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valenhell · 3 years

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From the studio that brought you “I can’t find good Byler fics in the ao3 tag”, comes:

"The Definitive Byler fic rec list"

Literally no one asked for this but because I spent the majority of last year (...and 2019, and 2018...) reading byler fics and coping with life, I thought I’d make a list of some of my absolute favorites.

The other day I was basically starving for some byler fics and the angel @magicalfairy provided me with some of her faves so I thought I’d do the same, because I love reading, and I love all of these fics and I appreciate their writers💗 And fic writers in general, come on!

- This is a mix of long works and one-shots/short stories. - Everything is mostly fluff with a tad of angst and a lot of internalized homophobia conflict. - Every fic is completed, except for the ones I mention that they are not. - I try my best to lay out the stories in a way that I won’t spoil you the plot but also warning you of some stuff you might don’t like. Either way, all of these fics are correctly tagged by their respective authors/owners, so read at your own risk. For better understanding, in between brackets I denote Rating, Words and quantity of Chapters. - I feel like I should clarify, none of these are narrated in the singular first person. None of that “And I told him...”, no.

Long fics

a dream always the same (T, 99k, 35 chapters) What happened in those few weeks between the Battle of Starcourt and the Byers leaving Hawkins. Literally a satisfying and very needed fill in of season three, with a good dose of Mike’s thoughts and conflict. Mike’s characterization is specially amazing in this one. The writing style is amazing and I know the author put everything into making it historically accurate, and it was really sweet. You probably read it, it’s by the amazing sevensided here on Tumblr🧡

Spring Break (T, 120k, 14/15 chapters) The slowburn of my dreams. Lots of internalized conflict and conflict with each other. Conflict within the Party (uhh kind of), conflict with Mike and Will. Byers family has moved and the kids are visiting! Chaos. Characterization is on point. Yeah, I know it’s unfinished, but the fourteenth chapter actually serves as a pretty nice ending.

This is where it starts (M, 148.8k, 24 chapters) Aged up characters. The Party is in college and Will disappears again, but now it’s different. Mike knows he didn’t vanish from thin air, and the discovery he and the Party end up making is pretty insane. Mystery solving/fantasy/third dimension, throw in a bit of D&D and Mike realizing some shit, and you get this marvelous fic. It’s a breath of fresh air. The world building is definitely one of the elements that stands out the most, because it’s very nicely described, it sounds like a dream and it’s completely immersive. Absolute gem of a fic.

there’s a Starman waiting in the sky (M, 30.6k, 8 chapters) Do I need to say anything? Will is out there living his best life and Mike realizes that wow, umm, maybe his best friend looks a bit too nice with that costume... and wait, is he getting horny? It’s actually really fun and sexy.

The Evening Speaks (T, 23k, 7 chapters) In where Mike is a late-night college radio host and Will is the art student that stays up till late to catch up with Wheeler on the Mic. They flirt through songs y’all, this one is really sweet.

heads or tails? (E, 24k, 3 chapters) Aged up characters. I know most people don’t enjoy sex in fics and with specific characters but this one is insanely well written. It’s a slowburn that commits to the tension and with every word you are grasping and anticipating their next move. I think you can find the author here on Tumblr as yousaidyes🧡

The Man of Average (M, 56.7k, 5/? chapters) Aged up characters. No but you don’t understand, the writing here is absolute gourmet. The story is exciting as well, it’s super interesting. Weirdly enough, for being very aged up characters, they are well characterized but they don’t feel like teenagers. They are naturally Mike and Will. The author really captured Mike and Will’s essence. I know, it’s unfinished and it’s updated very rarely, but this is the typical fic you can’t believe someone just posted on the internet for free. I will say though, I think it’s definitely not for everyone. Read at your own risk.

Heartstrings (E, 82.8k, 24/? chapters) Aged up characters. By the same author of The Man of Average. A collection of memories, the road to Mike and Will’s happy ever after. And fucking hell!!!!! You’ll cry and get angry, you’ll cheer for them, then you’ll want to crash their faces together because god dammit you love each other!!! But yeah, same thing here. The writing and the way the story is laid out as a nonlinear narrative is brilliant. And I also think this is one of the best Will versions I’ve read. The author might as well be the og creator of this two characters tbh. You can find the author here as mylesimeblr🧡

Sinners behind the walls (T, 1.5k, 1/1) And because I can’t stop recommending this author, a little thing of Mike tormenting himself but also being too deeply committed to Will.

The Red Envelope series (T/E, 167K, two completed works) Something happens that Will thought was impossible and from there, pure drama and romance. Anything by this author has the potential to become your absolute favorite fic, but this series in particular is amazing. I doubt that any of you haven’t read this, but it doesn’t hurt to put it in this list. I’m pretty sure the author is serendipitous-magic on Tumblr🧡

A New Fight series (T, 91k, two completed works, one WIP) And finally the Star Wars AU that we all needed. But this isn’t your typical “Mike is Han”, “Will is Leia” and “El is Luke”, it’s way more interesting than that, and the author has appropriated the Star Wars world like no other. I’ll admit I’m not a 100% fluent in SW lore but this is amazing to me either way. This author is also on Tumblr, tea-for-one-please🧡

- Yes, most of these are (if not all), in a way, canon compliant/canonverse/canon continuation into fanon. (In a way)

One-shots and short stories

Sundae for Two, Please (G, 4.8k) Steve being the supportive friend and older brother these kids collectively need. (not Jonathan erasure, we love him). Steve is very sweet himself, and this little cute thing through his POV is gorgeous. Yes, it’s byler.

Backstage (T, 10k, 2/2) Jonathan, you forgot to mention to Will how hot your new band’s guitarist is, dude. Now he’s hyperventilating and weirdly flirting with him in the corner. Background Stonathan because why not.

102 Peach Street (G, 3.8k) Established relationship, but not only that, they are married :’’))) PURE fluff. Extreme fluffiness. Diabetes.

sweatshirts and bottled up feelings (T, 3.2k) Or, Mike thinks that the sweatshirt Will wears looks insanely good on him. And kitchens are for lovers.

kiss it better (T, 16.3k) Basically one of the best character studies of a few precise moments of Mike and Will’s relationship and feelings.

will wonders ever cease (T, 11.3k) #i ship will and happiness. Omfg what a beautiful piece of fanfic. Will centric, this kid really deserves all the good in the world.

The Calm After the Storm (T, 1.6k) Tooth rotting fluff, boyfriends in love. Boyfriends being lazy, cuddling, love words, kisses. Boys loving each other’s company... Basically, Mike and Will in their element. What more can you ask for?

neither of us ready to let go (T, 4.8k) That scene from season three, but a bit of a fix it.

Still in love (G, 1k) Domestic, married life au fluff. Y’all, I’m a sucker for established Byler, even if I can’t find many fics with it. But this is very sweet. It takes place in 2020, but I don’t think there are any mentions of the COVID-19 crisis that I remember.

I Nver Find Out ‘Til I’m Head Over Heels (G, 12.5K) Classic 5+1 fic. If you haven’t read it, where have you been? This is your moment. In where Mike keeps inviting Will to the school dances and Will thinks it’s just a joke until he realizes it’s not.

Before You’re Gone (T, 5.9k) Will is leaving Hawkins and Mike thinks this is a great moment for a confession. This one I discovered last friday, thank you friend @magicalfairy 💗

You’re weird Wheeler (M, 4.5k) Mike unintentionally starts a tradition of going to each other to talk about their sexual encounters just after they finish. Will keeps getting more explicit with the details he shares, and he makes his best friend interested. This one is really fun y’all.

Out-Of-Town Friends (N/R, 4.6K) It’s not rated. I haven’t re- read it but I’d say it would probably fall in a T rating. So cute!! Will has new friends and sneaks off every friday and the Party doesn’t know where he is going, so Mike decides to follow him and is surprised.

Snowed Under (G, 1.3k) By the same author of The New Fight series. Mike is spending christmas by himself in college because a snowstorm hits Chicago and Nancy can’t drive to see him, but then he has a surprise visitor. Ahhh just a lil sweet holiday fic. Super cute.

you love me anyway series (T, 7.1k, three completed works) Literally just the cutest thing ever. Established Byler. Will loves to take pictures and he loves taking pictures of Mike. It’s adorable.

you wanna be friends forever (i can think of something better) (T, 9k) This one is so amazing. So. Amazing. From Will’s POV, my kid deserves the world and he gets it.

okay not to be okay (T, 4.9k) Mike is a bit sad but then everything is okay.

can’t hold out forever (G, 18.4k) Y’all!!!!! 5+1 sweetness. Mike has been falling in love since kindergarten. And it’s long af, you’ll enjoy it.

even if it takes forever (G, 1.3k) College short AU, they miss each other, they love each other, they promise all to each other. It is sappy y’all.

clear as day (N/R, 18.4K, 4 chapters) It’s not rated, but I’d say it falls in the T category. Strangers to friends to lovers. And also, everyone is pretty gay; we have our dynamic trio Mike, Max and El as disaster lesbians (and gay). Will works at the library and he is also gay. Lucas and Dustin and Will are the best friends we needed. It’s very sweet and the Party is kind of formed here!

I went overboard with the one-shots, so you must have realized how much I love long one-shots and I favor them over long works lmao but they are all amazing!!! If it’s on this list, I probably read it at 2 am, sobbing in my bed. So. Hope you enjoy it☺️🧡

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howaboutalittlehelpneos · 3 years

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What are everyone’s teams in your Pokemon au? Do you have a plot set out or is it a more causal au?

Oooooh this is a fun one

You'd better fucking BELIEVE we have a plot set up, I have poured so much effort into the Pokemon au

Okay, so: when it comes to teams, I decided that everyone should have at least one legendary Pokemon in their party as a way to be faithful to the ace monster concept, but it wasn’t until much later into the au that I realized I’d failed to do that with Sora’s team, which led to a very fun plot point involving his secret 7th Pokemon he keeps in his box

Teams under the cut because it’s gonna be a long one, boys

Yuya has: Groudon, Sandshrew, Popplio, Hippopotas, Aipom, and Ekans

In his box, he’s got Phanphy, Charmander, Politoad, Ducklett, Liepard, Skorupi, and Lycanroc (Midnight form)

I wanted him to have as many Pokemon as he could that reminded me of the monsters in his deck, and since Yuya is a coordinator in this au instead of a regular trainer, it just felt right that he’d have a lot of different partners he could swap out for various contests

Also I’m mad that there isn’t a legendary dragon that looks like Odd Eyes, so I had to give Yuya Groudon instead, making him the only Yu boy in this au to not have a legendary dragon type Pokemon

Yuto has: Eternatus, Bisharp, Aegislash, Aggron, Lucario, and Shadow Rider Calyrex

Okay listen, I know I was supposed to only give everyone One legendary Pokemon, but with Calyrex I feel justified because it looks So Much like it could be one of Yuto’s Phantom Knights, I mean

Just look at it

Yuto gets to have two legendaries to make up for Arc-V killing him off so early into the show

Aside from this guy, the rest of Yuto’s team just felt like it should be comprised of steel types ow the edge so that’s what I gave him. His Pokemon are as edgy as he tries to appear to be and that is enough to amuse me.

There also weren’t exactly many good Pokemon equivalents of his archetype, so I made do with what I had.

Yugo has: Latios, Scizor, Claydol, Porygon 2, Ponyta (Shiny), and Sudowoodo

Yugo was honestly so hard to come up with a team for because all his Speedroid cards are just like... toys and stuff for the most part, so I agonized over what I should pick for him for a Long time. In the end, I feel like I got close enough to his general aesthetic with the Pokemon I picked.

(His Ponyta is there because of Speedroid Horse Stilts, and while it is a shiny, the dumbass has no idea about it, and thinks he just happened to get a special blue horse that was born a little differently- he never claimed to be smart.)

He also deadass thought Sudowoodo was a grass type for the longest time. Rin had to be the one to tell him it wasn’t.

“Yugo. Sudowoodo? It sounds like pseudo? As in fake wood?”

“Ohhhhh is that what its name means? Wow Rin you’re so smart.”

No Yugo you’re just exceptionally stupid.

Yuri has: Naganadel, Seviper, Victreebel, Toxicroak, Vileplume, and Roserade

For the most toxic of battlers, I felt it only necessary to give Yuri an all poison type team. I included an even mix of plants in there to tie into his Predaplant deck, Seviper for the snake eye vibes, and Toxicroak... just feels right, you know. I couldn’t find any other poison plant themed Pokemon that seemed like they’d fit his vibe, so he gets a poison frog instead.

Yuzu has: Meloetta, Sylveon, Meowstic (Female), Gardevoir, Florges, and Jigglypuff

I tried to stick with Pokemon that had very feminine vibes for Yuzu, since her deck is comprised of pretty singing ladies, so Meloetta and Jigglypuff in particular feel very fitting in that regard.

Serena has: Cresselia, Delcatty, Glameow, Lopunny, Persian, and Pyroar (Female)

The moon vibes with Cresselia felt perfect for Serena, and as for the rest of her team, all cats and a bunny to pay homage to her Lunalight deck ^^

Rin has: Celesteela, Mismagius, Hatterene, Glaceon, Froslass, and Chimecho

Her team vibes with the witch part of her Wind Witch deck, at least for Mismagius and Hatterene. Glaceon, Froslass, and Chimecho are there due to the etymology of her name, where possible meanings of it include “cold” and “bell”, which I thought was pretty cool, no pun intended.

Ruri has: Galarian Articuno, Pidgeot, Noctowl, Chatot, Altaria, and Unfezant (Male)

Some softer birds for the soft bird girl, for the most part. I liked the thought of her team being all birds like her Lyriluscs, and just... yeah. They’re all very friendly birds that Ruri’s bonded pretty closely with. Also I made sure she had Galarian Articuno for no reason other than it is purple like her, and I think that’s all the reason I need.

Gong has: Kartana, Machoke, Samurott, Golisopod, Hariyama, and Conkeldurr

Gong was really easy to assign a team to- just had to find as many samurai themed Pokemon as possible, and fill in the rest with really strong fighting types, like Machoke, Hariyama, and Conkeldurr.

Shingo has: Type: Null, Dusclops, Misdreavus, Spiritomb, Decidueye, and Cramorant

With Shingo, I tried to go for Pokemon that had the same vibes as some of his Abyss Actors, and I think Dusclops is the best example of this. Tbh I am very proud of giving him a Type: Null because Type: Null is an amalgamation of other Pokemon, something that was created in a lab to be a fighting machine. There’s nothing natural about Type: Null, and it’s kind of terrifying to Yuya specifically, who’s always viewed Pokemon as creatures to befriend. This experiment created purely to kill... unnerves him, and serves as a very good foil to his beliefs when it comes to Pokemon.

And they were narrative foils

Oh my god they were narrative foils

On a sillier note, I chose Cramorant purely because of this quote from its bulbapedia page: “Cramorant are also rather unintelligent as they can't remember which Pokémon they fight in mid battle, but never forget Trainers that they trust. However, they try to attack their Trainers if they steal food from them.”

I just thought the idea of Shingo having this dumb bird that occasionally pecks at him over food would be funny tbh, gotta dunk on the rival at least a little bit.

Sora has: Banette, Vanillish, Swirlix, Stufful, Litleo, and Buneary

In his box, he has a Guzzlord

I feel like Sora’s team is very straightforward, as it’s a mix of sweets themed Pokemon, and Pokemon that represent monsters in his deck- Stufful for Flufflal Bear, Litleo for Fluffal Leo, and Buneary for Fluffal Rabbit. Guzzlord... is relevant later on in the plot after shit goes down, that’s all I’ll say for now.

Masumi has: Diancie, Sableye, Corsola, Aurorus, Tyranitar, and Lycanroc (Dusk form)

Gem Knight girl deserved to have a bunch of good rock type Pokemon, and Diancie is like. The best possible legendary I could have given someone like her lol, the crystal aesthetic is just perfect for her. Not much to say here honestly, I just really vibed with these specific rock types and thought they’d make a good team for her.

Yaiba has: Zeraora, Kecleon, Pangoro, Scyther, Purugly, and Stantler

So I actually threw this list together just now because I realized Masumi was the only member of her trio to have a full team, and that just wasn’t right. I tried to base this team off the XX-Sabers as well I could, but it was a little hard with how many humanoid cards Yaiba has. With his legendary, I actually chose it based off this monster right here!

I think they’ve got similar enough vibes aesthetically for Zeraora to fit him. Scyther is based on Emmersblade, Kecleon on Ragigura, Stantler on Garsem, Purugly on Gardestrike, and Pangoro... Honestly, it just makes me think of Yaiba himself when I look at him. I think they’d get along well.

Hokuto has: Deoxys, Espeon, Grumpig, Starmie, Lunatone, and Malamar

Psychic type Pokemon just sort of felt right for him to have, considering that his deck is based on constellations and has an overall space theme to it. Not sure why that translates over to psychic in my brain, but you know what, it looks right, I love this team for him, and I’m not gonna question it.

I especially think Deoxys makes a good legendary for him considering it is literally a space alien, and Hokuto’s whole thing is space, so yeah, he gets to have the space alien.

Shun has: Galarian Moltres, Skarmory, Fearow, Dodrio, Staraptor, and Talonflame

Pretty straightforward team I feel- it’s all birds of prey for the Raid Raptor boy, and I just thought the Galarian version of Moltres was neat. Makes me think of his Blaze Falcon since they’re both black and red.

Dennis has: Hoopa, Mr. Mime, Delphox, Zoroark, Alakazam, and Hawlucha

Hoopa seemed like a very good legendary for Dennis to have, given his deck archetype and all, he just kind of looks like a little circus dude. Its unbound form makes me think about the swap Dennis has when it gets revealed that he’s actually been a double agent the whole time, and the play gloves finally come off.

The rest of his team... I feel like they speak for themselves. I tried to give him Pokemon that matched up with his deck archetype, so there’s Delphox to rep the fire themed monsters, Mr. Mime because it just fits Dennis’ general personality- and I love the thought of those two being friends and just copying each other’s theatric poses. Chaotic dynamic duo.

(Also: Zoroark's ability letting it disguise itself as another Pokemon is just another parallel to Dennis pretending to be one of the good guys at first, and I love it)

Shinji has: Buzzwole, Beedrill, Vespiquen, Ribombee, Kricketune, and Leavanny

I tried to give the bee man all the bees I could, but there are only so many bee Pokemon out there 😔 I knew the rest of his team had to be insect types to make up for it, so I picked Kricketune because he is just... a friend... a musical buddy who definitely gets along well with the kids. Leavanny is just a bug mom who also helps patch up the kids’ clothing when they get tears in them, which I just love the idea of. Sweet bug mom whose dex entry talks about how they sew for other Pokemon looks after her trainer’s kids when she’s not battling.

Buzzwole: witness the fitness

Throwback to the Smash Bros mains lmao

Crow has: Murkrow, Braviary, Starly, Swellow, Pikipek, and Corviknight

Bunch of birds for my Blackwing user... This team was partially picked out by June, and it was mostly meant for the Other Pokemon au, but I don’t really see a reason to change his team here. Crow is the one person without a legendary on his team, which makes me sad, but there really isn’t a legendary bird out there that fits his vibes, so as much as I wanna give him a legendary, he will have to make do without one. Sorry Crow.

Hoo... that’s finally all the teams down. Now I can talk about the plot! So, as I briefly mentioned in a previous post (I think), this particular au is inspired by Pokemon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum! It’s the era where contests really became a big thing, which is perfect for a lot of these characters because it’s easy to translate dueltaining over to coordinating in this world. Much like in canon, Yuya aspires to be as great a coordinator as his dad was, and strives to entertain people the way Yusho could. He’s not much for battling, and far prefers getting to show off his Pokemon’s talents in contests than anything.

Academia is going to play the role of Team Galactic in this au, which is incredibly fitting with their mission in canon: to remake the universe in their leader’s image. In this case, with Leo Akaba taking on the role of Cyrus, his intent is, presumably, to either destroy the universe that took his daughter from him, or create a new one where she can live once again, no matter the cost.

Sora being a key member in Team Galactic is a very big part of the plot in this au: his mission was to capture one of the lake legendaries, Uxie, since Leo needed all three of them for his plan to remake the universe, but things don’t exactly go well for him, and he ends up losing his battle against Uxie, resulting in all of his memories being locked away, and essentially making him a blank slate.

Side note: the Galactic grunt haircut reminds me a lot of Sora, I mean just look at it

Practically same bangs as him, just add an upturned ponytail and you’ve got my son.

This post is getting very long... but I will add one last plot related thing to it before I go: Uxie can erase memories, Mesprit can erase emotions, and Azelf can erase willpower. All three of these lake legendaries play a very important role in the plot, due to being the keys to Leo Akaba’s plans to remake the universe. Sora was touched by Uxie, effectively doing away with all memory he has of being in Team Galactic. Yuya ends up touched by Mesprit in an attempt to save them, and subsequently loses his emotions as a result. Riley?

Riley had been affected by all three of them before the plot began, which is why she is the way she’d been in Arc-V: Emotionless, unable to remember anything about her past except for those brief, fleeting flashes of memory when put into certain situations she’d experienced before, and without any will of her own. She’s so dependent on her older brother because she quite literally has no clue what to do with herself without being told to, and needs orders to function.

Hoo, if you’ve made it all the way to the end of the post, congratulations! I think this is the longest one I’ve made... ever lmao. I hope you guys found it enjoyable! If anyone wants to know more about certain aspects of this au, feel free to ask! I look forward to talking about it more c:

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nat-20s · 3 years

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MEDIA THAT I RECOMMEND YOU CONSUME INSTEAD OF SUPERNATURAL FOR BOTH HEART AND HEALTH BROKEN DOWN BY TYPE OF MEDIA AND WHY YOU MIGHT LIKE IT IF AT ANY POINT YOU, LIKE MY POOR POOR SEVENTEEN YEAR OLD SELF, WERE INVESTED IN THIS ABSOLUTE GARBAGE FIRE OF A SHOW

with apologies to anyone on mobile who’s readmore function APPARENTLY doesn’t work

(I haven’t watched supernatural for at least five years and, given any sort of luck, I will never do so again, do not @ me)

hello babes. I am talking to you know bc I keep seeing supernatural, unironically, on my dash, and I think we can all do better. I see what’s happening and I think: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hU3i_o5Xd4g

Supernatural is fudge stripes. You are Megan. We can fix this.

