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#its so cute when dc tries to make these two bond
boldlyvoid · 3 years
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can u do a blurb about reader wanting a baby and asking her co-worker Spencer to be the donor because he's smart and nice and she wants a cute baby?
you said blurb and i read 2K word fic apparently lmao
Late nights behind a desk were the worst. Y/N hated reading over case file, after case file, of horrific things as she tried to choose where they went next.
The only plus side was that she wasn’t alone, Spencer was at his desk just beside her. Like he always was. They had an interesting friendship, to say the least.
Ever since Y/N joined the BAU, Spencer and her were glued at the hip. They had all the same interests, liked the same music and movies, and they spat out information the same way, they were like each other’s dorky other half— but it was just a friendship.
They had a tradition to watch at least one movie together after a case, to just chill for a bit together. Always randomly picking one of their apartments to go to, spending the night together until one of them eventually wandered off to bed. Leaving the other on the couch.
They weren’t aware of their feelings for each other for a while. Both of them being so used to being alone, and never having anyone be interested in them before. It was hard to understand if the feelings they had were pure friendship, or if it could ever be more. If the sex would fuck everything up and take away that perfect happy place they found in each other, or would it make the bond stronger?
She noticed the crush before Spencer showed any signs of liking her back. She woke up every morning thinking of him, that's when she came to the conclusion that it was more than just a friendship. She wanted him in her life forever, she wanted to kiss his perfect lips and hug his soft body, wake up beside his messy hair and just love him for the rest of eternity.
She sighed as she picked up another file, not excited to learn about the horrible acts taking place in what people called, “the best country in the world.” She’d disagree any day of the week.
This one was a file about some missing kids apparently being spotted in a van altogether in Georgia, it looked interesting enough to be the next case. She hated reading all the info, seeing every kid's happy face in the file knowing that’s not how they looked now.
“Good god,” she groaned as she flipped through the case.
“What’s wrong?” Spencer asked over the divider.
“Nothing,” she shrugged, “just a bad case.”
She handed it to him over the desk, hearing him flip through all the sheets as he read a million words a minute. “We should show this to Emily first thing,” Spencer agreed, pushing himself over to her desk in his wheely chair.
“I will,” she smiled softly, taking the file back from him and placing it on her desk.
Spencer stood then, making his way into her space and rubbing his hand over her back slightly. “Are you okay?”
She sighed, “actually. no, I was telling Garcia I want to have a baby soon, and then I see things like this and I’m scared to do it alone but I don’t have any other option?” Ranting to him like he was her therapist.
“What do you mean?”
She turned in her chair to look up at him, his soft brown eyes really caring to hear the answer. “Sit,” she insisted.
He pulled the chair over more, sitting close enough that their knees touched. “I’m 36, I’m not having any luck finding a husband or a wife, I want a baby and if I have to do it myself I will, but what if I’m not enough? What if I have a boy and he grows up to be a killer cause he never had a dad?”
“Y/N,” Spencer’s voice was soft as he looked at her with a confused scrunch on his face. “That couldn’t happen, you’re a wonderful person, I love having you on the team and in my life, I know you’d raise good kids, you should do it.”
“Really?” She beamed at him, the words touching her heart and making her swoon a bit.
“I mean, it would be hard,” he added reason to the conversation. “You’d have to take time off, which would be good for bonding. My mother raised me alone and I turned out semi-fine, I don't hold any resentment for her not finding someone for me to call dad or even step-mom for that matter. I think if you give them all the love in the world like I know you’re capable of, your child will love you like you’re their whole world.”
She laughed as she noticed the tears welling in her eyes, waving her hand's in front of her face so she wouldn’t fully sob. “Do you want to be the donor?” She made a joke to change the topic.
Spencer laughed then too, “sure!”
Everything got serious again then, she looked at him a little differently. “Really? Cause honestly, you’re like a Grade A donor profile in the most expensive clinic!” She couldn’t help herself from laughing again at the absurdity.
“I’ve always wanted to be a dad, 40 isn’t too old to have a child, is it?” He seemed to have decided that rather fast.
“Okay,” she nodded with a smile, “okay. That’s cool, sick,” she felt the words get smaller as she thought it over.
“I get it if you were kidding,” Spencer spat out. “I realize now that you might have been making a joke, I hope it’s not weird that I agreed so fast, it’s just that I think you’re a very beautiful and smart woman and the idea of helping you make a child makes me really excited. I think it would be a very good idea if you were being serious, but I get it if you’re not.”
She let him get it all out, always loving when he got like this on a case or in person, nervous or just because he wanted to talk, she loved to listen. And no one ever let him finish his thoughts, always wanting to beat him to the punch.
“Spence, I think you’re really handsome and smart too,” she smiled. “If you’re also serious, I am too.”
“How would we?” He asked as he pulled at the top button of his dress shirt, swallowing like he couldn't breathe all of a sudden.
“If you’re not opposed, I’m sure the good old-fashioned way would work?” She laughed, laying her hand on his knee softly.
It was like sparks flew at that moment as if all the fluorescent lights in the bullpen could have exploded and she wouldn’t have even noticed. Captivated by Spencer's eyes as he gasped at her touch.
“Not opposed in the slightest,” he said softly as he held his own hand over hers.
She couldn’t help herself from smiling. “Well, I think I’m all done here if you want to come to my place for a movie?”
“Sure,” he replied, offering her a hand as they stood up together.
He returned his chair to his desk, both of them grabbing their coats and bags and rejoining at the door.
“I should go say goodnight to Penny,” Y/N said softly. “Wanna come?”
“Yeah,” he followed her through the door and down the hall to the tech room.
“Knock knock,” Y/N said as she walked through the open door. “Oh great and knowledgeable one, I’ve come with my nightly farewell.”
“Oh my knight, I shall miss you,” Penelope played along, sauntering over to her and wrapping her up in a hug. “I leave you with this until your return.”
“Through scorching deserts, and blistering winds, I will make it back to you, always,” she tried not to laugh as she hugged her back. “I also brought forth the jester.”
Spencer was laughing in the doorway as the two of them looked at him, “hi?”
“The pretty boy, to what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Um,” Y/N smiled, “Spencer and I are just going back for our nightly movie.”
Penelope looked at both of them, jaw slightly gaped, “nightly? I thought it was a case by case thing?”
“It’s a good excuse for us to talk,” Spencer smiled at her.
“Mhmm,” she smirked, “well have fun.”
She pulled Y/N back into another hug, hiding her face from Spencer, “I need all the dirty deets in the morning.”
Y/N smacked her arm softly as she pulled back, “goodnight pretty penny.”
“Farewell brave knight, handle with care, Jester,” Penelope pointed her finger at him, giving him a knowing glance.
“Yes, oh Knowledgeable one, always,” he blushed.
He reached out his hand for Y/N, interlocking their fingers as they left her office and headed towards the elevator. A rare moment of bravery on his part, holding hands like this didn’t spread a lot of germs.
“We’re going to have to discuss a lot of logistics like realistically this isn’t going to be just a fuck and oh look its a baby. This is a real live baby that we need to raise and care for,” she reminded him as the elevator doors shut.
“I’d like to be as involved as you’d let me be,” Spencer replied. “I don’t have to be 'dad' to them, I could be uncle Spence that’s fine too.”
“Oh no, you’d be Dad for sure,” she nudged him slightly. “I mean like, weekends and holidays and birthdays, your mom will want to see them surely, my parents will want to see them. Housing,” she looked at him horrified. “I have an apartment with 2 bedrooms, I don’t think I could let them sleep somewhere without me.”
“I have been looking at houses,” Spencer added before the doors opened to the garage, “you’re driving right?”
“Yeah, you were saying?” She replied, digging her keys out of her purse and leading him towards the car.
“Derek Morgan, I’m not sure if you’ve met him yet, he fixes up old homes in DC and Virginia now. He just finished one and I helped him with it. I think I’m going to buy it from him. It has 4 bedrooms, we could all live under the same roof? It would be easier to co-parent.”
She was amazed at how fast he adapted to this as if he’d been having the same thoughts she was having. At a certain point wanting kids becomes a pipe dream filled with desperation and emptiness, he looks like he’s experienced it too.
She opened her door and sat down before replying to him again. Thinking about how wonderful he was going to be during this process, “thank you, Spencer.”
“For what?” He asked as they both closed their doors.
She sighed, relaxing into her seat as she started the car. She turned to him softly, not wanting to cry as she spoke softly. “Being a mom is more of a dream to me than joining the BAU was, this is the best gift you could give me.”
He reached his hand out again, holding it softly. Running his thumb over her knuckles. “Can I tell you a secret?”
“Yeah,” she nodded softly.
He couldn’t make eye contact with her, staring at their hands as he rubbed her skin.
“Um, I’ve been pretty infatuated with you since you joined,” he let it out finally. Like a ton of bricks off his back he relaxed a bit, “after everything with Maeve, Cat and Max… oh god, and JJ... I was so worried that if I got too close to you I’d lose you. I tried to keep the feelings in, that's why I said what I did to Penelope. She knows how I feel about you.”
It was like fireworks were going off in her chest as the butterflies erupted inside of her. She sat up, turning to him more and ripping her hand from his grasp.
It startled him, he looked at her anxiously as if she was going to yell at him. But she placed both hands on his cheeks and pulled him into a kiss.
His arms snaked around her waist, wishing they could get closer if it wasn’t for the damn centre console of her car. Pressing their lips together, hard, as they breathed each other in. Desperation taking control, she wasn’t able to let go of him.
When she finally did pull away, however, the look on his face was priceless. Like expensive art, every line and freckle had a meaning. He was surprised, enamoured, grateful, desperate for more.
She smiled softly, rubbing her thumbs over his cheek. “Good, cause it would be awkward having your baby and not getting to love you every day too.”
taglist: @shemarmooresfedora @spencers-dria @spookyspence @reidsfish @manuosorioh @mochionly @samuel-de-champagne-problems @jswessie187 @k-k0129 @calm-and-doctor
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etherealxgenie · 3 years
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Why Adrien is Better off Gay/Bi/Pan || Miraculous, Why?
(Before I begin, note that this is my opinion over the topic and am no way am bashing anyone’s love for the ship and/or character. I respect who and what you like, therefore expect the same courtesy. However, if this is something you cannot handle, please click the back button as this will be a heavily discussed topic. No flames allowed. Other than that, enjoy.)
I’m afraid I have to address the elephant in the room. Of how the hetero pairings for Adrien are about as real as Twilight. Sometimes it makes me wonder if Thomas Astruc looked at the ships in the end of Naruto and though… makes sense? That’s a long shot convo for another day.
I’m going to take the time in this chat to discuss why each female who has an interest in Adrien has no chance of having a healthy relationship with him and to why male characters have better chances! Let’s look at the girls one by once.
Lila: Let’s start with the obvious. Lila is clearly not interested in Adrien for his personality, but merely for the good looks and fame. She really hasn’t demonstrated any behavior that she cares for him genuinely and hangs off of him constantly as a possession. It’s clear Lila sets her eyes on Adrien because he’s famous, popular and wants him as a trophy husband. Lila is pretty toxic on her own to go so far as to sneak in and stalk Adrien. What’s worse is that she now has Gabriel’s permission to do so. If he were to be paired with Lila, it’ll break him and be nothing but hell.
Chloe: While it shows itself that Adrien has only platonic feelings for Chloe, she still hopes for something more. Adrien cares deeply for Chloe because he was her first friend, though it’s obvious Chloe wants more. Though Chloe has a mean streak and a possessive behavior where she tends to be cruel to people aside from Adrien and expects to get away with it every time. With the behavior she gets from being spoiled and trying to live up to her mother, would it be farfetched to say a future marriage between these two would be like Audrey/Andre? I don’t think so. Plus, she forgets his birthday. What kind of friend does that?
Kagami: Not going to lie, out of all the pairs, Kagami does have the most potential to be paired with Adrien. She meets him through fencing, they get time to know each other and they slowly start to grow as friend. However, that just about ends when it comes to such as Kagami is another girl who takes it a step too far. Like Chloe, Kagami follows too much in her mother’s footsteps and also is overly aggressive and competitive. She looks to quickly claim Adrien because they’re ‘perfect’, which is a word Adrien hates a lot under his façade. She’s gets possessive around other girls near Adrien and moves too quickly, also forcing Adrien to make his decisions as if he doesn’t have the time to decide.
And last…
Marinette: Marinette… in a way is a small combination of the girls combine. No doubt she’s sweet, shy and tries help at times when matters. BUT she’s also obsessive, possessive, and hypocritical. Things a potential yandere usually becomes. She invades Adrien’s privacy, stalks him, and steals from him more so than Lila. She doesn’t mind crossing boundaries as far as doing illegal acts such as breaking into his locker, copying his schedule? How even. She also tried to confess to Adrien on the day his mother disappeared/died which is a time for MOURNING and COMFORT! She also has no problems calling other people out on this behavior, yet she does the same things. Hypocrisy is never a good color to wear.
Not to mention she only is ‘in love’ with one side of him. As Ladybug, which is important, she tends to put him down as Chat Noir, doesn’t give him proper respect in public and doesn’t include him with important matters, especially with Master Fu. She treats him as his sidekick rather than his partner and leaves him in the dark. She thinks of herself as Batman and him Robin. If you read the comics or watch some of DC shows, you know how well THAT goes. Marinette cannot love Adrien without loving and respecting him as Adrien AND Chat.
Granted, she’s not the only girl who treats Chat badly, but she is supposed to be his ‘partner’ so… yeah.
For these girls it wouldn’t make sense. Not to mention at least once, the girls tend to make Adrien uncomfortable holding him on his arm and such. They don’t act like they care of Adrien’s well being at all (except for Kagami sometimes), but make him to be some prized to be won. Forced shipping is toxic shipping.
I can gladly blame the poor writing on the show, but pretty much it did it’s damage enough for me to say I cannot or will not romantically ship these girls with Adrien. If there were potential girls, girls like Rose, Juleka heck even Alix, but it’s safe to say that’s out of the question.
You know who DOES have the more potential, though? The boys.
Yes. As we take a chance to look at the friends he bonds with, its easy to say Adrien is more comfortable around the guys. The party before it was crashed, the video game tournament, these are just a few that aren’t shown often but do show more of Adrien’s comfort level. What guys you ask?
A perfect example for a ‘friends to lover’ romance would be Nino for example. He starts off subtly and gets to know Adrien from the start, not showing any animosity after the misunderstanding with Adrien and his childhood friend, Marinette. Nino also goes through lengths to help Adrien as far as to stand up to Gabriel to give Adrien a friggin’ birthday party! And got akumatized for it. Adrien also shows to go through the same lengths to help Nino hook up with Marinette so far as to set him up alone in the zoo. Nino is sweet, caring and he works well with Chat.
Another potential love interest (my personal OTP), Luka. From the get-go of how they met from a trip accident, Luka greets Adrien with kindness and welcomes him to the group in Captain Hardrock. In ‘Desperada’, that same friendliness still holds as Luka trust Adrien with his guitar, his most prize possession. Luka also does his best to keep Adrien safe and hidden away as Adrien returns the favor to save Luka from getting hit. Don’t push me about the locker scene because there are MULTITUDINOUS ways of how I can make so many ‘In the closet’ references. Also, that wink Chat gave, and the look Luka had? Need I say more? Good. And let’s not forget the icing on the cake and keep in mind to remember:
Adrien chose Luka to wield the Snake miraculous. ADRIEN, not ladybug, chose LUKA. Not to mention the fact, as Viperion, he was eager to work with Chat the moment they met and has nothing but good working with him as a teammate. That’s a bonus.
Many fans of the show try to depict them as rivals for Marinette, but only Luka shows that interest in which Marinette doesn’t really accept because of her obsession with Adrien. To make Adrien ‘jealous’ is really out of character, but another topic I’ll cover.
Truthfully, it would be an interesting twist of all the girls pushed up against Adrien, he would turn around and go for the cute guitarist or starts talking about how cute the guy is! Tell me that Degrassi twist wouldn’t add some good drama.
Overall, the show demonstrates so far that most of the girls for Adrien doesn’t really possess healthy qualities for Adrien to have a good future. The boys give him a more comfortable understanding a gentle nature for a kid like Adrien. You could pair him up with Ivan or Max and Adrien would STILL have more chemistry than them. Note that he’s sheltered, and we have no clue off what other mannerism he was raised on or how truly strict Gabriel and Nathalie are. Hell, we don’t even know how it was like when Emilie was even around.
But for any relationship to work, friendship before romance. Slow but steady at the pace both parties can go. People including Adrien, need that.
