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joshjacksons · 3 years

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Joshua Jackson interview with Refinery29

Against my better judgement, and at the risk of losing any semblance of journalistic objectivity, I start my conversation with Joshua Jackson by effusively telling him what a dream come true it is to be talking to him. See, like many millennial women who grew up watching the late ‘90s and early 2000s teen drama Dawson’s Creek, Jackson’s Pacey Witter means a lot to me. Pacey is one of the rare fictional teen boys of my youth whose adolescent charisma, romantic appeal, and general boyfriend aptitude hold up all these years later (unlike The O.C’s Seth Cohen or Gossip Girl’s Chuck Bass) and that is due in large part to the wit, vulnerability, and care Jackson brought to the character.

It’s the same intention he’s afforded all of his famous roles — Peter Bishop in Fringe, Cole Lockhart in The Affair, and even as a 14-year-old in his first acting gig as sweet-faced heartthrob Charlie Conway in The Mighty Ducks. Now, Jackson, 43, has matured into a solid supporting actor (with memorable turns in Little Fires Everywhere and When They See Us) and as a leading man who can draw you into a story with just his voice (Jackson’s latest project is narrating the psychological thriller and Canadian Audible original, Oracle, one of the over 12,000 titles available today on Audible.ca’s the Plus Catalogue) or find humanity in the most sinister men (he’s currently playing a sociopath with a god complex in Dr. Death). His magnetic pull is as evident as it was when he was the guy you rooted for in a show named after another guy’s creek. Jackson has never seemed to mind the fact that so many people still bring up Pacey decades later, and that’s part of why as an adult, he’s one of the few childhood crushes I still have on a pedestal. I tell him just a tiny slice of this, and Jackson graciously sits up straighter and promises to bring his A-game to our Zoom exchange. Jackson is in what appears to be an office, flanked by mess, like a true work-from-home Dad. He and his wife, fellow actor Jodie Turner-Smith, welcomed a daughter in the early days of the pandemic in 2020, and he tells me that fatherhood and marriage are the best decisions he has ever made. Jackson and Turner-Smith are a rare Hollywood couple who choose to let us in on their love, but not obnoxiously — just through flirty Instagram comments and cheeky tweets. Their pairing is part of Jackson’s enduring appeal. It’s nice to think that Pacey Witter grew up to be a doting dad and adoring husband, even if his wife’s name is Jodie, not Joey.

Jackson is an animated conversationalist, leaning into the camera to emphasize his points — especially when the topic of diversity comes up. White celebs don’t get asked about racism in Hollywood the way their counterparts of colour do, and when they do, they’re usually hesitant at best, and unequipped at worst, to tackle these conversations. Jackson is neither. He’s open, willing, and eager to discuss systemic inequality in the industry he’s grown up in. It’s the bare minimum a straight white man in Hollywood can do, and Jackson seems to know this. When he ventures briefly into trying to explain to me, a Black woman, the perils of being Black, female, and online, he catches himself and jokes that of course, I don’t need him to tell me the racism that happens in the comment section of his wife’s Instagram. The self-deprecating delivery is one I’m familiar with from watching Jackson onscreen for most of my life, and seeing it in person (virtually) renders me almost unable to form sentences. Jackson’s charm is disarming, but his relaxed Canadian energy is so relatable, I manage to maintain my professionalism long enough to get through our conversation. Refinery29: Your voice has been in my head for a few days because I've been listening to Canadian Audible Original, Oracle. What drew you to this project and especially the medium of audio storytelling?

Joshua Jackson: The book itself is such a page turner. I also love the idea of those old radio plays. It's like a hybrid between the beauty of reading a book on the page where your imagination does all of it. We craft a little bit of the world, but because this is a noir thriller married with this metaphysical world, there's a lot of dark and creepy places that your imagination gets to fill in for yourself.

I'm noticing a trend in some of the roles you've been taking on lately, with this and Dr. Death, these stories are very dark and creepy. But so many people still think of you as Pacey Witter, or as Charlie Conway, the prototypical good guys of our youth. Are you deliberately trying to kill Pacey and Charlie?

JJ: I'm not trying to kill anybody — except on screen [laughs]. It's funny, I didn't really think of these two things as companion pieces, but I won't deny that there may be something subconscious in this anxiety, stress-filled year that we've all just had. That may be what I was trying to work out was some of that stress, because that's the beauty of my job. Instead of therapy, I just get someone to pay me to say somebody else's words. So, yeah, that could be a thing [but] the thought process that went into them both was very different. Even though this is a dark story, [lead character, police psychic] Nate Russo is still the hero. [Dr. Death’s] Christopher Duntsch very much is not at all. I can't pretend to know my own mind well enough to be able to tell you exactly how [these two roles] happened, but it happened.

That might be something that you should work through with an actual therapist. JJ: Exactly. Yeah, maybe real therapy is on the docket for me [laughs].

