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seventh-district · 7 months

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Midnight Hour

With the warm haze of sleep fading from you, your brow furrows as your right hand presses lightly against his lower abdomen, your thumb sweeping up and down in a small attempt at a comforting motion. You quietly call for his attention, voice still thick with sleep.

“Star? Is everything okay?”

You awake in the middle of the night to find your lover in tears.

Pairing: Astarion x Reader

Word Count: 3,139

Content Warnings: [crying (obviously)] [non-specific mentions of Astarion's past trauma] [this fic was written by someone who hasn't actually played the game and that might show in the details/the lack thereof]

Blinking your tired eyes open, you squint at the light of the crackling fire in front of you. Closing them again, you let out a soft sigh as you try to guess at the current time. Given that you woke on your own, you’re assuming it’s likely close to, but not quite, time for you to take over tonight’s watch shift.

Your group has fallen into a routine where you pair off into teams of two, and a different team keeps watch each night. Tonight’s turn belongs to you and Astarion, and he’s taken the first half of the shift as usual. You usually, ironically, sleep your best on the nights that he keeps watch, in spite of only getting half the amount of sleep as you do on the nights another team has the job.

You suppose you can credit the fact that, at the end of the day, Astarion is a creature of the night. Something about knowing he has the upper hand when it comes to any unwanted nighttime visitors your group may encounter is… reassuring. To you, as well as to the others in the group, loathe as some of them may be to admit it. That is, once they all felt confident in his promises to not make a surprise midnight snack of them, at least.

Tonight is a bit of an exception, though, and you’re not quite sure what woke you early this time. You typically sleep soundly until he gently coaxes you awake, nails combing through your hair, voice soft and apologetic in your ear. He’s always somewhat reluctant to wake you, but he does so nonetheless, having learned his lesson after the first time he made the executive decision to let you sleep the whole night through. His arguments of “You really looked like you could use the rest.” and “What’s one sleepless night? I can sleep when I’m dead.” didn’t hold much water in the face of the way he dragged ass through the entire next day.

In “the spirit of fairness” and “proving that he can stick to an agreement,” he never tried to take the whole shift by himself again. It definitely didn’t have anything to do with how guilty he felt when he heard the disappointment in your tone when you awoke that first morning and discovered he hadn’t stuck to the plan. Definitely.

Laying there in the quiet, you try and fail to pinpoint what feels different about tonight. You don’t hear any strange noises, nothing feels unusual, and blinking your eyes open again you raise your head a bit to look around the fire. The rest of the group are circled around the other sides of the heat source, sleeping soundly. You figure that you’re probably just getting used to this routine by now, and your body simply woke up around your usual shift change time on its own.

Still, that doesn’t explain the vague, unplaceable feeling that something is just… off.

You let out a sigh that turns into a yawn as you stretch and roll away from the fire onto your back. Letting your head roll further to the left, your eyes land on the familiar sight of your lover’s back as he sits in his usual position beside you, diligently watching your six.

He’s taken to placing his bedroll right next to yours, insisting that you lie between the fire and himself. You couldn’t really argue with his point that he can’t feel the cold anyways, so there’s no need for him to be the one next to the fire. Nor could you argue with the benefits of having him as a line of defense between you and whatever lurks beyond the reach of the firelight.

The feeling of security and protection that he provides you with is still relatively foreign to you, and a soft smile blooms on your face at the warm feeling it brings. Your smile then falls a bit as you remember the silent question you ask yourself on the regular, of whether or not you provide him with the same.

You roll the rest of the way to your left, and shuffle further toward him, closing what remains of the small gap he’d placed between the two of you. Lying halfway on your bedroll and halfway on his, you curl your body around his seated form, bringing your right arm up and gently placing a hand on the right side of his waist. He flinches slightly, and if this were earlier on in your relationship, you’d retract your hand. He’s long since informed you though that his reaction to unexpected touch is simply involuntary, and as long as it’s you, you’ve no need to pull away.

You recall the quiet, restrained desperation in his voice when he first explained it to you, all but begging you not to pull away. He can’t control the way his body reacts to touch, given that before you, he couldn’t recall the last time being touched meant anything other than pain. In spite of that though, he wants it. He wants you. That’s obvious in the way that he, without fail, immediately relaxes under your gentle touch once his mind and body process that it’s coming from you. The way he’s come to not only relax, but to lean into it. Lean into you.

You’d never push past his boundaries, never in a million years, but he’s made it quite clear after about a thousand of your quiet requests for consent at every minor touch, that he’s entirely welcoming of your non-sexual physical affections. Getting the man to verbally admit that he actually enjoys cuddling with you, without the truth being concealed beneath a heavy layer of playful banter and practiced, honeyed words didn’t come easy, but he came around to it in his own time.

So, you don’t pull back, instead following through with the motion and slowly snaking your arm around his waist. You press your front against his lower back and curl around to rest your left cheek atop his left thigh. You can’t help but notice that he doesn’t relax into you in the way he usually does, and your head turns to the right a bit, struggling to get a half-decent look at his face as you’re both turned away from the fire light.

He remains tense, still, and unresponsive to your movements, gaze seemingly locked dead ahead of him, staring out into the dark forest.

“Star? Is everything okay?”

His typically silent breath suddenly hitches, and his head angles down to face you. Now that he’s turned toward the light, you catch the way his eyes shine, and the way the light reflects off of what you quickly realize are tear tracks, running down his cheeks. He’s actively crying, tears dripping from his chin, and now with his head tilted down at you they take a different path, running down to converge and fall from the tip of his nose.

You nearly bolt upright in your shock, quickly unwrapping yourself from him and clambering around on all fours until you’re sat down in front of him, your hands gripping tightly to your upper thighs in worry. His wide-eyed gaze followed your every movement, and even now that you’re sat still in front of him, his eyes still dart around, frantically scanning you, for what, you don’t know.

“What- what’s going on?”

You keep your voice as quiet as you reasonably can in spite of your shock and concern, not eager to wake your companions and have everyone witness… whatever this is.

He doesn’t respond, looking just about as lost as you feel, shaking his head in silence as more tears fall. It’s one hell of a sight, and it suddenly hits you that this is the first time you’ve ever seen him cry.

Unsure of what to do and what even caused this, you resist the urge to wrap him in a hug, not wanting to overstep in this unfamiliar territory. Instead, you glance back over your shoulder and once again see and hear nothing of note before trying another question.

“Is there a threat? Did you see something that scared you, honey?”

