#He has no muscle in the comic issues it's so silly

[chad-enigma]

Love it when comic artists draw Jaime's armor absolutely STACKED. He's built like a brick wall and never takes it off in front of others; imagine his teammates seeing him de-armor and finding a 5"9 stick beneath the suit.

#He has no muscle in the comic issues it's so silly #boy never works out #khaji gives him a bit more muscle in the right places #but thats it #jaime reyes #blue beetle #khaji da

[girlboybug]

Shades of Cool

“my baby lives in shades of cool, cold heart and hands of aptitude.”

or the one where joel can’t seem to stay away from you despite his efforts to. but it’s not like he tried very hard to begin with.

what’s playing 🎧 : shades of cool by lana del rey

pairing : joel miller x female!reader

word count : 9k

CONTENT WARNINGS : SMUT, creampie, breeding kink if u squint, oral f receiving, fingering, loss of virginity, virginity kink if u squint yet again, tummy bulge, unspecified age gap and joel kind of has a thing for it, unprotected sex, (pls wear a condom guys im just a mf on tumblr) multiple orgasms, a tad of overstimulation, allusions to male masturbation, dirty talk, pet names, mating press, prone bone, light dom/sub dynamics, reader def has some unresolved daddy issues mean!joel but theres some soft joel

TRIGGER WARNINGS : minor character death/reference to his death but he literally doesn't exist in the show i promise, canon-typical violence, mentions of blood, mentions of guns, implied/references to sexual harassment

a/n : this is my first time uploading to tumblr, forgive me if my layout is funky lol, anyways pls enjoy <3 read the second part here

you swallowed hard when you saw joel making his way towards the alleyway you two routinely met up in. watching as he did his typical side to side glance, casual in presence but it was muscle memory for him to ensure the safety of his environment no matter it’s location or the mundaneness of it. 

you quite disliked the feeling that pricked your chest and quickly spread inside the cavity, overflowing up into your throat and drowning out any coherent thoughts in your mind whenever you saw joel. 

it was annoying. pathetic even. just a silly schoolgirl crush you hoped would go away in time. 

you put aside the fluttering feelings for later, and waved, catching his attention. he sent a curt nod, rubbing his palms together before pushing them into his denim pockets. “hey.” he greeted you, if you could really call it that. 

you took whatever you could get from him, so you smiled, parroting it back with a nervous politeness. 

“do you have the uh…” you trailed off, feeling embarrassed that you struggled to even verbalize what you were trading. 

he raised a brow, folding his arms over his chest, looking at you expectingly. “i got it. you got the rations?” he finished speaking for you and you nodded enthusiastically, hurriedly pulling out the thick wad of rations you worked your ass off for. 

he shut his eyes with exasperation for a few seconds before hovering his larger hand over the wad, miraculously dwarfing your own hand. “don’t wave it around kid, jesus,” he sighed, shaking his head while palming it and sliding it away into his back pocket. 

“sorry…” you muttered embarrassedly. 

he didn’t reply, and instead handed you a box, bright purple and pink and your gaze slowly rose up to his face with a slightly ajar mouth. “uh. joel.” you started, voice leading into an upward trail of confusion. 

“if i wanted tampons i could have easily gotten this myself.” you wanted to hide the slight irritation in your tone but he caught on to it, unfolding his arms to jab the top of the box with his index finger. “how about you open it smartass.” he instructed dryly, moving backward and refolding his arms. 

your eyes lingered on him tryingly for a few more seconds, huffing quietly to yourself before flipping the cardboard flap up. 

again. tampons. 

you tilted it towards him and he dragged his hand down his face tiredly. he dug his hand into the box, the tampons shoved to the sides, revealing a small pistol. 

your mouth fell open into a comical O shape, laughing in awe. “oh!” you giggled and joel stared at you blankly, already feeling a hankering for a straight shot of whiskey at the bright and early hour of 8:30am. 

“very creative.” you beamed and it seemed as though joel fought back a smile behind a glare. at least, you told yourself that. 

“just enough for gullible people.” he pushed at a button of yours, just a little, and you paused for a second, shooting him a playful glare. “whatever,” you exhaled through a quiet chuckle. 

“thank you joel, i appreciate the um. tampons, i was running low.” you played along with the bit and he rolled his eyes, nodding, already ready to go back home. 

“sure thing.” he was about to turn and walk out of the alleyway but something held him in his spot. 

he took in a deep inhale before making eye contact with you, rendering you back into your nervous state from when he first arrived. 

“why do you need a pistol? we’ve only ever traded for small things. why the sudden big order?” he has absolutely no clue why he’s asking you this, or rather, he has no idea why he’s letting himself ask this. 

he shouldn’t care. he doesn’t. 

you stiffened, straightening your back and holding the box to your stomach, hands cupping the bottom of it. “just to keep at my place. thought i’d feel safer with it.” you answered truthfully, making sure to not go further into detail. 

his squinted eyes stay on you for awhile, unsure of what you needed to feel safe from. “are you uh…in any trouble?” he asks and you feel a little excitement ignite in your lower belly. 

is he worried about you?

“no! no not at all, i just…i don’t know,” you try to laugh it off but the silence between you two just feels heavy instead. “why do you ask?” you question and he shrugged. 

“if you’re in trouble, i don’t need it somehow coming back to me. i got enough shit i need to worry about.” he answered and the bubble inside you popped and deflated almost immediately. 

“oh, well no need to worry about that. it’s nothing like that, you’ll be fine.” you decided to end the conversation there, a cold feeling of humiliation that prods at your shoulders and throat alerting you that it’s best to just walk away before you can say anything else that might make the situation more unbearable. 

“thanks joel.” you added, quickly making your way out the alleyway. “be careful with that thing.” he called out after you, and you feel the bubble slowly start to shamelessly inflate itself once more. 

maybe he does care. even if it’s just a little. 

—

you hid the box in the shoddy nightstand you had lugged up into your apartment from off the street one night, and exhaled lowly, pursing your lips. “this is good.” you stated to yourself. 

the whole reason why you wanted a gun, was kind of useless if you really put some actual thought into it. 

it really was just for the comfort of your mind, putting the nerves you had at ease. like a security blanket of sorts. 

fedra soldiers occasionally conduct inspections, making a mess of people’s homes to look for any contraband, firefly propaganda, weapons, anything that so much acts as an eyesore to them is grounds for permanent confiscation. 

there’s a specific solider that just makes you uncomfortable, makes your skin prickle up into sharp goosebumps and makes your stomach churn like dry gears rubbing up against each other. 

the way his eyes follow you around, rejoicing in his power over you and how you cowered away from him. 

they come in as pairs to inspect and even if they didn’t, he was still taller, stronger, heavily armed and trained and could kill you in front of a crowd of people and still face no consequences. so a singular witness wouldn't stop him from breaking the rules.

if anything, you’ve probably just put yourself in more danger carrying a weapon. but you felt that if you had it, you maybe had a fighting chance in case push came to shove. 

you collected yourself into your very depressing excuse of a bed, lifting the fraying crotched blanket over your body, pretending you were anything less than semi uncomfortable.

the next morning, you woke up with a slightly sore feeling that resided in just about every crevice of your body but you ignore it, as it’s a common thing to wake up to if you’ve got what basically feels like laying on a napkin as a bed, and using what feels like an even thinner napkin as a blanket. 

you readied yourself to participate in street clean up, since you had to take on more shifts than usual to make up for the hefty chunk of rations you gave to joel. 

—

a bandana resided around your nose, neatly but tightly tied behind your head, doing…definitely not enough to cover the stench of cleaning the sludge off the streets. 

"the fuck would i need coffee beans for asshole? hit me up when you’ve actually got good shit to trade.” you overheard two guys a few feet away from you bickering, your ears perking up at the mention of coffee beans. 

you remembered joel vaguely mentioning how he’d kill for a cup of coffee, and you agreed on that sentiment, even though you’ve never once had coffee.  the point being, he’d been out of coffee for awhile, unable to find anyone who has it, and you figured maybe scoring him a bag would be a nice sign of gratitude for the pistol. 

you pulled down your bandana, walking over to the guy once the other one walked off. “hi, um i didn’t mean to eavesdrop but i heard you have coffee beans? i’d be willing to trade for them.” 

“i don’t take kindly to nosy—“ he cut himself off mid sentence once he turned to look at you, his eyes dragging up and down your body and you wondered in that moment if it was worth the hassle of talking to this. thing. 

but then you thought of joel, and how maybe he’d smile at you, thank you with a tight bear hug and suddenly, it did all seem worth it. 

“yeah, yeah i’d definitely be happy to trade with you,” he grinned and you laughed, trying to hide your disgust with fake excitement. “great! what would you want for it? i have some spare shampoo bars, a pair of wool socks i was saving for winter, or—“ 

he cut you off this time, leaning into your space closer and you instinctively backed away. “i was thinking maybe something different.” he alluded to something that made cleaning up literal shit off the street seem a lot more pleasant. 

your face fell and you lifted up your bandana. “yeah, nevermind. thanks anyway.” 

you turned on your heel and he groaned, calling after you. “the socks…” he huffed, rubbing the side of his chin. “are they soft?” he mumbled, avoiding eye contact. 

you tugged down the bandana again, smiling brightly. “very!” 

—

you scheduled another meet up with joel, excited to gift him the bag of coffee beans. 

you were slightly sad to let go of the socks, your feet always got so cold in the winter and the nights were already starting to increase in frigidness, but it’s okay, you could always find another pair of socks again, but you didn’t know if you’d have another chance to pleasantly surprise joel like this. 

against joel’s typical judgment, he said to just stop by his apartment, feeling too tired to lug himself down into the alleyway again. 

but all you heard from that was he trusted you enough into his personal space. which, as much as joel would deny it, is true. 

he could clearly envision you apologizing to a fly for so much as being in its way, so inviting you over posed as nowhere near a threat. 

you knocked at his door, hiding the bag behind your back before he opened it. the wind got knocked out of you once more at the sight of him. he was very much older than you, easily the age of a man who could be your father, but that didn’t erase any of his attractiveness. 

in the deepest part of your subconscious, you knew that that’s what added onto it. 

“hi!” you chirped and he stepped to the side, widening his door to let you in. “hi.” he repeated, drier but, not unhappily. 

“what’d you wanna trade for again?” he asked, his hand rubbing the side of his stubbly jaw, and you had to look away, knowing you’d just watch him in silence if you didn’t. 

“actually,” you hummed, nearly bursting at the seems with glee. he watched you curiously, unaware of the slight smile on his face as he watched you tip toe closer with your hand still behind your back. 

“i didn’t come by to trade. i got you a gift!” he rested his palms behind him on the small table, his broad shoulders seeming even broader now and you wanted to run your hands across the expanse of them. 

“a gift?” he asked, breaking you out of your trance. he sounded genuinely shocked, almost unable to believe you. “mhm!” you nodded, a smile still etched on your features. 

“close your eyes, and open your hands.” you instructed, and he tilted the side of his head to you, wordlessly saying really? 

you nudged your chin, motioning for him to listen, your way of replying with yes, really.

he eyed you before shaking his head, standing up straight and closing his eyes, his palms bared out for you, muttering a quiet, i have no idea why i’m listenin’ to you. 

you plopped the bag of coffee into his hands, sing songing a soft “now open!” 

he opened his eyes, his lips parting in awe. he laughed out of disbelief, and your heart soared with joy as you saw him smile, and widely at that. 

“kid…you…why? i mean, god, thank you, but why?” he asked and you shrugged, rocking back and forth on your heel to your toes. “take it as a thanks for my pist-i mean tampons.” you joked and he chuckled, shaking his head and putting the beans down onto the table. 

“well, thank you, that’s mighty kind of you.” he looked downward at you, and you looked back up at him, trying to memorize the way his lips were curled, the sweet lines by his eyes and the way he just seemed so happy by such a small act of kindness. 

“no biggie!” you replied, and he darted his eyes away for a moment before turning back to you. “do you know how to use your gun?” he asked and you felt your face grow hot with slight embarrassment. 

“uh. i mean you just aim and pull the trigger right?” you asked honestly and he blinked a few times before shaking his head. “okay so you don’t.” and you squinted at him. “i could teach you. get you some extra bullets too.” he remedied the half joking comment with his offer and you perked up. 

“yeah? you would?” you asked excitedly and he nodded. “‘course. you just went from tolerated, to slightly more tolerated in my book. so i’m gonna help you not accidentally shoot yourself in the foot.” 

you didn’t like how you actually felt a twinge of sadness at his obvious joke about only tolerating you. he was kidding, but sometimes it was hard to tell because he had the same monotone, slightly annoyed at everything everyone has to say, kind of voice. 

and you were a sensitive person, and even the most harmless jokes could manage to sting you. 

“well jeez aren’t you sweet.” you complimented with sarcasm. joel threw on his flannel, ignoring your comment. you stepped aside while he made his way to the door. 

“you comin?” he looked at you, opening the door behind him, waiting for you to follow. you turned around to look behind you stupidly, then back to him. “what?” you asked confusedly and he fought the urge to roll his eyes and take back his offer. 

“we’re gonna start now.” he inclined his head out the door, motioning for you to come along. and who were you to decline doing anything with joel. 

—

joel was here. in your apartment. in your space, in your air. he was sitting on your bed, the place where you’d occasionally, frequently shove your fingers into places you just knew joel would be able to reach with no effort. 

he ran his fingers over the barrel of the gun, drumming against its ridges and for a moment you felt a bit envious over the literal inanimate object. 

“cmere,” he patted the space next to him, waiting for you to be seated so he could get started. 

with wobbly legs you made your way to him, smoothing over your jeans in an attempt to secretly wipe away your clammy palms. 

“show me how you hold it.” he placed it in your hands and it felt foreign to the touch. it was heavier than you expected it to be but you tried to conceal your inexperience by holding it the way you’ve seen others handle their firearms. 

you pointed it at the door, pretending that soldier was in front of you, finger on the trigger and hands at the bottom of it, supporting your grasp. 

he observed your hold, a low hmm coming from the back of his throat. “not terrible.” he adjusted your hands, your skin latching onto his heat, claiming it as yours as his body hovered around your side. 

“how’s that feel?” he asked and you cleared your throat, blinking a few times and avoiding his close stare. “it uh, it feels better.” you answered and he clicked his tongue, nodding curtly to himself. 

“alright. now, when you run out of bullets, the magazine at the bottom might drop out but if it doesn’t, you’re gonna take it out and reload, you wanna be fast if you’re in the middle of, well whatever situations got you needing to pull out a gun.” there was a slight cadence of a joke in his gun lesson 101, and it made a giddy feeling return to your tummy. 

he reached in his back pocket, pulling out what you assumed he meant by magazine. 

he explained the logistics of your newly owned weapon, trying to use terms you’d be able to follow along with, not unaware of how you were watching and listening intently, hanging on to every word he spoke. 

you were too damn obvious. 

—

you saw more of joel after that, bumping into him in places you usually didn’t see him, yet seemingly excited every time you met. 

his aloof stare slowly turned softer when it landed on you, maybe it never changed at all but to you it definitely felt different. 

he swore it was you that had been following him, an air of playfulness in his accusations of you stalking him, but really it was him. 

he unable to admit to himself that he  wandered around the areas he knew you were usually found in, wanting to scold you for having such an easy routine to follow but he kept it to himself. 

he watched you walk beside him, taking in the sights of the town, wondering how you could possibly appreciate the hellhole that surrounded you all. 

“so how’s the coffee? any good?” you asked, turning back to look at him, feeling a hushed breath pause in your throat once you saw he was already looking at you. 

a peek of a smile ghosted over his face. “it’s good. i, i appreciate that you did that. i hope you didn’t have to trade too much for it.” guilt resided in him at the thought of you having to give more than you had just for coffee beans. he felt he wasn’t worth all that effort. 

you shook your head, laughing lightly at the memory of the trade. “no no don’t worry, just a pair of socks. they were these brown wool socks that were so soft, so i’d say it was a pretty fair trade.” 

“i’ll be on the look out for a pair like that then.” he was already figuring out who he could trade with to get you another pair of socks. “no it’s okay you don’t have to it’s-“

“hey,” his voice felt rich, calling your attention back to him. your chest went tight. “yeah?” you whispered back. 

“shut up. i’m gettin’ the socks.” there was a backbone of sternness in his lighthearted promise.

you sucked on your bottom lip through a grin before you spoke again.

“i have a confession.” you exhaled, feigning dramatics and he tilted his head towards you, watching you with worried eyes. “yeah?” 

“i lied. i’ve never had coffee before.” you lowered your head with faux shame and he gasped, shaking his head with disapproval. he paused for a moment, then turned around. 

you caught up with him, holding onto his arm, feeling hot at the taut feeling of his limb, and how he didn’t push you off. he just peered down at you, keeping you there with him. “jeez i didn’t think you’d take such offense to that,” you breathed out through a chuckle. 

“inexcusable. you’re tryin it when we get home.” the twang in his accent was something so attractive, and it only had you feeling more and more willing to do whatever he wanted. you’d drink acid if he asked of it from you in that deep southern drawl. 

you two walked back to his place, shedding a layer out of many, holding onto it as you trailed in behind him. 

he glanced over at you, then your coat. “set it down somewhere, you can have a seat.” he pointed at the round table and you quietly thanked him, hanging your coat over the back of the chair before sliding it out and sitting in it. 

“i remember you have a sweet tooth. damn near talked my head off about trading for a bag of hard candies a few months ago, so i reckon you’d like it sweet.” he mostly talked to himself when he said that, fondly remembering the way you rattled on about how you were craving for caramel drops. 

