#this show would probably end up focusing on the adults a lot more

[payaso-gomi]

Oh yeah I'm doinng a little Danny Phantom rewrite for fun! I love the show, I just wanna see how I'd go about something because I dunno Ghost Boy story sounds fun

You can read my character ramblings under the cut 💖💖

Danny's been a bit hard, I just don't know what to do with him. He did go through quite a rewrite in my head too, I like him in the show and all I just think he's different to how I would have approached him. Teenage boy dies and comes back Different is such a interesting concept and I wanted to try that out. I'd definitely make the trans thing much more of a Thing, make it a Straight Up thing. I think his story would be mostly about finding out who he is, qhich is lowkey what the show's about. More religious imagery and talking though, lmao. He might get renamed altogether, he looks like a Quinn to me idk

Tucker's been the hardest to do something I have fun with because I never really connected with his character in the show. I see this Tucker as a bit of a obssessor, an otaku if you will. He's a shut in, really really good at video games (rythm and RPGs particularly), he listens to a lot of very different electronic music (buddy's not ready for puggnb, he'd love that stuff). If he's interested in something he'll learn everything about it and buy way too much merch (or make it if he has to, Sam planted a DIY worm in him). He has a lot of fictional crushes, most of the anime girls (and a few boys but he's still deeply in the closet here). His main fixation is technology, particularly computer parts and all the stuff involved with that. When he was little he was known for breaking calculators or whatever gadgets and devices he could because he liked to see how they were made. he later learned to disassemble them without breaking them lmao)

Sam's been the easiest, I understand her character the most tbh. I know a couple of people who are very invested in political and social movements and tbh making her a little too focused on that stuff is interesting (and. Potentially funny). Maybe she takes things too seriously, and ends ip getting herself in trouble. Would focus a lot on her relationship with her family (her mom, specifically). She's super super diy, most of her clothes are thrifted. she has the money for new stuff but refuses (or can't for the most part. She does spend her money on music and has a very impressive CD catalog. She would dilute her style a lot more around her family because as much as she's a punk queen, she doesn't want to hear her family's comments on her clothing and her messy makeup. Sticks and stones and all that but it does hurt to hear someone you're close to negatively comment on something you care about

[ilovetopgunsstuff]

HI. I’m not sure if you take Joe Burrow requests for one shots? But if you do, can you write one that focuses on his hands? And bonus points for thigh riding too :)

quality time

prompt- it’s been a while, and joe has to give you some sort of apology for making you wait this long

joe burrow x reader

warnings: SMUT MINORS DNI

sorry for the wait i’ve been so busy with school

It had definitely been a while. Between games and practices, Joe was stretched thinly every week. This didn’t mean you didn’t get quality time, but you didn’t get that type of quality time. The both of you were usually too tired and busy to do anything, so you’d just fall asleep wrapped up in each other.

It wasn’t the end of the world, of course. You still got to see him and hang out with him, but you were tense still. Very tense. You didn’t know how to tell him this. Hey we haven’t had sex in a while and it’s pissing me off. Like you would ever have the courage to say that. On the outside, you were shy, but on the inside, you were overwhelmed with need. He was usually the one initiating things, so you never really knew how to let him know. You were always satisfied with its frequency and his timing… until this week. He was so busy, so you couldn’t put more stress on him. You’d feel so guilty if you put him under even more stress just because you wanted to have sex. So you’d stay quiet and waiting, as composed as you could be until he got more time.

Right now, you were sitting on your couch, scrolling on your phone, nothing interesting catching your eye. You tossed it beside you with a huff. Maybe you’d try the TV. After looking through shows and movies on every platform, nothing piqued your interest. A frustrated sigh broke out of your lips, and you wanted to throw an adult tantrum. Thankfully, a text notification snapped you out of your misery.

Joe: practice is getting out early. dinner? meet me at jeff ruby’s in an hour.

You ignored the fact that he only gave you an hours notice to get ready, and the fact that he didn’t even wait for dinner confirmation. You smiled at your phone, hearted the message, and jumped up to go get ready.

You did what you could with the time you had. It was a pretty nice restaurant, so you couldn’t dress casual. You decided on an ivory dress. It was tight and ended at your upper thigh. You ran a straightener through your hair as quick as you could, and rushed through your makeup. You looked at yourself in yne mirror. Not too bad. You glanced at the time.

“Shit.” You were running late.

You hopped out the door, putting your nude heel on with one hand and unlocking you car with the other.

You pulled into the parking lot right on time, walking into the restaurant while smoothing out your hair and dress. You hoped you looked okay. It had been a while since the two of you had gotten o do something like this. When you got to the host stand, she recognized you, already moving to lead you to your table, to Joe.

“Mrs. Burrow, you look so nice this evening,” she told you, smiling. You knew she probably had to say things like that, but you were thankful nonetheless.

“Oh, thank you,” you smiled at her. She led you to the back of the restaurant, stopping at one of the private booths. Hm, fancy. She said something, wishing you a nice dinner or something like that, and strode away. You had kind of

tuned her out as you stood in front of the curtained booth. Why were you nervous? You were married to him for Christ’s sake.

Slowly, you pulled back the curtain. There he was. He had been doing something on his phone, eyes darting upward with the sound of the opening curtain. His attentive eyes softened as he noticed it was you. He stood up, smiling. His full height caused you to look up at him. He wore a white collared shirt with blue pants and crisp white air forces. You knew he kept extra clothes in his locker at work, but he had cleaned up really nice. He grabbed you gently by your hands, kissing one as he pulled you to him. His arms wrapped around your waist and he nuzzled into your neck.

“You look pretty,” he mumbled. “Mm, and you smell good.”

“Joe,” you giggled. “We’re in public.” This beginning introduction did nothing but make things harder for you, a throb beginning in between your legs. You hadn’t felt it for a week, and it overwhelmed you. You breathlessly sighed into his shirt.

“Let’s not be in public then,” he said, and he pulled you into the private booth. You sat across from him, fiddling with the hem of your dress as you crossed your legs. You watched him silently, admiring his every move and soaking up the image of him before he went back to work. You were happy to freely stare while he was distracted. He smoothed his shirt, his expensive watch glinting on his wrist. His hands were so big, and you watched as he grabbed his phone, silencing it with the side button and flipping it over to put it down on the table, the veins on them catching the dim light.

Fuck.

It’s like you were out of control. You needed him, desperately.

“Y/n?” his voice snapped you out of your thoughts. You looked up, and he smirked at you, tilting his head slyly.

“Hm?” your cheeks were for sure pink.

“I asked how your day was,” he smiled, a teasing look in his eyes.

It was dreadful, boring, and touch-starved. “My day was okay,” you replied softly, your gaze struggling to stay off his hands, absentmindedly tracing the table.

“Really?” he asked, sliding his arms forward on the table to grab your small hands in his larger ones. A sigh escaped you as you looked down at them. You crossed your legs tighter.

“Mhm. H- How was work?”

“Oh, you know. It’s work.”

The conversation flowed better when the food started coming out. You had something to distract you from him. It’s a wonder you didn’t drool while looking at him. A steak was just what you needed, with plenty of sides to occupy you. You realized you hadn’t eaten all day due to your frustration.

You started getting full, and finished up eating. Joe watched you, as he ate a massive steak plus sides at a super speed.

“I’m ready to pay,” he said to himself, then looked at you with a smirk. In a lower voice, he said, “I haven’t gotten to take your clothes off in…what-“

“Two weeks,” you said, looking blankly at him.

“Huh.” He pursed his lips and looked at you, half sorry and half amused. “You sure it’s been two weeks? I would say a week and a half,” he joked. He’s just a funny guy tonight.

You were not amused. You wanted to go home, needed to go home, with him. You said nothing, just rolled your eyes and leaned back against the booth. Finally, you looked back at him to find he was already looking at you.

“I’m sorry,” he mouthed to you. You ran your tongue around the inside of your mouth, unable to keep from smiling even though you were trying not to.

“Are you mad at me?” he asked, amusement present on his face.

“Yes!”

“Why didn’t you just tell me you wanted me to… I mean you know I can’t refuse that,” he chuckles.

“How am I supposed to tell you that? You’re always the one that starts it.” You huffed and pouted at him. “You stopped for two weeks, how am I supposed to know why?”

He pursed his lips together, obviously trying not to laugh.

“This is not funny! I’m miserable!”

“Okay, wait. I’m sorry. Seriously.” He tilted his head, eyes softening as he grabbed your knee under the table. As if that would help your current condition.“C’mere.”

He grabbed your hand, leading you around the table to sit next to him. He checked carefully to male sure the curtain still hid the both of you. He grabbed you by the hips and dragged you to sit on one of his legs. Your dress had ridden up to your upper thighs and he gripped your hips tightly.

You wrapped your arms around his neck, sighing into his shoulder. You sucked in a gasp when he rolled your hips along his thigh, painfully slow.

“Joe!” you breathed out.

“Hm, this is what you wanted I thought, he smiled into your neck, amused at how flustered you were.

“Please just take me home,” you begged, and you sounded so needy.

He chuckled and pecked the crook of your neck. “I know, I know,” he pouted at you.

It didn’t take long to pay, though the waitress furrowed her eyebrows when she saw you sitting on the opposite side of the table as she last saw you. Normally, you would care, but not now.

Luckily, Joe rode with another player to work this morning, and ubered to meet you at Jeff Ruby’s. This meant he could drive you home. You don’t think the speedometer dipped below 70 the whole way home. He had one hand on the wheel, the other gripping your thigh tightly, leaving red splotches for each finger after he let go. You could tell he was anxious to get home, to get to have you. You were also anxious to get home. You don’t know how long you could wait; his manspread in the drivers seat was so tempting. Luckily, you pulled into the garage soon after the thought.

He was grabbing at you before you could even get in the door. When you finally did, he roughly pushed you against it, hungrily kissing your neck. Every nip and kiss caused a yelp from you. It had been so long. You felt him touching at the back of your thigh, so you instinctively picked up your leg. He picked you up, carrying you into the closest room, which happened to be the kitchen.

He plopped you on the counter, you gasping as your bare thighs made contact with the marble countertops. He grabbed around both knees with one hand each, pulling you to the edge of the counter so you were easier to reach. He used his large hands to bunch up your tight dress at the waist.

“Such a pretty dress,” he murmured. “What a shame it’s in my way.”

He picked each leg up, one by one, resting them on his shoulders to gently take of your heels, kissing the inside of your thighs in the process.

You watched as his hands gently danced across your skin as he did this, and he noticed.

“Aw, look. This is what you were so focused on the whole dinner? Couldn’t even think straight huh?” Joe cooed between kisses. He put each leg back down on the counter, making sure they were spread.

His hand traced down up your thigh from the knee, finally touching down where you needed him. He gently brushed you over the fabric of your panties, which were nearly soaked. You cried out in satisfaction. Finally. You had been waiting for this for weeks, and he knew that now, too.

“I’m so sorry for making you wait like this,” he whispered in your ear, sincerely this time.

You couldn’t respond coherently, since at that point, he pushed your underwear to the side and plunged his fingers into you. You wrapped your arms around his neck, crying out and gasping for air.

He curled his fingers ever so slightly, and your legs jerked. He moved forward, holding one leg open with his free hand and the other with his leg.

