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dr-jem-nutcase · 1 year ago

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MvA h/cs

Cooked up some movie & TV h/cs...cuz I can

Overall

before the timeline of the movie, the monsters had a TV on occasions. This was a rare treat which lasted until the TV set broke on its own and couldn't be repaired or got destroyed

the monsters' rec area was like the hand-me-downs central; anything the staff didn't want or need anymore went to the monsters, from those playing cards to radios to whatever. It usually came from the trash heap for Dr C's meals

the 2000s brought a little variety as a lot of people at the base made the transition to DVDs and threw out their VCR sets and cassette tapes

after the post-freedom upgrade, the base set up on-demand entertainment for the monsters

for every streaming site, every monster has their own accounts. Except for Link & Butterflysaurus (or B) who share accounts

they can all agree on sit-coms and comedies, believe it or not, some film noir or some off-the-wall random movie

depending on the sport, they all like watching a good game

Susan

down for most anything anyone wants to watch

likes period and mid-century romance/dramas like Downton Abbey, Bridgerton, Call The Midwife, Mad Men, and anything based off Jane Austen's books

was a Twilight fan back in her teens and now cringes at those memories of being on Team Edward

chic flicks: Legally Blonde, Pretty Woman, The Notebook, Mamma Mia!, Audrey Hepburn movies. Titanic and Moulin Rouge! are both fully capable of making her cry almost every time. This is a very good reason why she has her own streaming accounts

can make it through most horror movies but doesn't really enjoy them

roots for all sports teams from Cali

the only monster most willing to watch whatever BOB wants to watch

liked watching cooking shows and DIY tutorials when she was small. She'll still watch them sometimes inspite of the fact she can't easily cook or pull off most DIYs

BOB

the kids' page on streaming sites & YouTube Kids all the way!

has the kid's tendency to watch the same thing over and over again and never get sick of it

the other monsters can't watch adult films and shows with him. He'll ask questions like, what's going on during a bedroom scene or "What's a [enter any profanity of your choice here]?". He's also a parrot who will mindlessly repeat a single swear word he only heard once

sometimes you'll find him watching random stuff like a Malaysian talk show or a Julia Child cooking tutorial or some abstract silent film

you know those kids' shows that interact with the audience, like Mr. Rogers, Blues Clues, & Dora the Explorer? Yeah, he REALLY gets into them

had a kids tablet for about two weeks but then accidentally ate it. Monger hasn't had the heart to give him another one

Dr C

his pastimes include lab experiments, reading books and science papers, playing chess (via a computer versus the CPU/another player online because no one at the base wants to play), and other mentally/intellectually stimulating activities, so he'll watch something if he wants and/or needs a mental break

the other monsters tried getting him into Big Bang Theory. To everyone's surprise, he didn't care for it

has BritBox

when he's chilling, he'll watch vintage/vintage-style musical movies, particularly with good dance numbers like Singin' In The Rain. One of his heroes in dance is Gene Kelly; Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers would've been on his list, but he hasn't had a skilled dance partner offhand since his college days

likes videos like Ted Talks and Infographics Show (YouTube). He may be the most brilliant man in the world but he knows there's always more to learn

his YouTube subscriptions include dance groups and science lecturers from around the world

doesn't care much for most sports but he'll gladly watch polo and a lot of the Olympics. Tried to pass the time by reading a book during a football game once, and Link said, "Doc, if you don't put that book down, I'll throw you and that thing in the trash!". Never again

Link

as mentioned in an earlier H/C post of mine, he's a closeted shonen anime fan and he'll watch anything but One Piece

football is his favorite sport to watch. He watches it when he can

NEVER misses Super Bowl Sunday. Or at least to the best of his ability. He was very disappointed when one of his missions happened on Super Bowl Sunday

also likes WWE

martial arts: always and forever, baby!

has watched both Luca and The Shape of Water. He doesn't mind them but he got pretty annoyed when people made comparisons between him and the Amphibian Man or the sea monsters. BOB was like, "Hey, Link! Why don't YOU turn into a human when you leave your tank?"

was into superhero movies and TV series in the 2010s but jumped off the bandwagon when he thought they were being overdone. Though he still likes Guardians of the Galaxy, Deadpool, and anything with Wolverine

thinks Star Wars, Harry Potter, and most other popular sci-fi/fantasy franchises are just for kids and nerds

doesn't care much for romances or most cartoons either

if something scares him or makes him cry, he'll try to hide it

it took him a while to be able to watch anything with Shrek after being mistaken for Shrek in the Halloween special

[a/n: I can also see him being a gamer]

Insecto/B

likes sports no thanks to Link

will watch most anything Link watches

likes some anime, particularly Sailor Moon for whatever reason

likes cartoon shows meant for older kids

doesn't like horror movies, has a hard time settling down or going to sleep after watching one

avoids animal/nature programs as some of them can be quite traumatizing

every now and then she'll be caught watching something with BOB like Bluey

Monger

watches the news every day

knows better than to believe everything he sees

watches a little M*A*S*H before bedtime at least twice a week

every now and then watches stuff like All in the Family just cuz he likes the comedic but logical political tension among the main characters

still has analog cable (antenna and all) at the farm

hates I Love Lucy because his wife had it on TV more than anything else

likes war films and a number of films about World War II. There's a few he won't watch tho because he thinks they're either badly made, too sentimental, or too depressing

likes comedies from the 1950s-60s

The President

likes watching himself on TV and videos online

likes talking smack to opposing politicians when watching videos of them, like, "In your dreams, bucko! Not while I'm large and in charge!"

comedies, comedies, comedies...and game shows

Simpsons fanboy

has an appreciation for daytime TV: long-running soap operas, talk shows hosted by middle-aged women, Judge Judy, Dr. Phil, etc.

considers the family sitting in front of the TV together as quality family time and sit-coms as an American staple

can't watch foreign language films with English subtitles. He eventually gets bored and falls asleep

as mentioned in an earlier H/C post, he doesn't trust biopics one bit. After finding out over half of The Greatest Showman was fictional, he lost faith in any portrayals of history both on screen and stage

Derek

liked watching famous news reporters and weather-folk as role models when he was a kid and as inspiration when he became a weatherman

took Susan and other girls he dated to the movies

if not at the movies, he and Susan would curl up on a sofa and watch something together, going back and forth between what he likes and what she likes

likes most sports, except basketball

Ted Talks, late night talk shows, and popular sit-coms

watches whatever catches his attention on Hulu and Max

had a very hard time watching anything with the monsters. Still does but it's not as hard anymore

Invisible Man

went to a few drive-in theaters with his wife on dates before and after they got married

Andy Griffith and Red Skelton were some of his favorite shows

yet he enjoyed some of the heavier and less lighthearted films, like Streetcar Named Desire. If he cried, he tried to not let anyone know

not much of a cinema-goer but he enjoyed taking his two older kids

liked what little he saw of The Carol Burnett Show while in prison

if he saw Mel Brooks' films, he would've loved them

von Wolfmann (my OC, a German wolfman and past monster, at Area 5X 1960-65)

having lived much of his 70+-year life away from society, he probably had no idea what TV & cinema were, let alone knew they existed

The Cyberian (my OC, a Soviet Russian cyborg and past monster, at Area 5X 1981-85)

TV became a bit of a staple in the Soviet Russian home over time, so there was a handful of shows that she liked throughout her life

she liked going to the movies with her dad/grandparents as a kid and teenager, a special treat

didn't like anything based off books. "Just read the book." She said. "No pictures but they're a lot more interesting than THIS sad piece of work"

thought period pieces were boring. More than once she fell asleep watching them

grew up with black-and-white TV, so she was excited the first time she saw color TV

learned some of her English from what little TV the monsters had and learned a bit about the USA and the world outside the USSR

probably would've been the only monster to have been a big fan of Star Wars and/or Star Trek

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write-and-buried · 2 years ago

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Celestial Navigation

Part 6 - Waning Gibbous

Summary; Whatever happened to that guy anyway?

Warnings; jesus christ listing them makes me want to hide my face under pillows. Oral sex (m!receiving), excessive rimming, cum play, dirty talk, very messy sex, cum eating, spitting, and some discussions of toxic workplaces

A/N; This got filthy... fast. Huge thanks to @astroboots @the-ginger-hedge-witch @radiowallet and @jazzelsaur for encouraging every single whore thot I've ever had

Series Masterlist \\ Main Masterlist

[prev] - [next]

Whatever Happened to Derek Brown?

You couldn’t go to the movies without seeing his face. From the round cheeks and eyes filled with wonder as a child discovering life on other planets from his backyard telescope to the chiselled jaw and sharp cheekbones as a peasant teen in the period drama that won him an Oscar at only 14, Derek Brown was a staple of early nineties cinema.

A clean-cut heart throb, the duelling box office titans of Eric Webster and Derek Brown plastered the walls of teenage girls (and boys) across the nation.

But while you only have to scroll through Twitter to catch a glimpse of Webster’s latest escapades (yacht orgy, need we elaborate?) Brown has been absent from public life for almost two decades. Emancipated at sixteen, running wild through Hollywood throughout his late teens, he suddenly vanished after the death of his parents. What was assumed to be a brief period of quiet mourning has since turned into a mysterious disappearance, fuelled further by Eric’s locked lips on the subject.

“I wish him happiness, wherever he is” the only official statement he’s ever given, referring all other questions about him to his publicist, who parrots the same line.

His sizeable talent notwithstanding, Derek’s disappearance has sparked numerous conspiracy theories about the cocky young stars whereabouts. Every few years an unconfirmed sighting emerges along with a new theory, a monastery in Brazil, a surf instructor in Australia, an extra in the background of Marvel’s latest release. The lack of tax returns, public filings or holdings make most believe he has left the United States and lives a quiet life of anonymity out of the public eye.

With the twenty-year anniversary of ‘Rebel of Owls’ on the horizon, his last, and most famous film, many fans have wondered…

Whatever Happened to Derek Brown?

Buzzfeed News.

“Here it is” Dieter grunts, the sound of falling debris as he pulls a box from the back of his closet. Shining in the lamplight, the statue doesn’t look real. He tosses it on the couch next to you as your eyes scan the slideshow. You barely recognise him, your brain only tickling familiarity as the quintessentially 90s photos scroll across your vision.

Red carpets, cigarettes tucked behind his ear, set photos with the young face of Eric Webster, one of the most famous celebrities in the world, their arms linked around the others neck, brotherly love in all its glory.

ACADEMY AWARD

DEREK BROWN

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

‘FOUNDERS AND PEASANTS’

“I never saw it” you say, running your thumb across the grooves in the metal.

“Don’t bother. It’s not very good” Derek replies, sparking a joint held between his lips. The flame illuminates his face, and you see the ghost of the boy on the screen.

“I had to wear these stupid lifts in my shoes. I hadn’t had a growth spurt yet, and my voice cracked all over the acceptance speech. Hackman should have won it, for Unforgiven, but I guess the voters thought I was a cute kid with a good story, and that’s what they vote for anyway”

He flops down on the couch next to you, peering at your phone screen to see Eric Webster and him, linked together in the past.

“I met Eric a few years before that. We both auditioned for Judgement Day, but obviously didn’t get it. Became friends and stayed that way. Roared through Hollywood like a couple of young-dumb-full of cum idiots and caused havoc for our agents.”

“That’s why everyone recognised you at the party” Your voice is quiet, the realisations coming to you in waves as he blows smoke rings to the ceiling.

“It happens. But I do have one of those faces, and nobody thinks they’re gonna meet a child actor one day”

“It’s been a secret? This whole time?”

“No… not really” he says carefully. “I don’t hide it. I never legally changed my name, so my accountant knows. My old agent knows, Owen and Molly know. Eric, obviously, he knows too. He visits at Christmas once every few years”

“But I didn’t know” your voice cracks for the first time.

“Hey, no, hey hey” grabs your cheeks, your phone falling into your lap, the screen illuminated as he scrambles toward you.

“How did I break my nose?” he asks, swiping tears from your cheeks as he tilts your face upward.

“You got punched in the face in a bar fight you thought you could win”

“What’s my favourite movie snack”

“Kit Kats”

“What’s my favourite medium?”

“Charcoal… or acrylic depending on the canvas” you’re sobbing now, reaching to touch his wrist as he looks at your face.

“Why do I paint so many stars?”

“You think stories are told there”

“Including ours” he says, brushing a kiss across your mouth. “I didn’t tell you, because that isn’t important to me. That’s a life I left behind, I shed my name and everything about it. It wasn’t me Lou. It was something I did, not who I am, remember?”

You take a deep breath, forcing the tears back as you circle your fingers to feel his pulse.

“Why did Eric call?”

He sighs, pressing his forehead to yours as you stroke his skin.

“He calls whenever he gets a weird question. They ask about me whenever an anniversary is coming up, or when nostalgia is going to help them get more clicks on an article. Usually its just the vague, where is he, stuff that he never answers. But they asked him, through his publicist if he spends a lot of time in New York, and where his favourite coffee shop is. He thinks they might know I own this place. He wanted to warn me.”

“And what happens if they find you?”

“Mayhem, I would guess. If I could do it over, I wouldn’t have vanished, just publicly stepped away. Let it fade in people’s memories and have an ending to the story. That’s what they’re looking for, a satisfying conclusion to the Derek Brown ‘mystery’” he scoffs.

“They’ll come here”

“At least, trying to get a photo. They’ll want interviews and canned sound bites and all that fake bullshit. When they don’t get it, they’ll start digging. Derek Brown might not exist anymore, but Dieter Bravo has been thrown around enough that they’ll get some good stories out of it”

“What are you going to do?”

“What I always do” he grins, “whatever I want”

The scent distracts you, an acrid burning as your eyes flick to the threadbare rug under his coffee table, currently smouldering from a half smoked joint. He follows your gaze and smothers it with a military green croc. When he turns back to you he shrugs, an apology on his face.

You reach out, hooking your pinkie with his own.

It takes four days. A weekend of waiting in an anxious puddle, two days of staring at your spreadsheets with Twitter open on your phone, refreshing the top trending stories and TMZ between each click of the mouse. There aren’t enough interns left for you to fade into the background. Your co-workers ask you repeatedly if you’re okay. Your boss makes you take a COVID test in the bathroom, when it comes back negative, she rolls her eyes and tells you to get back to work.

The first photo of him is grainy. Tousled hair and mismatched socks, sweats rolled over one knee. It’s outside the café, leaning against the brick with sunglasses hooked into his threadbare shirt. You sleep in that shirt sometimes.

It takes an hour for the internet to catch fire. More recent photos appear, Molly and Owen in the background as blurry ghosts as his form is shown painting the walls of the café, or as a hunched figure carrying a mustard yellow armchair down a busy street.