So a list of alternate things that I think are overall better written/characterized/just generally more enjoyable that might scratch some of those itches:

TV SHOWS

Good Omens

okay look if u were on tumblr last year u probably already watched this show but like. If u haven’t, it’s only six episodes babe and there’s a large enough fandom that u can go down a fanart hole for days on end

Basic summary: the antichrist has reached that lovely young age where he’s supposed to bring about the apocalypse. An angel and a demon who have decided that actually they like the world as is, thank you very much, try to stop the end times. They’re not very good at it though, which makes for a comedy of errors.

Shared elements with supernatural that you might Vibe with: theologic (mostly christian) exploration/parody/imagery without inherently being a religious show. Fighting off the apocalypse narrative, which I think pretty much always goes hard as hell, but that’s just me. There’s a gay angel who’s socially awkward. There’s a fun very British demon. Touches on the hierarchies of heaven and hell, with framing Heaven as a bureaucracy and blurs the differences between angels and demons. Pining. Tenderness. A deep nostalgia for 80s music, though in this case it’s specifically queen, and who doesn’t love queen. Main character has a weirdly strong bond with his black vintage car. Satan is (sort of) fought.

Gravity Falls

sometimes...things that are kids shows...with a set story and a predetermined ending...are better

(also this isn’t relevant to any of what I’m talking about but I really appreciate that Gravity Falls specifically went against the thing that most begged me about ATLA aka that a 15 year old girl would be like yeah I’m into a 12 year old boy because the 12 year old boy has a crush on me and I apparently don’t get to really have a say in this. How does that make sense.)

Basic Summary: Twelve year old twins Dipper and Mabel go to stay with their Grunkle Stan for the summer in a small Oregon town called Gravity Falls. Turns out this town is filled with all sorts of strange phenomena that they often have to confront, work around, learn about, or befriend!

Shared elements with supernatural that you might Vibe with: The core focus of the show is a close sibling duo, but like It’s obvious that the siblings actually like and love each other and while they have their spats it’s still incredibly clear that they deeply care about each other even with their differences LIKE SORRY SUPERNATURAL YOU CAN’T JUST TELL ME THAT SIBLINGS CARE ABOUT EACH OTHER AND THEN THEY SPEND ALL THEIR TIME FIGHTING AND LYING TO EACH OTHER AND GENERALLY ACTING LIKE THEY CAN’T STAND EACH OTHER’S COMPANY BUT THEN OOOHHH YOU CRY ON TOP OF THE HOOD OF A CAR EVERY THREE EPISODE AND SUDDENLY THEY’RE SOULMATES OR WHATEVER

Anyway. Yeah. GF has a solid sibling dynamic. Monster of the week that builds up to greater over-arching plot. A little bit of body horror, you know, for humor. Fair amount of meta humor playing with the tropes of the genre. A Good Ol Big Bad that tries to pit the siblings against each other. Have to fight the apocalypse (you’ll see this point on like a good half of these recs, I really like ‘what are we gonna do about Armageddon’ media). Interesting creature design. Planned, satisfying ending (which supernatural absolutely does not have, but I still think if it had ended with the season 5 finale like it uhh pretty obviously was supposed to, that would sort of counted. Don’t revive shows that have clearly already told their stories kids.) Tie in media that gives you some fun extra stories when you miss the characters. (yes I read some of the supernatural novels when I was a c h i l d, yes I’m pretty sure there’s one or two of them still buried somewhere on my laptop, no I don’t wanna talk about it.) Older father figure (?) who owns a tbh kind of shitty shop. Both already in place and found family.

It’s a good show, and it’s two seasons. John Mulaney Voice: I dunno it’s 40 episodes

MINI REC ALERT! (mini recs are basically things that I’m not gonna go into detail about for whatever reason [probably either due to i’m not familiar enough with it OR I just don’t like. Have a bunch to say about it in regards to how it will scratch the itches presented to u by spn] but still seem like a Good Watch)

Mini Rec: Over The Garden Wall. Spooky Kids Media! Episodic! Miniseries so you can watch it in like 2 hours! Cool ass Animation! About two brothers encountering said spooky stuff! Big Bad tries to pit brothers against each other! Might haunt you for the rest of your life! Check it out!

The Haunting of Bly Manor

I think about this show every goddamn day of my life. (Also not relevant but Greg Sestero makes a brief cameo in it and I was like hi greg my friend greg!)

Basic Summary: An girl named Dani, while staying in London, decides to take on an Au Pair job for two young children, an older brother named Miles (age 10) and the younger sister Flora (age 8) at the spoooooky and mysteeerious Bly Manor, and she gets far more than she bargained for.

Shared elements with supernatural that you might Vibe with: Okay so supernatural doesn’t actually do this but I know I KNOW why we let ourselves be queerbaited in 2012. Four words for you: CENTRAL! GAY! TRAGIC! ROMANCE! You want some pining? Some tenderness? Some LOVE? Some dealing with internalized homophobia but no, like, actual violent onscreen homophobia? HAVE I GOT THE SHOW FOR YOU. If ur favorite episodes where the ones that make you sob (for me it was kevin’s death on god), I recommend this show. If you wished that supernatural literally ever had consequences or perma deaths or didn’t retcon major plot events like every five goddamn episodes so that there could be some exploration of like grief and trauma through the lens of/ higher stakes of horror, I recommend this show. If you really do stay up at night picturing a supernatural that wasn’t made by dumbass cishettie white men hack writers but was actually allowed to have Dean and Cas be in love over the course of the show so they could have like actual development and not the most homophobic gay reveal of all time, I recommend this show. Hell, if you just want a banger ghost story in general, I recommend this show.

As for what they actually have in common: horror setting/aesthetic without actually being all that scary most of the time. A strong sibling duo, though they’re not nearly as much of the focus of Bly Manor. Found family. Strong themes of grief. Questions of what turns someone into a monster (and done much better) An actual, much better noble sacrifice done out of love. Escalation of stakes until there’s a big final confrontation. Semi-big bad trying to tear this family apart. Found and pre-installed family. Sad orphans.

Watch this show. Vibe with me. Cry with me. Yell at me about Owen Sharma

MINI REC ALERT!

Haunting of Hill House- spiritual predecessor to Haunting of Bly Manor, though they’re not actually the same universe/story. However, it’s made by the same dude and has a shared aesthetic/sensibilities/some of the cast. This is only a mini rec bc I haven’t actually seen it, but I’ve heard good things and that it, while much more heavily leaning into family dynamics, has similar themes of exploring Grief and Trauma through ghooossstttsss.

Community

Okay I know that this may seem like a Wild rec considering community is a school sitcom with basically Zero paranormal elements but just like. Hear me out. And no this isn’t just because I think it’s a realy good show and I want more people to watch it, though that is a factor. If I was just recommending comedies that I think are good and more people should watch regardless of them serving as a replacement for supernatural I would demand you all go watch Galavant and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. I’m gonna demand it anyway. Everyone go watch Galavant and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Now back to your original program:

Basic Summary: A group of students at Greendale Community College form a Spanish study group, and things quickly go Off The Fucking Rails in the best way possible.

Shared elements with supernatural that you might Vibe with: All right I’m gonna be real honest this rec is for all of my (correct) bitches who’s favorite episodes of Supernatural were French Mistake, Changing Channels, and/or Mystery Spot. You think if Supernatural would’ve been fucking fantastic if it had been a committed comedy instead of a CW melodrama that occasionally landed some admittedly really fucking funny episodes/concepts, Community (and the movies on this list) will gently take you into its loving arms and give you everything you desire. It’s about the Meta comedy. It’s about the discussion, exploration, and subversion of common tropes within the format. It’s about the grand use of group/ found family dynamics in order to max both the goofs and the heart. It’s about fantastic callbacks. It’s about having one of the few “asshole with a heart of gold” leads I can actually stand because. You know. Growth. It’s about the INCREDIBLE genre and pop culture parody. Which genre do they parody, you ask. All of them. They parody all the genres. The glee parody episode is a fucking masterpiece of television. If you don’t want to watch a show that features a Halloween party where everyone turns into zombies and the ABBA discography blasts in the background, you can stop reading right now, because I can guarantee you won’t be interested in a damn thing I have to say.

MINI REC ALERT: The X-Files. I’ve also never seen this but a: everything I’ve seen out of context has been fantastically weird and delightful b: it appears that there’s a general consensus that Scully and Mulder are one of the only valid straight couples so it’s probably pretty fun and c: let’s all be honest. Supernatural was already basically an x-files rip off, it had like half of their original writers swiped from the x-files crew, I’m pretty sure if you liked especially the first couple of seasons of supernatural, you’re gonna like the X-files.

Subcategory: TV SHOWS ( A WHOLE TWO OF ‘EM, OR MORE LIKE ONE AND HALF IF YOU WANNA GET TECHNICAL) I’M SPECIFICALLY RECOMMENDING FOR THAT COCAINE HIT OF PURE UNADULTERATED UNCUT 2012 TUMBLR NOSTALGIA

BBC Merlin

Yes, I know the show ended in 2010. Yes, it still provides that 2012 Tumblr nostalgia. 2012 Tumblr is a feeling, not an actual time period.

I love this stupid show. I plan on rewatching it all over the month of January. I harbor a deep amount of fondness for it. It’s why every time I see literally any depiction of Merlin I get just so fucking excited, and why I’ve consumed as many ridiculous Arthurian adaptations as I have (side note: my two favorite other ridiculous Arthurian legend adaptation are Avalon High, a DEEPLY silly DCOM that is required viewing to level up friendship with me, and The Kid Who Would Be King, which is the only movie that I think truly understands the comedic potential of playing a King Arthur Adaptation mostly straight but everyone in it is 12. I’m not sure it intended to be as fucking funny as it was, but again, they’re all middle schoolers. I have never been more jealous of an actor than I was of the 22 year old that got to play a 16 year old dumbass Merlin who was sometimes also Patrick Stewart and did all of his magic with ridiculous hand gestures That should’ve been me that should’ve been me that should’ve been me. Also Sword in the Stone by TH White is pretty good, because Merlin knows germ theory in the fantasy 400’s and he just uses it to be petty mostly. Also listen to High Noon Over Camelot by The Mechanisms. Also Also I tend to prefer family friendly adaptations because they don’t have the uhhh. You know. Incest and sexual violence of the original legend. Love to Not have that shit!) Whether you watched it initially and are due for a rewatch, or you’re intrigued enough by the concept of the show to watch it for the first time, you should join me on this wild wild ride.

Basic Summary: You know who Guinevere, Arthur, and Merlin are, come on. BBC said let’s make em all YOUNG let’s make em SEXY let’s make em FAMILY FRIENDLY and let’s make magic REALLY SEEM LIKE A THINLY VEILED ALLEGORY FOR BEING GAY BUT TO THIS DAY IM NOT SURE IF THAT WAS INTENTIONAL OR NOT BUT IT SURE SEEMS LIKE IT WAS. @ THE BBC MERLIN CREATORS WHAT IS THE TRUTH BECAUSE THERE WAS SOME INTERVI-

Basic Summary but like a bit more helpful: A BABY version of Merlin (and by baby I mean like 20 year old.) is sent from his small town to the big city the Kingdom of Camelot to find his destiny. Staying with the town physician and friend of his mom’s, Gaius, he ends up as both his assistant and personal manservant to Prince Arthur. But in a kingdom where magic is punished with death and the prince seems hell bent on getting himself into situations that are going to kill him, the young sorcerer has his more than his share of work cut out for him.

Shared elements with supernatural that you might Vibe with: Primo supremo queerbaiting. Like, yeah, okay, it’s queerbaiting, you know it’s queerbaiting, but you watch some of the scenes and ur like okay. I know why I let this bait me. Obviously with a modern show, I would expect more, I would expect better, I would raise my standards, but I gotta admit. Some of these scenes are fuckin compelling as hell, and the subtext is like barely sub. Monster of the week shenanigans. Some awful CGI creatures but like a charming awful. Like the kind of awful that tells you their very limited budget was more focused on cool swords than realistic creatures. Episodic stories build into a more overarching plot, with things getting darker in season 4/5. Shitty father that end up eating shit and while the son of said father is rightfully conflicted and upset over the death it’s cathartic and victorious as all hell for the audience. Multiple hot evil women, and I love hot evil women. There’s also nice hot women, which is a bonus. These women don’t all immediately stupidly die, so that’s a nice change. Also like a LOT of sarcastic humor and shenanigans if u like Sass Merlin is there for u personally name a more iconic line than “Oh I’m sorry, how long have you been training to be a prat, my lord?” AND THAT’S IN THE FIRST FUCKIN EPISODE brilliant amazing fantastic show stopping. Also you know those like dumb hijink episodes where like Dean was possessed by the spirit of a dog or some shit? You bet your bottom fuckin dollar BBC Merlin has those kinds of storylines. Also I know some people go to spn bc it had that HUGE fanbase and like BBC Merlin’s fanbase is still SURPRISINGLY poppin even though it’s been a decade since there was new content so like. Have fun!

Doctor Who but Specifically the RTD Era

Look I’m not here to say that the first four seasons of reboot doctor who are the only good doctor who or inherently better than all the rest (though the RTD era is my favorite personally) BUT when ur seekin that sweet sweet superwholock frenzy nostalgia, this is the ‘who’ that is being referred to. Also like. Stan 9. We should all collectively stan the ninth doctor. Chris Eccleston, the Objectively Best Famous Chris, deserved better.

Basic Summary: An immortal alien that goes by “The Doctor” travels across time and space with a variety of different companions, often to try and save the day or fix a (sometimes self created) mess. It’s distilled campy sci-fi with a family friendly tone that has made me cry on several occasions.

Shared elements with supernatural that you might Vibe with: Monster of the week that, you guessed it, builds into bigger overarching plot style narrative. Fighting off the apocalypse, but like every couple of weeks because worlds are in danger a LOT. A semi-tragic romance that made people go absolutely buck fuckin wild bc pining n shit. Wamen, but they aren’t fridged. (actually for real though none of the main women die and I just think that’s really fun and flirty even though I could go on a COMPLETELY SEPARATE rant about the injustice of one of the character’s ending YES season 4 is my favorite season and one of my favorite pieces of media ever and I am currently actively recommending it to you YES im still fucking pissed over how it ended YES we exist) Specifically, a Wonderful and Very Excellent woman named Donna who goes on a spa trip that doesn’t end up going very well. That seems like a highly specific example, and it is, but it did happen in both shows. (Also, to anyone that continued watching SPN after like idk season 9 what happened to Donna? I always liked her and I know she became a recurring character so like DM whatever probably injustice was the end of her story line pls and thank you) I’m also extra specifically recommending for Supernatural Fans and also The World At Large: Season Four of Reboot Who. I rewatched it last year and it still goes so fucking hard. Donna Noble is the best character in existence. In regards to the appeal for SPN, personally I think the best part of SPN was when people who are soulmates went on adventures and tried to save the day and it was a good mix of banter and sincerity AND GUESS WHAT’S BASICALLY THE ENTIRETY OF SEASON 4 OF DOCTOR WHO. It’s so good y’all I wish Everything was about soulmates going on adventures and trying to save the day.

OKAY TV SHOWS DONE TIME FOR M O V I E S which I don’t have nearly as many recs for but uhh here goes

What We Do In The Shadows/ Shaun of the Dead

I’m lumping these two together bc my reasons for recommending them are largely the same, and I would call them tonally similar enough that if you like one you’ll probably like the other

Basic Summary (Shaun of The Dead): Uh-oh! London’s had a break out of some of that good ol’ zombieism. Shaun and friends decide to hunker down in a local bar, but they have to get there first. Will they survive? Will they fuck up some zom zoms? Who’s to say?

Basic Summary (What We Do In The Shadows): Some vampire roommates dick around. I think there’s technically, like, a plot, but it’s really just about some vampires Doin Their Thing. Vibin.

Shared elements with supernatural that you might Vibe with: This is kind of similar to the Community recommendation, in that supernatural had the opportunity to be one of those things that was both a parody of a genre but also just a really good example of the genre. WWDITS and SotD are both those things for vampire and zombly movies, respectively. Have the aesthetic and some of the themes of a horror but is not actually all that scary. Horror Comedy is a god tier genre and I don’t know why it’s not more widespread. Fun monsters/cast of characters in general, so at least one person in it is probably going to make you go “oh gender” ya know? With SotD you have the fantasy power trip that comes with like any piece of media that involves hunting monsters. With WWDITS I go “yep that’s how bisexuals dress” and I Will Not Clarify which character I’m talking about.

MINI REC ALERT: All of Taika Watiti’s filmography. Thor:Ragnarok is one of like 3 marvel movies that I consider genuinely fucking fantastic completely independent of the MCU and my own tendency to be like “hurr bdurr I love. Superheros”. For the one that is most tonally like Supernatural But Significantly Better and Written By Someone Competent I think I would say try out Hunt For The Wilderpeople. It’s got a reluctant curmudgeonly father figure and I KNOW some of you motherfuckers were so invested in spn when you were like 16 bc you had daddy issues. This is a callout post for my friend [REDACTED], who I should text to watch Hunt for the Wilderpeople, actually.

MINI REC ALERT X2!!!: Bram Stoker’s Dracula. I’ve never seen it but it has both Winona Ryder AND Keanu Reaves so like. Goth bi rights.

Happy Death Day (and Happy Death Day 2 U)

happy death day was one of those movies that I saw the trailer, went “eh”, heard other people say it was great, watched, and went holy fuck this slaps. Not nearly as much of a slasher film as the trailers implied if im remembering the trailer correctly

Basic Summary: Our main character Tree keeps waking up on the day she was murdered. The day resets every time that she dies. That’s right, it’s a time loop storey babey!!!!!!!!!!!

Shared elements with supernatural that you might Vibe with: If you were anything like me you were foolishly lulled into supernatural for way longer than you should’ve been on the promise that the characters would idk like grow and change and become better and learn lessons and some of that would be through the power of receiving love and kindness. You know. Like how good writers would do it especially if their main characters are kind of dicks that really should make some changes. Well, Happy Death Day fucking delivers on that promise in SPADES. It’s about growth! It’s about change! It’s about making the active decision to become a better person and putting effort into doing so! There’s heavy themes of like grief and trauma and acknowledging them and facing them head on in order to move on and the negative consequences of refusing to do so and just trying avoid it until it goes away. There’s a romance that makes my dumb little self do the pleading face emoji. Tree is also one of the only good asshole with a heart of gold characters. I also think media is improved by having at least one character that is a Good Good Boy (note: Good Good Boy character does not have to be a man.) and Happy Death Day has Carter. Oh on that note: Tree Voice: I’ve only had character for (the same repeating over and over) a day but if anything happens to him I’ll kill everyone here and then myself. Also the movie is funny so like hell yeah.

that’s all I got for relevant movies right now

BOOK RECS

jk i’m illiterate. Everyone should feel free to go ahead and add their own suggestions for this section The best I can do is uhhhh I think y’all would probably like Mira Grant’s novels, particularly the Newsflesh stories, bc sibling dynamics. Also the book The Haunting of Hill House is really good. Ballad of Black Tom slaps? There’s of course the Good Omens novel that the show was based on. I’m about to recommend some podcasts after this section which will include to Welcome to Nightvale because of course it will and the tie in novels for that slap, especially It Devours!, and I’m pretty sure they work as stories even if you know nothing about the podcast. Also also I think you should read “The Long Way to A Small, Angry Planet” by Becky Chambers It’s not thematically similar to supernatural at all but it’s one of my all time favorite sci fi novels and only like four people have read it which is a goddamn TRAVESTY.

Anyway yeah that’s it that’s all there is. Onto the medium that is like books but I can fold laundry or cook while consuming their narratives.

PODCAST RECS

Okay so this is getting uhhh wicked long so I’m gonna limit myself to only three full blown recs and a

mini rec

Alice Isn’t Dead

Fuck me running this show is so good. Literally hands down my all time favorite (and scariest!) horror podcast. Mamma mia, that’s a good fuckin story. The Book version is also good and has fewer Weird events but some further character development so I recommend them both.

Basic Summary: After her wife Alice disappears mysteriously, Keisha takes up a job as a long haul trucker, traveling all across America in order to find her, but ends up finding so much. Pursued by a deadly creature she calls The Thistle Man, the stakes of her journey are raised.

Shared elements with supernatural that you might Vibe with: okay so I have a lost of bullet points of things that appealed to me specifically about supernatural and how no other shows covers all of them which sucks bc it means I basically Yearn for a show that’s supernatural but good. Alice isn’t Dead, however, hits the most of these bullet points AND is so fucking good. It has monster hunting. It has stopping a cataclysmic event BUT also discussion of the cyclical nature of events such as these and how the fight never truly ends but you can make some fucking progress nonetheless. It has a central gay romance that’s actually a central gay romance. It’s the ONLY show on this list that really hits that the weird and dark underside of americana vibe but specifically the americana of not like suburbs and shit but that eerie haunted feeling you get when you’re hours into a late night drive on open roads with no civilization around and an expansive sky and it just Seems like something should be watching you. Have you ever been out for a walk at midnight and encountered a deer and you looked into each other’s eyes and it felt like it was telling you a message that you couldn’t possibly hope to parse? Have you ever felt an incredible sense of deja vu eating in a restaurant you couldn’t have possibly been in before, because you’ve been to a thousand diners a thousand times just like one, and there’s an incredibly sense of homogeneity even though you’re 2000 miles away from anyone and anything that could possibly know you? Have you ever traveled to an area that seems to be stuck in a bubble of time, the only thing that shows any evidence of having aged past 2006 being yourself, and you wonder how your cell phone even works around here? THAT’S the spooky americana I’m fuckin talking about! Messed up road trips! Too much goddamn space! America is scary because it’s big and Filled With Things but also Not Enough Things! Fuck yeah!!!!! That time bubble fuckin EXISTS in Wyoming the most recent song on the radio I heard was fuckin Hey Soul Sister!

