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flanaganfilm · 1 year

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Hello and Howdy Mr. Mike Flanagan! I'm excited to see you here on our humble hellsite. I have so much to say and ask about your netflix shows but for the moment, I want to ask about Doctor Sleep because I enjoyed that movie immensely - it filled me with a pleasant sense of dread, which possibly makes no sense, or a lot of sense.

What was that creative process like? Reconciling book and movie canons, following Kubrick's legacy, working with Ewan and Rebecca and Zahn and everyone else. I'm obsessed with King adaptations and I'm just fascinated with Doctor Sleep.

Alright! Buckle up for yet another long read.

Thank you for your question, and for this opportunity to go back and talk about DOCTOR SLEEP. It's a very special film to me, and a very special time in my life as well.

It all started with a general meeting with Jon Berg at Warner Bros.

The meeting itself started pretty wild - Adrien Brody walked out of the office as I was waiting to go in. Jon introduced us and we chatted for a few minutes, and I was a little out of whack for the rest of the meeting because I had a very potent "wow that was Adrien Brody" buzz going.

We were meant to talk about DC Comics and see if there was anything to do there. I was really hoping to chat about a horror-slanted Clayface movie, and about my favorite superhero: Superman.

Neither conversation went very far. I had just finished GERALD'S GAME, and Jon was a King fan, so he asked about the production. And then he asked if I'd ever read Warners' script for DOCTOR SLEEP.

I had. In fact, I had tried very hard to get a meeting at the studio when the book was first published. Warners owned the rights to DOCTOR SLEEP outright - it was part of their deal going all the way back to THE SHINING - so they immediately began looking into movie options when the book was published. Akiva Goldsman had written a script, and it was one of the first projects I asked about when I signed with WME as a client years before. "That isn't going anywhere," they told me. "I don't think that movie gets made."

They had tried to get me the meeting anyway, but no one at Warners responded. I never got in the room.

But now, here I was. What did I have to lose at this point?

"I did read it," I said. "I'd take a different approach." Jon sat back and smiled. "I love the book, Rose is one of the great villains of all time," he said. I agreed. He probed. "What's wrong with the script?"

"I don't think it follows the book closely enough."

"What would you do?"

"I'd do the book. Streamline it, combine some characters, and you'd have to rethink the True Knot a bit. But otherwise, just do the book. As long as it's a three-hander between Danny, Abra and Rose it'll work. With one big asterisk."

"What's that?"

"I think you have to bring back the hotel. Kubrick's hotel, I mean."

Jon smiled wider. "Yeah, it's a bummer the hotel burned down. King goes out of his way at the start of the book to emphasize that - no Overlook, look no further."

This was my biggest gripe with the book.

I said "When I read the book, all I could see was Kubrick's hotel. I think you do the book as close as you possibly can, until the big fight at the end. Instead of it taking place in an empty field, let it be in the hotel."

Jon: "Do you think King will be upset if you change his ending? You know how feels about THE SHINING, right?"

Me: "What if we gave him THAT ending? What if we let Danny have Jack's ending? Jack sacrificed himself to save his family and destroy the Overlook - why not let Danny do that? Change the ending, sure, but give him the ending Kubrick denied him."

We shook hands, and I called my producing partner Trevor Macy to tell him it was a good general, but nothing was coming out of my DC meeting. By the time I'd made it back to my car, though, Jon had reached out to Stephen King and asked if he'd be interested in me taking a swing at it. Steve, who had enjoyed GERALD'S GAME, said yes.

I was immediately petrified when the call came in that they might want to engage me on a rewrite of DOCTOR SLEEP, with a directorial attachment. I'd have to rewrite the script from scratch, and I kind of felt like they were calling my bluff. But the deal was made and quite suddenly I was adapting DOCTOR SLEEP.

First order of business was to make King aware of what I intended to do. I had just established a tentative relationship with my hero over GERALD'S GAME, and the last thing - the very last thing in the world I ever wanted - was to upset him. We weren't in direct communication, we spoke through agents and emails at this point - but I had to make him aware of the Overlook thing.

I put together a proposal that outlined what I wanted to do - use Kubrick's visual language, and keep the Overlook standing as a setting for the final battle. The initial feedback we got was "no." King really, really didn't like Kubrick's film, and his priority was to adapt DOCTOR SLEEP - not to revisit THE SHINING.

I told him that if he didn't want me to do it, I wouldn't - I'd walk away from the movie before I made something he hated. But as a last ditch effort, I said "imagine the Overlook, decrepit and rotten. And imagine Dan Torrance having walk in to 'wake it up,' the lights coming on above his head as he walks the halls. He finds his way to the Gold Room. To the familiar bar, where an empty glass is waiting for him. And we see a familiar bartender ready to pour for him, saying 'good evening Mister Torrance.' What if that bartender is his father?"

After a bit of a delay, King got back to us. "Do it," he said.

Writing the script was tough. I immediately felt like I had stepped into a very unsafe space. "This is going to piss everybody off," I figured. Kubrick fans would be livid that the movie was being made. King fans might be angry that Kubrick's imagery was being homaged. There was no way to please everyone, so I set about writing the movie I wanted to see most.

It was a slightly nauseous feeling that would stay with me until the movie came out.

I sat down to write with a hardcover copy of DOCTOR SLEEP to my right, and a hardcover copy of THE SHINING to my left. I read both cover to cover, sticking post-its throughout the pages with ideas, or flagging lines of dialogue (or even prose) that I wanted to protect. I managed to put together a basic outline for the movie, which was intimidating and sprawling.

I finally finished the draft and sent it off to Warner Bros. and King at the same time. I was shooting THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE at the time, and thought it would take a long while and a few more iterations before SLEEP would go anywhere, if it ever did.

Warner Bros. shocked us all by coming back with a green light. I've been told that it was one of the fastest green lights in the recent history of the studio, and I believe it.

It happened so fast, in fact, that Steve hadn't read the script yet. I got an email from him on a Friday saying "I read the first half, and I absolutely love it - my son's getting married, so I'll pick it up in a week or so and finish it, but great so far!" I was nauseous... because I knew everything that King was likely to hate was in the second half.

When he finally did finish reading it, about a week later, he reached out and said:

"I think it's really good. In my experience, this is the kind of script studios don't make, because it's TOO good. Hopefully I'm wrong. But no matter how it turns out, thanks for treating me so well. - Steve"

I had the distinct pleasure of being able to write him back and tell him that Warner Bros. had just greenlit the movie. And we were off to the races.

The pressure was enormous. They were spending a lot of money on this movie, and because of the insane box office success of IT: CHAPTER ONE, expectations were very high.

We were given access to Kubrick's blueprints for the Overlook hotel set, which were still held at Warner Bros. While we set about rebuilding the sets, our attention turned to casting.

For Dan, we met with a handful of actors: Dan Stevens, Chris Evans, Matt Smith, and Jeremy Renner all came in to chat about the movie. But Ewan McGregor, who himself was eight years sober (just like Dan), was the obvious choice. "Let's not talk about the Shining yet," he said. "I want to talk about recovery." He was the guy.

For Rose the Hat, we talked with several actresses, including Anne Hathaway, Nicole Kidman, and my dear friend Karen Gillan - but Rebecca Ferguson knocked our socks off on a 90-minute zoom meeting, and the part was hers.

Finding Abra Stone was more difficult - we auditioned more than 900 girls for the part. We'd narrowed it down to a half-dozen very promising and successful young actresses, including Lulu Wilson (who I'd worked with several times before and adore), but Kyliegh Curran's self-tape audition rose to the very top of the pile. Ewan flew to Atlanta to read with our final picks, and when Kyliegh - who lived 15 minutes from our office, was local casting, and had never booked a job before - finished reading, he turned to us and said "I mean it's her, right?" It absolutely was.

When we cast her, we invited her back to the office after school one day to get oriented. The crew was so excited for her that they decorated the production office in her honor.

As the rest of the cast fell in, we started doing our camera tests and getting excited about what we were putting together. My feeling over overwhelming nausea only got stronger.

We started shooting in September of 2018. The shoot was long, but never exhausting. The cast and crew were uniformly pleasant and happy to be there, and after the soul-crushing slog that had been THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE, it was a relief to enjoy working again.

Kate was pregnant with our daughter Theo at the time. She visited as much as she could, but finally couldn't travel any more. Being away from Kate and our son Cody was hard, but I'm so grateful that we got to share some time on set together.

All things considered, this was a smooth shoot. But something happened for me while we were making it that would change the course of my life forever.

See, THE SHINING is about alcoholism. King wrote it while in the throes of his own addiction, and it is a novel about the anxiety he felt about what he could potentially do to his family if left unchecked. It's one of the reasons he was so upset with Kubrick's adaptation - all of that was taken away. This is a profoundly personal story for King.

When he wrote DOCTOR SLEEP, he was decades sober. The story of DOCTOR SLEEP is the story of recovery. This was something that Ewan knew very well, and why he was perfect for the part. He knew what the journey felt like. He wasn't alone - there were a number of cast and crew members on this shoot that were sober. In fact, just about all of the actors who played main characters were sober. I was still drinking at the time, though it had already become obviously problematic in my life, I hadn't taken any meaningful steps to change it.

This photograph was taken on 10/12/2018. This was taken on the day I got sober. I quit cold turkey, in the middle of production. I was clinging to vices at the time. Note not only the cigarette in my hand (I was smoking almost 2 packs a day), but the ash tray that had been rigged to the top of my viewfinder by the camera department. (I don't smoke anymore either, just about four years without cigs as well... and I still miss them.)

I had been writing about addiction for a decade. It was all over my work, going all the way back to ABSENTIA. I didn't realize just how much I was writing about myself, and I still can't believe it took me this long.

I vividly recall writing the scene between Dan and Jack at the bar. My wife pointed out to me after the fact that she could see it then, that something was changing in me when it came to drinking. Something was waking up, and I was processing a desperate need to sober up. That scene represents an internal conversation that is profoundly personal to me. It's still my favorite scene of the movie.

I've been sober now for over 4 years. DOCTOR SLEEP helped me finally make that decision. I finished the shoot sober, and came home to my life with a lot of uncertainty and insecurity. But with the unflinching support of my incredible wife, and some amazing friends, my life started to really blossom. It was pretty immediately evident that this was one of the best decisions I'll ever make.

Meanwhile, though, I had to finish DOCTOR SLEEP.

I LOVED the movie we'd made, but I was still terrified of what King would think of it - not to mention Kubrick's estate.

When we finished the cut, I flew to Bangor to screen the finished film for Steve. It was the first I'd meet him in person, and one of the most insanely exciting and humbling days of my life.

We watched the movie together, and I was acutely aware of each and every little reaction he had throughout.

(With Trevor Macy, my producing partner at Intrepid)

When the show as over, Steve turned to me and said "You did a beautiful job." And ultimately, he added that this film had made him warm up to the Kubrick movie as well.

A week later, we heard from Kubrick's estate that they had also loved the movie.

With King's blessing, and Kubrick's family, I felt that nausea finally subside. I said to Kate, "that's it. That's all that matters. Doesn't matter if the movie crashes and burns - we already won the important battle."

And then, the movie crashed and burned.

A group of us went to see it opening night at Arclight Hollywood (my favorite theater). We were just about the only people there. And I knew immediately that we were going to have a bad weekend.

The movie didn't perform very well. Warner Bros. was disappointed, and ended up scrapping the Dick Hallorann movie we were planning, as well as the Overlook Hotel prequel.

I was pretty crest-fallen. I'd spent years tossing and turning over whether audiences would be divided between the King and Kubrick camps. I'd been petrified that they'd be furious, venomous, run me out on a rail... I'd never considered that they'd be utterly disinterested. Apathy wasn't even on my radar.

Steve called me the Monday after opening weekend with some words of encouragement. "I remember when THE SHINING bombed," he said. "And SHAWSHANK. Give it some time. It'll find its audience. It's a really good movie."

That has turned out to be true. While it didn't set the world on fire theatrically, the movie has over-performed on VOD and streaming. And when Warner Bros. released the Directors Cut (I'm still so grateful that they did that), it popped even more.

So yes, to answer your question - the pressures were enormous. I hope this paints a little picture of what it was like. The biggest gift I got out of it, though, was sobriety.

I reached out to King a year later, on my first sober birthday. I hadn't told him I was sober, but it felt like time to do it. I got to thank him. "I never told you this, but I sobered up while we were shooting DOCTOR SLEEP, and I don't think I would have done it without your words. Living in that story, and marinading in the concepts of recovery and redemption made it possible. I just want to thank you."

He wrote back his congratulations, and then mentioned "as it happens, I'm off to celebrate 30 years myself. It only gets better and better."

And he is absolutely right.

DOCTOR SLEEP was the perfect project for me after the nightmare that was HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE. I fell in love with making movies again. And I found a new and wonderful gear for my life. It has only made everything better - my marriage, my work, my experience walking around on planet earth. I'm so grateful for it.

When I think of DOCTOR SLEEP, I think of Ewan sitting at the bar and looking at the glass in his hand. "Man takes a drink, drink takes a drink... and then the drink takes the man. Ain't it so, dad."

Ewan understood those words better than I did when I typed them into the script. I understand them much better now.

There isn't a day that goes by that I'm not profoundly grateful for my time at the Overlook. And for myriad of ways my life has been changed because of it.

#doctor sleep #sobriety #behind the scenes #behind the scene photo #ewan mcgregor #stephen king #rebecca ferguson #grateful #warner bros #the shining #featured

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z3nitsusgf · 2 years

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proserpina

homelander x reader

CW: dark!soulmate au, possesive/obsessive behavior, stalking, yandere tenancies, fem reader, angst(?), homelander needs his own warning bruh

“You’ve seen his cynical mind, the possessive soul he bears, you know his cruelty knows no bounds. But at this moment, he is simply a broken man who craves your affection so desperately it’s almost pathetic.”

Proserpina (Roman mythology): Proserpina, daughter of Jupiter and Ceres, goddess of fertility, was kidnapped by Pluto, king of the underworld, who fell in love with her after seeing her picking flowers.

—

You remember the first time anyone, other than your parents, ever saw your soulmate mark.

You were 16, still hanging out with friends at the park like a normal kid. The new tattooed ink on your wrist was a mystifying wonder to everyone your age. The way it appears overnight, rising to the surface of your skin like a beautiful art piece. Everyone wanted to see each other’s marks and foolishly hope one of the other kids was theirs to call home.

Your parents told you not to show anyone, that it was… too much for them to handle.

“Let us see yours,” they said, crooked teeth and flushed dirty faces crowded your vision, you were all so young still. And of course, you smiled and showed them your arm, letting them crowd around and stare at your binding mark.

You remember the sliver of proudness that beamed in your chest at their awed silence. The way they gaped at the motherland eagle, the ridges of its wings, and the sharpness of its beak.

Anyone would recognize the symbol, even at your age, it was something that you could identify. Even though he was a newly formed hero, still on the brink of coming out from Vought, you all knew what it represented. Even though he was a bit older than you, even though he was a powerful fucking supe - you were proud in that moment.

You don’t exactly remember when, but sometime after that people started to look at you differently.

You weren’t you anymore, you were Homelander’s soulmate. A way to get in with their favorite superheroes, a way to get cash, a way to get attention.

Of course, you’ve seen him, everyone has seen him. He’s like Santa or Jesus, an integral part of America. It only got worse as you grew up. Especially once he became number one, it was like a flashbang - you were bombarded with this new wave of emotions and feelings every time you looked at his face on a screen. It wasn’t a welling of love or adoration, but something more acrid.

People always asked you what it was like being Homelander’s soulmate despite the fact you’d never actually met the guy. They were always in your face, blabbering about how lucky you were. Prodding with their questions as if they were a part of it all.

“That must be so exciting!” Or “You must be so happy to have Homelander as your soulmate!”

It was nauseating.

You grew up with his patriotic ass plastered on every billboard and poster in New York, his movies, his comics, his interviews - always on screen. You could recount his fucking life story and you’d never even met him. You were 110% sure no one asked Homelander what he thought about his soulmate.

Not to mention your parents, god, they couldn’t get enough of it. They were so fucking happy, so fucking ecstatic that you were Homelander’s soulmate. How much rep you’d get, how much screen time, the privileges they said. His name left everyone’s mouths like he was their god.