The stories come that evening. People that have slept with him, done drugs with him, snorted lines off his body or had him snort lines of theirs. A woman who shared tabs of molly with crushing kisses in the middle of a silent rave. None of the stories surprise you, he’s told you most of them. They’re good experiences, memories he laughs at, turned suddenly sinister.

His first naked photo hits the internet less than 24 hours later. He’s sprawled on his round bed, cock laying thick and imposing on his thigh as he grins into the camera, offering a cup of unknown liquor to the taker. More follow. They begin to form a narrative, one of a life of pleasure and excess, of unconcerned privilege and recklessness.

Your co-workers begin to whisper that afternoon. You had always assumed watercooler gossip was a trope, overused and never actually happening, until you caught your name in a hushed tone as you walked back to your desk with your fifth, shitty, coffee. There are glances, out of the corner of their eyes you can feel them, pinpricks all over your skin that make you feel itchy, under hot lamps.

You ignore a colleague when he calls your name at 5pm, packing your journal into your handbag you spill into the anonymity of the street. You keep your eyes glued to your phone as you walk, the first of many think pieces about Dieter beginning to appear on TMZ and Buzzfeed, asking what happened to give him such a fall from grace.

You’ve seen the photos from the café, texted by Molly in a moment of peace, full to the brim with fans holding DVDs of his movies, paparazzi with jiggling knees and separate flashes, people taking photos of the paintings on the walls. You haven’t heard from Dieter since it broke, your phone silent except for the reminders for meetings, deadlines, notifications that you once lived by now causing you to grit your teeth as you felt a flush of disappointment.

Your apartment is quiet. The dead plant in the corner seems to mock you as you microwave a poor imitation of macaroni and cheese, your shoes kicked haphazardly across the rug. The sunset is beautiful across the windows outside your apartment, streaking purples and oranges that remind you of his paintings.

Everything feels uncertain. You hover over his contact in your phone as you settle on your couch, too rigid to truly be comfortable, but a stylistic choice in the space. Your phone screen goes dark, giving you a glimpse of your pinched face, the teeth burrowed into your bottom lip. You grab your laptop instead, dragging it and a blanket over your knees as you scroll through the list of classic movies Dieter has mentioned in passing, organised into a spreadsheet.

Selecting one at random, you feel a tug of loneliness at his absence, the stream of consciousness commentary that’s always accompanied these black and white pieces of history.

The colours aren’t mixing right. The contrast not dark enough to make the light glow, dimming the image on the canvas in front of him. He can taste the splinters of his paintbrush as he stares at the unsatisfactory image, the purples in the palette on his arm seeming suddenly wrong. The sunset had looked so beautiful tonight, reflecting off the shining concrete buildings as he sat on the overgrown balcony, listening to the cacophony of the street.

Usually, it was anonymous, the noise below. Horns and screaming and laughter and crying, floating up to him like a symphony he could view from afar, enjoy while staring at the blankness of the universe and wondering how it all came to matter so much it hurts.

But today, his name is the primary noise. Owen and Molly had told him to stay upstairs, as if he had any intention of going down, of allowing them to split him open and feast on the aged flesh. Find a story that only mattered because of a life he willingly gave up.

He wanted to create. It burned like a dying sun inside him for as long as he could remember. Everything itched and scorched until he had a pencil in his hand or a play to perform. Drama club, into auditions, acting into stardom. It was a round peg in an oval hole… right enough to think it worked.

Worked for his parents, anyhow. Supportive but distant, they enjoyed the high society of their sudden famous surname. Never pushing him, never encouraging him, they just were. He can hardly remember their faces now, the scent of his mother’s perfume sometimes caught and followed on the summer air.

Eric had always understood. Standing in line in the same auditions, the blonde hair in perfect spikes, his eyes somehow smouldering at the tender age of fifteen. They ran along parallel lines, his parents shaving down his edges until he was round enough to slide right through the hole. They would sneak off the back lot at Warner Brothers and smoke clove cigarettes, drink whiskey until they were sick and shaking, a makeup artist with glassy eyes giving them eyedrops, breath mints.

Nobody cared, until they did. Until the photos hit the papers, glossy and high def, Dieter on a bar top at eighteen, loops of women’s lingerie collected around his wrist. Eric sucking tequila out of a Victoria’s Secret models bellybutton. Fame and excess rolled together until they were packaged together, saran wrapped for consumption.

They never showed up drunk or high to interviews, they toed the line of playful bad boy together, always yanking the other back by the collar until it stopped being enough. If he dug deep enough, he’d know why he stopped when they died, taken within months of each other, cancer and a stroke. He’d proved enough, they loved him enough, and they were there. Until they weren’t.

He read some of the coverage about his parents’ deaths. The family photo’s he doesn’t remember posing for in contrast to the questions about his morality. Everyone expected him to go off the rails, to join the elusive 27 club and sell pictures of his coked-up face. Everyone would have been sad, and moved on.

Instead, he picked up a paint brush, and bought a cheap canvas at an art supply store. He sat in the back of a rented limousine and ruined the seats with shitty acrylics and painted what the world looked like behind tinted glass. When he left Hollywood, he never had the urge to look back.

He saw this place on the 8th of August. The flat brick exterior with no windows, an old oak door with rusted hinges, tucked between new developments like the least appealing fruit at Whole Foods. It was owned by an estate, nobody wanting it and nobody offering enough to take it off their hands. A grimy shop with a small apartment overhead, the balcony overrun with weeds. His skin had hummed when he touched the brickwork, a promise zapping through his skin.

He didn’t know what it was until you had walked through the door.

Dieter wasn’t expecting you to call. He knows the story has broken, can only imagine what is being thrown around about him on the internet, the conclusions people are jumping to as they dig up more, and more again. He stayed upstairs for most of it, hearing Owens voice boom out against the brickwork, insisting that he wasn’t here, that they didn’t know where he was and wouldn’t say even if they did. He snuck a muffin up an hour later.

He could imagine you now, sitting in your apartment, an empty microwave meal next to you on the couch. Maybe you were watching a movie, you might have been consuming every new article about him – continuing on the trend of the day he assumed. He wondered what you were watching, if his not-so-subtle steering towards Bette Davis had taken root yet, or if you had chosen something mindless, something you’d seen a thousand times and could recite from memory, its words etched on your brain, a script nobody asked you to memorise.

The stories about his family start the next day. Innocuous enough, his parents, his upbringing. They have him in their teeth, it seems, unwilling to let go as his silence begins to annoy. Undeterred by the swirling uncertainty they speculate wildly. His relationship with his parents picked to shreds, interviews and DVD extras dragged forth from memory and replayed on loops. TikTok analysis of his body language, a livestream of someone getting coffee from the shop, the line now snaking down the street.

Owen and Molly are next. A photo of Molly flipping off the paparazzi sparks a new wave of speculating about his chosen family. You giggle when you see she makes it her Instagram profile picture. They find Owen’s friend in L.A – the one who works in porn. Not as an actor, but a makeup artist, and that’s enough for the morality police to come down even harder on Dieter.

They’re ripping him limb from limb, an evisceration in 180 characters, each pillar of his personality smashed to dust with memes and jokes and vicious hatred. Eric cops some of the blowback as well, refusing to distance himself from his friend. There’s a clip of him, drunk at a party, shouting support for his former partner in crime, daring anyone to question him. In a room full of glitzy yes men, nobody does.

It tickles beneath your skin. That everyone cares so much about him while knowing very little. None of the articles mention his paintings. None of them talk about his apparent connection to the human spirit, his obsession with the stars and their stories, classic Hollywood. He could recite the general principles of the Hays code from memory, and he liked to explain all the ways you’d broken them while he licked cum from between your thighs.

He talked until you fell asleep every night, a soothing rumble of a story you’d have never known otherwise. It’s the same feeling from the party, a thousand years and barely a fortnight ago, where they fell in love with an image, only this time it’s the reverse. You haven’t watched his movies, no morbid curiosity to see the cheekbones that could cut glass. It was something he did, not who he was, and it became clearer with every tweet that it wasn’t who you know.

It settles like a dull ache, a burning chasm of loneliness that drags you from your desk at 5pm that day, again. Committing cardinal sin as you close your laptop and leave, not looking over your shoulder for what you once considered vital additional responsibilities. You’re wearing heels today, and the bones of your feet hurt when you reach the building.

There’s still a crowd outside, despite the door being closed. People are taking pictures against the brickwork, jostling for the best light, the capture of the frayed cardboard closed sign that greets them. A few men in jeans with expensive cameras mill off to the side, glancing upwards to the light just visible through his heavy curtains.

You don’t think before you hit his contact. If you strain over the noise, you can hear the foghorn alarm, his ringtone before he picks up.

“I’m outside”

It’s pandemonium when the door opens. Flashes blind you as you feel fingers lace into your own, tugging you inside the door before shutting it with a slam. It barely dims the noise. The bell falls from overhead, cracking into three pieces on the ground as you feel his arms wrap around you, the tension draining from your body for the first time in days as he squeezes your waist, pressing his face into your neck.

“Missed you” is all he says before dragging you upstairs.

He’s covered in paint. Muddy browns cover his hands, sticking through his hair and smeared on his cheek. The canvas in the corner is dripping, long sludgy trails of paint on the floor. You can see the stubs of three joints in it, his palette peeling from the weight of it.

“Couldn’t get it right” he shrugs, following your eyeline to the ruined canvas. “It will happen when it’s supposed to”

His thumb brushes your cheek as you take him in fully. His hair is unruly, his eyes creased deeper than you’ve seen them, his clothing creased and stained. You can smell paint thinner, weed and Makers Mark on him, and you wonder if he’s showered since the story broke.

“Want to take a shower?” you ask, feeling his fingers round brush against your skin

“Together?” he asks, a grin that makes your chest crack breaking his face.

“Wash the paint off first, then we can talk” you reply, the laugh he lets out a shaft of sunlight through your skin. He nods, pressing a brief kiss to your forehead before turning towards the bathroom.

You know where his things are. You know where yours fit in this space, where you leave your bag, kick off your shoes, shed the corporate layers. You know which drawer to dig through for his softest shirts and you pick one that smells just like him to slip on. Your clothes tangle with his in a laundry basket. You know there’s a pile that has clean ones somewhere. You grab fruit from his fridge, a punnet of blueberries and misshapen plums, setting them on the edge of the coffee table as you hear him through the wall, humming under the spray of the shower.

You pick a movie, something in the endless queue and wait, checking your phone and not worrying about its dying battery. You respond to Molly’s questions about her aid relief form, you double tap Owen’s picture on Instagram, the caption something witty about being famous and wanting his dick sucked. You check your email. The sharp one from your boss demanding a meeting in the morning barely makes a dent as you toss the device on the table, stretching your limbs back into the deep couch, waiting for him to emerge.

He brings a cloud of steam with him. His hair damp and curling around his neck, a towel slung low on his hips as he continues humming to himself. His rings catch the light, throwing silver across the walls like stars as he comes to you, seemingly distracted, to grab your wrist and pull you to your feet.

“You forgot this” he says, bringing his mouth to yours.

You’d always broken this into body parts. Lips touched lips, hands clasped hands, the rhythmic sectional breakdown of affection, neatly categorised and labelled as one progressed to another, switched their categories to explore further.

Kissing Dieter is a full body experience, you’ve since learned. From lazy and slow and sleep heavy, to frantic and primal, he kisses you with his whole body. His hands roam your back, tangle in your hair, grab your ass and squeeze your flesh. He mumbles into your mouth, feeding you words like candy as he hovers indecisively between your neck and earlobe, fluttering between the two to scrape his teeth and make your knees tremble.

The towel loosens under the growing erection beneath it as he walks you backwards to the bed. His hands slide under your shirt, tracing over the lines left by your bra as his mouth travels down your throat. He’s consuming, the familiar feeling of being completely overwhelmed by him settling like a weighted blanket on your soul as the damp towel falls free, his encouraging hands pulling his shirt from your body.

“Really fuckin’ missed you” he moans, his mouth travelling across your chest as he backs you right against the rounded edge of his mattress, the sheets and blankets tangled in the middle.

You need more. The days without him have rubbed you raw, left you feeling adrift and furious on his behalf, and feeling his skin on yours, so warm and soothing sparks something deep inside your gut you’re unwilling to name.

“Can I taste you?” you ask, the question feeling ridiculous on your tongue. His hands dig into your skin, you hear his sharp inhale around your chest as his beard scrapes the sensitive flesh.

“As if I’m ever going to say no to that” he says, grinning up at you with a wink.

For all you’ve done together, this is a rarity. He tends towards worship, the focus of his body seemingly on yours alone, save for moments where you manage to catch him off guard, your teeth scraping his hip as he orients his hands on your body, prying you open for spit slicked fingers as you lick the weeping head of his cock.

He throws pillows to the floor before you sink to your knees, his aim precise enough to ensure a soft landing as your hands trail his thighs, encouraging him to sit, the softness of his stomach, the warmth of his skin making you catch alight. His hand is confident, trailing your cheek to the crown of your head, settling comfortably with a broad palm as he watches you, gasping lightly at the scrape of your nail along the sensitive skin of his thigh.

“You can’t fit it all Lou… But I’d love to watch you try”

Heavy. It’s the word that always comes to mind, whenever you take him in hand or feel him thicken beneath or behind you. The veins that run the length of him, pulsing inside you, the drips that leak from the fat head of his cock whenever he looms over you, watching your cunt pulse in wanting.

It flushes darker than his skin, like a storm on the horizon, swollen and tempting as you watch a single shining drop of precum appear at the head, sliding to drip sticky on his thigh. His hand tightens in your hair when you dart your tongue to taste it. Salty and hot, the heady feel of the weight of it on your tongue makes you squirm, your thighs pressing together as you guide him between your lips.

His hand tightens in your hair, a groan escaping his lips as you stretch your mouth around him. He fills you everywhere. The press of him on the roof of your mouth, immediately filling with saliva as you dig your nails into his strong thighs, shuffling closer as he spreads them for you, a low curse and a shifting of the sheets as he grips them in a wide palm.

“Fuck, yes… that’s it” he’s breathless.

You manage a third the first time, your throat protesting the attempted intrusion as you swallow around him, pulling off to watch the thick spit drip from the sides of your mouth, feeling your eyes prick with tears as he reaches to curl a hand around the base of it, holding himself steady for you to resume.

He watches you. His eyes only squeezing shut each time you choke around him, the depraved groan he lets out as you watch his hips twitch, suppressing the urge to fuck into the tightness of your throat, to apply a little more pressure to the back of your head. You’d let him, you’d like it.

Instead he lets you lead, a pool of your spit now dripping over his knuckles as you take as much of him as you can, a steady, slow rhythm as you synchronise your breathing, enough to stave off the tears in your eyes, focused only on the salty, hot taste of him as you feel his skin heat under your palm.