Also has a thing where like are there even good guys and bad guys in a conflict or is it all just one umbrella nightmare that you’re trying to stand against in anyway possible (u kno..like how the overarching structures of both heaven and hell were kinda fucked in spn? No spoilers but similar shit be happenin in Alice Isn’t Dead). Exploration of what makes someone into a monster, like how do you go down that path? Also this is the only show on this whole damn list that southern gothic music really suits it so points for that.

The Magnus Archives

You know I had to do it to ‘em.

Basic Summary: Jonathan Sims has just become the Head Archivist at the Magnus Institute, a “research” “facility” that looks into paranormal/esoteric/unexplained phenomena.

John Mulaney Voice, Again: Nobody knows what the archivist is going to do next, least of all the archivist. He’s never been in an archives before, he’s just as confused as you are.

Shared elements with supernatural that you might Vibe with: Oh fuck this document is over 5k long I said I wasn’t gonna do this hhhhh so lipton lightning round: Slowburn Gay Romance but Actually Canon, Monster Hunting but Hey What Even Is A Monster Anyway, Acts Somewhat like a Loosely Connected Horror Anthology until it DOESNT, Little Things Build to Bigger Narrative, Characters Be Goin Through It (On God These People Need Therapy), Trying to Prevent/Fix The Apocalypse (X2!!!), Smug Asshole Big Bad, Horror as a Metaphor For Various Shit, Basically if you thought that the Men of Letter concept slapped and you think it should’ve been the whole damn show including being Deeply British you would probably really fuckin like TMA. Also if ur like the ideal piece of media is a horror tragedy but also like it’s a wacky sitcom but also also fuck cops. U will like tma.

Welcome to Nightvale

IF ANY 2012 TUMBLR FANDOM DESERVES TO MAKE A MASSIVE COMEBACK AND BE EVERYWHERE AGAIN AND ABSOLUTELY FLOOD MY DASH IT’S WELCOME TO NIGHTVALE WHY DID WE ABANDON THE SHOW THAT TREATED US THE MOST KINDLY DID YOU KNOW THAT EPISODES 108-110 ARE THE BEST FUCKING BUILT UP NARRATIVE REVEAL THAT I HAVE WITNESSED IN MY LIFE DID YOU KNOW THAT IT CONTINUED TO BE REALLY FUCKING GOOD AFTER MOST PEOPLE STOPPED LISTENING DID YOU KNOW CECIL AND CARLOS ARE MARRIED AND THEY HAVE A DOG AND A TODDLER NOW BECAUSE OF ALL THE GAY PODCAST PROTAGONISTS CECIL GERSHWIN PALMER LOVE OF MY LIFE ELDRITCHIAN CHEERLEADER AND CERTIFIED BIMBO KEEPS FUCKIN WINNIN BABY. DID YOU KNOW THAT CECIL THINKS PEANUT BUTTER IS A ROCK.

Basic Summary: Welcome to the sleepy desert town of Ņ̶̏ight V̶͚̰̮͗̔̊̊ale! Community radio how host Cé̵̟͚͕̗̞̙͂͑̽̄́c̵̤̼̞͈̪͓̍̽̋̚̕͜il Pǎ̵̧̨̢͚̻̈̂̄̇͐̇̊̀̆ͅl̶͚͎͕͉͖̬͓͑́̐̒̍̿̈́͢͜͝ͅm̸̧͙̟̖̠̳̬͋́͋́͌̚̚ͅȩ̙̖͎̖͂́̒͐͜͞r̢̢̛̰̻̮̺̩͙̼̈́͋̀͘ is here to k̠̠̰̦͙̯̥̎̄̆͌̎̀̿̔̌̚ê̷̢̬̥̞̩̯̘͒̽̈̓͐̂̔̍e̶̡̝̗̺̫̪̜͆̓̿̈͌͌̆͒͞ͅp̵̹̗̬̼̠̬͙̏͐͐̉̅͊͊́͟͞ͅͅ ỷ̛͙̞̦̦͖̑̉̌̎͞͡͡͝ͅo̧̧̥͎̻̥̲͇͋́́̔̈͌͞ǔ̸̬̯̫͇̦̮͕̤̲̯̽̔̀̔͆͋̈́͘̚ up to date all the local happenings, including w̸̢̢̢̧̡̡͍͖̻̳̹̼̼̰̬̭̱͔̲͙͍̰̠̥̺̝͖̺̖̼̮̼̞̳̞̜͉̤̯͇̖̳͖̠̙̺̲̤͇͈͚͓̮̭̱̭̩͚̟̥̬̟̻̝̼̖͚̘͐̆̅̂̃̈́͆͊̉̏͒́̈́̋͗͑̄̉́̐̌́̿̌͛̾̎̊̾̃̈́̉̔̍̐͛̕͘̚͜͜͠͠é̵̢̡̧̨̨̡̧̨̡̛̹̥̥̞̮̯͙͈̻̝͓͖͙̦̰͍̖̜̲̰̞͎͈̭̯̳͕̗͓͈̭̫̼̯̪̞̯̰̲̘̭͎̪̱̗̝̝̞̤̱͉͙̯͎̬͎̙̜̗͉̩̦͕̪̳͇͙̺̙̰̠͚͎̜̠͔̬͎̺̣͕̜̊̓̃̐̂́͂̎̐̾̔̽̀̉́̍̊̂̿̎͂͐̎̐̄̍̔̋̐̃͗̈́͂̀̒̊̎͘͘̕̚̕͜͝͝͝͠ͅͅa̸̡̧̡̡̨̡̨̛̛͙̣̘̳͎͖̥̝̟̱̩̥͙͉̝̲̙̮̩̩̹̱͔͎̥̹̻̜͚̭̬̳͚̤̙̖̯͎̱̫̞̪̻͖̱̞͔̭̻̺͚͚̯̬͓͓̳͇̳̦͓̞͈̮̤̭̣͉̲̞͚̘͗̆̃͌̅̍͊̓̈̇̌̒͊͑̊̏̊͌̈̓̿͗̒̏̒͊͒̏̃̎̒̀̅̾̍̀͘͘͜͝͠ͅt̵̢̡̨̧̧̛̛̛̯̤͓̘̻̤͓̪̰͔̪̝̫͎̻͔͈͎͔͙͕͈̰͓͍̀̏͒̆͋̈́̈́͂̔͋͆͂̅͗̍̆̍̆̔̑͊̏̈͒́̽͊́̿͂́̓͛̽͐͌̌̐̈̇̃̓̆̍̅̃̔̚̕͜͝͝͝ͅͅh̸̨̨̡̢̢̡̢̧̡̧̢̡̨̡̭̜̬̬̙͕̗̙̻̯̠̘͙̻̥͉͚̼̗͚͇͉̰͍̥͉̗͎̬̫͖͉͔̼̮̯̞̫̬̟̻͉̖̙̥̫͖̬͚̟̜̭͇͎̭̘̝̲̤͕͎̰̭̗̯̮̤̙̙̯͍̞̭͚͔͎̞̹̲̟͉̩̭̖̱̠͍̺͈̟̩̋̆̈́͆̍̆̄̏͜ͅͅȇ̸̢̢̨̨̧̛̜͍̺͎̬̪͙̻̝̣͓͈̺̩̳̟̲̠̣͈͎͎͈͉̙̪͖̳̺͇̹̊̍͊͑̿͊̌͛̿̓͊̾̀͂͛̉͆̾̽͆̈̏͛̊͛̍̈́̇͋̔͂̑͐̂̿͊̽͑͘̚͘͝͝͠͝ͅͅŕ̵̨̡̨̨̢̧̡̧̨̘̟͙̦̲̲̪̦̙̼̠̳͚̞̦̞͖͚͇̳͖̲̭͕̜̫̳̖̙͖͉͎̘̘̤̠͈̬͕̝̻͚̥͍͕̠̥͙̙̪̖̯͍̘̘̲̣̹̜̪̲̭̟̮̫̖̤̰͔̩̩͉̲͚̟̝̦̬̪̘̬̮̱͔̻̦̼̃̐̂͋̐̅̋͒̉͛́̅̈́̒̒͆̑̆͊̒͒̀̍̈́̍͌̍̏̔͋͌̒̍̌͛̓̈̂̐̕͘͘͜͜͝͝͝ͅͅͅ ̶̢̡̨̛̠͇̹̯͕͍̻̟̼̼̗̩̱̗̙̱̥̜̬̫̜͎͉̺̣͓̟̯̱͖̣̞̠̝̥͍̲̳̙̠͔̹̘̲̲̻̖̈́̊͋͜͜ą̵̡̧̟͕̬̳̜͈͈̳̝̜̣̬͔͈͈͎͉͍̯̟̞̺͎̝͇̰̥͖̬̯͙̤̬̼̲̦̯̭͓̠̺̳̱̰̮̎͋͆̈́͌͆̎̉̓̇̐͋͋́̃̉̈̄̏̓̉̿̅̒̉̒̉͂͛̄̀̇̒͊͛́͊̎́͆̌̆́̌͂̈́̽̋͛͗̑̊̀́̍͊̌͆͊͐͆̅̒̊̉̾̄͛̑̕͘͘͘͘͝͝͝͝͠͠͝n̸̡̛̛̛̛̛̙͎̬̦̠̼͓͈̝̾̍͑͛̅̒̾́̌̍͛̇̋̇̓̏͛̔͛̈́͆̿̌͐̿͊̿́͒̍̃̀̈͐̐̆͐̉̒̂̉̀̅̇̾͋̍͒̋̈̌̿͒͐̍́͗̀̌̌̚̕̕̕͘̚͘͘̚͜͠͝͝͝d̴̡̢̢̛̛̛̺̠̳̬͎̞̲̣̲̱̳̪̹͉̝̠̱̗̙̫̠̹̼̙̝͉̲̟̮̙̙̮̻̹͈̦̙̞͚̜̙̖̞͓̙̭͉̃̽̌̅̔̾̈́̒̽͑́̒͋̓̈́͆͋̽̒̃̽̋̐͌͂̍͑́̽̋̍͗̋͗͂̅̽̈̈̾͐̄̃̕̕͜͠͠͝͠͝ͅͅ ̵̡̡̢̛̛̗͚͍̺͇̲̳̯͓̰͍̙̮̙̜̟̞̣̼͕̝͔͙̺̫͈͈̠̻̘̱͍̦̭͔͈̤̺̗̮͕̦̞̘͍̯̻̝͓̤̳̫͔̩͉̬̈́͋̈́̐͒́̔́́̿̓̆͐̎͆̇͒̄̈̿̓̑̾̏̔̿͊̌͆͒̒͊̓̅̓́̔̅̀̀̀̃̿̂̑͂͆̅̎̾̏̓̂̈́͛͌̇̾͌͐̈̂̆͐̅̓̍̓̃̆͗̃͛̏̒̌̀̅͊́̽̐̆̿́̌͘͘̚̕͘̕̕͜͜͜͠͝͠͝͠t̷̢̥͓̄͗̾̄̅̚͜r̵̨̡̨̧̧̢̛̛̛̛̛͍͙͚̥̱̞̜̦̜̼̺͉̠̬͎̰̻̜̼̫̤͓͖͖̤͇̞̥̖̈́͊̆̓͊̑̑̋̒̈́̔̆͆́̐͛͑͊͋̇̈́̓̑̍̏͐͛̽̋̎͑̃̈́͒̇̂̇̌͂̀̍̊̇̓̋̈́̌̏̕͘̚̕̚͝͝͠ǎ̴̡͓͓̯̘̥̱̱͖̦̺͓̘͉͖̞̟̦͈̜̥̰̘̞͈̦̠̼̯̙̭̼͚̟̖̲̠̝̜̐̅͆̏̈́̍́͂̃̾͑̓͋̽̄̾́̾̆̾͒͋̎͂̈́͘̕̕̚͜ͅͅf̷̢̡̡̧̢̨̡̧̢̢̧̡̧̫͖̖͇̲̫̮͕͉͓̩̪̳̹̩͎̖̟̤̤̲̟̪̫̻̻̖̟̦͉̼͎͖̭͍͖͎̖̳̳͙̜͉̝̘̺̖͚̙͉͕͙̯͖̞͚̮̲̻͉͙̺̭͓͎̤͙̦̦̺̯͕̜̰͍̳̙̦͉̪̥́͋̓̅̀͋͐̀̄̊̆̉̒̐͒̀̏̈̇̊̉̆̐̏̾̀̀̓͛͆̍̾͗͌̀̄̔͒̀̍̈́͆̔̒̑̏̍̏͆́̾̐̂͋̂̔̂́̓̓̌͌̉͛́̒̐̽̏́̑͊́̌̆̂̑͋̇̈́͌̑̿̅͗̚̕͘̕̚͜͠͝͝͠͠f̴̨̨̛̹͌̂̓͌͛̀͑̾̓̍͗̽͆̉̊͗̇́̍͌̊͐̔̈́̊̇͆̄̃̑̕̕͘͘͘͠͝͝͝͠i̴̧̡̢̢̧̢̨̨̧̧̧̛̛͎̗̳̦̘̙͓̦̙͔̜̼̘͇͇̺̭͉̠̩̟̤̥̘͙̤̩͔̪̱̻͈̪̼̼̞̠͎̟̹͕̻̭̤̪̲͕̟̺̻̻͖͕͚̣͇̖̰̝̩͈̤͕͇͕̝͙̙̪͔̗̫͇͎̙̲̲͖̗̘͉̲̣̤͎̔̐̆͒̄̈́̀̎̃̃̅͆̌̈́̽̈́̅̈́̑̄̇͒͐̀̐̀̒̍̀̓͌͗̓̽́͗̓̎͂͛̅̑̔̀͛̈́̽̾̃̊͊͆̄̍͑̍̆̌̾͗̄̊̽̉̅̆̀̎̀͑̿̎̋̄̆̃͐̾̏͛͒̍̋̅͘̕̚̕̕͜͜͝͝͝͝͠ͅͅc̷̛̛͚̝̻̣̞̓́̃́̀̃̓͗͌̂͛́̒̊͑̓͆̇̈́͑̏̆̀͌̑͂͂̄͌̉̔̋́̎͒̿͗͒͛̇͛̿̎̍̕̕̕͝͝͝͝͝ ̴̢̧̢̡̨̢̡̨̡̢̢̛̺̘̹̯̤̩̘̯͔̞̟̬̠̣̟̻̥̜̤͔̥͕̠̥̞͎̗̩̱̮͉͔͎̲̯̱̙̜̥̳̮͔̦̣͖͔̜͉̗̪̳̹̦̤͇̣̙͕̯̫̖̝̼̹͍̠͎͓̗͎̦͓̲̯̱̠̰͇̮̹͔̝͉͙̹̜̹͈̹̥͖̣̳̲͖̓́͌̈́̈́̀͌̄͂̌̾́̍̔̊̓̿͋͂͋̈́̋́́̒̓̀̒̃͂̀͑̐͛̆̆͒̈́̅̿͊͌̍͗̌̌͆̂͌́̉̏̒̓͊̾̒̓̋̽͐̏̾͘̕͜͝͠͝ͅͅr̸̨̢̛̪̞̬͓͔̥̤̣͔̭̥̙͉̦̗̠̳̩͙̂̈́͑͑̿̋̓̀͋͆̋̕͝͝ë̴̢̡̨̬͈͉̖̞͔͎͓͖̼̘̬͕̰͈̥͈̝̩͎͉͉̫̜͚͕̤͔̟̯͓͎̟͙̜̭̩̗̮͎̗̤͇̝̩͎̜̺̯͕͇̝͎̯͙̖͙̮̗̮̘́̑͑͛̂̅̄̌̽̓̒̾̿͆̏̏͐͛̾̂̃͑͆̅̄̿͋̅͂̈́̽͋͒̎͐̒̓͆̌̉͑͊́̀̈̾͛̋͑̋̎̈̀̽̀͊̏͘͝͝͝͝͠͝ͅp̴̧̧̡̢̢̢̛̛̛͚̟͓̖̭̪̻̪̲̬̥̙̥̰̼̹͎͕̪̞̮̺̰̬̘̫̤͉̦͙̮̖̙̹̻͔̖̮̲̞̣̻̜̠͇̬͚̱̦̼̲̮̀̂͌̍̈̒̍̋̌̏͐̓͛̉̂̈̀͑̈́͊͗͋͗́̂̎̎̃͆͒̅̑̇́̈͐̾̀̔̒̉͑͒̅̓̈́̋͋̀̍̄̿̌̀̉͆̇̔̈́͗̋̄̓̇͗̎̉̆͊̒͗̚̕͘͘̕̕̚͜͜͝͝͠͠͠͠͠ͅͅͅơ̶̢̡̧̨̡̛̛͔̦̼̰̠̯̰̟̲̣̜͙̲͙̪̱̱͕̺̪͈͉̺̻̙̥̲̩̲̩͔̠͚̩͓̞̠̯̟̫̣̗̦̰͉͚͙̺͎̼͖̥̙͈̯̲̝̞͎̻͕̮͔̰̖͔̭͙̩̼͔̫̹̘͓͔̜̘͍̍̅̄͋͑̋̍̊̉̄̈̽̈͐̀͌͐̆͊͂̐̋̃̎͆͛̐̀̂̿̈́͂́̈̌͐̇̀̒͋͑͐́͌̐̇̊͆̀͂͋̏́͋͆̏͗͂͑̂̓̽͘͘̚̕̕̕̕̚͘͜͜͠͝͝ͅͅͅr̴̨̨̨̧̨̛̘͕͈͔͙̠̬̯̩̗̰̗̬̦͈̗̝̣͓͓̟͕͙͈̠̘̻͓̭̝̘̦̦͓̭̘͙̻̙̼̩̰̝͈̱̝̱̬͉͙̣̖̮̲͈̙̱̩̣͕̦̰̮͔͈͓̙̮͍̳̟̠̞͎̱̣̰͕̩̝̲̝͐́́̍̈͐͋̐̑̌͋̓̈́̈͗̿̈̈́͗̑̚͜͜͜͜͜͝ͅͅţ̴̢̨̧͇͉͎̣̬̣̝̗̬̹͇̮̞̈́̐̌̇̈́̌͊̐̅̂̌̂͒͌́̈͌̂̊͗̍̿͑͋̎̓͂̀̎̎͒̾̏̒͌̃̄͋̌̾̍̈́̐̏͑̊̍͑͆̉̓́̆̌̾̓͊̊̈̑͘̚̕͘͘̕͝͝͝͝͝s̴̢̢̡̛̬̹͚̻͉̦̦̣̦̠̜͕̤̳͓͙̟̬͕̘̦̿͗̉̏̒͆̓̄͊͌͛͂͑̒̃͛͘͜͝͝!

Shared elements with supernatural that you might Vibe with: Honestly, probably bc Nightvale and Alice are by the Same Dudes, a lot of these points are the same as Alice Isn’t Dead, but it’s less scawy and more funney. Also hits the “horror, but make it kind of a sitcom” vibes. Doesn’t have the same road trip vibes, but DOES capture the exact weirdness of South Western USA, so I’m still giving it “fucked up americana” credit. If you’ve never been to New Mexico ur like this is an exaggeration clearly no desert town is subject to like ACTUAL cosmic horror and unexplainable sights but I’m telling you New Mexico is just Like That. (I highly recommend visiting the land of enchantment if you ever get the oppurtunity it is a deeply odd and wonderfully unsettling experience.) Look man it’s gay it’s a horror comedy cecil has a wonderfully soothing voice and it hates capitalism so fucking much like oh my god so much what more could you want.

MINI REC ALERT: Wolf 359! I have nothing deep to say about this I just like it and my gut tells me that y’all would enjoy it too I know there isnt much for physical descriptions in the show but I know in my heart that the main character is so so pretty and so so stupid. I KNOW yall like some himbos that experience character growth.

Okay since It’s my party and I’ll speak if I want to rapid fire list of podcasts I just like and want more people to listen to even though I’m behind on like all of them shhhhh: The Penumbra Podcast, BomBARDed, Dungeons and Daddies, Stellar Firma, Wonderful!

SONG RECS

okay these aren’t like replacement recs or anything they’re just really good and I almost certainly would have put them on some sort of supernatural playlist in 2013 but I don’t, like, have a good playlist for them now so I’m subjecting y’all to them also they all have the youtube link for ease of access

Woah There Kimmy- Felix Hagan & the Family

Devil’s Backbone- The Civil Wars

Blood On My Name- The Brothers Bright

Awake O Sleeper- The Brothers Bright

The Bottom of the River- Delta Rae

Old Number 7- The Devil Makes Three

The Bullet- The Devil Makes Three

In Hell I’ll Be In Good Company- The Dead South

Bartholomew- The Silent Comedy

Pomegranate Seeds- Julian Moon

Curses- The Crane Wives

Tongues & Teeth -The Crane Wives

OKAY THAT’S IT! THAT’S ALL FOLKS! FUCK!

#long post #if you didn't want this blame of-mice-and-mentality for enabling me posting #supernatural

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smokeybrandreviews · 3 years

Text

Right Out of a Comic Book

I’ve been putting off writing something about Shang-Chi because i have mixed feelings about the fact that the character is getting a film. Who the f*ck knows anything about Shang-Chi? Who the f*ck cares? Dude is a Seventies Marvel character; A decade where the House of Ideas consistently had bad ones. A great many of the characters created then, are little more than exploitative Hollywood knockoffs. Luke Cage is just Shaft. Power Fist is a whitewashed cash in on the Kung-Fu boom. She-Hulk was a trademark stake. Blade is another Blaxploitation caricature but with a Hammer films twist. Ms. Marvel, now Captain Marvel, was a gender swap to cash in on the Feminism wave crashing against the Patriarchy shores at the time. It is in this climate that Shang-Chi was created as a a direct facsimile of Bruce Lee. It was like someone watched Enter the Dragon and thought the character of Lee was cool, so they just did that.

