatelis, and her daughter Vanessa, and enrolls at the school to learn more about the world.

Diana is attacked by Decay, a minion of Ares, god of war, and the battle spills out onto the streets, garnering her attention from the media, who dub her “Wonder Woman.”

19 years ago: 

Diana foils a plan by Ares and his children, Phobos and Deimos, to cause a nuclear holocaust, using her lasso to convince the god of the error of his ways.

Diana becomes a founding member of the Justice League of America after teaming up with other heroes to repel an alien invasion of Earth.

18 years ago: 

Diana agrees to hire Myndi Mayer as her publicist.

Troia arrives in Boston, taking the moniker of “Wonder Girl.”

Diana gains the attention of Barbara Minerva, the feline femme fatale calling herself the Cheetah. Minerva attacks Diana, attempting to steal the Lasso of Truth. After subduing her, Diana decides to return home to Themyscira.

17 years ago: 

While on Themyscira, Diana is forced to partake in the Challenge of the Gods in order to sate Zeus’s anger for refusing to sleep with him. She fights monsters including the Hydra and Echidna on her way to freeing the imprisoned demigod Heracles.

Diana is first confronted by Valerie Beaudry, the Silver Swan, and Dr. Doris Zuel, alias Giganta.

15 years ago: 

While on a trip to Greece with Vanessa and Julia, Diana is captured by the sorceress Circe, defeating her with the aid of Hermes. 

When Diana returns to Boston, she finds Myndi Mayer dead, victim of a drug overdose.

14 years ago: Themyscira reveals its existence to the world, and the Amazons begin to take a greater part in world affairs.

13 years ago: Vanessa is kidnapped by the diminutive telepath Edgar Cizko, alias Doctor Psycho, beginning his long rivalry with Diana.

11 years ago: Diana, along with the rest of Earth’s superheroes, participates in the fight against the Anti-Monitor.

10 years ago: 

After the Dominator invasion, Cheetah attempts to steal the Lasso of Truth once more, leading Diana to find the lost city of the Bana-Mighdall tribe of Amazons, and their champion, Artemis.

Diana is caught up in a war between the various pantheons of gods on Earth, and is seemingly murdered by Circe during the fighting. With the aid of the Phantom Stranger, she returns to life and defeats Circe, ending the war.

9 years ago: Diana is briefly replaced by Artemis as Wonder Woman after Hippolyta has a vision of her daughter’s death. Artemis dies instead, and Diana reclaims her mantle

8 years ago: 

Diana joins the new incarnation of the Justice League, assembled to combat a team of rogue White Martians.

Vanessa Kapatelis is mutated into the new Silver Swan by Circe, who sets her loose against Diana.

7 years ago: 

Diana re-locates to Gateway City, befriending museum curator Helena Sandsmark and her daughter, Cassandra. Cassandra disguises herself, and using artifacts stolen from Diana’s belongings, helps defeat Morgaine le Fey as the new Wonder Girl.

Themyscira is destroyed by the forces of Imperiex and Brainiac, killing many of the Amazons, including Hippolyta. The survivors relocated to a new Themyscira - a floating island built in the Bermuda Triangle.

5 years ago: 

Diana takes a position as Themyscira’s ambassador to the United Nations, moving to New York City. She publishes a book, titled “Reflections: A Collection of Essays and Speeches,” which makes an enemy out of pharmaceutical tycoon Veronica Cale.

Diana confronts Maxwell Lord, who murdered the Blue Beetle and had Superman under his control, and snaps his neck. Afterwards, seeking internal peace, Diana makes a pilgrimage to Nanda Parbat, leaving her post to Troia.

4 years ago: 

Despite strained relationships with Superman and Batman, Diana joins the newly restructured Justice League.

Diana is placed on trial by the World Court for the murder of Maxwell Lord, with Kate Spencer as her attorney. She is cleared of all charges and returns to the embassy.

3 years ago: Granny Goodness, in the guise of Athena, and Circe, work together, leading an attack on the United States by Themyscira. Diana is forced to fight against her sisters.

2 years ago:

During the Blackest Night crisis, Diana temporarily becomes empowered by the Violet Light of Love, becoming a Star Sapphire.

The resurrected Maxwell Lord enacts a scheme to eliminate Diana from play, trapping her in a prison of her own mind with the aid of Doctor Psycho - all part of a scheme from Nemesis, goddess of revenge. Diana defeats Nemesis and returns to reality.

1 year ago: Diana is attacked by Grail, daughter of Darkseid, who wants the essence of the gods to restore her father to adulthood.

Present day: Diana continues working at the embassy, while also continuing to serve with the Justice League and aiding the Sentinels of Magic against the goddess Hecate.

Commentary:

If Superman embodies hope and Batman embodies justice, Diana embodies compassion. Her existence is almost paradoxical: she’s the most compassionate of the Trinity, but also the most willing to kill when it comes down to it. The New 52 took her character too far in the direction of being a warrior, emphasizing the sword as her main weapon rather than her lasso and bracelets - to the point where her lasso became part of a chainsaw in Death Metal (as badass as that was). This Diana largely rejects that part of her nature, leaning into her status as an ambassador of peace to the world and believing in an open hand rather than a closed fist whenever possible.

This version of Diana is largely based on George Perez and Greg Rucka’s interpretations of the character, although that raises a few issues with regards to the timeline. Since post-Crisis Diana was introduced without any of her prior history, her post-Crisis early career is spread out over several years in this timeline. Certain elements of the post-Flashpoint interpretation of the character are also included, namely her being detained as an illegal alien by immigration officials, and her battle against Grail after this universe’s equivalent of Final Crisis.

This Diana also adheres to her origin according to Perez, rather than Brian Azzarello’s revamped origin that was also used for the live-action film. Diana was originally envisioned as an inherently feminist character, and making her narrative a patriarchal one centered around her heritage as a descendant of Zeus detracts from that. Rather, she’s a daughter of Hippolyta and Gaea, empowered by the female members of the Olympian pantheon (as well as Hermes). Diana doesn’t need a man behind her to be powerful, she just is.

She also doesn’t need a love interest. I have no hatred in my heart for Steve Trevor, but the character works better in the setting of World War II. In this continuity, he’s Hippolyta’s lover who later settles down with Etta Candy after Hippolyta returns to Themyscira. Perhaps a lover is in the cards for her in the near future, however.

Diana’s costume in this canon is the one she currently sports in Rebirth canon. I am shocked that it took so long to give her a battle skirt, given how much sense it makes as a permutation of the classic culottes or leotard look. 

Got questions about Diana or anything else? My asks are open!

Upcoming:

#0003 - Hal Jordan

#0004 - Aquaman

#0005 - ?????

[djsaxby16]

Top Ten Favorite Portrayals of Superman

You know, with all the talk about about Crisis on Infinite Earths and all the actors coming back to play Superman, it really dawned on me just how many there really are. Given the fact that Superman is my all time favorite superhero, I thought I’d give a tribute to the man of steel himself. This is my top ten favorite portrayals of my favorite superhero, Superman.

10. Kirk Alyn

Many actors have dawned the cape and crest, but Kirk Alyn was the first. With two movie serials, Superman and Atom Man vs. Superman, Kirk was the first man to bring the man of steel to the big screen and to live action form, a legacy that should always be remembered.

9. Brandon Routh

Now I’ll be honest, I was not a big fan of Superman Returns. It’s definitely not the worst superhero film ever made, but it could have been better. However, I will give the film this, I really did enjoy Routh’s portrayal of Superman. He definitely nailed the persona of both Clark Kent and Superman and if he had had a better script, I definitely think more movies would have been made. Though I am beyond relived that he’s getting another chance to be the man of steel one more time, and as the Kingdom Come version no less!

8. George Newbern

While most people recognize George Newbern for the animated Justice League series, that’s not the reason he’s on this list. Oh no, I’m putting him on here for his amazing and chilling performance in Injustice. Just the idea of a fascist Superman is completely terrifying, and Newbern pulled it off amazingly. He was easily one of the best video game villains I’ve ever seen.

7. George Reeves

After talking about the man who first brought Superman to the big screen, we can’t forget the man who first brought him to the small one. The Adventures of Superman is just pure 50s fun. It has the action, the comedy, and the enjoyment that a Superman show from that era can bring. And George Reeves’ classic take on the man who could “bend steel in his bare hands” is such a fun take. His smile, his confidence, and his positive energy was just contagious. He was perfect for the first tv Superman.

6. Tim Daly

Let’s face it, Superman: The Animated Series had a lot to live up to after the impact that Batman: The Animated Series had. But the driving force behind that show in my opinion was Tim Daly as Superman. When I read a comic book, he is always the voice in my head for Superman. To this day, no other animated incarnation of Superman has been as memorable to me as he has. If Kevin Conroy is Batman, then Tim Daly is Superman.

5. Tyler Hoechlin

While the most recent live action adaptation of this character may still feel new, he has left his mark as one that will be remembered. I admit, I had my doubts about Derek from Teen Wolf becoming Superman. But let me tell you, his few episodes in Supergirl were easily some of the best ones, and I remember feeling incredibly bummed when he left as I wanted more of him. He was charismatic, tough, kind, and just an all around good guy. There are rumors he might get his own spin off and I hope to God that it’s true. He was definitely the right pick to bring the man of steel back to tv.

4. Dean Cain

When I was a little kid, I would always remember waking up and watching Lois & Clark every morning before school started. This show has stuck with me for a long time not only for its entertainment value, but as a different take on Superman. That take being how Clark is his true personality while Superman is the disguise. Plus the romantic comedy aspect just made a very entertaining adaptation of Superman. Sure it may not have been as grand or as big budgeted as other adaptations, but the pure nostalgia value and the fun reinvention of the character made for one heck of a fun show.

3. Henry Cavill

Now I know some of you may hate the DCEU and make fun of Man of Steel and Batman v. Superman. And if you feel that way, tough luck, I love both of those movies and Justice League. But most of all, I loved Henry Cavill as Superman. He is a Superman that is perfect for our current present time. He’s a very complex and intriguing character. He also feels very relatable, he isn’t just all knowing or perfect. He seeks others for help, he’ll call his Mom in the middle of the night when he’s upset, he’ll happily seek emotional support from his girlfriend and others, and he shined brighter than ever when he stood with the Justice League. This version of Superman was perfect to bring back to the big screen for this day and age. It’s complex, it’s challenging, and it makes you think. Just the fact that people STILL debate about him shows what an impact he had. What more could you ask for?

2. Tom Welling

What was great about Smallville was honestly it’s run time. Ten years, we got to see a boy from Kansas become the greatest hero ever. Ten years we watched how Clark matured and honed his power and accepted his legacy. Ten years, we saw friends become enemies, rivals become lovers, trials, adventures, and one of the greatest journeys ever put on tv. Tom has played the character longer than any other live action adaptation and he executed it brilliantly. From the shy farm kid, to the awkward teenager, to the hard working journalist, and to the amazing hero. Smallville was great because in those ten years, we saw the boy become Superman.

1. Christopher Reeve

I mean what else can you say? This man IS Superman. He will always be Superman. It doesn’t matter who else takes up the role in the future, Christopher Reeve will always be the perfect embodiment of Superman. He had absolutely everything, he had kindness, he had charm, he had comedy, he had drama, he had anger, he had sadness, he had bravery, he had love, he had compassion, he was just the absolute perfect Superman. It’s literally pointless to even try to compare him to anyone, no one will top Chris and it’s just a fact. Christopher Reeve is and always will be the one true Superman.

[authorlmfletcher]

Miraculous Valentine’s Day: Day 14

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13490619/14/Love-Bug-A-Series-of-Miraculous-Love-Stories

Valentine’s Day: Eternal Soulmates

Find this, and all the valentine’s day stories from @epcot97​, @livrever​, and I on Ao3 and FFnet.

                                  ________________________________

Eternal soulmates. It is a strange idea to think that your life is somehow intertwined with someone else's in such a way that you are destined to be together for eternity. Most people dismiss the concepts of soulmates as a fairy tale. Or they wash it down to the general idea of romantic love. Which is exactly what Adrien Agreste thought too. At least until he discovered exactly what eternal soulmates meant. Because he had one.

At the age of 14, Adrien had spent most of his life in the relative captivity of his home with a cold, stern father. Confined within the four walls of his room, he spent hours in front of screens trying to connect somehow with the real world. The oversized windows that lined an entire wall of his bedroom gave him a glimpse at the world outside, but cast long bar-like shadows across the floor in a silent reminder that this was his cage.

It was a ring that offered him the freedom he dreamt of - letting him escape through one of those windows and out onto the rooftops of Paris. Changing his appearance to one of a black cat, the power within the ring hid his identity, giving him the opportunity to be who he wanted without punishment. Freedom was exhilarating. He would never take that gift for granted.

When the girl in the red suit crashed into him unexpectedly, tangling them both together upside down, he met her eyes with excited trepidation. It wasn't an instant soul-shattering explosive moment when they first met - that came later - but as he stared into the depths of her blue eyes rimmed in a red mask, there was an overwhelming sense that he knew her.

Shrugging it off, he leapt off to save the day, encouraging his nervous new partner while revelling in the wonder of the world. He hated to go home to his gilded cage, locked behind windows, but his father would be furious if he discovered the truth. At least now, his prison had a door.

He dreamt that night of running. The sounds of his footsteps pounding against cement mingled with the heaviness of his breathing. He had no idea where he was running to, only that he was - buildings rushing by as he pushed forward. A distant voice called to him, his name echoing off the walls.

And then there she was: the girl in the mask. She stood alone, nervously hunched over herself in anxiety of failure. Her eyes met his in desperation, begging for him to help her but he didn’t know how. He couldn’t shake the feeling that, somehow, he knew who she was - a ridiculous idea since his life had been so carefully guarded that he basically knew no one.

The taste of freedom made him desperate for more, urging him to flee the house as himself and not just as his alter-ego. Against his father’s wishes, he escaped through the doors and raced to school, hoping to find the freedom that he desired. Every experience was new and overwhelming and exciting - surrounded by other teenagers and chaos. Desire for friendship led to well-intentioned mistakes and a girl in his class who responded in anger, leaving him confused.

Duty called, pulling him from the new room of potential friends, sending him jumping into the fray against giant men of stone. Finally, he stood side by side with his spotted partner in defiance against the villain, encouraging her to believe in herself. Deju-vu rattled his thoughts for the briefest of moments while her eyes turned from worried to determined and her stance grew in confidence at his words.

It was then, watching her in awe as she challenged their opponent with utter tenacity, her yo-yo whirling in well-controlled movements, that Adrien remembered. A thousand lifetimes flashed through his memories in a single moment, leaving him speechless and gaping at the woman in red. A woman who lived a thousand lifetimes beside him, fates tangled together for eternity. His lady.

Whoever she was behind that mask, he knew that he loved her.

“So she doesn’t remember?” Adrien asked, head spinning with too much, too fast. How does one process the reality of reincarnation and having lived before?  His advisor was a small black cat-like creature named Plagg - an immortal being known as a kwami who granted him the ring’s power of freedom. Plagg embodied the very essence of destruction and bad luck, addicted to the foul-tasting flavour of camembert, and typically aversed to offering much in the way of advice. But today, the cat looked concerned, hovering closeby with his tiny ears plastered against his head.

“No,” Plagg admitted, his words spoken with care.

“ Will she remember?” Adrien couldn’t really understand what exactly was happening. According to Plagg, the black cat and ladybug had been two halves of a whole since the beginning of man. Their lives were fused together with magic, their souls connected in each rebirth of themselves.

While their lives didn’t have to be connected by romance, it usually was. In every case, the black cat remembered while the ladybug didn’t. He was destined to remind her. And when life called its end, it was his life that vanished first to leave her behind and alone until she too passed on - the cycle to return again in the next lifetime.

The lives he’d lived before felt both vivid and hidden behind a pane of obscuring glass. He could only remember pieces, but enough to know it was true. War and peace, riches and poverty, happiness and sorrow. They ran the gamut and left his reality dizzy.

He would die first. The thought should have haunted him, but all he could think about was her. His Ladybug.

“How do I remind her?” he whispered, the vision of her eyes driving his soul to madness.

Plagg explained that this part of the journey was complicated. Each incarnation had a different experience than the past but mostly a connection together in some way, getting to know each other both in and out of the masks.

“And can you tell me who she is?”

Plagg sighed in response.

“No.”

The pull of destiny on his soul turned what had promised him freedom to a whole new adventure. Ladybug filled his thoughts and his dreams. Every moment that he could be with her and learn all about her made his heart sing. He loved her - each and every thing about her. When she laughed, he felt himself melt with joy. When she cried, his heart twisted in agony.

He threw himself in harm's way to keep her safe, taking the hits that were meant to hurt her. Made jokes to make her smile. Relished in her disapproving eye rolls.

He found himself hoping for the villain to attack more often so he could press forward in his attempts to woo her. When she whispered that she loved someone else, he yearned for more but gave her space. Wishing he could tell her of the lives they'd lived together, he waited, trying to respect her wishes and enjoy her companionship as a friend without letting his heart break in two.

As school, he daydreamed of who she could be behind the mask.