He looked you in your eyes as he thrusted his fingers in and out of you, and your eyes rolled back in your head. He used his thumb to rub your clit, and you felt the sweet tension building in your stomach.

“I’m gonna come soon,” you breathed out.

You were right on the brink, right about to go over the edge. Then it stopped. He took his hand away, coming in between your legs to kiss you as you sighed in desperation. You were so close.

“Please,” you whimpered, as his hand affectionately rubbed your thigh.

He sucked the wetness off his fingers, looking you in your eyes.

“I know,” he cooed. “Give me just a second.”

Then he unbuttoned his white shirt, and his pants and belt dropped to the floor. His shoes were kicked off, and he stood there in just his boxers and socks. He slid your panties down your legs, then un zipped your dress.

You were left on the counter in nothing. You looked up at him, pleading with your eyes.

He harshly grabbed you by each thigh, jerking you to the edge of the counter harshly.

He pulled down his boxers, his dick springing up out of them. You were sure drool was pooling in your mouth. He positioned himself perfectly against you. Pushing ever so slightly, then stopping the pressure. He was teasing you.

A desperate cry sat in your throat. “Please, Joe, please.”

He suddenly pushed in to his hilt, and time slowed down. You don’t know if you were silent or if you just could t hear yourself over the pleasure. You sucked in a breath, wanting to snap your legs together and spread them even wider at the same time. The feeling was so overwhelming, but it was exactly what you needed.

He was fully buried inside of you, and he hadn’t moved yet. He just relished you, breathing against your neck and holding onto your hips. You would have small little pinpoint bruises tomorrow from the pressure of his fingertips on your soft skin.

Then there was movement, perfect aching movement and friction. His thrust were slow, but thorough. He pressed against every crevice, for just for him. He whimpered into your ear. You wrapped your legs around his middle. Now the two of you were fully touching. His stomach on yours, chest against yours, skin against skin. The two of you spoke only to each other, only for each other.

“I’ll never make you wait like this again, y/n. I cant believe I neglected you like this. I hope you don’t stay mad at me,” he said to you, slowly stroking in and out of you.

“I could never stay mad at you,” you whispered in his ear. He smiled against your skin and picked up his pace, causing you to barb your nails into his back.

Your cries echoed throughout the kitchen with each thrust. “I’m gonna come,” you told him.

“Wait for me, baby,” he groaned. “Just a little longer.”

His thrusts picked up and you struggled to keep yourself from unraveling. You dug your nails into him even harder.

He then sputtered, “Come, y/n, Come with me.”

You arched into him, letting yourself get sweet release. You closed your eyes and time stopped. It was heavenly. You don’t know how long it lasted. He held onto you as he came, seemingly as strong as you. A year rolled down your cheek. You cling to him, legs shaking and trembling around him. It died down, and you were suddenly drowsy. Euphorically, incredibly drowsy.

You leaned against his chest with half lidded eyes, wanting to just pass out right then and there against him.

“You took it so well,” he whispered to you, rubbing your back softly. He grabbed your face gently with both hands, looking down at you. Your lidded eyes stared back at him in ecstasy. He wiped away your tear with his thumb and kissed you. You don’t know how many times you told him you loved him after that, but you do know you passed out shortly after.

Maybe that two weeks wasn’t so bad after all.

[im-not-buying-it-ether]

Okay but now I feel compelled to wonder, in that fun AU of CC and Marilyn being Captain and Mary Marvel, what their lives as heroes would be like

Like, villains are the same for the most part with probable lack of antagonism with Sivana, he’s the dude who hired them for the dog in the first place with the public intent of a historical attraction at a park and on the side of the bus he’s campaigning for mayor. Other than that, villains seem to be the same from the brief moments we see.

They stay out of the limelight, they prioritize keeping their identities hidden for the sake of Billy and Mary’s saftey and childhoods, and they take their duties seriously.

But what’s tingling at the brain right now is how they’d interact with the rest of the world of DC, heroes and teams and whatnot, outside of Fawcett and the menagerie of characters there. We know CC accidentally stumbled onto some daring scene with Spy Smasher and the bunch (no joke, time was funky in Fawcett and CC was alive at that time) but I’d love to see him with other heroes

Like, say he fills the normal roles in comics Billy would’ve, joins JLI and, like his son, tries calling the other heroes out for acting like bigger juveniles than his actual kids and ditches bc apparently the people who save the world on the regular cant not try and fist fight the other every few hours. He’s on and off some team, focusing on his city and his family more and more, pops in for bigger fights when they occur but is mostly hometown based and handles his own issues.

Of newer stuff, I turn to YJ’s tv show for another idea. Aka, CC also being a chaperone for the Team at the same time Billy comes in but with a twist, turns out his kids have a percolation for magic and have been getting the hang of some spells so they’re joining the Team too while CC is on chaperone duty. So leads Billy and Mary’s attempt at a slow entrance into heroism that immediately backfires when they get captured, cue heartwarming scene of dad hugging his kids after a dangerous situation that follows him tearing the base apart looking for them. True dad fashion and all that. What becomes complicated is the World Without Grown Ups plot, in which I say have Billy and his had pre-the plot agree that Billy can have Shazam powers for super big emergencies and Billy definitely counts all adults disappearing as an emergency. Cue once more the fun father son bonding of Billy looking just like his old man with Shazam powers.

Onto Marilyn, who unfortunately doesn’t seem to have more beyond “clever” and “good mom” from comics, but she’s got her hutzpah and would probably be as active a hero as CC while still prioritizing her life and family over heroism. The whole Shazam thing is definitely more a job than it is what kind of person she is, she’s an archeologist and likes that profession more than she likes worrying about everyone else. She’s definitely more no nonsense and, if there’s a difference, she’d probably prefer the more grounded crime fighting than the mystical shenanigans CC would do in her stead. Billy and Mary end up closer to her in quality time since that focus of crime fighting keeps her grounded.

Also, the general vibes of the Captain Marvel tropes. Such as the identity shenanigans.

It is a fun thing of fanfic that, since his civilian identity is very vulnerable and people like their identity plots, Billy has his questioned or revealed a lot. Add in CC as Marvel instead and it flips a bit to be a man who is well known in his home city whose entire family, non-powered children included, could easily become targets if anyone knew who he was. And he’s deliberately secretive about it for that purpose, he’s protecting his children with his wife. So, perspective, there’s a new hero who comes in with a hero partner who is also their life partner. They have the power of actual gods and titans, they don’t explain anything past some nebulous Wizard they can’t name as to how they got their powers, they are very hush-hush on their normal lives but everyone knows they have to have one. It’s hard to contact them, you don’t know they’re working or traveling or with their kids because you don’t know they do work or that they have kids, so you worry what they’re up to for what seems to be every hour they aren’t begrudgingly saving the world with the rest of the heroes. You catch them talking to the other but the minute they hear you they clam up and change everything about how they were just a second ago, you could swear they were talking about digs or gods or bringing someone home but you don’t know anything because you don’t know them.

Cue the mistrust, the reveals, how it all goes wrong and someone gets hurt, be it the other when they don’t have their powers or their kids and suddenly you’ve pissed off the man who loves his family so much he was tearing the multiverse open to try and keep the timeline going where they were all alive and happy together and the woman who loves those kids just as much. Or, say that reveal had villains get both of the Batsons, and now those heroes have to look those orphans in the eye and beg forgiveness, and when fate still demands its heroes out comes two new ones that make it seem like the whole Batson sham was fake and no way Marilyn and CC were the Marvels, the marvels are still flying around after they’ve gone and gotten dead and buried. Cue those heroes looking at the new Captain and Mary Marvel, knowing it’s the kids they accidentally made orphans wearing the faces of the friends they betrayed.

[obesessedwithjohndory]

more brozone hcs for u all mwah mwah

bruce has a really long hair care routine & totally influenced floyd to get one too

now that the band is back together they don't use the titles like 'the leader' / 'the sensitive one' etc, they just go by their names

john dory & branch go camping together and teach each other their survivalist tips

clay & viva have know each other since they were kids (like before the trolls escaped bergen town) and peppy hated him because he always tried to influence viva to cause havoc

'john' was baby branch's first word

clay can speak 5 languages & he would probably use duolingo too

they would get invited to the troll version of the met gala

john dory is seriously emotional when it comes to his brothers growing up (even though they are all already adults)

they have a lot of really strange inside jokes from when they were younger that they bring up again

bruce is a really good artist

he and floyd design/ create the outfits brozone wear for their shows etc

bruce & jd are the cooks of the family & when they cook together it always ends up as some sort of competition and the younger three are always over it by the time the foods ready

when branch stays at poppy’s, jd stays in the bunker with floyd to keep him company

jd & bruce are seriously protective of the younger 3

jd & clay are always bickering about something

branch secretly really likes it when his brothers show up unannounced

cloud guy winds jd up like he does to branch

jd had no friends as a teenager bc he was so focused on managing brozone

bruce looks really good with a bun in his hair (brandy loves it)

clay and branch are the smartest out of the 5 brothers

if branch can’t sleep he’ll go and sleep in either floyd or john dory’s bed (if he’s staying in the bunker and not in rhonda)

sorry this post is a little short, i need to come up with more hcs ✌️

[suzukiblu]

gotham

Kon's in Gotham, which would be less of a problem if it were the right Gotham.

Possibly his reality doesn't exist anymore, is the thing. He's trying very, very hard not to concentrate on that fact until he gets more information, though.

Currently, he's standing in the middle of an emergency triage center with a few hundred more refugees from varying dimensions, and he can't do anything actually superhero-ish or even too noticeably useful because he's wearing a fucking gala-quality bespoke suit that Tim bought him. So, like, way too nicely dressed for a refugee situation or really just any damn normal situation.

If he had to end up in another reality, at least he could've been wearing his superhero costume or his work clothes from the farm, but no, this particular interdimensional crisis just had to pop up during "suffer through another ridiculously fancy Wayne gala on Tim's arm in the name of charity" date night.

Why not, right?

So yes, Kon's in a triage center, waiting to get "processed" as a refugee and hoping to high hell that the local Batman doesn't hate Supers and isn't a supervillain. He'd considered sneaking out of the center altogether to go and get a better idea of what's going on firsthand, but people in the crowd keep randomly freaking out and everyone's tense as hell and he's a little bit concerned that something might be about to go down. Like, it's Gotham, and this whole setup seems like a very tempting target for people with dubious morals to swoop in and start shit.

As far as Kon knows, he's the only refugee in this specific center who's not a standard civilian, and it's hard to just clear out and leave everyone here to the tender mercies of whatever random assholes feel like making trouble for no good reason. There's just so many older people and so many kids, is the thing. Kon is . . . well, physiologically twenty-two, at least, and is a very clear outlier in the group. Mostly it's people over sixty and kids under twelve, for whatever reason. And a whole lot of the kids keep crying on and off and the older people are all clearly stressed as fuck.

Which is fair, since again, possibly all their realities are gone.

. . . technically he probably does count as under twelve, come to think.

Hm.

Eh, whatever.

Kon has spent a whole hell of a lot of time cheering up frightened little kids and soothing panicked adults in the four hours he's been in this triage center and it has been fucking exhausting. At this point, if any Gotham rogue shows their face and even looks at a single one of these people, Kon's going to just fucking deck them. Like, fuck whatever the local Batman's rules about metas and vigilantes are, Kon does not have the patience for anything else.