I give Seventies Marvel a lot of sh*t because a great many of their ideas from back then, feel awkwardly forced. However, admittedly, the entire decade wasn’t trash. We did get characters like Wolverine, Valkyrie, and Black Cat. Hell, Seventies Marvel even dropped Magik and you know how much i love her! But that’s kind of the caveat; While everything else around Marvel was pretty mediocre, the X-Men found their second wind and began delivering not only classic characters, but classic story lines. That’s maybe something to get into in a different essay. I just wanted to be fair in my criticism of Marvel from that time because we’re about to get into why i find Shang-Chi such a frustrating character. Dude is a token, just like so many other now beloved characters from that Seventies Frosh roster. Marvel, at the time, as well the intentioned as it may have been, was leaning heavy into diversity and just botching the sh*t with aplomb. If you go back and read those books, they’re terrible. Luke Cage was an awful read and he was immediately relegated to a partner book with Danny Rand, mostly because his book was trash, too. Shang-Chi, after his initial push, was immediately relegated to supporting background character and there he stayed, for decades, filling up panels. It wasn’t until current times, during another flood of performative wokeness from major corporations and the rise of the Asian voice in Hollywood, did Marvel decide to brush of their one, Asian, property, in a blatant cash grab. That bugs me.

I like Shang-Chi. His modern stories are really good. The current run which started last year is pretty good reading with gorgeous art but that, so far, is really his only standout series. Because of his Seventies Marvel nature, Shang-Chi doesn’t have a lot of starring narratives to adapt. His jobber nature doesn’t lend itself to the screen. Dude is basically jusf Damian Wayne without the Batman stuff and that’s fine. It's a compelling origin story which lends itself to the current John Wick hype. The problem is, that’s as much of the actual character it looks like we’re gong to get in this movie. Fin Fang Foom is an Iron Man villain and so is The Mandarin. It seems a bit disingenuous to cram these two characters into the first narrative built around your premier Asian character. You’re telling me Shang-Chi doesn’t have his own rogues, his own stories to tell? You have to Frankenstein a pastiche of whatever vaguely Asian tropes you have lying around, in order to give this character some agency in his own film? Yes. Yes, that’s exactly what I'm saying, thus my conflicted nature. Shang-Chi is, at best, C-list in Marvel’s pantheon. No one knows anything about this character other than he is one of the best hand-to-hand combatants in the 616. He doesn’t have any powers. He isn’t some billionaire. He doesn’t even have government steroid enhancements. Dude just punches hard. That's it. How do you build a hit around that without being absolutely derivative?

I want this Shang-Chi flick to be good but it doesn’t have that vibe about it. It feels like it’s going to be one of those awkward entries like Captain Marvel, another Seventies Marvel creation. The choices Feige made to give this character a bit more narrative meat for the theatrical treatment are a bit problematic for me but i understand why they were made. You can’t make an Iron Fist movie in this social climate. That sh*t would be eviscerated, just like it was on Netflix. Everyone hated that show on principal. How many more “White Savior Narratives” does Hollywood need to make? Shang-Chi was the right choice, even if it wasn’t the strongest option. Plus, considering the character is kind of a blank slate, i guess there is fertile ground for original story telling. The announcement and trailer drop was met with a resounding thud among most MCU fans but the Twatter check marks loved it. Diversity over drama seems to be their motto so this majority Asian cast was exactly what they wanted. I absolutely believe in diversity on film, everyone should be able to see themselves onscreen, but this feels bad. It feels corporate. It feels like pandering. That said, i got Asian friends with kids who are beyond hype to see this movie. They get to see a hero who looks like them onscreen, just like the girls who packed that Captain Marvel screening i went to on opening day. Just like we all did when Black Panther dropped, making it one of the most successful films in history.

Shang-Chi is a very important film in the context of the shifting cultural zeitgeist. We’ve come so far from Asian representation just being the martial arts master and geisha concubine. These characters are no longer ham-fisted into the role of sidekick like Kato or f*cking Short Round. Cray Rich Asians dropped and did dumb numbers at the box office while The Farewell got Awkwafina a Golden Globe. F*cking Parasite won four Oscars, all of which are absolutely deserved. We live in an era where a Korean language film won best picture at the notoriously racist Academy Awards and, while i don’t put much stock in that sh*t, the industry does and doors have opened for more people who look like Bong Joon-ho. I want Shang-Chi to be good. I want my Asian brothers and sisters to have their Black Panther event. I want them to have their Sam Wilson, Captain America, moment. I want that for them because they deserve it, just like everyone else. Judging from the trailer and the synopsis I've heard online, I just don’t know if this movie can deliver that same level of energy. It feels a lot like like someone watched Enter the Dragon and thought it was cool, so they just did that.

#Shang-Chi #Marvel #MCU

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catsvrsdogscatswin · 4 years

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V8 Theory

Okay I’m about to be that one meme of the crazy-looking guy explaining a red string diagram on a corkboard, BUT-

Volume 8. So, uh, after the ending of Volume 7 my sister and I kinda looked at each other and went...are they seriously going with this? Salem and her army rocking up at the good guys’ doorstep NOW? In what’s very clearly a midpoint or slightly-after-midpoint of the series? When the good guys have no plan or tools to stop or even detour her? No buildup on how they’d figure that out? No nothing?

It reeks of either bad writing or a plot twist.

SO, with that in mind, we fervently pinned our hopes on plot twist. Sure CRWBY drops the ball sometimes, as all writers do, but this? This is big, and I cannot believe that someone in the studio did not raise Serious Concerns if CRWBY proposed some out-of-nowhere deus ex machina.

With the information currently at our disposal, we have concluded that the good guys are basically fucked. Immortal Big Bad at their doorstep with an army, Ruby’s silver eyes proved or at least hinted to be completely ineffective against her, the leader of the government defense has gone mad, gang separated, one Relic lost and the other inaccessible. The only way they could really survive this scenario is to retreat, and it goes against every single one of their characters to just...walk out on an entire city full of people and leave them to the Grimm.

So, and here we come to crazy-man-with-string-diagram, we were thinking the gang has Ozpin make them time travel. How far back or how they do it, we weren’t sure, but realistically speaking, time travel seems to be the only way, with the information we currently have available, that they can “fix” this situation. I shall list our points.

1. Ozpin’s cane was stated to be able to “store time” in the V3 commentary. Granted, this ability may have been scrapped with other early concepts, but Ozpin also mentions in V5 that his cane has “other abilities,” and possession of it seems to be important to him for reasons beyond mere sentiment. Oscar also asks him how to fix this situation in the V7 finale, which may be foreshadowing.

2. Time traveling is a sticky concept to introduce, as it may serve as a fix-all scenario and thus introduce plot holes, but the phrasing was “store time,” indicating both a limit and a need to do so. If we assume this concept has remained, its likely that there is a limit to how far back Ozpin can go, or how much time he can store, and that he must be in possession of his cane to do any of it. This would explain why his time-travel ability was not used to fix the Fall of Beacon: he didn’t have his cane until multiple months after the event, which would mean that he can’t go back that far, and, if they do use this ability in V8, why he can’t do it again for such-and-so amount of time: he’s used all the time stored in his cane.

3. V7 seemed oddly fragmented, and has been stated to be more connected to V8 than most RWBY volumes are to each other. With the time-travel theory, this would be achieved by V8 covering events in V7 over again from a slightly different angle, possibly repeatedly, and filling out the odd scenes and missing portions.

4. CRWBY announced that V8 will take place over several days. While it is theoretically possible to stretch all these days out with fight scenes and long conversations (and shorter episodes), V8 is also stated to be longer than normal. If the gang time-travels, they could experience the same few days multiple times, which would stretch the season time out much farther.

5. The teaser clip of Yang and the others on a motorbike seems to take place in Atlas or Mantle, which is undamaged, and is stated to occur in an early episode. Given as the last thing we see is Salem arriving at the gates of Atlas with an army, this is a very odd switch in tone and narration. If the gang had fled Atlas, they would hardly be in a good mood, knowing they had left the citizens there to the army of Grimm and a mad dictator, and if they somehow managed to fight Salem off, there would have been severe casualties and a mad dictator would still be in charge. If, on the other hand, the gang had traveled through time to return to the starting point-ish of their time in Atlas, their mood would be decidedly more optimistic.

6. Clover’s death. While this wasn’t badly written in and of itself, the implicit psychological damage it would do to Qrow, who had spent most of the volume experiencing character growth and friendly interactions for the first time ever, seems to invalidate all CRWBY’s hard work at giving him a friend (or love interest). You don’t build someone up just to tear them down in one single season: from a narrative standpoint, its needlessly cruel and poorly executed. And whether they intended for Clover and Qrow to have canonically romantic overtones or no, CRWBY would definitely be aware that the fans would pick up on their dynamic, and CRWBY has already proven themselves perceptive enough to avoid the bury-your-gays trope. If time was reversed and Clover lived, the drama would be averted and they could make this decision with impunity.

7. Yang, Oscar, Jaune, and Ren is an odd conglomeration of people to be in one isolated group, as they were in the V8 teaser clip, which may be explained by the fact that Ozpin could only send a select amount of people back in time and they were chosen for this purpose because Reasons. (Maybe Ren for levelheadedness, Yang for critical second-guessing, Oscar because he’s Ozpin’s host, and Jaune for battery pack...and strategy too I guess. IDK.) This would also slot in with the mutters of “Ruby being Yang’s antagonist this season,” as Ruby may act against what time-traveler Yang needs her to do or think.

8. Ren was acting super weird in V7, which may be explained by the fact he’s one of the time-travel dudes and he’s getting deja vu or those weird transitional moments are the result of time divergencies. I’ll admit that this one is shaky but you have to admit that he has been acting really off, plus those whiteout flashes and slow-motions don’t just happen on their own.

Anyways if they actually do decide to do time travel you can catch me screaming that Saturday at anyone unfortunate enough to be near me. Yes that includes you guys.

V8 CH1 Update: Guess its time for clown makeup then, boys.

#RWBY #RWBY V8 #RWBY Volume 8 #I know this all sounds crack as hell #BUT LISTEN #IT COULD HAPPEN #I'll keep adding points as they occur to me

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lovesouroboros · 3 years

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It’s Frightening to Meet The Person We Could Have Become

Tonight I met the girl who I am nearly capable of being. She arose from within me, she pushed me toward the flame. For a brief time, I was vengeful - angry, inspired with rage. There was a flicker, a moment in which I did not recognise myself.

Earlier tonight, I wanted to hurt someone. Not anybody - somebody specific. I wanted to make him feel pain, I wanted him to feel frightened. I wanted him to hurt the way he’d hurt others, the way he’d hurt someone I knew. I wanted him to be scared, the way that she was scared.

I thought it unfair that those who’ve been hurt have to cower while their abusers run free. While they drink at the neighbourhood bar, laughing with friends - the ones who’ve they’ve bruised sit alone, in another, hopefully safer place. The ones that they’ve bruised are still hiding, afraid.

I’d looked for him for a week before now. A few people knew to call me if he was spotted. Soon enough, there he was : on the corner, as if he’d never left. When the dust settles, the monsters crawl back beneath our bed frames. No one dares to stop them. I thought I would.

The call came - I prepared. There was a plan. There were pills crushed to powder, stashed in a tiny ziplock I’d nestled within my purse. I changed clothes - swapped my stained jeans for an expensive mini skirt, name brand. I wanted to look valuable, like someone worth breaking. I put makeup on for the first time in weeks - blush, lipstick, mascara. Looking in the mirror, I thought, “I am ready to kill this man.”

I laughed, but it did not feel like a joke.

I bring my puppy, Scar, to the bar. It’s counterintuitive and premeditated - there is an image to create. “Dainty Damsel totes Dime Sized Dog, falls Head over Heels for Dreamy Drug Dude.”

In reality, I don’t wear heels. It’s good - he’s not as tall as I’d imagined. The table next to him is free, and I feel him watch me when I sit down. I make a spectacle of myself, aided by the passerby patrons who try to chat me up. Not now, I’m on a mission. Today, I’m going to kill a man.

I thought he’d be more bold. I move around a lot, I give him something to comment on - drawing in a notebook, coloured pencils splayed about. I feel him watching me, but he does not speak. I “drop” an orange pencil on the ground and wait for him to return it. He does, but he does not inquire more - it is an act of good grace, no openers to follow.

An acquaintance from the neighbourhood enters - an older man, Jacob. I smile when I see him, and he joins Drug Dude and their friends. I did not know they were acquainted, and I am glad to discover the fact - it is to my advantage. I continue to play manic pixie dream date in the corner until Jacob goes inside to the bar. I wait a minute, then follow.

“Who is that boy you’re with?”

He smiles.

“It’s a long story. I’ll join you in a moment, I need a whiskey first.”

I am intrigued, returning to my table. It isn’t common knowledge, what’s happened between the boy and my friend. In fact, it is Top Secret Info. So what’s the story, too long to express without a drink?

When I sit down, I notice the boy is leaving. We make eye contact, but my courage fails me for a beat. What am I to say?

“Stay, so I can drug you!”

But that isn’t the plan at all. It has to be him first, I need him to hold an illusion of power. I let him leave.

Jacob joins me, now nursing his whiskey. He begins to tell me the story. This boy, he’s just come out of a horrible relationship. Truly violent. (So it is known, there was violence). More than being beautiful, he is kind, and intelligent. Jacob thinks there is a sadness within him. He tells me that the boy does too many drugs, but when he is not wasted, he is a wonderful soul.

Jacob is confident that I am shy, that I am tail between my legs nervous about winning over the Dreamy Druggie. He tells me that he think I’d be good for him, because I am kind, and I don’t drink, and maybe someone loving like me is exactly what DD needs in this moment. I swallow my saliva.

“In any case, he’s gone now. I was too nervous to say hello.”

“I know where he’s gone, I can give you the name of the bar.”

I pause, something strikes me. The feeling passes.

“Would you go with me? I don’t want to do it alone. You could introduce us.”

Jacob smiles again. He is drunk, and happy to play Cupid. I suspect that he is also happy that I’ve placed my trust in him - we were not friends before tonight. He throws back his whiskey.

“Alright then, let’s go.”

The bar isn’t far, about a 5 minute walk from the last one. Still, we have time to chat - and I let Jacob do the talking. He’s a photographer, and he tells me that he wants to take photos for DD’s portfolio. He tells me that DD doesn’t think he is beautiful enough to model - objectively, this is untrue. Apparently he’s told Jacob that his “teeth aren’t nice enough” to have photos taken. Jacob’s solution? Don’t smile.

The new bar is loud. From wall to pavement it is crowded with drunk and sweaty college students chanting in unison about the football match. “Karim! KARIM! KARIIIIM!!” To be there is to be exhausted.

My puppy is scared - she is either too young or too old for this nonsense. I tell Jacob I’ll wait outside, lighting a cigarette and projecting an air of disinterest. He returns quickly, DD in tow. Showtime begins. I am nervous once more.

“Asha, I’d like to present you to a friend of mine. This is Wren. Wren, this is-”

“Asha,” he finishes. My name sounds funny coming out of his mouth - heavier. His eyes are big, like mine. He holds my gaze, and for a moment - I think he knows what I’m up to. Then -

“Enchanté.”

“Enchantée, à toi aussi.”

Jacob is smooth, busying himself with someone beside him without looking like he’s fucking off to give me time to run game. Whether his smoothness is appreciated or not is unapparent, for Wren does not seem to notice his departure.

“Do you live in the neighbourhood?”

Already he is trying to trap me, pre-strangulation analysis. Does whether I’m local play a factor in where he’ll choose to hurt me?

“Two blocks from here, and you?”

I already know where he lives, but it’s nice to ask.

“A bit further, near the bar we were at before. Do you remember me?”

Freeze.

“Have we met?”

“We haven’t, but I’ve seen you many times. I thought maybe you’d have seen me, too.”

Narcissist.

“No, I don’t think so. I’m sure I would have remembered you.”

It’s a cheap line, but it works - he smiles.

“You have nice teeth.”

I’ve seen the bite marks they leave.

“Thank you. Would you like a drink?”

I shake my head.

“I don’t drink, thanks.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t like who I am when I drink.”

He pauses, studying my face. I don’t know where the words came from, they’re completely misaligned with my charade of innocence. Some part of me decided to offer its truth without consulting the rest, and I’m not sure which part of myself deserves a kick.

“I understand that. I don’t either, usually, but I’m not sure how to stop. It doesn’t make me feel better, but I already feel bad anyway.”

Now it’s my turn to pause. His words feel honest, and it disturbs me. My mother told me once that abusers will wear their vulnerability on their shirtsleeve, like a pin. This is how they keep the “poor me” narrative running, this is why we feel sorry for them rather than angry. I am in the process of reconstructing this knowledge into walls around me when he speaks again -

“What are you when you drink?”

What. Not who. What?

“Violent.”

“Yeah, me too. I don’t want to be, though. I want to be good for people.”

“Are you? Sometimes?”

He crouches down to sit crosslegged on the pavement. Immediately, Scar walks to join him, resting her head on his leg. Two against one, I join them on the ground.

“So?”

“I was thinking. It’s easier here. Yes, sometimes I am good for people. More often, some people are good for me. I try to learn from them, and it works sometimes.”

“What about when it doesn’t work?”

Wren winces, withdrawing his pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket. He pulls out two, offering the first to me. I accept, and he lights them both before speaking again. I inhale.

“Sometimes I’m too angry for anything to work. Except the people I’m angry with, they’re not around anymore. So the people who’ve stuck by me, they get my rage. It’s fucking backwards. I’m fucking backwards.”

I look up to the sky. It is night, but the sky isn’t fully dark - it never is. Light pollution shifts the black to blue, adding in a reddish tint. There are no stars to be seen.

“Why are you telling me this? Is this how you usually flirt?”

He shakes his head.

“I’m not flirting, I’m talking. Because I think you’ll understand me. You don’t need to flirt with people who understand you, there’s not a game to be played. Flirting is hiding. When I look at you, I see the same thing that I’m talking about in me. It’s in your eye, the left one : rage. But more than that, you are soft. I see you choosing to be soft. So I trust you, because for some people - it is not a choice. It is much more powerful to have the option to be wicked and choose not to be than to have been kindhearted all along. I am trying to choose that same power.”

“What stops you?”

“Exhaustion.”

I feel a sharp and sudden pain grip my chest, like a hornet sting to the heart. I reach my hand out without warning and grip his tightly.

I cannot explain what happens now, not properly. There are lights, flashes, a lifetime before me. My surroundings disappear. There is a chorus of memories that are not my own. I hear glass shattering and raised voices, I hear door slams. I taste blood in my mouth, my whole body aches. I feel drunk, distorted, disgusted, disgusting. There is a stained mattress, abandoned house, paint peeling. I feel myself making love to a woman, many women - my body is not my own, it is pale, it is Wren’s. I feel decades of tears rushing forward like a tsunami, pouring out of my eyes, filling up my mouth. I feel like I am being waterboarded with saline and screams, writhing and fighting to get out. Finally there is a climax, a tipping point - I manage to pull back, break free.

I am back on the street. Shaking, I look at my hands- they are my own once more. I look up to Wren and see his huge brown eyes, staring back at me. It occurs to me that I have just experienced every pain he’s ever suffered, and now I believe him to be deserving of love. It occurs to me that now, I think I may love him.

“Wren--”

He closes his eyes and places a hand up, stopping the rest of my words before they can meet the air. For a moment he is silent, pensive. Then, finally --

“Asha, did you come here to kill me?”

#tw: abuse #tw : domestic violence #creative writing #vigilante mode #nonfiction #creative nonfiction #essay #abuse #shadow work #magical realism #my writing #writing #writers of tumblr #short stories #short story #original writing #my fiction

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onafreckledsunflower · 4 years

Note

If I may ask. what is your Sci Fi AU about? Will there be EraserMic in it? Who else will be showing up?

You certainly may ask! Thank you so much!

~Basically it takes place in a version of earth where space travel has been a thing for a long while and quirks are still a thing as well. The Commission basically runs the world though they do it in a shadow government secretly pulling the strings kind of way and they use what’s know as the Hero League as their guards and also to distract the public from what they’re doing. Hizashi reluctantly works for them and he basically gets pulled in by the Number 2 Hero Hawks (who is 16 in this ages are all over the map lol) to help him rescue one of the other kids in the grooming program Izuku who looks like he’s two but is secretly an energy being type alien who claims to be a child of The First and who has been trapped on earth/in a human form for too long and will die unless he gets home. Basically Hizashi is now tasked with getting this kid home (wherever the hell that is) before he basically evaporates into nothing while being chased by the Commission and some ancient evil alien dude with a creepy smile I have no idea who that could be *cough* I actually made a post with the summary I plan to use on A03 for this fic when I post it HERE if anyone is interested in seeing that silliness. (Basically I was 100% inspired by The Mandalorian Season 2 trailer and my love of the “Characters on an Epic Journey to Find Something” trope. This is NOT a Star Wars AU though it is it’s own thing with a lot of elements and inspiration from other Sci-Fi shows mixed in as well)

~Short answer on the Earsermic: Yes. Long Answer: Still Yes. But it’s going to be like a glacial slow burn kind of deal. They were actually together for a very long time before the start of the fic but the a variety of stuff happens and they broke up and Aizawa pretty much despises Hizashi at the start of the fic and Hizashi is extremely furious and heartbroken over it so it’s kind of going to be an very LONG journey for them to get back together. And honestly there’s like a 5% chance one or the other of them might still NOPE out on me out of sheer stubborness at the end but the plan is that YES they will get there eventually. The relationship platonic and romantic is still very important to the story over all just not the driving force or main focus of it if that makes any sort of sense.