Sometimes, he thought he knew who she was -  that girl who had been so mad on the first day of school. He replayed the memory of their meeting in the rain as he apologized for the misunderstanding. It wasn't the same knowing as the first time he had met Ladybug, but when thunder cracked and their hands touched, he had hoped that maybe she was the one. Friendship blossomed between them.

As always, Plagg would caution wisdom in the search because finding out identities before destiny's plan would spell disaster for them both. So Adrien waited, dreaming of the lives of their past.

But as the months grew, he felt a knot in the base of his stomach that just won’t go away. Maybe this time around was when they would just be friends. He didn’t want to believe it - the moments of happiness that she could reveal of her life outside the mask cutting deep into his heart.

“We belong together, my lady,” he pleaded, begging her to listen to him, but she would shake her head with a soft smile and dismiss the thought.

He tried to forget, to accept what it was, but he couldn’t. Memories sank too deep to let it fully go. He tried to move on, to find some level of contentment with someone else, but he couldn’t. His heart belonged to her and her alone.

Time flew past, growing up together within their suits as partners- him always yearning for more and her always avoiding it.

When her happiness turned to heartbreak, it took every ounce of effort not to unleash the black cat's fury on the one who made her cry on his shoulder in deep racking sobs.

That night, something changed within her. Her head would rest on his shoulder a moment longer. Her eyes would linger for a split second more. Her eye rolls less dramatic. Change moved slowly, but he could wait.

As her broken heart knit itself together, he tried to weave himself into it with gentle care and compassion of adulthood instead of the brash dramatics of youth.

At the age of 20, Adrien Agreste had earned his freedom both in and out of the suit, clawing a life for himself away from the overbearing control of his father. Age had brought him wisdom and a heart that loved without ceasing.

Ladybug deserved the best he could be, even if it meant he could be nothing more than her rock to lean on. Because love does that - gives without expecting. But hope kept his heart beating.

They had been superheroes together for so long they were familiar and comfortable with each other's touch. Which is why he jumped at her unexpectedly sharp intake of breath as he touched her arm one day, a fiery burn creeping its way across her masked cheeks without explanation.

He guarded the questions he desperately wanted to know her answers to, waiting with a lifetime of patience.

When, underneath the moonlight, she stepped quivering into his waiting embrace to gaze at him with those beautiful eyes, his hope exploded. Her gloves trailed lines down his cheeks as she gaped with eyes that seemed to be truly seeing for the first time.

"I know you," she whispered, searching for answers.

"I love you," his only response before his lips fell to hers in soft warmth.

The world exploded in that single moment, fire and wind and ice wrapped up into one as their souls collided in perfect harmony. The memories he had only seen flashes of tore through the veil, pieces falling in place as they both remembered everything and every life.  

Pulling apart, they simply stared deep into each other's souls as they wove themselves together. Masks vanished in a rainbow of colour, leaving their faces as bare as their souls.

Marinette. The girl under the umbrella in the rain. His friend who had always loved him, too. It made so much sense now that he understood.

"Adrien." His name spoken in complete and utter love shook him to his core. This was how it was meant to be. Together forever.

He couldn't stop himself from kissing her again.

[stories-sometimes]

Not So Happy Halloween

Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: Halloween brings up old memories. Some angst in there.

Word Count: 994

Masterlist

She knelt on the carpet in her new house, slowly unboxing her possessions. Throughout the morning she’d gotten through unpacking at a reasonably rapid pace, that was until she reached the box of Halloween items. It had always been her favourite holiday, trick-or-treating as a kid that became getting way too dressed up for night she wouldn’t remember the next day when she was a teenager. And she shared that joy with Bucky, stupid matching couple costumes, handing out candy to the kids and watching endless amounts of horror movies together. He would always feel as though the arm he hated so much was just part of his costume, that he was still he was his old self for one night. The night only got better when she was with him. They embodied their demons with outfits and cheesy films, making fun of them rather than fearing them. The two of them could push them away for once.

But that all changed, things could stay that good for long, that’s what she always thought. Life got in the way, the missions and the fights and all the long nights. They became partners, both in real life and on the job. Bucky knew she didn’t need it, but it made him feel better if he was there to protect her, which seemed like a perfect plan until things went wrong. Mistakes built tension between them, they ignored it until it bubbled over and erupted. She still remembered that night vividly.

“I had him exactly where I wanted him, I could of had the information I needed then you fucking decided to swoop in and fucking kill him!” She screamed as they stood in a dirty motel room in middle-of-nowhere Midwest America.

“He was about to set off a bomb, I found his plans. I’m so sorry for being a shitty person for saving you!” He shouted back.

“I knew about the bomb, I knew what I was doing. Can you but a little bit of trust in me for once?”

“I do trust you, but I still want to protect you.” He watched her jaw clench at that comment, he knew how much she hated feeling like she wasn’t independent.

“I can protect myself, I did it before you and can sure as hell do it after you.” She said without thinking.

“After me, what are you just waiting for the right moment to drop me?”

“Bucky I didn’t mean it like that, I-”

“Don’t bother.” He said as he turned away, slipping into the bed, staying silent for the rest of the night and the morning after and for far longer than she could bare. The usual soft touches and sweet words were gone, anger radiated from Bucky. They never really resolved that fight, they agreed to forget about it but the underlying issues still remained.

She wished she had allowed herself to be more emotionally vulnerable, to be less fiercely independent. She wished they’d talked. She wished they hadn’t distracted themselves with their endless missions. Every glance at the Halloween decorations brought up more and more memories. 

Eventually they decided it might be better to go on missions separately as that seemed to be the main issue. But that only created a bigger rift between them. She started going on missions with Thor. Bucky had grown more insecure after their first argument and as those missions went on he watched the girl he loved and the God of Thunder grow closer. They were completely platonic, the logical part of his brain knew that but there was always a voice telling him that they were more. She always seemed so happy around him, but around Bucky that tension still lingered in the air. They stopped sleeping in the same room, they stopped communicating. They were still in love, but the unsolved issues pushed them to breaking point.

At the bottom of one box was an old tattered costume, still covered in the blood from that Halloween night. She didn't even know she still had it.

Her and Bucky finally had to go on a mission together again. It was Halloween night and they were dressed up to seamlessly blend into the crowds as they hunted some remaining Hydra agents. It went successfully, they caught them, they took them down. Once it was done they were forced to be alone together.

“I think we should talk.” Bucky suggested after a prolonged silence. She nodded absentmindedly. “Are you sleeping with Thor?” That got her attention. She stared at him, her face a mix of shock and outrage.

“Why the hell would you think that?”

“You seem very close, I just want the truth.”

“I’m not cheating on you.” She replied bluntly.

“Then why are you so much more comfortable with him than me? If you’re fucking him just tell me.”

“I’m not sleeping with Thor.”

“Then what’s happened, why don’t you sleep in bed with me?”

“Because everything’s so tense, every time we’re together, I feel like we’re going to explode. Things haven’t been good in a while.”

“If you feel like that what’s the point.”

“I don’t know.” That was it, it was over. As soon as they were back at the compound she packed her things, stayed with friends for a while, tried to live a normal life away from superheroes. It took her a year to get back up on her feet to adjust, to finally move out into her own place.

She was still in love with him, she never stopped, never would. Halloween was now just a bitter reminder. At some point she started crying although she had no clue when, but there were no signs of stopping. She heard a knock at her door, so she left her wallowing to answer it. She felt like she'd seen a ghost as she tried to suppress her tears.

"Hey doll, I want to do this right this time. Can we try again?"

[phantomphangphucker]

The Apocalypse Comes To Amity Park In The Form Of...Danny? - Phic Phight

Prompt Creator: @feministhotline Prompt: Phantom uses duplication to get Jack and Maddie off his tail. Summary: In a time of desperation and spilled ice cream, Danny must use duplication to escape, but things go horribly wrong! When a wild Danny appears! Things To Note: Vlad becoming mayor isn’t canon here, PP is never canon and Valerie is on a friendly truce with Phantom.

Warning: excessive swearing, broken bones, violence.

Let Danny say fuck, taking a piss on canon, Danny is a fidget spinner, Danny’s an angry boi, Valarie is an angry gal, teenage superheroes are just the embodiment of anger

“You have got to be kidding me!”

Trash can lid goes flying.

“Of all the lousy timing!”

A duck squawks angrily as it’s almost stepped on.

“Why can’t they just not!”

Car horns blare from people far too used to Amity parks shit.

“For one fucking day!”

A loud whack! Is heard as someone’s head impacts a sign.

“Shit! shit! shit!”

A child cries as his ice-cream cone is knocked to the ground.

“You know what? Fuck it!”

Loud crashing, as a running boy launches himself through a window.

“Yeah yeah this’ll work”.

One pale black haired boy pokes at a mirror as he turns to give a thumbs up to a floating white-haired boy. Their bodies would match in every way if not for the glowing and colour inversion. Quickly spinning around they both take in the mess of broken glass and discarded bottles. Then snapping their heads up at the fast approaching footsteps. The black haired one quietly shouts “you hide or anything”, as the white-haired one zips under a pile of wood. Using his ghostly tail to make himself look like a sleeping cat. While the black haired one pretends to be passed out in the corner, clearly visible to any incoming people.

“Danny! Oh my god! What are you doing here!” A women runs up and shakes the black haired boy, Danny. Danny then pretends to groggily wake up due to the shaking, “m-mom? Wha?”. Danny looks around and pretends to be unaware of his surroundings, it’s extremely effective.

“Danny-boy, are you ok?” A large man in orange asks. “Jack, I think it’s better we get him home” then the lady turns back to Danny “honey you’ve been missing all day, where have you been?”. Running from you, “Uh, can’t say I know”. shaking his head, Jack says “yeah Mads, I think it’s best we just go home. I think Danny boy here whacked his head a little too hard. Whoops.”.

Just as Maddie and Jack are getting Danny, who’s still pretending to be groggy, into the Fenton assault RV. The white-haired version slips out of the building just at the wrong moment. “Mads! Look! Phantom! We still got a chance!”. Jack aggressively grabs the wheel spinning it around, sending the RV after the boy. “You’re not getting away this time you ectoplasmic menace!” Oh come on! Danny Phantom mentally grumbled. Jacks awful driving, however, was a problem. Resulting in the vehicle careening off to the side, back doors flying open and sending Danny Fenton flying out. Who’s knee jerk reaction is just to phase through the wall. “Wait shit!” As Danny Fenton spins his head back to the wall, that a human shouldn’t have been able to go through. Just as he’s about to hop right back through a stray ectonet from his parents, flings around him cutting him off from using his powers. “Oh for Plasmius sake”, Danny Fenton groans from in the net. Danny Phantom, on the other hand, flies around and through a bunch of other walls, redirecting his parents away from Danny Fenton. “CRAP! SHIT! What the fuck am I supposed to do now?” Sighing, Danny Phantom gets one potentially stupid idea and he doesn’t know yet just how stupid it will be.

Dropping to the ground to conserve and build up more energy, Danny Phantom makes haste and sneakily works his way to the wall that Danny Fenton stupidly phased through. “I am giving myself a C- for plan creation and execution today” Danny Fenton shakes his head, still inside the net. At that time Danny Phantom just makes it back to the wall, using his stored up energy he duplicates again; failing to notice the sharp jab in his back. Once again white hair faces black hair, and black gives a thumbs up as he pretends to be knocked out, slouching against the wall. Danny Phantom quickly squeezes himself behind a wall and just fucking waits, hoping his parents don’t have a scanner on them.

Jack and Maddie grumpily ball up their fists at the now likely escaped ectoplasmic scum. But quickly run up to Danny when they see him slumped against a wall. Maddie lifting Danny up as Jack flips the RV back over, like a straight beast. Everyone loaded back in again, they finally do indeed go home. Jack and Maddie both feeling highly guilty about the (fake)knocked out teen in the back seat. They don’t even attempt to check the scanner, instead putting their son first as they should have from the start.

Back at the warehouse, Danny Phantom comes out of hiding and removes the weird dart from his shoulder blade; instantly feeling off. “Ok, bad idea” after a couple seconds, “ok, really bad idea” as suddenly there’s a fourth Danny and something about him is not right. Then there’s a fifth, then sixth and then a seventh.“Oh fuck”, Danny quickly sticks the dart back in. Thankfully, no more Danny’s split from him however the Danny’s start teleporting all over the place like a glitching hellscape. Groaning head titled back, with a hand on the dart making sure it doesn’t accidentally fall out. “What did I ever do to deserve this”, at that second one Danny teleports and smashes straight into him. Knocking the dart out. By the time Danny has scrambled to the dart and jabbed himself again, there’s 11 new Danny’s. “Ok now I feel like I’m going to be sick”, Danny watches the hell show of Danny’s bouncing about, occasionally smacking each other, and slowly flips out his phone calling Sam.

“Hey Sam”

“What’s the problem now Danny”

“You’re not going to believe this but there’s like 17 Danny’s right now and I can’t make it stop, without stabbing myself with this STUPID FUCKING DART! Anyways how’s your day been?”

“Danny, what the fuck? Do you, like, want that suppressor jacket Tuck made? And my day’s been worrying, you dick. You just up and vanished!”

“Yeah that sounds like a good I-ack!” As two Danny’s slam into him, the dart comes out for only a few seconds before he shoves it back in. But that was enough time to make more Danny’s.

“Danny?”

“GREAT! JUST GREAT! THAT'S JUST WHAT I NEEDED! THERE'S THREE FUCKING MORE NOW AND THEY ALL HAVE THE SAME DAMN FACIAL EXPRESSION!”

“Okay Plasmius cool down, Tucks on his way to your phone's location. You Pan or Fan?”

“Drying Pan all the way. Can’t be a Screaming Fan with this STUPID FUCKING DART IN ME! And I’ve been running all freaking day, Power bars down the drain.”

“Wow, well do I need to set up anything for when you get here?”

“Ectoproof-fishing line maybe, to control these wild Danny’s”

“Uh can’t you just, exert self-control”

“FUCKING NOPE, APPARENTLY NOT! THEY'RE JUST FUCKING. TELEPORTING EVERYWHERE”

“That’s actually way more concerning, what the hell.”

“Shit looks like Tucks here, so uh talk later?”

“Yeah sure Danny, I don’t know how your life always goes like this”

Hanging up the phone, Danny carefully works his way around all the bouncing, teleporting and floating Danny Phantom duplicates. The Danny Fenton who has finally gotten himself out of the net, phases his head through the wall and just mutters “this is so fucked”, walking fully through the wall; Fenton follows the “normal” Phantom. Tucker, then makes his way around a wall staring at his PDA. The two “normal” Danny’s just stare at him as one of the wild Danny’s crashes into him. “What the fuck Danny!” Then Tucker looks around and to the two Danny’s that are just standing. “Uh Danny?”. The two Danny’s nod “yeah, we’re fucking normal, well as normal is I or we can ever be. Welcome to hell.” They finish as another wild Danny slams into Danny Fenton. “Normal” Danny Phantom walks over to Tucker “dude I can’t take this stupid dart ou-” Danny Phantom gets cut off as both he and Tucker are slammed by a wild Danny. “This is like teleportation Danny ping-pong! What the hell Danny!”. Danny Phantom snapping his head over to Tucker “Oh I dOn’T kNoW mAyBe I wAnTeD tHiS fReSh HeLl TuCkEr!!!!”...yanking Tucker over to him. “JUST GIVE ME THE FUCKING VEST TUCK!!!”. Just as another wild Danny crash into them sending the dart flying “OH FUCK ME SIDEWAYS AND UP A FUCKING POLE!”. As more Danny’s start popping up Tucker aggressively shoves the vest at him. Then Tucker takes off after the dart, as Danny gets the vest on and activates it. “OH THANK FUCK! IT ACTUALLY FUCKING WORKED!” Danny flops on the ground as Danny Fenton walks over and helps Tucker avoid the wild Danny’s. Tucker shoves the dart into his pocket and immediately drags both “normal” Danny’s outside. In the process one very exhausted Danny Phantom returns to Fenton form. Tucker, then looking between the two Fenton’s and then through the doorway at the 40 odd wild Danny Phantoms. Turning back to the Fenton’s “how is this even possible? Last I checked you could only do four and that was pushing it and what the fuck is wrong with their faces?” Danny on the left just jabs a finger at him and says “you’re dragging our asses to Sams, crazy wild Danny’s included”. The other Danny cuts in “and all those are that darts fault and that dart is courtesy of my parents and I’ve been missing today also due to my parents and I CURRENTLY WANT TO DIE!”. Tucker just looks back into the room “so what are we going to do? play fucking Pokemon with your hellspawn and again what’s with the faces?” Glaring at Tucker right side Danny says “I fucking guess so and I don’t fucking know, IT'S NOT LIKE I HAVE ANY FUCKING CONTROL OVER THEM!”. “Fucking Christ” Tucker breathes. “Dude all I’ve got is 3 thermoses and obviously you don’t have one at all otherwise you would have caught some already”. Tucker looks at the Danny’s as they just stare and slowly facepalm each other. “Danny you have got to be kidding me”   Tucker groans when left side Danny shrugs saying “we were just going tackle them and drag them to Sam’s. Stringing them to ectoline like fucking balloons.” Left Danny then pulls out a, clearly empty, thermos. “You’re a fucking tit, you know that?” Right side Danny glares and then points at other Danny “that FUCKER has been running all FUCKING day, I’ve been stuck inside a FUCKING net and the third one is off pretending to be knocked the FUCK out on the Fenton couch. WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT FROM US!”. Tucker’s jaw drops “there’s another one? Seriously? And man you’ve had one hell of a day.” Both them glare at him and shout “TELL ME ABOUT IT!”.

