#Like the fight scene was on model nearly the entire time

[zylev-blog]

Jazz is Special Agent Fenton of the FBI. She doesn’t go by Fenton when she’s out on a case though; she uses Nightingale. She does this because it keeps her identity secret.

Jazz is investigating a series of crimes. One of the other agents goes undercover to try and set them up in a sting operation. Things go south and now Jazz is going to Gotham to view the murder scene.

When she gets there, GCPD try to stop her at the crime scene barrier. She flashes her FBI jacket and her badge and is given access. She walks over to the police commissioner, a man named Gordon. Gordon obviously doesn’t recognize her, and neither does the vigilante with him—Batman.

“This is a closed crime scene, Miss…?” Gordon asks.

“Nightingale. FBI.” She shows Gordon her badge. “You and your men can clear out. This is our jurisdiction now.”

“We haven’t gotten approval to—“ Gordon stops, but was interrupted by an officer walking over to Gordon and whispering something in his ear. “Fine.” Gordon grumbled, and started telling his men to leave.

“You too, Spooky. I don’t need a vigilante’s help.” She waves off the man without another thought, but Batman doesn’t move. Instead, he completely ignores her and starts walking towards the crime scene. “Obviously, you didn’t hear me.” Jazz scowled. “If you don’t leave, I will remove you with force, Batman.”

Batman turns to look at her. “That isn’t how things work here, Agent Nightingale.”

“It is now.” She kept her expression neutral. “Clear out, or be removed. Your choice.”

Batman tried to look intimidating. Jazz refused to bow. The two stared each other down before Batman took another step towards the crime scene. She reacted instantly. Pulling out a taser, she placed it on his back before he could even react.

He reacted quickly, and sent three batarangs at her in rapid succession. His movements were a bit slower than normal after getting tased. She dodged two of the batarangs, and opted to catch the third in her hand. She flicked it away lazily and cracked her knuckles with a small smile. “I love it when they choose force.”

Batman didn’t react to her comment. He seemed to understand he wasn’t going to be able to get around her without a major fight. He let out an annoyed grunt and grappled away.

Three days later, they meet on the roof of an abandoned building. It seems like Batman was still on the case after all. Jazz was not happy about it. She felt that he was going to ruin the entire operation. She couldn’t trust someone to have her back if they didn’t show their face. She doesn’t let the annoyance show on her face as Batman joins her at the edge of the rooftop.

“I thought I told you to stay off my case, Batman.” She said quietly.

Batman gave a quiet grunt. If she had to put it to words, it would translate to a ‘I do what I want.’

She didn’t speak to him again, but she didn’t kick him out, either. The two didn’t speak a word as they sat for two hours, inspecting the warehouse across the street. It was nearly morning by the time Batman left. She did make sure he left, too—she watched him grapple down the street and heard the roar of the Batmobile pulling away before she breathed out a sigh of relief.

Watching the building was doing nothing. She was going to have to get closer. She was going to have to go undercover herself. The thought didn’t make her any happier, even with knowing what happened to the last agent that went undercover for this operation. She also knew that to keep her tracker on her at all times, she would need to shove it inside a place that nobody would look for it. And boy was that uncomfortable.

Two days after she met Batman did she meet Brucie Wayne for the first time. By now she had been undercover with the modeling agency for a day, and it was going well so far. She was playing her part perfectly, but it could take weeks for them to trust her enough to give her information that she needed to know.

She had been hired to be arm candy for a wealthy man in Gotham. It wasn’t Brucie, though she knew he had a few models on his arms as well. She had gotten through most of the night without incident before she ran into Brucie. Quite literally. Brucie’s champagne spilled down her dress, and she gave a mock scream of outrage.

Brucie tried to clean up her dress, but she swatted his hands away and went to the bathroom to clean up. She never noticed the tracker that Bruce put on the nape of her neck. When she came back out, she noticed her date looking for her. She rejoined him and the rest of the night went smoothly.

A month into the operation and she finally was getting some results. She had been moved from building to building more than once, but she finally got breadcrumbs for what she needed to take them down. It took her another three weeks after that to gather all of the evidence she needed.

At the final takedown, she was joined by none other than Batman. She had half-expected him to show up after she noticed the tracker on her neck six hours after it was placed. She didn’t know when she had even run into the Batman at a stuffy charity gala. She had debated crushing it, but she didn’t have backup and she figured his help was better than nothing. She still didn’t trust him, though. She made sure he knew that, too.

Bringing the tracker up to her lips, she whispered, “Don’t you know it’s rude to listen in on a lady, Batman?”

Together, she and Batman took down the traffickers. They had been using models and trafficking them all over the world to be used as sex slaves. She feels a certain satisfaction while watching everyone be escorted out in cuffs.

“Nice work.” Batman says, figure tall and dark.

She hums. “Thanks.” The silence stretches on for a few minutes before she adds in, “Thanks for having my back.”

“I thought you didn’t need a vigilante’s help?” Batman teased.

She didn’t look at him, but she could hear the teasing on his voice. She smirks and crosses her arms. “I don’t. But you’re harder to get rid of than a ghost in a net.”

Batman didn’t respond back to her, and it takes her a few moments to realize what she had said. She was of course, referencing her parents ghosthunting activities. But he didn’t even know her real name, so how would he even know what he was talking about?

“When do you leave?” Batman asked.

“After everything’s wrapped up. Why, you going to miss me?” She finally turned to look at him. She wished she could run facial recognition and figure out who was under that mask. The psychologist in her wanted to know just why a man would put on a bat mask and fight crime.

“I have a case that could use your input.” Batman deflected her question.

Was that a compliment from the Batman? His way of telling her that he trusted her opinion? Or was it an olive branch?

“Mine or the FBI’s?” She already knew the answer to his question, but she wanted him to say it.

Instead, he just grunted in annoyance. She rolled her eyes and pulled a card out of the pouch that she kept her FBI id at and handed it to him. “That’s my office phone number.” She tapped the card with her finger as he held it. “If you want my personal cell, you’ve got to earn it.”

He nodded and tucked the card into his utility belt. She could see the beginnings of a smile from Batman as he disappeared into the shadows and grappled away.

Surprisingly, it only took Batman a week to call her. She had gotten settled back into her office in DC, and had mostly forgotten about the encounter. She had to report Batman’s appearance in her report, but beyond that, she didn’t have to explain that he helped her take down the ring.

She made a flight back to Gotham the next day. Batman brought her into the Batcave and told her everything she needed to know about the case. She didn’t know where the Batcave was, as Batman had blindfolded her, but she was impressed with his initiative.

“Im not wearing that.” She glared at him with all of the venom she had—which was quite a lot.

“You can’t go out in your FBI jacket.” Batman deadpanned.

“Wasn’t planning on it. Do you think I’m a rookie?” She shook her head and gestured at the costume that the vigilante had made for her. “That doesn’t give you the right to—to—ugh! Im not your Batgirl, or Batwoman, or whatever! I came out as a consult. I don’t dress up in latex, and I don’t wear costumes!”

The costume itself was gorgeous, not that she’d ever tell Batman that. It was solid black, had a red bat on the front of it, and was fully equipped with a utility belt, knife holsters, and a taser. It had a full cowl like Batmans, along with the pointy ears on top.

“I don’t see the problem.” Batman’s voice had undertones of offense in it.

“Look.” She gestured at the costume. “Im honored, truly, that you want me to watch your back. But I’m not a vigilante. Nor will I ever be!”

She had watched what vigilantism had done to Danny, Sam, Tucker, and Valerie over the years. Sure, she’d gone out with them more than once. Without a mask. But there was something more complex about the costume sitting on the table in front of her.

“You said you were going to help.” Batman’s gruff voice got closer as he took a few steps towards her.

“And I did.” She gestured to the Batcomputer. “I already gave you my opinions of the case. I dedicated a weekend of PTO time to be here. But this is as far as my help goes.”

“What about the last operation? You owe me.”

“Owe you?!” She exclaimed, thumping her finger against his chest. “I told you to get lost. You still stuck around. You could’ve cost me the operation!”

“It worked.”

She groaned in frustration. She was close enough to him now that she could smell the faint smell of Kevlar and aftershave from him. She rubbed a hand down her face as she thought over what had happened last time she was in Gotham.

“What about all your other winged vigilantes? You had uh.. Nightwing, and Robin, right?”

“It’s only Nightwing.” Batman responded. “He’s unavailable.”

“I could’ve sworn you had a Robin, too.” She looked up at him and noticed the stiffness of his body.

“Robin has moved on.” Batman replied.

Hmm. Touchy subject. She wasn’t going to push. It wasn’t any of her buisness.

“You must be really desperate if you’re trying this hard to get me to go out in that.” She smirked.

“Things could go wrong.” Batman said with a quiet sigh.

“Don’t they always?” She tilted her head.

“Not always.” Batman mimicked her actions, clearly studying her. “What will it take?”

“If I put that mask on,” She gestured to the table behind her, “You take yours off.”

“No.”

“Fine. Deals off, then.” She pulled her phone out and immediately started looking for flights back to DC.

“Why?” He questioned.

“I can’t trust someone who won’t tell me who they are.” She shrugged.

Batman let out a quiet growl. As he took his cowl off, he scowled. “You would know, wouldn’t you, Miss Fenton?”

“Holy shit.” Her eyes got wide.

Bruce Wayne was the Batman.

#dp x dc au #dp x dc writing prompt #dp x dc #dp x dc fanfic #dp x dc prompt #dp dc crossover #danny phantom crossover #dp x dc crossover #danny phantom #dp crossover #dpxdc prompts #dpxdc #dcxdp #special agent jazz Fenton #jazz x Bruce #smart jazz Fenton #jazz is a fbi agent #jazz is Batwoman

[weeb-polls-with-pip]

Autistic Anime Girls Group 3 Round 2 Match 8

SUBMISSION PROPAGANDA:

Franziska -

"Prodigy in her field, forced to be an adult whilst she was very much still a child. Franziska canonically became a prosecutor at the age 13 so that she was able to start prosecuting the same year as her "little" brother (Just what she calls him - he's seven years older than her), and consequently has to act like she is a mature adult desire being a young teenager. She has really bad emotional regulation (her in-game running gag is whipping people, because her whip is a comfort item to her, and she's been using that motion whenever she gets annoyed since she was really young.), but acts quite haughty, cool and unapproachable so that it doesn't show.

She gets to break down and start crying in the post-credits scene to her debut game because her brother's chased her down to return her whip and show her genuine affection (in his own weird way) and it is SO satisfying.

She calls everyone by their full name nearly exclusively, even her brother. She gets flustered when people do this back to her.

She is obsessed with running investigations in her own "perfect" way in accordance with her family creed, and likes to take charge to make sure this occurs. (Gets visibly distressed when she gets credited for a surprise search on a building that she did not order) At one point, she is SHOT by an ASSASSIN outside the courthouse and STILL tries to go in to prosecute anyway because this is her case and she has it all planned out, and is very upset when her brother forces her to go to hospital instead.

She also repeats a lot of motions that she's picked up from people around her, notably clutching the fabric of her sleeve on her right shoulder like her father does, and smugly wiggling her finger at people like her father and brother do.

I think she's often overlooked for being autistic because her brother is quite clearly too, and he is a more important character, and at various points, a POV character, but I think she absolutely deserves a spot here!"

Tsubame -

"Tsubame is a bit of a complex case when compared to her friends. She is deeply moved by the art of animation, has a compelling attention to detail in movement, and is able to replicate it through her calling, no matter how long it might take her to accomplish specifically tricky feats. It’s how she chooses to express herself to the world, rather than what her parents imposed on her from a very young age, when she was literally taught how to act, and was pushed to pursue a developing career as a successful actress and model.

She could be a poster child of masking, as she grew up learning how to imitate others, and building a persona through whom she was able to present to the cameras, her parents and admirers. This doesn’t deter her, and she comfortably admits to the other girls in the Motion Picture Club about the seemingly complete neglect she feels from her parents, but nevertheless is happy to finally indulge in her actual passion, fighting tooth and nail to make the high quality animation she aspires to see on a screen: realistic and intrinsically complicated at times, and not compromising a single frame to cutting costs if she can help it (of course, Kanamori does reason with her whenever their projects start struggling to meet a deadline and everyone starts pulling all-nighters).

Definitely doesn’t show it at first, but as soon as she finds a safe space in the company of Midori and Sayaka, she drops the act entirely and progressively lets her true self come out. She is energetic, loves playing around, gets too easily distracted, loves climbing up high places, has an unlimited source of curiosity, and when she’s not strongly focused on her art, she’s always moving around. As someone who crafted a perfect mask from very early on, and who, thankfully, had at least the liberty at home to experiment and have fun unrestrained, she naturally is an example of a girl that likely wouldn’t get diagnosed due to a multitude of factors."