“you remember that?” you were just about swooning, unable to hide it even when joel walked back over to you, two mugs in each hand of his. “how could i not? you never let me forget it.” he set the mug down in front of you, sipping at his as he leaned back into the chair in front of you. 

you picked it up, hugging the warmth of it with your palm. you took a light sip, your eye shutting, a low quiet moan leaving your lips from around the mug once the taste landed on your tongue. 

joel stirred in his seat at the sound, busying himself with drinking from his cup to avoid making any kind of facial expressions. 

“joel,” you crooned and he felt weak. “you like it?” he asked, his lips still curled over the rim of his mug. “it’s so good, i understand why you like it so much.” 

“well, i don’t make it as sweet as that, but yeah, coffees good. not a lot of people agree.” he shrugged and you set your mug down in front of you. “can i taste yours?” 

he slid it to you and you lifted it, tasting it and almost immediately wanting to spit it out. you quickly gave it back to him, sipping the sweeter coffee to cleanse your offended palette. 

“yeah, that tastes like shit, i don’t know how you drink that.” you smacked your tongue against the roof of your mouth, the burnt taste not quite leaving you just yet. 

he rolled his eyes, taking a loud obnoxious slurp. “my tastebuds are just mature.” 

“mature for what? shit? once you hit a certain age do just you grow accustomed to crappy tasting things?” you were dipping into a more casual way of speaking to joel, causing his gaze that rested on you to turn into a view of amusement. 

“rich comin’ from the kid who still eats like she’s 5.” he rested his arm against the back of his chair, and you expired, feeling a bit defensive of being called a child. 

“i’m not a kid.” you muttered and he chuckled. “alright.” he agreed in sentiments but not in actuality. 

breaking the comfortable silence that filled the room you and joel shared, a loud bang rang from against the door. joel slid from out his chair, hurriedly pacing towards the door. 

before he could even open it, you already knew it was one of fedra’s soldiers. things were starting to feel a little too lax, it was only a matter of time until they came knocking down doors again. 

your throat went dry, stomach cinching with anxiety once he stepped inside, the same soldier that had you saving up your rations week after week to be able to afford the pistol from joel. 

his eyes flickered between you and joel, scoffing to himself. “what’s this?” he asked you, ignoring joel who stood right in front of him. 

“nothing.” you answered, intimidation and fear already prickling at your skin and racing down your spine. 

joel stood in front of you, shielding you away from him, and slowly, the fear lifted itself itself away from you, but not fully. not while he’s still here. 

“aren’t there usually two of you who do these searches?” joel questioned, watching as the solider jabbed at various things of joel’s with the tip of his rifle. 

“partners out sick. so y’all get the pleasure of havin just me.” he flashed an ugly grin at you, bending to the side to see your uncomfortable face behind joel’s back. 

he walked around, haphazardly lifting and tossing things about. 

“oh?” he bent down, squatting by joel’s bed. “what’s this?” he waved around a baggy full of white powder. joel stiffened, his nostrils flaring in anger. 

“that’s not mine and you know it.” and surprisingly it actually wasn’t. 

joel had just sold the last of his pills to a sad sap unable to sleep without them, and that was a month ago. the asshole was planting drugs on him. 

“this is not only grounds for confiscation but imprisonment. tough spot you’re in miller.” joel exhaled angrily from a quiet ragged breath. 

“unless,” he came up to you, pushing past joel to cup your chin. “she wants to, convince me why i shouldn’t take you down for this contraband.” you flinched from his touch but it only made him hold on tighter. 

joel snatched his wrist away, stepping back in front of you. “you don’t have to involve her. what do you want? rations, half of my next haul? what?” he gritted and the solider just laughed. 

“you think i don’t have easy access to all that? i want something you can’t easily trade for.” he leaned to the side, waving at you. 

joel pushed him backward, triggering the response of a rifle being shoved in his face. joel didn’t so much as waver, grabbing the neck of the firearm, pointing it away from him while his foot came and rammed down onto the front of his shin, successfully knocking him down with a loud wail of pain. 

it happened so fast all you could do was sit and watch, frozen in place as joel lost himself on top of the solider, pounding and pounding and pounding his fists in relentlessly, not stopping despite the ache trickling over across his knuckles. 

you heard a sick squelch followed by cracking noises and you knew that should’ve made you fear joel. it should’ve made you run out the door and never look back. but it did the opposite. you never wanted to stay more. 

you watched with wide pupils as he rose up from the beaten and bloodied solider, breathing hard and loud, stumbling upward to a leant stance, staring at the lifeless solider on his wood floors. 

he wiped his nose with the clean, unbloodied slate of his forearm, before dropping it back to his side to lean forward and spit over the body. 

he turned back to you, scanning your face for any hurt, fear or disgust. 

but there was none. 

before you could say anything, he spoke aloud his thoughts. “i gotta get rid of the body.” 

“do you need help?” you extended a hand willing to assist and joel shook his head a hard no. “you saw enough, you don’t need to see more. i’ll be back.” 

you stood up, pressing a hand to his chest, looking at him with watery eyes. he wanted to wipe them away from you, but he couldn’t. not with the blood that was already starting to cake under his nails. 

“joel i want to help.” you admitted, soft voice trembling and joel leaned forward, his face close to yours. “you should probably go sweetheart, you don’t need to get wrapped up further in this.” his words traveled along the coast of a gentle but solid whisper. 

“i don’t want to go.” your voice barely carrying itself loud enough as a reply, eyes following joel’s actions of walking away from you to roll up the soldier in a thin fraying carpet. 

“you should.” is all he said, walking out the door with a body dragging behind him. 

—

you went against any logical thought process whatsoever and stayed. you decided you’d make yourself useful, feeling as though the events that continually replayed in your head felt like your fault. 

you sat on your knees, scrubbing at the blood that had already set in the floors. 

you scrubbed until it hurt, and you kept going despite the fact. you dunked the scrubber into the bucket of soapy water turned brown, squeezing the excess onto the floor before rubbing it in. 

the door clicked open and your head whipped towards it, heart leaping in your chest once you saw joel stumble in. 

“hi.” you breathed and he looked at you with surprise. he saw the work you busied yourself with, locking the door before making his way to you. “what’re you doin’?” he asked gently, yet again in shock at how unabashedly kind you were to him. 

“didn’t want the blood just sitting here on your floors. ‘least i could do since it’s my fault that all happened.” you sniffled, feeling guilty at what had transpired. though the guilt was there, a sense of gratitude was even larger. 

he did that, for you. 

he bent down to catch your watery gaze. “no, no that was not your fault. just got a little carried away. ‘don’t want you thinkin’ that you had anything to do with my choices, okay?” he leaned to the side, catching your eyes that were avoiding his. “okay?” he repeated, waiting for you to say it back to him. 

“okay.” you mouthed just below a whisper. he took the bucket and the scrubber, walking to the sink. you of course, trailed behind him. 

he lifted his sleeves, turning on the faucet to rinse off the dried blood on his hands. 

he picked at under his nails, scraping the blood off wherever he saw it. which was, every inch of his hands. 

his body faced back to you, his now cleaned hands picking up yours, seeing specks of blood and dirt splattered on your hands from cleaning his floor. 

he washed you clean, and all you could do was admire him. how gentle he was taking care of you. he rinsed your skin clear of blood, drying you up and letting your hands rest back to your sides. 

“i’m sorry you had to see that.” he apologized, feeling ashamed of how little he was in control of his anger in that moment. 

you shook your head, hands shakily resting on his chest. “no, i don’t want you to be sorry.” you murmured, eyes landing on his lips. you swallowed back any fears that held you back from showing your affections any longer. 

you leaned forward, pressing your lips to his. with a pleasant surprise, he kissed back, no hesitation in his actions. his hold fell to your waist, squeezing, pulling you into him. 

he took in your air, and you gave it to him, happily, willing to offer it in all its abundance. your hand rose to his cheek, palm resting over his beard. his thumb rested on your chin, rubbing it softly. 

he forced himself to pull away, his hands selfishly unable to remove themselves from your waist. “sweetheart this isn’t a good idea. you’re too young, and i’m not a good man. i think i just showed you that.” he tried to warn you, hushed and gently, with honest intentions of keeping you away from something you’d regret being involved with. 

but the only thing you’d regret is never being with him. 

“i’m not, and i don’t care what you do joel, i want you, all of you, want you so bad,” you all but whimpered, trying to press yourself against him more. 

he was a greedy man at heart, pulling you back up for a harder kiss. there was a hot hunger that was electric between you two, a burning ignition that pulled you two in, tying an in separable twine amidst your bodies. but neither of you ever had any intentions of undoing it anyways. 

he held the side of your cheek, the other traveling from your lower back to your ass, squeezing it hard, using his grip to pull you in closer, grinding up against you right there. 

you were so needy for him that it rattled your bones. a wet clicking noise elicited from your mouths, tongues brushing up together messily. your chin dribbling with saliva. 

you moaned in his mouth, feeling the hand that was on your cheek move to hold you by the back of your head, his tilting to kiss you deeper. 

he untangled your lips, keeping himself not even an inch away, just to share the breath between you two. your tongue flicked over his lips, biting down on the bottom one before lurching forward for him once more. 

he groaned in your mouth, lifting his hand to come down and spank your ass. you whined, back arching and crotch brushing up against his. 

you two stumbled towards his bed, your back falling into the mattress. he crawled on top of you, ridding himself of his boots and you of yours. 

his knee rested on one side of your hip, the other coming between your thighs. your chest rose up into his, your back lifting off the sheets and hands coming up to paw at his chest. 

without any reservations, you rubbed against his knee, struggling to kiss him back. “feel good little girl?” he sounded gruff, strained voice trying it’s best to not moan at the way your wet little cunt managed to create a wet spot on his knee. 

“so good joel,” you gaped, kissing his neck desperately. 

“shouldn’t be touchin’ you like this, sweet little thing like you gettin handled by someone like me,” he breathed through a series of heavy pants, his hands wandering all along your sides, your hips, your thighs. 

“don’t want anyone else but you.” you whimpered truthfully, holding his wrist and guiding his hand to your chest, right above your heart. you let it drift to the left, shuddering when he squeezed your breast. 

he kissed your pulse, teeth baring out against it. he rested his hand on your lower belly, rubbing the skin under your tank top. “can i touch you?” he whispered, his beard tickling the space just below your ear. 

you nodded, running your hands all along his strong back. “please,” you bucked your hips upward, begging with not only your words but your body. 

he exhaled out a quiet chuckle, fingers working to undo your jeans, tugging them down until they were forgotten on the floor. 

he dipped down beneath your underwear, his cock throbbing in his boxers at how wet you were. so soaked it was pathetic. he hadn’t let his hand drift down to the sweet place between those thighs of yours til then, and yet you were as wet as if he had his tongue pressed up against you. 

actually, that’s not a bad idea.

he circled around your clit, watching as you revealed in it, his fingers being thicker than yours, making the sensation all the more intense. 

“joel,” you repeated his name, voice wavering in breathy gasps, his fingers rolling the sensitive button of yours. he slipped a finger inside you, eyes peering up and watching as your back rose just a little, hips pressuring downward and further onto his finger, taking him all in. 

“so soft,” he murmured, lowering himself to press a kiss to your hip. he rolled his hips into the mattress, trying ease the pressure building up beneath his jeans. 

he was too turned on, this young pretty girl he’s had his eye on for a year was sprawled in his bed, soft and soaked cunt all ready and pliable just for him and him alone. 

he could die a happy man. 

his lips encircled your clit, tongue drawing around it while he pressed into a familiar spongy spot within you. 

you sucked in a sharp gasp, the sweet sound turning into a high pitched whine. “please,” you sobbed, hands flying down to keep his head in place. 

he fucked you with his fingers, curling right up against the spot that was making you dizzy, his tongue and lips working perfectly on your little clit. 

tears flowed down your face and on his pillow, your hand coming up to your mouth trying to lessen the volume of your cries. 

“j-joel, please i,” unable to formulate any sentences, you just gave up, giving in to your moans. 

the way you squeezed around his fingers, sucking him with greed and need, made him wonder how that’d feel around his cock when he’d get to finally shove it in you. 

he growled at the thought, sucking hard around your clit. you whimpered, pushing down onto his tongue more. 

“s’too much, i cant, i,” your head rolled around his pillow, his scent, his touch, his tongue suffocating you in the most heavenly way possible. 

you squirmed in his hold, unable to escape his grip, unable to escape the way his tongue pressed flat and hard up on your clit. his beard brushed up against your thighs, pulling a giggly moan from you. 

“perfect little pussy,” he grunted, kissing your clit before dragging his tongue slowly, up and down languidly. 

he rested his forearm over your lower tummy, pressing hard and feeling the corner of his lips perk at the way you gasped, shuddering loudly and trembling in his mouth at the action. 

“joel, i think i’m—ooh,” you spoke tearfully, poor little throat already getting hoarse from crying out his name. 

“feels good huh baby,” that little twang in his deep voice curled off his words just right. all you could do was whimper a shaky sogood joel s’good. 

his finger pressed up against that spot inside you, his tongue on your clit being the sweetest cherry on top of the tooth rotting sundae. 

you were cumming, hiccuping his name unashamedly. your plush thighs coming around to cage him in, to which he paid no mind to, if anything it excited him, his rough hands gripping your ass and pulling you deeper into his mouth. 

the wind up deep inside you finally released, flickering flashes of burning hot lights spread across your limbs, slowly fizzling out as you went limp in his bed. 

he didn’t let up however, his tongue grown addicted to the way your perfect clit felt on the wet muscle. 

you whimpered, struggling to push him away from your cunt. it was just too good and he hadn’t had enough yet. 

“joel n-no more s’too much,” you pleaded weakly, and he took slight pity, pressing one last kiss before rising back up to you. 

he pressed his fingers to your lips, groaning quietly with approval at the way you took them in with no verbal orders needed. 

you were so good for him, his sweet little girl. 

he pulled them out, resting on your plump bottom lip before moving it out the way to kiss you. you moaned deeply into his mouth, bringing your arms around him, hands traveling up to his hair. 

his salt and peppered hair felt soft, weaved through your gentle fingers. you lightly tugged on it, feeling mischief in your veins at the ministration. he growled, biting down on your lip and laughing as you yelped. 

he held your jaw, pressing hard kisses all along your face, speaking stilly, his inflection so deep, so masculine, so old and wise, had you hypnotized, his words that were reserved for your ears only, were something you’d cradle to yourself forever. 

“told myself i wouldn’t crack, i wouldn’t have you like this, you’re too young, you don’t know what you want, but fuck,” he dragged his fingers up your folds, chuckling to himself at the way you whimpered, curling into his touch immediately. 

“now that i got you, ‘fraid i can’t let you go sweetheart. i’m a selfish man at heart.” he admitted, kissing your jaw. you just about exploded in that moment. you had no idea he felt the same for you as you did him, and it was the most powerful, enlightening feeling you’ve ever felt. 

“i’m selfish too,” you whispered back, puckering your lips to kiss him. “didn’t let anyone else touch me but you. just wanted you,” you looked up at him from under your eyelashes, unaware to how that little admission made the precum collecting at his tip leak out even more. 

his grasp on your hip tightened, squeezing it as he buried his face in your neck. “fuck baby, gonna give this old man a heart attack sayin’ things like that.” 

your shaky hands went for his belt, tugging on it with need. “want you joel, please?” you begged, lips pressed to his ear. he didn’t need to be begged any more, he undid his belt with one hand, pulling it off his waist, letting it join the pile of your discarded jeans and boots. 

before he could take himself out, your hands found themselves under his flannel, desperate and anxious to see what he’s been concealing away from you. “off, please,” and he wanted to say no, feeling not as proud in his physique as he once was about 20 years ago. 

“nothin special to see baby,” he countered and you shook your head. “it’s you. it’s special to me.” you suspired airily, already feeling your tummy get tight at the thought of him hovering above you, shirtless. 

he took in a deep breath, letting you unbutton his flannel. 

you undid each button, trying your best to not rip them clean off despite your rushing efforts. you slid it off his body, exhaling in awe at the sight in front of you. 

you sucked on your bottom lip, hands traveling across his broad shoulders, fingers tracing his collarbones, dragging around the scarred areas from past wounds, admiring the few freckles on his chest that trail up to his shoulders. 

he watched you, never having felt so admired before. “enjoyin’ yourself baby?” he teased, his thumb rubbing over your chin. 

“mhm,” you nodded, not caring how it looked to be gawking at him. 

you could feel the muscle from the layer of life and age over his stomach, your eyes then falling to the bulge of his biceps, instantly growing obsessed, squeezing at the muscles. 

“you’re so beautiful joel.” you spoke with such true sincerity and he tittered quietly, shaking his head. “thank you baby,” 

your wandering hands finally fell to his jeans, undoing the button and zipper, eager to see what else he’d been keeping away from you. 

he let you, more than ready to feel your touch in the place he craved the most. he was tired of having to fuck his calloused fist, trying hard to pretend it was your cute hand touching him. 

you pulled him out, feeling your jaw go slack at the length of it all. “jesus joel,” you swallowed hard, steadily jerking him off, feeling slightly unsure if you’re doing it right. you were telling the truth, when you said you’d never let anyone touch you, too hopelessly in love with joel to even imagine allowing anyone to see you in the way he’s got you. 

he grunted, unintentionally bucking his hips into the tunnel of your hand. he was thick, heavy in your clutch, veins running along the side of it, his tip round and fat, almost red with droplets of precum leaking out. 