“Alright, Danny’s let's take some of that, clearly pent-up, anger out on yourselves.” Pausing to think “do you think that counts as self-punishment?”. One of the Danny’s hits him on the head with their thermos as the other says “I can’t feel whatever happens to them others wise I’D BE SCREAMING IN FUCKING AGONY BY NOW”. Tucker is confused until he clues in that the wild Danny’s are straight up crashing into everything, spinning and teleporting rapidly. “Ok, point and I also think you would be vomiting, sweet Plasmius. Uh I think we should do this shit, like, now, dude”. Shrugging the two Danny’s run in, fucking screaming, thermos’s in hand and shooting the beam everywhere. Shaking his head Tucker runs in and joins the fun. Eventually, Tucker has to switch to his second thermos because, sweet fuck there are so many Danny’s. Eventually, they stand, with shaking thermoses and one remaining wild Danny. One of the Danny’s eyes his thermos with a mix of caution and anger “this shit is going to FUCKING EXPLODE”. “Yeah no shit Danny, so I guess let’s tackle? The last one and just like drag it away?”. The other Danny shrugs “yeah, fuck it and then we’ll throw it at Sam. Maybe the balloon idea is still useful.”. Tucker chuckles “that is going to be fucking hilarious”. On that note the three fucking leap on the last wild Danny as it spins in front of them. However, the wild Danny keeps teleporting; dragging the Danny’s and Tucker with it. “HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT NOT HAPPY TIME NOT HAPPY TIME” Tucker cries as one or both? Danny’s scream “OH YOU GOD DAMN FUCK, FUCK ALL OF THIS I WILL FUCK YOU WITH A POLE AND ROLL YOU IN FUCKING CAT LITTER!”. The Danny’s just end up wailing on the wild Danny, teeth bared and basically full on feral. Scaring the living hell out of Tucker, as Tucker just decides fuck it and suck the wild Danny into his over-filled thermos as well. The three get dropped to the ground, both Danny’s completely started and genuinely mad at their opponent's sudden cop-out. “WHAT THE FUCK!” Both snapping their heads towards Tucker, “TUCK! WHAT THE FUCK!”. Tucker just throws his hand up at the two feral ass Danny’s “dude it needed to be done, chill out.”. Lowering his hands “though honestly, I shouldn’t be surprised you’d be so eager to beat yourself up”. The two Danny’s get up and silently stalk over to him, grabbing both his arms as he internally freaks out. They drag him outside the building, Tucker finally rights himself and gets them to let go. Tucker digs into his pockets and throws down a tiny disc creating a tiny self-contained ghost trap and he puts the thermos’s inside. Both Danny’s follow suit, though they do it angrily.

“Dudes, my cars just down there. Like always I’ll ask you, try not to destroy it.” Both Danny’s flip him off but then all three of them burst out laughing. “This is easily the weirdest fucking thing to ever happen to me and whoops” Tucker instantly stops “whoops what Danny?”...”DANNY WHOOPS WHAT?”. One of the Danny’s says “third me joined us in laughing and now mom and dad thinks he has a concussion”. Tucker laughs some more “Wow this day really really hates you”.

Meanwhile, in the Fenton household. “Jazz I’m fine, I swear!” Jazz glares at him “Danny you keep barely containing laughter, jerking randomly and your basically furious for no reason. You are not fine.”. Danny falls back groaning against the sofa as his parents hover around him and Jazz, kicking his legs and silently screaming into the pillow. Rolling back over he growls and stares defiantly at the ceiling. I really wish she knew our code terms right about now. At least other mes are off to Sam’s now. This is all just fucking peachy, fucking great. Jazz snaps her fingers in Danny’s face “there you go being all pissed off again.”. Maddie chimes in “Jasmine, sweetie are you sure he doesn’t need to go to the hospital?”. Both Jazz and Danny quickly say “no, that’s not needed.”. Danny, trying to salvage the situation, “how bout I just take a nap, right here and we can all see how, TOTALLY FINE I AM. Once I’m awake and y’all have CHILLED OUT.” Danny forcibly curls up on the couch pulling blankets over his shoulders. “Fine. But I’m staying here and watching you for anything. And I mean anything” Jazz says with understood meaning. Danny, of course, doesn’t actually fall asleep but he makes a damn good show of it. Jazz eventually shoos Jack and Maddie to bed and as soon as they’re gone Danny snaps his eyes open. Jazz, startled “ Danny what the hell?”. Rolling his eyes “I was waiting for them to go because they don’t know”, Jazz is confused for a heartbeat but then nods. “Ah so ghost thing then?” Chuckling Danny says “I’m a duplicate Jazz, mom and dad spent all day running after me so much so that I had to duplicate to trick them away. But then I had to do it again because they found Phantom me, again and then I entered a brand new fresh hell.”. Jazz stares and then shakes herself “so where’s the real you or aren’t your duplicates real yous as well? And what do you mean by hell?” Jazz quickly looks up checking that Jack and Maddie really are in bed. “The other two are with Tuck and about 40 or 50 other Danny’s” at that Jazz goes completely bugged eyed “what? How?” Danny huffs “like I told Tuck like, 2 hours ago. Parents got me with a weird dart and my duplication powers went fucking nutty. Got Tuck to bring a power suppression vest we designed, shit fucking works it seems, and now we’re heading to Sam’s to try and fix it.” Jazz shakes her head “so what there’s, what 50 or so invisible yous all flying into one house?”. Danny bursts out laughing at this “fuck no, all the duplicates that resulted from the dart thing are completely fucked up. Bouncing all over the god damn place, teleporting and shit. To kick that shit off  I have no fucking control over them at all so they’re all stuffed in thermos’s”. Jazz rubs her temples, “well I can’t let you, or at least this you, go over to Sam’s. That would be too suspicious.” Sighing “so you’ll just have to stay put and try to act normal.”. Danny stares at her “fucking normal? Really and how fucking well has that worked so far. I’m exhausted, been assaulted multiple times by myself, assaulted myself, and did I mention that the stupid vest is very fucking uncomfortable?” Jazz raises her eyebrows so Danny continues on with his rant. “It’s like being fucking pressure cooked inside a pot filled with nails. But if I take it off BAM! More fucking wild Danny’s. Plus so long as it’s on I can’t absorb any duplicates. It’s fucking exhausting controlling three fucking bodies. Being stuck in a net for hours also wasn’t any fucking fun, they’re not made for comfort you know. Oh and both my legs are fucking busted from going out a fucking window and shit-“ Danny bats away Jazz’s hand as she, alarmed, tries to check his legs. “Not these fucking legs, my originals. I don’t even think Tuck’s fucking noticed since I’ve been fucking floating every damn where. But I had to run on them for a bit to conserve energy earlier so they’re probably pretty damn fucked.”. Jazz sits massaging her head, “is there literally anything I can do Danny? And please have your original stay off your or their legs.”. Chuckling “Jazz all you can really do is help convince mom and dad I’m fine so I can go over to Sam’s as soon as possible. The trips going to take about another 10 minutes. So it’d be fucking fantastic if I could focus on the shit going down there, rather than trying to put my effort towards managing mom and dad here.”. Jazz sighs, “I’ll do what I can little brother, for now you can just pretend to be sleeping at least. Think you can tell me what the dart looks like though, so I can check the lab for it?”. Danny facepalms, “yeah, fuck, that’s probably a good idea. I don’t know what colour the liquid or whatever inside was but it’s about the size of my thumb, has a flaming Fenton F on it, and the needle part is really fucking long.”. Jazz pats Danny on the shoulder as she gets up “alright you get some sleep and try to sort this out.”. With that Jazz heads down to the lab with one more look in on her parents, who have both fallen asleep.

Tucker pulls up to Sam’s place and the Danny’s phase them and their cargo straight into her room. “Wow that took you, three? A while. What the hell happened?” Sam asks with a curious smirk. Tucker’s the first to open his mouth “well the Danny’s basically assaulted us, we had to play Pokemon with them and Dannys’ parents think his other duplicate has a concussion.” One of the Danny’s throws his hands up “Yeah because I’m acting fucking nutty because of dealing with these FUCKING THINGS!” he gestured wildly to the thermoses. “Don’t need the ectoline anymore by the way. Oh, also both legs are fucking smashed”. Tucker whips around “dude what! When?”. And Sam aggressively says “sit” while pointing to her bed after putting plastic on it. “When I fucking launched myself out a DAMN window after being smacked in the face by a SIGN and destroying a child’s ice-cream cone.” Sam rolls her eyes “you damn monster”. “I couldn’t fucking float cause my power bar was down the drain. Still kinda is but not so damn bad.”. Tucker shakes his head “dude, again, today hates you.”. The second Danny floats over to Tucker as the first Danny lifts up his pant legs. “You have any more vests? Cause while this shit is horribly fucking uncomfortable it’s better than descending waves of wild Danny’s upon Amity Park.” Tucker shakes his head “no, but I’ll get right on that cause yeah I don’t want to see another one of them.” Sam rolls her eyes “could they really be that bad, basically they’re just Danny but not under his control right?” Both Tucker and the two Danny’s all say “sweet Plasmius fucking no”. Just as Sam exclaims “Plasmius Danny! Did you like walk around on them like this or something?!”. The Danny’s smirk. “You fucking did you moron!” Sam slaps him on the head as she gets to work fixing his shredded legs. After about an hour the second Danny pipes up, “hey, Jazz found some more of what is likely the STUPID FUCKING DARTS that did this. And of course there’s no already made cure for it because WHY WOULD THERE FUCKING BE!”. Tucker waves off the Danny “we’ll just have to make our own. Think other you or Jazz could get it here?” Danny shakes his head “no they’ve basically under lockdown till that Danny’s deemed healthy. But I don’t see why this Danny can’t go.” Danny starts to float but prompt slams back down with an angry growl, both Danny’s suddenly look much worse for the wear. “Uh dude, I think that’s not happening. I’ll just go myself.” The Danny slumped on the windowsill flat out growls “this is FUCKING STUPID!”. Sighing Sam asks the Danny she’s working on “should we be concerned?”. That Danny shakes his head tiredly “no it’s just because of all the duplication and actively maintaining 3 bodies. The fucked up Danny’s don’t seem to be a drain but the two true fuckers are”. The other Danny turns his head over “hey, I take offence to that!”. Which causes for Sam to look quite concerned. “Fuckin chill Sam, I’m stuck with this bullshit for now so I’m going to fucking dick around with it. Plasmius I could use a fucking nap”. Danny flops back in the bed, earning a glare from Sam. “I’m trying to fix your legs you know and I hate to say it but this is a lost cause. You are actually going to have to go get this fixed, Danny.” Windowsill Danny is the one to respond “ha! BeCaUsE tHaT wIlL gO oVeR sO fUcKiNg WeLl! Hey, Mr. And Mrs. Fenton your son came in with his legs straight fucked.” Moving his hands wildly “What do you mean he’s sitting on our fucking couch with a probable concussion”.  Sam sighs “yeah well, Danny only so much can be done without actual major surgical equipment. And they won’t let even me buy that stuff, they’re afraid of start-up serial killers or something.”. This time bed Danny replied, “well then I’ll just wait my legs out and see if they fix themselves”. Sam stands up so she knows he can see her glaring “Danny that’s completely moronic, the sooner you go the better. This isn’t going to magic itself away.”. All she gets out of bed Danny before he passes out is “says you”.

—During that time at Fenton works—

Jazz watches as Danny just sorta groans and then suddenly looks like he just ran a marathon. “Danny, you alright there?” Concern filling her voice. “Yeah just tired and drained, by now I’d normally have automatically reabsorbed my duplicates but I can’t with the vest on. So I’m still expending energy maintaining them, oh and Tucks on his way over for the darts.” Jazz nods understanding, “I’ll give it to him when he gets here but you need to actually sleep or let the original you sleep.” Danny just tiredly waves her off and he wiggles in his blankets. By the time Tucker gets there Danny is out cold. “Tucker quick question, just how bad are actual Danny’s legs?” Jazz asks as she gives Tucker the darts she found. Tucker, pulling out the one from his pocket confirms they’re the same before answering “pretty bad, the idiot walked with them all busted up”. Jazz sighs “I know, he mentioned that while ranting. I’m not impressed.”. Tucker, chuckling “I don’t think anyone is but-”

Tucker is cut off by a massive explosion. Tucker sighs but Jazz is the one to speak “I don’t want any of hims going off fighting. I don’t care what it is, Danny gets the night off.”. Tucker chuckles “tell that to Danny not me...” Tucker trials off as he stares at the road “oh no”. “Whatever it is Danny’s not dealing with it”. Tucker just side-eyes her, “Uh actually it’s Danny or a Danny that needs to be dealt with”. Jazz juts her head out the door as she says “what?”. Quickly she spots Danny floating in the street with a strange facial expression when it suddenly is above someone house and then slams into a mailbox. “Dear god, that’s one of the wild Danny’s isn’t it. God that’s weird.” Tucker nods “yeah now imagine 40 of them all doing that in a small room”. Tucker turns and waves bye at her as he runs off back to Sam’s. Leaving Jazz to shake her head at Danny’s sleeping form though she pauses when she notices that he almost looks like he’s glitching occasionally. “Well there’s no way that’s good”.

When Tucker gets back he sees that Sam’s side window and wall have all been blown out, one Danny is passed out in the grass and Sam appears to be carrying the other. Shouting at Tucker “we need to get both them somewhere safe to recharge and holy hell you guys were not kidding about these things being hellspawn.”. Just as she finishes a wild Danny knocks her feet out as it slams into them, causing her to fling broken legs Danny on to the ground. Grunting awake, that Danny goes to get up but Tucker rushes over, “dude, no you are way too drained. Go back to sleep.” Tucker, picking him up yells to Sam “grab the other, well take them to Danny’s house. Mines too far away and we have to deal with this bullshit before they destroy the town!”. “Roger that! He can heal faster in his room anyways!” Sam yells back as she hoists up the lawn Danny. Booking it down the street to Danny’s house.

Jazz is watching the board-cast of the dubbed “dannypocalypse” that just started on ghost watch, as Sam and Tucker burst in carrying two unconscious Danny’s. “How the hell aren’t your parents up?” Sam asks as she and Tucker take the Danny’s to his/their room. Once they run back down as quietly as they can Jazz answers “dad can sleep through anything and mom has special earplugs to sleep through dad.”. The two nod as the rush to the lab, coming back up with many thermoses in tow. Quickly running right out the door, shouting back “take couch Danny to his room!”. Jazz quickly does so, though she’s not sure why, before she shakes her head as she turns back to the screen covered in Danny’s going everywhere like ping-pong balls of doom while also teleporting randomly. One flies face first at the camera with its never-changing facial expression, almost making her scream. Shaking herself off “at least they’re all Phantoms, otherwise Danny would be completely outed.”. Jazz opts to go back to the lab, to see what else she can find. It doesn’t take her too long to find the plans for the darts. “Well, this would have been useful to find earlier. Tucker could use these I’m sure.”. Sitting down Jazz elects to read over the plans herself. Eventually wheezing out “oh Danny is going to love this.”.

Sam and Tucker spend most of the night rounding up the Danny’s but early on they had been joined by The Red Huntress. “What the hell are you two doing?!”. Tucker looking up “what does it look like? Making fine wine?”. Gliding down near them she fires a blast at a wild Danny, making it spin but leaving it completely unharmed “what the hell is up with these things!? They're like indestructible!?”. Tucker chuckles as he catches another wild Danny in his thermos. “For once you really truly can blame the Fenton’s!”. Sam shoots Tucker a warning glare but he just rolls his eyes at her. “What the hell do you mean?!” The Red Huntress asks as she full on drops to the ground walking up to Tucker. Tucker whips out his PDA, scrolls a bit and shows her the image some kid had captured of the offending dart hitting Danny in the back with the Fenton’s holding the weapon. Shaking her head “Jesus Christ what the hell was in that! And you’d think after everything they would have stopped going after him!”. Shrugging Sam says “that’s stubborn grown-ups for you”. Eventually catching up a sizeable amount of Danny’s, The Red Huntress walks up to the two of them; deciding now is a good time to have a relaxed conversation in the middle of the street as the remaining wild Danny’s wreak havoc. “you two have any clue where the actual Phantom is or how to fix this?”. Tucker smirks “well hopefully, his resting because there’s no way this” gesturing at the occasional wild Danny, “isn’t exhausting”. She nods curtly “yeah from what I’ve seen duplication is really tiring but there’s something seriously wrong with these duplicates”. Sam mutters under her breath “yeah no shit”. “Well whatever, I’m going to the Fenton’s to see if I can find that dart thing and tear a new one into those idiots.” The Red Huntress turns to leave but Tucker snatches out to grab her arm. “No!” Composing himself as she eyes him annoyed. Tucker fishes in his pants, producing the empty dart “already done and the Fenton’s are sleeping. Personally, I don’t want them waking up to this and trying to “deal with it” themselves.”. The Red Huntress takes the dart and eyes it “I figured as much, you were probably already hanging out at Danny when this happened. Where is Danny anyways?”. Sam and Tucker both shrug unable to come up with a good excuse. “Figures, that kid runs off at the worst of times. But I AM going to Fenton Works and I AM berating those two. They deserve to experience this bullshit, reap what the sow and all that.” The Red Huntress zips away before either can stop her. “Well fuck” is all Tucker has to say as the once hunter of Danny Phantom flies to Danny’s House, which has two too many Danny’s in it. At that moment another car alarm goes of as the stiff arm of a wild Danny impales it.