#autistic anime girls poll #tumblr polls #franziska von karma #ace attorney #mei karuma #karuma mei #keep your hands off eizouken! #eizouken ni wa te wo dasu na! #mizusaki tsubame #tsubame mizusaki

[transmutationisms]

hi caden, i love your blog. you completely changed my understanding of succession when i first stumbled upon your writing. i wanted to ask what you thought of the use of pete seeger's 'which side are you on?' in season 1. it is one of the only overt gestures towards anticapitalist politics in the show and maybe the only one that comes to mind where the show calls in in other media (because one of the only other times that i can think of is ewan's anticapitalist lawyer) so it feels more 'real' to me, if that makes sense, because 'which side are you on?' has had a real-world role in anticapitalist politics in a way that ewan's lawyer has not lmao. i was wondering what you thought of that choice narratively/stylistically/etc. thank you! hope you're well.

hi! honestly, i read that as one of the most cynical moments in the entire show. the whole premise of the seeger song is that there's an inside and an outside to capitalist class interests: you'll either be a union man or a thug for jh blair. so, choosing a side makes an actual difference: are you defending or opposing capitalist class interests? with kendall and the vote of no confidence, obviously, there is no analogous choice. kendall and logan are both fighting for the same thing, namely control of the company. picking one of them over the other does nothing to alter the underlying power structures the way unions do, or are supposed to. the song pokes fun at kendall for having styled himself a revolutionary in order to make his media conglomerate power grab.

narratively and stylistically, i find this scene intensely satisfying. lines like "come all of you good workers" playing over footage of a billionaire wandering wall street are an extremely effective way to convey both how removed kendall's world is from that of struggling kentuckian miners, and how kendall is trapped by his own outrageous wealth and inability to imagine an escape from the company or his father. it's not an entirely unsympathetic sequence, but it's certainly not a flattering one. the joke here is that kendall wants to engage in the picture-book heroics of taking down the big evil boss, but he has no interest in why that boss exists in the first place. so, unlike striking miners, he's simply trying to maintain the same class structure but with himself at the very top of the hierarchy. even being logan's son and very much a member of the capitalist class isn't enough for kendall; he needs the actual ceo position. that he sees this as a way out of his father's abuse and control, rather than an avenue to his own perpetration of the same things, is indicative of how little he thinks of anyone besides himself and logan as a person with interests and needs.

the contrast between the shiny new glass and bustle of manhattan, versus the old-recording sound of the song, also points to some way in which union politics from the 1930s tend to falter when confronting the labour laws and practices of the 21st century. gig economies, cyberspatial capital, &c don't speak exactly the same language as unions modelled on organising tactics of nearly a century ago; kendall thus looks doubly absurd, trying to fancy himself not just a rebelling worker but one whose strategies simply seem incommensurable with the functioning of a modern media conglomerate (in deleuzian or foucauldian terms, the labour union is an effective strategy when dealing with a disciplinary society with disciplinary workspaces, like a factory; if it is to achieve anything in the control society with its corporations and neoliberalisation, it needs to update its tactics).

politically this is a good example of how the show typically leans more on satire of capitalism than on active or positive engagement with anti-capitalism. i also remember that the first time i watched the show, this was one of the moments where i felt like it was clear how the general trajectory for these characters is going to go. kendall is always going to pursue logan's empire; he's never going to seek a way out, and his actualisation, which is loganification, will always come at the expense of countless unnamed other people. he will never get the victorious moment he dreams of because his narratives for understanding the world are extremely limited and simplistic, and he can only cast himself as a few heroic archetypes that don't exist and that certainly wouldn't be him if they did.

for me this sequence is emblematic of both the show's strengths and what many leftists ultimately find frustrating about it, namely its refusal to engage with anti-capitalism beyond using it to mock the capitalist class. the song ends up telling us a lot about kendall and his relationship with logan, but isn't really trying to link the show up with actual alternatives to the capitalist systems of control that pen kendall in. it's a gesture toward awareness of proletarians (like the shots scattered through the show of domestic workers, event staff, &c) but is ultimately limited by the pov characters' own refusal to think about such people in any sustained capacity. again, i think this works incredibly well and succinctly as a piece of character work for a billionaire; but for people who want the show to engage more directly with labour politics and anti-capitalism, rather than such character study (& i can certainly understand that position), it's also a moment that sums up the fundamental problems of the premise and the writers' overall approach to politics.

#tripping the light fantastic

[the-eeveekins]

The 16th Day of G-Witch: Father and Child

Alright, let's get this over with. Look, if you like this episode or Guel, you might want to skip this one because I'm about to be a hater here. Also as a heads up, I decided to avoid the shot of Seethia's body in my screencaps, because as much as I dislike this episode, that's still a tough moment and tough to look at.

This episode pisses me off, and it's IMO unarguably the worst episode in the entire series. It's all so incredible pointless and irrelevant to the main story, and ultimately a gigantic waste of time that should have been spent elsewhere. Olcott and the Dawn of Fold do not play any role in the rest of the series, and the short 5 second scene in the final episode felt more tacked on to try and even remotely justify why nearly an entire episode was spent on them. Guel is not that integral to the main story that he deserved a chunk of an entire episode dedicated to his development and essentially putting him in the main character seat for an episode. The only impact this episode had later on in the show was so Guel could recognize that one kid on Earth who let slip Shaddiq's secret. Which was already a ridiculous coincidence that it could have been replaced with nearly anything.

It's insulting and sexist that in the first Gundam series with a female main character, they completely sidelined her for an entire episode just to let the most popular male character play at being the MC for an episode that has almost nothing to do with the main story and was designed to be more like a traditional Gundam episode than what G-Witch was. It feels like something that staff were ultimately forced to keep in so the executives who feared the show failing could distract fans who hated it with the standard Gundam tropes and a male character in the lead role, like jingling shiny keys in front of someone's face. And the worst part is? It worked. A chunk of the fanbase LOVED this episode because it felt like a classic Gundam episode and made them want to throw away what made G-Witch special and unique for more of the same shit they've had for 40+ years.

And all of that cost the show time it desperately needed to spend on the main story and characters with way more importance than Guel or Olcott. The only good thing I have to say about this episode is that the Prodoros IS a cool mobile suit. I hope it gets a model kit someday.

I've got to agree with Norea here. Nika is incredibly naive about the situation Earthian's face. Wanting to solve problems without violence is certainly a worthwhile goal, but not one that is always practical. Sometimes violence and war is necessary to overthrow tyranny and oppression. It was made clear in S1 than when Earthians peacefully protest their terrible conditions, they're met with violence by the Benerit Group. And when peace is no longer an option, you have to use violence to fight back.

Likewise, I actually think Shaddiq gets a bad rap from a large part of the fanbase. Some of that is rightfully because of his actions towards Miorine, but a lot of it I think comes from the sort of people who just like to yell "WAR IS BAD" and do not comprehend that in some situations, war is necessary to overthrow oppressive groups like the Benerit Group and Spacian Governments.

Giving weapons to Earthain groups is a solid idea that will even the playing field and make it difficult if not impossible for space to opress Earth through force, forcing them to the negotiating table for equality, and if all else fails, kicking them off Earth and reclaiming their resources themselves. My only concern with Shaddiq's approach is that I'm not sure he wouldn't try to lead Earthians even further into oppressing Spacians as revenge.

This is actually the one time I don't fault Guel for trying to do something "heroic." Trying to save Seethia, while probably being ultimately pointless, was a good thing to do. It's just a shame that, despite literally having a child die in his arms due to an attack by the Benerit Group, he learns all the wrong lessons from it.

This conversation serves absolutely no purpose. It doesn't actually make any sense (he was a member of Dominicus, Earthains attacked him and killed his family and now he...works for an Earthian terrorist group?) and ultimately it's a completely meaningless detail that has absolutely no effect on anything.

And finally, the cherry on top, the downfall of Guel's character. I really tried to like him, but this was very much the beginning of the end. After going through a trauma conga line and learning NOT to play the hero, Guel finally sees what his father's company has been doing to Earthians his whole life, and even has an innocent child die in his arms because of the attack.

And the lesson Guel takes away from all of this is that he wants to save his father's company and keep the oppression machine going? I get that maybe Guel being the one to fail and not break free from the shadow of his abusive parents was the whole point of his character arc (Kashtanka), but it's still disappointing.

And after all that bullshit, we drop these incredibly important details in a post-credit scene at the end of the episode. All of this information, from what Notrette intended to do with Quiet Zero and what happened to her, was way more important to the story than everything that happened in the previous 20 minutes. But all it gets is a short scene at the end of the episode and is never further elaborated on.

This should have been the episode we learned more about Notrette and Quiet Zero, maybe even more about Prospera and Delling. Instead we got Guel and Olcott's pointless adventure.

#25 days of g witch #g witch #the witch from mercury #gundam #g witch spoilers

[therealtsk]

What is the Brown family pre-Flashpoint characterization vs post-?

hoo boy. So, disclaimers, while I've read a LOT of comics, I have not in fact read all of the ones where a member of the Brown Family appears (mostly because I just don't have the heart to put myself through Batman and Robin Eternal, along with some of Dixon's notoriously sexist writing in his Robin run), but I think I've read enough to make a decently informative post on this. Let's go by characters.

Stephanie Brown.

Probably the one that most people noticed, Stephanie Brown in her pre-Flashpoint characterization is one that has (right up until a certain...event...) a lot of grit to her. While she's still the victim of Dixon's notorious attitudes towards women, she's still allowed to be competent, holding her own in a fight quite handily, especially in her own Batgirl run, where she's able to take on League of Assassin members without too much trouble at all.

Her major, I would argue defining characteristic, is that she does not give up. Ever. Her dad tells her to quit. Tim Drake tells her to quit. Fucking Batman tells her to quit. Multiple times!

Stephanie Brown does not give up. Ever. When the going gets tough, she shrugs, puts on her eggplant outfit, and kicks ass.

Post-Flashpoint? Stephanie is constantly made out to be unreliable, unable to handle herself, constantly needing other people to pull her out of trouble. She loses fights she simply wouldn't have before (although to be entirely fair, this is a problem literally every batfam member has from N52 onward but that's another post) But worse than that, post-Flashpoint Stephanie gives up. 

This scene is genuinely insulting- it's definitive proof that DC's writers from N52 onwards have never understood Stephanie Brown, and never plan to (yes, I know she does come back later, but the fact this happened at all is the point.) This is utterly antithetical to Stephanie Brown as a character, and spits in the face of everything she stands for.

Crystal Brown This is actually the main reason I decided to start writing sins of the father (working on chapter two in conjunction with this), because the treatment of Crystal Brown in Post-Flashpoint DC comics is just insulting- and a major disservice to Steph! Her relationship with her mom is essential to her arc. Crystal Brown starts out as a woman who's got a supervillain as a husband. She's struggling with him, with near-poverty, and with a drug addiction that seriously impedes her ability to be a good mom.

But like daughter, she doesn't give up. In fact, Crystal Brown kicks Arthur Brown out of her life and picks herself up, manages to quit her habits, and becomes a well-respected nurse at Gotham City West Mercy Hospital. Her defining characteristic is that she loves her daughter, even if it took some time for her to get her act together.

Post-Flashpoint Crystal Brown is not that. Hell, she's barely a character. When Steph calls her, desperate, afraid of her newly-learned-of criminal father, Crystal’s response is to lie to her daughter, and then call her husband and tell him Stephanie knows about his plan. 

Sure, she doesn't want him to kill her, but this is so wildly out of character for Crystal that this is basically an entirely different person. And it leaves Stephanie without a single parent who cares about her, since Bruce sure has hell hasn't stepped up in Rebirth. Steph doesn't have any positive role models in her life in Rebirth, leaving her bereft of really any consistent form of love and encouragement outside of maybe Cass, but even that relationship is a hollow shell of what it was previously. 

Arthur Brown. 

So Arthur’s the one who’s arguably changed the least, because abusive asshole is hard to get wrong, but he does feel like he’s lost all consistency in Rebirth. Before, he's a smug, arrogant asshole who doesn't give a damn about his family beyond how he can use them.

In Batman Eternal he’s…well, fine, but in Batgirls he’s…nearly unrecognizable, even from his characterization in the previous issues. 

Like seriously, what was going on here? Arthur's never given a single damn about Steph aside from literally using her as part of a plan to get rich. But anyway. TLDR; All three lost nuance, Steph used to be more competent and had an actual character arc, Crystal used to have an actual character and was an inspiring story of overcoming addiction, and Arthur used to feel like a consistent villain instead of a one-off whack job.

#DC #DC Comics #Stephanie Brown #Crystal Brown #Arthur Brown #ask submission #DC Meta #DC Comics Meta #Stephanie Brown Meta #as you might tell #i really don't like most of dc comic's decisions post flashpoint

[adultswim2021]

The Venture Bros. #49: "Pinstripes & Poltergeists" | December 14, 2009 - 12:00AM | S04E08

The mid-season finale! The season four split of Venture Bros has been covered somewhat, but basically the boys burnt themselves out behind the scenes and needed a break, so they asked Adult Swim if they could cut season four into two halves, while also upping the episode order from 13 episodes to 16 episodes. The network went for it, and it took them nearly a whole ‘nother year to deliver the back half. So, this ends up sorta being a mini-finale.

This is another one of those episodes that’s more effective if you’re devoted to the story of Venture Bros. Meaning: it’s a little light on laughs. There are jokes in here, and they’re all fine, but there probably won’t be a big long list of all the times I laughed at this one or anything like that. It’s goal is mostly to get Brock back into the fold and to set up story elements that are going to come into play for the second half of season four. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I prefer when the show makes me laugh. But I don’t not care about the story, either. 

In this one: The Monarch gets swindled by Monstroso (mentioned in a previous episode and now here in front of our eyes) into signing a bad deal thinking that he’s merely going to help the Monarch defeat Dr. Venture. Turns out he’s signed away his rights to arch Dr. Venture to Monstroso.

Monstroso’s methods are lawyerly by nature, attempting to financially ruin Dr. Venture by making him use a certain amount of square footage of his compound towards some public good. When scoping out an abandoned factory on his property he discovers that Brock and SPHINX, the super-secret organization dedicated to stopping villainy that falls outside the purview of the OSI by being non-costumed and non-Guild-of-Calamitous-Intent-affiliated, have been using the space secretly. In other words: Brock has been with the Ventures this entire time. Aww. 

Also of note: 21 is shown speaking to 24’s ghost. We’d seen him chatting with 24’s skull throughout this season. He also confronts Brock, a callback to the scene in Tag-Sale, You’re It (apparently repeating the same dialogue) where 21 tries to take Brock on with a non-working light-saber. Brock’s dismissive “boo.” to get 21 to run away is now met with a punch to Brock’s face. Brock doesn’t kill 21, but his newfound respect for giving him a decent fight leads him to team up with him to go beat up Monstroso. The episode ends with Brock casually eating a bowl of cereal in the Venture’s kitchen and Hank, in a delayed reaction, being stunned to find him there. 

SPHINX were previously portrayed as bad guys, but it’s explained that when they were conquered, it was decided to just take all their Egypt-themed crap and use it to start what’s essentially a new group. This explanation seems squarely aimed at the fans of the show who just wish it were an unironic action cartoon. But it's alright! I like it fine, okay! I'm not pissed off at all! At this, I mean.

EPHEMERA CORNER

The Family Guy Chicken Star Wars Double Feature (December 20, 2009)

Sometimes I’ll make note of something to cover for Ephemera Corner; like some kind of specially scheduling thing Adult Swim does that in theory is worth mentioning. But then it comes time to talk about it and it’s like damn, I do not care about this at all. Consider how now in 2024, it seems like they run marathons of certain shows all the time, just because that’s a proven-to-work model for cable television nowadays. So, I might get choosier with these EPHEMERA CORNER programming things.

But for those of you who care: Take note, Star Wars heads! Your favorite Seths went head to head and did a Star War double feature rivaling the Ewok TV Movies. The sci-fi epic about one man turning to the darkside and deciding to deprive his children of committing incest with each other by moving them to different planets will knock your socks off, because that’s what this is: It’s just the movie Star Wars but with cartoon guys in it. I don’t even think they changed the words or anything. Have fun imagining how it must’ve played with 2009-era commercial breaks.

#adult swim #adultswim2021 #the venture bros.