~I feel like pretty much everyone in the series has a chance to show up at some point or another but the main cast will be: Hizashi, Izuku, Hawks, Shinsou, Iida, Aizawa, Kaminari & Mei. All Might, Inko, First & Co are also very important to the story but probably won’t show up until near the endgame section of the story. All for One and Shigaraki are the main bad guys but other LOV members will probably show up too. Eri, Tokoyami, Uraraka & Momo will also be mixed in there as well after it reaches a certain point.

I’m basically taking the time to write out everyone’s backstories in this universe so that I can fit them in where they’ll fit best in the narrative so I can’t say for sure who else might show up and be important that will depend on where the fully plotted story takes me so if a character you like isn’t on the list they might still end up becoming important. I mean I certainly didn’t think going into working on this that Hawks would end up being the third most important character in it. He was supposed to be a means to an end to getting Izuku into Hizashi’s hand but Hizashi decided he wanted to Dad the hell out of Hawks too and so that’s a Thing now.

Mostly I just REALLY wanted to write some plot filled and epic with Hizashi at the center because so often I see him only as a sideline character in other people’s stories. So the other characters are there and they’re going to all be important but this is going to be Hizashi’s story. Because he deserves a chance to be the Star of the Show just this once as a treat.

#My Hero Academia #Hizashi Yamada #Izuko Midoriya #Aizawa Shouta #Present Mic #Dad Mic #Fic Ideas #MHA: Present Mic #MHA: Izuku #MHA: Hawks #MHA Dad Mic #Anonymous

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thanksjro · 4 years

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More Than Meets the Eye #5- Delphi Has a Two-Star Rating On Yelp

Issue #4 left off with some pretty raw dialogue from Fortress Maximus.

Now, that’s a lot of hot talk from a guy who looks like he’s wearing fairy wings. Hope you got some walk to back it up, Fort Max.

FUCK YEAH YOU DO HOLY SHIT THAT’S AWESOME.

And would you look at that! Got some familiar posing going on here.

Considering Fort Max just woke up from a years-long coma, and before that had spent three years under Overlord’s sadistic thumb, this sort of parallel might be cause for concern, but I’m sure it’s fine.

It’s fine!

After Fort Max comes down from his adrenaline high and stops cutting folks’ heads off with his titty flaps, Ratchet can finally address the downturn in Drift’s health, as he lays on the floor rusting to death. Turns out the two of them have a bit of a past, but we won’t be getting anything of substance out of that little detail, because Pharma’s decided to pull a gun on Ambulon.

He claims that Ambulon is the one who released the Decepticons from their cells, and that he’s most likely also the cause of the virus. Why? Because Ambulon used to be a Decepticon himself! Gasp!

Ambulon cops to having defected 10 years prior, which is that a long time for Transformers or not? It’s vague. Their sense of time dilation as a species is never actually addressed in canon.

Then First Aid pulls a gun on Pharma, saying that Pharma’s full of shit, because while Ambulon was busy being threatened, he rooted around in the Decepticons’ corpses and found something that shouldn’t have been there: their transformation cogs.

Then Ratchet reaches for his gun, demanding that Pharma switch to his alt-mode. When he refuses, that seals the deal on Ratchet’s theory- the virus doesn’t become active until after the infected changes their shape. That’s why Pipes and Drift are currently not-bleeding out on the floor after having been at Delphi for twenty minutes at most, but First Aid and Ambulon are perfectly fine.

I mean, fine outside of what’s probably equivalent to a major kidney infection being left untreated and turning into a leg.

C’mon, Ratchet, that’s the thing he’s sensitive about!

And then Rung comes out of nowhere and pulls out HIS gun-

No, that doesn’t happen.

What does happen is that Pharma shoots the life support machines and bolts, leaving the other doctors with twenty machine-dependent patients who will die without intervention.

Ambulon, on what fucking planet is First Aid not taking initiative? This guy’s done more in the last two days than you’ve probably done in the last year. Look at Ratchet back there, he knows how to properly appreciate a go-getter.

Fort Max runs after Pharma as Ratchet finally peels Drift off the floor and gets him into a bed. Drift, who’s pretty convinced that he’s going to die today one way or another, goes full sad cat and begs Ratchet to mercy-kill him, seeing as this is the planet the DJD base a majority of their operations out of, and the likelihood of Pharma being involved with them is looking real good right about now. The sprinklers have gone off, people are flat-lining, Ratchet disregards his own health and safety for that of a patient, transforming to give him a reboot, Fort Max comes back empty-handed because he’s too got-danged big to fit down the trapdoor Pharma went through, and the whole situation is really just the hugest mess.

Let’s check in on the Lost Light, shall we?

The boots are still real, y’all. Those goddamn fucking hooves come off, I’m telling you.

So, Tailgate’s come to a decision. Again. He wants to be an Autobot this go around, though, which sits a whole lot better with Ultra Magnus.

But why bother joining a faction now? The war’s over. Turns out, Tailgate’s feeling a little lonely, because no matter how successful you are, it just won’t fill the hole in your heart quite like being a part of a found family narrative does.

Magnus, moved by Tailgate’s openness and equally impressed by his positively ridiculous resume, agrees to help him prepare for the rite of Autobrand.

Of course, Magnus being Magnus, isn’t going to do this in any sort of half-measure; he’s going to go through the entire 10,000 pages of the Autobot Code, line by line, word by word, punctuation mark by punctuation mark, breaking it all down through multiple schools of thought to garner the deepest possible understanding of what it means to be an Autobot. Tailgate, though horrified by the prospect of so much studying, agrees, and a glorious two-man act is established.

Meanwhile, over in Rung’s office, the good doctor is ruminating on his history with one of his most prolific patients, Red Alert.

Red Alert’s been under Rung’s care since before the war even started, which seems to contradict issue #1’s claim that Rung was his psychiatrist for six centuries, but perhaps the case file got bounced around as Red Alert’s stationings changed.

Which doesn’t bode terribly well, considering Rung is, again, pretty much the only mental health specialist for the entirety of Cybertron.

Red Alert’s been diagnosed with Paranoid Personality Disorder, and it seems like it’s a pretty intense case, or at least it was before Rung got ahold of him. Red Alert had been doing better, and his military career had flourished as a result.

And then the war friggin’ ended, and it looks like the lack of routine- violence-based or otherwise- might be causing a bit of a backslide.

Red Alert’s been hearing noises, ones only he seems to be able to perceive.

Then again, he seems to have some pretty banging ears, so maybe he’s on to something.

The only problem is that where he’s hearing these noises doesn’t make any sense, because he’s hearing them under the basement, where there should be nothing other than the cold silence of space, according to the schematics of the Lost Light. It’s crazy. Purely crazy.

Good thing Red Alert recorded what he heard. Dude probably has a ton of experience not being believed, and knows the value of having evidence to back up your claims. He plays Rung the audio file, and after a bit of playback speed manipulation, they figure out just what that noise is.

Great, even the basement’s got major depression.

Back with Tailgate, it looks like Ultra Magnus has gotten a head-start on the study session, having knocked the little guy clean out with a precision strike verbal barrage of pure boredom. Tailgate nodded off during Magnus’ covering of section 19 of the Tyrest Accord, subsection 80, paragraph 5. This reminds Tailgate of when he met Skids and that giant yellow robot got all exploded.

Jesus, would you look at that shading. Ultra Magnus takes his literary references very, very seriously.

Back with the plague plot, Ratchet’s finally caught up with Pharma, who proceeds to tell him all about how he pulled off his big bad plan, in true villain fashion. Ratchet just sort of stands there and takes it as his eyeballs start melting out of his head.

Pharma is pretty much the only reason that Delphi hasn’t been wiped off the map by the Decepticon Justice Division, because he and the leader of that gang of murderous assholes have a deal- the DJD leave the outpost alone, in exchange for all the transformation cogs their greedy little hearts desire. The problem with this sort of deal is that in order to keep up his end of the bargain, Pharma had to start offing patients.

Of course, that sort of thing isn’t sustainable in the long-term, so Pharma had to orchestrate a way out, while still keeping himself out of prison for some of the most intense malpractice this side of Cybertron, so he called in a little help from some Decepticon nobodies and waved a little cash in their faces. He made a bomb, gave it to them, and they did what they were paid to do, spreading a illness that laid dormant in the liquidy stuff surrounding the t-cog until properly stirred by transformation. As Pharma tells his story, his face does the anime thing.

That’s how you know he’s SNAPPED!

Ratchet really just isn’t a fan of this new character arc Pharma’s got going on, but there isn’t a whole hell of a lot he can do about it now other than stand there and rust as his line art breaks down.

Though that actually works out in his favor, as the corrosion juices puddled under him during that whole spiel, enough so that they reached Pharma’s feet. Once Ratchet points that little detail out, Pharma panics, trying to jump out of the juice and getting clocked in the face.

Pharma said, whilst holding said vaccine in clear view of the man threatening him with a gun.

Ratchet doesn’t fire, because his hands are acting up- talk about poor timing- but Pharma doesn’t have that problem, onlining his built-in guns and shooting Ratchet, seemingly killing him.

Or not. It’s the return of the smiler, Ratchet’s vaguely creepy solid light avatar, best known for telling teenagers to get inside him and making mechanics uncomfortable.

The sight of this creepy little man throws Pharma off enough to allow Ratchet to tackle him, the vaccine flying out of his hands and rolling towards the edge of the incredibly tall portion of the outpost they’re currently on top of.

As the vaccine glowstick falls over the edge, Pharma, understandably, becomes furious, attacking Ratchet, though it doesn’t really work out for him too well. Guess that’s just what happens when your shut-in ass tries to tangle with a dude who’s been on the front lines for years now.

Ratchet, please make a fucking appointment with Rung, I’m begging you. This isn’t a healthy attitude to have towards yourself.

Because he got his arm stomped on real good earlier, Pharma’s on a timer for how much longer he’ll be able to hang onto the edge of the building, before he has to decide whether or not to risk transforming to save himself from impact with the ground, or just chancing being a neigh-indestructible space robot. Ratchet gives him a raw-ass one-liner, turning his back on the dude who has gun turrets built into his shoulder blades.

Luckily Drift hasn’t completely melted yet and managed to get up the ladder to the roof access just in time.

And thus the power of violence saves the day!

Ratchet’s avatar caught the vaccine as it was falling, because he’s just that good at multitasking, so it wasn’t lost at all, and they were able to save everyone from rusting to death. Even Pipes is okay, and you know how much Roberts likes killing that guy. Things are looking up!

Because Delphi’s been revealed to be pretty much the worst place ever, everyone is evacuated to the Lost Light, where First Aid will finally get the credit he’s due.

Suck it, Ambulon!

Ratchet figured out that First Aid sent the datalog that alerted him to the situation on Delphi, because he too is a giant nerd, and like recognizes like. The two lament the loss of the person Pharma had been, wishing they could have saved him.

Yeah, Ratchet, that sentiment goes a hell of a lot further when you don’t steal the man’s hands.

Like, I know he wasn’t using them anymore, but Jesus.

And thus the “Ratchet can’t do shit because his hands suck” arc draws to a close.

#transformers #jro #mtmte #issue 5 #maccadam #Hannzreads #text post #long post #comic script writing

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bold-moves · 4 years

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Better Than You Think, 001: The Dark Knight Rises.

I want to start writing out why I like some of the movies that most people hate. The narratively derivative, corny, critically panned action movies that people write off. Those are my faves. So here goes.

Not as groundbreaking as Batman Begins or as critically acclaimed as The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises stands as the odd one out of Nolan’s trilogy. It has some tonal similarities and the action is equally fantastical but for whatever reason, it’s not everyone’s favorite.

It’s definitely mine though and I’m going to explain why for a bit.

I’m going to contextualize this and say, that I don’t like Batman. As a boy, I did for sure, but as I’ve grown up, I strongly believe that this guy is totally lame. Sure, singularity of purpose is admiral and I’ll give anyone that, but this dude is totally lame by my standards. He alienates his relationships, he’s totally detached from the world he’s in and his money insulates him from even his own cause. The idea that I will use my wealth and resources to strike fear into criminals is kind of an asshole way to go about it. Spider-man uses his powers to rise to the occasion of his responsibilities and Batman uses his resources to hold criminals responsible for what has happened to Gotham and had he spent his time intimidating corrupt judges and politicians instead of projecting his anger and loss on criminals, maybe the people who really have influence in the city would be galvanized and inspired to their jobs. But like the wealthy, resourceful, and privileged, they protect their own and Batman is absolving the elite with his “powers.” He’s a bit like Che Guevara to me. You have someone who comes from a wealthy background, sees the world and how fucked up it is, decides to do something about it, romanticizes his campaign, and when he’s actually in a position to make permanent change, he denies it and indulges is addictions to conflict and virtue signaling.

He also looks cool on a T-Shirt.

Enter Bane. Bane is the hero of this movie for me. He is literally from the bottom. The movie deviates from the comics which depicts Bane as a person of color from a fictional country in Latin America, whose father was a failed revolutionary that escaped the country and due to the archaic laws of the country, is forced to serve the sentence of his father. He grew up surrounded by criminals and in this basin of crime and misery, built his mind and body to rival Batman. In this prison he hears about the tales of “The Great Bat of Gotham,” the personification of his own fear of the bats infesting the prison and decides to, unlike Bruce Wayne who uses his own fear of bats to strike dread into his enemies, kill the great Bat and subdue finally his fears.

He is not inspired to project his fears and insecurities on criminals. He does not pervert his responsibilities. He targets the thing that he fears and with singularity of purpose, sets out to conquer them by any means necessary, and always with the means he’s inherited from his isolation and resolve, not his wealthy parents.

Now back to the film. Bane, is equally romantic as Bruce, but practical. This is a person of great will and with will we can cut through our human failings and rise to our great potential. He is always aware of the true nature of things and will not let money, the constructs of society or those who believe they are in power adulterate his vision. There is no second personality. No playboy. No concessions. “No one cared who I was until I put on the mask.” Unlike all of us, scrambling to be known and validated, he has given up his face and uniquely personal ambitions to become, not a superficial symbol, but an agent of change. The bringer of true justice and the vicious wind that will blow away corruption. His response to evil and crime is not a crusade to strike fear into the evil and criminal. He wishes to protect true innocence. In the movie he fights off prisoners to protect young Thalia. He wishes to defend those who truly cannot defend themselves. In the comics, His father is a coward. His mother, violated and murdered. His youth and innocence, burgled by a system that claims to bring justice but enlarges itself on the plunder of its own hypocrisy and inefficiencies. Bane purifies himself and purges his humanity to defend a principle of true justice.

This inspires me to no end. Until I saw this movie, I didn't want to get big until I saw this movie. As soon as the movie was over, I went to Walmart and bought a pull-up bar. To be so intimidating. To be so replete with resolve. To use simple and devastating speech. To place the hand on the shoulders of some tiny, self entitled money bags and ask him,”do you feel in charge?” At the time, I was working at a Japanese company, taking shit all day, struggling within the customary submissive constructs of working for a Japanese boss. I had been training in martial arts for over a decade by that time, I was bilingual, I was fucking dangerous and instead I was taking orders all day from people I could crush with my bare hands. Seeing Bane was so inspiring for me at that time. I have this need to keep driving, and fighting. To not let peace defeat me. This was something I learned from this film.

One of the other lines that really stung me was when Catwoman was urging Batman to escape the city with her, pleading, “you don’t owe these people anymore, you’ve given them everything.” To me at that time, I thought of all the placating, and self adjusting I had done to fit in. All of the time I’ve tried to make society value me. All of the time I've pleaded for love and just a chance to be happy. I was tired of working for that. I didn't owe these people anymore. When Batman responds saying “Not everything. Not yet,” I thought of a version of myself that has gone all out. A version of myself that has engaged that final gear of existing. Intense. Achieving. Severe. And this severity is something that I wanted to be associated with and I hadn’t given to the world, not yet. Over time it became less about the people and more about doing it for myself. In my recent viewing of the movie, another line has stood out to me. A concept that I think more accurately describes my current mood. While Bruce Wayne is in the prison, doing push ups, trying to regain his strength so that he can escape, a fellow prisoner asks him, “why build yourself?” and Bruce responds, “I’m not meant to die in here.” I don’t think this line was supposed to have that much of an effect but it really spoke to me this time.

I’m so driven to self overcome. I joined the army to breakdown the habits that a comfortable civilian life had infected me with and to add another element of lethality to my arsenal. I can’t stop thinking about how to improve and fortify and often people do ask me why I’m so intense. I often ask myself this as well. The idea of “not dying in here,” is the answer. “Here,” being an unrealized self. “Here,” being the prison of conditioned impulse and self sabotage. “Here,” being the pressures to be something I am not. “Here,” is being content, agreeable,and submissive. “Here,” is the prison of weakness and the suppression of heroic ideals. I build myself so that I can escape all debilitating humanity.

So this movie, although not as revered as the other two Batman movies, is a banger and filled with the “hard-style”, self-overcoming concepts that give me the chills. I always come back to this film when I need inspiration and a kick in the ass. I invite you to take a deeper look at what's going on. Take a chance on a line of dialogue and think about it a bit and if you find yourself on the bandwagon of disliking or liking something because everyone else does, ask yourself,

“Do you feel in charge?”

#movie analysis

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oveliagirlhaditright · 4 years

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So... since a lot of videos that are being recommended to me lately, are about people’s ten most hated tropes and it’s on my mind... I’ve decided to do my own list. For no reason whatsoever.

1. Fridging... do I even need to explain why I hate female characters being killed off, just to cause a man pain or further his arc? No. It can happen with guys--think Sydney Bristow’s fiancé, Danny, from Alias, who died and set her whole story into motion--and sometimes it can even be done “right” (like with Aerith Gainsborough from FFVII, or something, where she was maybe slightly fridged... in that she somewhat died to bring Cloud pain. But more than that, she died to save the world--and actually had agency with that--and knew she was going to die, and bravely went through with it, anyway)... as “right” as this annoying trope can be done. But for the most part, I hate it and get so mad when authors use it.

2. Lack of Communication Kills... There is no more annoying plot in the world, then when all the drama and your entire goddamn story happens because people can’t open their damn mouths and have an actual conversation with each other. -sigh-

2.5 And with the above one... though not as bad for me: when a character is saying all these glowing things about another one--and maybe says one bad thing about them--and of course the other character only hears the bad stuff. Or when a character gets there at the wrong time: like, someone is kissing their significant other... and their significant other clearly didn’t want it, and told them no, and isn’t even kissing them back... but the main character is going to miss all of this and think they cheated when they didn’t. We’re just going to call these two together “plot convenience”.

3. The “Can’t Ever Have Sex” trope... I hate this one so much. And not even because I care about sex. I really don’t. It’s just annoying and unbelievable. A lot of the time, it was done in the late 90′s to early 2000′s, where networks thought if they let their two main love interests have sex, the audience would lose interest in the rest of the thing and stop watching there (and look, I feel if you think your fans are only watching your movie or show, just to see their two favorite characters have sex, that’s kind of your problem right there). But I just find this a cop-out, and am glad most writers have moved away from this--because if you’re a good writer--you can keep your audience invested and let your characters have sex, dangit. But Buffy (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) not being able to have sex with Angel, because he’ll turn into serial killer vampire Angelus is dumb. Max and Logan (Dark Angel) not being able to sleep together, because Manticore put a deadly virus inside of Max that only targets Logan’s DNA is stupid. Jace and Clary (The Mortal Instruments) not getting it on until the last book, because first Jace was her “brother”, and then because he was possessed, and then because he had heavenly fire inside of him, etc.... why? Just why? And a lot of these are in danger of getting into “sex is evil” and/or “sexuality in women is a bad thing” categories.

4. Love triangles. I get why people love love triangles. I do. And I can sometimes even enjoy them myself... but I’ve just seen them too many times now to really care about them. More often than not, they annoy me... especially if people are being abysmal to each other--so you’d wonder why Person A loves Person B at all, if they treat them like that--and there’s cheating involved. I also... just don’t believe that it happens so often in life, that right when Character A and Character B realize they’re in love with each other... A Character C just happens to be in love with one of them, too, and chooses then to let them known. Edit: Also, when the author clearly has a choice of who they want the person to end up with... so they make that person wonderful and the other one terrible, so you’ll hopefully choose what they want, which sort of defeats the whole point of the love triangle to begin with. Have both choices be great, so you struggle with the character and get why they’re struggling.

5. The “I’m leaving you/breaking up with you to protect you” trope, that’s usually coupled with “And of course, I’m not going to tell you this is the reason I’m doing this--I’m just going to break your heart, for no good reason--instead of actually treating you like an equal and giving you a choice about how you want to live your own life.”

6. I don’t hate this one as much--in fact, I might not even hate it... but I still don’t like it--but whatever trope it is, that has one girl and two boys in a group of three, and two girls and three boys in a group of five: where the girl always has to be the gender that’s outnumbered for some weird reason.

7. Villain monologues... though to be fair, I also do this a lot in my own writing. And I get why it’s easy to do... Because most of the time, you don’t unmask the killer--or whatever--until the end of the story, and you also don’t get all the clues to tie it together until then, either, so the only one who knows everything has to fill you in on it... but it’s just so unbelievable. And even moreso, if a murderer is confessing to a cop, or whatever, knowing full-well that this will throw them into prison for life or even give them the death penalty... when anyone else in this situation would say nothing.. or ask for a lawyer. Or even still say nothing with said lawyer. And with this one... when a villain would have actually killed their enemy, if they’d actually shut up and done it instead of gloating.

8. Chosen one storylines... just chosen one storylines. For one thing, I think they’re overdone and kind of lazy. They can also make your character seem like a Mary-Sue... because what are the chances that they, of all people, are the only one in the world who can do this thing? And it just annoys me, that in a lot of “chosen one” stories/prophecies or what have you, someone else could do all the work in defeating the Big Bad or whatever... but because there’s a prophecy, they can’t kill them no matter how hard they try! And then the chosen one can just come in and bonk the Big Bad on the head--dealing the final blow that they couldn’t have even inflicted on the bad guy, if the other person hadn’t done all their work for them--and then they get the credit for it. Like, it must suck to be the supporting character in a chosen one story. Surely they should all hate the chosen one, right? Especially since chosen one stories are also often “new to the world” stories, where everyone else has been fighting the Big Bad for years... but now out of nowhere, a chosen one can get introduced to the problem and in one second do what they in years were unable to do. I do, however, love love love stories that subvert the chosen one narrative.