The Red Huntress speeds over to Fenton works and knocks angrily on the door. Jazz, all too familiar with angry knocks, glares at the door as she walks over “Well look another pissed off basket case, hooray for me.”. Opening the door she’s shocked to find The Red Huntress. Composing herself quickly “let me guess, you want Fenton stuff to help deal with the dannypocalypse?” As The Red Huntress steps in aggressively. “Tucker apparently is already working on the dart thing so no, I’m here to shout angrily at YOUR DAMN PARENTS”. The Red Huntress, quickly stalks up the stairs before Jazz can stop her but just before she gets past Danny’s room one of the Danny’s pitches out the door crashing to the floor in front of her. Both The Red Huntress and Jazz yelp “Danny! Are you ok?”. The Red Huntress momentarily forgets about the Fenton’s in lue of helping Danny. However, one of the other Danny’s was already dragging that Danny by his feet back into the room. Looking up, the second Danny locks eyes with The Red Huntress‘s helmet. Who quickly jerks her head up and down from Danny to Danny as Jazz just stares in shock. “Danny? Danny what the HELL!” The Red Huntress borderline yells but is quickly hushed by Jazz as the floor Danny replies “Uh, hi?” As the third Danny, with still broken legs groans “THIS DAY COULDN'T GET ANY MORE FUCKING PERFECT!”. Causing The Red Huntress to shove her head in the door as Jazz pinches her nose. The Red Huntress, no longer giving a shit, as she takes in the sight of a third Danny, rips off her helmet off. “WHAT THE FUCK!”. Jazz throws her hands up completely giving up on the hope of some peace and quiet. She then follows Valarie, as she storms in. Jazz stops to help second Danny heave the floor Danny off the floor and onto a beanie-bag. Sighing “why can’t you ever just let yourself sleep, Danny”. Valarie paces back and forth. “Why are there three of you? HOW are the three of you? What is going on? WHO ARE YOU?!”. Danny mutters “a lot of fucking bullshit that’s what” before genuinely responding. “Now is like the worst fucking time Valarie, BUT GOOD GOD DAMN FUCK IT!”. The broken Danny flails his arms straight up smacking another Danny in the face. Beanie-bag Danny and just-fucking-smacked-in-the-face Danny turn and glare at broken Danny. “I will hit me IF I DAMN WELL WANT TO!” Broken Danny shouts as the just-fucking-smacked-in-the-face Danny starts weakly smacking him, which then descends into a slap fight. Valarie rips them apart shouting “I’ll repeat WHAT THE FUCK DANNY!”. The beanie-bag Danny stands up and points at her as she turns her head to him, still holding the two other Danny’s wrists in the air. “EVERY SINGLE KIND OF FUCK! EVERY SINGLE ONE! FENTON PHANTOM FENTON PHANTOM! SAME FUCKING THING! NOW PUT ME DOWN!”. Jazz then realized that broken Danny’s actually being lifted off the bed as Valarie quickly drops both Danny’s. Broken Danny rubs a hand down his left leg “fucking Christ FUCK ME SO MUCH!” Jazz runs over, yanking his pant leg up to check for bleeding. Groaning, she runs downstairs to get fresh bandaging. Valarie wide-eyed and worried “what happened to your leg?” And not even half a second later “WAIT WHAT DO YOU MEAN “SAME FUCKING THING!” WHAT THE FUCK!”. The Danny that was previously on a beanie-bag grabs her shoulders, spinning her around, and just straight up transforms into Phantom in front of her. “HOW THE FUCK!” Valarie jumps a couple of inches off the floor and nearly falls over but standing Danny Fenton catches her. Just as Sam, Tucker and Jazz all run into the room.

“Wow, didn’t know you two? Had gotten back together” Sam smirks with a hand on her hip as she waves around her thermos. Danny Phantom, being closest to the door, looks them up and down; noting their dishevelled appearances. “Ok, what the fuck did I miss?”. Valarie, struggling back to her feet, “we haven’t and how? Seriously how? Did you miss THE FUCKING SWARM OF PHANTOMS OUTSIDE!” All three Danny’s snap their heads to Sam and Tucker as Jazz slips over to broken Danny, getting to work on his leg. Sam noticing “did you fuck your legs up again you moron?”. While Tucker explains “the wild Danny’s all fucking escaped dude”. All three Danny’s shout “WHAT!”. Everyone flinching to cover their ears, Tucker turns to Jazz “how in the hell are your parents still asleep?”. At this Jazz just shrugs. Meanwhile, Sam groans out “yeah and they blew up my damn room, I don’t even have walls anymore!”. Valarie starts waving her hands around “whoa whoa, wait what? You mean to tell me you already captured them all once! And again What. The. Hell. Danny!”. Jazz sighs “ apparently they did and the rundown is basically-” taking a deep breath “Danny is half ghost and Phantom is his ghost form. The basement ghost portal messed him up when it turned on-“ broken Danny cutting in “with me inside it, might I fucking remind you”. Jazz continuing, “-basically half killing him. But our parents don’t know so could you. Stop. Shouting.”. Valarie looks from Danny to Danny, taking in all three. Slightly hurt, “why didn’t you FUCKING TELL ME YOU MORON! I’ve been fucking hunting you and all this fucking time you-! I could have KILLED YOU!” Suddenly one last wild Danny wizzes past the window as Tucker groans running down the steps. Valarie, sitting down finally, “and what the hell danny, how did this and that happen?!” She gestures towards the three Danny’s and then jab’s her thumb at the window. Phantom explaining, for what feels like the 50th time, “parents chase me. Duplicate to escape, twice. Get darted. Wild Danny’s everywhere. And before you ask, I DO NOT HAVE ANY FUCKING CONTROL OVER THEM!”. “And the legs?” Valerie asks. As Sam and Jazz say in unison “he jumped through a window”. Valarie looks at the broken Danny “and why didn’t you just float or whatever you moron.”. Broken Danny crosses his arms “I was too fucking exhausted ok. I’d been running all fucking day. And as soon as my parents found Fenton me they had the FUCKING AUDACITY TO ASK ME WHERE I HAD BEEN ALL FUCKING DAY!”. Tucker coming back in shakes his head “dude, at this point you should just tell them.”. All the Danny’s roll their eyes and broken Danny asks “so have you figured out how to fix this yet so I can take this STUPID FUCKING THING OFF!” Danny points at his vest. Tucker just lets his hands fall limp to his sides “dude, I haven’t even had a chance to look at the darts. I’ve been chasing yous all over town.”. Jazz perks up as she remembers the dart plans, pulling them out of her back pocket she shoves them at broken Danny. “I found this in the lab after Tucker left. Thankfully, it’s not harmful but well...” she trails off as Danny glares angrily at the paper, then Tucker grabs it away . Slowly the paper is passed around as everyone, even Valarie begins to snicker. Not-broken Danny Fenton mutters “I’m going to fucking kill you all.”. Jazz smirks, “Danny, it’s pretty funny. If you had used literally any other power before getting darted you wouldn’t be in this mess.”. Broken Danny crosses his arms and grumbles “I was conserving energy”. “And there lies the irony” Tucker says sticking a finger in the air “in trying to conserve energy you stuck yourself in a way where you expend even more energy”. Earning a glare from Danny, “I will strangle you in your sleep.”.  Jazz smacks his head, “not on these legs you won’t”. Danny smacks his own forehead “I really am a dumbass”. Tucker smirks as he says “that’s what we’ve all been telling you, dude” as broken Danny sits up and simultaneous changes to Phantom and into his ghostly tail. Everyone jerks at the loud snapping sounds that makes. “DANNY WHAT THE FUCK!”, “YOU REALISE YOU’RE A DUMBASS ONLY TO BE A DUMBASS!”, “HOW DOES THIS HELP ANYTHING!”. Broken Danny rolls his eyes as he changes his tail back to legs. Having functionally, reset every piece of bone into its rightful spot. Sam just gapes “how the?”. As she runs over inspecting his still mangled legs but no longer with bones or bone chips out of place. “I’m not sure whether to call you a dumbass for not doing that sooner or call you a genius for knowing that would work.”. Tucker eyes Danny, “you did know that would work right?”. All three Dannys’ just shrug as everyone else sighs. Tucker turning back to the plans and the darts in hand “I’m going to be in the lab actually getting somewhere on this.” He jumps down the steps two at a time.

After a few minutes of awkward silence, “So how the hell have you guys been telling the Dannys’ apart?”. Both Sam and slightly-less-broken-but-still-broken Danny answer “we haven’t been”. Danny, shrugging “they’re all me so it doesn’t really matter which one you talk to”. Valarie shakes her head “yeah well, that’s too damn weird for me today. I’m all maxed out on weird.”. Sam sighs “ok then...how the hell are we going to tell you three apart.” As she turns to face the Danny that’s closest to her, which happens to be broken Danny. “Well doesn’t Original Danny have to wear the suppressor vest, so he’s easy” Jazz supplies. “Well that still leaves two” Valarie grumbles, still rather freaked out at the sight of three Dannys’.  

“You know what? We’ll just fucking wear wrist bands” as broken Danny grabs a white cuff, Fenton Danny puts on a black cuff, and Phantom Danny lifts up a green cuff. Jazz, taking the three in, “yeah, that’ll work. Subtle but noticeable, comfy yet stylish.”. Tucker interjects through Danny’s phone “and in your colours, all you’d need is red and you’d have your entire make up.” White Danny rolls his eyes, “Tuck, I also have blue eyes.”. Everyone can hear Tucker slap his own face as Valarie mutters “are we just going to ignore that Tucker’s on the phone without there being a call”. White Danny rolls his eyes “he fucking hacked it, what’s new... though he SHOULD BE FOCUSED ON OTHER THINGS!” White Danny finishes, shouting. “It’s not like I’m holding the damn phone and you know how I hate being out of the loop.”, to Tucker’s credit they can hear him tinkering away. “If anyone gets to be pissy about being out of the loop it’s me, YOU FUCKS!” Valerie cuts in as black Danny rubs his neck. As white Danny yells,“Well, you spent all your time TRYING TO FUCKING MURDER ME!” She glares at him and huffs “I WOULD HAVE STOPPED IF YOU FUCKING TOLD ME!”. Black Danny throws his hands up, “I AINT NO FUCKING MINDREADER! MAYBE YOU SHOULD HAVE FUCKING ASKED!” Valerie gaps at him, “HOW THE FUCK WAS I EVEN SUPPOSED TO KNOW THIS SHIT WAS POSSIBLE! NO ONE ASKS ABOUT THE IMPOSSIBLE DANNY!” Sam smirks, “and that right there is why no one has figured you out yet Danny.”. Green Danny glares at Sam, “WELL THAT’S FUCKING STUPID AND THIS TOWN IS FUCKING STUPID!”. Everyone else just shrugs, unable to disagree. Then a realization dawns on Valerie, “you, you fucking dated me even though you knew I was trying to kill you?” Sam nods as does every Danny. “ARE YOU COMPLETELY INSANE!”. Sam smirks, “that’s what I said. But Mr. Deathwish over here didn’t care”.  “LET ME BURY MY SELF PRESERVATION IN PEACE!”. As both Sam and Valerie groan, white Danny rubs at his chest annoyed that it seems tighter. When suddenly he hears cracking sounds and all the Danny’s look at the vest.

“OH, YOU HAVE GOT TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME!” White Danny cries as he watches the pieces of his suppression vest explode outwards, as if in slow-motion. Instantaneously, over three hundred wild Danny’s’ explode out of him like an absurdist supernova. The grand overwhelming mass of Dannys’ blasts out Danny’s walls, floor and ceiling, destroying half the house and leaving Danny and co. Sprawled all over the blast site. Somehow, through sheer cosmic luck, his parents' bedroom and lab are fully intact; parents still sound asleep. White Danny stands slouching in the centre of everything, wild-eyed and growling. Eventually, as Sam and the two other Danny’s stagger up, white Danny shouts “FUCK ME AND MY VERY EXISTENCE! I AM AN AFRONT TO GOD AND I FUCKING LIKE IT THAT WAY!” before he collapses, unconscious. Valerie rolls over, covered in dirt and a knife? As hundreds of wild Danny’s spin, smack, and crash everywhere. Jazz wanders over to the tv as it springs back to life telling of the dannypocalypse’s sudden return after mysteriously vanishing. Tucker groans “Not again...”. Valarie violently shakes black Danny “WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO THAT FOR YOU MORON!-“ only to get cut off by a wild Danny. Suddenly Tucker bolts up fucking sprinting at the lab, being the only one to notice in the mayhem that even more wild Danny’s are being formed at this very second. He doesn’t even bother taking the stairs, just straight flings himself down. Moving wildly to piece together a fix for this bullshit. Chanting, “fuck me, fuck this, fuck everything”. His manic inventing is highlighted by a backdrop of screaming, destruction, thermos noises, and an endless waterfall of swears.

Up above Sam screams “TUCK WHERE’S THE OTHER DAMN VEST!? TUCK!” Looking around unable to find him “FOR FUCKS SAKE! YOU BETTER BE EITHER DEAD OR OFF DOING SOMETHING USEFUL OR SO HELP ME!”. The two Danny’s aggressively slap the hell out of white Danny’s face, “WAKE UP LUETENET!”. Valarie glares at them as she pole vaults over a wild Danny only to get smacked by two others, “THIS IS NOT THE TIME FOR VIDEO GAME REFERENCES! HOLY SHIT! IS EVERYTHING A JOKE TO YOU!”. White Danny is slapped into consciousness just in time to hear that last bit. “YOU BET IT FUCKING IS! I DO WHAT I WANT BECAUSE I! AM! GOD!”. A sledgeHammer slams into the white Danny’s feet, “MUST GOD MOCK ME!”. Looking around the trio of Danny’s realizes the wild Danny’s, in their wild workings, are kicking up and flinging around all the contents he’s stored in that part of the house for years. “I THOUGH YOU WERE GOD”, Valarie shouts back as green Danny dive bombs her from behind. “YEAH AND I’M MOCKING MYSELF!”, Green Danny shouts at her as he rolls away from an incoming wild Danny that has two knives sticking out its chest. “WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT FOR! YOU MADE ME MISS!” Green Danny just glares and points to the needles stabbed into the ground where she once was. “WHAT THE FUCK! WHY ARE THEY THROWING STUFF!”. Sam slams up against the last bit of inside kitchen wall, the five others running to join her; thermos’s all full. Sam wags her finger at white Danny, “NOT YOU! YOU'LL JUST FILL THE INSIDE OF THE HOUSE WITH THESE HELLSPAWN”. White Danny stops, growls and throws his arms out to the side “FUCK YOU TOO THEN!”. Just as a new wild Danny spawns out of him and collides head-on with another wild Danny, inches away from white Danny. The impact sends him flying into the road. Sam and the others can’t see him but they do hear all three Danny’s, two of which are inside with Sam, Jazz and Valarie, shout “HAVEN'T MY LEGS SUFFERED ENOUGH FOR MY SINS!”. Sam shakes her head and mutters “Jesus fucking Christ. I don’t have any more damn bandages.”. Valarie grabs the black Danny “again, WHY THE FUCK are they throwing stuff!”. Danny shoves her off him with his teeth bared, “their FUCKING NOT.”. Jazz interrupts, “I think what Danny’s trying to say is, their stirring up everything in their path and by sheer velocity sending every piece of debris and random items all over the place.”. Valarie looking outside, “WHY THE FUCK DO YOU OWN SO MANY WEAPONS AND SHARP THINGS!”. Sam just sighs, “blame Danny, he hides things intangibly inside his walls. He probably has enough to supply an army in his room walls alone”. “OF COURSE I FUCKING DO! HAVE YOU SEEN MY FUCKING LIFE!”. Hearing a sudden explosion down the street, “Danny, even I think it’s completely insane to keep FUCKING GRENADES inside the walls”. Jazz jumps in just as a wild Danny head smashes its head straight through the only unbroken window, expression never changing. “HOLY FUCK!...and Danny, why the hell would you make you own room a death trap!”. “BECAUSE DEATH GIVES ME LIFE AND EVERY TIME I NEED SOMETHING IT’S FUCKING MOVED! IF ONLY I CAN TOUCH IT THEN NO ONE CAN FUCK WITH MY SHIT!” both Danny’s spin around and crouch, ready to pounce, as Tucker races up the steps, his glasses missing a lense. Bending over and huffing wildly he sticks his hand out, a funky blue dart in it. Green Danny, straightening up, mutters, “you just had to make it blue to spite me didn’t you.” Everyone can see Tucker’s grin as he tilts his head up, other hand still on his knees “now your fucking complete, dude. And I am redeemed.” Sam just shakes her head as she grabs the dart and shoves into green Danny’s palm. “You’re the one with ghost powers and you’re the one duplicating to hell and back. Go fix your shit.”. Valarie steps up, “oh hell no, this moron is not going by himself.” Black Danny puts his hands on hips, “NO FUCKING SHIT”. Valarie just glares at black Danny “YOU’RE BOTH THE SAME DAMN PERSON! IT DOESN'T COUNT! A MORON TIMES TWO IS STILL A MORON!”. Sam groans, “just go out there you angry babies, sweet Plasmius.”. Both Danny’s and Valerie roll their eyes at Sam as they bolt out. Sam leans over to Jazz, “they’re so getting back together”. Tucker smirks as he overhears, “they’re our atomic power couple, get it? Since their both walking warheads?”. Jazz groans, “Danny has tainted you.”. Sam just shrugs, “well, they are a match made in anger, clearly.”. Tucker flops down onto the ground as the house shakes and a wild Danny comes crashing in and just starts ping-pong bouncing around. The three swat at it with brooms. Jazz shakes her head, “I think I better grab more thermos’s. We don’t know that Danny will be able to reabsorb any of these monstrosities.”. Sam calls to her as Jazz runs over to the lab, lightly stepping over needles, knives, two swords and what looks like a jigsaw trap?, “Ms. Psychology textbook! why is it that teenage super heroes are all so angry and aggressive?”. Jazz yells from down the steps “because the ones who aren’t die!” Continuing as she comes back up, arms full of sweet sweet thermos, “you can’t face the things they do, day after day, carry the responsibilities, and keep deep secrets like that; without being an energetic firecracker. Aggressive anger is like determination on steroids.”. Handing out the thermos’s they prepare for another assault on the wild Danny’s as they hear someone, most likely a Danny shout, “VEHICULAR MANSLAUGHTER YOU FUCKING FUCK!”.  They come out in time to see Valerie, on her board, straight up throw one of the “normal” Danny’s at the white Danny. While the other “normal” Danny is two foot stomping on the face of a wild Danny. The three regular humans blast their thermos’s in random directions other than where the three Danny’s are, because the damn wild Danny’s are literally everywhere. Tucker slams the thermos down on the head of a wild Danny just in time to see green Danny flying jab white Danny in the chest with the dart, as white Danny physically flings himself at the impact. Both of whom are snarling, teeth fully bared as they do so. “WHAT IS HE TRYING TO DO! PIERCE HIMSELF STRAIGHT THROUGH OR SOMETHING!” Tucker cries. Sam winds up rolling through a bunch of used bloody bandages at the same time that three becomes one, again. “Can’t he at least throw this stuff out? Lazy fucker”. Danny, all back together, fucking books it over to Jazz who throws a thermos straight at his face, he lets it slam into his face. Muttering, while laying on the ground “now that tickled my nostalgia bone”. Jazz just sighs as everyone continues catching all the wild Danny’s throughout the night.