[tizzyizzy]

The Tragedy of Ed and Izzy's Relationship

Izzy's thoughts are full of Ed.

As first mate, he must follow Ed's orders. His entire job focuses on doing Ed's bidding. Following every whim, for years.

When Ed is off his game or careless or eccentric, that's Izzy's problem too.

Loyalty is deeply important to Izzy, or at least his personal sense of it. Even when Izzy ended up banished from the ship, throwing threats at Edward before rowing into the horizon, he was worried about Ed. About what Stede was doing to his brain. You can hear the desperation in his voice when Stede is facing the firing squad. He won't let Ed "ruin" himself. In fact, he's adhering to Ed's old principles: the love of a pet makes a man weak.

And he isn't entirely wrong. Ed's emotionally devastated by Stede's abandonment.

Their relationship, Izzy and Ed's, is important to him. It's Izzy who first to apologize to Ed after their fight. Throughout the episode, he's exasperated but trying to be patient. Trying to redirect Ed's attention without being a dick.

Until, of course, he explodes over Ed's clothing switch, his patience annihilated.

But that episode tells us a lot about how Edward views Izzy too. How Izzy's real concerns about imminent death go in one ear and out the other. He barely flinches at Izzy's resignation, totally calm about Izzy preparing to leave at the end of the episode.

For me, one of the most tragically telling moments about Ed and Izzy's relationship is in episode 10. Not the yelling and the slamming against walls. Before that.

Ed is cleaning up the mess he made in the captain's cabin. He's talking to Izzy, who is skuling against the books. Ed's tone is casual. Even when Izzy says he's going to speak plainly, Ed doesn't seem to expect what's to come.

In their last scene together, Ed suggested they shouldn't even be pirates anymore. Izzy snapped to the crew, told them to call Ed Blackbeard. But Ed told him he didn't want to be called Blackbeard anymore.

In the recent past, Izzy nearly quit over Ed's behavior. He tried to kill Stede in a duel. He threatened Ed when he was banished from the ship. Then he got Stede and Ed captured, got punched by Ed, and witnessed Ed choose servitude to the King over being his captain again.

The audience knows Izzy is upset. From the circumstances, Izzy's personality, and his body language, it's obvious he's seething.

"Can't believe I was living like this. Can you, Iz?"

" ...Izzy?"

But Ed has no idea.

Izzy has, both metaphorically and literally, been shouting his concerns since episode 2, yet Ed doesn't see it coming. Even though it's likely been coming for years.

Ed hasn't been paying attention.

Maybe that's because he didn't need to. Izzy seems to have been around so long, and has been so loyal, Ed has taken him for granted. It's a classic case of a man being shocked when his wife asks for a divorce when she's been complaining for years. Sure, Izzy might complain, but he won't do anything about it, Ed thinks. And if Izzy gets really, genuinely mad, Ed can just apologize and make it up to him in some way, then go right back to doing what he wants once the fire is out.

But maybe he just doesn't care. He talks to Izzy, sure, but does he listen? Ed wanted to engage with Izzy on episode 4, but his timing was abysmal. Izzy, understandably, couldn't even begin to talk about model ships and such stuff while in fear of his life. Not that Ed cared. That was boring, so he just spoke over Izzy.

Ed has leaned on Izzy for a long time. He thought Izzy admired him enough to always be there, no matter what. Even if Ed decided to give up piracy and write sad song lyrics and have an affair with a gentleman, Izzy would be there.

But Ed finally changed too much for Izzy. Now he doesn't respect him and won't serve him. Izzy lived off scraps before, but now there aren't even crumbs of satisfaction from serving a man he admired.

Without anyone to lean on or trust, Ed decided he'd rather keep the reliable comfort of Izzy's support than risk being left with nothing.

If they knew how to be proper friends to one another, this wouldn't have happened. Izzy loves Ed and cares about his welfare. If that had been properly cultivated outside of the first mate and captain dynamic, Izzy would support his heartbroken friend, and Ed would know he wouldn't have to hide himself to be loved.

But they aren't proper friends. Not if Izzy pours himself empty for nothing in return. Not if Ed needs to hide himself away so he isn't left alone.

(At least not yet.)

#izzy hands #edward teach #ofmd #blackhands #our flag means death

[datasportsgroup]

How Football Game Analysis Works for Video Streams with Machine Learning

Machine learning played a key role in creating Football Games Video Analysis from video streams. Real-time scene understanding of football matches from video feed using machine learning and traditional CV techniques. Hundreds of viewers are fixated on the images showing 22 players fighting for the possession of a ball in football.

It isn't all there is to watching a football game, and if we can process as much data as possible from a single game, we may just get a clue as to why. If attempted to extract as much information as possible from a football match recorded by a single broadcast-like camera, it can be seen that:

It's quite easy to get away with framing a moving camera in such a way that it can obtain both positional and semantic information from a single shot, but that isn't exactly what you want to do with a stadium moving camera, where the camera is constantly changing angles. Well, you probably would not be able to do that in an actual stadium, anyway, as you would with a simpler problem.

Even though there are a variety of ways to process (at least approximately) video data on a budget, doing so is still possible even though it is somewhat time-consuming. In order to properly tackle a textbook (good) software engineer would have to break down the problem into smaller, more manageable, and specific ones. First, let's refer to the overall architecture of the system before looking at each task in a "positional to semantic" order.

Let's take a sequence of images and process them one at a time using object detection (field and objects). Once a series of nearly-consecutive images is obtained, it can be tracked. It is also important to determine the position of the camera within the frame and the position of each entity based on the frame. A track of each player based on his identification and assignment to a team should also be kept.

Phase smoothing occurs when progressively removing parts of the video until the end. After that, simply repeat frame by frame, until the end of the video. Then apply a smoothing phase in which one can look back at all the information that has been accumulated so far and "re-adjust" trajectories and detections in order to achieve better coherency throughout the video. How a picture is processed once it is fed into the system is now being outlined. It is hard to find labelled data of good quality when approaching this type of problem from an ML perspective.

Simply cropping the frame and expecting the pre-trained net to produce good results does not work. In order to make the network function on the whole frame, a sliding window should be fed that was constructed in such a way that it processed every bit of it, piece by piece. The results obtained this way are much better so that you can detect players and referees and avoid them.

Almost the entire stack of the system was built assuming (at least) reliable detections, so accuracy is a top priority. The sky's the limit here, as anything can be tried to achieve the highest possible level of reliability and efficiency. Masking out the frame as depicted in the picture, removing all items detected at the preceding step, and using a simple model of the field to compute pitch images from different angles of rotations and translations. The matching process should be optimised by leveraging an index and treating the input as a query. The best football api providers would ensure so. Such is the process of a football game video analysis. To receive the best and most accurate football players statistics database, one should definitely invest in a reliable football statistics database api like Data Sports Group’s football api. Our service is positional-based, receives real-time observations, and provides authentic data simultaneously. First of all, we are amongst the top sports data providers. We aim towards accurate gathering and dissemination of data in simple-to-use formats. Data Sports Group satisfies all football data requirements to carry out effective analyses and outcomes.

[ladeedayda]

With great animation....

Comes great smear frames

#The future #Mystery skulls #I'm shocked how few smear frames there were #Like the fight scene was on model nearly the entire time #Which is impressive but perhaps not exactly necessary... #Blabbing.txt

[sinfulskywalker]

more dad vader 🔪

Woah now put the knife away buddy, there's no need for that here. I'll give you what you want 🥰

TW: slight violence, slight possessiveness, protective Daddy Vader.

Force be damned if someone said Vader wasn't a good father. Vader was a damn good dad (if you asked him).

Leia was strong willed as her mother, almost unbreakable and often challenged Vader a run for his money in her temper and demands. She's his little princess and gets whatever she pleases regardless. Yes he caved and she got a bedazzled speeder for her 16th sue him.

Luke is soft and gentle as Padme was and Vader knows when to stop pushing him and let him do things on his own. He never encouraged Luke to grow up so fast, if he's still 19 and asking for the latest fighter jet model Vader just hands him his card. There's a beauty in innocence, Vader came to learn when he became a parent.

Vader learned how to cook through his mother for survival but it was through Obi-Wan he learned to cook for leisure (he never wanted to admit it but damn obi wan made some good ass meals). He cooks for Luke and Leia when he gets the time. It's always something filling, indulgent or sweet. Leia loves his smoked meats while Luke adores his coarse sugar pastries.

Vader and Leia like their one on one time to be spent in the sparring rooms. Leia is a show off like her dad was and constantly asking to advance when Vader insist she takes meditation breaks.

Luke is polar opposite. He loves the gentle quietness of sitting with his father in the garden watching as Vader uses the force to act out battle scenes with Luke's models and tells him stories of his youth.

Leia and Luke fall asleep to open windows that broadcast the stars as it was once natural to see The Dark Lord cradling two toddlers on the Bridge of a starfighter in the silence of the night, millions of twinkling lights acted as their nightlight.

Vader had a temper when he was younger it was no different when he got older and once in a while it was, unfortunately, lashed onto his children. Leia would always fight back arguing her Dad was being an asshole and to shove it while Luke would run off, trying not to cry. Vader would learn to use his words carefully and less violently and learn how to apologize to his teen kids and sometimes it would take a day or two for them to forgive him but Vader was learning and proving he was by never doing such an act again.

Death threats were common towards Vader's children. They were often ignored as nothing ever happened....until one day when Vader came home to the entire apartment trashed and one soon to be dead rebel held a blaster to a tied up Luke and Leia. The maid service never did get the intruders blood out of the carpet. It was replaced in due time.

The children love their father. But Vader knows they need their mother. Vader used to say nothing when they asked about her as little children. As adults he still cannot bring himself to tell them of their birth mother. Or what he did to her. He jots everything down in a secret journal he plans on giving them both as an inheritance for when he dies. He doesn't want to see the look on their face when they realize what a monster their father is.

Luke and Leia. His light and love.

Force help him when Leia dates a man nearly 10 years her age and Luke has a crush on a Mando with a kid and a fast bike

#star wars #luke skywalker #darth vader #leia organa #dad vader #anon asks #anon ask #anon #anonymous #skywalker family

[wkemeup]

favorite fanfic trope: enemies to lovers but it's the moment when their tension is at its peak 😈

title: The Mess I Made - submitted by anon summary: you may not be on the best terms with Bucky Barnes, but it doesn't stop you from coming to his defense prompt: “Did anyone ever tell you how pathetic you are? It’s incredible how low my standards are for you.” / multiple requests for enemies to lovers word count: 1.5k a/n: enemies to lovers is already tough for me and to do it in drabble form is impossible for me because it requires a slow burn, but I did my best!!

You were on your way to the tower's gym when you heard Bucky’s voice echo from the end of the hall. Towel swung over your shoulder, headphones barely even grazed your ears as you paused, turning down the music. Bucky’s shadow danced over the walls as his run his hands through his hair. A woman’s shadow emerged next to him, her heels clicking against the tiles.

You rolled your eyes. Bucky’s latest string of conquests were an inconvenience at best. His pathetic attempt to rekindle whatever version of himself he idolized from the forties in the form of cheap, meaningless hookups was just another reason you made every effort to steer clear of Barnes. His seemingly indifference towards you made easy to do so.

Steve wouldn’t let it go – his questioning of why the two of you could never get along. It wasn’t that you hated Barnes. You didn’t know him well enough to hate him. You just didn’t care for what you saw. He was guarded and cold. Condescending and arrogant. Half the time, you barely believed Steve’s stories of Bucky’s charming days in the forties. The rare moments you caught his smile, it looked forced. It barely touched his eyes and he wore a mask to bring home women who spent their nights admiring an arm he would not allow them to touch.

The rare moments you thought you saw something genuine in him, he’d lashed out. The cracks in his foundation breaking through the surface in the screams at the night of dead of night, flinching at loud noises, the easy transition to taking orders and losing himself for the briefest of moments.

You’d made the mistake once of trying to comfort him. His eyes had glazed over in the middle of a conversation. There were dozens of agents around for the annual holiday party and Bucky was in another world entirely. His pupils were dilated, his hands shaking as he closed them to fists. You never learned what triggered it, but the moment you laid a gentle hand upon his forearm, Bucky had you in a chokehold.

It took both Sam and Tony’s strength to wield Bucky away from you, all while he was practically foaming at the mouth, screaming at you to never touch him again. He was rabid as Sam and Tony struggled to hold him back. The whole party stopped to watch the scene unfold – as Bucky hurtled countless insults at you.

He was drinking Thor’s liquor. He had to have been. Half of what he said that night barely made any sense. None it worth the audacity to lay a hand upon his arm to draw him back from wherever his mind had taken him. Perhaps, if you weren’t so thoroughly humiliated, you might have considered as much.

But what he said that night stayed with you and you never let it go.

“Why don’t you stay, sweetheart?” Bucky’s voice carried down the hall.

You tapped your foot impatiently at the elevators, desperate for an escape before he turned the corner. You noticed the woman’s heels were still clicking on the floors. She hadn’t stopped.

“Let me take you for breakfast, at least,” Bucky asked, a nervousness in his voice you didn’t recognize. He cleared his throat. “I was thinking we could—”

“I’m going to stop you right there.” The clicking ceased and you watched as the woman’s shadow placed a hand on Bucky’s chest, stilling him in an instant. “I thought you knew what this was.”

“I did. I do, but,” Bucky started, running a hand through his hair. You’d never seen him act this way before – so unsure of himself. The elevator doors open and closed as you watched his shadow sway on his heels. “I just... I want to try something different. Something... real and I thought, since we had a nice night together you might...”

“What?” the woman scoffed. “You thought I would want to date you?”

Bucky stiffened. Even his shadow appeared to mask into stone. Dread curdled in your stomach and you found yourself inching down the hall, approaching the shadows.

“Listen,” the woman crooned, “you were great last night and sleeping with the Winter Soldier is a hell of a story, but you’re not exactly... relationship material.”

You froze, stunned.

Bucky awkward cleared his throat. “I-I know, and I’m working on that. I just thought—”

“Oh my God, take the hint!” the woman exclaimed and you flinched in time with Bucky’s shadow against the wall. “Did anyone ever tell you how pathetic you are? Clearly all I wanted was a good lay. I thought I wouldn’t have to worry about this clingy shit with the Winter Soldier for Christ's sake. It’s incredible how low my standards were for you.”

“What the hell is your problem?”

You rounded the corner, tossing your workout gear aside as you came face to face with the woman. She was a beautiful as the rest of them were – tall, stunning, probably one of the models you’ve seen on runways or on magazines. But her eyes were unkind, and dismissive.

