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itsclydebitches · 3 years

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I was once more thinking of vol 8 and other works to compare it to. I hit Harry Potter, specifically Order of the Phoenix. Literally all that happened there showed a much better "proactive Hero" and "Big Bad vs Big Good" battle that it feels unfair to compare. What say you Clyde?

It's been a very long time since I read Order of the Phoenix, but putting aside that and the series' problems with representation (something that always feels like it needs to be acknowledged when discussing HP nowadays), Rowling did a good job of setting up both motivation and justification for Harry's actions. Which isn't to say that he was never wrong — quite the opposite, especially in OotP — but that Harry's involvement in this war is justified in a way that Ruby's involvement is not. He's not just generally active (no tea sipping equivalent scenes), but we understand why he's the one taking that action.

Harry is an unwilling participant forced to fight due to a prophecy, so when he stumbles along the way, we as the reader are understanding because jeez, what else what he supposed to do? Literally no one else can do this and he's trying his best. Ruby, in contrast, is not necessary to this fight. We might have gotten that with her silver eyes, but we didn't, so when Ruby willingly steps up — or, in Volume 8, forcibly takes control — and then gets upset because things didn't go well, the viewer (or at least some viewers: us) are far less forgiving because she demanded this responsibility and then found she didn't like having it. When Harry rushes off to the Department of Mysteries, endangering many of his friends in the process (even if they volunteered) we understand that this action is done out of love. We've spent five books establishing Harry's desire for a family, it's literally his greatest wish according to the Mirror of Erised, so going after Sirius, while reckless, is such an in-character, relatable, human decision. It's integral to who Harry is as a person. Compare that to the lack of work done surrounding Summer and the unanswered question of why Ruby is fighting Salem. Because it's the right thing to do? Great, fantastic, but uh... that doesn't really explain or justify why she's leading the charge when all these other huntsmen — with the same goals, more experience, better plans, etc. —are trying to do The Right Thing too. When thinking about HP vs. RWBY, my mind always goes back to that moment at the end of the first book when Harry tries to tell McGonagall about the stone and she brushes him off. "Ah," I thought later. "That's why three 11yos are going off to save the magical artifact when there are adult, full-fledged wizards around to do it instead. The kids tried to turn hand this off to the adults and the adults failed them." Now, combine this with Harry's growing tendency to go it alone, the implication that Dumbledore may have been allowing him to face certain threats to get stronger, each book's individual situation like a hidden chamber that only Harry can enter, his Godfather being on the run, a magically binding contract that keeps him in a competition because the bad guys are specifically after him... Harry is at the heart of the story. He's integral to it, his part in the fight inevitable, so all that's left is to see how he bears that burden.

Ruby is not integral to this fight, her presence and even her silver eyes are not necessary, her facing down Salem is only inevitable from a meta perspective regarding expectations for a protagonist (and then, in Volume 8, Ruby didn't face her.) There's no clear personal motivation to drive her. There's not even a Guardian's of the Galaxy-esque motivation in the form of, "We'll step up because no one else will." Others do keep stepping up and Ruby keeps forcing them to follow her instead, insisting that her way is better. Only problem is, it's arguably not and that's when she has a plan at all. It's like if instead of going after the stone because his professors won't, or going after Sirius because he loves him, or going after Voldemort because a prophecy and a life of having a saving-people-thing has pushed him to that, Harry made his way to the front of this war Just Because, rejecting everyone else who fought in the first war, has more experience, and actual plans along the way. Why does he do this? Because his name is in the title of the book, I guess.

RWBY throws in lost of classic ideas and setups, but doesn't seem to understand their point. Even something as simple as that Big Bad vs. Big Good conflict in Volume 8. Putting aside how muddied this has gotten between the Gods' involvement and Salem's dip in the grimm pool, Volume 8 took the threat of our Big Bad arriving with an army and... ignored it. Instead, they ran with Ironwood as the primary antagonist of the volume, the guy trying to stop Salem, a previously established ally, the guy who just gave up his arm to capture another clear-cut villain, and who throughout Volume 7 demonstrated none of the manipulation we would attribute to a Dumbledore-like figure. Rather than running with their Big Bad's arrival, RWBY asked how they could force one of the good guys to become a bad guy instead, hence the sudden shooting of Oscar and murder of the councilman. This is a far from perfect comparison (and I take my virtual life in my hands bringing up another controversial character lol), but it's a little like if after we learned about which side Snape was truly on, he suddenly tried to kill Hermione, succeeded in killing a minor character like Professor Flitwick, and then made plans to destroy all of Hogwarts. Meanwhile, everyone is ignoring Voldemort standing on the front lawn because the narrative randomly made Snape the biggest problem instead. So a lot of the fanbase is like, "Yeah he's absolutely a dick and his horrific past/contentious choices are the point of his character... but he's also supposed to be one of the good guys at the end of the day? And the Big Bad is right there? We can argue about how 'good' Snape is until we're blue in the face, but he's no Voldemort. Why did you feel the need to chuck the morally gray character off the deep end for our heroes to oppose when our primary antagonist is literally right here, trying to kill them?" From this, to introducing a dead mother that in no way motivates our cast, to having Oscar face down Salem with an improvised weapon instead of Ruby with her eyes, to giving Penny an arc about accepting her android body only to rip it away, etc. etc. RWBY continuously throws out ideas without understanding what they're meant to accomplish. There's a lot to criticize about Harry Potter nowadays, but a lack of logical development isn't one of them.

And just to chuck in another text — because I too think about what has done Volume 8 themes better lol — consider: Loki. Stop reading now if you don't want spoilers, but a couple episodes in Loki and Sylvie end up on a dying planet that is only evacuating the rich. That's said overtly in both the dialogue and visually in the mise-en-scene, with poor people screaming that only the rich are getting tickets for the rocket and elaborately dressed elites enjoying the comforts of that ride. Then, just as they're about to escape, leaving the rest of their world behind, a piece of the moon hits the ship, either killing them instantly or stranding them with the people they abandoned. And I thought to myself, "See, this makes sense in a way RWBY never did." Evacuation was never about wealth in RWBY, despite what the fandom continually claims. Ironwood was trying to evacuate everyone and only stopped because they all assumed Salem would be killing them momentarily. This situation included Relics and a Maiden that would easily turn the tide of the war, meaning their safety influenced the whole world, not just these people. Mantle was not necessarily about to be destroyed — indeed, we find out later that Salem had no interest in it — and it was always a bad faith (and OOC) assumption that Ironwood was leaving his kingdom for good. The story doesn't even acknowledge the huge number of Mantle citizens already on Atlas when the attack begins. I was just sitting there thinking, "This two episode mini conflict in an insane show with alligators and time shenanigans somehow holds up better than RWBY's 27 episodes that are trying to be deep. How does that happen?"

#rwde #rwby #Harry Potter #HP #mymetas

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makeste · 4 years

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BnHA Chapter 288: ZOOM AND ENHANCE

Previously on BnHA: Tomura, AFO, Deku, and Nana all met up inside of OFA and were all, “wow this is awkward.” AFO talked a whole bunch about vestiges before realizing that nobody cared (EXCEPT FOR ME. I CARED!!), and was then all “anyway so just to get everyone up to speed here, Tomura is Nana’s grandson.” OFA appeared and was all “what up bro I see you’re still a dick”, and then everyone stood around for a bit waging psychokinetic war on each other and blowing up on the ground and shit. This didn’t really accomplish anything, so AFO shifted gears and started trash talking Deku instead, because he’s a whiny little punkass loser who can’t admit when his brother has gotten the best of him yet again! OFA was all “anyways Deku rules and haters gonna hate, peace”, and then everyone wooshed back out of OFA and back into the real world, Deku with his quirk still intact. Meanwhile Gigantomachia and the LoV stampeded ever closer to the city, and Toga started monologuing in preparation for a seemingly inevitable battle with Ochako! And then the chapter basically just ended there lol.

Today on BnHA: Imagine you are Uraraka Ochako. And you’re out here doing what you do best, saving bitches and being a badass, when all of a sudden some old lady runs up to you and is all “PLEASE HELP ME, MY HUSBAND IS ASLEEP OR SOME SHIT, YOU KNOW US OLD PEOPLE, WE’RE SO FUCKING FEEBLE AND HAPLESS.” And so you’re all “OF COURSE” because you’re a good fucking person, and then she speeds off like she’s got fucking wheels and it’s like damn, grandma, were you in varsity track or what, and then OUT OF NOWHERE she just spontaneously turns into HIMIKO FUCKING TOGA. And she’s all naked and shit, and it’s like damn, Toga, where are your clothes, and she just giggles and ducks into a nearby building. And so you follow her for god knows what reason, and she fucking pounces on you and starts interrogating you in like the most seductive way possible, and you’re all wtf is this. Like, can you even imagine. Anyway so Ochako is having quite a day.

okay lol so I’ve gotta kind of rush through this since I’ve got other stuff I need to wrap up today as well, so! fingers crossed that we get a nice, simple chapter with no controversies or elaborate revelations or anything like that! just give me lots of stuff to mindlessly keysmash about, Horikoshi. I’m counting on you bro

lol what

an actual fucking plane?? is that allowed?? how bizarrely normal. are we sure this plane does not shoot lasers or something or is powered by someone with like a fusion reactor quirk idk

and who tf is Takeo-san. some random guy Horikoshi is suddenly introducing after 300 chapters to come save everyone at the last minute? pretty sus. Horikoshi is this your self insert

GASP

NO WAY THIS IS ALL MIGHT, RIGHT?? holy shit I swear to god if it’s All Might this lady needs to TURN THE FUCK AROUND RIGHT NOW. stop at McDonalds, order a black coffee for herself and only herself, and drive the rest of the way back home without so much as a bathroom break. there are certain prophecies which we don’t need to be tempting right now, okay people?? holy shit

(ETA: OR, here’s a thought, WHAT IF IT’S BEST JEANIST. hope springs eternal lmao. anyways though surely it’s not actually All Might. he can’t die yet, he’s got like 5 million secret things he needs to explain to Deku, and also Kacchan is unconscious and he can’t just SLEEP RIGHT THROUGH ALL MIGHT’S DEATH like come on.)

oh look more heroes all lining up to be slaughtered by Machia

real talk, at this point their priority should just be evacuating any citizens in Machia’s path, and then getting the fuck out of his way. none of them stand a chance in hell at stopping him and they know it. the body count is already high enough as it is. regroup and live to fight another day, people

anyway, so Machia is apparently plowing through cities at 100km per hour. that... actually might not be fast enough. Gunga and Jakku were 80km apart, so at that rate it would take him nearly an hour to reach Tomura. that fight’s gonna be long done by the time they get there. huh

okay these guys are saying he’s going to reach them in about 8 minutes. ?? so are you telling me Tomura and Deku and the rest have been fighting for like 40 minutes already?? lmao Gran probably bled to death half an hour ago at this rate. Horikoshi please explain yourself. some of us spent our entire childhoods doodling comics instead of paying attention in math and science AND IT SHOWS

anyway so this is all very bad and this guy is really rubbing it in just how bad it is

I mean... yeah. obviously the villains are still to blame at the core of it all, but yeah. feels like you all could have planned a hell of a lot better for this. you knew there was the risk of Tomura waking up, and you knew there was also the risk of Gigantomachia waking up as well. and you pretty much had no contingency plan at all huh. society is really gonna be in shambles after this

lmao look at this shit. Machia is so big at this point that it looks like they’re having a picnic in the middle of some desert somewhere. at what point does it cease being a guy’s back and start being its own zip code

even has its own wifi. amazing

oh shit Compress apparently spotted someone and he’s asking Skeptic to “zoom and enhance” like it’s CS fucking I. that’s not how it works Compress you fucking boomer

anyway so OF COURSE,

was there a reason you needed to zoom in on them, other than to trigger Toga?? some people just want to watch the world burn

so Toga is now GEARIN’ UP!!

that honestly is so fucking handy. over at U.A. they have to carry their gear in briefcases like scrubs. does Compress actually have the best quirk in the world?? it flies under the radar so well that I always forget about it, but like WHAT CAN’T IT DO though, y’know??

WELL WHAT DID YOU THINK WAS GONNA HAPPEN MY DUDE

“oh hey is that the U.A. kids? Skeptic could you please zoom in on them for absolutely no reason? OH MY GOD TOGA IS RUNNING OFF TO FIGHT THEM, OH MY GOD WHO COULD HAVE FORESEEN, OH MY GOD”

now he’s all “DABI PLEASE DO SOMETHING” but Dabi is all “DABI DON’T CARE”

Dabi don’t care about NOTHING OR NO ONE!! Dabi don’t got time for this

lmao I literally forgot that Spinner was even there, shit

so are you gonna go with her then or not? because I got news for you dude, it doesn’t matter how heartwarming your speech is, nothing can stop this girl now that she’s gone full distracted boyfriend meme

AW BUT IT REALLY IS HEARTWARMING THOUGH

Spinner is the glue keeping this dysfunctional Addams family together honestly. too bad he couldn’t stop Compress from OPENING HIS BIG DUMB MOUTH ah well

lmao but he’s letting her go anyway though

Spinner for new LoV President. all in favor??

ANYWAYS LOL THIS IS BAD

“ACCELERATE EVACUATIONS” LOL WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO OCHAKO HE’S MOVING AT 100KM AN HOUR AND HE’S LIKE FUCKING GODZILLA SIZED FKJLK

“PLEASE RUN OUTSIDE OF THE VILLAIN’S PERIPHERY” well thank fucking god the people have you guys to guide them what would they even do without you lklkhlkds

NO HORIKOSHI DON’T YOU DARE

IF YOU HURT MY GIRL FROPPY I SWEAR TO GOD!! LEAVE HER ALONE YOU BRIGAND

OH THANK GOD

“sorry for SAVING YOUR LIFE” smh. anyway so how fucking badass is Ochako though?? can we just talk about this. THE GIRL POWER ARC STRIKES AGAIN hot damn

(ETA: and btw, seeing as Iida is nowhere to be found, I’d say odds are pretty good that they did in fact send him to go warn the Endeavorsquad of Gigantomachia’s imminent arrival. godspeed Iida! they need all the help they can get right now honestly.)

EXCUSE ME BUT ARE YOU TOGA

IS THIS TOGA. THIS IS DEFINITELY TOGA OMG

“I IMMEDIATELY TRUST YOU AND I WILL FOLLOW YOU TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH” noooo Ochako nooooo

damn Toga you really drained some poor old lady’s blood just so you could pull this kind of sneaky shit. I forgot how much I loved you

ohhhh lol so it’s her “husband” that is Takeo-san lol

THE BETTER TO LURE YOU INTO A TRAP MY DEAR

lmao Ochako you rube

now you’ve done it Toga. there is nothing Ochako loves more than a good old fashioned Old People Romance. DID YOU KNOW SHE HAS SEEN THE NOTEBOOK LIKE FIFTY TIMES. AND NO MATTER WHAT, IT ALWAYS GETS HER AT THE END. meanwhile I just want to watch a movie where James Marsden actually gets the girl for once but we all know that will never happen

OH MY

ngl this page would be like a thousand times better if Ochako was still blushing omg. did I ship this before?? I honestly can’t remember but I sure as fuck ship it now goddammit

(ETA: pretty sure I shipped it back during the Forest arc too but I don’t have time to check right now lol. but Toga is just so horny on main for everyone, all the time, and so like, it’s hard not to ship it.)

so now Toga is running off all flirtatiously and Ochako is barreling after her lol

plot twist, Takeo-san is actually in there. and he has NO IDEA what’s going on. WHAT HAPPENED TO MY WIFE. WHY IS THERE A GIANT MOLE MAN BURROWING THROUGH THE CITY

Ochako why on earth would you follow Toga into this dark creepy house where she could spring at you from any angle out of nowhere. just go back outside and float up over it until you have a high enough vantage point to see all the exits and just wait for her to come out

Toga says she wanted to talk to Tsuyu-chan as well, but let’s be real, you and her don’t have the same kind of electrically charged kismesis energy that you’ve got going on with Ochako though

LMAO DEKU NOWHERE IS SAFE

getting dragged like a fucking wedding train and he’s not even there to defend himself, shit

blah blah blah just ask her your question already Toga

MY WORD

would someone please inform Toga that this manga is only rated PG-13

so now Ochako is all “seriously Toga wtf”

you see that’s what I wanted to know too, lol. I really like that the characters actually think about these things and ask these kind of questions. that’s exactly the contrast between the heroes and the villains right there. the villains care about each other, they’ll give each other heartwarming speeches to please come back alive, and yet they’re utterly indifferent to the thousands of people being killed as they demolish their way through city after city. meanwhile by contrast Ochako’s first thought upon being erotically waylaid by her sexy knife-wielding archnemesis is “but what about that poor old lady is she all right.” just completely opposite energies, almost to a hilarious degree. like maybe Ochako actually should worry about herself just a little bit more lol but heroes gonna hero

and so now what, Toga!! you’re gonna pout about it?? like she’s betrayed you somehow?

anyway so that’s the end of the chapter! and I’ll just come right out and say that I’m hoping that this fight ends up being something where Toga maybe starts to see things just a little bit more from Ochako’s point of view, and not the other way around, because otherwise I’ll be a little frustrated, ngl. the manga has done an excellent job of making the villains likeable and relatable and getting us to sympathize with them up till this point, but at some point it’s got to start refuting some of these arguments and making it clear that the villains do not actually have any kind of moral high ground here

and also! I really like Toga and would like her to have some kind of redemption arc! but as of now that’s looking to be really difficult if not impossible to pull off, because Toga hasn’t exactly shown a whole lot of remorse for anything she’s done so far, you know? because she doesn’t see it as bad in any way; to her it’s just her way of expressing love, and being true to who she is. but being true to yourself really should NOT involve, you know, MURDER, and so yeah. it’s a problem lmao

but who knows! maybe this battle with Ochako will be the start of something which eventually leads to some sort of change within her! I have absolutely no idea how that could play out tbh, but even so I can hope! either that or she will double down on the whole “villains are victims and heroes are apathetic cruel hypocrites” ideology and decide she wants to kill Ochako and Izuku for breaking her heart, in which case I will be very sad, but I guess if that’s the way Horikoshi’s gonna play it it is what it is!

and lastly, so is this going to be like the final battle between them or something?? surely not, right? like this is just round 2 of 3. well at any rate, it’s sure going to be interesting

#bnha 288 #himiko toga #uraraka ochako #asui tsuyu #mr. compress #league of villains #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha

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nightwingmyboi · 4 years

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I have a massive amount of questions and hopefully you can answer them all. I wont ask all at once but first question. Dick and Tarantula. I know kinda what happens but like... All the titans took her side? Who were the titans and how did they react?

Alright, always happy to help out. Feel free to fire away! To start...I believe you’re thinking about Mirage, not Tarantula.

Everything with Tarantula occurred in Bludhaven when Dick wasn’t currently working with the Titans. Dick hasn’t ever talked about what happened with Tarantula to anyone, so it’s likely that the Titans have no idea that anything ever happened...the only people who would have an inkling of what went down would probably be Bruce (who after the fact yelled at Dick to stop being suicidal and never looked into the matter further) and Barbara (who broke up with Dick...after seeing Tarantula force herself on him and knee him in the groin...okay). Yeah that’s a whole other issue :/

But I’ll explain the situation with Mirage instead. To set the scene: Dick was on the “New Titans” team, which included: Starfire, Beastboy/Changeling, Red Star, Donna Troy, and Pantha. Mirage came from an evil alternate future timeline, and in that timeline she was romantically involved with a version of Dick Grayson, later known as “Deathwing.” Because of this, she is obsessed with Dick and is convinced that they belong together. She’s come back with the rest of the “Team Titans” to the past to kill Donna Troy in order to stop her son from ruling over the world as a dictator. For some reason, she accomplishes this plan...by kidnapping Starfire, replacing her, and tricking Dick into having sex. Yeah, the plot is convoluted as hell. No time to unpack all that!

Deathstroke (1991) #14

The team discovers that there is an imposter when Kory manages to break free of her imprisonment and escape. Dick realizes that he was manipulated into having sex with a stranger. Instead of Kory and Dick being able to talk about it alone, Pantha spills the beans in front of the whole team (sans Donna) and fuels the fire with several horrible, crude comments.

The New Titans (1988) #90

“Details! From ten to one--how did she score compared to this one?”

Though Mirage had them all fooled, Pantha says that, seeing as Dick slept with her, he definitely should have been able to realize that she was phony. No one on the team comes to Dick’s defense or tries to shift the blame from Dick’s shoulders. Kory’s a bit pissed as well. She’s had a pretty bad couple of days. She wants an explanation from Dick, but Pantha can’t freaking shut up for five seconds so that he can give her one.

Also, note the comments about how Dick’s hair has changed? And about “Starfire’s” new costume? I’m going to quickly side track to explain just how terrible Mirage is.

The New Titans #88

So, while she was disguised as Kory, Mirage pushed Dick into changing his costume and cutting his hair into a mullet. Dick didn’t want to, especially because his discowing costume had huge sentimental value seeing as he’d modeled the look after his dead parent’s circus outfits, but “Kory” kept pestering him. He trusted his girlfriend, so Dick eventually agreed to follow what he thought was her lead.

I can’t get over how horrible that is...that Dick’s rapist tried to own Dick’s body to the extent that manipulating him into having sex wasn’t enough, that she abused his trust to change his appearance to suit her needs too, specifically altering him in ways he wasn’t comfortable with. It’s disgusting, I don’t know why it’s so often glossed over, and it really gives a whole new reason to hate “Mulletwing.” And Nightwing’s not the only one whose bodily autonomy is completely thrown out the window.

The New Titans #93

When Mirage was disguised as Kory, she went around and did a bunch of porno, nude photoshoots. I don’t think I have to explain how awful it is that Kory’s appearance was used like this without her consent, especially in such a public way (people were literally stopping her in the streets to talk about it and she was invited onto a news show). Kory is rightfully pissed. Mirage also changes Starfire’s costume as well, to have big cut-outs on the sides.

Mirage is absolutely horrible. Cannot say that enough.

Back on the plot: Dick and Kory still have a lot to talk out, but they are on a mission to save Donna, so both of them put their feelings aside for now to help their friend. Later, while Starfire is busy chasing Donna in space, Nightwing runs into Mirage, and she reveals that she was the imposter.