“Remind me to never use duplication to escape my parents ever again.” Danny groans, as he slumps against a wall. “the only positive is that this has to be a new Highscore for number of times one of us almost died.”. Tucker exhausted slaps him in the chest, “I say lets beat it next year”. Jazz jerks her head over to the boys “absolutely not and Danny sit down. There’s no way your legs are healed.”. At this Danny starts laughing “what the fuck does healed even mean anymore!?”. Jazz grimaces at this. Sam drags Valerie over to the three, “I say we head back to Danny’s, it’s the only place where we won’t get into serious trouble.”. Danny and Jazz scoff “hell they’d be proud”. Jazz adding, “plus we have to make up an explanation for the house.”. “Fuck that! I ain’t doing that! I say watch the fucking news, that’s the fucking story right there!”. Jazz looks at Danny “you know they’ll blame Phantom?”. “NO FUCKING SHIT! DO I CARE!? FUCKING NO!”. Sam smirks, “you could just tell them everything, Pan Fan included”. Danny glares “FUCK NO! EAT A DICK SAM!”. She just rolls her eyes “I can’t, I’m vegan.”. Valarie groans “Uh guys I’d like a couch right about now. And what’s a Pan Fan?”. Danny goes and scoops her up bridal style and just walks off, “Pan means Phantom, Fan means Fenton” calling back to the others “you fucks coming or what?”. As Jazz trails after him scolding him about walking on his, still, broken legs. While Danny and Valerie mutter about code words. Tucker and Sam watch them go a bit before following themselves. Quickly the yard comes into view, Jazz can’t help but shake her head, “how did you even fit half this into your walls Danny.”. “Fucking creatively that’s how, and now there’s NOWHERE TO FUCKING PUT IT!”, Valerie slaps him, “my ears are right here you moron. I would like to keep my eardrums thank you very much.”. Tucker just chuckles “ears, who needs ‘em”. Valerie kicks him with her foot, still being carried by Danny. “Me, that’s who.”. Stepping over many sharp things, the group heads up to where the door used to be.

Maddie and Jack wake up just as the five walk inside. Jack hardly seems to notice the destruction but Maddie is stunned. Sam just turns on the tv to the ghost news as Danny lays Valerie down on the half-destroyed couch. Maddie only takes in the absurd carnage on tv for a little while before turning her attention to the kids. Who are all varying levels of beat up. Danny and Valerie are technically the worst but Danny doesn’t really count. But being ever the mother and not knowing any better, Maddie runs to her son first and demands he sit down. “Danny! What are you doing! You were in no condition to even be leaving the house!” Danny rubs the back of his neck, “things happened and like I said I. Am. Fine.” Sam can’t help but snicker as Danny has to hold his tongue around his parents, they don’t tolerate swearing very well. Maddie just shakes her head, “all of you are going to the hospital now. No buts, Fenton Assualt Vehicle. Now.”. This time Maddie carries the little hunter and they all head off to the, very overcrowded hospital. On the ride there they discuss what happened and in a surprise to no one, they blame Phantom and thinking he must have messed with their dart somehow to cause this. Regardless they scrap the dart project.

Luckily, Danny’s ectoplasm levels are so low from overexertion that he doesn’t raise any red flags in Amity. So he gets off with only leg casts, yes two of them. “Would you look at that, you wound up in the hospital anyways.” Sam gloats. “Yeah and the best part? I CAN’T ACTUALLY TAKE THEM OFF!” Danny flails his now healed up legs around, though he wouldn’t be allowed to remove the casts for months. Since the doctors don’t know shit about him being a halfa or halfa healing. Tucker raises an eyebrow at Sam, Sam leans over and explains “his parents had them lined with anti-ghost thread so they won’t even come off in ghost form.” At this Tucker bursts out laughing. “OH FUCK YOU TOO! YOU CAN BOTH DROWN IN FIRE!”. Tucker waves a hand at Danny, “oh you love us” as Danny grumbles.

All over town, there’s Danny shaped dent marks, impalement holes and other generalized destruction. But, like always, Fenton Works looks the most absurd. There are hundreds of weapons of increasing absurdity strewn all over the yard, house and road. Most of them are actually Danny’s, though his parents don’t know that. Jazz managed to convince their parents to let them, with Sam, Tucker and Valerie’s help of course, to clean up the outside. So long as Danny swore to stay in a chair the entire time, much to him and his constant-need-for-action’s, dismay. While cleaning Sam raises an eyebrow at an oddly fish shaped knife, “So what are we going to do with all the wild Danny’s?”. Both Valarie and Danny grin evilly, responding with only one word, “Vlad”. Not even two hours later, only managing to not break Danny’s promise by carrying the entire chair with them, a mysterious package arrives at Vlad’s mansion. Being so egotistical that he refuses to believe anything could really harm him, Vlad idiotically brings it inside to open it. He doesn’t know yet just how idiotic that will truly be.

End.

[lizartgurl]

“Back To You” (Aqualad x OC)

PART EIGHTEEN

(part one) (part two) (part three) (part four) (part five) (part six)(part seven) (part eight) (part nine) (part ten) (part eleven) (part twelve) (part thirteen) (part fourteen) (part fifteen) (part sixteen) (part seventeen)

@flamebiirds​ @the-shadow-of-atlantis​ @super-spoiler​ @keanureevesislesbian​ @princes-jasmine​ @sapphicstargirl​

“Manta must’ve helped them get these guys back too,” Superboy’s fist went through the gooey form of a Whitago, but it reformed just a moment later.

“How kind of him,” Emma growled. She leaped into the air as if to fly over a gunman’s head, but quickly turned it into a flip and kicked him in the back of the head.

“Where’s Miiyah?” Heather asked, setting a group of Whitago on fire as another girl froze one.

Miiyahbin was launching as many balls of ice as she could summon at the very unfortunate and red-faced Rhodes, who dove from house to house to try and find shelter from the swarm of heroes he had inadvertently helped create.

“Equinox look out!” Nightingale shouted. She leaped as high as she could to get a good angle, launching a lightning bolt at the sidearm Rhodes was aiming at her protege.

Miiyahbin all but ignored the warning, continuing her barrage as if she hadn’t heard it.

“You killed my father, you steal our people, you poison our land, and you think you can just get away with it!?” The teenage girl screamed, a giant ball of snow and ice suspended in the air above her head. Her arms were shaking trying to hold it there.

Rhodes grinned cockily, anything would set her off. “That’s usually how it works, innit dearie? White man can get away with anything these days.”

Miiyahbin launched her ice at Rhodes with a scream of fury. It would have hit Hannah’s house, which Rhodes had backed up against, had Kaldur not diverted it at the last second.

“Why did you do that!?” Miiyahbin screamed at Kaldur and Emma, both of them running towards her, “I had him right there, I could have gotten rid of him for good!”

Rhodes’ eyes widened, just now realizing that the girl of the people he’d traumatized was actually very close to killing him, and the way Aqualad and Nightingale were looking at him, they might just let her get away with it.

But Nightingale shook her head. “We don’t get to decide who lives and who dies.”

“Then who does? Because he certainly thinks he has that power!”

As Rhodes tried to scuttle away, Kaldur formed thick bonds out of the ice, pinning him to the frozen ground.

“And that’s what separates us from the bad guys.” Emma said, placing a hand on Miiyahbin’s shoulder. “There’s a very fine line when it comes to being a hero with powers like ours. It’s hard to not use it however we want.”

“Just ask Superman,” Kaldur smiled. Miiyahbin glanced between them doubtfully.

“That’s why every superhero needs help, they need a team,” Emma said.

“They need people they can rely on, people they can trust.” Kaldur glanced at Emma with a shy smile.

“You’ve got us, you’ve got your grandmother, and you’ve got this whole island community relying on you for help that you can turn to.”

Miiyahbin groaned, “Gee, thanks for the reminder.”

With a roar, the remains of Miiyahbin’s father rushed past, breaking Rhodes’ bonds, throwing Aqualad and Nightingale into a snowbank, and snatching up Equinox.

“Miiyahbin!” Emma screamed, throwing herself back onto her feet. She ran after the Whitago, while Kaldur and Superboy locked down Rhodes and his remaining men.

Artemis handed off a couple foam arrows to the other girls like Heather to trap the Whitago while those with water and air powers worked together to freeze a few at a time. With a shout of strength, one of the girls with earth manipulation fashioned an arrow out of stone, launching it through the frozen creatures and completely shattering them. Heather raised a fist of fire to stop the last one, but caught sight of Nightingale waving her arms.

“Don’t! He’s got Miiyahbin!”

“Miiyah,” Grandmother gasped. Recognizing the glint in that particular Whitago’s eyes, she dropped her shotgun in the snow. She’d run out of bullets and resorted to using it as a club to fend off the Whitago from her store. But now, she ran for the ghost of her son unarmed, hoping that she could stop him from hurting his daughter.

“Miiyah! Use your light!” Shannon advised as she caught up with Emma.

Miiyahbin grunted, writhing in the Whitgo’s grip with her eyes squeezed shut.

“I- I can’t!” She screamed, fear seizing her voice. Emma keenly recognized that fear, and realized that Miiyahbin’s Midayo clothing had disappeared, replaced by her jacket and jeans.

Shannon and Emma had Miiyahbin and her father backed up against a crop of trees. He could run if he wanted, but he didn’t focusing on his mother, and on his daughter, breathing heavily in his giant hands.

“Miiyahbin,” Emma said quietly, “It’s going to be okay.”

“I- I can’t kill them, I can’t stop them.” Miiyahbin almost sobbed. “How do we stop them?”

“Miiyah,” Shannon said gently, “There will always be darkness fighting against the light, the light of Cree life that you embody.

“Say it with me, my dear: Love, Humility, Bravery...”

“Truth, Respect, Wisdom, and Honesty,” Miiyahbin’s voice shook with her eyes shut tight to keep from looking straight ahead at the Whitago, but she could still smell its decaying breath on her face. She said the words all the same. Even the Whitago creature grunted along with her.

“You cannot destroy the Whitago, but you can keep it from hurting anyone else, from continuing to hurt your father.”

“But how?” Miiyahbin begged.

“Granny, I’m scared. Emma and Kaldur were right, I’m not ready! I’m scared, I never want to see a Whitago ever again.”

Emma bit her lip, heart aching.

“Miiyahbin, I’m scared too.” She said.

It was like hearing a pin drop in a silent room.

“You are?” Miiyahbin asked. Emma could see the stars reflected in Miiyahbin’s wide, pleading eyes as she finally looked up at Emma.

Emma nodded. “I am terrified. There is so much that can go wrong, so much that has gone wrong, some of it because of me.”

“How...how do you do it then? Again and again?”

Emma shrugged, thinking. “It’s hard, I know that, but I think most of it is that I can’t let myself watch terrible things happen without trying, without knowing that I tried.”

“Fear is the power of darkness, Miiyahbin,” Grandmother counseled, “You can combat it with bravery, drown the darkness in light, keep it locked away, so it cannot hurt anyone else.”

The Whitago grunted, a low, crooning sound, like a sad moose.

“”Daddy?” Miiyahbin looked up at the creature with moose antlers, patches of beaver fur, and half the face of a kind man’s, torn by anger and vengeance.

The Whitago winced as a white light sparked in its hands, Miiyahbin was floating before him, dressed as the Midayo.

“Daddy, it’s me,” she plead.

“I- I’m not going to run away this time,” She promised, “I’m not going to fight you, daddy. Let me help you.

“Please.”

The Whitago’s head tilted back and forth, examining the Midayo in front of him.

Miiyahbin slowly raised her hands, and the Whitago braced itself for an attack.

“Don’t be scared, there’s no need to be scared anymore.” Emma couldn’t tell if Miiyahbin was talking to herself, to the Whitago, or to everyone else, but she had never felt prouder.

White light sparked between the two eternal rivals, swirling and connecting them, obeying Miiyahbin’s command.

“Let me take the darkness, I can put it away, I can keep it where it belongs.

“I’ve got you.”

With one last flash of white, the dark appearance of the creature vanished, echoing out like a ripple in the pond to every Whitago in the area.

Miiyahbin caught her father’s body as it fell.

“I’ve got you, Daddy,” She promised.

Shannon rushed forward to embrace her son and granddaughter. Emma sank to her knees in the snow in relief.

“Miiyah,” He whispered, brushing back her hair, “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s better now, Daddy,” Miiyahbin told him, “You’re better now, you don’t need to be sorry.”

“Miiyahbin smiled up at her grandmother, who kissed her forehead. “I know who I am now, I know what I am.

“I am a Midayo, just like you.”

Her father smiled weakly, holding his mother’s hand to his chest. “I have to go now,” He apologized.

Miiyahbin nodded stoically, even as her father’s body began to fade into the morning mists. “I know, don’t worry. I’m not alone anymore, and neither are you.”

Emma followed Miiyahbin and Shannon’s gazes as she mist of all the former Whitago- now at peace- faded off into the sunrise.

Kaldur saw them, having just dropped off Rhodes at the bioship for transportation to Belle Reve along with the Manta Flyer. He and Emma ran to greet each other while Miiyahbin and Shannon helped eahc other back to the trading post, discussing whether they had enough supplies to feed the village, the volunteers, and the superheroes for breakfast.

“I hear Kid Flash eats a lot,” Miiyahbin said hesitantly.

“We will make it work, Miiyah. We have before.” Shannon smiled.

Kaldur slowed down as he approached Emma, and she matched his pace.

“What is it?”

Kaldur pursed his lips nervously. “I’m afraid if I kiss you again, Lex Luthor will launch a missile at Rhelasia.”

Emma tried to hold in her laughter, but a little bit escaped. “Am I really that bad a kisser?”

“On the contrary,” Kaldur took her hand, “Kissing you is so wonderful that the universe seems to need to balance it all out.”

“Balance can suck it,” Emma took both his hands and placed them around her waist before slinging her arms around his neck.

“I just got you back, fish boy. And if you think I won’t fight for you, if you think you’re not worth fighting for, someone as selfless and kind and smart as you, then you’ve got another thing coming.”

Kaldur chuckled, resting his forehead against hers. “Yes ma’am.”