So why didn’t you feel the rush of excitement? Why did you feel dread and damnation creeping up your spine every time you turned on the TV and he was there?

Probably because you’ve seen the horror stories. The awful dailies on the news where a supe “accidentally” killed their soulmate. Gruesome scenes of split spines, shattered bones, piles of ash and guts. Of course, people always said you had nothing to worry about. It was Homelander, he’d never do anything like that. But you always felt the fear linger when he did public speeches.

Unfortunately for the world, Vought had made it their mission to find every supe’s soulmate and “unite” them as one.

It’s a bunch of corporate media bullshit.

But people want to see their favorite heroes in a humble light, settled down, and cozied up with their “one true love”. Of course, Vought wouldn’t miss an opportunity to milk it, snagging supe’s soulmates left and right like they’re just stray dogs on the street.

It was only a matter of time before they found you. To be honest, you’re surprised they haven’t gotten to you sooner, that they left you alone to lead a “normal” life. After all, you’re The Homelander’s soulmate - that means a lot more than you thought it ever could.

Though you suppose you didn’t make it easy for them. You never posted about it online, you refrained from telling new people that you met, and you tried to cover it up all the time.

But all it really takes is some nosey neighbor or ex-friend from high school to rat you out.

And suddenly you’re being dragged to the the Seven tower, hounded by Vought employees and a perky assistant who won’t shut the fuck up.

Alice? Amanda? No wait- Ashley, blabbers away to you about how fortunate they are that they found you. She’s chipper as a chipmunk, asking you all kinds of questions that make your skin crawl, tapping away at her screen like you’re just another product ready to be shipped out. Are you single? Do you have any kids? What’s your medical history? Religious preference? Who should we contact in case of an emergency?

“He’s going to be so happy! I know it’s gonna be great.” She practically squeals in excitement, gripping the tablet between her fingers as you two ride the elevator up to the 99th floor, a sinking feeling pooling in your stomach.

She turns to you with a wide gummy smile, “Just make sure not to say anything bad or to upset him, ya know?”

You nod slowly lips pursing, “Like what?”

“Oh you know, asking for pictures or calling him anything other than Homelander or sir.”

You stare at her blankly, “Why would he be upset by that?”

She blanches just a bit, you see her look away. Probably thinking about every little thing that could go wrong. Huffing out a laugh she says, “Nothing, nevermind. I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

The elevator doors open and you’re ushered into a hallway, making your way in front of a big iron door. Their conference room.

The assistant turns to give you one last forced smile before the iron is sliding open, inside is all of the seven, Homelander at the end of the table. It’s all more imposing than you thought it would be. The sunlight streams in through the big glass windows, reflecting against the mirrored V-shape table.

You see everyone in their full glory. A-train, Queen Maeve, and Starlight is to the right. To the left Black Noir, The Deep, and a pair of floating glasses - Translucent. Most of them don’t even pay you any mind, hardly even looking up at you and focusing their attention elsewhere. You feel as though you’ve interrupted something.

“Hi, good morning sir! I’ve brought her.” Ashley is flashing a bright smile, her hand pushing your lower back so you move closer to the supe.

Homelander gives a slow nod, rounding the edge of the table, his hands behind his back as his cape sways with each step. He’s much taller in real life, looming over you. You decide to just take the plunge, sticking out your slightly trembling hand,

“Hi Homelander, sir, I’m-”

He snatches your wrist, it scares you more than you’d like to admit and you have to force the shriek from your throat down. Eyes going wide as he holds your wrist between his forefingers. His gloved thumb brushes over you skin, pushing up the sleeve of your sweater to reveal your his mark, staring down at it with bright clear eyes. You feel the leather of his glove brushing over your skin, it makes a dark feeling punch your gut.

You’d think after all this time he’d be happy, that his signature bright shining smile would spread across his face, maybe he’d tell you how happy he was or how excited. Instead, his brows furrow and his jaw clenches.

“Are you a supe?” He mumbles, eyes roaming over your body with a piqued interest that borders on perturbed fascination. You shake your head,

“N-no, sir.” He makes a sound, deep in his chest and you wince at the tightening in your hand. You try to pull back but he doesn’t let go. Panic starts to ebb up your chest, settling into your blood. You feel trapped. He’s nothing like the charismatic friendly man you’ve seen in interviews.

Thick gloved fingers curl around the flesh of your wrist, pressing the carpal bone. He could snap your entire arm and shatter each bone with just a squeeze. Hell, he could leave you paralyzed just for fun. You feel your pulse starting to pick up, you’re entirely sure he can feel the rush of adrenaline and dopamine in your system.

You’ve seen what he’s capable of. When you had this fascination with him and you wanted to know more, you’ve seen the liveleak videos of him slaughtering people, melting them with his eyes till they were nothing but a pile of flesh and guts. You’ve read the reddit posts and forums about interactions people have had with him, his pretentious and snarky comments that made even government officials weep. It made you fucking sick.

So when he doesn’t let up, when he just stares like he wants to burn a hole though your head, you feel yourself ready to crumple and accept your fate. Maybe this was Vought’s plan all along, to bring you here to be disposed of. You let out a tiny whimper, you feel the bones starting to shift uneasily inside your wrist.

“Homelander.“ Queen Maeve warns, the rest of the seven watching in tempt silence, more amused than anything. There’s a beat of rigid silence and you’re positive he’s going to just snap it then and there. But the supe rolls his eyes and drops your wrist like hot garbage, practically throwing it back at your chest.

You cradle your hand, massaging the soft bruising tissue as you stare wide-eyed at him. He glared down at you, the disgust prominent in his baby blues but there’s also a hint of something else, you can’t place your finger on it but it makes you want to hide away in the earth.

“Fucking pathetic.” Homelander sneers, turning on his heel and walking to the large window that overlooks the city. You gape, pushing back the tears that threaten to overflow on your waterline, head spinning as you feel everyone stare at you. In pity? In disgust? You don’t really care anymore.

Homelander is your soulmate and he’s nothing like you imagined. He’s a loaded gun in your face, waiting for the trigger to be pulled at any second and blow your brains against the concrete.

“Well, that was lovely but,” Ashley is ushering you out the sliding iron doors with a peppy smile, “The seven are extremely busy, we should let them get back to work!”

The last thing you see is the group of supe’s sitting in their seats and Homelander has his back to them all.

Ashley walks with you down the long hallway, blabbering about how, “He was just in a bad mood, he’s actually really nice.”

But you can’t help but clench your jaw, your heart pounds in your chest and you feel as though you’ll sink into the ground at any second. The way he stared, the way he gripped your wrist, he didn’t feel like how you thought he would. There were no sparks or honey-sweet emotions, shit you at least thought he’d give you a smile.

The entire elevator ride down the peppy assistant is telling you how things will be from now on. It makes you wanna claw at your face.

“Oh, it’ll be so cute! Everyone is going to love you, I’m sure of it!” She’s so damn loud and snippy you want to smash your head on the mirrored edge of the elevator. She won’t shut up about PR, and how they’re going to manage your socials, and put you on the red carpet - right next to your soulmate.

You get this horrible vision of you standing next to him, getting bombarded by paparazzi and having to cuddle up with him for life. You almost throw up in the elevator.

“Can I go home?” You cut her off, not giving a damn if it’s rude or awkward.

She balks, gaping at you with wide eyes. She grips her tablet between chippy-painted fingers, you think for a moment she’ll tell you no and that you’re not allowed to leave. But she calms herself, biting the inside of your cheek and says, “Of course! A driver will take you home.”

“Nah, it’s alright,” The doors open and you’re already making your way out to the front entrance, “I’ll walk home.”

You live all the way in Brooklyn, but you don’t give a rats ass. You don’t give Ashley the chance to debate it, speed-walking out of Vought and onto the Manhattan sidewalk. A buzzing fills your ears, like flies droning in a bottle. You heave, clenching your fists so hard the nails dig into your palms. You have this horrible feeling you’re still being watched.

By the time you make it to your apartment it’s nighttime and you’re exhausted. You’ve ignored every call from your parents and friends, especially the unknown ID that you know is Vought. You try not the cry in the shower, gripping the edge of the bath and willing yourself to breathe evenly. Nothing happened yet, so why are you so upset?

The days don’t get any easier. You have this constant feeling that you’re watched, as if you’re under a microscope. You’re surprised Vought hasn’t kicked down your door yet. You still ignore their calls, trying to return to normalcy.

But you’re a fool to think you could ever rid yourself of him.

You swear you catch glimpses of him, wispy mirages of him in the corner of your eye. The flash of his cape or a glowing reflection in your window, it makes you like feel like the lining of your stomach is being lifted, pulled up and apart from your skin and peeled away from your body inside of you. It makes for something brutal - violent, punch through and shred at your gut.

You start noticing that all your friends are suddenly pulling away. Leaving you in the wind as they look at you with sad pitiful eyes, jumping away when you get too close. Some of them go missing entirely, you can’t outright accuse Homelander of anything - but you know he’s responsible.

He follows you everywhere like a shadow. A slinking ghost, that’s imbedded so deeply within your soul you can never rid yourself of him. Manifesting into this world, through pure unadulterated rage. Born from the deep bone marrow sorrow that exists within everyone. Gliding through this plane like a dreadful curse, seeping into your skin, hollowing out what little is left of you. Clinging like a leeched bastard, rows of teeth digging into faithful necks, marred from years of trusting.

Maybe the world is cruel. Giving you such a dangerous soulmate.

You rummage around your kitchen, hair still dripping down your nape from your shower and onto your soft PJ’s. People chatter and scuttle about outside, faint car horns and the buzz of tipped streetlights are your only source of comfort. You reach for a mug in your cabinet, you swear you hear a whooshing sound behind you, but when you turn to look nothing is there. You’re too jumpy, too nerve-wrecked and scared over nothing-

“Nice place.”

You let out a scream, the mug in your hands sliding out onto the tiled floor. It shatters around your bare feet and you spin around to see who’s inside your apartment. There stands the number one superhero in all of his glory, the suit a vivid contrast to your beige-colored walls. He’s here, just meandering through your apartment like it’s a walk in the park.

He gives a muted laugh at your reaction, his hands tucked behind his back and covered by the flag. The outline of him in the fluorescent kitchen light makes him look much more demeaning, more intimidating.

Homelander can hear your heartbeat, the heavy pumping against its fleshy walls as you tremble. You can’t walk backwards without stepping on glass, so you wait with a bated breath to see what he has to say. He cocks his head to the side, narrowing his eyes and looking you up and down like you’re just a slab of meat on the deli counter, and to him you probably are. Nothing but a sack of flesh and bones, not even a supe capable enough to keep with him.

“Homelander- sir,” Always so respectful, even to a fault.

“I- what are you doing here.” You wish you could say you weren’t absolutely terrified of him. He’s the world’s greatest hero, your soulmate after all. Aren’t you supposed to feel the most connection with him? The safest?

You don’t. There’s something not right about the way he stares, like he can’t tell if he wants to crush your head between his palms or just crumple onto your couch like he owns the place.

“Dropped your cup there,” He completely ignores your question, stepping closer to you. You can hear the crunch of porcelain under his boots.

“Spooked ya did I?” You gulp, staring at the blue and red super suit, he’s got that signature smirk on his jaw that he projects onto the public. The fake grin he plasters on when he wants to appear friendly and charming.

How did he get into your apartment? Why is he in your apartment?

You gape at him, breath hitching as you stare at him under the glow of your shitty kitchen light. The shimmer of blonde starlight strands, his eyes nearly glowing like crystal.

“How did you-“

He steps forward, breaching your personal space and his hands unfurl from their position behind his back.

“Ya know, I think you and I got off on the wrong arm.” He says it jokingly like he didn’t subtly threaten to snap your wrist in front of the seven simply because you existed. That he didn't call you fucking pathetic when you first met.

He’s too close, almost chest to chest with you. You can smell his cologne, a woody musky scent, masculine through and through. You’re sure it’s some stupidly expensive type that the public can’t even get their hands on. The shattered shards of porcelain lay at your feet, and there’s no debate in your mind - you could never outrun him even if you tried.

“What do you want?”

His smile falters just a smidge, you could only tell if you stared hard enough at his mouth to see the edges twitch downward. He’s getting impatient with your apprehension, your refusal to see him.

"Ashley told me you refused to have a driver take you home and that you’ve been ignoring our calls.” He plasters on the fake grin like it’s nothing, like it’s an accessory. It’s meant to be disarming, but there’s a certain feral gleam to his features that makes you tense in uncertainty.

Fucking Ashley, of course she told him.

You swallow hard, you don’t know how to read him, you don’t know what will work with him yet. He’s untouchable and you’re a weak human.

“Yes, I did.”

“Why’s that?” He hums, hands coming out to glide up your biceps. It makes an unruly shiver spark up your spine. He revels in it, this power trip - it makes him want to flutter his eyes closed and inhale the scent of fear like a fucking dog. You’re not what he was expecting, you’re better.

“I just, just thought that-” You sputter and choke on your words, how are you supposed to tell him you don’t want any of this? That all you’re life you’ve felt like this was all some big joke, a cruel prank from the universe?

Your heart pounds in your chest, so hard it makes it ache and you think you’ll pass out from the tenseness around you.

His gloved palm comes up to cup around your jaw, thumb sweeping across your cheek. It’s meant to be comforting, sweet. But all you can think is how easy it would be for him to snap your neck.

“I can’t have my girl being unsafe, I just won’t allow that.”

You look up at him with wide glassy eyes, he can tell you’re petrified of him and he loves it.

“No more of this ‘I can do it myself’ shit, yeah? You’re gonna let me take care of you.” He says it so softly you’d almost blow past his demeaning comment, the small lifting smile on his face setting it in stone.

You nod, lip quivering as you realize the full scope of your situation. He knows you now, knows where you live, where you work - you’re never going to get away from him. He knows all of your family and friends, god.

You choke on a sob, trying so hard to bury it before he sees. Homelander shushes you, his hand giving you a warning squeeze. There’s barely any strength, any effort, put into it. You know what it means though. He inhales deeply, a sigh escaping his parted mouth and he looks down at you. Blown pupils engulfed in swirling, sparkling azure, so magnificent as it ebbs and flows with his amusement.

“You and I, we’re going to be something special.”

There’s something wrong with your soulmate.

You’d thought that because it was America’s greatest superhero, he’d be all the glorious bullshit you’d seen throughout your life, but he’s not. Homelander, John, whatever he is - isn’t normal. And you don’t mean in the “Wow he’s a supe he’s stronger than me!” kinda way, but he’s wrong, your connection is wrong, it doesn’t feel right.

It’s not like how your parents described it to you, with bursts of passionate color and emotions, blooming with this fire of love you can’t snuff out. No, it feels off, like you’ve been dropped in a pit of vipers waiting to strike, waiting for them to ball around your neck and ankles till you suffocate. An unease runs through you, slithering up your spine when he’s around.

He doesn’t try to appeal to you, he doesn’t try to hide it or cover it up. Why should he? You’re his soulmate.

Of course, he knows what it means. He has his own mark, annoyingly enough. The etched black ink on his wrist made him curl his lip in disgust, why did he need a soulmate? He was the fucking Homelander.

But he can’t help the flurry in his heart at the thought of this binding mark. Soulmates are more than just lovers, they’re your entire being, the people that know you to your core and still love you. Or at least, that was what Vought taught him growing up.

Even if you don’t love him now, you will soon enough. You will because he doesn’t know how to handle it if you don’t.

Homelander looks past the fact you’re not a supe, that can be changed. He’s enamored by you and your menial life, what did you even do before him? He wants to flood your entire existence until all you know is him.

Your life is steadily taken over, flipped, and ripped apart by your soulmate as he invades every inch of your small little being.

You don’t have an apartment anyone, you share one with him in the tower. You don’t eat alone, dress alone, sleep alone. You’re never by yourself anymore, he’s always hovering, even when he’s not around you’re guarded in the tower like a captured princess.

Homelander comes home to you everyday, sometimes he just talks and talks and talks. Making up for years of being apart. He asks you all types of questions, “What was your childhood like?” and “Did you ever fall in love before me?” All the while he mooches off you like some needy cat, you never thought he’d be the physical type, but you guess now it makes sense.