So I was listening to Oracle and you're doing these various creepy voices — I’m sorry the word “creepy” keeps coming up.

JJ: Are you trying to tell me something? You know what? I wanted to skip straight to the creepy old man phase of my career. So, it sounds like I'm doing a good job.

You're doing amazing, sweetie [laughs]. So, I was thinking you must be really good at bedtime stories with your daughter doing all these voices. Or is she still too young for that?

JJ: No! She's all the way into books. Story time is my favourite part of the day because it gives me the opportunity to have that time with her just one-on-one. Her favorite book right now is a book called Bedtime Bonnet. Every night I bring out three books, and she gets to pick one. The other two shift a little bit, but Bedtime Bonnet is every single night.

I love that. Since you're married to a Black woman, you know a thing or two about bonnets. JJ: Yeah, well I'm getting my bonnet education. And I'm getting my silk sheet education. I'm behind the curve, but I'm figuring it out [laughs].

You said in an interview recently that you are now at the age where the best roles for men are. And I wonder if you can expand on that and whether you think of the fact that the same cannot be said for the majority of women actors in their 40s?

JJ: What's great about the age that I'm at now as a man is that, generally speaking, the characters — even if they're not the central character of this show — are well fleshed out. They're being written from a personal perspective, usually from a writer who has enough lived experience and wants to tell the story of a whole character. Whereas when you're younger — and obviously I was very lucky with some of the characters that I was able to play – you're the son or the boyfriend, or you're a very two-dimensional character. It's gotten better, but still a lot like you're either the precocious child or you're the brooding one. I will say that while I would agree with you to a certain point for women, I think that this is probably the best era to be a not 25-year-old-woman in certainly the entirety of my career. And it is also the best time to be a Black woman inside of the industry. There's still more opportunity for a 40-year-old white man than there is for a 40-year-old white woman, but it is better now than it has ever been. The roles that women are able to inhabit and occupy and the opportunities that are out there have multiplied. If I started my career in playing two-dimensional roles to get the three-dimensional roles, most women started their career in three-dimensional roles and end up at “wife” or “mom.” And that's just not the case anymore. There's just a lot of broadly diverse stories being told that centre women. So you're right, but in the last five years, six years I would say, there has really been a pretty significant shift.

And I think that shift is happening because who's behind the camera is also changing. JJ: Right? Who holds the purse strings. That's big. Who gets to green light the show to begin with? You have to have a variety of different faces inside of that room. And then, who's behind the camera. What is the actual perspective that we're telling the story from? The male gaze thing is very real. Dr. Death had three female directors. The central character of Dr. Death is an outrageously toxic male figure. Who knows more about toxic male BS than women? Particularly women who are in a predominantly male work environment. So these directors had a very specific take and came at it with a clarity that potentially a man wouldn't see, because we have blind spots about ourselves. We're in a space where there's a recognition that we've told a very narrow band of what's available in stories. There's so many stories to be told and it's okay for us to broaden out from another white cop.

I hope that momentum continues. Okay, I have to tell you something: I’m a little obsessed with your wife, Jodie Turner-Smith. JJ: Me too. As you should be! I love how loudly and publicly you both love on each other. But I need you to set the scene for me. When you are leaving flirty Instagram comments, and she's tweeting thirsty things about you, are you in the same room? Do you know that the other one is tweeting? What's happening?

JJ: We're rarely in the same room [writing] the thirsty comments because that usually just gets said to each other. But, look, if either of us misses a comment, you better believe at night, there's a, "Hey, did you see what I wrote?" One, she's very easy to love out loud and two, she's phenomenal. And I have to say, the love and support that is coming my direction has been a revelation in my life. I've said this often, and it just is the truth: If you ever needed to test whether or not you had chosen the right partner in life, just have a baby at the beginning of a pandemic and then spend a year and a half together. And then you know. And then you absolutely know. I didn't get married until fairly late in the game. I didn't have a baby till very late in the game and they're the two best choices I've ever made in my life.

I'm just going to embarrass you now by reading one of Jodie's thirsty comments to you. She tweeted, “Objectifying my husband on the internet is my kink. I thought you guys knew this by now,” with a gif that said "No shame." JJ: [laughs] That sounds about right.

She's not the only one though. There's this whole thirst for Joshua Jackson corner of the internet. And it feels like there's been a bit of a heartthrob resurgence for you now at your big age. How do you feel about that?