[moodboardinthecloud]

I don’t want to be the strong female lead

By Brit Marling

Ms. Marling is a filmmaker.

Feb. 7, 2020

I moved to Los Angeles to become an actress at 24. These are character descriptions of roles I have read for: “thin, attractive, Dave’s wife”; “robot girl, a remarkable feat of engineering”; “her breasts are large and she’s wearing a red sweater.”

I stuffed my bra for that last one. I still did not get the part.

After a while it was hard to tell what was the greater source of my depression: that I could not book a part in a horror film where I had three lines and died on Page 4, or that I was even auditioning to play these roles at all. After dozens of auditions and zero callbacks, my mom suggested I get breast implants. From her perspective, I had walked away from a coveted job at Goldman Sachs and chosen a profession of self-commodification. She wanted to help me sell better.

But I wasn’t drawn to acting because I wanted to be desired. I was drawn to acting because I felt it would allow me to become the whole, embodied person I remembered being in childhood — one that could imagine freely, listen deeply and feel wholeheartedly.

I continued to audition and continued to fail. My depression deepened. My self-esteem plummeted. My boyfriend would get drunk and punch holes in the wall next to my head. I let him. He spat in my face. I let him. He dissolved into tears in my arms. I let him. And then I sifted through the ashes of his anger and his father’s anger before him to help him uncover the forgiveness he needed to move on. I was auditioning to be “Dave’s wife.” I was “robot girl, a remarkable feat of engineering.”

After a day of running from men with chain saws in audition rooms and a night of running from the man I shared a bed with, I decided I was done auditioning. I felt I had to write my way out of these roles or I wouldn’t find my way in the real world, either. I could not be what I could not see onscreen.

So I went to the library in downtown Los Angeles and started reading books and watching films about how to write dramas for the screen. I clung to Jodie Foster in Jonathan Demme’s “Silence of the Lambs,” to Holly Hunter in Jane Campion’s “The Piano.”

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But aside from a handful of exceptions, I was overwhelmed by the number of dramatic narratives that murdered their female characters.

In “The Big Heat” she has a pot of boiling coffee thrown in her face and is then shot in the back. In “Chinatown” the bullet tears through her brain and out her eye. And in case this seems like a trend of the past, consider the more recent noir “Blade Runner 2049,” where the holographic femme fatale is deleted and the remaining women are stabbed, drowned and gutted like a fish.

Even the spirited Antigone, the brave Joan of Arc and the unfettered Thelma and Louise meet tragic ends in large part because they are spirited, brave and unfettered. They can defy kings, refuse beauty and defend themselves against violence. But it’s challenging for a writer to imagine a world in which such free women can exist without brutal consequences.

We live in a world that is a direct reflection of these stories we’ve been telling. Close to four women a day are murdered in America at the hands of their partners or former partners. One out of every four women in America has been the victim of a rape.

I am one of those one out of four. Our narratives tell us that women are objects and objects are disposable, so we are always objectified and often disposed of.

There are centuries of trial and error inside the “hero’s journey,” in which a young man is called to adventure, challenged by trials, faces a climactic battle and emerges victorious, changed and a hero. And while there are narrative patterns for the adventures of girls — “Alice in Wonderland,” “The Wizard of Oz” — those are few and far between, and for adult women, even less so.

Even when I found myself writing stories about women rebelling against the patriarchy, it still felt like what I largely ended up describing was the confines of patriarchy. The more fettered I felt inside the real world, the more I turned toward science fiction, speculative fiction and lo-fi fantasy.

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I eventually co-wrote, produced and starred in two microbudget films, “Another Earth” and “Sound of My Voice.” Both stories left reality just far enough behind to give me the mental freedom to imagine female characters behaving in ways not often seen onscreen.

I emerged from the Sundance Film Festival with offers to act in projects I would never have been allowed to read for a week prior. Most of those roles were still girlfriend, mistress, mother. But there was a new character on offer to me as well, one that survived the story.

Enter, stage right: the Strong Female Lead.

She’s an assassin, a spy, a soldier, a superhero, a C.E.O. She can make a wound compress out of a maxi pad while on the lam. She’s got MacGyver’s resourcefulness but looks better in a tank top.

Acting the part of the Strong Female Lead changed both who I was and what I thought I was capable of. Training to do my own stunt work made me feel formidable and respected on set. Playing scenes where I was the boss firing men tasted like empowerment. And it will always feel better to be holding the gun in the scene than to be pleading for your life at the other end of the barrel.

It would be hard to deny that there is nutrition to be drawn from any narrative that gives women agency and voice in a world where they are most often without both. But the more I acted the Strong Female Lead, the more I became aware of the narrow specificity of the characters’ strengths — physical prowess, linear ambition, focused rationality. Masculine modalities of power.

I thought back to the films I watched and stories I read burrowed deep in the stacks of the library. I began to see something deeper and more insidious behind all those images of dead and dying women.

When we kill women in our stories, we aren’t just annihilating female gendered bodies. We are annihilating the feminine as a force wherever it resides — in women, in men, of the natural world. Because what we really mean when we say we want strong female leads is: “Give me a man but in the body of a woman I still want to see naked.”

It’s difficult for us to imagine femininity itself — empathy, vulnerability, listening — as strong. When I look at the world our stories have helped us envision and then erect, these are the very qualities that have been vanquished in favor of an overwrought masculinity.

I’ve played the Strong Female Lead in real life, too — as an analyst at an investment bank before coming to Hollywood. I wore suits, drank Scotch neat and talked about the women and the men I was sleeping with like commodities on an open market. I buried my feminine intelligence alive in order to survive. I excelled at my linear task of making more money from a lot of money regardless of the long-term consequences for others and the environment.

The lone female V.P. on my floor and my mentor at the time gave me the following advice when she left to partner at a hedge fund: Once a week, open the door to your office when they finally give you one, and place a phone call where you shout a string of expletives in a threatening voice.

She added that there doesn’t actually need to be someone on the other end of the line.

I don’t believe the feminine is sublime and the masculine is horrifying. I believe both are valuable, essential, powerful. But we have maligned one, venerated the other, and fallen into exaggerated performances of both that cause harm to all. How do we restore balance? Or how do we evolve beyond the limitations that binaries like feminine/masculine present in the first place?

In 2014 I went back to the library and encountered Octavia Butler’s “Parable of the Sower,” a sci-fi novel written in 1993 imagining a 2020 where society has largely collapsed from climate change and growing wealth inequality. Butler’s heroine, the 17 year-old Lauren, has “hyperempathy” — she feels, quite literally, other people’s pain. This feminine gift and curse uniquely prepares her to survive the violent attack on her community in Los Angeles and successfully encourage a small tribe north to begin again from seeds she has saved from her family’s garden.

Butler felt to me like a lighthouse blinking from an island of understanding way out at sea. I had no idea how to get there, but I knew she had found something life saving. She had found a form of resistance.

Butler and other writers like Ursula Le Guin, Toni Morrison and Margaret Atwood did not employ speculative fiction to colonize other planets, enslave new life-forms, or extract alien minerals for capital gains only to have them taken at gunpoint by A.I. robots. These women used the tenets of genre to reveal the injustices of the present and imagine our evolution.

With these ideas in mind, Zal Batmanglij and I wrote and created “The OA,” a Netflix series about Prairie, a blind girl who is kidnapped and returns seven years later to the community she grew up in with her sight restored. She opens up to a group of lost teenage boys in her neighborhood, telling them about her captivity and the inter-dimensional travel she discovered to survive it. It turns out these boys need to hear Prairie’s story as much as she needs to tell it. For the boys face their own kind of captivity: growing up inside the increasingly toxic obligations of American manhood.

As time has passed, I’ve come to understand what deep influence shaping a narrative has. Stories inspire our actions. They frame for us existences that are and are not possible, delineate tracks we can or cannot travel. They choose who we can find empathy for and who we cannot. What we have fellow feeling for, we protect. What we objectify and commodify, we eventually destroy.

I don’t want to be the dead girl, or Dave’s wife. But I don’t want to be a strong female lead either, if my power is defined largely by violence and domination, conquest and colonization.

Sometimes I get a feeling of what she could be like. A truly free woman. But when I try to fit her into the hero’s journey she recedes from the picture like a mirage. She says to me: Brit, the hero’s journey is centuries of narrative precedent written by men to mythologize men. Its pattern is inciting incident, rising tension, explosive climax and denouement. What does that remind you of?

And I say, a male orgasm.

And she says: Correct. I love the arc of male pleasure. But how could you bring me into being if I must satisfy the choreography of his desire only?

And I say: Good on you. But then how do I bring you into being?

Then I hear only silence.

But even in the silence I dream of answers. I imagine new structures and mythologies born from the choreography of female bodies, non-gendered bodies, bodies of color, disabled bodies. I imagine excavating my own desires, wants and needs, which I have buried so deeply to meet the desires, wants and needs of men around me that I’m not yet sure how my own desire would power the protagonist of a narrative.

These are not yet solutions. But they are places to dig.

Excavating, teaching and celebrating the feminine through stories is, inside our climate emergency, a matter of human survival. The moment we start imagining a new world and sharing it with one another through story is the moment that new world may actually come.

Brit Marling (@britmarling) is the co-creator and star of “The OA.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/opinion/sunday/brit-marling-women-movies.html?fbclid=IwAR3DSJ3Q6shZQwE8jGHxNhuU5skF62SAcfJzXap0j_XPFdZHK4JKYa5n02E

[jynnesro]

Okay, so I just had a conversation with one of my mom’s friends who said he wouldn’t watch the new Iron Man movies if Riri Williams took over. I’m literally shaking with rage as I type this because he said he didn’t think that these characters should be changed from their originals. I said he was being sexist, he said he wasn’t. He’s a middle aged white man from Michigan and I’m a teenage jewish girl from Brooklyn. As someone who screamed with joy when she found out that Marvel was doing this transformation, I was pissed. I get that everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but this seems problematic to me. He, middle aged white man, doesn’t think that an iconic Marvel character should maybe pass the mantel onto someone to give more representation? To allow others to feel like they can be superheroes? The friend—I'm going to call him John—said that if we want more representation, why doesn’t Marvel get a bunch of writers and create new superheroes? But that’s different. It’s easy to create new superheroes. It’s different when characters who were created when diversity wasn’t really a thing, and give them the chance to be something special for someone else. I want to see the characters gender bent, I want them to be different ethnicities and have different skin colors and fight for the things that people are fighting for right now. I want every person to be able to find superheroes who look like them so that they can be able to have that badass character who takes no shit and can be a personal hero for them. I love Steve Rogers. I love Bucky Barnes. I love Tony Stark and Clint Barton and Bruce Banner. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want more Wanda Maximoff’s and Natasha Romanoff’s. As of right now, I don’t even think Riri is slated to be in the movies, but the fact that this guy is already saying he won’t watch if she does just fills me with anger. That’s the kind of bullshit that keeps us stuck in the past. The kind of shit that makes women feel as if we can’t be superheroes. This guy doesn’t want the older superheroes to be changed. Like they're sacred or something. But I think it makes them more powerful if we allow them to change. To embody the things we want in the world, to be the figureheads for gender equality or basic human rights or marriage equality. If someone asks, Captain America is my favorite superhero. Why? Because he fights for justice. But if asked what movie someone must see of all the superhero movies, I’ll say Wonder Woman. (Yes, this is mostly about Marvel, but Wonder Woman is the only female titled movie we have. See the problem). I’m not exaggerating when I say that I walked out of the Wonder Woman theater and texted my whole family saying I would disown them if they didn’t see it. It’s not everyday that young girls get to see a female hero like that. We have some in real life, and we have some in movies, but I want more. We need superhero movies like the customizable American Girl Dolls. One for everyone, one that looks like everyone, and represents everyone, because the power that comes from seeing someone who looks like you on screen is something that I’m unable to put into words.

[ryanmeft]

My Favorite Performances of 2016

These are the 15 movie roles this year I most felt deserved highlighting. Man, there were some great roles this year, introduction, introduction, introduction, how many words does this have to be? You don't care and I certainly don't. On to the list!(Note: except for the top two, this list is in no particular order).

Glen Powell (Everybody Wants Some!!) The entire cast of Richard Linklater’s spiritual follow-up to "Dazed and Confused" is one riotous bundle of joy (and a cure for the usually cliche portrayal of college kids), but Glen Powell's Finnegan is by far the standout. The scene that makes his character comes at a party for the "artsy fartsy" crowd when, after encouraging a freewheeling spirit of sex, booze, drugs and rock 'n' roll throughout the film, he actually gets for real hurt when his proteges crash his chances with a girl he happens to like. Finnegan is on the cusp of adulthood and leadership heading into one of the most tumultuous decades of American history, but he's not quite there yet...and it's the leftover, subtle vulnerabilities of the kid during his last days of youth that make him so unbelievably endearing. If there's any justice in the world, EWS!! will do for him what Dazed and Confused did for...well, most of the cast.

Tilda Swinton (A Bigger Splash) The (in my opinion, overblown) controversy over Swinton's Doctor Strange role sadly overshadowed her performance in this Fellini-esque story of beautiful people behaving in decidedly un-beautiful ways. Playing a major, David Bowie-esque popstar who has gone near-mute from the stress of living in public, Swinton has few lines but somehow manages to steal the show from a simmering Matthias Schoenaerts and a manic Ralph Fiennes. Being mostly robbed of the ability to speak, Swinton has to convey a massive range of emotions largely with body language---a task she accomplishes with all the skill you'd expect from one of the world's greatest actresses.

Natalie Portman (Jackie) Frail and tough, honest and veiled, open and censoring---Portman's portrayal of the most famous First Lady in American history is riddled with contradictions that, in her hands, become a coherent character. She can sink to the depths of unbearable anguish at a moment's notice, and five minutes later it is as if nothing very bad had happened. Yet, there's always something boiling under the surface...perhaps an understanding that history will forever place "JFK's wife" next to her name, whatever else she may do with her life. At times, Portman seems to barely hold it all in, yet when we leave the theater she is still a mystery. Maybe that's how it should be.

Joel Edgerton (Loving) Rarely does more go unsaid or understood than passes behind the face of Joel Egderton as Richard Loving, one half of the married couple whose simple wish to live in their home state of Virginia dealt a death blow to laws banning interracial marriage in the United States. Edgerton says little, and when he does it is in as few words as possible...every one of which speaks his entire mind. Key to the performance, though, are scenes of him simply sharing intimate moments with wife Mildred. At a time when the stereotype of the traditonal American husband and father of yesteryear is often held up for all the wrong reasons, Edgerton's performance is crucial.

Emma Stone (La La Land) Until near the end, the music is the driving force of La La Land. Then someone asks the character of Mia to "tell a story", and Emma Stone delivers one of the best scenes of her career. The strength of the "Audition" number redefines what has come before for the character, and solidifies her as both someone we can really root for, and the personification of dreamers, however hopeless they might be. The final look she gives Ryan Reynolds in the film speaks more than a page of dialogue ever could.

Viola Davis (Fences) Before the era of feminism, there was an unspoken agreement between married couples in the U.S.: a wife was to put up with her husband's shit, even when he was full to bursting with it. It was hard to pick one of the two main performances in "Fences" to single out, but ultimately Davis's simmering cauldron is the heart of the story, enabling her to both survive and love life with her deeply, deeply flawed husband. Unlike Denzel Washington, who gets to vomit forth an endless stream of anger throughout the film, Davis is tasked with saving her one great outburst for when it is most needed and has the most impact, creating a scene the trailers should not have featured; it should have been allowed to burst on audiences like water from a broken dam, rolling over everything in its path. Five minutes later, she's calm again, but she's also a different woman...or maybe just another woman who was hiding behind the first all along.

Sunny Pawar (Lion) The trailers all emphasize the adult Saroo's search for his home, but the bulk of the movie is taken up with a young Saroo getting lost in the first place, and Dev Patel is overshadowed by 8-year-old Sunny Pawar...not an easy feat. Like Quvenzhane Wallis and Jacob Tremblay, Pawar takes a role that could easily have been phoned in (since we have natural sympathy for kids) and makes little Saroo into an enormously relatable character, a lost boy whose stomping ground is no Neverland. It isn't any wonder the filmmakers keep coming back to him in flashbacks after his character is grown. He's the heart of the film.

Hailee Steinfeld (Edge of Seventeen) I swear, my generation moons over the era of John Hughes High School comedies so much they seem to forget that being awkward, out-of-place and unable to wait for the day after graduation day isn't unique to them. Every year we get a handful of largely unheralded comedies about that very topic, and Hailee Steinfeld's performance as a morbid, confused and, yes, aggressive (bad female! bad!) teen who openly discusses her sex life, alcohol habits and dark, dark, dark humor elevates "Edge of Seventeen" to the top of the pack. With acerbic wit, pinpoint aim, and unflinching pessimism, Nadine Franklin manages to skewer not just every aspect of High School life but many of life in general. The only target she routinely misses? Herself.