“gonna show you what those little boys could never give you,” he promised, and you believed him, gazing at the way he reluctantly pulled away from your hold, knowing if he let you stroke him any longer he’d cum all over your hand. 

he circled your clit with the head of his cock, shuddering a semblance of a breathy moan at the sensation. “gonna be a bit of a stretch baby, tell me if it’s too much okay? i’ll try to go slow.” he kissed his promises of gentleness into your temple. 

he inched in, hands around either side of your head, foreheads pushed together while your mouth fell open, sucking in all the air in the room. the stretch was very unfamiliar, but not unwelcomed.

you held onto his shoulders for support, grasping onto them tightly, pretty plump trembling lips crying out moans that would replay in joel’s head on lonely nights. you felt fuller than you ever have before joel was even fully inside you. 

he was nudging up against spots in you that you had no idea could feel so good, and if he angled his hips any higher, the fat head of his cock would be kissing your cervix. 

“can barely fit myself in ya’ baby,” he groaned, head falling from your forehead to bury itself in your neck, kissing your hot skin to try to calm him down before he lost control and rammed himself inside you. 

your calves rested on his hips, whimpering while trying to lift yourself up in an attempt to get him to push himself further in. 

“more joel, please?” your pleas were accompanied by sponged kisses just below his ear. “gonna take it all for me baby?” he questioned you, inching in just that much deeper, and you shut your eyes, nails already beginning to crescent themselves in his back. “mhm, gonna take it all,” you swore, more than eager to have him fully within you, as close as could be. 

he jutted his hips in, knocking the wind out of you. you bit down on his shoulder, whining a drool filled mess with the way he started to fuck you, rough hardened hands molding softly around the curves of your waist. 

he was bathing in the way your little cunt took him in, squeezing around him so good just like he knew you would. he took his time, rocking into you in and out, holding your shaking body close to him. 

you could feel every ridge and vein in you, hooked onto the way he filled you up, stretching you beyond belief, making you bounce upward with every movement. 

his hands slid down over the smooth skin of your thighs, widening them further open before pushing them up, growing impatient, achingly hungry to be deeper in you. you struggled for air at his fast actions, eyes immediately rolling back at the way he began to fuck into you. 

“can’t help myself, m’sorry baby, pussy’s too good, shit,” a gruff sigh of relief leaving his mouth at the way you took him in. you didn’t care, you were thrilled to take whatever he gave you, and however hard he saw fit. 

“feels s’good, feel so full,” you cried, translucent tears free falling, the aggressive pistons of his hips causing your swollen clit to ache, begging to be touched. 

“feel me right here huh baby?” he rubbed over the bulge in your tummy and you squealed, wriggling away from the overwhelming stimulation. “ha,” you strung out, arching up into him. 

“yeah, you do,” he taunted breathlessly, loving how you were a wreck beneath him. “in so deep joel,” you mumbled against his shoulder and he kissed your hair, nodding knowingly. “i know babygirl but you’re takin me so well,” he praised, feeling so proud of his sweet girl taking his cock like a pro. 

“never gonna let anyone see you like this?” he pressed deep there, corners of his lips curling when you weep, squeezing at his biceps. “never gonna let anyone have you like this?” you shook your head, sobbing a string of no joel no, never, just you.

“perfect, tight fuckin’ cunt is all for me, aint sharin’ with no one,” he held you by the back of your thighs even further, stressing how serious he was, set on fucking himself into your soaked hole until there was a permanent shape of him within you. a shape no man could ever fit into. 

sobs of uncontrollable pleasure were the only thing you could feel in your veins, pumping your blood full of dopamine. his balls tightened, hitting the fullness of your ass, and he let himself grow sporadic, let himself take you. his fingers found your desperate clit, chuckling to himself when you croon tearfully, thanking him pathetically for touching you. 

“can i cum, please?” your requests only made him twitch inside you, his sweet girl was so polite. “go ahead baby, let it out,” he leaned down to kiss you, swallowing up your moans and cries. 

your body jerked under him, the tight vice of your cunt gripping onto him while he rubbed over your clit, pulling out the second wave of an orgasm from you. 

you broke apart from his lips, still just a breadth of a gasp away from them, brushing up against the ghost of a kiss as you pressed your forehead to his, sobbing his name while your body trembled from how hard you were cumming.  

“shit,” he slammed a hand against the wall above your head, shoving himself impossibly further in you, your legs shaking on either side of him. “good fuckin’ girl, squeezing me so goddamn good,” he fucked you through your orgasm, kneading over your breasts, groping at them and pinching at your pebbling nipples. 

you fell limp, letting yourself drown in the unraveling lengths of your climax. 

“gonna cum baby, where d’you want it?” he asked, feeling his lower stomach start to tighten up. “inside, wanna feel all of you,” you whined, kissing all along his shoulder and collarbones, messy and ravenous. 

his face fell to the crook of your neck, biting down on your soft flesh when he came, impaling you once, twice, ending it with one last hard thrust as he came in you, pumping you full of his cum. 

he didn't feel himself soften inside you, but with each of the passing minutes he decided he’d better pull out then or else he’d never leave. you winced from the removal, arms coming around to hold him with a clinginess.

he collapsed on top of you, and you sighed contently, the full weight of him resting on you could’ve honestly sent you into the deepest nap you’d ever have.  

you felt his cock, still hardened on your thigh. with sleepy eyes you looked up at him, lips on his stubbly jaw when you spoke. "you're still hard," you murmured. his fingers drew up and down your spine, and you shivered, arching yourself into him.

"that's okay, it'll go down soon." his throat got tight when he felt you wrap your hand around him once more. "we don't...have to ignore it." you trailed off, bitten lips pressing delicate kisses laced with ulterior motives into his tanned skin.

you wanted joel to use you as many times as he wanted to, a new compulsion flowing rampantly in your veins. now that you had finally gotten a taste of joel, you wanted to gorge yourself on him.

"you sure you can take it?" he asked through a hushed breath of arousal. you nodded, kissing at his lips with need.

he didn't need to be told twice, he repositioned you, letting you fall back onto his pillow with him hovering above you. he rolled you onto your stomach, holding you by your hip to lift you just enough for him to shove his flannel right against your cunt.

his rough palms encased your ass, groping at the thick flesh. he dipped down, spreading your ass and watching as his cum poured out of you. he groaned quietly to himself. you whimpered, turning to look over your shoulder as joel pushed his fingers inside, shoving his cum back into you. your chin dropped, face falling back into his pillow when he pumped his fingers inside you, chuckling darkly to himself at the way your ass squirmed against him.

every little swivel your hips made was met with friction from his flannel on your clit. the hem of it just so happened to be pressed right there. he slapped his cock over on your ass, exhaling loudly at the way it jiggled from his actions.

he aligned himself once more with your little hole, pushing himself in with ease due to the slick left from a mixture of his cum and yours. you whined, hands flying backward, desperate for any solace from his hands in yours. he held your wrists at the small of your back with one hand, the other supporting his weight to lean forward when he pushed himself all the way inside you. you cried out, his name falling out of your mouth like a mantra, your legs trembling beneath him.

he was in you so much deeper this way, stretching you out more than you thought he already could. his hips snapped up against your  ass, fully within you and hitting every single tingly spot inside you along the way.

you were already out of breath, your lungs and brain vacant of anything except for him, for joel. "feel you in my tummy," you hiccuped, tilting your head to look at him through teary eyes. he breathed out a lazy, cocky laugh, moving forward to kiss your forehead, unintentionally shoving his cock in even deeper, feeling a sense of pride at the way you gasped and whimpered at the deep intrusion.

"i know huh baby?" he chuckled in your ear, and you shivered, feeling your face grow warm from how flustered he made you feel. he was so dirty, any filters he once had were gone, the tight grip your cunt had on his cock made him downright ruthless.

he pressed his hands at your lower back, letting yours fall free to cling onto his sheets. he held you down that way, fucking into you with a newfound source of energy, his grey hairs falling over his forehead, sweat glistening over the ripples of muscles along his biceps and abdomen, his whole being going into pounding himself into you.

he wanted you to be so full of him that everyone would know it just by looking at you. the possessiveness he tried to suppress for so long had come out, and he wasn't sure if he could go back to hiding it again. but that wasn't on his mind, not when you were clenching around him, sobbing his name loud enough for everyone outside to hear.

his grunting fell to your ears, it was near pornographic, including the way you bounced with each and every thrust of his, just watching it made his chest get tight.

he needed you closer.

he pulled you back up from under your arms, keeping you flush against his chest while he continued fucking you. you were growing limp, body worn out from the rigor he put you through. but he held onto you, keeping you in his arms. his arm went under your tits, a sneaky hand coming up and groping at one, pinching at the nipple.

he buried his face in your neck, filling your ear with the low growl of his groans. "such a good girl, letting me fuck you like this, but i think you like it, and you know what else?," he drew in a heavy breath, "i think you like being fucked like a little ragdoll," you couldn't answer, he was right, but you could hardly focus on any words, his cock rendering you a teary eyed moaning mess.

"can't even respond when spoken to," he slowed the roll of his hips, hitting you in deep and slow, letting you hear him instead of the loud wet rhythm of your cunt being fucked into. "that's okay, i'll still take care of you," he chuckled, returning back to his rough pace.

"so good, make me feel so good joel," you managed to finally cry out in a series of strewn moans. his fingers trailed themselves down to your clit, rubbing in tight little circles. " i know baby, cum for me, show me how good i make you feel."

you wriggled around in his hold, your third orgasm of the night was thick in heft, a heavy wave of intense stimulation clearing your vision and leaving a white glittering hue instead. you felt joel everywhere, from the way he was buried in your cunt, to the way his hips were clasped over the curve of your ass, fitting into you like a puzzle piece.

the fervent circles being drawn over your clit was the thing that pushed you over, your head falling backward onto his shoulder, his turn to be serenaded by a string of your pretty moans. "good babygirl, did so good for me." he cooed in your ear, pressing a kiss behind it. "thank you," you meekly replied in a breathless voice.

you were the weakest you've ever felt, your poor spent body still being held upright as joel chased down his own orgasm. "gonna let me cum in you again baby? want more of it?" he panted in your ears. "please, want it joel, please,"

he gripped onto your hips, feeling his own stutter, before he pushed in deeply, stilling inside as he came in thick ropes. he finally softened, slowly pulling out of you. you winced again at the loss, feeling suddenly cold and empty. you collapsed on his bed, reaching out for him.

he laid beside you, pulling your leg up and over his waist, running a hand up the expanse of your thigh. your eyes fell shut tiredly, enjoying the comfortable sound of the two of you trying to catch your breaths.

a part of you was worried he was going to break the silence, afraid he'd call the whole thing a mistake, and lecture you on how he isn't the type of man who does relationships. you knew all of that, you just hoped he wouldn't say it and just let you soak in the moment.

almost nervously, his hand came to dance across your cheekbone softly, wanting to memorize the way your skin felt to his. "do you regret that?" he murmured and you opened your eyes, shocked at the question.

you leaned into his hand, curling your own over his. "no, never joel, why would you ask that?"

he sighed, scooting closer to you. "I'm not a good man, sweetheart, i'm giving you a chance to leave." he spoke above an octave of silence. you frowned, shaking your head. "i don't care about anything that you've done in the past or what you'll do in the future. i just...want to be here, with you, in any way you'll let me." you admitted, wishing you could say the one thing you've been harboring for a year, but you knew you needed to keep that to yourself just a little longer.

"if i had a bigger conscious i wouldn't let you," his hands pulled you into the hold of his arm that came over your waist. "lucky for me then that you're not the good man you claim to be." you whispered, the scent of coffee on your breath enveloping his senses, and in that moment, he had a realization.

he thought about how nice, how domestic it would be to wake up and share a cup of coffee with you every morning, before you had to face the day, at least you could share a moment of peace together.

"yeah," a trace of a smile grew over his lips. "you're right. i'm not." he rolled on top of you, cupping your cheeks in his large palms. "you're makin' an unwise choice little girl," a quiet rumble rested on your lips.

your arms came around his shoulders and you sighed a half laugh. "i know. i don't care."

#pedro pascal #pedro pascal joel miller #joel miller smut #joel miller x reader #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller x female reader #the last of us hbo #the last of us smut

[naturecalls111]

if the shower comic from your hs au is canon, I bet law got that body from beating the shit out of bullies or something like that lol that might be how Luffy got his crush from

Oooh anon, good you brought it up - I just realised I vaguely elaborated on this on twitter but didn't get the chance to here.

(Although I want to preface, these types of details are totally up for interpretation, I'm never stingy about it. If you like the idea that he beat the shit out of bullies, by all means, I wouldn't put it past him - he's a moody teen and probably takes huge issue with stuff like that since people have attempted to subject him to it at times. I definitely considered giving him some history as a delinquent, more as a 14-16 year old than the current HSAU timeline, but that's a whole other story)

First, I just want to clarify the obvious - no highschooler looks like that, the comic was done through Luffy's POV so it's absolutely a hyper-fantasized version of whatever Luffy was seeing, which was a lot more muscle definition than there actually was 😂

That isn't to say Law ISN'T fit for this AU - Law's reason for being fit is... pretty silly, maybe, but it's because Law was pretty active as a kid anyway because Corazon was - da-dum - a professional volleyball player, and would practice with Law as a pasttime together.

As Law grew older and out of playing volleyball (although just to note - Law is great at the sport, just doesn't care to play it in highschool), Corazon just made him adopt a casual habit of fitting exercise into his week ("if you're not going to go out and see some sunlight, then at least eat your vitamin D gummies and fit in some activity during the day" etc. Appropriately health conscious since he's an ex-athlete. He's okay with Law doing whatever he wants so long as he's happy, safe, and healthy to the best of his abilities.)

On top of that, Corazon is a pretty big guy, makes pretty big portions for dinner, and as a result, Law (also being a pretty tall guy) eats a lot too. It's both passive and intentional effort, maintaining his physique.

YOU OPENED THE FLOODGATES, I'm going to elaborate EVEN more for something that might feel irrelevant, but you're totally free to skip this part if you want to avoid HSAU "spoilers" 😂

Law and Kidd used to date, and since Kidd (big, buff guy) enjoyed the gym and eating lots, Law would just go with him and they'd make dates out of it because they never went on "proper" dates anyway (candle lit dinners? Sitting in the park? Kidd vc: "That's some sappy loser shit")

Whoof, sorry for the rambling. Tumblr has so many more characters at my disposal than Twitter does - so dangerous! 😂

#NC111qna #hs au

[unrestrained-balderdash-art-blog]

Done a design sheet/outfit sheet for Riddler in my little AU!

[allos be normal]

Rambling about design and inspirations:

General appearance (face and body): Hair is based on the classic comics. Also, there's fanart somewhere on Tumblr that called it blue hair Riddler and that was what got me really into the blue and black hair. The face is a bit of an amalgamation between Arkham and some of the classic comics (and mayhaps Tim Sale's Riddler?), but with BtAS's question mark nose and eyebrows. He's muscular, based on classic comics spandex (and the Lego games were very formative for me). I like drawing muscles (and JJBA was my special interest when I started getting serious about art which probably explains it). He's got body hair like in Arkham Knight (he may end up with more body hair than shown here, it depends when I get to drawing him). He's also got that question mark scar because it's silly and makes it a bit more interesting (and story potential?)

Spandex outfit: Based on the classic comics (especially Batman #705-707 (I hope they're the right issue numbers. They're the ones with Query and Echo)) and Lego Batman 2. His eyes are probably hidden with the mask, which would move for some of that adorable BtAS expressiveness.

Suit: It's a bit like a camper version of Arkham City. Also inspired by Frank Gorshin and Arkham Asylum.

Cane: Based on Lego DC Super-Villains, but also a little bit inspired by Arkham City? The topper is flexible so he can wrangle people

Casual outfit: Inspired by Arkham Origins, but more Riddlery. This Edward definitely has a collection of dorky jumpers which only his most trusted friends get to see him in. He's got the unbuttoned shirt heavily inspired by Lego DC Super-Villains. His glasses are inspired by Arkham City. He's a bit short-sighted; he could function without glasses, but for too long it would hurt. He uses contact lenses when he's out riddling.

Waistcoat: Heavily inspired by Frank Gorshin in the film when he takes off his blazer and looks incredibly dapper and ruined my fashion sense. His outfit here is like a more cohesive version of what I would wear. The tie is based on the one I embroidered. His gloves and trousers (and aforementioned glasses) are based on Arkham City. He has green nail polish (he would also put purple question marks on them)

Not appearance related, but I'm spelling it Nigma, because in my mind Nigma is for darker-haired Riddler looks, and Nygma is for ginger/red hair (may be based on the fact that classic Riddler usually has darker hair, but modern Riddlers use Nygma and are often redheads?)

Also! I've been working on writing a comic for the AU! It probably won't be coming soon, but... it's in the works...