Right now, though, he's currently just focused on the very distressed pair of identical little girls on either side of him who are not twins and are absolutely terrified of each other.

"Hey, it's okay, Mallory," he says gently, and the girls sniffle in perfect unison.

"But she's scary!" they both blurt, and then they both whimper in fright, and then they both start crying.

Not ideal, Kon thinks. The local version of Mallory is in the awkward position of having had two alternates of herself pop up from two different realities and both land in her family's apartment, and the local versions of her parents are currently arguing with the aid workers about not separating them from their alternate daughters. Kon's half-eavesdropping–they're not that far away, the workers couldn't convince them to break line of sight–and they're both insisting on at least one of them being allowed to stay in the refugee center with the Mallorys. The local Mallory looks a little worried about things, but not as much as her displaced alternates do.

Well, she's the one currently with her actual parents and still in her own definitely-not-destroyed reality, so yeah, that makes sense. The other two Mallorys are just hiding from their other selves on either side of Kon, who can't keep his damn nose out of anything.

Really, actually, Mallory is a pretty lucky kid. Kon didn't even get this good a reception to showing up unexpectedly in his home dimension, and he's heard a lot of horror stories about people getting attacked or chased off by freaked-out locals already today.

Kon had just popped up alone in the middle of an empty ballroom, himself. He'd had to talk to a couple of security guards, but they'd had the news on already and the emergency broadcast had explained what the fuck was going on pretty quick. One of them had given him a water bottle and a candy bar while the other'd called the emergency hotline listed on the TV to figure out where to send him and they'd really both just rolled with the whole situation. That'd been pretty nice of them, Kon had thought.

People are awful, sometimes, but also amazing sometimes.

"Listen," he says reassuringly, dropping into a crouch between the Mallorys, who both clutch anxiously at his weird fancy Tim-chosen jacket as he puts a hand on both of their backs. "It really is okay. I know it's scary, but your parents are gonna make sure you get taken care of, and the aid workers are gonna help them out."

"But–" they both start, and then both make frightened noises again and cover their mouths with their free hands. Whatever realities they happen to be from, they are clearly very similar ones. The local Mallory wasn't talking in unison with either of them, but they keep overlapping each other without meaning to, and she's wearing a pink corduroy dress but they're both in the same black denim overalls. Different shirts, at least, but their hair's identically braided and beaded where hers is in afro puffs.

"This is weird and crazy, but you're not alone," Kon says firmly, patting their backs. "Your mom and dad have your backs."

He wonders what that would be like, having not only parents but parents who'd just roll with alternate dimension versions of you to the point that they wouldn't leave them in a government-sponsored refugee center, but quickly shoves the thought aside to focus on the actual issue.

Maybe Ma and Pa would come get him if they knew, he thinks for a moment, the thought slipping through the cracks, and then feels like an idiot. He's not a teenager anymore. Was never even a kid, technically. And also he's a literal superhero anyway.

That'd be stupid, for them to bother doing that for an alternate version of the guy who spent a couple years crashing in their real kid's old room before running off to San Francisco.

Hell, for all he knows, this reality's version of them doesn't even know him at all.

Seems likelier than not.

[queseraone]

I got asked this question and loved it so much, I wanted to open it up to the group.

If you could choose 5 Chenford scenes to rewrite, which would you choose, and how would you rewrite them?

Oooh, thanks for the ask Becca! I had a similar one from an anon, so consider this the answer to that one too 😘

Okay, so I'm going to preface this by saying... as much as I love this ship and this show, I could probably give you an endless list of things I wish they had done differently/better. Particularly in the more recent seasons, a lot of the storylines have felt... rushed?

And in a lot of ways, it feels like once they pulled the trigger for Chenford, they hit the gas so hard that they blew past a lot of story. (Okay, that's two unrelated metaphors in there, but I hope you get my point.) I know Chenford isn't the main focus of the show, but it is a huge lure, and it feels like a waste to not lean a little harder into some of those moments. A lot of the time it feels like they're giving quantity over quality for Chenford scenes, like they're trying to meet some unspoken quota for moments, but aren't putting much care into what those moments actually are.

Oh god, that all sounds sooooo negative. I swear I love Chenford and the show, no matter how much I may criticize it 😅

ANYWAY...

I desperately wish things had gone differently in 5x05. Tim should absolutely have broken up with Ashley, not the other way around. They still could have played it similarly, but instead have it be Tim getting that reality check. Nothing quite like your entire future being in jeopardy to make you take a good hard look at your life and who you're spending it with.

A lot of 4x08, but particularly their last scene of the episode and the way Lucy is written as more 'Team Genny' than 'Team Tim'. It's wildly out of character for her to not be able to recognize that Tim isn't just being stubborn, but rather he's having a very valid response to trauma.

It seems like perhaps there was a scene missing somewhere along the way leading up to that conversation at the end of 5x08. It has always felt like a bit of a leap between their conversations in the shop and that closing scene. They're clearly on the same page at the end, but they didn't quite succeed at showing how they landed there.

Look, as much as I adore the group scenes at Nolan's in 5x13, it will forever bother me that we didn't get a relationship reveal. What's the point of touting a 'secret relationship' and not bother bringing it out into the open? For a show that absolutely leans lighter than any other cop show I've seen (save for Brooklyn 99), the sheer comedy potential is a loss I will be mourning forever. I think it especially bothers me because we were kind of left in limbo between 5x12 and 5x16. We know they were still hiding it in 5x12, but then by 5x16 they were comfortable with people gossiping about their Valentine's Day plans? Make it make sense.

This can be related to several different scenes (5x12, 5x21, etc...), but for the love of god, stop telling us that Tim and Lucy are horny for each other and show us for once! They can tout this as "a family show" all they want, but as far as I'm concerned, this is a show for adults. And if a person is old enough to watch the host of other mature things they do show (physical assault, a man on fire, someone being blown up, shootings, etc.), they can fucking handle a non-HBO level sex scene.

I'm adding this as a bonus answer, because I can't necessarily pinpoint a specific scene to change here. As a general season 6 rewrite, I really wish they'd focused more on the UC conflict with Chenford. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the exploration of Tim's military past and the demons he has from that time, but it just felt... forced? Certainly a byproduct of the shortened season, but I wish they'd woven that in more organically, and not all but forgotten the UC issue after it was so prevalent in 6x01 and 6x02. There's just so much more to unpack than what we saw in their conversations in those episodes.

[fountainpenguin]

Riddle watches New Wish - Post #29

Jumping off from my previous and pending liveblogs through The Battle of Big Wand -> but this is mostly me talking about Dale headcanons and 'fics

Partway through my next liveblog post, I started rambling about Dale and doodled a joke, and... it got really long, so now it's in its own post.

I'm sorry you have to see this, SDKFLJ...

Mildly suggestive stick figure honeymoon doodles - #ScarletPenguin

why does he still look anxious and pathetic even when he's plotting a takeover... he's the goofiest guy. I love him.

Liveblog Notes

As far as me loving characters with traumatic backstories goes, I do enjoy Peri, but he has way too many blank spots in his lore and things that are making me look at him sideways, waiting for him to say something I can work with.

I would've liked to see more of his backstory come into play... I feel like that would've been a great episode theme focused on the Peri-Dev dynamic (Them figuring each other out, uncovering bits and pieces, struggling to find areas where they relate until they do... like the clinginess or abandonment issues). Hopefully we get that in the future.

- Don't get me wrong- I'm really enjoying Peri, but from a fanfic perspective, I don't have enough breadcrumbs that don't come from the OG series I based my aged-up Poof on anyway. - That said, still love the implication that he brought Dev to his parents' house while he ate too much sugar and Jorgen almost caught him, and I'm deeply interested in his many layers of trauma. No notes.

I can make up stuff for Peri, but... I've already been making up his story beats for 8 years, so I'm personally not excited at the thought of designing a new backstory from scratch if I don't have any springboards like his friends, school life, where he's been living, or what he did while his parents were gone for 10,000 years. The OG series gave me Sammy Sweetsparkle, Goldie, and Spellementary and Steve, my beloathed. I don't have much to go off here.

We don't even know what his relationship with Irep is, like if "Best of Luck" was the first time they'd seen each other since Spellementary and/or if Irep was banned from continuing his schooling. I mean... one would have to assume Irep has his godparenting license if he's allowed to jump in on Dev, but who knows...

Me just now blinking in confusion that Da Rules allow Irep to yoink Dev as a godkid when Irep blatantly disregards all the other Rules. Cherrypicker...

And yes, I can work with it if I want to, but I already write a bunch about their dynamic, teen, and adult years in Cloudlands AU, so... I'm fine letting other people deep-dive into him; I'll probably be surface level on my end <3

So... That's all set-up for why I think Dale is my favorite in this show... He captivates me by having this clearly defined mess I can pick at. Locked up and forced to make lemonade for 7 years? wild. We know what it was like, where he was, how old he was when it started, who did it, for how long, how he escaped, what his family situation was, and we saw Doug's estate in "Engine Blocked," so we have a decent idea of where he lived and how he grew up.

We've seen a lot of clues about how his trauma lingers around him today, how he forbids his son from drinking lemonade around him, he seems to be withholding details from Dev (who has no clue who Vicky is and seemed grumpy that lemonade is presumably a trigger for his dad and thus he's not allowed to have it). We also know how his young self ended up as an adult... We know he has meltdowns when he loses money and he doesn't bat an eye about stalking or hurting children...

We've got a partner missing from his life, so he's got single dad stress in there somewhere unless the O-pairs were there from the day Dev was born... potentially divorce or widower baggage and either of those is funny... I still think Doug might be dead in New Wish and that becomes increasingly likely the more I look at my age timeline compared to how old Doug was when he struck gold, which is canon in New Wish rather than given to us by the OG...

And if he and Vicky are the same age, were they friends when his torment started? You can even mess around with vibes like "Did Dale get a fairy?" or alternatively, "Why WASN'T he miserable enough to qualify for a fairy?" because that gets really dark if you start thinking about Vicky yo-yoing his emotions to keep him on the line above misery. What was she doing to him...

Like ??? unfortunately, the most obvious thing I can think of is that Dale was so blinded by his vision of Vicky being his friend (and/or crush?? idk) that he kept forgiving her, which is... awful.

We never got a confirmed reason why Tootie didn't have a godparent despite Vicky tormenting her daily, though I always felt like age or her blabbermouth tendencies might play into it (or she clung to Timmy for stability and thus wasn't miserable enough so long as Timmy was there to "support and comfort her" (her perspective). ?? Did Fairy World think it wasn't worth the paperwork to assign someone to Dale because they assumed he'd just make a single wish to free himself and then be fine? skdljf... I just can't stop thinking about it. It's not like his father's wealth disqualified him; Remy and Dev both had godparents assigned. Idk! I think about it a lot. Fascinating.

AND you're telling me this kid grew up with the OG cast after his escape?? There's a LOT there I can play with. Did he have to go to high school with Vicky? I want to believe he was homeschooled, but we never see Doug with a partner AND Doug is a busy person running a ton of businesses. The logical assumptions here would be either "Dale went to public high school" or "Dale was shipped off to boarding school" or something like that. Each of those comes with its own implications, which excites me.

As a bonus, this guy's severe trauma is connected to lemonade?? A drink that shows up a bunch of times throughout the OG series because it's just casual and everywhere? That's so funny...