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captainshazamerica · 3 years
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🎪 titans spoilers
Tim is too well mannered and smart to be associated with the titans they're a literal bunch of toddlers although donna felt like an old lady being called miss troy and ma'am (I'm 23 an I love being called ma'am my brains like who me I'm an adult cool) 😅 gar and tim are prob gonna bond over being the only titans capable of rational thought 😅 The train was quite cool tbh yo how long have people been on that train cuz that one lady looked very 1920s to me
HANK HALL YOU BEAUTIFUL PRECIOUS ANGEL I knew he wasn't gonna make it out of there but my dumb brain held out a smidge of hope Hank is always in protector mode and always concerned about saving the children he tries to help jason and boom dead he tries to help tim and oh no still dead dang it hank, when donna was like oh no dawns gotta be so upset and hanks like yeah she better be 😅 donna wanted to stay and had to leave and hank wanted to leave and had to stay 😢 donna and hank talking about jason and hes like that little fcker blew me up! I know he talked about revenge on jason and I do think that if he got back he would be focused on stopping jason but I also think over a little time he'd forgive him and they'd kinda be buddies again and he'd help him with the drug problem also hank should get to kick crane in the face cuz yeah. Of course hank be driving around the after life blasting living on a prayer and he manages to find a car and a hotel I'm so happy he's with his brother now tho they gonna be kickn ass in the after life hanks basically some type of afterlife guardian now so I'm taking that as he's literally an angel 👼
Maybe hank donna and tim all had the good luck to find each other because of the ritual thingy they were tryna do at themyscira oh my gosh rachel is too funny her idea of themyscira punishment was being made to fight a shark or getting thrown in a pit 😂 that lady tho was that hippolyta and she saying her daughter being dead and earlier donna said to hank it's not like I died stopping an asteriod I died at a carnival so am I connecting stuff that ain't there or did Diana get killed stopping an asteriod? Ahem DONNA WITH THAT SWORD THO why is she so cool can she have a sword on team titans pls now
Okay but honestly somebody please please please help bruce what the heck dick I get he's got a lot to deal with but he could contact bruce now and again and I dunno maybe make him aware that jason is not dead!!! I don't even know if bruce knows or not Although I do think it is interesting character wise that when he broke his no killing rule he ended up turning on himself I really hope they don't just blow past his grief like someone please maybe donna talk to bruce please I was sitting getting so annoyed like bruce spends his whole life as batman and trying to help gotham and save people and there's no one there to save him and then donna swoops in donna I love you
Hank trying to use the power of his imagination to produce a weapon and he ends up with nightwings wingdings 😅😅😅 that was so hilarious to me p.s for that ask game the other day you asked who my fav legends was it's Zari Tomaz (theres two zaris but I've just got a softer spot for the first one) 💕💕💕
also dc should do a really cool back and white noir movie and a scarecrow movie like the way they did that joker movie would be dope too (it would also be intensely cool if they did a dc black label psychoanalytical exploration of Dr Jonathan Crane leading into Scarecrow stories because honestly I think he's one of thier more frightening villians cuz yeah if joker comes to mess you up it won't be a fun time but at least whatever he does to you he's not going to achieve locking you inside your own mind and there's a chance batman or someone will save you but with scarecrow if he comes to mess you up there's a high chance that he'll screw your brain up that much that you literally get trapped in your own mind and like how is anyone gonna be able to get you out of that also the clinical medical-ness would be a touch extra frightening cuz he can mess up with precision whereas joker will wreck you anyway he can but he's not gonna be able to be so precise in what he's doing sorry for the rant but they have such cool characters and so much potential to do stuff with them like ahhh )
Omg I just realized I never replied to your previous titans ask ahhhh I am so sorry!!!! I love getting your asks!!!!
LMAO, u right, Tim IS waaayy too good and pure and smart for the titans ahahaha. Protect him ahhh. I would die for him omg, I absolutely LOVE how they are doing him and how Jay is portraying him omg its near perfect.
Ahahaha, thats so funny xD people called me Ma’am when I worked at Disney world and it always freaked me out xD Especially cause I look so much younger than I am xD It is nice but weird being considered an adult ahahaha
True, Gar and Tim are the only ones with braincells omg xD I feel like they will get along really well awwww.
Omg I thought that one lady on the train looked like she was from the 20’s too!
Right! Hank has grown on me sooo much, like I didn’t really like him 1st season, was indifferent 2nd season, and like him a lot this season. Oh my dumb butt def didn’t think/occur to me that he wouldn’t get out tbh xD I think it works out for his arc though, especially with him and OG kicking butt together there, that was so cute and sweet and perfect. Tho I do want resolution between him and jason but i guess that isn’t gonna happen :(
Huh, interesting about the Diana theory, I never thought of that but you right, I can see that/it makes sense!
Omg I couldn’t handle donna pulling a sword while hank got freaking Robin throw stars and nunchunks that he immediately got hit in the face with xD That was too freaking funny “I was defiantly NOT thinking about Grayson” xD lmaooooo
Dude, this Bruce is so freaking erratic omg. Gosh, I really hope Dick can help him and we get some father son bonding cause my gosh Bruce has me STRESSED this season omg, God bless Donna Troy. I truly thought he was gonna die there! Not even saying goodbye to Dick, smh!
Huh, Ive never heard of Zari Tomaz, Ill have to look her up!
BRO A BLACK AND WHITE SCARECROW MOVIE WOULD BE SO FREAKING GOOD OMGGGGGG. Pleasseeee DC! Gosh, I would KILL for a “psychoanalytical exploration of Dr Jonathan Crane leading into Scarecrow story”, omg, gosh that would be PERFECT! Crane is SUCH an underrated and underused villain! And omg dont apologize cause like same and i love seeing your analysis and rants!!
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spohkh · 3 years
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miracle on cornelia street [dean/castiel]
so BASICALLY sarah @adanceinasnowglobe and i were talking about what everyone would be up to post-series -- yknow, like, now that theyre all safe and healthy n everythings cool and destiel is officially together. yknow. as happened in canon -- and we were like so obviously destiel get a house, and thats kind of the basis of this verse so !! this is the foundational fic for what i HOPE will be a series of fun lil day-in-the-life drabbles, from both me and sarah!! 
ehehehe :-) enjoy!
read on AO3
The house is a quaint thing, sitting low and snug under a pair of shady oak trees in a quiet suburb just outside of downtown Lawrence. Its brickwork face is weathered—definitely in need of a good power wash—and the roof is just as worn. The bottom step to the porch slants unevenly, and the porch itself has cracks in the concrete. There are chips in the paint on the window frames, the iron porch railing is rusting, and who knows when the gutters were last given a proper cleaning.
There’s a lot of work to be done, but standing there in the small front lawn, Dean Winchester can’t say if he’s ever seen anyplace else so perfect as the house at 3767 Cornelia Street. Dean’s house—his home. His home with Cas.
“Can you believe it?” he quietly says to Miracle, who has been sitting patiently by Dean’s leg. Miracle tilts her head and wags her tail. Dean looks back up at the house. “Yeah, me neither.”
The sound of a familiar car rumbling up the road snaps Dean out of his reverie. He rubs a knuckle at his eye and clears his throat and tries to look like he hadn’t been standing in his front yard about to cry while talking to his dog, christ.
The car rolls to a stop on the curb just in front of the house. The driver’s side door opens, and Sam slowly unfolds his ridiculous limbs as he gets out. It’s always a wonder how he can fit himself into a car at all. Sam gives a dorky little wave as he ambles over to where Dean is standing.
Dean peers behind Sam, trying to see into the car. “What, no Eileen?”
“Hello to you, too. Dick,” he replies snarkily. “She’s wrapping up a work thing. She’ll come over when she’s done.”
Dean sucks his teeth in disappointment. “Ah, well. Guess you can go home then.” Sam shoves at his shoulder. Dean just laughs and pulls Sam in for a proper hello hug.
“Why are you standing out here, anyway?” Sam asks when they part.
“Can’t a man just hang out in his own front yard? Accompanied by a dashing canine companion?” He leans down to pat Miracle on the head.
“I guess…” Sam looks down at Miracle. When she tips her head up and gazes back at him, Sam snorts.
“What?”
“Miracle on Cornelia Street,” Sam says with mirth.
Dean squints at him. “What?” he repeats, now more incredulous.
“You know—like Miracle on 34th Street. But we’re on Cornelia, so.” He nods down at the dog. “Miracle on Cornelia Street.”
“Dude.” Dean rolls his eyes at Sam’s goofy grin and starts walking up the path to the house, Miracle trotting behind him. “Shut up and come inside already.”
Sam follows after him, pausing just inside the threshold as he spots something on the doorframe. “Oh, classy,” he says, throwing a sardonic look to where D.W. and C.W. are scratched into the wood.
“Just wait,” Dean jokes with a toothy smile, “when I got the time I’m gonna draw a little heart around it.” He was joking, but now that he said it, he kind of wanted to.
Cas looks up from the stove when they walk into the dining room. He’s wearing one of Dean’s old AC/DC tees, the logo all but worn away from being washed so many times. He’s usually in some ratty tee or other when lounging around these days. But in honor of Sam’s visit today (Cas’ words) and to seem a little more dressy short of donning his usual button-downs (Dean’s private opinion), he’s also wearing the cable-knit cardigan Sam got him as a gift last Christmas. “Hi, Sam.”
Sam leans against the counter that separates the dining and kitchen areas, craning his giraffe neck to catch a glimpse at the stove. “Hey, Cas! What’cha cooking?”
“Nothing. Dean made it. I was just watching the pot so it didn’t boil over.” He locks eyes with Dean, his intent stare very clearly communicating I did not touch the chili I added nothing I did not touch the dial I was just watching it like you asked so don’t even start.
Dean just smiles as he walks past the counter and steps into Cas’ space. “Thank you, sweetheart,” he says, and busses Cas on the cheek.
“You’re welcome,” Cas replies warmly. He’s gazing up at Dean with those summer afternoon blue eyes, standing in one of Dean’s shirts and that dorky cardigan, and Dean starts to get full of that feeling from out in the front yard again. If they were alone, Dean would probably say something recklessly sappy like I am so stupid in love with you.
As it is, Dean clears his throat and turns back to Sam, slinging an arm around Cas’ shoulders, and says, “He did the salad.”
Cas sneaks him a knowing look before, thankfully, putting his attention on Sam without commenting on Dean’s hasty redirection. “I did the salad,” Cas agrees blithely, and places the salad bowl on the counter for Sam to see, seeming pleased with himself.
Sam looks between the two of them, an amused tilt to his eyebrow that Dean implicitly distrusts. He’s definitely thinking mocking thoughts about the two of them. But he just quirks a smile and says, “It looks great.” Shrewd little diplomat.
Cas shifts to the side to see past Sam’s shoulder. Sam glances behind himself before shooting Cas a confused look.
“She’s still at work,” Dean tells Cas, guessing who he’s looking for. “Sadly.”
“What, am I not good enough?”
“Of course you are,” Cas promises earnestly, just as Dean says, “Well…”
Sam’s opening his mouth to retort, probably something absolutely scathing, when his phone chimes. He pulls it out of his pocket, a smile spreading over his face. “Speak of the devil,” he says, then tips his head with a grimace, “as it were. That was Eileen. She’ll be here soon, so I’m gonna go wash up.”
“Bathroom’s down the hall—“
“Dude, I know where it is. I did help you guys move in.”
Dean spreads his hands in assent. “Fine, christ, I swear never to be a good host to you in my home ever again. Go ahead and go take your dump now.”
“I’m not gonna—ohmygodnevermind.” He turns on his heel and huffs down the hall, Miracle trotting after him, the tags on her collar clinking together jauntily.
Dean reaches past Cas to turn the burner off, then lands his hand on Cas’ hip. “Have I told you today how cute you are in that sweater?”
“Yes.” Cas brings his hands up to cradle Dean’s face. “Four times.”
“Make it five.” Dean kisses him. He pulls Cas into a hug, pressing his face against Castiel’s shoulder. They sway into each other. After a warm moment, Dean says in a low voice, “The first family dinner in our house.”
Cas hums a soft, contented sound in agreement. “The first of many,” he responds, just as quiet. Dean squeezes him tighter. He knows they’re both thinking about Jack and Claire, their bedrooms sitting empty and waiting for whenever they can find the time to visit—and Kaia and Alex and Jody with Claire, if they can, and Charlie and her girlfriend, and Bobby, and all the other wayward extensions of their sprawling family caught out in the wind. Their house isn’t big enough to host everyone, but with Sam and Eileen up the block and the bunker just a few miles out, there’s plenty of room to put up people who come out their way. Dean has the hope that 3767 Cornelia Street becomes a common pitstop for folks—a suburban Roadhouse, a tidier (much tidier) Singer Salvage.
Dean presses a kiss against Cas’ neck, and Cas breathes a sweet little sigh that pushes all thoughts about future dinners right out the window. Fuck, this dinner could go out the window, for all he cares. He kisses a little higher up, right under Cas’ jawline, before pulling back to catch Castiel’s darkened gaze. “How ‘bout we ditch the nag and go have a private party of our own?”
“Dean, no. I worked really hard on that salad.” He sounds perfectly serious, but the playful glint in his eye gives him away. Dean snorts, mumbling oh, forgive me, Chef Cas as he leans in again.
Just as they kiss, Sam walks back in. “Hey, I think something’s wrong with your sink–- oh, sorry.”
“Huh?” Dean reluctantly pulls away as Sam clears his throat, looking sheepish. “What’s wrong with what, Sammy?”
“Uh, with your bathroom.”
“The bathroom? Oh, what, you clogged the toilet?”
“Wha— N—  I DID NOT SHIT IN YOUR BATHROOM.”
“Then how did the toilet get messed up?”
“It’s the SINK, the SINK—”
“You took a shit in the sink?”
Cas pinches the bridge of his nose. “Dean…”
“What? He started it.”
“Started WHAT?”
Dean snaps his fingers. “The end of the world.”
“Oh! My god!”
“I guess technically, yeah, since god is our kid...” He turns to Cas. “Weird, weird lives we lead.”
Cas just shakes his head, clearly exasperated. Sam has given up on speaking completely and has fallen back on making a gesture like he’s one second away from grabbing Dean by the throat.
“I was there for all twelve years of it,” Sam says to Cas, “and I still can’t believe you stayed with this guy.”
“Well,” Cas muses serenely, “you’ve been here a lot longer than me.”
Sam grimaces when Dean throws him his best shit-eating grin. Nothing like his two favorite people bonding over how much of a pain he is.
The sound of the front door opening distracts them, and then a voice calls, “Knock knock! The life of the party has arrived!”
“Eileen!” Sam exclaims happily. Miracle takes off down the hall, Sam hot on her heels.
Dean chuckles at Sam’s unabashed excitement, then gives Castiel another peck on the cheek before moving away from him. “Can you put everything out on the table? I’ll go check out the bathroom sitch real quick.”
Cas catches his hand as he starts to leave, softly saying his name. When Dean looks back at him, Cas smiles and says, “I love you.”
Dean wonders if maybe three time’s the charm and he should just give in to what his body wants him to do. If a man has a right to stand around and cry messily anywhere in his own home, surely the kitchen would be the place to do it. The kitchen, after all, is the heart of any house.
But Dean doesn’t. He indulges in a little sniffle, Cas’ eyes glimmering with knowing in the soft light. Dean brings Cas’ hand to his mouth and kisses the neat gold band around his finger, and he kisses each peaked knuckle, and he turns Cas’ hand over and kisses his palm and his wrist. Then he lets go and puts his own hand against Cas’ cheek, and says his recklessly sappy thing: “I love you, too, sweetheart.”
And the glowing feeling inside him doesn’t settle, only grows brighter.
Whatever’s wrong with the sink will be just one more thing to a long list of shit to deal with. Their house needs work, no denying. But Dean knows they’ve got plenty of time.
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bigskydreaming · 3 years
Note
Could Jason and Chris Kent have become friends? I know nothing about Chris or the comics from Jason's Robin era. I heard that Chris is the erased eldest son of Superman? I'm intrigued, but that means even the children of the biggest superheroes ever can be erased?
Ugh, I love Chris Kent and miss him (the pre-Flashpoint version of his character) a ton. And y’know, there are a couple ways you could manuever him and Jason into a friendship, though I don’t think they ever met in continuity. I don’t know how well they would have gotten along if you just went with the versions of the characters that both existed at approximately the same time, but they do actually have a decent amount in common, like with some tweaks it could work. Ironically, character wise they probably would have gotten along really well when Jason was Robin, but continuity wise, Chris didn’t even debut until after UTRH, though he rapidly aged from a young kid to a young adult after just a couple of years.
But lemme back up a bit because Chris is, umm, complicated.
SO. Christopher Kent was born Lor-Zod, the son of General Zod and Ursa, while they were held captive in the Phantom Zone. They were abusive asshats to him, and he’s not a fan. But for some reason which had to do with blah blah blah invasion plot blah blah, Zod made a spaceship from inside the Phantom Zone that he sent Chris to Earth in, because due to being born while in the Zone, Chris was actually able to take physical form, unlike the Kryptonians trapped there as a prison.
When Chris crashed on Earth, he was taken by a government agency aimed at monitoring extraterrestial ‘threats’ and treated as such. Cue Clark finding out that there was another Kryptonian on Earth, he was a kid, and he was being treated as a prisoner and it was like, See Clark Run. See Clark Mad. See Clark Raze The Department of Extraterrestial Affairs From The Earth With His Searing Hot Eyebeams Of Rage and Also Destruction.
And then Clark took Chris home to the Kent farm, and eventually he and Lois ended up adopting Chris and raising him as their own. Lois was the one who gave him his Earth name of Chris, which he’s always been shown to vastly prefer over his birth name just like he can’t stand his birth parents, as they are abusive asshats. He used to call Lois “Mama Lois.” It was adorable.
There’s a lot of back and forth about calling him Clark and Lois’ adopted son versus foster son, depending on various wikis and even issues, but its the same kinda thing that happens with all the Batkids at various points, and like, I remember issues that actually called Ma and Pa Kent Clark’s foster parents, so just do what I do and groan and sigh and accept that DC habitually employs writers and editors who just flat out don’t understand how fostering and adoption works. And its not that there’s anything wrong or lesser about fostering, and its absolutely the better way to go for some, its just foster son and adopted son are not remotely interchangeable, they are two different things, and DC has GOT to stop playing take-backsies with adoption, like just don’t do that, don’t make that a thing.
Anyway, for awhile it was Clark, Lois and Chris and they were quite happy together. Chris existed well before Jon Kent and they were never raised as Kents at the same time, unfortunately, and he did have some cute scenes with Conner, though this was mostly when Conner was characterized as seeing Clark more as an older brother and never really raised by him. (Similar to YJ-verse, but I have a lot of issues with that in YJ-verse because of HOW that played out, that I don’t have in pre-Flashpoint comics, where it felt a little more natural for Clark and Conner to have a brotherly relationship, mostly due to the fact that I don’t recall Conner ever expressing a want for the relationship to be otherwise in the comics, and having a strong bond with Ma and Pa Kent himself. I could be wrong here though as I skipped a lot of Conner’s writing when Geoff Johns is behind the wheel because I just....really miss 90s Kon-El who was practically a totally different character BUT I DIGRESS).