Your jaw aches, the unnatural stretch of him in your mouth as you pull off him, watching as he twitches, the thick vein pulsing as he grips himself tight around the base. With a gentle tug he pulls your head back, makes you meet his eyes as he strokes his length with a lewd squelch of spit and precum, his own wide hand barely fitting around the thickness of him as he squeezes more the swollen tip. You kiss his thighs, his skin still warm and clean from the shower as you scrape your teeth along the soft skin.

“Look at me” he says, his voice gravel rough as you stare past his lazy strokes to meet his eyes, blown dark and focused on you as your mouth travels further up his thighs.

He can do this, he knows how to control himself, has had this same sensation enough times. But the feeling of your breath, ghosting lightly over his skin makes him feel fevered as he shifts, allows your cautious exploration of the crease of his thigh, your cheek brushing his balls as he lifts his foot onto the bed.

You look like you want to ask, as if he’d ever say no to you, and he nods his head before you can find the words. This is new to you, not something you’ve ever ventured towards, despite a forbidden thrill at the thought. Dieter tries to relax, tries to breathe as your mouth travels lower, as the first cautious kitten lick of your tongue flicks across his hole.

The sound he makes is broken, ripped from his chest without permission as he half strangles his cock in response, the sudden locking of his muscles as he sees your eyebrows raise in a smile. You liked it. Slowly, torturously you explore him, every ridge of furled muscle, the sensitive skin of its surrounds as Dieter feels his hair begin to stick to his forehead with sweat. He can’t breathe for how good it feels.

You’re so careful with him, gently coaxing him open with your mouth as he pants and groans, finding exactly what way he likes to be touched, shifting lower to get enough access. He can still see your eyes, watching him as you lick and trace his glistening hole.

“You want to see me lose it don’t you?” he asks, braving a single stroke of his cock, his whole body shuddering from the searing pleasure that races up his spine.

“You’d like it, wouldn’t you, to watch? Or do you want to do it yourself, you want to have me like this, loose and begging for it, fucking myself back onto something just as thick as I am. You want to watch my face? Want to see what it looks like when I get fucked just as hard as I fuck you? I can tell, I can fucking smell your cunt right now, you’re soaked you filthy perfect thing. Don’t you dare stop”

You’re squirming, shifting your slick thighs together as he talks, his hand squeezing his cock in an unsteady rhythm, drops of sweat rolling down his chest as you breach his ass with the tip of your tongue, enough to feel the tight ring of muscle give under your ministrations, swollen and sensitive from your mouth.

“Fuck, don’t fucking stop, please, so good, fuck”

Dieter can’t help it, the barest scrape of your teeth around his fluttering rim and he sees stars. It explodes from the base of his spine with shocking force travelling through his limbs and robbing him of his senses. He comes thick and heavy splattering his stomach and chest, flowing over his knuckles as you lick across his sac, drawing it further, making everything oblivion as he half screams your name.

Your lips are swollen, wet with his cum. Its on your cheek, sliding down in a thick river as you watch him come back to himself, squeezing the last drops from the thick head of his cock. His hand is still in your hair as his eyes swim back into focus, watching you lick the taste of him from your skin. His knuckles are covered in it, and you watch as he releases himself with a wet smack, bringing his hand to his own mouth, collecting it on his tongue.

He leans over you, close enough for his nose to brush your cheek as your lips part for him, feeling him spit his own cum into your mouth as he follows it with a messy kiss. He drags you onto his lap with surprising strength and shaking fingers, and you feel your slick cunt graze against his cock as he tastes himself on your teeth.

You’re desperate, rutting yourself along the underside of his twitching length as you feel his hands grip you, guide your rhythm as your swollen clit catches on the slick head of him, making you gasp into his mouth.

“That’s it, there’s my girl. Use me, get yourself off on me, I want to see you cum on me. Got so wet, so needy from sucking my cock. Wasn’t enough for you was it, next time you want to, I’ll plant this pretty cunt on my face as well, so you can drip down my throat while you choke on me. And I want payback, I’m going to spread you wide open, show you just how good it feels to cum that hard with a tongue in your ass. I’ll stretch you enough to take me one day, get you nice and open and begging for it, hm?”

His hand slips between your own cheeks, slick still with spit and cum as he brushes lightly against your ass.

“You want that? Want me to fuck you here as well, treat me to the sight of your ass swallowing my fat cock while I make you cum on it?”

“Dieter… fuck”

“I know, you’re right there aren’t you. I can feel it, you’re soaking me, you always get so wet for me, just desperate to be filled up properly”

He holds you close when you come, wrapping his arms tight around you and holding you firm to his lap, so that every shudder passes through him as well his mouth claiming yours as you scratch down his spine, seizing in place as he spreads his hands wide across your spine. It’s those same kisses. The lazy, long and slow ones that bring you back to him, each gentle pass of his hands on your skin as he chases your mouth, catches his own breath in between.

“I need another shower now” he says, grinning as he presses his forehead into yours. “You’re coming with this time” You squeal when he stands, wrapping an arm under your ass as he lifts you both with seeming ease.

He’s had less sleep than you, you can tell. His arms wrap around you from behind as he buries you both in blankets, freshly showered on clean sheets as he kisses behind your ear. He insisted on you naked, cupping at your breasts, his hands sliding over your stomach as his breathing slows, the lazy circuit of his hands becoming heavier.

“Dieter…” you whisper, feeling him scoot closer to you, a half-conscious hum of acknowledgement.

“You could leave for real you know.”

“Mm, no” he says, nuzzling closer into your neck. “Your job is here”

“They’re eviscerating you, going after your family, and Owen and Molly and… I don’t know, if you went away for a while, maybe it would die down”

“Won’t” he grumbles, “Do you want me to?”

“No” you answer, the thought of it pulling gravity from your stomach as you feel him smile into your skin. “But you don’t have to put up with it, and if you wanted to… get away from it… I’d understand”

You feel him huff a laugh into your neck.

“They’ll get bored eventually. Find some other scandal and leave me to fuck you in peace. Besides… I’m not going anywhere without you”

It makes tears prick the back of your eyes, some swelling bursting feeling you can’t name erupting in your chest as he kisses your neck again, finding your hand to lace your fingers together.

“I watched Jezebel” You say, clearing your throat of a warm, soothing blockage that heats your insides.

“Oh, that’s a good one. Bette Davis did that one because she didn’t get to play Scarlett in Gone With the Wind. It’s funny though, it’s the first real link between her and Tallulah, because she originated it on the stage. Then there’s Dark Victory, and of course, The Little Foxes. They had these mirrored careers, one on stage and one on screen, and even though Bette had bad things to say about everyone, she never really did about Lou…”

His voice lulls you to sleep. You’ll hear the rest in the morning.

#dieter bravo #dieter bravo x reader #dieter bravo x you #dieter bravo x female reader #dieter bravo smut #the bubble fic #pedro pascal character fanfiction

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river-bottom-nightmare · 4 years ago

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Picture this: The Titans lounging around, joking about the future. "Hey, Dick, what's your dream retirement? Probably some gorgeous redhead on a beach somewhere. You're going to peak at 90." Dick laughs, glances at Wally, thinks about how much he'd love for that amazing ginger to be at his side, sipping margaritas when they're 80. But it's then he realizes, he's never really thought about retirement or the future. Because the truth is, Dick's been expecting/waiting for death since he was 9.

you motherfucker.

i was smiling and feeling all fluffy during the first part, imagining the titans being Good Bros. and then you got to the birdflash and i was like ahhhhhh yes!!! bc dick and wally lounging on a beach together, taking a well earned rest, is honestly all i want in life.

(even better if there’s p i n i n g going on, so someone, probably roy, says “yeah, you’ll be lounging somewhere on a beach with a gorgeous redhead wrapped around you”, and all dick can think of is wally’s bright hair and brighter grin, the freckles peppering his body, the little zaps of electricity he feels when he sneaks up on wally and crashes into a hug. “yeah,” dick replies, “a gorgeous redhead.)

but then i got to the end and oH MY GOD. w h y. why would you do this to me. the thought of dick, one day, somewhere in his late twenties, sitting back and realizing that he’s in his late twenties just hurts me. he never really expected to make it out of his teen years. he was the first child vigilante, and robin’s fights were far more brutal than anything kid flash or speedy got into, more brutal than even what the newer vigilantes in gotham faced, because the villains were rough and their grudges were fresh and bruce’s training was harsh and it fell upon the shoulders of only two people to keep an entire city from collapsing in on itself. that takes a toll on you, physically and emotionally.

but he’s here. he’s in his late twenties, he made it that far. he’s alive, but not everyone he started out with still is. he can say he’s happy and it won’t even be mostly a lie, but that’s not the case for many people he knows. and he has people to care for, people to love, and he doesn’t want to think about what it would be like to go through this horror of a life, then come home to the still air and cold draft of an empty house. (which is partially why he tries to make the friends and connections he does. sometimes, a drink with a friend can be all it takes to get you through another day.)

so yeah, despite all odds, dick’s alive. he’s alive.

anyway babe you made my heart hurt so thanks for that you monster

#dick grayson #nightwing #dc

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incorrectbatfam · 5 years ago

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What are your favorite dc comic ships??

DEFINITELY Bluepulse. They’re my OTP and despite my Ao3 having the same name as this blog I write fics about them way more. They check all my boxes: friends to lovers, red and blue, ginger and Latino (that actually happens a ton in media), and the lawful idiot + chaotic idiot that everyone loves.

I ship Damijon in like a “cute kids running around having crushes” sense.

Jayroy’s got that perfect friends-to-lovers dynamic where nothing really changes between them except a few terms of endearment. That’s basically what friends-to-lovers should be about.

I also ship BBRae as it harkens back to the old Teen Titans days there’s the nostalgia factor.

Also I want a relationship like Harley and Ivy

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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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The Legion of Super Heroes Reviews: The Legion of Substitute Heroes or Unsung Heroes

Happy 29th Birthday to Me! Yes it’s my birthday which means it’s time for reflection, griping about getting older and cake. And after an exausting weekend of grappling with a growth, i’m not going to go into anymore detail, I can finally, relax celebrate and get back to reviewing. And since i’ts my big day, that means I decided to dedicate today’s reviews to things that mean a hell of a lot to me and in one way or another shaped me as a person. A self indulgant way to reflect on my past, look to the future and show y’all some stuff I really like. So with that out of the way let’s talk about the Legion of Super Heroes.. and their oddball sub team I love dearly.

This is also my first chance to talk about DC Comics on my blog. I’m honestly shocked that in the year i’ve been reviewing stuff regularly, the other half of the big two superhero comic publishers hasn’t come up. While I do tend to lean towards marvel, in part because Marvel is simply better at collecting their stuff and putting it on sale more often, it’s still the home of some of my faviorite properties: Justice League International, The Green Lanterns (Minus Hal), Teen Titans, Wonder Woman, Oracle, Batgirl (All of them, particularly Steph and Cass), Young Justice, Supergirl, my personal boy The Martian Manhunter.. the list dosen’t go on by much but it indeed goes on. I”ve been reading dc comics since I was in middle school, and I haven’t stopped since and don’t intend to stop now and maybe in the next year I can get around to tackling some of their awesome cartoons and comics more eh? But yeah among these titans, including the actual titans, are the Legion, one of the most unique and awesome super team concepts in my humble opinon and , even for DC, one of the teams with the most tangled up histories.

First created in the Silver Age by writer Otto Binder and Artist Al Plastino, The Legion of Superheroes is DC”s first successful teen superhero team, predating the titans by a few years, though I dearly love both wildly diffrent teams. The Legion is defined by their high concept: A thousand years into the future, three super teens from diffrent worlds who happened to be on the same ship with billionare RJ Brande, saved Brande from some goons hired by his crooked buisness partner.

And exposed him. Inspirired by their courage, heart and skill, Brande latter called the three together to form them into a super team, one inspiried by the legends of teen hero Superboy.

No not Conner though it was nice to get to show off my poster of him. While he was part of the second continuities legion, we’ll get to that, he’s not the superboy we’re looking for. He is damn great though and it’s good to have you back bud.

Not Jon either, though I do miss this kid’s pre-bendis version and he was the inspiration.. for another version of the legion. (SIGH). Try. AGAIN IMAGE SEARCH.

......

No not the cool bad boy turned troubled good boy, not the child who was inexpciably aged up by that bald smeghead, and not the great idea turned into a editiorial mouthpiece. I”m talking about THIS superboy.

This is where the name came from: From the silver age till crisis on infinite earths, Clark Kent was active as a kid in smallville, and thus was Superboy, superman when he was a boy. He dealt with similar stories just with Lana replacing Lois, and Luthor as a ginger teenager. And it was these deeds as a teen hero on his own, one of the first honestly, that inspiried the legion and brande and forged the team.

And it was naturally a super boy story where they were first introduced as the legion’s founders went back to recruit Superboy after putting him through some trials, and were intended as just one of many silver age one off concepts.. but caught on with the readers so much they were brought back, and had their ranks expanded and eventually not only added supergirl, yes the one your thinking of this time, to their ranks, and yes sometimes she and superboy were in the same place at the same time, Clark willingly had founding member and telepath Saturn Girl put a mental block in his head for any info he’s not supposed to know yet so it’s cool . But yeah not only that but they eventually became their own feature in Adventure Comics, where Superboy’s stories were published, but overtook him in popularity with time. Over time a number of distinct aspects were established: The roster eventually got as large as 20 plus legionarres, almost all from diffrent worlds, and they eventually set up bilaws. Some are silly and dated such as “Legionarres marrying means they retire” which was eventually done away with in the 70′s, but others were simple logic: each member must have a unique power, no using weapons and such which rather than be super power snobbery is so said tech dosen’t fail and the legion later fully allowed Karate Kid, a martial artist, to join, no killing.. just common sense stuff that adds to it. And one of those is the centerpiece to today’s story, which we’ll get to in a moment. Obviously given they’ve been around since 1958, there is a LOT more to the Legion’s history I will dig into at a later date: The short version is that Crisis on Infinite Earths, Dc’s first big reboot, fucked the team up badly by retconning superboy out of existance and dc editorial made it worse by shooting down EVERY solution the team came up with to fix the issue. So eventually things got so messy they nuked the whole thing during the event Zero Hour and rebooted fresh with Mark Waid taking the helm and updating the concept for the 90′s and being a more lighthearted, if still not without weight, comic in the sea of 90′s edge. Waid would reboot the team again due to sagging sales, a far weaker reason this time, with a more rebllion slant, the original team would be reinstated, and then ended for a while before recently being rebooted by Brian Micheal Bendis... who sadly is long past his creative prime from books like Ultimate Spider-man and alias and is instead stewing in his own toilet dinner these days and thus it’s not pretty.. well okay art wise i’ts VERY pretty, it’s just story wise it sucks dirty ass in thunder storms. There was also an awesome cartoon that sadly lasted only two seasons that I will DEFINTELY be digging into, especially since unlike x-men evolution, it’s not you know 50 some episodes and me biting off way more than I can chew but a slim 26 that still has fans to this day. I”ll get into ALL OF THIS, some ohter time hopefullly and I mostly outlined it since some of you might be familiar with another version or “Sigh” the reboot and this helps clear things up. So yeah with all that out of the way we’re going back to the silver age and the first story I ever read of hte team, how I met them with “The Legion of Substitute Heroes” and a later subs story I genuinely love. I first read this story in one dc’s old expensive archives collections I got from the library. Oh how I miss the library. Your probably wondering who the legion of susbstite heroes are.. but since the first story covers that we can jump right in after the break!