#the riddler #edward nigma #riddler fanart #edward nygma #riddler #dc riddler #the riddler fanart #dc fanart #digital fanart #fanart #dc #balderdashverse #tw eyestrain #cw eyestrain

[tictac-murder-spaghetti]

Strychnine OC Intro

Okay this took me longer then I meant to to post but the boy is here!! The gooey little guy :) Strychnine is a criminal necromancer working in Edornoldn, one of the few cities where necromancy is actually legal but hey, who wants to have to deal with all that regulation to reanimate corpses? He's the self proclaimed supervillain of Edornoldn, with Ambrose being his rival, also declared by him and not reciprocated by Ambrose. They’re really just a silly little guy. Name: Strychnine, also known as #07 by his "mother" Pronouns: He/they (physically male but they're made of goo so gender isn't... really there for them fully.) Age: 27 Sexuality: Gay In Whump: He can really do it all! He's typically whumpee or caretaker, especially given his bad past, but you know... he is a mad scientist. They’re not a sadist at all but if you got them angry enough... you could end up on the autopsy table. Personality: Oh he's a menace. He genuinely wants to be a cartoon supervillain, half of his persona is ripped straight from the large collection of comics he keeps in his lab. They’re very eccentric and a little childish, and extremely persistent in their friendships. If you befriend him he will NOT leave you alone. He's very cartoonishly "evil", prone to bouts of maniacal laughter and monologuing about his "totally evil plan" to Ambrose. They’re extremely intelligent and competent, they know exactly what they’re doing and how to do it, and they’re charismatic enough to get lots of clients and be somewhat popular as a necromancer in the criminal world. Despite his fairly non intimidating appearance, he does not take well to people trying to push him around or intimidate him into doing things he doesn't want to, and the threats of horrific violence with a smile like :D on his face usually do a good job at getting people to not try that again. Beyond their persona, they’ve actually got a lot of issues with their perception of self and their "evil" is often a coping mechanism to ignore his past. People with gooey murder hands were never supposed to be good people, right? Physical appearance: Strychnine is a very small and lean guy, he's only 5'2 with a fairly small body type in general. Due to their body composition, they don't build muscles or fat well, so they look quite scrawny, but hey, they do have enough strength to drag bodies around and saw through bones, so appearances aren't everything. He's got a fairly dark skin tone with freckles across the bridge of his nose and downturned eyes with yellow sclera and red and grey ringed pupils. They constantly look slightly teary/drippy. He's got a bright cyan mullet of hair, and while it appears to be locks, it actually has a texture more akin to putty. They've got cyan stitches tattooed around their neck and shoulders, with ribs tattooed over where their actual ribs are. He's also got large vivisection scars across his chest. His typical attire is a dark grey labcoat over a slightly transparent black undershirt, long pants with actual caution tape safety pinned around one leg, a leaded apron, safety goggles, and large steel toed platform boots for the height boost haha. He always wears a pair of thick rubber gloves, due to the fact that his hands constantly drip a corrosive black goo. Fun facts! - Due to his radioactive composition, he glows. His hair and eyes glow constantly, and his blood has a "glowstick" effect - They’ve got an extremely high pain tolerance, mostly because of their past. They’re sort of hard to physically whump because of it, he'll probably just be annoying instead - Again because he's full of goo and acid, he can and will, eat ANYTHING. He's vegetarian but also often likes eating totally inedible things like extra screws and bits of glass, mostly just to fuck with Ambrose. - Their hair also can burn things like their hands, but unlike their hands, it cannot burn through clothes or material, it can just cause 1st to 2nd degree chemical burns if you try to grab it His Toyhou.se is here if you want more information or to see more art

#whump #ocs #Strychnine (oc) #my art #my ocs #It took me like 20 minutes to post this I kept getting errors

[kitausuret]

2022 Year in Review

Tagged by the delightful @seek--rest .

1. Number of stories posted to AO3: 19 new pieces, and 3 chapters updated on Dust to Dust.

2. Word count this year: 63,201 (wow!), with 17,337 of those words having been added to Dust to Dust.

3. Fandoms I wrote for: Venom (comics), Marvel 616, MC2 (Marvel), Spider-Man (comicsverse), Fantastic Four (comicsverse), Carnage (comics), Scarlet Witch (comic), Venom (movies)

4. Pairings: - Eddie Brock/Flash Thompson/Venom Symbiote - Peter Parker/Mary Jane Watson - Flash Thompson/Venom Symbiote - Eddie Brock/Venom Symbiote - Dan Lewis/Anne Weying/Venom Symbiote/Eddie Brock ...and then a bunch of platonic pairings as well! But we would be here all day for that.

5. Stories with the most... (note: I am excluding DTD since that has been a multi-year project) Kudos: Don't Misread the Signs (D.A.V.E.) - 85 Bookmarks: Don't Misread the Signs (D.A.V.E.) - 21 Comment Threads: Complicate Me, Elevate Me (Symbiot3) - 8 Word Count: Finding the Light Again (Symbrock, VenomFlash, Symbiot3) - 5,206

6. Work I'm most proud of... Honestly? Dust to Dust is the obvious answer, because any progress I make on it, I consider an accomplishment... but I'm really, stupidly happy with how "Anywhere but Here" (Eddie Brock | Venom & Mary Jane Watson, set during Maximum Carnage) turned out. MJ is such a complicated character with such a long, long, long history behind her and I'd wanted to address the friction between her and Venom for an awfully long time. As you can see by the bottom (being shameless here) I was happy enough with it that I wanted some art, and @maydayparkers was kind enough to indulge me.

7. Work I'm least proud of: Kind of an odd question? I'm proud of everything I wrote this year, haha, but hmmm I wish I'd done more research on the Fantastic Four comics of the era before writing "A Day at the Park". I felt pretty unsure going into writing it, because I really wanted to write the time that the Venom Symbiote was in the custody of the F4 but I didn't want to read the Byrne F4 run... still, it's not like me to write something in an era where I'm largely winging it. I'm glad the fic was well-received regardless, I loved writing ReedSue (and Franklin!).

8. A favorite review I received: Let me tell you something: I got not one but two really heartfelt comments on "The Look of You" (symbiot3, a focus on Eddie), which is a fic I was a little nervous about posting but I'm so glad I did. I also got some beautiful art done by my friend Nex (my commission is the second picture in the link), which you can see also at the bottom of the fic.

@guessimabasicnerdgirlnow also left me these really sweet words:

Aww, this is beautiful. We don’t see fictional men with body image issues often, but this fits Eddie very well, he’s very proud of those muscles so it’s easy to imagine that the idea of getting fat would bother him. Good thing he has two loving partners that are there for him to help him accept this new shape and understand that it is healthy. (And who also helped him reach this healthy state in first place). Ah, and isn’t this setting a fan’s perfect fantasy: them all happy and living in decent conditions, getting healthier, loving and supporting one another? 🥺

I also had a close friend reach out to me after reading the fic to tell me how much it meant to her, and that she really enjoyed seeing a story where weight gain and body shape change were portrayed as a positive thing. In fact I'm getting a little choked up and teary just thinking about what she said because it really, really touched me.

Like... a lot of what I write is just kind of silly, self-indulgent stuff. Or fluff. Or smut. But this is one that was really important to me.

9. A time when writing was really, really hard: Uuuuhhh gosh. I burned myself out pretty hard after Symbruary, but I managed to get "Complicate Me, Elevate Me" out as my 100th fic after a DTD update. It's probably my favorite Symbiot3 smutfic that I've written so far. Porn with feelings! It took me forEVER to finish, though, especially given that I'd started it back in February.

10. A scene or character you wrote that surprised you: When I was trying to come up with ideas for Comics Scarlet Witch Week, which eventually led to "What Binds Us Together", I was stunned to discover that Victoria and Wanda had canon interactions together. I guess I surprised myself with how much I enjoyed writing them together, to the point where I'm excited to write them in a much larger piece for this year. I love... women.... 💋

I also created an attorney OC for Dust to Dust Chs. 12-13 that I got really weirdly attached to LOL. Jason Tolliver, you deserve better than what I put you through.

11. A favorite excerpt of your writing: From "Stranger in a Strange Land" (Andi Benton | Mania & April Parker), which I wrote for Symbruary Day 1:

Her expression wavered. For a second, it looked like April was going to break down, but all at once, her whole face set. She ground her teeth and shoved past Andi. “You’re wrong. I’m not like any scenario you’ve ever known.”  She watched April keep going. And then- “Mania was made in a lab.” April stopped.  “My… my symbiote. It - she was made in a lab. Just a piece of the Venom symbiote. A copy.” Andi stepped closer, uncertain at first, but her voice growing clearer as she went on. “For the longest time, she didn’t know who she was, or how to feel, or where she belonged - even getting attached to me, it was a mistake. She was alone, and scared, and all she’d ever known her whole life was anger and hatred.”

12. How did you grow as a writer this year: I expanded into quite a few more pairings! I wrote my first Parksborn fic, I wrote a fic focused just on Tarna and her partner from Venom: Space Knight, my first proper PeterMJ fic, and my first fic with Jubulile as Toxin's host. I also wrote my first fic with Wanda that I've truly felt proud of (sorry, Wavelengths) with "What Binds Us Together".

13. How do you hope to grow next year: Honestly, I want to continue expanding the characters and pairings I write about. I want to explore a wider variety of characters - like honestly. I want to write more women. That might sound silly but it's true! I just need to get some of my ideas actually into Fic Form instead of just rolling them around in my head.

14. Who was your greatest positive influence this year: Oh gosh oh gosh. There are so many people I could tag here. @amaronith, always, for never letting DTD die and for always supporting my symbiot3 works. @softgrungeprophet for the HOURS of conversation about PeterFlash and HarryFlash and Flash Generally Speaking. @theopolis for accidentally giving DTD a B plot by getting me into Harry (like, REALLY getting me into Harry). @seek--rest for her insight on fic stuff and encouraging me to go outside my comfort zone. The 3 artists I commissioned for works based on my fics. @decaffeinatedparadisemaker for just being an absolutely delightful person to get to know and I love talking to him about fic stuff. @oliveroctavius for also giving me Harry brain worms but in a different way. Possibly a worse way. I have a WIP inspired by one of his pieces, it's.. it's definitely something lol.

15. Anything from your real life show up in your writing this year: There's a character in one of my fics named after one of my co-workers. That's all I'm gonna say!

16. Any new wisdom you can share with other writers: Don't read comics or you will get way more ideas than you will know what to do with. Also don't read comics intending to learn more about one ship because you'll just end up completely fixated on a different ship and before you know it you've got a high school au with a meetcute between a football player and a marching band pit member and also it's based on the Gwen Stacy mini.

17. Any projects you’re looking forward to starting (or finishing) in the new year: OBVIOUSLY I'm looking forward to getting back to Dust to Dust. Hopefully this weekend I'll finish the New Year's Eve Coffee Bean Gang fic I meant to finish.. uh.. last weekend. But otherwise, there are a tooooon of WIPs in the most recent entries of the asked and answered tag. Have fun!

Here's a little snip from the NYE fic though:

“Well, I hope that Petey-o gets here before the ball drops,” Mary Jane said. She did a little spin, sending her sequined skater skirt twirling around her hips before she stopped and draped her arms over Gwen’s shoulders. She leaned in with a wide grin. “Or else I’m going to get the first kiss of the new year from Miss Gwendolyn.” Gwen flushed bright pink and turned to dislodge her friend’s arms. “Now that’s ridiculous. Can you imagine all those people down in Times Square, just… just kissing strangers? All because of, what, the time of the year? Getting twenty dollar hats and stupid novelty sunglasses you can only wear for one day, tourist madness, all night cleanup for—”

Me: it's a PeterFlash fic Also Me: it's an Everyone fic

18. Tag some writers whose answers you’d like to read: Not sure who hasn't done this, but if you'd like to, you definitely should go for it! Or even just answer the questions you want, I'm not your boss.

#asked and answered #kinda?? i was tagged #tag game #kita talks writing #i am absolutely not normal about The Look of You though I'm seriously so like... i love that one so much #it's my new comfort fic #that and CMEM hehehe #it was a great year for writing actually

[speedierthanasubmarine]

My list of least favorite to favorite Batman actors:

Note: I’m a random person on the Internet, and my opinion should not affect you to the point of rudeness, harsh comments, or any sort of discourse whatsoever. I never say DNI, because you can interact with whoever you want, I’m not your mom, but if you want to start an argument…

DNI.

Also, I am an idiot and I’m aware of that, please don’t judge me.

Lastly, I’m excluding Kevin Conroy from the list because all his works vary, I either love his voice or I hate his voice, there is no in between. (Note: this was in my drafts for a very long while, during which Mr. Conroy had passed away. RIP Mr. Conroy.)

Without further ado: My Batman actor list:

9. Adam West- I personally didn’t enjoy his Batman… the whole vibe was too old and silly looking for me, but if I’d been alive at the time it came out I think I would’ve enjoyed it. It’s like the way my little siblings feel about the original yugioh series.

8. Battinson (Robert Pattinson)- I have a whole speech for this but I’ll try to be brief. Batman is the second smartest character in the DC universe (after Lex Luthor, a fact I think is still up for debate.) and the second best in hand to hand combat (after Lady Shiva which is not up for debate, I totally get that.) He can toss a man across a room with one hand, aim a gun without looking and grapple across cities supporting himself and all his body weight and muscle mass with one arm. He can learn a person’s tells, weaknesses, and inner natures after a few moments of conversation. Guy is a freakin BEAST of a man. Battinson gave me Walmart edition Tim Drake Batman from battle of the cowl vibes. He was like the brown ninja from Lego ninjago. (I don’t know if that guy went on to become great or something, all I know is that when I stopped watching the show he was a liability at best.) He didn’t feel like batman, or at least any batman I knew and liked to see. I don’t know if they were going for like, detective comics batman, but even then I felt like he fell flat and did a poor job. That’s my opinion and that’s that.

7/6/5. (Totally equal.) George Clooney, Val Kilmer, and Michael Keaton- Movies were fine, they weren’t anything special for me in terms of acting, no issues, no highlights.

4. Batfleck (Ben Affleck)- LISTEN I know his movies sucked, I’m not defending those, however he did a great job of playing the white knight, future state, urban legends, Injustice, Heroes in crisis, Doomsday clock, basically any elseworld Batman I ever read and liked- he pulled off the vibes. The paranoia, the desperation, the determination- he did those very well. He was the best BRUCE WAYNE. His Batman performance was eh, nothing special, weird suit, but his Bruce performance? Phenomenal. Especially when he had to be Bruce, party boy Brucie, shaking hands, “I bought the bank” Bruce, and then when he was “even a 1% chance” contingency, decoding files, nightmare having Bruce, and when he was working out, investigating, preparing Bruce. He did them all justice (pun intended.) better than pretty much everyone else. (UPDATE) I just remembered this list is for Batman actors, not Bruce, so I’d put him at 7, maybe 6. I’d change the list, but I’m lazy. (I also wrote the word Bruce so many times the word has lost all meaning.)

3. Jason O’mara- I thought he was great. I loved his voice, it was basically perfect. 10/10 Nothing more, nothing less.

2. Christian Bale- Absolutely amazing. Amazing Batman, fantastic Bruce, really cool detective, awesome everything. Only thing I’d change, and this is super petty, is just that in terms of aesthetics I’d want him to be thicker, I thought he was very lean, and the suit would just be upgraded to like 2022 quality, little more updated/sleek, yknow? But that’s not even a real critique, just a thought. I loved him, absolutely phenomenal.

And finally.

The moment we’ve all been waiting for.

The GOAT.

NUMERO UNO: MR. WILL ARNETT.

ALL OTHER BATMAN ADAPTATIONS ARE DOWNRIGHT MID WHEN COMPARED TO THIS GOD

Thanks for reading.

#ash #dc #batman #dc comics #dc movies #Lego #Lego Batman #Batman actors #list #my list #best actors #will arnett #christian bale #michael keaton #batfleck #ben affleck #val kilmer #adam west #battinson #robert pattinson #bruce wayne #Bruce #Wayne #Jason O’mara #george clooney #rambles #just my opinion #random thoughts #don’t judge me #please

[oisinwrites]

Aggretsuko review #5

Book five of the Aggretsuko comic series is the one I was the most excited to review. We are introduced to a new character, Mr. Pen the penguin, who does not appear in the anime, but is a loveable character and brings so much fun to the story. He was shown on the cover which my issue had and my cover did show what happens in the story, unlike most other issues which have more generic punk-rock covers. they have a lot of the same comics with different covers.

It begins with Mr. Pen delivering the new computers while Retsuko hears her co-workers commenting on how strangely cold it has been lately. Fenneco, who is the main gossiper, tells her that it’s a status symbol. It proves how rich the company is, when Japan is naturally warm. What Retsuko doesn’t expect to happen is that this escalates, so that it gets colder each day until the office forms frost & workers are coming to work in anoraks.

Other workers, such as the boss, Mr. Ton, are doing the exact opposite. They stand in line, dancing in shorts, and brag about not feeling cold, while the mean lizard lady who always overworks Retsuko is being preserved in a chunk of ice and the bins have contained fires burning the rubbish. They claim to  have ‘’muscle's’’ which keep them warm, but this doesn’t seem to make sense medically. Mr. Ton had also forgotten the passcode for the now frost-covered thermostat and an apologetic Haida caves in to peer pressure to join in with the dancing.

Out of all the comic art, this tearful image of Haida rising and bowing at the same time (he is getting up from his desk, but his head and arms are bent down in submission) is what stands out to me the most.  Another funny image is the hyena and prairie dog crying anime tear-floods while doing this next to Mr. Ton.  It seems they are too weak to just tell the truth and be frank about it.  Weakness seems to be a theme in this issue.