 But then because comics gotta comics, eventually Zod escaped from the Phantom Zone to fuck all that up, and invaded Earth because he’s like I’m Zod and invading Earth is like, my entire personality, its the only move I’ve got in the deck, what do you want from me. And Luthor eventually cooperated with the heroes to stop the invasion by configuring some sort of cosmic vaccuum cleaner to suck all the Kryptonians with a connection to the Phantom Zone back into the Phantom Zone, but then this didn’t seal the Zone up again once all the invaders were back in and Chris realized its because even though he was just born there, he was technically connected to the Zone too and it wouldn’t close up again as long as he was outside it. So he sacrificed himself to save his father (Clark took quite a beating from Zod in this) and the world and dove into the Phantom Zone, which sealed up behind him.
BUT he was saved at the last second (and without anyone else knowing for awhile) by someone named Thara. She was the security chief of Kandor, and she took Chris to protect him from the revenge of the Phantom Zoners who would have blamed him for their re-imprisonment. And off-page, during the years between Chris getting sacrificing himself to seal the Phantom Zone before his reapparance, Chris had a comic-book style growth spurt uncannily like the one Jon Kent got when Bendis started writing him, resulting in an uncannily similar dynamic between Chris and Clark and Lois when they reunited as Bendis wrote Jon having with Clark and Lois when they reunited. Why do I emphasize this, is it because I think Bendis is overhyped and I’ll never stop complaining about how all his biggest story beats are blatantly just recycled story beats from less well-known writers and characters, no that can’t be it, must be something else.
Anyway, Chris eventually returns to Earth, now a teenager, and now going by Nightwing while Thara went by Flamebird. This was around the time Bruce was lost in time and Dick was Batman, and there was never like, any crossover. Which sucked because Dick would’ve been fine with it as Chris had more of a claim to the name than even him (it wasn’t like with the Nightwings in the Ric Grayson arc, who became Nightwing BECAUSE of Dick’s persona, but rather that Chris and Thara were basing their personas purely on their own Kryptonian myths and what they represented to the Kandorians who were now living on Earth at the time. Totally different situation). But really it was just missed opportunities, IMO, as I think Chris and Dick also would have gotten along really well and their paths just never really crossed.
Somewhere in there Chris got another random growth spurt and ended up in his early 20s, he and Thara ended up in a relationship which was not my fave cuz of all the aging shenanigans but whatevs, Chris kept having random aging growth spurts which had Lois really worried about him and she tried to get the hero version of Dr. Light (Dr. Kimiyo Hoshi) to help him thinking maybe it had something to do with light or radiation, but they never really got around to trying to fix it because Lois’ douchebag dad General Lane showed up and tried to capture Chris, and he and Thara fled. And then they ran into Supergirl, who at first tried to kill Thara because she hated her because Kandorian Backstory I honestly do not remember, but then Chris revealed himself and was like Kara, its me, we’re cousins, and then they had adventures with Kara for a time, then there was this whole thing where Thara and Chris were both briefly possessed by and then merged with the actual Kryptonian gods/entities of Nightwing and Flamebird and then the entities left them and were like okay, we’re all done with whatever that was, as you were.
Chris thwarted his evil birth parents again, blew up some stuff, there was more Phantom Zone shenanigans and then General Lane and Lex Luthor turned the sun red to try and kill all Kryptonians, Thara fixed it by sacrificing herself, Chris tried to join her but then the Nightwing entity hijacked him and was like nope, and then not long after, Chris sacrificed himself again to push Zod back into the Phantom Zone AGAIN (seriously, it was like they were on a loop at this point, ugh) and he ended up in the Zone himself, but for real this time....and for some reason that turned him back into the age he should’ve been if he’d been aging normally this whole time, and the last we saw of Chris, he was like ten years old and in the Phantom Zone and being helped by Mon-El, and then the New 52 happened and rebooted everything and wherever that was going no longer mattered.
And then New 52 Lor-Zod showed up at one point as like, Zod’s loyal little son-minion, and DC has never shown a hint of intending to pursue an actual Chris Kent storyline in the New 52, and I hate that lots and lots because its like lol, this character was an abuse survivor in his original incarnation and you guys were like, lol no big deal, we’ll just make Zod the exact same asshat he’s always been but now this version of his son is just like him and likes it, why would that be a problem. WHATEVER.
Basically, New 52 Chris Kent doesn’t exist, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Which is a fucking shame, because Chris and Jon Kent as brothers being raised together WITHOUT ANY WEIRD AGING SHENANIGANS with their cousin once removed, Kara, and their older sorta brother sorta uncle Conner could have been like. So great.
So anyway. There’s LOTS of directions you can take Chris, and he’s really a great character. If you’re aiming to make him friends with Jason specifically, my go-to there would be to just have the events that led Chris to Earth originally just....happen a lot earlier in the continuity of your story. So have Chris arrive on Earth and be adopted by Clark and Lois roughly around the same time Jason steals the tires off the Bat-mobile, and you’re pretty much in business.
(BUT if you do go this route, keep in mind that Jason died before the Death of Superman storyline, which is where Kon-El debuted, so even if Kon/Conner’s still older than Chris here, Chris would already be an established part of Clark and Lois’ family by the time Kon-El arrives on the scene, which would change dynamics there, not just between Chris and Kon/Conner, but potentially between Kon/Conner and Clark and Lois as well).
OR you can keep Chris’ arrival as happening roughly when it did in canon (2006 was the year he debuted), and just have him do a little aging up, like, as a treat, and so be his older self when Jason returns and starts interacting with the cape community again, with their first interactions being when they’re both young adults who for completely different reasons missed out on large chunks of childhood. There’s some potentially interesting angles to explore there too.
Just depends on which way you want to go with that.
(PS, I think aging up is an overused trope most of the time in comics anyway, but its not so much aging Chris rapidly to a teenager and then young adult that I had an issue with, so much as doing it largely to put him in a relationship with someone who first met him when they were already an adult and he was ten. Its the initial age gap being an established part of the overall dynamic with an eventual love interest thats the issue, not that an age gap existed before two characters ever met - if for all other intents and purposes - their dynamic treats them as if they both were effectively always around the same age).
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augustheart · 4 years
Note
Do you have any more detailed thoughts about your hypothetical Vibe tv show? Like with other characters you'd bring in or actors or animation style or anything? It just sounds really interesting and your thoughts on JLAs Vibe are just fun to hear all around
i know the names of 0 actors so animation time :) also this is long because you activated my trap card so i put it under a cut.
i hate the current dc artstyle we’re stuck with and i’m glad we’re branching out to new ones for shows (like the new dc superhero girls style and justice league action). i’d like it to be...about as kid-friendly as young justice or justice league/justice league unlimited, where it can tackle serious topics and not speak down to its audience but still technically be a family thing. JL(U) specifically was very formative for me, clunky style and all.
i would be altering a lot of the league-specific stuff. the justice league already exists, they formed to combat darkseid’s invasion five years prior to the main story (opening scene/etc, adapted pretty much directly from the comic), but the stuff with waller is very different. instead of directly forming a team to take down the justice league, she just starts contacting people who she wants to control that she could hypothetically use to take down the league without connecting them to each other (similar lineup as in the comics, probably). importantly, they never interact--cisco should feel as isolated as possible from the rest of the superhero community.
the bart stuff is changed because i don’t wanna deal with bar torr. now waller pits cisco against daniel, who is part of the suicide squad and therefore also already in her pocket, but who she deems to be expendable. cisco wins but offers to help him with whatever waller sent him after, then when daniel is recaught by argus cisco is like hey don’t do that :( and the suicide squad sees that hey this kid’s not bad.
two other very important plotlines are dante investigating argus because he Doesn’t Trust Like That and cindy... who i have changed A Bit to mesh her canons together even though she’s still based on her n52 version. basically now the earth she’s from is specifically one of the dead earths in our current multiverse map (and she’s roma like she is in the main dc canon, of course). her dad smuggled her to earth-1/prime/whatever we’re using now when she was little, but the family he placed her with was killed by argus agents trying to capture her because she’s leaking some serious multiversal energy. when they fail, they send in cisco, who is like hey what the fack :( don’t do that (x2) and they start going on the run together.
i think there will honestly be a good episode or so about them just...being on the run from argus agents along with dante, that ends in the suicide squad being forced to capture cisco and cindy, but they let dante go because cisco was nice to daniel and honestly...was probably nice to them too whenever he had interactions with them. so fair is fair.
then we get a pretty straightforward adaptation of issue six with dante convincing dale (he and casey have A Big Presence in the show) to help him rescue cisco and cindy by extension. big armando reveal, because of course. that’s at the end of an episode, and the next episode opens with what happened when armando crashed on piradell and was found...by cindy, not by her mother, who tried to help this stranger and ended up watching them get turned into a weapon by mordeth anyway.
stuff keeps going, i’m trying not to do an episode by episode breakdown, but there are some changes made to the piradell stuff where quell’s lil team is alternate earth versions of the people waller was planning on using as failsafes for the JL!! no cisco, but we get an alt-earth hawkgirl (i will not be using hawkman), an alt-earth green lantern, an alt-earth katana, an alt-earth stargirl, etc. i think that’s more fun than it just being strangers. quell also specifically got all his Everything fucked up while he was smuggling cindy to safety across dimensions, and had to sacrifice his physical form to save her life, so he’s obviously pretty pissed that mordeth has her (step) daughter back again.
adaptation goes pretty normally from there, but cindy gets some more agency in her kidnapping where she’s able to escape using something she probably learned from dante or from the family who took her in (or both!). cisco rescues armando, etc etc etc--
end teaser is the same, but before that once cisco is back on earth we see him contacting everyone else waller was going to use as a failsafe and being like “hey these were her true intentions. kinda fucked up actually! anyway peace out.” 
season two would be about The JL Detroit Lite forming to rescue armando :) the lineup would specifically be cisco, cindy, jason & ronnie as firestorm, hank, mari who is here because she went holy FUCK you are ALL TEENS?? after she bonded with cindy (they’re SISTERS!!!), and j’onn, who came from the justice league to find out exactly what in the fucking hell is going on in detroit. 
(there’ll be a scene where they’re trying to decide on a team name and can’t. like
“teen titans? no, wait, that’s still taken. does lex luthor still own the copyright for infinity inc?” “i dunno, probably. what about the challengers of the unknown? we definitely challenged the unknown to rescue armando.” “did you read that off a cereal box? i like ‘the outsiders.’” “that one’s taken too, i think.”
etc, etc, etc. just because i think it’d be cute.)
anyway! i’ll stop writing now because my hand hurts very badly but..... i would like to make it. 
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spadejin · 4 years
Note
Alright, how about a DC comics AU where Mina Ashido’s Male S/O is the newest Robin (if you’d like, I could explain the robin mantle to you over messages)
Warnings: None
A/N: I really hope you enjoy this, I worked really hard on it! Apologies for the wait, but I tried my best and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Thank you for taking the time to explain the troupe to me! <3
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You’d been wanting to tell Mina your identity for quite some time.
Obviously, you were aware of the risks that would arise if you disclosed your personal identity, but since she’s your S/O, you felt that you could trust her.
It was a quiet night, and you both were spending quality time at her apartment.
You both were lounging on the couch, watching TV as you huddled up together, relaxing in each other’s company watching the late night news.
It seems as if Robin was spotted pursing yet another villain!
If you didn’t know, Mina is a big fan of Robin. Being a hero herself, she always admired how cunning and quick he was, his abilities seemingly endless.
Mina, being Mina began to exclaim about how much she admired him, boasting and praising his tactics and ways of catching the villains.
Seeing him in action makes her excited!
It’s so cute seeing her fawning over you, especially since she isn’t aware that the Robin she’s praising is sitting right next to her.
Your heart floats at her compliments.
You thought of telling her right then and there, but obviously, you can’t just bring up the fact that you were the masked man on the TV without any significant proof, especially since she was a hero as well.
She told you her identity earlier than you would’ve expected.
As you listened to her speak fondly, you secretly began to devise a plan to “run into” her during your work.
Your plan was set into action a few days later.
She was in the middle of pursing a slippery villain that she’d been having trouble apprehending. and you were following the chase closely, waiting for the perfect moment to take the villain and her off guard.
She followed them closely into a dark secluded area, and that’s when you decided to strike.
What used to be an open alleyway turned into a two-way blockade as you jumped out in front of him with Mina hot on their tail.
They both stopped.
Oh fuck.jpeg
You made a dramatic show of apprehending the villain easily as she watched in amazement. Robin was just single-handedly detaining someone she’s been having trouble with!
After the man was arrested, you both were left alone.
She had so many questions for you!
They all got forced back into her throat when you lifted your mask up at her just a little, a small smile on your face as you directed your gaze toward her.
!!!
She was dating Robin! The very person she admired and looked up to!
The face reveal was over as quick as it came, and you disappeared right in front of her.
She was still on duty, so she had to regain herself, but her mind was still clouded with thoughts of you. How did she not notice before?
When she came back to her apartment late that night, she was adamant about messaging you asap.
She didn’t even get a chance to pull out her phone before she saw you relaxing on her sofa, fiddling with your mask.
Bum rushes you as soon as she sees you.
‘Why didn’t you tell me that you were Robin?” She questioned you loudly.
She’s not even mad, she’s just embarrassed because she fangirled so many times over your Robin character in front of you.
Of course after you explained to her, she understood where you were coming from, and how it was potentially dangerous to tell her your identity, but you couldn’t help yourself. You trusted her and didn’t want to keep her in the dark about something like this anymore.
Deems you superhero buddies.
Every night you watch the news, she continues to compliment you every time she sees you on the channel.
Just because she knows its you doesn’t mean the fangirling will stop.
Literally sends you “anonymous fan mail”
It’s not even anonymous because you know it’s her, and she’s the only one who knows of your identity.
Bugs you about seeing your gadgets up close and personal.
Whenever you’ve had a long day, she does her absolute best to relax you (i.e. ordering your favorite takeout, running you a bath, etc.)
Your identity doesn’t change how much she loves you. If anything, it makes your bond stronger.
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Text
Tales from D&D: Skin to Bone
[Hello. Have not done a Tales from D&D in a hot minute. Thought I’d do one now.
This one is from the Icewind Dale campaign that I am playing, and because of it, there may be SPOILERS FOR ICEWIND DALE below the cut. 
I am also going to be tagging @luwupercal because I think they may enjoy hearing about the fate of Barnaby and the fucking feels train this campaign has become. 
Before I get into it, this is the cast:
LYDIA - Vampire spawn warlock. Chill as fuck. Just wants to be able to either cure herself or stop having to run from her new self.
RHOZAL - Hobgoblin Artificer with a lot of emotional baggage. Blacksmith and feelsy baby. Protect him. Has a crush on Lydia. [The feelings are mutual on both ends, however the characters are being COWARDS-]
BARNABY BUSSELTON - Anarcho-capitalist gnome wizard. No longer a PC. Relevant to the beginning of this tale. Will explain.
CHARLES NOLAND - Halfling druid. Was vibing in the snow for 2 months. New to the gang. 
AND FINALLY, MY DUMB ASS AS-
Hakkerskaldyr Strigr, but known as FREYR - Goliath Paladin who worships the Allfather. Lost an eye. And a character that I’ve lost interest in playing. We’ll get into that.
We begin our tale with a TPK in some caverns.  Note: The party is Level 3.
The enemies were a frost giant skeleton, a hag, and a wil-o-wisp. 
Lydia makes it to the hag first. Rhozal and I, Freyr, try to follow her to provide assistance while Barnaby tries to kite the skeleton away from us. 
We get to the room with the hag. Lydia isn’t doing too good. 
The giant stops following Barnaby and comes for us.
Rhozal is put down in one blow from the giant’s axe. Freyr is able to use the final spell slot and put down a smite on the hag, killing it. Lydia, who had been grappled by it, is now free.
Freyr was at 5 hp. The giant needed to do 35 damage for Freyr to be killed instantaneously.
The DM rolled a 7, an 8, and an 11. The giant had a +6 to the attack.
The giant had done 34 damage. One more and I would have been out. BUT THAT WASN’T THE END! Because on the next turn, the wisp used its ability where a creature put down to 0 needs to make a DC 10 con save or die instantly. 
Made the save.
Lydia flees, and now the giant skeleton is fighting this wisp. Barnaby is hanging back, letting them fight it out. Lydia does her Form of Dread and finds Barnaby, takes out a shadowblade, and kills him. Freyr’s axebeak, Ishe, is on her way to try and retrieve Freyr. Lydia tries to mount her, but is bucked off. 
Barnaby’s turn is next and he gets a NAT 20 TO THE SAVE, POPS UP, SAYS “SURPRISE MOTHERFUCKER” AND DOWNS LYDIA WITH A LEVEL 2 MAGIC MISSILE.
Ishe then pecks his ass and puts him back on death saves. Which he got another nat 20 to in two turns. 
SO, TPK. Wonderful. Rhozal then releases a snake called Xipecoatl unto the world in exchange for his life. The snake kills the skeleton, and Ishe comes in to grab Freyr and run. Barnaby gets up and makes a deal with the snake.
Freyr goes to the nearest city with Ishe, once he comes to, for help from the guard. With a nat 20 to persuasion, he gets it.
Barnaby starts making traps around the caves, including alchemist’s fire and rockfall traps. I am sent into secrets corner, alone, FOR 45 FUCKING MINUTES while Barnaby talks. 
Finally, I’m able to get back into the main call, and Freyr takes up his weapons, and the guards, and he makes his way into the caverns. Man checked for traps all the while, but they were disarmed. Barnaby left a note. Rhozal is fucking worried and wants to pursue him now. Barnaby has captured Lydia. 
We resolve to fucking kill him.