So we open with a teen in a parka uniform disembarking from a spaceship from another planet, which a passerby notes is just like the airplanes people used to ride from country to country.

But we meet our hero, Polar Boy, whose in a winter themed outfit and has come to try out. This is the tradition I was saving for now: The Legion Tryouts. Like a club or sports team would, but I like it because it makes sense: The Legion NEEDS to be as big as it is because while their headquartered on earth, their mission scope is anywhere in the united planets which spans GALAXIES. They could be called on any time and need their full force or need to have severa l members on a smaller mission and frequently having members away on a mission was cleverly used to reduce the cast to whoever was needed for the story.

So it only makes sense to frequently look for new membbers to help strengthen their ranks... but given their teens and are recurting teens they need to be careful and need a logical way to reduce crowd flow. I mean you saw how many people used to line up for american idol before that died a justified death, people will do anything to be famous and they need to weed out those whose powers and skill just aren’t up to snuff yet, or those who are just dicks as, unsuprisingly, several stories have been built on assholes who applied and were rejected turning evil and attacking.. even though the Legion wasn’t even paticuarlly harsh. They also are more than fair as applicants CAN try again or if they prove themselves in other ways can be let in, as Bouncing Boy, my favoirite legionarre, was intially rejected for his power of .. well...

Yeah.. on paper inflating like a ball and bouncing around is kind of silly. In practice he can ricochet off enemies, walls, and obstacles and is fairly durable in that state. It’s why I don’t really brook mocking the guys power: yes it’s goofy.. but say that again when he hands you his ass. It’s the same with matter eater lad who yes is an actual character: While being able to eat anything is gloriously goofy.. it means he can chew through ANY substance and digest ANYTHING. Hell in the cartoon episode intorducing the subs they used both of these guys to great efffect: Bouncing Boy, who in the cartoon had to try out multiple times in his backstory, encouraged the future subs while Matter Eater Lad got in by EATING A FUCKING BOMB. He also had shades which I dind’t know he was missing but now I do. My point is the process is fair and well thought out and leads to some really fun scenes.

But yeah joining the legion is naturally Polar Boy’s dream, as he walks down the avenue of heroes, basically a series of statues honoring the legion and hopes all his hard work paid off. We then cut to the auditions, where he apparently waited all night. What I like about this story is that unusually for the silver age legion where it was mostly a sea of powers attached to a bunch of cardboard, really the dc silver age in a nutshell and why marvel broke out so much for having more dynamic and realistic characters, Polar Boy has more of a personality. It’s not MUCH but he’s a dedicated, hard working kid who just wants to join his heroes and seems really in awe of htem, a feeling we can all relate to. We’ve all had people we’ve looked up to, admired, and we’ve all had groups we wanted to join as kids, teens or what have you. And of course.. we all know what it’s like to be rejected by someone or something you badly wanted to be a part of. And that’s what happens to poor polar boy, who comes from a world with an intense sun thus his people developed super cold powers.. but he can’t control them well so while their impressive, they also freeze the legion. HIs powers are good... but due to their strength and radius he’s also a liablility. They give him an consolation anti-gravity belt.. they had these before eventually compressing them into the much cooler flight rings.. which I still desperatly want one of. I have the flash’s costume ring and a green lantern corps ring, but still no legion ring.

Naturally this devistates the poor boy and he wonders around dispondent till nightfall, convinced he’ll never be one of them. He soon meets Night Girl, a fellow reject with super strength given to her by her dad’s formula.. but only in darkness as she’s from a world without sunlight. She also faces a “hopeless future” but it’s then Polar Boy’s true strength reveals itself: he decides screw giving up on their dream and if they can’t be in the legion they’ll start their own Legion.

Though not to compete but to serve as a subtistute, in case the legion is ever incapacitated. So Night Girl gathers the other rejects the next morning. Cleverly one of them, Chlorophyll Kid was seen with Night Girl herslef at the tryouts behind Polar Boy. We soon learn about them and each of their origins: Stone Boy can turn himself into an immobile stone statue, as his world has half a year long nights and thus his people hybernate, Fire Lad who can spit hot fire literally and set anything combustable on fire and Chlorphyll Kid who can make plants grow rapidly. Each were rejected for resonable powers: Stone Boys powers too static, Fire Lad’s is too dangerous and Chorlpyl Kids toos pecific. But upon seeing all of this Polar Boy says they STILL have fantastic powers and still can help people and the legion.

Thus the Legion of Substittue Heroes is born. And I love them as much as the originals. As a bit of a misfit myself I relate to these guys: They have strange specific powers, got rejected by the big team.. while that trope is nothing new at the time it was unique and even now it’s a nice and inspiring message. Instead of giving up they form their OWN team to do what htey can anyway. They might not be the best like the legion but they can still help and still do what’s right even if not on their scale. It’s a great concept and really makes them endearing. Again I have a thing for the underdogs but I still really like these guys. It’s why it annoys me they got kind of spat on with time: While I love Keith Giffen and Paul Levitz run on the legion, and feel it’s the best of that contnuinty it’s not without fault and the two basically spent a full issue mocking the team and split polar boy off from them before making their own subs with only ONE of the originals. It just felt.. disrspectful. And so far no continuity has used them again until the recent bendis run, which has them announced for the Future Slate special. It took BENDIS, who dosen’t get how to use the team properly and is up his own ass, to bring them back in a new continuity and I find that obnoxious. The subs are a great concept and deserve to be honored as such and as such are one of my favorite superhero teams.

But their careers don’t start well as they doubt themslves, except for Polar Boy who boisters them along, and constnatly just end up going to missions the legion already has covered and when the legion go to fight some robot ships, they refuse the subs help.. which is fair though, as Brainy puts it they can’t risk putting untrained volunteers in harms way. Their about to just quit, in a really sad moment.. when CK, because I can’t spell cholophill and hate having to use spell check notices some odd seeds spread about.. and when he grows one a horrifying tree man shows up. They struggle with it till the setting son finishes it’s job, meaning Night Girl is at full power and whollops it and the subs spend the night destroying the seeds. They find out the next day the seeds came from the same planet as the robot ships, meaning the ships are a distraction for whoevers doing this and since they can’t just call earth, as the full force of the legion is needed with the robots and all it’d do is cause a panic, it’s down to them. Night Girl however is scared.. and I like that. It shows that while their regaining their confidence.. it’s sitll risky. Their a bunch of barely trained fanboys, and girl, going up against an alien invasion, with it down to them. They CAN save the world but it’s alright to be entirely terrified when your thrust into it this fast.

They make their way to the planet, having built a ship earlier and lie low, finding out what’s going on: The plant men are fully intellegent, and grow themselves..though how they know to attack and go to the bathrom and what not out of the seed I don’t know but I assume it’s a genetic thing or they might be some form of hive mind. point is the seed plan is to grow troops all over the world via rockets for an invasion, and it’s a brilliant concept for one too. Aliens who simply GROW the troops right into battle, born with the knowledge to do so, and right where they can ambush them. It’s down to our heroes and Stone Boy, whose been the most pesemistic, valiantly dives in to provide a distraction so they can destroy the factory and the seeds. Turns out he is useful as the most the treeple have is a space lead pipe.. yes really. I love the silver age. But they’ll bring ray guns soon, so Stone BOy knows it’s a suicide mission and now our heroes have a timer. But luckily.. our heroes are stronger than they think. Night Girl punches a way in till Night passes, while Polar Boy and Flame Lad use their powers in concert to make an opneing.. but with time running out Polar Boy finishes things by having CK grow all the seeds now they have acess.. thus exploding the planets population, destroying several cities from the number of bodies, and thu discourguing the treeple from trying again. Stone boy is able to flee with the rest of our heroes and the day is saved.

The heroes opt not to tell the public, as to take away glory for the Legion. It’s a noble gesture.. they do DESERVE credit, but they choose not to take it, preferring to let the legion get theres for stil lsaving the world from the robots. They stand firm, now confident they may someday make it to the big leagues.And it’s this that really makes me love them: Thier not the strongest or best, but they try anyway for the reasons a hero should: to help people, and not for the glory. THey remain unsung heroes and are fine with that. Eventually the Legion WOULD find out about them, but naturally instead of being dickheads about it, fully accepted them, even offering them some contests for membership, but that’s a story for another day. THey’d remain stalwart allies and valuable backup in crisis situations for years to come until the bollocks outlined above. But they’d never leave my heart and thanks to them.. the legion never left either.

Final Thoughts: While I do love the story for it’s personal signifigance to me, It’s stilll a really good story for the time. A bit stilted as was the style, but still good, well paced and with an endaring cast of underdogs who prove themselves in the end. It’s something diffrent from the usual clean cut ahead in life wasps these stories usually followed at the time. While the team’s still all white and all that, their outcasts and misfits who just want to help and have trouble beliving in themselves. Their a good standard to live up to.. and a good inspiration for me and my constnatly self hating self doutbing self. And I hope you enjoyed htem too. If you’d like to comission your own review, just dm me. It’s 5 bucks for individual issues. Later days.

#the legion of super heroes #the legion of substitute heroes #polar boy #fire lad #night girl #chorophyil kid #stone boy #silver age #comics #comics reviews #birthday

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batboyblog · 5 years ago

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neglected, lost and overlooked DC characters I love.

Here’s a few (and I’m sure to forget some) DC characters, lost, overlooked or neglected I carry a torch for, some are well known some aren’t a lot are bat related, some I just like the look of okay?

Colin Wilkes

I know I know how on brand for me, but really, I miss this Ginger little dude. Damian’s first real frost a tough Gotham street kid with the power to turn into low rent Hulk. Damian needs more friends is all

Chris Kent

Come on! COME ON! we need someone in the Bat or Super family with brown hair! besides which it feels shitty for Damian to have a ton fo siblings and Jon to be an only child. plus the idea of a 11-13 year old Kryptonian Nightwing who hero-worships the shit out of Dick Grayson is great.

Helena Wayne

I’ve always been a sucker for her since Crisis, and the comic where she’s an exile form Earth 2 is pretty great. I just love the idea of her lost on Earth 1, being a bemused big sister to Damian the grump, teaming up with Dick and Bruce and the weirdness from that.

Sand

To be 100% real I miss all of the JSA gang (as this list will show) but really Sandy’s powers were particularly cool, being lost between being both a next gen hero and one of the old guard as a former side kick, feeling both like he messed up and that he was failed by his hero, all gold stuff.

Bombshell

honestly do I need to say more? I don’t know much about her but the look, the name, this iconic moment, nuclear powered and angry? sign me up I’m here for it

Bette Kane

Flamebird! oh my god! oh my god! WHY! is Bette not living with Kate, driving her crazy? come on, look at that costume! also she was great as a Titans supporting character I want her back! I want her in Batwoman!

Jakeem Thunder

honestly my favorite bad mouthed 13 year old super hero. All the JSA characters were so good, but JJ with his pain but hard outside, was gold. My main complaint is you never really got to see him with other kid heroes, (other than Stargirl) it would be nice to see him with Billy Batson, or the Young Justice crew, which I feel like Stargirl got to do a few times but he never did.

Talon

Again not a character I know a lot about, but I love the idea of a Talon coming over from Earth 3 and turning hero, I like that idea, so much so I even have an OC based on it (ask me about him some time)

Cullen Row

talk about a deeply underused character as far as I know Cullen is the only openly gay male character in the Bat extended family. I once had an idea of Kate being the center of like a different Batfamily of her own where Harper was one of her sidekicks and Cullen would be over Kate’s apartment all the time doing homework, maybe fixing gear having heart to heart talks about boys and stuff with lesbian aunt Kate.

Kid Devil

I like a sad sack hero truthfully Eddie was always such a mess in the Teen Titans comic and I like that, I also like a hero who looks scary but is like soft AF

Hourman

Have I mentioned I like the JSA? I like the JSA. I like Rick Tyler a lot, I loved the thing where his dad was in a time window, the father’s day issue of JSA remains one of my all time favorites I love that special connection he has with JJ.

Hippolyta

You might not remember it but there was a brief time when Hippolyta was Wonder Woman and it was explained that she’d been the WWII Wonder Woman, founder of the Justice Society etc. and her suited up as Wonder Woman, her showing up and palling around with the old JSA members, it was great it was legacy and depth.

Damage

the perfect cross between the Titans and the JSA, a young hero, a troubled past that was dealt with in an interesting way with Roy Harper, I like really like this dork who always did his best

okay so I have lots more but this is getting long, feel free to reblog with your favorite missing and overlooked minor heroes/characters.

#DC #comics #Teen Titans #Titans #justice society of america #JSA #Wonder Woman #colin wilkes #Chris Kent #helena wayne #Robin #Nightwing

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channeleven · 4 years ago

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Episode Review: Cheetahs Never Prosper (Wild Thornberries)

The Wild Thornberrys ranks quite lowly when it comes to shows I grew up with, only ones lower than this are Fairly Odd Parents and Danny Phantom. The most I got from it was revisiting episodes I saw as a kid to see if they were how I remembered them, spoiler alert, nothing has changed.

The last I remember seeing this show was on a countdown aired on Nicktoons Network, admittedly the one episode I recall making it on was actually good. I saw some of the episodes from the newer seasons, and it's a rule of thumb when it comes to Klasky-Csupo's shows, the decline is obvious (though I can say with confidence The Wild Thornberries' last season isn't as bad as As Told by Ginger's, especially since that fell into the same web as Teen Titans who had a great finale that didn't become the finale, and ATbG had worse episodes after.)

But back on the countdown, I believe I saw one certain episode also make the list, I don't remember catching it anywhere else, unless my memory is that selective. My mind kept going back to this episode for some reason, I'd say it haunts me but that'd knock me down several notches. I guess I just wanted to find reasons to talk about this episode, and thinking of it, here we are.

Bluh

One thing that escapes me when it comes to The Wild Thornberries is that they go to real world locations (hence every intro ending with a zoom-in on a map), but luckily the episode descriptions on Wikipedia will prevent me from mixing the Galapagos with the Amazon.