“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” she spat, shoving past your shoulder and heading to the elevator. You moved to block her when you felt the cold grasp of vibranium curl around your wrist, yanking you out of her path.

“Hey!” you yelped, watching as the woman made her escape into the elevator. You snatched your hand back, massaging at the tender muscle. “What the hell, Barnes?”

“I don’t need you coming to my rescue,” Bucky bit back. “I had it handled.”

You scoffed, the image of Bucky’s form flinching as she called him ‘pathetic’ still fresh in your mind. You’d never known him to back down from a fight. Hell, he’d gotten into a screaming match with a paparazzi for daring to ask how his morning jog went. Bucky didn’t roll over and play dead. But he let that woman wrap a hand around his throat until he choked.

“Sure looked handled,” you rolled your eyes. “She was walking all over you.”

“My sex life is not your concern,” he growled, his voice low as his eyes hooded.

“I never said a damn thing about your sex life, Barnes.” You shook your head, already regretting stepping in at all. It was pointless – foolish even – to think that he might be appreciative of your intervention, of the fact that despite the tense history between you, you would never stoop as low as that woman did.

You bent down and picked up the gym bag you’d let slip from your hands. “If you want to be treated like shit, then by all means, have fun with your next one night stand. I'll steer clear of the fallout.”

You started to head back towards the gym when you heard Bucky groan rather dramatically behind you. You paused, glancing over your shoulder as Bucky hit a fit against the wall.

“What is your—”

“You are so goddamn infuriating!” Bucky snapped and your jaw dropped.

“Are you serious right now? Me? I’m the infuriating one?” You released your bag, letting the weights hit the floor as you stalked back to him. “You’re the ungrateful jerk who just yelled at the one person who bothered to stand up for you!”

Bucky gritted his teeth. “I never asked you to do that!”

He was only inches away. His breath hot against your cheeks. You could see the dark blue specs in his eyes from this close. The blacks of his eyes nearly consuming him whole.

“Maybe that’s your problem, Barnes,” you sneered. “You think you need to ask for help, that it’s earned or deserved, but it’s not! Sometimes people just want to help you, you asshole! Sometimes, people can be good and can care about you without expecting that you—”

Your back hit the wall as Bucky’s weight pressed to your chest. His lips crashed against yours, his hand slipping into your hair. Everything in him moved with purpose, with adrenaline spiked into his veins and fury in his bones – but not his hands. Even as his lips hungrily devoured yours, his hands were gentle as they caressed the nape of you neck, as they slid down your hips.

What surprised you more – was that you kissed him back. Your hand clutched into the thin fabric of his t-shirt, your lips parting for him as he brushed him tongue over yours. It was the kind of kiss that left you feel dizzy – like you’d been under for too long, your lungs aching, and still you had no desire for air.

When he finally did draw back, it was only when he was breathless. His chest panting in time with yours, his forehead dipping to rest against your collarbone. He paused for a moment, even as his fingers gently pressed into the nape of your neck as if upon keys of a piano.

“I don’t know why I did that,” Bucky confessed.

You chuckled. “I do.”

He lifted his head and you smiled when you saw his lips were pink and swollen. You brushed a hand over his cheek.

“Because even when I hated you, I still cared about you, Barnes. It’s not black and white. It’s messy and it’s grey. But I can handle a little mess, can’t you?”

Bucky swallowed, slow to the smile that crept upon his lips, but still—it came. “Yeah, I can handle messy.”

When he kissed you again, he didn’t hesitate.

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #drabble night

[mochegato]

Even the Losers

Chapter 7

Chapter 1     Chapter 6

Marinette rubbed her head as though the action might actually have an effect on her throbbing headache.  It hadn’t any time she’d tried it in the last hour, but it gave her brain the illusion that she was doing something to help other than just waiting for the painkillers to kick in.  The action also gave her something to focus on other than the pounding hangover from not getting nearly drunk enough last night.  Because somehow despite the massive amounts she, Jason, and Roy had drunk last night, all of her problems still existed.  Utter bullshit, that.  And now she still had to deal with all her problems and felt like crap on top of it.  Double bullshit.

She adjusted her sunglasses again, fighting the urge to squint because squinting hurt.  Although honestly, she wasn’t sure which hurt more, the florescent lights, the sunlight beaming through the hotel windows, or squinting.  She was sure there was some way to settle the glasses on her face to block out all light, she just hadn’t been able to figure it out.  She now realized why people significantly smarter than her wore those godawful, ugly glasses that wrap around their head and cut out all sun.

She took a deep breath and braced herself for the full blast of a suspiciously sunny Gotham morning. Gotham has like three sunny days a year and one of them is today?  What the Hell did she do to Tikki to deserve the last few days?  She wandered out of the hotel still contemplating revenge. How does one get revenge against a god anyway?  How many ways can she destroy cookies?

She didn’t get more than a few steps before she sensed someone in front of her.  She weaved slightly to the left but quickly realized there was someone there too.  She weaved to the right and finally looked up when she realized there was someone there. There were people all around her, taking pictures of her, shoving phones in her face as they yelled questions at her.

She stumbled back a few steps and blinked at the group of reporters that had apparently been camping out in front of the hotel for her.  She quickly plastered on one of Adrien’s patented PR smiles and nodded to them. She tried to push through them, expecting them to move out of her way, as they did in Paris for Adrien.  But reporters in Gotham clearly did not show the same respect that Parisian reporters did because none of them moved out of her way.  

Her smile strained slightly as she looked to the one in front of her.  “Excuse me, please,” she requested in the most sickeningly sweet voice she could manage.

The reporter sent back an excited smile.  “Ms. Dupain Cheng, would you care to comment on your relationship with your family? Perhaps explain why Gotham hadn’t had the pleasure of your presence before?”

Marinette looked the reporter up and down.  She looked at the group surrounding her, noting how they had closed the circle to the point of touching her.  She’d been to raves with more personal space.  She moved to push through a small gap between reporters, but stopped when they quickly closed the gap.  Marinette gritted her teeth and widened her smile.  “There’s a reason we’ve chosen not to speak about this and that reason was NOT to discuss it in an exclusive with you at this exact moment.  Now if you will excuse me, I would very, very much like to get some coffee.  I’m sure you can understand the difficulty of starting a day without it.”

She gave them a conspiratorial smile, hoping if they felt like they were in on the joke they would let her through. Instead, her response emboldened the reporters, who started shouting out her name and more questions.

“Will you attend more Wayne functions now?”

Marinette didn’t even know which reporter shouted the question to address them if she wanted.  She huffed and decided to give up on pleasantries.  She was hung over.  She was hungry.  She wanted coffee.  “Why would people change a relationship that doesn’t involve you because you know about it?” she grunted as she tried to push through the cracks between people.  

The reporters closed ranks tighter around her, making it impossible for her to break through without injuring someone, which she was sure was the plan of at least a few of them.  Whether it was to get a more salacious story or to sue Bruce Wayne, she wasn’t sure.  Probably both.  She looked back to the hotel lobby hoping the concierge would see her predicament and help her, but he was determinedly ignoring the scene in front of the hotel.

She set her jaw and prepared herself to create a scene channeling her best imitation of an irate Chloe Bourgeoisie.  She’d deal with the fallout later.  Right now, she needed to get out of this situation before someone actually did push a little too hard and tiny gods decided to curse the city.  She opened her mouth to yell but instead heard someone else’s voice boom through the crowd.

“I think my sister told you to leave her the fuck alone.”

Marinette looked around to try to find the source of the voice but couldn’t see past the wall of reporters.  She didn’t have to wait long for him to push his way through the crowd like a wrecking ball, not worrying about injuring anyone as he shoved his way through.  Jason stopped in front of her with a smirk.  “She just says it in a much more polite way than I do.”  He held up a bag and a tray of coffee.  “I come bearing gifts so you don’t have to deal with this shit out there somewhere.”  

Marinette shot him a grateful smile and turned back toward the hotel.  “That sounds brilliant.  Thank you.”

Jason winked at her.  “I got you.”

They didn’t stop or even look at each other until the elevator doors closed behind them.  Marinette leaned against the wall and finally took a full breath.  She looked over to Jason with another grateful smile.  “Thank you. I wasn’t expecting that and I…” She looked down for a moment to collect her thoughts.  “I wasn’t prepared.  I’ll do better next time.”

Jason’s eyes softened.  The press was a lot for all of them to get used to.  None of them had taken naturally to it, especially Gotham’s press.  They at least had the advantage of starting young and knowing what to expect, not to mention since they were kids, the press didn’t have a lot of chances to get to them.  Marinette had just been thrown out there without a life preserver.  Bruce didn’t even send any guards.  “Don’t worry about it.  I thought you could use the save.”

Marinette laughed and narrowed her eyes at him.  “That was a socially acceptable version of a kidnapping.  I had no way of getting out of that without exposing that there is no relationship.”

“Should have just exposed it then,” he shrugged, not remotely nonplussed by her comment.  “I just thought you could use some sustenance after last night.”  He held up the bag for her as they exited the elevator and made their way to her room.  “I know you must be used to fancy French food so I got a variety of food from the best bakery in town.  And I didn’t know how you take your coffee or if you prefer tea so I got both and lots of sugar and creamer.”

Marinette giggled as she opened her door.  “You’re not wrong.  My parents owned a patisserie.  I grew up on the best baked goods in France.”

Jason blinked a few times at her before setting the drinks and food on the coffee table.  “That’s it, next family reunion is at your place.”

“Not so sure that’s going to be a thing,” she said quietly.  She reached for one of the croissants and ripped off a small piece, popping it in her mouth.  “Not really sure I count as family.  That’s kind of been made clear.”

“Yeah well, we didn’t know and we’d like to get to know you, if you’re okay with it,” he said biting off a chunk of cheese Danish. “Look, I’m not looking for family dinners and brunches and shit, I just… want to make sure you’re okay.”  He looked up at her earnestly for a moment before his eyes turned mischievous.  “Although if you grew up in a bakery, I might want all that at your parents’ place.”

“At least you’re asking.  That’s something anyway,” she grumbled as she took another small bite.  

“Speaking of family, where is model boy?”

Marinette puckered her lips in disapproval as she watched the crumbs fall from Jason’s mouth as he spoke.  She looked away before she snapped at him.  “He and Max went apartment hunting.”

“Without you?” Jason asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Neither of them were suffering from a raging hangover that took double the normal dosage of painkillers just to take the edge off of,” she said pointedly.

“Coffee,” Jason grunted, motioning toward the coffee. “Lots of coffee and food and water.” He pushed the bag toward her. “Not the bird bites you’ve been taking.”

She studied the croissant in front of her with a furrowed brow as though it had some kind of answers for her.  She nearly dropped it when she heard a knock on the door. She looked through the peephole and gasped, flinching back from the door.  Jason immediately jumped up and ran over to her.  “What is it?  Another reporter?”

“No,” Marinette rasped out, her eyes never leaving the door.  “Worse.” Her heart started racing and her breathing became labored.  She wasn’t ready for this.  She wasn’t ready to speak with him.  What was she supposed to say?  How was she supposed to speak with him?  She didn’t even know how she felt yet.  She hadn’t sorted through this all yet.  Tears threatened to fall from her eyes.  She wasn’t ready.  This was happening too fast.

She flinched visibly when he knocked again. He’d had time to prepare.  He’d had time to think this through.  He knew how he felt about this.  He’d had time to plan and prepare.  She had none of that and here he was on her doorstep.  He knew about her and she knew nothing about him. He was ready and she wasn’t given that chance.  

She was just expected to deal with it.  She was just expected to handle it.  She was just expected to accept it.  He’d created this entire situation and she was left to pick up the pieces and move on.  And now he was here.  He was on her figurative doorstep in person and now she had to deal with it, on his timetable, according to his preference, because yet again it all had to be done on his terms.  Her preferences didn’t matter.  Her feelings didn’t matter.  Her opinion didn’t matter.

“Want me to kick their ass out?” Jason offered already reaching for the handle.

Marinette shook her head and let out a calming breath. He thinks he can come in after twenty years gone and act like everything is fine and expect her to play nice, he has another thing coming.  He wanted a detached relationship?  She could do that.  She’d seen it enough growing up with Adrien and Chloe’s parents.  She knew how to play the game.

She shook her hands to get the tension out before finally reaching out to open the door.  “Mr. Wayne.  This is an unexpected pl… experience,” she stuttered.  She mentally grimaced.  She was showing weakness.  She needed to be strong.  She plastered on a clearly fake smile.  She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of being weak.  She wouldn’t cry for him.  She hadn’t cried because of him in the twenty years he’d been absent, she wouldn’t do it now.

Bruce took a breath.  “Marinette…”  He froze for a second.  He hadn’t thought hard enough about this.  He knew what he wanted to say, what he wanted to tell her, but he hadn’t thought about how to tell her, how to lead into it.  “I was hoping to speak with you,” he rushed out, wincing internally at the sound of it.

“Well, that’s a first,” she scoffed before she could stop herself.  She slapped her hand over her mouth and mentally berated herself.  What was she doing?  She was supposed to be calm not cruel.  She was losing this game!

Jason grinned and propped his arms behind his head as he kicked out his legs, the very picture of relaxed.  “I like her.  I’m keeping her.”

Marinette shot him an appreciative smile but Bruce did a double take, frowning at the sight.  His mind raced as to what it meant that Jason was there.  Was it good?  It was good, wasn’t it?  She was getting close to one of her brothers already.  But that brother was Jason, and despite the fact that he loved Jason, he was well aware their relationship was still contentious at best.  Not exactly the best brother for her to get close to. And he was already encouraging her hostility against him.  Not that he didn’t deserve it, he knew he did, it was just that any of the other brothers would help mitigate that hostility.  Jason would fan it.  “Jason, what are you doing here?”

“Brought baked goods and coffee,” he answered casually, a smirk making its way onto his face.  “You?”

Bruce let out a heavy sigh through his nose and smoothed out his face.  Getting annoyed now would do nothing for his goal.  If Marinette was connecting to Jason, getting frustrated with him would just push her further away.  “As I mentioned, I was hoping I could speak with Marinette about the… situation.  I wanted…”

“‘The situation’,” Jason mocked shaking his head at Bruce.  God was he always this bad with his kids?  He thought it was just him.  “Way to sound sincere, B.”

Bruce’s lips pursed until they were no longer visible. He didn’t need Jason sabotaging him right now.  He was doing a good enough job of it on his own.  “I’d like to speak with Marinette on our own, please.  Why don’t you go home?”