Team Titans #2

DICK YOU SLUT! So tell me, who was better? Huh? Huh? Huh?

Mirage laughs about raping Nightwing with zero remorse. Pantha calls Dick a slut and once again asks who is better. Also like last time, the rest of the team (sans Donna) is standing right there...and doesn’t care or help him out at all.

Dick is forced to put his feelings aside once again to deal with the threat to Earth. This means working with Mirage to the point where she is just...part of the team for some reason? My reaction is pretty in line with Kory’s here:

Despite Kory’s protest, Dick focuses on the mission, and says that they need the manpower and the knowledge of the future that the Team Titans (including Mirage) have in order to defeat Donna and her son (long story, just ignore the plot honestly). But really, they need Mirage...so that she can cause unnecessary, contrived drama between Dick and Kory.

I’m just going to say it: Kory and Dick are both pretty wildly out of character. Putting aside how stupid and cliché this plot is in the first place, Dick lets Mirage get away with way too much crap, when he’s always been very up front about dealing with bullshit in the past. One of the absolute worst things about having Mirage stick around (and at one point literally go on vacation with the Titans) is how she just keeps acting like her and Dick are together. It’s gross and Dick needed and usually would have put his freaking foot down about it. They also have Kory flipping from acknowledging that Mirage tricked Dick and is at fault for what happened:

Team Titans #2

The New Titans (1988) #90

To having her think that Dick genuinely...loved Mirage and would rather be with her? And blaming Dick for being tricked? Even though Dick and Kory are both victims here?

The New Titans (1988) #90

The New Titans (1988) #97

Starfire has an incredibly high EQ. She and Dick have always been very communicative. To see her completely unwilling to hear him out (and blame him for being raped) is shocking. She acts like an immature teenager, changing her mind all the time and then storming off to go party with random guys in clubs for the next couple days. She has zero of her previously demonstrated emotional maturity and trust. Meanwhile, just as Dick loses his girlfriend, he also loses his apartment, and, to top it all off, Roy swings by to tell Dick that the government is going to shut down the Titans because of all the property damage that happened in their last fight. Nightwing literally can never catch a break.

The New Titans (1988) #99

Eventually, the two do make up...and Dick immediately proposes to Kory out of nowhere. She accepts, despite being pissed moments before. They have a wedding the next issue, but it is interrupted by villains from the alternate timeline, including an evil Raven and Deathwing. Afterwards, Dick and Kory’s relationship is never quite the same.

Seeing Dick and Starfire’s relationship sour, when it was built up over so many years of comics (and with neither of them truly being at fault for the split), is freaking depressing. And Mirage never does get punished really...I’m pretty sure she’s even part of the honor guard that escorts Superman’s body to his tomb when he dies, which is dumb as hell. But that’s how it all went down.

Just to clarify, since you specifically asked how the team reacted, I kept saying “(sans Donna)” because while most of this was going on Donna was a) giving birth or b) going crazy with power. Later, Donna is shown to know about what happened with Mirage, but she doesn’t really give it much thought. She does comment that Dick is acting strangely and she’s concerned about him, but she also doesn’t seem to connect the obvious dots that Dick is acting off...because he’s still shaken about being raped and tricked. Roy also appears later on to lead the Titans. Mirage is a member of that group, and Roy isn’t really shown to have any strong feelings about it.

Honestly, I wouldn’t say that the Titans “took Mirage’s side” as you describe. Pretty sure none of them liked Mirage. But, they didn’t stand up for Dick, certainly. There was a lot of victim blaming. Dick’s rape wasn’t given the narrative weight that it deserved, probably due to the time period the comic was made. His teammates mostly didn’t care enough to take sides, used him being raped as a joke, or blamed him for being tricked.

The whole story arc is convoluted, the characterizations are terrible, and overall it just sucks that this was written.

#mirage #mirage dc #starfire #koriand'r #dickkory #kory anders #rape #nightwing #dick grayson #long post #meta #character analysis #ask

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cynthiaandsamus · 3 years

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Custom Toonami Block Week 73 Rundown

Code Geass: Lelouch and co. are still stuck in China and Xingke’s flipping out because the Chinese assholes are gonna kill the Empress and go with someone less problematic for their political marriage to Britannia’s creepily overaged prince. However Lelouch pulls out a Knightmare that’s basically the Twink version of the Gawain and busts everyone up as well as pulling a Father Cornello on them and letting the people know they’re all elitst 1% assholes that don’t care about them, which I suspect all countries probably know about their leaders but it sucks to hear it in a recording so riots show up all over China and CC Geass Flashes Anya to take her out so Britannia has to back out because the Chinese Hierarchy are now the least popular people in the world. So Xingke gets to be with his Empress and joins the Black Knights but Dietard wants the Empress to marry someone on their side so they can basically do the asshole move Britannia just tried to do but for them. All the girls are like ‘hey no’ and Lelouch is like “Oh hey Tamaki buddy, let’s go talk and get me the fuck out of here” so before Lelouch actually has to give Tamaki more lines and elevate him beyond the Black Knight’s Yamacha Shirley calls and Lelouch just straight up asks Shirley about love in a weirdly forced series of circumstance. But Shirley’s like “Yeah don’t fuck with love, don’t you love anyone?” and Lelouch is like “Yeah I do, Nunally!” and I don’t think that’s at all what Shirley meant but it does mean Lelouch sees that fighting for something beyond politics is powerful and agrees to not marry off the twelve year old girl, so that’s good. Lelouch decides to return home while they hunt down the Geass cult which is in China for some reason despite that being one of the like two places on earth Britannia doesn’t control and the Geass Cult largely being a Britannian affair. Meanwhile Sayoko is basically a Lelouch Vtuber at this point with her insanely accurate Lupin III mask of Lelouch and kisses Shirley so Shirley’s a little bit more gay than she was before and is not sure how to feel about that. When she’s about to tell the real Lelouch he kisses like a girl, Anya and Gino show up because we’re retreading the whole ‘sleeping with the enemy at school’ thing from the first season except with way less interesting enemies. Also the preview for the next episode is Lelouch dramatically talking about enemies finding out he’s Zero overtop footage of Shirley and Milly absolutely naked in a batthouse scene so I think we know what kind of episode that’ll be.

Inuyasha: The Panther Demon filler concludes with everyone meeting at the site where the Panther Master is being revived behind a strong barrier, if only someone just got a barrier upgrade to their sword, oh wait. But yeah everyone manages to free the hostages so even though Kagome’s jewel shards revives the Panther Master he’s still a zombie without a sacrifice which is weird since Naraku managed to completely revive the Band of Seven with one jewel shard each from skeletons and the Panther Lord has three shards so idk the rules here but yeah he steals the souls of his own men to revive and is Wind Scar Proof because he just is. It’s pretty cool to see him shooting his claws and lightning and shit but he’s too big and slow for it to be much of an interesting fight. Sesshomaru’s about to go full demon which would be interesting since we haven’t seen his full demon form since he lost his arm but in a neat bit of character development, Tenseiga calms his rage and tells him to use it instead. You get the feeling Sesshomaru only goes full demon when he flies off the handle and forgets about speed and strategy so him opting to not repeat the mistake he made against Inuyasha is pretty cool. Anyway Tenseiga heals the souls of the Panther Demons and drains their energy from the lord so he’s back to Zombie Cat Man which Inuyasha can Wind Scar because that’s what happens to villains on this show, all Wind Scars all the time. The Panthers don’t wanna fight anymore since their boss just killed them and tell Inuyasha to tell Sesshomaru the feud is over and they’re going back to the West. Honestly this is basically the same backstory they gave Kirinmaru in Yashahime so it’s funny for them to say they’re going back to the same place Kirinmaru is from, wonder if it’ll ever come up in Yashahime since most filler seems canon there.

Yu Yu Hakusho: Yusuke and Kuwabara continue the assault on Tarukane’s compound and basically plow through the lower demons easy since they’ve been fighting minor deities up to this point. It’s always pretty cool in Shonen to just have a few rounds to show how much power creep the heroes have had where certain things just don’t bother them anymore. Toguro murders a Chimera which has an oddly similar backstory to Nina from FMA and he seems really bummed about it but he’s like “Hey we’re both monsters made by humans telling us to do shit, so sorry for killing you bro”. And Tarukane basically sees Toguro is the next boss and is like “Yup time to scam some people off of this” and he sets up a betting ring for how far Yusuke and Co will get into his compound. This is kinda neat because it puts Tarukane in the weird position of betting against his own guards and hoping Yusuke will make it all the way to Toguro and then lose after everyone else has seen how awesome Yusuke is and bets on him. And funnily enough Sakyo’s in on the betting and he’s watched anime before so he knows to bet on the plucky teenagers with weird powers. So yeah Yusuke and Kuwabara finish plowing through the demons while Hiei kinda stalks them and remembers getting his eye surgery and wanting to help his sister but it’s kind of against spirit world rules for demons to just go plow through humans even if they’re scumbag humans so now Yusuke and Kuwabara have to go fight the Triad of boss demons Toguro has under him before Hiei busts in and just murders everyone for kidnapping his bird-loving jewel-crying little flower of a sister.

Fate Zero: So Kiritsugu can break Kayneth’s Terminator 2 Gaara defenses with rib bullets that just say ‘no’ to using magic and fucks his arrogant ass up. Saber and Lancer do some combo shenanigans to stab Caster right in the book and disrupt all his hentai tentacle demons but the book heals so idk why he can’t just make more. Kirei fucks up Maiya and Iris but didn’t double tap Maiya and DID double tap iris but she’s got Saber’s bullshit healing scabbard on her which no one knows about so Saber’s like “uhhh why are you healing” and Iris can’t tell her so she’s basically “Uhh internet?” Lancer comes in to save Kayneth’s worthless ass and tells Kiritsugu to stop being a dick to Saber because she’s pretty dope. But as usual for an early Fate encounter, no one dies and nothing of terrible consequence happens despite it being teased a couple times. I’ve noticed a trend with Fate that it really doesn’t like killing characters early so you’re basically guaranteed to have the first 2-3 major battles have a zero net gain/loss. Rider in UBW was probably the subversion to that since it happened crazy fast and anticlimactic but even that wasn’t till like ten episodes in.

Konosuba: So we finally meet Wiz the big booby Lich and Kazuma learns a new skill, both fun things. Also the gang gets a house to stay in after escapades with an army of haunted dolls and the most “I need to pee” in a horror setting since Corpse Party. But yeah, good progress this time honestly, the living in a stable gag was getting kind of old so Kazuma’s a bit stronger now and they have a home base so that’s pretty cool. Also Wiz is a Demon General or some shit but no one cares cause there ain’t no money in murdering busty zombie waifus.

Sailor Moon Crystal: So turns out Minako is Princess Serenity, except everyone who knows anything about Sailor Moon or indeed plot structure knows Sailor Moon is Princess Serenity, that’s like the Luke I Am Your Father of this series. But still turns out Minako has been guiding everyone with the power of video games but also thinks the power of friendship sucks and she’s gotta go do everything alone. This makes things super awkward because Mamoru’s pretty sure he was in love with the Princess but likes Usagi, now instead of running with this interesting thread of a reincarnation falling in love with someone new we’re gonna do the reveal that Usagi’s the princess and the whole ‘till death do us part’ part of marriage was just a metaphor and you’re stuck with one person no matter how many times you reincarnate. But yeah, Minako fights the bad guy on top of the tower but he has Naraku’s Barrier now and Minako doesn’t have the Red Tessaiga upgrade yet so she needs the power of friendship but this barrier is friendship-proof and this fight is basically a bunch of kids on the playground making up increasingly stupid powers that negate the other powers the other guy just made up. Anyway Tuxedo Mask shows up and is like “Holy shit Sailor Moon I love when you kiss me and kick ass, go get em sweetie I’ll hold your flower” and they kiss and Usagi has learned that if she just pretends she got this the power of her confidence will beat the bad guy. Unfortunately she does not got this and Tuxedo Mask has to pull a Piccolo and throw himself in front of the blast.

Durarara!!: So now that we’ve had our climax for the arc we have a six month timeskip and everyone’s just kinda living life, Mika and Seiji are being clinically insane together, there’s cops harassing Celty to the point of mental breakdown (normal cop stuff) Shinra’s dad’s in town, Namie’s become Izaya’s secretary for blackmail shit, you know, normal stuff. Also there’s a katana-wielding maniac going around slashing people and Anri’s being bullied and sexually harassed to the point of mental collapse, normal stuff.

#ooc #Toonami #Custom Toonami Block #Code Geass #Inuyasha #Yu Yu Hakusho #Fate Zero #Konosuba #Sailor Moon Crystal #Durarara!!

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unseelie-bitch · 3 years

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Season 3 Episode 1: The Princess' Ball

Oh I am EXCITED for this

Oh god okay new shots in the intro include a well-dressed man who very much looks like a human version of Scarlemagne from Kipo. Gonna go out on a limb and assume he's the new antagonist

Musa's hair's longer!! Oh it's so cute

Okay who is this blue haired lady that keeps showing up in the intro she's clearly important but gives me villain vibes

Also loving the amount of ballgowns they're clearly going to wear this season

Stella's packing for a vacation, good start

Musa "wear whatever you have" is not advice Stella would EVER take come on

And why exactly is vacation way shorter this year? You can't just say that and expect me not to question it

I think Techna's voice actor has changed >:(

Layla and Musa aren't going home? Aww...

"Hitherus" iconic

KIKO

Oh nice one Layla

Oh no Stella's getting a sungram please tell me her parents aren't cancelling on her

Oh Stella's getting a princess ball! Also "back when they still had arranged marriages" implies that Sky actively proposed to Diaspro and they were actually dating so... what's the truth lover-boy?

Oh no her dad has a suprise announcement he thinks will make her happy? What's the bet he's either pulling her out of school or has found her a husband

Aww Stella's bringing the whole squad!!

"Approaching omega dimension" with ominous music... can I assume we're either going to see the Trix or fancyboy?

Oh they're delivering three prisoners... Icy? Darcy? Stormy?

"They say it's so cold down there it freezes your heart solid" well Icy won't exactly have an issue now will she

Yep it's the Trix

Okay so Icy just woke up with glowing eyes which is a whole thing but can we talk about their frozen expressions? They not only look afraid but in pain... when were they frozen? What happened to them? I hope they're okay

Well Icy's free

Icy I'm loving your monologue but do you want to maybe free your coven sisters

Oh no she's hoping her parents are getting back together honey no

Oh my god Icy freed Darcy and Stormy and they both immediately collapsed they look so exhausted I'm so worried for them

"Only the baddest of the bad get sent here, girls" "Nice! I bet they're talking about us at Cloud Tower" I cannot stress enough that these are not Big Bad Villains they're just teenagers who don't want to be forgotten and have been abused and manipulated please can they get redemption arcs

Oh ice-laser-breathing-snakes. Isn't that fun?

Stormy actually looked terrified oh no

Blue haired girl from the intro has made her entrance and she's a dick

Pizza man is not okay with this Stella Vs Mystery Girl fight in his shop

Sorry they're... what? Please tell me she didn't actually say "Betas" like it's a flex

Oh wow her friends have a song and dance. Isn't that lovely

Okay I was willing to accept Mystery Girl right up until she was a bitch to Flora now she's going down

Techna going "snap" to emphasise Stella's insult? Iconic. Especially since she did it better than the Betas

Musa's getting her hair spelled! Excited to see it longer

Bloom and Stella are alone <3

Virtual dresses? Excellent world building

Montage!!

The Beta bitch is going to steal Stella's dress isn't she

Yep there we go

HOW DARE YOU PUSH STELLA AND BLOOM OVER

The Trix are running from the snakes oh shit

IT FROZE STORMY'S MAGIC AND SHE LOOKED SO SCARED AGAIN NOOO

Icy actually called back to make sure Stormy knew where they were going! I'm so glad they all care about each other <3

Icy please stop enjoying the icy floor the others can't deal with this like you can

Love that Icy jumped then flew into the cavern while Darcy and Stormy just fell straight down

Again, Icy is fine and gets up straight away, Darcy is hurt and crouched down and Stormy is just straight up lying on the floor please look out for the non-icy witches Icy

Oh there's sir fancyboy. His name's Baltor and I believe I've vaguely heard it

He was sentenced to eternity?? Jesus. Also implies that they would have gotten the Trix out at some point which is interesting

"Frozen dude, blink once if you can see us" okay first of all Icy his name is Baltor and it is literally RIGHT in front of you, secondly he was sentenced to eternity do you really want to try and team up with that? Thirdly iconic line though I love her

Love that Stormy's like "what if we unfeeze this guy so the snakes can kill him and we can get away" and Icy immediately agrees. These girls are pro-murder but everyone has flaws and they're cute so

Darcy and Stormy protecting Icy's back while she's using her (clearly diminished) powers to unfreeze Baltor? Even though they know damn well there's nothing they can do against the snakes? Absolutely brilliant the Trix are such a strong group I love that they actaully love each other and will protect the others at all costs

Fully ran behind Baltor and shoved him into the snakes lol

OH SHIT BALTOR KILLED ALL THREE SNAKES WITH LIKE 0 EFFORT

He's so extra I love him

He was frozen and awake for 17 years... yikes

I didn't notice his stupid little beard until now yikes Baltor please shave it

Oh he cut Icy off this won't end well Darkar has taught her not to let anyone else take charge

Baltor being like "I have no idea what any of you can do and I know I'm powerful but we've been sentenced to the same place so you probably are too. Also I'm out numbered so Imma just let you do what you want... for now" is the smartest villain-play so far

Meanwhile Stella's still trying to get her dress from Beta bitch

"Tantrum Tirade" is Beta bitch's spell so she's clearly the epitome of 'daddy's little rich girl'. Just the Winx version of Veruca Salt. Clearly Beta is for the trustfund babies without talent. Yikes

We have a name lads: Chimera

OH NO HER SPELL IS MAKING A BASKET OF PUPPIES FALL FROM A HIGH BALCONY

Watch Stella lose the dress because she's a good fucking person and won't let the puppies die

OH THOSE DOGS ARE SO CUTE

Oh shit. She's "soon going to be the princess of solaria". Shit man. Stella's dad's marrying Chimera's mother isn't he. That's the news SHIT

The gate to Tides? Oh no Baltor and the Trix can't wreck Layla's home world :(

Baltor you little bitch you could have told them the gate was re-enforced BEFORE they tried to break it and got thrown backwards

Icy might want to show off but I love how Darcy and Stormy are like "bitch do NOT bring that snake back near us"

The teamwork lads. Icy redirecting the beam so Darcy and Stormy can break the barrier? Immaculate. Also I love how Icy has started calling them "ladies" I just think it's cute

Baltor's little hops are ridiculous

"I like your style" "Back at ya Baltor" Icy I can't believe you just WINKED please stop flirting your girlfriends are RIGHT THERE

Mermaid guards!!

Okay but for real, why do you even HAVE an omega dimension gate? Like, what was the purpose? Come on

Oh Baltor's enslaving the mermaids. Christ that was quick

"How do all these guys get minions?" "I don't know but we gotta get some too" says Stormy and Icy, ignoring the third member of the Trix who's primary power is MIND CONTROL (also the Trix are so cute I'm sorry they're just adorable)

Musa's long hair is WONDERFUL

Okay Stella's new dress is actually quite cute

Musa please don't ignore your boyfriend

Are we going to find out why Bloom and Sky fought or...?

Riven brought music for Musa oh my god I can't believe I'm starting to like him... but the growth... the development... HE'S ACTUALLY KINDA CUTE NOW SHIT

"Something's wrong with the ocean" no shit Layla there's a TIDAL WAVE

RIVEN JUST SAVED A TINY CHILD AWW

Layla saving the OTHER tiny child

Oh... bye Layla! Good luck fighting Baltor alone...

"You brand them, turn them into freaks and take their power? Very cool, Baltor..." Icy PLEASE I know you have a crush but come on

Baltor's electric guitar solo is peak

#winx rewatch #winx club

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thebibliomancer · 3 years

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Essential Avengers: King-Size Annual Avengers #11: In Honor’s Name!

August, 1982

“Why do the AVENGERS battle the Defenders?”

I dunno, man. Is it Tuesday again?

“And who is the mystery woman Nebulon has fallen for?”

Nebulona? She’s clearly just him but a woman.

Oh, hey Beast. So this is where you got to after quitting the Avengers.

Soooo.... Annuals, amirite? Pain in my butt. I actually forgot to cover this one and #12 is going to be somewhat plot relevant soon so I’ll shove this in wherever.

Its a blast from the past of the previous year. Back when the Avengers were fantastic but only numbered four: Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, and Wasp.

And the Defenders seem to number many so this isn’t a very fair fight at all.

This issue starts with a PRELUDE

(J. M. DeMatteis again? Is this going to be weird?)

Nebulon the Celestial Man and damn fine dresser fades onto a hilltop shaking his fist and yelling that someone can’t do something to him.

Nebulon is mostly a Defenders villain and the major thing I know about him is that he’s supposedly exceptionally handsome but the handsomeness is a ruse and that the Squadron Sinister stopped helping him destroy the world once because they discovered he wasn’t as handsome as he was letting on.

Goes to show where their priorities lie. Also, the experience was so jarring that the evil Nighthawk decided to join the Defenders much to their chagrin.

So basically I know nothing about Nebulon. Hi, Nebulon.

An angry yelly fish head with the Rocky Horror Picture Show lips inside its fish lips shows up (I think this is what Nebulon realy looks like) and tells Nebulon that his punishment for constantly dicking with Earth is to be stranded on Earth with his powers reduced to half and stuck in his handsome-to-some-but-grotesque-to-fish body.

Okay. That clears things up.

Although I wish all of space would stop using Earth as their place to dump stuff or exile people. Its bad enough when Asgard does it. Its worse enough when there’s a whole crossover about all of space deciding to make Earth its supermax jail. And its a medium amount enough here.

But apparently the shouty fish people have a Prime Directive and Nebulon keeps breaking it, specifically on Earth. But a Prime Directive that also lets them dump troublemakers on planets where they’ve been troublemaking.