He comes home in a mood, unsurprisingly. Ranting and raving about government officials and his “stupid teammates”, throwing his gloves onto the couch as he slips his way onto your lap.

You’ve done nothing but ponder while he’s been away. Pushing around stupid little decorations in his apartment, arranging and rearranging them till you got sick. You try to make conversation with the others but they keep their distance.

Homelander doesn’t even ask before he’s laying his head on your lap, kicking his legs up and just muttering about his day. You’ve learned to just coddle him, knowing it’s better than him taking his stress out on you in other ways.

So you do what he craves, slipping your fingers through his hair and scratching lightly at his scalp, humming at his words and pretending you’re sympathetic to his worries.

“I’m sorry, you don’t deserve any of it.” You mumble, so numb to the feeling in your chest you think you almost believe it.

He sighs contently, “I know, it’s just- so hard. Everyone puts this weight on my shoulders and I can’t handle it.”

You frown, smoothing your palms over his cheek. There’s a bittersweetness on your tongue, words you know you shouldn’t say.

John preens under your hands, leaning into your hesitant touch with so much depraved neediness you nearly feel bad. You’ve never seen him look so… submissive. He's fragile-looking, with pursed lips and downcast eyes that refuse to look up at you. He rests there, head in your lap like a little boy. You card your fingers through the blonde strands, they’re soft for the most part but you can still feel the hair gel that coats them.

You’ve seen his cynical mind, the possessive soul he bears, you know his cruelty knows no bounds. But at this moment, he is simply a broken man who craves your affection so desperately it’s almost pathetic.

You’ve come to realize that he can’t take care of himself.

He’s vulnerable in a way. Homelander has no capacity to help himself, he’s been taken care of his entire life. By PR, damage control, the doctors in the lab, hell even Madelyn Stilwell. They’ve all written out what he should be and say, they’ve manufactured him since the day he was born. You guess you can't fault him for not knowing how the world really works.

You’re bound to John in a way no one else on earth is, chained to his heart and mind whether you want to be or not.

#val.writes ❦#the boys.✮#homelander x reader #the boys x reader #homelander x you #the boys x you #the boys #homelander #tw. yandere

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mysterycitrus · 3 months

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i know you've been talking about jason lately so i'll ask about smth different... robin jason (sorry)

idk idk lately i've been wanting to take a peek at his robin comics for the sake of writing fic (ofc...) but i'd like to hear what u think before that, a summary of sorts if u may (i also wanna contrast what u say with what i get out of it so yeah)

i feel like his robin days are so muddled by his identity as red hood later on, and even before that it was his death. u had people constantly blaming jason for dying in text (or else they'd have to admit bruce can make mistakes and everyone in dc is allergic to doing that) and painting him like someone reckless and violent (classist editorial u need to DIE), and then people in fanon painting him like a sweet fella who would do nothing wrong and as well as being bruce's Only Actual Son etc etc for the sake of making the situation around him all the more sadder (yeah yeah pathetic meow meow we've all seen it)

and i'm just curious bc i rlly wonder what the actual comics say about him, most likely something in the middle of this? exams are killing me but my god i'll come back to life after im done just to read jason robin's days... have a good day !!!

the difficulty with reading about jason as robin is that there are three primary periods that all differ fairly dramatically from each other — pre-crisis jason todd is a strawberry blond acrobat who’s almost adopted by dick grayson before becoming robin; post-crisis jason todd is a kid from crime alley who steals the wheels off the batmobile before becoming robin; and post-crisis, post-utrh jason todd is a very angry, very violent kid who becomes a cautionary tale after he gets himself killed (something he is often blamed for).

we can walk the line here. pre-crisis jason isn’t particularly relevant because so much of robin!jason’s stories depend on his reinvention after the reboot. all the crucial factors leading up to death in the family — growing up in the alley, both his mothers, his relationship with the robin mantle, his developing relationship with dick grayson, his slow schism from bruce, his relative isolation from other superheroes — are all crucial to who he is, especially after his death.

fanon about jason is annoying because there are valid criticisms that can be made about how he’s written with regressive, classist stereotypes, but as always it pivots way too far in one direction. jason wasn’t the “happy” or “angry” robin in the same way that dick wasn’t the happy or angry robin — they’re both characters that possess more than a single emotion. it’s true that jason was later written to be more explicitly violent (to contrast him with dick) but also like… they’re both pretty similar characters that differ in interesting ways. dick created robin to be a symbol of hope and joy. jason carried that on when he took up the mantle. they can both be angry at stuff without the world falling apart. it’s not that serious.

the dialogue about dick being a child soldier but jason being the true son makes me want to tear my hair out. jason became robin because bruce missed dick and was afraid of being alone. they’re both his gd kids. acting as though bruce wayne doesn’t love dick grayson so much that extra-dimensional beings can clock it is so fucking stupid. it once again ties into fanon’s obsession with each character only getting to be “one” thing. tim is smart, which means he’s the smartest. jason said robin made him magic, which means he’s happy all the time. dick chased after zucco in a grief spiral, which means he’s the violently angry one, with no other character traits. dick can’t have been nice to jason because he’s nice to tim, etc. seems a little silly, no?

i think i’ve only read jason’s brief run as robin once, though ive gone through a death in the family + a lonely place of dying a bunch of times, so ig my advice for reading him is to keep in mind the context in which he was created. dc comics was reeling from losing dick grayson as robin, and were really throwing anything at the wall to get something to stick. many, many negative tropes are baked into his introduction, and thanks to writers like jeph loeb and scott lobdell they have compounded over time. jason’s updated backstory is, with actual critical intent by the writer, a really good examination of how poverty and class will affect how someone views the world. his death was not his fault — and removing sheila haywood from that warehouse purposely makes his story less tragic. he was a good kid! and he was angry for a good reason. if jason had lived, i believe he would’ve carried on the robin tradition and left bruce behind once their differences became insurmountable.

#jason as robin: baby. jason as red hood: really really annoying #jason todd #red hood #batman #bruce wayne #dc comics #the ask and the answer

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thekillingvote · 7 months

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No Birds Allowed: Batman without Robin

The usual claim is that Jason Todd was singularly hated by audiences. Dick Grayson, Carrie Kelley, and Tim Drake are proper, beloved Robins—and Jason Todd is the one and only outlier so unlikable that audiences killed him off by popular vote.

But this claim ignores a massive piece of the puzzle—the Robin role has long been treated as an outdated remnant of a childish era, not only by a significant share of Batman fans, but also by Batman creative teams. While there were definitely fans who hated Jason Todd, he was at least partly chosen to be killed as a scapegoat for some long-standing complaints about the Robin role in Batman stories.

The 1988 poll to kill Jason Todd wasn't just a poll to kill Jason Todd—the poll to kill Robin was a poll to kill Robin.

Fan letters columns from Batman #221 and Detective Comics #398, reacting to Dick leaving for Hudson University in Batman #217 (1969):

Denny O'Neil Batman/Detective Comics writer (1970-1980) Batman group editor (1986-2000) on sending Robin away to Hudson University:

Dan Greenfield: Actually, last night I went back through my comics and the one thing that always strikes me is that before you came onto the character, they’d already made the decision to have Robin leave. Robin was up at Hudson University and was used sparingly from that point forward. Denny O’Neil: Well, that was a conscious decision of mine. Greenfield: Oh! O’Neil: Yeah, I mean … I had been offered Batman a year before I did it. Greenfield: No kidding? I wanna hear this. O’Neil: Because that was in the (Batman TV show) camp thing. The comics were very half-heartedly following in the footsteps of the camp because it was having a palpable effect on circulation. That’s not always true but it was in that case. Camp as in the sense — as opposed to the more erudite sense — this one-line joke about: “I loved this stuff when I was 6 and now that I’m 28 and I have a bi-weekly appointment with a therapist and a little, mild drug habit and two divorces, ‘Look how silly it is.'” I would go into the most literary bar in Greenwich Village on (Wednesday) or Thursday evenings and there would be writers and poets and college professors, all looking at Batman! But when that was over, it was over. It was like somebody turned a switch. And that’s when (editor) Julie (Schwartz) said, in his avuncular way, did I have any ideas for Batman? And at that point, I wasn’t going to be asked to do camp. I was going to be asked to do anything within the bounds of good taste, etc., that I wanted to.

O'Neil, quoted from “Notes from the Batcave: An Interview with Dennis O’Neil” in The Many Lives of The Batman: Critical Approaches to a Superhero and His Media:

There was a time right before I took over as Batman editor when he seemed to be much closer to a family man, much closer to a nice guy. He seemed to have a love life and he seemed to be very paternal towards Robin. My version is a lot nastier than that. He has a lot more edge to him.

O'Neil in 2015:

Modern Batman does not do camp. He has to evolve but to stay true to the concept he has to stay lonely. The kids, there shouldn't be many. Keep him the lone, obsessed crusader and the stories will be better. We did a story called Son of the Demon. It told a story where he had a kid, a baby. It wasn't in continuity. These days, the kid came back and became the new Robin, and I hear that Batman's got a few more running around.

Jim Starlin, Batman writer (1987-1988), writer of A Death in the Family:

I tried to avoid using [Robin] as much as I could. In most of my early Batman stories, he doesn’t appear. Eventually Denny asked me to do a specific Robin story, which I did, and I guess it went over fairly well from what I understand. But I wasn’t crazy about Robin.

I thought that going out and fighting crime in a grey and black outfit while you send out a kid in primary colors was kind of like child abuse. So when I started working on Batman, I was always leaving Robin out of the stories, and Denny O’Neil who is the editor finally said, "You gotta put [Robin] in."

youtube

In the one Batman issue I wrote with Robin featured, I had him do something underhanded, as I recall. Denny had told me that the character was very unpopular with fans, so I decided to play on that dislike. [...] At that time, DC had this idea that they were gonna do an AIDS education book, and so they put a box out and wanted everybody to put in suggestions of who should contract AIDS and perish in the comics. I stuffed it with Robin. They realized it was all my handwriting so they ended up throwing all my things out. About six months later, Denny came up with this idea of the call-in thing. [...] I didn’t find out about it until I came back [from Mexico] and found out that, just as I expected, my ghoulish little fans voted him dead. But by a much smaller margin than I’d imagined. It was only like 72 votes out of 10,000, so statistically it was next to nothing.

Dan Raspler, assistant editor/associate editor to Denny O’Neil (1988-1990):

Denny wasn’t really interested in comics continuity, and he didn’t like superheroes. And if you read his work, you see his influence was really a pushing away from the conventions at the time—it was growing old, that sort of Golden Age-y, Silver Age-y stuff, and Denny sort of modernized it, and he never stopped feeling that way. Jim Starlin’s Batman appealed to Denny. It was a little more ‘down to Earth. Nobody liked Robin at the time. For a while Robin was not—it didn’t make sense in comics. Comics were darkening, and so having the kid was just, it was silly, and even at the time I kind of didn’t. Now Robin is my favorite all-time character, but at the time when I was twenty-whatever, I accepted kicking Robin out, the short pants and all the rest of it.

Comic shop owner Phil Beracha on A Death in the Family, quoted in The Sun Sentinel (October 22, 1988):

"I got 100 copies, and I don't expect them to last past the weekend," said Phil Beracha, owner of Phil's Comic Shoppe in Margate. "I usually get 50 copies of Batman. I doubled my order, and I still expect to sell out." The readers voted right, Beracha said. "Robin is an outdated concept. He was created in the `40s, and back then in a comic book you could have a kid beating up grown men. I don't think that works today."

Writer Steve Englehart, quoted in "Batman, the Gamble; Warner Bros. is betting big money that a 50-year-old comic book vigilante will be a `hero for our times'" in the Los Angeles Times (June 18, 1989):

Writer Steven Englehart, who did a series of Batman stories in Detective Comics, also worked up some movie treatments. In a letter to Comics Buyer's Guide, he revealed the approach he had in mind, which would have pleased Batfanatics: "My first treatment had Robin getting blown away in the first 90 seconds, so that every reviewer in the country would begin his review with, `This sure isn't the TV show.' "

Michael Uslan, producer and film rights holder for the 1989 Batman film:

I only let Tim [Burton] see the original year of the Bob Kane/Bill Finger run, up until the time that Robin was introduced. I showed him the Steve Englehart/Marshall Rogers and the Neal Adams/Denny O'Neil stories. My biggest fear was that somehow Tim would get hold of the campiest Batman comics and then where would we be?

"Death Knell for the Campy Crusader" in the Orlando Sentinel (23 June 1989):

For most people, the name Batman summons up a picture of a clown in long johns, a Campy Crusader who - with the young punster Robin - ZAPed and POWed his way into our lives. That's the Batman that appeared on TV in the mid-'60s, and that's the Batman that the world at large knows. Such is the power of television. But this ludicrous image may become obsolete now that the new, $40 million Batman movie has opened. Robin is absent from the film, as are the perky Batgirl and the utterly superfluous Aunt Harriet of the TV series. And though the movie has plenty of sound effects, they don't appear on the screen as words, spelled out in neo-Brechtian absurdity.

Sam Hamm, writer for Batman (1989 live-action film):

The Case of the Disappearing Robin is high comedy. Tim (Burton) and I had worked out a plotline that did not include the Boy Wonder, whom we both regarded as an unnecessary intrusion. Really: Our hero was crazy to begin with. Did he have to prove it by enlisting a pimply adolescent to help him fight crime? Was Bat-Baby unavailable? But the studio was insistent: There was no such thing as solo Batman, there was only Batman and Robin. So, after holding off the executives for as long as we could, Tim and I realized we had better try to accommodate them. He flew up to my house in San Francisco and we walked around in circles for two days, finally deciding that there was no way to shoehorn Robin into our story. [...] We figured that if we managed to squeeze him in, the lame hacks who were making the sequel could worry about what to do with him next. When the film went into production in London, and ran seriously over budget, WB started looking for a sequence that could be cut to save money. And there was one obvious candidate: Intro Robin! So Robin was cut from the movie and shoved back to Batman Returns— from which he was cut yet again and shoved back to Batman Forever.

Grant Morrison on creating Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth (written 1987-1988, published 1989) with Dave McKean (see the annotated script's fourth page):

The original first draft of the script included Robin. Robin appeared in a few scenes at the beginning then remained at Police Headquarters for the bulk of the book, where he spent his time studying plans and histories of the house, in order to find a way in to help his mentor. Dave McKean, however, felt that he had already compromised his artistic integrity sufficiently by drawing Batman and refused point blank over for the Boy Wonder — so after one brave but ridiculous attempt to put him in a trench coat, I wisely removed him from the script.

Paul Dini on Batman: The Animated Series (1992), as told in the 1998 book Batman Animated:

The Fox Network, on the assumption that kids won't watch a kid’s show unless kids are in it, soon began insisting that Robin be prominently featured in every episode. When Fox changed the title from Batman: The Animated Series to The Adventures of Batman & Robin, they laid down the law-no story premise was to be considered unless it was either a Robin story or one in which the Boy Wonder played a key role. Out were underworld character studies like “It's Never Too Late"; in were traditional Batman and Robin escapades like “The Lion and the Unicorn.” A potentially intriguing Catwoman/Black Canary team-up was interrupted in midpitch to the network by their demand, “Where's Robin?” When the writers asked if they could omit Robin from just this one episode, Fox obliged by omitting the entire story. Looking back, there was nothing drastically wrong with Robin's full-time insertion into the series—after all, kids do love him. Our major gripe at the time was that it started turning the series into the predictable Batman and Robin show people had initially expected it would be. For the first season, Batman had been an experiment we weren't sure would work. We were trying out different ways of telling all kinds of stories with Batman as our only constant. For better or worse, having a kid forced him, and the series, to settle down.

Christian Bale, star of Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight trilogy (2008):

If Robin crops up in one of the new Batman films, I'll be chaining myself up somewhere and refusing to go to work.

Summed up

Among the keepers of Batman, there has been a vocal contingent arguing against the inclusion of Robin. They argue that Robin damages Batman's brooding, solitary persona. They argue that the concept of Robin is too ridiculous and fantastic for the grounded, gritty ideal of Batman. They argue that a respectable version of Batman shouldn't allow, encourage, or train "child soldiers" to endanger their lives fighting against violent evil-doers.

The original and most iconic Robin, Dick Grayson, has definitely benefited from his deep roots in DC lore and his consistent popularity among fans—and yet even he has been shunned from various Batman projects over the decades. When even he struggles to get his foot in the door, his successors face stiffer opposition.