Insert joke about how it's smart to give your protags weaknesses or fears that are commonplace so they'll run into them in a casual adventure or everyday life

And YET... Despite everything we know about him, there's still plenty of wiggle room for me to play with. I like that.

Honestly, I love the entire Dimmadome household... Dale and Dev and the O-pairs and Peri and the weight of absence of whomever else was in Dale's life once upon a time. Dev is a cool character at all, but at the end of the day, he's a 10-year-old bratty bully who's neglected and lonely. I appreciate him dearly, but it's nothing I haven't seen before.

Dale is my favorite. His utterly bizarre backstory has captivated me. I can make him worse <3

I did have a role planned for him in my Cloudlands AU 'fics - have since 2018 - but I was gonna play him as quiet and jumpy... Curious, easily excited, but not as fingers-in-every-pie as his father. But nowhere would I have guessed 7 years of trauma. And that changes everything. I'm extremely excited to play with that.

He's been on my backburner for ages as "one of those characters I want to delve into when Timmy's older and has a reason to cross paths with him, such as in the working world as Dale becomes more involved with the Dimmadome businesses." My plan's always been to make a funny trio of Dale, Remy, and Dale's wife [my very first FOP OC, Hadley] (whom I've been slowly setting up to become Remy's close friend in the 130 Prompts series when they're kids) and they're just... laid-back rich people who hang out and go on silly rich adventures.

Here's a fun Hadley profile, finally digital since I've only drawn her in colored pencils up 'til now!

In spite of me repeatedly mentioning her in my New Wish liveblogs, words cannot express how shocked I've been to see Dale, who was a tiny mention in the OG series, come back as a critical character...

My girl's shy husband in Cloudlands AU canon, whom she was betrothed to when neither loved the other, turned out to be a horrible person in A New Wish who's 99% likely to have divorced her, and I could NOT be more ecstatic to work with that in 'fic. It's like this was set up just for me! :D

- How funny would it be if they had a Season 2 arc where Dev disappears for a while because he's staying with his mom? lol. - If Dev's mom suddenly showed up because she'd just left for an extended work trip or something, would that be silly'd up or what?

Bonus Hadley Facts!

- She's 12 & 13 around Timmy's time period and attends middle school with Remy. They went to a dance together.

- She and Timmy are briefly in middle school together. They vaguely knew each other in elementary school before either had a fairy- I like to think they had multi-grade gym classes, field day, lunch, and stuff like that and sometimes saw each other.

- Never had Crocker as a teacher, but has crossed his path at the grocery store and stuff. She skirts around him.

- Her mom is a professional painter. She also has a blood blossom garden. Leadly keeps making Hadley give them to people he's trying to sus out as witches.

- Very aware of her dad's horrible dating life. Unfortunately knows he's chasing magical creatures because he's getting desperate for "idk, something new and fun" at this point. Bribes Cupid on the regular. Unclear if Cupid is screwing her dad's life up on purpose to keep the money coming in.

- Has been to Texas a bunch of times (Pencil Nexus has a branch there - "The Boss of Me").

- She hums the Pencil Nexus theme a lot, especially if she's waiting in a line or doing chores. She's bad at sneaking around because she'll forget she shouldn't hum.

- At the time of posting this, her two speaking appearances are in the 130 Prompts "Back In Action," where she's at the Jimmy-Timmy Power Hour dance chasing squirrels, and "Trying Too Hard," where Ed Leadly brings her along when he tries shaking Gary and Betty down for the Learnatorium (again); Hadley's very embarrassed.

- Although offscreen, she was heavily mentioned in "End of the World" when Timmy led Remy to her house so she could help with the cure for Juandissimo's fairy flu. She was briefly mentioned in "Opportunity" when Leadly put the pieces together and realized his daughter has a fairy godparent.

- Her surname was dropped in "Entire World," "Solo," and "Looking Back," confirming her as on the Pixies' radar & as a member of Gary and Crocker's Fairy World invasion team.

- I designed her in December 2015! Nearly 9 years ago now :'D

So, there ya go... That's Hadley.

Basically, instead of meddling and buying buildings and stuff, my vision of the future "rich kids" generation is that they're "supposed" to be in the city like their parents raised them to be, but they blow it off to hang with friends. This whole generation is rebelling against their parents. Are they making things worse for the city? I don't know.

My rough plan was Dale and Hadley bringing their kid [His planned name was Dave] on ski trips and yacht adventures and world travels, with Remy and Juandissimo being bonus parents as the kid grows up :) Aroace Remy making peace with living mostly alone, my beloved... BFF Hadley ensuring he's not ignored when she gets a partner, my beloved... And my main idea here was "Their kid is so spoiled, but he's also getting incredible amounts of attention and love... It's the first time in AGES Dimmsdale has broken its "miserable rich kid" curse, and Remy and Juandissimo couldn't be happier. I just realized that probably doesn't make sense out of context- but yes, in Cloudlands AU, Juandissimo and Remy are still together when Remy's an adult. But it was always my "Eh, I'll think about it later" arc, and Dale a "think about him later" character. And now ?? I just want oodles of him... He's so funny. I've already got a whole sketchpage of him on my desk... I probably won't scan it because it's messy as I'm exploring him in my style, but I really like drawing his hair <3

Dale had a bad week or two with Vicky in my head, but he was gonna grow up fine and live with his friends :) Or... Hadley's friends. Unclear. This doesn't really work with the New Wish canon, but I still think it's funny. I think in some way, this still happened in my canon, but only during Dale's early adulthood. He and Hadley split, orz...

Like... I can't even be mad, because in my canon, they were arranged (upper class kids; Doug cared more than Remy's parents) and in Cloudlands AU, they're affectionate but not in love until they slowly grow on each other while raising their kid, but... GURL, you were supposed to carry this for me, SKDLFJ...

Hang on, I gotta draw exactly what I mean by "Hadley didn't ignore her BFF when she started a romantic relationship..."

Bonus context for Remy's arm for anyone curious & here's him in color

They're just so funny to me... Dale and Hadley are each other's comedic straightman somehow. My favorite thing is Remy being a good friend despite actively trying not to be.

There's a secret joke here about how Remy's dad is also aroace in Cloudlands AU, but his whole thing was being repulsed to the point that he was relieved every time his wife had affairs :'D Fortunately, Remy's glad Hadley found someone else to bother and never got him involved in that drama. Remy still doesn't know what's up with his parents' love life or lack thereof, but... he knows what he himself wants (Peace & quiet and 2 hang out with Juandissimo).

tl;dr - I like what A New Wish has done with Dale specifically. It's definitely wowed me, it's way more captivating than anything I'd loosely planned for him, and his layers of trauma, wealth, and negligence really take me back to the OG series vibes, so I like that!

I can't wait to do 'fics with this fascinating, traumatized loser... but Hadley is definitely his wife and/or ex in my works <3 b/c I set my plot up for this 6 years ago and it would make me sad to "boot" her from my Along the Cherry Lane 'fic plans lmao. I will never experience this oddly specific situation ever again; you gotta give this to me.

Also:

He done goofed...

I couldn't decide on dialogue, but I was thinking "In my defense, I never had a health class and I didn't know babies came that fast." (She was there for many hours btw).

Bonus honeymoon panel ft. (/checks notes) - mildly suggestive stick figures (again)

Other secret bonus ending: "Wait a minute, if Hadley's been to Texas a lot because of Pencil Nexus, does she ALSO have fun cosplaying in boots?"

...... :)

[tomorrowillbeyou]

now I may be mathy but not as much as you so please tell me why pemdas is stupid I'm curious

well to me i think it doesn't really teach the reasoning & intuition behind order of operations... any such acronym that you ask people to mindlessly memorise is similar i think in that they will remember the order but not know why its like that or not know how to apply it or forget the order of the letters because it means nothing to them.... U know its the sort of thing u wake up as an adult remembering and think what does that even mean..... and i think this is exemplified by all those stupid brainteasers u see online that are like what's 6÷2(1+2) <- deliberately ambiguous notation to drive up engagement. and the way people interact with such things really shows the way order of operations has been taught to them, they say This is the right answer because pemdas, anyone who disagrees is stupid and wasn't taught right. which to me shows how they see pemdas as like this rule sent down by god that is just The Way Things Have To Be, there's no reason for it its just how it is, which is obviously not a great way to think about maths which focuses heavily on understanding why things are true and using logic to convince yourself why it has to be that way, and like questioning everything and needing concrete proof of things being true. and the thing is that pemdas literally isn't the way things have to be .. we could have a different order of operations and maths would still work the same it would just be written in a different way & probably a lot harder to read, pemdas is literally a convention and people treat it as an unbreakable rule and also (occasionally, online) the be all end all of being good at maths which i don't really have to explain why i dislike that. but anyway that was a massive tangent tldr my problem with it is that it focuses on rote memorisation without emphasising that order of operations is a convention or explaining why we use that convention ... i don't really have a solution to this problem im not an education expert or anything and maybe im being unrealistic i just feel like surely there's a better more intuitive way to explain that... sorry for rambling and feel free to disagree this is just my uneducated ass undergraduate opinion lol

[mahou-furbies]

Closing thoughts on Otona Precure

(spoilers)

I've tried to remain optimistic but man I can't find a positive spin on this. I don't think could stand on its own as a magical girl show aimed at adults because the story was kind of childish and a lot of the character stuff requires you to already be familiar with them, but it didn't deliver properly on the "I'm a Precure fan so I'll take anything" side either. Most importantly the show committed the cardinal sin of not only lacking any adult magical girl forms, but then it also didn't bother to include a new powerup look for the aged-down ones. What is this nonsense, everyone knows that your new magical girl season has to include at least one new look! 1/10 rating for that alone! (jokes aside I gave it a 4/10 on mal)

The inclusion of Nagisa and Honoka (and Hikari) was absolutely terrible; I don't mind their characters but their contributions were entirely pointless. Like if you don't know who they are it's just brand new nobodies with no connection to any of the plot and themes of the story who just randomly show up in the grand finale where everything is supposed to wrap up neatly, and if you do know who they are and are willing to accept them being shoehorned in just for the sake of seeing them grown up… we don't get that either. Oh how convenient how Nagisa and Honoka just happen to be missing from our bar meetup today! And they really didn't want to do anything at all with my girl Hikari, it was actually kind of funny how superfluous her appearance was. I guess the Futago Kamikita art is our only saviour here, at least they're included in that. Long hair Nagisa?

(also a nitpick but I really don't like that all the first five seasons apparently got retconned into happening in the same town? Makes the world so much smaller)

The time flower ticking clock also ended up completely wasted, I'm sure nobody expected Nozomi to die, but at least come up with some sort of excuse why everything turned out in the end and don't just say that actually there was never any danger in the first place. I hate to say this but even the light sticks from the movies would have been an improvement, have all the townspeople send encouraging vibes to the Precure which fix the flower issue if you must!

Then there's the visuals which were noticeably bad, ranging from poor cgi, lack of animation and just unappealing colour palette, and also kind of boring civilian clothes for the Cures. So the show doesn't have the excuse that at least it's pretty to look at or fun to draw either.

Then a final complaint that Coco and Nutts' mascot forms kept their shrill nails-on-a-chalkboard voices. Would anyone have complained if their voices had been changed?