JJ: I hadn't really put too much thought into it, but I am happy that my wife is thirsty for me. What about the rest of us? JJ: That's great for y'all, but it's most important that my wife is thirsty for me. Good answer. You're good at this husband thing. You recently revealed that Jodie proposed to you. Then it became this big story, and people were so surprised by it. How did you feel about the response? JJ: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to give context to this story. So I accidentally threw my wife under the bus because that story was told quickly and it didn't give the full context and holy Jesus, the internet is racist and misogynist. So yes, we were in Nicaragua on a beautiful moonlit night, it could not possibly have been more romantic. And yes, my wife did propose to me and yes, I did say yes, but what I didn't say in that interview was there was a caveat, which is that I'm still old school enough that I said, "This is a yes, but you have to give me the opportunity [to do it too]." She has a biological father and a stepdad, who's the man who raised her. [I said], ‘You have to give me the opportunity to ask both of those men for your hand in marriage.’ And then, ‘I would like the opportunity to re-propose those to you and do it the old fashioned way down on bended knee.’ So, that's actually how the story ended up.

So, there were two proposals. I do feel like that is important context. JJ: Yes, two proposals. And also for anybody who is freaked out by a woman claiming her own space, shut the fuck up. Good God, you cannot believe the things people were leaving my wife on Instagram. She did it. I said ‘yes.’ We're happy. That's it. That's all you need to know. That has been a real education for me as a white man, truly. The way people get in her comments and the ignorance and ugliness that comes her way is truly shocking. And it has been a necessary, but an unpleasant education in just the way people relate to Black bodies in general, but Black female bodies in specific. It is not okay. We have a long way to go. Jodie is such an inspiration because it seems like she handles it in stride. She handles it all with humour and with grace. JJ: She does. And look, I think it's like a golden cage, the concept of the strong Black woman. I would wish for my wife that she would not have to rise above with such amazing strength and grace, above the ugliness that people throw at her on a day to day. I am impressed with her that she does it, but I would wish that that would not be the armour that she has to put on every morning to just navigate being alive. That's a word. That's a word, Joshua Jackson.

The 13-year-old in me needs to ask this. We are in the era of reboots. If they touched Dawson's Creek — which is a masterpiece that should not be touched — but if they did, what would you want it to look like? JJ: I think it should look a lot like it looked the first time. To me, what was great about that story was it was set in a not cool place. It wasn't New York, it wasn't LA, it wasn't London. It wasn't like these were kids who were on the cutting edge of culture, but they were kids just dealing with each other and they were also very smart and capable of expressing themselves. It's something that I loved at that age performing it. And I think that is the reason it has lived on. We have these very reductive ideas of what you're capable of at 16, 17, 18. And my experience of myself at that point was not as a two-dimensional jock or nerd or pretty girl. You are living potentially an even more full life at that point because everything's just so heightened. [Dawson’s Creek] never talked down to the people that it was portraying. That's one of the things that I loved about it as a book nerd growing up. The vocabulary of Dawson's Creek was always above my level and that was refreshing. To go back to the “diversity” conversation, you can't really make a show with six white leads anymore and that’s a good thing. But I also don't know how I feel about taking a thing, rebooting it, and just throwing Black characters in there.

JJ: I hear that. And there's certain contexts in which it doesn't work unless you're making it a thing about race, right? If you watch Bridgerton, obviously you're living inside of a fantasy world, and so you're bringing Black characters into this traditionally white space and what would historically be a white space. And now you are able to have a conversation about myth-making and inclusion and who gets to say what and who gets to act how. So that's interesting, but I don’t think you’re just throwing in a Black character if you changed Joey to a Black woman [or] Pacey to a Black man. What you're doing is you're enriching the character. Let's say one of those characters is white and one of those characters is Black. Now, there's a whole rich conversation to be had between these two kids, the political times that we live in, the cultural flow that is going through all of us right now. I think that makes a better story. All these conversations around comic books in particular like, "Well, that's a white character." It's like, Man, shut up. What are you talking about? It is a comic book character! Joey and Pacey don't have to be white. Dawson and Jen don't have to be white. And this is what we were talking about a little bit earlier. We get better the broader our perspective is, both as humans, but also in the entertainment industry. So if you went back to a story like [Dawson’s Creek], what was important in that show was class not race, which I think is true for a lot of small Northeastern towns. They are very white. But if you brought race into that as well, you don't diminish the amount of the stories that you can tell. You enrich the tapestry of that show. So I think that would be a great idea.

Make Pacey Witter a Black man in 2021 is what I just heard from you. JJ: Hashtag ‘Make Pacey Witter A Black Man’. There we go!

#joshua jackson #refinery29 #interviews #jodie turner smith #dawson's creek

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twc-thoughts-you-didnt-ask-for · 4 years

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Bundle -Adam-

Working on a series of one-shots of M!UB holding their first child, starting off with Adam. As an FYI, I will not be having baby names in these because... well because I never thought of any lol

I did my best on this one, but admittedly I am nervous to post it

Would love to hear any feedback you may have and suggestions on who is next :)

Adam was sure that if he were human, he would have rubbed his palm raw with worry. It didn’t matter how far away they placed him, he could hear Dinah’s shouts as if she were right next to him. Her begging for it to be over. It triggered everything in him that told him to run to her side and stop whatever was happening to her, but he couldn’t. He wasn’t even allowed to be in the room. He could only settle for worry and beating himself up over how he had done this to her.