So it's not quite correct to say that Jim Starlin hated Jason Todd. In his own words, Starlin wasn't fond of Robin, and his storytelling (most obviously A Death in the Family) set out to argue against Batman having any kind of "partner" at all. This, following the wildly successful comic that treated Barbara Gordon as a disposable prop. A growing audience welcomed the Dark Age, and the gruesome spectacles made of kid-friendly elements like Batgirl and Robin.

This trend could be broken by the upcoming sequel to The Batman and by the planned slate of upcoming DCU films. But most Robin fans will tell you that many movie-going Batman fans still have their doubts about Robin sharing Batman's spotlight.

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fantastic-nonsense · 30 days

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Hi! I've never done this before but I'm new to comics (started with WFA and Zatanna and the Ripper) and I've basically got most of my information from posts on tumblr and r/hobbydrama (including yours.) I think I have a general idea of what Jason Todd is like, but I believe a lot of people are unhappy with his new characterisation.

So, if you were the one in charge, how would you write him? Would you write him with a team or as a solo character? Would you have him use the All-Blades or a crowbar or his guns? Would you have him properly rejoin the batfam or not?

Thanks!

Hi! Welcome to the fandom! I hope you're enjoying your time here.

In general, I think DC (and the fandom) has spent too much time milking Jason's death for trauma porn. They have refused to allow him to find closure, move past that, and exist beyond his daddy issues drama with Bruce. When DC has allowed him to have stories outside of that, they were often written with little consideration for what should be done with Jason beyond making him "badass."

None of this has been conducive to creating any kind of satisfying and coherent narrative or character arc for Jason, especially when both writers and editorial seem more obsessed with stealing traits, relationships, and stories from other people to give to him (most prominently Dick, Selina, and Helena). My hottake is that DC should move beyond "Red Hood" as an identity for Jason entirely, because it drags his character down and keeps him inherently tied to the same problems that have kept his character stagnant for years.

However! I don't think he's unsalvagable. I simply think DC needs to put a decent writer on him and commit to a character direction for more than 2 years at a time. I'm unsure of what Shawn Martinbrough is currently doing with Jason in his The Hill arc, as I'm not reading it, but I've heard that there might be some forward momentum finally happening there?

Anyway, my personal conception of Jason's future (as lovingly brainstormed by me and my friends in our comics discord server) is effectively this: he becomes a street-level paranormal detective who solves cold murder cases by talking with the victims' ghosts and providing closure to restless spirits. Think Lockwood and Co. meets Pushing Daisies with a superhero twist; basically, a supernatural detective noir book.

There's a lot of concepts and lore drops tied into this idea, but basically it was born out of a discussion where I was talking about Jason's many connections with the supernatural and occult across all continuities and how it's kind of a mystery why DC hasn't just formally connected him to the mystical side of the DCU. So I was like "they should just reveal that Superboy-Prime’s reality punch resurrection left him LITERALLY undead, make the event where he finds this out also spark his ability to see and communicate with ghosts, and make him an occult detective. Let him close cold case murder files and put those spectres to rest."

Which is also a great premise for a Bat book and a great unfilled niche for a Batfamily member. Kate's supernatural stories are much more high concept and connected to her family drama. Damian's supernatural/occult connections are traditionally very heavily tied to his family history and the Lazarus Pits. Dick's semi-regular magic encounters are usually stuff he deals with alongside his teammates in the course of working with the Titans. None of the other Bats have enough regular encounters with the supernatural and magic side of the DCU for it to encroach on their shtick, and a Gotham-based supernatural book is well within DC's ability to publish and market given books like Gotham by Midnight.

In terms of how that direction affects all the other questions you asked...I think Jason's relationship with the rest of the Batfam should be complicated. I personally don't think "good/bad relationship with the Batfam" is a particularly useful way to look at it because I think there are people he should never see eye to eye with, people he realistically shouldn't and doesn't have a problem with, and people he should get along with just fine. I don't think everyone needs to or should be friends or enemies with him, but his morals and past actions will (and should!) complicate those relationships in interesting ways.

And re: what weapons I'd like to see him use...using the All-Blades would certainly factor into my proposed narrative direction, as that would lean into the supernatural connections, but I generally prefer the concept of Jason using knives as his preferred weapon over guns/a crowbar/etc. That way he can still be a marksman without using guns, and I think that fits more with his character trajectory as someone attempting to be less lethal but also has no problem roughing people up when he thinks they need to be.

#jason todd #jason todd meta #thank you!#also I'm so sorry for the delayed response. my mental capacity to respond to people has been pretty low recently 😭#long post #ask #dc comics #batman #batfam

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hana-no-seiiki · 1 year

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Are you familiar with Ms Marvel (Kamala Khan)? What about Yandere Platonic Batfamily with a reader who is basically like Kamala (Comics ver).

Just imagine how hilarious to find that their Fangirl knows their identities and made a few fanfics about them. Like for example-

Red Hood vs The Monster truck possessed demon!

Batman and Robin vs Evil Sewer lizard's from another world!

Nightwing and the Smog-Breather!

Y'know just Fanfic writer who's also a superhero.

Also I love your content. Make sure to take breaks!

YANDERE BATFAM W/ MS MARVEL! READER

“Just to make sure. . . You’re totally Damian Wayne right?”

“What-“

“Cool! That means Batman has to be Bruce. And the robins…”

You may or may not have been knocked out during your first encounter with one of your favorite heroes. By Robin himself.

Look, Damian doesn’t usually knock out innocent civilians like they murdered his cat or anything but you were a liability and a half.

Yeah, maybe revealing that you knew everyone’s identities wasn’t a good idea.

Besides Damian was kind of iffy about you since you were feeling up his body when he swooped in to save you.

(Turns out you were just confirming your theories but still)

Now the surveillance started mostly due to your uncanny encyclopedic knowledge of the Batfam and basically every other hero and villain out there.

Once they figured out you were basically harmless and just needed to get a better filter when it comes to things you say, you were mostly home free.

The thing is, the Batsons might have formed an obsession with you. Since you’re asking a yandere blog here, it was definitely not healthy.

They liked the idea of someone knowing them in and out. You’ve had competitions with Tim to figure out who knew the other better while Bruce and Damian just deadpanned in the background.

Dick loved entertaining your ships and headcannon questions. Bruce was more reluctant but found it to be a great way to incentivize you to behave and work with him better.

Jason just adores you. You’re the only younger sibling that isn’t stuck up or reminds him of his low self esteem and struggle to be a good vigilante. He was definitely weirded out at first but grew to be like Dick and definitely fuels your fan habits. Both guys definitely not so subtly strip in front of you sometimes so you can get more “reference” material.

Which brings me to the next point, who you choose to write or draw on your blog definitely gets discussed. Your blog’s every post is actively monitored at all moments. I wouldn’t be surprised if Bruce installed a large monitor in the Batcave just to watch over it.

Him and Tim definitely analyze your stats and help you with growing your blog. Watch Bruce spend thousands of dollars to get your page everywhere (subtly cause the first time he did it, you were so embarrassed you refused to talk to him for a week). Alfred works as your personal assistant when it comes to timing/scheduling your posts and making sure you tag them properly + have the most aesthetic formats.

Anyways, back to the discussing your posts thing, you learnt to make sure your posts, heck even your drafts, are all equal when it comes to who it features. Otherwise prepare to get overwhelmed with love bombing.

It took Damian the longest to warm up to you, but when he realizes how much you mean to him there’s no turning back. It starts from him unconsciously humoring your questions to full blown out debates over how he’d definitely win in whatever battle you pit him in your fanfics.

Speaking of fanfics, Damian loves to blackmail you about them. He’s the type of brother to love tormenting you about your totally ‘weird hobbies’ while simultaneously reading every piece of literature/art piece in your blog as if you’re bringing out the modern bible and he’s a staunch believer in the God that is you.

He then proceeds to critique your art and written works if not outright bash them.

You’d have been in tears from the essays he writes about you if you didn’t already know it was him.

(Tim told you.)

Now when your powers awakened, you went from that one sibling that knew way too much to almost an essential part of their team.

Almost because every time you were allowed to go out, someone had to be on “mouth guard duty” for when you accidentally spill what you know.

(It’s usually Tim or Bruce)

You worked a lot with Bruce during those times. Who definitely flexes the hours you two spend in comparison to the batsons.

He doesn’t mind it if you get distracted by the boys, though.

Really, he’s glad you haven’t asked how your family has been doing or when you’re going home.

‘Cause he’d have a lot of explaining to do.

General Batfam Taglist: @the-sander-fander

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yanderes-galore · 1 year

Note

A romantic concept of Peter Parker if you can please????

Oh wow I never actually did the MCU version of Peter so let me see what I have for this fic. Aged up as usual. This takes place in no specific movie.

If you like this you may like the two concepts I did for Comic! Peter;

Comic! Peter General Concept

Comic! Peter with Civilian! Darling

Yandere! Peter Parker Concept

Main MCU Version

Pairing: Romantic

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Obsession, Stalking, Manipulation, Overprotective behavior, Jealousy, Paranoia, Invasion of privacy, Secret picture taking, Kidnapping mention, Murder mentioned, Dubious relationship.

Peter is such a relatable character and yandere.

He knows how to get along with his darling even with how awkward he is.

Peter's also very innocent and awkward at times, despite this he feels comfortable around you.

Peter's yandere behavior is Overprotective, Obsessive, Manipulative, Emotional, Caring and Moral.

He's a hero that would never kill/have a hard time killing for his darling.

Peter holds a ton of responsibility and it feeds into his obsession.

He wants to keep you safe but fatally wounding others to achieve it would have to be a last ditch effort.

Other Marvel heroes aren't quite the same as they have more experience and know sometimes... there is no choice.

Peter is pretty classic with crushes.

During high school he's been so occupied with being Spider-man he still hasn't gotten any better at talking to crushes.

He struggles so hard to be friends with you but is relieved when he eventually manages it with stuttered conversations and personal pep talks.

Peter gets really awkward and shy towards his darling despite his friendly demeanor.

To put it simple... Peter is a nerd at heart.

He loves to talk to his darling about superheroes and sci-fi....

He adores you even more if you like the same things as him.

Peter seems like your normal every day student just trying to get his final studying in. (finals for high school or college)

You two have average talks and are just good friends.

It takes awhile before you uncover the iceberg that is Peter Parker and his obsession with you.

Peter is the type to be completely lost in his crush when he starts his obsession.

He daydreams and watches you in all the classes you have together when you still go to school.

Peter's ashamed to admit it due to his inner morals as a hero but... he does stalk you.

He can climb walls and perch on trees/balconies.

The temptation to use his power to fuel his new addiction is a bit too strong for him.

He promises to look away if you're changing or anything!

He just likes to know you're safe... and maybe take a few pictures.

Peter is overprotective both as a civilian and Spider-man.

When he's just Peter it's usually due to a feeling of paranoia or jealousy.

He's very awkward with it at times but you can tell Peter is tense when others are a bit too friendly with you.

It's not entirely possessive behavior as it stems from a fear of you getting hurt instead of it being entirely from jealousy.

If Peter tried to threaten anyone it doesn't come off as threatening unless he's really mad.

He saves violence for the villains, however.

When asked about his behavior Peter just says he's worried about you.

If anything this just makes you think he's an anxious person and isn't the biggest red flag.

Peter shows overprotective behavior as Spider-man too.

That's the reason for most of the stalking.

As Spider-Man he feels he needs to keep you safe and often tries to keep villains away from your home.

If they ever did find you then he's swooping in and protecting you with his life.

Peter has dealt with a lot of traumatic experiences as a hero and it bleeds into his obsession with you.

It makes him more hesitant about the people around you after what he's seen.

Peter is overly obsessive of you to the point it's invasive.

He listens in on coversations about you and writes down whatever info he can about you.

Whenever you're mentioned in conversation it causes Peter to perk up and start listening.

He fantasizes about his crush on the daily...

So much to the point he gets distracted.

Peter can be manipulative.

Even more so if you know he's Spider-Man.

After all you may listen to everything he says due to him being a hero.

Peter tries to be subtle with manipulation.

Small things like influencing your opinion of people or a decision you plan on making.

He dislikes the idea of you developing crushes that aren't about him and tries to make you hate the person.

He feels a bit guilty but tells himself it'll be worth it....

There's also the big lie he tells himself and you; "What he does is for your own good."

That's not always true.

Especially if he's starting to get his obsession out of control and suggests moving in with you or tries kidnapping.

Peter can be emotional about his darling.

If you're hurt he panics... he's always worried about your safety...

He also takes arguments to heart.

If you had a fight and you called him something like a monster?

Peter thinks about it for a long time... it eats away at him.

Peter also tends to blame himself a lot.

If you're unhappy he blames himself.

If you got hurt he blames himself.

Peter also gets overly excited about you.

Being one of the younger Avengers he hasn't quite gained a stoic facade yet, even with what he's been through.

Which means Peter shows emotion of all kinds a lot during his obsession.

Peter is moral and caring.

Even if he has the typical yandere issues he knows to not kill.

If he ever did then it's if he has no other choice.

He also cares a ton for your own feelings and emotions.

Peter wants to make you smile as your hero.

He doesn't want you to fear him.

He wants you to love him!

Peter will be a yandere that can hide his tendencies.

He's still clumsy and may mess up at times but overall can hide it.

Peter, even with the yandere tendencies, can be a good boyfriend.

He does not like bringing any sort of harm towards you, like restraining you with webs.

But will if he has too.

Overall, Peter isn't too bad of a yandere and has innocent intentions towards his darling...

Even if the paranoia gets to his head and makes him way more worried about you than he should be.

#yandere spiderman #yandere peter parker #yandere marvel #yandere mcu

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itshype · 1 year

Text

My DC x DP Masterpost

Here is my masterpost of works that fall into the category of a crossover of DC comics and Danny Phantom. Mostly, these will be notfics. If any of the links are broken please message me ASAP. Edit: I will not be doing taglists because people are quite frankly abusing the idea.

What's a notfic?

So, this was really common in fandom like 10 years ago but it's less common now so I'm just including this quick explanation in case. Notfic/Not!Fic is the halfway point between an actual fic and a prompt. It mostly sort of has the tone of describing another fic to somebody, or working out an ongoing plot with a friend (e.g. Instead of writing out an entire set of dialogue, a notfic might just put "Jason and Tim discuss why they both want to fake their deaths").

Permissions Housekeeping

I totally don't mind if anyone wants to take all or part of what I've written for any prompt and write an actual fic or create another transformative work as long as I'm appropriately credited. If you're just taking the most oblique inspiration from something I've made I'd appreciate at least a tag so I can read it!

Also if you'd like to tag me in any of your works please do, provided that it's the first if it's in a series and not Jazz/Jason as the main pairing, please.

Works

Kingmaker, Kingbreaker, Crowntaker, Realmshaker

Danny isn't the Ghost King but after defeating Pariah Dark the new king knows Danny has massive political influence.

Navigate any storm, with nothing but the stars to guide you

Danny is obsessed with space so the whole 'superhero' thing is on the backburner.

Please don’t pet me! I am working!

Repeat after me, SERVICE ANIMAL CUJO. (Minor Connor Kent/Danny Fenton)

It's a boy, congratulations... to me!

Danny insists Connor is his clone even though he's really not.

Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss, Godhood

Danny gets caught and tells the JLA that neither he nor Vlad are ghosts.

New type of Vlad just dropped

When a ghost's obsession is destroyed, they get a new one.

Mother of the Year

Talia Al Ghul gets to be a good mother. As a treat.

Amorpho Whomst?

Danny, Dani and Dan trade off on responsibilities.

Halfa? Half a What?

Danny's half human, no one's sure what the other half is.

The second, secret Justice League

There's another Justice League that not even the Justice League is cleared to know about.

Excuse me, do you work here? Danny is sent to represent the first, non-secret Justice League.

Triple Threat

The Champion of All Magic and The King of All Ghosts have a mutual triplet.

Like peas in a pod [person]

Jason is healed of the pit rage but has a whole new problem.

There's a Mr Wight Hood to see you?

Jason adopts Danny instead of being the Red Hood.

The Wight Baby For The Job Sequel to Mr Wight Hood

You Make Miso Scared

Danny's always talking about soup time.

