#villain found friend/family tournament round three

[found-family-tournament]

Found Family Tournament Round 2 Part 7 Group 31

Propaganda and further images under the cut

Archive Staff: Jonathan Sims, Sasha James, Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood

Mighty Nein: Caleb Widogast, Nott the Brave/Veth Brennato, Fjord, Jester Lavorre, Caduceus Clay, Beauregard Lionett, Yasha Nydoorin, Mollymauk Tealeaf/Kingsley Tealeaf, Essek Thelyss

Archive Staff:

They’re trying their best to understand

Mighty Nein:

Originally, they were only seven, and the Nein part of their group name was a running joke about rolling nines and Caleb's German accent. Then, after Molly's untimely death, the group picked up Caduceus, making seven again. Later, they ally with Essek, who makes eight. And finally, through the power of love and found family, they defeat a villain named Lucien (who inhabits the body Molly had, it's all very complicated), and revive the body to become Kingsley Tealeaf, who looks at Molly as his brother but ultimately makes the group Nine. His revival is literally an act of divine intervention, fueled by the love and loss they all felt after chasing their beloved friend across the continent.

Internally there are other fantastic family bonds. Caleb and Nott/Veth having an incredible bond, Caleb and Beau being the Empire siblings, Molly and Yasha being the circus kids, Beau and Fjord, Cad and Fjord, the chaos crew, Nott and Jester, it goes on and on. They all change each other so significantly, they grow together, and canonically even though they live apart, they all have regular meetups in the tower Caleb created for all of them, with a stained glass window in Molly's honor and rooms dedicated to each member of the group. Even now in the new campaign, they've had cameos that prove years later they still work together and have each other's backs.

This is THEE definition of found family, these assholes were thrown together through circumstance and mostly hated each other to begin with right up until three of their own were kidnapped and then it was ON. And when Molly died, they took his ideals and turned them into a legacy SO POWERFUL they took Essek from a cold, self motivated war criminal to a man willing to die for his friends. They refused to let Beau face her abusive family alone! They helped Yasha heal from her trauma! They took down the whole Cerberus Assembly for what they did to Caleb! They saved the whole dang world together WITH THE POWER OF FUCKING FRIENDSHIP 😭! THEY LOVED MOLLY SO MUCH THAT IT SAVED THE WORLD! THEY NAMED THEMSELVES AFTER A STUPID PUN AND THEN THERE REALLY ENDED UP BEING NINE OF THEM! I WOULD DIE FOR THEM!!!

official art by Ari Orner, fan art by exmakina and tobyjamessharp

[captainkirkk]

✩ WEEKLY FIC ROUND-UP ✩

A collection of fics I’ve read (/reread) and thoroughly enjoyed in the past week-ish from all kinds of fandoms and genres.

BNHA

survival instinct by carolinaa

Izuku's always had the vague feeling that trusting people is more trouble than it's worth.

A villain's quirk makes him realize how painful trust can be, too.

Aizawa Doesn't Deserve This by polytropic

Class 1-A may be turning Aizawa's hair gray, but at least his coworkers are getting entertainment out of it.

xi. stitches by rexcorvidae

Izuku could sew fairly well. He’d asked his mother to teach him when he was young, and she was constantly having to repair rips in the All Might plush he’d carried around for ages. He’d only gotten better as he got older – Kacchan and his friends weren’t very concerned about the state of his uniform, and they couldn’t afford to get it replaced every week.

Giving himself stitches couldn’t be that different… could it?

paint me in trust by dinomight

The first mark Izuku gets is a slight brush of green across his temple. It’s the soft touch of a mother holding her son for the first time. Inko has one to match, the same shade of green staining the tips of her fingers. Hers is more noticeable; Izuku’s tends to blend into his hairline.

He loves it anyways. He has to. It’s the only soulmate mark he has.

(Or: how Izuku goes from just green to a rainbow, UA-style.)

Fun At Hero Con by wolfsrainrules 

Midoriya Izuku is still the biggest hero nerd to walk the earth and not even being Number One is going to change that.

Now if only he could remember to tell his fans that he is Pro Hero Deku.