At the karaoke bar, Washimi the eagle argues that it is weak to deny your pain and let others suffer with you.  Retsuko begins a death metal rant which also counts as her point in the debate; ‘’the AC is too high! We're all about to die! Frozen waste of my tiiiiiiiiime!’’.  Although Gori did think Washimi’s statement was a bit too dramatic, she was convinced by something even more dramatic. They then put their heads together to solve the mystery, now that Mr. Ton has been ruled out as the suspect.  They try to figure out who would know the passcode for the thermostat, and want the office kept extremely cold...? The next day, the three enter the culprit’s office in their best winterwear.  Retsuko secretly wishes they would do this without her, because she hates confrontation.  Retsuko does, however, find the courage to speak up and say ‘’its time to answer to your crimes... Mr. Pen!".  

Mr. Pen apologises and reveals his side of the story. It turns out that he never meant to hurt anyone, but his workspace was too hot for him to concentrate and whenever he turned down the thermostat, someone turned it up even higher, so he code-locked and made it accessible to only himself.  He just hadn’t seen what was happening in the rest of the office. And so, Mr. Pen gives everyone free ice-cream as compensation, a new air-cooler is installed in his office and all is forgiven.  

Retsuko had already vented things in a shocking but beneficial way at the downtown karaoke bar, so she didn’t have to abuse her co-workers. This was a story about forgiveness, resolution and proper anger management.  While there was some conflict, there was no true villain in this comic.  Even Mr Ton did not seem as mean as in the other issues, more "silly" than "mean".  The mystery-solving element also made it fun and it doesn’t have to be as dark as a typical detective novel, where the culprit is truly evil and the crime is usually murder.  I think this was the best issue in the comic series, and I think it was pretty much the best way for the stories conflict to be resolved.

#polar #too cold #temperature #denial #aggretsuko #artificial winter #peer pressure

[foibles-fables]

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction 😅

⭐ for 'make treaty with the moon'. I absolutely love that one, and it's inspired me to attempt the dreaded 2nd person POV so I'm really curious what your thoughts on it were/are!

Ohhh boy. 1) THANK YOU for asking about this one and 2) you are IN FOR IT. Gonna put this one under a cut, just to be safe, because it might get long.

So. I have a lot to say about the soon-to-be-continued make treaty with the moon. This silly thing has been rotting my brain since late January, just before I finished the game. It's one of those multichapter fics that has been built specifically around one (1) scene, which has definitely not happened yet. The general idea of this defining scene started off as an inkling for a post-Grave-Hoard one-shot. But then, Aloy's stint in the Sun-Ring happened, and I played through to the Bitter Climb. I went to bed with that ruinous synth voice section of "A Wanderer's Work" playing over and over in my head. That One Scene scene changed entirely--location, mood, all of it. And a whole story started to coalesce around it, in a totally unexpected way. Talanah deserved more than thirty minutes of plot relevance. I want to give it to her.

And the story I want tell with this one is twofold--one, an in-game evaluation of a question posed much later in the comic: what do you do when you lay the past to rest? And two, a more in-depth backstory for her, revealed through nonlinear flashbacks. Our girl's got trauma (the checklist of the dead family, years spent in exile from her home, a dead mentor, sexism that leads to associates wanting her dead, too, both in word and in action). She’s taken a position of power under a very interesting and difficult circumstance–coming off of three years of a performative tough exterior in an organization in which at least a small majority Very Clearly Does Not Want her. That, of course coupled with all of the knowns and unknowns during Jiran’s reign of terror through the Liberation, very likely modulated the way she kept herself (and her trauma response) in check with single-minded pursuit of a specific goal. And as far as coping goes, that’s not always for the best. At the end of her quest, she's become the Sunhawk. The entirety of her sublimation endgame is met and…then what’s left standing between her and any of the response that she’s maybe stamped down? (read: lots of anxiety and control issues and a CRIPPLING fear of abandonment.)

Then throw in her...friend? right? only narrowly escaping the fate of her father and brother. That's gonna bring some shit up, for sure. For SURE. Basic plot outline, for those interested: I send Talanah chasing after Aloy as the latter heads for the Sacred Land, and then eventually accompanying her there to diverge the plotline of The Heart of the Nora, while highlighting hidden moments and parallels in their journeys thus far. And yeah of COURSE there's gonna be gay yearning and gay more-than-yearning, look who you're looking at.

Stuff to look forward to when this continues, soon:

1. Ahsis is even more of a fucking douche than the game says he is 2. The Girls Are Fightingggg!!! in so many ways 3. Talanah is a hypocrite 4. and Aloy is kind of an asshole but she's got plenty of excuses 5. Tarkas 6. Ilsadi 7. the "and Talanah is also SCREAMING" moment in my outline 8. Angst 9. Spice 10. Feelings

As far as specific passages so far, from the first chapter:

Until that humid summer morning, when smoke and ash billowed in the northeast. A rupture where there was once a distant mountain, so much dust bleeding into the clear sky. An unreadable omen that shifted all things. Your life, caught up in its windswept drifting.

(You remember it with surreal clarity. It was eight years to the day since the High Sun-Priest held you up, newborn and wailing, to your first daybreak. You watched the debris rise as you sat on the roof of the servants’ house at your family estate, cross-legged, muscles tired from the usually-forbidden climb. Everyone else was fretting, and the celebration of your birth was momentarily forgotten in the turmoil. That didn’t matter to you. You were too transfixed to care, utterly calm, daytime stars swimming in your gaze as you witnessed that which was not sky becoming one with it. By the Sun, you whispered to yourself. But though the Sun was bright that morning, it had claim to none of your attention. Just the smoke, how it reached for you across the heavy-aired expanse, and the unexplainable sweet desire you felt deep in your throat to look and look and look at it until it made spots in your vision just the same.)

Talanah's birthday coincides with a very significant event. And the visual brought forth here will become a theme.

#foibles is writing horizon stuff #ask

[jasonsthunderthighs]

u know a lot about jason can you tell me about the outlaws because they seem cool and i know nothing if not np

I’m just gonna answer with as much information I can without making this a long-ass post. I also tried to answer this twice and it failed both times, so sorry if this is answered late. I can tell this is going to kinda be a long-ish answer. Sorry in advance.

There’s honestly a lot to know about the outlaws and the characters, but then this post would be really long and nobody really wants that, so I do suggest you read the Red Hood and the Outlaws to get a better understanding on her and the others.

He’s teamed up with Koriand’r, Roy Harper, Artemis of Bana-Mighdall (not to get her mixed up with Artemis Crock from Young Justice as she’s known from the show) and Bizzaro. 

Koriand’r (also known as Starfire when she was in the Teen Titans) is a Tamaranian alien from the planet Tamara. She’s a princess who was enslaved as a child by another alien species along with other Tamaranians on the planet. When she escaped, she fled to Earth (which is 26 light-years away from Earth) and joined Jason and Roy after she left the Teen Titans. She’s a really headstrong woman who helps Jason and Roy with so much when they are out in space doing missions or on Earth. What I do hate about this Kori in one of the issues of the Outlaw comics is how she’s dressed and that all she cared about was banging a lot of people with no cares in the world, which was so fucking annoying. Thank (fuck) you, Trash Lobdell and DC. She ended up leaving the Outlaws to go to outer space and help heal her sister, Komand’r. (Also known as Blackstar, you’d see her in Teen Titans the show along with Kori and Roy (you’ll see Roy in a few episodes as Speedy who has a clashing out with Robin (who is Dick Grayson at the time it the show) when he first sees Kori and basically falls for her in the show and that obviously made Dick jealous. It’s pretty hilarious, actually). People (and I) believe that Jason was Red X in the show since it was never revealed who Red X was and Garfield (Beast Boy) suggested Jason as one of the suspects to be Red X in a short Teen Titans video that you can watch on Youtube somewhere.)

Roy Harper (also known as Arsenal, Red Arrow when he was with his mentor Green Arrow (Oliver Queen) and Speedy when he was younger and also in the Teen Titans with Dick Grayson and Koriand’r. Also depends on the issue you read of any comics, cause he’s also seen working beside Jason when he was Robin.) is an alcoholic archer who became Jason’s best friend and partner when he was in the Outlaws.  He’s the one who’s basically annoying Jason with his silly and off-hand comments from time to time. He’s also really good friends with Killer Croc who has helped him in the past with his addiction before. He left to join Dick in the Teen Titans again a short time after Kori leaves. (But he’s also still with Jason in the Red Hood and Arsenal comics. Which they still need to make more or at least continue with putting Roy and Jason together again.)

Jesus Christ, this post is getting long already. BUT ONWARD WITH THE SHOW

Artemis of Bana-Mighdall (not to get her mixed up with Artemis Crock from Young Justice as she’s known from the show, as I have mentioned above.) is an Amazon heroine who left Bana-Mighdall to recover the Bow of Ra. (Even though in the past, it had rejected her when she first tried to claim the weapon) She teams up with Bizzaro and Jason to defeat Black Mask (Roman Sionis) after she fought Jason and found out that he’s not some punk ass fucking around Gotham when she saw what his intentions were for. She does end up having a soft heart for Jason in Red Hood: Outlaw and starts to support and give him advice when Jason goes to her, also having an interest in him when she kisses him. She stays as an Outlaw with Jason until Jason does go solo in new comics or up until she’s seen joining him again in the newer comics that came out this year. 

Bizzaro is a failed clone of Superman that Lex Luthor created to defeat Superman. Even though Black Mask managed to save him from being killed off and used him to use him for his own personal gain and as the muscles basically. He’s like a dumber version of Superman but doesn’t look anything like him at all. He speaks in third person and is alongside Jason and Artemis after they broke the bond he had with Roman and Jason basically having to almost fight Artemis himself so she wouldn’t kill Bizarro. He’s basically like a huge ass teddy bear when he joins the Outlaws and Jason treating him as a son in a way as they continue to work together. That’s honestly the only thing I will thank Trash Lobdell for creating when he was writing for DC and Red Hood. You can still go to Hell, you bastard.

That’s all I have on the Outlaws that I can write down without this being longer than it already is. I hope this helped out a little bit!

#Allulily #G answers #ask #asks #dc ask #dc asks #jason todd #koriand'r #kori #princess Koriand'r #red hood #dc red hood #artemis of bana mighdall #dc artemis #artemis #black mask #Roman Sionis #roy harper #arsenal #DC arsenal #red arrow #bizzaro #DC Bizzaro #red hood and the outlaws #rhato

[introvert-no-chameleon]

Chapter 3: Fear Itself

New Chapter is up! AO3

Fiddleford didn’t know how long he’d be able to handle this.

His new senses had begun to overwhelm him; the sharp, fresh scent of pine trees was stronger than it’d ever been. The sound of small critters shuffling around the forest floor and the babbling of a river a few yards away sounded too close. Everything felt like too much and too little. He shut his eyes, trying to think of something to ground him, but his mind only went back to what had happened an hour ago.

He ran away from Stanley.

He ran away from Stanley.

His darling had only been looking out for him, and he’d gone and messed up because of some childish pride. Stanley was right; he hadn’t been able to hold it together after all. For Heaven’s sakes, he was hiding in a bush. It didn’t get more pathetic than that. 

The truth was, he’d already known that he was over his head. He was nothing like the twins, and the transformation was proof enough. It made sense he’d be something this silly, and the Pines brothers would be two powerful beasts. After all, they were stubborn, strong-willed individuals. For all their bickering, when the two of them worked together they made a near-unstoppable force.

They didn’t need Fiddleford. By this point Stanford probably had him around out of pity, or because Stanley fancied him. Why else would they deal with such a whimpering, pathetic coward that ran away at the first whiff of danger, that constantly needed to be saved?

Something crashed through the trees a few feet away, shaking him out of his self-pity. A giant, black hoof, followed by another, came into view just a few feet in front of his hiding spot. Through the foliage, he could see a few more pairs of smaller hooves appear.

The Manotaurs. Fifty-percent man, fifty-percent ox, and a hundred percent aggression. They were minotaurs, if minotaurs went around acting as if they had something to prove.

Judging by the large hoof, it was the leader, Leaderaur, a hulking mass of pure muscle and testosterone the size of their shack. Fiddleford had seen him once, when he and Stanford had gone to observe their behavior. He could still remember, in vivid detail, watching Leaderaur eat a smaller member of his pack just to assert his dominance. Despite being half of an herbivore, he clearly didn’t have an issue swallowing a smaller member of his species.

Even Stanford hadn’t wanted to stay after that.

Fiddleford kept his breathing as quiet as he possibly could in his current state, hoping he wouldn’t be heard. He began to hate his new sense of smell, because he could almost taste the sweat from where he was. The Manotaurs obviously weren’t as concerned about hygiene as they should be.

“Is this where you smelled it, Chutzpar?” The rumbling voice of Leaderaur seemed to shake the earth.

“Yes, Leaderaur!” said a deep, masculine voice. “I caught the scent of emotional issues, vulnerability and debilitating self-esteem.”

Well, he never.

“An excellent snack, then,” said Leaderaur.

Fiddleford squeaked. He covered his mouth, silently cursing himself a thousand times over. A hand grabbed him around his entire body and lifted him off the ground as if he weighed less than a paperclip.

He came face-to-face with two red eyes. Sleek black fur covered most of Leaderaur, making him appear more animal-like than the rest of the Manotaurs, who at least had mostly human features.

Fiddleford kicked at the giant hand that held him in place. It did nothing to deter the beast from keeping him in his grip.

Leaderaur sniffed Fiddleford. A hit breath smelling like rotting meat hit Fiddleford, stinging the corner of his eyes. “Hm. A jackalope. Interesting.”

“I ain’t no jackalope! I’m a human bein’, an’ I demand to be put down this here instant!”

Leaderaur growled, the sound rumbling through Fiddleford’s very bones. “I don’t like my prey to talk back. Especially not such a scrawny weakling.”

Now, if Fiddleford were living a different day, perhaps if he’d gone through less or wasn’t as upset, he’d probably still be paralyzed by the usual raw terror that seemed to lock his limbs stiff whenever he got cornered by a monster, and he probably woudn’t have been able to do much when the giant creature opened its jaws up and swallowed him.

But today hadn’t been a different day. Even on the day of the Gnome Incident, Fiddleford had at least preserved some of his dignity by making it as difficult as possible for the gnomes to move him. The entire ordeal had finished in more or less two hours, including the part when Stanley had patched him up.

Today, however, had been the day where he’d gotten into a fight with his boyfriend, where he’d tripped and fallen into danger like some hot-headed hooligan, where he’d had to deal with the two brothers that just never seemed to get along, damnit, not even for one day, where he now had to worry about getting mauled because he looked like some carrot-munching herbivore and Fidds, frankly, had just about had enough.

With no small amount of effort, he took all the nervous energy coursing through him and forced himself to use it for something either than panicking. While Fiddleford didn’t have a robot or an invention on hand, he did have a nifty set of strong rabbit legs. So when Leaderaur began to open his mouth, Fiddleford kicked him in the eye with all of the energy he could muster.

The good news was, he was dropped, and he hadn’t been too high up. The bad news was, Leaderaur wasn’t alone.

Fiddleford had underestimated the power behind his new legs. He hadn’t poked the eye out, but it wasn’t in good shape either, seeing as he couldn’t open the puffy eye. Leaderaur roared, baring teeth at Fiddleford.

“Leaderaur!” The Manotaur with the red mane, presumably Chutzpar, pointed at Fiddleford. “The jackalope has struck against our leader! This means a fight…to the death!” A couple of Manotaurs began to surround him.

Fiddleford leaped over one of the Manotaurs. Another managed to trip him as he landed. Just as he made a grab for Fiddleford, he remembered his new antlers. He swung his head to the side, his teeth clanking against each other as he smacked his attacker away.

More Manotaurs began to run at him.

Fidds quickly started examining his surroundings, desperate to find an opening, but the Manotaurs had clearly done this dance before. They surrounded him on all sides, arms outstretched and ready to grab him. He may be faster like this than he was as a human, but he was certain they’d catch him if he tried leaping over them.

A Manotaur lunged at him. Fiddleford ducked under him. The man crashed into one of his companions, leaving the opening the man needed to get out, when one of them caught his leg.

“I’ve got him!”

Fiddleford socked him in the snout, drawing blood as his assailant howled. His hand cracked, and he was sure that he’d broken something, but he was too hopped up on blood-pumping adrenaline to stop now. He lowered his head, pointing his antlers at the remaining creatures. Another ran, and Fiddleford managed to knock him to the side with his antlers. The impact made his teeth knock together, but the fact that he’d just taken one more attacker out of the picture made it worth it.

How had he ever missed out on this? To think all this time he’d been taking out his anger on people in a machine when this felt so much better. No wonder Stanley loved boxing so much! Sweat poured down his face, his chest rising and falling. He stomped a foot onto the ground, startling the Manotaurs.

“Come ‘ere an’ get me, ya testosterone-poisoned hornswagglin’ hooligans! There’s more where that came from!”

The Manotaurs, who had begun their attack with confidence began to waver. For a glorious moment, Fiddleford felt confident that he would be able to get out of this after all.

A quick swipe from Leaderaur, however, slapped away his good mood and sent him flying into a bush. He hadn’t expected Leaderaur to recover so soon, nor for him to smack him as easily as Fiddleford would hit a fly with a newspaper. Thankfully, he didn’t feel like anything had broken (aside from his pride, which he figured was far gone by now anyway) but his body hurt, and he felt the sting of a few cuts on his body. To make matters worse, his legs were tangled in the branches of the bush.

The shadow of the giant creature’s arm loomed over Fiddleford’s hunched figure.

He winced, holding his arms up in a vain attempt to defend himself.

“FIDDS!”