Marinette’s eyes went wide and her chest clenched. She didn't want Jason to leave.  She wasn't ready for Jason to leave.  Once Jason left it was just her and him.  Just thinking about it suddenly she couldn't breathe.  Suddenly the air felt too thin and too heavy at the same time.  No.  She needed somebody else here.  

Jason shot a look over to Marinette, letting his eyes pass over Marinette like he hadn’t been noting her body language.  He let his eyes wander for a second before returning to Bruce with a tilt to his head.  “No.  I’m witnessing this, unless Pixie tells me to go home.”

Marinette could have kissed him… on the cheek. Because he was her br… it was complicated.  But she was beyond grateful he had spoken up for her.  She let out the breath she’d been holding and raised an eyebrow at him. “Pixie?”

“Small, violent,” Jason grinned at her.

Marinette laughed and playfully narrowed her eyes at him. “Fine, whatever, Goliath.”

Jason leaned back again.  “Oh, no, that one’s already taken.  By a dragon bat, no less.”

Marinette’s face scrunched in confusion.  She tried to search through her Americanisms for what a dragon bat could be.  It had to be a species of bat right?  Maybe? But then again it was American English so for all she knew it could be a flower.  “A what?”

“Jason!” Bruce admonished.  He was really not looking forward to trying to explain what a dragon bat was or how Damian came to be in possession of one.

Jason rose up enough to grab one of the croissants and shove half of it into his mouth before he spoke.  “I’ll introduce you sometime, or Damian will have to actually… which he won’t.  I’ll show you a picture, you seem like the kind of person who likes terrifying animals as long as they’re fuzzy.”

“I… fair,” Marinette conceded easily.

“If I can bring us back to the topic at hand,” Bruce interjected loudly, cutting off any more discussion of dragon bats.

“Family bonding, right?”  Jason cut him off with a pointed look.  “Isn’t that what we were doing?”

Bruce glared at Jason for a few seconds, which did nothing to wipe the smug smirk off his face.  Giving up on Jason, Bruce focused on Marinette.  “At the gala you mentioned you didn’t plan on being in town much longer, leaving today actually.  I was hoping I could convince you to stay a bit longer.”

Marinette examined him with a dour curiosity.  She cocked her head to the side.  “And why might that be?  You don’t need me here to make an announcement that we prefer to keep our relationship private, hence they didn’t know about me.”

Bruce let out a deep sigh.  That was fair.  It was a fair response.  Sabine had warned him she would be suspicious of him.  “This isn’t for the public,” he assured her.

“Isn’t it?”  She blinked a few times at him, her face blank.  “Are you sure?  It feels like it is.”  She turned to Jason.  “Doesn’t it feel like it is to you?”

“It does indeed,” Jason nodded in agreement, keeping eye contact with Bruce as he did.

“Jason…” he started threateningly.

“Oh, I’m sorry, were you relying on me to make fixing your fuck up easier for you?  Wrong kid.  You’re looking for Dick or Tim… actually I wouldn’t rely on Tim for help explaining why being an absentee father isn’t actually that bad.”

“Jason, I think it’s time for you to go home,” Bruce growled.

Marinette straightened up and moved between him and Jason.  She wasn’t going to let him bully Jason for standing up for her.  “I don’t think so.  So far he’s the only member of my family I like.”

“Ooh, you should totally give Cass and Steph and Duke a chance too,” Jason offered with a faked enthusiasm as though the confrontation with Bruce didn’t just happen.  He kept his eyes on Marinette but relished the increasingly frustrated scowl on Bruce’s face as they ignored him.

Marinette nodded.  “I’ll consider it.”

“Oh and Alfred… and I guess Tim too.  He’s a prick but he’s alright I guess,” Jason continued.

Marinette blinked at him.  It was like a never ending list of people.  An ongoing list of people he had taken in after walking away from her.  A long list of people he’d cared about and for without having to be pressured into it by the press.  A mile long list of people he wasn’t pretending to care about.  “How many brothers and sisters do you have?”

“We have a lot,” Jason corrected her.  They were in this together and he’d remind her of that as many times as she needed.  “Alfred isn’t a sibling though.  He’s like a grandfather.”

Marinette paused at that.  She hadn’t considered that.  Another grandfather figure.  Another grandfather that didn’t want anything to do with her.  Sure now Grand-père Roland loved her but for the first fifteen years, he’d known about her and didn’t care.  Maybe it was her.  It had to be her right?  Two grandparents, that isn’t coincidence.  That’s a pattern and the only commonality was her.  She pursed her lips together to focus on something other than the tears welling up behind her eyes.  “Sounds like the kind of person who definitely would have known about me.”

Jason’s eyes widened.  “I… don’t know the answer to that,” he answered slowly.

Marinette nodded, slowly going numb.  “So, what I’m getting from this so far is I have a another grandfather-type figure that knew about me and didn’t feel any kind of interest in me and a ton of people that my father decided were worthy of his love and affection when I wasn’t.  So it isn’t that my father didn’t want to be a father, just that he didn’t want to be my father.”

“That isn’t…” Jason started.  This was going down the wrong path.  He was trying to show her he had her back, not remind her about the pain.  But instead, now Marinette was getting hurt, remembering the pain.  She’d lost her sass and impertinence and now was moving toward hurt.  And she was blaming Alfred.  Alfred was one of the only good things about being a Wayne!

“Jason!  I think it’s time for you to go home.  Now!” Bruce roared.

Marinette contemplated Bruce coldly, numbness consuming her fears and insecurities and morphing into cold, analytic contemplation.  He was blaming Jason.  Her frustration wasn’t because of Jason or anything he said. Her pain wasn’t because of Jason, it was because of him, because of his decisions.  And instead of taking responsibility for it, he was blaming Jason.

Jason blinked a few times, no longer certain of his role in this interaction.  He looked back and forth between Marinette and Bruce, noting Marinette’s hardening features.  She was getting ready for a fight.  He could see it developing, but he wasn’t at all sure Bruce did.  He held up his hands in surrender and sat back down calmly. “I promised I wouldn’t leave unless Pixie asked me to.  I intend to keep my promise to her,” he said calmly.

Bruce glared at him again and faced back to Marinette, a fake smile plastered on.   “As I was saying.  I’d like a chance to get to know you, if you would let me.”

“And how many members of the press did you want to be there when you do?” she inquired sharply.

Bruce sighed and rubbed his forehead.  “That’s not fair.”

Marinette’s mouth dropped and she shook her head at him incredulously.  “Wow. Way to pull the rich, white guy entitlement card. ‘I know everything about this situation has been unbelievably unfair to you, but now I’m being inconvenienced in the mildest way possible and I don’t like it,’” she mocked. She rocked back on her heels and narrowed her eyes at him.  “Rest assured M. Wayne, I do not intend to speak out against you.  Your reputation will not be harmed by me.  Tell the press whatever you want.  I won’t contradict you.  You can relax.”

“Marinette…” he started, unsure of where to go. Everything she had said was so far from the truth, he didn’t know where to start.  Her view of the situation was so skewed, he didn’t know how to put it back on kilter.  His shoulders sagged in defeat.  “This has nothing to do with the press.  I had put plans in motion to get in contact with you before any of this started.  Mr. Fox will confirm that for you if you don’t trust me.  You seem like quite an impressive young lady and I would like to get to know you better, if you’ll give me the chance.”

His tone was contrite and quiet, but Marinette wasn’t done being upset yet.  She wasn’t ready to move on and let go of the anger.  “And if I wasn’t, you would continue to ignore me?  If I was a problem child, if I had social issues, if I couldn’t find a job, you’d continue to treat me like I never existed?  I’ve finally done enough to gain your attention. Oh thank you so much for letting me know.”

“That isn’t what I said,” Bruce rushed to assure her. “I meant to compliment you not say you had to earn my attention.”

Marinette pursed her lips and looked over to Jason. He was looking back at her with sympathetic, concerned eyes.  She let out a long sigh and looked away from them both.  “Look, I meant what I told the press earlier.  I had no intention of you seeing me at the gala.  I had no intention of anyone finding out about me. I didn’t even know there was anything to find out when I made the plan to come here.  And I have no expectation of anything about our relationship changing.”

Bruce perked up slightly, but focused on keeping his body language the same, so she wouldn’t see the difference.  That was an opening; expectation instead of intention. It wasn’t that she intended not to change it, it’s that she didn’t expect it.  “I do,” he assured her, trying to keep the excitement out of his voice, keeping it calm and even.  “I would like to change our relationship.  I would like the chance to explain and try to start to make it up to you.  If you would like to try.  

“If you’re open to it, I can extend your reservation until you are ready to move on, or if you would prefer, you are more than welcome to stay at the manor.  I would love to have you stay with us but I understand that may be overwhelming.  Or, WE has have some flats available, with multiple bedrooms.  You and your friends could stay there for a while.  Your friend is going to need a place to stay while he looks for an apartment, right?

“I’ll leave the choice to you.  Whether we pursue a relationship, if you stay, where you stay; they’re all your choice.  Here,” he handed her a paper with several numbers hand written on it. “These are my numbers; office, home office, cell phone, manor.  You can use any of them to contact me.”

Marinette took the paper impassively.  She squeezed her other hand in an effort to keep the tremble from being too obvious.  “Thank you, M. Wayne.  I will consider your words.”

Bruce nodded, letting the very formal use of his name wash away.  This was still progress.  This was still movement in the right direction, even if it wasn’t as much as he would want.  He knew it could take a long time.  He knew he wouldn’t be able to fix this today.  “Thank you, Marinette.  That’s all I can ask for.  And I’m sorry for ambushing you here.  I tried to call and text you all yesterday to set up a time to talk in person so you could prepare but it seems like your phone was off.”  

He let out a small breath seeing her eyes widen at his admission.  That had to be a good sign.  Maybe he actually said the right thing for once.  He nodded to her and left her to think, hoping Jason would urge her to call. He seemed to want a relationship with her as well.  Hopefully, he would realize this was the best way to get that.

Jason sighed and looked up at her as soon as the door closed behind Bruce.  “How are you feeling?”

“I’m not.  It’s… it’s a lot.  I think I want to be alone,” Marinette said absently staring at the numbers in her hand.

Jason nodded.  “It is.  I understand. If you want to talk, at all, about anything.  About where to drink in town, best burger, anything, give me a call.”  He gently took the paper Bruce had handed her out of hand, letting her decide if she gave it to him or not.  When she let go, he put his number on it as well.  “I only have one number, but now you have it.”

Marinette nodded at him.  “Thank you, Jason.”

Jason hesitated briefly.  “For what it’s worth, if you decide to stay you should take him up on the flat.  The hotel is stupid expensive and WE offers the flat to visiting collaborators all the time, so it’s not like it’s all that special… if you want to avoid being treated special.”

Marinette nodded at his words, barely taking them in as her mind tried to fight the numbing process.  Jason watched her tentatively.  “You look like a hugger,” he said uncertainly.  “Did you… do you want a, um, a hug?”  

Marinette looked over at him and blinked a few times, not sure how to take his words, partly because he seemed unsure of them himself, but partly because things were having a harder time permeating her brain right now.  Jason took her curious look as doubt.  “Oh come on. It’s fine.  I wouldn’t offer if I didn’t mean it.  Trust me.  I tell Dick to fuck off enough when he tries to hug me.  I have no problem saying no to hugs I don’t want.  I’m offering because I mean it.”

Marinette blinked a few more times but finally nodded vacantly.  Jason pulled her into a warm, comforting hug.  After a few moments he pulled away.  “It will all be okay.  No matter what you decide, it will all be okay.  And no matter what you decide, I’m here.  Nobody’s replacing you as my sister.  So get ready for some completely inappropriate Christmas presents this year.”

Marinette smiled absently at his joke, her eyes never meeting his.  “Thanks, Jason.”  She leaned against the door after she closed it behind him and slid down it, staring blankly at nothing.  The room felt colder than it was before, but she couldn’t manage to care enough to get up and get a blanket.  She thought there might have been ambient noise going on around her but none of it registered.  Nothing registered.  Not the numbing sensation that was rapidly overtaking her body from her fingers and toes up to her head until she stopped feeling anything.  Not even the point she was staring at.  She didn’t know how long she stared at the nothingness before black overtook her vision and she passed out.

Chapter 8

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#maribat #bio!dad bruce #bio dad bruce wayne #roynette #Even the Losers #mbdbwm2021 #prompt - gifts

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 316: We've Had One, Yes, But What About Second Explosion

Previously on BnHA: Deku was all “[powers up like whoa because it’s time to end the fight]”, and he saved Overhaul from getting not-shot, and then smashed up Nagant’s arm with the power of his new rechargeable super knees. Nagant was all “yoooo this kid is crazy strong whaaaat, it’s like he’s some kind of protagonist or something.” Deku was all “I AM A PROTAGONIST, ACTUALLY, DO YOU WANT TO JOIN FORCES AND FIGHT BAD GUYS WITH ME?” Nagant was all “ah shit why the hell no -- ” and then AFO was all “SURPRISE” and everyone was all “?!?!?!” and AFO was all “TIME TO EXPLODE NOW” and made Nagant explode because he’s an absolute fucking dick. And then Hawks showed up, because Horikoshi just wanted to stuff as many plot points as humanly possible into a single chapter I guess.

Today on BnHA: Hawks is all “good job giving motivational shounen redemption speeches Deku but I’ll take it from here” and screams very earnestly right in Nagant’s face until she finally wakes up. Nagant is all “oh hey it’s my successor, you seem surprisingly unfucked-up from your own HPSC tenure, how did you manage that?” Hawks is all “fandom is going to love hearing this one, but basically it’s because I’m very upbeat and also I had the world’s best role model Endeavor to look up to,” and I swear this man stirs the pot on purpose, but damn it I still love him so damn much. Overhaul is all “HELLO AGAIN, JUST A REMINDER THAT, THE BOSS!!” and Deku is all “MAYBE TAKE TWO SECONDS TO REFLECT ON HOW YOU TORTURED A LITTLE GIRL,” which, thank you, lol. Nagant is all “btw AFO’s hiding in a house in the woods”, and so Deku and the gang go to the house in the woods. Video recording!AFO is all “hi I’m AFO welcome to Jackass” and blows up the house. Sometimes I wonder if this manga is just a weird dream.