Fate Declared It, But I Made It So by gringle

Izuku had always seen his threads of fate, the people that were destined to be a part of his life.

(Canon rewrite with platonic threads of fate that only Izuku can see.)

Miraculous Ladybug

late night gaming by crypticgemini

Part 1 of cat emoticons

ladybug: i cant believe we stayed up till four

kitkat: i only slept for three hours after we logged off i have so many coffees in me

ladybug: i- im concerned how many coffees

kitkat: i contain multitudes

Marvel

swing on over by crypticgemini

Part 1 of you have (1) new notification

Peter and MJ text each other back and forth on the regular. These are some of their chat logs.

Harry Potter

Reparatio by astolat (+ podfic)

Draco snorted. “I’m not reduced to penury. I want something considerably beyond money, and I rather think you’re the only one can give it to me.”

“You want the Invisibility Cloak,” Harry said, flatly. He’d half expected as much; it was the only thing he had that Draco could want—

“Don’t be stupid, Potter,” Draco said. “I want my reputation back.”

Slithering by astolat (+ podfic)

Draco found the nest down in the Manor’s cellars, while he was clearing them out.

The Third Task by FloreatCastellum

Ron and his family wait in the stands, watching the third task of the Triwizard Tournament.

Avatar

ds al coda by doctrpepper

zuko dies. zuko wakes up.

All The Gentle Creatures by Haicrescendo

It’s said that you can tell a lot about a person by how they treat animals. Zuko may be loud and stubborn and sharp but all the woodland creatures love him.

[fan-clan-fun]

I have zero self control

Here I am back at it again with new fanclans!!

I literally spent three hours thinking about this as I helped a friend move to a new apartment, its nice to have something to think about while hauling boxes. 

Anyway! Thanks to the anon who mentioned medievalish clans, I wanted to give another go (kinda) to one of my older ideas for a medieval clan, but it’s kinda turned out different than I intended.

First I determined that I wanted to use a sort of hereditary monarchy sort of thing, although its a bit different, and I wanted these clans to be the ones to finally use my list of deities I came up with forever ago.

My thinking was definitely not linear, so I will attempt to pull a coherent train of thought out of the mess.

The Basics:

There are two clans, Dawnclan and Duskclan, named for where their territory is (Dawnclan to the east, Duskclan to the west) and the order of their formation (Dawn first and Dusk second).  Duskclan was formed after a dispute of leadership caused an almost half and half split in the clan and the disgruntled party left. 

The leadership of the clans is based on a specific concept, that was started back when the clan was first founded. The clans are led by a Monarch and their consort. The Monarch must be close blood (child, sibling, niece/nephew, cousin) to the previous Monarch and descended from the original line of the founding cats (Mother Misty). The Consort does not have to be their mate, nor do they have to love each other, but they serve as a team in guiding the clan. One of the pair is in charge of things outside of camp (hunting, patrolling, etc), while the other is in charge of things inside camp (maintenance, keeping kits occupied and educated, ensuring everyone has the supplies they need, etc). It does not matter which of the pair does this, either monarch or consort may choose either job, but they may not each do the same one. The only other requirement, is that the monarch must provide heirs, either through their body, or if that is not possible through other means of close family. 

Part of the differences between Dawnclan and Duskclan, is that they see who is eligible for this duo differently. Dawnclan could care less if its a cis male/female pairing, or any other under the sun, such as a lesbian or gay or nontraditional pair, so long as they can find a way to have heirs. But Duskclan insists it must be a male/female (can be trans) partnership, as they see it as an issue of balance, as well as the consort must be clan born and bred. This is due to the fact that what broke the original clan in two was that the female monarch took an infertile (spayed) female consort and had no intention of producing kits, expecting their sibling to provide. The soon to be leader of Duskclan took issue with this, and left. 

Dawnclan says that the reason for the split was because the leader of Duskclan was a sore loser, which to some degree he was. Because the way it is decided which of the Monarch’s relatives (with preference towards children, siblings, and nieces/nephews) will become the next monarch, is that those who wish to become monarch must submit to a challenge. Either the potential Heir or their consort (whichever plans to be in charge of outside the camp), will engage in a duel (or tournament if there are enough challengers) to determine the rightful heir. The duels are until first visible blood, a sign that the cat is willing to shed blood for their clan if necessary, and forming a pact in blood between the challengers even if they have lost. So when the leader of Duskclan lost to his sister, he refused to live under her rule, gathered supporters who agreed with him, and left.