Kate Beckinsale (Love & Friendship) It is exceedingly rare that a woman in the movies can be aggressive and acidic at the same time. Kate Beckinsale's Lady Susan is such a character. It is impossible for all but the most ardent feminists to actually like her, and you'd never want to be drawn into her poisonous circle of rumor, manipulation, innuendo and life-destroying gossip, but you have to admire her for taking charge of her own life at a time when women were tasked with hosting guests, looking pretty and shutting up. These days, she'd almost certainly be described as a sociopath, wrecking lives for her whim and amusement, yet you can't look away. She's the year's best villain...or is she?

Ben Foster (Hell or High Water) Chris Pine's well-meaning father is our anchor to this story of two desperate brothers in hard times, but Ben Foster is the anarchic, destructive force that keeps our eyes glued to the screen. Whereas Pine's dad doesn't think of himself as criminal and Jeff Bridges's sheriff has spent far too much time watching old westerns, Foster knows exactly what he is: a violent criminal whose psycopathy he might be able to turn to his brother's aid in one last blaze of glory. There's never really a question of him surviving the story; he's not a man, he's a storm, and he's here to rage harder than he ever has before blowing himself out.

Naomie Harris (Moonlight) Talk about embodying multiple people in one role. Harris plays mother to a young, gay black man at three different stages of his life, but she's not the kind of perfect mom the movies prefer. She's a drug addict at a time when the War on Drugs refused to treat such people with any sort of humanity, and she's got a temper to match the times; when she screams hurtful words at her own son, the decision to remove the audio from the scene makes her come off as near-demonic. Simplicity, though, isn't really what Moonlight deals in, and there are layers and regrets to her revealed as the film goes on. Her final scene asks a rather important question: should any time be too late to be forgiven?

Anya Taylor-Joy (The Witch) For the most part, horror will forever be considered beneath the notice of those who hand out accolades, which means even if you turn in one of the most startling performances of the year, it doesn't really count if it's in this genre. That's a shame, because unless you count a tiny, uncredited role from 2014, Taylor-Joy makes the most impressive film debut of any actress this year. Called upon to do things involving animal blood and demonic possession that a more image-concerned person might spurn, she handles the role of a teenage girl whose family is being assailed by the forces of hell by taking it all absolutely seriously, which is essential; any hint that she thinks anything she's doing is silly, and the film falls apart. There's reason to question whether anything supernatural is really happening in the New England wilderness of the late 1600's, but no reason to doubt the strength of Taylor-Joy's performance.

Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool) Not everything has to be so serious, something Deadpool would probably remind you of right before delivering a kick straight to your kibbles and bits. As the star, producer and driving force behind the hilariously raunchy R-rated superhero flick, Reynolds is the most eminently watchable and entertaining a comic hero has been outside the suit since Robert Downey Jr. swaggered into the Iron Man armor. Mel Brooks once famously described his films as rising below vulgarity, and whether Reynolds is taking time out to break the fourth wall or making incredibly lewd comments at his blind, elderly, female roommate, he's bringing the spirit of "Blazing Saddles" to a genre that sometimes really needs to get over itself. In a year where "Batman vs. Superman" took itself more seriously than a second heart attack, Reynolds's Merc with a Mouth is the filthy, over-the-top cure the doctor ordered.

And my top two performances, starting with my choice for Best Actress:

Isabelle Huppert (Elle)

In arguably the most challenging role this year, which comes in certainly the most challenging film, Huppert plays a woman who, after being raped, plays a cat-and-mouse game with the rapist. Whether she is trying to catch him or get caught again is another question. The role was turned down by multiple more well-known actresses, before being taken by Huppert, who deserves to be more well-known outside her native France. Key to her performance is that her character is not altogether very likable, and if she were not a victim of a heinous crime, you'd have a real difficult time feeling empathy for her. That takes far more guts, I think, than playing out brutal scenes of assault, since we tend to demand our heroines be pure as the driven snow.

Casey Affleck (Manchester by the Sea)

He's been turning in the best work he possibly can in every role he's had, big or small, for two decades, always overshadowed in fame by his older brother, but this year is Casey's. Angry, violent, adrift and bereft, Lee Chandler is a man with no purpose in a world that demands every man have one, not that he grasps himself on that level: he's simply a man who has been struck over and over until nothing but armor remains. Forced to deal with the issue of custody for his nephew after his brother dies, he portrays a truth no man wants to face: not all of us are cut out for responsibility. Despite this, Affleck walks a fine line, making Lee simultaneously a jerk and someone you'd really like to see come out on top. Unfortunately, as Lee well knows, the world just isn't that simple.

Honorable mentions: I limited my list to 15, and even after expanding from ten it was still difficult. There are lots of great roles that didn't make the cut, and here are the ten that really gave the winners a run for their money, in one big list. If you don't see your favorite, remember: it doesn't necessarily mean they weren't good, just that I can't possibly list them all.

Kristen Stewart (Cafe Society) The Cast of Don't Think Twice Royalty Hightower (The Fits) Meryl Streep (Florence Foster Jenkins) Lou de Laage (The Innocents) Ruth Negga (Loving) Lucas Hedges (Manchester by the Sea) Jessica Chastain (Miss Sloane) Pretty much everybody in Moonlight (Moonlight) Katie Holmes (Touched With Fire)

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List season has hit particularly hard this year, as the end of our first full decade of social media immersion has culminated in a multi-month spree of ranking and revisiting the likes of which humanity has probably never seen before. So I feel compelled to open by thanking you, the reader, for giving yet another highly subjective hit parade your attention.

My hope is that along with a few of the zeitgeisty critical darlings (Fleabag, Watchmen, Succession) you’re sure to find in every other top 10 of 2019, this list will point you in the direction of some equally wonderful series (Vida, David Makes Man, Back to Life) that haven’t gotten the shine they deserve. What you won’t find here, incidentally, is anything from the initial slate of shows on brand-new streaming services Apple TV+ or Disney+. Whether that disappointment turns out to be a pattern or a fluke, only time will tell.

10. Back to Life (Showtime)

Few characters have embodied the saying “you can’t go home again” as fully as Back to Life creator Daisy Haggard’s Miri Matteson. Out on parole after spending half her life in jail for a crime she committed at age 18, Miri returns to her small English hometown—not because she’s missed the place, but because she has nowhere to go but her parents’ house. While enduring harassment at the hands of neighbors who will never forget what she did, she struggles to find work, companionship and peace. From the producers of Fleabag, this quieter, gentler traumedy weighs Miri’s crime against the less extreme but more malicious transgressions of her family and friends. It poses the question of whether anyone who pays their debt to society really gets a fair chance to start over—and it suggests that you can tell a lot about a community by getting to know its scapegoats.

9. When They See Us (Netflix)

Ava DuVernay is the rare popular artist fueled by an irrepressible optimism about building a better future as well as righteous anger about the past and present. She brought both of these defining traits to bear on this four-part drama about the Central Park Five—whom her miniseries rechristened the Exonerated Five. Along with exposing how and suggesting why a broken New York City criminal justice system was so eager to vilify blameless children of color in the aftermath of a monstrous act of sexual violence, DuVernay and her stellar young cast worked with the real Five to create multifaceted portraits of regular kids with hopes, ambitions and communities that suffered as a result of their incarceration. And she found echoes of their story in the current movement against mass incarceration and in the presidency of Donald Trump, who stoked public fury at the boys. When They See Us celebrates the righting of a grievous wrong while acknowledging that no vindication, or remuneration, could fully heal such deep wounds.

8. Watchmen (HBO)

For those of us who haven’t enjoyed our culture’s never-ending superhero craze so much as endured it, the news that the most prestigious of all prestige cable outlets was adapting a DC Comics book sounded kind of like a betrayal. Et tu, HBO? But we should never have doubted The Leftovers creator Damon Lindelof’s ability to make Alan Moore’s brilliant, subversive 1980s classic resonate more than three decades later. Instead of revisiting the Cold War, Lindelof set his Watchmen in an alternate 2019 where the events of the comic are canon, Robert Redford (yes, that one) has been President for decades and a white supremacist group called the Seventh Kavalry is slaughtering police who are loyal to the liberal administration. Into this mess rides masked vigilante Sister Night (Regina King, in the would-be hero role she’s long deserved), a cop who is supposed to have retired from crime-fighting. There is (or should be) enough carryover from Moore’s original to appease its cult fandom, but the show is at its best when contending with our confused, misinformed, politically polarized current reality. And in that respect, it’s every bit as intelligent, provocative and mysterious as it is entertaining.

7. Undone (Amazon)

Fans worried that BoJack Horseman mastermind Raphael Bob-Waksberg would turn out to be a one-hit wonder could take comfort in this wildly imaginative sci-fi dramedy that he co-created with Kate Purdy, about a disaffected young woman (Rosa Salazar’s Alma) who narrowly survives a catastrophic car crash. In hospital-bed visions tied to her sudden physical trauma and preexisting mental illness, Alma reunites with her long-dead father (Bob Odenkirk), learns that he was murdered and allows him to guide her on a time-travel mission to prevent the crime from happening. Yet Undone is more than just a high-concept mystery; it’s a journey into human consciousness, a beautiful example of Rotoscoped animation and a subtle meditation on family, identity and spirituality.

6. David Makes Man (OWN)

The success of Moonlight sent ripples through Hollywood, elevating writer-director Barry Jenkins and a cast including Mahershala Ali, Jharrel Jerome and Janelle Monáe to the highest echelon of their art form. It also opened industry doors for MacArthur honoree Tarell Alvin McCraney, who wrote the play on which the film was based. This year he unveiled David Makes Man, a lyrical drama about a smart, troubled 14-year-old (Akili McDowell, astonishing in his first lead role) in the Florida projects who’s struggling to get into a prestigious high school and avoid being drafted into a gang, while mourning a mentor. Though it shares a lush aesthetic and many themes—black boyhood, complicated role models, queer identity—with Moonlight, the expanded format allows McCraney to explore the people around David. His privileged best friend (Nathaniel McIntyre) suffers abuse at home. His gender-queer neighbor (Travis Coles) takes in runaway LGBT teens and plays a delicate role in the local ecosystem. And his single mother (Alana Arenas), an addict in recovery, holds down a degrading job to keep the bills paid. This isn’t just the old story of excellence and poverty battling for the soul of one extraordinary child; it’s the story of a community where both qualities must coexist.

5. Lodge 49 (AMC)

At least once a year, a series too smart for prime-time gets canned even as network execs re-up long-running bores like NCIS for 24 more functionally identical episodes. In 2019, it was Lodge 49 that ended up on the wrong side of the equation. A loose, semi-stoned account of a young man (Wyatt Russell’s Sean “Dud” Dudley) treading water in the wake of his beloved father’s death, the show expanded over the course of its first season into an allegory for the isolation of contemporary life. The Southern California landscape around Dud, an affable dreamer, and his self-destructive twin sister (Sonya Cassidy) had been scarred by pawn shops, breastaurants, temp agencies, abandoned office parks. Refuge came in the form of the titular cash-strapped fraternal organization, where Dud found two precious things late capitalism couldn’t provide: a sense of community and a mysterious, all-consuming quest. Both propelled him and his cohorts to Mexico in this year’s funny, bittersweet second season; perhaps sensing the end was near, creator Jim Gavin’s finale provided something like closure. Still, the show—which is currently being shopped to streaming services—has plenty left to say. Here’s hoping the producers find a way to, as the fans on Twitter put it, #SaveLodge49.

4. Vida (Starz)

In its short first season, creator Tanya Saracho’s Vida assembled all the elements of a great half-hour drama. Mishel Prada and Melissa Berrera shined as Mexican-American sisters who come home to LA after the death of their inscrutable mom, Vida—only to learn that the building and bar she owned are on the verge of foreclosure. It also turns out that Vida, whose homophobia destroyed her relationship with Prada’s sexually fluid Emma, had married a woman. Meanwhile, their angry teenage neighbor Mari (Chelsea Rendon) raged against gentrification. These storylines coalesced to electrifying effect in this year’s second season, testing the sisters’ tense bond as they found themselves in the crosshairs of activists who saw their desperate efforts to save the family business as acts of treachery from two stuck-up “whitinas.” Thanks largely to the talented Latinx writers and directors Saracho enlisted for the project, Vida brings lived-in nuance to issues like class, colorism and desire—yielding one of TV’s smartest and sexiest shows.

3. Succession (HBO)

Right-wing tycoons and their adult children have gotten plenty of attention in the past few years—most of it negative. So why would anyone voluntarily watch a show in which the nightmare offspring of a Mudoch-like media titan (Brian Cox) compete to become his successor? A rational argument for all the goodwill around Succession might point out the crude poetry of its dialogue (from creator Jesse Armstrong, a longtime Armando Iannucci collaborator), the fearlessness of its cast (give Jeremy Strong an Emmy just for Kendall’s rap) and the knife-twisting accuracy of this season’s digital-media satire (R.I.P. Vaulter). But on a more primal level, one informed by the increasingly rare experience of watching episodes set Twitter ablaze as they aired, I think we’re also getting a collective thrill out of a series that confirms our darkest assumptions about people who thirst for money and power. It’s a catharsis we may well deserve.

2. Russian Doll (Netflix)

To observe that there was a built-in audience for a show created by Natasha Lyonne, Amy Poehler and Leslye Headland in which Lyonne starred as a hard-partying New York City cynic might’ve been the understatement of the year. But even those of us who bought into Russian Doll from the beginning could never have predicted such a resounding triumph. In a story built like the titular nesting doll, Lyonne’s Nadia Vulvokov dies in a freak accident on the night of her 36th birthday. The twist is, instead of moving on to the afterlife or the grave, she finds herself back where she started the evening, at a party in her honor. Nadia is condemned to repeat this cycle of death and rebirth until she levels up in self-knowledge—a process that entails many cigarettes, lots of vintage East Village grit and a not-so-chance encounter with a fellow traveler. Stir in a warm, wry tone and a message of mutual aid, and you’ve got the best new TV show of 2019.

1. Fleabag (Amazon)

Fleabag began its run, in 2016, as a six-episode black comedy about a scornful, neurotic, hypersexual young woman caught in a self-destructive holding pattern of her own making. The premise didn’t immediately distinguish creator and star Phoebe Waller-Bridge as all that different from peers like Lena Dunham, Aziz Ansari and Donald Glover. But the British show’s execution was sharp, funny and daring enough to make it a cult hit on both sides of the Atlantic—and to anoint Waller-Bridge as TV’s next big thing. She went on to helm the exhilarating first season of Killing Eve, giving this year’s second and final season of Fleabag time to percolate. It returned as a more mature but, thankfully, no less audacious show, matching Waller-Bridge’s somewhat reformed Fleabag with an impossible love interest known to fans as the Hot Priest (Andrew Scott). The relationship offered a path to forgiveness for the kind of character most millennial cris de coeur have been content to leave hanging. By allowing Fleabag a measure of grace without sacrificing her life-giving vulgarity, Waller-Bridge conjured the realistic vision of redemption that has so far eluded her contemporaries—and closed out the 2010s with the decade’s single greatest season of comedy.

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Rebel Girls – The New York Times

And a few boys, too. When riot grrrl pioneers Bikini Kill played their first New York show in 22 years, these are the fans who showed up — one as early as noon and two who hadn’t told their parents. Hi mom and dad!

Photographs by Nina Westervelt

Produced by Anya Strzemien

Interviews by Sharon Attia

June 7, 2019

If the end of this decade is memorialized as a time when women got really angry, and then even angrier, the music of Bikini Kill could provide the soundtrack.

The feminist punk band — credited with helping to launch the riot grrrl movement of the 1990s and writing its anthem, “Rebel Girl” — hadn’t played since the band broke up in 1997. But they reunited this spring for two shows in Los Angeles and four in New York. Next week will bring two more in London.

A lot had happened in those 22 years. And yet, the sound of thrashing instruments and women screaming seems more relevant than ever. As the critic Evelyn McDonnell put it: “The return of Bikini Kill feels less like a blast from the past and more like a superhero’s intervention.”

Here are a few of the fans — many of them surprisingly young, from places as far-flung as Minneapolis, Montreal and Florida — who attended the first New York gig on May 31 at Brooklyn Steel. They had all come in search of a good time (actual moshing and crowd-surfing included) and to witness a history-making moment.

These interviews have been edited and condensed, and profanity has been removed (sorry, not very punk of us). A few follow-up questions were asked later over email or DM.

Kayla Brooke, 27

Montreal

How early did you get here?

Noon.

You’re basically third in line.

Yeah. The other couple was here before us and they’re such angels. It’s very community feeling.

Would you consider yourself a riot grrrl?

Yes, but a modern riot grrrl, so a little bit more intersectional, if you will. That’s something that’s huge for me in my feminism: intersectionality. Because if we’re not talking about all those things then what are we doing? If our spaces are just for white women, then we’re not really creating safe spaces.

Bria Bisono, 21, and Xavier Medina, 19

Florida

Did you fly or drive to New York?

Xavier: We flew. We bought the tickets at the end of January. I was like, “It’ll be cool, I’ll come with you. I know they’re cool.”

Bria: We didn’t even ask our parents. We just booked it.

Alison Mop, 19

New York, N.Y.

How did you get into Bikini Kill?

Probably from YouTube, to be honest.

And what’s the name of your band?

How long have you liked Bikini Kill?