Thanks to Lydia being a fucking madlad, we’re able to locate him hiding out in the snow. He hears the sled dogs that are with us. Rhozal is given a scroll of fireball (reward for the quest we were on), and he uses it to cast fireball on Barnaby. Takes 11 fire damage.
I go, and I try to Vow of Emnity his ass. Can’t. Fucking illusion. GREAT. 
Turns progress and the guards can’t hit him because of this illusion. Lydia is not doing well on death saves. She needs to be saved now.
On Barnaby’s turn, he takes out a fang, and teleports away.
“Let this be known as the day you almost caught Barnaby Busselton!”
He also ignites the oil he had planted around Lydia. Due to a Secret, Freyr has fire resistance, so he was literally thrown into the fires to help her. After cutting himself so Lydia could be stable/healed, he hauls her up and out of the flames.
Barnaby is now a DMPC, and will eventually be hunted.
We all leave and get a room in the nearby city of Easthaven. We spent the night there, we had some very nice heart to heart moments. Rhozal now feels empty. But we all cement our bonds with each other, and Rhozal and Lydia become very cute and adorable. I don’t want this post to be a million miles long, so I’ll leave it at that.
I will try to summarize the next few sessions. Essentially, we found a magic cauldron in those caves (its a Cauldron of Plenty) and the Speaker (mayor) of Easthaven was willing to pay 3500gp for it. So we planned to give it to him, but it was stolen in the time period the speaker had told us it would take for us to be paid. We find Charles in the Speaker’s town hall, and we ask him if he knew anything. The answer was ‘no’. So we head downstairs and we find the Speaker beat to shit, along with his guards. 
It is at this point we find out who stole the cauldron, a dwarf woman named Torgga, and we head out as soon as possible. The Speaker offers 1000 more gp for its retrieval.
So we head off to Targos, the last town that we knew Torgga frequented. We go to Luskan Arms, a Tavern, and we find her sleds. But the cauldron is gone. We head inside and we see her heading up to speak with someone. Lydia turns invisible and leaves her familiar, a pseudodragon named Signum (who is also constantly pointing in the direction Lydia is in), with us. When Signum squeaks, it means she’s in danger. 
Lydia is able to eavesdrop on a situation. The Speaker of Targos plans to starve out Easthaven. GREAT. POLITICS. Makes Torgga fear him. He is a corrupted cunt, essentially. 
Torgga is let out, and Lydia remains in the room with the Speaker. 
She then decides to attack. Signum starts squeaking. Me and Rhozal’s player are aggressively signing (because we had been muted for this entire altercation) that we are FUCKIN GONE, we are DASHING AWAY-
But Lydia CRITS ON THE BITE. C R I T. NATURAL. T W E N T Y.
Combat ensues. It takes Freyr and Rhozal forever to try and get to her. Rhozal is able to just yeet his ass upstairs, but then there’s a locked door in the way. Freyr is being pulled back by a tiefling (one of the Speaker’s lot), and even with a FUCKING 21 TO ATHLETICS, I couldn’t break free. FOR LIKE FIVE FUCKING ROUNDS. NO, I did not hit this person, BECAUSE MY PALLY BOY WAS JUST THINKING “don’t hurt more people than you have to, that’s just going to cause more trouble”. 
But anyway he gets upstairs but Lydia is unconscious. Rhozal cannot pick the door. So we start breaking it down.
We break it down.
The Speaker ties up Lydia with manacles. We break into his room (after Rhozal gets poisoned by a Cone Snail doorknob), see Lydia is awake (nat 20 to death saves baBY), and that the Speaker is missing.
He escaped through a hidden door. Freyr watched him do it. So he tries to find the exit, but fails. 
His next turn, this motherfucker opens the door and says “Hello!”. Makes 3 attacks.
Misses 2.
CRITS. ON THE THIRD. FOR FUCK SAKE-
Freyr is down. AND. AND. HE HAS THREE SPELL SLOTS THAT HE CAN USE. AND ALL OF HIS LAY ON HANDS POINTS. BUT HE IS DOWN. FUCK.
Rhozal is also downed, but Signum arrives to save the day! Signum stings him. Speaker rolls a nat 1 to his con save, so he is now unconscious for an hour. Freyr gets healing potion’d, then he res’s Rhozal, and then Rhozal starts tying up the Speaker. Charles had been kinda holding back the tide downstairs (Dire Wolf wild shaping is fucking insane at level 3), so he hauls ass to come help us. 
However, about 5 other people are following. FUCK.
We try to find a way to escape. We also need proof the Speaker is a corrupt fuckhead. Which we THOUGHT we had, because the Speaker wrote a letter that essentially said “Ah yes, I am Evil and Corrupt, muah ha ha.” However. The DM then proceeded to reveal that he didn’t have the letter on him, when he told Lydia that she saw him take it.
Fucking. Damn. It.
We headed into his secret hallway and we try to find a way out. 
The hallway is trapped, however, and nearly takes us out because of those traps. How fucking LOVELY. 
We hear the guards calling for someone, who finds the oTHER END OF THIS HALLWAY AND THEN SNIPES FREYR. Down. AGAIN. 
Then Rhozal is put down. 
Charles and Lydia are able to flee. 
Rhozal and Freyr are taken captive. 
We awake to find ourselves imprisoned. Manacled, in nothing but ragged clothing. The Speaker wants to make a deal. He literally says “Ah yes, I am corrupt and power hungry. Work for me.”
Look. Freyr is not about that life. It’s complicated but it has ties to his backstory.
Rhozal wants to say yes. Freyr is a vehement no. This guy thinks of him, Rhozal, and Lydia as precious pieces on his board. Weapons he can turn against the people of Targos and Ten Towns. Things for his own gain. Freyr would rather choose death before dishonor.
The Speaker then says that Freyr would be imprisoned, and let out once he became more useful. 
Rhozal fears he will be killed. 
It is at this point that I and Rhozal’s player go into the Secrets chat so Rhozal and Freyr can argue their points. 
Meanwhile, Charles and Lydia go to find some acquaintances the party made in Targos. Marianne, a Changeling healer, and Mimosa Halfglass, the chief healer in Targos. They start planning a prison break.
In our bickering and imprisonment, Marianne comes to us. We tell her to sneak out our things. She’s disguising herself as a guard. She then leaves. 
Rhozal’s player and I are then brought into the general vc and muted. 
Lydia ends up speaking with the Speaker alone, offers a counter-offer, and also offers to try and convince Rhozal and Freyr to take his deal. He allows her to try and do so. Lydia is shackled and put into the same cell we are. 
The session ends here. However, in the background, Lydia, Rhozal, and Freyr all end up talking. 
I will say this now. I am feeling... stuck with my boy. I love Freyr. I really do. However, I don’t feel... inspired to play him anymore. So the DM has told us we need to make a decision -- take the Speaker’s offer, or don’t. And in this decision, I have a second one, that being; do I continue playing Freyr, or do I introduce a new character. 
I feel like, while the others have ideas and plans, Freyr doesn’t have many. Not many plot things that he feels relevant to or connected by, outside of this prophecy he was given to by Odin in the session he lost his eye. However, that feels like a very late game thing, and I feel like I’m kinda... twiddling my thumbs while the others have things to do. 
My next character I have basically planned out. I know how he talks, how he thinks, his mannerisms, everything. And I really like him. Haven’t quite decided on a name yet, but I incorporated that aspect itself into his character. 
I already know that Freyr is a vehement ‘no’. Lydia and Rhozal tried to convince him otherwise, but my boy is stubborn. But the DM told me that things do not have to end there. 
So my decision by Wednesday is now -- who’s story do I play? Freyr’s, or this new character?
I’m still torn. But I am leaning more and more towards this new character. He feels dynamic, and the character is a class I’ve never played before. Plus I think he’ll get along well with Lydia, Rhozal, and Charles. 
It’ll be a heartfelt goodbye if he leaves. But I feel like his chapter has come to a close. Besides, I feel like he’s a bit too... third wheel-y for what Rhozal and Lydia have going on. He feels too awkward. I don’t like his dynamic too much anymore. 
But who knows, maybe I’ll regret the decision either way. However, I do believe it’s time for my paladin to say goodbye. At least at the time of writing. I’ll provide updates when the fateful day comes.]
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thattimdrakeguy · 5 years
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I don't like damian, it's a little cocky shit, I think he's too rough with his team and I understand that because he was raised as a prince by Talia and his grandfather. I think most writers didn't handle it properly, they make it seem like Damian is not a jerk for like two pages and then he's a little shit again in the next issue. Maybe I think so because the only thing I read with him has been supersons and teen titans when he is the leader. sorry for the rant
I go back and forth on rather or not I like Damian quite a bit, because I feel like his character has a lot of potential to be really good, and has his moments were its seems like he is going to be at least somewhat good, but then a mix of fans and DC writers drop the ball with him and it ends up with me not liking him that much.
They let him mostly get away with a lot of stuff he does besides occasional things, they try to give him sympathetic moments that don’t really feel sympathetic, they’ve done small retcons to make him more sympathetic, try and turn other characters into jerks to make him look more likable in comparison, and ignore a lot of behavior stuff he does, all while trying to force him to be cute and quirky in all these contrived moments that are actually kind of messed up, because to fans who are more casual and either don’t care or pay attention to details they’ll suck it up regardless of how he’s supposed to be.
Like a big example of what I’m talking about is in an issue of Red Robin, and I’ve brought the issue up before, so I feel like to some people that read this it might be annoying if they’ve already seen me talk about it before, but it encapsulates a lot of what I said there.
Damian breaks into Tim’s base, and hacks Tim’s computers, were he finds out he’s on a hit-list of Tim’s (not a hit-list where to kill him, but to keep track of them, I’m decently sure Superman was even on the list), and later on Damian assaults Tim, with the potential chance that he wanted to kill him because he doesn’t think it’s fair Tim doesn’t trust him.
but
He broke into Tim’s base, hacked into his things, and assaulted him all in the course of a day.
He’s showing Tim why he shouldn’t trust him, plus the last time Tim met him and actually interacted with him was when Damian was mocking Tim as he was having a mental breakdown and was on the brink of losing his sanity.
Tim doesn’t have any reason to trust him besides Dick saying he’s gotten better, but it’s never shown to him that he has gotten better.
However Damian is clearly being portrayed in a sympathetic light as if we should feel bad for him since Tim doesn’t trust him, but the logic shows that he does a ton of bad things, and Dick even when tries to punish him,  it’s barely anything, I believe he says he’ll talk to him, and he seems to give Tim more crap for it, or at least it seems that way because that’s what we see, giving more boost to the idea we’re only supposed to focus on how sympathetic Damian it is.
and it’s moments like that where I find Damian to be an annoying character, because writers keep dropping the ball with any kind of realistic character dynamics, they just ignore so much stuff to put Damian in a light without earning him being put into that light.
They ignore the obvious things Damian has and continues to do that made Tim not trust him in the first place, they water down Tim and Dick’s brotherly bond for the sake of Damian and Dick’s relationship, and after the fire they only focus on Damian saying it’s not fair and Tim getting talked too about how it’s not fair more than anything else.
For another example of what I said, in an issue of New 52 Batman and Robin (another issue I’ve brought up before, so I’m sorry for anyone that’s already seen me talk about these issues and I’m seeming repetitive, they’re always just the best example of what I’m talking about),
they force Tim’s character to play the role of the jackass, he mocks Damian for no good reason, something Tim never done before, because before Tim’s thoughts on Damian was that he had a hard time trusting him because of his connections to the Al Ghul family, and his history of belittling him and assaulting him. He never just made fun of Damian, he mostly just kept bringing up why he couldn’t ever trust him, but because Tomasi (the writer) wished to make Damian more likable, he made Tim act out of character for it, and later on in that same issue
Damian pledges to beat the shit out of the other Robin’s to prove he’s superior, and even tries to gaslight Tim into believing he’s as bad himself.
Meaning, Tim doesn’t like Damian because he’s formerly killed people, assaulted Tim himself, and overall treated him like crap.
and Damian tried to make the argument that, because Tim was furious at the people that killed someone around him, that he’s just as bad as him.
It makes no sense, and it sounds like Damian should clearly be the bad guy just off of those actions, but they give him a “it’s not fair” moment to try and turn the wheel to make Tim look bad instead, it’s conflicting and confusing, but that’s how they do it to make him sympathetic in these genuinely forced ways. They tried to ruin characters in these moments for his benefit.
The tragedy of Damian’s character history that’s sympathetic is how they showed that he was brainwashed since birth to kill that he always was desensitized to it, and so when he goes to meet his dad he decapitates people who did wrong and tried to murder Tim because that’s what he thought would bring him honor in his mind and heart and he was shocked and heartbroken when he realized that’s what wouldn’t bring him his father’s love.
It’s tragic to think about something like that happening to a person, to be desensitized from such actions since their literal birth is tragic, but to me, later on, they ruined the point.
They later on showed flashbacks of Damian crying because the Al Ghul’s asked him to kill an animal, it’s a moment shared a lot to bring sympathetic tears to Damian but it never worked for me,
because it’s inconsistent to what they’ve shown before.
Before they’ve shown Damian to be desensitized to violence before he could walk, completely unaware that being violent is the sort of behavior that isn’t normal and should be shunned from normal society. He’s full blooded confused that Bruce doesn’t think that should be something that’s honored. He’s not at all used to something like that.
Thinking killing is wrong was alien to him.
So to show him knowing it’s wrong already ruins the whole point of his origin story and character growth.
It tries to make it seem like he’s always known it wrong, instead of how he actually learned it was wrong.
I genuinely feel it took a lot away from his character to do that to him. It chopped away his character growth only to make him seem more sympathetic in flashbacks they didn’t even have to do. It was unnecessary, because being brainwashed in a cult since literal birth is a genuinely tragic tale, and to see them move past that and learn that the cult was wrong is what his satisfying growth was.
To give Damian that flashback only took away from his story and character growth.
There’s even some points where they can’t make up their mind on what he’s like. Sometimes he’s genuinely so arrogant that he genuinely thinks he’s above people, and deserves grand treatment instantly, and tsks at people who don’t.
Which is how he was introduced and continued to be under his original writer, and still others since that’s how he was introduced.
But then sometimes writers seem to misunderstand him wanting his father’s honor into him being insecure.
Causing disconnect even that way, even the basics of his character some writers can’t keep clean and understandable.
So it’ll go back and forth between him and his inner monologues talking about how he doesn’t deserve it because of all he’s done with a arrogant expression.
To him being sad because he doesn’t deserve it in a more insecure light like it hurts him more. Making it go back and forth between the two with no reason as to why.
Some say it’s an act, but they have him get sad in front of people when they do that, like it’s not an act.
He can still get sad, he was sad when he couldn’t get his father’s honor, and how he was treated in his past by his mother, but they couldn’t recognize his behavior in other moments to get a fuller picture of it. They made him messy to follow with writing like that.
They couldn’t keep it clean and consistent so he could manage to be a stronger character that people could recognize and understand his behavior from. They kept changing it between writers. It’s very clumsy character work in that way.
Then during some of this and especially currently, Damian’s basic personality gets shredded, just to make him a contrived cute character.
They give him short jokes that don’t work, because originally he was actually quite tall for his age, but they ignore that because the casual fan is rarely ever going to know that fact.
They even try to portray his heinous behavior as quirks.
In the build up to Super Sons, Damian Wayne kidnapped Jon Kent and looked like he was going to begin to conduct an experiment on him because Damian thought Jon was going to become hazardous, and it appeared as if he was going to murder him.
Despite having super powers, Jon Kent was raised as a practically normal kid, went to school like a normal kid, and his behavior is a normal kid. He wasn’t a superhero yet besides moments where he had to be. 
He was a practically normal kid who thinks like a normal kid, and got kidnapped to some mysterious place to be threatened by a stranger.
Superman came busting in to save his own child from the horrendous position Damian put Jon in.
and then the next step in the story treats all of this as if it was cute and quirky, because Clark and Bruce set their kids up on a play-date to learn to get along, and treat Jon’s potential trauma that he realistically would have as nothing and ignore what he would most likely have, because that wouldn’t be cute to anyone, and that’s all they wanted. For Damian to seem quirky and cute.
Even in the very first issues of Super Sons, Damian stalks Jon Kent for the whole day while he’s at school using disguises and even breaks into his home at night while Jon’s vulnerable sleeping.
Horrifying behavior
and stuff that was previously taken very seriously and presented as horrifying behavior before, but by this time they treat it like it’s a cutesy quirk, and have Jon shrug it off like it wouldn’t be terrifying having a stalker. They treat it like “aw Damian wants a friend”.
I’ve even seen people try to force a romance between them into it.
Characters don’t even question the behavior that much besides a few moments that feel ignored in their own right because the writer’s don’t want Damian to be viewed as unlikable for it, and waste every opportunity to craft a story that’s worth Damian’s character.
Sometimes some writers even add in nonsensically cutesy moments for him like riding his dog out of no where for him to seem more quirky, 
ignoring the history with his animals and how he treats them with the upmost respect because they helped him gain an understanding of empathy after being brainwashed since birth.
Something full of depth and good moments simplified to make him cute.
He isn’t cute.
He shouldn’t ever be cute as a character trait.
He does horrible things. To simplify him and change him for lazy writing is a disservice to his character.
Genuinely allow Damian to be Damian in stories that are worth his character instead of forcing him into crap that he doesn’t belong in because you have to change him for it to work.
If you have to change a character to fit them in you shouldn’t use that character.
He’s a character that’s been wasted several times only to woobify him, and I’m desperate for him to be in a comic that can actually use his character well instead of continuing the trend.
For me it’s again and again and again they waste Damian’s character, ignore his previous history, force him into boxes he doesn’t fit into, and not too many people ever call it out-
-because when I see people do it (respectably may I add, I’m not counting the jerks) they typically just get insulted for it aggressively even when it’s purely just for critical thought.