Clan Ranks/Culture:

So as I mentioned before, I do want to use the deities I had made before, and as a result, Im fiddling a little with ranks. 

Instead of just Medicine cats, there are two ranks:

Healer: These are your traditional medicine cats, but with the added duties of memorizing clan trees and bloodlines and the basic history of the clans, such as the great events and when they occurred, the wars, etc.

Clerics: These are the cats who take charge of religious teachings, of signs a prophecies, and most religious ceremonies. They are the ones who bestow favor on a new monarch, they are the ones who tell the moral stories of heroes and villains, they are the counselors and support for the cats in their clan. 

Sometimes the duties of both Clerics and Healers intercept, and they have at times been at odds, but they usually resolve their differences. 

There are always at least 2 of each at all times, but its not uncommon for each clan to have 3-4 Healers or Clerics. They cant risk the knowledge being lost, so they take the necessary precautions.

There is also a special rank, known as the Knights.

These are generally 3-4 cats who are known to be the absolute best at what they do. They are considered the Monarch and Consort’s Honor Guard, their personal envoys, their paws, their ears, their voices, etc. Usually each Knight has a distinct set of skills, though they are still well rounded, but their is generally the best fighter, and the other three might be the best tracker, or the most stealthy, or the best hunter, or the most eloquent and diplomatic, etc. Knights often are considered to be very desirable as mates (male or female since knights can be either), and its not uncommon for them to be chosen as consorts by potential heirs (In fact in Duskclan most consorts were Knights at one point). Knights do rotate out over time (or don’t make it to retirement due to being in a position of danger more than anyone else) based on the Monarch’s needs and desires, but they keep the title Champion even after they are no longer a Knight, in honor of their service.

How the clans were originally founded:

So this was just a thought I had, that the clans came originally from a clowder, who’s leader, Misty, accepted and allowed her mate to stay. Most clowders often either have one lead male who will chase away or kill kits or other cats he doesnt like, but Dusty was different. He was still fiercely protective of his mate and kits, but he wasn’t aggressive. Other females felt safe around him. And when his Misty’s kits were born and being raised, her daughter Rain convinced her to give other toms a chance too. So before even a clan was established, before names were being changed, the idea of mentoring and apprenticeships was there. Dusty or some of the other females would mentor kits, and if a male could make it through apprenticeship without showing dangerous aggressive tendencies he was allowed to stay. So soon the clowder had not just one male, but several, and it started to grow.

When Misty finally retired, Rain took over, and she chose her own consort to help lead with her, named Beetle. Then they gathered their group together and named themselves officially as a clan (not Dawnclan, that would come later). Together they decided on rules and regulations (the original code), so that they could begin to interact with outsiders and potentially allow them in. It was a much smaller code than canon, and its main tenants included not harming kits, not being aggressive towards one another unless in defense, and that everything in the clan was shared and that the weakest and most vulnerable should get first choice. Over time it evolved to include more, but that was the very start.

Religion came with the next generation, at Misty’s death, when the old stories of the gods took on a new light. Mothers began teaching their kits about Misty as an incarnation of Mehr, the primal mother deity, the one which most cats had heard of and acknowledged. The other god which was taught was the deity of chaos and death, which was a natural counterpoint to Mehr as the deity of birth and life. The other deities evolved over time as new roles and ranks became important. Some took on more real life energy as certain cats were considered incarnations of them, like Misty had been.

Funnily enough, Dawnclan considers the founder of Duskclan to be the incarnation of Hissao, the betrayer. 

As for medicine.... well Im not sure, this is as far as I got thinking wise, and I just needed to write it down before I forgot so... yeah. If people like this I might write more about it, Im liking what I have so far, and I never could tell myself to stop. 

[hey-hamlet]

BNHA AU Ideas : The Bitter Three

also on AO3!

TL;DR: Three people without the Heroic quirks Japan demands, determined to help people that never helped them. --- Midoriya, Shinsou and Monoma are good friends. This changes everything.