9.Rape as a way to make a story “gruesome” and “gritty”. Rape in general, actually.

10. I’m someone who always wants and prefers a happy ending... but to be honest, some people in your narrative probably should die--and there probably should be some consequences to whatever happened--otherwise it feels too perfect. But on the flip-side of that, I hate stories with the most bleak endings ever... and when authors refuse to give you even a hint of a happy ending whatsoever--because “that’s life, bitches”--and even seem to want to shame people for wanting/expecting happy endings.

Edit: Honorary mention, that maybe somewhat goes with the “Can’t Ever Have Sex One”: senseless relationship drama in a ship--all the time--because for some reason, the author(s) think you can’t invested in a relationship that’s actually happy and healthy together. This can also be a “we fight, we break up. We kiss, we make up” one. There is a difference between relationship drama that’s needed for the plot, and relationship drama that’s just there because the writers think you’ll lose interest, otherwise, and because we gotta be “dark, gritty, and realistic. Because clearly there aren’t happy relationships in the real world. Clearly.”

Edit 2: The next honorary mention. The Damsel in Distress trope. I have no problem with girls needing to be saved in a story--I have less problems with this than most people do, probably--or a guy, if it’s the “Dude in Distress” trope. But if you refuse to give such a character any agency whatsoever, there’s a problem.

Edit 3: The “Girls Hating Each Other” trope.

Edit 4: A girl’s entire character being all about the boy that she likes... with literally nothing else, and really no other relationships, to her. I feel this is usually the fault of male authors who don’t know how to write girls at all.

Edit 5: When a story goes on much longer than it should (after its story has really come to a close)--and becomes the worst thing ever for this reason--and just refuses to end.

Edit 6: When love interests put their love interest before the fate of the world--refusing to make the tough choice they really probably should--that the author thinks is romantic... but really isn’t. And kind of says bad things about the characters and their love... like that they’re and it are selfish.

These are all the ones I can think of off the top of my head. There may be more. And I may edit this list, if I think of honorary mentions... or things that I think should have been on here more than the ones that I listed. But for now... this is good, I think.

#tw #rape mention #other honorary mention: abusive relationships. but I don't think I'm going to include it because it kind of goes without saying #and maybe teen pregnancy. maybe. though it might just be because my blood is boiling in thinking that James Patterson did that to maximum #ride of all people

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sophieakatz · 4 years

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Thursday Thoughts: Writing Advice (Part 2 of 3)

Welcome back!

I recently stumbled across this writer ask meme about pieces of writing advice, and I was having so much fun thinking about it that I decided to just respond to them all!

16. Start your story on a train

If it makes sense to do so, sure.

Be careful of advice that tells you what kind of scene to begin with or not to begin with. If everyone writes the same kind of opening scene, the slush pile readers start to get bored.

17. Rules are made to be broken

First you gotta learn the rules. That’s how you learn how to break them well.

18. The first draft of everything is shit

This is likely. I don’t recommend assuming that anything you write is going to be shit, because that can discourage you from writing at all. But I encourage you to be open to the possibility that your first draft will be shit. Give yourself permission to suck!

To paraphrase Neil Gaiman, a first draft is you telling yourself the story. Turning it into something that other people will understand is what editing is for.

19. Write drunk edit sober

I hadn’t heard this before, but I like it as a metaphor for letting go of your inhibitions. If you stress too much about making your first draft perfect, you might not write at all. I do my best first-draft writing after midnight, when I don’t care what anyone thinks anymore, not even myself.

When it’s time to edit, though, be ready to hold yourself to much higher standards.

20. Write stoned edit stoneder

I honestly have no idea what this means.

21. Leave home

This might mean a few different things, so I’m responding to each of them.

If you are suffering from writer’s block, a change of scenery can sometimes help. Go to the living room, go outside, go somewhere else (while maintaining an appropriate social distance).

If you want to expand what you know, in order to write something beyond what you know, leaving home can help. If you want to write about the world beyond your home with any amount or accuracy or relatability, then you need to experience the world.

If you want to create a dynamic story, most likely that’s going to involve having your characters leave home. We call it the “hero’s journey” for a reason. Usually, the hero goes somewhere. Now, that journey can be an internal one – the hero might not physically go anywhere at all. But the story will “go” somewhere.

22. Do not use semicolons

Semicolons are a tool; use them wisely.

23. Kill your darlings

I really, really don’t like this advice. It’s well-intentioned, yes. I get what people mean when they say “kill your darlings.” But I’m really not a fan of the phrase.

When people say “kill your darlings,” what they mean is, sometimes you will have a scene, line, or character that you love a lot. But then you will discover that for some reason – pacing, relevance, editorial demand – you need to cut that thing you love.

“Kill your darlings” instructs you to not be precious about it. If something isn’t working for your story, just get rid of it.

But the fact is, when you love something that you wrote, there is a reason! A darling is a darling because it is good! Maybe it doesn’t belong in this particular story. Maybe you do need to cut it. But you don’t need to kill it.

Darlings have value. That value might not be apparent yet, but it exists. You can always take the thing that you loved about that scene, line, or character and keep it safe somewhere, as inspiration for a new story in the future.

I recommend making a folder titled “Orphanage” and putting your darlings there. You can and will find a home for them someday.

24. Don’t edit as you write

This will vary from person to person, and from project to project.

When I’m drafting a novel, I need to shut up my inner editor and just write. If I let myself get carried away editing, then I’ll stress too much about making it sound perfect, and I’ll stress myself out of writing at all.

But if editing as you write works for you, then go for it! There’s no correct order for writing. If the right thing for you to do right now is spend an entire afternoon making a pivotal scene perfect, even if you haven’t finished the rest of the novel yet, then do it.

Do what works for you.

25. Always carry a notebook and pen

I’m a personal fan of this one. I carried a notebook and pen with me all through junior high. These days I’m more likely to jot down ideas in the notes app on my phone. I do have a little notebook I carry in my pocket at work, though, since I’m not allowed to have my phone out.

My memory isn’t good enough to go without some way of jotting down ideas when I have them. Also, having something to write on when I’m bored makes me happy. Writing is something I just plain need to do. It’s who I am.

26. If you have an idea, write it down, you are not going to remember it

I mean this is true for me. You know your own brain best.

27. Get off the Internet

Nah, dude, the internet is where I get my best ideas!

It can help to remove distractions when you have a deadline, of course. I like to set a timer for a half hour and tell myself that I cannot open Tumblr, Twitter, or Facebook until it goes off.

28. Do not show an early draft to anyone

Hm. The issue with showing an early draft to someone is that you’re still figuring out what the story is yourself. This is a vulnerable time for a writer. It can be very easy for someone else to look at an early draft and tell you what they think the story should be. They don’t do it on purpose, usually. But they’re not always right.

Once you know what the story is and what kind of effect you intend for it to have on other people, then you do need to show it to someone. You need to hear a reader’s perspective. It’s the only way to learn whether your story is doing what you intend it to do.

Only you can decide when it’s the right time to show someone else something that you’ve written. There is a right time. You do deserve to have other people read your work.

29. Do not show an early draft to anyone that you do not really trust

Choose your readers wisely. “Trust” is a tricky word; I think you can show your drafts to people that you know and love, and also to people that you don’t know very well.

The people you meet in a writing workshop might be more willing to give you useful critique than your parent who will tell you that everything you write is great. At the same time, your parent will know you well enough to give their critique in a way that makes sense to you, while a relative stranger might accidentally come off as rude or condescending.

Show your early drafts to people who will give you what you need. This means that you should give them some guidance about how they can help you, especially if they’re not used to giving writing critique.

Are you looking for praise and encouragement from the reader? Are you looking for how it makes the reader feel? Are you looking for which characters or moments stand out to the reader? Tell them what you need and see how they respond. That’s how you find useful critique partners.

And they are partners. If they are taking the time to read your work, figure out something you can do for them in return. If they are a writer, too, offer to read their work. If not, buy them a coffee.

30. Don’t drink and write

I don’t drink, but I don’t see why not. For some people, drinking might help you get to that no-inhibitions mental space I discover after midnight.

31. Read your story aloud

Reading your writing out loud is a fantastic editing tool. When you just use your eyes, your brain can fill in the blanks with what you meant to say. It’s harder to miss errors when you read out loud.

With plays and screenplays, which will eventually be read aloud by performers, you need to hear the story read aloud in order to discover what’s working well and what isn’t.

32. Start with the end in mind

This is not obligatory, but it can help.

There is a place for writing by the seat of your pants (“pantsing”), especially if you don’t yet know where the story will go or what it truly is about. Again, the first draft is you telling yourself the story.

But a cohesive narrative has an ending which resonates throughout the story. It makes sense as the place that the story was going all along. This isn’t the same thing as a predictable ending. It is an ending that makes sense as a consequence of everything that came before it.

My undergraduate screenwriting professor had us write the last ten pages of our screenplay very early in the semester. She told us to make our best guess about how the story would end. This forced me to figure out some things about the characters and their journey very quickly – which proved to be useful for my writing the rest of the semester.

Then my professor told us to not be afraid of changing the ending. Most likely, she said, once we actually got to the end, it would be very different than what we just wrote. But it was still important to keep the destination in mind as we took our characters along their journey.

To be continued…

#writing #advice #writing advice #writblr #writers of tumblr #reading #writing critique #editing #kill your darlings #thursday thoughts #listicles #first drafts #rules #writing rules #rules are made to be broken #endings

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shefightslikeagirl · 4 years

Text

CORSETS AND STRIPED STOCKINGS: OUTFITTING THE ASYLUM FOR WAYWARD VICTORIAN GIRLS by She Fights Like A Girl

These articles are best viewed on desktop, but are mobile friendly. Please excuse any strange formatting on your phone browser or the Tumblr app.

This article was longer than intended and image-heavy, so it’s been split into two parts.

PART V: AN ASYLUM MUSICAL

“And if I end up with blood on my hands, Well, I know that you’ll understand ‘Cause I fight like a girl.” - Fight Like A Girl (2014)

And now we're back to the relatively recent past, when this blog was in its infancy and the fandom couldn't decide whether to stick with the forum or run rampant on Tumblr. Fight Like A Girl (the album) was still being recorded, but Emilie did a few live dates Down Under and decided to feature the title song from the unfinished album.

To my understanding, the Harvest Festival was another one of those concerts where the show was considerably downsized because of the cost of shipping props and set pieces. But where the South American tours hadn’t pulled back in the wardrobe department, the Harvest festival did. Emilie and the Crumpets performed in one costume for the entire set. But to make up for the lack of glam, EA debuted the first costume of the FLAG era.

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This costume was worn for the cover art of Fight Like A Girl, and acted as the signature corset for the very first Fight Like A Girl World Tour (2012).

“Asylum Secrets: All of my costumes over the years have been made to look as though someone had been murdered in them and come back from the dead to enact a fabulous revenge. To achieve this, I have employed techniques from melting fabrics with an industrial strength heat gun to spraying them with solutions that no human should ever breathe. In the case of the corset pictured, I burned it mercilessly with sticks of incense before painting the fabric to make it look moth-eaten.” - EA on the creation of the FLAG corset (June 25, 2018)

Speaking of the 2012 FLAG World Tour! While there were a lot of changes from The Door Tour and Harvest Festival, this tour is probably best remembered as a transition phase between eras. There were new costumes, but… the Rat Queen still introduced the show with 4 o’Clock. There were new set dressings, but… the shadow scrim was still main stage center. The new corset was mixed in with the Rat Queen ensemble and the structure of the show hadn’t changed terribly. New, but… kinda not?

Except for that Warrior Mohawk, of course.

Upper: WVC content / eBay listing photo. Lower: Making of the Warrior Mohawk from Emilie’s Flickr account.

This is the only tour where Emile wore a mohawk for the entirety(-slash-majority) of the show. Later concerts would see her removing it after the third song. There was some slight skepticism in the fandom with its debut, sparking discourse about everything from cultural appropriation to thematic relevance, but EA didn’t make much comment on the criticism.

“[The Warrior Mohawk] signified the transformation from victim to warrior. I feel that it is important for me to let go in order that I may go on to transform yet again and create new bits of wearable magic to surprise you with... This headpiece symbolized the birth of a new era in the Asylum…. This is the headdress of a tribal Queen…” - EA, 2012 eBay auction description.

“The Mohawk headdress represents the tribal, wild element of the sisterhood that formed during the imprisonment of the inmates, and shows that, once we escape and are on the rampage to take down our oppressors, we have indeed transformed from individual, helpless victims into a strong and beautifully terrifying tribal warriors.” - EA for Natalie’s World, 2013 (x) (x)

Another costume that debuted on this tour was the MC of the Ophelia Gallery, who had his own brand-new number: Girls! Girls! Girls!

And as for its history...

(My best guess is that this photo originated in 2009, based on her hair.)

This character is a hint at the structure of the tour (and album) to come, where it would be less about the mad girls existing inside the Asylum and more about the story of how they got there, and what happened once they were interned. Allow me to stray from the costuming topic for just a moment…

A TANGENT: OF STAGE SHOWS AND ASYLUM CONTINUITY Spoiler filled ramblings of a long-time fan.

I’ve got a running theory that The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls, in all its forms, runs in parallel to the concerts. But they match each other in reverse. [Spoilers for the book to follow.]

Emilie’s first concert of the Opheliac brand was in a small venue in Chicago, alongside Lady Joo Hee. In The Asylum… book, Emily-with-a-y’s final days in the Asylum were spent with Sachiko (a character based on and formerly named Joo Hee).

The Opheliac shows of 2007-2011 were all about the women in an Asylum singing songs and welcoming others home. Cannibals, ballerinas, pyrate captains, nymphomanics -- they all ran rampant with no apparent oversight except from Emilie herself. Rats crept and crawled onstage unbothered; toys, crumpets, and cupcakes were in abundance, often served alongside “tea,” and there isn’t a single cell door in sight.

Especially in the earliest days of the concerts, the set design had an emphasis on appearing hand-made -- not only because it was, but because it should be for these girls. This was the world EA branded for herself: a world of freedom, without judgement, earned by their own hands.

In The Asylum… book, after the Inmates take over and kill the doctors, this is very much what they do: impersonate medical professionals and welcome sick and not-so-sick girls home to protect them, nurture them, and give them the best life that the Victorian Age fails to do. They take over the Asylum and make it their own.

Then in the FLAG performances (2012-2014), the storytelling shifts. EA’s Asylum world is no longer loosely themed with inmates running amok, but adheres to a more rigid storytelling structure, detailing the struggles and despair of the girls locked up in The Asylum(-with-a-capital-T). It mirrors the bulk of the content in The Asylum… book. The carefree, whimsical stage dressings shift to bars -- a representation of the cells and gates in The Asylum. There might be a bear tied to a dreary grey harpsichord; you might even see a single rat scratching about. But they don’t have dominion here. There’s no freedom. Just the story of the girls trapped behind the bars.

And now we’re stalled on both sides of the street. We’ve met in the middle. The concerts started at the end of the book, and ended at the beginning.

Ok, I’ll put my soapbox away. Let’s get back on track.

BACK TO BUSINESS

Where were we?

Oh, yes: Girls! Girls! Girls! and new costumes.

So let’s jump forward a little more, because there isn’t much else to say about Emilie’s costume style in the 2012 FLAG World Tour. Moving on to the 2013 Fight Like A Girl: North American Tour (and following European and Australian tours), a brand new show was brought to the stage. Full new stage set-up, new costumes, and a full new setlist.

A costume I’ll be referring to as the “armored corset” replaced the moth-eaten FLAG ensemble in the opening number. Both Maggots and Veronica were given new costumes as well, replacing the costumes they had worn for years.

Armored Corset, with varying amounts of sparkled (2013)

Maggie Lally; Captain Maggot / Captain Maggots

Veronica Varlow; The Naughty Veronica

The show design of this tour had Emilie in the armored corset with the mohawk for the two opening numbers, Fight Like A Girl and Time for Tea. The mohawk and the armored plates on her chest and hip were removed during the 4 o’Clock Reprise, leaving her without her armor for What Will I Remember? as the narrative moves back to the beginning of the story, before the “Uprising.”

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On the subject of the corset: structurally, it was outfitted with snaps to attach the armor and allow for easy removal (see corset detail above, bottom right). The mohawk proved a more difficult challenge to remove, as it was securely clipped, pinned, and secured into EA’s hair. This ended up being corrected in the redesign that produced Mohawk 2.0.

Back to the show! By the time we get to Veronica’s Dominant fan dance, EA has removed the armor corset completely in the interim to prepare for the Girls! Girls! Girls! costume change. After Scavenger, the entire cast changes into Asylum Inmate Rags to perform Gaslight and The Key, and then changes back into full costume for the finale. Emilie wears the full FLAG ensemble from previous tours to close out the show, with varying headdresses.

But I’m skipping over something important.

The Scavenger.

Inspired by Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal, The Scavenger, a vulture-esque representation of Dr. Greavsely, appeared onstage for Scavenger.

“This is the start of the original costume @maggotmagpie wears in our show, the one Greavesly wears in #AsylumMusical will be bonkers…” - EA on the Scavenger (February 7, 2016)

EA on Twitter/Twitpic 2012 (x)

The Scavenger was usually worn by Maggots as part of a stilt-walking performance, but if the venue couldn’t or wouldn’t allow for stunts onstage, Emilie would appear alone in the costume for the number.

Scavenger has plenty of different “shows” (A show, B show, and C show for my theme park friends), with “A Show” being Captain Maggot on stilts.

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Note: The Atlanta show featured here is a bit strange, as it uses the Stage Screen and the Asylum Bars during a tour that doesn’t feature the former. Emilie also isn’t in the normal costume for this number, using a personal scarf to cover her bloomers and bra.

“B Show” would be Emilie performing as the Scavenger, due to venue restrictions. This was actually the way Scavenger debuted, until Maggot’s first performance later in the tour. (See pictures and even more info here.)

“C Show” would be Moth’s performance in the final set of Fight Like A Girl tours, as seen below:

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(There’s also “D Show,” (ha) which is this random dude performing as The Scavenger. I’ve yet to figure this out, but my guess is it was a technician stepping in at the last moment or a friend of EA from Oakland.)

Last, but not least, are the Asylum Rags. You’d think there wouldn’t be much to say here, but there is. Click on the continue link below to learn more about tattered costumes and the rest of the FLAG era, because Tumblr only allows 10 pictures per post.

CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE.

Fly back… PART I: Enchant and the Faerie Queene PART II: Drowning Ophelia PART III: Vecona, Seamstress of the Asylum PART IV: Wayward Victorian Girls

Remember to visit Part III and enter our giveaway! Ends 12/1/19.

[SEE ALL CREDITS AND SOURCES HERE.]

#this ones a long one folks #happy thanksgiving #emilie autumn #corsets and striped stockings #EA wardrobe #flag #sflag #link out to btp

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shadowsof-thenight · 5 years

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Flashlight: Chapter twelve

Story summary: This is an AU Two years ago, the love of your life walked out the door, breaking your heart into a million pieces. He had been unable to deal with his ptsd and you hadn’t been able to help him.Now that your best friend is marrying his friend, he’s coming back to town and you try to brace yourself for the reunion. Will you finally get closure?

Ship: Bucky Barnes X Reader

Warnings: mentions of ptsd, descriptions of ptsd, angst, heartbreak, reader wants to help but doesn’t understand ptsd.

Words: 2704

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A/N: Yeahhhh new chapter. Again sorry for the wait. Not sure where time went this time. As always the wonderful @beanstalk007 helped me with this (and all) chapters, and I am so grateful.

Feedback is greatly appreciated! And if you want to get tagged, let me know.

***

Masterlist Story Masterlist

***

“Guys, guys!” Steve’s voice boomed over the rest, “Lets just pick something and get started,” he finally had it with all the bickering and intervened as only he would. He never did like to see his friends argue, even if it was as light-hearted as this and you could not help the smile that formed on your face. Steve looked exasperated when Sam rolled his eyes and mocked him, while Natasha took advantage of the distraction and hid the phone from Sam. Neither one gave any thought to the number of cellphones in the room. Instead he began to tickle her, trying to get the hiding place from her. She shrieked and called for Wanda to help her, who jumped up on Sam’s back, pulling his hands away from Natasha. Everyone was laughing, while Maria calmly walked by them and took the phone from its hiding place behind the couch, causing the other culprits to stop their actions. Maria smiled a little too sweetly as she began to dial a number from memory. Now Clint jumped up, knowing full well what she would order and disagreeing with her choice loudly.

“Guys, come on, stop,” Steve tried again, though he had trouble keeping down the chuckle that was threatening to escape his lips at the sight before him.  Clint stood, jumping like a toddler having a fit, Natasha lay on the ground with both Sam and Wanda on top of her, Wanda still trying to pry Sam’s hands away from Nat’s sides and Maria stood calmly in the middle of it all with a smile on her face.

It didn’t matter how old everyone got, as long as nights like these would keep happening, you thought to yourself.

“Aye, Aye, Captain,” Wanda said as she reluctantly gave in to his pleas and stood up, her hand raised in mock salute. Chuckles resounded all around, not even Steve held back now and Bucky’s warm laughter rang out from behind you. You really did love these idiots.

“Wait, that has a ring to it,” Wanda exclaimed soon after, “Please tell me you made it to the rank of Captain”

“As if he wouldn’t have boasted about that if he had,” Sam countered and again everyone laughed. Steve got a little blush on his cheeks, picked up one of the pillows and threw it straight into Sam’s face. Since he was just getting up, he lost his balance and fell back on Nat who protested loudly at the weight that was suddenly on her. You patted Steve’s shoulders as laughter bubbled up and out of your throat.