Nebulon tries to defend himself that, hey, Earth makes you do crazy stuff. But the yell fish is hearing nothing of it and just tells Nebulon to kill himself if he doesn’t want to be on Earth so bad.

... Eesh.

In his rage at being stranded on Earth, Nebulon teleports inside the Sanctum Sanctorum and starts yelling at Wong.

Wong tells him, dude, Dr Strange isn’t even here. So Nebulon starts beating up Wong.

How dare you, sir. Wong is a great guy!

Nebulon: “Then Wong shall die -- just as your master shall soon die -- and his accursed Defenders with him! They shall all pay for bringing this tragedy down on my head! For, if they had not risen up to thwart me. If they -- if they... Listen to me. Listen to the words of -- a fool! Forgive me, Wong! Neither you, Strange, nor the Defenders are responsible! The blame belongs solely to -- NEBULON!”

And then he teleports away, no doubt leaving Wong very confused.

CHAPTER 1: IN HONOR’S NAME!

Later, Thor flies over the Himalaya mountains and over the chapter title.

He has come for some peace and quiet sitting on a mountain away from the bustle of mortals but what does he find but someone already in his thinking spot!

Thor lands to see who would be sitting on a mountain with no pants on and its Nebulon, of course.

But I have to say. He’s sitting and hugging his knees. That’s advanced brood. That’s, in fact, verging on pout.

Although lets not let the fact that Thor flies out to the Himalayas to be alone sometimes slip on by uncommented.

Thor asks what brings the guy out here and Nebulon has a dramatic exile speech ready to go.

Nebulon: “For hours now I have sat, lost in thought, pondering that very question! What is it that brings any creature to the depths of despair, the edge of doom, but... himself?”

And since he senses a kindred spirit in Thor, one who is as different from the Earthly masses as Nebulon is, he unloads his full story onto Thor’s ears.

Upon hearing all about this dude who tried to take over or sell the world multiple times, Thor is like ‘this guy has got to meet the Avengers!’

Nebulon thinks Avengers sounds like Defenders and he’s not into that but Thor says that the Avengers are way cooler than the Defenders.

(Ooooh, shots fired, Thor)

Thor: “No, my friend -- there are none in all creation to compare with the Avengers! A hardier band of warriors hath ne’er been assembled! Where else could a god walk among mortals and find -- his equals?”

If Nebulon has truly repented of his past deeds, the Avengers will help him make a home on Earth.

And with a manly armclasp, like the one from Predator, Nebulon accepts and Thor takes him AWAY!

While the person who looks like Nebulon but a woman and with better boots watches them go and disappears in a bright flash of light.

CHAPTER 2

Yes, already.

“Avengers Mansion... Over the years, many fantastic beings have walked through the doors of this august Manhattan townhouse: Gods, mutants, androids... even a were-woman. But, of all these unique individuals, few -- if any -- have been more honored, more respected... More willing to serve the cause of freedom, wherever the place, whenever the time.. than the living legend whose only powers are his wits, his daring, and his years of hard-won skill... Captain America!”

And we see Cap leaping and gamboling about the exercise room, exercising.

Cap: “Ah -- there’s nothing like a good workout to make a man feel truly alive! It might pay to run through it once more, though --- my timing was a hair off on the parallel bars!”

Wasp comes in to... well, its Wasp. She comes to eye the eye candy and flirt a little, in a friendly fashion.

Wasp: “I see you’re here early for our meeting -- as usual! Don’t you ever slow down?”

Cap: “I seem to remember catching a few winks back in 1942 or so!”

Wasp: “Why, Cap -- that was two jokes in a row! I didn’t think you had it in you!”

Cap: “Oh, come on, Jan -- I’m not really that serious a guy, am I?”

Wasp: “I was just kidding, handsome.”

Cap: “Oh.”

Heh.

So, Thor called a super special emergency meeting of the Avengers to introduce his cool new friend.

Iron Man (secretly Tony Stark, true believers) is a little tense about the meeting because he had to cancel three business conferences, an address to foreign stockholders, and two dates.

Geez, for one meeting? You ever consider your calendar is way too packed, Tony?

Thor arrives with his cool, new pal and introduces the Avengers to NEBULON -- THE CELESTIAL MAN!

And Iron Man lunges out of his chair to get into better pointing distance.

Thor: “What irks thee, comrade? Why art thou so angered?”

Iron Man: “What irks me, Thor? He does! Haven’t you ever bothered to study our computer-file on alien threats? Your ‘newfound ally’ almost totalled the Earth -- several times!”

Nebulon: “Don’t you see, Thor? They react as I predicted they would!”

Also, geez. I know Tony is frustrated about all the schedule juggling he’s had to do but in this and the Black Knight two-parter he’s a lot ruder to Thor than you’d expect considering how close they are.

Some writers just don’t get the Avengers, I guess.

Cap and Wasp try to get Iron Man to calm down.

Wasp: “I’m sure there’s a darn good reason why Thor brought Nebulon here -- isn’t there?”

She’s downright staring daggers at him when she asks that.

We’ve jumped back in time a little from where I was covering but Jan is still the chairperson of the Avengers. It happened right when she returned from her divorce related hiatus and this four person group has to take place post-Tigra leaving and pre-membership drive.

So, she’s the boss and she just gave angry boss eyes at Thor. And Thor did his default squinting always-looks-pissed look back at her.

Thor tells Nebulon’s whole sad story off-panel.

And damn if it doesn’t hit the Avengers right where they live.

Wasp tells him that they all know what it means to lose something precious “whether it’s an entire world... or the love of one person -- it makes no difference! It hurts to suddenly find yourself -- alone!”

And Captain America sympathizes because when he was defrosted after twenty years, it was like a strange new world!

They’re both on team ‘give Nebulon a chance!’

Iron Man is more reluctant but decides to give Nebulon one chance.

Then the Defenders bust in.

Beast, Valkyrie, Silver Surfer, and Gargoyle who is not Etrigan at all.

And they’re here to kick Nebulon’s ass. Which is entirely fair considering that they’ve been the ones who keep having to stop Nebulon’s planschemes.

Since the Avengers seem to not be beating up Nebulon, obviously they’ve all been mind controlled. Nebulon is clearly planning to blow up half the Earth and use the Avengers to control the rest.

Cap: ‘what’

Silver Surfer: ‘HE’S MAKING A HOSTILE MOVE!’

And then Silver Surfer blasts the floor, sending all of the Avengers sprawling every which way.

MEANWHILE, IN SPACE

There’s a huge spaceship, in space. And within the huge spaceship in space, the lady who looks like a lady Nebulon watches the fight on a screen and cries.

Hey, I get it. Doing the Avengers vs Defenders Again But Worse makes me sad too.

CHAPTER 3

See, that’s more of the length for a chapter. You could learn something from chapter 2, chapter 1.

Anyway, the clock winds back a little for the Defender’s side of the story.

Valkyrie returns to the Sanctum Sanctorum in a good mood and also on a flying horse.

For a long while, Valkyrie’s status quo is that she was inhabiting the body of Barbara Norris, a woman that Dr Strange accidentally drove insane. But she’s gotten her original Asgardian body back so she’s stronger than ever and also not bodyjacking someone else.

She flies into the window, alarming Gargoyle, Beast, and Wong.

Gargoyle tearfully flies up and hugs Valkyrie saying that he thought she was leaving for Asgard forever.

Hey, um, who dis?

-wiki- Ok so he’s an elderly man who was trapped in a gargoyle body by some demons who he broke an agreement with. Cool, cool, cool. I would have guessed much younger based on how he acts here.

Valkyrie also smooshes Beast’s hand when he gives her a handshake hello, because she’s much buffer than she was when she left. Also, she talks more like Thor.

Valkyrie: “I am, at long last, the true Valkyrie! What more need be said?”

Then the Lady Nebulon teleports in and introduces herself as Supernalia. She tells the Defenders that she’s here to save the world from the evil of NEBULON!

Beast doesn’t recognize the name but Valkyrie definitely does. What with all the existing history that I keep alluding to.

Supernalia: “Indeed! I am a bounty hunter from Nebulon’s homeworld come to bring him to justice! He has fled to your Earth, taking sanctuary among the so-called Avengers! Using celestial mind control, he has usurped their will, and -- after decimating part of your world with four pre-set anti-matter bombs -- he plans to use the Avengers to take control of the surviving population!”

Beast goes ‘uh cool story but i’mma verify this real quick by ringing them up’

But then he remembers he already did do that and they were very rude to him!

He remembers this interaction very clearly even though it didn’t happen at all.

Ironically, the Defenders are the ones who are being mind-controlled into accusing other people of being mind-controlled. Yes, I’m pretty sure that’s irony.

Wong suddenly remembers that Nebulon rushed in the previous night but he can’t remember how that interaction actually went.

AH HAH, decides Beast. Clearly proof that Nebulon mind-controlled Wong. Lets go half-cocked everyone.

No, no. Beast decides they’ll need more than just the three of them and wonders who they should call to bolster their numbers to a whole four Defenders. Dr Strange is busy chasing Daimon Hellstrom and Namor soooo...

Valkyrie suggests Silver Surfer because he kicks ass but they have no way to get in contact with him.

Supernalia goes hey allow me.

Supernalia: “Although my planet’s laws forbid direct involvement with alien cultures -- and thus my need of you Defenders -- I can help!”

And she baps Valkyrie in the forehead and instantly transmissions Silver Surfer right to the Sanctum to his existential annoyance.

Silver Surfer: What force has swept me halfway ‘round the world? Who toys with -- the Silver Surfer?”

Valkyrie explains off-panel because this is very much “let me explain! No, there is too much. Let me sum up” kind of day.

CHAPTER 4

We cut back to right after the Silver Surfer knocked everyone on their ass with a warning shot.

Thor: “Surfer -- art thou mad?! Thy ‘warning’ came close to slaying us all!”

Thor gets up to kick Norrin’s rad ass but Valkyrie grabs his arm. She tries to convince him to trust her that Nebulon is controlling the Avengers. She appeals to their shared history, their shared love.

Thor: “Brunnhilde -- thou art truly the one blinded... by thine own prejudice! Because, once, Nebulon stood as thine enemy -- thou takest him for that again!”

Valkyrie: “Thunderer -- once I loved thee -- but now I see -- that thou art -- A FOOL!”

Then she just up and tosses him.

It’s pretty great.

Thor just rights himself midtoss by helicoptering his hammer and tells Valkyrie that she’s the fool. And also that because she fucking threw him, now he knows that its her group that are under some kind of control.

Nebulon starts yelling too because he’s not going to sit by while other people fight his battle so he’s like ‘come on if you’re hard enough, dickfenders’ and Beast is like ‘ok.’

Wasp, team leader, thinks Thor is onto something re: the Defenders being against some kind of influence and asks Iron Man to create a distraction so the Avengers can skedaddle.

Iron Man has the perfect distraction and fires the UNIBEEEEAM. At his own roof, collapsing it on the Defenders.

Iron Man: “Wait till Tony gets the bill for this!”

... so depending on the time frame, either only Nebulon or both him and Wasp are the only ones who don’t know Iron Man is Tony so who are you putting on a show for, Tony?

Or maybe you’re just so used to grousing about the Avengers breaking your shit that you do it even when you do it.

Anyway, since Thor has a hunch that the Defenders are being controlled, he decides that the best thing is to teleport somewhere safe and make a plan.

So Nebulon teleports himself and the Avengers to the Himalayas where he and Thor first met.

The effort nearly kills Nebulon, since his powers have been curtailed by the yell fish. But now they have some space.

Wasp: “And don’t think we don’t appreciate it, Nebulon! But couldn’t you have zapped us to a more temperate climate -- like the Bahamas... or the French Riviera? It mean, it’s COLD here!”

Cap hopes that the Defenders won’t find them somewhere so remote and isolated but Thor, whose idea this was by the by, isn’t so sure because they don’t know who is pulling the strings.

Iron Man: “Good point! Are we dealing with one of our old foes -- one of the Defenders’ -- or perhaps someone out for Nebulon’s head! Let’s face it: we’ve got a wide field to choose from!”

Annnnnnd thennnnn, the Defenders just show up anyway so trying to get some breathing room was a waste of Nebulon’s efforts.

Beast: “Cap, Thor, Iron Man, Jan! You’re all my friends... more than that -- you’re family! So why won’t you believe me when I tell you that this nut’s gonna wipe the whole planet out in a matter of hours! Please -- hand him over or --.”

Nebulon: “Or... NOTHING!”

Then he shoots an energy blast at the Defenders.

Which sadly arcs to the ground with a SHOOOM! and does little more than splash some snow on the Defenders.

But awwww, Beast considers the Avengers family! Shame that once the X-Men pull him back into their orbit, he only hangs out with them and decides never to ask the Avengers for help, either when Professor X gets shot by Stryfe or when trying to solve the Legacy Virus.

I think that social group is a bad influence on Beast. He never broke time or pretended to be gay to dunk on his ex when he was an Avenger. He just got high, practiced polyamory, and yukked it up with his bffsie Wonder Man.

Anyway, Silver Surfer gets up and disses Nebulon for his sad laser blast.

Silver Surfer: “Like all who seek conquest, Nebulon -- you refuse to recognize truth! You alter reality to serve your own malefic ends! But the power you no wield, tyrant, is as nothing compared to that which you once had! You are weak -- as Supernalia said you would be!”

Nebulon is aghast to hear that Supernalia is the one behind all of this. And also aghast when Gargoyle shoots a bio-mystic bolt at him.

Apparently, Gargoyle can shoot bio-mystic bolts. Are there mystic bolts that are not bio? Shrug.

CHAPTER 5

Hey, some of these chapter divisions feel arbitrary. We go from the fight to the fight. At least some other chapter divisions had scene or temporal shifts.

Cap begs the Defenders to fight off Supernalia’s influence. Or the Avengers will fight off Supernalia’s influence for them. Probably via punches.

For whatever reason, this makes Valkyrie go stickycaps.

Valkyrie: “The hour of Earth’s doom draws ever closer -- and, to prevent that doom, we will do whate’er we must! wHaTeVeR wE mUsT!”

Mystifying.

Anyway, with both sides thinking the other side are dumb easily mind-controlled doodoo heads, they both get to the slugfest that neither side wants but thinks there’s no other way to reach the other side but by punching some sense into them.

This panel feels like a microcosm of a lot of Marvel events.

And as this goes on Nebulon just watches the fight with calculating eyes.

I’m sure that’s fine.

Thor and Valkyrie continue sparring verbally, as well as with punches. Valkyrie asks how Thor can let Midgard be destroyed when they both love it so much. And Thor is like ‘for the last time, there’s no danger except from your mysterious new golden pal’

Meanwhile, the Defender’s mysterious new golden pal Supernalia is monitoring the fight from her spaceship. And monitoring the Defenders’ brainwaves.

Thor is actually making Valkyrie doubt. And Supernalia can’t have that.

Supernalia: “I cannot afford to lose control of the Defenders now! For honor’s sake, their rage must grow! And more -- they must retain a psychological surety that cannot be breached! In Valkyrie’s case, the introduction of something... familiar -- something to increase her confidence -- would seem appropriate!”

So Supernalia teleports Valkyrie’s sweet flying horse Aragorn to just. Appear on the Himalayas. Between Valkyrie and Thor.

Valkyrie doesn’t know how her horse suddenly appeared but she’s not going to look a gift teleporting winged horse in the mouth. She jumps on his back and takes to the air.

Thor gets pissed and hammerflings himself after her.

While Thor is chasing Valkyrie around the sky, Iron Man squares up with Silver Surfer.

Silver Surfer tells Iron Man that “you see to halt one who has outraced comets! Soared faster than light itself!” and basically that he rules, Iron Man sucks. And then to prove it, he blasts Iron Man with the power cosmic.

Just that one attack nearly tore Iron Man apart and he’s pretty sure that Silver Surfer was holding back. Oof, that’s some power gap.

BUT MAYBE just maybe if Iron Man puts all of his might into one staggering punch...

It’ll do jack shit to the Surfer.

Well, damn.

Gargoyle fights Wasp but says its not proper for a man to fight a lady. Wasp points out ‘hey you’re fighting me anyway so maybe someone is making you do it.’

Gargoyle: ‘.... NUH UH’

Cool. Good talk.

Supernalia: “This Gargoyle is too... soft! His mind accepts -- but his heart rebels! These beings are not like us! Their minds are filled with too many questions! Their souls overflow with conflicting emotions!”

I can’t believe humans (and Asgardians) have too many feelings and emotions to be easily controlled.

Well, I can believe. It really checks out.

So Supernalia increases the celestial mindwaves to shore up her control, even if it means burning out the Defenders.

Rude.

Thor blasts Valkyrie off of Aragorn with lightning and then catches her, saying he won’t let her fall. So, reasonably enough, Valkyrie elbows him in the face for treating her like a damsel.

They both fall toward the ground. Aragorn catches Valkyrie and Thor catches... a cosmic bolt from Silver Surfer.

You had one job, Iron Man.

And that job was to sneak up on Silver Surfer while he’s self-flagellating for doing a shameful opportunistic attack on Thor.

Iron Man uses those... hip... power pod... things. To zap Silver Surfer’s temples and siphon off some of his power.

And with that power, Iron Man tips a chunk of the mountain on top of Silver Surfer.

This doesn’t keep the Surfer down for long. Despite the fact that trying to contain the incredible surfing energies he absorbed threatens to damage his armor, Iron Man absorbs more when Silver Surfer blasts him, to try to turn the energy back at the Surfer.

Instead, they both explode.

Double KO.

Elsewhere in the fight, Gargoyle blasts Wasp with his bio-mystic bolts, knocking her into the snow.

Gargoyle panics because his bio-mystic bolts are supposed to drain off a fraction of a person’s life-force, not up and kill them.

So Gargoyle shouldn’t have been surprised when Wasp pops back up and zaps him in the chin. And Wasp shouldn’t have been surprised when Gargoyle zaps her back.

She passes out. But so does Gargoyle, to his confusion. His hide should be tough enough to take a truckload of punishment, yet he suddenly feels so weak.

I mean. Wasp is strong enough to blow up a house with her own zaps. But this is probably intended to be Supernalia’s mind control burning him out.

I choose to believe that its Wasp’s cool house-blowing-up might. She’s kicked bigger ass than Gargoyle.

Wasp’s defeat scream momentarily distracts Cap from where he’s fisticuffsing with Beast.

Beast: “Holy cow! I hope she’s not badly hurt!”

Cap: “You hope she’s not -- ?! You can still say that after all you’ve done today? After all the pain this Supernalia has driven the Defenders to cause?”

Beast: “We’ve caused? You’re the ones harboring the lunatic with the anti-matter bombs --.”

There’s no guilt-tripping some people.

Cap throws his mighty shield but Beast must not have heard the song because he not only doesn’t yield, he also catches the shield with his feets.

Then he sleds on it down a snowy incline and tackles Cap.

Beast: “It’s time we quit all this clowning around!”

Cap: “That’s right, Hank! This is serious business -- so hit me! Hit me, blast you! HIT ME!”

Beast: “Hey! wHaT tHe HeCk Am I dOiNg?”

Cap: “Coming to your senses, I hope!”

Beast realizes that Cap dropped his guard and let Beast beat the shit out of him on purpose, let Beast almost kill him.

Cap: “You’re no killer, Hank! And no force, however great, could make you kill! I counted on that fact to snap you out of it!”

Wow, good going, Cap!

Out of everyone here, you’re the only one who successfully snapped anyone out of anything. Although I think Wasp coulda if she had played possum and let Gargoyle think he killed her instead of popping up to zap him.

But Cap has insight into Hank. That probably helped.

Me and Jan know jack about Gargolye.

CHAPTER 6

With exactly two people conscious but not fighting anymore, Nebulon is like ‘hah eat shit Supernalia’

So Supernalia appears.

Beast feels like he’s about to keel over even though he beat the shit out of Cap and Cap feels weaker too. They blame Supernalia because its very easy to blame someone whose fault everything is.

But Supernalia blames Nebulon.

Nebulon slams a drama bomb in response.

Nebulon: “Do not seek to reclaim the upper hand with more lies, Supernalia! Such sophistry is unbecoming in... my wife!”

I heard that in Borat voice and I hate myself a little.

But now that Supernalia’s relation to Nebulon has been established, Nebulon is like ‘but why are you trying to ruin my exile?’

Supernalia: “You were convicted of high crimes, my husband -- and the sentence was a choice of honorable death by your own hand... or ignominious exile! In 500 generations, none of our people have ever chosen exile! All have proudly faced extinction! But you, lacking courage, brought shame upon your wife and children!”

HE HAS KIDS??

Anyway, she came to Earth to just. Kinda. Kill him. To restore honor to their family.

But when she got there, she found that he had already made friends and decided well I need some pawns of my own. So I can kill him.

Nebulon isn’t really impressed because in his one day as an exile, he’s had some epiphanies.

Nebulon: “Unlike you, I have traveled far across this universe! I have learned to see in new ways! Our concepts of honor are archaic! Our laws are cruel! I now dare to dream higher dreams, for I have learned what it means to have -- friends!”

Supernalia: “I have been your friend... and much more! Since our childhood betrothal have I stood by you -- despite your constant avoidance of responsibilities! Despite your failure to achieve glory or rank!”

Oof, imagine if your childhood friend and spouse told you that being exiled on Earth taught him what friendship really means.

I have to imagine that Cap and Beast are just listening to this like ‘god why do cosmic people always have to dump their relationship baggage on Earth?’

Supernalia then tries to tell Beast and Cap that Actually Nebulon is up to no good.

Beast is like yeah nice try.

But this time Supernalia has actual proof evidence.

She dispels the invisibility cloak hiding the Ennui Device that Nebulon left on a prior trip to Earth and is now using to drain energy from the Avengers and Defenders to beef himself up.

Now, Cap and Beast turn to Nebulon like ‘but buddy, why?’ and also to punch him a little bit, in a friendly manner.

Nebulon: “I did what I had to -- to survive! Believe me -- I truly wanted the friendship you offered -- but observing the unfolding battle, I realized I could never find peace on this or any world -- without the POWER!”

And this rude boy who doesn’t understand what friendship means punches both Cap and Beast.

Beast sprawls right at Supernalia’s feet completely burned out and goes hey feel like stepping in??

Supernalia: “I can do nothing directly, Beast. I am not permitted to interfere!”