Basically, Midoriya, Shinso and Monoma make friends in middle school and bond over their lack of heroic quirks and their fight to become heroes anyway.

they are also all petty bitter little bitches

monoma gets in to the hero course, but only just, and turns it down because hes not leaving izuku and shinsou to rot alone in gen ed. they make it together or not at all.

Izuku and Hitoshi take the entrance exam and feel their hearts sink when they see the robots.

Hitoshi gets 5 points. Izuku gets 20, 18 of which are rescue points. Their low scores hurt more than 0s, and getting into UA feels like a slap in the face.

Izuku is top 5 on the written exam, Hitoshi in the top 40. Izuku sends in supplementally analysis pages with his application because hes knows hes going to get marked down for being quirkless and he needs something special to help him stand out.

Anyway, they kick absolute a s s in the sports festival

and end up in first, second and third. the hero kids are,,, kinda pissed honestly

monoma is more valid in this au! but izuku is a little less valid? idk they are all bitter bitches

hero society sucks dick

but like,,, bitter monoma helping izuku build self confidence and izuku helping monoma stop being a such a dick

Sludge villain doesn’t quite happen. Allmight finds the villains trying to shove itself into a stray cat, its messy and a little heartbreaking. He deals with the villain, puts it in a bottle then de-powers to try to bury the poor thing because it really didn’t deserve this.

That’s when izuku comes by, he cries when the scary skinny guy explains what happened to the cat

"the poor thing got caught between a vilain and a hero."

"that,,, that’s not fair!"

"I know kid. Its not"

Izuku starts digging a little grave for the cat with his hands, placing some flowers over it and saying a quick prayer.

Yagi is talking to him (hes already given OFA to mirio, on speaking terms with nighteye again) and finds out izuku wants to be a hero. This soft hearted kid that cried for a stray cat and made his hands bleed to dig it a grave.

Yagi tells him he used to be a pro and would love to help him get into UA.

So in this au Yagi helps izuku train for the entrance exam! But without the massive focus of muscle building to hold OFA. He gets izuku to clean up the beach to build some muscle, but they run through different fighting styles, practise analysis and yagi supervises sparring between shinso, monoma and izuku.

He tells them about the gen ed “loop hole” to get into heroics and warns them about how bias the entrance exam is. There is no harm in taking it to put your face in front of the heroics teachers, but its almost impossible to pass without a destructive quirk.

So, the sports festival:

izuku wins the footrace same way as in canon, monoma is somewhere in the top 10 and hitoshi is in the bottom third

only the 3 of them make a team for the cavalry battle, monoma is the rider and izuku and hitoshi are the horses. they dont want to give away hitoshi's quirk if they can help it so they dont use it much. they come 3rd overall.

Izuku is really strong from all the heavy lifting at the beach so honestly its mostly just him hauling monoma around and hitoshi sprinting after him.

and then the tournament

they see the names come up and izuku starts to cry and the other two panic because why?? But they look at him and see hes grinning through his tears

"someone was looking out for us. we are going to c r u s h this"

hitoshi's first match is vs bakugo.

he wins because bakugo has no chance to work out his quirk

monoma is against todoroki.

he takes out his ice with a whirlwind of fire and lets him slip out of the ring on a patch of ice

izuku is vs momo.

he uses her creations against her and she losing in a hand to hand brawl

hitoshi takes out kirishima next.

another round without a punch thrown, he gets him by insulting Bakugo

monoma gets rid of shinozaki with his last few seconds todoroki's quirk

izuku trips iida over the boundary

in the semi finals izuku takes out uraraka by flipping her out of bounds. it was close and he only just made it, izuku and uraraka’s match was b r u t a l. the main reason he won is the he noticed the rock shower and pulled Uraraka under it with him. She didn’t have enough time to react and got struck on the head with some pieces of rubble which dazed her pretty badly.

monoma and shinsou joke durring their fight that they are fighting for the chance to get their ass kicked by izuku

shinsou wins

izuku wins over all, shinso comes second. midoriya has better fighting form to him and knows his quirk inside out

for the first time in UA’s history, the top 3 places on the podium are all gen ed students.

aizawa is god damned proud of these kids hes never met

yagi is crying a little because he was treated terribly for being quirkless and he heard what kids did to izuku and hes just so proud this nervy little kid was brave enough and strong enough to kick ass on live TV for all of japan to watch.