Reverse Bruce

Give baby Jason MORE PARENTS!

Work Experience

Danny has to learn about Ghost culture before he can rule it.

Mansplain Yourself

Constantine probably knows best about ghosts over the Justice League's newest member...

The Opposite of a Golden Ticket

International star Ember McLain is in danger

Haustoria Horror

Undergrowth's got Poison Ivy

Like and Survive!

Danny runs an advice website for young heroes

You're not the Boss of me!

Batman accidentally outs his family to Danny

This is a PSA

Danny's Wail affects the JLA

Floral Fiasco

Poison Ivy errs

How I Met Your Brother

Dan joins the JLA

The Manhunter's Manhunt

There's a miscommunication with the Martian Manhunter

The Green Knight

Jason lives (just this once)

___

The Job

Danny's gotta put food on the table (Also available in DP only version)

Series: The Surprise Obsessions of the Ghostly Batclan (image heavy)

Ghost Bruce HC

Ghost Jason HC

Mini prompts

Danny Phantom vs The IRS ; part 2

Phantom's mistaken identity

Billy and Danny are secret twins

Danny scars the batfam

Superheroes need more therapy

All-caste Jason

Poison Control

#masterpost #dc x dp #dp x dc #danny phantom #danny fenton #justice league #mine #batman #tucker foley #the JLA #teen titans #titans #vlad masters #vlad plasmius #sam manson #valerie gray #jazz fenton

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8aji · 1 year

Text

you're the sunflower, i think your love would be too much. // m.c.

a collection of spiderman!chifuyu hcs + drabble of you finding out about spiderman's real identity

pairing. spiderman!chifuyu matsuno x reader

wc. 3.7k (hcs - 1.8k, drabble - 1.9k)

tags/cw. spiderman au, fluff, very very minor angst, mentions of injuries, implied violence, mentions of doubt and insecurities, mix of past + present tense for story telling purposes (hcs), a little ooc, not beta-ed (?) + please let me know if i missed anything !

a/n. second time writing bullet hcs !! it was definitely an experience and im definitely up for creating more short-format content im the future. this story was inspired mainly by @/_slvx0 spiderman!chifuyu fanart and my recent tasm obsession. PSA. chifuyu’s character was adapted to fit my vision of spiderman instead of fitting spiderman to who he is. this means his character might be ooc. bear mind that this is my first time writing for chifuyu and so im not a 100% with his characterization — i apologise for any ooc-ness in that regard.

m.list ˖ tags ˖ byi/dni

Got so insanely giddy when he found out about his powers. He was so close to making a group chat with all of his friends to break the news to them. Thankfully he managed to stop himself from sending the message because he had already created the group and come up with the lamest excuse to cover his tracks

Comics and Shonen manga become his personal bible. Every superhero-related thing he did was likely inspired by one of those. That included the way he patrols the city at night and the ways in which he hides his identity. Too bad none of them show how to balance superhero-life along with his college one, a step-by-step guide would be of great help

One time, when swinging through the city, he forgot to shoot his web at another building and just found himself freefalling for a bit — he almost gave himself a heart attack that day

Found out about a video of him going viral while he was eating a sandwich on top of the Tokyo tower. He was so taken aback he almost lost his balance; in his defence, it was a really cool video of him. And deep down, reading the comments underneath the video gave him a sense of relief. He had always wondered if his job as a night vigilante was worth it, often doubting whether he had any sort of positive impact on people, but the support he was flooded with was enough reassurance for him to keep going

For a while, he favours Spiderman over Chifuyu — he wasn’t particularly insecure per se, but he found out that he felt the most comfortable and confident when he was wearing the mask, he felt a lot more freedom whenever he did.

Kazutora was the first to find out about Chifuyu being a superhero. It was 3 in the morning and he was sitting on their living room couch doing some homework when Chifuyu came through the window, almost crashing against the coffee table and knocking over a flower vase. The two of them stood frozen in place, tension rising by the second. Kazutora was getting ready to call out for Baji because a random masked man wearing a leotard had just broken into their living room, never mind the fact that it was a relatively famous and beloved superhero. But before he could, Chifuyu took his mask off in a panic AND BAM Kazutora was flabbergasted, speechless, unable to comprehend the fact that one of his best friends was risking his life protecting the city — ‘Tora then proceeded to beg Chifuyu to let him be the man on the chair.

Being a vet student isn’t of much help when it comes to making superhero equipment, so he follows multiple youtube tutorials whenever he wants to make improvements to his suit — the first time he tried to follow one he fucked up so bad he was tempted to spill his secret to Mitsuya just so his friend could help him out with the suit design.

One of his favourite pastimes is finding the tallest buildings and reading manga or comics while sitting at the top. He will sometimes listen to music as well. Makes a playlist titled ‘Rooftop reading’ or something corny like that

His favourite superpower is his ‘spidey sense’, he would pick the web shooting but it still freaks him a little.

He met you one night after getting home from his patrol when he swung onto the fire escape. As far as he knew, everyone in the building was asleep and the apartment next to his was empty. But of course, he had been wrong and instead had given you the fright of the century by coming out of nowhere and landing right in front of your window. — you ended up recognising him as Spiderman right after he apologised, and intrigued by his presence you asked him a couple of questions along the lines of ‘Why the fuck are you outside my apartment at 4 in the morning’

From then on, he makes sure to be more careful whenever he returns home. Though every now and then he will purposely make his presence known by landing a little too roughly on the iron platform or by knocking on your window just so the two of you could chat for a couple of minutes. Bear in mind that he only does it when the lights are on, which is more often than not; turns out your sleep schedule is just as messed up as his — and with the schoolgirl crush that has his heart

Sometimes he will add a few ‘trapeze-esque’ moves to spice up his swinging routine. Makes him feel more like a superhero — and yes, he also learned those from youtube video tutorials.

His enhanced vision comes in handy whenever he finds himself too busy being Spiderman to study for exams. Tries not to feel bad about it, and has to remind himself that Baji and ‘Tora have both done the same thing to feel better

He becomes a little too chismoso because he can’t help but hear the gossip no matter how much he tries to tune it out and turns into somewhat of a picky eater.

Learning how to keep his superhuman strength in check was the hardest thing in the whole ‘Spider-acclimatization’ process. Before he figured out how to, he had already broken multiple glass jars, splintered the window and broken the hinges off of three doors before — Though the thing that hurt the most about not being able to show his super strength was knowing he could easily win an arm wrestling match against Baji but not doing so to keep his identity hidden.

Still, Baji had a hunch that something was going on with his best friend. With both, the superhero and the man on the chair. He had seen Chifuyu return to the apartment through the fire escape very late at night and managed to catch a glimpse of the red suit underneath an oversized hoodie and sweatpants, and he had heard the incoming ‘disturbance reports’ through the radio in Kazutora’s room. But in spite of his own curiosity, he refused to press his friends for the truth — he ended up officially finding out when he saw Chifuyu coming out of the bathroom fully dressed in his suit.

No doubt he will most definitely use his costume for Halloween, and absolutely adores it when people compliment it because ‘omg it looks literally the same as Spiderman’s!’

Freezed the first time he met you face to face without the suit, unable to apologise when he bumped into you by mistake. He just stared, and his friends were the ones to break the awkward silence when they recognized you as their neighbour.

He was ecstatic to finally be able to talk to you without having to wait for the early hours of the morning. For some reason, he hadn't thought about introducing himself as Chifuyu, but now the four of you hang out pretty often.

He would follow you around like a lost puppy around uni, force himself to do his homework to spend some time with you in the library and bring you coffee every time you met up. Whenever Baji and Kazutora had classes during the afternoon, think 6pm to 9pm lectures, you would get together at one of your apartments and watch movies — though these hung outs ended before 11pm max. he would come up with a very believable excuse and bolt out of the apartment, running down the fire escape to not be seen until next morning.

That didn’t stop you from growing even closer. By then you had alrwady started to develop something a little more than a platonic fondness for the blond and his childlike excitement.

He was adorable, almost reminding you of someone you had met before…including his unusual nighttime behaviour. It always got your mind wandering, but you stopped yourself before it did any further. You could be a bit of an overthinker, and you missed your ‘spider-friend’.

It was true that the closer the two of you grew, the more spaced out his ‘spider-visits’ im not sorry for calling everything he does spider-something became. It got to the point he stopped showing up at your apartment for a month. He was too lovesick and too focused on being Chifuyu to notice that you missed his alter ego’s company

He found out you did one day when he saw you sitting on the fire escape. You had been bottling up your feelings for a while and just needed to let it out. Of course, you didn't tell him you it was Spiderman you were missing — he would probably think you were insane. So instead, you told him you missed a friend and after a little thinking, it clicked for Chifuyu.

At first, he felt a little self-conscious. Was his company not enough? Would he ever live up to what Spiderman had become? But then it clicked, once again, that you had no idea that both Spiderman and Chifuyu were the same person. Plus, you had explained how the person you were talking about had been your first-ever friend when you moved to the city — the melancholy in your voice was enough for him to promise himself he was going to visit you one last time, and maybe if he made up his mind, he would tell you his secret.

But of course, the night he planned to come clean was the night he got into ‘real’ trouble as Spiderman for the first time. Getting ambushed by 7 people at the same time was no joke — Both Kazutora and Baji, the newest member of the ‘man in the chair’ club, had warned him about the dangers of confronting the group of armed men, but he had let his ‘spider-ego’ get in the way of his rational thinking and now every muscle in his body ached as he made his way home.

So in retrospect maybe it hadn't been so bad, his body was just achy achy but other than that and a couple of cuts on his arms and legs he was fine !! And he was still determined to carry out his plan.

But he hadn’t taken into account how exhausted his body truly was. He ended up miscalculating the distance from the neighbouring building to the fire escape.

Thank whatever higher power that your window was wide open because he crashed straight into your apartment, falling right into your coach and knocking over a lamp.

But ! you ! were there ! Glued in place, the movie you were watching still playing in the background and popcorn laying all over the floor

“I love Wall-E!” he exclaimed while dusting himself off and wincing as he raised his arm to point at the tv.

“What the fuck are you doing in my house.”

He winced again when he tried scratching the nape of his neck in embarrassment. He thought you would’ve been a lot happier to see him, maybe jump into his arms and tell him you had missed him so much. Maybe you would even pull his mask up enough for you to kiss him — though thinking about it, the idea didn’t sit well with him. He wanted you to kiss Chifuyu, not Spiderman.

“You’re hurt.” You pointed out once the initial surprise had worn off.

“It's nothing I can't handle, give me a couple of minutes and I’ll be as good as new.” He was proud of himself for the confidence he had exuded with his heroic nonchalance, though he was dying on the inside and most definitely needed to lay down.

“How many minutes?”

“Huh?”

“Until you’re ‘as good as new’, I mean.”

“Um,” he wasn’t prepared for you to question him on his healing factor. It wasn’t exactly something you would ask someone you hadn’t seen in a while — ‘it’s nice to see you again! By the way, how long exactly does it take the cells in your body to regenerate? Just curious, toodles!’. Imagine someone asking you that, wouldn't it be weird? You were weird for asking him that, definitely weirder than the random man who jumped through your window and forced you to spill popcorn all over the ground. “Maybe, uh, 120 minutes for the cuts and then a little over 480 for the rest of my body?”

You looked unimpressed.

“So ten hours in total.”

“I promise it's usually a lot quicker than that, it's just been a rough night.”

When you rolled your eyes at him, he was sure you were gonna kick him out of the apartment — and start locking your windows at night. But instead, you gestured for him to sit down before rummaging through your kitchen cabinet for a white box with a cross on it.

“You a first-aid fan?” he asked when you sat down next to him, cringing at the stupidity of his question.

“All apartments in the building have one.” You brushed off, chuckling, and pulling out some gauze and hydrogen peroxide. He swore he could melt against your touch, the pain of his injuries melting away. And maybe it was the glimpse of a smile, the comfort in the creasing of your eyes, that turned him stupider than he already was.

“Ours doesn’t.”

He joked, forgetting for a minute that the version of him sitting in front of you wasn’t Chifuyu. But as soon as he saw your hands freeze in place, your gaze locking with his in confusion, he could feel the colour drain from his face.

“Wha– what I meant was that my, you know, apartment, which is somewhere that’s not here, because I don’t live here–”

“So you live here.”

“Well, I just said I don’t–”

“And you still couldn’t bother telling me you were going to suddenly disappear.”

“I’m sorry I–”

“You’re unbelievable.” You scooted further away from him, brows furrowed in simmering frustration. “All this time I was worried about you.”

Frustrated, annoyed and pissed off. He had seen you like that before. Annoyed at people who walked too slowly on the street or at men who couldn’t bother moving out of their way, bumping into you because they expected you to move. Pissed off when you received a ‘bad’ grade according to your standards, or when one of your groupmates refused to respond to the group chat even when the project was due the next day.

Frustrated, annoyed and pissed. He had seen you like that before. But never had it been directed at him.

“I understand–”

“No you don’t!” you interrupted him. “If you did, you would’ve said something, and it’s not like it’s hard to put on your costume and climb down a couple of floors to let me know that you were okay.”

“It’s not a costume, it's a super suit…” he trailed off, and you sighed in response, letting yourself fall back against the backrest of the coach. The growing silence between the two of you only fed the tension dense enough to be cut with a butter knife. And it killed you to feel the tangible difference between your previous interactions and what you now thought would be the last one.

He had become a very important person in your life, the first friend you ever had after feeling desperately lonely without your family or friends in a new city. And of course, there was always the possibility of him not feeling the same about you. Maybe you weren’t as important to him as you would’ve liked.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, “I know I should’ve let you know I wasn't coming as often.”

His voice had curled onto itself. It was strained as it tried to make its way past his throat, like he was trying hard not to choke on his own words. It made your heart ache in return. And maybe it hadn’t been nice for him to just disappear, but he was a superhero for fucks sake. Were you really expecting a super-fucking-hero to make some time in his ‘saving the city’ calendar for you?

You thought he had been unfair, and now you were taking it out on him. Hypocrite; you complained about him not being nice to end up being not so nice yourself.

“I know…I know you’re busy doing hero stuff and all, I'm sorry for snapping at you.” You mumbled, gaze stuck on the ceiling. “And I’m sorry for making fun of your suit.”

He smiled at that, and like a peace offering, you nudged his arm with your hand, asking for permission to help patch him up. It made his cheeks flush underneath the mask, biting the inside of his cheek to stop himself from squealing at the fluttering in his stomach. It was true that he had been primarily reading action-hero manga and comics, but that didn’t mean his love for shojo was cast aside. Sometimes, he couldn’t help but imagine he was the main character of a romance story, and, in spite of how cheesy it sounded, he really wanted that with you.

“You know, I,” he tried to swallow the lump in his throat. He wasn’t sure if it was too soon to be revealing a secret of such magnitude. Especially after the tension that had risen between the two of you. But his goal was not only to apologise but to offer you a proper explanation. “The reason I wasn't coming here as often was, um,”

You stopped dead in your tracks, the gauze soaked in hydrogen peroxide lingering over one of his cuts. Still, you avoided meeting his gaze, eyes stuck on the ripped edges of his suit as if scared of what he was going to tell you.

“It was,” breath in, breathe out. His quickening heartbeat was so loud it wouldn’t allow him to hear what he was saying. Breathe in, breathe out, maybe he couldn’t do this, maybe this was a bad idea. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out, “because I was already over all the time, just not as Spiderman…”

Your head shot up in the blink of an eye, and even he was surprised you hadn’t somehow given yourself whiplash. But never mind that, because the sudden familiarity that flashed through your eyes as you mentally pieced together every single event, clue, hint and theory you had discarded along with the new information you had received, was enough to let him know you recognised who he was.

“You are–”

“Yeah,” he nodded, biting his lip in anticipation. “It’s me–”

“Keisuke.”

“What? No, It’s me, Chifuyu.”

And as if to prove his point, he pulled off his mask, revealing the tousled mess of blond locks and the purple bruises underneath one of his eyes and his lower lip.

He had to hold back a whine at the ruined grand reveal.

“No, I know.” you deadpanned, and he had to hold back a whine at the ruined grand reveal. Had it been any other circumstance, he would’ve felt proud to be mistaken for Baji. But when it was the love of his life doing so, it felt more like a flat-out rejection instead of a compliment.