This episode has the Thornberrys travel to the... African plains. That's all I got. The location name is inconsequential, just know the episode takes place in somewhere that's hot and dry, and in the midst of a drought.

My biggest issue with the episode is it having a number of missed opportunities, with the opportunities they do take being ill-executed. What occurred in the episode felt so poorly handled that it wound up pissing me off.

So the Thornberrys chill in the Comvee and Eliza is against them taking up indulgences after witnessing the effects the drought had on the animals outside. Does she strike out to make a statement on potential human negligence? Sorta, this leads to the main premise of the episode, more on that later.

I question why Nigel isn't filming, isn't that the whole reason for the show's existence? If they wrapped wouldn't they be on the way out by now? I mean I understand if Nigel would let everyone go look around, but they're in the more barren region of Africa.

While Eliza strikes out, the family kicks back in the Comvee and Debbie burns out the air conditioner. Firs up, how long have you had the comvee? It can do a lot of things but can't handle high pressure on the AC if nothing that requires high power is also running? If this led to something interesting then I'd excuse it.

So what do you think happens? The short affects the rest of the power to the comvee, and they wind up going through the same thing the animals outside are? Hence allowing them to see what Eliza was going for in how they're tone deaf to what's going on outside? Nope, it's just a minor inconvenience at best, and they set out to find Eliza as she goes through her plot.

Oh yeah, her plot.

Eliza attempts to find the mother of a cheetah cub, Tano, who had been separated from her, somehow. I'd say the hyenas, I'm guessing, had something to do with it, I don't know if hyenas rank higher than cheetahs, the former are essentially scavengers. This is all amounting to something that'll really come together later on.

The letdowns persist in the form of travel drama. The highlight to the entire episode is Darwin, as I like the smart ass in any show, but it doesn't save it. Tano acts implacably selfish and vicious, biting the hand that feeds him, literally I may add, and busting their one water bottle. I'm not mad at him for doing something selfish, I'm just mad at how downplayed the drought aspect is.

Perhaps as a statement, Eliza would go without supplies to put herself on the same level as the animals (okay maybe she should bring one water bottle for the sake of emergency.) The desperation had by Tano would also be had by Eliza and Darwin as they struggle to survive, and drive home the impact the drought has. But neh, this isn't the kind of episode that'd show such sophistication.

Things come crumbling down further when Tano's mother returns, and this was my worst takeaway from it. Once more, I'm not pinning selfishness on it (same goes for mean-spirited because that's meaningless.), but because how everything is carried out here, and frankly, it makes the mother look no better.

She views Eliza as food out of desperation, and I gotta ask, what happened to you? I get you may have been looking for food, but you abandoned your own son? Were you afraid you would have to eat him? I wanted so bad for all four to devolve to savagery to, again, show the desperation all would have in a drought, but I guess they thought it'd be better for us to hate cheetahs. If Legend of the Titanic was pro whales, this is anti-cheetah.

Instinctively, you'd assume Tano would at least stick up for Eliza as she had helped get him to his mother, if it wasn't he'd literally be left for dead. But no, he who follows perishes, and now he wants to eat her too, this is so clunky you'd think the writers had a panic attack.

So how does Eliza get out of this jam? It rains enough to build a river, Tano's mother falls from a tree branch and plummets to her death, Tano learns the hard way on how a lack of food and water brought out the worst in the both of them and made him lose sight on those who'd try to help him, he'd regret everything and as he drinks from the now replenished river, he doesn't look up toward Eliza, feeling she's better off without him.

Actually I wish how that would've happened, they showed an elephant dying of old age and made it clear Donnie's biological parents were killed in cold blood by poachers, I'm sure they can imply the mother was trampled to death as by then she wasn't an established character and was a tragic antagonist so it wouldn't be as traumatizing to the viewer and give the episode a greater impact.

No, Eliza makes it back to her parents, she had been forgiven for leaving them for that bogus journey and is sent to clean up the comvee which had been messed up while it was seaborne. And Tano's mother somehow survived and the family goes on like none of that shit ever happened, and now this episode lingers in my head, as with a bulk of Klasky-Csupo's worst strike-outs in my opinion.

Overall

It's one thing if this was me covering an episode of a show I liked, but The Wild Thornberrys was a show I hardly cared about. This episode is the epitome of missed opportunities and bad execution, and the sad thing is, this show is capable of more sophistication than this episode squeezed out. To add insult to injury, a scene in Origin of Donnie had a mirror representation of Tano and his mother, where Eliza helped a young gorilla reunite with her mother and both were more cooperative. Maybe apes are kinder than cheetahs, maybe the jungle had more resources to go off of? Donnie was raised by apes before Nigel found him. Hell, even with another encounter Eliza had with a jungle cat he apologized for the trouble.

This episode is part of a trend prevalent with many Klasky-Csupo shows, where one episode of each sticks in my head for some strange reason (Rocket Power is excluded somehow, someway.), whether it be because it's a bad episode that's otherwise glanced over, one that has poor execution or is memorable for all the wrong reasons.

Aside from this, As Told by Ginger's stickout was a bulk of the last season episodes with the other Ms. Zorski, each episode felt painful even if she didn't play as major of a role. For All Grown Up, it's mainly Coup De Ville in that it was the first episode and people seemed to ignore the seeds for Lil's degredation. For Rugrats, it's Pickles Vs. Pickles, in that it unintentionally paints a dark picture for why Drew bends over backwards for Angelica, who was in for her own gain that episode too ironically enough.

Of all the episodes I've seen of the show, this is the worst I've seen of it, and I don't even like the show very much.

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starspatter · 4 years ago

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Heroes and Thieves, Ch. 15

Title: Heroes and Thieves Fandom/Universe: BTAS, pre/post-RotJ flashback

Summary: A story about second chances, healing, and having hope.

Rating: PG-13, for references to character death, child psychological torture and trauma.

Genre: Romance/Family/Friendship/Hurt/Comfort

Word Count: 4,800 Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

Also on ff.net and AO3. ...I lied. This is totally a harem story. *flees*

She held onto my coat that night, like a kid lost in her sleeves Oh we warmed the ground, we hushed our sound We slept on walking feet Oh Darlin’, pardon me Can you help me remember When we were all flying free

-Gregory Alan Isakov, “Living Proof”

————————–

After.

Barbara breathed out as she stood before the large, warehouse-like building, gazing anxiously up at its second floor (and watchful security cameras she knew were installed overhead). The reinforced structure still seemed relatively sound despite the recent disaster. The… original occupant certainly knew how to choose a hideout location and prepare for all potential outcomes. …Must've been a habit he picked up from his previous landlord.

With a wary hand, she buzzed the doorbell.

Sooner than she expected, the entry flew open to reveal an unfamiliar face: a young man with a short crop of mane spiked in the front like flames, similar in color to her own.

"Well hellooo there," he greeted with a wide grin, eyeing his guest up and down. "What can I do you for, miss?"

Barbara stared at him in surprise.

"Er, is Tim home? He… does still live here, right?"

The stranger licked his lips, resting toned muscle casually against the doorframe.

"Who cares about him? What say you and me get to know each other a bit first, as fellow redheads, hm?"

He loomed towards her, admiring her luscious saffron locks. Barbara grimaced, getting ready to give the kid a good taste of a police twist hold (if not taser) – when a voice she recognized interjected from behind.

"She's a cop, Roy. And she used to be Batgirl. I wouldn't try anything if I were you."

Tim emerged beside the other teen, regarding the two dully. Unfortunately the statement only seemed to fuel his friend's lust further.

"Hot damn. You here to arrest me, officer?" He waggled his brows. "Slap some cuffs on me and take me down to the station? I wouldn't mind that on the first date."

"Roy."

"Kidding, kidding. Jeeze, you really have no sense of humor now, do you?" He lowered his limb dejectedly. "Anyway, you didn't tell me you were acquainted with such a gorgeous babe. Ain't you gonna introduce us?"

Tim sighed.

"Roy, meet Officer Barbara Gordon, the Commissioner's daughter and former Batgirl. Babs, this is Roy Harper, a.k.a. Speedy, Green Arrow's ex-sidekick."

"Ex-partner," the other boy corrected. "And it's 'Arsenal' now."

"Whatever. Now could you please give us some privacy?"

"A'ight, I can take a hint to take a hike," Roy smirked with a suggestive wink. "I've got a 'date' myself anyway. I'll leave you two alone. Don't wait up~"

He whistled and growled as he passed by Barbara on the way out, who shot him a dirty look before resuming attention to Tim.

"I see you've been keeping company. Honestly, he's worse than the Flash." (What was it with all the male copperheads she met giving her ginger brand a bad name?)

"We know each other from the Titans," he replied in a dry tone. "He needed a place to stay after Queen kicked him out – again. Dick said it was okay."

Barbara paused.

"You talk to him recently?"

Tim shrugged as he moved aside to allow her in.

"We keep in touch. He calls every so often to check up on… things."

She studied his backside as they started heading upstairs to the loft.

"And? How are 'things'?

"Fine."

She glanced around the interior of the room as they approached the top; it looked pretty much the same as she remembered. There was the ornate wall of Asian-styled checkered windows overlooking the city, and the ninja sword rack hanging next to a decorative dragon panel (behind which she knew there was a concealed compartment that used to contain Nightwing's costume). Dick did always have a flair for the Orient.

Running her hand wistfully along the armrest to the sofa, she recalled how she and Dick used to sit and cuddle together on it, enjoying late-night Chinese takeout and talks, among… other things.

A frown settled on her face as she noticed something… "off" about the couch cushions.

"'Fine', you say. …Is that why you have 'this'?"

Tim's eyes immediately narrowed as she stretched behind the seat and unzipped the foam, removing a bag of greenish-purple powder from deep within.

"It's not mine."

He answered, a little too hasty.

"Whose is it then?"

"Roy's," he stated flatly, seeming nonchalant about selling out his flatmate.

"And you're telling me you've never used any?"

He hesitated, eyes slanting aside in silence. She scrutinized the stash, recognizing to her horror that it was likely the popular new drug that was being distributed in the streets amongst decadent youth; an isolated chemical strain similar to Joker toxin, but more mild. Not strong enough to cause permanent psychological damage (at least when taken in minor doses), but enough to mimic the euphoric high for hours on end.

"Have you been doing deals with Jokerz?"

"Like hell I would," he snapped.

She reached out to sternly grab his wrist, trying insistently to meet his eye.

"Tim. Be honest with me. Please."

He yanked his arm away, glaring fiercely in anger.

"What is this, some kind of bust? Fine, go ahead, book me. I don't care. Why don't you just charge me with murder while you're at it?"

"Tim…"

"You don't get it, Barb." He clutched at his sleeves, digging digits deep into his skin. "You don't know what it's like, living with fucking laughter inside your head all the time. At least when I'm laughing louder I can't hear him."

She swallowed, biting her lip. Gently, she set the plastic down on the table.

"I do understand," she whispered softly.

He blinked at her.

"Tim, the reason I came here, is because… Lately, I've been having these… visions." She sank down on the lounger, steepling fingers in front of her. "You remember the time Scarecrow gassed me and left me in a hallucinogenic nightmare state?"

He nodded.

"It's like that, only now, I get them when I'm awake as well, at complete random. Ever since the quake, I'll experience these abrupt panic attacks, and see all kinds of terrifying shit. Then, the flashbacks start, and there's one that's always recurring…" She closed her eyes, reflecting reluctantly. "All of a sudden I'll see myself back at Arkham, fighting against Harley. We go over the edge of the cliff, and I'm hanging on like before, and she starts to slip… Only this time, I fall with her. I – I die, just like that time in my dream."

She hunched in on herself further as she continued.

"It doesn't end there though. It keeps going, and I can still see everything else play out, like when I visualized my dad going after Bruce afterwards. I – I see him and Joker, and you – JJ – there with the gun – and – and… The shot hits Batman instead."

Her speech tapered off as she finished the sentence. Her audience was deathly quiet as she carried on in a tremulous hush.

"Then you and the Joker – he – he makes you do all these horrible things – so many deaths – including Dick's – and finally my dad's the only one left – and he has to take you both down by himself – and it ends with either him shooting you – or you shooting him – and either way everyone I love is… gone."

She looked at him, tears starring her eyes.

"I'm sorry. You probably don't want to hear any of this. I – I just had to come see you…"

"To make sure I haven't gone on an insane murder spree?"

Barbara lowered her head in apology.

"I didn't mean it like that…"

Tim exhaled, unlinking his limbs as he leaned back against the table.

"For what it's worth, I don't think I've done anything recently that would land me a spot in Arkham. …Anyway, shouldn't you go see a doctor about this or something? Or someone else who can help, like…"

The weight of unspoken word hung heavy in the air. She shook her head.

"I'm scared. What if they can't treat it, say my condition's permanent? I'm no good to the force like this, I can't function out in the field. I'll have to give up my badge, after I worked so hard to finally get here..."

Tim rolled his eyes slightly.

"Gee, I wonder what that could possibly be like?"

Contriteness crossed her countenance again.

"…Sorry. That was dumb, I shouldn't have said that. I was being selfish, only thinking of myself. I shouldn't have bothered you with this. You've got enough to deal with, you don't deserve to have my issues dumped on you as well."

Tim held up his hand.

"Look, it's okay, Babs. …Is there anything I can do?"

She lifted timidly, chewing her lip.

"I – I was just hoping maybe we could… I don't know – talk for a bit?"

Tim remained mute, mulling for a moment, before turning and walking over to the mini-fridge. Opening it, he retrieved two chilled beer cans before revolving back.

"You want a drink?"

She boosted an eyebrow, but nevertheless gratefully accepted the offering of booze.

"I'm not even going to ask how you got these."

She muttered as she popped the tab and started to chug it down.

…

A nearly emptied six-pack later, they were both more than a bit tipsy, but Barbara especially so. Turns out she wasn't very good at holding her alcohol.

"I mean, who do those jerks think they are?" she slurred as she slammed her container down. "I'm not some little girl or someone's possession. I can date whoever I damn well please."

Tim perceived her lurch lopsidedly as she groped for another, growing concerned.

"Don't you think you've had one too many?"

"I'll be the judge of that," she hicced as she swatted his hand away. Tim persisted however, prying the prize firmly from her fingertips.

"That's it. I think you've had enough."

As he stood up to put the beverage back, he simultaneously fished out his phone and began dialing with his free hand.

"I'm calling your dad to come pick you up."

He felt a pressure on his lower waist, and he looked down to see Barbara clinging to the back of his shirt, burying her flushed forehead against his spine.

"Please," she mumbled into the fabric. "Just let me stay here a little longer."

He gulped, but submissively sat back down. She warmly nestled her head against his shoulder, causing his chest to beat rapidly in confusion.

"…What the hell happened to us, Tim? How did we end up like this? The four of us, hardly even speaking to each other? Dick would never return my phone calls, and Bruce – God, Bruce – I don't even know where to begin with him."