“Do us quirkless boys proud, kid.”

A little on their family lives

Shinso

foster kid with a pretty crappy family. Not physically abusive but hes without a doubt the least favourite child. Gets less money for an allowance, has to follow the rules more closely, isn’t allowed friends over etc.

They don’t really talk to him because of his quirk. They’ll ask him questions or tell him to do things but tend to point blank ignore him if he asks something.

Its not the worst foster family hes been it but its not the best. Hes not going to raise a fuss because its nice and close to UA and hes dealt with worse.

Monoma

mother was a police officer and died when Monoma was young, raised by his single father.

His father had some bad ex-girlfriends that were pretty terrible to Monoma but he believed him and they broke up every time.

Other kids didn’t like to play with him because he was a “copy cat” so he acted mean and pretended he didn’t want to play with the other kids because they were “below him”

Didn’t have friends until Izuku and Hitoshi but he wasn’t exactly bullied, just disliked. Not that he tried very hard to be likable.

Izuku

Same as canon mostly but a touch different too

His mother, while still kind, is more absent. Works night shifts and sees a lot of her husband in her son so she don’t really try to spend much time with him.

Izuku knows nothing about his father, other than the fact he demanded izuku be tested for a quirk when he was born. He assumes the guy skipped out in his mum when they found out he didn’t have one but he doesn’t know for sure.

Bakugo is Bakugo as you well know. Izuku has a history of passive suicidal ideation due to a lack of self worth and the belief the nobody cares about him at all.

How did they meet? It’s a mess really. Bakugo burn one of Izuku’s arms badly enough that he had to limp to a hospital after school, where he met Shinsou who was there for much the same reason. They talked for a bit before Monoma, Shinsou’s school friend, bursts in and starts ranting about how hes going to copy All Mights quirk and punch the girl that hurt Shinsou into next year.

They bond.

[sueboohscorner]

A 'Villain' is Born! #Gotham S3 Ep15 "How the Riddler Got His Name" Spoilers, Recap, & Review

Great, green garment, Batman! Gotham has returned after a long, long hiatus, much to the delight of fans of the show. Even the title alone is sure to catch anyone’s attention: ‘How the Riddler Got His Name’. Along with the title of the spring premiere of season 3, you might catch something else: The original tagline for the first part of season 3 was Mad City, aptly named after the Mad Hatter himself, Jervis Tetch, played with a somewhat perverted view of childlike innocence that the villain is mostly known for by the Australian actor Benedict Samuel. However, the tagline has changed into Heroes Rise. Now, it’s no secret that I myself tend to lean towards the villains, but we have seen many badass bad guys grow and thrive in the city of Gotham, but now it’s time to see just what our heroes will do to combat said villainy. Remember: a good villain inspires change. A villain acts. Heroes react.

Well, to use a cheesy line, the episode started out (literally) with a BANG! We first see a professor in his laboratory. Now, why should we care about this guy? Because Edward Nygma does, that’s why! (Played by Corey Michael Smith) He manages to tie up the professor and what does Ed do? Ask the poor egghead riddle after riddle. Unfortunately, the professor was not smart enough to match I.Q.’s with Edward. Nygma becomes enraged and almost saddened by each wrong answer to his riddles, until Edward basically smart shames the professor and then, well…… BOOM! You may be asking “Why would he do that? What’s his plan?” Calm down, and I’m going to get to that; I’m just giving you a spoiler recap for starters.

Speaking of villainy, we also see our favorite group that works in the shadows, the Court of Owls. You remember Bruce Wayne’s clone? (Played by David Mazouz) Well, guess what? The Court has been training him to become the perfect imposter of our hero Bruce. We see that Kathryn (played by Leslie Hendrix) declare that the clone’s training is complete. We also see a new character, Frank (played by James Remar), who turns out to be Jim Gordon’s uncle. Yeesh. Talk about a family history; Jim’s father was a decorated veteran and cop, and now we see that Jim’s uncle has been a member of the Court for who knows how long? Apparently, Kathryn wants Frank to reach out to Jim and ask him to join the Court. But if he can’t convince him….. use your imagination.