“Chifuyu,” you called out to him, effectively pulling him out of the self-pity spiral, and pointed at your window. “I mean ‘Keisuke?’”

“Sorry to interrupt,” Baji waved at the two of you from outside, “were you about to kiss?”

“No!” “Not yet.”

“Oh okay, cool,” he shrugged, pointy canines sticking out as he smiled. “You were taking longer than usual, we figured you had gotten in trouble or something.”

“Yeah!” Kazutora poked his head from behind the wall, hair tied in a messy bun. “But then we heard your voice coming from here and we thought we’d check it out.”

“Well, I'm fine, so you two can,” he made a gesture with his head, urging his best friends to leave the two of you alone. “You know, go.”

He hadn’t expected it to work. They weren’t ones to pass on the opportunity to tease anyone, especially him, being the younger of the group and all. But to his surprise, all they had done was send a wave your way with a promise to hang out tomorrow night and left.

Now the two of you alone, all he wanted to do was stare at your face all night while you patched him up because if there was any trope that concocted the perfect mix between action and romance was when someone took care of another person's injuries. And wasn’t it one of the sweetest displays of affection? Just taking care of the one you love? Even though he wasn’t a hundred percent sure you liked him like that, at least he could dream, right?

“Wait,” remembering what you said earlier, it felt like an ice water bucket was poured all over him. Suddenly, the giddiness inside his tummy had returned with full force, and he could feel his cheeks straining with the inkling of a smile. “You said ‘not yet’.”

You hummed in confusion, biting on the inside of your cheek. Sure, Baji and ‘Tora had spared him from the teasing — although one could argue that showing up had been the teasing itself— but you could always make up for it with a sprinkle of intentional obliviousness. “What do you mean?”

“When Baji asked if we had kissed, you said ‘not yet’, does that mean you want to kiss me?”

“I don’t know,” you shrugged, a cheeky smile on your lips as your fingers traced aimless patterns up his forearm and bicep, to then let your hand rest on his cheek, your thumb caressing the soft skin. “Do I?”

He leaned closer to you, prompted by your touch, and you were quick to follow through, letting your leg rest against his. He looked so cute with his eyes sparkling with excitement, lips parted in contained desperation as he waited for you to say ‘I do’.

“Can I kiss you?” He whispered, breath mingling with yours, and lips barely brushing against each other. He looked so pretty sitting on your couch, the light of the tv casting shadows on his face, and absolute lovesickness coating every single inch of his body.

You nodded in return, smiling as you basked in the taste of him, the man behind the mask, because even though he had his own waves of doubt, it had always been him.

It would always be Chifuyu for you.

#chifuyu x reader #chifuyu matsuno x reader #chifuyu matsuno fluff #chifuyu fluff #tr fluff #tr x reader #tokyo revengers x reader #spiderman au #master collection.#tr collection.

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thealogie · 2 months

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What I love about kilgrave is although he has a truly terrifying power which could make him more powerful than most marvel villains, he is so petty that on a large scale the stakes have probably never been lower. However on a personal scale the stakes haven’t ever been as high and as a viewer that makes him so much more terrifying

And actually it’s the parts of his personality like the obsessiveness over Jessica, his controlling nature, small-minded petty nature, misogyny, selfishness, self centred narcissism, how he treats Jessica as an object and a prize rather than a person, his predatory nature which are things we can recognise in real-life people combined with his power which is his ability to control people to do whatever he wants that makes his so terrifying. It’s not the delusions of grandeur, he hasn’t been driven to the edge of madness by grief or the need for revenge,

He is a pathetic, whiny man who has never stopped to think of anyone else just because he doesn’t have to. And it’s perfect how they combined a genuinely loser character who becomes almost unstoppable because of his marvel superpowers. He is both a comic book villain as well as a toxic and abusive ex and stalker. So it allows to explore Jessica’s psychological horror and torture, but it is also ultimately a superhero show

Also DT seems to play quite a few of these scary bad guys who could be a big problem for everyone but are ultimately too small minded and losers. Such as the cale dude in bad Samaritan, the dude in secret smile,

Yes! Jessica Jones is quite literally the only mcu property I’ve ever cared about and I do think it’s because the stakes while “low” are actually so so much higher for our hero and her loved ones. Like the thought of losing your agency and being a prisoner to your abuser forever just makes for a much more compelling story than an abstract desire to save the whole world. I genuinely think that’s why mcu movies like winter soldier and black panther were a cut above the average mcu drivel. The personals stakes in them were good

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look-how-they-massacred-them · 9 months

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Preliminary Poll

Scott Summers/Cyclops

Preliminary Poll:

OK SO. Cyclops is one of my favorite characters. He's just so complicated and messy. In the original 60s comics, he's not the most developed, because, well, none of them are, it's the 60s, but he's got the start of the threads that define him: he's an orphan fully dependent on the X-Men now thrust into being the leader, and while he's nervous about that, he refuses to let it show. He's in love with his best friend, but is unwilling to push it. He's resolute to Charles Xavier's dream. Once Claremont comes in and the comic reboots, that's when X-Men gets good. And Cyclops is one of the characters he really likes playing with (which is rare for a male character tbh, he really likes highlighting his women). And he takes all those threads and really starts running. He's an actual good leader, for one. He's not just tactically smart, he's good at managing the team. Others are perhaps better with emotions, but he knows how to encourage them to work together. We also start to see the way he develops outside of being the perfect follower, to question his teacher and what's right, which is I think the largest theme of him over time. What does it mean to be groomed into this position, to be set up as in charge and define yourself around it. Can you ever leave it behind? He hands over his leadership of the X-Men to go live a civilian life with his wife and newborn, and then fails at it so badly because he can't handle, like, not being an X-man and saving the world. He goes a little more back to form / boyscout in the 90s, but he's fairly consistent at being this really good leader. He's not free of drama, but it's clear that through everything he's genuinely respected - especially by Wolverine. And then, we get to his 2000s arc, which is the reason I'm obsessed with him as a character. You see, at the core of the X-Men is this philisophical debate about how you deal with people who hate you. Charles Xavier represents the non-violent on a surface level (well, non-violent for superheroes), but more than that he represents Assimilation and working Within the System, whereas Magneto represents violent revolution and seperatism.

And while it's pretty clear cut in the original that Xavier is right (although, like, Claremont makes it fairly clear Magneto is not wrong), in the 2000s you get this more deeper thought, especially as more marginalized creators come into the books, and you start to see the shift. And Cyclops, who is The Leader, who is the Poster Boy for Charles Xavier's Dream, who has literally been raised for this, starts to falter. He becomes head of the school. He founds a seperatist nation off the coast of California. He starts turning to more violent preemptive actions. And then he gets possessed by a god and kills Charles Xavier and becomes a violent revolutionary in the aftermath. I think he really represents this in between point, especially in his revolutionary era. That the Dream is nice, but it's a long term goal, and in the here and now, we need to keep people safe, and then we can worry about the high and mighty. Because he's a practical person. He's the field leader, not the guy in the chair. And, above all else, he just really wants to help people. Because, even at his most ""editorial is trying to say he's a supervillain"" he's just a really good guy. ... Now, I could tell you about the weird editorial mandate that had him leave his wife and newborn, or the fact that they've just completely ignored the revolutionary phase for the past few years, or any number of things that the comics have done to massacre him. But I don't have to, because every other adaptation does it worse. The 90s cartoon really cements him as Boring Boy Scout. Like, he's pretty universally hated among people who got in through it, because they're like, what, that guy? I know why, it's a kid's cartoon, he's there to be the One Who Follows Rules so the other characters can go have fun. It's not really that deep, it's a cartoon. But it's only from there... In the original X-Men movies, Scott is sidelined for more Wolverine all the time. This is the thing that really popularized Jean/Logan (I mean, I think Morrison at the same time also helped) which had existed before but mostly as a Logan's being a creep kind of energy.

Because look at this annoying whiny loser, he's not as cool or masculine as Wolverine! Watch as he fucks your wife! [they're canon poly rn but ignore that, that is not the vibe these movies want]. He has a good actor but like. He's there to be functionally the same as the 90s cartoon, although he's pulled off with a bit more nuance mostly due to the actor. And then. In Last Stand. They just. kill him off screen. Because he's not like important or anything. OHO. But we have the reboot movies, which:

- The character who's literal most defining characteristic is being the First X-Man and the fact that it left him like seriously fucked up because he never learned who he was

- Who was a literal orphan who lost everything and was being like. Consistently abused and gaslit by authority figures, including making them doubt his younger brother was real

- and, like, who is in fact one of the more recognizable of the X-Men, like, he's an actually pretty important character... Is now like a rich suburban kid angry that his [older!!] brother, the actual OG X-Men, is gone and is here to be like. Boring wallpaper? I have refused to remember what happens in the later but I don't think they even let him play leader for the kids team he's on. And worst of all, like, all of the fics you find are from the movies! And on tumblr it's nothing but the reboot movies! And at least in the OG he wasn't fleshed out very much and so you'd get people drawing from the comics, but like, my boy! Look how they massacred my boy! It's even worse than some other characters, where there just won't be content, he's genuinely a popular and well known character and it's just all bad Like, the movies also sucked for a lot of characters. Storm's never been her full glory in adaptation. But at least she's still generally likable. Hating Cyclops is genuinely so common, and I get it, but it's because he's not well written / intended to be hated in these adaptions, and that's not (usually) how the comics are writing him! If you're going to hate him at least do it for who he really is!!!

Propaganda:

he's so autistic and i love that for him. like i talk about people hating him for being the rules follower but to be clear it's because he's just *so* autistic coded, and every good Cyclops is written by someone who recognizes that at least subconsciously.

#look how they massacred them poll #look how they massacred my boy #xmen #x men #scott summers #x men cyclops #xmen cyclops #x men comics #xmen comics

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racefortheironthrone · 1 year

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Kinda of random but what do you think of Alan's Moore comments about people liking comic book movies could lead into fascism? Seems like bitter old man territory but what do you think?

I think it's fair to say that fascism has been something of an obsession of Alan Moore's and a recurring although not omnipresent theme in many of his works.

While Miracleman is technically an expy of Captain Marvel, I would argue that the series is Moore's most extended commentary on Superman instead and especially the idea of the ubermensch. In Miracleman, our protagonist is initially thought to have been made into a superhero by a benevolent enlightened scientist, but eventually we learn that Miracleman is the product of an Operation Paperclip Nazi science project called the Zarathusa Project designed to create the literal Nietzschean Ubermensch, complete with a fixation on "blond gods" and a eugenicist breeding program. A superhero fight in the midle of London causes mass civilian casualties on the scale of an atomic bomb going off. Ultimately, Miracleman effectively overthrows Thatcher's government and rules as an enlightened despot before eventually leaving Earth for space.

Likewise, I think Watchmen is Moore's most extended commentary on masked vigilantism and thus on Batman. In Watchmen, the phenomenon of vigilantism is repeatedly associated with right-wing politics: Hooded Justice is a German circus strongman who has pro-Nazi politics; Captain Metropolis wanted his superhero teams to target "black unrest," "campus subversion," and "anti-war demos;" and the Comedian is a brutal nihilist who ultimately joins the U.S security state where he cheerfully follows orders to assassinate JFK and Woodward and Bernstein, commit atrocities in Vietnam, kill protesting hippies, etc. Finally, there's Rorschach, Moore's most famous mis-interpreted creation - Rorschach is a paranoid conspiracy theorist who's an anti-communist, anti-liberal, militant and militaristic nationalist, homophobe, misogynist, and avid follower of the John Birch Society-like New Frontiersman.

And then there's V for Vendetta, which I would argue is Moore's attempt to create a masked vigilante superhero with his own anarchist politics. In this story, the vigilante isn't a crimefighter but rather a revolutionary who seeks the overthrow of a fascist state and the creation of an anarchist utopia.

Moreover, his more recent comments about comic book movies being linked to fascism are arguably just part of his much longer-running commentary that superheroes as a concept are at the very least proto-fascist.

Having read a lot of Moore's work and interviews on the subject, I don't find his critique compelling. I think his definition of fascism is far too loose, I think his lens on the superhero genre is overly narrow, and I think his mode of analysis tends to neglect the vital area of historical context.

Definitions

So let's start with Moore's definition of fascism. I think Moore tends to really over-emphasize the whole idea of the Nietzschean ubermensch and the use of force to solve problems, and more recently he's been on this weird kick of saying that nostalgia and a childlike desire for easy solutions leads to fascism. I have several problems with this definition:

the first is that, as I've talked about in the past, fascism is a very complex historical phenomenon that can't be boiled down to a single idea, and in particular the idea of the ubermensch is a pretty small part of the German case (and even then how do you balance it against Nazism's more anti-individualistic aspects, like the mass party and the mass party organization).

the second is that the idea of a larger-than-life individual using physical prowess to solve problems is not unique to fascism. After all, during the 30s, you also had the Soviet Union promoting the heroic ideal of Stakhanovitism and the depiction of the heroic male factory worker in socialist realism. More importantly, the idea of a "larger-than-life individual using physical prowess to solve problems" is basically the same description for any number of literary figures from pulp cowboys to the Greek heroes of the Iliad and the Oddessy to the epic of Gilgamesh.

the third is that I think Moore's definition overlooks the actual drivers of the rise of contemporary fascism. Anti-semitism, racism, homophobia and transphobia, misogyny - all of these are real social and cultural forces that are actually motivating people to join the ranks of the alt-right, to commit massacres, to riot at the Capitol, and so forth. It is incredibly self-involved to think that superheroes and superhero movies are worth discussing in the same breath. At the end of the day, they're harmless entertainment compared to the real political issues that need to be tackled.

Moore's Model of Superheroes

Here's where I'm going to say something that's going to be a bit controversial - I don't think Alan Moore has read widely enough in the superhero genre to make an accurate assessment of its relationship to fascism. If we look at his comics work, and we look at his writings, and we look at his interviews, Moore's mental model of the superhero really only includes two figures, Superman as the representative of the superpowered ubermensch and Batman as the representative of the masked vigilante crimefighter. Notably, Moore hasn't really touched the last of the Big Three - Wonder Woman, a superhero with a strong legacy of radical left-wing politics. I do think we have to mention, given Moore's somewhat troubled history when it comes to issues of gender, that Moore's model of the superhero doesn't include any female superheroes (or for that matter, any superheroes of color or queer superheroes). (EDIT: I should clarify - Promethea is Moore's version of Wonder Woman, but she doesn't really come up in his discussions of fascism, and her thematic profile has more to do with Moore's interests in magic.)

And other than Captain Britain, Moore never worked with any Marvel character and basically ignores them.

To me, this is like having a career as a painter and never working with colors. Moore's model of the superhero leaves out the Fantastic Four and how their flawed psychologies revolutionized the industry and the whole idea of the superhero-as-explorer, it leaves out Spider-Man and the idea of the superhero-as-everyman whose central struggle is about work-life balance and altruism, and most importantly it leaves out the X-Men and the idea of the mutant metaphor.

If as a critic you're going to make grand pronouncements about something as morally evil as fascism, I think it really is incumbent on you to have read and analyzed widely rather than cherry-picking a couple of case studies. Especially if you have something of a tendency to mis-characterize those case studies by ignoring historical context.

Historical Context

So let's talk about Superman and Batman and their emergence in the 1930s. One vital bit of context is that the U.S experienced a significant crime wave in the 1920s and 1930s as Prohibition encouraged the rise of organized crime and then the Great Depression spurred the rise of kidnapping and bank robbery gangs. Moreover, municipal police forces tended to be wildly corrupt, accepting bribes from organized crime to let them operate with impunity, while not letting up in the slightest in their brutal oppression of workers and minorities.

In this context, I think the idea of vigilantism - while it has an undeniably racist legacy dating back to Reconstruction - is not purely a conservative phenomena. It's also an expression of a desire for help from somebody, anybody when the powers that be are of no help. And at the end of the day, unsanctioned use of force can equally be traced back to left-wing self-defense efforts from the Panthers back to the Communist Party's streetfighting corps to unions packing two-by-fours on the picket line - so I don't think we can simply equate punching a bad guy with racist lynch mobs and call it a day.