“Do you think if I stepped on it that it would stop from tapping like that or do you think he would launch me? You know what, it’s a gamble I’m willing to take.” Adam vaguely heard Felix say, followed by the shuffling of him getting up.

Nate also got up on that, talked Felix into not taking that gamble, and walked over to Adam, a firm and grounding hand landing on his shoulder. It made Adam realize how tense he was, how hunched his shoulders had become.

Sympathy was in Nate’s gaze and voice as he said. “You might want to stop tapping your foot like that, old friend. You might break the tile... and maybe the foundation underneath the tile even.”

Adam hadn’t even realized he had been tapping his foot at all. He immediately put a stop to it.

“I apologize,” Adam quickly said, knowing that if he were in their shoes the sound would have annoyed him.

“No apologies needed! We can hear the severe, overwhelming pain the detective is in giving birth to your child just as well as you can. Can’t blame you for being antsy, she sounds like she’s dying in there.”

“Felix,” Nate sighed, “I know you think you’re helping, but you aren’t helping.”

“Is the comradery not comforting?” Felix asked.

“No, not the way you’re using it.”

Adam had to admit that the banter did make him want to smile a bit and it was a bit comforting. Casual. Normal.

He was sitting in a room with his team- Nate standing by for comfort and to ease tension, Felix there to potentially cause tension (but mostly to support and make the situation lighter), and Mason smoking in the corner who was there to show support in his own way by just being present.

None of the Unit Bravo was allowed to be in the room while the detective delivered. The Agency was even very particular about who would be allowed to attend the detective because of their blood. And... potentially the baby’s blood.

Adam had to swallow a gulp of worry at that.

“Think our two leaders will produce a hybrid?” Felix asked excitedly.

Adam felt like he swallowed a rock at that.

“Felix,” Nate warned.

“I don’t care as long as it doesn’t start ordering me around straight out of the detective’s-”

“Mason-”

Mason was rescued from whatever scathing scolding he was going to receive by the sound of a loud scream from the detective, followed shortly after by the sound of a baby’s cry.

Relief and anxiety made an interesting cocktail within him. The want to vomit made him feel very human in that moment and he wanted to rush to the room and confirm with his own eyes that everything was okay and everyone was healthy... but he must wait until Elidor came to retrieve him. All he could do was focus on the two heartbeats he had known so well.

“Congratulations,” Nate said with genuine joy to Adam.

“Strong lungs.” Was all Mason had to say in congratulations as he winced at the sounds he could hear better than the rest of them.

“So what do we call you? What will you go by? Don’t tell me father because that’s so stiff and boring... so you. Will it be papa? Dad? Daddy-”

Adam slightly heard Mason choke at the last name, but the list ended at that as Elidor walked into the room to retrieve Adam.

Felix started to tag along before Mason grabbed him by the shoulder to stop him.

“Please send a message when we can come meet the baby. Just uh... don’t send it to me. Mason and Felix will be at the ready. And try not to forget in your joy, we also want to meet the newest addition to our family.”

Felix looked like an eager puppy while Mason looked considerably less enthused by seeing a child but gave a nod anyways.

Adam kept pace with Elidor walking to the room where Dinah was, but it took every ounce of his patience to not use his speed to get there in a heartbeat to see the situation himself.

“Everything went well, I’m assuming?” he asked, feeling the uncomfortable need to converse to calm nerves that wouldn’t calm no matter what he did.

“Yes, she did well and the baby is healthy. We will have to wait on the results for the blood, of course.”

“Of course.”

And that’s where the conversation died.

When they finally made it to the door, Elidor murmured a “congratulations” as let Adam enter alone.

The smells of blood and childbirth lingered in the room, maybe only noticeable to him and his heightened senses, as he zeroed in on Dinah and the baby immediately.

Dinah was pale, sweaty with exertion, and her hair was a mess. Adam had never seen a more beautiful and strong person in his 900+ years of living. In her arms was a tiny bundle with soft breathing and a tiny little heartbeat. It was the kind of sight you fall in love with and want to paint a picture of to remember forever. It was the kind of sight that took a strong man and made him weak in the knees.

“Don’t just stand there and stare, I’ll start blushing. Come see your son,” Dinah said with a small smile.

Adam sort of wished she would blush a bit to give her just a little bit of color and not look so ghostly. He would never say that aloud.

As Adam approached, Dinah shifted positions to meet him and it immediately set off every alarm he had. Her grimace at the effort and movement sliced through him worse than a sword could have. But... he would not be overbearing. He would not order her around. She knew her limits and he must trust them.

Meeting her halfway, he peered at the baby in her arms and felt like all the air he technically didn’t need leave him. The baby had his blonde hair, hardly visible in its sparsity and he wondered, when the baby grew to open it’s eyes more, if it would have his icy green eyes or Dinah’s dark ones. The pink skin radiated heat that was so comforting, so alive.