Beast: “You... stupid... self-deluding... idiots! Don’t you understand that all this has happened... because you already have... interfered?!?!”

Supernalia: “So I have!”

And since now she’s done the big bad transgress of the Prime Directive, she decides that unlike her shitbird husband, she’s going to do the honorable thing and kill herself.

I. Have no words. At this entire exchange.

Its too much.

Nebulon is distraught so slaps the gun out of her hand and begs her to instead of killing herself, not do that. She could stay on Earth and rule at his side!

This latest bout of cosmic interpersonal drama gives Cap the opportunity to muster his strength and throw his mighty shield.

It deflects the ray emitter of the Ennui Device so it hits Nebulon instead of the Avengerdefenders.

Except, oops, the Ennui Beam was calibrated for “humanoid physio-psycho energies” so instead of draining his energy, the Ennui Beam just straight up starts killing Nebulon.

Amazing how you can stretch vocabulary to encompass humans, Asgardians, mutants, power cosmic imbued Zenn-Lavians, and whatever demonic biz is going on with the Gargoyle.

It sure is amazing how it affects all these different things as intended but its accidentally fatal in a way that will help wrap up the story.

Beast wet noodle jumps to try to redirect the beam and save Nebulon but Supernalia shoves him out of the way and then jumps into the beam herself.

Supernalia: “Thus, I join my husband -- in oblivion!”

Geez, when she sets her mind to killing herself, she sticks with it

.__.

Nebulon agrees that Actually This is the Right and Correct Course for them, I guess because couple counseling is a hassle.

Then the Ennui Device overloads and explodes and Nebulon and Supernalia turn to their true forms of giant weird fish people with Rocky Horror Picture Show lips inside fish lips.

Beast laments that Supernalia didn’t just let him save both of them but she’s like ‘HONORRR’ and then dies.

Thor: “I called Nebulon friend and he decieved me! Yet now -- Thor mourns his passing!”

Silver Surfer: “What manner of beings were they, to cherish honor so much... and value life so little?”

Cap: “Perhaps, Surfer -- not so different from us. Not so different -- at all!”

Okay, shut up your face, Cap.

First off, I don’t think much of an honor code that says its okay to mind control and lie to people and use them as pawns in a way that could kill them but then also goes ‘this is an honorable death’ when you stupid yourself to death.

And neither should you! Don’t put a poetic, poignant spin on things! This whole affair was a weird couples spat that two space weirdos forced you to participate in!

Follow @essential-avengers because I went back and covered an inconsequential annual and now I can’t go back and not do that. I wasted my time for you. Also, like and reblog. I need positive reinforcement. It makes me happy.

#Avengers #Defenders #Nebulon #Supernalia #Thor #Iron Man #Captain America #the Wasp #Beast #Valkyrie #Silver Surfer #Gargoyle #whoever that is #essential marvel liveblogging #essential avengers #this is like when a couple tries to get you to choose sides in a very public fight they're having #its unnecessary and uncomfortable and awkward for everyone

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herstarburststories · 4 years

Text

Batfam Headcanon: Pregnancy

✾ Request: Can I request a batfam headcanon? Batboys reactions when Kory says she’s pregnant of Mar’i. Btw love you page💕

✾ A/N: You teased me about dickkory, now you got a bible. That’s how it goes. Also, added Babs, Alfred and Bruce as bonus. And I’m glad you enjoy my work! Ps: I barely know Duke, tha’s why he doesn’t show up here.

✾ Disclaimer: Main relationship is Dick Grayson x Koriand’r. Mentions of Tim x Steph and Tim x Kon (kind of?). Check my Fandoms’ liist to see which Ships I’ll write for.

━─┈ ✧

Dick Grayson

I'm gonna use unpublished Nightwing #30 here: he and Kory had sex when he was getting ready for the agente stuff.

Once Agent 37 is off the deal, they end up finding each other again. A bit before Dick gets shoot.

And then, as usually it is between the acrobat and the alien princess, they do it again.

Over and over again.

She gets pregnant and finds out by the time Dick is amnesic.

Don't @ me DC would do that.

Kory flies towards Bludhaven & talks to him. It's not exactly successful. As he had said to Babs before, he didn't want his memories back. Ric was happy without Dick's conscience.

But Starfire isn't asking for her; it's about him, of course. He should be himself, he worked very hard through years to become who he truly was. But mostly, she begged him to come back because of a new addition to their lives.

Pregnant alien!!

At first, Ric Grayson doesn't believe it. Actually, part of him is aware that's true, he can feel it in the change inside his heart when he saw her; something similar to shame and adoration and excitement at once. Kory moved, talked, and seemed like someone he could love, be completely crazy about.

But he wasn't a father!

Koriand'r leaves, and Grayson is by himself again. Without his Gotham or Titans affiliates.

And, for the first time, there is no comfort in that.

He could tell she wasn't lying. Even though a part of his treacherous new mind tried to convince him otherwise.

Grayson's mind didn't know any gorgeous alien, let alone a pregnant with his child alien.

Yet, Dick felt like he had her in his veins. Just like he did with Bruce, Damian, Barbara, Donna, and the others. Tickles behind his skin, a red alarm for a memory that was long lost. But the sensation of keeping it somewhere remained inside him.

Although, when it came to the redhead princess, the warmth inside him was more intense.

Dick was going to be a father. He didn't even know his whole self and would be needed to take care of someone else. Someone small, part of him, and the legacy of the Flying Grayson's. Besides, he didn't even actually remember the mother of his kid.

didn't even remember making the kid.

He calls Bruce. Telling him to bring the antidote that Barbara was keeping if he wanted his memories back.

Not for him, not because it was the right thing, not because of everyone who claimed to love him cried for Dick to do that. Not even because of familiar senses holding into him every time he interacted with someone from his past.

But because he was going to be a father.

This decision was for his child.

When Bruce, Babs, and Damian ask why, he doesn't answer.

He remembers now, and he needs to find Kory.

It's scary, exciting, and the biggest surprise she ever gave to him-- even more scandalous than the day she fell on earth and kissed him.

A dad! He would be a dad!

Jason Todd

It all started off as an unusual ordinary day;

Roy got himself in trouble, Jason went to help him and the little problem became a bigger situation. Roy called Kory and a few minutes later, the situation was replaced by dust and fire smell. No one died, but it was enough to make the villains leave.

In the middle of ''What the fuck they wanted?" & "Who were they?" wonders, the original Outlaws heard a familiar motorcycle's noise which made Jason huff, Roy arch eyebrows and Kory confused.

Dick Grayson was there.

He was hysterical, blue eyes flaming with worry and relief towards Kory. Between their couple discussion and the others attempt to understand what was going on

Were they back together? Did dick know about the outlaws' way and was sticking his nose where it didn't belong? Did the titans need kory urgently?

Until 'pregnant' left Dick's lips, being followed by Kory's chaotic scream of "Just because I am pregnant, it does not mean I can not fight!"

Roy just had to get closer to them and explain that it would make no good to go through stressful situations, especially if he got it right.

A deep breath would be taken, and then Dick would apologize to Kory, saying he was just really scared for both of them. She'd look at her Outlaw friends and curve the corner of her lips-- that Kory smile that translate into 'I've seen hell and chose to use its flames to warm up the cold places of my heart.'

‘’Jason, Roy. . . I am expecting a baby.’’

Meanwhile, Jason was taking off his helmet and glaring at his friends with a perplexed look on his face. Also, a slightly desire of punching Dick. Last time he had heard of their relationship, it was about both of them avoiding each other, his older brother telling him to take care of Kory and Jason calling Dick an idiot. Yeah, he had to have a chat with him later.

For now, Roy was pulling him and Kory into a group hug.

Almost felt like their old times together.

Roy: Outlaw baby!! / Dick: Excuse me?

Tim Drake

Okay, okay. First of all, he wasn't planning on seeing any member of his family for a quite while. Not that Tim didn't want to, he was just really running out of time. Being Young Justice's leader was a full time job, and he wanted to be excellent at it.

But things don't always pass by as they were settle to. Therefore, when a disaster happens and Conner, of all people, gets hurt, Tim is in a delicate state of mind.

Drake is smart. He knows it isn't just about Conner. It's all the small things he's been keeping since Gotham.

Not enough sleep, but a certain amount of coffee to make his hands shake when it's late enough for the sun to come out weakly. His relationship with Steph is growing with disagreements from both lives; heroic and urban. His best friend is hurt because he analyzed too much a situation instead of telling his team what to do, so they made their independent choices. A dumb mistake, the kind that Batman would be disappointed of. Tim himself was biting his own neck about it. How could he be a leader? He should be better than that.

And then, he made a call. Because of all things he might be and might not be, he wasn't Batman.

Tim had friends, and a brother that would know what he was going through.

And he knew how to ask for help sometimes.

Dick comes by as fast as possible. They go to the roof and talk it out.

"Remember that they aren't just your team, Tim," He would say, a tranquil smile on his face. It's so similar to how he explained his relationship with the Titans when Drake was still Robin years ago. "They are your family. It's impossible for you not to be affected when they get hurt or something goes wrong. But they are alive. They still trust you. They believe, and need you. You need to give yourself some credit, and do your best for them."

OF COURSE Tim is stubborn about that because Dick is Dick and he basically grew with the Titans, it wasn't the same thing. He didn't have his older brother's skills to command, communicate, etc.

It was scary.

"Yet, Tim, a lot of things are scary. But you have to keep going. For who needs saving. For yourself. For the people you love."

His tone is too sentimental, even for Dick's big brother moments.

"You need to find something to fight for. That's how you keep going, even when you make mistakes. Good news, you already have it. "

Tim: Yeah, I think so. . . You came back to the Titans? I still have access to the computers.

Dick: Yeah, no. Kind if. It's complicated.

Tim: "Complicated? Like. . . Alien kind of complication?"

Dick: "You should know about that, huh?"

BLUSHING, STUTTERING TIM. Cutting it because I already mentioned Steph, but I couldn't miss this opportunity ok.

Dick just laughs about it.

"Starfire isn't complicated, but yeah. We are still deciding if we will keep in the Titans or if we are going to Bludhaven for now."

"It sounds serious, even permanent."

"As permanent as a baby can be."

HHSHHSUSJJSIUSIE

BABY?

IS SHE PREGNANT??

Yeah, Tim was pretty wake, and shaking, and his brain felt like burning right now.

OH MY-- DICK

He was going to be a FATHER.

"YOU ARE GONNA BE A PARENT!"

But then, Dick was the older one and the best with kids.

"WAIT, SHE WILL BE HALF ALIEN. An hybrid. In nature, two different but similar species can procreate, but their kid can't have kids. Do you think--"

"Tim, calm down. Can you at least give me congratulations before talking about my unborn child's probable infertility?"

Damian Wayne

He knew Kory and Dick had been seeing each other again.

Therefore, making one of them notice his presence before showing up was necessary.

He didn't want to accidentally see profanity between his brother figure and his team's current leader, thank you.

After an obvious noise, he got in Dick's apartment.

As expected, Starfire was there.

She was standing up, and Grayson and looking at her tearful, while holding her belly.

It wasn't possible.

Grayson wouldn't be that irresponsible, would he?

Of course he would.

" So, I supposed Starfire either has a deadly bellyache, or you two are procreating. "

He is mildly fearing that Dick won't have much time for him, but that's a matter for another time.

BONUS!

Bruce Wayne and Alfred Pennyworth

Dick visits the manor with Kory someday.

He had to give the news or Batman would end up knowing anyway.

Honestly, it wasn't about that. He actually wanted to tell Bruce about his baby.

Alfred was there when they exchanged greetings, politely as usual.

‘'We are having a baby.'’

Listen, Bruce knows how to keep his emotions under his skin, but his eldest son being a father?

This must be the most real expression he has showed in years, and it's full of emotions; he is content, and surprised, and worried.

Some would say that Alfred was tearfully, but kept his posture. Master Bruce really made it. Obstacles, of course, even more than necessary at times. Yet, he was going to be a grandfather, and master Dick was becoming a father.

Gotham had a sunny day for once.

Barbara Gordon

If it's not Kory and Babs' baby, she will be aunt Babs

Something happens, help becomes needed.

Nightwing shows up in the middle of the combat, he was in Gotham to talk to Bruce & Alfred & Damian, anyway.

Batman dispersed him, though.

And Batgirl was confused by Batman's choice, especially after listening to his explanation:

"Nightwing, this is more dangerous than our usual job. I will take Robin and Batgirl. You have more urgent thinks to be taken care of. "

The dynamic duo leaves and there is just two long time friends.

It doesn't take a half second for Barbara to notice Dick hiding something.

Sigh, sigh, sigh.

"All right, Dick Grayson. What did you do?"

"Apparently, a baby."

????????????

"He has been ditching me since he learned about Kory's pregnancy."

"KORY'S WHAT!?"

"You didn't even tell me you two were back together!"

"You lost your virginity to an attractive alien and now she is pregnant with your child. That is. . . Surprising."

"I am really happy for you, Dick."

"Thank you, Babs. . . You know what? Maybe it's time to actually introduce you to Kory."

Communicator ringing.

"After I take care of something. Go home, dad."

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munsonsduchess · 3 years

Text

So, I re-watched The Old Guard, again. Just like my Mag 7 re-watch I made some notes, six pages of them to be exact which is why I’m gonna drop them under the cut so I don’t clutter up anyone’s dash with my mildest of observations and all my feelings for a sad alcoholic Frenchman.

I love how we’re introduced to everyone, Andy walking alone through Marrakesh and Booker speeding through the narrow streets on his bike. Are we supposed to think they’re strangers or do they know each other

Bookers little smile when he catches up to Andy like he’s so happy to see her again and Andy’s face lighting up to see him again too

Andy spent a fortune on a book because she knew Booker would like it. “First edition Don Quixote, that wouldn’t come cheap” “it didn’t”

“What brings you to Marrakech?” // “Family'' leave me alone I’m already sobbing

Andy honey they’ll still be able to see that picture in deleted photos but you tried and that’s what matters

Nicky and Joe!

Nicky is so happy to see Andy. That little smile. It’s adorable

“You look good” “you look ok” gentle family teasing is the best ok

“Boss”

It’s been a year since they saw one and other and they just love each other so much. No one touch me.

Nicky and Booker betting on the baklava and Joe just sitting there like “let him lose his money it’s fine, he won’t learn and it’s funny”

Everyone teasing Nicky for loosing and he’s just stood there like “no it’s fine ”

These are the best people for the job and Copley knows it and doesn’t care how much it will cost him. He has faith

Copley knowing Nicky is there and the little wave

Andy taking her axe with her. I love that axe

Just a group of immortals walking through the desert with swords and guns nothing to see here

“Peace be with you” those catholic teachings never quite leave

“It’s a trap!”

That has got to hurt. Those guys emptied full clips into them. Like I get the need to do a job and do it well but come on guys that’s overkill

This is what women want. Andy and her axe

Nicky still having faith there are girls

The picture on Copley’s desk. Like if you knew why did you have to go through this bullshit?

Andy has lived too long and seen too much

Like I know now that Booker knew what was happening or maybe he didn’t know the extent of it but him saying sorry did feel genuine

Andy is just all kinds of done. She didn’t want to do the job in the first place

Nile proving that yes you can be in a strange place and you can serve your country but you don’t have to be a dick about it

“Keep it respectful”

She made an effort to learn the language and learn the customs which goes a long way to establish trust

How traumatic must this have been for Nile? She always knew there was a possibility of being injured in combat or worse never coming home but to be injured so fatally and have your friend hold your life in their hands only to come back and be rejected because you’re an anomaly. A freak

Goes a long way to explain Booker’s feelings too

Nicky and Joe sleeping in the train car is something that is obviously so normal for couples and goes such a long way to show people how ‘normal’ queer people are

“What did you see?” “Part of a name tag” thanks Booker that’s helpful

“I felt her die”

“Everything happens for a reason boss”

Booker didn’t want to go after Nile. He didn’t want her involved

Nicky pushing for them to go after Nile. The emotional centre of the group, appealing to their own experiences and feelings from their first times

Andy is not happy and I can understand how she feels. Given their current situation bringing an unknown element into the mix is only going to complicate everything

“I know I saw her die”

No scarring. Nothing to suggest that anything happened to Nile

The seeds of doubt already growing amongst Nike’s friends and allies

Merrick looks like he should have been a doctor who villain who got his shit kicked in by Donna

Copley you asshole what did you think was gonna happen? They were just gonna get clips emptied into their bodies and let the mercs walk away? Use your big boy brain

Nile trying to come to terms with what happened to her. Everyone around her looking at her with suspicion. Even her Sargent who’s sending her away from more tests

The hostility in the barracks. The fact that her things are already packed.

Everyone knows what happened. Nile has never been more alone just like Nicky said

Trying to drown out the noise of the world and decompress and understand what happened“

But you can call me Andy”

Just casually steals a military transport. Nbd

MA’AM PLEASE I AM ALREADY GAY. Riding around in a tank top and shades like that is not helping

“These damn kids”

Zero hesitation in shooting Nile. This is a woman who has run out of every kind of fuck

“Why does it always have to be so goddamn slow the first couple of times?”

“You shot me” “yes honey now back in the car

”Andy might think she’s cold and heartless and only here to do a job but you can see how much she already cares about what happens to Nile

Soldiers. Fighters. Family

You know what I’m really glad they didn’t make Andy’s tank top skin tight or moulded to show off her body. That isn’t how she rolls

Andy is so proud that Nile stabbed her. Look at that smile

!Nile already having the makings of a plan within minutes of stepping onto the plane

Andy just like “god isn’t real, I’m real though and people thought I was god”

I wonder how many nights the group sat up until the wee hours discussing things like theology. Andy who was worshiped as a god. Nicky and Joe who fought in a holy war for their beliefs and Booker who probably had his own feelings on the subject

Andy being so chill about the crash. The best poker face

It was a good try Nile and look Andy is proud of you!

The smile on Andy’s face when she’s fighting with Nile gives me so much serotonin

Soft Andy. Who had to be tough to teach a lesson

Poor Nile. Coming to terms with what she is and the fact that she might never see her family again

Family dinner time!

Awkward family dinner time

Nicky and Joe staring at each each other with their puppy dog eyes “we’re meant to find each other”

Then Booker and Andy like “misery loves company”

Everyone’s just like “awh Nicky and Joe are so cute”

Andy reliving the people she’s fought with and lost

Booker knows just how much ‘help’ talking to ones family about the situation is

Booker do not put your finger on the trigger of your gun when it’s still in your trousers! You might be immortal but that’s gonna hurt a lot more

Oh no. Quynh.

Andy’s face. I can’t

Joe in tears telling the story“

Before me and Nicky it was just the two of them”

Booker knowing exactly how it feels to hang there for hours and not die or dying and coming back time and time again. Knowing how Quynh and Andy must have felt

I cannot imagine what it must have been like for Andy. To be with someone for so long. The only other person who understands you. To be ripped apart like that

“Why do you blame yourself” that’s not a nice question to ask people

The big emotional talk with Andy and Nile in the churchyard being interrupted by the gunfire

Andy being so afraid Booker wouldn’t come back and delegating to Nile who just accepts her orders

“Welcome back asshole” / “it feels like someone was dancing on my chest”

The banter

Nicky being banished to the table in the corner after 2006 is my favourite headcanon

“Wait for my signal” Andy is more pissed than ever at the people coming after her family

“Big wounds take longer to heal” Nile as a millennial presses x to doubt

The sheer emotion in Andy’s eyes as she fights. The tears. She’s doing this for her family.

Will I ever stop harping on about found family in this show? No I will not“

How can you even tell what the signal is?” One explosion later “oh wait nvm”

The wound on Andy’s shoulder probably doesn’t even feel like anything with the amount of adrenaline

The van. These two“

What is he your boyfriend?” Stanzas of Arabic poetry later, “he’s not my boyfriend he’s all and he’s more”

Nicky and Joe Horny on Main all day every day

These cocky little shits “can you remove the chains? no? ok”“

There’s a TV Joe!” “Champagne?” it’s not a field trip boys

“I used to keep my stuff here” in an abandoned mine she found in the 1150s or that’s when she thinks she found it

Nile being amazed by Andy’s ‘stuff’

Booker meanwhile makes a joke at the expense of his sister

Merrick really should have been a doctor who villain honestly. The grand gesturing the weird mood swings. He could have been great in a two part episode and then had to reckon with Donna

Donna Noble is my favourite companion don’t @ me

Copley beginning to have second thoughts on everything

Andy realising only now that she hasn’t healed from the fight in the church“

Just because we keep living doesn’t mean we stop hurting” I have a lot of Booker feelings ok“

I thought you were the brains of this outfit” oh honey no

Bookers family. Oh no.

No but really how hard must it have been for Booker. To know that his son, his baby was suffering from cancer such an awful disease all the whole cursing his father for being selfish, uncaring, cursing Booker and Booker can’t do anything about it. He’s immortal, he heals, disease will never ravage his body, but he can’t share it with his son. He can only sit and watch as death claims everyone he’s ever loved. Living with the fact that his family despised him at the end of their lives because they didn’t understand that his immortality is a curse.

I have a lot of Booker feels don’t @ me

The pharmacy girl though. Helping just because she could

Reaffirming the reason why Andy started to help people in the first place

A selfless act. A purely good deed. Nothing expected in return. An unselfish act

Andy’s wound and Lykon’s death causing Andy to come to terms with her own mortality

Merrick “prosperity data” and Copley “I’m sorry those are people not objects”

Nicky is not here for your bullshit

Malta Sex Vacation ™

HORNY JAIL

Family bonding time with Nile and Andy

Andy “whatever it takes” and Nile “not on my watch”

So what I want to know is obviously Booker was in on it from the beginning but did actively derail Andy looking into Copley after Joe and Nicky were taken or was he just genuinely having a hard time

Nile prioritising her flesh and blood family and Andy totally understanding because she’s doing this for family too“

You and me Book. Now and always” my heart can’t cope

Nile finding the empty clip. Realising what’s about to happen and going back for her new family because as much as she loves her flesh and blood family this one matters to her as well

Meanwhile Copley I guess got a tip off from Booker (?) and knew this was all going down

The conspiracy wall

Booker you bastard why did you shoot her in the back?