So let's talk about Superman and the ubermensch. I think Moore has a bad tendency to focus on his nightmare scenrio of a godlike being tyrannizing and destroying hapless humanity, while minimizing the actual ideas of Siegel and Shuster. He tends to take their use of the Nietzschean as a straighforward invocation instead of the clear subversion it was intended to be - rather than a blond god who imposed tyrannical rule with horrific violence, Siegel and Schuster made their Superman a dark-haired Moses allegory, who rather than solely fighting crime acted to stop wife-beaters, war profiteers, and save the life of death row inmates, and whose secret identity was of a crusading journalist who uncovered corrupt politicians.

To be fair, Alan Moore admits that Superman started out as "very much a New Deal American” - but because this kind of does near-fatal damage to his argument, he quickly minimizes that by saying that Superman got co-opted and thus it doesn't count. This is some No True Scotsman bullshit - Moore knows that his example just imploded so he tries to wriggle out of it by arguing that Superman sold out to the Man. If we go back to the actual historical evidence, we can see that at the outset of the Red Scare, the Superman radio show went on a crusade against the Klan, and throughout the conservative 1950s, Superman was used to propagandize liberal values of religious and racial equality:

So much for selling out.

On the other hand, Batman is a tougher case, given that his whole deal is being a masked vigilante who wages an unending war on crime to avenge his murdered parents. So is Batman an inherently fascist figure, a wealthy sadist who spends his time brutally beating the poor and the mentally ill when he could be using his riches to tackle social issues? I would argue that this version of Batman is actually pretty recent - very much a legacy of the work of Frank Miller and then the post-9/11 writings of Christopher Nolan, Johnathan Nolan, and David Goyer - and that there have been many different Batmen with very different thematic foci.

For example, the early Batman was as much a figure of horror as he was of superheroics - he fought Frankensteins and Draculas, he killed with silver bullets, etc. Then in the 40s and 50s, you got the much more cartoony and light-hearted Batman who pretty much exclusively fought equally oddball supervillains in such a heightened world of riddles and giant pennies and mechanical T-Rexes that I don't think you can particularly describe it as "crime-fighting." Then in the 1960s, you have the titanic influence of the Batman TV show, where Adam West as Batman was officially licensed by the Gotham P.D (so much for vigilantism) and extolled the virtues of constitutional due process and the Equal Pay Act in PSAs and episodes alike. You can call the 1966 Batman a lot of things, but fascist isn't one of them.

Conclusion

I want to emphasize at the end of the day that I'm a huge Alan Moore fan; I've read most of his vast bibliography, I find him a fascinating if very odd thinker and critic, I've even tried to read his mammoth novel Jerusalem (which is not easy reading, let me tell you). At the same time, it's important not to treat creators, even the very titans of the medium, as incapable of error. And in this case, I think Alan Moore is simply wrong about fascism and superheroes and people should really stop asking him about it, because I don't think he has anything new to say about it.

#comics #comics meta #alan moore #fascism #superheroes #batman #superman

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kaypeace21 · 2 years

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Mike's "superman' reference may be pro byler (mini analysis)

The more I think about it the weirder I find it , that Mike compared El to super-MAN. For a few reasons ...

1.Because mike is a comic book nerd who should be able to select a hero/heroine who is more similar to el, than superman. in s1 he was into fantastic 4, and the xmen. Will in s1, wanted a xmen comic about Jean gray ( a telekenetic woman). Mike could have compared El to her , or various other characters, like "wonder woman" (who max compared El to) or literally "supergirl" (which is what argyle called El). He's a comic book nerd who chose superman (instead of a more similar hero). Despite the fact el and superman are very different from one another. But oddly enough, superman and Will actually parallel more...

2. superman & el have opposite backstories/childhoods - which greatly shaped them as characters . Which is why superman is an awful comparison, especially in a season that explores el's childhood.

Superman had great power but : he had a relatively normal childhood. He, from birth, was placed in the care of human parents. He was raised human,despite his powers.

El has great power but : beacuse of it, was raised in a government lab with no parents, and dehumanized and raised to be a weapon - it's the opposite of superman's childhood.

Superman became a hero , because he was raised to be human. El became a hero inspite of others trying to strip away her humanity. They're literal opposites.

3. The st comic" zombie boy " : has someone mention "superman" to Will. Both "superman" scenes happen because of Will showing his art.

And if Will ends up having powers- the superman parallel would make a bit more sense for him . Because Will & Clarke kent (superman) both had similar childhoods.

- Clarke's adopted dad is named Jonathan. And will's brother / psuedo father figure is jonathan.

-being poor small town boys. Who were bullied

- superman has the "fortress of solitude" . WIll had 'castle byers".

-And the (comic) plotpoint of Clarke's first day of kindergarten sounds very similar to byler first meeting in kindergarten: "Clark's first day at school isn't as difficult as he expects and he ends up making many friends at school, until he notices a girl, Samantha, sitting alone in the playground; ostracized for being different. Clark decided that he wants to befriend the girl, but feared that if he did, he'd lose all the friends he'd made up to that point. Consulting with his parents, they advise him to befriend the girl regardless of his classmates' opinions"

Mike doesn't even realize he channeled Clark kent when first meeting and befriending Will. It's almost the opposite of how Mike feels about first meeting El . Mike's insecure and says El is superman, and he's inferior to Louis lane (superman's human love interest). Then he says about m*leven "it wasn't fate" and he just got "lucky superman landed on his door step". The first byler meeting parallels a scene that shows Clarke's humanity as a normal person- clark kent. M*leven's first meeting parallels " superman landing on Louis' door step": which shows mike still hero worships el , a struggle that Louis had in some versions. The movie scene mike mentions is where she was obsessed/loved the idea of superman the hero (who landed at her door), but was oblivious to clarke the human being , right beside her. I feel like mike does struggle to see El (the person) and not El (the superhero). He called her a superhero 3x in s4...

-Also "batman v superman " was comfirmed inspo for s4. It's the sequel to " man of steal". In man of steel: clarke (like Will) has a supernatural episode at school-and starts seeing things others can't. And their moms have to rush over to the school to snap them out of their episodes . The staging is similar and both boys love plaid and bowl cuts lol.

(in man of steel) we also see a photograph: both boys win the science fair with a volcano project... the photographs are so similar ...

Clarke kent is also like Will in obvious ways: he usually blends in the crowd, is considered nerdy in some versions, no one assumes he has powers, and often people underestimate or belittle him. He was even bullied as a kid/teen (again depending on the version,in 'man of steel' he was bullied alot) . And not exaggerating clarke (like Will) sems to really love plaid in almost every version Haha

#byler #stranger things

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angelofthenight · 8 months

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Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias (Watchmen): Yandere Alphabet (+ add. h/cs)

(Fem!Reader)

Overall warnings: Yandere, Dark themes, Gaslighting, Violence/Murder, Unhealthy relationship, Jealousy/Possessiveness, Social isolation, Manipulation, Obsessiveness, Stalking/Spying, Controlling behavior, Power imbalance, Swearing, Kidnapping, Dub-con

( This was the fastest I’ve ever written a piece, literally in one night so excuse it if it sounds rushed at times, coz I just wanted to get Watchmen out of my system so I could focus on my other fics. Also this is based on a combination of the movie interpretation and comic counterpart of Adrian )

( A few letters in the Alphabet are out of order to get the foundation set )

Love story: How did they meet their darling? How would they go about courting or approaching their darling?

You were caught in the grasp of a villain on a rooftop after the superheroes Nite Owl and Rorschach beat his barbaric goons to bloody pulps. The costumed lunatic held a knife to your hoarse throat while you sobbed and hyperventilated, warning the two vigilantes that if they came any closer he would slice your neck wide open. Your mind was too fogged with hysterical terror to understand the conversation but the next thing you felt was the villain chucking you over the ledge of the roof as he made a run for it. You just accepted your brutal death, knowing there was no way to get out of this, until your body collided into a pair of strong arms.

Your pink eyes locked with Ozymandias’ soft ones, him holding a calm smile. Your heavy breathing was unstable and tears still cascaded down your cheeks when you abruptly threw your face into the crook of his neck to sob with your arms grasping helplessly around his shoulders. You trembling terribly and despite being a hero for quite awhile now, Adrian had never been this close to a victim before. It was always fleeting moments with saving victims but as you shook and clung to him, he truly did feel like a superhero in that moment.

Even as the cops came to arrest the criminals and as the press interviewed Nite Owl, you still held onto him with your face buried into his shoulder as if you were holding on for your actual life. When he asked if you were okay, you snapped out of it and allowed him to softly plant you onto your feet. You were still visibly horrified and he asked you if you would like him to walk you home since of the late hour. You gradually accepted the offer after your own hesitation and his reassurance that he wouldn’t mind and that he would actually prefer it to ensure your safety and wellbeing.

So he walked you home, talking with you to help you calm down. He didn’t even realize how much he learned about you. He couldn’t sleep that night. The scene of him saving you and you clinging to him replaying over and over and over again.

A few times he had played around your intimate (at least to him) scenario like imagining you refusing to let go of him, you being flustered when he catches you, and a few times he imagined himself locking your lips within his own or you engaging it as a “thank you, you’re my hero”.

Even as days passed he couldn’t stop thinking about you, so much that it started to affect his performance and attention. If you have a song stuck in your head on loop, listening to the song makes it stop. So he told himself he just needed to see you again to be able to go on with his life in peace and without distraction, because that’s what you were becoming: a distraction.

During the talk to calm you down, you told him where you worked. So, out of costume, he went to the coffee cafe you worked full time at. It was easy to get your attention with his wealthy image and known name and with his charming and colorful persona it was easy to strike up a conversation with you. To him, you were hitting it off amazingly and you would even listen intently as he’d talk about Egyptian culture. But in reality you had tried to end the conversation more than twice. Maybe you were just untrustworthy of the wealthy but there was something about him that just seemed so… fake. You just weren’t that interested in him.

But he just kept coming, almost everyday, and stays sat at the counter in front of your station for practically half of your shift just conversing with you. He thinks he’s swooning you, completely oblivious to the fact that he’s annoying you and on the brink of creeping you out. But that becomes not enough for him, he starts to find himself stalking you outside of work and soon enough plants cameras in your apartment. He feels as if he just needs to get a glimpse of you in order to get through his day. It’s actually ridiculous.

The more he scratches his own itch, the itchier it gets. Now he’s meticulously planning your interactions, like “bumping into you on the street” and “coincidentally” ending up at the same stores as you, as well as manipulating situations. He even one time anonymously paid a guy to verbally harass and berate you at work just so he could step in to protect/defend you and send the “disrespectful” man out of your cafe. That did nothing but stroke his own narcissistic savior-complex.

When the news station on the TV replayed last night's live interview with the superhero group, Adrian asked you if you had a favorite of the Crimebusters. You told him you were biased with your personal favorite, Ozymandias, because of how he was the one to save your life once.

That was all Adrian needed to cross the first line. At first he hired just one criminal to corner you in an alleyway, try to mug and give you a good scare. Then your knight in shining armor comes to your rescue, resulting in you showering him in your gratitude while trembling to the bone and full of tears. He walked you home again, calmly conversing with you just like the first time except he noticed that you seemed more at ease with Ozymandias than Adrian Veidt. But then he started hiring more people to give you scares and serious threats, his superhero persona saving you each time. He just felt so… good when you relied on him and cowered into his arms.

Of course you noticed that ever since Mr. Veidt entered your life, bad things have suddenly started happening to you once a week or two; dangerous trouble following you as if it were your very own shadow. But just your luck, you were saved each and every time by the tall and blond Crimebuster. Of course you knew it was weird, it often made you unable to sleep. You’ve brought it up to Ozy after he saved you from an attempted sexual assault, but he simply saw it as him always being at the right place and the right time. He told you that these specific streets were his patrol area. Sometimes it sounded like he was blaming you for always getting in trouble, it made you feel like you were losing it. Your feelings about Ozy lost its comfort, there was something with him that began to unsettle you.

You came to the conclusion that Adrian Veidt just had bad people after him and because of how often he came to see you those people were going to harm you to get to him. You wanted Adrian out of your life, hell, you weren’t even really that fond of him anyway. Your “friendship” was basically one sided. You believed that if you fucked him, he would finally leave your life and take his enemies with him. You believed a good fuck was just all he wanted from you, what he has been trying to get this whole time. That’s all what he wants, that’s always what men want.

Fortuitously, Adrian came to the same conclusion. He realized how much you were affecting his life and work and himself. He believed he just needed to fuck you to finally satisfy his desire for you, then he’d return to normal.

And so, the two of you had sex. And it was truthfully incredible. He even made you finish. Adrian slept peacefully that night, knowing he could finally move on with his life without you constantly distracting him. But sex just makes it worse. It makes it so much worse. Because that just made him realize that he wants so much more than sex from you, that he is in love with you.

Your eyes nearly popped out of your skull when the next day Adrain came to your work with a bouquet of big red roses. No. No, this couldn’t be happening. He called you endearing names like “my dear” and “darling”. You felt sick. He continuously did this the following days. You politely declined all the flowers and gifts with reasonable enough excuses for him to take them back. You never humored him or encouraged any of his behavior, you relentlessly gave him signs and hints that you didn’t feel the same way at all. But he was either too delusional to pick them up or he just simply ignored them.

He soon told himself that you would be less tense around him if you knew that your lover and your superhero were one and the same. He felt like you deserved to know. So he told you, but you didn’t believe him until you saw the proof. You felt even more sick when you saw it.

You didn’t know what to do. You felt at the end of your rope. You nervously stuttered out reasons why you couldn’t be with him because of his double life: you didn’t want to worry about him every night, you feared villains might use you against him, you think he wouldn’t have time for you outside of saving the city and fighting villains, you wouldn’t want to make him choose between you and the city, etc.

You felt pathetic and ashamed that you didn’t have the courage to tell him plain and simple that you did not want to be with him because you just didn’t see him in that way… at all.

The next day what you saw on the evening news at work made you drop a plate, your jaw dropping and your pulse skyrocketing. Ozymandias revealed his secret identity to the world… and announced his retirement. Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no, no, nononononono-

You were closing the cafe all by yourself at the late hour when Adrian came in with the happiest smile. You kept your distance as horror gripped around you suffocatingly.

“You… you shouldn’t have done that. Not for me.”

“Why not? Now you don’t have to worry any longer. Now we can finally be together.”

You stared at him in disbelief, not believing your eyes. “…Smartest man alive my ass.” You mumbled before you suddenly snapped. “Don’t you get it?! I am not interested! I never have been from the very beginning! That night was just supposed to be a one-night-stand, that was all!”

Adrian’s expression was frozen in confusion and shock. “You don’t mean that.”

“Yes I fucking do! Open your eyes! You’re fucking crazy! You are delusional! Now please, I am begging you, get out of my life and leave me alone! You narcissistic creep!”

He left after a minute of staring at your petrified, furious composure. You finished closing with a haunting, foreboding feeling lingering over your shoulders. That was just your intuition warning you of what was to come.

Because Adrian kidnapped you from your home that very same night.

Kisses: What exactly made them fall for their darling?

Stigma: What brought about this side of them (childhood, curiosity, etc)?

There was many factors that prompted him to fall for you but the top three reasons were:

Damsel in distress: That feeling he felt within his bones when he caught you that night before you could hit the pavement and you huddled into him with your arms tightly around him while you shook and wept. He never felt like more of a hero than in that moment. He desperately chases that warm, buzzing feeling and you were the only one who made him feel it. Every superhero needed their damsel in distress, and you were just the perfect victim.

Desperation for love and connection: He had always felt alone and isolated from the rest of the world with his unnaturally high intelligence. He couldn’t connect with anyone in grade school, he couldn’t connect with the Crimebusters, he couldn’t connect with his business partners, he couldn’t connect with anyone alive. But he felt an electrifying connection with you. He doesn’t even know exactly what it was from. When he monitored you in your home he compulsively searched for things that related the two of you together. Deep down, this was just because he was desperate for love, for a companion, to be loved by that companion (and u know what they say: it’s lonely at the top). He just needed one thing to convince him that you were soulmates meant to- You had a cat… He loves cats!