Dinah made the move to hand the baby to Adam and he quickly took a half step back.

“I-I don’t know if I should. He seems very... breakable.”

She chuckled a bit, wincing as she did it. “He is very breakable, but I’m not about to let you go his whole life with you never touching him because you’re scared. You can be soft and you know how to be gentle. Now take your son and I can get some rest.”

Well, he couldn’t very well argue with a woman who birthed a whole person out.

He had never held a baby before and Dinah had to sit him down and coach him. There was a startling amount of things you had to worry about just to hold an infant that added to Adam’s fears, but the second his son was in his arms the fears were whisked away and he was charmed beyond belief. He felt so incredibly... whole. He felt different than the man he was two seconds ago, how was that?

“There you go. How do you feel? Isn’t he cute? Don’t you just love him?”

“I feel like a father, considering half of his genetics are yours of course he is cute, and I loved him long ago. It did not start just now.”

“Well, no, I get that but the feelings are stronger now that he’s actually here, right?”

“Yes,” he agreed softly, never lifting his gaze from the child as he and Dinah spoke.

He listened to her light footsteps as she eased her way back into bed with a groan.

“You know I’m never going to do this to you again with all the screams, groans, grimaces, and winces I have seen and heard today.”

“I think that’s quite out of your hands and quite over the top, my love. Some people have like eight children and function just fine. What if one day he comes to you, puppy-eyed, and says he wants a sibling, hm?”

“... that’s a problem I will have to face later. Much later. Also I can deal with puppy-eyed looks. Ask Felix.”

“Sure, sure,” Dinah responded non-committedly and not an even a little bit convinced.

After almost no time of lying on the bed, her breath and heartbeat slowed into rest.

With Dinah and his son both asleep, Adam could revel in the silent comfort of their alive, healthy, human sounds that plagued him with unsettlement Dinah’s whole pregnancy and delivery. He could finally assess the human that he and Dinah had made together.

He stroked the baby’s hair. Soft.

He ran a thumb over the baby’s tiny, puffy cheek. Soft.

He moved the blanket bundled around his son. Soft.

He looked at his son’s that reacted with a very strong grip around his finger, Adam’s lips couldn’t help smile.

Soft.

#the wayhaven chronicles #wayhaven chronicles #adam du mortain #twc adam #twc #twc fanfic

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inkribbon796 · 3 years

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Forgotten Light Ch. 1: Refractions

Summary: Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men . . . couldn’t put Thomas back together again.

Chapters: 1, 2, 3

During the several days that the Sides were in Brighton, the Coalition went through their house and every room they tended to frequent in the base with a fine-toothed comb. Trying to find another aura trail, which King, Nate, and Mare were doing the bulk of the aura searching.

The humans came in their civilian attire, not wanting to draw attention to the Sides’ home.

Deep indigos, pastel blues, sparkling reds, and vibrant purples. All the Core Sides were accounted for. There was evidence that Janus and Remus had been over to their home by the faint aura trails.

“So what else are we looking for?” Silver groaned as Jackie came back in from searching places the Sides liked to regularly frequent.

“I’ve got fook-all[1],” Jackie groaned.

“We need evidence of someone living here since March, because that’s when Deceit and the Duke moved out,” King rubbed at his eyes under his glasses. “And Spade doesn’t count. Spade was just spicy Logan with extra steps. He’d have almost the exact same type of aura as him.”

Joan sighed. “Either way this place is clear, what if we don’t find it?”

“Then we hope the legate is dead,” King decided. “Which is probably a good thing. Being trapped for so long without a lot of aura, it would probably make any demon crazy.”

“So what are we supposed ta[2] do?” Jackie groaned. “Put e’erythin’ back an’ pretend nothin’s happened? All yah’ve told us about this thin’ is that it’s dangerous or somethin’.”[3]

“Honestly I’ve never heard of one either,” Mare admitted, coming out of a wall. “I knew there were other types of demons, but I thought it was just a regional language thing.”

“Well different cultures do call you guys different things in different part of the world and that does influence it a little,” King agreed.

“Kid,” Mare crossed his arms in front of his chest. “You’re an empath just like me, you’re just a small one.”

King frowned, glaring at Mare. “Least I still have my own body, I don’t have to borrow or steal someone else’s.”

Mare looked exceptionally smug, “Just wait until yours starts rusting on you. Bodies don’t last forever. You’ll pick a fight, or someone will pick a fight with you while Daddy’s not watching, and you’ll lose. Or your body will get so useless you’ll have to leave it. It happens to everyone. You think Nate was my first body, or the one your old man’s got was his? Bodies don’t last forever, Dark’s probably overdue a trade out. Being in a broken down body can’t be good but he was always made of nothing but spite and coffee so fuck that body, I guess.”

King just about bared his teeth at the older demon, but he didn’t want anymore of that smug look pointed at him and thankfully Nate intervened.