I am once again reading the Bean version because I think it was actually the best out of all three translations last week. and that is surprisingly including Viz’s. “faux” is not nearly as entertaining as “knockoff”, and also I have literally no idea why Caleb thought Deku was saying the Third’s lines lol

oh hey, Endeavor’s here too! not that you’d ever be able to tell from this first panel lmao

glad you received All Might’s call, mysterious unidentified glowing smudge

oh snap he says he’s weaker in the rain. is that why AFO told Nagant to attack then?? except that as we discussed the other day, I believe that AFO fully intended for Nagant to lose the fight, so him giving her info that would give her an advantage doesn’t really fit in with that. maybe he wanted Deku to be separated from Endeavor and the rest for maximum angst, though

btw Deku’s eyes are unsurprisingly back to the new normal here

alas, the angst continues. I say, pretending like I’m not totally eating it up each and every week and writing essay after essay about it lol

anyway so apparently Hawks can’t actually fly lmao. he was just yeeting himself with style

for some reason this is the funniest fucking thing I’ve ever seen omfg. wave to Hawks, kids! say “bye, Hawks!”

j/k of course Deku is catching them. -- except???

wow so he was just running on fumes there at the end. well, good to know there is actually a limit to his shenanigans, particularly regarding this new “knockoff” 100% OFA. it will definitely not alleviate any of the discourse, but it’s good for my own peace of mind because it’s solid confirmation that he still needs his pals in order to win this thing

anyway, but on to the rest of this conversation, which is basically Deku deducing what we all deduced last week -- AFO implanted some sort of trap into Nagant when he gave her Air Walk. though I’d still like to get the actual details from AFO and/or Horikoshi, because this was particularly wild even by quirk standards lol

omgggggg

she still has a face after all!! so it’s confirmed, Horikoshi has no idea what “blowing up” actually means. we might have guessed, based on what happened to Toga in the MVA arc, and also based on everything Katsuki does ever, but shhh

so now Hawks is all “NAGANT PLEASE WAKE UP, IF I SHOUT MY NAME AT YOU WILL THAT DO THE TRICK”

this is actually kind of touching though because even though we all know (or most of us acknowledge at any rate) that Hawks is a pretty caring person, it’s rare to see him actually panic over someone’s welfare like this

oh shit Horikoshi is really doubling down on it

I wonder how much Hawks knew about what really happened between Nagant and the HPSC. regardless, he probably sees her as a kindred spirit of sorts, and I’m more than happy for Deku to pass the redemption torch onto him now that he’s on the scene. like no offense Deku but they actually know each other and stuff lol

DAMMIT NAGANT CAN’T YOU SEE HOW LOUD HE IS YELLING

apparently being freed from his HPSC shackles has finally given Hawks the space to embrace his own inner shounen protagonist. is there anything more shounen than trying to motivationally scream someone awake when they’re lying in your arms inches from death?? 100% guaranteed to work

!!! IS THIS NAGANT’S POV OMG

SO SHE IS ALIVE. THANK GOD. Horikoshi doesn’t want to meet with my emotional distress lawyer today after all

love how she’s all “just gonna stir up the weekly Hawks Discourse pot here by implying that he probably committed a lot of Atrocities just like I did, so now people can get all hopped up about that, even though there’s no evidence he’s ever killed anyone aside from that one horrible ‘damned-if-you-do...’ situation with Twice.” no one asked for your provocative speculation young lady!! trust me Nagant, our rabbles don’t need the rousing lol

but nice save there with the “so how are your eyes so untainted” well you see it’s because even when he was following the HPSC’s orders he always went to great lengths never to go against his own moral compass. which just to be clear was incredibly difficult, and led to a ton of pain and suffering on his part, because the life of a spy is basically just one impossible situation after another. but in spite of that he never stopped trying to do his best to help people. I don’t really know where this tangent came from or is leading to, lol, but anyway p.s.a. I love Hawks a lot and he’s a good kid dammit

oh shit??!?

how is the League always able to swing all these fancy forest mansions. where do they find them. how many do they have

so Deku’s dropping them -- very roughly, not sure if he was reacting to finally getting AFO’s location, or if his energy really is giving out -- and now Nagant’s saying that AFO hired other villains as well. well of course he did. gotta keep chipping away at OFA’s ninth successor little by little

now Nagant is asking Hawks how he’s able to keep making “that” face. I assume she’s again talking about the fact that he somehow didn’t let the HPSC wear down his spirit

oh my god???

thanks for stuffing this chapter to the brim with good nutritional Hawks Feels, Horikoshi. what a good. he just keeps on trudging forward undeterred no matter what bullshit comes his way. what a steadfast little guy. I WILL PROTECT YOU FROM DISCOURSE MY SWEET SUNSHINE

lmaoooo

“SPOTTED THIS DUDE JUST CHILLING OUT THERE ON THE ROOF WITH NO ARMS, SEEMED PRETTY SUS” good job Endeavor

anyway so you don’t really need me to tell you that Overhaul is immediately starting in with the “BUT THE BOSS WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO TAKE ME TO THE BOSS YOU PROMISED YOU WOULD TAKE ME TO THE BOSS” stuff again. but I will go ahead and tell you anyway. so yeah. he’s doing that

OMG YOU GUYS LOOK AT DEKU’S “of all the fucking assholes to just randomly drop in on my life once again why did it have to be you” FACE THOUGH, OMG

fun fact, if you go back to chapters 124 through 160, there was an entire story arc where Overhaul imprisoned and tortured a little girl. yeah, I know!! suuuuuuuuper evil. anyways just an interesting little anecdote for you all that’s somewhat relevant to the current situation

OMG, YES. FUCK YES, DEKU

THEN WHAT ABOUT SPARING ONE FOR HER!!! YES!!! EXACTLY!!! JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, SOMEONE GETS IT

HERE’S THE PANEL OF DEKU SAYING THE EXACT SAME THING I’M SAYING LOL

(ETA: so apparently there’s some discourse about this because some people are interpreting this as Deku saying “you should apologize to Eri”, which would obviously be a terrible idea even if Overhaul actually wanted to do that, because Eri shouldn’t ever have to see him again. however I just want to point out that there is a HUGE difference between saying “it would be nice if you could direct that feeling of regret/being sorry towards Eri as well”, vs saying “you should also apologize to her.” all Deku is doing is rightfully pointing out that Overhaul has hurt way more people than just his boss, and if he really is remorseful, then he should extend those feelings of remorse to Eri and the rest as well. it’s not a directive to take any specific action, and I’m 1000% sure no one at U.A. would let Overhaul within 100 miles of Eri ever again.

tl;dr “try feeling remorse sometime” =/= “do you want me to fly you over to U.A. right now to surprise the little girl you traumatized”, lol.)

[slings an arm around Deku’s shoulders] you’re a good kid. I like you. I don’t know if I tell you that enough, but it’s true

meanwhile here is Overhaul’s “spare... a thought... for Eri...???????” face sigh

the struggle is real y’all

(ETA: and that’s... the last we ever saw of Overhaul, I guess? well all right then. I assume Deku will make good on his promise, so we know he’ll get that little bit of closure before going back to jail or whatever, and I confess I’m more than fine with leaving the rest of it open-ended, especially given his character’s history. I think this was pretty generous all things considered.)

lmao holy shit

All Might what did you do to those tiki torch guys?? did you thrash them. did you give ‘em those hands. did you deliver their own asses to them complete with a sticker reminding them Amazon Prime Day is on June 21. we missed out goddammit

so Endeavor, who wasn’t the one he was asking, is telling him that they captured (well let’s be real, Deku captured, give the credit where it’s due) Nagant and Overhaul. and so I guess they’re going to take Nagant to the ER now

fire is no one’s weakness

-- oh my GOD I scrolled down and audibly gasped

[is politely but firmly approached and asked to remove my arm from Deku’s shoulder by the physical manifestation of all this Dekuangst] “we’re sorry, he’s not allowed to have visitors right now” oh shit, my bad. [goes to stand behind a police barricade]

lmao what. did you run out of room on the previous page

what an exaggerated fade to black lmao

-- AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I actually can’t see what he’s reacting to so maybe I’m just seriously jumping the gun here lol, but THE HELL WITH IT. the next panel appears to be a cut to Haibori Forest, so I’m just gonna go ahead and declare that Deku ran off on his own all wounded to go have more Dekuangst, just like I manifested. now go call Katsuki goddammit

[scrolls three more inches down] oh

yeah so like I said, Deku is walking very slowly a few feet in front of Endeavor, who’s telling him to wait up. yep. we’ve all gotta be so careful to not just jump to conclusions. I know we’re excited but still

anyway, so! welcome back to Mt. Lady and Kamui Woods (ARE YOU GUYS DATING) and Edgeshot! have fun walking into this obvious trap lol

dammit Deku why are you so determined to tempt fate

[monkey puppet meme faces]

OH MY GOD THIS IS PURE GRADE-A CHEESY COMIC BOOK VILLAIN 101 SHIT AND I’M HERE FOR IT

that’s such a weird way of clapping who claps like that

unlike certain other people who shan’t be named, AFO doesn’t feel the need to inexplicably take his shirt off when recording sinister villain monologues. I think we’re all pretty grateful for that

high fives to everyone who called it!! yep yep

anyway so this whole scene has major booby-trap vibes, which I’m enjoying immensely even though I don’t think anything is really going to come of it lol. probably just another long-winded AFO Speech. but wouldn’t it be funny if like the ceiling started lowering down to try and squish Deku afterwards lol

(ETA: well the explosion was still pretty funny too ngl.)

ffff

[“Dekuangst is the trap” intensifies]

anyway so yeah. he’s just hitting up all of his usual villain talking points. we get it, you’re so smart and you see right through the thin veneers of society and people who don’t conform are left to fend for themselves and labeled as villains and history is written by the victors, and blah blah blah dude are you just jumping randomly from one soundbyte to another lol. literally what are you talking about. what does this have to do with you blowing up Nagant

-- holy shit??

[”Dekuangst is the trap” intensifies MORE?????]

LOL WHAT

BRO. WHAT IS WITH YOU. DON’T YOU KNOW HOW TO LAY ANY OTHER KIND OF FUCKING TRAP GOOD LORD

“YOU’RE NEXT” THE CALLBACK?? THE PARALLELS?? THOUGH WHEN ALL MIGHT POINTED HE MADE IT LOOK WAY COOLER. AFO’S POINTING JUST LOOKS LIKE SMOKEY THE BEAR

HAS ANYONE CHECKED IN ON KAMUI WOODS I HEAR HE IS WEAK TO FIRE?? THE ONLY ONE WHO IS, APPARENTLY

r.i.p. to this particular forest mansion. don’t worry they have a ton of backups

remember last week when I said maybe AFO thinks explosions are gauche. well never mind. he fucking loves explosions

anyway so that’s the end of BnHA, everyone. hope you enjoyed. it was a good ride while it lasted. see you all, good luck in your travels

#bnha 316 #hawks #takami keigo #lady nagant #midoriya izuku #all for one #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha #manifesting 317 opening with a slightly modified version of my previous fantasy scenario lmao #'WHADDYA MEAN THEY BLEW UP THE NERD' #that's *his* job #sorry lol I kid I kid

[midzelink]

So, as some of you might know, one of my GIFs was recently featured on the Tumblr Radar - which is pretty cool!  I was fairly happy with how that one turned out, especially considering that I made it rather last-minute on a whim to acknowledge Valentine’s Day.  It understandably received a lot of attention as a result of this, and I’ve loved reading through all the comments and tags (especially all the ones about how people want to eat the heart containers from TP); however, I wanted to clear up a bit of a misunderstanding surrounding the creation of that GIF, as there were additionally a lot of tags along the lines of #3d art or #artists on tumblr in that influx of reblogs.  I don’t want to take credit for something I didn’t do, even accidentally, and so allow me to be perfectly clear: the heart container GIF is not something I modeled and rendered myself! It is the original in-game model, recorded in-game using the Dolphin GCN/Wii emulator, with very little done in the way of post-processing in Photoshop.  If that sounds impossible or confusing (which is perfectly understandable, for those of you unaware of what Dolphin is capable of), I’d like to take this opportunity to give you guys a bit of a “peek behind the curtain,” as it were, to show you guys exactly how I made that particular GIF, as well as similar ones I’ve made (such as those in my #items tag).  

I didn’t take screenshots of my initial process (nor did I save the edited textures I used), so I’ll be recreating it from the ground up for the sake of demonstration, but that shouldn’t be a problem.

First thing’s first: finding a heart container! For this particular GIF, I wound up using the one that spawns after the Morpheel fight at the end of Lakebed Temple.  I’m sure many others would work just as well (I think, at the time, this one just happened to be the most accessible to me), but let’s use the same one for the sake of it.  

Morpheel: defeated.  And I didn’t even need Zora Armor! (Seriously, we do that in the speedrun.  But I’m getting off-topic.)  Of course, we’re going to need clean, close-up footage of the heart container rotating in order to do what we want to do, so let’s shift into first-person mode and and get a bit closer to the thing.

Now, because the only UI-element in this shot is Link’s health (and it’s in the corner and relatively non-obtrusive), removing it isn’t strictly necessary - but I’ve already made a texture pack that removes UI elements as part of my Text Free TP project from a while back, so let’s load it anyway, for the sake of being thorough.  This shot is also still a bit too far away, so next we’ll be utilizing Dolphin’s free cam feature (which can be accessed by going to Graphics > Advanced > Free Look and checking “Enable” in Dolphin) in order to get the heart container in a more central position. Now we’re left with this:

And we’re already looking well on our way to making a nice, solid color background GIF.  But how do we get the solid color? Well, that’s where more texture editing comes into play - and here I have to give credit where credit is due, as this is a trick I picked up from 186px, after wondering how they were able to make this GIFset of Link fighting Ganondorf in The Wind Waker in a great, black void.  (Seriously, shoutouts to them, their stuff was and still is amazing.)

But, very basically, we’ll be using Dolphin’s texture dump feature in order to find the textures that need to be edited so we can replace them with pure black ones.  Texture dumping can be enabled by going to Graphics > Advanced > Utility and checking “Dump Textures,” and the file path for these dumped textures by default is Documents > Dolphin Emulator > Dump > Textures > [Game ID].  (In the case of Twilight Princess, the Game ID is GZ2E01).  After dumping the textures in the Morpheel arena, my GZ2E01 folder looks like this:

When editing textures, sometimes you’ll have to endure a bit of trial and error until you find the correct ones.  Luckily, in this scene, the textures making up the sand floor and the stone walls are rather large, so let’s isolate the ones we’re pretty sure are responsible (plus a few others that are obviously environmental, just to be safe).