He takes a long moment to answer, seeming unsure, before eventually settling on another shake of his head. His lack of confidence in his answer isn’t the most reassuring thing at the moment, but given that you aren’t detecting any danger either, you decide to believe that he really didn’t see any threat. At least, not here. Not right now, in the present moment, in front of him. He seems about halfway here and halfway gone, and if your growing suspicions are correct, he’s probably been sat here lost in the dark corners of his mind for a while now, given the state he’s in.

You catch movement to Astarion’s right side and watch as Karlach raises up from her prior position sprawled out face-down on her bedroll, propping herself up with her forearms beneath her. Her expression of concern is too aware and her eyes are too awake for her to have just now woken up, and you quickly gather that she’s probably been awake and laying there long enough to have heard your questions and Astarion’s lack of any verbal response. She doesn’t say anything though, and doesn’t move, just letting the situation unfold and keeping a watchful eye on the darkness behind you.

Relaxing slightly at the knowledge that someone else is awake and helping to keep watch now, your focus shifts back to Astarion, who’s gaze has moved to his lap, tears still falling fast. It’s almost unsettling, the way he cries. There’s no sound, no movement, his breathing is hardly even affected, nothing more than the occasional shaky breath to give away any sign of struggle at all. You don’t have to guess why it’s like this, given what he’s told you about his past. You’re sadly certain that he learned to cry like this ages ago. Silent and still, sat alone in the dark so no one would notice.

You don’t want to think about the sorts of punishments he’s endured as a result of showing such pain and emotion, but your mind pulls from what experiences he’s shared and offers up a few anyways, making you begin to feel sick.

Leaning down and trying to catch his gaze, you ask another question.

“Astarion, are you with me right now?”

He blinks, more tears spill, and his lips finally part as he responds to you with a strained whisper.

“I’m trying to be…”

You smile in spite of your current emotions and the general mood of the situation, doing your best to be something positive, something gentle, something safe for him to focus on.

“There you are…”

You say it to yourself as much as to him, relieved to finally hear his voice, as laced with pain as it sounds. You hold out your hand near where his lie balled into fists in his lap, offering him contact without forcing it on him.

“I want you to keep trying, okay? Do your best to come back into the present with me. You can take my hand, if you’d like?”

He stares down at your offered hand for a long moment before shakily unballing one of his fists. He hesitates, fingers trembling, before reaching out and placing his hand in yours. His skin is even colder than usual and slightly damp to the touch, and you couldn’t be less put off, or give less of a fuck about the messy state of him right now, or ever, if you’re being honest. You just want to help him, however you can.

You curl your warm fingers around his palm, wanting to pull him into a hug so badly but restraining yourself, letting him call the shots.

“You’re okay now, Star. You’re safe right now, here with me. We’re safe.”

He’s quiet for another long moment as he shuts his eyes tight, taking in your words. His other fist unfurls, and his body trembles almost imperceptibly.

“I… I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”

Your heart breaks.

“Honey, you have nothing to apologize for. Nothing at all, I promise you.”

He shakes his head in disagreement, his voice an insistent whisper.

“I shouldn’t be doing this.”

Your shoulders drop from where they’d been tensely held up, body slumping with a silent sigh as you watch him still try to hold this wall up between the two of you. You’d made it past a number of his walls already, but this one… this one you’ve yet to be granted access behind.

“It’s okay to cry, you know?”

Another shake of his head, this time with far more force behind it, almost vehement.

“No.”

You soften your voice, insisting.

“Yes. It is. You can cry now, Astarion. No one’s gonna hurt you. No one’s gonna judge you. I swear on my life, that’s the truth.”

His breaths become more labored, uneven and shaking.

“You aren’t his anymore. The old rules don’t apply. You can let it out, now. No one, and I mean no one, is going to punish you for it.”

His eyes pinch closed and his head shakes hard side to side, like he’s fighting his own mind, and his hand opens and closes like it wants to grab onto something. He then moves, wrapping his free hand around your arm and suddenly you’re being pulled toward him, desperately, insistently.

You follow the motion as he continues to tug at you, first leaning forward and propping yourself up with your other hand on the ground as he continues to pull you closer. You quickly gather what he wants as he lets go of your hand in favor of latching onto your other arm, pulling you upward, choking back tears all the while.

You raise up on your knees and his hands move once again to hook beneath your arms as you allow yourself to be pulled up onto his lap with physical strength you keep forgetting he possesses. Hooking your legs around his waist, you wrap your arms around his shoulders and pull him into you. His arms wrap tightly around your waist and he buries his face into the fabric of your shirt at the collar, muffling the soft sound of his crying which has now turned to full-blown sobs.

He’s still shockingly quiet in spite of it all, and you imagine it’s a mixture of being unable to let go of what’s ingrained into him, and not wanting to alert the entire camp to his current breakdown.

Your thumbs stroke up and down in place on his back, not wanting to let go of your hold on him but still wanting to give him some sort of comforting motion to focus on. Besides, you figure petting across the entire expanse of his scarred back might do the opposite of calming him down, so you refrain and keep your arms wrapped firmly around him. Turning your head down toward his, you whisper to him in between soft kisses to his temple.

“That’s it, love. Let it out.”

“You’re safe now, Astarion, I swear.”

“There’s nothing wrong with this.”

“I’m so proud of you.”

“You have every right to cry. No one ever should’ve taken that away from you.”

He grips you even tighter as you shower him with painfully unfamiliar affection and acceptance, comfort unlike anything he’s ever felt before in his horribly long life. His forehead presses against your right shoulder as his crying slows, trying to ground himself and catch his breath. You make a point of holding him securely against you, breathing slow and deep to give him an example to follow.

You catch movement in your periphery and glance over at Karlach as she quietly sits up and makes a series of silent lip movements and hand gestures that you don’t entirely grasp. You work them out to mean that she’s gonna take over watch for the rest of the night, and you can rest with Astarion. You send her a grateful look and mouth a “thank you,” to which she waves you off with what you think you read as a silent “don’t mention it” on her lips.

After a short while spent focused on slowing down his breath and bringing him fully out of his memories and back here with you, you whisper quiet words in his ear.

“Your work is done, Astarion. You can rest now.”

You mean it in both possible interpretations of the words, and he seems to understand that, his body finally relaxing against yours for the first time tonight.

“You wanna lie down with me, love?”

He seems like he almost nods, but stops himself, whispering back in an exhausted voice, scratchy and thick from crying.

“Someone has to keep watch.”

You hesitate to inform him that Karlach has already taken over that role for tonight, sure that he’d get no sleep at all if he knew she’d witnessed this. You know you’re gonna be awake watching over him for the rest of the night anyways, so instead, you offer a compromise.