For me I can’t help but go back and forth on my opinion of him because while I find aspects of his character interesting, and very possible for good stories, the longer his character continues the more bad writing no one acknowledges continues. It’s frustrating for me.
Damian was one of the characters that helped me get back into DC comics, I was another person who came into the fandom because as a kid I enjoyed the Batman and Teen Titans cartoons, and then later on as a teenager I found “Batman vs Robin” I thought it sounded cool and watched it, found it interesting, and after a while I got into the comics the characters spawned from.
When I started, it could be argued Damian and Jason were my favorites, but after reading an absolute crap ton of comics, Tim was the one I was able to read 200 comics in a row for, while Damian’s writing annoyed me more and more because I just kept seeing more flaws that ruined the connotation of his character for me.
It still frustrates me because they dropped the ball with him repeatedly like he bounces.
So if it helps you feel better, as a person who has a heckuva lotta thoughts on the character, and has read crap tons of comics with him in it, I have a love hate relationship with him.
He had good potential, but the writers ruined him for me. They had no idea how to use him right, so I think it’s a-okay if you don’t like him.
It’s nothing to worry about, at least to me, because there is continuous problems with his writing that are valid, in my eyes at the very least.
Even though I still believe he deserves a better writer to actually get stories befitting of his character.
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gothamdetected-a · 4 years
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an idiot’s guide to ra’s al ghul. 
ok so at this point im really gna say fuck dc canon, and go completely off piste and write my own.
dc really don't know how to write this man a backstory and he literally has one of the least developed and simultaneously confusing origins of any batman rogue. so here, lemme fix that.
ra's al ghul is a moniker, a title that is passed down. anyone who leads the league of assassins/shadows, becomes ra's al ghul (roughly translated to the demon's head). this explains how a White Man, henri ducard was able to become ra's al ghul in batman begins. at the passing of the head of the league, the next in line, by order of physical and mental prowess, becomes the next ra's. bruce himself is, at one point, supposed to pick up the mantle - the current ra's considers him his only worthy successor (a la arkham city & some of the comics from the 80s/90s), the man who will replace him and exceed him. however bruce, due to his unwavering morals and refusal to kill in order to bring "justice" ends up spurning the league, and is disowned by ra's in a very effective way - he tries to kill bruce. ra's still holds some sort of belief that bruce will return to him, despite all of this. he uses talia and then damian as a pawn in this game, to draw bruce back to the league and have him become the next demon's head.
so who is "ra's", or at least the goateed, green pant suited, scimitar wielding ninja who is most commonly seen as THE "ra's"? well, dc couldn't really make up their minds, so i'll do my best to patch it together from the 8 different versions, and compile something that agrees with most of it.
ra's was born approximately 600 years ago, to a man known as the Sensei (an asian martial artist) and an unknown mother of arabic descent, somewhere in the middle east. little is known about his early years, other than he was obsessed with the sciences, and became a physician with a wife named Sora. he made many discoveries ahead of time - understanding microscopic pathogens, how to cure diseases such as cholera and typhoid, although his greatest discovery was the Lazarus Pits - a natural phenomenon containing a mysterious green liquid with immense restorative properties. ( this is not to be confused with the fountain of youth at shangri-la, which his father, the Sensei, used). ra's uses the pit on the son of a local sultan who is dying, but when the boy returns, he is not all there. the empathy is gone, and he gets pretty funky about killing people, including ra's wife, sora. it is important to note, at this point, ra's is not called ra's, but dc have never given him a name so idek what to call him. so we don't know his real name, age, or what his chilhood was like. lets keep it that way, we stan an air of mystery.
the death of his wife and the overpowering grief leads to a fixation with revenge - ra's trains furiously to master martial arts and eventually kills the sultan, his son and razes their city to the ground. at this point he becomes "the demon's head" and founds the league, with the aim of eradicating evil from the world, mostly through assassination and genocide. which, you know. isn't great. this is also the period in which ra's begins to use the lazarus pit on himself, in order to prolong his life. he seeks more pits throughout the world, travelling extensively, and finds three more: one in switzerland, one in what will later become gotham, and one on infinity island, making a grand total of four. dc can go fuck themselves there is literally only four, you can't just keep making more when it's convenient. ra's intends to only use the pits until a worthy successor can be found for the league, but two problems occur; one) he starts going a bit nuts from over using the pits, and it does become like an addiction and two) he never finds someone he considers worthy.
so, skip through a bunch of wars he fought in, the league becoming globally established, and the industrial revolution. ra's doesn't like that. bad machines, destroying the earth, coating the skies with pollution and leading to greater inequality. so ra's decides it's time to purge humanity, and leave only the people he deems worthy behind, in a fresh clean world (in a real james bond villain move.). he builds wonder city, beneath gotham and around the gotham lazarus pit, but the city is never used because ra's does something mad stupid and falls in love. so much for eco terrorism, he's now off having babies with a woman named melisande. or one particular baby - talia. due to ra's having been using the pits for centuries before boning this poor woman, talia comes out with slowed aging abilities. ra's eventually murders melisande when she gets antsy about him training their kid to be a master assassin. he does a very similar thing with a russian lady to produce talia's half sister, nyssa. so by now the 20th century is in full swing, ra's has a cute lil murder family and the league has become a smaller part of a huge underground organisation called The Demon, at which ra's sits at the head. he still hasn't found a successor though, and he's getting Old. the lazarus pits are no longer bringing him back 100% - he loses more and more of his sanity with each ressurection. and then. wow. bruce wayne appears. and ra's sees a huge amount of himself in this kid, the loss, the anger. boom, we got ourself a successor.
we all know how that wound up.
so ra's is now Personally Mad at batman, and we get the Contagion storyline. back to his old, eco-terrorism ways, ra's unleashes the clench, a really nasty virus that's definitely worse than your average cold. batman eventually finds and disperses a cure, but gotham is Mad Fucked. damian wayne is born, trained by his mama and gramps, and then abandoned at 10 on bruce's doorstep. there's a brief interlude where bane also goes to train under ra's in the hopes of being the worthy successor and marrying talia instead, but then everyone realises he's one sandwich short of a picnic and ra's kicks him out in his ass once batman beats him in another fight. there's also some funky moments where ra's
• tries to resurrect thomas and martha wayne. it goes about as well as you'd expect.
• pisses off both of his daughters who start to work against him. talia half teams up with supes. wild.
• lets his guard down and most of the lazarus pits are destroyed, leaving only the one beneath gotham.
• tries to body swap with his grandson (i literally hate dc)
• watches batman accidentally kill his old dad the Sensei, by dragging him into a lazarus pit which destroys the nasty man's corrupted soul and heals bruce tf up which is how dc get away with him looking permenantly 30
• has another, estranged child, who becomes the White Ghost
• helps tim find bruce after he "died" but then becomes a lil bitch over it and tries to do a ninja take over of gotham and destroy anything about wayne. he fist fights tim, and dick, and then lo and behold it was all a test or some shit, which is the dc version of "he woke up and it was all a dream".
• makes superhumans in whale wombs which honestly, when i read the issues, i wanted to Die. literally straight up end me.
there's a bunch more stuff but im not a masochist enough to keep going. the point is, he's an old naughty man, kind of bruce's father in law, definitely insane, and dc will probably drag this mans back at some point. but i like to go with the arkham knight ending, where bruce chooses to cut a half-resurrected ra's off from the last of the lazarus pit, and drops his dying body off at the gcpd to an indeterminate fate, while nyssa becomes the new demon's head. its a good ending. makes sense. works well with everything. gives him a solid out. but honestly they won't leave him alone and he'll be back soon i'm sure, being pesky and owning really freaking cool swords.
so yeah, that's a rough and ready guide to ra's al ghul, because dc really can't manage this themselves and i'm made to pick up the slack.
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Summary :
“Excuse me, I think you underestimate the power of your cute smile. Nuclear warheads from the east throughout the west got nothing on you.” After solving a case, a detective tried to flirt with a hard-faced FBI agent. It doesn't go smoothly, but that doesn't mean he's going to stop. - - - - - “Smile to me like that again then I might not survive the night,” Chris swoons, and the one blushing is somehow Hotch, “Have you not been flirted on before?” “Not as boldly and creative as you do.” “Well, get ready Hotch, because I’m just getting started.”
Sequel : That Body = Absolute Unit and Not Now, But Someday
No Warnings Applied
Click title to read on ao3. Click keep reading to read on tumblr~
Words : 4k
The case of man shredder is finally closed. After four long days of following chunks of bodies in the alleys, they finally caught the unsub. It was the longest day he had ever experienced, and he had walked behind a hundred-year-old lady on the subway stairs before.
Detective Hamlyn – Chris for friends and lovers of the night- huffed and undo his bulletproof vest when they finally return to his precinct while police officers contain the unsub. The police officers, him included, notify the victim’s family, and their reaction is just as expected. They did a little briefing and say good work and goodnight as they close the case and tidy up.
The B.A.U. team seems rightfully s tired but they looked relaxed as they take this case as a win, so does Chris. With that, he feels it’s the right time to ask.
“Hey, Emily?” he called the agent by her first name. The last four days, he’s been bonding with agent Prentiss the most, though his true attention has been towards someone else. His hand inconspicuously pulls back his already rolled-up sleeves. Rubbing his arms as his warm beige skin starts to look paler.
“What’s wrong?” The agent narrowed her perfectly twin eyebrows. Her concerned voice and body language were caught by her colleagues who are sending the two of them watchful looks.
Chris had learned by working with them how scary their knowledge is, almost borderline supernatural. It’s crazy, but damn do they work.
“Nothing’s wrong!” Chris exclaimed in low voice.
“You looked nervous.”
Chris is doing his super-duper poker face right now. Maybe he needs to rethink his life choices too.
“I’m just... okay...” Chris groaned and wing it, “I didn’t see any ring so I’ve been meaning to ask if-”
“Oh...” Emily, flutter her pretty long lashes and leans away, “Sorry Chris, I’m not looking.”
Chris gapes, with eyebrows reaching to his hairline, “I’m not asking about you Em, no offense, you cute, but I was asking about...” Chris looks right and left, purposely ignoring Emily’s shocked expression. Chris leans down a bit and whispered, “I wanna ask if Hotch is single.”
Emily visibly froze, while Chris looks into the conference room with the mirror board through the glass window. By the oval desk he prepared for the BAU team, Hotch is by the table, reading case files and putting them in the file box.
To be honest, older man is not his type, and his face wasn’t that high on his priority list too. But seeing the man in action made Chris feel things in his chest, his head, and at some inappropriate point, his crotch. Honest to the holy gods, they were serious and focused on the job, and there was no romantic moment at all, but Chris is not the one holding the joystick to control who his heart rebels for.
SSA Aaron Hotchner, a man of few words, and a hard face. He doesn’t know how much suit and dress shirt the man brings but it seems like he’s been wearing the same black suit, and the same maroon tie with small dots and the same thin striped dress shirt.
In all the four days he’s here, never once did Chris ever seen him smile, not even a quirk upwards. His raven hair loosely coiffed, and eyes dark and deep and it just looks like two black holes with no end. They seem cold, devoice of emotion, but Chris knows that’s not true.
Under the light of day, when he tagged along with the unit chief to do a door to door interview, he saw the light hits his black irises. As they were concluding what they learned from the interviews, all that Chris can focus on is the light tint of olive green in Hotch’s eyes. Then slowly but surely, those sharp dark deep-set eyes pierce through his soul.
There’s more to that man than what he gave an impression of. Chris has been there as the man gives clear and cut-throat instruction, but at the same time considerate. Hotch is efficient, looks like a hard worker, respected by his team, but sometimes, when Hotch was all by himself, Chris can see how tired the man is. Even so, right now, the man just quirks up the tiniest smile as he looks into the missing teenager they saved.
His heart just stopped right there and then. A glint of light shines from his dark aura. Chris knows... oh he just knows he needs to get closer... He’s never been drawn to something this hard since he saw an authentic leather cowboy pants 20% off on Amazon
Maybe Chris just has a thing for mysterious emo boys? Well, not exactly mysterious emo boys. More like a stoic man, with a lot of baggage because of the emotionally draining job.
It helps that Hotch is dashingly handsome, and in contrast to his looks, Aaron is such a cute and boyish name.
TLDR: Chris is feeling some burning desire for the tall, dark and handsome FBI agent.
“Chris?” Emily snaps her fingers in front of his face, “Wow, you’re really whipped for my boss huh?”
“Am I? What does your profile say?” Chris tips his chin confidently.
“Well, in this case, your demeanor screams playboy, and you flirt with girls if she spares you even the tiniest spark of interest, but you don’t do casual relationship. You believe in love at first sight, you’re a naive romantic, but you’re persistent, patient, and you follow your gut. Now, your gut is pulling you right there,” Emily cocks her head towards her boss.
Chris cocks his head to the side with a smirk, “That never gets old, what you do is just so cool.”
“It can get annoying, I can profile what you google with incognito.”
Chris sweats, “Wait you can do that?”
The agent cracks a wide smile, “No, not with I’ve got so far.” Chris chuckled nervously and wipes his non-existent sweat on his temple.
“So,” his eyes are back on Hotch, unconsciously sweeping his dark chocolate hair back, “what are my chances?”
“Hotch was married once, and he just broke up with his girlfriend. That’s all I’m telling you.”
“Oof, total hetero huh? Not just that, everything he does is classic alpha male behavior.”
“That’s what I said too.”
“Fuck Jesus!” Chris spaz at Dr. Reid’s voice suddenly came from behind him. And as sudden as he says that, he’s gone just as fast, making a beeline to the coffee maker.
“Hotch is far from Jesus though, hair ain’t quite the same. And I never met Jesus, but I bet his skin is a bit more glowy, and you know, healthy,” Emily teased.
Chris spent a few seconds staring at Emily like she’s crazy, and then realized he’s the crazy one.
“You know what, I’m just gonna go for it,” Chris takes a deep breath. Tidying his navy dress shirt and makes sure his black fit jean isn’t crooked and his combat boots have no dirt on them. As he deemed himself presentable, he marches forward.
“Go for it tiger, good luck.” Emily cheers and Chris highly appreciates that more than Emily knows, heck maybe she does knows.
Heh, profilers. Oh, but Hotch is a profiler too. Damn, maybe he’ll know his intention just by a knock or something.
Here he goes anyway.
Chris knocks on the open door, catching Hotch’s attention, “Good work today.”
“You too, Detective Hamlyn,” Hotch nods, still no smile, “You’re cooperative, we hardly have any captain that do.”
“Yikes, I take it you’ve seen a lot worse?”
“Yes.”
Hotch stops tidying up the table and looks at Chris. Time stopped as his dark eyes investigate his micro-expression, but what Chris cared for the most right now is how pretty Hotch’s bottom lashes are. They’re short but full and intensely black, they go completely from one corner to the other.
“It’s nice meeting with you,” the older man said with a respecting and platonic nod as he continues to file.
Ouch, that’s worse than being rejected, being dismissed with a detached professional reply. Chris needs to be bolder.
“Yeah, nice meeting you too,” Chris takes a deep breath, “But you know... DC to Quantico is easily an hour train ride away, so it doesn’t have to be our last meeting.”
There’s a horse running in his chest, puncturing his heart with its hooves. Oh, and the look on Hotch’s face. He bet there’s a lot of murders and creepy bastards he takes on and he won’t even blink an eye, but now, Hotch blinks owlishly with his lips parted.
It doesn’t take a profiler for someone to know what Chris is implying.
“I...” Hotch looks away.
Oh no, it’s a dragged ‘I...’ means Hotch is about to reject him and currently trying to find the mercifully right word to do so, then they’ll never see each other again, like ever.
Time for bold tactic number 2.
“Look, even if you’re not interested, you’re a cool dude. I admire what you do, to face hundreds of sociopathic sexual sadist white males in his 30’s and still have your cool. Or maybe you’re trying to seem you look cool? I don’t know man I can’t really read any of you. I just... think you’re awesome and I want to get to know you. I swear I’m not up to something creepy. God, I’m rambling I’m sorry I’m nervous. Just um...” Chris takes a business card from the cardholder on his belt, and slide it towards the stunned agent.
“I’m down to hangout. If you’re tired of looking at the same face every day” Chris cocks his head towards the glass window, “Don’t hesitate to call, I don’t mind the train ride.”
Hesitantly, Hotch takes the card and inspect it. Chris had never felt this naked because a man looking so thoroughly at his business card.
“I knew Chris is not your full first name,” Hotch states, still with a stoic face. Emily could’ve profiled that, but Chris is not one and he doesn’t know what that reaction means.
“Nope, my real name is a tongue twister, so I just go by Chris,” he replies, like a normal person. He counts that as a success.
“How do you say your name?”
“Kristianto.”
Upon hearing it, Hotch doesn’t even bother to try, and Chris fully understands, “Malaysian?”
“Indonesian, on my mother’s side. Basically means Christian.”
Then Hotch stares to the card again, and Chris starts sweating. Should he escape now? Be like ‘okay call me maybe, bye’?
Then Hotch puts his card in his breast pocket and goes back to cleaning up the files.
“I’m busy most of the time, I don’t have a lot of free time,” Hotch’s voice drops low but soft like expensive faux fur and gentle as if meek.
“Duh, I can see that. I mean, as long as I get to see or hear from you, just a call or meeting for a short break, I don’t care, I’m down to do whatever you want.”
The look on Hotch's face is as if no one had ever said that before. Whoever was his wife or girlfriend, must’ve been the one pampered and forgot to pamper him back. Lucky for both of them, that’s his specialty. He’s not a people pleaser, but for Hotch? Boy does he want to please this man and show him a good time. That off-guard face he’s making just because Chris says something basic is the one that does it.
Chris, the casually pessimistic sanguine, now feel either optimistic or desperate enough to go anywhere this dreamboat is willing to sail him to.