I love this man but god damn

Booker wanting to be ‘normal’ because the memory of being rejected is still so raw

Suicidal tendencies in a 200 year old man

They’re both so upset by the whole thing. The betrayal

Book loves this woman with all his heart and soul. This is the woman who saved him and now she isn’t healing. She’s dying

Booker putting up so much of a fight so they wouldn’t take Andy

“I’m sorry Andy I’m sorry”

You might disagree with me but in my mind Booker never meant to hurt anyone. He didn’t want to be a lab rat. Didn’t want anyone else to be a lab rat. He just wanted to be ‘normal’“

All things die”

“Your time is coming” // “As is yours” Nicky is gonna fuck someone up

“I’m new” says Nile after shooting herself in the foot to make a point

Copley’s conspiracy wall or his fanboy wall for all the good Andy, Booker, Joe and Nicky have done

Copley’s grief at losing his wife being the driving factor for handing the group over to Merrick is tragic and heart breaking and just goes to show how much of a human story this really is

Nile said no guns Copley

Nile is here to save her family

“Those three men in there and I we’ll keep you safe” // Nile coming in guns blazing for them instead

Joe is going to kill Booker himself

“You and Nicky always had each other. All we had was our grief”

Everyone being so surprised to see Nile like “what the fuck?”“

Just leave me here” // “No man left behind”

Meanwhile Joe is fine with just leaving Booker right there to be the last lab rat

The groups concern for Andy who’s always been so strong

The concern. The subtle little head nods Andy does to let them know she’s ok

Andy spies an axe

Joe being so concerned for Nicky and making sure he comes back ok

Nicky immediately scrambling to his feet to go and help Andy

“What happened in 1934?” // “1834”

“Wait for the signal” “like the last one?” “Go big or go home!”

Arguing over who goes first and Andy just “if it doesn’t work our next time you can go first”

And there’s your signal

“You shot Nicky” Joe is not messing around when it comes to his other half“

You ok?” // “Everything hurts”

Andy has been immortal for so long she’s lost all sense of feeling human. Then Nile shows up to do just that. Remind her

Merrick calling Nile selfish like I’m sorry you entitled little shit what did you say“

Do you think he speaks Russian?”

YEET!

That one must have hurt

Nicky and Joe just like “wow the new girl is hardcore”

“Faster than the elevator”

Gotta save Andy’s axe

Nicky sits in the middle which is the actual worst place to sit in a car

Do you think they al rocked up to a hotel covered in blood like “don’t ask just give us a room and a shower”

Joe still seething at Booker through the pub window

Nile having to live with the fact that her family will never know what really happened to her. That they’ll all think she was KIA and whatever body they send back won’t be hers

The 100 year naughty step

I love that Nile was gonna let Booker off with an apology like “he didn’t mean it he’s just a sad alcoholic”

Nobody look at me. Ok. Andy and Booker saying goodbye on the shore. I can’t. This is it. This is the scene that breaks me

“I won’t see you again” // “Have a little faith Book”

Joe really wants to hit Booker. Probably did in the interim

The big picture“

Maybe this is the why Andy”

Andy laying down the law and Joe in the background like “yeah this isn’t a request”

Meanwhile in Paris. Booker is tired and just wants a drink

I am a fan of the scruff though

If that’s water Quynh definitely brought it in herself for The Drama ™

QUYNH THOUGH

#the old guard #long post #disjoined thoughts #i have a lot of booker feelings #i am not apologising for what he did #i just have a lot of feelings about the why #in which my fave is the traitor of the group #why you ask? wish i knew mate #duchess.txt

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codenamed-queenie · 5 years

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Batman Movie Idea

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Matt Reeves movie, and how we might actually finally get a Robin on the big screen (I don’t know Batman and Robin(1997), who’s she?).

At first, I was thinking it would be amazing to get Tim Drake. I think we can all agree that he’s the least represented of the Batbros in the media, and seeing him debut in the DCEU along Battinson would be epic, to say the least.

But then I got to thinking--you know who we see even less of? You know who’s got just as much (if not more) quipping power as Dick Grayson? And a dubious, unprivileged past like Jason Todd? And the desperate need to prove themselves like Damian Wayne? That’s right, ladies and gentleman, I’m talking about--

--Stephanie Brown.

In the comics, Batman is just as reluctant to have a female Robin at his side as I’m sure a lot of rabid fanboys are to see one up on screen. (And that’s reason enough, honestly, but I’m not done)

But can you imagine? A Stephanie Brown origin story that doesn’t revolve around Tim Drake?

Picture this:

The movie opens with Batman going about his business--crushing it in the board room by day, and kicking butt by night. He’s tired, and lonely, and thinking about his other partner(s), who left. (Setting up that Nightwing movie people keep talking about, and possibly allowing for Jason and/or Tim to come in)

Alfred can tell Bruce is struggling, and continues to hound him about maybe possibly considering dating around? Maybe getting a dog? Just so that he’s not so alone. Bruce shrugs off all of these with the ‘No, I’m Batman, I’ll work and live and die alone, justice not happiness’ schpeel we all know and recognize.

But then one night, he’s out on patrol. And he comes across another person fighting crime in a cape:

Spoiler.

She’s in a laughably cheap homemade costume, and is basically just a tiny little five-foot-nothing child. A kid who saw superheroes on the news and decided ‘hey, looks like I’ve found my calling in life’. But even so, she’s...doing a decent job? She seems to know what she’s doing, but Batman swoops in and tells her to beat it.

And Stephanie, our stubborn Stephanie, says ‘screw that’ and stealthily follows him home.

Bruce goes about his everyday business, crushing it in the board room and handling CEOmanship like a Boss. But when he comes home, Alfred is missing and the secret door to his cave is hanging wide open.

So he makes his way down, and stops short to see Stephanie Brown with her feet on his desktop, eating a plain Eggo waffle and watching anime on the computer’s giant monitors. She wheels around slowly, like a supervillain reveal but with more waffles and less ‘actual threat’.

Alfred is tied up nearby and is giving Bruce a Look.

And Stephanie’s all, ‘Hey, Bats, I followed you to your secret lair. Toldja I knew what I was doing. Anyway, I raided your fridge, but I caught this intruder for you, so I guess we’re even?’

Bruce meanwhile is doing his Best not to have an aneurysm.

He tries to convince her to hang up her cape, but after a lengthy argument and a lot of shouting down, Steph manages to wrangle a deal out of Bruce. Three weeks. If she can prove to him that she’s strong enough to fight on her own in three weeks, he’ll let her do the Spoiler thing without interference.

Bruce has his own conditions, though. He has to keep an eye on her and make sure she’s keeping to their agreement. So she’ll do it wearing the Robin uniform, or not at all.

He and Alfred head upstairs, and Steph stews in her chair, proving that its totally possible to eat a waffle ‘angrily’.

The first night on patrol doesn’t go as planned. Steph’s in Dick’s old uniform, and it doesn’t fit. She’s trying her hardest, but it seems like Bruce is out to let her fail. (Not because he’s malicious, but because he wants her to understand just how dangerous this life is, and he doesn’t want her to choose it.) They return at the end of the night battered and exhausted. Steph flops down and Bruce asks her ‘Are you sure you want to go through with this? I won’t blame you if you don’t’ for the millionth time. Steph tells him to eff off.

As soon as he does just that, she takes off, still wearing the Robin suit. She climbs to the top of a building and looks out at the city. Then bursts into tears.

Unbeknownst to her, someone else just stopped into Gotham to see some old friends and brush up with their old mentor to get his help on a tricky case. Someone who happened to be swinging around nearby.

Enter, Nightwing, stage left.

He demands to know why there’s someone else wearing the uniform--and his uniform, to boot. At first, he’s confrontational and defensive, remembering what happened to Jason or/and Tim.

But then Steph explains that the Robin schtick is just so she can be Spoiler. All she wants is to stop people like her dad. Do some good.

And about five minutes into the argument, Dick melts.

He goes into full-on Big Brother mode. Trains her behind Bruce’s back (cue epic training montages with acrobatic flips and so forth) and offers to get her a better costume, and be her real mentor.

(The latter offer is one that Steph declines. She can handle the vigilante thing just fine on her own, thank you very much.)

Still, Steph spends her days with Dick--learning and hanging out, and doing the whole Sibling Thing (bonus points if Babs or Tim, or especially Cass make cameos) and spends her nights with Bruce. Who, though not for lack of trying, continuously fails to throw Steph off her game.

(Keep in mind that all of this is going on between the lines of the actual story--which of course has to be Bats looking into his own case. This is the Batman movie, after all, not a Robin movie. Sadly.)

But then Bruce cracks his case, and lands right into a trap set by the Main Baddie (tbd, but wouldn’t it be great if we got Cluemaster as a side-villain?), leaving it up to Robin and Nightwing to come to his rescue. (Bonus points if those aforementioned cameos suit up and join in).

After the boss fight ends and the dust settles, Batman nods and says something along the lines of “So Nightwing’s been training you. No wonder you improved so much.”

And Dick just shakes his head. “Are you kidding me? I barely had to do anything. We mostly hung out and talked. She’s a great sparring partner, though, B. You should give her more credit.”

Everyone turns on Steph. “Then how do you know what you’re doing?”

And she’s all “You’re kidding, right? My dad’s the Cluemaster. I’ve been training for this since I was seven years old.”

“Ohhhh. So your dad taught you to fight.”

“My dad didn’t teach me anything, guys. I saw what he was doing, and I saw the people who were getting hurt, and I decided to do something about it. Took a little inspiration from the flying Bat I saw outside my window at night, and made my own moniker.”

Dick laughs. “Looks like you’re a role model, B.”

“Nah, not him.’ Stephanie smirks. “I’m talking about Batgirl.”

So in the end, Bruce lets Steph keep Spoiler, and gives her a new-and-improved suit as an apology. The Robin mantle sits empty, but everybody agrees that its for the best. Maybe someday, it’ll be used again, but for now, there’s enough capes in Gotham.

For now, they’ve got a city to run.

(cue end credit scene)

A little boy in a lavish room is watching TV on a luxurious bed. He’s transfixed by the image of Batman and Robin fighting side by side on the news.

The screen turns off, and his mother stands in the doorway, remote outstretched. A disapproving frown marks her face.

“And just what do you think you’re doing, habibi?”

The little boy sits up straight and says, “Is it true? He’s found another?”

The woman tsks and strides across the room. Deftly tucking her son into bed, and smoothing the sheets around him, she explains that, no, the girl has chosen not to be Robin. Their plans are still on track, so there isn’t cause for worry.

The boy nestles into the pillow, but looks up at the ceiling. “Do you think he will recognize me? When the time comes?”

The woman, Talia Al Ghul, leans in and presses a gentle kiss to her son’s forehead. “Oh, habibi,” she whispers.

“A father always knows his son.”

The camera pans up, following the boy’s gaze to the ceiling, where mosaics of bat-winged creatures fly in circles.

#batfam #dc #dceu #batman movie #battinson #bruce wayne #stephanie brown #spoiler #robin #this is just me spitballing #i know it won't happen #and i know a lot of it isn't even plausible #this is just me playing around with a few ideas #thanks for your time #sorry its so long

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princess-of-the-corner · 4 years

Text

Okay, so this Au that I’m tentatively calling ‘Miraculous Trio’ was suggested by an ask. But here’s the basic concept.

All the Miraculous have the ability to purify the Akumas, so Fu doesn’t send out the Ladybug and Black Cat. Instead, he picks Alya, Nino, and Chloé to be the Fox, Turtle and Bee. Shenanigans ensue to the point where Marinette and Adrien are the stable background romance we get from Canon!DJWifi

I’m just gonna run through episodes and discuss what will be different. Some things will be repeats because a lot of my ‘Chloé is being better’ stories have similar plot threads.

Season 1

Origins Part 1:

Alya and Chloé are both 110% on board with being Superheroes.

Nino is a bit more hesitant, but does decide to do something since he can.

The three run into each other and pick names.

Chloé is already sort of doing the ‘redemption arc’ thing with this, by using Queen Bee as a fresh start to be nicer without backlash.

So while she’s still snarky, she pushes down her ruder comments and is more actively helpful.

They all save the day, but somehow all three of them forget to catch the Butterfly

Origins Part 2:

All three are pretty bummed out about their previous failure, but think ‘hey, even if I quit, the other two will still go out, right?’.

When Stoneheart attacks again, all three decide ‘no, I might not have gotten it right the first time, but I can do something so I will!’, and find hiding places to transform.

All three get that signature ‘Hawkmoth can suck a dick’ speech, vowing to protect the city.

The whole event inspires Marinette to stand up to Chloé in class, which makes Adrien go ‘Heart eyes motherfucker!. (Chloé’s grumpy about it, but will help him. Like all my AUs).

The Umbrella Scene™ happens the same, so Mari also has a crush on Adrien now.

Alya starts up a blog for the Heroes, both as a way to boost her career by pulling some Peter Parker shit, but also to gather information. I’m calling it ‘Miracublog’

She drags Nino into it, as he has a talent for video editing. This partnership starts a low-key romance.

I always have Chloé head the merch department. It’s fun.

Stormy Weather:

When Alya and Marinette take Manon to the park to see Adrien’s phototshoot, Mari and Adrien get stuck with Manon in the ice carousel while Alya’s like ‘I’ll go get help!’.

While the Trio fight Stormy Weather, Mari and Adrien have some bonding time. Adrien absolutely flirts with her, and Mari is a disaster, but she learns to chill(HA) around him much earlier.

The Bubbler

I was debating on if this would be different, as ‘The Heroes being Akumatized is Bad™’, since all three members are able to purify Akumas, it’s not as big of a problem.

Rena and Queen Bee are a little worried that Carapace doesn’t show up for the fight, but he makes up a lie of ‘oh I was on the other side of town and couldn’t get away in time’.

The Pharaoh

The book isn’t a factor.

All three end up at the museum, because there’s hints to other Miraculous there, not just the Ladybug.

Chloé dragged Adrien with her and he ends up as sacrifice instead. He still livestreams the thing because Alya and Nino had given him and Mari a connection to livestream directly to the Miracublog(a precaution to keep an eye on those two if they end up in trouble)

Lady Wifi

I honestly have no idea how this would go. Like I know I said any of the Trio could be Akumatized because it’s not as big a deal in this one but…

Since Alya is a Hero, she has a much healthier respect for Secret Identities, and wouldn’t be digging into it.

I’m just going to say that this one didn’t happen. Maybe something else could Akumatize her, but idk.

Timebreaker

Mostly the same in setup, but the fight goes differently:

Chloé is the one who does the self-sacrifce thing (because even though she’s still not the best person, she is much better of a person as a Hero, and has learned to consider Rena and Carapace her friends, and would die for them)

Rena and Carapace get sent back with Timebreaker.

Once they fix everything and Queen Bee is back, they both actually hug her and she’s kinda confused.

Rena and Carapcae give her the ‘don’t you ever fucking do that again!’ speech

QB kinda accidently confesses that she sees herself as a bit expendable. They don’t really /need/ her to defeat the villain of the day, and tbh they’re better people that she is in general

While they admit they don’t know anything about her Civilian life, they know Queen Bee. And Queen Bee is Exceptional and Irreplaceable.

She kinda cries a little but pretends she isn’t until she gets home.

Mr. Pigeon

Hey! No one’s allergic to feathers here!

Much like my other ‘Chloé is being nicer’ fics, she doesn’t outright try to steal Mari’s hat design.

Everything else is pretty the same.

Evillustrator

Chloé does kinda think about the stuff Marinette says about Sabrina, but it get’s pushed away for now because Akuma

Evillustrator still tries to get Mari on a date with him, and she uses that connection to the Miracublog to show the team where he is/what he’s doing.

The Trio all kina give him a ‘Bitch she ain’t into you!’ speech.

Evillustrator tries to go after Chloé again, and gets frustrated when she isn’t in her room

He asks the Team where they hid her, and Queen Bee’s just like ‘Bitch it’s not like she can’t just go shopping or down to the restaurant! Why does she have to be alone in her room right now? Fuck you!’

Nath thinks all the Heroes are cool, but doesn’t develop a crush.

Adrien, on the other hand, is a little jealous.

Rogercop

This happens because Trixx is like ‘I think I will cause problems on purpose! >:3c’

He steals Chloé’s bracelet and everything after happens.

When Queen Bee sees Rena have the bracelet later during the fight, she demands to know where she got it and learns about Trixx being a prankster.

Post-fight, she sets the record straight about the bracelet, telling Roger ‘it was stolen, and you would’ve found that out if you’d actually done your fucking job!’.

Copycat

Well, there is no ‘Chat’ to copy, so this would be different…

How about when Alya is helping Mari with the phone thing, she doesn’t skip out, thinking it’d be fine if Rena doesn’t make it to the statue unveiling.

Théo gets upset about that, and is a copy-fox? Kinda Volpina-ish.

Dark Cupid

These three are trying to get Mari and Adrien together, meanwhile Alya and Nino are trying to figure out their own love life because they’re trapped in their own version of the Lovesquare.

Chloé still rejects Kim. And while she isn’t as harsh, he’s still upset and Akumatized.

Queen Bee does get hit by Dark Cupid’s arrows, but her feelings toward everyone are so all over the place that it doesn’t entirely effect her. She’s extra rude to her teammates, but she’s able to pull together and still fight despite that.

Horrificator:

Like most AU versions of this I wrote, Chloé is more on board with the Adrienette ship, and this Akuma isn’t entirely her fault.

Darkblade

Without the responsibility of being a Hero, Marinette has no issue trying to be Class President!

Chloé is too busy with being a Hero to bother with any sort of blackmailing.

The Mime

Mari still accidentally erases a video Alya showed her, and she runs through the fight trying to track down the Heroes to remake the interview.

Alya is so touched that Mari would do that for her, and tries not to hug her on-site.

Kung Food

Pretty the same for my ‘Chloé is being nicer AUs’. Accidental sabotage instead of being a dick.

Gamer

Pretty the same, though Adrien invites Marinette to compete instead of her just jumping in. They get their cute not-a-date at her place.

No clue where the Heroes would get a giant robot though.

Animan

The Zoo Trip is plan ‘let’s set up Adrienette’. Though Adrien and Marinette think it’s a plan for them to set Alya and Nino up together.

Rena tosses Adrien and Marinette in the cage. One of them makes a joke about ‘oh, are all our dates going to be like this?’ and they kinda realize that yeah, they’ve kinda had a couple ‘dates’ that were ‘we are being attacked’, and end up talking and realizing the mutual pining and end up together.

Rena is also off her game during the fight since they are fighting her dad, though she can’t tell the others that.

Anti-Bug

The Vanisher part is mostly the same, though the fight was over something different as Chloé probably doesn’t dress up as herself for cosplay.

During the Vanisher fight, Chloé can’t get away to Transform, but she still tries to help.

However, due to Rena and Carapace’s knowledge of Chloé as a person, they’re very upset and hostile toward her.

Eventually Chloé snaps at them, because they trust Queen Bee, but not Chloé. And while she gets it, it hurts. Because she’s the same goddamn person.

And okay yeah we’re using this as the Reveal Episode again.

This would probably be the Queen Wasp episode, as we’ve already had a copycat Fox. Hawkmoth doesn’t catch on to the identity thing though.

After she’s de-Akumatized, everyone ends up having their reveal because Rena and Carapace try to explain why they didn’t trust ‘Chloé’. And like, she gets it. Because she knows how bad she was.

The three agree to still be a team, to trust her more, and to work together to help Chloé be better.

Also now that the Alya/Nino lovesquare is fixed, they start dating. Mostly as civilians though it does come through as Heroes.

Puppeteer

Pretty much the same, though either the Lady Wifi doll doesn’t exist, or it’s replaced with something else.

Reflekta

Again, like most ‘Chloé is being nicer’ fics, she’s less of a jerk here.

Well, she gets snarky about Reflekta’s design. But you know.

Guitar Villain

Pretty much the same(especially Mari being Jagged’s niece now!)

Only thing I’d add is Chloé and Fang interactions because fuck you I like the idea of her adoring this puppy-like crocodile.

Pixelator

Mostly the same.

It does give Alya a bit of perspective on her journalism career though. Sure, she’s not paparazzi or a tabloid reporter, but still.

Princess Fragrance

Goddamn it Rose this was not a good episode for you SPRAYING STRONG PERFUME IN A SMALL CLASSROOM IS A HEALTH HAZZARD AND ESPECIALLY A FIRE HAZZARD IN THE SCIENCE ROOM

Sorry had to say that.

I think for this it would be Wayzz getting sick. Though whether he’s sick or just faking because he misses Master Fu is up in the air, as he suddenly gets better when the Akuma shows up!

Wayzz doesn’t get yeeted like Tikki did in Canon though.

Simon Says

Adrien and Marinette are adorable, and Adrien doesn’t have to do the ‘uh.. I gotta take a shower!’ thing.

Instead, Nino is the one who’s like ‘Hey man, can I borrow your shower for a bit?’. Adrien is confused but doesn’t know if that’s weird or not.

Rena and Carapace quickly get frustrated trying to talk to Gabriel, but Queen Bee knows how to handle him and get him to stop being a fuck(Years of practice).

Volpina

So I know I kinda wrote this before but…. Tbh I’m retconning it a little bit.

Lila shows up and does the whole ‘I’m totally Bffs with the Hero Squad!’ thing.

Said Hero Squad immediately clocks her as a liar and ignores her.

Adrien still finds the book in his father’s safe and brings it specifically to show them

Much like how I always have Chloé figuring out Adrien is Chat Noir, Adrien has figured out Chloé is Queen Bee. Due to her sudden closeness to Alya and Nino, he figured them out too.

He slipped up while talking to Mari once and oops now she knows too!

So yeah he figures ‘show them the book’.

Lila still tries to get all cozy with Adrien, but everyone goes ‘he has a gf so get your hands off!’.

Mari is suspicious of Lila anyway, but no one brushes her off as ‘jealous’.

The Trio ask to borrow the book from Adrien, and he agrees as he also agrees to meet Lila in the park later.

Originally I wrote Lila trying to do the ‘I’m totally Rena Rouge’ thing, but tbh she’d probably make up a Hero instead since we already had a copycat Fox.