Still the parts focusing on the Cures' grown up civilian lives were for the most part alright so I don't think the show was without any value. I liked especially the parts that were about how their problems are now more difficult than when they were younger, but that they'll continue moving forward regardless. But I would probably have liked the show better if it either had a stronger main plot to back it up, or alternatively scrapped the magical side of the story and was just a slice of life story.

Better luck with the MahouTsukai sequel, hopefully having less characters to juggle results in a better story.

[jess-total-mess]

okay, my bff is watching the latest season of Young Justice and crying about how awful it is so lets talk about how i would rewrite the series past s1 to be less terrible and more cohesive. readmore included because this is LONG

Season One worked because it had a small cast that had individually focused episodes, good relationship dynamics, and a cohesive plot that was foreshadowed well. Kaldur with his Atlantis episode, the entire episode after the simulation disaster (perfect!), Megan and her thread about identity and her shame around it, Superboy and... whatever the fuck you want to call his arc, but it was GOOD. Artemis had a lot of focus and while Wally didn't get a lot he still has a full episode to himself in Cold Hearted. Zatanna was only there briefly, but she was well-established and even Rocket had some interesting setups despite only being there for an episode or two.

Myself and my BFF both agree that the time skip is acceptable, but needed to be shorter. Way shorter. At most, I'd put it at three years, but let's say two years. That makes Robin sixteen, for reference.

This would give us time to have a few things happen. First, have Robin be co-leader, preparing to step into his role as actual leader. Develop Rocket some more by giving her at least one episode focused on her, and giving her more screen time overall (they did her SO DIRTY). Have Zatanna have an episode with Rocket, even, make them go on a solo-mission like Zatanna and Artemis did in S1, that would be awesome!

The team would then have a lot more experience, they work together great, they know each other. This means we can introduce a few new characters. In no particular order;

Beast Boy! He was set-up in S1 to be Beast Boy, and that's great! He's twelve (?) now, and maybe his powers have activated! Have him be sent to the Mountain, or even have an episode where they go back to him (wherever he might be living now!) and have the entire backstory of his dead mum! It would be emotional for the original Team present for that episode in S1, and would be emotionally charged! Maybe he doesn't join the Team for missions yet, but get him training! Establish his character!

Aquagirl and Tempest! They're already established from S1, so bring them in for a mission. Maybe they have intel and help out on the mission, maybe they just happen to be there, it needs more thought for specifics, but have them be set up to help the Team for the end of the season.

Batgirl! She's older than Robin is in comics canon, and probably in YJ canon too (I don't think we ever actually find out). She's been established as Barbara in S1, so have her join the Team as Batgirl, struggle with the same things that Robin did when the Team was first formed (disappearing, doing her own thing, etc) and have Robin have to teach her that she's got to be a different kind of team player.

Work on establishing and foreshadowing Jason. Robin/Dick is now sixteen, so throughout the season he can transition into Nightwing and Team leader. Have moments throughout the season where he mentions a new person at home, his frustrations with Batman, and have a few moments where we actually see/hear Jason, like what they did with Barbara in S1.

Also, focus on our favourites! How is Artemis handling her sister dating Red Arrow? How is that dynamic going in general? What about Superboy and his relationship with Superman? We saw that it had improved by S2, but actually show us that happening! The two of them working together, Superboy knowing stuff that nobody else does because Superman told him, knowing his villains and studying them like we're shown he can do in S2. We could have more scenes with Red Tornado, or even focus on a different Den Mother (and have moments where the Team is fed up with having a Den Mother! Wally is an ADULT!).

We had the Light, we had NO idea the Reach was there, they weren't even foreshadowed in S1. Instead, if you really want a new main threat, use Apokolips! The enemy of the Forever People from S1, the guys who made Sphere and the motherboxes?

It's not hard to make a loose plot just based on this stuff (I'm just fucking lazy). Follow the concepts and themes of the first season, have episodes focused on relationships between members (ie. Terrors and the dynamic between Megan and Superboy, Secrets with Zatanna and Artemis bonding, you get the idea). Establish the new characters and build up to another threat that the Team has to stop without the help of the League.

Give them undercover operations that are following a thread that leads them to the Light (and whatever they might be doing with Apokolips), and have them bring everyone along! Maybe not Gar/Beast Boy (he's still young and inexperienced, so maybe he runs communications from the Mountain or something? Sneaks out? Who knows!) but have the rest of the Team go kick ass, have Aquagirl and Tempest get called on for help, and give them answers, with still more questions.

And if your really want the Reach to be involved, start foreshadowing them throughout the season! The Light is having communications with someone who isn't Apokolips? Who is it? Why? What do they want? Those can be some of the unanswered questions we're left with at the end, and then in S3 after another time skip, you can bring the Reach in, along with the Beetles and develop that!

For S3, bring in Jason as Robin, establish his character as a brawler and kind of an asshole, but make us care about him before you kill him off for no reason! (Jason's death is incredibly important character-wise but please let us learn who he is before he dies). Nightwing is fully the Team leader now, how is he handling that? He said in S1 (Disordered) that he doesn't want to be Batman anymore, the guy who makes the hard call.

How does that mesh with being team leader? How's his relationship with Jason, with Batman, with Batgirl? If you really want Oracle, you could have her get her paralysis injury from the Joker in S3 too, he's established in S1 as a villain working with the Light to some degree, so why change that?

Also if I wrote S4 I would give Stephanie/Spoiler an episode where she's the focus because I love her and she needs the opportunity to declare "I'm here to spoil your plans!" to a villain SO BADLY

[grimbeak]

on a Serious note: I am very worried the conclusion to this arc will be the boy killing adult kevin, implying that certain people are too broken to be fixed. I feel like if the conclusion of this arc ends with current kevin being dead it'll undermine literally all of his baggage into "just some crazy guy" instead of. a guy with disorders the dsm hasn't even seen yet who deserves to heal from his past

on a more speculative note: it's mentioned talk therapy is illegal in desert bluffs too. the first idea they have for the boy is to take him to a child therapist, which is talk therapy. just thought that was interesting

Well,I had a whole answer written up, and then I looked at a transcript and it was gone. God bless Tumblr. I'm going to paraphrase.

I don't think they would do that. For one, this is a child talking about murdering his future self. He talks about how he is going to do it in explicit detail. While Night Vale has segments that are gorey and occasionally sad, even including the deaths of characters, I think this would be too big a leap. This is a more serious topic- for example, the episode we get where Old Woman Josie has died, and we spend it learning about her and her life. While she wasn't a big recurring character, it was clear that she meant a lot to Cecil and the town. There was so much about her we never got to learn.

Kevin. Kevin is a huge character. While not recurring often after his "defeat", we still hear from him from time to time. However, he's such a big character because of who he is. He's Cecil's double. While we really don't know much about Cecil (so much of what we have is just speculation from the vague hints left in occasional episodes), we know even less about Kevin.

Kevin... We really have no idea what he's up to. He wanted to take over Night Vale with Strex, but they lost. After Kevin got trapped in the Desert Otherworld, we could have easily never heard from him again. We've barely heard anything about Lubelle post-mortem, except that she's probably still under the cow.

You could argue that we didn't know much about Janet Lubelle. However, we did know her motives. We knew what she wanted to do. She wanted to explain Night Vale, plain and simple.

Now? Kevin has a life separate from StrexCorp and even the Smiling God. Lubelle never had a clear life separate from the University of What It Is. Kevin has a partner, a stepson. A kind-of-friend in Lauren. An old companionship with Carlos. Kevin is a character that has been developed outside of his main focuses, and I think that's important to remember. Night Vale interns die because, well, they're interns. Not much we learn about them. The ones we did learn about? Still alive. Dana Cardinal- former mayor, now therapist. Maureen- owns dark owl records with Michelle. Even Kareem had something to distinguish himself- a double, and a family that didn't remember him. All of them are still living.

One of, if not the only character that's been developed to have a personal life and still died, is Old Woman Josie. Dead from a hip infection. And we got a whole episode (several if you count the ones mentioning her worsening condition) about her passing. She was a very important character, especially to Cecil. Based on those odds, and the extreme difference in death cause (natural hip infection vs murdered by your past/future child self), along with the whole topic being extremely heavy for the podcast, I don't think they're going to have Kevin be killed by himself. Kevin's a very developed character that we still know very little about, and we're only just learning more now. Along with that, Josie had a daughter, but they had a complicated relationship. During one of the last few times we heard from Kevin, he got a partner and a stepson. While it is odd that we didn't get a mention of them in the past Adult!Kevin episode, I think it can be easily explained by the focus being on a specific holiday and Lauren suddenly showing up and surprising him/the whole "smiling god doesn't actually love you" thing. The difference in time between the desert otherworld and night vale hasn't been explained fully yet. Who knows if it's still ten times faster? Who knows if the active portal is messing with the time? I think there's a very high chance that Charles and Donovan are still alive, and likely similar ages from when we last heard from them. I doubt finknor would give him a young child to care for and then instantly age him up without letting us see how that's affected Kevin.

If Charles and Donovan are still alive, then would Brinknor really kill a man in front of his child and partner? After the healing he clearly went through to get to that point? I don't think they've forgotten about Charles and Donovan.

Not only would it not make sense for his character, it would also be a very dark turn for the podcast. While Night Vale has had it's dark moments (Go To The Mirror), I think there's a huge step to make between cosmic horror and a child murdering his future self (who we've recently been purposely reminded exists! Who's recently been given more dialogue to a name!). Even if you see the "killing his future self" part as an average night vale plot, this is still a child. A child who we've grown to know both versions of. A child who, a few weeks ago in Night Vale time, was pretending to be an airplane in a park. While The Boy has gotten more serious and seemingly more unstable over the weeks, he's still a child. Cecil offers him goldfish crackers and a root beer.

The way the episode ends, especially with the addition of Carlos trying to help The Boy with symbolism, it feels very much like The Boy saying that he needs to murder his future self, and describing it in detail, is something that is not going to be tolerated by the other characters. Brinknor wouldn't suddenly switch up Carlos's personality and have him help Kevin continue the cycle of violence that he's clearly very traumatized from.

All in all, I totally understand your concerns, but I don't think it's something you have to be worried about. Even if it's his future self, a child commiting murder and that being deemed okay is a huge step for a podcast where the main character refused to work for several days because he didn't know trees grew from seeds. I think a likely ending is going to be about Kevin breaking the cycle of violence, trauma, and abuse. Whether The Boy goes back to wherever he came from, whether he gets to grow up in Night Vale and start again, whether Adult!Kevin helps him through his struggle, I think there's going to be a happy ending for The Boy that doesn't involve murder.

[restwellsoon]

Uramichi Omota HCs

Minors and ageless blogs DNI! You will be blocked!