“I can hold you and keep watch at the same time, love. Just… let me sit and you can lay against me.”

He gives the suggestion a moment of thought before nodding his head, reluctantly loosening his hold on you. You maneuver the both of you carefully so as to avoid allowing his tired eyes to catch sight of your obviously awake companion sitting behind him.

It isn’t much of a task considering his eyes are halfway closed already, his only remaining focus locked on you. You settle down at the head of his bedroll, guiding him to lie down and bringing his head to rest in the center of your lap.

Your hands take turns gently combing fingers through his white curls, and you feel his tense shoulders begin to relax at the feeling. You bring a thumb down and gently stroke over the lines creasing his brow, quietly encouraging him to release the tension he likely doesn’t realize he’s holding. You watch him pull in a deep, albeit still slightly unsteady breath, and you can practically feel the relief that washes over him when he exhales.

Words aren’t necessary between the two of you at this point, not in this moment, but you offer him a few anyways, hoping they’ll resonate in his tired mind as he slips into sleep.

“You’re safe here, Star. Rest easy.”

A/N: Like I said in the CWs, I haven't played the game for myself (yet!) so I only know what I've seen in the hours of (mostly Astarion-focused) scenes I've watched on YT. As a result, this might have read a bit funny if I've gotten certain details wrong. For instance- I have no idea how resting at the camp actually goes, whether or not someone keeps watch all night, etc. Also I'm not sure if Astarion even needs to actually sleep or if he meditates/falls into a trance and just calls it sleep, but for the sake of simplicity, (and me being clueless,) when I say he falls into sleep just assume he's doing whatever he'd normally do to rest. On a different note- this little fic was inspired by a combination of two things. The lovely art and additional commentary on this post, by @velnna , and also by me listening to Midnight Hour by Sierra Eagleson on loop for like, an hour, and daydreaming up this specific scene before proceeding to write it out. It is a beautiful song that is now the title and theme-song for this fic, and I encourage you to go give it a listen if you haven't heard it already. Header Image Source: x

#astarion x reader #astarion #baldur's gate 3 #baldurs gate 3 #bg3 #astarion bg3 #bg3 astarion #astarion fic #astarion fanfic #my writing #man. this may be the quickest turnover/turnaround whateverthewordis on a fic that i've ever made happen #i usually sit on an idea and then a draft for ages before posting smthn. so given that it's only been a couple days #between the initial idea and the finished posted fic. wow. groundbreaking speeds for me #the power of hyperfixation (and love)#y'know. i've noticed a trend #why is it that nearly every time i write for a new character the first scenario i place them in involves crying #and having Reader hold/comfort them #i did it with Eddie i did it with Venti i'm doing it with Astarion. who's next. who's next in the Reverse Comfort lineup huh #idk why that's my go-to scenario it just is. maybe i do have a type. (characters that need to have a good cry in their beloved's arms)#or maybe perhaps it is i that needs the good cry and i am projecting. who knows. 'tis a mystery (it's both)#anyways i know this fic is a bit short but i just. had one little specific scene i wanted to write and that's it!#i do plan on making more for him though. i've already got another idea brewing in my brain #also sorry if 'honey' and 'love' aren't your go-to pet names. or if you wouldn't call him Star #my own style of speech heavily influences what i have Reader say in my fics and i can't help itttttt. everything i write is self-insert lma #*lmao (i’m on mobile rn i’m not retyping all of that just to add the last letter)#(yes i’m posting this from mobile cause i took a nap and overslept and missed the time i wanted to post this at. so now i am In A Rush #smthn smthn self imposed deadlines smthn smthn ‘i know the guy that made the rules and he’s a total pushover’ anyways it’s fine. post draft

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booigi-boi · 7 months

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It's @shipwreckedcomedy's 10th anniversary and I had to draw something 🎂

Thank you for making me realize what my real aesthetic was and making me buy a big poster of Oscar Wilde that stares at me while I sleep ✨

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aseuki · 1 year

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[SOUL] - Moonstruck Blossom

"She has consumed the world, and all she has left to cling to is her vanity"

Marx | Sectonia | Fecto Elfilis

#kirby #queen sectonia #kirby sectonia #soul of sectonia #hoshi no kirby #hoshi no kaabii #Starting a new project!!#ooooh what could it be????#points #yeah that's p much it that's the project there's no mystery here #aseukiart #fanart #The Kirby game series has such cool bosses *nods*#SOUL series

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binah-beloved · 10 days

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hmm...

vampire Binah...

keep talking

Binah refuses to feed from you, ever. you're her love, her most precious treasure, and she wants nothing more than to hold and and protect you from the outside world for the rest of days. how strange- Binah is known for her ruthlessness, leaving corpses in her wake marked from pale claws stained with blood. mortals are but a meal to her, something to satiate her hunger and sadistic tendencies

but with you- with you- there's a constant need to pull you close, to wrap her arms around you and bury her face into your hair. her skin is cold as ice, but with you she feels a hint of warmth in her chest, a light, pleasant spark that comes whenever you lace your fingers with hers or give her a surprise hug from behind. she's fond of you, imagine, a bloodthirsty vampire having fallen for a human. so Binah won't ever feed from you, won't ever hurt you. even when her limbs ache and head burns from starvation, she'd rather kill hundreds of worthless others than to even graze your skin with those viper-sharp fangs of hers

perhaps, if she's lucky, you won't completely despise her when you discover that she's a monster

#project moon #lobotomy corporation #library of ruina #binah #binah lobcorp #binah library of ruina #she's excellent at hiding it #the way her eyes occasionally flash red or how her ears are slightly pointed #to you she's just a mysterious new companion who joined you on the road #a good friend who can look out for herself #she's afraid to be too touchy with you or convey her feelings since she knows you'll eventually find out #but oh how her dead heart beats when you hold onto her hand or her cloak

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steelthroat · 4 months

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I manifested it, there's a problem with electricity and that means no school tomorrow, so I decided to experiment with acrylic paint. Maybe I'll finish this one for the evening :)

#my art #art of steel #it's for a secret project with a friend but...#this exists mainly because I gotta recycle old cardboard #I never paint landscapes and I'm trying to learn new things so here's the thing #I'll probably draw this specific mountain a thousand times more because of that project #but the thought doesn't bring too much dread #so yeah #mysterious mountain with fog and steam go brrr

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defiledtomb · 1 year

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selene what's got you smiling so sweetly? (is it the hunter, covered in blood?) ๏˽๏