Now, when loading custom textures, it’s important that the file name you’re trying to load matches up exactly with the original texture that you’re trying to replace.  I have a plain, black, square PNG that I keep on my desktop specifically for this purpose; I copy the file names of the textures I’ve isolated, then rename and drag and drop the black PNG into the folder where custom textures are loaded (Documents > Dolphin Emulator > Load > Textures > [Game ID]).  Like so:

And now, to refresh our custom textures by disabling and reenabling them in Dolphin’s graphics settings:

And voilà! We have something that very nearly resembles the GIF I made (well, a still of it, at least).  I skipped over a few details, such as the fact that TP has a pretty significant amount of bloom surrounding just about everything, which I’m fairly certain I disabled using cheat codes when I made the original GIF in order to give it an overall cleaner look.  It’s hard to tell from this still, but TP’s heart containers also sparkle considerably in a way that’s random and not loopable; I found the texture responsible for this sparkle and replaced it with a transparent 1x1 PNG, in order to remove it entirely (as well as the texture behind the “glow” of the thing).  After that, it was as simple as recording the game with OBS, dumping the MP4 into Photoshop, cropping and cutting it to make it loop, and adding some adjustment layers for contrast and color.  So...yeah!

I hope this has served to clear up any confusion about some of the things that I’ve made in the past.  I’m not a 3D artist - just a person with an emulator and way too much free time on their hands.  This stuff is really, super simple, and also lots of fun, so I would highly encourage anyone with the means to mess around with emulation on their own some time to see what they can do!  (Even if you don’t have Photoshop and can’t make GIFs, there are always edits, such as this one I made of Midna.)  For Twilight Princess in particular, I also highly recommend checking out TPGZ; it’s a patch you can apply to a clean ISO of the original game, designed with the purposes of helping folks learn and practice the speedruns (yes, I had to bring up speedrunning one last time, kill me), but it’s got nifty features like built-in savestates, cheat codes, and HUD removal, as well as the ability to freeze actors while maintaining the ability to move the camera freely, among other things (all things that are very useful as far as making unique graphics go).  Sorry this post got as long as it did, but I at the very least hope that some of you found it educational and/or interesting.  Cheers!

#uhhhhh i don't even know how to tag this #not like it will show up in the tags anyway because i've linked five billion things #twilight princess #long post #tutorials #i guess???? #resources #myposts* #i didn't intend for this to be a tutorial i just wanted to explain that i'm not a 3d artist lmfao #OTL

[blind-rats]

The Rise & Fall of Joss Whedon; the Myth of the Hollywood Feminist Hero

By Kelly Faircloth

“I hate ‘feminist.’ Is this a good time to bring that up?” Joss Whedon asked. He paused knowingly, waiting for the laughs he knew would come at the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer making such a statement.

It was 2013, and Whedon was onstage at a fundraiser for Equality Now, a human rights organization dedicated to legal equality for women. Though Buffy had been off the air for more than a decade, its legacy still loomed large; Whedon was widely respected as a man with a predilection for making science fiction with strong women for protagonists. Whedon went on to outline why, precisely, he hated the term: “You can’t be born an ‘ist,’” he argued, therefore, “‘feminist’ includes the idea that believing men and women to be equal, believing all people to be people, is not a natural state, that we don’t emerge assuming that everybody in the human race is a human, that the idea of equality is just an idea that’s imposed on us.”

The speech was widely praised and helped cement his pop-cultural reputation as a feminist, in an era that was very keen on celebrity feminists. But it was also, in retrospect, perhaps the high water mark for Whedon’s ability to claim the title, and now, almost a decade later, that reputation is finally in tatters, prompting a reevaluation of not just Whedon’s work, but the narrative he sold about himself. 

In July 2020, actor Ray Fisher accused Whedon of being “gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable” on the Justice League set when Whedon took over for Zach Synder as director to finish the project. Charisma Carpenter then described her own experiences with Whedon in a long post to Twitter, hashtagged #IStandWithRayFisher.

On Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, Carpenter played Cordelia, a popular character who morphed from snob to hero—one of those strong female characters that made Whedon’s feminist reputation—before being unceremoniously written off the show in a plot that saw her thrust into a coma after getting pregnant with a demon. For years, fans have suspected that her disappearance was related to her real-life pregnancy. In her statement, Carpenter appeared to confirm the rumors. “Joss Whedon abused his power on numerous occasions while working on the sets of ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ and ‘Angel,’” she wrote, describing Fisher’s firing as the last straw that inspired her to go public.

Buffy was a landmark of late 1990s popular culture, beloved by many a burgeoning feminist, grad student, gender studies professor, and television critic for the heroine at the heart of the show, the beautiful blonde girl who balanced monster-killing with high school homework alongside ancillary characters like the shy, geeky Willow. Buffy was very nearly one of a kind, an icon of her era who spawned a generation of leather-pants-wearing urban fantasy badasses and women action heroes.

Buffy was so beloved, in fact, that she earned Whedon a similarly privileged place in fans’ hearts and a broader reputation as a man who championed empowered women characters. In the desert of late ’90s and early 2000s popular culture, Whedon was heralded as that rarest of birds—the feminist Hollywood man. For many, he was an example of what more equitable storytelling might look like, a model for how to create compelling women protagonists who were also very, very fun to watch. But Carpenter’s accusations appear to have finally imploded that particular bit of branding, revealing a different reality behind the scenes and prompting a reevaluation of the entire arc of Whedon’s career: who he was and what he was selling all along.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer premiered March 1997, midseason, on The WB, a two-year-old network targeting teens with shows like 7th Heaven. Its beginnings were not necessarily auspicious; it was a reboot of a not-particularly-blockbuster 1992 movie written by third-generation screenwriter Joss Whedon. (His grandfather wrote for The Donna Reed Show; his father wrote for Golden Girls.) The show followed the trials of a stereotypical teenage California girl who moved to a new town and a new school after her parents’ divorce—only, in a deliberate inversion of horror tropes, the entire town sat on top of the entrance to Hell and hence was overrun with demons. Buffy was a slayer, a young woman with the power and immense responsibility to fight them. After the movie turned out very differently than Whedon had originally envisioned, the show was a chance for a do-over, more of a Valley girl comedy than serious horror.

It was layered, it was campy, it was ironic and self-aware. It looked like it belonged on the WB rather than one of the bigger broadcast networks, unlike the slickly produced prestige TV that would follow a few years later. Buffy didn’t fixate on the gory glory of killing vampires—really, the monsters were metaphors for the entire experience of adolescence, in all its complicated misery. Almost immediately, a broad cross-section of viewers responded enthusiastically. Critics loved it, and it would be hugely influential on Whedon’s colleagues in television; many argue that it broke ground in terms of what you could do with a television show in terms of serialized storytelling, setting the stage for the modern TV era. Academics took it up, with the show attracting a tremendous amount of attention and discussion.

In 2002, the New York Times covered the first academic conference dedicated to the show. The organizer called Buffy “a tremendously rich text,” hence the flood of papers with titles like “Pain as Bright as Steel: The Monomyth and Light in ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer,’” which only gathered speed as the years passed. And while it was never the highest-rated show on television, it attracted an ardent core of fans.

But what stood out the most was the show’s protagonist: a young woman who stereotypically would have been a monster movie victim, with the script flipped: instead of screaming and swooning, she staked the vampires. This was deliberate, the core conceit of the concept, as Whedon said in many, many interviews. The helpless horror movie girl killed in the dark alley instead walks out victorious. He told Time in 1997 that the concept was born from the thought, “I would love to see a movie in which a blond wanders into a dark alley, takes care of herself and deploys her powers.” In Whedon’s framing, it was particularly important that it was a woman who walked out of that alley. He told another publication in 2002 that “the very first mission statement of the show” was “the joy of female power: having it, using it, sharing it.”

In 2021, when seemingly every new streaming property with a woman as its central character makes some half-baked claim to feminism, it’s easy to forget just how much Buffy stood out among its against its contemporaries. Action movies—with exceptions like Alien’s Ripley and Terminator 2's Sarah Conner—were ruled by hulking tough guys with macho swagger. When women appeared on screen opposite vampires, their primary job was to expose long, lovely, vulnerable necks. Stories and characters that bucked these larger currents inspired intense devotion, from Angela Chase of My So-Called Life to Dana Scully of The X-Files.

The broader landscape, too, was dismal. It was the conflicted era of girl power, a concept that sprang up in the wake of the successes of the second-wave feminist movement and the backlash that followed. Young women were constantly exposed to you-can-do-it messaging that juxtaposed uneasily with the reality of the world around them. This was the era of shitty, sexist jokes about every woman who came into Bill Clinton’s orbit and the leering response to the arrival of Britney Spears; Rush Limbaugh was a fairly mainstream figure.

At one point, Buffy competed against Ally McBeal, a show that dedicated an entire episode to a dancing computer-generated baby following around its lawyer main character, her biological clock made zanily literal. Consider this line from a New York Times review of the Buffy’s 1997 premiere: “Given to hot pants and boots that should guarantee the close attention of Humbert Humberts all over America, Buffy is just your average teen-ager, poutily obsessed with clothes and boys.”

Against that background, Buffy was a landmark. Besides the simple fact of its woman protagonist, there were unique plots, like the coming-out story for her friend Willow. An ambivalent 1999 piece in Bitch magazine, even as it explored the show’s tank-top heavy marketing, ultimately concluded, “In the end, it’s precisely this contextual conflict that sets Buffy apart from the rest and makes her an appealing icon. Frustrating as her contradictions may be, annoying as her babe quotient may be, Buffy still offers up a prime-time heroine like no other.”

A 2016 Atlantic piece, adapted from a book excerpt, makes the case that Buffy is perhaps best understood as an icon of third-wave feminism: “In its examination of individual and collective empowerment, its ambiguous politics of racial representation and its willing embrace of contradiction, Buffy is a quintessentially third-wave cultural production.” The show was vested with all the era’s longing for something better than what was available, something different, a champion for a conflicted “post-feminist” era—even if she was an imperfect or somewhat incongruous vessel. It wasn’t just Sunnydale that needed a chosen Slayer, it was an entire generation of women. That fact became intricately intertwined with Whedon himself.

Seemingly every interview involved a discussion of his fondness for stories about strong women. “I’ve always found strong women interesting, because they are not overly represented in the cinema,” he told New York for a 1997 piece that notes he studied both film and “gender and feminist issues” at Wesleyan; “I seem to be the guy for strong action women,’’ he told the New York Times in 1997 with an aw-shucks sort of shrug. ‘’A lot of writers are just terrible when it comes to writing female characters. They forget that they are people.’’ He often cited the influence of his strong, “hardcore feminist” mother, and even suggested that his protagonists served feminist ends in and of themselves: “If I can make teenage boys comfortable with a girl who takes charge of a situation without their knowing that’s what’s happening, it’s better than sitting down and selling them on feminism,” he told Time in 1997.

When he was honored by the organization Equality Now in 2006 for his “outstanding contribution to equality in film and television,” Whedon made his speech an extended riff on the fact that people just kept asking him about it, concluding with the ultimate answer: “Because you’re still asking me that question.” He presented strong women as a simple no-brainer, and he was seemingly always happy to say so, at a time when the entertainment business still seemed ruled by unapologetic misogynists. The internet of the mid-2010s only intensified Whedon’s anointment as a prototypical Hollywood ally, with reporters asking him things like how men could best support the feminist movement. 

Whedon’s response: “A guy who goes around saying ‘I’m a feminist’ usually has an agenda that is not feminist. A guy who behaves like one, who actually becomes involved in the movement, generally speaking, you can trust that. And it doesn’t just apply to the action that is activist. It applies to the way they treat the women they work with and they live with and they see on the street.” This remark takes on a great deal of irony in light of Carpenter’s statement.

In recent years, Whedon’s reputation as an ally began to wane. Partly, it was because of the work itself, which revealed more and more cracks as Buffy receded in the rearview mirror. Maybe it all started to sour with Dollhouse, a TV show that imagined Eliza Dushku as a young woman rented out to the rich and powerful, her mind wiped after every assignment, a concept that sat poorly with fans. (Though Whedon, while he was publicly unhappy with how the show had turned out after much push-and-pull with the corporate bosses at Fox, still argued the conceit was “the most pure feminist and empowering statement I’d ever made—somebody building themselves from nothing,” in a 2012 interview with Wired.)

After years of loud disappointment with the TV bosses at Fox on Firefly and Dollhouse, Whedon moved into big-budget Hollywood blockbusters. He helped birth the Marvel-dominated era of movies with his work as director of The Avengers. But his second Avengers movie, Age of Ultron, was heavily criticized for a moment in which Black Widow laid out her personal reproductive history for the Hulk, suggesting her sterilization somehow made her a “monster.” In June 2017, his un-filmed script for a Wonder Woman adaptation leaked, to widespread mockery. The script’s introduction of Diana was almost leering: “To say she is beautiful is almost to miss the point. She is elemental, as natural and wild as the luminous flora surrounding. Her dark hair waterfalls to her shoulders in soft arcs and curls. Her body is curvaceous, but taut as a drawn bow.”

But Whedon’s real fall from grace began in 2017, right before MeToo spurred a cultural reckoning. His ex-wife, Kai Cole, published a piece in The Wrap accusing him of cheating off and on throughout their relationship and calling him a hypocrite:

“Despite understanding, on some level, that what he was doing was wrong, he never conceded the hypocrisy of being out in the world preaching feminist ideals, while at the same time, taking away my right to make choices for my life and my body based on the truth. He deceived me for 15 years, so he could have everything he wanted. I believed, everyone believed, that he was one of the good guys, committed to fighting for women’s rights, committed to our marriage, and to the women he worked with. But I now see how he used his relationship with me as a shield, both during and after our marriage, so no one would question his relationships with other women or scrutinize his writing as anything other than feminist.”

But his reputation was just too strong; the accusation that he didn’t practice what he preached didn’t quite stick. A spokesperson for Whedon told the Wrap: “While this account includes inaccuracies and misrepresentations which can be harmful to their family, Joss is not commenting, out of concern for his children and out of respect for his ex-wife. Many minimized the essay on the basis that adultery doesn’t necessarily make you a bad feminist or erase a legacy. Whedon similarly seemed to shrug off Ray Fisher’s accusations of creating a toxic workplace; instead, Warner Media fired Fisher.

But Carpenter’s statement—which struck right at the heart of his Buffy-based legacy for progressivism—may finally change things. Even at the time, the plotline in which Charisma Carpenter was written off Angel—carrying a demon child that turned her into “Evil Cordelia,” ending the season in a coma, and quite simply never reappearing—was unpopular. Asked about what had happened in a 2009 panel at DragonCon, she said that “my relationship with Joss became strained,” continuing: “We all go through our stuff in general [behind the scenes], and I was going through my stuff, and then I became pregnant. And I guess in his mind, he had a different way of seeing the season go… in the fourth season.”