“Okay, okay,” Nate used his magic to nudge Mare away, trying to break the stand-off and deescalate the two of them. “Let’s focus on this legate, because I was raised with the Legionnaires and I just thought that a legion was like a group of demons like a murder of crows. It’s why the Legionnaires chose their name because they were a powerful force, or at least I thought so.”

“Well that is partially true,” King agreed, searching for something in the magic space he had on the inside of his cape. “A group of demons is called a legion, but it’s also a type of demon for the same reason.”

Then King paused, “Shoot, I forgot it at the base, and we should probably go back to the base, leave this place back for them.”

“Yeah we’ve combed through this place enough,” King sighed and Joan and Silver stayed behind to make sure everything was moved back to where it was supposed to be as everyone headed back to the base.

King went to go find the tome he’d been looking for in his room, and while he was gone Silver and Joan came back into the base.

“I think we got everything back to where it was,” Silver told them. “But I guarantee we missed something.”

Joan rolled their eyes. “Lo’s absolutely gonna[4] know someone went through their house, and if he somehow doesn’t find out I guarantee you Virgil will when he goes through his stuff. He used to live with the Duke after all.”

King walked back in, Lunky clinging to his cape, King smiled and was talking with his child. There was an old book in his hand. “You can stay, but you can’t meet the new demon, he’s not very nice like 할아버지[5] is.”

“You do know you’re talking about Dark, right?” Silver asked.

“Yeah, well, he’s nice to Lunky,” King smiled, before his level leveled onto a more neutral frown as he cracked open the tome. “Alright so on Illinois’s first trips to Egypt he found this book in the bowels of some library.”

“Does it talk about Legates?” Jackie asked, walking over and getting a low warning hiss from Lunky for approaching the spawnling’s father without Lunky’s permission.

“Hey, it’s okay,” King told his child, before looking at the book. “So this book doesn’t directly talk about Legates but it kickstarted this little bout of research he and I did. What this book details is some spawnling that was formed by a lightning strike and began conquering the area. The Old Man’s apparently met this guy too, he likes building stuff apparently.”

“They play poker on the weekends or somethin’[6]?” Jackie tried to joke.

“No, they haven’t spoken in almost 200 years,” King dismissed. “More importantly this research Ills and I did helped us learn a lot about demons. Mainly that demons aren’t categorized by aura or region of the world, but based on how they collect aura. If they can survive being struck by lightning without discorporating, control lightning, or technology; then they’re glitches. If they feed primarily off the emotional state of other humans or demons, then they’re empaths. If they collect aura by manipulating people and making deals: that means they’re deal makers. If they’re attention whores that collect aura from large groups, they’re showmen.”

“Wait, glitches have an affinity fer[7] lightnin’[8]?” Jackie asked. “Since when? Anti doesn’t go outside in lightnin’[8] storms.”

“Well, that doesn’t surprise me,” King replied. “Honestly there should be a hell of a lot more glitches with an outright phobia of lightning. Before technology really took off the only way to get a glitch was if one split off from another demon, like what happened with Lunky, or something like lightning strikes them. I’m pretty sure Anti was human once and he’s old enough that he was probably killed by lightning.”

“What?” Jackie shouted.

“Yep,” King popped the end of the world. “Which is why glitches were seen as weaker or rare for centuries, it was hard for them to get a lot of power until the industrial revolution hit. But while we were deep diving in some of the books we found, we found some myths and legends that talked about another type of demon. It was like a hybrid of other demon types. Like a jack-of-all-trades, master of none, kind of demon.”

“So if demons are separated by how they collect aura,” Silver commented. “How do these . . . legates? I assume these types are legates, right? How do they collect aura?”

“Yes,” King confirmed hesitantly, “and that’s the problem. Legates are like an octopus. Eight legs, but one octopus. Something in the process of creating a legate, regardless of what it would have become, doesn’t split properly. If the legate was already a proper demon it would just make a spawnling and both the demon and the spawnling would be fine. And 99.99999% of the time the person just dies instead of making a legate. But it’s that incredibly slim chance where the soul is resilient enough that the energy can’t fully make a proper demon. That energy has to go somewhere so it makes a legate and this pseudo-demon, for lack of a better term, is dangerous because the demon itself can’t collect aura, but it’s legs can.”

“Is that where the Sides come in?” Joan asked.

“Exactly,” King gestured with his arms. “It explains why there are so many. Because when a demon makes a spawnling, multiple spawnlings mean a lot of energy was split off but when a human is turned into a demon there’s barely enough energy to make one demon, let alone seven. So the legate can’t absorb aura properly on its own, making it crazy and hungry because it can’t feed like it’s supposed to. It’s like being lactose intolerant but only being able to eat and drink dairy products. But the arms or extensions of a legate are fully capable of getting aura and bringing it back to the legate in a way it can feed from. The better control a legate has over its arms, the better it can feed. So it quickly gains complete dominion over the arms and turns them into mindless thralls.”