#ouroboros-if #interactive fiction #sene/selene #posting on tumblr nowadays like im golfing off a highrise roof #punting a post into the fray hand on my eyebrows to shield from the sun watching if it lands well #obligatory napoleon dynamite style fistpump if it does #anyway hi 🫣 im still scuttling around like crecher but im making so much progress on ouro stuff #been really enjoying S' character portraits and incorporating more hints of Oakwerths architecture into their design #thinking of adding some porcelain caps to their horns #happy to share some sneak peeks if you forgive me for not being very social :]#i have 722 asks right now! seven hundred and twenty two. that is a dizzying nr and i honestly don't even know where to start #hopefully it gets neater once the ouro blog is up. pffft a girl can hope #i cannot thank you enough for your kind words and evocative q's #(everytime something new comes in it feels like seeing the first spring flowers) it really fuels me #i am working on the not so secret secret project for a while longer #who would've thunk i'd be more productive when not spending so much time on social media. honestly its a mystery #i hope you are doing well ✨#*skedaddles back offline*

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jq37 · 4 months

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Please let us know if you solve this mystery!

OK! It’s the end of the year so let me compile everything I was able to come up with (with the help of everyone I dragged into this–you know who you are and thank you and I’m sorry).

To anyone who’s just seeing this and doesn’t have context, in November, right before the movie Wish came out, I made a longish post questioning who Allison Moore was (which, incidentally, is the first post that comes up when you Google “Allison Moore Disney”).

The reason I was curious about who this random writer is is because she’s credited as one of the co-writers of Wish, Disney’s 100th Anniversary Feature Film BUT she has no obvious experience writing for animation, children, or fantasy when everyone else on the main team has credits on stuff like Frozen and Encanto. I thought it was bizarre that there would be someone so green on a project so big so I went digging.

Here’s what I learned:

(1) Moore wasn’t originally announced as being attached to the project. Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee, and Fawn Veersunthorn were all mentioned when the project was officially announced in Sept 2022 (for example). Moore was not. And you’d think they’d mention the *co-writer*, right? You don’t start to see her name until a year later in Sept 2023 when the trailer dropped (for example). So it seems like she was brought onto the project later. Of course, this could just be a normal quirk of the industry or something I’m misinterpreting, but I think it’s worth mentioning.

(2) Moore seems to have a lot more credits in stage writing than she does in screenwriting. I wasn’t able to 100% confirm it until recently (I’ll get to that in a second) but she’s written a bunch of plays and it seems like this is where she has most of her bona fides.

“Allison is the recipient of two Jerome Fellowships, two McKnight Advancement Grants and the Bush Artist Fellowship.”

That sounds fancy. But it still doesn’t say “Top Choice for Disney Anniversary Movie” to me. That’s not a statement on writing quality. I haven’t read/seen any of her plays. It’s about the subject matter. Look at some of these synopses:

None of that really screams Disney. Which isn’t to say people can’t have range. George Miller wrote all the Mad Maxes but also Babe and both Happy Feet. But if I was hiring someone for a really big project, I wouldn’t want that project to be their first attempt at expanding into that genre.

(3) This isn’t actually inherently important but she was on an episode of Nailed it. That’s where this picture comes from:

She won the first round and the game ended in a three way tie for the first time in the show’s history.

The only reason this is noteworthy in the larger scale of things is that, until very recently, this was one of only two places online you could see Allison Moore talking. The other is this very short interview on the red carpet during the premiere.

youtube

There’s nothing in that interview that explains anything. It’s mainly her talking about how it was fun working on the movie and how good the movie is.

Honestly, good for her for not being Extremely Online, but it really felt like I could get a bit of a handle on everyone else who’d worked on this project in a high profile way but not her. Which is part of why I started down this rabbit hole to begin with. There was nothing to show where she might have had a connection or an interest or anything that would connect the dots.

For reference, Fawn (who was one of the Directors and story writers) has the kind of resume that I was expecting Moore to have when I initially Googled her:

Smaller jobs on other kids/animated movies (Hop, The Lorax, Despicable Me 2), some storyboard or art work on other Disney stuff (Frozen, Moana, Zootopia, Ralph), and then a big break (Raya and Wish). Based on my understanding of the industry (and I know a fair bit because it’s one I’m interested in professionally) that’s a very typical track to get to the writing side of animation.

A couple of people speculated that Moore got onto the project in a mentorship capacity. Now, I’m a Black woman who writes fiction professionally when I’m not on this hellsite (affectionate) with the rest of y’all. That means I have firsthand experience with what mentorship looks like in writing–both official Diversity and Inclusion type mentorship and more organic “Let me take you under my wing” type mentorship. I have *never* seen anyone get a job this high profile at the jump just due to mentorship alone. Going from zero to Disney’s 100th anniversary is kinda insane. This wasn’t some B project or something. It was a Big Deal Project. And this is Disney so they could have hired basically anyone they wanted. So you have to assume this was an active decision someone made and not just a thing that happened for lack of options. But in all my searching, Moore wasn’t mentioned except to just say she wrote the screenplay with Jennifer Lee. It was just the baking show and the Youtube clip.

Until today.

(4) I’m going to preface this by saying this doesn’t actually answer the question in a big AHA! way, but it is the only interview I’ve seen about Wish from Moore besides the red carpet clip.

On December 15th, Moore gave this interview with the San Antonio Current.

I stumbled across it while searching for a different piece of information and eagerly clicked to see what she had to say after three weeks of silence after the movie dropped on November 22.

Here are some highlights:

-In high school she was a theater kid and thought she wanted to pursue acting.

-I college she did playwriting and eventually she got her MFA from Iowa (which has a weirdly great MFA program btw, and also, this interview is how I confirmed she was the playwright Allison).

-When she started on the theater track at her college, she told them she was a playwright so she could study that too even though she’d never written a play before. So it sounds like Wish isn’t the first time she’s just jumped into a new thing without experience. You have to respect the hustle.

But this is the most important line in the interview because it’s like, an answer and a non-answer all in one. She’s asked, “How did you go from writing plays to writing for TV and film?”

And her answer is, “I had a whole career writing for theater, and then when my son was born, I realized I needed to make more money, so I started pitching for TV. I worked in television for about a decade. In the midst of working in TV, I continued playwriting. That's how I got on the radar at Disney.”