I’ve liked them for a while actually. I was a teenage punk girl, so they were always a big influence for me. I never actually thought that I would see them live, so this is an opportunity I couldn’t miss.

What about their music do you love?

I’ve always loved punk rock because it was a really inclusive movement, and as a handicapped person I was always welcome and felt safe in that spot. And when I found out there was a feminist movement within the punk movement, I was attracted to it. And I found this band and was like, this woman is my hero. Kathleen Hanna is great.

Molly Schnick, 40, and Nic Offer, 46

New York, N.Y.

Is this your first Bikini Kill concert?

Molly: No.

Finally! When did you see them last?

My former band played shows with them in 1994.

What was your former band?

We were called the Tourettes.

Olivia Linnen, 18

Bronx, N.Y.

and Leila Roberts, 18

New York, N.Y.

How long have you been into Bikini Kill?

Leila: Probably since I was 8 or something. My parents grew up listening to punk and stuff, so I grew up listening to it as well. And then I put her on to it when we became friends in high school. And then I started showing her stuff when she was 16. So this is her first punk show.

Did you grow up going to punk shows with your parents?

Yeah, for sure, totally.

Are they here?

No, they’re not.

Heather Hildreth (a.k.a. “Siouxsie Cupcakes”), 34 and Naomi Parnes (a.k.a. “Siren Sixxkiller”), 28

Denver, Colo.

How long have you two been friends?

Naomi: Our best friend title became official sometime in 2016 after we performed our “Wayne’s World” burlesque act for the first time, but that’s an entirely different tangent. One of us was like, hey, I’ve been calling you my best friend lately, that cool with you? And the other of us was like, yeah I’ve been doing the same, should we send out an announcement or something?

Do you consider yourselves riot grrrls?

I can’t officially speak for both of us — our telepathy isn’t quite that honed yet — but I have a feeling I know that Heather would say the same as me, which is unequivocally yasss, I consider myself a riot grrrl. It’s been a label I’ve been inspired by for many years.

Your mohawks* are cool. What’s the story behind them?

Thank you! I definitely enjoy having a mohawk, even though it’s the most high-maintenance hairstyle I’ve ever attempted to maintain. I’m Cherokee and Jewish, so my hair genetics are strong and mighty — even with half of it shaved off on the sides, there’s still just so much of it to control.

*pictured at the top of the article

Daniel Abbott, 34, and Jen Varani, 37

Raleigh, N.C.

What does riot grrrl mean to you?

Daniel: I knew that it wasn’t specifically for me as a male, but as a queer boy they were singing to things that I was experiencing. I was experiencing bad dudes, I was experiencing people critiquing my appearance, and so it still resonated with me.

Morgan Mitchell, 23

Cincinnati, OH

Is that a Daria tattoo on your leg?

Yeah, it says, “You’re standing on my neck.”

And what’s the other one?

This is like a Joan Jett/Siouxsie Sioux punk girl.

And what’s she holding?

It’s a switchblade, and it says “Rebel Girl.” So, a Bikini Kill reference.

Tiffani Argentina (a.k.a. “Gemini Blitz”), 29 and Torrie Ogilvie (a.k.a “Torrie Rose”), 31

Brooklyn, N.Y.

What is it about riot grrrl that you like?

Tiffani: Female solidarity.

Torrie: It’s really especially impactful at this time in our country’s history.

What’s your favorite Bikini Kill song?

Tiffani: I would have to say “Rebel Girl.” It’s an anthem! It’s just like, “We’re girls and we want to be cute and we want to have fun but also don’t mess with us.” That’s the kind of spirit that I like to embody on a daily basis.

Chloe Smith, 18, and Anna Murphy, 16

Red Hook, N.Y.

So, given your age, this is obviously your first Bikini Kill concert. How’d you get into them?

Chloe: In ninth grade, because I was watching “Portlandia” and then I became obsessed with Carrie Brownstein and I was like, all right Sleater-Kinney kind of goes, so then I like dove too hard into “Rebel Girl” kind of stuff. I did a presentation on it.

Angelica Moreno, 27, and Bobby Bosak, 32

West Palm Beach, FL

How long have you been into Bikini Kill?

Angelica: Since high school, so I was probably like 14 when I got introduced to them.

Bobby: When I started getting into punk music, about 17 or 18 or something like that.

Cool. What is it about their music that you like?

Angelica: I don’t know. It’s just like the message that they portray and like hell yeah, women. I just love everything about it.

Bobby: What she said.

Danielle Cusack, 22

Minneapolis, MN

Why do you think this reunion is important?

I think it’s important because there’s generations of people here. At the L.A. show there was a little girl on the shoulders of her father watching Bikini Kill. It was so heartwarming and amazing to see that this tradition is being continued. And I think it’s always important for people to see women on stage who are angry. Because we’re constantly told that we have to contain our anger or we have to be sad.

What are you angry about?

Everything. For real.

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Jennifer Estep Interview: Kill the Queen & Epic Fantasy

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We talked to author Jennifer Estep about moving into the genre of epic fantasy storytelling with Kill the Queen.

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Interview Alana Joli Abbott

Nov 7, 2018

Jennifer Estep is no stranger to fantasy. I’ve been reading her novels since her superhero romance Bigtime novels hit the shelves. She’s the author of two young adult urban fantasy series, as well as the Elemental Assassin series, which has already clocked over seventeen novels starring Gin Blanco, an assassin with elemental magic who also runs a barbecue joint.

With Kill the Queen, Estep has released her first novel in the epic fantasy genre. It suits her, as Kill the Queen is her strongest writing yet...

The novel introduces Lady Everleigh “Evie” Blair, distantly in line to the throne of Bellona. But when a Game of Thrones-worthy royal massacre kills nearly every member of the royal family, Evie only narrowly escapes. Not knowing who to trust, she joins a gladiator troupe, determined to never allow herself to be so vulnerable again—and to gain the skills to protect the people she loves. It’s a fantastic blend of court intrigue with the epic fantasy tropes of good versus evil, and of the underdog holding the fate of kingdoms in her hands.

In an introduction, Estep dedicates the book to her teenage self.

“Growing up, I always loved books, movies, and TV shows with a lot of action and adventure, like The A-Team (which still remains one of my all-time favorite shows),” Estep told Den of Geek in an interview. “When I was in high school, I discovered epic fantasy books by authors like David Eddings, Terry Brooks, and of course J.R.R. Tolkien."

"I’ve always liked to read books with a little bit of everything in them—magic, action, adventure, and romance—and most epic fantasy books feature all of those things. The genre is just a perfect blend of everything I love about books, reading, writing, and storytelling. The more epic fantasy books I read, the more that I wanted to write my own epic fantasy books and tell the stories that I wanted to tell.”

But though Estep attempted the genre early on, nothing came of those early books. Instead, she found greater success in paranormal romance, urban fantasy, and YA. There, she developed strong heroines, who often prefer to stay in the background, and who tend to have a bit of snark in their narration—Evie among them.

“I always think it’s an interesting character and story arc to take someone like Evie who is in the background, who is considered weak and unimportant and is overlooked by everyone around her, and have her grow as a person, learn about her magic, and come into her own as a force to be reckoned with,” Estep said.

Evie’s journey from a person who constantly has to hide her feelings into someone who believes in her own abilities—as well as a person who shies away from friendships, not knowing who to trust, into a person for whom friendship is a driving force behind her decisions, is at the core of the novel. As Estep said, “I always love bringing out a character’s inner strength and determination.”

Each of Estep’s series has required a unique world in which to operate. The modern-set Elemental Assassin series features both elementals and traditional fantasy races. The similarly contemporary Mythos Academy books feature teens who fall into mythological heritages, such as super-fast and strong Spartan and Amazon warriors or Celtic warrior-bards.

The world of Kill the Queen is one built on magic and gladiators, managing to evoke classics like Spartacus while playing with the same themes present in newer series like the recently-concluded Kate Daniels series by Ilona Andrews.

Four types of magic users build the social structure of the kingdom of Bellona: morphs, who can turn into another creature; magiers, who are more traditional casters; masters, who have specific magics in their areas of expertise, such as the human body, food, or stonework; and mutts, who have one or more enhanced senses. (“Mortals” who don’t use magic are also given a nod as experts of tactics and weaponry.)

“One of the most satisfying parts [of worldbuilding] is seeing it all come together, and realizing that all your disparate ideas have meshed into one cohesive world, from the characters names, to the scenery/descriptions, to the magic users/creatures and how the magical system works,” Estep explained.

For Kill the Queen, she drew on Roman mythology—the kingdom of Bellona shares its name with the goddess of war—and the historical Roman love of gladiatorial combat. On inventing the world’s magic, she said: “I would say one of the most challenging parts is creating a magic system that makes sense and has rules, but that also doesn’t have too many rules.”

The morphs are Estep’s first shape shifters, and in a genre populated with werewolves (both friendly and fatal), they’re unique: the morphs each have a morph mark, a secondary face, usually somewhere visible, that reveals the kind of creature the morph becomes—and has a certain degree of independence, with its own facial expressions that reveal some of the morph’s inner feelings. The magiers mix traditional fantasy spell effects with a heavy does of elemental magic.

“I decided to balance them out with ‘masters’—think master craftsmen—and ‘mutts’—people with random magical skills, like enhanced senses, speed, strength, etc.” Estep explained. “I think four types of magic users is a good number to have. It’s not too large that readers lose track of who can do what, and it’s not so small that it limits the kind of powers/magic that I can introduce as the series goes along.”

While the world is a delight to visit (and would make an excellent role playing game setting, depending on the outcome of Evie’s story), it’s really Evie who drives the story forward. As she develops into a stronger hero, she’s played against the story’s villain: Vasilia, from the Summer line of the royal family (as opposed to Evie’s winter). Once friends, Evie realized through an early betrayal that Vasilia is manipulative and ruthless who will stop at nothing to reach her goals. Vasilia is all open fire, while Evie nurtures a cold rage.

As a low ranking member of court, Evie “has to keep her feelings to herself, including her anger at how other people belittle and try to use her,” Estep explained. “Evie has to be careful and wait for the right moment to strike back against her enemies. Vasilia has a lot of power, and she enjoys showing it off and wielding it, along with her lightning magic. Vasilia doesn’t have to internalize anything—she can let people know exactly how angry she is with them.”

The two make excellent foils, as well as embodiments of a Bellonan nursery rhyme Estep invented for the series. “One of the first things that popped into my mind when I was writing Kill the Queen was the epigraph that appears in the front of the book talking about the differences between Summer and Winter queens,” Estep said. “It fits perfectly with how Vasilia and Evie are opposites in a lot of ways, and how summer and winter are opposite seasons.”

Although Estep has several series in the works, she only writes for one series at a time, which helps her keep all her worlds separate. Even though she has two more Elemental Assassin novels on the way, Kill the Queen readers need not worry that Evie’s story is ending here: Protect the Prince and Crush the King will continue the story of Bellona’s fate—and Evie’s.

For this reader, that’s excellent news: while Kill the Queen reaches a true conclusion (no cliff-hangers here!), it leaves many questions unanswered, and many relationships unexplored. Getting to spend more time with these characters, in a world on the brink of turmoil, will be a true delight.

For more information on Jennifer and her books, visit www.jenniferestep.com or follow Jennifer on Facebook, Goodreads, and Twitter. You can also sign up for her newsletter.

Alana Joli Abbott writes about books for Den of Geek. Read more of her work here.

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[theconservativebrief]

Right on the heels of Teen Titans leader Robin declaring, “Fuck Batman!” in the gloomy trailer for the upcoming live-action TV series Titans, a very different version of the Boy Wonder is leading his teenage team into theaters to issue a much more family-friendly rejoinder to the Caped Crusader — and, more pointedly, to the grim-and-gritty strain of superheroism he’s come to embody over the past few decades.

Teen Titans GO! to the Movies, the new feature-length extension of the Cartoon Network series Teen Titans GO!, is a product of Warner Bros. Animation — and therefore technically exists in the same cinematic universe as the company’s line of live-action DC films. It’s a lineage the movie revels in subverting.

An eye-searingly bright kids’ movie bedecked with songs and jokes about butts and their various functions, Teen Titans GO! to the Movies could not offer any starker contrast to such evergray, rain-and-angst soaked DC films as Justice League and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. And yet it openly takes place in a world where those films, or simulacrums of them, not only exist, but have created a cottage industry where literally every superhero (and sometimes their butler) has their own movie — except the perpetually overlooked Teen Titans.

If you can’t already tell, meta comedy is the fuel that makes these Teen Titans go. In this respect, the film often plays more like an all-ages version of the recent Deadpool movies than any of its DC cinematic brethren — and not just because, like the Deadpool films, it pokes cheeky fun at superheroes owned by other companies (including Deadpool himself). Like both Deadpools, it delights in its status as an outlier within the superhero movie complex, both of and apart from an industry it mocks with glee.

Plus, there are butt jokes. So many butt jokes.

Beast Boy (Greg Cipes), Starfire (Hynden Walch), Robin (Scott Menville), Raven (Tara Strong), and Cyborg (Khary Payton) in their natural environment: mid-musical number. Warner Bros. Pictures

While many pearls have been clutched over the years over the pervasiveness of the “grim and gritty” strain of superheroism, it would be hugely unfair to paint the entire genre with that brush. There are plenty of superhero stories, both on the page and on screen, that are colorful, funny, and ultimately optimistic.

But it’s much rarer these days to see superheroes who are silly, particularly in film. Even something as brightly comedic as last year’s Thor: Ragnarok ultimately takes seriously the business of saving the world/universe and acknowledges the nobility of those who make it their business to do so.

Enter Teen Titans GO!, which debuted on Cartoon Network in 2013 and is now in its fifth season. Developed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic — who also wrote the film, with Horvath directing alongside series producer Peter Rida Michail — the series features the same characters and voice actors of the beloved, acclaimed early-aughts animated series Teen Titans.

Though GO! has angered some purists for the ways in which it departs from its predecessor’s more conventional approach to superhero storytelling and characterization, its more lighthearted spin on the team has earned the show its own passionate fan base. The Teen Titans of GO! tend to strike a more ironic, bratty pose than their forebears, and are frequently less concerned with fighting crime than they are with pizza, singing goofy songs, messing with each other, and, erm, building equity.

GO! to the Movies, somewhat improbably, proves that the Teen Titans’ rowdy, chaotic, song-filled approach still works when extended from an 11-minute cartoon to an 88-minute animated movie. In fact, it may work even better when given the grounding force of a feature-length narrative, which gives Horvath and Jalenic both the space to explore some bigger ideas and a focal point upon which the chaos can converge.

That focal point takes the form of Titans leader Robin (Scott Menville), who heads to Hollywood alongside his teen teammates, Starfire the alien princess (Hynden Walch), Beast Boy the shape-shifter (Greg Cipes), Raven the sorceress (Tara Strong), and Cyborg the cyborg (Khary Payton). They’re hoping to ride the superhero-movie wave into a claim of legitimacy, something they’ve been denied due to their propensity to do things like halt a big villain fight so they can perform their own theme song.

But although mega-filmmaker Jade Wilson (Kristen Bell) is handing out movies to just about every superhero in existence (resulting in some deep-cut jokes that will delight comics historians in the audience), she deems the Teen Titans unworthy of the big-screen treatment.

This snubbing spurs the Titans, led by Robin and the ever-deepening chip on his shoulder, to do whatever it takes to prove their super-hero bonafides. Their first course of action: Find themselves an arch-nemesis. One quickly presents himself in the form of Slade (Will Arnett), a gun-and-sword-wielding assassin (who is definitely not Deadpool) with a plan for — what else? — world domination, which might just involve all the A-list superheroes who are off making movies.

The Teen Titans meet Slade (Will Arnett), who is definitely not Deadpool. Warner Bros. Animation

Those A-list superheroes — specifically Batman (Jimmy Kimmel), Wonder Woman (Halsey), Superman (Nicolas Cage, in a particularly inspired bit of casting), and Green Lantern (Lil Yachty) — pop in and out of the story to help underline the Titans’ outsider status.

They also help underline Teen Titans GO to the Movies’ disinterest in adhering to any sort of larger continuity involving the Justice League and their various movies: Both Wonder Woman and Batman v Superman are specifically referenced as movies rather than in-world events, and no one seems to realize or care that the non-teen Cyborg has appeared as part of the live-action Justice League.

These heroes, their movies, and their backstories are all thrown higgledy-piggledy into a story that somehow finds coherence, mainly thanks to the film’s firm commitment to its own riotous subversion of the superhero game. (This extends right on through its obligatory end credits sequence, which anyone familiar with the Teen Titans’ onscreen history will want to make a point to stick around for.)

That all may make Teen Titans GO! to the Movies sound much more cerebral than it actually is. This is, after all, a PG-rated film aimed at kids, and it behaves as such at all times. But its kid-friendly, free-for-all spirit rides atop an undercurrent of pointed commentary about the state of the superhero industry (and the entertainment industry more broadly) that will give those parental guides something to hold onto amid the candy-colored cacophony.

Or, they could just surrender and enjoy the butt jokes. They’re pretty good butt jokes!

Original Source -> Teen Titans GO! to the Movies is a candy-colored cure for superhero-movie fatigue

via The Conservative Brief