Not sure which one she’d pick, but whatever. She still bought jewelry to try to trick Adrien.

You know what? I want Carapace to be the one to lose his cool here. Because Nino doesn’t get as much attention.

He wanted to keep an eye on what Lila was doing, and maybe take a chance to pull her aside and say ‘hey, maybe don’t try to paint a target on your face by telling anyone who will listen that you know the Heroes??’.

But when he hears everything she says to Adrien, he just snaps and calls her tf out.

Lila gets Akumatized into whatever Hero she made up while Carapace informs Rena and QB about what just happened.

They all fight Lilakuma, and this time she actually does kidnap Adrien to the top of the Eiffel tower.

Once she’s defeated, no one really apologizes. Carapace felt a little guilty for yelling at her like he did, but Rena and QB agree that it was necessary.

They all go visit the Guardian together.

Christmas Special

Adrien still sneaks out, though not with Magic.

No Heroes show up to kick Santa’s ass, so he’s Akumatized differently.

The big party still happens though.

Season 2

The Collector

Carapace might be having too much fun hitting Gabriel.

Chloé’s the one who takes the fall for having the book, because she’s the one who would most likely get forgiveness instead of annoyance. (You can pry Uncle Gabriel out of my cold dead hands!)

Despair Bear

Like most ‘Chloé is being nicer anyway’ fics, the actual attempt goes better, but trying to encourage her though the threat of humiliation is not helping.

Prime Queen

The three have different reactions to the interviews

Carapace is the most awkward, but keeps his cool.

Rena tries to interview Nadja back by asking what it’s like being a reporter.

Queen Bee is used to interviews and playing the crowd.

Things go downhill when Nadja tries to get the romance angle. Everyone’s noticed the Rena/Carapace thing, but she goes further by attempting to spin it as a ‘love triangle’ by throwing QB in there somehow.

They shut that down and end up shutting down the interview altogether. Alya has a mini-crisis and is all ‘if I ever get like that when interviewing someone, please smack some sense into me!

Befana

Pretty much the same

Riposte

Mostly the same, though Kagami doesn’t end up with a crush on Adrien as he’s already taken.

Or I could toss in the Adrien/Marinette/Luka/Kagami polyship idk.

As there’s no jealousy or misunderstandings, Marinette and Kagami get along real early!

Robustus

Mostly the same tbh.

Gigantitian

Since the Adrienette ship is already sailing, there isn’t a plan here.

Maybe they’re planning a big date and the girl squad is there to help?

Dark Owl

Pretty much the same.

Glaciator

Well, all the couples and romance drama is sorted out. Except for whatever’s up with Chloé.

Perhaps she gets skeptical about the ‘Soulmate Ice Cream’ thing, especially with her vague flavor combo and it turns into a thing.

Sapotis

So… I think this is when we can toss in Snake!Marinette! After all, this was the episode where they first started bringing in new teammates!

Alya knows that fighting her little sisters will make her off her game, and there are so many copies and that whole ‘unbridled chaos of small children’, that the group decides that having Second Chance would be good, and they decide to give it to Marinette.

Chloé agrees, but argues for Adrien to be a teammate too.

Mari is hella nervous, but tbh once she has her mind set on something she can run circles around them. And with the power of Second Chance letting her know exactly how things go down? She’s unstoppable!

The Trio is in awe.

Also fuck you let her keep her Miraculous.

Gorizilla

We can take out the plot point of Gabriel suspecting that Adrien is a Hero, because he’s very obviously not in this AU. Carapace is the only male Hero, and even with the Magic Bullshit that lets a tiny mask hid their identities, it’s obvious he looks nothing like Adrien.

That said, everything else is mostly the same.

Captain Hardrock

No Lukanette unless I’m going for that polyship

Everything else is pretty much the same.

Zombizou

Again with the ‘Chloé is nicer so this is different’ plots.

Syren

No issues over not knowing the Guardian, since the Trio all know him. Maybe this is when Mari gets to meet him?

Frightengale

Not entirely sure how to work with this one because none of the usual plotlines would make problems in this.

Chloé’s nicer, Adrien doesn’t have a secret identity, even if Mari auditioned for a role she wouldn’t be put as her own Hero Persona, etc.

Troublemaker

Pretty much the same, though instead of just the ‘embarrassing wall of Adrien’ thing, it’s a wall of pictures from Marinette’s dates with Adrien. Still pretty embarrassing, but more cure and less stalker.

Anansi

Debated about this being a ‘new teammate!’ episode since it was originally, but… eh.

They’re enough to take her down.

Sandboy

Pretty similar, though adjusted for everyone’s personal nightmares.

Reverser

Again, similar, but also can I just say once more: What the FUCK Nathaniel???

Frozer

Instead of the romance shenanigans, this is a group hangout to try and get Kagami more friends. So, like, most everyone is there.

Style Queen

Everyone meets Chloé’s mom and wants to commit a murder.

Seriously they’re all like ‘no wonder you’re the way you are but also fuck her!’.

Adrien still gets glittered, though it’s less of a problem.

The Heroes take Style Queen down fairly well.

Queen Wasp

Audrey is still the worst.

When Chloé starts to hit her breakdown and almost reveals her identity, both Adrien and Marinette tackle her and stop her, dragging her off under disguise of ‘yeah no I think we’re going over here!’

Chloé finds out that they both know, and while she’s annoyed that they figured her out, she is kinda grateful they kept her from fucking up.

They all have a talk and help Chloé begin to see how horrible her mom is and that she doesn’t need her approval.

No akumatization actually happens

Malediktator

So like my other fics that focus on this, Chloé’s dad is still attempting to fix this whole mess and he gets Akumatized.

This is when we bring in Dragon!Adrien because letting the boy go lightning is the best way to deal with this.

He also keeps his Miraculous because fuck you.

Catalyst

Pretty similar, though Lila doesn’t have her Volpina powers. Or maybe she does? Hawkmoth could totally make her an Illusionist this time even if he didn’t the first time.

Either way, a fake event of the Heroes being defeated that causes despair and all that. Everyone shows up to fight.

Some of the despair is negated by the Team linking into the Miracublog to assure people that it was fake and just the work of an Akuma

Mayura

No one gets taken down in the fight. Rena and Carapace have the battle couple dynamic down, so they wouldn’t get taken out by the other being hit. Hawkmoth doesn’t know Chloé’s identity, and Mari and Adrien are too sunshine-y to be Akumatized over this fight.

The rest of the battle is pretty much the same though.

Season 3:

Backwarder

Like other rewrites of this episode, there isn’t any romance drama to cause the letter mixup, so the actual Akumatization happens differently.

Everything else is probably the same.

Weredad

God I don’t even know. ‘Chat Noir’ isn’t a thing, we don’t have identity drama. Maybe it’s a thing of Mari’s parents find her interacting with Dragon!Adrien and get a little protective because ‘back off she has a bf!’

I’m not sure.

Chameleon

The five all know Lila is a trick ass bitch.

some gave her the benefit of the doubt on her other lies, as she couldn’t possibly be lying about everything

But Alya and Nino are looking into things themselves and listening when Mari says things like “Jagged Stone has a crocodile, not a kitten’

Without Alya’s support, Lila’s sway over the class isn’t as strong, but the girl is good at manipulating the crowd.

She frames Mari’s issues as jealousy, of course. ‘Apologizing’ for what happened before because she ‘totally didn’t know Adrien was dating someone!’, and this is just Mari being a jerk over that.

She also frames Alya’s thing as jealousy over the Miracublog. Because ‘You might be the best news source, but you’re not the Hero’s BFFs like I am!’.

They do get to counter with what Lila did in the Volpina episode, lying about being a Hero to impress Adrien.

It’s kinda brushed off as ‘yeah that’s shitty but she’s sorry and it’s not like that means she’s lying about everything!’

Lila thinks she can win over Adrien and Alya, and they’re the most ‘useful’ to her. So she focuses on trying to ruin both Marinette and Nino, with an extra focus on breaking up Adrienette and DJWifi. She also thinks ruining Chloé will be easy due to her reputation.

She doesn’t do the one-on-one confrontation though, so no one really knows how much of a threat she is. The crew decides to just deal with her as time goes on.

Animaestro

I know I save the copyright violations plot for Lady Luck but I can’t resist! So yeah the movie team didn’t get the Heroes’ permission to make a movie and Chloé is giving the legal smackdown.

While Adrien was a voice in the movie, he didn’t play one of the Trio as he couldn’t really do any of them properly

He does end up voicing himself in a way though. Because the Movie Crew had to make up OCs to be the ‘Civilian Rena, Carapace, and QB’. Adrien voiced ‘Civilian QB’s brother’ who happened to be dating ‘civilian Rena’s best friend’, both of which were hinted at becoming the Dragon and Snake in the sequel that will never happen.

The Team is a little concerned with how close to home those OCs are.

Marinette and Kagami are friends so no sabotage!

Speaking of, Mari was invited as Adrien’s date instead of her helping her parents. Though she does still help a little.

Bakerix

Mostly the same.

Silencer

Mostly the same except for the lack of Lukanette.

Oblivio

I already said that the team can get Akumatized, so this Akuma still happens.

Also we’re all in agreement that ‘Super Penguino’ is an innuendo, right?

Chloé is real glad that Mari and Adrien were given their Miraculous permanently because she really does not want to be doing this on her own.

There’s still cute Adreinette memory loss moments.

Stormy Weather 2

Like other ‘Chloé is nicer’ fics, she didn’t cause this. It’s the same otherwise.

Reflektdoll

As Adrienette has already sailed, that’s not a factor. It’s all Juleka’s anxiety.

I want the Kwamiswap to still happen though, but let’s make it a full shuffle? Bee!Alya, Dragon!Chloé, Snake!Adrien(though something cooler than Aspik), Turtle!Marinette and Fox!Nino.

Oni-Chan

This is where they start to realize that Lila is a threat. Because the things of Adrien trying to be nice and her trying to lie her way into his room happen.

Nathalie isn’t fooled, as she and Gabriel are like ‘no bitch you kidnaped him and dangled him from the Eiffel tower. Sure you were Akumatized but we know you were in control for that because we would’ve stopped you if we could’ve.’

Lila still does the kiss selfie thing and that pisses Adrien off for so many reasons.

Kagami isn’t jealous, it’s a ‘you’re making my friend uncomfortable and also he has a gf you absolute thot!’.

The Team all sees Lila’s dangerous side as she messes with the fight.

Side note: While Carapace was the one to call her out originally, she hates all the Heroes equally because Rena and QB supported him and called her out again.

Miraculer

Since no one know Chloé’s identity, this would probably get entirely rewritten.

Not sure how it’ll go but probably Lila being a fuck

Puppeteer 2

The statue prank is less cringe but other than that it’s mostly the same.

Desperada

Since they already have the Snake on the Team, either this is where they get a different Hero, or they just skip it altogether.

If they did choose someone here, it wouldn’t be Luka as the main three don’t know him well enough.

Startrain

Pretty much the same, though Alya and Nino know to take Chloé seriously when she tells them there’s a Butterfly on board.

Also Alya doesn’t stand for Lila trying to interrupt the Adrienette nap.

Kwamibuster

Mostly the same. Though all five sneak out and get backup Miraculous to fight.

No identity shenanigans though.

Feast

Alya doesn’t post the video, and instead shows it to Master Fu herself.

Everything else goes pretty similar.

Ikari Gozen

Marinette and Kagami friendship!

They don’t think to give Kagami a Miraculous, and just help her out and then take down Ikari Gozen

Timetagger

Mostly the same, tbh.

Party Crasher

Mostly the same, though when Mari finds out what the boys are doing she texts the girls and they all yell at them.

They would’ve found out anyway when Alya and Mari showed up to the fight.

Gamer 2.0

Mostly the same.

Chat Blanc

Well you can’t have ‘Chat Blanc’ without ‘Chat Noir’ so scratch that.

Mari and Adrien have already been together for a while and Gabriel is not being a fuck by trying to break them up because tbh you can pry the ‘Hello, future daughter-in-law’ thing from my cold, dead hands.

Also if you want me to believe in Hawkmoth Akumatizing Adrien, you either need to show a lot more sanity slippage over time, or you need to have both Gabriel and Adrien be in a situation where they’re furious about something but can’t deal with it through normal means, so the Akuma is a way to try and help.

Idk what to do here

Felix

As much as I want to replace Canon!Felix with PV/Fanon!Felix, let’s keep Canon for now.

The setup is the same. Felix visits and decides to cause problems on purpose.

However, when he pretends to be Adrien, there’s two reasons why the main crew don’t believe it

First, is that they know Adrien really well, and he wouldn’t do that. Mari especially knows Adrien well and is pinpointing all the minor differences in how Felix acts.

The second, is that Felix isn’t wearing a fake Miraculous. He noticed Adrien’s new necklace, but as he didn’t have time to buy a fake he went without and figured it wasn’t that important.

But Mari, Nino, Alya and Chloé know that Adrien would never take it off because it’s a Miraculous.

So they manage to convince the friends that it must be a fake or something. But the trio ends up Akumatized anyway because ‘how dare someone try to trick us into hating Adrien!!’

Ladybug

Lila is still a fuck

She goes for ruining Mari, Nino and Chloé socially instead of getting any of them expelled(She’d do that after their reputation tanks). And she’s been working on this for a while.

She’d been subtle, making up things about them being jerks to her in private, and playing the victim whenever they call her out on her shit.

The class is hesitant to believe Mari and Nino could be that mean, but, well, Lila surely can’t be lying, right? And they have been hanging out with Chloé…

Of course they mostly believe Chloé would be mean, despite her recent strides in not being a dick.

Lila’s even been telling Alya and Adrien this stuff, pretending to be asking them to reign in their respective partner. Alya and Adrien don’t fall for it though, but don’t quite call her out on it.

Today was supposed to be a finishing blow, trying to convince the class that Marinette and Nino had been cheating on their respective partner with each other.

Alya and Adrien fight back because they know Lila’s a fuck

They ask Lila for specific dates, and Mari and Nino actually have an alibi for any time she says.

Either Mari was with Adrien, or Nino was with Alya, or there was a double date, or at least one of them was seen elsewhere.

They slam her with the whole thing and turn it around on her because bruh what the fuck

The classmates are on the fence. Because yeah, it doesn’t sound in-character for Marinette and Nino. But at the same time, would Lila really make up a lie about seeing them together?

It doesn’t ruin them completely, but it does damage their rep a little.

Hawkmoth tries to do the Scarlet Moth thing, but tbh between the fact that Mari is targeted(because he has an attachment to her in this AU) and Nathalie getting sick half-way through, he stops.

Not sure exactly what Mayura would make for a Sentimonster. There’s three main Heroes to choose from, plus the bonus Snake!Mari and Dragon!Adrien, so there isn’t one option to make a Sentimonster out of.

Either way it doesn’t work because of my favorite trope: “He calls me Riza when we’re alone!”.

Loveater/Miracle Queen

As Chloé’s identity isn’t a thing, this will have to be hella rewritten and tbh it’s 1:30 am so fuck it I don’t have the energy.

#Miraculous Trio AU #another ml au because fuck it

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bigskydreaming · 5 years

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AU where Dick and Jason realized early on that their differences were actually all due to the same problem, one they had in common: Bruce is an ass. And so instead of continually butting heads, they agreed to call a truce and not let Bruce’s continued status as an Ass come between them. Allied against the Ass.

And thus they actually had a good sibling relationship, with Jason going to Dick when Bruce’s Asininery grew to unbearable levels, because GOD could Dick relate, and no way would he betray his little bro by letting Bruce know where he is or let him see Jason before Jason was good and ready. Because if Dick had had a Dick-like buffer when HE was a teenager butting heads with Bruce in very similar ways, their own conflicts would likely never have grown to the point that they did in canon, and cause a split as deep and long-lasting as the one between Dick and Bruce in canon was.

And maybe when Jason was grown enough that it was time for him to step out of Bruce’s shadow and adopt his own new identity, make room for a new Robin, he and Dick become partners.

Only Jason being Jason, flat out REFUSES to be the Flamebird to Dick’s Nightwing, the natural other half of that duo, because Flamebird is a terrible name Dick, fuck you, that’s why. It’s LAME.

Except Dick being Dick, flat out REFUSES to be something other than Nightwing, because he already picked it and is established and he LIKES it and everyone who knows anything about that name (even if its just other heroes who know Clark or Kara well) knows that Nightwing’s partner is supposed to be Flamebird, anything else will be WRONG, god, Jason, you’re the English lit snob, WHY DO YOU HATE SYMBOLISM??

And so finally they settle on a compromise that works for both of them: they’ll BOTH be Nightwing and Flamebird. They’ll take turns, switch off roles.

Dick’s pleased because a) he gets his way and he’s a shit like that and b) aww his little brother really DOES love him, he’s willing to be Flamebird even some of the time so they can be a proper team, because they’re family, they’re brothers, and that’s more important than pride to both Dick and Jason even if they’re both so obviously prideful that this isn’t always evident.

And Jason’s less obviously but still equally pleased because a) he didn’t totally cave, he resisted the power of Dick’s unapologetic guilt trips which is no easy feat and really it’s just the principle of the matter, principles are very important to Jason except when they’re not, he’s a shit like that, and b) aww his big brother really DOES love him, its so obviously important to him that he invite Jason into this identity that matters so much to him as a symbol of his independence, him being his own man separate and apart from Bruce, its a family thing, a brother thing.

And then they’re both pleased for an entirely different reason, the reason being that they’re both little shits who fucking love mischief and chaos in counter to Bruce and Batman’s rigid order and control. Oh, the glee once they realize the havoc that their constant switching has on villains and criminals.

Because see, its not that hard to tell that they do it. Jason’s much bigger and broader than his acrobat older brother by this point, they have entirely different manners of movement even though they know all the same fighting styles, all the same gymnastics tricks. Their differences in size and center of gravity and muscle mass make it impossible to do everything the same, even if the moves are identical. Not to mention Dick physically can’t NOT run his mouth incessantly, whereas Jason’s quite content to stick to some well-timed cursing and catchy threats as punctuation for his beat-downs.

So its common knowledge that sometimes Nightwing is Nightwing and Flamebird is Flamebird and sometimes Nightwing is Flamebird and Flamebird is Nightwing except really doesn’t that still mean Nightwing is Nightwing and Flamebird is Flamebird even when Flamebird is Nightwing and Nightwing is Flamebird?

You see where this might begin to become confusing for their foes and hard to keep track of.

Especially since the Brothers Batty have gotten GOOD at compensating for their obvious differences, they crouch wherever possible in order to mask the difference in heights, they use shadows to obscure muscles and proportions, and they know each other well enough to mimic each other’s patterns and type of speech and banter when its for a good enough reason, like say, fucking with their bad guys’ heads. Like the order of prioritization goes Pride -> The Principle of the Matter -> Standing Firm Against Bruce’s Asininery -> Brothers -> Mischief and Mayhem.

See, its not that they don’t have clear priorities, its that their priorities aren’t immediately obvious to normal people aka non raised by the Goddamn Batman, that Emotional Toddler That We Nevertheless Desperately Seek Approval From, Ugh, Why Are We Like This, Why is HE Like This, Oh Right, We’re Like This Because HE’S Like This, Ugh FUCK BATMAN.

Point being, its not always easy to tell them apart in combat, let alone distinguish which one you’re talking about.

And sometimes after a long week of patrolling Dick and Jason just kick back at home and replay the audio from their stakeout and resulting beatdown of the latest cabal of supervillains to try and set up shop in Bludhaven, cackling with glee as they listen to their targets ranting about those two damn Birds breathing down their necks.

See apparently, the Boss is really mad about an op Nightwing busted up the other night and one of his suck-up subordinates was like ‘Ugh yeah, me too, Boss man, he totally ruined that meet I was trying to set up with a couple of Gotham Rogues for you’, and then someone else is like no you nitwit, not THAT Nightwing, the OTHER Nightwing, the big one, the first one! You’re talking about Flamebird!

And then someone else would be like shut up you dumbass, the first Nightwing is the SMALLER one, the one always running his mouth, everyone knows that! The big one is Flamebird! Y’know. Except for when he’s Nightwing.

And then someone else is like, that doesn’t even make sense, why would the first Nightwing be the smaller one, he was FIRST, obviously he’s the older and bigger Nightwing and what are you talking about anyway, the smaller Nightwing isn’t the one always running his mouth, he’s the angry one who says the really fucked up shit that makes you wanna crap your pants cuz like I fucking kill people but that shit is DARK

And then the Boss is like “EVERYONE SHUT UP! Alright. Look. There’s an easy way to settle this: Are we all talking about the Nightwing that hits harder than he kicks or the Nightwing that kicks harder than he hits?”

Which is when someone’s like “Well Flamebird’s definitely the only who hits harder - “ and it all starts up all over again.

Meanwhile, at home, Jason and Dick are on their sides, trying not to bust stitches they’re both laughing so hard.

And don’t even start with the times people hire Deathstroke to kill Nightwing. Because first Slade has to clarify. He’s like: “WAIT. Which Nightwing? Cuz I’ll only kill one of them, the one that’s really - usually - UGH FUCKING HELL - Look I’ll kill one of them but the other one’s off limits. So it depends on which one you want killed.”

“And they’re like, well which Nightwing is off limits?”

And Dick and Jason REALLY get a kick out of the audio of what THAT devolves into. (They’re in the rafters of the warehouse the meet is happening in the whole time. This is just too fucking good to bust up any sooner than they have to. Slade looks hilarious when he’s frustrated).

Meanwhile, back in the Batcave, a highly confused Bruce is listening to the same audio, Barbara having sent it to him in order to keep him from doing something dumb like storming off to Bludhaven the second he heard Deathstroke was in town and pissing off both his eldest two because CLEARLY, they do not need his help.

Tim and Damian have no idea whether to sympathize with Bruce over their brothers’ refusal to take this situation as seriously as they obviously should be, or to just find it fucking hilarious.

Cass and Duke aren’t hindered by the same need to be Team Bruce ever or by weird and arbitrary standards of professionalism, so they just find it fucking hilarious. Their older brothers are the best.