Back to Edward, still living in Dahl Manor, we see that he has been losing sleep and he has been taking pills. What kind of pills? My best guess is some form of the hallucinogenic drug. Why? The audience has seen, throughout the seasons that Edward does tend to see hallucinations, much to Ed’s chagrin. This time he’s taking pills to see visions whenever he needs to. And who he might be seeing in his head? Why, his ex-best friend, Oswald Cobblepot. (Played by Robin Lord Taylor) Yeah, it turns out that Edward is still in need of guidance to become more of who he is; more of a villain (his words, not mine). In Edward’s mind, Oswald is soaking wet, has a crab or two crawling on him, and is covered in scum. That would make sense, because the last time those two saw each other, Edward shot Oswald point-blank and pushed him into the cold waters by the docks. Literally, most things in Gotham go down at the docks. So Edward imagines his dead partner and summons him whenever he needs someone to talk to or some guidance. It would be more heartfelt if Edward’s mentality weren't deteriorating before our eyes. What Edward wants now in his life is to feel whole, complete, to figure out just who he really is. Nygma’s conclusion to that answer is to find the brightest minds in Gotham and see who can match his own intellect. To each their own, and all that. Mirage Oswald keeps fighting him on every step, saying that the way he’s going about this in a completely stupid way. Then Edward gets an idea for another contestant: Jim Gordon (Played by Ben McKenzie). Now, I like Jim, I really do, but come on. He is intelligent and strong in his own right, but I don’t think he would last a few rounds with Edward Nygma.

Edward sends a singing telegram to the GCPD, where Captain Harvey Bullock (Played by Donal Logue) is still cleaning up from the big hoopla that was left in Jerome Valeska’s wake. Lucius Fox (Played by Chris Chalk) informs Bullock about recent killings that have been going on in the city as of late. He takes note that each victim is either artistic or very intellectual. Fox is interrupted by the singing mentioned above telegram, telling them about the next possible victim. The card, of course, has a puzzle on it. The puzzle turns out to be a location: a chess tournament. Of course, Lucius Fox figures it out in less than a minute, and he, Harvey, and other cops from the precinct are on the move.

If you’re wondering about Jim, don’t worry. He’s just taking some time off to go on a hunting trip with his estranged uncle Frank. What could go wrong?

At the chess tournament, we notice that Edward Hazen overlooking view of the event.  Again, he summons Oswald.  Edward’s attitude towards his hallucination of Oswald is not necessarily bitter.  That may seem strange, give in their last encounter, but we see that Edward does not hold much malice towards Oswald.  In fact he still regards him as his best friend.  Of course there is tension, but Edward does not really care for that at the moment.  However the hallucination of Oswald is still fighting Edward at every step in turn that he makes.  Edward even thanks Oswald for coming, to which Oswald replied that he did not have much of a choice.  Edward is not too surprised when he sees the GCPD come in, but he is surprised to see Lucius Fox.  You could consider it a delightful surprise.  Ed activates an electrical device that is rigged to every chessboard in the building.  No one is safe for the then move or not.  But that does not matter, Edward has found his intellectual match.  Lucius Fox.  And he is already solved another riddle, a phone number leading to the person responsible.  Edward Nygma.  The phone call consisted of another riddle.  Which leads Lucius to a grim answer: the belly of the beast.  Which literally means that he had to cut into the belly of one of Edward’s victims for his next clue…..ew.

We take a minute to focus on Bruce and Alfred (played by Sean Pertwee) as they continue their training.  Knife throwing training, which is freaking awesome in my book.  But Bruce is clearly distracted in it interferes with his training.  Alfred calls him on it, and what is on his mind is Selina Kyle (played by Camren Bicondova).  Long story short: Selina’s mom turned out to be a garbage human and Bruce kind of knew about it, but did not tell her.  They had kind of a messy breakup.  Bruce tells Alfred that he received a note in the mail recently from Selina asking him to meet up with her.  Bruce knows that his training is really important, especially after what happened with Jerome, but he can’t get her out of his head.  So Alfred suggests that he takes her up on her note.