“But all the Sides have some of the most bombastic personalities I’ve ever seen,” Silver reminded, as Nate hummed in agreement, Mare was talking to him in his head.

“Precisely,” King smiled. “They’re not thralls, so that means they’re not giving their legate aura. So the legate is either dead or is kept somewhere that it can’t collect aura and turn the Sides into thralls. If we can verify the legate is actually dead or kill it, then the Sides keep their individuality.”

“So how do we do that?” Nate spoke up. “Especially without hurting the Sides in the process?”

King thought on that for a second. “Well when they get back we should come clean and just talk about the whole thing and maybe they know something they haven’t told us.”

“Okay, what if they don’t?” Mare asked.

“Well they’re non-violent for the most part, so if we leave them be they’re not going to torch the city down,” King shrugged, he tucked the tome into his cape. “Unless there’s something you guys haven’t told me. How did Thomas die exactly? Knowing what all the Sides have in common will tell us a lot about the legate we’re looking for.”

Nate gestured to Joan, who quickly began explaining, “So I found this old camera at an estate sale and brought it to some party. I was messing around with it, dropped it, and Thomas caught it. When that happened, he split apart and that was it, it went that fast.”

“You’re sure nothing happened in-between that time?” King asked.

“Yeah,” Joan answered, hesitant but sure.

“We still have that soul splitter,” Nate supplied helpfully. “We’re pretty sure it used to be Wil’s.”

“What?” King spat.

“Yeah, I’ll go get it,” Nate offered and ran out of the room to go fetch the camera. King at the same time sent Lunky back to Google. The spawnling complained but eventually the two heroes came back with their little missions completed.

“Okay, Logan really likes it for some reason,” Nate informed King when they were both back. By the look on King’s face the young man was thinking along the same lines. “Deceit hates the thing apparently, but none of the others have more than a passing tolerance towards it.”

King picked up the camera and groaned at the pink mustache stained into the side. “Of course it’s Dad’s. His magic always did weird things to stuff to begin with.”

The young man began trying to send his aura at it, to get it to react, but he was met with nothing.

“Okay, Dad, what weird thing did you do to make this?” King grumbled in frustration.

“That’s all I could ever get it to do,” Nate lamented. “I’ve tried popping the film cartridge, but it’s stuck. I think it’s just old.”

Humming a bit in affirmation, King turned it over a bit and set it on the closest table, his fingers drummed pensively. “Okay, it’s Dad’s, there’s gotta be some trick.”

King took out one of the medallion necklaces Dark had made for Lunky and hung it right over the camera.

Still nothing.

Frowning, King channeled his aura through the camera and finally a reaction took place. A mix of King and Dark’s aura in proximity to the remnants of Wil’s that stubbornly held the camera together brought forth another aura. It was distinct and visible: a shimmering, rainbow aura. It lasted for a second but it was there.

In alarm, King flew back from the camera, pulling the necklace away. In an instant the aura disappeared.

King approached and experimentally held just the necklace above before taking it away again and trying to search for an aura trail.

“Oh, you sly bastard!” King realized as he pulled out the very dagger that had caused part of his soul to split off and create Lunky. He’d kept it because he was certainly not letting the Jims get their hands on the knife again. “I fucking found you!”

King tried to drive the soul splitter into the camera and some protective spell fanned out to break the soul splitter and bruised King’s hand.

At first King thought his hand had been broken or fractured, but as the pain subdued to a dull, aching throb, he began trying to move it and realized that at worst it had bruised his bone.

“Fucking shit!” King hissed as Silver ran over to him. The force of the barrier spell and King’s attempted blow had caused the table to break and the camera to fall to the ground, undamaged by the fall.

Nanites surged out of some unseen compartment in the camera and created a projection disk. There was a whirl and a hum, before a holographic symbol hovering in the air. It was a blackened symbol of three heads and dozens of arms surrounding it, the only words there were: “Hecatoncheires Projects Presents:”

The symbol lasted for a second before the projection showed an image of future Logan, Spade, standing in front of them.

Spade’s projection smiled at them and he took a deep breath before he greeted them, “Heroes.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Accessibility Translations:

1. Fuck-all

2. to

3. Put everything back and pretend nothing’s happened? All you’ve told us about this thing is that it’s dangerous or something

4. going to

5. Grandfather; Korean. Specifically the informal way to address your paternal grandfather. Phonically read as “halabeoji”

6. something

7. for

8. lightning

#Superhero AU #Masks and Maladies #footnotes #King of the Squirrels #Natewantstobattle #Natemare #Silver Shepherd #Jackieboy Man #Joan Stokes #angst #magic #existential dread hour #LAMP

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nuttersincorporated · 6 years

Text

Pacific Rim Uprising review

Does anyone want to make an au with me of what happened after the first movie ended? Please?