“I vote pizza” you finally said, taking pity on Steve and the teasing he had opened himself up for tonight. He had mentioned he was tired and hungry, which explained his responses so well. Steve looked up at you gratefully and leaned back into the couch he was on.

“Of course!” Clint exclaimed, rolling his eyes, “You always choose pizza.”

He wasn’t wrong of course and you just shrugged with a huge grin on your face. Pizza was always, without fail, your go-to option for take out. Not only did it taste good, it was also easy to order for larger groups since you could easily adjust the toppings. That was a win-win right?  Oh, who were you kidding, even if it wasn’t the easier option you’d still pick it every single time. It would, however, probably prohibit you from winning the take-out arguments as often as you did if it wasn’t considered an easy option by the others as well.

“It’s heaven, dude” you joked and Clint pushed you with a chuckle, causing you to slip off the armrest of the couch. You landed hard on your bum. And everyone burst out laughing. Even Bucky, who had been rather quiet up until that point. He held out a hand to help you up and you quickly took up his offer.

As soon as you stood up, you pretended to be angry but it only lasted for about a second. You couldn’t help but laugh even though you could practically feel a bruise forming on your bottom. Soon, you were laughing loudly, swallowing a whine about the sore spot.

Teasing Clint was never a good plan. He was far more witty and wicked than you ever were. And a lot faster too. Laughing loudly, you sprinted away from him through the school courtyard and around the corner of the large high school. Of course he knew the place as good as you and there was no safety in the shadows. His fast paced footsteps came rapidly close and you suppressed a giggle, trying to remain silent as you hid behind a large bush.

Unfortunately, spring wasn’t in full swing just yet and the greenery wasn’t as full as it would be in a few weeks time, making your blue coat easy to spot by your friend. You tried to get away from him again, but the heavy rainfall from earlier that week had made the ground soft and slippery. Because of this, your feet had sunken into the soil and you slipped, falling hard on your ass with a loud shriek.

Clint was out of breath from running and his laughter was nearly soundless as he doubled over next to you, holding his stomach. Your shriek had alerted the rest of your group and soon they surrounded you, all of them laughing at your muddied appearance.

You whined pathetically about your ruined clothes and complained of a painful backside. Bucky winked as he stepped forward, his hands outstretched, promising to fix it for you. You laughed loudly as he wrapped his arms around you, placing his hands firmly on your bum and moving his head down to place a kiss on your lips.

You swallowed the lump that formed in your throat at the happy memory as you carefully sat back down on the armrest of the couch. Forcing a smile back on your face, you remained silent as Natasha made the group pick between pizza or Chinese food.

After that, the calm finally returned and when the food arrived a short while later, Clint pressed play on the video that one of their cousins had made during the wedding. After all, that was the entire plan behind this little get together. A plan which had only temporarily been sidetracked by the long discussion of what to order. Those very discussions were the reason that Natasha usually opted to cook for everyone and you were certain that she was already regretting her choice not to do so this evening.

You glanced sideways at Bucky, wondering if he had been drawn down memory lane lately. Since you heard he was coming back, it had been a rather frequent occurrence and it was turning somewhat inconvenient by now. The memories in and on itself weren’t too bad, but having them flash in front of your eyes while you were around others was slightly annoying. It was hard to fake your happiness when a much happier past was forcing itself onto your mind’s eye.

Steve seemed to sense your changing, souring mood and gently squeezed your knee, before pulling you into a side hug. This caused you to fall into his lap awkwardly and you both laughed loudly. You hugged him back tightly, before moving off the couch to sit in front of it. It seemed a safer option while you devoured the pizza that Natasha tossed on a plate for you. With your clumsiness, you might’ve fallen again and wasted your dinner. Now that would be an absolute shame. Food should never be wasted in your opinion. Especially food that tasted as good as this pizza did.

The ceremony had you in tears again as it played out on the screen; you still felt the love that the couple displayed during it. And it was filling the air again in this living room, with Natasha sitting incredibly close to Clint as he whispered in her ear, she blushed at his words and half-heartedly punched his shoulder, making him laugh. You regarded the scene with a smile and when Wanda caught your eye, you winked and she scrunched up her face in adoration in return. The married couple was simply too cute.

By the time that the screen showed fragments of the party, the atmosphere changed back to teasing again when Sam stood up and made everyone agree that he was easily the best dancer of the group. Everyone laughed and both Clint and Steve fought him over the title, while Maria sarcastically told Sam that he sure was. Her boyfriend decided to ignore her tone to fit his narrative and smiled radiantly at her. Wanda, Natasha and Maria then huddled together on the couch and told the men to hold a competition right then and there.

You ignored the entire discussion altogether though, because on the screen you could now see your dance with Bucky unfold. It took your breath away as you watched it, almost as much as it had during the actual dance. Carefully you glanced to the side again, hoping to catch Bucky’s reaction to the wedding video, but he wasn’t sitting in the chair anymore. Slightly confused you glanced around the room. When had he left? Maria caught your eye and nodded her head in the direction of the balcony. You placed your empty plate on the table and got up off the floor, walking in the direction Maria had nodded towards.

The balcony door was open and through it you could see him standing in the darkness of the evening sky, lit only by the street lights from below. He appeared to be staring blindly into the slowly darkening city. He seemed to be a million miles away, not even noticing as you came closer.

“Hey,” you said softly, not wanting to break the stillness that seemed to linger out on the balcony, “What are you doing out here?”

“Thinking,” he replied with a small shrug, not looking away from the skyline before him.

“Oh good,” you chuckled, “‘cause you don’t do that enough already,” you finished with a smile and he finally turned to face you, his face contorted in confusion.

“What do you mean??” He wondered, a smile playing on his lips. He looked so beautiful in the fading orange light of the sun that had nearly set completely, and you took a moment to take in the sight. He’d gone to the barber, his untamed long locks gone to make way for a shorter cut and his bread reduced to a five o’clock shadow. He looked really good and you could feel your heart skipping a beat. What you wouldn’t give to lean against him now and hug him close.

“You tend to overthink things, love,” you offered instead, moving closer to the railing beside him and leaning against it. He chuckled at your words, not even trying to deny them.

“How have you been?” You wondered, you haven't seen or talked to him since your conversation over a week ago. You needed some time after that, despite the fact that you didn’t even get to the nitty gritty of your problems yet. There was just so much pain between the two of you, that it simply couldn’t be addressed in one single conversation.

“Had my first meeting yesterday,” Bucky confessed a little uneasy, not looking at you.

“Oh, what was it like?” You really couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for him to even begin to unravel all the things he had been suppressing. Not only had you never gone to therapy, but you had never personally had such difficult circumstances in your life either.

He shrugged, staring at his feet. His hands had been shoved deep into his pockets as soon as you had joined him on the balcony. He took his flesh hand out now to comb his fingers through his hair and scratch at his neck. It was hard to realise just how self-conscious his prosthetic still made him. Earlier that evening you’d had some small hope that it was getting better, when he had laid it gingerly in his lap, even though most of his hands had been covered by the sleeves of his sweater.

“It was…hard,” he finally confessed in a mere whisper.

“I’m sorry, Buck,” you said, wishing that there was something to make this easier for him, for everyone really. If only you could jump through time and leave the hard parts behind you and just get to the easier part.

“She made me recount my entire medical history, my time in the army, they even touched on my childhood,” he elaborated carefully, as if his words could scare you off now.

“That’s a lot,” you weren’t sure what to say to that, “Anything surprise you?”

“No, not really. I’ve had a good life. Until…” he couldn’t finish the sentence and you didn’t press him. You knew what he meant and knew that there would be a day where he would be able to speak of it. Until then, you didn’t need to rush or pressure him. He took the first step to healing. All that was left now was to give him time.

Silence hung between you for a few minutes. Bucky clearly wasn’t ready to tell you more, though you had been surprised by his openness so far. You accepted his boundaries and decided to try and get him back inside with the rest of the group. If only to get him out of the funk he seemed to be in.

“Why don’t you come back inside?” You reached out a hand for him to take, hoping it would appear as kind to him as it was intended.

“Nah, I’m just gonna go home,” he answered after a short silence, then quickly offered you a smile. You realised he was trying to soften his words with that smile and to show him that there were no hurt feelings here, you smiled back.

“Just so you know,” you began as you moved back through the door leading inside, “it is really good to have you back.” You smiled again, turned around and left him behind on the balcony while you joined the rest of the group in the living room.

Sitting down in the chair that Bucky had vacated earlier, Wanda quickly sat down on the armrest, leaning against you. You smiled brightly at her and she hugged you close. Not long after, Bucky came inside as well, bidding everyone goodbye. Clint walked him out and Sam decided that it was too early for the night to be over. He tried to convince everyone to go out, unfortunately, at least half of the occupants in the room deadpanned him and he agreed to a movie night instead.

All too soon, another discussion broke out between Steve and Sam, one that Maria broke off by informing them that tonight was all about Natasha and Clint. Steve and Sam mentioned that they’d had their day, but it was on deaf ears. They were the minority in this conversation. Of course, Nat and Clint couldn’t agree either and you just laughed as you watched them both trying to convince the other by promising favours. Finally, Clint gave in and a movie was chosen while you helped Natasha with snacks and drinks for everyone.

By the time you had settled into a seat and the movie had begun, your phone buzzed. Lazily you leaned forward to grab it from the table, without knocking Natasha over the head with it. She had picked a spot on the floor, right in front of you and she was painting your toenails as the movie played.

‘Glad to be back’

Four words, it was all the message entailed, but it caused a huge grin to flash over your features. It wasn’t much, but it was a definite start. It felt good and you decided to enjoy the moment for as long as you could. Ignoring the enquiring looks, you locked your phone and continued to watch the movie with the smile fixed on your face.

***

Chapter thirteen

#Bucky Barnes #Bucky Barnes x Reader #MCU fanfiction #James Buchanan Barnes

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ununniliad · 4 years

Text

Return of Just Another Multi-Writer Cascade That Will Probably Never Have an Ending.GEKIJOBAN: "Friendgame"

The cover is a lovingly hand-painted portrait of Net.Access punching LAN.os right in the face.

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A universe, not of hard and unyielding matter and energy, but of connection, affinity, the fundamental forces that bind people together - the Friend Zone!

And within that universe - the planet known as Rostir, home of the ghosts of millions of never-realized characters! And home to something else! Home of one of Looniverse-20's most powerful artifacts - an Absurdity Stone! In specific, guarded here is the soul of the Absurdity Stones, the mytheopeic center of everything that is the superhero genre - the Characterization Stone!

And upon that planet's misty magenta fields, beneath its violet sky with its soft robin's-egg clouds, lands the ship of - LAN.os!

The insipid purple man, fedora on his head, wearing a tailored business suit with the Crossover Queen's insignia on the lapel, walked down the ramp, followed by an average-looking, slightly slouchy black guy in a Moon Girl T-shirt, looking around and taking pictures with his phone.

"Haha!" shouted LAN.os, raising his chin, looking over the mist-covered landscape, soft like the dreams of a Lisa Frank unicorn. "Guardian! I summon you from your slumber. Awaken for LAN.os, son of the greatest warrior in the cosmos!"

The mists drew together before LAN.os, and out of them arose the shuffling, shadowy ghost of a character who never was - Ultra-Nazi-Squared, a concept for a net.villain who was dropped when the cultural view of Nazis as an easy default bad guy suddenly stopped being a Thing.

"lan.os of inferior," murmured the phantom. "you seek the stone... as have so many others... fools, all... once, i held the stone..."

"Skip the backstory, pathetic wretch, and take me to the site of my greatest victory!" LAN.os raised his fist in the air and shook it mightily.

The average-looking guy took a picture of the phantom. "This is going straight up on the Discord."

The villain-who-never-was lead them to the shore of a great lavender ocean, lapping at a beach of multicolored sugar sand. LAN.os grinned, cracking his knuckles. "Finally, my day of triumph and power approaches! Finally, the day the scales will be balanced - in favor of me!"

"Fat chance!" There was a THOOM! and water and sand sprayed up in the air as a figure landed on the beach.

The wave crashed back down on LAN.os, who sputtered and flailed, suit and hat completely soaked. "Pff! Pfahfh! What!? Who! Who dares challenge LAN.os, second to the Crossover Queen!?"

"Who do you think, buster!?" There in the breaking tide stood a figure. She was dressed in a black catsuit with a red, blue and gold starburst on the chest and a stylish brown leather jacket with cybernetic wings on the back. On her head was a red fedora that worked a thousand times better on her, and on her hands were high-tech blue-and-silver gauntlets. She was the Keymaster of the Omnilooniverse. She was Net.Access.

"YOU!" LAN.os shook his fist at her. "Of course... I should have known you would come to oppose me!"

Net.Access shook her head dismissively. "Sorry, but I have bigger things going on. How'd you get back in the Friend Zone, tho? I figured I'd never see your weird chin here ever again."

LAN.os laughed. "Fool, I am stronger than you knew me! I have made... EXACTLY ONE FRIEND!" He grabbed the average-looking guy and squeezed him against his side. "DOUG, from the comic book store!!"

"Uh, hey." Doug wriggled in LAN.os's grip and waved to Net.Access. "Sorry about this."

She acknowledged him with a nod. "Pardon me if I don't applaud."

"Your praise is meaningless to me, so there! But I have entered the Friend Zone, and located the Characterization Stone, as part of the Crossover Queen's plan! Soon, we shall enter a great crossover, where I take my time obtaining all the Absurdity Stones, one by one, each one that I obtain bringing in at least half a billion dollars in the US, and even more worldwide! And when they are brought together, I-- I mean, she-- shall rule triumphant!" LAN.os looked around shiftily. "I'm definitely not planning to betray her. Just ask Doug!"

Doug nodded. "Yeah, totally. He comes to game nights and talks about how he's not planning to betray the Crossover Queen all the time."

"And now..." LAN.os turned toward the ocean. A great whirlpool formed on its surface, a swirling nexus ready to pull anything down into the briny depths. "The Characterization Stone requires a sacrifice! And I--" He lifted Doug up over his head, in both hands. "I shall sacrifice my exactly one friend!"

"Hey, wait wait what!" Doug squirmed around, dropping his phone in the sand. "LAN.os. Dude. We talked about this."

"Yes, Doug! I remember our great debates on the trolley problem, and my promise that I would not sacrifice any of the gamers with which we play! But you see, Doug!" LAN.os roared in triumph. "I HAD MY FINGERS CROSSED!"

Net.Access rolled her eyes, sliding her hand down her face. "Okay. Enough. Let him go."

LAN.os cackled in maniacal glee. "Now, we shall have the ultimate climactic bat--!"

Net.Access snapped her fingers and the beach underneath LAN.os turned into a quicksand trap from a 1950s adventure movie. He yelped as he was pulled down to chest level immediately. Net.Access tossed a vine to Doug and he climbed out gratefully.

"Like I said. I didn't come here to fight you." From the pocket of her jacket, Net.Access pulled a cube - or, rather, a Kube; one of the Kubrik's Kubes, once-mighty cosmic artifacts, now powerless pieces of multicolored plastic. "I came here to fix a mistake."

"Insolent woman!" LAN.os charged up his prodigious cosmic strength-- but by the laws of '50s adventure movies, flailing around only caused him to sink faster, and by the time he stopped, the quicksand was up to his shoulders. "As soon as my army--"

"You can't take an army into the Friend Zone, LAN.os, I know it's just you and Doug on an automated ship." Net.Access tossed the Kube up in the air, caught it, looking off in the distance, memories playing across the back of her eyes. "Do you remember, when we fought before?" She shook her head, laughed. "No, you wouldn't. It's not the kind of thing you pay attention to. But..."

She sighed, smiled wistfully at a happy moment. "After Victoria and I saved each other... we were talking to everybody, and I was like... well, I hope this teaches the Writers to finish what they start. And everybody agreed. But..." She shook her head. "But we were wrong. I was wrong."

"It wasn't..." Net.Access turned to look at the place the technicolor sky met the pastel sea. "It wasn't the unfinished stories that caused the rifts and put the Looniverses in danger. I thought that that's what it was, when I saw the great pattern at the heart of the cosmos, and the missing pieces that were breaking it apart. But..." She looked around, turned to Doug, just so she could have an audience who might listen. "But it wasn't the stories that hadn't been written. It was the stories that wouldn't be written. It wasn't just that the Writers weren't writing endings, they weren't writing anything. Because of guilt. Guilt over having left things half-done."

Doug nodded, eyes wide, not understanding a word, as a tide of mist rolled in from the fields and covered the beach in a whispering haze. LAN.os, nose-deep in the mist, sneezed.

"The impossible standards, the need to catch up, to..." Net.Access waved her hands in the air. "To climb a mountain when you've already fallen and hit every rock on the way down! Before you can do anything new." She sighed, taking off her hat and running her hand thru her hair. "That's how I failed Intro to Hamburgerology. Got caught on an unfinished assignment, never turned it in, stopped going to class... to be honest, I'm still not sure why they put sesame seeds on the buns."

"Uh, are you getting distracted?" asked Doug.

"My victory speech would have been a lot better," grumbled LAN.os. "It would have had lots of references to famous European philosophers. Sounded really smart."

"Right. Anyway, what I'm saying is, me and the whole narrative around the rift crisis might've made things worse." The wings on Net.Access's back started fluttering, and she rose up in the air. "So I decided to do what I could to fix things. To be honest, I was already in the Friend Zone before I sensed you coming. You're not what I came here for at all."

LAN.os snorted, turning his head away. "Humph! Women and their easy excuses..."

Doug sighed. "Did you even read the 'feminism 101' articles I kept linking you?"

"I... I skimmed them, I swear!"

Net.Access rose up over the whirlpool. "To summon the Characterization Stone..." She held out the Kube in front of her. "I summon our future." She closed her eyes. "The future where all those long-forgotten stories would be finally finished. Where everything that we hoped to see flashed before our eyes in a perfect moment. Where we could resolve everything, once and for all, and seal it with a perfect 'The End'."

The Kube began to glow, softly at first, then coruscating with silvery color, filling with the energies of dream and desire. "Once, I sacrificed a perfect, finished past for an unbounded future, bright with possibility. Now, I sacrifice a perfect, finished future, so that that unbounded possibility may be accessible to all, each day free of the guilt of ages, each day open and new!"

Net.Access lifted the Kube over her head, and the mist rose up from the beach, up from the magenta fields, up towards her. As the mist rose, it spiraled around itself, became a solid shape, like a tornado in reverse.

The tip of the tornado slammed into the Kube. It shook, and Net.Access held on with both hands, brows knitting as a torrent of unrealized possibility streamed recklessly in, the silver light brighter and brighter with each moment until it was eye-searing.

Net.Access lowered the Kube, holding it out before her, directly over the maw of the whirlpool. "I release the Writers! I release the plots! I release the guilt! I..." Her hand opened. "Release!"

The Kube fell, tumbling end-over-end until it disappeared into the churning sea.

The whirlpool collapsed in on itself, and a column of light burst from the water. In the middle of that column was a fist-sized hunk of ruby, unfinished but scintillating with crimson light.

Net.Access reached out. Lighting crackled from the surface of the ruby into her outstretched hand, and she flinched, and turned her head away, eyes closed. But when she looked back, her eyes were glowing red, and her hand closed around the Characterization Stone.

"NO!" yelled LAN.os. "That was a meaningless sacrifice! Something you valued for the wrong reasons - something you had to let go of for your own good!"

Net.Access smirked, fedora perfectly perched on her head, eyes bright with the light of the Stone. "That's the most meaningful sacrifice you can make." She held the Stone in the air, pointing into the sky. "Let the wheels of characterization, stopped so long ago, grind into action once more! CHARACTEEEEEER... GRAND GROWTH!!"

Crimson lightning crackled around the Stone, around her body, and shot into the sky-- slamming against it like it was an invisible dome, and causing the dome to crack wide open, a gash that caused the alien light of a yellow sun to stream thru.

And thru that gap zoomed an enormous fishing hook, glinting golden, arcing thru the air and slamming into the sand. The hook was attached to a line, and the line pulled taut, pointing off thru the crack; and pulled thru by the line came a young man and an armored being.

The man wore a white trenchcoat with shimmery silver trim over a white spandex bodysuit with silver boots, a silver belt with a gold buckle, and a gold, shield-shaped chest emblem with a silver fishing hook on it. The being's armor was composed of smooth plates, gunmetal gray for most of it, blue on the gloves and boots, with a shining white breastplate, a blue circle on the left panel, a blue square on the right, and a blank blue faceplate. Doug watched them fly down, mouth in an O of amazement, and snapped several pictures.

They landed with a thump! on the beach. "Net.Access, are you okay?" said the man. "I sensed an enormous plot hook right before that-- I mean, that rift opened." He looked concerned, youthful brow furrowed.

"I'm sensing intense cosmic energies from the object she's holding," said a deep, smoky voice from the armor. "It may be some form of cosmic plot device, tho from the spectral analysis, I can tell it is not the Cosmic Plot Device."

The Characterization Stone pulsed in Net.Access's hand, and a burst of crimson energy pulsed from her eyes. "Nnnn... okay, that's enough of that... Plot Hook Lad... Betamax... can you give me some kind of containment unit?"

"One moment." Betamax pulled seemingly random panels off her armor; beneath each was an identical panel, which rose into place. She brought them together, assembling a sleek gray-and-blue sphere with an iris on it, which she threw up to Net.Access; Net.Access dropped the Stone into it and sighed. "Whew."

"So do we-- WHOA is that LAN.os!" Plot Hook Lad took a step back.

"Hah, yes!" crowed the cosmic villain, raising his fist. "And now that you have secured the Characterization Stone for me, I will-- whoop, sinking, sinking..."

"Yeah," said Net.Access. landing on the beach. "Long story."

"He desired that object, and you stopped him," said Betamax.

"Okay, short story." Net.Access adjusted the iris on the containment sphere, and a trickle of crimson energy streamed out like mist. "But that's not important, the important thing is, talking about what's been going on in your lives lately."