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one-of-us-blog · 6 years

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Die Another Day (2002)

Today Drew is forced to watch and recap 2002’s Die Another Day, the twentieth James Bond adventure. Bond is captured and tortured by some bad guys, and now 007 is out for revenge! Can Bond handle going rogue, or will MI6 shut down his quest for vengeance before it can even begin? Will Bond find those responsible for his imprisonment? Why is it so sunny in here?

Keep reading to find out…

Eli, I loved your last two recaps so much! I know there was a stretch of less-than-stellar episodes for you to wade through, but I’m so glad you enjoyed these last two romps! I still can’t believe how close you are to the end of the show, but, speaking of, I’m close to the end of an era myself. This is the final Bond film before the big reboot, and it’s crazy to think of how far we’ve come over the course of this blog! I can’t stand it anymore, the anticipation has me way too excited to lay out any other preamble!

Buttocks tight!

Screenplay by Neal Purvis & Robert Wade, film directed by Lee Tamahori

We start with a shockingly three-dimensional gun barrel sequence, and then we jump to the coast of Pukch’ŏng County, North Korea. Bond, alongside two of his fellow MI6 agents, surf into North Korea and attract the attention of a helicopter, which they quickly commandeer. This helicopter was bound for the headquarters of Colonel Tan-Sun Moon (Will Yun Lee), located in the Korean demilitarized zone, and Bond soon arrives after placing some explosives in a suitcase full of diamonds that the helicopter’s original passenger was transporting. Just to give you an idea of how comically evil a villain Moon is going to be, the first time we see him he’s beating up his anger management therapist for lecturing him. Bond is greeted at Moon’s HQ by the surly Zao, who surreptitiously snaps a pic of 007 when he arrives. Bond and Moon meet, and it’s really driven home that Moon is a rude, crude dude with a bad attitude when it’s revealed he’s trading weapons for African blood diamonds. Moon shows off the weapons Bond’s supposed to get for the blood diamonds, but turns out Zao wasn’t taking Bond’s picture just so he could add it to his scrapbook. He’s done a background check on 007, and since Bond is the worst secret agent in the world it doesn’t take any time at all for Zao to inform Moon of Bond’s true identity. Moon blows up Bond’s helicopter, but he’s distracted by a call from his daddy, General Moon (Kenneth Tsang). He leaves the killing of Bond to Zao while he scrambles to hide all the illegal weapons he’s got in the demilitarized zone before his dad finds them and he gets grounded. Thinking, “Why the hell not?” Bond triggers the explosive in the suitcase full of diamonds, causing and explosion that allows him to escape and results in Zao getting a high-velocity diamond facial. Bond escapes on one of Moon’s hovercrafts (why not) and blows up most of his headquarters before chasing after Moon as he races across the mine-laced demilitarized zone. There’s a lot of shooting, some mines get blown up and Moon fires off a flamethrower for no good reason before Bond and Moon end up on the same hovercraft and Bond kills Moon by driving the hovercraft off a waterfall. Moon’s zaddy arrives, and he’s none too pleased about his dumb kid getting killed.

General Moon has Bond waterboarded while we finally head to the opening credits. This credits sequence is… troubling. Madonna sings out the mediocre techno ballad “Die Another Day” while we’re treated to scenes of Bond being brutally tortured interspersed with CGI ladies comprised of ice, fire and electricity dance around and some scorpions just kind of crawl around and mind their own business. Also diamonds. It’s a mess, and honestly the dime-store techno bassline makes it a little hard for me to get too invested in the vignettes of Bond being beaten and sodomoized with a hot poker by a sexy Korean woman in jackboots.

After what feels like a lifetime this bit is finally over, and a bearded, bedraggled Bond is brought before General Moon. Bond has managed not to break in all the time he’s been held here, and Moon lets him know it’s time for him to go. Bond is taken to a bridge where it seems he’s going to be shot, but then Moon’s goons lower their weapons and we find out this is all actually a prisoner exchange. Bond is being traded for the bedazzled Zao, and the two share pleasantries while they make their way back to their respective governments. On the British side, Bond is greeted by Damian Falco (Michael Madsen) from the NSA and…oh, my stars and garters, could it really be? Dare I dream?

That’s right, folks, Charles Robinson is back, babey!!! And not a moment too soon! I have no doubt he singlehandedly wrestled Zao into custody after Bond was done bonering everything up. Charles Robinson didn’t become the most valuable man in MI6 by being reckless, and he leaves nothing to chance. He has Bond sedated so that he can be checked for any kind of biological weapons. M, no doubt having met with Charles Robinson to mine his formidable intellect, goes to meet with Bond through a sheet of glass. M doesn’t mince words and lets Bond know that if she’d had her druthers he’d still be getting dicked by scorpions back in North Korea. She thinks they paid too high a price for Bond’s freedom by letting Zao go, but Bond didn’t ask to be traded and couldn’t kill himself because he… I don’t know, cut out? ripped out? his cyanide capsule years ago.

M explains that an American prisoner was killed in Bond’s prison a week ago, and they think Bond broke under torture and was mined for intel by the North Koreans. M gives him a vote of confidence by entering his glass prison to let him know she doesn’t think he’ll kill her, but she tells him he’s going for an evaluation and won’t be sent into the field any time soon. Bond… Okay, listen, Bond, like, meditates or something and lowers his heartrate to the point that the monitors he’s hooked up to think he’s dead. Some medical staff rush in to save them, he jolts them with an EKG machine and makes a break for it. Just go with me here.

Bond, now officially gone rogue, heads to a hotel he’s known at and gets a shave, haircut and new suit. The hotel manager, Mr. Chang (Ho Yi), sends up a masseuse to entertain 007, but Bond knows she’s packin’ heat and Chang, who’s actually with Chinese Intelligence (maybe he and Wai Lin have worked together?), is filming him from behind a half-silvered mirror. Bond tells Chang he won’t hold a grudge over all this if Chang can get him into North Korea so he can get his hands on Zao. Chang finds out Zao isn’t in North Korea anymore, though, he’s in Havana. Bond heads to Cuba and meets up with a British sleeper agent/cigar factory owner, Raoul (Emilio Echevarría). Raoul lets Bond know he can find Zao on an island which sports and unusual gene therapy clinic. Bond heads to a hotel which sports a view of the strange island, and there he catches sight of Giacinta “Jinx” Johnson (Halle Berry), who emerges from the ocean like the second coming of Honey Ryder.

Bond and Johnson seem to really hit it off, by which I mean they immediately hit the sheets, but the next morning Bond is left alone as Johnson sets sail for the clinic on Isla Los Organos. Bond knocks out another hotel guest and uses his ticket to get a ride to the island as well. He loads his new unconscious friend into a wheelchair and brings him along to the island, where he causes a distraction by hurling the man and his chair into a wall. He then finds a secret, mirror-lined passage and slinks his way through. Johnson, meanwhile, is apparently getting a consultation for gene therapy. Just kidding, though, she immediately kills the doctor, burns the evidence of her being there and lets us know she’s definitely a spy.

Bond finds Zao in the middle of a procedure that’s meant to rewrite his DNA to make him look like a white dude right as Johnson finds Zao’s file an stops the procedure right in the middle of things and leaves Zao looking like a naked mole rat of a man. Zao wakes up and he and Bond fight, but Zao gets away while Johnson sets off a bomb to shut down the whole facility. Bond and Johnson both chase after Zao, but he gets away in a helicopter. Johnson is almost killed by some guards, who don’t seem to notice Bond, but she avoids death by disrobing and then cliff diving down to an awaiting speedboat. Bond examines a bullet which Zao was wearing as a fun, festive necklace until Bond yoinked it off during their fight. Inside the bullet are some diamonds, which Bond has Raoul examine. The diamonds are being sold by Gustav Graves, who alleges to have found them in Iceland a year ago despite Raoul being able to definitively identify them (somehow) as African blood diamonds. Hey, that sounds familiar!

Who cares about all of that, though, because the most important man in MI6, Charles Robinson, arrives at work just in time to catch Miss Moneypenny spying on a conversation between M and Falco from the NSA. Falco thinks M played a part in Bond’s escape, and Charles Robinson sagely watches on as M shoulders the weight of Falco’s threats to make things right at MI6. Bond, meanwhile looks some stuff on Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens), who makes an interest by parachuting down to meet up with his publicist Miranda Frost (Rosamund Pike) in front of a bunch of reporters (and Bond). Bond tracks Graves and Frost to a fencing… club? academy? class? I don’t know. It’s hosted by Verity (Madonna in the cameo no one asked for), who introduces Bond to Graves. Bond, despite being on the run from MI6 and, like, a secret agent, uses his real name because why not.

Bond and Graves immediately get into a cock measuring contest via proxy in the form of a fencing match, during which Bond lets Graves know he’s figured out that Graves is selling blood diamonds. Graves challenges Bond to up the stakes and the two start fighting with real swords and completely wrecking Verity’s swordfight clubhouse. Frost eventually breaks up the fight and Graves invites Bonds to a science demonstration. A bellboy gives Bond a mysterious envelope with a key in it, and he goes to an abandoned subway station to meet up with M. M’s not here to capture Bond, though, she just wants to compare notes on Graves. M warns Bond about Graves’ political connections and agrees to give him some unsanctioned help.

Bond arrives at MI6, only to find Moneypenny dead from a gunshot to the head. He takes out several attackers and is joined by Charles Robinson himself, so you just know everything’s going to be alright. But then the unthinkable, the impossible, the inconceivable happens and Charles Robinson, the unshakable foundation upon which the stability of the British government rests, is gunned down. No, I can’t accept it! I won’t! And I don’t have to, because this is all a training session taking place in the VR Zone. C’mon, you know a Q-Branch simulation is the only place a facsimile of Charles Robinson could ever be bested! Q (née R) brings Bond safely out of the VR Zone and takes him to his workshop in the subway, where Bond proceeds to touch everything like a five-year-old at a toy store. Bond is outfitted with a sonic ring that can smash unbreakable glass and, get ready for this, a car that turn invisible.

We’re due for a twist, so we get to sit in on a meeting with M and Frost, who, it turns out, is an MI6 agent spying on Graves. Frost things Graves will blow her cover, but M says that in all her time spying on Graves Frost has turned up dick all and M wants Bond to go in and shake some shit up a bit. Bond heads to Graves’ ice palace in Iceland where he’s greeted by the imaginatively named Mr. Kil (Lawrence Makoare) before Graves scoots up in his super speedy sled car thing. We get another mention of Graves never sleeping, which is a thing that just keeps getting brought up. The famous Jinx Johnson arrives while Bond heads to the bar before his DTs can get too out of hand. Bond and Johnson meet up while Zao arrives at the ice palace. He pulls Graves out of a crazy dream machine which he has to use to stay sane due to his permanent insomnia, and it turns out Graves is actually Moon post-gene alteration.

The shindig finally gets underway and Graves unveils Icarus, a satellite which can reflect Sol’s light toward Earth and function as a second sun. Bond hides out in his magical invisible car so he can snoop around in Graves’ private business, but immediately gets caught because he’s just no good at stealth. Frost saves Bond from being discovered by Mr. Kil by making out with him while Johnson Mission Impossibles her way into Graves’ inner sanctum. While Frost and Bond are busy getting busy, Johnson is doing some actual work. Unfortunately she finds Zao waiting in Graves’ dream machine instead of Graves himself, who sneaks up behind her and electrocutes her with a souped-up Power Glove.

Zao and Mr. Kil interrogate Johnson, but she ain’t a canary and she ain’t in the mood to sing, so Zao leaves Mr. Kil to slice her up with a mining laser (paging Dr. Goldfinger). Bond finally arrives at Graves’ greenhouse lair in time to save Johnson, but first he has to deal with Mr. Kil. Bond gets his ass handed to him, but the still-restrained Johnson manages to kill Mr. Kil with the mining laser. Bond sends Johnson off to find Frost and get in touch with MI6 while Bond confronts Graves and reveal he finally knows the dude is actually Moon. Frost arrives, only to turn her gun on Bond. Turns out Frost set Bond up in North Korea and she’s been a double agent the whole time. Frost is about to execute Bond, but luckily he’s got his glass-shattering ring which allows him to… well, shatter some glass. Specifically the glass floor of the green house. You get it.

Bond escapes in Graves’ super sled, but Graves brings in some North Korean generals so he can demonstrate the destructive capability of Icarus to them. Icarus hyper-focuses the sun’s like way beyond what could be useful for a farmer trying to get that sweet wheat all year ‘round, and Bond barely out maneuvers the solar death beam by driving the sled off the side of an ice shelf and using the sled’s anchor (?) to keep himself from falling into the frigid sea. Graves solves this problem by just carving off the whole chunk of ice and making a prophetically topical joke about global warming. Bond survives, though, by jumping into a Nintendo 64 surfing game and shredding away to safety.

Johnson is discovered by Frost and Zao, who inform her she’s going to die… eventually. Bond steals a Ski-Doo and makes it back to the ice palace where he retrieves his inviso-mobile, which is useful for about a minute until another Ski-Doo crashes into it. Zao uses the thermal vision of his own car to spot Bond, and the two set off on a merry chase while the now-abandoned ice castle begins to rumble around Johnson. Graves fires up Icarus and begins to melt the ice palace, but not before Bond crashes into it (the car chase is still going on, BTW). Bond tricks Zao into driving into a pool formed out of melted ice and then shoots a chandelier down onto him instead of just shooting him in the head.

Bond retrieves the almost-drowned Johnson and gets her into the warmth of the greenhouse in time to save her. The two head to a US bunker on the South Korean side of the demilitarized zone where they’re greeted by the one, the only, the legend, the icon, Charles Robinson. With a mind to rival Watson, Charles Robinson lays down the skinny in no time flat. Graves and Frost are in North Korea, and neither the American nor the British governments can go get him before Icarus is used to destroy any of North Korea’s enemies (i.e. everypony). M’s sending in Bond anyway, and Falco decides he needs a reason to be in this movie so he sends Johnson in too. The two are airdropped in, and Charles Robinson, with the sage, cautious wisdom of an old barn owl, worries that they’ll be detected. Falco’s dumbass has the nerve, the gal, the audacity to tell Charles Robinson to “relax”, so you know that sonofabitch has some comeuppance headed his way.

The missiles Falco has sent to destroy Icarus are instantly destroyed by the mirror’s solar laser, because of course they are you dumb stupid idiot. Bond and Johnson, meanwhile, have landed and stowaway on Graves’ plane. Graves calls for his zaddy to be brought down, where he reveals himself in his new white face and shows off a plastic mech suit that allows him to control Icarus via a computer mouse trackball installed in his Power Glove. He fires up Icarus to show off and make his papa proud, but General Moon tells him the other countries will nuke the hell out of North Korea to shut this shit down. Graves doesn’t take paternal rejection well and 86es his dear old dad. Bond tries to shoot Graves but his shot is deflected, resulting in a window getting blown out and the plane violently depressurizing.

Johnson manages to stop the plane from crashing, but then Frost is there to hold her at swordpoint and of course she’s wearing an ornate bra and elbow-length gloves for no damn reason. Who even cares at this point. Icarus’ death beam is still going, by the by, and Charles Robinson, with the time-keeping prowess of the White Rabbit, lets everyone know it’s headed right their way. Johnson flies the plane right into the beam’s path, giving her time to get the better of Frost. Johnson and Frost fight with blades while Bond and Graves just ineffectually punch each other. Johnson eventually gets the better of Frost and kills her (with a very saucy, “Bitch!” thrown in for good measure) while Graves gets the better of Bond and prepares to escape the falling plane. Bond prematurely triggers Graves’ parachute, which results in Graves being sucked into the plane’s engines and most definitely dying.

Bond and Johnson find a helicopter hidden in the plane, Inception style, and manage to ride it out of the exploding plane in time to avoid death by ground. Bond makes what I think has to be a weird 69 joke before the two fly off into the sky with a crate of diamonds in the back of the helicopter.

Moneypenny uses Q’s VR shades to live out a fantasy involving Bond banging her at MI6, because that’s all this movie has to say about her character, but Q interrupts her before she can rub one out. Glad everyone thought this scene definitely needed to be in this already-over-two-hours movie.

Bond and Johnson have sex on top of the stolen diamonds (imagine how uncomfortable that would be) and we’re finally done here.