Which kind of sidesteps the most intriguing part of the question? Like, first of all, it’s not 100% clear if she means her playwriting or her TV writing caught Disney’s attention. I’m guessing playwriting, but I could be wrong. Secondly, who is “Disney” in this situation? A Disney recruiter? A Disney director? Did Jennifer Lee see a production of Slasher: A Horrifying comedy while passing through Texas and think, “Her. I want her to be my co-writer on this children’s film.” And what did she do to impress them so much that they right away put her on the the *Anniversary Project*? Like, I know I keep harping on this but I can’t stress enough how big of a deal this is. It’s hard enough to write for just your average sitcom or little movie. To just jump on something this big is baffling. I obviously don’t expect Disney to be justifying their every hiring decision publicly but, usually, when someone is doing something like this, it’s very obvious why they were chosen and, even with this sliver of explanation, it’s still frustratingly opaque. And with the strange post hoc timing of the interview (seriously, doesn’t promotion usually happen PRE movie release?) It almost reads like an interview that exists because someone realized the lack of any online presence was weird.

(5) When she was a kid, Allison Moore had a crush on Fox Robin Hood. That’s not at all important to the mystery, that’s just information she volunteered during the interview and that I’m now sharing with you. So when you search her name now, the top results are me wondering who she is, her IMDB, and her talking about how she liked Fox Robin Hood's little hat. Which isn't a LOT of information, but it’s more than we had before and that’s something.

#Wish #disney’s wish #wish 2023 #disney wish #I cannot stress enough that I don’t have anything against moore as a person #(if anything I'm impressed by how she managed to pull off what feels to me like a magic trick)#I just can’t resist a mystery #and as a writer this is a big one #i’ve had this in my inbox for a bit #but I was hoping new info would drop that I could include #and the interview did it #also just as a side note #speaking of mentorship #if they were going to bring a co-writer onto this project it might have been nice for them to pick someone with more cultural connection #you know to their Moorish lead from their Iberian setting #this movie is so culturally bland #and someone who could actually speak to the culture might have helped a lot!#like I know pete docter got a Black writer in on Soul part way through #and he talked about getting the barbershop scene just right #there was no moment like that in this movie #asks

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andi-the-cool-nerd · 6 months

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22. Leopold, Patricia, Viola, Minerva, Rockley, Bernadine - Albania 🇦🇱

#i worked so hard on this #i'm back #new #criminal case #fanart #art #art style #art project #eurovision 2023 #criminal case x eurovision #criminal case mysteries of the past #criminal case season 4 #viola pemberton #minerva highmore #rockley rochester #leopold rochester #bernadine rochester #patricia rochester #there will be another art like this

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persimmonsimmer · 4 days

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The Golden Buoy B&B part 1 of 4 - exterior and floorplan

Lately, with what little simming time I have, I've been in a building mood. This low-cc build has taken me forever and still needs lots of finishing touches and tweaks (note the two unfurnished bathrooms on the second floor), but I'm pretty happy with how it's shaping up.

Setting and design vaguely meant to invoke coastal New England.

I just love the idea of a beachy bed and breakfast operating somewhere where the water is freezing year-round and the sky is overcast 80% of the time. xD

#sims 2 #sims 2 build #my builds #not panorama #mysterious project is mysterious #golden buoy b&b #I <3 New England and its crummy weather

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esoraluco · 3 months

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Solar and Lunar themed Spams, Mtts and Blues!

Their stories are the same as canon, but the solar guys are happier and more optimistic despite everything, while lunar are sadder and calmer. For example Spam goes through the same big shot days and downfall, but he's happier about it- still desperate and dangerous though!

#o #dltr #ut #koncept drawign #strange mysterious man notattem #As to what inspired these... Simple. My spam+mtt plushies are next to my lunala one. They're on my bed so i see them every night #AND i needed practice with solar+lunar design features that i didnt do before (for original projects)#i mostly inspired myself from shapes found in mediter architecture- and b4 you tell me i cant do that. You'll never guess where im from.#like originally. South east france... I dont live there sadly but id love to. Working towards it #if these look complex design-wise- that's intentional! i tried to cram as much features as i could #especially new ones i havent done before- so i can remember better and use them later for ocs!

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cyanidas · 4 months

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Hope yall are having a good holiday season!

I'm excited for the new year ;w; small update in tags

#ive been taking a mental break from things #i kinda freaked myself out about getting those designs out #could you tell? haha- /shot #anyway. i have a big piece im working on for the new year for cookie run #this year i wanna get back into yogs stuff #since they released that fun murder mystery gameshow im kinda eh about continuing midnight manor but. we will see #its different enough lol but i wanna re-focus in on reversion #it was my magnum opus at the time dlkfjgfk i was most excited for that and i got a lot of work done on it #and some new-yog work (as i promised kirsty kfjgfk >w<;;#probably not a comic #but i will be adding back onto my fanlore document on ao3 #so once i get my designs moving (hopefully by sometime within the next week or two. i know i said a week last time but i didnt expect #to be pushing myself so hard)#i will gladly start those projects back up #im trying to finish the things i started because im notorious for not completing things and its a demon of mine ive been working to conquer #for like. a decade gfkgjg #ive made incredible progress... but ive still a long way to go #thank u guys for following me and interacting #i hope you like what you see whenver you get to see it!#intercom

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project-sekai-updates · 5 months

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Ready to see what songs are coming out in December? 👀

Let us know in the comments which song you're looking forward to!

#mod minori #official #en sekai #source: twitter #project sekai #What's Up? Pop! on EN in 4 days....#Also I'm curious what that mystery song is #New EN exclusive perhaps?

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thebibliomancer · 6 months

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Essential Avengers: West Coast Avengers #44: BETTER A WIDOW...

May, 1989

VisionQuest continues

Vision forgot to put his skin on today...

And Hank Pym's 'I'm not like the other superheroes' jumpsuit is awfully maroon today.

Anyway.

Last times on West Coast Avengers: John Byrne took over the book and a bunch of things changed between issues. Tigra, Wasp, and Dr Pym rejoined the team.

Then, a fake-Ultron attacked and Vision was kidnapped and unpersoned while the West Coast Avengers were distracted.

Mockingbird showed up to Explain It All and took the Avengers to the secret Vigilance base where Vision had been taken due to fears he'd try to take over the world again.

Only the West Coast Avengers arrived Too Late. And Wanda found her husband disassembled, his parts strewn everywhere. It'd be way too much gore for comics if he weren't a robot.

Even this splash page is kinda too much, even with robot bits.

My boy! Look how they massacred my boy!

;_;

The various scientist who were just taking Vision apart are very concerned that Scarlet Witch and probably the Avengers are here instead of somewhere else being distracted.

And Wanda is not sympathetic. In fact, she's as angry as someone would be if they found their spouse turned into a pile of anatomy.