“Really? Whatever I want?” Hotch, despite sounding monotone, looks actually excited. That just adds oil to his running engine.
“Yeah! I’m up until 2 am and woke up at 7 if you want to call me. My yelp game is strong so I can take you to the best restaurant and hangout spots around. If you want a chill daaa-I mean hangout! Yeah, if you want a chill hangout, I cook a mean chilly I learned from Binging with Babi-” Chris got choked up because of the sight behold in his humble presence.
Hotch smiles, at him. At him.
“Oh god...” Chris wobbles and quickly get a hold of the table.
“What’s wrong,” Hotch grabbed his arms. Repeat, Hotch is touching him. His grip is so strong he wants to be wrap in it and—now is not the time!
“No, nothing.” Chris dismissed, badly, as he awkwardly smiles like a creep and shifting his eyes anywhere else other than Hotch’s face.
“It doesn’t seem like nothing.”
“Profile me then,” Chris challenged out of desperation.
He got his poker face on, there’s no way the man knows.
“You reacted like this because I smiled.”
Why did Chris even try?
Chris doesn’t take kindly when Hotch looks at him incredulously after knowing that fact, “Excuse me, I think you underestimate the power of your cute smile. Nuclear warheads from the east throughout the west got nothing on you.”
Hotch smiles again, complete with a soft little scoff for extra damage. If that’s not a green light, then that little cheeky grin is too cruel.
“I’ve heard a few comments on my look, cute is never one of them,” Hotch admits.
“They either blind or have poor taste. Yes, your eyes are carrying shopping bags-”
“Hamlyn,” Hotch scolds half-heartedly.
“But they’re your charm! And-” Chris felt his brain scrambles like someone stuck a fork in it and spins it around like noodle in a cup of brain juice.
“Look,” Chris said, more to himself actually, “I don’t actually care how you look, or how sexy your voice is, dammit,” Chris lowly curse under his breath. “As you can see, I’m rusty.”
“You don’t say,” Hotch teased and seems to be having genuine fun, it’s not a sight for the faint of heart.
Smiling shyly, Chris glances at his boots, “Cut me some slack. I never actually approach someone like this. I draw the line on people I work with, but I really really like you, and I’ll be damned if I see you go without trying to at least get your number.”
The sharpness in Hotch’s piercing black eyes mellows. The wrinkles between his eyebrows are finally catching a break. With a loud thump on the files, Hotch is finally finished putting out the files on the table.
“What about now?” Hotch's suddenly said.
“What the what now?”
“I’m up for a drink, maybe a light snack.”
Chris short-circuit into oblivion. This is it. This is the shit man, pull it together!
“I... yeah! Sure! I know just the place.”
“Will it still be open this late?”
“It’s 24 hours, homebrewed beer, and the fried pickle is to die for.”
“That sounds nice,” Hotch sounded genuinely taken by surprise, he looks down to his watch, and he must’ve only noticed then that it’s 1 am, “I hope you’re not too tired.”
“No way, you just made me feel like I’m swimming in meth, not the best metaphor but yeah, you get it. I feel like I chugged a glass of liquid heroin, wait that’s not better. I swear I don’t have a drug problem.”
Then, honest to God, Hotch laughed. Not like the lame ‘haha’ chuckle no. A full laugh with a hand on top of his chest, and breathing shortly and eyes crinkled shut. This man has the ability to destroy him completely and Chris is so doomed. Oh so gladly doomed.
“Thank you,” Hotch said when he finally calmed down.
Chris doesn’t know what to think about when a man has to thank him for making him laugh. He’s glad though that Hotch doesn’t think he’s boring, or too forward, or even offending, god it was his biggest fear. Maybe this will go somewhere good.
“I’m done cleaning up,” Hotch notified.
“Great, let’s go, it’s a walking distance.”
“Perfect.”
Hotch grabbed his bag, and they walk out of the glass conference room. Only then he noticed Hotch’s team was huddled over together with watchful eyes directed at them. Most of the officers had already gone home and a few of the night shift officers already arrived.
“Hey, Hotch, ready to jet?” Agent Morgan called over. Hotch approaches them and Chris follows suit after grabbing his bag from his desk, keeping his jittering under the radar, hopefully.
“You guys go on ahead, I’ll fly by morning,” Hotch informed. This is the first time Chris sees his team seemingly suspicious of their leader’s decision. But honestly? So does Chris. One more day? For an outing with Chris? He hoped he’s not visibly blushing.
“What will you be doing?” Emily teased, looking pointedly at Chris who stuck a tongue at her.
“I have a date with Detective Hamlyn, goodnight everyone.”
Hotch turns around and walks away, leaving his team with jaws on the floor. No less Chris, who looks at Hotch’s back, then back to the five agents in front of him. He felt the eyes of five hyenas that looks at him sharply like he just killed their cubs or something. No words needed to know these people care about Hotch.
“I-It’s nice working with you guys?” Chris cleared his throat, “I’ll bring him back safely,” but that’s the wrong thing to say. He’s not taking out someone’s daughter for god sake.
“He’s waiting kid, chop-chop” Agent Rossi, his idol since he was in the academy, just ‘chop-chop’ him.
No need to tell him twice, “Goodnight!” then speedwalk towards Hotch.
Before the man even holds the knob to the front door, Chris hurries to open the door for him, instinctually. Given, Hotch looks stunned yet again.
“After you, my sir,” Chris bows and waves his hands towards the road.
“You do this to all your dates?” Hotch shakes his head amusedly.
“Yes, and it’ll gonna get worse,” chirped the old security guard, who gave him a side-eye and a held back smile.
“Sammy!” Chris put a hand on his navy dress shirt, “How could you, you know me better than that. I’m a gentleman to the core.”
The old man just chuckles and waves at the two men,  “You guys have fun!”
“Goodnight sir,” Hotch nods at the man and walk down the side road with him.
After a few seconds walking and stealing glances, Chris finally says, “You’re an open book to your colleague, eh?”
“They already know you’re asking me out.”
“Yeah, but they didn’t know you accept.”
“Really?” Hotch smirked and Chris gapes.
“You sneaky sneaky tease!” Chris exclaimed.
Hotch smiles again, showing his slightly crooked teeth on the bottom row. Suddenly the late night air doesn’t feel too chilly anymore.
“First time on a date with a guy?” Chris asked.
“Yes, you?”
“No, I think I went out three times with a guy, dated one, which only lasts like a few months.”
“Huh, your reputation serves you.”
“Hey, no! I’m always the one broke up on.”
Hotch quirks up the corner of his lips, “I know.”
“Smile to me like that again then I might not survive the night,” Chris swoons, and the one blushing is somehow Hotch. “Have you not been flirted on before?”
“Not as boldly and creative as you do.”
“Well, get ready Hotch, because I’m just getting started.”
“Aaron, please. I’m off duty.”
Chris bites his lips from the smile threatening to form, “Okay, Aaron. Then call me Chris.”
The rigid and stern unit chief is finally enjoying himself as they carry themselves easy through the late city night. It helped that the bar is only filled to half that night. Most patrons are office workers with their buddies just gathering up to unwind. The bartender of the night shift is an old friend of Chris and he gave them a seat on the bar. The tv, people chatting and playing pool sets as a throughout mood.
They spent the night hanging out with cold craft beers and two servings of fried pickles, talking about anything and everything. Like the 4-days old news, because they pay no attention to anything else when chasing their criminal. What their plans for the weekends are, or their plans when they go home. Chris is planning to put a sheet mask, takes a long warm bath and sleeps as much as he can as he needs to work tomorrow.  Horrifyingly, Aaron’s plan when he goes home is to work on a report.
After some persuading, lowkey begging, and a few embarrassing nicknames later, Aaron promised he’ll sleep first before touching those reports.
It’s noticeable how they edge away from personal topics like family, but Chris is fine with that. It’s only the first date after all. Even as they talk about pity things like their favorite foods and embarrassing university days, the air is comfortable.
He also learned that Aaron is not that much older than him, only by three years.
Boy, how many sleepless nights and emotional baggage did Hotch carry inside those eye bags Whether or not they’ll be an item, Chris is determined to make Hotch sleep more, or at least introduce him to sunscreen.
At 5 am, Chris drives Hotch to his hotel, and stops by the lobby entrance.
“I have a great time tonight,” the older man says, with smiling eyes murdering Chris with suffocation by handsomeness.
“Me too.” He was about to say something else, but he held back. He doesn’t want to push Hotch even further from his comfort zone.
“I’ll call,” Hotch’s words came to the rescue, and Chris is back from the dead and walks the earth again.
There’s a stupid smile on Chris’ face right now, and he’s showing it all.
“Okay, I’ll hold you to that.”
Hotch opens the door before his feet even touch the asphalt below he retracts and closes the door back. A hand planted on the side of his seat and a hand frames his face, that happened so fast, but when Aaron has himself in his merciful hand, he slows down as if he hesitated.
To proof there’s nothing to hesitate about, Chris caresses the back of Aaron’s neck and pulls him close. Chris doesn’t see Aaron close his eyes when he closes his, but the man doesn’t move away. His heart jumps out of his rib cage when he feels the warm lips on top of his. Aaron still tastes strongly of yeast from the beer with a tinge of saltiness from the fried pickle.
When Chris breaths in, he smelt a tinge of perfume blending with the smell of beer. The lips pressed against him nibbles on his, leaning even closer as Aaron’s hand plays with his hair.  He can’t help the smile on his lips at the ticklish feeling on his scalp.
For a split second of their kiss, they let themselves be. He lets Aaron takes whatever he wants, no matter how little.  
When Aaron finally breaks the kiss first, they stay in a close space.
“Thank you for tonight’s date,” Aaron whispered against his lips, and Chris finally has the gut to look into Hotch’s eyes.
How mysterious are those eyes. At first sight, it’s black, only when he’s this close and the light is right, he could see the slight low saturated green on his eyes. It obliterates his heart how much Aaron seems like he’s happy. It’s an honor but, Aaron treats it like it’s the first in a long time.
It’s only a date, but it’s starting to feel less superficial.
Maybe that won’t be such a bad thing.
“Your welcome, Aaron. Anytime. I mean it,” Chris hesitantly touch  Hotch’s face, rubbing the soft wrinkles on the tail of his eye with his thumb.
Thank coincidence it’s 4 AM. They’re really taking their time in front of the lobby entrance, but no one is behind them. Still, one of them has to end the night, they got work tomorrow.
“You promised you’ll sleep first right?” Chris says.
“I promise,” Hotch replies, and he finally leans back, “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.”
Aaron slips out of his car and walks to the lobby. Even then, Aaron took his time to look back and waves as Chris drove away.
The smile on his face sticks until he falls asleep.
It’s a good night indeed.
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radioactive-synth · 5 years
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I’m curious, did Vaughn fall for Nick or Hancock first? or was he immediately taken with both of them? They have such a cute dynamic I love it
havent expected this kind of ask, im tryin to answer in best way, thank you @dovahqun !
per short, Vaughn didnt actually realised he fallen for them, but it was so obvious for others in Sanctuary, especially that they also started to live together in his house?
per long: (under read more, its an essay, forgive me)
first impressions werent the best with Nick, given that Vaughn was still angry and thirsty for revenge, but Nick still believed he is actually a good person, he just needs some guidance. after Nick saved his life in Glowing Sea, Vaughn realised that he must do a change, which what Nick all needed to hear, so he finally took his General role.
Nick stayed with Vaughn for like 3 weeks, watching him how he tries to earn the people’s trust and changed in a better person, but then he went back to his detective work, and not seeing Vaughn for weeks (which in that time Vaughn and Debbie joined the BOS and Danse joined them in Sanctuary)
but a few weeks later, Vaughn got hurt badly during a solo mission (was knocked out and tied and had his mouth cut by a raider) and felt so shocked by that, plus all the thoughts and feelings he had just crashed into his head, and had a bad relapse, being so depressed he basically needed help to do simple things. Debbie used Preston’s radio to contact Nick and get to Sanctuary, thinking that he was the one to deal with Vaughn in a bad time, maybe he could do it again.
Nick had a lot of patience with Vaughn, feeling so sorry how he felt, and even during a night when Vaughn had a nightmare, Nick relunctantly accepted his asking for sleeping with him. since then, they sleep together, as Vaughn really can get a better sleep for the first time since he is out of Vault, and Nick think it feels nice. do i need to mention that Vaughn got high once cause of painkillers and kissed Nick and none talked about it but thought about it a lot.
since then, Nick started to get more often in Sanctuary, their relationship got stronger in that time. they both have a lot of common and just enjoy each other’s company.
with Hancock, neither the first impression was so fine, and they didnt seen each other for a long time, only Hancock knew about the vault dweller from others. second time when they met, it was when Vaughn and the Minutemen took the Castle, and he offered to go in Goodneighbor to buy parts for the radio, so he took Dogmeat and went there, then heard that Bobbi No Nose can offer what he needs, so he agreed to help her out. Now, i changed the canon here too, as i know Vaughn wont accept to break into DC’s strongroom, as he knew that 1. Nick and Piper would hate to hear that and 2. how its like to hear that the General of Minutemen broke into the strongroom of DC? so i think Bobbi says she knew about a pre war bunker that has untouched supplies, so the event goes, then Vaughn basically gets scared seeing Fahrenheit, and even more hearing that its Hancock’s warehouse. he immediatly turned against Bobbi and told her to go. after that, Fahrenheit dragged Vaughn to Goodneighbor to go talk and explain to Hancock about this. Hancock wasnt even mad about this, he appreciated the sincerity, and made fun on how him and the dog stains his carpets with the mud and blood into his clothes and the dog’s fur. after talking, Hancock explains that he should not feel comfortable in his position and should go out, and Vaughn offered him the chance to help him in his Minutemen job.
they also bonded fast, having same bad humor, same sense of justice and Vaughn really loves Hancock’s spirit of adventure. he also gave Hancock a newly renovated home in Sanctuary, which later he shared with MacCready.
a while later, weeks?? one night, Hancock gets out the house cause he cant sleep, and sees Vaughn on the steps of his own house, and goes to talk with him. after a while, Vaughn stated that he cant sleep well cause Nick isnt with him, and Hancock said more in joke that he could be his cuddle buddy, but didnt expected to get a positive answer so....they just slept together. both had a better rest. when Nick was in Sanctuary, Vaughn just thought that they could just try to sleep together, which the other two thought its a bit crowded but didnt refused. a while later, Vaughn started to have sexual relationship with Hancock, and with Nick he occasionally make out.
over the months, between Minutemen work, and dealing with other duties for BOS and RR, and even Institute, Vaughn became overstressed about everything, and Nick and Hancock helped him out, by supporting him, taking decisions in his name for Minutemen or just being there for him. after the battle of Bunker Hill, when he helped the Institute (and didnt said anything to anyone, not even them two), he was banished from RR as an agent recognized him and Desdemona thought of him as a traitor, despite that Deacon and Debbie tried to explain his reasons. being so stressed, he even snapped at a scientist and nearly strangled them, earning him banishment from Institute and Shaun’s threat that he will kill him if he ever gets in the Institute’s way, and other hurtful things he said.
Vaughn fell in depression as he thought he failed everyone, even that Nick and Hancock tried to explain isnt his fault, he tried his best, but still not much result.
2 weeks later, the Sanctuary was attacked by the Institute, and even if a few ended up with just a few scratches, Vaughn was furious about, and he declared he must destroy the Institute, as other settlements are now in danger.
for getting in the Institute, there must be accessed in the sewers, which Nick and Hancock offered, as they said they dont need much air and wont be affected by the rads in the water. Vaughn was hesitating, but he had no other choice but to let them there. while he and some other companions and a few elite Minutemen waited, he couldnt stop thinkin of worst cases, but when they got in Institute, he was so relieved to see them ok and held them in his arms, forgetting for a few seconds for what they were there. they also needed to drag him from Shaun, as Vaughn tried to reason with him, but all he got back was just more insults and reasons how disappointed he was in his father, and wished he never had to release him from the Vault.
after the Institute, Vaughn basically needed days to sleep, as he was so exhausted, and only woke up to eat and go to bathroom, but he needed like 3 days of resting.
but then on 4th morning, he could hear laughter of the kid and the other two, so he got up and seen a image he never thought he will see: Nick and Hancock on the couch, with Oliver onto Nick’s lap, playing a board game with Codsworth, while Dogmeat and Hera watched them.while Vaughn was resting, they two took care of Oliver, already acting like dads to him.
and now, to get to your question (if you got reading this so far ily) and answer it: it felt in that moment that he really loves them so much, and its clear he cant choose between them, as both were so perfect for him. but when he confessed, you might ask?
Oliver asked his dad if he can call the other two ‘dads’, and also asked if he should call them differently, like Hancock is ‘papa’ and Nick ‘pops’ and Vaughn finally realised that he should talk with them about their relationship. he was too busy with everything, and forgot about his own self.
when he asked them if its ok to be lovers and to be together a family, they answered that they are already a family, and its kinda obvious their relationship is closer. also Nick and Hancock agreed that they both love Vaughn, he loves them equally, there is no reason to be jealous, and both can have a good life together as a family.
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britesparc · 5 years
Text
Weekend Top Ten #369
Top Ten Favourite Things About Teen Titans Go!
One of the funny things about life is observing elements of circularity. For instance, nearly twenty years ago, my younger brother really got into the original Teen Titans cartoon, and I sort of got into it with him (having a brother ten years younger than yourself is very good for keeping your oar in with kids’ content when you’re supposed to be too old for that sort of thing; as a result, I got to thoroughly enjoy Justice League, Samurai Jack, Harry Potter and lots more stuff that may have otherwise passed me by). I knew who the Titans were but hadn’t read a lot of their comics; the cartoon was my introduction to most of those characters. It was really good, benefited from a tremendous theme tune, and – for its time – quietly revolutionary in how it incorporated anime aesthetics into a western cartoon. Plus it had a cracking voice cast, which – not that I knew it at the time – would become as synonymous with those characters as Peter Cullen, Frank Welker, and Kevin Conroy had done with cartoons I’d watched as a child.