"To be fair, he was never much of a conversationalist to begin with," Tim griped bitterly. "Besides, don't you, uh, have a new boyfriend now?"

He cleared his throat, and Barbara sighed as she sat up, hugging her knees close to her for comfort instead.

"Sam's great. He understands, but… He doesn't really 'get' it, you know? What we've been through."

She traced a rim of condensation on the counter.

"Hey, you remember that time Bruce almost married a plant-woman? That was wild."

"Yeah? What about when Farmer Brown unleashed a bunch of giant mutant insects on Gotham? That's got to be the craziest adventure we ever had."

"Please. You weren't there when Baby Doll and Killer Croc teamed up and nearly nuked the city. I mean, can you imagine those two together? You can't compete with a weirder pair than that."

It was startlingly simple, to slip so smoothly back into nostalgia. Swapping stories, trying to one-up each other's exploits. Barbara would even fondly describe some of the times she worked with the original Dynamic Duo, back during the "good ol' days" – of colorful costumed villains, wacky crimes, and ridiculous motivations. Telling increasingly tall tales and amusing anecdotes that almost made Tim laugh. …Almost.

"So let me get this straight," she repeated, "You flew the Batplane all the way to outer space… to the Justice League Watchtower… by yourself?"

"Yup," Tim responded as he sedately cracked open the last metal vessel still in his lap and took a sip.

Barbara shook her head in disbelief.

"You always were a risk-taker. I still can't believe Bruce went missing and got brainwashed… again. How come I never knew about any of this? Why didn't you contact me?"

"You were off at grad school. I figured I could handle it."

Barbara propped her elbow on the plush, leaning her cheek thoughtfully against it as she tucked her legs underneath her.

"...It's good that you went to them for help."

Tim peered down, picking absently at the paper label, peeling off aluminum.

"Mr. Kent told me afterwards, that Bruce did call him in secret. The operating room's walls were lined with lead though, since they used to take X-Rays and brain scans there. Even the curtain and that stupid apron Joker wore had lead shielding. He had hench-spies stationed everywhere, in Metropolis as well, so he could render me unconscious as soon as Superman showed up and I wouldn't be able to scream. …He really was prepared for everything."

Barbara couldn't believe it. Just how long had that disgusting sicko been planning this?

"What about the Martian? He's a telepath, isn't he?"

Tim shook his head.

"Apparently the last time he attempted a city-wide psychic sweep to look for Luthor, he wasn't able to shut it off. The flood of thoughts nearly drove him mad afterwards. Bruce didn't want to risk it."

"That still doesn't excuse-"

"What's done is done," Tim curtly cut her off, crushing the canister in his grip to transfer his own resentful rage, before tossing it in the trash. "I've accepted the damage. There's no use in going back and flinging hindsight accusations at this point."

Barbara surveyed his sullen expression in overwhelming sympathy.

"…There's one thing Joker didn't count on."

"What?"

"You fighting him off in the end. You were stronger than him. You won."

Knuckles balled on Tim's kneecap.

"That wasn't a win. We lost the moment I confessed everything to him."

"That's not true, Tim."

He shook his head.

"I killed him, Barb. I did what none of us were ever supposed to do. And the worst part is, I – I was glad about it."

She extended her palm to wrap reassuringly around his wrist.

"So? You have every right to be, after what he did to you."

Tim's fist only tautened further as he avoided her eyes, ashamed of his own ugly sin.

"You know, it's ironic – Batman got gassed by Scarecrow once too. Only instead it took away all his fear. He was seriously out of control, to the point where he wasn't even afraid to kill criminals. I had to take him down myself. I… managed to keep him from making a big mistake."

He laughed then, though it sounded hollow. His eyes had such a pained look, moreso than anything physical could've caused him. The hurt was in his heart and soul. Barbara's own heart broke to see him like this. Her brain swam, swarming with remorse. Wishing there was something she could do to help heal him, convince him that he had a good heart, one that was still worthy and capable of loving others, and of being loved in return…

…

Slowly, she inclined forward – and kissed him.

…

For a second, all Tim could register was the flavor of liquor mixed with black licorice – lush and luscious on her lips – before panicking and pushing away.

"What are you doing?"

"I… don't know."

"…I think you're making a big mistake."

Barbara bristled.

"Who says?"

From their positions, she was practically on top of him. He grasped her shoulders, keeping determinedly at bay.

"You're drunk. And probably hallucinating."

"I'm not hallucinating."

He sighed, scraping a hand through his hair.

"I'm not Dick or Bruce, you know. …I'm nobody."

"You're not nobody."

Conflict clouded his eyes.

"Look, this is all kinds of wrong. What about Sam? Besides, your dad would probably kill me…"

The whites around her blue irises widened.

"Kill you…?"

…Shit.

"Babs, no, I didn't mean-"

She slid off, seizing arms around herself, impressing into her flesh.

"He'll kill you. You'll kill him. …Everyone's going to be killed. And it's all my fault."

Shit. Shit shit shit. He should've known better.

"No one's dying. We're all still alive." (…If what they had could be called "living".) "You're just imagining it."

Her claws only clamped tighter.

"Sam… What if he comes after Sam? I'm putting him in danger. Oh God." Her pupils contracted, zoning into the distance. "Sam, don't open the door – he's got a gun!"

This was not good. He was losing her. He tried to twist her around, get her to see him instead of… of… whatever it was she was trapped by.

"Babs? Hey, hey, look at me. Look at me. Whatever you're seeing right now, it's not real. You hear me? It's not real."

She stayed stiff as a board though, staring far off into vacant space.

"Dad. Oh my God, what's he doing to Dad? He's trying to turn him crazy too. No, no, make it stop!"

Worriedly, Tim shook her shoulders.

"Babs, hey, c'mon! Snap out of it!"

Her eyes were glazed, no longer glued to one spot but rolling everywhere else. Darting frantically to and fro. Features contorted, seemingly in some kind of phantom agony.

"My legs. I can't feel my legs. He took my legs."

Nails curled around her abdomen area, clenching cloth in anguish. Scrabbling, scratching, as if searching for something.

"Babs!"

"The baby," she sobbed. "I lost the baby. I couldn't protect him. Couldn't protect… im…"

The last part was muffled by a wounded choke, but… From the way she said it, it kinda sounded like…

His name.

Helpless, Tim looked on with an aching empathy as the normally tough, take-charge woman he always knew coiled into a fetal form, crying miserably. He mused if this was how he must've often looked to the others back then. He didn't know what to do, how to help her. He felt so utterly useless.

Running over options, his mind halted at one possibility. Something that used to help him deal with nightmares as a kid, before… everything. It was probably dumb and desperate, but it was worth a shot.

"Wait here. I'll be right back."

He dashed to the bedroom, opening up the nightstand drawer and fumbling around inside. Withdrawing the object from the far back, he considered it grimly for a beat, before gritting his teeth and resolutely taking it back to where Barbara was now rocking herself.

"Babs? Hey, look: Remember this?"

She ceased instantly when she saw the Batarang suspended in front of her.

"You always felt safe whenever Batman and Robin were around, right? Nothing… bad can happen to you as long as they're there."

Sentiment welled in her ducts as she reached out tentatively for the reminder, cradling it close to her breast.

"Just in case you run into trouble up there."

"Dick… Bruce…"

Tim drew her in towards him in a compassionate embrace, soothingly stroking her quivering back as if she were the child.

"It's okay, Babs. It's okay." He reiterated the phrase in her ear. "You're okay. I'm… okay. We're okay."

They stayed like that for a while, and eventually the shudders and sniffles subsided as she seemed to fall into a fitful sleep. While she still whimpered occasionally, holding the Batarang nearer did appear to help somewhat.

Just then, he heard the opening and closing of the front door as Roy returned from his "date", bounding up the steps and stopping short upon witnessing the scene before him.

"Whoahey, am I interrupting something?"

He grinned, and Tim scowled at the guy's terrible timing.

"This isn't what it looks like. Just hurry up and help me get her to the bed."

Roy was about to open his mouth to make another snide remark, but promptly shut it upon seeing the searing look Tim speared at him, and the sweat and tears on the moaning visitor's visage. Switching into serious mode, he lent a steady hand with supporting her to the mattress. He was still a hero himself, after all, always available to aid any damsels in distress.

As he agreed to take over looking after the patient for the time being, Tim thanked him and left the bedside temporarily, pulling out his cell again as he traveled downstairs. Inhaling deeply, he began to punch in another number he knew all too well, forever engraved in the back of his skull.

After a couple rings, the other end picked up with a gruff greeting.

"…Yes?"

The cold, almost impatient lack of pleasantry was all Tim needed to confirm he had indeed reached the right person.

"Bruce, it's me. …Barbara needs help."

…

When Barbara finally awoke, the first thing she spotted was Tim sitting on a reversed chair next to her, chin reposed idly on his forearms.

"Hey."

"…Hey."

"How are you feeling?"

"Better, I guess. …How long was I out?"

"The whole night. You were tossing and turning a lot."

She elevated gradually, sensing a moist towel fall from her crown onto the sheets in the process. Had he been nursing her this whole time?

As she tracked its descent, she saw she was still adhering to the Batarang as well. She blushed a bit at how babyish she must have seemed, to have to rely on something like this to calm her down.

"Um, thanks. …You can have this back now."

He relieved her of the improvised crutch, and in exchange he handed her a small vial of medication.

"Here, take this. It's similar to what Dr. Thompkins used to give me, but more concentrated. It's not a permanent cure, but it should help with the terrors. It'll likely knock you totally out for a few more days, but you won't have to suffer nightmares during it. If it doesn't work or you're still experiencing symptoms afterwards, call her and she'll adjust the dosage."

"You got this from Leslie?"

"Bruce did."

She gaped in astonishment.

"You actually spoke to him?"

"He just told me what I needed to know, then hung up and sent Alfred over with the stuff. …Typical, huh?"

His jaw drooped a little further into folds, as did his tired-looking lids.

"You're not the first Scarecrow victim to undergo relapses like this. It's rare, but everyone responds to the fear serum differently. Yours is a more severe case."

Barbara thought about how many others had to live their lives in a compromised state (or lost them entirely) all because of some psychopath who kept breaking out of Arkham – no matter how many times they put him back in – if not released through the revolving door due to (hell, courtesy of) all the corruption in the system. How many lives were really spared, while others still suffered because of their incompetence? Inconsequence.

"You know, sometimes I wonder: If what we were doing was ever really the right thing? After what happened with the earthquake… God, I don't know. Maybe this city is beyond hope. …In the end, did we even make any difference? Was it worth it – any of it? We've saved a bunch of people, sure, but at what cost? I mean, just look at us… We're a mess."

Tim simply shrugged.

"At least Dick's still doing okay over in Blüdhaven. And Bruce seems to be handling things fine on his own. Besides, it's not like he ever really needed us anyway. Because he's Batman."

Barbara observed as Tim toyed with the Batarang in his hands, balancing the tip on the chair back. She dropped her view towards the blankets.

"…You're not him, you know," she pronounced harshly. "You'll never be him."

Her own fingers fumbled with the damp napkin, and bottle of medicine, before looking up again with a smile.

"But, that's not a bad thing."

As she said this, she extended out to pat his cheek, noting the dark bags under his eyes. Had he even slept at all, she wondered? …Then again, she was probably taking up his bed, she realized with sudden embarrassment.

Tim seemed even more embarrassed by the affectionate contact, turning away with a cough. The memory of what she had done surged back to her cheeks, and she hastily detached, nervously tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, which bloomed a matching humiliated hue.

"Listen, about what happened last night…"

Tim merely waved off whatever she was about to say in advance.

"We were both drunk. It doesn't count."

"…You're awfully quick to dismiss." Detecting his fidgeting, she gleamed in comprehension. "Ah, don't tell me – you've never kissed anyone before?"

A pure pink tinge faintly colored his complexion, corroborating her suspicion.

"Ehehe, did I steal your first kiss, Boy Virgin?"

"Sh- shut up."

His flush deepened further.

"It's not like I've exactly had much opportunity to try it," he murmured in his defense. "…Besides, if we're counting that kind of thing, technically my first time would've been with Dick."

"Oh."

He sniped a sulk at her reaction.

"I gave him CPR once. What were you thinking?"

"Nothing," she declared innocently, hand hovering over her mouth to obstruct a snicker. "I bet this time was a lot better though. I'm sure you must've thoroughly enjoyed it, if not to some extent."

Tim averted his eyes again as she winked at him.

"Wh- who knows."

"Oh please. Don't deny you were the least bit curious. You think I never noticed you sneaking peeks while we were getting changed?"

Tim burned burgundy as he shifted sight down to his toes.

"I was 13. What'd you expect?"

She nodded sagely.

"You are a boy, after all. It's only natural for these things to occur."

She giggled in entertainment at his expense. When the chuckles died down, she checked the time on the alarm clock by the pillow.

"…I guess I should get going now. I'll need to call in to the station to tell them I'm taking the next days off."

He helped see her out. Standing awkwardly in the entrance, he rubbed his neck before addressing encouragingly.

"You're a great cop, Barb. You're gonna do a lot of good things for this city. I know you'll make it a better place."

She beamed.

"Thank you, Tim. …I'll start by confiscating 'this'."

She held up the contraband, which Roy had taken the liberty of hiding again, but there was no way he could outsmart a Bat, even if she wore a different symbol now.

"And I better not catch you with anything like this again, or I will take you in. Got it?"

Tim winced at the strict lecture and slap on the wrist, but nodded. Barbara softened as she reached around to envelop in a broad hug.

"…Don't be a stranger, Tim. You're the only one I can still talk to about all this."

He wavered, but kindly reciprocated the gesture. As she withdrew, she raised an arm to lightly pet his hair, discerning he had finally hit that growth spurt; he was almost at her height now.

"Listen. Someday, you're gonna meet someone special, who loves you just the way you are. And she's gonna be so lucky to have you in her life."

Tim scoffed.

"Yeah, right. Like that's ever gonna happen."

She took his hands in hers. Hands that still twitched and trembled every once in a while, as if afraid to even be touched. Hands that had, in his opinion, committed the greatest act of transgression, taking another's soul and doomed toll on his own – but had also toiled all night to keep changing her cool kerchief, tending and tenderly wiping her temple in enduring devotion to charitable ideals. That had prostrated and prayed, begging for a favor from "God" for her sake, subjugating self in spite of whatever spiteful feelings he bore towards said sore subject. …That had rescued so many lives at the risk of his own, without asking for any reward other than to have a place to call "home", and a "family" who cared for him as much as he did for them. (And even that had been mostly taken from him too, something for which she regretfully shared the blame.)

"Don't give up hope. Things will change. It's gonna get better. I promise."

She stooped forward to peck his cheek, before letting go.