Mockingbird, who has still more exposition to exposition, explains this was the end goal of the kidnap Vision scheme. To erase Vision along with any top secret data he may have picked up when he was the internet for a hot minute.

Wonder Man shows up with project head Cameron Brock under arm and tells him to exposition more.

And since Vision has already been taken apart, Brock has no problem spilling the beans.

Vigilance is not a KGB operation but they are involved running the detention cells, which is why Mockingbird thought it was a KGB operation.

Brock reveals, he's not KGB and he's not SHIELD either. He's CANADIAN.

DUN DUN DUNNNN

Wonder Man jokes about the concept of Canadian spies, showing that he has never heard of Wolverine. He then jokes about Australia, because he's going for all the hits.

Brock goes 'well actually my deputy chief is Australian.'

And he explains that Vigilance is actually a truly worldwide joint venture. Almost every security network on Earth sent a representative.

The Americans, the British, the French, the Russians, etc etc.

The kind of global cooperation almost unheard of -- all to specifically fuck up Vision.

Brock reiterates what he told Mockingbird. As long as Vision wasn't on the Avengers, everybody was willing to grit their teeth and let bygones be whatevers. But as soon as he rejoined (because Hawkeye was a sad sack who couldn't keep together a team), all the intelligence agencies put aside their differences to fuck up Vision.

Global peace, just like Vision wanted when he took over the internet. What ironies.

Wanda claims that Vision can be put back together. He is a robotty robot so clearly they just reassemble him and good as new.

Hank Pym shows up just to say nuh uh.

This is a theme in this issue. People showing up in the nick of time to say nuh uh.

Even though Hank is an expert in robotics despite being a biochemist and even though he's more familiar with Vision's systems than almost anyone, he's skeptical that humpty dumpty can be put back together again.

If Vision's brain was erased like Mockingbird said, Hank has no idea how to deal with that.

Wanda says that they can just borrow some brain patterns from Wonder Man again and use the backup memory file that Vision kept in the Avengers' computers.

Again, with this idea that Vision's brain is a computer that can be uploaded to external storage. I feel like that's at odds with how Vision has been portrayed in the past.

But it doesn't matter.

Vigilance wiped the Avengers' computer systems with a virus. Both the East and West Coast teams. There's no back-up.

(This is where John Byrne put in a backdoor, as some writers do when writing something that may be contentious. In this case, his backdoor to get out of this was that there's a copy of Vision's brain in the Titan supercomputer ISAAC. From the time that Vision linked with ISAAC.)

(John Byrne also uses the idea that Vision's brain can just be backed up as evidence that Vision isn't a real boy and is just an overly sophisticated appliance. The idea that he introduced. Sigh.)

With all the problems on the table, Hank says lets ignore the fact that Vision's unique personality is probably gone forever, erased by magnets or whatever. Just putting all the pieces back together is going to be hard enough.

Heck, the Vision was built from the base of the original Human Torch, the most sophisticated android ever created. That might be beyond Hank's level of skill!

And then Wasp shows up and goes nuh uh!

Not about Hank not being able to do it but about the thing he said about the robot Human Torch.

The shocking prisoner she found in the detention level that was so shocking it had to wait until this issue to reveal?

It's Phineas Horton, allegedly!

He supposedly died in Vision's backstory but we're about to take a big dump on that.

Vigilance wanted an expert in Vision's systems so they tried to find associates of Phineas Horton that might have worked with him on the Human Torch.

Instead they found the actual dude. Just casually not dead.

Hank is like okay weird that Vision thought this guy was dead but he could have been mistaken. Either way, hot damn, the exact expert we needed is right at hand!

And Dr Phineas Horton says nuh uh. He's already here so he didn't pop in just to say it but he's complementing Wasp's earlier nuh uh.

He's definitely the real Dr Phineas Horton (this man will later be retconned to be an imposter, womp womp, retcon tennis) and he doesn't recognize Vision's systems at all.

Vision is definitely not Horton's creation.

DUN DUN DUNNNNN

Elsewhere, Hawkeye didn't get the memo about waiting just outside the lab to pop in and nuh uh things so he's wandering around the backlot of the Vigilance base.

And I say backlot because aside from the main areas that Mockingbird saw and the stuff related to disassembling Vision and holding people prisoner, this entire base is just a mock-up. Just enough actually functional stuff to fool Mockingbird into thinking it was a fully operational secret SHIELD facility.

Hawkeye also wonders how the Vigilance team was able to capture Vision, which I also am wondering.

But he hears Tigra growling and follows the sound to find her having cornered a couple of Vigilance guys.

Vigilance Person: "You're Hawkeye! Help us!" Another Vigilance Person: "For god's sake... stop her!!"

Hawkeye calls Tigra's name which makes her swing her attention from nameless asshole 1 and 2 to pounce at Hawkeye.

I guess one of her uncontrollable cat instincts is to kill birds.

(Despite the narrative caption promising that all kinds of horrible injury is about to happen to Hawkeye, he's fine when we next see him and Tigra. Typical sensationalism, tsk tsk.)

For some ding dang reason, the narrative cuts to Absolom College in Texas where some shadowy collegiate figures are trying to choose a suitable subject from a list of mutants.

Forty-one candidates are rejected before Scarlet Witch is chosen for whatever this is all about.

If you're curious and have trouble with the tiny headshots, here's how the judging sorts out:

No: Angel, Avalanche, Blob, Caliban, Callisto, Cannonball, Cyclops, Destiny, Firestar, Forge, Iceman, Karma, Multiple Man, Magma, Malice, Mandrill, Marvel Girl, Mastermind, Mesmero, Mystique, Nekra, Nightcrawler, and Pyro.

Too powerful: Apocalypse, Magneto, and Rachael Phoenix.

Too weak: Banshee, Black Tom Cassidy. This category is reserved for the Cassidys, I guess.

Too unstable: Beast, Cloak, Dagger, Legion, Quicksilver.

Dead: Colossus, Cypher, Dazzler, Havok, and Rogue.

No longer viable: Magik, because she retconned herself back to a young girl in Inferno, or something.

Unverified: Sabra, Sabretooth.

This was hard because the marvel wiki didn't have them all. I had to go looking other places and at one point just pull up a list of Marvel mutants and check everything that fell between certain letters. Because, thankfully, this is alphabetized.

What's funny about the dead category is that Cypher is the only one who is actually dead. Everyone else just faked their deaths and moved to Australia.

Back at the plot, some paramedics take Dr Phineas Horton away for treatment. Because he was an old man and Vigilance was keeping him in a KGB-type detention cell. He's not in a great state.