(that’s Optimus, Megatron, and Batman, in case you’re wondering)
Anyway, here we are, eighteen-or-so years later, and Teen Titans is just a beloved long-gone cult classic but bizarre comedic spin-off Teen Titans Go! is a minor phenomenon. The same characters, the same actors, but wilder, weirder, funnier, crazier, way more violent, and – bizarrely – far more integrated into the wider DC Universe. And my kids – especially my eldest daughter – bloody love the show. It is huge in our house. We’ve seen the film, we listen to the songs, they draw their own comics, they roleplay the characters; we have a home-made Raven costume, for god’s sake. I have a six-year-old who knows who Tara Strong is. This is incredible.
As a result, I’ve seen an awful lot (not quite every episode) of Teen Titans Go!. It’s fortunate, then, that it’s fantastic, easily one of the best comic-book cartoon adaptations ever made. It’s not just how funny it is; it’s madcap and self-referential and full of many (many) MANY DC comics references. And great, great songs. And – like I said before – tremendous performances. Teen Titans Go! To the Movies is a great, great movie with great, great songs and many great, great gags, and it’s a mixed blessing that it ended up being released in what may well be Annus Mirabilis for superhero movies: it’s great that it’s mixing it up with Infinity War, Black Panther, and Spider-Verse, but I feel it got overshadowed a bit. Say what you will for the slightly more “serious” original Teen Titans series, but it was the barmy chibi-inspired stepchild that got a movie.
So this week, I’m celebrating what has become my second-favourite superhero cartoon of all time (after Batman: The Animated Series, natch). My ten favourite things about Teen Titans Go!. Enjoy!
The Songs: I tried to pick a song, or some reference or line or scene, but really it’s impossible. The songs are sublime. So great, in fact, that I’ll probably do another Top Ten at some point listing my favourite TTG songs. Really catchy, great lyrics, supremely diverse, and full of references not just to DC but to, well, everything. There’s a song about America that includes the line “Samuel L. Jackson on the stamp”, which makes no sense as far as I can figure, but is just wonderful.
Deep, Deep (DEEP) Cut DC References: it started with the Darkseid doll. A little plush Darkseid doll that’s always leaning against the couch. How cute, how funny; Darkseid, the literal embodiment of evil, but as an adorable snuggly. And then it got deeper, and weirder, and more wild. B’wana Beast. Alternate universe Robins. “That movie where their moms are both called Martha”. The Haunted Tank. The Haunted Tank! What kind of kids’ show references The Haunted Tank?! And then there’s the fact that The Comedian’s blood-stained smiley face badge is on display in the Batcave. Let’s go back over that one: there are Watchmen references in this cartoon for six-year-olds.
Batman and Gordon: the original Teen Titans cartoon pretty much never mentioned any aspect of the universe outside of the five characters, barring one fleeting visual reference to the Batcave and the episode where you meet the Doom Patrol. TTG has no qualms about explaining that, yes, Robin is Batman’s sidekick. So we see the Batcave, and Wayne Manor, and Alfred. But it’s Batman’s relationship with Gordon that’s golden. Not just stoic men’s men who diligently work alongside one another, never questioning, never needing to; no, they’re best mates, giggling schoolkids who want to shirk off all work and just sit in their PJs watching crap on the telly. Like a superheroic version of Beavis and Butt-Head, they’re often there, in the background, goofing off, playing games, undercutting the narrative. It’s such a perfect inversion of Batman’s usual persona and a great way of referencing – in supremely silly terms – the deep bond of affection between the two men in most Batman fiction. I especially like when Superman gives Gordon to Batman as a birthday present.
The Night Begins to Shine: I know I said I wouldn’t single out one song, but we do need to talk about The Night Begins to Shine. More than just a cool song in one episode, it blossomed into a whole weird parallel universe filled with bizarre references to ‘80s heavy metal and, well, Heavy Metal. Almost coming off like a primary school version of Mandy, the multi-part epic about Cyborg fighting a giant dragon in the “Night” universe, complete with cameos from people like CeeLo Green and Fall Out Boy (as Transformers!), is just a thing of absolute beauty. Truly, the level of reference and artistry on display in terms of writing, composition, and animation won’t be understood by the kids watching now until they’re quite a bit older. They’ll come back to this in ten, fifteen, twenty years and think “wow, now I see what they were doing; that’s so, so weird”.
The Holiday Mascots: belligerent Santa is the king (“you garbage kids!”), a fat psychopath trying to take over every other holiday, but let’s spare a thought for the other representations of holidays, too. The creepy Tooth Fairy, who eats teeth. The turkey from Thanksgiving who is horribly mutilated. Uncle Sam. And the Easter Bunny. Oh my god, the Easter Bunny. Genuinely unsettling. Words can’t describe. Seriously, check it out, it’s some Babadook-level freaky shit.
Raven’s Legs: a little bit worrying when you’ve got two kids under seven watching it, but the fact that Raven is not just hiding very, very sexy legs underneath her cloak, but is also capable of becoming an entirely other superhero who uses her legs as weapons, is very, very funny. Watching Beast Boy go full Tex Avery when he sees Raven’s legs is one of those gags that, I guess, works on different levels if you’re a child or an adult. Regardless, turning snarky sourpuss Raven into golden-costumed Lady Legasus is a nice move.
Breaking the Fourth Wall: they only really do this explicitly once or twice, I think, but overall the show is incredibly self-referential. From Control Freak trying to get them rebooted or cancelled, to jokes about the animation or the writing, it’s beautifully self-deprecating. This reaches its apex in the 200th episode specials, when the Titans journey into “our” world. It’s hilarious to see them interact with their own voice actors, but for me it’s the note-perfect representation of directing voice actors that’s really funny, almost as good as Toast of London in its depiction. Plus the gag about everyone who works on the show being ultimately replaceable. A scathing indictment of the animation industry, wrapped up in an animation; like The Simpsons in its heyday.
Genuinely Quite Upsetting Violence: I don’t think I’d ever seen a cartoon for small children before that quite regularly featured its main characters having their bones visibly broken. And by “visibly” I mean “cutting to an X-ray of their limb to show the bone shearing in half or crumpling to dust”. It’s almost rare for an episode to go by without one or more of the Titans experiencing life-altering injuries. I’m honestly not sure how they get away with it. but it is funny. Apex moment? Oh, undoubtedly them beating the shit out of Shia LaBeouf in the movie.
Real-World References: clearly the people who make Teen Titans Go! are in their late thirties or early forties; people who grew up in the ‘80s and absorbed ‘80s culture. People who liked Transformers and Star Wars and Back to the Future, who listened to rock music, who liked toys and videogames. They probably grew into teenagers who were fans of obscure animations, cult movies, sci-fi, fantasy, horror. They are, basically, me. I think I would get on quite well with the creators of TTG, based on the things they reference. But beyond cultural appropriation, it’s the references to daylight saving’s time, “shareconomics”, American politics and history, “The Man”, and more, that is so wild and weird to see in a cartoon for young kids. They handle these topics beautifully (I’m honestly not sure if my kids think the things the Titans are talking about are real or not), but as a grown-up it’s really funny to see these gags in a kids’ cartoon. I mean, the Titans fight the Illuminati in one episode. They reference “lizard men in Congress”. It’s bonkers.
Nicolas Cage: in Teen Titans Go! To the Movies, Nicolas Cage plays Superman. That’s it. I mean, what more do you want? The guy whose whole career almost seems to have hinged on playing Superman finally gets to be Superman. The guy who was nearly – oh so nearly – Superman for Tim Burton is now, at last, Superman. The guy who named his kid Kal-El is now Superman. The guy who was namechecked in The Ultimates about eighteen years ago (“this guy wants to be a superhero almost as much as Nicolas Cage”) is now Superman. It’s such a meta-gag, such a high-level gag. Stunt casting taken to its nth degree. It’s even funnier than Billy Dee Williams playing Two-Face in LEGO Batman. And it got better – this part, I concede, beyond the purview of the TTG creators – because the same year he played Superman, Nicolas Cage also played (an alternate universe version of) Spider-Man in Into the Spider-Verse. And, as I alluded to above, starred in his own version of The Night Begins to Shine when he made Mandy. It all links!  
There we go. my favourite things. This was tough, I had to leave a lot out. I’m particularly saddened by not finding room for Cyborg’s tiny body made up of wires whenever he removes his head. And The Jeff; gutted I missed The Jeff. Or the episode that references all the movie incarnations of Batman, including a dumpster full of Batman Forever and Batman & Robin stuff (I’ll save my argument that TTG serves as an even better comic analysis and deconstruction of the meta-character of Batman, and of Robin, than the much-ballyhooed LEGO incarnations for another day). It’s really a great show. I love it to bits. Go watch it.
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mazojo · 5 years
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Kiznaiver Review
I just finished the Kiznaiver anime and I am not okay, so I decided to do a review with my opinions and thoughts on it, so beware the spoilers and rants on different aspects of it ;w;
Spoiler Free Overview ~
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Before actually going into the spoilers, I wanted to leave a little spoiler free plot overview for those interested but not convinced on watching it. Basically Kiznaiver is about 7 teenagers connected by an experiment to their wounds and pain, making the pain of one, that of the others. The anime follows the story of these teenagers and their friendship with the mystery of the experiment and the future of it in their city, making it emotional and addictive to watch.
Although there is a lot more to say, if you don’t want to be spoiled on the anime do not click on read more but if you don’t mind, go ahead <33
Plot
So as mentioned above, the anime consists on the union of 7 characters (representing the 7 sins) through the Kizna system/experiment which bonds them through their pain so if one gets hurt, the other six will feel the pain too. Each of the teenagers choose represents one of the deadly sins, which I will go into further in my description of each character, and they all have to work together throughout the summer in order to free themselves from their Kizna. Everything is running smoothly and they all become friends until some of them begin falling in love with others and it all kind of crumbles. In the final episodes we discover that the experiments have been running for a while and in the past, they were done to kids but it failed miserably as some gathered too much pain from the others while others didn’t, making them feel numb and emotionless. Our main character, Katsuhira was originally connected to the first kizna experiment but became numb to any sort of pain due to another kid (now leading the project?) named Noriko taking all the pain. In the end, Katsuhira is able to convince Noriko to give back his pain and those from the other kids involved in the experiment through a f r i e n d s h i p speech and the whole group ends up becoming much closer, with Katsuhira and Noriko confessing their feelings to each other.
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Characters
okay, so I will admit I kind of may have fallen in love with some of the characters from this anime and I am going to list them in order of which I liked the most explaining a bit on who they are and what I believe they must be protected. I also decided to place a song that reminds me of them in order for you to gather a feel of who they are in my opinion.
Katsuhira Agata (Kacchon)
Rise - Ashes Remain
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So this gif pretty much describes his attitude and face throughout the whole series (except the two times he actually cries). His sin is “sloth” but referred in the anime as “the imbecile”. This is due to his apathetic behavior to everything happening around him due to the lack of emotions he has. He is precious and even as a kid he has always been looking for those around him (even in his kind of oblivious way) and I love how even after going through everythingg he went through, he is able to forgive Noriko and even loves her with all her faults and imperfections <33.
Nico Niiyama
Hello Kitty - Avril Lavigne
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She is one of those characters you either love or hate, and I absolutely looove Nico! She represents the sin of greed I believe due to her wanting of attention and reassurance. I don't know if its because I see myself in her craziness or just her whole attitude throughout the series but Nico is in top place with Kacchon for my favorite characters. She is much more than the I-am-cute-love-me character as we advance through the series we began seeing her need to find friends in those surrounding her and how desperate she tries to fit into this “eccentric girl” stereotype to fit in (if that makes any sense). I also loved how she was one of the first to come back and unite the group after their Kiznas were released even though she was hurting over Tenga, which I thought was really brave and a bit underrated, thanks for coming to my ted talk.
Yoshiharu Hisomu
Highway to Hell - AC/DC
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So hear me out, Hisomu is a bit of a weirdo but through the small things he did and said he was able to win me over. Hisomu represents the sin of lust as he is a masochist and finds pleasure over the pain inflicted upon himself. I was a bit skeptical over his character as he appeared on the third episode unlike the others but he grew on me. Not only do I l o v e his character design but I think he has a personal growth over acquiring friends. He is close to Kacchon and never “abandons” him or leaves after all the others decide to part their own ways. Yeah, he may be a bit apathetic and unconscious towards the situations surrounding the others but I think in his heart he is actually a really good friend and sappy as it sounds, he cares deeply about the others and their suffering ;w;
Chidori Takashiro
Camouflage - Selena Gomez
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Chidori is our tsundere-ish character. She represents the sin of envy as she is always second best when it comes to her unrequited love towards Kacchon. I really like her character and I feel bad for her as she often throughout the anime feels things very deeply and through Kacchon’s apathetic attitude, she mostly ends up hurt.I enjoyed her reactions as I know in the situations they face, I would definitely react similarly and she is very lovable overall.
Tsuguhito Yuta
Someone you Like - The Girl and the Dreamcatcher
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Yuta is a classical popular kid with a soft side character. He represents the sin of gluttony as when he was little he used to eat a lot thus was seen as the fat kid and becomes kind of obsessed with his appearance after the fact. He may seem superficial at first but he is very caring and notices a lot of things others take for granted (like being able to be there for Maki even though she is a tough nut to crack). Also being a fellow cancer according to the wikia he went up my list :3. That being said I felt his character was all about Maki and he never really shined if there wasn’t any Maki story line involve which was kind of sad as I thought he had a lot of potential, but I still love him <33
Noriko Sonozaki
Never Enough - Loren Allred
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Noriko is a weird character to me, as in some moments I really like her while in others I don’t really understand her. She has undergone a lot through her childhood due to experiencing the pain of her friends altogether and the constant fear of being left alone and not being understood even though Kacchon often reassures her of this but whatever. She may seem kind of like a psychopath and cold at the beginning but as we learn about her past I guess her behavior is kind of understandable but honestly I prefer the kid Sonozaki version which is adorableee. I like her relationship with Kacchon however and how they are able to grow from each other through their connection.
Honoka Maki
I Found - Amber Run
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Maki and Tenga are my least favorite from the group but I don’t totally dislike them, I just don’t connect with he way they act most of the time. Maki represents the sin of pride as she often acts as if she is above everyone and everything going on around her placing a barrier between her and the other Kiznaivers. She has a rough past as she wrote a manga with her best friend Ruru and through their friendship feelings began developing. Ruru had a terminal illness and as Maki was afraid of getting hurt decided to cut all ties with her, which brings her to be the coldhearted person she is. Throughout the series she often rejects the other Kiznaivers refusing to call them friends inserts dramatic eye-roll until at the end she realizes its inevitable and accepts letting people in slowly.
Hajime Tenga
Counting Stars - One Republic
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Honestly Tenga is pretty neutral to me and I don’t have much an opinion on his character. He represents the sin of Wrath as he often acts impulsively and resolves his issues through rage and anger acting with his fist rather than his head. He is quite loud and a bit obnoxious at times with his tough guy act but he means good. We don’t get much backstory on him other than he is afraid of dogs? which isn’t mentioned again after the second episode sooo… I mean he is a good character and has good intentions but I more often than not don’t understand his reactions and think he goes a bit over the top in most of them.
Ships
Although I know Kiznaiver isn’t an anime focused completely on the romance but rather a science-fiction/mystery kind of anime, I still had to mention the ships through the series starting from the one I like the most. Also note that some of them are non cannon so keep that in mind and note that this are my personal opinions ;w;
NicoxHisomu (non-cannon)
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You can’t even understand HOW MUCH I WANTED THIS TO BE A THING. From the moment Hisomu appeared and had the first interaction with the group I wanted him and Nico to end together sooo badly. I don’t know if its because of their eccentric ways or how they are often looked upon as the weird ones from the group, but I always thought they would make such a cute couple! Even at the end when Nico is ranting on about Tenga, Hisomu is attentive to her and I honestly think their friendship is so pure and perfect ;w; I will be crying in the corner until this becomes a thing.
NorikoxKatsuhira (cannon)
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Although I will forever be frustrated that NicoxHisomu didn’t end up together trigger please consider making a second season, I am actually really glad these two did! It was pretty obvious the two wouldd en up being cannon as the whole show premise basically concentrates in their relationship, and I am glad they did. I feel like both complement each other very well and stabilize one another through their feelings (or in this case, the lack of). I feel like both Katsuhira and Nori are very mature and overall I love their pairing as they both deserve all the happiness <33
ChidorixTenga (Cannon-ish?)
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I really like this two together and I feel like through the finale we can kind of maybe say its cannon? I mean they never actually confessed their love to one another like Sonozaki and Kacchon (well, Tenga did), but Chidori kinda implied that she was starting to develop feelings? I totally feel like they work together as they level each other out by their protective mama bear attitude of Chidori and Tenga’s impulses leading to him being defensive of those he cares about. Also can we take a moment to appreciate their red aesthetic, like common they are adorable together.
MakixYuta (Cannon?)
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This is also an odd pairing, as we see Yuta’s clear interest on Maki since episode 1 and where she only corresponds his feelings at the end of episode 12. Although they never truly became a couple I believe they both like each other so its kind of cannon? I like how they both have rough pasts and they help each other grow from them (cue to Yuta’s scene at the beach were he runs in the water although he may look like a fool) and they level the other out.
ChidorixKatsuhira (non-cannon)
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The following two ships are ones I don’t like but I found important to mention as many people do ship them. I honestly can’t see this pair due to Katsuhira’s strong feelings towards Nori. I feel like he sees Chidori as her best friend and will never be able to see her as more than that. Chidori’s often explosive and overprotective character just doesn’t mash well with Kacchon’s laid back apathetic vibe, which is why I wouldn’t see this pairing working at all.