A blur of grey knocked the leader down on his back. The ground once again shook, a canopy of dust engulfing the area.

Fiddleford heard a roar nearby. He couldn’t see much through the dust cloud, but he made out what he assumed was Stanford slashing at a Manotaur. Fiddleford took the chance to pull his leg out. He caught some confused Manotaurs unaware by swinging his antlers like the madman he arguably was.

He lifted his head to find the pack retreating. Leaderaur raised a closed fist, ready to bring it upon Stanley’s body. He froze, staring past Fiddleford and at Ford.

Fiddleford glanced at his friend. Stanford managed to look more intimidating than he had yet, teeth bared, claws digging into the earth, fur on end. Even with the comically out-of-place sweater vest he still managed to hold a commanding presence.

Fiddleford felt that instinct grab him by the throat again. He tensed, his legs ready to flee.  

Leaderaur choose that moment to fling Stanley off him and dash off after the pack, his thunderous footsteps fading as he left.

Fiddleford could only watch as the gargoyle crashed into the ground, making a concerning amount of cracking sounds as he hit the earth. He gasped once he noticed a series of thin cracks across the stony body.

The shock of seeing his boyfriend hurt jolted Fiddleford back to his senses faster than anything could. His mind cleared as much as it could when you’d just watch a loved one get slammed into the ground by a giant monster.

Ford ran towards his brother. “Stanley!” He went to Stanley’s side and begun to inspect the wounds.

Stanley groaned. He tried getting up with one hand as support but fell right back down with a hiss.

“You knucklehead!” Stanford helped him up. “You could’ve gotten killed!”

“It’s nothin’,” said Stanley with a grimace. “I coulda taken him down no problem if I had a few more seconds.” His eyes widened as he set his eyes on Fiddleford, his gaze softening. “Sides, he was gonna kill Fidds. Couldn’t let that happen.”

The tenderness in his voice made Fiddleford want to cry, but now wasn’t the time for it. “Ferget about me, yer cracked!”

“I’m what?”

Stanford frowned, wrapping an arm around Stanley to support him. “You’ve damaged your skin. Thankfully, you still seem to be in one piece. If you had been human…” He pressed his lips into a thin line. “We can discuss your recklessness later. Do you feel any pain?”

The gargoyle shook his head. “Nothin’ really, but I do feel kinda woozy.”

Stanford looked at Fiddleford. “Fiddleford, have you managed to regain control of yourself?”

The question hurt, but he knew Stanford hadn’t said it out of malice. Bluntness was just a part of who Stanford was. “As much as I reckon I can, bein’ like this.”

“Good,” Stanford began walking with Stanley. “I’ll need you to help. I can take most of Stanley’s weight, but I still need assistance.”

Fiddleford went over to his empty side. “Give me yer free arm, Stanley.”

“Ya sure?”

“Ask me that again and I’ll smack ya on the head.”

After a moment’s hesitation, he let Fiddleford take it. It was just as heavy as Fiddleford remembered, but he found that he could manage the weight a little better than before. Maybe there was something useful about this form after all.

“Hey, at least that’s over,” said Stanley with a chuckle. “Nice job scarin’ them off, Sixer.”

Stanford gave a goofy grin at his twin’s praise. “I think you did most of the work there, Stanley.”

Fiddleford shook his head. “The two of ya do make quite the team. Saved my sorry behind as usual.”

Stanley frowned, shifting to look at Fiddleford. “Hey—”

Stanford stopped abruptly. He froze, his grip on Stanley growing tighter. “Do. Not. Move.”

“What are ya…?” Stanley followed his gaze and clamped his mouth shut.

Fiddleford’s heart caught in his throat as he caught a glimpse at the creature in front of them, one that had somehow managed to stay perfectly still the entire time and blended with the deep greens of the mossy trees. It’s heavy, labored breaths were the only sound that could be heard.

It was tall, with mushrooms growing on its shoulders. It had hideous fangs jutting out from its bottom jaw, a muscular build, and green skin. Its glowing red eyes were fixed on the trio.

“Oh good Lord,” whispered Fiddeford. “What is that?”

“It can’t be…,” said Ford. “It’s the Gremoblin! I’ve only heard stories about it. Perhaps it isn’t hostile…”

“It has glowing red eyes, Poindexter,” hissed Stanley. “I don’t think it wants to sit down and play cards!”

The Gremoblin reared its head and roared at them.

“Run!” Fiddleford began tugging them away from the hulking beast just as it swiped its claws (why did everything in this god-forsaken forest have claws the size of knives?) where they stood moments before.

“Wait, at least let me take a moment to observe the creature for my journal—”

“Stanferd, I swear to the Lord above if ya dare to stop right now I will throw all yer journals into the Bottomless Pit!”

Stanford’s eyes widened, but at least he didn’t slow down, so Fiddleford considered that as good of an answer as any.

Stanley ducked as the creature swiped at them again. “I’m with Fidds on this one!”

“Alright, alright I’m running!”

“Then do it faster!” said Stanley.

“It’s difficult for me to run like this!”

A shadow flew over them. Fiddleford didn’t have time to register what it was until a boulder fell in their path. The three of them lost their balance and stumbled to the ground.

Fiddleford managed to spring back to his feet, but he couldn’t get Stanley to budge. The cracks on his back spread. “Stanferd, come on!”

Ford held his leg, wincing. “I think I sprang my ankle—well, I’m actually not sure if I have an ankle in this form—but the point is, I can’t move!”

The goblin-like creature went over to them, closing in.

Stanley forced himself to his feet. His lip twisted with pain, but he dragged himself in front of his brother, raising his fists. His stance didn’t have the confidence it usually had; he wobbled just enough for Fiddleford to notice. “Ya think ya can get to my brother? Not on my watch, bucko!”

“Stanley…” Stanford gasped as he tried, and failed, to get on his feet.

“I’ll distract Ugly here,” said Stanley, turning to Fiddleford. “Fidds, get Ford and get the hell out of here!”

Fiddleford didn’t budge. “I ain’t leaving ya!”

Stanley ducked as the monster tried to grab him. He threw a punch at its arm, sending it reeling back. “I’ll be fine! Just go!”

Fiddleford’s chest started to pound again. His arms were lead, his tongue felt fuzzy and his legs trembled, more nervous energy waiting to be unleashed, a coil waiting to unfurl.

Then the monster grabbed Stanley. Its eyes went from a deep red to yellow. It stared directly at his boyfriend, and Fidds could only watch as Stanley stiffened, jaw slack as if he was in a trance.

Then he screamed, and something in Fiddleford snapped.

Stanley Pines did not scream like that. He’d always put on a façade, and even at his most terrified he’d use his energy to fight back. He’d always smirk or wink back at whoever he was protecting, making bad puns as he fought his way out of a problem. Yes, he was a loud man, making his presence known in every room to an obnoxious degree, but he never screamed as if something was being ripped apart inside of him. He never cowered like Fiddleford, or even Stanford did on the rare occasion that he was afraid instead of fascinated.

The Gremoblin dropped Stanley like a dead weight. The gargoyle curled in on himself, trembling, wings covering him. He clawed at his face frantically. Fiddleford didn’t know if gargoyles had tear ducts, but Stanley sounded close to sobbing.

The creature walked towards Stanford, who limped towards his fallen brother, with murderous intent.

It should be noted, to anyone who is reading this, that while Fiddleford Hadron McGucket considered himself to be a patient, level-headed individual, he was also a man who would go on a rampage whenever someone had earned his ire or broke his heart. At the age of twelve he wrestled a wild hog after seeing it make a beeline for his then-pregnant Ma and won, and he once fought off a grizzly bear with a banjo when it tried to attack Tate on their last camping trip. His wife had (once she talked to him again after the whole robot incident) lovingly coined this particular type of behavior as his “hillbilly frenzy mode”.

So it really shouldn’t have surprised Fiddleford as much as it did when he ended up steeling himself, ducking his head and charging straight at the creature that had lifted a large gargoyle with ease. But the thing about surprises is, even if one considers the possibility of one, it usually doesn’t dull the shock of going through the unexpected.

The creature had focused all its attention on the larger threat, and obviously hadn’t expected the scrawny man to do much, let alone stab him with a pair of antlers with a wild cry and enough force to knock the Gremoblin down.

Fiddleford hadn’t cut too deep, so he managed to retract his antlers a moment later.

The creature was quick to get back on its feet. Two wounds were oozing a dark green liquid that must’ve been the creature’s blood. It charged at Fiddleford, and he leaped over it, using its shoulder for leverage to get a higher jump. Glancing to make sure that the monster was away from the twins, he shouted at it.

“Is that the best ya got, ya white-feathered varmint? Come ‘ere an’ get me if ya want me!”

Fiddleford didn’t wait to see if it would follow; a roar confirmed that much for him. He let his legs lead the way, but while before he’d just throw himself into the wilderness, now knew exactly where he was headed.

The snapping of wood and thunderous steps behind him warned him that his opponent would catch up soon. Which was all well, since his destination was right ahead.

The Bottomless Pit had been one of those anomalies that they’d discovered when Stanford had, in an act of brilliance that Fiddleford used as yet another bit of proof on why Stanford could not be left unsupervised when it came to exploring the unknown, jumped in it. His employer, a man of 12 Ph.D.’s, had, upon dropping a pen and not hearing it drop, took a step forward and fell right onto the pit, taking Stanley and Fiddleford with him when they’d tried to save him.

It was in that traumatic turn of events that the trio had discovered what Stanford claimed he’d known all along: the pit itself wasn’t bottomless, and it wasn’t even a straight fall down. They’d been spit right back out of where they’d fallen in after twenty minutes of what should’ve been a straight dive to their deaths.

And that was more than enough time for the three of them to get away from this monster and back in the shack.

He let the Gremoblin close in. Just as it made to attack, he threw himself to the side. It fell in but managed to cling to the side of the pit. It began lifting itself back up, and that wouldn’t do at all. Fidds went to kick it in, but it held his leg in a vice and dug its claws into the meat of his calf.

Fidds howled, seeing stars and all at once, he wasn’t at the edge of the pit. He was back at the shack, staring at the front door. He stared down at his normal, human legs.

“What on earth?”

It was then he noticed the blood.

It seeped through the bottom of the door, through the windowsill, dripping on the wood floor. Fiddleford stumbled back, hitting the ground as he began to crawl back. He got on his feet and almost tripped over himself as he punched the combination for the underground lab on the vending machine they kept in its place.

Instead of swinging open to reveal an elevator, it just had three people stumble out of it.

Fiddleford’s head spun, his hands flying to his mouth. Every person he cared about lay on the ground in front of him, his young son and the twins, covered in gashes, eyes vacant and cloudy.

But.

They were gone, they must’ve gotten hurt, they weren’t careful—

No.

They weren’t dead. This wasn’t any more real than the fear he’d carry with him each and every day, where he knew that one bad step could lead to a drop or an encounter with something volatile.

He felt it every day, and he figured it was about damn time he’d stop letting it control him.

He made himself to focus on the pain and collect thoughts like the fireflies he’d scoop up in a jar when he was just a youngling, on the hot June nights when the sun had just set.

The image wavered then, a stone thrown in the water, rippling, disrupting.

He thought of Stanford’s relentless, if not at times foolish, courage that never stopped him from pursuing his passion.

The bodies faded away.

He thought of Tate, his shy and curious boy, of the quiet days they’d spend talking about nature or fishing.

The blood dried up, as if it never been there.

He thought about Stanley, always so brash yet so sweet, hardened by life yet able to still hold Fiddleford so tender all those nights, to be so gentle that it felt like Stanley carried his heart on the palm of his big hands as if it was the most precious thing in the world. As if Fiddleford was worth that much to him.

He came back, a thunder-clap moment of disorientation as he tasted salt sweat and smelled the pine trees.

“Ya think I don’t know fear? Well, let me tell ya somethin’.” He grabbed a rock nearby. “Ya can’t scare a feller who is already scared outta their wits!”

He smashed it on its hand, and watched it plummet away, down and down, until he couldn’t see it anymore.

And only when he was sure it disappeared from sight did he allow himself to sit down and catch his breath. And laugh. And laugh and laugh until his belly ached and the high-pitched, manic sound bounced throughout the woods, a tension he hadn’t known he held released.

Once he managed to compose himself enough, he went back to where he knew the twins were waiting.

#of monsters and mcguckets #young stanley pines #young stanford pines #young fiddleford #gravity falls #mystery trio #mystery trio au #monster falls

[phi8]

I want to ramble about Invincible for a bit, and there are no good posts to reblog where I can do it in the tags, so here it is without extra fluff. Sorry, it’s a lot lol

I just finished the finale and man what a show. It does certain things I don’t think I’ve seen any superhero property for adults do this well before, even the original comic. I only read the first omnibus years ago, so my memory may be not perfect and not complete. That said, what I’ve read of the comic is amazing! But the show just hits different

At its core, Invincible is a story that takes the tropes of the superhero genre and runs with them. That’s the first thing I like about it: it’s really not afraid to lean in. It’s colorful, the costumes and names are silly... There’s a Justice League, a SHIELD, the main character has to balance his high school life with his burgeoning career as superhero. And then Invincible takes those things to the conclusion where they would go in-universe and it makes them work: the Guardians of the Globe would pose a real issue for Omni-Man so he has to take them out first. This makes for  a great twist ending for the first episode, catalyst for a lot of the plot, and an excuse for very impressive animation. The way Cecil is on top of everything is incredibly silly, and the level of technology at his fingertips ridiculous. This allows certain handwavy things to happen (characters getting patched up from near death, a handful of deus ex machina’s), but it also contrasts with how powerless they ultimately are. So it takes these colorful things, takes them the next step, and because this is something made for adults you can really show what that means. The violence in Invincible is fucking brutal, but it works so well because it comes from this kind of silly world. When you get put in front of a metro by an unstoppable force and you’re invincible, what happens? A lot of gore, that’s what happens. There’s a lot of dark and gritty superhero stories around, but you have to lean into the genre to get this kind of kick out of the way violence would work in such a world.

The second thing I like is how it shows the powers. Both in how they feel, and in the narrative. When I saw the first episode, I was hooked right away because of the original Guardians of the Globe. Now obviously this is a Justice League parallel, you have your Wonder Womans and your Flashes... You kind of have an idea where it’s going. But that didn’t stop the show from really taking it’s time to establish what everyone’s powers where, and in a very organic way, focusing on each member while they try to evacuate the civilians. While not true for every character (looking at you Atom Eve), this was a continuing trend: there was very much a show-don’t-tell-policy with the super powers. And when the animation budget was there, they really FELT good too. One of my favorite superhero movies is Chronicle. Not because of the narrative (fine, but kind of a tired take), or the gimmick (found footage is neat, sure), but because the way the telekinesis just feels real. When they’re flying, it feels like they’re high up in the air, you feel the cold air blowing past them, when they focus on a baseball to make it stop, you see them literally willing it to stop. Now obviously Chronicle is live-action and it has the edge here, but Invincible did very very well in this aspect. It may be the violence that added that extra punch to it, but even on the whole, every power felt real. For example, that old mad scientist with the tectonic gloves: he could fly, but it was kind of akward to do, because he had to angle them down  to get the magnetics to work or something. Or when Mark or Nolan are flying, you can see how they maneuver in the air, almost like they’re tensing specific muscles (like he says in the episode lol).

And the last thing I really liked was how it handled the civilians in peril. A lot of them end a gruesome death, but each time you viscerally feel for them. I think this is done by giving them screen time and lines where you normally wouldn’t bother. To go back to that first scene with the Guardians, there’s this moment when the Batman-equivalent and a random woman are pinned under a car that’s about to crush them (another amazing show don’t tell with the powers: he doesn’t have any superpowers, and his techology is fallable, just by showing his suit react and start to give in to the weight, while he himself is visibly overpowered). And he’s comforting her, trying to get her out, while she’s like ‘what about you’, and you spend that moment with them. So good. Another example was in the finale, when Mark saved the pilot: they’re going back and forth while he tries to get him out, and eventually (but not easily) they get to the ground safely. The pilot starts saying something, about the other pilot, you see what should be a start of a conversation. And then Omni-Man lands and he crushes the guy’s skull, but not before having a moment of a break, so that we as the audience can feel it coming, feel the potential of that guy’s life before it is snuffed out. But the show did this a lot. Show the average people on their day to day, and really give you a pause to get to know just enough about them, right before their lives are flipped upside down by some supernatural bullshit.

Anyway that’s it, it’s very good

#text #Invincible

[animatedminds]

Scoob! Review

Apologies: I watched the movie  two weeks ago, but forgot to write this because I was so busy doing the Dragonball FighterZ thing. But, with that out of the way...

An interesting ride. As a longtime Scooby Doo fan, it was pretty much a given that I would watch this installment by the Warner Animation Group as soon as possible, and I had a pretty good time - albeit with some issue. It’s a fun Scooby adventure, mostly focusing on Scooby and Shaggy, as they go on a new kind of adventure. It’s full of fun references, super charmingly animated action scenes, and lots of humor that actually nails the characters’ goofball antics without diminishing them as the butt of the joke - which is something the previous theatrical series was hit or miss about - which which is also hampered by the fact that it doesn’t really give itself enough time or space to really make any of those things shine.

Spoilers, but only a couple.