Savior complex: The damsel in distress thing he has with you heavily fuels his savior complex. He is convinced you need him. He has made it his sworn duty to save you and therefore protect you. You need him, even more if you don’t know it. And bonus points if you have a toxic boyfriend, family, roommate, landlord, or boss. You need him to save you from it all. Even though your lifestyles were seemingly polar opposites, he came to the conclusion that you both were just made for something bigger. You two were born in the wrong timeline. You both deserved to be royalty. That’s why he found it incredibly insulting watching you wash dishes at your job and endure all the bratty customers that had endless complaints. You didn’t deserve to live like that. He had to save you. He will save you.

He wants you to be his queen, but also his damsel in distress. It’s a complex dynamic that is just nothing but unhealthy.

Affection: How do they show their love and affection? How intense would it get?

Adrian's love and affection would be displayed through grand gestures and displays of devotion. He would go to extreme lengths to ensure your happiness and safety, even if it meant sacrificing others to fulfill what he thinks will accomplish those two things. He would shower you with extravagant gifts and orchestrate elaborate romantic moments/experiences, he’s overall a very flashy lover which could morph into something overwhelming and suffocating. The intensity of his actions would escalate over time, eventually crossing ethical boundaries and causing harm to others just to prove to you his devotion.

Blood: How messy are they willing to get when it comes to their darling?

He prefers to keep his human exterminations neat and clean. But on the other hand he would be very willing to get very messy. He would not hesitate to eliminate anyone he perceives as a threat to your relationship, even if it means resorting to extreme and disastrous measures like manipulation, deception, and violence: overall very morally questionable actions. But don’t worry, he always cleans up after himself.

Cruelty: How would they treat their darling once abducted? Would they mock them?

Once abducted, he treats it like it was all for the best, like he saved you. He’d tell you that you will be far better off with him. That God complex and savior complex of his makes him incredibly delusional. He’d be overprotective (even though you’re in his own home) and very controlling. He’d treat you like a queen, a goddess, making sure you have everything you could ever need or want. But even though you lived like an empress in luxury, you still felt like a prisoner more than anything.

Adrian wouldn’t mock you at all, he’s relatively very calm and patient with you, other than patronizing you in a dismissing tone when you attempt to attack him and/or escape.

“Grow up.”

After awhile he will eventually take you out back into public, only linked to his arm though (like you’re a dog on a leash).

Darling: Aside from abduction, would they do anything against their darling’s will?

Yes, he would. He is so manipulative and controlling and crosses many lines and many of your boundaries. He might even harm you to ensure your obedience and loyalty. He is forceful and uncompromising and intimidates you to do his self-indulgent requests. Your sex always falls under dub-con as you can never find the courage to deny him and push him away, resulting in just letting him get what he wants.

If it wasn’t already obvious he also forces you into a relationship with him, and makes it public without your consent.

Exposed: How much of their heart do they bare to their darling? How vulnerable are they when it comes to their darling?

He bares a significant portion of his heart to you. He’s not ashamed to be vulnerable with you as he is extremely and deeply invested in your relationship. He would be willing to do anything to protect you and do anything for you. Although he does keep many secrets from you.

Fight: How would they feel if their darling fought back?

He would feel a mix of anger, frustration, and disappointment. He would take it very personally and view it as a betrayal. And like I said before, this is when he’s willing to mock you for your attempts. You seriously think you could outrun him? Over power him? Outsmart him? Can you actually see yourself winning in a fight against the Ozymandias? Are you stupid or are you just delusional? Fighting back would just make it worse for yourself since now he’s even more determined to exert control over you.

Game: Is this a game to them? How much would they enjoy watching their darling try to escape?

It’s not a game to him but he will admit that he does find some thrilling enjoyment in the chase. It almost brings him back to his superhero glory days catching a villain. But don’t pull this often though.

Hell: What would be their darling’s worst experience with them?

Your worst experience with him would probably be when you got very close to escaping, the closest you’ve ever been. You had turned the manipulation tables around on him and got yourself an opening to escape. After weeks of appealing to his ego and god/savior complex and demonstrating clinginess to him, you finally got him wrapped around your little finger. You seduced him to bed and right before things got too heated, you coquettishly asked him to go get champagne. He all-too eagerly complied and practically skipped out the bedroom to get the drink.

What the smartest man alive didn’t know was that the champagne bottle was underneath the bed. And without wasting a second you dug into the jacket he dropped on the floor, when he hastily tried to undress, for the keycard that unlocked the front door. With it now tightly in your grasp, you made the quietest run for it, bolting out the bedroom. You quickly unlocked the front apartment door and slipped out into the hallway to sprint down the stairs, too much of a risk waiting for an elevator in pursuit of the lobby on the bottom floor to finally expose Adrian for what he really was.

Adrian was growing tempered as he scrambled for the bottle, unable to find it anywhere, and the image of how willing you were for him on his silk sheets on his mind made him far too impatient when searching. He eventually said “fuck it” and returned to the room to tell you he’d get you champagne afterwards. He froze halfway into the bedroom when he found you absent. He blinked, glanced around the room once, then let out a growling huff of “NO” before thrashing his desk to the ground then rushing out of the room and to the front door. The notice that it was unlocked assured him what you were attempting.

He effortlessly caught up to you on the flight of stairs and tackled your heaving body, sending you both tumbling down the rest of the few remaining steps in an entangled mess. Once you finally hit the ground you pushed through your physical exhaustion and dizziness to open the door right next to you, the light of the lobby temporarily blinding you. You inhaled to scream for help but one hand clasped over your mouth and one hand gripped onto your throat, aggressively tugging you back through the door before anyone had the chance to notice you.

With a hand squeezing your throat and the other still tightly across your mouth and jaw, Adrian slammed your back against the wall. His face was pink with fury, a vein bulging on his forehead, his gritted teeth bared. He growled viciously at you, his words translating to a deafening ring in your ears as your terror and adrenaline rendered you paralyzed. But his violent threats were clear to you, as well as the realization of the extent of Adrian's obsession with you and the lengths he would go to possess and control you.

He harshly knocked you out to drag you back up the stairs.

You still had nightmares about that night.

Ideals: What kind of future do they have in mind for/with their darling?

In his ideal future with you, you’re married and you are completely devoted to him as he is to you… and he has full control over your life and decisions.

Jealousy: Do they get jealous? Do they lash out or find a way to cope?

Yes, his jealousy is surprisingly very intense and a little scary. He’s so convinced that you two have a bonding connection that he has this weird paranoia that everyone else is trying to ruin your connection, that anyone and everyone is trying to rip you from his grasp.

It depends on the situation and location with how he would act.

If it’s someone flirting with you or even simply getting too chatty or close to you, he tries to maintain his composure due to being in public. But on the inside he’s absolutely raging. His body language would grow rigid and tense, and his jaw and fists would clench and tighten. The worse he’d look to others is simply just agitation and annoyance. But it’s much darker than that on the inside.

It’s not that he’s insecure that you’d like someone else better, it’s his possessiveness that blinds him and perceives the interaction as a threat, that the person is trying to take you away from him. He’ll quickly insert himself into your conversation, casually bring up you two were an item and even lived together, then eventually take you away from the exchange. Later that night when you two are alone he might lash out in anger at you. He isn’t blaming you but he unintentionally takes his anger out on you verbally.

If it’s a friend you’ve been spending a little too much time with, he will constantly be monitoring you through cameras due to his controlling behavior. He will begin socially isolating you and keep adding things to your schedule to eliminate the free time that you’d spend with the lowlife. If it doesn’t make enough of a difference that pleases him, he might resort to manipulation and threats to maintain his perceived ownership of you.

His jealousy would deeply affect him emotionally. He’s a mess of possessiveness and the fear of losing you. This all consumes him, leading to heightened paranoia and more inability to trust others. His jealousy could drive him to extreme actions that he condones with the simple “it was the last resort”. You wouldn’t miss any of those people you got a little close with yesterday if they suddenly turned up bloody in the newspaper, right?

Mask: Are their true colors drastically different from the way they act around everyone else?

Yes, drastically. He puts up this charming, composed facade to his comrades and the public. To everyone he was just this respectful pacifist vegetarian with a very caring and conscientious reputation. But that was just a mask concealing his true colors, the true colors that you had the misfortune of being exposed to. His true colors reveal how arrogant, egotistic, and cold he really is, how intense his God complex actually is. And his obsession and twisted love for you would create a much darker and volatile side of his personality that no one has seen. You’ve seen with your own eyes the extreme lengths he’d go to to protect and control you, showing a stark contrast to his demeanor with others.

Nemesis: Who do they consider a rival?

Not anyone specific, but he would consider literally anyone who poses a perceived threat to his relationship with you as a rival. Like someone who shows interest in or gets close to you, or even someone he perceives as a potential obstacle in your relationship. He views his rivals with intense jealousy and will go to extreme lengths to eliminate or neutralize them. He basically has the paranoia of someone in a contest/competition with the rest of the world, and if you were the end prize he is not afraid to play dirty against the other contenders. He will win.

Obsession: Are they more obsessive or possessive?

I honestly see it as 50/50. He’s obsessed with you to an unhealthy, unsettling, worrying amount. He is completely fixated on you and finds you as the most interesting person he’s ever met. He is obsessed and fascinated with every aspect of your character. He is constantly thinking about you, every single one of his unrelated thoughts always ends with you and he is casually clingy, always wanting to be near you. He’s overly attached to you and before he kidnapped you, stalking you was one of his favorite things to do.

Adrian, in his most simplest form, is just a love-sick creep.

But at the same time, he is incredibly possessive of you. He wants to assert control over you and destroy any perceived threats to your relationship or his animalistic claim on you. He just wants to have you. He will sabotage any and all of your relationships and even harm anyone who gets too close. But this equal combination just makes him an even more dangerous lover.

Patience: How patient are they with their darling?

I think he would have a high level of patience with you. With your bad behavior, he’s willing to wait and endure any obstacles/challenges that come his way in order to maintain your relationship. Though most of the time he just sees your severe mental breakdowns as mere temper tantrums. And just like a child, you’ll tire out of your little moody tantrum. And when it comes to waiting for you to return his love, he’s also patient. He 100% believes that you will eventually love him back. You two are soulmates, so it’s only natural that you’ll stop resisting and let your attraction sink in.

Additionally, when after his plan is executed and you are so mortified of what he’s done that you won’t even let him touch you or get too close to you, he is still patient with waiting for you to get over it.

Quit: If their darling dies, leaves, or successfully escapes, would they ever be able to move on?

If you died, he would be profoundly devastated and feel like he lost an actual part of himself, like you took a part of him to die with you. He’d never move on, it’d be the most difficult thing he’s ever faced. His obsession and attachment to you are too deeply ingrained inside him. He’d become consumed by his grief, leading to disturbing actions in the future. Also, he’d become a little careless with himself and wouldn’t really care if he risked his life, his own life is significantly less in value to him without you, and that’s saying a lot considering how highly he views himself. He doesn’t want to live in a world where you’re no longer breathing, he wants to reunite with you.

Let’s be honest, you wouldn’t be able to leave him. He would never allow you to go. But if he noticed that it has been on your mental wishlist, he’d resort to extreme measures to try and win back your love, as if he even had it in the first place.

If you successfully escaped, he’d become morbidly obsessed with tracking you down and would resort to extreme measures to regain back control. He is unhealthily determined to find you.

Move on? What a joke. He will never let go of you.

Regret: Would they ever feel guilty about abducting their darling? Would they ever let their darling go?

With his extreme obsession and distorted perception of love, he would never feel guilty. He truly believes he is in the right and that you should be grateful and happy. This is just an act of protecting you and preserving your relationship. He just wants to give you the life you deserve, what’s so wrong with that? He would never willingly release you. His possessiveness and need for control are far too severe.

Tears: How do they feel about seeing their darling scream, cry, and/or isolate themselves?

He hates it. It saddens and concerns him. He just wants you to be happy, why aren’t you happy? He’s given you everything you could ever ask for, including his infinite love and unwavering devotion. Is it the color of the walls? Because those could be repainted! Was dinner not cooked right? He’ll fire the chef and find the best one in the world! Unless you’d feel safest with him preparing your food, that could be arranged too!

He’ll go to comfort you to the best of his physical abilities, wanting to be the only one to provide solace and support. Your tears will appeal to his savior complex heavily, assuring him that you do need him. He wants to save you.

Although he wouldn’t say it to your face, but you know you wouldn’t be miserable right now if you just accepted his love and reciprocated it. You’re making your own life worse.

Unique: Would they do anything different from the classic yandere?

He varies from the classic yandere archetype due to the Watchmen storyline and he might differ with the methods he uses to assert control. Even though he gets very violent and murderous with his motivations to have you, he’s still much more of a pacifist compared to the classic yandere.

Vice: What weakness can their darling exploit in order to escape?

It would be a great challenge but if you could find a way to manipulate his emotions or appeal to his huge ego or savior-complex, it might create an opportunity for escape. You might even be able to appeal to his sense of morality. But this would all require careful planning and you need to take the time to understand his psyche.

Wit’s end: Would they ever hurt their darling?

Potentially, if he believes it is necessary to protect or possess you. The most violent he would get with you is when capturing you during an escape attempt and dragging you back home.

Xoanon: How much would they revere or worship their darling? To what length would they go to win their darling over?

He has an extreme level of reverence and worship towards you. He literally views you as a goddess bound to a human body. He would go to great lengths to win you over. At first it would just be extravagant gifts and surprises as well as dreamy promises but then as time goes on he would resort to manipulation, forceful control, or committing harmful actions in the name of love.

Yearn: How long do they pine after their darling before they snap?

He pines after you for an extended period of time, his obsession slowly taking over him. He officially snaps and crosses the next line when you screamed your rejection at him. He felt as if his perfect world shattered around him, the shards ripping him apart. It’s that night that he simply just couldn’t take it anymore and steals what he wants.

Zenith: Would they ever break their darling?

He really doesn’t want it to come to that, but he is capable of it if he believes it will ultimately strengthen your bond or maintain control over you.

Extra headcanons:

♡ I believe the bigger his ego grows, the more his obsession with you intensifies

♡ He’s constantly seeking your validation and reassurance, when he gets really vulnerable with it he almost looks like a little boy (you saw how he got with Jon at the end of the comic)

♡ He’s highly calculated and strategic in his pursuit of your love

♡ His wealth, reputation, and resourcefulness makes him formidable and dangerous

♡ He’s low key convinced that you did used to love him but somewhere along the way he lost it. Now he’s hell-bent to get it back

♡ He has surveillance and cameras hidden all over the apartment, literally three different angles in every room, so he can still watch you and keep tabs on you while at work. He also just has an unsettling fascination with your every move

♡ Yes he does own a shrine of you

♡ This happens extremely slowly, but he socially isolates you more and more and while his obsession deepens and his morality is deforming, then it transitions into isolating you from the outside world. You eventually end up in a secret underground “lair”, he just wants you to belong to him and him alone

♡ His switch between his charming public persona and his dark, possessive side with you gives you mental whiplash

♡ He spouts out speeches to you about how much he loves you with that space-out look in his eyes, his words filled with dark and possessive undertones which unsettle you greatly

♡ He’s madly greedy with your attention

♡ The retired Crimebusters potentially might interfere with your unhealthy relationship if they notice Adrian’s obsessive and possessive behavior, put their two-cents in on what they think. Adrian feels threatened by their interference and gets defensive/hostile towards them. He’s determined to protect your relationship, even from people he liked to call his friends

♡ Rorschach is a different story. When he first sees you in the paper linked with Adrian, he thinks you’re a gold digging whore set on sabotaging Adrian. He’s suspicious and distrustful of you. But when he stalked you and Adrian on the streets multiple times, he began to notice how just… unhappy you looked. When Adrian wasn’t looking you would glare at him, you tensed when he touched or kissed you, you repeatedly scanned your surroundings as if looking for somewhere to run, and overall unhappy. All this prompted Rorschach to believe that there was something more going on with the city’s golden couple, something dark hidden

♡ After weeks of digging and investigating and interrogating, Rorschach learns the whole truth. And he’s frankly disgusted with Adrian. He’s the one that tries to intervene the most and take action to protect your well-being and prevent any potential harm. But, when he catches onto Rorschach, Adrian does every little thing in his power to keep him away from you

♡ One of the reasons he chooses his own city to destroy for his plan is to finally and permanently eliminate everyone from your life. Now he’s finally the only one in your life. Why are you crying? He is all that you’re ever going to need, he is more than enough

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