"Thank you, again, for everything. I'll see you around, Tim."

"Yeah. See ya."

She left with a wave, and he halfheartedly did the same as he watched her go.

…

About a week later, after she'd fully recovered and gone back to work as good as new, she received an urgent call from Roy at the hospital.

…

Tim had tried to kill himself.

————————–

That sky glowed all calico, like phosphor in the sea To the ground we fall, she owns us all Kings and boys and beast Kings and boys and beast

#TimSteph #Tim Drake #Timmy Todd #Stephanie Brown #Barbara Gordon #Batman the Animated Series #Batman Beyond #DCAU #Return of the Joker #fanfiction #starstories #*prepares for pitchforks*

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thelittleredheadedmusician · 4 years ago

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My high school dating experience is like a teen movie:

My first (of 2) boyfriend I started dating in eighth grade and it was The Most middle school relationship. He asked me out via note w/ the check yes or no boxes & everything. I was in band (& orchestra) all thru school & my best friend did chorus with him, I found out later that she talked him into asking me out cause he had a massive crush on me (which is why he’d been avoiding me while I was pissed cause we’d been friends since kindergarten). But, he asked me out. We went to A Lot of movies w/ one of our parents. We played pool & hung out in my pool. It was all really innocent and sweet. We even went to build a bear together.

(First sign I was ace, he & my friends conspired so he could kiss me & they covered as he took me onto my back patio & tried. I just noped out of there & never kissed him. Ever. No regrets on that one.)

We get to high school: I’m in marching band & have new friends & he’s in cross country & stops by our practices after his, meets my friends, & it’s fine. School starts, he meets me at my locker at the end of the day, walks me to the bus, we chat, & all our friends (freshman music nerds) think we’re adorable & life’s fine. At least I think it is. Then the kiss thing happened. A few weeks later he walks me to the bus & breaks up with me. I’m blindsided but not heartbroken cause like I’m me & it wasn’t ever really all that serious. But it’s over. Whatever. I’ve borrowed the book Wicked from a friend to read for the first time & I’m deeply invested so it’s fine.

Our schedules never lined up during the day & I’d texted our friends that he’d broken it off right away so I’m no longer thinking about it by the next day. I’m sitting in biology reading Wicked waiting for class to start when this flute player a year older then me comes rushing in. (I would later grow to hate her but the feeling was mutual & does not relate to this story.) She comes up to me & goes “I just saw something & it’s really going to hurt you but I feel the need to tell you.” Now I’m self aware enough to say I’m a bit of a masochist when it comes to my feelings so I tell her to just say it. She goes “Your boyfriend’s cheating on you. I just saw [now ex-boyfriend] making out with some girl in the hall.” I blink at her & go: “Oh. Ok. Well we broke up so. That’s kinda fast but like whatever. He can do what he wants I guess.” She flips out. I shrug it off. Biology starts.

About a week later I’m approached by a trumpet player friend a year older than me saying he really needed to talk to me about this guy. We weren’t super close (we would get close but not from this) & I had probably gotten my hands on The New Teen Titans by this point & was tearing thru those so I’m curious but not concerned. He tells me that he has lunch with Ex & had since the beginning of the school year, that Ex apparently didn’t have any friends in this lunch but saw a bunch of band kids, knew they were my friends, & asked to sit w/ them. They were apparently very confused but agreed & that was that. One of the senior band kids had another senior friend who sat w/ them too so this table was all band kids, Ex, & this senior girl. Apparently, Girl was flirting w/ him from the start but he said he had a girlfriend & that I was in band but she never let up. My friend goes on to tell me eventually Ex started flirting back & as of a week ago they’d started acting all coupley & kissing at lunch; he knows we broke up but he thinks she convinced Ex to do it & the whole thing just isn’t sitting right &!that I should know. I thank him, say it’s weird Ex would sit w/ my friends & not his own to begin w/, am now a little mad, & the two of us keep talking about it but really that’s that.

2 weeks after we’ve broken up Ex starts acting weird & rude to our mutual freshmen friends, including my best friend who set us up. Eventually he stops talking to them all together & says it’s cause his girlfriend doesn’t want him talking to other girls, especially none that are friends with me. Trumpet player tells me that she’s started being Super controlling w/ Ex at lunch & about a month after I’m mad cause this girl is lowkey abusive, making all of my friends miserable, trashing me, & I don’t even know who she is. They go to prom together, he seems thrilled, everyone else is super pissed that she’s controlling him & that he doesn’t see it. Meanwhile, I haven’t spoken to him since we broke up.

The next year we end up in English class together. We became friends in kindergarten because the miracle of the alphabet meant we sat next to each other. Guess what happens? Yup. Well the room is weird so he’s actually in front of me, I can only get to my desk shoved in the corner by passing him. The first day he didn’t even look at me. The next day I cornered him & pretty much said “we’re going to have to work together. I’m not even mad. Can you just talk to me? If you don’t want to be friends we don’t have to.” He apologized, said they broke up & he was taking a break from dating & we went back to being friends! He started talking to his old friends again! Then he went back to normal. & then slowly turned into a dick. But that was on his own w/out a controlling girlfriend.

Second relationship had drama prior to me entering the picture.

When I was a freshman the band’s assistant drum major was a junior who (for her hair) we’re gonna call Ginger. She was a piccolo, super talented, strong willed, could be mean, but mostly just driven & outgoing. She was going on four years dating the tuba player, also a junior, who was quiet, funny, super nice, & a bit of a little shit. They were the band power couple & everyone knew it. Now, Ginger & I quickly became friends because we had really similar personalities & just clicked (we also kinda looked alike though I was taller & my hair was darker).

Their senior year there was a group of us who hung out all the time & were just close. It was mostly seniors including them, myself, & a few others. Ginger was drum major & it was really obvious to everyone in band I was going to be drum major one day too.

That year was fun! Then the seniors all graduated & were off to college. The power couple were going to school together & we all just kinda thought they’d graduate, get married, buy a house & have kids. & their kids would do band. That’s a nope.

In September a girl their year from the guard got a Snapchat from a guy friend of hers. He was sitting on his bed with a girl in his lap. Who she recognized. As Ginger. She immediately texted the tuba boy saying “this is really awkward & I feel awful but I think Ginger is cheating on you.” He confronts Ginger & she admits to it. They break up.

I’m a junior in high school, bummed most of my friends graduated & being slowly driven miserable by the drum major (flute player from before!). I had been texting my friends while they were at college, Ginger stops texting back & Tuba Boy tells me about the breakup. I tell him I’m sorry but I’m here for him. We end up texting A Lot & wound up getting really close and in December he asks me out. Not knowing what else to do I say yes.

Our first date I’ve actually talked about on here before. It’s in my high school story tag & is worth the look. We were hot gossip for the next 6 months until it was decided I wasn’t a rebound despite indicators. We broke up after I started college (almost 2 years later) & he still buys his mom flowers from my mom.

#personal #true story from high school #long post #i owe 100% sober theater kid house party in the woods stories #thats next on my bs mini memoirs that these lowkey are lol

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redarro · 5 years ago

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top 10 dc characters?

10. Wally West: Notice how like most of this list is going to be titans lmaooo. Wally is a really rad character but unfortunately is treated like shit because DC Hates Gingers. Also him and Linda are absolutely precious and a love story for the ages.

9. Stephanie Brown: The most badass Robin. By far and away. Hit Bruce. Doesn't put up with his shit. We had to stan!

8. Koriand'r: Not to sound like a total nerd (I say making a list of my favorite DC characters) but shes so fucking cool. Like an alien princess who shoots fire and light and shit? Dope. I love her and I refuse to expand on that.

7. Dick Grayson: I know it's surprising that Laney "I have 3 Dick Grayson posters" Redarro has him so low on the list, but there are a few arcs where he :/ isn't my favorite. I am very interested in him as a character and he's in like, all my favorite teams but he's always my second favorite on any given team, ya know? I love him but he isn't my no. 1 by any means

6. Zatanna Zatara: She's badass and magic and shit like who WOULDN'T love her?!

5. Kyle Rayner: My cinnamon apple! My fucking babey! He was the first superhero I got REALLY into when I was younger. I love his dialogue, his sense of humor; he's just really fun okay.

4. Jason Todd: Under the Red Hood is my favorite arc of any comic, the writing knocks the wind out of me EVERY time. Jason has so much potential for growth as a character and I would love to see a good author really give him the growth beyond "hurr de hurrr Batman should kill ppl" like he has so much potential!

3. Dinah Lance: The only ogJustice League member on the list bc we love her. When I was like, 4? my dad was giving me the run down of characters in DC and he was like "there's this girl who rides motorcycles and wears leather jackets and she has a scream so loud she can break glass" and my loudass little kid brain was like :O like I knew she was one of my favs. I love her characterizations and stories as a whole she's legitimately one of my favorites

2. Donna Troy: Donna is iconic in literally every sense of the word and has some of the most interesting stories. Her character is rich and I will literally never forgive early 2000's teen titans animated series for not including her. She's the heart of any team and the most badass character.

1. Roy Harper: I was about to chose Donna as no. 1, but for me when it comes down to it, I love Roy. I love his characterization, his sense of humor, and how human he is. Every time he gets punched down or dealt the shittiest cards, he always gets back up. I love his writing when he's not with Jason and I think he is genuinely the most interesting DC character and anyways I would die for him carryon

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orbemnews · 4 years ago

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Not Your Pre-Pandemic Las Vegas A decade ago, after a rained-out Thanksgiving desert camping trip with our five kids, my wife, Kristin, and I headed to the nearest available lodging, the now-shuttered Hard Rock Casino in Las Vegas. Watching our brood eat their Thanksgiving meal as cigarette smoke and slot-machine clamor wafted over their cheeseburgers, Kristin and I locked eyes with an unspoken message: We are the world’s worst parents. We have avoided Las Vegas with the kids since then, but an aborted drive to slushy Aspen this April with three of our heirs caused us to pause in Vegas. At the time, the city was just awakening from its Covid slumber, with mandatory masks and limited capacity in most indoor spaces, traffic so light that cars were drag-racing down the normally packed Strip, and a lingering, troubling question over the whole place: Will this reopening really be safe? But extraordinary things have been happening during this slumber, and while we were only going to spend one night there, we had so much fun that we ended up staying four. At first we spent most of our time in the relative safety of the outdoors, but then we started to relax along with the rest of the city, drowning our hands beneath the ubiquitous liquid sanitizer dispensers, masking up and heading indoors. I knew things had shifted in Sin City when, while maneuvering the minivan through some seemingly dicey neighborhood between Downtown and the Strip, I noted on the back alley wall of a hair salon a striking mural depicting the cult outsider artist Henry Darger’s seven Vivian Girl warriors in their trademark yellow dresses. What were the Vivian Girls doing here? Farther along, Vegas’s ghost-town adult stores, shuttered warehouses and other buildings were also sporting increasingly elaborate murals: a blood-squirting horned lizard spanning half a city block; a dog with an impressively slobbering tongue piloting an open cockpit plane; a colorful phoenix and dragon rising like fireworks from an empty parking lot — all producing collective surprised “Wows!” from inside our minivan. Las Vegas, it seems, is emerging from the Covid crisis as a place of spectacle and creativity, especially outside the air-conditioned gambling ghettos of the Strip. Over the next four days we did a lot of walking, crawling, flying and even railroading, all of it away from the casinos. We explored the Arts District, an area that has gone into hyper drive — so much so that we waited 30 minutes to get into my once “secret” Colombian breakfast joint, Makers & Finders — and wandered along Spring Mountain Road, the hub of the city’s Chinatown, rapidly expanding westward. In the midcentury mecca of East Fremont Street, a $350 million investment by the tech titan Tony Hsieh, who died last year, has produced a boulevard of fantastical art installations, restored buildings and a sculptural playground surrounded by stacked shipping containers converted to boutiques and cafes, all guarded by a giant, fire-spewing, steel praying mantis. “Vegas is going through a cultural renaissance,” a former member of the city’s Arts Commission, Brian “Paco” Alvarez, told me in a recent telephone interview. “A lot of the local culture that comes out of a city with two million unusually creative people didn’t stop during the pandemic.” A mysterious, windowless building The most striking newcomer is Area15, which opened in February in a mysterious, airport-hanger-size, windowless building two miles west of the Strip. Imagine an urban Burning Man mall (indeed, many of the sculptures and installations came from the annual arts festival held in northern Nevada), with some dozen tenants providing everything from virtual reality trips to nonvirtual ax throwing, accompanied by Day-Glo color schemes, electronic music, giant interactive art installations and guests flying overhead on seats attached to ceiling rails. Face masks are currently only mandatory in Area15 for self-identified unvaccinated people, though some of the attractions within still require face masks for everyone. Everywhere, we encountered the constant presence of cleaning attendants spraying and wiping surfaces. On the second floor of Area15’s art riot I met an old acquaintance from New York, Chris Wink, one of the co-founders of the joyously weird Blue Man Group, who was bringing his creative magic to Area15 in the form of a “Psychedelic Art House Meets Carnival Funhouse” called Wink World (adult tickets start at $18). Wink World is centered around six rooms with infinity mirror boxes reflecting Slinkys, plasma balls, fan spinners, Hoberman Spheres and ribbons dancing to an ethereal soundtrack of electronic music, rhythmic chanting and heavy breathing. “I worked on these installations for six years in my living room in New York,” Mr. Wink told me. “I was trying to evoke psychedelic experiences without medicine.” My unmedicated children were transfixed, as if these familiar toys frolicking into eternity were totems to their own personal nirvanas. I’ve never seen them stand so still in front of an art exhibit. Lava-filled caves and artificial lawns Omega Mart (adult admissions start at $45, face mask and temperature check mandatory), the biggest attraction in the complex, lines one side of the complex’s atrium and seemed — at first — to provide a banal respite from Area15’s sensory overload. Along the sale aisles I found Nut Free Salted Peanuts, Gut Monkey Ginger Ale and cans of Camels Implied Chicken Sop. My kids, good campers, immediately ducked into a small demonstration tent erected in the back of the store. They never came out again. A hidden entry brought them through the wall and into a world of artificial lawns, lava-filled caves, drab offices, a desert canyon, locker rooms, a secret bar and other divergent spaces often linked by hidden entrances. “Pull every knob and open every closet you see, Dad,” my daughter, Vivian, breathlessly advised as she whizzed by me for the fourth time in this 52,000-square-foot maze. Created by the renowned Santa Fe artist collective Meow Wolf (the name derived from pulling two random words from a hat during their first meeting), Omega Mart is an amalgamation of some 325 artists’ creations tied together by disparate overlapping story lines which one can follow — or not. For a short time, I tracked the story of the takeover of Omega Mart’s corporate headquarters by a hilariously manipulative New Agey daughter, and then got sidelined into the tale of a teen herbalist leading a rebellion to something else. I have no idea what I experienced other than that Brian Eno composed the music to one of the installations. None of my kids could explain what they experienced either, other than something mind-expanding. If it wasn’t for dinner, we might still be in there. Feasting in Chinatown Dinner! The choices are dizzying and there are now 10 Michelin-starred restaurants in the city. We weren’t going to any of them. Leaving Area15, even the distant lights of the Strip seemed relatively calming. But we were driving the opposite direction, to Chinatown. A decade ago, Chinatown was mainly a small enclave of restaurants and shops behind an ornate red gate overlooking a strip mall called Chinatown Plaza, catering to Vegas’s growing wave of Asian immigrants. Chinatown has now expanded to the far reaches of Spring Mountain Road, a desert Hong Kong of neon signs in Mandarin, Japanese, Vietnamese and Korean, advertising restaurants, coffee houses, foot-massage salons and lots of stuff I couldn’t read. Our goal was an unlikely corner of a strip mall, where hides, in the Jones family’s collective opinion, the best Japanese restaurant in North America, Raku. Step behind an understated white backlit sign and you enter an aged wood interior of an intimate restaurant that you might find off a Kyoto alley. We slid into the family-style tables behind the main dining room and commenced to feast. There’s a $100 tasting menu if you are feeling adult, but my tribe ordered cream-like tofu with dried fish, foie gras skewers and a dozen other items. Chinatown became our go-to-spot for snacks and boba tea between adventures. A favorite spot became Pho 90, a low-key Vietnamese cafe with outstanding noodle dishes and exquisitely layered banh mi sandwiches for picnics in the wild. Beyond the city Las Vegas’s expanding grid abruptly surrenders to the desert, which might be the most overlooked part of Vegas family vacations. Red Rock Canyon, 17 miles west of the Strip, is like walking into a Road Runner cartoon with a Technicolor ballet of clashing tectonic formations. We grabbed our admittedly reluctant brood on a 2.4-mile, round-trip hike on the Keystone Thrust Trail through a series of gullies until we emerged above epic white limestone cliffs jutting through the ocher-colored mountains. Here we had our Vietnamese picnic overlooking the monolithic casinos in the distance. Our last night’s excursion into nature didn’t take any persuasion: Half an hour’s drive south to Boulder City, a company called Rail Explorers has set up rail bike tours on the abandoned tracks leading to the Hoover Dam construction site. We booked a sunset tour (from $85 to $150 for a tandem quad bike). After some quick instruction, we, along with three dozen other visitors, climbed into an 800-pound, four-person Korean-made bike rig and, giving the group ahead of us a three-minute head start for some space, started peddling. Our route was along four miles of desert track gently sloping into a narrowing canyon pass. As we effortlessly peddled at 10 miles per hour, we noticed that the spikes holding down the railroad ties were often crooked or missing. “I bet these were all driven in by hand,” my teenage son, Cody, a history buff, noted. In the enveloping dusk, we glimpsed shadows moving along the sagebrush: bighorn sheep, goats and other critters emerging for their nocturnal wanderings. But the most surreal sight was at the end of the ride, where a giant backlit sign for a truck stop casino appeared over a desert butte — Vegas was beckoning us back, but now we welcomed the summons. Here we were, peddling into the sunset, feeling more athletic, cool and (gasp!) enlightened than when we first rolled into Vegas four days ago. Oh what good parents we were! “The moniker of ‘Sin City’ is totally wrong,” Mr. Alvarez told me, “if you know where to look.” Source link Orbem News #Las #prepandemic #Vegas