The first thing we ever heard about this movie years ago was that it was conceived as a dramatic retool of Scooby Doo into a out-and-out spy series, in order to set up a Hanna Barbera cinematic universe a la the MCU (which, given that they already had a shared universe they could adapt in Future Quest, hit a little hard), giving the impression that Scooby was going to be a pastiche of James Bond. It’s very obvious from the finished product that this concept was since heavily changed, but you still see it in the film. The gang is still the same-old gang - a bunch of kooky teen mystery solvers - but plotwise it’s very much “what if instead of solving a mystery, the gang just fought a supervillain?” Which, let’s be clear, is not unheard of for the franchise: see Scooby Doo and the Cyber Chase for another story that’s mostly just “fight a cool bad guy, with a tacked on mystery,” or the other Shaggy and Scooby-centric stuff like Ghoul School or Reluctant Werewolf for other movies that just plain eschew their usual setting entirely - this is a lot like those. It’s centered around the two characters’ relationship, like pretty much every theatrical Scooby release it seems, as this new challenge almost breaks their union, and the group as usual does very well in that kind of action. Faced with an army of dimwitted robots that can go from silly to terrifying multiple times in the same scene, Scoob and Shag’s typical mix of silly bumbling with surprisingly - and destructively - clever antics make for some great scenes, my favorite being a madcap chase through an amusement park that ends with them getting away on a ferris wheel that’s been knocked of its hinges.

This is very much a movie that wants to be a Hanna Barbera crossover, but is trying hard to restrain itself. As a kid Shaggy was a fan of the Impossibles (who, iirc, were once intended to get a movie as part of this universe) with models and posters that the camera never completely focuses on, you see Laff-a-Lympics on an arcade machine, references to classic Scooby writers and actors as location names (I laughed at Messick Mountain, and the Takamoto Bowl outright went over my head at first), even little things like Scooby bowling like Fred Flintstone or the blink and you’ll miss it appearance of Yankee Doodle Pigeon - and yes, Captain Caveman shows up, fully voiced by Tracy Morgan and kicking butt for a very short scene, with one of his show’s supporting characters (Dee Dee Skyes) as a prominent in this movie’s plot. There’s even musical references in addition to visible ones: at one point, the movie even orchestrates one of the classic bits of Scooby Doo background music. I was hoping for a reference to the classic Scooby Doo / Blue Falcon theme, but alas that was one nod we didn’t get.

However, this approach does work especially well with Blue Falcon - who was originally built up through Scooby Doo, sharing a timeslot, advertisement and technically a theme song, and in time has more or less become to Scooby Doo what Donkey Kong is to Mario: technically a supporting character, but able to do his own stuff every once in a while. There have been several Blue Falcon Scooby Doo crossovers in the last few years (though in terms of sheer number of references this movie’s got nothing on Mask of the Blue Falcon), and they’ve all been very fun as each show, movie or comic reinterpreted the character to fit their specific world - and this movie’s novice Blue Falcon who is kind of an egoistical loser, but turns out to have a lot to learn even from Scooby and Shaggy’s brand of cowardly bravery, grows on you even if he has kind of a rough initial landing.

Unfortunately, this is also a movie that very much wants that rigid hour and a half timeslot, and has absolutely no interest in a going a second longer - and that’s where it’s problems come in. I’ve said before that animated films have become more and more written with expediency in mind: plot points are rushed, denouements are minimized, side or even main characters might not get much utilization, and sometimes things come of as just kind of happening to the protagonists without much set-up. Even the best or the best animation companies fall into these traps at times, and this movie is a good example of what it looks like if you fall into that too much. Take the Scooby gang - Velma, Daphne, and Fred. They’re not really fleshed out that much in this movie, even if they were tweaked a bit with their new VAs - but that’s not necessarily a problem in itself, given the heavy focus on Scooby and Shaggy. What’s more noticeable is where this intersects the plot: for example - one of the better examples of what I’m talking about - the scene that kicks off the whole story. Fred, Velma and Daphne want to expand Mystery Inc, and call Simon Cowell to invest in them. Cowell decides Scooby and Shaggy are incompetent because reasons, and the two storm off. This is later framed as the gang abandoning the duo, that’s not really what happens. Once Cowell hits the scene, beyond one or two lines the rest of the gang essentially ceases to exist, and barely reacts to anything: there’s no moments with them where they seem to buy into what Cowell is saying, there’s nothing beforehand that implies that they’re dissatisfied with Scooby and Shaggy, there’s isn’t even really a status quo for what their dynamic is like. We cut straight from them meeting as kids to them having a supposed fight as adults - this is something that wouldn’t have taken a lot of time, but would have strengthened pretty much everything, from Scooby and Shaggy’s reaction to the trio’s guilt later, but is skipped over entirely. The others get very little beyond being summed up as “the muscle” (Fred), “the face” (Daphne) and “the brains” (Velma), and it feels less like expediency and more like we missed a scene somewhere.

Granted, this particular thing also runs a unique problem that the Scooby gang face. As characters who just turned fifty and who are well entrenched in pop culture, adaptations often assume you know who they already - and this movie definitely assumes you can do its work for it and establish a baseline for the Scooby gang on your own... and on that front, I suppose it does better than the previous film series, which based a lot of its humor on fandom in-jokes they poorly assumed everyone agreed with. But... there’s a degree to which every film needs to establish a baseline for that it itself to trying to do, and I think skipping this hurt the film more than it should have. And it’s hardly the only point where the need for speed cuts out the flow of the film. Scooby and Shaggy get abducted by Blue Falcon, whose assistant then promptly exposits on everything the audience doesn’t know yet about the plot so that they can just skip straight to more action - basically setting up a question and then answering it immediately without set-up. This essentially robs Dick Dastardy - definitely the best thing about the movie - of a strong introduction, in favor of, again, expediency, and it’s kind of baffling given that there’s later scenes where the rest follows the mystery and so repeats that exposition anyway. I mentioned that Blue Falcon himself got a rough initial landing, and that’s because his intro scene is just a lot of new element popping in with exposition, interspersed with pop culture references - and that exposition just stops the whole thing cold for a while. We hit again the “expects you to know” angle with Falcon himself, who is a legacy character of the original Falcon - who we never see, which raises the question of why they bothered to make him a legacy and not just a novice hero in the first place. I’ve always been a strong believer that you can introduce elements without needless explanation unless who introduce concepts that suggest explanation: Scoob and Shag being a fan of the original Blue Falcon, Dynomutt constantly reminiscing about him, and there being a full Falcon organization around which the movie pivots, along with lots of reference, suggest the need for at least a little more than we got - even if it’s just a thirty clip of the way Blue Falcon worked before Brian (the new Falcon) came along - but the movie just wants to rush past it. The entire quest on which the plot is centered it halfway through when we first encounter it, and doesn’t get any explanation at all until halfway through the movie. And then there’s little things like  Captain Caveman cameo, which just leave you wanting more.

This happens again and again, with plot points, characters, all sorts - things introduced halfway and then brushed past as though they’re not. People don’t expect much from animated movies, and stuff like this is one of the reasons why - this movie feels sometimes like it was written for tv, which is ironic given how it ended up being released. But the movies that were themselves DTV or released to TV, like Shaggy’s Showdown or Legend of the Phantasaur, the aforementioned Mask of the Blue Falcon or - my perosnal favorite - Moon Monster Madness, even tend to not have these problems themselves, because they’re more measured and precise about what they want to introduce and why. It’s great to be childish, as long you do childish well.

But now that the criticism portion of the review is done, I will say that this doesn’t hamper the movie’s desire to be fun and easy to follow, it just makes it not as much so as it clearly could have been. If you wanted more Falcon, or more Scooby and Shaggy, more Mystery Inc shenangians, more Dastardly, more adventure, more of a certain gag or humor, more of really any of the movie’s best points, you weren’t getting them that much because the movie was trying to do all of them all at once. But one the movie starts getting traction, about halfway through, that starts to fade as everything coalesces. All the characters meet, we finally know what the heck is going on, and it’s just a straight shot to the end with lots of what this movie does best: cool visuals, silly characters doing silly things, and brave characters doing brave things. Much as I wish there was more to the Captain Caveman segment, it’s one of the most visually hilarious parts of the movie, with the stark contrast of these hi-tech, modern character colliding with these explicitly more cartoony prehistoric designs and antics, and its just wonderful. Everything about Dick Dastardly’s story is great - though I was wishing for a Penelope Pitstop reference - and he even gets a heartwarming conclusion to the whole thing.

I don’t know where the series is going after this - whether they do indeed intend to make more Hanna Barbera movies in this vein. The credits teased Johnny Quest, Frankenstein Jr, Grape Ape (who according to concept art was supposed to be in this one), Atom Ant, and even a bit of Wacky Races, and it’s clear they have the love for classic Hanna Barbera to make it happen. I just hope that if they do, they go with a series who can expand this in a more concise way, with a little better character introduction. I’ve still got my fingers crossed for Future Quest.

The film is still very recommended by me. I loved it, I watched it twice, and it a heck of a lot of fun even with its hang-ups. If you haven’t seen it, there are worse ways for a parent, a kid, or just a big ol’ child at heart to spend an afternoon.

#scooby doo #scoob #movie review #animation review #shaggy #daphne blake #velma dinkley #fred jones #hanna barbera #warner animation group #blue falcon #dynomutt #dick dastardly #animated film #review #animated minds

[myriahkamm]

I live-blogged watching BvS and Justice League on FB earlier; here are my unedited thoughts. :P

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

I'm watching Batman V. Superman (because bad movie night I guess idk), and during the opening scene rehashing the Waynes' deaths (for what feels like the millionth time in cinematic history--seriously, y'all, we can be done with that for a while and definitely don't need a 5 minute slow-motion scene about it), when Thomas says Martha's name as they're dying, I burst out laughing because (i) I didn't remember that he said her name during this scene and (ii) is this supposed to be some kind of foreshadowing for the really dumb crux of the movie where Batman and Superman stop fighting because omg their moms have the same name? I literally can't stop laughing. This movie is such a joke. 🤣

Having the Robin costume in this film with absolutely no context is just stupidly pointless fanboy pandering. Anyone who actually gives a crap about Batman lore should realistically hate that.

Lex Luthor, one of the richest and most powerful men in the world, bitching about not having power is definitely on brand, but I am just super *not* a fan of the quirky, kind-of-nerdy-and-awkward Lex Luthor this film decided to go with. The hardcore businessman Lex Luthor from the 90s and 00s will always be the Lithor I like best. Y'know, the one based at least in part on Donald Trump. That one.

This Jesse Eisenberg version is way too much of a Mary Sue. Businessman *and* scientist *and* awkward nerd? Yeah, Jesse Eisenberg played Mark Zuckerberg, but I'm not sure Lex Luthor should be Mark Zuckerberg.

Ugh, I totally forgot about the Darkseid-foreshadowing dream that's never going to go anywhere because, let's be real, DC is never going to do a live-action film with Darkseid (and it would be awful even if they did). Also, Batman using guns in that dream is a thing I'll never be cool with. I don't care what kind of world he thinks he's living in in that dream; Batman has established principles and pretty much only goes against them in alternate universes.

Jesus, I forgot about the whole Flash-from-the-future scene, too. DC wrote a lot of checks we're never going to be able to cash in this film. Promising an Injustice-esque Superman-is-evil kind of storyline that they're never going to do anything with...why would they do that?

So in the dream, Darkseid-related stuff is going on (which, in Justice League, does sort of happen with Steppenwolf) and Superman says "she was everything to me, and you took her away from me." Then future-Flash says that "Lois is the key". Are they implying Batman has premonitions? Are they giving him a superpower? 🤣

Oh, that's right, they blew up the U.S. Capitol in this movie. 🤣 These scenes that are supposed to be really serious and filled with tension just keep making me laugh.

Why did they decide Batman needed to make a kryptonite spear? I mean, other than plot reasons so they could use it later against Doomsday. Batman uses projectiles and his fists; he rarely uses swords or spears or whatever.

Why did they decide Doomsday had to be created using a mixture of Kryptonian and Luthor's DNA? In the comics, Doomsday is an experimental clone based on ancient Kryptonian DNA. Why (in my opinion) make Doomsday so much more pathetic by adding human DNA into the mix? Freaking weird decision.

"Mm." What a weird quirk to add to Luthor's character. "Mm" every other sentence. What's that all about?

Luthor manipulating Batman into fighting Superman is...so unbelievable. Luthor manipulating Superman to hate Batman, waaaaay more believable. But no, that's not what they went with. They went with Luthor manipulating Batman for two years into wanting to fight Superman. Superman just randomly came to hate Batman on his own and only got manipulated into fighting him at the end. They could have just gone with hey, Batman's suspicious of everyone and would naturally be suspicious of a superpowered alien, especially with the whole setup they did at the beginning that coincided with stuff from Man of Steel. But nope. Nope, they went with the dumber plot.

Doesn't Luthor have way too much info about all these heroes' secret identities? Are we just pretending secret identities don't matter anymore? That's too 90s or something?

Why does the kryptonite spear make an "omg I'm a glowy thing" sound? 🤣

And now we're at the stupid Martha part that makes no sense because if you were about to die, you wouldn't say "save [mom's name]"; you would just say "save my mom!" 🤣

Batman would totally save Superman's mom even if their moms didn't have the same name. It's just such a stupid, stupid plot point and lends itself to endless mockery. 🤣

I *do* like this fight scene where Batman is making his way through the goons to get to Martha. The choreography is really good. Reminds me a lot of the Arkham video games.

Man, this Doomsday just...doesn't really work on a fundamental level. What makes comic Doomsday so powerful and terrifying is (i) it's not just a mindless monster, but is actually intelligent and can plan and strategize; (ii) iwas created through such extreme experimentation that it was repeatedly destroyed and then remade again over and over and over to give it endurance and formidably; (iii) and it's pretty much unstoppable from all that experimentation and uncontrollable because of its intelligence.

Also, what's with this explody thing Doomsday does in this film? A monster can be terrifying without being able to blow up a bunch of stuff. I'm not sure what the point of explody Doomsday is other than lazy writing.

The military hit it once and came to the conclusion that not only does it get more powerful "every time we hit it," but also that it's unkillable? Okay. More lazy writing.

And we're back to one of my biggest issues with Man of Steel: Superman just not giving a shit about collateral damage. Even if the island they're on is uninhabited, that doesn't exactly mean he should just be fine with blowing a bunch of shit up in the course of this fight. Sheesh.

How did Lois know they needed the spear again? She had no reason to go underwater to try to get it. This whole "let's make Lois useless time and again so Superman can save her" thing is really annoying.

Superman's "death" scene carries so little weight if you know (like pretty much everyone should have known, let's be real) that he's not really dead. Like, sure, for the characters it means something because they don't know he'll be back, but for the audience? At least for me, it doesn't make me feel a whole lot.

So all the soldiers at Superman's funeral--do they know they're carrying an empty casket? Just curious.

The dirt rising off the casket at the end for a split second is soooooo dumb. For anyone naive enough to think he *is* really dead, just let them think it. Just let that be a thing. Come on. (Also considering that he doesn’t just come back on his own; it takes a charge from a Mother Box in Justice League for him to come back. That makes this end scene a lie, too.)

Ok, BvS is done. Need another drink and a snack, then I'll move on to Justice League. 😅

Justice League:

Haha, obvious Superman facial CGI right off the bat, omg, I forgot how horribly obvious it is. 🤣

Also forgot that we're starting off with parademons right away. Sheesh.

Do all of Snyder's films have to have gratuitous slow-motion scenes at the beginning? Ugh, dude.

Everyone just throwing Bruce Wayne's name around in relation to Batman all the time. Secret identities are dead, y'all. No superhero can have a real life, I guess.

Ugh, I forgot this film pushes Batman/Wonder Woman pretty hard. 🙄

"It's cool if I show a bunch of Amazons with their midriffs showing as long as they have visible ab muscles, right?" Idk, Snyder, is that how armor realistically works? 🙄 Also, is it necessary for them to have lipstick on? That doesn't even exist on Themyscira, ffs.

The multiple (as I remember; only one so far) innuendo-based jokes really bring this film down, imo. "Clark said you were the thirstier woman he'd ever met." Really? Ugh. 🙄

The plot of this film is so LOTR. Amazons, Atlanteans, and Men all get Mother Boxes, sort of like the various rings of power. There's plenty you can pull from comics, y'all. You don't need to pull from other stuff.

Flash as comic relief I'm okay with. I'm not sure how I feel about *this* Flash's comic relief. I'm not a huge fan of the writing.

Break time because Je'von wants to go out on the balcony lol. 😅

And we're back. So can Steppenwolf breathe underwater? Is that a thing? 

I guess it's supposed to be super funny that everyone disappears except the fastest one of them? Sigh. The writing in this film is just so awful.

Cyborg's CGI also isn't great. I really wanted more for Cyborg because he's awesome. Sigh.

Snyder must have loved being able to do stuff with Flash. All the slo-mo he could want.

I'm not a fan of neurotic Flash, afraid of pretty much everything. He can be funny in so many better ways, but instead let's just have him be afraid of everything and make sexual jokes every now and then. 🙄

"Let's keep having Cyborg wear sweatpants and a hoodie so we don't have to spend so much on CGI. It totally won't look ridiculous." 🤣

Batman making the argument to use technology he doesn't understand to try to bring Superman back from the dead is just so out of character it's not even funny. First of all, Superman didn't need technology to come back in the comics (whether or not his "resurrection" was silly is irrelevant). Secondly, Batman literally has an enemy (Ra's al Ghul) who resurrects himself on the regular, and Batman (i) knows it's a bad idea because it messes with Ra's's sanity and (b) would never consider using the Lazarus Pit even though he has a relative understanding of how it works. This film just literally disregards established character traits in favor of it's stupid-as-hell plot. Ugh.