General

First and general impressions

Comes off as someone who is lonely, pathetic, or pitiful with a sadness about him

Strangers think he’s handsome but are deterred by his RBF

Suffers from Tony Hawk syndrome™ where people know of his feats as a gymnast and as a kid’s show host yet no one recognizes him (He thinks it’s because of the beanie)

Socializing

Pretty low energy in social situations, therefore you’ll hardly see him in crowded places or partying all night

When he is out and about, he’s definitely the quiet and reserved type

Those close to him are usually shocked and disgusted when he’s in work mode (talkative, charming, and happy) during social gatherings

King of leaving social gatherings without saying anything

Will surprisingly accept most invitations to hang out though

Has the most Netflix and Chill™ vibes except he truly means watching TV and relaxing

Habits

Loves to sleep in on the weekend/ day off and abuses the snooze button and multiple alarms

Chronically early for even the most casual meeting

Picked up smoking and drinking after ending his gymnast career

Preferences

Prefers to wear earthy hues outside of his work uniform

Gymnastic preferences are as follows: rings, floor, pommel horse, vault, and bars

Misc

Actually rich but has no one to spend his money on

Known for being generous with his money

Superstitious, especially when it comes to his daily horoscope

Surprisingly not the type to believe in love horoscopes though

Fully believes in mercury retrograde (after Utano and Furitsuke tell him about it)

Work & Education

Together with Maman

Zero career aspirations, however he does firmly believe in doing a good job in whatever he sets his mind to

Can be a bit of a pushover because even though he tries to decline or say no to more work, he often ends up doing it anyway

Has a good amount of award nominations for his work on Together with Maman

Hates his job but feels even worse when he thinks about inevitably aging out of his career as a taiso no oniisan

Professional gymnast

Volume 2 told us that he was the All-Japan Gymnastics Solo winner, so I do think he probably tried out to be on the Olympic team or was on it at some point during his professional career

(RIP Uramichi, you would have loved being able to take a mental health break to come back better and stronger for your sport. I know in my heart that Simone Biles is your hero.)

Seemed very unapproachable when competing

Ghosted all of his gymnastics connections after leaving the profession

His coach pulled some strings to get him job on Together with Maman

College days

Nippon Sport Science University (Nittaidai) alumnus (confirmed in Vol 1)

Undergrad: Athletic sports major; Grad: Health & sport science

Took a class on childhood sport education, which was surprisingly one of the only classes he remembers taking in college

Family

Future family

Wants kids but needs to find the right partner first

Would feel awkward or uncomfortable around his first child due to trauma related to his father

Developing relationship with his younger sister

Had a strained relationship with his sister when they were children, mostly because of their father trying to live vicariously through Uramichi

Uramichi probably tried to distract their father from criticizing and hurting his sister to the best of his abilities by focusing their father’s attention on him

Thus resulting in resentment and jealousy on his sister’s end

Worried and concerned when she ran away at 16

Relieved and surprised that she reached out to him after running away

Slowly and awkwardly rebuilding their relationship as adults

Uramichi likes to spoil his niece a lot because she reminds him of his sister when they were younger

Strained, if not nearly non-existent, relationship with his father

Doesn’t see or speak to his father after leaving professional gymnastics

Spent the first few years of his retirement full of anger and resentment towards his father

Now it’s all he feels is apathy

His relationship with his father makes Uramichi doubtful and fearful of his abilities to be a father

Return to

The Main Masterlist

Life Lessons Masterlist

AO3

[thestrangestthing89]

Inversion of Tropes - Part 2

The mercy kill trope/trauma porn trope This typically happens just as a character heals from trauma or when they aren't in a romantic relationship because they can't seem to figure out what to do with a character who is single. There will probably be more to say about this next season with regard to El's arc. I suspect she will be going on an independent journey and worrying more about reclaiming her childhood than any adult or teenager appropriate things. She missed a huge part of her life and her recovery from this is an important part of her story. So I don't expect them to suddenly kill her off just as she's getting to the point where she can have the life she wants. It's honestly so awful and frustrating when shows do this. I will probably write more about this post S5. This show has also never been unnecessarily violent. Any of the violence actually serves the plot and none of the characters have ignored any of the trauma they've gone through and pretended it didn't happen. Shows like Walking Dead and Game of Thrones like to do this. Everything is brutal and excessively violent in the name of "realism" but they never show the aftermath of what it does to the characters. It's trauma porn. It's for people who have become so desensitized to violence that they can't recognize that this isn't actually realistic or sophisticated storytelling. Stranger Things hasn't gone to an extreme with this and they have started to show ways that all of this trauma have impacted everyone - bad grades, attitude problems, etc. They don't unnecessarily torture their characters in the name of entertainment.

Unnecessary exploitative shots This isn't exactly a trope but it's so prevalent in tv and movies that I thought I'd add it here. Often, with male directors especially, there are so many creepy, lingering shots on the female characters in particular that end up being exploitative. We don't see that here. Even with Nancy in S1 who takes her shirt off. We don't get lingering shots of her in a bra that feel violating. The camera focuses on Steve most of the time and through most of the scene she is shot from the shoulders up. In the hands of a lot of male directors, there would have been more shots of El floating in her bath that could have easily been exploitative and many wouldn't have hesitated even though she's young. The scene that sticks out the most to me is the scene in S4 when she's in the freezer. She is fully covered and even though she's in white it's not see through or cringy in anyway. I am so relieved to see things like this because most directors wouldn't have hesitated to take advantage of her here. It's not just with the female characters either. Steve takes his shirt off and the focus isn't on him or lingering. It's on Nancy, Max, Lucas, and Dustins reactions. And Steve is an adult so it wouldn't have felt as creepy but it still would have been unnecessary. Same with Billy. We mainly see the reactions of the moms at the pool and the camera doesn't stay on him.

1d villain/villian who gets a redemption arch trope Billy, Henry, and Brenner could fit this and none of them are one dimensional. I don't think we are going to see a redemption arc for Henry. We saw one for Billy in S3. He's an abusive, bully but he "redeemed" himself by sacrificing himself for everyone. However S4 flips this around. We see Max's side of things and she doesn't forgive him. That one good act doesn't erase what he did to her. This is where she starts to get closure and heal. Forgiving him isn't forced on her in the name of healing. It's done in a realistic way where she has complex feeling about her relationship with him. We see her re-write their relationship into a more sibling dynamic that wasn't true. But she acknowledges that it wasn't and that it was just the grief talking. El goes through a similar thing with Brenner. She doesn't give him her forgiveness but she gets closure. She is ready to move on from this part of her life. But what he did to her was unforgivable and even though he called it love and called himself her father she knows better now.

The ugly girl turned beauty queen trope Makeovers on this show have been done for character development, particularly with El. But she never gets turned into the "hot girl". The closest they come to this is in S1 when she is wearing the pink dress with the blonde wig. The boys pick this out for her so she can look "normal". She is referred to as "pretty" and this is clearly something she wants - to be like everyone else. But she finds throughout the season that this isn't her. Her dress gets dirty and she loses her wig but she is still reassured the she is "pretty" (I'm pretty sure they use this here to mean normal and not attractive). El also goes through other makeovers to find herself and never once does she get dressed up to be "hot". None of the other female characters do either.

The antagonistic siblings trope For whatever reason this trope is prevalent in a lot of 80s movies. But we see the opposite happening with Will and Jonathan. Jonathan loves Will and takes care of him and supports him. He's never resentful of the role he plays in his life. We do see this trope play out a bit with Mike and Nancy. They have a typical sibling dynamic. The younger brother is annoying and bugs the older sister. Which is why I think they are going to invert this next season. They gave us what's familiar and now they will twist it.

The manic pixie dream girl trope This person is quirky and not like other girls. She is usually one dimensional and there for male character development and doesn't get a story of her own. Robin seems like she will fit this when she's first introduced. But then we see she isn't there for Steve's development and wasn't introduced to be his girlfriend. Instead we see them develop a friendship and she has her own storyline that isn't dependent on Steve - with Vicky and Nancy - and she helps the group out with the supernatural stuff and the Russians. She is smart and useful to the group.

The girls hate each other and are enemies for no reason trope This is usually done because the (usually) male writers can't figure out that girls actually get along IRL. So when we were first presented with this trope in S2, it seems like El and Max will hate each other. But El's jealousy is related to her trauma and isn't random. It was a realistic way to show that this girl was isolated and clingy with Mike. But she gets to know Max and they are BFFs now. They have such a great relationship that is beneficial for both of them. I am so glad they inverted this.

The cool guy gets the girl and wins trope I'm obviously talking about Steve. He isn't getting the girl at the end of this. I think this makes people angry because they don't know what to do with his character. I see a lot of criticisms directed at the writers for sidelining him or treating him badly but they aren't. He just simply isn't the star of the show. And that's ok. It's not his story. But people are so used to the straight, white, conventionally attractive male being the center of the narrative that they often place him here when he doesn't belong. (I wrote about his here). His role is as a secondary character. He is there for support and this doesn't mean that he's being sidelined. The audience gets resentful about it because they've never seen someone like him not be the center of attention so they fixate on him and complain he's being mistreated when he isn't. It's not his role to play the hero here. But it's not surprising that the part of the audience that doesn't relate to the nerds ends up fixating on him. They are used to being the lead and they think that's where someone like him/them belongs. So they overinflated his relationships and role within the group (he is not a mentor or a goddamn babysitter). It's hard for people to see something different. So they lash out at the writing and make HC's "correcting" things. But the actual narrative isn't going to change here. He's not the hero of this story.

I honestly wasn't expecting this to be so long. My point is this - this show has always, always done the unexpected thing. They give you what you what's familiar and then flip it upside down. So when I see people saying things like "they'll never break up Mike and El" it's entirely based on those people being so used to that narrative they don't know what other story to expect. It's the one that we are "supposed" to get. But they won't give this trope for the same reason they haven't given any of the others. This isn't a superficial story. It's not meant as casual, escapist tv. They are calling out storytelling as we've seen it. They are flipping the script and giving us something new.

[hiraethblack22]

Fire and Ice

(Bucky x ofc) series.

MASTERLIST OF THE SERIES: here.

SUMMARY: Thirteen is a HYDRA pawn, a soldier, a spy and an assassin. A wraith. Chosen because of her powers and transformed into the perfect weapon. (enchanted!reader) What happens when her mission becomes locating and eliminating The Winter Soldier?

IMPORTANT: I won't use Y\n but the lead character will be given a name and will be a fully formed character. Set in a time where everyone is still alive and Bucky is free of the hydra. Warnings: violence, blood, torture, and manipulation. Vulgar language. The story will contain adult content. Probably a whole lot of Smut.

CHAPTER TWO: US AND THEM.

Peace is an abstract concept made by powerful people to install faith in the institutions of the world that claim to keep crime and danger at bay. In all the years I’d been living, I quickly realised that it was indeed a false concept, a lie, considering that the same people who claimed to protect the world were installing the danger in it. The idea of peace is nothing but a facade that is used to manipulate the masses.

Hydra was claiming to cleanse the world from evil, but how could they pretend to act for world peace when they were responsible of the death of millions? Couldn’t they see the blood tinting their white vest of morality? How could they profess goodness when they were keeping dozens of slaves under their polished boots?

The Avengers were painted as heroes. Flying around to beat up the evil—that, yes, when they weren’t busy fighting among themselves.

There had been a time when I had hoped for them to come and rescue us, me, from Hydra. But, it soon faded; hope was dangerous, it only led to disappointment and despair. Instead, I focused on survival. I had waited, spending days laying facedown on the filthy floor of the cells and weeks silently witnessing the deaths of my cellmates one after the other. The years I had passed, fed with injections of syringes, and pumped up with synthetic drugs to accomplish assignments that were impossible for anybody else, had helped me to give up all hope, not just in the Avengers but also in the rest of the world.

I ingenuously thought they weren't saving us because they were fighting each moment to defend their values, as we fought every day for a cup of water or a bit of sleep, but no; here they were, drinking champagne in fancy dresses, dancing, as the world outside cried their names.