While Bruce is wandering the city, he comes across Sonny Gilzean and a bunch of his thugs.  They start messing with him until Selina arrives.  As it turns out, she did not send that note to Bruce.  And then she storms away. Sonny and his guys start beating up Bruce at first, but the rejection from Selina seemed to take its toll on him and he fought back, and kicked major ass, I might say.  As he turns to go back home, he encounters his clone, who drugs him unconscious as he plans to take his place.

We go back to Bullock, who is speaking at the police officer’s graduation ceremony. Until, uh-oh, Edward shows up and knocks him out.  All the while, Mirage Oswald insists that there is no Edward without him.  Edward admits some truth about that statement, but he will find something new in something better to replace Oswald with in his heart.

We see Lucius and Lee (played by Morena Baccarin) examining a dead body, cutting open his stomach, to reveal a police badge.  That match belongs to Harvey.  Lucius knows where Harvey is and he immediately leaves for the ceremony. To the young cadet’s remorse, Edward replaces Harvey as speaker.  He throws a grenade into the crowd, but not before giving a riddle.

Lucius finally meets up with Edward who has Harvey tide up in a chair which is suspended over a stairway. Edward gives Lucius three chances, three riddles, to save Harvey.  Fox gets the first two riddles wrong, but the last one he got absolutely right. Lucius also finds out that Edward killed Oswald Cobblepot, their mayor. But, we get a thumbs up from Edward while still making Harvey fall to his death.  Lucius manages to catch him in time, only to find that the green suited man was gone.

On Jim Gordon’s end, he and his uncle have a long talk.  Franks says that he came back to Gotham to patch things up. Then he comes clean about the Court of Owls, and how they are a secret organization that really pull the strings in Gotham.  He reveals that he and Jim’s father were members of the Court and that that originally wanted him to join as well. But Jim’s father saw how much of a threat they were to the city and try to fight back.  Frank reveals that the Court had set up a car accident that would cause Jim’s father his death.  French had to prove his loyalty, so the Court sent in a way for years to an unknown location. Jim is of course, outraged by this and is unsure whether or not to believe his uncle.

After saving Harvey, he, and some GCPD members go out and try to find Edward in the Dahl Manor.  The only thing that they find is a portrait of the mayor with a big, bright, green question mark on its face.

 After a long day, we see Lucius get into his car.  Edward was waiting for him in the back seat with a gun.  Instead of completely submitting to the threat, to Lucius psychoanalyzes Edward.  He sees that everything that Edward has done is some sort of act and he questions him about it.  Nygma states that he feels like there’s someone inside of him, someone that could be feared, and someone that could replace Oswald.  Lucius turns to Edward with a concern to look on his face and tells him that if there’s any part of him, that is still sane, he needs to get help.  Edward seemed shocked at first.  But he shakes it off and says…

“I am the Riddler!”

And he knocks Lucius unconscious.

We cut to inside a house filled with plants.  We see a bed with someone in it.  Hey, guys too, Oswald is ALIVE!!!!!!  To and apparently he was rescued by Ivy Pepper.  He wakes up and says one thing:

“I just remembered, there is someone I have to kill.”

The final moment that we see in the episode is Edward at the docks where he shot Oswald.  He has one final conversation with his hallucination.  To Oswald says that no one will ever be afraid of anyone called the ‘Riddler.'  Edwards says that he did a value their friendship, but now he will pull it Oswald behind him.  He dumps his pills into the water.  He stands up straight placing a bowler hat on his head.  The last thing that we see is a green suited man, Edward Nygma, no, the Riddler walk away.

Overall I did love the episode.  It was really nice to welcome Gotham to back on Monday nights.  It was so great seeing the characters come back and it was so great to see their next step or their journey in a pre-Batman Gotham. It does my heart good to see the actors bring more and more to the characters that we to all know and love to the table.