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dem-obscure-imagines · 7 years ago

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UPDATED CHARACTER LIST 7/28/17

Aaaaaaaaye ya girl got all the Twilight movies, so you know what that means!

New Characters:

Digger Harkness (Suicide Squad)

Seth Clearwater (Twilight)

Emmet Cullen (Twilight)

Brett Willis (KC Undercover)

Benny Weir (My Babysitter’s A Vampire)

Ethan Morgan (My Babysitter’s A Vampire)

Erica (My Babysitter’s A Vampire)

Sarah (My Babysitter’s A Vampire)

Alex Summers (X-Men)

Scott Summers (X-Men)

All Characters:

Rodrick Heffley (Diary of a Wimpy Kid)

Prince Zuko (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

Marty McFly (Back to the Future)

The Nutcracker/Prince Eric (Barbie in the Nutcracker)

Duncan (Total Drama)

Alejandro (Total Drama)

Gwen (Total Drama)

Ahkmenrah (Night at the Museum)

Jedidiah (Night at the Museum)

Nicky Daley (Night at the Museum)

Tumnus (Narnia)

Peter Pevensie (Narnia)

Susan Pevensie (Narnia)

Edmund Pevensie (Narnia)

Lucy Pevensie (Narnia)

Tadashi Hamada (Big Hero 6)

Honey Lemon (Big Hero 6)

Wasabi (Big Hero 6)

Fred (Big Hero 6)

Prince Adam/Beast (Beauty and the Beast)

Gaston (Beauty and the Beast)

Lumiere (Beauty and the Beast)

Belle (Beauty and the Beast)

Dave Lizewski (Kick-Ass)

Mindy McCready (Kick-Ass)

Jack Frost (Rise of the Guardians)

Bunnymund (Rise of the Guardians)

Bernard the Elf (The Santa Clause)

Nod (Epic)

R (Warm Bodies)

Percy Jackson (Percy Jackson)

Grover (Percy Jackson)

Tyson (Percy Jackson Movieverse)

Doug (Disney Descendants)

Jay (Disney Descendants)

Carlos (Disney Descendants)

Chad (Disney Descendants)

Gil (Disney Descendants)

Harry Hook (Disney Descendants)

Uma (Disney Descendants)

Mal (Disney Descendants)

Evie (Disney Descendants)

Lonnie (Disney Descendants)

Warren Peace (Sky High)

Drax the Destroyer (Guardians of the Galaxy)

Warpath (X-Men: Days of Future Past)

Ned (Spiderman: Homecoming)

MJ (Spiderman: Homecoming)

Diaval (Maleficent)

Luke (Halloweentown)

Thackery Binx (Hocus Pocus)

Zack (Goosebumps)

Champ (Goosebumps)

Wolfgang (Sense8)

Nomi (Sense8)

Riley (Sense8)

Danny Fenton (Danny Phantom)

Cyborg (Teen Titans)

Beast Boy (Teen Titans)

Raven (Teen Titans)

Jefferson Jackson (Legends of Tomorrow)

Cisco Ramon (The Flash)

Wally West (The Flash)

Roy Harper (Arrow)

Ben Tennyson (Ben 10 Alien Force)

Kevin Levin (Ben 10 Alien Force)

Gwen Tennyson (Ben 10 Alien Force)

Peter Pan (Once Upon a Time; Peter Pan (2003))

Henry Mills (Once Upon a Time)

Napoleon Solo (The Man from U.N.C.L.E.)

Illya Kuryakin (The Man from U.N.C.L.E.)

Eggsy Unwin (Kingsman)

David Bowen (L.O.S.T. and F.O.U.N.D.)

Archer Reynolds (L.O.S.T. and F.O.U.N.D.)

Brian Martin (L.O.S.T. and F.O.U.N.D.)

Viktor Ivanov (L.O.S.T. and F.O.U.N.D.)

Mia Crane (L.O.S.T. and F.O.U.N.D.)

Ginger Williams (L.O.S.T. and F.O.U.N.D.)

Summer Laurence (L.O.S.T. and F.O.U.N.D.)

Natalia Ivanov (L.O.S.T. and F.O.U.N.D.)

#character list #updated character list

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let-the-music-take-c0ntrol · 8 years ago

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TV shows and movies I remember from my childhood

Cheaper By The Dozen: I remember the first time I ever saw this movie. I was at my dad’s for the weekend and we were eating spinach pizza with ranch (don’t judge me) and I was so in love with the kid that played Jake.

Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2: I remember this one the most because Mickey D’s forgot to give me honey mustard for my nuggets and my dad tried making me some. Also I thought Sabrina Bryan from The Cheetah Girls was in this movie, but it was Skyler Shaye,who kinda looks like Sabrina Bryan.

The Cheetah Girls: I know all these songs by heart and I remember fighting with my sister and cousin over who would be which Cheetah Girl

Bring It On: I mean who hasn’t seen this and again fought with my sister and cousin over which side we were on

Spy Kids: I was obsessed with the Spy Kids movies. I remember my dad taking me to see all the movies in the theater and he would fall asleep halfway through and snore.

Hotel for Dogs: This cheesy ass movie stayed with me because Jake T. Austin was in it and so was Emma Roberts

Wizards of Waverly Place: I might still like wizardry, knowing full and well that it’s not real but who cares

Unfabulous: Spending the weekend at my grandparents and just watching this show was the best. Also I could never see why Addie liked Jake. I liked that one dude she dated. The one who had all those allergies. . .she kissed him after eating a peanut butter cookie and he had to leave for the hospital

Zoey 101: EVERYONE ASKING CHASE IF THAT WAS HIS REAL HAIR!

Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide: This was my show and I would like to think it helped me through middle school

Invader Zim: THIS SHOW IS COMING BACK. I have no idea why I liked this show but I did

Danny Phantom: Yo Danny Phantom, he was just fourteen when his parents built a very strange machine” I can rap that whole intro. This was my favorite show

Fairly Odd Parents: After the years I’ve lost track of this show. . .last I heard of it Timmy got a fairy god dog. I loved this show.

Jimmy Neutron: When I say I sat watching this show 24/7 I MEAN IT! I loved this show and then Fairly Odd Parents and Jimmy Neutron did a whole mashup

The Suit Life of Zack and Cody: My mom enjoyed this show, so you know it was genuine!

Proud Family: I miss this show. Like I really really miss this show. They should make a live action one

The Wild Thornberrys: Okay if you did not cry during the movie when she lost her power you are lying

Lazy Town: Imma leave this here cause I saw the memes

Pb & J Otter: “Do the noodle dance”

Big Comfy Couch: This show made clowns less scary

Between the Lions: This was a fantastic show. Like PBS Kids had some pretty great shows. Also did Cliff Hanger ever get rescued from that cliff?

Liberty Kids: I think my interest in history comes from this show because without it I would take naps in history class

Cheetah Girls 2: Need I say more. All the best songs came from this movie. I also remember trying the hostess Ding Dong cakes while watching this

Shark Tale: All the references to other movies in this one movie was great, but I also want to know what possessed them to make this movie?

As Told By Ginger: About two years ago I looked this show up on YouTube and reminisced

Out of the Box: “So long farewell to you my friends. Goodbye for now until we meet again” This show was so creative and wholesome

Bear in the Big Blue House: That moon gave me nightmare

Scooby-Doo: I remember the old Boomerang cartoons, the movies, the spin-offs, which they still make, Scooby-Doo was life

Maya and Miguel: This show was amazing. I mostly remember the chupacabra episode

Cyber Chase: Fucking Christopher Loyd was in this show. How can you not watch it!

Clifford the Big Red Dog: Mack was such an asshole of a dog sometimes, but another wholesome show

Zoom: “Come on and Zoom. Come on and Zoom, Come on and Zooma zooma zooma ZOOM!” When I was younger whenever I made myself ice cream I would pretend I was on the cooking segment of this show

Titanic: I recently went to the Titanic Exhibit and it was amazing. According to my mom I had an imaginary friend named Jack and because of my love for Dicarpio I’m pretty sure that character was my imaginary friend

Zeke and Luther: I can’t explain why I liked this show but I remember the guy that played Cookie from Ned’s Declassified was on here.

The Powerpuff Girls: THE REMAKE IS HORRIBLE!

The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy: I enjoyed this show so much. I think Netflix once had it, but now it’s gone

Dexter’s Laboratory: DeeDee is a deceiving girl and you know it!

Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends: I still watch this show on Hulu and it’s still amazing

Ed, Edd, and Eddy: I was in love with Double D case and point. Though these boys were stupid

Courage the Cowardly Dog: Why did I haunt myself by watching this at night?

Rugrats: I remember all their movies and eating a philly cheese steak while watching their first movie

Code Name: Kid’s Next Door: This was my all time favorite. I was really into spy stuff and even during book fairs got to by like a “how to be a spy” book

Johnny Bravo: As I look at this show now all I can say is he is in fact a Fuckboy.

All That: I vaguely remember this but it was good

Good Burger: Kennan and Kel man. These two were funny as heck

Hey Arnold: Football head and then he found out Helga liked him in the movie

Recess: This was an amazing show and my mom’s favorite thing to watch at that

Rocket Power: Woogide woogide woogide

Kim Possible: Again I loved secret agent stuff and when Kim and Ron ended up with each other at the end I was so happy. “Hicka hicka boo” “Whoosha”

Legends of the Hidden Temple: Those gate masters scared the hell out of me but I loved this game show!

Not Another Teen Movie: When I realized Chris Evans, the same guy that plays Captian America played Jake Wyler I lost it!

Hoodwinked: I’m proud to say I know every song in this movie too

The Haunted Mansion: Eddie Murphy is so funny to me and this movie was scary

Minute Men: *clears throat* I may still be in love with Luke Benward

Mostly Ghostly: kjfaljfladsjkf I saw they made a remake and I can’t bring myself to watch that movie

Halloween Town: I love Halloween and this movie was my all time favorite. I still watch this now.

Twitches: Okay Disney Channel had a knack for making great movies

Quints: ajfdkllkj can you imagine that many holy crap. This was a good and out of the box movie

Luck of the Irish: I like this movie and every year Disney Channel plays it plus I was in love with the main character which leads me to

Smart House: I would obsess over this movie because again I was in love with that kid. . .what is his name?

How To Eat Fried Worms: This movie was crazy from start to finish but I liked it

Inkwell: I refuse to discuss this movie

National Treasure: oh yes. I remember eating some subs and garlic fries, sitting on the floor of my mom’s room while I watched this movie

The DaVinci Code: I’m still upset that Tom Hanks played the role of Robert Langdon and not Nicholas Cage

Pirate of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl: I’m obsessed with Pirates and these movies!

Smallville: Okay this show was so great. I love when the make different stories around the superheros

Gossip Girl: I own all the seasons. I remember the first time I ever watched this show. I was like eight or nine and for some reason it intrigued me

All My Children: My grandma got me into soap operas

The Color of Friendship: If you have not seen this beautiful movie go watch it. Thought the original story is super sad

Tuck Everlasting: This movie was really interesting. I remember watching this at my friend’s house in Nebraska and swooning over the guy that played Jesse

I’m gonna leave it here but I hope everyone else could reminisce with me and add on if you feel like sharing. These are all the ones I can remember off the top of my head though.

#okay this was a long list #what happens when I take a shower without music #I get lost in my thoughts and this happens #hope y'all enjoyed it #my life #my childhood #me

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