"...you know, I know you've been spending a lot of time with your girlfriend lately, but you could have, like, sent a text or something," said Plot Hook Lad. "No need to unearth interdimensional artifacts."

"I believe it is for the artifact," said Betamax, whose voice was near-monotone yet excellent at conveying a subtle amusement.

"Right," smiled Net.Access, the drama of the previous scene slowly dissolving, the guilt that had been released easing away.

"Oh, well." Plot Hook Lad laughed, a bit of his old awkwardness showing up. "Why don't you go first, Betamax, and I hook in?"

"All right," she said. "As you both know, I was originally known to the LNH as Irony Man II, showing up after the original Irony Man retired, on a secret quest to find the Messiah of Sincerity so that we could recruit the cosmic being known as the Laziness to stop the cosmic beings known as the Serious Business."

"Right," said Net.Access. "I wasn't around for that whole thing; how did it go?"

"Well."

"...well?"

"Yes." Betamax's featureless head gave a simple nod. "We accomplished our goals."

"Ah." Net.Access scratched her head. "...okay, well, what's been happening with you lately?"

"Well, I decided to stay in the present, for now, as a member of the Legion. I took on the new moniker of Betamax, to signify an embrace not of technology as a simple arc of ever-increasing progression, but as a branching infinity of possible futures, and a reminder that simply because one is more 'advanced', one is not necessarily better."

"Wow," said Net.Access. "That is simultaneously really deep and excessively convoluted."

Betamax gave a small bow. "Thank you."

"Yeah, once that whole thing was resolved, I came back to the LNH too," said Plot Hook Lad. "They helped me get my life back in place, it was... really hard dealing with all the emotional stuff, but, like, better than the alternative, right?" He gave a chuckle and pushed his hair back. "My family's great... everything's okay now."

Net.Access took a step towards Plot Hook Lad and pulled him into a tight hug. He made a little noise of surprise, then returned it; after a moment, they separated. "So," said Net.Access, "how'd you come back to life, anyway?"

He grinned. "Oh, Masterplan Lad brought me back to life."

"Masterplan Lad!?" Net.Access blinked in surprise. "He never said anything about that!"

"Well, he hasn't done it yet, of course." Plot Hook Lad's grin widened, and he crossed his arms.

"...uuuuuh-huh." Net.Access found herself smiling despite herself. "And you're not gonna follow up on that, are you."

"Nope!" Plot Hook Lad bounced in place impishly.

"Okay, okay," said Net.Access, shaking her head cheerfully. "Well, get some cosmic-y types over here to contain LAN.os. Maybe stick him in the Ultimate Black Hole if that's still around? And if it's not, y'know, evil. ...it's probably evil tho"

"I shall contact my sources," said Betamax, walking over to the quicksand.

"Ha-HA!" cackled LAN.os, exulting. "LAN.os never loses! Now, Doug!"

"...now what?" said Doug.

"Activate the device I gave you, of course!"

Doug rummaged in his pocket. "You mean this weird silver thing with the red button that you said not to push?"

"Yes! Push it, Doug!!"

Doug sighed and handed the device to Betamax. "Dude, you literally tried to kill me."

"...for friendship, Doug! Or, well, causally linked to friendship, at least!" LAN.os attempted the puppy dog eyes, and Net.Access had to look away.

She looked toward Doug. "Are you okay? Physically, but also, uh, emotionally."

"Physically, yeah." Doug rubbed his thighs. "Emotionally... this has been a weird day."

"Yeah, it really--" The containment unit pulsed in her hand. "Hhh. Uhh, lemme just take care of this..."

Her outfit dissolved, reforming into a sepiatone version of Babe Ruth's uniform. She took a step back, winding up...

"Wait! No!" LAN.os shouted. "Fool! I'll have to find another-- I mean, make more-- I mean..."

Net.Access launched the containment unit over the ocean. It flew, arcing high into the air... and at the very top of the arc, burst apart, the Characterization Stone trailing crimson fire until it splashed into the sea and was gone.

She dusted off her hands. "Leave that for Earth-20 to deal with." She turned back to Doug, ignoring LAN.os's shouts. "I think it's gonna take a while for them to deal with this guy. Want a ride back?"

"Sure," said Doug, "but can't you only leave with a friend?"

Net.Access took his hand. "When you go thru big weird cosmic stuff together, you're friends. That's a net.hero rule."

"Oh, well..." He rubbed the back of his head with his other hand, a bit shyly. "That sounds good. Thank you."

Net.Access lead him off the beach, down across the magenta fields. "I'm sorry if this is blunt, but... how'd you become friends with that guy, anyway?"

"Heh. No, I guess there's no good way to ask." Doug shrugged. "Honestly, he showed up at game night one week and just... really seemed like he needed something normal in his life. So we let him play. And like... honestly, for a while, it seemed like he was just... having fun just enjoying himself. But then... I don't know what changed."

Net.Access nodded in commiseration. "I think... some people can't let go of what they've convinced themselves they have to do. Even if it's not nearly as healthy for them as letting go and just having a good time."

"Yeah. You think I should, like..." Doug looked over his shoulder. "Cut him off?"

"That's up to you. But I would establish some boundaries, at the very least."

"Yeah..."

They came to a tall, spreading tree with bark of rose gold and leaves of, surprisingly, emerald green. Beneath sat a well-composed, human-looking being, deep in a book, his umbrella leaning against a tree.

"Masterplan Lad!" Net.Access waved, and Masterplan Lad looked up.

He waved and stood, putting away his book and taking up his umbrella as they walked over. "I see you met a new friend," he said.

Doug scratched the back of his neck, smiling. Net.Access chuckled. "Yeah, this place does that to you."

"Did you get done what you needed to?" said Masterplan Lad, adjusting his bowtie.

"For now." Net.Access looked off into the sky. "They'll probably need reminding."

Masterplan Lad nodded, a small, rueful, hopeful smile on his face. "They always do."

Masterplan Lad took Doug's hand, and together, the three of them walked forward; and as they walked, they shimmered into soft, multicolored light, and they faded from the Friend Zone. But they could return anytime they felt like it, without grief or pain. And, reader, so can you.

#Original Fiction #Superheroes #Adventure #Metafiction #Emotions #Legion of Net.Heroes #Classic LNH #Just Another Cascade

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alrightinbed-betterwithapen · 5 years

Text

i always tell the truth, even when i lie...

{prologue pt two: how Kova is formed}

Mob Boss!David x Reader

A/N: hey guys, so this is just blurbs about how each vlog squad member became real members of David’s gang. I left some people out just cause they don’t fit in the narrative I’m picturing. But I hope you enjoy! Strong violence ahead folks, as well as the rest of the series! A couple deaths too.

•Alex Ernst•

Alex always knew something about David was off. He always thought he saw the charming brunette hiding dead eyes behind feigned excitement. Too calculated for a boy of only nineteen. But Alex saw himself reflected in every move the man made.

Alex could relate to his friend more than anyone else he’d ever met. He instantly respected David and latched onto him. You don’t meet many people in this world who are as uncaring and unconcerned in the way they climb the ladder to the top as David and him were.

David hid behind charm and likability.

Alex hid behind innocence and religion.

Alex doesn’t say anything about it until David comes to him one evening and tells him he’s going to see their friends at the Denny house to offer them... a new business venture.

He offers it to Alex first.

Alex says yes, took you long enough, what do you need me to do, who do you need me to act as? Willing as always to take on any role he had to, to get what he wanted (or in this case what David wanted).

David knows right away Alex will always be on a different level than the rest of the crew. Alex will be more his equal than anyone else he has to corrupt.

Because he doesn’t have to corrupt him. He doesn’t have to convince him. Alex is willing and as ready as he is.

Alex is also good with guns. He talks Tomas into letting them add a large gun running operations revenue to the drug running money they’ve been laundering. (That’s the first fucking nail in the coffin for Tomas, but the large, dumb man has no idea.) The weapon buyers and sellers like Alex way better than they ever like Tomas. It’s a profitable situation for all.

In the car ride back to their apartment, leaving the first meeting with Tomas since Alex established himself with the weapons clientele, Alex says, “Your business needs a name.”

“It has a name, the Brothers’ Circle.”

“That’s the name of the cunts Tomas works for.”

“That we work for, Alex,” David facetiously reprimands, pushing to reveal the true meaning behind his friends words.

“Yeah,” he answers, looking out the window of David’s beat up Corolla, “for now.”

It makes David’s heart fill with love for the man. His best friend is thinking bigger picture just like he is. He feels validated in his internal descision to make this man the de facto co-leader of his future gang.

(Alex comes up with their name, Kova, a throwback to David’s origins and core of who he really is. A boy born in nowheresville Slovakia who’s gonna take over the world.)

•Liza Koshy•

Liza is like a lump of clay when Gabbie introduces her to David. He’s immediately drawn to her soft face and lively personality. He wants to ruin her. (Gabbie pulls him aside at the party they’re at, long before Kova was even a thought, and tells him she’s a gift. For being a good friend. And that he can make the dark skinned girl into whatever he wants her to be. “She’s young and insecure, go play.” Gabbie’s always been a dark minded girl, she used to read David like a book.)

He has fun reeling Liza in with his boyish charms and faked romantic sensibilities. She’s sooo easy. He picks apart her mind, morals and principles in one night, the night he first tells her he loves her.

He’s not lying, not really. He loves who he’s going to twist her to be. His perfect Harley Quinn. He’ll rip the compassion out of her if he has to.

He doesn’t actually have to, the girl is just a sweet little teenager looking for true love. It makes him laugh in hindsight at how simple it actually was. At how much goodness was once in the girl he’s seen curb stomp a drug dealer in the back alleys of LA because they refused to cut profits with Kova. She broke his jaw and David fucked her in his Tesla, giggling out a narrative of how the guys teeth popped out of his head while she rode him.

Liza would burn the world for David when he meets (Y/N).

She gets jealous and insecure by that fact that she needed to be programmed by David with a darkness that (Y/N) wore like skin, comfortable and natural.

You don’t pose a threat, not right away.

And if you send her into a trap, a drug drop off that was being ambushed by a rival amateur gang, that leads to her untimely death...

Well, what were you suppose to do? David would never do it. Too proud of the work that went into the weak girl.

And you wanted the man to yourself.

(He’s impressed, as you are smarter and more conniving than the guinea pig he’d been given as a present by Gabbie would ever be.)

Liza’s there at the beginning of Kova and she plays her part. Until you decide you can play it better.

But that’s a story for later...

•Gabbie Hanna•

Gabbie is easy. She wants money and attention and acceptance. She hands over her merch account info and starts finding leads to other vloggers who have a substance abuse problem. They always have friends who are as addicted as them, Gabbie explains, which is long run profitable. The girl is ruthless and David admires that about her.

She was one of his first close friends when he moved to LA. He’s stoked she’s progressing so nicely in his operation.

David includes her in his plans from the beginning, because she’s loyal and as obsessed with money as he is. But when he takes her to meet Tomas with Alex and Liza the first time, she’s so freaked out. Gabbie doesn’t grasp the severity of the situation until she’s in a warehouse full of drugs and guns.

David meets with her the next day and offers her an out. It’s late at night after the long, winding talk, but Gabbie is relieved and accepting that she can back out, promises not to tell anyone. He respects and genuinely cares about Gabbie and gives her what she wants, like promised. But not before Heath and Zane grab her arm and hold it down while David carves Kova into her upper arm.

Gabbie takes it, she understands.

It’s not two months later when he gets a call from Liza telling him that Gabbie’s trying to talk her into leaving him and helping her go to the cops. (Gabbie mistakenly thinks that because Liza was her friend first that her loyalties wouldn’t lay with David. She’s wrong.)

David brings Scott and Zane to grab her coming home from a late night gym session (that she’s stupidly been Snapchat-ing all evening).

He doesn’t need to torture her, but he thinks it’s a good lesson for Scott and Zane. The word will spread quickly through Kova.

You don’t fuck with David, ever.

The man could have deep love and respect for you, but he’d put a bullet in your head without thinking twice and if you make him angry enough to hurt you before that, well... you’ll be wishing he had just shot you instead.

The boys burn her body in the desert while David waits in the car and finishes editing his next vlog.

What a shame.

She was always reliable as clickbait for a thumbnail.

•Scotty Sire and Kristen McAtee•

Scotty’s chomping at the bit when David first offers the dude a bag full of cash late in the early morning at the Denny house. He can’t help the large, wicked smile on his face the entire time David spiels to the group.

He’s in from the first sentence, desperate to channel the darkness his depression had cursed him with from childhood. He could do this, and much more. Scott’s excited to become apart of something bigger than him. He’d happily worship the gospel of what would later be called Kova.

Kristen is easy to drag along, especially because of her addiction to pills and then later, more heavy drugs. She’ll do whatever she has to keep her man and her fix. She turns a calculated blind eye to their dealings and separates herself as much as possible.

David doesn’t like loose ends.

Word about Gabbie gets to her and she internally freaks out. She doesn’t know why, she doesn’t really care. Gabbie fucked up and got what was coming to her. But it feels like the calm before the storm.

David tells Scott he needs more from Kristen. He wants her to wear the Kova brand, he wants them all to after Gabbie tries to fuck them over. But he wants the curly headed girl to be first. Scott understands, he’s front row to the distance she’s created between her and the Kova family.

She’s partying with them all when Liza lures her to talk in an isolated bedroom, where Scott, Alex and David are waiting.

“Sorry, Kris. It’s just how it is,” David’s telling her when Scott and Alex maneuver her to the desk chair while their leader cleans a knife. “And you should be honored, I want you to be the first. I want you to start the family. Cause that’s what we are. We’re a family above all else. You wouldn’t betray your family, would you? You wouldn’t be Gabbie... Would you?”

Kristen resigns to shaking her head no, allowing Scott to extend her arm as David encroaches and presses the tip of the knife into the sensitive skin of her upper arm. Liza and Alex stand back, watching and blocking the exit. Kristen looks to Scott who only nods his approval before shutting her eyes tight when David begins slicing her arm.

The bass of the music throughout the house muffles her screams.

(Scott feeds her Percocets when it’s over and promises her the world. That’s the night she’s introduced to heroin.)

The rest of them receive the same mark personally from David by the end of the week.

•Zane Hijazi and Heath Hussar•

Zane’s psychotic. Genuinely a mad man, and David loves it as much as it’s a liability. Heath is a good reprieve though, knowing how to wrangle the crazed man.

They’re a fucking pair, that’s for sure. And with Heath’s experience in drug dealing and Zane’s past with beating the shit out of anyone who tried to stop or hassle Heath, they fit into Kova like they’ve been waiting their whole lives to be in the upper echelon of a gang. (They have.)

Heath is the guy David sends out to potential drug suppliers, such a people person and manipulator that David wishes he could bottle the man’s relatability to dose his entire crew with. The man has made him some serious fucking money with his banter.

Zane’s the guy David brings out at night or to see Tomas’ men, to terrify the peasants around him into submission. Zane is his guard dog on a short, but removable leash. The taller man is always just looking for a good time, whether that’s doing shots or breaking someone’s arm.

With the boundaries of what it means to be Kova and family set, etched into his skin, Zane becomes determined to protect his new clan, and his new always changing and addicting life.

David buys him a Porsche after he beats a thug of Tomas’ to death with his bare hands. The man had insulted David, his height and his hair. It rolled off the leaders back, but set something alight in Zane.

David doesn’t call him off until his hands are completely coated in blood.

(Tomas doesn’t say a word except to tell his men to clean up the mess and apologize to David. The fat man slaps Zane on the back on his way out, murmuring, “That’s a man you want around.”)

•Jason Nash•

Jason is his personal sounding board. The man is so much smarter than he lets anyone see. Jay can see from the outside in, how people will preceive them and how to effectively hide in plain sight.

Jason has a family, so it’s a little more difficult to convince him to give David his loyalty. Until the money is presented and David offers his family a clear cut and prosperous future. And to keep them out of all of it. The older man says yes after a couple days of thinking.

David seals the deal by bringing him to Miami, meeting with some drug runners from Belarus. They try to haggle David, get the price higher that what Tomas had offered. Jason laughs at them and follows David when he goes to walk out.

One of the men grabs Jay’s wrist and yanks his hand back to the dinner table they’d been sitting around and stabs his palm through with a steak knife, pinning him to the table in a bloody mess before hissing about disrespecting his boss.

Jason takes the knife out without flinching and stabs the guy in the aortic, blood splattering on his own face and chest.

“Don’t try to fuck with us,” Jason says so calmly to the criminals watching in awe, it’s unnerving, “and keep a leash on your puppy.”

The boss from eastern Europe laughs and apologizes before continuing the transaction with the original offer. He gives Jason the dead man’s Rolex, as a token of good will.

David accepts.

•Todd Smith•

Todd is a guy who wants to be smart, and just fucking isn’t. He’s easy. Money, girls, drugs and Todd is fucking his. It only takes a itty bitty cocaine addiction and Todd’s loyalty is an ever lasting stream of favors and obedience.

Scott takes Todd to kidnap a daughter of one of the Mexican mafias generals. David wants to run a piece of West Hollywood that he currently controls.

David is highly impressed with the lies Todd weaves to the pretty girl, keeping her calm and placated through out the ordeal. He’s even more impressed when Todd follows his orders to cut off her finger to send to her father; the olive skinned man doesn’t think twice. And the girl is still stuck deep in her Stockholm Syndrome, even after she only has nine fingers.

They return her to her family, no worse for wear, when the general gives up his terrority in WeHo.

David rents out a Vegas strip club and penthouse for Todd. He did well.

•Carly Incontro and Erin Gilfoy•

Carly and Erin are too fucking excited about Gabbie’s death. He watches them pick apart the story from Scott and Zane, and laugh manically when David tells them too much detail about the torture she had endured.

They are great to use strategically with their seduction or mask of ignorance used as a weapon. He has them paired up with a couple of guys higher up in Tomas’ operation, waiting like sleeper agents for the day when David will tear apart Tomas and his men. They’ll deliver the first bullets, crippling the obese excuse of a man’s team so that David can go in for the kill.

He had them train with Alex, who reports exactly what he had predicted about the girls: they’re addicted to the perks, the money, the clothes, the power. They love David, they’d do anything for their boss and friend. It makes David so happy.

They’re his favorite little princesses.

•Corinna Kopf•

David’s been working on Corinna since high school. She doesn’t contribute anything but her tits really, he only needs her every once and a while to seduce someone before killing or maiming them. He gives her to Todd to make her happy and keep the overly horny man satisfied.

But she’s loyal, has been since David met her. She tells David the things the vlog squad thinks he doesn’t know. She’s like an internal mole, not needed in most moments, but useful when people start getting too big for their britches.

Like Matt King. Zane vouched for the guy, (Heath tells David privately not to trust his best friend because his judgment is always clouded when it come to new people offering him a good time) and David lets it slide.

Until Corinna comes over one day, leaving Todd at home to fuck David while he edits and Liza is in New York. The blonde is sucking his cock, when she pulls back and says,

“Matt is trying to convince Zane to move to Europe. Says he has friends in Amsterdam doing bigger things than Kova.”

David comes in her mouth and kisses her forehead before sending her off and telling her to round up Scott and Todd and send them his way.

David picks up Heath and Zane, asking if it’s true. Zane says yeah, but he thought the dude was kidding, they were drunk as fuck at Todd’s.

(Zane doesn’t lie, he doesn’t have it in him. Too insane to try to manipulate or spin his words like his best friend.)

Heath is livid when they meet Scott and Todd at one of their hideouts filled with money and weapons. David is tired and thinks this is a good opportunity to release the reigns a little bit. He tells the men what they’re going to do and watches them plan how to end the bleached blond man’s life.

He leaves when they’re loading up one of their nondescript SUVs and Alex is arriving. His best friend is grabbing his arm, halting his steps as he makes his way to the Tesla, leaning in and asking, “Are we gonna make him hurt before we bury him, or nah?”

David gives him what do you think eyes, and replies, “If they come up with the idea themselves, I’ll buy them all fucking Tesla’s.”

The next day he’s purchasing four Tesla coupes and sending Alex an envelope showing the stock he now owns of Elon Musk’s company, valuing upwards of five hundred thousand dollars.

•Jeff Wittek•

Jeff approaches David, which is a first. But David’s well aware of the man’s past before he introduces himself. He’s just as dumb as his new friend Todd and more naive. He fits him to the same role as Todd after watching the man put a bullet between the eyes of a lackey that couldn’t pay up fronted money David gave the guy.

But, Jeff proves way more useful than David ever could have imagined.

Jeff slaps down a duffle bag in front of David one day, oddly symmetrical to the way David had started everything. He says it’s a gift from his uncle in New Jersey. There’s two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in it along with a hard drive of incriminating photos, videos and documents on Tomas and his men.

“My uncle doesn’t like how Tomas runs the most lucrative port on the West Coast. You... you he likes, David,” Jeff tells him, crooked grin on his lips.

And that’s how David finds out that not only is Jeff the nephew of the last Godfather of the Italian mob in the United States, but that the centuries old organization is actively courting him to take over.

He likes Jeff.

David still demands loyalty though, even from a man owned and born into the Italian mob. He doesn’t get Kova carved on his arm, he gets it cut over his heart after he and Alex mentally break Jeff down over the course of a weekend in David’s basement.

“And what do you have now, Jeff?” Alex asks, as David finishes up the A in Kova with his dagger. The modelesque man doesn’t flinch with the cut, he just stares ahead, tears dried on his face from a long weekend of reprogramming.

“A new family.”

David laughs as he wipes away the blood from the man’s chest and disinfects the wounds so they don’t fester.

He’s got international backing and a spy now.

David buys Jeff a nice house and spends an insane amount of money ruining his ex-girlfriends acting career. He likes the malicious look on Jeff’s face when he sees the tweets roll in, exposing Cierra’s MDMA addiction and several crude sex tapes from Jeff and her’s threesomes with a married director.

Jeff thinks he made the right choice.

Family over blood, always.

•••••

That’s how the kids become Kova.

And how David builds his empire to reflect his strength.

•••••

Mob Boss AU Masterlist

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