The fair of peace for the future was another clown show created by the government to show the citizens that the future was safe. The secretary of state had delivered a very long sermon on heroes and peace, licking the avengers' arses every two sentences, and delivering sexist remarks about the heroines of the team—that made my fingers tickle the trigger of my rifle more eagerly than I should have—but in between inaugurations and philosophical peace speeches, the secretary of state made sure he got an exclusive on the prostitution trade every single month, and on the remaining days he accepted bribes from Hydra. So, he would end up murdered, one way or another, but killing him wasn't allowed in my future.

I guessed I couldn’t even proclaim myself as a white knight of peace, not when I was currently waiting to bomb the shit out of it.

“I have eyes on the target.” I murmured into the radio, lowering the binoculars to eye the building where the fair was taking place.

My body moved without me telling it what to do. It checked the ammo, fastened a couple of guns to my legs, secured the daggers around the belt, and lowered the rifle behind my back.

"I hope you mean this horrible building," Marya's voice said in reply. The radio cracked with her voice.

The building was indeed quite horrible—a white oval with an awful lot of windows. It was not a safe place, not even with the dozens of security guards standing outside the building. The others had by now removed the guards and placed the explosives.

The orders had been made clear that it had to be set to trap everyone inside, and us inside with them. The roof was the way out. A soldier had infiltrated the rooftop guards to take control of the chopper when the time was right.

I lowered my hand, and as I willed it, a light flared beneath the skin, producing a flame on the palm of my hand. It swirled on itself, hissing like a wild animal. I allowed it to dance around my fingers with a smile. “It will burn down with the lot of them.”

Marya had been with us for what I imagined was a couple of weeks; sharing a wall of bars had quite made us close. It wasn’t friendship; I didn’t even remember what friendship was supposed to feel like, but we were accompanying each other on long missions and on the dark, cold nights at the headquarters—holding my hand in hers like a loving mother and whispering funny stories of her childhood, telling me how her family had always been loving and caring for her and the rest of her siblings. She often cried, remembering them, thinking about what they thought when they remembered her—I cried with her most of the time, thinking about my brother and the life we had lost.

I knotted the rope to my body, crawling down the side of the building in the silent shadows of the night.

As the other soldiers would trap them all inside, and I would be focused on The Winter Soldier.

The programme they implanted in his head was nearly perfect, certainly better than the one in my head; ours was injected with syringes and would fade away after some weeks, leaving us begging for more. I didn't know why these people wanted the soldier, but I was in charge of bringing his body back with me to the base. I wasn't in a position to care about the reason; the only thing I needed was for my brother to be safe.

I nodded to the other soldiers when I crossed the doors. As soon as I was inside, they all disappeared.

The people were all gathered in the big hall on the second floor, watching the performance. And I was going to give them the most beautiful spectacle—the one they were going to pay with their lives to watch. I distantly heard the noise of the bombs going off behind me.

I smirked.

The game was finally on.

The door of the big hall flew open. The people inside began rushing out, scarfs and clothes over their mouths, to block the smoke from entering their lungs.

I rolled my eyes—people really didn’t know how to save themselves. Running straight into the arms of danger.

I grabbed my rifle and fired shots against the walls. They all dropped in an instant, moving out of the way, and clearing the way for us.

He was in the back of the room. Beautifully swinging punches and kicks at the soldiers surrounding him, ducking out of the flashes of knives. I walked to him, taking my sweet time to extract my favourite dagger from the belt.

The soldiers didn’t waste any time, shooting and punching their way to the Avengers. I recognised a couple of them—I saw the widow jump straight for one of us, leaving him at her feet an instant later. The Captain was, as usual, throwing his shield at the enemies and shouting orders. An arrow flashed past me, grazing my cheek, but I paid no mind; somebody else would take care of that. I saw out of the corner of my eye the soldiers shooting in the direction of the Hawke without breaking the protective circle they had me in—if I didn’t grab a hold of the Winter Soldier, none of us would go unpunished. And then, finally, I saw him

One of the soldiers, S-32 was his number, was attacking too roughly, advancing too closely. He swung a powerful punch at the Winter Soldier, making his head shoot sideways. I saw his blood spraying the floor. Another soldier came, locking his arms behind him. S-32 raised a knife, arching down straight for the Winter Soldier’s throat. The knife flashed closer and closer and brushed the skin of his neck before it stopped.

S-32 stared at me in shock, his eyes wide. His mouth opened, but only a pained groan escaped his trembling lips. He shot his eyes where my hand was closed around his wrist, my skin glowing and his flesh fuming away through my fingers.

“He is mine.”

I kicked him in the chest, watching his body tumble to the ground amid the fight.

I nodded to the other to release him, and his hands couldn’t have dropped faster.

I stared at the Winter Soldier, bending my head to the side to study him better. He was panting in pain, but I couldn't feel any remorse. The power coursing through my veins was too intoxicating to resist. The first thing I noticed were his blue and intense eyes. They reminded me of the ocean, but with a dangerous edge that made me shiver.

I threw another knife from my holster, imbedding it on the floor between the Winter Soldier's feet. He stared at it, then at me.

I winked. "I'd hate for this to be boring."

The Winter Soldier's eyes narrowed, sizing me up and trying to figure out if it was a scam or not. I took a step forward, keeping my eyes locked on his.

"You know," I said, "I've heard a lot about you. The things you've done... they're pretty impressive." He didn't react, remaining frozen in the little bubble that had formed around us. I saw a flicker of something in his eyes. Recognition? Regret? It was hard to tell.

"I don't do that anymore."

"It's cute you think you can escape this," I mocked him.

I quickly turned around to face him, my heart racing as I braced myself for his next move. He lunged at me with the knife. I bent sideways, avoiding that flash of silver.

I didn't wait any longer and lashed out in attack. As I lunged forward, I felt a rush of adrenaline. My foot collided with his stomach, making him stumble backward. He doubled over, escaping from my attack like intangible smoke. He rolled out of the way, rising on his feet behind me, knife in hand and ready.

"Let's dance, doll."

In a flash, the Winter Soldier was on his feet, behind my back, immobilising my arms against my torso with his metal arm. He pressed me against his hard chest. The knife angled beneath my chin, and his breath caressed my ear as he bent down and whispered, "It's cute you think you can beat me."

I took a step back, my eyes locked on his, searching for any sign of weakness. He was quick and agile. Hydra had definitely wasted their time training this man, but they had done it with me too. With a sudden burst of energy, he charged at me again, his knife glinting in the light. I sidestepped his attack and landed a swift kick to his side. He stumbled backward.

The Winter soldier grabbed his side, slightly hunched on his side. I dove forward, sending my knife to slice the air towards his forehead. But the bastard grabbed my wrist, like I had done with S-32 minutes prior. His metal hand crushed it so hard that I felt my bones' wishes to snap. He twisted my wrist until my fingers spasmed open, and the blade clattered awkwardly to the floor. If any of my trainers had been watching, they would have whipped me into unconsciousness.

There was something in his voice that made my blood roar violently in my veins. I involuntarily licked my lips.

"If you're done flirting with me, soldat,” I hardly recognised my own voice, and that mocking smile that could be heard in it. “I'd like to kill you now."

I concentrated on my back, making the skin flare up with fire. He hissed. At first, he tried to hold on to me, but he stumbled back, surrendering to the pain. The knife fell, and I kicked it to let it disappear in the crowd.

As soon as there was space between us, I elbowed him in the groin. I laughed as he groaned in pain, finally rolling away, free from his hold.

With a quick movement, he lunged at me again, his metal arm glinting in the dim light. I dodged his attack and countered with a swift kick to his side. He grunted in pain but didn't back down.

We continued to exchange blows, each one more powerful than the last. As the fight dragged on, I could feel my energy waning, but I refused to give up.

The winter soldier's punch came straight for my mouth. The hit almost knocked me to the ground, but I managed to stay on my feet. I could feel the blood trickling down from my lip. The winter soldier smirked at me, his intense eyes now filled with a hint of amusement.

I knew that this fight was far from over.

I wiped the blood off with the back of my hand. My lips curled in a small smirk of their own.

"I hoped I didn't have to use this," I told him, showing him my hand, the fire rolling on my fingers, "Hydra won't be happy if I burn you to fucking ashes, but hey!" I shot a wave of fire, making it more solid than hot, sending him backward. I shrugged. "Accidents do happen."

I knocked him down twice, sending him further and further into the back of the room, right where I saw Marya keeping the door open for me. She was leaning against the door, using a small knife to clean the underside of her nails, unbothered by the chaos and destruction that was going on around us.

The Winter Soldier stumbled on his feet again, and finally, sending a last blast of power against his chest, he stumbled out of the room.

I nodded to Marya, and she moved to grab her two guns, diving into the room and locking the door behind her.

I took my rifle from my back, and pointed it straight for his heart. “It’s just you and me now, soldat.”

“You don’t have to do this,” he spoke, holding up his hands to show submission.

“Don’t I?” I asked, my voice rougher than I intended. “Are you going to appeal to my sense of pity? Because I have none.”

None I could feel; not at the moment. Not when whatever they shot in my veins was making my heart hammer so loud in my ears that my head felt like it was about to explode; not when I knew what would happen to me and the others if I failed.

“I can help you.”

His eyes were kind, almost sweet, but it was pointless. I didn't know how long I could resist the urge to give in to the voice screaming at me to complete my mission.

“Help me?” I laughed bitterly. “It is a bit late for that.”

I pressed my finger on the trigger. I didn’t know why I was entertaining his idiotic desire to speak with me. I didn’t know why I yet had to shoot a bullet in his heart—heart, not head—because, for whatever reason, my orders prevented me from performing my regular schedule.

“I know they control your mind. I can help you get out of their control. Let me help you. I have connections," he said, "people who can protect you and your loved ones.”

I shook my head.

I opened my mouth to speak again, to scream at him to shut up, to stop messing with my time.

“Nobody can save us,” I said. I heard the sound of the chopper igniting and taking off and the noise of screaming in the distance. The sinister whispers of the serum in my ears and the roaring of the fire.

“The building is on fire. You will die one way," I raised my rifle to aim at his heart, "or the other. Goodbye, soldat. Hydra sends its regards.”

Then everything exploded.

I felt my body flying, smashing against the wall. Then everything turned black.

“Thirt-” a voice broke the surface of the fog clouding my mind. “Thirteen…are you—”

My throat felt like sandpaper, it was aching, and it burned. I brought a hand to my head, as if to find out if I could feel something other than the loud ringing in my ears.

The hand came away stained with blood. I coughed, groaning in pain.

I couldn't understand where I was, couldn't understand why I was in pain. I squeezed my eyes tightly shut, making the tears that had been stuck in my eyes fall, and tried to bring my surroundings into focus.

Everything was tinted in red, smoke was filling the room. The flames were slowly consuming the area around me, but my powers had squeezed me into the familiar protective shield, allowing me to breathe. The fire would not burn me, would not kill me—the scientists had tested it in any way they could think; they burned every part of my body, shoved burning iron on my body, in my eyes, in my throat, but nothing; the smoke would kill me, with time, and those damn powers didn't even give me the joy of an unexpected death.

My throat felt like sandpaper; it was aching, and it burned.

I lifted myself onto my knees, bracing myself with my hands when the world wobbled violently.