Superman is vulnerable to magic, idiot writers. He shouldn't be able to fight Wonder Woman's lasso. Uuughhh. Have any of the writers of this movie ever actually read any Justice League comics? 🤦‍♀️

Well, those cops definitely know Superman's name now. Since you all keep saying it in front of them.

Superman hasn't even been gone for that long (seemingly; I mean, it's hard to tell, but S.T.A.R. Labs is still doing research on the Kryptonian ship in the same genersl area as in BvS, so idk), so all this talk about what he does or doesn't remember seems...weird.

Why not wait until you defeat Steppenwolf to let your mom know you're back, Superman? For all you know, you could die again. Wouldn't that just be harder on her after seeing you back?

Why was the lasso just sitting on the Batmobile instead of with Wonder Woman? Plot so that Aquaman could say some *super funny things*. 🙄 That's not even how the lasso works, you dumb writers. Someone has to direct another bound by it to speak the truth. Seriously, do some research. Ugh. It's not that hard.

"So your plan is dying? You really are out of your mind." "I'm not the one who brought a pitchfork." See, the writers prove that they can be actually funny if they try. *If* they try.

The "everyone trying their best to hold off the big bad until Goku gets there" vibe is super strong in this movie. 😑

Part of the reason the Justice League is a thing is because no one hero can do it alone. That means it all shouldn't be riding on Superman's shoulders. If you actually know how to write the Justice League, that is.

Don't know how I feel about everyone getting perks due to nepotism now that they know Bruce Wayne...must be nice to be buddies with the richest man in the world. 😒

The Flash vs Superman race at the end is more pandering. Ugh. It would be better if Flash was less pathetic as a character in this film. Super awkward is just not very funny, y'all. Write actual jokes instead.

Okay, that's over. What a trip. Both those movies are still pretty much garbage. 🤣 The question is, will I ever watch Man of Steel again? Probably not; I hated Man of Steel more than both those movies, actually. Wrote a 3-page rant about how awful it was after seeing it in theaters originally. $3 was still way too much money to spend on that crap. 😅

Oh, side note for the after credits scene: will they ever actually go anywhere with that? They might do an okay job with a Justice League vs. Legion of Doom (or Injustice Society or whatever villain team incarnation they would decide to go with) film. That might not suck.

#myri's thoughts #live blogging (sort of) #Batman v Superman #justice league #dccu #omg the awfulness is just wonderful #if you read carefully you can tell when i start getting drunk lol #WW is the only real saving grace in either of these movies

[charliejrogers]

The Karate Kid (1984)

Being a fan of pop culture in the 2010s has meant a lot of things, but one of them has definitely being subject to boat loads of 80s nostalgia of which I have none. There was a Ghostbusters revival, a Star Wars revival, those commercials that recreated significant portions of Ferris Bueller and E.T., the very existence of Stranger Things with its infinite call-backs to E.T., Aliens, Indiana Jones, etc. But as a big-time fan of How I Met Your Mother, I was subject to endless references to 1984’s The Karate Kid. Between HIMYM and that episode of Community where they recreate the entire movie as a play, I feel like I had already seen this movie before, and frankly I wasn’t too excited. I’ve been told “wax on, wax off” so many times in my life it had practically lost all meaning. After so much build up for what seemed like a silly teen movie from 36(!) years ago, I expected to be disappointed.

I love when my expectations are wrong. This movie fucks. If I were a kid/teen in the 80s, I would absolutely be a Karate Kid fanboy. Yes, in plot it’s not too different than the first Rocky movie. A challenge is put forth to our underdog protagonist (here Daniel played by Ralph Macchio) and the movie focuses on his training alongside an old, cranky man (here Mr. Miyagi played by Pat Morita) as he gets ready for the big fight with which the movie closes.

Like Rocky, Karate Kid too focuses on issues of class. Daniel and his single mother live in a slightly dilapidated apartment complex and drive a car that often requires a (quite literal) running start. Meanwhile, seemingly the rest of the high school Daniel attends lives in mansions and attends social gatherings at the local country club. But where I felt Rocky was rather one-noted in terms of its themes, this movie isn’t simply a rich vs. poor story. Nor, like Rocky, is the final fight simply a way for the protagonist to gain glory. This is a coming-of-age tale, one in which training is less about building muscle and more about find balance (in more ways than one). And it’s a film whose script is in countless subtle ways filled to the brim with heart.

Every character is a fully rounded individual whose backstory is filled with sadness, sometimes made obvious to the audience, sometimes merely hinted at. Much has been said (sometimes comically, sometimes not) about how the film’s primary antagonist (the snobby, entitled, rich kid Johnny Lawrence played by William Zabka) is unfairly portrayed as a villain. While I find these arguments largely facetious, I admit he is far more than your average movie stereotype of a bully. He’s subtly nuanced with real motivations beyond the plot’s need to have an antagonist, especially since Daniel is far from an innocent victim and does much to provoke the conflict between himself and Johnny.

But take Daniel’s mom (played by Randee Heller). We never hear “boo” about Daniel’s father. We don’t know if the two divorced, if his father passed away, etc. What we know is that this is a woman for whom her child is her world. She will do anything to advance her station to give him a better life, but she is not embarrassed of who she is. Yet her heart breaks (and ours with her) when she sees her son’s black eye or sees him throw his broken bicycle in the dumpster. She cares so much that her son fits in and that he has friends, that she blames herself for anything that goes wrong, seemingly giving little thought to her own sacrifices, that she too moved across the country for the promise of a job in tech only to end up working as a hostess/waitress in a local restaurant. All these details are plain and out in the open, but never fully dwelled upon, which is appropriate. This movie isn’t her story. Yet these small details are crucial. They build a realistic world in which Daniel operates and heightens the drama of his situation. He’s not just fighting to get back at bullies. He’s fighting because he’s too young to fully appreciate what his Mom has done for him. He just sees that his Mom has always made him an outcast socially (it’s not the first time they’ve made a move like this), that she dropped into a new school environment, and he now turns to violence because presumably because no male figure has been there to teach him any other way.

All this makes his relationship with Mr. Miyagi so beautiful. On his sixteenth birthday, it is Mr. Miyagi that Daniel chooses to celebrate with over his own mother. Only in the 1980s could films pair teenage boys with old men with no questions asked (see: Doc Brown & Marty in Back to the Future). But the two fill a void in each other’s lives. Multiple times Daniel asks Mr. Miyagi how he learned all the various things he knows about life and karate, and every time Miyagi answers that it was from his father. Daniel replies that Miyagi’s father must have been something special, and we can just hear the pangs of regret beneath Daniel’s words that he wished he had such a man in his life. And on the converse, in that unforgettably emotional scene where a drunken Miyagi openly grieves his wife and newborn child who died in a Japanese internment camp forty years prior from likely preventable complications of childbirth, in front of Daniel, we learn how Miyagi was denied the opportunity to pass on that incredible Miyagi family wisdom to the next generation. Surrogate father gains surrogate son; what could be more beautiful?

There are other small thematic touches I enjoy. I like how the two karate trainers are symbolic of how American vets from differing eras transitioned to civilian life. The Cobra Kai dojo where the film’s antagonist Johnny trains is headed by John Kreese, a highly militant Vietnam vet who treats his dojo like training camp. Orders are barked out and push-ups expected for the slightest infraction. It is not enough to defeat the enemy: they must be destroyed, shown no mercy. This Vietnam vet never fully transitioned to civilian life. He fought in a war that America never won, and therefore never really ended. In an effort to gain control and respect he creates new enemies and uses brute strength to subjugate them.

Miyagi on the other hand has no interest in violence. He tells Daniel how he was always scared to fight, which at the time in the film seems to mean that he is scared when he has to fight out in the streets, but after we find out about his military service it instantly speaks of his time fighting the Germans in WWII. He fought and risked his life, scared that he would never again see his wife, all for a country who didn’t care about him, who let his wife and child die. He won his war, was likely celebrated as a hero, but what price glory? Victory gave him nothing, which likely informs his final advice to Daniel before he tries to return to fight Johnny despite Daniel’s broken leg. Miyagi asks Daniel what’s the point of fighting since he made his point and gained the Cobra Kai’s respect. The fact that Daniel insists on fighting goes against Miyagi’s deeply rooted life philosophy to not use karate in an aggressive manner. Yet he compromises because he loves the boy and to do otherwise would break his heart. The ritual laying on of hands is obviously little more than placebo, but it means the world to a boy who places his utmost love and faith in the man.

Probably the weakest aspect of the film is the love story but that’s not to say that Macchio and Elizabeth Shue aren’t cute and don’t share good chemistry throughout the film. They are and they do. Really it’s more just that this movie is a product of its time and largely views Shue’s Ali as an object to be “won” by either Daniel or Johnny. That said, she is a fairly strong character who is more than capable of standing up for herself, but overall doesn’t have a whole lot of personality other than having a good heart.

But a weak love story does little to drag this movie down. I’ve spoken little of the film’s cinematography but there are many beautiful and expertly crafted shots. I loved the way that the shadows of the Cobra Kai loom large behind Daniel as he hurries to ride his bike home without being pummeled at the beginning of the film. And all of the shots from the beach contain stunning shots of water and sun. But the reall winner is incredibly smartly crafted script that refuses to overplay its action. In fact, there is really little action throughout the film, which makes the ending karate tournament montage set to “You’re the Best Around” a genuinely exciting sequence. Overall, its emphasis on character-building scenes over muscle-building training sequences help this to rise above the crappy movie this could have been. I was not expecting to be brought to tears by The Karate Kid, but with one of the all-time great characters in Mr. Miyagi, it’s hard not to be won over. Don’t fear the hype, this movie really is one of the best around.

***3/4

(3 and 3/4 stars out of 4)

#the karate kid #ralph macchio #mr. miyagi #pat morita #william zabka

[tessatechaitea]

Justice Society of America #8

Oh no! Hate! It must be stopped!

That caption sounded sarcastic, didn't it? It sort of sounds like a centrist arguing against somebody saying something that nobody should be on the other side of. "Of course Black Lives Matter! Nobody is saying they don't! Why even bother bringing it up?! You're just causing trouble!" is the kind of thing that has made me hate people who identify as "non-political" or "centrist" or "libertarian" or "Proud Husband. Father. Christian." Nobody needs to hear from you if the only thing you have to say is that nobody needs to be fighting for the things they need to be fighting for! "If it's already a crime, why do we need more stringent laws for punishing crimes motivated by hate. Aren't all criminal acts hateful?" says the person ignoring reality for their own selfish interests of which I can't even begin to guess. Enough about people who have chosen to be non-people. Let's discuss a comic book from 1993 that probably takes a stronger stance against fascism than a frightening large number of Americans today.

This advert on the inside front cover would be better if the picture over "very rare" was a cow. I mean, it wouldn't work for baseball cards but I would like it better.

I think the best part about actually living in a world where superheroes are real is that day in 5th Grade when Hawkman and Hawkwoman visit your class to talk about Egyptian archaeology. The issue begins by catching up with Hawkman and Hawkwoman as they continue their quest to steal Egyptian cultural artifacts. You have to give them a pass on this though! In 1993, people just believed archaeology was a thrilling way to bring treasures into museums for everybody to share! It's not like we had hundreds of years to reflect on how terrible this practice was. You have to do some cultural math by subtracting the number of years Western culture believed whatever it did was right and just from, I don't, negative 100? Do you think we'll have learned some humbleness and respect in one hundred years? Most kids who grew up in the 70s wanted to be boring ass truck drivers but by the 80s, thanks to Indiana Jones, they wanted to be boring ass archaeologists. Kids aren't the greatest at determining what a fun adult job might be. Did you know there are people who get angry at the supposition that digging up and taking cultural artifacts and treasures from other countries to bring back to your own might be theft? Generally they're the same type of people who believe that all advances to civilization were brought about by white culture. They hold this opinion through absolutely no evidence at all. How do I know they don't have any evidence? Because if they looked for evidence, they'd wind up reading history and realize their claim was too ludicrous to continue defending.

You might think Hawkgirl is commenting on the gigantic sarcophagus the native archaeologists are opening but I know she's making an innuendo about Hawkman's cock because she's doing that thing with her hat where she lifts it up and down and waggles her eyebrows.

It's not really much of a joke though because nobody expects Hawkman's penis to be as large as a fifty foot long sarcophagus. I mean, I'm sure it's big but it's not going to be unwieldy! It's probably almost exactly the same size and shape as his mace. Interlude: here are some Facebook posts I made on several different July 26thes because I guess I think of it as a holiday to entertain my future self every July 26th? Whatever the case, I love Past Me more than Future Me and possibly even more than Present Me. Because of the Hays Code, Alfred Fatcock had to change his name to keep making films. How patriotic would you consider a person who got a flag pregnant? War Games is my favorite movie because it taught me that trying is pointless. The first item on my bucket list is to buy a bucket. End of Interlude. Can you tell I'm stalling because maybe eight issues of this comic book was too much? Here's an adult riddle: What's twenty-five feet long, wrapped in bandages, and has an eye in the middle of its head?

This guy's penis!

I don't recognize the guy with three eyes but I'm sure he's some immortal wizard named Amn Thoth or something. While the Carters discover ancient mummy curses, Johnny Quick tries to convince Rex that his hour of strength doesn't come from a drug at all but deep inside him. He doesn't need to pop pills to be a superhero; he just needs to balance his chakras and figure out his mantra. Then he'll tap into some deep spiritual part of himself that is probably just a meta(l)gene and whammo! Hourman is back and straight edge! But Rex doesn't buy it. Especially since learning his mantra isn't going to cure his son's cancer (which he got from taking Miraclo). Also in the hospital is Wesley Dodd who is doing therapy to recover from his stroke. Plus his friend Bishop Tumutuu who was some guy who fought against Apartheid. And because the Bishop is in the hospital, the white supremacists are gathering outside to not wish him well.

Shouldn't they hear what they have to say and debate them to better strengthen their own side of the argument on why all people should have equal opportunity with all rights and freedoms promised by this country?

I'm absolutely for freedom of all speech. But the problem that the American media and a lot of people on the Internet have fallen into is the idea that all speech needs to be discussed and debated equally. That's the whole "freedom of speech" trap. Whenever somebody on Twitter wants to debate some terrible topic that nearly all kind and forward thinking people realize is a monstrous and terrible idea and you simply mock them for their terrible beliefs or tell them to shut up, they think you're clamping down on their free speech. No, sir. You were able to say the stupid thing you wanted to say. What you actually want is for a Constitutional Amendment that forces me tor respect what you said and debate it as if the matter has yet to be resolved. The media does this all the time by allowing both sides of an opinion to debate which only legitimizes the side with the terrible take. Sure, we should allow racists to go on CNN and declare their stance on race relations. But the people on the other side shouldn't be debating that topic with them. They should just laugh at them and point and tell them how terrible they are. Maybe get some of that slime from You Can't Do That on Television for rebuttals. Freedom of speech needs way more mockery and far less debate if it's going to recover. Hourman responds to the white supremacists with a "None of my business!" because he's a terrible centrist who believes that if the status quo isn't making his life rough, why rock the boat? Also his son is dying of cancer so maybe he's a bit distracted. I shouldn't be so hard on him when he's wracked with the guilt of probably killing his son with his drugs. The white supremacists begin making trouble so it's time for the JSA to put an end to hate! Or will hate win out? I mean, this comic book was written in 1993 and I don't feel like hate has backed down.

Sure, he's against metahumans now. But just wait until one of them decides to wear on of those stupid hats and silly robes!

Watching the speedsters begin to get pummeled by the huge mass of white supremacists, Hourman accidentally balances his chakras! He's suddenly powerful without the drugs or the black lights or the Doctor Fate deep muscle massages! Now if he can convince his son that the power of Miraclo has been inside him all along, his son will have the strength to battle the cancer! Why did I use an exclamation point on that previous sentence when I don't really fucking care about Rex Tyler and his son! Hourman crashes out of the hospital window to save Johnny Quick. He lets Jesse do her own thing because he's heard about women's lib and also she's not an old man whose powers have significantly dwindled over time.

My adrenal gland just got bigger too!

In the end, the Bishop is saved and even Wesley Dodd joins the fight! Or he just absentmindedly shot off his sandman gun and coincidentally put the Bishop's assassin to sleep. It's hard to tell since he's still suffering from his retirement party stroke. The issue ends with Green Lantern surfing the television when he comes upon Carter Hall's interview program where he's interviewing the mummy they dug up, a man named Edmund Kulak. Since Green Lantern recognizes him, I guess he's one of the JSA's foes. According to the Who's Who, Kulak can use his third eye to cause everybody on Earth to hate each other. I guess that's why the white supremacists were acting up (and also wearing eyes on their hats and robes). Having a magical reason for racism is always a better comic book story than acknowledging a lot of people are racist of their own free will. Imagine all the angry letters that the pre-Comicsgate generation would have had to write in! "I'm not racist but I don't think you should portray all white people as racist because that is racist! Logic for the win!" That might seem like I created a 1993 Strawman but have you read the letters reacting to the Tales of the Teen Titans Spotlight on Starfire about Apartheid? My pretend letter was practically verbatim of one or two of the letters Mike Gold had to respond to on that series! Justice Society of America #8 Rating: B-. I think I've read enough old stories about old people fighting immortals. The whole mortality angle is really bringing me down!

#Justice Society of America #JSA #DC Comics #Mike Parobeck #Mike Machlan #Len Strazewski