NicoxTenga (non-cannon)
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I do not approve of this. I honestly can’t see this working and lets be honest Nico and Hisomu deserve each other so I am too blinded by that. I think their personalities wouldn’t work as Tenga is too aggressive and Nico much softer. I feel like Tenga is most of the times confused by her behavior or just doesn’t understand her eccentric behaviors which would definitely cause a problem if this were to be cannon. I can’t with this ship and if there is a season 2 I really hope this doesn’t become cannon otherwise ill just go cry myself in a corner.
To finish off this review on Kiznaiver, I would like to point out the things I like and the things I didn't like so much.
Liked…
- The characters is one of the things to really highlight from Kiznaiver. They are all so different but so lovable in their own ways and with their own faults which makes everything 10 times better.
- I haven’t been able to mention this before but I really liked the intro and outdo songs, I think they are catchy and represent quite well the anime.
- I adooored the character designs, specially Nico, Hisomu, Sonozaki and Katsuhira’s. I feel like the tones and designs of the characters with their little quirks really lets the audience gather who they are and why they are the way they are.
- I think the concept of the experiment and the characters being connected by their wounds and pain is very interesting! I dint know what to expect at first but as the story developed It really got me thinking what the Kizna system would look like in the real world.
Disliked…
- I feel like the character development could have been a little better for some of them? Specially Yuta, Tenga and Hisomu which even though we got to know, never really learned much about their past other than some random facts.
- The fact that Hisomu and Nico weren’t cannon
- Sometimes due to the small amount of time the creators had to create the episode, I feel like some things weren’t explained very clearly (like Sonozaki’s reasons to try committing suicide when she was young) but maybe its just me being dumb idkk
All in all, I really liked the anime and would definitely recommended to those who enjoy good characters and a little of science fiction as well as troublesome pasts. Remember this are just my opinions and feel free to ask me my opinions on anything related as well as I would love to hear all of yours :33
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bigskydreaming · 4 years
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For the fic ask meme, 4, 16, 24, or 28
I will answer 16 now, because No Reason, Just Whimsy, but stay tuned as I’ll probably end up answering 4, 24 and 28 at some point anyway, because like. No Reason, Just Whimsy. *Shrugs*
16.  If you only could write one pairing for the rest of your life, which pairing would it be?
I can’t tell you, see, because I would simply make that one pairing endgame and everything else leading up to it like, contain all the other ships I could not bear to be without. (Hahahaha this is why I could never be a romance author, I can not abide by the rules of HEA or HFN in relationship stories to save my LIFE). So, y’know, SPOILERS.
No but also I’m completely aware that this is cheating and not the point of the question. But I can not choose though, that is the point, like, have you met me? I am the original poster child for ADHD. I’m THAT old.
So instead I will simply say that in the realm of Teen Wolf, Scanny is very very very important to me, which like, surprises no one. But also I would still fight someone who tried to take either Scira or Scallison from me, I remain obnoxiously fond of Scackson’s potential, and I’m still out here being like, the sole Scosh (Scott/Josh Diaz) shipper in all the land, I’m pretty sure, lmfao. 
And I mean, also there’s Scyle, of course. I could never give up the Scyle.
As far as Marvel goes, like, I am going to be riding the high of Bobby/Christian being canon for quite some time, as anyone who has known me long knows that I have been shipping this ship since Christian was first introduced and then written offstage like two issues later….seventeen years ago.
(I have a lot of issues with straight writers making gay characters’ gay-specific tragedies and traumas like….someone ELSE’S angsty back story, while they themselves are just shuffled off the page and considered irrelevant. For those who don’t know, Christian is Emma Frost’s gay older brother who she adored and when their father had Christian institutionalized against his will because he was gay, this was what made Emma break away from the rest of her family for good and set her on the road to becoming the White Queen of the Hellfire Club. 
And then, despite like, this being life-defining for her, not a single writer in the next fifteen damn years ever thought to ask themselves…..hmmm, why would Emma Frost, one of the most powerful telepaths in the world and someone whose personal morality in no way makes her above using those powers, her wealth or Hellfire resources however she damn well pleases in the name of protecting herself, those she cares about, and advancing her agendas…..why would this woman who has never let anything stand in the way of what she cares about before like….simply just…never once in all the years since she was a teenager think to herself….hmm, what if I simply go to the institution where my beloved brother is kept against his will, and just…..made them release him?)
So, aside from always thinking Bobby/Christian would be a great ship with amazing potential given Bobby’s unique history and dynamic with Christian’s sister and the fact that Christian shares a lot of the same traits, backstory and other elements that make Emma an amazing and multi-faceted character and he’s just been sitting there in Limbo for fifteen years with all this untapped potential just waiting to be mined….
I’m always going to be gleeful about this ship and with a special fondness for Sina Grace for bringing Christian back from comic book Limbo and laying the foundation for this ship, like, just because like……I feel its long overdue and the only way to ACTUALLY make anything decent out of the bullshit that was mining his oppression for the sake of another character’s angst: by finally giving HIM the chance to be a character who is affected by all that, developed and moved forward from all of that, is the FOCUS of all that…..and even more importantly, now after being left offscreen for fifteen years by writers who considered his narrative nothing more than tragic filler….he finally has a chance to be an example of a gay character who gets to come BACK from all of that and move FORWARD from it, and like…find healing and happiness with another character, like Bobby.
So Bobby/Christian is actually hugely important to me for a variety of reasons, especially right now since this is all just happening recently, and I will love them forever and in defiance of the inevitable bullshit some future writer pulls that will piss me the hell off. Y’know, just going off of Vegas odds or whatever.
Aside from Bobby/Christian I’ve also always had a weakness for Bobby/Johnny Storm because they are the most iconic ice and fire characters out there and I am basically twelve. I also have blogged at length in the past about all the reasons I’m a huge fan of Bobby/Bishop and not just because their ship name would make them a literal bop. Again, I refer you to the thing where I’m basically twelve. But yeah, there’s a whole history there where when Bishop first came back into the past and met the X-Men who’d all been legends in his time, he kinda fanboyed a little over Bobby because of Bobby’s future legend, and then was kinda like….oh, that’s it? about him once he got to know Bobby and Bishop became like, the physical embodiment of underwhelmed. 
And ever since then Bobby’s always low key been like, a hyper-active puppy around Bishop, like, trying not to SEEM like he cares an awful lot about whether or not he’s managed to impress Bishop but because he can’t be subtle to save his life, mostly just coming across as “am I living up to the hype now? how about now? am I legendary NOW? What about now?” and I dunno. Its just kinda cute and a fairly unique dynamic, and Bishop has this deliberately bland, blink and you miss it sense of humor with the right writers and that I’ve always thought has a ton of potential for him to be privately amused by this tendency of Bobby’s, enough that he’s unwilling to confess to him that Bobby actually earned his respect years ago by this point, and he just doesn’t want to let Bobby know because then he’d stop. 
And then in terms of DC, I’ve posted a lot a lot a loooooooooot about my love for Dick/Kory in canon, and how they - and by extension we - were robbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbed, and if DC doesn’t give me my canon Mar’i and Jake Grayson one of these days, I don’t care if they have to import them from another universe and then have this universe’s Dick and Kory awkwardly try to co-parent them while living their own lives separately before finally coming back together and falling in love all over again and then becoming a single united family unit forever and ever in the most ridiculously complicated comic book version of the Parent Trap ever, like…..
I can’t even think of an over-exaggerated threat creative enough to convey just how badly I want and need this, DC, give it to meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee plzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
And then also, I’ve actually posted a lot a lot a loooooooooooot (though not in a few years, probably, so those posts are all super old, lol) about how I think Kyle and Donna are a criminally under-rated canon couple and were actually really really good together because they went through so much together and Kyle literally grew so much as a character specifically on the things Donna called him out for the first time they dated, like, literally so he could be BETTER, and then with how anticlimactically they ended...because the thing is, they never actually even broke up! It was this thing where like, when Donna went to LA with Kyle for his high school reunion and to literally MEET HIS MOM, like HELLO, that is not a basic relationship step, that is Advanced Dating, like…..that is where they were at in their relationship when Donna literally got the call then and there that her ex-husband and her son had just died in a car accident. 
And Donna was devastated of course, and Kyle was devastated too - for her, and also in his own way, because he’d adored Robert and like, there were these issues where they were super cute and took him to the zoo together and Kyle was bonding with him and just like, melting over this kid, and Robert and Terry were killed by a drunk driver, and like, there was a later story where Kyle just went apeshit on this drunk driver he encountered because he had all these repressed feelings about Robert’s death and how it had hurt Donna and he’d made sure not to show any of that to her or even let on that he hurt for Robert’s loss in his own way, because he didn’t want to make it about him, he KNEW better…
And anyway, the point is…they never actually broke up in the sense of either of them at any point being all, oh we no longer love each other or think this can work, we need to end it. Instead, Donna said that she needed to take some time away from Kyle and everyone else and just…come to terms with what she’d lost and figure out who she even was now in the wake of that….and Kyle totally understood, didn’t argue or try and change her mind, he just said take as much time as you need, I’ll be here when you’re ready, and oh btw, here’s this lantern construct of a locket that I want you to keep because as long as it exists you’ll know that a part of me is still thinking about you and wanting you to be happy, wherever that is.
And then like…..less than a year later, DC did their super weird Dark Angel story where Donna was erased from reality and then had to be ‘recreated’ from Wally’s memories, and for awhile just existed in the form and identity she’d been recreated from, which was based entirely on what Wally knew of her and thought and felt about her, and so there were huge gaps in her identity where she was missing stuff she should have known but didn’t now because WALLY didn’t know about it.
Such as how when Donna met Kyle’s subsequent sorta-girlfriend Jade some time later - I say sorta because she and Kyle were still figuring things out at that stage, and Jenny-Lynn in part didn’t know if she wanted to actually get into a relationship with him because she thought he was still in love with Donna - well anyway, when Donna and Jenny-Lynn met in a later issue and she said all this to Donna, Donna reassured her not to worry about it, she was reading more into it than actually existed because she and Kyle had never been that serious anyway. 
Which. SCREECH! Brakes please. HOLD UP. 
Like, I’m sorry JAY FAERBER YES I REMEMBER IT WAS YOU WHO WROTE THAT ISSUE UGGGGGH, but like, in what UNIVERSE is “dated, broke up, then got back together later because she thought Kyle had matured a ton since they first tried dating and now they were so much stronger as a couple that she oh I dunno, introduced him to her son and they went on playdates together, went with him to meet his mom, had a never-vanishing lantern locket construct that signified just how much he would always love her” uh…..’never been that serious anyway’? I’m. What? Does not compute.
BUT WHATEVER.
LOL. Anyway, point is, so things like that actually make sense when you factor in the role Wally’s memories and perspective played in who Donna literally WAS for awhile (and the understandable existential crises she went through as a result). But like, at the point in time when Kyle and Donna were most serious, Kyle was still fairly removed from a lot of the rest of the DC universe, he wasn’t a core member of the JLA yet and usually operated independently, and he and Wally were NOT close at all yet, let alone friends….in fact, for as long as Donna and Kyle dated, Wally pretty much still actively hated and resented Kyle for just existing, since he’d always been close with Hal since he was a kid and Hal was his Uncle Barry’s BFF-and-homosexual-life-partner-in-all-but-name. 
Like, it was only after Kyle became one of the core JLA alongside Wally that the two of them finally worked out their mutual antagonism and became friends, but before that, Wally was NOT shy about expressing he hated this new GL guy and wanted nothing to do with him, even though it was for unfair reasons, sooooo……like, its not really that shocking that even though Wally and Donna are two of each other’s oldest friends and super tight, like, he was never going to be the friend she called up to let him know how great things were going with her and Kyle these days, lol, y’know?
So it makes sense that when Donna was first magically reconstituted thanks to Wally’s memories/view of her (btw, this was because Wally was out of phase with reality and was in the Speed Force at the precise moment that Donna was erased from reality by the Dark Angel’s magic, and that’s why he alone remembered her and was the template for undoing what the Dark Angel had done). But anyway, it makes sense that she would for a time have had very little memory or even knowledge of her and Kyle’s prior relationship, and basically just know/remember what little Wally actually knew of it. So from her perspective then, it could very well have seemed that they were never that serious, and everyone but Kyle like….kinda just nodded and figured okay, you would know after all, and just…..everyone ended up walking away with the idea that they were just this brief fling and neither had ever had strong feelings for each other, let alone love.
The problem I’ve always had is that eventually Donna DID regain her full memories and her own sense of self, and like….she was Donna again, through and through, existing as she always had without being limited to just Wally’s view or memory of her.
Soooo, at THAT point, she should have been perfectly aware of what her and Kyle’s relationship had ACTUALLY looked like, in its entirety, and I mean, I can understand them not getting back together at that point. It’d been years, they both were in very different places, Kyle had eventually gotten together with Jade after it was expressed by Donna herself that there was no reason not to, given that its not like they were ever that serious….so by the time Donna herself would have realized otherwise, I can totally understand her feeling that the moment had passed for them, that Kyle had moved on (just as Kyle had only ‘moved on’ once he felt there was no longer a chance of them returning to what they were). Like, all of that is super weird and complicated even by ridiculous comic book soap opera standards, so I mean….lol, how do you even BEGIN that conversation, y’know?
Buuuuuut, it just kinda sucks that at no point after that Faerber issue has any later writer ever had either Donna or Kyle discuss their previous relationship(s) in terms of what it ACTUALLY was, for BOTH of them, rather than just this trivial, ancient history fling that neither had ever been super invested in….even though for several years in the nineties they were one of THE major hero couples in comic books.
So. Yeah. As evidenced, I have a lot of unresolved Donna and Kyle feelings lol.
And then of course, there are and always will be my epic “OMG DICK AND KYLE COULD BE THE GREATEST SHIP AND END ALL THE SHIPS LIKE COULD YOU EVEN IMAGINE” feelings, but like. That’s a thirty pound tome in and of itself, so. Like. Just picture the two of them standing staring soulfully into each other’s eyes and then me, creepily fixated on them twenty feet away, chin propped up on my hands and going awwwwwwww while my own eyes like, sparkle anime style but also are the heart-eyes motherfucker meme at the same time.
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I admit I have never been a huge fan of the Flash, only seeing him in the DC animated cartoons and movies but Arrow introduced Barry Allen all over again and he and his show soon became my favorite part of the CW comic book shows; until Legends of Tomorrow season two that is. However, despite its ups and downs I continue to watch and enjoy the show
This article is basically me expressing what I liked and didn’t like about the episode in a casual format. No fancy reviewing here, but if you want to fangirl with me then read on!
FANGIRL FAVORITES
Barry, just Barry in general. His actor his very cute and despite me not liking facial hair much he worked it well, along with the longer hair. It was no mystery to have him return but it still felt really awesome to see it happen. I love his new power level though he probably won’t be able to access it now that he’s of sound mind and body.
Wally speaking Japanese was pretty neat, not sure if the actor learned it just for that scene or if he is a fan of the culture like myself. Also, Wally has become a bit more tolerable as time has gone on, can’t say the same for his sister. Though I do enjoy their bond.
Caitlin has had an issue with being rather boring, especially in the beginning while she was mourning and then when Robbie died again. I always liked her character but becoming Killer Frost added an edge she needed.
Overall the whole cast did really well and I liked that we were introduced to the Thinker earlier on though I imagine we won’t make many more cameos until his true big reveal. While I liked Julian, hopefully his departure means Barry can do more forensic work and lead a life outside of the Flash business.
FANGIRL FAILS
Iris, just Iris in general. It was recently noted in a video I was watching how weird it was for two people who were raised together as brother and sister to be romantically involved and I have to agree. Especially when they both call Joe dad. Other than that she’s just annoying, that hasn’t changed, and she has zero chemistry with Barry. Felicity, who I dislike on Arrow, had buckets of chemistry with Barry and even Patty had some but the show keeps forcing Barry and Iris together. I know why but Arrow takes a dump on comic book canon relationships why can’t The Flash?
The CGI graphics still don’t impress me, notably when it's of actual characters. Barry and Wally have really bad character models when they run and it’s easy to tell they’re computer generated.
Julian leaving sucks. They spent the last season getting viewers to like him for what? I know season three was bad but he wasn’t part of the reasons why it was bad.
Back to Iris but, her being the reason Barry comes to his scenes was predictable and trite. Yes, they’re in love blah blah blah but agh…
Another thing, everyone ending up back on Team Flash so quickly and easily. Also, so many of them have powers now. Yes, I know the characters of Sisqo and Caitlin have them in the comics so I did see this coming but now with Wally it sort of takes away from Flash being the star. While I like all of these characters using their powers, I also accept that it does mar the storytelling a bit. They tried to make it seem like Vibe and Kid Flash had so much trouble holding down the city but it shouldn’t have been that hard, especially with what we learn in Legends of Tomorrow that Citizen Steel was also aiding them for months.
FANGIRL FANGASMING INTENSIFIES
So, Grant Gustin is a very sexy man. He has that adorkable vibe that I love so very much and his fun and happy approach to Barry Allen is endearing. While I enjoy the show for what it is, him being so attractive also helps and as I mentioned before with his longer hair after the Speed Force visit well...yum! Speaking of hair, I’m also liking Sisqo’s longer locks and Caitlin’s hair has so much volume and bounce. It really helps enhance her rebel vibe though. I was disappointed she rejoined the team so easily but it’s clear she has her own set of demons to work through.
Because the ending scene of her going full Killer Frost as amazing! While I’d really like for her to come to grip with her powers and this darker side, I love how forceful it is. The Caitlin before was one who might let people walk all over her and her Frost side is a drastic opposite, they need to meet in the middle.
And my final and favorite moment was Barry bursting out of the containment cell to save Iris. It was a true show of power and something I don’t think anyone has ever done before, it was pretty amazing.
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