Things I liked:

Every single scene that Corey Michael Smith was in, he is now the Riddler, to and he loves every single minute of it. The Riddler is someone that a lot of us know even if we don’t read the comics.  He is flashy, showy, intelligent, incredibly vain, and absolutely arrogant.  Smith has already begun to take on to the Riddler, and already he is showing much potential, and he will certainly make his mark as the third person to ever be a live actor for the Riddler, and I can’t wait.

I always love me some Harvey Bullock. That should go without saying.

The relationship between Edward and Oswald as it continued seemingly after death.  The illusion of Oswald said to Edward that he really isn’t talking to the real person.  That he just imagined something that is already in his mind, but he just won’t face it.  It shows that Edward really did respect Oswald and that he did see him as a teacher for him.  Edward knew that he couldn’t just turn away from Oswald after he shot him.  He needed to figure out who he was without Oswald.  And the conclusions that Edward reached as he trudged through his epiphany was really enjoyable to see.

LUCIUS FOX, BABY!!!!!!!!  A lot of people know only about Alfred taking care of Bruce.  But Lucius Fox has just an important a role in Bruce’s life.  Sometimes I see Alfred as the bright side of Bruce’s brain, and Lucius is definitely the left side.  As a singular person, Lucius Fox is absolutely not one to be trifled with, especially when it comes to intelligence.

Poison Ivy saving the Penguin? AWESOME!!! 

Bruce Wayne KICKING ASS!!!!

Alfred’s Shepard’s pie

Things I didn’t like:

Lee Thompkins. Don’t like her. Never did from the beginning.

8 out of to10!

Well done, Gotham. Well, freaking done!

Until next time, stay weird, Gotham

[found-family-tournament]

Found Family Tournament Round 1 Part 28 Group 138

Propaganda and further images under the cut

Mighty Nein: Caleb Widogast, Nott the Brave/Veth Brennato, Fjord, Jester Lavorre, Caduceus Clay, Beauregard Lionett, Yasha Nydoorin, Mollymauk Tealeaf/Kingsley Tealeaf, Essek Thelyss

Astral Express Family: Trailblazer/MC, March 7th, Dan Heng (& Welt, Himeko)

Submissions are still open!

Mighty Nein:

Originally, they were only seven, and the Nein part of their group name was a running joke about rolling nines and Caleb's German accent. Then, after Molly's untimely death, the group picked up Caduceus, making seven again. Later, they ally with Essek, who makes eight. And finally, through the power of love and found family, they defeat a villain named Lucien (who inhabits the body Molly had, it's all very complicated), and revive the body to become Kingsley Tealeaf, who looks at Molly as his brother but ultimately makes the group Nine. His revival is literally an act of divine intervention, fueled by the love and loss they all felt after chasing their beloved friend across the continent.

Internally there are other fantastic family bonds. Caleb and Nott/Veth having an incredible bond, Caleb and Beau being the Empire siblings, Molly and Yasha being the circus kids, Beau and Fjord, Cad and Fjord, the chaos crew, Nott and Jester, it goes on and on. They all change each other so significantly, they grow together, and canonically even though they live apart, they all have regular meetups in the tower Caleb created for all of them, with a stained glass window in Molly's honor and rooms dedicated to each member of the group. Even now in the new campaign, they've had cameos that prove years later they still work together and have each other's backs.

This is THEE definition of found family, these assholes were thrown together through circumstance and mostly hated each other to begin with right up until three of their own were kidnapped and then it was ON. And when Molly died, they took his ideals and turned them into a legacy SO POWERFUL they took Essek from a cold, self motivated war criminal to a man willing to die for his friends. They refused to let Beau face her abusive family alone! They helped Yasha heal from her trauma! They took down the whole Cerberus Assembly for what they did to Caleb! They saved the whole dang world together WITH THE POWER OF FUCKING FRIENDSHIP 😭! THEY LOVED MOLLY SO MUCH THAT IT SAVED THE WORLD! THEY NAMED THEMSELVES AFTER A STUPID PUN AND THEN THERE REALLY ENDED UP BEING NINE OF THEM! I WOULD DIE FOR THEM!!!

official art by Ari Orner, fan art by exmakina and tobyjamessharp

Astral Express Family:

theyre so incredibly silly, they are a crew of space travelers that visit different countries on a big space train!!!! and go on adventures to save the universe!!!!