Wanda asks Hank why Dr Phineas Horton IF THATS HIS REAL NAME (lol, its not, retroactively) would say that Vision isn't his work when we all know that Vision was repurposed from the body of the robot Human Torch.

Hank has no idea but he's also distracted by the police coming up and asking what they should do with the Vigilance dudes that the West Coast Avengers captured.

And Hank says 'fuck if I know, let them go, ain't no law'

Specifically, since Vigilance was every intelligence agency working together specifically to fuck Vision, they all have government approval and nothing they did is wrong. And/or have diplomatic immunity because they're from Canada or whatever.

Project head Cameron Brock smugs about how Hank figured out how untouchable they all are.

Wasp is like uh geez are you sure, Hank? They kidnapped Vision and reduced him to piles of bits. And Hank says they sure did but we can't do anything about it. We didn't know we were fighting the law but the law won. Can't fight city hall. Best they can do is call Agent Sikorsky, the Avengers' government liaison, and whine about it.

Hawkeye and Tigra rejoin the group, having missed the plot, and Hawkeye covers for Tigra by downplaying the incident as Tigra getting "a little carried away."

Since the West Coast Avengers can't do anything except take Vision's various components home and try to put him back together, Hank proposes they do just that. Just leave Vigilance and go home to pick up the pieces.

Scarlet Witch has one thing she wants to do first.

And she blows the Vigilance base the fuck up.

Good thing everyone was already outside.

I'm not through this arc yet. I'm not even through the issue yet. But I looked at marvel wiki and Vigilance only has two appearances. This issue and the previous issue.

So I'm going to maybe jump the gun a little and talk about why, however things play out from here on, this story is going to be unsatisfying.

I don't like that the Avengers just have to shrug and accept that the government(s) killed Vision and there's nothing they can do about it.

It's a lot like how many spider-fans are still pissed about One More Day. It's not just about the marriage. Spider-Man made a bum deal with the devil and he's never going to get to redeem himself as things stand.

Sometimes cruel things just happen and there's no recourse except to pick up the pieces and try to live your life. But the superhero genre tends to be more active than that. Situations can be punched. There's always someone that can be punched.

If the Implied President of the United States is behind an evil plot to use a mutant powered UFO to take over the country, you don't shrug and decide he's too big to fight. If you're Captain America, you chase him to the Oval Office and unmask him. For one, particularly bizarre, example.

I don't know that it would make a better story if the Avengers COULD fight Vigilance in some way but it would feel less empty.

This whole thing feels less like a story and more writer fiat. Just like starting the team with Tigra and Wasp and Dr Pym back so Byrne doesn't have to do the legwork to get the team where he wants it.

An evil governments conspiracy kidnaps Vision and takes him apart so he can be rebuilt in Byrne's preferred way, everyone stands around talk talk talking about how this change is totally irreversible and the Avengers also can't do anything to the people that did it. And then Vigilance fucks off to never be heard from again.

There's more legwork done but only enough to get the change on paper. Because having Vision change like he is going to (spoilers: Vision is not going to be a pile of parts forever) and have it happen between issues is too much for the audience to buy.

Also on topic, also spoilers: this is going to lead to one of the big OH NO WANDA HAS GONE CRAZY stories which was apparently the only research Brian Michael Bendis did before Disassembled. And it may not be a good story but it may have been a better story if Evil Crazy Wanda had gone after Vigilance. Instead of what she does do. Which is apparently try to have sex with Wonder Man.

Byrne is going to ragequit the book at some point so I'm not sure how much of that is his fault. But what a blatantly obvious plot point to leave on the table.

Anyway. That's my feelings about VisionQuest. Before we even see how it falls out. It's a drastic change jammed into the book without respecting the audience enough to make it a good story.

You know when a writer really wants to write to a certain conclusion and has to expend walls of text assuring the reader that this is clearly the only way this could possibly go down? That's what this all feels like.

So that rant having been ranted, let's move onto the beginning of another dumb plot point.

When the West Coast Avengers arrive back at the West Coast Avengers Compound, they discover a distress signal has been activated from the guest house - where Wanda and Vision have been living.

Understandably, Wanda assumes the worst. That Vigilance has come after her children too, she runs to the guest house.

The racist governess Miss Bach tries to tell Wanda that babies Tommy and Billy vanished into thin air after she put them into the bath. But when Wanda runs into the bathroom in a panic, she sees that her two babies are happily splashing around in the tub.

... Add John Byrne onto the list of artists that just can't draw a baby to save his life.

Miss Bach insists that she looked everywhere for the twins but Wanda assumes that the governess was playing a sick prank.

So she fires her ass, right on the spot.

Miss Bach appeals to Wasp that she was telling the truth. But Wasp can't tell Wanda not to fire her own personal staff. She at least promises Miss Bach that she'll get the proper severance pay.

Then we time skip two days later, where Wanda is sitting outside Hank Pym's lab while Hank tries to reassemble Vision.

It's apparently not as hard as Hank feared, just tedious. Each piece has only one place it can properly go so its just a matter of trying to find the proper place for hundreds of thousands of pieces.

Wanda wishes that they could contact the Real Professor Horton not that lying fake. Y'know, the real dead guy who died in Vision's backstory.

Scarlet Witch: "If that central fact was now to become untrue... everything we think we know about the Vision would become equally suspect."

Wonder Man says he wasn't around at the time but he loves poking holes in the Celestial Madonna Saga. That's his Thing now. So given what he's heard, he thinks Vision's backstory is sketchy if only because they heard it with the help of Immortus, who is a sketchy, manipulative man.

But then there's a loud WUMP as well as CRASH CLANG tinkle! THUD! from within the lab.

Hank sealed the lab behind a bunch of airlocked doors to prevent contamination to Vision's kibbles 'n bits and it'll take three minutes to open them all.

Or.

Wonder Man just forces them all open.

And then a robot hand shoots out of the lab and shoves Wonder Man to the floor.

Ohhhhhh! It's just Vision! He wandered off without putting on his pants or his skin!

Wanda caresses Vision's bare skull, begging him to say he recognizes her.

Terminator Vision backhands her.

Boo. Boo to you, skinless Vision.

Wonder Man grapples Vision, saying he's going to put him down for a nice nap until they can finish fixing him. But he's hesitant to use his FULL POWER on his brother so skinless Vision tosses him across the room.

Elsewhere in the building, Hawkeye is sitting around thinking about how weird Tigra has been.