The screams in the distance were now drowned out by the crackling of the fire. I knew I had to get out of there, but my mind was still reeling from what had just happened. The sinister whispers of the serum echoed in my head, getting quieter and quieter. And for the first time since I had woken up, my head wasn’t heavy and my mind wasn’t blank.

"What the fuck is going on?"

For the first time in years, I was out of the base, and I didn't feel the black mask of the drug pushing me down. There was no constant pain that clutched my heart and mind, no voice in my head making me do things I hated. The world around me seemed brighter and more vibrant than ever, as if I were seeing it for the first time.

Tears rolled out of my eyes. I stared at the door, and I gathered myself to run out of it. Maybe I'd reach those mountains I had seen on the mission to Norway a few years back. I could finally escape and hide. I would be free. Free.

But then I saw him—the sergeant, the soldat, the Winter Soldier slumped on the ground, eyes closed and still as a corpse.

And I remembered the mission. The headquarters. The other soldiers. The fucking microchip they had implanted in my body, prevented me, even in my clearest moments, from escaping.

The rifle was lying somewhere in the room, but retrieving it was the least of my thoughts. I remembered all those words the scientists had shouted in my face, as they beat, whipped, and carved my body according to their pleasure. Michael. Michael would die if I disappeared like that.

I sobbed, mourning for the life I didn't get to live, for the things I wasn't allowed to feel. I took a deep breath and wiped away my tears. I couldn't let my emotions consume me, not now. Michael would be safe, and I would need to sacrifice my life for him. It was a small price to pay for the life of my only family. I had to get up and go back, no matter how hard it was.

But I had a choice to change things. To make them better.

I crawled to the soldier as blood began to trickle from my nose. I groaned with pain as I rolled him onto his back, placing my fingers on his neck. He was alive.

His words echoed in my head.

I can help you. I can help you.

I eyed the exit; it was engulfed in fire, and an escape through the windows was unlikely. "Soldat." I shook him from his shoulders roughly, but nothing. "Soldat. Wake up! Come on."

His eyes stayed closed. Shit.

I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself down. I had to think fast.

"Thirteen! Thirteen! Report now." I nearly ripped my belt off in my haste to grab the radio. Marya's voice came through, screaming at me to inform her whether the mission had been successful. "Is the target dead?" I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself down.

And I could make no other decision.

My heart was pounding as I took a deep breath and replied, "Affirmative, target eliminated."

"Meet us at the rendezvous point in ten minutes.”

I knew what her words actually meant, if I was not there in time, a squad would track down my microchip—whatever that thing was—and execute me for desertion. Mission accomplished or not. I had to move fast.

"Copy that."

I took another moment to stare at the man before me, looking so peaceful despite everything. He was strong enough to have survived that long in the smoke, in that moment, I had to be strong and pull us both out of this hell. "I hope you're worth it."

I wrapped my arms around the soldier and began to pull, nearly screaming from the pain in my muscles, but I had no time to find an alternative. I couldn't do anything else.

"Damn it, you're heavy." I yanked him with me, stretching the shield around both of us. “If we both die because you want to pull a Sleeping Beauty on me, my ghost will torture yours for eternity.”

The crossing was excruciating.

I dragged him through the big chamber, and then, kicking open the doors, I hauled him up the fire escape to the roof.

I collapsed on the floor beside him, desperately gasping for air. The soldier was still unconscious and unmoving, but he was breathing, and his pulse was steady. And that was enough. Enough to hope.

I lifted the sleeve of his jacket, exposing his arm. And being the only thing at my disposal, I began to write on his arm with my blood.

"You said you could help us." I gave him one last look. "Please do it."

I jumped down the stairs again, submerging into the fire and disappearing.

For the first time in years, the familiar bite of hope came back to haunt me, I only hoped not to be absolutely devastated by the consequences of my actions.

Please, Let me know what you think and if you would like to be tagged in later parts!

Disclaimer: all of my chapters will have a title with the name of a song. This chapter has the title 'Us and them', a song by Pink Floyd. It has no correlation with the story, but I thought it was nice to let you all know.

@mori1b2bpad @lady-bellyn  @thefandomplace @bonkyandsteebluver @billihill - let me know if you still wish to be tagged to the next parts or deleted from the tag list.

[bit-club]

my notes for week five! :D

the completion of walking tours, three uninvited guests, and the third interlude mean we’re officially halfway through the book (and done with five of the ten weeks)! i love that up to this point had all been entirely set up, kinda crazy that the adults don’t even get together until almost the halfway point especially considering how much stuff goes down in the second half of the book. walking tours is especially cool because after they’ve all met up they go their separate ways until later as a way to uncover their own memories. i said this in an earlier notes post but i absolutely love the way this book lets the reader discover the histories of these characters along with them, i think it makes the reading experience that much more investing.

anyways! onto walking tours. ben’s perspective is definitely my favorite in this chapter, i really like how he, similarly to stan, is more left-brained and focused on how to make sense of what is happening, like when he was a kid and the most concerning thing about a clown haunting him was that the balloon was floating against the breeze. unlike stan, however, ben is able to see when it’s not worth thinking in the mathematical terms, that the equation will never make sense so it’s not worth trying to figure out. this segment right here is a good example of that:

ben is reminded that as a child he was able to accept irrational things because children are more susceptible to fantasy, more willing to believe in something adults would be more likely to ignore or excuse if they couldn’t explain it. i like this because it perfectly states the stakes in this book: childhood belief is the weapon, because what is happening cannot be fought without a little willingness to let it go unexplained. (i also like ‘scratching at the window,’ reminds me of ’salem’s lot!)

another part of this chapter i really liked was beverly’s scene where she goes back to her childhood home. concerned her father is still alive and living there, she internally argues with herself over whether or not to ring the bell, and despite a firm decision not to, she does anyways.

i like that this scene really shows how bev is at war with her upbringing, where she knows what she wants and maybe even deserves and still has this automatic reaction that aligns with what her father would want her to do, made even worse in the rest of the scene as her fear is revealed to be her father’s implied desire of assaulting her sexually made real. truly the most horrific scene in the book so far, not only in what’s actually happening but the implications for what beverly as a child was going through, which she can’t even really remember.

the rest of this chapter is also cool, i like the fact that richie is forced to take his contacts out and get his glasses, another way to bring him back to childhood, i thought that the dead versions of greta/belch/patrick/tony tracker showing up for eddie was interesting, and i especially enjoyed bill’s regain of silver and his and mike’s little hangout afterwards.

next up we get our three uninvited guests showing up in derry: tom rogan, henry bowers, and audra phillips. i love henry’s pov chapters, i think there’s always something particularly interesting and fucked up happening. i like the implication here that his arrest and imprisonment in juniper hill was more for show than anything; the townspeople probably also have the sense that ‘night never ends,’ and i like how this builds up to the explicit confirmation of that in the third interlude (we’ll get there soon!):

i also liked the reasoning behind pennywise’s ‘alliance’ with henry. where pennywise is bound by the laws that leave him unprotected by mental strength, henry is in a sense more real, and can do physical damage no matter how prepared the losers are for a confrontation (‘but you’re alive,’ as if pennywise is not? interesting! pennywise is so tied to the beliefs of the town that in turn makes him both powerful and vulnerable).

something i also liked in this chapter was kay’s determination to help beverly, even at the cost of her own safety. it’s a shame she’s not in the novel more because i think she’s great but i also think her limited pagetime gives a good insight into bev’s internal issues, especially now that kay has also been at the mercy of tom’s violence. this section here i thought really tied well into what we just read about beverly, especially with her decision to not ring the bell and then finding herself doing it anyways:

and finally for this week, the third interlude. this one builds on the ideas presented in the first two, but it adds one crucial concept: what’s happening in derry is intentional. the bradley gang scene is different from the rushed anger and giddy violence of the burning of the black spot, different from the attack on adrian mellon, different from the explosion at the ironworks. the shooting of the bradley gang was premeditating, town wide. the owner of the gunshop who orchestrated it’s start only ever talked to a couple people, and yet several dozen showed up that day to take part in the violence, hailed in by a whisper. this shooting was set up over two days; the entire town knew where to show up and when it would start based on passing word along. i really enjoy this sense that the entire town is aware of this undercurrent; like henry knows ‘night never falls in derry’ the townspeople know what to do, where to show up, what to say afterwards (mr keene says most of the town was there that day but most people would instead say they were out of town, including covering for other people who were there). i liked that the word used to describe this was ‘momentum,’ and this analogy:

i also like that this interlude adds to that idea that pennywise and the town are in a mutual relationship. pennywise isn’t a parasite as much as the town and pennywise are in league, that they are eternal a part of the other. this is best conveyed in mr keene’s description of how the town reacted to seeing pennywise: each man saw the clown as having the same gun as his.

like most things about the derry/pennywise relationship, you can probably argue that this is how human memory works, and of course in an exciting moment they wouldn’t remember the exact details and probably assume it’s the same gun… but this is derry, where nothing is coincidental. is the town a reflection of pennywise or vice versa? they mirror each other, violent intent for violent intent. kudos to mike hanlon again, because as much as this book can make my head spin he was living it. that’s what i also appreciate about these interludes: they show how much mike went through just to feel certain that he could fulfill his childhood promise.

[verdanteslounge]

Should I Read SVSSS? (Scum Villain's Self-Saving System)

... is a question you've been asking yourself so let me help you make a decision.

Summary:

Shen Yuan dies from rage reading the final chapter of a popular webnovel series: Proud Immortal Demon Way. With all his complaints and curses at the author, he gets transmigrated into the body of Shen Qingqiu-- the villain of the story. Now, he has to fill in plot holes, ensure the main plot points of the story still happens (this includes the original SQQ's actions to make things difficult for the Main Character), all while trying to gain favor with said main character.

The Good:

The highlight of this series is definitely its humor. It helps if you're familiar with harem anime or some of the straight cultivation webnovels. The kind with an OP main character who gets all the girls (+ fanservice) and show how cool he is by face-slapping all the villains. The author does a great job of poking fun at these tropes with SQQ's narration. If you enjoy satirical stories that do not take themselves seriously, you would like this book.

I really enjoy the characters of this book. Nobody's all good or bad, they just have conflicting motivations and different personalities or upbringings. I wish I could say more, but it would be spoilers. I'll expand on this in another post.

What plot armor? I noticed this in MXTX (the author)'s novels a lot. The plot likes to turn its back on the main character. By that I mean, there are times when the outcome of a scenario is up to luck, and the main character ends up with bad luck a lot of the times. If you don't like stories that bend over backwards to make things work for the main character, I think you'll enjoy this series.

The Questionable:

Age gap. In the story, we start off with the ML being 14 and the MC probably around 20s. Not to worry though, nothing happens until the ML is an adult. The feeling I got about this age gap is like walking in a tightrope, but never falling to one side. It has a nuance that I believe would make their relationship reasonable, but if age gaps make you incredibly uncomfortable despite the nuances, I would recommend not to pick it up.

If you're new to the genre and aren't familiar with the tropes the series is talking about, it might be a bit difficult to understand what's happening. However, if you decide to get the book, there is a glossary at the back that explains some of them!

If you like stories that guide you gently through the setting and you like to be immersed in your senses first before something happens, you might find it difficult to like this story. The series is generally fast-paced and only focuses on details that is currently relevant to the main character.

I hope these points help! Feel free to let me know if you end up reading the series and if you have, let me know which parts you liked/didn't like!