“I think Joss was, honestly, mad. I think he was mad at me and I say that in a loving way, which is—it’s a very complicated dynamic working for somebody for so many years, and expectations, and also being on a show for eight years, you gotta live your life. And sometimes living your life gets in the way of maybe the creator’s vision for the future. And that becomes conflict, and that was my experience.”

In her statement on Twitter, Carpenter alleged that after Whedon was informed of her pregnancy, he called her into a closed-door meeting and “asked me if I was ‘going to keep it,’ and manipulatively weaponized my womanhood and faith against me.” She added that “he proceeded to attack my character, mock my religious beliefs, accuse me of sabotaging the show, and then unceremoniously fired me following the season once I gave birth.” Carpenter said that he called her fat while she was four months pregnant and scheduled her to work at 1 a.m. while six months pregnant after her doctor had recommended shortening her hours, a move she describes as retaliatory. What Carpenter describes, in other words, is an absolutely textbook case of pregnancy discrimination in the workplace, the type of bullshit the feminist movement exists to fight—at the hands of the man who was for years lauded as a Hollywood feminist for his work on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.

Many of Carpenter’s colleagues from Buffy and Angel spoke out in support, including Buffy herself, Sarah Michelle Gellar. “While I am proud to have my name associated with Buffy Summers, I don’t want to be forever associated with the name Joss Whedon,” she said in a statement. Just shy of a decade after that 2013 speech, many of the cast members on the show that put him on that stage are cutting ties.

Whedon garnered a reputation as pop culture’s ultimate feminist man because Buffy did stand out so much, an oasis in a wasteland. But in 2021, the idea of a lone man being responsible for creating women’s stories—one who told the New York Times, “I seem to be the guy for strong action women”—seems like a relic. It’s depressing to consider how many years Hollywood’s first instinct for “strong action women” wasn’t a woman, and to think about what other people could have done with those resources. When Wonder Woman finally reached the screen, to great acclaim, it was with a woman as director.

Besides, Whedon didn’t make Buffy all by himself—many, many women contributed, from the actresses to the writers to the stunt workers, and his reputation grew so large it eclipsed their part in the show’s creation. Even as he preached feminism, Whedon benefitted from one of the oldest, most sexist stereotypes: the man who’s a benevolent, creative genius. And Buffy, too, overshadowed all the other contributors who redefined who could be a hero on television and in speculative fiction, from individual actors like Gillian Anderson to the determined, creative women who wrote science fiction and fantasy over the last several decades to—perhaps most of all—the fans who craved different, better stories. Buffy helped change what you could put on TV, but it didn’t create the desire to see a character like her. It was that desire, as much as Whedon himself, that gave Buffy the Vampire Slayer her power.

#Joss Whedon #Buffy The Vampire Slayer #Ray Fisher #Charisma Carpenter #Feminist

[polnareffenjoyer]

Uh unsure how many characters you’re willing to write for but can I have the SDC crew reacting to seeing their crush’s sketchbook filled with drawings and silly comics of them? On the case you do have a limit on how many, then I’m fine with either Polnareff, Kakoyin, Jotaro or Avdol (who can pick whoever if you want to!) Hope you’re having a lovely day!💕💕

This is such a cute idea anon, hope you like it. Also I don't really have a character limit, I wanted to do all of the crusaders but then I got tired and it already took me such a long time to finish it and ahhh. Sorry for all the grammatical errors, English is not my first language and it's already so late when I'm finishing it and it's just bleh. I hope you like it anyways, sending much love to you anon! ♥️

Stardust Crusaders finding their crushes' sketchbook

Jotaro Kujo

He notices that you've been spending most of your free time drawing in that sketchbook of yours. Truth be told, it bothers him a lot. Jotaro has had a big fat crush on you for a while now, and he secretly longs for your company. He can't admit that tho, he has a hard ass bad boy reputation to maintain after all. What would people say if the saw him all flustered for a girl? The fact that you would rather sit by yourself and draw than be around him and the others bugs him. So one day, when you're busy with something else, he takes your beloved sketchbook and decides to see what's in there. He knows he's being creepy, but he couldn't care less. Just trying to get to know you better, without actually talking to you. Exactly.

He's very flustered but would rather die than admit it. Has read through all of it, admiring every single little drawing. After he's done, he'll just put it back where he found it, it the exact same place just so you don't notice someone has been messing with it. You probably have no idea he had seen your sketchbook at first, but you surely notice the blush dusting his cheeks whenever he speaks to you from that day on. Probably avoids you for a little while because he's so flustered.

The rest of the crew also notices something is off, Jotaro is always lost in thoughts and smokes more frequently. He can't keep himself from thinking about those cute drawings of yours, reading through your comics was a true delight. It fills him with glee to know that HE, among all of the crusaders, is the one who's the main character in your stories. It makes him giddy on the inside.

His secret eventually comes to light one night, he accidentally admits to having read through your comics while a late night talk between the whole group. While you were talking, Kakyoin had brought up the topic of your sketchbook. Now it's your turn to be embarassed, blushing crimson while trying to get as much information out of him as possible. How much did he see? Did he read through ALL OF THEM?

The rest of the crusaders are shocked at first, but quickly they start to laugh at the scene. Jotaro is reluctant to give any information, but he eventually tells you that yes, indeed, he's seen EVERYTHING. However, doesn't admit what the content of the sketchbook really is. Despite everything, he would never embarass you like that.

After everyone goes to sleep, you catch Jotaro before he has a chance to fall asleep, lying on his sleeping bag while looking at the night sky. You want to apologize, say anything, just to talk to him, but you're unable to find right words. He just sighs.

"Yare yare daze, there's no need to be embarassed [Y/N], I'm not mad"

Your eyes light up at his words. You want to say something, anything, thank him, but before you get a chance to do so, Jotaro's deep voice cuts you off.

"To be honest, I think your drawings are amazing. I really liked them" you notice his face is slightly tinted red from underneath his cap "But if you wanted me to model for you, you could've just said so"

With that, he rolls over and away from you. Completely baboozled, you roll over as well and try to sleep, or at least pretend to be asleep. Honestly, neither of you had slept much that night.

Kakyoin Noriaki

Kakyoin had a thing for you since you joined the crusaders, and your sketchbook is probably the very first thing he had noticed about you. He's always been interested in art, his parents had signed him up to numerous art courses and whatnot through his life. He's always loved drawing and painting, using it as an escape from his daily problems, and seeing that you two might have something in common makes him incredibly happy, especially since he has feelings for you.

He'll try to approach you about your sketchbook very subtely, afraid that he might scare you away by being too pushy. Of course you get extremely flustered everytime he brings it up, but it doesn't discourage him. Kakyoin respects your boundaries and understands that you might not be ready to show him your drawings yet. Despite that, he's always willing to share his knowledge with you. He'll give you advices about proper shading while you two are waiting in the hotel lobby for the rest of the group to finish up picking rooms. During a long car ride, he'll talk to you about his favourite artists. If you want him to show you how to put certain shading techniques into practice, he'll be more than happy to do so. He'll just pick a random piece of paper and start drawing on it, you might want to lean in closer and maybe put your head on his shoulder to get a better look? He has no objections! Just sayin.

When he eventually gets to see your sketchbook, this man is so honored! He didn't mean to look, at first he though it was just some book lying around and wanted to take a look inside, out off boredom. Once he realizes what he's reading at, his face flushes with crimson. Your sketchbook is filled with sketches of him? This whole time you were actually drawing him, out of all people? He couldn't be more grateful that no one else was around, if someone saw him reading through your comics with this stupid smile on his face and red cheeks, they would've though he went mad.

Kakyoin wastes no time trying to find you. For a moment, he thinks that perhaps he should've waited a bit, just to get you alone and not embarass you infront of the whole crew. He can't think straight though, his mind filled with your cute little drawings, with his face drawn with black pen over and over again. With glee, he notes that you had used the very techniques he had told you about earlier. If you had drawn him so many times, does it mean that you have a crush on him too? It's too good to be true.

"[Y/N]! Can I talk with you for a minute?"

He goes to confront you immediately. Others give him a puzzled look, but he couldn't care less. He grabs your arms and leads you away.

"Don't be mad [Y/N], but I've seen your sketchbook and I have to say, I think your art is beyond amazing!"

You're at loss of words, your face red and you could swear that you've never felt so embarassed in your whole entire life. However, his reaction is making you feel a bit better. He's not mad, nor is he making fun of you. If anything, he seems enamoured.

"Please, [Y/N], we should draw together! Maybe next time we have a chance, I should paint your portrait?"

Despite the awkwardness, the whole situation turns out amazing in the end. How he's sure you must have feelings for him, and it makes him incredibly happy, hoping that one day, after your crusade is done, he'll get a chance to repay you and make that promised portrait.

Muhammad Avdol

With everything that's been happening lately, Avdol gets a little bit distracted from you. Before he would steal glances your way all the time, watching with curiosity as you would draw something in your sketchbook. Recently, he's been too busy fighting enemy stand users and... well, trying not to die. He still cares about you a lot and watches over you during fights, ready to shield you from danger with his own body, if it's what it takes to keep you safe.

It probably happens because of a mishap. While you are deciding on your rooming, you leave your sketchbook lying next to Avdol's things and go to the bathroom. After he's done helping Joseph with translating and getting everything done, he goes back and assumes that it's just one of his books that has fallen out of the bag. Not thinking much of it, he picks it up and leaves with Mrs Joestar to settle in their shared room.

You can imagine the panic and shock that nearly paralyzes you once you notice that your beloved sketchbook is gone, nowhere to be seen, reduced to atoms! You begin to look around frantically, looking under the furniture while sweating profusely. Other quests give you weird looks, but you don't even notice them staring. Polnareff is one of them, he asks if you're okay and tries to calm you down, but to no avail. After he leaves, you try to focus really hard and try to remember - when did you see it last time? It was on that chair for sure when you left. God, you can only pray that it doesn't end up in Avdol's hands somehow...

Meanwhile, Avdol is getting ready for shower and goes through his bag. He notices the book he picked up from the lobby isn't even a book, but a sketchbook! Now he's sure he must've picked it up by mistake, he decides it would be best to put it down and not look through it. It's someone's very personal art after all, it would be very disrespectful to - wait a damn minute, is that HIM?

Long story short, he goes through a good portion of your drawings before Joseph comes out of the shower and gives him a puzzled look, seeing how his eyes are literally shinning with adoration. He puts your sketchbook back into his bag, acting as if nothing happened and continues on with his nightly routine. Later on, when Joseph is already fast asleep, he contemplates about whether or not he should go to your room right now and ask about the sketchbook he had found. He's already suspecting it's yours, whose else would it be? He has seen you drawing often, could it be that you returned his feelings and had spent your time sketching him? Ultimately, he decides to wait until tomorrow to find out.

The very next day, he knocks on your door early in the morning. It startles you awake, running up to your door to look through a peephole, seeing a muscular man on the other side. Sighing heavily, you unlock the door and open it just a little bit.

"Excuse my intrusion, [Y/N], but I have found something that I think belongs to you."

Now that's embarassing. You see your sketchbook in his hand, a wide, knowing smile on his face. He knows it's yours. All it took is one look at your stupid red face to figure it out. God, he can read you like an open book, can't he? While you reach out to take it from him, your fingers touch just slightly.

"Don't worry, I swear I won't tell anyone about this" she winked at you, which almost made you gasp "If anything, I think I should maybe pose for you in private? So you can get a better look? You should think about it..."

Who would've thought this man could be such a flirt sometimes...

Jean Pierre Polnareff

You better watch out, because if this man has a crush on you, you bet he would go above and beyond to find out what's inside that sketchbook. I'm not joking. He forgets what personal space is, he's even worse that Jotaro, because while JoJo would make sure to be sneaky, Polnareff wouldn't even bother. He'll try to catch a sneak peak by looking over your shoulder while you're drawing, constantly asking you questions about art related things, everything always leading to your sketchbook.

He wants to know what's inside. Simple as that. You're like an enigma to him, I feel like all women are mysteries to him and he always works towards finding out what their secrets are. You are especially interesting to him, because of how secretive you are with your art. He's captivated, and while he never had any interest in arts himself, he had always fancied himself as a man with a great sense of beauty. That being said, he's always trying to get your attention while talking about how "France is a wonderful country for artists! You should come and visit after our crusade is over, [Y/N]! I'll show you all the greatest museums and art galleries!"

He's like a puppy, following you around and being just a bit too pushy. If you tell him you feel uncomfortable, he'll back off of course. He's not just some juvenile pervert after all! He's a honourable man who would never touch or bother a woman without her permission, no matter how desperate he seems sometimes.

When he finally sees your sketchbook, it's probably because he did it on purpose and not because of an accident. He wanted to make sure that it was him your were capturing in your drawing, and boy was he happy when he saw what's inside! It's all him, cute little sketches, little comics, it's better that he could've ever imagined! He's literally crying the tears of joy while reading them. Before it was all just wishful thinking, but now it turns out to be true! He's honoured, admiring every single little drawing with hit tears streaming down his face. He must look pathetic right now, if anyone was around they would think the was a mad man. He gets up and runs away with your sketchbook in his hand, trying to find you.

"[Y/N]! Ma cherie! Mon coeur! My love, my life! We need to talk!"

Did i mention that he doesn't shy away from nicknames? Yeah.

It's probably the worst confrontation compared to the rest of them, he's not subtle like Kakyoin and decides to talk with you about your drawings right then and there, in front of everyone. At first they're surprised, looking at Polnareff as is he was crazy, but slowly their shock is replaced with amusement. Joseph doesn't even try to hold back his laughter, while the rest of the crew is trying to keep it cool as not to embarass you any further while the Frenchman is just going on and on with his declarations of undying love. It's a bit dramatic, one of these moments that you will probably laugh about in the future, but you felt like disappearing right then and there.

"Your drawing are magnifique! [Y/N], my love, if you wanted to draw me, you could've just said so! Although I don't think I deserve to be potrayed by you, to be drawn by your skilled hands, ma cherie!"

You snatch the sketchbook from him. After that incident you probably try to avoid him, but he won't give up! He's more determined than ever, knowing that you feel the same way as he does fills him with hope, hope for a future life with you that is! He won't give up until he makes you the happiest woman on earth.

#jojo's bizarre adventure #jjba x reader #jjba x you #stardust crusaders #jotaro kujo #noriaki kakyoin #muhammad avdol #jean pierre polnareff #jotaro x reader #jjba imagines #stardust crusaders imagines #kakyoin imagine #polnareff x reader #avdol x reader #jjba headcanons #first request done!