What we missed off-panel is that he just used a gas arrow when she pounced at him, knocking her out until she calmed the fuck down.

That narrative caption promising horrible violence really lied.

After coming back from the Vigilance base, Tigra has been hiding away in her bungalow.

Hawkeye isn't sure why he promised to cover for her but WHOOPS INCOMING A-PLOT.

He hears the ruckus going on in the lab and hustles down to see skinless Vision hoisting Wonder Man around.

Hawkeye shoots a constrictor arrow at the rampaging synthezoid but Vision just flexes his way free.

Wonder Man tells Wanda she's got to use her bullshit win-button powers to win because brute force isn't working and that's all he knows.

Wanda refuses to use her powers against Vision because she's worried that she doesn't have precise enough control of her hexes and that she might make him blow up.

She DID blow up a building a couple days ago. But she was really mad at that building.

And while Wanda is paralyzed, refusing to help, Vision picks up Hawkeye and shakes him upside down.

Its pretty funny.

I will say that it does make sense that Wanda would be hesitant to use her powers on the robo-man she loves. Its similar to how Wonder Man is pulling his punches.

But I do note that Wanda has been pretty useless this entire story. She was hypnotized to be unable to fight Fake-Ultron. Not sure why that was actually necessary but it was the explanation. And now she's not able to participate in the fight against skinless Vision.

She did blow up a building though.

I also have to say that Skinless Vision is a pretty intimidating antagonist.

His arm shooting out of the smokey lab to grab Wonder Man. Striking Scarlet Witch with no trace of emotion. Staggering around in the shadows as he moves on the collapsed Wanda. The way he tosses around Wonder Man and Hawkeye using just his robot strength, not his density powers. His robot noises being more audible without his skin in the way. Just the way he looks like a flayed corpse.

I gotta give props where props is earned because otherwise this post is going to be just bitter. And props, skinless Vision is alarming.

Anyway. Back to the plot. Where Scarlet Witch refuses to help.

Wonder Man: "You've got to take that chance, Wanda! Trust that your power won't permanently harm someone you love! But do it now! Before he kills Hawkeye -- or me!" Scarlet Witch: "No! No! Forgive me! I can't! I just can't!!" Dr Pym: "That's all right, Wanda..."

Hey, thank goodness for Hank Pym.

And that answers how Vigilance kidnapped Vision.

The device Hank has is a neutralizer that Vigilance used to shut Vision off for kidnapping reasons.

All the ruckus Wanda and Wonder Man heard in the lab was Hank reactivating Vision and then Vision smashing stuff up because when he's activated without his brain functioning, he defaults to defensive actions.

Hank only just regained consciousness and shut Vision back down.

SO THATS ALL EXPLAINED.

Skinless Vision is more of Brainless Vision. Head empty, no thoughts, just lashing out.

Hawkeye decides that this is his cue to call Washington and yell at Avengers liaison Sikorski.

Hawkeye: "Look, Sikorski, I don't care if I woke you out of your death bed! I want to know what you paper-pushers are gonna do about the Vision!" Sikorski: "Do? You seem to be missing the point, archer. We've already done it. The Vision has been rendered harmless. He presents no further threat to the security of this nation... Or any other, for that matter. You Avengers are now at liberty to reprogram him to suit whatever function you wish."

Wow. What an asshole.

He's still better than Henry Peter Gyrich but only because Gyrich would have said the same things and been 1000% smug about it.

God I hate Gyrich.

I'm glad Abigail Brand shoved him out of an airlock.

Anyway. Implication seems to be that Sikorski was In On It or at least was told after the fact and agreed 'yeah, excellent decisions all around.'

Vision isn't a dude. He was a malfunctioning appliance that had to be reset to factory settings so he could get back to Fighting Crime Or Whatever.

Hank argues that a) the Avengers can't just reprogram Vision that easily, b) the Vision they knew has effectively been killed by death of personality, and c) even putting aside all that, this is going to fuck up Wanda.

Which Sikorski acknowledges and says he regrets. That specific point.

What an asshole.

Anyway, as long as the Avengers called him to yell at him, Sikorski has some information he should have told them earlier but I guess he forgot or he's just shit at his job.

On top of killing Vision, the government has also decided that the West Coast Avengers and Vision need direct government oversight and have sent someone to take over the team. And the West Coast Avengers either accept this or the government cracks down on their future activities.

OKAY HAVE FUN WITH THE NEW GUY BYYYYYYE

And judging by the silhouette, it seems like the new guy is an old guy. A guy they can all get along with.

But silhouettes often lie in comics and this is the opposite of all that. A new guy that none of them can get along with.

When the government issued an ultimatum our way or the highway to Captain America and he quit and became the Captain, the government gave the Captain America name, costume, and shield to John Walker.

But recently, you may have noticed that good ol' Steve Rogers is back in his old costume and name and shield. Well, the government gave Cap's the Captain outfit to John Walker and dubbed him U.S.Agent.

And by editorial mandate governmental order, he's joining the West Coast Avengers.

Yeah, actually, it was editorial mandate.

According to John Byrne, editor Gruenwald, who created John Walker, insisted that Byrne put him in the West Coast Avengers book.

A captain-esque guy on every team!

John Byrne, who rankles at any degree of editorial meddling, had him written in as being forced on the team by an uncaring asshole higher power so he can annoy everyone on the team and not fit in.

John Byrne is not subtle sometimes.

Buuuuut. Like I said with the Worst Roster. A team having friction is very often more interesting. And there's a kind of poetic irony to Hawkeye having been the asshole constantly butting heads with Captain America getting his own Brand X Captain America to be the asshole to butt heads with him.

It rhymes.

So VisionQuest continues for another issue but AS OF RIGHT NOW I have to say it takes a sharp dip in quality after the first issue.

The first issue really jumped into things with a newish team suddenly assaulted by a Fake Ultron and having Vision stolen right out from under them.

Issues 2 and 3 are in full justification and retcon mode so it all bogs down into walls of text and explaining how this sequence of events is the only sequence of events.

I'm actually excited to see U.S.Agent here to shake things up and be a pebble in the team's shoe right when they're already going through the identity death of a beloved teammate.

Just please. Fewer walls of text.

Follow @essential-avengers for all these posts but only all these posts. Like, reblog, and comment perhaps.

#avengers #essential avengers #west coast avengers #Vigilance #Hawkeye #Hank Pym #Dr Pym #Scarlet Witch #the Vision #Wonder Man #the Wasp #Tigra #Mockingbird #Phineas Horton #mysterious shadowy college project #the government is a dick but what else is new #last page new team member

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