The End

~~~~~

Woof! I know way back in my introductory post I mentioned that I’d seen this movie (or at least parts of it) at some point in my checkered past, but, lemme tell ya, there was a whole lot that I’d forgotten/suppressed about Die Another Day. Just to start out with some positives, I actually really liked the design of Zao’s diamond-encrusted face, and I really liked seeing Halle Berry here. She didn’t get anything worthy of her talents to work with, but still. Then there were things that started out neat, but didn’t work in the end. I liked Frost a lot when she was introduced, but then she got reduced to a sword-wielding lunatic in a bra for the final conflict with Jinx. Icarus seemed fun, but then I remembered that this is not the first, not the second but the third Brosnan Bond film with a satellite at the heart of its narrative. We had GoldenEye, then Carver’s dumb satellite news network and now Icarus. That’s three out of four Brosnan films with satellites as key players. I love space as much as the next gay, but, I mean, get a new shtick already! Then there’s stuff that was just silly. Bond stopping his heartbeat? The Power Glove? The ice palace? The invisible car? That Madonna song? C’mon. I know you have to suspend disbelief for any of these movies, but jeez louise. And while I know I don’t normally dwell on the technical side of things during my recaps, but the special effects in this movie were very bad. If we weren’t getting some unnecessary slow-mo, we were having shots like the one of Jinx cliff diving or the truly horrendous kiteboarding scene that legitimately made me gasp when it first started. While there were definitely some fun moments and some little touches I liked, on the whole this flick is a mess and a far, far fall from the glory days of GoldenEye.

I feel I can only give Die Another Day QQ on the Five Q Scale.

We’ll see you again in a hot minute as Eli serves up a couple of fresh recaps of the next two episodes of The Golden Palace, “Say Goodbye, Rose” and “You’ve Lost That Livin’ Feeling”, and after that it’ll be time for me to move onto a brand new Bond as I tackle the next James Bond adventure, Casino Royale (and maybe you can look forward to a few special treats before then, who can say?).

Until then, as always, thank you for reading, thank you for analyzing this (Sigmund Freud) and thank you for being One of Us!

#one of us #007 #james bond

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silkygoldmilkweed · 6 years

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Petyr Baelish vs Sandor Clegane: A Tale of Two Suitors

GRRM will be dead before he finishes the books so we’ll never get a chance to ask him about the construction process once the whole thing is out there, but until he says otherwise, I believe that he created Jon, Dany, Arya, Sansa, Sandor, Ned, Bobby, Rhaegar, Lyanna, Cat and Robb, and then built out many of the other characters as mirrors and foils to them.

Theon is failed Jon.

Joffrey is the anti-Jon.

And I believe with all my heart that Littlefinger is the anti-Sandor.

Name almost any character quality and Sandor has the opposite aspect to Littlefinger. Littlefinger is words. Sandor is deeds. Littlefinger is manipulation and lies. Sandor is brutal honesty. Littlefinger is selfish. Sandor is selfless. Littlefinger is either amoral or immoral or maybe both. Sandor lives by a strict personal code of how men, women and people generally are supposed to behave. Littlefinger is sinuous and simpering and sly like Hiss in Disney’s Robin Hood movie. The Hound is bold and strong and aggressive and all heart.

But both of them want to fuck Sansa Stark.

(My headcanon, BTW, is that Littlefinger’s nickname is really because he has a tiny dick and that it was Brandon “Wild Wolf” Stark that gave him the nickname. Sandor, of course, is prodigiously endowed. LOL.)

I think the show grants Littlefinger’s death scene a few nods to the SanSan subtext in Sansa’s life, and Littlefinger’s failure gives us some insight into where the Hound succeeded, even though it may not have been acknowledged at the time.

“Lady Sansa, I’ve known you since you were a girl. I’ve protected you–”

OK, this is excellent. When was the first time they met? According to Littlefinger circa season four, “The first time I saw you, you were just a child. A girl from the North, come to the capital for the first time. Not a child any longer.” So the first time they ever met was the Tourney of the Hand, and at that time, Sansa was officially a “child” or a “girl.” (Sandor met her just before that, and then won the tourney in question by protecting Loras from Gregor.)

Anyway, LF’s been creeping on Sansa from the get-go (he puts his hand on her at the Tourney and Ned gives him a death glare) but more importantly, beginning as early as season four (MAYBE) but most certainly by season seven, Sansa is no longer a girl but a woman. SophieT is only 21 or something, but in Westerosi terms, Sansa is a twice-married widow of maturity and dignity. The way she dresses she could pass for a middle-aged spinster, but of course her face gives away her youth.

Long story short, the show wants you to know that it’s no longer creepy if Sandor thinks she’s hot, because age difference or no, they’re both adults now and free people, and able to consent to sexual intercourse if they’re both of sound mind and body, etc.

“Protected me? By selling me to the Boltons?”

Littlefinger is first and foremost a flesh peddler. A whoremonger, as Lord Royce calls him. He sells Sansa’s body as readily as he brokers a street prostitute’s blow job work.

Counterpoint: Sandor Clegane doesn’t run around pimping out little girls. Can you even imagine? Quite to the contrary, he spends all his free time running interference between creeps and his Stark girls. Honestly, one of the most striking underanalyzed moments in the histories of the Hound is when he and Arya are with the farmer and his daughter, and the father is doing his prayers to the Seven. “We ask the Maiden to protect Sally’s virtue and keep her from the clutches of depravity,” says farmer dad. It’s at that moment that he interrupts, “Do you have to do all seven of the fuckers?” Now, mostly he’s literally starving and he just wants to get on with it, but I also think there’s an unspoken freaked-out reaction there: There’s no point in praying! The gods aren’t going to keep her from getting raped. They never stop any of that shit. You either can fight it off yourself or she’ll suffer it, same as all the other maidens.

The spectre of sexual assualt looms heavy over Sandor and Sansa’s “relationship,” not least because of the “fuck her bloody” line but also because of the size difference, the age difference, the power difference, his known predilection for violence, and his obvious overwhelming desire for her (not to mention Gregor’s history as a rapist, most famously of Elia Martell). But even though he could take her at any time, and she is quite often in very vulnerable situations with him, he never does anything untoward. (Show canon only, I know the book canon is slightly more salacious and risque, in word if not in deed.) But even though he could have stolen her against her will, and he should have, most likely, he politely asked her if she wanted to be absconded with and when she said no, he walked away.

As he and Omar put it so succinctly, “A man’s got to have a code.” No stealing girls who don’t want to be stolen.

Or as the vows of Westerosi knighthood put it, “In the name of the Maid, I charge you to protect all women.”

Littlefinger grossly exploits women’s bodies. Sandor puts his own body between women and danger. Littlefinger sells. Sandor frees. What a difference.

“If we could speak alone, I could explain everything.”

Littlefinger is a sneak. And a liar. He can’t do anything in the open, because he needs to lurk in the shadows to play his little games. It’s a kick to rewatch once you understand the extent of Littlefinger’s dishonesty, because you can absolutely see Aiden Gillen adjust his performance ever so slightly when LF is lying. It’s outstanding acting, although of course I loathe anything and everything LF-related.

Sandor, meanwhile, is honest to a fault. “A dog will die for you, but never lie to you.”

“Sometimes when I’m trying to understand a person’s motives, I play a little game. What’s the worst reason you have for turning me against my sister? That’s what you do, isn’t it? That’s what you’ve always done. Turn family against family, turn sister against sister. That’s what you did to our mother and Aunt Lysa, and that’s what you tried to do to us.”

If we play this game with Sandor’s motives, I think we come to the conclusion that the worst thing he could want was to have consensual sex with a girl who was too young and too highborn and too fragile and too weak. He didn’t want Winterfell. He didn’t want money. He didn’t want power. He legitimately wanted to help Sansa, and later Arya. (I will insist on my deathbed that the Arya-for-ransom deal was bullshit generally but at best a poorly-thought-out plan to get him an entree to House Stark.)

The other thing is the sister divisions bit. I would add that Sansa and Arya (”different as the sun and moon”) have but a handful of things in common: Winterfell, their parents and siblings, and Sandor Clegane. He’s one of the things that binds Sansa and Arya together, rather than tears them apart. They approach him from different positions but end up in the same place.

Last but hardly least, he is the one single person who ever fought for both Sansa and Arya, who were almost completely abandoned after their father was killed.

They were left alone in the wilderness. Arya had a little of Yoren and Jaquen and Gendry, but she was overwhelmingly scrapping on her own. Sansa had a little of Varys and Olenna and Littlefinger, but again, she was basically out there all by herself, being hunted by lions. The Hound was the only one who fought for them both. He is a tie that binds.

“Sansa, please.”

Ah, the pathetic begging. Show!Sandor never grovels for her attention. On the contrary, he discourages and frightens her on several occasions. He doesn’t need her the way Littlefinger is desperate for Sansa, both sexually and politically. Why? Because Littlefinger is weak and needy, whereas Sandor is strong and needy. Sandor desires Sansa Stark, but he doesn’t debase either of them to get what he wants. If what he wants is not freely given, he can walk away, whereas Littlefinger always crawls closer.

“I’m a slow learner, it’s true. But I do learn.”

Oh, my sweet Sansa. To me this line is so evocative and nostalgic and tragic. If viewed from a pure SanSan perspective, this is Sansa saying that she had to suffer through years of loneliness and torment at the hands of villains to be able to see what a good and rare and precious thing she had once had in Sandor Clegane.

This line pairs beautifully with the other heartbreaker from Sansa to Littlefinger: “Back then I only thought about what I wanted, never about what I had. I was a stupid girl.” She’s had years to think about how her girlish, inexperienced, naive and entitled values prevented her from seeing that her True Knight was standing in front of her the whole time, right behind the beautiful, odious, vicious idiot king.

“Give me a chance to defend myself. I deserve that.”

Ugh. Let’s return to season six to reply to this. “I don’t believe you anymore. I don’t need you anymore. You can’t protect me. You won’t even be able to protect yourself if I tell Brienne to cut you down.”

Sansa sees now that she is much stronger and more powerful than Littlefinger ever was or could hope to be. He is a grubby little pretender and he destroyed her family for his own selfish ends, and he deserves every bit of the justice that he is about to receive.

Basically, my girl has become a woman, and she is free of all the bullshit men who have been using her for years. Tywin is dead. Littlefinger is dead. The Boltons are dead.

She is unbound. She is a woman, and she can choose for herself, and I’m pretty sure what she chooses will be Sandor Clegane.

#sansan #sansan meta #Sansa Stark #Sandor Clegane #petyr baelish #sansan marriage

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thebibliomancer · 6 years

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Essential Avengers: Avengers #191: Back to the Stone Age!

January, 1980

OH HEY WE’VE HIT ‘80s!

It took one-hundred and ninety issues plus annuals and crossovers but we’ve arrived. And now ten more years of comics (including West Coast Avengers, oy) and I’ll hit the terrifying 90s.

And what better way to ring in the 80s than have the Avengers fight a dude made of stone. No, not the Thing. No, not the Statue Black Knight. No, not Korg. No, not Geodude. No, not Tanuki suit Mario.

Grey Gargoyle.

C’mon. He’s right on the cover. There’s text that says his name right above him.

Last time: The Avengers had a senatorial hearing to decide whether the government would withdraw their special priority status again. Because Gyrich was pissed that Scarlet Witch wanted to take more vacation instead of coming back to the team.

But they had to reschedule because a giant stone monster was rampaging and Beast offered to let Gyrich handle it but he didn’t want to for some reason.

Through some truly impressive teamwork and combos, the Avengers beat the rock monster into gravel, guest star Deadpool warning only too late that there was something lurking under said gravel.

So Iron Man and Daredevil got turned to stone and the Grey Gargoyle promised he would destroy the Avengers.

And then he just pops Falcon right in the face.

Yer a dick, Grey Gargolyle.

Vision jumps to Falcon’s defense and THRAMs Grey Gargoyle stating that since Thor has soloed Grey Gargoyle before, it shouldn’t be a thing for the assembled Avengers to beat him.

This is a valid theory and if the Avengers showed the teamwork they showed last time it would probably be correct.

Hell. Vision could solo this guy. He’s beaten a rock man before by letting him punch himself to death on Vision’s diamond hard abs.

He doesn’t get the chance for some weird reason (and Grey Gargoyle has some methods at his disposal that Statue Knight didn’t so...).

Grey Gargoyle punches him across the synthezoid face sending him flying into a building. Literally into a building. He apparently went intangible just before impact and just before passing out so he’s just sticking out of a wall, untouchable and unconscious.

Apparently when Ultron was having Vision built, he had him built with a glass jaw.

Scarlet Witch runs to check on Vision because these two crazy kids are constantly worrying about each other in battle and Grey Gargoyle takes the opportunity to punch her in the back of the head, knocking her out.

There’s a distinct lack of teamwork going on here...

Beast and Cap were too far off to watch Wanda’s back. But after she’s already been clobbered, Beast jumps on Grey Gargoyle’s and starts punching him in the head. And also criticizing how he treats women.

Beast: “First the Absorbing Man trashes Ms. Marvel, and now you deck the Scarlet Witch! Don’t you bad guys have any sense of chivalry at all?”

Grey Gargoyle: “Not really.”

Beast: “So I see!”

Kind of a weird thing to take issue with. I don’t like that Gargoyle punched Wanda in the back of the head but the other thing Beast cites, Ms. Marvel getting beaten up in the fight against Absorbing Man... Ms. Marvel can take a punch a hell of a lot better than you can, Beast. And she’s in the biz of punching people to get them to stop doing the crimes. Getting punched back is going to happen.

During this exchange Grey Gargoyle flings Beast at Cap. And while the heroes lay in yon heap, Grey Gargoyle reveals his ability to turn anything to stone for an hour by touching it with his right palm.

He uses this on an awning. So it collapses under its own weight and buries Cap, Beast, and Wasp in shards of rock.

Speaking of Ms. Marvel, she’s the last standing Avenger. I don’t know what she was going this whole time (teamwork real bad for some reason) but she comes up behind Grey Gargoyle, grabs him and throws him against a building.

This seemingly knocks him out but when she goes to investigate, he kicks her in the head, knocking her out.

I coulda sworn she’s taken a lot more damage before so her durability here isn’t really ringing true.

That’s one of the annoying things about team comics like the Avengers. When the plot requires someone to solo them, they go down super easily even when it doesn’t make any damn sense.

Anyway, even though the Avengers are all at his mercy and he said he would kill them, Grey Gargoyle suddenly changes his mind now that it would be super easy to kill them.

Grey Gargoyle: “I could kill you now, all of you, but why bother? There will be plenty of time for that later... when I’ve less pressing matters to attend to... or perhaps, when I become bored.”

I guess villains tenderly gripping the villain ball must go hand in hand with the heroes getting easily soloed. There wouldn’t be an Avengers if the villains actually killed them after they were easily defeated.

MEANWHILE AT THE MANSION OF AVENGE

Jarvis is cooking a hearty goulash for the Avengers when they get back from their hearing because dammit he’s a good butler and all that legal drama might make them hungry!

But then he hears a tapping and a pak-ing on the window door. Only Redwing and nothing more.

Falcon’s pet falcon is desperate to get out so Jarvis opens the window. AND NYOOM that to-be-a-vampire-in-the-future bird can book.

Meanwhile, back at the scene of the Avengers’ latest embarrassing stomp.

Ms. Marvel is the first to shake off the one blow that seemed to be enough to completely knock her out for some reason.

Wanda is up not long after.

And... wow, geez. Wasp blasts her way from under the pile of rubble and drags Beast out from under it. While tiny sized.

Um, good hustle, the Wasp?

Cap is also okay, having gotten his shield between him and the rocks fall nobody died. Weirdly it seems there was a layer of rock between him and Beast when they were sprawled on top of each other before Grey Gargoyle brought the awning down.

Wanda is concerned about Vision though. He’s still unconscious and if he is badly hurt, they can’t even help him because he’s intangible!

And then Vision sits up, perfectly fine.

Vision: “My systems shut-down was merely temporary -- and undeserving of your rather dramatic reaction. You have acted strangely ever since your return from Attilan, my wife. Something troubles you. We must talk.”

I hope we’re not back to the point where Vision would deride Wanda for being concerned about him BECAUSE EMOTIONLESS ROBOT.

But they really should have that important relationship talk.

Which maybe they do off-screen while Beast and Cap go to check on Iron Man and Daredevil.

Yup. They’re stone.

But its like they can still hear Iron Man’s voice on the wind.

Oh wait, they can.

In a kind of cool moment that probably makes total sense if you don’t think about it too much, the man inside the armor is perfectly fine (give or take an aggravating itch on his nose). The Grey Gargoyle’s touch turned the armor to stone but left the gooey center alone.

And as the Avengers leader, Stone Man is ordering them to not worry about him and Daredevil. Track down the Grey Gargoyle before he does anymore harm. And prey that no pigeons find Daredevil and Iron Man before the stoning effect wears off.

Which solves the dilemma of what to do with their stoned buddies really. Good call, Stone Man.

Also the reason why you shouldn’t think too hard about Grey Gargoyle’s stone effect is because then you might start wondering. If the Iron Man armor was turned to stone but Tony left squishy, does that mean that Daredevil’s insides are as blood and organs as before and only his skin has been made stone?

DON’T THINK ABOUT IT.

Also, at this point, Beast notices that Falcon is missing.

Beast notices this. Cap was apparently oblivious.

Way to be conscious of your best friend and partner, STEVE. He’s only here as a favor to you!

But where is the Falcon? I guess as the first one rock punched, he was also the fastest to recover and has been secretly trailing the Grey Gargoyle as he has rooftop hopped across Manhattan.

Grey Gargoyle finally reaches his destination. The apartment he rented under his human identity when he started operating in New York months ago and--

So remember how this whole thing started when Grey Gargoyle in his rock monster spacesuit fell from space?

It turns out that when you disappear (into space), your landlord tends to rent your apartment to other people.

And in this specific case, Grey Gargoyle’s secret lair is now the home of Margot Neil.

“She considers it her sanctuary against the concrete and combat of inner city living.” Emphasis mine.

So obviously a giant stone man is going to OH YEAH through her window.

What did she expect, setting up dramatic irony like that?

Margot runs for the door, yelling that when muggers dress up as pet rocks and crash through twelfth story windows, moving to Montana starts looking good.

But Grey Gargoyle jumps over her (geez, he can book for a guy literally made of stone) and turns her door into stone, rending it unusable as an aperture.

And now that he has a captive audience, Grey Gargoyle does whatever any self-respecting villain does upon gaining a captive audience.

Exposits about his backstory.

SEE HE USED TO BE A BRILLIANT SCIENTIST

But not so brilliant that he didn’t accidentally spill chemicals on himself like a stupid asshole.

And since he was a comic book brilliant scientist, obviously he has superpowers now. Anything he touches with his chemically contaminated right hand would turn to stone for an hour.

And since his body absorbed these chemicals, he could also touch himself to suddenly become as hard as rock.

Easy joke. Sorry.

But that’s why he’s a rock man. He turned himself into rock but because of his exposure to chemicals, he could still move even as a rock man.

And then like most scientists who practiced insufficient lab safety and got powers as a result, decided to become a supervillain.

So he decided to fight Thor to steal his hammer under the assumption that Mjolnir would make him immortal. This is an assumption that everyone keeps making for some reason.

But then Grey Gargoyle realized that the magic was inside him all along. For all practical purposes he IS immortal! He can survive prolonged periods underwater and even in space.

That’s where he was assumed dead, by the way.

A rocket carrying him to Earth in Thor #259 exploded. Luckily for him, he managed to cover himself in cosmic particles and wreckage that he turned to stone and which for some reason didn’t turn back after an hour.

And thats where the rock monster spacesuit came from. The Avengers were kind enough to punch him loose from that.

ANYWAY

Its been fun chatting but now he’s going to use the chemicals he hid in a secret compartment behind a mirror to become even stronger.

Why have his chemicals been replaced with bourbon and dom perignon??

Well. The secret compartment wasn’t so secret. Margot found it when she moved in and figured she’d throw out the smelly chemicals so she could have the classiest liquor cabinet.

I like you, Margot.

Grey Gargoyle is distinctly less fond though.

Grey Gargoyle: “Why, you dimwitted witch! I’ll crush your silly head into jelly!”

Thankfully this is when Falcon chooses to show up and tell Grey Gargoyle to take it ease.

Grey Gargoyle wastes no time being surprised and throws a suddenly stone bowl of candy at Falcon and then tries to him with with an entire stone couch.

Falcon grabs the couch mourning Margot and leaps out of the way of the SKABLAM but then with a SKAWK Redwing flies into the apartment.

I love you, comic book sound effects.

Do you know whats wrong with comics these days? Constant rebooting series to #1s in a ill-conceived attempt to create jumping on points? Derailing characters for shock value? Too many big events? The fact that Phyla-Vell is still dead and she and Moondragon aren’t having a sapphic road trip through space? All of these things maybe. But definitely the lack of sound effects.

Falcon tells Redwing to go get the other Avengers (because Timmy fell down a well?) but Grey Gargoyle grabs the bird and turns him into stone. Rendering this entire mercifully short subplot moot.

I should be glad that the book remembered Redwing at all.

Falcon stashes Margot under a table for safety (which she mocks) while he goes to fight the dude that soloed the Avengers.

But using his agility and not standing around like an idiot, he manages to get about a page of keep away, thus giving him the best record against this guy so far.

Eventually the Gargoyle does manage a glancing punch to Falcon’s chin which floors the guy and leaves him unable to acrobatics. But thankfully someone (Cap) throws a mighty shield and Grey Gargoyle’s midsection must yield.

The Avengers have arrived! They heard reports of a “war” going on in an East Side brownstone and figured it was either the Grey Gargoyle or at least something else requiring punching.

Geez, news gets out fast.

Anyway, this time the Avengers remembered to have their teamwork turned on. Because we’ve hit that point in the page count where the Avengers win instead of getting taken down like fool chumps.

Wasp blasts Grey Gargoyle with a full force bio-power sting, which actually hurts his forehead region. Then Ms Marvel grabs Grey Gargoyle and swings him all around while also pointing out that he only won last time because they fought him one on one like idiots. And then she throws Gargoyle at Vision who punches him BRAMM. And as the punch slams him into a wall, Scarlet Witch uses her probability altering powers to turn Grey Gargoyle back to flesh.

And. I guess he just wasn’t wearing a shirt or pants this whole time. His costume is a cape, a domino mask, gloves, boots, and underwear.

I guess when your skin turns to stone you don’t need real clothes but if not for an art trope, he would have been flashing stone nipples to everyone this whole time.

Oh. And now that Gargoyle’s face is not stone, Beast lays him out flat with a punch.

Then we zoom out to see the shambles the fight has turned the apartment into. And Margot crawls out from under the surprisingly intact table (wow, Falcon was right that it would protect her!) and meekly asks

Margot: “I, uh, don’t suppose some of you would care to stay and explain all of this to my landlord, would you? Please?”

I like to think that some of them did. Or at least that a sighing Tony Stark wrote a check for damages. And by like to think, I mean that the caption box on the following page does confirm that the Avengers were cool people and did have a word with her landlord.

You’re not bad some of the times, the Avengers.

The last page of the book finally gets us back to the subplot about the senate hearing.

And even though the hearing heard the rest of the testimonial Gyrich had prepared, it seems like the senators have already made up their minds.

A senator: “Thank you for your testimony, Mr. Gyrich. Your concern that the Avengers might pose a threat to our nation’s security is greatly appreciated.”

“However, the recent incident with the Grey Gargoyle seems to reaffirm that this group’s prime concern is the safety of not only American citizens, but of law-abiding people everywhere, and that they require a certain amount of freedom to carry out that purpose seems indisputable.”

“Therefore, it is the decision of this committee that the Avengers priority privileges and security clearance remain intact -- and that the restrictions on their autonomy be lessened considerably, as detailed in the committee’s report.”

Cue Beast dancing in triumph in the background and saying “Awriiight!”

Henry Peter Gyrich, lessened liaison to the Avengers, takes this with all the grace he can muster.

Henry Peter Gyrich: “Well, Iron Man, you’ve won. I suppose this means you’ll go back to having more members than the Mormon tabernacle choir?”

Iron Man: “No, Mr. Gyrich. We probably would have cut our membership to about what it is anyway, if left to ourselves.”

Henry Peter Gyrich: “I see. Very well then, I’ll drop by next week to supervise implementation of the committee’s new guidelines. Good-day, gentleman.”

So with a lot of mustered grace. Really, the only way you can tell how disgruntled he is is that he takes off his sunglasses for the first time to wipe them and squint at Iron Man.

I wonder if they’re prescription.

Also, it sure is lucky that a supervillain attack happened just when the Avengers were not really but kind of on trial regarding how necessary they were. In a more cynical title, it would have been staged. Or just somewhat down the line from now in Marvel. Like how Reed Richards once staged a supervillain attack when he was testifying in Congress. Or something coming up moderately soon in Avengers.

Cap congratulates Iron man and says that things can get back to normal now. But Iron Man looks at Vision and Scarlet Witch having a relationship talk by the windows and says he has a feeling that for some of them, getting back to normal isn’t going to be that easy.

And thus ends the era of the Gyrich Restricted Avengers.

It was mostly wasted potential. It shook up the team roster a little bit but Falcon was the only real new thing aside from Wasp being on the team without Yellowjacket. And the new roster didn’t really get shown much due to subbing people in and out.

The stuff before the new roster, where the Avengers tried to operate without the usual privileges they enjoyed like launching jets and access to government databases made more of an impact.

More could have been done with Gyrich’s roster as he intended. And more could have been done with the idea of a more restricted Avengers team. They really only pay lip service to the idea with Cap having to go over Gyrich’s head to get presidential approval to save Scarlet Witch and the Avengers fretting briefly if Gyrich would approve them stopping to help the Russians with some elements of doom.

I guess it was an inherited plotline so David Michelinie and assorted other filler writers didn’t really have a clear idea where to go with it. Per Shooter, he intended Gyrich to be an asshole that has a point so I wonder what he would have done with the post-Korvac stuff.

At least we’re not losing Falcon immediately. No, we have him until 194.

Its a shame because this issue was really the first time he shined on the team. And it wasn’t great but it was okay. By recovering first and following Grey Gargoyle, he led the Avengers to where he was which saved the life of Margot Neil. And he put up the first good fight against Grey Gargoyle the entire issue.

I think it could have been better with a minor change. Instead of Redwing flying to the battle and getting turned to stone, have Redwing fly to where the Avengers were and lead them to Falcon.

Could have gotten some brief comedy out of that with Redwing flying off and then flying back and trying to communicate with people he doesn’t have a psychic bond with and then Beast finally says ‘I think we’ve all seen enough Lassie to know he wants us to follow him.’

It would have made Falcon look more proactive and also demonstrate why having a psychic link to a bird can be handy.

Alternatively, buy him a walkie talkie so when he flies off alone he can just call you up. Did walkie talkies exist yet? The idea at least of portable communications must have existed. Like Dick Tracy’s radio watch.

Anyway.

Falcon did a good job. Good job, Falcon. I wish you got myriad moments to shine at the beginning of your time on the roster like Beast did. That’s how you build up a new Avenger.

... I just realized that Daredevil never shows up again. Matt Murdock shows up in the background of the last page but Daredevil’s contribution to a comic that had him on the cover was to catch Cap out of a fling and to ineffectually warn Iron Man of something.

Not a great crossover! Its neat in the interconnected universe way but that could have been accomplished just by having Murdock show up. Sorry, Daredevil fans!

Next time: STEEL CITY NIGHTMARE -OR- PERIL IN PITTSBURGH!

See. Not everything happens in New York.

If you want to see a new Pet Avengers with Redwing, Lockjaw, Tippy-Toe, and of course Pizza Dog, follow @essential-avengers. I have no power to actually make it happen though. Don’t get your hopes up. Also follow if you just like me doing these posts. They take so much of my time...

#Avengers #Grey Gargoyle #Falcon #Scarlet Witch #the Vision #they need to have relationship talks #Ms Marvel #Carol Danvers #Beast #Captain America #he threw his mighty shield and it wasn't immediately invalidated #Redwing #the most important Avenger of them all #Essential Avengers #Essential marvel liveblogging #Henry Peter Gyrich #did not want to fight a monster and now the avengers can do what they want #Margot Neil #she never shows up again

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