Spoiler under the keep reading

Gosh darn it! Why!? Why would you do this?

I love the first movie so much. It deserved a better sequel than this. The characters deserved better. There are a LOT of things I disliked so I’m gonna number them.

1. Newt and Hermann are no longer working together which means that the kaiju have been able to turn Newt into their puppet. He never breaks out of it either. He’s just their slave now and trying to destroy humanity so that those on the other side of the rift can come live here.

This was the most obvious ‘plot twist’ ever and I think everyone saw it coming a mile away. It was so unnecessary too. There were a thousand better ways of doing this. Here are just a few-

Newt didn’t continue to drift but what he’d seen scared him. He’s not working for the kaijus but made the new jaegers as a last defence if needed. However, the kaidus are able to take them over or a greedy human did it so that they could ‘rule the world.’

The kaiju learnt more about the jaegers than they ever had before through Newt and Hermann’s drift in the first movie. They were also able to recreate Gipsy Danger once the rift closed. They don’t need a human puppet and couldn’t have controlled Newt or Hermann even if they’d wanted to.

“In his house R'lyeh dead cthulhu waits dreaming.” Listen, the kaiju have their followers. Of course they do. People who think that the kaiju are a judgement and we deserve to die

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people who think they’ll be spared if they help the kaiju, those seeking power ectara. BUT Newt is not one of them!

There are no kaiju behind the new ‘evil’ jaegers. It really is just human greed. The jaegers where needed during the war but after it finished and we no longer had a common enemy, humans started fighting among themselves again. Human war on a whole new level.

Rogue AI. For years, they’ve been working on making the jaegers more automatic so that they can minimize human causalities but they’ve become self-aware and they have plans of their own.

It’s Hannibal Chau. Remember him? Cos this movie certainly doesn’t. He was using dead kaiju to make money. He’ll have known about how Newt and Hermann drifted, learned how to close the rift and survived. Doesn’t tell me he wouldn’t try it too, just to see what he could learn. He’s either doing this by himself or the kaiju are tricking him.

There are more ways but you get it. This ‘twist’ wasn’t needed and I hate it. I hate it so much.

2. They killed Mako! FUCK THAT! She didn’t even get an arc in this movie. She didn’t get a heroic death helping save humanity, like Pentecost did. She got turned into Man Pain™ to push Jake into growing up and taking responsibility.

He couldn’t just grow up when he realised the world was in danger. NOPE! It’s gotta be personal so they killed Mako off.

3. Forget drift compatibility. Everyone can drift with anyone now.

4. It’s not just old characters how deserved better. New ones do too.

Amara Namani is great but they put her in the recruit program to train as a jaeger pilot. Then there is a totally pointless rivalry where another female cadet. Viktoria, is needless hostile towards her until, ‘guess we’re best friends now for no reason at all?’ Why couldn’t they have been friends to begin with?

5. Also, while Viktoria was just mean for no reason to start off with, she was kind of right. Why was Amara made a cadet? She built a small jaeger out of bits of scrap and it worked! She recognised tech from different companies without any training. She was super hyped to get in there and dissect/dismantle the kaiju/jaeger hybrid.

What I’m saying here is that she should have been an enjoiner or a scientist. Imagine her making better jaegers or working with Newt and Hermann. She could still have fought when the time came.

“I know this jaeger better than anyone. I built her from scratch after all. I’m the best chance we have left!”

Or she could have realised that she could help better back at command coming up with solutions.

6. Jake and Nate have a pointless sort of love tringle with a woman who’s name I can’t even remember. It does nothing but eat up screen time that could have been better used for character development or plot.

Jake sees her and thinks she’s pretty, Nate says not to go there, Jake keeps thinking about her, Nate falls on top of her during an attack and she kisses them both on the cheek before they head into danger and tells them not to die. That’s it! That’s the romantic subplot which exists for no reason.

*Sigh* Okay, that’s the negatives I can think of off the top of my head. Here are some positives cos I don’t like being so negative.

I do like Jake, Nate, Amara and Liwen Shao. Think they deserved to be in a better movie.

Liwen in particular deserved more development than she got. Jake and Amara did get some but Liwen didn’t. She was set up as the obviously fake villain and then she’s just one of the good guys. She got her heroic moments but I want to know more about her as a person… okay so this one has sort of turned into a complaint again, sorry.

I really enjoyed the romance between Jake and Nate. They were so very domestic together in the ice-cream scene and Jake telling Mako how handsome he thought Nate was, was just adorkable. However, it probably counts as queer baiting so… dang it! I’m trying to be positive here!

The fights take place during the day so we can see them better.

Hermann is treated really well in this movie.

It’s not Indiana Jones 4 bad.

That’s it. That’s all I can think of and two of those positives were negative too. I really love the first movie. Why did this have to suck so bad?

#pacific rim #pacific rim spoilers #pacific rim uprising #long rant #this is over 1000 words long #music #video #war of the worlds

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